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I was watching the Dallas Tea Party leader Dennis Phillips acting like an utter buffoon on Neil Cavuto's Your World by calling the recipients of unemployment and food stamps "moochers" as well as other niceties, while crying over the expiring Bush tax cuts. Those tax cuts are the single biggest reason why we have such a big federal debt -- you know, the debt that the Dallas Tea Party is crying about. He has choice words for Mitt Romney, GOP and a tanning John Boehner too, but he's revealed as a total crackpot just by claiming the Tea Party is nonpartisan. Please watch the video because I'm not up to transcribing any more of this segment than I absolutely have to.

CAVUTO: Do you think -- is it Tea Partiers that are upset with all these guys, or particularly upset with the Republican leadership in the House, the Senate, what?

PHILLIPS: Well, I think it's across the board. The Tea Party is nonpartisan.

.

Does he reside on the planet Kolob or does he think we do? Poll after poll establishes that Tea Partiers are angry Republican voters ... oh, never mind with the facts.

Phillips is so dumb that he assigns Republicans with being either the party of evil or the party of stupid, or perhaps both. Maybe he's onto something there, but that's not what he was trying to say. He does want the GOP to cowboy up!

And he can sure run off a bunch of lofty sounding numbers pretty quickly, (yippie yi ya to y'all) so maybe.to Cavuto’s core audience it appears that he does know what he’s talking about. I mean he can recite numbers quite well. He also manages to zing John Boehner, if a bit clumsily ("He should stop spend as much time tanning and more time cutting our out-of-control spending in Washington").

But then he gets to the root of his resentment:

PHILLIPS: I think it is a bad thing is they let those cuts expire, we’re in the middle of a deep, deep recession … Now is not the time to increase taxes to the dwindling producers in our country when we have a president who is trying to give more money away to the moochers and welfare. We need people working, not sitting back receiving food stamps and unemployment. It’s laughable.

Yes indeed, you are laughable. You can always count on Neil Cavuto to bring on a repugnant blowhard to spew diseased speech intended to hurt those that are suffering the most in our society.

(h/t Video Cafe)

Lenore LaFount Romney, the former First Lady of Michigan from 1963 to 1969 and the Republican Party nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1970, talks about George Romney being on welfare relief.

This post from Sarah at Politicususa told me something I did not know: That George Romney was on welfare after he came here from Mexico. This is public knowledge that I somehow missed, and it helped me understand why George Romney was such a decent guy -- because he never forgot what it was like to need a helping hand.

But like so many of the born-to-wealth children of these inspiring figures, Mittens apparently thinks he's just special, and that no one ever gave him anything he didn't earn. Awfully hypocritical of him, considering that help was there for his father when he needed it!

Yesterday, Mitt Romney attacked President Obama over providing food stamps to so many Americans in a time of need, as if this were a bad thing, as if people in need should not be helped, as if it were not George W. Bush’s policies that took Clinton’s surplus and turned it into the epic disaster from which we are still recovering.

Yet, Mitt Romney knows need well. Here is video of Mitt Romney’s mother, Lenore LaFount Romney, talking about how his father George was on welfare relief after he was a refugee from Mexico.

[...] Will this stop Mitt Romney from bashing immigrants or poor people? No, because it’s not as if he didn’t know this. We all knew it about his father George, who never forgot where he came from and was a decent, hard working man.

George Romney watched his family struggle for years to pay off their debts and had his own business destroyed during the Great Depression. He knew hunger. His family lived on welfare relief in El Paso, Texas after fleeing to this country from Mexico. George Romney really did build his wealth, but only after he took some help from the government to get through tough times.

Mitt Romney is attacking President Obama for feeding poor children. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

In 2011, SNAP helped almost 45 million low-income Americans to afford a nutritionally adequate diet in a typical month. Nearly 75 percent of SNAP participants are in families with children; more than one-quarter are in households with seniors or people with disabilities. While SNAP’s fundamental purpose is to help low-income families, the elderly, and people with disabilities afford an adequate diet and avoid hardship, it promotes other goals as well, such as reducing poverty, supporting and encouraging work, protecting the overall economy from risk, and promoting healthy eating.

SNAP caseloads have risen significantly since late 2007, as the recession and lagging recovery battered the economic circumstances of millions of Americans and dramatically increased the number of low-income households who qualify and apply for help from the program. Yet, despite the rapid caseload growth, SNAP payment accuracy has continued to improve, reaching all-time highs. Moreover, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that SNAP spending will fall as a share of the economy in coming years as the economy recovers and temporary benefit expansions that Congress enacted in 2009 expire.

Is Mitt Romney saying he would not offer food assistance to children?

[...] Mitt Romney continues to demonize the poor and immigrants, and claim that he built his wealth himself — but that is not accurate. Mitt Romney was born into a wealthy family, and had all of the perks of a top notch, private prep school education and never a worry about how to pay for university.

The fact that Mitt Romney continues to lie about this basic truth is beyond shameful. There really aren’t words, but Americans should make note of Romney’s utter lack of compassion and appreciation for the gifts he was given through accident of birth. Mitt Romney did not earn his privilege the hard way, as his father did. Mitt Romney was born to it and thus assumes that he is better than others, people just like his father, who might need a little help from time to time.

Mitt Romney’s father was on welfare relief, and then he went on to make a great career for himself. His son is lying about welfare relief, and making ugly nods regarding the racial makeup of welfare recipients. In fact, just last night, the Romney campaign sent me an email doubling down on their welfare to work lie and begging for money.

Shame on you, Mitt Romney. SHAME.

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The thing that is always so infuriating to me about watching This Week is how George "I Have A Job, Too Bad About Yours" Stephanopoulos is coldly ticking away points for style, presentation, etc - everything except the truth. He is the perfect practitioner of what journalism professor Jay Rosen calls "The View from Nowhere." God knows, I'm no fan of the Obama administration. But to place the Romney/Ryan's outright lies about Medicare as a mere point of disagreement - well, that's hackery of the highest order. It's as if he's watching a sports event and acting as a referee, when this is our society and our lives he's talking about! He just doesn't care, and it's obvious.

How about a reality show, where the audience members could vote on bringing real journalists from other countries to our top media outlets, and send our hacks to theirs? Much hilarity would ensue!

STEPHANOPOULOS: One place you disagree with the Romney/Ryan ticket is the ads they have been sending out on welfare reform, neither Governor Romney nor Congressman Ryan mentioned welfare in their convention speeches, but here's the ad they've been running in a lot of battleground states.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: President Obama quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements. Under Obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. They'd just send you your welfare check. And welfare to work goes back to being plain old welfare.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: I know you disagree with the ad, and a lot of independent fact checkers have backed you up on that. My question is, it doesn't seem to deter Governor Romney. The question is, why? And many of your supporters have accused the Romney team of playing the race card. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chair, called it quote, "a dog whistler for voters who consider race when casting their ballot." Does the president agree with that?

Well, George, the Romney campaign can advertise outright lies because they know they can count on the media to ignore them. Or just as effective, to falsely equivocate them with an unrelated action by a Democrat. "Look over here, ladies and gentlemen: Debbie Wasserman Schultz!" See how you did that?

PLOUFFE: Well, first, George, on Medicare, I want to make clear, I don't agree with Paul Ryan. I agree that it's an important debate for the country.

(CROSSTALK)

PLOUFFE: So, first of all, George, right now, their campaign, is built on a tripod of lies. A welfare attack that is just absolutely untrue. The suggestion that we're raiding Medicare, absolutely untrue. And then this whole we can't build it nonsense. The president, as I think everybody in America does, believes that small businesses are built through the drive and innovation and hard work. The point he was trying to make is, things like education, roads, or infrastructure, it's something we all do together.

So it is amazing, by the way -- I don't think we have ever seen a presidential campaign, ever, that's built on a foundation of absolute lies. And I think ultimately they are going to pay a price on that.

On welfare, it's absolutely untrue. Everyone who looked at it is outraged that they're making this. The president, actually, these waivers strengthen work. You would have to get 20 percent more work in the state to even qualify.

Now, as to their motivations, I'll leave that to them. It is remarkable that the entire--

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: But (inaudible) the DNC chair who says it's a dog whistle playing on racial resentment?

Yes, George, by all means, to point out that Wasserman Schultz is pointing out their strategy is exactly the same thing as lying!

PLOUFFE: Well, listen, I think they'll have to answer what they're trying to do. I think they're trying to suggest somehow that we're trying to give a bunch of handouts to people, which is just not true. This is a president who believes in his core that hard work must be rewarded. And if people aren't willing to work harder and be responsible, we shouldn't help them.

But here's the question, George. Their whole theory was -- our whole campaign is just going to be the economy is not great, and it's Obama's fault. Now they are on this Medicare thing. Now they're on this welfare thing. It's a remarkable thing. And so he didn't talk about welfare in his speech on Thursday night.

The other thing he didn't talk about welfare -- didn't talk in his speech, which I think is remarkable, is he didn't talk about the war we're waging in Afghanistan. Or our troops. Which is an amazing thing for someone who wants to be 66 days from now elected as our commander in chief. Not even talk about our troops or the war we're waging in Afghanistan. And maybe that's because Governor Romney called our ending of the Iraq war tragic. Has opposed our plans in Afghanistan, in terms of bringing troops home. We're recovering 33,000 in September. So that was a huge omission, and I think a really remarkable thing.

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I think I'm supposed to take something away from this segment. Something like the idea that poor people shouldn't eat pie. Or cookies. At least, not if they're made by this lady, who stomped her tiny little hoof and forbade those food stamp baddies from eating her nummy pies.

Wonkette's Rebecca Schoenkopf sums it up rather well:

This is odd: in a four-minute segment on our hero baker lady who simply does not care to sell her sticky treats to those gross food stamp families, fully two separate people bring up the Civil Rights Act and how shop owners may not discriminate against entire classes of people! Huh. Weird. But never fear, others step into the breach to remind us that shop owners have a right of association (as, of course, does the farmer’s market that wanted the baker lady to participate in their EBT-accepting token system in the first place), and that sometimes people on welfare buy cigarettes and tattoos, and that states are looking into that … somehow. (Obviously, Poors are not buying tattoos or cigarettes with their food stamps, but somehow the state will ensure that they never use Money to purchase legal products that the state finds gauche.) Anyway, the whole thing ends as it should, with some man person intoning, “What a shame that we’ve erased ‘shame’ from society. Why can’t we make someone embarrassed for living off others?”

Someone tell that guy about farm subsidies, okay? Also oil subsidies?

But no, instead they rise up, shouting "Let them eat pickles!" No pie for the little government-teat sucking poor, no. Pickles. And shame. Those are okay.

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This is what happens when one side tries to accomodate the other, especially when the other side is known for their dishonest, brutish ways. Reince Preibus and his merry gang of Republicans have no problem airing an ad suggesting that President Obama eliminated the work requirements for welfare all by himself. Based upon the wording and images in the ad, the underlying suggestion is that he's cutting lazy people of color some slack.

Actually, he cut disingenuous Republican governors some slack. Here's an example of one letter they wrote requesting waivers, and please note that Mitt Romney was one of the signing governors.

Steve Benen blasted Romney's dishonesty this morning:

Romney's lying. He's not spinning the truth to his advantage; he's not hiding in a gray area between fact and fiction; he's just lying. The law hasn't been "gutted"; the work requirementhasn't been "dropped." Stations that air this ad are disseminating an obvious, demonstrable lie.

All Obama did is agree to Republican governors' request for flexibility. That's it. Indeed, perhaps the most jaw-dropping aspect of this is that Romney himself, during his one gubernatorial term, asked for the same kind of flexibility on welfare law that Obama agreed to last month. Romney, in other words, is attacking the president for doing what Romney asked the executive branch to do in 2005.

The entire line of attack is simply insane.And that brings us back to the test for the political world.

How are we to respond to a campaign that deliberately deceives the public without shame? This lie about welfare policy comes on the heels of Romney's lie about voting rights in Ohio, which came on the heels of Romney's lies about the economy; which came on the heels of Romney's lies about health care; which came on the heels of Romney's lies about taxes.

The Republican nominee for president is working under the assumption that he can make transparently false claims, in writing and in campaign advertising, with impunity. Romney is convinced that there are no consequences for breathtaking dishonesty.

The test, then, comes down to a simple question: is he right?

I fear he might be. It seems that the language of lies is one that gains traction in today's world, thanks to Fox News, who serves as the lie amplifier. Free speech and all that, you know.

Facts are facts, unless it's political. Then Fox makes sure it creates a new set of facts, ignoring reality. Fox viewers don't care. They just want to hear what they want to hear, regardless of whether it's true. In this case, they are smug about the uppity black guy giving lazy people a reason to suck off the government teat. Never mind that it's a lie, or that their guy actually requested that which the President granted. They just lie, because they know Fox will enable them to get away with it.

Which sitting Republican governor will stand up and tell Fox News they're lying?

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40 years after Archie Bunker, the Reagan Revolution, the Gingrich Revolution, welfare reform and the Bush/Cheney years, conservatives are still convinced that the real problem with this country is that the poor have it too damn easy. And as Ronald Reagan did with his "Cadillac-driving Welfare Queen" and "Strapping Young Bucks buying steaks" -- right-wingers are still lying to make their case.

Cavuto claims it's unfair that half the country pays no federal income taxes when Ronald Reagan signed the Earned Income Tax Credit into law. He also claims "half the country doesn't pay any taxes at all" -- and that's a lie.

Cavuto bemoans the loss of the US's triple-A credit rating, when it was the hostage-taking by Republicans that led to it.

Cavuto claims "90 percent" of Americans have health insurance. It's more like 80%. He claims "10 percent" of Americans don't have health insurance -- it's much closer to 20%. He also calls the US health system "the world's envy" -- even though Mitt Romney just admitted that we pay far too much for a system that produces mediocre results.

Cavuto says "you used to have to work for welfare, now you just take it" -- but the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act championed by Gingrich and signed into law by Clinton requires work and leaves welfare recipients to the tender mercies of the states. So the opposite is true.

Cavuto says he doesn't recognize the country, and on that score he's right. The gap between the very rich and everyone else has no precedent except for the 1920s. The number of union households in America is at an all-time low. Also at historic lows are taxes -- especially on the rich. And social mobility in the US has collapsed.

This segment is telling, however, because no matter how low taxes are, no matter how much wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, no matter how high corporate profits are, no matter how degraded the safety net is -- for right-wingers, the problem will always be that the "moochers" are dragging down the "producers."

Shorter Cavuto: Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.

A union flash mob at Landover, MD last year.

Remember, Walmart pays so little because We The People subsidize them. They don't offer affordable benefits, so their workers qualify for Medicaid. They pay so little that full-time workers are eligible for food stamps and even welfare. And they call them job creators? Hah.

Walmart is facing accusations that the company is engaged in a bold and illegal campaign to stamp out union activity after firing five employees in recent months who were involved in a group organizing the company’s workers.

Although the company says that the terminations are unrelated to any employees’ organizing activity, OUR Walmart – which receives funding and support from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union – argues that the pattern points to an emerging strategy to break the organization’s command structure and intimidate workers.

One terminated worker, Angela Williamson, a mother of two, was fired in late May because, the company says, of unexcused absences. An active organizer at her store in Florida – and at the national level – Williamson says she couldn’t pay rent on her apartment after losing her job. She believes that her role in the labor organization led to her termination.

In Los Angeles, where local opposition has been mounting over a proposed Walmart in Chinatown, Girshreila Green was fired from her job earlier this month, just five days after she addressed a crowd at the largest ever anti-Walmart rally. A mother of two and seven months pregnant, Green has been an outspoken critic of Walmart and a leading national organizer at OUR Walmart.

[...] “These sort of firings are the most familiar violation seen in labor arbitration,” William Gould, a professor of labor law at Stanford University.

“The idea is to single out a particularly active worker in order to put the fear of God into others so that an interest in union activity will be chilled. Highly visible companies like Walmart succeed in not only getting this message to their employees, but also to society at large.”

[...] Federal labor law broadly protects the activity of non-certified groups against any retaliatory action by an employer. Yet, protected as they are on paper, workers often meet with frustration in contesting unjust firings.

“The arbitration process is incredibly slow-moving, as it often takes several years of litigation to get employee reinstated,” says Kent Wong, the director of UCLA’s Center for Labor Research and Education. “Companies realize this and are frequently willing to violate the law knowing the penalty is so distant and relatively minor.”

“This all is very consistent with Walmart’s practice,” Wong added.

And thus, the Republican candidate for US Senate from the great state of Florida, Ron McNeal, becomes the latest in a very long line of wingnuts to compare children who receive food stamps to hungry animals. Way to keep it classy, Ron.

It's just amazing how much contempt Republicans have for their fellow Americans.

When last we heard from Steven (“FoxNews’ brightest, funniest young Conservative mind") Crowder he was lamenting the fact that too many people today were "shacking up like whores."

Today, he's comparing welfare recipients to hungry animals. That's nice.

But I also see that Steven calls himself a "Christian" and even appeared in the Christian flop film, To Save a Life. Now it's possible I could've attended a really bad Catholic school, but I honestly don't remember anything in the Gospels where Jesus warns how feeding the poor and hungry breeds dependence. On the other hand, I do remember this:

Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least among you, you did not do for me.'

Socialist.

Following a theme we recently heard from NJ Gov. Chris Christie, Maine's Tea Party Gov. Paul LePage tells the unemployed to "get off the couch." Of course, there are plenty of jobs out there - if you can work for minimum wage and only get 20 hours a week!

WASHINGTON -- At the Maine GOP convention on Sunday, Gov. Paul LePage (R) received an enthusiastic standing ovation from his fellow Republicans for saying that all able-bodied out-of-work Americans need to "get off the couch" and go find employment.

LePage called on the state legislature to pass structural changes to welfare, saying, "Maine's welfare program is cannibalizing the rest of state government. To all you able-bodied people out there: "Get off the couch and get yourself a job."

"I understand welfare because I lived it," he added. "I understand the difference between a want and a need. The Republican Party promised to bring welfare change. We must deliver on this promise."

LePage has been pushing so-called welfare reform for months, although Democrats have argued that his definition of the term is too broad, encompassing "everything from disability to MaineCare (Medicaid), which isn't welfare."

Mike Tipping, communications director for the Maine People's Alliance, said LePage's comments were "downright offensive to Maine people searching for work in a difficult economy, especially considering his embarrassing record of failing to invest in programs that create jobs and cutting assistance for the unemployed while at the same time giving massive new tax breaks to the wealthy."

Christine Hastedt, public policy director at Maine Equal Justice Partners, called them "a gross insult to working people who get up every day and become discouraged by the end of the day, because there's not a job for them."

"We talk to people every day," said Hastedt. "There are not enough jobs for the people who want them. There aren't enough hours in the jobs for people who need them. These are jobs that don't provide health care, and certainly don't provide child care. Those are services that people need to get even the jobs that they could get. Nevertheless, he's cutting those safety net benefits that make it possible for people to work."