Different Day, Same Shit.

And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?

They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.

When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left him, and went their way.

The sage advice of Matthew 22:20-22 wasn't in the cards for Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. The man whose actions nearly precipitated armed conflict between federal agents and a devoted group of self-styled militiamen laboring under misunderstood notions of sovereignty and rugged individualism had no interest in rendering unto Uncle Sam what was rightfully his, whether it was $1 million or so in unpaid grazing fees accrued since 1993 or the 58 head of cattle that were initially impounded as a long-coming result of his failure to pay said fees.

In spite of his professed love of country and willingness to express patriotism with profound ebullience, Bundy continues to operate under the belief that the things which are Uncle Sam's are actually his and his alone. It's the same modus operandi that many militia organizations and those within the sovereignty movement operate under: for whatever reason, the governing bodies of the United States are fraudulent and therefore, the militiamen/freemen are free to operate peacefully* outside of the bounds and without interference from the U.S. government, even as they live and work on U.S. soil. Which, by the way, isn't believed to belong to the U.S. but instead falls under the governing purview of the individual U.S. states, following the old conventions of the Articles of Confederation (and tossing the Supremacy Clause out the window as a result).

The militia/freeman movement and tea-party conservatism both feature a variety of overlaps on the Venn diagram of political ideology, so it was only a matter of time before Cliven Bundy became the darling of Fox News and a folk hero among conservatives longing to stick a Second Amendment thumb into the government's eye. You can't tell yours truly that the images of "ordinary Americans" demonstrating their right to bear arms against a government they could care less for (except when it works for them) didn't give other like-minded conservatives at home the warm and fuzzies.

It all could have went south. At least, if it wasn't for the Bureau of Land Management and other federal officials not wanting to replicate the worst missteps of Ruby Ridge and Waco and if it wasn't for the protesters displaying some rather desperate and craven tendencies just to get their point across. A full-fledged shootout between federal officials (framed for this purpose as "jack-booted thugs") and heavily-armed self-styled militiamen (framed as "real American patriots) not only would have made for great television ratings, but it also would have made for a powerful expression of martyrdom that resonated throughout the tea-party contingent and beyond. The consequences of that are best left uncalculated.

It's little wonder that the BLM decided it would be best to back off and not hand Bundy and Co. the opportunity to be remembered as martyrs for a flawed cause. Instead, the FBI's taking a more mundane interest into Bundy's supporters.

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Meanwhile, Cliven Bundy represents the picture-perfect embodiment of American welfare in one of its most idealistic forms. It was the massive expropriation of land from its former native owners and the introduction of homestead acts that opened the doors to settlement to the "right" sort of Americans that made it possible for Bundy to have his current livelihood**. And it's only through the generosity of the U.S. government that Bundy was and remains able to maintain his livelihood - otherwise he'd join the thousands of farmers who've lost their lands due to debt and foreclosure. There's no telling how many federal grants, subsidies and loans he's applied for so far to help bolster his ranching operations.

In return, Bundy lashes out with a generous helping of furious pseudo-patriotism, all the while using stereotypical views of black Americans and their supposed affinity towards government welfare as a foil for his own brand of "cowboy welfare":

Former conservative media darling Cliven Bundy ran into a tougher crowd on Thursday, when CNN anchor Bill Weir poked fun at both the disappearing act from his former media allies while also questioning Bundy’s claims that he should be able to graze his cattle for free on federal land.

“You are writing off a whole class of people, African-Americans as sort of dangerously dependent because they get government assistance,” Weir said, playing off of Bundy’s instantly infamous press conference earlier in the day. “At the same time, you’re grazing your cows on public land for free. So, how are you not sort of a welfare queen in a cowboy hat?”

“I might be a welfare queen,” Bundy shot back. “But I tell you something, I’m producing something for America and using a resource that nobody else can use, would use or could use and I’m putting red meat on your table. Maybe I’m not doing enough, but I’m trying.”

Bundy's own desultory views of the Negro as better off under chattel slavery serve as red meat for the legions of unreconstructed who hail Bundy as a "freedom fighter" of sorts against "government tyranny," especially now that the Oval Office is currently occupied (or "tainted" as some conservatives may say) by a "socialist Marxist Kenyan."

As with any major cause, there has to be a generous purse lurking in the shadows. In the case of Cliven Bundy, the purse strings belong to a few groups working on the behalf of billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch:

Two affiliates of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity are helping conservative media promote the cause of a Nevada rancher who has made violent threats against the federal government.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the conservative non-profit group, was founded by and has been largely funded by billionaires Charles and David Koch. The Center for Media and Democracy reported that in its previous incarnation as Citizens for a Sound Economy, AFP received $12 million of its $18 million in funding from the Koch Family Foundation.

During the 2012 election, AFP spent $122 million in an effort to defeat President Obama and Congressional Democrats. AFP has also sponsored and organized bus rallies and town hall meetings to promote conservative ideas, including deregulation, tax cuts, and opposition to health care reform.

AFP has been at the forefront of spending in the 2014 election, launching several ads attacking the Affordable Care Act which have come under fire for inaccuracy by independent fact checkers. As of March, AFP had aired a reported 17,000 television ads.

Two of its local affiliates, Americans for Prosperity Nevada and Americans for Prosperity Colorado, have become active boosters of Bundy's actions.

AFP Nevada's Facebook page posted a graphic attacking the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for spending "one million dollars" to enforce the court order to round up Bundy's cattle on federal land. Another photo attacked the Bureau for creating a designated "First Amendment Area" for protesters to gather in near the property.

Still begs the question why the Kochs would be interested in supporting the likes of Bundy and Co.:

Matador Cattle Company operates three ranches: Beaverhead near Yellowstone National Park in Montana, Spring Creek in the scenic Flint Hills of Kansas, and the historic Matador Ranch in Texas.

Acquired between 1941 and 1952 by Fred C. Koch, the ranches total about 460,000 acres under management, including about 235,000 deeded acres. They wean about 9,500 calves annually and support more than 12,000 head of cattle.

In this light, Bundy's defiance over paying his grazing fees takes on a whole different perspective. If the likes of Bundy had the power to run roughshod over the BLM, then it becomes much easier for a heavyweight like Koch Industries to steamroll the agency into accepting concessions allowing the conglomerate to access acre upon acre of formerly protected land for its various resource extraction operations.

The Kochs know what's up. As long as they can advance Bundy's interests in maintaining his livestock and livelihood with little repercussions, their own interests also take a few steps forward. If it doesn't work out, it's back to the drawing board for another plan and avenue of attack. Like any good robber baron, the Kochs are always on the lookout for any opportunity for land and profit, even if it means hitching a rough and wild ride with a welfare cowboy.

* Or so they say.
** Despite claims of his family as the area's first pioneers, official records show that the Bundys were relative newcomers to the Bunkerville area. The range where Bundy makes his living was purchased in 1948.

"She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000."

Ronald Reagan's infamous "Welfare Queen" mythos shaped and defined the way conservatives and many ordinary Americans saw - and continue to see - public assistance and "big government," as well as those who rely most on both. It's a sweet siren song that tantalizes the baser natures of the conservative constituency while serving as a cautionary tale to taxpayers when rendering unto Uncle Sam that which is Uncle Sam's.

Reagan, who began weaving this narrative into his speeches throughout his 1976 candidacy bid for president, never mentioned the identity of the woman behind the story, nor did he ever make mention of any ethnic background. In fact, the narrative sounded so patently ridiculous that many liberals assumed he made the whole thing up just to discredit welfare and curry favor to voters' racial resentments in the process.

For decades, few bothered to learn the true story of the "Welfare Queen." It was more than enough for most to use her illustrated escapades as outrage porn fodder for straitlaced conservatives and purported proof of indolence and sloth among a particular ethnic group.

Josh Levin's extensive Slate report finally pulls back the curtain on the "Welfare Queen" mythos. As it turns out, there's a lot more to the life of the woman starring as Reagan's "Welfare Queen" than meets the eye.

Of course, there were few things that stood out in my mind about this story and the woman at the center of it:

• Linda Taylor was a profoundly broken individual and a poster child for psychopathy, judging by her actions and the way she treated others and even her own children.
• Much of Taylor's life was based on ambiguity, lies and conjecture. Documents proved a relatively unreliable way of pinning down truths. Even her death certificate stood as proof that things were never as they appeared.
• Taylor's ethnic background was equally ambiguous and fluid. The commonplace caricature of the dark-skinned, heavy-set and weave-donning EBT/SNAP cheat gives way to a woman who was considered white by most and able to switch ethnicity based on her needs and whims:

It’s possible that Taylor’s biological father—identified by Hubert Mooney as a man named Marvin White—was black. Or perhaps a family secret was buried a few more generations back. No matter her bloodlines, the more persistent truth was that Martha Miller—who would later shed her childhood name for a nearly endless set of aliases—was a racial Rorschach test. She was white according to official records and in the view of certain family members who couldn’t imagine it any other way. She was black (or colored, or a Negro) when it suited her needs, or when someone saw a woman they didn’t think, or didn’t want to think, could possibly be Caucasian.

• Taylor wasn't just a con artist and a fraudster - she was also a suspected murderer. It's likely that she's responsible for killing Patricia Parks and possibly had a hand in the deaths of Sherman Ray and Mildred Markham. In the case of Patricia Parks, Taylor positioned herself as a friend and caretaker, feeding Parks a steady diet of barbiturates while draining the Trinidadian native's finances dry. She wasn't above setting other people against one another to get what she wanted. In the case of Ray, it's said by many that she fueled a mutual conflict between Ray and another man, Willtrue Loyd, eventually leading to the death of Ray by Loyd's hand. Taylor later married Loyd.
• Taylor was also a suspected kidnapper and child trafficker. During the 1960s, she was arrested twice for kidnapping, but was never charged since the children were returned safe and sound. She was also suspected in the 1964 kidnapping of Paul Joseph Fronczak, who has yet to be found. Some thought it was part of a scheme to better substantiate fraudulent welfare claims, but her son offered a far more troubling explanation:
  

  Given Taylor’s ability to fabricate paperwork, acquiring flesh-and-blood children seems like an unnecessary risk if all you're looking to do is pad a welfare application. Her son Johnnie believes his mother saw children as commodities, something to be acquired and sold. He remembers a little black girl—he doesn’t know her name—who stayed with them for a few months in the early 1960s, “and then she just disappeared one day.” Shortly before Lawrence Wakefield died, Johnnie says, a white baby named Tiger showed up out of nowhere, and then left the household just as mysteriously. I ask him if he knew where these kids came from or who they belonged to. “You knew they wasn’t hers,” he says.

• The ultimate motive in Taylor's acts was always money. In the cases of Parks, Markham, Ray and Loyd, Taylor stood to gain financially, whether through veterans benefits, life insurance payouts or, as with Parks, a steady drain her finances and assets until there was nothing left.
• The mainstream media either glossed over the above exploits or treated them as mere sideshows for what was considered the main event - her outsized penchant for welfare fraud. Even law enforcement officials and the courts were more concerned with her conviction as a welfare cheat than bringing her to justice as a murderer or kidnapper. After her trial and conviction for theft and perjury, the politicians and media lost interest in Taylor. However, the political narrative created from her exploits lived on.
• While many of the details offered by Reagan's Welfare Queen narrative seemed true, there was also plenty of room for fudging on his part. The oft-quoted $150,000 figure came about as estimates from various reporters. In really, Taylor was only charged with bilking $8,000 in welfare benefits, since it was all the hard evidence that officials could find. Nevertheless, bigger numbers make for larger guffaws of indignation among voters.

There are two kinds of republicans...millionaires and suckers. -Redeye

It never fails to amaze me how Republicans on the lower end of the economic scale can consistently vote against their own interests. These are the people who need things like universal healthcare, Social Security, favorable economic reform and other societal safety nets. However, they're always quick to vote for people dedicated solely to the cause of garroting these programs, with the intention of picking the resultant bodies clean of any valuables, just because.

Whether it's the specter of "socialism," fear of federal government or the distaste/hatred of the eponymous "lazy" negro or Latino, conservatives are always willing to join forces with their moneyed, empowered representatives on Capitol Hill to help dismantle these and other programs that don't represent a hard-assed ideology that leaves countless Americans out in the cold, with no one to turn to. Republicans on the wrong side of the $250,000 income bracket are the literal suckers and soft touches of the GOP universe.

Once again, I bring you this footage of Mitt Romney confiding in his well-moneyed supporters what he thinks about 47 percent of Americans:


The takeaway from all of this is that 47 percent of Americans don't pay income taxes. Therefore, this percentage can be assumed to be freeloaders and welfare cases who want endless entitlements and represent a lockstep vote for President Obama as a result.

Of the 47 percent who were spared federal income taxes, over two-thirds were still on the hook for payroll taxes, most of which go towards Social Security and Medicare. Only 18 percent of that 47 percent figure managed to avoid federal income taxes, according to data from the Tax Policy Center.

Most of the people who avoid federal income taxes are hardworking heads of household relying on low-wage jobs to take care of one or more offspring. Being the head of household is one major deduction on tax returns and having dependents in the form of children or disabled adult relatives are also major deductions, and for good reason. Factor in various credits and adjustments, and you wind up getting the majority of your payroll taxes back in the form of a refund. For a struggling single mother with mouths to feed*, that income tax refund is the one thing they can look forward to between early February and May.

Meanwhile, over 20,000 households earning over $200,000 per year avoided paying federal income taxes, according to data from the IRS. Of those 20,000, over 4,000 were millionaires:

So how does someone in the top 3 percent of America’s income earners finagle their income tax burden down to zero? For the majority of them, it’s all about donating to charity, investing in local and state governments, earning money overseas and writing off doctor bills.

In Hendricks’ Wisconsin case, ABC Supply switched from an ”S” corporation, which passes all of its profits and losses through its owner to be taxed under personal income, to a “C” corporation, which stands independently of its owner and whose income is subject to corporate taxes.

Scott Bianchini, ABC tax director, told the Journal-Sentinel that the switch was a “substantial part” of why Hendricks had no state income tax liability. Bianchini noted that while Hendricks’ tax burden was minuscule this year, the billionaire has paid more than $10 million in taxes since 2005.

The wealthy have a variety of methods at their disposal to avoid federal income taxes. Mitt Romney himself should know, with his Swiss bank accounts and investments in the Cayman Islands. Yet and still, its the people making under $50,000 without paying federal income taxes that conservatives claim to champion yet simultaneously castigate.

Conservatives see no issues with wealthy entrepreneurs and major corporations using tax dodges to reduce or even eliminate their tax burden, as it would be exactly what less well off conservatives would do if they themselves were wealthy. Seeing struggling single mothers and other people near the poverty line go bereft of substantial tax burdens is something that pisses conservatives off - after all, poverty is considered a shameful defect and positive proof of general laziness among people who should quit with the entitlements, pull up bootstraps and get back to work like normal, regular hardworking Americans with incomes above $200,000.

A near-fanatical hatred of those worse-off and a near sycophantic devotion to the wealthy is a linchpin of conservative ideology. If you're not doing well for yourself, then something is obviously wrong with you, never mind any other factors that could easily plunge someone into poverty. The wealthy love seeing middle and low-income conservatives do their dirty work for them - having these people blindly attack welfare and entitlement means future opportunities to satiate Republican bloodlust draconian regulation or outright cancellation of helpful assistance programs, save for the ones that directly help their base. It also means future opportunity for the wealthy to shove what was once Social Security or Medicare money into their own pockets via speculative market investments and other vehicles that are supposed to be "better" than Social Security.

Mitt Romney thinks 47 percent of Americans are hopeless "welfare cases" who slavishly follow President Obama in hope of undeserved crumbs and trinkets here and there. That 47 percent should speak loud and clear what they think of Mittens come November 5. And despite all of the above evidence of Romney and Co. not really giving a flying toss about middle and low-income conservatives, they'll still vote for the man, if only to see the imaginary "welfare queen" get hoisted up by her bootstraps.

*Along with Buy-Here-Pay-Here car lots, tax return preparers specializing in "advances" and pretty much any retailer who loves seeing the influx of taxpayers with wads of cash burning holes in their pockets.

- Rick Santorum finally realizes he will be forever second-best in the eyes of delegates, campaign contributors and the media. This leaves Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich as the remaining candidates against pre-ordained nominee Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential nomination race.

- Cory Booker officially earns the title of "Best Mayor Ever." Meanwhile, an alien life form (R-FL) vetoes a bill that would have sent non-violent drug offenders to rehab after serving half their sentences. Said alien life form recently passed a bill that would allow the creation of "technicolor" animals, presumably for the alien life form's consumption.


- Congressman Allen West does his best impression of Joe McCarthy and fails. Sorry, Al, you can't just go and tag your fellow Dems as "communists" without looking ridiculous, no matter how many times your conservative colleagues call the president a "socialist Marxist Kenyan." As a bonus, the Communist Party USA gave their own response to West's antics.

West should be more worried about those Nazis attempting to infiltrate the sanctity of the American political arena. Chances are he's okay with that, though.

- Kimball Clark made himself a poster boy for the War on Welfare Fraud™ when he attempted to pull bail money from his EBT card:

Kimball Clark, 45, was locked up Friday on drug-dealing charges — again — when he was overheard using his one phone call to ask the person on the other end of the line to “get my EBT card and go to the ATM and get the money to bail me out, get me outa here tonight,” according to a Boston police report.

Mass. House Speaker Robert DeLeo wants to crack down on EBT abuse by further restricting card use:

Deleo’s proposal does not limit or eliminate cash access, but he said he’s open to considering that in the future.

- Ann Romney was able to choose to be a stay-at-home mom. Unfortunately, others throughout the U.S. aren't able to make that choice. That was Hilary Rosen's point, before conservatives blew a gasket over the issue. Even the great mamma grizzly herself tried to hitch a ride on the ensuing media gravy train.

Raising kids is a struggle in of itself, as Romney rightfully noted. But it's even more of a struggle to raise kids while working for tips or a bare minimum $7.25/hr on 12-hour shifts. Millions of Americans do just that, day in and day out.

- As yet another indicator of how bankruptcy woes have hurt Jefferson County, AL, Bank of America reduced the county's line of credit from $100,000 to $30,000 after it missed a $15 million debt payment. Fortunately, a local credit union has stepped in to help the county out with its financial issues.