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Memo Pad

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GOP Anti-Tax Activist Compares Schumer To The Nazis

May 21st, 2012 4:20 pm Avi Zenilman

Grover Norquist, the anti-tax activist who famously said he wanted to strangle government in a bathtub, sure knows how to overreact. But today he went a little too far, going straight to the mat on behalf of a billionaire wannabe tax cheat by invoking Nazi Germany.

Last week, two Democratic Senators — Charles Schumer of New York and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania — proposed the so-called Ex-PATRIOT Act, which would basically “force wealthy people who give up their U.S. citizenship to prove that they did not do so for tax reasons.” It was a response to the recent decision by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin to renounce his U.S. citizenship; the news broke right before Facebook’s $16 billion IPO, and many suspected he did so to escape higher tax rates. Even Republican Rep. John Boehner called the move outrageous

Norquist was appalled by this attempt to make sure rich people pay what they owe to the U.S. government, and told The Hill that Schumer was as bad as both the Nazis and the Communists:

“I think Schumer can probably find the legislation to do this. It existed in Germany in the 1930s and Rhodesia in the ’70s and in South Africa as well,” said Norquist. “He probably just plagiarized it and translated it from the original German.”

The Nazis infamously implemented a departure tax on Jews who tried to flee Germany before World War II. Schumer is Jewish.

…

“The East Germans had the position that if you wanted to leave the country you had to pay them back for all the wonderful Communist education they gave you K through 12,” he said. “Schumer’s effort has a really distinguished history.”

Schumer’s spokesman responded to the smear with a hopeful sentiment: “When even Speaker Boehner feels free to openly disagree with Grover Norquist, it is official that literally no one cares what Norquist thinks on this issue.”

Let’s hope no one cares. But that’s never stopped him before.



  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_B6RROC4IUESHT322QS5VJVPYRM Lynda

    Usually you can be sure that when someone pulls the Nazi card they actually have no idea what they are talking about. This non-issue from Grover proves that old axiom. Can someone explain how such a gentlemen gained such a hold over his party? Has he been chanelling Rasputin again? He always seems such an angry little man…over exactly what is not clear. Yeah, I know big gov and blah, blah and blah.

  • mfwic_1947

    i saw this guy on that friday night show hosted by Bill Marr(?) with a progressive guy and a demi-conservative woman. if you watched his non verbal reactions, he was almost prissy with his pursed lips. Marr didn’t let many of the three panelists respond much to his questions but Norquist’s limited responses were all bumper sticker speech. he dredged up that government loan to the solar panel company which was just one of many government backed loans.

  • http://www.facebook.com/debbie.kieselryan1 Debbie Kiesel-Ryan

    Grover is a fool and now he proves it by saying what he did. When I saw him on Bill Maher quoting Ronnie Regan’s numbers, I just laughed. When Ronnie was president we didn’t have all the American corporation moving jobs overseas and selling their secrets to the Chinese and Koreans. We did have a large base of Americans paying taxes, but Ronnie still wanted to raise the tax on the rich. He gave the same speech about Warren Buffet’s idea on taxing the wealthy. But, to pull the Nazi card on Schumer, he really stuck his selfish little foot in his selfish little mouth. Maybe he’ll buy a road to fix, since there is no tax money being used on our infrastructure, because he doesn’t want to tax the rich who own the companies who moved all the jobs overseas, so the middle class is underempolyed or unemployed and no one’s paying taxes!!!!

    • CPANY

      When did Ronald Reagan become “Ronnie” Reagan?

      • ralphkr

        You are right, CPANY. His real name and title was Ronnie Ray Gun, Prevaricator in Chief.

    • http://www.myspace.com/btdsloveshack blazintommyd

      In actuality the ‘tax revolution’ started under Ronald RayGun; as you’ll note in my comment in re Earl Warren (fmr. Governor of California) and Nelson Rockefeller (fmr. Governor of NY) the two of them together were the biggest “tax spend” politicians of all time. It was only the “None Dare Call it Treason” crowd that was all Coo Coo for Cocopuffs with the abolition of taxation, Bill Bradley and Dick Gephardt hopped on with their flat tax delusions during the early RayGun years. The 1980s were a real nightmare, by far, the worst years of my life.

    • http://www.facebook.com/mary.r.mckeown Mary R McKeown

      Thank You Debbie, Very well stated You Go Girl

  • http://www.facebook.com/Clarkpark24 Howard Evans

    Not good enough. This mindless comment comparing one of our most prominent Jewish Americans to the butchers who conducted the holocaust is the height of ethnic insensitivity and antisemitism. Would we have settled for chasing away three-quarters of his sponsors and forcing several clumsy apologies from Limbaugh if sluts had murdered six million women in the recent past?

    Norquist has to be relentlessly hounded for this. Every morning should bring an inbox, a voicemailbox and a mailbox filled by tens of thousands of people telling him he is one of the worst excuses for a human being in history. Every newscast must include a segment of citizens overcome with righteous indignation that this evil man is allowed to live in a country like this.This must continue until Norquist is afraid to show his face in public and no journalist, self-respecting or otherwise, will consider speaking to him.

    Usually I’m down with Bill Maher’s no more insincere apologies to people who weren’t really offended doctrine. But Norquist is a useless twerp, even in comparison to Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Let’s beat him to death, figuratively, with this stupid comment. If we play our cards right, no one considering ever running for office would publicly say “I took the Norquist pledge” any more than they’d schedule a press conference to announce “I eat boiled orphans for breakfast.”

  • Rebecah

    It is astounding to me why this man is not in prison for treason and bribery. Forcing rethugs to sign his no tax garbage, is detrimental to our country and our future.

    Most likely this man is lacking in the manhood department, which is usually the cause of a man using any and all tactics to get what he wants, to feel a power he isn’t physically, able to feel.

  • William Deutschlander

    Norquist is MENTALY DERANGED, for his own protection and the preservation of DEMOCRACY, he should be INSTITUTIONALIZED and TREATED for MENTAL ILLNESSES.

    His tax pledge is TREASONOUS, but his MENTAL ILLNESS is PARAMOUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Since he is a REPUBLICAN BIGOT his BILLIONAIRE Republican buddies can pay for his medical care!

  • CPANY

    What does Grover Norquist do for a living?

  • Alan Davis

    Norquist is a sick man. How can anyone take him seriously, especially his fellow tea-party colleagues and other republicans?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dana-Vicalvi/1232431169 Dana Vicalvi

    Anyone who signed a pledge to this attention-seeking nobody is not fit to hold public office.

  • http://www.myspace.com/btdsloveshack blazintommyd

    Well I hear the name of this Grover person on the MSNBC shows – I try to watch Hardball because I like Chris Mathews and usually catch The Ed Show and of course I Love Rachel Maddow ♥♥ and from what I understand this Grover person pays republicans for attention so that the money he’s some how accumulated has some sort of significance beyond himself ? Specifically, he pays republicans to promise that they won’t raise taxes. O sure Grover thanks for the dough, what a great idea, we never would have thought of that, ourselves. Especially after Earl Warren and Nelson Rockefeller. He sounds like some sort of attention starved neurotic, why not just pay it in taxes? Does he have any particular explanation, or he just thinks everyone in government are Communists and Nazis. Actually I wish there were communists in government because we all know there is a great abundance of Nazis except they’re in the faction Grover is paying money to. So these are the sorts of things these people spend their tax breaks on. And the press serves as their society page because apparently they have some sort of irreparable problems in that regard as well. Makes me wonder who’s leading who or just taking his money. Well at least Grover can blow some shit out of his ass and suddenly it’s all over the front pages. A most peculiar power. If you have three wishes …. I also understand that Adolf Hitler was a Jew that hated Jews because a Jewish doctor gave his mother medicine which allegedly killed her. Well you’d think this Grover person must have something like that going on with the Federal government – strangle Her/him in a bathtub? The latter recalls to mind “Portnoy’s Complaint”. I think that this Grover guy has an issue with Jews, himself, most of the GOPstapo does, unless, of course, ‘they can learn to be the kinda [j]ews we kin lurn ta like’.

  • John Curtis

    Norquist has sunk to the same level now as Rush Limbaugh. Grover thinks now he controls Congress. He’s reveling in his power and basking in his glorious intimidation of elected Republicans, be they tea party idiots or otherwise. Cryptic Baltimore journalist H.L. Menkin said, “For every human problem there is a solution that is clear, simple and wrong.” Grover’s no tax increase fits perfectly into this category. A bad solution to the nation’s economic woes is now followed by histrionic demagoguery by a little man with a huge ego who now attacks, not with reason or logic or even policy pronouncements, but with vile personal (and disgraceful) slanders. Shame on you Grover. Your policy arguments are wrong, but at least sticking to them does not make you evil. Now you’ve become evil, and hopefully, those who have followed your bad advice will now realize it and turn away.

    Jay Curtis (author of THE CODE)

  • http://www.facebook.com/mary.r.mckeown Mary R McKeown

    If This is true HOW much will it take to rid OUR country of you and your pledges ?????????

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/GJGNAKFPI2BSRHDQPEINXYD2LA mymoney9

    Heir Grover’s comments are funny, for some one who has the whole Republican party goose stepping to everything he says. If ever there was a nazi party in America if would be called the Republican party.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/XWNK5E33OIFUMQVAGQQA7GDM2M Bigspender

    Norquist has proven on numerous occasions that he is nothing more than egg-sucking, chicken stealing gutter trash. His power to motivate the right wing to ever more dispicable actions is mindboggling.

  • howa4x

    Regan raised taxes 6 times so who is Norquist kidding. That was his hero right? Regan also had 10% unempolyment but they don’t mean anything to Groover. Just the peons who don’t matter to a red bloodied Republican like him. To compare Schumer to the Nazi’s, who is Jewish is insulting. Actually it was Hitler who gave the industrialists (like our billionairs) tax breaks and even gave them slave labor. Maybe that is what Norquist really has in mind, bust the unions and make everyone work for wages just above slave labor, and no benefits for anyone who can’t climb to the top. In Groovers world only those with lots of money matter and the rest of us really don’t count for much. During the Regan years the money didn’t trickle down that far, and at the time was the largest transfer of wealth from the middle to the upper 1%.

    So middle class think about if this saying applies: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

  • clodboy

    Let’s see..anti jew, anti black, anti homosexual, exalt the military and “family values”, use religion for political purposes, call for restoration of our honor, promote the master race (read that as Fox New’s “American exceptualism”. You can’t slide a paper swastika between our conservatives and nazis.

    By the way, we still have plenty of nazis. Let’s go see who they vote for.

  • ObozoMustGo

    It is an accurate comparison based upon the same policies that the Nazi’s implemented on the Jews in the 30′s. Both the Nazis and Schumer wanted/want a departure tax on those fleeing.

    This is just another attempt by a useful idiot at The Memo to try to stir up and foment hatred where none is needed. Avi, you could at least be honest and say that you are working in a coordinated manner with the Obozo relection efforts and propaganda machine. But then again, honesty isnt exactly a hallmark of the leftists, is it?

    And for all of you leftist nutjobs out there who are incapable of simple thought, let’s review the basic meaning of the term ‘Nazi’…. NAZI is an acronym for National Socialist Party. Knowing that, which of our 2 parties is most likely to be a home to people who identify more closely with the ideas of socialism? Come on…. be h0nest… which one? That’s riiiiiiiiight… The DemocRATS are the party for socialists in America. In fact, it can be argued quite well that the old party called Democrat sould be called the Socialist Party in modern times. So, before all you leftist nutjobs start trying to sling the ‘Nazi” label around, remember what it REALLY means! You’re only casting dispersions on yourself.

    Have a nice day!

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/XWNK5E33OIFUMQVAGQQA7GDM2M Bigspender

      Nice try BOZO but once more your argument won’t fly. Anyone who has even the most remote knowledge of history understands that the 1930′s “National Socialist Party” had as much to do with modern european style democratic socialism as you do with higher education. Try real hard to grasp this. The NAZI party was based on a fascist dictorship. Dictatorships still exist and are always right wing in nature.

      • ObozoMustGo

        Bigblunder… once again, you are dead wrong. To all you leftist nutjobs out there, the political spectrum is quite clear.

        All the way to the far right, there is anarchy. NO government. The closer you move toward absolute freedom, the further you go to the right.

        To the far left, there is ALL Government. The bigger the government and stronger it’s control over people and resources, the closer to the left you become.

        Socialists are far left. Look back on ALL atrocities of the 20th century, you will see that they were perpetrated by people on the left. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, PolPot, etc. etc. Every one of them murdered MILLIONS in the name of their “collective good”.

        Clearly, NAZI means SOCIALIST by name. Redefine it however you want to try to effect some other meaning, but too damned bad. It is exactly what it means. NATIONAL SOCIALIST. And what party is the home to SOCIALISTS in America? The DemocRAT party is home to the socialists.

        Too damned bad, Bigblunder. Truth is truth.

        Have a nice day!

        • dtgraham

          It’s far, far, more nuanced than that. Jesus you have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen a troll poster so simple minded with such a narrow range of thought and shaky grasp of reality, yet so full of himself with so much bluster. You’re also a pathological ideologue.

          • ObozoMustGo

            dt… if you cant understand that I’ve explained the 2 endpoints that make up the extremes on the continuum that forms the political spectrum from the furthest point right to the furthest point left, then I’m satisfied that my conclusion that you are a pathological idiot is correct!

            Have a nice day!

  • karinursula

    I like to know who gave Norquist this power he seems to have over the
    Republican Congress and the biggest question ist “WHY”???

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/3J6OEWYHKZIJQD5X4CJCRJTKPE Patricia

    I’m amazed Norquist is not from Arizona because we are overrun with extreme-right nut jobs here & he would fit right in. Pray for Arizona, this state has absolutely gone off the deep-end.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kenneth-Heffley/100002250740914 Kenneth Heffley

    Rember the kochs are norquist boss so don’t forget them as well as rove. They should all fofiet their entire money to the people who lost their jobs and homes.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ford-Truck/100003735221640 Ford Truck

    And its clear that Grover Norquist and many Republicans want to re-establish a Middle-Ages type monarchy where the “royal” rich own everything, and the many poor serfs had to do as the royals wanted, or starve. Remember there was a very violent, bloody revolution in France to overthrow such a government, and many of the royals and their supporters were beheaded. Maybe its time we hire some of America’s unemployed to start manufacturing guillotines!!

  • http://profiles.google.com/bonniewhitsellmfg Bonnie Parmenter

    The patriot act was one of the most freedom extinguishing acts ever enacted in the name of patriotism. I think everyone agrees our tax system needs to be revamped so to be a fair tax system. If you own a business, even a small business owner, you are probably right now experiencing the war on business by our government. I don’t know the circumstances Mr. Norquist has experienced but if it is anything like I have, in the past few years, by the IRS, I sympathize with him. Let us not judge until we walk in his shoes. The IRS (in the name of the US government) is the most dishonest, harassing, threatening, thieving, lying organization in history. Quote by IRS agent to me, “I can make you owe so much taxes you will never get out of bankruptcy.” , “What your attorney says means nothing.” This is how our US businesses are being treated by representatives of the US government. I then get a bill for $5,000,000 dollars; owing the taxes of every business I have done business with in the past 3 years. The bill after 2 years and several hundred thousand in legal and accounting fees is down to around $500,000 and I still have to keep hiring accountants to get it down even more. You see all the ads “Do you have IRS problems, call us!) They are not out there for no reason. When Obama said, ” I let the bull dogs lose he meant IRS agents on small businesses,” not big corporations that can hire expensive attornies and make most IRS agents look like first graders. I personallyk now many small businesses that are experiencing the same type of harrassment that my business has. We are a small business that employees about 50 people.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7DKWSXHQIDBW5PUAPZ2HZAYYUY Baron Cormac

    Can someone please start an investigation into Grover Norquist (that name doesn’t sound very American to me) for attempting to subvert the Constitution and overthrowing the Government by forcing Republicans to declare their loyalty to him and not to the Constitution they have sworn to uphold and defend?