I completely agree with you...they seem to work at being as block-headed as possible...I do not understand thier logic at all.

And therein lies the problem....the tea partiers ARE proving themselves to be the anti-intellectual subset of the GOP, and because of that they don't care about the facts that interviews like this expose. They are just as confused about reality as Sharon Angle is. They are only interested in being spoon fed what they want to hear, and they don't want any of these pesky facts getting in the way. All they want to know is how it's all the Democrats' fault and all Obama's fault, not that they aren't smart enough to have a full grasp on the reality that is right in front of them. What's scary is that they seem to be running things these days. What will happen to this country if these people actually win? What will happen to America with people like this in charge of actually running things? God help us!

Amen!

It's mystifying to me to see people who are so proud to be so stupid. I keep wondering how they can be so boldly uninformed, not just about politics, but about everything, including grammar, logic, semantics.

She's just like Bush, Beck, Palin, Bachmann, et al; it sounds like she's saying something when she talks, but it's always just a string of unrelated sound bites. She never really answers anything, and her sentences can't be effectively diagrammed because she doesn't speak English effectively.

Like Beck & Palin fans, those who like her think they know what she's saying, but they are just hearing what they want to hear.

This woman is an idiot. And so are those who support her.

Imagine what she would do with real power.

The saddest commentary on the tea baggers is that they ARE getting attention and they DO have a following. Be very wise and wary - do not dismiss them out of hand. Stupidity is powerful - look at Beck and Fox news, Bush - dumb enough to ruin the country and the world financial system, caused 2 two and the deaths of thousands.

Beware of corporate powers financing - now without limits - these stealth candidates who will be easy puppets for the teams of lobbyists running congress.

Are the sides of her lips pasted to the back of her ears?

She is smiling so hard, it looks painful.

really don't think tea baggers have any logic, they just want to get elected..

I wouldn't have her for rat-catcher, either.

She was my neighbor and I did move!

I would not put too much stock in someone who is losing in the ratings to Nancy Grace and Campbell Brown.

I would not put stock in someone who can only use ratings (which aren't even true) in order to give their argument some sort of validity.

"I would not put stock in someone who can only use ratings (which aren't even true) in order to give their argument some sort of validity."

LOL

LOLOLOL!! YES!! Her and Palin are neck-in-neck

Good point... and this DOES belong to all of us, transcending the "parties in power at the moment" stuff.

The greenback is a federal IOU and I don't see anyone having any trouble cashing it. The federal debt is made up of IOU's and yet, everyone gets paid. It's just accounting, has no bearing on the solvency of the fund. The issue is sustainability over the long haul.

No, she doesn't have a point. Social Security is not out of money and won't be for long time, even under current conditions. The IOUs she (and others who like privatizing the program) talks about are treasury bonds issued by the US, and groups of those are sold back every year as they mature. Paul Krugman wrote a very good article on this a couple of years ago, and I've posted a link to it below, since Krugman states it much better than I can.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/about-the-social-security-trust-fund/

I am amazed at the articles that declare 2010 as the first year that Social Security has paid out more than it takes in. That's incorrect, and blatant sensationalism. As a matter of fact, Social Security has paid out more than it took in 11 times in the past. Under our current economic conditions with our levels of unemployed and under-employed workers, the fact SS taxes are down should come as no surpise to anyone. The below link will also go into far more detail than I can here.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/tftable.html

Fear as a motivator seems to have worked well for the GOP since 9/11, so they continue along that path, assuming all of us are too dumb to use Google.

The GOBP has been robbing every possible source of government cash they could ever since Grover Norquist convinced the GOBP that the smartest thing they could do is steal every penny they could from us for themselves and their rich corporate friends.

This was a win-win stradegy for them because 1, they got richer stealing from the us & 2, it served their ultimate goal of "starving" the government into ineffectualness. This economic ruination around us now was the GOBP plan all along.

"When there's blood in the streets, there's money to be made."

Blaming the government because we elected thieves is kind of dumb. There is no protection from theft when you give the keys to the bank to thieves.

How many trillions did Bush give to his rich Wall Street buddies before he left office? With no accountability from them, no repayment required - just gave them our cash. And how many billions were sent - in cash - to Wolfowitz in Iraq to spend in bribes? Nine billion dollars. And where did it all go? Nobody knows. It's just gone.

They think our money is their slush fund. Getting rid of, or privatizing Social Security isn't the solution. The solution is to get rid of the thieves.

Those that fear the collapse of SS don't want to take the simplest step to continue its solvency: eliminating the cap on income that you pay SS taxes on. It is currently $106K, I believe. In other words, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and any other millionaire or billionaire you care to mention pays as much tax as someone who is firmly middle class. The government calculated that eliminating the cap would fund SS at 97%, leaving only minor tweaks such as needs testing or minimal tax increases to fund to 100%. The hysteria on the right is calculated to make people think that the system is broken, so we might as well just privatize, or "personalize" it instead. Angle was also disingenuous in saying that younger workers could have a choice of paying into SS or have their "personalized" accounts, and this would only affect those younger workers. She apparently doesn't understand this basic fact of SS: younger workers pay for the SS of the succeeding generation. I paid into SS during my working life so that my mom can receive it, and my kids will pay for the SS I will receive when I retire. SS is NOT like a 401k, where the money you set aside is yours and yours alone. If this privatization is allowed for younger workers, it will have an immediate and devastating effect on current SS balances and payouts to those already on SS. To claim, as Bush did during his failed attempt at SS privatization, that privatizing SS would have no effect on seniors currently receiving SS is a baldfaced lie.

"It is currently $106K"

Well, that's $10K more than I thought it was. Still a pretty pathetic cap.

Yeah, how obvious was it that Angle hasn't a CLUE as to how SS works.

That is a pathetic cap, and Uffa is right, the cap should be eliminated totally. That would pretty much solve any future crisis (75 year projection), and it's also the preferred way to approach the situation, according to many surveys out there. (If one cares about that sort of thing.)

Before considering support for privatization of the program, ask yourself the follwing question: which would I rather have, US treasury bonds or shares in Lehman Brothers?

Haddie Nuff:

The GOBP would be positively apocalyptic if government dare raise the cap! Why, that's un-Murikun! What are you, some kinda commie??

"which would I rather have, US treasury bonds or shares in Lehman Brothers?"

Well, let me think on that ... thinking ... thinking ... think I'll go with treasury bonds. :)

LOL Bruce

I'll stay in Canada with Canadian health care. I, as all Canadians do, have far better health care in Canada than we would have with the Amercian insurance run and insurance rationed health care system. I'll stay in Canada and live three years longer than if I were an American with inferior American killing "health" care. Tea Baggers like Sharron Angle would be run out of Canaad and could never find their way onto a ballot. Canadian Conservatives would be called "socialists" and "communists" by American Conservatives and Tea Baggers.

If Boner is smart, he see's what a train wreck the GOBP is, and he SHOULD medicate himself - HEAVILY.

Orange lush.

LOL , I love it!!! Great way to describe the tan man....

You ain't kiddin'. I'm afraid this may be a lead in to a Palin presendency. Ifthat happens - I'm emmigrating.

You can always emmigrate to Canada. Sort of like the United States, but has a REAL health care system and Canadian Conservatives are more aligned with Blue Dog Democrats than with Republicans or American Conservatives. Tea Baggers would be laughed out of Canada and probably could never get on the ballot. The Rhinoceros Party is a far stronger party than Tea Baggers would be in Canada.

//
//
//
//

//
//

//
//

I'm afraid this may be a lead in to a Palin presendency

I've said for quite some time if Palin ever got close to the oval office I would take my children and leave the country.

Yeah Freedom. She and Palin should compete for who can amuse us the most.

Olbermann should start a new weekly segment highlighting these two - Battle of the Bubbleheads - to see who can come up with the weeks dumbest comment.

Rachel had the right idea last night - popcorn!!

Did you catch Palin's remark about bringing in the Dutch on the oil disaster because the have experience with leaks?

I'm still laughing about that!

I'm sure Palin imagined some little Dutch boy in a deep diving suit sticking his finger in the gusher and plugging it. Maybe her next suggestion will be to talk to Gallo and see if they have a big cork they can stick in the leak!

I'm telling ya UFF--We ought to sell tickets to watch this freak show of a Republican party.

"Did you catch Palin's remark about bringing in the Dutch on the oil disaster because the have experience with leaks?"

Here, I'll make you giggle your ass off some more, Larry!

"PALIN: They can’t even get a phone call returned, Bill. The Dutch. They are known, and the Norwegians. They are known for dikes and for cleaning up water and for dealing with spills. They offered to help and, yet, no, they too, with a proverbial can’t even get a phone call back."

http://climateprogress.org/2010/06/17/palin-claims-that-netherlands-and-norway-can%E2%80%99t-get-their-calls-returned-on-the-oil-spill/

I am ashamed of her obvious homophobia ... "The Dutch ... and the Norwegians. They are known for their dykes." She could have at LEAST called them by the correct terminology - lesbians!

He looked and sounded strange (well stranger) to me too.

Hey Auntie J – very sweet post.

Well, after reading the entire string of posts here, I’m assuming you didn’t last very long (logged in that is) after your own post – for sure not more than 3 hours worth.

I appreciate your thoughtful kind words and hopes for TRMS blog.

With regards to TRMS blog, my hope is all the blog entities maybe take a few and reflect – bloggers and blog moderators. For bloggers, my hope is that maybe another option is thrown into the mix of which direction to go – that being, what about weighing an option to ignore the more negative blogger posts and maybe not adding to the fray and effectively grow the fire. For the blog moderators, maybe adding a couple options to the tool box. (Truthfully the vast majority of TRMS blog moderators are extraordinarily wonderful and great, from my experience, this part of my ‘hope for’ really only applies to one of the 6 or so blog moderators – just didn’t want to single out…) For one, if a reply is chosen as an option, how about choosing to not relying in kind (negatively/derogatorily that is) – maybe moderate and mitigate the tone to a more constructive one? And two, how about add the option to employ the edit function when encountering the more hateful/hurtful/heinous of the negative posts. Unlike our society, TRMS blog is not a democracy, it’s your sandbox we are all playing in, and your rules apply when putting forth the tone/content you want to portray – like it’s Rachel’s sensibilities that should flow from the blog moderators actions (like ugh, feminism sensitive, geeky science/engineering sensibilities…etc, etc, etc). Just saying… what I would hope for in this arena that is.

With all that said, once again, very sweet post Auntie J – I appreciate you my dear.

And, of course, Rachel rocks!

I noticed that too. You would hear a click or something and his face would jerk. I think his circuits were shorting out, or someone was playing with his remote control box.

what a mess! what a mess! people like this, should have NO place on our judicial system.....

"Do not underestimate the stupidity and ignorance of a large number of the electorate, nor the amount of Obama-hate that exists."

Dave:

At least Obama's trying to fix things, as opposed to McFlightsuit who tried his best to destroy things, and succeeded very well in that regard. It's probably the only thing in McFlightsuit's life that he was successful with. Don't get me wrong, there are things that I criticize Obama on, but with McFlightsuit, there were serious, legitimate reasons to criticize his Admuddlestration and its unconstitutional policies. And this is one of the things I strongly disagree with Obama - investigating and prosecuting McFlightsuit and his Cabal Criminals for war crimes, but I digress ...

Many ignore Obama's accomplishments because they have the attention span of children. While I do not agree with him on each and every issue, I recognize that, considering what he inherited, he's not doing to shabbily.

The truth is - when a group of people whine, "we want our country back", it's pretty clear what "they" want the country "back from." It's not too difficult to figure it out. And, I find that simply pathetic.

I too, heard "and a census part-time job is not a job."

I heard 'in a sense', which is bad grammar. What you heard makes more sense...

I heard 'in a sense', which is poor grammar. What you heard makes more sense (grammatically). I'm sure he wasn't talking about census jobs, though.

"No one knows an individuals situation. I wouldn't encourage anyone to have an abortion. If your raped, or some other horrific situation it's up to the woman involved, and their Doctor.

As far as the Gods plan. Does she really think God planned for some child to be raped by her father, or a woman raped so a child could be born. What a nut."

Mellow:

For as much as nitwits like Angle whine about individual rights, and personal freedom, they hypocrite themselves by then attempting to deny a woman her individual rights and personal freedom by legislating THEIR morals on ALL women. Their whining rings hollow. I wonder how Angle would feel if her daughter, sister, etc. were raped and the result was pregnancy ... would she feel it was "gods work" by forcing her sister, etc. to give birth to a child conceived from violence? I hardly think she would be so "forgiving" of the rapist ...

And, I love when these so-called christians call abortion murder, then wave their flags and thump their sunken chests in support of the death penalty and torture. Again, their whining rings hollow.

As far as god and abortion are concerned, I look at it this way: common sense would dictate that if a woman miscarries, it must be god's way of performing an abortion, right? Doctor's performing abortions are considered "murderers" to the reich-wing. So, by their logic, god is a HUGE murderous bastard since miscarriages far outweigh the number of abortions. In my mind, a woman who choses abortion is just doing god's work and saving him the trouble ...

(Sigh) You should know by now that I do not like responding to you as you are a hateful ______— fill in the blank.

As far as I can tell you must be reading the same book they are. Do your homework before making comments. There were not hospitals either, but procedures were done, there were not restaurants but people gathered to eat etc etc. Also there are books about the History of that time that were written by people besides god. Just like books written about history now. You should try to read one, but most dont have pictures. So once again you have no basis for your statement.

Had you read the post or something other than Becks book. You would have seen where I said I would never encourage anyone to have an abortion. I am not the judge on that. Oh wait Thou Shall Not Judge where have I heard that hmmm OH YA the bible. Jesus probably would not like it. Most people don't like it even pro-choice people it should always be a last option, and then thought about again, but it is not for me to Judge or you. If you would like to point out statements in the bible go ahead I can thank of ten that you have done on here that Jesus was against. There is only one belief in Christ it is not a brand. I do not think Jesus would appreciate you comparing him to Nikes, or Levis or other brands. Not nice.

So go ahead Saint Hate spew your nonsense, and your hate. Try to educate me please on the bible. I am a Methodist not that it is any of your business, but I will wait for you to google it and try to post hateful things about my religion you know the christian way.

@hatenomor: St. Augustine of Hippo who lived during the time of the Roman Empire commented on the Roman acceptance of abortion, stating that it was OK for a Christian to have an abortion unless it was to cover up sin, namely adultery. Augustine's comments on abortion have been the most commonly referenced and well-known proof that Christianity has changed its teaching on abortion over the ages and that it wasn't always viewed as a sin, let alone a grave one. Please study your Church history before getting hysterical. Your ignorance makes all us Christians look like idiots.

Secondly, just because someone says the bible doesn't speak of abortion--and it doesn't, and I studied biblical scripture at a seminary for 4 years--doesn't mean they believe "Jesus taught abortion was right." That is a deliberate misconstruing of the OP's comments, and it's a dishonest representation of the other person's words. Is that how you think Christian should defend their positions? By deception?

Thirdly, your assertion that a fetus is an "innocent life" is very problematic. What exactly do you mean by that? It's clearly meant to be inflammatory and provocative, so I assume you just want to get people's emotions up and prevent them from thinking clearly. That is also an deliberately dishonest error in logic. But your intellectual dishonesty aside, it is not clear whether you mean the fetus is a sentient, moral being or not. If the fetus is purely innocent simply because in its stage of development it is incapable of sin, then it is no more special than all other animal life. Animals are not capable of sin, and thus are "innocent." God created them, so they are of his grace. But we slaughter them everyday. Moreover, animal sacrifice was acceptable by the ancient Isaelites who observed the Mosaic Law. So in that regard, killing innocent life isn't necessarily what the "You shall not kill" commandment meant, is it?

And lastly, as a woman and a Christian who had an abortion, I've been there. Having an abortion is difficult, but it is not evil. I've seen evil. Murdering a doctor in order to terrorize a society into accepting your irrational position on abortion is evil. Threatening that there'll be more violence if abortion laws don't change to your liking don't change is evil. Telling women that they are murderers for choosing to look out for their health and well-being is evil. Lying about why women would choose abortion, calling them sluts or unstable, and denying the true circumstance of why women actually seek abortions is evil. Covering up your real motives, that you really want is to punish women for not conforming to your morality, forcing them to be burdened by a pregnancy they didn't plan or cannot afford, under the pseudo-pious guise of "saving innocent lives" is evil. The anti-abortionists have given me plenty examples of real evil for me to know, with certainty and humility, that my abortion wasn't evil. It was a good choice and the right choice. And since you weren't there, dealing with my circumstances, I don't think you are in a position to judge based on purely irrational, hyper-emotional crazy talk about "killing innocent lives." When I was faced with the choice to terminate my pregnancy or not, crazy talk was not what I needed. I needed facts, reality and truth. Once I got that, I was able to make my choice in good conscience.

I am frankly very, very tired of hyper-emotional, hyper-irrational, blatantly dishonest arguments against abortion like yours. They are no more compelling than people claiming the sky is pink. God did not give us reason and intelligence to be this stupid. Moreover, taking Jesus at his word to judge people by their fruits, it seems to me that if someone must result to the hysteria and deception which you do to make your argument, that your argument mustn't be a very worthy one.

Angel where have you been..Ahh some sense finally. I'm sorry you had to go through that. My friend did as well, and it was the hardest decision she ever had to make. I will not describe the circumstances either out of respect for my friend. I remember her saying there was someone dressed as the grim reaper in front of the clinic. Disgusting.

Bravo, Angelian

Cicero (106-43 b.c.), Dionysius of Harlicarnasus (60-7 b.c.), Ovid (43 b.c. – a.d. 17), Seneca (3 b.c. –a.d. 65), and Pliny the Elder (23-79 a.d.) all spoke of abortion in ancient Rome. Though their options on the subject varied, those that found the practice to be distastful did so becuase it denied the father an heir. Little if any regard was given to the fetus by either party.

You are mistaken. That's what you got out the above posts? Hate you make me tired.

I am always leery of anyone who hides behind the "I am a Christian" shield. It's nothing more than an attempt to say they are right because they follow Jesus' teachings. We all know that isn't true. Take Jimmy Swaggart, for instance. They just do as they please until they get caught.

On the abortion issue: I believe we accept Life when we take our first breath and release Life when we take our last breath. There is no where in the Bible that says otherwise. Breathing creates Life. Women are just a vessel for the potential for life. They have the right to determine the direction of their own body. I would wager a bet on there not being an abortion if the baby is planned. God doesn't make babies. Humans do. It's the baby choice whether he accepts life and breathes, but the act of sex is not the controlling factor. The Free-Will ability that is supposedly given to humanity from the God Force, also covers the freedom to give birth or not to give birth to a baby that was forced upon a woman without the will of that woman to become a parent.

It really disgusts me to see those old men in Congress standing up there saying they are against abortion. They have no right to tell any woman she has to cradle their seed when all they did was dump it.

Mellowohio: There is a great feature here where if you click on someone's name it takes you to their page where on the upper right hand side you can choose to IGNORE the posts.

I was only here five minutes in reading before I knew I had to ignore hate in order to have a better experience on the blog. I cannot put my finger on what it is other than to just be freakin' weird. As soon as he suggested I was a lefty buying in to all lefty propaganda and supporting a pervert like Keith, I knew it was time to stop reading ALL that he posted.

I for one am not saying that the real or fiction Jesus supported abortion or even the church for that matter. What I am saying is that abortion was widely available and socially divisive, though not along moral grounds. If Jesus or the church were obstinantly opposed to abortion, justifying their beliefs by saying that the practice is an amoral loss of life, why then are these opinions absent from the bible. The bible that most people refer to today was a product of The First Council of Nicea in a.d. 325. Why would the religious officials not include anything regarding abotion in the text if the subject was somthing of great importance to them? It is not a matter of whether these individuals supported or denounced abortion. It is a question as to why these options were completely absent from chirstian texts of central importance.

hatenomor- no one is saying that Jesus advocated for abortion. What is being said is that the church has changed its views on abortion throughout time. I, being male, feel that I have no right to tell any woman what to do with their body - so I am pro-choice. Jesus never spoke about abortion, so no one will ever know what his viewpoint was.

Accidentprone hit the nail right on the head with this issue. (in case you forgot that a bunch of men sat around in a group and DECIDED what books to put in the bible)

So what about the fundamentalist support the death penalty gets? Do you think Christ is cool with the death penalty? Do you think he would sit ringside to a lethal injection, electrocution, or gassing...eating popcorn and making notes on how much techniques had changed since they nailed him up? Yeah, he WAS executed wasn't he? Well if HE was executed, then state sanctioned murder MUST be good! C'mon, someone argue the point with with me.

On the subject of abortion. During the Roman times, there was a species of pennyroyal that was such an effective aborfactant (miscarraige inducing agent,) that it went extinct from over-harvesting. Yes there were abortions at the time of Christ. Are you also forgetting that he said, let he who is without sin throw the first stone, judge not lest you be judged? Are you without sin Sunshine? Are YOU qualified to judge? Shouldn't you tend to that 2x4 hanging out of your eyesocket before you you go trying to correct anyone else's vision?

If you think that quoting scripture makes you qualified, then you really are no better than the Pharisees and the Taliban. And while we are on the subject, quoting Malcolm X does not make you his disciple. He died a relatively young man. Had he lived to see all the changes that have hit his communities, he would have changed too. If he wanted disciples I'm sure he wouldn't want people who parrot his words, he would want action. Now what would he want to see done? Can you even guess? Black nationalism is dead. The way you keep beating that dead horse won't bring it back. So just what are you going to do about it? But first, get that goddamn 2x4 out your eyesocket!

hate- I will agree with you that he did frame the argument that way, which I can understand you being upset about. I could see the headlines now: "Jesus supports the killing of innocent unborn babies...tonight at 11".

I think the point is still pertinent: that back in the Roman times abortion was not as 'evil' or a 'grave sin' as it is portrayed in todays Christian environment.

AMEN!!!!! AMEN!!!!!!

Your argument lies on two assumptions: 1) that life begins at conception & 2) that god exists. I have never seen proof of either.

That link actually proves my point. At no point in that article does it say LIFE begins at conception...it says an EMBRYO is the starting point of life. Here is the word for word summary under the header.

"The following references illustrate the fact that a new human embryo, the starting point for a human life, comes into existence with the formation of the one-celled zygote:"

The starting point for a human life does not mean that life begins, but alas it is up for interpretation feeding those like yourself who are constantly looking for confirmation that your beliefs are correct.

AMEN rams!

That's very true, Rams, but how do we keep 'idiots' from voting? There seems to be a 'gathering' of idiots that could outnumber the 'not idiots'.

Your right Saint Hate there is nothing special about them. Except their NUTS, and I should have known you were one of them.

hatemor Hey idiot. I said hate not racism. Project your views on someone else.

Let's see: The government, Democrats, liberals, sanity, rational thought, new ideas, any ideas, the poor. Should I keep going?