Thanks Charlie.  I just call 'em like I see 'em!!

IF they had an equal platform, yes. But between finance laws, electoral college and the like, I don't see that in the near future.

It certainly seems something is going to have to change.  This total gridlock between Republicans and Democrats is hampering getting anything done in Washington.

My stars! Sounds like you have had a testicle or two slapped in your face lately! I mean "Testy-testy".

That was the most discombobulated, stitched together run on I have seen all day (and I am guilty of some bad run-ons...LOL).

When did tea-bagging become an exclusively "queer" thing? I thought as long as one of them had testicles and the other a face it could be done.

Tea baggers are frauds. They ignore the selling of our government to corporations, they sit on their hands as AIG gives more than $100 million in bonuses after taking tax payer dollars. Yet are they pushing republicans to help democrats force the banks to change to prevent the economic crisis that we just endured. No. Not a peep.

Frauds.

And Communist. Would this be failed Russian State Communist, True Communism or Modified Marxism Communism? Or do you know a difference?

I didn't see any rebuttal of any of the contentions in the post. Just a discombobulated attack (and an obvious misunderstanding of the "practice" of tea-bagging and who can do it)

Why do you even bother wih someone who is obviously on something--and it certainly isn't tea-!!!

You can turn your rant into a ligitimate comment by stating one fact the lady got wrong. I aion't gonna hold my breath.

  Benedict, Rut still hasn't figured out that posts are about "facts,"--not "rants."  Definitely don't hold your breath.   

It seems you are the stupid one, rut!  There is a difference between "tea bagging" and "teabaggers."  Actually, I did get it wrong, though.  Teabaggers are really just people who wear white hoods and capes when they go out for a little "fun" on Saturday night.  Patriots?  Not in my world.

I still "live" here because my doctor's pills work well.

Freedom is natural. All humans have it. Liberty is what you ought to be talking about, since we trade away some of our freedom in order to establish a more orderly world.

Speak directly to those freedoms you wish you had not traded away when you agreed to remain an American subject to its laws, and then maybe we can have a reasonable debate. But just pissing and moaning about "the government" isn't gonna do you a damn bit of good. Specifically, which programs of this government would you cancel in order to save tax money? I have heard no Teabagger say anything about the budget. They only speak in abstractions . . . and erroneously at that.

Rut, you need to check the dictionary.

 In a press release touting “unfriend” as the word of the year, the New Oxford American Dictionary may have unwittingly made a more controversial move than the New Oxford American Dictionary pretty much ever does.

According to the release, they define “teabagger” as “a person who protests President Obama’s tax policies and stimulus package, often through local demonstrations known as ‘Tea Party’ protests (in allusion to the Boston Tea Party of 1773).”

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://tothewire.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/teabaggers.jpg&imgrefurl=http://tothewire.wordpress

So!  How is that "confrontational"?  You guys "coined" the word; we didn't?

This article first appeared on Playboy.com

Chris Matthews: “You’re up there with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity… It’s quite a team.”
Rick Santelli (smiling and nodding): “It is quite a team!”
Hardball, MSNBC, Feb 20, 2009

Last week, CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli rocketed from being a little-known second-string correspondent to a populist hero of the disenfranchised, a 21st-century Samuel Adams, the leader and symbol of the downtrodden American masses suffering under the onslaught of 21st century socialism and big government. Santelli’s “rant” last-week calling for a “Chicago Tea Party” to protest President Obama’s plans to help distressed American homeowners rapidly spread across the blogosphere and shot right up into White House spokesman Robert Gibbs’ craw, whose smackdown during a press conference was later characterized by Santelli as “a threat” from the White House. A nationwide “tea party” grassroots Internet protest movement has sprung up seemingly spontaneously, all inspired by Santelli, with rallies planned today in cities from coast to coast to protest against Obama’s economic policies.

But was Santelli’s rant really so spontaneous? How did a minor-league TV figure, whose contract with CNBC is due this summer, get so quickly launched into a nationwide rightwing blog sensation? Why were there so many sites and organizations online and live within minutes or hours after his rant, leading to a nationwide protest just a week after his rant?

What hasn’t been reported until now is evidence linking Santelli’s “tea party” rant with some very familiar names in the Republican rightwing machine, from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called “astroturfing”) to bigwig politicians and notorious billionaire funders. As veteran Russia reporters, both of us spent years watching the Kremlin use fake grassroots movements to influence and control the political landscape. To us, the uncanny speed and direction the movement took and the players involved in promoting it had a strangely forced quality to it. If it seemed scripted, that’s because it was....(MORE)

No.  You are wrong, rut.

They have no solutions, Benedict.  They just try to obscure the real facts with lies, moaning and groaning.

http://www.zazzle.com/tea_baggers_tshirt-235891223255622070 

Fredo looked up the link for it.  Here is where you can order one.  I'm getting one.

That doesn't keep the price from being jacked up to pay her fee.  Why didn't she just forego the fee in the first place?

Don't you find it just a bit "suspicious' that she only decided to "donate" her fee after people started pulling out of the convention because of it?   

 Rut, my dream is for the Republicans to run Palin in 2012 against Obama!!!! I'll be laughing all the way to the polls!  Unfortunately, I don't think the Republican Party is even that stupid.

So am I.  But, if the Republicans would start relying on their conscience instead of lining their pocketbooks with lobbyists' money, we could have a good working government.  Right now, we have a government that is in gridlock. 

Like she donated $47,000 of her SarahPAC to buying up her own book...

She is still taking the money.  That drove up the people's cost to attend.  She has lied before.  How do I know she will really donate the money; and to whom is she going to donate it?  The tea party movement supposedly has no structure.  If she gives it to this guy who is organizing this--is he angelnurse's husband--I think he is, who's to say he won't stick it in his bank account.  That's why 
Bachman and the other Senator withdrew--concern over how the money was going to be spent.

I heard she did use a whopping 5% on Republican candidates. Which means 95% (including the book fees) is where?

Why is she asking for a fee to begin with? I heard that anyone who wants to attend has to pay $550!!!  Who has that kind of money in this economy. This doesn't sound grass roots to me if only rich Republicans can attend. Oh...I'm sure she's asking for the fee to get a tax break most likely. Grass roots..what a joke.

Like the average Teabagger, Ms Palin has never said which function of government she would eliminate to make gov't smaller. Her more sophisticated Fascist partners target Social Security and Medicare. She seems focused on nothing in particular besides her personal fortune.

Which would I most admire? It's close between Medicare and Social Security, but on the bottom line, I guess I choose the DoD budget. It's almost a total waste. All we have to do is change all people into angels and there would be no need for any form of military, not even local police forces. Medicare and Social Security, on the otherhand, would still be needed even if we were all angels. But I'm willing to listen to debate to the contrary.

"Wrinkled and soiled"?  I thought that was you guy's standard dress code!

Hey Rut...and SWG if she cares to respond....I just need to get a little information about the original statement about Tea Party coming about because of a Veterans issue.

Can anyon give me a like on that one??

Winning, Veterans across the board were unhappy that their benefits were being slashed because of the economic downturn.  They began protesting on state capitol doorsteps.  

When the tea bag movement began to pick up steam, they became a part of it.

I always read seven or eight sources when I prepare to write a post, so that I minimize making a mistake.  I cannot remember exactly which source this came from  However, there is a good post from a Michigan vetean which explains their frustratiion.

http://www.michiganlegion.org/sb250.pdf

Among the protesters were veterans, deeply suspicious of the young liberal president and embittered, ironically, by Congress's failure to keep its promise to give them government-run health care for life.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2010/01/27/joe-scarborough-shovels-dirt-tea-party-movement-newsweek#ixzz0eaRtx91s

Rut, when are you going to learn I don't pull these things out of thin air?

"We aren't looking for cheesy t shirts to demean our opposition"

Speak for yourself, I am looking for something to wear to my first Tea-Party event. Some friends want to take a camara and let me do some "Questions" for our local Appalachian Tea-Partiers. I am betting a free meal from Applebees I can have them incoherently babbling in 3 questions or less.

Think I will get a free meal rut?

A third bone of contention has been the invitation to Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice-presidential candidate, to make Saturday night's keynote speech in return for a reported fee of $115,000. "If you have someone acting as if they are a great messiah and Hollywood figure, I have a problem with that," said Glass.

Glass is a member of one of the tea bagger movements.  He and his group withdrew over Palin's rate.   He is the one who reported that she was asking $115,000.   She apparently upped her price for this event. 

Welcome to NewsBusters, a project of the Media Research Center (MRC), the leader in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.  Now, whose credibility gap is showing.  A biased blog deliberately trying to slam the " liberal media bias."    My source was The Guardian, a UK based independent  internet and paper post with no ties to any liberal source in the U.S.  It is considered one of the five best UNBIASED media sources for news about the U.S.

Winning:  I had to go to my other computer to track this down.  See my reply to Rut above.

So??????????????????????????????????

There's no credibility gap.  That's exactly the definition the dictionary gives.  The fact that it is urban slang has absolutely nothing to do with the definition for the word.  There is no other definition under urban slang given, if I am to believe rut.  I haven't checked for another definition. 

There are thousands of slang words defined in dictionaries.  When I want to know the definition of any word--slang or otherwise, I go to the dictionary. 

Teabaggin was around before the "tea-party" movement. This was a fail from the "movement start team"...AKA Koch industries, Freedom Works, Americans For Prosperity, et. al

So???????????????????????????? rut, what's you point?  That's what dictionairies do; they define words--slang or otherwise, including archaic words that are no longer in common usage but may be found in literature or poetry.

Sorry!  Typo on the word "dictionaries!"

Insulting someone's age is a sign of Maturity? This isn't anyone specific definition, it was just the definition before your astro-turf groups decided to call themselves that.

Making it, Ironically fitting...

I know what the other definition is; but since you guys chose this name, you have no complaints.

You can criticize maturity when you prove better than grammar school writing and research skills, or don't cast insults and obviously have little knowledge of the topic.

They certainly don't stand for what they say, and they certainly are not grass-roots.

I just reported what was reported about the event.  Infighting, dissing Palin, and griping about the price.  For your information, I spent several hours researching this before I wrote it.  Which fact do you dispute, Bliss?  Your comments never have any substance to them...just you trying to get in jabs without any substance.  No wonder you love Beck--that's exactly his style too.

Well your lacking the big fact that Bachmann and Blackburn had to pull out because of House Ethics rules... 

You can think what ever you want of the Tea Baggers... I know some stuff myself.. 

EKY? I am no part of anything but Grass-roots... are you calling me a liar? We have a few of our local leaders in Nashville... totally grassroots... it really sticks in your crawl... 

So are you pushing your rep then to make AIG and the banks giving more than 100 million in Bonuses to get regulated to never cause a crisis again? To reform Wall Street? Are you for these things, are you telling your reps to work with democrats on this, because they are not.

SWG... I don't say anything unless I have some info that you have gotten wrong... veterinarian, ring a bell? 

or info from Fredo that you took second hand without verifying???

You mean AIG the one that gave BHO and Chris Dodd the two largest political contributions? The AIG that Obama continues to give money to? That one?

So no...You don't want to regulate them, or you haven't thought about it.

How "populist" your "grassroots" sect must be....

Luck with that.

First I am asking for clarification on which AIG? There are a few around.

Sounds to me like you all have some concerns about the Tea Party movement... 

I do, I think they are either frauds, or cowards when it comes to focusing their anger at Wall Street for partisan reasons. Prove me wrong...

EKY... you are a progressive... no way will I ever agree with you... 

bye now.

And therein lies the problem. That is the philosophy of the republicans, if the dems want it, or say it, it must be wrong or bad. And thus they never listen.

It is all partisan, and there is the problem. Wall Street reforms are good for the people, they did crash the economy. If tea-partiers meant it, they would push the republicans to agree with dems on reeling that in. They won't. They are corporate shills, it shows in how few opposed the Supreme court decision, it shows as they remain silent as republicans say let the banks and wall street rip off the people, and that isn't populist.

Its corporatist.

you want big government... I guess to wipe your butt even.. the dems are down and dirty with wall street.... there are progressives in both parties... and I will work to root them out of our government!!!

That is what the Tea Party folks are going to do too... if you want to know.. 

So it is purely partisanism. As I suspected. Scream against the government as the corporate puppet-masters tell you, but not at Wall Street whom you content is one of the villians in the scenario as well but whom you don't deem priority enough to address too.

Makes sense if you are a partisan corporatist.

As I said, Luck with that. As republicans vote against and block jobs bills and Wall street Reforms, and you sit on your hands, the disingenousness of the movement will shine through, and it will be seen as nothing more than a radical sect of republicanism, like the evangelical movement.

And my article states that very specifically.

Brian it is another name for a spending bill..... I am very leary of it and the SPENDING has to quit for the Business sector to gain confidence to invest! You have stated this before yourself I believe. I can't believe they just think they can spend us into oblivian, build confidence, and grow private sector jobs.. ???

I really like your new Avatar Pic SWG.... easy on the eyes!

There are two main ways to create jobs, one is spending, the other is tax cuts. We seen that the "tax cut theory" is full of during the previous administration, because what they do is keep it for the bonuses or whatnot (or keep it for unrestrained campaigning in novemeber...). So being that only fools try the same thing twice and expect different results, the dems went with spending. We did see successes with the Stimulus package, while bleeding jobs. It would have been far worse, unemployment and so forth, had it not been for the the stimulus bill.

No actually I missed that statement by Reid, but personally it sounds to me like he is being foolishly optimistic yet again. They may be posturing and saying they will work with them, but wait and see. I bet you this bill will have as many glitches and road-blocks as the other. I see components of the base protesting already, before any real debate has begun. This is what Obama warned the GOP house members about, How they have "boxed themselves in with the rhetoric so that it is hard for them to work with democrats.

I do hope some things do change this year, But I am not optimistic.

I'll send you a few things by inbox, I need to check mine, I have a couple unread messages my bar says...

The last "stimulus bill" created 1.6 Million jobs according to the Congressional budget office, at a time when we were bleeding jobs. You don't think 1.6 million working during a recession and job bleed helps?

Bliss, you need to go back and read the quotes regarding Bachmann and Blackburn. That's exactly what they say.  When Phillips set up his corporation "for profit", that created a potential ethics problem for them.  They consulted the ethics committee and were told it could be construed to be a conflict of interest, so they withdrew.

This next comment is to address a common misconception that Obama is spending us into oblivion.  I am going to put up a graph that shows how our
GDP compares, adjusted for inflation, with past Presidents.  I think it's really interesting. 

National Debt Graph: Bush Goes for WWII Stimulus   Click image below to enlarge.

Note the run-up in debt starting in 1942. That's equivalent to $10 trillion today. That pulled the economy out of the great depression and into high gear to win World War II.

How We Get Out of the Great Depression II
By Steven Stoft, March 2, 2009
Here we go again:   Hoover got us in, and WWII got us out.  Bush got us in, and
to his credit, started trying to get us out. Though, mostly he threw money at bankers. In the Great Depression, Roosevelt tried deficit spending, but he was too timid. Then he stopped in 1937 and the economy nose-dived. It took the humongous deficits of WWII to pull us out of the Great Depression. Those deficits blasted the economy from depression into overdrive. We are now headed into the worst slump since 1938, and you better hope Obama can fix it because that was not a pretty time. Unfortunately, as in the Great Depression, the extreme conservatives would rather trash the country than have our government succeed. The main thing to remember is that, with consumer spending going down, business is going to lay people off—not hire them. You can't blame business for this. It's just a vicious cycle that the economy gets into. And you can't blame consumers for not spending in bad times. The only way out of this, if we don't want to wait 10 years, is for the government to spend, pay unemployment insurance, or give tax breaks to people who will spend (not the rich)  Obama has done all that in his first year; but more must be done. Of course there's also the problem of the banks. What Roosevelt did was close every single bank in the United States.  He passed the Bear Stearns Act to regulate banking, which kept investment and commercial banking separate; then he decided which banks could re-open.  He also created the  FDIC.  
The Bear-Stearns Act, which kept our banks on an even keel for 60 years, was repealed in 2000 by Congress.  It took eight years from that point for the banking industry to implode. The two main sponsors of the bill were both Republicans.

How would you know whether I verified Fredo's information or not?  

For your information, I clicked on his link. 

I'll make a deal with you.  You take down Beck and I will take down Obama.   

No I like your Obama, he is easy on the eyes... and I support Glenn Beck! 

Okay!  He stays up then.

I did NOT delete Rut's messages nor did I report him.  I can only assume that someone else may have reported him and the moderator removed them.

wow, that bad? Grouchy old man...lol!

Probably deleted them all himself with the comments section in the settings.