BJean

Yes, according to the anti-choice people, a fetus's life trumps the life of the woman - or girl, in the case of the 9 year old who has been brutally raped. We already have prisons full to bursting with people that we don't want to deal with. Drug addicts, drunk drivers, pot smokers and other "criminals" who need help in order to live and become a productive member of society. We don't want to deal with the problems so we shut people away in prison to the point that we allow murderers out of prison in order to house them. And now you think that incarcerating women who consider abortion is an acceptable answer to the problem of unwanted and unplanned pregnancies. It is ludicrous and it is inhumane. And ignorant, did I mention ignorant? Because it surely is an ignorant idea. And I'll tell you how ignorant these "pro-life" people are. They kill doctors who perform completely legal, life-SAVING, abortions. Kill them. How do you discuss this topic with them? You don't. They are completely irrational and ignorant and inhumane.

It isn't one program as some people seem to think. That portion of the pie chart includes a lot of programs. And yeah, it's approximately the 3rd largest piece of the pie. So why does everybody who complains about taxes act like it is the reason that they pay taxes - or the primary reason they pay taxes. It isn't.

Oh and don't forget their shoes - they're all out buying expensive athletic shoes, right?

The Baptist church where I was a member, denied communion to certain people. The First Christian Church, on the other hand, held an open communion and encouraged everyone to join in the ritual. The Catholic church has its' rules, just as other churches do. When my DH married me, a divorced woman, he was unable to take communion until my first marriage was annulled by the church. Well to be perfectly clear, if he had wanted to take communion, he could have. No priest would have stopped him at the altar and refused to allow him to sip from the cup. But they make their rules very clear to their parishioners and good Catholics wouldn't dream of going against those rules since most have been completely brainwashed at an early age, into believing that the Pope is infallible. But I agree with you C'sM. It is an awful thing to do - for a church to use an important religious sacrament to get their members to agree to their beliefs 100%.

Funny bumper sticker! It reflects how many people are feeling today about the right wing extremists trying to force their politics on everyone else. If America is made up primarily of Christian people, lots and lots of Christians get abortions.

The anti-choice's answer to what really happens to real women if they successfully legislate away the rights of women regarding abortion is always the same - tough luck, honey, if it means YOU die. They claim that tiny little blob of cells is a human being and that trumps any problems, physical or mental, that you have. They want to afford an embryo or stem cell all the rights and protection that the law offers every actual human being and they go so far as to stick the long arm of the law up a woman's vajayjay to prevent her from interfering with what they deem God's plan. If a woman is raped by some crazed monster and it results in a pregnancy - that's God's plan. If a woman has physical problems that would put her life at stake if she carried a baby to term, tough luck 'cause it's God's plan for her to die in order to give that fertilized egg a chance at survival. Oh man, I could go on and on with hundreds of very REAL scenarios that cause women to be in such horrible situations that they might need an abortion. But why bother? The right wing's answer is always the same - it's God's plan - so buck up sister. When that's your only answer, there's no discussion or reasoning or compassion or anything else to consider. They claim that God demands that every woman who becomes pregnant, no matter what the circumstances, MUST attempt to physically nurture the embryo to full term and produce the child, if at all possible, since that is within God's plan. When that is what you believe, you're going to do all you can to invade a woman's privacy and her body to enforce a rule that you believe is right and good to fulfill God's plan. All we can do is fight for our rights. Fight for our freedom to decide for ourselves what must be medically done to preserve our health and our lives. That means that we never give up the fight against the clergy and people who wish to control us and force us to do what they've deemed is God's plan. No matter how much guilt they heap on us, no matter how many gruesome photos they wave in our faces, no matter whether they point their guns at us or even shoot us. We cannot allow them to take control of our bodies by legally taking away every woman's right to make her own medical decisions to preserve her own health and well being. They plan to outlast us, wear us down and guilt Congress into doing their bidding. We must never allow that to happen.

Do you have any idea what proportion of your tax dollars actually goes to welfare programs specifically? Have you seen a pie chart of how much of your money actually goes to which government program? You might be surprised.

Dude, what I want for America has nothing to do with the dictatorship in Cuba. You, on the other hand, talk like someone who would like to live in Mexico. You could be one of the elite, hog it all, and to hell with the peons. Let some other country give them work. That's what this country seems to be headed for under the likes of Bush/Cheney (although to be fair I should have put Cheney's name first.) And patty you should win just by virtue of the fact that you can post more bullshite. I hate to burst your bubble, but just because the extremists say it louder and more often doesn't make it a fact, darlin.

You've hit the proverbial nail on the head, CM's!!! The point is not or should not be whether a fetus is a blob of cells or a human being or a tumor. The argument is whether the government has a right to effectively interject itself into a woman's body, with the woman having no say in it. It is like something out of a sci-fi movie where some nameless, faceless entity is telling its' citizens whether they can or cannot reproduce, and if they can reproduce which sex it must be. We have learned a grim lesson from the time when our government told women what they legally must do if they became pregnant. What we learned is, legal or not, women will make their own decisions about their reproductive organs and they will make the decision to abort if it is absolutely necessary, whether it is legal or not and even when the woman risks her own life in the process by using some backstreet butcher. Making abortion illegal does not work and it is wrong.

Doncha love folks who are living in the most wonderful country in the world and they think that it got here because some yutz organized a find raising picnic and donated to the charity of their choice. That's not the way this country runs. Unfortunately we can't wait for people like you to muster up some element of kindness toward your fellow citizens to make this one of the most wonderful places on earth to live. The FAIR way to run this country and afford you the things that you expect and need your country to provide, is for everyone to pay their fair share to make it happen. If we waited for each individual to feel a sense of responsiblity for keeping America what it is and to achieve the standard of living other industrialized countries have, it would never happen. There are all these people who want to decide when and how much they're willing to contribute to keep our country great. They don't think it is FAIR for their country to ask them to pay for the roads they drive on, the military to keep them safe from invaders, the police officer who is available 24/7, the schools their children attend, the quality of water that is piped into their houses, the clean air they breathe, or the hundreds of other things that make us a civilized society - including hellping people who have lost their homes and everything else because of circumstances beyond their control. It all goes back to greed and no sense of responsibilty for community and nation. Well if you don't want to pay taxes, move someplace where you won't be taxed. Please send us a card and tell us all about how wonderful it is for you and yours. Because here in America, we take care of our country and our people. We step up to the plate and make things happen that will benefit us all. We are the patriotic ones, not the yutzes that wear a lapel pin and say they love their country but complain because they have to pay taxes because some part of it might go to help someone they don't think needs help.

Obviously you read it wrong. It isn't assmunch, it's ass munch. Bigggg difference. Hope you have a happy 2010. Reading your posts this past year has been a weird combination of snotty and funny. Like I said, I prefer funny. You usually have a great sense of humor when you aren't making wild assumptions about mine or someone else's posts. Cheers!

Whoo baby, intellect is as intellect does. You need to bring back your sense of humor. I liked you better when you weren't so defensive.

Hey AM, I'm not whining, I'm bitching. And I didn't actually observe, on this thread, that you were taking up for the righties. That doesn't mean you haven't done it on other threads - where you did in fact, do it to me and in favor of a right winger that you obviously, by the arguments you make, support. And you're the one who's whining. I do not have to back up anything. I can say whatever I wish, within reason. You can believe me or not - your perrogative. You, as a mod, should be careful about unfairly singling out someone for getting personal by getting personal. Geez, this is fun.

btreiger you're way off base in your sweeping generalizations of liberals. Yes, there are certain things that liberals believe in and want. But you're accusing them of the most odd-ball stuff you can imagine. I'm with CsM, you've been reading the Limbaugh playbook too long and you must be drinking the kool-aide.

patty I understand the stats for home schooled children as compared to public and private schooled children. And you're boasting because...??? What I want for our children and this country are superior educations and learning experiences for all of our kids. Just because home schooled children do better than other children on tests, does not give us the whole picture nor does it in anyway mean that the home schooled children are getting the kind of education that I would like to see that all American children get.

I'm accused of not being able to admit that Congress had a role in Iraq, which is flat out not true. The right leaning folks don't seem to be able to come to grips with what really went down in the Bush administration that caused Congress, including most Democrats, to follow him like sheep to the slaughter. You've done a good job, Cleo's, of telling it like it was. Then there are the ones who can't understand why we keep bringing this up. Well that's pretty amazing considering it cost so many lives and has had such a negative impact on our nation - which is what they seem to be trying to blame the current administration for when they comment on this president's leadership role. Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it. I am not sure that anyone has come up with a clever saying for those who re-write the past. And plain, I know you can take a joke. Of course you may have figured out that I'm only half kidding.

Not an opinion, an observation. You're often repremanding folks for getting too personal. But you don't mind getting personal (and rude) with me. I don't mind getting personal when people are stating personal opinions, and you don't seem to if you disagree with someone. But if you like them, you expect everyone else to back off. Ass-munch.

plain you're an ass.

Don't be silly! Of course I know that most of Congress voted to fund the war in Iraq and they voted to give Bush the authority to make the decision of whether to bomb Iraq. That takes no convincing - it's fact. But what you don't seem to acknowledge is that Bush and Cheney and their cronies fudged the truth, they manipulated the facts and it is and was their war due to their decisions and their behavior. Interestingly, the one bright spot in the whole mess is that Senator Obama did not fall for the Bush administration's insistence that it was the right thing to do and he did not vote for it. It is also one reason that I decided to vote for candidate Obama.

Interesting that you have such inexpensive insurance, tdfsl1, I'm envious. You wouldn't believe what we pay for insurance that isn't accepted by most GPs in our area. And although we provide insurance for our company employees (which btw is better than what we have), they won't insure us because my husband and I have "preexisting" conditions, i.e., we've both had major surgery. For us, this system well and truly sucks and we HAVE insurance.

patty it's your approach to public schooling that had led to the apathy and resentment that we've allowed to permeate our schools. There is no reason why we can't have the best schools in the world and thereby create the best educated chidren in the world. We just don't want to have it. We'd rather isolate ourselves and our children and get mediocre results.

Michelle - so your dad owns a huge corporation? His company has enjoyed the incentives and tax breaks that the major oil companies, drug companies, chemical companies, etc., have been given? If he does own one of those companies, which I sincerely doubt, then you should be smart enough to just sit back and enjoy the obscene profits he's been enjoying for the past 10 years or so. No? He doesn't own a huge congolomerate? Then what qualifies you to speak for those corporations? Small companies and individuals are the ones who have suffered from the incentives and breaks that we're talkikng about. Having the incentives and breaks that have been unfairly afforded to corporate America taken away will only help you and your dad, not make you pay more. Nobody wants small businesses and individuals to suffer more than they already have by having to take up the slack for the huge money-makers in America. And if you don't want to call it Bush's war, to whom do you wish to give all the credit? Dick Cheney? Well, yeah I agree it's Cheney's war too. They're the ones who pushed the envelope and lied and led the Congress and America down a merry path to death and destruction in Iraq. It's the truth and my dear, and the Republicans must live with it.

Furthermore, I challenge any of you to purchase new insurance when you turn 65. If you've never had surgery or any kind of hospitalization or haven't been treated for diabetes, hypertension or high colesterol, or other ongoing medical conditions, then maybe you would be able to not only be accepted for a good insurance plan but you might even possibly be able to afford it. Otherwise, you'd thank your lucky stars for medicare. Of course the doctors are beginning to refuse to accept you as a patient if you're on medicare unless you have very specific back up insurance. So just having medicare isn't enough to get you medical care and medications from many doctors these days. The quality of health care in America is just wonderful if you are wealthy. If you aren't, the best medical care and the best medications are just not affordable. That's why so many people have lost their quality of life trying to pay for it when something happens that requires more than just basic medical care. And just because some of you are happy with your insurance doesn't mean that we have the best healthcare system in the world. We may have the best quality of treatments and medications in the world, but we sure don't have the best system for Americans to obtain our top-notch quality health care. Fixing the system we have should be of the highest priority right now. Those of you who are fighting it are out of touch with most peoples' reality. As for education, it too has tumbled into the crapper from the greed-driven way of life we've all been chasing. Inferior public schools haven't come about over a short period of time. It's come from major, major cutbacks and presidents and congress being satisfied with American children getting a little lost in the shuffle. Throwing money at it won't necessarily solve the problems we have in public schools, but jerking our children out and home schooling them and having rich folks refusing to send their children to public schools is adding to the problem. We need a public initiative to make our public schools a wonderful learning experience for our children. People seem to have forgotten that our children are our future. Turning over the running of our corporations and our country to ill-equipped young adults is, right now, a frightening thought.

Heck yeah, Cleo's Mom! And the number of BILLIONAIRES has increased by massive amounts under the Bush reign of terror. And that is due, at least in part, to cutting out the workers whenever possible, making their employees take salary cuts, decrease in goods and services and in the case of the insurance conglomerates, denying coverage and increasing premiums. These things are why the economy nearly collapsed and why most Americans are not enjoying the fruits of the Bush legacy. And why the Democrats are having to do the unpopular thing - bite the bullet and help right the sinking ship.

Michelle, so you don't make corporations pay their fare share and that's beneficial to whom? Do you think that for one minute that all the incentives and tax breaks that have been given to corporations has been passed on to consumers? Quite the opposite is true. So your theory just doesn't hold water.