Glenn Beck: All politicians are untrustworthy. Next up: Lyin' Michelle Bachmann!
By David Neiwert Friday Jun 26, 2009 12:45pm
At the opening of his show last night, Glenn Beck started ranting about how the Mark Sanford case proved you just can't trust any politicians -- not one of them.
Then, later on the show, Beck invited wingnut Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., to come on and talk about why you shouldn't fill out your Census forms -- essentially repeating what she had said earlier on Fox.
Namely, that the Census was an overly intrusive act by Big Brother to pry into Americans' private lives, etc. etc., as she waved a long, detailed survey she claimed she had an advance copy of. She again charged that Census data was used to round up Japanese Americans during World War II.
Beck, of course, ate it up, and urged his audience to join Bachmann in her crusade.
Except, of course, that everything Bachmann said was untrustworthy: wildly inaccurate, grossly distorted, and downright mendacious -- not to mention completely nutty.
Ali Frick at Think Progress has the details:
First, both women were shocked that the Census would ask for people’s telephone numbers. However, that information is not required by law, and is used only to contact recipients who have incomplete forms.
Second, Bachmann is confusing the 2010 Census and the American Community Survey (ACS), a long-form survey sent out to one in 40 households (0.0028 percent of the American public) each year. The Census, sent out once every ten years, asks only about one’s age, race, and the type of home one lives in. The ACS, started in 1996, collects more detailed data used to distribute more than $300 billion in federal funds to local communities.
Most importantly, the questions that Bachmann is so concerned about — questions she suggests might somehow lead to internment — are not new questions (not to mention they frequently overlap with information given to the IRS every year). Census questions on race have been asked since 1790; home language since 1890; rent since 1880; and income since 1940. The Census has asked what kind of heating fuel heats Americans’ homes since 1940.
Finally, it’s a federal crime for any Census worker to violate the confidentiality of the Census form, punishable by a federal prison sentence of up to five years, a fine of up to $250,000, or both.
Now, the claim that Census data was used in helping the government found up Japanese Americans during WWII had a grain of fact in it: Later research revealed that the Census data indeed was plied by government officials during the internment.
But Bachmann is also omitting crucial information:
-- The data raids were empowered by the 1942 War Powers Act's suspension of the Census' confidentiality clause, which clearly stipulates that such mining is illegal. It only occurred during World War II. The confidentiality clause was restored by Congress in 1947.
-- It is currently a federal offense to reveal any Census data about individual citizens.
Finally, we have to admit to some confusion here. According to Glenn Beck's frequent guest, Michelle Malkin, the internment of Japanese Americans was fully justified anyway, and this seems to be a bit of received wisdom out there on Planet Wingnuttia these days. So which is it?
Beck should have stuck with his initial position: Politicians are innately untrustworthy.
Especially wingnut politicians like Michelle Bachmann.
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...like Beck, Billo, Rush, and so on (ad nauseum) are untrustworthy..
Especially when they can't keep their own lies straight..
if Bachmann and the far right wing TV and radio hosts are sent to internment camps?
fined $5,000 that would really add up, could use it to help fund Universal Healthcare. LOL
Assuming that the folks that vote to Bachmann are the ones more likely to listen to her, and that those Republicans would then be less likely to fill out the census, with the end result that strong Republican districts stand a greater chance of being undercounted, and therefore lose even more political power...
Aside from the whole constitutional issue, why aren't we applauding her efforts, encouraging her to take her movement national?
Call it the "Undercount the Republicans" party!
And since I've been criticized for not saying it elsewhere: /snark.
she says she will fill out how many people in the household. But that is it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW8NLPj6LoQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDGwCMcLs_M
Crunch nutty outside with a chewy burnt nougat on the inside. What could be better?
Sorry, it is Palin that owns the machine for those.
Michelle is more like a Malt Ball. Chewy on the outside and not much of anything on the inside.
You know, light brown on the outside and pink in the middle?
Okay, that was just wrong in so many ways..
in ways he could never have imagined. His lenses, limp in the blue moonlight couldn't get those shapely buns out of his sight.
But it's comforting to know he has a fall-back profession if the governor thing goes belly up.
are such page turners I try and read (and regurgitate)
several at the same time.
Are you already celebrating happy hour?
that are to blame. That and Obama.
Oh okay. I guess I can understand it then. Especially the Obama part. Who can't blame him for everything that has ever happened including Eve chowing down on an apple.
with an apple in it's fist reference?
The ingredients for stupid soup. One cup of Beck and one cup of Bachman. Add acorns slowly or the soup will explode.
If Bachman or Glenn were high school students neither of them could pass a history course, a civics course or a science course. They would be the ass hole kids who blamed their own failures on everyone else.
Looking forward to hearing Glenn tell us tonight how ACORN is responsible for Michael Jackson's death.
before the Asleep-at-the-Wheel gang discovered its usefulness as all-round whipping boy for their bullshit.
An association of community organisers. Who knows what kind of evil tom fuckery dwells within. Why did it take them nearly 40 years to uncover it?
Because now we have a black President and the majority of the photos we see of ACORN members show black people. So for people like Beck and his ilk, this means something bad for his little band of tea baggers.
on Sista Michelle B's unseemly sympathy for the Tokyo Rose's rounded up during the Big One?
Can somebody tell me why these batshit crazy people are on my teevee??
were allowed to get facts, there's no telling what sort of problems would result. Democracy, for example, or demands for representation in government. The corporations are protecting us from ourselves with a big wall of ka-razy.
My question is why is your teevee on Faux when C&L is doing the heavy lifting for us?
You turned it on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoxHGxQw9ws
Well I'm on your intertubes...
Even at his most stoned and craziest, I don't think he was as nuts as these folks.
Malkin and Beck have decided the energy bill is as Beck just said, " a gateway bill" to allow govt. into every part of your life.
lying? Michelle's pretty delusional; I think it would take a panel of psychiatrists to determine if she understands the moral implications of her words, or even if she knows where she is.
As for demanding that the wingnuts decide whether the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW2 was good or bad--Good luck. To the wingnut, facts are entirely situational: If the wingnuts need it to be bad, it's bad, and vice versa. Also, facts can be good and bad at the same time, because Clinton did it too.
In other important news, my girl cat likes olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Have to try it with some Feta.
Glenn Beck calling someone untrustworthy is like BillO calling someone too hot headed.
...sober.
Yeah, that too.
I believe that almost all of the right wing nut job talking heads you see on TV, including Glen Beck do not believe a word that comes spewing like diarrhea out their mouths. They only say what the say because it sells to a large segment of the population and mostly benefits the multinational corporations and the top %5 income people in the U.S. and the Fascists and Theocrats that might be listening. Mechellele Bachman is the exception. I think this mentally retarded waste of skin really believes the crap she talks about.
Its been authorized by the Constitution since 1790. Yes, since this country began. Its not an invasion of privacy, its just statistical data to make sure everyone is adequately represented in the legislature and make sure federal monies are being delegated in the right way. Michelle Bachman again has no clue of what she is saying. There are LAWS in force to prevent her from saying such things, she is impeding the business of the census bureau, which includes fines and jail time. Will anyone do anything? Not sure.
In Wingnuttia, it's all a communist plot invented by Nancy Pelosi, George Soros and their puppet, Barack Hussein Obama... the point is to secretly spy on "real Americans" in order to record their names and addresses and phone numbers so we can send Acorn out in the middle of the night to take their guns and bibles away.
If they are not named Mickey Mouse or Colonel Sanders, ACORN people will never find them.
Well thank you very much. Now you have let the cat out of the bag. This will make it much more difficult now for the ACORN people to do their job. It was going to hard enough to carry out all those guns from each house without making any sound but now the tea baggers know about it and will probably sleep with their guns and bibles under their pillows. Yeah, thanks a whole lot.
tooth fairies to find them. And you can bet they won't recognize or honor the sanctity of leaving a quarter under the pillow this time.
There will be nothing left under the pillow but a single silver acorn.
precious metals.
Okay then it will have to be just a little brown or green organic acorn.
I know that I used to play with it when I was little.
When people, especially politicians, come out squawking about something, nine times out of ten they are guilty of what they are squawking about and trying to prevent any focus from being zeroed in on themselves.
Japanese Americans have something to fear from Michelle after the census comes out?
How does she feel about private corporations having the same, or MORE info about us? HM? They do yah know.
What if the government were to just contract the work to a private data miner in her district, creating lots of jobs. We'd probably here nothing from her then.
I'm continually amazed at the way the wingnut mind works. They have NO problem with the government LISTENING IN on our phone calls and reading your emails "looking for terrorists", but the idea that they might ask you for your PHONE NUMBER is sending them into paranoid fits with visions of "big brother" rounding them up. WTF!?!?!
And in order to listen into to our phone calls, they ALREADY HAVE OUR FUCKING PHONE NUMBERS!!!
The other day I was having some trouble getting my email. I called a tech about it and asked if he could check to see if I was using the right pass word. Before he could help me he asked where I was born. I told him and it was smooth sailing from there. He knew where I was born. How?
Same thing happened when I wanted to charge something in a well known store but didn't have my card with me. The store called their main office and talked to my husband who was with me. The main office asked my husband what was his mother's maiden name. He told them and that was all they needed. How did they know his mother's maiden name.
If Michelle thinks the census is going to reveal some personal information, I can tell her there is a lot of it already out there.
I asked for a million dollars and they asked where I was born.
I think their knowing about the barn was just a lucky guess.
I wouldn't have guessed a barn, but I would have thought the location had something to do with a chimp and a grandfather. Maybe a home near where the chimp and grandfather lived or something like that.
But the US Attorney's office can't send her a letter asking her to stop. If they did that she'd go on a media tour claiming she was right about Big Brother all along.
I think they should send her the letter just for the fun of watching her spin in circles for a week or two. She would probably forget that she appeared on national tv saying what she said.
I Could not finish that one.
Watching two adults attempting to out stupid each other is not a pretty picture.
Last night at the white house they held a luau for the senate or house or something. Anyway, they had a dunk tank and Gibbs was in it. The reporters could buy tickets to try to dunk Gibbs. The money went to Gibbs favorite charity. Two reporters managed to hit the target and in the drink went Gibbs. This morning on Fox and Friends, they were speculating if the two reporters that dunked Gibbs would ever be called on in the daily briefings again. I swear to goodness those folks could find some nefarious plot in anything that goes on in this white house. It must be sad to always have to try to find something wrong even when something is just plain clean fun.
....that is why you see all these insane wingnut comments.
Check it out at about 3:45.
She says: "Does the government really need to know what time we leave mental stability?"
I'm afraid that was a long time ago for you Michelle!
- Embarrassed to be from MN
Her chicken done flewed the coop longs time ago.
I wonder if her Minnesota district will ever become SO embarrassed by her that they'll vote her out of office.
You think they'd be upset at having a genuine lunatic for a representative.
*
Bachmann doesn't belong in Congress, she belongs in a mental ward to have professionals work on her persistent paranoia and persecution complex. Telling constituents to intentionally violate the law based on her unprofessional and truncated intrepretation of law highly unethical as well.
I'm sure Edvard Munch was thinking of her when he painted "The Scream."
Comming from fox snews is like the pot calling the kettel black.
republicanism is a mental illness! Wow are these fuckers sick!
.
when michelle finally flames out, hopefully taking with her several wingnuts, with the force of an imploding star, i'll know there's a role waiting for famke janssen in the inevitable weepy docudrama ...
Oy, the crazy! It hurts!
maybe the crazies in the south will believe her, refuse to participate in the census, and we can finally stop sending those aholes money...and they will lose all their reps in congress
OH HAPPY DAY
Listening to this woman's voice makes my ears bleed and she makes Sarah Palin look smart.
Where is Al Franken?
Franken, just like the people in Iran, is fighting against anti-democratic theocratic election thieves.
Snip - VIDEO: We recently made sure Norm and his DC funders directly got the message that thousands of us are donating $1 each day Norm Coleman refuses to concede -- to help progressives defeat Republicans in 2010. (Video may take a moment to load.)
►[ https://services.myngp.com/NGPOnlineServices/... ](2:12)
At least 51% of the people in this woman's district must be mouth breathers. How else can one explain Bachmann getting elected.
Think log cabin Republicans and rancher types.
All that's missing is her red ball nose.
...meets the world's most insane politician, Michele Bachmann.
I hope there is someone making sure that Bachmann doesn't have access to sharp objects.
Bachmann is just is on crack or just plain stupid.
David this presumes a fact not in evidence: that she is spouting nonsense that she herself does not believe. Yet there is every evidence that she believes everything coming out of her mouth. Frankly this is a much more frightening thought than the idea of a politician lying but the fact must be faced.
Hey Republican sheep-- when you get a fine for failure to comply with the census, remember who suggested the idea. Perhaps you can sue and get Rupert Murdoch and Michelle Bachman to pay your bill.
This is Bachmann's attempt to get people to stop participating in polls and "census".
That way she can skew the numbers.
Hey, the GOP is polling at 28% approval. That's the whole party.
They gotta do something. They'll never admit that they've been wrong or have made mistakes. Or assume responsibility for putting the country in the current situation.
So, this is to be expected. Even if it does come from the looniest of the bunch. Next time Folks, put the lid back on the loony bin.
Enough have escaped already.
How this woman got re elected is beyond me.
Glenn may know how to play Barbie and Ken but what does he know about Malibu Stacy? Huh? HUH?
I am asking all resident's of Michelle Bachman's congressional district not to return their census forms. This will show that the area is completely unpopulated and therefore it will no longer require services of a U.S. representative nor will it garner any federal funding.
Somebody used some gov database to do that roundup of 1000s.
Citizens and residents arrested, beaten and mistreated.
I think the Faux audience of zombies should listen to Michelle on this one. For once, she knows what she is talking about.
If all of the conservatards failed to be counted in the next census, that would easily cost them 20 House seats if not more.
So, all of you Faux viewers, listen to Bachmann, don't fill out your census. She knows what she is talking about.
please listen to Bachmann, she is saying that she will fill out the census for how many people in her home. But that is it. Which is enough for them to be counted, and keep the House seats.
She claimed that the Census information collected between 1942 and 1947 was "handed over to the FBI and other organizations, at the request of President Roosevelt, and that's how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps." She then suggested that this might happen again.
But while Bachmann's concerns about the data collected by the Census appear to be new, the questions that she is concerned with are not. Indeed, Census questions on race have been asked since 1790; home language since 1890; rent since 1880; income since 1940; and how Americans heat their homes since 1940.
Moreover, as a former tax attorney, Bachmann ought to recognize that many of the Census questions that she considers invasive overlap with information that Americans give to IRS every year when filing their taxes. :-/
Can any one say MK-ULTRA? Bachmann and Malkin are so robotic and predictable its shameful. Where does she get these ideas? If her kin are progressives they probably hate her.
I worked on the last census in West Virginia and was treated with suspicion by the mountain folk. I was threatened more than once as were my colleagues. Bachmann's words could very well place in danger the workers who must go door-to-door. Even for Michelle this is a new low in responsibility.
Bachmann keeps raving on about the information the Census Bureau collected between 1942 and 1947.
I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, so I must be misinformed ... but doesn't the Census Bureau only collect it's data every even numbered 10 years, you know like 1940 and 1950????
I know the Bureau updates figures between 10-year census(es) using statistical means, but that wouldn't explain Bachmann's claims. What am I missing?
the 10yr census and the ACS which is distributed to I think 1 in 40 households every year. Both are ran by the Census Bureau.
https://ask.census.gov/cgi-bin/askcensus.cfg/...
beck and bachman producing offspring.
That much stupidity wouldn't be viable in the womb.
One of the goofy statements here by the looney Bachaman is that, "if you don't fill out the form (and the form asks for your phone number), you will be contacted by the Census people?.
But if they don't have your phone number and have to ask for it on the census, how can they call you. And are they contracting out to India to have the telemarketing industry call you?
I rea;;y like the Bachman tale of "not asking if your a citizen" when they are mailing them to citizens.
Bachman would like the census to appear as follows,
question #1
Are you a U.S. Citizen?
#2 Are you a naturally born Citizen?
(We won't ask if family imigrated at any point)
#3 Are you Al Qaida?
I just love Michelle Bachaman's Holloween Eyes.
Beck and Bachmann are the same person, so I don't see how she could be on his show. Oh, I see; they did with a split screen. That explains it. They must have taped that segment in advance and joined the panels up so he would be speaking, then they counted the time it would take for him to do her part. Finally, they wedded the shots. Fox is so technically advanced they can do about anything. I just wish Beck would make up his mind about his sex change operation. He can't go on doing the Mrs. Doubtfire shtick forever.
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