Bachmann: If you look at China, they don't have food stamps, and China's growing!

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Run time: 00:44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oksH-TP-1mI   Posted on YouTube: November 13, 2011 By YouTube Member: tpmtv Views on YouTube: 1098   Posted on DU: November 13, 2011 By DU Member: Amerigo Vespucci Views on DU: 10413

 

Michele Bachmann made a curious suggestion during Saturday night's Republican debate.

Fielding a question about which social programs she would cut if president, the Minnesota Congresswoman said that China provided a good example of a society without a social safety net. The fact that China's government is resolutely socialist appeared to be lost on her.

Bachmann said that Lyndon Johnson's Great Society has "not worked, and it's put us into the modern welfare state...If you look at China, they don't have food stamps."

She continued, "They save for their own retirement security, they don't have AFDC (Aid to Families With Dependent Children), they don't have the modern welfare state, and China's growing...and so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us, with the Great Society, and they'd be gone."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/12/michele-bachmann-us-china-socialist_n_1090688.html

[harun]

1. When she speaks it is so full of bad assumptions, falsehoods and lies I don't even know

where to start. BS overload...

[W T F]

36. She's a Communist!!!! and this proves it!!!

[tooeyeten]

43. she makes

the Stepfords look like and sound like "hippies."

[Roy Rolling]

50. Who is stupider?

Bachmann or the people who clapped at her idiotic sociology lesson?

[ScottLand]

2. She's so wise! Let's do model ourselves after China - maybe

then the freaking job creators will give us jobs!

:crazy:

[Enthusiast]

18. Yeah.

Then both countries would be too poor to buy the products.

[tsuki]

3. Does this AIR Head even have reading capabilities? No social safety

net, except for minimum livelihood insurance, government subsidized health insurance which 80% of the rural population has, and old age pensions. Yea, no safety net.

Michele Bachmann is stupid.

[elzenmahn]

23. How ignorant can a politican get?

...and how cynical, because she knows that her target audience probably won't do their homework and fact-check her statements, which wouldn't be hard to do. All one would have to do is ask a Chinese emigrant or tourist.

[valerief]

39. + 1 gazillion!

[Philosopher King]

4. They don't have a lot of the things we have...including freedom.

[valerief]

38. 99% of people here don't have that, except the freedom to die hungry. nt

[Philosopher King]

41. When exactly was the last documented case of someone actually starving to death in the USA?

Someone being locked in the cellar without food doesn't count. And neither do psychological eating disorders or child neglect.

I am talking about actual, down to the last dime, exhausted all resources, charity and government assistance starvation...???

I'm sure lots of folks are hard up and I don't mean to sound cold-hearted, but do some research on the dust bowl and the Great Depression. At that time there was actual and desperate starvation (not a lot of fat people in those old "Hooverville" photos).

Basic nutritious food in the US is cheaper than it has ever been in the history of humanity. Things like rice, beans and even (with a little effort) fruits and vegetables can be had in sufficient quantities to feed a family for $10/day--less in many cases. It ain't Lobster Newburg but it will keep you full and healthy.

[1monster]

47. "Basic nutritious food in the US is cheaper than it has ever been in the history of humanity. "

When was the last time you were in a grocery store?

When I got my first apartment in 1975, my roommate and I loaded our grocery cart to the top, over flowing, and it cost us less than $30. That was enough food to last us a month, excepting those perishable that don't last more than a week. (And minimum wage then was $1.85 or $1.90 per hour. That $30 sure didn't hurt me as much as the $200 plus spent on groceries and house hold supplies hurts now.)

Today, thirty dollars worth of food doesn't last us (a family of three) even half a week -- buying cheap food. And the food costs more this week than last. Our paychecks have shrunk in the last several years, rather than grown enough even to half keep up with inflation.

I'd like to see your documentation on how food in the US is cheaper now than in any other time in history.

[valerief]

55. I guess all the hungry children in America don't count until they die. nt

[fasttense]

59. No one tracks the number of people starving to death.

What is tracked is malnutrition. It will take a good long while for an otherwise healthy adult to starve to death. Even children can survive long periods without food without dying. Starvation is caused by severe malnutrition. Usually even in poorer, 3rd world nations children will die not from lack of total caloric intake but from a lack of a specific vitamin or mineral that creates an environment for rapidly developing diseases.

One of the indicators that have been used for decades to determine if caloric intake is sufficient for a population, is height and weight ratios of children. Higher or increasing underweight ratios in a population of children is a good indicator that people are starving to death.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/underweight_child_07_08/underweight_child_07_08.htm#table1

US Totals For 2003-2006 is 3.3 Total for 2007-2008 is 3.7

All across the age groups there is a consistent increase in underweight children in the US.

So yes, more people are starving to death in the US. We just don't record the actual number of deaths based simply on lack of caloric intake.

[baldguy]

48. Well, Crazy Eyes is working on that.

[Ikonoklast]

5. Who Would Republican Jesus Let Starve?

Just great, dumbass.

Food stamps are run by the Dept. of Agriculture for a good reason, dumbass, they provide an outlet for the foodstuffs grown by American farmers and subsidized by the government, and help keep prices on basic commodities at an affordable level...for EVERYONE.

She wants to run family farmers out of business in this country. Ask a family farmer of he wants the government to stop the way it subsidizes food prices in this country throught those programs, and he'll look at you as if you've gone insane.

[AlbertCat]

13. Who Would Republican Jesus Let Starve?

Gays.... obviously.



C'mon people...get with the Bachmann program!

[Thor_MN]

6. On behalf of Minnesota, we apologize to anyone who watched that.

You are never going to get that time back and are less intelligent for having heard it. You have just lost the use of the brain cells that paid attention to it, they most likely will wither and be reabsorbed by your body within a few days. Again, we are sorry.

[Cirque du So-What]

9. No need to apologize

You and the good people of MN have no need to apologize for any nutcase politician who manages to wrangle power - anymore than the good people of SC need to apologize for Strom Thurmond or the good people of CA to apologize for Ronald Reagan or the good people of MA to apologize for Mitt Romney. I could go on. I long for the day when posts with titles along the lines of 'WTF is WRONG with (insert state or region over whom I feel superior)?' get pulzerized into an exceedingly fine powder. It's just a form of bigotry that serves to keep us divided against each other. Repugs LOVE to see Democrats and progressives engaging in such activities.

[Enthusiast]

19. They're in every state.

No need to apologize.

[Felinity]

54. Thank YOU

Here I was thinking I would have to have those cells surgically removed.

WHOOSH! Good News!

[Sarah Ibarruri]

7. You gotta give this woman credit. She's dumb as a box of rocks, her ratings are floor-low....

but she keeps on flapping her jaw. LOL!

[bob_k]

27. She's dumb as a box of rocks

What do you have against  rocks?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

51. Oh, I'm so mean to rocks!! nt

[bulloney]

8. OMFG! If ignorance was a snowflake, Bachmann would be a blizzard!

And once again, you hear the audience give a rousing round of applause to the sheer stupidity coming out of one of those clowns' mouths.

Where do the Republicans find so many people of such ignorance? This has to be the product of 20-plus years of people listening to RW talk radio and Faux Snooze.

Bachmann travels all around the country slamming socialism but turns around and emulates a communist country.

Does this goofball have any ability to read and reason? And what does it say about her followers?

[Beartracks]

44. +1,000 And I thought *Dubya* was a RW wet dream.

Dubya was frat-boy stupid. You got the impression he COULD have done better.

Bachmann is just a complete air-head. You can tell she's as smart as she's ever going to be.

==============

[Douglas Carpenter]

if we can all just adjust to the same standard of living as China -our economy could really grow too

Run time: 00:44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oksH-TP-1mI   Posted on YouTube: November 13, 2011 By YouTube Member: tpmtv Views on YouTube: 1098   Posted on DU: November 13, 2011 By DU Member: Douglas Carpenter Views on DU: 10413

 
:crazy:

[KansDem]

10. I just woke up, but after seeing this, I'm ready to go back to bed.

Shit like this makes me want to reach for my scotch at 8am...

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. It's too bad she can't be disqualified for stupidity

[KansDem]

12. I'd gladly pay for the taxi to take her to the funny farm

It would be cathartic...

[Bombtrack]

14. how is it that she doesn't have 1 democratic opponent according to politics1.com ?

http://www.politics1.com/mn.htm

not that she's among the top 30-40 congresspeople I'd like to get rid of. At least she's entertaining and probably does more harm than good to the national GOP at this point.

[tsuki]

15. Because the Fifty-State Strategy was shut down by the smart political operatives?

[spooked911]

21. she had a challenger in 2010, I heard an interview with the challenger-- she was a good progressive

Bachmann however, seems to really resonate with most of the people in her district, a lot of it has to do with religion, uinfortunately.

[AlbertCat]

29. a lot of it has to do with religion, uinfortunately.

Religion has a lot to do with ALL of mankind's problems.... unfortunately.

[Turbineguy]

16. How did this poor woman ever

graduate from college?

[Enthusiast]

22. Oral Roberts University.

ORU is now Regent University. Like Michele Bachmann's views, I doubt ORU was much grounded in reality.

[Turbineguy]

26. But she went to some real colleges as well.

Winona and William & Mary.

[Enthusiast]

30. That is almost shocking.......nt

[Enthusiast]

17. She is deeply stupid.

Like Mariana Trench deep.

[ErikJ]

35. I prefer "zealously ignorant"

She seems to state her ignorance and lies with such gusto is what bugs me.

[Enthusiast]

49. Well, you're right.

She embraces those lies! Some of the stuff that comes out of her mouth. Shocking really.

[dotymed]

20. Yes Michelle, China is the country to emulate.

return to slaves and slave wages, then the 400 could have even more while the vast majority suffer and die faster.

China is a feudalistic society, these people(?) have been busy implementing feudalism since reagan.

Don't these tea-partiers claim to be strict constitutionalists?

How do you combat vacuous stupidity? She has had her 15 minutes, please let's just ignore her. BTW, she is the poster-child for voting reform. There is no way that she legally became a Congresswoman.

[AlbertCat]

31. Don't these tea-partiers claim to be strict constitutionalists?

See... all my youth.... thru the 1950's, 60' and 70's I thought (like most people) conservatives HATED communism. They hated the USSR and China.... right?

Now we see clearly it wasn't hate.


It was ENVY.

[dotymed]

60. agreed Comrade.... n/t

[underpants]

24. and they have starvation and no electricty outside of the cities and manufacturing plants

[rucky]

25. Just when I thought she couldn't get stupider.

[Angry Dragon]

28. I guess she is for government control of companies

turning this country communist
she would be required to turn communist as a law maker
this her dream to be a dictator

[Zambero]

32. OK Michelle, here's the deal...

Food stamp eligible families in your district will accept your forthcoming offer to withdraw from that program and immediately show up at your fundie church for a generous charitable helping hand from you and your fellow parishioners. No cuts in benefits allowed, no bureaucratic gov't red tape, just do what Christ clearly instructed you to do in that Bible you love to thump. Hey, that sure beats what China has to offer doesn't it?
Pony up time, Michelle!

[RufusTFirefly]

33. Mind-bogglingly stupid, but, ironically, this is closer to the way democracy should work

Among all the candidates, Bachmann receives the highest percentage of small individual contributions (52%), as opposed to large individual contributions (22%).

Compare that with Romney (10%/91%) and Perry (4%/95%), for example, and you realize that in our money-corrupted election process that clueless Michelle comes closest to being an actual grassroots candidate.

Let's face it: There are probably just a lot of equally clueless people who think carbon dioxide is "natural" (and, thus, not harmful) and that evolution is just a theory, who are emptying their piggy banks and sending the contents off to some campaign headquarters in Minnesota.

Of course, Bachmann would probably just be another street-corner crackpot if she didn't get some serious backing at some point and if she didn't benefit from the gigantic corporate media megaphone, both directly and indirectly. But that's fodder for another discussion.

[brewens]

34. Neanderthals had a social safety net! That's why we consider

them to have been human. They found remains of individuals that were crippled but lived for some years after their injuries. Clearly being cared for and allowed to eat, even though they couldn't hunt anymore.

[peacetalksforall]

37. "They be gone"? Were those her last three words?

All those people following her stupidity?

I think she was created in a think tank - her purpose is to destroy the intelligence of her followers? Tavistock Institute.

[SirRevolutionary]

40. Never before has there been an All Star Circus Clown parade

assembled that could give Saturday Night Live a run for it's money. They are comedy gold! :rofl:

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

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[Left Coast2020]

45. She needs to move to China.

She appears to enjoy the government that detains people in hidden prisons. Say something bad against Wen Jiebao? You're gone in a nano-second.

[davidthegnome]

46. Someone should remind her...

that China is a communist Nation and republicans are supposed to hate communists.

Or, alternatively, she could shut the hell up and crawl back to whatever disgusting rock spawned her.

[JJW]

52. She and her family have raked in millions from the Fed

Typical Republican hypocrisy.

[Zambero]

53. So, just replace socialism with communism

As long as it's Michelle's brand of communism that is. Namely, market-driven capitalism enabled by a low-wage sweat shop work force, and a repressive government that allows no individual rights. I might sound like a righty here, but what's keeping her from purchasing a one-way ticket to Beijing if China is the Utopia she says it is? Why does she hate America?

[marmar]

56. Militant ignorance.

nt

[Proles]

57. Hmm, does this mean she's a communist? lol /nt

[Ganja Ninja]

58. How can someone so throughly stupid get elected to office?

A Republican running for office in a Republican district must be the easiest thing in the world to do. It doesn't matter what comes out of your mouth. Just bad mouth liberals, socialism, the welfare state and flout your christianity and the faithful will show up no matter how brain dead you appear to be.