I've been scratching my head about two things lately. One, how can someone who isn't a multimillionaire vote Republican? Every platform they support is contrary to the average working class citizen's needs. Two, how can a woman profess to be a Christian when She obviously is a hypocrite and Liar? But when I listen to people like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell speak, it becomes clear how these things exist and why they are glorified.   Intelligence is awareness of ignorance.   Stupidity is ignorance of ignorance.   Now it all makes sense.   "It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. "Variously attributed to Lincoln, Elbert Hubbard, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin and Socrates.  Marine Corps Sgt. Ron Geste - Iraq

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EXTREMIST TEA PARTY REPUBLICANS ARE THE ENEMY AND TRAITORS TO AMERICA by R. Blackbird

Extremist Tea Party Republicans are selfish, power hungry, hateful of the poor, disloyal to the nation and its people, dishonest, avaricious, scornful of the nation's history, the dignity of its institutions, its standards of political morality, and its vision of advancement for all the people. The Republicans love war as long as they and theirs do not have to put on helmets and carry guns into the fighting. They use lies to start wars that kill hundreds of thousands of innocents and thousands of our own military service people. They love massive war-time profits, unavailable to their rich masters if war is absent.

Those Extremist Republicans hate the rest of us, which they must, in order to pass away from themselves and onto us, the financial burdens and losses their crimes, schemes and thefts cause. They are prolific, incessant, and destructive liars. They are blasphemers for they insist that their hateful and destructive deeds are the work of God. They are apostates for they gleefully attack the poor, the immigrants, the old and the sick, of whom God has commanded all of us to be mindful.

There is no reasoning with them, for all their logic is built on false premises. There is no appealing to them for honor's sake for they have lost all sense of shame and have no honor, there is no appealing to them for the nation's sake for that it what they hate the most.

Extremist Tea Party Republicans are the enemy.

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Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Presidential Candidate

 

 

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Excerpt from an article on huffingtonpost.com by Jason Cherkis July 8, 2011

Bradlee Dean Rants: Michele Bachmann-Linked Preacher's Bigoted Tirades (VIDEO)

 

WASHINGTON -- If you thought evangelical preaching needed longer hair, tattoos, nu-metal drumming, and a ton of hate speech directed at gays, then Bradlee Dean is your guy.

He's very much Rep. Michele Bachmann's guy.  Bachmann, whose district covers Dean's suburban Minnesota headquarters, didn't just endorse Dean, but has prayed for him and his ministry, You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, in a clip highlighted recently by City Pages.

"Would you keep them from evil?" Bachmann prays.  "Would you keep them from pain?"  Finally she begs the All Mighty to "pour a triple blessing on this ministry" and expand it ten fold.

Bachmann may come to regret her superfandom for Dean.  One news outlet has already suggested that Dean might be her Jeremiah Wright.  It's easy to make such a comparison.  Dean has amassed quite a video log on YouTube of ultra right wing conspiracy theories about New World Orders and made bigoted remarks directed at the LGBT community, Muslims and President Barack Obama.  In Dean's world Hitler was gay and Obama is, of course, equal to Osama bin Laden.

Dean refused to comment about his association with Bachmann.  A representative told The Huffington Post: "We're not tying ourselves with her... He's not interested in doing an interview."

The Bachmann campaign also had no comment.

But unlike Obama's connection with Rev. Wright, Bachmann has raised cash for Dean, appeared on his TV show, and, prayed for God to significantly increase the number of schools Dean gets to visit.

Above is a video compiling just some of Dean's greatest hits, drum solo included.

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The Scary Religious Ideology Behind Michele Bachmann's Anti-Gay Crusade

Does the draconian mandate of Old Testament law drive Michele and Marcus Bachmann's war on LGBT people?

July 15, 2011  |  

 

People who don't like LGBT people often cite a range of reasons for their disdain. Take GOP presidential contender Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and her husband, Marcus. Gay people are "barbarians," Marcus Bachmann told a radio interviewer for a Christian program last year. LGBT people practice "sexual anarchy," Michele Bachmann told a conference of Minnesota educators in 2004, and could wind up recruiting 8-year-old boys to their way of life if openly gay teachers are permitted in the classroom.

And then there's the Bible, which calls for the death penalty for men who have sex with each other. While Bachmann has never made that call herself, her religious views appear to be heavily influenced by a theological strain known as Christian Reconstructionism, which in matters of sexuality and gender relations places great emphasis on the draconian law of the Old Testament Book of Leviticus.

Writing for Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner this week exposed the Reconstructionist roots of the law school Bachmann attended at Oral Roberts University. The language and theory of Christian Reconstructionism turns up frequently in Bachmann's speeches.

In the 1970s, as Posner tells it, Oral Roberts University, founded by the famous Pentecostal faith healer, wanted to launch a law school, but at that time, no real model existed for such a school of jurisprudence designed to serve an evangelical student body. Roberts brought in Harvard Law School graduate Herb Titus, a student of the work of John Rousas Rushdoony, the father of Christian Reconstructionism, to build the law school's program.

Titus would go on to become the 1996 presidential candidate for Howard Phillips’ Constitution Party (then called the U.S. Taxpayers Party). Despite its secular-sounding name, the party's mission was, according to Posner, “restor[ing] American jurisprudence to its biblical foundations and limit[ing] the federal government to its Constitutional boundaries.”

That merging of ideas and sensibilities -- the expressive Pentacostal with the stern and austere Reconstructionist -- was truly radical at the time. To the liberal mind, all Christian evangelism tends to look the same. But it wasn’t until politics mandated a union of convenience that one would find the likes of Herb Titus, or, for that matter, the fundamentalist Baptist Jerry Falwell and the charismatic dominionist Pat Robertson, playing on the same team.

The logic in bringing Titus to ORU was likely this: Pentacostalism, though rooted in Christian theology, has more emphasis on the spiritual expression of the divine through the human body than on codification. Yes, the mores are conservative and gender-bound, but Pentacostalism is about the visceral experience of the power of that conservative, male God as a transformative force. Christian Reconstructionism is based on a text, the Institutes of Biblical Law, that reads like one long legal and philosophical argument for the law of the ancient Hebrew Bible.

If you listen closely to the rhetoric of both Michele and Marcus Bachmann, particularly on the subject of “homosexuality,” you find the Reconstructionist worldview in their word choices. Marcus Bachmann’s use of the term “barbaric” to describe gay people comes from the Reconstructionist notion that societies that permit practices -- especially sexual practices -- that are proscribed by the Bible are inherently pagan. John Rushdoony did not allow for the absence of religion or a secular society: whatever law governed a society, he writes in Institutes of Biblical Law, constituted its “religion.” Because homosexuality was practiced in pre-Christian, non-Jewish societies, those who practice it today are inherently “pagan.” For images of such pagan societies, Rushdoony turns to those cultures that truly had barbaric practices, such as the Romans.

Michele Bachmann’s assertion that LGBT people have fallen into “sexual anarchy” also echoes Rushdoony, who writes of homosexuality as an act of “sexual chaos,” included in a list that includes bestiality, incest and “general depradation.” Worse than that, Rushdoony asserts, homosexuality is a corrupt “theology,” because, he writes, it promotes “war against God.” When Michele Bachmann told attendees of the 2004 National Education Conference that to use the the word “gay” to describe homosexuality is “part of Satan,” she’s invoking the story of that ultimate war against God -- that waged by Lucifer, the fallen angel.

Her sense of urgency about pushing gay culture to the margins, as evidenced in her comments about the dangers of allowing gay teachers near children, is expressed in sterner terms by Rushdoony, who writes, “Because of the extensive control by homosexuals over fashions and publications, the mind and appearance of Western countries have been radically infected by the parasitic homosexual culture.” That culture, in Rushdoony’s terms -- and the minds of many evangelicals who have been influenced by his writings -- is waging and actual spiritual war on God -- just as Lucifer did.

As the week unfolded for Bachmann, scrutiny turned to the Christian counseling business of her husband, Marcus, who holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Union Graduate Institute, and a master’s degree in education and counseling from Rev. Pat Robertson’s Regent University, and his practice of “ex-gay” or so-called “reparative” therapy: a discredited practice whereby counselors work with clients to turn them from gay to straight. (Pat Robertson’s dominionist theology is also informed by Christian Reconstructionism.) Marcus Bachmann at first denied that his counseling practice employed such therapy, but then admitted to it when John Becker of the LGBT-rights group Truth Wins Out proved as much with his undercover investigation. At the same time, the Nation published an expose by Mariah Blake based on the story of a young man who says that, when he was a teenager, his parents took him to Bachmann’s clinic for just such “therapy.”

Marcus Bachmann obviously knew that exposure of his practice’s use of “ex-gay” therapy would play badly for him, and it does not seem to form the bulk of his practice. So, why take the risk? Well, if you live to please a stern and unforgiving God, and believe that war is being made against that God by gay people as they practice their gayness, you might think yourself a hero for taking the chance.

A long section of Bachmann’s remarks to that conference are devoted to detailing the many ways in which gay culture has become mainstreamed, evincing strong echoes of Rushdoony’s complaint against the “infection” of Western culture with “homosexual” ways.

In her talk to the National Education Conference, Michele Bachmann, who has long been a critic of public schools, complained of the attention given the murder of Matthew Shepard, who was killed in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998, for being gay. She compared Shepard's murder to that of a 13-year-old boy, Jesse Dirkhising, who was sexually abused and murdered in 1999 by two adult male pedophiles -- friends of his parents -- who were also lovers. Bachmann complained that the Dirkhising case had not received the same level of attention as the Shepard lynching “because Jesse did not serve the purpose of those sympathetic to homosexuality.”

In Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law, he asserts that other anti-gay psychological theories are mistaken in their assumption that homosexuality is a form of immaturity and arrested development. No way, he claims, “deliberate and mature warfare against God marks the homosexual.”

“God’s penalty is death,” he continues, “and a godly order will enforce it.”

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EXCLUSIVE! Marcus Bachmann Announces Role in Bachmann Administration (VIDEO) (SATIRE!)

Posted on July 16, 2011 by beeryblog
 

Marcus Bachmann

Beeryblog has obtained a video announcement soon to be released by the Bachmann Campaign regarding Marcus Bachmann’s role in a Bachmann Administration should his ‘wife’ win the 2012 election:

 

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Bill Maher Calls Michele Bachmann & Sarah Palin Boobs, Jesus Sexist (VIDEO)

First posted on huffingtonpost.com HUFFPOST COMEDY: 7/17/11 

 

 

One thing is abundantly clear: Bill Maher is not afraid of offending you.

Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin are an interesting force in American politics. They are the Republicans progressives love to not take seriously at all. They are also the ones that "people who know" say you shouldn't underestimate. But more importantly, perhaps, they afford conservatives the unique opportunity to call liberals sexist.

Case in point: Bill Maher has been called out -- by both the left and the right -- for referring to Sarah Palin with a sexist epithet during one of his comedy shows. That incident has been used by conservative commentators as evidence that liberals real beef with both Palin and Bachmann has to do with their being women, not terrible candidates.

But in true Maher fashion, the "Real Time" host responded to the critiques by taking those sexist claims and raising them an "inbred weirdo" and a shot at Jesus and the entire Christian faith.  Because you can't fight fire without gasoline, obviously.

So what do you think? Does Maher have a point here?

WATCH:
 

 

Tags: Michele Bachmann ,   Bill Maher ,   Sarah Palin ,   Video , Bill Maher Sarah Palin , Bill Maher Sarah Palin Michele Bachmann , Christianity Sexist , Jesus , Real Time With Bill Maher , Sexism , Comedy News

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Fred Karger: Michele Bachmann is a Liar, 'Hypocrite and Bigot'

First Posted: 7/13/11 04:23 PM ET Updated: 7/13/11 05:36 PM ET

 

Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger, the first openly-gay contender to vie for his party's nomination, sharply criticized rival GOP hopeful Michele Bachmann in an exclusive interview with the Michigan Messenger published online on Wednesday.

Karger took aim at Bachmann over controversial therapy methods reportedly practiced at her husband's Minnesota clinic.

Last week, The Nation reported that the clinic practiced reparative therapy, which the publication explains treats being gay as a curable disorder. When asked to share her opinion of such practices and whether they are used at her husband's clinic by a reporter for WQAD, an ABC affiliate, Bachmann declined to address the matter.

A report released by ABC News earlier this week offered an inside look at the practices and treatment offered at the center.

"She's a liar and now that she's been busted, she's trying to divert attention away from her lies," Karger said of Bachmann to the Messenger in speaking out on the matter. "She is just another hypocrite and bigot."

Bachmann has been clear about her opposition to marriage equality. Last week, the conservative congresswoman signed The Family Leader's "Marriage Vow" pledge, which entails supporting a "federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which protects the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman."

"What I signed was a statement that affirms marriage as an important part of our nation," said Bachmann during an appearance on Fox News' "Hannity" on Tuesday night. "I think that marriage is very important. It is the fundamental unit of our government. And I think it is important that we do uphold marriage and also the family."

CBS News reports:

Bachmann's campaign - and Bachmann herself - has declined to answer repeated requests from CBS News for an explanation of her beliefs about homosexuality. But in 2004, when she was a state senator, Bachmann gave an hour-long speech outlining her opinions at the time.

In speaking out at the time, Bachmann described gay individuals as being part of "Satan." Below, an audio clip of what the Minnesota Republican had to say via CBS News.

LISTEN:

 

 

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Bachmann's Latest Shenanigan: Signs Anti-Porn Pledge With Inappropriate Slavery Language

There she goes again! Michele Bachmann, the GOP contender whose name's on everyone's lips has not only announced her staunch refusal to raise the debt ceiling limit, but she's made news by signing a long "pro-marriage" pledge with anti-porn, anti-Sharia-law, anti-abortion and anti gay-marriage subsets in its brief pages, (pdf link) as well as a nasty little opening paragraph about slavery at the beginning, implying that African-American children were actually better off when they were considered property.

The passage that sums of the spirit of this pledge with its its hand-wringing, moralizing, and lumping together of a whole host of inappropriately-linked issues is here:

Humane protection of women and the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy – our next generation of American children – from human trafficking, sexual slavery, seduction into promiscuity, and all forms of pornography and prostitution, 

Seriously, members of the GOP need to stop using slavery as a metaphor for everything under the sun and drumming up the nonexistent threat of Sharia takeover. Both increasingly frequent tactics are offensive to the extreme.

The policy implications for Bachmann's signing the pledge are also big: abortion and gay marriage bans at the national level, a possible pornography ban and more. She may claim the election is about the economy, but like dozens of GOPers before her, she's riding the cultural conservatism hobbyhorse as far as it can go.

By Sarah Seltzer | Sourced from AlterNet

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Police Reports Show a Different Side of Michele Bachmann

From complaining about her house being egged to filing a report that she was being held “against my will” in a public restroom, Michele Bachmann has left a trail of police reports showing a seldom-seen side of a presidential candidate.

Excerpt from an article by Marc Caputo at MiamiHerald.com on July 11, 2011

Jeff Baenen / AP Photo - In this June 18, 2011 photo, Republican presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., is showered with glitter after speaking at the AFP RightOnline Conference in Minneapolis. This year, for some liberal activists, the guerrilla tactic of choice is a shower of glitter tossed from close range.

With a penchant for tough talk and polarizing positions, Republican presidential contender Michele Bachmann is a magnet for controversy — and there’s a trail of police reports to prove it.

She and her staff over the years have requested police protection or investigations when her house was egged; when protesters threw glitter on her or held up critical signs; when her campaign yard signs were stolen; when a man wrote an email perceived as a threat; and when she screamed that two women were holding her hostage “against my will” in a city hall restroom.

The series of police reports from the Stillwater Police Department and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota show a side of a candidate rarely seen on the campaign trail, where Bachmann has described herself as having a "titanium spine."

Bachmann’s campaign and congressional offices wouldn’t comment, but her fellow Minnesota Republicans say they’re not surprised by the reports.

“Michele Bachmann is someone who tells it like it is with the courage of her convictions,” said Tony Sutton, state chairman of Republican Party of Minnesota. “There will be people on the other side who will react in an inappropriate way. There are a lot of liberals who can’t cope with the fact that she’s an outspoken conservative who sticks by her guns.”

But those who have been a her target when she calls the cops say Bachmann doesn’t walk the talk.

“She is paranoid,” said Brad Trandem, a Lakeland, Minn. resident who excoriated Bachmann in an email this year, only to face investigators. “She does all this criticism of other people’s lives and talks about how people should be ‘armed and dangerous.’ But then someone says something critical about her and she calls the police.”

In Trandem’s case, Bachmann’s staff who forwarded his correspondence to U.S. Capitol Police with the headline “Email Threat to Rep. Bachmann.”

At issue, this last sentence of the 128-word email referring to Dr. Marcus Bachmann: “I would also keep a little closer tabs on the dear hubby if I were you.”

Bachmann’s husband has become the focus of controversy himself, suggesting in a radio interview that homosexuals were “barbarians (who) need to be educated.” Though the Bachmanns have denied it, gay activists say the Christian counselor is associated with a type of therapy aimed at stopping homosexuality through spiritual training.

Trandem said his email wasn’t intended to threaten anyone, and he wasn’t suggesting the congresswoman’s husband was gay. He said he was just drawing attention to what he sees as the hypocrisy of social conservatives who accuse others of the offenses they commit.

Trandem’s email, though, came a day after a watershed moment in American political history: The Jan. 8 shooting spree of Jared Lee Loughner, accused of killing six and wounding 14 others – including Tucson Congresswoman Gabbie Giffords. In his letter, Trandem referred to “tea baggers” and suggested conservative talk of armed revolt was to blame for the Tucson rampage. Loughner, it turns out, was mentally ill and wasn’t a tea party member.

Capitol police referred the email to the Washington County sheriffs investigators, who determined Trandem posed no threat. Capitol police wouldn’t comment.

A spokesperson for another congresswoman and friend of Giffords, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, said Bachmann’s staff acted appropriately in referring the matter to Capitol Police, who have asked staffers to report any suspicious or potentially threatening information.

“I wouldn’t fault her or here staff,” said Schultz spokesman, Jonathan Beeton. “Whether the incidents happen in a bathroom or wherever, it’s better to err on the side of caution.”

Beeton said Wasserman Schultz, head of the national Democratic Party, has police protection when she has events in South Florida, which is partly the result of the Giffords shooting.

But even before the shooting, Bachmann sometimes worried about the intentions of her constituents. The eight police reports concerning Bachmann exceed the number of reports connected to Miami-Dade’s congressional delegation and calls to Wasserman Schultz’ home, according to South Florida police.

Though her social-conservatism has helped inspire loathing on the left, it’s a potent force in a GOP primary. Some polls show she’s leading in Iowa and is now running in second place to Mitt Romney in Florida.

In April 2005, Bachmann held a meeting at Scandia City Hall in her state senate district. But she cut the meeting short when the topic turned to gay marriage.  Two Minnesota voters, Pamela Arnold and Nancy Cosgriff, wanted the congresswoman to answer their questions.

Cosgriff, a former nun, said she wanted to know about the “theological underpinnings” of Bachmann’s stance on gay marriage. While trying to get a response, Cosgriff said she followed Bachmann into the restroom where the congresswoman washed her hands but wouldn’t respond. Palmer then came in and asked about education as well.

“You have to get away from the door because I have to go,” Bachmann said she asked repeatedly, according to a police report.

When Arnold tried to get an answer, Bachmann yelled “help me! Someone get me out of here!” Bachmann told police.  Arnold and Cosgriff told police Bachmann said something like “Help, help you’re holding me against my will!”

Said Cosgriff: “I was amazed and concerned when she erupted in this emotional outburst without provocation… I tried to apologize for any misunderstanding.”

As the startled women looked on, Bachmann ran out of the restroom. She later filed a police report, which an investigator described as a “possible false imprisonment” inquiry. The women weren’t prosecuted because the investigator determined that there were “conflicting accounts” and a “lack of any strong corroborating evidence that would suggest criminal activity.”

The year before, Bachmann and a Republican state representative sponsored a proposed Minnesota constitutional amendment to stop gay marriage. State Capitol activists put the lawmakers’ pictures and home phone numbers on placards and pamphlets that said “shame” and “sponsoring hate crimes legislation.”

Bachmann called the Stillwater police “in case she starts to get threatening phone calls,” a report said.

Gay activists also hunted her down in Minnesota, where someone tried to throw glitter on the congresswoman as a protest on June 18 — shortly after she declared her presidential candidacy. Bachmann barely reacted publicly. But she called the Capitol police, who notified the sheriff’s office of the glittering and a tweet someone posted that suggested “they would be using guns as their right.”

Separately, Stillwater police have also investigated the theft of her campaign yard signs in 2002. And she called them to her house in 2007 when she complained her house was “substantially egged” for the second time.

None of the inquiries resulted in arrests.

“Michele is engaged and she’s articulate and she is not one to back down,” said Scott Fischbach, a Bachmann constituent and executive director Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life. “They’ve tried everything to stop her,” he said. “They’ve thrown the kitchen sink at her.”

They’ve even thrown eggs.

Marc Caputo  Mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/11/v-fullstory/2309801/police-reports-show-different.html#ixzz1RundZiZe

Related Content

• Group: Marcus Bachmann clinic seeks to 'cure' gay people
• The Bachmann Files - Michele Bachmann's police reports

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Bachmann's Stepsister: An  Obama Fan

By Natasha Lennard

 

Vimeo/Julie Phillips

Michele Bachmann's stepsister, Helen LaFave, celebrates Obama's inauguration

Not all of Michele Bachmann's family shares her far-right views. As the media has been aware for sometime, the Minnesota Republican has an openly gay stepsister, Helen LaFave.  While shying from the spotlight, LaFave has publicly opposed Bachmann's anti-gay stance since the congresswoman proposed a gay-marriage ban in the Minnesota Senate (as the Daily Beast reported earlier this year).

LaFave's political differences from Bachmann's go beyond the spheres of LGBT rights, however, as a short clip discovered on Vimeo suggests. Captured outside the U.S. Capitol in 2009 when Obama was sworn in, the video shows a friendly LaFave (who appears with her long-term partner Nia Wronski) telling the videographer of her excitement about the "reawakening of the country" and the "start of something new." Wronski expresses a desire to see more barriers broken down.

Interestingly, LaFave mentions that she drove down to the event from Minneapolis with six other family members and received tickets "through one of the congresspeople." Bachmann was already a U.S. congresswoman by this time (she assumed office in 2007), though we have no idea if she helped her stepsister gain access.

Watch the video below, posted to Vimeo by Julie Phillips, to see the ebullient LaFave and Wronski in 2009:

Helen LaFave and Nia Wronski at the Inauguration Jan. 20, 2009 from julie phillips on Vimeo.

 

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July 15, 2011 07:00 AM

Keith Olbermann and Janeane Garofalo Weigh in on the 'Tea Party' and the Bachmanns

By Heather

Click HERE to listen to Keith Olbermann and Janeane Garofalo weigh in on Michele Bachmann's husband, Marcus Bachmann and the fact that most people who are as vehemently anti-gay as he is, usually turn out to be someone who is gay themselves and has some real issues with their own sexuality.

I was glad to see someone finally addressing the issue of just how damaging the type of "therapy" Bachmann and his clinic are using is to anyone who is unfortunate enough to find themselves subjected to it.

Janeane also thankfully called the "tea party" exactly what it is -- an astroturf Republican re-branding effort that is not grass roots but sponsored by a whole lot of big money. And as they noted, their efforts are apparently fizzling if this is any indication. We can only hope.

From the Minnesota Independent -- Tea party convention featuring Bachmann, Bradlee Dean cancelled:

Organizers for the Freedom Jamboree, billed as the national tea party straw poll convention, announced on Wednesday that the event has been canceled due to low attendance. The conference had pulled in two of Minnesota most controversial figures, presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and rightwing preacher Bradlee Dean. It was also being organized by Iowa’s Bob Vander Plaats, whose organization, The Family Leader, sparked an uproar in the state after it released a presidential pledge on marriage.

“Everything was set up,” said William Temple, one of the organizers, told the Kansas City Star. “It was just the tea parties themselves weren’t prepared to spend the money to travel and bring their families.”

Roll Call notes that the organizers also had subpar fundraising in addition to low attendance, and it’s the second tea party convention in two years to be canceled because of low attendance.

Tags: Countdown, Current TV, Gay Issues, Janeane Garofalo, Keith Olbermann, Marcus Bachmann, michele bachmann, tea party

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She's Moving Up!

Michele Bachmann continues to be the hottest brand in the GOP presidential contest. She's performing strong in Iowa, but the biggest news this week is how well she's doing in New Hampshire. Although New Hampshire is long thought to be a safe haven for Mitt Romney, Bachmann's been muscling her way into the conversation and up the poll rankings. She's now in second place, trailing by single digits, and closing in on Romney. And if Bachmann prevails in Iowa, she need only perform respectably in the Granite State to get her ticket punched to the primaries beyond. Right now, if the Bachmann camp has a concern, it's that it's become too big, too soon. But that's a pretty nice problem to have.

Bachmann took to the airwaves in Iowa this week releasing an ad in which she promised to be "the unifying choice that will beat Obama." Of course, she also promised to default on America's debt and plunge the entire country into economic calamity so maybe we'll all be unified around total and irreversible destitution. It's okay, though, because she is pretty sure that God will take care of the poor so there's no need for the government to concern itself with their welfare. Of course, that promise is typically thought to be redeemed in the afterlife, but whatever! The meek shall inherit the Earth as soon as they form a Super PAC and receive unlimited corporate money!

Bachmann's newfound popularity has led the media to re-scrutinize her personal life though it's uncertain if they're going to tell the world anything they don't already know. Hey, did you hear that Bachmann hates gay people? Did you know that she's out there on the culty fringes of the Christian universe? Yes, you did, because you have been alive for at least the past four years. This is the sort of media coverage that, while critical in its bent, won't bother the Bachmann campaign at all. The only people who will be turned off by this stuff are the already-turned off. For devotees, the media attention will only harden their resolve to turn out for the Minnesota representative.

Perhaps less well known is that fact that Bachmann has staked out some hawkish territory on foreign policy and the war in Afghanistan. As Josh Rogin reports:

Bachmann, meanwhile, in a marked and seemingly calculated way, has come out forcefully seeking to separate out national security from the Tea Party's cost-cutting, budget-slashing, government-shrinking agenda.

In a June 28 interview with NPR, Bachmann criticized Obama's announcement to draw down troops in Afghanistan, accused the president of placing political considerations ahead of national security, and implored the president to follow the advice of outgoing International Security Assistance Force commander Gen. David Petraeus, who recommended a slow pace of withdrawal.

"Gen. Petraeus, who's in charge of winning the war effort in Afghanistan, understands that we need to win the war on terror. We must never forget that 9/11 was hatched in the caves and the mountains of Afghanistan. The Taliban has a presence there. Al Qaeda has a presence there. We must defeat them in their backyard. And it's important that Gen. Petraeus and [Lt.] Gen. [John] Allen have the resources that they need to be successful in southern Afghanistan and then also in eastern Afghanistan," she said.

If that sounds extremely close to the position of the leading GOP hawk senators, such as McCain, that's because it is. In fact, Bachmann met with McCain in late June to discuss national security issues and Afghanistan, according to two sources familiar with the meeting. That's not to say she is taking his advice directly, but she is seeking his counsel.

Of course, as Ben Smith notes, she's taken a non-interventionist stance on Libya. But if she's seeking out advice from McCain, there may be something to her "unifying" pledge, after all. That doesn't mean, however, that she's ultimately going to be seen as electable by independents, who will continue to see her as a person who routinely says supremely daffy things.

Bachmann was the first of the 2012 candidates to sign Bob Vander Plaats' "Marriage Vow" pledge. As Judd Legem points out, one of the things Bachmann has committed herself to by doing so is to seek out a way of banning pornography.

How is the internet supposed to make any money if she does that? Thanks a lot, job killer!

Posted at July 8, 2011, 9:08 am

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Michele Bachmann: "I Hope There's Higher Unemployment It Will Help My Campaign"

Michele Bachmann thinks that today's crummy jobs report is great news...for her own political ambitions:

CARL QUINTANILLA (CNBC): Does it strike you that as the unemployment rate goes up that your chances of winning office also go up?

MICHELE BACHMANN: Well, that could be. Again, I hope so.

At least you've got to give her credit for being honest. Not many Republicans are willing to publicly admit that they hope sabotaging the economy will help them win in the 2012 elections.

By Jed Lewison | Daily Kos
Posted on Friday, July 8, 2011 @ 08:19 AM

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Excerpt of an article by Michael Winship at truth-out.org July 6 2011

Michele Bachmann Flunks Canadian History, Too

 

Michelle Bachman speaks at a Tea Party Rally in Washinton DC, March 31, 2011. (Photo: markn3tel)

Travel, they say, improves the mind, a notion once rightly castigated in song by the late, great Noel Coward. It's "an irritating platitude," he wrote, "which frankly, entre nous, is far from ever true."

And yet there is some truth to it, although sailing on a celebratory birthday cruise up the Canadian Maritimes and along the St. Lawrence River, as I have been with friends these last few days, had the potential to confirm Sartre's belief that hell is other people.

Add to that qualms instilled by my girlfriend Pat's semi-serious theory that frequent outbreaks of food poisoning on cruise ships actually may be the result of chemical and biological warfare testing by the government. Think about it - boat passengers are the perfect research targets, confined in a relatively small space, unsuspecting, isolated from the rest of the population. Why not lob a little concentrated E. coli in their direction and see what happens?

In truth, it may rank close to the belief that tornadoes would cease to exist if there were no trailer parks for them to tear up, but so be it. Throughout our voyage, company remained unhellish and untouched by gastroenteritis - or worse.

In any case, one of the mind-broadening advantages of travel is to read the local papers - if you can find them these days - and learn what's on the mind of people in the places you land on. Sometimes, their interests are highly parochial; sometimes, they strongly reflect our own. On Canada's Prince Edward Island (PEI), locals were obsessing over the imminent visit to the island of Prince William and Kate Middleton. In the brief time we were there, townspeople of the provincial capital Charlottetown frantically repainted crosswalks, mowed lawns, clipped hedges and polished anything that didn't move, all in anticipation of the royal arrival.

Canada's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, even reported that in advance of the visit a fishery museum not too far from Charlottetown had gotten hold of two rare blue lobsters. "We were going to name [one lobster] Blue Boy, but then we got thinking why not honor these special guests coming to PEI," a local known around the island as the Bearded Skipper told the paper. "Not everyone can see the royal couple but they can come to the museum and touch Will and Kate." Curtsying, no doubt, as they approach with bibs and bowls of melted butter.

Other news was more serious and familiar. Discrimination against Muslims in Toronto. Flooding in the province of Manitoba out west mirrored flooding of the Missouri River in the American Midwest. Canada's declining postal service was back in action after several rotating job actions by labor across the country were followed by a lockout - a conservative government going after unionized civil service workers, just like home. Unemployment was at its lowest in more than two years ...

Say that again? The US rate rose to 9.1 percent in May from 9.0 percent in April, with the release of the June numbers due this Friday. But as per a June 10 dispatch from Reuters, "The unemployment rate in Canada fell to the lowest level since January 2009 in May as the number of jobs increased by 22,300, an island of healthy data in a sea of recent figures showing tepid North American economic growth.

"Statistics Canada reported on Friday that the jobless rate dropped from 7.6 percent in April to 7.4 percent in May, a number last seen when Canada was falling into recession at the start of 2009."

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann celebrated the news with a tweet: "Lesson in economic recovery: Consider Canada. No stimulus & unemployment is 20% lower than US."

But Representative Bachmann misinterprets Canada's history as thoroughly as she mangles America's. Eric Kleefeld of the progressive web site Talking Points Memo wrote, "The absolute fact of the matter is that Canada undertook a thorough stimulus program under Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party - one that was relatively smaller than the one here, but given the apples and oranges situation of having different economic needs, it was still a very considerable one."

The amount was $40 billion, Canadian. Adjusting for conversion, relative purchasing power, per-capita GDP and the much larger population of the United States - we have almost ten times as many people - this was roughly equivalent to a stimulus of over US $360 billion - less than half the Obama stimulus, but the recession did not hit Canada as badly as it crippled the US.

Why? Resurgence in demand for Canadian gas, oil and other minerals, for one thing (including asbestos - Canada just blocked again the listing of chrysotile asbestos fibers as a hazardous chemical under the UN's Rotterdam Convention). But also, as Kleefeld notes, "One reason for Canada's resilience was having years of strict banking regulations, which fostered a more stable financial system."

He cites an Economist article from May 2010: "Jim Flaherty, the finance minister, attributes Canada's strong performance to its 'boring' financial system. Prodded by tight regulation, the banks were much more conservative in their lending than their American counterparts. Those that did dabble in subprime loans were able to withdraw quickly. This prudence kept a lid on house prices while those in America were soaring, but it paid off when the bust hit."

Note that the banking regulations predate the rule of conservative Prime Minister Harper, and that last year the six biggest Canadian banks still managed to rake in $20 billion in profits. This may come as a bit of a shock to Bachmann, who has included complete repeal of our barely year-old, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act as part of her presidential campaign platform.

In her capacity as a representative from Minnesota, one assumes that Representative Bachmann has traveled more than once to our northern neighbor. Still, a return visit might not only improve the mind, but also help her brush up on Canadian history. On the other hand, the shock of finding out that Canada has a single-payer, government-run health care program might cause her to implode.

Michael Winship is senior writing fellow at Demos, former senior writer at "Bill Moyers Journal" on PBS and current president of the Writers Guild of America, East.

 

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Jimmy Kimmel Unveils Michele Bachmann's "Story of America"(Satire)

June 29, 2011 01:00 PM

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ABC's Jimmy Kimmel announced Tuesday a new educational film by Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann.

The Minnesota Republican has recently mistaken John Wayne for John Wayne Gacy and insisted John Quincy Adams was a Founding Father.

"I like when politicians who screw up go find like a single sentence in the back of a high school history book and then use that as their defense, as if that's what they meant the whole time," Kimmel said. "And that's what she's doing. And not only is Michele Bachmann sticking to this Founding Father thing, she's working on -- I don't know if it's a documentary or some sort of educational film, but it's something to teach kids about American history."

"In 1775, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams set sail across the Delaware River to tell the King of England they had enough of his liberal agenda," an actor posing as Bachmann explained in the film. "King James called Napoleon and together they decided to kill America."

"They sent the Nina, the Piñata and the Santa Maria to fight. But then, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln gathered an army to turn back the big government dictators. They told Paul Revere to ride his horse to Frodo. But then, John Wilkes Booth showed up and killed Lincoln. But there was still hope, because Jesus appeared on the face of the Liberty Bell and he froze John Wilkes Booth in carbonite. And the liberal homosexuals sailed back to their gay country, while Americans claimed their land and drank beer. And that's how freedom was born."

Tags: comedy, Comedy/Satire, Jimmy Kimmel, michele bachmann, Satire

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Bachmann Clinic Got $137,000 In Medicaid Funds

The GOP presidential candidate's claims that her family received no federal support are unraveling Video

Excerpt from an article on salon.com posted by Joan Walsh  June 29, 2011

 

AP

NBC News revealed Tuesday night that although GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has repeatedly denied benefiting from federal funding to her family's farm or her husband's clinic, the Bachmanns received $137,000 in Medicaid funds over the last five years to Marcus Bachmann's "Christian family clinic," along with $24,000 in federal funds to train clinic employees.  That's on top of the subsidies that went to a family farm in which she's named as a partner, which received more than $250,000 in federal funds.  Bachmann continues to deny benefiting from the farm, although she's claimed income from the family business on her congressional disclosure forms.

I'm not sure that Bachmann's insisting that she's right in calling John Quincy Adams a founder -- his father, John, was a founder; John Quincy was only 9 at the signing of the Declaration of Independence -- is going to hurt her with her devoted base.  Politifact.com says Bachmann has “the worst record of making false statements of any of the leading contenders," yet her poll standing continues to rise.  But allegations that she either lied or misrepresented her family's cut of federal funds from programs she's promising to slash could hurt her badly.  Left or right, voters don't like liars or hypocrites.  The gaffes about John Quincy Adams and John Wayne Gacy are funny but much less important than this reporting.

I talked about Bachmann's latest challenge on MSNBC with Rev. Al Sharpton, Chris Hayes and Michelle Goldberg:

• Joan Walsh is Salon's editor at large. More: Joan Walsh

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The Iron Loony(s)

 

From an article posted by driftglass at http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2011/06/iron-looney.html on Tuesday, June 28, 2011

 

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“They're casting their problem on society. And you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families”

-- Margaret Thatcher, October 9, 1987

"...more than ever, Washington IS the problem, and the real solutions will come from our businesses, our communities, our schools and the most basic and powerful unit of all-our families."

-- Michele Bachmann, June 27, 2011, Waterloo, IA

A bloody-minded True Believer's faith in the Godliness of their dogma.

An unvarnished loathing for all opposition.

An boundless contempt for government.

A ruthless eagerness to sacrifice the lives and futures of the poor, the sick, the weak, the elderly and the outsider on the altar of unfettered oligarchy.

Slavishly loyal acolytes who happily blind themselves to the misery and ugliness their ideology leaves in its wake.

And screw the facts when they get in the way.

Regardless of what feckless, dorm-room "real" conservatives may tell themselves to balm their wounded egos over being wrong about everything their entire adult lives, these are the real pillars of Conservatism, over here and over there, then and now.

All else is tactic, style and commentary.

 

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Tuesday, Jun 28, 2011 14:18 ET

An Annotated Guide to the Economics of Michele Bachmann

The debt ceiling, stimulus, jobs and taxes: The Minnesota Republican has a plan, but the numbers don't add up

By Andrew Leonard

AP/Charlie Riedel - Michele Bachmann

In just five minutes on CBS News Tuesday morning, Michele Bachmann presented her economic platform. Let's break it down.

The Debt Ceiling

Bachmann stated that she would not vote to raise the debt ceiling "until I see a serious legitimate reduction in spending." When questioned about the possible disastrous financial consequences of a failure by the United States to make good on its obligations, she blithely dismissed any possible negative fallout.

"The interest on the debt can easily be paid for .... and that would mean that we wouldn't default. Then we would continue the full faith and credit of the United States. I think these are scare tactics by the Obama administration, because clearly this is the Obama debt, this is the Obama deficit and this is the very poor working Obama economy. "

1) The interest can easily be paid for ...LIE

Bachmann is making the argument here that the U.S. can choose to pay its creditors -- the various holders of government-issued debt -- first, and thus not technically be in default. It's an open question whether credit rating agencies and bond investors will accept that technicality. China might get paid in full, but millions of Americans would immediate get stiffed. Of course, Bachmann doesn't mention that choosing such a strategy would require extraordinarily severe and immediate spending cuts -- around $4.5 billion a day -- in programs such as Social Security, Medicare, defense, unemployment benefits, et cetera. Economists generally agree -- the negative economic impacts of such drastic short-term cuts in government spending would almost surely drive the U.S. straight back into recession.

Furthermore, a failure to reach agreement on the debt limit would guarantee bond market jitters, pushing up interest rates and raising the cost at which the U.S. government can borrow funds -- and thus end up increasing the deficit.

2) Because clearly this is the Obama debt, this is the Obama deficit...LIE

I'm reasonably sure I'll be debunking this blatant falsehood when I'm on my deathbed. But once more into the breach! When Obama took office, the deficit was already $1 trillion -- a result of Bush's tax cuts, unpaid-for wars and prescription drug benefit giveaways, TARP, and the recession. The tax cuts alone will account for more than $7 trillion worth of additional debt over the next 10 years. And no matter who had been elected president in 2008, there was no magic wand that would have averted the devastating impact of the Great Recession, which simultaneously hammered government tax revenues while requiring vast outlays in automatic payments -- unemployment benefits, food stamps, etc.

It's always fun to try to imagine the counterfactual. What would John McCain have done? Stood pat, and simply watched the American economy hemorrhage half a million jobs a month? Unthinkable. Cut spending on the social safety net to balance the budget at a moment of great national crisis?  Equally ludicrous! Pass even more tax cuts -- the standard GOP response to good times and bad -- than Obama did? The deficit would be even bigger!

Sure, any president three years into his term gets blamed for the status quo. But no U.S. president since Franklin Roosevelt came into office facing a worse economic situation, and it's interesting to wonder how even FDR would have fared if he had been faced with the task of pushing through legislation against the will of today's Republican Party.

The Stimulus.

"Stimulus did not create jobs. Stimulus has actually led to a reduction in jobs." LIE

Simply asserting this does not make it so. The Congressional Budget Office says otherwise. The private economic forecasting firm Macro Advisers says otherwise. So did Moody's Investor Services. And then there's the ever-popular (with Democrats) chart of job loss and creation since January 2008. The vast majority of job loss attributable to the Great Recession occurred during the last four months of Bush's administration and the first five months of Obama's administration. But over the course of the period during which stimulus funding was actually distributed, the job numbers steadily improved. Over the last year, the economy has added more than a million jobs.

Job Creation.

"First of all, we need to have the federal government stop spending money ... Number 2 ... The United States has one of the highest tax rates on doing business in this country. We need to lower that rate so the United States has a positive climate to create jobs. Number 3: We have a 1.7 trillion dollar burden on job creators in the form of regulations. We need to go in and examine all the regulations..." LIE

Cut spending, cut taxes, and cut regulations -- it's hard to imagine a more boilerplate Republican platform.

1) Spending. We may get the chance to find out sooner than we would like what exactly happens when the federal government stops spending money while the economy is slowing, so maybe we should just wait and see the result. But, briefly put, the evidence that austerity might result in job growth in an economy facing current U.S. conditions is slim.

2) Highest tax rate on doing business.

At the risk of repeating myself:

Actually, as measured in terms of share of GDP, the U.S. has the lowest corporate tax burden of any OECD nation. While the official tax bracket may seem high -- 35 percent -- if one takes into account various loopholes and tax dodges, the effective tax rate is considerably lower, or around 27 percent, which comes in as slightly higher than average for OECD members. And according to ace tax reporter David Cay Johnston, the bigger you are, the less you pay -- the effective tax rate for the biggest U.S. corporations is only about 15 percent.

3) $1.7 trillion regulatory burden.

This number comes from a study conducted by the "advocacy" office of the Small Business Administration in 2008. In April 2011, the Congressional Research Service published an extensive critique of the calculations that went into that number. The most glaring eye-opener? "[The authors] said they did not provide estimates of the benefits of regulations, even when the information was readily available, because the SBA Office of Advocacy did not ask them to do so. OMB's reports to Congress have generally indicated that regulatory benefits exceed costs."

So there you have it: Michele Bachmann's economic platform. In the final analysis, perhaps the most striking thing about her proposals is how conventionally Republican they are. There's not a whole lot of new thinking here, aside from the admittedly radical notion that the United States can get away with failing to raise the debt limit. Other than that, it's a typical mish-mash of misrepresentations and numbers that don't add up.

• Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21. More: Andrew Leonard

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Michele Bachmann's Praise of John Wayne and Why Our Corporate Media Will Never Say Why It's Really Ridiculous

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 06:00 PM PDT

 

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After all of us had a bit of fun with Michele Bachmann's gaffe on John Wayne this week, I think it's important to point out why even if she got confused over where John Wayne was born and where serial killer John Wayne Gacy carried out his serial murders, the issue that our corporate media refused to address is the fact that she was praising John Wayne as some role model that Republicans should be emulating in the first place, and her saying "That's the kind of spirit that I have, too" and completely ignoring how ridiculous propping that man up as some bastion of conservatism is to begin with.

That is if you want to actually look at how he actually lived his life and not the myth that's been propagated in our media about him and that Michele Bachmann apparently decided to embrace.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald wrote a really excellent book back in 2008 which I bought and thoroughly enjoyed reading shortly after it came out titled Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics. If you want to read more, go buy it but I'm going to share a bit of the preface here that explains in very clear terms why any praise of John Wayne as we heard from Bachmann should be ripe for mockery, but since it's our media that's been more than happy to participate in continuing that myth about Wayne and others that Greenwald addressed in his book, we're never going to hear any of them talk about this. If we do I'll be pleasantly surprised, but I'm not holding my breath.

Rough transcript of some of Glenn's opening to his book:

For the past three decades, American politics has been driven by a bizarre anomaly. Polls continuously show that on almost every issue, Americans vastly prefer the politics of the Democratic Party to those of the Republican Party. Yet during that time, the Republicans have won the majority of elections. This book examines how and why that has happened.

The most important factor, by far, is that the Republican Party employs the same set of personality smears and mythical, psychological, and cultural images to win elections. These myths and smears are amplified by the right-wing noise machine and mindlessly adopted by the establishment media. Right-wing leaders are inflated into heroic cultural icons, while Democrats are demonized as weak and hapless losers. These personality-based myths overwhelm substantive discussions and consideration of the issues.

Time and time again, Americans vote Republican due to their perceptions that right-wing leaders exude such admirable personality traits as courage, conviction, strength, wholesome family morality, identification with the “regular guy,” an affection for the military, fiscal restraint, and a belief in the supremacy of the individual over the government. Ronald Reagan, the wholesome “Everyman” rancher, and George W. Bush, the swaggering, conquering cowboy rode to victory on the basis of the cartoon imagery and marketing themes that defined them.

[…]

The sheer pervasiveness of this political deceit is somewhat new, but the deceit itself goes back decades. As examined in Chapter One, one of the earliest pioneers of this manipulative right-wing marketing was John Wayne. Wayne was a draft dodger during World War II, staying home in Hollywood, getting rich by playacting as a war hero in one film after the next while his acting peers were off fighting in combat. Wayne then spent the rest of his life preening around as a swaggering, uber-patriotic tough guy—cheering for one war after another and viciously castigating war opponents as cowards and subversives.

With the enormous gap between his self-righteous moralizing rhetoric and the way he actually lived his life, John Wayne proved himself to be one of the first right-wing Great American Hypocrites. He tirelessly crusaded for wholesome American morals and publicly condemned any perceived deviations. Yet Wayne's personal life was a never-ending carousel of adultery, divorces, new wives, shattered families, pills, booze, and unrestrained hedonism.

Maybe one of these days someone in our media will ask Bachmann why a draft-dodging, fake war hero adulterer, divorcee, drunken, pill popping hedonist like Wayne is someone she'd like to emulate, but I'm not counting on that happening any time soon.

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Michele Bachmann Says John Quincy Adams Was 'One Of Our Founding Fathers,' Flubs Slavery Remarks (VIDEO)

During an appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann was given an opportunity to set the record straight with regard to comments she made earlier this year lauding the nation's Founding Fathers for working "tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.”

ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked the conservative congresswoman to address the statement, noting that many of the country's Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, in fact had slaves and that slavery wasn't abolished until the Civil War. Here's an excerpt of the exchange that went down:

Bachmann: Well you know what’s marvelous is that in this country and under our constitution, we have the ability when we recognize that something is wrong to change it. And that’s what we did in our country. We changed it. We no longer have slavery. That’s a good thing. And what our Constitution has done for our nation is to give us the basis of freedom unparalleled in the rest of the world.

Stephanopoulos: I agree with that…

Bachmann: That’s what people want...they realize our government is taking away our freedom.

Stephanopoulos: But that’s not what you said. You said that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery.

Bachmann: Well if you look at one of our Founding Fathers, John Quincy Adams, that’s absolutely true. He was a very young boy when he was with his father serving essentially as his father’s secretary. He tirelessly worked throughout his life to make sure that we did in fact one day eradicate slavery...

Stephanopoulos: He wasn’t one of the Founding Fathers – he was a president, he was a Secretary of State, he was a member of Congress, you’re right he did work to end slavery decades later. But so you are standing by this comment that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery?

Asked if she stood by her assertion that the Founding Fathers worked hard to end slavery given the facts, Bachmann said, "Well, John Quincy Adams most certainly was a part of the Revolutionary War era. He was a young boy but he was actively involved."

The remarks from the GOP hopeful come one day after she formally announced her candidacy for president of the United States in the key primary state of Iowa.

Earlier this year, Bachmann told a group of local New Hampshire Republicans, "You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord." However, the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired in Massachusetts, not the Granite State.

She told CNN on Tuesday morning, "I'm introducing myself now to the American people so that they can know that I have a strong academic scholarly background, more important I have a real life background."

In an appearance on Fox News' "Hannity" on Monday night, Bachmann suggested that President Barack Obama "is threatened by [her] candidacy." She said, "He fears me. He sees me as a serious, substantive competitor. I think he sees that I have a very clear path to victory for the nomination. And, I think he wants to do whatever he can to diminish me because he thinks he'll have to see me in the debates. That's my intent, to take him on in the debates and to win and take the voice of the people that I serve to the White House."

Also on the program, Bachmann accepted an apology issued by "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace after he asked her if she's a "flake" on last weekend's edition of his show. Earlier in the day, the Tea Party favorite told ABC News' Jonathan Karl, "I think that it's insulting to insinuate that a candidate for president is less than serious. I'm a very serious individual."

Below, a video clip of Bachmann's appearance on Fox News.

WATCH:

 

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Psycho Talk: The 32 Craziest Things GOP Presidential Contender Michele Bachmann Has Said

Over the weekend, Fox News' Chris Wallace asked Michele Bachmann if she was a flake. Below is a compendium of some of her more outlandish remarks. Judge for yourself.

June 27, 2011  |  

 

The following article first appeared in Mother Jones.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Over the weekend, Fox News' Chris Wallace asked Michele Bachmann if she was a flake. Below is a compendium of some of her more outlandish remarks. Judge for yourself. Bachmann has officially announced her candidacy for President.

Now in just her third term in Congress, Michele Bachmann, the leader of the House tea party caucus, has earned a reputation as one of the lower chamber's leading bomb-throwers, lobbing overheated rhetoric at Democrats and needling establishment Republicans. Her Minnesota colleague, Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison once accused her of "psycho talk"; in an interview with Politico, a Pawlenty aide was just as blunt: "She's a real pain in the ass." Former state senator Dean Johnson, who was the Republican minority leader during Bachmann's stint in St. Paul, has said, "I don't think I ever served with anybody who I mistrusted more, from either side of the aisle."

Ouch. Bachmann also has a tendency to stretch the truth, or simply sidestep it altogether. Bill Adair, editor of PolitiFact, recently told Minnesota Public Radio that he has never researched a Bachmann quote and found it to be true (the only major politician for which that's the case).

Here's an incomplete guide to Bachmann's greatest hits:

2001: In a letter she co-wrote for the Minnesota-based Maple River Education Coalition, Bachmann warns that President Bush's education policies are leading the nation down the path to communism: "Government is implementing policies that will lead to poverty, not prosperity, by adopting the failed ideas of a state-planned and managed economy similar to that of the former Soviet Union."

2003: Bachmann, then a state senator, explains why she doesn't agree with the theory of evolution: "Where do we say that a cell became a blade of grass, which became a starfish, which became a cat, which became a donkey, which became a human being? There’s a real lack of evidence from change from actual species to a different type of species. That's where it's difficult to prove." Don't even get her started on how a bill becomes a law.

2003: Bachmann sends out a Christmas Card advertising the availability of her youngest son, Lucas: "Chick magnate [sic] needs wife to put him through med school, clean house, pay bills and run his life. Must be willing to gamble against onslaught of socialized medicine diminishing return on investment."

2004: With the country locked in a heated debate over gay marriage, Bachmann finds parallels in the Old Testament: "We're in a state of crisis where our nation is literally ripping apart at the seams right now, and lawlessness is occurring from one ocean to the other. And we're seeing the fulfillment of the Book of Judges here in our own time, where every man doing that which is right in his own eyes—in other words, anarchy."

2004: Songwriter Melissa Etheridge has breast cancer. That's bad news. But there's good news too, Bachmann tells the conservative education group EdWatch: maybe the cancer will give her time to reflect on her sinful lifestyle: "Unfortunately she is now suffering from breast cancer, so keep her in your prayers. This may be an opportunity for her now to be open to some spiritual things, now that she is suffering with that physical disease. She is a lesbian." In the same speech, she alleges that "almost all, if not all, individuals who have gone into the lifestyle have been abused at one time in their life, either by a male or by a female."

2005: Bachmann explains her opposition to the state's minimum wage as a form of job creation: "Literally, if we took away the minimum wage—if conceivably it was gone—we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level."

2006: Campaigning for a seat in the House, Bachmann delivers a five-minute prayer  for You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, an anti-gay heavy metal ministry that promotes the gospel to public school students: "I thank you for how you are going to advance them from 260 schools a year, Lord, to 2,600 schools a year. Lord, we ask by faith that you would expand this ministry beyond anything the originators of this ministry could begin to think or imagine."

2007: In an interview with the St. Cloud Times, Bachmann drops a bombshell: Iran is planning on turning all of Northwest Iraq into a secret terrorist training camp: "Iran is the troublemaker trying to tip over apple carts all over Baghdad right now because they want America to pull out. And you know why? It's because they've already decided, that they're going to territory, they're- they're going to partition Iraq and half of Iraq, the western northern portion of Iraq is going to be called, the United, uh, the, the uh, -oh, I'm sorry, I can't remember the actual name of it now, but it's going to be called, um, uh, the, the, uh, uh the Iraq State of Islam, something like that."

2008: Just two weeks before election day, Bachmann calls for an investigation into the anti-American ambitions of Barack Obama and congressional Democrats: "What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out if they are pro-America or anti-America."

2008: Redundant Redundancies, vol. I: "The big thing we are working on now is the global warming hoax. It's all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax."

2009: Explaining her opposition to a bill that expands the scope of AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps' domestic equivalent, Bachmann warned Minnesota's KTLK that it could be the gateway to a mandatory brainwashing program: "I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums."

2009: Picking up on Sarah Palin's debunked warning abut "death panels" in the Affordable Care Act, Bachmann declares: "If you are a grandmother with Parkinson's or a child with cerebral palsy, watch out."

2009: Bachmann goes on Glenn Beck's Fox program to discuss the specter of "One World currency" and delivers what historians may later dub her "I am not a kook!" speech. "Glenn, I have experienced that throughout my political career being labeled a kook. It just happened again in a big story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. But all we have to do is point to the treasury secretary on tape, on camera. This is not Michele Bachmann being a kook. This is our treasury secretary on tape and on camera." A visibly confused Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had told Bachmann he was not aware of any plan to replace the dollar.

2009: As the nation (aided, perhaps, by Vice President Joe Biden) freaks out over Swine Flu, Bachmann implies—while stressing that she isn't—that this whole thing might have been Obama's doing: "I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."

2009: Bachmann warns the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. health care reform) would include a loophole permitting grade-schoolers to go on abortion field trips: "Does that mean that someone's 13-year old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back, and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser. They don't know any different."

2009: Bachmann frets that Democrats' cap-and-trade legislation, which proposed using the powers of the free market to create carbon exchanges,posed an existential threat to all Americans: "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us 'having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,' and the people—we the people—are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States."

2009: With health care reform coming ever closer to becoming a reality, Bachmann sounds the Horn of Gondor: "What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass."

2009: In an interview on Fox News, Bachmann warns that the Obama administration could potentially use Census data to round up Americans and put them in camps: "Between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau 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 internment camps. I'm not saying that that's what the administration is planning to do. But I am saying that private personal information that was given to the Census Bureau in the 1940s was used against them to round them up in violation of their constitutional rights."

2009: Bachmann argues that abnormally large emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide can't be regulated  because if we did, birds would lose their natural habitat—air: "Life on planet Earth can't even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that’s on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that—that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth."

2010: After former President Bill Clinton tells reporters Bachmann's "armed and dangerous" remarks could send the wrong message to fringe groups, Bachmann accuses Clinton of celebrating the Oklahoma City Bombings—by speaking at an event honoring those who died in the attack. "He gave a speech, and he called me out in his speech, and he was talking about the anniversary—now, only Democrats would do this. The anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing by Tim McVeigh. I mean, we don’t celebrate these things. This is not what we celebrate."

 2010: Bachmann warns that critics of the Affordable Care Act will be denied coverage, based on their political beliefs. As evidence, she cites a conversation with a Japanese man who told her that in Japan, health care reform opponents are afraid to speak up: "'Well why is that,' I asked. [He said], 'Because they know that would get on a list and they wouldn’t get health care. They wouldn't get in. They wouldn't get seen. And so people are afraid. They're afraid to speak back to government. They're afraid to say anything.' Is that what we want for our future? That takes us to gangster government at that point!"

2010: After House Democrats propose using a relatively standard parliamentary procedures to pass the Affordable Care Act, Bachmann calls for an investigation: "Well, yeah, and the other thing is treason media. Where is the mainstream media in all of this not telling this story? This is a compelling story. That the Speaker of the House would even consider having us pass a bill that no one votes on. That should laugh her out of the House and there should be people that are calling for impeachment off of something like this."

2010: Ever vigilant of bureaucratic waste, Bachmann alleges that President Obama's trip to India will be more expensive than the entire war in Afghanistan: "The president of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day. He's taking 2,000 people with him. He will be renting out over 870 rooms in India. And these are five-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. This is the kind of over-the-top spending." An exasperated White House spokesman later said the charges, which stemmed from an anonymous official in the west Indian state of Maharashtra, had "no basis in reality."

2010: Remember that whole bit about Obama being "anti-American" back in 2008? Yeah, forget that. Bachmann tells Bill O'Reilly: "Candidate Obama was a very reasonable fellow."

2010: Redundant Redundancies, vol. II [30] "That's what the Bill of Rights is all about—to secure our individual liberties from an overweening huge bureaucratic large big government."

2011: In a speech to New Hampshire tea partiers, Bachmann crafts an alternative history of the American Revolution: "What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty. You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord."

2011: As the House GOP prepares to vote on a continuing resolution to fund the government, Bachmann urges her colleagues to hold the line: "This is our mice or men moment. We need to show whether we are mice or men." The bill passes; we're mice, apparently.

2011: Bachmann suggests an unlikely fix  to the nation's long-term deficit: "I think if we give Glenn Beck the numbers, he can solve this."

2011: On Twitter, Bachmann says the President's proposal to make government-subsidized lunches more nutritional violates the will  of the Founders: "Where in the #Constitution does it say the fed. government should regulate potatoes in school lunches? It doesn't." Which is true. Technically.

2011: In an address to the group Iowans for Tax Relief, Bachmann praises the Founding Fathers for their commitment to…diversity: "It didn't matter the color of their skin, it didn't matter their language, it didn't matter their economic status, it didn't matter whether they descended from known royalty or whether they were of a higher class or a lower class, it made no difference. Once you got here [to the United States] you were all the same. Isn't that remarkable?"

In the same interview, she praises the Founders for working so hard to abolish slavery: "We know there was slavery that was still tolerated when the nation began. We know that was an evil and it was scourge and a blot and a stain upon our history. But we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States."

2011: Seizing on an administration directive to promote energy-efficient light bulbs, Bachmann accuses the administration of banning light bulbs altogether: "I think Thomas Edison did a pretty patriotic thing for this country by inventing the light bulb and I think darn well you New Hampshirites, if you want to want to buy Thomas Edison's wonderful invention you should be able to!"

2011: Michele Obama promotes breast-feeding as a means of reducing child obesity. Bachmann senses more sinister motives: "This is very consistent with where the hard left is coming from. For them, government is the answer to every problem. I've given birth to five babies and I breast fed every single one of these babies. To think that government has to go out and buy my breast pump for my babies? You wanna talk about the nanny state, I think you just got a new definition." 

 

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FINANCIALS

She requested an extension of the May 15 filing deadline

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Michele Bachmann Declares Her Candidacy Mid-Debate

Benjy Sarlin | June 13, 2011,

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) used Monday's New Hampshire Republican debate to make a little news, announcing that she had filed the paperwork to make her run for president official.

Her intentions weren't exactly a mystery -- this was a presidential debate, after all -- but Bachmann letting slip that she had filed the papers for her candidacy earlier that day was the first official confirmation of her intentions.

On Twitter, Bachmann's new presidential account "TeamBachmann" blasted out the news shortly after the debate announcement: "I'm in. RT if you'll join my campaign for President of the United States: http://www.michelebachmann.com#cnndebate."

Observers credited Bachmann with a strong performance early on in the debate. She was particularly animated on a question from a self-described "mainstream Republican" running State Senate in New Hampshire on how candidates would treat non-Tea Party GOP voters.

"What I've seen is, unlike how the media has tried to wrongly and grossly portray the Tea Party, the Tea Party is really made up of disaffected Democrats, independents. ... It's a wide swath of American coming together and I think that's why the left fears it so much."

.....................................

Excerpts from huffingtonpost.com Speculatron, June 24, 2011

So, Michele Bachmann's performance in the New Hampshire GOP debate has gotten her candidacy off on the (far) right foot. Her favorability rating took a nice bounce, as did her poll numbers. She's performing strong across the board, and in at least one poll, she emerged as the frontrunner. All this and she has hasn't even officially kicked off her campaign.

Next week, she'll hit the road, visiting key states -- going from Waterloo, Iowa to Raymond, N.H., to Myrtle Beach, S.C.

As always, woe betide anyone who underestimates her ability as a fundraiser -- and she's only growing more popular lately.

And she's getting good reviews -- relative to Bachmann, anyway. Things like, "She seems far less crazy in person than she does on TV," and, "She does not seem crazy."

Also, she's been glitter-bombed. In short, she's having a moment. And with that moment comes her very own Matt Taibbi article, in which he refers to Bachmann as "a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions."

That piece, however, has done more to earn Taibbi blowback than it will harm Bachmann. Over at The Awl, Abe Sauer warns that Taibbi's treatment is only going to redound to her benefit:

The profile is the kind of battle-axing of Bachmann that is going to do great pageviews for the magazine but ultimately play right into her hand. It gives Bachmann legitimate evidence that the fabled leftist mainstream media is attacking her. Consequently, it will make her more popular with a base that looks for which conservative leader is being most reviled in the media, and then assumes that person is their best bet. (It's not a coincidence that Tim Pawlenty has completely avoided harsh criticism from the MSM while at the same time being unable to gain traction with Tea Party-influenced primary voters.)

Not only is the profile unnecessarily mean, it's sloppy.

Sloppy may be an understatement, actually! Taibbi apparently borrowed pretty extensively from a piece from Minnesota's City Pages, and its author is not pleased with the lack of citations or Rolling Stone's response -- somehow, "space constraints" prevented adequate sourcing. (Links are promised for the online version.) Go read the whole thing to find out more about what Abe's talking about, but it amounts to an unforced journalistic error, upon which the Bachmann campaign may feast.

Chris Cillizza says that Bachmann has embarked on what he refers to as a "silent strategy," in that she's building "message discipline" and striving to cut back on her "outspoken" ways. Which makes sense if you just ignore the way she's lately contended that Canada hasn't embarked on a stimulus program (they have), that she didn't express her anti-science views down at the Republican Leadership Conference, and sort of accidentally defended the principles of a single-payer health care system (because she often doesn't know what she's talking about.) She also decided to publicly attack Mitt Romney for his stance on abortion, so if this is a "silent strategy," it still seems to feature a lot of amplified sounds coming out of her word-hole. (What actually happened is that some "Bachmann adviser granted anonymity to speak candidly about strategy" told Cillizza that they were pursuing a "silent strategy," and Cillizza said, "Okay, awesome, let me just scribble that down.")

 

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  Excerpts from articles on huffingtonpost.com and crooksandliars.com by John Amato June 16, 2011

Michele Bachmann hides religious extremist views and wins CNN GOP debate, but that's about to change

I had to laugh after reading the Villagers proclaim Michele Bachmann the winner of CNN's GOP debate in NH simply because she was able to present herself as somewhat normal. And as many others wrote, she stole the spotlight because she announced on the podium that she was indeed running for President. Wouldn't any normal person viewing the debate have thought she was already running since she was part of the debate? Michele

Bachmann’s Star Turn:

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann came into Monday night’s presidential debate in the Queen City as an unknown commodity. She left it as the most talked-about candidate in the 2012 GOP field.

Bachmann stole headlines at the start by announcing that she had filed to run for president — skipping the exploratory phase entirely — and then proceeding to command the stage in the first hour of the CNN-sponsored debate with quotable answers on every question asked of her. The crowd assembled at Saint Anselm College broke into spontaneous applause after several of Bachmann’s answers.

And others were impressed that she has 23 foster children. It's a good thing to be a foster parent, but if anybody in the Beltway Media paid attention earlier, they would have known that and probably reported on it when she started making noises about jumping in the race. She is the head of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress and yet this still seemed to come as a surprise.

What we heard from the media since the debate is that she prepared well and had her answers down pat, but what we haven't heard from the MSM is what her views have been since she's been in office outside of bashing Obama. They do know that she shares the same voters that Sarah Palin does.

Bill O'Reilly was suggesting that she would make a good VP pick for someone like Romney as he talked to Dick Morris last night because members of the House never get elected as President. Morris agreed with that but only because he believes she hasn't been vetted yet and there might be downside when the oppo research starts while Romney has already been through that process. That's the main reason Conservatives hate Romney.

The major reason Senators and members of the House have problems running for the Oval Office is because they take many, many votes in Congress which leaves a record that their rivals use against them. President Obama used Hillary Clinton's vote on the Iraq war as a big tool against her since he never had to take that vote and could later say he would have voted against it. It's Politics 101.

Anyway, Bachmann is as extreme as it gets and it's not like she's been hiding it. When she went McCarthy on Chris Matthews and told him that there are anti-American members in Congress and we should investigate them, it became an Internet sensation for lunacy. Before FOX News created the Tea Party, she was considered wackier than Rick Santorum and Dan Webster put together. In other words, she's the perfect Ralph Reed candidate.

The Daily Beast did a little digging into her past and Michele Goldberg wrote up a bio that highlights her extremism:

Bachmann's Unrivaled Extremism

Bachmann honed her view of the world after college, when she enrolled at the Coburn Law School at Oral Roberts University, an "interdenominational, Bible-based, and Holy Spirit-led" school in Oklahoma. "My goal there was to learn the law both from a professional but also from a biblical worldview," she said in an April speech.

At Coburn, Bachmann studied with John Eidsmoe, who she recently described as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me."  Bachmann served as his research assistant on the 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which argued that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy, and that it should become one again.  "The church and the state have separate spheres of authority, but both derive authority from God," Eidsmoe wrote.  "In that sense America, like [Old Testament] Israel, is a theocracy."

Eidsmoe, who hung up the phone when asked for an interview, is a contentious figure.  Last year, he withdrew from speaking at a Wisconsin Tea Party rally after the Associated Press raised questions about his history of addresses to white supremacist groups.  In 2010, speaking a rally celebrating Alabama's secession from the Union, he claimed that Jefferson Davis and John C. Calhoun understood the Constitution better than Abraham Lincoln.

Reading Eidsmoe, though, some of Bachmann's most widely ridiculed statements begin to make sense. Earlier this year, for example, she was mocked for saying that the Founding Fathers "worked tirelessly" to end slavery.  But in books by Eidsmoe and others who approach history from what they call a Christian worldview, this is a truism.  Despite his defense of the Confederacy, Eidsmoe also argues that even those founders who owned slaves opposed the institution and wanted it to disappear, and that it was only Christian for them to protect their slaves until it did.  "It might be very difficult for a freed slave to make a living in that economy; under such circumstances setting slaves free was both inhumane and irresponsible," he wrote.

She's so nutty that she once called the cops on an ex-nun who tried to talk gay rights with her in a bathroom.

TNR believes as I do that she's the Tea Party darling because she's melded free market fundamentalism with religious conservatism:

Bachmann is a cutting edge religious right conservative, espousing an apocalyptic free market fundamentalism that's become virtually indistinguishable from the apocalyptic Randian worldview of the party's libertarian wing.  Bachmann spent months addressing Tea Party rallies where she focused primarily on economics.

What she's done like the rest of the social conservatives these days is adopt Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman's economic theological principles and incorporated them into their many forms of Evangelical Christianity and that will help her in the GOP primary.

Here's a few of her greatest hits since the news media apparently needs me to do some research for them.

1.   Michele Bachmann's economic ideas might be more cruel than Paul Ryan's
2.   Michele Bachmann Pushes Planned Parenthood Sex Trafficking Lie During Ralph Reed's Wingnut Conference
3.   Michele Bachmann blames her reading of articles for getting everything wrong
4.   Bachmann's Iowa Debacle
5.   Minnesota GOP invites anti-gay death metal preacher to give opening prayer
6.   Bachmann claims NATO killed 30,000 civilians in Libya
7.   Michele Bachmann Refuses to Walk Back Gangster Government Comments
8.   Michelle Bachmann gives voice to the right's darkest impulses
9.   Michelle Bachmann warns of politically correct re-education camps for young people
10. Congresswoman Bachmann "We Would Do Well To Humble Ourselves Before God!"

Bachmann has said Dems didn't want her to be the first woman President so she was criticized, but here are a few more insane rants for your viewing pleasure:

Remember when Michelle told Glenn Beck that the census was used to round up Japanese Americans during WWII?

or when She said that health care reform was undesirable because if everyone had access, lines at her doctors' office would be too long;

or when She claimed that "Flying Imams" attended a victory party for Keith Ellison

or when She complained about "re-education camps for young people"

or when She introduced a bill blocking the US from ever joining a global currency.

or Michele Bachmann's insane 'Sex clinics and abortion" rant

or Bachmann Suggests Critics Of Health Care Reform Will Be Put On A ‘List’ And Denied Treatment

But, Bachmann's Latest Conspiracy Theory is a Doozy

 Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-Minn.) creativity is unrivaled in contemporary politics. Consider her remarks yesterday to a gathering of the Republican Leadership Conference.

Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, the latest candidate to join the Republican presidential campaign, suggested Friday that President Obama secretly wanted Medicare to go bankrupt so retirees would be forced to enroll in the new national health care law.

"This hasn't been talked about very much -- the president's plan for senior citizens is Obamacare," Ms. Bachmann told party activists here. She added, "I think very likely what the president intends is that Medicare will go broke and ultimately that answer will be Obamacare for senior citizens."

Bachmann's principal problem is that she combines the worst of two important traits: she's strikingly ignorant about public policy and she's paranoid to the point of delusion.

It's these qualities that lead Bachmann to come up with such odd theories. In this case, the unhinged Minnesotan believes President Obama is secretly trying to eliminate Medicare, forcing seniors into the Affordable Care Act. Is there any evidence at all to support this? Of course not, but that's not important right now.

In practical terms, Bachmann apparently thinks the president is secretly right-wing -- she believes Obama wants to end the existing system of socialized medicine for seniors, and force these millions of seniors into the private insurance market.

Of course, there is a group of people who actually support such an approach. They're called "House Republicans." Indeed, the House GOP budget plan -- written by Paul Ryan and endorsed by none other than Michele Bachmann -- seeks to end Medicare and convert the program into an ACA-style system. Bachmann's conspiracy theory is that Obama secretly agrees with her far-right colleagues.

This isn't just wrong; it's mad-as-a-hatter crazy.

Bachmann's ability to come up with remarkable conspiracy theories has always impressed me. Remember the time the right-wing presidential candidate argued that the U.S. Census may lead to "internment camps"? How about when she warned of a "one-world currency" because she got confused about what a global reserve currency is? Or maybe the time she thought the "Lion King" was secretly gay propaganda? How about the time she said a bipartisan national service bill could lead to "re-education camps"?

This new one, though, is probably my favorite to date. Anytime a right-wing lawmaker talks to a right-wing audience and thinks it's wise to attack President Obama as secretly on their side, it deserves some kind of award. 

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Michele Bachmann Should Read the Bible and find out what a Christian really is.

1) The Supreme Importance of Liberality :

{ Matthew 19:16, 21-26 } When someone came to Jesus with the crucial question: "Good Master, what must I do to have eternal life and happiness? [ Jesus told him that he must begin by obeying the ten commandments.  But, then he said...]

"If you want to be perfect, go and sell everything you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."  But when the young man heard this, he went away sadly, for he was very rich.

Without walking away, most "Christians" just tune out this teaching of Jesus these days, and pretend to follow Christ without really doing so.

. . . Then Jesus said to his disciples, "It is almost impossible for a rich man to get into the Kingdom of Heaven.  I say it again – it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God!" When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, "Then who can be saved?"   And Jesus replied, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible."

2) You cannot be both rich and a follower of Christ : 

{ Luke 16:13-15} " No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and wealth."  The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him.  So he said to them,  "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God."

{Luke 12:15-21} And he said to them,   "Take care!   Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."   Then he told them a parable:   "The land of a rich man produced abundantly.  And he thought to himself,  'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?'   Then he said, 'I will do this:  I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  And I will say to my soul,  'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many year; relax, eat, drink, be merry.'  
But God said to him, 'You fool!  This very night your life is being demanded of you.  And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'  So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."  "Yes, every man is a fool who gets rich on earth but not in heaven.  Sell what you have and give to those in need.  This will fatten your purses in heaven!   And the purses of heaven have no rips or holes in them.  Your treasures there will never disappear; no thief can steal them; no moth can destroy them.  Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be."

Many so-called "Christian" preachers teach that Jesus ( or God) has no problem with people being rich.  But the following is still another powerful illustration Jesus used to show how much God disapproves of this world's wealth being hoarded into huge piles by greedy and/or clever individuals :

{ Luke 16:20-31: }  "One day Lazarus, a diseased beggar, was laid at the door of a rich man's house.   As he lay there longing for scraps from the rich man's table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores.   Finally the beggar died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham in the place of the righteous dead.

"The rich man also died and was buried, and his soul went into hell.   There, in torment, he saw Lazarus in the far distance with Abraham.   'Father Abraham,' he shouted, 'have some pity! Send Lazarus over here if only to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in these flames.'  But Abraham said to him, 'Son, remember that during your life-time you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing.  So now he is here being comforted and you are in anguish."

What if God cares enough about the whole world to hold us "Christians" in America with infinitely more wealth than millions of people in other parts of the world responsible for doing our best to ignore those unlucky enough to have been born on the "other side of the tracks", in the many desperately poor communities of this world ?  Is this parable relevant only to rich vs. poor individuals?   Or does it relate to rich Christian nations vs. the many extremely poor nations of this world?

. . . "And besides, there is a great chasm separating us, and anyone wanting to come to you from here is stopped at its edge; and no one over there can cross to us.'

Then the rich man said,  'O Father Abraham, then please send him to my father's home – for I have five brothers – to warn them about this place of torment, lest they come here when they die.'   But Abraham said,  'The Scriptures have warned them again and again.  Your brothers can read them any time they want to.'  The rich man replied,  'No, Father Abraham, they won't bother to read them.  But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will turn from their sins.'  But Abraham said,  'If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen even though someone rises from the dead.'

How many so-called Christian preachers do you know who are challenging America's high-living Christian conservatives, as this web site is trying to do, to live by those scriptures ?   Unless and until they do, don't wonder why the vast majority of people who imagine themselves to be "Christians" do not identify with the down-and-out, such as :

• children deprived of their mothers, because society thinks it's a good idea to put these young women in prisons (and then looks the other way when these mothers are raped by their "guards" in our prisons).
• schools going from bad to worse in urban areas, as more prosperous "Christians" flee to the suburbs and take all their tax contributions with them.
• African Americans and Native Americans continuing to suffer from the atrocities perpetrated on their ancestors by our ancestors over the course of centuries.
• Working class people who are threatened or punished for trying to organize themselves into unions.
• poor helpless men, women and children being forced to work for slave wages all over the world, while Americans can afford to pay outrageous sums to make middlemen like the Walton family of Wal-Mart the richest people in America.
• Taxes are cut – not for those with the greatest need for tax relief – but for those with the least need for it, even over the objections of some of America's wealthiest tax payers!
• many people having no peace of mind when it comes to their health or financial security, because they can't get any health insurance.
• older Americans whose health insurance doesn't cover the one service they now need most, i.e. prescription drug coverage.
• poor people right here in America, who can't afford the cost of even the poorest of housing, even if they work full time, because the minimum wage allowed in this country has been kept so disgracefully low, while the cost of housing has risen astronomically.
• blacks and browns being imprisoned at twice the rate of whites, despite the fact that there are four times as many whites and they commit more crimes.
• poor people are thrown in prison for petty crimes, but rich people are allowed to keep the loot they steal in "white collar" crimes, IF they get caught, after paying small fines or serving a token amount of time in country club prisons.

{ John, 3: 16 – 18 }  "We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.  How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?  Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action."

Instead of being concerned about such issues, and supporting those who need our help, many so-called "Christian" preachers promote the idea that God is a kind of golden goose, whose job it is to constantly bless us rather than to move us to "bless" others, by sharing our extraordinary wealth in this world with those who don't have enough to live on.  Such preachers and leaders have driven to the very top of the NY Times' Best Seller List a book promising earthly blessings to those who read the book and pray "The Prayer of Jabez".

Ayn Rand was an Atheist - but Republican Politicians have chosen her as a Roll Model.  Why? Because she looks at the Rich as Producers and the Poor and Middle Class as Parasites!  Does The Tea Party Really Know what Ayn Rand's Philosophy Really Was?

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Michele Bachmann Used House Funds To Pay For Tea Party Rally.  This is a Criminal Scandal of the First Order.

Excerpts from an article in rollcall.com by Susie Madrak Jun 21, 2011

Bachmann was playing with House money and the media organizations that saw Rep. Weiner punished for his sins should jump right on this.

On Nov. 5, 2009, at the behest of Rep. Michele Bachmann, thousands of tea party activists descended on the Capitol to vent their rage over the health care overhaul bill pending before Congress.

The assembled activists chanted, "Kill the bill! Kill the bill!" and waved signs opposing a government takeover of health care — but they may not have known that the same government was paying for the event.

According to House expense reports, Bachmann and three conservative GOP colleagues — Reps. Tom Price (Ga.), Steve King (Iowa) and Todd Akin (Mo.) — each paid $3,407.50 that day, a total of $13,630, to a sound and stage company called National Events, apparently for the sound system used at the rally.

The money came from the Members' taxpayer-funded office accounts, despite House rules prohibiting the use of these funds for political activities. Bachmann's office insists the expense was a proper use of official funds.

Bachmann billed the event as a "press conference," which can be funded from official accounts. But no questions were taken from the press and, unlike most press conferences, it opened with a prayer, the national anthem and a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

A few days earlier, the Minnesota Republican had appeared on a Fox News talk show and made an appeal for activists to come to D.C. for the event, promising to help them lobby Congress against the bill.

This isn't the first time Bachmann has been irregular in her use of staffing funds. She did it even when she was a state senator.  End Excerpt.

Dynion Mwyn National Politics Editor:  The Lame Stream Media has blinders on when its Republican FINANCIAL scandals.  If there were photos of Michele giving Tom Price a blow job, they might be interested.  But maybe not, Tom Price would have to give Todd Akin a Blow job.  There has to be a Penis involved before the media wakes up from their normal stupor.

 

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Click here for Michele Bachmann's Unrivaled Extremism

 

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17-Year-Old Challenges Michele Bachmann on Louisiana Law Allowing Creationism To Be Taught In Public School Science Classes

See the update at the end of this article!!!!

"Louisiana students can't compete with kids across the country and around the world if we're not being taught evolution," said Zack Kopplin, 17.

Excerpts from an article posted on alternet.org May 28, 2011  |  

Most high school students are concerned about their grades or getting into a good college, but 17-year-old Zack Kopplin is focusing on conducting a national campaign to challenge a congresswoman on her basic understanding of the separation of church and state.

Kopplin, a student from Baton Rouge Magnet High School, is working tirelessly to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), a piece of legislation that Kopplin said is a way to sneak the teaching of creationism into Louisiana public school science classrooms.

Initially presented under the guise of "academic freedom," LSEA singles out evolution for specific criticism. The bill allows local school boards to approve supplemental classroom materials specifically for the critique of scientific theories.

The text of the bill suggests that this is all designed to aid critical thinking, and calls on the Board of Education to "assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories."

And what are the areas in need of "critical thinking," you ask? Coincidentally, the hot button issues the Religious Right have turned into legislative crusades: evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.

Kopplin is horrified his state has adopted the pro-creationism law. "It is embarrassing," he said, "The New York Times covered this law, and I have friends and family around the country who called me up and asked me about it. No one should be embarrassed by their state."

Beyond the personal humiliation of living in a state that teaches a fairytale about a sky daddy alongside real things like carbon dating, genome-mapping and gravity, Kopplin fears for the future of Louisiana's educational system.

"This hurts Louisiana students' chances of getting the good science-based jobs we want. Research centers, like Baton Rouge's Pennington Center, are not going to hire Louisiana kids because they won't know whether we were taught the science we need to work there," he said, adding that in a world constantly making rapid advancements in scientific understanding, Louisiana can't afford to backslide into the dark ages.

"Louisiana students can't compete with kids across the country and around the world if we're not being taught evolution," Kopplln said.

Such anti-science behavior is even bad for tourism, according to Kopplin. "The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology pulled a prescheduled convention from New Orleans after the law passed, and other groups have made it clear that they don't plan to come back while the law is in place."

Kopplin supported a bill designed to repeal LSEA, which also shared the backing of more than 40 Nobel science laureates, national science organizations, university professors, high school biology teachers, the Louisiana Association of Educators, and a petition with more than 60,000 signatures.

Despite the overwhelming pressure from the scientific community (not a single state or national science organization lobbied on behalf of LSEA), Sen. Karen Carter Peterson's Senate Bill 70 died in committee Thursday. Kopplin blames the repeal's demise on the oppositional pressure coming from the Louisiana Family Forum, an affiliate of Focus on the Family and a powerful lobbying group.

LFF enjoyed another victory this month when it successfully urged the Louisiana legislature to kill House Bill 112, also known as the Safe Schools Bill, which sought to better protect school children from bullying. LFF's executive director, Gene Mills, referred to the piece of legislation as the "Homosexual Bullying Bill."

"We're selective in when we want to listen to experts. When we're talking about the economy we bring in economists. When we're talking about roads and bridges we bring in engineers. Why don't we afford the same to science? How do you ignore 42 Nobel laureates?" Peterson asked the committee. "It is fundamentally embarrassing to have this law on the books."

"Creationism is not science," said Kopplin. "It does not belong in a public school science classroom. Put it in a religion class, a philosophy class, but not in a science class."

Kopplin is not impressed by the "critical thinking" claims made in LSEA. "They don't need a law to teach critical thinking in a science class," Kopplin said. "Science is critical thinking."

Furthermore, he doesn't plan to limit the scope of this fight to Louisiana. Earlier this week, the high schooler called out Minnesota's Michele Bachmann for trying to pass SF 1714, a bill similar to LSEA, that would require public schools to permit the teaching of intelligent design creationism in the school science curriculum.

Perhaps such ignorance should be expected from the woman who stood on the House floor and declared that the threat of manmade global warming doesn't make sense because "carbon dioxide is a natural byproduct of nature."

"Bachmann's ongoing misrepresentation of science and scientists at a national level adds fuel and false authority to the lobbyists and politicians in my state who have an agenda to undermine evidence-based science," he said.

No doubt, Zack Kopplin's resolute stance will not be shaken by this recent defeat. "Even if we don't get it this year, we've laid a remarkable foundation for next year. We can get 100 Nobel Laureates for next year and thousands more signatures and phone calls and kids involved," he said before the vote.  Now read the next article!!

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Michele Bachmann's Stance on Evolution Demolished by High School Student

The below contains excerpts from an article posted on huffingtonpost.com by Michael Zimmerman on 05/31/11

 

Michele Bachmann, as virtually everyone knows, is currently deciding whether she's going to make a run for the Tea Party, oops, I meant to say, Republican, nomination for president. What most don't know, though, is that her educational policies are being challenged by an amazing high school student from Baton Rouge, La. You should get to know this student, Zack Kopplin, and his efforts because he's likely to make a difference.

I've written about Zack previously because both his story and his commitment are incredibly impressive. As I first noted, he recently began an effort to repeal an atrocious stealth-creationism law in Louisiana.  The law, the Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008, encourages attacks on evolution to be taught in Louisiana's public schools under the banner of critical thinking.  This is the only state law of its sort in the country and, as Zack so well points out, Louisiana students interested in science are being done a huge disservice by its very existence.

Zack hasn't been content to simply complain about an educationally irresponsible law, however. His organizational skills have been nothing short of phenomenal and he's gathered a collection of supporters second to none.  His repeal effort has been endorsed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the largest general science organization in the world with over 10 million members; the National Association of Biology Teachers, the country's main organization for biological educators; The Clergy Letter Project, an organization of more than 14,000 clergy and scientists recognizing that religion and science need not be in conflict; as well as a host of other scientific groups including the American Institute for Biological Sciences, The American Society for Cell Biology, the Society for the Study of Evolution, The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.  Additionally, the New Orleans City Council voted unanimously to support the repeal.

Zack's work didn't stop there. He wrote a petition that was adopted as Change.org's featured one of the week where it has amassed more than 65,000 supporters. And, as I reported in April, in his most extraordinary effort, he collected the endorsement of 43 individuals who won a Nobel Prize in science.

Which brings me back to Michele Bachmann. Not only is Bachmann a fan of creationism and its anti-intellectual offshoot, intelligent design, she's made some outlandish claims about the pseudoscientific subject. For example, she's asserted, "there is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact ... hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel prizes, believe in intelligent design."

Zack has now challenged Bachmann on her claims. Using a poker analogy and the huge number of scientists who have endorsed evolution, in general, and his repeal effort, in particular, Zack has written, "Congresswoman Bachmann, I see your 'hundreds' of scientists, and raise you millions of scientists."

Given the strength of the hand he has, he doesn't stop there.

For the next hand, I raise you 43 Nobel Laureate scientists. That's right: 43 Nobel Laureate scientists have endorsed our effort to repeal Louisiana's creationism law. ... Congresswoman Bachmann, you claim that Nobel Laureates support creationism. Show me your hand. If you want to be taken seriously by voters while you run for President, back up your claims with facts. Can you match 43 Nobel Laureates, or do you fold?

It would be difficult for someone with a sincere interest in science education not to take Zack Kopplin's challenge seriously. Having said that, I fully expect that Michele Bachmann will completely ignore Zack, the voice of the scientific community, the combined pleas of 43 Nobel scientists and thousands of religious leaders.

All of this reminds me of a Sunday afternoon a couple of years ago when I was in Lambeau Field with my two sons watching the Packers play the Bears. After a controversial and costly penalty was called against the Packers, the referee began to give a convoluted explanation of his ruling. The entire crowd of 73,000 plus was completely silent while the odd explanation was being delivered over the PA system. Then, all of a sudden, one fan with a booming voice that could be heard throughout the entire stadium shouted, "Stop Making Shit Up!"

Representative Bachmann, I urge you to pay attention to that fan.
 

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For the Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann and Frank Vennes Scandal  Click Here!

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Michele Bachmann is Going to Dante's Hell

It has been determined that Michele Bachmann is going to be consigned to Dantes  Hell because Michele Bachmann is Damned!  That much is clear.  But where and how?  Dante neglected to specify which circle of hell a soul is consigned to after betraying the Nations Healthcare of the Poor and Children for the sake of politics.

Traitors are of course consigned to the innermost circles, ranging from traitors to their kin, lords, country and benefactors.  No space appears to have been left for traitors to the Poor and children.

The thought struck us that hell is long overdue for a make-over.  The business of sin has changed substantially since Dante's day.  Not only are many of the sins archaic (it seems doubtful at this point that Protestants are damned as schismatics) but as in the Bachmann case, Dante has failed to keep up with the times.  What is the punishment for TV evangelists Political Liars, Political Thieves, or for that matter for Congresswomen who vote to take away healthcare for children who need it and lie about attacking defenseless children and "being put on a list" to make a point.

Whatever Bachmann's concern about gathering hard evidence to bolster her position to vote against  healthcare, anyone who betrays This Nations Children in that calculating manner deserves the fate that Dante would assign her:  being trapped in ice up to the neck in the deepest pit of the Inferno, where treachery against basic human bonds is punished and where Satan himself, once the brightest of the rebel angels, beats his bat's wings.

Good Luck Michele, Satan is coming for you anytime now - he remembers when you sold your soul and he's coming to collect!!!

Click HERE to go to "False Witness"...Michelle Bachmann Comic Books

 

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Michele Bachmann Lies To Iowa Voters About Her Family Roots. SHAME!!!  She has Helped Spawn An Entire Genre of Christian Nationalist Pseudo-History

Excerpts from an article posted April 9, 2011 on alternet.org by B.E. Wilson

“Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.” – George Orwell, 1984

Politicians lie all the time, this we know. But what’s addressed here is different–a determined ongoing campaign to overwrite the historical record with carefully crafted history lies designed to steer America away from democratic, secular pluralism and towards Christian supremacy.

Would Michele Bachmann lie about her family genealogy to seem more “Iowan”, presumably to impress state residents who might attend the upcoming February 2012 Iowa caucus, that will help establish front-runners, in both major political parties, in the 2012 presidential race?

As Chris Rodda, Head Researcher for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and author of Liars For Jesus – The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History details, Bachmann just did it!!!

But this isn’t surprising given that, as Rodda describes, back in 1987 Michele Bachmann worked as a research assistant for one of the seminal books in the growing genre of Christian nationalist falsified American history works packed with history lies that are seeping into JROTC curriculum, PBS documentaries, the National Prayer Breakfast, and political discourse within the Republican Party [If you want to understand more about the impact of these books, see Frederick Clarskon's History is Powerful - Why the Christian Right Distorts History and Why it Matters.]

Many of the current Republican front runners expected to seek their party’s nomination to run for president in 2012, notably Mike Huckabee, Michele Bachmann, and Newt Gingrich, are aggressively courting David Barton, the reigning crown prince of this oeuvre of pseudo-history that’s chock full of distortions, myths, and outright lies which serve to advance the claim that America was originally founded as a Christian nation rather than as a secular republic.

In 2010 Fox talk show host Glenn Beck rolled out an ongoing weekly series featuring David Barton’s history lies, which prompted Chris Rodda to kickoff an ongoing series of posts debunking the lies that Beck was broadcasting out to millions of credulous viewers.

Mike Huckabee, recently grilled about his praise for Barton’s work by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, feels so strongly about it that at a recent Christian supremacist conference former Arkansas governor Huckabee joked that he wishes every American could be forcibly indoctrinated with Barton’s teachings – indoctrinated at gunpoint if necessary. Strong words for a man aspiring to the presidency of the United States, especially in light of the growing power of the position, which some observers characterize as the “imperial presidency.”

Michele Bachmann and other leading Republican presidential hopefuls have stood onstage with and lavished praise on Barton, who seems to endorse “Biblical slavery” and whose organization’s website favorably quotes radical-Free Market theologian R.J. Rushdoony, a racist Holocaust revisionist known for his denunciation of miscegenation (race-mixing, that is)

Does David Barton endorse the ideas of R.J. Rushdoony? Do any of the current Republican presidential hopefuls? They would no doubt deny it, because Rushdoony’s ideas were (and are) wildly controversial and highly offensive to most Americans.

In a January 2008 Talk To Action story, while he was governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee employed a prominent Christian Reconstructionist as a policy adviser. That’s not the only data point. In an April 12, 2010 Religion Dispatches post, RD editor Sarah Posner covered Huckabee’s numerous links to Christian Reconstructionists and their movement, ties also noted by observers across the political spectrum from Joe Conason of Salon.com to Robert Novak of the Washington Post.

Christian Reconstructionism usually gets noticed for its more atavistic aspects, such as the advocacy by some leading Reconstructionists (including R.J. Rushdoony) of “Biblical stoning” (or burning at the stake) as capital punishments for astrology and witchcraft, idolatry, blasphemy, adultery, “sodomy or homosexuality”, un-chastity before marriage (by women), apostasy (renunciation of the faith), and “incorrigible juvenile delinquency”.

As Walter Olson wrote in a delightfully sardonic and quite informative 1998 article published in Reason magazine, Invitation To A Stoning,

Reconstructionists provide the most enthusiastic constituency for stoning since the Taliban seized Kabul. “Why stoning?” asks [Gary] North. “There are many reasons. First, the implements of execution are available to everyone at virtually no cost.” Thrift and ubiquity aside, “executions are community projects–not with spectators who watch a professional executioner do `his’ duty, but rather with actual participants.” You might even say that like square dances or quilting bees, they represent the kind of hands-on neighborliness so often missed in this impersonal era.

But Christian Reconstructionism also involves a sweeping vision for the economic restructuring of society, under its radically libertarian, theocratic vision for “Biblical Capitalism”, as author Rachel Tabachnick explains in an ongoing Talk To Action series, starting with Biblical Capitalism – The Religious Right’s War on Progressive Economic Policy. Here are parts 2 and 3 of the series. Part four, Rushdoony’s Theocratic Libertarianism at Work in the Nation’s Statehouses, covers the spread of Christian Reconstructionist-inspired legislation at the state level.

You can watch David Barton expressing Biblical capitalism ideas in this video, compiled by Kyle Mantyla of People For The American Way’s Rightwing Watch, in which Barton makes the claim that Biblical scripture prohibits a capital gains tax.

Meanwhile, back to Michele Bachmann–a veritable grande dame of the falsified history movement, it would seem. As Chris Rodda explains,

In her speech at the March 24 and 25 Rediscover God in America conference in Iowa, Michelle Bachmann, like the other potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates who spoke at this conference, lavished praise on their fellow speaker, Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton. Bachmann also revealed that her involvement in the history revisionism game goes back even further than her association with Barton. As a student at Oral Roberts University, she met John Eidsmoe, and worked as a research assistant on his 1987 book, Christianity and the Constitution. Eidsmoe is another Christian nationalist history revisionist, whose Christianity and the Constitution book predates the first edition of Barton’s book The Myth of Separation by a year. In fact, some of Barton’s lies are adaptations of Eidsmoe’s lies and half-truths, a number of which are debunked in my book. But I had no idea that Bachmann had been involved with Eidsmoe or his book until she talked about it at the Rediscover God in America conference, or that it was Eidsmoe who introduced her to Barton’s material…. But Bachmann’s admiration of history revisionists wasn’t the thing that really caught my attention in her speech at the conference…

Rodda goes on to provide a detailed debunking of Michele Bachmann’s self-described “Iwegian” (Iowan Norwegian) roots. As Rodda concludes, back in 2008 when it was more politically advantageous to do so, Bachmann stressed her Minnesota family roots which, now it would seem, aren’t as desirable for the presidential hopeful, who now has morphed into an “Iwegian”:

during her 2008 campaign for reelection in Minnesota, when it was more advantageous for her to be a Minnesotan, her campaign website emphasized her Minnesota roots with a section on its “About” page titled “Rooted in Minnesota,” which began, “Michele grew up in Anoka.”

If Bachmann’s presidential aspirations don’t work out and she has settle for running for reelection to Congress, I wonder how her constituents in Minnesota will feel about her denouncing her Minnesota roots in favor of being an Iowan.

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Michelle Bachmann Is Going to Run for President.

Back in August of 2009, Michele Bachmann said that she wouldn't run for president unless she received instructions from the Lord Almighty to do so. Well, apparently, God is all, "Feh, I was thinking of wrapping this whole universe I created up really soon, so, whatever, Michele, go for it." And so now we get the news this week that Bachmann will maybe form an exploratory committee in June, or even earlier, or maybe never, who knows?

Regardless, she's "in for the conversation":

"I'm in for 2012 in that I want to be a part of the conversation in making sure that President Obama only serves one term, not two, because I want to make sure that we get someone who's going to be making the country work again. That's what I'm in for," Bachmann said.

"But I haven't made a decision yet to announce, obviously, if I'm a candidate or not, but I'm in for the conversation."

In New Hampshire, the news was greeted with mixed reviews, with some saying it's unwise to get "too excited about these candidacies when in fact that these people don't have a whole lot of experience to be the leader of the free world," and other people saying that Bachmann "stands up for her principles and has not wavered on her positions at all." Michele Bachmann will not waver from her position that Lexington, Massachusetts is actually in New Hampshire, which is probably good news for New Hampshire.

Bachmann might join fellow Minnesotan Tim Pawlenty in the presidential race, which Minnesota Republican Party chairman Tony Sutton calls "an embarrassment of riches." From Pawlenty's perspective, this is actually not great news: Pawlenty is on a mission to garner more attention for his candidacy, but the media's kliegs tend to love them some Bachmann. (The first thing Bachmann did after floating the possibility that she might form an exploratory committee was hire a prominent Iowa Birther, so you can see where this is going.)

It's not all bad news, though! Bachmann's former chief of staff says that he will be voting for TPaw.

LATE NEWS!!!:

Apparently, Michele Bachmann is now confirming that she has received the long-awaited go-ahead from the Lord on her presidential run. Per Eric Kleefeld, she revealed that she had received His blessing in an interview with Iowa Public Television:

Henderson: You recently referenced your Christian faith. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, when he announced he would not run, said that he just didn't feel called to do that. Have you had that sort of calling to run for president?

Bachmann: Well, every decision that I make I pray about as does my husband and I can tell you, yes, I've had that calling and that tugging on my heart that this is the right thing to do and because it's such a momentous decision, not only for myself, my husband and our 28 children, it is a momentous decision.

You can watch the entire interview, here. And let's just remember that God created the platypus and "works in mysterious ways" before we all go changing religions, okay?

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Bachmann's Questionable Record

While Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has emerged as a darling of the Tea Party and conservative wing of the Republican party, she has largely avoided the kind of close scrutiny of her record that is a hallmark of a presidential campaign. Even before she officially launches her bid, Matt Lewis observes that "the Tea Party rhetoric doesn't always match the record... Bachmann would likely find herself defending a slew of questionable votes and decisions, including on earmarks, pardons and farm subsidies."

"The federalist argument is also severely undercut by the fact that since joining the U.S. Congress in 2007, Bachmann has appropriated more than $3.7 million in earmarks. What is more, when Republicans sought an earmark moratorium, Bachmann pushed to exclude transportation projects from the ban. Bachmann may also be plagued by her involvement in a controversial pardon. In 2007, Bachmann wrote a letter requesting a presidential pardon for a convicted drug-smuggler and money-launderer named Frank Vennes... Making matters worse, he and his wife donated a total of $27,600 to Bachmann's 2006 and 2008 election."

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Palin, Bachmann Seek Two Additional Horsemen (Satire)

They Send Out A Call at A Tea Party Rally

MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report) – Making a joint appearance at a Tea Party rally in Minneapolis, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann put out a cryptic call for “two more horsemen” to join their movement.  They are obsessed with becoming The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Bible.

“Michele and me, that’s two horsemen right there,” Gov. Palin told the exuberant crowd.  “You add two more horsemen into the mix and we’ll be good to go.”

While the two politicians were cagey about what the duties of the aforementioned horsemen would be, Rep. Bachmann said, “You can bet it will be a mission to end all missions.”

According to a source close to the two politicians, they have already drawn up a list of possible candidates for the additional two horsemen, a list which includes Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, and the entire Cheney family.

“It’s a long list,” the source said.  “If you add up everyone on the list the number you get is 666.”

The Tea Party rally featuring Palin and Bachmann received wide coverage, including mention in the collected works of Nostradamus and in the prophecies of ancient Mayans. More here.

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Michele Bachmann says repeal and pass the same provisions over again

Oh, Michele. I take it you really, really didn't read that bill before you voted against it did you?  Minnesota voters, how does that make you feel, knowing that your elected representative couldn't be bothered to read something before voting against it?

Michele's solutions are either in the bill already or are just restatements of the same old arguments with different words. After explaining just how difficult it will be to repeal health care reform, she then enumerates how the country can best cover the "thirty-thousand uninsured". Here is her list:

1. Sell across state lines - That's already in the bill in the form of regional co-ops that can form with regulatory approval by all involved states. What ISN'T in the bill: Basing operations in a US territory or state with very little in the way of insurance regulation and selling into states that are heavily regulated. If Bachmann had her way, insurers would move their base of operations to the Cayman Islands and insure only those who made more than $250,000/year. The rest of us could be screwed, but hey, at least we could buy insurance across state lines!
2. Make insurance 100% deductible - This is in the bill, too. Of course, for those receiving subsidies, the insurance is not 100% deductible because the government is picking up all or part of the cost. What Bachmann fantasizes about is having everyone skip off to their friendly offshore insurer and shelling out big bucks up front that they might be able to get some tax benefits from on the back end. That's how the wealthy folks live, not the rest of us.
3. Make health care costs 100% deductible - Strange. Wouldn't that be like the government picking up all of our health care costs by reimbursement on the back end? What happened to that Health Savings Account idea where contributions are limited to a fraction of what might actually be paid in a year? I'm sure glad the Democrats are the fiscally responsible party.
4. Tort reform - The bill provides funding and incentives for states to innovate around liability and tort issues. Bachmann and the rest of her Republican cronies should know that tort reform is a state-by-state issue. Jurisdiction for how torts are litigated belongs to the states, not the federal government. After all, isn't that part of the argument for repealing health care reform?

What struck me about Bachmann's list of includes was what she excluded. Nothing about pre-existing conditions exclusions. Nothing about lifetime caps. Nothing about rescissions. Nothing about stopping insurers from excluding children born with pre-existing conditions.

She didn't mention even one of those. They didn't cross her mind. It wasn't an accident. The battle lines were always drawn at pre-existing conditions. It's driving the Republicans crazy that the middle class actually might be able to get health care without selling their souls, homes and assets to do it.

 

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Poll: Majority of Minnesotans ‘embarrassed’ by Bachmann

Excerpt from an article in the Minnesota Independent by Paul Schmelzer 2/12/10 6:00 AM  

A new survey of Minnesotans shows that a majority of residents — 56 percent — are embarrassed by Rep. Michele Bachmann. The release of the survey, commissioned by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America and Credo Action, follows recent high-profile statements by Bachmann that she believes President Barack Obama wants to “annihilate” conservatives, that the U.S. faces a “curse” – and extinction — if it fails to support Israel, and that government must “wean” Americans off of social safety net programs like Medicare and Social Security.

The Bachmann survey results, released exclusively to the Minnesota Independent, measure responses to the question, “Do you think Congresswoman Michele Bachmann does Minnesota proud in Congress or embarrasses Minnesota?” While 56 percent of respondents statewide said they were embarrassed by Bachmann, 29 percent answered that they were “proud” of the Sixth Congressional District Republican, and 15 percent were “not sure.”

Predictably, 87 percent of Democrats polled said they were embarrassed, while only 12 percent of Republicans agreed (58 pecent of Republican respondents said they were proud of Bachmann).

The survey of 600 Minnesotans gauged feedback based on gender (by four percentage points, more women favored Bachmann than men), race (55 percent of whites are embarrassed by the congresswoman, while 80 percent of people of other races held that sentiment) and congressional district.

Some surprises: While the Minneapolis-area district represented by Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison led the state in finding Bachmann an embarrassment, the relatively conservative District 8, the northern Minnesota area represented by Rep. James Oberstar, came in second, with 69 percent of respondents responding negatively to Bachmann. In Bachmann’s own district, only 39 percent found her embarrassing. However, a majority of surveyed independents — a population likely to tilt the scales in Bachmann’s November election against either DFL Sen. Tarryl Clark or Dr. Maureen Reed — responded negatively to Bachmann, with 62 percent answering that she was embarrassing.

The full survey, which will feature public opinions on Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, health care reform and the public option, will be released next week.

Bachmann’s recent proclamations — which have generated sharp reactions from candidates hoping to unseat her, as well as a rebuttal by Bachmann, who decried what she characterizes as “political grandstanding” — haven’t affected the outcome of this survey: It was conducted by phone by Research 2000 on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1.

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Bachmann Suggests Critics Of Health Care Reform Will Be Put On A ‘List’ And Denied Treatment  

Excerpts from an article at thinkprogess.org By Alex Seitz-Wald on Feb 2nd, 2010

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) painted an Orwellian vision of health care reform yesterday, claiming that critics of the Democrats’ plan could be denied coverage. Citing an unnamed Japanese man who supposedly approached her in Washington, Bachmann suggested that critics of the Japanese government are placed on a “list” and prohibited from receiving medical care under Japan’s universal health care system. Saying “a government takeover of health care is the crown jewel of socialism,” Bachmann insinuated a similar situation could occur in “our future”:

BACHMANN: He said that in Japan, to wait and get health care is almost impossible. You get on a list and you wait and you wait and you wait. But he said this is something people don’t know: in Japan, people have stopped voicing their opinion on health care. There are things that are wrong with Japanese health care, but people are afraid of voicing. ‘Well why is that,’ I asked. [He said], ‘Because they know that would get on a list and they wouldn’t get health care. They wouldn’t get in. They wouldn’t get seen. And so people are afraid. They’re afraid to speak back to government. They’re afraid to say anything.’ Is that what we want for our future? That takes us to gangster government at that point!

Watch it (beginning at 0:50):

Other than one individual’s account, Bachmann provides no evidence to support her slur of Japan’s health care system, let alone any evidence to suggest that the same thing would transpire in the U.S. The Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Eric Roper “could not find evidence to back up the claim that Japan withholds health care from government critics.” He noted that a recent Washington Post article “describing the pros and cons of the Japanese health system makes no mention of it.”

Japan’s universal system has been able to keep health care costs far lower than those in the U.S., despite an aging population, allowing Japanese to visit a doctor nearly 14 times a year. Bachmann is also wrong when she claims that wait times make it “almost impossible” to receive care in Japan. As ABC News noted, “waiting lists are not a major problem” in Japan, and patients can even “go to a doctor without an appointment, but may have to sit for a long time in the waiting room.”

The Republican National Committee made a similar false accusation last August when it mailed a fundraising appeal that suggested that Democrats might use an overhaul of the health care system to deny medical treatment to Republicans.

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Michelle Invents New Paranoia

By Heather Wednesday Feb 03, 2010 6:00am

Keith's comment on the special kind of right wing crazy that is Michele Bachmann.

 

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Some Of The Craziest Things Michele Bachmann Has Ever Said

Excerpts from an article by Elon Green, Jun 16, 2011

Earlier this week, Rep. Michele announced she had filed the papers to run for President. It’s not a frivolous pursuit: She is extremely well liked by the Republican base and is an unusually effective fundraiser, taking in more dollars in the last election cycle she than any of her Congressional colleagues.

Still, Bachmann’s candidacy is not without potential landmines. Over the last decade, she has taken positions that are dangerous, stemming from her radical ideology. To Bachmann’s credit, she is aware of this, lamenting to Glenn Beck, “I have experienced that throughout my political career, being labeled a kook.”

ThinkProgress has assembled 10 of the nuttiest things Bachmann has ever said:

(1) BACHMANN WARNED ‘THE LION KING’ WAS GAY PROPAGANDA: At the November 2004 EdWatch National Education Conference, Bachmann said the “normalization” of homosexuality would lead to “desensitization”: “Very effective way to do this with a bunch of second graders, is take a picture of ‘The Lion King’ for instance, and a teacher might say, ‘Do you know that the music for this movie was written by a gay man?’ The message is: I’m better at what I do, because I’m gay.”

(2) ENFORCED HOMOSEXUALITY.  "And what a bizarre time we're in, when a judge will say to little children that you can't say the pledge of allegiance, but you must learn that homosexuality is normal and you should try it."

(3) "[GAY MARRIAGE] is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years. I am not understating that."

(4) SLAVERY. She Didn't know that founding Fathers Were Slave Holders.  "But we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States."

(5) BACHMANN CLAIMED ABOLISHING THE MINIMUM WAGE WOULD CREATE JOBS: While testifying in front of the Minnesota Senate in 2005, Bachmann said, “Literally, if we took away the minimum wage — if conceivably it was gone — we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.” This isn’t remotely true. Even simply reducing the minimum wage would, as Paul Krugman noted, “at best do nothing for employment; more likely it would actually be contractionary.”

(6) BACHMANN CLAIMED THAT SCIENTISTS ARE SUPPORTERS OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN: During a 2006 debate, Bachmann said, “There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.” This was, and is, not true.

(7) BACHMANN CLAIMED TERRI SCHIAVO WAS ‘HEALTHY’: Not long after Terri Schiavo died, Bachmann said she would have voted for the Palm Sunday Compromise because Schiavo “was healthy. She had brain damage — there was brain damage, there was no question. But from a health point of view, she was not terminally ill.” An autopsy found that Schiavo had suffered irreversible brain damage and her brain, said the medical examiner, was “profoundly atrophied.”

(8) OBAMA'S TRIP TO INDIA.  "The President of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day."

(9)  BACHMANN LIKENED VISITING IRAQ TO VISITING MALL OF AMERICA: In 2007, Bachmann returned from a junket to Iraq and told her colleagues, “[T]here’s a commonality with the Mall of America, in that it’s on that proportion. There’s marble everywhere. The other thing I remarked about was there is water everywhere.” As ThinkProgress documented at the time, the comparison was preposterous.

(10) THINK OF THE CHILDREN!  "It is a brand new, billion-dollar high speed train that is going to go from Disneyland up to Las Vegas...Harry Reid, the Senator from Nevada, was behind this measure, and it makes us wonder, is he more interested in making sure kids start gambling at younger ages?"

(11) BACHMANN CLAIMED THAT CARBON DIOXIDE IS ‘HARMLESS’: In 2008, a Stanford scientist revealed “direct links” between increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and “increases in human mortality” — globally, he found that as many as “20,000 air-pollution-related deaths per year per degree Celsius may be due to this greenhouse gas.” The next year, Bachmann, who is not a scientist, said that “carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.”

(12) BACHMANN CALLED FOR A CONGRESSIONAL WITCH HUNT: Pivoting off the news of Barack Obama’s alleged relationship to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, and his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bachmann accused the candidate of having “anti-American views.” She then suggested that Congressional liberals — including Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid — ought to be subject to “an exposé” by the media because of their views  "I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out: Are they pro-America or anti-America?". “I think people would love to see like that,” she told a stunned Chris Matthews.

(13) BACHMANN SUGGESTED GAY SINGER SHOULD REPENT AFTER GETTING CANCER: Bachmann saw Melissa Etheridge’s cancer as a teachable moment: “Unfortunately she is now suffering from breast cancer, so keep her in your prayers,” she said in November 2004. “This may be an opportunity for her now to be open to some spiritual things, now that she is suffering with that physical disease. She is a lesbian.”

(14) SWINE FLU  "I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."

(15) BACHMANN BOASTED ABOUT BREAKING THE LAW: In advance of the 2010 national Census, Bachmann told The Washington Times that she would break the law by not completing the forms. “I know for my family, the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home,” she said. “We won’t be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn’t require any information beyond that.”

(16) BACHMANN CLAIMED THAT GLENN BECK COULD SOLVE THE DEBT CRISIS: During a February trip to South Carolina, Bachmann told a South Carolina audience, “I think if we give Glenn Beck the numbers, he can solve this [the national debt].”

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Basic Information

Michele Marie Bachmann was born on April 6, 1956 and is a Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota, a former Senator, a homophobe, and a very disturbed woman.

In addition to being a disturbed woman, Bachmann's track record has proven she is also a full-fledged nutjob. The type of person that makes you turn to your friend the moment she gets up to use the bathroom and mouth "She's craaaaaaazy," complete with hand motions and bug-eyes.

While Bachmann has always been a local nut, she didn't come onto the national crazy scene until the 2008 election when she accused Barack Obama and many members of Congress of being "anti-American."

Like her pal Palin, Bachmann is deceptively attractive. While Palin is attractive in a "if she just put down that gun, took off those glasses, and started forming complete sentences" sort of way, Bachmann has the whole girl next door thing working for her. But only if you grew up next to an insane asylum.

Bachmann has claimed that many of her career moves have been dictated by messages from God.

Abraham, Moses...Michele Bachmann. That sounds about right.

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Early Career

In 1993, Bachmann helped open the New Heights Charter School in Stillwater, Minnesota. The school offered a standard curriculum. You know, classes like biology, algebra, and creationism.   Bachmann and the board of directors advocated that the "12 Christian Principles" be taught. These are very similar to the commonly taught Bill of Rights, with the exception of the fact that teaching them violates the First Amendment. Bachmann and other school officials also refused to allow an in-school screening of "Aladdin," feeling that it endorsed witchcraft and promoted paganism.

Bachmann appeared before the Stillwater School Board to address the parents' concerns. Standing by her beliefs, she challenged them, asking, "Are you going to question my integrity?" They did. By the end of the meeting, Bachmann resigned. At the time, this seemed like a triumphant victory for all logical people. However, her resignation afforded her the time to watch "Aladdin" and study its black-magic teachings, skills she would later use when conducting her own witch-hunt of Congress.

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Anti-Americans

In October 2008, Bachmann appeared on MSNBC's "Hardball" with Chris Matthews. When talking about Obama's association with Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, she stated he and his wife, Michele, held anti-American views and couldn't be trusted in the White House. She even called for the major newspapers of the country to investigate other members of Congress to "find out if they are pro-America or anti-America." For the record, Bachmann defines "America" as "star, bars, and white people."

When asked which parts of the country were anti-American, Bachmann replied, "I don't think it's geography. I think it's people who don't like America, who detest America." You know, the types of people that would organize a witch-hunt of Congress and imply the future President is a terrorist. They can exist anywhere. Like Minnesota.

The reactions to her statements were overwhelmingly negative, with even Republicans distancing themselves from this crazy lady. At the cemetery where Joe McCarthy is buried, a groundskeeper heard a questioning "Ummmmmm..." come from the grave of the former Senator and Commie-Hunting ass h_le.

Bachmann's statements were especially nutsoid, considering that calling someone "anti-American" is as original as a schoolyard bully calling other kids "gay." Speaking of gays...

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Opposition to Gay Rights

In 2003, Bachmann began her yearly assault on gay rights, proposing a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage. In 2004, Bachmann and a coalition of religious leaders announced plans for what was billed as a "Minnesota for Marriage" rally. Thousands of people attended, holding signs that read, "Gays Should Not Be Married, Dontchya Know."

Shocked that her views were not universal, Bachmann felt the need to investigate her opposition. At a 2005 protest of her proposed constitutional ban of same-sex marriage, Bachmann and her cronies were actually seen hiding in the bushes, spying on the rally. When reached for comment regarding the incident, Bachmann complained that her feet were sore, saying, "I had high heels on and I just couldn't stand anymore. I was not in the bushes." The last part is true, as she was hiding behind the bushes. Getting in them would just be insane. Bachmann later acknowledged that she was spying on the rally, but only because she heard a "dirty rumor that they may screen 'Aladdin,' and 'Aladdin' can't get any gayer."

Bachmann has been on record saying that homosexuals specifically target children and that "our children...are the prize for this community." This knowledge was accrued when Bachmann hid in the bushes during an annual Pedophiles and Homosexuals Mixer where they laid out their plan to join forces and bring down society, specifically to spite Michele Bachmann.

During a 2005 community meeting in Scandia, Minnesota, Bachmann was seen running out of a public bathroom crying, "I was being held against my will." In a report filed with the country sheriff, Bachmann claimed that two women "believed to be part of a LGBT group" detained her in the bathroom. She apparently was terrified and feared for her life. The women in question claimed they were simply making conversation with their local senator while waiting in line. The case was dismissed.

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Oh, Irony!

Michele Bachmann's stepsister is a lesbian.

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AmeriCorps

On April Fool's Day of 2009, Bachmann focused her wrath on AmeriCorps, the federal government program that provides public education for disadvantaged children and aid to the poor. Though it is viewed as a way to get young people involved in community service, Bachmann, not surprisingly, does not approve of its existence.

"It's paying people to do work on behalf of government," she said. "There are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people get trained in the philosophy the government puts forward and then they have to go work in these politically correct forums." She then added,"As a parent, I would have a very, very difficult time seeing my children do this."

In another one of life's wonderful ironies, Bachmann's son, Harrison, has recently joined one of AmeriCorps' larger branches, Teach For America. While most of Bachmann's detractors have been thrilled to hear this, they may have jumped the gun. Clearly this is part of Bachmann's elaborate plan. There's no way her son would defy her and join such a Communist institution. Obviously, Harrison is so patriotic that he's joining Teach For America so he can infiltrate AmeriCorps and find all the anti-Americans. This is one American who won't be brainwashed to think he can help others in need. He will bring justice!

Or at least that's what Michele has had to convince herself of. You know, because...

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She's Crazy

If you give Michele Bachmann a microphone, there's a pretty solid chance she'll say something stupid. The kinds of statements that leave you speechless - not because you don't know how to respond, but because there is no applicable response to gibberish.

Here's a sampling of her work:

"Don't Palinize Me!"

"Not all cultures are equal."

"We're running out of rich people in this country."

"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."

"Little children will be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal and natural and perhaps they should try it."

Michele Bachmann's statements are so inane that at some level, one must cut her some slack. Why? No human can be that much of a jerk. No real person acts like that. Maybe she's mentally ill. And if that's the case, it's just weird that we'd call an escaped mental patient a jerk nutsoid.

But until that's proven...Michele Bachmann is a jerk.

"Michele Bachmann is one of the great pulsars of our times: a collapsed gravity well of unblinking stare.  People innocently walking down the street, are drawn into her orbit, helplessly drawn in by how utterly dense she is.  They cannot escape the completely impenetrable mass of darkness surrounding her mind and become totally crushed & moronized by her."  By a Friend of Religious Freedom

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Bachmann and Healthcare?

This is the GOP strategy? They're going to try to appeal to stressed-out soccer moms to stop healthcare reform? I'm stunned at the sheer brilliance - not to mention that smug attitude that some people's children are more important that others:

Why offer more people health insurance, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) asked at a press conference Friday, if they might lengthen waits for doctors and otherwise increase the "hassle factor" for her?

"That's like having a mother bear protecting her little cubs, and she's seeing that she has to move heaven and earth to get her child what her child needs," Bachmann said, referring to the health care reforms being debated by Congress. "We'll do it if we have to, but why put ourselves in that situation?"

Near the end of a tumultuous week of delays for health care bills in both houses of Congress, Bachmann and a handful of other House Republican women said at a press conference that as far as they were concerned, any reform would just make things tougher for them.

"I think most all of us here have had the opportunity to take our kids to a fast-food restaurant," said Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.). "We want to get a good dinner, and you walk in and there's 50 people there and it seems like everybody in line wants to buy food for their soccer team or whatever. The American people aren't particularly good at standing in line, but that's exactly what's going to happen if this health care plan goes through."

Uh, Judy? If I wanted to get a "good dinner" for my kids, I wouldn't be taking them out for fast food. Perhaps the clogged arteries explain the reduced oxygen to your brain?

"Any mother," Bachmann said, would do whatever it takes to get "the high-quality health care that her child needs... As a mother of five biological children and as a foster mother to 23 children, there is nothing more important to me than to make sure that my children have high-quality health care when they need health care."

Millions of other children, however, do not have the resources that Members of Congress enjoy. New U.S. Census data document that more than 8.1 million, or one in nine, American children did not have health insurance in 2007. According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, nearly 20 percent of the uninsured in the U.S. are children.

 

Health Reform Will Lead To 'Sex Clinics'

During the long road to health care reform in the fall of 2009, Bachmann took to the House floor to warn members of congress that "sex clinics" would result from passing legislation that was under debate at the time.

The Tea Party favorite suggested that if reform were to pass, schools might begin offering abortions to students given her interpretation that the measure was designed to bring Planned Parenthood into educational facilities:

The bill goes on to say what's going to go on -- comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care -- is that abortion? Does that mean that someone's 13 year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser.

Section 2511 of the health care bill referred to by Bachmann, makes no mention of abortion and stipulates:

(i) "SBHC services will be provides in accordance with Federal, State, and local laws governing-- (I) obtaining parental or guardian consent; and (II) patient privacy and student records, including section 264 of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and section 444 of the General Education Provision Act;

The nonpartisan fact-checking group PolitiFact ripped into Bachmann's claim, rating it a "Pants On Fire" falsehood.

We see no language in the three main versions of the bill that would allow school-based clinics, which have a long history of providing basic health services to underprivileged students, to provide abortions. Nor would the clinics even be new they have been around for three decades. So we rate the claim Pants on Fire!

Nevertheless, Bachmann within weeks went on to make the same baseless claim once again.

Health Reform Amounts To 'Gangster Gov'

 

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HuffPost's Nick Wing reports:

Bachmann joined fellow controversy-prone Republican Congressional candidate, Allen Quist, at a health care forum back in February, and suggested that health care reform would lead to a "gangster government" that would prevent those who criticized reform from receiving care.

To reach her conclusion, the Minnesota representative explained her understanding of the Japanese health care system (as told to her by someone who had lived in Japan):

In Japan...to wait in and get health care is almost impossible. You get on a list and you wait and you wait and you wait. But he said this is something people don't know: in Japan, people have stopped voicing their opinion on health care. There are things that are wrong with Japanese health care, but people [aren't] voicing. 'Well why is that,' I asked. He said it's 'Because they know that would get on a list and they wouldn't get health care. They wouldn't get in. They wouldn't get seen. And so people are afraid. They're afraid to speak back to government. They're afraid to say anything.' Is that what we want for our future? That takes us to gangster government at that point! And absolute abject corruption.

(The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune subsequently fact-checked Bachmann's statements and was unable to find any evidence of such practices).

Nevertheless, Bachmann finished her speech by vowing not to give up her fight against the current health care reform bill, calling "government takeover of health care...the crown jewel of socialism."

(Politifact rated the claim from Bachmann a "Pants On Fire" falsehood.)

Bachmann's address was captured by the Rochester Post-Bulletin.

 

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Michele Bachmann: Welfare Queen

Excerpted from an article by Yasha Levine on truthdig.com on Dec 22, 2009

AP / Charles Dharapak

Although Michele Bachmann has become well known for her anti-government tea-bagger antics, protesting health care reform and every other government “handout” as socialism, what her followers probably don’t know is that Rep. Bachmann is, to use that anti-government slur, something of a Welfare Queen. That’s right, the anti-government insurrectionist has taken more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts thanks to corrupt farming subsidies she has been collecting for at least a decade.

Bachmann, has spent much of this year agitating against health care reform, whipping up the so-called tea-baggers with stories of death panels and rationed health care. She has called for a revolution against what she sees as Barack Obama’s attempted socialist takeover of America, saying presidential policy is “reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom.” 

But data compiled from federal records by Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog that tracks the recipients of agricultural subsidies in the United States, shows that Bachmann has an inner Marxist that is perfectly at ease with profiting from taxpayer largesse. According to the organization’s records, Bachmann’s family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006. The farm had been managed by Bachmann’s recently deceased father-in-law and took in roughly $20,000 in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005, with the bulk of the subsidies going to dairy and corn. Both dairy and corn are heavily subsidized—or “socialized”—businesses in America (in 2005 alone, Washington spent $4.8 billion propping up corn prices) and are subject to strict government price controls. These subsidies are at the heart of America’s bizarre planned agricultural economy and as far away from Michele Bachmann’s free-market dream world as Cuba’s free medical system. If American farms such as hers were forced to compete in the global free market, they would collapse.

However, Bachmann doesn’t think other Americans should benefit from such protection and assistance. She voted against every foreclosure relief bill aimed at helping average homeowners (despite the fact that her district had the highest foreclosure rate in Minnesota), saying that bailing out homeowners would be “rewarding the irresponsible while punishing those who have been playing by the rules.” That’s right, the subsidy queen wants the rest of us to be responsible. 

Bachmann’s financial disclosure forms indicate that her personal stake in the family farm is worth up to $250,000. They also show that she has been earning income from the farm business, and that the income grew in just a few years from $2,000 to as much as $50,000 for 2008. This has provided her with a second government-subsidized income to go with her job as a government-paid congresswoman who makes $174,000 per year (in addition to having top-notch government medical benefits). “If she has an interest in a farm getting federal subsidy payments, she is benefiting from them,” Sandra Schubert, director of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, told Gannett News Service in 2007, when the subsidies to Bachmann were first publicly disclosed.

UPDATE

WASHINGTON June 27, 2011 from the McClatchy Report at mcclatchydc.com

Rep. Michele Bachmann has been propelled into the 2012 presidential contest in part by her insistent calls to reduce federal spending, a pitch in tune with the big-government antipathy gripping many conservatives.

But the Minnesota Republican and her family have benefited personally from government aid, an examination of her record and finances shows. A counseling clinic run by her husband has received nearly $30,000 from the state of Minnesota in the last five years, money that in part came from the federal government. A family farm in Wisconsin, in which the congresswoman is a partner, received nearly $260,000 in federal farm subsidies.

And she has sought to keep federal money flowing to her constituents. After publicly criticizing the Obama administration's stimulus program, Bachmann requested stimulus funds to support projects in her district. Although she has been a fierce critic of earmarks — calling them "part of the root problem with Washington's spending addiction" — the Minnesota congresswoman nonetheless argued recently that transportation projects should not be considered congressional pork.

As Bachmann prepares to formally launch her presidential bid Monday in Waterloo, Iowa, Republican strategists warned that she needs to square her record with her public pronouncements.

"She's kind of built an area in the field of candidates where she's the hawk on those kinds of issues, so any sort of issue that will show her record is not totally consistent will affect some of her support," said Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Iowa GOP. "I don't think it's a deal-breaker, but I think it's something she's going to have to be willing to confront head-on."

For now, Bachmann is declining to answer questions on the topic. Her congressional and campaign staff did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

Bachmann has long sought to distance herself from those who benefit from public money. "I don't need government to be successful," she proudly told Fox News host Bill O'Reilly in fall 2009 when he asked why she inspired such ire among liberal critics.

Yet despite her broadsides against "socialized medicine," Bachmann's husband, Marcus, applied for public funds for his counseling clinic, Bachmann & Associates. Since 2006, he has received nearly $30,000, according to Minnesota state records. The bulk of the money — $24,041 — came in the form of grants from the state Department of Human Services to train staff how to deal with clients suffering from chemical dependency and mental illness. That program was financed in part by the federal government.

Michele Bachmann lists the Lake Elmo, Minn.-based clinic — which aims to provide "quality Christian counseling in a sensitive, loving environment," according to its website — as one of her assets on her financial disclosure forms.

Another of Bachmann's assets — a family farm owned by her late father-in-law, Paul Bachmann — received nearly $260,000 in federal money between 1995 and 2008, largely from corn and dairy subsidies, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data compiled by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research organization that scrutinizes such subsidies. Paul Bachmann died in May 2009, but the congresswoman retains a partnership in the farm.

Bachmann said in December that the subsidies went to her in-laws and she never received "one penny" from the farm, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. However, in financial disclosure forms, she reported receiving between $32,503 and $105,000 in income from the farm, at minimum, between 2006 and 2009.

Publicly, Bachmann has objected strongly to federal farm payments.

When she voted against the 2008 farm bill, a $307 billion package that would govern federal agriculture policy for five years, Bachmann declared that it was "loaded with unbelievably outrageous pork and subsidies for agricultural business and ethanol growers." She was one of two nays cast by Minnesota's eight-member delegation.

Just a year later, however, Bachmann wrote to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, praising the federal government for helping prop up the prices of pig products and dairy by directly buying the commodities, a move that benefitted her constituents.

"I would encourage you to take any additional steps necessary to prevent further deterioration of these critical industries, such as making additional commodity purchases," she wrote on Oct. 5, 2009. The Los Angeles Times/Tribune Washington Bureau obtained the letter through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The USDA that year had stepped up its purchase of pork and dairy products for use in school lunches and other government food programs, seeking to stabilize prices in the then-flagging industries.

While not technically a subsidy, commodity purchase programs are "a deliberate effort of the government to prop up these industries," said David DeGennaro, legislative analyst for the Environmental Working Group.

More recently, Bachmann objected strongly to the Obama administration's $830 billion stimulus package, saying before the 2009 congressional vote on the matter: "I cannot support this new direction for the American economy."

But seven months later, Bachmann wrote six letters to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asking for stimulus-financed grants for infrastructure projects in her district, such as expanding commuter rail and constructing a bridge over St. Croix River. (The letters were first reported by the Center for Public Integrity.)

In the end, none of the requests received funding, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Bachmann continues to blast the stimulus, saying in her State of the Union response in January that "the president's strategy for recovery was to spend a trillion dollars on a failed stimulus program, fueled by borrowed money."

GOP strategist Steve Grubbs said he didn't view Bachmann's requests as damaging to her fiscal credibility.

"Just because you're against government spending doesn't mean you shouldn't get any funds you're legally entitled to," said Grubbs, a former chairman of the Iowa Republican Party. "Lobbying for basic transportation needs in your district is what your job is as a congresswoman. If she was lobbying to put a rainforest in Minnesota, I think people would see that as disingenuous."

Bachmann told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in November that transportation projects should not be considered earmarks. "There's a big difference between funding a tea pot museum and a bridge over a vital waterway," she said.

Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog group, said such reasoning was "ridiculous," adding: "That sounds like a pretty big loophole to me."

As Bachmann pursues the presidency, Ellis said, her record will face tougher scrutiny.

"If you want to talk about the debt and deficit and reigning in wasteful spending, you have to look in the mirror and make sure you're living a fiscally pure life as well," he said.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/06/27/116495/michele-bachmanns-had-her-share.html#ixzz1QVGQrEIO
 

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Bachmann Boasts About Breaking The Law: "I’m Refusing To Fill Out The Census"

In March, the 2010 Census will be sent to every American household, as required by the U.S. Constitution. The far right has issued dire warnings of the Census; on a May 29th episode of Bill Bennett’s radio show, RNC Chairman Michael Steele intoned, “Certainly the collection of this information is going to be part of an ongoing political campaign by this administration.”

In an interview with the Washington Time’s right-wing radio show this morning, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) declared that she would break the law and refuse to answer the Census questions, beyond noting the number of people in her household:

BACHMANN: The motherload of all data information will be from the Census. … Unfortunately, the Census data has become very intricate, very personal, a lot of the questions that are asked. I know for my family, the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home. We won’t be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn’t require any information beyond that.