Michelle Bachmann

Three unreal videos

Last week over at StarkReports.com, I began asking Republican opponents of health care reform if they could tell me how many of their constituents are uninsured. I asked Joe Wilson, Steve King, Jim DeMint, Darryl Issa and Virginia Foxx. None of them could answer the question.

Today, after months of debate, the House vote is upon us. Steve King decided to rally the tea-baggers on the Capitol lawn one more time. About 15-25 other Republicans joined him on the stage at various times. I caught several of them as they made their way between their offices, the chamber and the rally. Once again, not a single republican I spoke with knew how many of their constituents are uninsured. The lonely guy in the middle of the video that did know? That's Dan Boren, a Blue Dog Democrat from Oklahoma...

Next up… Rep. Louie Gohmert (also in the first video) tells me my private insurance will be taken from me by this bill:

Finally, and I wish I could say the last video is shocking, but, alas, this is where we find ourselves today ... Representative Steven King, the leader of today’s anti-reform rally, tells a crowd that the Democratic bill requires the government to encourage suicide and/or assisted suicide. Not making it up; he’s explicit ... he uses those very words:



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Congressman Anthony Weiner joins Lawrence O'Donnell on Countdown to discuss "whites of their eyes" Michele Bachmann and "You Lie!" Joe Wilson's latest stunts to stall the health care bill being passed.


Rep 4 That

A cute take on the iPhone Apps commercial, and a who's-who of Republican douchebaggery.


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It was a real Wingnut-O-Rama on Fox yesterday when Rep. Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota went on Glenn Beck's show and expounded at length about ACORN's supposed involvement in the Community Reinvestment Act.

What they're trying to do, of course, is taint any kind of minority-advancement program by tying ACORN around its neck. Mind you, the CRA has been around since 1977, since well before ACORN's rise. But nevermind -- they just want to scare white people with false "facts" about minority advancement efforts.

For instance, Beck reiterates what is now right-wing legend:

Beck: You may remember -- or not -- the CRA, the Community Reinvestment Act, is the thing that makes banks makes banks lend money to people they don't want to loan money to because they have very low income and they're very likely to go under. It's often cited as one of the chief causes of the subprime mortgage meltdown.

This is, of course, a flat-out lie. In fact, as the Wikipedia entry explains, the CRA only forces banks to lend to people they don't want to because they're the wrong race:

Congress passed the Act in 1977 to reduce discriminatory credit practices against low-income neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining. The Act requires the appropriate federal financial supervisory agencies to encourage regulated financial institutions to meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered, consistent with safe and sound operation.

... The law, however, emphasizes that an institution's CRA activities should be undertaken in a safe and sound manner, and does not require institutions to make high-risk loans that may bring losses to the institution. An institution's CRA compliance record is taken into account by the banking regulatory agencies when the institution seeks to expand through merger, acquisition or branching. The law does not mandate any other penalties for non-compliance with the CRA.

Bachmann repeats Beck's lie and expands on it:

Bachmann: Well, it's stunning, Glenn. Just as you said, the Community Reinvestment Act is a creation of the federal government forcing private banks to make home mortgages to people who are very poor credit risks. No banks wants to do that. So the federal government in effect threatens banks and says, we're going to close down your interstate bank or we won't let you expand unless you make these bad loans to people or make loans that are unlikely to be repaid. Well, why would a bank want to do that?

Bachmann is outraged, outraged we tell you, that banks have been able to partner with ACORN in making loans to minority families (ACORN plays the role of guarantor, which actually means the loans aren't high-risk). But as Mary Kane at the Windy notes, the entire objection rests entirely on the grounds that ACORN is supposedly a proven evil and corrupt organization -- which has hardly, in fact, been proven. Unless by "evil" you mean "highly effective at getting minority voters to the polls." Which is clearly the case for Bachmann and the Turnip.

Moreover, the claim that the CRA caused the subprime meltdown is pure right-wing garbage. As FDIC chairman Sheila Bair explained:

Point of fact: Only about one-in-four higher-priced first mortgage loans were made by CRA-covered banks during the hey-day years of subprime mortgage lending (2004-2006). The rest were made by private independent mortgage companies and large bank affiliates not covered by CRA rules.

You've heard the line of attack: The government told banks they had to make loans to people who were bad credit risks, and who could not afford to repay, just to prove that they were making loans to low- and moderate-income people.

Let me ask you: where in the CRA does it say: make loans to people who can't afford to repay? No-where! And the fact is, the lending practices that are causing problems today were driven by a desire for market share and revenue growth ... pure and simple.

And as Aaron Pressman at BusinessWeek pointed out, the independent mortgage companies who were the chief offenders in the subprime meltdown were in fact never subject to the CRA.

University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr testified back in February before the House Committee on Financial Services that 50% of subprime loans were made by mortgage service companies not subject comprehensive federal supervision and another 30% were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts which are not subject to routine supervision or examinations.

Well, facts and reality have never made much of an impression on the Planet Wingnuttia domiciles of Bachmann and Beck. But isn't it funny how they focus so much energy on attacking programs that benefit minorities? Hmmmmmm.


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Chris Matthews thinks that the "nuts on the Internet" and the "bloggers huddling in their basements pushing revolution" are being read by Michelle Bachmann's staffers and feeding her conspiracy theories. I don't think Michelle Bachmann needs any help from the right wing blogs to be bat-shit crazy but possibly Matthews is reading Steve Benen over at Washington Monthly because he came pretty close to repeating this post verbatim.

ABORTION FIELD TRIPS....:

In a speech on the House floor last night, Bachmann warned about the dangers of school-based health clinics, patient privacy, and student records.

"What does that mean? It means that parents will never know what kind of counsel and treatment that their children are receiving. And as a matter of fact, 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."

I'm not sure why Bachmann thinks school-based health clinics deserve to be characterized as "sex clinics," though it does suggest the right-wing lawmaker has something of a dirty mind.

Media Matters Action Network noted, "Bachmann seems to be getting her information from fringe blogs like Free Republic and WorldNetDaily, both of which have recently promoted similar claims."

PolitiFact.com fact-checked the claim in August: "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!"


The Return of McCarthyism

h/t ThoughtProfiles's:

A juxtaposition of the past and current use of McCarthyism.

A must watch. They did an excellent job with this mash up. Maybe someone could get George Will to watch it.


From NBC--Update Thursday: Part 1

Featuring the Republican Meeting Open and James Carville.


Countdown's Worst Person -- Joe Wilson the Liar

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Countdown's Worst Persons for Sept. 16, 2009 with winner Joe Wilson. Runners up Michelle Bachmann and Glenn Beck.


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Rachel reminds us that all that's old is new again.

But we begin tonight with a dramatic day in D.C. Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina officially reprimanded by the House of Representatives today for screaming, “You lie!” at President Obama as the president addressed a joint session of Congress nearly a week ago. By a vote of 240 to 179, the House passed a formal resolution of disapproval for Congressman Wilson‘s breach of decorum. Now, that‘s the mildest form of punishment the House can administer, and they did it not for what Congressman Wilson said to the president but for when and where he said it.

It was not a party line vote against Mr. Wilson. Five Republicans voted for the resolution. A dozen Democrats voted against it. And another five Democrats just voted present, including Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, who said in advance of today‘s vote that, quote, “I think it is bad precedent to put us in charge of deciding whether people act like jerks.”

Beyond the disapproval vote against Congressman Wilson vote today in Congress, the political importance of this “You lie!” incident is probably more evident in the reaction to it outside the House chamber, where Joe Wilson is being hailed as a hero by a lot of the conservative movement right now. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota repeatedly telling a tea party crowd in Minnesota this past weekend, and I quote, “Thank God for Joe Wilson.”

Continue reading »


Countdown Worst Person Sept. 15, 2009 -- Virginia Foxx

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Countdown's Worst Persons for Sept. 15, 2009 with winner Virginia Foxx. Runners up Dick Morris and Michelle Bachmann.


Countdown's Worst Person for Sept. 8, 2009- Sean Hannity

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Countdown's Worst Persons for Sept. 8, 2009 with winner Sean Hannity. Runners up Orly Taitz and Michelle Bachmann.


michelle_bachmann_102108_9a546.jpg

Teh stoopid, it hurts:

On Mike Gallagher's radio program yesterday, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) offered a novel theory as to why Democrats want her out of office: They don't want her to become the first woman president.

BACHMANN: Also with women politicians, they want to make sure no women, no woman becomes president before a Democrat woman, and so they're doing everything they can to, I think, sabotage women like Sarah Palin, perhaps women like myself, or similarly situated women, to make sure that we don't have a prominent national voice. But the thing is, the people in our country, they don't care who the voice is, they just want someone, they want to know that someone is speaking out for them against what will certainly bring about the destruction of our great country if we continue to go down the Obama path.

I swear, you just can't write this level of stupid.

Hate to break it to you, Michelle, but Dems don't need to sabotage you when you do such a fine job of it on your own. Shall we take a little walk down Memory Lane?

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

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

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

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

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

Media Matters has even more gloriousness of Bachmann
.

As for running for president, all I can say is: Baby, bring. it. on.


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Phil Gingrey (R-Healthcare Industry) doesn't think we need any stinking regulation of the insurance industries. Just trust them if they say they're going to make changes. Why do we need any silly laws to make sure they behave? We've got their word they won't keep shafting us. Isn't that good enough?

Of course when pinned down on those statements and asked directly if we can trust the insurance industry to keep their word without any laws in place to make sure they won't keep sticking it to their customers, Gingrey retreats to attacking a "government takeover" of health care rather than answer the question.


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Keith Olbermann talks to Dan Savage about how dangerous the GOP's strategy for the last thirty years of pandering to the religious right has been, and how they're now left with the bat-shit crazy like Michelle Bachmann speaking for them.

Olbermann: How do they twist the idea of say, just pick a figure out of a hat here that Jesus Christ and the golden rule, taking care of particularly the sick and turn this into opposition to health care? In a sense if they’re trying to emulate Christ, if they can’t personally heal disease in passers-by, should they not be willing to help doctors to do so?

Savage: I’m sure they don’t want to hear this from me because I’m an avowed atheist but my dad was a Roman Catholic deacon and my mom was a minister and I went to the seminary and I was confirmed in the Catholic church. I’ve read the Bible backwards and forwards and there’s a lot in there, a lot that Jesus had to say about taking care of the sick, housing the homeless, feeding the hungry, visiting, not executing the prisoner and nothing about capital gains tax cuts, nothing about denying health care coverage to American families and American children and nothing about this sort of insane opposition to a democratically elected president.

They really have hi-jacked Christianity and are giving it a bad name. The reason we see spikes I think in more and more people who no longer associate themselves with any religious faith or belief is because now to say you’re Christian in America means you are saying I am in the same boat, the same bat crap crazy boat with Michelle Bachmann. And a lot of even nominal Christians don’t want to say that any more or cultural Christians don’t want to say that any more.

Olbermann: Well strip the religion out of it and stick to the ethics of religion which is often very useful even to people who don’t believe and we don’t know if anybody who booed the late Senator Kennedy at the Schakowsky town hall belonged to the religious far right, but I mean I got heat for saying that Ronald Reagan is dead and he was a lousy president and I waited for four or five years until after he died to say it that bluntly just out of respect for the dead. Haven’t the ethics of these folks, the religious and non-religious alike in the opposition just been all over the map?

Savage: Well when you have a party that claims to speak for god and claims that god is on its side the rhetoric heats up and the anger heats up. This is not just a battle about ideas and positions and what’s good for the country and bad for the country, it’s a battle about what god wants and what god doesn’t want and you’re, it’s easier to demagogue about your enemies and despise them than to humanize them in this really personal and vicious way. I mean, the religious right is fomenting this kind of hatred in this country and at our peril.

I really do think that the Michelle Bachmanns of the world and the Glenn Becks of the world are actively and consciously or subconsciously just trying to get, I’m just going to say it, trying to get the President killed. That’s why they’re setting this up as a kill or be killed arguments. He’s going to kill your grandma, pull the plug on grandma, death panels that little children have to go in front of. This kind of rhetoric, this paranoid style of the religious right from you know, Birchers to birthers doesn’t usually end well and we somebody’s got to put the brakes on it. Unfortunately for the Republican party, there are no adults left in the room, there are only the Michelle Bachmanns and the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs running the show.


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So far, we’ve had Birthers, “death panels,” a “death book,” concentration camps for conservatives, and the pervasive “Obama=Hitler” meme. And that’s just been in the first eight months of Barack Obama’s presidency.

But if you thought the wingnuts had already driven over the cliff and into the abyss, just wait. They really have just gotten started on their descent.

In a few weeks, there’s going to be a big gathering of right-wing True Believers in St. Louis, at a convention called “How to Take Back America”. Note, of course, that this is not terribly original; the Campaign for America’s Future convention for the previous five years before 2009 was called “Take Back America,” though this year they appropriately changed it to “America’s Future Now.” (Some wags in attendance called it “Got Back America.”) Given an opening and the circumstances, the wingnuts have claimed the name for themselves this year.

In any event, it promises to be something special. Guest wingnut luminaries speaking at the convention will include Rep. Michelle Bachmann, Rep. Steve King (the guy who claims that gays and lesbians wouldn't become hate-crime victims if they didn't flaunt it), Joseph Farah of World Nut Daily, and Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin (more about him shortly) plus, of course, such convention organizers as Phyllis Schlafly.

As Kyle at RightWingWatch notes, it looks to be a smashing good time, especially at the workshops, where you can bone up on such subjects as:

"How to recognize living under Nazis & Communists"

"How to deal with supremacist judges"

"How to defeat UN attacks on sovereignty"

"How to stop socialism in health care"

"How to counter the homosexual movement"

"How to stop the killings: pro-life solutions"

The video above was compiled from footage spotted by Kyle from a webcast promoting the conference.

Fundamentalist guru Rick Scarborough -- all you need to know about him is that he's an avid associate of Alan Keyes -- is featured in the first segment of the video, bemoaning the "crucifixion" of the 2008 election results. It's there mostly for the jaw-dropping amusement value.

The second half of the video is just downright weird: radio talk-show host Janet Porter, another of the conference's organizers, launches into a somewhat confusing array of conspiracy theories involving vaccines. Porter's theory is that President Obama and other nefarious types are currently trying to drum up hysteria about H1N1 flu so that they can give us a vaccine that will kill large numbers of Americans.

Seriously. That's her theory.

She even had on a woman named Jane Burgermeister on her radio program earlier this month, promoting precisely that theory:

Specifically, evidence is presented that the defendants, Barack Obama, President of the U.S, David Nabarro, UN System Coordinator for Influenza, Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, David de Rotschild, banker, David Rockefeller, banker, George Soros, banker, Werner Faymann, Chancellor of Austria, and Alois Stoger, Austrian Health Minister, among others, are part of this international corporate criminal syndicate which has developed, produced, stockpiled and employed biological weapons to eliminate the population of the U.S. and other countries for financial and political gain.

The charges contend that these defendants conspired with each other and others to devise, fund and participate in the final phase of the implementation of a covert international bioweapons program involving the pharmaceutical companies Baxter and Novartis. They did this by bioengineering and then releasing lethal biological agents, specifically the "bird flu" virus and the "swine flu virus" in order to have a pretext to implement a forced mass vaccination program which would be the means of administering a toxic biological agent to cause death and injury to the people of the U.S.

Now that is some top-shelf AAA Venusian-grade Crazy there, folks. It's almost enough to make me want to fly out to St. Louis just to witness it.

And let's not forget the high-quality advice we'd be getting. For instance, there's Gen. Boykin. Most folks remember Jerry Boykin as the general who made the war in Iraq out to be a religious crusade by "God's Army". But there's much, much more to Boykin than merely that; he also happens to be one of the chief upper-echelon culprits responsible for the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison. And before that, he was directly involved in devising the FBI's disastrous strategy that produced the human disaster at the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Texas in 1993.

Who could ask for more?