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RWW{Michele Bachmann reveals that she gave current White House adviser Stephen Miller his first job in Congress, based on a recommendation from David Horowitz.}:

pension dean of pat robertson college?

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10/05/2026

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09/16/2026

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Michele Bachmann Says The Biggest Problem In Gaza Today Is Obesity From Too Much Food

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04/23/2026

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Kyle Mantyla

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Michele Bachmann Says America Will Be 'Blessed' By God For Attacking Iran | People For

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Michele Bachmann Says Trump Is 'Absolutely Handsome' And More Attractive Than Gavin Newsom | People For

Michele Bachmann Says It's Discrimination For A Black Gas Station Manager To Deny Service To ICE | People For

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10/01/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

MARCH 2022 BS BOSSIE

We Have The Power

About

If you do not have access: purchase here.

We've restricted our access to our own natural resources, and for 30 years, our policy has been to import more oil from foreign countries rather than access our own resources here at home. So, we've basically made it tougher to produce our own energy and easier to use energy from other people.

We Have The Power, hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich is a groundbreaking new documentary by Citizens United Productions. The movie is inspired by the book "Drill Here, Drill Now," which was authored by Newt Gingrich and Vince Haley. Including interviews with energy experts and political leaders, We Have The Power provides in-depth analysis that you won't find anywhere else. We dive into the heart of the issues surrounding a myriad of energy solutions to help inform Americans about the possibilities that we have right here at home.

We need to get it right on energy. Too much is at stake for our nation to do otherwise. America's ready to stop talking and take action. Isn't it time Washington got ready as well?

Featuring:Newt Gingrich, Callista Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rob Bishop, John Boehner, Red Cavaney, Mike Conaway, Ralph DeSantis, Mary Fallin, Alex Flint, Adrian Herrera, Skip Horvath, Daniel Kish, Charles Krauthammer, Philip Moeller, Devin Nunes, Jason Perron, Mike Rogers, Ned Ross, Patrick Serfass, Bob Walker, James Woolsey,Robert Zubrin

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07/21/2025

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Kyle Mantyla

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06/16/2025

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Kyle Mantyla

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05/20/2025

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Kyle Mantyla

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WOW PROJECTION

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05/05/2025

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Kyle Mantyla

From the moment President Donald Trump refused to accept his loss in the 2020 election, he made it clear that he was intent on returning to the White House in 2024 to enact retribution against his enemies.

"If you put me back in the White House, their reign will be over and they know it," Trump proclaimed when he spoke at CPAC in 2023. "In 2016, I declared, I am your voice. Today, I add, I am your warrior, I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution."

Since taking office, Trump has ruthlessly followed through on his promise, using the power of the government to relentlessly target his enemies.

Thus, it was rather surprising to hear former congresswoman and unabashed Trump cultist Michele Bachmann declare during a recent episode of the "Understanding The Times" program that Democrats must never be allowed to gain power again because "they're going to bring retribution against us."

"They want to undermine our choice," Bachmann said. "We made our choices as to who we wanted to serve us and be in public office. So, these Democrats—who are like wild people right now—they want to undermine our choices. They aren't focused on solving problems. They aren't [focused] on making our lives better or bringing down costs. What do they want? They want power. So these are the last people we should ever give power to because they want power for power's sake."

"You just had Rep. Jamie Raskin, a male member of Congress, who said when they get back in power, they're going to bring retribution against us because they don't like us very much," she added. "This is a dictatorship mentality."

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For the record, the remarks to which Bachmann was referring did not consist of Rep. Raskin vowing to bring retribution against conservatives and Republicans but rather consisted of Raskin decrying "the Trump Administration’s agenda of lawlessness and retribution at the Federal Bureau of Investigation" and its attacks on former administration officials.

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05/05/2025

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01/22/2025 RWW

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Kyle Mantyla

Michele Bachmann defends Trump pardoning violent insurrectionists by insisting there was no violence: "It was like a prayer meeting on Jan. 6 in DC."

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The Christian nationalist program “FlashPoint” has, since its inception, served as a platform for spreading wild conspiracy theories and Christian nationalist disinformation.That pattern continued when “FlashPoint” hosted an event in Oklahoma last week at which former Rep. Michele Bachmann delivered a speech overflowing with falsehoods about the supposedly Christian nature of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

While reminiscing about obtaining her law degree from Oral Roberts University, a right-wing evangelical university located in Oklahoma, Bachmann bragged that her professors required the students to learn about the founding of this nation using “primary source documents.”

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“So they had us read what is it that the founders read? Who are the philosophers they read?” Bachmann said. “The number one document they referred to when they were trying to figure out what kind of a country we should be; guess what? The Bible!”

As Right Wing Watch has explained multiple times, this claim is a deliberate misrepresentation of a 1984 study conducted by professor Donald S. Lutz of the University of Houston that sought to identify which writers and sources of ideas were most cited in “the political writings of Americans published between 1760 and 1805.” Lutz found that the Bible was cited most frequently solely because many of the pamphlets included in the research were sermons that had been reprinted for mass distribution. Once the sermon pamphlets were excluded, Lutz reported that quotes from the Bible appeared no more frequently in the political writings of the era than citations of the classical or common law.

More importantly, Lutz also noted that when the focus was solely on the public political writings from 1787 to 1788, when the U.S. Constitution was written and ratified, “the Bible’s prominence disappears” almost completely.

Undeterred, Bachmann continued to spread obvious falsehoods.

“[The Founders] looked at all societies throughout all history,” she claimed. “They said, ‘We’ve got a unique chance in all the world to create a society. What should it look like? What should it be based on?’ They studied all societies and those forms of government, and they decided—when they had done all that—they needed to search the word of God. And so you can take the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence [and] you can literally tie it to a Bible verse; about every three or four words, it’s based upon another area of Scripture.”

This claim is, of course, also entirely false.

Both of Bachmann’s claims are either misleading or outright false, which seems to be a common theme as time and again, Christian nationalists spread blatant falsehoods in defense of their ideology, leading one to wonder why, if their position is true, do they have to keep lying to try and “prove” it. Clearly, they simply do not care about the truth as long as these myths remain useful in convincing Americans that the Christian nationalists’ political agenda is justified by our history.

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Right-wing media attack Minnesota's state flag redesign with "great replacement" theory rhetoric | Media Matters for America

After a Minnesota commission unveiled its finalist pick for a new state flag to replace a racially offensive design, right-wing media insisted that the new design resembled one from a state in Somalia. Conservatives used the redesign to promote the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, claiming that Minnesota has been “conquered” by Somali immigrants. Right-wing media claimed the design’s green and white stripes, which a state commission ultimately chose to remove from the final design, resembled Somalia’s flag.

Minnesota’s new flag design incorporates the state's shape, motto, and natural resources, replacing an old “genocidal” design

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says sold out but date also past?

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Mark Steyn - Host

Introducing him at the United States Senate in 2015, Ted Cruz called Mark Steyn "an international bestselling author, a Top Five jazz recording artist, and a leading Canadian human rights activist"

All of which happens to be true.

Mark is the author of After America, which was a Top Five bestseller in the United States and a Number One bestseller in Canada; America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It, a New York Times bestseller in the United States and a Number One bestseller in Canada; and his most recent bestseller, The [Un]documented Mark Steyn.

"A Marshmallow World", his Christmas single with Jessica Martin, reached Number Seven on Amazon's easy listening bestsellers, and Number 41 on their main pop chart. Their subsequent full-length Christmas album, Making Spirits Bright, reached Number Four on the jazz chart. Mark's latest CD is his cat album, dedicated to his own beloved cat Marvin: Feline Groovy: Songs for Swingin' Cats was a Number One jazz bestseller, a Top 20 album on the Billboard chart, and a Top 30 album on Amazon's pop chart.

Steyn's human rights campaign to restore free speech to Canada led to the repeal by Parliament of the notorious "Section 13" hate-speech law, a battle he recounts in his book Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech And The Twilight Of The West.

Mark is a presenter on GB News and Serenade Radio and was a popular guest host of The Rush Limbaugh Program, and of America's Number One cable news show Tucker Carlson Tonight. He can be heard weekly on James Golden's WABC show in New York.

With fans around the world, Steyn has appeared on stages across the planet from Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. His 2016 nationwide tour of Australia was sold out coast to coast. He has spoken in the Canadian Parliament, the Danish Parliament, and the Australian Parliament, where he was introduced by the Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop

Over the years, Mark's writing on politics, arts and culture has been published in almost every major newspaper around the English-speaking world, including Britain's The Daily Telegraph, Canada's National Post, The Australian, The Irish Times, The Jerusalem Post, The Wall Street Journal, and many more.

Mark's other books include A Song For The Season, Mark Steyn's Passing Parade, Mark Steyn From Head To Toe and The Face Of The Tiger. His personal view of musical theatre, Broadway Babies Say Goodnight, was published to critical acclaim in London, and to somewhat sniffier notices in New York.

If you Click Here, you can find the answers to several FAQs about Mark. You can learn more about him in this interview by Simon Mann from The Age in Australia and in this appreciation by Robert Fulford in Canada's National Post. For more on his approach to the writing life, read this interview with Michele Kirsch of Britain's Channel 4, and enjoy the end result in these quotable barbs as collected by Brian McDermott in Dublin, in John Hawkins' Best of Steyn from recent columns, or in Greg Ransom's Quotable Steyn.

Conrad Black

Conrad Black is a Canadian-born British peer, and former publisher of The London Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Jerusalem Post, and founder of Canada's National Post.

He is a columnist and regular contributor to several publications, including the National Review Online, The New Criterion, The National Interest, American Greatness, The New York Sun, and the National Post.

Lord Black is an experienced financier, was the head of the Argus and Hollinger corporate groups for many years, and remains active in this field in a number of private companies.

He is a graduate of Carleton (Ottawa), Laval (Quebec), and McGill (Montreal) universities, and is an accomplished historian with a prolific body of work.

As an acclaimed author and biographer, Lord Black has published comprehensive histories of both Canada and the United States, as well as authoritative biographies of Maurice Duplessis, and presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Nixon and Donald Trump.

Lord Black is also a television and radio commentator and a sporadic participant in the current affairs programming of CNN, Fox News, CTV, CBC, BBC, and Radio Canada.

Michele Bachmann

In 2006, Michele Bachmann emerged from state politics to become the first Republican woman from Minnesota elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. By the time she won a third term in the House, she had become a national figure in the Republican Party and a founding member of the congressional Tea Party Caucus. Despite a limited legislative record, Bachmann's ambitious conservative agenda made her one of the most prominent opponents of the Barack Obama administration during her time in Congress and propelled her candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

Leilani Dowding

Leilani Dowding is a broadcaster, campaigner and regular contributor to The Mark Steyn Show.

Born in the Bournemouth, Leilani later moved to London to study economics at Royal Holloway, University of London. She dropped out after only one semester after being spotted and winning Miss Great Britain 98 and going on to represent Great Britain at Miss Universe 98.

Leilani continued to model and took part in various reality shows in the UK and the USA, including Tough Love Miami and The Real Housewives of Cheshire.

Leilani has always been very outspoken on topics that people are often afraid to touch, and communicates in a no-nonsense, down-to-earth way, which led to her becoming a regular and favourite commentator on GB News (or so she says).

Andrew Lawton

Andrew Lawton is a Canadian radio broadcaster, columnist and commentator. Most recently, Andrew hosted a daily talk radio show on Canada’s Global News radio network, and also, on occasion, guest hosted the nationally syndicated Roy Green Show. His columns have been published in the National Post, the Washington Post, the Toronto Sun, and on Global News. Andrew has appeared as a commentator on BBC, CBC, CTV, TVO

In 2018, Andrew was a candidate for the Progressive Conservative Party in the provincial elections of Canada’s largest province, Ontario.

Tal Bachman

The son of BTO and Guess Who founder Randy Bachman, Tal is a singer, songwriter and performer best known for his 1999 hit "She's So High", the critically acclaimed ballad "If You Sleep", and "Aeroplane", around which the movie "American Pie: Bandcamp" was written. Winner of two Juno Awards (Canada's Grammys), a BMI Song of the Year Award, the SOCAN Classic Award and others, Tal has also been featured in publications as diverse as Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Billboard, Q and the Times of London. Despite these successes and guest appearances on "Melrose Place" and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", Tal cites as his biggest professional thrill being parodied by Will Ferrell on "Saturday Night Live". He is currently writing a soon-to-be-announced musical comedy-drama for cable TV.

A university graduate in political science with a keen interest in world events, Tal joins the Mark Steyn Tour to lend insights into the world of the arts, culture, and politics, as well as perform a few numbers.

Phelim McAleer

Phelim McAleer is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, public speaker, and podcaster. He is a New York Times best-selling author and one of the most successful crowdfunders in the world. Together with his wife, Ann McElhinney, he has raised $6m in 8 separate crowdfunding campaigns. Their movie Gosnell – The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer was the most successful film project ever on Indiegogo. It raised $2.3 million in just 45 days.

McAleer produced and co-wrote the movie Gosnell - The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer. He co-wrote the NYT Best Seller Gosnell – The Untold Story of America's Most Prolific Serial Killer. The book debuted at #3 Amazon Best Seller and sold out in 3 days after publication.

His most recent movie My Son Hunter (2022), starring Laurence Fox and Gina Carano, has been a massive media event with The Daily Kos and the Guardian writing 5,000 words about the movie before they had even seen it. The New Yorker devoted 2,000 words to their coverage of the movie. Newsweek wrote about it five times - the Guardian twice. It was also covered in the Washington Post, Politico, LA Magazine and the Daily Mail.

McAleer also wrote and produced the play FBI Lovebirds: UNDERCOVERS based on the text messages of Lisa Page and Peter Strzok and their subsequent closed door congressional questioning. HBO's VICE News called it "The most dangerous play in Washington."

McAleer has produced and written several podcasts with his wife Ann McElhinney, including The Ann & Phelim Scoop Podcast, The Harvey Weinstein Trial: Unfiltered Podcast and Serial Killer: A True Crime Podcast, which reached the top 10 in all true crime podcasts worldwide.

McAleer has produced documentaries for the BBC, CBC (Canada) and RTE (Ireland), as well as two independent feature-length documentaries. Before becoming a filmmaker, Phelim was a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times in Eastern Europe, and he covered Romania and Bulgaria for The Economist.

He directed and produced FrackNation - A Journalist's Search for the Fracking Truth, a documentary on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and the natural gas boom in the US and abroad. Variety said it was a "briskly paced…mischievous pic."

He also produced and directed Not Evil Just Wrong (2009), a film which examines the devastating consequences of global warming hysteria. And Mine Your Own Business - the first documentary that asks difficult questions of the environmental movement. Canada's The National Post said "Mine Your Own Business is devastating because it combats prejudices and fantasies with pictures that refute thousands of weasel words."

Before that, he covered Ireland for the UK Sunday Times. McAleer began his career in journalism covering the Northern Ireland troubles first as a reporter in Crossmaglen (known as Bandit Country) and then for The Irish News in Belfast.

He produces and directs with his wife Ann McElhinney. They live in Venice, California, with their two cats Mr. Top Cat and Mr. Scaredy Cat.

Ann McElhinney

Ann McElhinney is a New York Times best-selling author, journalist, podcaster, film producer and director and one of the most successful crowdfunders in the world. Together with her husband, Phelim McAleer, she has raised $6m in 8 separate crowdfunding campaigns. Their movie Gosnell – The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer was the most successful film project ever on Indiegogo. It raised $2.3m in just 45 days. She is a producer on the My Son Hunter movie (2022), starring Laurence Fox and Gina Carano.

McElhinney produced the play FBI Lovebirds: UNDERCOVERS based on the text messages of Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. Other plays produced by McElhinney include Ferguson, Obamagate, Oh Gosnell: A Play About The Truth and Mermaids Vs. The Alliance.

She produced and co-wrote the movie Gosnell - The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer. She and her husband, journalist Phelim McAleer wrote the NYT Best Seller Gosnell – The Untold Story of America's Most Prolific Serial Killer. The book debuted at #3 Amazon Best Seller and sold out in 3 days after publication.

The Gosnell project has attracted an enormous amount of media coverage on television, radio and with hundreds of articles written about the book, film and the historic crowdfunding.

McElhinney directed and produced FrackNation - A Journalist's Search for the Fracking Truth, a documentary on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and the natural gas boom in the US and abroad. Variety said it was a "briskly paced…mischievous pic."

She produced and wrote several podcasts including The Ann & Phelim Scoop, The Climate Change on Trial, The Harvey Weinstein Trial: Unfiltered and Serial Killer: A True CrimePodcast which reached the top 10 in all true crime podcasts worldwide.

She also produced and directed Not Evil Just Wrong (2009), a film which examines the devastating consequences of global warming hysteria. And Mine Your Own Business - the first documentary that asks difficult questions of the environmental movement. Canada's The National Post said "Mine Your Own Business is devastating because it combats prejudices and fantasies with pictures that refute thousands of weasel words."

McElhinney has made documentaries for the BBC, CBC (Canada) and RTE (Ireland). The Search for Tristan's Mum concerned the case of Tristan Dowse, a baby who was adopted and later abandoned by an Irish man and his wife in Indonesia.

McElhinney was featured in and was the Associate Producer of the highly controversial documentary Return to Sender (2005) for CBC about the adoption of a Romanian child by a rich Canadian couple who years later sent the child back.

McElhinney has also written for or appeared on FOX News, CNN, BBC, CBC (Canada), ABC (Australia), RTE (Ireland), The Sunday Times and The Irish Times. She has worked as a journalist and filmmaker in the US, Canada, Romania, Bulgaria, Chile, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Ghana and Uganda.

She is an entertaining and sought-after public speaker. McElhinney produces and directs with her husband Phelim McAleer. They live in Venice, California, with their two cats Mr. Top Cat and Mr. Scaredy Cat.

Samantha Smith

Samantha Smith is a British columnist and commentator. She has been published in the Spectator, the Daily Mail, and the Telegraph and has appeared on Sky News, ITV, BBC, and the Mark Steyn Show.

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a so-called “15-minute city” is a concept in urban planning that seeks to create urban areas in which the daily necessities of life—education, work, shopping, health care, leisure—are accessible via a 15-minute walk or bike ride from any point within the city. The 15-minute city concept is also a target for conspiracy theorists, so naturally former Rep. Michele Bachmann has gone all in on spreading baseless conspiracies about the idea.

On Wednesday night, Bachmann, who now serves as dean of the School of Government at Pat Robertson’s Regent University,appeared on a World Prayer Network livestream, where she baselessly claimed that 15-minute cities are really an “electronic leash” designed to prevent anyone from traveling more than 15 minutes away from their homes.

“The 15-minute city is a planned city, a planned community:{ where people are allowed to travel by foot 15 minutes from their house,” Bachmann }claimed:{. “}::{So, it’s really a leash, an electronic leash. You see where this QR code comes in on our phones; this contains people to an area that is no more than 15 minutes from home.”}:

“These are so-called smart cities where individuals will be tracked and traced and surveilled, and we can move about freely within 15 minutes from home,” she continued. “In the former Soviet Union, their people were allowed to go 50 miles from home—any further, they had to get permission of the government—so this is a move of totalitarianism, where there’s a limitation on freedom of movement. In the United States government under our Constitution, every American has the right to travel, so this is clearly an unconstitutional move." [vid]

the World Prayer Network is an outgrowth of a prayer movement that began in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, when religious-right activists began to gather together several times a week to pray for God to intervene and overturn the results. Founded by right-wing activists Jim Garlow and Mario Bramnick, the World Prayer Network livestreams have since become a conduit for the promotion of wild conspiracy theories, many of them spread by Bachmann, who is a regular participant.

Tags: Michele Bachmann World Prayer Network

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On the eve of Thursday’s hearing at which a congressional committee revealed even more damning evidence of former President Donald Trump’s central role in the Capitol insurrection and the broader plot to keep him in power after losing the 2020 election, former Rep. Michele Bachmann told religious-right activists that the insurrection was planned by Trump opponents to make him look bad.

Bachmann, who was at the U.S. Capitol that day, told a Family Research Council town hall on Christian nationalism that the Jan. 6 crowd was “happy” before the violence started. She declared that the attack was a “rebranding exercise” to portray Trump and the MAGA movement as terrorists.

Bachmann is an influential figure on the religious right.She is dean of the School of Government at Pat Robertson’s Regent University and board chair of the Family Research Council, which was the organizer of Wednesday’s event.

Bachman is an ardent election denialist who, like Trump, has refused to accept his defeat. On Election Day 2020, she had assured viewers of Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Network that “the Lord, our God, has sealed this election in the heavenlies and we are going to be rejoicing very soon.” 

Weeks after the election, she screamedthat her vote had been “stolen” on election night, “when Satan was snatching away from America rule by the consent of the governed.” In April 2021, she responded to President Biden’s first State of the Union Speech by saying, “We had a fake election. We’ve had a fake presidency. This is a fake State of the Union address.” A month before, she used her post at Regent to host an “election integrity” conferencethat gave a platform to Gateway Pundit’s Jim and Joe Hoff and other conspiracy theorists.

Bachmann has also been a fervent promoter of bogus conspiracy theories about the insurrection since hours after the attack. The day after the insurrection, she falsely declared that the Capitol was invaded by left-wing “rabble-rousers paid to put together a coup.” Months later, she told right-wing radio listeners that the insurrection “was a theatrical event that the progressive left put on” to “rebrand Donald Trump as being an insurrectionist and a leader of a terrorist movement.”

She has her story, and she’s sticking to it, evidence be damned. [vid]

Tags: Michele Bachmann Capitol Insurrection Christian Nationalism Jan. 6 Family Research Council

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/michele-bachmanns-election-integrity-conference-features-notorious-source-of-conspiracy-theories-the-gateway-pundit/

Former Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who was named dean of Regent University’s Robertson School of Government in December, is hosting an “election integrity” conferenceTuesday, March 23, featuring a mix of longtime voter suppression advocates and right-wing pundits who have promoted former President Donald Trump’s bogus “stolen election” claims. The conference is further evidence that the religious right has thrown its institutional muscle behind Republican efforts to gain and hold political power by passing laws designed to make it harder for some people to vote.

On election night last November, Bachmann told viewers of Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Channel that God had “sealed this election in the heavenlies” and that they would be “rejoicing very soon.” A few weeks later she declared that Satan stole the election from Trump.

Bachmann is using her perch at the “academic setting” of Regent University, which is affiliated with televangelist Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, to tout the supposed intellectual seriousness of her conference. She recently told radio host Dom Giordano that the event would feature “A-list speakers” and that she was “very careful” about who she chose to speak, saying, “I didn’t want any fringe people, people that would be considered nuts.”

One measure of Bachmann’s claims and her sense of what counts as not-fringey is that she has also said that a “centerpiece of this entire conference” will be an hour-long presentation by “the editorial board of The Gateway Pundit,” which she said has the “finest archive in the United States of stories dealing with questionable election practices.” The Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft and his brother Joe Hoft have both been listed as speakers in promotional materials for the conference, and The Gateway Pundit has in turn promoted the conference.

The Gateway Pundit has for years been widely recognized as a notorious source of conspiracy theories and disinformation about a range of topics. A 2017 Harvard University study of disinformation and propaganda said, “Gateway Pundit is in a class of its own, known for ‘publishing falsehoods and spreading hoaxes.’” Jim Hoft’s Twitter account was permanently suspended in February for spreading disinformation about the 2020 election in violation of the company’s “civic integrity policy.”

Research from the nonprofit research organization Advance Democracy noted just before the inauguration that The Gateway Pundit and other right-wing media were questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election and either downplaying the seriousness of the Capitol insurrection or falsely claiming that it was incited by left-wing activists. The day after the Capitol Insurrection, The Gateway Pundit promoted an article that referred to then-Vice President Mike Pence as a “traitor.”

Former Right Wing Watch investigative reporter Jared Holt, now at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, noted on March 17, “Since the Capitol attack, the pro-Trump disinformation rag The Gateway Pundit has been growing increasingly cozy to the modern militia movement. Recent articles have cheered on Ammon Bundy, and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, for example.”

Bachmann promoted the conference and touted The Gateway Pundit’s central role on a March 17prayer call hosted by religious-right activists Jim Garlow and Mario Bramnick. Garlow and Bramnick have hosted a series of prayer calls since the election that promoted stolen election claims and fervent prayers and prophecies that God would intervene before Inauguration Day to miraculously keep Trump in power. The day after the Capitol insurrection, Bachmann appeared on one of the calls, where she said that Democratic wins in Georgia Senate runoff elections and the assault on the Capitol were both part of “a left-wing coup.”

In addition to a presentation by The Gateway Pundit, which Bachmann told her fellow prayer warriors would have people “clamoring for election reform,” the conference will also include sessions on thesupposed threat to democracy posed by H.R. 1, the voting rights and democracy reform legislation that has passed the House and is being considered by the Senate. Proponents of H.R. 1 say it is urgently necessary to prevent a new wave of state voter suppression laws from taking effect. Bachmann told radio listeners that it would lead to “one-party rule” by Democrats “for evermore.”

Bachmann has touted the participation of former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, who is not widely known for his expertise on election procedures.

Other speakers include the following:

Tags: Eric Metaxas Hans von Spakovsky Jay Ashcroft Jim Hoft Joe Hoft John Fund Kris Kobach Michele Bachmann Disinformation Election 2020 voter suppression Voting Rights Gateway Pundit Heritage Foundation Regent University

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/their-failure-to-consider-the-bible-relevant-debunking-christian-nationalists-favorite-claim-about-the-founding-era/

earlier this month, former Rep. Michele Bachmann spoke at an “Understanding The Times” conference in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, where she declared that “it isn’t even debatable” that the United States was founded to be a Christian nation.

As “evidence” of this claim, Bachmann asserted that “you can find scripture” throughout both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—which, as we have pointed out countless times, is entirely untrue.

Bachmann also falsely claimed that “the number one book that was referenced by the Founders, across the board, when they were putting this nation together was the Bible."

[twt]

Right-wing broadcaster Glenn Beck made this same claim on histelevision program a few weeks ago, misrepresenting the findings of a study conducted by a University of Houston professor decades ago. [vid]

in an attempt to document the source of the unique ideas that created the longest ongoing constitution in world history, political scientists from the University of Houston analyzed writings from the founding era, covering the years 1760 to 1805. Their goal was to identify the specific political authorities quoted during that period. Selecting 15,000 representative writings, the researchers identified 3,154 direct quotations in the works. They documented the original sources of those quotations. The results showed a singular single source cited far more, far more, above and away: the Bible. Thirty four percent of all of the quotes that [are] in the representative writings of the founding era were taken directly from the Bible.

This false claim, like nearly all of the misinformation the right regularly cites about the supposedly Christian founding of this nation, originated with religious-right pseudo-historian David Barton.

As usual, Barton cherry-picked and misrepresented data from a University of Houston study to bolster his political views, as researcher Chris Rodd explained more than a decade ago. But since Barton and those who rely on his work, like Bachmann and Beck, continue to spread this misinformation in their efforts to chip away at the separation of church and state, it is worth debunking this claim yet again.

In 1984, professor Donald S. Lutz of the University of Houston published a study in The American Political Science Review titled “The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought.” The purpose of the study was to identify which writers and sources of ideas were most cited in “the political writings of Americans published between 1760 and 1805.”

The finding, Lutz reported, was that “there was no one European writer, or one tradition of writers, that dominated American political thought” during that era, but that the Bible was cited most frequently solely because many of the pamphlets included in the research were sermons that had been reprinted for mass distribution.

As Lutz explained:

Anyone familiar with the literature will know that most of these citations come from sermons reprinted as pamphlets; hundreds of sermons were reprinted during the era, amounting to at least 10% of all pamphlets published. These reprinted sermons accounted for almost three-fourths of the biblical citations, making this nonsermon source of biblical citations roughly as important as the Classical or Common Law categories.

As Lutz noted, once the sermon pamphlets were excluded, quotes from the Bible appeared no more frequently in the political writings of the era than citations of the classical or common law.

More importantly, Lutz also noted that when the focus was solely on the public political writings from 1787 to 1788, when the U.S. Constitution was written and ratified, “the Bible’s prominence disappears” almost completely.

Tables 4 and 5 illustrate the pattern of citations surrounding the debate on the U.S. Constitution. The items from which the citations for these two tables are drawn come close to exhausting the literature written by both sides. The Bible’s prominence disappears, which is not surprising since the debate centered upon specific institutions about which the Bible had little to say. The Anti-Federalists do drag it in with respect to basic principles of government,but the Federalists’ inclination to Enlightenment rationalism is most evident here in their failure to consider the Bible relevant.

Not only is the claim that the Bible was the most cited document during the founding era misleading, the very article upon which this claim relies completely debunks the Christian nationalist narrative that the Bible was a key source in crafting the Constitution by demonstrating that the Federalists, who drafted the document and supported its ratification, did not publicly cite the Bible once during the crucial time period.

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/maga-or-antifa-the-right-wing-war-for-control-of-the-insurrection-narrative/

no lnx many vids

MAGA or Antifa? The Right-Wing War for Control of the Insurrection Narrative

Kyle MantylaBy Kyle Mantyla | January 4, 2022

In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, a battle broke out for control of the narrative regarding the events of that day. The battle was not between the left and the right, but rather between varying factions of the right-wing movement, as a variety of MAGA activists sought to shape the narrative about what had unfolded at the Capitol. Would they take pride in the Trump loyalists storming the Capitol, or would they baselessly blame the insurrection on left-wing insurgents?

To objective outside observers, it was clear that supporters of former President Donald Trump had violently stormed the Capitol in an effort to intimidate members of Congress into refusing to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Threats of violence had filled social media and calls for war and revolution were ubiquitous at right-wing rallies in the days and weeks leading up to Jan. 6. As such, it was no surprise when MAGA activists immediately began praising the “patriots” who stormed the Capitol in the days after Jan. 6.

For example, just two days after the insurrection, radical right-wing anti-Islam activist John Guandolo praised the insurrectionists for showing remarkable “restraint” by not summarily executing the “traitors” in Congress.

A few days later, Guandolo asserted that those who condemned the insurrection were “enemies of the republic” and should be “swinging from a rope because these are traitors to the country.”

QAnon conspiracy theorist DeAnna Lorraine was equally proud of the “patriots” who ransacked the Capitol. Lorraine, who had been covering the Jan. 6 events for radical conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ InfoWars network, filed a report on her way back to Texas in which she gushed that she had “never felt more pride in my heart and soul than yesterday.”

Lorraine lashed out at those in the MAGA movement who were already trying to distance themselves from the insurrection by falsely blaming the attack on the Capitol on left-wing activists. “No one should be blaming antifa for what happened,” Lorraine said. “American patriots did this. And it’s a good thing. It’s not a bad thing.”

Likewise, Brandon Straka, a speaker at the Jan. 5 so-called Stop the Steal rally who has since pleaded guilty to joining the mob storming the Capitol, took to Twitter on Jan. 6 to shame conservatives who weren’t supporting “freedom loving Patriots” storming the Capitol.

“Be embarrassed & hide if you need to- but I was there. It was not Antifa at the Capitol. It was freedom loving Patriots who were DESPERATE to fight for the final hope of our Republic because literally nobody cares about them. Everyone else can denounce them. I will not,” Straka wrote on Twitter, according to a criminal complaint.

Not everyone agreed with Lorraine and Straka’s assessment. Even as Trump loyalists fought Capitol police, right-wing conspiracy theorists like Lin Wood and Mark Burns took to various social media platforms to claim that “antifa”—conservatives’ shorthand for anti-fascist activists—was behind the attack. Fox News personality Laura Ingraham—whom the House select committee revealed to have pleaded with Trump’s chief of staff to get Trump to tell his supporters to go home on Jan. 6—went on her show in the hours following the attack to claim “antifa sympathizers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd.” Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson echoed similar messages.

Perhaps nobody better illustrates the “blame antifa” camp than former Rep. Michele Bachmann. Just hours after the insurrection, Bachmann was baselessly declaring those who breached security and ran loose through the Capitol were actually left-wing “rabble-rousers paid to put together a coup.”

In the following weeks, Bachmann repeatedly insisted that the attack on the Capitol was actually carried out by “the progressive left.”

“It is my opinion that this was a theatrical event that the progressive left put on,” Bachmann said. “The individuals who were the instigators, who brought this about, these were agitators brought in to create this problem. I believe it was specifically done to rebrand Donald Trump as being an insurrectionist and a leader of a terrorist movement. I also believe that this was done to rebrand the Make America Great agenda—because remember, that was considered extremely popular by about 80 million Americans—so they wanted to rebrand Make America Great as an evil thing and those of us who supported Donald Trump and that agenda as evil and terrorists.”

By July, Bachmann was claiming that MAGA activists had nothing to do with the events of Jan. 6 and that left-wing activists dressed in black clothing had been bused in to attack the Capitol.

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“There were some bad actors who had climbed up … and they actually were pounding on the glass,” Bachmann claimed. “Now, a normal person doesn’t do that. A normal person would never think to pound on the glass. I’ve seen the videotape of the first 14 people who went into the building. They were all dressed in black. They look like they’d been trained as warriors, the people who went in. This was clearly a planned event; that was not the Trump supporters who were around the building. What my conclusion was on-site is that this was nothing short of a coup.”

Despite the initial elation experienced by many MAGA activists in the wake of the insurrection and the endless praise for the “patriots” who had carried it out, the right-wing narrative about the events of Jan. 6 eventually solidified once the reality of the situation began to set in. As hundreds of Trump-loving activists began to face arrest and conviction stemming from their actions on that day and the disgrace the insurrection began to stain the MAGA movement, parts of Trump’s base and the former president himself collectively embraced the baseless belief that the entire thing had been a “false flag” orchestrated by left-wing groups.

So complete has the collective brainwashing been that even those who had initially celebrated the attack on the Capitol reversed course.

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John Guandolo, who initially praised the insurrectionists for showing remarkable “restraint” by not summarily executing the “traitors” in Congress, now claims that he was outside the Capitol during the events on Jan. 6 and saw “several busloads” of “antifa people and non-patriot hostiles” mixing with the crowd and entering the Capitol.

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“It makes you wonder what is actually going on,” Guandolo said. “We know what’s going on. What happened on Jan. 6 was the surrender of the republic and the takeover of the republic.”

John Guandolo | ReAwaken America Tour Dallas

Likewise, DeAnna Lorraine, who was on the ground at the Capitol during the insurrection and initially declared that she could not have been prouder about what happened, completely changed her tune and began insisting that the insurrection was a “false flag” operation set up to “trap” Trump supporters and provide justification for their persecution.

Lorraine eventually so thoroughly repudiated her initial support for the “patriots” who carried out insurrection that she ultimately began spreading a conspiracy theory that police officers who had been in the Capitol that day—several of whom have since died from suicide—were being murdered by the “deep state” to cover up the truth about the events of Jan. 6.

A new NPR/Ipsos poll released Monday shows how deeply this narrative has burrowed its way into the public’s beliefs.. According to the poll, nearly one-third of Republicans falsely say the attack on the Capitol was carried out by “opponents of Donald Trump, including antifa and government agents.”

Of course, this entire narrative shift regarding the events of Jan. 6 raises the question of why MAGA and the GOP have been intractably opposed to the efforts by the House select committee to investigate the attack. After all, if Jan. 6 was nothing but a “false flag” operation carried out by left-wing operatives for the purpose of discrediting Trump and his supporters, wouldn’t Trump and his supporters want that truth to be exposed?

Tags: Brandon StrakaDeAnna LorraineJohn GuandoloMichele BachmannCapitol Insurrection

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/michele-bachmann-is-hosting-a-9-11-event-to-save-the-history-from-critical-race-theory/

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/bachmann-michelle/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=7051&rs=182

ncrm

Televangelist Kenneth Copeland's The Victory Channel aired a special edition of its "Victory News" program Wednesday night to coincide with President Joe Biden's speech to a joint session of Congress.

Former congresswoman Michele Bachmann was among the commentators who appeared on the program, and she was predictably unimpressed by Biden's speech, calling it "cruel," labeling Biden a fake president, and saying that the entire thing smacked of "the invasion of the zombie apocalypse."

"This is a fake State of the Union speech," Bachmann said before Biden delivered his remarks. "What we're watching is a coup. It's my opinion that the election was irregular, we didn't have a true election result. We had a fake election. We've had a fake presidency. This is a fake State of the Union address."

"With all due respect, it was the invasion of the zombie apocalypse, as far as I'm concerned," Bachmann declared after Biden had completed his speech. "It was probably one of the most sad, depressing speeches I've ever heard."

"Quite honestly, the word that I have for his speech: It's cruel," she added. "What he's intending for the American people, the result is cruel. … I think one of the most cruel aspects of what he's proposing is snatching 3-and-4-year-olds out of their parents' arms, putting them in government-run preschools [where] they'll be learning critical race theory. I've observed this curriculum. I've seen this curriculum that they're planning to use with little 3-and-4-year-olds. It is the LGBTQ curriculum. It is the critical race theory. Our little children will be indoctrinated before they even get to kindergarten."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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acb same psyho eyes?  pension plan? kirk has $ ginni org

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/michele-bachmann-declares-god-has-already-sealed-the-results-of-this-election-in-heaven/

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/michele-bachmann-blames-trump-administration-middle-east-peace-plan-for-covid-19-civil-unrest/

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omg

Eduardo Bolsonaro’s comments reportedly shocked many Brazilians, but they aligned with previous statements made by his father, who also served in the legislature before being elected president in 2018 During his presidential campaign, the theme of which was “Brazil before everything, and God above all,” Jair Bolsonaro supported the torture carried out by the military dictatorship that ran the country from 1964 to 1985, and warned that under his regime, minorities would have to“bow to the majority … or disappear.”

Right Wing Watch noted last year, a week after Jair Bolsonaro’s inauguration, that he “didn’t waste much time issuing executive orders and taking other actions going after the people he had targeted in his campaign rhetoric: the LGBTQ community; indigenous people; descendants of former slaves; civil servants deemed not on board with Bolsonaro’s ideological agenda; nonprofit organizations; and the media.”

Just this week, Eduardo Bolsonaro launched a social media attack on filmmaker Petra Costa, whose documentary “The Edge of Democracy” has been nominated for an Academy Award, The Guardian reported. Eduardo Bolsonaro tweeted that Costa was a “scumbag” and a liar. He and other government officials are angry about the movie and an interview in which Costa criticized​ government policies encouraging the plunder of the Amazon region, a spike in police killings, ​the administration’s anti-gay actions and increased government censorship​.

In August 2018, months before the election that made his father president, Eduardo Bolsonaro met with Bannon and announced that Bannon would be offering suggestions on online strategy and data analysis for his father’s presidential campaign. He declared that he and Bannon would “join forces” against “cultural Marxism.”

Jair Bolsonaro’s campaign was backed by U.S. religious-right leaders, includingformer Rep. Michele Bachmann, who met with Eduardo Bolsonaro and recorded a video message to Brazilian Christians urging them to vote “only for a candidate for the president of Brazil who will support moving the Brazilian embassy ​[in Israel] to Jerusalem.” Trump-supporting “prophet” Cindy Jacobs and her husband Mike Jacobs declared that Jair Bolsonaro is establishing God’s kingdom in Brazil—turning it from a “goat nation” into a “sheep nation.” ​(There’s a biblical passage that refers to Jesus’s second coming when all the nations will be gathered before him and he, like a shepherd, will separate the sheep from the goats.)...

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omg dominionist?!

Eduardo Bolsonaro’s comments reportedly shocked many Brazilians, but they aligned with previous statements made by his father, who also served in the legislature before being elected president in 2018 During his presidential campaign, the theme of which was “Brazil before everything, and God above all,” Jair Bolsonaro supported the torture carried out by the military dictatorship that ran the country from 1964 to 1985, and warned that under his regime, minorities would have to“bow to the majority … or disappear.”

Right Wing Watch noted last year, a week after Jair Bolsonaro’s inauguration, that he “didn’t waste much time issuing executive orders and taking other actions going after the people he had targeted in his campaign rhetoric: the LGBTQ community; indigenous people; descendants of former slaves; civil servants deemed not on board with Bolsonaro’s ideological agenda; nonprofit organizations; and the media.”

Just this week, Eduardo Bolsonaro launched a social media attack on filmmaker Petra Costa, whose documentary “The Edge of Democracy” has been nominated for an Academy Award, The Guardian reported. Eduardo Bolsonaro tweeted that Costa was a “scumbag” and a liar. He and other government officials are angry about the movie and an interview in which Costa criticized​ government policies encouraging the plunder of the Amazon region, a spike in police killings, ​the administration’s anti-gay actions and increased government censorship​.

In August 2018, months before the election that made his father president, Eduardo Bolsonaro met with Bannon and announced that Bannon would be offering suggestions on online strategy and data analysis for his father’s presidential campaign. He declared that he and Bannon would “join forces” against “cultural Marxism.”

Jair Bolsonaro’s campaign was backed by U.S. religious-right leaders, including former Rep. Michele Bachmann, who met with Eduardo Bolsonaro and recorded a video message to Brazilian Christians urging them to vote “only for a candidate for the president of Brazil who will support moving the Brazilian embassy ​[in Israel] to Jerusalem.” Trump-supporting “prophet” Cindy Jacobs and her husband Mike Jacobs declared that Jair Bolsonaro is establishing God’s kingdom in Brazil—turning it from a “goat nation” into a “sheep nation.” ​(There’s a biblical passage that refers to Jesus’s second coming when all the nations will be gathered before him and he, like a shepherd, will separate the sheep from the goats.)

The Times of Israel reported that, in a visit to Israel in December, Eduardo Bolsonaro portrayed the trip as a first step toward moving Brazil’s embassy to Jerusalem this year. He refused to endorse a two-state solution to peace and said he could imagine the government closing the Palestinian embassy in Brazil. While in Israel, Eduardo “reiterated his opposition to gay marriage,” saying in a television interview “that if he wedded his dog it would still not make them a family,” the Times of Israel reported.

The Bolsonaro government has been warmly embraced by the Trump administration as an ally in promoting “family values” around the world. At Jair Balsonaro’s inauguration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave the new president a hug.

Last summer Jair Bolsonaro announced plans to make Eduardo Bolsonaro the country’s ambassador to the U.S, touting Eduardo’s friendship with President Trump’s sons, but the plan was abandoned in the face of resistance to “such a blatant act of nepotism.” President Trump had supported the plan, saying, “I know his son, and that’s probably why they did it. I don’t think it’s nepotism.”

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Trump promotes far right student organization accused of racial bias and supporting extremism

Written by David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement October 23, 2019

41

As he inches closer and closer to being impeached President Donald Trump is working hard to secure his base. One of the most powerful organizations at the president’s disposal is Turning Point USA, which is closely tied to the Trump campaign through Trump family members. TPUSA has been described as a “far-right group” which was originally funded by billionaire donor to Republican and Evangelical Christian causes, Foster Friess.

(Friess may be best-known to most Americans as the man who suggested the best birth control for women is “Bayer aspirin between their knees.”)

TPUSA was founded and is headed by Charlie Kirk, who a USA Today opinion writer says “seems to have a fraught relationship with facts when they get in the way of his worshipful approach to President Donald Trump.” The group claims to have “a presence on over 1,500 campuses,” and calls itself “the largest and fastest-growing youth organization in America.”

That’s Kirk in the photo above, interviewing President Trump.

Its website currently lists its “advisory council” as “coming soon,” but archived versions show far right wing extremists like former Tea Party Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and powerful lobbyist and Tea Party activist Ginni Thomas (spouse of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas) have served the organization.

00:00/00:33

Kirk calls Donald Trump, Jr. “a personal friend,” and the president’s eldest son has often toured with Kirk, speaking at TPUSA rallies. Lara Trump, who is married to the president’s other adult son Eric, is also tied to the group, according to New York Magazine’s Jane Mayer. In December of 2017 Mayer wrote an exposé titled, “A Conservative Nonprofit That Seeks to Transform College Campuses Faces Allegations of Racial Bias and Illegal Campaign Activity.”

Of course, TPUSA may forever be known best for its disastrous attempt to launch into the UK. During a seminar aimed at recruiting new members in London, its then-communications director Candace Owens launched a disturbing attempt to promote the failed concept of nationalism. She was subsequently accused of defending Hitler, after delivering these revolting comments:

“Whenever we say nationalism, the first thing people think about, at least in America, is Hitler,” Owens said, as Buzzfeed reported. “But if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK, fine. The problem is that he wanted, he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalise. He wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German. Everybody to look a different way. To me, that’s not nationalism.”

In a profile of TPUSA the ADL writes: “TPUSA’s leadership and activists have made multiple racist or bigoted comments and have been linked to a variety of extremists.”

There’s more, of course (see links at the end of the article.)

Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, President Trump Wednesday AM offered up these tweets promoting Turning Point USA and its founder, Charlie Kirk:

Young campus Conservatives are flocking to Turning Point USA & other Conservative speaker events all over the Country, AND IN RECORD NUMBERS. Thousands of students are turning out. “I just want to compliment the President of the United States for signing that historic Executive..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2019

….Order a couple of months ago saying that any school that does not uphold the First Amendment Rights of its students will lose Federal Funding. We have seen a huge change in how the Universities interact with us as a national & local student organization. Our studends….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2019

….feel EMPOWERED. There’s a movement happening on these campuses like I’ve never seen before. When you have 3000 students wanting to get into an event that couldn’t get in, that’s pretty remarkable!” @charliekirk11 Turning Point USA KEEP AMERICA GREAT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2019

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819

Bachmann: Trump Deserves Prayer and Support Because He's 'The Most Biblical President' Ever

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bailled, oops, spoke too soon:

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/5-facts-should-leave-you-queasy-about-michele-bachmanns-possible-run-senate

president of the United States is threatening nuclear annihilation on Twitter, and the people of Alabama nearly elected to the U.S. Senate a man who believes homosexuality is a crime, claims Muslims should not be allowed to hold public office and stands accused of sexually abusing multiple teenage girls. Meanwhile, the so-called Resistance is pinning its hopes on a collusion probe led by George W. Bush's former FBI director, opening its arms to the likes of Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) and former Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

By all accounts, we are living through the dumbest and most dangerous period in modern American history. So perhaps it's only fitting that Michele Bachmann is contemplating a political comeback.

Over the holiday weekend, the former Minnesota representative confided to disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker that she has been awaiting word from God about whether she should run for Al Franken's vacant Senate seat. (Bakker served nearly five years of a 45-year sentence after defrauding his followers of nearly $158 million. He claims to have foreseen 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the 2011 Japanese earthquake.)

“I’ve had people contact me and urge me to run for that Senate seat, and the only reason I would run is for the ability to take these principles into the United States Senate,” she said. “The question is, should it be me? Should it be now?”

A founding mother of the Tea Party caucus, Bachmann staked out any number of ludicrous positions during her career in Congress, before Donald Trump was a twinkle in the electorate's eye. This isn't the first time she has sought God's permission to run for office; she credited the Almighty for her presidential run in 2012, which she claims was "wildly successful" because she forced the GOP to adopt Obamacare repeal as its party line. "I fulfilled the calling that God gave me," she told Bakker.

Here are five facts about the erstwhile congresswoman that should leave you queasy about her possible run for Senate.

1. She plays fast and loose with campaign finance laws.

In March of last year, the Federal Elections Committee issued a notice that nearly $1.7 million had gone missing from her congressional campaign committee between October and December 2016. Bachmann's committee treasurer told the Center for Public Integrity at the time that the discrepancy was merely a "mistake in using the filing software." But four years prior, following her ill-fated bid for president, Bachmann came under investigation by the elections committee, the House Ethics Committee and the FBI for violating campaign finance laws.

According to the original complaint, first obtained by the Daily Beast, former campaign staffer Peter Waldron alleges Bachmann "funneled money" through a direct-mail consultant to pay Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson an "illicit six-figure salary." Waldron also accuses the consultant, who doubled as Bachmann's national political director, of taking money from her political action committee as a full-time staffer, a violation of FEC rules. Bachmann did not seek reelection in 2014.

2. She believes end times are nigh and yearns for the apocalypse.

Whereas the whole of the Republican Party was up in arms over Obama's deal with Iran, Bachmann believed it was reason to rejoice—not for geopolitical reasons, but because she believed it brought the world that much closer to fulfilling biblical prophesy. According to Zechariah 12:3, "all the nations of the earth" will unite against Israel, which will set in motion the second coming of Jesus Christ. She called the nuclear pact, "the most important national security event of my lifetime."

"It’s probably not worth unpacking any more of this lunacy," Sean Illing wrote at Salon. "The broader point is that people like Bachmann (and many other Republicans) really believe this stuff. Indeed, there’s a significant subset of the GOP that advocates for Israel on purely theocratic grounds: They yearn for the apocalypse. These people fancy themselves patriots, but they’re gleefully subordinating American foreign policy to religious dogma in order to hasten the end times."

3. She's profoundly xenophobic.

“It's a math problem of demographics and a changing United States,” she told the Christian Broadcasting Network in 2016. “If you look at the numbers of people who vote and who live in the country and who Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to bring in to the country, this is the last election when we even have a chance to vote for somebody who will stand up for godly moral principles. This is it.”Like virtually every Republican during the 2016 election, Bachmann lent her support to Donald Trump.Unlike other Republicans, she believed "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that if Hillary Clinton had prevailed, it would have been the last U.S. election ever held. The source of her conviction was not her apocalyptic worldview, although it just as easily could have been, but her deep-seated suspicion of brown people.

4. She's a virulent Islamophobe.

Even by the GOP's increasingly febrile standards, Bachmann has remained ahead of the curve in her hostility to refugees generally and Muslims specifically. In 2012, she co-authored a letter to the State Department with Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Rep. Thomas Rooney (R-FL), Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), and Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), claiming the Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated the United States government in pursuit of "civilization jihad." The group also launched a smear campaign against Clinton aide Huma Abedin, claiming her mother, brother and late father all had ties to Muslim extremists.

In November 2015, she implored conservatives to oppose the entry of Syrian refugees into the country, citing an article from a fringe right-wing website that claimed Muslim men are rapists.

"Refugees are 70 percent gang-age males," Bachmann wrote in a tweet. "No more in the US."

One week later, Donald Trump called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on."

5. She's in the Koch brothers' pocket.

The Koch brothers, who have donated untold millions to the Tea Party Caucus, are all the evidence Bachmann needs of the existence of a higher power. During an interview at the Koch-sponsored Conservative Political Action Conference, she thanked God for the oil barons' support and suggested that those who criticize her benefactors should be tried for organized crime, per Right Wing Watch.

"I just thank God that there’s a billionaire or two on our side," she said. "All the billionaires seem to be on the radical left, so I’m glad that we have a couple on ours. I hope we get a few more that are willing that come out but realize also this is an intimidation movement, I’m sure that the donors on our side don’t like to have their names vilified and that’s what this is about, intimidating people from giving money to our cause, that’s it. There’s something called the RICO statute, the racketeering law, that should be applied against them for doing this."

Jacob Sugarman is a managing editor at AlterNet.

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http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/michele-bachmann-the-left-is-helping-the-antichrist-come-to-power

continuing series of rw church wackos

4/17

While speaking last week on the Last Days radio program “Understanding the Times with Jan Markell,” former GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann linked political advocacy on the left with the rise of the Antichrist.

Bachmann said that Donald Trump’s opponents, much like the people who built the Tower of Babel, are rebelling against God to bring about “the creation of a manmade, one-world system. And scripture tells us that in the End Times, that is what Antichrist will be, he will be a part of a one-world system.”

“There are people who reject Judeo-Christian truth and instead want to insert and usurp control of all of our lives with a global, economic and political government,” she said.

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aug 2016

Michele Bachmann, who earlier this summer joined Donald Trump’s Evangelical Executive Advisory Board, said in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio last week that she is now advising Trump on foreign affairs:

Before the event, former Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said she has been advising Trump on foreign policy and issues of concern to Christian conservatives. She said Trump is right to call for more restrictive immigration policies.

“He also recognizes there is a threat around the world, not just here in Minnesota, of radical Islam,” she said. “I wish our President Obama also understood the threat of radical Islam and took it seriously.”

As we’ve noted, Bachmann believes the September 11 attacks represented God’s judgment on America; President Obama and gay rights advocates are bringingabout the End Times;homosexuality is “personal enslavement” and “part of Satan”; gay people want to change laws “so that adults will be able to freely prey on little children sexually”; and Obamacare death panels will literally kill people any day now.

Her foreign policy ideas are driven by her belief that the Last Days have arrived.

While Trump frequently rails against “globalism,” the former Minnesota congresswoman goes one step further in warning that a one-world government is emerging that will usher in the reign of the Antichrist , wondering if Obama fits the description.

Obama, she says, has brought upon the End Times by supposedly promoting policies that are “pro-the goals of Islamic jihad,” aiding ISIS, “sending arms to terrorists” and lifting “up the agenda of radical Islam.”

While Trump isn’t exactly one to talk about eschatology, it is no wonder that the candidate who thinks Obama founded ISIS and secretly supports terrorismis turning to Bachmann for foreign policy advice.

Tags: Donald TrumpMichele BachmannElection 2016End Times

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http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/michele-bachmanns-missing-million

Former Minnesota congresswoman and Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann may no longer grab headlines for her wacky floor speeches, but that doesn’t mean federal elections officials have forgotten about her — or the more than $1 million in campaign cash they say is now mysteriously missing.

According to a notice from the Federal Elections Commission, it appears that while auditing Bachmann’s congressional campaign committee, federal officials noticed that the ex-House member’s 2012 campaign went from having over $1.7 million on hand in October 2016 to reporting only $2,619 in December 2016. The letter was first reported by the Center for Public Integrity’s Carrie Levin. According to Levin, Bachmann’s committee treasurer claimed on Monday that the more than $1 million missing is merely a discrepancy due to a “mistake in using the filing software.”

But this is hardly the first time Bachmann has come under intense scrutiny over her use of campaign cash.

During her short-lived 2012 presidential run, Bachmann came under investigation by the Federal Election Commission, House Ethics Committee and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for violating campaign finance laws. Bachmann was even under investigation by the Urbandale, Iowa, police department for the theft of an email list, according to the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

After Bachmann broke fundraising records for her 2010 re-election campaign, including collecting a whopping and unprecedented $5.4 million in a three-month period, the FEC asked her campaign’s treasurer to itemize nearly $1.5 million in individual donations for that election cycle’s most expensive House race.

Of course, having her own problems with spending and reporting campaign cash never stopped Bachmann from falsely accusing former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., of “sticking the taxpayer with her $100,000 bar tab for alcohol on the military jets that she’s flying.”

Bachmann’s brushes with campaign finance authorities may not be the only cause of reluctance to believe her excuse that the missing million dollars is a simple accounting error. Just last week, the “pray away the gay” clinic run by her husband, Marcus Bachmann, was hit with major violations by Minnesota health inspectors. In early February, state investigators reviewed 10 client records and found that all of them had failed to comply with state rules mandating clinics retain information about its clients’ developmental conditions. According to Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the clinic was cited for similar violations in 2005 and 2009.

Bachmann, however, defended her husband’s notorious camp that offers gay conversion therapy and claimed he was guilty of making only “minor clerical errors.”

The Tea Party firebrand, who claimed to be a foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump during his presidential campaign, argued his presidency would finally end the “evil” gay agenda that the State Department had pushed in other countries.

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In an interview with WorldNetDaily news editor Garth Kant published last night, former GOP congresswoman Michele Bachmann and blogger Cheri Berens pushed the new right-wing conspiracy that last weekend’s massive Women’s March on Washington was part of a larger plot by radical Islamists to bring America down.

Berens claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood moved “to co-opt the media” and “organize and promote” the women’s march, adding that radical Islamists “want American women to have abortions” in order to help America’s Muslim population grow.

Bachmann, for her part, said that “Black Lives Matters, the gay agenda, as well as Islamic supremacism, all seek domination over American freedoms,” and have decided to “work together” to “realize the fall of individual liberties.”

“Once liberties fall, the groups break with each other in a race to impose their particular views on the American populace,” she said. “Causing liberties to fall is a long-term project, and they will use whatever allies they can get to realize that phase of their goals.”

“People understand Islam abhors homosexuality, yet they often join forces in protests with gay activists,” she told WND. “The answer is simple, Black Lives Matters, the gay agenda, as well as Islamic supremacism, all seek domination over American freedoms.”

Still, why collaborate?

“They cannot reach their aims separately, but they can realize the fall of individual liberties if they work together. Once liberties fall, the groups break with each other in a race to impose their particular views on the American populace,” Bachmann explained.

“Causing liberties to fall is a long-term project, and they will use whatever allies they can get to realize that phase of their goals,” she concluded.

…

Berens said the Muslims targeted pro-choice American women for the same reason, despite the fact that “abortions are illegal in Islam and no Muslim woman would dare have one.”

She warned: “They want American women to have abortions. They want the non-Muslim population to be stagnant while the their Muslim population grows. Numbers mean power.”

…

“Very powerful Muslim Brotherhood organizations helped organize and promote this event targeting very specific groups. And, starting in 1962, the Muslim Brotherhood placed very powerful people in the media profession to co-opt the media.”

Tags: Michele BachmannWorldNetDaily

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why bailled?

wiki:

On May 29, 2013, Bachmann announced that she would not seek re-election to her Congressional seat in 2014.[167] Bachmann stated in an interview with Fox News in June 2013 that she was "not going silent," and would remain involved in politics. She did not rule out a future run for office, or even for the White House.[168] She also said that probes into her campaign finance and the narrow margin of victory for her election were not a part of her decision against seeking re-election.[169] With her retirement from Congress, the ethics investigations against her were dropped.[170]^

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In an appearance on the End Times radio program “Understanding the Times” last week, former Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann once again declared that God secured Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.

Bachmann told host Jan Markell that the election reminded her of 1 Kings, in which Elijah goes up against 450 prophets of Baal, who are supported by the Baal-worshiping king Ahab, to see whose god can light a fire over their sacrificial offering. After Elijah triumphs, he orders the prophets to be slaughtered for defying the God of Israel.

Bachmann said that Trump, like Elijah, won a “decisive victory” despite receiving little support from the nation’s elites: “This in my mind could only be described as something analogous to Elijah and the prophets of Baal because in the natural, never would this have happened, this only happened in the supernatural and I believe it is because believers saw that we were on the precipice.”

Later in the interview, Bachmann alleged that “there were well over 2 and 3 million votes, at least, so far, that were cast by people who were illegal and unable to vote” in the presidential election, a discredited conspiracy theory that has since been embraced by Trump himself.

==

Among his other crimes against humanity, Donald Trump has normalized and legitimized an assortment of nutjobs we thought had been safely sidelined forever. Suddenly, kooks like Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Alex Jones and Pat Buchanan have all deemed it safe to flap their lips again, and spread their by turns vile, by turns flat-out bonkers (and often both) theories.

Here are some who crawled out of the crazy patch this week.

1. Cuckoobird Michele Bachmann resurfaces, sings, celebrates, predicts end of the world again.

Michele Bachmann, who has been elevated from the dustheap of history by none other than the Trump campaign which she advises,had a mixed week. On the one hand, she was “on her feet” cheering Trump’s horrific immigration speech in Phoenix, Arizona. He “hit a total grand slam,” she told Family Research Council’s rabid homophobe Tony Perkins. Trump’s policies of mass deportation, building a border wall and reducing even legal immigration will keep America from “turning against God,” she actually said out loud. She recommended that America abandon immigration policies that “prefer those who do not hold a Christian worldview.”

This raises the question of whether she is at all aware that Mexicans are overwhelmingly Catholic. It also raises the question of why a Republican nominee, or any sane person, would be consulting this ignoramus about foreign policy. But there you have it.

Bachmann did not spend all of her time “on her feet” cheering this week, for the end times are always nigh. Many things portend doom, such as gay marriage, Barack Obama’s election and peace breaking out anywhere. Curiously, the fact that the earth is baking at a record rate does not seem to perturb her, only when people of color and different sexualities gain ground.

“I don't want to be melodramatic but I do want to be truthful,” Bachmann evangelized in an interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network. “I believe without a shadow of a doubt this is the last election. This is it. This is the last election.”

Why would that be, well, it’s all those brown people, apparently, and the fact that they probably won’t vote Republican. “It's a math problem of demographics and a changing United States,” Bachmann said, and luckily math was her best subject in evangelical school. “If you look at the numbers of people who vote and who live in the country and who Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to bring in to the country, this is the last election when we even have a chance to vote for somebody who will stand up for godly moral principles. This is it.”

Here’s how the Armageddon of no more elections would go down, according to Bachmann: If Clinton wins, she’ll grant wholesale amnesty to undocumented immigrants, and no Republican will ever be able to carry Florida or Texas again.

From her lips to god’s ears.

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http://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/phyllis-schlafly-wanted-michele-bachmann-to-succeed-her-but-she-was-too-much-of-a-nitwit/

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http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a42197/michele-bachmann-obama-conspiracy/

...fé, we always keep a stool at the counter open for Michele Bachmann, who became one of our first regulars right after we opened up. We haven't seen much of The Girl With The Faraway Eyes ever since she left Congress and retired from politics as the last winner ever of the useless Iowa Straw Poll. But we keep her little piece of linoleum behind a velvet rope for days like this one recently, when she came back for a heapin' helpin' of her old usual.

Bachmann, who has previously claimed that President Obama and the gay rights movement are ushering in the Last Days, told radio hosts Jan Markell and Eric Barger that "the world is about to give legitimacy to the Islamic State" while, at the same time, Russian and Iranian military intervention in Syria on behalf of its dictator Bashar Assad has paved the way for a future invasion of Israel by the two countries in order to seize its energy resources, just as laid out in the Bible. "I believe that they are positioning themselves so that someday they could invade Israel to be able to take over the vast stores of oil and natural gas that Israel is controlling," she said, adding that "this very unique new partnership between Iran and Russia in Syria" with the support of China "lines up with scripture." All of these powers, she said, are seeking "a global world order to keep their game going into the future and to support them if they would invade against Israel." And who will lead this global world order? Why, none other than Obama.

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omg:

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/michele-bachmann-obama-and-hillary-have-switched-sides-and-support-islamic-terrorism

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agenda 21

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/michele-bachmann-light-bulbs-agenda-21?page=1

http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/agenda-21-the-united-nations-threat-to-control-our-lightbulbs-our-lifestyles-and-our-lives.html

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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2015/02/isis_isn_t_medieval_its_revisionist_history_only_claims_to_be_rooted_in.single.html

Until a few weeks ago, Joel Leftwich was a senior lobbyist for the largest food and beverage company in the United States. During his tenure at PepsiCo—maker of Cheetos, Lay’s potato chips and, of course, Pepsi-Cola—the company had played a leading role in efforts to beat back local soda taxes and ensure that junk food remained available in schools. But PepsiCo also faced new challenges at the federal level. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, championed by Michelle Obama, had placed new nutrition standards on school lunches. PepsiCo sent teams of lobbyists to Capitol Hill, deluged political candidates with donations, and fired off letters to regulators asking them to weaken the new rules. One such PepsiCo letter requested the redefinition of a “school day” so the company could continue to sell its sugary sports drinks at “early morning sports practices.” Leftwich, a former congressional liaison for the Department of Agriculture, was well positioned to help PepsiCo shore up its allies in the House and Senate.

Last April, Leftwich paid a visit to one such friend, Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, then chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, to thank her for opposing nutrition guidelines for food stamp purchases.

Now Leftwich will have far more access to such friends. As the newly appointed staff director of the Senate Agriculture Committee, now under GOP control, Leftwich will have wide sway over the law that funds school lunches, which is up for reauthorization this year. PepsiCo can rest easier, confident that the guidelines already in place are unlikely to be strengthened—and may be weakened instead. Leftwich’s new boss, Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, who took over the Agriculture Committee gavel in January, has set his sights on dialing back school lunch nutrition requirements, which he has called “Big Brother government that’s out of control.”

While all eyes were on the changing of the guard in Congress as Republicans seized control of the US Senate in January, there was an equally profound change taking place among Capitol Hill staff, as many GOP lawmakers handed over the keys to corporate lobbyists like Leftwich.

“We’ve seen a dramatic uptick in K Street moving into congressional staff positions since the Citizens United decision,” says Craig Holman, Public Citizen’s expert on lobbying and ethics. House Speaker John Boehner, he notes, has “encouraged new members to employ lobbyists on their personal and committee staff.”

On almost any big issue coming up for debate during the final two years of the Obama administration—surveillance, trade, healthcare, entitlements, tax reform, climate change—corporate lobbyists will now be attempting to influence their own former colleagues, whose salaries are now covered by US taxpayers.

wnd, black http://www.alternet.org/print/books/8-juicy-allegations-new-bachmann-tell-all-book

==

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who once authored a proposed Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act, said regulation has its place, but this administration is not basing its standards on "actual, verifiable science."

"That's part of our problem. We need to make our decisions not based on political wish lists, but we need to make it based upon real, true science," Bachmann told HuffPost. "The thing I didn't like about the light bulb issue, for example, is the federal government had actually outright banned a particular product, rather than allowing choice in the marketplace so people can choose which form of light bulb they wanted to have."

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...jh

Take greed, for example. The Wall Street barons who wrecked our real economy with their greed-fueled casino games are playing the same games again, while pushing Washington to let them keep their public subsidies, fat bonuses, and special low-tax rates. So, our Congress critters turned their legislative guns on avarice. Unfortunately, their aim was a bit off. Instead of popping overprivileged, Congress hit the most un-privileged Americans: People on food stamps.

Too many families are getting food stamps, they shrieked, driving the cost of this poverty program to record levels. Yoo-hoo, knuckleheads, record numbers of our people are on food stamps today because – guess what? – record numbers of them are unemployed or underemployed, and have been knocked all the way down into poverty.

Yet, the tea party Republicans now ruling the US House are demanding cuts of as much as $25 billion a year in food stamp benefits, which would prevent some 13 million Americans – half of them children – from receiving the program's groceries. Rep. Michele Bachmann rose to a Biblical falsetto to rationalize this: "If anyone will not work, neither should he eat." Hello, Michele: That's not quite what Jesus said. Also, many of these people are working, but not paid enough to make ends meet. And many more are desperately seeking jobs that aren't there.

In fairness, though, the GOP did vote to give these food stamp applicants something: Drug tests. Hmmm – I don't recall that Jesus, at the Sea of Galilee, required anyone to pee in the cup before getting fishes and loaves. And if he had done so, he would've required the bankers to take the first cups.

"House rejects farm bill; food stamp cuts at issue," Austin American Statesman, June 21, 2013.

House Defeat Of Farm Bill Lays Bare Rift in G.O.P." The New York Times, June 21, 2013.

"Collision Over the House Farm Bill," The New York Times, June 21, 2013.

"Michele Bachmann Says If You Are Unemployed, You Should Starve,"www.addictinginfo.org, November 8, 2011.

"Food Stamp Cuts Derail Farm Bill," www.huffingtonpost.com , June 20, 2013.

http://jimhightower.com/node/8073#.UdW9v_nVDmg

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==

anti-islamic rants:  gets tomatoes and shoes thrown at hillary (crowd chants Monica, monica) b/c MB, beck. dotty gen' and _ (RM) say US is behind M Brohood takeover of egypt gov't

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/16/bachmann_defends_her_witchunt/

Rep. Michele Bachmann defended her attempt to root out “deep penetration” by the Muslim Brotherhood into the U.S. government Friday, writing a 16-page letter explaining and expanding on her initial charges against Huma Abedin and others of being terrorist sympathizers. Bachmann’s letter came in response to a challenge from a fellow Minnesota lawmaker, Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat who was the first Muslim elected to Congress. Ellison last week asked Bachmann for evidence to support a series of letters the Republican sent to five national security agencies demanding investigations into alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in their ranks.

In the new letter, Bachmann questions why Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner, was able to receive a security clearance despite having family members that Bachmann believes are connected to the Brotherhood. “I am particularly interested in exactly how, given what we know from the international media about Ms. Abedin’s documented family connections with the extremist Muslim Brotherhood, she was able to avoid being disqualified for a security clearance,” the congresswoman wrote.

As evidence, she pointed to Abedin’s late father, Professor Syed Z. Abedin, and a 2002 Brigham Young University Law Review article about his work. Bachmann points to a passage saying Abedin founded an organization that received the “quiet but active support” of the the former director of the Muslim World League, an international NGO that was tied to the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe in the 1970s through 1990s. So, to connect Abedin to the Muslim Brotherhood, you have to go through her dead father, to the organization he founded, to a man who allegedly supported it, to the organization that man used to lead, to Europe in the 1970s and 1990s, and finally to the Brotherhood....

Rep. Michele Bachmann defended her attempt to root out “deep penetration” by the Muslim Brotherhood into the U.S. government Friday, writing a 16-page letter explaining and expanding on her initial charges against Huma Abedin and others of being terrorist sympathizers. Bachmann’s letter came in response to a challenge from a fellow Minnesota lawmaker, Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat who was the first Muslim elected to Congress. Ellison last week asked Bachmann for evidence to support a series of letters the Republican sent to five national security agencies demanding investigations into alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in their ranks.

In the new letter, Bachmann questions why Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner, was able to receive a security clearance despite having family members that Bachmann believes are connected to the Brotherhood. “I am particularly interested in exactly how, given what we know from the international media about Ms. Abedin’s documented family connections with the extremist Muslim Brotherhood, she was able to avoid being disqualified for a security clearance,” the congresswoman wrote.

As evidence, she pointed to Abedin’s late father, Professor Syed Z. Abedin, and a 2002 Brigham Young University Law Review article about his work. Bachmann points to a passage saying Abedin founded an organization that received the “quiet but active support” of the the former director of the Muslim World League, an international NGO that was tied to the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe in the 1970s through 1990s. So, to connect Abedin to the Muslim Brotherhood, you have to go through her dead father, to the organization he founded, to a man who allegedly supported it, to the organization that man used to lead, to Europe in the 1970s and 1990s, and finally to the Brotherhood.

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bachmann close epa: grist? 8/11

bachmann requests fed aid incl transport

npr interview on nyer art'l

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/09/139084313/the-books-and-beliefs-shaping-michele-bachmann

Oral Roberts Law School

The first time Bachmann got involved in politics was in 1993, when she founded a publicly funded charter school in Stillwater, Minn., with some other parents.

"They signed a charter saying they were not allowed in any way to include a religious agenda at this school and they very quickly violated that and built the school around a Christian sectarian agenda to the point where parents ... became very alarmed." says Lizza. "The school district stepped in and warned them that they were going to lose their charter, and eventually Bachmann and another person who were spearheading this were forced off the board and forced off the leadership of that school."

Bachmann later ran for a seat on the Stillwater school board. She lost but won her first race a year later, in the Minnesota State Senate. In 2006, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Lizza says that her message is shaped largely by the audience she's speaking with at any given time.

her books http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/10/michele-bachmann-books_n_923186.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/10/michele-bachmann-stimulus_n_922851.html

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First They Came for the Lightbulbs...

The conspiracy theory behind Michele Bachmann's war on energy efficiency.

By Tim Murphy | Thu Aug. 4, 2011 3:00 AM PDT

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Few issues get Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) going quite like lightbulbs. At campaign stops across the country, she has repeatedly denounced a 2007 law that required manufacturers to develop energy-efficient lightbulb varieties. Bachmann sees the law as an affront to American values [1]. "I think Thomas Edison did a pretty patriotic thing for this country by inventing the lightbulb," she told a New Hampshire audience in March. "And I think darn well, you New Hampshirites, if you want to buy Thomas Edison's wonderful invention, you should be able to!"

In reality, no one's stopping New Hampshirites [2] (or anyone else, for that matter) from buying any kind of lightbulb they please—even the incandescent variety that Bachmann warns will be outlawed unless we pass the Better Use of Light Bulbs (BULB) Act [3] that she supported. (BULB would repeal the energy-efficiency rules.) But Bachmann's crusade is about much more than energy-conserving bulbs: The Minnesota congresswoman is part of a movement that considers "sustainability" an existential threat to the United States, one with far-reaching consequences for education, transportation, and family values. If Bachmann is right, lightbulbs will soon be the least of our worries.

Bachmann's concerns may have been best articulated in an interview she gave to the American Family Association's OneNewsNow in 2008. As Republicans in Washington revolted over the rising costs of gas, the then-freshman congresswoman outlined the stakes:

"This is their agenda—I know it's hard to believe, it's hard to fathom, but this is 'Mission Accomplished' for them," she said [4] of congressional Democrats. "They want Americans to take transit and move to the inner cities. They want Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, [and] take light rail to their government jobs. That's their vision for America."

Although she didn't say it right then, Bachmann likely had something specific in mind: Agenda 21 [5], a two-decade-old United Nations agreement that has taken on a life of its own on the far-right. The agreement, forged in 1992, nominally committed signatories to a set of shared values designed to mitigate the environmental impact of human development. Member countries agreed to a range of sustainability goals, from preserving the ozone layer to ensuring that forests are managed so they'll be around for future generations. (The United States is a signatory, but the treaty has not been ratified by the Senate.)

But to some conservatives, Agenda 21 became something far more nefarious [5]—a gateway to a global government built on a radical doctrine of secular environmentalism.

...

This is their agenda—I know it's hard to believe, it's hard to fathom, but this is 'Mission Accomplished' for them," she said of congressional Democrats. "They want Americans to take transit and move to the inner cities. They want Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, [and] take light rail to their government jobs. That's their vision for America."

Although she didn't say it right then, Bachmann likely had something specific in mind: Agenda 21, a two-decade-old United Nations agreement that has taken on a life of its own on the far-right. The agreement, forged in 1992, nominally committed signatories to a set of shared values designed to mitigate the environmental impact of human development. Member countries agreed to a range of sustainability goals, from preserving the ozone layer to ensuring that forests are managed so they'll be around for future generations. (The United States is a signatory, but the treaty has not been ratified by the Senate.)

But to some conservatives, Agenda 21 became something far more nefarious—a gateway to a global government built on a radical doctrine of secular environmentalism.

In Minnesota in the 1990s and early 2000s, the loudest opposition to sustainability came from the Maple River Education Coalition (later EdWatch), the nonprofit thatgave Bachmann her start in politics. Under the group's banner, Bachmann toured the state with an anti-Agenda 21 activist from the Twin Cities suburbs named Michael Chapman. Together, they spoke to church groups about the creeping"state-planned economy" that was instilling un-American values in children. (Bachmann's office did not respond to a request for comment.)As these conservatives saw it, the agreement paved the way for the entire planet to be controlled by a central bureaucracy: Humans would be cleared out of vast swaths of settled areas—like the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, for example—and instructed to live in "hobbit homes" in designated "human habitation zones" (two terms embraced by tea party activists). Public transportation would be the only kind of transportation, and governments would force contraception on their citizens to control the population level. A human life would be considered no more significant than, say,that of a manatee. "Sustainability," the idea at the heart of the agreement, became a gateway to dystopia.

Agenda 21, opponents feared, would require government and industry to work in concert to find a way to get future generations to stay in line. One of the result, they argued, was a little-known federal program known as "school to work," which helps introduce students to various career options before they graduate from high school. But Bachmann and her allies insisted that, through this program, government bureaucrats would determine which industries to promote and funnel public-school students into those fields. They believed that public schools, meanwhile, would use the state's new curriculum standards, which they claimed were rooted in UN principles, to foist globalism and sustainability on students.

When she arrived in St. Paul as a state senator, Bachmann brought those views with her. In a committee hearing in 2003 to discuss a clean energy bill, Bachmann broached the subject of Agenda 21. The term "sustainability" can have radical connotations, she warned, in the "brave new world of energy conservation," and she voted for an amendment to remove the language.

As Bachmann explained to a perplexed chamber, sustainability, as defined by UN agreements like Agenda 21 and the UN Biodiversity treaty, would mean an end to resource extraction as we know it. "Last year in one of our committees, we had a guy come in and talk about the sustainable way of life," she said. "And he gave the definition of sustainable, and it struck me as kind of odd. He said that what sustainable means is that we've already taken everything out of the earth that we're going to take out."

And then Bachmann brought up a now familiar topic. "We already have all of the lightbulbs that we need to have in the earth," she recalled the expert saying. "We don't need to make any more lightbulbs. And so I'm thinking, 'You mean for all time? And that's part of sustainability, is for all time we already have the lightbulbs that we need, and apparently we'll change filaments as they go out.'"

It wasn't just lightbulbs, though. When four researchers from the University of Minnesota system were invited to brief Bachmann's jobs committee about climate change in 2004, she came prepared with questions ripped straight from the anti-Agenda 21 playbook: Did the researchers believe the state should take steps to reduce its population? Did they intend to tell residents specifically where they should and should not live? The professors, whose presentations had mostly focused on things like the impact of warmer winters on the ice fishing industry, were at a loss.

Bachmann's penchant for asking conspiratorial questions didn't go unnoticed by her colleagues. Her Democratic opponents in the state senate came up with a nickname for Bachmann and her followers: "Black Helicopter Republicans"—a nod to fringe types who believe the United Nations is running covert missions in their backyards.

In the state Senate, Bachmann took up another favorite issue of Agenda 21 opponents—mass transit, which they believe will prompt the displacement of citizens into confined areas and the elimination of privately owned automobiles.

As the *Minnesota Independent* reported, Bachmann bashed "impractical and expensive" public transit in her campaign literature and called light rail a "black hole" for funding. She voted to cut off funding to a commuter rail project connecting St. Cloud to the Twin Cities—a line that cut through the heart of her future congressional district—and cosponsored a bill to abolish the regional rail authority.

When the state was pouring millions of dollars into a new light-rail line in the Twin Cities, Bachmann set out to undermine it. She and a colleague rode the railsequipped with a video camera (audio), in an attempt to catch passengers riding without paying their fare. They set the video to the Star Wars theme song and invited colleagues from both chambers to watch the results. A few dozen of them, some supportive, some simply curious, showed up. "In the course of the film, they asked a very poor—potentially homeless—person on the platform 'Couldn't you ride for free?'" recalls Democratic state Rep. Alice Hausman. "And he said, 'Well, yeah, you could, but the fine is $250, so who'd be so stupid to do that?' It was almost like they didn't get that it disproved their point."

Bachmann is not the only Republican politician to raise concerns about the nation's commitment to sustainable development—Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has been a regular at the annual Freedom 21 conference, which promotes "property rights and free markets" as an alternative to Agenda 21. But Bachmann has helped bring the issue closer to the mainstream—at least within the conservative movement.

Last May, when American Policy Center held its annual Freedom in Action Conference in northern Virginia—a gathering dedicated exclusively to "connecting the dots" on "sustainable development and Agenda 21"—Bachmann recorded a welcome message. The congresswoman thanked attendees for their vigilance and sounded the alarm on the tyrannical nature of climate change legislation and the job-killing policies of the Environmental Protection Agency. And then, although she hadn't formally announced her candidacy for president, she all but asked them for their votes.

"We have to win the White House with a constitutional conservative for president who is committed to America as the indispensable nation," she told them. "I know we share those goals and that's why you're gathered here today, and I just want to encourage you: Keep fighting!"

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coal $  greenpeace

Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), District 6

“I think it is because of the corrupt paradigm that has become Washington, D.C.,

whereby votes continually are bought rather than representatives voting the will of their

constituents.…”

In top 25% of House members receiving campaign cash from fossil fuel companies5

Running for President, 2012 election

Coal Plants Polluting Bachmann’s District23

Sherburne County plant (owner, Northern States Power Company

[subsidiary of Xcel Energy]), in district.

• No mercury controls.

• Minimal nitrogen dioxide controls.

Allen S. King (owner, Northern States Power Company

[a subsidiary of Xcel Energy]), in district.

• Application for mercury controls is pending.

• Minimal sulfur dioxide controls.

Impact Annually of These Two Coal Plants6

• Deaths: 102

• Heart Attacks: 165

• Asthma Attacks: 1,760

• Hospital Admissions: 76

• Chronic Bronchitis: 65

• Asthma ER Visits: 110

Yearly Costs: $787,293,0006

Coal Polluters Support Representative Bachmann

Fossil fuel industry has given Bachmann $131,980 since the 2006 election season. Coal donors include Xcel Energy

($6,000), National Rural Electric Cooperative Association ($3,500), and ALLETE Incorporated ($2,000).7

Bachmann Represents Coal Polluters

Bachmann voted to stop EPA from reducing mercury and other toxic air pollution from cement plants.12

She is expected to support Coal Caucus members threatening with a bill to strip EPA’s budget to reduce mercury

pollution from coal-fired power plants.14

Bachmann asked EPA not to treat coal ash as hazardous.19 She is cosponsoring a bill Coal Caucus members are

pushing to strip EPA’s budget to develop any protections from coal ash.3 Bachmann voted for a similar amendment in

the budget bill earlier this year.12

Bachmann voted yes to keep EPA from making coal companies reduce global warming pollution.2

Bachmann voted three times in support of coal-industry amendments on mountaintop removal mining.15

Jobs to Produce Power in Minnesota

Wind and Solar: 4,12013,18

Coal: 1,0224

---

koch money

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/07/michele-bachmann-koch-brothers-2012

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/07/vintage-michele-bachmann-tim-pawlenty-communist

---

2008 accused Obama/ and members of congress of being Un-American:

Matthews: How many do you suspect of your colleagues do you suspect of being anti-American?

Bachmann: I would say, 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, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the people would love to see an expose like that.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michele_M._Bachmann

Global warming: "Armed and dangerous" quote

In March 2009, Bachmann was interviewed by the Northern Alliance Radio Network and promoted two forums she was hosting the next month in St. Cloud and Woodbury regarding Obama's proposed cap and trade tax policy to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Bachmann said she wanted Minnesotans "armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back." Bachmann's office quickly clarified that she was speaking metaphorically, meaning "armed with knowledge." However, according to the Star Tribune, her quote went viral across the internet. ^[66][67]

^....

According to Bloomberg.com news, evangelical conservative leader James Dobson put the resources of his organization behind her 2006 campaign. Dobson's Focus on the Family planned to distribute 250,000 voter guides in Minnesota churches to reach social conservatives, according to Tom Prichard, president of the Minnesota Family Council, a local affiliate of Dobson's group. In addition to Minnesota, Dobson’s group also organized turnout drives in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey and Montana.[135]^

During a debate televised by WCCO on October 28, 2006, news reporter Pat Kessler quoted a story that appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and asked Bachmann whether it was true that the church she belonged to taught that the Pope is the Anti-Christ. Bachmann stated that her church "does not believe that the Pope is the Anti-Christ, that's absolutely false... I'm very grateful that my pastor has come out and been very clear on this matter, and I think it's patently absurd and it's a false statement."[136]^

Bachmann received support from a fundraising visit in early July 2006 from Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.[137] On July 21, 2006, Karl Rove visited Minnesota to raise funds for her election.[138] In August, President George W. Bush was the keynote speaker at her congressional fundraiser, which raised about $500,000.[139]Bachmann also received fundraising support from Vice President Dick Cheney.[140] The National Republican Congressional Committee put nearly $3 million into the race, for electronic and direct-mail ads against DFLer Wetterling. The amount was significantly more than the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent on behalf of Wetterling. On November 7, 2006, Bachmann defeated opponents Patty Wetterling and John Binkowski, taking 50 percent of the vote to Wetterling's 42 percent and Binkowski's eight percent.[141]^

Committees: House Committee on Financial Services, House Committee on Financial Services/Subcommittee on Capital Markets Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises, House Committee on Financial Services/Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy Trade and Technology, House Committee on Financial Services/Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

---

http://climatecrocks.com/2010/11/05/the-greatest-threat-to-the-planet-the-right-wing-echo-chamber/

various wacko rumors

going for #4 gop post

---

grist:

Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)

U.S. rep from Minnesota

Increasingly seen as Palin-without-the-baggage, Bachmann loves to wind up Tea Partiers with anti–climate science, anti-cap-and-trade rants.

On climate science: Here's Bachmann on global warming in 2008: "It's all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax." (We're sensing some skepticism.) In 2009, she claimed there's no need to worry about carbon dioxide because it's a "natural byproduct of nature," going on to say, "There isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas."

On climate policy: "The tax cap-and-trade system for limiting emissions is just another tax on businesses," she said in ‘08. In 2009, she amped up the rhetoric: "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back." She later clarified that she didn't really mean guns; she just wants citizens "to be armed with knowledge, so they can be dangerous to the policies of the left."

Bonus fruitloopery: According to Bachmann, Jesus already saved the planet, so the rest of us don't need to; an Alaskan pipeline has become a meeting place and "coffee klatch" for caribou; and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is "the most perfect place on the planet to drill."

---

ST. LOUIS — Speaking to a packed hotel ballroom at the conservative How to Take Back America Conference, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said that exposes of “criminal tomfoolery” inside of ACORN could kick off a campaign to “defund the left.”

Bachmann was introduced warmly by Phyllis Schlafly, the iconic conservative activist whose Eagle Forum was the chief sponsor of the event. “She’s one of our Republican stars,” said Schlafly, “and some of you came here just to see her.” She got a second introduction from Dick Bott, a conservative radio host who briefly broke down talking about Bachmann’s hospitality to foster children.

Taking the stage, Bachmann thanked Schlafly, calling her an inspiration as a mother who transitioned into conservative politics, and said she considered the conference “a farewell party for ACORN!” The community organization group, she said, was the first, not the last, weak link in the liberal establishment.

“Defunding the left is going to be so easy,” said Bachmann, “and it’s going to solve so many of our problems.” She praised James O’Keefe III and Hannah Giles, the people behind the ACORN sting. “Hannah and James used Saul Alinsky’s ‘Rules for Radicals’ — that’s the community organizer’s bible — against ACORN! Brilliant!”

Bachmann touched on the priorities of Republicans if they retook Congress in 2010, to “pass repealer bill after repealer bill,” to prevent the creation of a one-world currency, and to pull the government back from the “36 percent of private business profits” that she claimed it now controlled. And she said Michigan residents were “depressed enough” without Gitmo prisoners being relocated to state facilities where they could inspire more terrorists.

“This is where they learn conversion to Islam!” said Bachmann. “In the prisons!”

After the speech, Bachmann had only a few minutes to sign autographs and collect a stack of CDs and books from fans who’d followed her into the lobby. I caught up to her as she headed outside and asked if she had any response to the murder of a Kentucky census worker, having noticed that the Census, a constant target for Bachmann, did not figure into her speech. Bachmann recoiled a little at the question and turned to enter her limo.

“Thank you so much!” she said.

---

wikipedia

Bachmann and her husband own a Christian counseling practice in Stillwater, Minnesota.[17][18]^

^...

Incandescent light bulbs

Bachmann introduced the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act, to repeal the ban on conventional light bulbs in favor of compact fluorescent light bulbs arguing, "Fluorescent bulbs are more polluting because of their mercury content."[40] The National Electrical Manufacturers Association responded that the reduced energy consumption of fluorescent bulbs typically results in a significant overall reduction of overall mercury emissions due to the reduction in coal burning at power stations, as well as a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.[40]^

[edit] Class action lawsuits

On June 3, 2008, President George W. Bush signed The Credit and Debit Card Receipt Clarification Act (H.R. 4008) into law. The bipartisan bill, which Bachmann coauthored with Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), removes statutory damages to end "frivolous lawsuits" aimed at businesses.[41]^

[edit] Environment and energy issues

During the summer of 2008 as national gasoline prices rose to over $4 a gallon, Bachmann became a leading Congressional advocate for increased domestic oil and natural gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf.[42] She joined 10 other House Republicans and members of the media on a Congressional Energy Tour to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, and to Alaska. The trip was set up by Arctic Power, an Alaskan lobbyinggroup that advocates for ANWR development. The purpose of the trip was to receive a first hand account of emerging renewable energy technologies and the prospects of increased domestic oil and natural gas production in Alaska, including ANWR.[43]^

[edit] Global warming

Bachmann has charged that global warming is a hoax[44] and has been a vocal skeptic of global warming.[45] She has asserted that since carbon dioxide is "a natural byproduct of nature", it is a beneficial gas required by plant life. She stated that because life requires CO2 and it is part of the planet's life cycle, it cannot be harmful. In a statement she made on the House floor on Earth Day, April 22, 2009, Bachmann stated she was against the cap and trade climate legislation, stating: "Carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, it is a harmless gas. Carbon dioxide is natural; it is not harmful.... We're being told we have to reduce this natural substance to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is naturally occurring in the earth."[46]^

^ ^

^ =

Rep. Bachmann Named "Guardian of Worker Freedom"

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wed, 12/03/2008 - 4:15pm

Sometimes you just have to laugh:

Last week, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann was presented with the "Guardian of Worker Freedom" award by the Alliance for Worker Freedom.  The AWF honored the Congresswoman with the award for her commitment to workers’ rights, open markets, and labor freedom in the [sic] 2008.  Bachmann also received the award for her efforts in 2007.

“I am honored to be receiving this award,” said Bachmann. “The men and women who make up America’s workforce are the heart and soul of this economy.  And in the face of our serious economic challenges it is more critical now than ever to encourage job creation and expand workers’ freedoms and opportunities.”

The nonpartisan Alliance for Worker Freedom presented the “Guardian of Worker Freedom” award to Representatives who stood up for the freedoms and interests of workers and against special interests and regulatory schemes that crush employment opportunity.

“By voting in favor of workers [sic] rights and freedoms, Congresswoman Bachmann deserves to be honored for siding with the rank-and-file American worker,” said AWF Executive Director Brian M. Johnson.  “Representative Bachmann is without a doubt a true guardian of worker freedom.”

The Alliance for Worker Freedom is a “special project” (aka “front-group”) for Grover Norquist and his Americans for Tax Reform, which is not exactly known for being overly committed to the well-being, security, or rights of the American worker.

Apparently Bachmann and Norquist think that the American workforce is made up primarily of idiots who can’t see through their pathetically self-serving charade.

^ ^

^

^Inside ^the ^Right-Wing ^Christian ^Law ^School ^That ^Brought ^Us ^Michele ^Bachmann

When ^Oral ^Roberts ^University ^sought ^to ^set ^up ^a ^law ^school, ^it ^called ^in ^Christian ^Reconstructionist ^Herb ^Titus. ^Michele ^Bachmann ^is ^the ^law ^school's ^most ^famous ^graduate.

July ^19, ^2011 ^ ^| 

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The ^following ^is ^reprinted ^with ^permission ^from ^Religion ^Dispatches. ^You ^can ^sign ^up ^for ^their ^free ^daily ^newsletter ^here.

At ^the ^May ^“First ^Friday” ^lecture ^hosted ^by ^the ^Institute ^on ^the ^Constitution ^at ^the ^Heritage ^Community ^Church ^in ^Severn, ^Maryland, ^IOTC ^founder ^Michael ^Peroutka ^presented ^the ^evening’s ^guest ^speaker, ^attorney ^Herb ^Titus, ^with ^a ^“Patrick ^Henry ^Award” ^for ^“his ^tireless ^and ^fearless ^telling ^of ^God’s ^truth ^to ^power.” ^Titus ^(best ^known ^for ^his ^representation ^of ^former ^Judge ^Roy ^Moore ^in ^his ^failed ^quest ^to ^install ^a ^2.6-ton ^Ten ^Commandments ^monument ^in ^the ^Alabama ^Supreme ^Court ^building) ^is ^one ^of ^the ^few ^lawyers ^in ^America ^who, ^Peroutka ^noted, ^truly ^“believes ^God ^is ^sovereign ^and ^therefore ^God’s ^law ^is ^the ^only ^law.” ^For ^Peroutka, ^the ^Constitution ^Party’s ^2004 ^nominee ^for ^president, ^this ^was ^his ^usual ^spiel ^on ^God ^and ^the ^law.

In ^the ^late ^1970s, ^Titus ^played ^an ^instrumental ^role ^in ^launching ^the ^law ^school ^at ^Oral ^Roberts ^University ^(ORU), ^from ^which ^GOP ^presidential ^hopeful ^Michele ^Bachmann ^graduated ^in ^1986. ^Titus, ^who ^rejected ^his ^Harvard ^Law ^School ^education ^after ^reading ^the ^work ^of ^R.J. ^Rushdoony, ^the ^late ^founder ^of ^Christian ^Reconstructionism, ^was ^moved ^to ^exercise ^what ^he ^believes ^is ^a ^“dominion ^mandate” ^to ^“restore ^the ^Bible ^to ^legal ^education.” ^To ^teach, ^in ^other ^words, ^that ^Christianity ^is ^the ^basis ^of ^our ^law, ^that ^lawyers ^and ^judges ^should ^follow ^God's ^law, ^and ^that ^the ^failure ^to ^do ^so ^is ^evidence ^of ^a ^“tyrannical,” ^leftist ^agenda.

Titus’ ^lecture, ^as ^well ^as ^the ^teachings ^of ^Reconstructionists, ^the ^Constitution ^Party, ^and ^the ^IOTC, ^provide ^a ^window ^into ^Bachmann’s ^legal ^education, ^and ^thus ^how ^her ^political ^career ^and ^rhetoric—so ^incomprehensible ^and ^absurd ^to ^many ^observers—was ^unmistakably ^shaped ^by ^it.

Restoring ^the ^American ^Jurisprudence ^to ^its ^“Biblical ^Foundations”

After ^launching ^ORU’s ^law ^school, ^and ^later ^helping ^with ^Regent ^University’s ^1986 ^takeover ^and ^launch ^of ^a ^public ^policy ^program, ^Titus ^ran ^on ^Constitution ^Party ^founder ^Howard ^Phillips’ ^presidential ^ticket ^in ^1996. ^The ^stated ^goal ^of ^the ^Constitution ^Party ^“is ^to ^restore ^American ^jurisprudence ^to ^its ^biblical ^foundations ^and ^to ^limit ^the ^federal ^government ^to ^its ^Constitutional ^boundaries.” ^That ^includes, ^for ^example, ^“affirm[ing] ^the ^rights ^of ^states ^and ^localities ^to ^proscribe ^offensive ^sexual ^behavior” ^(i.e., ^homosexuality) ^and ^“oppos[ing] ^all ^efforts ^to ^impose ^a ^new ^sexual ^legal ^order ^through ^the ^federal ^court ^system” ^(i.e., ^civil ^unions, ^marriage ^equality, ^or ^adoption ^by ^LGBT ^people). ^It ^is ^more ^extreme ^than ^the ^Republican ^Party ^platform, ^to ^be ^sure, ^but ^the ^GOP ^is ^hardly ^devoid ^of ^allies ^of ^the ^Constitution ^Party—including ^Sharron ^Angle, ^who ^ran ^for ^Senate ^in ^Nevada ^last ^year, ^and ^presidential ^candidate ^Ron ^Paul.

The ^lecture ^series ^at ^the ^Institute ^on ^the ^Constitution, ^which ^also ^offers ^in-depth ^classes ^that ^are ^popular ^with ^tea ^party ^groups, ^has ^recently ^included ^presentations ^on ^constitutional ^law ^by ^Moore ^and ^one ^of ^his ^protégés, ^current ^Alabama ^Supreme ^Court ^Justice ^Tom ^Parker. ^In ^a ^dissenting ^opinion ^in ^a ^2005 ^child ^custody ^case ^in ^which ^the ^majority ^affirmed ^an ^award ^of ^custody ^to ^the ^child’s ^grandparents, ^Parker ^cited ^not ^legal ^cases ^or ^statutes, ^but ^rather ^Romans ^13:1-2, ^for ^the ^proposition ^that ^“there ^is ^no ^authority ^except ^from ^God.” ^That, ^he ^concluded, ^dictated ^that ^the ^state ^should ^stay ^out ^of ^such ^family ^law ^matters ^except ^in ^the ^most ^extraordinary ^circumstances.

Christians ^are ^“Second-Class ^Citizens”

The ^claim ^that ^powerful, ^anti-Christian ^forces ^aim ^to ^undermine ^God’s ^“truth” ^lies ^at ^the ^heart ^of ^the ^IOTC’s ^and ^Titus’ ^conception ^of ^the ^constitutional ^roles ^of ^government ^and ^religion. ^Titus ^insists ^that ^Christians ^are ^discriminated ^against ^by ^these ^conventional ^interpretations ^of ^the ^Establishment ^Clause, ^which ^are ^at ^odds ^with ^his ^own, ^and ^which ^he ^contends ^have ^contributed ^to ^the ^treatment ^of ^Christians ^as ^“second-class ^citizens.”

“I ^would ^say ^to ^you ^that ^someone ^who ^holds ^a ^Christian ^view ^such ^as ^Michele ^Bachmann ^does ^would ^be ^much ^more ^accommodating ^of ^different ^views ^than ^any ^liberals,” ^he ^told ^me, ^because ^her ^views ^would ^permit ^the ^public ^posting ^of ^the ^Ten ^Commandments, ^for ^example, ^but ^a ^liberal’s ^would ^not.

That’s ^because, ^of ^course, ^under ^a ^“liberal” ^(i.e., ^accepted ^by ^the ^Supreme ^Court, ^at ^least ^for ^now) ^view ^of ^the ^First ^Amendment’s ^Establishment ^Clause, ^the ^government ^cannot ^act ^in ^a ^way ^that ^does, ^or ^appears ^to, ^endorse ^a ^particular ^religion.

Titus ^contends, ^however, ^that ^religion, ^as ^used ^in ^the ^Establishment ^Clause ^(“Congress ^shall ^make ^no ^law ^respecting ^an ^establishment ^of ^religion”) ^does ^not ^mean, ^well, ^a ^religion. ^Rather, ^Titus ^insists ^that ^this ^clause ^means ^that ^Congress ^cannot ^make ^you ^do ^anything ^that ^you ^are ^otherwise ^commanded ^by ^God ^to ^do: ^in ^other ^words, ^Congress ^cannot ^flout ^God.

Religion, ^Titus ^told ^the ^IOTC ^audience, ^“is ^the ^duty ^which ^we ^owe ^our ^Creator.” ^As ^Julie ^Ingersoll ^has ^described ^in ^detail, ^Rushdoony ^argued ^that ^God ^granted ^certain ^jurisdictional ^authority ^to ^the ^government, ^the ^church, ^and ^the ^family—therefore ^any ^government ^action ^exceeding ^its ^God-granted ^authority ^is ^in ^violation ^of ^God’s ^commands. ^Titus ^says ^the ^government ^has ^the ^power ^to ^make ^you, ^say, ^pay ^taxes, ^but ^other ^“duties ^we ^owe ^to ^God ^exclusively” ^cannot ^be ^enforced ^by ^the ^government. 

In ^Titus’ ^view, ^the ^First ^Amendment ^prohibition ^against ^Congress ^establishing ^a ^religion ^was ^actually ^intended ^to ^prevent ^Congress ^from ^establishing ^institutions ^that ^he ^maintains ^are ^tantamount ^to ^a ^religion, ^like ^public ^education, ^or ^National ^Public ^Radio. ^“I ^don’t ^believe ^what ^they ^teach ^in ^public ^schools,” ^Titus ^told ^his ^IOTC ^audience. ^“They ^don’t ^even ^believe ^in ^the ^first ^thing—that ^God ^is ^the ^source ^of ^knowledge.”

Indeed, ^as ^Titus ^himself ^was ^aware, ^the ^activism ^that ^launched ^Bachmann’s ^political ^career ^was ^an ^extended ^crusade ^against ^public ^schools ^in ^Minnesota ^(which, ^oddly ^enough, ^included ^a ^failed ^bid ^for ^a ^spot ^on ^her ^local ^school ^board, ^even ^though ^her ^own ^children ^did ^not ^attend ^public ^schools).

According ^to ^a ^2006 ^Minneapolis ^City ^Pages ^profile, ^in ^1993 ^Bachmann ^helped ^found ^a ^charter ^school ^in ^Stillwater ^“that ^ran ^afoul ^of ^many ^parents ^and ^the ^local ^school ^board ^when ^it ^became ^apparent ^that ^the ^school—which ^received ^public ^money ^and ^therefore ^was ^bound ^to ^observe ^the ^legal ^separation ^of ^church ^and ^state—was ^injecting ^Christian ^elements ^into ^the ^curriculum.” ^Later, ^Bachmann ^“became ^a ^prolific ^speaker ^and ^writer ^on ^the ^evils ^of ^public ^education.”

Health ^Care, ^Guns, ^and ^Slavery

In ^a ^2009 ^interview ^with ^Glenn ^Beck, ^Bachmann ^said, ^“I ^want ^people ^in ^Minnesota ^armed ^and ^dangerous ^on ^this ^issue ^of ^the ^energy ^tax ^because ^we ^need ^to ^fight ^back.” ^Both ^that ^statement ^and ^her ^characterization ^of ^health ^care ^reform ^as ^federal ^government ^excess ^that ^amounts ^to ^creating ^“a ^nation ^of ^slaves” ^and ^“tyranny,” ^draw ^on ^her ^Reconstructionist ^understanding ^of ^the ^Constitution.

Indeed, ^Bachmann ^possesses ^an ^alarming ^misunderstanding ^of ^the ^history ^of ^slavery ^that ^at ^once ^celebrates ^it ^as ^a ^heyday ^of ^African-American ^family ^life, ^and ^engages ^in ^revisionism ^about ^the ^founders’ ^view ^of ^it. ^She ^recently ^signed ^a ^“marriage ^pledge” ^in ^Iowa ^that ^included ^the ^statement ^(since ^removed): ^“sadly ^a ^child ^born ^into ^slavery ^in ^1860 ^was ^more ^likely ^to ^be ^raised ^by ^his ^mother ^and ^father ^in ^a ^two-parent ^household ^than ^was ^an ^African ^American ^baby ^born ^after ^the ^election ^of ^the ^USA’s ^first ^African-American ^president.” ^She ^has ^also ^stated, ^incorrectly, ^that ^the ^founders ^“worked ^tirelessly” ^to ^end ^slavery.

Peroutka ^and ^the ^IOTC, ^for ^their ^part, ^express ^affection ^for ^the ^Confederacy. ^In ^bestowing ^the ^“Courage ^of ^Daniel ^Award” ^on ^Moore ^on ^June ^3, ^Peroutka, ^who ^frequently ^ribs ^people ^for ^being ^from ^the ^“wrong ^side ^of ^the ^Mason-Dixon ^line,” ^cheerfully ^noted ^that ^it ^also ^happened ^to ^be ^the ^birthday ^of ^Confederate ^President ^Jefferson ^Davis.

Other ^IOTC ^speakers ^have ^included ^Franklin ^Sanders, ^whom ^the ^Southern ^Poverty ^Law ^Center ^describes ^as ^“a ^peculiar ^mix ^of ^neo-Confederate ^fantasist ^and ^seasoned ^tax ^protester.” ^Sanders ^has ^served ^on ^the ^Board ^of ^Directors ^of ^the ^League ^of ^the ^South, ^a ^Southern ^nationalist ^organization ^the ^SPLC ^characterizes ^as ^“a ^neo-Confederate ^group ^that ^advocates ^for ^a ^second ^Southern ^secession ^and ^a ^society ^dominated ^by ^‘European ^Americans.’” ^That ^society ^would ^be, ^according ^to ^the ^SPLC, ^a ^“godly” ^nation ^“run ^by ^an ^‘Anglo-Celtic’ ^(read: ^white) ^elite ^that ^would ^establish ^a ^Christian ^theocratic ^state ^and ^politically ^dominate ^blacks ^and ^other ^minorities.”

In ^the ^Reconstructionist ^view, ^a ^gun ^will ^protect ^you ^from ^your ^imagined ^enslavement ^by ^the ^federal ^government. ^Bachmann ^is ^one ^of ^several ^Republicans ^endorsed ^by ^the ^Gun ^Owners ^of ^America, ^another ^Titus ^client, ^which ^contends ^that ^gun ^ownership ^is ^not ^just ^a ^right, ^but ^an ^“obligation ^to ^God, ^to ^protect ^life.” ^Last ^year, ^Titus ^cited ^the ^“totalitarian ^threat” ^posed ^by ^“Obamacare” ^and ^told ^me ^that ^people ^need ^to ^be ^armed, ^“because ^ultimately ^it ^may ^come ^to ^the ^point ^where ^it’s ^a ^life ^and ^death ^situation.”

When ^I ^asked ^him ^recently ^whether ^he ^agreed ^with ^Bachmann’s ^opposition ^to ^health ^care ^reform, ^he ^exclaimed ^approvingly, ^“talk ^about ^turning ^yourself ^over ^to ^tyranny—your ^health ^care ^decisions ^made ^by ^bureaucrats.”

“Real” ^Americans

Bachmann’s ^history ^of ^questioning ^Barack ^Obama’s ^American-ness, ^or ^of ^espousing ^“normal ^people ^values,” ^is ^rooted ^in ^the ^Reconstructionist ^conception ^of ^“American-ness.” ^Not ^just ^Christian, ^but ^their ^kind ^of ^Christian; ^one ^who ^would ^obey ^God, ^exercise ^“dominion ^authority,” ^and, ^most ^crucially, ^is ^one ^of ^their ^“brethren.”

Titus, ^founder ^of ^Bachmann’s ^law ^school, ^happens ^to ^be ^the ^architect ^of ^a ^legal ^theory—as ^far ^outside ^of ^the ^legal ^mainstream ^as ^his ^Establishment ^Clause ^theory—that ^Obama ^is ^not ^a ^“natural-born ^citizen,” ^a ^designation ^that ^would ^render ^him ^ineligible ^to ^be ^president ^due ^to ^his ^“divided ^loyalties.” ^Deuteronomy ^17, ^he ^insists, ^demands ^that ^that ^the ^“king” ^be ^selected ^from ^one’s ^own ^“brethren.” ^As ^an ^outsider ^Obama ^isn’t ^a ^“real” ^American, ^worthy—according ^to ^the ^Bible ^or ^the ^Constitution—of ^being ^president.

The ^“Judicial ^Tyranny” ^Canard

In ^2003, ^motivated ^by ^Moore’s ^Ten ^Commandments ^crusade, ^then-state ^senator ^Bachmann ^participated ^in ^a ^“Ten ^Commandments ^Rally” ^on ^the ^state ^capitol ^steps, ^at ^which ^speakers ^called ^for ^the ^impeachment ^of ^federal ^judges ^who ^rule ^public ^postings ^of ^the ^Ten ^Commandments ^unconstitutional, ^and ^for ^a ^return ^to ^“biblical ^principles.” ^Bachmann, ^according ^to ^coverage ^in ^the ^Minneapolis ^Star-Tribune, ^“told ^the ^crowd ^that ^the ^founders ^of ^the ^United ^States—including ^George ^Washington ^and ^Thomas ^Jefferson—‘recognized ^the ^Ten ^Commandments ^as ^the ^foundation ^of ^our ^laws.’”

Bachmann ^isn’t ^alone ^among ^Republican ^politicians ^embracing ^Reconstructionist ^views. ^After ^Moore ^was ^stripped ^of ^his ^judgeship ^for ^defying ^a ^federal ^court ^order ^to ^remove ^his ^monument, ^Titus ^drafted ^the ^Constitution ^Restoration ^Act, ^which ^would ^have ^deprived ^federal ^courts ^of ^jurisdiction ^in ^cases ^challenging ^a ^government ^entity’s ^or ^official’s ^“acknowledgment ^of ^God ^as ^the ^sovereign ^source ^of ^law, ^liberty, ^or ^government.” ^The ^bill, ^which ^did ^not ^pass, ^nonetheless ^had ^nine ^Senate ^co-sponsors ^and ^50 ^House ^co-sponsors; ^including ^House ^Majority ^Leader ^Eric ^Cantor, ^Bobby ^Jindal, ^now ^the ^governor ^of ^Louisiana, ^Nathan ^Deal, ^now ^the ^governor ^of ^Georgia, ^and ^Mike ^Pence, ^a ^conservative ^hero ^who’s ^now ^running ^for ^governor ^of ^Indiana. 

While ^campaigning ^for ^president, ^Bachmann ^took ^up ^the ^“tyrannical ^judges” ^mantle, ^this ^time ^in ^connection ^with ^the ^Iowa ^Supreme ^Court’s ^ruling ^that ^the ^state’s ^gay ^marriage ^ban ^was ^unconstitutional. ^She ^applauded ^the ^ouster ^of ^“black-robed ^masters,” ^the ^three ^Iowa ^judges ^who ^had ^ruled ^same-sex ^marriage ^constitutional, ^and ^who ^were ^targeted ^by ^the ^religious ^right. ^In ^Iowa, ^judges ^are ^appointed, ^but ^subject ^to ^what ^is ^normally ^a ^routine, ^periodic ^retention ^vote.

The ^necessity ^of ^electing ^judges, ^rather ^than ^appointing ^them, ^was ^the ^subject ^of ^Parker’s ^First ^Friday ^lecture ^in ^January, ^because ^“elected ^judges ^are ^bulwarks ^against ^the ^agenda ^of ^the ^left.”

“If ^you ^take ^a ^moment ^to ^think,” ^said ^Parker, ^“federal ^judges ^appointed ^for ^life ^have ^legalized ^abortion, ^homosexuality, ^pornography, ^same-sex ^marriages, ^and ^outlawed ^school ^prayer ^and ^the ^display ^of ^the ^Ten ^Commandments.”

“When ^judges ^don’t ^rule ^in ^fear ^of ^the ^Lord,” ^he ^concluded, ^“all ^the ^foundations ^of ^the ^earth ^are ^shaken.”

Just ^the ^sort ^of ^thing ^that ^Peroutka ^complains ^isn’t ^taught ^in ^secular ^law ^schools. ^But ^at ^ORU, ^it ^was.

The ^Birth ^of ^the ^Christian ^Law ^School

The ^launch ^of ^the ^law ^school ^at ^ORU ^was ^intended ^to ^create ^public ^figures ^just ^like ^Bachmann: ^lawyers ^unafraid ^to ^inject ^their ^particular ^Christian ^beliefs, ^not ^only ^into ^the ^public ^square, ^but ^quite ^deliberately ^into ^legislation, ^policy, ^and ^jurisprudence.

As ^Titus ^tells ^it, ^God ^opened ^a ^door ^when ^the ^televangelist ^Oral ^Roberts ^wanted ^to ^found ^a ^Christian ^law ^school ^at ^his ^eponymous ^university ^in ^Tulsa, ^Oklahoma. ^“My ^first ^reaction,” ^said ^Titus ^in ^a ^recent ^interview ^with ^the ^Christian ^Reconstructionist ^Chalcedon ^Foundation, ^“was, ^no ^way, ^I’m ^not ^going ^to ^be ^identified ^with ^Oral ^Roberts, ^with ^this ^healer, ^with ^this ^Pentecostal ^personae ^and ^so ^forth, ^and ^yet ^God ^made ^it ^so ^clear ^to ^us ^that ^we ^were ^to ^go ^and ^help ^begin ^a ^Christian ^law ^school.”

Bachmann, ^who ^until ^a ^few ^years ^ago ^attended ^a ^staid ^and ^deeply ^conservative ^Wisconsin ^Evangelical ^Lutheran ^Synod ^church ^in ^Stillwater, ^Minnesota, ^might ^have ^been, ^like ^her ^law ^school ^classmate ^Dean ^Burnetti, ^“shocked” ^when ^a ^fellow ^student ^spoke ^in ^tongues ^in ^chapel ^the ^first ^day ^of ^law ^school. ^But ^Burnetti, ^now ^a ^personal ^injury ^lawyer ^in ^Florida, ^told ^me, ^“My ^personal ^worship ^experience ^has ^changed ^because ^of ^those ^people, ^and ^the ^way ^I ^see ^God’s ^active ^involvement ^in ^my ^life ^has ^changed ^because ^of ^that.”

The ^law ^school ^at ^ORU ^was ^a ^first ^effort ^at ^creating ^a ^“Christian” ^law ^school ^that ^would ^teach ^the ^“biblical” ^foundations ^of ^the ^law—essentially ^substituting ^Rushdoony’s ^totalizing ^worldview ^for ^mainstream ^legal ^theory. ^His ^views ^are ^evident ^not ^only ^in ^the ^ORU ^education ^Bachmann ^received, ^but ^in ^the ^perspectives ^of ^other ^Christian ^law ^schools ^forged ^on ^the ^ORU ^example, ^such ^as ^Liberty ^University ^Law ^School, ^where ^students ^are ^taught ^to ^follow ^“God’s ^law” ^rather ^than ^“man’s ^law,” ^and ^where ^Rushdoony’s ^texts ^are ^required ^reading. ^The ^rise ^of ^Christian ^schools—not ^just ^law ^schools, ^but ^elementary ^and ^secondary ^education, ^and ^homeschooling ^as ^well—has ^been, ^in ^Titus’ ^view, ^a ^“silent ^revolution” ^that ^has ^“basically ^escaped ^the ^scrutiny ^of ^most ^journalists.”

According ^to ^Titus, ^there ^have ^been ^“tremendous ^strides ^that ^have ^been ^made ^in ^last ^20 ^or ^30 ^years,” ^in ^developing ^other ^“Christian” ^law ^schools, ^including ^Regent ^University ^Law ^School, ^which, ^as ^noted ^above, ^took ^over ^ORU ^law ^school ^after ^Bachmann ^graduated. ^Titus ^credits ^Roberts, ^who ^“didn’t ^bow ^down ^to ^the ^establishment”; ^in ^particular ^the ^American ^Bar ^Association, ^which ^initially ^refused ^to ^give ^the ^school ^accreditation ^because ^it ^required ^faculty ^and ^students ^to ^be ^professing ^Christians ^(both ^were ^required ^to ^sign ^a ^pledge ^that ^they ^were ^followers ^of ^Jesus).

Burnetti ^described ^Bachmann ^as ^“brilliant” ^and ^a ^“very ^gifted, ^very ^talented, ^very ^smart ^girl.” ^When ^I ^asked ^whether ^he ^could ^see ^now ^how ^her ^ORU ^education ^influenced ^her, ^he ^said, ^“there’s ^no ^doubt ^in ^my ^mind ^that ^has ^an ^influence ^and ^will ^have ^an ^influence ^on ^everything ^that ^passes ^through ^the ^filter ^of ^her ^conscience ^and ^life. ^It ^will ^be ^filtered ^through ^the ^principles ^she ^has ^used ^in ^the ^joining ^of ^the ^Bible ^and ^her ^Christian ^faith ^and ^beliefs ^and ^the ^use ^of ^the ^Constitution.”

Titus ^was ^quick ^to ^point ^out ^that ^not ^all ^of ^the ^students ^of ^his ^preferred ^pedagogy ^are ^“cookie-cutter” ^types ^who ^fall ^into ^an ^identical ^ideological ^line. ^On ^foreign ^policy ^matters, ^for ^example, ^he ^said ^he’d ^be ^more ^aligned ^with ^the ^non-interventionism ^of ^Ron ^Paul ^than ^with ^Bachmann.

But ^it’s ^clear, ^nonetheless, ^that ^he’s ^confident ^that ^her ^Christian ^beliefs ^pass ^muster. ^He ^doesn’t ^consider ^either ^Mitt ^Romney ^or ^Jon ^Huntsman, ^both ^Mormons, ^to ^be ^Christians; ^said ^he ^didn’t ^know ^whether ^Tim ^Pawlenty ^was ^a ^Christian ^(even ^though ^his ^pastor ^is ^the ^president ^of ^the ^National ^Association ^of ^Evangelicals); ^and ^defended ^Texas ^Governor ^Rick ^Perry’s ^hosting ^of ^a ^prayer ^rally.

Though ^he ^isn’t ^even ^running, ^Titus ^took ^a ^dig ^at ^Mike ^Huckabee, ^saying ^that ^host ^of ^Fox ^News’ ^Huckabee ^show ^“doesn’t ^understand ^the ^difference ^between ^the ^state’s ^business ^and ^the ^church’s ^business,” ^because ^he ^believes ^in ^“welfare ^taking ^care ^of ^the ^poor, ^which ^is ^contrary ^to ^Jesus’ ^teaching.” ^Again, ^that’s ^a ^reflection ^of ^the ^Christian ^Reconstructionist ^view ^of ^God-granted ^authority—i.e., ^it’s ^not ^within ^the ^government’s ^“authority” ^to ^take ^care ^of ^the ^poor.

I ^asked ^Titus ^whether ^it ^would ^be ^a ^big ^moment ^for ^him ^to ^see ^Bachmann, ^a ^product ^of ^the ^law ^school ^he ^helped ^found, ^ascend ^to ^the ^GOP ^presidential ^nomination. ^He ^replied, ^“It’s ^the ^kind ^of ^thing ^that ^we ^believe ^was ^one ^of ^our ^major ^purposes, ^which ^was ^to ^train ^people ^in ^such ^a ^way ^so ^as ^to ^make ^an ^impact ^in ^the ^leadership ^of ^the ^country.”

Sarah ^Posner ^is ^associate ^editor ^of ^Religion ^Dispatches ^and ^author ^of ^God's ^Profits: ^Faith, ^Fraud, ^and ^the ^Republican ^Crusade ^for ^Values ^Voters

^http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/151695/inside_the_right-wing_christian_law_school_that_brought_us_michele_bachmann/?page=entire

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^http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/151960/michele_bachmann_was_inspired_by_my_dad_and_his_christian_reconstructionist_friends_--_here%27s_why_that%27s_terrifying/

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