Michele Bachmann

Another Potential GOP Presidential Candidate: Congresswoman Michele Bachmann Of Minnesota, An Absurd Candidate! :(

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As the new year has begun, we are getting more hints or rumors of possible Republican Presidential candidates for the 2012 election.

First, we added former Utah Governor and present Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman to the list of possibilities, arguably one of the better people on the long list.

Jeb Bush’s name has come up again, although he denies any interest, at least for 2012, but leaving open the possibility for 2016, which would be when Barack Obama would no longer be running for the position. It would also be precisely eight years after his brother’s term ended, while George W. ran exactly eight years after his father’s term was completed. This actually makes a lot of sense, as bad memories of George W. would be gone by then, and Jeb might have an advantage at that time, if his party failed to win the White House in 2012.

But now, an absurd and scary candidate is hinting at her interest in running, and the author is not referring to Sarah Palin!

Rather, it is the extremely controversial Congresswoman from Minnesota, Michele Bachmann, who has made a name for herself by her extreme right wing ideas and loony statements in the four years she has served in the House of Representatives. Now she is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, by choice of Speaker of the House John Boehner, and has announced she will be going to Iowa to speak to various GOP groups in the first Presidential caucus state.

Compared to Sarah Palin, she actually has advantages, including a law degree, four years and counting of congressional experience, a lot of press coverage already (although much of it negative in tone), and a very attractive personal presence. She certainly makes Sarah Palin look less appealing by comparison, but still she is a very scary proposition. The thought that such an extremist, who has no problem with distortion and manipulation of the truth on anything, could actually be the Republican nominee for the Presidency of the United States, is enough to give one nightmares! 🙁

So much of the potential list for President on the Republican side is so horrific, that it certainly makes people such as Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman, and even Jeb Bush look far better by comparison!

House Republicans’ War Against Health Care Legislation! :(

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House Republicans have announced that they will hold a vote on January 12 on repeal of the Obama Health Care legislation, which is just beginning to go into effect as the new year begins.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has made it clear that the US Senate will NOT support repeal, and of course, it is obvious that President Obama will veto any such legislation, were it to reach his desk.

So what is the point of such a vote, which Michele Bachmann and others says will be brought up weekly if it does not pass? 🙁

It is to please the Tea Party Nation activists who want to destroy everything positive that has been done by the Obama Administration in the first two years of the Obama Presidency. It is a right wing attempt to help powerful special interest groups that want to further the aim of making the top few percent of the nation richer than ever, as if there is not enough stratification of the society already, much more than any nation that is said to be democratic in nature in this world! 🙁

The Republican Party is warring on the American people and their best interests, and they are demonstrating very clearly that they have no agenda other than to put America back to the year 2008, as if Barack Obama had never been elected President. 🙁

Their efforts will be unproductive, until if they win control of the Senate and the White House, and by 2013, it will be clear that public opinion does not wish a repeal of the health care legislation.

The House Republicans are fighting a rear guard action which will just be for propaganda reasons, and health care will survive, including a Supreme Court decision probably by the end of 2012, and the GOP will look in history as against a necessary reform, advocated for a century and long overdue!

Justice Antonin Scalia And Separation Of Powers Seminar To Congressional Conservatives Headed By Michele Bachmann: An Egregious Conflict Of Interest! :(

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Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, one of the most controversial members of the House of Representatives, one of the leaders of the Tea Party Caucus in the House, and infamous for outrageous statements and actions and for promoting political confrontations, has now gone beyond the pale.

She has decided that members of Congress should take “courses” on the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights, all designed to promote the “conservative” interpretation of these sacred documents.

Anyone serving in Congress should be expected to KNOW these documents by heart, and should NOT be promoting a distorted view of these documents, as Michele Bachmann and her ilk have been doing for years already! And to allow the Tea Party Movement, with its distortion of history and reality, to be the so called “cosponsor” of this series of seminars is even more outrageous!

But it gets worse, as Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, the most conservative member of the Court in the past hundred years, and a promoter of “originalism”–the concept that every legal decision should be based only on 1787 and the Constitutional Convention, with no consideration of modern times or changes in the 223 years since 1787–has agreed to give the first seminar on “separation of powers”!

Does not Justice Scalia realize that “separation of powers” means just that, and that therefore, it is inappropriate for him to be trying to influence or in any other way involve himself with actions of the legislative branch? 🙁

The Supreme Court is supposed to be non-political in nature, but apparently if a conservative such as Scalia wishes to be political, that is alright. And if Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife wishes to become involved in a pressure group that could theoretically have an influence on future cases before the Court, that apparently is fine! 🙁

But imagine if Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor, or Elena Kagan were to lecture to a liberal Democratic group or advocate a modernist view to people on Capitol Hill, you can be assured there would be moves to impeach them as having violated “separation of powers”!

This is the double standard, the hypocrisy, of conservatives, Republicans, and the Tea Party Movement, who all claim to be “holier than thou”, when they are engaged in clearcut violations of the Constitution by what they are doing, and what Justice Scalia has agreed to do!

But then, Justice Scalia, as brilliant as he is recognized to be, is also an extremely arrogant man! That sums it up! 🙁

Michele Bachmann, Christine O’Donnell, And Unemployment Compensation!

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We now have more people out of work than at any time in American history, over 15 million, with many millions out of work for more than six months.

Unemployment compensation was created during the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt to help unemployed people stay afloat during what is the greatest crisis in a person’s life, other than divorce or death in the family!

We all are paying for this entitlement through our taxes, and it is NOT a handout or a welfare giveaway, as many Republicans and conservative talk show hosts claim! 🙁

To say that one wishes to take unemployment compensation and not look for work is an outrage, as everyone knows it is a TEMPORARY assistance, nothing more! 🙁

And yet, we have Republicans in Congress calling for the end of unemployment compensation as a right for those losing their jobs through no fault of their own! 🙁

As examples of this hardhearted attitude, we have Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, and Senate candidate and loser Christine O’Donnell of Delaware! 🙁

Bachmann, already well known as one of the most controversial and divisive members of the House of Representatives, complained that the new tax bill will allow extension of unemployment compensation beyond the 99 week maximum for another 13 months. But the problem is that she is totally wrong, as the legislation does no such thing, but just simply allows the present unemployment compensation system to be funded for 13 more months! Bachmann is totally misinformed, as well as mean spirited, both characteristics nothing new for her! 🙁

But in a way, Christine O’Donnell, who lost the Senate race to Chris Coons in Delaware, is even worse in her reaction to the issue of unemployment compensation!

This woman, who proved her total incompetence to be a United States Senator during the campaign, complained about the tax bill because it allowed an extension of unemployment compensation to those out of work, wanting it to end completely! But this woman has NEVER held a regular work position, and has lived off running multiple campaigns for public office, inappropriately using campaign funds to pay her rent, to eat out at restaurants, go bowling, etc! 🙁

What a nerve that a woman who has no real work experience, has proved to be both extremely lazy and stupid, and has been corruptly living off campaign funds, should express a view that unemployed people should not have a safety net that has existed since the 1930s!   To top it off, she compared the “tragedy” of unemployment compensation to the death of Elizabeth Edwards and to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor! 🙁

Both these women just are further evidence of how out of touch with reality, and how lacking in concern, is the state of the Republican Party in 2010! 🙁

Minnesota: The Ultimate Split State Politically!

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Here we are four weeks after the election, and still the Governorship race is not settled in Minnesota! 🙁

Democrat Mark Dayton, former Senator, leads Tom Emmer, the Republican and Tea Party favorite by a little over 8,000 votes, and the recount is still on, with Emmer challenging the result since it is within one percent or less of a lead held by Dayton.

This recount brings back memories of the Minnesota Senate race of 2008, which was ultimately won by Al Franken over Senator Norm Coleman by just a few hundred votes, after lawsuits and recounts that went on for six months!

Minnesota, once the state of such luminaries as Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Eugene McCarthy, and Paul Wellstone, today is the true epitome of a state with a split personality!

It has two Democratic Senators, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, but it has had Tim Pawlenty, a very conservative Republican as its governor, and Michele Bachmann, the Tea Party and conservative Congresswoman, as another major factor in the increasingly conservative GOP, and the voters have been truly evenly split about the direction of the state, leading to the excruciatingly close results in these statewide elections!

Minnesota is truly now a microcosm of the political state of the nation, and it is not a promising political climate for the future! 🙁

South Florida Gains Two New Controversial GOP Congressmen! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

In the recent midterm Congressional elections, South Florida saw two new GOP Congressmen elected, both of whom are bound to make news, but probably not in a positive way! 🙁

David Rivera is the new Congressman for the 25th Congressional District in Miami, who has been accused of domestic violence against a woman years ago, and was involved in a car crash into a truck carrying fliers accusing him of domestic violence, even though he denies the whole story. But the Miami Herald has done investigation on this and claims that Rivera is covering up on this matter! 🙁 So the matter is not likely to go away anytime soon!

Even more controversial is the new Congressman for the 22nd Congressional District in Broward and Palm Beach Counties, and one of two newly elected African American Republican Congressmen. Allen West was a lieutenant colonel in the US Army who retired under fire for his tactics in Iraq in 2003, and he is seen as one of the most right wing members of Congress, similar to Michele Bachmann in using loose rhetoric! He had a motorcycle gang as a security detail, and briefly hired right wing talk show host Joyce Kaufman, a Fort Lauderdale radio celebrity, as his Chief of Staff until she backed out two days later, after her fiery speech during the campaign advocating using the Second Amendment if the election results were unsatisfactory! 🙁

These two Florida Congressmen will give the GOP leadership headaches in all likelihood, and will not follow the old line that freshmen are seen but not noticed! 🙁

South Florida Conservative Talk Show Host Joyce Kaufman And Congressman Elect Allen West: Two “Wingnuts” That Will Make News! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

One of the most notable Tea Party Movement favorites who won election to the House of Representatives last week was Allen West, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, who was forced to leave the military after inappropriate treatment of a prisoner In Iraq in 2003, and who has been associated with right wing, pro gun groups!

With large amounts of money, including support from Karl Rove associated groups, West defeated Congressman Ron Klein of Boca Raton, in one of the most confrontational campaigns in the country! 🙁

West is a “wing nut” who will make lots of news with his comments and actions, seen by many as an African American male counterpart of Michele Bachmann, Congresswoman from Minnesota, who is constantly making outrageous statements and calling for extremist actions against the opposition party, and confrontation in foreign policy!

It is bad enough that West will be a “nightmare” in Congress, but he has now appointed right wing “nut job” talk show host Joyce Kaufman, who is a South Florida “wannabe” replica of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity on the local level! 🙁

Kaufman has been an outrageous talk show host on WFTL in Fort Lauderdale, spewing poison, hate, and nastiness, calling for violent actions against illegal immigrants, war against Islam, and ridiculing Democrats in despicable language, such as calling Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Debbie Wasserman Schmutz (dirt in Yiddish)! She has used similar assaulting language against other Democrats, including former Congressman Robert Wexler, and other Democrats on the national scene, and has been totally negative in every way toward President Barack Obama!

She will now gain national attention, which she craves, as the Chief of Staff to Congressman West, and she is sure to be a “lightning rod”, drawing controversy by her statements and actions, instead of being a quiet, behind the scenes figure as Chief of Staff!

It is odd for a political figure to pick a media personality to be the leader of his staff! It is also weird that Kaufman, who constantly promotes states rights and hatred of the federal government, will now be a federal government employee and be paid by taxpayers for her work!

Interesting example of total hypocrisy on her part, and it also brings to mind that she somehow expects to be a “correspondent” for her radio station while working for West, which is seen by people on Capitol Hill as a conflict of interest, and totally inappropriate, and possibly illegal to boot!

But then conservatives like to rail against government, and then feed at the public trough as they pursue their agenda to make this country a land of the elite doing everything they can to make the rich richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class slipping constantly down in the direction of poverty!

The voters of the 22nd Congressional District of Florida will eventually realize the blunder they have made, brought about by large amounts of corporate cash without limit, thanks to the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case in January of this year! 🙁

The Conspiracy Industry And Barack Obama: The Trip To India!

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President Barack Obama has been accused of being a secret Muslim, a Kenyan, a non citizen, a Socialist, a Marxist, planning to put people into government sponsored concentration camps, etc etc etc, ad infinitum! 🙁

Now the right wing nuts, or as John Avlon calls them, “wingnuts”, claim that President Obama’s trip to India is costing the government $200 million a day, and requires 40 planes and includes 3,000 guests, on what is portrayed as a “vacation”, rather than a trip to promote economic interests and diplomacy! 🙁

This conspiracy theory began with Michele Bachmann, and has been promoted by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and other people, rightfully called “wingnuts” by John Avlon! 🙁

Why do people choose to make up such lies, and why do so many millions of Americans choose to believe this propaganda? 🙁

As former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York once said, a person is entitled to his opinions, but not to his own facts! 🙁

It is scary how so many millions of Americans do not seem to realize that they are being bamboozled, being made out to be jerks who have no ability to analyze and evaluate evidence, and instead are manipulated by liars who have no scruples or ethics, and meanwhile are rewarded with public office and obscene wealth based on their despicable propaganda! 🙁

Do The Republicans Really Want The Tea Party To Become Their Image?

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There already is evidence that mainstream Republican conservatives are not very happy with the influence of the Tea Party Movement on them in Congress.

Does the Republican Party really think that a party with the public image of Michele Bachmann, Jim DeMint, Rand Paul, and Sarah Palin, among others, is a good omen for their future success?

Why is it so much attention is being paid to these Tea Party favorites, and others like them, and focus is not being placed on more mainstream conservatives, such as newly elected Senators Roy Blunt of Missouri, Dan Coats of Indiana, and Rob Portman of Ohio, and veteran Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Richard Lugar of Indiana, among others?

If the Republican Party really expects to gain control of the Senate and retain the House of Representatives in future elections, would it not make more sense to focus and promote the more mainstream, respectable conservatives and moderates in the party?

Extremism and loony behavior are not the road to long range success and respectability for any political party, and it can be expected that the struggle within the Republican Party over the next two years will have a long range effect on the party’s fortunes in Congress, as well as in the Presidential race of 2012!

Glenn Beck: Clear And Present Danger! He Must Be Repudiated For His Rhetoric!

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Glenn Beck, the Fox News Channel talk show host, has become ever more extreme in his rhetoric, promoting conspiracy theories, talking about revolution coming, and stirring loony “true believers” to plan assassination of “enemies”, and promoting hate of “progressives”, who are made out to be unAmerican and dangerous to the nation’s security and safety! 🙁

Beck invites lunatics such as Congresswomen Michele Bachmann and Senator Jim DeMint to speak on his program, and they are also inciting dangerous reactions by unstable people, creating the possibility of violence and assassination of “enemies” that these people see in anyone who opposes their crazy, narrow minded ideas about the future of the nation! 🙁

The organization Media Matters has called on Sarah Palin to repudiate Glenn Beck’s rhetoric and tactics, but it seems unlikely that any such action is in the offing!

Fox News Channel should recognize the dangerous nature of Glenn Beck and remove him from the air, but the problem is that Fox is itself involved in creating a confrontational attitude in its quest to promote the agenda of Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch!

What is needed is for advertisers to withdraw from the Glenn Beck show and from Fox News Channel altogether, as the only way to make this irresponsible excuse of a news channel to change its behavior and report the news in a responsible manner! 🙁