The Minneapolis Star Tribune broke their pattern of only covering Michele Bachmann’s ethics scandal. They covered her statement regarding Edward Snowden and his leaking the NSA Surveillance story. During a House Intelligence Committee hearing (she’s on the Intel Committee), she called Snowden a “traitor.”
Bachmann doesn’t fit how the Strib covers politicians. She doesn’t “do” legislation and mainly makes media appearances. Bachmann primary concern has been building her national profile and the Strib hasn’t able to or willing to adapt their coverage.
Most readers would probably have the misconception that this is the first thing (outside of the ethics scandal and her retirement announcement) that Bachmann has said since the 2012 election. I can identify 33 stories that the Strib couldn’t or wouldn’t cover (list below the fold).
Here is more from Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) interview with the Wing Nut Daily. She explains how the Trojan Horse House bill will have the “very bad” Senate amnesty provisions inserted into it in conference committee and how this will be the end of our Republic.
She and the other crazies in the House like Rep. Louie “Terror Babies” Gohmert will be relentlessly fear-mongering about immigration up until a reform bill passes (and probably afterwards, as well).
“The Senate is going to pass a very bad bill. The House will pass what will sound like a pretty good bill. But I’m just here to tell you, it’s a Trojan horse.”
The lawmaker said the bill will say, “We’re going to secure the borders,” so all the Republicans will vote for the bill. Then the bill will go to a conference committee where it will undergo a dramatic change.
“The good guts of the Trojan horse bill will be pulled out,” she said. “The very bad amnesty provisions will be put in the bill. The bill will go to the House floor, and it won’t be Republicans that pass it.
“It’ll be Nancy Pelosi leading all the House Democrats to vote for it, and just enough Republicans will vote for the bill and you’ll have amnesty,” predicted Bachmann.
She said that’s been the strategy behind the scenes all along.
“I think the master plan of the ruling class that runs Washington, D.C., is to ram this bill through before the American people know what has hit them and before members of Congress even know what has hit them.”
(WND.com)
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) knows as well as everyone that the Republican’s Southern strategy dooms the party to irrelevance. The minorities will soon outnumber the majority. But Bachmann is a practitioner of strategery and she and the other members of Team Crazy will not stand idly by while justice, tolerance and irrelevance threatens their party.
The Minnesota Republican appeared on Beck’s show on TheBlaze TV on Thursday with Reps. Steve King (R-Iowa) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) to talk about how Republicans “don’t even know” they’re in a fight over the bill yet.
“We’re losing badly. Why? Because members of Congress don’t even know this fight’s going on, so we need your viewers to melt the phone lines,” Bachmann said.
(Politico)
While I’m not sure that literally melting phone lines will help anyone, but she is fear-mongering to let her supporters know how serious a threat immigration reform is to Republicans.
Here’s the video of Bachmann explaining what it all means at World Nut Daily:
“We’re going to have amnesty, perpetual amnesty for illegal immigration and the whole political situation will change. Why? This is Barack Obama’s number one political agenda item because he knows we will never again have a Republican president ever if amnesty goes into effect.”
The first step in her strategery is to make sure they can’t become citizens:
Like a zombie, non-candidate Michele Bachmann’s dead campaign’s website continues to fundraise. It could be because she has no staff around any longer to take it down.
But considering she’s facing possible wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering charges, you’d think she’d be extra careful.
Then again … this is Michele Bachmann we’re talking about. Even in political death throes, she can’t stop the fear-mongering and victimization-syndrome fundraising.
The campaign’s donation page is still featured and functional with the following text at the top of the page:
Help Support Michele!
Obama and the Democrats are targeting Michele for speaking out against their extreme liberal agenda. They will do, say and spend whatever it takes to defeat her.
Please make a secure online contribution today to help defend Michele and the conservative values we share!
Of course, it is not unusual for officeholders to see funds trickle into their accounts after announcing their retirement from public office.
That said, Bachmann’s website perhaps could use a bit of an update as it leads the contributor to believe she will be running for elected office: “They will do, say and spend whatever it takes to defeat her.”
(Smart Politics)
In the aftermath of the embattled Michele Bachmann (R-MN) declaring she wouldn’t run for reelection in Minnesota’s Sixth District, the DFL challenger from 2012, Jim Graves, dropped out, too. Friends mentioned to me that Graves sent out a fundraiser email the day before he withdrew. I’ve been confused about why Graves dropped despite his assertion that he’d accomplished his mission in getting Bachmann out of Congress.
You have probably noticed one glaring exception to the massive amounts of money the DCCC poured into these races– an average of $1,710,159. In the 10th closest race, in Minnesota’s 6th CD, first-time candidate Jim Graves came within 4,197 votes of longtime incumbent and right-wing icon, Michele Bachmann… and it is the only race the DCCC refused to spend any money on. Graves is a very indepedent-minded Democrat and, unlike almost all the other candidates the DCCC spent big on, he refused to join the reactionary and corrupt New Dems that Steve Israel and Steny Hoyer are determined to flood the House Democratic caucus with– even to the point of losing races.
Be wary I suppose of taking up a subject at length, because it might not ever quite come to an end. Certainly I thought four parts on why Democrats need to win more white voters was enough, though this is a follow-up rather than an elaboration.
The first update: not only Phyllis Schlafly has been warning Republicans that their assumption that the route back to the presidency requires winning more Hispanics. Byron York, has been doing likewise, though rather than just assuming Republicans can’t win more Hispanics, he said he crunched some numbers and found that winning more Hispanics won’t be enough to win the electoral college unless they can win the same sort of majority Democrats are winning now. Bolding is mine:
In 2012, President Obama famously won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote to Mitt Romney’s 27 percent. If all other factors remained the same, how large a percentage of the Hispanic vote would Romney have had to win to capture the White House? …READ MORE
Maybe she should work on staying out of prison first
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has told so many lies, has stretched the truth past the breaking point so so many times that when she claims that she will run for something else in the future, what are we to believe? Maybe she really intends to.
“I’m not retiring. I’m not going silent,” Bachmann said on Fox News. “I’m not quitting my public involvement. In fact I may run for another public office.”
Bachmann offered no clues about the type of office she might seek. She stressed that she has no definitive plan right now. She appeared on Sean Hannity’s show Thursday evening.
It’s obvious why she’s not running in 2014. FBI, FEC, Congressional investigation, Iowa special investigator appointed by the Iowa Supreme Court, the Iowa Senate and Annondale, IA police as well as the Heki vs. Bachmann lawsuit that begins in May 2014 is quite a dark storm cloud looming over her head.
If she somehow manages to avoid prison, she would be free to run (so to speak) for something.
Everyone agrees that Tom Emmer has a good chance of winning Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional seat in 2014. The numbers bear this out. I examined how Emmer did in the 2010 Governor’s race in the precincts that are in the new Sixth District.
Emmer won with 53.81% 53.92% (Updated: see comment below from Paul).
Fortunately, Emmer has a big mouth and is gaffe prone. His 2010 general election campaign, according to former MNGOP Deputy Party Chair Michael Brodkorb, was a disaster.
In 2010, he never got his campaign off the ground as he was continually defending the stupid things he said. I recall his team rebooting the campaign three times.
What I fear is that Minnesota’s media will abandon their duties just like they did when Michele Bachmann ran in 2006. Will Star Tribune reporters spike negative stories about Emmer just like they did during the 2006? Will they let Emmer lie like they let Bachmann? Will they ignore his looney tunes conspiracy theories like they did Bachmann? Will they let him slide out from answering any tough questions like they let Bachmann?
Or will they cover Emmer like they did in 2010?
UPDATE:
I totally botched my numbers. Somehow the spreadsheet from the Sec of State’s page didn’t include Benton and Stearns counties in the 2012 MN-06. Sally Jo sets me straight:
Missing? Benton County and Stearns County, both home to St. Cloud.
Big Stone County apparently knew enough to fear Tom Emmer before MPP’s warning, since Governor Dayton captured 45.41 percent of the vote to Emmer’s 41.49 percent in 2010. Tom Horner captured 12 percent, with the Grassroots Party inhaling 10 votes for .49 percent.
Someone had to keep passing those stale Big Stoned County jokes around.
Benton County, on the other hand, gave Emmer a clear majority of 50.92 percent to Dayton’s 35.29 percent and Horner’s 12.14 percent.
Details of my 2010 Precinct results transposed to the new MN-06 below the fold …
The Washington Times, owned by the Moonies, wrote an elegy to the career of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) since she won’t be running for reelection in 2014. The Times is a notorious right wing rag that exhibits few if any journalistic tendencies. It’s more agit prop than journalism.
But in writing their obituary of her political career, the Mooney Times did get one thing correct: she did pave the way. Just not for political greatness, but for political looniness, utter disregard for the truth and shameless fear-mongering.
While media outlets and liberal pundits are rejoicing after Rep. Michele Bachmann announced she would not seek a fifth term for office in 2014, women are stopping to say, “Thank you for paving the way for political greatness.”
(Washington Times, h/t Daily Kos)
Aside from the one little snippet of almost truth about Bachmann, the rest is purest unadultered balderdash.
It is not easy to run for political office — much less for president — but Mrs. Bachmann taught women that we can do it with poise and success. Remember, it was not long ago that conservative women had no national platform or political standing. Now, thanks to Mrs. Bachmann, we watched a woman win the Iowa straw poll and make a legitimate run for the White House. Whether you agree with her politics or not, one has to acknowledge that Mrs. Bachmann successfully wedged the door open a little further for women, jamming her high heel into the political landscape and showing the “good old boys” she was able to hold her own, even on the presidential debate platform.
As Hunter at the Daily Kos aptly points out “but the running for the White House part is something she totally taught women they can do. Nope, no other woman ever did that before. Can’t think of a one.”
The DFL members of the Minnesota Congressional delegation introduced a bill to stop spikes in gas prices. Reps. Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum, Rick Nolan, Collin Peterson and Tim Walz authored the bill after Minnesota led the nation in highest gas prices.
The legislation would require refineries to report to the Department of Energy their schedule for maintenance that would bring any refineries off line. The bill would also require refineries to immediately tell the Department when they are experiencing unplanned outages. Finally, the bill asks the Secretary of Energy to look at the potential for additional fuel storage in the region to address the low storage capacity that makes the region especially vulnerable to shortages.
It should be noted that Rep. Michele Bachmann is not an author as she doesn’t do legislation, just self-promotion. Rep. John Kline wouldn’t do anything that would upset his Big Oil donors. Rep. Erik Paulsen is a toe-the-line back bench Republican and would never work across the aisle.
“While Congress can’t dictate the price of fuel, we can put measures in place to help prevent fuel shortages that can lead to price spikes,” Rep. Walz said. “This is one of those measures. By ensuring refineries are proactively communicating their maintenance schedules with the proper authorities, we can prevent simultaneous refinery shutdowns and protect hardworking Minnesotans from arbitrarily paying more at the pump. This is just common sense.”
The State House has passed a bill that would raise the state minimum wage to $9.50/hour and index it to inflation so $9.50 in today's dollars is worth an equivalent amount in next year's. The State Senate is dragging its feet, insisting on legislator pay raises *first*. Tell them to get off the sidelines, stop dragging their feet, and help raise up the working poor!
The Minneapolis Star Tribune broke their pattern of only covering Michele Bachmann’s ethics scandal. They covered her statement regarding Edward Snowden and his leaking the NSA Surveillance story. During a House Intelligence Committee hearing (she’s on the Intel Committee), she called Snowden a “traitor.”
Here is more from Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) interview with the Wing Nut Daily. She explains how the Trojan Horse House bill will have the “very bad” Senate amnesty provisions inserted into it in conference committee and how this will be the end of our Republic.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) knows as well as everyone that the Republican’s 
Like a zombie, non-candidate Michele Bachmann’s dead campaign’s website continues to fundraise. It could be because she has no staff around any longer to take it down.
In the aftermath of the embattled Michele Bachmann (R-MN) declaring she wouldn’t run for reelection in Minnesota’s Sixth District, the DFL challenger from 2012, Jim Graves, dropped out, too. Friends mentioned to me that Graves sent out a fundraiser email the day before he withdrew. I’ve been confused about why Graves dropped despite his assertion that he’d accomplished his mission in getting Bachmann out of Congress.
Maybe she should work on staying out of prison first
Everyone agrees that Tom Emmer has a good chance of winning Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional seat in 2014. The numbers bear this out. I examined how Emmer did in the 2010 Governor’s race in the precincts that are in the new Sixth District.
UPDATE:
The DFL members of the Minnesota Congressional delegation introduced a bill to stop spikes in gas prices. Reps. Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum, Rick Nolan, Collin Peterson and Tim Walz authored the bill after Minnesota led the nation in highest gas prices.
