Here’s your morning Michele Bachmann delusion. I can’t embed the video, which is from Glenn Beck’s The Blaze (apparently named after what he wants to do with books that aren’t the Bible, the Book of Mormon, or sold on his show). The gist is that Michele thinks that we’re close to having a one child per couple rule in the US.
In a medical setting, that sort of thinking would be addressed by a little Vitamin H and some quality time in the arts and crafts group. Instead, thanks to the voters in Minnesota’s 6th district, everybody gets to hear the crazy lady talk.
Any Minnesotans in the house? Is there a chance that she’s going to have a decent opponent?
Brian R.
What’s the over/under on how many days before she starts screaming about the giant spiders on her face?
I’ll put it at a week and a half.
Ben Cisco
Wasn’t her district a direct reflection of her, or vice versa? It seems the crazy is strong in that one.
Scuffletuffle
Imagine the arts and crafts…thermomix aided, of course.
mistermix
@Ben Cisco: It’s R+7. That’s fairly Republican but it’s not as right as Michele.
Pamoya
She was redistricted into Minnesota’s 4th District, which is currently held by Democratic Rep Betty McCollum.
Unfortunately, she decided to move(?) so she could remain in her old 6th District, which is now potentially even more conservative than before after pieces were cut out of it for the 4th District.
http://www.twincities.com/ci_20010444
sb
You mean “gist”, right?
Sorry… English teacher. :)
redshirt
It’s ironic that in the digital age of information at everyone’s fingertips, lying with impunity is now an everyday occurrence.
New Yorker
She needs help. Seriously. I think Rick Santorum’s beliefs are repellant and that he would have fought with Franco in the Spanish Civil War, but I don’t think he’s actually mentally ill. Bachmann is mentally ill. She should really be getting help.
mistermix
@sb: Yes, thanks.
YellowJournalism
Michelle Bachmann reminds me of the bible thumper lady from The Mist. If the giant bugs do arrive, I hope they eat her first.
capt
Crazy is as crazy does. If there are enough people in any district in the USA to elect this crazy lady, well the very idea is just crazy.
David W.
The best chance for beating Bachmann happened back in 2008 when Obama won Minnesota in a landslide, but she still prevailed by 3% over her Democratic opponent. So I don’t expect her to lose her district in 2012, especially as it’s more conservative now thanks to redistricting. Oh well.
Wee Bey
Her district was originally created for a Republican. It’s gerrymandered all to hell.
They had a nice, business-type Republican there for a couple cycles and she took him out from the right.
A random dude named Elwyn Tinklenborg nearly took her out in 2008.
I have no clue with the redistricting.
Comrade Dread
Just to clarify:
Trusting the president to spy on Americans unchecked and classify people as terrorists without providing proof (until SCOTUS nixed this) all with only the flimiest Congressional approval is perfectly fine by GOP standards, but having the Executive branch set the regulations for a law that Congress passed is one step down the slippery slope to communist China?
That about right?
debit
As a Minnesotan, I am shamed by her. Yet, people love her. My dad, who is not a stupid man, nevertheless thinks she’s wonderful and does good work. I honestly don’t get it. Maybe she’s mesmerized everyone who stares into her crazy whirling eyes.
We had a decent candidate with Tarryl Clark for her seat last election season, but she’s gunning for the R in district 6 (I believe) this time.
c u n d gulag
Michele,
‘They’re coming to take you away,
Hee-hee, ho-ho, ha-ha,
To “The Funny Farm…”‘
And she’d love to put on a ‘straight-jacket.’
What else would she put on – a “Gay” one?
That’s for the Mr.
PeakVT
@redshirt: More information means that Republicans voters have an easier time finding things they want to hear.
Schlemizel
She did lose some Republican bits of the 6th in the redistricting – they went into Betty McCollums 4th. So far there is no solid challenger but there is time yet.
Sadly, the 6th really does encompass some of the most backward, ignorant, nutbag populations you are going to find in rural America. I knew a guy there who only changed one clock in his house for DST – the rest were on “God’s time”. My cousin headed Planned Parenthood for Sterns County & there was a thriving business of providing abortions being done by 2 doctors who were prominent supporters of the anti-abortion movement in their parish. These are people who are dependent on government handouts but (look at batshits own habit of taking government money) while decrying the leeches & takers.
My guess is we are stuck with her for the time being
aimai
Damn, my lengthy angry comment got eaten.
There’s more projection here than in the local cineplex if you were wearing glasses shaped like fly eyes. She belongs to the party of forced birth.. Planned Parenthood is exactly that–the right to plan with whom, how, when, and why to have babies and add to your family. In their ceaseless search to prevent women and their families from excercising this kind of choice Bachmann belongs to a party that (per Rick Santorum) would deny women diagnostic ultrasounds and tests that would protect special needs children in the womb and at birth. They are so determined to prevent abortion that they deny D and C’s to women whose fetuses have died in the womb. Lots of places women are not given the D and C’s they need until sepsis has set in. They are sent home to “wait” until the dead fetus “passes” naturally.
aimai
Comrade Javamanphil
Not to get all logical, but wouldn’t this rule mean that the coming horde of non-white babies set to engulf
whiteyreal Americans in brownness cannot occur?harlana
Breitbart site fears for Rush’s life! Dems and WH forming lynching parties! 0.0
Nutella
Another well-known Republican loses it on the very first day of his campaign. (Politico link)
Sargent Pepper's Spray
I’m waiting for Obama to mandate that sitting female Congressional members marry closeted gay men in order to control population growth.
Schlemizel
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Not in their tiny minds. They believe the “full quiver” movement is going to save the white Christian world from the brown hoard. If they are limited to 1 kid they will not be able to save us all!
Plus they probably believe that the brown hoard would get a special deal allowing them to have all the kids they want. I was in Duluth, MN last weekend & there were a couple of demonstrations going on. One of them was a white butthurt party. The paper interviewed one woman who said she was there because she was not given a raise at work because she was white. It just ‘proves’ that people of color get ALL the advantages!
daniel thomas macinnes
“Any Minnesotans in the house? Is there a chance that she’s going to have a decent opponent?”
The short answer is, “no.” The longer, and slighly more cynical, answer is that the DFL deliberately gives Michele Bachmann a pass because she’s more useful as a foil and a fundraising target. They have never offered more than token opposition in Bachmann’s district, and that’s not likely to change.
However, this shouldn’t be a surprise. She taps into that hard-core right Confederate mindset, which is much closer to a religious cult than a secular political party. If your world is dictated entirely by paranoia and resentment fueled by Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and Southern Baptist fundamentalism, this will be the end result.
Don’t assume that Minnesota is still an old-school Democratic Blue state. We have a LOT of cult members in this state. When Michele Bachmann is the face of the God Party, then she becomes infallible; if she is ever wrong, that means God is wrong, and such thoughts can never be allowed. Jerry Falwell’s takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention led to the fusion of Christianity and GOP, and it’s probably the most important political development of the past 40 years. This is why our problems with the Crazy Cat Lady aren’t going to go away, no matter how many states Obama wins in November.
MattF
Speaking of Republicans going ka-BOOM, there’s the County Executive in Anne Arundel county, Maryland:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/this-scandal-might-be-too-much-for-leopold/2012/03/07/gIQAn28jxR_story.html
Voters like him, but, yikes.
New Yorker
@Nutella:
He actually used the word “persecuted”. It’s amazing how the bullies curl up in a ball and start sobbing about how mean everyone is the minute someone asks them to stand behind a statement they made.
Jon O
“Health care dictator”? Nice escalation.
Bets on when we first see “birth Hitler”?
Schlemizel
@Nutella:
Sorry, thats a win with the people that will vote for Sam the not plumber.
@harlana:
I fear for Rush’s life too. The fat, the lack of exercise, the drug abuse – hell he is not so old as to need v1@gr@ yet he is taking it, that signals a problem. He is an ideal candidate for a stroke or MI. It would not surprise me if they don’t have to pry him off some Dominican rent boy the next time he is on the island.
Zagloba
I swear I just rewatched the West Wing episode where Bartlett explains this play.
Schlemizel
@daniel thomas macinnes:
the 6th is a +7 R district, I doubt you will find many Dems willing to take a run at that even in the best of times.
It is also heavily Roman Catholic, not so much Baptist. Thats the big shift along with the Dixicrats. When Catholics were outsiders they voted pretty heavily Dem. They tended to be blue collar & sensitive to the plight of other put upon minorities. But they have now been sucked into the fold simply on the abortion issue & have been voting with the people who call them Idolators, papists and not real Christians. It is most interesting to hear them use the same taunts used against them years ago against Willards Mormon faith. former victims make the nastiest bullies.
RossInDetroit
@Schlemizel:
Duluth has people who aren’t white? They must be taking Vitamin D supplements.
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
I would settle for a standard-issue wingnut without Hypno-Vision(R).
David W.
@daniel thomas macinnes: You’re wrong about the Democrats mounting a serious challenge to Bachmann, as they did back in 2008 when El Tinklenberg came withing 3% of beating her. If there hadn’t been an independent candidate running who got 10% of the vote in the 6th, Bachmann would have been beaten. I don’t know if it could have been held though in 2010 given the Republican wave that cycle, but unfortunately the 6th is now a pretty safe Republican seat thanks to redistricting.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Schlemizel: All very true, of course. I was just tossing that out there for some intrepid member of the press corps (where have you gone, Jake Tapper?!?!) Joe ze Plumber shouldn’t be the only one subjected to gotcha questions.
gnomedad
@harlana:
To paraphrase Mencken, you can’t explain nutpicking to someone whose worldview depends on not understanding it. And anyway, when you’re explaining, you’re losing.
It’s scary to visit these sites and imagine what it’s like to be someone who absolutely believes all that shit.
LarsThorwald
@MattF: As a resident of Anne Arundel County — which is a blood red county in an otherwise reliably blue State, alas, alas (our congresscritter is none other than Andy “Hey, whoa, what’s this about not getting my government healthcare until 30 days after I take office?” Harris, and what a dick that assclown is — I delight in the foibles and downfall of Leopold. Who is a weird character to begin with. He was in the Hawaiian legislature for some years, left, came to Maryland, ran for office and won. He is a complete fucking carpetbagger with a slippery idea of what constitutes official services by having county cops run his errands. One of which, by the way, is to keep a lookout for pesky bystanders as he receives — and I swear to God I am not making this up — hummers from his side-dish in government vehicles in parking lots. He also takes an unusually creepy pride in protraying Abraham Lincoln — top hat, fake beard, the whole nine — at public events.
PeakVT
@Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity: Hypno-Vision? Is that like the Hypnotic Eye?
Face
Greatest. Name. Evah.
Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937
New rule: Calling Michele Bachman crazy is insulting to women everywhere and demonstrates the extreme misogyny of the soshulist, leftist radicals.
harlana
@Schlemizel: oh, but it will have all been staged by the WH and Nancy Pelosi! ya see.
Steve
@daniel thomas macinnes: Anyone who runs against Bachmann automatically gets tons of donations from national progressives, for obvious reasons. But I don’t see how that’s to the DFL’s benefit.
Davis X. Machina
@PeakVT: More like this.
patrick
@RossInDetroit:
“Duluth has people who aren’t white? They must be taking Vitamin D supplements.”
actually when I grew up there in the 80’s and 90’s, there was a sizeable population from Vietnam and surrounding areas….and there is the Fon Du Lac Ojibwa tribe up there, too…
dunno after redistricting, but before, her district was almost comically gerrymandered , like a 10 mile by 90 mile swath that ran from the wisconsin border all the way to st. cloud…
harlana
considering how effed up those Bachmann kids are going to be growing up, she and Marcus would have been wise to stick with just 1. but then these people just cannot be satisfied unless they can spread the misery around as far and wide as possible.
Rob
Why would the Democrats want to run an opponent against her? Every time she opens her mouth, they can slap it on a mailer and raise $100,000. She’s a better fundraiser than Hoyer.
harlana
@Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937: it’s insulting to all crazy but non-malevolent women like yours truly :)
Satanicpanic
Her brand of crazy is so divorced from reality I find it kind of interesting. If it didn’t have such terrible consequences for people she’d make a good Tammy Faye Baker style camp icon.
Schlemizel
@Comrade Javamanphil:
What gottcha question? If you make a public statement of your beliefs of your assumed facts you should be willing to either deny it, support it or explain your change of heart. Particularly if you think you should represent a large number of fellow citizens in Congress.
“Mr. Schlemizel, you were quoted once saying that all Christians should be rounded up and sent to reeducation camps. Did you mean that & do you stand by that statement?”
Candidate Schlmizel:
1)”No, I was snorting oxy with Rush on a 3 day bender & thought I was talking to a giant house plant. I never said anything like that.”
2)”Damn straight Skippy! Moose-limbs or nuke ems!”
3)”I was wrong, as I have met actual Christians I have discovered many of my preconceived notions about them were wrong. I deeply regret saying something so stupid & insensitive.”
Litlebritdifrnt
OT but speaking of wingnuts YAFB over at Rumproast is blogging about how they are busily trying to edit Professor Bell’s Wiki page to make him a nasty radical racist.
http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/interlude_a_little_wikipedia_tomfoolery/
Apparently the editors are managing to hold them off so far.
PeakVT
@Davis X. Machina: Lulz. Somebody should combine the two. 10 minutes of Hypnochelle.
Also, too, somehow I’ve missed this disturbing meme until now.
Tone In DC
@Brian R.:
LULz.
Soonergrunt
Bachmann was the one who claimed that the HPV vaccine caused mental retardation.
So I’m guessing she must have had about three or four HPV vaccinations by her behavior.
Villago Delenda Est
@New Yorker:
I’m finally working on Corey Robin’s The Reactionary Mind, and in the first chapter he mentions that victimhood has been a key element of conservatism from the getgo.
S. cerevisiae
@patrick:
I still follow the news up there pretty close, and read the comments if my stomach is feeling strong. Any article about race or crime has dozens of dog-whistle comments about “gangbangers” bused up from Chicago or Milwaukee to take advantage of our welfare. When these “thugs” get here they immediately shack up with a good wholesome scandahoovian girl to start pumping out half breed babies in her Section 8 housing while he goes out to sell crack.
I swear they think it’s 1989 and the Crips are invading. Not that the is no gang activity, but some of these people are comparing downtown first street to Compton, and that’s ridiculous.
amk
I think with batshit crayyzee bachmann, peak wingnut has been achieved. what sez you ?
Villago Delenda Est
@Comrade Javamanphil:
The classic “gotcha question” is, of course, “what newspapers and magazines do you read?”. I think the serious “gotcha” part was “do you read?” in that question.
Chris
@Schlemizel:
Back in the 1950s, Richard Hofstader noted that the people most susceptible to extreme right wing rhetoric were upwardly mobile Catholics, and downwardly mobile WASPs.
In the former case, it’s newly integrated ex-outsiders, who embrace the right wing crazy as a way to prove their allegiance to All-Americanness and reassure themselves that yes, they’re finally part of the country club (a.k.a, like you said, former victims becoming bullies). In the latter case, it’s members of the historically dominant group clinging to their ethnic identity as all their other status markers go away.
Also, it’s a very strange marriage, but Catholics and Dixiecrats have actually shared a lot politically over the decades. They were the two pillars of the Democratic Party for the longest time after the Civil War, they were the two big winners of the New Deal/World War Two era (when they both became True Americans, a status formerly reserved for Northern WASPs), and they were the two demographics that jumped ship in the sixties (though to be fair, a lot more Catholics than Dixiecrats stayed in the party – they’re pretty evenly split right now).
PeakVT
@Litlebritdifrnt: The wingnuts do that every time there’s a new target for their two minutes of hate. Editors (anyone who edits) of liberal persuasion just put the article on their watchlist until the attackers are given a new shiny object.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Schlemizel:
I was being sarcastic.
GregB
Well, from the mewling of Limbaugh and Joe the Plumber, it appears that the GOP may be adding a White Reparations bill to the platform at their convention this summer.
They are in a corner and they are lashing out like a rabid gerbils.
Litlebritdifrnt
@PeakVT:
I like this exchange in the discussion:
ETA – that second bit should have been in quotes too – FYWP
grove cleave
what ever happened to mn losing a house seat after the 2010 census?
Schlemizel
@Comrade Javamanphil:
we DO need that sarcasm font !!
middlewest
Funny thing about Tinklenberg is that he was the independent candidate, the Independence Party of MN endorsed him along with the DFL. But the “independents” in good ol’ 6 were so fucking stupid they voted for a guy who nobody had heard of and never campaigned. So, yeah it’s probably a waste of time and resources.
Jim C.
This is what happens as a result of both parties gerrymandering safe districts for the last several decades. Loons like this idiot not only make it into office, but serve multiple terms and are taken seriously as a presidential candidate.
Schlemizel
@Chris:
Thats interesting because, years ago, when I asked what KKK stood for I was told:
K–ns
K–ks
and
Kat-o-licks
and the guy was not joking.
Schlemizel
@grove cleave:
We just squeaked by to keep 8. I forget who ‘passed’ us to lose one.
Nemesis
Keep talking BacKKKmann and media, keep covering her.
We win when this idiot, along with Jiggles and Snowbillie, speaks out.
Ben Franklin
“Gotcha’ questions is the memotrope on righty blogs, since that’s all they got with the Breitbart tape ‘scoop’, which resembles Geraldo’s vault.
One thing about the Media; they are objective and Party blind in their incompetence .
harlana
i hope we can have a post about how the WH and Nancy Pelosi are plotting and coordinating Rush’s assassination
Scuffletuffle
@daniel thomas macinnes: Please do not lump me in with this nut job…thanks.
Real “Crazy Cat Lady” (thirteen with a pregnant mum…)
hilts
OT
Marine’s Facebook page tests military rules
http://news.yahoo.com/marines-facebook-page-tests-military-rules-234113159.html
“Marine Sgt. Gary Stein first started a Facebook page called Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots to encourage service members to exercise their free speech rights. Then he declared that he wouldn’t follow orders from the commander in chief, President Barack Obama. While Stein softened his statement to say he wouldn’t follow “unlawful orders,” military observers say he may have gone too far.”
PeakVT
@Litlebritdifrnt: Wingnuts sure are touchy about Palin, aren’t they?
harlana
@hilts: nice, i can see me posting something like that on my FB about my boss and see how long i stay employed
harlana
@GregB: that was a great (and appropriate) mental image!
Martin
Is it just me, or does ‘The Blaze’ sound like a gay interest publication? Not sure why. Is/was there one with that name, or similar to that name?
scav
@Schlemizel: In certain areas, the K-atholics were first in K-lineup. The klan got into some weird alliances in the smaller corners of the Midwest. I’ve got two local histories where they’re involved in township / school politics and in one of those were they’re all over teatotal (not teaparty) politics.
Martin
@hilts:
Seal Team Six should go have a sit-down with that young man.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@harlana: More importantly, the UCMJ has rules about speaking ill of your commanders, which includes the president. One of those fun things about the military that this guy forgot: You’re there to defend the constitution, not to live it.
Ex sailor.
PeakVT
@Martin: The Washington Blade and the New York Blade.
Soonergrunt
@harlana: you would just get fired. This guy could go to jail, as well.
hilts
Bachmann’s feelings are hurt
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/michele-bachmann-overkill-reaction-to-limbaughs-remarks-but-zero-outrage-when-i-was-attacked
wasabi gasp
This is a doggy style whistle.
Martin
@PeakVT: Ah yes! That’s it. From now on I won’t be able to think of Glenn Beck’s project as not trying to ride the successes of the gay community.
Soonergrunt
Rush Limbaugh has even lost an UNPAID advertiser now. The American Heart Association has asked WABC (Limbaugh’s flagship station) to stop airing the PSAs during his show.
Poopyman
@hilts: Would I be surprised if his CO had already sat him down for a little talk? No I would not.
Poopyman
@Soonergrunt: Is that because he’s a walking advertisement for a heart attack, or merely because there’s no evidence of a heart there?
OTOH, Rush is a good one to point to and say “Don’t be THIS guy.”
pseudonymous in nc
As I’ve said before: “shouldn’t crazy people have representation too?”
Because MN kept its eight seats, Bachmann’s probably safe for at least the next decade. Had they lost a seat, her district would have been the one carved up.
I actually know people who live in her district (and who aren’t crazy) and from visiting that part of MN, I have a better sense of what kind of lives the Bachmann ‘shippers lead.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
OT
Speaking of successful wymen folk.
Airborne!!
And a butter world it is.
aretino
@David W.:
Sadly, the Independence Party in MN is a quintessentially totebagger institution. They run allegedly centrist vanity candidates to split the vote with DFLers. So ultra-right-wing Republicans win. Then they turn around and complain about how bad and mean the Republicans are and how ineffectual Democrats are winning elections against them.
It’s how MN ended up with two terms of Tim Pawlenty as governor, too.
Jay C
@hilts:
Jeez, what a whiner: does Michele Bachmann not realize that the reason why an offensive Tweet calling for her to be “raped, sodomized and killed” hasn’t been roundly condemned in the national media is because vitually no one in the country has had any fvcking idea it had been made? Or that there is little equivalence between one anonymous a$$hole on Twitter and a nationally broadcast radio “personality” with a supposed audience of millions?
So just in case no one says these things don’t go noticed, let me just put down here in the Internet for posterity:
On March 8, 2012, Commenter Jay C at Balloon Juice thoroughly and unequivocally condemned any calls for Rep. Michele Bachmann to be “raped, sodomized and/or killed” as unacceptable and offensive, and believes that anyone posting such material ought to seek mental-health help as soon as possible.
So there.
PS: Isn’t the infamous Anoka-Hennepin School District (aka Ground Zero for anti-gay bullying) in, or used to be in, Michele Bachmann’s District?
pseudonymous in nc
@Chris:
They were the big gainers from the GI BIll, which turned them from renters to homeowners, took them out of the cities into the burbs, and made it possible for their kids to go to college. If you step back and look at the economic mobility of the post-war decades, a lot of it comes down to those two subsidies — which gave a lot of poorer urban white families a generation’s head start on similar black families.
middlewest
@Jay C: Yes, yes it is. And having grown up there, I can tell you it’s worse than you’ve heard, if anything.
Peter
@hilts: What’s this ‘may’ shit?
quannlace
Seriously. Health Death Panels. Fema Concentration Camps. She talked about these not once, but constantly. Was she ever asked about that crap during any of the debates?
trollhattan
@Face:
For sure! Capitalizing on my junior-high level maturity, I demand a ticket pairing him with the Great Cornholio.
“Tinklenborg-Cornholio 2012: You will be assimiliated and you will have TP for your bunghole”
RalfW
@David W.: The problem in 2008 was that it was a three way race, something the Mainers I guess are trying to avoid for 2012 US Senate.
Bachmann won that year with only 46.4% of the vote. Pawlenty had a similar margin in his second election due to a third party also. We’ve been fvcked over by a combo of third party and less-than-stellar Democrats.
I thought Taryl Clark had a good shot in 2010, and even donated a few times to her campaign. But the 2010 wave (if you will) made it that much harder. Even with a 3rd party wild card, La Bachmann won 52% in 2010.
There’s a lot of crazys and MILF-fans up there. Eeep.
It will be interesting to see how the redrawn 6th works. It is very conservative. And she won’t have a credible GOP opponent, so she’s prob comin’ back.
I think her loonyness is a plus for national Democrats, even as she is a lousy, stinkin’ negative for Minnesota. She could not give one rats ass about constituents, the state, or any damn thing but jeebus and her divine right of krazy.
trollhattan
@Soonergrunt:
Ah well, just a few more fries hitting the Lexus floormats.
RalfW
@daniel thomas macinnes:
Puh-leeze.
Taryl Clark raised and spent $4 million to take on Bachmann. In most House races, that’s serious cash. Clark was a popular state Senator who had won re-election as a “D” in a Senate district that was part of the 6th, so she was known and liked to Bachmann constituencies.
I know it’s all suave and cool to blame Democrats. But the truth is, most people don’t want to give up their lives for months and months to most likely loose to an insane juggernaut.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
Precisely. She wants the government to be allowed to tell women that they’re not allowed to abort a pregnancy, but it sounds like it only just occurred to her that, once you give the government that power, they can then mandate anything they like, including mandatory birth control or forced abortions.
Pongo
@Wee Bey: It’s a farce. They purposely captured all the militia strongholds and inbred enclaves north of the city. If you want an idea of the type of folks we’re dealing with, check out the braintrust that is the Anoka-Hennepin school district, parts of which are in Bachmann’s territory: http://www.startribune.com/local/north/141427303.html
Here’s a more detailed Rolling Stone expose: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/one-towns-war-on-gay-teens-20120202
She has had good opponents, but they weren’t crazy or rich enough to beat her.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
And if that weren’t enough, Marcus will have her bring forward his “Everybody must fix up the old barn and put on a musical” bill.
ruemara
@middlewest: So…proof that there’s nothing like purity to shoot yourself in the foot.
Schlemizel
@scav:
For sure – I lived in a very small town in Northern MN & was friends with the local Lutheran minister (Its tough to be THE minister in a tiny town – who do you complain to? Who can you have a couple of drinks with?). Anyway he pointed out he did sermons on the evils of race hate, he could tell them that hating black people was wrong & he always got a big amen! he could tell them hating Jews was wrong & again a big amen! But the first time he tried to tell them they shouldn’t hate the Indians he was in hot water!
Bigots always hate the group that they have to share space with. I would imagine a lot of Midwestern cities the KKK was much more anti-Catholic than anti-black. What fun is there in hating a group thats not around?
Schlemizel
@aretino:
I’d disagree only in one aspect. The Independence party in MN is not totebaggers. It is made up of morans that hate the Republicans social stance but have bought the “all Dems do is raise taxes” bullshit. They have a party based only on not being either GOP or DFL, they are for nothing.
If they really wanted to make a difference they would field some senate candidates deny either party the majority and throw their votes to which ever side gives them what they want. But that is hard work & would take a party to back. It would also require them to take positions other than “whatever those guys are for I’m against”. So they can’t win even in small districts. They have done an excellent job of giving control to the GOP & making morans feel good about themselves.
Chris
@Schlemizel:
I don’t mean that there’s some kind of undying love between the two. It’s more a matter of circumstances putting them on the same side of history for quite a while. From Reconstruction until about the New Deal, this was a Northern WASP country: the two big groups of stigmatized outsiders were Southern whites (the losers of the Civil War) and urban immigrants (mostly Catholics) who competed with the WASPs for job. So those two ended up being the big two Democratic constituencies.
But there was still a lot of friction between the two, as you see in the 1928 election when the Democrats ran a Catholic on the ticket and half the South went Republican for the first time since Reconstruction.
(Also, KKK =/= Dixiecrats. Most of the anti-Catholicism came from the Northeastern and Midwestern branches of the Second KKK, I believe).
Chris
@Jay C:
Back when Palin was bawling her eyes out after the Giffords shooting about all the mean liberals, someone (here, I think) commented that she always had to be “the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral and the baby at every christening.” Apparently, Bachmann – and most of the party for that matter – have decided to take a leaf out of her book.
Schlemizel
@Chris:
I think we agree & are just stating it differently. See my comment @ 107.
Schlemizel
@Schlemizel:
sorry wrong thread – I posted elsewhere I guess about how the whites in Northern MN had no problems supporting black civil rights (there were no black people within 60 miles) but hated the idea of Indian civil rights (the town was actually on reservation land)
Chris
@Schlemizel:
No, you said it here, it was at 105 :) We seem to be in agreement, indeed.
BobbyMac
The new district she is running in is almost perfectly drawn (by the courts, no less) to encompass almost all of the outermost exurbs of the Twin Cities…aka the most conservative areas in the state. There’s no way she loses. She could run against Jesus, Version 2.0. and those nutbags would vote for her.
Patricia Kayden
Interesting how Bachmann has nothing to say about the Repubs war against women, but runs her mouth about a nonexistent one-child policy.
Someone should ask her about all the gay teenages who have committed suicide in her district.
asiangrrlMN
She has been redistricted to MY district, but she will be running in her old, gerrymandered district. Wise choice on her part, for once. We have the awesome Betty McCollum who would whomp Bachmann’s crazy ass.