Category: Michele Bachmann

‘Retreating Into Masada Would Not Save The GOP Zealots From The Legion,’ Spake Senator Harry ‘Biggus Dickus’ Reid

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by Smitty

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann remains inspirational:

According to Bachmann, the general agreement among Republicans is that the resistance to President Obama’s agenda surrounding the shutdown has now expanded beyond Obamacare, thanks to Obama’s intransigence. “This is a lot bigger than Obamacare,” Bachmann said. “This is about whether this country is going to succumb to socialism and this dictatorship of a White House. It began with this WWII memorial pushback. It continues with the National Park Service’s attempt to shut down Pisgah Inn in North Carolina. We’re going to push back.”

As always, the lady from Minnesota speaks great truth. With the support of the Tea Party (and who knows? Maybe some of the GOP Pharisees in the Senate who come over to the cause), we can make this the turning point to restoring limited government to the country. Or at least not end up like the Zealots:

Lighter colored wedge on the right side of the image is where Peter O’Toole (played by Lucius Flavius Silva in the historical account) and the lads built the Ramp of Doom.

Ask Michele Bachmann About CBS News Political Director John Dickerson

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There was a great uproar over John Dickerson’s column advising Barack Obama to “go for the throat” and “declare war” on Republicans, but it wasn’t as if there were no prior evidence of Dickerson’s biases. Remember the November 2011 debate in Spartanburg, S.C.?

In an e-mail exchange, a network staffer informed CBS political analyst John Dickerson that Bachmann was interested in appearing on Dickerson’s post-debate webcast. The staffer CC’ed the message to Bachmann’s communications director Alice Stewart and when Dickerson answered, he evidently clicked “reply to all” without realizing that what he wrote would go directly to the Republican aide. Dickerson wrote:“Okay let’s keep it loose though since she’s not going to get many questions and she’s nearly off the charts in the hopes that we can get someone else.”
What Dickerson appeared to be mean by his “keep it loose”remark was that he wanted to avoid a firm commitment to have Bachmann on the webcast, as he was hoping to “get someone else” as a guest. But the part of the 29-word Dickerson e-mail that infuriated Bachmann’s team most was what looked very much like proof of a preordained decision by CBS that the candidate would not“get many questions” during the debate because she was “off the charts” — out of contention for the GOP nomination, based on her declining poll numbers. Posting the e-mail to Bachmann’s Facebook page, campaign director Keith Nahigan fumed that Dickerson’s comments were “concrete evidence confirming what every conservative already knows — the liberal mainstream media elites are manipulating the Republican debates by purposely suppressing our conservative message and limiting Michele’s questions.”

This is who John Dickerson is, and this is what John Dickerson does. And there isn’t anyone with any influence at CBS News who doesn’t share Dickerson’s biases. CBS News is a partisan political organization completely devoted to the success of the Democratic Party.

Strange as if may seem, however, CBS — traditionally the most liberal of the Big Three networks — is now rather moderate compared to the strident leftism that prevails at NBC News under the influence of NBC’s fanatically partisan political director Chuck Todd.

The Federal Election Commission should count the “news” budgets of the major networks as contributions to the Democratic Party.

 

Michele Bachmann ObamaCare Decision Response At The SCOTUS

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by Smitty

“. . .Justice Kennedy, who read from the dissent from [the majority] opinion, and he stated quite emphatically that what happened today is that the Supreme Court in effect re-wrote the ObamaCare legislation. In effect, with their opinion, being a legislative court, as opposed to allowing Congress to make that decision.”

“One of the final remarks that was made by Chief Justice Roberts in the opinion. . .he said that today the American people will not be protected from the political decisions they made in 2008”

“What we have bought today in this Supreme Court decision is nothing more than unparalleled economic uncertainty. Because you see at the heart of ObamaCare is a bill that will never finish being written.”

“We will not forget in November.”


God bless the courageous Michele Bachmann and the United States.

Michele Bachmann for Congress

Battling the Left and their little knuckle-draggers since 2001

Update: linked at Caffeinated Thoughts who has an excellent roundup, in including the majority opinion.

Update II: linked at The Daley Gator, with another big roundup.

Update III: linked at The Lonely Conservative

Update IV: linked at Stacy on the Right, who does not imply that this blog’s Stacy is somehow on the Left.

Spilled Milk and Misplaced Anger: Political Psychotherapy Session

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Newt Gingrich in Fort Myers, Florida, Monday, Jan. 30, 2012

“Somebody in the Newt camp tossed an ‘internal memo’ over the fence to Matt Lewis. Long story short, they’re lowering expectations in Florida. And as I pointed out in my American Spectator column, second place in Florida is worthless — it’s winner-take-all. Team Gingrich just blew through about $2 million for nothing.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Jan. 30

In a comment on Smitty’s post this morning, Pagan Temple begins his complaint with these two hypothetical regrets:

“If Palin hadn’t been run out of the race, or if conservatives could have gotten behind Bachmann . . .”

Thus our friend expresses a common misunderstanding about politics, namely that candidates are not responsible for their own fates.

First, ask yourself, “By whom was Palin ‘run out of the race’?”

She decided herself not to run, and it seems to have been a sort of slow-motion process. While I hate to imply that I have any special kind of inside information (which displeases Governor Palin and her aides), my first inquiries into Palin’s 2012 intentions led me to the belief that she was in wait-and-see mode.

One reason I jumped on the Cain Train early was that I felt we needed a populist outsider to carry the Tea Party momentum from the 2010 mid-term campaign into 2012. Cain’s people were flashing the green light, while we were seeing mixed signals from Wasilla, so I got on board with Herman and figured that if Governor Palin decided to get in later, nobody would blame me for any choice I made between the two. But I was pretty sure I’d have a few months before I had to worry about such a choice, because there were many reasons to suspect that Palin would be in wait-and-see mode for a while.

As the Republican field took shape, trying to read the tea leaves as to Team Sarah’s plans became quite a widespread hobby amongst political observers. By the time I went to Iowa for the run-up to the Ames straw poll, it seemed obvious to me that she’d decided to sit this one out. Back in June, Palin had made a point of praising Rick Perry, whom she had endorsed in his 2010 primary against Kay Bailey Hutchison, and by August, he was getting ready to make his big entrance into the campaign. If Palin really liked Perry, it didn’t make sense to think she would jump into the GOP race against him.

That’s one reason I was so skeptical when Peter Singleton and Michelle McCormick insisted on buying me lunch in Des Moines and telling me about their volunteer Iowa for Palin efforts. (See my Aug. 22 American Spectator column, “Still Waiting for Sarah.”) Everybody became frustrated as the will-she-or-won’t-she speculation dragged on, all the way into October, and I developed a private theory about why Palin dragged her feet so long. Continue reading Spilled Milk and Misplaced Anger: Political Psychotherapy Session →

Narcisssism, Continued

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Having previously remarked on Newt Gingrich’s narcissism issues, it would be unfair for me to ignore Michele Bachmann’s comments:

The Minnesota congresswoman was asked by Bloomberg TV’s Al Hunt which of the remaining candidates was the most conservative during an interview Friday, and said none of them measured up to her conservative credentials.
“I was. I was the perfect candidate,” Bachmann said in response. . . .
Pressed by Hunt as to which of the candidates still in the race she considered most conservative, Bachmann again responded by referring to herself as the “perfect” choice.
“America had their chance with the perfect candidate,” Bachmann said.

More than a month after she quit the race, Bachmann still doesn’t have enough emotional distance from her campaign to be able to see the situation more objectively? I’m struggling to explain this.

Hunt asked whether she would endorse any of the remaining candidates, and she refused to do so: “No, not soon. I just haven’t made the decision. . . . Honestly, I don’t think endorsements make a lot of difference.”

Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman endorsed Mitt Romney. Rick Perry and Herman Cain endorsed Newt Gingrich. Yet Bachmann cannot endorse anyone? As if, by endorsing another candidate, she would be lending her saintly aura to an inferior politician?

Bachmann Quits 2012 Campaign

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UPDATE 10:40 a.m. CT:
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Rep. Michele Bachammn just announced she would quit the 2012 presidential race. She praised God and spoke about the Founders of the American Republic, vowing her continued determination to repeal ObamaCare, calling it a formula for leading America down the road to socialism.

UPDATE 10:55 a.m. CT:  Bachmann’s speech here was, in some ways, typical of her campaign, including the fact that it began 20 minutes past the scheduled time. She was almost constantly behind schedule during her travels here.

Also, an event that a media advisory announced as an “availability” — a term that usually means “press conference” — was in fact just a speech. The candidate took no questions. Afterwards, her press secretary Alice Stewart spoke to a gaggle of reporters for about 10 minutes. Stewart said that Bachmann has no plans to endorse any other candidate at this point.

But of course, plans change. Bachmann had plans last night to continue her campaign, Stewart said, but woke up this morning and decided to quit the race.

I’ll try to update later with some more news, photos, etc.

UPDATE 11:27 a.m. CT: ABC News has the quotes:

“Last night, the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, so I have decided to stand aside,” Bachmann said at a news conference, flanked by her parents, husband and five children. “I have no regrets, none whatsoever. We never compromised our principles and we can leave this race knowing we ran it with the utmost integrity.”

Just spoke to Alice Stewart again. I told her that when I was complaining about the disastrous communications operation of the Herman Cain campaign, I forwarded Alice’s press releases to J.D. Gordon and Mark Block with notes: “This is what a campaign ‘media advisory’ looks like!”

I’ve always liked Bachmann, and still do, and the role she played in this campaign was at times crucial. It was her remark during the September 12 Tampa debate — “innocent little 12-year-old girls” — that put the first serious wound into Rick Perry. And her phrase “Newt Romney,” lumping Gingrich in with the moderate Massachusetts governor, did a lot to undermine Gingrich’s credibility as a Tea Party candidate.

So why, you may ask, did I jump from the Cain Train to the Santorum Express, rather than shifting my focus to Bachmann? I don’t really know. Sometimes, I think, you just go where God leads you and take whatever you find there. And I hope that Michele Bachmann finds only blessings and joy in wherever God leads her now.

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JOHNSTON, Iowa
So much for sleeping in on the day after the caucuses, huh? She is expected to announce she’s quitting, but who knows, In a crazy year like this, what she might do? But if this is the last time I get to see her on the campaign trail, I can’t miss it.

Now I’ve got to get ready for a 10 a.m. CT press conference on the other side of Des Moines, which will probably delay my packing up here at the National Affairs Desk until past checkout time.

Dadgum Republicans. No wonder Hitler hates ’em.

UPDATE 10:08 a.m. CT: I’m now at the Marriott in West Des Moines, where Bachmann is late for her own press conference.

‘Occupy’ Protesters at Bachmann HQ: Proof That Gardasil Causes Retardation?

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JOHNSTON, Iowa
Michele Bachmann has taken a lot of flak for saying that she was approached in Florida by a mother who claimed her daughter suffered brain damage as the result of a Gardasil vaccination. You may sneer at that claim, but when I showed up at Bachmann’s Iowa campaign headquarters today for an scheduled media event, I saw plenty of people displaying evidence of diminished mental capacity — and I’m not just talking about the MSM reporters.

Two busloads of smelly hippie scum from the “Occupy Iowa” movement were on the scene, engaged in their usual feeble-minded parody of “civil disobedience” protests. Just before I arrived, at least one Occupier had been arrested, and the rest of the scummy mob were exiting the parking lot under orders from the local police. Chanting, beating drums, giving media interviews and — as you will hear at about the 35-second mark of this video — unwittingly disclosing their next protest target:

STUPID OCCUPIER DUDE: “Hey, are we going to Perry next? … OK. I think I –“
HOMELY OCCUPIER CHICK: “Hey, we don’t want to say that very loud.”

I immediately alerted my friend Barbara Espinosa, who is working as a volunteer for Perry in Iowa, that they could expect this influx of subnormal semi-human detritus to show up at their campaign headquarters later. Whatever evil things I might have said about the Perry campaign, nobody deserves to be ambushed by these “Occupy” vermin. I suggested to one of the police officers that they should start randomly tasing and pepper-spraying the filthy hippies, just on general principles, but my advice was evidently ignored.

At the door to the headquarters, I saw Bachmann’s press spokeswoman Alice Stewart, flashed my business card and got inside, where I encountered a different kind of mob: Reporters surrounding the candidate as she joined her volunteers in making phone calls to Iowa voters.

Perhaps you can spot Congresswoman Bachmann amidst that massive media mob. The way you can tell the difference between the media and the Occupiers is that the media are usually somewhat less liberal and more likely to have had a bath in the past week.

OK, enough sarcasm for one post. It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m planning to celebrate it here in Iowa to the best of my ability. And surely the loyal readers who have helped make this trip possible by their contributions to the Shoe Leather Fund will want me to have a good time on one of the rare nights during this campaign trail trip when, fortunately, I don’t have a deadline to worry about.

Hit the freaking tip jar!





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Michele Bachmann Flyer Omits Comparison to Records of Santorum, Paul

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JOHNSTON, Iowa
During my visit to the Iowa headquarters of Michele Bachmann in nearby Urbandale today, I picked up a copy of a slick full-color flyer being distributed by her campaign (see front and back photos below).

The 8½-by-11-inch flyer urges Iowa Republicans to “Vote for a Consistent Conservative” and includes an issue-by-issue comparison between the Minnesota congresswoman and three of her GOP presidential rivals, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Click the image to enlarge:

Who’s missing from that comparison? Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. One might speculate as to why certain candidates were chosen for that comparison and others omitted, including the possibility that Romney, Gingrich and Perry are the three Republican rivals whom Bachmann likes least in the current field.

You can click on these images to view them larger: