Bigot Spigot 2, Huma Abedin and Hillary Clinton versus Michele Bachmann and the Right Wing Propaganda Machine

It is impossible to tighten down the spigot of bigotry that daily spews hatred and disinformation to the willfully ignorant right wing of the political spectrum.  It's not apparently that the conservative side of the political spectrum CAN'T fact check, the problem is that they don't want to know facts or truth.  They want to be lied to as regards their hateful and inaccurate world view.  They LIKE hating other people, and they rigorously resist facts getting in the way of their evil and unjustified prejudice.

The weekend news has a couple of nuggets, well, more disgusting turds really.

Let's debunk them now, before they get a further chance to circulate.  They include an attack on Hillary Clinton by way of going after her long time aide, Huma Abedin.  Then there are a couple of especially stinky, steaming turds, where Crazy eyes Michele Bachmann is touted as one of Donald  Trump's FOREIGN POLICY AFFAIRS advisers, AND religious advisers, helping Trump to exploit the fundie-fools that comprise the religious right.

The poo is organized into two separate but equally steaming, stinking piles.  One is that Huma Abedin worked for a radical Muslim Journal.  She did not. She worked for the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, a very prestigious academic publication based in London, associated with educational institutions like Oxford, and Australia's Murdoch University, named for a far more distinguished member of the Murdoch family than crusty Old Rupert.  The JMMA is a publication that has no taint or hint of radicalism.  Here is the page for the editorial board, who set the policy for the JMMA, many of whom are not themselves even Muslim, and all of whom are highly regarded and accomplished individuals, the type the right likes to call 'elites', 'intellectuals', and 'experts', because they actually know the field in depth and breadth.  They have also demonstrated decades of adhering to the highest professional standards and ethics.  Conservatives hate that; they demonstrate repeatedly they prefer the opposite (hence the careers of Bachmann and now Trump).

Here is the current board; however I can find no evidence they diverge in quality in any way from past editorial boards.  THESE are the people who set editorial policy for the JMMA, not assistant editors EVER;  I defy any reader to find a radical extremist in the list below:

JMMA Editorial Board

EDITOR Saleha S. Mahmood	ASSOCIATE EDITORS Hassan Abedin M. Hakan Yavuz
ASSISTANT EDITORS Heba A. Khalid Zulekha Pirani	BOOK REVIEW EDITOR M. Hakan Yavuz
OFFICE MANAGER Hamid Ismail	EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Sanaa Pirani

ADVISORY EDITORIAL BOARD

Shahram Akbarzadeh	University of Melbourne, Australia
Ameer Ali	Murdoch University, Western Australia
Ali Asani	Harvard University, USA
Goulnara Baltanova	Kazan Technological University, Russia
Allan Christelow	Idaho State University, USA
Dale F. Eickelman	Dartmouth College, USA
John I. Esposito	Georgetown University, USA
Marc Gaborieau	Centre d'Etudes de L'inde et de L'Asie du Sud , France
Dru C. Gladney	Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College, USA
Bruce M. Haight	Western Michigan University, USA
Riaz Hassan	Flinders University of South Australia, Australia
Tahir Mahmood	Law Commission of India, India
Ali A. Mazrui	Binghampton University, USA
James Piscatori	Durham University, UK
Jan Slomp	Leusden, The Netherlands
John O. Voll	Georgetown University, USA
Imtiaz Yusuf	Assumption University, Thailand
Lawrence Ziring	Western Michigan University, USA

First we have the New York Post, a Rupert Murdoch tabloid the right wing propagandist uses for his sleazier efforts.  Here is what hate poo Murdoch's minions are throwing to their bigot audience this week:

Hillary Clinton’s top campaign aide, and the woman who might be the future White House chief of staff to the first female US president, for a decade edited a radical Muslim publication that opposed women’s rights and blamed the US for 9/11.
One of Clinton’s biggest accomplishments listed on her campaign Web site is her support for the UN women’s conference in Bejing in 1995, when she famously declared, “Women’s rights are human rights.” Her speech has emerged as a focal point of her campaign, featured prominently in last month’s Morgan Freeman-narrated convention video introducing her as the Democratic nominee.
However, soon after that “historic and transformational” 1995 event, as Clinton recently described it, her top aide Huma Abedin published articles in a Saudi journal taking Clinton’s feminist platform apart, piece by piece. At the time, Abedin was assistant editor of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs working under her mother, who remains editor-in-chief. She was also working in the White House as an intern for then-First Lady Clinton.

–– ADVERTISEMENT ––

Headlined “Women’s Rights are Islamic Rights,” a 1996 article argues that single moms, working moms and gay couples with children should not be recognized as families.

No.  I can find no such article published by the JMMA, much less any evidence that Huma Abedin was in any way associated with writing, editing or publishing an article with this title, or that she simultaneously lived in Saudi Arabia and Washington DC during this time.  That appears ridiculous on the face of it, especially since Abedin did not work for the MMA in 1996, but rather worked briefly part time as the Clinton White House wound down, beginning in 1998.  It might be explained away by the device of an evil twin named Skippy, if you go in for cartoon plots.

Further elaborating on how NOT fundamentally radical or extremist Huma Abedin is regarded, apart from being married to Jewish former congressman Anthony Wiener,  is the Newsweek Nugget of gold about Abedin:

But after a career of being seen but not heard, she has been promoted to a post that makes her a public figure. She’s already living the downside: the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) last month put her on a hit list of Muslim apostates,

Perhaps Michele Bachmann, the staff at the New York Post, and the broader spectrum of conservative bigots don't know what the word apostate means?  After all Trump operates at the level of 3rd graders verbally.  From dictionary.com:

Apostate:
noun 1. a person who forsakes his religion, cause, party, etc.

I can find no evidence that Abedin has ever held or espoused the extremist or radical religious views attributed to her in the past, and certainly the penultimate Muslim radical extremists now do NOT embrace Abedin as one of their own.  No, not given Daesh demands the death of apostates; Abedin is clearly the opposite, the antithesis, of Daesh and radical Islamists.

And then we have NPR summarizing the expanded role of the idiotic and notoriously fact-averse Bachmann before the Trump money-grabbing-and-extorting event this past Friday in Minnesota.  Via Newsweek:

According to MPR, the former congresswoman stopped in for a meeting with Trump before the event where she admitted that she is counseling him on world affairs as well as advocating for the concerns of Christian conservatives.
According to Bachmann, who stepped down in 2014 when faced with a losing campaign and questions about campaign finances, Trump understands the threat of Islamic terrorism.
“He also recognizes there is a threat around the world, not just here in Minnesota, of radical Islam,” she explained. “I wish our President Obama also understood the threat of radical Islam and took it seriously.”

There is zero evidence that the president fails to understand the threat of radical Islam; there is enormous evidence that Bachmann doesn't understand much, least of all anything about Islam, Huma Abedin whom Bachmann has attacked in the past, the JMMA, or any aspect of foreign policy.  She's pretty radical and extreme however when it comes to her own wacko brand of religious belief; apparently she hears crazy voices in her head, including those telling her God wants her to be president, that natural disasters are the punishment of God, and she associates with people who believe crackpot crap about demons controlling people and events. And unlike Huma Abedin or the editorial board of the JMMA, Bachmann has never demonstrated either expertise in any field of endeavor, much less an academic one, OR particularly high standards of ethics or competence in her conduct, least of all in any field where she has been employed.

Liars are losers, and clearly the conservatives pushing the Abedin lies are losers without ethical standards of any validity.

Shame on the right.  They deserve to perish as a party, and have brought their disintegration on themselves with conduct like this.

How Strongly Should We Object to the Anti-Vaxxers?

There has been so much rubbish from the right wingnuts, including Rand Paul's totally bogus claim about severe 'mental disorders' caused by vaccinations, that is reminiscent of Michele Bachmann's LIE about HPV Vx and mental retardation.

If the language below seems a bit vulgar and excessive, then consider it in the context not only of political liars on the topic of vaccinations, who are blatantly trolling the radical right anti-vaxxers for votes, but also in the context of those who KNOW better, and genuinely do not give a flying .....FIG.....about the painful, debilitating illness or death of you, or your child, or an elderly person in your family that you love, or those with illnesses or injuries that compromise their immune system that you cherish.

Here is an example of the ignorant, arrogant, selfish, foolish, and just plain callously cruel anti-vaxxer attitudes, from azfamily.com:

 In this anti-vax context, the strong language below seems more than justified. If someone told you to your fact that their child was 'pure' and they didn't care if their child caused deafness, brain damage including retardation, sterility, or painful death to your child, you would understandably feel the same way. Many people do. All the more so because what the anti-vaxxers believe is factually false, a myth, one being promoted by extremist, radical right wing religious lunatics. Clearly, except for those who for legitimate medical reasons cannot be vaccinated, it IS time to make vaccinations mandatory, and to end the option of parents choosing not to vaccinate their children for reasons of 'purity' or debunked junk science. I'd like to take it a step further.  If someone does not vaccinate their child, or is an unvaccinated adult, and public health authorities trace another child or adult becoming infected with measles to that decision, to someone in their family who is not vaccinated, then I think the infected individual (or an adult acting for them) should be able to sue for damages.  Also, municipalities and state and federal agencies should be able to pursue those individuals to recover increased public health costs, over and above what is already budgeted for by their taxes, because of the deliberate causation of additional expense by a few people acting intentionally.  These libertarians like to talk about taking responsibility for themselves and their choices; so let's hold them to that.  When they cause damages and loss and expense with their choices -- make them pay!  And/or make them conform to being members of a civilized society. That is really the antithesis of Libertarianism.  But all of us, our society, economy, civilization have a vested interest in living together cooperatively and rationally. If the anti-vaxxers have to own, to pay for the full, actual results of their decisions and choices, then I would venture it will be the anti-vaxxers, not the pro-vaxxers, dropping the f-bomb.  

Free-DUMB, DUMBER, DUMBEST

• NOT the date of his assassination, the holiday celebrates MLK's birthday (actually occurred last week - this is the nearest Monday, a custom for federal holidays).
  
• NOT true that black people could not or did not have guns in the 1960's; MLK himself had a gun for about six months for protection, before getting rid of it because of his evolving views on non-violence.
  
• CLEARLY does NOT have a clue what the legacy is of MLK, or why we celebrate him as a significant historic figure.
  
• Just another stupid teabagger figurehead, with no grasp of factual history, too damned lazy and ideology obsessed to think or learn anything, but eager to run her dumb mouth, spreading more ignorant to other wilfully ignorant fools and bigots.  So appalling, so offensive, you just couldn't make this shit up if you tried.

Kline, and the Choice to Dumb Down Our Educational System

This week, we see the protests in Hong Kong against the Chinese government. Ironically, many of those protesting were born after the famous protests in Tieneman Square, back in 1989.

The current crowd of protesters mostly do not know about the history that took place in Tieneman Square, because of how thoroughly it is blocked by China censorship, including censorship of the internet. The government doesn’t want anyone in China to know about that episode of history; they fear it might make more people protest or be disruptive. So they censor, and they lie about it — and they think they are justified in doing so.

In that regard, the Chinese communist government is not so different from the goals of the tea partiers and other right wing nuts like John Kline.

Back in January, we saw Kline promoting National School Choice Week.

Education & the Workforce Committee

U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline (R-MN) and Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Chairman Todd Rokita (R-IN) today released the following statements in recognition of National School Choice Week (January 27 through February 2):

“Ensuring families can make choices about their children’s education is a key pillar of Republican efforts to improve the nation’s education system,” said Chairman Kline. “I applaud state and local leaders who are working to raise the bar on student achievement by providing parents with additional options, such as charter schools and scholarship programs. A shining example of a successful school choice initiative is D.C.’s own Opportunity Scholarship Program, which has increased high school graduation rates and the number of students pursuing a postsecondary degree. Such efforts should be encouraged, and I urge the administration to reexamine its support for D.C. OSP and other school choice programs across the country.”

That sounds, good, on the surface. But it’s not good, at least, not the way conservatives want to put it in effect.

Conservatives have been attacking public education for quite some time. Part of it is that they oppose the teachers union, part of it is that they oppose different aspects of education generally. Some of the tea partiers – and Kline is aligned with them, although more low profile about it, as noted by Public Integrity - are still back in the days of the Scopes ‘Monkey’ trial, opposing teaching evolution in schools. They are seeking to defund public schools, while creating more charter schools and private school attendance which creates more for-profit-schools receiving public education $, with lower teacher standards, and more specialized, but also more alternative curriculum, including religious institutions which want to teach creationism rather than evolution.
As the STrib noted, back in January;

Americans United for Change is trying to tie 47 swing-district Republicans around the nation, to the conservative movement with “Tea Stained,” a legislative scorecard that ranks lawmakers by votes the group sees as aligned with Tea Party values.

The analysis includes 48 U.S. House votes, including votes to defund the Affordable Care Act and those taken during the government shutdown to fund some parts but not all of the government.

The group argues that Paulsen voted with the Tea Party 83 percent of the time in 2013 while Kline’s loyalty score was slightly lower at 79 percent – and that their voting tendencies don’t differ much from U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, founder of the congressional Tea Party caucus.

“Voters deserve better. Whether they embrace the Tea Party ideology or despise it or fall anywhere in between, they have a right to know where their elected representatives fall on the Tea Party spectrum – not where they say they fall, but how they actually vote,” said Americans United for Change President Brad Woodhouse in a statement.

“What it proves, unfortunately for non-extremists who are represented by Republicans, is that there is no longer a meaningful distinction between the Tea Party and the Republican Party in American politics today.”

What Kline is after, much like Michele Bachmann has pursued in her right wingnut career in politics, and what many of the more extreme right want to do, is to get the federal government OUT of education entirely, so that the locals can impose the crazy. Their brand of crazy censorship is to sanitize education, to not teach anything that might be bad or awkward about our history, in the name of American Exceptionalism, patriotism, and teaching children respect for authority.

Because apparently conservatives believe you can’t both be patriotic, and know the truth about your own history.

From Public Integrity’s website:

Kline has called for giving states more control over education, saying “let’s back the federal government out of dictating to schools how they’re going to do their business.”He has also supported expanding the government’s school voucher program, which pays for tuition at a private school in place of the public school where a child is assigned.

What replaces the federal government requiring our schools to teach a rational, scientific, factual curriculum, are the states. Republican states replace competent and credible education with creationism or faulty history or bad economics tailored to fit the right wing ideology. Tea party education is indoctrination, not education. It leads to the dumbing down of students, it leads to making the nation less competitive, it leads to creating an ignorant theocracy.

A good rule of thumb is that to legitimize something bad, proponents will link it to something good, something that is – they hope – above criticism, in order to put what is bad beyond the reach of criticism.

We can see what happens when the tea party with whom Kline shares ideology gets to dictate what students are taught, the most recent example being Colorado, where the current argument for dumbing down the curriculum is that it is justified to teach students history that is factually inaccurate, in the bogus name of American Exceptionalism aka super-patriotism. It’s closer to pseudo-patriotism.

From the Colorado Independent via the Immoral Minority:

Colorado’s latest education official to condemn high school history course standards wonders why those who wrote the curriculum missed what seems to her an obvious point — that the United States voluntarily ended slavery.
Pam Mazanec, a Larkspur businesswoman who sits on Colorado’s Board of Education, posted on a Facebook discussion thread her concerns that questions asked on the Advanced Placement U.S. history test “portray the negative viewpoint as the correct answer.”

“As an example, I note our slavery history,” she wrote to a woman who teaches AP U.S history. “Yes, we practiced slavery. But we also ended it voluntarily, at great sacrifice, while the practice continues in many countries still today!

“Shouldn’t our students be provided that viewpoint? This is part of the argument that America is exceptional. Does our APUSH (AP U.S. History) framework support or denigrate that position?”

So, how does that square with education professionals, the ones who support the kind of standards and requirements that the federal government demands? from the same source:

“The idea that the United States voluntarily gave up slavery is an outright misrepresentation of history. The United States engaged in a civil war to end slavery. There was nothing voluntary about it,” said Stephanie Rossi an AP U.S. history teacher at Wheat Ridge High School. “I’m just flabbergasted at anyone who would make that claim. Flabbergasted.”

The tea party crazies like Michele Bachmann, and apparently more discretely Kline, have for a long time sought to distort the notion of our early history, ranging from just omitting entirely the important information that the Founding Fathers actually owned slaves (most of them), and replacing it with lies, like the famous claim that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery, or variously that slavery wasn’t really so bad, or that slave owners were good to their slaves and gave them a better life than they would have had in Africa — with the bonus of coerced conversion to Christianity. In their view, so long as you save their souls, it doesn’t matter if you sell them on the auction block like livestock, or torture them, rape them, or mutilate them (as long as you, also, are a “good Christian”).

                                Slave Restraints, 1807 from slavesite.com

                Iron Mask, Collar, Leg Shackles and Spurs Used to Restrain Slaves.
               Illustration in The Penitential Tyrant / Thomas Branagan, New York.     
                       Printed by Samuel Wood, no. 362, Pearl Street, 1807

Here is what Michele Bachmann said, via City Pages:

…speaking to a group of anti-taxers in Iowa, she got her history wrong.In extolling the notion that “all men are created equal,” she said of European immigrants that, “It didn’t matter the color of their skin, it didn’t matter their language, it didn’t matter their economic status. Once you got here, we were all the same. Isn’t that remarkable?”
But the white, male founders didn’t consider African slaves fully human. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and many more of the founding fathers actually owned slaves.
“We also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States,” Bachmann said.

That’s the version of history promoted by right wing pseudo-historian David Barton, and others, that Bachmann wants to put into our schools. Extreme right Republican politicians like Kline are determined to remove the federal barriers of professional standards educational requirements to facilitate that, under the guise of ‘choice’ and state control of educational standards.

Here is an example of the contrast between serious and legitimate American history, and right wing sanitizes false history.

Michele Bachmann and David Barton, her mentor, claim that the Founding Fathers wanted to end slavery, they tried, but they couldn’t. For example, Barton insists that Thomas Jefferson, the guy who wrote “all men were created equal” in the Declaration of Independence, was opposed to slavery. He has stated variously that Jefferson actually freed his slaves upon his death, or that he WANTED to free his slaves, but that Virginia law would not let him.

George Washington, a contemporary who also lived in Virginia, freed HIS slaves when he died. (Technically, they were supposed to be freed when Martha Washington died, but she carried out that part of his will a year after his death. Washington had owned 318 slaves during his lifetime, per the history site at Mt. Vernon.) ALL OF THEM WENT FREE.

In contrast, Jefferson owned more than 600 slaves in his lifetime, including some 70 members of the Hemmings family, some of whom were his children and grandchildren. Of those he freed some half dozen, so he clearly COULD have freed ALL of his slaves if he truly opposed slavery that sincerely – as sincerely as did Washington.

From the book George Washington and Slavery, via wikipedia:

Washington was the only Southern slaveholding Founding Father among the top seven to emancipate his slaves after the American Revolution. Of the seven Founding Fathers, the northerners Benjamin Franklin and John Jay both owned slaves whom they freed, and Jay founded the New York Manumission Society. He had a practice of freeing slaves as adults after a period of service. In 1798, the year before New York passed its gradual emancipation law, Jay still owned eight slaves.

The reality is that our history is a mix of good and bad, including our founding fathers. What the above leaves out for example, is that Benjamin Franklin not only owned slaves – two men, King, and George – but that he made his living publishing the auction announcements for slave sales to make his living, thereby profiting indirectly from the slave trade in addition to owning other human beings.

From Factcheck.org:

A list of presidents who owned slaves, both while in office or at other times during their lives, has been compiled by Robert Lopresti, a librarian at Western Washington University. Based on his well-documented research, he says 12 of our presidents owned slaves and eight of them owned slaves while serving as president.

Zachary Taylor was the last sitting president to own slaves. Taylor owned 100 slaves and a Mississippi plantation, but he also opposed the extension of slavery to new territories. In 1850 the former Army general told a group of angry Southerners that if they seceded he would personally lead the Army and hang anyone taken in rebellion against the Union. Taylor died unexpectedly later that year.

The last president who ever owned slaves was, ironically, Ulysses S. Grant, elected in 1868 after he had commanded Union forces to victory over the Confederacy in the war that led to the abolition of slavery. Grant owned a slave named William Jones, whom he freed in 1859. Between 1854 and 1859 Grant worked and lived on an 850-acre farm in Missouri, near St. Louis, that was owned by his father-in-law. Grant’s wife, Julia, also owned slaves, and during Grant’s management of the farm he worked along with one of them, a man named Dan. The farm is now the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, part of the National Park Service.

A vote for Kline might as well be a vote for Bachmann in men’s clothes. A vote for Kline is a vote against good government. A vote for Kline is a vote for bad education and for indoctrination with propaganda. A vote for Kline is a vote to attack, and even shut down federal government instead of promoting better federal government. Get Kline out of government, and off the Education and Workforce Committee; he’s harming education, and not doing anything for the workforce either. Otherwise, we will face future generations of dummies like Bachmann, where facts do not matter, and where young citizens are blocked from the truth about their country’s past:

Kin in the Game: Bachmann & Family, going down?

It's a fair bet we will be seeing more of this kind of press conference from Michele Bachmann, using the Sgt.Schultz defense.

Kent Sorenson, pled guilty last week, August 27th, in a federal plea deal relating to bribery and falsifying campaign expenditures. If you don't know or care who Kent Sorenson is, he is a former Iowa state Senator, and he was paid for his endorsement, first of Michele Bachmann, and then Ron Paul.

He's the former Iowa campaign chair for Michele Bachmann's failed presidential run, the one where GOD told her he wanted her to be president.

Sorenson took money to support first Bachmann, and then Ron Paul.

From the Wa Po:

On Wednesday, Sorenson admitted in federal court what he had long adamantly denied: that he took thousands of dollars in payments from the campaigns of Bachmann and Paul in exchange for his endorsement.

The former state senator pleaded guilty to one count of causing a federal campaign committee to falsely report its expenditures and one count of obstruction of justice for giving false testimony to a state independent counsel investigating the payments.

Two sealed documents were filed in court as part of the case, a possible indication that Sorenson is cooperating with federal prosecutors as part of a broader investigation.

In Iowa, you can buy a Republican for upwards of $80,000.

Apparently, Sorenson is going to jail as part of his plea deal as well. I'm betting he's not the only one.


Since Sorenson pled guilty, the chair of the Ron Paul campaign in 2011/12, Ron Paul's granddaughter's husband Jesse Benton, has resigned as the campaign chair of the Mitch McConnell campaign for senate re-election, while continuing to deny any wrong-doing. His alleged 'bag man' was Dimitri Kesari, operating a company called Hyllus. No, not the funny vaguely u-shaped bone under you mouth, inside the lower jaw. HYLLUS. Dimitri Kesari went on to be part of Team Mitch McConnell as well. And it is a fair guess that he, like Benton, could very well be facing jail time too.


But what about Michele Bachmann?


Her defense so far of any potential wrong doing was the Hogan's Heroes character Sgt. Schultz's defense, "I KNOW NOTHING". So then the question will be -- did the mostly knows nothing about anything factual Bachmann REALLY NOT KNOW? Or, like Schultz, is she lying through her teeth --- and will Sorenson rat her out as part of his deal with the feds?


As noted by the Gazette's Des Moines Bureau:

Last October, Sorenson resigned his Senate District 13 seat in Madison and Warren counties just hours after a special prosecutor found probable cause that he violated Senate rules and may have committed the offense of felonious misconduct in office by “knowingly” making false statements to the Senate’s ethics panel.

In his lengthy report, independent counsel Mark Weinhardt determined there was probable cause that the Milo Republican violated Senate rules by “accepting compensation” from entities associated with former GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann’s campaign “in exchange for his service” during the past caucus season.

And from the Huff Po:

Andy Parrish Affidavit: Michele Bachmann 'Knew And Approved' Of Payments To Kent Sorenson
"Congresswoman Bachmann knew of and approved this arrangement,” Parrish said. “She, like the rest of us, understood from Senator Sorenson that it did not run afoul of any Iowa Senate ethics rules. We relied on his representations in this regard."

Parrish added that his affidavit is "not in any way a rebuke or betrayal to Congresswoman Bachmann," whom he considers a "personal friend."

The affidavit included emails from Guy Short, a fundraiser for Bachmann for President, who said Sorenson could be paid by a PAC, and an email from Parrish himself saying, "We're cool he can't get paid from a PAC."

Short also has attracted an Federal Election Commission inquiry because he was paid by MichelePAC while working for Bachmann's presidential campaign.

and the Bachmann campaign denial, fro the same Huff Po article:

UPDATE: 5:30 p.m. -- William McGinley, Bachmann's campaign counsel, responded to the affidavit in a statement.

The way the media is portraying this story is wrong, reckless, and outrageous. The affidavit by a former employee in fact confirms that Congresswoman Bachmann followed all applicable laws and ethical rules and instructed those working for her to do the same. The alleged arrangement at issue was both lawful and properly reported under federal law. This dispute is between the Iowa Senate and an Iowa Senator: it has nothing whatsoever to do with Congresswoman Bachmann or her political committees. For anyone to suggest otherwise is both dishonest and reprehensible.

And from the aptly named Iowa Republican, which shows how much SHE was paying Sorenson before Ron Paul upped the ante:

Fellow Bachmann staffer Peter Waldron alleges, in a complaint filed with the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee, that Sorenson violated Senate Rule 6 by accepting payments from a presidential campaign or PAC.

In the affidavit, Parrish states that he personally recruited Sorenson to work on the campaign. Parrish notes that Sorenson allegedly told him that he could not be paid by the campaign directly, so Bachmann’s campaign fundraiser Guy Short would pay him via his company, C&M Strategies, as a consultant.

Parrish also provided several emails. One of them, apparently sent from Parrish to Sorenson, states Short agreed to hire Sorenson at a rate of $7,000 per month, plus reimbursement for phone use and purchase of a laptop computer. Parrish says the monthly fee was raised to $7,500, without the phone reimbursement.

“Congresswoman Bachmann knew of and approved this arrangement,” Parrish writes in the sworn affidavit. “She, like the rest of us, understood from Senator Sorenson that it did not run afoul of any Iowa Senate ethics rules. We relied on his representations in this regard.”

If bimbo Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, utterer of so many odd and factually false things, doesn't take the fall, it is likely someone from her family, given the nepotism of her campaigns, WILL have to answer to the feds, and might have to face going to jail.


Would Bachmann sacrifice someone near and dear?


I think she would, those right wing values only go so far (apparently they include lying), and even right wing family values must have their limits. And if Bachmann throws one of her family under the bus....will they go willingly, or turn on HER? Both her husband and her son were key, top advisors/ top power players in her campaigns. They had, presumably, to be party to the payolla decisions, but would they go to jail for wife and/or mom? Because I do NOT envision Michele "I didn't get anything wrong" Bachmann taking responsibility for anything, EVER. I expect that if she can get out of jail by playing dumb, as opposed to BEING dumb, she will. But that could result in someone in her family being among those who take the heat for the bribery decisions. This is by no means a case where only the Rand Paul/Ron Paul family has kin in the game.


As noted almost a year ago, by the STrib, almost a year ago:

WASHINGTON – In the waning days of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign, her husband, Marcus Bachmann, allegedly wrote an e-mail describing his efforts to raise much-needed funds through an outside “super PAC.”

That e-mail is now in the hands of the U.S. Justice Department, which has subpoenaed records from the National Fiscal Conservative (NFC) Political Action Committee as part of a federal grand jury investigation into potentially illegal coordination between the PAC and Bachmann’s campaign.

The grand jury subpoena, first reported in the New York Times, represents a major escalation in the multiple federal and state inquiries that rose from alleged election law violations brought forward last January by campaign whistleblower Peter Waldron.

The grand jury subpoena, obtained by the Star Tribune, covers financial transactions involving an array of top Bachmann campaign officials, including her husband.

A copy of an e-mail purportedly written to Waldron by Marcus Bachmann describes a telephone conversation he had with PAC president Bill Hemrick to raise money for a mailing to evangelicals. Hemrick reportedly suggested that Bachmann contact GOP donor August Busch, who, according to the e-mail, agreed to give $7,000 “thru the NFC super pac.”

The e-mail ended: “Praise the Lord!!”

In his reply, Waldron warned that raising money through the super PAC could violate federal election laws that bar certain types of coordination between campaigns and outside political organizations.

As noted in the Daily Beast:

And Ron Carey, a plugged-in Minnesota GOP veteran who briefly served as Bachmann’s chief of staff, has said Marcus and son Lucas were the congresswoman's main advisers on the full spectrum of issues. “The only person she talks to as an insider is her husband, Marcus, who's a wonderful man, and her son Lucas,” Carey told the Star-Tribune. (Carey has been critical of his former boss, telling the Associated Press in February that she was unelectable and even so would not “be ready for the position of the president of the United States.”)

and from the Business Insider:

By most accounts, Dr. Bachmann’s campaign role is unique — he describes himself as his wife’s political “strategist” but also doubles as a personal assistant, press secretary, and confidante.

This HAS to up the stakes with the remarkably quiet but still open Congressional ethics inquiry into Bachmann. And we haven't heard from the DOJ for a while, investigating improper deals with her book, her PAC and her campaign.

From CREW:

Rep. Bachmann appears to have improperly used her presidential campaign resources to promote her memoir, and the Department of Justice is investigating whether the Bachmann campaign illegally coordinated advertising with a super PAC.

I had a hunch last year when Bachmann announced she was not running again for Congress that something of this size and import was behind it, not the relatively piddly Heki stolen-home-school-list scandal. THIS could involve serious jail time for a lot of people, including Bachmann.

"First amendment ONLY protects Christians", Alabama State Supreme Court Justice

There are times when I think we would have been better off if we let the idiots in Alabama secede; but the reality is we should just throw those who are so offensively anti-American out of the country, revoking their citizenship.

The latest evidence for that argument comes from the deep south, from 'Bama, where they elect their nutjobs to the State Supreme Court rather than to Congress, like we did repeatedly in MN CD-6.  At least, in the past, Moore was removed from office; and he seems on track to repeat that dishonor.

To provide a little context, Moore is openly a racist as well as a religious bigot and homophobe; per the SPLC:

This coming Saturday, the Foundation for Moral Law (FML) in Montgomery, Ala., will be the site of the 2010 Alabama Secession Day Commemoration, featuring speakers tied to the League of the South, a neo-Confederate hate group that considers slavery “God-ordained” and advocates for “the cultural dominance of the Anglo-Celtic people and their institutions.” The Foundation for Moral Law’s president is defrocked Alabama Chief Supreme Court Justice Judge Roy Moore, who is more commonly known as the “Ten Commandments judge.” In the dead of night on July 31, 2001, Moore placed a 2½-ton stone monument with the Decalogue carved on it in the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court building, where he then presided. Moore was thrown out of office in 2003 by Alabama’s Court of the Judiciary after refusing to remove the monument, as he was ordered to do as the result of a federal lawsuit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The event is being organized by Patricia Godwin, a racist neo-Confederate from Selma who annually holds a birthday party to honor Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a wealthy slave trader who became the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Godwin, who often refers in E-mails to her majority-black hometown as “Zimbabwe on de Alabamy,” has lately crusaded to block any acknowledgement on the Capitol grounds of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march. Godwin has railed at “the trash that came here in 1965,” complaining that those who honor the civil rights movement “are aiding and abetting the ultimate goal of the ONE WORLD ORDER — to BROWN AmeriKa and annihilate Anglo-Celtic-European culture!”
Another league favorite, John Eidsmoe, is on the bill. Eidsmoe is a former law school professor and close friend and one-time legal adviser to Roy Moore. A theocrat, Eidsmoe has suggested that the government “may not act contrary to God’s laws.” In 2005, Eidsmoe spoke to the national conference of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a hate group that routinely denigrates blacks as “genetically inferior,” complains about “Jewish power brokers,” calls homosexuals “perverted sodomites,” accuses immigrants of turning America into a “slimy brown mass of glop,” and named Lester Maddox, the now-deceased, ax handle-wielding, arch-segregationist former governor of Georgia, “Patriot of the Century.”

And like our own dippy Congresswoman Bachmann, this nutjob also wanted - maybe still wants - to be president, as well.  Apparently GOD doesn't want them to be, looking the outcome.  America sure doesn't want any part of either of them in the presidency. 




from Raw Story:

Alabama’s chief justice: Buddha didn’t create us so First Amendment only protects Christians

Speaking at the Pastor for Life Luncheon, which was sponsored by Pro-Life Mississippi, Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court declared that the First Amendment only applies to Christians because “Buddha didn’t create us, Mohammed didn’t create us, it was the God of the Holy Scriptures” who created us.
“They didn’t bring the Koran over on the pilgrim ship,” he continued. “Let’s get real, let’s go back and learn our history. Let’s stop playing games.”
He then noted that he loves talking to lawyers, because he is a lawyer who went to “a secular law school,” so he knows that “in the law, [talking about God] just isn’t politically correct.” He claimed that this is why America has “lost its way,” and that he would be publishing a pamphlet “this week, maybe next” that contained copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, thereby proving that all the people “who found this nation — black, white, all people, all religions, all faiths” knew that America was “about God.”

The Founding Fathers were very articulate.  If they intended the Constitution to apply only to Christians, they would have said so; and they would NOT have put into the Constitution that there be no religious test. They would not have included religious freedom in the first amendment either.

Even the internal logic here is flawed; so if the Christian God that this jerk worships made all human beings...........why would the 1st Amendment - the one that guarantees freedom of speech AND freedom of religion, include BOTH of those, if both did not reference everyone?

Conservatives, like this guy, who by every means of assessment is an extremist idiot, and who was apparently elected by like-minded pro-discrimination, anti-Constitution, anti-American citizens of 'Bama, should not be sitting on any judicial bench anywhere, much less the Supreme Court of one of the 50 states.

This man is an embarrassment and a stain on our nation.  He should be removed from office for dereliction of duty, failure to uphold the oath of office, and for attempting to violate the rights of the citizens of the United States who ARE protected by the U.S. Constitution. 

We are NOT a Theocracy - and it is not like there is any consensus within Christianity as to what defines a Christian.

If anyone, anywhere, ever doubted that the membership of the radical right, including the teabaggers, were anti-American, I offer this as just one MORE piece of evidence. 

These people, like Roy Moore, and those who elected Roy Moore, all across the spectrum of the extreme religious right and the radical political right, are ANTI-American.  They give lip service to loving the Constitution while attempting to trample it with bigotry.


These people, like Roy Moore, and those who elected Roy Moore, all across the spectrum of the extreme religious right and radical political right, are attempting to make us less free, and are attempting to deny human and civil rights.

These people, like Roy Moore, and those who elected Roy Moore, especially but not exclusively in the south, are dumbing down America.

These people whine and whinge on and on and on about how they are victims, when they are not.  Whiney fake victim claims, believing things which are demonstrably not true, and things which are often deeply hateful -- the definition of 21st century conservatism.

Catching up with Michele Bachmann

Michele Bachmann has been very busy lately.

NOT usefully or productively busy, NO. Never that. Not resolving her various legal troubles busy, either, not the Congresswoman from Minnesota. She has been more her usual useless, ridiculous, drama queen extremist busy.

Although the latest word on her various ethics and campaign violations scandals are that the campaign manager for Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell may be the next victim of that Iowa bribery scandal.  From Mother Jones:

An intriguing catfight has been brewing on the right—and it could possibly affect the re-election campaign of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Republican Senate leader. A former aide to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has asked the Federal Elections Commission to investigate whether Ron Paul's 2012 presidential campaign violated federal law by bribing an Iowa state senator to win his endorsement. The complaint letter, sent by ex-Bachmanner Peter Waldron, charges that senior members of Paul's campaign—including Jesse Benton, who is now McConnell's campaign manager—were party to the bribe or knew about it. The role of specific Ron Paul aides in the scheme is unclear, but a 2013 Iowa Senate Ethics Committee report cited by Waldron states that the Paul campaign exchanged money to purchase the endorsement.

The controversy concerns the curious actions of a prominent local politician during the 2012 Republican caucuses in the Hawkeye State. Then-GOP state Sen. Kent Sorenson was an influential figure in the social-conservative wing of the state Republican Party, and he had offered his support to Bachmann's presidential effort early in the 2012 campaign. Sorenson and Bachmann were natural allies; both were crusaders against abortion and same-sex marriage. Sorenson served as co-chairman of Bachmann's campaign in Iowa and was a frequent surrogate speaker for her. But less than a week before caucus day, Sorenson made a surprise appearance at a Ron Paul rally in Des Moines, where he shocked Iowa political observers by switching his endorsement to the libertarian candidate.

Bat-sh*t crazy Bachmann made the cover of the New Yoker - right - where the whole country can laugh at her, portrayed as a child, which suits her level of thoughtful opinion on Obamacare.   This image is doubly appropriate, since Michele is still making specious and factually inaccurate claims about pharmaceuticals under the ACA.  From the Raw Story:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on Tuesday worried that President Barack Obama and Democrats could withhold life-saving drugs from Americans because they had mandated “killer drugs” like birth control.
Following Supreme Court arguments over whether companies could practice a religion and deny contraception to employees based on those beliefs, Bachmann and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) took to the House floor to blast the Obama administration for mandating birth control coverage in the first place.

“That is government enforced coercion on religious belief,” Bachmann complained. “And it varies at caprice and whim. That’s one thing under the rule of law that has been a pillar of American exceptionalism, the fact that under the rule of law there is certainty for the American people.”

“If you looked at the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, you knew with certainty when you woke up tomorrow morning that your religious liberties were intact,” she continued. “Now, apparently today, the gentlemen was in the chamber and heard that, according to at least one Supreme Court justice, in her opinion, they aren’t so much certain anymore.”

“It is not at only the election of the court, but at the election of the unnamed bureaucrat that decides, today we will have these killer drugs that we mandate. Tomorrow, what drugs will they take off the list? Will I not get life-saving drugs that I need to get?”

Bachmann went on to suggest that “only politically-connected best friends” of President Obama’s administration would receive certain surgical procedures in the future.

(I don't know what rock Michele has been living under, but I know how old she is; birth control has been prevalent in the U.S. her entire life.  In that sense, the nation looks the same as it always has - with women happily and safely using contraception, and without that use killing anyone.)

Michele also issued a press release, after the testimony of the CEO of MNsure before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.  No one seems to care, including Michele herself, but her knee couldn't help jerking.  It was a very jerky think to do, and Michele is nothing, if not a great big jerk on the slightest ACA pretext - facts entirely optional, and absent.

And Michele has been busy with her assorted ill-informed, factually-deficient conspiracy theories.

For example, almost a year ago, she blamed Benghazi on GOD:



I guess she forgot that, because now she is blaming someone else; from congressional hearings on the Benghazi non-scandal -



From the Huff Po:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) added a new theory to the slew of Benghazi cover-up conspiracies on Wednesday, accusing former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell of taking “the fall" for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an interview with conservative news site World Net Daily.

“She couldn’t have a better person to take the fall for her because Morell was involved in rewriting the talking points and was the No. 2 at CIA," Bachmann told WND, suggesting that Morell was clearing the path for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. "So, he can come in authoritatively [and] say, ‘No, that’s not the story. The story is the fake story we tried to push.'"

Morell testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Wednesday and denied an onslaught of Republican allegations of CIA cover-ups and false messaging after the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

“We did not deliberately downplay the role of terrorists in the Benghazi attack in our analysis or in the talking points,” Morell said during the hearing.

Michele Bachmann Struggles with Rejection by America by Attending CPAC

At CPAC, Michele Bachmann continued her cray-cray. She is dealing with rejection the same way she deals with the rest of reality, by denying it. Her own party and base don't want her. She couldn't get re-elected in Minnesota CD6 if she ran.
From the Huff Po:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) continued her effort on Saturday to tank a potential 2016 presidential bid by Hillary Clinton, telling the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference that a woman should eventually be president -- but not the one many Democrats are rooting for.
"We will have a woman for president, just the right one," she said, adding that Republicans are the only party that had a woman on the presidential ticket this century: former Gov. Sarah Palin as the vice presidential nominee in 2008.
Bachmann, who ran for the Republican nomination unsuccessfully in 2012 and declined to run for reelection in Congress this year, was invited to CPAC as a guest of Jenny Beth Martin, the president and co-founder of Tea Party Patriots.
She went on to attack Clinton's work as secretary of state, including relations with Russia and the Benghazi attacks in 2012 that killed four Americans.
"She's going to have to answer a very tough question: Did she pick up the phone and call the secretary of defense and the president of the United States and demand that they send a military rescue operation into Benghazi to rescue Americans that were under fire?" Bachmann said.

Michele Bachmann has low approval ratings - and has had them for quite a long time. The same is true of her buddy in politics, Sarah Palin, unless you get your fake reality from the right wing media.

Of course, Michele Bachmann, like so many conservatives, has a hard time owning responsibility for that disapproval, including the massive failure of the shut-down of government that she supported last fall.  Palin gave the keynote speech at this year's CPAC.

Back in January of this year a PPP poll showed Palin popular among Republican Primary voters, one of the most extreme right wing of the generally radical right.  However, given how badly she failed in 2008 and her failure to remedy any of her failings and deficiencies, there is no way that Palin could become the national candidate for the GOP, much less win a general election in 2016, against ANY of the potential Democratic candidates.

Palin is so generally unpopular, she couldn't win her conservative home state of Alaska - according to mixed messages from PPP.  There is clearly a big difference between Republican primary voters, and the overwhelming majority of normal, sane people.

From PPP - in January:

The best liked person we tested on this poll with Republican primary voters is actually Sarah Palin who has a 70/20 favorability rating. She's followed by Huckabee at 64/18, Ryan at 58/18, Paul at 58/21, Bush at 56/18, Cruz at 45/20, and Christie at 40/38. Most of those numbers are similar to what they were a month ago but Christie's seen a substantial drop from +18 at 47/29 a month ago to his new +2 net favorability.

From PPP - in February:

-Sarah Palin continues to be so unpopular in her home state that she trails Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical contest for President there. Only 39% of voters in Alaska have a favorable opinion of her to 55% who see her in a negative light, and she trails Clinton 44/43 in a head to head. Palin does worse in her home state than any of the other potential Republican candidates we tested. Jeb Bush is the strongest, leading Clinton by 8 at 47/39, followed by Rand Paul who leads her by 6 at 47/41, and Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee who both lead her by 4 points at 43/39 and 45/41 respectively.
The Republican primary field is a jumble with six potential candidates polling in double digits. Rand Paul leads with 15% to 13% for Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz, 12% for Jeb Bush, 11% for Mike Huckabee, 10% for Chris Christie, 6% for Marco Rubio, and 4% each for Paul Ryan and Scott Walker. Even among GOP voters only 28% think Palin should run for President in 2016, compared to 62% who think she should sit it out.

One of the best litmus tests to define a conservative is that they believe things that are not true. That continues to define Palin, the radical right, and more than most of the radical-right-wing-nuttery, that defines soon to be out of office Michele Bachmann. THAT day cannot come soon enough.  But it is likely that Palin and Bachmann and the Tea Party branch of the GOP will believe that they can elect a woman to the presidency, in spite of the efforts by the radical right to continue waging their culture wars on women.

What can you expect from people who hear voices in their head, and think they personally are challenging the voice of God?

Legitimate candidates for office can distinguish the difference between reality, and right wing primaries or CPAC.

The Sadly Silly Alternate Reality that Michele Bachmann Lives In

Put Michele Bachmann's face on a stick,
and have fun making up stuff.
You can't get goofier than she is.

Via City Pages:

Michele Bachmann argues anti-gay bill is actually about tolerance
During an appearance on Wolf Blitzer's CNN show yesterday, Michele Bachmann used her unique brand of logic to argue on behalf of an Arizona bill that would've allowed businesses to deny service to gay and lesbian customers."We need to respect both opinions," Bachmann said. "Just like we need to observe tolerance for the gay and lesbian community, we need to have tolerance for the community of people who hold sincerely held religious beliefs."

"This isn't one side or another," Bachmann continued. "What we're talking is tolerance on both sides and it is not tolerant to force people to violate their religious beliefs."

But the lame-duck congresswoman's opinion wasn't shared by Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who vetoed the controversial Republican-pushed bill shortly after Bachmann's CNN appearance.

"To the supporters of the legislation, I want you to know that I understand that long-held norms about marriage and family are being challenged as never before. Our society is undergoing many dramatic changes," Brewer said in a statement. "However, I sincerely believe that Senate Bill 1062 has the potential to create more problems than it purports to solve. It could divide Arizona in ways we cannot even imagine and no one would ever want."

"Religious liberty is a core American and Arizona value. So is non-discrimination," Brewer continued.

In fact, even the usually unopinionated Blitzer made clear he disagreed with Bachmann's stance.

"Americans are very tolerant people, and there is religious freedom in our country," he said, telling Bachmann that, "On this one, I disagree."

Using Michele Bachmann's logic, we should have just tolerated slavery, because hey - the advocates for slavery held deep and SINCERE religious beliefs, based on the Bible as THEIR justification for slavery. And Jim Crow laws too, because criticizing bigots makes them feel bad, and opposing oppression, and real harm to people is not tolerant of the people who are doing the harming.

Yah think?

Here is a hint, Michele, criticizing and ridiculing bigots is SUPPOSED to make them feel bad.  The intention is to make bigots stop being so bad by ..........wait for it..........making them feel bad for doing so, including shaming them.

Bachmann is once again trying to claim a false equivalency. Being a SINCERE bigot, or invoking a religious justification for bigotry, doesn't give bigotry and intolerance an equal status, legitimacy or validation.

Because treating people badly, because you believe things that are bad AND NOT TRUE about them, is wrong.  Like claiming that gay people are pedophiles, for example, or that they aren't equally good parents as heterosexual people, in spite of all the factual research that shows that is not true.  Denying people housing, employment, or other services because of a hateful prejudice is another example, as is denying people dignity and civil rights.

In Michele's sad, silly little world, there is no climate change consensus, there is no scientific consensus on Evolution either, and if she wants to believe the Sun orbits the Earth, or something equally silly, then she thinks THAT should be given the same respect as a more legitimate and fact-based point of view.

It should not.

Another City Pages story a few weeks ago pointed out that Michele Bachmann did not actually say or write "If English was good enough for Jesus when he wrote the Bible, it should be good enough for Coke." accompanied by this image but failed to note that Christians for Michele Bachmann is itself a satire and parody face book page.  I came across other satire from that site, being shared by people who thought that it was totally obvious that this image below and others similarly satiric were OBVIOUS.  They were a little surprised, and amused to find out that it was taken more seriously than they ever anticipated, especially in her home state, when I shared with them the city pages article.  The satirists had a hard time wrapping their head around just how much crazy stuff Bachmann says here in MN.  The logo in the lower right hand corner clearly identifies the REAL source; for once it is NOT actually Faux News.



The City Pages correctly trace the original quote, which did not reference the Coke add that featured young bi-lingual American women singing in other languages than English. To be fair, back in 2011, Bachmann DID call for English to be the one and only official language of the United States back in 2011, so the original quote, and the pattern of egregious hijacking of religion to justify her positions is spot on. And it is a more than justified satire, given the twitter-sphere and other social media explosions of intolerance from conservatives in response to the Coke Superbowl 'America the Beautiful' ad.

The real question here should not be how could anyone mistakenly believe the satire by Christians for Michele Bachmann, but how the heck could anyone put Michele Bachmann on any program claiming to be news, as even remotely valid, and then treat her comments and opinions as if they were rational, sane or even remotely reasonable.  They lack any legitimacy whatsoever, and are on the far right wingnuttery edge of the totally crazy. Shame on you Wolf Blitzer; YOU and CNN are part of the problem!  Stop giving her attention and ersatz legitimacy - or those like her!  Her retiring does not make her a lame duck; the woman is a dumb CLUCK.

.)

Iowa Congressman Stephen King Doesn't Believe Incest OR Statutory Rape Can Result in Pregnancy

This is the result of so-called abstinence education that perpetuates myths, and the worst kinds of reproductive ignorance.  These are the old white men who perpetuate conservative myths in legislation, without ever bothering to fact check any of their beliefs, no matter how implausible or ridiculous they are. The older and/or more conservative, the worse they seem to be, not only on this topic, but on every topic requiring some form of basic factual education.

If anything, maybe Mike Huckabee should sit down with King and give him a little bio lesson on the REAL origins of Ethel Waters.  I can't wait, on the basis of a stupid belief by Steve King for the denial of the reproductive choice of non-violent statutory rape and incest next time the House of Representatives meets to engage in right wing culture war on women.

I continue to ask myself how anyone who is older than say.....9 years of age, could possibly believe the factually inaccurate things that these old white conservative men believe.   King has at least a high school education, some college, and comes from an agricultural district where presumably he might have encountered some animal husbandry knowledge of the birds and the bees.  It's not like he's one of those urban dwellers who have never seen livestock.

The following only serves to prove not only how badly informed and out of touch the Tea Party far right extremists are, but how bone ignorant, as a group, they tend to be.  No one should allow someone this foolish, this ill-informed, this generally ignorant of the most basic facts of life to propose or vote on legislation at any level, much less the federal level where it affects the entire nation.  King should be deeply ashamed of his deficiencies.  No wonder these dolts don't believe in global warming, or evolution; we should probably be grateful if they understand the earth is not flat and that the earth rotates around the sun.  While King's office tries to do damage control, it sure sounds like this guy believes that as with forcible rape, it just doesn't happen except as a freakishly rare occurrence, when in fact the opposite is true.

From Talking Points Memo:

Rep. Steve King: I’ve Never Heard Of A Girl Getting Pregnant From Statutory Rape Or Incest

10 inShare. share Evan McMorris-Santoro-August 21, 2012, 12:12 PM363083 Updated at 1:59 p.m. Rep. Steve King, one of the most staunchly conservative members of the House, was one of the few Republicans who did not strongly condemn Rep. Todd Akin Monday for his remarks regarding pregnancy and rape. King also signaled why — he might agree with parts of Akin’s assertion. King told an Iowa reporter he’s never heard of a child getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest. “Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way,” King told KMEG-TV Monday, “and I’d be open to discussion about that subject matter.” A Democratic source flagged King’s praise of Akin in the KMEG interview to TPM. But potentially more controversial for King is his suggestion that pregnancies from statutory rape or incest don’t exist or happen rarely. A 1996 review by the Guttmacher Institute found “at least half of all babies born to minor women are fathered by adult men.” Contacted by TPM, King’s office said that King didn’t mean he had never heard of pregnancy resulting from statutory rape or incest but that he had no direct, personal knowledge of such instances. “What he was saying was, he personally does not know a girl who was raped,” Brittany Lesser, a spokesperson for King said. “He never says, ‘I’ve never heard of that.’ There’s a fine line between ‘I’ve never heard of that’ and ‘I don’t know personally anybody who’s been raped. There’s a difference. There is a difference.” The tie between statutory rape and teen pregnancy has been the subject of ad campaigns from groups like United Way. H.R. 3, the bill co-sponsored by King, Akin and Paul Ryan in 2011, originally called for an exemption in the federal ban on abortion funding only in the case of “forcible rape.” That language was dropped after pressure from women’s advocates and Democrats. At the time, the Republican sponsors of the legislation weren’t too interested in discussing their reasoning for the wording. RELATED: Todd Akin Says Victims of ‘Legitimate Rape’ Don’t Get Pregnant King’s comments offer a window into the thinking behind the language, as well as the general belief in the different categories of rape that provoked Akin’s recent controversial comments about “legitimate rape” and the factually wrong idea that a woman’s body can prevent a pregnancy from rape. Lesser said “of course” King is aware that girls have been impregnated by statutory rape or incest, and said King supports people who have not been forcibly raped receiving federal abortion coverage under a rape exemption. “That’s a given for anybody who understands pro-life legislation,” Lesser said. In the KMEG interview, King defended Akin as “a strong Christian man, with a wonderful family” and appeared to push back on those calling for Akin to drop out of the Missouri Senate race. “I think this election should be about: How did Todd Akin vote and what did he vote for and what did he stand for?” King said. “In this case, I’m seeing the same thing, petty, personal attacks substituting for strong policy.” Watch raw video of the KMEG interview below. The version of the story as it was broadcast is here.

UPDATE 2:
After this post was published, King’s office said he had been taken out of context.

As TPM originally reported, King’s response to a question about whether a young girl who gets pregnant should have to carry a baby to term was, “I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way.” King was not asked whether he knew anyone personally who had been in such a circumstance.
Lesser said “of course” King is aware that girls have been impregnated by statutory rape or incest, and said King supports people who have not been forcibly raped receiving federal abortion coverage under a rape exemption.
“That’s a given for anybody who understands pro-life legislation,” Lesser said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Apparently not, not in the case of King, not in the case of Ryan, not in the case of Akin, and certainly not in the case of many other Republicans and Tea Partiers I've profiled in the last few days.  But then when it comes to reproductive rights, these individuals say so much that is not true, it is perhaps understandable that they confuse themselves as to facts more than anyone else.