Politifact (the Pulitizer prize winning site that actually fact checks statements by politicians instead of just printing or broadcasting them) determined that Michele Bachmann's latest claim statement about health care reform is a lie.
That makes eight Bachmann statements on public policy that Politifact has reviewed, and that makes eight Bachmann statements on public policy that Politifact has shown to be false. She's batting a thousand over there; I wonder if any other political figure they research can boast a similar record.
Here's the latest Bachmann statement they evaluated:
"President Obama's bill won't bring down the costs (of health care) for average Americans -- or really for very few Americans, if any."
Michele Bachmann on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 in an interview on CNN's Larry King
Here's what they determined:
To test this claim, we turned first to the nonpartisan referee for such questions -- the Congressional Budget Office...
...adding it up, nearly 134 million people should see their premiums go down when subsidies are factored in. That's about 70 percent of all privately insured Americans.
What about the rest? By our calculations, about 45 million people would see their premiums stay the same. Adding them to the 134 million Americans who saw their premiums drop, you get 179 million people, or almost 94 percent of those on private insurance.
Got that? If the plan goes through, 70% of all privately insured Americans will see their premiums go down; about 24% of privately insured Americans will see their benefits stay about the same.
Politifact's conclusion:
...taking into account the subsidies, a full 70 percent would see their premiums fall. And almost 94 percent would see their premiums either fall or stay the same. No matter how you slice it, the overwhelming majority are likely to see a decline. So we find her claim False.
People sometimes ask me whether I think MB actually believes the falsehoods she spreads. My answer is that I think that sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't. I think that the reason she makes false statements is to attract and keep the support of people who want to believe those false statements are true: the essence of demagogy, the essence of modern American conservatism.
But it doesn't really matter whether she believes the false statements she keeps making. If you make a statement, find out that it's false, but let the statement stand uncorrected--that's the same as lying and it perpetuates the lie.
And politicians are not "allowed" to lie about important matters of public concern--except in conservative circles, where doing so can make you "an American hero."
What's the lie? The lie is that "reconciliation" is a "legislative trick." In the video below, you will see Bachmann claim this at about timecode 2:04, and again later.
It's a lie because passing legislation via the reconciliation process is not a "trick," it's a time-honored process and the people who've honored it through time are mostly Republicans members of the federal legislature. Trick, my a**! to coin a phrase.
Now most of us know this because we've been discussing the possibility of reconciliation for months. But in case you want documentation from traditional media...
In this case, it's the Pulitzer Prize winning Politifact that does the homework. They evaluate the truth of Harry Reid's claim that "Republicans have used reconciliation more than Democrats."
Finding? That Reid's statement is true, absolutely true. But more than this, Politifact goes out and documents the history of the reconciliation process. (CONTINUED)
Good article contributed to Dump Bachmann by Karl Bremer. It's all about how much time Bachmann has spent doing election war chest fund raising at parties (lots) versus how much she's actually done for the voters she's supposed to be representing in Washington (comparatively nothing.)
The number of parties that Bachmann has thrown and attended in D.C. is contrasted with the number of similar events organized by other Minnesota reps in Washington. Michele wins when it comes to the partying contest--probably because she hasn't ever spent the time necessary to produce significant legislation, and never spent any time on her district's economy.
Oddly enough, none of the Bachmann social events listed by Bremer seem to be for the benefit of veterans or our people in uniform. That's strange, because in the years since the outbreak of hostilities Bachmann claimed to have been a big fan of our men and women fighting overseas. But none of the parties listed seem to have been in their honor: instead they seem to "Washington insider" things featuring other Republican, lobbies like the NRA, etc.
Dan Burns caught this in the St. Cloud Times, in an interview that appeared dated February 14th:
Q: Name three bills or amendments that you have gotten passed that are the most beneficial to the people of the 6th Congressional District.
A: I was involved in a foster care amendment to support and encourage people in foster care. It is a very important issue. Sen. Mary Landrieu, (D-La.) and I are working on the Haiti situation. We are trying to put together initiatives so that children can actually go into homes and not stay in institutions their whole life. I was able to pass this resolution honoring people in foster care. I am in the deep minority in Congress and a fairly new freshman, so I don't have substantive bills that I have passed. I would love to. The very first bill I introduced was the Health Care Freedom of Choice Act.
In other words--nothing. Ever since she was elected to Congress, nothing for the Sixth District, which she's supposed to be representing. But wait, there's more...
(CONTINUED)
Michele Bachmann's held legislative office for nearly ten years--what are her legislative achievements?
What game-changing laws has she managed to draft and pass? What conservative reforms has she managed to implement, after ten years in the Minnesota and US legislatures?
If you can't say, don't feel bad. Michele can't say either. From the St. Cloud Times:
In an interview...that will appear in Sunday's St. Cloud Times... (Bachmann) acknowledged that she has few legislative accomplishments, saying she is in her second term and in the minority.
True--but after nearly ten years in two different legislatures--nothing of note at all? Nothing worth mentioning, even?
No surprise to Bachmann watchers, but perhaps a surprise to conservatives who look to her for hard work, leadership and results. Her career really has been "all about the demagoguery."
http://www.sctimes.com/article...
Yesterday, the Big E commented here on the fact that Michele Bachmann called for the eventual abolition of SocSec and Medicare:
Bachmann:...what it means is what we have to do is a reorganization of all of that, Social Security and all... So, what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the system, that don't have any other options, we have to keep faith with them. But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off. And wean everybody off because we have to take those unfunded net liabilities off our bank sheet, we can't do it.
A perceptive and prescient commenter wrote in to the thread attached to the Big E's article:
Could be an important development here (0.00 / 0)
for those who are sure the way to beat Bachmann is "on the issues" (not on the "she's a nut, bigot and liar" stuff.
Here is a quote, very clear, out of her mouth (the best kind of stuff to use on her) that essentially says: everybody except the older people, off social security and all that--kill the contract.
A political opponent can quote this passage, exactly, and use to tell voters that she does indeed want to destroy Social Security, slowly but surely:
"What you have to do is keep faith with the people that are already in the system, that don't have any other options, we have to keep faith with them. But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off."
So there it is, if Clark wants to stay on the path of "I'll beat her on the economic issues." (Personally, I don't think that's what Clark should do, but that's what Dems are inclined to do in the Sixth.)
There's already a lot of Bachmann stuff like that (the home foreclosures angle, for example), but more ammo is always welcome and Bachmann just passed some out.
...and just a day after that comment: the Clark campaign sent out this press release...
BACHMANN SAYS TIME TO 'WEAN EVERYBODY OFF' SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE
Clark, seniors and workers come together to deliver message in opposition to Bachmann's extreme agenda
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, speaking at the Constitutional Coalition's annual conference in St. Louis this weekend, announced her plan to end the national debt by ending Medicare and Social Security and "weaning everybody off."
Congratulations to that Minnesota Progressive Project commenter, the one who pointed out that the Bachmann statement was a terrific opportunity for the Clark campaign.
There's more from the Clark press release, below.
(CONTINUED)
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is at it again. She repeated her stance that she would abolish social security and medicare if given the chance. ThinkProgress has the details:
Speaking to a small group of conference attendees and ThinkProgress during lunch on Saturday, Bachmann outlined how the Republican Party and its 2012 nominee must address the national debt. Bachmann referenced Glenn Beck, who falsely warned about a $107 trillion in supposed "unfunded liabilities" from Social Security and Medicare. She then called for a "reorganization" of entitlements where people "already in the system" would continue to receive benefits, but "everybody else" would be weaned off:
BACHMANN: Is the country too big to fail? No, the country can fail. We can, we're not invincible. And we're so close now to being at that point because the thing is, as Glenn Beck said last night, it is true. The $107 trillion that he put on the board. We're $14 trillion in debt, but that doesn't include the unfunded massive liabilities. That's $107 trillion, and that's for Social Security and Medicare and all the rest. You add up all those unfunded net liabilities, and all the traps that could go wrong we're on the hook for, and what it means is what we have to do is a reorganization of all of that, Social Security and all. We have to do it simply because we can't let the contract remain as they are because the older people are going to lose. So, what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the system, that don't have any other options, we have to keep faith with them. But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off. And wean everybody off because we have to take those unfunded net liabilities off our bank sheet, we can't do it. So we just have to be straight with people. So basically, whoever our nominee is, is going to have to have a Glenn Beck chalkboard and explain to everybody this is the way it is.
Michele Bachmann rails about gangster government where highly placed people can buy influence from friends in office. But though the Bush bailout of AIG left taxpayers stuck with a bill for $100 billion dollars, Bachmann voted against taxing the $100 million dollars paid to AIG execs as bonuses.
A City Pages item today notes that notes that "the Insurance sector pitched in $119,050 to Bachmann's campaign coffers ahead of the 2008 election cycle."
In the conservative mindset, Bachmann is a champion of the taxpayer against special interests. Well, their champion just cast a vote to throw away our money again. This is teabagging in action, how the "tea party philosophy" is actually applied by its darlings already serving in government.
Today, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wasted no time in reminding Minnesota voters that Rep. Michele Bachmann -- a member of the House Financial Services Committee -- complained about those bailouts, yet voted against punishing AIG's for its tone-deafness.
"Bachmann voted to protect bonuses paid to AIG executives with American tax dollars," said Ryan Rudominer, the DCCC press secretary in a statement. "This morning, Americans heard that AIG executives are getting $100 million in bonuses despite still owing taxpayers more than $100 billion. While Representative Bachmann protects these outrageous Wall Street bonuses paid for by President Bush's bailout, Bachmann does nothing to help hardworking families. Clearly, Representative Bachmann is more concerned about Wall Street, than Main Street."
Nice catch by the City Pages. And they note that Bachmann opponent Tarryl Clark has been on the issue regularly and for some time.
UPDATE: Sorry guys--a reader on the Kos has just informed me that this story about a mailer isn't "breaking" news from Dump Bachmann; it dates back to at least December. (For whatever reason, Eva Young is recycling old stories at Dump Bachmann these days. She suckered me here, because I thought this was a new story she was breaking.
But Bachmann really did say these things about Obama, and I hadn't seen this before:)
Eva Young at Dump Bachmann has posted a copy of a fundraising appeal by Michele Bachmann. Here are some quotes:
"...you and I have our work cut out for us opposing Obama's outrageous gangster government.
"...Obama's plans will do nothing less than socialize our economy and turn every citizen into a ward of the state."
"Obama wants to use ACORN to radicalize America because he isn't interesting (sic?) merely in defeating conservatives--
...HE WANTS TO ANNIHILATE US!"
"Thankfully conservative Americans are coming together to stop Obama's rocket train to socialism."
"...Obama's socialist agenda is a dagger pointed right at the heart of conservatism. He's playing for keeps."
"Obama is a political street fighter who learned the rules of politics from the Democrats' Chicago Machine."
"...your help will be put to immediate use as we work to attack directly Obama's socialist agenda by helping those conservative candidates who are unafraid to speak the truth. It's just that simple."
I'll link you to Eva's scan of the original document, but I must warn you that the scan posted is so small that you will have serious trouble reading it. (Which is why I transcribed some of the stuff here.)
The other thing is: I can't make out a date on the document or the postmark date on the envelope. Maybe it's there and I missed it; Eva apparently posted the scan yesterday--but I can't make out if the letter was dated or not (because the scan is small and my eyes are old.) Dates are kind of important.
To this day, people give me grief for pointing out that Bachmann's a nut. Some of them apparently think that pointing out that she's a nut (when she proves that she's a nut) is just "Dem hype."
So how are we supposed to cover it when Bachmann (with no evidence) publicly suggests that President of the United States and the US Attorney are actively giving aid and comfort to one of the guys who masterminded the September 11th terrorist attacks?
Here's Bachmann, speaking on the floor on the floor of the House
This is an extremely important point. Again, the mastermind of 9-1-1, who achieved his goal of killing 3,000 innocent Americans in the World Trade Center bombing, he got his way.
Why would we give him his way by bringing him to New York City, at over $200 million a year taxpayer expense, to give him a show trial when he has already plead guilty and already asked to be executed? What happened?
Did the president, did the attorney general say to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, "Now wait a minute, you don't want to plead guilty. Wait a minute you don't want to be executed. You want to come to New York City."
Okay--so: we got two wars against terrorists going on on two different fronts (Iraq and Afghanistan), we've got an air travel security fracas to deal with, we've got a battle over health care reform and charges that the elected government is anti-American, we've got a massive intervention by the government just to keep the economy going--
So what are the Republicans in Washington making a priority?
That's right, they're banding together to stop gay marriage in the District of Columbia. No, not Columbia the country, dummy--Washington, D.C.
Bravely targeting one of America's most unpopular minorities (gay people who want to get married), Bachmann and host of her fellow GOP congressman have "filed an amicus brief in D.C. Superior Court calling for a voter referendum on whether to legalize same-sex marriage in the District."
(continued)
I thought maybe some of you might be interested in seeing an example of how Michele is promoted by her some of her staunchest and oldest mentors: the national religious right.
Over the last couple of years, many of you have trained yourselves to swear at "Michele the individual"--which is (in my view) a mistake of the first magnitude. Our professional political media would prefer that you continue to make that mistake--because as long as you continue to make that mistake, professional journalists are forgiven their decade long negligence in failing to report the real political significance of the Bachmann story.
The real political significance of the Bachmann story is that Michele Bachmann is a puppet, a creature of a national political movement that has been trying to insert its proteges into federal, state and local government for decades. Michele is merely one of their greatest success stories; it's the existence of this movement and the identities of their federal, state, and local political puppets that are the real story.
The existence of this national political movement explains how a second-rate, no achievement back bencher like Michele could rise to national prominence so quickly. And Michele is indeed a nut, bigot and liar in and of herself, as many pundits have pointed out over the last two years or so.
How does such a loony non-achiever acquire a national following, seemingly out of thin air, in the space of just a few years? And why can't you do that?
For a clue to the answer, look at the following video from December 10th of last year...(continued)
Tim Pawlenty lost no time in excoriating the Obama administration for failure to prevent the attempted Christmas bombing. (The man's desperate for attention, never saw a right-wing bandwagon he wouldn't jump on, and the hell with the notion of doing something constructive.)
But how did the state's conservative Republicans do, when they were offered a chance to mandate the kind of security measures that would have prevented the attack?
They voted against those security measures--before the Nigerian guy tried to blow up the airplane. They voted against detecting that! And the conservative pickleheads still think that those guys are better on national security and fighting terrorism than the Dems who voted for the explosives detection measures.
Makes you think, doesn't it?
Here's the story of this sorry, shameful vote by Bachmann and her fellow Minnesota Republicans.
(continued)
A Politico story filed on December 16th about the latest teabagger event, and at the end you can see where these guys are coming from...
Michele addressed the rally in the company of other teabagger-courting politicians:
...The crowd's message and energy was only intensified by the encouragement of some of the nation's best known conservatives, including Sens. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Richard Burr, R-N.C., Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., former House Majority Leader Dick Armey - a Texas Republican - and radio personality Laura Ingraham.
With the health care reform bill endangered by threats from both the right and left these days, Bachmann's tone was almost celebratory:
"You came before, you came again, I guess they must be deaf. They can't hear you!" Bachmann screamed over the cheers. "We're not leaving until you understand that no means no. What part of no don't you people understand?"
The congresswoman, who has emerged as a conservative icon, led the crowd in chants of "Kill the Bill," before suggesting President Barack Obama, Senate Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., study up on the U.S. Constitution.
As we've noted here, Bachmann's own view of how the Constitution works is kind of weird. (She has a history of trying to influence public policy by introducing mobs of protesters into the halls of elected officials, as opposed to working with fellow elected officials to influence the policy outcomes.)
But the most revealing moment in this gathering was probably this:
"To paraphrase Franklin Delano Roosevelt," (Republican Senator Richard) Burr said over boos evoked by FDR's name, "The only thing we have to fear is... Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid."
Yeah, that's right--the teabaggers were booing FDR. Ha ha, what did he ever do, except save the Western democracies from the Nazi and Japanese empires?
Well, FDR's cardinal sin, in the world of conservatives, was saving American families from the worst effects of the Great Depression, intervening to help them keep their homes and farms, using the federal government to create jobs when the private sector failed to do so--and laying the foundation for the creation of the post-war American middle class.
In the brains of conservatives, all of that was huge mistake--"a conspiracy against freedom," even if it led to a triumph of freedom and America's emergence as the most powerful and secure democracy in history. Generations later, American conservatives will still boo the name of FDR--in part because he was the chosen leader of what has become known as "the greatest generation."
That generation chose FDR, reformer par excellance four times. An unprecedented and never to be repeated four terms as president, because he helped their families survive the Depression and because he had the vision to realize that the US had to intervene on the world stage to stop totalitarianism from swallowing up Europe.
Even the young Ronald Reagan was an adoring FDR fan, but the conservatives have never forgiven him for the reforms of more than fifty years ago--including the creation of Social Security. (It was socialism!)
And that reaction to his name tells us what would happen if the conservatives ever returned to power--no matter how nicely they try to disguise it or package the message, the conservative dream has always been to turn the clock back, back to the days of Hoover and Coolidge. Back to the days long before that, if you go by conservative columnist George Will: pressed to name a time when things were "right," Will once stated that a return to the political and economic conditions of about 1900 was the objective of conservatism--before Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson began 'really screwing things up' with their calls for reform.
That really is the goal of conservatives, the return of the plutocracy of 1900 and the abolition of rights and advances won by American working people ever since. If you understand that, you understand why they booed FDR, arguably the greatest president of the twentieth century.
And the boos for FDR are worth noting, during weeks of progressive angst about the health care reform.
There are still only two viable brands in American electoral politics--Republican or Democrat. If the Democrats lose power, the voters go to the Republican brand--and these days the Republican brand is dominated by lobbies who want the most radical reforms of the US.
Those radical reforms would be reactionary, incredibly reactionary--seeking to turn America into something that Americans turned their back on seventy years ago. And worse: the conservative policy alternative would include even more radical reforms sought by an evangelical right now organized as a national political movement. Over the past forty years, the evangelical right has managed to conflate core conservative beliefs with what they consider core Christian beliefs--in the minds of tens of millions of voters. And this political movement would use their vast influence over the Republican Party to make sectarian religious beliefs into public policy for all of us.
It's important to remember all that as Barack Obama's left wing threatens to desert him in the wake of a watered-down health care reform effort and a troop surge in Afghanistan. Obama and his Democrats can't stay in power if they alienate the left, and Bachmann and the teabaggers and the conservatives know that. They're waiting to take over, and their ultimate objectives have never really changed. They are the true radicals.
Of course this isn't the first time we've seen her rep go international. British news reporting caught on to her some time ago, her politics of proto-fascist rhetoric has caught the eye of publications in Europe.
But she rates extended discussion in this Australian writer's brief explanation of America's tea bagger movement:
..the Tea party is now preparing for its first national convention in February. The headline speaker will be Sarah Palin, poster girl of the American Right, whose memoir is topping bestseller lists. Palin is not the only female firebrand embraced by the Tea party people. "We also like Liz Cheney (the daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney) and Michele Bachmann," said Wales.
Bachmann, 53, arrived in congress two years ago from Minnesota, and has captured headlines with her denunciations of multiculturalism, arguing that "not all cultures are equal", her opposition to same-sex marriage and her claims that many scientists reject the theory of evolution.
