Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), the Tea Party Princess, played a noxious game of dodge ball with George Stephanopoulos this morning when he asked her whether she believed that President Obama was born in the United States and is not a Muslim. Leave it to the Tea Party Queen -- Sarah Palin -- to show Bachmann and others in the Republican Party the right way to answer the question.

"Do you question his faith and citizenship?" Palin was asked today during an onstage interview hosted by the Long Island Association. Her answer was brief and to the point.

"I don't, and those are distractions," she said to some applause. "What we're concerned about is the economy. And we're concerned about the policies coming out of his administration and what he believes in terms of big government or private sector. So, no, the faith, the birth certificate, others can engage in that kind of conversation. It's distracting. It gets annoying and let's just stick with what really matters."

Well, well. Sister Sarah speaks.



I guess she is running for president for sure.

I think a memo (verbal, telephonic, or otherwise confidential) has been circulated among all national Republican leaders. It reads: "Birtherism is harmful to our chances of success in 2012. When pressed by the media, your aim should be to dismiss it casually so as not to offend our birther voter base, while quickly forcing the topic back to our substantive talking points, which is what independents and Democratic cross-overs will want to hear from us."

Although Palin has made progress if she's following memos. Reading them, too. Also.

If Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., decides to pursue a presidential bid in 2012, it could offer some interesting debate moments now that she's promised that the first thing she would do is offer the public a view of her birth certificate.

"I'll tell you one thing, if I was ever to run for president of the United States, I think the first thing I would do in the first debate is offer my birth certificate so we can get that off the table," she told radio personality Jeff Katz on Boston's Talk 1200 Radio Station.

If Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., decides to pursue a presidential bid in 2012, it could offer some interesting debate moments now that she's promised that the first thing she would do is offer the public a view of her birth certificate.

[highlight]"I'll tell you one thing, if I was ever to run for president of the United States, I think the first thing I would do in the first debate is offer my birth certificate so we can get that off the table,"[/highlight] she told radio personality Jeff Katz on Boston's Talk 1200 Radio Station.

Which is complete bullshit, because a few months ago she went through this whole thing to get her voting record sealed. She claimed it was for privacy reasons.

http://minnesotaindependent.com/72903/b ... voter-list

Here's the interview.

"Sharia-compliant terrorists"(!)


Oh: Obamacare is being implemented. (Doesn't Bachmann know it'll all be undone once Obama is removed?)

To explain the report’s findings, we should first tell you a little bit about how federal spending works when it comes to authorizations versus appropriations. Laws can either authorize money to be spent, appropriate money, or both authorize and appropriate. An authorization means it’s legally permissible to spend money on a particular program; an appropriation actually supplies the money. The real power lies in appropriation.

House members like Bachmann had hoped to stop the new health care law by simply refusing to fund it with appropriations. What they’re finding out, though, is that doing so won’t shut the money spigot entirely, since the law already included some appropriations and transfers from other sources when it passed.

The CRS report detailed the programs that received funding in the bill. (Fund transfers work a little differently than appropriations, but the important thing for analyzing Bachmann’s comment is that they both provided immediate funding.) The CRS report doesn’t add up all the numbers, but we did, and we got $104 billion -- very close to Bachmann’s number. A few programs are funded contingent on adjustments for inflation, so the grand total can vary a bit.

The largest chunk of funding, $40 billion, went to the state Children’s Health Insurance Program, to fund it for 2014 and 2015. (Soon after President Barack Obama took office in 2009, Democrats approved funding through 2013.) A new Prevention and Public Health Fund -- a state-based effort aimed at preventing chronic disease -- got the second biggest chunk, $15 billion over 10 years. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation got $10 billion over 10 years to test payment and service-delivery models that might reduce health care spending and improve care.

Bachmann also mangles her facts over the $105 billion suddenly coming to light in a Congressional Research Service report "issued in February." The CRS report was published last October. Read it for yourself. It's public information. In the third paragraph of its opening summary, it says:

This report summarizes those mandated appropriations and fund transfers.

No news. No secret. No conspiracy. The real issue seems to be that Bachmann didn't read the very bill she voted on.

Rep. Michele Bachmann is threatening to leverage a must-pass budget bill to ensure Congress strips billions of dollars from the federal health care overhaul -- money she says was unfairly baked into the law.

Democrats dispute her charges and one GOP official said Bachmann's claim was "wrong," adding to the uncertainty over whether she could rally enough support in her party to direct the rescission in a House vote. But Bachmann, R-Minn., told Fox News she wants to use the fiscal 2011 budget process to eliminate $105 billion in "buried" health law funding. That money was included as "mandatory" spending over the next eight years, she said, meaning it's automatic and not subject to annual spending votes by Congress.

"This is a crime against democracy," Bachmann told Fox News on Tuesday. "No one knew that Harry Reid, Pelosi and Obama put $105 billion in spending in the bill. ... This is a bombshell."

The hefty down payment for the health law makes it more difficult for Republicans who want to de-fund the policy through the annual appropriations process. To remedy this, Bachmann said she wants to include language demanding the money back in the next short-term budget bill, which will probably be required to fund the government when the latest short-term bill expires March 18. [...]

Michele Bachmann Doesn’t Know Much About History

Jeff Neumann — Michele Bachmann Doesn't Know Much About HistoryNo one has ever accused Tea Partiers of being especially bright, but Michele Bachmann blew it pretty hard today in New Hampshire. She was speaking to the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire when she got some important Revolutionary War facts wrong:

"What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty," the potential GOP presidential candidate said. "You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord. And you put a marker in the ground and paid with the blood of your ancestors the very first price that had to be paid to make this the most magnificent nation that has ever arisen in the annals of man in 5,000 years of recorded history."
[...]

And it’s not Bachmann’s first instance of mangling American history. In January, she drew another round of titters when she waxed nostalgic about "the very founders . . . [who] worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States." She added that it's "high time that we recognize the contribution of our forebears who worked tirelessly—men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished." John Quincy Adams was of course a founding son more than a founding father. And oh yeah, many of the founding fathers were slave owners.

Perhaps after Bachmann badly loses the New Hampshire primary she’ll exhort her followers: “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!”

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Except she's wrong, and it's been debunked everywhere. But, those who would vote for her don't get news from anywhere but Fox, so no matter to her.

You look deep into those eyes, and you see ... complete vacuity.

You look deep into those eyes, and you see ... complete vacuity.

"Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got...lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye."

"Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got...lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye."

I think we're gonna need a bigger loony bin.

This morning, Scarborough played the tape of Bachman's "shot heard round the world" speech in New Hampshire, and then talked about how Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address in Manchester. After which, he and another guest wondered aloud what the people in Bachmann's district were thinking when they voted for her.

This morning, Scarborough played the tape of Bachman's "shot heard round the world" speech in New Hampshire, and then talked about how Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address in Manchester. After which, he and another guest wondered aloud what the people in Bachmann's district were thinking when they voted for her.

I hope this was some kind of joke, but if not, Scarborough has always been the sort of moron who makes Hannity seem like a genius.

But Bachman takes Obark at his word that he’s a Christian and a citizen! And Bachman refuses to demand judiciary hearings!

How can we trust her on this $105B thing?

Bachmann, who has all-but announced she's running, is reportedly planning to bring on Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson—the author of a recent birther bill—as her political director in the presidential bellwether state.