Tag Archives: Michele Bachmann

It’s Early, But…

I know it’s early for 2014, but GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann is already running TV ads for her re-election campaign in Minnesota.

A new PPP poll shows her 2012 Dem opponent, Jim Graves, who plans to try again, ahead of Bachmann, 47 to 45.

Last time, Graves lost by only 5,000 votes, little more than 1% of the vote.  And last time, Bachmann wasn’t dealing with a blossoming campaign finance scandal from her 2012 presidential campaign.

Maybe Bachmann will go where she belongs, looking pretty and spouting crazy on Fox.

They Can’t Just Take the Gift

You’d think the Tea Party folks would just take the gift-wrapped IRS bias scandal and exploit it for all it’s worth, which is a lot actually.

But noooooooo, because they’re crazy, they have to over-reach.

Michele Bachmann is running around saying that because the IRS is involved in Obamacare (they will administer the monetary penalties for those who choose not to buy health insurance), the IRS is going to delay or deny health care itself to conservatives.  So they’re not just giving your group a hard time about getting a tax exemption, they’re going to kill you!

And so the tide turns back against them because they can’t resist one-upping the IRS on being outrageous.

This Brightened My Day

From “Former chief of staff to break silence on Michele Bachmann,” Kevin Diaz, Minneapolis Star Tribune:

“GOP operative Andy Parrish, a former chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, is expected to tell an Iowa Senate ­ethics panel that her 2012 presidential campaign made improper payments to its state chairman.

“…Parrish referred questions Wednesday to his attorney, John Gil­more, who said his client will corroborate allegations from another former Bachmann aide, Peter Waldron.

“Waldron, a Florida pastor, claims that the campaign hid payments to Iowa Sen. Kent Sorenson, in violation of Iowa Senate ethics rules that bar members from receiving pay from presidential campaigns. …

“Waldron’s accusations are also the subject of inquiries by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the independent Office of Congressional Ethics. The investigations are part of a growing web of legal problems facing Bachmann, including a lawsuit by former staffer Barbara Heki alleging that Sorenson stole a proprietary e-mail list of Iowa home-school families from her personal computer. Those allegations also are the subject of an ongoing police investigation in Urbandale, Iowa.

“Gilmore said Parrish can provide the ethics panel documentary evidence that Sorenson was paid $7,500 a month to work on Bachmann’s campaign, money that was funneled to him indirectly through C&M Strategies, a Colorado-based company controlled by Bachmann fundraiser Guy Short.

“Among the sources of the funding, Waldron contends, was Bachmann’s independent political organization, Michele­PAC, also headed by Short.”

It would be fantastic to see Bachmann go to the Big House, but I’ll be thrilled just to get her out of the people’s House.

Is the Bachmann Joke Nearing Its Punch Line?

“The Daily Beast has learned that federal investigators are now interviewing former Bachmann campaign staffers nationwide about alleged intentional campaign-finance violations [from her 2012 presidential run].  The investigators are working on behalf of the Office of Congressional Ethics, which probes reported improprieties by House members and their staffs and then can refer cases to the House Ethics Committee.”

John Avlon, “Exclusive:  Congressional Ethics Probe Adds to Michele Bachmann’s Political Woes,” The Daily Beast

Six Crazies to Watch

Aaron Blake at WaPo* lists six crazy, fringe Senate candidates who keep Karl Rove up at night and make our Founding Fathers roll in their graves:

Iowa Congressman Steve King (another pea in the Todd Akin pod)

Georgia Congressman Paul Broun (says Obama is a socialist and evolution, embryology, and the Big Bang are lies from the pit of hell)

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (her presidential campaign was an endless stream of crazy, such as that the HPV vaccine causes mental retardation)

Former GOP Alaska Senate nominee Joe Miller (currently pushing the John-Brennan-is-a-Muslim meme, strong ties to Alaska militia movement, as dumb and paranoid as they come, makes Sarah Palin look smart)

Montana state Representative Champ Edmunds

Former Louisiana Congressman Jeff Landry (said Obama gave special waivers to Muslims for TSA screenings)

* “The dirty half-dozen:  Six Senate candidates who could foment GOP civil war”

 

The Cornhusker Wears Prada

Those who oppose former GOP Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel’s appointment as Secretary of Defense and want to avoid the whole anti-Semitism thing have come up with a whole new line of attack — he was mean to his staff when he was a senator.  He couldn’t possibly have had more turnover than Michele Bachmann does, and yet I don’t recall these conservatives saying that was an impediment to her running for president.

Anyway, this is what those on the right who feel Hagel isn’t hawkish enough in terms of supporting Israel, going to war with Iran, and not cutting the defense budget are saying.  From “Rejecting Chuck Hagel,” Adam Kredo, The Washington Free Beacon:

“‘But above all, he’s not a nice person and he’s bad to his staff,’ said a senior Republican Senate aid who has close ties to former Hagel staffers.

“‘Hagel was known for turning over staff every few weeks — within a year’s time he could have an entirely new office because nobody wanted to work for him,’ said the source.  ‘You have to wonder how a man who couldn’t run a Senate office is going to be able to run an entire bureaucracy.’

“Others familiar with Hagel’s 12 year tenure in the Senate said he routinely intimidated staff and experienced frequent turnover.

“‘[H]e was the Cornhusker wears Prada to his staff, some of whom describe their former boss as perhaps the most paranoid and abusive in the Senate, one who would rifle through staffers’ desks and berate them for imagined disloyalty,’ said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq.

“Multiple sources corroborated this view of Hagel.

“‘As a manager, he was angry, accusatory, petulant,’ said one source familiar with his work on Capitol Hill.  ‘He couldn’t keep his staff.’

“‘I remember him accusing one of his staffers of being ‘f___ing stupid’ to his face,’ recalled the source who added that Hagel typically surrounded himself with those ‘who basically hate Republicans.’”

Come on, when has the choice of a Secretary of Defense ever turned on whether he was “nice”?  All these folks in Congress have huge egos and tend to be screamers who are extremely hard on staff.  The soft-spoken, considerate boss is the exception, not the rule. 

If we want to fight about Hagel’s appointment, let’s do it on his views, on policy.  Let’s have that serious fight, not a preposterous middle-school one.