Michele Bachmann's Siege Mentality
By Nicole Belle Tuesday Mar 24, 2009 10:00am
It must be a scary place inside Michele Bachmann's mind. Why the effort alone to quell the all the flying cognitive dissonance must be just exhausting. It's hard out there for a low-information wingnut.
Maybe that's why Bachmann's rhetoric has taken a decidedly bunker-like tone. No, really bunker-like:
During a Saturday afternoon interview on WWTC 1280 AM with The Northern Alliance’s John Hinderaker and Brian Ward, Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann discussed her staunch opposition to several Democratic-led efforts on Capitol Hill this session – such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the recently passed HR 1586 tax on bonuses for TARP recipients, and President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan to reduce greenhouse gases.
Bachmann then began to talk about her role as Representative at the nation’s Capitol. Explaining the resources available at her U.S. House website which enable her to communicate what is happening in D.C. to the public, such as her Bachmann Bulletin, Bachmann Blog, and links to her Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace pages, the Congresswoman said, "I’m a foreign correspondent on enemy lines and I try to let everyone back here in Minnesota know exactly the nefarious activities that are taking place in Washington."
Bachmann didn't elaborate exactly how she felt foreign (I have my own suspicions), but it's not the first time she's pulled out the alien analogy. Still, we're not quite yet in Crazytown, but don't worry, she goes even further:
“I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people – we the people – are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.”
Oy. Histrionic much? Think Progress:
This is just the latest evidence of Bachmann’s disdain and disrespect for America’s government. Last fall, she unwittingly caused a firestorm after saying she was “absolutely” concerned that then-candidate Barack Obama “may have anti-American views,” and called for a McCarthy-like investigation into “anti-American” elements in Congress. “I think people would love to see an exposé like that,” she told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.
Apparently “traditional American values,” which Bachmann insists she represents, include endorsing the armed overthrow of our own “enemy” government.
And during Tim Geithner's testimony this morning, in the video above, she demanded Geithner and Bernanke "categorically" renounce "global currency" (which they of course did). WTF is this woman on?
Login or Register to post comments.
get elected to public office?
holy shit, there's alot of people who just need to go.
and yeah, i know she was just re-elected.
why even bother with politics "they" began moving in.
The climax being Nov 2000 when the worst voter turnout in U.S. History occurred. Gore should have gone way over the top but people apparently had to much "prosperity" to be bothered.
It was the Supreme Court who put an end to the recount and gave W the presidency. Guess we can blame Scalia et al for the past eight years and the MSM for their disdain for Gore. But Gore has since earned an Oscar and a Nobel prize and helped Katrina victims while W pulled his usual paralyzed act. Gore has truly proved his presidency would have been far, far superior to the vortex of chaos W has bequeathed us.
As for BachmanTerrorOverdrive, who even listens to her? I feel sorry for her constituents, who must be clueless not to mention behind the times.
Only helps them push back against those that are trying to inform them. Do you want to be devisive, or help people understand the truth?
Please be understanding that they just need to be educated. You'd be surprised how most misinformed people, all around the country, react to the truth.
..episode that has Peter not dating Lois in the past. When he returns to the altered future, President Gore has tracked down OBL and killed him with his bare hands. President Gore - Wow.
...is because there was no competetive democratic or third party candidate. I forget his name, and that shows how well he did in getting out the vote to take Bachman's seat.
Bachmann's going for the "sexy secretary" look now.
Ugggh
....call it going for the "Sarah Palin" look:>)
..Mary McConnell from BG. Mary rules though; this woman is a pariah.
Excuse my french. . . but. .
What the fuck is she talking about?
'cause she SURE as shit doesn't know!
If you listen closely to her you can tell that she's no dummy. She's a wacko, a rightwinger who's mouth occassionally reveals her untrusting, uncaring, hyper-narrowminded inner-self, but she's not stupid.
Marco
Well she is making sense, people who know the constitution and the banking system know this.
She has none of that annoyingly clever self awarness that Coulter or Rush have. She's more of a Berzerker charging the lines.
The parody....it writes itself. SNL could run a regular feature on her.
Coulter and Rush clever and self-aware? WTF?
demagogues out of the woodwork.
I can see why Conservatives hate Barney Frank. He treats them like they treated us. And the glasses make Bachmann look smart...then she talks.
this bitch Michele Bachmann is
totally 3 cookies short of a dz.
she is so high on the gop pundit
koolaid she makes from recycled
douche h2o. where was she when
bush/cheney were deceiving the
American public about their entire
administration besides sucking
on bush/cheney skin flutes?
GOP douche water kool aid, classic and classy :)
with less "art" please
I just was reading about this in the Strib. The response:
"According to a spokesman in her office, the Minnesota Republican was speaking metaphorically this weekend when she said in a radio interview that she wants "people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back."
Interesting nugget at the end of the article:
"Bachmann also announced Monday that she has introduced legislation to bar the Obama administration from sending any detainees from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, anywhere in Minnesota."
I am sure Obama is quaking in his boots!
Bachmann is just fundamentally nuts.
She was taken out of context. Of course.
All that matters is getting the dog-whistles out there: armed, dangerous, revolution, fight back.
She wasn't speaking "metaphorically." Michelle Bachmann is just a g'damned liar.
That's exactly what this woman wants. She's the same one who wanted Obama investigated for anti-American views. This woman is absolutely nuts.
how can she say what she said and get away with it. Calling for a revolution? Calling for people in Minnesota to take up arms against Obama? It's one thing for Beck to say it but when an elected official says it, it's called treason.
The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of the Republican party is how much they cherish the concept of freedom. *rolls eyes*
When they say 'freedom,' it's always for themselves, and not for others. When they insist on prohibiting something, it's so they can have it all.
Thats why they demand you worship Jesus
Jesus was sent to earth to forgive, and teach love. We are getting neither from Republicans or Democrats.
My husband is a Democrat and he knows all about that love giving thing. :)
I was only referring to those that are elected to represent us.
she'd have more credibility if she was saying this when George Bush was in power, seen as he is the president who decimated the constitution .
Next stop, Crazy Town, Minnesota!
Minnesota is a pretty liberal state- anyone here from the Twin Cities? What do you think of this wingnut?
sort of an eastern ND? I'd imagine that the metro areas are probably the liberal parts.
I was born and raised in her district. People there enjoy snowmobiling, football, hockey, hunting, and drinking. Following the news, not to mention researching what their reps feed them, are not that important to most that I know. So long as it doesn't impact their families adversely.
I tried hard during the election season to get the word out about the lies that Michelle Bachman is feeding Minnesotans. Unfortunately, a single friend and I going to baseball games to pass out flyers wasn't enough to get the information out in an effective way. The guy she was running against, I can't even remember his name, that's how much of a loser he is. Democrats could get a good person, with good charisma, and take her seat when it comes up next for election.
In short, I can't stand her, and am thankful to have Keith Ellison as my representative in Minneapolis.
No one is blaming you personally. That she was re-elected is sad commentary on the American public, in general.
Please do remind your neighbours (who voted for her) they MUST NOW keep their mouths SHUT.
over a quiet storm that turns into some radical milita because people feel that can't share their thoughts and perspectives. It is our responsibility to inspire these conversations, and to educate.
And a couple other pockets like the Iron Range. So the "Twin Cities" may be literally liberal but many suburbanites are at least as Republican as the farm communities that make up the rural half of the population. Bachmann covers the far northern exurbs -- from the long-standing prison industry in the east to the state college in the west that makes the news every few years for the swastikas that get spray painted around campus. It's "old" Minnesota where the pioneer Maine lumberjacks settled (my mother's side). We were up there this weekend as a matter of fact. The American flag on every overpass on the stretch of state freeway was unique.
That was the mistake of the Franken fanatics -- and, in my opinion, why we still haven't completed our set of Senators -- thinking that Minnesota is still particularly liberal these days. If the economy had rolled belly up in November instead of September, we'd still have Coleman.
But the wingnuts here in MN-6 could give wingnut lessons to other wingnut wannabes throughout the country. And, ye Gods, there's a lot of 'em!
But, if there's any good news, the last election cycle she only won a plurality of votes in the District, not a majority. So, maybe, just maybe, the winds are shifting.
... but if they ever get back in power we're all f@%#ed!
if the Dems keep thinking voters base their decisions on complex intellectual thinking and strategy.
Let your wingnut freak flag fly, high and proud! Don't stop. Please. Keep talking.
Shorter version:
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
unless Abe was also one of the authors of the book of Proverbs. Wilson's expansion, while not as concise, gives a better understanding of why we should let the fools keep talking. They are their own worst enemy.
that people should be "informed," informed defined as having become familiar with facts and context and having thought through the pros and cons, not informed defined as simply agreeing with her.
never occur to these right wing nutbars that what is going on right now is the revolution. They are just too stupid to realize they're on the wrong side of the barricades.
how she slithers her tongue out in that clip? Reptilian brain stem.
For Peter G
Don't tell them that. They'll be against revolutions all of a sudden.
It's a female Glenn Beck.
You know I think some people are so crazy that they can't get jobs so their only recourse is to go into politics. I will submit her as my first example.
All we need is a male Glenn Beck to complete the trilogy.
He would need to be an adult too.
Is this the crazy lady who lept out of her seat to plant a big wet kiss on W. at one of his addresses?
she must be really horny to do that.
in the milk and meat she eats.
She repeatedly asked Geithner and Bernanke what specific part of the Constitution gave them the authority they've used in their jobs since last year. When they tried to explain that they acted under the authority given them by congress -- you know, a law congress passed -- she said, "But what part of the CONSTITUTION?!"
Shouldn't our public officials be required to pass some basic sanity test?
YES!
"Maybe that's why Bachmann's rhetoric has taken a decidedly bunker-like tone. No, really bunker-like:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLjNJI54GMM&fe...
With the Democrats shameless handover of the peoples wealth to Wall Street, Bachmann is the kind of nativist slime that's going to benefit from the peoples anger.A rational, socialist critique of the Democrats will get no hearing in the press.The people, having been propagandized against socialism will find it strange and alien,anyway.One must remember that FDR implemented his plan under much pressure from his left flank.Today, Obama,makes his policies in a post-Mcarthyite America where leading members of the Republicans call him a communist.Not so long ago his policeies would put him squarely in the centre-right....
Marx:
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95. In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue.
http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/1...
I can't believe these people. They think they are hiding, but it is so transparent what these people are up too. They are so afraid that the WASP is in danger of disappearing from the planet they even have the Pope in Africa trying to spread HIV.
not all.
Most people say "oh what an idiot" but that's the depth to which they think about it and then forget it.
... the legions of the stupid will attack anything their leaders tell them to attack.
I can plainly see it.
Oh God, forgive the poor ignorant voters of Minnesota for putting this goof ball back into office. What an embarrassment for ALL the people of Minnesota and the US Congress to have someone so f*cking stupid representing them in our national government.
I'm afraid they deserve what they got. It's a shame, and she's pathetic...but I guess that's how "a republic" government functions. WE elect someone to represent US. Such a shame. This ignorant bitch is a total loon.
Whatever happened to Al Franken (Senate)?
The panel of judges hasn't issued the verdict yet, though.
From what I could glean from the coverage at TPM, Franken should come out the winner...but expect Coleman to appeal.
Appeal or not, Franken will be seated soon.
As this goes worldwide, she's an embarrassment to ALL Americans.
Michelle,
An idiot wearing glasses to appear scholarly is still an idiot.
Can we have a contest guessing how many days it will be before Beck has her on his show?
The great thing about extremist conservative leaders is that, for the most part, they're bonifed dipshits. I had to use the French in order to illustrate my point, which is short: These speakers talk with a rhetoric that is so logically and factually fractured that they're statements end up eating them alive. The real tragedy is that individuals like Bachmann still hold positions of power, which provide them with a larger audience to corrupt the ignorant.
Evan
http://www.beyondrace.com
she is just stupid
i mean, really dumb
her questions in committee were nonsense
he blathering on the radio was worse
"I’m a foreign correspondent on enemy lines and I try to let everyone back here in Minnesota know exactly the nefarious activities that are taking place in Washington."
Hmmm.
I don't know what it is,and I could be wrong,but I just have this funny feeling that Congresswoman Bachmann may not be completely onboard with the President's call for bipartisanship.
Wow! You're good. ;)
Article 1 - The Legislative Branch
Section 8 - Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
...
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
...
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
This reminds me of palin not knowing the vice president job description.
... that, just as there seems to be a special evangelical version of the Bible that excludes gays, liberals, pagans, and minorities, there's a version of the Constitution that does the same.
I ain't Pagan, I'm Wiccae.
godless, heathen, roguish type guy with a heart o' gold I tells ya!
But Minnesota keeps re-electing her. Is there anything to boycott in the area she represents?
Also, isn't 3M from somewhere up there. I won't boycott them if they make a brand of Scotch tape that will keep her mouth shut.
I never use the "c" word, but tell me, is there really NEVER a time when it's appropriate? Please elaborate if not... I need to know before I do anything crazy.
Keep telling yourself that Michelle Bachmann is just a person who cannot understand normal thinking. You will feel better in no time, and you have maintained your principles. ;o}
Isn't that exactly what you are trying to do? Bachmann is a nut job who shouldn't have that office. There should be an IQ test to even qualify to be a represenatative.
the Monty Python gambit. Michele Bachmann is a silly bunt. See. It's easy.
The guy who gave that "boffo" speech that so impressed her according to SourceWatch. This would be the oil industry equivalent of the Aaron Eckhart "Thanks for Smoking" character.
Christopher C. Horner is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a think tank that's received more than $2 million in funding from ExxonMobil since 1998, among other corporate funders. [1]
Horner is a practicing attorney, and at CEI "oversees petitions and litigation on topics including data access and quality laws, the Freedom of Information Act, and government science and agency statutory compliance, and other legal matters involving environment and energy issues, international environmental treaties, and climate policy." [2] His CEI duties also include being counsel to the Cooler Heads Coalition, a global warming skeptics group. He "works on a legal and policy level with numerous think tanks and policy organizations throughout the world," according to his profile on the CEI site.
bachman's problem is no one wants to charge up her hills.
I cannot stand Bachmann. She's one of the worst of the worst.
I seriously doubt she even knows what she is asking. Those questions probably came from some numbnuts staffer who also doesn't know what the questions mean. I'd bet $100 she doesn't know crap about the constitution.
How in the world can a ignoramous, wacked out winger like her win an election is way beyond me.
Much like Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction" after she boiled that poor pet rabbit.
to look like Palin, I mean like she's serious.
A nutjob imitating another nutjob.
That was the first thing that come to mind...she's trying to out-Palin, Palin!
How do people this stupid get elected? Here in my district we just elected a Freshman congresswoman. She's a Democrat who finally beat Phil English. People were just tired of English. Kathy Dalhkamper though has no business being in congress. NONE! The woman is Bachmann less the nice teeth.
..the American people have "spoken" and selected politicians that reflect their own personae instead of politicians that are more knowledgeable than themselves and will better represent the constituents than the "average joe" would.
What is it about our society that is causing us to deny that having smarter people around us is actually good for us??
start giving her food the 'Putin Treatment'? dear God on a stick, can you imagine what it must be like to live with this nightmare of a woman?
...inciting a riot / revolution / whatever of tea-bagging recipients. ;)
Bachmann has to be insane. AND she's watching Glenn Beck at night. Someone should do her a favor and remove the television from her home.
*
Bachman is mis-quoting Jefferson. He said, "A little REBELLION..." not, as Bachman states, "revolution". He was referring to it being a sign that the PEOPLE were retaining interest in politics. It was also from a personal letter to Abigail Adams, not a speech or other public utterance.
BTW, Bachman also immediately uses rhetoric of "We the people.." which is of course the preamble to the Constitution, which Jefferson had nothing to do with. The Constitution is framed specifically to address those issues which might lead to armed insurrection.
They can lock her up. Charge her with Sedition.
*
She's in serious trouble mentally and to Baker Act her would be in her best interests in the long run.
You did mean Florida's Baker Act didn't you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Mental_H...
I saw my fav saying, cognitive dissonance. But the problem with Michelle is that she has no conflict with what she thinks or says. She actually believes in what she says.
The truth may be bouncing around in her head but she is immune to it. She has had the hypertensive pin balls flying around in her head for so long that now she believes it.
I like to think of that as cognitive resonance. The neo-con truth resonates with her.
Sadly, Bachmann's symptoms are "classic" of paranoid schizophrenia. The best thing which could have occurred for her was to have been knocked out of office this last time around. Now she's stuck (and we're stuck with a whacko) for another 2 years. She's incapable of what psychiatrists call "insight"; that is, the ability to see the truth in a given situation.
Insight is not part of Bachman's mental make-up so she continues to create a fiction around what's occurring in the world and in our government.
"armed and dangerous" was just another way of saying "I'm totally screwed up and need help".
Michele: Get the help you need and get it pronto!
Michelle Bachman's symptoms indicate a clear case of "paranoid schizophrenia". This is obvious by just listening to her own words and the way she perceives others.
Ms. Bachmann needs to be relieved of her duties in Congress before she self-destructs. And, rest assured, when she does it won't be pretty.
She has illustrated this repeatedly and continues to do so - essentially this is Michele's "call for help" right now.
She needs psychiatric counseling and psychotropic drug therapy - badly.
bachMan is a knut. she gives hope to those that cling only to guns and the good book.
Bachman is mentally ill - clinically. She's a psycho who is coming apart at the seams. Just watch her and listen carefully to her words - she's becoming "dangerous to herself and to others" so to lock her up under the Baker Act would not be difficult at all; in fact, it would be in the best interest of her colleagues for their safety around her.
Gosh, she put glasses on and everything. She looked really really smart.
This is a hearing, not your own little brush up on economics Michelle. My God, who elected this woman?
Seriously, Matt Taibbi's "The Great Derangement" explains the Michelle Bachmanns of the world very well. Noone understands what is going on with our venerated institutions these days, and noone (rightly) trusts any of our political or media elites any more. There are no more Old Wise Men (except for maybe P. Krugman ;) in whom people can put their trust. So instead they start believing whatever wacked-out theories they come across on the internet--on BOTH the right and the left. How is Bachmann (vile as she is) any more stupid or clinically insane than people who claim that Bush and Co. plotted to murder 3,000 American citizens? Or that the Pentagon is performing secret experiments on Americans by releasing chemicals over densely populated cities at high altitudes? Or that there is a secret cabal of world leaders planning to reduce the world population by 70 percent? Or that the financial global elites are planning to control our every move through implanted chips and are merging all the world institutions into one big global government and single world currency? (anyone seen Zeitgeist?) You watch enough youtube videos on any of these topics, and it all starts to seem plausible. Alex Cockburn, fantastic journalist who writes for Counterpunch, doesn't believe in global warming. Greg Palast (whom I *love*) doesn't believe in "peak oil." I mean if you think about it, Michelle Bachmann, in one way or another, lives inside all of us...
The lady is spewing crap plain and simple. I believe she knows what she says is false and certainly biased towards making Americans believe the democrats are plotting against them, but I believe she simply doesn't care. All she cares about is doing the bidding of her corporate masters, the public be damned.
This makes her a very dangerous woman, as the public has a history of believing propaganda when it is presented over and over and over again as fact.
The best thing that could happen is if she were to be kicked out of congress. The people of Minnesota deserve a better and more honest representative, but for now, they are stuck with HER!
What's with this (feigned) GOP sudden interest in the Constitution. If she wants to open that can of worms...
... A democrat stepped into the office.
So when Bush was in office, she was more like a state propagandist, covering up the nefarious activities happening in Washington and disseminating lies?
All the so-called "dumb blondes" have love it every time she opens her dimwitted mouth.
I guess this is the time.
Enjoy.
Who the hell voted for her? Talk about the idiotic leading the idiots.
...and so is she. But she's overlooked the fact that the latest revolution occurred on November 4, 2008.
Wow she is right, where the heck was she for the psat 8 years. Its about time.
Watch Zeigtgeist and you will know what I am talking about.
Interesting.
Frank of course stopped her when she had him, how disgusting that little troll is.
This lady sounds more like a brainwashed Limbaugh listener/sheeple follower than a leader of the country.
Where did Michelle Bachmann come from?
Katherine Harris and Sarah Palin had a love child...
Login or Register to post comments.