Not that it matters, but Politico has a pretty good explanation of this.

I loved it when John Wayne rode that horse, ringing those bells, telling the Brits that nobody could take away our guns!  Let me just go fix Wikipedia to reflect these facts!

Tamara, you beat me to it! We can only hope... I have to say, both Palin and Bachmann's playing fast and loose with history bothers me to no end. They would totally lose if they went on that show "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?"

Whatever happened to that Constitutional debate challenge that high school kid out east propositioned her with?

@Danny:  Politico?  POLITICO?  Just cite Fox "news" and be done with it.  I bet it was an article by George Will's butt-plug Ben Smith, no?

As an aside....thank goodness Bachmann got in the race.  Another round of palin would tax the soul.

Bachmann will almost certainly be the nominee.

Lojasmo: what is that little bottom left corner of the above YouTube clip?

@Danny: formal challenge:  find a fox news clip which exposes Bachmann's idiocy.

I bet he likes to kick at anthills, too.

I read that RS article via slog last week, via Paul Constant (who's a pretty spot-on political writer, by the by).

What I really like about Michelle is her propensity to r
Literally either run screaming from, or duck behind bushes when in the presence of, gay people.

Truly a class act, that one.

Wow, I thought I had a pretty low opinion of voters, but even I don't think she has a chance in hell of actually being the nominee.

Silly ZRA.  Self awareness is required to experience cognitive dissonance.

Ayn Rand, anyone?

How many foster kids has Bachmann taken care of over the years? 26?

Don't foster parents receive some sort of monthly stipend for being foster parents?

Yet another suckling from the govmint's teat.

You know, Paul, if you didn't tell me it was M Bachmann talking to George Stephanopoulos, I'd have thought it was Sarah Palin. There's the same refusal to answer questions, or to answer questions with a string of words that really don't make a lot of sense, it's not much more than babble so there isn't dead air.

I've heard speculation from a few observers about a possible Palin/Bachmann ticket vs Obama/Biden. OMG. The inmates will surely have taken over the Republican Party insane asylum if that happens, and it will be the death knell of the Republican Party as we have known it.

John Wayne was gay. So was John Wayne Gayce.

Stupid journalists.

I read today that Bachmann is being branded as an "evangelical feminist."

If by "evangelical feminist" you mean "it doesn't matter how educated and how far up the ladder they've climbed, women are just too stupid to be going around making decisions about their own bodies. or voting. or driving cars. except me. and Phyllis Schaffly."

The mere connotation of Evangelical Feminism is oxymoronic at best and sets the actual movement back about a hundred years.

"Evangelical feminists" (God help me if that really is a term) should read The Handmaid's Tale.

Emmadogs, I too think of The Handmaid's Tale whenever I see Bachmann on TV. All I can say is, thank god Canada is close and I have relatives there, if need be.

Claire, I think the same thing.  I don't want to live in a country that necessarily inspires such thoughts. I sincerely wish that someone could point us to a way of freedom.  New York's recent vote on gay marriage is so inspiring.  Our decimation of the Earth is not.  I feel so helpless.  Great local leadership helps, but doesn't solve, our problems.

To everyone saying that Republicans keep taking away the rights of women to make choices about their own bodies, and I have to laugh. Except in rape cases, the woman chose to have sex. The child that resulted did not choose to be concieved, does not have any choice but to rely on the mother, and yet it should be a womans choice to kill it? It isn't a tapeworm or some sort of parasite that chose to enter the body and cause harm. The child is a  product of the choice that the woman made. I agree with abortion in rape cases, incest cases, and in cases where the mother is at risk. I can't agree with the bs reason of it's a womans choice. She made a choice now take responsibility for it and don't choose for the child that has none.

While Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., has forcefully denounced the Medicaid program for swelling the "welfare rolls," the mental health clinic run by her husband has been collecting annual Medicaid payments totaling over $137,000 for the treatment of patients since 2005, according to new figures obtained by NBC News.

The previously unreported payments are on top of the $24,000 in federal and state funds that Bachmann & Associates, the clinic founded by Marcus Bachmann, a clinical therapist, received in recent years under a state grant to train its employees, state records show. The figures were provided to NBC News in response to a Freedom of Information request.

The clinic, based in Lake Elmo, Minn., describes itself on its website as offering "quality Christian counseling" for a large number of mental health problems ranging from "anger management" to addictions and eating disorders.

The $161,000 in payments from the Minnesota Department of Human Services to her husband's clinic appear to contradict some of Michelle Bachmann's public accounts this week when she was first asked about the extent to which her family has benefited from government aid. Contacted this afternoon, Alice Stewart, a spokeswoman for Bachmann, said the congresswoman was doing campaign events and was not immediately available for comment.

Questions about the Bachmann family's receipt of government funds arose this week after a Los Angeles Times story reported that a family farm in which Michelle Bachmann is a partner had received nearly $260,000 in federal farm subsidies.

@Les and all of you with salient points ...SHHHHHHHH! Would you all stop it! REPEAT AFTER ME ... Great Choice Conservos! Can we donate? Can we bring taco salads to your events? Please please PLEASE have the wisdom, foresight and intelligence to bring this BSCrazy to the table.

She is dirty, you have to be clean as a new born baby if you're running for office. Just talking the part isn't going to cut it. Today we have fact checking. The John Wayne gaff is nothing. How about another fat cat getting Government money when she denounces big Government. That is talking out your ass.

Baci, I don't want to get stuck voting for the Dem candidate simply because the BSC Republican candidate is nuts.  I want to have intelligent candidates to choose from.  In the old days, sometimes non-loony-tunes Republicans had better ideas than their Dem counterparts.  I miss those days.  Until McCain took a detour into Crazyville, I was looking forward to a serious debate amongst candidates.  I hope we get that again someday.

^ hahahaha! mb is a twunt.

I tells ya, if abortion, especially early term abortion was less stigmatized and more available there would be far fewer unwanted and abused children. )no I am not saying unwanted children are the only ones abused, but the have a much higher incident rate) I am childless by choice, but I like (most) kids and nothing pisses me off more then people who have kids who obviously don't want them, those kids that get yelled at where ever they are for being... kids

Jadiaz, I'm sorry, but your argument is too absolutist and steeped in culture war language. There are plenty of times precautions are taken but pregnancy ensues, plenty of conceived by drunk, babies, plenty of teens fooling around ... you are not going to stop people from fucking. You may well increase their education level and pass out free contraception and that will indeed cut into the unwanted pregnancy rates, but it won't eliminate it. And it is not "the woman's fault".. or I should say it is as much the man's fault as the woman's. "yeah baby I'll pull out, yeah I got protection.. oh wait nope, but don't be a ball buster..." etc. etc. 

A clump of cells in the first few days and weeks is not a baby, it has the potential to become one, but so...? A mistake of a second that could affect lives negatively for decades and you want that 16 year old to be accountable? That person whose condom broke to be accountable, one too many wine coolers, puffs on the joint, unable to say no. Yeah those people should now be parents.

I fully support the idea that the longer into term the harder it should be to get an abortion, from free and available in the first 2 weeks or so (month?) to counseling and education and providing reasonable justification in the last trimester.

Nowadays there are bills in states across the US being floated that would eliminate all abortions even in cases of rape and incest and threats to the lives of the mother. Seriously. The Overton window has moved to this. We may well be "winning" the gay rights issues, and that makes me happy. But we are losing the abortion issue.

Incidentally "crazy" is not a word that means "I disagree with this person's extreme viewpoint."

"Politics is for suckers."  - Dawn Uftruth, 1767.

Pro-lifers who oppose birth control are hypocrites.  If you oppose abortion, then push, push, push the use of contraception.  If you don't, then prohibiting abortion isn't the most important thing for you; prohibiting sex is.  And that's ridiculous, and a losing bet.

I tried. It doesn't work. I'm still a big ol' gay.

I dare say that I agree with Michelle that government spending is out of control.  We should start by cutting the aide that her husbands clinic (and others like it) receive.

Family Leader has since changed the wording of their pledge to state that African Americans *weren't* better off during slavery...another *gotcha* backpedal...

...though they still believe that being teh gheys is still a choice and an abomination.

I'm hoping it won't be long before Dan Savage throws the Choicer Challenge gauntlet at the feet of Family Leader, and the Bachmann family.

Rick Santorum is the only other candidate that has signed off on the pledge.

I think Santorum signed the original pledge, Tom.

In today's Star Tribune, Michele Bachmann misuses the word "misnomer."