A Graduate From The School Of Glenn “The Prophet” Beck?

Bachmann Predicted The World Would End In 2006: ‘We Are In The Last Days’

As GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-MN) surges in the polls, more information is coming to light about her past that reveal the depths of her political and religious extremism. The Bachmanns’ counseling clinic practices discredited and damaging ex-gay therapy to “cure” homosexuality.

Slate’s Dave Weigel has reported an audio recording of Bachmann praying for the notoriously anti-gay ministry You Can Run But You Can’t Hide, run by the radical preacher Bradlee Dean. Bachmann offered the prayer in 2006 (though the recording was uploaded in 2008). In it, Bachmann predicts, “We are in the last days,” and says, “The harvest is at hand” — a Biblical allusion to the Rapture when some believe God will take saved Christians from the earth and leave the non-believers to face several years of torment and tribulation before the second coming of Christ:

BACHMANN: Lord, the day is at hand. We are in the last days. You are a Jehovah God. We know that the times are in your hands. And we give them to you…The day is at hand, Lord, when your return will come nigh. Nothing is more important than bringing sheep into the fold. Than bringing new life into the kingdom…You have weeded that garden. The harvest is at hand.

As Weigel noted, it’s not terribly surprising that Bachmann is among those evangelical Christians who believe the end of the world is imminent. But it’s still disconcerting that someone campaigning to lead America into the future believes that its days are numbered and millions of its citizens are doomed. Bachmann has toned down her religious rhetoric considerably since hitting the campaign trail.

Also jarring is Bachmann’s belief that “nothing is more important than” converting people before the world ends. As she weighs in on critical debates like whether or not to let the U.S. default on its obligations, it’s troubling that Bachmann is rooting for the apocalypse.

During the prayer session Bachmann asked God to expand the anti-gay ministry of Bradlee Dean. Dean has been described as “Bachmann’s Jeremiah Wright” since his radical statements pose a political problem for the candidate. Dean has repeatedly called for gays and lesbians to be put in prison and has said executing gays is “moral.” He also directs his invective at Muslims and Democrats.

What is this fascination between the radical republican and the end of day’s rhetoric? Bachmann must have been Glenn Beck’s first graduate.


NFTOS

Radical Tea Partier Dumps Radical Church

Michele Bachmann Preemptively Ditches Her Church To Avoid Association With Its Radical Views.

GOP presidential contender Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and her husband Marcus preemptively left their church of more than ten years just weeks before she announced her candidacy to avoid association with its extremist views. Salem Lutheran Church in Stillwater, Minnesota, has faced criticism this week for its anti-Catholic views, including preaching that the Pope is the Antichrist.

Bachmann has long been a favorite of religious conservatives for her outspoken views on her faith, but her decision to sever ties with her church for the sake of her presidential campaign is surprising many:

According to CNN, the church that Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus had attended for more than a decade, Salem Lutheran in Stillwater, Minn., granted the couple’s request to be released from their membership last month, a week after Bachmann told a national audience that she would run for the Republican presidential nomination.

The Bachmanns had approached their pastor and verbally made the request “a few weeks before the church council granted the request,” said Joel Hochmuth, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the governing body for the church.

Bachmann had apparently been distancing herself from the church for some time. Hochmuth said the couple had not been worshiping with the congregation in more than two years.

“We identify the Antichrist as the Papacy,” the denomination’s website says. “This is an historical judgment based on Scripture.” Bachmann has been questioned about her church’s beliefs for years and denounced their anti-Catholicism when she was running for Congress in 2006.  

“It’s abhorrent, it’s religious bigotry,” Bachmann said then. “I love Catholics, I’m a Christian, and my church does not believe that the pope is the antichrist, that’s absolutely false.” She remained a member of the church for years after, but as Bachmann’s political ambitions got bigger, she began to distance herself. When she decided to run for president, Bachmann seemed to realize she could no longer belong to an organization that formally endorses intolerance.

The highly convenient timing of the move clearly indicates this was a shrewd political calculation on Bachmann’s part. It remains to be seen how religious “values voters” will feel about the candidate choosing political opportunism over her church. On the campaign trail Bachmann frequently invokes her faith and proudly speaks about coming to Christ at the age of 16.

CNN notes that Salem Lutheran Church still maintains some ties with the Bachmann family. “It lists a Christian counseling center operated by Bachmann’s husband on its website under special member services for confidential counseling.”

Bachmann must still account for her ongoing connection with other radical preachers and churches, especially Bradlee Dean of the notoriously anti-gay You Can Run But You Can’t Hide ministry. Dean has been described as “Bachmann’s Jeremiah Wright,” and has repeatedly called for gays and lesbians to be put in prison and has said executing gays is “moral.”

Many journalists have observed the parallels between Bachmann leaving her church for political expediency and Barack Obama’s decision to do the same in 2008 after his church’s preacher, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, faced a barrage of criticism for his rhetoric. However, since Bachmann has left one church but still not denounced the teachings of Dean, the analogy has yet to come full circle.


NFTOS

Faux News On It’s Parents

Fox And Friends Defends News Corp’s Hacking Scandal: ‘We Should Move On’

Fox News finally addressed their parent company’s hacking scandal head on this morning, with Fox and Friends launching a comically sycophantic and pathetically inaccurate defense of News Corp. Host Steve Doocy and guest Robert Dilenschneider, a media consultant, agreed News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch has done “all the right things” and argued that the scandal is way overblown. “For some reason, the public, the media, keep going over this, again, and again, and again” the guest said. “It’s too much,” he added, “We should move on.” Doocy agreed, scolding the media for not devoting its time to covering more important issues. (His show later featured a segment on actress Mila Kunis and a performance by second-tier boy band Lifehouse, popular in 2001.)

But their defense of News Corp. really got embarrassing when Dilenschneider and Doocy engaged in some stunning subject/object slight of hand, comparing News Corp. to companies that have been hacked, while failing to note it was News Corp. that did the hacking in this case. “We know it’s a hacking scandal, shouldn’t we get beyond it and deal with the issue of hacking? We have a serious hacking problem in this country,” Dilenschneider reminded us. Listing several companies like CitiGroup that “have been hacked into,” Dilenschneider asked, “Are they getting the same kind of attention for hacking that took place less than a year ago that News Corp is getting today?” “Right,” Doocy said, before noting the Pentagon was also recently hacked.



Prior to this morning, Fox News has done a fairly decent job of covering its parent company’s hacking scandal, giving the story just enough coverage to avoid being accused of ignoring it. According to a Media Matters report, while the network mentioned the story far less than CNN or MSNBC, it did cover it 30 times in the past two weeks and has generally disclosed its relation to News Corp. But this seems to be the first time the network has offered a vigorous defense of the company.

“It’s really very, very scary, and I think we should be very concerned as a public about our privacy and about people getting access to what we have,” Dilenschneider added. Indeed, starting with News Corp.


NFTOS

“It’s Unconstitutional I Tell You”

You can always count on a tea to claim this when an issue doesn't align with their ideology. Which is more often the case of late.

Earlier this week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) proposed an odd way to end the debt ceiling crisis: Republicans will stop holding the economy hostage and effectively allow the debt ceiling to be raised without requiring any budget cuts, if Obama gives them 12 opportunities to bash his fiscal policies.

Sarahnoya Palin

McConnell’s plan to accept political theater as an alternative to drowning the federal government in a bathtub does not please the far right, so they’ve once again fabricated an utterly nonsensical argument why something they don’t like is unconstitutional. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) laid out this argument last night on Fox News:

We will not hand over more power, which I think is unconstitutional, to President Obama to further manipulate our economy. You know, Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution spells out that Congress has the power of the purse strings, so this plan of McConnell’s I think makes no sense because it does cede power to our president and takes away that authority that is inherent in Congress to control the economic decisions that have to be made when it comes to debt.

Here we go again. When President Obama signed a health care law they don’t like, the far right immediately invented an utterly meritless constitutional argument against it. They don’t just support the House GOP’s plan to phase out Medicare, they embrace an absurd claim that Medicare violates the Constitution. If a waiter brings these people a steak that is slightly overcooked, they demand that he take it back because it’s unconstitutional.

So it’s pretty obvious that Palin’s kneejerk attack on the McConnell plan is wholly without merit. First of all, the debt ceiling fight has absolutely nothing to do with whether Congress retains the “power of the purse strings.” Congress exercises this power by passing appropriation bills that authorize the executive branch to spend money, and President Obama is still forbidden from spending money in excess of a congressional appropriation regardless of whether or not we have a debt ceiling.

Similarly, there is absolutely nothing radical about Congress delegating authority to the executive branch. The power to delegate authority is one of Congress’ most well established powers, and it is the reason why federal agencies are allowed to both write regulations and administer funds. Without this power, a functioning federal government cannot exist.

There is no modern Supreme Court case striking down this kind of delegation of power from the legislature to the executive, and the Supreme Court permits such delegations so long as “Congress clearly delineates the general policy, the public agency which is to apply it, and the boundaries of this delegated authority.” McConnell’s plan easily meets this test, it designates the president as the sole authority possessing the delegated authority. It allows him to raise the debt ceiling only in designated intervals and only if he proposes very specific spending cuts, and it places very strict limits on this authority. Because the president is forbidden to spend money in excess of a congressional appropriation, Obama’s delegated power to raise the debt ceiling would be limited by the amount of congressional appropriations.

But, of course, Palin is no more concerned with what the Constitution actually says than are her many conservative allies who claim that child labor laws, Pell Grants, federal student loans, the ban on whites-only lunch counters, and even Medicare and Social Security violate the Constitution.

NFTOS asks why bother to actually read the Constitution when you can just pretend that it says whatever you want, also invoke the founding fathers as well, that seems to get radical teas through anything!


NFTOS

Why Fox News, Rupert Murdoch and News Corp Is A Industry Joke

I found this article on the web to be very insightful and enlightening, especially with all the hoopla over Rupert Murdoch and News Corp phone tapping scandal.

Read it here at NFTOS:

http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/networks/foxnews/foxnews.html

Allegations are that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation bribed police officers and tapped phones, both abroad and potentially in the U.S., may violate U.S. law.

British Prime Minister David Cameron vowed the other day to look into whether 9/11 victims were targeted in Britain's phone hacking scandal, as lawmakers were poised to demand that Rupert Murdoch give up his goal of taking over a lucrative U.K. broadcaster.

The fallout from a phone hacking and police bribery scandal at Murdoch's U.K. newspapers roiled unabated across Britain's political landscape this week and grew near to striking its hardest blow yet at the media baron's global empire.

Many oppenents of Murdoch and News Corp are asking for his head and below is a letter addressed to Attorney General Eric Holder and SEC Chair Mary L. Schapiro demanding a full and immediate investigation into any potential illegal acts by News Corporation and their subsidiaries.

Attorney General Holder:

We are writing to express our concerns of potential corrupt practices by News Corporation. Specifically, there are credible reports that News Corp subsidiaries bribed police offers to obtain information about former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and others. Further, there are reports that News Corp subsidiaries hacked into voicemails of politicians, celebrities and murder victims. Some of this activity may have even occurred on U.S. soil. Although initial reports focused on the UK paper News of the World, recent reports suggest that this disturbing conduct extended to several other News Corp properties.

Given the seriousness of these allegations, we ask that you immediately begin an investigation of all entities controlled by News Corp, including domestic subsidiaries such as Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.

The purpose of the investigation should be to determine whether any conduct by News Corp, domestically or abroad, violated The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 78dd-1, et seq.), the Electronic Privacy Communications Act (18 U.S.C. § 2510-2522) or any other applicable U.S. laws.


cc: SEC Chair, Mary L. Schapiro

We can only imagine that this ugly disgusting modus operandi of Murdoch and News Corp is just the birth of major woes for them. NFTOS has been saying since its inception that News Corp plays by it’s own rules, and now its time to pay the piper!

NFTOS

Tea Party And Schools

Pro-Voucher Tea Party Group Admits It Wants To ‘Shut Down Public Schools And Have Private Schools Only’

 As we have documented, a tightly-knit group of right-wing Political Action Committees (PACs) and corporate foundations have unleashed an assault on public education, pushing school voucher schemes nationwide that would funnell taxpayer dollars away from public schools and toward private schools instead. In doing so, many of these voucher advocates claim they simply want to expand school choice and improve the quality of education for all.

Yet one group that has been influential in the school voucher push — the Independence Hall Tea Party, which has run a major PAC that operates in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania — is finally admitting that its true goal is to abolish public education.

In a series of e-mails and interviews, Teri Adams, the president of the Idependence Hall Tea Party Association, explains that her organization is involved in its voucher advocacy because it believes “public schools should go away.” Adams said that their ultimate goal is to “shut down public schools and have private schools only“:

“We think public schools should go away,’’ says Teri Adams, the head of the Independence Hall Tea Party and a leading advocate — both in New Jersey and Pennsylvania — of passage of school voucher bills. The tea party operates in those two states and Delaware. They should “go away,” she says, because “they are hurting our children.’’ [...] Adams says the current voucher program “discriminates” against wealthier students by providing public subsidies only to inner-city children in allegedly failing schools. Her group’s e-mails pushing vouchers caught the attention of James Kovalcin of South Brunswick, a retired public school teacher who asked Adams for clarification. She responded via email: “Our ultimate goal is to shut down public schools and have private schools only, eventually returning responsibility for payment to parents and private charities. It’s going to happen piecemeal and not overnight. It took us years to get into this mess and it’s going to take years to get out of it.”

“It’s refreshing to see a vouchers promoter who is honest about her real intent — to destroy public education,” responded Julia Rubin, a spokeswoman for Save Our Schools, a New Jersey organization that is opposing the voucher push in the state. “Fortunately, most New Jersey residents understand how devastating vouchers would be for our excellent public schools.”

NFTOS

The Hypocrisy Of Bachmann

Bachmann was a tax collector for what She’s Called ‘The most heartless organization that anyone knows of" .

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), a 2012 GOP presidential hopeful, has continually touted her time as a “federal tax attorney” to bolster her economic credentials. “I’m a former federal tax litigation attorney. My husband and I started a successful company. We’re business people. We’re job creators,” Bachmann has said.

But as National Journal noted, Bachmann leaves out a key part of the story — her job was to sue taxpayers on behalf of the United States government:

You’ll never guess what Michele Bachmann, the rabble-rousing, tax-reviling, government-bashing idol of America’s tea party movement, used to do for a living. Sue tax scofflaws for the Internal Revenue Service.

As she flexes her credentials as a Republican presidential candidate in a field of former governors and corporate executives, Bachmann is more likely to describe herself as a “former federal tax litigation attorney’’—as she did in her first nationally televised debate—than as a three-term member of Congress. But she rarely, if ever, mentions the one and only employer of her legal services: the U.S. Department of Treasury.

During an interview with the conservative publication Newsmax, Bachmann derided the IRS as “the most heartless organization that anyone knows of.” At other times, she has called the IRS a “new social welfare agency,” that will have “the right to confiscate our tax refunds.” But an Associated Press report during
Bachmann’s 2006 Congressional campaign “cited Bachmann’s (now-defunct) web site, http://www.keepitpositive06.com, where she said she was proud of her work for the Treasury Department.”  
Bachmann has also used the IRS as a whipping boy during her crusade against the Affordable Care Act, falsely claiming that the ACA would empower IRS agents to enforce the law. Factcheck.org called this claim “flat-out wrong.”

Bachmann is taking a rabidly anti-tax position during the campaign, saying that she favors the highly regressive Fair tax (even as she advocates for a tax plan that would raise taxes on low- and and middle-income households). And once upon a time, she helped the government agency that she now ceaselessly attacks collect the very taxes she now rails against.


NFTOS

Tea Party POTUS Hopeful Wishes Ills On America So Campaign Thrives

Bachmann: ‘I Hope’ Higher Unemployment Will Help My Campaign.

Appearing on CNBC this morning, presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was asked about this morning’s dismal jobs report and whether higher unemployment rates might help her chances of winning in 2012. “Does it strike you that as the unemployment rate goes up, your chances of winning office also go up?” host Carl Quintanilla asked. “Well, that could be. Again, I hope so,” Bachmann replied. Watch it here at NFTOS:



While it’s of course acceptable for Bachmann to campaign on wanting to turn the economy around, it’s another matter entirely when she actively pursues policies that make the economy worse — while hoping it will help her campaign.


NFTOS

Wisconsin Govna Scott “Koch whore” Walker Continues Down Radical Path

While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, it’s helping a different group in Wisconsinites — inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state.

Scott "Koch Whore" Walker

As the Madison Capital Times reports, “Besides losing their right to negotiate over the percentage of their paycheck that will go toward health care and retirement, unions also lost the ability to claim work as a ‘union-only’ job, opening the door for private workers and evidently even inmates to step in and take their place.” Inmates are not paid for their work, but may receive time off of their sentences.

The law went into effect last week, and Racine County is already using inmates to do landscaping, painting, and another basic maintenance around the county that was previously done by county workers. The union had successfully sued to stop the country from using prison labor for these jobs last year, but with Walker’s new law, they have no recourse.

The Washington Examiner called Racine’s move “another success story” and “all great news for Wisconsin taxpayers. Hopefully, we’ll see more of it.” So far, it appears no other jurisdiction has followed Racine’s example — for now. It may just be a matter of time to allow existing union contracts to expire. The spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office of Dane County, which includes Madison, said, “Nobody in our jail will be benefiting…at this time” from the new law, but the left the door open for future changes.

While giving prisoners more work and activity options is generally positive, using free inmate labor to replace public sector workers is a disturbing trend.


NFTOS

Leave It To The Republicans

Ohio GOP Weakens Election Law By Allowing Poll Workers To Refuse To Inform Voters Where They Can Vote.

Last week, the GOP-led House passed an election law overhaul without the highly restrictive voter ID provision. However, the House tweaked the bill to weaken a law mandating poll workers to direct voters in the wrong precinct to their correct voting location. Under the new language, a poll worker need not direct a voter to where they are eligible, adding that “it is the duty of the individual casting the ballot to ensure that the individual is casting that ballot in the correct precinct.”

Allowing poll workers to refuse to help those who are legitimately confused about where they should vote opens the door for increased voter suppression. As state Sen. Nina Turner (D) pointed out, “Voting in the wrong precinct led to over 14,000 registered voters statewide to lose their vote in 2008.” Rating the statement “true,” Politifact reports:

The second most common reason the ballot was not counted was because while the person was properly registered to vote in Ohio, they cast the ballot in the wrong county or precinct. In all, 14,335 such ballots were not counted for this reason, according to the Brunner report.

Of those 14,000-plus ballots, 3,423 were cast in Cuyahoga County, home to Turner’s district and by far the county with the most uncounted provisional ballots during the November 2008 elections due to wrong place filings.

As the Cleveland Plain Dealer pointed out, mixing up precincts “most often occurs” in “urban and impoverished areas of the state,” leading Turner to sarcastically suggest of Republicans, “I guess the loss of votes for some doesn’t matter.” The bill now heads to Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) for signature.

If you can't win honestly....cheat and deceive at all costs!



NFTOS

Economics 101

Bachmann Fails Economics 101: ‘A Dollar In 2011 Should Be The Same As A Dollar In 1911′


Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) officially kicked off her presidential campaign this week with a three-state tour through Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Her South Carolina swing culminated in a town hall event Wednesday evening at Winthrop University in Rock Hill. A thousand people came out to see the Congresswoman field softball questions like “Where do you stand on abortion?” from audience members and via Facebook, with 500 people spilling into an overflow room.

No one questions Bachmann’s conservative bona fides, but when she tried to appeal to goldbugs in the audience, she seemed more uncertain of her footing. In response to an audience question, Bachman proudly said she has signed on to Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) plan to audit the Federal Reserve. In an apparent attempt to prove she’s on board with people who believe gold is a more stable and reliable form of currency than the dollar, she then made a series of laughably uninformed economic claims:

BACHMANN: The shorthand way of describing to you what quantitative easing is is a license to print money without any value behind it…In the last two years of the Obama administration, if you pull a dollar out of your pocket, you have lost 14 percent of the value of that dollar. That means the federal government has stolen that money from you… They’ve been printing essentially valueless money and flooding it into the money supply. I don’t stand for that. A dollar in 2011 should be the same as a dollar in 1911. A dollar should be worth a dollar.

 

 
A dollar in 1911 had the same buying power as slightly more than $23 today. Bachmann doesn’t seem to understand that the dollar’s value naturally changes over time and accompanies economic growth — and that’s a good thing. Furthermore, the U.S. experienced inflation even when it was on the gold standard (which ended in 1971). Additionally, gold’s value isn’t fixed and also fluctuates over time — for instance, price of gold is currently at a record high.

So being on the gold standard and keeping a constant dollar value are inconsistent proposals. To achieve 0 percent inflation — which is itself an absurd idea, even according to Republican economists — a country would need an independent central bank.

As we have reported, gold bugs in the Tea Party have been playing an important role in the early states, and have made returning to the gold standard a litmus test for GOP candidates. Republican politicians have increasingly pandered to the far-right base by endorsing loony gold schemes, such as when presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty derided the U.S. dollar as a “fiat currency” — “a signal to a narrow constituency of voters who believe that America’s woes began when it abandoned the gold standard.”


NFTOS

Independence Day

Happy 4th of July From NFTOS

26 Percent Of Americans Don’t Know U.S. Declared Independence From Great Britain.

According to a new poll by Marist, more than a quarter of Americans couldn’t correctly identify the country from which the United States declared its independence. While 74 percent correctly named Great Britain, 20 percent said they weren’t sure and six percent named other countries. In the South, 32 percent of respondents either responded incorrectly or weren’t sure. The poll comes on the heels of test scores that showed few American students gaining proficiency in U.S. history, a problem presidential candidate Rick Santorum blamed on the “conscious effort” by “the left” to keep Americans uninformed.


NFTOS

This Is How Much They Care

Minnesota Government Shuts Down As Republicans Refuse To Raise Taxes On Millionaires.

Minnesota’s government will be shutdown over the Fourth of July weekend as the state’s Republican-controlled state legislature and Democratic governor failed to reach an agreement to close a $5 billion budget deficit before midnight. To close the deficit, Gov. Mark Dayton (D) proposed raising taxes on people making over $1 million a year. Republicans, who took control of both houses last November and campaigned on a platform of no tax increases, are digging in their heels and insist on reducing the deficit through major budget cuts.

This state battle closely mirrors the one on the national stage over the debt ceiling:

Without a two-year budget agreement in place, state parks and the Minnesota Zoo will be shut for the July 4 holiday weekend, nonemergency road construction will halt and thousands of state workers will be furloughed.

Government functions deemed critical by a county judge on Wednesday will keep operating, including the state patrol, prisons and the Medicaid health-insurance program for the poor. Courts will stay open, and welfare and food-stamp payments will continue.

Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, a Republican, said late Thursday that the state’s health and human-services budget was a sticking point in the negotiations.

Ms. Koch was interrupted several times by protestors in the Capitol chanting, “Tax the rich

The effects were reportedly already being felt hours ahead of the deadline, as people rushed to get driver’s and fishing licenses, and “park officials began warning campers to pack their gear and leave.”
Dayton is standing by his plan to raise taxes on millionaires in order to spare cuts in services to the most vulnerable residents. He told reporters late Thursday, “This is a night of deep sorrow for me because I don’t want to see this shutdown occur. But I think there are basic principles and the well-being of millions of people in Minnesota that would be damaged not just for the next week or whatever long it takes, but the next two years and beyond with these kind of permanent cuts in personal care attendants and home health services and college tuition increases.”

This is Minnesota’s second government shutdown in the last six years. The first occurred in 2005 under then-Governor Tim Pawlenty (R), and lasted only a few days. However, this year’s shutdown is “expected to become the broadest shutdown of state services in its history.”

Hopefully America has learned its lesson about voting for radical righties, we are now paying a severe price
everywhere we turn due to the mid-term landslide. Republican choke and puke politics, a ideology better left in your nearest landfill!.

NFTOS

Barbarians I say

Bachmann’s Husband Calls Homosexuals ‘Barbarians’ Who ‘Need To Be Educated’ And ‘Disciplined’.

When trying to figure out where presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) gets her stringent, anti-gay views, you only have to look as far as her husband. Dr. Marcus Bachmann, who has described himself as his wife’s “strategist,” runs a Christian-based counseling center in Minnesota that has been rumored to offer reparative treatment for those looking to “ungay” themselves.

Just last summer, Dr. Bachmann explained his position on homosexuality while offering theoretical advice to parents concerned that one of their children was gay.

BACHMANN: We have to understand: barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined. Just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road. That’s what is called the sinful nature. We have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures not to encourage such thoughts and feelings from moving into the action steps…

And let’s face it: what is our culture, what is our public education system doing today? They are giving full, wide-open doors to children, not only giving encouragement to think it but to encourage action steps. That’s why when we understand what truly is the percentage of homosexuals in this country, it is small. But by these open doors, I can see and we are experiencing, that it is starting to increase.

Listen here at NFTOS:


Along with offering faith-based counseling at his clinic, Bachmann also gives presentations at various conferences. In November 2005, he and Rep. Bachmann both ran sessions at a “Minnesota Pastors’ Summit” in Eden Prairie, Minnesota: hers focused on the gay marriage amendment she was trying to push through the state legislature, and his was titled “The Truth About the Homosexual Agenda.”

One of the people present for Dr. Bachmann’s talk almost had to leave the room because “there was so much bile.” Curt Prins, a marketing executive who identifies as gay, reported that Bachmann believed homosexuality was a “choice” rather than due to genetics:

The climax of the presentation was when, according to Prins, Bachmann brought up “three ex-gays, like part of a PowerPoint presentation.” The trio, two white men and a black woman, all testified that they had renounced their homosexuality. “One of them said, ‘If I was born gay, then I’ll have to be born again,’” Prins recalls. “The crowd went crazy.”

After seeing her husband’s virulent remarks, it’s no surprise then that Michele Bachmann has fiercely disparaged the gay community and has announced she’s in favor of an anti-gay marriage amendment on the campaign trail. What’s the most terrifying isn’t what Dr. Bachmann said, but the threat that the United States could elect a president who believes that homosexuality can be disciplined out of someone.

NFTOS

The Fears Of A Clown

Fears of a clown Glenn Beck

Deep down, past the creepy post-apocalyptic conservative rhetoric like "we surround them" and "you are not alone," who is Glenn Beck? "A rodeo clown," he told the New York Times. Or maybe worse.

I’m a rodeo clown,” he said in an interview, adding with a coy smile, “It takes great skill.

NFTOS Editor-in-Chief Roger West says "it may look like fun and games to the people in the stands, but this is serious business, and not just any clown can do it.

A Sampling of What NFTOS Will Miss Most from Glenn Beck's Fox News Show.


 
 
NFTOS

Bachmann Can't Get It Right So.....

Tea partier edits John Quincy Adams Wikipedia Page To Describe Him As A ‘Founding Father'.

GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann is now getting the Sarah Palin treatment on Wikipedia. In light of Bachmann’s latest historical hiccup, people are trying to edit John Quincy Adam’s Wikipedia page to reflect her recent gaffe. One edit, for example, changes his description from “John Adams was the sixth President of the United States” to “John Adams, a founding father, was the sixth President of the United States.”

Another more satirical edit added, “But even as an embryo, John Quincy Adams could feel pain and was a Founding Father.” In striking the revisions, the page administrator included the statement, “Please don’t edit an historical article based on current events.” Incidentally, the Founding Fathers Wikipedia page still does not list John Quincy Adams as a member.

We @ NFTOS love it when the party has to cover for the town buffoon, or in this instance the town buffoons! (Palin and Bachmann) Wouldn't' they make for a great radical right ticket? Dumb and Dumber.

NFTOS



Is The NY Times Helping Andrew Breitbart Lie?

In today's New York Times profile, Jeremy Peters writes of Andrew Breitbart's smear of Shirley Sherrod (emphasis added):

Less than ethical Andie Breitbart

The most notorious video he put up -- one that almost ruined his career -- was a two-minute clip of Ms. Sherrod, a black Agriculture Department official, telling an N.A.A.C.P. gathering that she did not help a white man as much as she could have with his failing farm. The headline said "NAACP Awards Racism."  

The most notorious video he put up -- one that almost ruined his career -- was a two-minute clip of Ms. Sherrod, a black Agriculture Department official, telling an N.A.A.C.P. gathering that she did not help a white man as much as she could have with his failing farm. The headline said "NAACP Awards Racism."

But when the N.A.A.C.P. released a longer version of the video, it showed clearly that Ms. Sherrod's story was about overcoming racial prejudice, and that she did indeed go to great lengths to help the farmer. Defending himself, Mr. Breitbart said that the video came to him already edited, and that the crowd applauded when Ms. Sherrod said she did not help the man.

Critics seized on it as evidence that Mr. Breitbart selectively chooses content that reflects poorly on political opponents. But the episode only seemed to help bolster his status as a rising star on the political right.

Let's ignore how pathetic it is that part of Breitbart's defense is that he didn't care enough about the facts to find the full context of that video clip before he posted it on his website. Instead, let's focus on the way that the Times' Peters allows Breitbart to lie about the content of that clip.

Whether "the crowd applauded when Ms. Sherrod said she did not help the man" is not an opinion; it is an assertion of fact that can easily verified. One can go to Breitbart's website, find that clip, and listen for the alleged applause that Breitbart is citing to defend himself. It doesn't take long to do this bare minimum of fact-checking; the out-of-context clip is only 2 minutes 36 seconds long. Go ahead and watch it. I'll wait.  

Did you hear the applause? Of course not: It doesn't exist. But rather than actually attempting to verify Breitbart's claims, Peters simply reports them. Which is a smart thing to do when you're profiling a known liar.

This is not a new defense for Breitbart; he literally has been lying about this for 11 months. In interviews on July 20 and July 21 of last year, after his Sherrod smear had been completely debunked, Breitbart desperately tried to maintain his credibility by making up the applause story. As media began uncritically reporting his new claim, we did the due diligence that they (and Peters) did not, and actually reviewed the tape.

We found that, contrary to Breitbart's claim, the audience does not applaud at any point during Sherrod's story about her interaction with the farmer. We weren't the only ones to come to this conclusion. CNN's Anderson Cooper and NBC's Chuck Todd also checked the video and reported that Breitbart's claim was false.

You know who else debunked Andrew Breitbart's claim? Andrew Breitbart! In his initial post on the Sherrod clip, the one he says was supposed to definitively prove that the "NAACP Awards Racism," Breitbart didn't report that "the crowd applauded when Ms. Sherrod said she did not help the man"; he instead said that their reaction was one of "nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement" (reactions explained by the fact that the clip leaves out that Sherrod previewed her story by explaining that it was one of redemption). If he really thought they were applauding, why didn't he mention that?

Because he's lying. And so we ask again: Why is the NY Times helping him lie?


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Are You Kidding Me

Victims Testify: North Carolina Forcibly Sterilized Thousands Of Poor, Uneducated, And Mentally Unstable People.

Forced sterilization is a human rights abuse we typically associate with another time and another place. But yesterday a North Carolina task force heard heart-wrenching testimony from some of the victims of the state’s 40-year-long forced sterilization program that targeted poor, undereducated, and mentally unstable residents.

North Carolina is considering compensating some of the nearly 7,600 victims of the program or their relatives. The program was overseen by the North Carolina Board of Eugenics and persisted well into the 1970s. Some of the victims were as young as 10 years old, and many were poor women the state deemed too “promiscuous” to be good mothers:

Nearly 7,600 men, women and children as young as 10 were sterilized under North Carolina’s eugenics laws. While other state sterilization laws focused mainly on criminals and people in mental institutions, North Carolina was one of the few to expand its reach to women who were poor.

Sterilization was seen as a way to limit the public cost of welfare. Social workers would coerce women to have the operation under threat of losing their public assistance.

The North Carolina Eugenics Board was created in 1933 and operated for decades with little public scrutiny. It used rudimentary IQ tests and gossip from neighbors to justify sterilization of young girls from poor families who hung around the wrong crowd or didn’t do well in school. Girls like 13-year-old LeLa Dunston, who had just had a baby. Dunston is now 63.

Victims and family members packed into a room at a Department of Agriculture office building Wednesday to hear stories from survivors. One who testified was Elaine Riddick, who was sterilized without her knowledge at the age of 14 after she was raped and became pregnant. The state said Riddick “was promiscuous and didn’t get along well with others.” “They cut me open like I was a hog,” Riddick said.  

NPR points out that just 40 years ago, “it wasn’t uncommon for a single mother on welfare, or a patient in a mental hospital in North Carolina, to be sterilized against her will.” More than half the states had eugenics laws, but unusually, North Carolina conducted most of its sterilizations after World War II and the atrocities of Nazi eugenics programs came to light.

Seven states, including North Carolina, have issued apologies to the victims of forced sterilization programs, but North Carolina would be the first to compensate them. An estimated 3,000 victims are still living and could qualify, depending on what the state task force decides in its preliminary recommendation, which are due out in August.

Utterly digusting, and their is not enough money in the world to compensate what these victims where exposed too!


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Fox News Upset Becasuse Comedian Calls Spade A Spade

Spade a spade

But...............Jon Stewart Gets It Right About Faux News!

Here is what started it all:

The Daily Show - Fox News False Statements
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Faux News has attacked Daily Show host Jon Stewart for claiming that Fox News viewers are "the most consistently misinformed viewers" of cable news. However, Stewart was correct -- Faux News consistently misinforms its viewers, and its viewers are found among the most likely to hold misinformed beliefs about current events.

Stewart: "Who Is The Most Consistently Misinformed Media Viewers? ... Faux Viewers, Consistently, Every Poll."

See the truth in how misinformed Faux viewers really are:

Jon Stewart Criticizes Fox News For Having "Consistently Misinformed" Viewers

PolitiFact.com Dubiously Rates Stewart's Remarks "False"

Fox News Cites PolitiFact.com's Analysis Of Stewart To Attack "Stewart's Spin"

However, PolitiFact's Analysis Has Been Widely Criticized

And Polls Have Proven Stewart Correct: Fox News Viewers Are Consistently Misinformed

Indeed, Fox Repeatedly Misinforms Its Viewers

And know surprise that these Orders To Misinform Come Straight From The Top

Blog brought to you by MediaMatters For America.

 
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Pay Increases While Taxes Decrease

For 32 corporations that is - 32 Corporations Spent More On Compensation For Top Executives In 2010 Than They Paid In Income Taxes.  

Over the last few decades, executive pay at large corporations has skyrocketed. Today, American CEOs make 263 times the average compensation for American workers, up from the 30 to 1 ratio in the 1970s. In 2010 alone, CEO pay went up 27 percent while average worker pay went up just 2 percent.

At the same time, corporate tax revenue has plunged to historic lows. During the 1960s, for instance, the United States consistently raised nearly 4 percent of GDP in corporate revenue. During the 1970s, the total was still above 2.5 percent of GDP. But the U.S. now raises less than 1.5 percent of GDP from the corporate income tax.

According to a new report called “S.& P. 500 Executive Pay: Bigger Than …Whatever You Think It Is,” put together by the independent research firm R. G. Associates, there are currently 32 companies that actually spent more on compensation for their top executives in 2010 than they paid in corporate income taxes:

Total executive pay increased by 13.9 percent in 2010 among the 483 companies where data was available for the analysis. The total pay for those companies’ 2,591 named executives, before taxes, was $14.3 billion…Warming to his subject, Mr. Ciesielski also determined that 158 companies paid more in cash compensation to their top guys and gals last year than they paid in audit fees to their accounting firms. Thirty-two companies paid their top executives more in 2010 than they paid in cash income taxes.

This isn’t really surprising when you consider that several of the largest U.S. corporations simply paid no taxes at all last year. General Electric, for instance, made more than $5 billion last year, but had a tax rate of -64 percent, meaning it received billions in tax benefits. Boeing hasn’t paid any federal income tax in three years, while CEO Jim McNerny made $19 million last year.

At the moment, a slew of multinational corporations — who already pay exceedingly low taxes — are lobbying for yet another tax boondoggle that would cost the government nearly $80 billion in revenue over the next ten years. With corporate taxes already so low, and corporations flush with cash and paying tens of millions to their CEOs, there’s little reason to grant these huge companies yet another giant tax giveaway.


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Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures

Shame Of America: Desperate Man Robs Bank For One Dollar In Order To Go To Jail To Get Health Coverage.

James Richard Velone

James Richard Verone woke up June 9 with a sense of anticipation.
He took a shower.
Ironed his shirt.
Hailed a cab.
Then robbed a bank.
He wasn’t especially nervous. If anything, Verone said he was excited to finally execute his plan to gain access to free medical care.“I prepared myself for this,” Verone said from behind a thick glass window in the Gaston County Jail Thursday morning.Verone spoke calmly about the road that led him to a jail cell he shares with a young man arrested for stealing computers. The 59-year-old man apologized for squinting. He hadn’t gotten his eyeglasses returned to him since being arrested a week ago. He smiled from the other side of the glass, sometimes gesturing with his hands. A plastic, red bracelet with his mug shot clung to his left wrist. Until last week Verone had never been in trouble with the law. Now he hopes to be booked as a felon and held in prison where he can be treated for several physical afflictions.

James Richard Verone of North Carolina spent his whole life playing by the rules and staying out of trouble. Having worked as a delivery man for Coca Cola for 17 years, Verone was known as a hard worker and honest man.

Yet when he was laid off from Coca Cola three years ago, Verone was desperate to find work. He eventually found employment as a convenience clerk, yet he began to notice a protrusion in his chest. He developed arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome, and soon the pain became too much for him to bear. He filed for disability, but he was denied any sort of coverage by the federal government.

So earlier this month, Verone drove to a local RBC Bank and told the teller he was robbing them for a dollar. He said he wanted to rob the bank in order to go to jail and get medical coverage:

Verone didn’t want to scare anyone. He executed the robbery the most passive way he knew how. He handed the teller a note demanding one dollar, and medical attention. “I didn’t have any fears,” said Verone. “I told the teller that I would sit over here and wait for police.”

Verone says he’s not a political man. But he has a lot to say on the subject of socialized medical care. He suspects he wouldn’t be talking to a reporter through a metal screen wearing an orange jumpsuit if such an option were available in the U.S. “If you don’t have your health you don’t have anything,” said Verone. The man has high hopes with his recent incarceration. He has seen several nurses and has an appointment with a doctor Friday.The ideal scenario would include back and foot surgery and a diagnosis and treatment of the protrusion on his chest, he said.

Verone told the local press he would like to serve in prison long enough to be able to get out in time to collect Social Security benefits that he paid into his entire life. He also hopes to be able to retire along a beach some day. Verone says that he doesn’t regret landing behind bars and that he had no choice. Between continuing a life in pain and choosing prison, he is happy with his decision. “If I had not exercised all the alternatives I would be sitting here saying, ‘Man I feel bad about it,’” he said. “I picked jail.” The United States is the only wealthy country that does not offer comprehensive universal health care to every citizen; in no other rich country would anyone be faced with such a choice.

Call Obama's healthcare what you want....what does it say about America with so many without affordable healthcare? What does it say when a man is willing to go to prison for his health..... a sad day indeed Mr/Ms. Republican......shame on you!

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Some Have Done Less And Been Fired

Justices Have Been Forced To Resign For Doing What Clarence Thomas Has Done.

Justice Clarence Thomas is an ethics problem in a black robe. Just eight months after the story of Thomas’ attendance at a Koch-sponsored political fundraiser, we learn that Thomas doesn’t just do unethical favors for wealthy right-wing donors — they also do expensive favors for him.

Leading conservative donor Harlan Crow, whose company often litigates in federal court, donated $500,000 to allow Thomas’s wife to start a Tea Party group and he once gave Thomas a $19,000 Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass. The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank which frequently files briefs in Thomas’ Court, also gave Thomas a $15,000 gift.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because America has seen this movie before. Indeed, the Thomas scandal is little more than a remake of the forty year-old gifting scandal that brought down Justice Abe Fortas. Like Thomas, Fortas liked to associate with wealthy individuals with potential business before his Court. And like Thomas, Fortas took inappropriate gifts from his wealthy benefactors.

Disgraced Former Justice Abe Fortas

Fortas’ questionable gifts first came out when President Johnson nominated him for a promotion to Chief Justice of the United States in 1968. Fortas had accepted $15,000 to lead seminars at American University — far more than the university normally paid for such services — and the payments were bankrolled by the leaders of frequent corporate litigants including the vice president of Phillip Morris. Fortas survived this revelation, although his nomination for the Chief Justiceship was filibustered into oblivion.

Just a year later, the country learned that Fortas took another highly questionable gift. In 1966, one year after Fortas joined the Court, stock speculator Louis E. Wolfson’s foundation began paying Fortas an annual retainer of $20,000 per year for consulting services. Fortas’ actions were legal, and he eventually returned the money after Wolfson was convicted of securities violations and recused himself from Wolfson’s case, but the damage to Fortas — and the potential harm to the Supreme Court’s reputation — were too great. Fortas resigned in disgrace.

It is difficult to distinguish Fortas’ scandal from Thomas’. Like Fortas, Thomas accepted several very valuable gifts from parties who are frequently interested in the outcome of federal court cases. One of Thomas’ benefactors has even filed briefs in his Court since giving Thomas a $15,000 gift, and Thomas has not recused himself from each of these cases.

Of course, Thomas is also the least likely Justice to actually follow the command of precedent. Thomas embraces a discredited theory of the Constitution which would return America to a time when federal child labor laws were considered unconstitutional. His fellow justices criticize him for showing “utter disregard for our precedent and Congress’ intent.” Even ultra-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia finds Thomas’ approach to the law too extreme — in Scalia’s words “I am a textualist. I am an originalist. I am not a nut.”

But Thomas’ disregard for what has come before him changes nothing about the precedent he faces. If Abe Fortas had to resign his seat, so too should Clarence Thomas.


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Scott Walker Lies Yet Again

Scott Walker Violates Transparency Pledge Again With 3:00 AM Vote.

At 3:00 a.m. Thursday morning, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature passed Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) budget, which makes draconian cuts to education and social services, and ends tax breaks for low- and middle-income households.

The late-night vote, which came after 13 hours of debate, flies directly in the face of a commitment Walker made on the campaign trail, when he promised to end late-night votes because “nothing good happens after midnight”:

He promised to sign legislation if elected governor that prohibits the Legislature from voting after 10 p.m. or before 9 a.m. “I have two teenagers and I tell them that nothing good happens after midnight. That’s even more true in politics,” he said in a statement. “The people of Wisconsin deserve to know what their elected leaders are voting on.”

Walker and the GOP legislature had already violated the pledge in March when the Assembly passed at 1:17 a.m. the governor’s infamous budget repair bill, which stripped public employees of their collective bargaining rights.

The state GOP has been rushing to pass as much legislation as possible because they fear losing control of the Legislature after a slew of upcoming recall elections targeting Republicans in the state Senate, as the New York Times recently reported.

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Michele Bachmann Tries To Be Exclusive On The Absurd

Earlier this week, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) announced she had filed the papers to run for President. It’s not a frivolous pursuit: She is extremely well liked by the Republican base and is an unusually effective fundraiser, taking in more dollars in the last election cycle she than any of her Congressional colleagues.

Still, Bachmann’s candidacy is not without potential landmines. Over the last decade, she has taken positions that are dangerous, stemming from her radical ideology. To Bachmann’s credit, she is aware of this, lamenting to Glenn Beck, “I have experienced that throughout my political career, being labeled a kook.”

Assembled are 10 of the nuttiest things Bachmann has ever said:

BACHMANN WARNED ‘THE LION KING’ WAS GAY PROPAGANDA: At the November 2004 EdWatch National Education Conference, Bachmann said the “normalization” of homosexuality would lead to “desensitization”: “Very effective way to do this with a bunch of second graders, is take a picture of ‘The Lion King’ for instance, and a teacher might say, ‘Do you know that the music for this movie was written by a gay man?’ The message is: I’m better at what I do, because I’m gay.”

BACHMANN CLAIMED ABOLISHING THE MINIMUM WAGE WOULD CREATE JOBS: While testifying in front of the Minnesota Senate in 2005, Bachmann said, “Literally, if we took away the minimum wage — if conceivably it was gone — we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.” This isn’t remotely true. Even simply reducing the minimum wage would, as Paul Krugman noted, “at best do nothing for employment; more likely it would actually be contractionary.”

BACHMANN CLAIMED THAT SCIENTISTS ARE SUPPORTERS OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN: During a 2006 debate, Bachmann said, “There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.” This was, and is, not true.

BACHMANN CLAIMED TERRI SCHIAVO WAS ‘HEALTHY’: Not long after Terri Schiavo died, Bachmann said she would have voted for the Palm Sunday Compromise because Schiavo “was healthy. She had brain damage — there was brain damage, there was no question. But from a health point of view, she was not terminally ill.” An autopsy found that Schiavo had suffered irreversible brain damage and her brain, said the medical examiner, was “profoundly atrophied.”

BACHMANN LIKENED VISITING IRAQ TO VISITING MALL OF AMERICA: In 2007, Bachmann returned from a junket to Iraq and told her colleagues, “[T]here’s a commonality with the Mall of America, in that it’s on that proportion. There’s marble everywhere. The other thing I remarked about was there is water everywhere.” As ThinkProgress documented at the time, the comparison was preposterous.

BACHMANN CLAIMED THAT CARBON DIOXIDE IS ‘HARMLESS’: In 2008, a Stanford scientist revealed “direct links” between increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and “increases in human mortality” — globally, he found that as many as “20,000 air-pollution-related deaths per year per degree Celsius may be due to this greenhouse gas.” The next year, Bachmann, who is not a scientist, said that “carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.”

BACHMANN CALLED FOR A CONGRESSIONAL WITCH HUNT: Pivoting off the news of Barack Obama’s alleged relationship to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, and his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bachmann accused the candidate of having “anti-American views.” She then suggested that Congressional liberals — including Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid — ought to be subject to “an exposé” by the media because of their views. “I think people would love to see like that,” she told a stunned Chris Matthews.

BACHMANN SUGGESTED GAY SINGER SHOULD REPENT AFTER GETTING CANCER: Bachmann saw Melissa Etheridge’s cancer as a teachable moment: “Unfortunately she is now suffering from breast cancer, so keep her in your prayers,” she said in November 2004. “This may be an opportunity for her now to be open to some spiritual things, now that she is suffering with that physical disease. She is a lesbian.”

BACHMANN BOASTED ABOUT BREAKING THE LAW: In advance of the 2010 national Census, Bachmann told The Washington Times that she would break the law by not completing the forms. “I know for my family, the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home,” she said. “We won’t be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn’t require any information beyond that.”

BACHMANN CLAIMED THAT GLENN BECK COULD SOLVE THE DEBT CRISIS: During a February trip to South Carolina, Bachmann told a South Carolina audience, “I think if we give Glenn Beck the numbers, he can solve this the national debt.”

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