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September 01, 2009 06:51 PM UTC

Michele Bachmann Turns Up The Crazy At Independence Institute Fundraiser

  • 84 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

A full-throated roar, as the Colorado Independent reports:

In a fiery speech that had her conservative Colorado audience cheering, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann railed against the dangers of health care reform and other Democratic initiatives, warning the proposals “have the strength to destroy this country forever.”

“This cannot pass,” the Minnesota Republican told a crowd at a Denver gathering sponsored by the Independence Institute. “What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass.”

“Something is way crazy out there,” Bachmann said in her remarks, billed as a “personal legislative briefing” by the Golden-based Independence Institute, which bills itself as a “free market think tank.”

“This is slavery,” Bachmann said after claiming many Americans pay half their income to taxes. “It’s nothing more than slavery.”

…At times, Bachmann’s legislative briefing sounded more like the plot of a slasher movie.

“Right now, we are looking at reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom,” she said. “And we may never be able to restore it if we don’t man up and take this one on.”

SAFETY NOTE: Don’t actually slit your wrists to become “blood brothers,” we’re pretty sure she just misspoke–you slice open your hand to do that, superficially, avoiding blood vessels, etc. No one would doubt your sincerity if you slit your wrists, of course, but it would probably end badly.

That said, we can all agree, even though we’ll differ on the precise definition, that “reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom” would be a bad thing. Or at least kind of icky.

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84 thoughts on “Michele Bachmann Turns Up The Crazy At Independence Institute Fundraiser”

  1. That’s some tasty red meat, and she didn’t even mention re-education camps!

    Seriously though, slavery? Really?

    She’s taking crazy to a whole new level. After this speech, how is the state GOP going to keep up?

  2. to join her in slitting their wrists, who are we to argue? Of course with the sitting guv proposing  secession in the first place, guess that’s pretty main stream Texas-style.  

    Anybody been a watching those Texas would-be candidates for guv screaming about how they hate the United States, hate the flag and want to secede in a bloody war?  

    But weren’t people in states like Texas supposed to be the uber-patriots?  Wasn’t it Dems on the coasts who were supposed to hate America and love flag burners?

    And that GOP California Rep. praising the guy who said he’s a proud conservative terrorist?  Aren’t we Dems supposed to be the terrorist lovers?  

    I’m seriously confused.  Probably not as confused as the GOP seems to be. They are completely blowing walking the line between heating up their base and completely losing it to the loons.  I guess they didn’t foresee where all that hating the duly elected US government rhetoric was leading. Where do they go from here? And what’s with their new found fondness for bloody imagery?

    2. it’s really pretty straight forward.

      a) R’s think they got whipped because they weren’t right enough last time around. so thy are moving righter and righter. As a result they wackiest, rightest R’s get the press and headlines.

      b) Where they go from here is a coin toss.  The party could shred apart into incapacitating fracing.  Or, they could hold it  together long enough for the D’s to self destruct.

      1. as Republican 36 reminds us in another post , the R’s have a paradoxical campaign position that gov’t is bad and can’t accomplish anything useful, but they want the job all the same.  It makes the coin toss a little tipped toward one out come or the other.

        1. the party of more-patriotic-than-thou and of hating the gov’mint (all government bad including the one that is the duly elected expression of the will of the self-governing American people) has come to the place where the two memes collide to the extent that Bush’s own party in his own supposedly uber-patriotic, Dixie Chick denouncing state, the one with America’s team, yadayadayada, is actually talking pure treason such as we haven’t heard since the Civil War.

          Come to think of it, it’s pretty funny that the entire red state, Republican south has annointed itself the real America, bastion of American values and patriotism. Considering.

          1. I prefer to think of what they are doing as sedition, not treason. So far.

            And while I understand the details of Major Cook’s lawsuit and the rescission of his orders to deploy, I think that JAG lawyers should be reading and re-reading Article 88 and other sections of the UCMJ that make it an offense to disparage the Commander in Chief or to make seditious statements or acts.

            Seems like a reasonable question for the gubernatorial candidates: In other states the governor has indicated a willingness to consider secession. Under what circumstance would you consider that action for Colorado?

            1. fits both the definitions of sedition and of treason but it sure doesn’t fit any conception of being a loyal patriotic American citizen, much less one more patriotic than Northeastern Democrats, for instance.

              As for Major Cook’s law suit, why aren’t we hearing the same demands to condemn and denounce from the right that we heard over everything from the Dixie Chicks remarks to “Petraeus betray us”?  Because the base is completely incoherent about everything but their fear, rage and racism and the GOP leadership is happy to pander, scared of getting taken to the wood shed by the Big Fat Blithering Idiot in Chief, Rush Limbaugh.

              One can see why they are so desperate to stop health care reform and anything else this administration proposes.  Abject failure for Obama and the Dems, worse than Bush’s abject failure, is their only hope and a slim one at that.  Polls show more of a plague on both houses attitude than Rs gaining approval where Ds slip.

              Bipartisanship is truly deader than a door nail and will be until and unless the GOP ever walks itself back to being a serious party for intelligent grown ups. Right now it’s the party of Palin, Bachmann, Perry, Limbaugh,  and the ignorance of the Crazy Town mob.  

  3. She’s your typical run of the mill nutjob Republican that I just can’t really do enough to distance myself from.

    All this garbage rhetoric and nothing of substance.  Next!

    Anyway Obama has made pretty clear that he won’t raise taxes on those who make less than $250k “not even one cent.”  But coming from the leakproof, almost flawless campaign he ran last year, I’d say it’s a little troubling when Geithner and Summers are saying that we shouldn’t rule out taxes on those making less than that benchmark.  It couldn’t have been on accident?

    My point is that, although it isn’t Obama’s problem that he created, the culture of debt is such that you constantly need more money and that money has to come from somewhere.  The explicit notion of borrowing money at the public level entails that personal income taxes are being collected to pay the bills.  At some point Obama will be faced with rising rates in the Treasury market due to concerns that the US doesn’t have its fiscal house in order, and to fix the problem, he’s got to raise taxes.  

    Is he gonna raise them on corporations?  Is he gonna raise them only on the rich?  Or is he going to do the responsible thing and raise them on every American?  It isn’t reasonable to promise the electorate the moon and a dozen roses, and then tell them there will never, ever be a bill that needs to be paid for.  

      1. Cuba’s health care system isn’t comparable to our because we function under opposite economic regimes. Plus, Fidel Castro is scum.

        But you don’t see Diane Watson packing up rooms full of Democrats, hundreds of miles from her home district, who are considered leaders and intellectuals among the party elite of some far away state.

        Indeed, Michelle Bachmann is a rising star in the Republican Party, and the ideological right gravitate toward her and her idiotic, insane rhetoric.

        1. Diane Watson is much better.  Prior to her election to Congress she was an elementary school teacher, spewing her crazy ideas to hundreds of grade school kids.

          1. Frankly I find them both to be abhorrent. All I was saying was that Bachmann draws a bigger crowd, and that really says more about the GOP than it does about either Congresswoman.

            But thanks for twisting my words around. I’m honestly surprised to didn’t call me a Castroite or a communist or something.

            2. Regarding Cong. Watson, you said, to paraphrase, “she’s an idiot…but.”  

              Why are you “honestly surprised” that I didn’t call you a commie?

              I have no beef with you.  I was just pointing out that Cong. Watson was nuttier, and probably more dangerous, than the focus of this thread.

                1.    Diane Watson – of whom I knew nothing until a few minutes ago – is not a leader of the Democratic Party.  Most rational thinking Dems do not subscribe to Diane Watson’s thinking.

                    Michelle Bachman, on the other hand, is considered a leader of, and prominent spokesperson for, the GOP.

                    Our left wing nuts are marginalized – or worse, shipped over to the Green Party.  The GOP canonizes their right wing nuts.

              2. is more dangerous than equating taxation (and a gross overestimate of actual taxation at that) with slavery? I don’t think so. Castro isn’t even the leader of Cuba anymore anyway, so if anything it just goes to show that she’s even more of an idiot.

                1. I guess some people believe that the more property and freedom the government takes from you, the more you become its slave.  

                  For instance, I’m a slave to fashion.  In the 80’s, I was a slave to love.

  9. Whaaa….?

    I mean, seriously. Comparing the health care bill to SLAVERY?

    Is there anyone else out there who finds that just a teensy bit offensive?

    I do think that Bachmann and the other Congresswoman who talked about the Republicans needing to find a “Great White Hope” aren’t saying things like that without thinking carefully about them beforehand. They are intentionally trying to stir up what they apparently believe is enough of a latent racism to win the next election.

    Slavery.

    On the other hand, the “slit our wrists” thing: that was just funny…  

    2. Appalled.

      Leaving aside this country’s history of slavery (I believe that slaves would have been happy to give half their income to the government to not be…slaves) and the fact that the founding fathers didn’t fight against ‘taxes’, but rather the right to representation in determining how they were taxed.

      That aside, how do you think people who are actually slaves in our modern world if they could hear that from a US Congresswoman.  I am reminded of western womens’ rights advocates in Beijing talking about the gender inequities in the west and the women from the developing world talking about female infanticide, honor killings, ethnic cleansing rapes and genital mutilation.  

      Comparing taxation to slavery is like comparing being called Ma’am to genital mutilation.

      1. had become so over used it was getting to be like wall paper so they’re trotting out slavery. What’s next?  And what’s in the water in Bachmann’s crazy corner of such a nice state?  

    2. but scare tactics beget scare tactics. 90%+ of the arguments against the Democratic plan have been based on fear and lies, so why are you surprised to find OFA doing the same thing?

      That said, I find this type of broad sweeping characterization of political opponents as terrorists to be abhorrent, and totally against my values as a Democrat and an American. It was wrong when Bush did it, and it’s still wrong.

      But when you are hitting your opponent below the belt, you shouldn’t be surprised if they, in turn, try to punch you there as well.

    3. hating The United States, wanting to secede, etc. and their right wing elected officials are pattting them on the back for it, LB.  You have a problem with sane patriots organizing to fight back against these dangerous crazies?  

      1. Making use of 9/11 for this is also well over the line.

         Exploiting 9/11 kind of irritates me. I never approved when Bushco,Inc. did it and it still is inappropriate.

        RSB is correct here:

        But when you are hitting your opponent below the belt, you shouldn’t be surprised if they, in turn, try to punch you there as well.

        When your opponent has thrown out the rule book and you just can’t bring yourself to match them, tit for tat, expect the result that befell the young boxer in Clint Eastwoods’ “Million Dollar Baby”.

        If you expect a fair fight from the militant right (I include “Princess Michelle, the Mindless” in the militant catagory), you will be the one picking yourself up off the floor.

        Bush and Cheney fed and nurtured a vine of dishonesty and corruption that has existed since, at least, the Nixon presidency. Under their care it has grown and blossomed into a monster (think..”Little Shop of Horrors”) that has only an appetite with no apparent ability to exercise restraint.

        Translate the insane rantings of Baughmann into the creepy voice of the all-devouring plant in “Little Shop” screaming, “FEED ME!”, and you get the idea.

        One of the things that makes crazy people so dangerous is they have no ability to inhibit the demons that drive them. This is seriously scary, and if you don’t want to see these nut cases running things again, you had better get involved and do what you can to help bring this country to a safer and more civil level of public discourse.

    5. Posts this with no approval in OFA’s unscreened events tool, and it’s taken down a few hours later. But because it’s on a page with the O logo you can screenshot, you’re equating it with a speech given by a prominent Republican congresswoman?

      That’s pathetic even for you, LB.

      2. Find some image or quote after dozens of right-wing blogs have bounced it around and reported their mock outrage (so that it’s nearly impossible to find the original), as long as it makes a liberal somewhere look stupid. Oh, and don’t give any kind of link, so that nobody can challenge its legitimacy.

        Then see how many liberals will flagellate themselves over it.

        It’s LB’s usual troll. Sometimes he gets up to five on a good day; other days there’s just one.

          1. that once you give the context, it’s clear that this is an anonymous posting on a web site that anyone can post to?

            Once again Republican elected officials are compared to anonymous liberal nobodies. And the Republicans are still crazier.

              1. It’s an anonymous nobody vs. an elected congressperson. Obama’s people deleted the offensive comment (which apparently is evidence of a coverup, rather than exactly what any responsible website would do).

                Has Bachmann apologized for her comments? No. Have other Republicans denounced her? No.

                I hate to break it to you (well not really, I actually kind of enjoy breaking it to you) but your party is the party of crazies.

                  1. Rep. Bachmann is ’round-the-bend crazy.  She…

                    Denies the existing scientific evidence of evolution (nevermind the full theory that stems from that evidence)…

                    Compares the “threat” of gay marriage to the Pearl Harbor disaster…

                    Thinks the public school system will be forced to encourage homosexuality…

                    Thinks Obama might want to replace the U.S. dollar with a world currency…

                    Likes to insinuate that Democrats cause flu pandemics…

                    What, in this list of crazy, can be compared to anything Sen. Durbin or Dr. Dean says?

                    1. for which he quickly apologized, but apologies don’t matter to Republicans! (Which is why Bachmann never gets asked to.)

                      And Howard Dean once went like “yeargh!” and that was kind of funny for a week. This is very reminiscent of asking your followers to make blood sacrifices for your cause.

                    3. Please feel free to equate your facile evidence-free characterization of random Democrats with Michele Bachmann’s documented insanity, if it makes you feel better.

                      We’re not talking “goofy.” Goofy is if she just had big floppy ears and went “yuh-huh” a lot. She’s psychotic.

                    4. “If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime – Pol Pot or others – that had no concern for human beings,”

                      So what if he apologized.  That’s insane.

                      Howard Dean on health care…

                      The Republicans, they have no interest in this Bill. They’re using the 1994 playbook. Let’s kill the bill and kill the president…… or, kill the president’s term. Although there are sort of angry people out there I get very nervous about this stuff. I don’t like it at all…

                      Also insane.

                    5. I can’t even preemptively parody that anymore. At what time has Michele Bachmann apologized for anything? More importantly, at what time has a Republican ever asked her to apologize? Apologies don’t matter for Democrats since you can never take it back, and apologies don’t matter for Republicans because they don’t have to and you can’t make them.

                      And I don’t see what’s insane about Dean’s statement. Clearly Dean misspoke and corrected himself immediately.

                      But OK: there are people who want to kill the President. Does it make me a lunatic to admit that openly?

                    6. He always has been – at least since he ran for President.  The fact that he’s capable of opening his mouth and being bluntly honest about reality is the problem.

                      There are people out there looking to kill the President.  Many more than “normal”, in fact, and almost all stirred up by folks like Bachmann trying to scare her sycophants into acting against their government by using the last of the boxes of freedom rather than the first three…

                    8. Dean didn’t say, or mean, all Republicans.

                      And there is certainly a group of people out there, associated almost exclusively with the Republican Party (or, occasionally, unregistered), that has stated pretty much point blank that they want the President dead, sooner rather than later, and with help from one of God’s Servants if necessary.

                      It’s a lousy reality, but it’s reality.  Denying this is more than a little irresponsible.

                    12. Pols accidentally gave me access so I have everyone’s IP addresses.  I hope they never realize that they…oops…

                      Dammit!

                      (Easy Ray, it’s just a joke).

                    14. but there was audio of a conservative preacher praying for Obama’s death. No, he’s not mainstream Republican (although undoubtedly he is a Republican) but then again none of these nuts are.

                      Now, consider this insight about the assassination of Itzahk Rabin:

                      Remember Rabin. First came the incitement (Netanyahu spoke at a rally where Rabin was portrayed as an Arab terrorist and as a Nazi). Then the religious nuts held ceremonies praying for Rabin’s death. Finally, murder.

                      We’re getting the incitement, from rallies like Bachmann’s and more so from the likes of Glen Beck, as well as protests where people are showing up with loaded rifles; and we’re getting the prayers for Obama’s death. It doesn’t take a genius to see where this is heading.

                      THEREFORE: It is not irresponsible to say that there are those on the right who want Obama to die.

                      We don’t need this to be representative of the GOP as a whole, or even as a significant minority; just a few want him dead, and someone will try to make that happen. That’s not hysterical; that’s a sober statement.

                    15. He upped the ante this past weekend and now hopes Obama gets brain cancer, same as Teddy Kennedy had. The gun-toting freedom-lover who showed up at Obama’s Phoenix rally attended the above sermon the day before.

                    16. About as prevalent in the Republican party as Farakhan is to the Dems.  As in: not at all. A total waste of air.

                      I’m surprised you’re not trying to hang Phelps on us.

                    17. Comparing the leader of a mainstream Baptist church to the leader of the fringe Black Muslims is not a logical one. And I’d bet money that this guy is a registered Republican and that Farrakhan was never registered as a member of either party.

                      Sorry, LB, but that dismissal is a fail. The guy doesn’t have to be representative of the mainstream to be inciting violence.

                    18. ..to justify your surprise at what’s happening, when in fact it’s simply a far-left agenda grinding to a halt when exposed to reality.

                      We can’t keep spending so much money.  That’s the bottom line.

                      Public option is dead, cap and trade is dead, EFCA is dead.  

                      Midterms are in 14 months.  Look out.

                    19. The 47% who voted for McCain are still pissed? I’m amazed. Truly the Republicans will sweep the midterms and Sarah Palin will ride a polar bear down Pennsylvania Ave. when she’s inaugurated in 2013!

                    20. has to do with ANYTHING about whether Republicans want to harm the president or not. Don’t change the subject. I’ll start thinking the president is safe when all this right wing shit stops flying. Until then, you’re ignoring some very disturbing things coming from your comrades and illogically assigning legitimate concerns about that to liberal defeats that haven’t even occurred.

                    21. Some crazy idiot jerk minister in a southern State is my “comrade”?

                      How do you figure?

                      Is this your comrade?

                    22. All registered ‘pubs are comrades of other ‘pubs. That’s what comrade means; you’re literally part of the same group.

                      Now, granted, I don’t KNOW that he’s a registered Republican, but it’s a pretty safe bet, wouldn’t you agree? Most of the Baptist ministers who preach politics from the pulpit that I’ve encountered have been.

                      If he’s not, then no, he’s not your comrade. That’s where I was going with that. BUT… there are Republicans who feel and think as he does. They are your comrades. I hope, if you ever encounter one, that you let him know he’s an idiot.

                      Now, nutty hard left guys like the one above is likely NOT to be a registered Dem. Those people are the ones who think there are no differences between the Dems and ‘pubs. Maybe, since I’m unaffiliated, he IS my comrade? No, I don’t think that fits with the term’s meaning.

                      ANYWAY… getting back to the point of this (which your response diverted from… stop changing the subject, please), you can’t deny the threatening atmosphere that’s coming from the right wing, including from Republicans. I’m sure more concrete examples will present themselves soon.

                    23. It’s a canard.  Every President faces idiots that threaten him.

                      It’s being used as an excuse to attempt to de-legitimize real opposition to the President’s policies.

                    24. Not every president faces a threatening culture like THIS. And there is NO ONE trying to use it to get stuff passed. How would that work anyway? “Pass the public option or Obama will DIE!!!!” ?? Um, not bloody likely.

                      You need to drink your coffee. You usually have a clear head about this stuff.

                    25. No disrespect, but the threats are being overblown.  W had them all the time, so did Clinton and Reagan.  It’s a fact of life.  Caesar and the Senate.  It’s not right, but it is what it is, and it IS a very small group of fringe morons that represent nobody but themselves.  Not the Republicans.  

                    26. Really, LB.  Step back.  Look at the language being used by Glen Beck (Republican, viewership/listenership of millions), or Limbaugh (same), or Bachmann (loved by the II and other conservative groups, elected by popular vote by Republicans…).

                      These aren’t lone idiots asking for Secret Service attention – they’re leaders of party thought, with the attention and support of, if not a majority of Republicans, then at least a significant plurality.  Each of them is using language crafted to incite.  No, none of them will pull the trigger, but none of them has paid more than lip service to discouraging the violent acts they know damned well they’re stirring up with their rhetoric.

                    27. Sure, every President gets (a lot) of threats.  The Secret Service has been pretty up front, though – Obama’s getting about 3-4 times as many as previous Presidents.

                    28. Besides, I’m not worried for the president’s safety. I believe that as long he he and his staff do nothing stupid like decide to “go out among the people,” the Secret Service will keep him safe.

                      What I do worry about is someone getting hurt or even killed at some rally. I already just read about a case where some anti-reform guy got in a fight with a much smaller man who was pro-reform, and the pro guy bit the anti guy’s finger off in the scuffle. (Irony of ironies, the anti guy has Medicare.) Not a good day for the human race, and not a good gauge of where all this is headed.

          1. but just not feeling it. What’s supposed to be bothering me about it? I understand it’s important for your side to pretend to be outraged by it, of course.

            1. I don’t really get “outraged” by much.  But I love irony.

              For so much whining about astroturfing and drowning out opinions, you’re witnessing it from your dudes.

              That’s delicious to me.  Probably won’t think about it again, but it’s always nice catching total hypocrites on camera.

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