Really? how do you figure that. you made your point about it
and i made mine.
faith should not always be put hand in hand with religion.
GOP Candidates Back Off From Signing Pledge that Praises Slavery
- Thread starter 04SCTLS
- Start date
Really? how do you figure that. you made your point about it
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
Mickey Mouse himself could do a better job than the man-child destroyer currently occupying the White House - errrrrrrr - the golf course.
Her religious views as public policies are despicable, meanspirited and tyrannical to people who are not religous and to people who live alternative lifestyles.
Her husband has refered to gay people as barbarians and she's a good evangelical who heels to her husband so she can't be any different.
This alone disqualifies her from being a serious candidate except to other religous extremists.
She should stay in her mean vice disguised as virtue prejudicial church where she belongs.
Maybe Bachmann should take a page from Lady Gaga and say she was born this way(as a Jesus made crackpot religous bigot)
Her husband has refered to gay people as barbarians and she's a good evangelical who heels to her husband so she can't be any different.
This alone disqualifies her from being a serious candidate except to other religous extremists.
She should stay in her mean vice disguised as virtue prejudicial church where she belongs.
Maybe Bachmann should take a page from Lady Gaga and say she was born this way(as a Jesus made crackpot religous bigot)
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
Meanwhile, Obama calls Americans he is supposed to be looking out for 'working stiffs.'
But, whatever. Let's pile on the Christianist wacko, instead of the President who apparently disdains his own constituency.
But, whatever. Let's pile on the Christianist wacko, instead of the President who apparently disdains his own constituency.
Well it's the working stiffs who are dunned every week that along with the borrowing provide the vig that keeps the government going.
Like any protection racket the trick is to rob the mark only enough so that he still has money next week to make another payment.
He's not going to get money out of the rich so he has to "protect" the stiffs
Like any protection racket the trick is to rob the mark only enough so that he still has money next week to make another payment.
He's not going to get money out of the rich so he has to "protect" the stiffs
???
Is that a response?
It still assumes materialism.
Considering that fact that most philosophers today are atheists, it is not too hard to find some justification for materialism if you look.
It is amazing that you have yet to offer any such justification. The world cannot be described through science alone. It is much too big and complex for that. Maybe you should look beyond an absolute faith in science to explain all...
ford nut
Local nut case
That could very well be.
But this woman scares me.
GOP needs to do better.
Yes
What can we say about Michelle Bachmann that she hasn't already said about herself
Michele Bachmann is worried about the Renaissance
August 9, 2011
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/cul...achmann-is-worried-about-the-renaissance.html
It's the Renaissance, stupid.
The economy is not what ails us today. No, what ails Americans is what Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and their artistic spawn have wrought in the culture, starting 500 years ago. The Renaissance has dragged us all down.
Tea party queen and Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is convinced that America is sinking into tyranny. Why? In a remarkable profile of the candidate appearing in the Aug. 15 issue of the New Yorker magazine, the artistic flowering of the Italian Renaissance takes a beating for having done away with the god-fearing Dark Ages.
Bachmann "belongs to a generation of Christian conservatives whose views have been shaped by institutions, tracts, and leaders not commonly known to secular Americans, or even to most Christians," writes Ryan Lizza, who spent four days on the campaign trail talking with the candidate and her husband. He chronicles Bachmann's enthusiasm for the extreme evangelical teachings of the late Presbyterian Pastor Francis Schaeffer, commonly regarded as having sparked the 1970s rise of the Christian Right. Schaeffer loved visiting Florence, Italy, where his idea of Renaissance ruin is on full display.
Bachmann also adores Schaeffer follower Nancy Pearcey, a prominent creationist whose recent book is "Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning." That's Leonardo as in "da Vinci," whose famous drawing of "Vitruvian Man" shows a human being inscribed within a perfect circle and a perfect square. The artist made the ungodly error of putting humanity at the center of time and space.
Not that Pearcey wants you to be mad at Leo, though -- a political error in the culture wars that she has said conservative Christians have repeatedly made over the last 30-plus years. Like Schaeffer, Pearcey instead counsels hearty admiration for creative skill, coupled with deep compassion for misguided artistic conceptions.
Hate the art, in other words, not the artist.
This art-historical drivel first saw print in Pearcey's 2004 book, "Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From Its Cultural Captivity." The title is plucked from Schaeffer, who, Lizza writes in the New Yorker, "instructed his followers [that] the Bible was not just a book but 'the total truth.'" The cover of Pearcey's kooky cultural treatise features a gay reproduction of Vincent van Gogh's 1888 painting, "Sower With Setting Sun." Van Gogh, himself a failed preacher, turned to art as an ecstatic secular expression of spiritual joy.
Pearcey's book lauds Schaeffer's empathy for artists who are "caught in the trap of false and harmful worldviews" -- specifically, those that have trickled down from wicked Renaissance humanism. "As the medieval period merged into the Renaissance (beginning roughly in the 1300s)," she wrote, "a drumbeat began to sound for the complete emancipation of reason from revelation -- a crescendo that burst into full force in the Enlightenment (beginning in the 1700s)."
Darn that Enlightenment! Next thing you know it will be birthing truly dangerous ideas, like secular democracy.
Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, first got on board Schaeffer's crazy train in 1977, when they watched -- and were wowed by -- the evangelist's 10-part film series, "How Should We Then Live?" (Apparently conversational English is also Satan's work.) Schaeffer's son Frank, who produced the film series before later repudiating his father's evangelical labors in his own 2007 book, "Crazy for God," described the recurring cinematic set-up: "Dad would stand in front of great artworks, from Michelangelo's 'David' to Marcel Duchamp's '[Nude] Descending a Staircase,' and proclaim our answers to modern culture."
Protestant Schaeffer laid considerable blame for humanist developments at the feet of Michelangelo, the Renaissance sculptor (and -- ahem -- devout Catholic). His close-up camera hid David's nudity, lest it offend tender, Bachmannesque sensibilities. The future King David's mortal victory over Goliath's paganism was a worthwhile subject, since it prefigured Christian triumph. But the elder Schaeffer couldn't imagine that Christ's dual nature -- as both deity and human being -- could be embodied by fusing the exquisite sculpture's unearthly perfection with forthright nakedness.
"The first five installments of the [film] series are something of an art-history and philosophy course," Lizza writes. "The iconic image from the early episodes is Schaeffer standing on a raised platform next to Michelangelo’s 'David'" -- the raised platform allowing for the nudity to be cut out of the frame, when it's not bathed in dark shadow -- "and explaining why, for all its beauty, Renaissance art represented a dangerous turn away from a God-centered world and toward a blasphemous, human-centered world."
Of course, American culture has had trouble with art (not to mention nudity) ever since the Pilgrims bumped into Plymouth Rock in 1620. The Pilgrims arrived carrying "the Word," while all those graven images essential to the visual arts were seductive examples of the devil's work.
How should we then live? Francis Schaeffer died in 1984 -- a year that is surely coincidental. But Bachmann, an ideologue of the Christian-conservative movement, can't get enough of the art-junk he peddled. Lizza quotes her as having called Pearcey's earlier book "wonderful," while she and Marcus find the late filmmaker to be "a tremendous philosopher."
I'm guessing that Michelangelo and Leonardo would disagree. (Incidentally, the Bachmanns' Christian counseling center in Minnesota would surely recommend sexual-orientation conversion therapy for both artists.)
As the saying goes: Hate the philosophy, but not the philosopher.
________________________________________________________________
I saw the Leonardo exhibit and damn that science guy was sure upsetting to the crazy religious like Bachmann with all his facts and creativity and stuff.
Oh those sinners are so talented it's insulting to the villagers
Why didn't the Creator make us creative(Pun Pun Pun is the creator gay?)
Damn that Enlightenment thing lets bring back the Dark Ages!
She's living in a comic book fantasy land.
August 9, 2011
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/cul...achmann-is-worried-about-the-renaissance.html
It's the Renaissance, stupid.
The economy is not what ails us today. No, what ails Americans is what Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and their artistic spawn have wrought in the culture, starting 500 years ago. The Renaissance has dragged us all down.
Tea party queen and Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is convinced that America is sinking into tyranny. Why? In a remarkable profile of the candidate appearing in the Aug. 15 issue of the New Yorker magazine, the artistic flowering of the Italian Renaissance takes a beating for having done away with the god-fearing Dark Ages.
Bachmann "belongs to a generation of Christian conservatives whose views have been shaped by institutions, tracts, and leaders not commonly known to secular Americans, or even to most Christians," writes Ryan Lizza, who spent four days on the campaign trail talking with the candidate and her husband. He chronicles Bachmann's enthusiasm for the extreme evangelical teachings of the late Presbyterian Pastor Francis Schaeffer, commonly regarded as having sparked the 1970s rise of the Christian Right. Schaeffer loved visiting Florence, Italy, where his idea of Renaissance ruin is on full display.
Bachmann also adores Schaeffer follower Nancy Pearcey, a prominent creationist whose recent book is "Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning." That's Leonardo as in "da Vinci," whose famous drawing of "Vitruvian Man" shows a human being inscribed within a perfect circle and a perfect square. The artist made the ungodly error of putting humanity at the center of time and space.
Not that Pearcey wants you to be mad at Leo, though -- a political error in the culture wars that she has said conservative Christians have repeatedly made over the last 30-plus years. Like Schaeffer, Pearcey instead counsels hearty admiration for creative skill, coupled with deep compassion for misguided artistic conceptions.
Hate the art, in other words, not the artist.
This art-historical drivel first saw print in Pearcey's 2004 book, "Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From Its Cultural Captivity." The title is plucked from Schaeffer, who, Lizza writes in the New Yorker, "instructed his followers [that] the Bible was not just a book but 'the total truth.'" The cover of Pearcey's kooky cultural treatise features a gay reproduction of Vincent van Gogh's 1888 painting, "Sower With Setting Sun." Van Gogh, himself a failed preacher, turned to art as an ecstatic secular expression of spiritual joy.
Pearcey's book lauds Schaeffer's empathy for artists who are "caught in the trap of false and harmful worldviews" -- specifically, those that have trickled down from wicked Renaissance humanism. "As the medieval period merged into the Renaissance (beginning roughly in the 1300s)," she wrote, "a drumbeat began to sound for the complete emancipation of reason from revelation -- a crescendo that burst into full force in the Enlightenment (beginning in the 1700s)."
Darn that Enlightenment! Next thing you know it will be birthing truly dangerous ideas, like secular democracy.
Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, first got on board Schaeffer's crazy train in 1977, when they watched -- and were wowed by -- the evangelist's 10-part film series, "How Should We Then Live?" (Apparently conversational English is also Satan's work.) Schaeffer's son Frank, who produced the film series before later repudiating his father's evangelical labors in his own 2007 book, "Crazy for God," described the recurring cinematic set-up: "Dad would stand in front of great artworks, from Michelangelo's 'David' to Marcel Duchamp's '[Nude] Descending a Staircase,' and proclaim our answers to modern culture."
Protestant Schaeffer laid considerable blame for humanist developments at the feet of Michelangelo, the Renaissance sculptor (and -- ahem -- devout Catholic). His close-up camera hid David's nudity, lest it offend tender, Bachmannesque sensibilities. The future King David's mortal victory over Goliath's paganism was a worthwhile subject, since it prefigured Christian triumph. But the elder Schaeffer couldn't imagine that Christ's dual nature -- as both deity and human being -- could be embodied by fusing the exquisite sculpture's unearthly perfection with forthright nakedness.
"The first five installments of the [film] series are something of an art-history and philosophy course," Lizza writes. "The iconic image from the early episodes is Schaeffer standing on a raised platform next to Michelangelo’s 'David'" -- the raised platform allowing for the nudity to be cut out of the frame, when it's not bathed in dark shadow -- "and explaining why, for all its beauty, Renaissance art represented a dangerous turn away from a God-centered world and toward a blasphemous, human-centered world."
Of course, American culture has had trouble with art (not to mention nudity) ever since the Pilgrims bumped into Plymouth Rock in 1620. The Pilgrims arrived carrying "the Word," while all those graven images essential to the visual arts were seductive examples of the devil's work.
How should we then live? Francis Schaeffer died in 1984 -- a year that is surely coincidental. But Bachmann, an ideologue of the Christian-conservative movement, can't get enough of the art-junk he peddled. Lizza quotes her as having called Pearcey's earlier book "wonderful," while she and Marcus find the late filmmaker to be "a tremendous philosopher."
I'm guessing that Michelangelo and Leonardo would disagree. (Incidentally, the Bachmanns' Christian counseling center in Minnesota would surely recommend sexual-orientation conversion therapy for both artists.)
As the saying goes: Hate the philosophy, but not the philosopher.
________________________________________________________________
I saw the Leonardo exhibit and damn that science guy was sure upsetting to the crazy religious like Bachmann with all his facts and creativity and stuff.
Oh those sinners are so talented it's insulting to the villagers
Why didn't the Creator make us creative(Pun Pun Pun
is the creator gay?)Damn that Enlightenment thing lets bring back the Dark Ages!
She's living in a comic book fantasy land.
Both myself and others have gone well beyond that and provided overwhelming logical proof. Not everything can be proven empirically and to demand "evidence" for materialism is to demonstrate an ignorance of what materialism is.
At this point in the game, the only reason for that is that A) you are too slow to grasp the concept, B) you are too intellectually dishonest to consider the concept as legitimate, or C) both.
My guess is "C".
cammerfe
Dedicated LVC Member
________________________________________________________________
I saw the Leonardo exhibit and damn that science guy was sure upsetting to the crazy religious like Bachmann with all his facts and creativity and stuff.
Oh those sinners are so talented it's insulting to the villagers
Why didn't the Creator make us creative(Pun Pun Pun
Damn that Enlightenment thing lets bring back the Dark Ages!
She's living in a comic book fantasy land.
________________________________________________________________
I saw the Leonardo exhibit and damn that science guy was sure upsetting to the crazy religious like Bachmann with all his facts and creativity and stuff.
Oh those sinners are so talented it's insulting to the villagers
Why didn't the Creator make us creative(Pun Pun Pun
Damn that Enlightenment thing lets bring back the Dark Ages!
She's living in a comic book fantasy land.
I thought this was an interesting opinion of her.
It kind of confirms stereotypes about religion being anti science and why with religious conservatives like Bachmann the contemporary examples doesn't it?
I try to post thoughtful stuff.
The fact this story comes from the New Yorker doesn't change what she believes.
She has a gripe with the Enlightenment going back 500 years which should speak for itself.
I mean the church finally forgave Galileo like last year or something so maybe she should get caught up with modern times instead of pining for the days of the Inquisition.
Besides being a religious crazy person Michelle Bachmann is also a plain old scheming lying hypocrite who IMO is playing a gullible public she thinks laps up her shallow rhetoric.
______________________________________________________________
Michele Bachmann Repeatedly Sought Stimulus, EPA, Other Government Funds
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/10/michele-bachmann-stimulus_n_922851.html
WASHINGTON -- Few candidates in the Republican presidential primary field have decried the federal government with as much gusto as Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). The three-term congresswoman has belittled the stimulus package, deemed the Obama administration both corrupt and "gangster," and lamented the "orgy" of spending she sees happening in Washington.
The contempt has served her well, helping her craft the type of fiscally conservative, anti-government message that has catapulted her into frontrunner status for the Iowa Caucus and, more immediately, Saturday's crucial Ames Straw Poll.
But it's simply not supported by the Minnesota Republican's actual record.
A Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Huffington Post with three separate federal agencies reveals that on at least 16 separate occasions, Bachmann petitioned the federal government for direct financial help or aid. A large chunk of those requests were for funds set aside through President Obama's stimulus program, which Bachmann once labeled "fantasy economics." Bachmann made two more of those requests to the Environmental Protection Agency, an institution that she has suggested she would eliminate if she were in the White House.
Taken as a whole, the letters underscore what Bachmann's critics describe as a glaring distance between her campaign oratory and her actual conduct as a lawmaker. Combined with previous revelations that Bachmann personally relied on a federally subsidized home loan while her husband's business benefited from Medicaid payments, it appears that one of the Tea Party's most cherished members has demonstrated that the government does, in fact, play a constructive role -- at least in her life and district.
"It had been a longstanding tradition in Congress to be fiscally conservative in every other district other than your own," said John Feehery, president of QGA Communications and a top adviser to former Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert. "Bachmann apparently is being a traditionalist."
A traditionalist, perhaps, but only when the cameras are off. When President Obama crafted a $787 billion stimulus package that included historic investments in state aid, infrastructure projects, health care and education reforms as well as a large swath of tax breaks, Bachmann led a chorus of conservatives in decrying the policy.
“During the last 100 days we have seen an orgy [of spending]," she said of the stimulus and auto industry bailout during a conference in Minnesota on May 4, 2009. "It would make any local smorgasbord embarrassed."
Less than three weeks later, she went looking for her piece of the pie.
On May 20, 2009, Bachmann wrote Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, asking him to look into an application for aid that the city of Big Lake, Minn., had made to "develop and finance the Big Lake Rail Park," which she described as "an ambitious commercial and industrial complex which will enhance economic development and job opportunities in this rural Minnesota community." Toward the end of the letter, she added: "We must work together to ensure job creators have access to the vital credit they need to make projects like this a success."
On May 22, 2009, she wrote Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asking for support for the St. Cloud, Minn., Metropolitan Transit Commission's application for federal funds to "replace twenty-three 35-foot transit buses with compressed natural gas (CNG) powered buses."
On June 4, 2009, she wrote LaHood again seeking grant funding to extend the Northstar Corridor commuter service from Big Lake to St. Cloud.
On June 19, 2009, she made an "urgent" request to LaHood to reverse a decision by the Federal Highway Administration that undermined a project in Waite Park, Minn. The project, she noted, had already received $2.578 million in federal funding through the stimulus package and was "only awaiting the final determination" from the FHWA.
On July 2, 2009, she wrote LaHood again, pleading for money for road improvements in Waite Park. She added that she was "pleased to learn" that Minnesota's Department of Transportation was not going to "pull the nearly $2.8 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding set aside for the project."
On Sept. 15, 2009, Bachmann wrote six separate letters to LaHood asking for help funding six projects (the Northstar line among them) through the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program. The Center for Public Integrity and MinnPost has previously reported on those letters.
On Oct. 5, 2009, she wrote Vilsack again, praising him for putting money into the nation's beleaguered pork industry and encouraging him to help "stabilize prices through direct government purchasing."
Five days later, she was chastising the concept of government spending in public, saying that the president's efforts to stem the fallout of the recession amounted to a charade. "We hear about fantasy football games. This is fantasy economics," Bachmann said.
That the Department of Transportation was the primary target of Bachmann's quest for federal funds isn't surprising. The congresswoman has a record of trying to protect infrastructure projects from her party's budget cutters, arguing that transportation projects should be exempt from the ban on earmarks that the House of Representatives instituted in November 2010. She was also far from the only conservative who attempted to get her hands on some of the $12 billion in funds that DOT received under the stimulus.
"Some members refuse to take stimulus and won't have anything to do with getting government transit money flowing into their states. Others will say that they are against the idea of the stimulus or federal money flowing into the economy but if the money is there, they are going to try and get that money flowing into their district," said Brian Darling, a senior fellow in government studies at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
But that doesn't necessarily absolve Bachmann from attacks from her fellow party members, Darling continued.
"Some conservatives won't like it," he said. "No two ways about it. They will look at it and not like it because they don't want members trying to funnel money back to their state."
Even more problematic, however, could be Bachmann's attempts to get money and assistance from the EPA, an agency that she once said should be "renamed the job-killing organization of America."
In February 2007, well before Obama was in office, Bachmann co-signed a letter to the EPA urging its officials to help fund technical assistance programs and rural water initiatives "in small communities across Minnesota." The authors of the letter, which included nearly the entire Minnesota congressional delegation at the time, noted that FY 2006 funding for the National Rural Water Association had been set at $11 million.
"We need to continue these efforts in 2007," they wrote.
In other communications with the EPA, Bachmann was far colder to agency policy, criticizing spring 2009 federal management standards for coal combustion byproducts and 2008 National Ambient Air Quality standards. But in other instances, Bachmann turned to the EPA for constituent-related problems. In a Feb. 2, 2010, letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, she asked the agency to support a $270,806 grant application (filed with the EPA's Clean Diesel Grant Program) that would help a St. Cloud bus company replace two older motor coach vehicles.
"Voigt's Bus Service, with Community Transportation, Incorporated, is committed to bringing long-term benefits to the environment and the economy and they wish to accomplish this through the Clean Diesel Grant Program," she wrote.
More than the specific funding requests, it is Bachmann's private acknowledgement that the EPA can facilitate positive outcomes for both the environment and the economy that stands out for conservative activists. On her campaign website, after all, Bachmann refers to the EPA as the "Job Killing Agency."
"There is a line between representing your district and then trying to lard up on all of this pork spending, pun intended," said Bill Wilson, President of Americans for Limited Government. "There are very few in Congress who have been able to stand strong and say, 'No I'm not going to do this.' And they are, in our view, the heroes … By not being part of that group [Rep. Bachmann] isn't unique, obviously. But I think that she would owe an explanation to the public as to why she did it. Why she asked for certain things, including things from EPA when she's been very vocal about the overreach of the EPA?"
Both Bachmann's presidential campaign and her congressional office did not return requests for comment for this article. In the past, the congresswoman has tried to draw a distinction between the national message she imparts and her professional responsibilities as a representative from Minnesota.
"It is my obligation as a member of Congress to ensure stimulus dollars are spent on the most worthy projects. I did just that when I supported applications for the TIGER grant program," she said last year.
While Bachmann clearly petitioned the federal government for help in multiple venues, she was incredibly unsuccessful in her efforts. Minnesota's sixth congressional district received more than $234 million in stimulus contracts, grants and loans, according to the Obama administration's Recovery.gov website. That may seem like a hefty bundle, but it ranks last among the state's eight congressional districts.
A Department of Transportation official, meanwhile, tells The Huffington Post that the federal government did not end up funding a single one of the projects for which Bachmann solicited help. The department did send funds to the Minnesota state government, which in turn backed transportation initiatives in the state. But the DOT official said that only a small sliver of that pool, if any, was likely to have ended up where Bachmann wanted.
In one instance, moreover, Bachmann wrote LaHood in support of the "Cold Spring Police Department's application for funding through the COPS hiring Recovery Program." That program, the DOT official confirmed, is operated by the Department of Justice. Bachmann was petitioning the wrong agency.
In the end, Bachmann's ineffectiveness in securing federal help for constituents doesn't mitigate the fact that she sought federal help in the first place. And for Republican primary voters, who have been fed a healthy diet of anti-government rhetoric during this election cycle, that may prove to be a blot on her record.
"This will come up in the context of the battle for the Republican nomination and it will be up to Mrs. Bachmann to explain these things adequately," said Craig Shirley, a longtime Republican operative. "The task for any good candidate is to explain why they did such and such which might not conform with party orthodoxy, and then pivot very quickly to convince enough primary voters why it is they who should be the nominee and not the other contenders."
______________________________________________________________
Michele Bachmann Repeatedly Sought Stimulus, EPA, Other Government Funds
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/10/michele-bachmann-stimulus_n_922851.html
WASHINGTON -- Few candidates in the Republican presidential primary field have decried the federal government with as much gusto as Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). The three-term congresswoman has belittled the stimulus package, deemed the Obama administration both corrupt and "gangster," and lamented the "orgy" of spending she sees happening in Washington.
The contempt has served her well, helping her craft the type of fiscally conservative, anti-government message that has catapulted her into frontrunner status for the Iowa Caucus and, more immediately, Saturday's crucial Ames Straw Poll.
But it's simply not supported by the Minnesota Republican's actual record.
A Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Huffington Post with three separate federal agencies reveals that on at least 16 separate occasions, Bachmann petitioned the federal government for direct financial help or aid. A large chunk of those requests were for funds set aside through President Obama's stimulus program, which Bachmann once labeled "fantasy economics." Bachmann made two more of those requests to the Environmental Protection Agency, an institution that she has suggested she would eliminate if she were in the White House.
Taken as a whole, the letters underscore what Bachmann's critics describe as a glaring distance between her campaign oratory and her actual conduct as a lawmaker. Combined with previous revelations that Bachmann personally relied on a federally subsidized home loan while her husband's business benefited from Medicaid payments, it appears that one of the Tea Party's most cherished members has demonstrated that the government does, in fact, play a constructive role -- at least in her life and district.
"It had been a longstanding tradition in Congress to be fiscally conservative in every other district other than your own," said John Feehery, president of QGA Communications and a top adviser to former Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert. "Bachmann apparently is being a traditionalist."
A traditionalist, perhaps, but only when the cameras are off. When President Obama crafted a $787 billion stimulus package that included historic investments in state aid, infrastructure projects, health care and education reforms as well as a large swath of tax breaks, Bachmann led a chorus of conservatives in decrying the policy.
“During the last 100 days we have seen an orgy [of spending]," she said of the stimulus and auto industry bailout during a conference in Minnesota on May 4, 2009. "It would make any local smorgasbord embarrassed."
Less than three weeks later, she went looking for her piece of the pie.
On May 20, 2009, Bachmann wrote Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, asking him to look into an application for aid that the city of Big Lake, Minn., had made to "develop and finance the Big Lake Rail Park," which she described as "an ambitious commercial and industrial complex which will enhance economic development and job opportunities in this rural Minnesota community." Toward the end of the letter, she added: "We must work together to ensure job creators have access to the vital credit they need to make projects like this a success."
On May 22, 2009, she wrote Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asking for support for the St. Cloud, Minn., Metropolitan Transit Commission's application for federal funds to "replace twenty-three 35-foot transit buses with compressed natural gas (CNG) powered buses."
On June 4, 2009, she wrote LaHood again seeking grant funding to extend the Northstar Corridor commuter service from Big Lake to St. Cloud.
On June 19, 2009, she made an "urgent" request to LaHood to reverse a decision by the Federal Highway Administration that undermined a project in Waite Park, Minn. The project, she noted, had already received $2.578 million in federal funding through the stimulus package and was "only awaiting the final determination" from the FHWA.
On July 2, 2009, she wrote LaHood again, pleading for money for road improvements in Waite Park. She added that she was "pleased to learn" that Minnesota's Department of Transportation was not going to "pull the nearly $2.8 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding set aside for the project."
On Sept. 15, 2009, Bachmann wrote six separate letters to LaHood asking for help funding six projects (the Northstar line among them) through the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program. The Center for Public Integrity and MinnPost has previously reported on those letters.
On Oct. 5, 2009, she wrote Vilsack again, praising him for putting money into the nation's beleaguered pork industry and encouraging him to help "stabilize prices through direct government purchasing."
Five days later, she was chastising the concept of government spending in public, saying that the president's efforts to stem the fallout of the recession amounted to a charade. "We hear about fantasy football games. This is fantasy economics," Bachmann said.
That the Department of Transportation was the primary target of Bachmann's quest for federal funds isn't surprising. The congresswoman has a record of trying to protect infrastructure projects from her party's budget cutters, arguing that transportation projects should be exempt from the ban on earmarks that the House of Representatives instituted in November 2010. She was also far from the only conservative who attempted to get her hands on some of the $12 billion in funds that DOT received under the stimulus.
"Some members refuse to take stimulus and won't have anything to do with getting government transit money flowing into their states. Others will say that they are against the idea of the stimulus or federal money flowing into the economy but if the money is there, they are going to try and get that money flowing into their district," said Brian Darling, a senior fellow in government studies at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
But that doesn't necessarily absolve Bachmann from attacks from her fellow party members, Darling continued.
"Some conservatives won't like it," he said. "No two ways about it. They will look at it and not like it because they don't want members trying to funnel money back to their state."
Even more problematic, however, could be Bachmann's attempts to get money and assistance from the EPA, an agency that she once said should be "renamed the job-killing organization of America."
In February 2007, well before Obama was in office, Bachmann co-signed a letter to the EPA urging its officials to help fund technical assistance programs and rural water initiatives "in small communities across Minnesota." The authors of the letter, which included nearly the entire Minnesota congressional delegation at the time, noted that FY 2006 funding for the National Rural Water Association had been set at $11 million.
"We need to continue these efforts in 2007," they wrote.
In other communications with the EPA, Bachmann was far colder to agency policy, criticizing spring 2009 federal management standards for coal combustion byproducts and 2008 National Ambient Air Quality standards. But in other instances, Bachmann turned to the EPA for constituent-related problems. In a Feb. 2, 2010, letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, she asked the agency to support a $270,806 grant application (filed with the EPA's Clean Diesel Grant Program) that would help a St. Cloud bus company replace two older motor coach vehicles.
"Voigt's Bus Service, with Community Transportation, Incorporated, is committed to bringing long-term benefits to the environment and the economy and they wish to accomplish this through the Clean Diesel Grant Program," she wrote.
More than the specific funding requests, it is Bachmann's private acknowledgement that the EPA can facilitate positive outcomes for both the environment and the economy that stands out for conservative activists. On her campaign website, after all, Bachmann refers to the EPA as the "Job Killing Agency."
"There is a line between representing your district and then trying to lard up on all of this pork spending, pun intended," said Bill Wilson, President of Americans for Limited Government. "There are very few in Congress who have been able to stand strong and say, 'No I'm not going to do this.' And they are, in our view, the heroes … By not being part of that group [Rep. Bachmann] isn't unique, obviously. But I think that she would owe an explanation to the public as to why she did it. Why she asked for certain things, including things from EPA when she's been very vocal about the overreach of the EPA?"
Both Bachmann's presidential campaign and her congressional office did not return requests for comment for this article. In the past, the congresswoman has tried to draw a distinction between the national message she imparts and her professional responsibilities as a representative from Minnesota.
"It is my obligation as a member of Congress to ensure stimulus dollars are spent on the most worthy projects. I did just that when I supported applications for the TIGER grant program," she said last year.
While Bachmann clearly petitioned the federal government for help in multiple venues, she was incredibly unsuccessful in her efforts. Minnesota's sixth congressional district received more than $234 million in stimulus contracts, grants and loans, according to the Obama administration's Recovery.gov website. That may seem like a hefty bundle, but it ranks last among the state's eight congressional districts.
A Department of Transportation official, meanwhile, tells The Huffington Post that the federal government did not end up funding a single one of the projects for which Bachmann solicited help. The department did send funds to the Minnesota state government, which in turn backed transportation initiatives in the state. But the DOT official said that only a small sliver of that pool, if any, was likely to have ended up where Bachmann wanted.
In one instance, moreover, Bachmann wrote LaHood in support of the "Cold Spring Police Department's application for funding through the COPS hiring Recovery Program." That program, the DOT official confirmed, is operated by the Department of Justice. Bachmann was petitioning the wrong agency.
In the end, Bachmann's ineffectiveness in securing federal help for constituents doesn't mitigate the fact that she sought federal help in the first place. And for Republican primary voters, who have been fed a healthy diet of anti-government rhetoric during this election cycle, that may prove to be a blot on her record.
"This will come up in the context of the battle for the Republican nomination and it will be up to Mrs. Bachmann to explain these things adequately," said Craig Shirley, a longtime Republican operative. "The task for any good candidate is to explain why they did such and such which might not conform with party orthodoxy, and then pivot very quickly to convince enough primary voters why it is they who should be the nominee and not the other contenders."
But didn't you vote for Obama? Apparently, you thought he was fit to be POTUS. Still think so?!
Anyone who would support what is described in the article you posted needs his/her head examined--I'll give you that much.
By the way, it is "unfit" Libs like Pelosi and Reid that embolden more Libs to support Obama's agenda, which is why our country is in so much debt. You should be more concerned about radical Libs than evangelicals since it's the Libs that are bankrupting our country.
Conservatives are just as guilty of digging us into our hole.
I didn't vote last time because Obama was going to win big in NY and I just couldn't bring myself to vote for pardon the turkey Palin.
It was Bush who didn't pay for his wars with a tax hike like every other war, cut taxes,ran up the debt and relaxed banking and consumer regulations like Alphred E Neuman talking to God to the point it caused an economic collapse.
Part of the conservative plan during Bush was to spend so much money on tax cuts wars and military that there would be no money left over for liberal social programs
Obama's stimulus was really not enough and half of it was tax cuts which don't really count IMO as a stimulus.
It seems the conservatives have a loathing for the human being the way he/she is figuratively speaking.It may be an extension of the self loathing some religious homosexuals feel about their natural state.
As to Obamacare
I think Jesus would want everybody to have some form of medical coverage as he was all about the poor and not marraige homosexuality and abortion as the evangelicals make it out to be.
So...there is now a correlation between tax rate and tax revenue?!
When did this start?
History rather conclusively proves that there is no such correlation. When did the laws of supply and demand change?
Who controls the purse strings?
Also worth noting, CBO: Eight Years of Iraq War Cost Less Than Stimulus Act
Also, consider the greater debt that started long before Bush or Obama were even born.
Total unfunded Federal liabilities are estimated to be $115 TRILLION. Keep that government estimates are ALWAYS low by a huge margin (one economist has it at closer to $211 trillion).
Unfunded Federal liabilities include Social Security ($15 trillion), the prescription drug program ($20 trillion) and Medicare ($79 trillion).
What side of the political aisle is ideologically predisposed toward creating and defending these programs and what side of the political aisle is more ideologically predisposed against this programs?
All this "both sides are to blame" cowardice will be the death of our nation. We cannot afford ignorant voters who are unwilling to educate themselves and draw informed distinctions between the different political outlooks.
You really should read Reckless Endangerment by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner.
In addition to naming names, it shows that a lot of the regulations favorable to manipulation were put in place in the early 1990's.
Again, when did the laws of supply and demand take a vacation?
When did there start to be a correlation between tax rates and tax revenue?
When did tax rate cuts start becoming "spending increases"?
Maybe we should get away from the Orwellian rhetoric and baseless talking points.
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
Jesus wasn't a liberal, Judas Iscariot was.
Jesus never advocated stealing from others and giving to the poor. Judas did, but he was a thief and never had any intention of giving to the poor.
In fact, Jesus pointed out that we would always have the poor with us. Thus, there is no such thing as a 'cure' for poverty.
John 12:
3Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.
4Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him,
5Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?
6This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.
7Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.
8For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.
In fact, the Bible commands us to bear our own burdens and the burdens of others, but it does not say that we should steal from others, even to give to the poor.
Galatians 6:5
For every man shall bear his own burden.
When you hear liberals whine about 'sharing the wealth' or 'shared sacrifice' they really mean that they want to steal from the producers in order to buy votes and launder campaign money through labor unions' coffers.
Even you have said that although there is no direct correlation due to human behaviour, sometimes you get more revenue and sometimes you don't.
If it's a bit of a crap shoot it's better to do something, take a chance than not.
The 2% surcharge on income over 250k here in NY raised over a billion dollars.
Saying the poor will always be with us is an observation that doesn't mean they are a hopeless case and some cannot be helped.
There may not be a cure for poverty just like some chronic medical conditions but there can be treatment that makes it less harsh.
For instance my hands have a skin condition brought on by not wearing gloves using solvents and fiberglass and bondo daily for 20 years.
My hands would dry out and crack and it was painful.
On my own I found an ointment doctors weren't aware for this condition that works marvelously to keep it under control.
It sounds funny but Prep H ointment is a wonderful rejuvenator and emullient for painfully dry skin conditions.
It's not a cure but a very effective treatment.
You're the knowledgeble Bible guy here so from the New Testament what was Jesus's mission coming to Earth.
It certainly wasn't to cut taxes or help the rich get richer by helping themselves as the cliche goes, as a reward for believing in him.
The key word is "sometimes".
Your statements is premised on tax rate increases always resulting in tax revenue increases, and vice versa.
That is a BIG difference.
The former is an accurate representation of the truth. The latter ignores the truth.
As to Jesus being "all about the poor", His focus was rarely if ever on anything other then the individual. I have yet to see anything indicating he even considered the idea of a societal moral imperative (as opposed to an individual one). It is one thing to argue that individuals should look after those less fortunate then themselves. It is something entirely different to say that governments should steal from some and give to others.
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
Never said that; straw man. But you cannot make a case that the Bible advocates legalized theft, either.
If we were in court, I would say, "Objection, argumentative." You are introducing a red herring that is completely irrelevant. I never made that claim.
It's YOU who made the claim that Jesus would advocate universal healthcare. I debunked it. I don't have to chase your silly hypotheticals.
Jesus' mission to earth had nothing to do with the poor. He healed the sick and lame because he had compassion on them. His mission was to preach repentance and salvation. Stop trying to put political views in Jesus that you have no evidence for; it just makes you look foolish.
ford nut
Local nut case
It does say to tithe, give 10%
What a nice flat tax huh?
The church uses the extra cash after all the bills are paid to what?
Help the less fortunate?
I hope so.
Or to line the pockets of certain preachers?
Talk about legalized theft.