29 August, 2011

Again, you can't make this up

So Republican Presidential candidate and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann made a "joke" about God sending the recent earthquake that struck the east coast as well as Hurricane Irene, http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/bachmann-claims-hurricane-earthquake-were-god-messages-politicians-155051199.html.

God sent the earthquake & hurricane as a message? Really? Joke or not it's a dumb thing to say, especially if you're not a comedian. Since the person who said it is a sitting US Congresswoman, then it's really stupid. Unfortunately there probably are people who think that God communicates in this manner ( I don't want to judge but let's face it...they're kooks.)

As impossible as this may sound, Ms. Bachmann has actually gone on record as having communicated with The Lord on a few occasions. According to Bill Maher, Bachmann has stated that (paraphrasing here) God told her to get married & stay with her husband despite the fact that she didn't love him and that God gave her career advice in becoming a lawyer. For the record I haven't checked these facts but quite frankly the mainstream media (CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, etc) and elected politicians seldom fact check so why should I. But it isn't the first time I've heard that.

In addition, Ms Bachmann has a tendency to not always speak the truth when making public statements, http://www.politifact.com/personalities/michele-bachmann/statements/. Of the 30 statements sampled on 5 are half true or better. That means that over 80% of her statements are mostly false or worse (including 7 "pants on fire!") President Obama has 318 statements on PolitiFact & by their count he's at 70% half true or better & he only has 4 "pants on fire" quotes for 1.2%. Whereas Bachmann, with only 30 statements, has a "pants on fire" percentage of 23%. On a side note, I don't know where these elected officials get their info. Does someone tell them? or do they just throw it out there?

Over the last 10-12 years it seems like there's been a decline in the "facts" by politicians (what a surprise) and the media. Once again this is nothing new. In the 50's, Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed that there were hundreds of card carrying communists working for the Defense Department. Where did he get the numbers you ask? He made them up.

It seems the worst offenders are the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter & Glenn Back. Quite honestly I don't know who the liberal talking heads are (NPR maybe?) because they aren't able to cause the ruckus that these 3 do. Al Franken used to be that liberal guy but he actually put his money where his mouth was & ran for office. And won! This is off the subject a bit & should be another topic altogether. To be fair, Rush, Ann & Glen are good at what they do. They've all made millions in radio, books & TV. They can all be checked out on politifact.com.

I got a bit off topic there but back to the subject. In June of this year Matt Taibbi, writer for Rolling Stone Magazine delivered this article about Ms. Bachmann, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/michele-bachmanns-holy-war-20110622. He basically states that Bachmann as nutty as she may appear (follow some of the links in the article and judge for yourself) she is gaining steam. It seems ghastly weird to me that someone running for the POTUS who doesn't know American History, claims to converse with the Almighty and believes in outlandish conspiracy theories has any real chance of getting the GOP nomination. But it's happening! As the title suggests, you can't make this up. Inconceivable!

I'm hoping that reasonable intelligent people will eventually grow tired of Bachmann and her followers  (who must be somewhat intelligent people) will in time wake up & smell the coffee. Bachmann & her husband own a farm and have received farm subsidy checks. So there's a bit of hypocrisy involved considering she's a conservative who's against such things but doesn't mind taking a hand out herself.

It also makes me wonder where Sara Palin fits in. She wants to make a run for POTUS in 2012 (at least that's the impression everyone got when she was McCain's running mate) and she's making all the rounds (stealing Romney's thunder in New Hampshire) but she's made no announcement. She clearly enjoys (and probably wants) the attention but she could feel that 2 crazy women would cancel each other out. Who knows. With any luck it could get interesting.

Thanks as always to the men & women in the Armed Forces for their dedication. Thanks again for your time.


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