And Minnesota smiles in relief (we’re very reserved, so no loud cheers). Michele Bachmann will not be running for office again. You should watch her “I am not a crook!” video.
She tries to claim that the decision is solely because she has a principled belief in term limits. It’s not because she only squeaked by in the last election, oh no: she could beat any candidate, she claims. It’s not because her slackness with campaign funds has her under an ethics investigation. Then she rambles on with far right wing talking points — we have to stop oppressing the banks with crippling regulation, we have to hunt down the Muslim jihadists, yay Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, etc. She closes by promising to be willing to jump in and serve the country (please, right wing think tanks, hire me!) and deploring the fact that she’s sure the liberal media will distort her motivations.
And of course the final bit is glurge for god.
You should know that Bachmann is the biggest liar in congress. Use that fact in assessing her statements.
Also, keep in mind that her chances of winning any political office are now dead. Her secret to success was to run in the wackiest, most conservative, most ridiculously gerrymandered district in the state — she’s not electable any place else, and she’s just announced that she’s abandoning her electorate. Goodbye and good riddance!
Oh, how interesting. Bachmann claims she’s leaving the race because she believes in term limits, but it’s not true: she’s said the opposite before. Even when she’s leaving, she can’t help but throw out one more big lie.
This is the only Michele Bachmann video I ever want to watch:
I suppose her political death will be temporary, just like that of her hero, JC. Watch out for the Republican Zombie Apocalypse for they will undoubtedly Rise Again.
Pardon me while I put out some mystic symbols to ward off the Mad Monk for he be a danger.
Apropos of nothing much, Batshite was who the thugs sent to the funeral of the UK’s own wicked witch, Trasher.
Such fantastic news. Hopefully this means the beginning of the end of the stupid Tea Party.
I thought “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” was most appropriate for the occasion, but I’ll try to tone it down just a little. How about a taste of Three Days Grace?
i believe that the president of the united states may serve for 10 years, not 8, which would allow for coming into the office out of necessity and then being elected twice.
It should also be noted, even Ms. Bachmann’s statement that the law limits a president to eight years in office is wrong. If a president takes office with less than half of the term remaining, like LBJ did in 1963, he (or she) may legally serve two additional complete four year terms. If he takes office with more than two years remaining in the term, like Jerry Ford in 1974, the constitution limits the president to one additional term.
I wonder if she already has a full-time contract with
PravdaFaux Newz?The ArkRanger of Doom! should clearly be on the flud panel…
My comment@9 was intended for a different thread. Batshite’s stoopidity is apparently infectious, and is transmitted through USB ports.
Given Bachmann’s well-documented craziness, I wonder what is going on in her addled brain. Does the Minnesota Drama Queen expect an avalanche of teabaggers to rend their clothing, throw campaign dollars at her, and demand she run for U.S. Senate against Franken? I have difficulty believing that this is anything other than a stunt.
blf:
Have you been drinking the MDP’s concoctions again?
If Bachmann had run again, odds were pretty good a Democrat would’ve taken the seat. Now that she’s off the ballot, it seems like she’ll just be replaced by another Tea Party clown who hasn’t stunk up the joint yet.
I think that she made this decision because she realizes just how many laws she broke during her Presidential campaign and needs to focus all of her intellect, education, wiles, and willpower towards staying out of jail (or paying a big fine (which (for a teabagger) may be considered worse than jail?)).
I think it’s called getting out while the getting is good and lining up a gig on Fox News, and taking the time slot formerly occupied by Sarah Palin. Ka-ching!
Between this, the pope’s reaching out, and Florida’s backing off on voter suppression, I have to keep checking the calendar to see if it’s April 1 (the weather in Minnesota is March-like, so that doesn’t help).
On the local news this morning they interviewed a PoliSci professor and asked him who he thought the GOP would put up to run against Jim Graves. His first suggestion was Mary Kiffmeyer, the former Secretary of State for MN, and currently my state senator. She’s a curmudgeonly old lady whose recent claim to fame is having introduced the marriage amendment that failed last fall. she also voted against marriage equality earlier this month.
So you’d think that would be a problem for her. Except that every one of the state reps and sens that cover some part of District 6 is a Republican. In a year when the GOP got hammered throughout the rest of the state. Two of them, one rep and one sen, voted for marriage equality, the rest were all adamantly opposed. I worry that my neighbors may be just batty enough to elect Kiffmeyer.
I just saw the news. No time to delve into it, but came here immediately to do a little victory dance. I’m from California, so I can whoop it up for all you reserved Minnesotans.
As much as I loath the woman I would rather have seen her go down in flames in her customized district so we could all dance on the corpse of her political career.
Good.
And in further weird-but-welcome events, Illinois Bans Abstinence-Only Sex Education (from Ed’s blog): “Under the new law, if a school offers sex education it must include information about contraception. The governor is expected to sign it.”
Will the ethics investigation continue? This could just be a way of avoiding jail time.
Please permit me to express my joy:
“Thank you Jesus, Thank your Mary, I will certainly by today’s sunset, light a pink candle at thy feet for obliging me. But then you have not yet given me my other wish, – palin for bear lunch”.
I don’t see how she could have time to be in Congress what with her having been elected POTUS last year. She was right? Jesus didn’t lie to her did he?
Helensotiriadis:
That’s not quite right. U.S. law places no (direct) limit on the number of years that a person may serve as President. What it says (in the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution) is that (1) no one may be elected President more than twice and (2) no one who has served more than two years as President of the term that someone else was elected to may be elected President more than once.
This makes it practically impossible for one person to serve more than 10 years as President. But formally speaking, it is in fact entirely possible, because there are ways of attaining the Presidency that don’t require one ever to be elected to that office. If, say, I’m elected Vice President every four years, but the President elected on my ticket (I’d need a series of different ones) simply resigns before Inauguration Day every cycle, I could be President as long as I live. And that’s without being elected to that office even once, and therefore without even approaching the limitation in the 22nd Amendment.
Oh, MAN, PZ, why did you do this to me? Why did you put this video at the top of the morning’s post? I was just eating breakfast, and almost lost my cookies over it.
@25 the Rothschilds wouldn’t be so blatant in their machinations… [/NWO]
Back on topic – I take it she will still be representing the Tea Party in some format, and will likely still do her own “response” to the nation type broadcast because she is hardly the type to give up the limelight so easily. She may even end up getting it sponsored, and can do a double header with Palin on Faux.
I also expect that, regardless of the outcome of the ethics investigation, barring actual jail time she will pull a Palin and announce completely the wrong result.
Also, I was never more offended by the woman than he attempted witch hunt of Huma Abedin & Keith Ellison.
What the fuck is it with the sexism on this thread?
blf @ 3; TGAP Dad @ 5 using the sexist slur ‘witch’
bahrfeldt @7 limiting the US presidency to ‘he’s
Zeno @ 11 using the sexist slur ‘Drama Queen’
Great news that she is gone. Now let us hope that the district that elected her in the first place does not send another wackaloon that is as bad or worse. After all, they are still pretty gerrymandered, aren’t they?
Best, and keep on blogging.
Remember the satirical article before the Minnesota vote on same sex marriage that “reported” she’d leave the country if it passed? Maybe she saw it and thought she had really said it……
@29, according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District swings R+10 percentage points, so yes, it’s practically a lock for the GOP, at least in off-Presidential year elections. For that reason I expect the GOP primary will likely be won by someone about as nutty as Bachmann, but at the same time someone who won’t be so nutty as to risk losing the election to the Democratic candidate.
@ibis3 agreed about witch althogh technically it is not gendered. He’s is difficult to avoid though careful structuring can often allow the substitution of they or their. Drama Queen is more homophobic than sexist.
He’s should be his. Ooops
Ibis3, “Wicked witch” is a common way of referring to Ms Thacher, a former PM (Prime Minister) of the UK, at least among those who strongly disagree with her policies. And there was a campaign to get the Wizard of Oz song Ding! Dong! The Wicked Witch is Dead to the number 1 position on the UK pop music chart the week of her funeral (which almost succeeded).
Sexist? Perhaps. (Albeit witch has a history of also referring to males.) Suggest an alternative that neatly encapsulates just how vile are the policies advocated by one, and implemented by the other.
David — They are also not likely to elect someone who will be in the national spotlight as Bachmann was, at least not immediately. So, her replacement may be another nutty as banana bread Republican, but most of us won’t have to listen to the noise.
Any speculation that Bachmann is headed to a Fox commentary desk? They seem to really go for this type of…um…uh…intellect?
A commenter from her district noted after the election that the advantage of her winning was that she doesn’t do much besides make noise (like sponsoring bills to repeal Obamacare). Her opponent would have been vulnerable in ’14. He’s already running, so I guess we’ll see how that plays out.
playonwords:
1. Defence by etymology? seriously? “Witch” as an insult is used almost exclusively to denigrate women. No more need be said about it.
2. In the sentence before, bahrfeldt used “he (or she)” which is a bit better than leaving of “she” altogether. Other options abound and take little thought, not “careful structuring”, so, yeah, sexism completely unnecessary and indefensible.
3. a) Homophobia is a subset of sexism. It’s punishing men for being “like women” (i.e. lowering themselves) and women for being “mannish” (i.e. not knowing their place as a lesser being).
b) You’re wrong in this case. “Drama queen” originated as a slur for teenage girls. As I pointed out in a thread a few days ago, it’s the modern equivalent of “hysterical”.
Finally, what the fuck was your point in posting your comment? The only conclusion I can come to is that you want to condone and mitigate sexist crap instead of condemning it.
And there was much rejoicing.
ibis @ 28- Upon quick review I have one “he” and one “he (or she)”.
Um. Yeah. I knew that. So? Are you saying because it was used prominently as a slur against a particular woman (the first woman PM in the UK and there hasn’t been one since), that it loses it’s sexist connotation? Did it not occur to you that it was used against her because not only were her policies crap and harmful, but that she was a woman whose policies were crap and harmful? Does that mean that nigger is okay to use now that critics of Obama have used it against him (and surely there’s someone who’s used it in a song about him)?
Using sexist slurs against public women contributes to a hostile environment. If we want more women in politics, we have to treat them like human beings, not a reviled subspecies.
Um. Yeah. I knew that. And?
No. Not perhaps. Unequivocally.
When slurs that are usually used to denigrate women are used to insult men, that doesn’t magically turn them non-sexist. Rather, it’s doubling down. If a man is called a witch (or bitch or whatever), you;re saying he’s not only bad in whatever way, he’s also female which is inherently bad.
Not my job. But with over a million words in English, I’m sure you can come up with something that has no splash damage.
Really? I know “drama queen” from back in the seventies or so, when it was used as a put-down for overwrought people of both sexes, although most commonly by gay guys with respect to the more histrionic among their peers. It doesn’t carry a strong gender connotation today, if indeed it ever did.
@40, I heard that phrase back in the 1970s and that’s pretty much my experience too. These days I prefer using “drama llama” as it alliterates nicely and since I also have had a llama spit on me (it’s like being slimed) it does capture how someone can spit their drama on others.
@ bahrfeldt Yeah. First you said ‘he’ with ‘she’ as a parenthetical afterthought, then you just used ‘he’ (i.e. limiting the presidency to males/those identifying as “he”s). I got that. The first is far better than the second, but even better would have been “they,” some other gender neutral pronoun, “s/he”, “he or she”, “she or he”, “the president” etc.
I’m not trying to beat you up over it, but you don’t need to get defensive either. These things I’ve pointed out are microaggressions which should be acknowledged and avoided in the future.
Like Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint before her, she’s figured out that now’s the time to cash in on the wingnut welfare gravy train. I wonder what she’s going to do: Fox talking head, lobbyist, author…?
You do realize that it being a “put-down for both sexes” doesn’t fly, right? Just look at the insults that are also terms for female genitalia that are a “put-down for both sexes” after all…
Great news that Bachman is on
itsher way out. Things will certainly improve onceitsshe’s gone. While we do not yet know whichwarlock, witchrethuglican willreplace herfill the district 6 congressional seat,he, she, itthey will likely not be such afirebrand.Taunt kids from under her bridge?
@46, more like from behind the bushes.
http://www.nickcolemanmn.com/?p=4193
I was there myself, and yep, Bachmann was behind them.
I love her.
No wait…. not love exactly…
From there, emphasis added:
“Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, who have five children and have opened their home to 23 foster children, live in Stillwater, Minn., and own a mental health care practice.
*headdesk*
Yeah, if.
And why, do you think, was exactly this term chosen?
It doesn’t alliterate (fortunately). It simply rhymes. :-)
Ibis3:
I’m calling bullshit on that one. Please tell the many, very masculine gay men that they are being like women, and that that is the reason society discriminates against them.
Yeah, and I don’t use those freighted terms and I wasn’t excusing them. It doesn’t refute an argument to present a case where it manifestly doesn’t apply.
Hallelujah, and good riddance.
I’m not sure what manner of creature that thing will ultimately be replaced with, but one must always find such a development in positive terms.
Who knows? Maybe Minnesota voters in her district will have at long and ghastly length discovered by now that her ilk is not to be repeated…but I’m not holding my breath over that possibility.
I think Ibis3 has a point here, even if “subset” overstates the case. A lot of gay-bashing explicitly refers to the supposed femininity of the homosexual male, starting with “sissy” and working your way down from there. There’s no question that the bashers consider it a powerful insult to impute female characteristics to a man, thus clearly establishing their sexism. I suspect it’s especially deranging to homophobes when they encounter the hyper-masculine gay men with gym-sculpted bodies because they transgress the notion that masculinity is the exclusive province of straight men. The homophobes prefer gays to be more readily bashable and they don’t know how to deal with physically strong gay men.
@52, how do you think Bachmann was elected in the first place? She ran as the unhinged facts-be-damned candidate in the GOP primary back in 2006 and won because that’s what GOP voters wanted and that’s exactly what they got. I’m certain that we’ll see a replay of that in the 2014 GOP primary and there are candidates like Matt Dean who once said he hated Neil Gaiman for quote “pencil-necked weasel who stole $45,000 from the State of Minnesota” unquote. He apologized later, kinda, sorta, not really. So I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.
@49 Wicked Witch was used to describe Margaret Thatcher because she shared qualities with the eponymous Wicked Witch from the series of books by Frank L Baum.
Rather than sharing qualities with the Good Witch, Glinda…
Zeno: Absolutely, I think that sexism and homophobia support each other, rather like two columns connected by cross-braces. If we consider the origin of sexism as we know it today (probably around the time of the development of agriculture), having many children would have been an advantage, which sets us up nicely for the “women as incubators” trope. Thus non-reproductive sex would have been considered bad, a concept reinforced by religion. Gay sex is of course non-reproductive, and thus evil. (Note that male-male intimacy is not explicitly prohibited, but the act of anal penetration is in Abrahamic religions). Therefore, we could consider homophobia and sexism to have the same roots, but we cannot, in my opinion, consider one to be the product of the other.
The most positive thing I can say about Bachmann is that she was so busy trying to further her career, she often ignored her current job, and missed many, many votes.
I would be pleased if more Republicans went this route.
Ibis I was agreeing with you about “witch” sorry if you could not take the time to comprehend that I was regretting the negative connotation and also the gender now attached to an otherwise useful word.
“She/he” or “he/she” or “he or she” is just as clumsy as restructuring the sentence to use they or their, it can be done but is not easy or particularly easy to read. It is a problem with the language and sometimes you have to cut the users of that language a little slack because humans are not perfect.
Agreed that some homophobia expressing hatred of effeminacy is related to the devaluation and outright degradation of femininity but that is not all there is to homophobia. About “Drama Queen” I first became aware of the term in ’70s – ’80s London (although I have a vague idea that Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick used the term as a part of “Polari” in the ’50s and ’60s) and it was most definitely used regarding homosexuals and primarily by homosexuals. Later it was gained more common usage to describe histrionics by any person but particularly men. I’m sorry if you have only come across the term as used about adolescent girls again it shows we are 2 countries separated by a common language.
As a gay male, I want to thank Ms. Bachmann for her long time effort and support of the failed gay marriage amendment. Both amendments (one was a thinly disguised voter suppression amendment) in the most recent election did nothing but energize the opposition which resulted in the democrats controlling both state houses. This, in turn, led to the legalization of gay marriage.
I honestly think she brought this upon herself and her party whether that be Republican or Tea Party. Without the one man – one woman marriage amendment on the ballot, I doubt the democrats would have taken both houses. So, thanks Michelle for supporting this when you were a state senator.
Anyhow, she won’t be missed by most Minnesotans. Even some members of her party will be glad to see her leave.
@60, the ones to also thank for are those DFL state senators who twice blocked the proposed constitutional amendment against same-sex civil marriage. They succeeded in delaying the amendment and gave more time for public opinion to swing against it. The Republicans also wrong-footed themselves into putting an amendment up for a vote in an election cycle that favored the Democrats (Presidential years help boost Democratic voter turnout) and it backfired on them spectacularly, and it’s wonderful to see the issue now settled on the side of fairness rather than prejudice.
Evidence?
Uh, “thou shalt not lie with a man as thou liest with a woman” is really vague, you know. It means whatever Humpty Dumpty wants it to mean, no more, no less.
And to put a sentence in parentheses but then take its period out and put it behind the closing parenthesis – that is an abomination.
I’m guessing there’s bad news coming from the ethics investigation When they were talking about this on Morning Joe, someone brought up that this was pretty sudden. As of last week, she was already making big ad buys for the next election.
@David Wilford, who admonishes:
Cripes. Haven’t I said so?
Hopes??? Are you kidding? Cheeses fucking rice crispies.
Are we to engage in another idiotic redundancy war?
no thanks.
David @62: I will be happy to provide sources when I’m not posting via iPhone. Also, remember that the Babble is a translation, and translations are influenced by their translators. Can we trust the KJV to give us an accurate idea of what the author meant? No, and in this case, the Hebrew is likely less vague. I’ll have to check through some more modern translations later. Finally, when did pointing out typos become a valid tactic in debate?
Such efficiency is to be admired. It took Nixon over a decade to go from “you won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore” to “I am not a crook.”
@64, sorry for adding on unnecessary doom and gloom to what you said.
I was hoping she’d leave due to expulsion, but I’ll take it.
s for the use of witch I does this mean?
Witch-king of Angmar
uncle frogy
sorry let me try that again
as for the use of witch, what does
Witch-King of Angmar mean?
uncle frogy
Would surprise me in this case – the original Hebrew is full of vague euphemisms.
What? Debate? Tactic??? I just said it’s an abomination, since we were talking about presumed abominations. And I know lots of people who take the period out consistently and deliberately, for (presumably) some reason, so I had no reason to think it was a typo.
I’m with Ibis!
And I’m sad nobody mentioned my video link at post one.
Those Bad Lip-Reading videos are pretty damn funny.
I bid Michele Bachmann’s horrible self a non-sexist good riddance. Toodles!
Her jehovah god was right about the last days – these are the last days for Bachmann – she is a self-prophet!
@46 LOL! Thank you!
g1a1s
It had me laughing out loud. I think bad lip reading takes incredible talent. Or a lot of time. Or both. Regardless, it was the most cognizant she’s ever appeared.
YES! you get at least part of what is happening here.
The charges filed against Bachmann are at the behest of the GoP itself. this is how they get rid of people they no longer consider valuable, while maintaining an open spot for a replacement they think better fits with their current goals.
It’s why she was able to cop a deal against the ethics charges against her simply by agreeing not to run for re-election.
this is standard GoP politics.
based on her, uh, position statements… it wouldn’t surprise me to see her get an invite to participate in the Heritage Foundation.
Rachel Maddow presented the best roundup I’ve ever seen of Michele Bachmann’s talent for being so fucking wrong you have to laugh.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26315908/#52040554
18 minutes of the best of the best screw ups by Bachmann — or the worst of the worst if you, like me, sometimes find Michele Bachmann a reason to despair for all of humankind.
Maddow’s commentary is priceless.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/michele-bachmanns-holy-war-20110622?print=true
Matt Taibbi on Michele Bachmann.
Excerpt:
More quotes from Matt Taibbi:
to the froggy one:
It is the title given to the then-current guise of the greatest representative of evil and darkness in the world at that time.
…so, tentatively, “Not A Compliment”, yes?