Michelle+Bachmann

**"Restoring Constitutional Conservative Values"**  - Elizabeth Martin & Miranda Otis


 * Michele Bachmann Family ** - Miranda Otis 12/2/11
 * The family has a total of 5 children
 * They have also been a home to 23 teenage girls over the years until 2000


 * How Michele Bachmann is Doing: ** - Miranda Otis 12/8/11 ** [|Poll] **

**Powerpoint Presentation** - Miranda Otis & Elizabeth Martin

[|Michele Bachmann Interactive Timeline] - Miranda Otis

- Miranda Otis 11/10/11 Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) seemed to attack two of her Republican rivals, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain, without naming them Monday at a speech at the Family Research Council in Washington. "Unfortunately for too many Republicans, they also aspire to be frugal socialists," she said. "The reason President Obama and some Republicans can get behind socialized medicine is because they share the same core political philosophy about the purpose of government." She added, "We cannot preserve liberty if the choice is between a frugal socialist and an out-of-control socialist." The most likely target of her remarks was former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who signed into law a health care reform in his state similar to the law the president signed. Romney says that he wants to repeal the president's health care law. When asked by a reporter about who she was referring to in the question-and-answer session in the "frugal socialist" remark, she responded, "Well you see, that's part of the puzzle for you to figure out." The audience laughed. "Good try," she added. Bachmann also attacked Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain -- and possibly Romney who has shifted on his views -- for his stance on abortion, without mentioning him by name. "Our candidate has to do more than just check the box on life," she said. "You won't find YouTube clips of me advocating anything else," she added. The former Godfather's Pizza CEO has given conflicting answers on his position in recent interviews. He said in an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan that he believes in abortion "under no circumstances," but added that "it's not the government's role or anybody else's role to make that decision." A YouTube clip of an interview with him this summer drew attention for his contradictory answers on abortion. Bachmann, however, remains far behind Romney and Cain. A //Washington Post///ABC News national poll released Friday showed Romney and Cain with 24 and 23 percent, respectively, and Bachmann with 4 percent, down from 16 percent in July. Bachmann commented on other subjects in her speech. She said, "I believe in liberty for light bulbs," referring to new efficiency standards for incandescent light bulbs, which some conservatives oppose. Bachmann also claimed President Barack Obama was not listening to the generals on Afghanistan. "He is not listening to General Allen. He is listening to General Axelrod," she said, referring David Axelrod, one of the president's top 2012 campaign advisors.
 * Michele Bachmann Launches Attack At 'Frugal Socialists' In the Republican Party **

- Elizabeth Martin 11/17/11 Michelle Bachmann is going on the offensive after CBS political analyst John Dickerson mistakenly including one of the Republican’s staff members in an email regarding the networks upcoming debate. In the email Dickerson told his recipients that Bachmann would likely receive very few questions during the debate because she’s “nearly off the charts” in popularity polls. Bachmann’s campaign told the // Los Angeles Times // that the email shows a “planned effort to limit questions” for the politicians. In an email to supporters Bachmann’s campaign manager Keith Nahigian wrote: > “As Michele prepared her plans to debate on CBS, we received concrete evidence confirming what every conservative already knows—the liberal mainstream media elites are manipulating the Republican debates by purposely suppressing our conservative message.” For their part CBS is sticking to their guns, in a public statement the company said the email was a: > “Candid exchange about the reality of the circumstances—Bachmann remains at 4% in the polls.” The GOP polls have changed repeatedly over the last several months with new front runners constantly ahead in the polls, given that fact do you believe [|Michelle Bachmann] should not have been targeted by CBS? It will be interesting to see if Bachmann attempts to “cut in” as questions are being answered during the CBS debate.
 * Michele Bachmann Goes After CBS For Attempting To Limit Debate Questions **

**Michele Bachmann vows to finish Mexico Border fence** - Miranda Otis 11/17/11 [|Michele Bachmann], struggling to regain a foothold in the [|GOP] presidential race, opened a hard new front Saturday on immigration, signing a pledge to push to complete a fence along the entire Mexican border by 2013 and saying she would consider allowing federal agents to conduct raids to find illegal immigrants. "That will be job No. 1," Bachmann said of the fence. "And it will be every mile, it will be every yard, it will be every foot, it will be every inch of that border, because that portion you fail to secure is the highway into the United States." Bachmann became the first major presidential candidate to sign a pledge by the Americans for Securing the Border, an advocacy group, that she would support constructing a double fence along the length of the U.S.- [|Mexico] border by the end of 2013. Illegal immigration has became a pivotal issue in the Republican contest, with Texas Gov. [|Rick Perry] facing vocal criticism for his longtime support of in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrants. Bachmann prefaced her remarks to about 100 people at the historic Hotel Pattee here in Perry, Iowa, by saying that Americans must have a discussion about ending illegal immigration and that doing so was not racist. "It's OK to talk about this subject. Sometimes we're told it's not OK to talk about illegal immigration, that somehow that means we're prejudiced or we're bigoted or we're biased against Hispanics or that we don't love people that are Hispanic," she said. "That's not what I hear from the people of Iowa. I don't hear people of Iowa that are racist or bigoted in their remarks. What I hear from the people of Iowa is they are tired of paying for other people's items, they are tired of paying for illegal immigration." Bachmann argued that a porous border is a national security threat, and she cited a report that tens of thousands of those caught trying to enter the nation illegally were from nations other than Mexico. "Fifty-nine thousand this year came across the border … from [|Yemen], from [|Syria] . These are nations that are state sponsors of terror. They're coming into our country," she said. Yemen is not on the United States' list of state sponsors of terrorism, according to the [|State Department]. Four nations are on that list — Cuba, Syria, Iran and Sudan. Bachmann also used a litany of statistics to argue that illegal immigration was a national drain. She asserted that illegal immigrants were more likely to be high school dropouts and that households headed by those who do not obtain high school degrees and who receive welfare drain the nation's coffers. She said illegal immigrants cost the federal, state and local governments $113 billion annually, a figure she said came from the conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform. Estimates about the cost of illegal immigration vary widely, ranging from a few billion dollars annually to much larger figures. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that state and local governments incur costs because of illegal immigrants, but the effect was probably "modest," and that there was no consensus on how to determine a national cost. The Federation for American Immigration Reform is controversial; the Southern Poverty Law Center says the organization's leaders have ties to white supremacist groups. A man in the audience asked why Bachmann castigates those who are high school dropouts as a drain on society but then fights in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants. "Why would you choose to punish these kids who came here when they were young, no choice of their own?" asked Perry resident Eddie Diaz, 32. Bachmann said that she was not punishing them, but rather opposed giving special advantages to lawbreakers. "When people break the law …" Bachmann said. Diaz interrupted, "They did not break the law." The two continued to repeat those lines until Bachmann said, "People who come into the country break the law. That's an indisputable fact. When someone comes into the country illegally, that is breaking the law…. You're entitled to your opinion."

Michele Bachmann is still trying to explain the remarks she made at the Living Word Christian Center in 2006, when she told the congregation, "The Lord says: Be submissive, wives. You are to be submissive to your husbands." According to a//Washington Post// profile, she said at the time that she pursued a degree in tax law at the urging of her husband, Marcus. Bachmann was the family breadwinner, working as an attorney for the IRS, until her fourth child was born in 1993. Since she won her Minnesota Congressional seat in 2006, it has been Marcus who has been charged with taking care of the family and their controversial Christian counseling practice. So who is the submissive one now? // The Washington Post // caught the candidate between campaign stops in Iowa and asked her to clarify: > Since Bachmann was elected to Congress five years ago, the primary caregiver for their oft-mentioned kids has been her husband, Marcus Bachmann, back home in Minnesota. "We've been a tag team," she says. Only, her husband has been "it" for the past five years, hasn't he, despite her Bible-based belief that wives should be submissive to their husbands? > "My husband is the head of the household," she says, but "we’re equals. If it came down to it, I’d probably let him have the last word." But in 33 years, she adds, this has never happened. "Every decision has been a negotiated settlement." It was not the first time the GOP hopeful has been asked whether she is submissive to her husband. At a primary debate in Ames, Iowa, conservative columnist Byron York posed the question -- to boos from the crowd. "I respect my husband, he's a wonderful godly man, and we respect each other," Bachmann replied.
 * Michele Backmann Addresses 'Submissive Wife" Comments ** - Miranda Otis 11/29/11

- Miranda Otis 11/29/11 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Michele Bachmann did not intend to be taken literally when she told the Republican presidential debate Tuesday that civil-liberties activists have taken over the interrogation of terrorists from the CIA. But even as a rhetorical point, it didn't hold water.
 * Fact Check: GOP Presidential Contender's Exaggerations About War on Terror **

Her hyperbole on the American Civil Liberties Union was one of the more notable stretches in the national security and foreign policy debate. A look at some of the claims and how they compare with the facts:

BACHMANN: "This is one thing we know about Barack Obama: He has essentially handed over our interrogation of terrorists to the ACLU. He's outsourced it to them. Our CIA has no ability to have any form of interrogation for terrorists."

THE FACTS: The CIA still has the ability to interrogate terrorists. President Obama formed the High Value Interrogation Group, which includes the FBI, the CIA and the Pentagon. It centralizes expertise so that when a terrorism suspect is caught, everyone with a stake in the issue is involved in the questioning. The CIA also can sit in on interrogations in other countries, asking questions directly or through officials of the host government.

Whether the policy on interrogating suspects should be tougher is a matter of authentic debate. But the CIA is hardly emasculated. The agency has dramatically expanded its on-the-ground operations worldwide since 2001, and the U.S. killing of a succession of al-Qaida figures in Pakistan - Osama bin Laden chief among them - demonstrates the potency of the hunt for terrorists. Moreover, the U.S. killing of an American citizen abroad - the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki - is well outside the range of action that would be condoned by civil liberties advocates.

- Elizabeth 12/2/2011
 * NBC Apologizes to Michele Bachmann for 'Disrespectful' Jimmy Fallon Introduction **

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** Bachmann says Gingrich has 'Memory Challenge' ** **-Elizabeth Martin 12/2/2011** — Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is pushing back after rival Newt Gingrich called her "factually challenged." Campaigning Thursday in Florida, the congresswoman from Minnesota said both Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are guilty of changing positions when it's politically convenient. And she said Gingrich has a "memory challenge." On Wednesday, the former House speaker and college professor said of Bachmann: "In the eyes of a teacher, occasionally I'd have a student who couldn't figure out where things were, or what things were, or what the right date was. When that happens, you feel sorry that they're so factually challenged." Gingrich's criticism apparently refers to several instances in which Bachmann has flubbed some facts, such as when she said she would close the U.S. Embassy in Iran — even though the U.S. hasn't had an embassy there for decades. Bachmann said of Gingrich: "I think that a professor doesn't like to be challenged, but I think that his real challenge is a memory challenge." Gingrich and Romney are at the top of some national polls in the race for the Republican nomination while Bachmann often appears in single digits. [|Bachmann says Gingrich has 'memory challenge']

-Elizabeth Martin 12/6/2011 Rep. Michele Bachmann said Tuesday she still thinks she has a good chance of winning the Iowa Republican caucuses, saying presidential campaign rivals Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney "have significant flaws." Bachmann said in a nationally broadcast interview that she, more than her rivals, personifies the kind of conservative values Iowa Republicans want, and said she believes "we're going to be shocked on Jan. 3 when we see the results." Bachmann commented at a time when polls continue to show her in the lower tier of candidates vying to challenge President Barack Obama next year. Asked on CBS's "The Early Show" about Gingrich's surge to top of the polls, Bachmann replied that "two weeks can be an eternity" in a White House campaign. She appeared on the same day that Romney awaited an endorsement from former Vice President Dan Quayle and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman prepared for an appearance in Washington before the Heritage Foundation's Bloggers Briefing. "I think we're perfectly situated to be where we want to be," Bachmann said. She said the campaign is like a "political Wall Street," with candidates' stock rising and falling. And she accused both Gingrich and Romney of being supporters of "Obamacare," and said that both backed the government bailout of financial institutions. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The Minnesota Republican asserted that Romney had reversed his position on "life" issues and said that both Romney and Gingrich "are flawed candidates." <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Bachmann wouldn't say whether she will participate in a Dec. 27 debate in Des Moines moderated by real estate magnate Donald Trump. She said she likes Trump, but that she's still weighing whether to appear. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Gingrich has accepted the debate invitation, and Rep. Ron Paul and Huntsman have declined. The other candidates are still thinking it over. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Huntsman, in an appearance Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show, accused Romney of being indecisive, and cited the former Massachusetts governor's failure to say whether he would join the Des Moines debate is an example. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">"As usual, Mr. Romney can't make a decision. He's weighing both sides and may flip-flop on this as well," Huntsman said. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">He said that "people are giving us a second look, a first look in some cases." <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">"I'm running against a conservative flip-flopper," Huntsman said of Romney. "I'm running against a grandiose conservative. People are coming around to the reality that I'm a consistent conservative."
 * Bachmann: Romney, Gingrich both have 'flaws' **

-Elizabeth Martin 12/6/2011
 * Michele Bachmann Gives Cold Response To Question On Human Cost Of Mass Deportation **

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Fox News host Bill O'Reilly challenged GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann in an interview Monday on her recent campaign promise to deport all undocumented immigrants, claiming that the human and fiscal cost of the task could make it extremely difficult. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">"[T]heory is one thing. Dragging people out, putting them on a bus with their children crying is going to be quite something else," O'Reilly said, after Bachmann spoke about the supposed cost to the United States by undocumented immigrants. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">"It can be done," Bachmann replied. "That's the thing. It can be done." <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">**//(Video above, comments begin around the 2-minute mark)//** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">"It's time we do take a tough stance," Bachmann said later. "I'm a compassionate person but we have to get tough on illegal immigration. It's hurting a lot of people." <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Earlier in the segment, Bachmann said undocumented immigrants pose "a big problem" to the nation, citing " anchor babies " and a column by Mark Steyn that said "50 percent of Mexico's population has moved north of the border" as examples. It's unclear whether Steyn was arguing -- and Bachmann then reciting -- that half of Mexico's 112 million citizens are now residing in the United States. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Roughly two-thirds of all the undocumented immigrants in the United States have been in the country for 10 or more years, according to a Pew Hispanic Center report released last week .Top of Form <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">On Saturday, Bachmann told a Fox News forum that her mass-deportation plan would include crackdowns on "sanctuary cities," which bar government employees from inquiring about immigration status, and increased enforcement by immigration agents. She also alleged that undocumented immigrants cost the country $113 billion every year, a statistic that her campaign told The Huffington Post it took from a press release by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-immigration group. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">A report by the Center for American Progress found that deporting all undocumented immigrants could cost upwards of $2.6 trillion. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Bachmann has portrayed herself throughout her campaign as a hardliner on immigration. In October, she made a point to announce she wouldn't do anything for the children of undocumented immigrants. At the time, Texas Governor Rick Perry was fielding criticism for standing by a law he signed in 2001 to give in-state tuition to some undocumented young people. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">"Their parents are the ones who brought them here ... they did not have the legal right to come to the United States," Bachmann said at the time. "We do not owe people who broke our laws to come into the country. We don't owe them anything." <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">She later took aim at former House speaker Newt Gingrich, calling his immigration position, which he has tried to hone after taking fire for a perceived moderate stance on the issue, the " most liberal " of all the GOP candidates. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Bachmann has also been a vocal proponent of creating a double fence across the entire border with Mexico, an idea that she's pledged to complete as president. These proposals are largely unviable, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday. [|Michele Bachmann Gives Cold Response To Question On Human Cost Of Mass Deportation]

**Michele Bachmann Vows to Continue Her Campaign Through the New Hampshire Primary** - Miranda Otis 12/8/11

Stumping in the early primary state for the first time since making her candidacy official in June, Bachmann kept up her attacks on President Barack Obama and urged Republicans not to compromise with a moderate nominee to oppose him. A new poll shows the Minnesota Congresswoman, a Tea Party favorite, tied for tenth in New Hampshire after peaking as high as second in June. Bachmann on Sunday mixed harsh rhetoric with humor as she campaigned in a state she has largely ignored in favor of Iowa, which is seen as more receptive to her conservative message. "I want to be your sweetheart here in New Hampshire," she told a meeting of about 50 Tea Party supporters. "The thing that I would look forward to more than anything as the Republican nominee is taking Barack Obama on in the debates and holding him accountable for four years of destroying the country." Bachmann also took a veiled swipe at Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney as she campaigned in Moultonborough, on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, about 20 miles from Romney's vacation home in Wolfeboro. Polls since 2009 have given former Massachusetts governor Romney a wide lead in the state among Republican hopefuls. "It's not good enough to settle for anyone but Barack Obama," she said. "This is the election where we have to have a constitutional conservative." Still, Bachmann, an outspoken evangelical Christian and social conservative, came to the defense of Romney's Mormon faith, which was criticized by an evangelical pastor at a conservative conference in Washington on Friday. Texas pastor Robert Jeffress, who introduced and endorsed Texas Governor Rick Perry at the Value Voters meeting, told voters to choose a candidate other than Romney, and later told reporters that Mormonism was a "cult." "We don't have a test for people when they go into the White House," said Bachmann, who often espouses her evangelical beliefs while campaigning. "We do believe in tolerance and liberty for all Americans." Bachmann said the long summer debate over raising the federal government's borrowing limit had kept her away from New Hampshire. "I wish I could have come back earlier but I was fighting the debt ceiling all summer," she said. Bachmann's poll numbers peaked over the summer in the run-up to her victory in the Iowa straw poll, but have been falling since Perry's entry into the race in August and most recently with the rise of pizza magnate Herman Cain. Since September her campaign manager and pollster have resigned and a number of Iowa campaign staff have returned to her congressional office staff. Reports suggest her campaign raised less than $5 million in the third quarter of the year, well below the levels raised by Romney and Perry. The bad news has dented the confidence of even her core supporters. "I'm not sure Michele has a great chance," said Don Ewing, a Tea Party supporter from Meredith, N.H., who said he was still deciding whether to support Bachmann or Cain. "You have to support the people you think will do the best job."

=**<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif;">MICHELE BACHMANN **=

<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif;">-Kathryn McDaniel and Michael Hall
<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">- Powerpoint Presentation

<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Michele Bachmann Talks Presidential Qualifications:
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=<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%;">Biography = = = = =

Michele Bachmann's Husband and Children
In 1978, she married Marcus Bachmann, whom she had met while they were undergraduates in collegeAfter she graduated from William & Mary School of Law in 1988, the couple moved to Stillwater, Minnesota, a town of 18,000 near St. Paul. Bachmann and her husband have five children (Lucas, Harrison, Elisa, Caroline, and Sophia). GOP candidate Michele Bachmann.

Bachmann and her husband also provided foster care for 23 other children,all teenage girls. The Bachmanns were licensed from 1992 to 2000 to handle up to three foster children at a time; the last child arrived in 1998. The Bachmanns began by providing short-term care for girls with eating disorders who were patients in a program at the University of Minnesota. The Bachmann home was legally defined as a treatment home, with a daily reimbursement rate per child from the state. Some girls stayed a few months, others more than a year.

Michele Bachmann's Businesses
Bachmann and her husband own a Christian counseling practice in Stillwater. Their clinic, run by her husband, who has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Union Graduate School,received nearly $30,000 from Minnesota and the federal government between 2006 and 2010. Bachmann said that she and her husband had not benefited at taxpayers' expense: the money went to the clinic's employees, for mental health training.

In personal financial disclosure reports for 2006 through 2009, Bachmann reported earning $32,500 to $105,000from a farm that was owned at the time by her ailing father-in-law, Paul Bachmann. The farm received $260,000 in federal crop and disaster subsidies between 1995 and 2008.Bachmann said that in 2006–2009, her husband acted as a trustee of the farm for his dying father and so, out of "an abundance of caution", she claimed the farm as income in financial disclosures, though it was her in-laws who profited from the farm during that period. In 2009, following Paul Bachmann's death,Bachmann and her husband inherited a partnership stake in the land. Since then, the land and its buildings have been rented to a neighboring farmer who maintains a dairy herd on the land.

Michele Bachmann's Presidential Start
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">Michele Bachmann is a Republican congresswoman from Minnesota who came to national attention during the presidential election of 2008, after a television appearance in which she encouraged the media to "take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America?" She was running for re-election in Minnesota's 6th district that year, and the remarks sent more than a million dollars in donations to her opponent in the race, but Bachmann won anyway. A former lawyer for the U.S. Treasury Department, Bachmann began her political career in the 1990s as an advocate for charter schools and a critic of taxes. She was elected to Minnesota's state senate in 2000 and for six years made her name in local politics as an opponent of taxes, gay marriage and the teaching of evolution in public schools. Although a newcomer to national politics, Bachmann's congressional campaign in 2006 was strongly supported by the Republican National Committee, and she had help in her campaign from such luminaries as [|Karl Rove] and then-president [|George W. Bush]. Her re-election in 2008 looked like a done deal until her remarks about anti-American representatives in congress on MSNBC's //Hardball with Chris Matthews//. In the same program she said candidate [|Barack Obama] and his wife [|Michelle Obama] concerned her because of their "anti-American" views. Howling critics have called her the reincarnation of Senator [|Joe McCarthy] (and worse), but Bachmann has a fan base of conservative "tea party" Republicans who don't mind her factual blunders and intemperate remarks. She announced in June of 2011 that she was running for the United States presidency.

Michele Bachmann's Platform:
• Supports the teaching of creationism, alongside evolution in public school science classes  • Opposes minimum wage increases   • Supports eliminating the federal minimum wage because she believes that would “virtually wipe out unemployment”   • Supports increased domestic drilling of oil and natural gas and the pursuit of renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar energy   • Supporter of nuclear power   • Opposes Social Security and Medicare   • Opposes the United States being a part of the international global economy   • Opposes same-sex marriage   • Opposes immigration   • Opposes abortion because of a personal experience involving the miscarriage of her second child   • Opposes federal-backed home loans   • Supports the Tea Party movement, which supports reduced government spending, opposes intense taxation, and supports the reduction of the national debt and federal budget deficit



<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">August 13, 2011:
Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Republican presidential straw poll on Saturday, edging out Ron Paul, the Libertarian Texas congressman and quadrennial White House hopeful. Former two-term Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty finished a distant third, capturing less than half of the totals brought in by the top two finishers. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who was not on the ballot, ended up in sixth place with 718 votes, besting Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and Thaddeus McCotter. Romney and Huntsman were on the ballot, but did not actively compete. The results are a victory for the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party and make Pawlenty's way forward uncertain. "You can never count anybody out, but that's a big comeback," said Republican strategist John Stineman, who is not aligned with any campaign. "Pawlenty's going to have to reevaluate his strategy." Bachmann's vote haul was the third highest in straw poll history, and Paul's the fourth highest. Then-candidate George W. Bush pulled in 7,418 in 1999; and Romney got 4,516 votes in 2007, when he won the straw poll. The poll results, and Perry's jump Saturday into the party's presidential nomination race, are expected to firm up the party's top tier presidential candidates. Here are the results out of a total of 16,892 votes: Michele Bachmann, 4,823 Ron Paul, 4,671 Tim Pawlenty, 2,293 Rick Santorum, 1,657 Herman Cain, 1,456 Rick Perry, 768 Mitt Romney, 567 Newt Gingrich, 385 Jon Huntsman, 69 Thad McCotter, 35

<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">Wednesday November 9, 2011:
=Bachmann tries to fire up tea party supporters= Looking to rally her tea party base, Michele Bachmann ramped up her rhetoric Tuesday evening with a series of comments slamming the Occupy Wall Street movement and government benefits for the children of illegal immigrants.

As polls show Bachmann falling further behind in the race for the Republican nomination, she took part in a telephone discussion sponsored by theteaparty.net and aimed at the tea party voters who once made up the core of her political base. Bachmann said she has learned of "evidence that Occupy Wall Street is being backed up by the former leaders of ACORN." She was referring to the liberal leaning advocacy group that was shut down in 2009 following a sting operation by conservative activist James O'Keefe, which caught employees offering advice to clients on hiding prostitution and avoiding taxes. Former ACORN officials have denied that they are financially backing OWS.

"When you have bad guys like ACORN backing up Occupy Wall Street really, it's a problem on so many levels," Bachmann said.

When asked how she would handle illegal immigration, Bachmann used the opportunity to announce her support for legislation that would not allow a baby born in the United States to an illegal immigrant, sometimes called an anchor baby, to receive welfare benefits from the federal government. She told the callers in the telephone town hall that she is the only candidate to take that position.

Bachmann calling President Obama a "dead-beat president" for his recent use of an executive order to change the terms of the college student loan program. She promised to shut down several federal departments and "dismantle the Great Society" launched by President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s. And she hinted that she might consider opening an investigation of Obama.

"I think there's a lot of investigation that has to go on," she told a caller from Arizona when he asked if she would investigate the president.

When asked by conservative radio host Rusty Humphries what she would say to tea party members who don't want the 2012 campaign to focus on social issues, Bachmann responded, "Culture is everything in a society," and said that ultimately the issue is about First Amendment rights.

"We all have freedom of conscience to worship God in any way we want, and also to be able to talk about God in the public square and the public schools, for instance," she said, adding, "We're seeing their voices silenced in public square. That's wrong."

She ended the call with these comments: "Of all of the candidates that are there, I am the true tea party candidate who's been tried and tested."

<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Friday November 11, 2011:
=South Carolina protesters disrupt Michele Bachmann speech= (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann was about 10 minutes into a foreign policy speech in South Carolina on Thursday when she was drowned out by the shouting of protesters. About 30 people rose in unison and began shouting a scripted message during Bachmann's address aboard the USS Yorktown, a World War Two aircraft carrier. The group, which later identified itself as being part of Occupy Charleston, accused Bachmann of "dividing Americans" and promoting discrimination. "You cater to the 1 percent," they yelled. Bachmann stopped speaking and was escorted from the stage by law enforcement officers. After about three minutes, the protesters shouted, "Have a pleasant day" and marched out chanting, "We are the 99 percent." "We're Americans criticizing her. We're just getting our voices heard," said a young woman who wouldn't give her name. "She's getting her voice heard. Why can't I have my voice heard?" Bachmann quickly returned to finish her speech. "Don't you love the First Amendment?" she said. "We have a great country... We are here because we love this country, and we want it to be better." The "Occupy" protesters, active in a number of cities in recent weeks, criticize economic inequality, saying the top 1 percent of Americans have too much wealth and power.

<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif;">November 28, 2011:
=Bachmann, trailing in polls, manages to keep her foothold in media spotlight= Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who continues to trail in polls as a Republican presidential candidate, is not falling quietly behind the rest of the field.

Bachmann kept busy immediately following a brief break for a family Thanksgiving, scheduling a book signing at Minnesota's Mall of America on Friday and eight stops in three days in Iowa over the weekend. She has also lined up a slew of eight radio interviews on Monday to start off the week.

Bachmann also pushed back hard on recent dust-ups with NBC and fellow Republican candidate Newt Gingrich.

On Friday she told Texas radio station KLIF that a double standard applies to her as both "a serious candidate for the presidency of the United States" and "a conservative Republican woman."

She has faced plenty of criticism generated by what she calls the "entertainment elites" in Hollywood, most recently in what seemed to be the deliberate use of a questionable song during her introduction last week on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon." Fallon's house band, "The Roots," played the song “Lyin’ Ass B" when Bachmann walked on stage. Bachmann said she did not immediately identify the song but later asked for an apology.

She told Fox News last week that the incident demonstrated sexism and bias.

Host Fallon, the band and NBC's senior vice president, Doug Vaughan, all apologized over the incident. Fallon [|**tweeted**] that he was "so sorry about the intro mess," and Vaughan said the band had been "severely reprimanded."

If the show had insulted first lady Michelle Obama, someone would have been fired, Bachmann maintained. She also told KLIF that the apology should have come from NBC's president.

"It comes down to the fact that if a [radio host] Don Imus or someone does something that’s questionable, they’re thrown off the air. But when something is done to a conservative, it’s just passed off and forgotten. And I think that that’s really the difference," she said. "Of course, I accept the apology, but my guess is it would have been the president of NBC that would have been apologizing [to Obama], not a senior vice president of programming."

Bachmann has fought to stand her ground in the campaign, where she is the only woman on stage, often standing out in her white or red dress suits. She has fought to hold her ground in Iowa, as well, since winning the Iowa Straw Poll last summer.

She crisscrossed the state once again over the weekend.

Despite her best efforts, Bachmann continues to trail both nationally and in Iowa polls. In Iowa, where she announced her candidacy and has focused much of her campaign, she has fallen behind even Mitt Romney, who has not emphasized the Hawkeye state in his campaign and did not participate in the important Iowa straw poll.

But Bachmann is not giving up.

“I guarantee you, with everything within my being, I have the backbone,” Bachmann told The Associated Press last week. “I’ll put my backbone up against any other candidate in the race.”

Her new book, //Core of Conviction: My Story//, doubles down on the "titanium spine" Bachmann is fond of claiming to possess. Touring for book-signing events has refreshed Bachmann's chances to attract attention from the public.

Recently, she pressed for fairer treatment in debates, where she has been consistent in emphasizing her congressional experience and getting fired up over issues she's known for, such as opposing President Obama's healthcare bill and supporting Israel.

She criticized CBS News for what she said was unfair treatment on stage in a debate co-sponsored with //National Journal//. Her campaign accused the news outlet of intentional bias against her, releasing inter-network emails where CBS News's new political director said Bachmann wouldn't be getting many questions in the debate.

And Bachmann worked to cause another stir when she fired upon newly-minted front-runner Gingrich over his immigration stance.

Gingrich, who opposes blanket amnesty, argued against deporting illegal immigrants who have been in the U.S. for decades in the most recent CNN-sponsored GOP debate focused on national security.

“If you've been here 25 years and you got three kids and two grandkids, you've been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church, I don't think we're going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out," he said.

Bachmann, who takes a strong stance against illegal immigration, pounced on Gingrich over his comments, grading him in a PBS interview with a "D minus" on immigration.

This weekend, Bachmann released a letter signed by Gingrich in 2004 that she said proves he has a history of supporting amnesty.

Bachmann, who has long been a favorite with the conservative Tea Party movement, has been outspoken in urging conservative voters not to "settle" for a pragmatic, more "electable" presidential candidate in 2012.

And Bachmann, for one, has not held back in her support of Tea Party positions.

“On Jan. 3, bring everyone you possibly can out,” she told attendees at a West Des Moines book signing over weekend, according to //The// //Des Moines Register//. “It’s our chance to send a candidate we believe in to the White House.”

Summary-
Michele Bachmann recently went on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” to try and stay visible in the media. As she entered the stage, Jimmy Fallon’s band began playing a song entitled “Lying A Bit.” Michele Bachmann, at first, did not recognize the song and it was not until after the show that she requested a sincere apology from both Jimmy Fallon and NBC. Eventually she received both, but she was not satisfied with the apology she received from NBC. Bachmann called the incident "inappropriate, outrageous and disrespectful," and accused NBC of liberal bias. "This wouldn't be tolerated if this was Michelle Obama. It shouldn't be tolerated if it's a conservative woman either," she said on Fox.

<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">November 30, 2011:
=Romney Backer Norm Coleman Likes Michele Bachmann As VP= He doesn't claim to know her post-presidential campaign plans, but fellow Minnesotan Norm Coleman, a Romney backer, believes Rep. Michele Bachmann has what it takes to __[|be vice president]__. "She could serve well," he says of the Minnesota lawmaker who once led the polls for the Iowa caucus. "I think she's helped herself in this process." Bachmann isn't reconsidering her future other than believing she is positioned for a comeback against Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney in the __[|GOP primaries]__. But even her critics are giving Bachmann good grades for her campaign, debate performances and fund raising despite some early missteps. Coleman, who spoke to reporters at a roundtable sponsored by the [|//Christian Science Monitor//] says, "Ultimately, she has benefited from national exposure. I think she's handled herself extraordinarily well in the debates, she has exceeded a lot of expectations." What's more, he adds, Bachmann has excelled at fund raising and kept her strong group of energized voters, two things a presidential nominee would want in a vice presidential pick. If she was picked, Bachmann would be the second female GOP __[|vice presidential nominee]__ in a row, following her friend Sarah Palin who was selected in 2008 by Sen. John McCain.

<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">November 30, 2011:
=Michele Bachmann Addresses Herman Cain Tweet=

Michele Bachmann's campaign is sorry for spreading a rumor about Herman Cain. Tuesday evening, after Cain announced he is "reassessing" his candidacy, Bachmann's Iowa campaign chairman Kent Sorenson tweeted that there were moving vans outside of Cain's Iowa office. But the trucks were just delivering campaign signs, Cain's Iowa communications director Lisa Lockwood told CNN. Lockwood said that spirits in the office were "really good" and "people should not jump to conclusions." Sorenson since deleted the tweet and accompanying photo of the trucks, but not before Tim Albrecht, an aide to Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, took a screen grab of it:

Bachmann's Iowa campaign manager Eric Woolson told CNN that he was to blame for Sorenson's tweet. It's "all my fault," he said. "Kent and I were standing outside the headquarters, and I thought he was asking me if he should take a picture of the moving trucks. He was joking around. What he said was, 'Should I take a picture of the moving trucks and tweet it?' And I didn't hear the 'and tweet it.' So he tweeted that out." Earlier Tuesday, Cain told his staff that in light of his latest alleged sex scandal, he would decide in the next few days whether he will remain in the race. "If a decision is made, different than we should plow ahead, you all will be the first to know,” he said. "Now with this latest one we have to do an assessment as to whether or not this is going to create too much of a cloud in some peoples' minds as to whether or not they should support us going forward."

<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Michele Bachmann would like foster children in the White House:
Rep. Michele Bachmann told CBS Radio News on Tuesday that she would be "delighted" to be able to have foster children living in the White House if she is elected president.

"Foster children are children that come out of very challenging circumstances and I think it'd be marvelous to have foster children in the White House," Bachmann told CBS Radio News National Correspondent Dan Raviv.

Bachmann says she and her husband Marcus have "raised" 23 foster children - all girls - in addition to their biological children. Bachmann [|usually took the children in when they were teenagers], and has not named them out of concern for their privacy.

The Republican presidential candidate told Raviv that "it'd be a good idea to see a mom in the White House" because mothers understand that "the next generation deserves at least the same level of opportunities that we have."

Bachmann, who was promoting her new book "Core of Conviction," also discussed her opposition to the cuts to Defense set to "trigger" in 2013 as a result of the supercommittee's failure to reach a deal. She warned of "200,000 of our military let go by the end of next year."

Bachmann said there should be cuts to Defense but they should be in procurement, with contractors paid a fixed price that isn't tied to how long it takes them to deliver. She also said there are weapons systems that can be eliminated.

"We can take cuts, but not in areas where we currently have deployed our brave men and women around the world," she said. Bachmann went on to suggest that "President Obama has put American forces now in Libya," though the operation there only involved U.S. air power and there are not actually U.S. troops on the ground.

Bachmann also discussed her strong religious beliefs, calling herself a "committed Christian" and saying "most people in the United States are people of faith."

"And the beautiful thing about the United States is we stand for religious liberty, no matter what a person's faith is, or whether they have no faith at all, we uphold the right of people to stand for their faith."

Bachmann also said her book shows a "more human side" of her that is often ignored in the media.

"My family lost nearly everything and we went to below poverty, and I had to start working as a young girl at age 12," she said. "I was babysitting because I had to buy my own glasses, my own clothes, because my mother as a single mother just couldn't afford it." media type="custom" key="11620548"

<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">December 6, 2011:
=Bachmann says GOP race a political version of stock market=

media type="custom" key="11621132"

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<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">December 6, 2011:
=Michele Bachmann leads Ron Paul in latest Colorado PPP poll=

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, leads Ron Paul (R-Tex.) in the latest Public Policy Polling poll of likely Colorado Republican Presidential caucusgoers with 9 percent of the votes to the Texas congressman’s 6 percent of the votes. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich grabbed a first place finish with 37 percent of the votes, while former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney garnered 18 percent of the votes for a second place finish. Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum sit in fifth place with 4 percent of the votes each.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #7e0300; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-decoration: none;">Poll Results From May to October:
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">General Election: Bachmann vs. Obama <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">This is a projection on how Michele Bachmann would do against current president Obama in the 2012 election. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
 * ~ Poll ||~ Date ||~ Sample ||~ Obama (D) ||~ Bachmann (R) ||~ Spread ||
 * RCP Average || 11/8 - 11/16 || -- || 49.7 || 35.7 || Obama +14.0 ||
 * [|Rasmussen Reports] || 11/15 - 11/16 || 1000 LV || 45 || 33 || Obama +12 ||
 * [|PPP (D)] || 11/10 - 11/13 || 800 RV || 50 || 39 || Obama +11 ||
 * [|McClatchy/Marist] || 11/8 - 11/10 || 872 RV || 54 || 35 || Obama +19 ||

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<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">December 8, 2011:
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"> =Michele Bachmann Quotes & Claims Raising Eyebrows: Fact Check= A look at some of her recent statements and how they compare with the facts: BACHMANN: "The farm is my father-in-law's farm. It's not my husband and my farm. It's my father-in-law's farm. And my husband and I have never gotten a penny of money from the farm." – On "Fox News Sunday." THE FACTS: In personal financial disclosure reports required annually from members of Congress, Bachmann reported that she holds an interest in a family farm in Independence, Wis., with her share worth between $100,000 and $250,000. The farm, which was owned by her father-in-law, produced income for Bachmann of at least $32,500 and as much as $105,000 from 2006 through 2009, according to the reports she filed for that period. The farm also received federal crop and disaster subsidies, according to a database maintained by the Environmental Working Group. From 1995 through 2010, the farm got $259,332 in federal payments. When asked about the subsidies and her income from the farm late last year, a spokesman for Bachmann said only that she wasn't involved in decisions about the running of the farm. Bachmann told The Associated Press on Monday that her husband became a trustee of the farm because his father had dementia before he died two years ago, and "oversees the legal entity." "Everything we do with those forms is in an abundance of caution," she said, insisting she and her husband receive no farm income despite the forms reporting it. _ __BACHMANN: "Well what I want them to know is, just like John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa, that's the kind of spirit that I have, too." – Speaking to Fox News on Sunday.__ __Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa, nearly three hours away, and moved to California in his childhood. John Wayne Gacy, convicted of killing 33 men and boys, was born in Chicago, moved to Waterloo to work in his father-in-law's chicken restaurants and first ran afoul of the law there, sentenced to 10 years for sodomy. He began his killing spree after his release, and his return to Illinois.__ _ BACHMANN: "Overnight we are hearing that potentially 10 to 30,000 people could have been killed in the strike." – Criticizing Obama in May for the "foolish" U.S. intervention in Libya, and citing what she said were reports of a civilian death toll from a NATO strike as high as 30,000. THE FACTS: The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Gene Cretz, said in late April that U.S. officials have seen reports that 10,000 to 30,000 people may have died in Moammar Gadhafi's crackdown on protesters and the fighting between rebels and pro-government forces, but it is hard to know if that is true. He was speaking about all casualties of the conflict; no one has attributed such a death toll to NATO bombing alone, much less to a single strike. _ __BACHMANN: "It's ironic and sad that the president released all of the oil from the strategic oil reserve. ... There's only a limited amount of oil that we have in the strategic oil reserve. It's there for emergencies." – On CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.__ __THE FACTS: Obama did not empty all the oil from the strategic reserve, as Bachmann said. He approved the release of 30 million barrels, about 4 percent of the 727 million barrels stored in salt caverns along the Texas and Louisiana coasts. It's true that the U.S. normally taps the reserve for more dire emergencies than exist today, and that exposes Obama to criticism that he acted for political gain. But the reserve has never been fuller; it held 707 million barrels when last tapped, after 2008 hurricanes.__ _ BACHMANN: "One. That's the number of new drilling permits under the Obama administration since they came into office." – Comment to a conservative conference in Iowa in March. THE FACTS: The Obama administration issued more than 200 new drilling permits before the Gulf oil spill alone. Over the past year, since new safety standards were imposed, the administration has issued more than 60 shallow-water drilling permits. Since the deep water moratorium was lifted in October, nine new wells have been approved.

Donald Trump blasts Michele Bachmann: Where is the loyalty?
New York real estate mogul Donald Trump blasted Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann on Friday, criticizing the Republican presidential hopeful for withdrawing from an upcoming Newsmax Republican debate. “I’m very disappointed [in] Michele Bachmann,” said Mr. Trump in an interview with Don Imus. “She’d come up to see me four times — four times, she’d call me, she’d ask me for advice. She said I should be her vice-presidential, you know, if she wins she’d like me to think about me for the vice presidency.”

Mr. Trump, who has encouraged Republican presidential candidates to attend the debate, expressed disappointment with Ms. Bachmann’s decision, saying it reflected a lack of loyalty. I did, like, a two hour phone call for her with her people. And people said, ‘are you endorsing her?’ which, the answer was no, and after all of that she just announced she’s not going to do the debate,” said Mr. Trump. “Unbelievable. It’s actually called loyalty. How do you do that?” Ms. Bachmann’s announcement comes as critics have questioned whether the debate will actually take place later this month. Former Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Rick Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have confirmed that they will attend the debate. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Texas Governor Rick Perry and Congress Ron Paul have all said they will not attend. “I have to look into it,” Mr. Trump told Fox Business Network when asked whether he would host a two-candidate debate.

=<span style="color: #7e0300; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">By: Michael Hall and Kathryn McDaniel =