Yesterday I noted how Republicans are attempting to smear Sen. Al Franken using ACORN. ACORN has become the root of all things evil for the Republicans. Katherine Kersten wrote some lies in the Minneapolis Star Tribune which bloggers picked up which then filtered up to the official propaganda arms for the party (Fox News, Lou Dobbs, Wall Street Journal).
Now they're sending in the clowns.
Five Republican candidates for governor signed a letter today asking Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson to investigate the community organizing group ACORN.
Pat Anderson, Tom Emmer, Bill Haas, Paul Kohls and Marty Seifert say they're concerned about possible voter irregularities that might be linked to ACORN. They joined the political Minnesota Majority in calling for the investigation. Minnesota Majority President Jeff Davis has raised voter fraud allegations before that have been rejected by state and county election officials. But Davis says 15 other states are already investigating ACORN.
"I just say that we need to look at this, scrutinize it," Davis said. "There's more than ample evidence that would justify a formal investigation into this matter."
(MPR)
Minnesota Majority president Jeff Davis says a felon convicted of registering illegally in Ramsey County claimed an ACORN canvasser helped her. He was joined at a news conference on Wednesday by a handful of GOP candidates and one Democrat.
Minnesota ACORN official Kevin Whelan says he was unaware of the allegation. He says ACORN turns in all registrations it collects, while flagging those that look suspicious.
(WCCO)
Census Bureau severs ties with ACORN in 2010 count
By HOPE YEN (AP) - 27 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The Census Bureau on Friday severed its ties with ACORN, a community organization that has been hit with Republican accusations of voter-registration fraud.
Bachmann has been a long time supporter of GOP/conservative efforts to disqualify ACORN from any kind of participation in the census.
(continued)
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), was back on Fox News. This time she appeared on Sean Hannity's show attacking Sen. Barney Frank and ACORN. The main problem with her attacks is that she is lying.
Rep. Michele Bachmann continued her campaign against Rep. Barney Frank and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) on Fox News' Hannity on Wednesday. Despite Bachmann's claims on the show, a new bill introduced by Frank will not funnel money to ACORN and ACORN is not "under indictment" in 12 states for "voter fraud."
Bachmann will not allow the truth to get in the way of her conspiracy theories. In her Bizarro World, she truly believes all this. Of course, she's aided and abetted by the official Republican TV channel, Fox News.
Q - Is ACORN providing workers for the 2010 census?
Did the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) sign on as a "national partner" with the U.S. Census Bureau to sign up over 1 million temporary workers to help with the 2010 census?
A - No. ACORN employees will not be taking the census. The group is one of more than 30,000 "partners" that will help publicize the event.
That's the short of the most recent debunking Machmann MotorMouth Overdrive. Not that that will stop her from continuing to repeat debunked stuff; after all - she's a republiCon.
"Take this into consideration. If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that's how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps," said Bachmann. "I'm not saying that that's what the Administration is planning to do, but I am saying that private personal information that was given to the Census Bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up, in a violation of their constitutional rights, and put the Japanese in internment camps."
At this point even Megyn Kelly, who had been gladly dishing out the anti-ACORN talk along with Bachmann, had to take a step back and raise the point that the Japanese internment was a long time ago and we haven't had such abuses since then.
For some context on how this fits into Bachmann's overall worldview, keep in mind that she's previously warned of the threat of "re-education camps" where young people would be indoctrinated into the government's official philosophy.
As much as I enjoy having a political foil to use, we're way past the point of Ms. Bachmann being an embarrassment to Minnesota and America at large. Time for her to go away. Quietly.
What Bachmann MotorMouth Overdrive said, BEFORE she said she was gonna break the law, is worth repeating. Here's the transcript:
(0:25) I come from Minnesota. We're still in a recount with our Senate race between Senator Norm Coleman and the challenger, Al Franken. Senator Coleman won the race on Election Day but that was challenged repeatedly over and over with what we feel may be fraudulent votes and very concerned about what goes forward.
"fradulent votes", eh? That's what you "think", Michele?
Why, just the other day (June 1st, to be exact) Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Christopher Dietzen said he saw "no evidence or fraud or misconduct." And Justice Dietzen said that in court.
That same day, in that same court, another Minnesota Supreme Court Justice asked Norm Coleman's attorney, Joe Friedberg, very pointedly if their were any instances of fraud. Norm Coleman's attorney - NORM COLEMAN'S ATTORNEY - answered emphatically "absolutely not" and added that there was no fraud of any kind; election, voter or otherwise.
But, hey - today's GOP playbook is ignore the debunking and repeat, Repeat, and REPEAT the debunked stuff over and Over and OVER, as Bachmann just did: the "fraudulent vote (debunked) theory."
In the rightwingworld, Norm "Smokescreen" Coleman "wuz robbed." That's their story, and they're stickin' to it.
Reps. Michele Bachmann (D-MN) and Barney Frank (D-MA) appeared on Lou Dobbs show to discuss ACORN. Sadly and probably because Barney was present, she didn't unleash Teh Crazy although she did smile like an idjit the whole time.
She began by repeating the talking points about ACORN receiving $53 million since the early 90s and having access to $8.5 billion because Obama is President.
Lou Dobbs was as supportive as he could be to help her push the talking points, but Barney owned them. The smackdown begins at about 5:30.
You came into the Congress in 2007 and that year George Bush gave ACORN $1.6M. Did you ask George Bush to cut off the funding? I don't want to put every organization in jeopardy if any prosecutor anywhere indicts any single individual ... [cross-talk]
(I was marching right behind Rybak and I think I was almost in that Rybak pic. - promoted by The Big E)
Since 1975 Heart of the Beast Theater has been putting on the May Day Parade, a great celebration of community, theater and spring. It was a fantastic day today and a great parade.
As Joe noted Matt Entenza and Keith Ellison's suporters marched together.
In addition among current or potential candidates for governor the Marty and Rybak campaigns had strong presences
But the most scary part about the parade was the presence of the dangerous radical group ACORN. Below the fold I've captured pictures of their radical agenda and the intimidation tactics they used to promote it. Keep reading, if you dare.
(Peggy Flanagan is a fixture on the Wellstone Action team, is well-known throughout the progressive community across Minnesota, and is a welcome sight here at MPP. Great recounting of the curious events at the recent Ward 4 DFL convention in Minneapolis. - promoted by Joe Bodell)
Spending between 5 to 6 hours in a hot, stuffy gymnasium on a beautiful Saturday isn't exactly most people's idea of a good time. I would argue that Northside Minneapolis DFLers are not "most people". We are a community dedicated to making our neighborhoods better places to live. That was made crystal clear last Saturday at the Ward 4 DFL convention.
The Ward 4 convention was a bit of endurance contest but not in the way that you might think. It was true that there was a fierce contest between incumbent city council president, Barb Johnson and neighborhood activist, Troy Parker. However, it seemed to me that many folks endured more out of a dedication to our Northside community than to a particular candidate. People's willingness to vote ballot after ballot without anything to sustain them except conversation with their neighbors and the occasional piece of pizza, makes me proud to be a Northsider.
Those with attention spans longer than a Rush Limbaugh Show probably remember Michelle Bachmann's latest Fact-Free rant, "We're running out of rich people!". Those that don't remember are probably the ones that actually listen to El Druggo and are the ones Little Miss Hiding In The Weeds is attempting to raise dough from, in her latest Fact-Free Fundraising Tool* - which is available, in it's entirety, below the fold.
Some highlights lowlights from said Fact-Free Fundraising Tool* include:
Commentators across the nation pointed to provisions of the bill that literally stripped away restrictions that Congress passed only months earlier to keep ACORN from getting billions in federal funding.
Amazing, isn't it? Keith Olbermann spends 7+ minutes completely debunking Little Miss Hiding In The Weeds' Fact-Free Rant, and she goes ahead and repeats it again for the lemmings her supporters.
Got your barf-bags out? Take a look at THIS claim!!!
And, Republicans offered alternatives to redirect spending to shovel-ready transportation projects that are proven to create jobs and to small business and family tax relief with a history of getting an economy going. Our alternative would have created twice the jobs at half the cost.
Y'all know this was coming. Imagine your craziest relative dropping acid then going on national TV to talk politics. Well ... that's our beloved Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN06). Except this time she's on local radio. She must've thought nobody would record it.
A h/t to Avidor, over at Dump Bachmann, who graciously gave permission to use his blogpost title. Here's what Avidor had to say:
"We're running out of rich people in this country."
That's what she said to KLTK's Chris Baker yesterday. Maybe Bachmann meant SHE is running out of rich people who donate money to her campaign such as this former rich guy.
Listen to Bachmann's wacky rant excerpted from the podcast:
Well, here's that podcast! Listen for yourself! (listener warning: if you took home a barfbag from your last airplane trip, go get it now....)
And she said that - "We're running out of rich people in this country" - at the 8:58 minute mark. But, before she said that, Bachmann said this:
Bachmann: I mean, if you think, ACORN - this is a group that's under Federal indictment...
Baker: Unbelievable
Bachmann: ...for voter fraud. ACORN - they've received a total of $53 million in direct Federal Grants since 1994. Do you know how much they're getting under this (the stimulus) bill?
Baker: Like $4 billion, I've heard.
Bachmann: $5 Billion.
Baker? $5 billion?
Bachmann: For ACORN.
Yep that's what Bachmann said, starting at the 4:11 minute mark.
If anyone can provide a link that the Stimulus Bill is doling out $5 BILLION dollars to ACORN, I'd like to see it*. But, since Bachmann said it, I'll take the rational view, and assume she's simply making that up. Of course, in the absence of a link to the contrary, "simply regurgitating spoon-fed GOPer talking points" would also be a reasonable assumption.
And she said a whole bunch of other stuff, too - listen to it yourself, and post what YOU think are the most outrageous things Michelle Bachmann said, on this episode of Life On Planet Denial the "Chris Baker Show."
* links to Medved, Drug Limpstick, Savage, Mitch Berg, Drudge, Talon News, NewsMax, Washington Times, et al do NOT count. I'm talking about links to CREDIBLE sources, folks.
Trent England of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation spreads lies and insinuations about the Minnesota Senate race in Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal today. Mr. England is from Olympia, WA and is still bitter over losing the 2004 recount in WA Governor's race.
Four years ago in Washington, Democratic Party candidate Christine Gregoire lost the first count, lost the recount, and then won a second, highly dubious recount by 133 votes. In Minnesota, where Sen. Norm Coleman is defending his seat against comedian-turned-candidate Al Franken, the first count showed Mr. Coleman up 725 votes. Today, thanks to another dubious recount, Mr. Franken is apparently in the lead.
(WSJ)
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation is a right wing "think tank" funded by the typical right wing sources. Read more about the Evergreen Freedom Foundation here.
Mr. England lies about lost ballots, ballot security, ACORN and Mark Ritchie. He spews some vague accusations that seem to be directed toward Ritchie. Read on for the details...
Acorns-- no, this isn't about a possibly deviant activist group. I'm thinking about oak trees. White oaks, red oaks, flying squirrels, and acorns. The Washington Post's Acorn Watchers Wonder What Happened to Crop has me wondering, could a lack of acorns be a troubling sign of global warming or is it merely incidental?
