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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 7/2/11

A Memo to Micele Bachmann

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   In 2009, during the health care debate, you warned that the Affordable Care Act would include a loophole permitting grade-schoolers to go on abortion field trips: "Does that mean that someone's 13-year old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back, and go home on the school bus that night?  Mom and dad are never the wiser.  They don't know any different."

   In 2010 , while speaking on the House floor, you alleged that President Obama's upcoming trip to India would be more expensive than the entire war in Afghanistan: "The president of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day.  He's taking 2,000 people with him.  He will be renting out over 870 rooms in India.  And these are five-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel."

   In 2011 you have suggested that one sure-fire solution to the nation's long-term deficit would be turning the problem over to now-former FOX TV entertainer Glenn Beck: "I think if we give [him] the numbers, he can solve this thing."  

   Most recently, while on the campaign circuit, you have repeatedly asserted that "The Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to get rid of slavery in this country."  When given the opportunity to retract this glaring historic inaccuracy, you compounded the inaccuracy by turning John Quincy Adams into a "Founding Father."

   Just this week you said that you would support a federal constitutional amendment that would overturn New York State's new law legalizing gay marriage, as well as similar laws in other states and the District of Columbia.  While claiming that the law signed by NY Governor Andrew Cuomo was "up to the people of New York," you also declared that "federal law will trump state law on this issue."  Your rationalization?  The 10th Amendment, which according to you, gives states "the right to pass any law they like."  When queried about this seeming inconsistency, you said that your support for states' rights as well as a federal amendment was "totally consistent."  It should be noted, Ms. Bachmann, that your interpretation of the 10th Amendment is, to put it politely, erroneous.  The States cannot do "anything" they want to do; only those matters that have not been directly or indirectly provided to the Federal Government subject to the constitutionality of such acts. If your contention were true, we would have fifty states with fifty different laws . . . which would lead to mass confusion.  Please, go back and learn a bit more about the federal Constitution.

   Ms. Bachman, the above are not the mark of a person fit for leadership.  Heck, the above are not even the mark of a C-student.  And were you to study a bit of American history, you would discover that in our long history, only one person has ever gone  directly from the House of Representatives to the White House: James A. Garfield.  And unlike you, Garfield was a distinguished 9-term member of the House who chaired both the Military Affairs and Appropriations Committee, as well as sitting on Ways and Means.  In checking on your House record, I see that so far in this 112th Congress, you have sponsored precisely 7 bills, the most famous of which, H.R. 849, the "Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act," has attracted precisely 10 cosponors.  By comparison, your Tea Party colleague, Florida Republican Alan West, has sponsored 129 bills, which have, on average, attracted 60 cosponsors.  Heck, even Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who hasn't been around Capitol Hill in more than 6 months, has sponsored more than 5 times the legislation as you.  

  Ms. Bachman, your mix of shoot-from-the-lip rhetoric, dispensationalist End Times theology, extreme homo-phobia and thorough-going lack of knowledge mark you as a person who is way, way over her head.  Getting out on the campaign trail and  spewing time-worn bromides is not leadership.  Raising tons of money only tells us that you can raise tons of money.  "Revealing" conspiracies which underpin the problems besetting modern times is no solution.  Declaring that one's every move, thought or action is done according to Divine Will is precisely what America and the world do not need in an age of increasing fundamentalism.  My suggestion is that you run for reelection from Minnesota's 6th District.  Perhaps the good folks of Stillwater will decide that three terms have been enough, and that you should stay home . . . 

  Let me close by repeating something I wrote above:

  Your church is not our government.    

-2011 Kurt F. Stone

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Kurt Stone is a rabbi, writer, lecturer, political activist, professor, actor, and medical ethicist. A true "Hollywood brat" (born and raised in the film industry), Kurt was educated at the University of California, the Eagleton Institute of (more...)
 
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