Alan Grayson and Michele Bachmann faced off on Larry King Live and no fireworks, but Alan Grayson did do a nice job of beating back Michele Bachmann's lies during the segment.

Laffy did a live blog which summed it up pretty well. Lie, wash, rinse, repeat, distract and we're going to see this bill pass. I think Bachmann kept herself in check more than she would have had Grayson not been there. She didn't come back at him other than on the accusation of trading judgeships for votes, which frankly I've not heard anything about until watching this interview. I would imagine we'll be hearing more on that before long if there's any truth to it. Coming from the likes of Bachmann I'll take it with a grain of salt for now.

Transcript via CNN.

KING: Joining us in Washington, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota. She is campaigning and championing what's billed as the Declaration of Health Care Independence.

And Representative Alan Grayson, Democrat of Florida. Last fall in a speech on the House floor he said that the Republican health care plan is don't get sick, but if you do, die quickly. All right, Congresswoman Bachmann, what's wrong -- since it's happened so many other times -- with an up and down -- up or down vote?

REP. MICHELE BACHMANN: An up or down vote is a good thing, Larry.

It's just how many votes will it take?

Will it take 60 votes or will it take 50 votes?

And that's what--

KING: But what's wrong with majority rules?

BACHMANN: Well, because that's not how the Senate works. The Senate works with 60 votes. And now, what the president is promoting is a nuclear option, which is 50 votes. So we should have an up or down vote--

KING: But it used--

BACHMANN: But it--

KING: It used that -- but it used a -- it used that majority rules on the Bush -- Bush tax cuts. It was 51 votes.

BACHMANN: Well, the House uses straight majority rule. The Senate doesn't.

So what this would mean, Larry, is that the Senate has to break their own rules in order to pass the bill.

KING: And that's wrong?

BACHMANN: Oh, I think so. Sure.

KING: OK.

And Congressman Grayson, why do you think they should break this rule, which they have done in a few times in the past?

REP. ALAN GRAYSON: My esteemed colleague from Minnesota is entirely wrong. There's nothing in Senate rules that prevents reconciliation. It's been used 22 times overall and 14 times by Republicans. If it's good enough for tax cuts for the rich twice under Bush, it's good enough to provide health care for all Americans.

Continue reading »

Ed Schultz calls out Rush Limbaugh, Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck for their hate filled rhetoric in this edition of Psycho Talk.

Beck sure seemed to throw a lot of his longtime pals and allies under his personal bus yesterday, while calling for his audience to eschew "violent behavior":

Beck: Get away from anybody who's calling for a revolution -- whether it's a Tea Party revolution, or a Communist revolution!

Hmmmm. Sounds like good advice, actually.

Especially considering just who we've been hearing talk about a new American "revolution". All of them, as it happens, are part of the same Tea Party crowd Beck seemingly just threw overboard. You know, the crowd he's been exhorting for the past year.

Folks like Sarah Palin:

Palin: And I am a big supporter of this movement, I believe in this movement. Got lots of friends and family in the Lower 48 who attend these events and across the country, just knowing that this is the movement, and America is ready for another revolution, and you are a part of this.

Or her wingnut-in-arms, Rep. Michele Bachmann:

At this point the American people - it's like Thomas Jefferson said, a revolution every now and then is a good thing. We are at the point, Sean, of revolution. And by that, what I mean, an orderly revolution -- where the people of this country wake up get up and make a decision that this is not going to happen on their watch. It won't be our children and grandchildren that are in debt. It is we who are in debt, we who will be bankrupting this country, inside of ten years, if we don't get a grip. And we can't let the Democrats achieve their ends any longer.

This one, by the way, received a warm on-air endorsement from Beck's Fox colleague, Sean Hannity:

Bachmann: Right now I'm a member of Congress. And I believe that my job here is to be a foreign correspondent, reporting from enemy lines. And people need to understand, this isn't a game. this isn't just a political talk show that's happening right now. This is our very freedom, and we have 230 years, a continuous link of freedom that every generation has ceded to the next generation. ...

Hannity: It's not -- you are not overstating this case, Congresswoman, and you don't need to apologize for it. And as a matter of fact, it's refreshing. And I can tell you, all around this country, on 535 of the best radio stations in this country, people are saying "Amen," "Hallelujah", "where have you been?"

And then there was the actor Bob Basso, who Beck hired to play "Thomas Paine" for one of Beck's pro-Tea Party rants. Beck hired Basso because he is fond of portraying Paine for his Birtherite rants and putting them up on YouTube, including this one -- a nativist, immigrant-bashing rant calling for a "Second American Revolution":

Basso: Join the grassroots movement of the Second American Revolution -- not of guns and violence, but of pressure, pressure, pressure. ...

Take back America now! Choose to be part of the Second American Revolution! Pressure, pressure, pressure! No presidential candidate, no political party can save you now. Only an aroused citizenry will turn this uncommon sense around. And he or she who does nothing now is helping them to destroy America!

We won't even mention the outfit that was an original sponsor of the "9-12 March on Washington" while calling for a "Second Civil War".

It's almost as if Beck is starting to turn on the very creature he created. It's all getting weirder by the day. But then, with Beck, that's pretty much what we've come to expect. "Erratic" doesn't begin to cover it.

Michele Bachmann and Hannidate had a wankfest over the mere thought that reconciliation might be used to pass health-care reform. Isn't it part of America's legislative process? Maybe Bachmann was talking about herself when she said members of Congress were anti-American.

Hannity: So, is the San Francisco Speaker, is she off-script, or is the bipartisan meeting that the president is orchestrating just a sham?
…
Hannity: Can we believe them? Are they just being disingenuous?

Bachmann: Well, that’s the question that we need to have addressed, because the president only let John Boehner, the Republican leadership, know that he wanted a health care summit just an hour he went on national TV with Katie Couric to announce this is what he wanted to do. No heads up, in effect. Then John Boehner sent a letter to President Obama, asking questions, ‘Are we going to start over? Or are we working off of your Democrat plan?’ The president was real clear – he said he plans to pass the Democrat plan, Robert Gibbs went to the microphone, said the same thing. And then as you said, Speaker Pelosi’s Number One health-care negotiator in the House said they’ve got a legislative trick, and they know exactly how they’re going to pass their plan. That’s after the president’s invitation. If they’re already saying they’re going to pass their bill, then what is this for, this summit?
…
Hannity: All right, so are you looking specifically for a promise? In other words, Mr. President, do you promise – and I saw the letter that John Boehner and Eric Cantor sent to the president – do you need a promise or a commitment that he will not use the reconciliation process before it would be wise enough to sit down?

Bachmann: I think the best negotiation would be one where the president says, ‘I will not use the reconciliation’ – the legislative trick, in the Democrats’ own vernacular. And where he says we’ll start from scratch, we’ll start over with a blank sheet of paper, and we’ll start new with our ideas and we’ll truly come together, with cameras, both sides, and come to a discussion. That’s really what the American people expect and that would be the best outcome.

Maybe Congress should just pass Paul Ryan's whacked out budget too.

IOKIYAR. Isn't that always the case? Ronald Reagan used reconciliation along with Clinton. George Bush used it to pas his tax cuts. And another of the wanker elitists is Judd Gregg who attacks it now but used it in 1994 for Newt and wanted to use it against ANWAR.

In 1994, he was a freshman Senator using budget reconciliation to move pieces of Newt Gingrich's Contract With America through the Senate. In 2005, he argued that budget reconciliation should be used to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

And of course, George W. Bush made great use of the procedure with the help of Ben Nelson.

On May 26, 2001, Nelson was one of a dozen Democrats to support president George W. Bush's Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001: the massive tax cut package that defined the administration's plans for job growth. The bill was passed using reconciliation -- meaning it wasn't subject to a Democratic filibuster -- and received the support of 58 Senators. Two years later, Bush had introduced a second tax-cut package, this one entitled The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. That too was passed through reconciliation with Nelson's vote proving even more critical.

Rachel Maddow points out that even the GOP's latest darling Paul Ryan who is the only member of Congress who's written a budget proposal is out there with the wingnuts and buying into Jonah Goldberg's revisionist history book Liberal Fascism. She forgot to mention that he's also a big fan of Ayn Rand.

Maddow: Congressman Paul Ryan is the Republican Party’s budget guy. He has proposed a GOP budget this year that would essentially get rid of Social Security and Medicare in the long run, slashes both programs dramatically and then privatizes them, so goodbye Medicare safety net, goodbye Social Security safety net. The Republicans are proposing to get rid of them.

Republicans like Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn, Jack Kingston, Jim DeMint, these folks have been, recently been very happily arguing to kill Social Security and Medicare, but they are thought of as being on the far right of even their own party.

Paul Ryan proposing to kill Social Security and Medicare is another thing. He’s the only; his is the only budget that the Republicans have proposed for 2010. He’s supposed to be the Republican Party’s big brain on policy. He’s supposed to be a serious guy.

Well in an interview with The Daily Beast yesterday Paul Ryan was asked why if he’s so fiscally conservative he voted for the bank bailouts. In response the Republican Party’s serious, big brain policy guy explained that he voted for the bank bailout because of this.

Get it. See it’s a smiley face but it has a Hitler moustache! Because liberals seem nice but they’re really Nazis—Nazis were liberals and liberals are Nazis! Paul Ryan, the budget guy for the Republican Party tells The Daily Beast that a conservative book of revisionist history about how the Nazis were secretly liberals and liberals today are secretly Nazis, convinced him to vote for the bank bailout, because otherwise we’d have a great depression and then Obama could use that great depression as an excuse to impose his secret Nazi agenda. Obama’s liberal fascism.

And that is both an admission that even the Republicans admit that the bailout staved off the next great depression and a revelation that even the supposedly sane Republicans in Congress right now believe this stuff. Keep that in mind the next time someone proposes a bipartisan compromise with guys like Paul Ryan who proposed to kill Medicare and Social Security and who justify it by their votes on worries that Obama might secretly be Hitler.

Is anyone else as tired as I am of watching Anderson Cooper bring these two on his show night after night to talk about this non-existent middle that the President is supposed to be catering to without acknowledging that the Republican Congress has been one of the most obstructionist in the history of our country?

This John Avlon who continually looks like he's trying to prove the points he made in his "Wingnuts" book rather than talk about the reality of our political situation in this country is particularly annoying. Given this guy was the Chief Speechwriter and Deputy Policy Director for Rudy Giuliani's 2008 Presidential Campaign I guess nothing that comes out of his mouth should be too surprising.

Anyone who can equate Alan Grayson to Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin frankly just needs to just STFU and get off my television screen IMHO. Instead he's given a platform night after night or on CNN's morning show to convince Americans that if the Democrats just give the Republicans everything they want those "Independent" voters will love them and all will be well.

And David Gergen thinks the President needs to get out there and listen to those tea baggers and their complaints. Yeah, that's going to work David. If he just talks nice to them maybe they'll put away those Joker and Hitler signs they're carrying and start to love him. I'm sure if he tried you'd all be talking about how the uppity black man who's out of touch with the common folk is "lecturing" them.

I agree with Gergen on one point. The public did send President Obama to Washington to get results and not just to give speeches. The public is going to calm down if they see things getting better in their daily lives and not worse. Since the Republicans have absolutely no desire to govern but instead destroy government so they can prove their own talking points that government doesn't work and use that as an excuse to privatize everything, they and the ConservaDems that share their philosophy are not going to allow that to happen.

Maybe when the pitchforks finally start coming out because people are so fed up they'll finally change their tune. I don't think we'll see the likes of Gergen or anyone in our mainstream media admit what too many of our politicians actually think government is good for before hell freezes over, which is lining the pockets of those that get them elected and then using that money to get elected again. We need some real campaign finance reform before that's going to change.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

Continue reading »

Sarah Palin confirmed on Greta Van Susteren's show last night that she's very much planning to show up and speak at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, despite the distinct odor of Scam the whole affair is giving off.

Palin: Oh, you betcha I'm going to be there. I'm going to speak there because there are people traveling from many miles away to hear what that Tea Party movement is all about and what that message is that should be received by our politicians in Washington. I'm honored to get to be there.

This, even as some of her fellow wingnuts are catching the same whiff -- namely, Reps. Michele Bachmann and Marsha Blackburn, who have pulled out of the event:

In separate statements, released by their congressional offices, the lawmakers said that appearing at the convention might conflict with House ethics rules. But they also said they are concerned about how money raised from the event will be spent.

Palin last night had no such concerns -- and said no one should be concerned about that big wad of cash the convention organizers are paying her:

Palin: The speaker's fee will go right back into the cause. I'll be able to donate it to people and those events, those things that I believe in, that will help perpetuate the message, the message being: Government, you have constitutional limits. You better start abiding by them.

Hmmmmm. It sounds like we're going to have to rely on Sarah's say-so when it comes to how she actually spends the money. Smells even more like Scam, doesn't it?

Of course, the whole scenario, as David Corn explored with Keith Olbermann last night, is developing into quite a fiasco -- mainly because Tea Partier and Birther J.D. Hayworth has decided to challenge Palin's former running mate, John McCain, in the Arizona Senate primary.

Palin is staying loyal to McCain. This has outraged the Tea Partiers, as Alan Colmes points out:

She has now chose to align herself with several bad actors. What should this be called, the Rinoization of Sarah Palin. [...]

She is certainly entitled to write a book and make money for her and her family, but other than what has she has done to support Republican and patriotic candidates. … Perhaps, Sarah was too busy talking to her agent about her Fox deal. Where the hell was Sarah?

This is what you get when you build a movement around paranoid right-wingers. There is probably no faction more historically famous for viciously turning on each other in struggles over money and power than right-wing populists.

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

From The Uptake--Ed Schultz "I'd Kick Their Ass" If I Ran For US Senate:

Talk show host Ed Schultz says he's not running for US Senate in North Dakota but if he were he'd "kick their ass" referring to Republicans. Schultz also says " We need to get the people who have infiltrated the Democratic-Progressive movement and get them the hell out" and "We need to get rid of Michele Bachmann" (wild applause)

Schultz spoke at AM950's Blue State Bash in Minneapolis. Distributed by Tubemogul.

And Think Progress--Ed Schultz Tells Robert Gibbs He’s ‘Full Of Sh*t’ And ‘You’re Losing Your Base’:

Last night, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz spoke at Minnesota progressive talk radio AM950’s Blue State Bash at the Minneapolis Convention Center. During his remarks, Schultz revealed that he recently had a testy confrontation with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (Gibbs appeared on Schultz’s show this past Thursday). “Mr. Gibbs and I had quite a conversation off the air the other night,” he revealed:

SCHULTZ: I told him he was full of sh*t is what I told him. … And then he gave me the Dick Cheney f-bomb. … I told Robert Gibbs, I said “And I’m sorry you’re swearing at me, but I’m just trying to help you out. I’m telling you you’re losing your base. Do you understand you’re losing your base?”

Continue reading...

Give 'em hell big Eddie. Somebody needs to tell them what they don't want to hear. This isn't all that surprising after watching them the other night. The interview was already pretty heated before they got off the air.

The first Republican, Abraham Lincoln, famously proclaimed, "My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side." Sadly, as Sarah Palin and RNC Chairman Michael Steele revealed again this week, Honest Abe's successors believe the GOP truly is God's Own Party. As it turns out, Palin and Steele joined George W. Bush, Mike Huckabee, Michele Bachmann, Mark Sanford and others on the long and growing list of Republican leaders who claim they have been chosen by God.

On 60 Minutes Sunday, McCain-Palin campaign chief Steve Schmitt disclosed to Anderson Cooper that the Quitta from Wasilla viewed her selection as John McCain's running mate as part of God's plan:

COOPER: After Senator McCain asked her to be his vice president, how did she respond?

SCHMITT: She was very calm, nonplussed. I said, "You don't seem nervous at all about this," and she said, "No, it's God's plan."

(For more on Palin's belief in the "natural progression" of a grand divine plan for her, continue reading below.)

Echoing Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's announcement in September that "God has placed me in this powerful position," Michael Steele claimed he, too, was tapped by the Almighty in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). Under siege by fellow Republicans for his endless series of gaffes and shameless self-promotion, Steele announced:

"I'm not defined by this job. When this job is over I will go back to doing something else. But God, I really believe, has placed me here for a reason because who else and why else would you do this unless there's something inside of you that says right now you need to be here to do this?"

Of course, Steele is far from alone among God's chosen Republicans, as George W. Bush and his amen corner long ago made clear.

Continue reading »

January 01, 2010 CNN

Heather: Only the Villagers like those on CNN would think that Ed Schultz and Rep. Alan Grayson's fiery rhetoric during the health care debate is the same as the insanity of Glenn Beck, Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin. Shame on John Avlon and CNN for this bit of false equivalency bullpucky.

JOHNS: Every week independent analyst John Avlon joins us to name the Wingnuts of the Week. Wingnuts, according to John, are professional partisans and unhinged activists.

KAYE: John even has a book coming out called "Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America." And he's put together a list of last year's 2009 worst offenders. He joined Kiran Chetry to countdown the top five, including the biggest wingnut of the year.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Let's just get right to the list. We did this little countdown, and we're going to start with number five. So who made the cut for wingnut -- top five wingnut?

JOHN AVLON, INDEPENDENT POLITICAL ANALYST: Top five wingnut, big threshold, we have Ed Schultz, sort of aiming to be the liberal Rush Limbaugh this year. And here's one comment he made this fall regarding health care that really stood out.

Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED SCHULTZ, HOST, THE ED SHOW: The Republicans lie. They want to see you dead. They'd rather make money off your dead corpse. They kind of like it when that woman has cancer, and they don't have anything for her. That's how the insurance companies make money -- by denying the coverage. My God, Democrats, what's wrong with you? You can't deal with these people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Wow. That's wingnut stuff.

Continue reading »

Cenk Uygur highlights this excellent article from Truthdig--Michele Bachmann: Welfare Queen:

Michele Bachmann has become well known for her anti-government tea-bagger antics, protesting health care reform and every other government “handout” as socialism. What her followers probably don’t know is that Rep. Bachmann is, to use that anti-government slur, something of a welfare queen. That’s right, the anti-government insurrectionist has taken more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts thanks to corrupt farming subsidies she has been collecting for at least a decade.

And she’s not the only one who has been padding her bank account with taxpayer money.

Bachmann, of Minnesota, has spent much of this year agitating against health care reform, whipping up the so-called tea-baggers with stories of death panels and rationed health care. She has called for a revolution against what she sees as Barack Obama’s attempted socialist takeover of America, saying presidential policy is “reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom.”

But data compiled from federal records by Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog that tracks the recipients of agricultural subsidies in the United States, shows that Bachmann has an inner Marxist that is perfectly at ease with profiting from taxpayer largesse. According to the organization’s records, Bachmann’s family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006. The farm had been managed by Bachmann’s recently deceased father-in-law and took in roughly $20,000 in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005, with the bulk of the subsidies going to dairy and corn. Both dairy and corn are heavily subsidized—or “socialized”—businesses in America (in 2005 alone, Washington spent $4.8 billion propping up corn prices) and are subject to strict government price controls. These subsidies are at the heart of America’s bizarre planned agricultural economy and as far away from Michele Bachmann’s free-market dream world as Cuba’s free medical system. If American farms such as hers were forced to compete in the global free market, they would collapse.

However, Bachmann doesn’t think other Americans should benefit from such protection and assistance. She voted against every foreclosure relief bill aimed at helping average homeowners (despite the fact that her district had the highest foreclosure rate in Minnesota), saying that bailing out homeowners would be “rewarding the irresponsible while punishing those who have been playing by the rules.” That’s right, the subsidy queen wants the rest of us to be responsible.

Continue reading...

Here's Grassley getting asked about his welfare checks.

Rachel Maddow reports on the 'PrayerCast' attended by Senators Jim DeMint and Sam Brownback and Rep. Michele Bachmann where they prayed for the defeat of the health care bill. This has to be one of the creepiest things I've watched in a long time.

Transcript via MSNBC.

MADDOW: A lot of attention being paid today to the fight within the left over whether or not to support health reform now that it‘s been so watered down. I‘m here to tell you that this is the other side of that fight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOU ENGLE, PASTOR: Let‘s take hands together and let‘s pray right now for our leaders, the senators who are in this debate now. Would you just lift your voices just for a few moments? And let‘s just altogether pray together.

Lord, right now, we‘re calling on you. Oh, Lord, come and come to our senators. Would you break into their hearts and minds? Would you rule over them?

Lord, we‘re praying, give them wisdom. The wisdom that comes down from up above. For such a time as this we cry out to you!

And we thank you, Living God, that you hear in Jesus name, amen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Those two vaguely looking familiar men you see there at the end of that clip, those are two sitting Republican U.S. senators, Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. They were the headlining politicians at last night‘s effort to stop health reform with prayer.

Continue reading »

From Countdown Dec. 16, 2009, Keith's Worst Persons segment.

OLBERMANN: First time for Countdown‘s number two story, tonight‘s worst persons in the world.

The bronze to Jay Walder, this month‘s chairman of New York City‘s MTA, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the city‘s managers of subways and buses and stuff. The authority today approved budget cuts, closing two subway lines, reducing trains, charging school kids more to take public transportation to school. This is a result of the shocking, total surprise budget shortfall that the MTA has had every 18 months or so for the last four decades. The latest, 400 million dollars they suddenly discovered last week they just didn‘t have.

I know this is a local thing, but this has been going on since I was a kid. It is the biggest running scam in this town since they caught Boss Tweed.

Our runner-up, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann—although we really must thank her for unintentionally lightening the mood tonight—compared a Code Red anti-health care reform rally to a moment in history I guess she thought she understood. “It‘s the charge of the light brigade.” You know, like the poem, half a league, half a league, half a league onward, all in the valley of death road the 600? A little over 600 British cavalry men charged the Russian lines at Balaclava in the Crimean War on October 25th, 1854. At least half of them were killed, injured or captured, largely because the 600 were attacking 20 Russian infantry battalions that had 5,240 men and 40 siege guns.

Supposedly, Lord Cardagan was ordered to make the charge by Lord Lucan, because Cardagan was his brother in law and Lucan had hated his guts for 30 years. So, Congresswoman, if you want to compare your nut bags to the charge of light brigade, have a nice ride.

But our winner, former Bush Press Secretary Dana Perino. I‘ll admit it, when she was still on the job, I wondered, was she specifically selected because she had no clue? Had she been trained to not have a clue? Did she have one of those memory imprinting problems?

But after the president told CBS last night that he didn‘t wave the flag at West Point about Afghanistan because he thought, quote, “one of the mistakes that was made over the last eight years is for us to have a triumphant sense about war,” Ms. Perino followed up on Fixed News by saying, “I hope President Obama didn‘t mean it the way it came across, when he suggested that President Bush was too triumphant in his rhetoric when talking about war.”

Ms. Perino, over here, ma‘am. I‘d like to show you a photograph and ask you if you recognize when or where it‘s from. Hmm? No? No clue? Any idea who the guy was? Seriously? You‘re hoping President Obama didn‘t think President Bush was too triumphant in his rhetoric when talking about war? I mean, even Mr. Bush has now said mission accomplished was now a mistake.

Dana, is my head attached to my shoulders or did I leave it at home by accident, Perino, today‘s worst person in the world.

Without a doubt, one of the worst aspects of watching health-care reform crumble before our eyes is dealing with gloating of the wingnuts who made it crumble -- and especially watching them lying again and again and again as they do so. It's just in their nature to lie, and to do it repeatedly.

Case in point: Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Outer Wingnuttia, went on Fox News last night with Sean Hannity and talked about how she hoped the health-care reform was dead and finished, and both she and Hannity were obviously gleeful at the prospect. At every corner she was a font of disinformation and false "facts". The topper came at the end:

BACHMANN: We need bipartisan reform, and we Republicans are there ready, willing, and able. We want bipartisan reform. Let's scrap what we have and let's move forward, because President Obama's bill will mean 5.5 million jobs lost, and that's according to his own economist, Christina Romer.

Well, as Media Matters explains, there's simply no such figure anywhere in anything Romer has ever said -- indeed, she has said that "health care reform is an economic necessity," and that it will "allow lower unemployment".

Politifact seems to have uncovered the source of Bachmann's "5.5 million" figure, other than the nether regions of her posterior:

Obama's economic adviser -- Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers -- has never said that a tax in the health care bill would cost up to 5.5 million jobs. Republicans have used her 2007 research to develop a calculation for job losses for any type of tax increase. If you have a number for tax revenues generated, then this model will give you a number of jobs lost. But there are factors that make this type of analysis troublesome when it comes to the health care bill. Romer's 2007 research, for example, said that tax increases that fund spending for social programs tend to balance out, and economic growth stays on an even keel. Another problem is that the Republicans take tax increases that happen over 10 years and treat them as if they happen in one year, which inflates the numbers of jobs that might be lost. Finally, this particular Republican analysis includes more taxes than just the surtax of page 336; it also includes the employer mandates of page 313. We find this analysis to be problematic and contrary to how Obama's economic adviser said the model should work.

Ah, but being truthful would not be as much fun as going on national television and lying.

Countdown's Worst Persons for Dec. 2, 2009 with winner Bill O'Reilly. Runners up Michele Bachmann and Lou Dobbs.