MICHELE BACHMANN - GET TO KNOW HER

Michele Marie Bachmann (née Amble; born April 6, 1956)^[2] is the U.S. Representative for Minnesota's 6th congressional district, which includes the northernmost and eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities and St. Cloud, serving since 2007. She is a member of the Republican Party. She previously served in the Minnesota State Senate. She is the third woman, and first Republican woman, to represent the state in Congress.^[3]

Bachmann is a supporter of the Tea Party movement and "is founder of the House Tea Party Caucus."^[4]

Click the post title for Michele Bachmann's wikipedia page.
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The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell

U.S. MN (Minnesota) Rep Michele Bachmann has been named to the Intelligence Committee. Speaker of the House, John Boehner, made the announcement Friday.

What some people think of as a thoroughly off-the-deep-end decision, others think this is an intelligent decision. Imagine Michele Bachmann as President of the USA. One day it may be President Bachmann. As much as this is a troubling thought for me, I can see the USA doing this. Bachmann received her J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University. Bachmann and her husband own a Christian counseling clinic in Stillwater. The following excerpt - Early career - is from wikipedia's page about Bachmann:

Bachmann had grown up in a Democratic family, but says she became a Republican during her senior year at Winona State. She told the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune that she was reading Gore Vidal's 1973 novel, Burr: "He was kind of mocking the Founding Fathers and I just thought, 'I just remember reading the book, putting it in my lap, looking out the window and thinking, 'You know what? I don't think I am a Democrat. I must be a Republican.'"^[5][17]

While she was still a Democrat, Bachmann was involved in anti-abortion activism. She and her then-fiance Marcus were inspired to join the pro-life movement by Francis Schaeffer's 1976 Christian documentary film, How Should We Then Live?. They frequently prayed outside of clinics and served as sidewalk counselors in an attempt to dissuade women from seeking abortions.^[18]

The first time Bachmann's political activism gained media notice was at an abortion protest in 1991. She and approximately 30 other abortion opponents went to a Ramsey County Board meeting where a $3 million appropriation was to go to build a morgue for the county at St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center (now called Regions Hospital). The Medical Center performed abortions and employed abortion rights pioneer Dr. Jane E. Hodgson. Bachmann attended the meeting to protest public tax dollars going to the hospital; speaking to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, she said that “in effect, since 1973, I have been a landlord of an abortion clinic, and I don’t like that distinction.”^[10][19]

In 1993, Bachmann and other parents in Stillwater, Minnesota opened New Heights Charter School. The oversight of New Heights soon encountered problems when a group of concerned parents and the school district questioned if the insertion of Christianity into the school's curriculum amounted to using public tax money to fund a religious school.^[20] One such parent, Denise Stephens, a longtime Republican, charged the board of directors of the school (which included Bachmann) with trying to set up classes on Creationism and advocating that "something called '12 Christian principles' be taught, very much like the 10 Commandments."^[20] According to Stephens, school officials also refused to allow the in-school screening of the Disney film Aladdin, saying that it endorsed witchcraft and promoted paganism. Along with other directors, Bachmann appeared before the Stillwater School Board to address the parents' concerns. According to Stephens, Bachmann became angry and asked, "Are you going to question my integrity?", before she and four other members of the board resigned on the spot.^[20]

Bachmann became an outspoken critic of public education and opponent of Minnesota's Profile of Learning and School-to-Work policies. In a 1999 column, Bachmann said: "School-to-Work alters the basic mission and purpose of K-12 academic education away from traditional broad-based academic studies geared toward maximizing intellectual achievement of the individual. Instead, School-to-Work utilizes the school day to promote children's acquisition of workplace skills, viewing children as trainees for increased economic productivity."^[21

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Article: michele-bachmann-named-to-intelligence-committee

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$8,700 Salary increase for U.S. Representatives - a 5% pay increase - Will congress vote to NOT take their voted pay raise?

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Roseanne Barr - World Peace in 30 days

IF ONLY OUR PRESIDENT WAS DECENT

Senate OKs Cutting Investment
With Sudan

By MARY CLARE JALONICK

WASHINGTON (AP) -- State and local governments
and other institutions could divest Sudan
related investments under legislation passed
by the Senate late Wednesday despite
administration opposition.

The bill, designed to pressure Sudan
to ease suffering in its Darfur region
and sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.,
was approved shortly before midnight 
under a consent agreement in which no
vote was taken.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been
killed and millions driven from their 
homes in four years of violence in the
Darfur region since ethnic African rebels 
took up arms against militia supported
by the Arab-dominated central government.
The House passed a similar bill July 31
by a 418-1 vote. Dodd said his version 
will now go to the House for consideration.

It remained unclear, however, what
legislation, if any, eventually will
become law in the face of administration
opposition.

The administration argues the legislation
would infringe on a president's 
constitutional power to establish and
execute U.S. foreign policy. A letter from
the Justice Department to the Senate
Democratic and Republican leaders suggested
the courts might become involved in knocking
down a provision that would give congressional
authorization for state and local governments' 
divestment schemes.

The letter was circulated in November by the
Save Darfur Coalition. Dated Oct. 26, the
letter was the second within a week from the
administration, following by four days a
similar document from the State Department
that made some of the same arguments on
constitutional and foreign policy grounds rather 
than legal.

The Sudan legislation would punish U.S.
or foreign entities for investing in 
Sudan while militias aligned with
President Omar al-Bashir's government
wage a terror campaign in the arid
Darfur region of western Sudan.

Like the State Department letter,
the Justice letter emphasized as
objectionable congressional
authorization for U.S. state and
local divestment policies.
It said the approach is flawed
not only because it would "authorize
states to act in an area in which
the federal government has chosen
not to act" but because it "would
broadly authorize state and local
divestitures in an area or field of
foreign policy in which both Congress
and the executive branch are 
extremely active."

Even if sponsors of the legislation
believe it is consistent with President 
Bush's policies regarding Sudan, the
letter said, "that may not be the case in 
the future. It is entirely possible,
for example, that a state could enact a 
divestment law ... that requires
divestment in circumstances directly contrary 
to specific federal laws."

"During this period," the letter said,
"it is critical that the federal 
government -- the president, Congress
and, if necessary, the federal courts -- 
retain the tools the Constitution gives
them to ensure that state and local 
governments do not engage in divestment
activity that, however well-intentioned, 
would jeopardize United States foreign
policy on Sudan and potentially other 
issues."

It said the Justice Department strongly
opposes the divestment part of the 
proposed law.

"This legislation empowers Americans
to exercise their rights as investors, 
taxpayers, and pensioners to divest from
businesses directly contributing to the 
violence and misery of hundreds of 
thousands of innocent Darfuris," said Dodd, 
who is seeking the Democratic presidential
nomination.

The Senate bill would allow states
and localities to divest from companies 
involved in certain Sudanese business sectors
and allow mutual fund and private pension
managers to cut ties with those same companies.
Dodd is chairman of the Senate Banking
Committee, which approved the bill 
unanimously in October.
 
Copyright  2007 The Associated Press. 

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Call 1~800~GENOCIDE
and ask your U.S. Representative and Senators
to pass the funding fully for the UN Peacekeepers
for Darfur

President Bush's Comment Phone Line
202-456-1111
He needs a push to do something right.

Investors Against Genocide
http://investorsagainstgenocide.googlepages.com/

HOW DO YOU STOP GENOCIDE WHEN YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS NOT

This is Mr. Joseph Omar, who returned to the still smouldering ashes of his village of Tamandjor, at great personal risk, to search for anything that might help him and his family survive.

FOLLOW THE MONEY...

Paying for genocide of the Darfuris with your money....

Did you know that your invested money is quite likely helping pay for the genocide of the Darfur people of Sudan? I had to take my money out of Fidelity Investment and American Funds for that very reason. Here is information to help you know what companies to trust with your investments. I called my financial investor and he is more than happy to take my little bit of invested money and put it with companies with a conscience. I hope you will consider doing the same thing.

Investment Firms that have Divested

Want to make sure your investments are not funding genocide in Darfur?

The following companies have no direct investments in PetroChina or CNPC, its parent company, and have formal divestment policies. Most follow the targeted divestment model developed by the Sudan Divestment Task Force.

While we do encourage you to remember Darfur when making decisions about your investments, the Save Darfur Coalition does not give investment advice, and the inclusion of a company here does not constitute an endorsement of its investment strategy.

Calvert	Sudan policy
Clean Yield Group	Sudan policy
Domini Social Investments	Sudan policy
Pax World	Sudan policy
Prentiss Smith and Company, Inc
Stewardship Partners	Sudan policy
Trillium Asset Management	Sudan policy
Walden Asset Management/Boston Trust	Sudan policy
Women's Equity Fund

Source: http://www.savedarfur.org/page/content/Div_4_Dar-Divested_Firms/

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Call 1~800~GENOCIDE
and ask your U.S. Representative and Senators
to pass the funding fully for the UN Peacekeepers
for Darfur

President Bush's Comment Phone Line
202-456-1111
He needs a push to do something right.

Investors Against Genocide
http://investorsagainstgenocide.googlepages.com/

PRESSURE WORKS ~ BUSH NEEDS TO FEEL IT NOW

We Did It! SADA Passes the Senate!

Dear Sandra,

Great news! Late last night, the United States Senate unanimously passed the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act (PDF). It was a tough fight and opposition to the bill was only overcome after thousands of Americans from all 50 states called and e-mailed their Senators.

Thanks for your work to pass the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act (SADA)! Please help us keep up the fight by contributing to GI-Net.

SADA is a huge blow to the small group of foreign companies funding the ongoing genocide in Darfur. Already, three companies have suspended their Sudan operations fearing that SADA will become law. To keep our elected officials engaged on the issue, it is important to call and thank your Senators for supporting this important measure.

Please call 1-800-GENOCIDE and thank your Senators for passing SADA.

What's Next: Ensuring SADA Becomes Law

SADA will be sent to the House of Representatives for consideration. In August, the House passed a similar bill, the Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act, with a vote of 418-1. On Monday, the House is expected to quickly pass SADA by an overwhelming majority.

Once the House passes SADA, President Bush will have ten days to sign the bill into law. Your calls and e-mails will be critical as President Bush has been unsupportive of the bill.

Please help us to continue our advocacy efforts and to expand our civilian protection efforts on the ground in Darfur. Make a contribution today.

Thanks for all you do to end genocide!

Sam Bell

Director of Advocacy

Genocide Intervention Network

www.genocideintervention.net

P.S. Forward this exciting news to your family, friends and colleagues!

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Call 1~800~GENOCIDE
and ask your U.S. Representative and Senators
to pass the funding fully for the UN Peacekeepers
for Darfur

President Bush's Comment Phone Line
202-456-1111
He needs a push to do something right.

Investors Against Genocide
http://investorsagainstgenocide.googlepages.com/

SENSE AND NONSENSE ABOUT DARFUR

Jimmy Carter on Genocide in Darfur, from The New Republic (on-line)

---

“Carterwauling”:
Jimmy Carter's Shamefully Ignorant Statement on Darfur
The New Republic (on-line), October 8, 2007 http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w071008&s=reeves100807
By Eric Reeves

Jimmy Carter toured Sudan as part of a group of international celebrities who are calling themselves "the Elders." Founded by Nelson Mandela, the Elders aim--in the modest words of one member, British billionaire Richard Branson--to address "problems in the world that need a group of people who are maybe...beyond politics, beyond ego, and who have got great wisdom."

Great wisdom? Let's just say the group is off to a rocky start. That's because Carter took the opportunity of his visit to Sudan to criticize the United States for labeling the killing and destruction in Darfur genocide. "There is a legal definition of genocide and Darfur does not meet that legal standard," Carter lectured. "The atrocities were horrible but I don't think it qualifies to be called genocide." He also said, "If you read the law textbooks...you'll see very clearly that it's not genocide and to call it genocide falsely just to exaggerate a horrible situation--I don't think it helps."

Carter got one thing right--that there is a legal definition of genocide, embodied in the 1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide--but that's it.

The "atrocities" Carter refers to have included, over the past four and a half years, the deliberate, ethnically targeted destruction of not only African tribal populations, but their villages, homes, food- and seed-stocks, agricultural implements, and water sources.

People die now in Darfur primarily because of this antecedent violence, directed against not only lives but livelihoods. Here, the Genocide Convention is explicit: You can commit genocide not only by "[k]illing members of [a] group" but also by "[d]eliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." The destruction in Darfur clearly meets that test.

Then there is the use of rape as a weapon of war by Arab militias in Darfur.

The racial component of rape in Darfur has been well-documented at this point. In a typical example, here is what three Fur women--the Fur are the largest African tribal group in Darfur--told Doctors Without Borders: "We saw five Arab men who came to us and asked where our husbands were. Then they told us that we should have sex with them. We said no.

So they beat and raped us.

After they abused us, they told us that now we would have Arab babies; and if they would find any Fur, they would rape them again to change the color of their children." Racist epithets are typically hurled at women and girls, who are often gang-raped and then scarred to mark them as rape victims--a terrible burden in Darfur's conservative Muslim ethos.

Can there be any denying that such ethnically targeted rapes fall under the Genocide Convention's admonition that "[c]ausing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group" constitutes genocide? Moreover, because of the stigma that attaches to raped women, marriage and thus child-bearing becomes impossible for many. And, for some victims, especially younger girls, ensuing medical complications make child-bearing physically impossible. Which means that these rapes clearly meet yet another definition of genocide contained in the U.N. convention: "[i]mposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

" In addition, children, as well as women, are continually abducted by the Janjaweed. This, too, is a genocidal act under the convention, which prohibits "[f]orcibly transferring children of the group to another group." None of this should be controversial at this late date.

Numerous human rights organizations have, over the past four years, collected unambiguous evidence of genocide.

The examples could fill books.

A young African man who had lost many family members in an attack heard the gunmen say, "You blacks, we're going to exterminate you." Speaking of Khartoum's relentless aggression, an African tribal leader told a U.N. news service, "I believe this is an elimination of the black race."

A refugee reported these words as coming from his attackers: "You are opponents to the regime, we must crush you. As you are black, you are like slaves. Then the entire Darfur region will be in the hands of the Arabs." Another African tribal chief declared, "The Arabs and the government forces...said they wanted to conquer the whole territory and that the blacks did not have a right to remain in the region." And Musa Hilal, the most powerful Janjaweed leader, declared his objective in simple terms back in 2004: "Change the demography of Darfur and empty it of African tribes."

As for the complicity of the Sudanese government officials whom Carter clearly imagines he can charm with his criticism of the genocide label: The air attacks mounted by Khartoum, often in conjunction with Arab Janjaweed ground forces, have been directed exclusively at African villages, primarily those of the Fur, Massalit, and Zaghawa ~ the perceived civilian base of support for Darfur's rebels. The hand-in-glove operations of Khartoum's regular military forces and the Janjaweed have been authoritatively documented by Human Rights Watch.

In short, it seems doubtful that Carter has read the textbooks he claims to have read, or the vast body of human rights literature on Darfur--or even the Genocide Convention itself. If he had done any of these things, he would not speak so ignorantly. But Carter isn't just wrong on the facts. His prescriptive point--that it is unhelpful to label Darfur a genocide--is foolish as well. No doubt Carter's statement was the quid in some ghastly quid pro quo he hopes to arrange with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. But Sudan's leaders are realists, and our only hope of changing their behavior is to credibly threaten them. The calculus is simple: If they believe the west--the United States, Europe, human-rights activists--now see the Darfur conflict as a chaotic civil war, not a genocide, they will feel less threatened. Which means they are more likely to dig in their heels on the diplomatic front--refusing to negotiate a political solution to the crisis--while waiting for the final cleansing of Darfur to run its course. The upshot is that Carter, a man who is so fond of lecturing others about the need for diplomacy, has managed to make a diplomatic solution to Darfur's bloodletting less likely.

Great wisdom, indeed.

Eric Reeves is a professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College and has written extensively on Sudan.

More information:
http://www.miafarrow.org/

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Call 1~800~GENOCIDE

and ask your U.S. Representative and Senators
to pass the funding fully for the UN Peacekeepers
for Darfur

President Bush's Comment Phone Line
202-456-1111
He needs a push to do something right.