July 15, 2011 - Pensito

Michele Bachmann is rapidly becoming a latter days Anita Bryant. In 2004, during a lecture at a conference, she referred to her gay step-sister, Helen LaFave, who is shown in the video above, saying “Any of you who have members of your family that are in the lifestyle — we have a member of our family that is. This is not funny. It’s a very sad life. It’s part of Satan.”

From Towleroad:

MICHELE BACHMANN: I am not here bashing people who are homosexuals, who are lesbians, who are bisexual, who are transgendered. We need to have profound compassion for the people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life, and sexual identity disorders. This is a very real issue. It’s not funny, it’s sad. Any of you who have members of your family that are in the lifestyle—we have a member of our family that is. This is not funny. It’s a very sad life. It’s part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay. It’s anything but gay.

Palin Movie Debuts to … Nobody

July 15, 2011July 15, 2011 Buck Banks

It isn’t strictly accurate to say that I sat through the whole movie alone. Just as the previews started, two young women walked in giggling together and took seats three rows behind me … But they only lasted 20 minutes before walking out. After that, it is strictly accurate to say that the theater was empty, except for me.

— Conor Friedersdorf, on attending the premiere of the new Sarah Palin documentary, The Undefeated, in Orange County, Calif.

Debt Ceiling Deniers ‘Playing Politics with People’s Lives’

July 15, 2011 Buck Banks

Call them Debt Ceiling Deniers. Believers in faith-based fiscal policy. Math-challenged cause-and-effect-skeptics. And an uncomfortable chunk of the GOP’s 2012 contenders. The growing popularity of this position among the 2012 contenders should cause real fiscal conservatives in the GOP to take a hard look in the mirror… By encouraging default, the debt-ceiling deniers are playing politics with people’s daily lives. They are making the prospect for economic recovery even more distant while unintentionally adding credence to our competitors’ mistaken belief that America is a great power in decline.

— John Avlon, writing in the Daily Beast.

Marcus Bachmann Calls Gays ‘Barbarians’

July 15, 2011 Buck Banks

We have to understand: Barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined. Just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road.

Day: July 15, 2011

Video Surfaces of Bachmann’s Out Gay Step Sister at Obama Inauguration

Palin Movie Debuts to … Nobody

— Conor Friedersdorf, on attending the premiere of the new Sarah Palin documentary, The Undefeated, in Orange County, Calif.

Debt Ceiling Deniers ‘Playing Politics with People’s Lives’

— John Avlon, writing in the Daily Beast.

Marcus Bachmann Calls Gays ‘Barbarians’

We have to understand: Barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined. Just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road.

— Marcus Bachmann, wife, er, husband of presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-MN), giving his views on homosexuality.

Poetic Justice

Verbatim

“One woman at a rally in New Jersey told me last week that she was ‘nauseously optimistic.’ That may capture a lot of people’s last-minute jitters.”

— Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), quoted by Axios, on what Democrats feel ahead of the midterm elections.

“I think Congress made a mistake not protesting turning the Rose Garden into what looks like the entrance to Liberace’s bathroom.”

— Former President Bill Clinton, quoted by The Wrap.

“Boy, they are scraping the bottom of the barrel. It feels like a real desperation play to me, because it has got zero basis in the law.”

— Republican election law expert Ben Ginsberg, quoted by Politico, on the Trump administration’s effort to invalidate Alaska’s election results.

Numerati

3,824

$1.4 billion

-35 points

31%

63% to 38%

KFF Poll: “With the 2026 midterm campaigns in full swing and early voting about to begin, there is a wide enthusiasm gap between partisan voters, with Democratic voters 25 percentage points more likely than Republican voters to say they are ‘more motivated’ than usual to vote (63% vs. 38%).”