All three lies are new spins on old fear-mongering talking points the GOP has used to turn people against good and common sense health care reform.
The first simply invented the existence of a of a national health care database run by the IRS which will include your most personal and intimate secrets. No such database does or will exist, resulting in a “Pants on Fire”, Politifact’s most severe rating that’s reserved for the worst of the worst lies.
Then she said the IRS would be in charge of all of health care. Another lie. Bachmann followed that up with a yarn about the IRS being able to deny health care. Just another lie.
Tea Party luminary Bachmann has one of the worst records for telling the truth on Politifact. 74% of her statements fall on the “lie” side of the scale, and a full quarter of them are “Pants on Fire” inexcusable lies. She’s only told the truth in 15 statements versus telling 44 lies.
Bachmann ran for the 2012 GOP nomination for President but was too extreme even for the modern Republican Party. She gave three different reasons for why she once worked for the IRS (she only hated the IRS after working there; she joined the IRS as a secret undercover agent to understand her enemy; her husband ordered her to and she believes in biblical subservience of women to their husband).
While most Republicans oppose marriage equality, Bachmann has advocated for amending the U.S. Constitution to ban states from legalizing same-sex marriage, an example not of Big Government, but states-rights and civil liberty crushing Massive Government.
Bachmann played the “Democrats don’t want our troops to be safe” card in supporting domestic government spying and called the overwhelming and global scientific consensus on anthropogenic anthropogenic global warming a hoax and voodoo.
In 2008, Bachmann’s gutter slumming by trying to link then-Senator Barack Obama to Bill Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright were cited by Republicans Colin Powell and Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson as one of the reasons they endorsed Obama for President.
A year later, she lied to voters by telling them that citizens were not legally required to fill out the decennial census. Politifact slammed Bachmann for urging Americans to break the law.
Bachmann of course was a big supporter of Romney/Gingrich/ObamaCare “death panels”, a lie so horrible that Politifact gave it their Lie of the Year award.
Among other zingers:
* Bachmann doesn’t believe in evolution.
* Supports teaching the Christian religious theory of intelligent design in public schools, a practice found unconstitutional in Kitzmiller v. Dover, a landmark decision which was the first ever to address ID. You can watch the NOVA episode “Intelligent Design on Trial” for free no the PBS website (doesn’t have anything to do with Bachmann but it’s very good.)
* Wants to fully repeal and end Medicare and Social Security.
* Opposes abortion in all cases. That includes rape, incest, and life-of-the-mother issues.
* Took a federal home loan herself, but opposes federal home loans.
* Bachmann was a half birther.
* Thought in 2008 that President Obama would create FEMA-run political re-education camps for conservatives, a favorite conspiracy of Glenn Beck while on Fox News and of Alex Jones.
Bachmann’s district is heavily gerrymandered and should be an automatic win for any Republican candidate, yet she’s heading for a close race against a Democrat in 2014. And the remnants of her 2012 campaign are wrapped up in a campaign finance scandal.
Maybe these are just a few of the many reasons why.