Addressing Tea Party activists earlier this week, Rep. Michele Bachmann exploited U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan in an attempt to score some cheap political points, saying that passing the health reform bill would be a slam against the troops in Afghanistan and that the bill should be killed for the sake of the troops. Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent reports:

Bachmann: ‘Now is the time to see the whites of their eyes’

By Andy Birkey
The Minnesota Independent
March 11, 2010

Rep. Michele Bachmann told Tea Party activists on Wednesday to “take the town halls to Washington, DC” to defeat the health care bill. Bachmann suggested that passing the health reform bill would be a slam against freedom — and the troops in Afghanistan [emphasis added].

In a video spotted by the Washington Independent, Bachmann joined members of the Tea Party in calling for town halls in Washington, DC, by saying the bill should be killed for the sake of the troops [emphasis added].

“The men and women today who are bleeding for us in Afghanistan,” she said. “We need to think about them, what they gave to us, and recognize if this goes down in the United States, where does anyone go for freedom? Where do we go for freedom?”

“We the people are going to roll them out,” said Bachmann, “and when we roll them out we’re going to roll this bill back… Now is the time to see the whites of their eyes.”

The report generated interesting comments:

magi
Comment posted March 11, 2010 @ 1:13 pm

WHAT? Bachmann makes absolutely no sense! How is passing HCR putting the lives of our soldiers anywhere in danger? She pulled this one out of the deep recesses of her derriere where all the rest of her rhetoric originates.

Maria
Comment posted March 11, 2010 @ 1:39 pm

It looks like at leas one Congresswoman from the state of Minnesota is in URGENT need of MENTAL health reform.
She belongs in the PSYCHIATRIC WARD!

tom
Comment posted March 11, 2010 @ 1:44 pm

Freedom? What we all need is the freedom of Bachmann out of office. She put the loon in lunatic.

George Hayduke
Comment posted March 11, 2010 @ 2:11 pm

“Now is the time to see the whites of their eyes.”

Is Bachmann urging her followers to come to Washington to shoot members of Congress?

T-Bag Jones
Comment posted March 11, 2010 @ 3:07 pm

“The British are coming, the British are coming!!!”

She’s pathetic.

Eric
Comment posted March 11, 2010 @ 4:42 pm

I’m stuck between understanding her antics as evidence of mental instability or a shockingly unscrupulous mendacity that knows virtually no limits in its attempts to manipulate others.

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Bill Prendergast comments in the Daily Kos:

Michele Bachmann Update: Support Our Troops by Killing HCR

By Bill Prendergast
Daily Kos diary
March 11, 2010

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“Patriot” Groups, Militias Surge in Number in Past Year

Southern Poverty Law Center
March 2, 2010

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The number of extremist groups in the United States exploded in 2009 as militias and other groups steeped in wild, antigovernment conspiracy theories exploited populist anger across the country and infiltrated the mainstream, according to a report issued today by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Antigovernment “Patriot” groups – militias and other extremist organizations that see the federal government as their enemy – came roaring back to life over the past year after more than a decade out of the limelight. 

The SPLC documented a 244 percent increase in the number of active Patriot groups in 2009. Their numbers grew from 149 groups in 2008 to 512 groups in 2009, an astonishing addition of 363 new groups in a single year. Militias – the paramilitary arm of the Patriot movement – were a major part of the increase, growing from 42 militias in 2008 to 127 in 2009. 

The report, “Rage on the Right,” is the cover story in the Spring 2010 issue of the SPLC’s quarterly investigative journal Intelligence Report.

Video

Patriot groups have been fueled by anger over the changing demographics of the country, the soaring public debt, the troubled economy and an array of initiatives by President Obama that have been branded “socialist” or even “fascist” by his political opponents.

“This extraordinary growth is a cause for grave concern,” said Intelligence Report editor Mark Potok. “The people associated with the Patriot movement during its 1990s heyday produced an enormous amount of violence, most dramatically the Oklahoma City bombing that left 168 people dead.”

The Patriot movement has made significant inroads into the conservative political scene, according to the new report. “The ‘tea parties’ and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism,” the report says.

Unlike the 1990s, the Patriot movement’s central ideas are being promoted by people with large audiences, such as FOX News’ Glenn Beck and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota [links added]. Beck, for instance, reinvigorated a key Patriot conspiracy theory – the charge that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is secretly running concentration camps – before finally “debunking” it. 

The growth of Patriot groups comes at a time when the number of racist hate groups stayed at record levels – rising from 926 in 2008 to 932 in 2009, according to the report. The increase caps a decade in which the number of hate groups surged by 55 percent. The expansion would have been much greater in 2009 if not for the demise of the American National Socialist Workers Party, a key neo-Nazi network whose founder was arrested in October 2008. 

There also has been a surge in “nativist extremist” groups – vigilante organizations that go beyond advocating strict immigration policy and actually confront or harass suspected immigrants. These groups grew from 173 groups in 2008 to 309 in 2009, a rise of nearly 80 percent.

These three strands of the radical right – the hate groups, the nativist extremist groups, and the Patriot organizations – are the most volatile elements on the American political landscape. Taken together, their numbers increased by more than 40 percent, rising from 1,248 groups in 2008 to 1,753 last year.

There are already signs of radical right violence reminiscent of the 1990s. Right-wing extremists have murdered six law enforcement officers since Obama’s inauguration. Racist skinheads and others have been arrested in alleged plots to assassinate the president. Most recently, as recounted in the new issue of the Intelligence Report, a number of individuals with antigovernment, survivalist or racist views have been arrested in a series of bomb cases.

The hate groups listed in this report include neo-Nazis, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads, Klansmen and black separatists. Other hate groups target gays or immigrants, and some specialize in producing racist music or propaganda denying the Holocaust.

A list and interactive, state-by-state map of active hate groups can be viewed here.

——

Related media

Video

Number of hate groups reach record level (The Dylan Ratigan Show, MSNBC, March 2, 2010) — According to a new report, militias and other extremist groups increasing 244 percent in 2009. Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center and radio host Mark Williams of the Tea Party Express discuss. (08:33)

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Related reports on this site

Bachmann Conspiracy Nation (Feb. 20, 2010)

Town Hall Face (Photos: Landov, AP, Getty Images / Newsweek)

Conspiracy theories have long been a fixture on the political landscape, with political paranoia most virulent among politically marginalized sectors of the polity. So, with Democrats holding the reins of power, it stands to reason that the right fringe has become the prime repository of collective craziness.

Condemning Beck and Bachmann (Nov. 19, 2009)

Rage Grows in America: Anti‑Government Conspiracies

November 2009

Introduction: A Year of Growing Animosity

Since the election of Barack Obama as president, a current of anti-government hostility has swept across the United States, creating a climate of fervor and activism with manifestations ranging from incivility in public forums to acts of intimidation and violence.

Hate groups including neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan have grown since Barack Obama was elected president. (Image: NBC News)

What characterizes this anti-government hostility is a shared belief that Obama and his administration actually pose a threat to the future of the United States. Some accuse Obama of plotting to bring socialism to the United States, while others claim he will bring about Nazism or fascism. All believe that Obama and his administration will trample on individual freedoms and civil liberties, due to some sinister agenda, and they see his economic and social policies as manifestations of this agenda. In particular anti-government activists used the issue of health care reform as a rallying point, accusing Obama and his administration of dark designs ranging from “socialized medicine” to “death panels,” even when the Obama administration had not come out with a specific health care reform plan. Some even compared the Obama administration’s intentions to Nazi eugenics programs. … Full story

Bachmann Rebuked for Nazi Image (Nov. 12, 2009)

Sign displayed at U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “House Call on Congress” anti-health care reform rally in Washington, D.C., Nov. 5, 2009. The sign reads, “National Socialist Health Care: Dachau, Germany — 1945.” (Photo credit: Lee Fang / ThinkProgress)

Anger in America (Oct. 31, 2009)

Bachmann Heads Teabaggers (Sept. 13, 2009)

Rep. Michele Bachmann speaks at a Tea Party at Lake George in St. Cloud, Minn., after a town hall meeting, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009. (Photo credit: Jason Wachter / St. Cloud Times)

Invitation to Tea Party headlined by Michele Bachmann

Bachmann: “Slit Our Wrists” (Sept. 2, 2009)

Rep. Michele Bachmann speaks to a luncheon crowd at the Denver Athletic Club, Aug. 31, 2009 (Photo credit: Jason Kosena / The Colorado Statesman)

In a speech filled with urgent and violent rhetoric, Bachmann … drew a clear line on health care reform.

“You’re either for us or against us on this issue,” she said. …

At times, Bachmann’s legislative briefing sounded more like the plot of a slasher movie.

“Right now, we are looking at reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom,” she said. “And we may never be able to restore it if we don’t man up and take this one on.”

While Bachmann didn’t ask this audience to “rise up” against President Barack Obama’s tyrannical rule, they stood anyway and applauded when she announced she was No. 1 on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s list of “top targets.” …

Economy and Obama Volatile Mix (April 16, 2009)

An April 2009 Homeland Security intelligence estimate warns that right-wing extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election of the country’s first black president to recruit new members and incite anti-government violence.

Bachmann Call for Armed Revolt? (March 24, 2009)

On March 21, 2009 Rep. Michele Bachmann said that she wants people in Minnesota “armed and dangerous” on the issue of an energy tax, “because we need to fight back” and “having a revolution every now and then is a good thing.”

Obama, Economy Fuel Hate Groups (Feb. 28, 2009)

A cross and swastika are burned at an event called Hated and Proud in Nebraska in July 2008. (Photo credit: Southern Poverty Law Center / CNN)

Obama Racist Backlash (Nov. 16, 2008)

Racial incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama, including schoolchildren chanting “assassinate Obama,” racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars, and Black figures hung from nooses, are shattering the post-election illusion of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America. There have been “hundreds” of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — March 3, 2009

History repeats? Job hunters mass for $4 a day work in 1935 and the line unwinds outside a New York City job fair in February 2009. (Photo credit: Associated Press)

U.S. Economy in Depression?

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that according to some economists, a Depression doesn’t have to be Great, with bread lines, rampant unemployment, and a wipeout in the stock market; the economy can sink into a milder depression — the kind spelled with a lowercase “d” — and it may be happening now.

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In yet another of her many out-of-state political appearances, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on Friday, Feb. 26, 2010 spoke to Hamilton County Republicans in Cincinnatti, Ohio.

Following is a Gannet news report from the St. Cloud Times — the largest daily newspaper in Rep. Bachmann’s congressional district — along with added sidebars for background context.

Bachmann Tells Republicans in Ohio: Put Brakes on Obama

St. Cloud Times / Gannett ContentOne
February 27, 2010

Cincinnati-area Republican leaders were hoping Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann would give a red-meat speech to fire up the party faithful Friday.

They got what they hoped for.

More than 600 Hamilton County Republicans listening in the East Plaza of Paul Brown Stadium heard Bachmann implore them to go out and work for the election of Republicans “so we can put the brakes on the Obama agenda, put the brakes on the Obama machine.”

“It’s up to us to stop it,” said Bachmann, who has become a favorite of the most conservative wing of the GOP in recent years. “The president has embraced a policy that would have the federal government controlling 48 percent of our economy in just two years’ time. We have to stop him.”

She urged the Republicans to go to her Web site and look at a graph of federal deficits over the past several administrations.

“Yes, George Bush had some big spending years; we all know that,” Bachmann said. “But it is tiny potatoes compared to what it going on now.”

Sidebar: Bachmann’s True Colors

The 53-year-old Minnesota congresswoman has become a lightning rod for controversy for a raft of public statements, mostly on cable news networks, that have made her a favorite of the conservative movement and anathema to Democrats.

Sidebar: Bachmann on the Media Circuit

One of her most controversial statements came last June when speaking about the federal government bailout of General Motors. She called the Obama administration “a gangster government.”

Sidebar: Gangster Government

She has said carbon dioxide isn’t a harmful gas, warned of the coming of a “global currency” and said that voters should ask themselves if their members of Congress are “pro-America or anti-America.”

Sidebar: Bachmann Says ‘I’m Not a Kook’

But it was a statement on MSNBC where she raised the possibility that Obama might have “anti-American views” that made her the enemy of the left, Bachmann said Friday.

Sidebar: Bachmann Bears False Witness

“I had Nancy Pelosi fly into my district on a plane — your plane — and say she was handing my opponent $1 million and that I was the worst human being that ever lived,” Bachmann said.

From reading the news reports in Minnesota, she said, “you would have thought that I had eaten children.”

Sidebar

Fact check: Is Nancy Pelosi targeting Michele Bachmann?
(By Eric Roper, Star Tribune “Hot Dish Politics” blog, Jan. 22, 2010)

The Democrats, Bachmann said, will go after her this fall, and it was clear the Hamilton County Republican Party was happy to help her out. …

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Related links

Where’s Michele?
Missing in Minnesota and in Washington D.C.
(Maureen Reed for Congress)

Where in the World is Michele Bachmann?
(Tarryl Clark for Congress)

The Bachmann Agenda
(Tarryl Clark for Congress)

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — March 1, 2009

More Bachmann Bad Press for GOP

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that Salem-News.com published a commentary on Rep. Michele Bachmann by Dorsett Bennett, “an Independent/Libertarian.” “There’s no point in trying to fact-check such unhinged stupidity,” writes Bennett, “but I should note that none of this is in any way grounded in reality. I should also note that we’re not talking about some strange nut screaming on a street corner; this is all coming from an elected member of Congress.”

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Pope: I Pray for Chile Earthquake Victims

“I implore God to give them relief from suffering and courage in this adversity”

Pope Benedict XVI delivers his 2008 Christmas Day blessing from St. Peter’s Basilica. (Photo credit: Franco Origlia / Getty Images)

Feb. 28, 2010 

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday urged the survivors of Chile’s devastating quake to be courageous and asked the Catholic church to play a role in relief efforts.

Photo chronicle Earthquake rocks Chile A devastating magnitude-8.8 earthquake strikes Chile.

The pontiff, speaking first in Italian and then in Spanish, told pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square that he was praying for the victims.

“My thoughts go to Chile and to the population struck by the earthquake, which has caused much loss of human life and huge damage,” Benedict said.

“I am sure that solidarity won’t be lacking,” he said, singling out the local church in that predominantly Roman Catholic country for a role in disaster relief.

“I pray for the victims, and I am spiritually close to those so tried by such a grave calamity,” he said. “For those, I implore God to give them relief from suffering and courage in this adversity.” …

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — February 28, 2009

A cross and swastika are burned at an event called Hated and Proud in Nebraska in July 2008. (Photo credit: Southern Poverty Law Center / CNN)

Obama, Economy Fuel Hate Groups

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that the Southern Poverty Law Center had released its annual hate group report, titled “The Year in Hate.” The study identified 926 hate groups active in 2008 and found that the number of hate groups had grown by 54 percent since 2000.

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Helping Nurse an Impaired Water Back to Health

One person can make a difference

Nancy Carver of Rice, Minn., has led by example by restoring her shoreline on Little Rock Lake to native flowers and grasses during the past two years. She is helping educate her neighbors on how to develop restoration plans for their shorelines. (MPCA video)

February 2010

What do you do when you find out your lake has been placed on the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s (MPCA) Impaired Waters list? If you were Nancy Carver of Little Rock Lake near Rice, Minn., you would start attending workshops and reading everything you could about restoring your shoreline and helping to make a lake healthy again.

“What I learned was making sure to have a properly working septic system and restoring a natural shoreline were two important things lake home owners could do on their own. My septic system checked out okay so the next step was to make the shoreline environmentally friendly to the lake,” says Nancy. The first things she did were to stop mowing all the way to the shore and plant some new native grasses to develop a buffer to the lake.

With help from her local Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), MPCA, and American Meadows, Nancy learned about more affordable options for natural plantings. Nancy says, “A SWCD manager and a DNR staff person came to my home and found some native flowers and bur reed already starting to grow along my shore. And American Meadows helped me choose more plants native to Central Minnesota and develop a planting plan.

“It was so exciting to see plantings bloom in all the colors and variety of native flowers earlier this summer. And now the bold colors of the fall blooms are beginning to show. I will continue to work on this project until nature takes control.”

Of course with any worthwhile project there are hurdles. Nancy says early on there was resistance among some of her neighbors because it appeared as though she was just ignoring her lawn and making their neighborhood look sloppy. By meeting with her neighbors and explaining her intentions were to create a natural shoreline and do her part to help restore the health of the lake, that resistance turned into acceptance and appreciation. Several of her neighbors are taking her lead and developing plans to restore their shorelines as well.

Nancy says that without the help from the SWCD, DNR, MPCA, “and the muscle and sweat from a wonderful young man named Keith, this project would not have become a reality for me and my lake.”

It is also important to note that without the brains and passion of a wonderful young woman named Nancy Carver, this project would not have become a reality for our environment.

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Related links

Minnesota Water Stories

Little Rock Lake Association

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Related content on this site

Aubrey Immelman meets with Little Rock Lake resident Nancy Carver to discuss water quality issues at Little Rock Lake, July 24, 2008.

Patrick (2) fishing from a constituent’s dock during a campaign swing to Little Rock Lake in Benton County, September 1, 2008. 

Aubrey Immelman listens to Little Rock Lake residents at the Little Rock Lake TMDL Public Meeting and Open House at Sauk Rapids-Rice Middle School, July 29, 2008, to learn about water quality issues on Little Rock Lake in Benton County. The main focus of the TMDL project is to mitigate phosphorus, the water quality limiting nutrient responsible for the toxic blue-green algae blooms in the lake.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — February 21, 2009

Minnesota private college students present their scholarly research in the Capitol rotunda.

Barack Obama’s Leadership Style

Sarah Moore and Angela Rodgers in the Capitol rotunda.

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that two of my student research associates in the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics, Sarah Moore and Angela Rodgers, presented their research on “The Personality Profile of President Barack Obama: Leadership Implications” at the 6th annual Minnesota Private Colleges Scholars at the Capitol event, Feb. 19, 2009 in the State Capitol rotunda, St. Paul, Minn.

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Conspiracy theories have long been a fixture on the political landscape, with political paranoia most virulent among politically marginalized sectors of the polity. So, with Democrats holding the reins of power, it stands to reason that the right fringe has become the prime repository of collective craziness.

Newsweek has a handy primer on the current proliferation of political paranoia, but omits mention of conspiracy theorist-in-chief Michele Bachmann, which has been added to Newsweek’s coverage by way of sidebars.

Know Your Conspiracies

Town Hall Face: An unsightly condition caused by unsanitary health-care politics. (Photos: Landov, AP, Getty Images / Newsweek)

By David A. Graham
Newsweek Web Exclusive
February 12, 2010

Excerpts

1. Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

It’s not clear where he must have been born instead: some say Indonesia; some say Kenya (initial suggestions that Hawaiian natives weren’t citizens when he was born in Honolulu in 1961 were quickly dismissed). The point, so-called birthers say, is that he wasn’t born in the good old US of A, hence isn’t a natural-born citizen and therefore cannot legally be president.
Proponents: Chief birther and Beverly Hills dentist and attorney Orly Taitz, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah, Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.), former presidential and Senate candidate Alan Keyes, assorted tea partiers.
Kernel of Truth? It’s fully debunked. Forged Kenyan birth certificates have been exposed, and — despite protestations to the contrary — Obama’s birth certificate has been certified by the state of Hawaii, and images have been shown on national television. And that’s leaving aside plenty of circumstantial proof, like birth announcements in both major Hawaiian papers from August 1961.

2. Anthropogenic global warming is a hoax.

[Read more]

Sidebar: A ‘Rash of Lies and Falsehoods’ (April 9, 2009)

3. Goldman Sachs intentionally created the economic crisis.

[Read more]

4. Democrats’ health plan will create death panels.

Part of Barack Obama’s devious plan to reform health insurance will be the creation of panels of experts who will decide whether or not patients are “worth” treating, making them arbiters of life and death.
Proponents: Sarah Palin, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), a lot of angry town-hall-meeting attendees.
Kernel of Truth? Palin was apparently referring to a provision of draft legislation that would have funded consultation about end-of-life care. There was and is, however, no plan for rationing care as a cost-cutting measure, and fact-checking outlet PolitiFact named the theory the “Lie of the Year” in 2009.

Sidebar: Bachmann Rebuked for Nazi Image (Nov. 12, 2009)

5. Barack Obama is a secret Muslim.

[Read more]

6. Sarah Palin is not the mother of her 1-year-old son, Trig.

[Read more]

7. ACORN is part of a liberal conspiracy to steal elections.

The coalition of community organizations first came under fire after allegations that members were filing fraudulent voter-registration forms in order to beef up the Democratic vote in the 2008 elections. Pressure heated up after a videotaped sting humiliated the group. 
Proponents: Glenn Beck, conservative commentators Michelle Malkin and Andrew Breitbart, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), unsuccessful N.Y. Conservative Party congressional candidate Doug Hoffman.
Kernel of Truth? The James O’Keefe videos showed questionable conduct at the very least, but neither they nor anything else proves a vast left-wing conspiracy between Democrats and ACORN to steal elections.

Sidebar: ACORN: Bachmann ‘Pants on Fire’ (July 2, 2009)

8. FEMA is establishing detention camps.

The government has quietly made the Federal Emergency Management Agency a shadow government. Even now, FEMA has concentration camps ready across the country to intern American citizens. The idea attracted leftists during the Bush administration and — updated for the Obama administration — now has right-wing adherents.
Proponents: Glenn Beck (briefly), the Internet.
Kernel of Truth? Too silly to discuss.

9. The Council on American-Islamic Relations is trying to infiltrate Capitol Hill and spread jihad.

[Read more]

10. Obama wants to conscript Americans into a civilian defense corps.

The group would be a brownshirtlike organization that would enforce order in the United States.
Proponents: Glenn Beck, Watergate burglar and media personality G. Gordon Liddy, Ann Coulter.
Kernel of Truth? Liberal press watchdog Media Matters says the theory stems from a speech Obama made in which he argued for the importance of the Foreign Service, AmeriCorps, and the Peace Corps. That’s a far cry from an American Gestapo — a claim for which there’s no support.

Sidebar: Bachmann Brainwashing Paranoia (April 8, 2009)

11. Time magazine wants to restrict the Internet to licensed users.

12. 9/11 was an inside job.

[Read more]

Kernel of Truth? Not even the staunchest mainstream George W. Bush bashers believe this one. Enough said.

13. The Omnibus One-World Government, Unified Currency, Dollar-Abolishing, Free Trade-Advocating Theory of Everything.

To make, first reheat old theories about elite organizations that supposedly control various world governments and would like to create a single, unitary, global regime — the Bilderberg Group, the Council of Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission. Add a healthy portion of slightly newer but equally discredited theories about the Amero, a pan-North American currency, and the NAFTA superhighway, a planned thruway from Canada to Mexico said to be six football fields wide. Freshen with the economic-crisis-born idea that Ben Bernanke is trying to destroy the value of the dollar. Add a pinch of tea-party spice from former Alabama State Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, who believes there’s a plan underfoot to have a United Nations guard at every American’s door. The finished product should taste a little like this.
Proponents: Alex Jones, finance blog Zero Hedge, WorldNetDaily, conservative news site NewsMax, Roy Moore.
Kernel of Truth? Eh, sounds plausible to us.

Sidebar: Bachmann Says ‘I’m Not a Kook’ (March 28, 2009)

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — February 20, 2009

Iraqi Shoe Hurler Goes on Trial

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that Muntadhar al-Zeidi, the Iraqi reporter who hurled his shoes at George W. Bush, said at his trial that President Bush’s smile as he talked about achievements in Iraq had made him think of “the killing of more than a million Iraqis, the disrespect for the sanctity of the mosques and houses, the rapes of women,” and enraged him.

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The Fargo-Moorhead Forum ran a good editorial on Rep. Michele Bachmann last week, though I take issue with the editorial board’s characterization of Bachmann as “fun” (in the headline) “darned entertaining,” (in the lead) and ”goofy” (in the closing paragraph).

In truth, Michele Bachmann is the face of an emerging brand of American protofascism being spawned by the ”perfect storm” of the attacks of 9/11, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the election of America’s first African-American president.

In the public interest, the Forum editorial follows in its entirety.

Bachmann is Fun, But No Friend

Forum Editorial Board
February 12, 2010

If nothing else, Michele Bachmann is darned entertaining. In her role as Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District member of the U.S. House of Representatives, the conservative Republican has become the darling of the Tea Party set and a stir-’em-up attraction at Republican rallies, although describing her as “conservative” doesn’t do her justice. Nor is it fair to thoughtful conservatives, because she subscribes to a hat full of peculiar notions that could cause her to be mistaken for a mad hatter.

Bachmann is in Bismarck today at the invitation of the North Dakota Republican Party. The idea is to energize the party faithful, who probably don’t need to be energized this election year. But the fallout from the visit could very well be (maybe should be) to cause sensible North Dakotans to wonder why the state party and its marquee candidate – Gov. John Hoeven for the U.S. Senate – would cozy up to Bachmann and her, frankly, loony ideas. Not only are some of her ideas bizarre, she happily rejects federal policies and initiatives that have enjoyed bipartisan support from North Dakotans and their elected officials for generations – Hoeven among those popular leaders.

For example:

• Bachmann favors privatization of Social Security, which would mean handing over billions of Social Security dollars to Wall Street. Had that happened when President George W. Bush proposed it, thousands of North Dakotans would have seen their Social Security accounts take big losses or dry up altogether.
• She wants to eliminate Social Security and Medicare, which was actually proposed by House Republicans last week.
• She wants investigations into members of Congress she believes are anti-American, who just happen to be Democrats. Would that McCarthy-like net scoop up North Dakota Democratic Sens. Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad? Rep. Earl Pomeroy? Minnesota 7th District Congressman Collin Peterson?
• Bachmann voted five times against the 2008 farm bill (Congressional Record), legislation Hoeven favored; he traveled several times to Washington to help the state’s congressional delegation get the bill passed. And how about this: Bachmann received $251,973 in federal subsidies for her family’s farm from 1995 to 2006.

Her goofy comments aside, Bachmann’s take on serious policies disqualifies her as a friend of North Dakotans. Her agenda would return North Dakota to a marginal economic outpost instead of its current role as a vibrant player in the nation’s energy, research and agribusiness economies. Hoeven can take some credit for that success because he was willing to work across party lines in order to position the state to take advantage of appropriate federal programs. But if he reaches across the aisle in Bismarck today and finds Bachmann there, he should smile politely and step smartly in the opposite direction.

Forum editorials represent the opinion of Forum management and the newspaper’s Editorial Board.

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Related reports on this site

The Empress of Exaggeration (Aug. 8, 2009)

Michele Bachmann Unmasked (July 20, 2009)

Bachmann: MN Press Pushes Back (May 3, 2009)

FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — February 18, 2009

A school boy killed by an explosion is seen surrounded by relatives, as some chant anti-U.S. and Afghan government slogans in Rodad, Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan. (Photo credit: Rahmat Gul / AP)

Afghan Deaths at All-Time High

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that the number of Afghan civilians killed in armed conflict surged to a record 2,118 in 2008 as the Afghanistan war turned increasingly bloody. Insurgents were responsible for 55 percent of the deaths, but U.S., NATO, and Afghan forces killed 39 percent, the report said. Of the 829 deaths by the coalition forces, 552 were blamed on airstrikes.

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Glenn Beck’s Emotional Blackmail 

By Tim Mak

February 13, 2010

Glenn Beck has made a routine of crying on his program. He has even been caught using Vicks to bring out tears during a photoshoot. And last week, an article in the New York Times described GOP senatorial candidate J.D. Hayworth tearing up while discussing a movie about football. FF contributors N. Machiavelli and Tim Mak weigh in on the new conservative trend: public weeping.

Click here for N. Machiavelli’s post.

It seems as though you can’t view a Glenn Beck clip without his eventual descent into blubbering something like, “I just love my country… and I fear for it!” And now this, from a New York Times profile of J.D. Hayworth, Sen. John McCain’s primary challenger in Arizona:

Mr. Hayworth’s radio-personality bluster and big emotions — he teared up in an interview when describing the film “The Blind Side” — … may now have a part in the greater populist narrative that threatens many of the nation’s more centrist Republicans.

Why do figures like Beck and Hayworth cry? One explanation is that wailing encourages individuals to empathize with your point of view.

“Crying has a socially manipulative aspect, even when the crier is not completely aware of this motive,” said Jonathan Rottenberg, a professor of psychology at the University of South Florida.

Indeed, the sniffles that accompany Beck’s tea party rants and Hayworth’s talk-radio diatribes provide a greater impetus for listeners to act, as their whimpers serve as a sort of emotional blackmail. Ranting mixed with crying equals activism.

“[Crying] can be a guilt-inducing behavior,” said Dr. Judith Kay Nelson, a therapist and author of Seeing Through Tears: Crying and Attachment. “[It’s] an attachment behavior that brings about a care-giving response in other people … designed to get people to take action on your behalf.”

Beck and Hayworth’s style of conservative rhetoric blends well with the emotional response generated by their sobbing. The combination of angry rhetoric and barely-stifled sobs generates a more powerful response than had they not preceded their sob sessions with anger.

“The tears – at least in Beck’s case – serve as a cue for responding emotionally to their rhetoric, human beings having natural empathic abilities,” argues Aubrey Immelman, a psychologist at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University:

Another possible reason for the sobbing may be that weeping nowadays buys Main Street bona fides. Francesca Polletta, a sociologist at UC Irvine, argues:

Crying probably signals not only passion but authenticity – in contrast with what people see as the well-rehearsed spin of politics as usual – witness Palin’s characterization of Obama as a charismatic guy with a teleprompter.

But that explanation can only be true to the extent that the crying is genuine – Glenn Beck was shown to have used Vicks to fake cry for a photoshoot. Falsifying tears can be seen as an effort to get people to pay attention to a potential loss, rather than one that has already occurred, argued Dr. Judith Kay Nelson:

[Glenn Beck] is crying over a potential loss, a threatened loss, so he is trying to get people to feel as if the loss were to happen … He is playing on a potential loss about the qualities of the country they feel are significant.

Crying is a visceral experience, and seizes upon the brain in an all-consuming way. In a sense, Beck and Hayworth’s weeping illustrate the problems with the tea party movement itself – it’s too much about feeling, and not enough about thinking.

The rhetoric and weeping “of demagogues like Glenn Beck … is powerful because it slips through the cracks in our acculturated human rationality … to hit a nerve in the limbic system: the seat of emotion,” said Immelman.

“[Crying] reaches out to us in a powerful non-verbal way … It cuts through logic by grabbing us physiologically.” added Nelson.

Commentary: George Orwell’s Squealer, 26 Years After

I take issue with the New York Times’ characterization of public figures like Glenn Beck as populist. In my opinion, it’s pure protofascist demagoguery riding a populist wave spawned by a perfect storm in a climate of fear: the trifecta of the attacks of 9/11, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the election of America’s first African-American president.

Fear, one of the strongest emotions to evolve in our Stone-Age brains, speaks directly to the most basic of our survival instincts. In other words, the incendiary rhetoric of demagogues like a Glenn Beck or a Michele Bachmann is powerful because it slips through the cracks in our acculturated human rationality, with its biological substrates in the fontal cortex, to hit a lower nerve in the subcortical brain regions of the limbic system, the seat of emotion.

In the simplest of terms, demagogues like Beck and Bachmann are able to establish a deep connection with human irrationality.

In his FrumForum column, Tim Mak writes: “Indeed, the sniffles that accompany Beck’s tea party rants and Hayworth’s talk-radio diatribes provide a greater impetus for listeners to act, as their whimpers serve as a sort of emotional blackmail.”

Mak’s analysis focuses on conscious, rational persuasive maneuvers on the part of political communicators, whereas my analysis zeroes in on powerful subcortical responses on the part of the target audience that operate below the level of conscious awareness and rational censorship.

In that sense, Glenn Beck may well be the ultimate stealth propagandist of our era.

Related post on this site

Condemning Beck and Bachmann (Nov. 19, 2009)

Related story

Tea Party movement lights fuse for rebellion on right
(David Barstow, New York Times, Feb. 16, 2010)

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — February 15, 2009

Dale C. Stoffel, an American contractor in Iraq, described cash delivered in pizza boxes and payoffs dropped in paper sacks. (Photo courtesy of David Stoffel)

Feds Widen Iraq Corruption Probe

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that federal authorities examining the early, chaotic days of the $125 billion American-led effort to rebuild Iraq had significantly broadened their inquiry to include senior American military officers who oversaw the program.

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Complete Super Bowl Coverage

Update: New Orleans Saints 31, Indianapolis Colts 17

FEATURE REPORT

Video: “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life”

Focus on the Family ad (MSNBC, Feb. 7, 2010) — The ad featuring the college football star and his mother aired during the super bowl. (00:30)

The Heisman Trophy Winner Who Almost Wasn’t

Opinion by Bobby Eberle
GOPUSA — The Loft
January 27, 2010

The career of University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow is one of legend. Not only did he win the Heisman Trophy, college football’s highest honor, as a sophomore, he was in the running for it during his junior and senior years as well. He led the Gators to two national championships and has displayed honor and integrity at every turn.

But all of his accomplishments and all of his success could have been wiped out completely had Tim’s mother Pam Tebow not chosen life. During a mission trip, an infection led doctors to recommend that Pam Tebow have an abortion to avoid the risk of her own death during childbirth. She chose life, and now her story will be told in the form of a Super Bowl ad. Rather than celebrating the ad as a “success” story, some so-called women’s groups are blasting the ad and urging CBS to ban it.

As noted in a story on FOXNews.com college football great Tim Tebow and his mom Pam “will appear in a pro-life commercial that tells the story of his risky birth 22 years ago — an ad that critics suggest could lead to anti-abortion violence, even though none of them have seen it.”

It’s a happy story with an inspirational ending, but pro-choice critics say Focus on the Family should not be allowed to air the commercial because it advocates on behalf of a divisive issue and threatens to “throw women under the bus.”

“This organization is extremely intolerant and divisive and pushing an un-American agenda,” said Jehmu Greene, director of the Women’s Media Center, which is coordinating a campaign to force CBS to pull the ad before it airs on Feb. 7.

Extremely intolerant and divisive and pushing an un-American agenda? This is how this person describes Pam’s decision to give birth rather than ending a human life? Talk about intolerant! According to groups such as this, it’s perfectly fine to advocate for funds, literature, and media for ending human life. But when someone actually chooses to SAVE A LIFE that is intolerant and un-American? I see.

According to the web site NotUnderTheBus.com, which is sponsored by the Women’s Media Center, “The Women’s Media Center, and organizations dedicated to reproductive rights, tolerance, and social justice, are urging the network to immediately cancel this ad.”

First of all, I am pro-life. I think a human life should be protected and afforded basic human rights regardless of age. That’s where I stand. As the law is currently written, such protections do not completely exist and the “choice” now exists to give birth to a baby or end it’s life in the womb. So be it. What really burns me up is the fact that this organization and others like it claim to represent reproductive “rights,” but they scream and go into convulsions whenever a woman CHOOSES life over an abortion.

What’s pathetic is that groups such as this who claim to support “social justice” aren’t shouting at the tops of their lungs in SUPPORT of concepts such as adoption. Wouldn’t it be better to give the child to a loving family who wants it rather than simply advocating abortion.

I guess that’s what sums up my disdain for these groups. They don’t advocate choice as much as they advocate abortion. People choose life all the time, yet these groups treat supporters of life as the anti-Christ. They are pro-abortion … not pro-choice.

As noted in the Fox News story, Tim Tebow responded to the controversy while talking with reporters:

“I know some people won’t agree with it, but I think they can at least respect that I stand up for what I believe,” he said. ” [T]hat’s the reason I’m here, because my mom was a very courageous woman. So any way that I could help, I would do it.”

Because Pam Tebow chose life, she has a son who is an inspiration to all.

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Related video

Related editorial

Super Bowl Censorship

January 31, 2010

The commercials during the Super Bowl, a showcase for the best (or worst) in TV advertising, often generate buzz and sometimes outrage. This year, viewers will see one ad that has already triggered a heated debate about abortion and censorship.

The 30-second spot, financed by the conservative religious group Focus on the Family, is said to recount the pregnancy of Pam Tebow, mother of the college football star Tim Tebow. After falling ill during a mission to the Philippines, she ignored a recommendation by doctors to abort her fifth child, who became the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner.

The National Organization for Women, NARAL Pro-Choice America and other voices for protecting women’s reproductive freedom have called on CBS to yank it. Their protest is puzzling and dismaying.

A letter sent to CBS by the Women’s Media Center and other groups argues that the commercial “uses one family’s story to dictate morality to the American public, and encourages young women to disregard medical advice, putting their lives at risk” — a lame attempt to portray the ad as life-threatening. Others argue that even a mild discussion of such a divisive issue has no place in the marketing extravaganza known as the Super Bowl.

The would-be censors are on the wrong track. Instead of trying to silence an opponent, advocates for allowing women to make their own decisions about whether to have a child should be using the Super Bowl spotlight to convey what their movement is all about: protecting the right of women like Pam Tebow to make their private reproductive choices.

CBS was right to change its policy of rejecting paid advocacy commercials from groups other than political candidates. After the network screens ads for accuracy and taste, viewers can watch and judge for themselves. Or they can get up from the couch and get a sandwich.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — February 7, 2009

Video

Soldier suicides exceed combat deaths (NBC Nightly News, Feb. 6, 2009) — The fight to save soldiers’ lives has moved away from front lines as a shocking rise in military suicides has prompted U.S. Army officials to step up suicide prevention efforts. NBC’s Ron Mott reports. (02:19)

Army Ponders Suicide Prevention

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, said that the Army, to battle a growing suicide rate, may have to start teaching soldiers how to handle stress from the first day they take their service oath.

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Palin E-Mails Reveal a Powerful ‘First Dude’ 

In Sarah Palin administration, her spouse was active in state business

Nearly 3,000 pages of e-mails that the first gentleman, Todd Palin,  exchanged with state officials draw a picture of his influence on policy in the Sarah Palin administration. Other e-mails are still being withheld by the state of Alaska. (Photo credit: Robyn Beck / AFP — Getty Images file)

By Bill Dedman
Investigative reporter
Feb. 6, 2010

Bill Dedman Investigative reporter

Officially he was the first gentleman of Alaska. More people called him the “first dude.” But newly released e-mails show that Todd Palin was busy doing more than snow machine driving and salmon fishing during Sarah Palin’s two and a half years as governor and vice presidential candidate.

Nearly 3,000 pages of e-mails that Todd Palin exchanged with state officials, which were released to msnbc.com and NBC News by the state of Alaska under its public records law, draw a picture of a Palin administration where the governor’s husband got involved in a judicial appointment, monitored contract negotiations with public employee unions, received background checks on a corporate CEO, added his approval or disapproval to state board appointments and passed financial information marked “confidential” from his oil company employer to a state attorney.

You can read all those e-mails in msnbc.com’s searchable online archive, created in cooperation with a legal services company, Crivella West. We’re still going through the documents, and invite readers at msnbc.com to search for themselves, connect the dots with public issues, and send us an e-mail with your own analysis.

While 1,200 separate e-mails were released this week, 243 others were withheld by the state under a claim that executive privilege extends to Todd Palin as an unpaid adviser to the government. Still, just the subject lines of those e-mails provide a glimpse of the ways the Palins divvied up their responsibilities when she became governor in December 2006, less than two years before Republican Sen. John McCain pulled her onto the national political stage by nominating her as his vice presidential candidate.

The 243 still-secret e-mails between Todd Palin and senior officials reach into countless areas of state government and politics: potential board appointees, constituent complaints, use of the state jet, oil and gas production,  marine regulation, gas pipeline bids, postsecondary education, wildfires, native Alaskan issues, the state effort to save the Matanuska Maid dairy, budget planning, potential budget vetoes, oil shale leasing, “strategy for responding to media allegations,” staffing at the mansion, pier diem payments to the governor for travel, “strategy for responding to questions about pregnancy,” potential cuts to the governor’s staff, “confidentiality issues,” Bureau of Land Management land transfers and trespass issues and requests to the U.S. transportation secretary. Also withheld: a discussion of how to reply to “media questions about Todd Palin’s work and potential conflict of interests.”

‘That gossip crap bugs me’

 The e-mails that were released open a curtain on the behind-the-scenes preoccupations of the Palins, particularly the flash points of family and the media, personal finances and state finances.

• The governor coached her staff on how to disguise the amount of electrical work needed at the mansion to hook up her new tanning bed.
• Palin and her staff stewed over the refusal of the state Public Safety Department to provide a plane so the children could fly to Todd’s family’s home in Dillingham; after all, they were going to attend a bill signing, so the travel requests could be justified. Sarah Palin called the decision “outrageous,” and an aide said it provides “a great excuse to privatize” the governor’s jet service.
• The manager of the Palins’ travel schedule searched for a public event to use as justification (“I just need one”) to charge the state for an airplane flight for Palin’s daughter, Willow, who made the trip but had missed the event given as its justification.
• When Sarah Palin complained that the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner wrote a critical editorial after she did them the favor of meeting with the editorial board, Todd Palin advised the press chief to “take the news miner [sic] off the press release address list for a few days, see how long it takes them to realize their not on the list.”
• “Man, that gossip crap bugs me,” Sarah Palin wrote after the Anchorage Daily News wrote about mansion repairs in its Alaska Ear political column. “Any time it has anything to do with home or family, it’s irritating.” A press aide apologized, saying the columnist did not call to check out stories before publishing. The residence director added, “Reminds me of junior high school, where hormonal teenagers are always looking for the drama. … I’ll do my best to avoid giving them any news nuggets.”

The Palins did not respond to several requests by msnbc.com to discuss Todd Palin’s role in state government. After this article was published, an attorney for the Palins, Tom Van Flein, said in an e-mail Friday to NBC News that Todd Palin’s role as an “active advisor” to his wife should come as no surprise “to most Alaskans, and to the millions of people who read “Going Rogue,” Palin’s autobiography. …

Private e-mail accounts

Many of the e-mails on public policy issues that msnbc.com reviewed were written using private e-mail accounts on Yahoo and other services. The governor and her top aides set up accounts outside the state system, supposedly outside the reach of the public records laws. Outside accounts also helped avoid any violation of the state law against using public resources for campaigning.

Todd Palin’s e-mail address at that time was named for his hobby as a four-time champion driver in the 1,971-mile Iron Dog snow machine races: fek9wnr@yahoo.com, or Iron Dog winner.

The governor wrote mostly from gov.sarah@yahoo.com and sometimes from gov.palin@yahoo.com, until that account was cracked in September 2008 by an anonymous Internet user, who boasted that he figured out the answers to her Yahoo security questions by browsing her Wikipedia page. A 20-year-old student at the University of Tennessee, David C. Kernell, was indicted and is awaiting trial; he was an Obama supporter and the son of a Democratic state legislator. …

Of the e-mails released this week, dozens have information redacted, or blanked out, sometimes leaving little more than a subject line. …

Often the governor wasn’t included on Todd Palin’s e-mails at all. The staff went straight to him, or he went straight to the staff. …

Confidential information

Todd Palin also often served as a conduit for information to flow from one part of state government to another. When a friend or campaign aide’s spouse got a state job, he was often notified. At other times, he notified the governor’s office.

Sometimes information from outside flowed through him to the government. In one instance, the e-mails show, Todd Palin sent confidential financial information from his longtime employer, the oil and gas company BP, to a lawyer for the state, which does a lot of business with BP. …

The Palins did not reply to a message from msnbc.com sent to their spokeswoman and another to the company that manages Sarah Palin’s speaking engagements. Sarah Palin is scheduled to speak Saturday evening at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, where her bio describes her as a champion of “ethics reform and transparency in government,” themes of her campaign for governor. …

‘Shadow Governor’

Todd Palin’s frequent presence in the governor’s office led some in Juneau to call him the “Shadow Governor.” But it had never been clear, at least to the public, what roles he played.

He did receive scrutiny for his role in the so-called Troopergate case, in which he and the governor were accused of seeking to have her former brother-in-law fired from the state police force. …

When msnbc.com, other news organizations and citizens of Alaska sought Palin e-mail records after she was named the Republican vice presidential running mate in August 2008, the state initially quoted a cost as high as $15 million for state technicians to find the e-mails, for state interns to print out the e-mails one at a time, for state lawyers to read them to determine what information could be withheld, and for a print shop to photocopy them. 

That’s still the laborious approach the state has taken, at what it says is a cost of more than $500,000 in staff time, but the prices it is charging have come down considerably. The state charged msnbc.com only $323.58 for the records released this week. …

Video

‘First Dude’s’ influence exposed (NBC Nightly News, Feb. 5, 2010) – E-mails show former Governor Sarah Palin’s husband Todd played a major policy role behind the scenes. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports. (03:30)

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Related reports

‘Tea party’ movement faces uncertain future (AP, Feb. 5, 2010) — Tea parties” popped up last spring in small towns and big cities alike as disillusioned Americans — many never before involved in politics — protested the $787 billion economic stimulus measure, Wall Street bailouts and Obama’s health care plan. Since then, local leaders have struggled over the coalition’s direction. There’s even dispute over the name’s origin: It was drawn from the 1773 tax revolt, or it’s an acronym for “taxed enough already.” … Full story

Video: Sarah Palin’s Tea Party Speech at the Gaylord

Palin: America ready for ‘another revolution’ (MSNBC, Feb. 6, 2010) — Sarah Palin says, ‘America is ready for another revolution,’ during her speech at the ‘tea party’ convention. Watch her entire speech. (41:15)

Bachmann Heads Teabaggers

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) speaks at a Tea Party at Lake George in St. Cloud after a town hall meeting, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009. (Photo credit: Jason Wachter / St. Cloud Times)

Background report

The Personality Profile of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

Following is the abstract of an investigation of Sarah Palin’s personality characteristics and leadership style, conducted at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics, directed by Aubrey Immelman.

Sarah Palin’s most prominent personal attribute is a dominant, dauntless quality. Her profile also indicates ambitious, outgoing, and contentious tendencies. Palin’s constellation of personality patterns is congruent with several personal qualities associated with success in politics, including assertiveness, determination, ambition, and personal charisma. The combination of ambitious, dominant, dauntless, and outgoing patterns in Palin’s profile suggests an “ambitious competitor” personality composite.

Andrea Schiebe, Angela Rodgers, and David Wutchiett present their research on “The Personality Profile of Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin” at the 44th annual Minnesota Undergraduate Psychology Conference, College of Saint Benedict, St. Joseph, Minn., April 18, 2009 (Supervisor: Aubrey Immelman, Ph.D.)

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — February 6, 2009

Video

Steep rise in soldier suicides (MSNBC, Feb. 5, 2009) — 24 soldiers committed suicide in January 2009, more than were killed in action in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. John Soltz of VoteVets.org discusses. (02:53)

Army: Stunning Spike in Suicides

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that the Army was investigating an unexplained and stunning spike in suicides during the month of January. The count was said to be likely to surpass the number of combat deaths during the same period reported by all branches of the armed forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the fight against terrorism.

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