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Summary: MSNBC TV hosts Chris Matthews, Lawrence O’Donnell, and Rachel Maddow have made early forecasts of the winner of the 2012 presidential election. With the exception of Matthews, the talks show hosts are overestimating Barack Obama’s prospects for reelection and all three are underestimating Michele Bachmann’s potential for success. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 2, 2010, Aubrey Immelman endorsed former Republican Tom Horner as the best choice for Minnesota in the Independence Party gubernatorial primary.


Nov 1st, 2010

Summary: For Michele Bachmann to criticize Barack Obama for attending the church of the “anti-American” Rev. Jeremiah Wright is rank hypocrisy, considering that for many years she’s been sitting in the pews of a church that professes that the Pope is the anti-Christ. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 1, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Rep. Michele Bachmann, calling on supporters to descend on Washington to protest health care reform, resurrected “the Ghost of Political Stunts Past” and noted that Bachmann pulled similar publicity stunts five years earlier while crusading in the Minnesota state Senate for a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions.


Oct 17th, 2010

Summary: Today marks the second anniversary of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s despicable Oct. 17, 2008 “anti-American” remarks on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews that propelled her into the national spotlight. As I reported two years ago, Rep. Bachmann “dishonored her office and brought shame to the 6th Congressional District and the State of Minnesota by calling for a media investigation reminiscent of McCarthy-era witch hunts to ‘find out [which members of Congress] are pro-America or anti-America’.” … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on October 17, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that bomb attacks killed three American troops in Afghanistan, while civilian casualties sparked a protest by a group of angry villagers shouting “Death to America!” and a suicide bomber driving a dynamite-laden truck destroyed a key bridge on a highway in Iraq’s western Anbar province linking Iraq to Syria and Jordan.


Jul 24th, 2010

Summary: Rep. Michele Bachmann says if Republicans win control of the House of Representatives in the November midterm election, “all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another” to “expose all the nonsense that is going on.” … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on July 24, 2009 Aubrey Immelman reported that the National Republican Congressional Committee had added U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann to its list of most vulnerable incumbents for 2010 in the NRCC’s “Patriot Program,” while the Swing State Project rated Bachmann as being in “real danger” of losing her seat in the next election. He also noted that a survey of 25 nations conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center in spring 2009 found that positive public attitudes toward the United States had surged in many parts of the world since President Barack Obama’s election, to levels not seen since before President George W. Bush took office in 2001.



Summary: “Rise of the New Right: A Hardball Documentary with Chris Matthews” — Part 6: How the New Right Exploits the Media. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on July 12, 2009 Aubrey Immelman reported that six Baghdad-area churches were bombed within 24 hours on July 11-12, 2009, killing at least four people and wounding 32. Iraq has lost more than half of the 1.4 million Christians who once called it home, mostly since the war began in 2003, and few who fled have plans to return.



Summary: “Rise of the New Right: A Hardball Documentary with Chris Matthews” — Part 5: The Rhetoric of the New Right. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on July 11, 2009 Aubrey Immelman reported that violence had spiked in Iraq after U.S. combat troops withdrew from urban areas; that British military deaths in Afghanistan had surpassed their casualties in Iraq; and that the U.S. abandoned the Bush administration policy of destroying opium poppies in Afghanistan.



Summary: “Rise of the New Right: A Hardball Documentary with Chris Matthews” — Part 4: Who Runs the Tea Party? … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on July 10, 2009 Aubrey Immelman provided a comprehensive summary and documentation of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s extremist rhetoric, incendiary demagoguery, and misrepresentation since her 2008 reelection to the United States House of Representatives in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District.



Summary: “Rise of the New Right: A Hardball Documentary with Chris Matthews” — Part 3: The Tea Party Movement. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on July 9, 2009 Aubrey Immelman reported that declassified notes of FBI interviews with Saddam Hussein in 2004 proved Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction at the time of the U.S. invasion in 2003, but that Saddam falsely allowed the world to believe Iraq had WMD because he feared revealing his weakness to Iran, the hostile neighbor he considered a bigger threat than the U.S.



Summary: “Rise of the New Right: A Hardball Documentary with Chris Matthews” — Part 2: A Deep Dislike for Barack Obama. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on July 8, 2009 Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), compiled from U.S. Department of Defense News Releases.



Summary: “Rise of the New Right: A Hardball Documentary with Chris Matthews” — Part 1: Don’t Tread on Me. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on July 7, 2009 Aubrey Immelman reported that seven U.S. troops died in three attacks in Afghanistan, on the same day that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, issued new guidelines limiting the use of airstrikes against residential compounds and other locations likely to produce civilian casualties, alienating Afghan villagers and causing loss of support for the Afghan government and the international mission.