Summary: Michele Bachmann, three-term Republican congresswoman from Minnesota and a favorite of social conservatives and Christian fundamentalists, is poised to announce that she will run for president in 2012, with a formal announcement expected by June 2011. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 16, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Dr. Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, former leader of the opposition in the South African parliament, had died.

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Summary: With former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee bowing out of the 2012 presidential contest as a potential Republican contender, only two remotely viable candidates remain — former Massachussetts governor Mitt Romney and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty. Much of the rest of the field has been characterized as reminiscent of the “Star Wars” bar scene: “passionate-about-his-country-and-worked-so-hard-that-he-felt-compelled-to-seek-God’s-forgiveness” Newt Gingrich; birther Donald Trump; and conspiracy nut Michele Bachmann, to name a few. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 15, 2010, Aubrey Immelman commented on the opening of Minnesota’s 2010 open-water fishing season.

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Summary: Angry over the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistani lawmakers are demanding an end to U.S. missile strikes against Islamist militants on their soil and warned that Pakistan may cut NATO’s supply line to Afghanistan if the attacks don’t stop. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 14, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Al-Qaida in Iraq warned Shiites that “dark days soaked with blood” lay ahead with a new campaign of violence yet to come.

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Summary: The discovery of pornography in Osama bin Laden’s possession is consistent with his psychological profile, which I developed at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics in the months following the attacks of 9/11 and presented in June 2002 at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology in Berlin. According to the profile, Bin Laden, whom I classified as a “unprincipled narcissist,” did not fit the profile of the highly conscientious, closed-minded religious fundamentalist, nor that of the religious martyr who combines those qualities with devout, self-sacrificing features. Far from being a religious zealot, the profile suggests that Bin Laden — in Machiavellian fashion — was adept at exploiting Islamic fundamentalism in the service of his own burning ambition and personal dreams of glory.

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Summary: NBC’s Chuck Todd writes that if the object of 2012 Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney’s May 12 health-care speech was “to put the health issue behind him, then the address was an ‘un-Mitt-igated’ failure.” Research conducted at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics under the direction of Aubrey Immelman, Ph.D., suggests that Massachusetts’ health law, enacted during Romney’s tenure as governor, may be the least of his problems as he vies for the Republican nomination in a crowded GOP field. In short, Romney lacks the personal charisma to sway non-base voters, as measured by the Personal Electability Index for presidential contenders, developed at the Minnesota-based political psychology research unit. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 12, 2010, Aubrey Immelman announced that Independence Party-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Tom Horner scheduled a press conference at Stop Light Bait in St. Cloud, ahead of the weekend’s Minnesota’s fishing opener.

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Summary: President Barack Obama, in search of Hispanic votes, is calling on voters to pressure Congress to pass legislation that would effectively grant amnesty to illegal aliens. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 11, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly summary of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Aghanistan wars, compiled from U.S. Department of Defense News Releases.

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Summary: In a contentious interview with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice persists with the Bush administration’s debunked pretext for the Iraq war, that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to U.S. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 10, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that a cascade of bombings and shootings hit at least 10 cities and towns in Iraq, killing at least 100 people — mostly in Shiite areas — in Iraq’s deadliest day thus far in 2010.

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Summary: Video footage taken from Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, shows the terrorist leader watching news coverage of himself on television. The videos include outtakes of his propaganda films and, taken together, portray him as someone obsessed with his own image and how he is portrayed to the world. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 9, 2010, Aubrey Immelman featured the story of Eva Briseno, mother of wounded warrior Joseph “Jay” Briseno Jr., one of the most severely wounded soldiers ever to survive.

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Summary: Abu Huthaifa al-Battawi, the accused mastermind of the October 2010 siege at Baghdad’s Our Lady of Salvation church that killed dozens, nearly escaped from prison after wresting a gun from a prison guard and launching an hours-long assault that left 17 people dead, including Brig. Gen. Muaeid Mohammed Saleh, a top Iraqi counterterrorism official. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 8, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Pakistan was investigating whether Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American arrested over a botched plot to bomb New York’s Times Square, had met with top Pakistani Taliban leaders in South Waziristan prior to his failed bombing attempt.

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Summary: Radical American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki escaped a U.S. drone attack in Yemen when a missile was fired at a car in southern Yemen, killing two brothers believed to be al-Qaida militants. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 7, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that alleged links between Faisal Shahzad’s Times Square bombing attempt and the Taliban are adding to perceptions of Pakistan as a global exporter of terror and increasing pressure on its military to crack down on extremists along the Afghanistan border. The Pakistani Taliban — Tehrik-e-Taliban — was hellbent on revenge inside America after a U.S. Predator drone attack killed its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, in August 2009 and more recent strikes that nearly killed Baitullah’s successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, in January 2010.

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