Reckless, irresponsible peddling of conspiracy theories — sometimes meandering into the realm of political paranoia — has been a fixture of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s political career. Here is a sampling of Bachmann’s extremist rhetoric, incendiary demagoguery, and fringe beliefs documented since her first Congressional reelection campaign in 2008.

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Summary: The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has released its annual report on hate and extremism in the United States, titled “The Year in Hate & Extremism, 2010.” The report claims that more than 1,000 hate groups are now active in the United States, the most the SPLC has tallied since it began track these groups in the 1980s. In addition to “hate groups,” the SPLC also catalogued 824 anti-government “Patriot” groups and 319 “nativist extremist” groups. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 28, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Pope Benedict XVI, saying “I pray for the victims,” urged survivors of Chile’s devastating earthquake to be courageous and asked the Catholic Church to play a role in relief efforts.

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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.

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Summary: The growing fear among some citizens of losing their rights and freedoms has created a political backlash toward the U.S. government and manifested itself in violent rhetoric and anti-government groups who want to “take their country back.” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews takes a hard look at the recent surge of anger on the political right in “Rise of the New Right: A Hardball Documentary with Chris Matthews.” In this blog entry, Aubrey Immelman chronicles the rise of rightwing extremism in America following the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States in November 2008. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on June 16, 2009 Aubrey Immelman reported that North Korea threatened a “fire shower of nuclear retaliation” if provoked by the U.S., but that U.S. officials were downplaying any imminent threat to the United States of a North Korean missile strike or confrontation between the two countries at sea.

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Summary: Unrest over sweeping federal health care legislation has turned to vandalism and threats, with bricks hurled through congressional Democrats’ windows, a propane line cut at the home of a congressman’s brother, and menacing phone messages left for lawmakers who supported the bill. Against this background, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s longstanding pattern of incendiary rhetoric (such as calling on citizens to be “armed and dangerous”) is particularly disturbing, considering its potential for propagating violent extremism and inciting acts of domestic terrorism in a time of grave economic uncertainty. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 25, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Baghdad had been much calmer since sectarian violence peaked in late 2006 and the first half of 2007, but that the calm was achieved in part because the city became ethnically divided, with Shiites predominating and Sunnis largely having fled.

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Summary: John Patrick Bedell, who opened fire at the Pentagon entrance and was killed in a shootout with Pentagon police, was fascinated with conspiracy theories, computer programming, libertarian economics, and the science of warfare. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 5, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that top Democrats believed they had struck political gold by depicting Rush Limbaugh as the new face of the Republican Party.

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Summary: The number of extremist groups in the United States exploded in 2009 as militias and other groups steeped in wild, anti-government 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). … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 3, 2009, Aubrey Immelman 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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Summary: 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-wing fringe has become the prime repository of collective craziness. … Conspiracy-theorist-in-chief Michele Bachmann. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 20, 2009, Aubrey Immelman 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. “After more than a million Iraqis killed, after all the economic and social destruction … I felt that this person is the killer of the people, the prime murderer. I was enraged and threw my shoes at him.”

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Summary: According to a November 2009 Anti-Defamation League Special Report titled “Rage Grows in America: Anti-Government Conspiracies,” a wave of anti-government hostility has swept across the United States since the election of Barack Obama as president, creating a climate of fervor and activism with manifestations ranging from incivility in public forums to acts of intimidation and violence. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 19, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), at a November 2008 forum at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, leveled harsh criticism at the GOP, the lack of intellectual curiosity among some Republican members of Congress, the Bush administration’s handling of nearly every aspect of governance, and the conservative radio voices that dictate the GOP agenda.

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Summary: PolitiFact’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Truth-O-Meter rates Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “scaremongering claim” that ACORN will be a paid partner of the Census Bureau and “in charge” of going door-to-door and collecting data from the American public in the 2010 U.S. Census as [Liar, Liar] Pants on Fire.

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