Welcome to your weekend open thread. Anyone have special plans this weekend? Right now the Chinese Festival and the Italian Festival are both occurring. Have you been to either?
Michele Bachmann was declared the winner of the Republican debate by many pundits. Sometimes it’s helpful to remind ourselves just how nutty she is. Steve Benen fins her pushing a new conspiracy:
Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) creativity is unrivaled in contemporary politics. Consider her remarks yesterday to a gathering of the Republican Leadership Conference.
Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, the latest candidate to join the Republican presidential campaign, suggested Friday that President Obama secretly wanted Medicare to go bankrupt so retirees would be forced to enroll in the new national health care law.
“This hasn’t been talked about very much — the president’s plan for senior citizens is Obamacare,” Ms. Bachmann told party activists here. She added, “I think very likely what the president intends is that Medicare will go broke and ultimately that answer will be Obamacare for senior citizens.”
In other words, Obama secretly wants seniors on the Ryan plan? You know, the one that Bachmann voted for. Benen also reminds us of Bachmann’s other conspiracies:
Bachmann’s ability to come up with remarkable conspiracy theories has always impressed me. Remember the time the right-wing presidential candidate argued that the U.S. Census may lead to “internment camps”? How about when she warned of a “one-world currency” because she got confused about what a global reserve currency is? Or maybe the time she thought the “Lion King” was secretly gay propaganda? How about the time she said a bipartisan national service bill could lead to “re-education camps”?
Bachmann is this year’s Palin. I wonder if she will attract the amount of adoring fans.