The rest of the country is starting to learn something about Michele Bachmann that those of us in her home state (and district) have known for some time: The woman is not only ultraconservative and of questionable judgment, but she also has a very weak grip on reality and truth. Her grip on reality was questioned some five or six years ago with Bathroomgate. I find it interesting that very few people talk about Bathroomgate these days … I think the national press and wider blogosphere is simply unaware of it. And more recently, a speech she gave in Iowa was loaded with untruths about her family history. This has been uncovered and described by Chris Rodda on Ed Brayton’s blog in a piece on Scienceblogs.com
Bathroomgate was reported in a number of places including the now inactive Dump Bachmann blog (Michele’s Shifting Accounts of Bathroomgate). However, many of the original on-line documents and reports of this event have been scrubbed, but you can’t really erase things from the Internet. Here’s a brief summary:
In 2005, Bachmann, then a State Senator, attended a town meeting in the small hamlet of Scandia, Minnesota. After the public part of the meeting, she went to the bathroom, where she ran into two women who, the story goes, were lesbians, one or both of whom had asked her questions at the meeting. Soon after entering the bathroom, Bachmann ran out into the lobby area in tears, and proclaimed “I was being held against my will!”
A report, which has since been scrubbed from the Internet, was filed with the County Sheriff. In that report, Bachmann states that the women are “believed to be part of a LGBT group.” She claimed that they detained her for some time in the bathroom, and this caused her to fear for her life. The woman have a different version of the story. According to them, they ran into Bachmann in the bathroom, and attempted to chat civilly but within seconds, Bachmann ran from the bathroom screaming. One of the two women held the door for her as she exited. In fact, the event happened so quickly that the woman was actually holding the door from her own act of entering the bathroom.
A lot of people made up stuff about it at the time. For example, one Bachmann supporter claimed (in a blog post that has been scrubbed from the Internet) that the women pushed their way into a single stall bathroom, but the public bathroom at this facility is said to be quite roomy, and to have over a dozen stalls.
>One eyewitness account of the event runs like this:
State Sen. Michele Bachmann and Rep. Ray Vandeveer were in Scandia Saturday morning for a town meeting with their constituents. Usually the senator and representative expect a half dozen folks to show up for a comfortable chat. Not so on April 9th, when 36 area residents seated themselves firmly before their elected officials and demanded
accountability on issues ranging from educational funding to the controversial “defense of marriage” amendment.
This was one of Bachamnn’s last, if not her very last, open meetings. She is locally famous for having closed “town meetings” and ignoring anyone who is not cleared as a supporter from her district. Anyway, back to the account …
Saturday’s meeting was stiffly cordial until the room erupted in applause at the suggestion that higher taxes were acceptable, if such taxes were valid expenditures used to keep Minnesota’s quality of education at a premium level. …
… and so on and so forth, with Bachmann growing increasingly agitated during he meeting, and showing open disdain in the form of smirks, sidelong glances, and so on, for their constituents.
…Ms. Bachmann was asked to cite an actual study which showed that children were harmed by exposure to couples with alternative life styles. She responded by referring vaguely to conclusions that children are best raised in a household with a mother and a father, to which the audience suggested making divorce illegal….
Eventually, Vandeveer terminated the meeting early over the objections of the audience.
Then ….
Senator Bachmann retired to the restroom and residents began moving toward the exit. Less than a moment later, piercing screams were heard from the ladies’ washroom. “Help!!!! HEEEELLLLLLPPPPPP!!!!!” With everyone’s attention riveted on the door, Senator Bachmann emerged in a crouching run, crying, “I was being held against my will!” Two women were seen standing behind her, one tall and elderly, the other young and petite, both unassuming and bewildered.
The women reported afterward they had followed the senator into the restroom to continue to question her about education. One had her hand on the door handle, ready to
open it, which she immediately did when Senator Bachmann became frightened and began screaming.…
Yes, there is a connection between this lady and our state bird. I’ll just leve it at that.
c
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Hey, it’s about time for a woman president 🙂
Bathroomgate has somehow slipped under my radar until now. I’ll do my best to keep it alive!
Here’s some more Bachmann blogging: http://tinyurl.com/3fppkes
Greg, I’m surprised you’re not doing everything you can to help her win the primary.
Are you aware of the political satire blog Wonkette.com?? We readers of Wonkette are well aware of Bathroomgate, and her Satanic witch sex in a church. LOL She and Sarah Palin are truly gifts that keep on giving!
People do need to come to grips with the fact that she wins her elections by large margins. Her districts (state senate and house) are in Minnesota. Minnesota is represented by Al Franken, the most liberal member of congress (or in the top three) and Amy Klobuchar, liberal progressive, in the senate. We have Keith Ellison (black, liberal, muslim, cries) in the house. We gave the country HHH and Walter Mondale. Until Pawlenty came along, our Republican governors were more liberal than most Democratic governors. We are a blue state. We call ourselves “The Education State.” We call ourselves the “Healthcare state.” Obamacare, which I love, will actually be a downgrade for us in some areas of insurance management (but not all) because we already had fixed lots of the problems. Do you know where labor unions were invented? Me neither, but Minnesota has this amazing labor union related history, in a pro-union sense. Granted, her district is a bit conservative but it is not fucking Alabama. She wins elections. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Yes, I read and highly recommend Wonkette! That is correct, Wokette does indeed cover Bachmann.
Bah, she’s the product of gerrymandering. And she got less than 50% of the vote in the last election. She and her ilk will almost always be nothing more than a phenomenon of gerrymandering.
I think Higginbothomous just won Teabagger-Poe bingo.
52%, James. And her opponent spent one of the largest amounts of any congressional challenger ever.
Yes, she is there because of gerrymandering, but there is just so much gerrymandering one can do in the state of Humphrey, Wellstone, Mondale, Franklin.
OK, and Ventura. But still… her district, which I can see from my living room, is not to the right of America. Very far.
Be afraid.
Your fist, Bottom? Back in your violent fantasy land?
Higginbothoumus needs to switch to decaf for a while.
Dude has some serious issues.
Violent? Fantasyland?
Since when is self defense against thugs violence? When a bunch of thugs trap you in a bathroom and threaten you, you use whatever tools are necessary to remove the thugs from your path. Self defense can be violent and often is, but if thugs would leave people alone in the first place, they wouldn’t get hurt. It’s their own fault. being a bastion of loving caring kind gentle communism, I bet you never heard of such. Have you? Moron.
If you are surrounded by thugs of any kind whether it be robbers, union pests, socialist protestor pests, etc. you do what you have to do to protect yourself from their VIOLENT behavior. it that means caving their skull in with a tire iron then do it, but get those thugs away from you before their cave your skull in first.
These socialist protestors are violent and have to be met with mutual force. They do not know peaceful protests, they have to “get in your face’ and throw things and break things and act uncivilized. Why shoud they be so surpised when people strike back at them? Self defense is not a law, it is a human right. Add it to your 200,000,000 item list of what a human right is and learn the definition of self defense.
A few months ago there were numerous self declared protestors that enter the private sovereign territory of a banker and his kid was in the house alone scaed out of his wits becuase of these assholes outside screaming profanities and death threats and crap. When the banker arrived these thugs would not even let him into his own house. By rights, he should should opened fire on them and dispelled this violent mob from his property since the police he called never bothered to show up.
If bankers defend themselves against these nutjob commies, would a jury really send him to jail? maybe in the California or new York, but never in the south. Thank God for the south.
Understanding self defense against mobsters like these is key to your discussion. Use your brain for something besides an anal probe sometime.
Even is bankers choose not to own a gun or use it to disperse hostile violent thugs from his property, he can still, by law, use grizzly bear strength pepper spray. it comes in a 32oz canster and has a good 35 foot reach. Enough to blind someone long enough to throw their own moltov cocktails back at them and finish dispelling the troublemakers.
Just be be blunt, if a crown of angry hostile nuts is on your property throwing moltov cocktails and giving death threats, then by law (in my state) deadly force can be used since your life and property is in danger. Thank God for the castle law.
In any regard, I do not recommend looking for trouble, but if union thug or other fascist thugs come your way making threats, then self defense is a given.
@ DW
Decaf is ok. Caffeine is bad for intraocular pressure, but Rutin and Vitamin C can help bring it back down again. Thanks for the concern, but I know more medical facts than you.
@ Greg who said “Obamacare, which I love”
Which part do you love more about communist medical care? The long lines or the death panels? Personally I like the long lines.
Just for you Greg, you can read all about it. Just today there is a story out about man DYING waiting for an operation. See, that medical system is under socialized medicine. Under our system he would be at home recovereing or back at work instead of dead. Then again, most communists love killing off people to save the plent anyway.
Margaret Hutchon had been waiting since last June for a follow-up stomach operation at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex.But her appointments to go under the knife were cancelled four times and she barely regained consciousness after finally having surgery.
Her devastated husband, Jim, is now demanding answers from Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust â?? the organisation where his wife had served as a non-executive member of the board of directors.
He said: “I don’t really know why she died. I did not get a reason from the hospital. We all want to know for closure. She got weaker and weaker as she waited and operations were put off.”Not to be cruel, but the reason is simple.Itâ??s called government-run health care.
That’s the difference between single payer system and the real system. Under a capitalist system, the operation would have been done when early and there would have been no long lines and no death panels.
This is one of thousands of deaths due to government run healthcare. Welcome to your future and thanks for turning the greatest nation on earth into a first class communist shithole. Maybe after all the commies die off from their own medicine, we can take control and change it back to the way it was. Then again we could do it now if congress had balls.
Blood is on the hands of the evil marxists. Socialism has killed more people than every war that has been faought since man has existed. Yet, they always proclaim peace. More people have died at the hands of bloodthirty communists than anything else. 54 million mudered babies in America alone just since 1973. It is estimated that through abortion, socialied medicine, population control to “save the planet”, and other wonderful liberal ideas, over 2 billion people have been killed. And they call us warmongers.
Just a question, Higgs Boson – how many people die trying to find a way to pay for an operation in the U.S. or how many people go bankrupt trying to pay for the portion of their bill that the insurance company leaves with them? How many people spread diseases to others in the waiting room because they can’t afford to go to a regular clinic?
It’s not sensationalized in the U.S. because it is common.
Capitalism sends people to the grave because they can’t afford care, but fuckers like you think it is their own damn fault they aren’t rich.
Bachmann makes Charlie Sheen look positively lucid by comparison.
The mainstream press isn’t yet covering her closely, but I’m pretty sure they are paying attention – they’re probably just holding their fire to let her acquire more name recognition first.
Some of them are probably already salivating at the thought she could become a serious contender for the candidacy or even the candidate – there will be so many “-gates” that Thebes, Egypt, will look inaccessible by comparison.
“Just be be blunt, if a crown of angry hostile nuts is on your property throwing moltov cocktails and giving death threats, then by law (in my state) deadly force can be used since your life and property is in danger. Thank God for the castle law.”
Hahaha! That’s fantastic. You’d better watch out. Those angry molotov-throwing marxist protestors are at the door again! They be snatchin’ your people up, hide your family, hide your sister, hide your father because dey rapin’ e’rybody up in here.
“Decaf is ok. Caffeine is bad for intraocular pressure, but Rutin and Vitamin C can help bring it back down again. Thanks for the concern, but I know more medical facts than you.”
Yes, someone who quantifies their knowledge of medicine as “I know more medical facts” is likely to be fantastic at medicine. I bet you don’t bother with all that annoying stuff like “nuance” and “understanding”
Your idiot rant against ‘socialised medicine’ is too stupid to read more than once, let alone reply to. Lets just say: abortion is wrong, so is capitalist profit-driven healthcare, the fact that you’re against one but not the other makes you an idiot hypocrite, or simply someone blinded by other people’s lies and your own inability to think through the ramifications of a system predicated on increased profit rather than saving lives
Sounds like Rep. Bachmann had a touch of “dyke panic” – what’s the betting she also has “a wide stance”?
It’s another paranoid day in Lake Higginbothoumus, where all the union members are thugs, all the upset constituents are kidnappers, and all the protest chants are Molotov cocktails. At one point, Bottom, I thought people like you were just very easily scared. Since then, I’ve realized it’s just that you assume everyone else is as violent as you would be if you thought you could get away with it.
Wait, so Higginbothoumus ISN’T a Poe? I thought for sure that the whole “caving in their skulls with tire irons” and “bear strength Mace” were dead giveaways.
Rory, if Bottom is a Poe, he’s a Poe that’s working so hard at it that he’s been banned from Pharyngula and Ed Brayton’s blog for a couple of years now. If you’re familiar with the commentariat at Greg’s, this is also Captain Patriot, Guardian of the Poll, Evolution Denier, and a whole bunch of other loony commenters. Just one guy.
Higginbothoumus : -Next time you go on vacation to an industrialised country -Japan, Britain, Germany or whatever- ask questions about heir health insurance system.
All of them have better, cheaper and more comprehensive systems than the pre-Obama system, and Obamacare is just Mitt Romney’s system scaled up from state level. Let’s see, isn’t Romney a -what do you call it-…Republican?
“Yes, there is a connection between this lady and our state bird. I’ll just leve it at that.”
I can’t let that pass, Greg. Impugning Minnesota’s most excellent state bird! Besides, there’s nothing at all ‘common’ about Bachmann’s brand of looniness.
Thanks for noticing, though, Pete. Flew right by everyone else.
The Dump Bachmann blog is anything but inactive. You’ll find it here:
http://www.dumpbachmann.com
You can also read plenty about Bachmann at http://www.rippleinstillwater.com. Here are a couple items on her farm subsidies and her palling around with a convicted money-launderer:
http://bit.ly/ffJVWT
http://bit.ly/eePGeK
Karl, thanks for the correction!
I have to agree with Pete. Gavia immer is a fine, noble bird, and it does not deserve to be maligned by association with Bachmann. *ptui*
And, one presumes,the Canadian dollar coin.
Hi Greg. I’m the person who wrote that description of the public meeting with Bachmann that you quote from throughout this piece. It was on April 9, 2005.
This meeting was held just following the week where the then Senator was discovered to be hiding in the bushes at the state capitol, apparently spying on a gay rights rally (if I recall correctly, she claimed she was not in, but near, the bushes because she had supposedly broken a heel on her shoe).
As to the public meeting on the 9th, all 4 members of my family were there. You got most of the story right. Couple of small corrections: the restroom has 3 stalls and a counter with 2 sinks, so there is a little room in there, certainly enough for 3 people at once. The women did not really follow Bachmann in. One accompanied her in, because Bachmann would not answer her questions at the meeting or earlier, at the Senator’s office. The second woman joined them a second or two later. Neither was identified as GLBT during the meeting.
Bachmann tells multiple versions of this story. At first she claimed that she was locked in, but when I pointed out in a newspaper rebuttal that there is no lock on that door, just a pneumatic hinge, she then claimed she was blocked in. Anyway, the day of the public meeting, she filed a police report that falsely portrayed the manner in which she was treated at the meeting and falsely accused the two women of assaulting her. Filing a false police report is illegal, but it was simply dismissed and nothing else happened that I was ever aware of. I find it telling that the Republican rep who was with her would not back up her story.
If you would like to have original documents regarding this, I think I have several stored here somewhere on my backup drives.
“Could it be that you yearn for my intelliegnce?”
The huge incidence of spelling errors in claims like this is in my opinion the single and only evidence for the existence of God.
Martin C @ #32:
That isn’t a spelling error – the trait that conservatives of the Hugginbottomous ilk possess in lieu of intelligence is actually and correctly spelled ‘intelliegnce’. The similarity to ‘intelligence’ was a small concession made to help them deal with their feelings of inadequacy – but in order not to go too far, the pronunciation was kept as ‘ignorance’.
Thank you, Phillip. I was going to note that being a conservative isn’t a talent, but you’re right. It’s better to be kind.
As a Brit I have to say that everything Higginbottom said is true, even the bits that contradict other bits that he said.
my uncle was waiting for a heart transplant on the NHS. Thus far he’s been waiting 497 months. Apparently part of the problem is that the evil socialist overlords of the NHS insist on treating everyone in a strict chronological order. This has meant that I’ve had to witness no fewer than six dead people be dug up and given new hearts whilst my poor uncle has had to wait. Also, before I had my throat operation (which was carried out by Dr of the People’s Republic of Socialist Britain Fido von DoubleThink) I had to sign a loyalty pledge to socialised medicine.
Unfortunately that all makes Bachmann a prime candidate for president – like Dubbyah she’d simply be the puppet of the next Cheney and also the puppet of the Religious Right. As for politics – why the hell are people still voting for the goons in the GOP? Those morons will happily force a standoff on the budget just to get ‘their’ way – of course, that means getting a favorable outcome for their lobbyists and corporate masters.
As a matter of fact, everyone who wants a socilaist style government is free to leave this constitution God created Republic and join your utopia on the other side of the world. You are free to leave.
We don’t need to leave your nation. You’re the only commenter on this page who lives in the Capitalist Paradise Of Somalia.
As a matter of fact, I order all socilaist to leave the US by dawn. If only i had that power…
now you’re confused…
Reactionary much? And she wants us to give her the trigger to what army?