Bachmann: Rollin' on the river during RNC?During Monday’s Hot Tea Radio Show U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann told listeners that she’s “fighting for my political life,” called for a repeal of the separation of church and state, and said that tea partiers need to “literally start banging garbage lids together” to defeat health care reform.

Right off the bat, Bachmann offered a refrain often made in her media appearances, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is personally targeting her in the 2010 election (last month she went so far as to say Pelosi “hates” her). It’s a claim that was recently proven misleading by the Star Tribune, and even Bachmann’s handlers say it’s not quite true. She told listeners:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made me her number-one target for defeat politically this November at the ballot box, and trust me, she has all the money and all the volunteer power to make that happen. So, I am in the process of fighting for my political life so that I’m not defeated. She knows it’s vulnerable for me to speak out and take a very strong stand against this leap toward socialism but my opinion is I was sent to DC to do a job, and I’m going to do it.

Bachmann was asked what religious leaders can do to help get conservatives elected. She responded that Congress should repeal the ban that prevents 501(c)3 nonprofits and churches from endorsing candidates. (In Bachmann’s first run for Congress, Living Word Christian Center Pastor Mac Hammond got into hot water for endorsing Bachmann from the pulpit.)

The reason why clergy are afraid to be involved is because of an amendment that former President Lyndon Johnson passed when he was a senator from Texas… that stops 501(3)c [sic] organizations from saying anything political from the pulpit. Now, churches can be political from the pulpit. They can talk about issues all they want. What they can’t do is endorse a candidate from the pulpit. But the ACLU has been all over the backs of churches… Christian and Jews and people of faith are not second class citizens… but these radical leftist organizations have been intimidating Christians for so long and pastors don’t generally now that they do have the right to speak out from the pulpit. Congress should repeal that amendment from Lyndon Johnson… We need to repeal that and give Christians back their first amendment rights to free speech in the church.

Bachmann wrapped the appearance up by saying Tea Partiers need to make even more noise:

That’s why with everything within us we need to literally start banging garbage lids together to create enough noise so that our neighbors and our co-workers realize where the time clock is at this point because the second hand is literally banging up against 11:59 on the clock of freedom when it comes to health care… we cannot rest; we can’t take our marbles and go home.