Bachmann’s comments:

The American people overwhelmingly reject the government takeover of our health care. Last Friday a couple from Hawaii decided the time was so short they needed to get on a plane, come to Washington, to beg their representative to vote no — from Hawaii. What sacrifices freedom-loving Americans are making to get their government’s attention. And how big our government has gotten. They brought me this beautiful, precious lei and I’m reminded that the one who created this lei also created our freedom. Are we so insensible to the high cost our forebearers paid to purchase our freedom? Tonight, would we foolishly bargain those freedoms away? The American people, our forebearers, generations yet unborn are crying out to us tonight, for us to preserve their freedoms. Vote no on the government takeover of health care.

Both of Hawaii’s Members of Congress voted yes on the bill.

Here’s the video of Bachmann’s speech:

Another prop has prompted a demand from one of her colleagues in Congress that Bachmann apologize. Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) objects to signs depicting Holocaust victims that protesters brought to Bachmann’s rally against health-care reform last Thursday on Capitol Hill:

I just cannot believe that Congresswoman Bachmann sponsored and brought to the American people, the use of images from the Holocaust, actual photographs of the skeletal remains of people from the cremetoria, in order to make a point about the health insurance bill. I can’t believe that Congresswoman Bachmann would stand where she stood and see those images and not have the common decency to say, “I disagree with the use of those images.”

Pawlenty’s choice of theme music, Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son,” deftly evoked his much-touted working-class roots with the line, “I ain’t no senator’s son.”

But considering he wants to convince people that he is the one they should pick as the GOP nominee, he could have done without the song’s repeated refrain of “It ain’t me, it ain’t me.”

Pawlenty advertised his youthfulness — relative to many other GOP presidential aspirants — by revealing his birth year (1960), saying he’ll be 49 soon.

But he dulled his youthful glow with a self-deprecating anecdote set at his “regular house” in Eagan: Pawlenty and his “red hot smoking wife” Mary are both standing in the bathroom, the governor lamenting his receding hairline and other signs of middle age — including “love handles flappin’ over the side of my belt.” Mary Pawlenty’s comment on his critical self-assessment, according to T-Paw: “There’s nothing wrong with your eyesight.”

Pawlenty’s speech offered a couple inadvertent glimpses into his status as a lame-duck state leader and not-yet presidential candidate. At one point he talked about the need to focus on “growing jobs in our state,” quickly amending that to “growing jobs in our country.” But he also admitted to having been on the road a lot, eating unhealthy junk food.

In Gov. Pawlenty’s most direct attempt to get a rise from the Iowans, he put a twist on President Obama’s call-and-response line, “Are you fired up and are you ready to go?”

First Pawlenty said Obama is trying to “take the United States to places it doesn’t want to go.” Then he offered his own version: “Are you fired up and are you ready to fight back?”

He interspersed that line with complaints like ”Are you tired of Democrats trying to ram this liberal monstrosity down our throats?” and gripes about bail-outs for Wall Street, big auto companies, and big insurance companies. But the Iowa ballroom’s response couldn’t match the roar Obama gets from crowds at packed stadiums like Target Center.

Still, Pawlenty said the frustrations Americans are feeling give Republicans “huge running room” and a “tremendous opportunity.”

He opened his keynote address to a GOP “Leadership for Iowa” event with the requisite shout-outs to state leaders. ”I don’t think [the health care reform bill] would have been delayed without you,” Pawlenty said to Iowa’s Sen. Chuck Grassley.

Pawlenty held out hope that the health care bill that he called “terrible” and “miserable” might yet meet defeat.

Within three hours, the bill had passed the U.S. House of Representatives.

Minnesota Public Radio’s Polinaut has audio. C-SPAN has video.

“This was a bipartisan vote,” said Majority Leader Steny Hoyer with a grin after the House adjourned for the night.

Minnesota’s congressional delegation includes a united front of Republicans opposed — Rep. Erik Paulsen was ready with his rationale for voting no — as well as one Democrat, Collin Peterson, who fulfilled a promise to join them. Peterson was one of 39 Democrats to oppose the bill.

The pair starkly demonstrated the range of political feeling among Minnesota’s congressional delegation.

“This bill is not health care reform,” proclaimed Kline, a Republican, who said the legislation now under consideration would only bring more government red tape and put “more power in the hands of a superbeaurocrat.” He wondered aloud, “Why would we want to strip Medicare from our grandparents?”

Oberstar, a Democrat, rose immediately after Kline with his own rhetorical question, about why Republicans want American families “held hostage to insurance companies … due to pre-existing conditions?”

Photo: Graham Moomaw, The Washington Independent

There’s word that “Stunning” Steve King, congressman from Iowa, wants a Saturday reprise of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “Superbowl of Freedom” rally against health care reform. Before a second “House Call” protest blurs memories of the original, here is a sampling of reportage from a pair of eyewitnesses to Bachmann’s achievement on Thursday.

The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein sought to mix freely with the folks Bachmann brought out, but he found his reporter’s notebook — and eventually, his sought-after business cards — gave him away:

On Thursday, I ventured down to Capitol Hill with a professional death wish. I was going to mingle with a group of tea partiers to get a sense of what, exactly, keeps their clocks ticking. For two-and-a-half hours, I got the Glenn Beck treatment — accused of, among other things, subverting freedom, working for a communist propaganda outlet, and having a soulless devotion to slander and scandal.

One woman picked up her items and moved away — taking her family with her — after I settled down on the Capitol’s front lawn. At another point a man, who seemed generally concerned about my safety, whispered in my ear: “You’re a sheep amidst the wolves in this crowd, son.”

And yet, a funny thing happened on the way to Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) “Super Bowl of freedom.” I was adopted — in a way — by a group of tea baggers. Sure, the politics they spoke seemed dripped in abject paranoia. But there was, at the very least, a sense of mutual respect. How else, after all, should one feel about people so devoted to a cause that they would skip work and travel hundreds of miles for a milquetoast protest?

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank asked if it didn’t “send the wrong message for House Republicans to hold an event on the Capitol grounds full of hateful and gruesome words and images,” noting in any case that it wasn’t technically a rally.

Technically, Thursday’s GOP-sponsored rally at the Capitol was a “press conference” (a Capitol Police spokeswoman explained that the lawmakers didn’t have a permit for a demonstration). The speakers took no questions at this news conference, instead calling, at least a dozen times, for the Pelosi bill’s death.

But, as with a similar rally by Democrats a week before, unpredictable things tend to happen in the wide-open spaces of the Capitol’s West Front. Minutes into the rally, a breeze toppled the American flag from the stage.

More ominously, a man standing just beyond the TV cameras apparently suffered a heart attack 20 minutes after event began. Medical personnel from the Capitol physician’s office — an entity that could, quite accurately, be labeled government-run health care — rushed over, attaching electrodes to his chest and giving him oxygen and an IV drip. This turned into an unwanted visual for the speakers, as a D.C. ambulance and firetruck, lights flashing, pulled in just behind the lawmakers. A path was made through the media section, and the patient, attended to by about 10 government medical personnel, was being wheeled away on a stretcher just as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) stepped to the microphone. “Join us in defeating Pelosi care!” he exhorted. A few members stole a glance at the stretcher.

Photo: Chris Steller, MnIndy

U.S. Sen. Al Franken introduced legislation Thursday that would encourage states to examine untested rape kits for DNA evidence. The bill would also provide for more health workers trained to administer rape-kit exams, particularly for Native American women.

Another aspect of the bill is that women couldn’t be made to pay for all or part of their rape kit exams — an issue that came up in the 2008 presidential campaign.

“We don’t bill criminals for fingerprint processing,” Franken said in a statement.

The Justice for Survivors of Sexual Assault Act is co-sponsored by Republicans Orrin Hatch of Utah and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, as well as Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California.

The bill follows by only a month Senate passage of Franken’s amendment defunding military contractors that make employees sign away their rights to take sexual assualt allegations to court.

Rape came up during Franken’s campaign for Senate when opponents publicized instances in his comedic past that touched on the topic.

Photo: Graham Moomaw, Washington Independent

In headlining Thursday’s “House call” protest against health-care reform, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann was going rogue on her own party’s leaders, who had hoped to focus the day’s attention on their own 12-hour, online health-care “town hall.”

David Weigel, of the Washington Independent (a Minnesota Independent sister site) writes:

This isn’t a surprising turn of events. In the run-up to the Sept. 12 march on Washington, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) were surprise guests at a Sept. 10 rally outside the Capitol. That event was actually identical to this one–protesters fanned out after the rally to talk to their members of Congress. But the crowd at that rally was smaller and more controlled, with most protesters holding FreedomWorks signs that had been passed out. The crowd at this rally was far less on-message. By the end of the day, the images that made it out of the rally were of protesters waving signs comparing health care reform to the Holocaust, and the video that made it out of the protest was heavy on Bachmann — one of the people Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) seemed to be referring to in a cryptic October comment about how to deal with a “problem member” who keeps making news.

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

MINNEAPOLIS: Rybak is DFL’s “strongest candidate” for governor. So says Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza. [The Fix]

HUGO: 10,000 loons? The crowd at U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “House call” protest included a Hugo couple who call her “a very effective representative.” [St. Cloud Times]

ST. PAUL: Now his Trice will really get Dusty. Dems’ one-man answer to the Minnesota Democrats Exposed hangs up his spurs. [DustyTrice.com]

MINNEAPOLIS: “The K” is #1. The University of Minnesota’s student radio station, Radio K, has the nation’s best student media website. [UMNews]

DULUTH: Market improves for uninhabitable homes. City government will pay $40,000–60,000 each if the council accepts $3 million in federal funds to create a “blight-free Duluth.” [Northland's News Center]

ST. PAUL: “DFL: Pawlenty’s partying gift to MN is instability.” That typo (?) proves MN Publius doesn’t just parrot party pronouncements. [MN Publius]

Photo: Graham Moomaw, The Washington Independent

The Minnesota Independent’s sister site, the Washington Independent, was on the scene Thursday for U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “House Call” protest against health care reform at the U.S. Capitol.

Here is a video of the rally by TWI’s Graham Moomaw:

Update: This video clip by Moomaw features interviews with protesters:

And here is a slideshow of photos by Moomaw from the event:

The crowd’s chant of “Kill the Bill” was also heard in August from a more confined but no less riled group of protesters at U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum’s St. Paul office (MnIndy video post).

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

MINNEAPOLIS: R.T. Rybak honors Suicide Commandos. No sooner was the Minneapolis mayor re-elected to a third term than he began abusing his power by dedicating Saturday to an early local punk act. [City Pages]

ST. PAUL: Gov. Pawlenty wants to change the state Constitution. But no one knows how, yet. [Associated Press]

MINNEAPOLIS: Ranked-choice voting was great. Except that only half bothered making a second choice in Rybak’s race. [Smart Politics]

MINNEAPOLIS: Hydro energy at lower falls. Rybak shows state legislators how he’s also abusing water power. [Associated Press]

MINNEAPOLIS: Pawlenty PAC nets $300,000. But the disembodied voice of Kelsey Grammer arrived too late for Halloween. [Star Tribune]

ST. PAUL: Pawlenty calls Manchester. The Minnesota governor phoned congratulations to the newly elected mayor of a city in New Hampshire. If T-Paw gave R.T. that honor, it hasn’t be reported. [Polinaut]