MPR reports that the current host of Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura said he plans to refer to the United States as the “Fascist States of America.”

“The only way that I could change it I guess would be to run for president and win it,” Ventura said. “Is that what it will take?” When asked if he’s running for the White House, Ventura said “I’m thinking about it. That’s all though.”

Ventura has suggested before that he might have an interest in again running for higher office. In April, Ventura told Good Morning America that he’d consider running as Rep. Ron Paul’s vice president if he ran for an independent party.

Ventura also said that he and his wife plan to pursue their Mexican citizenship, according to Politics in Minnesota.

Ventura has dabbled in the 9/11 truther movement and other conspiracy theories, partly for his television show, since leaving office. The camera crew was present at today’s press conference, according to media reports.

“My position is that the United States should not have gone into Libya because again the last chapter isn’t written. This is a snapshot in time,” Bachmann told Christiane Amanpour of ABC’s ‘This Week.’ “Clearly this was about regime change. That is the precursor for the United States’ involvement in another nation’s affairs.”

Bachmann said the result of Gaddafi’s overthrow was a “mess.”

“We don’t know who the next leader will be,” she said, “It could be a radical element. We knew who the devil was that was running. We don’t know that next one.”

She said Libya’s oil revenues could finance a “global caliphate and extremist elements.”

On Iran, Amanpour pressed Bachmann. She had earlier called the plot to assassinate the United States’ ambassador to Saudi Arabia an “act of war.” Iran has denied any involvement in the foiled plot.

Amanpour asked how she would retaliate against Iran if she were elected president.

“I think the one thing that I would do that is very different than President Obama is I wouldn’t take my eye off the fundamental problem in the Middle East and that is an Iran that is seeking to gain a nuclear weapon,” said Bachmann.

Amanpour pressed Bachmann again about what types of force she would use considering Bachmann had already declared the plot an act of war, but Bachmann dodged.

“I would consider the use of everything we need to do,” she said.

Here’s a full clip of Bachmann’s interview:

The tycoon and the candidate talked about the Occupy Wall Street protests, fiscal issues and petroleum policy. But Bachmann made sure that callers knew that Trump was not endorsing her.

“He is not on the call this evening because he is endorsing my campaign for Presidency, he’s on the call this evening because he’s admired, he’s respected,” she said.

One caller wanted to know, “Where is the Republican leadership in regards to what appears to be a Marxist group down there on Wall Street?”

Bachmann dissed the Occupy Wall Street protesters before agreeing with part of their message.

“I think people are looking at this and try to figure out, is this a George Soros inspired protest down there? Are there legitimate grievances?” she said. “I think people look at Wall Street and they see a $700 billion blank check. I voted against that $700 billion blank check.”

Trump admitted that some protesters might have valid reasons to be scornful of Wall Street, but questioned the movement.

“I was in New York recently where you had—I wouldn’t call it a riot, but it got—you had thousands of people marching down Wall Street,” Trump said. “This is a group of in many cases very well-dressed, and I look at it and I say something has got to be done to break it up.”

The bulk of the conversation involved oil, both tapping U.S. oil and being smarter with OPEC. And both Trump and Bachmann though it would be a good idea to demand the Iraqis, Afghanis and Libyans give oil to the U.S. for free for “liberating” them.

“Constantly it’s the United States that are the chumps,” Bachmann said. “We constantly clean up everybody else’s mess. Look at Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, we should be getting paid back from these countries we have liberated.”

Trump agreed with Bachmann.

“In Libya, the rebels—that’s a very glamorous term, the rebels—they probably come from Iran,” he said of those opposing the Gaddafi regime. ”We are spending billions and billions of dollars. If six months ago, if they came to us and said we need help. if we would have said, ‘You know what? We are going to give you help but for the next 20 years, we get the 50 percent of your oil,’ you know what they would have said? ‘Absolutely! We will give you 75 percent.’”

Trump accused anti-Gaddafi fighters of opposing the United States in the Iraq War.

“They come from Iran in many cases and here we are spending billions of dollars and what do we get out of nothing,” Trump said. “In Iraq with the second largest oil fields in the world, we fight, we spent a trillion and a half, lost thousand of lives, great, great young people, what do we get?

Trump added that when the U.S. leaves Iraq at the end of the year, Iran will take the oil that should belong to the U.S.

“Now Iran, when we leave and you know we are not getting along with the government, Iran will come in and take over those oil reserves they are just waiting, waiting to take over the oil reserves because our leaders are just stupid. We are not smart people we have very pathetic leadership.

He concluded, “I have suggested we should have kept a percentage of the oil but also pay back the families who lost lives. In the old days to the victor go the spoils. Well, we don’t do that anymore. We spend a trillion and a half dollars and they are practically throwing us out of Iraq.

Bachmann added that it wasn’t fair for Iraqis to ask American forces to leave without giving the United States its oil. “We have just been kicked on this deal. We were trying to train their people. Iraq they spit at us and said we are not going to give immunity to the 5,000 Americans who were going to stay in Iraq and now all the money we have poured into Iraq, the lives we have poured into Iraq.”

She added, “This is a complete travesty, this is a complete disrespect for the United States.”

Photo: Immigrants rally in D.C. in 2010; Source: Flickr, Vpickering

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended her department’s Secure Communities program, which has been the target of criticism by advocates for immigrants.

Napolitano called Secure Communities “a program that helps ICE identify those who have been arrested by state and local law enforcement for non-immigration state or local crimes, who are also in the country unlawfully. It bestows no additional authorities onto local law enforcement and only identifies those who have been booked into jails. Literally, in jails.”

Opponents of Secure Communities have repeatedly called on the Obama administration to end the fingerprint-sharing program because immigrants who have committed no crime are being detained and deported, leaving behind U.S.-born children and families that, in many cases, will struggle to make ends meet.

Jonathan Fried of We Count!, a South Florida worker and immigrant advocacy organization, said during an event in August that in Miami-Dade County, as of May 2011, close to 60 percent of undocumented immigrants who have been detained under Secure Communities have not committed a crime.

Napolitano said Secure Communities “got off to a bad start.”

“We did not explain clearly how it works and who is required to participate,” she said. “It has already helped accomplish a great deal toward ensuring that we use our enforcement resources where they do the most good.”

Over the summer, three state governors — in Illinois, New York and Massachusetts — announced they were suspending their participation in Secure Communities. Members of Congress have called on California Gov. Jerry Brown to suspend the state’s participation in Secure Communities.

U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told the Spanish-language La Opinion — an online news outlet — that deporting undocumented immigrants who have not committed a serious crime, something she accepted is happening with Secure Communities, is a waste of taxpayer money.

According to Napolitano, “Secure Communities hasn’t increased the number of individuals who are removed, but it has helped change the composition – helping ICE to dramatically increase the number of convicted criminals and egregious immigration law violators,” adding that, “despite the misleading commentary about this program, it has proven to be the single best tool at focusing our immigration enforcement resources on criminals and egregious immigration law violators.”

Pablo Alvarado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, responded to Secretary Napolitano’s speech today with the following statement:

We are happy to hear Secretary Napolitano mention S-Comm and “termination” in the same sentence. Despite the political spin and marketing campaign to defend a failed program, S-Comm has proven to be a disastrous policy for our nation and for our communities. It should be ended before it leads to the further Arizonification of the country.

Napolitano said termination of Secure Communities “would only weaken public safety, and move the immigration enforcement system back towards the ad hoc approach where non-criminal aliens are more likely to be removed than criminals.”

Napolitano said it is her department’s job “to listen and make adjustments consistent with our best law enforcement judgment. That’s why Secure Communities now has new training for state and local law enforcement, and additional steps are being taken to protect witnesses, domestic violence victims, and victims of other violent crime.”

The National Immigration Forum, ”a vocal and vehement critic of the Secure Communities program,” was invited by the Department of Homeland Security in July to participate in a task force “created in response to growing criticism and concern” about Secure Communities.

The Forum resigned from the advisory committee in September, stating that despite recommendations “that – if implemented – would improve the operation of the Secure Communities program and strengthen civil rights and civil liberties protections,” they “fell short of sound policy recommendations that would cure fundamental flaws in the program.”

Former New Mexico governor and current presidential candidate Gary Johnson came out with fellow candidate U.S. Rep. Ron Paul against the drone attack, which also killed another U.S. citizen during an attack on a convoy carrying the two members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Johnson’s full statement:

Let there be no doubt. We have to be vigilant, we have to protect the U.S. and U. S. citizens from terrorist attacks, and we have to aggressively pursue those who would do us harm. At the same time we cannot allow the War on Terror to diminish our steadfast adherence to the notion of due process for American citizens. The protections under the Constitution for those accused of crimes do not just apply to people we like — they apply to everyone, including a terrorist like al-Awlaki. It is a question of due process for American citizens.”

“I understand that laws may allow these decisions by the President and other officials in regard to al-Awlaki, and I do not in any way want to diminish the skill and dedication of our CIA and military. But, at the same time, it must not be overlooked — and thoughtfully examined — that our government targeted a U.S. citizen for death, and carried out that sentence on foreign soil. To my knowledge, that is a first, and a precedent that raises serious questions.

“If we allow our fervor to eliminate terrorist threats to cause us to cut corners with the Constitution and the fundamental rights of American citizens, whether it be invasions of privacy or the killing of someone born on U.S. soil, I could argue that the terrorists will have ultimately won.

“The world is very likely a better place without al-Awlaki in it, but let us not neglect to ask the tough questions this attack raises and about the laws that allowed it to be carried out.

The Wall Street Journal has this from Ron Paul:

“Nobody knows if he ever killed anybody,” Mr. Paul said after a breakfast at Saint Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics. “If the American people accept this blindly and casually…I think that’s sad.”

Wall Street Journal does point out the congressman from Texas applauded the assassination of Osama bin Laden, who said at the time, “Osama bin Laden applauded the 9/11 attacks. Such deliberate killing of innocent lives deserved retaliation. It is good that bin Laden is dead and justice is served.”

Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director for The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), denounced the killing of Awlaki, telling CBS News:

As we’ve seen today, this is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts. […]

The government’s authority to use lethal force against its own citizens should be limited to circumstances in which the threat to life is concrete, specific and imminent. It is a mistake to invest the president – any president – with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country.

And Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional law and civil rights litigator and writer for Salon, took exception to the government’s killing of Alwaki with incendiary prose:

Despite substantial doubt among Yemen experts about whether he even has any operational role in Al Qaeda, no evidence (as opposed to unverified government accusations) was presented of his guilt.  When Awlaki’s father sought a court order barring Obama from killing his son, the DOJ argued, among other things, that such decisions were “state secrets” and thus beyond the scrutiny of the courts.  He was simply ordered killed by the President: his judge, jury and executioner.  When Awlaki’s inclusion on President Obama’s hit list was confirmed, The New York Timesnoted that “it is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing.”

After several unsuccessful efforts to assassinate its own citizen, the U.S. succeeded today (and it was the U.S.).  It almost certainly was able to find and kill Awlaki with the help of its long-time close friend President Saleh, who took a little time off from murdering his own citizens to help the U.S. murder its.  The U.S. thus transformed someone who was, at best, a marginal figure into a martyr, and again showed its true face to the world.  The government and media search for The Next bin Laden has undoubtedly already commenced.

al-Awlaki studied in the U.S., earning a bachelors in engineering from Colorado State University and a masters in education leadership from San Diego State University.

Bachmann referred to Perry’s statement at last week’s debate that opponents of the Texas Dream Act “didn’t have a heart,” which Perry has since walked back.

“Last week, we conservatives were accused of not having a heart,” Bachmann said. “Nothing could be further from the truth, but it’s just that we have a mind to go with that heart.”

Bachmann’s ad, which was posted Thursday represents yet another attempt by the candidate to regain the support of conservatives, who abandoned her in droves after Perry entered the race. Bachmann has been falling in most polls, although she’s recently seen a slight surge in Iowa.

Bachmann says in the video that immigration policies like in-state tuition for the children of undocumented immigrants have “created chaos on our borders.”

“We can’t settle for a president that thinks building a fence to secure the border is on its face ‘idiocy,’” Bachmann said, vowing to build a border fence and again referring to comments by Perry. “Just because we have policy differences doesn’t make us any less compassionate.”

“Just like Jimmy Carter in the 1970s didn’t have the back of the Shah of Iran, we saw the Shah fall and the rise of the Ayatollah, and we saw the rise and the beginnings of radical jihad, which have changed this world and changed this nation,” Bachmann said, according to a video posted by MSNBC. “So too under Barack Obama, we saw him put a lot of daylight between our relationship with our ally Israel.”

Bachmann linked the Arab Spring, which has resulted in pro-democracy uprisings in countries like Egypt, Syria and Libya, to the President’s earlier stance that negotiations between Israel and Palestine should begin at the 1967 boundaries.

“And when he called upon Israel to retreat to its indefensible 1967 borders, don’t think that message wasn’t lost to Israel’s 26 hostile neighbors,” Bachmann said. “You want to know why we have an Arab Spring. Barack Obama has laid the table for Arab Spring by demonstrating weakness from the United States of America.”

An average of 1,200 people are questioned by private security at Bloomington’s Mall of America each year, with security sometimes forwarding names to the FBI for such innocuous activity as taking photos or acting nervous after being approached by guards.

The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) and NPR News Investigations released a report on the private mall’s security program Wednesday, illuminating practices that some said violates civil rights.

The security team is run by a former Israel Defense Forces’ sergeant. The teams focus on people showing “unexplained nervousness, people photographing such things as air-conditioning ducts or signs that a shopper might have something to hide,” according to the report.

In two-thirds of the interrogations the subject was a person of color or Arab descent. That’s led to at least one successful complaint to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, according to CIR/NPR.

While defending the security methods as “part of today’s society,” Commander Jim Ryan of the Bloomington Police Department told CIR/NPR that the security approach may “infringe on some freedoms, unfortunately.”

Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, told CIR/NPR that these methods violate people’s civil liberties and put authority in the hands of unaccountable private power like these security companies and the Mall of America.

“If all they’re getting for amassing suspicious activity reports on innocent people in government databases is the arrest of a few low-level turnstile jumpers and shoplifters, that doesn’t seem very sensible,” Rosen said.

CIR/NPR received 125 suspicious activity reports filed from the mall, including this common example from CIR/NPR’s database of incidents:

Mall security questioned a man with a camera on a tripod. The man “admitted he was taking photographs of the Mall of America structure” for an online photography class. He “appeared to get more nervous as the interview progressed.”

Some who were interrogated by private security had photos confiscated, were reported to police or were even enmeshed in deportation hearings after being turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to the suspicious activity reports.

The Minnesota Independent has previously reported on the Mall of America’s collaboration with Homeland Security and its embrace of the “See Something, Say Something” campaign.

During U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s speech at the annual convention of the American Legion in Minneapolis Thursday, she vowed to support and strengthen veterans medical care, but a plan unveiled by Bachmann in January, which she later dropped, proposed to cut $4.5 billion from these same veterans services.

“It is our duty, first and primarily, to protect our veterans and to make sure that you receive not only the respect, but also the care that you have paid for very heavily with your service to our nation,” Bachmann told members of the American Legion Thursday. “As president, I will assure that those who serve today as well, and in the past, have the highest access to the best care, both of health, mental health and rehabilitative care that the world has to offer.”

But Bachmann’s January plan, which was touted as a way to avoid raising the debt ceiling, would have brought about dramatic cuts to veterans services.

“Instead of making it easier for Washington to spend more of your tax dollars, I’m calling for Congress to do the hard work of making real and necessary cuts in federal spending,” according to a January statement that included the cuts on Bachmann’s House website.

Her plan would have frozen U.S. Department of Veterans Administration health care costs and cut disability payments, according to a January report in the Army Times. Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, told the Times that Bachmann’s proposal was “astonishing.” The Army Times charted the origin of the veterans cuts to an October 2010 report from the conservative Heritage Foundation.

It was just the next month that Bachmann started to backpedal in a statement on her website:

“One point on my discussion list was a $4.5 billion proposal that would affect payments made to our veterans. That discussion point has received a lot of attention and I have decided to remove it from consideration. The problem of government spending must be solved, but not on the backs of our nation’s war heroes. I have always been a proud supporter of the United States military and I continue to stand with our veterans.  In the months ahead I look forward to working with our Veterans Service Organizations to ensure that we fulfill our commitments to those who sacrificed so much in their brave service for our country.”

Bachmann’s campaign did not immediately return a request for an explanation of Bachmann’s earlier stance on funding veterans services.

In the last four months, more than 30,000 Somali children under the age of 5 have died during the worst drought in the area in 60 years, according to U.S. government statistics.

National political leaders, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), hosted a community forum Wednesday in Minneapolis—which has a large Somali community—to chart the relief efforts spearheaded by the U.S. government and whip up support for humanitarian aid spending.

“Famine isn’t defined as drought or defined as food access, it’s a definition of children dying,” USAID Administrator Raj Shah told the crowd, made up mostly of people from the University of Minnesota and Somali-American communities. “That number is likely go up significantly if we’re unable to dramatically expand our access to care for vulnerable populations in Somalia.”

USAID Administrator Raj Shah speaks to the crowd.

Shah announced another $23 million in grants and aid to provide some famine relief in Somalia and the surrounding region. The U.S. has already spent more than $580 million this year to combat the famine in East Africa, which Rah said accounts for half the funds being donated internationally to the effort.

The drought has also impacted Kenya and Ethiopia. In the entire region, up to 12 million people could be at risk, Shah said.

Much of the effort spearheaded by USAID focuses not just on food convoys, which have been hijacked in Somalia in the past, but on longer-term projects to develop drought-resistant crops and sustainable agriculture, Shah said. Relief efforts have also focused on medical care that can prevent children deaths, like cholera treatment centers.

But despite the urgency of the situation, lawmakers on the panel admitted they could run into roadblocks in attempting to fund more relief in a Congress fixated on budgetary issues. U.S. Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) said the most common constituent call to his office demanded an end to foreign aid.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)

Pelosi said security and humanitarian issues were related.

“Some in Congress believe that if people are starving in areas controlled by al-Shabab, that they should not be provided with food assistance,” Pelosi said, referring to the Islamic militant movement that still controls vast stretches of the country. ”Alleviation of poverty, eradication of disease, providing opportunity lessen the fury of despair, which is a recruiting ground for trouble, for violence.”

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said the United States’ history in the region, including the 1993 killings of 18 American soldiers in Mogadishu, gave some Americans pause about interacting with the region. But the international neglect of Somalia has led to a number of problems, from piracy to the famine to the al-Shabab movement, he said.

“The crisis in the horn [of Africa] and Somalia is all of our business,” Ellison said, calling for constituent pressure for humanitarian aid. “This world of ours can take care of its people but we have to have the political will to make it that way.”

But a lack of financial aid represents just one difficulty in staving off famine in East Africa. Complications in the region have led groups to approach the issue differently than past relief projects, with groups like the American Refugee Committee (ARC) working with the Somali-American community to help get aid to people who need it.

“I want to tell you with absolute certainty that the money you give, the support you put in, is and can be translated into lifesaving programs and it’s happening right now as we sit here,” said Daniel Wordsworth of ARC.

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.)

The Somali-American community has been very active in organizing and supporting relief efforts, Wordsworth said.

“We want the Somali-American community, the American-Somali community to know how much we value your contributions to our country, your country, all of our country,” Pelosi told the audience. “I hope you know how deeply concerned we are on this issue that challenges the conscience of all humanity, and we must get the job done.”

Zainab Hassan said the forum was the sort of discussion the community needs to have to help spread peace and stability throughout the region.

“As world citizens we have to be involved in these issues and look at it in a positive and comprehensive way in terms of how do our policies impact other people in the region,” Hassan said. “How can we hold accountable our politicians to do the right thing and to adopt policies that would benefit not only Minnesotans but also internationally?”

Hassan said it didn’t seem that most Minnesotans were aware of what was going on in Somalia, but that programs like ARC’s Neighbors Initiative were changing that.

“A lot of effort is going on in Minnesota to bring together Minnesotan communities regardless of race, culture, countries of origin,” she said.

Ayan Abdinur said most people of Somali origin knew about the famine, but that other issues have sometimes distracted the broader community from learning about famine relief efforts.

“When you hear Somalia, it’s about the pirates, it’s still al-Shabab, there’s so much negative media that we really forget the issue that’s happening right now,” Abdinur said. “Yes, there is a security issue, but there is a bigger issue than al-Shabab and the pirates and anything that’s going on, but I wish that people would step away from that and open their heart to the people who are dying.”

Abdinur said she was proud to see how many people showed up for the forum.

“It was a really great way to show that Somali-Americans, other Americans, that everybody cares about the issues going on in Somalia and that we come together as a community and try to make an effort to help the people in Somalia,” Abdinur said. ”I was really happy, touched, by how the community could come together for one issue outside our country.”