Please join Minnesota Independent reporters at 7 p.m. this evening for a live tweet of the Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas, Nev.

Previous debates have included gaffes, accusations and outright inaccuracies. We’ll be here, along with our colleagues nationwide at the American Independent News Network, to offer context and analysis.

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Rep. Michele Bachmann was grilled by the hosts of several Sunday morning talk shows about her views on gay and lesbian Americans. When pressed about her past statements about LGBT issues, she repeated “I am running for the presidency of the United States,” several times in lieu of answering the question. “I’m not anyone’s judge.”

On Meet the Press, host David Gregory played Bachmann’s now-famous quote from 2004 where she said, “Your involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement. And that is why it’s so dangerous. It’s a very sad life. It’s part of Satan to say this is gay. It’s anything but gay.”

Bachmann responded to her own quote by saying, “Well, I am running for the presidency of the united states. I’m not running to be anyone’s judge.”

Gregory pressed her. “But you have judged them.”

“I don’t judge them, I don’t judge them. I am running for presidency of the United States,” she said.

Gregory asked, “Is that the view of gay Americans that President Bachmann would have?”

Bachmann changed the subject: “My view on marriage is that marriage is between a man and a women. That’s what I stand for, but I ascribe honor and dignity to every person no matter what their background. They have honor and they have dignity.”

Gregory tried yet again to get an answer from Bachmann. “Do you think gay Americans hearing quotes like that from you would think that’s honor and dignity coming from you about their circumstances?”

“I’m not anyone’s judge,” she responded.

Gregory asked, “Do you think anyone hears that and thinks you haven’t made a judgment about gays and lesbians?”

“That’s all I can tell you is that I’m not judging.”

Again Gregory pressed her. “So your words should stand for themselves.”

Bachmann repeated, “I’m running fr the presidency of the United States. That’s what is important.”

Later, Gregory changed the subject slightly and Bachmann again balked on answering the question.

“Can a gay couple who adopts children be considered a family?”

Bachmann said, “When it comes to marriage and family, my opinion is that marriage is between a man and a woman. i think that’s been my view. All of these kind of questions are not really about what people are concerned about right now.”

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ABC’s This Week contained a similar exchange.

TAPPER: One last question I wanted to ask about. You once characterized homosexuality as, quote, “personal bondage, personal despair, and personal enslavement.” Do you believe that?

BACHMANN: Well, I am running to be the president of the United States. I am not running to be any person’s judge. And I give — I ascribe dignity and honor to all people, no matter who they are. And that’s how I view people.

TAPPER: So you would appoint an openly gay or lesbian person to your administration?

BACHMANN: I would look, first of all, will they uphold the Constitution of the United States? And, number two, are they competent to do what they need to do? And are they the best at who they are? That’s my criteria, nothing more.

And on CNN’s State of the Union host Candy Crowly asked if Bachmann would reinstate the Armed Forces’ ban on openly serving LGBT Americans.

“The ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy has worked very well,” Bachmann said. “I would be in consultation with our commanders, but I think, yes, I probably would” reinstate the ban.

Crowley also asked about Iowa and same-sex marriage.

“I think it’s more important that people have the right to weigh in on the laws they choose to live under,” Bachmann. “What I don’t like is judges legislating from the bench and as President of the United States, I will appoint judges who uphold the constitution and who don’t see themselves as a super legislature. That was the problem here in Iowa. That’s why people here in Iowa did not retain their three judges. They were very offended that three judges substituted their opinions for the will of the people.”

She added, “I think that sent a very loud and clear signal.”

CNN’s Anderson Cooper fact-checked Rep. Michele Bachmann’s remarks about Planned Parenthood on Tuesday, particularly Bachmann’s repeated claims that “Planned Parenthood wants to be the LensCrafters of Big Abortion.” Cooper found that claim, during a social conservative gathering for potential presidential candidates, to be incorrect. The Minnesota Independent’s check on that claim last year came to a similar conclusion.

At an event by the Family Leader in Iowa last weekend, Bachmann said, “The executive director of Planned Parenthood in Illinois said, ‘We want Planned Parenthood wants to be the LensCrafters of Big Abortion.’ They are the largest provider of abortion in the United States. And not only that, the are one of the largest political organizations you can imagine as well.”

Cooper said, “She’s made up a quote.”

Bachmann is grossly distorting a remark by the head of the Illinois Planned Parenthood from an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 2008. As the Minnesota Independent reported in 2010:

“It is high time we follow the population,” said Sarah Stoesz, who heads Planned Parenthood operations in three Midwest states.

She recently opened three express centers in wealthy Minnesota suburbs, “in shopping centers and malls, places where women are already doing their grocery shopping, picking up their Starbucks, living their daily lives,” Ms. Stoesz said.

The mall sites promise walk-in convenience and “clothes-on” care, with services limited to birth-control counseling and tests for pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections. Most patients are in and out in less than half an hour.

“I like to think of it as the LensCrafters of family planning,” Steve Trombley, the top executive in Illinois, said as he toured an express center a few doors down from a hair salon and a Japanese restaurant in the well-to-do suburb of Schaumburg, Ill.

Those clinics provide services other than abortions, which further contradicts Bachmann’s claim.

Cooper added that Planned Parenthood has spent far less on politics than Bachmann asserts. He notes that during the 2010 midterms, the United States Chamber of Commerce spent $33 million and the SEIU spent $53 million — much more than the $1 million Planned Parenthood spent on the election.

“Compared to the others,” Cooper said, “it’s hard to call it one of the largest political organizations you can imagine.”

Cooper last took on Bachmann’s grasp of facts last November after the Sixth District Republican falsely claimed that a trip to India by President Obama would cost taxpayers “$200 million per day.” When grilled by the BBC, Bachmann backtracked slightly, saying she was merely “quoting a newspaper” in India that made the inaccurate claim.

CNN announced Tuesday afternoon that it will broadcast both Rep. Michele Bachmann’s reaction to President Obama’s State of the Union address live and the official Republican response by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Bachmann’s speech will be given through the group Tea Party Express. The Minnesota Independent will be live-blogging Bachmann’s response this evening.

“The Tea Party has become a major force in American politics and within the Republican Party,” CNN said in a statement on Tuesday. “Hearing the Tea Party’s perspective on the State of the Union is something we believe CNN’s viewers will be interested in hearing and we are happy to include this perspective as one of many in tonight’s coverage.”

Bachmann took some heat from local tea partiers who say she doesn’t speak for the movement. CNN has become a target of left-leaning bloggers and commentators who question the wisdom of allowing two Republican responses to Obama’s address, and Republicans have attempted to quash rumors that there’s a schism developing between the Bachmann/Tea Party faction and establishment Republicans.

But, the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent notes the coup Bachmann has scored for her career.

“There is one clear winner in all this: Bachmann herself. By granting her such a large platform, CNN is generously enabling her efforts to cement her national status as a kind of Tea Party GOP leader-in-exile, and is basically rewarding her for her stunt.”

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer withdrew 2,580 ballot challenges over the weekend after the State Canvassing Board gave the go-ahead for the campaigns to evaluate those frivolous ballots. In the end, the Emmer team narrowed the number of frivolous challenges that it will send to the board to just 24. Meanwhile, as the recount process draws to a close, CNN has become the first media outlet to call the race for DFLer Mark Dayton.

“The fact that we withdrew a large number of challenges doesn’t mean that we necessarily agree that these were frivolous challenges,” Emmer’s attorney Eric Magnuson told reporters on Saturday. “They’re simply challenges that we didn’t think would prevail in front of the canvassing board.”

He said, “What we are trying to do is make sure that the count is accurate. Once we figure out exactly what the ballot count is, then [Rep. Emmer] will be able to make some choices as to where it goes from there.”

On the Dayton side, attorney Charlie Nauen told reporters at a Saturday press conference, “We found out what we really knew going in: That virtually all of these challenges are indeed frivolous.”

He said the number of ballots selected by Emmer’s team to go forward — 24 — represented “less than one percent of the ballots that had been challenged over the last five days.”

“There were many opportunities for the Emmer team to do what they did today,” he said. “In other words, look at the ballots and make the decision that these were frivolous.”

He added that Dayton has a 9,000-vote lead over Emmer. “The recount is over. There’s no doubt that come the 14th that lead will be a substantial lead. The numbers speak for themselves.”

CNN seemed to agree with Nauen. On Saturday, it called the race for Dayton. Emmer has not conceded the race, and will likely not do so until the vote tally is certified by the State Canvassing Board on Dec. 14.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty told CNN’s Candy Crowley on Sunday that if he runs for president, he will campaign on repealing health care reform. But despite his public protestations about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Pawlenty administration has quietly taken advantage of many of the new law’s provisions. Pawlenty added that he hasn’t decided on whether he will be a presidential contender in 2012 and that he doesn’t pay attention to polling which has him at the bottom in most 2012 match-ups.

Pawlenty responded to a letter that Rep. John Boehner sent to Republican governors asking them to help House Republicans stop the implementation of health care reform.

“I think ‘Obamacare’ is one of the worst pieces of legislation passed in the modern history of the country,” he said. “I’m doing everything I can in Minnesota to stop, delay or avoid its implementation in my state, including signing an executive order saying we’re not going to participate unless required by law or approved by me.”

He continued, “We’ve been given opportunities to early enroll in that program and take advantage of other aspects of it. We declined, and I hope between now and 2014 when it’s fully kicked in that as many states as possible do what they can to reel that program back, or that the new Republican Congress, better yet, can repeal it, because it’s dragging stuff into Washington, D.C., creating a new bureaucracy, spending a new — a lot of new money that they don’t have, isn’t going to work. We should have market-based solutions.”

But as left-leaning blog ThinkProgress notes, Pawlenty has accepted several provisions of health care reform.

Minnesota’s Management and Budget Office recently applied for money in the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program, “a $5 billion program that helps pay for the insurance costs of retirees between the ages of 55 and 64,” and the state has received $11.1 million in Affordable Care Act grants. Those are in addition to money that Pawlenty accepted for the state’s Medicaid program, $263 million in federal funds.

Host Crowley asked Pawlenty if he was going to run for president and what he thought of polls that show him trailing most other presidential contenders.

“Well, I don’t know for sure what I’m going to do after I’m done being governor, Candy,” he said. “I’ll decide that early next year. And as to the poll, you know, a lot of those early polls, whether it’s me running or somebody else, reflect familiarity, name ID, and I — you know, you see front-runners in the past with similar situations that change over time.”

He added, “So these early polls I don’t think mean much for me or any other potential candidates, especially if you haven’t run before and aren’t well-known.”

Crowley followed up, “And if I could get just a yes or no from you, would repealing health care reform be a major part of your platform, should you run?”

Pawlenty responded, “Yes, I think having health solutions dragged into Washington, D.C., top-down command-and-control, bureaucratically run entitlement programs that they can’t afford are a bad idea. I like markets, I like people being in charge of decisions, not the federal bureaucracy.”

Mitt Romney got the top spot with 21 percent of Republicans supporting him. Sarah Palin came in second with 18 percent and Newt Gingrich was third with 15 percent.

Rounding out the rest of the contenders: Mike Huckabee at 14 percent, Ron Paul with 10 percent, Haley Barbour, Mike Pence and Pawlenty tied at 3 percent and Rick Santorum with 2 percent.

“This is a winning issue across the country,” said Bachmann. “And I think we are going to see huge majorities gained in the House and the Senate just based on this issue alone. Two-thirds of the American people are opposed to ‘Obamacare’ and it doesn’t seem to be shifting in the other direction.”

Watch:

From CNN’s transcript:

KING: The cost of the program has been one of the questions in Massachusetts. And among the critics is a man you might see on the campaign trail should you decide to run again in 2012, the Minnesota governor, Tim Pawlenty. Listen to this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAWLENTY: If you don’t also contain costs and preserve quality, you’re in big trouble. And the federal proposal is largely modeled so far after what happened in Massachusetts. They succeeded in extending access, but the cost of that program has now double, triple, and some would say soon to be quadruple what they originally estimated. That would be a bad development for those of us who are concerned about the uncontrollable rise in health care costs. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Does Governor Pawlenty have your plan right there?

ROMNEY: No, I’m afraid facts are stubborn things, and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation has taken a good look at the Massachusetts plan some three or four years after it was passed, and it is well within the original forecast. It’s about — a little over 1 percent of the state budget. And in fact, virtually all of our citizens are insured.

Romney continued: “And by the way, if other governors can come up with something better than I did, congratulations. We’ll copy one another.”

So, not a slashing attack on T-Paw by Romney, but neither did Romney’s comments show the kind of deference either man would expect as president, were he traveling abroad as Pawlenty was over the weekend.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, on the other hand, who is another GOP 2012 presidential prospect, showed solidarity with Pawlenty by giving out a phone sex number instead of a state toll-free number.

Pawlenty did something similar in September, mistakenly giving out a phone sex number instead of the call-in number for his weekly WCCO-AM radio talk show.

His announcement registered with broadcast and print media across the country in headline roundups and news digests, but most analysis of note came via cable TV news networks and major newspapers’ Web sites. Their focus fell on his future as a national political figure, with some sidelong glances at his role in the Al Franken-Norm Coleman struggle for Minnesota’s second U.S. Senate seat.

On MSNBC, commentator Lawrence O’Donnell called Pawlenty ” the best player [Republicans] have,” to which Pat Buchanan (himself a former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination) replied that while he’s “an attractive fellow” who is “doing the right thing” by not running for re-election, “[Alaska Gov. Sarah] Palin will wipe the floor with him” in 2012.

On CNN, anchors Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty recalled Pawlenty as the 2008 VP also-ran who might have made the GOP ticket more competitive.

The Boston Globe’s Political Intelligence blog writes that a new CNN/Opinion Research poll shows T-Paw trailing badly in the early running for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination to a man who’s already a former governor: Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. Indeed, Romney’s out-of-office success as a candidate has caught Pawlenty’s eye as an example, the New York Times’ The Caucus notes.

If he takes it, Pawlenty’s road to the White House would pass through Iowa, where the Des Moines Register’s Iowa Politics Insider says he has well-placed friends and admirers from several road trips he made on behalf of Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign.

Pawlenty’s banquet-patter about building the party with Sam’s Club Republicans may get stale by 2012, warns the National Journal’s Hotline. He’ll have a chance to start refreshing his rhetoric this weekend in Washington, D.C. There, he’ll address not only the College Republicans‘ national convention, as he mentioned Tuesday, but also a gathering sponsored by the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA), according to Politico,

(RNLA fundraising for Norm Coleman’s post-election efforts to regain his Senate seat prompted a DFL Party complaint to the Federal Election Commission early this year. An RNLA “Stop Al Franken from Stealing the Election” Web page, with headline altered to “Stop ACORN,” still solicits donations of $5,000 — an amount exceeding legal limits, the DFL charged in its yet-unresolved complaint.)

The Washington Post’s The Fix pushed the Franken-Coleman angle the hardest, seeing Pawlenty’s “retirement” as a potential game-changer. The theory goes that with no worries about wooing Minnesota voters hungry for a second senator, Pawlenty might actually withhold an election certificate from Franken even after the Minnesota Supreme Court rules:

So, if Coleman decides he wants to take the case to the federal level if he were to lose at the state court level, there’s now a significantly higher likelihood that Pawlenty would be receptive to such a move.