Rep. Michele Bachmann told Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network Friday that she will “look to the Lord” for guidance on whether she’ll run for the Republican nomination for president in 2012. Bachmann, whose activism in the tea party movement and among conservative evangelical Christians has her visiting most parts of the country, has repeatedly said that her faith would guide her decision to seek higher office.

“I think it will be an inner assurance more than anything of what I am supposed to do,” she said of contemplating a run for president. She said she and her husband “look to the Lord for guidance, and I can’t say enough how important that’s been to us to give us that rock of assurance on which path we should go.”

“We’re strong people of faith,” she said. “My husband and I gave our lives to the Lord when we were 16 years of age, and so that’s been a long time now. … And I can’t say enough how important that’s been to us to give us that rock of assurance on which path we should go.”

In 2009, Bachmann made a similar statement to World Net Daily.

“When I have sensed that the Lord is calling me to do something, I’ve said yes to it. But I will not seek a higher office if God is not calling me to do it. That’s really my standard… If I am called to serve in that realm I would serve… But if I am not called, I wouldn’t do it.”

And in 2006, just before her first successful run for Congress, she said:

God then called me to run for the United States Congress, and I thought ‘What in the world will that be for?’ and my husband said ‘You need to do this,’ and I wasn’t so sure, and we took 3 days and we fasted and we prayed and we said, ‘Lord. Is this what you want? Is this your will?’ and after long about the afternoon of day two, he made that calling sure. And its been now 22 months that I’ve been running for United States Congress. Who in their right mind would spend 2 years to run for a job that lasts 2 years? You’d have to be absolutely a fool to do that. You are now looking at a fool for Christ. This is a fool for Christ.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum received a death threat on Wednesday over her amendment to a spending bill to end Pentagon funding for NASCAR, Talking Points Memo reports. McCollum’s amendment would strip $7 million that goes to NASCAR annually to advertise the U.S. Army. McCollum said in tough economic times that money should be spent on veterans.

According to TPM, McCollum’s office called Capitol security after receiving a flier that said, “Yo, Slut Betty, Shut Your Phucking Pie Hole!” and “without exception, Marxists are enemies of the Constitution, Death To All Marxists, Foreign And Domestic!”

McCollum’s office told TPM that most of the opposition to her amendment has come from southern states, not Minnesota.

“We’ve heard innumerable times that the Republicans were elected to send a message from the people that we should stop spending money,” Chief of Staff Bill Harper said. “And yet the people who sent that message want us to spend $7 million for a sticker on a NASCAR.”

During the debate over health care reform last spring, McCollum’s office received a number of death threats.

Here’s the flier that triggered a complaint to police:

This week, Rep. Michelle Bachmann proposed $400 billion in “real and necessary” budget cuts in federal spending to avoid raising the budget ceiling from $14.3 trillion. The cuts include capping increases in Department of Veterans Affairs’ health care spending and reducing Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) payments for veterans, all to save a total of $4.5 billion.

However, health care costs are rising anyway, meaning less care, and SSDI payments are only $12,800 a year, according to the Air Force Times:

Her list of cuts doesn’t explain the impact of freezing veterans’ health care funding, but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said in a report issued in October that health care costs have been quickly increasing. VA’s health care budget was $44 billion in 2009, $48 billion in 2010 and is at $52 billion this year. The report forecasts a health care budget of $69 billion or higher by 2020 if trends continue, the report estimates.

Another measure in her cuts is to repeal “Obamacare,” which she claims has “unknown” savings. Actually, the CBO measured that its repeal would not save, but add $230 billion to the deficit over 10 years.

You can see the full list of cuts on her website here (PDF).

Update: Rep. Tim Walz, the highest-ranking enlisted soldier ever to serve in Congress, has responded to Bachmann’s proposal with the following statement:

“We have to have an aggressive, long-term plan to tackle our nation’s debt, but attempting to balance the budget on the backs of veterans who have risked life and limb in service of our country is unacceptable. I believe we can and should work together to find reasonable and common-sense cuts that will reduce our debt, but as a generation of warriors returns from two wars, our most solemn responsibility is to make sure they have the care and benefits they have earned.”

U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) appeared recently on the South Florida-based program The Shalom Show and said Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim representative in Congress, represents the “antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established.”

The exchange occurred when the host, Richard Peritz, asked, “Since you’re with a new crowd, people you haven’t really met before, and will be very closely associating with in the future, including Keith Ellison, who supports Islam, how will you manage that?”

Rep. West responded, “Well I think it’s most important that I stand upon the principles that people elected me to go to Washington, D.C., and represent them on Capitol Hill.”

He added, “So that when you run into someone that is counter, or someone that really does represent the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established, you’ve got to be able to defeat them intellectually in debate and discourse, and you to just have to be able to challenge each and every one of their assertions very wisely and very forthright.”

Rep. West has called Islam a “fifth column” and a “totalitarian political ideology.”

DES MOINES — Michele Bachmann said Friday that she didn’t come to Iowa for personal ambitions, but instead wanted to help frame the issues potential Republican presidential hopefuls will discuss during Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.

“I’m here to be a part of that conversation for 2012; there’s been no decision about [my] candidacy,” said Bachmann, who has expressed an interest in a campaign for the 2012 Republican nomination.

The Sixth District Congresswoman did more in Iowa than simply make a speech at an event organized by Iowans for Tax Relief Friday night. That morning Bachmann met with several GOP activists and lawmakers at a local coffee shop in Des Moines, although it was reported she ran about an hour late.

“Obviously, first impressions are important, and it would be in a candidate’s best interest not to keep people waiting,”  said Story County Republican Chairman A.J. Spiker, who is also a member of the Republican Party of Iowa’s Central Committee, in a post at Real Clear Politics. “I think most people understand a candidate who’s delayed, but an hour-and-a-half is a pretty big delay.”

She was also met with state lawmakers at the Iowa Capitol in the afternoon, later sitting down with Gov. Terry Branstad. When Bachmann entered the room at the Marriott Hotel for the Iowans for Tax Relief event, she sat with Branstad, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen and House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer.

Shortly after taking the podium, she teased the media and the crowd.

“Iowans are the nicest people, they’re the best looking people, they’re the smartest people. No wonder everybody wants to come to Iowa,” Bachmann told the crowd.

“It should be no shock a girl comes here,” she went on. “I know that there’s been a lot of speculation, though, about why I’m coming to Iowa today and I don’t want to keep you in suspense one more minute. Because it is with pride in my heart that I am here to announce tonight in Iowa… it’s really good to be home.”

Bachmann was born in Waterloo, Iowa, and mentioned the elementary school she attended (Valley Park Elementary in Cedar Falls). After the speech when she took time to field questions from the media, repeatedly asking if the Waterloo Courier had a journalist in the room.

Throughout the speech she mentioned her family’s roots in Iowa, mentioned a relative who was a TV meteorologist in the state while praising Iowans, telling them they would decide the direction the country would take in the next election cycle.

“The reason why I wanted to come down here is to kind of set the table, and ask some of the big questions about 2012,” Bachmann said. “Inevitably we’ll be looking at who the nominee will be for 2012 and there will be a lot of candidates that come through, but what I wanted to do was talk about the big issues and the big questions that I think need to be addressed for 2012.”

She did not say when, or if, she would return to Iowa, but she did meet with Republican insiders and the Iowa GOP chair, Matt Strawn, on Friday and is scheduled to participate in a lecture series organized by The Family Leader, an umbrella organization that includes the Iowa Family Policy Center.

Bachmann will attempt to raise her national profile with a rebuttal to the President’s State of the Union address, in addition to the Republican party’s rebuttal.

Rep. Michele Bachmann warned guests of an event organized by Iowans for Tax Relief Friday night that America is “under attack” by a “thundercloud of debt weighing upon [the U.S.].”

“What I’m believing is, I think, the truth of where we are in the country,” Bachmann said.

Bachmann, who is openly mulling a run for the Republican presidential nomination, repeatedly discussed with a crowd of around 150 at the downtown Des Moines Marriott Hotel her doubts that the U.S. would continue as a great nation under the policies of the current government.

She said the underlying struggle of America 150 years ago during the Civil War was the issue of slavery and the question of whether all men are created equal. Bachmann described how Americans killed other Americans during the Civil War.

“Fortunately today we don’t face the prospect of an armed violent civil war, but instead we face the question of whether our nation will live to the latest generation is equally great. It’s an underlying issue in the struggle of our time is a slavery of a different kind,” Bachmann said to the crowd, before predicting her slavery comments would be misconstrued by the media.

“Because it is a slavery. It is a slavery that is a bondage to debt and a bondage to decline,” Bachmann went on. “That’s what that slavery entails. It’s the subservience of a sovereign people — we are a sovereign people — to a failed self selected elite. That would be our fate.”

She repeatedly asked the crowd whether the next generation will see a standard of living as high as as the current generations enjoy.

“My faith is with you, the ordinary Iowa citizens,” Bachmann said. “Because for my money, I take ordinary any day of the week over the self-anointed elite.”

Bachmann said the spirit of 1776 woke up for the the 2010 elections.

“You saw what happened right here in Iowa — winning your governor’s seat, winning your Iowa House back, ousting three Supreme Court justices,” Bachmann proclaimed to massive applause from the room. “And don’t think for a moment a lot of justices around this country can’t feel the hot seat now in their own seat because of what Iowa did.”

She chastized the bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler, as well the large financial institutions, eventually criticizing the reform of the federally subsidized student loan program by falsely claiming the “government completely runs the student loan industry.”

Student loan reform involved the ending of insuring loans made by private banks and instead increasing the loans the government delivers through its direct loan programs. Banks and credit unions still run private student loan programs the same as before. The Congressional Budget Office says student loan reform will save $62 billion over the next decade.

“We saw the passage of socialized medicine,” Bachmann said, later adding it’s “stunning what has occurred in just two years time.”

After her speech, Bachmann was asked by The Iowa Independent to elaborate how health care reform legislation was “socialized medicine,” given the legislation included no government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers.

“Ultimately the way the program is built, we’ll see a collapse of the private insurance industry,” Bachmann responded. “That’s very important to the Des Moines area because this is a Mecca of insurance industries.”

Indeed, Des Moines does play host to many insurance companies, and is ranked as one of the top insurance centers in the world along with Hartford, Conn. and London, England.

Contrary to her claim, however, more people will get private health coverage thanks to the reforms. The law sets up “exchanges” where private insurers will compete to provide coverage to people who don’t have it. The law also gives tax credits to people who have difficulty affording insurance, an approach that relies on a free market, not socialized medicine.

But she went on in her response to claim health insurance costs are already rising because of the Affordable Care Act.

Larry Levitt, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Minnesota Public Radio that claim is a stretch. Levitt said there have been reports recently of insurers raising premiums significantly, but that’s due to the increase in the cost of health care and the effects of the economic downturn.

Bachmann predicted health care reform, along with the nation’s debt, will remain signifficant issues in 2012, as they were in 2010.

“If we want to kill ‘Obamacare,’ if we want to end socialized medicine it must be done in the next election,” Bachmann said. “It will be our charge to repeal Obama [and to] repeal a very liberal Senate.”

Bachmann also noted the debt under Obama’s tenure is more than the accumulated debt of all 43 previous presidencies.

The truth on that statement is complicated. When U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Obama’s budget would add more to the debt than the outstanding debt of all previous presidents, the Pulitzer-Prize winning website PolitiFact rated it true. However, when Republican state Sen. Chip Rogers of Georgia said the U.S. had accumulated more debt since Obama took office than the total amount of debt accumulated during the first 200 years of the United States existence, it was given a “barely true” rating.

PolitiFact clarified the difference being whether one focused on publicly held debt instead of spending and not limiting the timeline to two years from Obama taking office.

Despite any accuracy of her statements, the crowd was largely impressed with the Minnesota Republican.

Ed Failor Jr., president of Iowans for Tax Relief, said Bachmann had a track record of putting people first, calling her the kind of leader the country needs.

“I’m certain there’s a new breath out there of fresh air that is lead by someone like Congresswoman Bachmann,” Failor said.

Ankeny resident Judy McBee said she liked what she heard in Bachmann’s speech and was familiar with Bachmann before the event.

McBee said what she’s heard before about the Congresswoman depended on the source, as McBee felt the national television media would make her seem extreme or a “big mouth.” She admitted sometimes it can get her riled up to get behind politicians like Bachmann when it seemed the media was attacking her.

“We can pretty well recognize who we’re in agreement with and so we will probably support anyway,” McBee said. “But yeah, you might feel more determined, but we kind of do that anyway to those we’re in agreement with.”

The repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the U.S. military’s policy of banning openly gay servicemembers, was signed into law late last year. Nevertheless, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) has already introduced a bill that would require the signature of chiefs of the four branches of the military to sign off on the repeal as well. Republican Rep. John Kline is among 18 cosponsors of the bill.

The San Diego Union-Tribune:

Hunter, a Marine combat veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, is calling the legislation the Restore Military Readiness Act.

“The idea behind the Restore Military Readiness Act is not necessarily to prevent the implementation of the DADT repeal, but rather to ensure that military readiness and combat effectiveness are not adversely impacted,” Hunter said in a statement.

“Given that the service chiefs carry most of the day-to-day responsibilities for each service branch, their independent certification is just as important and equally necessary.”

The current law requires the president, the secretary of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to sign off on the repeal.

A new Government Accountability Office report says the military spent over $193 million between 2004 and 2009 to replace around 3,660 troops. A Palm Center study in 2006 reported $363.8 million was spent by the military in the policy’s first ten years.

It’s worth noting that though Gen. James Amos — a Marine Corps Commandant — opposed the repeal, he said he would implement it anyway if Congress passed a law.

Cosponsors of the legislation include:

Rep Bartlett, Roscoe G. [MD-6]
Rep Bilbray, Brian P. [CA-50]
Rep Chaffetz, Jason [UT-3]
Rep Conaway, K. Michael [TX-11]
Rep Davis, Geoff [KY-4]
Rep Fleming, John [LA-4]
Rep Franks, Trent [AZ-2]
Rep Gibbs, Bob [OH-18]
Rep Gingrey, Phil [GA-11]
Rep Huelskamp, Tim [KS-1]
Rep Kline, John [MN-2]
Rep Lamborn, Doug [CO-5]
Rep Luetkemeyer, Blaine [MO-9]
Rep Manzullo, Donald A. [IL-16]
Rep Miller, Jeff [FL-1]
Rep Pearce, Stevan [NM-2]
Rep Rogers, Mike D. [AL-3]
Rep West, Allen B. [FL-22]

The Federal Communications Commission passed a set of rules Tuesday “to preserve basic Internet values,” but advocates of net neutrality say the new rules do not go far enough. Sen. Al Franken called the measures “simply inadequate,” while Republicans have vowed to push to repeal the new framework.

Under the new rules, telecommunications companies cannot discriminate in what internet content they allow to their customers to access. Net neutrality advocates have said that without a framework, large businesses could pay large telecommunications companies to direct internet traffic to their businesses without the consumer knowing that other websites had been skipped over, a practice known as paid prioritization.

Under the rules, telecoms can only manage their data in that manner if there is network congestion or spam, and they must disclose their policies should they plan to manage the data.

“The FCC’s action today is simply inadequate to protect consumers or preserve the free and open Internet,” Sen. Franken said in a statement following the FCC vote. “I am particularly disappointed to learn that the order will not specifically ban paid prioritization, allowing big companies to pay for a fast lane on the Internet and abandoning the foundation of net neutrality. The rule also contains almost no protections for mobile broadband service, remaining silent on the blocking of content, applications, and devices. Wireless technology is the future of the Internet, and for many rural Minnesotans, it’s often the only choice for broadband.”

Franken did give the commission some credit, however. “I’m particularly encouraged by the inclusion of language cautioning that the FCC’s silence on certain kinds of discriminatory behavior by wireless carriers doesn’t tacitly condone it. While this is far from adequate, it stops us from taking a step backward.”

Hours after the vote, Republicans in Congress vowed to repeal the new FCC framework saying it could hurt profits for telecoms.

A bill authored by Rep. Betty McCollum to prevent child marriage abroad was defeated in the House late last week by Republicans who said the bill might fund abortion. The International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act passed the Senate unanimously early last week without Republican objection. McCollum called the GOP’s efforts to kill the bill “blatant phony arguments.”

The bill was created to “provide assistance, including through multilateral, nongovernmental, and faith-based organizations, to prevent the incidence of child marriage in developing countries and to promote the educational, health, economic, social, and legal empowerment of girls and women as part of the strategy established pursuant…to prevent child marriage in developing countries.”

But when the bill reached the House after the Senate, Republican leaders circulated a memo urging members of the party to vote against the bill.

“The bill provides little structure or oversight on how the money may be spent,” the memo read. “The President is authorized under this bill to provide assistance through nongovernmental organizations that are charged with the promotion of ‘health’ of girls and women. It is possible that some of these NGOs may view abortion as health care and promote abortion services as a part of that health care.”

Under House rules, the bill needed a two-thirds majority to pass because the bill was fast-tracked on the chamber’s suspension calendar.

All DFL members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation voted for the bill, as did Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen. Reps. Michele Bachmann and John Kline voted against the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act.

McCollum was miffed at the failure of the bill which was expected to pass easily in the House. Calling the statements that the bill would fund abortions “completely untrue,” she said, “The International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act failed last night not because of the issue, but because a handful of Republicans chose partisan politics over the basic human rights of young girls. I am truly disappointed in this result, but I’m not giving up on these children.”

She added, “Senate Democrats and Republicans didn’t play partisan politics in this vote; they unanimously recognized that the United States can and should become a leader in the fight against child marriage. Had this legislation contained abortion provisions or authorized new spending, it never would have unanimously passed the Senate.”

After nearly a year of confrontational advocacy, a controversial immigration reform bill has passed the U.S. House.

The DREAM Act — the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act — passed the House by a 216-198 margin Wednesday. CNN reports the vote was mostly along partisan lines. In Minnesota that was true, except in one case: Blue Dog Democrat Collin Peterson sided with Republicans Michele Bachmann, John Kline and Erik Paulsen in opposing the bill. Eight Republicans voted for the bill.

If approved by the Senate, the legislation would create a pathway to citizenship for youth brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents. Under the proposal, a youth would have to have been brought to the U.S. before age 16, spent at least five years in country and obtained a high school diploma or a GED. If a youth meets those requirements he or she then would have six years to complete two years of college or university studies or a tour in the U.S. military. They will also have to pass a background check.

President Barack Obama, who supports the legislation, issued a statement praising the House vote:

I also congratulate the House for moving past the tired sound bites and false debates that have pushed immigration rhetoric into the extremes for far too long. The DREAM Act is not amnesty; it’s about accountability, and about tapping into a pool of talent we’ve already invested in. The DREAM Act is a piece of a larger debate that is needed to restore responsibility and accountability to our broken immigration system broadly. My administration will continue to do everything we can to move forward on immigration reform; today’s House vote is an important step in this vital effort.

Youth advocates have been engaged in a full court pressure campaign to push for passage of the legislation. The pressure was ratcheted up last spring when a group of undocumented youth staged a sit-in protest in the Arizona offices of Sen. John McCain. They were arrested and later released. But upon release they were seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Rep. Keith Ellison, who voted for the measure, said the act is “about giving young adults the ability to reach their potential rather than punishing them for their parents’ circumstances.” He called the bill “a significant step toward fixing our broken immigration system” and urged his Senate colleagues to quickly pass the DREAM Act.

Opponents of the measure claim it is amnesty and will open the door to legalizing millions of undocumented residents.