Photo: MnIndy

On Wednesday Rep. Michele Bachmann was part of a star-studded “teletownhall” meeting to discuss health-care reform. The event, billed “Keeping Faith with the Unborn,” was sponsored by the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion advocacy group. The organization’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, claimed that there were some 350,000 listeners on the line.

Bachmann was joined by North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx, most famous for calling Matthew Shepard’s murder a “hoax,” and former Colorado Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, who made national headlines by refusing to concede after losing her re-election contest November. But even with such veteran political pugilists sharing the phone line, Bachmann managed to distinguish herself during the 90-minute phone call.

The 6th district Republican quoted the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, attacked Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for receiving political contributions from a medical doctor who was murdered in May, and called on everyone to get down on their knees and pray that health care reform fails. Bachmann didn’t always make sense, but she undoubtedly scared the living daylights out of anyone on the line.

Bachmann repeated the myth, adopted early by Sarah Palin, that the health-care plans being debated in Congress would set up “death panels” to determine which old folks are entitled to health care. “Thank God that Sarah Palin said that,” she told the callers. “These are true.”

In response to a caller from Minnesota who wanted to know if there was a plan afoot in Washington to require all medical doctors to perform abortions, Bachmann didn’t exactly shoot the suggestion down.

“Unless we explicitly restrict these items, I think we can fully expect that these radical pro-abortion individuals could very likely make those decisions,” she told the caller. “All of us who have labored tirelessly in the pro-life cause for years and years and years, we know what these people are capable of. That’s why they have to be tied down by restrictions explicitly in law.”

She also suggested that it might be some kind of religious destiny that hardy souls such as herself are in Congress at this time.

“We all need to consider that in God’s timing that he may have allowed us, as members of Congress, to be in the position that we’re in just for this specific issue right now,” she said. “Everything that all of us have worked together and labored for over the years, all of it could be undermined with this one bill. President Obama realizes that. The radicals that are on the pro-abortion left, they realize that. They could win it all. And the unborn, and the vulnerable, the disabled and those at the end of life could lose it it all.”

But it was Bachmann’s fervent call to utilize prayer and fasting to beat back health-care reform efforts that was the true highlight of the call.

“That’s really where this battle will be won — on our knees in prayer and fasting,” she told the listeners. “Remember: faith without works is dead. So we’re asking you to do all of it: pray, fast, believe, trust the Lord, but also act.”

Listen:

The panel will also feature former Colorado Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, a conservative firebrand who was soundly defeated last year, and North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx, who has promoted the myth that health care reform will result in senior citizens being euthanized.

The Family Research Council, a religious right organization that opposes equal rights for gays and lesbians, rushed to the aid of Rep. Michele Bachmann in the wake of Anti-AmericaGate. They also rallied around Colorado Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, a Republican who has made opposition to same-sex marriage her signature issue in Congress.

In a letter to the Republican National Congressional Committee titled “NRCC Abandons Social Conservatives,” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote, “You have made a grave error in judgment by pulling your funds from the Michelle Bachmann race in Minnesota and the Marilyn Musgrave race in Colorado,” he said. “The left is attacking both of these outstanding women because they are true conservatives.”

Despite the economy and the Iraq War dominating voters’ concerns this November, Perkins says it’s Bachmann’s and Musgrave’s extreme views on abortion and homosexuality that will sway voters.

“They vote pro-life and pro-family. Both Congresswomen are against taxpayer funding of abortion. Both oppose embryonic stem cell research, and both are for a Marriage Protection Amendment,” he said. “These are issues that motivate voters. These are issues they and other conservative candidates have won and can win with.”

MnIndy: A tool of the Religious Right?

The Family Research Council used reporting by the Minnesota Independent in its newly released voter guide (PDF) touching on abortion, same-sex marriage, “special protections for homosexuals” and stem-cell research. “Erik Paulsen runs away from Republicans and his own record” is used to bash Ashwin Madia on social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, as are other reports from our coverage of the 3rd Congressional District debates. View their source guide (PDF).

Pro-lifer’s canceled speech riles right-wingers

“In Minnesota, there is another brilliant example of liberals trying to indoctrinate their views on college students,” wrote Crystal Clear Conservative. “The College of St. Catherine is banning Bay Buchanan from speaking on campus, because the college administration believes her speech would be a direct violation of their 501(c) (3) status.”

SCSU Scholars blog cried foul. “Bay Buchanan is neither a candidate nor engaged in a campaign or debate for any candidate,” read a post at the popular St. Cloud blog (its contributors helped arrange the Buchanan visit). The Republican Party-affiliated Young America’s Foundation suggested “a more sinister motive behind the cancellation of Ms. Buchanan’s speech and an utter contempt for intellectual diversity.”

Despite protestations that Buchanan is not campaigning for any candidate, Buchanan held an impromptu gathering across the street, hailing Sarah Palin’s candidacy. SCSU Scholars wrote, “As Bay stated, Sarah was not exactly the icon these feminists wanted. Sarah is (horrors) a Republican, a Christian and a mom who kept her child even after she knew it would have health problems. And, like it or not, she’s the new face of feminism.”

Despite outcries from the right wing, the college has been bipartisan in its policies. It banned Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton from appearing at the college this week and last month told DFL Senate candidate Al Franken he could not speak on campus.

Anti-Obama abortion mailers hitting Minnesota mailboxes

The Susan B. Anthony List has printed 500,000 of these mailers to send to mailboxes in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania this week. The two-sided mailer features a lenticular print on the front: when viewed from one angle, a baby is visible; from another, it’s gone.

Click the image for a larger size:

The ads say, in part (MP3):

In Minnesota, 39 innocent children are lost every day, 39 children every day. And what does comedian Al Franken want to do about it? Nothing. Franken says he supports abortion on demand. It’s no wonder radical pro-abortion groups have embraced Al Franken. They want to overturn the ban on gruesome partial birth abortions, force you to pay for abortions with your tax dollars, and allow young girls to get abortions without their parents consent. Al Franken and his allies are wrong. Call Al Franken right now at 612-344-2008 and tell him MN deserves leaders we can trust to protect life. tell him every life counts and this is no laughing matter.

“While Senate candidates like Al Franken in Minnesota and Kay Hagan in North Carolina hide their extreme support for abortion on-demand from the voters, we are there to expose it,” SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser told the religious right website Lifesite.com. “American voters deserve to know the truth about who really is – and isn’t – on the side of unborn children.”

The group opposes any and all abortion, including those resulting from rape or incest. Like the name suggests, SBA List’s original focus was on progressive pro-life candidates who opposed abortion, but promoted social welfare policies that reduce the need for abortion.

In the late-1990s and early-2000s, the group underwent a transformation as Republican insiders took over the group, aligning its activities close to those of the religious right.

The group is also focusing three other states: Colorado, New Hampshire and New Mexico.