Now that Michele Bachmann has announced she’s not running for reelection, we’re beginning to wonder what Congress will be like without her and her many totally reasonable claims, like that Democratic presidents are linked to swine flu and the HPV vaccine causes mental retardation.
But while Bachmann may be retiring from Congress, her many predictions live on. Here are five of the wildest among them:
1. Obama will impose Sharia law
As the leader of a group of House Republicans that sought an investigation into Muslim-American staffers of the Obama administration, Bachmann repeatedly warned that administration officials and President Obama himself are determined to impose Sharia law in the US and around the world and take away the freedom of speech, religion, press and assembly.
2. Obama creating slavery, reeducation camps
At a 2010 conservative summit, Bachmann maintained that the first years of the Obama administration was part of an effort to turn “our country into a nation of slaves.” Ironically, Bachmann had signed a Religious Right group’s candidate pledge which said that African-American families were better off under slavery than “after the election of the USA’s first African-American president.” She also warned that Obama will create “re-education camps for young people” by expanding AmeriCorps, an organization of which her own son is a member, and might use the Census to put people into internment camps.
3. God will repeal Obamacare
After leading an unsuccessful prayer effort to stop Congress from passing Obamacare, she has consistently guaranteed that the law will be rescinded. If not, Bachmann has claimed that the law will “literally kill” people, institute “death panels,” deny health care to conservatives and government critics and establish school “sex clinics” with abortion services. Earlier this month she told James Dobson that “God is going to answer our prayers” and compel Obama to repeal the health care law.
4. Schools will turn kids gay
Bachmann began her political career by working in education issues, and as Religious Right activist, she naturally thought that public schools will teach kids to be gay, warning that soon “all schools will begin teaching homosexuality” and “little K-12 children will be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal, natural, and perhaps they should try it,” even suggesting that schools will use Elton John music in the Lion King to turn kids gay. “It’s part of Satan I think to say that this is “gay.” It’s anything but gay,” Bachmann said at a conference hosted by the far-right group EdWatch, “If you’re involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement.”
5. God backed her presidential bid
While on the campaign trail (and after), Bachmann invoked God as a supporter of her presidential bid, and she also called on God to put together her campaign operations. Of course, she finished last among major contenders in the Iowa caucus with just over 6,000 votes, and her campaign team was plagued by infighting and is currently under investigation for campaign violations.
