In US, the End Is Nigh!

In a last-ditch, desperate attempt to kill health-care reform, the captains of America's religious right and the Tea Party Nation turned their lonely eyes to her -- the conservative queen of crazy, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. -- and a supporting cast of angry white men.

"So here we are; we're at the bottom of the ninth," Bachmann told (video) a Capitol Hill gathering of several hundred Tea Party protesters on Tuesday morning. "We've won every inning so far -- so that should feel pretty good."

"Yeah!" the crowd yelled back.

"All we have to do is to keep this up until Saturday," Bachmann said, "...and we are gonna kill the bill." Saturday was the day on which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was expected to call a vote on the health-care reform legislation.

If the size of the crowd around Bachmann on a beautiful Washington, D.C., morning was any indication, the grass roots of the Tea Party movement appeared to have thrown in the towel on their opposition to health-care reform. While a similar rally led by Bachmann in November drew thousands to Capitol Hill, today's event, promoted by the astroturfing group, FreedomWorks, drew a mere fraction of that number. At the Tuesday rally, Bachmann held back on some of the more colorful rhetoric she displayed at a "Kill the Bill" rally she headlined in her home state two Saturday's ago, at which she compared President Barack Obama and Pelosi to Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez, and declared Obama to be "the first post-American president."

Quoting a story in the New York Post, a right-wing paper once owned by Rupert Murdoch, she referred to the tactics of House Speaker Pelosi as being akin to those of the television mafia family, the Sopranos. (Pelosi is Italian.) "If they can't get these congressmen to vote with sugar," she said, "now they're going to come in with sticks."

Bachmann also predicted that Pelosi would begin making ethics charges against Republicans come election time. That's what happens, she said, "if you cross Nancy Pelosi."

Those damn 'demons'

At the Minnesota rally, Bachmann decried the proposed use of a procedural maneuver, calling the tactic "dictatorial" and "tyranny." She contended it had never been done before (actually, it has -- and by Republicans), adding that the people would not be bound to obey a bill passed in this manner.

"We are not compelled to follow a non-law," Bachmann said, "just because Obama and Pelosi tell us we have to."

Bachmann's use of the word "tyranny" is right-wing code for the people's right to overthrow a despotic ruler -- by armed insurrection, if necessary. "The government is working against us," she told her followers.

While Bachmann stood alone at her Minnesota rally, the Tuesday gathering on Capitol Hill drew a handful of members of Congress, including Louie Gohmert, R-Tex., who described the health-care bill as "an abortion," and complained of "demons" surrounding the bill.

Never mind the truth

But if a big right-wing day in the battle against demons and phantom socialist tyrants begins with Michele Bachmann, it apparently must end with her, too. Not to be outdone by their secular Tea Party compatriots, the Family Research Council's political arm, FRCAction, webcast an anti-health-care reform program for which Bachmann was the closer, arriving on the FRC set a bit breathless from a prior engagement on Fox Newschannel.

Throughout the webcast, FRC president Tony Perkins implored his viewers to contact their members of Congress, which was easy to do thanks to a pre-loaded email form that linked to the webcast page. Much of the FRC webcast was devoted to advancing the false claim that the Senate version of the health-care bill will funnel taxpayer dollars to subsidize health insurance that covers abortion. Actually, anyone receiving a subsidy who wants abortion coverage must write a separate check for that coverage. But abortion being a great rallying point for the religious right, why let the truth get in the way?

"What can people do?" Perkins asked Bachmann.

"As the Bible says," Bachmann responded, "'the men of Issachar understood the times, and knew what to do."

What the men of Issachar knew to do was to kill King Saul of Israel and replace him with King David (1 Chronicles, 12:32). Among Saul's sins against Yahweh was his use of black magic.

"Call like crazy to Democrat members of Congress," Bachmann said. "Don't bother calling Republican offices -- every Republican in the House, every Republican in the Senate, has said they're voting 'no' on the bill." She went on to direct viewers to a page on the FRC website where viewers would find a list "of members who really could use a call."

Bachmann went on to contend that in the last 18 months, the federal government has "taken over 30 per cent of the private economy." She dated it back to the Bush bank bailout, and subsequent rescues of the auto industry and the financial sector. The health-care bill, she said, would represent the government takeover of an additional 18 percent -- never mind that the government doesn't take over anything in the health-care bill, but instead enables existing insurers to gain 30 million new customers.

Whose army?

To close out the show, Perkins brought in Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, which is best known for its rabidly anti-gay activism. Perkins asked Fischer for some "action steps."

"Well, I think it is important, Tony, to re-emphasize the importance of prayer," Fischer said. "The Army of God is the only army that marches on its knees."

The Army of God is also the name of an anti-abortion group that advocates the murder of doctors who perform abortions.

"We understand that there are powerful spiritual forces at work here," Fischer continued. "Abortion is the ultimate spiritual issue. Satan is the god of death. God is the God of life. So, we need to be in prayer about this."