Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) is by no means the only member of Congress willing to believe bizarre ideas, but even among her strange colleagues, the right-wing Minnesotan tends to be the most outlandish of the bunch.
This week, for example, Bachmann appeared on Glenn Beck’s website, complaining about comments from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who recently explained to lawmakers that contraception access helps lower medical costs overall. The failed former presidential candidate didn’t find the observation compelling.
“Going with that logic, according to our own Health and Human Services Secretary, it isn’t far-fetched to think that the President of the United States could say, ‘We need to save health care expenses — the federal government will only pay for one baby to be born in the hospital per family, or two babies to be born per family.’ That could happen. We think it couldn’t?”
It’s possible, I suppose, that Bachmann doesn’t know what “far-fetched” means.
For what it’s worth, one of the network’s hosts seemed slightly taken aback, questioning whether it’s realistic to think U.S. officials would ever “advocate a one-child policy like communist China.”
Let that dynamic linger in your mind for a moment: Glenn Beck’s network thinks Michele Bachmann’s ideas seem a little over the top.
This is, however, how nutty ideas start. Some politician makes an unhinged claim — about, say, “death panels” — and soon Fox News personalities start telling viewers that “some critics of the administration” believe the president may embrace a one-child policy. For the record, this is madness, and the argument has no foundation in reality. But for Bachmann, it’s par for the course. Remember the time she argued that the U.S. Census may lead to “internment camps“? How about when she warned of a “one-world currency” because she got confused about what a global reserve currency is? Or maybe the time she thought the “Lion King” was secretly gay propaganda? How about the time she said a bipartisan national service bill could lead to “re-education camps“? Or when she labeled public school medical clinics as “sex clinics“? Given her track record, of course Bachmann thinks a one-child policy “could happen.”
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