Welcome
We would like to welcome you to our new Sherburne County DFL website. We hope you find our new website useful and informative. The section you are now reading is our News and Commentary section. We will be updating this section weekly or more often as issues and news occur. Each week a commentary will be offered and you will have an opportunity to respond. We encourage you to send comments, news articles, or other information you think should be publicized. Agree or disagree with what’s said here because the Democrats of our country believe in an open discourse of ideas and information. You can send your editorials or news items to tbeckfeld@yahoo.com.
Did she really say that?
Commentary by Tom Beckfeld
Our Congressperson Michele Bachmann is known for being on the far right fringes of today’s political climate but the statements made by her recently make me wonder if she’s not on the verge of insanity. In an interview with Larry Schumacher published in his pod cast Bachmann had several remarkable quotes.
In speaking about the sectarian civil war in Iraq, She said (and I’m
not making this up)
“I don’t accept the scenario that’s it’s
a simple civil war, with a proviso that there is a measure of fighting,
most definitely between the Shia and the Sunni. But let’s remember,
the Shia and Sunni were fast friends for years. This is a recent
development that has come up. They’ll go back to being brothers
again in their country and they won’t be hated enemies…This
isn’t like Bosnia,”
Well she got one thing right; this isn’t a simple civil war.
Bachmann saved her most outrageous statements about a secret deal between Iran and Iraq, one which apparently only she knows about.
“Iran is the trouble maker, trying to tip over apple carts all over Baghdad right now because they want America to pull out. And do you know why? It’s because they’ve (Iran & Iraq) already decided to partition Iraq. And half of Iraq, the western, northern portion of Iraq, is going to be called, um, the the Iraq State of Islam something like that. And I’m sorry, I don’t have the official name, but it’s meant to be the training ground for the terrorists. There’s already an agreement made. They are going to get half of Iraq and that is going to be a terrorist free safe haven zone….”
Now I know many of you are thinking that this is just that nutty Bachmann. But keep in mind that nutty Bachmann is now a U.S. Congressperson, assistant minority whip in the House of Representative no less. She states here in no uncertain terms that an agreement has been reached between the governments of Iraq and Iran that cedes half of Iraqi territories to the Nation of Iran for the purpose of waging war against the United States and its Allies. She does this with a smile on her face and all the casualness of ordering a latte at Starbucks.
How can we take anything this woman says with the seriousness it deserves? Imagine for a moment that this statement came from another congressperson say Nancy Pelosi or Keith Ellison, anybody with credibility. The News media would be going crazy. But from Bachmann everybody seems to expect that a crazy statement is the norm for her. Well folks for the next two years we will tell you what Bachmann says and does. And that takes us to our next crazy representative who also benefits from the fact that nobody pays any attention to what he says or does;The Mark Olson Update!
When we last left Mark he was flush from victory having been elected to his 8th term. But less than a week later he was being released from the Sherburne County Jail, Charged with 2 counts of 5th degree assault after an alleged altercation with his wife. After a weekend in the drunk tank a tearful Olson seemed subdued and contrite. (A weekend in the drunk tank will do that to you). He begged forgiveness from his constituents, God and his wife in that order. God may have forgiven him but his wife had no objection to the six-month restraining order placed on Olson. His constituents have yet to be asked their opinion. Now three months later the subdued and contrite Olson is a thing of the past. Olson is now saying (through his lawyer - the 3rd since this began) that Heidi is to blame. “She was coming after him,” his lawyer said. “He was trying to control the situation.” While we can only speculate on Heidi’s motives, After viewing Olson’s long winded speeches on the House floor many a Representative understood Heidi’s need to throttle him, anything to get him to stop speaking. Olson said he hired his new lawyer to speed the process along. Mark is the first person I know of who hires a lawyer to increase the speed of anything. This speedy lawyer’s first action of Olson’s 4th court appearance was to ask for a new arraignment to start the process all over again. “Denied!” the judge said. Speedy lawyer then asked to delay the trial until after the legislative session in late May. Denied again, the Judge then offered three dates for Olson’s trial, March, April and May. Wanting to move the process ahead as quickly as possible Olson Jumped on May 9th. When questioned by reporters after the hearing Olson said he would try to get the date moved up. Yea sure. Clearly Olson is trying to delay this as much as possible to avoid the ethics hearing that’s sure to follow. Many of his former Republican colleagues have already called for his resignation should he be found guilty. The longer he delays the longer he receives that government check and the health insurance that goes with it. If he can get the House to delay until next session Olson will receive these benefits until next January and by then the whole matter will all have blown over.
How bad is he?
