Why haven't we seen any stories on Bachmann's 23 foster children?

[spooky3]

I generally wish that personal lives and family members would be kept out of campaigns, but when politicians speak with pride about something they have done, such as foster 23 children, during a debate or campaign speech, then they are essentially saying that they are more qualified than other candidates, in part based on this action. Therefore, the media have a responsibility to fact-check--within reasonable limits.

Specifically, I want to know how long each child stayed in the home, and what happened to cause them to leave the home. Surely Bachmann didn't keep each of the 23 from the time they entered the system, until they were 18 or 21. But that is what she implies when she talks about them. Who cared for the children while foster mom and dad were working?

I also understand that MN pays $30 per day per child. While that clearly doesn't cover the real costs of caring for a child, I wonder if there are any reasons to have concerns.

I do NOT want to know the children's names or any personal information, nor do I want any journalist to bother the children or do anything that might cause any of them to be harmed. All of the above information ought to be in archives.

And, obviously, any male candidate who claimed to foster 23 children and touted it repeatedly while campaigning or debating should be subjected to exactly the same fact-checking.

[Ian David]

1. One of them is bound to write a Mommy Dearest book, someday.

I wonder if she makes them all sign nondisclosure agreements?

[Exilednight]

2. I heard two today. One on NPR and the other on PRI. Neither was

very in depth, but they did speak of it briefly.

[spooky3]

3. Thanks. Did they address the questions I raised?

[Exilednight]

9. The pundits mostly addressed the 23 kids and how being a foster parent

can't be taken away from her good deeds.

As much as I can't stand Bachman, I give her credit for being a foster parent - providing she provided a safe home.

[spooky3]

10. My analogy to the Navy Seal still applies.

Being a foster parent or not is irrelevant to the job of President. As for how much admiration to have for her as a person, for me it depends on whether her claims of what she actually did are well- founded. No one deserves to get a pass on claims they make during a campaign. It's the job of the media to investigate them and present the facts. I'll reserve judgment until then.

[aaaaaa5a]

4. I still would like to know the ethnic breakdown the kids.

My guess is that you would have to work pretty hard to get 23 consecutive "white" foster kids from the state.

[Bjorn Against]

5. If you want dirt on Bachmann's family values hypocrisy listen to her step sister

But Michele Bachmann's Christian testimony has not endeared her to everyone in her family. When Bachmann held a hearing on the gay marriage ban at the Capitol last April, she got a rude surprise: Sitting just a few feet away was her stepsister, Helen LaFave, who chose the occasion to come out publicly for the first time, with her partner of 20 years in attendance. "This issue has been very hurtful to me personally, and divisive for our family," LaFave told the Star Tribune at the time. Bachmann said at the time that she had taken a family vote on the gay marriage ban, and that family members favored it by a 6-3 margin. But both Michael and Helen LaFave insist she never spoke to them about it. Helen LaFave added that Bachmann ignored letters LaFave had sent her about the matter.

(Helen LaFave, 46, declined to be interviewed for this story, saying, "My dad is in his 80s now, and it's too much to have all of this out there for him.")

"I've got to be clear that I've always been kind of proud of Michele," Michael LaFave says cautiously. That all went sour, though, as Bachmann increasingly became the face of the efforts to ban gay marriage at the Capitol. LaFave had no choice but to take things personally: "I wrote her an e-mail, and asked very nicely why she had to carry the water on this, knowing that my father has a gay daughter. How could she discriminate against Helen?

"She's out there courting a family values agenda, but she's saying things about her own family that's not true," he claims. "She could have been talking to the voters the whole time about having a gay sister," he says. "That at least would have been honest. Dick Cheney had the good sense to do that with his daughter. He had the good sense to know not to engage the base, to not get involved in the debate, because he knew how much it would hurt his daughter. If anyone spent the most time together between the LaFaves and the Ambles," LaFave concludes, "it was Michele and Helen.

"What I'd say to Michele is that you've got a situation here that you didn't have to create. You didn't have to go about it this way," he says, and pauses before announcing he'll likely vote for Patty Wetterling. "I'd say, 'Michele, for all of this, you've lost your family. You've lost my vote.'"

http://www.citypages.com/2006-10-04/news/the-chosen-one/5/

[spooky3]

8. Thanks. It's not "dirt" I'm seeking; it's the truth about how much work she

did with the foster kids, which I strongly suspect is much less than she implies.

If so, it's like claiming to have been a navy seal for many years, when you really were a sailor who left at your first opportunity, and may have been a mediocre one.

I suspect she kept many if not most of the kids for a few weeks, as a transition, until they were moved to a longer term placement. Nannies may have had primary responsibility. If so, this is a useful service and deserves some credit, but hardly constitutes "raising" them.

[Lil Missy]

6. Most of them turned out to be gay.

:rofl: :rofl:

[Beaverhausen]

7. At least she doesn't parade them around like Palin

but, she did bring them up, so I guess the story is at least fair game.

[boppers]

11. $1,259,250.... tax free.

http://wonkette.com/211978/michele-bachmanns-baby-farm

[Honeycombe8]

12. First time I've heard this. nt

[boppers]

13. More details/info:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/14/michele-bachmanns-unrivaled-extremism-gay-rights-to-religion.html

--
Bachmann often says she has "raised" 23 foster children. That may be a bit of a stretch. According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Bachmann's license, which she had for 7 1/2 years, allowed her to care for up to three children at a time. According to Kris Harvieux, a former senior social worker in the foster care system in Bachmann's county, some placements were almost certainly short term. "Some of them you have for a week. Some of them you have for three years, some you have for six months," says Harvieux, who also served as a foster parent herself. "She makes it sound like she got them at birth and raised them to adulthood, but that's not true."

Yet Bachmann clearly had some of her foster children long enough to enroll them in local schools, and it was through them that she got involved in school politics. While she taught her own children at home before sending them to private Christian schools, state law required foster kids to go to public school. Seeing their curriculum, she became convinced that "politically correct attitudes, values, and beliefs" had supplanted objective education. She helped found a charter school but soon left the board amid allegations that she was trying to inject Christianity into the curriculum. Then, in 1999, she decided to run for the local school board.
---

[spooky3]

15. Thanks, that's a good start, but clearly more info is needed.

[Avant Guardian]

14. There was a movie about them

It was called, 'Jesus camp.'

[treestar]

16. So Obama's community service was not relevant

to the Presidency, but raising foster children is?

:rofl: Republican is becoming a synonym for hypocrite.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

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[tanyev]

18. Sounds more like she was an Aunt watching over pregnant Handmaids.