title: North East England

text: Today, the members of the Northeast of England Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC) represent about one third of the regional industrial economy. The NEPIC is constituted by commodity chemical, petrochemical, speciality chemical, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, polymer, renewable material and renewable energy companies and the associated supply chains. The Teesside industry is located on three large chemical sites at Wilton, Billingham and Seal Sands at the mouth of the River Tees and Teesport, the third largest port in the UK and the tenth in Western Europe and is important logistical infrastructure supporting the commodity chemical and steel members of NEPIC. In the 21st century PD Ports, owners of Teesport, have been developing it as a Port Centric Logistical Centre. This strategy has seen a number of significant importing and distribution facilities for the north of the UK being built here, including distribution centres for the distribution operations of Asda/Walmart and Tesco supermarket chains.


title: North East England

text: NEPIC has two offices in the region: one in the north in Sunderland, serving the pharmaceutical and speciality chemical industries on Tyneside and in south Northumberland, and one in the south at Wilton near Redcar, serving the commodity chemical and steel industry of Teesside and operating amongst several process sector and supply chain companies that work out of the process industry research centre, The Wilton Centre, one of Europe's largest technical development laboratory facilities. The head office of the Centre for Process Innovation, part of the UK's High Value Manufacturing Catapult, is based in this multi-occupancy technical development centre along with their pioneering National Industrial Biotechnology Facility.


title: North East England

text: George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public inter-city railway line in the world to use steam locomotives. Renowned as the father of railways George Stephenson was born in Wylam, Northumberland, 9.3 miles (15.0 km) west of Newcastle upon Tyne.


title: North East England

text: Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (31 October 1828 – 27 May 1914) was a British physicist and chemist from Sunderland, County Durham now the (City of Sunderland). He is most famous for inventing an incandescent light bulb before its invention by the American Thomas Edison. Swan first demonstrated the light bulb at a lecture the Literary and Philosophical Society and Miners Institute on Mosley Street, Newcastle upon Tyne on 18 December 1878. Mosley Street, Newcastle upon Tyne is reputed to be the first street in the world to be lit by electric light.


title: North East England

text: Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine in 1884, and having foreseen its potential to power ships he set up the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company with five associates in 1893. To develop this he had the experimental vessel built in a light design of steel by the firm of Brown and Hood, based at Wallsend on Tyne. He also pioneered in the field of electricity generation, establishing the Newcastle and District Electric Lighting Company in 1889. The company opened the first power station in the world to generate electricity using turbo generators in 1890, at Forth Banks in Newcastle.


title: North East England

text: William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, CB, FRS (26 November 1810 – 27 December 1900) was an effective Tyneside industrialist who founded the Armstrong Whitworth manufacturing empire. He was responsible for the development of the hydraulic crane and many military armaments. His house at Cragside, Northumberland was the first in the world to be lit by hydro-electricity, using incandescent lamps provided by the inventor Joseph Swan.


title: North East England

text: In 1936 the first commercially viable production of acrylic safety glass, Perspex, began by ICI Acrylics and the material is still manufactured in the region by Lucite International now part of Mitsubishi Corporation. During the Second World War acrylic glass was used for submarine periscopes, windshields, canopies, and gun turrets for airplanes. Shortages in raw materials and price pressures have led to innovation by Lucite who developed their patented Alpha Technology in this region. This technology is now the leading technology used in the manufacture of acrylics around the world. It uses new feedstock's and has a cost advantage of 40% over conventional processing methods.


title: North East England

text: Newcastle University was the first in the UK and the second in Europe to receive a licence to perform research on stem cells and is a leading centre for such research today. Dr Karim Nayernia was the first to isolate spermatagonial stem cells at this University. Many new healthcare developments have arisen from this stem cell expertise in the region.


title: North East England

text: Durham University, Newcastle University, Northumbria University, University of Sunderland and Teesside University, which have a portfolio of many innovative businesses that have spun out of their research and teaching departments.


title: North East England

text: Businesses in Northeast England are supported by the North East England Chamber of Commerce. The Northeast Chamber of Commerce (NECC) is based in Durham and has active sub committees working in all sub regions.


title: North East England

text: To further encourage SMEs in the North East of England to Export, the Northeast Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC) has collaborated with the Northeast Chamber of Commerce (NECC) and RTC North Limited to create a jointly owned subsidiary company Go Global Limited to manage the contract they have to deliver the United Kingdom Trade & Investment (UKTI), Government funded, support products and programme for all business sectors in their region. The UKTI business support products, to help grow international trade, are focused on supporting individual SMEs to grow their exports and they also support Trade Missions to new markets.


title: North East England

text: The Northern Business Forum is an organisation created in the region to share knowledge and best practice between membership based business support organisations in the Northeast of England. The Forum creates a single voice for business when this is needed. This business led forum also links its member organisations to wider business issues, both locally and nationally, through the local and national business membership organisations that are also represented. Members of the forum include NECC, NEPIC, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), Confederation of British Industry (CBI) North East, the Make UK Northern, The Institute of Directors (IOD) and RTC North.


title: North East England

text: RTC North provide business expertise in specific growth areas such as product innovation, market research, technology transfer, commercialisation, business growth. North East Access to Finance (NEA2F) operates a business growth fund to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMES).


title: North East England

text: Businesses investing in the region are supported by the Local Enterprise Partnerships of Tees Valley (part of the TVCA) and the North East. Both these organisations manage enterprise zones (Invest North East England and Tees Valley Business) to encourage new business investors. There are also several Industry and Business led Cluster bodies in the region to network and engage companies on a sector basis and give local business-to-business advice and supply chain intelligence: the Northeast of England Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC) (chemicals-polymers-pharmaceuticals-biotech), the Northern Offshore Federation (NOF) (energy and offshore engineering), Service Network (accountants-finance-law firms-HR) and Make UK (defence related engineering), Design Network North (DNN) (design issues for all sectors.)


title: North East England

text: The Invest North East, was announced by the government in 2011. The zone focuses on technology for low carbon vehicle development, marine offshore and subsea engineering, petrochemicals and renewable energy. At the time of announcement the enterprise zone included two clusters of sites, an Ultra Low Carbon Vehicle zone in Sunderland and a zone on the River Tyne North Bank. The Sunderland cluster is close to the Nissan plant and includes Turbine Business Park. It hosts Gateshead College's Future Technology Centre. The cluster on the Tyne includes the Port of Tyne North Estate, Swan Hunter in North Tyneside, and Neptune Yard in Newcastle. The zone was launched in April 2012. In that year another cluster of sites, composing the Blyth Estuary Renewable Energy Zone at Port of Blyth, was added to the zone. The enterprise zone contains ten sites over the three clusters, covering in total.


title: North East England

text: The region has a diverse landscape that includes maritime cliffs and extensive moorland that contains a number of rare species of flora and fauna. Of particular importance are the saltmarshes of Lindisfarne, the Tees Estuary, the heaths, bogs and traditional upland hay meadows of the North Pennines, and the Arctic-alpine flora of Upper Teesdale.


title: North East England

text: The beauty of the Northumbrian coastline has led to its designation as an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB)


title: North East England

text: stretching 100 miles from Berwick-Upon-Tweed to the River Coquet estuary. Among the 290 bird species identified on the Farne Islands, is the rare seabird the roseate tern. One of the foremost bird sanctuaries and observatory for migratory and wading birds in the UK is now operated at "Saltholme" which is part of a wider site of special scientific interest called Seal Sands. The Saltholme reserve is managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). This project has been pronounced as one of the best places to view birds by Bill Oddie, the celebrity bird watcher and former host of the BBC's "Spring Watch" Programme. In December 2012 he also presented the project with a prize as the UK's favorite National Lottery funded project. The seal colony at Seal Sands on the mouth of the River Tees is thriving and stands at more than 60 harbour seals and this is the only breeding colony of this species on the northeast coast. "Rainton Meadows" is also a recently created bird-watching site. The region is also the English stronghold of black grouse and contains 80–90% of the UK population of yellow marsh saxifrage.


title: North East England

text: The Magnesian Limestone grasslands of East Durham are a unique habitat not found anywhere else in the world which is particularly important to many species of butterfly and moths.


title: North East England

text: The Northeast of England also features woodland such as Kielder Forest, the largest man-made forest in Europe. This is located within Northumberland National Park and contains an important habitat for the endangered red squirrel.


title: North East England

text: The North East's main arterial carriageway is the A1 road, which mirrors the East Coast Main Line's course. In County Durham this road is of motorway standard and is known as the A1(M), and in March 2018 a section of A1(M) was opened between Barton and Leeming Bar in North Yorkshire providing a continuous link to the motorway network in the rest of England. However, the A1 is still an all-purpose road in Tyne and Wear and Northumberland, and is controversially still single carriageway north of Morpeth, despite being the main trunk route connecting Edinburgh and Newcastle upon Tyne and having a terrible safety record.


title: North East England

text: A second north–south dual carriageway link is provided by the A19 which heads north from Thirsk (accessed via the A168 from the A1(M) at Dishforth), serving Teesside, Peterlee and Sunderland before heading through the Tyne Tunnel to meet the A1 at Seaton Burn. The Tyne Tunnel was opened as a single-carriageway in 1967, with a second tunnel opening in February 2011 for dual-ing.


title: North East England

text: The course of the A1 through Tyne and Wear has changed twice during the late 20th century. Originally passing through the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne then, in 1977, it was re-routed to the east of the city through the Tyne Tunnel. In 1993 a second rerouting occurred, along Newcastle Western Bypass, west of the city. Each of these resulted in standing roads to be renumbered, the A1 forms the boundary and roads between beginning with 1 and 6.


title: North East England

text: The A66 (Tees Valley) and A68 (often following the Roman road Dere Street) are cross-country roads over the North Pennines. The A69 heads west along the Tyne Valley to Carlisle in Cumbria.


title: North East England

text: The ferry terminal at North Shields is accessed via the A187 from the Tyne Tunnel. DFDS operate two ferries a day to Amsterdam and, formerly, one a day on the Stavanger – Haugesund – Bergen route.


title: North East England

text: The two main airports are Newcastle Airport, located north of the city near Ponteland, and Teesside International Airport, located east of Darlington.


title: North East England

text: The region's population is served by a charitable service known as the Great North Air Ambulance for those who need rapid transfer to a hospital or medical assistance in difficult or remote locations.


title: North East England

text: Long term planning for transport in the region has involved the development of sub regional strategies. This planning also needs to take into account region wide transport schemes such as those carried out by the Highways Agency and Network Rail. These activities in the United Kingdom now fall into the remit of the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) which in the Northeast of England are Tees valley Unlimited and the North East LEP. Bodies such as the Northeast Chamber of Commerce (NECC) and the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) are providers of significant practical insights to policy makers.


title: North East England

text: Within the region the local transport authorities plan for the future by producing Local Transport Plans (LTP) which outline their strategies, policies and implementation programmes. The most recent LTP is that for the period 2006–11. In the North East region the following transport authorities have published their LTP online: the 5 Tees Valley authorities, Durham, Tyne and Wear and Northumberland.


title: North East England

text: There are over 250 nursery/primary schools in the County Durham area of the north east, which range from schools with their own nursery, to schools that are either infant only or junior only. Areas such as Gosforth have first schools which have neither years 5 nor 6, and therefore educate children up to the age of 8 and 9.


title: North East England

text: The North East education system consists largely of comprehensive schools, but a number of private and independent schools are found in Newcastle, Sunderland, Durham, Darlington, Stockton and in particular, Northumberland.


title: North East England

text: in 2014 a number of the regions schools were in the top 20% of schools as measured by SSAT — the UK organisation for school improvement and collaboration — and have been awarded an SSAT Educational Outcomes Award recognising their successes. These schools are Burnside Business & Enterprise College, in Newcastle, Castle View Enterprise Academy, in Sunderland, Emmanuel College, in Gateshead, Greenfield Community College, in Newton Aycliffe, Northumberland Church of England Academy, in Ashington and The North Durham Academy in Stanley. The awards, recognised high attainment and outstanding continuous improvement.


title: North East England

text: The schools in the top 20% for high attainment in GCSE exams were Burnside Business and Enterprise College and Northumberland Church of England Academy


title: North East England

text: The region's secondary school attendance is the lowest in England at around 125,000, with the next lowest in the East Midlands. Truancy at its schools is a mixed picture. It has the second highest overall rate for urban areas, after Yorkshire and the Humber, but the lowest rate in England in its rural areas. Middlesbrough has the region's highest rate with 7.2% persistent truants, which is the second highest rate in England after Manchester (7.3%). Next is Newcastle upon Tyne, with 6.4%, then the former district of Wansbeck, with 6.3%


title: North East England

text: At General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) level, the region's performance is similar to that of other largely urban areas, although its results are generally below the national average. Middlesbrough tends to perform the worst, and to produce results well below the national average. Local education authorities (LEAs) in the North East have improved at GCSE in recent years. North Tyneside performed the best in 2011, followed by Gateshead, Northumberland, and Darlington. No LEA in the North-East was above the 2011 national GCSE average. South Tyneside was the lowest for the English Baccalaureate, followed by Middlesbrough and Hartlepool. Gateshead and North Tyneside were the highest, and Gateshead was the only LEA above the national average for this measure.


title: North East England

text: The region's parochial schools tend to perform better at GCSE. These include St Thomas More Catholic School in Blaydon, the selective independent state school Emmanuel City Technology College in Gateshead, All Saints C of E School in Ingleby Barwick, English Martyrs School and Sixth Form College in Hartlepool, St Bede's Catholic School and Sixth Form College in Lanchester, County Durham, and the Carmel RC Technology College in Darlington. Other regional schools that perform well include Whitley Bay High School, Marden High School in Cullercoats, the Macmillan Academy in Middlesbrough, Park View School in Chester-le Street, and the Hurworth School near Darlington. Many area schools do not have a sixth form, especially in Teesside, Sunderland and South Tyneside, but all Northumberland schools have a sixth-form along with a three-tier system of education. Middlesbrough and Newcastle have the most students who pass no GCSEs.


title: North East England

text: North East LEAs at A-level are improving, but produce results below those of other areas of England. Sunderland performed the best in 2011, with consistently good results, followed by Hartlepool and Darlington, which are above the national average, and unrepresentative of most areas in the North East. Darlington's Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College is one of the highest-rated colleges in England. The area's Catholic schools all do reasonably well at A level. Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar, and Cleveland and Newcastle were also above England's average. Newcastle does significantly better at A-level than at GCSE, with consistent improvement, while Gateshead does much worse at A-level than GCSE, and produced the second lowest A-level results in the region in 2009. The worst results at A-level were from Middlesbrough, Durham, South Tyneside and Gateshead. South Tyneside had in previous years been consistently the region's worst performing LEA at A-level.


title: North East England

text: Dame Allan's Schools, Royal Grammar School (NRGS), Barnard Castle School and Durham School are all members of The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. The Central Newcastle High School and the Royal Grammar School were named as among the nation's top 100 independent schools in 2006. Durham School is considered to be one of the oldest schools in the UK, and its Old Boys were the founding members of the original Newcastle Falcons Rugby club. Mowden Hall School, a selective day and boarding prep school in Northumberland, is another independent school. In the region, school children from Northumberland are most likely to attend university, followed by Stockton on Tees and North Tyneside.


title: North East England

text: There are sixteen further education colleges in the region. The main such colleges are East Durham College, Newcastle College, New College Durham, Darlington College, Gateshead College, Bishop Auckland College, Stockton Riverside College, Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, Hartlepool College of Further Education, Middlesbrough College, Cleveland College of Art and Design and Sunderland College.


title: North East England

text: The region is well served by higher education institutions, with two Russell Group universities: Newcastle University and Durham University. These universities have a diverse student body, attracting students from across the UK and the world.


title: North East England

text: Additionally, the North East is home to modern universities including Northumbria University in Newcastle, the University of Sunderland, and Teesside University in Middlesbrough.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Michele Marie Bachmann (; née Amble; born April 6, 1956) is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for from 2007 until 2015. A member of the Republican Party, she was a candidate for President of the United States in the 2012 election, but lost the Republican nomination to Mitt Romney.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Born in Waterloo, Iowa, Bachmann moved to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, as a teenager. She graduated from O. W. Coburn School of Law, the law school of Oral Roberts University, and the William & Mary Law School. After graduating, she briefly worked in tax law for the Internal Revenue Service before becoming a stay-at-home mom. She became involved in local politics, specifically around education.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann formally entered politics in 2000, when she was elected to the Minnesota Senate. In 2006, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. After her unsuccessful run for president, Bachmann was elected to another term in the House in 2012, before announcing her retirement before the 2014 election.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Since January 1, 2021, Bachmann has been dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann was born Michele Marie Amble on April 6, 1956, in Waterloo, Iowa, to Norwegian-American parents David John Amble, an engineer, and Arlene Jean Amble (née Johnson). Two of her great-great-great-grandparents, Melchior and Martha Munson, emigrated from Sogndal, Norway, to Wisconsin in 1857. Her family moved from Iowa to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, when she was 13 years old. After her parents divorced when she was 14, David moved to California and remarried. Bachmann was raised by her mother, who worked at the First National Bank in Anoka, Minnesota, where they moved again. Three years later her mother married widower Raymond J. LaFave; the new marriage resulted in a family with nine children.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann graduated from Anoka High School in 1974 and, after graduation, spent one summer working at kibbutz Be'eri in Israel. In 1978, she graduated from Winona State University with a B.A. In 1979, Bachmann was a member of the first class of the O. W. Coburn School of Law, then a part of Oral Roberts University (ORU). There she studied with John Eidsmoe, whom she described in 2011 as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me". Bachmann worked as a research assistant on Eidsmoe's 1987 book "Christianity and the Constitution", which argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy and should become one again. In 1986, she received a J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University. Bachmann was a member of the ORU law school's final graduating class, and was part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved the ORU law school library to what is now Regent University. In 1988, she received an LL.M. degree in tax law from William & Mary Law School. From 1988 to 1993, she worked as an attorney for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Bachmann left the IRS to become a full-time mother when her fourth child was born.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann grew up in a Democratic family and has said she became a Republican during her senior year at Winona State University. She told the "Star Tribune" that she was reading Gore Vidal's 1973 novel "Burr" and that Vidal "was kind of mocking the Founding Fathers and I just thought—I just remember reading the book, putting it in my lap, looking out the window and thinking, 'You know what? I don't think I am a Democrat. I must be a Republican. While still a registered Democrat, she and her then-fiancé, Marcus, were motivated to join the anti-abortion movement after watching Francis Schaeffer's 1976 Christian documentary film "How Should We Then Live?" They prayed outside clinics and engaged in sidewalk interference, an activity in which anti-abortion activists attempt to persuade women entering clinics not to get abortions. She has since made statements supportive of sidewalk interference. She supported Jimmy Carter for president in 1976, and she and her husband worked on his campaign. During Carter's presidency, she became disappointed with his approach to public policy, support for legalized abortion and economic decisions she held responsible for increased gas prices. In the 1980 presidential election, she voted for Ronald Reagan and worked for his campaign.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann's political activism gained media attention at an anti-abortion protest in 1991. She and approximately 30 other protesters went to a Ramsey County Board meeting where $3 million was to be appropriated to build a morgue for the county at St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center, now known as Regions Hospital. The Medical Center performed abortions and employed pro-choice activist Jane Hodgson. Bachmann voiced her opposition to tax dollars going to the hospital; to the "Star Tribune", she said, "in effect, since 1973, I have been a landlord of an abortion clinic, and I don't like that distinction". In 1993, she and six other cofounders started the K–12 New Heights Charter School in Stillwater. The publicly funded school's charter mandated that it be non-sectarian in all programs and practices, but the school soon developed a strong Christian orientation. Parents of students at the school complained and the superintendent of schools warned her that the school was in violation of state law. Six months after the school's founding, she resigned and the Christian orientation was removed from the curriculum, allowing the school to keep its charter. She then began speaking against a state-mandated set of educational standards, including her opposition to School-to-Work policies, which propelled her into politics. In November 1999, she and four other Republicans were candidates in an election for the school board of Stillwater; they were not elected.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann became a Minnesota state senator after defeating incumbent Gary Laidig in district 56 in 2000. After redistricting due to the 2000 Census, she defeated Jane Krentz, a Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) incumbent, in district 52. As state senator, her agenda included opposition to abortion and gay marriage. Bachmann and Mary Liz Holberg, a Minnesota Representative, proposed a constitutional amendment that would bar the state from legally recognizing same-sex marriage in November 2003. She reintroduced the proposal in 2005; it failed when it stalled indefinitely in the Minnesota Senate Judiciary committee. She served as assistant minority leader n charge of policy of the Senate Republican Caucus from November 2004 to July 2005, when the Republican Caucus removed her from the position. She said that disagreements with Dick Day, the Republican Senate minority leader, over her anti-tax stance caused her ouster.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: From 2007 to 2015, Bachmann represented , which included the northernmost and eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities and St. Cloud. She became the first Republican woman from Minnesota to be elected to the House of Representatives.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann voted "No" on a January 2007 resolution in the House of Representatives opposing President George W. Bush's plan to increase troop levels in Iraq, but called for a full hearing in advance of the troop surge, saying, "the American people deserve to hear and understand the merits of increasing U.S. troop presence in Iraq. Increased troop presence is justifiable if that measure would bring a swift conclusion to a difficult conflict." She hesitated to give a firm endorsement, calling the hearings "a good first step in explaining to the American people the course toward victory in Iraq." Later that year, she went to Iraq, where she said she was convinced that "the war effort is heading in the right direction."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In July 2007 Bachmann joined a Congressional delegation visiting Ireland, Germany, Pakistan, Kuwait, and Iraq. She met briefly (due to security concerns) with U.S. personnel in the Green Zone and upon her return said she "was encouraged by reports of progress from Crocker, General David Petraeus and other personnel in Iraq linked to the surge". She said the surge "hasn't had a chance to be in place long enough to offer a critique of how it's working. [Petraeus] said al-Qaida in Iraq is off its plan and we want to keep it that way. The surge has only been fully in place for a week or so."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann also spoke of the delegation's visit to Islamabad to meet Pakistani Prime Minister Aziz at the same time as the siege of Islamic fundamentalists at the Lal Masjid mosque elsewhere in the city. She reported, "The group [of U.S. Legislators] had to travel in armored vehicles and was constantly accompanied by Pakistani military ... We were all able to see extremely up close and personal what it's like to be in a region where fighting is occurring. We constantly felt like we were in need of security." Bachmann told reporters upon her return that "the dangers posed by Islamic terrorism in Iraq, Britain and Pakistan justified the continued American military presence in Iraq." She said, "We don't want to see al-Qaida get a presence in the United States. Al-Qaida doesn't seem to show any signs of letting up. We have to keep that in mind."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: On July 11, 2007, Bachmann voted against the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. The act raised the maximum Pell grant from $4,310 to $5,200, lowered interest rates on subsidized student loans from 6.8% to 3.4%, raised loan limits from $7,500 to $30,500, disfavored married students who filed joint tax returns, provided more favorable repayment terms to students who could not use their education to prosper financially, and favored public sector over private sector workers with much more favorable loan forgiveness benefits. Supporters of the bill said it would allow more students to attend college and prosper for the rest of their lives.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann said she opposed the act because "it fails students and taxpayers with gimmicks, hidden costs and poorly targeted aid. It contains no serious reform of existing programs, and it favors the costly, government-run direct lending program over nonprofit and commercial lenders." The bill passed the House and was signed by President Bush.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: During the summer of 2008, as national gasoline prices rose to over $4 a gallon, Bachmann became a leading Congressional advocate for increased domestic oil and natural gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Outer Continental Shelf. She joined ten other House Republicans and members of the media on a Congressional Energy Tour to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, and to Alaska. The trip was arranged by Arctic Power, an Alaskan lobbying group that advocates for ANWR development. Its purpose was to receive a firsthand account of emerging renewable energy technologies and the prospects of increased domestic oil and natural gas production in Alaska, including ANWR.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann rejects the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real, progressing, and primarily caused by humans. She has claimed that global warming is "all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax" and has been called "one of the GOP's loudest global warming skeptics." She has claimed, baselessly, that "because life requires carbon dioxide and it is part of the planet's life cycle, it cannot be harmful." On the House floor on Earth Day 2009, Bachmann said she opposed cap and trade climate legislation, again making disproven claims that "carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, it is a harmless gas. Carbon dioxide is natural; it is not harmful ... We're being told we have to reduce this natural substance to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is naturally occurring in the earth."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In March 2008 Bachmann introduced H.R. 849, the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act. The bill would have repealed two sections of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 signed into law by George W. Bush. The 2007 Energy Act mandates energy efficiency and labeling standards for incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. Bachmann's bill would have required the Government Accountability Office to show that a change to fluorescent bulbs would have "clear economic, health and environmental benefits" before enforcing lighting efficiency regulations. The bill would have allowed these standards to remain in place if the comptroller general found they would lead to consumer savings, reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and pose no health risks to consumers (such as risks posed by the presence of mercury in fluorescent bulbs). The bill languished in the House and became inactive at the end of the 110th Congress. Bachmann reintroduced the bill in March 2011.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: On June 3, 2008, President Bush signed the Credit and Debit Card Receipt Clarification Act (H.R. 4008) into law. The bipartisan bill, which Bachmann cosponsored with Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), removed statutory damages for violations of a 2003 federal law prohibiting merchants from printing consumers' credit card numbers and expiration dates on sales receipts, in order to end class-action lawsuits aimed at businesses that violated the law.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann opposed both versions of the Wall Street bailout bill for America's financial sector. She voted against the first proposed $700 billion bailout of financial institutions, which failed to pass, by a vote of 205–228. She also advocated breaking up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and barring executives from excessive compensation or golden parachutes, and advocated a plan that would suspend mark-to-market accounting rules and suspend the capital gains tax.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: The American auto companies approached Congress to ask for roughly $15 billion in loans to keep them operational into 2009. Bachmann criticized that bill, fearing that the initial sum of money would be followed by subsequent ones without the companies making changes to revive their business. Bachmann supported an alternative plan for American auto companies and the rest of the auto industry that would have set benchmarks for reducing their debt and renegotiating labor deals and have set up the financial assistance as interim insurance instead of a taxpayer-financed bailout.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: On October 17, 2008, Bachmann gave an interview on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" in support of the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain that brought the Minnesota 6th Congressional District race national attention. During the interview she criticized Barack Obama for his association with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, saying, "usually we associate with people who have similar ideas to us, and it seems that it calls into question what Barack Obama's true beliefs, and values, and thoughts are ... I am very concerned that he [Obama] may have anti-American views." She noted the bombing campaign orchestrated by Bill Ayers before discussing his association with Obama, arguing that "Bill Ayers is not someone the average American wants to see their president have an association with." Matthews followed up by asking "But he <nowiki>[Obama]</nowiki> is a Senator from the state of Illinois; he's one of the members of Congress you suspect of being anti-American. How many people in the Congress of the United States do you think are anti-American? You've already suspected Barack Obama; is he alone or are there others?" Bachmann answered, "What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating exposé and take a look ... I wish they would ... I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they pro-America, or anti-America. I think people would love to see an exposé like that."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In response, the five Democratic members of Minnesota's congressional delegation—Tim Walz, Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison, Collin Peterson and Jim Oberstar—issued a joint statement questioning Bachmann's ability to "work in a bipartisan way to put the interests of our country first in this time of crisis." Former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson said her comments had influenced their decisions to endorse Obama for president.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann brought up the interview before business leaders and Republicans during a campaign stop in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on October 21, 2008. She claimed she never intended to question Obama's patriotism. "I made a misstatement. I said a comment that I would take back. I did not, nor do I, question Barack Obama's patriotism ... I did not say that Barack Obama is anti-American nor do I believe that Barack Obama is anti-American ... [But] I'm very concerned about Barack Obama's views. I don't believe that socialism is a good thing for America." At a March 2010 fund-raiser for the Susan B. Anthony List, Bachmann said, "I said I had very serious concerns that Barack Obama had anti-American views—and now I look like Nostradamus". In March 2011 she was asked on "Meet the Press" whether she still believed that Obama held un-American views. She responded, "I believe that the actions of this government have—have been emblematic of ones that have not been based on true American values." Pressed for clarification, she said, "I've already answered that question before. I said I had very serious concerns about the president's views."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: On March 26, 2009, following comments by China proposing adoption of a global reserve currency, Bachmann introduced a resolution calling for a Constitutional amendment to bar the dollar from being replaced by a foreign currency. Current law prohibits foreign currency from being recognized in the U.S., but Bachmann expressed concerns relating to the president's power to make and interpret treaties. Earlier that month, at a Financial Services Committee hearing, Bachmann asked both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke whether they would reject calls for the U.S. to move away from the U.S. dollar and they replied that they would.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In a June 17, 2009, interview with "The Washington Times", Bachmann expressed concern that the questions on the 2010 United States Census had become "very intricate, very personal" and that ACORN, a community organizing group that had come under fire the previous year, might be part of the Census Bureau's door-to-door information collection efforts. She said, "I know, for my family, the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home. We won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that." According to Politifact, her statement was incorrect, as the Constitution does require citizens to complete the census. Fellow Republican Representatives Patrick McHenry (N.C.), Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.) and John Mica (Fla.), members of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Archives, which oversees the census, subsequently asked Bachmann not to boycott the population count.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Along with Congressman Ted Poe (Tex.-02), Bachmann introduced the American Community Survey Act to limit the amount of personal information the U.S. Census Bureau solicits. She reiterated her belief that the census asked too many personal questions.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In March 2009 Bachmann was interviewed by the Northern Alliance Radio Network and promoted two forums she was hosting the next month in St. Cloud and Woodbury about Obama's proposed cap-and-trade tax policy to limit greenhouse gas emissions. She said she wanted Minnesotans "armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back." Bachmann's office quickly clarified that she was speaking metaphorically, meaning "armed with knowledge". According to the "Star Tribune", her quote went viral across the Internet.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In 2009 Bachmann became a critic of what she characterized as proposals for mandatory public service. Of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, an expansion to AmeriCorps (a federal community service organization), she said in April:


title: Michele Bachmann

text: The original bill called for an exploration of whether a mandatory public service program could be established, but the section on creating a "Congressional Commission on Civic Service" was stripped from the bill.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In August 2009 Bachmann's political opponents publicized in the local media and the blogosphere what they described as the "ironic" fact that her son, Harrison, joined Teach for America, part of the AmeriCorps program.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann contributed to the "death panel" controversy when she read from a July 24 article by former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey on the House floor. Sarah Palin said that her "death panel" remark was inspired by what she called the "Orwellian" opinions of Ezekiel Emanuel as described by Bachmann, who accused him of advocating health care rationing by age and disability. According to "PolitiFact" and "Time", Bachmann's euthanasia remarks distorted Emanuel's position on health care for the elderly and disabled. FactCheck.org stated, "We agree that Emanuel's meaning is being twisted." When many doctors wanted to legalize euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, Emanuel opposed it.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: On August 31, 2009, Bachmann spoke at an event in Colorado, saying of Democratic health care overhaul proposals that: She outlined ideas for changing the health care system, including: "Erase the boundaries around every single state when it comes to health care", enabling consumers to purchase insurance across state lines; increase the use of health savings accounts and allow everyone to "take full deductibility of all medical expenses", including insurance premiums; and tort reform.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann denounced the government-run health insurance public option, calling it a "government takeover of health care" that would "squeeze out private health insurance".


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In a November 3, 2010, interview with Anderson Cooper, while discussing spending cuts for Medicare and Social Security suggested by Representative Paul Ryan, Bachmann was asked what spending cuts she would make to reduce the deficit. She cited President Obama's then-upcoming visit to Asia as an example, saying it "is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day. He's taking two thousand people with him. He'll be renting out over 870 rooms in India. And these are 5-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. This is the kind of over-the-top spending—it's a very small example, Anderson." Bachmann was apparently referring to information in a story from the Press Trust of India, attributed to "a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit", information that was also published in U.S.-based media such as The Drudge Report. A Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell, dismissed the report's claim that 34 warships were accompanying the President as "comical". The White House said that the press report figures were "wildly inflated" and had "no basis in reality". While stating that they could not give the actual projected figures for security reasons, staffers maintained costs were in line with the official travel costs of previous presidents Bush and Clinton.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: After the 2010 elections and Representative Mike Pence's announcement that he was stepping away from his leadership position in the House, Bachmann announced her intention to seek the position of House Republican Conference Chair. As Bachmann was the founder of the House's Tea Party Caucus, her announcement caused some to see the leadership election as "an early test of how GOP leaders will treat the antiestablishment movement's winners". Many among the House's Republican leadership, including Eric Cantor and the retiring Pence, were quick to endorse Representative Jeb Hensarling for the position; Speaker-to-be John Boehner remained neutral on the issue. Supporters of Bachmann's run included Representatives Steve King, John Kline, Louie Gohmert, Chip Cravaack, and Erik Paulsen, as well as media personality and political commentator Glenn Beck. Listing her qualifications for the position, Bachmann noted, "I've done an effective job speaking out at a national and local level, motivating people with our message, calling attention to deficits in Obama's policy. I was instrumental in bringing tens of thousands of people to the U.S. capitol to rally against Obama care and to attend our press conference." She noted her work to keep the Tea Party within the GOP rather than having it become a third party, thereby helping the party capture the House, saying, "I have been able to bring a voice and motivate people to, in effect, put that gavel in John Boehner's hands, so that Republicans can lead going forward. …It's important that leadership represents the choice of the people coming into our caucus….I think I have motivated a high number of people to get involved in this cycle who may have sat it out and that have made a difference on a number of these races. I gave a large amount of money to NRCC and individual candidates and started Michele PAC, which raised $650,000 for members since July, so I was able to financially help about 50 people out."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann's bid suffered a setback when she was passed over for the GOP's transition team on which Hensarling was placed. Despite Bachmann's leading all other Representatives in fundraising, a Republican aide said some "members are getting resentful of Bachmann, who they say is making the argument that you're not really a Tea Party supporter unless you support her. That's gone through the formation of the Tea Party Caucus and the formation of this candidacy of hers. It's just not so." Sarah Palin, with whom Bachmann had campaigned earlier in the year, declined to endorse her leadership bid, while other Tea Party favorites, Representatives Adam Kinzinger and Tim Scott, were placed on the transition team. According to some senior House staff members, the party leadership was concerned about some of Bachmann's high-profile faux pas, the high rate of turnover among her staff, and how willing she would be to advance the party's messaging rather than her own.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: On November 10 Bachmann released a statement ending her campaign for Conference Chair and giving Hensarling her "enthusiastic" support.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: House Speaker John Boehner selected Bachmann for a position "on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, giving her a new role as overseer of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community." Bachmann, who had "not served on any committee that deals with foreign policy issues" requested the position, "a move that has fueled speculation that she may be planning to carry the Tea Party banner into the GOP presidential primaries."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Soon after beginning her third term, Bachmann introduced legislation to repeal the Dodd–Frank financial reform law. She said, "I'm pleased to offer a full repeal of the job-killing Dodd–Frank financial regulatory bill. Dodd–Frank grossly expanded the federal government beyond its jurisdictional boundaries. It gave Washington bureaucrats the power to interpret and enforce the legislation with little oversight. Real financial regulatory reform must deal with these lenders who were a leading cause of our economic recession. True reform must also end the bailout mind-set that was perpetuated by the last Congress." She also took issue with the law for not addressing the liabilities of the tax-payer funded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Bachmann's bill was endorsed by conservative groups such as the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity. It gained four other Republican co-sponsors, including Representative Darrell Issa, who became the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at the start of the 112th Congress. Bachmann's call for total repeal was seen as more drastic than the approach advocated by her fellow Republican Spencer Bachus, who became the House Financial Services Committee Chairman when Republicans gained the House majority. Bachus planned "to provide 'vigorous' oversight of regulators efforts to reform banking and housing ... reform Fannie and Freddie", and "dismantle pieces of [the] Dodd–Frank Act that he believes 'unnecessarily punish small businesses and community banks.'" In response to Bachmann's legislation Representative Barney Frank said, "Michele Bachmann, the Club for Growth, and others in the right-wing coalition have now made their agenda for the financial sector very clear: they yearn to return to the thrilling days of yesteryear, so the loan arrangers can ride again—untrammeled by any rules restraining irresponsibility, excess, deception, and most of all, infinite leverage." It was seen as unlikely that Bachmann's legislation would pass, with the "Financial Times" writing, "Like the Republican move to repeal healthcare reform, Ms. Bachmann's bill could be passed by the House of Representatives but be blocked by the Senate or White House."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann responded to Obama's 2011 State of the Union speech on the Tea Party Express website; her speech was broadcast live by CNN. She insisted that her response was not intended to counter Paul Ryan's official Republican party response. When asked whether the speech was an indication of competition with Ryan and Boehner's leadership team, Bachmann dismissed such a view as "a fiction of the media", saying she had alerted Ryan and the leadership team that her response might go national and that no objections were raised.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann continually called for repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). On March 4, 2011, Bachmann, one of the six House Republicans to vote against the continuing resolution that gave a two-week extension until a possible government shutdown, expressed her unhappiness with its passage.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In an appearance on "Meet the Press" on March 6 and during a March 7 interview with Sean Hannity, Bachmann claimed that the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats had hidden $105 billion in spending in the overhaul of the American Health Care System. She portrayed the Democratic leadership as timing the release of the bill's text to avoid detection of the spending. "We didn't get the bill until a literally couple of hours before we were supposed to vote on it", she said. She also said the spending was split up within different portions of the bill to mask its total cost. Bachmann was told this by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which claimed to have read the tallies of the Congressional Research Service and Congressional Budget Office.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: According to some reports of the costs, "about $40 billion would go to the Children's Health Insurance Program, $15 billion would go to Medicare and Medicaid innovation programs, and $9.5 billion would go to the Community Health Centers Fund." As the funds are designated mandatory spending (not controlled by the annual appropriations acts), the funds would have remained even if the move to defund the reform law had succeeded.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann stated that $16 billion of the money gives Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius a "slush fund ... [to do] whatever she wants with this money." She called on the bills supporters to return the money, saying, "I think this deception that the president and [former House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid put forward with appropriating over $105 billion needs to be given back to the people."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: When asked during the Meet the Press interview if she would take back her previous comments that Obama "may have anti-American views" and that his administration had "embraced something called gangster government", Bachmann stood by her statements, saying, "I do believe that actions that have been taken by this White House—I don't take back my statements on gangster government. I think that there have been actions taken by the government that are corrupt ... I said I have very serious concerns about the president's views, and I think the president's actions in the last two years speak for themselves."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In response to Bachmann's charges, Chief Deputy Democratic Whip Jan Schakowsky, who served on the House health subcommittee, pointed out that the report in question was an update of a report that came out in October 2010 and that the costs were spelled out in both the bill and the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of its cost, saying, "Michele Bachmann obviously didn't read the bill, because there was absolutely nothing hidden in that legislation." Schakowsky said the costs were not kept secret, citing the $40 billion for the Children's Health Insurance Program as an example: "There was a robust debate about whether or not that should be included, etc. So this idea of somehow, now at the last minute, there was a secret addition to some kind of funding ... is absolute nonsense."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In a September 2011 Republican presidential debate in Tampa, Bachmann criticized Rick Perry for his support for the humanpapilloma virus (HPV) vaccine and his support for mandating the HPV vaccine for all sixth-grade Texas girls. The American Academy of Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and other medical organizations worldwide support immunizing girls and boys against HPV. HPV can cause lesions and genital warts, and has been linked to cervical cancer as well as genital and oral cancers in people of any gender. Because the vaccine is effective only if given before the onset of sexual activity and subsequent exposure to the virus, medical groups recommend the three-dose vaccine be given to 11- and 12-year-olds. During the debate and in interviews afterward, Bachmann accused Perry of "crony capitalism" (because Perry's former chief of staff was chief lobbyist for a drug company manufacturing the vaccine), and baselessly claimed that the HPV vaccine was dangerous and caused "mental retardation." She repeatedly referred to an anecdotal account from a mother of a girl who had been immunized for HPV, saying, "She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered mental retardation thereafter ... There is no second chance for these little girls if there is ["sic"] any dangerous consequences to their bodies." Shortly after Bachmann's statements at the debate, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement: "The American Academy of Pediatrics would like to correct false statements made in the Republican presidential campaign that the HPV vaccine is dangerous and can cause mental retardation. There is absolutely no scientific validity to this statement. Since the vaccine has been introduced, more than 35 million doses have been administered, and it has an excellent safety record." Fewer than one percent of those receiving the vaccine reported neurological side effects or, in rare cases, severe allergic reactions, none linked to changes in cognitive ability. Bachmann later acknowledged that she was not a doctor or a scientist.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In June–July 2012, Bachmann and several other Republican legislators sent a series of letters to oversight agencies at five federal departments citing "serious security concerns" about what Bachmann has called a "deep penetration in the halls of our United States government" by the Muslim Brotherhood. They requested formal investigations into what Bachmann called "influence operations" by the Brotherhood.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann also accused Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Rep. Anthony Weiner's wife, of having family connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann's comments have drawn what "The Washington Post" calls "fierce criticism from fellow lawmakers and religious groups." In a speech on the Senate floor, 2008 Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain denounced Bachmann's charges as "specious and degrading". He defended Abedin as a "hard-working and loyal servant of our country and our government" and stated "these attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis and no merit. They need to stop now." House Speaker John Boehner termed Bachmann's allegations "dangerous", and other Republicans have also criticized the remarks. Ed Rollins, Bachmann’s former campaign manager, called on her to apologize to Abedin and characterized her allegations as “extreme and dishonest.”


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In a letter to Bachmann, her colleague Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., a Muslim, asked for evidence backing her claims and stated, "Your response simply rehashes claims that have existed for years on anti-Muslim websites and contains no reliable information that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S. government".


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann replied that "the intention of the letters was to outline the serious national security concerns I had and ask for answers to questions regarding the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical group's access to top Obama administration officials". In a July 19 interview with radio and TV show host Glenn Beck, Bachmann repeated and expanded her allegations, accusing Ellison of having "a long record of being associated with the Council on American–Islamic Relations and with the Muslim Brotherhood". Ellison replied that "I am not now, nor have I ever been, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In 2013, Bachmann was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, the Federal Election Commission, the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee, the Urbandale Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation because of alleged campaign finance violations in her 2012 campaign for president.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: It is alleged that members of her staff made under-the-table payments, that funds were illegally transferred from her leadership PAC to pay consultants for her presidential campaign and that hidden payments were made to Iowa State Senator Kent Sorenson.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Additionally, a lawsuit was filed alleging that Bachmann and several former staffers stole and misused an Iowa homeschool group's e-mail distribution list. The trial, "Heki v. Bachmann", had been set for May 14, 2014, but the case was settled out of court on June 28, 2013.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: On July 26, 2013, the House Ethics Committee announced they were conducting a full investigation of Bachmann, saying that they had received a referral from the Office of Congressional Ethics.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: On May 29, 2013, Bachmann announced that she would not seek reelection to her Congressional seat in 2014. In a June 2013 Fox News interview, she said she was "not going silent" and would remain involved in politics. She did not rule out a future run for office, or even the White House. With her retirement from Congress, the ethics investigations against her were dropped. During a December 2017 New Year's weekend interview with televangelist Jim Bakker, Bachmann said that she was considering running for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Al Franken but was awaiting "God's counsel" before deciding.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: David Lightman and Trevor Graff, writing for McClatchyDC, argued that Bachmann left a "legacy of political missteps and lots of incendiary rhetoric—often loaded with false accusations and wild exaggerations."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in public school science classes. During a 2003 interview on the KKMS Christian radio program "Talk The Walk", Bachmann said that evolution is a theory that has never been proven one way or the other. She co-authored a bill (with no additional endorsements among her fellow legislators) that would require public schools to include alternative explanations for the origin of life as part of the state's public school science curricula. In October 2006, Bachmann told a debate audience in St. Cloud, Minnesota, "there is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact or not ... There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design." Despite this, there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that evolution is real, and that intelligent design is not. Indeed, at least one news report presenting a "sampling of Bachmann's ... ludicrous or plain old false claims", stated that Bachmann’s claims are untrue, and that "when the science isn't on [Bachmann's] side, she simply improvises."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann has praised the Christian youth ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International (YCRBYCH), hailing "the group's work of sharing the gospel in public schools". She appeared as a keynote speaker at their fundraisers in 2006 and 2009. Following a 2011 controversial invocation for the Minnesota House, YCRBYCH founder Bradlee Dean declared that criticisms of him and his ministry were also "intended to harm and destroy the presidential campaign of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann ... [who] previously praised and prayed for the work of my ministry".


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann has had a history of opposing anti-bullying legislation. In 2006, she told the Minnesota Legislature that passing an anti-bullying bill would be a waste of time. "I think for all of us, our experience in public schools is there have always been bullies", she said. "Always have been, always will be. I just don't know how we're ever going to get to the point of zero tolerance ... What does it mean? ... Will we be expecting boys to be girls?"


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In the Minnesota Senate, Bachmann opposed minimum wage increases. In a June 2011 interview, she did not back away from her earlier proposal to eliminate the federal minimum wage, a change she said would "virtually wipe out unemployment."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In a 2001 flyer, Bachmann and Michael J. Chapman wrote that federal policies manage a centralized, state-controlled economy in the United States. She wrote that education laws passed by Congress in 2001, including "School To Work" and "Goals 2000", created a new national school curriculum that embraced "a socialist, globalist worldview; loyalty to all government and not America." In 2003, Bachmann said that the "Tax Free Zones" economic initiatives of Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty were based on the Marxist principle of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." She also said the administration was attempting to govern and run centrally planned economies through the Minnesota Economic Leadership Team (MELT), an advisory board on economic and workforce policy Pawlenty chaired. Before her election to the state senate, and again in 2005, Bachmann signed a "no new taxes" pledge sponsored by the Taxpayers League of Minnesota. As a state senator, she introduced two bills that would have severely limited state taxation. In 2003, she proposed amending the Minnesota Constitution to adopt the "Taxpayers' Bill of Rights" (TABOR).


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In 2005, Bachmann opposed Pawlenty's proposal of a state surcharge of 75 cents per pack on the wholesale cost of cigarettes. She said she opposed the surcharge "100 percent—it's a tax increase." The Taxpayers' League later criticized her for reversing her position and voting for the surcharge.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann promised to bring the price of gasoline down to $2 per gallon, without specifying a plan to accomplish this.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann supports increased domestic drilling of oil and natural gas, as well as pursuing renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar. She is a strong proponent of nuclear power.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann has strongly opposed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pledging at an August 2011 campaign rally, "I guarantee you the EPA will have doors locked and lights turned off and they will only be about conservation." In 2007 and 2010, she actively solicited funds from the EPA on behalf of constituents in her congressional district.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann has called for phasing out Social Security and Medicare: "what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the system... But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann has said that in dealing with Iran, diplomacy "is our option", but that other options, including a nuclear strike, should not be ruled out. She has also said that she is "a longtime supporter of Israel".


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In a discussion about the G-20 summit in Toronto, during an interview with conservative radio host Scott Hennen, Bachmann stated that she did not want America to be part of the international global economy.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann told "The Wall Street Journal" that Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams influenced her economic views. She said she was "an Art Laffer fiend" and loved Ludwig von Mises.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann believes that strengthened enforcement of immigration laws is required for the growth of the American job market. She supports amending the Immigration and Nationality Act to allow only the immediate family of legal immigrants (not extended family members) priority consideration in the immigration process. She voted against the DREAM Act. She has also said the current law does not need modification but proper enforcement.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann said, "the immigration system in the United States worked very, very well up until the mid-1960s when liberal members of Congress changed the immigration laws." She has expressed support for immigration of highly skilled professionals such as chemists and engineers.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann opposed the 2013 immigration reform bill, claiming that its passage would mean the end of the Republican Party. On WorldNetDaily she said, "This is President Obama's number one political agenda because he knows we will never again have a Republican president ever if amnesty goes into effect."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann supports both federal and state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and any legal equivalents. In August 2006, the "Star Tribune" reported that in March 2006, while on a Minneapolis radio show, Bachmann advocated a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. A caller asked her to explain how he, a heterosexual, would be harmed if his gay neighbors were allowed to marry. Bachmann replied, "Public schools would have to teach that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are normal, natural and that maybe children should try them." The "Star Tribune" also reported that Bachmann had publicly called homosexuality "sexual dysfunction", "sexual identity disorders", and "personal enslavement" leading to "sexual anarchy".


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In a July 2014 radio interview, Bachmann claimed that gay rights activists want to abolish age of consent laws in the United States so that adults can "prey on little children sexually."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In 2020, Bachmann claimed that "transgender Black Marxists" were "seeking the overthrow of the United States and the dissolution of the traditional family."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann has identified herself as pro-life and has been endorsed in her runs for Congress by the Susan B. Anthony List and Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life. At a New Hampshire debate among presidential candidates, when asked if abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest, she responded that she was "100 percent pro-life," implying that such a fetus would have to be carried to term. In the Minnesota Senate, Bachmann introduced a bill proposing a constitutional amendment restricting state funds for abortion. The bill died in committee.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: According to "The Washington Post", in 2008 Bachmann may have taken advantage of a federal program for a home loan, then called for dismantling the program, though the "Post" noted that the public and other members of Congress have taken advantage of such loans despite seeing reasons to criticize them. When asked about it, she said: "This is the problem. It is almost impossible to buy a home in this country today without the federal government being involved".


title: Michele Bachmann

text: While Bachmann denied being part of the birther movement, she said that Obama could resolve the dispute by producing his long-form birth certificate. In April 2011, after Obama released the certificate, George Stephanopoulos asked Bachmann about the issue on "Good Morning America". She said that its release "should settle the matter", that "I take the president at his word", and that "We have bigger fish to fry".


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann vocally supported then-President Donald Trump, saying in 2017 that he "has had the courage and the fortitude to stand up where other Republicans wouldn't dare to stand up." She expressed support for Trump's Executive Order 13769, which banned refugees from six majority-Muslim countries.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In December 2020, after the presidential election, Bachmann posted a video online praying for a Trump second term. Her prayer specifically called out the contested election results in Georgia, saying: Lord, would you deliver these races in Georgia? O Father, would you deliver various local and state races, Father, that they aren't stolen? Would you give us a true vote? And, O God, I personally ask, from myself, Michele Bachmann, Lord, would you allow Donald Trump to have a second term as president of the United States?


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann won her Congressional seat in the 2006 election with 50% of the vote, defeating the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) nominee Patty Wetterling and the Independence Party's John Binkowski.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: The 6th District's representative since 2001, Mark Kennedy, announced in late 2005 that he would run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Mark Dayton. Bachmann said, "God then called me to run" for the U.S. House seat, and that she and her husband fasted for three days to be more sure.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: According to Bloomberg.com, evangelical conservative leader James Dobson put his organization Focus on the Family's resources behind Bachmann's 2006 campaign. The group planned to distribute 250,000 voter guides in Minnesota churches to reach social conservatives, according to Tom Prichard, president of the Minnesota Family Council, a local affiliate of the group. In addition to Minnesota, Dobson's group also organized turnout drives in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey and Montana.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: During a debate televised by WCCO-TV on October 28, 2006, news reporter Pat Kessler quoted a story that appeared in the "Star Tribune" and asked Bachmann whether it was true that the church she belonged to taught that the Pope is the Anti-Christ. Bachmann replied that her church "does not believe that the Pope is the Anti-Christ, that's absolutely false ... I'm very grateful that my pastor has come out and been very clear on this matter, and I think it's patently absurd and it's a false statement."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In early July 2006, Bachmann received a fundraising visit from Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. On July 21, Karl Rove visited Minnesota to raise funds for her election. In August, President Bush was the keynote speaker at her congressional fundraiser, which raised about $500,000. Bachmann also received fundraising support from Vice President Dick Cheney. The National Republican Congressional Committee put nearly $3 million into the race, for electronic and direct-mail ads against Wetterling, significantly more than the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent on Wetterling's behalf. On November 7, Bachmann won the election with 50% of the vote to Wetterling's 42% and Binkowski's 8%.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In 2008 Bachmann was reelected, defeating DFL and Independence Party nominee Elwyn Tinklenberg with 46.4% of the vote to Tinklenberg's 43.4%. Because Tinklenberg was running as a DFL member in the Democratic primary, Bob Anderson was able to run in the Independence Party primary unopposed, despite not having that party's endorsement. Anderson received 10% of the vote.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In 2010 Bachmann was challenged by DFL nominee Tarryl Clark and Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson. With more than $8.5 million, Bachmann spent more than any other House of Representative candidate, although Clark was able to raise $4 million, one of the largest fundraising efforts in the nation for a U.S. House challenger. On November 2, 2010, Bachmann defeated Clark, 52% to 40%.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In early 2011, amid substantial speculation, Bachmann announced her candidacy for president. She participated in the second Republican presidential debate, in New Hampshire, on June 13, 2011, and during the debate announced that she had filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) earlier that day to become a candidate for the nomination. Bachmann formally announced her candidacy for the nomination on June 27, 2011, during an appearance in Waterloo, Iowa, her birth city.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll hosted by the Iowa GOP on August 13, 2011, becoming the first woman ever to win the poll, but finished sixth in the January 3, 2012, caucuses, with 4.98% of the vote. On January 4 she canceled her scheduled campaign trips to South Carolina and suspended her campaign.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: According to Politico.com, as of July 2012 Bachmann had "raised close to $15 million" for the 2012 election, a figure it called "astounding ... more than some Senate candidates will collect this year." From July to the end of September, Bachmann raised $4.5 million. This amount put her ahead of all other members of Congress (including Allen West who was in second place with $4 million) for the third quarter. Bachmann said she was "humbled by the enormous outpouring of grassroots support for my campaign focused on keeping America the most secure and prosperous nation in the world."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Despite a more favorable district Bachmann won reelection only narrowly, receiving just 4,298 more votes than her DFL challenger, Jim Graves.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In November 2011 Bachmann published her autobiography, "Core of Conviction", in which she outlined the events and people who have shaped her values and beliefs. The book describes her break with the Democratic Party. "It was in the perilous fires of the Carter administration that my ideology was forged," she wrote. "In the seventies, Carter taught me what I was against, and then in the eighties, Reagan taught me what I was for." Reflecting on her role as a Tea Party leader, she elaborated, "I once said that the Tea Party represents 90 percent of Americans. I now realize that I misspoke. I should have said 100 percent, because I believe that nearly all Americans retain faith in the ordered liberty that the Constitution offers."


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In 1978, as Michele Amble, she married Marcus Bachmann, now a clinical therapist with a master's degree from Regent University and a Ph.D. from Union Graduate School, whom she met while they were undergraduates. After she received an LL.M. in taxation from William & Mary School of Law in 1988, the couple moved to Stillwater, Minnesota, a town of 18,000 near Saint Paul, where they run a Christian counseling center that administered gay conversion therapy. Bachmann and her husband have five children: Lucas, Harrison, Elisa, Caroline, and Sophia. In a 2011 town hall meeting, she said that she suffered a miscarriage after the birth of their second child, Harrison, an event she said shaped her anti-abortion views.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann and her husband have also provided foster care to 23 other children, all of whom were teenage girls. The Bachmanns were licensed from 1992 to 2000 to handle up to three foster children at a time, with the last arriving in 1998. The Bachmanns began by providing short-term care for girls with eating disorders who were patients in a University of Minnesota program. Their home was legally defined as a treatment home, with a daily reimbursement rate per child from the state. Some girls stayed a few months, others more than a year.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In May 2012 it was reported that Marcus Bachmann had registered for Swiss citizenship, which, under Swiss nationality law, would make Michele and their children Swiss citizens too. Within two days of the first reports of Bachmann's dual citizenship, Michele Bachmann announced that she had written to the Swiss consulate to renounce her Swiss citizenship.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann was raised in "a family of Norwegian Lutheran Democrats" and was a longtime member of Salem Lutheran Church (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) in Stillwater. She and her husband withdrew their membership on June 21, 2011, just before she officially began her presidential campaign. They had not attended the church for over two years. In 2011, the Bachmanns began attending Rockpoint Church in Lake Elmo, member of Evangelical Free Church of America.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann has cited theologian Francis Schaeffer as a "profound influence" on her life and her husband's, especially his film series "How Should We Then Live?". She has also described "Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity" by Nancy Pearcey as a "wonderful" book. Journalist Ryan Lizza has argued that Bachmann's worldview is deeply influenced by the Christian movement known as Dominionism, citing the influence of Schaeffer and Pearcey as evidence. Others have criticized Lizza's article, especially its connection of Schaeffer with Dominionism. Religion writer Sarah Posner broadly concurs with Lizza, pointing to the influence of Christian Reconstructionists Herb Titus and R. J. Rushdoony on Bachmann via the curriculum at O. W. Coburn School of Law.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: Bachmann and her husband own a Christian counseling practice, Bachmann & Associates. The clinic is run by her husband, who has a Ph.D. with "a concentration in clinical psychology" from Union Graduate School. Marcus Bachmann is not a licensed clinical psychologist in Minnesota. The clinic received nearly $30,000 from Minnesota government agencies between 2006 and 2010 in addition to at least $137,000 in federal payments and $24,000 in government grants for counselor training. In an interview, Michele Bachmann said that she and her husband had not benefited at taxpayer expense, saying, "the money that went to the clinic was actually training money for employees". Marcus Bachmann has falsely claimed that Bachmann & Associates did not provide conversion therapy, a controversial psychological treatment that has been repudiated by the American Psychological Association as unethical and without medical basis. A former client of Bachmann's clinic and a hidden camera investigator with the activist group Truth Wins Out showed that therapists at the clinic do engage in such practices. In a subsequent interview with the "Star Tribune", Marcus Bachmann did not deny that he or other counselors at his clinic used the technique, but said they did so only at a client's request.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In personal financial disclosure reports for 2006 through 2009, Bachmann reported earning $32,500 to $105,000 from a farm that was owned at the time by her ailing father-in-law, Paul Bachmann. The farm received $260,000 in federal crop and disaster subsidies between 1995 and 2008. Bachmann said that in 2006–2009, her husband acted as a trustee of the farm for his dying father and so, out of "an abundance of caution", she claimed the farm as income in financial disclosures, though it was her in-laws who profited from the farm during that period.


title: Michele Bachmann

text: In August 2011 a man tweeted his "desire to engage in sadomasochistic activities" with Bachmann using "a Vietnam era machete" while misspelling her given name as "Michelle" in his tweet. Federal investigators ordered Twitter to reveal his identity. Called Mr. X in the grand jury's subpoena, the man filed a motion to quash the order at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in February 2012. Then-Chief Judge Royce Lamberth denied the request, citing the seriousness of the threat that might have posed to Bachmann, but X was granted the redaction of his identity in a separate order.


title: Pastor

text: A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" {singular}, or "Ps" {plural}) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and Anglicanism, pastors are always ordained. In Methodism, pastors may be either licensed or ordained.


title: Pastor

text: Pastors are to act like shepherds by caring for the flock, and this care includes teaching. The New Testament typically uses the words "bishops" () and "presbyter" () to indicate the ordained leadership in early Christianity. Likewise, Peter instructs these particular servants to "act like shepherds" as they "oversee" the flock of God (). The words "bishop" and "presbyter" were sometimes used in an interchangeable way, such as in Titus 1:5-6. However, there is ongoing dispute between branches of Christianity over whether there are two ordained classes (presbyters and deacons) or three (bishops, priests, and deacons). The first view is affirmed by the Presbyterian Church. On the other hand, Christians of the Roman Catholic, Persian, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Moravian, Scandinavian Lutheran, Anglican, and Old Catholic, traditions maintain the latter view and affirm the doctrine of apostolic succession.


title: Pastor

text: These terms describe a leader (e.g., bishop), one who maintains a careful watch for the spiritual needs of all the members of the flock (i.e., a pastor). The person must meet scriptural qualifications (1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9). For some Protestants, whether called an elder, bishop, or pastor, these terms describe the same service in the church. In the early Church, only a man could be a presbyter, but many Protestant denominations in the 19th and 20th century have changed to allow women to be pastors. Whether man or woman, this person is to be older and experienced in the faith (i.e., an elder), a person who is a decision-maker, and a manager of church affairs.


title: Pastor

text: The actual word pastor is derived from a Latin word meaning shepherd. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, the term may be abbreviated to "Pr" or "Ptr" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural).


title: Pastor

text: The word "pastor" derives from the Latin noun which means "shepherd" and is derived from the verb – "to lead to pasture, set to grazing, cause to eat". The term "pastor" also relates to the role of elder within the New Testament, and is synonymous with the biblical understanding of minister. The term Pastor, Shepherd, and Elder are all the same position. The term "Senior Pastor" does not exist in scripture, but - in multi-staffed churches - is commonly used to denote the pastor who does the preaching. Many Protestant churches call their ministers "pastors".


title: Pastor

text: Present-day usage of the word is rooted in the Biblical metaphor of shepherding. The Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) uses the Hebrew word ("roʿeh"), which is used as a noun as in "shepherd", and as a verb as in "to tend a flock." It occurs 173 times in 144 Old Testament verses and relates to the literal feeding of sheep, as in Genesis 29:7. In Jeremiah 23:4, both meanings are used ("ro'im" is used for "shepherds" and "yir'um" for "shall feed them"), "And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith the LORD." (KJV).


title: Pastor

text: English-language translations of the New Testament usually render the Greek noun ("poimēn") as "shepherd" and the Greek verb ("poimainō") as "feed". The two words occur a total of 29 times in the New Testament, most frequently referring to Jesus. For example, Jesus called himself the "Good Shepherd" in John 10:11. The same words in the familiar Christmas story (Luke 2) refer to literal shepherds.


title: Pastor

text: Bishops of various denominations often bear a formal crosier in the form of a stylised shepherd's crook as a symbol of their pastoral/shepherding functions.


title: Pastor

text: Around 400 AD, Saint Augustine, a prominent African Catholic bishop, described a pastor's job: Disturbers are to be rebuked, the low-spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed, litigants pacified, the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil borne with, and all are to be loved.


title: Pastor

text: In the United States, the term "pastor" is used by Catholics for what in other English-speaking countries is called a "parish priest". The Latin term used in the Code of Canon Law is "parochus".


title: Pastor

text: The Church of Sweden has a threefold ministry of bishop, priest, and deacon and those ordained to the presbyterate are referred to as priests. In the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, ordained presbyters are referred to by various publications, including Finnish ones, as pastors, or priests. In the United States, denominations like the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, use the terms reverend and pastor interchangeably for ordained members of the clergy.


title: Pastor

text: The term "pastor", in the majority of Baptist churches, is one of two offices within the church, deacon being the other, and is considered synonymous with "elder" or "bishop" (though in Reformed Baptist churches, elders are a separate office).


title: Pastor

text: In larger churches with many staff members, "Senior Pastor" commonly refers to the person who gives the sermons the majority of the time, with other persons having titles relating to their duties, for example "Worship Pastor" for the person leading singing.


title: Pastor

text: Ordained presbyters are called priests in the Church of England, as in all other ecclesiastical provinces of the Anglican Communion, and use the title the Reverend if they are Low church and Father or Mother if they are High church. Those leaders who are not ordained, but have a license from their Bishop, are increasingly using the title Pastor, as well as those office holders who are communicants within the Anglican Communion and participate in lay ministry where a license is not required.


title: Pastor

text: United Methodists ordain to the office of deacon and elder, each of whom can use the title of pastor depending. United Methodists also use the title of pastor for non-ordained clergy who are licensed and appointed to serve a congregation as their pastor or associate pastor, often referred to as licensed local pastors. These pastors may be lay people, seminary students, or seminary graduates in the ordination process, and cannot exercise any functions of clergy outside the charge where they are appointed.


title: Pastor

text: The use of the term "pastor" to refer to the common Protestant title of modern times dates to the days of John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli. Both men, and other Reformers, seem to have revived the term to replace the Roman Catholic priest in the minds of their followers. The pastor was considered to have a role separate from the board of presbyters. A "pastor" may be either ordained or commissioned, depending on the methods used to appoint a person into the role, with either way resulting in the same authority and responsibilities to provide shepherding and grace to a congregation.


title: Pastor

text: Some groups today view the "pastor", "bishop", and "elder" as synonymous terms or offices; many who do are descended from the Restoration Movement in America during the 19th century, such as the Disciples of Christ and the Churches of Christ.


title: Pastor

text: Other religions have started to use the term Pastor for their own ordained leader of congregation such as "Buddhist pastor".


title: Pastor

text: An assistant or associate pastor is a person who assists the pastor in a Christian church. The qualifications, responsibilities and duties vary depending on church and denomination.


title: Pastor

text: In many churches, an assistant pastor is a pastor-in-training, or are awaiting full ordination. In many instances, they are granted limited powers and authority to act with, or in the absence of, the congregation's pastor. Some churches that have outreach programs, such as hospital visitations, in-home programs, prison ministries, or multiple chapels, will appoint assistant pastors to perform duties while the Pastor is busy elsewhere. Some churches use the title "brother" or "ordained brother" in place of assistant pastor. In larger Roman Catholic parishes, the duties of an assistant pastor can be broken up into duties performed by deacons and non-ordained lay people.


title: Wilhelm Mohnke

text: Wilhelm Mohnke (15 March 1911 – 6 August 2001) was one of the original members of the SS-Staff Guard ("Stabswache") "Berlin" formed in March 1933. From those ranks, Mohnke rose to become one of Adolf Hitler's last remaining generals. He joined the Nazi Party in September 1931.


title: Wilhelm Mohnke

text: With the SS Division Leibstandarte, Mohnke participated in the fighting in France, Poland and the Balkans. He was appointed to command a regiment in the SS Division Hitlerjugend in 1943. He led the unit in the Battle for Caen, receiving the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 11 July 1944. Mohnke was given command of his original division, the Leibstandarte, during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.


title: Wilhelm Mohnke

text: During the Battle of Berlin, Mohnke commanded the "Kampfgruppe Mohnke" and was charged with defending the Berlin government district, including the Reich Chancellery and the Reichstag. He was investigated after the war for war crimes, including allegations that he was responsible for the murder of prisoners in France in 1940, Normandy in June 1944 and Belgium in December 1944. Although Mohnke served 10 years in Soviet custody, he was never charged with any crimes, and died in 2001, aged 90.


title: Wilhelm Mohnke

text: Mohnke was born in Lübeck on 15 March 1911. His father, who shared his name with his son, was a cabinetmaker. After his father's death, he went to work for a glass and porcelain manufacturer, eventually reaching a management position. He also held a degree in economics. Mohnke joined the Nazi Party with number 649,684 on 1 September 1931. Shortly thereafter, he joined the SS with number 15,541. Mohnke began with the rank of SS-"Mann" (private). After Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, SS Headquarters in Berlin requested that all SS regiments submit three names of their best soldiers for transfer to a personal guard unit for Hitler. Mohnke was selected for the unit in March 1933. He was assigned to "SS-Stabswache Berlin", which established its first guard at the original Reich Chancellery. By August, Mohnke was one of two company commanders. In September, the unit became known as the "SS-Sonderkommando Berlin" after the training units "SS-Sonderkommando Zossen" and "SS-Sonderkommando Jüterbog" merged with it under Dietrich's command. With the merger, Mohnke was transferred to the 2nd Battalion and given command of the 3rd Company.


title: Wilhelm Mohnke

text: Mohnke took part in the Polish Campaign in September, 1939. He was wounded on 7 September 1939 and recovered in the hospital in Prague. For this, Mohnke received the Wound Badge in Black. He was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class on 29 September 1939 and the Iron Cross, First Class on 8 November 1939.


title: Wilhelm Mohnke

text: Mohnke led the 5th company of the 2nd Battalion of the "Infanterie-Regiment Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler", at the outset of the Battle of France in 1940. He took command of the 2nd Battalion on 28 May after the battalion commander was wounded. It was around this time that Mohnke was allegedly involved in the murder of 80 British (of the 48th division) and French prisoners of war (POWs) near Wormhoudt. Mohnke was never brought to trial over these allegations, and when the case was reopened in 1988, a German prosecutor came to the conclusion there was insufficient evidence to bring charges. The case briefly resurfaced once again in late 1993 when it became evident that the British government had not revealed some pertinent files from its archives during the earlier investigation. However, nothing substantial came from this either.


title: Wilhelm Mohnke

text: He commanded the 2nd Battalion during the Balkans campaign, where he suffered a severe leg wound in a Yugoslavian air attack on 6 April 1941, the first day of the campaign. It was the decision of the medics that his leg would need to be amputated, but Mohnke overrode them. His wound was so serious that a part of his foot still had to be removed. On 26 December 1941, while still recuperating, Mohnke was awarded the German Cross in Gold. Mohnke returned to active service in 1942; he was transferred to a replacement battalion in March 1942.


title: Wilhelm Mohnke

text: On 1 September 1943, 16,000 new recruits of the "Hitlerjugend" (Hitler Youth) born in 1926 took part in the formation of the SS Division Hitlerjugend, while the senior NCOs and officers were generally veterans of the Eastern Front. SS-"Obersturmbannführer" Mohnke was given command of the 26th SS "Panzergrenadier" Regiment, which was the second regiment formed in the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend".


title: Wilhelm Mohnke

text: Mohnke was implicated in the killing of 35 Canadian prisoners at Fontenay-le-Pesnel, as part of the Normandy Massacres, albeit he never faced a trial owing to a lack of conclusive proof of his involvement. Mohnke told historian Thomas Fischer that, at times, he had to take strong painkillers, such as morphine, due to the severe pain in his shortened right leg (from his combat injuries in April 1941) but whether these things affected his decision making process is not known. What is known is that his physical health affected his deployment. Mohnke was commander of the "Leibstandarte"'s replacement battalion from March 1942 till May 1943. Then being "free enough from pain", SS-"Obersturmbannführer" Kurt Meyer talked him into taking a command with the 12th SS Panzer Division. This led to commanding the 26th SS Pz-Gren Rgt on 15 September 1943.


title: Wilhelm Mohnke

text: While the 12th SS Panzer Division was fighting to keep the Falaise pocket open, in which the division suffered an estimated 40%-50% casualties, Mohnke withdrew his "Kampfgruppe" (Battle Group) east of the river Dives. As the situation in Normandy deteriorated for Germany and the front was pushed back to the Seine, Mohnke was one of the few to lead organized resistance on the western bank in order to protect the river crossings there. Afterwards, Mohnke was awarded the Knight's Cross on 11 July 1944. He led this "Kampfgruppe" until 31 August, when he replaced the badly wounded Theodor Wisch as commander of the "Leibstandarte" (LSSAH).


title: Wilhelm Mohnke

text: Operation Watch on the Rhine, followed by Operation Nordwind were the final major offensives and last gambles Hitler made on the Western Front. The plan was for an armored push through the American lines, all the way to Antwerp to split the western Allies forces and buy the Germans time. Mohnke's SS Division Leibstandarte, attached to the I SS Panzer Corps, was the spearhead of the operation in the Ardennes. The fuel crisis in Nazi Germany meant that the LSSAH had insufficient amounts of fuel for the vehicles. On 16 December 1944 the operation began, with SS-"Obersturmbannführer" Joachim Peiper's "Kampfgruppe" leading the push to the Meuse.