Friday, October 27, 2006

Another Day, Another Michele Bachmann Extremist Contributor

by Karl Bremer

Prominent John Birch Society author is the latest extremist Bachmann contributor

A favorite author of the right-wingnut John Birch Society is also a fan of Michele Bachmann’s. John A. Stormer of Florissant, MO, author of the highly popular (among the black helicopter crowd) 1960s anticommunism screed None Dare Call It Treason, has given Bachmann’s congressional campaign $225 this election cycle.

None Dare Call It Treason, published in 1964, sold 6 million copies when it came out, largely through John Birch Society chapters and their Communist conspiracy-prone members. The book’s chief premise was that the United States was losing the Cold War because it had been heavily infiltrated by Communist subversives. Stormer's updated edition, None Dare Call It Treason ... 25 Years Later, and another book, None Dare Call It Education, currently are available through the John Birch Society bookstore, American Opinion Book Services, and probably can be found on the Bachmann family bookshelves.

Stormer is a retired minister, Christian school superintendent and past president of the Missouri Association of Christian Schools. He's also a past member of the secretive Council for National Policy. [More about CNP here and here]

Stormer has been linked to violent extremist groups in Missouri.

According to a 1999 report by the Missouri Citizen Education Fund, Stormer was a U.S. Taxpayers Party (USTP) national committeeman. "The USTP has become a clearing house for dissatisfied groups on the far right—members of David Duke's Populist Party, Randall Terry's Operation Rescue, the militant Christian Right, and the militia Movement," the report states.

"Stormer holds prayer sessions in Jefferson City for Missouri legislators. He also contends that tolerance of homosexuality and abortion is bringing God's judgment on America in the form of natural disasters. (St. Louis Journalism Review, Nov. 95)"

Stormer and Bachmann are connected in other ways beyond his campaign contributions to her.

Stormer has signed the proclamation of the Alliance for the Separation of School and State (ASSS) to abolish all government education. Bachmann has taken over $51,000 from signatories of the ASSS proclamation.

Stormer spoke at an EdWatch conference in St. Louis earlier this year, a group that Bachmann has spoken before on many occasions. Fellow CNP member John Scribante is a board member and former president of EdWatch. And EdWatch and Bachmann are the subjects of a Federal Elections Commission investigation involving a campaign mailing sent by EdWatch on Bachmann’s behalf.

Is there a right-wing extremist who hasn't contributed to Michele Bachmann's campaign?