Michelle Bachmann's Baby Farm.

[notadmblnd]

A Wonkette operative says Bachmann has five kids of her own and raised an astonishing 23 foster kids. A nice person would say, “Oh, that’s a nice thing.” But our cold-hearted operative notes that Minnesota pays $30 a day, tax free, per foster kid.

“So if Bachmann has fostered 23 children, let’s say for an average of five years, that would come out to a non-taxable $1,259,250,” the Wonk-Op writes. “No wonder she’s anti-abortion. Children are a cash crop for her.”

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

[AzDar]

1. Between that and her farm subsidies, she must be making a tidy sum.

:puke:

[NYC_SKP]

2. Are these children accounted for? I mean, she's pretty strange, she might even be like a, you know,

ZOMBIE!!!



Seriously, she's a busy representative, who looks after these children?

Maybe the older ones watch the younger ones???

:shrug:

[Barack_America]

3. And, if so, who gets the $$.

I don't see how it is possible to raise that many children with each getting the love, attention and nurturing they require.

I wonder how long the foster children tend to stay with the family?

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Average time in foster care for Minnesota looks like it's under a year

There are figures for the number entering and exiting foster care during the year, and the total in care on one day of the year; the latter is a bit smaller than either of the former, for Minnesota (not necessarily the case for other states). Which I think could only happen if the average time in foster care was under a year.

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/statistics/entryexit2009.htm

[badgerpup]

9. I wondered that too after I read the OP...

Fostering kids is great on the surface...but they need time and attention, and the more kids you have, the more difficult the logistics become.

Speaking off the top of me head, all the best fostering stories I've read online (or heard about) have at least one parent being a FULL-TIME, at-home-with-the-kids mom or dad.

Who's doing the actual 'fostering' (read: caring (physically and emotionally) for the kids)?

[FSogol]

4. Unrec. There are plenty of good reasons to pick on Bachmann, but the fact that she adopted

a bus load of foster kids is not one of them. People who give foster kids a good home are to be admired.

[Maru Kitteh]

5. The people who "adopted" my mom had her quit school after 7th grade to be their servant and

work their farm. She had to get up before the rest of the family so she could feed the furnace and make breakfast for the couple and their real kids.

Just because someone gave foster kids a place to sleep is not an automatic cause to admire them.

[eilen]

27. My great grandfather was "adopted" by a farmer

in Jamesville after his parents died. He ran away -- followed the train tracks to NY and out to LI and made his fortune rum-running, (hey, if its good enough for Joe Kennedy....)

One of his brothers went with him I think.

[hlthe2b]

28. She supports a party that is trying to undo child labor laws throughout the country...

She is fighting to abolish the EPA and FDA--and remove clean air, water, food standards. She is fighting to defund efforts to feed, clothe, and medically treat the poor, aged and helpless, including children throughout this country. So, if she receives skepticism over her "wonderful" act of fostering 23 children, I hardly think it is undeserved.

[Maru Kitteh]

37. Yup. Too many stories like my mom's and the one above your post. I've read it still goes on.

What's better than a slave? A slave the state pays YOU for.

[femrap]

34. You don't know what Foster

Parents are capable of....the foster kids do all the chores and don't get to sit at the table w/ the 'real' family.

And when did she have time to do this while being a Tax Attorney??? Did she have a housekeeper/nanny to help?

And the real question....why didn't she adopt ANY OF THEM????

[Snoutport]

43. +1

[muntrv]

6. That socialist!!!

[Ikonoklast]

7. How much did she lease them out for, to her 'farm' for labor?

Now there's some real cash.

[Angry Dragon]

8. It has been years since she has had foster kids

She home schooled her children and sent the foster kids to public schools.
She has a $1 million plus home
Her husband and she own a counseling business based on god being the ultimate counselor.
They collect some government money in fees.
All of their employees use religion in their counseling
She collects farm subsidies on her in-laws farm
She used to be an IRS tax lawyer
She used be in the Minnesota Senate

edit to add: Her oldest son it seems he has very little to do with her
She has a lesbian sister and frequently forgets to address that fact when she talks about her family growing up

It seems since being an adult she has been sucking at the government teat ........ but to her big government is evil........but it seems she has had no trouble finding an evil teat to suck

[LynnTTT]

47. Well yes, but

It has been reported that the state required foster children to attend public schools. so I have to give her a pass on that.

But, I do suspect that within the next few months, we'll hear from at least a few of the kids. May be favorable, maybe not.

[hfojvt]

10. well then you need to subtract expenses from that as well

$30 a day is only $912.5 per month. I am not sure the profit is that huge, and it's probably a fair amount of work too, for the money.

[Snoutport]

42. it might have been less money back then too... kids are expensive though

and foster kids need to go to the dr and the dentist and even though that's covered usually by state insurance, it takes a lot of time and gas to get kids to appointments.

[former9thward]

11. What a hateful and ugly post.

I'm sure you will be volunteering to raise foster kids because it is so profitable.

[Motown_Johnny]

13. +1

the assumption that you can spend less than thirty bucks a day per child and still have enough left to make it "profitable" is pretty far out there.



I would be more interested in asking her about public education and if her kids, both her offspring and her foster children, attended private or public schools.

[Snoutport]

39. +1 more

[hlthe2b]

30. This is not my OP... nonetheless...

While at face value, this is the one act which provides any "endearment" of Bachman in my eyes, I too would love to hear from her 23 foster children. Does that mean I am not prepared to hear (or willing to accept) statements of absolute support and praise for Bachman? No. Not at all. And if that is their experience with her, I'd give her even more kudos. It would surely raise her "stock" in my mind, even if I would never support her politically.

That said, there IS reason for skepticism. Michelle Bachman supports a party that is trying to undo child labor laws throughout the country...CHILD LABOR LAWS! She is fighting to abolish the EPA and FDA--and remove clean air, water, food standards. She is fighting to defund efforts to feed, clothe, and medically treat the poor, aged and helpless, including children throughout this country. So, if she receives skepticism over her "wonderful" act of fostering 23 children, I hardly think it is undeserved. And yes, exploitation of these foster kids for money is a problem in some areas of this country, as SOCALDEM pointed out yesterday with respect to Southern California.

For now, I think Bachman's fostering of these kids (even if she indoctrinated them with her viewpoints with which I vociferously disagree)is extremely laudable. But, Bachman's beliefs and positions are often paradoxical to what most of us consider a compassioned approach to child care. For this reason, I would be very interested in hearing from those kids if they wished to come forward--with a fully open mind. I don't apologize for that and nor should anyone else.

[former9thward]

32. No one is hiding those kids.

Any reporter under the sun can interview them. If she becomes a serious contender I guarantee we will hear from all 23 of them whether we like it or not.

[hlthe2b]

33. Really? I have never seen them identified and there are no pictures

She includes only photos of her natural born children with her in the photos that are out there. Of course their privacy should be respected, but I see nothing wrong with inviting those who would like to, to speak to their upbringing and experiences.

[former9thward]

36. Reporters have not bothered looking for them.

At this point she is not a serious contender. If, at some point, she becomes one, they will find and interview them.

[Snoutport]

40. probably closed files t protect juveniles.

We have to wait for the kids to come out and say something on their own, most likely.

[SoCalDem]

12. My friend's mother-in-law used to foster kids too

She got over $4k a month TAX FREE, and all of them had free medical..when they aged-out she got new ones:(

[yawnmaster]

14. that is one selfish friend of your MIL. Good thing there are always "new ones".

sheeeesh

[SoCalDem]

15. Luckily for the kids, she finally got too old and the county cut her off.

She was 80, and fostering teenaged boys.. You can imagine how well she "managed" them:grr:

[yawnmaster]

19. What was the alternative for the children? eom

[SoCalDem]

21. other foster homes.. It's a "cottage industry" out here in SoCal

There are a LOT of children who are "too old" to be likely candidates for adoption, so they languish in foster-care:(

[yawnmaster]

23. They languish as opposed to being out in the street? eom

edited grammar.

[SoCalDem]

25. some do, some don't..

Look.. I don't know what your "problem" is, so don't shoot the messenger..

It's an intractable problem, and "some" foster care is bad.. Some is good.

There are people who do it FOR the kids, and some who do it as an "income"..

done here:hi:

[femrap]

35. I had a very good friend who was an

orphan. He was a teenager when all the orphanages were closing and the Foster System was starting. He hated foster families. The orphanages were great. Everyone was in the same boat and he had many friends and his own private area.

[Raine]

17. Batshit crazy Bachmann sure doesn't seem like the loving maternal

type, unless she's awhole lot different in private.

[Warrior Dash]

18. I imagine that if the state had custody, the costs would be significantly higher

than $30/day.

[LLStarks]

20. Every child deserves a home. nt

[rgbecker]

22. I happened to hear her on the Hannity radio show this evening....

She claimed 12 were biologically theirs. Married for 33 years to a wonderful guy. Did he come with kids of his own?

[riderinthestorm]

26. I just tried Google Image and only came up with pics of 5 Bachman children

none of the foster children came up no matter how I searched.

[barbtries]

31. she apparently can't help it.

she LIES all the time.

[Bozvotros]

24. Some farmers do use the foster care system

Or at least they used to 30 years ago. I used to work at a county home and every spring there would come Amish and Mennonite farmers and other rural curmudgeons looking for healthy young bucks to help on the farm. Some of these would be foster parents were rejected because they were too obviously interested in just well developed older boys. Most of the kids would come back after harvest with blisters on their hands (and sometimes other places.) We always had a good supply of inner city kids so you can imagine what this seemed like. I hope things have changed.

[SoCalDem]

29. Farm comunities used to do this all the time.. "Orphan Trains" were all about this

the girls were used as "house-helpers"..the boys, as farm hands.

Many many many of these children were fortunate, and found loving homes, but many did not:(

There's a great documentary about this ..on PBS sometimes.. It's primarily about kansas, so i was quite interested in it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/orphan/


"I had the whole future ahead of me, and I didn't know what to expect."
-- Elliot Bobo

Eighty years ago, Elliot Bobo was taken from his alcoholic father's home, given a small cardboard suitcase, and put on board an "orphan train" bound for Arkansas. Bobo never saw his father again. He was one of tens of thousands of neglected and orphaned children who over a 75-year period were uprooted from the city and sent by train to farming communities to start new lives with new families. Elliot Bobo's remarkable story is part ofThe Orphan Trains.
Photo of orphans The story of this ambitious and finally controversial effort to rescue poor and homeless children begins in the 1850s, when thousands of children roamed the streets of New York in search of money, food and shelter--prey to disease and crime. Many sold matches, rags, or newspapers to survive. For protection against street violence, they banded together and formed gangs. Police, faced with a growing problem, were known to arrest vagrant children--some as young as five--locking them up with adult criminals.

In 1853, a young minister, Charles Loring Brace, became obsessed by the plight of these children, who because of their wanderings, were known as "street Arabs." A member of a prominent Connecticut family, Brace had come to New York to complete his seminary training. Horrified by the conditions he saw on the street, Brace was persuaded there was only one way to help these "children of unhappy fortune."

"The great duty," he wrote, "is to get utterly out of their surroundings and to send them away to kind Christian homes in the country."

In 1853, Brace founded the Children's Aid Society to arrange the trips, raise the money, and obtain the legal permissions needed for relocation. Between 1854 and 1929, more than 100,000 children were sent, via orphan trains, to new homes in rural America. Recognizing the need for labor in the expanding farm country, Brace believed that farmers would welcome homeless children, take them into their homes and treat them as their own. His program would turn out to be a forerunner of modern foster care.

Elliot Bobo was eight years old when he was put on a train. His mother had died when he was two. "Far as I know, my father hit the bottle pretty heavy, and they took us away from him." The Children's Aid Society gave him the small suitcase he still has. "I had all my possessions in there, which wasn't much. No shoes, just a change of clothes."

He did not know--no one knew--where he or the other children would wind up.

snip

[Scuba]

38. But think of all the love this stay-at-home mom gave her... oh, never mind.

[pipi_k]

44. They weren't babies or toddlers

They were teenaged girls.

Who probably went to school during the day.

She wouldn't need to be home.

Are you saying that biological moms shouldn't work either?

Or just a woman named Michelle Bachmann?

[Scuba]

45. I'm suggesting that someone with a full-time-plus career....

...as a politician was much more interested in the cash and "good will" than the girls. Her refferring to the foster kids three times during the debate confirmed that for me.

Teenage girls in foster homes need love and nurturing just as much as babies and toddlers.

[REP]

41. If she collected dogs or cats like she collects children, would some say she has a problem?

Why is collecting helpless human beings laudable?

[chrisa]

46. Pretty weak attack, don't you think?

Considering almost everything else she does is terrible, and there's an endless amount of things to legitimately attack her for.

This is just incredibly lame. Sorry.