Tea Party Reality Check: Bill Clinton Dismisses Michelle Bachmann in Davos

It had the potential to be a big "national stage" moment for the Tea Party.

But instead Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann (pictured left) one of the far right's heaviest hitters, came off looking reactionary, uninformed and tediously combative - and according to the Time's Deal Book, Bill Clinton coolly sat down for an interview on the 2nd day of the World Economic Forum and called her out for boldly suggesting "Every American knows we have the greatest health care system in the world."

Actually, we don't. According to the World Health Organization US health care ranks 37th out of 191 countries; just behind Costa Rica. Bizarre gaffes are nothing new for the quotable Bachmann, lists of her jaw-dropping observations are legion online.

Using Bachmann's fact-challenged assumption, Clinton delivered a back-hand to the Tea Party in front of reps from the world's leading nations:

“Everyone knows that is factually untrue,” said Mr. Clinton, “We have to stop conducting our politics in a parallel universe divorced from reality with no facts,”

With the Tea Party Senate Caucus struggling to get more than 4 members in it's ranks and 30 out of 435 in the House, the party is over and it's time to get down to business. Time will quickly tell if the party the Koch Brothers money built can muster the ability to talk straight to the American people and get along on the Hill.

Has Putin's Tolerance of Intolerance Come Home to Roost?

Pictured left, the funeral of Russian journalist Anastasiya Baburova, 25 slain by neo-Nazis in 2009 - pictured below

Last Monday, in a demand for a nationwide crackdown on extremist hate group activity in Russia (amidst the worst racial unrest since the fall of the Soviet Union) Russian President Dimitri Medvedev declared publicly that, "All Nazis, independent of where they come from... they simply undermine the cultural foundations of our state."

Seven days later Medvedev canceled his trip to Davos, Switzerland amid global shock and outrage in the wake of the apparent suicide bombing in Moscow's Domodedevo Airport that killed more than 30 and injured scores of others - raising serious questions of where the government of Vladimir Putin actually stands on the growing violent hate group activity within Russian borders that target ethnic and religious minorities, immigrants as well as Russian scholars, human rights activists and journalists.

Journalists like Anastasiya Baburova, (pictured above) a 25-year old writer for Russian magazine Novaya Gazeta killed in broad daylight less than a a mile from the Kremlin; her work focused in part on exposing Russian neo-Nazis. She was one of 14 people killed in January, 2009 a month before BTO, (a Russian neo-Nazi group) posted a "Death List" on the Internet with the names of dozens of Russian journalists, human rights activists and scholars.

For many of the millions of ordinary Russians shocked at the spike in neo-Nazi activity, the Putin government's alleged acceptance and tacit support for violent ultra-nationalist groups raises the question of whether a tolerance for extremist violence has in fact helped to create the very environment that led to today's bombing.

You can't feed the 800-pound chicken, turn your head when it violates the law using intimidation and violence, then act baffled when it comes home to roost - a lesson tiresome, fear-mongering 'Exceptional American' Sarah Palin still pretends not to have learned.

Does the term "Russian Neo Nazi" strike anyone as absurd given the (real) Nazis were directly or indirectly responsible for over 23,954,000 people killed within the borders of the Soviet Union during World War II?