Even while touting himself as a “Tea Party kind of guy before there was a Tea Party,” presidential candidate and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) isn’t fooling many among grassroots conservatives, who label him as “the poster boy for big government.” And Santorum’s past as a “prolific supporter of earmarks” won’t make it any easier.

While serving as a U.S. senator in 2003, Santorum procured over $3.1 million in federal earmarks for social conservative causes — over $1 million of which has gone to the anti-gay Urban Family Council. The Christian group and its president William Devlin have actively opposed gay rights, from promoting a same-sex marriage ban to supporting laws criminalizing homosexuality.

Devlin even criticized the enactment of a stronger hate-speech ban in Philadelphia in 2005:

“There is a collective spirit of fear hanging over this city. Right now, the gays own Philadelphia…Over the last ten years, I’ve been to pastor after pastor in this city, trying to get them to put pressure on the elected officials who’ve been pushing the homosexual agenda. They’re all afraid to speak up. They’re like the frog in the kettle: they’ve sat there in silence for all this time while the gays kept turning up the water temperature. Now it’s come to a boil, and they’re still in the pot.”

In turn, the UFC and its president William Devlin campaigned for Santorum during his 2006 campaign, potentially violating the IRS rules regarding acceptable political activity for religious organizations. Along with the three other Christian groups in the Pennsylvania Pastors Network, the UFC hosted a get-out-the-vote drive in local churches at which Santorum was the only candidate represented; he gave a seven-minute speech to pastors on the importance of the same-sex marriage initiative via a pre-recorded video.

Santorum’s close relationship with social conservative groups like UFC, including the securing of federal dollars for their causes, has led right-wing writers to characterize Santorum as more inclined “to make government pro-family, not to make it small.” As RedState’s Ben Domenech concludes, “It’s precisely the Republican Party of Rick Santorum that even makes the Tea Party movement necessary.”

–Sarah Bufkin

Demonstrating yet again her ability to fabricate information on a whim, presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told Fox News host Bill O’Reilly Monday that President Obama personally told her that “Obamacare” will end Medicare and force seniors “onto Obamacare”:

BACHMANN: A couple of months ago I was in the White House with President Obama. We asked him three times, ‘what’s your plan to make Medicare solvent.’ He mumbled around and didn’t give answer…he said, ‘Obamacare.’ And so what senior citizens don’t realize is that President Obama’s plan for Medicare is they will all go into Obamacare. There won’t be a Medicare going forward under President Obama.

Watch it:

Senior citizens probably don’t realize they’re about to be forced off Medicare and onto the Affordable Care because it’s patently not true. The health reform law doesn’t eliminate Medicare, not by a long shot, as Bachmann should know since she voted for the House Republican budget, which makes fundamental changes to Medicare decades from now — long after Obama would have supposedly ended it.

The Affordable Care Act did find $500 billion in savings in the future growth of spending over 10 years — which happens to put Medicare on much better financial footing — which conservatives have unfairly conflated with benefit cuts, but saying that this equates to eliminating the program is bold new heights of mendacity, even for Bachmann.

Moreover, Bachmann’s dishonest fear mongering is eminently ironic considering she was up in arms about “liberals…trying to scare Americans about Medicare, and especially senior citizens” during the debate over the House GOP budget.

And finally, Bachmann’s comments lose all credibility, if they had any left, considering that she herself admitted that her claim that the Affordable Care Act would force seniors off Medicare was pure “speculat[ion].” In a speech at the Republican Leadership conference in June, she said:

And do you know what the president’s plan [for Medicare] is? This hasn’t been talked about very much. The president’s plan for senior citizens is Obamacare. We all think for our senior citizens that somehow Medicare is going to go on. And I think very likely — and I’m speculating — I think very likely what the president intends is that Medicare will go broke, and then ultimately that answer will be Obamacare for senior citizens.

That claim, while much weaker, is already extremely disingenuous. At the time, the Washington Post’s fact checker gave the assertion four pinocchios, its highest rating, explaining, “There is no evidence for this and it is completely nonsensical. For a member of Congress, she really should know the basics of government-funded health care programs.”

Bachmann’s comments on O’Reilly Monday go several steps further than the June comment and are beyond nonsensical — they’re intentionally dishonest

Dinosaurs on Noah's Ark at Kentucky's Bible-themed amusement park.

Mayor Rick Skinner said the offer is laid out in a memorandum of agreement that will be followed by a formal tax-increment financing deal with Petersburg-based Ark Encounters LLC in coming months.

The tax deal is in addition to almost $200,000 given to the company by Grant County’s economic development arm as an enticement to keep the project located there, along with 100 acres of reduced-price land.

And that’s not counting the state’s promise of $40 million worth of sales tax rebates and a possible $11 million in improvements to the interstate near the project that would be financed by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that “the array of state and local incentives worry some people, who aren’t sure they will pay off in the end.” That group includes local officials like City Council member and former Mayor Glenn Caldwell who worries that residents might “be burdened with additional costs because of this project.”

Proponents of the project, including Gov. Steve Beshear (D) say it will create up to 900 jobs and attract 1.6 million tourists in its first year. However, as TPM notes, “those numbers were based on a feasibility study, commissioned by Ark Encounters LLC, that state officials reportedly never actually saw.”

The multiple tax breaks for the amusement park come at a time when Kentucky families are struggling from eight rounds of state budget cuts over the past three years. That includes cuts to education at all levels, a pay freeze for all teachers and state workers, and reduced funding for Medicaid.

The state already has a Creationism Museum, and the complementary amusement park includes biblical exhibits like the Tower of Babel and a full-size replica of Noah’s Ark…complete with dinosaurs inside (which creationists believe co-existed with early man). It’s slated to open in the spring of 2014.

President Obama paid his respects to the 30 U.S. military troops who were killed Saturday as they arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware yesterday. Obama spent time on the transport planes that carried the remains and later “spent about 70 minutes in private with grieving family members.”

The unprecedented recall effort in Wisconsin culminated in a victory for Republicans last night as the GOP maintained a slim majority in the State Senate. Two Republican senators — Dan Kapanke and Randy Hopper — lost their seats to Democratic challengers in the recall election, but the outcome was seen as a victory for Gov. Scott Walker (R) and a disappointment to labor groups who spent months and millions of dollars on the effort.

British Prime Minister David Cameron promised police will “fightback” with “the possible use of water cannons to curb the looting and arson” occurring across Britain for four consecutive days. Cameron said the violence is “as much a moral problem as a political problem” for “our society and something we have to deal with.”

In a clear sign that it does not expect much economic growth in the near future, yesterday the Federal Reserve made a rare promise that it will keep short-term interest rates near zero through the middle of 2013. By assuring markets that the cost of borrowing will not rise, the Fed hopes to spur investment. But it is also conceding that unemployment will likely remain high and wage growth minimal through the end of President Obama’s first term.

The Obama administration is reportedly soon going to announce a much tougher stance on Syria, as the president is expected to call for the first time for the Syrian leader to step down. The Treasury Department will also increase its sanctions on the country.

Standard & Poor’s is balking at the Security and Exchange Commission’s request that it disclose the “significant errors” assessing U.S. debt how they calculate their ratings more generally. “The SEC is weighing sweeping new rules designed to improve the quality of ratings after their poor performance in the financial crisis.”

South Korea “exchanged artillery fire with North Korea on Wednesday near a sea border and an island that Pyongyang attacked last year.” Although no injuries were reported, the skirmish marks a long series of events marking increased tensions between the two countries.

The head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) Warren Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison yesterday on child-sex charges. Jeffs, who led a breakaway polygamist Mormon cult in Texas, fathered children with girls as young as 15 and sexually assaulted girls as young as 12.

And finally: “30 Rock” star Alec Baldwin seems to be seriously considering a bid for mayor of New York City, and is “talking with two top universities about enrolling in a master’s program in politics and government ‘to help me better understand what the fiscal imperatives of that job are,’ he said.” Meanwhile, activist filmmaker Michael Moore is calling on actor Matt Damon to run for president. Acting is soo 2010.

ThinkProgress filed this report from The Response rally in Houston, Texas.

On Saturday, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) held a prayer rally with an assortment of right-wing pastors in Houston, Texas. ThinkProgress attended the supposedly “nonpolitical” event, and noticed a parade of Republican politicians and consultants milling about backstage. To our surprise, we encountered former House Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), who told us that he was attending as a private citizen.

We spoke to DeLay about some of the issues in the news, including the possibility of another government shutdown next month when the continuing resolution budget expires. DeLay, who helped manage the Gingrich government shut down in 1995, said this time Republicans should refuse to negotiate and should close the government “until they get what they want.” He also said he is “always praying” for reducing the size government, even if that means a closure of federal agencies:

FANG: Regardless of the current leadership of Congress in the House, how do you think Congress should proceed in general as the C.R. runs out next month? There could be a government shut down–

DELAY: They’re going to face another shut down. And hopefully this time they’ll let it shut down until they get what they want. Everyone points to the shut down we had in ’95 and says it was a horrible thing. The horrible thing was when Bob Dole walked out on the Senate floor on Sunday afternoon and re-opened the government. Including in President Clinton’s own book, that if we’d had held out for one more day, we’d have won. […]

FANG: Were you praying today for reducing the size of government even if it comes to a government shut down?

DELAY: I’m always praying for reducing the size of government!

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DeLay wouldn’t comment directly on the leadership of his successors in Congress, like current House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA). But he did say he hopes they take a harder line against Obama to defeat him in 2012.