LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Michele Bachmann, as has been pointed out in this space before, has a family farm that has received over a quarter of million dollars in direct cash from the federal government. That is, of course, in addition to her federal salary of $174,000 for her real full-time job as a member of Congress. Thanks to Sam Stein at the Huffington Post today, with we now have yet another example of Bachmann political dependence, career dependence on socialism.

The Huffington Post obtained a letter Bachmann wrote on October 5th, 2009, to the Obama administration’s Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack thanking him for government intervention in the pork industry. That's right, government intervention in the market. She wrote, “Your efforts to stabilize prices through direct government purchasing of pork and dairy products are very much welcomed.”

Yes. This is the same woman who said this about the Democrats' health care reform bill.

Unfortunately, O'Donnell chose to ignore some very important points from Stein's piece: