As ThinkProgress reported, last night on his HBO show, Bill Maher aired a clip from an Oct. 29, 1999 show of Politically Incorrect, in which Republican senate candidate Christine O’Donnell revealed that she “dabbled into witchcraft.” As O’Donnell’s comments begin to attract national attention, it appears the tea party candidate is trying to avoid media scrutiny. She was schedule to appear on CBS’ Face the Nation tomorrow, but host Bob Schieffer has tweeted that O’Donnell canceled:

O’Donnell isn’t even heeding her consigliere Sarah Palin’s advice, who urged her this week to “speak through Fox News.” O’Donnell was scheduled to appear on Fox News Sunday tomorrow, but has canceled that appearance as well.

Diane Banister, whose PR firm booked the Sunday show appearances, told the AP in an email that “O’Donnell canceled so that she could attend a Republican campaign event Sunday in Delaware’s Sussex County.”

Earlier this month, after health insurers across the country announced that the early health care benefits were forcing them to increase premiums by up to 9 percentage points, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote a letter to the industry arguing that “any potential premium impact from the new consumer protections and increased quality provisions under the Affordable Care Act will be minimal” and pointed to actuary estimates which found that the early consumer protections would result in marginal increases. “I want AHIP’s members to be put on notice: the Administration, in partnership with states, will not tolerate unjustified rate hikes in the name of consumer protections,” Sebelius said.

This morning, speaking at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., Newt Gingrich likened Sebelius’ letter to “Soviet tyranny” and said that a Republican-controlled House should ask for her resignation and defund her office in the Department of Health and Human Services:

GINGRICH: When Secretary Sebelius said the other day she would punish insurance companies that told the truth about the cost of Obamacare, she was behaving exactly in the spirit of the Soviet tyranny. And if she’s going to represent left-wing thought police about Obamacare, she should be forced to resign by the new Congress.

This idea that we the people have to tolerate some bureaucrat being paid with our taxes to dictate free speech to us should end in January by the Republican Congress zeroing out her office and explaining that they would be glad to pay for it when someone is there who recognizes the rights of the American people.

Watch it:

But the insurance industry has a long history of artificially inflating its premium requests. The Wonk Room wonders why Gingrich is willing to put full trust in its accounting practices.

Before she stole the hearts of tea party activists, Delaware GOP Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell was best known for her regular and bizarre punditry on 22 different episodes of Politically Incorrect. The host of that show, Bill Maher, now has an HBO show called Real Time.

Last night, Real Time aired its first show of the current season. Maher began by mocking O’Donnell, calling her “an uemployed, anti-masturbation activist and a close friend of mine.” “I created her,” Maher told the audience, turning to the camera and stating, “You owe me Christine O’Donnell.” Maher said that he has great fondness for O’Donnell, adding, “She does not have a mean bone in her body, or any other bone in her body.”

Later in the show, Maher played a previously-unaired Oct. 29, 1999 clip of O’Donnell on Politically Incorrect, in which O’Donnell said she once “practiced witchcraft”:

O’DONNELL: I dabbled into witchcraft — I never joined a coven. But I did, I did. … I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I’m not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do. [...]

One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn’t know it. I mean, there’s little blood there and stuff like that. … We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.

Watch it:

Maher joked that he’s going to show a fresh clip of O’Donnell every week on his show until O’Donnell agrees to appear again on his show. “I’m just saying, Christine, it’s like a hostage crisis,” he said, “every week you don’t show up, I’m going to throw another body out.”

Learn more about the woman who wants to become a United States Senator in our ThinkProgress report: The Old Adventures Of New Christine.