Ed Rollins, a longtime GOP strategist and the former campaign manager for Michele Bachmann’s 2012 presidential campaign, penned an op-ed for Fox News’ website today slamming the Minnesota congresswoman for her recent remarks about the Muslim Brotherhood and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Chief of Staff Huma Abedin.

Bachmann has been roundly condemned by members of her own party for suggesting that Abedin, the wife of former Congressman Anthony Weiner, is part of a coordinated effort to undermine or diminish the United States’ response to the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Shame on you, Michele!” writes Rollins, before unleashing a wave of criticism on his former boss:

Her unsubstantiated charge against Abedin, a widely respected top aide to Secretary Hillary Clinton, accusing her of some sort of far-fetched connection to the Muslim brotherhood, is extreme and dishonest.

Having worked for Congressman Bachman’s campaign for president, I am fully aware that she sometimes has difficulty with her facts, but this is downright vicious and reaches the late Senator Joe McCarthy level.

Rollins’ comments are the most forceful condemnation yet of Bachmann’s decision to submit a letter to several national security agencies in which she and three other congressmen claim — without a shred of evidence — that the Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated the US government by securing senior-level positions in various government agencies. Rollins had guided Rep. Bachmann to a surprising victory in the 2011 Iowa straw poll before he stepped down from the day-to-day responsibilities in September amidst the campaign’s falling poll numbers.

Earlier today, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) gave an impassioned defense of Abedin and denounced Bachmann on the senate floor.

Mitt Romney has singled out the Drudge Report as one of his favorite websites. But the candidate’s public embrace of the right-wing publication is more than an effort to win over conservative readers: Romney actually believes in some of the debunked conspiracy theories extremist groups peddle.

During a town hall in Ohio on Wednesday, Romney responded to question about the United Nations by declaring that the international body will undermine Americans’ Second Amendment rights and dictate how families should raise their children:

ROMNEY: Turning to the United Nations to tell us how to raise our kids, or whether we can have the Second Amendment rights that our Constitution gave us, I mean, that is the wrong way to go, right? Do not cede sovereignty. I’m happy to talk there. I’m not willing to give American sovereignty in any way, shape or form to the United Nations or any other body. We are a free nation. We fought for freedom and independence. We are going to keep freedom and independence.

Watch it:

The “guns” reference concerns Arms Trade Treaty, a U.N. initiative to prevent weapons from getting into the hands of terrorists and genocidaires. Both Drudge and the NRA have insisted that it poses a threat to American gun ownership. However, as ThinkProgress has documented, the treaty can’t and won’t: there are no provisions being negotiated in the treaty that affect domestic gun ownership, the State Department has publicly committed to rejecting any treaty that does, and Constitutional protections for gun ownership would trump a U.N. treaty according the Supreme Court even if a treaty infringing on the Second Amendment somehow made it through Congress.

Romney’s “Telling us how raise our kids” conspiracy refers to the notion peddled by pundit Dick Morris. He claims that the U.N. is coming for our children through the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty expressing standards for the acceptable treatment of children that every country — except Somalia and the United States — has ratified. The Convention “can only be implemented through domestic legislation enacted by Congress or state legislatures, in a manner and time-frame determined by our own legislative process.” Thus, the U.N. can’t force the United States to pass laws interpreting Treaty provisions in any particular fashion and “contains no controlling language or mandates” for the signatory nations.

As of 2012, ten states have put in place laws requiring voters to present some form of government-issued photo ID in order to vote, even though 11 percent of eligible American voters lack such ID. Poor, minority, and elderly voters are especially likely to fall into that group: 25 percent of African-Americans, 16 percent of Hispanics, and 18 percent of Americans over 65 don’t have the necessary identification. Now the Brennan Center for Justice has released a new study documenting the unusual structural challenges these populations face in finding a government office which can issue an ID, and then acquiring it:

Transportation to an office: More than 10 million eligible voters in these states live more than 10 miles from the nearest office where they can acquire an ID, including 1.2 million African-American voters and 500,000 Hispanics. 472,523 of these eligible voters do not have access to a vehicle and live more than 10 miles from an office. On top of that, many of these voters live in rural areas where public transportation is scarce — seven of the ten states with restrictive voter ID laws rank in the bottom half of states when it comes to per capita investment in public transportation.

Limited or odd office hours: Less than half of these offices are open five days a week in Wisconsin, Alabama, and Mississippi. No office holds Saturday hours in Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, Texas or Wisconsin. In Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, no office is open more than two days per week in the areas with the highest concentrations of rural African-American voters. The numbers are comparably bleak for the areas in Texas with highest concentrations of Hispanic voters. Some offices also hold odd hours — for example, an office in Wisconsin is only open on the first Wednesday of every other month, and one in Alabama is only open on the third Thursday of each month.

Challenges for urban voters: While the situation is somewhat better in the cities, urban minorities and the urban poor still often face hours on public transit and long wait times to acquire an ID. In Rock Hill, South Carolina, for example, the city’s only ID-issuing office is located seven miles away from the 42,000 eligible African-American voters in the city’s center. In Knoxville, Tennessee, the nearest office is 11 miles from the city center. 61,6000 of Knoxville’s eligible voters live more than five miles from this office — 26 percent of them are African-American and 27.5 percent of them are poor. The southeastern quadrant of Dallas, Texas, which has the city’s highest concentrations of African-American and impoverished voters, does not have a single office.

Cost of “free” IDs: Even when a photo ID itself is ostensibly free of charge, nine of these ten states require some kind of supporting documentation in order to acquire a photo ID. A birth certificate can $15 to $30, a passport $135, a naturalization certificate or certificate of citizenship $345, and a marriage license from $5 to $40. Many of these documents can be difficult to obtain. By comparison, the poll tax outlawed by the Civil Rights Act cost $10.64 in current dollars.

All ten of these states are controlled by Republicans in both the governorship and the legislature, who continue to push these kinds of laws forward, risking the disenfranchisement of millions of Americans. At the same time, these ten states also make up 127 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency in November.

While Mitt Romney continues to ignore calls to release his tax returns, Democrats in both the House and Senate are trying to make sure future presidential candidates cannot duck their financial past.

Sens. Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Carl Levin (D-MI) promoted their Financial Disclosure to Reduce Tax Haven Abuse Act on the floor today. The bill, introduced in March, would force candidates and their spouses to file a disclosure form listing the identity, value and location of any accounts held in tax havens.

Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI) also announced today his intent to require presidential candidates to make public 10 years of tax returns and disclose overseas accounts. In a press release, Levin directly ties his proposal to Romney:

The stunning lack of transparency from someone in pursuit of the highest office in the country highlights the need to change the law to require fuller disclosure. For decades, presidential candidates have voluntarily provided a thorough accounting of their tax returns and finances, as they should. But we clearly cannot continue to rely solely on the willingness of a candidate to disclose fully what the public has a right to know about the candidate’s financial record.

Besides requiring candidates to release 10 years of tax returns, the legislation would also require the disclosure of the locations, value, and purpose of all offshore accounts, any compensatory arrangements with companies or individuals, investments or holdings, and other assets and activities of any entity in which the candidate has a controlling interest.

Along with public figures including Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) and the National Review, 61 percent of independents want Romney to release 12 years of tax returns — the number his father, George Romney, released when he ran for president.