What a hoot. I started to write a post about Rep. Todd Akin, R-Missouri, last week, when he announced he wanted to end federal support for school lunch programs because they are unconstitutional. But now that he’s stepped in the rapes-don’t-cause-pregnancy doo doo he’s even more fun. Why haven’t we noticed this guy before?
The national Republican Party has withdrawn funding from the Missouri Senate race in the wake of his development.
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (R-Tex.) informed Rep. Todd Akin on Monday that the national GOP will not spend money to help elect him to the Senate after Akin’s controversial comments about “legitimate rape,†according to an NRSC aide.
Cornyn also told Akin that, by staying in the race, he is endangering Republicans’ hopes of retaking the majority in the Senate, the aide said.
And now I’m seeing that Karl Rove’s Crossroads PAC is pulling funding from the Missouri Senate race. This is serious.
Several elements of the Republican Party are pressuring Akin to drop out of his Senate race against Claire McCaskill. Nate Silver says Akin may have just handed to election to McCaskill.
This incident could serve to make the public aware of Romney-Ryan’s extremist views on abortion, which hasn’t come up that much so far.
The Romney-Ryan campaign has tried to distance itself from Akin, but the Obama campaign released this statement this morning:
“While Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are working overtime to distance themselves from Rep. Todd Akin’s comments on rape, they are contradicting their own records. Mr. Romney supports the Human Life Amendment, which would ban abortion in all instances, even in the case of rape and incest. In fact, that amendment is a central part of the Republican Party’s platform that is being voted on tomorrow. And, as a Republican leader in the House, Mr. Ryan worked with Mr. Akin to try to pass laws that would ban abortion in all cases, and even narrow the definition of ‘rape.’ Every day, women across America grapple with difficult and intensely personal health decisions—decisions that should ultimately be between a woman and her doctor. These decisions are not made any easier when Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan treat women’s health as a matter of partisan politics.â€
So, you know Obama is going to hang Todd Akin around RR’s lying little necks.
Ryan and Akin largely agree when it comes to abortion rights. Both believe abortion should be illegal even in the case of rape and incest. Both were co-sponsors of H.R. 3, the 2011 bill that would have limited the federal abortion coverage exemption only to victims of “forcible rape†and women whose physical health was in danger from her pregnancy, closing a supposed loophole in health-of-the-mother exemptions conservatives have been crowing about for years.
After massive vocal protest from women’s rights advocates, the sponsors dropped the “forcible rape†language from the bill, giving up their quest to redefine rape in the federal code with little explanation.
But while the Republicans are running from Akin and his “legitimate rape” comments as fast as they can, the Fetus People are standing firm with Akin. So seems to me RR is in a tough position — run too far from Akin, and they may leave a chunk of their base behind.
For the record, Sarah Kliff writes,
Research published in the Journal of American Obstetrics and Gynecology suggests over 30,000 pregnancies result from rape annually. “Rape-related pregnancy occurs with significant frequency,†the trio of researchers from the University of South Carolina concluded. “It is a cause of many unwanted pregnancies.â€
A separate 2001 study – which used a sample of 405 rape victims between ages 12 and 45 – found that 6.4 percent became pregnant.
It’s not just R&R who have supported this misogynistic lunacy, it’s R&R&R&R:
Romney & Ryan & Republican Politicians & Rest Of ‘Em!
And almost funny that they’re disowning a guy who said what almost all of them think, but only say in public – and the ones who DON’T think the same way, have been remarkably quiet the last few decades.
I was watching Cup O’ Schmoe this morning, and between “Legitimate Rape” Akins, and the GOP Congressmen doing ‘”The Gaza Strip” & Skinny-dip’ on an Israeli fact-finding mission (one hesitates to ask what “facts” they found out about one another, any, ‘short’comings, say…), Schmoe was in high, HIGH dudgeon about his party.
“What kind of Republicans ARE these people?” he harumphed.
Uhm, can it be… YOUR KIND?
This is YOUR party, Schmoe!
The one you helped make, the one you’ve been a part of, the one you support, and the one you continue to support, and will continue to do so in the future, as long as it profits you to do so.
The party of religious grifters.
The party of science deniers.
The party of low taxes for the rich.
The party of corporations over people.
The party of racists.
The party of misogynists.
The party of xenophobes.
The party of homophobes.
The party that’s not just lacking in empathy, but is the party of abject cruelty.
What?
Were these kind of Republicans hatched overnight, you think?
They sprang from the head of Zeus fully formed (ok, the head of Nixon or McCarthy, I’ll buy) in the last, as you said Schmoe, 5-6 years?
No.
They’ve been nurtured by the likes of you.
They’ve been financed by the likes of you.
Their extremism has been given cover by the likes of you.
They were already there when YOU, Schmoe, joined the House – or, did you forget your pal, Newt? He was there before you.
This is the party that sold the nation a moron with an oxymoron:
George W. Bush – The Compassionate Conservative.”
And now, NOW, your dudgeon has finally reached a cruising altitude?
Schmoe – This IS your party!
And it’s been your party for quite awhile
A party of cruel morons and amoroal morality grifters.
And YOUR party is just months away from the prize it’s had it’s eye on for decades: the complete remake of the USA from a Representative Democracy, to a Theocratic Fascist Plutocracy.
This is YOUR party, Schmoe.
Don’t run away from it.
Cherish it, hug it, love it, kiss it, embrace it!
You are, after all, one of its fathers, Schmoe.
Shall I get a stepladder to help you get off your high horse, you horses ass?
Is your dudgeon so high, you need a parachute?
Pahleeze!
What you’re looking at, is the reality of a party, YOUR PARTY, Schmoe, that cares about nothing except victory, and what power and profits it can extort from that victory.
Power and profits before people, Schmoe!
That’s the party you’re looking at – YOUR PARTY!!!
The party where any means are justifiable, if they end in victory.
Revel in it, Schmoe.
Enjoy it.
“Dive in,” today’s GOP Congressmen will tell you, “the water’s fine!”
I hope you evil f*ckers all drown!
GOP candidate says: rape impossible… Woman can run faster with skirt up than man can run with pants down.
That’s cool how a woman has the ability to shut down her reproductive system in case of rape…I wonder why women get so worked up over the birth control issue when all they have to do pretend they were raped if they want to prevent a pregnancy.
Just when you think you know it all about female reproduction.
I bet most of you people didn’t know that a kung fu master can retract his testicles up into his body cavity for protection when engaged in combat..Really!
Also too – if not for committing the rape itself, if the rapist causes the woman to have some secret secretions that prevent the pregnancy, isn’t THAT like an abortifacient that causes the death of the ‘unborn,’ and shouldn’t THAT be punished?
So that, by committing an “illegitimate” rape, as opposed to a “legitimate” one, and not convincing the woman to accept his penis willingly (like the beyotch didn’t really WANT IT!), isn’t he guilty of killing the unborn?
These are some seriously sick feckin’ people.
And I mean, REALLY, REALLY, SICK FECKIN’ PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wonder if Akins told the story about the guy with the four speed who gave his girlfriend a Spanish Fly?
If you’ve lost Karl Rove because you’re too extreme, well, that’s really saying something. My guess is that the reason that the RNC and Rove pulled support was more because the likelihood of Akin winning now was near nil. I think we can assume that Rove WOULD NOT make any kind of ethical judgement on Akin. If Akin’s poll numbers went up, Rove would be back in the game in MO.
I’m surprised they didn’t offer Akin a speaking slot at the convention.
I am fascinated by the science-fiction world that Akins inhabits. It’s not true that raped women spontaneously abort; but if we get the genetic engineers on the case, then maybe it’ll be true in the future.
– oh, but I forget; that would require science.
There’s nothing like an empowered numbskull with a bullhorn.
I suppose a kick in the head wouldn’t hurt unless it was a” legitimate” kick.
Keep talkin’, GOP’ers; we’re recording every word.
There’s nothing like an empowered numbskull with a bullhorn.
I suppose a kick in the head wouldn’t hurt unless it was a” legitimate” kick.
Keep talkin’, GOP’ers; we’re recording every word.
This is kind of the perfect opposition, one that eats itself.
I hate to admit it, and I doubt she needs it, but I just sent Claire $25 and a note of support for hanging in there as a Democrat. I noted that I am far more liberal than she is, but that I appreciate the statement she made about women’s suffering from rape.
If you’ve lost Karl Rove because you’re too extreme, well, that’s really saying something….
Akin lost Rove not because he was extreme, just unskilled, on a very sensitive subject. Unskilled, meaning he costs the GOP votes, big time.
Wow!
This is not as much fun as it should be.
“legitimate rapeâ€
Is that like a serious heart attack?
I predicted his demise as the candidate at my blog also. As the weakest of Claire’s opponents it probably ultimately serves Rove, etc.’s, purpose to replace him at this time.
We must organize to defeat whomever they rally around.
Please use your megaphone to keep explaining:
Republican Akin was Republican Presidential candidate Romney’s buddy Ryan’s co-author of legislation that would allow rapists to force their victims to have their babies.
Republicans Ryan and Akin also partnered to redefine rape, which, while evil, is still eclipsed by their greater evil of giving rapists power to demand their victims have their babies.
There needs to be a category of “Kinsleyian Truthiness”, as in ‘accidentally saying what you believe to be true even when it’s false.’
Many right-wingers do in fact believe the disturbing falsehoods Republican Todd Akin was spouting.
Many Republicans do in fact believe that rapists should be allowed to force their victims to have babies, those that might have felt differently are now (ahem) chained to militant religious fanatics that would force children to have their daddies babies.
Worse, those same militant religious fanatics would then abandon that baby, that’s what the Republican Ryan budget does, signed on to by Romney: Abandon babies.