Legitimate Rape Repeat

Sigh.

I really thought we were past this, folks.  But here we are again, with Phil Gingrey saying Todd Akin really did sort of kind of if you really work it over through a few hoops know what he was talking about when he brought up legitimate rape.

“In Missouri, Todd Akin … was asked by a local news source about rape and he said, ‘Look, in a legitimate rape situation’ — and what he meant by legitimate rape was just look, someone can say I was raped: a scared-to-death 15-year-old that becomes impregnated by her boyfriend and then has to tell her parents, that’s pretty tough and might on some occasion say, ‘Hey, I was raped.’ That’s what he meant when he said legitimate rape versus non-legitimate rape. I don’t find anything so horrible about that. But then he went on and said that in a situation of rape, of a legitimate rape, a woman’s body has a way of shutting down so the pregnancy would not occur. He’s partly right on that.”

“And I’ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right wasn’t he? But the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped, you’re not going to prevent a pregnancy there by a woman’s body shutting anything down because the horse has already left the barn, so to speak. And yet the media took that and tore it apart.”

Got it.  Women can't be trusted.

The next bit is the priceless stupidity that only Akin and his intellectual brethren can accomplish.  When facts won't hold up, the next thing to do is run it through some ass backwards logic to try to confuse folks.   That wasn't what he said, guys. That wasn't really what he meant, you know.  It's the public's fault for believing it and it's the media's fault for putting his direct quote out there for people to read.  But hey, now that we're on that subject, let's read it one more time just for giggles:

"From what I understand from doctors, that's really rare," Akin said of pregnancy caused by rape. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume maybe that didn't work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist."

Akin says it's really rare that legitimate rape creates babies.  Funny, there's no mention of ovulation.  Kind of like how our doctor friend doesn't mention that his deep understanding of Todd Akin's remark would only matter if you were being raped within hours of ovulation. Never mind this comes from a physician and a man who sits on the House Committee for Science, Space and Technology.  Don't concern yourself with the fact that Gingrey is repeating this nonsense for no reason except to try to make a point.  That is medically proven to be false.  Through science.

The silver lining is that we are adding quotes to the library for the next round.  Let these twits run at the mouth and commit political suicide, I'll just document it.

All About Winning

Throwing Todd Akin under the bus for his awful "legitimate rape" comments was fashionable when Republicans still thought they had a shot at the Senate two months ago without him.  That ship has sailed.

Now or Never PAC, the conservative, Missouri-based super PAC supporting Todd Akin, has upped it's ad buy in the final week of the Missouri Senate race from $800,000 to $1 million, the group's spokesman, Tyler Harber, told TPM Thursday.

The ad, which TPM first reported on Wednesday, argues that Todd Akin is needed in the Senate -- even if he's not a perfect candidate -- in order to help Republicans take control of the Senate.

Gosh, I'm betting there are women in Missouri who would like to know who the donors are to Now or Never PAC, but of course you can buy anonymity when you have that much money.  Free speech, if you can afford it.

Also helps when publicly you're a Republican who has disavowed Akin in the past, too.  Funny how that works.

Meeting Of The Mindless

Rep. Todd Akin getting help from Sen. Rand Paul?  Oh somebody upstairs likes me.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) jumps in to the Missouri Senate race Wednesday with a statewide television ad critical of Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill for her votes on foreign aid to countries that have seen violent demonstrations critical of the United States.

Paul is the latest Republican to defy party leaders and help the beleaguered Senate candidacy of Todd Akin, abandoned by the national GOP in August after telling a television interviewer that woman generally do not get pregnant in cases of “legitimate rape.”  Top Republicans, including presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ken.), asked Akin to drop out and cut national party support for his campaign.

Akin apologized but sank in the polls, surviving with a small cadre of defiant supporters, mostly Christian conservatives. McCaskill leads in most polls, but Akin’s numbers have recovered from the 20-point gap that emerged after his rape comment.

And McCaskill is still leading by most poll aggregates.  Rand Paul trying to be a national GOP hero?  Good luck with that.  That may play here in Kentucky, but you're going to find that what works here in ultra-conservative Kentucky is going to be a real problem for Todd Akin.

We'll see.

Podcast Versus The Stupid!

Episode 17 this weekend, Unleash The Biden now up for your listening pleasure.  Ian Boudreau hangs out with us again for the hour as we talk the VP debate, the tightening race for President, Todd Akin's awful views on evolution, and the scary part of the campaign season as the nutjobs come out of the woodwork.

Listen to internet radio with Zandar Versus The Stupid on Blog Talk Radio

As always, you can right click and download the episode here or subscribe to the podcast at iTunes.

Last Call

Podcast Vs. The Stupid for tonight is now up.

Listen to internet radio with Zandar Versus The Stupid on Blog Talk Radio

Bon and I talk Mitt Romney running into a wall in the swing states, Todd Akin and Claire McCaskill, Scott Brown douchiness and Springfield's pot law bait and switch.

Subscribe to PVTS on iTunes or download the full episode here.

Or, as always you can check out the episode archive page here.

Last Call

And it's today's new and improved one hour Podcast Vs. The Stupid!  Click to Embiggen!

Listen to internet radio with Zandar Versus The Stupid on Blog Talk Radio

Bon and I talk Mitt's taxes, Paul Ryan getting booed at the AARP convention, Queen Ann Romney and You People, plus the state of the Senate slipping away from the GOP and even putting the House into play.  Also, Todd Akin and Rand Paul are still losers.

Right click to download the mp3 here or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or check out the episode archive page here.  And if you like what you hear, drop a couple bucks in the PayPal jar.

Akin Can't Spell Or Woo Women Voters

On Tuesday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the Missouri Senate candidate's campaign was forced to take down its "Women for Akin" site after the paper pointed out that one of the women in the prominent photo was not a supporter of Akin, and, in fact, worked on behalf of his opponent, incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).

The website featured a photo of Akin with standing with his wife and two women, but one of the women was Corinne Matti, a tracker for the state's Democratic Party.

But that wasn't the only mistake. Text to the right of the photo read, "I'm a women and I support Todd." 

Of course, "women" should be the singular "woman."

For its part, the Akin campaign told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that this was a draft version of the site that wasn't yet supposed to go live. 

The paper heard from a McCaskill spokesperson, so click over to the Post-Dispatch to see what she had to say about the image.

They knowingly lied.  They are so desperate to show women love Akin that they had to hijack a photo of a woman they knew did not support them.

Personally, I'm glad that Akin didn't drop out of the race.  It all but guarantees McCaskill's victory.

Any woman who backs Akin is a traitor to her own kind.  The sole exception is his wife, who knew what she married.  But when she continues to compare the GOP's actions to rape, she is also doing her man no favors.

Crash and burn, baby.  Crash and burn.

Must-Read Article

Sandra Harmon, a successful TV writer and producer.  However, she got her start in New York when she was so young that $96 a month in rent stretched her resources.  It was also when she was raped and abused by a diplomat who knew her living circumstances, a man who knew she did not have a bed and offered to let her borrow one while she waited.

Harmon writes an amazing story, and the ending is not without satisfaction.  She's a tough, ballsy broad.  But she has a lot to say about legitimate rape, and the pregnancy that ensued, and what women could find themselves facing in the future under the same circumstances.  It is nervy of me to presume to speak for her, but I bet she would also surely be disgusted about Akin's wife comparing people's reactions to rape, saying they have caused him enough pain that it is similar.

No, this is a real story about what happens when a young, poor woman finds herself attacked through no fault of her own.  I've got a teaser here, but I very much recommend that you read the whole thing.

For the next few weeks, I tried not to think about what happened, avoided the neighborhood coffee shop and didn’t confide in anyone. I didn’t tell my mother because she was still angry I’d moved alone to Manhattan. I knew she wouldn’t understand, and would blame me. I thought briefly of going to the police, but remembered that Enrique, as an Chilean diplomat, was immune to prosecution. Besides, who would believe my word over his after I’d invited him to come up to my apartment with a bed? 

When my period didn’t come, I went to the doctor and learned I was pregnant. I was in shock. Getting pregnant with an unwanted child was one of the worst situations a poor young woman could get herself into. I didn’t want a baby, and there was no way I could have afforded one. I felt I had no choice but to get an abortion. But abortions were illegal, albeit not impossible. In those days, real doctors, wanted a thousand dollars, and I didn’t have it. All my salary went to pay for rent and groceries. 

I refused to even consider the not-so-secret world of incompetent abortionists who were not doctors, who emphasized speed and their own protection. They didn’t use anesthesia because it took too long for women to recover; they wanted them out as quickly as possible. Some abortionists were rough and sadistic, or even drunk. Setting up shop in cheap, rundown, often filthy apartments, or in the back room of a commercial store, or even in the back of a car, almost none took adequate precautions against hemorrhage or infection. Some women turned to dangerous self-abortions, such as inserting knitting needles or coat hangers into their vagina or uterus, douching with lye, or swallowing strong drugs or chemicals. Many women died, and others had been left with chronic illness and pain, or disfigurement or infertility.

The Line Of The Convention So Far

Chuck Pierce reviews "You Didn't Build This!" night at the Tampa GOP Convention.

Ann Romney was sweet and lovely — and very defensive about people "attacking" hubby's success, but only as a "mom," of course — and Chris Christie brought down the house. But the Republican Party did something remarkable at its convention on Tuesday. It set out on an experiment to see exactly how much unmitigated hogwash the American political system can contain on a single evening. The Republican Party has set out at its 2012 convention in search of the Event Horizon of utter bullshit. It has sought to see precisely how many lies, evasions, elisions, and undigestible chunks of utter gobbledegook the political media can swallow before it finally gags twice and falls over dead, leaving the rest of America suckers all the same. What you didn't see in primetime, from Artur Davis to Ted Cruz, and from one 2016 contender to another, was the GOP embarking upon the task of seeing exactly how much nonsense it could produce at top volume before democracy screams and gives up, like Noriega in Panama when they played the metal music at him.

It was something to see, I'll tell you. An entire evening based on a demonstrable lie.

Ahh, and while Chuck has the GOP pegged as usual, the real line of the night, if not the convention and in fact the entire campaign was delivered by someone not on the stage at all.

An attendee at the Republican National Convention in Tampa on Tuesday allegedly threw nuts at a black camerawoman working for CNN and said “This is how we feed animals” before being removed from the convention, a network official confirmed to TPM.

The CNN official declined to confirm specific details of the incident to TPM but generally confirmed an account posted on Twitter by former MSNBC and Current anchor David Shuster: “GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying ‘This is how we feed animals.’”

Staggering racism aside, "This is how we feed the animals" pretty much sums up the entire GOP mindset for the the last 32 years, doesn't it?

Feed red meat to the base.  Feed lies to the press and the middle.  Feed contempt and hatred to the rest.  And look at the animals, the 99%, eat it up.  Durr hurr, stupid man animals will eat anything we throw at them.  Let's keep the dangerous ones locked up so we can gawk at them, and be sure to slaughter a few fatted calves so we eat well and they can rot in their pens and cages.  We're on display for their enjoyment, but never forget they'll put us down if we bite the hand that feeds us.

And a growing percentage of us think we can be the pigs in this Animal Farm before the two-legs come with the butcher's knife.  They won't cut me up, they say.  They'll cut up those other poor saps for meat.  They refuse to see we're all on the menu, but they figure the guys at the top will somehow be sated in their relentlessly greedy appetites before their turn comes.  They may be right, but the point is the Stockholm Syndrome crowd will knife us and leave us for the slaughterhouse all the same just to preserve their perceived power.

And that's the end of us.  We're all being fattened up for the table.  Only the fools can't see it.

Hurricane Todd

The real storm in the Republican Party isn't Isaac, but Todd Akin.  If Republicans actually follow through with this plan, McCaskill wins for sure.

Republicans are desperate for Todd Akin to drop out of the Missouri Senate race after his controversial comments about legitimate rape. Nearly every top Republican, including Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, have publicly called for him to quit.

This morning on ABC News, however, Mary Matalin — a well-connected GOP operative — suggested that Republicans would run a write-in candidate to defeat Akin. Matlin said that, if necessary, Republicans would “transfer the money” to Ann Wagner — a former chairwoman of the Missouri GOP who is currently running for Congress — to run as a 3rd party or write-in candidate. 

Wow.  Is Matalin this dumb?  I thought she was supposed to be a political analyst.  A write-in campaign would split the vote so badly that McCaskill could win with 40% or even 35% of the vote, something she'll be able to get easily.

But here she is pushing the centrist nonsense.  The Tea Party backlash against that would rip the Missouri GOP in half.  I guess I shouldn't be complaining, after all it's the GOP shooting itself in the head.

But damn, pundits are stupid.

Last Call

Yet another poll shows Todd Akin disintegrating in the Missouri Senate race.  I'm beginning to think it may be over for the guy no matter what he does.  The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has the results of the 50-41 lead for Claire McCaskill:

U.S. Senate challenger Todd Akin's support in Missouri has plummeted since his remarks a week ago about "legitimate rape" and pregnancy, putting him 9 points behind Sen. Claire McCaskill in a race he was previously winning, according to a new Post-Dispatch/News 4 poll.

More than half of Missouri voters now view the Republican congressman unfavorably, the poll indicates, and fewer than one in five view him favorably.

Akin's fall is especially dramatic among women. They were about evenly split between Akin and McCaskill in a similar poll at the end of July, but women now oppose him by almost 20 percentage points. Even in rural areas where Akin retains the lead, his support has dropped significantly from a month ago.

"I was undecided ... Now I'm not supportive of him," said Bonnie Walker, 75, of Queen City, who was one of the poll respondents. "It's such a negative for Missouri."

Akin, long a staunch opponent of abortion rights, was comfortably leading McCaskill, the incumbent Democrat, before the recent controversy. A Post-Dispatch/News 4 poll in July, before the Republican primary, showed Akin ahead of McCaskill by 5 points in a hypothetical matchup, 49-44.

In other words, what was shaping up to be a cakewalk for Akin is now turning into a bloodbath for McCaskill.  Akin's support among men is still dead even, 46-44...but women now prefer McCaskill 55-37. 

The poll also finds Mitt Romney ahead in the state by 7 points, 50-43.  Tying Romney to Akin isn't working.  Yet.

We'll see.

Doctor, Doctor, Can't You See I'm Burning, Burning

And now we know why the Romney campaign was so very eager to bury the Todd Akin story:  the trail from what the distinguished doucheknocker from Missouri believes leads right to Willard's front door.  The Guardian's Jon Swaine:

Mitt Romney met John Willke, the doctor credited with popularising Todd Akin’s controversial views on rape and abortion, during the current election campaign and told him they agreed on “almost everything,” Dr Willke said. 

Uh-oh.

Dr Willke, a prominent anti-abortion campaigner, claims to be an authority on the theory espoused by Mr Akin that victims of what the Republican congressman called “legitimate rape” do not become pregnant because their bodies “shut down” due to the trauma.

The 87-year-old endorsed Mr Romney’s bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination and was one of his official campaign surrogates. ”I am proud to have the support of a man who has meant so much to the pro-life movement,” Mr Romney said at the time.

Mr Romney and Paul Ryan, his running mate, have denounced Mr Akin's remarks. Dr Willke has been given no role in Mr Romney’s 2012 campaign and aides stress that the candidate disagrees with his theory on rape.

However, Dr Willke told The Daily Telegraph that he did meet Mr Romney during a presidential primary campaign stop in the doctor's home city of Cincinnati, Ohio, in October last year. Local news reports at the time noted that the candidate held “private meetings” during the visit. 

“He told me ‘thank you for your support – we agree on almost everything, and if I am elected President I will make some major pro-life pronouncements’,” Dr Willke said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. 

I've never been more proud of crazy-ass Jack Willke since I moved here.   What's Willard going to do, call him a liar?

Not a whole lot of daylight between the Akins and the Romneys in the party, folks.  Besides, has Mitt shown even the slightest tendency to stand against the Tea Party at any point this year?  What makes centrists who believe Mitt will govern from the middle believe that he'll have any choice but to sign insane, anti-choice, anti-woman legislation into law?

The latest Rasmussen poll has McCaskill up by ten.  Considering Akin was up 3 in the same poll at the end of July, that's a bunker buster dropped on the GOP chances to win the Senate.

And oh yeah...it's not helping Mitt much, either.

Last Call

FINALLY.  Podcast vs. The Stupid this week with Todd Akin.  This is gonna be awesome.

Listen to internet radio with Zandar Versus The Stupid on Blog Talk Radio

Women are like sea cucumbers, you know.

Last Call

He's not going anywhere, folks!

Appearing on Gov. Mike Huckabee's radio show on Tuesday, Missouri Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin said he was indeed staying in the race.

"I want to make things absolutely clear," Akin told Huckabee. "We are going to continue with this race for the United States Senate.

Akin added that his campaign is seeing a "tremendous outpouring of support" from grassroots organizations.

The deadline has passed, and the GOP is stuck with him as dozens of GOP members of Congress called on him to drop out of the race, including both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. 

And so...it begins.