WillyK Posts

Romney goes there (and by "there" I mean the depths of manipulative cynicism):

There's dog whistles -  and then there's dog whistles. To quote Duane Graham of The Erstwhile Conservative:

If you ever wondered why Mitt Romney won't swat away that pesky dung fly named Donald Trump, now you know.

No tsking, tsking allowed for those of us from Missouri though. Just consider who's who in state politics:

State Rep. Timothy W. Jones (R-Eureka) of the Missouri House of Representatives was unanimously elected by the new Republican caucus to be the next Majority Floor Leader. Why is that newsworthy? Because he was represented by "Birther Queen" Orly Taitz in a federal case alleging that President Barack Obama was secretly an Indonesian named Barry Soetoro and ineligible to be President of the United States.

Afterthought:  This line coming from a guy who keeps his tax returns hidden is almost too rich. (Did he or didn't he actually pay taxes? How many millions sitting in the Cayman Islands? How about that IRA?). His latest dodge: it's against his religion - although as Greg Sargent points out, that didn't keep his father from releasing many years of tax returns, or keep Mormon John Huntsman from calling for Romney to do the same.

According to Politico, Republican pressure on Todd Akin to withdraw will continue to intensify:

Rob Jesmer, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, underscored that effort in a private email to Senate chiefs of staff earlier this week, urging them to "keep up the pressure over the next several weeks." One method, he suggested, was if senators publicly pressure Akin to step aside or directly lobby Akin and his son Perry Akin, who is his campaign manager.

One way to do this is for members to call or email Todd directly and explain to him that every movement is bigger than one person, and that for the good of all that he believes and has fought for, it is important that he step aside," Jesmer wrote in the email obtained by POLITICO

But there's more:

... Persistent chatter among Missouri political operatives is the possibility that Akin cuts a deal with Ann Wagner - who is running for the House seat he is vacating. The idea: allow Akin to continue serving in Congress so he can keep his seat and give Wagner a chance to take on McCaskill. Wagner didn't rule out the possibility of a Senate run in a Thursday statement that criticized Akin's comments.

The Politico article also floats a few other names of potential replacements, notably, for the first time I've seen it, that of Jo Ann Emerson, along with (ho-hum) John Brunner and Sarah Steelman. But it's really tthe idea of switching races with Wagner that raises such a nauseating stench. First they tell us that Akin's so befouled himself that the GOP presidential candidate himself has to implore him (Akin) to step down. Just about every GOP pol in the country has expressed the same, apparently requisite, horror and outrage. But when all's said and done, they're still willing to let ol' Todd run for the House of Representatives?  

It's nasty, but, from the point of view of pragmatic politics, I suppose it's understandable.  Akin winning or loosing a race for a seat in what will probably remain a GOP-dominated House, no matter what, won't hurt the party's ambitions nearly as much as letting him stall the GOP drive to take back the Senate. So, if we can believe Politico, Official GOPdom may be willing to cut their losses and make peace with the obdurate Akin. The only people who would lose should this deal come to pass would a few odd souls who care about good government more than they care about the election prospects of the Republican party.

It took Todd Akin's infelicitous choice of words and his apalling biological ignorance to shine a great big flood-light on Republican anti-abortion zealotry. Yesterday, The Huffington Post pointed out that there are numerous House Republicans who share Akin's anti-abortion fanaticism:

Each election cycle, the political action committee Republican National Coalition for Life submits questionnaires to GOP candidates about their positions on choice issues and then endorses candidates who advocate a strict no-abortion platform. Selected candidates must be "unconditionally pro-life" and "recognize the inherent right to life of every innocent human being, from conception until natural death, without discrimination."

Prominent among the 40 congressional candidates that RNC For Life has endorsed this year is Missouri's Vicky Hartzler (R-4). I suspect that there would be more names here, but the organization doesn't necessarily endorse in every race - nor are their endorsements for 2012 necessarily yet complete.

In 2010 the Missourians earned the RNC For Life's imprimatur: Roy Blunt, Todd Akin, Ed Martin, Vicky Hartzler, Jacob Turk, and Blaine Luetkemeyer. Most of these folks are still around, some safely in office, some up for reelection, and others running yet again for office. Jacob Turk, after failing to take Emanuel Cleaver's 5th district seat in 2010 is trying again. Mr. Ed Martin, the perennial candidate, is, of course, running for something or the other - I believe that he eventually chose to try for Attorney General, just the place to put a radical anti-abortion zealot.

FiredUp! Missouri also tells us that the usually fairly circumspect (or at least quiet) Sam Graves has indicated his support for Brother Todd:

"It comes down to a decision between a rubber stamp for Obama and an independent thinker," Graves said. "If he stays in the race, I'll vote for him."

Independent thinker, indeed! I guess you could think of many of the characters in Jackass films as "independent" thinkers - but would you really vote for any of them to represent you in Congress? Especially in preference to a solid, centrist Democrat who actually voted against Administration policies as often as she voted for them? (Not that that trait has endeared her to folks like me - but I'm tired of hearing idiots try to claim that poor, moderate-to-a-fault Claire McCaskill is some type of screaming liberal. We disowned her years ago. Her opponents ought to at least try to be honest.)

What this list of fellow travelers suggests is that Todd Akin's beliefs aren't really the issue. The real problem is that he has embarrassed the GOP establishment by putting the crazy on display at an inopportune time - and then he defied their efforts to sweep him under the rug. After all, any state where folks routinely vote radical GOP extremists into more than half of their elective offices probably isn't going to be too finicky about one more whackaloon.    

Senator Claire McCaskill demonstrates complete disdain for the 10 point lead that Rasmussen is trying to foist off on her:

@clairecmc

Rasmussen poll made me laugh out loud. If anyone believes that, I just turned 29. Sneaky stuff.

I usually take Rasmussen with a pinch of salt a well, but one can't help wondering just why McCaskill's so vehement about their results - especially since their bias seems to be running the wrong way. Remember the day. I can almost guarantee you it'll be a cold day in July when you hear another politician trying to diss a poll that gives him/her a ten point lead.

Of course, we've also got a poll from Public Policy Polling (PPP) taken directly after the Akin flap showed no change from a month ago - Akin in the lead by one point.  This poll, however, excited some derision based on the sampling technique. Jim Geraghty of the National Review Online suggested that its sampling skewed toward Republicans. Of course, in this case, PPP's would be showing a bias that contradicts the common perception of its sympathies.

And don't forget, though, there's noise that Akin is basing his decision to stay in the race at least to some extent on an internal poll that found a breakdown similar to that of PPP.

Todd Akin thinks that it's the liberal media that's been trying to get him to drop out - or so he tweets:

Todd Akin ‏@ToddAkin

I apologized but the liberal media is trying to make me drop out. Please stand w/ me tonight by signing my petition ...

You'd think that if a fellow actually apologized for expressing his dishonest, stupid and harmful beliefs in an inelegant way, why then things would be all ginger-peachy. Just goes to show you how mean that liberal media actually is. Just think, if we didn't know better, it might actually seem like it's the entire Republican power structure running away from him like he's radioactive.

Somehow, I bet we'll hear more of this whining as brother Todd tries to hijack the wallets of the Christian right-wing in order to take up the slack that was left when the fleeing GOPers took their former financial bounty away. Of course, I'm betting that if Akin sticks it out and calls their bluff, the RNC and Crossroads GPS will soon kick their millions back in and start up the get-Claire machine within a couple of weeks. What're they gonna do? If McCaskill wins, Democrats likely keep the Senate.

Of course, now that the GOP's got Akin well marinated, he's ready and primed for the McCaskill tenderizing treatment. Which is to say, baring the unspeakable, sooner or later, his goose is gonna be cooked.

So Roy Blunt finally decided that the chorus condemning Todd Akin had reached sufficient decibel level that he could safly join in. Not all on his lonesome, however, but safely ensconced in a group of other of Missouri's mainline GOP establishment, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and former Senators Kit Bond, John Danforth and Jim Talent, who, jointly, want us to know that:

We do not believe it serves the national interest for Congressman Todd Akin to stay in this race. The issues at stake are too big, and this election is simply too important. The right decision is to step aside. ...

Blunt, it seems, is also willing to let it be kown that, as a very influential Republican, he has spoken to Akin privately several times since he (Akin) managed to put the GOP's anti-women policy proposals in the spotlight, "urging" him to, basically,  get the hell out of Dodge.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the GOP has been preparing its 2012 electoral platform. And guess what? Except for the pseudo-medical mumbo-jumbo that half of the GOP probably believes - at least when safely in private - there's almost no light between what Akin was saying about abortion policy and what the rest of the GOP wants to enshrine in the document that is intended to encapsulate what they stand for:

CNN reported on Monday that the draft of the GOP's official 2012 platform calls for a federal ban on abortion with no exception for rape and incest survivors -- the same policy Akin was trying to defend when he asserted that victims of "legitimate rape" have a natural bodily mechanism that prevents them from getting pregnant.

Nor could there be when you stop to think about it. After all, the VP pick, Rep. Paul Ryan, very publicly joined Brother Todd to promote legislation that would have denied federal funding for abortions in the case of "forcible" rape - a somewhat more precise way to say what Todd meant when he was talking about "legitimate" rape. Ryan has also sponsored "personhood" legislation that would effectively give the full panoply of legal rights to a fertilized cell, while denying the rights of the woman involved in hosting it.

And even worse, the personhood part of this radical anti-abortion brew has been endorsed by Mitt Romney. Arguably, the "personhood" strategy is even more dangerous than the "forcible rape" ruse to limit abortions. Some critics hold that personhood legislation could be used to even ban contraceptives. Of course, all that was before Akin's ineptitude turned up the heat, and Romney's campaign decided that he'd better forget about his former pandering to the radical anti-abortion base and pretend to be "moderate" - at least for now.

The real question for Messrs. Blunt, Ashcroft, Talent, and Bond is to ask how they can unload on poor, dim Akin and still support the GOP platform this year. And then we will want to know if Roy and his pals will ask Romney and Ryan to once and for all, forcefully repudiate their past, embarrassing radicalism - or step down for the good of the party?

The wait begins. For what it's worth, I'm betting Akin stays in the Senate race. Why do I believe this? I don't know how to say this delicately, so here goes:  Akin's dumb as a post and so embued with a self-righteous sense of God-directed mission that what passes for common-sense in the everyday world of politics can easily roll off his back. It's hard to imagine that, after winning the primary, he'll go back on what he seems to think is God's plan to bring the true believers to the Senate where they can turn back the tide of unsanctified - at least not without a big fight. I'm betting that for Akin it's God and self-delusion that will come before the good of the his party. But you never know ...

Nevertheless, what is true is that the ball's in Akin's court. His first step was to make a little propitiatory video to tell his supporters what a good guy he is and how sorry he is about generating a negative PR firestorm. It's fair to say that this tactic may be generating just as much negative response as positive - Akin's folks were forced to shut down the comments on YouTube. A typical comment:

When it's a illegitimate apology, my brain finds ways to shut the whole thing out.

But it's still a waiting game. Ed Kilgore strikes the dominant tone in the left blogsphere:

... And now, having pretty much depleted their arsenal, anxious Republicans are waiting on him, powerless in the end to dispose of him instantly as they want to do. The timing is terrible, since this rare peek into the churning minds of antichoicers coincides with the Republican Convention Platform Committee's quadrennial rubber-stamping of a position on abortion identical to Akin's.

It'll be an interesting day. But at the moment, it's Todd Akin who's in the driver's seat.

TPM's Pema Levy weighs in:

Since Missouri is a red-leaning state where Akin previously held an edge over Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in the polls, it's not inconceivable that Akin could recover and go on to win the seat. ... .

What will prove more difficult is winning back the support of the GOP establishment. If Akin stays in the race, it will be with the support of the Christian right, who stood by during the fallout Monday, but likely without his party's infrastructure behind him.

TPM's Josh Marshall suggests that the situation is more complex than it might seem:

For Akin, there's a different problem. Yes, a lot of Missouri Republicans don't think he said anything wrong. And most of those who do still don't want to vote for Claire McCaskill. But consider that Republicans across the country have gone on record saying that Akin is an offensive idiot who isn't worthy of being a senator. Over time that's going to be a hard burden to carry through 10 weeks, especially if you start out at a tie.

Jonathan Bernstein offers an analysis of the pluses and minuses of the money situation that Akin faces:

... if the Republican Party network is united against Akin, then there are not going to be any positive cues, and there are not going to be any ungodly sums of money. On the other hand, if some party groups, including a significant subset of the GOP-aligned partisan press, stick with Akin, then he very well could benefit. ...

The problem with all this insightful political analysis, though, is that it doesn't take account of just how delusional right-wing cranks like Akin really are. It's possible, that the Party aparatus may make him see reason. Heck, it's even possible, given the vein of irrationality in current Missouri politics, a strain that produced Akin in the first place,  that he could stay in and - horrors - win. Right now I betting that the pull of the miraculous will be stronger for Brother Todd  than the voice of reason. Akin has always demonstrated the super hubris only ever manifested by humble servants of the fundamentalist Christian God.

Missouri has a population of a little over 6 million people - 6,010,688 as of 2010 to be exact. 14.2% (853,518) of those people were over 65 years old. 14% (841,496) were below the poverty level as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. The same number is uninsured. The state has mostly mediocre to poor rankings when it comes to education, children living in poverty, infrastructure, you name it. The only kind thing any rating agency had to say about Missouri was that it was very business friendly - and the source, of that ranking, the United States Chamber of Commerce, stands so far to the right that anything they have to say about issues that affect quality of life has to be taken with the proverbial pinch of salt. Yet Missourians seem to be very down on President Obama, Claire McCaskill and programs, such as stimulus spending and Obamacare, which would address many of Missouri's quality of life issues.  Why?

The right-wing gets apoplectic when anyone suggests race may be at the root of the hard-right swing on the part of states that have the most to loose by moving in that direction (although they really, really love to call Obama racist). However, the latest strategic move on the part of the Romney campaign - a campaign, incidentally, that has arguably been only limping along - suggests that racism, or at least the variant thereof usually referred to as white resentment, may play a significant role in our political narrative - one that the Romney campaign, in desperation, is attempting to exploit.

What I am referring to are the ads in which the Romney camp - falsely - claims that President Obama has eliminated the welfare for work requirements in the Clinton welfare reform. The racial undertones have not gone unnoticed. If  you're interested in confirming empiricaly what most of us think we know intuitively, Michael Tesler summarizes the social science research that supports his contention that while the ad's message:

... may seem race-neutral, there is a long-standing and strong association in white Americans' minds between welfare and "undeserving" African-Americans (see here and here).  According to Jonathan Chait, then, "the political punch of this messaging derives from the fact that white middle-class Americans understand messages about redistribution from the hard-working middle-class to the lazy underclass in highly racialized terms."

Of particular interest to Tesler is some YouGov data that analyzes responses to the Romney welfare ads based on prior racial attitudes. The findings "suggest that ads like the one in this post [the latest Romney welfare ad] may well contribute to the growing polarization of public opinion by racial attitudes beyond the voting booth in the age of Obama."

These findings echo the author's broader efforts to examine the dynamics of race in our political life. Tesler and David O. Sears reported in their book on the racial politics of Obama's election:

... that in Obama's first 100 days, even as news polls showed him broadly popular (and before Republicans had turned en masse against him), surveys that also measured racial resentment unmasked a deep, nonpartisan divide. In April 2009, the Pew Research Center showed a gap of 70 points in Obama's approval between "strong racial liberals" and "strong racial conservatives"-more than any of his five most recent predecessors in the White House. ...

The authors then looked at issues that have not traditionally been viewed from a racialized perspective and polled attitudes abut these issues relative to the previously identified racial attitudes of the respondents. For instance, in regard to health care reform:

Voters who heard descriptions of the contrasting components of the 1993 Clinton and 2009 Obama proposals were more likely to grow disapproving of Obama's when they heard the presidents' names-as long as they demonstrated racial resentment elsewhere in the survey.

Several commentators have already noted that lots of voters made up their minds long ago, and the expensive ad war is being played out for the benefit of a few undecideds. What does it say about us that at least one candidate is attempting to win over the undecided with covert racist messages? Does the fact of greater polarization explain Missouri's slide into squalid red state status? Do Missourians tolerate the Tea Party fools we've sent to Jefferson City and, in many cases, to Washington because a lot of us are afraid the black man in Washington will empower African-Americans in Kansas City and St. Louis?

Grab the popcorn; we've got a couple months left until November and GOP court jester Todd Akin will evidently be around during the whole time so we can count on a few more big belly laughs between now and then. Akin discussed his decision go on with his campaign, despite his recent "legitimate rape" gaffe. with with fellow right-wing fantasist, Mike Huckabee on Huckabee's radio program:

According to Talking Points Memo (TPM), Akin also made the following statement:

I also know that people do become pregnant from rape and I didn't mean to imply that that wasn't the case, [...] It does happen.

So why did he say the opposite? Does he mean that he knows it now, but he didn't yesterday? TPM also noted that Sunday Akin tried to excuse himself by saying that he meant "forcible" rape, and not "legitimate" rape, from which I suppose we should infer that his apologies are directed at the true believers and consist of no more than his mea culpas for failing to use the requisite code, and thereby embarrassing like-minded, but more discrete members of his party.

Want to talk about chutzpah though? TPM also reports that the supposedly contrite Akin finished his interview not only by invoking 9/11 (a lesson he must have learned during the Bush years), but he even asked GOPers calling on him to step down to donate money to his campaign. You see what I mean about two more months of unending - if mindless - entertainment?

After releasing what TPM characterized as a "tepid" response to the Akin "legitimate rape" statement yesterday, Romney seems to have finally decided which way the wind is blowing, and today issued a far more forceful statement:

"Rep. Akin comments on rape are insulting, inexcusable, and, frankly, wrong," Romney told National Review. "Like millions of other Americans, we found them to be offensive."

Many commentators have noted, however, that the substance of Akin's comments about the exception for rape have been endorsed by both Romney and his VP choice, Paul Ryan. In fact, Paul Ryan, was fairly full-throated in his support of legislation that would have limited federal funding for abortions to cases of "forcible" rape, another way to talk about "legitimate" rape. The seeming contradiction is raising questions among the faithful, as indicated in this tweet:

Kyle Luebke ‏@kylejl89

@streitfeldcnn I wonder why #Ryan supports banning it in cases of rape then. Is #RomneyRyan trying to hide their true position?

Ed Kilgore captures the fine points of the GOP dilemma that has been forced to the forefront by Akin's bumbling:

The enduring significance of Akin's "gaffe" (which meets the Kinsley Gaffe definition of an utterance that reveals the pol's true feelings) may be to force anti-choicers in one direction or the other: towards the morally repugnant view that rape and incest victims need to be forced to carry pregnancies to term, and the morally inconsistent position that a zygote's status and rights depend on the circumstances of its conception. Defining away rape won't cut it any more.

Of course there is a third way and it is the path that  our recent experience tells us we can expect the Romney/Ryan team to choose: obfuscate and create confusion. It seems to be working as far as their dishonest effort to claim that it's actually the Obama Administration that will cut Medicare.  This strategy suggests that there's no compelling reason to try to be intellectually consistent, which is in line with the Romney campaign's decsion to keep the candidate's actual positions as hazy as possible; as a Romney campaign staffer declared:

Campaigns that are about specifics, particularly in today's environment, get tripped up

Evidently, Todd Akin didn't get that memo. Sadly for him, the "specifics" he dredged up are spurious, pseudo-medical sounding garbage that have been used by anti-abortion fanatics for decades to imply that all women who get abortions are sluts. The task his gaffe sets for  for the rest of us? We can try to get some clarity from Romney and Ryan about where they really stand on women's welfare issues, with the all-out zealots or the politically cautious zealots.

I guess it was only a matter of time until St. Louis' shrillest contribution to the world of punditry, Dana Loesch, would chime in on Rep. Todd Akin's claims about the biological impossibility of rape victims becoming pregnant (h/t The Turner Report):

Seems to me like Akin was trying to fit medical explanation into a soundbite. Not the best statement, but some are stretching it majorly.

As Randy Turner notes, it wasn't a soundbite, but an interview with a sympathetic interviewer. Nor, my poor benighted Ms. Loesch, is there a credible "medical explanation" behind Akin's absurd claims. Evidently, Todd isn't the only one to fall for junk science claims that happen to be ideologically convenient.

Loesch's outrage about the treatment Akin is receiving is, however,  understandable when you realize that she thinks the belief that rape victims should be forced to carry their rapists child to term is the same as attempting to discourage the use of infant formula. As Turner notes, among other of her inane efforts to shift attention to the horrors of left-wing policy, Loesch tweeted in response to criticism of Akin (whose facebook page has, incidentally, been deluged with angry comments):

Michael Bloomberg wants to treat moms who use formula as criminals in NYC. What was that about "creepy old men."

Of course, Loesch is also guilty of hyperbole here since Bloomberg's proposed regulation of infant formula would not prohibit its use by women unable to breast feed or just determined to bottle feed. While women may be inconvenienced, nobody would be "criminalized." Is it asking too much that these folks try to be accurate when they're attempting to trivialize the major faux pas of their dimmer colleagues?

Patrick Ruffini, GOP strategist, is one of the many conservatives who view Akin as poison in the aftermath of his "legitimate rape" remark. He has joined the chorus calling for Akin to step down. In the process, though, he makes an observation that has struck many of us who have observed the lock-step drill imposed on most GOP legislators:

Patrick Ruffini ‏@PatrickRuffini

Ultimately Senate nominees are expendable and interchangeable. No political downside in a switcheroo.

But it's interesting to note who he's thinks viable:

Patrick Ruffini ‏@PatrickRuffini

Trying to decide between Brunner/Steelman will be a bloody process. Talent would be a unity candidate.

Seems Mr. tweedledum and Ms. Tweedledee aren't that attractive when it comes down to it; I can understand why Ruffini, like lots of GOP establishment types, would love to have Mr. Clean, Jim Talent on the ticket. Ruffini cuts to the chase:

Patrick Ruffini ‏@PatrickRuffini

A practical point: What corporate PAC is going to want to give to Akin? Who'll bundle for him? These things matter...

And also:

Patrick Ruffini ‏@PatrickRuffini

GOP House candidates will be forced to take hard anti-Akin line. He can't survive as the candidate under those conditions.

There's lots more GOP moaning and groaning over Akin in Ruffini's tweets, but I'll leave you with this thought:

Tim Tagaris ‏@ttagaris

RT @PatrickRuffini: Akin has until Tuesday at 5pm to drop, so there is a fair amount of urgency here.

Will he bite the bullet?

For years Rep. Todd Akin said one outrageous thing after another and it was largely ignored. There'd maybe be a little blog chatter and a small newspaper article or two; it's unlikely that many of his constituents even knew about his latest dumb pronouncement. Running for statewide office, however, is a different kettle of fish altogether and the fact that Akin may not only be a tad too far out there, as well as lacking in the skills to disguise that fact, has become apparent even to some of his fellow travelers. Following is a sample of some of the fallout from today's Akinism:

"Akin On 'Legitimate Rape' Comment: 'I Misspoke'". Offers the Akin team's efforts at damage control. TPM notes, though, that Akin fails to address the "legitimate" rape comment.

"Conservative Activists Call On Akin To Quit Race After 'Legitimate Rape' Comment" and "Growing Number Of Conservatives Call On Akin To Withdraw After 'Legitimate Rape' Comments"Sample twitter comments: "Todd Akin ought to step the heck down," "I know I'm about to piss someone off, but Akin's team isn't up for this kind of fight," and "I think we may have a Torricelli situation here."

Akin "Outburst Will Put Pressure On Romney-Ryan". This article notes that Akin's comments are already being tied to Ryan's support for restrictive abortion legislation:

The Obama campaign was already mobilizing an effort to highlight Ryan's abortion views before Akin's explosive comments. That effort will likely get an early kick-start Monday morning, as Sen. Claire McCaskill, Akin's opponent, sits down with MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"McCaskill Calls Akin's Rape Comments 'Beyond Comprehension'":

It is beyond comprehension that someone can be so ignorant about the emotional and physical trauma brought on by rape," said McCaskill. "The ideas that Todd Akin has expressed about the serious crime of rape and the impact on its victims are offensive.

And there were those who wondered why McCaskill's people were so jubilant when Brother Todd won his primary.

Every politician slips once and awhile. Many tend to be more regularly gaffe prone, and lots of current Tea Party types have some pretty questionable opinions. But, so far as I know, only Rep. Todd Akin (R-2), Claire McCaskill's senatorial election opponent, manages to say something foolish and offensive on just about every day of his campaign.  His latest: women who are victims of "legitimate" rape, rarely get pregnant:

Talking Points Memo (TPM) summarized the offending comments:

First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare," Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Akin said that even in the worst-case scenario - when the supposed natural protections against unwanted pregnancy fail - abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.

"Let's assume that maybe that didn't work, or something," Akin said. "I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."

And then TPM noted that, contrary to Akin's junk science beliefs:

A 1996 study by the American Journal of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found "rape-related pregnancy occurs with significant frequency" and is "a cause of many unwanted pregnancies. The study found an estimated "32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year."

Almost as striking as Akin's emphasis on "legitimate" rape, and his credulity when it comes to biology, is his belief that abortion in cases of rape has something to do with punishment. His failure to even entertain the idea that forcing a woman to carry her rapist's child to term might be damaging to her welfare only underlines how insignificant the welfare of women and, in cases of rape, the unwanted child, is to anti-abortion fanatics.

Beard: The American slang term originally referred to anyone who acted on behalf of another, in any transaction, to conceal a person's true identity. (Wikipedia)

In this case, the beard is, as the title states, Vicky Hartzler, and the identity she's trying to conceal is that of the political party responsible for the failure to pass a farm bill filled with much needed disaster assistance for drought-devastated farmers. Miss Vicky was chosen to give the weekly Republican address (video at The Turner Report). Since her family runs a big farm in Missouri, the GOPers were probably sure that she would be a natural choice to help them wipe the egg that was the farm bill fail off their collective faces. Here's what Miss Vicky had to say about the hard time ahead for our farmers:

Like you, I was relieved earlier this month when the House passed a bipartisan measure helping farmers devastated by the ongoing drought.  A lot was riding on this bill, but the Senate, a body controlled by the president's party, left Washington for the month of August without even bringing it to a vote.   The president has seen fit to politicize this issue, but the fact is he didn't urge the Senate to act.

That is a true shame.  Drought conditions continue to worsen, and the shaky state of the economy only amplifies our anxiety.

Well no, Vicky, your feelings about the House Farm Bill are demonstrably not at all like mine - or like most Americans who don't grudge food to the hungry. Nor are your facts exactly correct.

The fact is the Senate acted. It passed a bill that House members refused to vote on because it gives too much in the way of food subsidies to poor Americans. The House, instead, attempted, in the last few hours of their session to pass a paltry stop-gap disaster-relief bill that many legislators, both Republican and Democratic considered next to worthless, and jam it through the Senate without allowing for time to consider its provisions. The jokers that make up the House majority didn't need to create this mess, but they have shown time after time that they will always put ideology above the welfare of Americans.

In this case, House leaders (John Boehner and GOP VP pick, Paul Ryan) were more than willing to bankrupt American farmers just to insure that people who are feeling the Bush recession the hardest don't get any government-sponsored relief. Because, dontcha  know, government doesn't know how to do it; if government does know how to do it, we shouldn't let it because that's  socialism and we'll not be free anymore; the tiny fraction of our budget spent providing food aid to our poor will explode the deficit (although we love to explode it when it comes to unnecessary arms spending, unprovoked wars, oil subsidies and tax cuts for millionaires), and, finally, golly-gee, when it comes down to it, feeding our poor probably just isn't in the Tea Party version of the constitution.

Believe it or not, there're fools who buy this claptrap. And lots of them live in Missouri. At least some of them will be cheering Miss Vicky on. (For those who are, instead, embarrassed, and who live in her district, there's an alternative - her name is Teresa Hensley, the Democratic Party candidate in the 4th Congressional District.)

Michael Tomasky wrote a piece last week abut why Republicans lie. The conclusion was pretty straightforward: they lie because the truth about their policies is so ugly. If they were to tell the truth about what their policies will do - and this pertains to the farm bill, jobs, and every other talking point Miss Vicky dredged up in her pedestrian effort to ring the various GOP-rigged Pavlovian bells - it would boil down to something like what Tomasky expresses in the following summary:

What we're going to do here is make sure society's very richest people have a lot more money. Our theory is they will spend it and that will help the whole economy. History hasn't been kind to this idea, but it's our theory and we're sticking to it. These are the people who pay us to run, after all. Besides which, we really don't like poor people; we think at bottom that it's their fault they're poor, so it doesn't really matter to us whether anything trickles down to them.

As Tomasky adds: "That's the truth. How would that sell?"

In an Op-Ed published Tuesday, GOP Senator Roy Blunt tried to blame Democratic Senator Harry Reid for the fact that the GOP Tea Partiers who control the House never learned to play nice with others, specifically when it comes to vital legislation like the Farm Bill:

As I travel across Missouri, I continue to hear stories about the toll that this drought has taken on farmers, ranchers, and other job creators statewide," Blunt said. "The President's unilateral actions are simply insufficient. The House and Senate left Washington without adjourning, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could still figure out how to pass the bill and respond to this disaster now.

The dig at the President's "unilateral" action is a reference to the fact that, in the absence of action from the Congress, the White House stepped in to try to help American ranchers devastated by the drought by buying livestock as part of the federal food nutrition assistance programs.  

Blunt's always good about pretending he doesn't know just where those chickens coming home to roost really belong - it might be his greatest skill. In fact, we'd have a farm bill now if Roy Blunt's GOP pal, John Boehner, were even half-way effective in his role as Speaker of the House:

The Senate version of the farm bill included disaster relief and passed in that chamber before the August recess, but the House failed to take up their version of the farm bill, leaving many Midwest lawmakers upset with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)

Just why did the House refuse to take up the Senate's bill? The reason most often given is that the Senate refused to cut out provisions for food subsidies. These subsidies are, with the looming expiration of unemployment benefits, the the only type of federal aid available for some of the millions of U.S. citizens, many of whom are down and out thanks to the  Bush recession.  

The mean-minded sanctimony that puts ideology over the welfare of people is exemplified by our own Rep. Todd Akin (R-2), who is currently running for Senator Claire McCaskill's Senate seat:

Most of the farm part of the thing, I'm quite reasonable and pretty comfortable with," said Akin, adding that he understands the need to create stability in agricultural markets. But "I've never been a big fan of the government, and particularly more and more and more growing those programs," such as food subsidies for lower-income families.

Joan McCarter at the DailyKos puts the onus right back where it belongs - on the GOP and self-righteous bellyachers like Roy Blunt:

The Senate passed their bill, with disaster relief. Blunt might have a hard time remembering that, but he shouldn't: He sent out a press release lauding his vote for it. So the Senate has done their part. The White House has come up with millions in emergency declarations and drought relief.

This one is totally on Republican leadership in the House, and that includes Paul Ryan. Instead of blaming Harry Reid, Republican senators like Blunt (who've done their job) need to be talking to Boehner and Ryan. Any delay in drought relief is squarely on their shoulders.

Amen to that.  Blunt should start with Akin. Any fool who's willing to let the state's agricultural sector go to hell-in-a-handbasket just in order to keep poor Americans hungry really needs a lesson in perspective.    

Via The Turner Report, Jim Talent tells us Todd Akin won because he's a "strong campaigner" and he's got the issues on his side. Would you believe there're folks out there who'll try to tell you Talent's an intellectual heavyweight?

Randy Turner himself, though, suggests that Akin may have won because of Democratic crossover voters who thought they would help McCaskill by giving her an early Christmas gift.

Still yet a third possibility might have something to do with Akin's Christian Nation credentials and the hordes of GOPers who turned out to vote themselves in a double big helping of sanctity in the form of Amendment 2. It's a sure bet Akin's counting on more of the same in November, but if there's any truth to hypothesis no 2 above, Democratic turnout might be a little stronger than in August.  

According to Michael Mahoney, GOP establishment darling Ann Wagner, accompanied by GOP legislative has-been, Jim Talent, will hold a news conference to kick-off the Wagner general election campaign for the newly configured 2nd House district.  Mahoney's preview speculates that they'll give us a look at Wagner's campaign strategy:

They'll go after president Obama's record on the economy. They'll claim he "failed", and cite the fact that the unemployment rate has been over 8% for 42 months. They'll also promote the 'America's Comeback Team'. That's the name the Romney campaign has rolled out after the weekend selection of Paul Ryan as Romney's running mate.

In other words, they'll not deviate from standard GOP slogans. It's just so much easier to paint-by-numbers.

Touting the "come-back team" (because we would "come-back" to failed Bush administration policies?), while decrying the economy is, of course a predictable  approach, but not without risk, given what we now know about Paul Ryan's role in planning the the last three and a half years of GOP congressional obstructionism, a course of action meant to do nothing more than damage the President by stalling the economic recovery - regardless of how much harm such a strategy would do to regular Americans.

Robert Draper in his recently published book, Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the US House of Representatives, writes that Ryan was one of the GOP congressional leaders who attended a dinner in Jaunary of 2009 in which just this policy of obstructionism was explicitly planned:

During a lengthy discussion, the senior GOP members worked out a plan to repeatedly block Obama over the coming four years to try to ensure he would not be re-elected.

Draper is not alone. Greg Sargent comments on what he calls "juicy nuggets" in Michael Grunwald's new book, The New New Deal, that:

... shed new light on the degree to which Republicans may have decided to deny Obama all cooperation for the explicit purpose of rendering his presidency a failure - making it easier for them to mount a political comback after their disastrous 2008 losses.

Sadly, what's also predictable is the probable willingness of the traditional press to report GOP slogans without comment in preference to ferreting out the more complex truth. Although I'd love to be wrong, it's not likely that any intrepid Missouri newsman will challenge Wagner and Talent to respond to the now well-substantiated allegations of orchestrated, intentional obstructionism and so take ownership of the slow-as-syrup economic recovery their Grand Old Party has engineered.

*Slightly edited.  

Today Mitt Romney announced that he had capitulated to radical rightwingers in his party and chosen Paul Ryan (of Ryancare fame) as his Vice-Presidential pick. In case you're not familiar with Ryan's claim to fame, his budget (which Romney - in spite of his efforts today to pretend otherwise - has repeatedly endorsed), the following video will tell you all you need to know:

Pretty dreadful, right? Bear in mind that the issue of Ryan's awful economic theories goes far beyond the presidential race. Todd Akin - along with most GOP House candidates - has also endorsed the radical and cruel Ryan budget. A vote for  Romney is a vote for Ryancare, a vote for Akin will double the damage, and sending GOPers back to the House will more than tripple the harm that Paul Ryan will manage, through their agency, to do to the middle class.

The selection of Ryan is not only problematic from an economic point of view,  however. I noted above that Romney is reluctant to emphasize his past endorsement of the Ryan plan, which suggests an additional concern about his ability to function as President. What does it say about his character, when he tries to weasel out of his own VP pick, deny his own stated economic beliefs - while touting a vague Romney budget plan that has not yet been vetted - and which, hence, cannot be criticized as thoroughly as the unpopular Ryan budget? Only fools think that in the political sphere they can always, in the words of the aphorism, have their cake and eat it too. Apropos of which, Ed Kilgore writes:

I struggle for a suitable analogy: becoming a Lutheran and saying you'll maintain your own views on the sufficiency of faith for salvation? Hiring Mike Leach to coach your football team but reserving the right to tell him to install the Wishbone Offense? Marrying Kim Kardashian on condition she will avoid publicity?

Of course, any assumption that Romney would differ from Ryan on important issues like Medicare presupposes that his right-wing billionaire support base would even permit that type of independence. Romney certainly hasn't had what it takes to stand up to the new, hardcore, fringewing GOP so far, which is why his running mate is a man described by The Globe and Mail as the " Tea Party's favourite nerd," or an "intellectual version of Sarah Palin." Intellectual in this context, of course, means that Ryan can speak in coherent sentences.

Yesterday I wrote about Todd Akin's ties to David Barton, the widely discredited Christian Nation "historian." Today Think Progress brings us the story of Akin's ties to the Reverend D. James Kennedy, founder of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and a "Christian supremacist" (i.e. dominionist) minister who "who spent his life organizing a movement dedicated to reorganizing the American government along radically conservative evangelical lines." According to Think Progress's Zack Beauchamp, Kennedy:

... was particularly influential on Akin's worldview. According to a Politico profile of Akin, "[t]wo sermons by Dr. D. James Kennedy have been very influential for Todd and he references them frequently in discussions of government." Akin told Kennedy's Truth in Action (formerly Coral Gables Ministries) organization that "Dr. Kennedy understood how to connect the principles of Scripture with the practical applications of what keeps a nation free, the principles that America was founded on." Akin also co-sponsored a resolution last year that "honors Dr. Kennedy's lifetime of service and sacrifice to his God, his country, [and] the ideals of the Christian faith."

Kennedy, for his part, recognized Akin's commitment to his mission. In his book How Would Jesus Vote?, he praised Akin as "one of my favorite statesman," suggesting Akin's tenure in the House reflected that "he is a seminary graduate and has chosen politics as his ministry." In 2007, Kennedy's Center for Christian Statesmanship gave Akin their "Christian Statesman Award," awarded to "a person recognizes that individuals (as well as nations) must ultimately give account to God and are dependent on Him for prosperity and success."

The Think Progress article tracks numerous parallels between the teachings of Kennedy and Todd Akin's policy statements and legislative initiatives - go read it and shudder when you realize that all that is standing between a Christian Supremacist bigot and the Senate is a seriously beleaguered Claire McCaskill. A point made in the comment section (by one Shaun Duke) of the Think Progress article in struck me as perfectly on point:

The really scary thing is that the American public is not as outraged by these ideas as they should be. After all, most of the stuff these folks believe in (to the point of wanting to make them legal frameworks) are things most Americans disagree with. And yet there's no push against it in any serious capacity. Those who should be pushing for us (Democrats) really aren't doing it.

Are our Democratic politicians so easily stampeded that the cover of Christianity can be used to promulgate an authoritarian, essentially un-American agenda which, according to a prominent theologian, Tom Faw, who warns against American Christo-fascism,  "allows Christians, or disposes them, to impose themselves upon other religions, upon other cultures, and upon political parties which do not march under the banner of the final, normative, victorious Christ"?