says GOP consultant (and our old friend) Dick Stone - Link
Veteran Republican consultant Roger Stone yesterday published a startling accusation against Ryan and Romney
on his personal website, The Stone Zone. According to Stone, the billionaire Koch brothers purchased the GOP VP
nomination for Ryan by promising to fork over an additional $100 million toward "independent expenditure"
campaigning for the GOP ticket.
Any such transaction would represent a serious violation of federal election laws and perhaps other statutes,
aside from the ethical and character implications for all concerned. Although Stone is not the most reputable figure,
to put it mildly, he has been a Republican insider, with access to the party's top figures, over four decades.
You'd think this would make news, but I guess the networks don't want to risk angering Romney on the off-chance he could actually win.
The bullshit is really starting to hit the fan now. It is time for them to change the name of their party to The Rapeublican Party. The new mascot can be a red, white and blue transvaginal ultrasound probe.
• Rep. Steve King: I've Never Heard Of A Girl Getting Pregnant From Statutory Rape Or Incest
• Missouri Republican official: 'God chose to bless' women with pregnancies from rape
• Bryan Fischer Says Todd Akin's Comments About 'Legitimate Rape' Were 'Absolutely Right'
• Connie Mackey, the president of FRC Action PAC: "Todd Akin is getting a very bad break here. We support him fully and completely."
• Kirk Cameron defends Todd Akin: 'I respect him'
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Bryan Fischer of the tax exempt hate group the American Family Association says Akin is like a rape victim.
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The man who schooled Paul Ryan on foreign policy prior to his selection as Mitt Romney's running mate is now openly calling on congress to vote for war with Iran.
via ThinkProgress
Elliott Abrams, a former Bush Administration official who focuses on the Middle East, took to the pages of the Weekly Standard to argue that neither Iranians nor Israelis think the Obama administration is "serious" about attacking Iran, and that the only real way to convince them is having Congress vote for war.
From his column
There are few legislative days left in 2012 because this is an election year, but there are enough to debate and pass this joint resolution if it is given its proper priority. Congress needs to act on the farm bill and the federal budget before adjourning, but it is quite likely in both cases that three or six month extensions will kick those balls down the road to a lame duck session or into the new Congress next year. The Iranian nuclear program, by contrast, must be addressed right now—or Israel is quite likely to strike while it still can.
There aren't many days left in this session of congress, and we still don't have a comprehensive farm bill or a budget for fiscal 2013 on the books. But you know what? Starting another war is more important!
Abrams' idea is that we can prevent Israel from bombing Iran by declaring war before they do. We can then somehow use our declaration of war as a bargaining chip to force the Iranians to discontinue their non-existent weapons program. Because a declaration of war is actually a gesture of peace. Do you follow? Me neither. And this man gives Paul Ryan his talking points.
The Republicans are so concerned about the national debt they can't wait to enlarge it with another bogus, treasury-plundering war.
While clinging to his guns and religion today — no, really — Paul Ryan invoked Joe the Plumber.
"You know, every now and then President Obama sort of drops his veil," Ryan said. "He's less coy about his philosophy. He sort of reveals his true governing policy, what he really believes. Remember back in 2008, remember the guy Joe the Plumber? Remember when he said, you know, 'We wanna spread the wealth around'? It's this belief that the economy is some fixed pie, that there's only just so much money in America, it's fixed, and that the job of the government is to redistribute the slices of the pie. That's not true."
Yes. I remember Joe the Not-Really-A-Plumber.
I remember he said we should build a fence and start shooting Mexicans.
I remember when he claimed gun control laws caused the holocaust.
And not for nothing — Paul Ryan, who claims to be a cheesehead from Wisconsin, showed up in Pennsylvania today waving a Steelers' Terrible Towel. Of course the real joke is that the Steelers represent unionized steel workers from the 1940s and the Green Bay Packers are a community-owned, non-profit entity. You know, socialist stuff.
Good job Ryan!
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From Think Progress:
AKIN: You know, Dr. Willke has just released a statement and part of his letter, I think he just stated it very clearly. He said, of course Akin never used the word legitimate to refer to the rapist, but to false claims like those made in Roe v. Wade and I think that simplifies it….. There isn't any legitimate rapist…. [I was] making the point that there were people who use false claims, like those that basically created Roe v. Wade.
What? False rape claims did not "create" Roe v. Wade. A constitutional right to privacy "created" Roe v. Wade, and a balancing of that right against the purported interest that states have in protecting the health of the woman. Whatever facts led to the Court hearing the case are irrelevant to the outcome of the case.
I mean, come on.
Moving on.
Here is what this Dr. Willke (who is the source for Akin's "female body shuts down pregnancy" hokum) has said about pregnancy and rape:
Dr. John C. Willke, a general practitioner with obstetric training and a former president of the National Right to Life Committee, was an early proponent of this view, articulating it in a book originally published in 1985 and again in a 1999 article. He reiterated it in an interview Monday."This is a traumatic thing — she's, shall we say, she's uptight," Dr. Willke said of a woman being raped, adding, "She is frightened, tight, and so on. And sperm, if deposited in her vagina, are less likely to be able to fertilize. The tubes are spastic."
"She's uptight"? I think I'm going to throw up.
Oh and by the way? Dr. Willke was a Romney surrogate back in 2007.
[read full post at ABLC]
1. More unemployment through austerity measures.
2. Taking from the poor to give to the rich. Higher federal taxes on lower income taxpayers, slashing medicaid, food stamps, and children's health care in order to give up to a $500k tax cut to millionaires and billionaires.
3. Turns Medicare into vouchers that won't keep up with the rising cost of health care and shifting the burden onto seniors, ending their guaranteed health care, and leaving them at the mercy of private insurers. By contrast, Obama's Affordable Care Act saves money on Medicare by reducing payments to providers such as hospitals and drug companies.
4. Add money to defense spending. The plan would add money to defense spending while cutting spending on education, infrastructure, and basic research and development.
5. Debt: The Romney-Ryan budget doesn't even reduce the federal budget deficit. While adding to military spending, giving tax cuts to the rich, and stifling economic growth by cutting spending too early, the plan would push public debt to over 175% by 2050.
No wonder Mitt Romney doesn't want to talk about his budget until after the election!
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"And one of the things that marks us as a profession in a democracy, in our form of democracy, that's most important is that we remain apolitical.
"That's how we maintain our bond and trust with the American people," the general said.
A group of former intelligence and special operations officers called "OPSEC" released a video last week accusing Obama of jeopardizing sensitive information in taking credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden. The lead spokesperson for that group, as Foreign Policy reported yesterday, "has a long record of questioning the president's birthplace and religion, and calling him names like 'Commander-in-Chief Hussein Mao-bama,' trumpeting conspiracy theories, and insulting Muslims."
Another group attacking Obama called "Special Operations Speaks" or SOS, pledges to remove the president from office because of "what they see as unforgivably security leaks by President Obama and his team." The leader of that group — which actually featured the current special operations commander calling Obama a "fantastic" commander-in-chief — admitted that he does not believe Obama was born in the United States.
But Dempsey isn't the only one criticizing the groups. The AP reports today that other special ops officers "say the activist veterans are breaking a sacred military creed: respect for the commander in chief":
"This is an unprofessional, shameful action on the part of the operators that appear in the video, period," U.S. Army Special Forces Maj. Fernando Lujan wrote on his Facebook page, to a chorus of approval from colleagues.
A Green Beret who returned last year from Afghanistan, Lujan says that attaching the title of special operator with any political campaign is "in violation of everything we've been taught, and the opposite of what we should be doing, which is being quiet professionals." [...]
"They have a good point. I wish there was better OPSEC (operational security), and fewer leaks," said retired Navy SEAL Capt. Rick Woolard, who commanded several SEAL units. "But I would prefer that SEALs and other special operators would sit down and shut the hell up."
Obama said he doesn't pay much attention to the attacks. "I don't take these folks too seriously," the president said. "One of their members is a birther who denies I was born here, despite evidence to the contrary. You've got another who was a tea party candidate in a recent election. This kind of stuff springs up before election time."
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Arguing that he misplaced the word "legitimate," Akin explained — during a follow up interview with Dana Loesch — that he meant to argue that women sometimes lie about being raped:
AKIN: You know, Dr. Willke has just released a statement and part of his letter, I think he just stated it very clearly. He said, of course Akin never used the word legitimate to refer to the rapist, but to false claims like those made in Roe v. Wade and I think that simplifies it….. There isn't any legitimate rapist…. [I was] making the point that there were people who use false claims, like those that basically created Roe v. Wade.
Since he first made the comments over the weekend, Akin claimed that he meant to say "forcible," rather than "legitimate" rape.
And while many Republicans are distancing themselves from the candidate, staunch anti-choice conservatives are backing-up Akin's explanation. Dr. John Willke, who describes himself as the "founding father" of the movement, issued a statement defending Akin and Huckabee approvingly read it during his interview on Tuesday.
Willke "is a leading proponent of the view that women are unlikely to become pregnant by 'forcible rape,' a theory he laid out in a 1999 article on the subject."
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Perfidious cockbucket Todd Akin received enthusiastic support Tuesday from noted insane persons Phyllis Schlafly and Bryan Fischer. Remarkably, this is not expected to hurt his chances for election to the US Senate.
Reaching previously unplumbed depths of either cluelessness or chicanery — even for her — Ms. Schlafly carefully explained that Akin was not in favor of rape, a position that literally no one on the planet has claimed he was taking:
"He's not for rape. That's ridiculous," said Schlafly, founder of the Eagle Forum. "They're making a big thing about an unfortunate remark."
Schlafly also believes that there is no such thing as marital rape, and that feminists simply made up the concept to hurt men in divorce and child custody cases, a position which is shared by alleged human being Todd Akin.
The addled old filthweasel also received full-throated support from the American Patriarchy Association's Bryan Fischer, who simply cannot find too many superlatives for the Missouri Congressman. Needless to say, Fischer is quite certain that Akin accurately described how ladyparts actually prevent pregnancy during rape. It should be noted that this is a highly innovative and perhaps wholly fanciful understanding of the workings of ladygardens; indeed, so-called "real medical doctors" dismiss it using terms like "nonsense," "absurd," and "There are no words for this — it is just nuts," so it seems responsible to say that maybe the jury is still out.
In the blinding light of Mr. Akin's mastery of scientific truth, Fischer also patiently explained, with the help of American Patriarchy Association president Tim Wildmon, that criticism of Akin is indistinguishable from the treatment that the Pharisees gave another person who had innovative ideas on pregnancy, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
"You know the Gospel writers say that they kept looking for some way to trap Jesus in something that he might say, just one single word they could jump on to try to discredit him and that's what they did with Todd Akin and his comments about rape," Fischer said.
Finally, Fischer reminded us to remember the real victim in all this: The pathologically story-changing, ignorant-of-basic-biology, heroically despicable assclown Todd Akin.
All Mr. Fischer asks is that GOP officials behave themselves, and stop raping Todd Akin. Mr. Akin pledges, if elected, to support research on how babby is formed, and whether pregnancy can be affected by the motions of the planets, evil spirits, or imbalances in the bodily humours.
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Margaret & Helen: My Vagina Has Legitimate Concerns About Electing Republicans
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The above quote from Michael Tomasky describes perfectly the strategy in play by Mitt Romney in this election season. It's a version of the Big Lie (make it big and repeat it often) which Republicans have used effectively over the last decade. It was used on John Kerry in 2000 when Swiftboaters successfully turned a Kerry strength (war hero) into a liability (war fraud). The entire Iraq debacle was a Big Lie on steroids as was most of what transpired during the Bush presidency.
The election victory of a black liberal in 2008 elevated the Big Lie to a new level and this time it was tinged with racism as the right worked overtime to cast doubts on Obama's patriotism, his religion and even his place of birth. The intent, of course, was to portray Barack Obama as being anything other than a true blue American.
And now, finding themselves unable to fight against the real Obama, Republicans and the Romney campaign have created a fictional Obama to do battle with as a means to divert attention from their own failed policies and ideas which they are unable to defend. Muddying the waters and blatant lying are the tools they use to accomplish the task. The lies to date have included:
- Obama wants to gut Medicare
- He has raised taxes on the middle class
- The health care law will increase the deficit by a trillion or more
- The stimulus failed
- Obama is a reckless spender
The Big Lie of late is Romney's claim that President Obama has removed work requirements in federal welfare law. Blatantly untrue but that hasn't stopped Romney from pushing the lie with a series of ads and stump speeches. Republicans feel empowered to continue with the Big Lie strategy because of a media which has allowed them, for the most part, to get away with it.
It is going to have to be up to the Obama campaign to hammer home the truth day in and day out and call the liars out at every turn. That and forcing Republicans to defend their indefensible positions on taxation, health care, abortion, gay rights, women's issues, Medicare and Social Security is the only way to go.
Word just in that Republican Congressman Todd Akin will be helping Dems out. He's staying in the Senate race.
Representative Todd Akin said definitively on Tuesday that he would not leave the race for the Senate in Missouri, saying on Mike Huckabee's radio show that "there's a cause here" and that an outpouring of grass-roots support would propel him to victory without the support of the Republican establishment.
Nice. Dems owe Akin one for keeping the spotlight on Republican's anti-women abortion policies.
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