Month: August 2012

Categories
Politics Rape

New Poll Has Todd Akin Leading Claire McCaskill In Missouri

Maybe it’s too soon to take this poll. And maybe we would love to think that the people of Missouri are smarter than this. Never the less, a new poll from Public Policy Polling is reporting that even after the false and offensive comments on rape from Todd Akin, he is still leading Claire McCaskill for the Senate race.

Public Policy Polling found that “Missouri voters strongly disagree with the comments Todd Akin made about abortion over the weekend, but it hasn’t moved the numbers a whole lot in the Senate race. Akin leads Claire McCaskill by a single point, 44-43. That’s basically identical to our last poll of the contest in late May, which found Akin ahead by a 45-44 spread.

“It’s not that Missouri voters are ok with or supportive of Akin’s comments. 75% of voters, including even 64% of Republicans, say they were inappropriate to only 9% who consider them to have been appropriate. 79% of voters say they disagree with what Akin said, including 65% who express ‘strong’ disagreement with him. 51% of GOP voters say they strongly disagree with him.”

We can only hope the people of Missouri are smarter than this poll indicates. We can only hope that taking this poll 24 hours after Akin’s infamous statement is too soon to gauge Missouri’s voters on their preference for November. With just about everyone – from Democrats to Independents to Republicans – asking Akin to withdraw from the Senate race, this poll may not even matter.

Let’s wait and see what happens in the next 24 hours. If Akin withdraws his name, the deadline is today at 5PM.

Categories
Paul Ryan Politics Rape

President Obama Responds To Republican’s War On Women – “Rape Is Rape”

President Obama on Monday called Rep. Todd Akin’s remarks about rape “offensive” and sought to tie the Republican Senate candidate to the GOP presidential ticket.

“Rape is rape,” Obama said at a White House press briefing. He called Akin’s comments “way out there.”

Defining rape, he said, “doesn’t make sense to the American people and doesn’t make sense to me.”

“What I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, the majority of which are men, making decision that affect health of women,” Obama said.

The Obama campaign said Ryan supported a constitutional amendment that would ban abortion in all instances, including in the case of rape. It also said Ryan, who opposes abortion except in cases where the mother’s life is in danger, had worked with Akin on tough anti-abortion rights legislation.

“The underlying notion that we should be making decisions on behalf of women for their healthcare decisions … that is a significant difference in approach between me and the other party,” Obama said.

Categories
Paul Ryan Politics

Todd Akin And Paul Ryan Co-Sponsored Bill Changing Definition of ‘Rape’ to ‘Forcible Rape’

Now that Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin has made us aware that there is something called “Legitimate Rape,” and that a woman’s body is capable of “shutting that whole thing down,” we are now getting word that Mr. Akin and the Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, sponsored a bill called ‘No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,’ that would have changed the definition of word “rape” to “forcible rape.”

The new definition of rape did not go through because of public pressure and the bill’s absurdity, but imagine what would have happened if these crazy nuts had their way – a woman who suffered the torture of being raped, would have had to explain how forcible the rape was and then a qualified third party would then determine if the forcing was enough to qualify as a rape.

Akin and Ryan were the original co-sponsors of the controversial bill H.R. 3, “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” which initially included language which changed the definition of “rape” to “forcible rape,” until public pressure forced the bill’s supporters to remove that unacceptable and narrow definition. As I wrote previously, Paul Ryan is not just anti-choice, his anti-choice views are extreme and just plain bad for all women.

Linking Ryan to Akin and the idea that there is such a thing as “legitimate rape” based on pseudo-science and folklore is something that needs to be done before the upcoming election. While Team Romney attempted to create distance with Akin, saying that both Romney and Ryan “disagree” with his statements, there was nothing in their statement that said they condemn his remarks as hurtful to victims. There was also nothing in Team Romney’s statement that pointed out that what Akin said about pregnancies resulting from rape being rare is just flat-out wrong.

Ryan was against abortion in all cases including rape until Team Romney’s statement. Romney has said he would get rid of Planned Parenthood and has been moving further right on women’s issues since he was a pro-choice governor of Massachusetts. This could be a huge problem for the Republican ticket in November.

Categories
Featured Rape

Republican Senate Candidate – “Pregnancy From Rape Is Rare” – Video

Todd Akin, one of the darlings of the Teaparty, is running for Senate representing Missouri. His views on women’s rights have always raised eyebrows and that could explain why his Democratic opponent Claire McCaskill actually donated to his campaign in the Republican primary. Well it would seem Mrs. McCaskill’s donations were well made as her Republican challenger is putting his foot in his mouth again.

A new video has come forward with the help of a Democratic super PAC called American Bridge. In the video (shown below), Mr. Akin is furthering his idea that pregnancy from rape is really not a big deal. In fact he says, it is quite rare!

His Democratic opponent McCaskill had this to say – “It is beyond comprehension that someone can be so ignorant about the emotional and physical trauma brought on by rape.”

And of course Mitt Romney is distancing himself from Mr. Akin’s statement. His campaign quickly put out a statement miraculously saying that under a Romney/Ryan administration, they would not force a woman to have her raper’s baby. From the statement, “Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan disagree with Mr. Akin’s statement, and a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.”

We’ll  call that statement from the Romney campaign an Etch-A-Sketch moment, as Romney is on record opposing all abortions. He’s even on record supporting a Personhood bill that would make some female contraception illegal. Here’s a Fact Sheet on Romney’s support of the Personhood Amendment;

So-called “personhood” legislation is another example of government going too far. By defining a fertilized human egg to be a legal person, so-called “personhood” measures could allow the government to intrude into the private doctor-patient relationship, and could criminalize everything from common forms of birth control to IVF.

So-called “personhood” amendments are so far out of the mainstream, they have even been rejected by voters in Mississippi – the most conservative state according to Gallup – by a 16-point margin.

Mitt Romney has strongly supported “personhood” measures since they were introduced several years ago. His position is clear and far outside the mainstream as well as a serious threat to women’s health.

Here is Mr. Atkins’ statement that’s causing Romney to shake his Etch-A-Sketch. Take it away Mr. Akin…

Categories
Mitt Romney Paul Ryan Politics

The Ryan Bounce

It’s been more than a week since Mitt Romney named Paul Ryan as his running mate, which is enough time to determine the extent of any bounce in the polls. At this point, the answer is that Ryan has helped in part, but it remains to be seen if he provides a more lasting upward movement in Romney’s numbers.

Last week, Mark Blumenthal of Huffington Post/Pollster wrote that the polls weren’t showing much of a bounce, perhaps 1 or 2 percentage points towards Romney, but most of the gains were within the poll’s margin of error and that President Obama had gained in some polls after the announcement. Nate Silver weighed in on the Romney bounce in the polls and the Intrade markets, and was unimpressed, but he did note that many of the trend lines in recent polls have moved in Romney’s direction. Stuart Rothenberg also wrote an interesting piece warning that party identification samples are key to deciphering polls and weighing their relative merits. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who watches and analyzes polls, but it will become even more important as pollsters move from registered voter samples to likely voter models after the party conventions.

The state polls that were released last week show better results for Romney than any perceived bounce from the Ryan announcement. The Purple Strategies polls from August 15 give Romney leads in Ohio, Florida and Virginia, and Obama the lead in Colorado. Recent polling in Virginia is showing promising news for the Romney campaign as he tries to cut into Obama’s perceived strength in the Washington suburbs.

From the article:

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, says the task for Romney is to put the “pieces of the puzzle” together: the Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Washington suburbs and exurbs, along with the rural regions of southwest Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, and Southside. “The rural areas are still 20 percent of the vote in Virginia,” Sabato says, and the people there are conservative. The difference this year is that Republicans in these parts of the state are more motivated than they were in 2008. Maximum turnout among rural Virginians could make all the difference.

If those results stood up until November, Romney would win the presidency and the Republicans would probably take the Senate.

There were a pair of Wisconsin polls, with Romney ahead in the Rasmussen survey and Obama ahead in a CNN poll. The big difference is that Rasmussen polled likely voters and CNN found registered voters, so in this case I would say that the addition of Paul Ryan has probably affected the race.  The president is ahead according to a Franklin & Marshall  poll of Pennsylvania (registered voters) by 47-42%, but that margin represents a reduction from 11 points the last time F & M polled, so the Romney campaign will probably look to put more resources into that state.

The national tracking polls don’t really show a sustained bounce for the GOP. Gallup now has Romney with a 2 point lead, which is up from a tie late last week, but the Rasmussen tracking poll shows Obama leading by 2. That represents a 6 point swing for the president who was down by 4 as late as last Wednesday.

In the end, the polling after Romney made the Ryan announcement has been mixed with some good news on the state front for Romney and a continued national lead for Obama. The Republican Convention provides our next opportunity to gauge the race and I would say that this is Romney’s biggest and best opportunity to introduce himself to the American people. If he does it well, he could see a 10 point bounce in the polls. Anything more would be gravy, but anything less would be seen as disappointing. In addition, unemployment figures will be released not long after the Democrats close their convention, and we know how both campaigns will use those numbers.

Enjoy the August doldrums. The excitement lies ahead.

Categories
Politics teachers weekly address

President Obama To Congress – Support My Plan To Rehire Teachers

How can we truly say we are the greatest nation on earth when we… well, when Republicans… continue firing Teachers – the people who are for the most part, responsible for our nations future. That was the message President Obama delivered in his weekly address, as he called again on Congress to approve one of his proposals that will put Teachers back into the classroom.

“Since 2009, we’ve lost more than 300,000 education jobs, in part, because of budget cuts at the state and local level,” the President said. “That’s the opposite of what we should be doing as a country.  States should be making education a priority in their budgets, even in tough fiscal times.  And Congress should be willing to help out – because this affects all of us.”

He continued;

That’s why part of the jobs bill that I sent to Congress last September included support for states to prevent further layoffs and to rehire teachers who’d lost their jobs.  But here we are – a year later with tens of thousands more educators laid off – and Congress still hasn’t done anything about it.

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Mitt Romney Paul Ryan Politics taxes Wisconsin

VIDEO: Paul Ryan’s Budget Will Give Mitt Romney a 1% Tax Rate – Up From 0%!

PrioritiesUSA, the SuperPac supporting President Obama has created another video. We all remember how Republicans and Mitt Romney got up-in-arms over the SuperPac’s video about Joe Soptic – a factory steel worker fired when Romney’s Bain Capital closed the company that employed him. Joe’s wife later died of cancer because the unemployed couple had no health insurance.

In their new video, PrioritiesUSA is highlighting the Budget framed by Romney’s VP choice Paul Ryan. Did you know that under Ryan’s plan people in Mitt Romney‘s income bracket would only pay a rate of 1%? And for Mr. Romney, that 1% might actually be a rate increase. Word on the street is that he’s paid zero taxes in earlier years. Of course no one has come forward with concrete evidence to prove this claim, but this is what we’re hearing and Mitt Romney is too scared to release his taxes to prove us wrong.

Video…

Categories
George Bush Paul Ryan Politics

Paul Ryan Blames Obama For Stuff That Happened Under Bush

At this rate, it’s just a matter of time before President Obama gets blamed for the Great Depression of the 1930’s!

Bush was still President, but in 2008, President Obama went to an auto plant in Wisconsin and told the then struggling company that reconstruction and some government help could keep the plant open and save jobs in the process. The auto plant eventually closed in December of 2008. No, Obama did not have the title of “President” at that time… this happened in 2008!

But Paul Ryan is apparently not familiar with something called records. On multiple occasions as he campaigns with Mitt Romney, Ryan blamed Obama for not keeping the plant open.

“I remember President Obama visiting it when he was first running, saying he’ll keep that plant open,” Ryan said in Ohio Thursday, describing the shuttered GM factory in Janesville, Wis. “One more broken promise.”

Ryan blamed rising gas prices under Obama for the closing. He echoed the complaint in an interview with a local ABC affiliate, suggesting it showed that Obama’s auto rescue was a sham.

“It didn’t help Janesville,” he said. “They shut our plant down. It didn’t help Kenosha. I represent there; they shut down the Chrysler plant.”

The Detroit News noted that Obama said during a visit in early 2008 that government help and some restructuring could keep the plant open. But after the financial crisis and a collapse in demand for the SUVs the factory produced, it shut down in December 2008 in the waning days of Bush’s second term. It’s still owned by GM, but has been closed ever since.

Categories
Politics taxes

Obama To Romney – Release 5 Years, We’ll Leave You Alone. Romney Says “No”

President Barack Obama’s campaign manager offered Mitt Romney’s campaign manager a “deal” on Friday, essentially saying that if Romney releases just three more years of tax returns, they’ll stop hammering him for not releasing more, even though Obama has made 12 years of his financial history public.

Team Romney, of course, politely refused.

“Governor Romney apparently fears that the more he offers, the more our campaign will demand that he provide,” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina wrote in a letter to his counterpart in the Romney campaign. “So I am prepared to provide assurances on just that point: if the Governor will release five years of returns, I commit in turn that we will not criticize him for not releasing more — neither in ads nor in other public communications or commentary for the rest of the campaign.”

“It is clear that President Obama wants nothing more than to talk about Governor Romney’s tax returns instead of the issues that matter to voters, like putting Americans back to work, fixing the economy and reining in spending,” Romney campaign manager Matt Rhodes replied, apparently determined that just two years of tax returns is enough. “If Governor Romney’s tax returns are the core message of your campaign, there will be ample time for President Obama to discuss them over the next 81 days.”

Releasing tax returns for at least 12 years has traditionally been assumed by presidential candidates, including Romney’s father, even though it’s not required by law. However, since Romney is among the most wealthy presidential candidates in U.S. history, the Obama campaign seems to believe there will be some fresh, raw meat in those returns.

 

Categories
Politics

Paul Ryan – I Never Asked For Stimulus – I Don’t Recall Asking – Oh, I Did Ask.

Paul Ryan, who objected to the Obama stimulus plan, denied in 2010 and again Wednesday that he ever sought stimulus money for Wisconsin projects. He then added, “I don’t recall” to his answer on Wednesday.

Now he’s changed his story again.

Thursday evening, Ryan acknowledged having sent the letters above his signature. “After having these letters called to my attention I checked into them, and they were treated as constituent service requests in the same way matters involving Social Security or Veterans Affairs are handled. This is why I didn’t recall the letters earlier. But they should have been handled differently, and I take responsibility for that.”

He did not explain why he was not alerted to the fact his office had sent a letter asking for stimulus aid from the Department of Labor when the Wall Street Journal reported on this in 2010…

…beginning in the fall of 2009, he sent the first of a series of letters to the Department of Energy on behalf of a pair of Wisconsin energy conservation groups, insisting the funds would help create jobs, the Globe reported on Tuesday.

For example, Ryan predicted that a grant being sought by the Madison-based Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation would “create or retain approximately 7,600 new jobs over the three-year grant period and the subsequent three years.”

So, Ryan denied for years that he ever requested stimulus money, until a national spotlight upon the issue forced him to acknowledge letters with his signature on it.

H/T Alan Combs

Categories
Mitt Romney Politics

Another Verse To The Song – Mitt Romney Is A Liar

Here’s an old song I’m sure you have heard before – Mitt Romney is a liar! See? You’re all shaking your heads in agreement.

Well, I here’s another verse to add to our little song. We have all the new claim from Mitt Romney that President Obama has “stolen” $700 billion from Medicare. Well PolitiFact checked into these claims and found…shockingly…that Mitt Romney is a liar!

Here’s how Romney put it in an interview with 60 Minutes shortly after selecting Ryan:

“There’s only one president that I know of in history that robbed Medicare, $716 billion to pay for a new risky program of his own that we call Obamacare.”

Here, we’re checking whether Obama “robbed” Medicare of $716 billion dollars to pay for Obamacare.

$700 billion from Medicare?

The claim that Obama cut $700 billion out of Medicare is relatively new. Not long ago, the oft-cited number was $500 billion. How did he manage to cut another $200 billion when no one was looking?

First things first: Neither Obama nor his health care law literally cut a dollar amount from the Medicare program’s budget.

Rather, the health care law instituted a number of changes to try to bring down future health care costs in the program. At the time the law was passed, those reductions amounted to $500 billion over the next 10 years.

What kind of spending reductions are we talking about? They were mainly aimed at insurance companies and hospitals, not beneficiaries. The law makes significant reductions to Medicare Advantage, a subset of Medicare plans run by private insurers. Medicare Advantage was started under President George W. Bush, and the idea was that competition among the private insurers would reduce costs. But in recent years the plans have actually cost more than traditional Medicare. So the health care law scales back the payments to private insurers.

Hospitals, too, will be paid less if they have too many re-admissions, or if they fail to meet other new benchmarks for patient care.

Obama and fellow Democrats say the intention is to protect beneficiaries’ coverage while forcing health care providers to become more efficient.

And Romney’s claim that President Obama is the only president in history to deal with Medicare? This is what PolitiFact found:

“We reviewed this history in detail in a fact-check of Romney’s statement from December, “Only one president has ever cut Medicare for seniors in this country . . . Barack Obama.” We rated that False. Many presidents have sought to rein in Medicare spending.

Here are a few highlights from that fact-check:

• President Ronald Reagan cut Medicare by reducing payments to hospitals, and he cut benefits by raising deductibles.

• President George H.W. Bush cut benefits by repealing a law that would have expanded coverage for drugs and catastrophic illness.

• President Bill Clinton cut Medicare by changing payments to doctors and other providers, which could be considered to have an indirect effect on beneficiaries.”

Categories
Mitt Romney Paul Ryan Politics

Hey, Paul Ryan Could Flip Flop Too – Video

He once credit Ayn Rand and particularly her book “Atlas Shrugged,” for teaching him about his “belief system.” But now, Paul Ryan – the newly appointed Republican vice presidential candidate – is trying to run far away… far far away from Ayn Rand, and he is leaving Mitt Romney in the dust on the road to Flip Flop City.

In 2005, Paul Ryan spoke to the Atlas Society and said this about Ayn Rand;“There is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand’s writings and works.”

Below, Lawrence O’Donnell explains how fast Paul is running…

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