Meandering Musings

From kos:

Since May, every effort of Democrats to appoint budget conferees has been blocked by Republicans. All 18 times the Senate Democrats moved to go to conference with the House on a budget, Republicans objected.

For Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, the move is ironic. She has been trying for more than a half-year to go to a conference to work out dramatic differences between the Senate budget and the House version. Senate and House Republicans have objected, repeatedly. [...]

"We know going to a conference means that we have to compromise -- that's what a conference is," Murray said just before midnight. "But we're not going to do it with a gun to our head that says we're shutting government down and we're going to conference over a short little six-week C.R. We have to deal with the longer-term budget. We have asked many times to go to conference on that."

Indeed, Murray and her colleagues asked 18 times. They have been blocked by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a group of tea party Republicans led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

The House Republicans, it should be noted, have refused to even appoint budget conferees until this last-ditch demand Monday night. Back in June, after three months of inaction from Republicans, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi unilaterally appointed Democratic conferees, to little effect. Republicans still ignored calls for a budget conference.

So all the theatrics you're about to see from Republicans on 'their simple desire just to have a conference' is just that: a big show.

I've got to stop making these posts, because, quite frankly, there's just wayyyyy too much fodder for them.

Anyway, after yesterday's post about Missouri Senate candidate Akin's severe ignorance about reproduction and biology (with a huge helping of misogyny) another sitting U.S. Representative (this one from Iowa) chose to chime in defending Akin while adding his own severe stupidity:

Rep. Steve King told an Iowa reporter he’s never heard of a girl getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest.

This would be the same congressman who came up with THIS jaw-dropper a few weeks ago:

"What I've said is that we need to respect humans more than we do animals. Whenever we start elevating animals up to, to above that of humans, we've crossed a moral line. For example, if there's a sexual predator out there who has impregnated a young girl, say a 13 year old girl, and it happens in America more times than you and I like to think, that sexual predator can pick that girl off the playground at the middle school and haul her across the state line and force her to get an abortion to eradicate the evidence of his crime, and bring her back and drop her off at the swing set, and that's not against the law in the United States of America..."

BTW - that's all against the law.

So, Missouri's Republican Senate candidate:

“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.”

So many levels of wrong in that statement. So many.  But what I really want to know is...

What in the hell is a 'legitimate' rape, asshole? 

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ETA: BTW - This asshole is already in the House of Representatives where he's written EIGHT  Personhood (life begins as insemination)  bills that attempted to redefine what lawfully constitutes rape along with co-writer... PAUL RYAN.

( Read more... )

ETAII:  The asshat responds:

GOP congressman Todd Akin says he won't end his campaign as Missouri's Republican nominee for U.S. Senate. "I don't know that I'm the only person in public office who has suffered from foot-in-mouth disease," said Akin, who appeared on Mike Huckabee's radio show.  (...) Akin also told Huckabee he meant to say "forcible rape" instead of "legitimate rape."

'Cause, it might be one of those consensual rapes. [/snark]