Todd Akin's Comments Symptomatic of Bigger Problems For GOP

GOP officials are trying their hardest to try and contain the fallout from the reprehensible comments made by Missouri Congressman Todd Akin who is seeking a US Senate seat in a race against Claire McCaskill. Even Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his vice president nominee Paul Ryan called on Akin to quit the campaign. Akin has refused thus far, and he missed the deadline to withdraw without requiring court approval (or to pay the costs for redoing the ballots).

The problem for the GOP is that his comments weren't merely a misstatement or ill-conceived (as Akin himself put it on his own website - awkwardly at that). They are symptomatic of a much larger problem for the GOP. You've got Republicans who support restricting abortion to only those cases of forcible rape - or restricting federal funding for all abortions, including in cases of rape or incest.

Then, you've got social conservatives claiming that their claims that women can't get pregnant from rape and base it on research carried out by the Nazis during World War II (where they took prisoners and subjected them to gas chambers to see if stress affected ovulation).

The misogyny runs deep with Republicans. It's not just Akin. There's Kansas state Rep. Pete DeGraaf who suggested women should plan ahead for rape the way he keeps a spare tire. Indiana state Rep. Eric Turner said some women might fake being raped in order to get free abortions.

Then, there's the litany of attempts to impose onerous and invasive ultrasound procedures that would have the effect of reducing the number of abortions and abortion providers, including Virginia. Moreover, such requirements might constitute state-imposed rape on such women because the procedure isn't medically required or indicated.

Or the series of personhood amendments being propagated by Republicans across the nation that would give an embryo rights that would necessarily limit the rights of women to control their own bodies. Moreover, those same personhood amendments could seriously restrict access to in-vitro fertilization and other similar techniques, to say nothing of embroyonic stem cell research.

But perhaps the biggest sign that Akin isn't an isolated case is that Akin claims that the fallout from his comments has led to a big increase in campaign contributions although it should be noted that he bested his modest goal of $10,000:

“Donations are pouring in. Thank you for standing up against the liberal elite,” Mr. Akin wrote on Twitter last night.

A counted on Mr. Akin’s website said, as of this writing, Mr. Akin had raised $10,638 since beginning a “still standing” campaign following his remarks. On Twitter last night, Mr. Akin said his goal was hitting “$10k to fight the liberal elite.” He also posted a series of messages blaming the “liberal elite” for driving a “a lot of negativity” his way and for pushing around and otherwise intimidating those in the pro-life movement.

I'm not surprised by that.

The true tragedy is that the race for the Missouri Senate seat is as close as it is even with the furor about Akin's comments. Akin may still win the contest against McCaskill. That's troublesome in its own right and shows just how deep support for the belief system that Akin revealed in last Sunday's interview truly goes.

Nor am I surprised when Kirk Cameron comes out in support of Akin. Cameron went on CNN to defend Akin:

One defender? Kirk Cameron. The child-star-turned-evangelist was on CNN this morning discussing the remarks, and Cameron encouraged people to watch the whole video (which you can here) and then said, “[Akin] is clearly a pro-life advocate and I respect him. He said that he misspoke and that he misphrased something and that he apologized.”

Rep. Akin released a statement after the interview saying he “misspoke,” but hasn’t backed away from his remarks. Despite calls on Akin to get out of the Missouri Senate race, so far he’s staying in.

“I’m the kind of person that believes that I would like to be evaluated by my entire career and my entire life, not two words that I would misspeak and then later apologize for,” Cameron told CNN. “So he’s in a tough spot.”

The problem is that Akin didn't misspeak. He said exactly what he thought. He said precisely what his ultimate intentions are. He didn't misphrase anything. Akin said exactly what he thought. He believes that there is such a thing as legitimate rape - and his prior history about trying to impose restrictions for forcible rape are proof that this is part of what Akin actually believes. It goes to the belief that some women who are victims are rape deserved what they got - it's a combination of slut shaming, treating women as second class citizens who can't be trusted with control over their own bodies, and is misogynistic at its core.

Cameron's comments are echoed by other religious leaders, including Bryan Fischer.

In other words, if we go by what Akin has said and done over his entire political career - these words that Akin claims was a misspeak aren't. Akin meant exactly what he said. He cowrote legislation that would create the nonsensical category of forcible rape along with Ryan (but which didn't get passed because of the furor it created).

Cameron is right in one respect though- Akin is in a tough spot, along with the rest of the GOP that has wholly subsumed the social conservative agenda.

UPDATE:
Lest anyone think that I'm not sourcing my materials, here's links to the following as referenced above:

The link showing Ryan and Akin's attempt to create a category of forcible rape (and there's a new report indicating a separate attempt by Ryan to include forcible rape in a second piece of legislation).

Bryan Fischer said that Akin's comments were right.

And here's where Akin and others got that trope about how rape victims can't get pregnant (Seattle Post going into the history).

Here's where Gawker recorded Akin's awkward website attempts to try and generate campaign contributions from this mess.

Romney Chooses Paul Ryan For VP Slot

Mitt Romney has made his decision. He will go with Wisconsin Republican firebrand Paul Ryan as his Vice Presidental selection. It's somewhat odd to make that move on a Saturday morning, but it does mean he gets to dominate the Sunday talk shows, but it doesn't mean nearly as much press as if he held off until Monday - after the Olympics. People are still focusing on sports and not on politics at this point, but the Romney campaign must be feeling the heat and need to stem a tide of bad polling, and the fact that Romney essentially called for mercy to stop harping on Romney's tax and business records, and that Romney's own goals on health care reform and other assorted lies, misstatements, and gaffes.

Ryan will give Romney a short-lived bounce. It gives Romney a breather, but does it really benefit him in November?

Well, it improves his chances of holding on to the red-meat GOPers and right wingers, and could help with Wisconsin and Midwest, but that could be more than offset by the fact that Ryan's plan would gut the safety net - from Social Security to Medicare and Medicaid - programs that most Americans believe are good programs and are to their benefit (even if they may also think that some kind of incremental reforms are needed over time). After all, independents and moderates are going to have serious issues with what the GOP and the socons are looking to do. So, the overall effect will be negative since it reinforces everything that we already knew or expected from Romney.

Wishful Thinking Permeates Budget and Deficit Talk In DC

President Barack Obama gave a good speech yesterday that appeared to draw a line in the sand that he would not give a further extension to the EGTRRA/JGTRRA tax cuts that he extended through 2012 for high income Americans. It was essentially his opening salvo in the 2012 presidential campaign, but I found it curious that he claimed that by not extending those tax rate cuts, that he would reduce tax spending by $1 trillion over the next decade.

Eliminating tax cuts are not a reduction in tax spending. They are a tax hike on those affected. It's a semantic argument, and it does relate to how he views income and tax policy.

But more to the point, his plan is full of wishful thinking. For starters, his plan would assume that he's going to win the Presidency in 2012 and that Congress would see things his way and allow for the programmed tax increases to occur - where the rates that are now currently 33% and 35% would rise to 35% and 39.6% respectively. If that were to occur, it's the only part of his deficit reduction package that can be accurately scored for the year it takes effect - Congress and his successor in the White House can adjust the rates and other tax policy items as they see fit, and they can therefore reduce or increase the deficit.

He further couched a significant portion of the deficit reduction in the form of tax simplification, which is something that both sides of the aisle have been clamoring for - except when it comes to their pet projects/constituencies. The rest of his deficit reduction plan consists of betting that the tax hikes and reducing spending around the fringes will result in $1 trillion less in deficit in the form of interest on debt. If those spending reductions don't materialize, the deficit will increase above and beyond what they're claiming will happen.

True tax simplification would eliminate the AMT and merge it in with the existing standard tax calculations since it would eliminate the annual dance in Congress over adjusting the AMT threshold for inflation. The CBO routinely scores legislation based on the law as in effect, and that means that the AMT scoring is routinely off because it doesn't reflect the fact that Congress changes that law annually. Tax simplification means that credits and deductions should be eliminated and the rates reduced to result in a revenue neutral proposal, but Democrats are likely to want the rates increased to increase revenue - that's the true battle here (whether to tackle tax simplification as a revenue neutral matter or as a way of enhancing tax revenues - as an increase in the marginal rates paid by taxpayers).

Most of the rest of the President's deficit reduction plan is based on assumptions and actions that will take effect long after his presidency is over - whether he is out of office in 2012, or whether he wins through 2016.

For the GOP, the plan proffered by Rep. Paul Ryan is little more than slash and burn of programs regardless of whether they serve the greater good and are effective programs or not. Cutting programs such as earthquake and tsunami detection systems to save even $100 million is foolhardy especially considering the Japanese experience where a few moments to minutes notice saved countless lives in a devastating 9.1 earthquake last month - and such measures could reduce damage by billions of dollars if equipment is shut down to protect it against damage.

Gutting clean air and water programs wont bring back jobs, but it will make the air and water much dirtier and contribute to higher health care costs, which is another area in which the President hopes to bring about savings in how Medicaid is funded.

Reducing the social safety net isn't going to bring about the kinds of savings that the GOP hopes for either - it merely shifts the burdens on to localities and the families that are planning for having those programs in place as they enter their retirement years.

Also, all these plans rely on not having to wage further wars overseas or natural disasters that require massive infusions of federal funds to help recover from the damage. The US is regularly hit with major natural disasters, and whether it is a hurricane battering the Southeast or the West Coast being overdue for a major earthquake, it's bound to happen and will throw budget projections off.

Taking the Iraq and Afghanistan wars off the table (as in seeing the money being spent removed from the books at their conclusion) may well help reduce the deficit over the long term - but that's only if the money isn't spent elsewhere. With the US reducing its role in Iraq in 2011, 2012 and beyond, and the US role in Afghanistan up in the air, spending on those two conflicts is likely to continue to decline going forward. That doesn't mean that the money can and should be spent elsewhere- it means that it should not be spent at all.