Legitimately Finished: Republican Candidates Can’t Escape Rape Comments

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Tony Hymes

The victory of Barack Obama yesterday was the result of nearly sweeping the crucial battleground states. But in the various Senate races up for grabs across the country, where Republicans were hopeful that they might be able to wrest control of the senate from the Democrats for the coming term, the party of the people showed up in a big way, handing some major upsets to the GOP and retaining power over the Senate for the next two years at least. Of those who failed to reach their goals; two men who had made it clear that they were not fit to create policy.

legitimate rape comments cost akin senate seat

Down and out

In Missouri, disgraced politician Todd Akin, whose comments about female biology during instances of “legitimate rape” made him a target for equality advocates across the nation, had already been cut off from the Republican party. Even former candidate (how good does it feel to say that!) Mitt Romney spoke to him amidst the controversy asking him to drop out of the race. The former presidential candidate was keenly aware of the War on Women and the negative view of the GOP held by anyone in the USA with a vagina, and everyone else in the USA who cares about them. Romney and Republican party officials wanted Akin out to calm nerves and maneuver in a candidate who might have had a chance at winning.

Headstrong, Akin decided to stay in, polls had him remaining competitive. But his support evaporated, and the opposition materialized. He was successfully kept out of the Senate and most likely will never surface again in politics. Good riddance.

Akin was not the only man to reveal that he has no idea how female (or human) biology works while at the same time trying make the case to enact laws to control reproductive rights. Richard Mourdock, the former treasurer of the state of Indiana, got into trouble when he made comments about pregnancy resulting from rape being the will of God. While his blatant ignorance and disregard of reality was on display for the entirety of his campaign, it was this that pushed him over the edge and eroded the incredible amount of support he was able to amass during his beginning of his campaign.

will of god rape comments cost mourdock senate race

There’s no room for you here either

Mourdock was a Tea Party favorite, whose anti-Washington, anti-government, and anti-tax message caused him to defeat Republican Senator Dick Lugar — who served 36 years in the Senate — by over 20 percentage points during the Republican primaries. He looked like a shoe-in for victory in a Republican state with a popular Republican governor (Mitch Daniels). He fell to Democrat Joe Donnelly, whose biggest asset was simply that he wasn’t a religious radical who wanted to control women while understanding nothing about reality.

The fall of the Tea Party darlings is probably the nail in the coffin for the radical right wing group that has cannibalized the Republican party. Their hypocritical, sexist, and entirely ignorant beliefs are becoming increasingly marginalized, and thanks to the velocity that news can morph and travel on the internet, it is impossible to escape any questionable comments. Society is too modern for these time-traveling chauvinists.

To dismiss these comments from both men as simply “errors” of speech would be to classify them like Mitt Romney’s “Binders full of women” comment. Romney’s comment caught fire because of the potential comical images that come to mind immediately. Akin and Mourdock actually believe what they said. They actually believe that access to contraceptives, abortion, and family planning are against the will of God. They fail to accept that as a progressive society we need a standard of health that is identical between men and women, and that this standard must be based on science and common morality, not the Bible. They represent an older, radical demographic that is quickly shrinking into irrelevancy. Hopefully the results from yesterday mean that at least two more men are out of the game for good.

Barack Obama Wins: Victory Speech [VIDEO]

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Tony Hymes

President Barack Obama has won the 2012 election. Reelected comfortably for four more years, the election was over quickly, avoiding the horrible nightmares of provisional ballots, lawsuits, and recounts. When the dust settled, Obama cruised to victory in the majority of the battleground states, including the bell weather state Ohio.

Hope.

Elation abounds across the nation. Everywhere, those who voted for Obama are excited to see the man who reformed health care, took our nation out of a decade of war, opened up society for everyone, advanced the cause of all groups, and most importantly earned the trust of the nation that when a difficult decision needs to be made, he is the one to do it, can continue America’s crusade towards the future. We deserve it.

But the single biggest reason to be proud of America today is that even when corporations and special interests are able to do and say whatever they want — to drown the voices of actual citizens, to compromise equality, fairness, and our physical safety, to yield disproportionate influence over those who make policy — when it comes to the polls, we each get one vote. And we all voted. We voted to say that as a society we are equals as humans. We broke the teeth of the rich donors and businesses who wanted to profit at the expense of our nation, not for our nation as they so claimed.

And it is reckoning time for the Republican Party, whose fracturing divisions and increasingly marginalized positions will mean that if it remains unchanged, it will rapidly lose influence. They must accept that the majority of Americans want a better place to live, not a place that removes obstacles for some people to succeed, while leaving everyone else outside the gate. They must accept that religious influence to the point of clouding reality has no place in real political debate. They must accept that compromise is the only way forward.

As Obama says in his acceptance speech, we are hopeful. Sing it, Mr. President:

$2 Billion Spent in 2012 Presidential Campaign

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Tony Hymes

With eight days to go before Election Day 2012, the sums that each party has managed to amass are staggering, fully a billion dollars raised by each side, with a total of over $2 billion for the entirety of the presidential campaign.

That’s a lot of purchases at the dollar store

$2 billion is a lot of money, it is the same amount as 7,000 homes in America, four years college tuition for 57,800 students, and a year’s worth of health coverage for 127,000 families. Thanks to the Supreme Courts ruling that anyone can donate unlimited sums to Super PACs, operating independently of candidates, a lot of this money went straight to attack ads, and propagated misinformation from both sides. This is a complete waste of money and energy.

Who benefits from the money spent on campaigning? People who work on campaigns and receive salaries, media outlets, especially TV channels where ad money is spent, and the candidate who wins. In this regard, Romney is a hedge bet for millionaires, donate a few million and Romney will change the tax structure making it possible for millionaires to be taxed less in the future, ideally saving them more money than they donated.

But special interest groups also benefit. They raise a lot of money to use as influence over candidates, to ensure that candidates appeal to them and agree to fight for them on the national stage. The threat of losing that funding the next time around means that politicians can’t stray from their promises.

In the end, it is a spider web made from the stickiest material that ensnares candidates from early in their careers, and is amplified on the national level. In our opinion, Romney is much more indebted to his major donors than Obama, whose donations are spread along a much wider spectrum of interests. Either way, this system is broken, and there must be someway that this money and energy can be used in a productive way.

The Second Presidential Debate: Recap

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Tony Hymes

Last night the two presidential candidates faced off in a town hall style debate for round number two. Fingers were pointed, calculated paces stepped, and the fervor of the election is reaching its peak. Pundits said that Obama needed a strong performance to recover from his flat showing in round one. He delivered.

The economic visions of the economy vary on certain levels between the candidates, yet in many ways it’s the same. What can a President actually do for the American economy? Here are some possibilities:

Improve international agreements establishing more free trade zones to reduce prices of American exports in other countries and allow American businesses to profit.
Shift funding and subsidies to areas that are growing to improve the rate of hiring.
Maintain access to affordable credit for start ups, and reduce regulation for registering and forming new businesses.
Promote American products around the world, and especially at home by developing a culture of buying American.

We only heard vague references to these ideas last night, while Mitt Romney spewed about cutting taxes and the price of a gallon of gasoline. He is selling out to get elected, basically telling everyone they can have anything they want. It’s hypocritical because of the way that Romney derides the so-called entitlement society that we have lived in. When asked directly last night to name one loophole in the tax structure he would close to address the deficit, he evaded the question entirely. The moment was awkward to say the least, but typical of his campaign: a complete lack of detail to explain how any of these ideas work. Mitt Romney has even resorted to talking about how his policies would benefit the middle class.

Obama’s style improved, and he used the final comment to bring up Mitt Romney’s 47% comment. This was crucial, that 47% has become commonplace, with only a few weeks left, it doesn’t look like it’s going away. Romney didn’t have many sympathy points going into the race anyway, but he angered a lot of people, people who probably would’ve voted for him.

In the end polls showed that people felt like both Obama and Romney did well. Romney was supposed to excel, the subject matter is after all what people respect him for, yet Obama was supposed to bounce back from the negative reviews of the first debate. The outcome was quite near what was expected, though a few missteps for Romney give the contest to Obama.

Round three of the presidential debates, centering on foreign policy, comes next. It’s a huge advantage for Obama, but there is much to lose. However, nobody in America wants to hear hawkish talk coming from a business suit who successfully evaded service in Vietnam and who compared his sons campaigning for him to having a son serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. Romney has zero credibility. Obama’s cool, diplomatic approach to world events should have the next debate sewn up, but as always a surprise could shift the tide.

The National Debt & Romney’s 20% Tax Cut

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Tony Hymes

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan continue to launch a barrage of attacks on President Obama with regard to the size of the debt during this year’s presidential election. Paul Ryan and the GOP have an affinity for large, digital debt clocks that show the enormous sum our nation have acquired over the history of our existence. Paul Ryan is known as the debt guy, committed to reducing it at all costs.

No, no it doesn’t

But in the same breath, Ryan touts Romney’s 20% across the board tax cuts as the answer for economic stimulus to pay the debt. 20% is a huge number, and the corresponding government spending that would have to be reached in order to match it would be too much for the nation to handle. There would be rioting in the streets.

Math has been thrown out the window like a napkin on the side of the highway. If we recall, it was the Bush tax cuts that added trillions to our debt, and Obama kept them in place, further inflaming the issue. The debt is rising so swiftly due to interest rates that cannot go down until progress has been made. This progress means cuts to programs, along with increased tax revenue to break the trend and start to move those huge clocks in reverse.

Ryan had some radical ideas in his first budget, which cut spending everywhere, axed Medicare in favor of a different system, and reduced the governments role in business and life in general. It merited some discussion, and came under fire for a number of reasons, but in that case, at least the math added up.

Now Ryan goes on the campaigns trail and says “I’m not going to tell you what you want to hear, I’m going to be real with you, even if it’s difficult, our debt is out of control, we have to stop it.” Then he adds immediately exactly what everyone wants to hear: “20% tax cuts for everybody, because you deserve it!” His supporters revere him for being honest and tough, without connecting the fact that the tax cut is only an appeal for their vote, like a 20% coupon at a store, and would, in a manner of weeks, make the debt level unsustainable and risk immediate default, causing automatic tax hikes and vast levels of uncertainty which would hamstring investment.

Let’s put it another way, it’s like a representative of Marlboro cigarettes talking to a room of smokers. “Look, I’m going to be straight with you, smoking will kill you, your smoking is out of control and you have to cut it down and quit. That’s the hard truth. But, since I know you love smoking and are addicted to it, here’s a 20% off coupon when you buy two or more cartons of delicious Marlboro reds.”

Romney’s Turn To Center: Softening On Abortion

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Tony Hymes

Romney’s veer to the center of the spectrum during the first presidential debate marks a completely different persona than the one that he faked being to win the Republican nomination during the primary season. Now he is trying to return to his old Moderate Mitt days as governor of Massachusetts when he was decidedly pro-choice. Now he made comments that conflict with his running mate’s position, and a position he held before. Plus, these comments come on the same day as the Vice Presidential debate, where Paul Ryan, an ultra-conservative, will have to explain how he can support Romney when the man keeps changing his position to appeal to voters.

Which way did he go, which way will he go?

Ryan is famous for his efforts to oppose women’s reproductive rights, and has sponsored numerous bills to limit access to contraceptives and abortion. Women are terrified of him and his positions, and tonight if Biden can get him into a corner, he will have a hard time appearing sympathetic as he tries to claim that he knows what’s best for a woman. If Biden can link him to Todd Akin, the disgraced politician from Missouri, it will be hard for Ryan to recover.

Romney’s shift to the center is welcomed. He has always been moderate, and a Moderate Mitt can enable some real conversation about the direction of the economy. If Romney would just return to who he really is, we could rest easy knowing that people in America will have health care (under a system he is originally responsible for), guns would be controlled, and women would have access to the contraceptives and family planning services that they need. We could actually have a meaningful discussion about the role of government in society, of the tax structure, and of the ways to improve the economy.

But Romney’s hand is held back by the conservative wing of the country that keeps him saying ridiculous things like “As President, I will defund Planned Parenthood.” We need to get over this childishness, this religiosity, this ignorance and intolerance that limits our national discourse. We need to ditch hardliners like Paul Ryan, and work together for common solutions to problems we can fix, not use antiquated ideas to impose our will upon others.

Please, Moderate Mitt, come back to us, rebuff the far right, free yourself from the chains of ignorance and intolerance, stop trying to be what you are not, and be your original self. You might lose some enthusiasm from the wrong wing, but you will gain a lot of supporters from the center, and maybe even win the election.

The Vice Presidential Debate Preview

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Tony Hymes

While certainly not as interesting as the one during the last election, the vice presidential debate between challenger Paul Ryan and incumbent Joe Biden should give the American public more insight into the thinking of one of the most conservative politicians around, Paul Ryan. Yet facing the slump following Obama’s academic performance in the first presidential debate, Biden has some ground to make up.

Biden is a seasoned Washington politician who knows his way around a debate. He can afford to be more sympathetic than Obama, and more liberal on the major social issues. He was the first of the administration to support equality in marriage and has given numerous speeches about slimming defense and opening up immigration. The administration has a lot of good talking points, and Biden can use compassion to make the case for the health care act and for higher taxes on the super wealthy.

Ryan, on the other hand, has come under heavy fire for his budget proposal and his idea to eliminate Medicare. Facing declining popularity and an image of coldness, he must deliver concrete ideas. This will be exceptionally difficult, since his primary talking point is the debt, yet he voted for nearly every single one of the programs that got us into this position in the first place.

Biden must exploit this, and drive hard on the point that debt is not good but a suffering society is worse. Cutting the debt at the expense of the health of our nation is out of the question. Cuts to programs definitely need to be made, but not at the expense of health or education. And revenues must rise, including both closing loopholes — as Romney is so fond of saying — and raising taxes on the wealthy, and possibly even across the board. Hammering home a realistic solution that puts our society’s best interest first is what the majority of Americans will respond to. The era of the individual for himself is coming to a close. Biden just might be the man to usher that in, and set the stage for a stronger Obama in debate #2.

The Damage To The Elderly

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Tony Hymes

As the Wrong Wing has written about many times before, the older generation of Americans tend to romanticize the past. They think of times gone by as the good old days, when American morality was strong, when people worked hard and long and were able to succeed. As a result, they tend to vote Republican, preferring to conserve America rather than vote Democratic to progress it. Why then does Mitt Romney hold such disdain for this crucial voting block?

Yep, he said you think you’re a victim.

First, there was his selection of Paul Ryan for running mate, whose efforts to reform Medicare, the system that keeps many of our senior citizens alive and well, were not actually misguided. There is a lot of room for improvement within the system. Yet his specific idea — the voucher system which studies show would not adequately pay for the medical care that most seniors need — is not the right idea. It further pushes healthcare towards the private sector, and eliminates crucial help for the people who need it the most. Plus it enforces the current insurance system, which might be the most counter-intuitive way to provide people with medical care that the world has seen since the days of rubbing garlic in wounds for its magic healing powers.

The selection of Ryan has probably lost Romney the crucial state of Florida, since seniors are rightfully scared about what would happen should they lose their healthcare so that millionaires can pay less taxes.

But Romney has also been on the closed door campaign trail discussing the now infamous 47% who he says are dependent on the government and feel they are victims. None of the proud, hard working senior citizens that we know feel they are victims of anything. They are thankful that they lived in America, and are thankful that they can enjoy the twilight of their lives without fretting over decisions of whether to take their medicine or eat dinner. They paid their dues to society, and deserve to have society work for them.

Romney’s comments from that May fundraiser are one of many, and his utter disrespect for such an admirable portion of Americans, who served in wars, who built the foundation we stand on, and who believe in America without needing to put it on a campaign slogan sticker, means that Romney has lost the support of one of his strongest constituencies.

The Video Seen Round The World

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Tony Hymes

A leaked video from an elite fundraiser shows Mitt Romney revealing how he really feels about nearly half of America. In it, he decries that these Americans are dependent on the government, and will never vote for him. He goes further to say that there is nothing he can do to get these people to take responsibility for their lives.

Maybe he was just pitching to the crowd. These were rich Republican donors who hate taxes and the poor, so Romney was trying to make it seem like the poor dont pay taxes, therefore why should we? Maybe this is just Romney the chameleon changing forms to try to win votes, at whatever the costs. It would certainly fit his personality.

But as many have already pointed out, a lot of those 47% are Republicans. They are disabled war veterans, they are the elderly, they are the poor. They are people that would’ve voted for Romney at nearly all costs, that is, until he insulted them for being lazy, addicted to government hand outs and unwilling to take responsibility for their lives.

We have all known for far too long that Romney is nothing more than an agent employed by the rich to further cut taxes at the expense of everyone else. This is no surprise, but to come out and alienate half of the country in a way that reveals your true disdain for them, begs the question: Mitt, why do you want to be President at all?

Here it is:

Romney’s Economic Plan

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Tony Hymes

Attacks from both sides of the aisle have left the Romney camp scrambling to come up with details for the economic plan that Romney says he will implement once he gets to office if elected. His promise to further cut taxes across the board, particularly for the very wealthy, while not mentioning a single program he would cut spending from, has left the Tea Party with a bitter taste in their mouths. How then, they ask, does America close its deficit, and reduce our national debt?

Might we finally get some details?

When Republicans point out a hypocrisy, you know you’ve gone too far. So Romney’s aides are starting to release minor details about a 5 point plan: which includes 12 million new jobs, education reform and increasing exports. The problem with this plan is that it is almost identical to the plans that Obama has proposed.

Romney has been desperately seeking some level of differentiation on the one playing field that is supposed to be towards his advantage. No one thinks Romney is nearly as capable as Obama on foreign policy. Few think Romney is as inspirational as Obama. Few think that Romney is as atuned to their interests and problems as Obama. The only feature that is appealing about Romney is his economic chops.

Before, Romney has argued that cutting taxes on the rich would stimulate growth and investment. But it is not rich individuals who hire people, it is companies, and rich people will always diversify their portfolios to offshore tax havens. Cutting the tax rate for the rich does nothing to stimulate the economy, and cutting taxes for everyone else is impossible since W Bush ruined our nations finances and pulled us into crippling debt.

Therefore, Romney is going to try to repackage Obama’s ideas as his own. This is startling but good. If Romney comes out with a plan that is similar to Obama’s it means that we have found a consensus in national politics. We should be able to test these theories in a bipartisan way and get our country back to growth. The problem, of course, is the way that Romney will fight tooth and nail to make it seem like it was his idea. Hopefully the American people will realize that he has been stalling, and that when he doesn’t come up with any new ideas, it’s time to let him know that America is more important to us than that.

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