Prior to the re-election of this Nation’s Favorite Kenyan, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted Republicans to stop talking about rape — because oh dear lurd what the hell are they talking about!? — or never stop talking about rape, because OH DEAR LURD WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SAYING EVERYONE MUST HEAR THIS.
I’m having that same dilemma with the latest Republican to face-plant in the bowl of rape nuts — Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey, Todd Akin of the Legitimate Rape Akins‘s defender and man-bro.)
Stop talking Phil Gingrey! No wait! Never stop talking Phil Gingrey!
pillsy
These dickheads just can’t help themselves, can they?
Patricia Kayden
Gingrey is an ob-gyn. Perhaps he knows what he’s talking about.
/snark.
Violet
There is no question on this for me. Keep talking, Republicans. Keep saying dumbass stuff about women and rape. Keep the gun nuts out there front and center and running their mouths. Keep Republicans agreeing with them. Keep it up for as long as possible. The more of a horror show they are, the saner the Democrats look.
Certified Mutant Enemy
Gingrey and Akin are are best buddies….
pillsy
@Patricia Kayden:
The hilarious thing is that, in his rush to defend Akin from the horribly unfair treatment he received at the hands of the (no doubt nefariously liberal) media, he actually completely demolishes Akin’s “partly right” point. Then again, I think a politician who wasn’t a drooling incompetent would be smart enough not to bring Akin up in public for any reason.
Culture of Truth
Please continue, Congressman.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Phil Gingrey’s taken the plunge?
Oh, I gotta firmly come down on the side that says “oh please lord don’t let this clown stop talking about rape, all the way to Election Day.”
Short Bus Bully
Just proves the point DEFINITIVELY that there needs to be regulation of ovulation.
Thank you congressman!
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
As much as this shit makes me want to throw up, it’s better for everybody that they keep talking. Little by little, it’ll seep into the minds of those who don’t follow politics what these creeps believe. These guys are congressmen and senators saying this shit and screaming about President Obama being a communist and all that shit. And they can’t help themselves. They must know what this shit does to them over the long haul, but they can’t help it.
NonyNony
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.):
What makes you say that?
They’ve surrounded themselves with people who agree with them on everything, only watch the news programs that agrees with them, only read books that agree with them, and listen to talk radio blowhards who tell them what to think (and yeah, here I mean the actual Congressmen these days, not their voters).
How exactly are they going to come to the conclusion that this stuff is bad for them over the long haul, when they aren’t exposed to any pushback from it?
patrick II
Some things taken together are greater than the sum of their parts, and so it is with various republican pronouncements on policies towards women. First, republicans want to limit access to contraceptives. Next, they don’t think legitimate rape will make you pregnant. And third they want to outlaw abortions. Combine them together and the result you get is a world where coerced fertile women get raped, pregnant (because they really wanted it) and with no recourse to abortion.
Just wanted to bring the bigger picture into view.
Ruckus
@NonyNony:
Exactly this.
ant
hey ABL, do you like this song?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8mJJJvaes
Punchy
This article on the brew ha-ha claims he’s for more gun regulations. That does not compute with 1) He’s GOP, 2) he’s from GA, 3) He’s a teabagger, and 4) He’s in the House.
So whats up with that? Did he mispeak on that shit, too? I suspect a walk-back of everything he said (stupid librul media!) in less than 3 hours.
Scott Supak
It’s my new favorite saying, and I think I’m going to make a bumper sticker out of it:
KEEP TALKING, WINGNUTS!
ranchandsyrup
These urethrae will talk about rape in the abortion context but there are few people talking about rape culture issues like Steubenville (right in Cole’s neighborhood). Except for douchebag Breitbart lackey Lee Stranahan who went there for a day and sees “no evidence of a coverup”.
http://freakoutnation.com/2013/01/10/breitbart-blogger-goes-to-steubenville-within-an-hour-or-so-determines-there-is-no-cover-up-of-evidence/
Mart
I took me awhile, but it finally came to me why they keep saying the stupid rape stuff.
There is a policy behind their idiocracy. They have succeeded in pushing the “rational” debate so far to the right that abortions should only be allowed in case of incest or rape. They now fear that all the slutty sluts will come to Planned Parenthood saying they have been raped, so give me my Government funded abortion. So you see, we need to figure out a way to differentiate between whores who were legitimately raped; versus the whores who are lying about it to get an abortion that should be forbidden by law.
NonyNony
@Mart:
I don’t think your rationale is quite right.
I mean, it’s a good explanation for why they believe in the stupid rape stuff that they’re spouting, but trust me – these are not new ideas. Rightwingers believed this stuff about rape in the 1980s and there were many on the fringe of the right who have argued against rape exceptions because of it for a long time.
The question is – why have the nuts on the fringe become the mainstream of the Republican party. And the answer really boils down to “the nuts took over the GOP over the course of the 1980s and 90s, got their own news networks in the 1990s and now live in a bubble where they think they’re the majority and most people believe the same things they believe”.
That’s why they feel free to say this crap now – they’ve convinced themselves that everyone else believes it too.
Culture of Truth
So he was partially right, wasn’t he? But the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped
Unless women are getting notices in the mail 14 hours in advance of their rape, then no, not even partially right.
gelfling545
@Mart: I suspect also that they want to make these positions so extreme that we’ll feel grateful that at least they’re not herding us into reproduction camps and so agree to their (minimally) less extreme positions and feel like we dodged a bullet.
Mart
@NonyNony: So you are saying I was partially right, wasn’t I. Sorry,couldn’t resist.
Delia
They’re obviously fascinated by the topic. If a private citizen kept jabbering on about rape like this, his
friendsacquaintances and relations would report him him to the authorities or at least start avoiding him.Ben Cisco
@ant: I looked, I LOLed.
pseudonymous in nc
The GOP House Doctors’ Caucus (Gingrey, Paul Broun, Ron Paul, etc.) is a pretty big indictment on the American medical system. And a lot of them are ob-gyns: expectant mothers, please check to see whether your doctor in the delivery room is a fucking nutjob.
geg6
@ranchandsyrup:
Well, I can tell you (as someone who also lives in that particular neighborhood and much closer than Mr. Cole at less than an hour or slightly less than 50 miles), there’s a FUCKTON of discussion of rape culture in local media, believe me. It’s on the local news every night and in both the Pittsburgh papers and my local newsrag pretty much every day (or when some development happens, which is about every other day now). Some of the more brave local reporters are even looking into the angle of how the football culture here creates the rape culture that is on view in Steubenville.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
@Delia: Seriously. It’s like the evangelical pastor who can’t stop talking about gays. Eventually you have to wonder why they’re all so fascinated with this topic.
I’m sure THEY never raped anyone, but, as one of them once said, some girls rape easy (i.e. claim they were raped when they were totally asking for it). So it wasn’t “legitimate” rape no matter what she said about it.
WaterGirl
@pseudonymous in nc:
I had the exact same thought! My thought right before that was to cringe for all the women who had used this guy as their doctor and were now finding out just how awful he is.
IowaOldLady
Every once in a while, there are these moments where you can see the public’s opinion crystalizing on something. Bush’s handling of Katrina set the understanding that he was incompetent. Palin’s babbling about blood libels finished her as someone anyone had to listen to.
And I think this moment (or moments, stretched over some time) are convincing the public that the GOP is not a responsbile option.
So I say, keep talking. Show us who you are often enough that we believe you.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
On a somewhat related note, I came across this awful place while readingn a story about the Steubenville, Ohio rape case. Has to be the most awful website I’ve ever seen, and I went to that gun nut site John Cole linked to a few weeks ago. And this, specifically, makes me want to track that guy down and beat him to death. And the comments are even worse than the post itself. Fuck. I have two young daughters. Is it wrong of me to want them to never get raped?
ruemara
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.): Not. Gonna. Click.
Felinious Wench
OK, this pains me to say it, more than I can express, but he’s somewhat right. Stress can keep a woman from ovulating. But it’s a *can* not a *will*, and as far as I know there’s been no kind of study on how “immediate” stress vs. long-term stress may differ in how they affect ovulation. Nor will there ever be.
Basically, he way overreached in trying to defend Akin.
David in NY
@geg6:
Blasphemy!
Betsy
@Felinious Wench: Please, don’t even try to put any daylight between these guys and their fvckwad dogmatic irrationality.
I’ve been reading slave narratives. Rape was pervasive and normal in slavery; it was a standard procedure for producing more slaves as soon as female slaves were of a fertile age.
Let’s just say stress certainly didn’t keep those girls and women from ovulating.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@Mart:
I think you’re right. In fact, I’m almost positive you are.
But it begs the awful, awful question: If they successfully neuter the rape exception, will the next big uproar over a winger Congressperson’s words be over them saying “The science on knocking up your sister/daughter/etc. is far from settled …”
Evolving Deep Southerner
I’ll tell you. Some topics by their very nature are damn hard to talk about without getting sent to moderation.
ranchandsyrup
@geg6: Glad to hear that. The whole thing stinks to high heaven. It almost got swept under the rug.
terben
Why, in the name of heaven, would ANY woman let this guy within ten feet of her pink bits? Perhaps he can do less harm in his current job. Not sure, though. It’s a close call.
Rob in CT
Yes, keep them talking. Absolutely keep ’em talking. This stuff is utterly poisonous for them in national elections.
Keep talking, wingnuts! [think Spaceballs]