Shades of Todd Akin(R-MO) 2012 Romney - Ryan Republican Platform To Advocate Abortion Ban Without Rape Exception

Shades of Todd Akin(R-MO) 2012 Romney - Ryan Republican Platform To Advocate Abortion Ban Without Rape Exception

Republican politicians have been falling over themselves to condemn from Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican Senate candidate in Missouri, who said Sunday that women who have experienced “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” The Romney-Ryan campaign called Akin’s comments “insulting, inexcusable and frankly wrong,” in spite of Ryan’s close working relationship with Akin on a number of radical anti-abortion and contraception bills. A Romney spokesperson added that the “Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.”

But embracing a rape exception for abortion rights would put the campaign at odds with the Republican Party’s longstanding platform, the newest iteration of which will be officially unveiled at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. In spite of the massive public outcry from the right over Akin’s comments, the official GOP platform committee drafted a provision Monday supporting a “human life amendment” that would outlaw abortion without specifying exemptions for rape or incest. The platform reads:

    Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

Heading the committee is Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA), best known for his “mandatory ultrasound” law requiring any woman getting an abortion to undergo an unnecessary ultrasound. McDonnell also revealed his regressive position on women’s rights in his college thesis, which slandered working women, contraception, and “fornicators.” It’s no surprise, then, that under his guidance, the Republican Party will reaffirm its support for a constitutional amendment that would outlaw abortion and likely many forms of contraception.

In saying they would not oppose a rape exception, Romney and Ryan are both changing their tune. Romney said in 2007 he would be “delighted” to sign a bill banning all abortions, and Ryan has been staunchly anti-abortion in all cases, even attempting to restrict abortion access to victims of “forcible rape” only.

The human life amendment has been a tenet of the Republican Party platform since the dawn of the Reagan era in 1980. It has survived for 32 years and nine presidential elections, even after former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) pushed hard in 2000 for an explicit exception for rape and incest. McCain ceded the language to party officials during his own run in 2008.

One of the most backwards and Orwellian terms of our times is the conservative claim to being "pro-life". Is that supposed to be some kind of joke. They say they care about a bunch of cells in a woman's uterus, but once born they'll do more to see a golf course gets watered than to see that child has a good education, a job and medical care.

The Creators of the Financial Crisis Are Trying To Rewrite History

The record here is crystal clear: AIG and Hank Greenberg were charged by the New York Attorney General's Office—while I was attorney general—with fraud and deceptive accounting practices. The company settled for $1.64 billion, at the time the largest payment in history. Let me quote from the New York Times’ reporting of the settlement: "Under the settlement reached with the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York Attorney General's office, and the New York State Insurance Department, AIG acknowledged it had deceived the investing public and regulators." Further from the New York Times: "Mr. Greenberg, who was removed by AIG's board last march, remains under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice department and faces a lawsuit by the New York Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer."

After invoking his Fifth Amendment right to avoid testifying, Greenberg settled with the SEC for $15 million. And a federal judge, in a written opinion, found evidence that the conspiracy to deceive investors originated with Greenberg. Even CNBC covered Greenberg's settlement by saying "Ex-AIG CEO Greenberg settles fraud charges with SEC."

So Mr. Langone, despite your effort to talk about everything other than the facts of these cases, facts matter. These cases were absolutely correct, important, and went to the heart of the type of corporate fraud and defalcation that very nearly destroyed our economy.

Conservatives learned nothing from the financial collapse of 2007/2008. We need better regulation and fair enforcement. No exaggeration - check out most of the conservative web sites - they all claim it was caused by some vast conspiracy between Fannie May, Barney Frank and working class Americans. Because of course everyone on Wall Street is an angel who never does wrong.

The Depravity of Rep. Todd Akin(R-MO) Is Shared By Paul Ryan (R-WI) And Other Conservatives

It Isn’t Just Medicare: Don’t Forget Paul Ryan’s Vision for Medicaid

Someone needs to put Romney in a time machine and have his parents teach me what real values are. He just keeps lying about Obama and welfare reform. If he can only become president based on a blatant falsehood what does that say about his character, New Romney Welfare Ad Cites Newspaper That Says Its Welfare Reform Claims Have ‘Been Debunked’

Can Massachusetts Voters Guess How Many Faces Scott Brown(R-MA) Has?

Can Massachusetts Voters Guess How Many Faces Scott Brown(R-MA) Has?

Question: What happens when a politician wants to look tough on Wall Street, without actually doing anything to rein in the big banks' excesses?

Answer: Scott Brown's recent letter to JPMorgan Chase.

Scott Brown wrote to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, supposedly "to express [his] concern with the surprising $2 billion trading loss" by the bank -- a total that has since climbed to $3 billion. But anyone who reads the letter carefully can see it for the transparent and disingenuous attempt by Brown that it is to look concerned about the havoc in the financial markets.

In that letter, Brown calls for only one thing: a clawback on the compensation of "the responsible parties in your company." The problem is that Dimon already said that was likely to happen.

How tough and independent -- telling a bank to do what it already said it would do!

What's more, the Dodd-Frank Act makes clawbacks mandatory in some cases. So what does Brown do? He tells Dimon that clawbacks are mandatory in some cases. What a maverick. Perhaps the bank should compensate Brown for the helpful legal advice (beyond the $50,000 that JPMorgan officials have already donated to Brown's campaign).

Lest his pointless letter seem too threatening to his scores of friends on Wall Street, Brown slips in some language that they would understand: "While regulations are necessary, it is also very important that when unprecedented mistakes do occur, banks will use the internal policies that they have set up to promote employee accountability."

Translation: When Wall Street screws up on an unprecedented scale and engages in risky behavior that undermines confidence in the market, they should treat it as an internal matter. No need for the government to get involved -- just move along, folks.

This, incidentally, is the same message as the one being spread by extreme conservatives like Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Of course, it was the lack of government involvement that allowed the financial crisis to happen in the first place.

Contrast the Scott Brown / Lamar Alexander approach with that of the Obama Administration, which has argued that the country still needs better regulations in the financial markets. Obama has pointed out that "JPMorgan is one of the best managed banks there is" and that Dimon "is one of the smartest bankers we've got, and they still lost $2 billion and counting...." In other words, even when a bank is well-run, there is the potential for catastrophe without proper regulation. There are few stronger pieces of evidence for this than JPMorgan's ability to quickly lose billions of dollars with some ill-advised keystrokes.

Brown tries to distinguish himself from Alexander and his ilk by pointing out that he voted for Dodd-Frank. What he neglects to mention, though, is that before he voted for it, he worked to weaken it by undermining the Volcker Rule.

All this, just days after he refuses to disclose who from JPMorgan might be serving on his finance committee, and after the Boston Globe revealed he has been raising more money from New York City than Boston and has set up a slush fund with the National Republican Senatorial Committee to help his campaign that is now flush with Wall Street cash.

This, by the way, is just the latest in Scott Brown's chameleon act.

When he stumps in Massachusetts, he tries to look like a moderate. But when he communicates with supporters outside the state, he morphs into a Republican in the mold of George W. Bush, recklessly calling for slashing government.

When he's on Main Street, he breaks out his pick-up truck and barn jacket. But when he's on Wall Street, he's right at home, pocketing millions of dollars from bankers who need him in the Senate.

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren talks about reports that Scott Brown is using the Affordable Care Act for his own daughter while trying to repeal it for everyone else. Brown is like a spoiled brat. he believes in big government by and for special interests - one of which is himself. Time to clean the useless trash out of Washington and get rid of two-faced liars like Scott Brown.

Immorality on the March - This is How Conservatives Define Capitalism. Those Who Disagree are Socialists

Immorality on the March - This is How Conservatives Define Capitalism. Those Who Disagree are Socialists, Goldman Sachs Insider Resigns, Reveals ‘Toxic’ Culture In Which Managers Called Clients ‘Muppets’

Last year, Goldman Sachs faced a significant amount of heat when internal emails — in which, bankers described a financial product they sold to clients as a “shitty deal” — became public. Goldman trader Fabrice “Fabulous Fab” Tourre became the face of a bank that cared more about its own internal trading profits than serving the needs of its clients, as shown by an email of his stating that he didn’t even understand the “monstrosities” he was peddling.

In today’s New York Times, Goldman Sachs executive director Greg Smith confirmed this characterization of the bank, writing that he resigned from Goldman due to its “toxic and destructive” environment which included managing directors referring to their own clients as “muppets”:

    Today is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.

    To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money…It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail….These days, the most common question I get from junior analysts about derivatives is, “How much money did we make off the client?”

As Charles Elson, a professor of corporate governance at the University of Delaware, explained, “You make a much bigger buck on a transaction than on the long-term relationship…You have profiteers as opposed to advisers.” Goldman Sachs, of course, disputes Smith’s characterization of the bank, saying, “We disagree with the views expressed. … We will only be successful if our clients are successful.”

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has previously said that his firm is “doing God’s work.” However, it seems that the bank’s actual modus operandi is more akin to the description used by a former JP Morgan banker who lost faith in his industry: “I don’t say this lightly, but the consumer is simply an income stream and exploiting that is the purpose of the banking organization.”

Yet when moderate patriotic Americans attempt to fix the immoral shenanigans of Wall Street, the deeply and irrevocably immoral leaders of the Anti-American conservative movement do everything they can to stop reasonable regulation.