David and I documented in our book 'Over The Cliff' how the extreme right-wing fringe has been transfused into the mainstream of the Republican party in an effort to shred President Obama's's historic victory in the 2008 election. There are many sides to their lunacy, but Colorado's Ken Buck fills the role of Misogynistst in Chief for the religious-right element among them. Just review this horrifying case that happened five years ago and is finally getting some national exposure.

Digby's post says it all: Psychopathic Tea Party Misogyny

I wrote before about creepy Tea Party candidate Ken Buck's harsh views on abortion in case of rape or incest and his bizarre implication that "saving the life of the mother" is open to interpretation:

I am pro-life, and I’ll answer the next question. I don’t believe in the exceptions of rape or incest. I believe that the only exception, I guess, is life of the mother. And that is only if it’s truly life of the mother.

Hey, if a few sperm receptacles have to die, it's a price that's well worth paying to avoid even one fetus being aborted. Plenty more vessels where that came from.

He has a little problem with this sort of thing. (You'll recall that during the primary he said "why should you vote for me? Because I do not wear high heels.") But McJoan finds evidence today that this is just the tip of the misogynistic iceberg:

A 2005 rape case that Ken Buck refused to prosecute indicates that maybe his threshold for what is really rape makes him less pro-life than anti-woman.

When Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck refused to prosecute a rape case five years ago, he probably had no idea that anyone beyond a small circle of people would care. He learned otherwise quickly enough as the victim demanded a meeting with him (which she secretly - but legally - taped), organized a protest and made sure the media knew all about her plight....

The alleged rape victim is back and determined to be heard. She told her story to the Colorado Independent and provided the tape of their meeting, in which Buck appears to all but blame her for the rape and tells her that her case would never fly with a Weld County jury....

He said the facts in the case didn’t warrant prosecution. “A jury could very well conclude that this is a case of buyer’s remorse,” he told the Greeley Tribune in March 2006. He went on to publicly call the facts in the case “pitiful.”

[...]

“That comment made me feel horrible,” she told the Colorado Independent last week. “The offender admitted he did it, but Ken Buck said I was to blame. Had he (Buck) not attacked me, I might have let it go. But he put the blame on me, and I was furious. I still am furious,” she said.

It wasn’t just his public remarks that infuriated the woman. In the private meeting, which she recorded, he told her, “It appears to me ... that you invited him over to have sex with him.”

He also said he thought she might have a motive to file rape charges as a way of retaliating against the man for some ill will left over from when they had been lovers more than a year earlier. Buck also comes off on this tape as being at least as concerned with the woman’s sexual history and alcohol consumption as he is with other facts of the case.

There's more at the link. It's really sickening. But with the ascension of Tea Party values, despite their affinity for certain right wing female politicians, this attitude is becoming more prevalent in mainstream political discourse.

The Huffington Post has the audio posted of Buck's interview with the woman who was raped. It's sickening.

Continue reading »

From an email by ChangeCongress:

We've got great news to report about our campaign shaming Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) for taking $700,000 from the defense industry and Chamber of Commerce and then siding with them against rape victims and his constituents. Thousands of people have signed our national expression of outrage and told their friends to sign -- and the national and local media are reporting on our campaign!

We need to keep the momentum up. Can you check out our petition and sign today?

From the National Journal:

Reform group Change Congress launched a campaign yesterday to shame Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., for voting against legislation that would help ensure victims of rape have the right to bring their case to court. The government reform group hit cyberspace with an email asking people to sign a 'national expression of outrage.' Citing $700,000 in campaign contributions from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the defense industry, Change Congress accused Burr of putting special interests before rape victims.

The more signatures we get, the more the media will report on his campaign. We need to keep publicly shaming these politicians one by one until Congress realizes it's time to replace special-interest-funded elections with citizen-funded elections.

Until they do, Americans will continue to ask: Did you vote that way because it made good sense, or because it raised special-interest campaign dollars?

This is infuriating. If there was any doubt in your mind as to whose side the political establishment is on, this should settle it:

An amendment that would prevent the government from working with contractors who denied victims of assault the right to bring their case to court is in danger of being watered down or stripped entirely from a larger defense appropriations bill.

Multiple sources have told the Huffington Post that Sen. Dan Inouye, a longtime Democrat from Hawaii, is considering removing or altering the provision, which was offered by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and passed by the Senate several weeks ago.

Inouye's office, sources say, has been lobbied by defense contractors adamant that the language of the Franken amendment would leave them overly exposed to lawsuits and at constant risk of having contracts dry up. The Senate is considering taking out a provision known as the Title VII claim, which (if removed) would allow victims of assault or rape to bring suit against the individual perpetrator but not the contractor who employed him or her.

"The defense contractors have been storming his office," said a source with knowledge of the situation. "Inouye either will get the amendment taken out altogether, or water it down significantly. If they water it down, they will take out the Title VII claims. This means that in discrimination cases, they will still force you into a secret forced arbitration on KBR's (or other contractors') own terms -- with your chances of prevailing practically zero. The House seems to be very supportive of the original Franken amendment and all in line, but their hands are tied since it originated in the Senate. And since Inouye runs the show on this bill, he can easily take it out to get Republicans and the defense contractors off his back, which looks increasingly likely."

A Democratic aide on the Hill, also with knowledge of the situation, confirmed the account, as did a source who works on defense contracting matters outside of Congress. "The contractors are putting on a full-court press on this amendment... they are all doing it," said the latter source.

Please change parties! He just won the first "Bill Napoli" award.

"Lieberman said he believes hospitals that refuse to give contraceptives to rape victims for "principled reasons" shouldn't be forced to do so. "In Connecticut, it shouldn't take more than a short ride to get to another hospital," he said...read on"

Ned Lamont announces he's in...

You can donate here...

via The New York Times

... In some states, legislators are pushing laws that would explicitly grant pharmacists the right to refuse to dispense drugs related to contraception or abortion on moral grounds. Others want to require pharmacies to fill any legal prescription for birth control, much like Governor Blagojevich's emergency rule in Illinois, which requires pharmacies that stock the morning-after pill to dispense it without delay.

And in some states, there are proposals or newly enacted laws to make the morning-after pill more accessible, by requiring hospitals to offer it to rape victims or allowing certain pharmacists to sell it without a prescription....read on

The fact that there is a battle over contraception in this day and age is mind boggling to me. A rational thinking person would have to figure that The Religious Right Elite would be all for this type of protection because it would reduce the number of abortions significantly. Sorry... I used the word rational in the sentence at all.
Here's much more info on the Plan B Pill