Other candidates defend slavery as a 'blessing' for Africans and attack 'criminal' Abraham Lincoln

THE REPUBLICAN Party in Arkansas has withdrawn its financial support from three state legislature candidates who have variously advocated the death penalty for children and called for the deportation of all Muslims from America, described slavery as a "blessing in disguise" for Africans and labeled Abraham Lincoln a "war criminal".

Candidate Charlie Fuqua and two sitting representatives, Jon Hubbard and Loy Mauch, have been cut off because of their radical beliefs, many of which have been branded as offensive by their own party.

In a book, God's Law: The Only Political Solution, Fuqua claims there was "no solution to the Muslim problem short of expelling all followers of the religion from the United States".

And, as the Arkansas Times reports, that is not the only eye-catching policy in God's Law. He also advocates execution for children, arguing: "A child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society." However, he is aware of the severity of the punishment and stresses: "The death penalty for rebellious children is not something to be taken lightly."

Fuqua also suggests setting the minimum wage at zero and argues that people should only serve two years in prison. If they are not rehabilitated within that time, they should be executed, he says.

Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/us-election-2012/49465/death-penalty-children-too-much-arkansas-republicans#ixzz28sbgnBI3

What women voters want

How many years of the woman have we had? Let me count.

To the extent that women’s votes count more than men’s, it’s been the year of the woman since at least 1964 — when women began outvoting men.

In 2008, 10 million more women than men voted, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

The operative assumption, obviously, is that women pick winners and losers as a voting bloc. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is true that more women are trending toward Barack Obama than Mitt Romney. But this owes only partly to the usual “women’s issues.” And it is, potentially, temporary.

Thanks to certain outspoken members/supporters of the GOP, the Democratic Party has been able to capitalize on a fiction created by the Obama campaign — the alleged “war on women.” It is not helpful when people such as Rush Limbaugh call Sandra Fluke a “slut” for her position that insurance should cover contraception. Then there was Todd Akin’s strange intelligence that victims of “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant, a flourish of rare ignorance. Check the birthrates in countries where rape is employed as a weapon. Finally, some Republican-led states have waved one too many ultrasound wands at women.

While these incidents and anecdotes provide handy faces for dart practice, they constitute a war on women only if all women find these positions reprehensible. And only if allwomen care more about contraception and reproductive rights above all other issues, which is not the case.

This also happens to be the year of the fiscal cliff, when automatic spending cuts take effect at the same time Bush-era tax breaks expire. It’s the fourth year of a $1 trillion budget deficit. It is a year that the number of unemployed Americans is still too high and economic recovery too slow.

It is also the year that al-Qaeda caught its breath and began gaining traction again, and when terrorists murdered one of our ambassadors. It is another year when America’s standing as the world’s brightest light continues to dim, and that the Arab Spring descended into an extremist winter.

These are things that women care about, too.

Women, in other words, recognize the gravity of the problems this nation faces and are likely to pick a candidate based on these issues rather than on a party’s platform on abortion and contraception.

read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-get-beyond-the-year-of-the-woman/2012/10/09/d9642ca8-1251-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_print.html

Another US Republican politician is under fire for remarks about rape, in this case saying, "some girls, they rape so easy".

Wisconsin representative Roger Rivard first made the statement when discussing the case of a local high school student who'd been charged with sexual assault for having sex with an underage girl.

The Chetek Alert paper quoted him in December as saying his father had warned him "some girls rape easy" - meaning that some girls could decide later that sex wasn't consensual.

He doubled down on the comments in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Wednesday, saying he took his father's warnings about the dangers of premarital sex seriously.

"He also told me one thing, 'If you do (have premarital sex), just remember, consensual sex can turn into rape in an awful hurry,"' Rivard told the paper.

"Because all of a sudden a young lady gets pregnant and the parents are madder than a wet hen and she's not going to say, 'Oh, yeah, I was part of the program.'

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/some-girls-they-rape-so-easy-politician-under-fire-for-remarks-20121012-27ghl.html#ixzz293IvQ51y


Some US Repubilcans and their ideas.... back to the days of chastity belts, dungeons and towers of torture... Game over...

Laurie Romney — whose grandmother often calls to remind her that her husband, Matt, is “the cutest Romney” — vouched that her father-in-law “is probably the most frugal person I’ve ever met, maybe aside from my husband, who was raised by him,” and went on to regale the audience with tales of extraordinary scrimping.

“Mitt is vigilant — he’s constantly watching the air conditioning all day, and it’s turned off unless it’s absolutely essential,” she said. Doing the dishes in the Romney household can be a real chore, she added, because “if you turn for just a minute to do something else, he’ll turn off the water.” In addition, she said, her father-in-law “spends a lot of time packing and consolidating the garbage because the Waste Management company in his area charges by the bag.”

Romney’s parsimony, she said, is a deeply ingrained trait that she suggested would serve the nation well.

“Watching his father, George, eat an entire batch of home-made ice cream that was accidentally sweetened with salt, so that it wouldn’t go to waste, had a huge impact on Mitt. Waste is simply not tolerated,” she said as the crowd laughed appreciatively.

read more: http://www.coloradostatesman.com/content/993754-liz-cheney-laurie-romney-stump-mitt

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Nothing new here... When a very rich client of mine offered to take me to lunch one day, he drove me in his Bentley to a MacDonald restaurant...

NEW YORK – On the debate stage two nights ago, President Obama and Mitt Romney repeatedly interrupted each other and called the other a liar in a high-pressure round of verbal fisticuffs. On Thursday night, they’ll try to laugh it off as they share the stage again in white-tie tuxedos to deliver comedic roasts.

The cease-fire will come at the Alfred E. Smith Dinner, the Catholic Archdiocese of New York’s annual charity benefit that every four years hosts the presidential candidates, who make fun of themselves and their opponents in playful speeches.

This will be Obama’s second appearance at the event; he and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) spoke in 2008.

Aides to Obama and Romney would not reveal much about their prepared routines, to be delivered Thursday evening at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in midtown Manhattan. “Stay tuned,” Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters traveling with the president aboard Air Force One.

Psaki, as she had in the run-up to the presidential debates, tried to raise expectations for the Republican nominee.

“Mitt Romney has practiced for longer than any presidential candidate in history for tonight, and we expect him to be drop-on-the-floor funny,” Psaki said. “And the president will make his way through.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/10/18/tonight-obama-and-romney-compete-for-laughs/?hpid=z9

...

But gossip site TMZ begs to differ. Quoting “multiple sources connected to the divorce", it says that during the Stemberg divorce trial, Romney testified that Staples was virtually worthless.

Romney, whose company Bain Capital helped found Staples, is alleged to have told the court that Stemberg was a dreamer and "the dream continues". He is said to have described Staples stock as "overvalued", adding: "I didn't place a great deal of credibility in the forecast of the company's future."

Romney's testimony is alleged to have resulted in a relatively small settlement for Maureen. TMZ's sources claim that just weeks after the divorce case ended, Romney and his friend went and cashed in their stock for a fortune: “Short story - Romney allegedly lied to help his friend and screw the friend's wife over."

The allegations – if proven – could have an impact on a tight presidential race. Romney trails Barack Obama among women voters and has been keen to present himself as female-friendly...