- Presumably because I called him out on it last week, Republican Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has backed down from a plan to increase the hours for early voting in counties that vote for Republicans while decreasing them in Democratic counties. Which is exactly as messed up as it sounds.
- Still before you start thinking Husted is a good guy, credit goes to the Obama campaign for suing to overturn a new Ohio voting law that would strip most voters of their right to vote early in the last few days of the campaign.
- In a last bit of voting rights news, a federal judge has shut down a Republican attempt to overturn same day voter registration in Minnesota. For those not familiar with the lingo, same day registration means that eligible voters can register to vote up to and including election day, making it vastly easier (and therefore more likely) for people to vote.
- Actress Jane Lynch has founded the first lesbian SuperPAC, LPAC, which I just think is cool.
- In other cool lesbian news, the Army has named the first openly gay female general in US history. So congratulations to General Tammy S. Smith and her wife Tracey! Amazingly this news is about a week old and somehow the Republic still stands.
- Congressman Todd Akin is the Republican Senate candidate who said on Sunday that, "from what I understand from doctors, [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Under Missouri law, he has until 5PM today to drop out of the race if he is going to be replaced on the ballot. Despite intense pressure, he says he's not going to. Why is that a good thing? Because what's really disgusting about Todd Akin is not how miserably he was failed by his high school biology class, but that he opposes abortion rights even in the cases of rape and incest. And he's not alone in that. It's a position that's going to be part of the official Republican Party platform this year, held by Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, and even Mitt Romney supports a Constitutional amendment defining life as starting at conception. The only difference between the rest of the Republican Party and Todd Akin on this issue is that Todd Akin is stupid enough to be open about just how horrible he really is. Which gives Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill her best shot at reelection and our best shot at saving our Senate Majority. And if Todd Akin's exposes Romney/Ryan and any other Republicans that share his views for the monsters they are, well that's fine by me too.
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