Jackson Free Press

As if it's not bad enough that Rep. Todd Akin believes that women who are legitimately raped (I cringe to put those two words together), he was also part of a House Republican effort to redefine rape. The point, Mother Jones reports, was to keep federal funding for abortion away from teenagers, arguing that they might pretend they were raped by an older man (statutory rape, which is very common) in order to get the money because the right didn't want to "federally fund the abortion of tens of thousands of healthy babies of healthy moms, based solely on the age of their mothers."

More from that piece:

The implication of his position is that if you were raped and became pregnant, you must have actually wanted it—it wasn't really rape.

This isn't the first time Akin has expressed fringe views about rape in the context of the abortion debate. Last year, Akin, vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and most of the House GOP co-sponsored a bill that would have narrowed the already-narrow exceptions to the laws banning federal funding for abortion—from all cases of rape to cases of "forcible rape."

Drugged, raped, and pregnant? Too bad, says the House GOP. After I reported on the "forcible rape" language in January 2011, a wave of outcry from abortion-rights, progressive, and women's groups led the Republicans to remove it. But a few months later, in a congressional committee report, Republicans wrote that they believed the bill would continue to have the same effect despite the absence of the "forcible" language.

So, what we have here, are a bunch of dudes in Congress once again trying to decide what happens to women and what to do about it. Anyone else OK with that?

Stacey “Soul” Winters is holding a special benefit for Soul Wired Café tonight late into the night. There will be five bands including Smooth Funk Band and Polycanon.

Not only will there be awesome live music there will be poets spitting their talents.

This is a grassroots endeavor and the entrance fee is $5. All proceeds go towards building Soul’s kitchen so that she can serve you an awesome menu filled with healthy and unique food for all to enjoy.

Winters hosts daily events at Soul Wired Café. Monday MayHAM has a $3 cover and caters to the alternative crowd with DJ Nicole. Erotic Poetry Night is each Tuesday for $3. For now, Soul Wired Café is closed on Wednesday. Soul Lesson Thursday is $5 and features DJ Sketch playing neo-soul music. The Smooth Funk Band hosts free, live karaoke on Friday. For $6, patrons can attend reggae and salsa night with DJ C-Lecta. Sunday is Sugar Water Purple Open-Mic Night for $3.

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On Wednesday of last week (Aug 15) Ole Miss announced sophomore wide receiver Tobias Singleton had left the program. The former four star recruit from Madison Central was one of the big pieces of former Ole Miss Houston Nutt’s last recruiting class.

The Rebels have lost Singleton and highly sought after recruit Nickolas Brassell. Many in the blogosphere have speculated that academics were the reason for Singleton leaving the program.

Brassell was ruled academic ineligible which led to his transfer. One of the bright spots on a bad Ole Miss team last season, Brassell played wide receiver and cornerback.

Singleton announced he would enroll at Jackson State. Because he is transferring to an FCS (Bowl Championship Subdivision) Singleton can play right away.

For those wondering, if Singleton had transferred to another FBS school (Football Bowl Subdivision) like Mississippi State for example, he would have to set out for one season.

Ouch. After GOP vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan cited Rage Against the Machine as on eof his favoriate bands, Rage's guitarist Tom Morello responded in an op-ed on the Rolling Stone webiste.. Morello started with the money quote: "Paul Ryan's love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades."

Here's more:

Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn't understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn't understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine.

Ryan claims that he likes Rage's sound, but not the lyrics. Well, I don't care for Paul Ryan's sound or his lyrics. He can like whatever bands he wants, but his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent is antithetical to the message of Rage.

I wonder what Ryan's favorite Rage song is? Is it the one where we condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American imperialism? Our cover of "Fuck the Police"? Or is it the one where we call on the people to seize the means of production? So many excellent choices to jam out to at Young Republican meetings!

Seriously, Ryan. This reminds me of when the Reagan campaign tried to misappropriate Springsteen's "Born in the USA," helped along with a naive George Will. Message to politicians: listen to the lyrics, fools.

Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_in_the_U.S.A._(song)

Here at the Jackson Free Press, we get a lot of mail.

Much of it is legitimate correspondence in the form of helpful news tips and provocative letters to the editors. Some of it is comprised of the off-the-wall brain leakings of people who clearly have more free time on their hands than other human beings to interact with.

But it's all good. We take the good with the crazy.

Every now and then we get a piece of mail that even sends a shudder through us grizzled newspaper veterans. Such was the case this afternoon with a manila envelope showed up addressed to Central Mississippi Tea Party c/o Jackson Free Press with a return address of Chicopee, Mass.

Donna, Todd and me all had the same initial reaction to the shady-looking epistle: Where the hell is Chicopee and is there a hummus factory there? Then we wondered why a Tea Party chapter on the East Coast would be sending us -- us! -- mail.

Maybe they saw our recent interview with three members of the local Tea Party during which the group's female president said the country might have been better off if women had never been given the right to vote and thought 'This is our kinda paper.'

When very, very cautiously opened the package, we were a bit surprised what was in it.

Can you guess?

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2012/aug/16/7773/

After thousands upon millions of requests -- okay, more like nine -- we're ready to reveal the contents of the letter that arrived at the JFP offices yesterday.

Drum roll......

It was just a couple photos and a rather bizarre letter denouncing Democratic Party ideals and complaining about how hard how tough it is to be a Tea Partier in the "liberal bastion" that produced the current Republican presidential nominee.

The letter also highlighted such weirdly out of context maxims as "'DEMOCRAT'" IS COMMUNISM WITH AN INVITING TAPIOCA FLAVOR" and "America--enchained and slowly eaten alive by the sofa."

If you're disappointed, so are we. We've come to expect so much lunacy from the Tea Party that we were dismayed that the envelope didn't contain Level III biohazards, effigies of progressive politicians, a Ted Nugent promotional CD or actual tapioca.

It's still early, though.

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2012/aug/17/7777/

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2012/aug/17/7778/

Does Mitt Romney support Paul Ryan's approach to Medicare, which would turn it into a voucher paid toward private insurance, or is he against it? Depends on the day... and the state... and that level of incoherence reportedly has some in the GOP worried.

The Romney messaging snafus, they note, have been relentless. Just this week, the Romney campaign repeatedly alternated between embracing Paul Ryan's Medicare Plan and distancing Romney from it. The campaign issued talking points and dispatched advisers to say Romney's plan is different. But in Florida this week, when reporters asked Romney himself about Ryan's plan, he said he supports it.

Perhaps most disconcerting is Ryan's performance in a fairly safe space -- an interview with Fox News. Ryan was unable to say whether Romney's budget would balance even by 2030, and couldn't make particularly clear how Romney's budget would balance without "getting wonky."

Earlier on Tuesday, the Romney campaign intended for Ryan's first solo interview to underscore the Congressman's policy chops. But when veteran newsman Brit Hume pointedly asked for program details, Ryan couldn't deliver. In addition, Ryan said the specifics on closing tax loopholes would have to wait until after the election. Even Hume looked visibly annoyed. "It was," said a top Republican, "an unmitigated disaster."

Here's the full video; get about 3 minutes in for the budget discussion, about the 8:00 point for the discussion on whether they have specific tax loopholes they're going to cut. (After that comes the Ayn Rand discussion.) Embedded below:

While on the air with ads saying Obama has a "War on Religion" and that he's loosening the work requirements for Welfare (which has been widely debunked) he complained on the campaign trail about Obama's "campaign of division and anger..."

However, Romney has been saying the President is a "nice guy" in nearly every speech for the past three months.

Is the Romney campaign off message? Off the rails? Or are the Romney campaign messaging folks crazy like a fox?

The band DEVO has teamed up with Dogs Against Romney to take a jab at presumptive presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

From the press release: "Gerald Casale, a founding member of the American punk/New Wave band DEVO, has announced a new single “Don’t Roof Rack Me, Bro! (Seamus Unleashed).” The track, written by Casale, will be released in conjunction with a mobile game titled The Crate Escape: Seamus Unleashed, a new mobile game that satirizes the dog-on-roof incident. Both the single and game are planned to launch on August 26, which is both National Dog Day and one day before the Republican National Convention. The single will be available at all digital music retailers while the game is initially being launched as an app on iTunes.

"In releasing this single, DEVO has joined forces with Dogs Against Romney, an online advocacy group with more than 70,000 members on Facebook, and Censault LLC, a Dallas mobile/social game publisher, to help call attention to Mitt Romney’s 'crate-gate' scandal."

“'I can’t overstate how excited we are to have DEVO’s Gerald Casale as a partner with us in making sure every voter in America knows Mitt Romney strapped his dog, Seamus, to the roof of his car for a 12-hour trip to Canada,' said Scott Crider, founder of Dogs Against Romney. “The new DEVO song Gerald created with his bandmates is awesome, and I believe it will be the soundtrack for Romney’s defeat in November.'

"... The Crate Escape: Seamus Unleashed game will be launched as a free app for the iPhone and iPad. Pledges are being sought on Kickstarter to raise money for adding additional features to the game and for the creation of version compatible with and playable on other devices. For additional game info and images, go to www.facebook.com/CrateEscapeGame."

Read more about it and listen to the song on the Rolling Stone website.