In all the Senate races this campaign cycle, only one candidate was endorsed in a commercial by Mitt Romney: Richard Mourdock.

Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said last Tuesday in a Senate debate:

“I know there are some who disagree and I respect their point of view but I believe that life begins at conception. The only exception I have for – to have an abortion is in that case for the life of the mother. I just – I struggle with it myself for a long time but I came to realize that life is that gift from God, and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something that God intended to happen.”

So we learn that Richard Mourdock’s god gives these women the “gift” of getting pregnant from being violently raped (or, as Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan would say, “legitimately raped). It’s kind of like that horrible sweater your aunt knitted you last Christmas, except that you can’t take it off for 9 months, it costs money you may not have to maintain, and instead of horribly stitched reindeer wearing stocking caps it has a picture of your rapist’s face on it. So in retrospect, it’s nothing like that sweater.

And, this being a gift from God and all, you obviously can’t return (read: abort) this gift. I mean, it’s God, right? He obviously knows what he’s doing, and this is all part of his divine plan. Unless of course this glorious gift of a rape baby would cause imminent harm to the mother (excluding emotional trauma leading to rape, which of course is just ridiculous to even consider). In the case where this rape baby gift could kill the mother, it gets to be regifted, because while that rape pregnancy is God’s will, it’s obviously not his will that the mother die. I mean, just ask Richard Mourdock, who obviously knows what is and isn’t part of God’s plan.

He then said:

“God creates life, and that was my point. God does not want rape, and by no means was I suggesting that he does. Rape is a horrible thing, and for anyone to twist my words otherwise is absurd and sick.”

Newsflash: If anything you’ve said necessitates you make a formal public statement asserting that rape is bad, you’ve fucked up. Badly.

But what does this say about your god in the cases where a woman is raped, she gets pregnant, but that pregnancy would kill her by carrying it to term? If her getting pregnant is part of God’s plan, wouldn’t her dying from the pregnancy be part of the plan, too? And who are we, Mr. Mourdoch, to question God’s plan? But maybe it’s his plan to have doctors save this woman from being killed by the pregnancy gifted to her by her rapist. Of course, if this is part of God’s plan, it would point to the inescapable fact that God is a complete fucking prick. A much kinder, gentler god would avoid the whole rape and pregnancy in the first place, since none of them lead to that wonderful gift of life that Mr. Mourdoch and the rest of his staunchly hard-line anti-abortion Republican cohorts. Maybe a kinder god would give the rapist a horrible case of diarrhea that night, keeping the rapist in and avoiding the rape altogether. Or better yet, have his penis fall off. Of course, then maybe he wouldn’t be able to go on spreading the gift of life to other lucky women.

What’s amazing is how many prominent conservative politicians are still putting their support behind this candidate. Maybe they depleted their rape outrage reserves on Todd “Vaginas Know Anti-Rape Sperm Kung Fu” Akin. Or maybe they are ideologues who care more about getting as many Republicans into the Senate as possible, regardless of how immoral, idiotic or ignorant they may be.

Mourdock’s Democratic opponent, Joe Donnelly (who is currently up in the polls by 7 points and growing), is a big time Blue Dog who opposes abortion with exceptions for rape, incest, and the mother’s life. Anti-abortion groups are attacking him, utilizing (read: exploiting) the children of rape victims, all of whom should be told that nobody is trying to force the victims of rape to get abortions, simply not limiting their options to back alleys and coat hangers.

In case it hasn’t been obvious that the Republican party is more interested in their party’s well-being than the country’s, here’s some more information for you. The Republican party has filibustered more than at any time in history. This means that our Senate doesn’t even get a chance to VOTE on important issues.

In case you’re not good at reading charts, simply look at the trends for filibustering. Look at the last three lines, where the Republicans were the minority, and thus the ones calling for a filibuster. You’ll notice that the term the graph uses is “cloture”, not filibuster. That’s because the old days of Strom Thurmond reading the Bible for 24 hours, thereby stalling until after the vote was to be called. Now the minority party simply threatens to filibuster, and thereby ending the whole process without the actual stalling. The reason the Democrats cave in to the cloture instead of forcing the actual filibuster is that, were the Republican party to actually filibuster every measure they oppose, we’d never get a single vote settled. Even though this Congress has gotten very little done, were they having to deal with 15-hour filibusters on every vote, it would have gotten even less done.

And let’s not forget the Standard’s & Poor reducing our credit rating down from AAA for the first time in history. They even warned us that unless we raised the debt ceiling they would be forced to do this. So what did the Republicans do? They held American hostage. And don’t think I’m being hyperbolic in saying this was a “hostage situation.” Just ask Mitch McConnell:

“I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting,” he said. “Most of us didn’t think that. What we did learn is this — it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done.”

So here’s the main question you need to ask yourself when you go out to vote: do you really want to vote for a party that believes that holding the country hostage to advance their party’s policies rather than doing what’s right and doing what’s best for the country as a whole?