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The Grand Old Pervert party

The party of “family values” is at it again. On Wednesday, Republican congressman Steve King, tried to justify banning abortions even in cases of incest and rape by arguing that rape and incest are good, actually. Without them humans would go extinct!

“What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled those people out that were products of rape and incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?” he opined at a breakfast meeting in Iowa. “Considering all the wars and all the rape and pillage that has taken place ... I know I can’t certify that I was not a part of a product of that”.

Republicans have not exactly been thrilled by the publicity King’s rape remarks have generated – particularly as it wasn’t so long ago that he caused controversy by arguing “white nationalist” shouldn’t be considered an offensive term. King keeps embarrassing his colleagues and many of them are now pushing for him to be replaced. Liz Cheney, for example, the party’s third highest-ranking member, tweeted that King’s comments were “appalling and bizarre … it’s time for him to go.”

Similarly, Paul Mitchell, a Republican from Michigan, said that he had enough of King’s “destructive commentary” and encouraged people to contribute to his opponent in the Iowa primaries. “In my opinion Steve King does not reflect the values or principles of our conference,” Mitchell stressed.

While King may have been condemned by some Republicans, let’s not try and pretend that his views are by any means fringe; King absolutely reflects the values and principles of the GOP. Indeed, I suspect the only reason Republicans are losing their patience with King is because he keeps shouting out loud what they prefer to say quietly in private. He keeps speaking the subtext.

Republicans may not normally wax lyrical about incest over breakfast meetings, but the misogyny and racism that King embodies is very much in the GOP’s DNA. This is the party, after all, of pussy grabbers, perverts and hypocrites. It’s the party of men like Roy Moore, Brett Kavanaugh and Donald Trump. It’s the party of Muslim bans, detention camps and child separation. It’s the party that tries to force teenage immigrants to have their rapist’s babies. It is the party that wants to prevent women from having any autonomy over their own bodies, but gives rapists parental rights. It is very much Steve King’s party. Don’t let any Republican try and pretend otherwise.

Anti-abortion Republican claims to remember being born

Hal Rounds, a prominent Tennessee Tea Partier, reckons abortion shouldn’t be allowed because he has a “conceptual memory of being born”. He made this demented claim while speaking to the Tennessee state Senate in favour of a bill that would ban abortion as soon as pregnancy is detected. “In the womb there was a sensation of compression and advancement against one side and another,” Rounds reminisced.

Saudi activist won’t deny torture to secure prison release

Loujain al-Hathloul is a Saudi women’s rights activist and feminist hero. She was arrested, along with other activists, almost a year ago and has reportedly been subject to electric shocks, sexual assault and torture in jail. Now her family says that Saudi authorities are willing to release her as long as she goes on video to deny she was tortured in custody. Hathloul has refused to do this.

Goodbye ‘Hot girl summer’, hello ‘Christian girl autumn’

The term “hot girl summer”, popularized by rapper Megan Thee Stallion, has been all over the internet recently; it means living your best life and being “a bad bitch,” apparently. Now that we’re in the middle of August it seems HGS has been replaced with a new meme called Christian Girl Autumn. This is either a silly joke or a scathing commentary on white female privilege, depending on how much you enjoy over-intellectualizing memes. Vox has an explainer here.

USWNT equal pay dispute

Mediation talks between the US women’s national team and US Soccer broke down on Wednesday night. “We won’t accept anything less than equal pay,” Megan Rapinoe reiterated in an interview with Good Morning America on Thursday. The World Cup may be over but the USWNT keep proving that they are real champs.

Levis workers face sexual abuse

Female workers at factories in Lesotho making jeans for brands like Levi Strauss, Wrangler and Lee have been coerced into to having sex with their managers, an investigation has revealed.

Wendy Crockett is the first woman to win the Iron Butt Rally

The hardcore motorcycle event is 11 days and covers 11,000 miles. (Thanks to WiP reader, Nancy, for suggesting this.)

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Women take part in the March of the Daisies, calling for equal rights for women working in rural areas and forests, in Brasilia, Brazil on 14 August 2019. Photograph: STRINGER/Reuters

Brazilian women protest

Tens of thousands of people marched in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia on Wednesday – the largest protest since the president, Jair Bolsonaro, was elected. The marchers, who were mainly women, were protesting Bolsonaro’s “misogynist, racist and homophobic” policies.

Polish ‘I am LGBT’ campaign

The #jestemLGBT (I am LGBT) campaign has been trending this week on Twitter as users express their support for gay rights in Poland in defiance of the country’s extremely homophobic ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. “We’re against the affirmation of LGBT ideology and the aggressiveness of this ideology which attacks our basic national and Catholic family values,” one PiS lawmaker told Reuters recently. As far as I’m concerned, he can just PiS off.

The week in gay penguin-archy

Skip and Ping, a male king penguin couple at Zoo Berlin, have been trying to bring a baby into the world for a long time. Alas the small rock and dead fish they nurtured never turned into chicks. Now the couple have been given a real egg to adopt. I feel like there are often stories about gay penguins and, it seems, that’s because there are lots of gay penguins. A spokesman for Zoo Berlin said “It is very common that two penguins of the same sex come together.” He added “We are sure [Skip and Ping] would be good parents because they were so nice to their stone.”