“New documents show Missouri GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin donated to the political campaign of a violent antiabortion activist named Tim Dreste, whose ties to Akin we reported on earlier this week,” Salon is reporting.
“Dreste, as the Riverfront Times described him, was a ’domestic terrorist, religious fanatic, [and] paramilitary right-wing nut.’ In 1999, Dreste was convicted in federal court of making ‘true threats to kill, assault or do bodily harm’ to abortion doctors. Before that, as we reported, Akin popped up in several groups led by Dreste, who was one of St. Louis’ most prominent pro-life activists until his conviction.
“Dreste was also chaplain in the militia that Akin praised in a letter just a few months before the Oklahoma City bombing.
“Now, as it turns out, Akin was one of only a handful of contributors to Dreste’s 1993 run for the Missouri state House. Then-state Rep. Todd Akin’s campaign gave Dreste $200, according to campaign finance records, making him Dreste’s third largest contributor, tied with a pro-life PAC. The records were obtained by Progress Missouri from the secretary of state’s archives and provided to Salon.
“Defenders of Akin — Akin spokesman Rick Tyler declined to comment for this story — might note that Dreste wasn’t convicted for another five years, so Akin couldn’t have known how radical he was in 1993.
“But Dreste was well-known in Missouri at the time for his controversial stunts. Of course, it’s possible that Akin, a committed anti-choice activist who was arrested multiple times while protesting abortion clinics in the 1980s and defended a woman convicted of battery against an abortion nurse, somehow missed all of Dreste’s controversial activities.
“Sean Soendker Nicholson, the executive director of Progress Missouri, doesn’t think so. ‘This isn’t an isolated incident. No amount of threats of violence or extremism encouraged Akin to cut ties with Dreste.’
The rest of the article is here.
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I checked out Akin’s race for US Senate and it is registered as a toss up, unbelievable.
As I’ve posted, it’s unbelievable that the Prez race is close. The Darth Vader side of this country is makes us schizophrenic.
“Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, the tea party usurper who took down Sen. Richard Lugar in the Republican primary, created the biggest political buzz of the week by uttering the following sentence in a televised debate: “I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, it is something that God intended to happen.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-mourdocks-rape-comment-20121025,0,1696827.story
I believe the “sleeping giant” is wide awake and is in the mood to defend itself…God Bless Our Democracy. Vote.