Imagine a retreat at a swank Wisconsin resort, where elected officials are wined and dined by corporate lobbyists, have their travel and accommodations paid, have activities for their families and their child-care subsidized, and are given tickets to major league ball games and elite parties by corporate lobbyists with business before the legislature.

As part of a GOP effort to distance itself from the offensive remarks on "legitimate" rape recently made by Rep. Todd Akin, GOP Vice President nominee Paul Ryan has joined in the pleas aimed at the Congressman to pull out of Missouri's fall Senate race. Ryan would not discuss the details of a phone call he made to his friend and anti-abortion ally, but the conversation must have been awkward. Akin was only articulating the view that there should be no exception for rape or incest that he and Ryan both attempted to legislate into law in vote after vote in Congress.

Wisconsin's Republican Attorney General is fighting to get vote-suppressing laws in place for the November election, asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to reinstate the voter ID law that has been found unconstitutional by two separate state judges, despite that Court rejecting a similar request in recent months.