Apologies And Cockroaches
Posted: February 24, 2012 Filed under: abortion rights, birth control, Feminists, fetus fetishists, Girl Scouts, Planned Parenthood, PLUB Pro-Life-Until-Birth, religion, religious extremists, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Republican politics, War on Women 10 CommentsI’m always amazed when politicians/public personas do or say something truly idiotic, catch flack for it in the press and/or the court of public opinion, and then apologize in a half-ass way
It’s those girl scouts, again!
This is often referred to as: Making A Bad Situation Worse!
And so here comes the utterly pathetic apology of Bob Morris, Republican State Rep from Indiana, who went on a moral crusade against the Girl Scouts of America, charging they were a secretive arm of Planned Parenthood [automatically bad in Morris’s opinion] and as such were indoctrinating our daughters in the corrosive ideas of feminism, lesbianism and yes, even communism. Morris made these accusations in a ‘letter of concern,’ which he sent to fellow Indiana legislators. How could he know that his written opinion [the result of tireless web-based research by his own admission] would go public, putting him and his ravings on review?
The world is truly an unfair place!
No doubt the publicity proved problematic for Morris because he has now offered an apology. Of sorts. He’s willing to admit that his words were: emotional, reactionary and inflammatory. He did not mean to impugn those families active in Girl Scout organizations that are run in a responsible manner, those promoting leadership, community involvement and family values.
This flies in the face of earlier comments [Tuesday of this week] to a local radio station, where Morris said:
“The Girl Scouts of America don’t stand for anything. They let those girls do what they want in their troop meetings.”
How quickly these righteous warriors fold when exposed to the daylight. Now Morris says he should not have painted the Girl Scouts with “such a broad brush.”
“Had I known this letter would have gone to a wider audience, I would have cited further evidence for my position,” Morris wrote.
Let me play a little inside betting on this one: I’ll stake you 10:1 that had Morris known the letter would have gone public, he would never have written it. It’s easy to be a bully and nincompoop when you think the team is squarely on your side. It’s an altogether different scenario when you’re exposed for what you are: a religious reactionary with an axe to grind, in this case against anything or anyone connected to Planned Parenthood. And where would a Bob Morris get the sense that smearing the Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood was A-okay?
From the rah-rah being given to the likes of Rick Santorum, whose recent ravings have been heralded ‘as sincere, steadfast.’ I’m sure the judges in Salem were viewed with the same sanguine eye.
Morris’s full apology can be found here.
Satan's Wafers
On March 5, 2004, the Girl Scouts of the United States of America’s CEO, Kathy Cloninger, stated in an interview on the NBC Today Show that the Girl Scouts USA partners with Planned Parenthood with regard to sex education for Girl Scouts. To my knowledge, the Girl Scouts USA have not rescinded, corrected or denied that statement.
There you go. Sex education = sexualization. Why? Because we all know that ignorance is bliss. In fact, Rick Santorum disclosed to Mania Meister Glenn Beck that higher education is a dangerous thing, that the President’s plan to extend college educations to ever more students is a dark, nefarious plot:
On the president’s efforts to boost college attendance, Santorum said, “I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely … The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country.”
He claimed that “62 percent of kids who go into college with a faith commitment leave without it,” but declined to cite a source for the figure. And he floated the idea of requiring that universities that receive public funds have “intellectual diversity” on campus.
Yes sir, keep those kids down on the farm ‘cause, golly shucks, you give ‘em an education how you going to convince ‘em the earth is only 6000 years old or that cavemen saddled up the dinosaurs.
Why let scientific evidence stand in the way when magical thinking is so much more soothing. And ideologically correct.
Oprah has her own list about making ‘good’ apologies but here’s Peggysue’s suggestions for future mea culpas:
If you don’t mean it, don’t say it. This is a turn on the Thumper philosophy: If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.
A Cockroach caught in the daylight.
Do not come kicking and screaming to an apology, regardless of what your pollsters say. Resistance shows and just makes you look like a bigger cockroach.
Do not state an additional challenge in an apology. Example: Okay, I got caught with my pettiness and religious right-wing bona fides showing but here: PROVE THIS WRONG.
The essence of any apology is humility. If you can’t manage humility and/or your acting abilities are subpar? Just hang it up. You are a cockroach and will likely remain a cockroach.
You can avoid apologies altogether by remaining in the shadows. There’s a reason cockroaches hang together in the dark. Because the light makes them vulnerable. In the light, the rest of us get to see what a nasty piece of work a cockroach really is.
Btw, here’s a factoid about the insect world: a cockroach can survive weeks without its head.
Color me positively unsurprised!
Sunlight, the best disinfectant
The Puppet Masters
Posted: February 23, 2012 Filed under: 2012 elections, 2012 presidential campaign, 2012 primaries, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics | Tags: Super Donors, Super PACs 12 CommentsLast week, we learned that the primary bank roller behind Santorum’s Super PAC is an odd and out-of-it old billionaire that probably still calls women “tomatoes” when he’s not on TV explaining how 
birth control in his day was aspirin-enhanced nonslutiness. Oh what fresh hell has the Supreme Court wrought with its Citizens United decision? We’ve long known that negative, nasty political ads work. Now, each candidate seems to have an endless supply of funds so that proxies can say what ever they want in such ads with absolutely no accountability. We’re all so finding out these Super PAC ads are being funded by a few “Super Donors”. This adds a new twist to voter beware homework. We know have to investigate the candidate’s funding sources. After all, money screams in elections these days. We now have Swift Boat Idiots for Lies on steroids. Each candidate seems to collect billionaire gadflies with specific agendas in mind.
Robert Reich just wrote a blog piece on the GOP’s Big Investors. The GOP has always been a magnet for big money so it’s really interesting to see the Super Pac Super Money play out on in their primary dynamics. I think we’ve seen that Romney’s Super Pac had some effect on Florida and the Gingrich rising star. We’re really going to get some of the flavor of this ruling since the final four have now gotten some cash infusion from various billionaires. The lead up to Super Tuesday on March 6th should be very very interesting and telling. Since we know they bankroll the garbage, who are these enablers of smack?
Have you heard of William Dore, Foster Friess, Sheldon Adelson, Harold Simmons, Peter Thiel, or Bruce Kovner? If not, let me introduce them to you. They’re running for the Republican nomination for president.
I know, I know. You think Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney are running. They are – but only because the people listed in the first paragraph have given them huge sums of money to do so. In a sense, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul, and Romney are the fronts. Dore et al. are the real investors.
According to January’s Federal Election Commission report, William Dore and Foster Friess supplied more than three-fourths of the $2.1 million raked in by Rick Santorum’s super PAC in January. Dore, president of the Dore Energy Corporation in Lake Charles, Louisiana, gave $1 million; Freis, a fund manager based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, gave $669,000 (he had given the Santorum super PAC $331,000 last year, bringing Freis’s total to $1 million).
Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam provided $10 million of the $11 million that went into Gingrich’s super PAC in January. Adelson is chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Texas billionaire Harold Simmons donated $500,000.
Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, provided $1.7 million of the $2.4 million raised by Ron Paul’s super PAC in January.
Mitt Romney’s super PAC raised $6.6 million last month – almost all from just forty donors. Bruce Kovner, co-founder of the New York-based hedge fund Caxton Associates, gave $500,000, as did two others. David Tepper of Appaloosa Management gave $375,000. J.W. Marriott and Richard Marriott gave a total of $500,000. Julian Robertson, co-founder of hedge fund Tiger Management, gave $250,0000. Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman gave $100,000.
Welcome to the tyranny of the Super Donor.
About two dozen individuals, couples or corporations have given $1 million or more to Republican super PACs this year, an exclusive club empowered by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and other rulings to pool their money into federal political committees and pour it directly into this year’s presidential campaign.
Collectively, their contributions have totaled more than $50 million this cycle, making them easily the most influential and powerful political donors in politics today. They have relatively few Democratic counterparts so far, with most of the leading liberal donors from past years giving relatively small amounts — or not at all — to the Democratic super PACs.
And unlike in past years, when wealthy donors of both parties donated chiefly to groups that were active in the general election campaign, the top Republican donors are contributing money far earlier, in contests that will determine the party’s presidential nominee.
“What unites them? They’re economic conservatives,” said Christopher J. LaCivita, a Republican strategist who helped advise Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a forerunner of this cycle’s super PACs, and who in 2008 co-founded another Republican advocacy group, the American Issues Project, that ran advertisements against President Obama.
“Most of these guys are serious business tycoons,” Mr. LaCivita added. “They’ve built something big — usually something bigger than themselves.”
We’re lucky some of these guys are open about their donations. They have some tools available to them to avoid the public exposure. It will be interesting to see if more or less of that occurs as we study their influence on candidates and races.
A few of the megadonors gave through limited liability companies, shielding their identity. One $1 million donation to Restore Our Future came from F8 LLC, a company whose listed address in Utah leads to an accounting firm. A charitable foundation linked to Sandra N. Tillotson, co-founder of the skin care company Nu Skin, uses the same address. Ms. Tillotson was reimbursed by Restore Our Future in July for what appeared to be costs associated with a fund-raiser at her New York apartment. But Ms. Tillotson said in an e-mail Wednesday that she did not know who the owner of F8 LLC was and had not made a donation backing Mr. Romney’s campaign.
So, I’ve been on a Google Trek to try to figure out who some of these people are and what their agenda might be. Bruce Kovner is a hedge fund executive and seems to have a fairly traceable history via the Wall Street set. He’s been likened to a Republican version of George Soros. He has been active in Republican circles for some time.
Some investors, like George Soros and Stanley Druckenmiller, have decided that rather than weather the whims of outside investors, they would prefer to manage their own money as a family office, a designation that allows them to largely avoid regulation.
Like Mr. Soros, Mr. Kovner has grown extremely wealthy betting on global market trends using stocks, currencies and commodities, among other things. He bought the former International Center for Photography on Fifth Avenue and 94th street for $17 million and spent another $10 million renovating it. An avid collector of rare books, Mr. Kovner named his hedge fund after the first printer of English-language books. Forbes magazine estimated Mr. Kovner’s wealth to be in excess of $4.5 billion.
Unlike Mr. Soros, a generous donor to liberal causes, Mr. Kovner is a conservative supporter who counts among his associates former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney. He is a trustee of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research organization, and has given more than $100,000 to Republican causes and candidates since 2010.
William Dore has a lower public profile. Interestingly enough, a couple of these super donors appear to come from Louisiana. I suppose it only makes sense since the state has a seriously regressive atmosphere when it comes to taxes, spending, and outside New Orleans Culture. Dore’s money comes from marine construction and diving which translates into connections to the oil platforms that dot the Gulf. So, Kovner represents Wall Street interests while Dore is most likely more interested in the treatment of the Oil Industry. Sheldon Adelson is a gambling industry tycoon who is extremely interested in the interests of Israel.
Two rumours are circulating around Sheldon Adelson, the Jewish Las Vegas casino magnate and publisher of pro-Netanyahu tabloid Israel Hayom. One is that he is about to pump another $10 million into Newt Gingrich’s presidency bid. The other, apparently contradictory, piece of speculation is that he is shifting his support to Mitt Romney.
Evidence that can be marshalled in favour of the first rumour is that Mr Adelson and his family have already donated $11m to a pro-Gingrich super PAC – a group that lobbies on behalf of a political candidate. Meanwhile, he told Forbes magazine this week he may increase that to $100m.
What is going on? Fred Zeidman, a close friend of Adelson and a major fundraiser for Mr Romney, explained: “As long as Newt is in the race it appears that Sheldon is going to continue to support him. I don’t know what that means in terms of money, but I think… when Newt is out of the race, you will see Sheldon devote that money directly to supporting whoever is running against Barack Obama.” Mr Adelson’s overriding objective, said Mr Zeidman, is to ensure Mr Obama does not win.
Peter Thiel’s money comes from Pay Pal. He’s a major libertarian, has a foundation, and goes out on the lecture circuit to proselytize for Ayn Randish ideas. Here’s an account from one true believer on another. I still don’t understand the idea of how libertarians worship at the alter of out spoken fascists like Ludwig Von Mises and enjoy the support of the KKK, storm front and all those old Confederate Crusaders. I think it comes from spending too much time in fantasy worlds. Anyway, they all seem to be the new 21st century Marxist ideologues. Damn all the evidence, let’s just put into effect a lot of things that have been proven to not work just because it sounds all ideologically sexy. Try not to imagine this writer masturbating as he’s writing this. I dare you. Of course, Thiel’s is a Paultard.
Whatever their number, these young libertarians are the potential saviors of the country. Peter Thiel – co-founder of PayPal and Facebook angel investor – made this argument as the SFL conference keynote speaker. According to Thiel, the United States is in a bad position: Innovation drives the U.S. industry and our innovation (with a few exceptions, namely the computer/internet world) has stagnated. Witness the airplane – the planes we now fly go the same speed as they did in 1990. We use coal for large amounts of energy, just as we did in the nineteenth century. The number of new drugs we produce has slowed. Life expectancy is no longer rising at the rate it once did. Etc.
Unreasonable explanations for this include: 1) We’ve reached the end of history; it’s impossible for us to improve on the technology of the plane, and 2) We’re not as smart as we used to be.
Peter’s alternative explanation – developed in his essay “The End of the Future” – is far more feasible: the modern regulatory system has choked invention.
And the only people in the place to fix this aren’t the statists on the right or on the left, but the libertarians. As Peter said, “It’s an exciting time to be a libertarian.”
Armed with new enthusiasm, I spent the rest of the weekend at SFL learning more about how the state is choking development, and I met the people who are going to fix this course in the near future.
My theory is that these Paulbot guys know the only way they will EVER have sex outside of the virtual world, pot induced hallucinations, and hookers is to have enough money to buy a trophy mistress and wife. Since I’m not a voyeur to self abuse, I’ll leave you to google more on this dude in the privacy of your own home, By Onan’s withered Balls!
So, all this googling has left me feeling like the plutocracy is live and well. If you didn’t think America’s government was basically up for sale these days, reading about any of these folks will do it. I’ve been boycotting Marriott for decades since all that Mormon money went heavily into running anti-ERA efforts in the late 70s. I watched that unfold first hand as a baby feminist and activist. It’s now creeping and crawling around the Romney campaign. There’s a lot of Mormon corporate money behind the Romney Super Pac.
Several of the biggest donors to Restore Our Future, the super PAC backing Mr. Romney, share the candidate’s Mormon faith. A quartet of companies connected to Melaleuca, a company based in Idaho that makes nutritional supplements and home care products, donated a combined $1 million to Restore Our Future.
The company is headed by Frank VanderSloot, a national finance co-chairman of the Romney campaign and a graduate of Brigham Young University, Mr. Romney’s alma mater. “I am very concerned about the direction of the country and especially the administration’s constant attacks on free enterprise,” Mr. VanderSloot said in an e-mail.
Many of the biggest givers to the pro-Romney super PAC hail from the world of finance, particularly private equity and hedge funds. Julian H. Robertson Jr., who has given at least $1.25 million to Restore Our Future, is considered one of the godfathers of the hedge fund industry.
The one thing these Super PACS have done is put the agendas right out there if you look for them. You can clearly see the Romney agenda from your front porch. If you like women’s unequal status and gamed financial markets,by all means support Willard just like his SuperPac Puppet Masters do! Any way, I suggest you try to keep track of these ballers and who they buy. I also wonder if these billionaires will be happy if the press starts focusing laserlike on their activities. Right now, Forbes appears to be the only magazine with the lives and ideology of the rich and not so famous. I figure if they want to buy our elections, the least we can do is out their activities for all to see.
Seriously Perverted
Posted: February 18, 2012 Filed under: abortion rights, birth control, black women's reproductive health, religion, religious extremists, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Republican politics, War on Women, Women's Healthcare, Women's Rights | Tags: Republican obsession with sex 50 CommentsYou don’t really have to be a “birth control mom” to understand that the Republican and Red Beanie obsession with other people’s sex lives is just plain wrong. Trying to turn the reproductive
with apologies to R Crumb
health of women into a moral and religious freedom issue is one of the worst perversions of our time. I no longer require birth control but recognize the importance of birth control and abortion access as central to the recognition of women as a functioning adult capable of making moral decisions in a free and functioning democracy with constitutional rights. Women’s Reproductive Health is not a fucking political football.
Just a few weeks ago, the notion would have seemed far-fetched. The country is deeply divided on abortion, but not on contraception; the vast majority of American women have used it, and access hasn’t been a front-burner political issue since the Supreme Court decided Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965.
But then Rick Santorum said states ought to have the right to outlaw the sale of contraception.
And Susan G. Komen for the Cure yanked its funding for Planned Parenthood.
And the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops teed off on President Barack Obama’s contraception policy.
And House Republicans invited a panel of five men — and no women — to debate the issue.
And a prominent Santorum supporter pined for the days when “the gals” put aspirin “between their knees” to ward off pregnancy.
Democratic strategist Celinda Lake says it’s enough to “really irritate” independent suburban moms and “re-engage” young, single women who haven’t tuned into the campaign so far.
And, she says, the stakes are high: Women backed Barack Obama in big numbers in 2008 but then swung right in 2010. If the president is to win reelection in 2012, he’ll need to win women back — and Lake and other Democrats see the GOP push on contraception as a gift that will make that easier.
“I feel like the world is spinning backwards,” said former Rep. Patricia Schroeder, who has often related the troubles she has as a young married law student getting her birth control prescriptions filled in the early 1960s. “If you had told me when I was in law school that this would be a debate in 2012, I would have thought you were nuts … And everyone I talk to thinks so, too.”
Jennifer Lawless, director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University, also sees the chance of a huge female backlash if the Republicans overreach.
There are so many things about this article in Politico–by a woman–that piss me off that I hardly know where to start. The first is the bogus description of “deep division” in the country about abortion. The only deep division that I can see comes from the right wing continually pushing lies like the existence of abortion on demand hours before giving birth and bogus, nonexistent procedures like “partial birth abortion.”
The frustration of the right wing over their inability to control access to Plan B, hormonal birth control and first trimester abortions is at the root of all this. The push to force sonograms, invasive vaginal probes, and “life” begins at the moment of conception religous tropes is building to a crescendo. If only the red beanie set were this obsessed about ending world hunger or nuclear war or ensuring universal health care. The vast majority of women have basically had, are having, are using or will use all three of those things. To characterize normal reproductive health measures as murder and anti-religious is ridiculous. But I’d like to add this warning, if the political and punditry class on either side think they can turn us all into a new voting segment, I think they’re also going to learn the meaning of the word backlash. Women’s reproductive health shouldn’t be trapped in the land of political gamesmanship. Just who the hell are they to score political points with women’s lives??
The Cantor Cartwheel On Insider Trading
Posted: February 11, 2012 Filed under: Congress, corporate money, corruption, Democratic Politics, ethics, legislation, Politics as Usual, Republican politics, Senate, Stock Market, U.S. Politics, We are so F'd 22 CommentsWhile our eyes and fury were directed on the birth-control-is-evil crowd and the ludicrous threats of the National Razor coming to a town near
This is Eric Cantor
you, the insider trading bill wended its merry way through Congress. Only a provision in the Senate version of STOCK [Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act] was stripped from the House version. The bill will return to the Senate, and then most likely go into conference committee to iron out differences.
The deletion of the provision is curious since it would have required Washington insiders, those who sell political intelligence to corporate America [financial institutions], to register in advance like any lobbyist, thereby making their identities and purpose transparent.
One senator reacted to the provision’s removal this way:
It’s astonishing and extremely disappointing that the House would fulfill Wall Street’s wishes by killing this provision. The Senate clearly voted to try to shed light on an industry that’s behind the scenes. If the Senate language is too broad, as opponents say, why not propose a solution instead of scrapping the provision altogether? I hope to see a vehicle for meaningful transparency through a House-Senate conference or other means. If Congress delays action, the political intelligence industry will stay in the shadows, just the way Wall Street likes it.
That would be a Democrat complaining, right?
Wrong.
That would be Republican Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa protesting House member Eric Cantor for removing the provision [Grassley’s add on], ultimately making the bill substantially weaker than it could have been.
And ‘political intelligence industry?’ Sounds like something straight out of an Ian Fleming novel. Turns out this shadowy practice is a $100 million industry, employing 2000 people who sneak around Congress to pick up investment tips for Wall Street.
You cannot make this stuff up!
I am a weasel
In any case, it was Eric Cantor who tabled the original effort to suspend insider trading back in December. Also removed was a bipartisan amendment by Senators Patrick Leahy [D VT] and John Cornyn [R TX] made to crack down on officials ‘self-dealing,’ that is, enriching themselves through their positions.
The question is: why the not-so-clever foot dragging on this bill, something that makes perfect sense to the American public? Why ditch Grassley’s provision or the Leahy/Cronyn amendment, which would have added additional teeth?
As in, make it better.
According to initial comments, Cantor claimed the language too broad and the additional provisions ‘needed more study.’ Seems to me the study-until-we-drop reason was cited back in December.
But Cantor did add a touch of his own that would restrict legislators from participating or benefiting from IPOs. This addition quickly became tagged the ‘Pelosi provision,’ inspired by the suggestion that Pelosi’s husband had taken advantage of insider information when he bought into a VISA public offering, making a tidy profit [230% increase, by some accounts]. Pelosi has denied this accusation, insisting that her husband’s buys were directed by a traditional Wells Fargo broker.
Wish my broker was that good!
I am a happy weasel
Cheap political tricks and posturing happen all too frequently but why would Cantor be so adamant in weakening a bill the public and a surprising number of Congressional members favor?
Republic Report suggests we look at Cantor’s history, specifically the issue of mortgage cram down in 2009.
Eric Cantor led the Republican refusal to consider the mortgage cramdown proposals in 2009, a measure that would have permitted homeowners to negotiate lower interest rates and avoid foreclosure. However, what was not common knowledge [see Open Secrets. org] was that Cantor’s personal wealth was heavily involved in the mortgage industry itself. From RR:
Cantor invested in several mortgage banks, and owned a portion of a Cantor-family run mortgage company. According to Cantor’s 2009 personal disclosure, Cantor owned up to a $500,000 share of a mortgage company called TrustMor run by his brother.
While Cantor blocked a fix to the foreclosure crisis, his wife Diane Cantor served as the managing director of a bank with a high foreclosure rate. Diane Cantor at the time worked as a managing director to New York Private Bank & Trust, a major mortgage bank and TARP recipient. SNL Financial reported that Cantor’s bank was among the top three banks in the mortgage business “with thegreatest percentage of family loans in the foreclosure process.
There was also the dustup during the debt ceiling debate last year when a revealed fund Cantor was invested in, stood to make a sizeable profit if the US actually defaulted on its debt. If the country tanked, Cantor stood to win.
Such loyalty!
Personally, I liked Cantor’s chest thumping after wicked storms savaged the South and East Coast last spring [my house and property suffered nearly $20,000 in damages with 1600+lbs of debris dragged from the front and back yard]. For his Tea Party audience, Cantor tried bucking disaster relief until expenses [like unemployment checks and food stamps] were cut elsewhere. But then amazingly, Cantor made a sharp pivot and complained FEMA was far too slow in addressing damage relief in his own Virginia district.
Consistency is a beautiful thing!
So, we have the Pelosi Provision and the Cantor Cartwheel, anything to stall a DC scrub down, the disinfectant treatment that the American public demands [at the very minimum] from their representatives–abiding by the laws, standards and a sense of ‘doing the right thing.’ You know, those principles that presumably apply to everyone.
BTW, the Sunlight Foundation has provided the House/Cantor Version of the STOCK bill with edits [strikeouts] included. Most instructive!
Don’t you love the Internet??? Bet Cartwheel Cantor doesn’t.
I am a warrior weasel
And though I would have nominated Eric Cantor for Sellout of the Week, Republic Report has chosen President Obama, primarily based on his recent decision to embrace Super PAC money [though I suspect we could all come up with other examples]. However, the President opened himself up to this chastising because he warned about unlimited campaign spending in 2008:
Let me be clear — this isn’t just about ending the failed policies of the Bush years; it’s about ending the failed system in Washington that produces those policies. For far too long, through both Democratic and Republican administrations, Washington has allowed Wall Street to use lobbyists and campaign contributions to rig the system and get its way, no matter what it costs ordinary Americans.
That was then, this is now.
Did you know that one of the collective nouns used to describe a group of weasels is . . . SNEAK. How perfect is that?
We are all well-heeled weasels
Thursday Reads: Male Politicians and Pundits should Worry about their “Erectile Dysfunction” and STFU about Women’s Health (and Other News)
Posted: February 9, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, 2012 primaries, morning reads, religious extremists, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics, Team Obama, U.S. Politics, War on Women, Women's Rights | Tags: autonomy, Birth Control, chastity belt, Chris Matthews, contraception, EJ Dionne, history of birth control, Mark Shields, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, privacy, Rick Santorum, sponges, Tim Kaine 50 Comments
Morning News by Ellen Day Hale (1855-1940)
Good Morning!
I thought this painting was appropriate, since we are being dragged back into the 19th Century by both Democrats and Republicans these days. We all know about the war on women being waged by Willard “Mitt” Romney, Rick “the Dick” Santorum, Nasty Newt Gingrich and Ron “White Power” Paul. But Democrats have now been empowered the Catholic Church’s attack on Obama’s attempt to protect women’s health care.
But now “liberal” pundits like Chris Matthews, Mark Shields, and E.J. Dionne have joined the battle to remove any semblance of privacy and autonomy from women.
Today former DNC Chairman and Governor of VA–and likely Senate candidate Tim Kaine came out against the requirement that contraception be included in health insurance policies.
Pat J is right. We need a women’s freedom party. Aren’t any of these dinosaurs aware that birth control (and abortion) have been with us during most of recorded history? Check out this series of photos in Newsweek drawn from the history of birth control.
Did you know that Aristotle recommended birth control methods for women in the 4th Century BC?
The philosopher recommended that women “anoint that part of the womb on which the seed falls” with olive oil in order to prevent pregnancy. His other top picks for spermicides included cedar oil, lead ointment, or frankincense oil. If the lips of the cervix were smooth, he noted, then conception would be difficult.
Sponges used for contraception
Ancient Egyptian women used sponges.
Long before Seinfeld’s Elaine Benes weighed the merits of a man to determine his spongeworthiness, women were using sponges as a method of preventing pregnancy. The sponge has its roots in early Egyptian civilization, and this photo depicts the variety of models available in the early 20th century. Those sponges were made of a variety of materials, and were sometimes drenched in lemon juice or vinegar to act as a spermicide. Today’s sponges (called, in fact, Today’s Sponge) are synthetic, and use a chemical spermicide.
Another early method was the chastity belt. Perhaps religious nuts like Rick Santorum and Mark Shields would find that one acceptable?
At Wonkblog, Sarah Kliff thinks the Obama administration “sees political opportunity in the contraception battle,” because of the data shown in this chart:
(Public Religion Research Institute)
Kliff writes:
while Catholic leadership has blasted the new regulation, polls show that a majority of Catholics are actually more supportive of the provision than the rest of the country. A poll out Tuesday from the Public Religion Research Institute finds 52 percent of Catholic voters agreed with the statement, “employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost.” That’s pretty much in line with overall support for the provision, which hovers at 55 percent – likely because Catholics use contraceptives at rates similar to the rest of Americans.
A majority of Catholics – 52 percent – also agree with the Obama administration’s decision to not exempt religious hospitals and universities from the provision. “Outside the political punditry, most Catholics agree with the administration on the issue,” says one Obama campaign official, explaining the view that this could be a political win.
And a lot of this likely isn’t about Catholic voters at all.
Rather, it may well be about the demographics that are most supportive of this particular health reform provision: young voters and women. In the PRRI poll, both groups register support above 60 percent for the provision.
Those two demographics are important here for a key reason: they were crucial to Obama’s victory in 2008. Third Way crunched the numbers earlier this month and found that the “Obama Independents” — the swing group that proved crucial to his 2008 victory — are, as Ryan Lizza put it, “disproportionately young, female and secular.”
Let’s hope Obama keeps all that in mind instead of bending to the will of the old gray white male Catholic Bishops and the elderly male fake-liberal pundits who won’t STFU and let women make their own choices.
Even some of the saner folks in the GOP are warning their wingnut colleagues that a fight against contraception would be a “disaster” for their party.
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Recent Comments