Quote of the Day

Weird. Conservative male says he doesn't feel affected by a boss' ability to deny women birth control coverage at all.

— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) July 16, 2014

The lack of empathy from conservative men is part of the problem. For instance, the five justices that ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby are conservative Catholic men.

Beyonce Voters Tumblr

Jessie Watters condescendingly described young single women as "Beyoncé voters."

Watters went on to say that Clinton needs to latch on to issues like this in order to win the White House in 2016. “She needs the single ladies vote, I call them the Beyoncé voters because of [her song] “Single Ladies,” he said. “Obama won single ladies by 76% last time and they made up a quarter of the electorate.”

Watters fails to understand that President Barack Obama won young women voters because Republicans like Todd Akin thought there was such a thing as "legitimate rape."

"First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare... If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Watters isn't going to win Fox News any young female viewers with comments like this.

“She’s acting like Hobby Lobby all of a sudden is telling these women that work for them to wear a burka or something like that,” Watters said. “It’s like if someone said my boss is not buying me a gun, he’s denying me my Second Amendment rights. Having access to contraception is not in the Constitution, she’s dead wrong about that.”

Shorter Jessie Watters: it is okay for your boss to buy you a gun. Women who want birth control in their health care coverage should STFU. How pro-life of Watters.

There is now a hysterical Tumblr mocking the stupidity of the comments of Watters. Beyoncé lyrics are being used for photos.

No Surprise: Contraception Prevents Unwanted Pregnancy

The Guttmacher Institute has released this their findings on how consistent use of contraception prevents abortions.

The two-thirds of U.S. women at risk of unintended pregnancy who use contraception consistently and correctly throughout the course of any given year account for only 5% of all unintended pregnancies. The 19% of women at risk who use contraception inconsistently account for 43% of unintended pregnancies, while the 16% of women at risk who use no contraceptive method at all for a month or more during the year account for 52%.

These simple statistics demonstrate how effective contraceptive use can be. They also categorically refute claims by anti-contraception activists that access to contraception somehow leads to more unintended pregnancies and subsequent abortions.

Only five percent of women that properly use contraception account for abortions. Conservatives would have you believe that contraception will lead to the downfall of mankind and abstinence is the only way to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Never mind that when (then comedian) Al Franken sent letters to Bush administration officials asking for their stories on how they abstained from sex until they were married, he never got an abstinence confessional.

In bizarro world: Fox News host Laura Ingraham absurdly claims that rapists will give their victims Plan B. Stupidity ensues.

It’s a good deal for pedophiles, a good deal for people who commit statutory rape against young girls. If mothers and fathers across this country hear this, and they think, ‘Well, I guess my daughter or her boyfriend or her rapist can go out to a pharmacy and get a bunch of, you know, hormone pills to give a little girl’... We don’t really know the effect of a spiking or dropping a little girl’s... in many cases a young woman’s or a little girl’s hormonal levels. It’s outrageous!

Of course, Ingraham provides no evidence to back her conspiracy theory. Other conservatives, such as Trent Franks, thinks that women rarely get pregnant after being raped.

"The incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low," Franks said, according to a transcript.

Franks made this argument in defense of a DOA bill to ban abortion nationwide after 20 weeks of gestation. This falls under the same form of bogus science as Todd Akin's infamous comment.

"First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare... If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

The reality is Ingraham, Franks, and Akin want women to have no control over their own bodies if they are raped. They also don't want women to have access to birth control. It is a fact that the pill lowers the amount of abortions in this country. If conservatives really want to eliminate abortions then they would back access to the pill. Conservatives don't because they are held hostage by the Christian Right that views sex as a dirty thing.

Update: Massachusetts Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez (R) distances himself from Trent Franks.

"I think that he’s a moron and he proves that stupid has no specific political affiliation,” Gomez told ABC News on Wednesday. “I have no idea what goes into the mind of a moron like that ... These kinds of comments only come from a moron and they shouldn’t be tolerated one bit."

Write A Caption: David Green

This hunk of burning love is David Green. He is the founder of Hobby Lobby and has 13,000 employees. Green is fighting in the courts to not have Hobby Lobby comply with the Affirable Care Act covering birth control for employees. Jodie Jacobson writes that Green objects for religious reasons.

Green argues that his religious beliefs support his thousands of employees and their families. “’Our family is now being forced to choose … between following the laws of the land that we love or maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful and supported our family and thousands of our employees and their families,’ Green said … during a conference call. ‘We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate.’” (The Oklahoman; September 2012)

Green says the foundation of his business is “honoring the Lord in a manner consistent with biblical principles.” “‘The foundation of our business has been, and will continue to be strong values, and honoring the Lord in a manner consistent with biblical principles,’ a statement on the Hobby Lobby website reads, adding that one outgrowth of that is the store is closed on Sundays to give its employees a day of rest.” (CNN; January 2013)

Green and other companies that object to insurance coverage of birth control might as well tell their employees not to have sex. These employees are grown adults. Does Green expect them to abstain from sex if they don't have access to birth control?

Quote of the Day

"Many losing candidates became elder statesmen of their parties. What lessons will Romney have to teach his party? The art of crawling uselessly? How to contemn 47 percent of Americans less privileged and beautiful than his family? How to repudiate the past while damaging the future? It is said that he will write a book. Really? Does he want to relive a five-year-long experience of degradation? What can be worse than to sell your soul and find it not valuable enough to get anything for it? His friends can only hope he is too morally obtuse to realize that crushing truth. Losing elections is one thing. But the greater loss, the real loss, is the loss of honor."

Garry Wills, on Mitt Romney.

Romney had only one true constituency and that was his rich donors. In a conference call to his donors, Romney left no doubt that he believed his infamous 47 percent remark.

Romney argued that Obama’s healthcare plan’s promise of coverage “in perpetuity” was “highly motivational” to those voters making $25,000 to $35,000 who might not have been covered, as well as to African American and Hispanic voters. Pivoting to immigration, Romney said the Obama campaign’s efforts to paint him as “anti-immigrant” had been effective and that the administration’s promise to offer what he called “amnesty” to the children of illegal immigrants had helped turn out Hispanic voters in record numbers.

“The president’s campaign,” he said, “focused on giving targeted groups a big gift — so he made a big effort on small things. Those small things, by the way, add up to trillions of dollars.”

Giving tax cuts to people like himself is not a gift. For someone who refused to say how much his tax plan would add to the deficit; I find it hilarious that positions once held by Republicans on immigration and health care are freebees.

More on Romney's conference call.

“With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest, was a big gift,” he said. “Free contraceptives were very big with young college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008.”

Women have to pay for their birth control through their health coverage. Students have to repay their student loans. What Obama did was add birth control to the Affordable Care Act and stood against Republican attempts to increase student loan fees. Romney views these groups with disdain.

Update: Republican strategist Ana Navarro goes off on Mitt Romney.

Mr. Romney, Pres. Obama didn't win Hispanic vote b/c he offered "gifts". Obama won b/c u offered NOTHING. Hispanics work hard for their $.

Is there anybody that Romney will not piss off?

Update: Gov. Bobby Jindal comes out against Romney's "gifts" statement.

“I don’t think that represents where we are as a party and where we’re going as a party," Jindal continued. “That has got to be one of the most fundamental takeaways from this election: If we’re going to continue to be a competitive party and win elections on the national stage and continue to fight for our conservative principles, we need two messages to get out loudly and clearly: One, we are fighting for 100 percent of the votes, and secondly, our policies benefit every American who wants to pursue the American dream. Period. No exceptions."

Republicans are free from having to defend the buffoonish Romney. They can publicly kick his ass to their heart's content. I can't say I blame their anger. Romney really was that bad of a candidate and he is still damaging the Republican brand after the election.

Amazing Dumb Quote from Reince Priebus

RNC chairman Reince Priebus made a bizarre comment denying that the GOP has waged a war on women's health care.

“If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we’d have problems with caterpillars,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” airing this weekend. “It’s a fiction."

Notice that Priebus doesn't actually address the issue that members of his party are denying contraception to women. With the exception of Olympia Snowe, every senate Republican voted for the Blunt-Rubio amendment. Roy Blunt and Marco Rubio claimed that an employer could denying contraception coverage. Blunt and Rubio maintained that they were doing this for religious freedon. What Blunt and Rubio were actually doing was imposing their religious views on women.

Rick Santorum is against rape victims getting abortions.

"I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created - in the sense of rape - but nevertheless a gift in a broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given you. As you know, we have to, in a lot of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can't think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.

Yet Priebus has the audacity to claim these attacks against women reproductive rights are a fiction.

The Anti-Sex Party

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is going to waste Florida tax dollars by challenging Obama's administration over its contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act. Previously, Obama proposed having Catholic hospitals carry contraception coverage for its employees. The Obama administration relented after attacks from Republicans and Catholic bishops, on the grounds of religious freedom. Health insurance companies would now offer contraception directly to employees of religious hospitals. Churches would not be mandated to offer contraception. Which leads to what legal grounds does Bondi have to challenge the contraception policy in court.

Not only is the proposed contraceptive coverage mandate for religious employers bad policy, it is unconstitutional. It conflicts with the most basic elements of the freedoms of religion, speech, and association, as provided under the First Amendment. It would compel religious organizations to act, subsidize products, and affirmatively promote a message in contravention with their religious principles, with the sole alternative being to cease activities of incalculable value to their employees, constituents, and, indeed, society as a whole.

We strongly oppose the unconstitutional approach taken by the proposed contraceptive coverage mandate. We believe it represents an impermissible violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment virtually unparalleled in American history.

Accordingly, we urge you in the strongest way possible to refrain from promulgating the proposed regulations.

Sincerely,

Jon Bruning, Attorney General of Nebraska

Greg Abbott, Attorney General of Texas

Alan Wilson, Attorney General of South Carolina

Luther Strange, Attorney General of Alabama

Pam Bondi, Attorney General of Florida

James Caldwell, Attorney General of Louisiana

William Schneide, Attorney General of Maine

Wayne Stenehjem, Attorney General of North Dakota

Mike DeWine, Attorney General of Ohio

Scott Pruitt, Attorney General of Oklahoma

Marty J. Jackley, Attorney General of South Dakota

John W. Suthers, Attorney General of Colorado

If the health insurers are directly offering contraception to women, without involving the church, there is no rationale (however flimsy) of a violation of the First amendment. Catholic hospitals have no problem taking government Medicare and Medicaid dollars. However, Catholic bishops act like the end of days are upon us if the contraception is mentioned.

As for the Republicans, being the anti-birth control and anti-sex party makes them look insane to reasonable Americans. The sad thing is, I am not shocked that Republicans thought being anti-contraception is political gold.

Triangulation Man: Rick Warren

I wrote about my reservations of President Barack Obama using Rick Warren as a religious political surrogate. Warren is a sexist and a bigot. Warren councils women in abusive relationships that they are only experiencing short-term pain.

It’s not like you can escape the pain… You don’t — you don’t escape the pain. And I’d always rather choose a short term pain and find God’s solution for a long term gain, than try and find a short term solution that’s going to involve a long term pain in life.

Warren then tells women not to leave their abusive husbands.

I want to tell you the advice that we give in our counseling ministries. First of all if you are in this kind of a situation, I strongly recommend that you take advantage of our lay counseling ministry. Go in and talk to someone and let them minister to you. And the advice that we give is not divorce but separation.

All Obama accomplished by having Warren at his inauguration was alienating progressives and giving Warren free publicity. The Christian Right didn't swoon over Obama because of his association with Warren. Rick Warren was another centrist move that has blown up in Obama's face.

Warren fired off these tweets.



Warren is another example of how triangulation has been a failure for Obama.