Political Ruminations

OFA Video: The 100th Day of the Romney Administration

Frightening to contemplate. Vote accordingly.

Morning Quote: Barack Obama

During an interview with Rolling Stone early in October, President Obama on Mitt Romney’s extremism:

“Four weeks out from an election, you can't hide from positions that ultimately are out of sync with how the majority of Americans think. I guarantee if you talk to not just Democratic women, but a whole bunch of Republican and Independent women, they will tell you they're very capable of making their own health care decisions. If you have a chance to meet these Dream Act kids, some of whom were brought here when they were two or three or five, and are American in every sense, except for their papers – love this country, have pledged allegiance to this flag, want to contribute – then you would reject the idea that somehow they should be deported to some country where they've never been.

But those are Governor Romney's positions, and we gotta make sure that the American people understand those positions.”

Imagine that. Democratic, Republican and Independent women are capable of making their own health care choices. Too bad Republicans are such control freaks when it comes to …well, everything. But especially women. Vote for them at your own peril.

Morning Quote: Barack Obama

During an appearance on Jay Leno last night, President Obama responded to Richard Mourdock’s comments that even pregnancies which occur as a result of rape are a “gift from God” and something that “God intended”:

“I don’t know where these guys come up with these ideas. Rape is rape. It is a crime…This is exactly why you don’t want a bunch of politicians, mostly male, making decisions about women’s health care.”

Hey Girl, Mitt Romney is a Real Extremist When it Comes to Women

Mr. Romney has a new ad out, an ad that attempts to hide his extremist positions.

It features a woman who clearly lies about Romney’s positions, and then claims that she voted for Obama in 2008. The problem is well, that while you can find sites which back her up, they do so either in error or in order to deceive. The truth is in what Mr. Romney himself has recently said.

On the issue of contraception, we can look to the Blunt Amendment to determine whether or not Mr. Romney supports the use of contraceptives.

The Blunt Amendment allows your boss to decide for you whether or not you will get access to contraceptives through your health insurance. That’s right. And Mitt Romney said himself that he supports the Blunt amendment (@14:46 on the Maddow video).

“Of course I support the Blunt Amendment.”

On the issue of a woman’s right to choose, abortion, Mitt Romney has said very recently (September 2012) that he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would strike down Roe v. Wade:

“But I am pro-life and will intend, if I’m president of the United States, to encourage pro-life policies. [...] And I hope to appoint justices to the Supreme Court that will follow the law and the constitution. And it would be my preference that they reverse Roe v. Wade and therefore they return to the people and their elected representatives the decisions with regards to this important issue.”

Romney also said that he would sign a bill which banned all abortions (@11:33 on the video):

“I’d be delighted to sign that bill.”

“Delighted.” Rachel Maddow on Romney’s severely conservative positions(the segment on these issues starts at approximately 09:04):

A Romney administration would end abortion, would take away our right to choose what we do with our own bodies.

No exceptions for anything. Not rape. Not incest. Not the life of the mother.

Factor this in with Romney's stance on the Blunt Amendment -- which would make it more difficult for you to obtain contraceptives since he will allow your boss to decide whether or not you could obtain contraceptives through your health insurance.

This is what Mitt Romney really supports. This is what the Republican War On Women is about. This is what it will mean to women if Mitt Romney is elected.

If you’re undecided at this point, you need to think hard about your options, and then go to the polls and vote for Barack Obama. Not to do so will affect you, your children, and your grandchildren in ways you can’t even begin to count.

New Swing State Ad: The Republican War on Women

A new ad by Rob Reiner for MoveOn, set to air in the swing states of Colorado and Virginia. Watch:

The stakes in this election are enormous. More than in any election in my lifetime. Vote. And vote for Barack Obama.

Joe Biden Goes After Ryan and Romney on Women's Rights

Back on the campaign trail in Wisconsin on Friday, Joe Biden talked about the Republican plan for the future of women’s rights:

“If anyone had a doubt about what’s at stake in this election when it comes to women’s rights, and the Supreme Court, I'm sure they were settled last night.

It was made clear last night that they don't believe in protecting a woman's access to health care. It was made very clear that they do not believe a woman has a right to control her own body. These guys have a social policy out of the fifties.”

Mr. Biden begins speaking at 1:34. Watch:

Vice President Biden is referring to statements made by both Romney and Ryan, but especially to what Paul Ryan said during the Vice Presidential Debate on Thursday night, where Ryan said called rape and incest “methods of conception” again. Ryan also said that Romney would appoint Supreme Court justices who would vote to reverse Roe v. Wade (at least two justices are likely to retire during the next four years, one of them a liberal). You can read the transcript of the debate, and/or watch the full video.

You should also take a look at the GOP Platform within which Republicans codified their war against women.

Mitt Romney Stands for Nothing

Watch Mitt Romney do the flip-flop……over and over again:

Transcript (Romney quotes in video):

Mitt Romney, 10/3/12: I will not reduce the taxes paid by high income Americans.

Mitt Romney, 2/22/12: There were so many misrepresentations in there it's going to take me a little while. Number one, I said today that we're going to cut taxes on everyone across the country by twenty percent—including the top one percent.

Mitt Romney, 10/3/12: The key to great schools? Great teachers. So I reject the idea that I don't believe in great teachers or more teachers.

Mitt Romney, 6/8/12: He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It's time for us to cut back on government.

Mitt Romney, 10/3/12: Actually, it's a lengthy description, but number one, pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.

Mitt Romney, 3/27/12: If they're 45 years old and they show up and they say I want insurance because I've got heart disease, it's like: "Hey guys, we can't play the game like that." You've got to get insurance when you're well, and then if you get ill, then you're going to be covered.

Sheesh…..it’s certainly become very clear that Mitt Romney is not to be trusted at all.

Via Bob Cesca

Full Video and Text Transcript: First Presidential Debate October 3, 2012 Denver, Colorado

Watch the video:

Full Text Transcript of the First Presidential Debate October 3, 2012:

JIM LEHRER: Good evening from the Magness Arena at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado. I’m Jim Lehrer of the PBS NewsHour, and I welcome you to the first of the 2012 presidential debates between President Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee.

This debate and the next three -- two presidential, one vice- presidential -- are sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates.

Tonight’s 90 minutes will be about domestic issues, and will follow a format designed by the commission. There will be six roughly 15-minute segments, with two-minute answers for the first question, then open discussion for the remainder of each segment.

Morning Quote: Nancy Pelosi

In a Maddow Show segment on Wednesday night, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) spoke out about the threat Republicans pose to the Medicare program and to seniors:

“We cannot lose the debate about Medicare because if we do--forget Democrats, forget Republicans--Medicare is gone. We'll be back to a time before Lyndon Johnson. We will be putting seniors at the mercy of insurance companies by giving them a voucher but not a guarantee.

And the severing of that guarantee, the architect of that, is Paul Ryan.”

Romney-Ryan Changes to Medicare Will Impact People Between Ages 55-65

Surrogates for Mitt Romney have admitted that he will have to cut Medicare benefits for people between the ages of 55-65 (despite his pledge not to do so) if he goes through with his plans to change Medicare. By Brian Beutler @ TPM, emphasis mine:

“Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to neutralize Democratic attacks on their plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program for future seniors by replaying the GOP’s 2010 campaign against Democratic members of Congress: by attacking President Obama for Medicare cuts he signed into law.

As has been noted repeatedly, that strategy requires Romney and Ryan to disavow Medicare reforms the GOP recently endorsed overwhelmingly as a part of the party’s budget, which Ryan authored.

But the ticket also contends that a key difference between Obama and Romney is that Romney won’t change Medicare at all for existing beneficiaries — only future ones. Recent statements from his advisers and surrogates, suggest the claim is false.

As outlined in a memo the campaign released Saturday, Romney plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act in its entirety, and thus to spend over $700 billion more on the program in the coming decade than the government would spend if the health care law stands.

That commitment would leave Medicare poised for insolvency in 2016, years before he proposes to phase in the voucher system. Which means Romney would have two options: find new Medicare cuts or taxes to extend the life of the program, or preside over its demise.

On Fox News Sunday, Romney adviser Ed Gillespie tried to address the conundrum. “There are other reforms as well. As you know Governor Romney supports increasing over time bringing the Medicare eligibility age in line with the Social Security retirement age.”

But raising the Medicare eligibility age is a benefit cut, and implementing

Quote of the Week

Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-Md), on Republican hypocrisy re the health care ruling:

“ The only health care mandate they can embrace are transvaginal probes for women. ”

Gov. O’Malley is referring to a bill proposed by Virginia Republicans.

Mississippi Tea Party Chairman Calls for Insurrection Against the Government

Another crazy right winger, this time the chairman of the Mississippi Tea Party, Roy Nicholson, calls for an “insurrection” or “rebellion” against the government:

“ When a gang of criminals subvert legitimate government offices and seize all power to themselves without the real consent of the governed their every act and edict is of itself illegal and is outside the bounds of the Rule of Law. In such cases submission is treason. Treason against the Constitution and the valid legitimate government of the nation to which we have pledged our allegiance for years. To resist by all means that are right in the eyes of God is not rebellion or insurrection, it is patriotic resistance to invasion.

May all of us fall on our faces before the Heavenly Judge, repent of our sins, and humbly cry out to Him for mercy on our country. And, may godly courageous leaders rise up in His wisdom and power to lead us in displacing the criminal invaders from their seats and restore our constitutional republic. ”

Because, you know, providing health care for all of it’s citizens is so evil. Teabagger logic, insanity.

Wingnut Mike Vanderboegh Advocates Armed Insurrection Over Health Care Decision

Mike Vanderboegh, a wingnut blogger who among other things,  was  responsible for the Fast and Furious mess, continues to pose harm to this country with his idea of achieving a dubious sort of fame. Via Media Matters, emphasis mine:

Mike Vanderboegh, the ex-militia blogger who calls himself one of the "midwives" of the Operation Fast and Furious scandal, recently predicted that if the Supreme Court declared the health care reform bill to be constitutional, it would lead to violent insurrection against "government tyranny."

The blogger posted the statements, which come from a recent unpublished interview, the same day the House of Representatives voted to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt over his unwillingness to release documents related to Fast and Furious.

In the excerpts Vanderboegh posted on his blog "which deal with the decision today," he says of a then-potential decision upholding the health care law, "You may call tyranny a mandate or you may call it a tax, but it still is tyranny and invites the same response." He further predicts the response of his ilk: "If we refuse to obey, we will be fined. If we refuse to pay the fine, we will in time be jailed. If we refuse to report meekly to jail, we will be sent for by armed men. And if we refuse their violent invitation at the doorsteps of our own homes we will be killed -- unless we kill them first. ... I am on record as advocating the right of defensive violence against a tyrannical regime."

Vanderboegh gained fame in 2010 when he urged his readers to respond to the passage of health care reform by breaking the windows of Democratic offices, then took credit after vandals struck several such offices. The Alabama-based blogger has previously been part of the militia and Minuteman movements, and leads the Three Percenters, a group which claims to represent the three percent of gun owners who "who will not disarm, will not compromise and will no longer back up at the passage of the next gun control act" but will instead, "if forced by any would-be oppressor, ... kill in the defense of ourselves and the Constitution."

Vanderboegh was one of the first to break the story that ATF whistleblowers said that they had been ordered to knowingly allow gun trafficking suspects to take weapons across the border into Mexico. The operation was intended to allow law enforcement to identify other members of the trafficking network that for years has directed assault weapons into the hands of Mexican cartels, with the goal of bringing those cartels down. He has said that he and a fellow blogger were the "midwives of the scandal"  who introduced the whistleblowers to congressional investigators. He has theorized that the operation was part of a secret plot against the Second Amendment directed from the highest levels of government. 

Continue reading…

John Boehner Vows to Repeal Obamacare

Yesterday, House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Oh) vowed to repeal the healthcare law if it's upheld by the Supreme Court:

“We've made it pretty clear and I'll make it clear one more time: If the court does not strike down the entire law, the House will move to repeal what's left of it.”

Really Mr. Boehner? Boehner knows full well that this is purely bluster since the House can take no action on this that would become law until after the election, and then only if the 113th Congress is also a Republican congress.

So Boehner is bluffing, but that won’t be the case if Romney wins. If Romney wins, the first thing Republicans will do is repeal the ACA.

That said, we need to thoroughly educate the public on the benefits of the ACA so that it becomes unpopular to cry “repeal”. And more than that, we need to make sure that not only does President Obama win a second term, but that the House and Senate are both under Democratic control by a healthy majority!

Morning Quote: Supreme Court

From the opinion of the Supreme Court in the section on the mandate [of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)], the Court has upheld the mandate as a tax:

“Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in Section 5000A under the taxing power, and that Section 5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. This is sufficient to sustain it. ”

Morning Quote: Barack Obama on Medicare

In his remarks at a 2012 kick-off rally in Columbus, Ohio last Saturday, President Obama made a promise to seniors regarding Medicare:

“ As long as I’m President of the United States, I will never allow Medicare to be turned into a voucher that would end the program as we know it. We will not go back to the days when our citizens spent their golden years at the mercy of private insurance companies.

We will reform Medicare -- not by shifting the cost of care to seniors, but by reducing the spending that isn’t making people healthier.

That’s what’s at stake in this election. ”

Not to be too cynical or anything, but I strongly believe that if a Republican wins the presidency this time, it will be unlike all other times in American history. It will be very, very bad for the future of this country and the people.

UPDATED: Video & Full Text Transcript of President Obama’s Remarks in Columbus, Ohio on May 5, 2012

Watch a fired up President Obama in Ohio for the first 2012 campaign rally and/or read the full text transcript below:

FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT
President Obama Remarks in Columbus, Ohio, May 5, 2012

---

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I want to thank so many of our Neighborhood Team Leaders for being here today.  You guys will be the backbone of this campaign.  And I want the rest of you to join a team or become a leader yourself, because we are going to win this thing the old-fashioned way -- door by door, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood.

Ohio, four years ago, you and I began a journey together.

I didn’t run, and you didn’t work your hearts out, just to win an election.  We came together to reclaim the basic bargain that built the largest middle class and the most prosperous nation on Earth.

Mitt Romney Hates Women

Mitt Romney has taken extreme positions on issues women care about, including economic security, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, reproductive rights, Roe v. Wade, and on women’s health. Watch:

Another Right Wing Lie About Obamacare and the Deficit

An article in the Washington Post today promotes yet another right wing lie about Obamacare aka the Affordable Care Act, claiming that the ACA increases the deficit rather than reducing it:

President Obama’s landmark health-care initiative, long touted as a means to control costs, will actually add more than $340 billion to the nation’s budget woes over the next decade, according to a new study by a Republican member of the board that oversees Medicare financing.

Jonathan Chait proceeds to nail the Koch-funded author of the paper, Charles Blahous (all emphasis in this piece is mine):

That sounds pretty legit, right?

Actually, no. It’s not even remotely legit.

The first thing to understand here is that this is not a study by a government agency. It’s a paper by Charles Blahous. Who is Charles Blahous? He’s a Republican policy guy. By tradition, the president appoints a member of each party to serve as a trustee of Medicare and Social Security. Blahous, who served under George W. Bush and was active in his attempt to introduce private accounts into Social Security, is the Republican trustee. But the other trustee, Robert Reischauer, has zero to do with his paper. It was published by the Mercatus Center, a Koch-funded organization that produces some quality work as well as a fair amount of schlock that does not meet the standards of your typical university economics paper. This paper is an example of the latter.

The Affordable Care Act spends a bunch of money to cover people who are too poor or sick to afford their own health care. To pay for that, it raises some taxes and cuts a bunch of spending from Medicare. The new revenue and the spending cuts outweigh the cost of the new spending, which is why the Congressional Budget Office projected it to reduce the deficit. Projections always have a margin for error attached, but the CBO’s two year update actually bumped up the savings projections a bit.

According to Chait, Blahous obtained his measure of the bills’s cost  using a conceptual trick:

Morning Quote: Mitt Romney

According to Steve Benen, Mitt Romney continues to lie about the Affordable Care Act:

“The employees of the Catholic Church have to be provided by the Catholic Church with health care that gives them free contraceptive and free sterilization treatments and morning-after pills despite the fact that this violates the conscience of the Catholic Church.”

Romney is lying.

Republican Hypocrites and Judicial Activism

Even though it is well known and understood by all and sundry who pay attention to politics that should the Supreme Court strike down the Affordable Care Act, they would be ignoring, blatantly ignoring, the Constitution, and almost 200 years of precedent.

Let’s be clear here--that act alone would make these right wing justices activist judges if they weren’t already activist judges given their Citizens United ruling in 2010, and for some, the Bush v. Gore ruling in 2000.

The thing is, on the one hand, Republicans are begging them to strike it down, and on the other, they have the utter gall, the hypocrisy, to decry activist judges in their very next breath. In fact, judicial activism is one of their very favorite talking points when attacking liberal justices.

Examples of Republican hypocrites whining about judicial activism:

REP. STEVE KING (R-IA): “If we’re going to respect judge-made law and stop praying in our public schools, that was the beginning of the judicial activism that’s begun to break down this civilization, and this culture.”

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): “Unelected and serving with lifetime tenure, and substituting their view for the views of the people’s…the people and their elected representatives. That’s not the way our democracy is supposed to work.”

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA): “Judges are not policymakers. That’s what we are in the Congress of the United States. Judges are called on to decide the facts and to apply the law.”

Watch the hypocrites at work:

We must hold them accountable.

Via Think Progress

Martin Sheen to the GOP: Hands off Medicare!

You can sign the petition here. Watch:

The related message from the DCCC:

Help us reach 1 million signatures telling Republican that ending the Medicare guarantee for seniors to pay for tax breaks for special interests and the wealthy is unacceptable at http://www.StandUpForMedicare.com

Quote of the Day

Ron Paul (R-KY) on the upcoming ruling by the Supreme Court on Obamacare, aka the Affordable Care Act:

“I suspect they're going to rule it constitutional, but that is a big guess out of thin air.”

I suspect he’s right.

Earlier this morning, the Supreme Court began listening to arguments on the healthcare law. A ruling is expected sometime in June.

Chart of the Day

Not that long ago, if you had a decent job, you could be pretty sure that it offered healthcare coverage, and that it would not be completely unaffordable.

This is no longer the case, as Paul Krugman pointed out last week. A new study shows a remarkable decline in employment-based healthcare coverage, depicted in the chart below.

Krugman’s conclusion:

What this says is that the system that has provided workable insurance coverage to many (but not enough) Americans is coming apart at the seams. And this in turn means that if health reform goes down, we’re going to be looking at a wave of misery spreading across the land.

SCOTUS begins their debate on the Affordable Care Act tomorrow.

Quote of the Day

In an article for CNN, Dr. Kevin Pho on why the Affordable Care Act is necessary:

“According to the 2010 Commonwealth Fund survey, 72% of jobless Americans said they couldn't afford to fill a prescription or obtain needed medical tests. Worse, 40% said that medical bills forced them into difficult financial decisions, such as depleting their savings, or being unable to pay for necessities like food, heat or rent. These are choices patients should never be forced to make.”

Chart of the Day: Paul Ryan's Latest Federal Budget

You probably remember Rep. Ryan’s (R-)Path to Poverty. After all, it was only a few short months ago, back in mid-2011 that Ryan gained national attention with his plan to kill Medicare.

He’s baaack, and this time with another federal budget which will cause pain for everyone but the very wealthy. Ezra Klein on Ryan’s 2013 federal budget plan with the money quote first:

Here’s the basic outline of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s 2013 budget in one sentence: Ryan’s budget funds trillions of dollars in tax cuts, defense spending and deficit reduction by cutting deeply into health-care programs and income supports for the poor.

You see where Ezra said “Ryan’s budget funds trillions of dollars in tax cuts”? Of course you do. But here’s my point. The tax cuts will go disproportionately to the upper upper income brackets, same as all Republican tax cuts have done since Ronald Reagan took office. You know, that trickle down pile of crap.  And, it should be noted, unlike President Obama’s budget plan, Ryan’s plan provides no new revenue because he won’t increase taxes on the wealthy, and he is afraid of the political power of the middle class, so increasing middle class taxes is not going to happen under this plan. But lest you think “aha.....at least he left the middle class alone”, Ryan’s budget cuts, and cuts hard, aid to the poor, and the subsidies which many uninsured middle class Americans would have received to help pay for health care insurance. Ezra again:

Ryan prides himself on making tough choices. But where such choices need to be made for politically powerful constituencies — say, the tax breaks offered to the wealthy and the middle class, or the benefits offered to current seniors — Ryan punts. Changes for seniors don’t begin for a decade, the tax breaks Ryan will close to pay for his tax cuts go unnamed, and, of course, there are no tax increases at all. When such choices need to be made for programs that the poor depend on, however, Ryan is considerably more specific, and considerably more willing to inflict real budgetary pain on current beneficiaries.

And then there are Ryan’s spending cuts, which are massive, and come primarily from health care programs.

Gone would be the $1.5 trillion that the Affordable Care Act uses to subsidize health insurance for 30 million uninsured Americans.  Medicaid would be cut by a third ($770 million), and Medicare would see $200 billion in cuts. The chart  is from the CBO, via Ezra Klein, and provides a picture of how massive these cuts to health care programs would be.

Ryan’s next significant source of cuts is so-called “other mandatory.” Compared to the president’s budget, Ryan cuts $1.8 trillion from this category. Some of that might simply be an accounting difference: The president’s budget proposes to move infrastructure spending from the “discretionary” side of the budget to the “mandatory” side. Ryan might be moving that back, which isn’t, in and of itself, a spending cut. But beyond that, the main programs in “other mandatory” are low-income supports like refundable tax credits for the poor and food stamps. Ryan is cutting these quite substantially.

So, I urge you, before this budget comes to the floor for a vote, be sure to call your congressional representatives and direct them to vote “NO” as the only acceptable response to Paul Ryan’s 2013 federal budget!

Adding......in spite of deep cuts to programs that are vital to the health and well being of the American people, Paul Ryan saw fit to increase defense spending.

Image credit:  Joshua Roberts-Reuters

RELATED POSTS:

- Krugman on Paul Ryan’s 2013 Budget
- Republicans Love the Banksters

Morning Quote: Rick Santorum

“It really has to do with what your principles and what your core is. I have a core.... And that's a sharp contrast with Mitt Romney, who was for RomneyCare.... this is someone who doesn't have a core. He's been on both sides of almost every single issue in the past ten years.”

- Rick Santorum bashes Romney on CBS's This Morning.

Morning Quote: Rick Santorum

“On so many fronts, there could be no person in this country we could nominate who would be any worse on taking on Barack Obama on the most important issue of the day, ObamaCare, than Gov. Romney. And it's the equivalent of malpractice to nominate someone who gives away the most important issue in this race.”

According to Rick Santorum, the most important issue in this race is eliminating a health care policy [the Affordable Care Act, aka “ObamaCare”] which insures the uninsured, and reduces the deficit, while eliminating roadblocks for those with pre-existing conditions. Far more important than the economy, according to GOP candidates.

No ecoli conservatism happening in this race.

Morning Quote: Hillary Clinton

“Why extremists always focus on women, remains a mystery to me, but they all seem to.

It doesn't matter what country they're in, or what religion they claim, they all want to control women, they want to control how we dress, they want to control how we act, they even want to control the decisions that we make about our own health and our own bodies.

Yes, it is hard to believe, but even here at home, we have to stand up for women's rights and reject efforts to marginalize any one of us, because America needs to set an example for the entire world.”

- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the right wing extremists who have taken on the women of America ( and awakened a sleeping giant).

Watch:

The quote is at 23:51.

Quote of the Day II–Mitt Romney

“Planned Parenthood, we're going to get rid of that.”

- Mitt Romney in an interview with KSDK-TV.

Morning Quote: MrBrink

“I'm not diminishing the heavy lifting of grass roots activism, but it's brilliant politics on the part of the president. This wasn't a national issue until the White House decided to address it. More people needed to be included and know that the Republican party has been operating like Clockwork Orange in state houses across the country, quite literally putting women's liberty in a rape room that may or may not have to be sterile.

They've been harassing and extorting the elderly with cuts to Medicaid and public transportation, and increased bureaucracy fees-- overwhelming fixed incomes everywhere like corporate thugs stealing purses on the subway. They've legislated unconstitutional barriers to the ballot boxes while altering their own bullshit Stooge-democracy election results as they go. Massive cuts to children's education and minimal nutritional assistance. Drug testing adults for food!

Just because we don't see the fire hoses and dogs doesn't mean the general idea has changed at all.

They're stealing real liberty-- not that fake threatened liberty that only exists in right wing America's idea of the Civil Rights Act and a slight tax increase on dead beat corporations. They're stealing power, liberty, and treasury from the many to give to the few and they're just stuffing them like prize pigs at this point. It's a twisted sort of cruelty to pigs.

This was a much needed wake up call to solidarity going out to women in America, and leave it to Rush Limbaugh to do the rest. Raising this issue brought the Republican party's degenerate agenda out in the open while we get to bear witness to the possible fall of Rush Limbaugh-- On president Obama's watch.”

- My friend, MrBrink, on the fallout, most of it good, and the rest of it enlightening,  from President Obama’s decision to ensure that women had contraceptive coverage that was paid for by the customers of the health insurance companies (employers or individuals).

Jon Stewart Takedown of Rush Limbaugh, Radio Sleaze

For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, a Georgetown law student, Sandra Fluke, recently testified before the House on coverage of contraception by insurance companies. Ergo, Limbaugh took this and did a smear job on Fluke, calling her a “slut” and a “prostitute”.

Although Limbaugh made a non-apology apology, national advertisers, under some pressure on social media sites such as Twitter, are canceling their ad contracts in near droves. Two radio stations have also cancelled Limbaugh’s show, and it’s beginning to look like Rush’s radio show may go the way of Glenn Beck’s television show. And that is a very good thing.

So anyway, Stewart threw on a hazmat thingy to protect himself from Limbaugh’s bile, and dove into the slime.

Watch:

Best line from the takedown:

“To the people who are upset about their hard-earned tax money going to things they don't like: Welcome to the f*cking club. Reimburse me for the Iraq war and oil subsidies, and diaphragms are on me!”

Romney Attacks Obama on Contraception Issue–But Romneycare Included Similar Coverage of Contraception

Continuing the contraception brouhaha at the Mesa debate last night, Mitt Romney, attacked President Obama on that issue:

“I don't think we've seen in the history of this country the kind of attack on religious conscience, religious freedom, religious tolerance that we've seen under Barack Obama.”

Steve Benen responded this morning:

Think about that one for a moment. The Obama administration is including contraception coverage as part of preventive health care for Americans -- a decision a clear majority of the country heartily supports. The administration is exempting churches and other houses of worship, and has crafted a compromise so that religiously-affiliated employers will not have to pay for contraception coverage directly.

This is the biggest "attack" on religious freedom in the history of the United States? How is it, exactly, that a sane person could believe this?

Or more to the point, how is it that a Mormon, whose church faced actual attacks and discrimination, could see contraception access as a more serious assault on "religious tolerance"?

Of note, RomneyCare in Massachusetts vastly expanded contraception access, a fact which Romney defended last night. His characterization of the RomneyCare contraception coverage could apply just as easily to that provided by the Affordable Care Act which he had the gall to attack. Think Progress:

Under Romneycare, the state’s Commonwealth Care — which offers subsidized, low or no-cost insurance program for low-income residents without access to employer-sponsored health insurance — provides primary and preventive care that includes “family planning services” and prescription contraceptives. Massachusetts employers that are not “a church or qualified church-controlled organization” must also cover hormone replacement therapy and all FDA-approved contraceptive methods.

In 2005, Romney also “signed a bill that could expand the number of people who get family-planning services, including the morning-after pill.” Romney even pressured the state Department of Health and Human Services to issue regulations that required Catholic hospitals to issue the morning after pill to rape victims, despite initially vetoing the bill and claiming that the pill constituted an “abortifacient.” “My personal view in my heart of hearts is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraceptives or emergency contraceptive information,” he told the Boston Herald at the time.

Of one thing I have no doubt whatsoever. Mr. Romney is a most egregious liar.

Santorum Falsely Accuses the Dutch of Killing off Their Elderly

Santorum made this particular comment on February 5, at the Grace Bible Church in Columbia, Missouri. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family (the Christian organization which was the subject of Jeffrey Sharlet’s book “The Family”) and a Santorum supporter (Dobson endorsed Santorum), moderated the forum. 

Santorum claimed that in the Netherlands, the elderly are euthanized without their consent:

“In the Netherlands people wear a different bracelet if you're elderly and the bracelet is 'do not euthanize me.' Because they have voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands, but half the people who are euthanized every year, and it's 10 percent of all deaths for the Netherlands, half of those people are euthanized involuntarily at hospitals because they are older and sick. And so elderly people in the Netherlands don't go to the hospital, they go to another country, because they are afraid, because of budget purposes, that they will not come out of that hospital if they go in with sickness.”

As you might imagine, his inaccurate and patently false comments regarding a law regulating end of life procedures in the Netherlands, caused quite an uproar in the Netherlands.

FactCheck.org on the actual facts:

First, let's review the law. The 2001 Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act allows Dutch citizens to end their lives if they are suffering from a medical condition that causes "unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement." There are two end-of-life procedures: euthanasia, where a doctor administers a fatal drug, or assisted suicide, where the doctor prescribes the fatal drug and the patient administers it. The law took effect on April 1, 2002.

According to a publication distributed by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, doctors must be satisfied that the patient's request is "voluntary and well-considered," and that there is "unbearable suffering with no prospect for improvement." The patient's doctor must consult at least one other independent doctor, who is responsible for ensuring the "due care criteria" is met.

After the termination of a patient's life, the death must be reported to the government and reviewed by regional committees composed of, at a minimum, a doctor, ethicist and legal expert.

Now, let's look at Santorum's three claims. We'll begin with a stunning claim that the elderly are so afraid of being euthanized for "budget purposes" that they wear "do not euthanize me" bracelets. We were told by a government official and a representative of a Dutch physicians' association that this is simply not true.

When we contacted the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, public health spokeswoman Inge Freriksen told us that "a bracelet asking not to be euthanized doesn't exist." Patients would only be euthanized after they followed the set of guidelines as outlined above.

Morning Quote: Michele Bachmann

“The Republican Party is extremely pro-woman.”

- During an interview on CNN, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) dismissed the concerns of Democratic lawmakers regarding the all male ‘conversation’ House Republicans had over contraception.

Pathetic.

Morning Quote: Rick Santorum

“[I]nterestingly enough, here is what they are forcing them to do — in an insurance policy, they or [sic] forcing them to pay for something that costs just a few dollars. Is that what insurance is for? The foundational idea that we have the [sic] government tells you that you have to pay for everything as a business. Things that are not really things you need insurance for, and still forcing on something [sic] that is not a critical economic need, when you have an economic distress, where you would need insurance. But forcing them even more to do it for minor expenses.”

- Rick Santorum, buffoonish leader of the GOP, says birth control is cheap. You don’t need no damn insurance to pay for it! And this candidate for the presidency of the United States, says it with numerous grammatical errors in his delivery.

(Maybe you see this as nitpicky, but honestly, I am very disinclined to once again call a man who can’t manage to speak the English language properly, the leader of the most powerful country on Earth. Not to mention the fact that we’re also the largest English-speaking nation on Earth.)

Moronic Quote of the Day: Rick Santorum

Santorum warns that Obama will lead us to execution of the religious via decapitation:

Rick Santorum continued to rail against President Obama’s so-called war against religion during a town hall in Plano, Texas Wednesday night. The former Pennsylvania senator — who has spent the last several days criticizing the government’s requirement that insurers provide contraception coverage and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision striking down Proposition 8 — accused the administration of “crushing” religion and setting the United States on the path towards executing religious people by decapitation:

SANTORUM: “They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is the government that gives you right, what’s left are no unalienable rights, what’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that, but if we do and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.”

And, according to the latest polling, this guy is the new favored leader of the Republicans. Seriously.

Morning Quote: President Obama

President Obama on the term "ObamaCare" so beloved by Republicans:

“I have no problem with folks saying ‘Obama Cares.’ I do care. If the other side wants to be the folks who don’t care, that’s fine with me.”

I've long thought  that we should turn it around on the right wing, and use the term as a badge of honor.

Watch:

America’s Wondrous Health Care System

The United States is No. 37 in the world. Yeah, we rock at health care.

Not only that, but due to our enviable health care system, life expectancy in many areas of the U.S. is actually declining. Yes, declining.

Andrew Sullivan:

The great healthcare system that the Republicans see as the lynchpin of our freedom has not exactly been doing a great job. It spends up to 50 percent more per capita than other countries and is now providing healthcare in which, in some regions, life-spans are actually declining. Money quote:

Large swaths of the United States are showing decreasing or stagnating life expectancy even as the nation’s overall longevity trend has continued upwards, according to a county-by-county study of life expectancy over two decades.

In one-quarter of the country, girls born today may live shorter lives than their mothers, and the country as a whole is falling behind other industrialized nations in the march toward longer life, according to the study.

The study itself: Life expectancy in most US counties falls behind world’s healthiest nations

Morning Quote: Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman spells out the difference between the Ryan Medicare Plan and the Affordable Care Act:

“….the ACA [Affordable Care Act] is specifically designed to ensure that insurance is affordable, whereas Ryancare just hands out vouchers and washes its hands. Specifically, the ACA subsidy system (pdf) sets a maximum percentage of income that families are expected to pay for insurance, on a sliding scale that rises with income. To the extent that the actual cost of a minimum acceptable policy exceeds that percentage of income, subsidies make up the difference.

Ryancare, by contrast, provides a fixed sum — end of story. And because this fixed sum would not grow with rising health care costs, it’s almost guaranteed to fall far short of the actual cost of insurance.

This is also why Ryancare is NOT premium support; it’s a voucher system. No matter how much they say it isn’t, that’s exactly what it is.”