Contraception

So, today, we had a biased hearing on the government's position on employer based health benefits and whether religious organizations that accept federal funds and run secular services (hospitals, universities etc.) have the right to deny benefits to employees and users (read students) of those entitites even if those people are not of the same faith.

Only 2 women, both of whom were from religious organizations and supportive of the ban on contraception benefits, were allowed to testify (added after the additions to the witness list had been closed to a Georgetown University Law Student who would have testified for the government's position). And no public health professionals were invited to testify.

The hearing was so profoundly biased that the democrats in the hearing (at least three of whom are women and one of whom is a Catholic) left in protest.

While all this was happening, one of of Rick Santorum's wealthy SuperPAC donors, Foster Friess, was on Andrea Mitchell's show. Let's see what happened:

Damn. I always knew women were wanton and stupid, but I could never have put it so eloquently.

So, uh, dumb question, but he's saying that birth control in his day involved keeping one's legs closed, right? That is what he's saying?

Hahaha. Those good old days when women weren't whores. Or at least we could use pressure and family connections to make the men who knocked them marry them to save face. Or buy them abortions that we kept illegal for people without our money/family connections.

Women have loads of options you see. They can be rich. Or they can forego having any fun. Ever.

I like her response: "I'm just trying to catch my breath."

I'm not. I'm wondering how much gasoline to put in these empty bottles and how long to soak the rags.

Rush Limbaugh calls moman who wasn't allowed to testify at congressional hearing a slut

I just don't get how a prescription drug addict, caught with drugs not prescribed to him, married 4 times, can considered himself a pilar of morality, and have the balls to judge anyone else?

Gingrich goes beyond mere privilege. I mean, it's one thing to be blind to the huge deficit others have to operate in compared to what you have been granted. It's another to be so utterly two-faced, so massively hypocritical. The guy's a fucking 80s action movie villain.

*facepalm*

Just when you thought this country couldn't go backwards any faster.

And, hey, despite the horribly biased testimony, they still killed the bill.

Oh dear, just when you didn't think the pig couldn't get any more repulsive, he doubles down and says something sick like this. I'm honestly in shock to see the various forms a regressive legislation that have gathered so much traction within this country, it's as if an enormous rift opened across the middle of America, and legions of angry white men from some best forgotten era got sucked up and deposited into the capitals of states and DC around the country. I guess they've always been there, but WTF is wrong with America, I just hope people finally get their shit together and stop giving the assholes a voice. I honestly can't wait to see this generation in power fade (hopefully forever) into obscurity. I just thought it would have been sooner than later.

At least the legislation failed... Barely.

Limbaugh digs in further, says the female law student testifying about contraceptives should be forced to post online sex videos.

The thing about Limbaugh's comments is that as much as I'd prefer to ignore them as the trolling of an attention-whoring shock jock, that's too easy and too comforting.

The truth, as infuriating as it, is that Limbaugh is merely giving voice to what has amazingly become the mainstream party line of the Republican Party in 2012: that women who want access to birth control are morally deficient and deserve to be punished.

The bill that would have allowed employers to deny their employees access to contraceptives was supported by 45 of 46 Republicans. That ain't Rush Limbaugh on the Senate floor, folks - that's nearly the entirety of America's GOP representation.

Yup. Right now the fringe has become the mainstream in republican circles. So much so that congressional (republican) leaders haven't denounced limbaugh's remarks. The good news is that Krystal Ball, at someone else's suggestion, has started a twitter campaign to get sponsors to pull funding from his show and a number of them have. The guy was wealthy to begin with and is only wealthier now (because he gets a weekly audience of 20 million people apparently) but his show can still lose sponsors.

Getting back to the actual topic of insurance coverage of contraception. Here's what I wrote a little over a week ago.

This is and should be a non-issue. Why? Because employers have no right to put conditions on any compensation employees have earned. An employer does not have the right to withhold pay if they believe that an employee is going to waste that money or spend it on things that the employer doesn't like. Likewise, an employer has no right to tell an employee where they must invest their retirement funds. An employee can invest those funds in a company that makes missiles or in casinos or wherever and the employer, just like with salary, has no right to know how the employee uses that salary or invests those funds. Why? because these are all part of the compensation package that an employee recieves as a condition of working. Health insurance benefits (not health benefits) are the same.They are part of the compensation that an employer subsidizes (not all employers do and it should be also impressed that employees often contribute to the health insurance benefit through salary deductions). As such the health insurance benefit, just like retirement funds and salary are allowed to be conditions of the employers personal beliefs. An employer has no right to know how an employee uses that health insurance any more than they have a right to know how the employee uses their salary. In fact, unless the employee divulges that information of their own accord, it is not lawful for the employer to have that knowledge. it is a violation of the patient's (employee's) right to privacy.

Haha, fail. In my defense, nobody else noticed that I mixed up Gingrich and Limbaugh, either.

Also in your defense, the two are interchangeable for what you wrote.

I wish I could find the clip of limbaugh on Letterman's show. This was back in the late 80s or early 90s and limbaugh was at his hyperbolic best until Dave asked him how he got his first job. Limbaugh responded that he started at a small local radio station and Dave asked him who owned that station.

The station was owned by Limbaugh's parents. So Dave said, "so you don't really know what its like to have to try and find a job at all?"

Limbaugh could barely say a word after that. Priceless.

This is making the rounds kinda everywhere. So, yeah.

Rush Limbaugh's current sponsor list.
Please repost.

AutoZone (901) 495-6500
Bose Wave Radio 508-766-7781
Mission Pharmacal
(makers of Citracal) (800) 531-3333
General Steel Metal Buildings 1-888-98-STEEL
Hotwire Discount Travel 415-343-8444
Lending Tree (704) 541-5351
Life Quotes 1-800-670-5433
Select Comfort 763-551-7460
Mission Pharmacal
(makers of Thera-gesic) (800) 531-3333
Overstock.com (801) 947-3100

Here's the flaw in your argument: employers have the right to chose what benefits to give employees. They can, and do, pick health insurance plans based on costs and coverages. This includes drug plans. Both my current and former employers changed health insurers while I was employed. There are exceptions to that rule, such as terms of a labor contract.

Sleepnumber pulled it's support.

Obama gives Sandra Fluke a supportive phone call.

Also, we recently had an arsehole radio announcer named Kyle Sandilands make a really grotesque comment about a female journalist who wrote about him. Big social media/public relations backlash, and a significant withdrawal of sponsorship.

OMG FIRTS AMANDMANT

The list is shrinking.

EDIT: and old. Hotwire hasn't advertised with him for 5 years.

I'm having trouble with her not being allowed to testify with the fact that she's testifying.

While I'll concede the point she makes about contraceptives being used for other medical issues,
I have to wonder why:

a) She decided to attend a school with no contraception coverage with the full intention of being sexually active enough to need it.

b) She and her friends for whom contraceptives are about birth control don't just consider abstinance, if the contraceptives are causing them to go broke.

Abstinence does not help with the symptoms of PCOS.