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After the all-male panel on birth control in the House Oversight Committee last week (wait, I’m supposed to be fair and say that the SECOND panel of the day had a couple women on it), plenty of people joked on Twitter about an all-female panel on Viagra. House Democrats aren’t doing that, but they are giving their star witness from the Oversight Committee panel, the one Darrell Issa didn’t allow to testify, a chance to speak.
The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee will hold a hearing Thursday morning on women’s health. And there will be only one witness: Sandra Fluke, the third-year Georgetown law student who Oversight Committee Democrats wanted to testify at the birth control hearing.
According to Greg Sargent, this is the beginning of a more concerted effort to highlight women’s health.
“Women members are going to have a regular opportunity to go to the floor and talk about women’s health,” the aide says. He adds that female lawmakers will be using the upcoming second anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act to highlight GOP opposition to the contraception coverage mandate.
“That’s the temporal marker where a lot of this is going to be coming up again,” the aide says. Democrats are hoping to use this fight to relitigate health care reform on turf more favorable to them, by casting this battle as one over birth control and women’s health — and by arguing that the GOP sees both as lesser priorites than catering to hidebound cultural values right out of the 1950s.
We see this playing out right now in Virginia, where two days of powerful silent protests, mostly by women, against a bill that would force women seeking an abortion to get a trans-vaginal ultrasound have delayed a vote in the House of Delegates.
If nothing else, the birth control contretemps let millions of American women know that the Affordable Care Act included a measure that provided birth control coverage without a co-pay as part of all basic insurance plans. That’s probably enough to demarcate the lines on women’s health. But a tighter focus from House Democrats will only advance that.
UPDATE: And now Republican Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, seen as a potential VP candidate in the future, has officially hedged on the ultrasound bill, which is causing the party all kinds of problems. They’re now looking for a “compromise.” Good luck with that.
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I’ll bet there isn’t one GOPer at that hearing. And I’ll further bet that the MSM does not report significantly on it.
Boxturtle (Why will no one take my bets?)
Weak tea.
Women are door mats.
Seriously, does anyone know if these health insurance plans… the one which The Church People™ demand must never include coverage for women’s contraceptive pills… already include coverage for vasectomies? I know Jon Stewart made hay with their coverage for Viagra, but vasectomies seem much more analogous to their view of what contraceptive pills do… namely, allow sex for fun instead of for procreation. Of course, we know their narrow view omits all the other health benefits of the pill… but curious about vasectomies.
Compromise this, you sorry sonsabitches…
Link.
Tammany’s Law: The people most loyal to the Democratic Party are the people most likely to be betrayed by it.
The Obama White House has viewed women as expendable (“who the hell else are they going to vote for?”) and consistently thrown them overboard in a vain effort to persuade two swing voters in Macomb County, Michigan, that Obama is not a socialist.
I got the ‘what’s your choice’ treatment when I complained to his representatives about O’s vote on FISA at NN in summer 07. I was already pretty down on the asshole, but that was one of the times I saw the future clearly.
I was at NN that year as well. What spoke volumes to me was the presidential candidates’ reaction to the moderator’s question about abuse of Executive Branch power. The candidates reacted as though some had let a skunk loose in their midst. It was clear to me that every one of them saw nothing wrong with limitless presidential power–provided they got to wield it.
I don’t remember that. I guess I just remember my personal encounters.
Had one with Susan Rice, too. I told her O would still be in Iraq & Afghanistan when O ran for reelection. She couldn’t have been nastier, her exact lecturing hectoring tone of voice she uses at the U.N. Of course she denied it altogether and looked at me like I had two heads.
BTW, tammany, I sent an email to Maloney (my rep when I lived in Manhattan) calling her a doormat & a corp sellout.
I was on the wrong end of a finger wagged by a lesser light–namely, Dana Houle. He responded to my angry comments about the FISA vote* with the standard “if you knew Washington, you’d understand” argument. I wasn’t exactly edified.
* Bob Cesca has a great analysis of the Bush White House’s fear-mongering campaign over amending FISA in his book, “One Nation Under Fear.”
Quite a testy woman advocate on W/J this morning. It is intolerable the the attempt of religious whack jobs in America to impose their beliefs on others using law.
Reminiscent of how slave-holders fought tooth and nail to protect a way of life, predicated on ownership of human beings? The issue as framed by the whack jobs, is a rouse.
The freedom to practice one’s religious faith has nothing to due with tax exempt religious corporations, imposing religious doctrine on woman in a secular setting, employment, or using law to usurp the choices the most discriminated class of people in the history of the world, Woman? These people are simply fucked up! As I recall it was people of moral character who called for the abolition of slavery aided by Abe Lincoln and Radical Republicans? These “folks,” make me want to vomit!
This is a despicable bill. More despicable than the one that passed here in Texas and is likely on it’s way to the SCOTUS. The only thing more despicable is that the Obama administration has been totally silent about this. What the hell do those people in the west wing do all day???
I NEVER trust guys named Dana.
Amazing how obvious the O administration would look like from its reps at that convention. Followed by his appointment of economics team. I didn’t know much about the foreign policy people at that time, but I did know the economics ones.
I recently had another vision of the future: O’s second term. I’ve been saying for months that it would be much worse than his first bc he doesn’t have to pretend anymore to run for reelection. Voter disenfranchising. Including women, as well as minorities. Giving federal land to his buddies in the HC industry, outright looting of 401ks (haven’t figured out how they’re going to do that yet), instead of just privatizing pension plans and collecting fees to manage them. H&HS gone under the frog boil guise of govt efficiency.
One’s imagination is not rich enough to figure out what they have in store for us.
Your correct. Except when her self interest is involved and by default, interests of American woman, employed by religious institutions. To bad she did not get up and vote no on issues in congress that have gutted the republic?
And that assumes no major terrorist attack inside the U.S. If one occurs, Obama’s legal team will obediently draw up the modern version of the Reichstag Fire Decree.
Of course.
And since voter turnout will be about 30%, to extend your analogy, O will “win” with 15%-20% of eligible voters. Hitler’s highest was either 32% or 38%, I forget which, and I think those %s are of the actual vote (multiparty system). So flawed analogy to some degree, but not in making the general point that you can become dictator by having voters elect you.
Women are either door mats or alpha females. Maloney’s the former, Hillary’s the latter.
I spit on both.
I believe it was 37 percent, and their vote share had fallen in 1933 from its 1932 peak. However, there were other right-wing figures who thought Hitler could be contained within a coalition government. They were wrong.
I’m reading Richard Evans’s The Third Reich in Power. Democratic strategists ought to take a couple of nights off from the cocktail-weenie circuit and read about how the Nazis worked within a nominally democratic system to gain power. I’m not equating the GOP to the Nazis, but I do say that they’re several orders of magnitude more ruthless than the Democrats (as is the average house cat), and they have an agenda that goes farther than what they admit to (see McDonnell, Bob).
I listened to a college lecture on Third Reich. Childers is superb. I listened several times, but it was awhile ago, so I’ve forgotten a lot of the particulars. I thought for a bit that Rove might have been a student of the era, but decided subsequently that Rove can’t hold a candle to what went on in Germany.
Gotta love that 2012 NDAA… It is already here
It’s ok if men have sex for fun. It’s verrrrrrrry bad if women do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire#Political_consequences
Political consequences
The day after the fire Hitler asked for and received from President Hindenburg the Reichstag Fire Decree, signed into law by Hindenburg using Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. The Reichstag Fire Decree suspended most civil liberties in Germany[5] and was used by the Nazis to ban publications not considered “friendly” to the Nazi cause. Despite the fact that Marinus van der Lubbe claimed to have acted alone in the Reichstag fire, Hitler, after having obtained his emergency powers, announced that it was the start of a Communist plot to take over Germany. Nazi newspapers blared this “news”.[5] This sent the Germans into a panic and isolated the Communists further among the civilians; additionally, thousands of Communists were imprisoned in the days following the fire (including leaders of the Communist Party of Germany) on the charge that the Party was preparing to stage a putsch. With Communist electoral participation also suppressed (the Communists had previously polled 17% of the vote), the Nazis were able to increase their share of the vote in the March 5, 1933, Reichstag elections from 33% to 44%.[6] This gave the Nazis and their allies, the German National People’s Party (who won 8% of the vote), a majority of 52% in the Reichstag.[6]
Then the Nazis orchestrated an inside black ops like attack to create the appearance of “threat” to zee homeland!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident
The rest is “rancid” history!
And will/is history repeat/ing itself?
Numerous letters to the editor in the nooz paper decrying the Issa panel of old white men lecturing & hectoring women about their reproductive issues.
Now this weak sauce? PUH-LEEZE.
I got an email from “Nancy Pelosi” with some subject line that was “het up” about Issa. I refuse to read anything from any pol anymore; just note their BOGUS bullshit subject lines.
Like: Nancy Pelosi’s gonna do squat. Corp sell out. She got hers a long time ago, and all other women are door mats for Nancy to scrape her expensive Christian Laboutin’s on.
PTOUI!!!!!!!
What a load of crap this is.
I’ve been thinking about this Abortion issue for most of my life, and trying to come up with a compromise. I don’t claim this is a solution yet, it still needs a lot more fleshing out. . . In that vain I’d like to hear your thoughts to make it better. Here’s what I’m thinking could be a basis to build a compromise on:
If a woman decides she wants to abort her pregnancy, she can, but the doctor preforming the abortion will do everything medically possible to save the life of the baby.
The doctor trying to save the baby is the only change, of course for early stage abortions before 14 weeks it almost impossible to save the baby’s life.
Or you could let the baby be born and then kill it with a bullet, bomb or Hellfire missile from a Predator drone. Or die of cholera from contaminated water when we destroy the water systems with sanctions. Worry about abortion only after you have solved the moral issue of war which is the main preventable killer of children. Then starvation. Maybe then elective abortion.
There is only one solution to prevent wars, and that is to teach all children that all forms of killing is wrong. This would be a small first step in that direction.
I hope the hell not! This is an attempt to draw analogies and preclude a repeat in history. No American can afford to be silent anymore, as where…. Silent Germans. Oh yes let’s not forget the utter silence of Rome!
http://www.adl.org/braun/dim_14_1_role_church.asp
“Churches throughout Europe were mostly silent while Jews were persecuted, deported and murdered by the Nazis. Churches, especially those in Nazi Germany, sought to act, as institutions tend to do, in their own best interests — narrowly defined, short-sighted interests.”
Guess their not to silent when it come to maintaining a woman’s “servitude” to men or religious doctrine! They suck!
INQUISITION look into it….Burning Women Alive, catholic church….hell am i the only one who ever read of this
Men, stand up for the women you love…..do not stand idly by while we become germany 1932….Burned Women Alive…..catholic church….
come on, am i also the only one who has either taken or delivered an ass kicking to a bully…..stand up to these sick little boys….now….