enlarge

Credit: Clay Jones - Fredricksburg Free Lance-Star

The right-wing noise machine has attempted to make the contraception argument about who "pays" for birth control, and Rush Limbaugh and commenters on Fox have gone so far as to claim that contraception advocates "want me to pay for them to have sex."

The debate was instigated by concerns at Georgetown University, a Catholic institution that does not provide contraception through their student health insurance program.

It is shocking to discover, then, that undergraduate students pay over $1800 per year for health insurance.

Until we get single payer, taxpayer-funded insurance for all, health insurance will continue to be a product that is bought and sold in the marketplace. Health insurance reform breaks up monopolies in that area and also regulates abuses from the sale of that insurance product. It is not out of line to compare the health insurance product to the car insurance product. (Except for the little inconvenient fact that people without health insurance are not as healthy and are more likely to die due to lack of medical care.) If I buy a car and insurance for it, I'm going to buy collision insurance. I'm not going to buy a policy that doesn't have collision insurance attached to it, and by the way insurance LAW says I can't anyway. I have to have that coverage. Now, because I have a womb and ovaries, the healthcare reform law says I have to have health coverage for those organs, and that insurance companies and employers can't separate them out from the total person and not cover them because any person who uses those organs outside of a specific religious dictum is a "slut." Sorry, boys, "sluts" who pay for their health insurance get covered same as anybody.

Couples of family-bearing age and yes, young women who are FERTILE, use birth control for family planning. Even in an unregulated market, husbands and wives, men and the women who love them, are not going to buy an insurance policy that does not cover that medicine. And now the laws regulating health insurance says that that medicine has to be covered, because NOT covering it is discriminating against women simply because they have reproductive organs that get them pregnant.

Finally, this is a non-issue. Blue Cross covers birth control pills, diaphragms, hormone implants, the whole shebang because it's good business.

Continue reading »

It's Thursday, and the list of advertisers dropping Limbaugh is growing. Losing advertisers isn't good enough. Let's get him off the air all together.

World Under Control: Kudos to This Veteran For Standing Up For Voter Rights. In 2012 it's important not to "let anybody turn us back."

Mugsy's Rap Sheet: It Couldn't Be More Clear: GOP Running Against Fictional President With Fictional Record

Rude Pundit: Photos That Make Me Want to Snort Tang Off the Bridge of Callista's Nose

Fablog: Yes, We Have No Bananas

Round up by Swimgirl.(tweeter @miamiswimmer) Send tips to mbru AT crooksandliars.com.

enlarge

Credit: Blue Gal

Related: Newt falls asleep at AIPAC. Also, "Newt-a-Mania" was actually on the campaign signs at the victory celebration in Georgia last night. Callista's idea? Ya think?

Open thread below....

Brian Wilson released 'Caroline, No' 46 years ago today as a solo single. In an interview with examiner.com, Wilson explains that "Caroline, No” was a chance for me to express my more effeminate side, and express that demon". Wow.

Caroline, No (The Stereo Mix) (1996 Digital Remaster)
	Price: $0.99 (As of 03/08/12 05:42 am details)

DOWNLOADS: (85)

PLAYS: (177)

Embed

In his victory speech Tuesday night, in addition to lying about what Obama said about gas prices, Newt peddled the Palinesque fantasy that "drill, baby drill" is the answer to all our energy problems and also added (starts around 2:15):

GINGRICH: The price of gasoline when I was Speaker [ed. and Bill Clinton was President] was $1.13. The price of gasoline when Barack Obama became president was $1.89. All of this gigantic increase came from his policies.

Really? Well, from 2001-2009, when we had President Arbusto and Vice President Halliburton in the White House, the price of gas nearly tripled — reaching a high of $4.28 per gallon in May 2008 before crashing with the global economy.

And with the Obama recovery, the price has rebounded, but still isn't as high as it was under the Republican oilmen.

So which of Bush/Cheney's "policies" caused the price of gas to go up so much under their watch? And since Republicans controlled all levers of government for four years, why didn't they enact this brilliant "drill everywhere" plan to lower it?

I blame Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and PETA.

Also, the Chevy Volt.

Two weeks ago, Mitt Romney unveiled what he has repeatedly deemed a "bold" plan to deliver a 20 percent across-the-board tax cut. As it turns out, the plan isn't so bold after all. For starters, it's largely a retread of the 15 percent tax cut scheme Bob Dole rode to defeat in 1996. And after a wave of analyses showed Romney's plan would produce oceans of red ink while giving the rich yet another payday courtesy of the U.S. Treasury, Mitt admitted today that his plan "can't be scored" because "I haven't laid out all of the details."

As The Hill reported today, the GOP frontrunner is now essentially claiming he deserves an "A" because the dog ate his homework:

"So I haven't laid out all of the details about how we're going to deal with each deduction, so I think it's kind of interesting for the groups to try and score it, because frankly it can't be scored, because those kinds of details will have to be worked out with Congress, and we have a wide array of options."

As Ezra Klein's Wonkblog rightly concluded:

"Let's be clear on this: A tax plan that can't be scored because it doesn't include sufficient details is not a plan. It's a gesture towards a plan, or a statement of intended direction, or perhaps an unusually wonky daydream. But it's not a plan."

Romney's may not be a plan, but it is a recipe. At a time of record income inequality, the lowest federal tax burden in 60 years, and large budget deficits without listing all of his ingredients, Mitt Romney is just offering a recipe for exploding national debt and a windfall for the wealthy.

As the Washington Post explained in its discussion of an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, "until the campaign offers a more specific plan, Budget Watch analysts said Romney's entire framework would add about $2.6 trillion to the debt by 2021." That's likely a conservative estimate. As ThinkProgress and the Washington Post's Lori Montgomery and Ezra Klein documented, Mitt Romney's risky new scheme makes George W. Bush look like Karl Marx:

Romney's claim that his plan would promote job and economic growth while reducing the deficit is also likely false. The Bush tax cuts were promoted under the same guise, only to blow a $2.5-trillion hole in the federal budget that was accompanied by worst performance of any post-war expansion" for growth in investment, GDP, and job creation. Romney's tax cuts are even more expensive, clocking in at a cost of more than $10.7 trillion over the next decade and reducing revenue to a paltry 15 percent of GDP, according to Linden. Balancing the budget on those terms, as Romney claims he will do, would be next to impossible.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (143)

PLAYS: (1861)

Embed

Mitt Romney's pathetic efforts to stain the President's track record when it comes to foreign policy ring hollow and are actually dangerous, or could be. During his news conference yesterday, President Obama addressed Mitt Romney's irresponsible comments about war with Iran in recent days. Here's a sample:

“Yet, the current administration has promoted a policy of engagement with Iran,” he continued. “The president not only dawdled in opposing sanctions, he’s opposed them. Hope is not a foreign policy. The only thing respected by thugs and tyrants is our resolve, backed by our power and our readiness to use it.”

Earlier this week in Snellville, Georgia, Romney told an 11-year-old boy that the world would be one step closer to nuclear war if President Barack Obama was allowed another term in office.

“If Barack Obama gets re-elected, Iran will have a nuclear weapon and the world will change if that’s the case,” he said.

This follows on the heels of his irresponsible statements at the last debate about how he, and he alone, would prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

President Obama had some choice words for him and any other Republican candidate who thinks war with Iran is a good idea.

OBAMA: At this stage, it is my belief that we have a window of opportunity where this can still be resolved diplomatically. That's not just my view -- that's the view of our top intelligence officials, it's the view of top Israeli intelligence officials. And as a consequence, we are going to continue to apply the pressure, even as we provide a door for the Iranian regime to walk through, where they could rejoin the community of nations, by giving assurances to the international community that they are meeting their obligations and they are not pursuing a nuclear weapon. That's my track record.

Now, what's said on the campaign trail, you know, those folks don't have a lot of responsibilities. They're not commander in chief. And when I see the casualness with which some of these folks talk about war, I'm reminded of the costs involved in war. I'm reminded of the decision that I have to make, in terms of sending our young men and women into battle, and the impacts that has on their lives, the impact it has on our national security, the impact it has on our economy.

This is not a game, and there's nothing casual about it. And, you know, when I see some of these folks who had a lot of bluster and a lot of big talk, but when you actually ask them, specifically, what they would do, it turns out they repeat the things that we've been doing over the last three years. It indicates to me that that's more about politics than actually trying to solve a difficult problem.

Continue reading »

Republican candidates endured a miserable turnout and a split electorate on Super Tuesday. But in Ohio, President Obama beat them all.

Yes, that's right. President Obama got more votes last night than Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum. Ari Berman at The Nation has the story:

Lost amid the post–Super Tuesday analysis is the fact that Barack Obama actually got more votes than Mitt Romney in the crucial battleground state of Ohio last night, 547,588 to 456,205, according to the Ohio secretary of state.

That statistic is largely symbolic, but it is indicative of Romney’s weaknesses as a candidate (and Obama’srebounding strength), which has become magnified as the GOP primary goes on. Self-identified Republicans made up 69 percent of GOP primary voters in Ohio, but only 65 percent of GOP primary voters said they would “definitely” vote for the GOP nominee in November.

The real story of the GOP primary—and Super Tuesday—is not that Romney won't be the GOP nominee (he will be, eventually), but how bruised he will be entering the general election. The polling on Romney over the past week has been dreadful for the Republican frontrunner.In the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, Obama leads Romney by six points (50-44) among all voters, seven points among independents (46-39) and eighteen points among women (55-37). Last year Romney led Obama among working-class white voters by 14 points (52-38); now that lead is down to five. Notes Ron Brownstein: “By comparison, in 2008 non-college white voters backed John McCain over Obama by a resounding 58 percent to 40 percent; Republicans won even more of them (63 percent) in the 2010 Congressional election…. No Democratic presidential nominee since 1988 has carried more than 44 percent of non-college white voters.” Romney’s blue-collar problem is one of many he’ll face entering a general election.

According to Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, Obama leads Romney by twenty-five points (65-30) among unmarried women—a crucial segment of the Democratic base that dropped off in 2010. And he leads Romney by a staggering fifty-six points among Latino voters (70-14), a twenty-point improvement for Obama over John McCain in 2008. If these numbers hold, Obama will defeat Romney in every Western swing state and almost certainly win re-election.

I doubt those numbers will hold. Things will almost certainly tighten. But what this primary has done to Mitt Romney will haunt him in the general election, because he will not be able to walk back to the center from the right. His comments on immigration, women, health care, and gay rights will do much harm to him with groups he will need to win. That's why the Latino and single women statistics are staggering.

My question is who Romney will pull in as a running mate to attract the ultra-conservative Republicans, and whether they will be as irresponsible or galvanizing as Sarah Palin was to the McCain campaign in 2008.

The clown car parade continues.

For the second time in four months, Mitt Romney has penned a tough-talking op-ed on the Iranian nuclear program. But this time, the almost certain GOP presidential nominee has introduced a new riff to his constant refrain that "If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. If you elect me as president, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon." Now in his Washington Post piece and again in his speech Tuesday to AIPAC, Romney has portrayed himself as a modern day Ronald Reagan who will force Tehran to give up its nuclear ambitions just as it did the 52 U.S. hostages in 1981. Unfortunately, Mitt forgot the full story of the Gipper's experience with Iran. As it turned out, in the Iran-Contra scandal that almost ended his presidency, Ronald Reagan gave the mullahs in Tehran not a show of American might, but a cake, a Bible - and U.S. arms.

Romney first Reagan impersonation appeared in Monday's Washington Post as a follow up to November's "I Won't Let Iran Get Nukes." In it, he cast Barack Obama as "America's most feckless president since Carter" and cast himself as the Gipper:

Beginning Nov. 4, 1979 , dozens of U.S. diplomats were held hostage by Iranian Islamic revolutionaries for 444 days while America's feckless president, Jimmy Carter, fretted in the White House. Running for the presidency against Carter the next year, Ronald Reagan made it crystal clear that the Iranians would pay a very stiff price for continuing their criminal behavior. On Jan. 20, 1981, in the hour that Reagan was sworn into office, Iran released the hostages. The Iranians well understood that Reagan was serious about turning words into action in a way that Jimmy Carter never was.

Speaking by satellite Tuesday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy (AIPAC) Conference, Mitt again donned his Reagan mask (around the 8:40 mark above):

"I believe the right course is what Ronald Reagan called 'peace through strength.' There is a reason why the Iranians released the hostages on the same day and at the same hour that Reagan was sworn into office. As President, I will offer that kind of clarity, strength, and resolve."

Apparently, Mitt Romney wasn't paying attention to the rest of Reagan's performance. That would be the part when Ronald Reagan swapped arms for hostages with Ayatollah Khomeini.

The Iran-Contra scandal, as you'll recall, almost laid waste to the Reagan presidency. Desperate to free U.S. hostages held by Iranian proxies in Lebanon, President Reagan provided weapons Tehran badly needed in its long war with Saddam Hussein (who, of course, was backed by the United States). In a clumsy and illegal attempt to skirt U.S. law, the proceeds of those sales were then funneled to the contras fighting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. And as the New York Times recalled, Reagan's fiasco started with an emissary bearing gifts from the Gipper himself:

A retired Central Intelligence Agency official has confirmed to the Senate Intelligence Committee that on the secret mission to Teheran last May, Robert C. McFarlane and his party carried a Bible with a handwritten verse from President Reagan for Iranian leaders.

According to a person who has read the committee's draft report, the retired C.I.A. official, George W. Cave, an Iran expert who was part of the mission, said the group had 10 falsified passports, believed to be Irish, and a key-shaped cake to symbolize the anticipated ''opening'' to Iran.

The rest, as they say, is history. After the revelations regarding his trip to Tehran and the Iran-Contra scheme, a disgraced McFarlane attempted suicide. (That would be the same Bud McFarlane whose endorsement Newt Gingrich touted during a reecent GOP debate.) After his initial denials, President Reagan was forced to address the nation on March 4, 1987 and acknowledge he indeed swapped arms for hostages (video here):

"A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages."

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (166)

PLAYS: (1934)

Embed

A blogger on Tuesday published a video showing how he had snuck a small metal case through the Transportation and Security Administration's (TSA) "billion dollar fleet" of so-called nude body scanners.

Engineer Jonathan Corbett, who runs the blog TSA Out of Our Pants, explained that the problem lies in how the scanner uses dark colors to highlight potential threats like weapons or explosives.

"Again that’s light figure, black background, and BLACK threat items," he explained. "Yes that’s right, if you have a metallic object on your side, it will be the same color as the background and therefore completely invisible to both visual and automated inspection."

"To put it to the test, I bought a sewing kit from the dollar store, broke out my 8th grade home ec skills, and sewed a pocket directly on the side of a shirt. Then I took a random metallic object, in this case a heavy metal carrying case that would easily alarm any of the 'old' metal detectors, and walked through a backscatter x-ray at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport."

Again at Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport, Corbett successfully carried his small, empty metal case through the scanners.

"While I carried the metal case empty, by one with mal-intent, it could easily have been filled with razor blades, explosives, or one of Charlie Sheen’s infamous 7 gram rocks of cocaine," he warned. "With a bigger pocket, perhaps sewn on the inside of the shirt, even a firearm could get through."

Last year, Corbett filed a lawsuit (PDF) against the TSA, claiming that the agency had violated his Fourth Amendment rights. That suit was dismissed earlier this year and he filed another lawsuit on 21 additional counts, including false arrest, violating the Civil Rights Act, infliction of emotional distress and conspiracy.

"Now, I’m sure the TSA will accuse me of aiding the terrorists by releasing this video, but it’s beyond belief that the terrorists haven’t already figured this out and are already plotting to use this against us," he opined in his Tuesday video. "The TSA is worse than ineffective: they are an epic fail placing us all in danger. ... We must all stand together and demand an end to the organization that molests our families while placing us in danger by directly ignoring blatant security flaws."

(H/T: Mashable)