Scott Brown is just another Republican in the long list of Republicans going back on their former positions to win an election.
In a debate on Monday, the former Massachusetts senator said that he always supported a woman’s choice and access to contraception. This is a new position of course, because Scott Brown is one of the co-sponsors of a legislation that blocks women’s access to the same thing he now says he always supported.
“To think that I don’t support women’s rights and ability to get contraception is just a false premise,” Brown said during the debate against Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). “I have since I was 18 years old.”
Talking Points Memo points out that the legislation Scott Walker previously sponsored, gave employers the right to take away contraception access from employees based on that employer’s belief.
But that was then and this is now. And according to Scott Walker’s new position, that legislation he recently co-sponsored happened before he turned 18.
Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas is a liar!
He is the same Ted Cruz who is on the front lines of the Republicans’ war on women, ensuring that contraception and other essential methods of health services for women get cut, defunded and destroyed – as is the case in his state of Texas.
In the midst of his personal vendetta to eradicate contraception and other forms of women’s health services, Cruz lied again by saying, “I have literally never met anybody who wants to prohibit Americans from using contraceptives.”
“They tried to convince Americans, and sadly they succeeded in convincing a number of Americans, that were somehow some people in the political sphere out to stop people from using contraceptives. I have literally never met anybody who wants to prohibit Americans from using contraceptives if they so desire. The allegation that there is somehow any effort at all to restrict access to contraceptives is looney, in the U.S. Senate the number of Senators advocating doing that is zero, they never have.”
Did you know? Tuesday, Republicans shot down a Senate effort to reverse the effects of the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision, the decision that gave religious rights to corporations, allowing them to deny contraception coverage to women.
Like most news in Washington these days, this Senate Republican blockage went practically unnoticed. Our news media is more interested in covering the dumbest factions of the Republican Party, then they are covering actual news. Like when Elizabeth Warren stood up and slammed the Republicans for continuing their war on women, that is something that should be talked about.
“I’ll be honest,” Warren said on the Senate floor. “I cannot believe we are even having a debate about whether employers can deny women access to birth control. Guys, this is 2014, not 1914. Most Americans thought this was settled long, long ago. But for some reason, Republicans keep dragging us back here over and over and over again.”
Warren called the Hobby Lobby case “just the most recent battle in an all-out Republican assault on women’s access to basic health care” and said while she found the Supreme Court ruling “stunning,” it was not entirely “surprising.”
“Giant corporations and their right-wing allies fight every day in Congress to protect their own privileges and to bend the laws to benefit themselves. They devote enormous resources to the task,” Warren said. “Sometimes, we beat them anyway.”
But while the Senate voted 56 to 43 to continue debate on the proposed bill — with three Republicans joining Democrats on the majority side — it did not reach the 60 vote threshold never to move forward.
It’s laughable indeed. These people have been on a rampage against everything woman and especially against women’s contraception. But now, in this election year, Republicans are trying to appear pro contraception, and it’s hilarious seeing the pretzel formations they’re twisting themselves into.
On Tuesday, after Senate Democrats introduced a measure to override the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on Hobby Lobby and clarify that for-profit companies must offer contraceptive coverage, their Republican colleagues announced some forthcoming legislation of their own. As the Hill reports, GOP leadership will introduce a bill that appears to be supportive of women’s access to birth control.
“We plan to introduce legislation this week that says no employer can block any employee from legal access to her FDA-approved contraceptives,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said. “There’s no disagreement on that fundamental point.”
If the final bill is along the lines of the initial reports, however, the GOP’s competing legislation likely wouldn’t do anything to change the status quo or ensure that Hobby Lobby employees have insurance coverage for contraception. Instead, it’s simply a way for Republicans to reinforce the point that the high court’s ruling on Hobby Lobby doesn’t inhibit women’s legal access to birth control.
The fact that women are still allowed to purchase every type of FDA-approved birth control has become the central argument used to downplay the impact of the Hobby Lobby case. Of course, it’s certainly true. Contraception remains legal, and the decision to allow some for-profit companies to refuse to cover some types of birth control on religious grounds doesn’t mean that all IUDs, for example, are now banned.
But legality isn’t exactly the same as accessibility. And the Hobby Lobby case was about the latter.
When you’re so against providing contraceptive to your female employees that you take your case all the way to the Supreme Court, you better make sure your business dealings and squeaky clean and represent those strong beliefs. Hobby Lobby’s business dealings are not squeaky clean.
Claiming religious beliefs, Hobby Lobby took issues with the Obamacare provision requiring contraception be part of an employee’s health care package. They took their case all the way to the Supreme Court and earlier this week the Supreme Court agreed that, base on Hobby’s religious beliefs, the company did not have to provide contraception to its employees. But when Mother Jones did some digging a few months ago, they found out that Hobby Lobby is making millions of dollars from… get this… contraception!
Mother Jones found that Hobby Lobby’s retirement plan had more than $73 million invested in companies that produced emergency contraception pills. It was that same type of birth control that Hobby Lobby said it had an objection to when it took its case to the Supreme Court. CNN needed some answers and put Hobby Lobby and their hypocrisy on full blast!
Enter CNN host Ashleigh Banfield.
“The critics are calling Hobby Lobby’s 401(k) investments hypocrisy at its finest,” Banfield emphasized on Wednesday, adding that CNN had not gotten an explanation from the company after giving it “plenty of time” to respond.
“I don’t even know where to begin on this one,” the CNN host remarked. “I kept thinking to myself, this had to be an accident. But then I thought, it’s no accident when you are in the middle of the biggest political storm — all the way to the Supreme Court — and, yet, your guys aren’t aware of what your investments are in your very, very large 401(k)?”
CNN Business Correspondent Alison Kosik said that it was possible that Hobby Lobby’s investments in contraception makers could have initially been an oversight, but she noted that the company could ask its mutual fund manager to forbid investments in certain companies.
“It would mean that Hobby Lobby employees would most likely have higher fees,” Kosik pointed out. “But if you ask me, my thought is, if they’re that fervent about upholding their biblical principles, maybe that should include their investments to.”
“That’s putting their money where their mouth is,” she concluded.
Tony Perkins, a staunch conservative and president of the Family Research Council, is in the news again. Now it’s not strange that Tony Perkins finds himself in the news, he’s known for saying some outlandish things that gets him the headlines. This time is no different.
In his program, Parkins spoke about the Department of Education’s investigation of 55 schools and universities that mishandled sexual assault cases. Perkins somehow made the connection that this investigation will lead to more condoms in schools, thus “tyranny.”
Speaking on his “Washington Watch” program, Perkins lamented “the sexualization that is taking place in our culture in general but on college campuses.”
“Contraception is made available as if it were candy which sends a message, well it’s there, it must be there for a reason, and then we’re surprised when — this is not justification, it’s wrong, we are all responsible for our actions — but we’re surprised when people act on these outside factors that they are surrounded by,” Perkins said. “It leads to tyranny.”
I cannot figure out why this blowhard would thrust himself even more into the spotlight when he knows his closet is filled with skeletons.
Yes, I could be talking about any Republican official in this post. Go ahead, name one of them and I will tell you about their particular closet. This post however, is dedicated to none other than blowhard Mike Huckabee.
We all remember about a week ago when Huckabee felt the need, no, the urge to make a speech about the Republicans’ war on women, including his explanation of “Uncle Sugar”, women’s libido and of course, contraception? His entire speech was quite controversial, I’m sure you remembered it. Well as fate would have it, this same Huckabee guy – an outspoken opponent of women’s health especially where providing contraception is concerned – provided mandatory contraception to the women of Arkansas when he was governor.
Huffington Post described Huckabee’s change in position as an “epic flip-flop,” noting that Huckabee defended his view at the time, saying that “Religious employers are not required to comply with this policy. My position is, and always has been, that religious entities shouldn’t be forced to pay for contraception.”
Abortifacients were exempted in the Arkansas legislation, the Arkansas Times noted, but the law appears even more comprehensive than the ACA, mandating coverage under health policies issued by institutions with religious affiliations if they don’t exist primarily for that purpose and don’t primarily employ people of that religion, a standard most religiously-affiliated hospitals and schools do not meet.
“The country wants Congress to focus on jobs and the economy, not on pushing an extreme agenda against birth control,” – Dawn Laguens, EVP, Planned Parenthood Federation of America
House Republicans have included a so-called “conscience clause” in the government funding bill in a plan they approved early Sunday.
The House voted 231-192 on a bill that would delay much of the 2010 health care reform package for a year. The bill also would try to repeal a tax on medical devices that helps finance the health care law.
The stated purpose of the measure is to allow employers and insurers the opportunity to opt out of providing health care services that they find morally or religiously objectionable, reigniting the debate over a portion of the health care reform law that requires most insurers to cover women’s preventative health care, including contraception. The provision would allow them to opt out of coverage for the next year.
House Republican leaders confirmed that the provision was added into the one-year delay of Obamacare during a House Rules Committee meeting on Saturday evening.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens called the move “desperate, misguided, and extreme”.
Mitt Romney is known as a flip flopper, we all know that. And sadly, we are slowly beginning to accept the fact that the man Republicans want to be the next leader of the free world, has no backbone, no real grounds to stand on. It is sad that we are accepting the fact that Romney can be influenced to change his position by anyone and everyone.
And another example of this came in the second Presidential debate. Mitt Romney, realizing that he was losing among women voters, came up with a brand new position – that he is now for contraception and against employers telling women what they can and cannot use in the privacy of their bedrooms.
This is the same Mitt Romney who, just a few months ago, stated his strong support for the Blunt Amendment. The Blunt Amendment says that employers are allowed to tell women what they can and cannot do in the bedroom.
Another radio station dropped Rush Limbaugh’s program on Monday.
Philadelphia CBS affiliate WPHT replaced Limbaugh’s show with the more moderate radio host Michael Smerconish. The New York Times reported that the move did not appear to be related to the controversy surrounding Georgetown University Law student Sandra Fluke, who Limbaugh repeatedly attacked on air for days, calling her a slut and a prostitute for advocating for insurance-covered health care.
In wake of Limbaugh’s offensive comments, two radio stations dropped his show last month, stating that the host crossed the line. More than 100 advertisers disassociated themselves with Limbaugh—including AOL, the parent company of The Huffington Post—and pulled content from his program.
This is one fight the Catholic Church is up for. They have found their voice and are determined to make the Contraception issue their main goal.
The issue – for those who have already moved on to more important things – is a policy that many Republican governors and the last Republican president have maintained over the last decade. It deals with providing contraception to women as part of their insurance coverage without a co-pay. This issue was not a problem for the Church when Republicans brought it up and in some cases demanded the Church pay for the coverage. But now that President Obama is continuing the policy, suddenly, the Bishops are up in arms.
Their argument it seems, states that requiring Religious organizations to provide contraception to their employees without a co-pay is immoral. So to satisfy the Bishops’ concern, the administration removed the requirement that religious organizations must pay for this benefit and placed that requirement on the insurance providers themselves.
But apparently, this move by the administration was not enough as Cardinal Timothy Dolan told CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday, “we didn’t ask for the fight, but we’re not going to back away from it.”
Meanwhile, Republican Paul Ryan and Congressional Republicans have all agreed on a budget that will strip needed services from the poor and put more money into the pockets of the rich. If Ryan’s budget passes, medicare as we know it along with other services that benefits the poor will end.
So far, these same Bishops and the Catholic Church are silent on the Ryan Budget.
The conclusion: Giving women the right to have contraception – something over 90% of Catholic women already enjoy – is a big no-no and the Church is willing to fight with everything they have to keep the dreaded contraception out of their hands. However, take away life saving benefits from the poor and the Catholic Church is apparently okay with that!
Appearing today on The View, Nikki Haley – the Republican governor of South Carolina – did her best to promote her new book, Can’t Is Not An Option, but managed instead to somehow continue the Republican war on women. Haley, considered a future star in the Republican party, informed the women of the view that women in general do not care about contraception.
“Women don’t care about contraception,” Haley said, “they care about jobs and their families…” She was cut off by Joy Behar, who bristled along with the rest of the panel and noted that women should care about contraception. “The media cares about contraception,” Haley tried again, and then concluded that while women might care about contraception, they just want to be able to make those decisions themselves, without government involvement.
Interesting position for a female Republican governor!
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