Good news — the Department of Health and Human Services under the direction of Kathleen Sebelius has announced nearly universal coverage of contraception in employer healthcare plans.
Today, in a huge victory for women's health, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that most employers will be required to cover contraception in their health plans, along with other preventive services, with no cost-sharing such as co-pays or deductibles. This means that after years of trying to get birth control covered to the same extent that health plans cover Viagra, our country will finally have nearly universal coverage of contraception. [...]
Twenty-eight states already require employers, including most religiously affiliated institutions, to cover contraception in their health plans. The only change is that now they must cover the full cost.
The right wing outrage will be palpable, but the joke is on them because this will undoubtedly lead to fewer abortions and fewer unwanted pregnancies. The connection between readily accessible reproductive healthcare and lower abortion rates is something they always neglect to mention while sermonizing the War on Women.
Employers have one year to comply with the new rules.
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I want to be coldly analytical, not moralize, here. I want to tell you what Mr. Gingrich's behavior could mean for the country, not for the future of his current marriage. So, here's what one interested in making America stronger can reasonably conclude—psychologically—from Mr. Gingrich's behavior during his three marriages:
1) Three women have met Mr. Gingrich and been so moved by his emotional energy and intellect that they decided they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with him.
2) Two of these women felt this way even though Mr. Gingrich was already married.
3 ) One of them felt this way even though Mr. Gingrich was already married for the second time, was not exactly her equal in the looks department and had a wife (Marianne) who wanted to make his life without her as painful as possible.
Conclusion: When three women want to sign on for life with a man who is now running for president, I worry more about whether we'll be clamoring for a third Gingrich term, not whether we'll want to let him go after one.
4) Two women—Mr. Gingrich's first two wives—have sat down with him while he delivered to them incredibly painful truths: that he no longer loved them as he did before, that he had fallen in love with other women and that he needed to follow his heart, despite the great price he would pay financially and the risk he would be taking with his reputation.
The never-ending, cross-party revolving door in Washington has to stop. They're fleecing America, and care more about themselves than they do the country. Reuters
Super PAC spending has now surpassed the $30 million mark (full breakdown from the Center for Responsive Politics here). Paul Blumenthal explains the shift depicted in the above chart:
Super PACs supporting the remaining four Republican candidates have spent $7.1 million in South Carolina. Nearly all of that money comes from [Gingrich's PAC] Winning Our Future and the pro-Romney Restore Our Future, which have spent $2.93 million and $2.84 million, respectively, to launch attacks against each other's candidate. That's a dramatic departure from the terms of battle in Iowa, where Gingrich had promised to run a positive campaign, only to watch his campaign and super PAC being woefully outspent by the Romney machine. After going down in flames at the hands of Restore Our Future, Gingrich pledged to turn his campaign to the dark side and, voila, negative ads were unleashed by the pro-Gingrich super PAC.
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It looks like Chris Dodd, who yesterday was launching threats at the President, may have overstepped his bounds just a tad:
The White House appeared to brush back a suggestion from the Motion Picture Association of America on Friday that the president step in on negotiations over controversial online piracy legislation.MPAA Chairman and former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) suggested Thursday that the White House would be the perfect place to convene a summit between Hollywood and the tech industry, which are at odds over a pair of online piracy bills that were shelved by congressional leadership Friday morning following massive protests earlier in the week.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said the Obama administration has made its position clear on the issue and appeared to dismiss the suggestion in a press briefing on Friday. The White House expressed concern about the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act last week, adding fuel to the growing opposition.
Obama rode into the White House on the backs of a tech savvy operation made up of people, who, unlike Chris Dodd and too many congresscritters to count, actually understand the internet. It's not surprising that the Obama admin understands why these bills suck and opposed them. That Dodd was just trying to throw his weight around yesterday just makes this all the sweeter.
BTW, via the always excellent Jon Rogers, here is a great rundown of why the bills were so bad, from a tv writer's perspective.
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I'm not sure which one of Mitt Romney's mansions he considers to be on the "real streets" of America, but here he was attempting to paint himself as some Washington outsider, everyday businessman during the CNN Republican primary debate.
Think Progress summed this up pretty nicely:
It's unclear whether those "real streets" are the ones by Romney's beach house in California, his mansion in New Hampshire, or his multi-million dollar "colonial" in Massachusetts. Of course, Romney has attempted to paint himself as an everyday, middle-class guy before. But as a Wall Street millionaire who keeps money in offshore accounts and is comfortable making $10,000 bets, it's seems like most streets Romney spends time on are the ones paved in gold.
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On Thursday, Willard got very testy with an Occupy protestor who dared to ask him what he was going to do for the 99 percent. Check out this response.
Let me tell you something. America is a great nation, because we're a united nation. And those who are trying to divide the nation, as you're trying to do here, and as our president is doing, are hurting this country seriously. The right course for America is not to try to divide America, and try and divid us between one and another. it's to come together as a nation.
And if you've got a better model — if you think China's better, or Russia's better, or Cuba's better, or North Korea's better — I'm glad to hear all about it.
First of all, since when are Republicans opposed to dividing Americans? These people invented division as a tactic to win elections.
Nixon's Southern Strategy and "Silent Majority." Reagan's "Welfare Queens." Bush/Cheney's "With Us or Against Us." Palin's "Real America."
Not to mention the constant demonizing of immigrants, homosexuals, teachers, union members, Occupy Wall Streeters, Democrats, "elites," academics, Hollywood, Muslims, scientists, progressives, anti-war protestors, attorneys, environmentalists, the media, California -- and on and on.
Also, someone might want to point out to Willard that Russia hasn't been a communist country since he was making millions by raiding corporations and firing workers.
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Charles Pierce: Our Mr. Brooks Climbs the Romney Family Tree
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You don't even have to read past the headline to know that Thomas and Scalia were the two nutcases who dissented. "An Alabama death row prisoner should not be prevented from appealing because he missed a deadline after his lawyers dropped his case and failed to tell him, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled by a 7-2 vote Wednesday. ... The two lawyers at the New York office of Sullivan and Cromwell did not alert Alabama court authorities that they were withdrawing, so that when a court clerk sent papers to the lawyers, the firm's mailroom sent them back unopened and marked, "Return to Sender -- Left Firm" and "Returned to Sender -- Attempted, Unknown." ... "Abandoned by counsel, (Cory) Maples was left unrepresented at a critical time ... and he lacked any clue of any need to protect himself," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority. "In these circumstances, no just system would lay the default (arising from a missed deadline) at Maples' death-cell door." ... The justices reversed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit against Maples, who was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1995 killings of two companions after a night of heavy drinking. ... Only Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. They insisted that a state can enforce its deadlines and other procedures related to death penalty appeals even when lawyers are to blame."
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Swingrich says 'work is a strange, distant concept' to Juan Williams.
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That god he worships can't really exist, otherwise his tongue would have flipped off its rollers. "The Family Research Council's Tony Perkins appeared on MSNBC this morning to discuss last night's GOP presidential debate and the recent revelations that Newt Gingrich allegedly asked his second wife for an open marriage. ... The conservative leader -- who regularly condemns gay people, "churns out brochures that compare same-sex marriages to those bonds which might exist between a man and a horse," likens gays to terrorists, calls LGBT rights a battle of "good versus evil," and claims gay teens kill themselves because they know that they're "abnormal" -- expressed concern about Gingrich's personal past, but also raised questions about the wisdom of asking about his marriage during the debate. Ultimately, he suggested that Evangelical Christians are "not judgmental" and understanding, and could embrace a candidate who has sinned."
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How a modern democracy regresses to the Dark Ages
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Wonkette: Wingnuts 'uniting behind Santorum', obviously
What are the Christian wingnut conservative Republicans doing about 2012 now? Uniting behind Santorum, of course! Because when you're stuck with a slate of candidates including a liberal billionaire foreigner who loves the wrong Jesus and a repulsive kidney-shaped punching bag who is so venal and amoral he makes Bill Clinton look like a family man, what are you going to do, support the principled libertarian Texan family man with three decades of campaign success? No, of course not. You're going to support the corrupt airhead dipshit who believes abortions are okay for his wife but a FELONY for everyone else in America. Rick Santorum, truly the conservative wingnut base is uniting behind you!
How much do GOP primary voters hate themselves, these days? A lot, we bet! Now that their front-runner can't even claim an Iowa victory and the "oh I guess we'll support him" sleazeball Newt has again exploded in a frothy ejaculate of Tiffany whore diamonds and bile, full-time loser Rick Santorum is getting another round of desperate attention.
We just want to remind everyone, again, that beyond all the Santorum fecal spooge jokes and his creepy/convenient abortion policies and his stupid sweater vest and his insane obsession with gay men having gay sex, Rick Santorum was a two-term senator who got his frothy ass handed to him in 2006 and hasn't won anything but scorn since that day — he can't even claim a real Iowa victory, because who knows where the votes from those eight missing precincts went, maybe Romney's god is God after all, right? Maybe Ron Paul won, in space. Maybe, in this idiotic alternate universe, Rick Perry's endorsement of Gingrich means something.
HAHAHA, and in the time it took to prepare this frothy little post, the ConservativeHQ.com website realized they handed us a very easy joke, and have now corrected the headline to something less obviously homosexual.
Santorum is never going to be president of anything, except the gay sex resort he operates 24/7 in his fevered, shrunken brain.
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