The sound you heard during that roughly 8 minute segment of the debate was every female swing voter laughing and walking away from the Republicans for a very, very long time.
Conservative pundits sympathetic to Romney have been making the case this week that, whatever Santorum's conservative merits, he drags the whole party down with his extreme rhetoric. They got plenty of evidence for their case on Wednesday after the GOP received a question on whether they support birth control. Gingrich and Romney practically fell over themselves to condemn moderator John King for daring to even bring it up, insisting that it was an irrelevant distraction from the important issues of the day and their only concerns with contraception were really about religious freedom.Then came Rick Santorum, who completely deflated their case. He enthusiastically responded to a question about contraception with a lengthy (and seemingly unrelated) sermon about the over-sexualization of teenagers.
"What we're seeing is a problem in our culture with respect the children being raised by children, children being raised out of wedlock, and the impact on society economically, the impact on society with respect to drug use and a host of other things, when children have children," he said. "And so, yes, I was talking about these very serious issues."
Pretty soon the entire podium was following his lead, joining in with their own denunciations of teenage pregnancy and calling for more abstinence programs.
Radioactive contamination from the Fukushima power plant disaster has been detected as far as almost 400 miles off Japan in the Pacific Ocean, with water showing readings of up to 1,000 times more than prior levels, scientists reported Tuesday. But those results for the substance cesium-137 are far below the levels that are generally considered harmful, either to marine animals or people who eat seafood, said Ken Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.###
"Satan has his sights on the United States of America!… Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition."
–Rick Santorum, 2008
…and then today he walks back from it, kinda:
Asked whether he still thinks that Satan is attacking the United States, Santorum called the inquiry "not relevant to what's being discussed in America today."
Earlier, he pledged to "defend everything I say" after noting that people might worry about his statements because he isn't "robotic" like some of the more "commoditized candidates."
Keep f***ing that chicken, Rick.
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Staff-banging serial adulterer Newticles has been warned (again) about wide spread irregularities (eww, gross!) in his campaign finances, including paying his staff (is that what he is calling little Noot these days?) what appears to be bonuses, and reimbursing himself (for historical services? Yes, we'll go with that). Anyway, the grift continues! (Washington Times)
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Adele Stan is one of many liberals who have been saying this for years, but apparently some people (coughbarackobamacough) need to be smack upside the head with a rhetorical two-by-four.
What's really at issue in Douthat's column is the perils of accepting the right-wing frame when constructing liberal positions. By unilaterally presenting abortion as a very bad thing in the 1990s, the message mavens of the Clinton administration, with their construction of "safe, legal and rare," gave abortion opponents a rhetorical rationale for piling on restrictions that, in many states, make abortion inaccessible to increasing numbers of women - despite the fact that the Supreme Court decided decades ago that their right to the procedure is protected by the Constitution.Preach it, girlfriend.A similar "moral hazard," if you will, exists in the arguments of some LGBT rights advocates, who assert our rights via the idea that LGBT people are "born this way," and should therefore not be penalized for sexual behavior, conducted in private between consenting adults, that falls outside the realm of heterosexuality. In rooting one's rights in the "born this way" claim, one basically makes the case that if one weren't "born this way," the behavior would be wrong. How 'bout the simple constitutional claim that, hey, it's none of your business?
Our rights come from the Constitution, not from some set of "Judeo-Christian values" selectively defined by right-wing politicians. Leave it to the religious institutions to promote their values as they see fit. After all, that's their constitutional prerogative.
Every time liberals cede the moral frame to the right wing, liberals lose.
And the Republicans are lying about it:
The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that President Obama's 2009 stimulus package continues to have a significant effect.
The bill raised fourth-quarter 2011 gross domestic product by as much as 1.5 percent, it states, and lowered the unemployment rate by as much as 1.1 percentage points.
Here's a prediction of the Republican response: But the stimulus didn't work and the numbers are a conspiracy by the Obama administration.
This is fact, they'll say. And the very carefully calculated mathematical numbers are a lie.
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I wonder how many people in Mississippi realize they receive nearly three times as much back as they pay in taxes. Do they realize those liberal heathens in the northeast are subsidizing them?
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