November 21

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists just declared that birth control pills should be sold over the counter:

 

According to the obstetricians and gynecologists, one major reason women at risk for unintended pregnancies don't use birth control is that they don't have regular access to a doctor, either for practical reasons or because they are uninsured. And in a 2004 telephone survey conducted by an Oakland based nonprofit, 47% of the uninsured women who currently do not use birth control say they would use it if it were available over the counter, like Tylenol or Benadryl. Another recent survey, conducted by public health experts in Texas, found that 60% of women not on birth control pills would use it if they could buy it without a prescription. Such statistics, they argue, make plain the need to increase access.

 

I wonder how the bishops' freedom to roam around in women's uteri is impinged by this, because Jesus clearly stated that all oral contraception must be dispensed by a pharmacist (1 Gal:23).

 

###

 

Via Paul Constant, the Huffington Post reports that proud Galtian Denny's franchisee John Metz has walked back his brave talk:

... Denny's chief executive John Miller privately reached out to Metz to express his "disappointment" with the Florida franchisee's controversial statements about Obamacare, which sparked a wave of backlash for the national restaurant chain over the past few days. Metz released a statement Monday night expressing "regret" over his statements…

Miller is rushing to put out the fire sparked by Metz's controversial proposal to charge restaurant customers a 5 percent Obamacare fee. "Customers have two choices: They can either pay it and tip 15 or 20 percent, or if they really feel so inclined, they can reduce the amount of tip they give to the server," Metz told HuffPost in an interview last week.

Some Denny's franchisees have since dealt with angry customers, calls for a boycott and declining sales. A spokeswoman for Metz said he will not conduct more interviews.

Metz, whose RREMC Restaurants owns more than 30 Denny's locations, said in a statement, "We regret that the statements we made may have been interpreted as representative of the Denny's brand or of other franchisees, which they are not. Our stores do not have a 5 percent surcharge. Despite recent media coverage, RREMC Restaurants is committed to exploring viable and effective ways to deal with the changing economic climate, including the implementation of The Affordable Care Act. We have always been and will continue to be 100 percent dedicated to our employees and customers and will
work tirelessly to find solutions that are in their best interests. It is our intention is to fully comply with the law."...

Shorter Metz: "Since I get all my information from Fox News and talk radio, I had no idea that spewing lies and idle threats might have real-world consequences!"

###

This is just plain stupid:

One of the jokes I have often made about so-called personhood amendments is that if you give a fertilized egg full rights as a person, you should get to claim them on your taxes, too.

Suddenly, that joke is a lot less funny.

Michigan Republicans are now pushing a bill that would grant a tax credit to any fetus proven to be at least 12 weeks along by December 31st. Calling it an "advance" on the actual tax break the family would receive the next calendar year, the GOP frames the financial help as a chance to offset expenses with pregnancy.

Michigan slashed the child tax credit last year. Now Michigan Republicans want to give fetal tax credits. They also don't want you to say "vagina."

Stop the planet, please. I want to get off.

####

Breitbrats call The Onion 'Anti-Semitic'

Looky here, Breitbrats—
When you're looking to The Onion for sources of fake outrage about the ongoing clusterfuck between Hamas and Israel, you're doing it wrong.

Like, all the way wrong:

So now The Onion, celebrated for their zany approach to the news, has fallen under the spell of the radical left and has become one more mouthpiece for anti-Semitic propaganda. In their latest attempt at humor, The Onion posted this piece of Palestinian propaganda…

As civilian casualties continue to mount amid the escalating conflict along the Gaza Strip, 8-year-old Palestinian boy Walid Suleiman expressed both joy and astonishment Monday that he has yet to be killed in an Israeli military attack. "Boy, I thought I'd be dead by this past Saturday for sure, but amazingly enough, here I am," said Suleiman, adding that he is "pleased, but pretty shocked" not to be among the estimated 100 Palestinians left dead by widespread Israeli airstrikes in the region over the past six days. "I'd have bet you anything that by today they'd have already dug my corpse out from underneath a giant pile of rubble and buried me alongside the rest of my family. Guess I won the lottery, eh?" At press time, incoming Israeli aircraft could be heard swiftly approaching as Suleiman limped back to his home.

That's the ticket, Onion. Buy into the "plight" of the Palestinians and ignore the fact that Hamas started the violence, that Hamas has fired on Israeli cities, that there are strong rumors that Hamas now has chemical weapons it can launch. Ignore the fact that Hamas deliberately places its rocket sites in civilian areas in an attempt to force Israel to kill civilians for left wing media consumption. Ignore that Hamas deliberately targets civilians while Israel takes great care not to.

Dude, naw.

And to think that Breitbart's fine journalistic institution intended to lead the news charge during the Romney administration. If that doesn't make you want to crap your pants and die, then I don't know what will.

What is it that goes on in the wingnut mind that makes them incapable of understanding satire? Help me out.

###

Krugman responds to Brooks

Y'all may recall DougJ's post below, in which BoBo once again demonstrates skills in the "We've always been at war with Eastasia" agitprop trope, proclaiming the unparalleled intellectual openness of the post-election-debacle GOP.

Now Krugthulu responds to Brooks in all but name:

Finally, it's true that there are some Republican intellectuals and pundits who seem to be truly open-minded about both economic and social issues. But I worded that carefully: they "seem to be" open-minded; indeed, they're professional seemers. When it matters, they can always be counted on — after making a big show of stroking their chins and agonizing — to follow the party line, and reject anything that doesn't go along with the preacher-plutocrat agenda. If they don't deliver when it counts, they are excommunicated; see Frum, David. [emphasis added]

He gets the actual composition of your contemporary Republican Party down pat too:

...today's Republican party is an alliance between the plutocrats and the preachers, plus some opportunists along for the ride — full stop. The whole party is about low taxes at the top (and low benefits for the rest), plus conservative social values and putting religion in the schools; it has no other reason for being.

Ahhh. I do believe I need a (chocolate) cigarette just about now.

###

The CIA's counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black said of Condi Rice ignoring constant warnings about bin Laden, "The only thing we didn't do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to her head."http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR2006093000282.html

###

 

 

###

The rightwing blogosphere reports that Paul Krugman's advocating a top tax bracket of 91%. Not surprisingly, that's BS. Show me where he says that. All the wingnuts have managed to do is to demonstrate their rock-bottom reading comprehension skills. And, by the way, Krugman's right.

###

Dean Chambers, of unskewed "effeminate wizard" fame, has launched a new website titled "Barack O'Fraudo" wherein he alleges President Obama won reelection through voter fraud.

I won't be linking to it, so here's the screenshots.

I couldn't care less about the ravings of an obvious right-wing paranoiac like Chambers, however his commentary and analysis, if you can call it that, was brought to the forefront of the 2012 election cycle by Fox News, the major networks, and columnists up and down both sides of the political aisle weighing in for or against his assertions.

He was needlessly and recklessly elevated as a voice of authority, particularly by the right, and he's now using his position to allege that the Obama campaign committed mass fraud.

The question now is will Fox News and columnists at mainstream conservative garbage heaps such as the National Review offer the same level of exposure to this conspiracy theory as they did his allegations that the polls were "skewed?"

Now that the election is over and the horse race has come to a conclusion, they may not. Promoting this idea wouldn't increase their business as much as leading viewers to believe the presidential race is "razor tight" did.

But this is Fox News we're talking about. Anything is possible.

###

Just a brief reminder as we enter the second Obama presidential term.

The Teddy Roosevelt phrase "bully pulpit" doesn't imply using president power as a means of being aggressive or nasty. Anyone who uses "bully pulpit" to imply that the president should throw his weight around and force enemies to acquiesce to him is terribly mistaken.

When Roosevelt coined the term, the word "bully" meant "excellent" — not a schoolyard aggressor who preyed upon weaker kids. In other words, the presidency is a great platform for talking about ideas because the president is visible enough so as to grab the attention of the people.

Excellent pulpit. Not aggressive dickwad pulpit.

Are we clear on this?