Republicans call this "the future?" Seriously.

A Marquette Poll just came out that concluded there has been no change in Democratic voter enthusiasm after Roe was overturned. Crazy huh? That would seem odd knowing that Roe wasn't the only thing being threatened by radicalized Republicans. 

Justice Clarence Thomas gave Americans a heads up, but thanks to Nancy Pelosi's immediate House passage of a string of important bills, we now know what the midterm MAGA election agenda is all about:

I forgot to mention, one candidate for governor is a woman, and she saw her lead disappear when a man decided to challenger her. She's taking on the Republican men's club. Meet "Meme" candidate Rebecca Kleefisch, shooting her way into governor's mansion. 

Remember when all of Wisconsin's Republican House members never even bothered to debate their Democratic opponent, well, we're finally finding out why, and getting a taste of their male superiority. The men have spoken. This isn't just an attack on 200 years of women's rights, it's an attack on all of us. This is as bad as it looks: 

Democrats are the "radical" ones? Remember these names and faces. They're saying they don't need women voters. Test that theory. 

While other Republicans tried to pass this nonsensical reason off to the press, ignoring Clarence Thomas recent threat:

One of the principal GOP arguments this morning was that there’s no need to pass the Right To Contraception Act, since no states have tried to ban it in recent decades. As with the Respect For Marriage Act, today’s bill was inherently preemptive and intended to address a potential threat, not restrictions that have already been implemented. Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly condemned the ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that struck down a state law that restricted married couples’ access to birth control, calling for it to be “reconsidered.

And yet Democrats have the radical agenda:

Contraception part of Dem radical agenda, who knew.? https://t.co/uA7e4zT97N

— John Peterson (@democurmudgeon) July 21, 2022

Washington Post now says Walker's Justice Bradley isn't against Contraception, doesn't believe it terminates life, or is Murder?

The supposed “Pro-life” movement is against two things; abortion and contraception. Their biggest weapons supporting their cause; conservative judicial courts and passing the “conscience clause.”

I would argue real pro-lifers would be battling for universal health care, but that's a whole different blog about a completely inept Democratic Party.

The Washington Post just ignored the pro-life movements repressive agenda so they could give a pass to Rebecca Bradley’s recent comments comparing contraception to murder. Yes, she did make that comparison, using the Roman Catholic churches guidelines and the pro-life terrorists own language. She's the courts scary religious foot soldier for Walker.

But the Post went out of its way to make a surreal case against “choice” advocates like Hillary Clinton. They started out by reprinting Bradley's outrageous comments from 2006...saying she wasn't specific enough. But history tells us something different, like the comments pictured here...:

“Proponents of ‘choice’ oppose such conscience clauses because they interfere with the elevation of women’s convenience over pharmacists’ objections to being a party to murder…. Notably, patients do not have the right to demand abortions, sterilizations or euthanasia from Roman Catholic or other morally guided hospitals or providers … law certainly should protect pharmacists who choose not to be a party to the morally abhorrent termination of life.”

Generally speaking we’re talking the pill here, pretty basic stuff, which WaPo decided to ignore, or worse, obscure. Their tortured logic starts by actually making an argument against their own final conclusion:

Bradley ... directed readers to an organization known as Pro-Life Wisconsin for more information. Its website at the time listed birth-control pills as potentially “causing chemical abortions in the earliest stages of life” … Saying that the birth-control pill may lead to an abortion is controversial even within the Pro-Life movement … (medical community) members saying the pill is not an abortifacient and other members arguing that it is one.

And yet, even after all that, somehow, they made these startling conclusions (my comments in bold)?

But there’s no indication in it that she was opposed to all forms of birth control (REALLY?)… A fair reading of Bradley’s 10-year-old column is that she is describing and defending the views of pharmacists who object to prescribing chemical ways of terminating a pregnancy, including possibly a birth-control pill (AGAIN) But Bradley is not writing about all forms of birth control (YES SHE IS), as Clinton suggests (“birth control, which millions of women use every year”) nor does Bradley specifically write that women using birth control are a “party to murder.” (Yes she does infer that) If Bradley actually believed all birth control was tantamount to murder, as Clinton claims, then it’s doubtful she would find obtaining contraceptives from another location so reasonable.

Amazingly, the Post completely missed Bradley’s argument using the language of right wing extremists and terrorists, to chip away at contraception’s availability.

Any wonder why were drifting as a nation to the extreme right? 

Even before the Election, Scott Walker tries to limit access to Birth Control!!!

Scott Walker said he supports women's rights and loves a debate on abortions? All gentle reelection words. But even the election won't stop Walker's wheels from rolling over access to birth control drugs. He really couldn't wait?

WSJ: Two family planning providers serving low-income women say their operations will be at serious financial risk if state auditors stand firm on claims that they overbilled Medicaid by $3.5 million, largely for birth control drugs and devices.

Department of Health Services Inspector General Alan White defended his auditors’ choice of targets and their findings. “This administration, this agency has put a great deal of effort into improving program integrity,” White said. “And protecting the taxpayers of Wisconsin is their predominant responsibility.”

"Integrity." A Republican buzzword for “your next” for cuts, in this case the end of contraception for low-income women. The state has decided to change and interpret the rules differently for contraception, even though providers were never told or given the ability to itemize their services with the state. Here's the basics of Walker's scheme to supposedly "protect taxpayers:" 

The auditors are challenging a reimbursement price for oral contraception that providers say the state itself set and is what their peers use. The claims concern the clinics’ use of Medicaid’s 340B drug-pricing program, in which pharmaceutical companies are required to provide discounted drugs to safety net providers. They say the state never asked them to track those costs individually, and instead told them to bill for each monthly pack of birth control pills the “usual and customary charge up to the maximum allowable fee,” which the state set at $26.02 in 2009 … the higher reimbursement rates help the clinics avoid losing money. The auditors faulted the providers for failing to bill Medicaid for the actual cost of each pack of oral contraception, plus a dispensing fee.

Here's their sneaky way to go after contraception for low income women:

Office of Inspector General’s White argues that the rate does not apply to the 340B drug-pricing program — it was directed at “family planning clinics” — and so is irrelevant. But virtually all of the family planning clinics are enrolled in the 340B program.

Jennifer Waloway, NEWCAP’s director of community health services said NEWCAP may have to close; “I don’t understand how they can expect anybody to be sustainable in a business when all you can charge is acquisition price,” Waloway said. “Nobody can run a business like that.”

And it gets even more transparently obvious:

The state is also claiming money on the grounds that the providers entered claims incorrectly. It states the providers did not note the invoice price for medications. But providers say the state’s own computerized claim-entry system does not include a way to enter the cost. Public policy director Nicole Safar said, “This is a very under-the-radar way to block access to birth control.”

And as usual, Democrats were silent in their outrage, working behind the scenes I guess:

Two Democratic lawmakers, Rep. Chris Taylor of Madison and Sen. Dave Hansen of Green Bay, wrote the inspector general last week saying “there appears to be no legal basis” for the claims.

If this had happened to the Republicans, we wouldn't be hearing the end of it.

RNC Chair Reince Priebus would much rather change topics than change policy on women's issues.

The RNC's Reince Priebus is so wonderfully clueless that it's actually fun to post his commentary.

Onion News

This bumbling Barney Fife like character continues to inadvertently reveal the elaborate con behind the his party's "secret" policy decisions.

After an internal poll discovered conservative women are not at all happy with the party's direction on women's issues, instead of changing their position on contraception, transvaginal probes, choice, equal pay and charter schools, Reince told Chuck Todd that changing the subject was the better way to go.

Reince thinks women will forget everything else if Republican men can just present a plan to create jobs, because...:

"Women don't really...ah, don't really...aren't really moved on these issues... In fact if Republicans talk about things like the economy, the debt and make the case for jobs and schools and education and push back, I think Republicans will win it by more..."

Politico reported on Wednesday that the Crossroads GPS and American Action Network report found that women think the GOP is "intolerant," "lacking in compassion," and "stuck in the past." According to the report, 49 percent of women view the Republican Party unfavorably, and 39 percent of women view Democrats unfavorably. 

At least the GOP has an advantage with young guys that look like old men. The Onion;

GOP Maintains Solid Hold On Youth That Already Look Like Old Men

Walker ignores State Contraception Law! Who made him King?

It’s a funny hypocritical thing to watch Republicans accuse "King" Obama of not enforcing the “laws on the books,” while at the same time pick and choose the laws they think should enforced.

Such is the case with Scott Walker’s decision not to “enforce the state’s contraception coverage law for employers with religious objections.” That’s a blanket assumption isn't it? 

Just a note, Republicans have in other state's said they would not enforce tighter guns laws despite state law. The same goes for laws that prevent political coordination between campaigns and outside groups.

   

Walker seems to think his opinion alone is reason enough to pre-empt law:

WSJ: A spokesman for the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance said that the high court’s Hobby Lobby ruling … means the state can no longer enforce its law … Wisconsin is “pre-empted” from enforcing the state law because the Affordable Care Act allows some employers exemptions from providing contraceptive coverage.

But Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin (said) the state law “is a separate legal requirement on insurance plans in the state that is not directly affected by the Hobby Lobby decision.”

“Gov. Walker’s latest effort to unilaterally end the enforcement of Wisconsin’s birth control law without legislative action shows just how far he is willing to go to restrict women’s access to essential health care,” Tanya Atkinson, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, said in a statement. According to a National Women’s Law Center memo, “Closely-held for-profit corporations doing business in Wisconsin that do not self-insure must abide by the state law, and continue to provide birth control coverage to the same extent they provide preventive care and prescription drugs.

"Narrow" Hobby Lobby decision Expands Again, Female Justices write Scathing Dissent.

The Supreme Court has already expanded their "narrow" Hobby Lobby decision to include all contraception by other Catholic challengers. Now they've made the whole process easier to implement and expand.

Remember when Justice Alito shook his head in disagreement when President Obama disagreed with the Citizens United decision unlimited corporate money in to corrupt elections? Alito grimaced, shook his head, and mouthed “no” and “that’s not true.” He also shook his head and rolled his eyes to the ceiling when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her dissent on the affirmative action ruling recently.

It looks like Alito’s “narrow” ruling on the Hobby Lobby decision is turning out to be one big lie as well. In the dark of the night:

The Supreme Court on Thursday evening unveiled its latest ruling around birth control and religious freedom … allow(ing) Wheaton College to skirt ObamaCare's contraceptive provisions as long as the evangelical school informs the government of its religious objections to providing its staff and students with any type of birth control.

The Obama religious “provision” simply required Wheaton College to fill out the EBSA Form 700 … (which is) sent to both the government and the insurance company, that would then provide contraceptives free, using a government subsidy.

But Alito’s narrow decision expanded, due to what conservatives call “legislating from the bench,” by getting rid of the notice to the insurance company. And all without the help of congress.

All the Courts Female Justices Objected:

The decision broke down completely across gender lines — the court's male justices comprised the majority opinion — suggesting that the court's battle over religious freedom and reproductive rights is only going to get more contentious.

Saying the decision "undermines confidence in this institution," Justice Sotomayor wrote a scathing dissent, accusing the court of backtracking key elements of its Hobby Lobby decision. "Those who are bound by our decisions usually believe they can take us at our word," Sotomayor wrote. "Not so today."

She said the ruling set up unworkable regulations that risked "depriving hundreds of Wheaton's employees and students of their legal entitlement to contraceptive coverage" and allowed "hundreds or thousands of other objectors" a similar way out.

Pro-Life Wisconsin on the Ugly Side of Hobby Lobby Win.

Men get all the help they want from their insurer, from ED drugs to vasectomies. But women...? The Hobby Lobby win beats back the 60's women's liberation movement with a major crack in the damn.

You don't have to be a part of any political party to know that sex is natural, and not a right bestowed upon us by the Bible for just making babies.  

Freedom...with limits: And what about couples who prefer to go childless. 

To conservatives, sex is dirty without pregnancy. It's not natural to have sex without babies, because the Bible says so I guess. And we are a Christian nation so it makes sense. Sex without babies is a recreational "lifestyle choice," "purely elective," and not natural: 

Peggy Hamill, State Director of Pro-Life Wisconsin: "The Obama administration's decision to grant entitlement status to contraception is thoroughly ideological. It is not medical. Pregnancy is not a disease. Fertility is a natural state - it is not a health impairment to be treated medically with birth control. Birth control to prevent pregnancy is not health care - it's a lifestyle choice. Accordingly, government should not force insurance companies, businesses and individual policy holders to cover or pay for drugs and devices that are purely elective."

 Right wing Tweets say as much, from Raw Story:

Ecstatic at the belief that stupid sluts (“Slut”in conservative parlance=anyone who has sex on purpose while female) are getting punished, they went to Twitter. I collected some tweets and some of the general arguments being floated on Storify. A big theme was the idea  that sex is not a normal part of human life, but some grotesque, exotic, shameful behavior that no proper woman would dare engage in.

Ginsberg Responds to the Conservative Activist Supreme Court Bullies.

Here's a piece on the Justice Ginsberg descent: 

Addressing the majority of her colleagues — including all but one of the six men sitting on the Supreme Court — Ginsburg wrote: "until today, religious exemptions had never been extended to any entity operating in 'the commercial, profit-making world.'" 

“The reason why is hardly obscure. Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community. Indeed, by law, no religion-based criterion can restrict the work force of for-profit corporations...The distinction between a community made up of believers in the same religion and one embracing persons of diverse beliefs, clear as it is, constantly escapes the Court’s attention. One can only wonder why the Court shuts this key difference from sight. "In sum," Ginsburg adds about the free exercise claims at the heart of this case,“‘[y]our right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.’” "Although the Court attempts to cabin its language to closely held corporations," she writes,  "its logic extends to corporations of any size, public or private. Little doubt that RFRA claims will proliferate." 

Here’s  more from Ginsberg’s decision, in her own words:

“Again, the Court forgets that religious organizations exist to serve a community of believers. For-profit corporations do not fit that bill. Moreover, history is not on the Court’s side. Recognition of the discrete characters of “ecclesiastical and lay” corporations dates back to Blackstone, see 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 458 (1765), and was reiterated by this Court centuries before the enactment of the Internal Revenue Code. See Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch 43, 49 (1815) (describing religious corporations); Trustees of Dartmouth College, 4 Wheat., at 645 (discussing “eleemosynary” corporations, including those “created for the promotion of religion”). To reiterate, “for-profit corporations are different from religious non-profits in that they use labor to make a profit, rather than to perpetuate [the] religious value[s] [shared by a community of believers].” Citing Braunfeld v. Brown, (1961), the Court questions why, if “a sole proprietorship that seeks to make a profit may assert a free-exercise claim, [Hobby Lobby and Conestoga] can’t . . . do the same?”

But even accepting, arguendo, the premise that unincorporated business enterprises may gain religious accommodations under the Free Exercise Clause, the Court’s conclusion is unsound. In a sole proprietorship, the business and its owner are one and the same. By incorporating a business, however, an individual separates herself from the entity and escapes personal responsibility for the entity’s obligations. One might ask why the separation should hold only when it serves the interest of those who control the corporation.

In any event, Braunfeld is hardly impressive authority for the entitlement Hobby Lobby and Conestoga seek. The free exercise claim asserted there was promptly rejected on the merits. The Court’s determination that RFRA extends to forprofit corporations is bound to have untoward effects.Although the Court attempts to cabin its language to closely held corporations, its logic extends to corporations of any size, public or private.19Little doubt that RFRAclaims will proliferate, for the Court’s expansive notion of corporate personhood—combined with its other errors in construing RFRA—invites for-profit entities to seek religion-based exemptions from regulations they deem offensive to their faith.

Importantly, the decisions whether to claim benefits under the plans are made not by Hobby Lobby or Conestoga, but by the covered employees and dependents, in consultation with their health care providers. Should an employee of Hobby Lobby or Conestoga share the religious beliefs of the Greens and Hahns, she is of course under no compulsion to use the contraceptives in question. But “[n]o individual decision by an employee and her physician— be it to use contraception, treat an infection, or have a hip replaced—is in any meaningful sense [her employer’s] decision or action.”

It is doubtful that Congress, when it specified that burdens must be “substantia[l],” had in mind a linkage thus interrupted by independent decisionmakers (the woman and her health counselor) standing between the challenged government action and the religious exercise claimed to be infringed. Any decision to use contraceptives made by a woman covered under Hobby Lobby’s or Conestoga’s plan will not be propelled by the Government, it will be the woman’s autonomous choice, informed by the physician she consults.

Indeed, approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be “perceived as favoring one religion over another,” the very “risk the Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.” Ibid. The Court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield, cf. Spencer v. World Vision, Inc., by its immoderate reading of RFRA. I would confine religious exemptions under that Act to organizations formed “for a religious purpose,” “engage[d] primarily in carrying out that religious purpose,” and not “engaged . . . substantially in the exchange of goods or services for money beyond nominal amounts.”

ObamaCare Contraception and Abortions Cause Breast Cancer? If only Researchers would say that was true.

It’s hard to totally understand the twisted minds of anti-abortion bottom feeders who can’t wait to meddle in other people’s lives through contraception. Yes, contraception.

In one of the most bizarre approaches yet in making their argument, LifeNews splashed this down-the-rabbit-hole headline across their webpage:

Yet the claim didn't have anything to do with a new study they featured below the headline. They even say so in the first paragraph:

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on February 27 finds researchers noting an increase in advanced cases of breast cancer over the last 33 years. However, the authors essentially ignore how abortion plays a great role in that increase.

You can’t make this stuff up. This surreal story continued:

Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, told LifeNews “It’s peculiar, but not surprising, that the authors offered no hypotheses in their paper explaining the increased incidence in advanced cancers among young women.  Abortion and use of hormonal contraceptive steroids among teenagers are the elephants in the living room that the medical establishment ignores.”

Malec avoids the subject of income inequality, the lack of health care coverage and unemployment in minority urban areas, and instead blames abortions and contraception for the increased cancer and death rates.   

The rate of advanced breast cancer doubled for African Americans, ages 25-39, climbing from 3.14 in 1976 to 6.25 per 100,000 in 2009 … At the same time, black women have abortions at much higher rates than their white counterparts … the rate of advanced breast cancer for non-Hispanic whites in the same age group annual percent change of 2.67.

ObamaCare Contraceptives cause Cancer and Death: The whole point of this convoluted argument is summed up below:

“Many more young women are at risk for developing advanced breast cancer in the future because of an ObamaCare mandate requiring employers to purchase insurance that will provide “free” (cancer-causing) hormonal contraceptive steroids and abortion-inducing drugs,” warned Malec. “It doesn’t matter to government officials how many lives are destroyed because of it.”

Mike "Uncle Sugar" Huckabee thinks Liberal men control Women like Conservative men think they do.

If you were ever unclear about the subservient roll women must play under Republican rule, than watch this clip of Mike Huckabee "projecting" how he thinks liberal men treat women.

Huckabee has to create this false premise in order to attack birth control.

OurFuture: In a speech to the Republican National Committee: “If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it.”

Huckabee is so wrong that at times he's saying just the opposite of what he intended. An early start on the war on women this midterm election season:

Funny story: in 2005, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee signed a law mandating Arkansas insurance plans provide contraception coverage, including church-affiliated organizations such as hospitals and universities.

Employer Control over Women's Health and Contraception.

The activist conservative Supreme Court will once again help the right wing fulfill their agenda through by giving inanimate, government granted corporations, the same First Amendment rights as people. Here's the intro from The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell:



But will Justice Scalia hold true to this past statement:

Walker War on Women Exposed, State Sen. Jon Erpenbach warns Nation.

Sen. Jon Erpenbach could not have said it better. Just say it over and over. In the great words of Stan Lee, "Nuff said:"



Rachel Maddow.

Catholic Hospitals Okay Obamacare Birth Control Plan.

There’s no reference in the Bible about birth control. None. Any ban on birth control is a choice by that religious organization. This should guide the Affordable Care Act’s policy on contraception.

So the following decision is a fair compromise, where no compromise was really needed:

WisGazette: In a split with U.S. bishops, a trade group for Catholic hospitals said this week it can accept the Obama's administration latest compromise on birth control coverage by religious employers. "We are pleased that our members now have an accommodation that will not require them to contract, provide, pay or refer for contraceptive coverage," said the Catholic Health Association.

However, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops are suing to overturn the entire requirement, saying it trespasses on freedom of religion. New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the bishops' conference, said … the bishops have also sought a religious exemption for owners of for-profit businesses.  

The argument against birth control is a reach by anyone’s standard. It was once used as a way of populating and increasing a churches membership. I would hope we were beyond that now, leaving such medieval thinking far behind.

I found this explanation at Desiring God.Org, just one of many opinions that makes practical sense:

Is birth control consistent with the truth that children are a gift from the Lord?

It is very important to delight in the reality that "children are a gift of the Lord." But some people go further and argue from this that since children are gifts from God, it is wrong to take steps to regulate the timing and number of children one has.

In response, it can be pointed out that the Scriptures also say that a wife is a gift from the Lord (Proverbs 18:22), but that doesn't mean that it is wrong to stay single (1 Corinthians 7:8). 

Hobby Lobby to Defy Federal Law! Conservative Family Owned Business speeds U.S. Decent into Chaos.

When you think about it, it would be hard to be a functioning industrialized, civilized society without law. Imagine the optional compliance with our laws. Chaos is a word that comes to mind right away.

Yet conservatives continue treat the concept of “law” like something voluntary, obeying the ones they like, and ignoring the ones they don’t like. They've gone as far as writing laws that aren’t constitutional, but still “good ideas” anyway.

Not even the conservative activist Supreme Court will be allowed to stand in their way when the decision doesn’t agree with them:

NewsOK: Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby will defy a federal law, (a rejection of an emergency stay by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor) that requires employee health care plans to provide insurance coverage for types of contraception that the firm’s owners consider to be “abortion-causing drugs and devices,” an attorney for the company said Thursday. Hobby Lobby and sister company Mardel could be subject to fines of up to $1.3 million a day beginning Tuesday.

“They’re not going to comply with the mandate,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the company. The Green family, owners of Hobby Lobby … said a provision dealing with insurance coverage for certain types of contraception — the morning-after pill, the week-after pill and some intrauterine devices — went against the family’s beliefs.

But no one is forcing the family to abandon their beliefs. Instead, the law firmly protects the beliefs of other Americans working at their companies. The Green family's freedom cannot infringe on the rights of other peoples freedom. That goes against the authoritarian streak in most conservatives.

Hobby Lobby and Mardel operate more than 500 stores and employ more than 13,000 people … the company will continue its appeal in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where it is challenging U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton’s ruling that the retailers were “secular, for-profit corporations” and did not have free-exercise rights under the First Amendment.

The Last GOP Debate Highlights-Contraception.

Let's be perfectly clear; businesses are NOT providing birth control to their employees, the insurer is, as part of the insurers basic health care plan. Again, it's a requirement for insurers, not businesses who just buy a total package with basic health care minimums.

And any religious organization that provides a public service to people of other religions, cannot infringe on a customers religious freedom by dictating what they can or cannot receive as treatment.

Eric Hovde and Mark Neumann seem to think businesses are exempt from the constitutional protections they provide people in one instance, and then flip that with claims businesses have constitutional rights and religious freedom like actual people. Ala carting what our tax dollars support based on our conscience or religious beliefs would open up a can of worms Republicans would end up regretting. I would cut funding for the military immediately, along with a legal system that supports the death penalty, the oil industry, statewide projects in Republican districts....etc.

Still, Mark Neumann's theatrics are almost as comical as they are scary. Watch as he whips off his glasses to make his point, "...Barack Obama must be stopped." The teabillies loved it.

Catholic Church tests Religious Influence and Control over U.S. Constitution.

What a set up. Even if insurance companies are required to provide contraception to all Americans, the Catholic Church is still claiming they’ll end up paying in some small way for the pills. What’s to stop the church from telling insurers what they can or cannot provide in general. How about the co-mingling of their insurance premiums with a company that provides contraception to different groups of policy holders?

If the church wins this one, they will have found a way to manipulate and set in place religious dogma into the Constitution. That’s why they have a full court press on now to win the big one.

Never mind that contraception has other medically necessary uses.

CBSNews: Roman Catholic leaders opened a new front against the Obama administration mandate that employers provide workers birth control coverage, filing federal lawsuits Monday on behalf of dioceses, schools and health care agencies that argued the requirement violates religious freedom. Among the plaintiffs is the University of Notre Dame, which in February had praised President Barack Obama for pledging to accommodate religious groups … Rev. John Jenkins, said the school had since decided to sue because "progress has not been encouraging" in talks with administration officials. The lawsuits have been filed in eight states and the District of Columbia by the Archdioceses of Washington and New York, the Michigan Catholic Conference, Catholic Charities in Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri and Indiana, health care agencies in New York and two dioceses in Texas.

Vinehout on Contraception and the Conscience Clause.

Okay, it's time we bring the attacks on Sen. Kathleen Vinehout from NARAL, to an end. Fat chance? I finally came across my interview with the candidate for governor, when I filled in for Sly in the Morning on 1670 AM. If it doesn't end the discussion, it should at least add to it. This is audio remember:

We're still amazed by the whole contraceptive wedge issue attack on women.

Very few pundits have put the Republican wedge issue of contraception so succinctly. Ruth Conniff passionately and honestly says what so many in the country are thinking. Why can't our politicians be just as fearlessly driven? Check it out.

Sickest Talking Point: "Women don't care about contraception, they care about the deficit!"

Even the dumbest idea's go unquestioned by the drone like Republican flim flammers making the talk show circuit. Take Republican Gov. Nikki Haley for instance, she blissfully took a shot at her own gender just to make the clearly male formulated talking point that women don't care about contraception.

Progressive Magazine's Ruth Conniff mentioned to Ed Schultz, at the Great Dane Pub the other day, that Mitt Romney had just made the same argument. The groans in the crowd were not only humorous but a strong indicator as to how repugnant that idea was. Look, it's a ridiculous thing to say. It's that simple. But they don't seem to have any shame.

Sandra Fluke responds to Limbaugh, and Imus trashes him too.

Sandra Fluke went on the View and gave an impressive defense of contraception and women's rights. She doesn't mince words, or get wordy. She also would not except Rush Limbaugh's empty apology. It's time we all stop excepting apologies from those who make themselves exceedingly clear the first time in their most inarticulate way. Another must see gutsy response to the radical right:



Here's Don Imus ripping Rush, in an interesting turn: