I don’t watch Meet the Republicans, This Week with the GOP or any of the other Sunday shows, but reliable sources report that Jack Lew went on Face the Conservatives and State of the Right Wing with Candy Crowley yesterday and told the bishops that clowntime is over:
Mr. Lew said the president put out a solid plan, and when asked whether there is more room for compromising said, “No. This is our plan.”
In an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Mr. Lew said, “We’re going to go ahead and implement it.” He said the White House has “broad consensus – not universal consensus – that this is an approach that’s right.”
Rick Santorum was on next, and his face got red as he cried, bunched up his little fists and pounded the table saying that in his ideal world women would be constantly pregnant, but until he can raise up his new caliphate, he’ll accept that sluts can take their shame to a pharmacy and get the pill, but those roundheels should have to pay for it. Or words to that effect.
And is it just me, or do any of you detect a bit of a post-coital flush coloring Mitch McConnell’s pronouncement on Bob Scheiffer’s Old Man Show that not only Catholics, but any employer, should be able to decide not to pay for contraception as long as they dispense Viagra like a holy sacrament? My guess is that Mitch just renewed his Rx for the little blue pill for free on his Congressional health plan.
jibeaux
They seem so thoroughly out of touch with the 21st century and so utterly determined to make that 13 point gender gap a 20 point one, I halfway think the nominee is going to pick the former half-term governor again. And he’s going to think it’s a real winner.
Mike Goetz
Joe Scarborough was warning the Republicans that they are going to lose whatever advantage they had on this if they go forward. Now it’s just about birth control, and birth control is muy muy popular.
Repubs just can’t leave well enough alone, can they?
Tom
Obama 2012: Making Lovers’ Lane Safe Again For Lovers.
Zifnab25
I’m just left asking, who is driving this clown car? Any pollster will tell you contraception is a losing issue. So who is jerking the GOP chain? Are they just going all in for the hell of it because McConnell has a gut feeling? Are they running cover for Santorum because he weston a few Midwest states?
Who the hell is calling the shots?
maye
Bill Maher:
“Romnney and Santorum don’t like condoms because they stop the making of babies. Gingrich doesn’t like condoms because they’re too hard for a fat guy to put on in a car.”
beltane
A good campiagn ad for Rick Santorum would feature a trio of men dressed in 16th century clerical garb suddenly appearing around a married couple’s bed saying “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”.
I suppose that under the Republicans’ idea of “freedom of conscience”, an evangelical employer can just go ahead and demand that Catholic employees take an oath declaring that the Pope is the Antichrist and that Jewish employees must formally apologize for the death of Jesus. To limit this right of an employer to be a dick is just like Hitler.
WereBear
I’m old enough to shock the younger workers when I drop bits of history in front of them like:
By this time the twenty-somethings’ jaw is on the floor. I might as well be saying I went to high school on a stagecoach.
So yeah, Republicans. Get all medieval on our asses. And get yours handed back.
beltane
@maye: Oh, that’s a good one. And if rumours are correct, Mitch McConnell is against contraception because he is not a fan of sex with the ladies.
PeakVT
Widening the gender gap isn’t exactly a smart plan for the Republicans, especially given the turnout gap.
Tom65
It all comes down to what Betty said earlier – they got nothin’, and it’s driving them insane.
Jon O
One way or another they’re going to have to get the godbotherers out in November. Why not spend some months building a case of a War on Christianity by the atheist Muslim?
The GOP electoral strategy is two steps: 1) Froth up your base and 2) depress your opponent’s support. It worked in 2010.
MattF
Birds do it, bees do it– even turtles in the Senate do it.
Comrade Mary
@Tom: Nicely done.
Keith G
On a related note:
My brother in a physician in rural Ohio. He has been chair of the board of directors of a regional medical clinic that was just purchased by a Catholic hospital system. He is a Buckley-esque conservative.
I asked him, “If providing free birth control is such a money saver, why haven’t most insurance programs been doing this already?”
His answer:
Good question. First let me say Obama was right the first time. Religious based systems (of which I am now a part) should not be treated differently. Any one or any group or business etc. who takes government money has to expect (and cooperate with) government interference and mandates whether they like it or not. This will escalate as Catholic hospitals will, in the not too distant future, be mandated to provide the same services (e.g. abortions whether elective or therapeutic, and sterilizations) that non- catholic hospitals do. The hook? All hospitals take medicare, many are tax exempt, a lot are critical access (and so get cost based reimbursement), so the demands are already working their way through congress. Expect wailing and gnashing of teeth.
___
When Obama cowed to the Catholics, he lost me. He made demands without consultation with the “industry” and now they will object out of principle rather than economics, especially if it really does cost them nothing. However, the data on how much money is saved by providing birth control is sparse and while it seems intuitive I don’t think the data is there.
___
The biggest problem I see immediately is that the health insurers are seldom the same as the ones who provide drug benefits therefore no motivation to prevent pregnancies on the part of the drug providers because they don’t pay for the consequences. This happens in all disease states and, globally, money could be saved.
___
One half of the births in the country, or at least around here, are welfare, so the private insurers have no liability for at least half the risk.
Is the politics better than the policy?
Edited the block quote
handsmile
Brilliant as he is, even Declan MacManus could never imagine today’s GOP leadership: Clowntime is NEVER over.
redshirt
Soon enough I suspect we’ll start hearing how the HOMELAND needs more pure blooded (read: White) Americans for the glory of the Empire. Birth Control is an attack against the HOMELAND.
harlana
apologies if this has already been posted. i have never looked at LGF but i found this and then the comment, which i thought was good enough to share. Fuck Santorum, btw.
forgot link: http://www.politicker.com/2012/02/10/rick-santorum-calls-pro-choice-movement-anti-science/ – but I hope he wins the nom. but i haven’t lived a good enough life for that to happen.
burnspbesq
Why anyone would think that the USCCB can deliver millions of Catholic votes to the Republicans is quite beyond understanding.
amk
Are the republican wimmin listening to these klowns ?
@Jon O: what great ‘bases’, huh? Both clueless.
beltane
@Jon O: The strategy they are currently pursuing might increase their turnout but not as much as it will increase the turnout of the opposition. Pissing off sexually active heteros doesn’t seem all too brilliant a strategy to me.
NickM
And won’t the DC rentboys be happy?
burnspbesq
OT, but this is a bit scary. More overreach by European privacy advocates the threatens to make Google and Facebook the world’s censors.
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/100664/freedom-forgotten-internet-privacy-facebook?utm_source=The+New+Republic&utm_campaign=3cf2905f65-TNR_Daily_021312&utm_medium=email
Keith G
Sorry. Word Press and I are not getting along.
Napoleon
@jibeaux:
And on a related note I just got out of my car where I was listening to Diane Rhem start her show by noting all 8 Republicans on whatever committee it was voted against extending the violence against women act.
liberal
@harlana quoted:
IIRC a small book I read on these issues, The Facts of Life, claimed the brain isn’t really “connected up” until fairly late in pregnancy. (Late = in the 20s of weeks.)
Connected up being when fibers from the thalamus invade the cortex. W/o those connections, not really any stimuli getting to the cortex.
harlana
this on Romney’s Santorum problem. i have been thinking what a problem this is for Mitt since he has all that “liberal Mass. Governor” baggage. He doesn’t have anything on Santorum as far as “frothing” teabag supporters go.
“But his criticism of the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania has been confined to subjects like his support for spending bills and local spending projects known as earmarks.” – weak sauce for that crowd
WereBear
@liberal: These are people who are determined that women must carry to term the fetuses who fail to develop a brain beyond the brainstem; and are only technically “alive.”
Even though these fetuses often have oversized heads that threaten the life and future fertility of the mother who is carrying them.
They say “life” but they mean “power.”
Villago Delenda Est
There are several reasons why they’re doubling down:
1. The economy is improving. Coupled with Obama’s advantage as an incumbent, this makes his reelection more likely.
2. Their candidates are clowns. Romney’s negatives are in the Marianas trench. Santorum’s aren’t. Yet. They think that playing the “social conservative” card is their best bet. Too bad it’s a losing bet, because once people are exposed to Santorum, the results are predictable. They’re disgusted.
Culture of Truth
Lew was also Meet the Press and This Week, making the same case.
On MTP, Peggy Noonan was her usual lucid self, saying supporting contraception was “kind of mad” (as in, insane) and uppped the ante by saying that Catholic-leaning insurers should not have to pay for medical procedures that leave a person unable to procreate.
WereBear
Dan Savage is a genius and may save us all.
harlana
@liberal: as other commenters have previously noted, it’s all about punishing the slut. they just don’t know when to quit. if they need any help falling off that cliff, i’ll be conveniently nearby.
beltane
@Culture of Truth: How many offspring has Dame Peggy given birth to?
gene108
Kathleen Kennedy Towson was on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal program this morning.
She made a great point that despite the Bishops not supporting President Obama the nuns at CHA and the Jesuits support the current law and the Bishops do not speak for the entire Catholic church.
When C-SPAN gets around to posting the episode on their website it’d be worth watching as to how a Catholic Democrat calmly blew up right-wing talking points and the case for being Catholic and supporting the President.
Joey Maloney
“Fucksaw”?
amk
@Culture of Truth: amusing that rethugs are all against government ‘controlling’ bidness but are all for some fucked up religion controlling them.
Ben Cisco
WIN.
__
Also, stolen.
Redshift
@maye: Eh, I wish Maher would lay off the fat jokes. There’s so much other easy material in this clown car, it’s just lazy.
Suffern ACE
@harlana- I’m not certain what Romney or surrogates could attack Santorum on. Beyond Romney’s “I’m not worried about birth control policy. I won’t fix what’s not broken,” statement, what positions do they have that are actuallly different from each other? “a guy who thinks like I do except he’s nuts” isn’t actually as easy a sell as one would think it should be.
beltane
@gene108: This is really about the bishops and no one but the bishops. They are nothing but a right-wing advocacy group dressed up in exotic clothing. If the nuns are the soul of the Church and the Jesuits the mind of the Church, the bishops are the colon of the Church.
Violet
I hope they keep going on and on about how contraception is evil and how no insurer should cover it. And how any and all medical procedures should be optional for insurers to cover. That’s right, well-woman exams, blood pressure medication, pregnancy, stroke treatment, heart surgery…none of it should have to be covered if it offends some insurer’s religious beliefs. Keep going Republicans. Let it all hang out.
Redshift
@WereBear: There was a RW caller to Stephanie Miller last week with some blather about how abortion is no different from killing a baby because they’ll both grow up if you just let them. Tellingly, there was no mention of “woman” or “mother” anywhere in his description.
The Golux
I think the Obama campaign needs to recruit Amy Poehler and Seth Myers to respond to all the crap that is being spewed by Republicans.
It’s the only logical reaction.
Tripod
Well they may fight on, but the media swarm is already a couple of bright shiny objects down the road.
Tim Padgett’s piece at Time is a particularly egregious example of a media fuck face admitting Obama won but was somehow arrogant and incompetent in doing so.
Suffern ACE
Who are these Catholic health insurance companies?
Redshift
@Napoleon: Yeah, and their attempt to do base-pandering with the vote was unusually lame, too. They objected to the fact that it covers all women, including gays and illegal immigrants, which is stupid enough on its own. But then they also wanted to eliminate nearly all funding for enforcing it, which throws away that fig leaf and tells women that “small government” means “we don’t want government to protect you.”
Gretchen
HuffPost says that Mrs. Santorum lived in sin with an abortion doctor for most of her 20’s. That could explain Santorum’s obsession with abortion, birth control, and consequence-free sex. She’s probably been doing penance for their whole marriage for her previous sinful ways and his forgiving them.
harlana
@Suffern ACE: Santorum’s positions on birth control (notjustabortionanymore) alone! (esp. vs. Mitt’s past positions) red meat alert, red meat!
harlana
@Suffern ACE: i wish someone would tell me, too
Redshift
@The Golux: That would be awesome.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Keith G: I personally think this works out better. Let’s say the rule stays that it’s up to the church or business to provide the contraceptive coverage rather than the insurer. The Catholic associated businesses could “provide” the coverage, and then “encourage” women not to take the coverage. Having the insurer talk to the women directly removes the Church as a middleman, where it doesn’t belong.
/Keith G
I just have to say this: The Obama administration may be willing to change the source of the coverage, but they are completely unwilling to deny women copay free access to the contraceptives. That’s the most important part of the statement mm highlights from yesterday.
WereBear
Except we never hear about testicular cancer in men, do we? Are they going to demand damaged organs in men can’t be removed, the same way they are assholes about ectopic pregnancies in women?
harlana
@Gretchen: indeed, she is forgiven by his supporters, i’m sure for her “sordid”, abortion-steeped past, because she (publicly, i’m sure) asked God’s forgiveness and got saved – although most of them, i’m sure, are too stupid to be even aware of this hypocrisy (which is insulting to women, imo) since it is not mentioned on Fox News or Limbaugh.
252man
@beltane: Does that make the Pope the anus?
mistermix
@Culture of Truth: Yes, as Peggy knows, hysterectomies for cervical cancer and removal of cancerous ovaries shouldn’t be done in Catholic hospitals. Ever. Jesus wept.
The Moar You Know
@Gretchen: She has issues, that guy was old enough to be her grandpa.
To go from Gramps to Icky Ricky tells anyone all they need to know about her state of mind. And her sexual issues, which are obviously considerable.
Redshift
@Keith G:
That’s exactly why requiring all insurers to cover it (along with other preventive care) is so important. If they all have to cover it, they all save money, and they have no complaint with it. If some are exempt, then we’re back to the prisoner’s-dilemma situation we have now, where everyone does best if they all cooperate, but one player can do better by making the others do worse, and the overall outcome worse.
As for research on the cost savings, have you sent him the links that were posted here a couple of days ago?
And finally, I guess we see there the effects of the media describing this as Obama “backing down,” when in any practical sense he didn’t. Hm.
Villago Delenda Est
@harlana:
That’s the thing about the fundigelicals; they’ve got this get out of jail free card that they bestow on members of the tribe, but if you’re a Kenyan Muslim Atheist Socia1ist, past associations that you had with a guy who died when you were 10 and you never met are held against you for life.
mistermix
@Ben Cisco: It’s a pretty obvious joke, isn’t it? That said, I haven’t seen it anywhere else, so tell me where I stole it from.
Punchy
@Tripod: I read that Time piece and thought the same thing. What a smug pompous asshole of a shitbag writer. Had to take as many dings at BO while trying hard to stay factual. Made for an abortion of an article.
Joseph Nobles
Birth control cock-blocks God. Who the hell are you to cock-block God, little woman?
Suffern ACE
@harlana – I think they are hypothetical. I could be wrong, as they may be talking about the administrator of plans. But I’m wondering if they exist, or if they are invented. We might as well take steps to prevent al Quaeda from offering health insurance while we’re at it, just so we cover all types of insurance companies that might possibly exist someday.
Steeplejack
@mistermix:
I think he meant he’s stealing it from you.
Yevgraf
@beltane:
Rumors are correct. Sadly, the only guy that I know who has laid eyes on the photos has ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and not all that much longer to live – and everybody he has mentioned as having been connected to the photo episode is now dead. He’s a former GOP state senator who despises Bitch with the blinding heat of a thousand suns.
Somewhere back in the 80s, when Bitch was a lowly county executive for Louisville, I called him a “Howdy Doody looking motherfucker” in a parking lot after a contentious political event.
Good times.
Culture of Truth
How far are we from declaring all diseases part of God’s plan?
Schlemizel
@WereBear:
I remember around 73-74 working with a woman who got turned down by Sears because she want the card in her name. One of the other women in my group decide to make a fuss about this & went to Sears the next day demanding a card in her name not “Mrs. Guy X”. Clerk said “Sure!” and got it for her. She was very deflated at not having the fight she wanted but getting a CC she didn’t want!
That same woman BTW was turned down for med school because the interviewer asked why she should take a slot from a man when she would just quit practice when she started having babies! The world has changed so much in 40 years & nobody seems to recognize that. (Today she is a professor of biology at a local Catholic University)
PTirebiter
They have to dance with the dates What brung ’em. As President Obama’s numbers rise, I fully expect to see the. GOP’s inner Lee Atwater take over the campaign. and since they won’t be able to blame the thumpin’ on. ACORN, I fully expect to hear a lot more about the need for 2nd Amendment solutions to the liberal intransigents.
mistermix
@Steeplejack: Ah, far too subtle for me.
amk
@mistermix: psst, wanna buy some thicker skin ?
harlana
all of this has gone beyond unwitting self-parody, it is dangerous performance art in the supposed sacred halls of democracy
Gin & Tonic
@Suffern ACE: Not health insurance companies per se, but there’s a complicated sort of gray area with large-ish employers where they can “self-insure” while using the administrative services of a large health insurance company. So in legal terms the hypothetically Catholic hospital or university is the insurer, using United Health or somebody like that as what’s called a third-party administrator, who handles the paperwork, the claim payments, etc for a (negotiated) flat fee. Any profit or loss on the health plan, determined by whether they have few claims or many (or seriosuly expensive ones) in any given year is borne by the employer.
This is fairly common.
SFAW
You mean you think they’re not?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEKuGcmW70I
amk
ppp latest MI polling – lil ricky kicks mitt’s butt by 39-24.
r€nato
@The Moar You Know: “that guy” was the doctor who delivered her when she was born.
Srsly. To me, that’s almost as creepy as incest, for some reason.
Villago Delenda Est
@amk:
Oh Ricky you’re a swine you’re such a swine you blow my mind!
Hey Ricky! Hey Ricky!
Oh Ricky your such a swine you ooze santorum all the time!
Hey Ricky! Hey Ricky!
beltane
Using Peggy Noonan’s logic, shouldn’t Catholic hospitals also refuse chemotherapy and radiation treatment to all women of childbearing age since these treatments might impair fertility? Maybe Catholic hospitals should play it safe and refuse to treat all pre-menopausal women in general since even simple procedures such as x-rays could possibly damage unused ovum. Better to let women die than risk harming a single unused ovum.
Emma
@Keith G: It’s amazing how easily Obama loses people. He didn’t go for this–he lost ME! He didn’t consult with those — he lost ME! I don’t like the way he said that — he lost ME!
Jesus, no wonder the Republicans keep on winning. Republicans vote Republican whether they love their candidate or not. Guaranteed, a sizable chunk will go to the polls in November and vote for the guy their party puts up. We make it all about us.
Maybe he did consult, but didn’t do it publicly? How do we know? Or maybe he’s playing a longer game? I mean this makes a step towards Universal coverage. A small one, but nevertheless significant as an example and a future benchmark.
beltane
@amk: Look at the crosstabs. Ricky’s support is almost all from evangelical Protestants. Somewhere out there John Calvin is smashing his head against a brick wall.
Martin
@Emma: He consulted. No doubt HHS ran all of these options through industry groups.
Linda Featheringill
@beltane:
:-)
Culture of Truth
Yeah, no kidding. BTW, Obama has just unveiled his proposed $3.8 trillion budget. Calls for clean energy, big cuts to greenhouse gases. But by enough?!?
liberal
@WereBear:
I know.
I’m pretty sure that on one of these topics, probably to do with late term abortions, some woman testified before a House committee about why she aborted her anencephalic pregnancy. Henry Hyde really badgered her.
What a sick monster that guy was.
jibeaux
@Napoleon: Yes, that’s one of the ways I had in mind. And now there’s the Santorum surge, a
a guy who lost women in PA by at least a 20 point margin, probably 25.
Gin & Tonic
@Yevgraf: Riddle me this. I looked Mitch up on Wikipedia and found that he assumed that County Exec position in 1978 and held it until he was elected to the Senate in 1984, where he has been ever since. So he’s been a government employee for the last 34 years (possibly longer, but the Wikipedia entry is unclear about his tenure as an AUSA.) Yet he is the 12th richest member of the Senate, with a net worth in excess of $32 million. How’d that happen on a public servant’s salary?
Anya
@amk: Mittens has 14-days to annihilate him. I am just not sure what his attack ads against Sanatorium would be about. But he has the money.…
SFAW
Perhaps the Congressional pages have a lot of spare cash to blow.
RossInDetroit
@amk:
That’s a huge change. 2 weeks ago the freshest polls had Mitt up by a comfortable 10 to 20 points. CRASH!
amk
@Anya: the skeleton count of lil ricky is much less than of that water maggot multiple adulterer.
Culture of Truth
Obama calls for raising taxes on dividends from 15% to 39%, doubling spending on highways, bridges and mass transit –using money previously spent on Iraq and Afghanistan.
SFAW
Oh noes, he’s going to give the Job Creators a sad!
Nutella
@Gin & Tonic:
Just lucky investments. Anybody could do it! Well, anyone with the insider trading benefits and payoffs that senators get.
flukebucket
I remember wondering the same thing about Dick Cheney when he said that he had spent almost all of his life in public service.
But I knew his net worth had been estimated at between 100 and 150 million dollars at the time.
Ahhh the sacrifices made by our public servants.
“It will turn you face to alabaster when you find your servant is your master”
slag
Reading Ed Kilgore today made me realize how much this incident exacerbated what was heretofore your average amount of latent disapprobation of the Catholic Church:
Up until now, I’ve kind of disregarded the various and sundry Church scandals as being mostly “their problem”. The only significant amount of thought I’d given to the matter has been empathy for the victims of the Church and extreme gratitude for those in my own personal circle who were lucky enough to escape from it relatively unscathed. Yes, this attitude is the wrong one to take, but with so much villainy in the world, I just can’t find it in me to get virulent toward all of it.
But now that those robed fuckers have started coming directly after me and mine, the claws have come out with a vengeance. And I don’t foresee them being retracted anytime soon.
ruemara
@Keith G: I’m not gonna say your brother is silly, but his response is a touch silly. This was done with “consultations”. This is a policy that is followed by many states and many Catholic institutions. It increases competitiveness in the market place. The problem is not the policy the President, really, the administration has now standardized for federal implementation. The problem is the conservative catholic bishopric who are now attempting to strike a blow against birth control under the guise of religious freedom. Frankly, this is not a catholic religious nation and they’d do well to remember that.
SFAW
The USCCB is a proxy for the Catholic hierarchy and Talibangelicals. If it were only Catholics, it wouldn’t be getting as much traction with Dumbfuckistan (a/k/a right-wing Murika).
Nemesis
Im expecting some remuneration from BJ, seeing that the image of the ghey box turtle from KY in the throes of a Viagra-fueled raging 3 inch erection has caused me to bring up lunch.
piratedan
@Tom: obviously the WH staff has been watching where the others don’t walk…….
@mistermix: #58, I think he meant that it was so nifty and clever, he was going to lift it himself, from you. As opposed to implying that you stole it from elsewhere… at least that’s how I read it.
The Moar You Know
@r€nato: OK, that is just wrong on every level.
@amk: Victory indeed. Veritas is stroking out right about now, I’ll bet. If I were a minority-hating jerk looking to “take back my country” and had to watch the GOP shooting themselves in the nads like this I’d probably be in the hospital.
The useful idiots over at RedState have been clamoring for a brokered convention. They may well get their wish. If they do, it will not end well for them. I’m thinking it would be like Chicago, 1968, but with tricorner hats and loaded, open carry guns. Which state is the GOP failparade convention to be held in, anyone know?
Nemesis
Witness Step One of the gop Grand Plan for electing mittbot.
The base is less then enthused about willard. The gop elites know this. Hence, the initial salvo in an all out culture war for 2012. Its the only way to fire up the base and get em to vote come Novemner.
Rafer Janders
@Gin & Tonic:
Riddle me this. I looked Mitch up on Wikipedia and found that he assumed that County Exec position in 1978 and held it until he was elected to the Senate in 1984, where he has been ever since. So he’s been a government employee for the last 34 years (possibly longer, but the Wikipedia entry is unclear about his tenure as an AUSA.) Yet he is the 12th richest member of the Senate, with a net worth in excess of $32 million. How’d that happen on a public servant’s salary?
Mitch’s second wife (like most Republicans, he divorced his first for a younger, richer second) is Elaine Chao, who was Labor Secretary under Bush. Chao comes from an extremely wealthy Taiwanese family which made hundreds of millions in shipping and other concerns. I don’t know if McConnell ever made any legitimate money of his own, but his wife, at least, is rolling in it.
The Moar You Know
Huh, moderation.
Gin & Tonic
@Rafer Janders: Thanks for the info. I can find no evidence that Mitch ever spent any time in the private sector, but this is certainly a valid explanation.
The Moar You Know
@Nemesis: I agree with everything you posted, but you must admit it will be damned hard for the GOP to execute that stratagem to its fullest with a non-Christian as a candidate.
The Mormon issue is not going away.
Rafer Janders
@Gin & Tonic:
I know the Chao family, so I can verify that they’ve certainly got the cash to keep Mitch in the lifestyle to which he’s grown accustomed to not having to work for himself.
shortstop
@Keith G: Enlightening. Thanks.
shortstop
@Rafer Janders: Surely they could afford to pay cash for elective cosmetic surgery to remove that turkey neck? Why don’t they?
SFAW
Not sure if the “non-Christian” refers to Mitt, but if so:
you do know that the Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, don’t you?
Or were you talking about Holy Joe, or perhaps Keith Ellison? Count me confused.
Rafer Janders
@shortstop:
In Chinese culture, turkeys are considered symbols of virility.
Brachiator
I’m not seeing the connection here, except that it leads some liberals into falling for the simplistic “men vs womyn” feint.
Viagra is an issue for some married people, men and women, perhaps even men and men, not just about angry hetero dudes wanting super boners.
@Culture of Truth:
Interesting opening gambit. It will be interesting to see what the compromise play will be.
The infrastructure stuff is a renewed push of old ideas. Some of this stuff is needed, but it is not enough to get the economy growing.
Obama needs some new economic advisors.
PurpleGirl
@beltane: According to Wikipedia, Nooners has one son and is divorced.
SFAW
Oh yeah? Drop a few outta helicopters, then we’ll see how “virile” they really are.
Rafer Janders
@SFAW:
No matter that they name-check JC, I don’t consider Mormons to be Christians, either (the German Democratic Republic was neither democratic nor a republic). And none of the major Christian denominations consider Mormons as co-religionists.
Their belief system is, frankly, too far at odds with Christianity to be considered the same religion.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@shortstop: Obviously that surgery related to procreation – who would want to have sex with a turtle – and he’s hoping to get it for free under his insurance plan.
shortstop
@burnspbesq: John Kerry was the first Democrat to lose a majority of the Catholic vote. He did so after the USCCB launched its top-down campaign against this pro-choice candidate. You will recall that they took that one right into the pews via parish priests in a fairly well coordinated effort.
Abortion is not birth control, and far, far more Catholics support and make use of the latter than the former. That alone is the reason the bishops have lost this time. But stop pretending that the leaders of your church have zero influence in general on votes or politics. In just one notable recent example, they held health reform hostage to their demands for months as they purposefully mischaracterized the existing situation with abortion and federal dollars (and convinced a lot of low-info Catholic voters along the way that their lie was true).
We get that you’re embarrassed about your church’s American leadership, but you cannot shriek defensively one day that the church is not, by purpose, a democracy because you’re rightfully appalled by the bishops’ behavior and always have to make it all about you, then turn around the next day and aver that the bishops should be molding their theology to the laypeople’s (as if such a thing were possible given the immutably hierarchical structure of the organization) — all for the cause of soothing your own inner turmoil about the character of the institution to which you choose to belong.
It would be awesome if you could work out your religious issues on your own time instead of alternating between a) inappropriate and spiteful outbursts at the BJ commentariat for criticizing the church and b) warm and comradely assurances that the out-of-touch guys in skirts aren’t going to cause any more trouble. At the very least, you might try find some setting in between those two reactions that bears some resemblance to balance and reason.
shortstop
@Rafer Janders: Did you just make that up? Hell, of course you did.
shortstop
@SFAW: As god is my witness…
Rafer Janders
@Rafer Janders:
As an update, I can certainly see why, in a majority-Christian nation, Mormons would want to be associated with Christianity. But nevertheless, their beliefs are so different that it’s a bit ludicrous for them to claim to be Christians.
But it should be OK not to be! Lots of other religions aren’t Christian, and they do fine. Judaism isn’t Christianity, Islam isn’t, Hinduism isn’t, etc. There seems to be a weird thing going on where to claim that Mormons aren’t Christians is to somehow insult them. But this assumes that Christianity is the norm that every other religion should aspire to be, that there’s something wrong with not being a Christian. And there isn’t! (I’m not one myself either).
SFAW
Not really your call, though, is it?
It’s sorta like: Sunnis may think Shiites are not true Muslims, and vice versa, but it not their call, either.
Apples and oranges.
Sunni/Shia again. I might not consider Baptists to be true Christians, because of the large number of adherents who daily flip the bird toward Jesus’s teachings – but that would be my own issue to deal with, etc.
Frankensteinbeck
@Zifnab25:
No one. No one is in charge. The RNC has shrunk to a withered appendix. Karl Rove has genuflected publicly to Rush Limbaugh. The base has gone so batshit they lost the Senate in 2010, a massive backlash midterm, by throwing out establishment candidates in favor of fringe nutcases. The super wealthy have been dumping their money in bonfires supporting whatever failed candidate matches their personal psychosis. ODS goes all the way to the top, and supposed elites would hold their breath if Obama told them oxygen was good.
@Keith G:
Yes. Health care costs have skyrocketed in this country because insurance industries have rigged the system in a million ways so that they never, ever take a loss. We need a massive regulations package to fix the cobweb of abuses and inefficiencies this has created. The ACA is such a package.
Rafer Janders
Not really your call, though, is it?
Why not my call? It’s an issue which I know a lot about, and which I’ve studied extensively. Why wouldn’t I be allowed to have an opinion on this as on any other topic
It’s sorta like: Sunnis may think Shiites are not true Muslims, and vice versa, but it not their call, either.
Again, sure it’s their call. The key part of belonging to any club is deciding who else gets to be in your club and who doesn’t.
Let me be clear: I think all these religions are silly and arbitrary and made up. But pretty much everything we do as humans is, at some level, just made up. But definitions still matter. I can go about calling myself a Mongolian supermodel, for example, but other Mongolians and/or supermodels can also say nope, that guy’s not one of us, no matter what he says.
SFAW
1054, here we come! Wheeee!
Yeah, it’s weird how, when people are told that one of their key ways to identify themselves is bullshit, they get a little peeved. Who would have guessed?
I think you’re projecting a little. Not in a mean, Rethug-like way, of course, but it still looks like projection.
Rafer Janders
@SFAW:
I might not consider Baptists to be true Christians, because of the large number of adherents who daily flip the bird toward Jesus’s teachings – but that would be my own issue to deal with, etc.
And you are perfectly free to do so. If you don’t consider Baptists to be Christians, go right ahead. It’s your call. But the vast overwhelming majority of other Christians will have a different interpretation. But their interpretation will depend in large part on matters of Baptist theology, on the fact that Baptists subscribe to the Nicene Creed, don’t have three levels of heaven, don’t believe that humans can become gods themselves (all of which characterize the Mormon faith), not on the mere fact that Baptists consider themselves Christians.
Ben Cisco
@mistermix: You misunderstood. I meant I’m stealing it.
SFAW
Rafer –
Look, I understand the point you’re trying to make, but you’re still wrong. It’s nice that you’ve studied this “extensively”, but it’s not your call to make. You can have an opinion – for example, Jonah Goldberg seems to think that liberals are the REAL fascists – but having an opinion does not make it so.
Or, to put it in more stark terms: the AGW-deniers are free to believe that there is no global warming, and the jury’s still out. But until they can show peer-reviewed data proving their point, it’s still only their opinion.
Or, as some old Eye-talian guy once said: “Eppur, si muove.”
Rafer Janders
Yeah, it’s weird how, when people are told that one of their key ways to identify themselves is bullshit, they get a little peeved. Who would have guessed?
Sure, but I don’t care if they get peeved. Their tender feelings are completely irrelvant to me. I also get upset when people dispute my claim to be a multi-millionaire NBA point guard, but again, I recognize that my merely claiming it doesn’t make it so.
I think you’re projecting a little. Not in a mean, Rethug-like way, of course, but it still looks like projection.
I’m actually not following this. In what manner would this projection work?
harlana
@Rafer Janders: In Chinese culture, turkeys are considered symbols of virility.
SFAW
Yes, but “sayin’ don’t make it so.”
In other words, whatever I believe is immaterial, in this case.
Similarly, what you believe about Mormons, and what Talibangelicals believe about Mormons, is immaterial as to whether Mormons are actually Christians. Kinda like the Sunni/Shia split.
Allan
Why would McConnell need Viagra? Elaine Chao is the top in that “marriage”.
SFAW
Rafer –
Your “logic” stream is wrong on a number of levels, but I gotta run, can’t explain right now, be back in a few hours.
Not that it matters.
Rafer Janders
@SFAW:
You seem to be confusing the concepts of proof here. In religion, there’s no objective hard data because it’s all made up — it’s all fiction. But nevertheless, we can differentiate between a story one group makes up and tell that it’s not like the story another group makes up, and if the first group claims their story is exactly like the other group’s story, we can see why it’s not.
This is a gross oversimplification, but most Christians sects, at core, subscribe to the Nicene Creed. Mormons don’t — they consider the Nicene Creed to be corrupted, and that that the three manifestations of God in the form of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are NOT the same being, NOT infinite, and NOT unchangeable. It’s a fundamental difference in theology which makes Mormonism completely incompatible with the tenets of virtually every Christian faith, including Catholicism, Orthodoxy and most Protestantism.
I’d submit that what the Mormons are doing is actually far more similar to what Goldberg was doing in “Liberal Fascism”, pretending that what everyone knew was one thing was in fact the other.
harlana
@Rafer Janders: damn, what gives? what then, does he have to offer?? it sure ain’t looks, personality, sex appeal or, apparently money. wtf, she is very attractive lady! woman, what are you thinking? we need to have a talk, girl.
Rafer Janders
@SFAW:
Similarly, what you believe about Mormons, and what Talibangelicals believe about Mormons, is immaterial as to whether Mormons are actually Christians. Kinda like the Sunni/Shia split.
In your conception, then, what would determine whether Mormons were Christians? Only whether they themselves said so? What Christianity itself thinks holds no sway?
Sorry, but life doesn’t work that way. It would be nice if whatever we pretended was true, and if everyone had to go along with our delusions, but we live in a world of categories and definitions.
Suppose I decide to start calling myself a Mormon. I don’t believe in anything Mormons believe in, I don’t attend Mormon temples, I drink, I don’t tithe, etc. But I’m going to call myself a Mormon, and say things like “as a Mormon…” etc. Would other Mormons have a right to get upset? Would you consider that they’d have reason to say hey, that guy’s not actually a Mormon, no matter what he says? Would I be entitled to go to Mormon temples, and participate in ceremonies, and if they tried to stop me I could protest and say they have no right because I’m as much a Mormon as they are, the proof is right there in the fact that I call myself one?
I submit that in that case, you might actually think they were right. That they’ve got a group, they’ve made the rules, and they get to have some say over who’s in their little club and who isn’t. And that my merely saying I’m a Mormon doesn’t make it so, absent me complying with certain basic levels of Mormon theology and practice.
In the same way, the mere fact that Mormons call themselves Christians is belied by the fact that they don’t, in fact, believe in things that virtually every other group of Christians believe in.
But again, I detect in your worrying of this bone a somewhat bizarre sense that in my claim that Mormons aren’t Christians is somehow insulting to them. And I think this indicates a perhaps unconscious sense that it is an insult, that to Christian is somehow to be right and not to be is somehow deficient.
GARY CAMPBELL
I’d bet that McConnell hasn’t had ANYTHING up in so long that the only up he knows about is where the street lights are.
He probably remembers what it’s like to get laid in 1903.
This turd needs to be flushed like the …..well, turd he is….turtle turd at that!
Rafer Janders
@harlana:
Access to power.
Bex
@Rafer Janders: Just like the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.
Gin & Tonic
@harlana: Henry Kissinger didn’t have looks, personality, sex appeal or money either. Neither does Dennis Kucinich. Both have done OK in the female companionship department.
Rafer Janders
@Gin & Tonic:
That saying that politics is Hollywood for ugly people? There’s a reason for that.
Rafer Janders
@Bex:
Sure. Since SFAW is off-line, I don’t think it’s fair to keep replying to him, but my earlier point about the German Democratic Republic was merely to illustrate that, for branding purpose, lots of organizations will call themselves something they’re not in order to appropriate to themselves the aura of a larger and/or more well-accepted brand. But just calling yourself something doesn’t make you that thing, absent your actually exhibiting beliefs and/or behaviors that are consistent with your labelling.
iceskatingschnauzer
@SFAW
“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
Brachiator
@Rafer Janders:
Given the rather plastic nature of the religion, how can anyone really say who is mas macho? Are Christian Scientists Christian? Jehovah’s Witnesses? Unitarians?
It wasn’t that long ago that Protestants and Catholics were killing and burning each other at the stake over such questions. It’s quaint to think that you have the final answer.
eemom
@Rafer Janders:
Nothing can beat “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”.
Rafer Janders
@Brachiator:
And who’s to say I’m not a Mormon? I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe the Angel Moroni visited Joseph Smith, I don’t believe in the three Mormon heavens, I don’t believe Jesus visited North America, I drink alcohol and coffee, I don’t tithe, I reject all Mormon writings and the authority of the Mormon church hieararchy.
And yet…I’m a Mormon. Just as much as Mitt Romney is. Just because I’m calling myself one right now. No matter that other Mormons don’t consider me to be one, the mere fact of my labelling myself makes it so. And no other Mormon has any authority to reject my claim, they have to treat me as a co-religionist no matter that my beliefs conflict with theirs. Because it’s not up to the Mormons to decide who’s a Mormon…it’s up to me.
Rafer Janders
@eemom:
It’s neither Democratic nor a People’s Republic nor Korea…oh, wait. It is the last one.
g
so, shall we ladies just sit here and sip tea until the guys decide what will happen to our reproductive health benefits?
nellcote
@harlana:
She’s a rich republican with business interests. He’s a powerful gooper senator. What’s the mystery?
Another Halocene Human
@Culture of Truth: I think we’re there.
Another Halocene Human
@slag:
The alliance… will die. As will your friends. Good, I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I would post a Popeatine here… well, just imagine it.
Jeff Fecke
@WereBear:
I actually had an embyronic carcinoma — that is to say, my testicular cancer was made up of tissues that were trying valiantly to make an embryo despite, you know, being in a testicle. Despite being straight, I choose to believe I had a gay abortion.
Chuck Butcher
The Mormons can call themselves Christians if they please, and they do, but it won’t stop just about everybody else from laughing at it.
SFAW may or may not like that, but that is one of the costs of belonging to something almost everybody else considers something else. Of course the kicker is that taking the “direct” quotes of Christ and applying them to Christianity doesn’t leave many versions, does it?
SFAW
Rafer –
I was going to take apart your “logic”, point by point, but I came to the realization that (A) it wouldn’t matter, because you’d still conflate “I’m calling myself something I’m not, just because I can” with your claim that Mormons aren’t Christians because – despite the available evidence that they adhere to (at least some of) the teachings of Jesus Christ (as opposed to adhering to practices similar to Christ’s, but without identifying him as the Teacher), you’ve decided they’re not; and (B) I don’t have the time to play ring-a-round-Rosie with you.
So, you can declare yourself the winner of the argument, if you wish, since I have decided to opt out. But you should also realize that the validity of your “argument” is on a par with your “claim” (so to speak) that you’re a supermodel and multimillionaire NBA point guard Mormon. In other words, as with just about everything you’ve said on this subject, sayin’ don’t make it so.
But I don’t expect you to get that.
Have fun!
Rafer Janders
@Chuck Butcher:
It leaves the Unitarians. But if they’re the one true faith I’ll eat my hat.
SFAW
Rafer –
On the plus side, you can probably get PolitiFact to declare that your “I’m a Mormon” line pegs the Truth-o-metre at super-dee-duper-truthful.
So there’s that.
SFAW
Yeah, the UUs are an interesting bunch. In a lot of ways, probably closer to following Christ than a lot of the Talibangelicals. But I don’t think I’d call them Christian, or even a religion.
But that’s only my take on it, and it’s not especially theological.
shortstop
@SFAW: Well, the word “Unitarian” means rejection of the concept of the trinity, SFAW, so there’s your answer.
Having said that, there are Unitarians who call themselves Christians, though they are a distinct minority. However, Unitarians who call Unitarianism a religion are a majority. You appear to have been hoisted by your own petard.
Rafer Janders
Well that’s hardly any fun. The “I’m taking my ball and going home” isn’t the most satisfying end to an argument. But since I don’t believe in continuing an argument with people who are off-line, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Rafer Janders
@shortstop:
Yes, the core of Unitarianism is strict monotheism, as oppopsed to mainstream Christianity’s somewhat more, uh, loose embrace of that concept — they deny Christ’s divinity but accept him as a prophet. So no Father/Son/Holy Spirit in Unitarianism.
Rafer Janders
@SFAW:
But I don’t think I’d call them Christian, or even a religion.
Not really your call, though, is it?
shortstop
@Rafer Janders: Anecdotal evidence time, and you know what that means! I was raised in a UU household and have spent quite a lot of time with various UUs since then, though I’m not among their numbers. I have never in my life heard a Unitarian say “I accept Jesus as a prophet.” “Prophet” is just not a big word in that group.
On the other hand, I have heard (a minority, as I said, of) Unitarians say they accept the divinity of Jesus. Generally speaking, however, the people saying that also accept the divinity of a number of other deities. By SFAW’s parameters, though, that makes them Christian. ;)
Rafer Janders
@shortstop:
Agree, I meant “prophet” more in the looser sense of teacher, sage, etc.
By SFAW’s parameters, though, that makes them Christian. ;)
By those parameters, that makes Muslims Christians…
Rafer Janders
OK, shortstop, much as I love theological debate, I’m afraid I have to jump off as well. Since I have no conception of a three-tiered afterlife, I’m afraid I have to make the most of what time remains to me on this earth….
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
I wonder if the far right would like all women to simply become productive little axlotl tanks.
SFAW
It’s “hoist”, not “hoisted”.
And there was no petard. I was merely expressing my opinion, I wasn’t claiming that I speak for them, nor that I have perfect knowledge. That’s slightly different than the debate going on between me and Rafer.
Also, please note that I said “following Christ”, not that they’re Christian. But I should have explained more: I wasn’t talking about the Trinity/theological aspect(s) of Christ, but rather his teachings with respect to humanity, etc. My apologies for my poor/unclear writing.
SFAW
As I already said, right?
SFAW
GMAFB, OK?
shortstop
@SFAW:
shortstop
@Rafer Janders: Remember that guy who told you he hadn’t saved a dime because he wanted to eat at Manhattan’s best restaurants “while he was young enough to enjoy them” (I still don’t know what that means; perhaps he was concerned about late-life flatulence or heartburn or suchlike)? I know you’ll do what’s required to make tonight count from a purely temporal perspective.
SFAW
Rafer –
Two last points, then I promise (well, probably not) that I’ll stop
1) I didn’t really intend it to be a “take my ball” type of comment. Sorry if it came across that way. Although, I’m not sure how NOT to have it come across that way.
2) I re-read your earlier post re: Nicene Creed, etc. I guess I’m going to defer to your assessment of Mormons’ relative Christianity. So, I guess I’m saying that I yield.
Your “I’ll call myself a Mormon” bullshit is still bullshit, of course, but I’ll shut up about the other stuff. I think.
SFAW
Much. obliged,”!
grandpa john
@PurpleGirl: well the divorced part is certainly understandable.
grandpa john
@SFAW: Depends, Wild turkeys can fly easily
grandpa john
@iceskatingschnauzer: Some can ,
SFAW
grandpa john –
Yes, we know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf3mgmEdfwg