I think Rush did the right thing in apologizing to Fluke. However, let’s keep in mind that it was Fluke who made her sexual activity a matter of national political debate by insisting that the government pass laws and regulations forcing employers and insurers to provide her free contraception, and apparently as much as she and others demand. It’s Republicans who believe that contraception should remain a private affair, and that employers and insurers should be free to decide whether to cover contraception for their employees and customers or not. Democrats used Fluke to demand that those choices be stripped from private enterprises and instead be forced by the executive branch to entirely subsidize contraception.
Ed Morrissey is simply lying. There is no other word for it. This is a bald-faced lie. Miss Fluke did not once make any mention of her sexual activity, and, in fact, listed cases in which birth control was necessary for non-sexual medical conditions. There was no mention of her sex life, sexual preferences, or sexual activity. Every single thing she said was about women’s health issues. She no more opened a debate on her sex life than someone testifying for blood pressure medicine being part of health insurance coverage opened a national debate on their eating habits and exercise regimen. Ed is lying. Here is her testimony:
For those of you who can not watch videos, here is a .pdf of the transcript. At no point anywhere in her testimony did Sandra Fluke make any mention of her sexual activity. Never.
I challenge Ed right now- show me where she talked about her sex life in that testimony, and I will write a check for $1,000.00 to the RNC. She simply didn’t make her sex life the topic of discussion, and Ed is lying out his ass. You could watch that video or read the transcript, and as far as you could tell, Miss Fluke might very well be a virgin.
Ed is lying. The people who made this issue, which was about medical health, into an issue about Sandra Fluke’s sex life are Rush Limbaugh and all the amoral cretins like Ed who decided that just like Graeme Frost, anyone who goes against what the right wants RIGHT NOW, is a target who needs to be destroyed.
So take the challenge, or apologize for lying, Ed. $1000.00 to the RNC the moment you can show me where she discussed her sex life, you lying sack of shit.
Martin
Kittens wore off. Go watch the duckies, man.
zmullls
Thank you for saying “bald-faced lie” rather than “bold-faced lie.” Apparently the latter is also correct, from a historical perspective, but the former is more accurate.
Baud
Contraception should only be discussed in quiet rooms.
scav
Kittens and Bloodlust. A well-rounded individual.
BH
At first I could have sworn that Ed was trying to be sarcastic, but he’s just not that clever.
SamR
Lying sociopath is lying.
Phil Perspective
So take the challenge, or apologize for lying, Ed. $1000.00 to the RNC the moment you can show me where she discussed her sex life, you lying sack of shit.
He doesn’t have the stones to take your challenge.
Argive
Way to throw down, John. Gotta get you a matched set of dueling pistols.
Xecky Gilchrist
Sheesh, you expect right-wing blowhards to watch the testimony they character- (and threaten to really-) assassinate people over? Now I’ve heard everything.
I mean, they condemn movies and TV shows and books and music without having taken the time to experience them, why not this?
Trentrunner
NOW they’re saying “it’s private”?
NOW!?! After saying that Fluke can’t walk right cuz she fucks so much? That she has the manfuckers lined up around the corner to fuck her? That her parents should be ashamed of their daughter’s non-stop government-sponsored fucking?
FUCK THEM. They’ve been going after MY private life for over the last three decades.
Fuck them. FUCK THEM.
Soonergrunt
And good on you for calling a liar a liar.
He didn’t exaggerate. He didn’t misspeak. He didn’t use inartful language.
He fucking lied. And it’s about time we call them out when they lie.
Jay C
And just as another point, is it a “lie” – or just another misinterpretation of Ms. Fluke’s remarks that she was asking anyone to “provide her with free contraception….as much as she wants”? “Free”, in this case, seems a bit of an exaggeration (would the coverage not require some sort of co-pay, like any other prescription?
Royston Vasey
Hey JC, didn’t you and Eddie Boy used to be mates, you know, back in the day when you flirted with wingnut life?
jl
From watching cute little kiddy animals to watching a lunatic wingnut beat a dead horse. Except, the dead horse is not there.
From Animal Planet to surreal political theatre of cruelty.
Cole has catholic tastes. (bad pun alert.)
Edit: but Cole and DougJ are correct, when we talk about this miserable episode, the only word to use when talking with people about it, is ‘lie’. Or maybe ‘damned lie with specific intent to deceive and distract’.
Rick Taylor
WTF is this? As much as she demands? I presume a women taking contraception would do so as prescribed by her doctor, yet Limbaugh and now Morissey (someone John Cole years ago referred to as a relatively reasonable conservative) are talking as though they’re bolting cases of the stuff down and charging it to us. Have Republicans finally just gone entirely insane?
Trentrunner
And just to keep perspective, IT WOULDN’T MATTER IF WOMEN WANTED CONCEPTION COVERED BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO FUCK 24/7/365.
Fluke (or any woman or man) can consensually fuck as much or as little as they want, and it has nothing to do with any of the rest of us. It’s part of life and should be covered in a GOVERNMENT-RUN SINGLE-PAYER health care system.
Fuck me and my all-caps but I’m shouty angry about all this.
John Abramowitz
For the last time, you take birth control EVERY DAY, WHETHER OR NOT YOU’RE HAVING SEX.
Oy.
BGinCHI
Men afraid of women never accept challenges, except from people weaker than they are.
Ed is definitely the weaker Morrissey.
The other one only metaphorically thought about a girlfriend in a coma.
Face
But Im sure you took him out of context and misrepresented his words as he mistakenly misspoke and youre an ass because shut up thats why
dww44
This is why I love you, John. You pull no punches. I devoutly hope someone is making sure Morrisey receives your challenge. Throughout this whole brou-ha-ha, the right has been lying all up and down the spectrum, at least as far I’ve seen replayed on my teevee. Are they also being challenged on the meme that the government is paying for birth control? Doesn’t the ACA provide for insurance coverage for birth control (by private insurance carriers) and as a result of the recent compromise, religious institutions which OBJECT to such coverage for their employees can opt out? Just that the employees then have to be covered by the insurance companies. If I’ve misunderstood the whole issue, I surely would love to know what I’ve misunderstood.
Some Guy
@Jay C:
How can anyone be this stupid?
Morrissey straight up lied. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. He lied. He lied about her talking about sex, lied about Republicans wanted to keep things private, and lied about “free” contraceptives. Fucking lied. And all these lies were just in this small quote John put up.
Fuck you.
fnook
As others have pointed out out, it appears that Rush and Ed simply don’t know how the pill works and that plenty of women take it for health reasons unrelated to preventing pregnancy. They’re just stupid and not curious enough to figure it out or self aware enough to be embarrases. Also, the 1st amendment is about individual liberty, not the liberty of Catholics to buy a bunch of hospitals, open them to the public at large and impose their religion on everyone that walks through the door.
cthulhu
Hell, I’ll throw down and double that. We’re now at $2k.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
yup
JordanRules
Challenge his pathetic lying ass! Love it. Use your position to see if his soggy ass will respond John. You may have a better chance than the non-blog owners on here so I appreciate it.
Implant a shame gene in all these cowards!
cd6
If you’re going to put up a 1k challenge every time captain Ed says something dishonest, you’re going to be pretty busy. Dude is one of the biggest hacks out there. Every news story, and I mean every one, can be spun as “bad news for Obama”
MikeJ
@Jay C:
Bullshit. Look at what he says:
That’s not misinterpretation.
Don’t be a moron. You know Special Ed is full of shit. If you don’t you’re as full of shit as he is.
Suffern ACE
I would like the insurance I pay for to cover contraception. I support that idea. It is not a private decision for my employer and my insurance company to have behind my back with their lobbyists and their bought Congressmen. That is all.
Rick Taylor
I don’t think Mr. Morissey is lying here. He didn’t say that Miss Fluke brought up her sex life. Rather, he seems to be arguing that any woman who argues publicly in support of policies that cover women’s reproductive health are inviting people to talk about their sex life and shouldn’t complain too much if they get called a slut. You know, it’s like if a kid argues on tv that mandated insurance for children is a good thing, it’s an open invitation to people to study his family’s counter-tops and he shouldn’t be surprised if his parents get called moochers and such. I guess this is how some conservatives think now-a-days.
Wag
@cthulhu:
3K
Amy
It was awful when Rush lied about Paul Wellstone’s memorial, but a lot of people didn’t really know what went on there.
But when you lie about how the birth control pill works — or just flat-out don’t understand it, due to terminal cluelessness — there are millions and millions of women and men who know that you are flat out making crap up.
Claiming that a woman is a slut because she wants insurance companies to cover birth control, that this is “getting paid to have sex,” just is so blatantly nonsensical.
Not only has nearly every woman used birth control, most women used it when they weren’t married because you know, women don’t wait to get married to have sex. So Rush directly insulted most women and insulted the men who love them who don’t like them considered to be prostitutes for trying to avoid unwanted pregnancies.
When you pull this crap that people know is crap from their everyday lives, there’s no way to fool anyone but the true believing dittoheads.
Villago Delenda Est
The only apology that should be entertained, yet again, is a Captain Needa apology.
Ed Morrissey is an honorless cur.
geg6
@Trentrunner:
Yes. This.
SaltyDawg
Just a side note to highlight the phenomenal IGNORANCE that Limbaugh (and Special Ed, apparently) displays about this subject. As Rachel Maddow has pointed out, contraception costs the same no matter how much sex a woman has.
Here’s another point: the person needing the health care (whether for contraception purposes or otherwise) pays for the insurance. So, it’s her money and her call. The employer may subsidize the insurance– or not– but, I’ll be damned if obese jerks like Limbaugh should be able to get Viagra through insurance or Medicare and woman should be discriminated against for a product which has a more direct bearing on her health.
Trentrunner
And may I point out that this whole brouhaha is just another example of how religion poisons everything?
Seriously, would any sane country listen to group of 60ish celibate men in fabulous hats lecture us about conception if they weren’t “religious”? (The worst thing about Issa’s panel wasn’t just that it was all-men, but that it was all “faith leader.” Blech.)
And on this one, they’re dead wrong. The only reason this is any kind of issue is because you decent non-atheists out there don’t repudiate this religious thuggery. They won’t listen to godless atheist like me. But they’ll listen to you.
Out-Christian these fuckers and tell them to keep your God out of American’s women’s vaginas.
JordanRules
@efgoldman: Where’d they stash ’em all? Cheney’s bunker? Same place that houses all the T sounds from Colbert? Ex-planet Pluto? That big old closet where Larry Craig and countless other self-hating wingnuts hide perhaps?
some guy
Losing the War On Women seems to have driven the Right into retrospection, hence all the need for lies, revision, tu quoquoe, and the rest of the usual wingnut victimization.
thanks for calling a liar a liar.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Has anyone else tried to read the comments over there.
Seebach
I swear to god, and mark me on this, they’re going to go after “insurance” next. Because when you pay into an insurance pool, you’re probably paying for someone’s abortion or birth control just by belonging to an HMO or Blue Cross Blue Shield. Taxpayer money nothing. It’s just how insurance works.
geg6
@Trentrunner:
Much as I agree with everything you are saying in this thread, this:
is something for which you shouldn’t hold your breath. Ain’t gonna happen.
Rick Taylor
I already feel sick; I’m not sure I could take it.
jharp
Seems to me El Rushbo made an unforced error.
You have got to admit he knows how to use his platform and you have got to admit that he fucked up bad here.
Makes me wonder if he’s using again. It just seems so over the line stupid of him.
Mayken
@Trentrunner: This. A thousand times this. While I applaud John calling out the lie, we also need to make clear that slut shaming is NEVER OK.
Pissed off and don’t care who knows it.
Mark Vain
Government shouldn’t be involved with shit like this. Making such a stir over this is crazy. There’s more important things that should be taken care of.
gnomedad
I don’t think these guys think of themselves as lying because they don’t think in terms of facts. They just hold forth on what they “know” with no objective input to speak of.
Sandy King Carpenter
Bravo. Well said. And where was everyone else who listened to the hearings? Thank you.
Ron
@Jay C: Actually the current regulations require that there be no co-pay for birth control.
Mayken
@Trentrunner: Yeah, gotta disagree here. These fuckers have a history of not listening to their own people. And people with the “wrong” kind of religion. And women. And men who disagree with them and…
What makes you think Cardinal HatesWomen is going to listen to Reverent Ms.SupportsWomen?
Also, too, the non-hatey religious folks actually do speak out a lot. Notice how no one knows this fact. Why do you think that is?
gnomedad
I see Ann Coulter is free again. She gets loose more often than Lex Luthor.
scav
must burn their baby corks. Not only is there near in the white house but their gelatinous hero had to apologize (however misleadingly) to a girl.
Villago Delenda Est
What is infuriating about this sort of thing is you can’t even make an appeal to their greed (as in lowering health care costs because birth control is cheaper than pregnancies, abortions, and various surgeries to deal with health problems related to the female reproductive system) because they’re too innumerate to comprehend those sorts of arguments.
jl
@jharp:
” Makes me wonder if [Rush]’s using again. It just seems so over the line stupid of him. ”
I think it is Rush’s act, and this latest incident is just an occupational hazard.
He has done this type of thing before, and has issued a few half-assed apologies before.
Nothing will damage him unless his ratings go down (as happened with Imus). If Limbaugh gets real heat for this, then that will be a sign his ratings are down, like Fox News and Beck and other wingnut shows.
clayton
This is the counter top inspection taken to the nth level.
They feel their oats and think they can get away with this sort of thing.
What they all forget is that everyone is far more connected than they were back then and it is far easier to contact companies in a public way than it was back then as well.
They — especially Rush’s advertisers and the GOP — didn’t learn anything from just a few weeks ago. But is that any surprise?
patrick II
@Trentrunner:
…60ish allegedly celibate men…
Other than that, nice point.
BGinCHI
@Seebach: But that’s exactly what they’ve talked themselves into here. They honestly don’t understand how insurance, for example (the risk pool idea), works. They are that fucking stupid and selfish.
They think that insurance can be completely individual. In other words, they don’t know how it works.
Even the fucking caveman in the commercial is smarter than these fools.
Uncle Omar
The truth of the Limbaugh contretemps is that it revealed the raging gutlessness of the entire Republican “Presidential” field. If those wimps didn’t have the guts to take on one loud mouthed mountebank how can they be trusted to stand up to, say, Hugo Chavez, or one of the other boogey men who live under their beds?
Birthmarker
Thank you John for this..
And the rest of us need to speak out in our own spheres of influence to correct the public record that is being spun about this woman’s testimony.
John, you may get calls from the media about this. I hope your countertops are ready for inspection.
asiangrrlMN
@Mayken: With you and Trentrunner on this one a billionty percent. A healthy sexuality is a part of being healthy overall. Healthcare should be a right – full stop.
Morissey never watched the testimony or read it – otherwise there is no way he could say this at all. Fuck him with my very rusty pitchfork™ in the hindquarters. Fuck them all.
jl
@BGinCHI:
” Even the fucking caveman in the commercial is smarter than these fools. ”
That kind of anti caveman bigotry has no place on this blog. One of the commercials dealt with the pervasive anti-cavemenism in our society with great depth and sensitivity.
Edit:
http://youtu.be/iVvBXBZEhkw
Bruce S
Without “lying sack of shit” this post would have been incomplete in describing the pathology.
Rick Taylor
That’s a good point. I suppose, as Mr. Morrissey so eloquently argued, in insisting the government’s health care policies conform to their demands, they have made their sexual activity a matter of national public debate.
BGinCHI
@jl: I always root for the caveman in those ads and he never gets the upper hand. Starting to think they’re rigged.
/pro cro magnon
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Mark Vain: Yes, I know. Government should get out of protecting the little people and get back to more important things. It’s ashame they got involved in ending slavery, preventing women from being treated like property, and discrimination.
Seriously, though, the only thing that Obama changed is that contraceptives are to be provided without a copay for the doctor visit. The requirement that they be covered by insurers has been there since 2000.
Getting the government out is what the Republicans want. One woman who dies due to a tumor in her uterus doesn’t matter to them; there’s another woman to sew their shirts just waiting for a few cents an hour.
Bruce S
#36 – Trentrunner: “The only reason this is any kind of issue is because you decent non-atheists out there don’t repudiate this religious thuggery. They won’t listen to godless atheist like me. But they’ll listen to you.”
I wish we could have sent you to explain to Christopher Hitchens why the Iraq war was the dumbest fucking thing ever concocted in the wake of 9/11. He wouldn’t listen to a Christian like me. But he would have listened to you.
RE: “religion poisons everything” – tell it to Martin Luther King…
I’m sick of this irrational and childish shit in the name of “reason.”
Birthmarker
Right, asiangrrrlMN. Ed took his statement exactly from Rush.
BGinCHI
@Birthmarker: Why, what do you mean, sir? Please make an argument.
John O
Christ, you take a vacation in the Caribbean to get away from it all, and the next thing you know Rush turns into a bigger dick than he already was.
Ed isn’t even worth reading. Way to call him out, John.
It’s going to take a lot of time, but these guys can’t win with half the population pissed off at them, and they sure seem to be working hard at it.
geg6
@Rick Taylor:
The funny thing is that they thought they were going to deflect attention away from that with this stunt (see: Bevilaqua, Bishop).
John of Indiana
Do Republicans believe that employers and insurers should be free to decide whether to cover Diabetes medications for their employees and customers or not?
You know, if we had a well-informed populace in this country, and by that I mean a people who know more than the CV of every person ever kicked off the fucking island, this whole thing would have never gotten off the ground, because people would have said “WTF?? That’s not what she said, she never said Jack Schitt about her sex life…”
But instead, this country is infested with mouthbreathers who can tell you the plot line of every episode of the fucking “Simpsons” ever made, but can’t name 2 of their city council members.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN:
Fixteth for you hon. Just about everywhere else on the planet this is true. Fucking Thailand has a universal health care system. That instantly makes them more advanced than us.
Smitty
It is hilarious that Rush apparently thinks that contraception works like his Viagra does,and that the more sex a woman has the more contraception she needs to take
cthulhu
@Mark Vain:
This is fundamental preventative medicine. As it turns out, under a private insurance system with regular migration, it is pretty much the case that the “govmint” needs to step in otherwise we will blow a ton of money on care unnecessarily. Be very clear: the Blunt Amendment was about all preventative care, not just birth control.
BGinCHI
@Yutsano: Well, that and tom yum soup. And pad see ew.
jl
The wingnut lies and cluelessness on the reproductive health insurance coverage issue is same as on other topics I think. It is especially offensive right now because a private individual was targeted in a vile and unfair way.
The teabagger movement’s raging id will not let them do anything but lie, distract and weasel on anything: income inequality, crony capitalism, reproductive rights, immigration. Some other topics did not light a fire of disgust in a large part of the public because the hate was not focused on a particular private person (and in the wingnut scheme of things, one of the Lesser People on two or three counts: student, woman, non rich person, young, etc.) who was just exercising their right to speak, an in a very dignified and responsible way.
Edit: and because other topics were not in scope of personal knowledge of most people in the country. Importance of birth control, reproductive health, importance of those are very much personal knowledge to vast majority of country.
I feel sorry for Sandra Fluke, but she is the kind of articulate, responsible and serious Lesser Person that the wingnuts, GOP, and corporate bosses fear most.
Only wingnut to say anything that was not patently offensive so far is Malking, who tried to bring up supposed agendas and conspiracies, but that angle was so butt dumb that is sank like a stone.
Their well is running dry and they don’t know what to do. Some of the flailing around is very ugly.
TooManyJens
@Trentrunner:
Who exactly will listen to the decent non-atheists? Remember, Rick Santorum thinks Satan is responsible for mainline Protestantism. Religious zealots think moderate co-religionists are the enemy; in some ways they’re even more suspicious of them because they consider them “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
Religious moderates speaking out might have an effect on people in the middle who are just uninformed, but don’t kid yourself that the crazies will listen to them.
Yutsano
@BGinCHI: Heh. I had Thai food for dinner. Probably why it occurred to me.
I guess Cotsa Rica is a better example of this. Even a poor country can still afford to take care of its citizens. It’s ridiculous.
geg6
@Bruce S:
Yeah, because Christopher Hitchens had all the power and influence of the Catholic Church and was instrumental in starting the Iraq War.
The few like Martin Luther King or John XXIII or Ghandi were the exceptions. They are vastly outnumbered by the bad. Hell, John XXIII is the only pope I can even think of who deserved an ounce of respect.
john b
the comments at hotair made my brain hurt.
they really are living in their little world with their mythological version of what has happened in the past few years.
BGinCHI
@Yutsano: Well, the costa is rica…..
It’s amazing that American exceptionalism doesn’t include basic human rights and dignities, but does include death from above.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: You is right about it is a right. I is right about it should be a right because we don’t have it in the States. Errrryone is right!
@Birthmarker: Well, it does make writing easier, plus it’s one way the right remains so coherent (with each other, not to the rest of the world) all the time.
@BGinCHI: And sticky rice dishes that are delicious. Now I want Thai food. I’m so suggestible.
Yutsano
@BGinCHI: My only comfort is that in Canada universal health care came one province at a time. And even then it took a couple of decades before it was a national policy. Once it’s established and working in Vermont, other states are going to follow suit. Washington State passed a single-payer bill way back in the 90’s but Clinton quashed it. I’m hoping California revives their effort after the next election. That will be a HUGE domino to fall.
patrick II
@SaltyDawg:
I believe who pays for it — whether the employer, the employee, or the insurance company is a moot point. Medical costs are lower for a person with access to birth control. Fewer pregnancies, fewer unhealthy, unwanted babies, fewer female health problems (such as ovarian cancer). There is no additional cost to be paid for birth control, so no one is paying for it, instead it is a savings.
Lee
I’ve got $200 bucks of ‘mad money’ sitting around.
Count that in as well.
Spaghetti Lee
@geg6:
I have plenty of family and friends who are Catholic and I’d count among ‘the exceptions.’ And a lot of them hate the bishops too. Maybe power is the issue, more than religion? Because, you know, one thing that gets left unsaid is that most Catholics support Obama and the left on this issue, over the bishops.
YellowJournalism
I say if he loses the bet, Ed has to pass out condoms at the nearest planned parenthood, since condoms seem to be the only birth control method these assholes can fathom someone using.
Spaghetti Lee
@YellowJournalism:
Give it a few weeks.
John N.
I just don’t have the strength for this shit. I feel defeated and powerless, because it never ever fucking stops. Rush isn’t going to stop bullshitting, and if he gets taken down, some other asshole will step right into his place. One phony issue goes away, another one arises immediately. It never ends, and our political opponents are legitimately insane. I don’t know how to deal with it anymore.
TooManyJens
Folks on Twitter are asking Ed if he’ll take John’s bet, and shockingly he is ignoring them.
TooManyJens
@John N.:
Maybe take a little time off and hand the baton over to the people who do have energy right now — a lot of people have gotten REALLY fired up in the last couple of weeks. Come back when you’re refreshed.
jl
@John N.:
I’ve read that voters make up their minds about how to vote over a three to sic month window before the election, barring big surprises like the 2008 financial crisis. A lot of the GOP’s shit is hitting their fan just as that window opens.
I hope the GOP keeps it up, though hope they don’t do it in a way that smears private individuals again.
RalfW
This must be a new GOP talking point as I now seen it several times. Note to idiot Repub pundits: as much as she wants is one prescription for one dose per day. Whether she is and stays a virgin or is as sexually active as you wish you were.
No that you bastards give any more of a crap about birt control facts than you do any others. Don’t let the truth get in the way of a meme, no matter how moronic.
jl
@Yutsano:
Laura Chinchilla, president of Cost Rica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Chinchilla
Against morning after pill, against separation of church and state, ardent environmentalist.
And Costa Rica has a federal government much like US, except unicameral legislature, so she has real power as executive, not one of those figurehead ceremonial type of presidents in some parliamentary systems.
Edit: just an FYI with no point in particular, except the world is a complicated place.
Edit edit: in previous comment I meant:
” I’ve read that voters make up their minds about how to vote over a three to six month window ”
Not ‘sic’ month. But this is the sick month, and the seventh month is next, if I am counting right.
TooManyJens
I demand five IUDs, you cheap bastards!
John N.
@TooManyJens:
I’m glad that there are people who are feeling that way. I’m 27 now, and virtually my entire politically-aware lifetime has been spent in complete outrage and disgust, and it’s hard to keep that up. I alternate between feeling angry and feeling depressed, but feeling hopeful for the future isn’t something I’ve gotten to experience very much. I’ll be fine, but sometimes it just feels overwhelming.
@jl:
I hope you’re right.
TooManyJens
@John N.:
I understand. I’m 39, and mine has too. Which will make it sound odd when I say “hang in there, things can get better,” but I think they can with enough work. No guarantees, but I think it’s possible.
jl
@RalfW: Need some research to find out whether these wingnut guys are so ignorant they think birth control pills work like v * * g R *, or they just think it is a good line and are lying about it.
Edit: or maybe these guys have marketing research that says any analogies to V ** g R * reach the wingnut male brain stem instantaneously, and all further intellectual activity is shut down.
YellowJournalism
Just because some birth control looks like Tic Tacs doesn’t mean women pop them like they are!
Rathskeller
@jharp: As has been pointed out so many times, the right-wing provocateurs deeply enjoy angering liberals, and do so deliberately. Rush probably knew it was outrageous, but thought there would be a contretemps bounded at the high end by some angry blog posts, not with Sleep Train and others telling him it’s all over.
Yutsano
@YellowJournalism: Birth control: it’s not just for breakfast anymore!
OT: Senator Cantwell’s opponent is a Coug. He’s playing up that angle trying to drum up support. It’s almost hilarious how desperate it sounds.
BGinCHI
@Rathskeller: I’m kind of amazed that Rush didn’t come back with: “figures….Sleep Train mattresses were made for sluts anyway.”
Given the coin he makes, you’d think an advertiser or two would be chump change. Slippery slope I guess.
jl
@Rathskeller: True. But it won’t work if they use a blunderbuss. It mows down too many innocent bystanders.
Edit: but right now, even a blunderbuss would be better. On this bogus ‘religious freedom’ (AKA, your boss runs your health care, and wimmins pregnant in the home alla time) issue they used a muzzle load cannon full of grape shot and chain.
BGinCHI
@Yutsano: Thank God the opponent isn’t a wolverine!
Remind me: you live in Seattle? Brain is sleepy….
Cacti
I encourage the wingnuts to remain steadfast in their refusal to let this subject go.
Women who use birth control are dirty sluts!
VICTORY! in 2012
Odie Hugh Manatee
I’d like the fuckers at Redstate to take you up on your offer John, they’ve been doing the exact same thing: Bald-faced lying out of their asses that she testified about her sex life. Streiff there said that her dorm could be easily found because of the eighteen wheeler with the Trojan labels on it parked out front. They are all lying out of their asses on this.
This proves conclusively that conservatives lack basic comprehension skills and really do not understand what they read or hear. Nowhere did she say what they claim yet they have all opined on it like some kind of experts.
They need to have this fucking mess force-fed down their gullets until they choke on the truth of it.
Disgusting pigs, all.
mdblanche
Ms. Fluke made her sex life an issue by appearing in public without a burqa on and without the escort of her father or brother. You can see her hair, which is the functional equivalent of propositioning every man in the room.
Oh, and for those of you who played Myst back in the day this will no doubt seem appropriate.
Seebach
Reading the arguments John Cole is in on twitter, they do not understand how insurance works. They’re already paying for other people’s choices. That’s what insurance fucking is.
Yutsano
@BGinCHI:
Yup. Up on the northern edge of the city but in Seattle proper.
Incidentally the joke is funny to me and YellowJournalism because we went to the same university as Cantwell’s opponent. If you’re appealing to alma mater pride, you’re losing.
Kidlet took the sleep huh? It’s okay. You’ll survive. :)
PeakVT
I think Morrisey would rather eat a bag of salted dicks than admit he was wrong.
BGinCHI
@Seebach: See my post above.
Exactly this.
They are too stupid to know how insurance works. No wonder they are wrong all the time. They are morans.
JordanRules
Stalker alert, aisle 111
BGinCHI
@Yutsano: Yeah, tiring recently with work and all.
I was just thinking of Ballard. I really like that ‘hood. Great little bars and restaurants and, of course, the Tractor Tavern.
Seebach
@BGinCHI: No, I saw it, great point. I just wonder if this is a successful line of argument, or if they understand how insurance works they’ll just try and dismantle it further.
Probably the latter. Their ignorance is our bliss.
BGinCHI
@Seebach: All these assholes would be kicked out of kindergarten for not sharing, not being nice, not learning.
They are not ready for school.
And if kindergarten is for snobs, sign me up.
Peregrinus
@geg6:
Not even Paul VI? Certainly backwards in pro-life terms, but without him the impact of Vatican II would’ve been lessened even more, I think. Doesn’t matter to my fellow Catholics on the right, certainly – but then some of them think the local bishop has a liberal “agenda” because he’s been carrying out budget cuts.
Yutsano
@BGinCHI: Ballard is adorable. A bit south and to the west of where I live. Very Scandihoovian too. I’m shocked the IKEA isn’t there honestly. I got lost there once.
J.W. Hamner
Is it just me or has the talking point shifted completely from “religious freedom” to “we shouldn’t have to pay for your birth control”? That seems to suggest that the GOP has moved from the completely terrible idea of wanting it to be an employer choice to 1000x worse idea of actually wanting to ban coverage of contraception in all healthcare plans. I think they’re actually getting stupider before our eyes.
Delia
@geg6:
The National Council of Churches (mainstream Protestants) protested the start of the Iraq war, but it was pretty much ignored by the national press because it was such an unpatriotic position to take when you’re trying to steamroll the country into war. There was also a point at which Dubya made a highly publicized visit to the Pope and was trying to score some propaganda points for his positions. Instead John Paul II lectured him on his administration’s failings. There were some famous photos of Bush looking like a schoolboy enduring a scolding. But the whole thing disappeared down the memory hole. The RC Church has moved even further to the right under Ratzi. But the press has been pretty complicit in giving all the attention to the religious wackos and ignoring religious spokespeople whose views are sane.
Seebach
@BGinCHI: Honestly, I’d really like for them to voluntary opt out of health insurance so that the selfish pricks all die from preventable disease.
But they’ll use their “small government” to ensure that insurance doesn’t cover what they disapprove of.
God, I hate these people. I let them live their mediocre little lives without trying to convert them or change them, but they can’t fucking leave us alone.
BGinCHI
New bumper sticker:
Voldemort for High School Dropouts
/available at santorum.com
Seebach
@J.W. Hamner: Yeah, that’s what it seems to be, and it’s what @BGinCHI and I are discussing.
They don’t seem to know that many private insurance plans already cover birth control and abortion. Their money is already going to fund that. I don’t know anywhere where Obama is stating that taxpayer funds will be involved at all: There IS no public option.
BGinCHI
@Yutsano: Wife’s family is in Bellevue (yeah, I know) and points south and east. Trip to Ballard keeps BG happy each visit. That and the vino.
BGinCHI
@Seebach: Bad apples, bunch spoilers, swimming pools, movie stars.
OK, I lost my train of thought there.
Chuck Butcher
I guess that now I’ve outed myself
scav
A woman’s medical decisions are a private matter between her employer and its insurance agency (and possibly the local beanie brigade). Government should not intervene. And what could sluts and doctors possibly have to contribute to the matter? Only commies say stupid things like that — no way should we let them talk publicly on the issues involved.
I’m trying to keep up. Is that the platform now?
Yutsano
@BGinCHI: Bellevue isn’t too atrocious as long as you’re not staying. But if you get the urge to buy a luxury vehicle RUN!!
And BMWs are not luxury cars in Seattle. They’re fucking everywhere. In various states of condition.
You should definitely drop a line next time you two are gonna be in town. We’ll do a meet-up just like we did for Southern Beale. And it was a BLAST! Plus you haven’t lived until you hear MikeJ giggle. It’s adorable. :)
@Chuck Butcher: You hoor. I thought I knew you. :)
BGinCHI
@Yutsano: Do you have to tickle him or does he just giggle spontaneously? And yes, will do.
Night all. Off to blissful slumber.
Yutsano
@BGinCHI:
Only his girlfriend knows for sure. In other words you’ll just have to discover this for yourself.
Sleep well. Well, as well as one can with an infant son. :)
Chuck Butcher
@Yutsano:
ooooh, thanks
piratedan
@Chuck Butcher: so are you going with the “sex for votes” theme as part of your election “plank”?
Will
Thanks John. I read Morrisey’s post on this before yours and came out of my chair on that line. You’re right: he is lying.
Yutsano
@Chuck Butcher: Well none of my sexual activities are for procreation either. So I’m a hoor too. I wear the badge proudly in fact.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Hoors united! I only haz der sexxing for non-procreation reasons, too! Wooooot! ::terrorist fist jab::
pseudonymous in nc
As others have said, after the Week Of Slut-Shaming, shut the fuck up, Sped.
In other news, employers can shut the fuck up: either offer health insurance and take the tax break, or take a moral stand and give your employees the fucking money. And at Georgetown Law, students don’t get health insurance in lieu of wages, because they’re fucking students. They pay the full fucking premium.
Mike
I think the phrase “worthless lying bag of pump shit” has a nicer rhythm than just plain old “lying bag of shit”. But you built yourself a pretty good analysis of ole Ed. And I thank you kindly for that. Means you mean it. And I like to know when someone is being sincere. And son, I believe you are.
gwangung
@Yutsano:
Not after my comedy group does our show there….
Yutsano
@gwangung: There’s a Mongol invasion joke there. But I’m gonna refrain from that at this time. I might get provoked into unleashing it however. :)
pseudonymous in nc
@scav:
While Rush Limbaugh’s medical decisions are a private matter between him, his housekeeper, the four physicians he used for his painkillers, the drug dealers who sold him the painkillers he couldn’t get prescribed, and the guy whose boner pills he used on holiday in the Dominican Republic.
gwangung
@Yutsano: None of us are Mongolian.
But we all are barbarians.
WWBreitbartD
Someone left out a word.
So Women’s reproductive health rights have nothing to do with sex.
AxelFoley
Damn, play that funky music, white boy.
Cole can be quite scary when he gets pissed.
mothra
I hope this is posted in the comments there. Is it worth it to sign up to comment and post nothing but the link to.this post?
geg6
@WWBreitbartD:
Yes, sex is health issue for women, as well as men. But women have many other issues with their reproductive organs that have nothing to do with sex and the pill deals with those, too. And even when it comes to sex and the consequences, it is much more safe and cost-effective for a woman to avoid giving birth every time she has sex, which is why the pill is beloved by health insurance companies.
You wingnuts truly are idiots.
Perspecticus
Agreed. This wasn’t even a case of repeating a lie enough that people believe it. From the first Rush statement, the entirety of his defenders’ arguments consisted of “well, she is a slut” and “she brought this on herself by announcing her sex life.” oh, and that nonsense about satire.
One thing, though. I am pretty sure you meant “non-sexual medical conditions,” not “asexual medical conditions.”
AxelFoley
@asiangrrlMN:
Really now?
[flies that bit of info away for later use]
Joseph Nobles
Ed Morrisey has “responded”. He quoted this section of Fluke’s testimony:
And then followed up that quote oddly lacking in any discussion whatsoever of Fluke’s sex life with this:
So people losing an ovary because they can’t afford the pill? Fake world. In Morrisey’s real world, if a lady admits to using contraception in any context whatsoever, she has forever forfeited the right to keep her private life private.
So in other worlds, the slut shaming will continue until they learn to keep their mouths and vaginas shut.
Ben Wolf
I’m willing to bet Morrisey doesn’t even know what Fluke said, he’s just responding to what other conservatives say she said. Look at the comments section if you can stomach it: aside from hundreds of nuts calling Fluke every name in the book I can’t find one person who isn’t under the impression she testified that she loves sex and wants free birth control so she can have even more.
These people are flat-out barbarians, savages waiting for the opportunity to destroy civilization. They don’t read, they don’t think for themselves, they have no intellectual curiosity and wouldn’t accept the truth even if you put it in front of their faces.
Svensker
@Trentrunner:
They will NOT listen to us and they haven’t. We are not “real” Christians, as Rick Santorum kindly pointed out. Liberal Jews don’t fare any better. (BTW, Dershowitz is on a mission to get M.J. Rosenberg fired from Media Matters for not toeing the line on bombing Iran. Visit Media Matters and show him some support.)
Liberal religious voices are mostly not heard in our current media. What they have to say is not welcome.
samara morgan
bravo Cole.
Bruce S
geg6 – good job of missing the point. If you don’t understand the idiocy of trentrunner’s assumptions about who wingnut, fundamentalist crazies will listen to and why, there’s nothing I can do for you. And give me a fucking break regarding “the few exceptions.” Do you really want to get in a pissing match over the influence and activism of religious people in social movements? I welcome people of all philosophical perspectives to doing the right thing. But frankly, I don’t need hectoring from the clueless about how religion “poisons everything.” Almost all human endeavor has been “poisoned.” I could broad-brush the impact of atheists and atheistic philosophies in the 20th Century from Stalin to Ayn Rand and it gets pretty ugly. And it would be idiotic to attribute their sins to atheism as a philosophical stance or suggest that somehow humanistic atheists who have moral integrity would have a special window or appeal in talking these sociopaths out of their transgressions and that it’s the fault of other atheists that their fellow non-believers turned out to be such monstrous douchebags. That’s just fucking dumb. I have absolutely zero problem with atheism or atheists as such, although I have different views. I could care less. What bugs me is arrogance and childish reductionism. Which is what I’m hearing in these comments.
samara morgan
@Bruce S: religion is good for homo sapiens sapiens. it was a fitness advantage in the EEA.
proselytizing, trying to push your religion on others is what is bad.
the New Atheists are proselytizers.
they think everyone should be atheists.
Bruce S
PS on this and I’m sorry I didn’t make this simple point and then shut up –
“you decent non-atheists out there don’t repudiate this religious thuggery.”
Actually some guy who is rather well-known as a “decent non-atheist,” although the nature of his faith is contested by the crazies, made a phone call to Sandra Fluke to give her his support as a public repudiation of the thuggery. It couldn’t have gotten much more explicit.
Sorry for this being a sticking point with me, but the casual nature of such comments when they’re flamingly both ignorant and arrogant bugs the hell out of me.
THE
The sheer power and intrusiveness of religion in US life is the number one reason this atheist would never live in the USA.
El Cid
@Ben Wolf:
(1) The proper conservative position is to not care “what she said” in any purportedly objective sense. The proper and moral position is to take for granted whatever leading conservative authority says when it appears to be effective in communicating to other conservatives some anti-liberal imagery.
(2) The method of determining “what she said” is not up to things like transcripts, recorded audio or video, but what proper conservatives said she said.
(3) In the rare case in which such claims turn out to be really, really bad attempts at anti-liberalism and don’t work among conservatives, it may be alright to then depend on non-conservative sources to dispute “what was said”, because that could then serve to isolate and protect conservatives.
Evergreen (formerly Betsy, forever ago)
@TooManyJens:
I demand a new keyboard. That just made me snarf tea all over my computer.
debg
Thank you. I’ve been yelling about this all week on facebook. In fact, I’m going through an unpleasant exchange with someone I knew back in high school rehashing all this crap, who clearly only heard Rush or read Morrissey and ignored everything else.
Jay C
@cd6:
RalfW
@Trentrunner:
There are plenty of decent, faithful people who do refute this right-wing religiocity. Its amazingly hard to get traction because it doesn’t fit the narrative of the lazy and hacking press.
After some recent gay marriage win, USA today’s religion reporter wrote a good sized piece about how faith was upset. As if it’s some nonolith.
I took her to task in the comment thread, got a lot of ‘likes’ but I won’t hold my breath that she’ll bother to interview an ELCA person (even after their historic vote), much less a Jew or UU.
There is a national coalition of pro-choice denominations. Do they ever get a phone call from these hacks? I doubt it. Methodists (or other Protestants) supporting women is, apparently, boring. Bishops hating women, now that’s hot news.
Fvck the press. Sideways.
SFAW
Cole –
Don’t you get tired of winning $1000 bets and having the loser NOT pay? I mean, did Pantload ever pay up?
Bruce S
Just as another example of Ed’s being challenged when it comes to readin’ and writin’ re the Truth. Cole did not make a bet as Morrissey alleged in attempting to redress his obvious BS with lame snark and double-talk. Cole made a generous offer of a donation if this douchebag could back up his words. To Ed’s favorite charity. There was nothing asked of Ed other than evidence or an admission of error. Not a bet. An offer.
otto
@WWBreitbartD:
You’re right that reproductive health care is a serious issue.
The unfortunate part is that we have a culture in the US where the woman is almost always the responsible party when it comes to preventing unwanted pregnancies.
This is not about preventing babies from happening. It’s about being able to control your own fate.
There is simply nothing wrong with a woman wanting to have sex. It’s pleasurable. It brings you closer to another human in a way that nothing else can.
People are going to have sex. That’s just going to happen.
If reproductive healthcare is important, then it should be covered by insurance companies. The only way to compel an insurance company to do this is by making a law.
So you don’t like the government making a law that does something good for the people who live here. That’s fine. You can keep on your knees for the church and the insurance companies. I’d rather stand, or maybe get the church and the corporations to get on their knees for me.
LongHairedWeirdo
It’s important to note that being on contraception does not have to mean one is having sex now, nor even that one *plans* to in the near future, just that one *hopes* to, or recognize that one’s hopes can change *very* quickly.
So, talking about the availability, or even use, of birth control is divorced from talking about one’s sex life. A person can be perfectly celibate, and want to be on birth control, just in case the option to end the celibacy arrives quickly (too soon to start on a prescription). Ditto for IUDs.
brantl
Hey, MorSissy, eat a bag of salted dicks!