I think we can still get some mileage out of the access-to-contraception issue that blew up, as the kids say, a few months ago. This hasn’t got much attention, but Romney just doubled down on the Catholic Bishops’ (I won’t say, Catholic Church, as some of you taught me) side of the issue:
“The decision by the Obama Administration to attack our first Freedom, religious freedom is one in which, I think a lot of people were shocked to see. Cardinal Dolan in New York City who was the Chairman of the Catholic Council of Bishops was surprised to see the President turn and take a different course than one he had promised during the campaign. A course, which says to the Catholic Church that they would be required to violate their own.”
In a shitty economy, the more we can discuss what racist, misogynist lunatics the Republicans have become, the better. I wish a motherfucker would start a new battle in the “culture wars”.
Ronnie Pudding
This isn’t really doubling down, though, as there’s no reason to think Mitt will stick with it in front of different audiences.
Bort
Well, if anyone knows about violating their own, it’s the Catholic church. Thank you! I’ll be here all week!
Professor
But has Mitt Romney forgotten about his own Mormon Church? The Federal Government forced the Mormons to abandon their belirf in POLYGAMY. Was it NOT a war on Religious Freedom?
Hill Dweller
The government protects freedom of religion and the freedom from religion.
Mino
I think this little kerfluffle has given employee-based insurance a nasy taste. No want.
Mino
@Hill Dweller: Ha, ha.
c u n d gulag
The feckin’ Bishops may rue the day they threw their support behind R’s and Mitt.
They’ll regret it when Mitt starts proselytizing for the Mormon Church from the “bully pulpit,” and re-christening the dead Catholics into his religion.
dr. bloor
I don’t think Mitt’s team has given much thought to how a Mormon rushing to the defense of Catholic pedophiles is going to play in the heartland.
litlebritdifrnt
Ann Romney just stepped in it again.
Violet
@litlebritdifrnt:
What did she do? Is this the vacation comment?
Culture of Truth
It sounds like English….
litlebritdifrnt
@Violet: yes
MikeJ
Father Ted knew how to deal with Bishops.
Brachiator
@dr. bloor:
The “heartland” loves the anti-abortion stance of the Church more than they hate pedophiles.
Similarly, it’s not just that the heartland want to oppress women, they want to stamp out all sex outside of marriage. Banning contraception and abortion would presumably make it harder to commit sin.
Hill Dweller
OT: San Diego is about to elect a birther for a local judgeship.
Greyjoy
Why are my rights as an individual and non-Catholic less important than my employer’s religious beliefs? and I’m not just talking about the CC as employer, but ANY employer who gets to veto my medical choices on the basis of their personal views.
Valdivia
@litlebritdifrnt:
can you give us details for those of us who don’t know them?
joes527
@litlebritdifrnt: How is that stepping in it? To Romney supporters is is all: “fuck yeah!” To Obama supporters it is all: “Get a map, lady!” And to anyone in between it is all inside baseball.
Net impact: 0.000%
Punchy
Wont matter one bit. They dont vote with those terms. It’s One of Us vs. That N#gger. Really, that’s all that matters in most of the “heartland”.
SiubhanDuinne
I have a serious, albeit O/T, question about Mormons. I Often see them walking in pairs on some of the hottest days of summer in one of the hottest, most humid cities in the U.S. Everyone else is sweaty and rumpled, and everyone else takes full advantage of air-conditioning, but these guys are invariably crisp as can be in their starched, perfectly-pressed white shirts even after hiking along a major thoroughfare in 95-degree temps. I’ve noticed this year after year. Why the hell don’t Mormons perspire? Do they undergo a surgical procedure at the Temple to remove their sweat glands? Is the real secret of the magic underwear that it’s infused with hundreds of tiny fans? Does anyone have a clue?
demz taters
They don’t want the government to come between you and your doctor because they think a corporate rent seeker belongs there instead.
Tom Q
Could people on our side stop helping the opposition by calling the economy “shitty”?
It’s a less-than-hoped for recovery, with a particularly lackluster last month in terms of jobs, which the right wingers and their media helpers decided to treat as Armageddon (you’d have thought we lost half a million jobs, rather than adding an admittedly disapointing 69.000). But we’re nowhere near recession, the months leading up to May were solid enough for job creation, we’ve dropped the unemployment rate by 2 full points in the last year or two. If we treat that record as “shitty” — something from which Obama has to actively distract voters — we’re playing Romney’s game.
joes526
hmmmm… If my comment is ever lifted out of moderation, could the lifter kindly ‘splain what rule I broke?
Carl Nyberg
I’m going to dissent.
The economic elites want elections to be about social issues.
They want economic decisions to be made by institutions insulated from democratic accountability.
Which are the big institutions for making economic decisions? WTO? Federal Reserve? NAFTA? IMF?
None of them are democratically accountable.
Romney spewing BS about contraception is part of the long game of making elections a food fight about social issues and getting people to accept that economic decisions are made by a priest class of experts who owe their loyalty to the capital class.
And the Democratic Party has largely gone along with this arrangement.
MattF
@SiubhanDuinne: Could be, growing up in Utah leaves you permanently acclimated to heat.
catclub
“I think we can still get some mileage out of the access-to-contracpetion issue”
I think there is typo that needs fixing in the first line of the post.
srv
Iowa nuns have decided to bitch slap Benedict on his social injustice inquisition, and Romney on his faith based economics
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120618/NEWS09/120618011/1007/news05
Anyone else hace problems with this site on a ipad? Scrolling down almost always resets the browser to the top of comments.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
So, the pedophile acts are Obama’s fault?
LGRooney
Can somebody please educate our own fucking people?! The reason religion is mentioned first in the 1st Amendment is not because of the tremendous respect the Founding Fathers had towards religion, especially the establishment kind, but a very outward expression of their contempt for the continuous disasters they saw when religion and government are entwined.
In other words, they wanted it loud and clear that they were radical, and radically opposed to clergy mucking about in the halls of politics – at least openly. They knew they could do nothing about what was in the hearts and minds of the electorate and the elected (beyond educate them) but they wanted it loud and clear that they were breaking with tradition and established religion was to be clearly delineated as being in another realm from government.
handsmile
Lest, as the surely damned, we forget: Thursday begins the “Fortnight for Freedom” decreed by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
This liturgical celebration of “a series of martyrs who remained faithful in the face of persecution by political power” culminates on America’s Birthday, July 4. Or as the be-mitred might put it: “We don’t need no stinkin’ separation of Church and State.”
This transparent effort by American Catholic leaders to cloak their anti-Obama rhetoric (e.g., Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria, IL) in the rhetoric of “religious liberty” will surely receive mainstream media coverage that would make the Tea Party faithful blush with envy.
Also, on Anne Laurie’s “Late Night Open Thread: Next Gen,” commenter srv posted a must-read link (#20) to a Der Spiegel article on the tribulations (though never the trials) of His Holiness Joey Ratz.
Comrade Scrutinizer
Fuck that noise. The Catholic Church is one of the most hierarchical religious organizations around, and the beanie boys are the ones controlling the direction of the Church. Some communicants may want to sidestep their involvement in a reactionary, misogynistic organization like the Church by pretending that they are making the Church better from the inside, but that’s like trying to reform the Republican Party from the inside-ain’t gonna happen.
Mino
@Carl Nyberg: Interesting that you think social issues are not economic.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’ve seen these Mormon missionary guys around here in Kuala Lumpur too, crisp white short-sleeved shirts and all. And come to think of it, I’ve never seen these decidedly non-tropical persons sweating, either. Maybe there’s a Mormon teaching that the righteous never perspire.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Tom Q: Well, but the economy is shitty. Hanging that around Obama’s neck, otoh, is stupid. Republican/Tea Bagger intransigence/economic sabotage is the culprit, and I don’t have any problem saying so.
Brachiator
@Carl Nyberg:
I don’t care for a priestly class, whether it be social or economic authoritarians.
Why is it that only economic priests are real or worrisome for you?
Spectre
Obama should start another culture battle for them. He needs to evolve on medical marijuana, and pray the republicans take the bait.
Roger Moore
@Greyjoy:
Your employer’s money is proof that he’s a better person than you. You should be glad your betters are looking out for your soul rather than letting you rot in hell for all eternity./wingnut
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Greyjoy: Why are employers the gateway to medical insurance in the first place? I know this is an old, old question, but just exactly who said, “I’ve got a brilliant idea! Let’s make health care insurance an employment benefit!”
Valdivia
I wish there was a way Obama could cock-block the Republicans on everything like he did on the DreamAct. I wish he would do it with women’s issues, student loans and middle class tax cuts. Boxing them in is the only way to play the game now.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Brachiator:
Most of the fundies in “the heartland” grew up being taught that the Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon and that “that Pope” was the Antichrist.
The Catholic Church’s rabid and loud anti-abortion stance has put all those “heartlanders” into the same single-issue ghetto. One has to admire the Church’s ability to sway a large block of (un)Real ‘Murkins away from their otherwise fundamental hatred of the Church. As Darth Vader would say “Impressive. Most impressive.”
While the god-fearing rubes might think it’s all about no sex outside of holy matrimony, it’s really about keeping woman barefoot, pregnant and chained to the bed with just enough slack to get into the kitchen. Yunno, their place.
Change a few words in that and those same people try to do the same thing against those uppity black folks. Yunno, their place.
Davis X. Machina
@Comrade Scrutinizer: WWII — no raises, plenty of OT, and no stuff to spend it all on — rationing.
It’s a good way to increase worker compensation without increasing consumption of consumer goods.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
NPR and Planet Money did a great piece on this back in Oct 2009:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114045132
Roger Moore
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
WWII era wage controls. Employers were forbidden from raising wages, but they were allowed to improve benefits. One of the benefits they started to offer was health care, since there was no government health coverage. Once enough people got health care through their employers, it took the pressure off to offer any kind of universal coverage, so the system stuck.
Felinious Wench
If I have faith in nothing else around this issue, I have faith in the fact that to tell a man that ANYONE doesn’t want you having more, safer sex will not play well in Peoria.
burnspbesq
@Greyjoy:
When you can match Sheldon Adelson’s super-PAC contributions dollar-for-dollar, your rights will start to matter.
Mino
@Hill Dweller: Wanna see just how free from religion we are:
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=fi&page=cragun_32_4
jl
Probably OT, but maybe not.
Looks like going to be wild ride this summer.
TPM has a story indicating that Scalia is going full metal wingnut, and ready to try to overturn judicial precendants for post new Deal approach to Commerce Clause.
Scalia Reverses Himself: Now Disagrees With Key Precedent Supporting Constitutionality Of Health Care Reform
Sahil Kapur June 18, 2012
” Scalia is releasing a new book in which he finds fault with a Roosevelt-era Supreme Court decision that forms a critical part of the legal undergirding for the health care reform law. For Scalia, that’s a dramatic turnaround, because he has previously embraced the premise of that decision in an opinion he authored in 2005 that supporters of the Affordable Care Act have frequently cited.
In Scalia’s new book, a 500-page disquisition on statutory construction being published this week, he says the landmark 1942 ruling Wickard v. Filburn — which has served as the lynchpin of the federal government’s broad authority to regulate interstate economic activities under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause — was improperly decided.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/antonin-scalia-book-health-care-wickard-filburn-raich-constitution-commerce-clause.php
For a brilliant textualist, or is it original intentist, or plain meaningist, or strict constructionist, or whatever he is on a given day, Scalia sure changes his mind a lot.
I used to feel a little ‘uppity’ when I told people I thought Scalia was an intellectual fraud. But then I read a series of interviews with the guy, where he, IMHO, very arrogantly and self indulgently, mused about what his philosophy of constitutional interpretation really was. See, he would reflect on his deep wisdom, and found that its shimmering beauty seemed to change in both aspect and essence from day day, with his moods, and random thoughts and profound insights, and he couldn’t really say what it was.
Well, I can, and the word starts with F, and I don’t feel uppity at all as a IANAL type saying that anymore.
shortstop
@burnspbesq: Interesting attempt at a redirect. The obscene amount of money going into buying elections is a means, not an end. What is Sheldon Adelson’s dough paying for? What is the end? Among other things, it’s congresspeople who buy your church’s insistence that religious freedom means employers should be able to deny full health care to women or honor patients’ end-of-life wishes. Adelson himself likely doesn’t give a damn about those particular topics. But your church has helpfully provided him and his compatriots with the framing for elevating employers’ whims above employees’ rights.
rikyrah
Metrosexual Black Abe J,
are you Black?
everytime I see you write this, I’m reminded of Cedric the Entertainer, and his routine of ‘ BLack people live by the WISH creed’.
Bmaccnm
@Roger Moore: In fact, Kaiser was a shipbuilding conrcern until WWII, when it became enmeshed in providing health care benefits to it’s employees and realized there was more money in medical insurance than in ship building. True story.
shortstop
@jl: Yeah, we’ve been talking about Scalia in the dobie open thread. We really need a post on this.
shortstop
@rikyrah: Doug is a very white man. He’s referring to the Demon Sheep ad guys’ pitch to the Rickettses that they could beat Obama by portraying him as a metrosexual black Abe Lincoln.
Brachiator
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
No. It really is about no sex outside of holy matrimony. Quite a number of people who support these ridiculous laws are women. Do you really think that they see themselves as being happily chained to their marital beds?
And some people keep missing how sweepingly directed at both sexes these anti contraception measures are. Birth control pills are an obvious target because they must be prescribed, and their costs are directly related to health insurance.
But Catholic hospitals also refuse to perform vasectomies or any other procedure which does not conform with doctrine.
I don’t know whether most health insurance plans regularly cover vasectomies, but I would not be surprised to see those that do come under attack.
There is all kinds of room for mischief here.
Jennifer
@Felinious Wench: I’m picturing an ad….it shows a young man, deep in thought as he contemplates a pile of bills while sitting at the table in his parents’ kitchen. Voiceover: “first they took away affordable education and stuck you with all the bills. Then they allowed Wall Street and the banks to run rampant without oversight, and took away the jobs. Not content with only taking your money and destroying your hopes and dreams, now they want to take away p*ssy too, by making abortion and contraception illegal.
This November, vote Democrat…as if your sex life depends on it. Because it does.”
GxB
@Roger Moore:
Ain’t that the truth. Absolutely terrifying how many people cling to this golden rule.
Soonergrunt
@joes526: No idea. Cleared it.
Brachiator
@shortstop:
Adelson thinks he is buying security for Israel. He really doesn’t care about much else.
asiangrrlMN
@Hill Dweller: I use this line all the time. Many people really don’t like to be reminded of the latter, as I found out.
@Metrosexual Black AbeJ, I understand what you’re saying and why you’re saying it, but I disagree. We may win the culture wars in the end, but in the meantime, these egregious laws are hurting way too many women. (And LGBTQ folk in the case of anti-marriage equality bigotry).
I am not a one-issue voter, but I find that most of what I post over at ABLC is about women’s issues. I’m tired of it. I don’t want to keep fighting this particular fight.
I will continue to fight, of course, because I want my niece to have as many choices, if not more, than I did when I was a young woman, but I would rather not.
Roger Moore
@Bmaccnm:
Not a true story, or at least significantly distorted. Kaiser Steel was- and remains, under the name “Kaiser Ventures”- a separate entity from Kaiser Permanente. And both the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals have always been run as non profits, though the Permanente Medical Groups are for profit organizations run by their doctor owners.
Linda Featheringill
I have no real knowledge of the relations between Mormons and Catholics.
But I do know something about fundamental protestants and the Catholic institutions and I really wonder why the fundies are so gleefully hopping into bed with the bishops. It doesn’t seem logical to me.
catclub
@Brachiator: “But Catholic hospitals also refuse to perform vasectomies or any other procedure which does not conform with doctrine.”
At least the Catholic hospitals that do not make a charade ‘separate’ hospital that _does_ perform contraceptive services,
out of the pieces they have merged with.
jl
@Linda Featheringill:
Their prudery and devotion to reactionary unregulated capitalism brings them together, I think.
I also think on the reactionary unregulated capitalism part, they part ways on the proper response to the resulting human wreckage. Bishops seem to think that religious should lend a hand, though always on their own terms to those who the find deserving, while the prot fundies just figure that is the way their idea of god wants it, and all they should do is yell an hector at the poor to get them saved from hellfire. But those differences are secondary.
Edit: forgot to add, their very selective prudery that has lots of escape clauses for the high status menfolk. Whatever keeps the little wimmins down, that is A OK, that is a key priority.
shortstop
@Linda Featheringill: Conservative tribalism trumps all. Religious differences are not nearly as important as they used to be inside the right wing; they’ve made common cause against us.
It is hilarious, though, that the loudest lay voices for “religious freedom” in furthering RC doctrine are coming from the Prots, not the BC pill-popping Catholics.
Linda Featheringill
@jl:
You might be right.
True reactionaries are probably in the minority and when they run across each other, they might wish to work together.
FlipYrWhig
@LGRooney: And you know what group was systematically disenfranchised in Great Britain at the time the Constitution was being written? Catholics. Thanks a lot, Enlightenment, for letting that cat back out of the bag.
FlipYrWhig
@Roger Moore: Employer based health insurance is colossally stupid, but people who have it are very resistant to giving it up, so we’re stuck. You’d think that corporate America would be all in favor of taking that expense off their balance sheets and foisting it onto the Feds, but, for whatever reason, that hasn’t happened.
Brachiator
@Linda Featheringill:
They are united in their supposed desire to protect the unborn, and in their fear of Muslims and secular godlessness.
cckids
@SiubhanDuinne: Well, we have plenty of them riding around here in Vegas, and, though they have the short-sleeved white shirts, ties, and bicycle helmets (its a lotta look). And they do sweat, tho the shirts stay pretty pressed. I think it is the starch & the poly blend. Shows fewer wrinkles, though it sucks to wear it.
cat48
If the Bishops want to go on a JIHAD against the president; and that’s what this Fortnight of Freedom is all about. I say fine, but your losing your taxempt status. I’ve had it with Churches & Dressage horses writing off a $77,000 Loss thru the taxcode.
They’ve cut longterm unemployment & now a big chunk of Food Stamp spending. Screw all these people!
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: Also, I’ve always been a secular person but I know a little bit about religious doctrines, and my sense is that churches today spend almost no time on the big stuff that used to spawn new denominations, like ritual/liturgy, church decoration and design, and church governance. So the things that used to mark bright-line distinctions between Catholics and Protestants, or between kinds of Protestants, are barely even part of the conversation anymore, and instead you just get a “personal relationship with your Savior” and such. I doubt that Catholics and Protestants even know what they’re supposed to disagree on fiercely anymore, especially in charismatic megachurches.
FlipYrWhig
@cckids: Isn’t wearing garments made of two different fibers an abomination in Leviticus?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Valdivia:
Sorry I couldn’t respond earlier I was on my phone and couldn’t cut and paste the link.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/40496_Ann_Romney-_We_Wont_Be_Lazy_Like_Those_Shiftless_Obamas/comments/#ctop
As pointed out in the comments “The Obamas” have taken exactly zero vacations abroad. Michelle and the girls have taken two.
PZ
Wonder how Mitt feels about the Catholic Church saying Mormon baptisms are invalid-
http://www.catholicdoors.com/faq/qu46.htm
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
You could be right here. However, the Catholic Church seems to be making a big deal about obedience to Church doctrine. I don’t read much from them about personal relationship with the Savior.
As an aside, the Catholic Church in Southern recently completed its purchase of the Protestant Crystal Cathedral, which had gone bankrupt. This bit of co-operation aside, the former parishioners will have to find someplace else to go. I guess the Christian churches have found a way of peaceful coexistence and just ignore doctrinal differences.
And I think they see a greater threat in Islam and in secularism.
Valdivia
@Litlebritdifrnt:
gah. these people. I would sputter with rage but I can’t anymore.
Thanks for the link.
Davis X. Machina
@FlipYrWhig: Only if polyester is one of them.
FlipYrWhig
@Davis X. Machina: Named after Queen Ester, according to the genizah fragments, I think.
Violet
@PZ:
The Mormons have three (or more?) levels of heaven, so Mitt probably figures Mormon heaven has nothing to do with Catholic heaven anyway. So what difference does the baptism make?
shortstop
@PZ: He couldn’t care less what they think, as long as they vote for him and continue to provide him with cover.
shortstop
@Violet: See, this is why I’m not a member of either of these churches. I just know I’d get the level where the women’s room always has a long line, the cell reception is crap and the pop is never cold.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: That is a funny twist… You’re right that we hear a lot about “Church doctrines” on this subject, and a lot of political conservative Protestants surely nod their heads in agreement with the general concept, but I’m SURE they would be hard-pressed to articulate what their own “church doctrines” were, officially speaking.
Roger Moore
@FlipYrWhig:
I suspect there are several factors:
1) Some businesses genuinely are in favor of replacing the current system with one that works, but the voices of business, like the USCOC, have been taken over by wingnuts who don’t represent their members’ interests very well.
2) They know the new services would be paid for by increased taxes, which will have to come from somewhere. They’re afraid it will come from them, which negates the advantage; this is probably a bigger factor for businesses that currently don’t offer health care.
3) It’s a competitive advantage for big businesses, which have a relatively large risk pool, compared to small businesses. You’ll hear about this kind of thing all the time; a small business that gets one very sick employee is faced with the choice of firing the employee or seeing its health care costs go through the roof. Not so much with big businesses.
4) They like having employees who are scared of losing their jobs, and loss of insurance adds to the fear.
Sly
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
It wasn’t really designed or articulated by anyone at any distinct point in time. The system evolved, mostly in the 40s and 50s, to fit a niche. What we have today is mostly the result of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
First you had the wage controls imposed in late WWII to control inflation, making it harder for businesses to compete via wages so they started offering more in terms of benefits. In 1949 the Feds made benefits part of the wage package that could be negotiated in labor contracts, something that unions lobbied for extensively. Then in 1954 benefits were made non-taxable as income, and this gave employers a incentive to provide them because wages would be hit by payroll taxes while benefits would not.
shortstop
@Roger Moore: All true, and I would add to #1 that the membership of the highest level of corporate power looks out closely for each other. Ever looked at the boards of big insurance? They’re largely peopled by folks who run megacorps outside the insurance industry. And although you’re absolutely right about the large risk pools bringing down the cost, those costs are still by far the largest expenditure outside of payroll. You wonder when that’s going to force a tipping point.
BGinCHI
I’m sure others have seen this fucking pathetic Howard Kurtz piece on the Two Idiots Group:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/howard-kurtz-lanny-davis-michael-steele.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
Journalism is dead.
ETA: Here is Pareene:
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/18/lanny_davis_and_michael_steele_have_new_money_making_venture/singleton/
Valdivia
@BGinCHI:
Loved Pareene taking him to the woodshed on that.
Sly
@FlipYrWhig:
They lose a nice little tax loophole.
The problem is that wages and benefits are treated the same way in terms of contracts but differently in terms of tax liabilities. In contracts, wages and benefits are unified; workers expect to give up a dollar of wages for a dollar of benefits, because their contract treats it as total compensation. For taxes, employers have a payroll tax liability for wages but not for benefits, giving them an incentive to shuffle compensation towards benefits.
If health insurance becomes a public utility, that benefit line gets wiped out. Workers will then pressure for wage increases to make up for the lost total compensation, and employers will get hit with a higher payroll tax liability.
BGinCHI
@Valdivia: Kurtz is so pathetic I’m certain that soon he’ll be in charge of news at CNN and ABC.
BGinCHI
@Valdivia: You should grab some of that white Burgundy up on WTSO right now. Great bargain.
James E. Powell
@Punchy:
It’s One of Us vs. That N#gger. Really, that’s all that matters in most of the “heartland”.
It really does come down to this. Although it will never be mentioned in the corporate press/media, it is this fact that allows the Republican elites to move so far to the right, and against policies that the ‘heartland’ voters actually like. Those voters will go along with just about anything if you can convince them that That N#gger is on the opposite side.
BGinCHI
Kerry to play Romney in mock debate with Obama.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/obama-picks-kerry-to-play-romney-in-mock
The jokes, sometimes they write themselves.
Christ.
shortstop
@Sly: Great points.
Valdivia
@BGinCHI:
thanks! will do.
Walker
@srv:
It is the crappy incremental loading policy of this site. Every time an ad loads, the iPad jumps back to the top. You have to wait until all the ads are loaded to look at the comments, which can take a while.
It is possible to tell the page to stop loading any more adds by hitting the x in the address bar. That is what I do if I want to read comments.
gelfling545
@Brachiator:
This is because, technically, in the RCC, there isn’t one. There is a relationship “mediated” by the clergy.
Villago Delenda Est
@FlipYrWhig:
Actually, Catholics were systemically disenfranchised for at least two centuries before the time the Constitution was being written.
The framers were very, very aware of that effort. That’s specifically why Madison insisted that “no religious test” be required for any office under the Constitution. That provision was aimed squarely at contemporary British law that excluded Catholics.
GxB
@FlipYrWhig:
As in all US of A mysteries – follow the money.
Villago Delenda Est
@BGinCHI:
As one of Atrios’ parody trolls used to say, “Mistah Kurtz, he cocksuckah!”
BGinCHI
@Villago Delenda Est: Perfect.
Although an insult to all cock suckers with skill and integrity.
Chris
@Greyjoy:
It’s a longstanding principle of American conservatism that the rights of amorphous legal entities trump the rights of actual human beings. The “states’ rights” to practice slavery was a bigger deal than the rights of people not to be enslaved. The rights of robber barons to reduce their employees to what was basically slavery and have them shot when they protested, trumps the rights of these people to be compensated honestly for their work and to not be shot. The rights of churches to perform hostile takeoverers of the health care industry and then ban all forms of health care that they don’t approve of trumps the rights of people to have access to the medical care they paid for.
Etc, etc, etc.
Chris
@Punchy:
This.
To them, Romney is a bitter pill to swallow, but Obama is a cyanide pill. Some may sit it out, but the vast majority will take the former in order to not have to take the latter.
Mnemosyne
I know everyone and their brother already picked up on it but, really, Mitt, I think you want to stay far, far away from talk about how the Catholic Church “violates their own” when you’re trying to defend them. Trust me on this.
David in NY
@FlipYrWhig: @Sly:
Are you sure it makes a tax difference to the employer whether the employer pays a dollar in wages or a dollar in benefits, such as health insurance? I would think that neither is taxable, since each is a business expense. Surely, employers get to deduct wages paid as a business expense, as well as other benefits, right?
It does make some difference to the employee, who is not taxed on her health benefit. Employment insurance coverage is thus worth somewhat more to the employee than getting the equivalent amount in wages and having to go out and buy health insurance on the market. Except if that were our system, we’d probably have had single payer by now.
Or am I misunderstanding something?
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
Not to worry. As I pointed out in the other thread, Rmoney is not coachable. He must be driving his handlers batshit.
Chris
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Heh. The Bishops have been “violating their own principles” for decades by sitting by silently and refusing to lift a finger in defense of peace, economic justice, the environment or any of dozens of things they consider part of their values until the time comes to put their money where their mouth is, and then they’re nowhere to be heard from. Trust me, they have absolutely no problem violating their own principles. It’s a little funny listening to anyone whine about that.
SiubhanDuinne
@Bmaccnm:
Wow. Kaiser Aluminum, Kaiser Steel, Kaiser Shipbuilding, Kaiser-Frazer Motors, and Kaiser Permanente. I knew about some of those connections but not all.
I know nothing about Henry Kaiser apart from the Wikipedia article, and I imagine if he were alive today he’d most likely be a Republican — but he sounds like a much nicer human being than the Kochs, Adelson, Trump, et al.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
If you stop looking at it as an expense and look at it as a power they have over their employees and that they can dangle over their heads to make them more pliable, it makes a lot more sense.
I mean, they’re shitty capitalists (if they’re capitalists at all) in the first place. A rationally self-interested business leader would be fine with bringing back the 1950s Keynesian consensus and expanding it with things like universal health care – it takes a lot of their expenses and regulations off their hands by making them the feds’ responsibility, and while they might not be making quite as much money, they’re still richer than God and have a solid guarantee against any social unrest pointed at them, ever.
The people who pushed for the destruction of that social contract (e.g. the big money behind the GOP and, to a large extent, the face of current corporate America) might have been motivated by blind and naked greed, but I suspect power, status and ego had a lot more to do with it.
SiubhanDuinne
@cckids:
Mmm, starched polyester.
bemused
@Villago Delenda Est:
Palin was more coachable than Mitt is. Who would have thunk it!
There was another episode in the MItt out of touch series. He was enthusing about the wonders of ordering a sandwich by touch screen. On msnbc, after showing the Mitt clip and returning to Andrea MItchell and Chris Cillizza, I thought I was going to choke laughing seeing the expression on Chris Cillizza’s face. It was truly one of the funniest spontaneous facial reaction by msm reporter I think of I have seen. I really don’t know how they manage to keep a straight face covering Mitt day after day. Mitt is just such a mess.
shortstop
@bemused: Now I have to look for that!
bemused
@shortstop:
I had to see it again and found it on Raw Story. I’m still laughing.
HumboldtBlue
So wait, asshole catholics who still go to that fucking church and support that fucking church are getting their feelings hurt when the fucking leaders of that fucking church are pointed out as speaking for that fucking church?
Fuck you if you still go to catholic church, you child-rapist-supporting fuckwits.
When the fucking bishops speak they speak for the fucking church, it’s that fucking simple. Including that fucking former nazi youth member who is head bishop motherfucking number one.’
But yeah, don’t go mixing them up with, you know, the fucking sheep who fill pews every fucking weekend.
Steeplejack
@shortstop:
The “wish a motherfucker would” trope is a Cedric the Entertainer thing that DougJ has long used.
From The Original Kings of Comedy.
Will
“The decision by the Obama Administration to attack our first Freedom, religious freedom…”
Am I the only one who did not think of church-going as my “first freedom”?
mclaren
At least the obots come clear about how they’re trying to steer the conversation onto identity politics because they fear they can’t win on Obama’s economic record.
Anti-liberal Black Lady has gone overboard pumping identity politics to distract us from all Obama’s other failures. Every Anti-liberal Black Lady post now is about how horrible the Republicans are on gay rights or women’s rights.
Ignore universal warrantless surveillance, ignore Obama ordering the murder of children without charges or a trial, ignore Obama announcing that the social safety net needs to be slashed at the same time he ramps up military spending, ignore Obama harshly condemning foreign countries that throw their own citizens in jail forever without charges at the same time he signs the NDAA that gives him the power to do exactly the same thing, and of course Obama’s recent infamous executive order making it a felony for foreign nationals to do exactly the sorts of things Obama has ordered the U.S. government to do:
Source: “Obama’s astonishing chutzpah,” 12 April 2012.
And worst of all, Obama’s insanely foolish Hoover-era economic mindset, exemplified by the unbelievably ignorant speech Obama gave in which he announced
“The hard truth is that getting this deficit under control is gonna require some broad sacrifice, and that sacrifice must be shared by the employees of the federal government,” Obama said. “After all, small businesses and families are tightening their belts. Their government should, too.”
This kind of crazy economic hara-kiri runs counter to 80 years of accumulated economic wisdom. Paul Krugman eviscerated Obama’s crazy argument in his 2010 op-ed “Myths of Austerity”:
With this kind of dismal record, no wonder people like DougJ and Anti-liberal Black Lady beat the drum 24/7 about identity politics.
mclaren
@HumboldtBlue:
Tell us how you really feel there, buckaroo.
shortstop
@Steeplejack: Um, I know, Steep.
Steeplejack
@shortstop:
Sorry! I just thought she was referring more to the “wish” thing than to the “Metrosexual Black AbeJ” name thing. And after nobody apparently knew anything about “A dingo ate my baby” the other night . . . Sheesh.
Brachiator
@mclaren:
Nobody is ignoring this. You think that this shit, which you have framed dishonestly, is the mostest importantest shit in the world.
It’s not. At least not the way you have framed it.
And I continue to wonder what kind of gated community fantasy land you live in which you think that there can be a social safety net when the entire economy is unraveling.
Sly
@David in NY:
Employers can deduct compensation (wages and benefits) as a business expense, but not their payroll liabilities. That’s the portion they pay into Social Security and Medicare through FICA (which is split with the employee) and unemployment insurance through FUTA (which is employer-only). It’ll vary a lot based on the business, but you’re basically looking at 8 cents on the dollar for FICA and between 500 and 1000 dollars per employee under FUTA. It may not seem like a lot, but if you have a hundred employees with a five million dollar payroll, that adds up to a big chunk of money.