A recovering economy is bad news for Republicans in 2012. If Republicans address social issues as virulently as they have the ‘contraception controversy,’ it will be a long, sad election season for them. Provisions in the Affordable Care Act made it so all employers had to cover contraceptive care. Republicans cried foul on infringing religious freedoms. This seemed a win-win for republicans: attack an already unpopular legislative bill, at least with conservatives, and pin the bill to a social issue they care deeply about.
But it didn’t really turn out that way. President Obama compromised. This consolation by the administration seemed a straight-forward alternative, but many still argued insurance companies would pass the costs of contraceptive care to the institutions through higher premiums, but this simply isn’t true. Furthermore, it’s in the insurance companies’ best interest, i.e. benefits their bottom-line, to offer free contraceptive care for ALL women.
The controversy should have died there, but, republicans kept on it. At a Congressional hearing, Darrell Issa actually barred a woman named Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown law student, from giving testimony. Democrats, days later, held a congressional forum where Ms. Fluke finally gave her testimony. Republicans responded by letting Rush Limbaugh do the talking.
Limbaugh’s tirade has only served to help President Obama and the Democrats this fall. First of all, Limbaugh’s idiocy only proved how little he understands contraception and how women use it. Rachel Maddow expressed this brilliantly on her show Friday night. Limbaugh, and many other conservatives, do not seem to have a basic grasp of how contraceptive coverage works, and almost universally think contraception is solely used as an abortifacient, and ignore hormonal contraceptive use as a therapeutic drug, evidenced by Ms. Fluke’s testimony. Nobody is paying for somebody else’s contraceptive care. The taxes paid through your employer cover the health care benefits that YOU receive. If your employer objects to contraceptive coverage, or maybe they don’t like the diet pills you’ve been taking, or maybe the painkillers that you’re prescribed are too costly, and you have to go out of network to get those drugs then you’re essentially paying TWICE for medical insurance. As the Fluke testimony shows, going out of network can have disastrous consequences for women.
The right’s draconian furor against contraception will only further secure the women’s vote in 2012, especially the independent vote. Limbaugh, personally, is suffering. At least 9 advertisers, including AOL, Sleep Number, and a tax services company, have pulled their ads from his show. Limbaugh’s half-hearted (and now “left-blaming”) apology has been almost universally condemned as “insincere.” Even Ron Paul thinks it was all about ad revenue: "I don't think he's very apologetic. It's in his best interest, that's why he [apologized].” When a majority of Americans support the contraceptive requirement and conservative blowhards make such inexcusable comments, republicans are not only hurting their chances of winning the White House, but damage any chance to take the Senate or hold the House.
Showing posts with label Darrell Issa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Darrell Issa. Show all posts
Monday, March 5, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
AmericanLP Daily News Brief 2/17/12
AmericanLP covers all the top headlines in politics on both sides of the aisle in this morning’s news brief. Major headlines yesterday once again pointed to a rebounding economy. New applications for unemployment hit a 4-year low. Also, the DNC released a new ad, which you can view at the 1:15 mark, highlighting the diverging ideologies between the Obama administration’s decision to save the auto industry and Mitt Romney’s 2008 Op-Ed “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt”. The bailout was unequivocally a successful administrative decision for President Obama, and coupling this with the rate for unemployment applications falling, and last week’s news that the overall unemployment rate has fallen to 8.3 percent, we have public opinion of the President quickly on the rise. 44% of Americans, according to a Pew Research Center poll believe economic conditions will be better in 2013 than this year. This coincides with a CNN poll yesterday showing the President’s approval rating is back to 50% for the first time in 8 months. The administration, and the Obama re-election campaign, have really begun hammering home the jobs numbers, focusing not on the unemployment rate so much, as that number is still unfortunately high, but rightly talking about how bad things were when Obama came into office (750,000 jobs hemorrhaging from the economy per month) to how his policies have vastly turned this country around (250,000 jobs added in January; a 1 million point swing) and have created the most manufacturing jobs since the 1990’s.
Switching over, AmericanLP discusses the latest from the GOP presidential campaign. Mitt Romney, on the verge of losing his front runner status in some polls, gave a speech Thursday in which he addressed the concerns of entrepreneurs looking for funding to start their own business. In a swipe at the Solyndra controversy, Romney excoriated the benefits of government funding a start-up business and instead suggested entrepreneurs should apply to venture capitalists, angels, or their parents for funding. A statement such as this is on par with Romney’s “$10,000 bet” and once again reinforces the notion that Romney is so fiscally out-of-touch with the general American public (the average salary for Americans is $26,000/year; Romney makes $57,000/day) that it’s hard to fathom how he’ll win the nomination. Romney was born to the kind of wealth where if he wanted to start his own company, he could go to his parents for the capital to get the project off the ground. However, most Americans cannot. Most Americans struggle to pay their own bills, and many are helping their parents through retirement after the recession. It seems every time Romney opens his mouth, he further ostracizes himself from the general American public. Maybe that’s why he chose to drop out of the CNN Georgia debate scheduled in a couple weeks. Rick Santorum also declined the invitation; his motivations for doing so are less clear. With less money and generally one of the candidates who performs well in these debates, it doesn’t really play to Santorum’s strengths not to participate. But Santorum was not immune to the ‘tax return release’ scrutiny either. Santorum released 4 years of his tax returns and they paint a startling contrast to much of what Santorum has been saying on the campaign trail. Posturing himself as a threat to big government, Santorum has actually made $3.6M in lobbying fees since losing his re-election bid for the U.S. Senate. Try as he might, Santorum seems just as much a “Washington Insider” as Newt Gingrich.
A new segment on AmericanLP, “News From The 14th Century,” highlights the ridiculous spectacle yesterday from Congress where Darrell Issa barred a woman from testifying on a birth control hearing in response to the contraception controversy. Republicans, for all their talk of individual freedom, want to deny women access to birth control, even though 98% of Catholic women say they have used some form of contraceptive in their life. Issa, instead of allowing one woman to testify, decided to fill the panel with men and priests. Clearly, they’ll have a deeper understanding of contraception than any woman might…
These are just a few of the highlights from this morning’s briefing. Watch the whole video for more news in politics from around the country. ~ Jason Owen with TJ Walker
Switching over, AmericanLP discusses the latest from the GOP presidential campaign. Mitt Romney, on the verge of losing his front runner status in some polls, gave a speech Thursday in which he addressed the concerns of entrepreneurs looking for funding to start their own business. In a swipe at the Solyndra controversy, Romney excoriated the benefits of government funding a start-up business and instead suggested entrepreneurs should apply to venture capitalists, angels, or their parents for funding. A statement such as this is on par with Romney’s “$10,000 bet” and once again reinforces the notion that Romney is so fiscally out-of-touch with the general American public (the average salary for Americans is $26,000/year; Romney makes $57,000/day) that it’s hard to fathom how he’ll win the nomination. Romney was born to the kind of wealth where if he wanted to start his own company, he could go to his parents for the capital to get the project off the ground. However, most Americans cannot. Most Americans struggle to pay their own bills, and many are helping their parents through retirement after the recession. It seems every time Romney opens his mouth, he further ostracizes himself from the general American public. Maybe that’s why he chose to drop out of the CNN Georgia debate scheduled in a couple weeks. Rick Santorum also declined the invitation; his motivations for doing so are less clear. With less money and generally one of the candidates who performs well in these debates, it doesn’t really play to Santorum’s strengths not to participate. But Santorum was not immune to the ‘tax return release’ scrutiny either. Santorum released 4 years of his tax returns and they paint a startling contrast to much of what Santorum has been saying on the campaign trail. Posturing himself as a threat to big government, Santorum has actually made $3.6M in lobbying fees since losing his re-election bid for the U.S. Senate. Try as he might, Santorum seems just as much a “Washington Insider” as Newt Gingrich.
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