While many had issues with Jon's coverage of Wisconsin on Monday, he and Kristen Schaal really put the screws to the GOP last night for their war on Planned Parenthood and women's rights, in a segment called "Mother F#@kers".
SCHAAL: I'll admit, Planned Parenthood is running quite an elaborate front for its abortion stores. But the facts are just what Mike Pence said. If an organization has anything to do with abortions, then everything that organization does is tainted, and shouldn't get any government money.
STEWART: So you are coming out in support of this new House bill.
SCHAAL: Yes! If anything, they don't go far enough! Our taxes are going to abortions in ways no one is even talking about!
STEWART: Well, let's talk about it now. What? How?
SCHAAL: Well, for starters, we have to cut funding for fire departments.
STEWART: Now why would that be?
SCHAAL: Hello?? What if an abortion clinic catches fire, and the firefighters put it out, paving the way for more abortions? Abortionist firefighters, paid for with our taxpayer dollars.
STEWART: But that's like saying we have to defund the Coast Guard because abortion providers go to the beach.
SCHAAL: Oh, I hadn't even thought of that. But you're right. No more Coast Guard. Gimme another, this is fun!
STEWART: FAA.
SCHAAL: Mile high club. Number one cause of unwanted pregnancies between Newark and LAX.
Video and transcript below the fold.
We begin tonight in Washington, though, in a season of fiscal discipline, House Republicans are discovering cutting spending isn't as easy as they had hoped. It turns out people like some of the things government does for them. Luckily, the Republicans have come up with a brilliant idea. What if instead of cutting services for "people", they cut services for "women"?
BRIANNA KEILAR (2/14/2011): ... $747 million in cuts to the nutrition program for women, infants, and children ...
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD (2/12/2011): ... cutting more than a billion dollars from the Head Start education program ...
TAMRON HALL (2/14/2011): ... one of the bills eliminates tax breaks for private employers who provide health coverage if their plans offer abortion services ...
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL (2/15/2011): ... allowing hospitals to refuse to perform an abortion on a women, even if she'll die ...
Wow, that's so pro-life, even if it kills you.
So they want to cut everything from family care to pre-natal care to child nutrition. It's like the Republicans in Congress are saying you can't prevent an unwanted child, you can't get care if you do get pregnant, and we won't give you any help feeding the kid after it's born. BUT, those two minutes when that skull is crowning, your baby's the most precious thing on earth.
Much of the GOP focus is on Planned Parenthood, which to hear them tell it, is in the abortion business for an unusual reason.
REP. VICKY HARTLZER, R-MO (2/17/2011): Planned Parenthood isn't about health, it's about profit.
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN, R-MN (2/17/2011): ... they're focused on becoming big business ...
LILA ROSE (2/21/2011): They reported a $63 billion profit.
BILL O'REILLY (2/8/2011): They make money on the abortions.
That's ridiculous, everyone knows Planned Parenthood doesn't make money on the abortions. It's the concessions.
That's where the money is. Your Junior Mints, your nachos. I mean, who needs that big a drink? But Planned Parenthood's insidious profiteering doesn't end there.
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN, R-MN (2/17/2011): Sarah Stoesz, who heads the Planned Parenthood operation in my state of Minnesota, said she recently opened three express centers in wealthy Minnesota suburbs, and shopping centers and malls and places where women are already doing their grocery shopping, picking up Starbucks, living their daily lives, and stopping off for an abortion.
Some of them aren't even pregnant, they just... it's just so damn convenient. Take those Auntie Anne's pretzels, you're not planning on eating one, but it's right across from Abercrombie. I had no idea so many mall abortions were going on, is that why a lot of stores have vague names, like Linens 'n Things, Bed Bath and Beyond, Dave and, uh, let's go with Busters.
Now of course, the vast majority of Planned Parenthood services are actually non-abortion related. There's already a law in place, the Hyde amendment, that ensures none of the federal funding it receives can go towards abortions. But that's really not the point.
REP. MIKE PENCE, R-IN (1/7/2011): Planned Parenthood and its defenders will claim that the money they've received from the government has not been used to fund abortions. But that is only technically true.
Yes, technically true. Also known as true. But go on.
REP. MIKE PENCE, R-IN (1/7/2011): There's no question that taxpayer dollars received by Planned Parenthood are used to cover allowed expenses like overhead, operational cost, thus freeing up other money for the clinics that do provide abortion.
It's like a shell game, except instead of a ball underneath a walnut shell, it's a womb, and instead of a....
JON STEWART: For more on the House's defunding efforts, we're joined by Senior Women's Issues correspondent Kristen Schaal. Kristen, thank you. Ah, last time you were here, Kristen, if you remember, we discussed the House conservatives moved to reduce federally funded abortions for rape victims, by redefining the term "rape".
KRISTEN SCHAAL: Mm-hmm. Which would've totally worked, if the Republicans hadn't backed down at the last minute. The pussies.
STEWART: That may be the most chilling way I've ever heard that phrase. It was like from Saw III or something. Kristen, are we seeing bills that would restrict abortions by cutting funds for a much broader range of services now? Is that what's going on?
CHRIS HAYES: What it would do is deny millions of women routine checkups and examinations. It would defund gynecological exams, cervical cancer tests, UTI treatments, and the full panoply of women's health services that Planned Parenthood provides.
SCHAAL: I'll admit, Planned Parenthood is running quite an elaborate front for its abortion stores. But the facts are just what Mike Pence said. If an organization has anything to do with abortions, then everything that organization does is tainted, and shouldn't get any government money.
STEWART: So you are coming out in support of this new House bill.
SCHAAL: Yes! If anything, they don't go far enough! Our taxes are going to abortions in ways no one is even talking about!
STEWART: Well, let's talk about it now. What? How?
SCHAAL: Well, for starters, we have to cut funding for fire departments.
STEWART: Now why would that be?
SCHAAL: Hello?? What if an abortion clinic catches fire, and the firefighters put it out, paving the way for more abortions? Abortionist firefighters, paid for with our taxpayer dollars.
STEWART: But that's like saying we have to defund the Coast Guard because abortion providers go to the beach.
SCHAAL: Oh, I hadn't even thought of that. But you're right. No more Coast Guard. Gimme another, this is fun!
STEWART: FAA.
SCHAAL: Mile high club. Number one cause of unwanted pregnancies between Newark and LAX.
STEWART: Mine and Safety Commission.
SCHAAL: Mile below club.
STEWART: Library of Congress.
SCHAAL: Sexy librarians!
STEWART: NASA.
SCHAAL: Space abortions!
STEWART: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms.
SCHAAL: Jon, please, I'm getting pregnant just listening to you.
STEWART: Kristen, if you try hard enough, you can link abortion to any piece of spending.
SCHAAL: Exactly. It's just disgusting. I mean, how can Mike Pence be sure that when he pays money for something, it won't ultimately go to pay for an abortion?
STEWART: Well, I guess there's no way to guarantee it.
SCHAAL: There is now. Presenting... da-da-dun! Stork Bucks!
A pro-life currency that can't be spent on anything having to do with abortion! Here, try to buy something for me. From me. Not for me. Well, if you want to do it.
STEWART: Um, hello.
SCHAAL: Hello.
STEWART: I'd like to buy a cup of coffee with my Stork Bucks.
SCHAAL: Oh, would you?
STEWART: Yes. (Kristen lights the money on fire)
STEWART: What's wrong with coffee?
SCHAAL: It has caffeine! The drug that keeps abortion doctors awake so they can perform abortions all night long! I don't think so!
STEWART: People do not... listen, it's a delicate issue... there's not... people are not gleeful about performing abortions. They're not gleeful about the things that are... God, what are these made of, by the way? They seem very flammable.
SCHAAL: Just tree pulp, gunpowder, and stork meat. After the whole BP thing, the stork meat just really lights up. Stork... covered in oil.
STEWART: Kristen, everyone objects to something the government spends money on. I may not want my taxes paying for waterboarding, or subsidies, or Mike Pence's prostate exams. But there goes my money.
SCHAAL: Straight up Mike Pence's ass, I know. Unless, of course, you're spending my new currency, Sunshine Bucks! They don't go where the sun don't shine! A twenty has Mike Pence's prostate on it. Do we have that image? I worked on it.
STEWART: I don't think we have that image. I think, ah, thank you very much, Kristen Schaal, everybody.
Also, John Oliver was in Wisconsin to cover the protests in a much more fair representation of what was going on than from Monday's show. (Though this riff on the American workforce was rather clever.)
Stephen Colbert also looked at the Wisconsin protests, with interviews with American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten and Wisconsin state senator Jon Erpenbach (D). He also briefly compared Wisconsin to Libya on Monday before looking at what happens when you google Rick Santorum.