From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Messin' with the Wrong Chicks
Susan G. Komen for the Cure sure has pissed off a lot of people. Among them: the 80s'ish proprietors of the Margaret and Helen blog. When you get a few minutes, take a peek at Helen's epic rant, which is as scorching in its condemnation of the politicization of funding for breast cancer screenings as it is unequivocal in its defense of Planned Parenthood. A snip:
Nancy Brinker, shame on you. You honestly thought your fellow women were so stupid that we would think your reason for defunding Planned Parenthood was somehow different than the never-ending cry for defunding that comes from the far right every election cycle? Well I am here to tell you that it is bad enough when it comes from the male-dominated, testosterone-filled legislatures. But when it comes from a supposedly apolitical women’s health organization, it’s unforgiveable. […]
I know I speak for millions of women when I say that from now on if you push us, we will push back. From this point forward, when someone says that you fight like a girl, they had better watch out. We girls know how to fight when our backs are against the wall. […] Yes. [Planned Parenthood provides] abortion services. Deal with it because they also do so much more and we remember the world before them. It wasn’t pretty.
Planned Parenthood provides healthcare – pap smears, breast and pelvic exams, colposcopies, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, and birth control for both women and men – most without access to any other health care services. About 97% of their services are for this basic healthcare. If you want to talk about abortion services then you should at least know the truth. Providing that service for women who are faced with that daunting decision accounts for less than 3% of what Planned Parenthood does nationally. Less than three percent. They also provide prenatal care, vasectomies and adoption referrals. ... Tell your Tea Party friends what good fiscal sense Planned Parenthood education and prevention programs make---that for every dollar spent providing family-planning services, $4 are saved in Medicaid costs. [...]
If you are going to talk about Planned Parenthood, then at least have the courage to speak the truth.
How sad that it literally takes courage for conservatives to speak the truth, let alone face it. Unreal.
Okay. Let's drink stuff. Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, February 10, 2012
Note: In honor of Ferrara Pan CEO Nello Ferrara, who died at 93, tonight we're replacing the ice cubes in our rum and Coke with Atomic Fireballs. After taking our first sip, we are seriously questioning our judgment.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Daylight Saving Time kicks in: 30
Days 'til the Charleston Wine and Food Festival: 20
Percent of the 4th-quarter money raised by Mitt Romney's SuperPAC "Restore Our Future" that came from donations in excess of $100,000: 86%
Amount contributed by the top 90 donors: $26 million
(Source: MSNBC)
Size of the dollar-store industry: $56 billion
Percent increase in dollar-store business since 1998: 43%
(Source: McClatchy News)
Percent chance that Norma Desmond is ready for her close-up: 100%
(Source: Norma Desmond)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Monday! Monday!! MONDAY!!! (I admit, I only watch these things to see a dog crash.)
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CHEERS to Barack Obama: jiu jitsu warrior---"Hai!!!" Threading the needle of religious freedom with the thread of secular practicality, the 44th President of the United States devised an "accommodation" for universal women's contraceptive coverage that pleases the Catholic bishops and guarantees twitterpated couples of all stripes sexytime without babytime:
[I]f a nonprofit religiously affiliated organization like a Catholic college or hospital objects to offering birth control, the insurance company will be required to provide the coverage free of charge and the employer will not pay for it. Sister Carol Keehan, President of the US Catholic Health Association and Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards support the compromise, the administration officials said. [T]he same insurer that provides insurance to the employer, will be offering contraception coverage to the employee directly. Insurance companies will be able to deliver birth control at no additional charge because the cost of contraception is far less than the costs associated with an unwanted pregnancy…
And, as a special bonus gift, the rule's implementation is being moved up by six months! Ha! So the takeaway message here is: this effectively neuters the culture warriors on the right who were HOPING BEYOND ALL HOPE that this would be the magic pony on which they'd ride to the White House. Turns out they'd just saddled up the same gimpy old
GOPosaur and let it wander into a briar patch. Something we'll never hear Republicans clamoring for: vision insurance.
CHEERS to "#16." Happy birthday, Abe Lincoln, who turns 203 years old young this Sunday. It's no surprise that he's considered by many to be our greatest president, including the 721 historians and political scientists who contributed their opinions to the book, Rating the Presidents. That's nice 'n all, but the important thing is, was he funny?
"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
"He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas better than any man I ever met."
"No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens."
I'll take that as a yes. Pay
your respects here. Tonight in his honor: Four score and twenty nachos.
CHEERS to putting things in perspective. Why don’t "domestic partnerships" equal marriage for gay couples? This week as the Washington State House was debating the same-sex marriage bill, Republican Rep. Maureen Walsh stood up and said the words that will be the most remembered from that historic day:
"My daughter came out of the closet a couple years ago. And y'know what? I thought I was gonna agonize about that. Nothing's different---she's still a fabulous human being, and she's met a person that she loves very much. And some day, by God, I wanna throw a wedding for that kid. And I hope that's exactly what I can do. I hope she will not feel like a second-class citizen involved in something called a 'domestic partnership,' which frankly sounds like a Merry Maids franchise to me."
The bill passed 55-43. Governor Gregoire will sign it next week. Cue the---[
yawn]---locusts.
CHEERS to your friendly local doc-in-a-box. On tomorrow's date in 1752, the first hospital in the U.S. opened in Pennsylvania. Back then it was pretty simple: first they bled you of your precious bodily fluids and then you died. Today it's a little different: first your insurance company bleeds you of your precious financial assets, then they figure out a way to deny you care and then you die. Progress!
JEERS to a hive of scum and villainy. I don't have much to say about the CPAC (Conservatives Pissing At Clouds) convention going on now in Washington, D.C. Except:
- Conservatives spend all their time screaming about what a horrible place D.C. is---how it's a city that's hopelessly out of touch with "heartland values." So where do they have their convention every year? D.C.!!!
- It's nice knowing that we liberals are secure enough with ourselves that we don't have to follow CPAC around like a puppy dog, holding "counter-conventions" like the conservatives who follow Netroots Nation from city to city do.
- Conservatives have learned an important lesson from eight disastrous years of Bush-Cheney-Rove: we must move even further to the right!!!
- Republicans are so petty they even steal their own elections!
- The first question a CPAC attendee asks when hiring a hooker for the night: "You're on birth control, right?"
- Greek columns and teleprompters, Mitt Romney? That's really gonna piss off a friend of yours: Mitt Romney.
- The CPAC joke getting the biggest laugh this year involves the notion that liberals should've been aborted. They say it's a real fetus-slapper.
By the way, what's the difference between the CPAC convention and Republicans in Congress? One is a gaggle of creepy people hellbent on destroying the country and obstructing progress through lies and smears and thuggery, and the other is…oh, wait, never mind. No difference, actually.
CHEERS to the most important day in U.S. history. On February 10, 1945, the Andrews Sisters hit the top of the charts with 'Rum & Coca Cola.' Why we didn't get today off as a national holiday is beyond me.
CHEERS to home vegetation. Ruh roh---no football this weekend. We must be strong!!! Meanwhile, here's some stuff that is on the teevee, starting tonight with HBO's Real Time, where Bill Maher chills with the Rev. Al Sharpton, Mo Rocca, Zanny Minton Beddoes from The Economist, Vermont state Senator Peter Galbraith and, unfortunately, fussbucket Reihan Salam. New DVD releases include the next-to-last Twilight movie and A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (Harry's full list is here). Zooey Deschanel hosts SNL. On 60 Minutes: Singer Adele on her vocal cord surgery. The Grammys are Sunday (nominees here---Go, Tony Bennett! Go Betty White!).
Tomorrow morning on MSNBC's Up! With Chris Hayes: NYU professor Eric Klinenberg, Rebecca Traister of The New York Times, The Nation's Richard Kim, and John McWhorter of The New Republic.
And here's your Sunday morning lineup, now with C&J's EXCLUSIVE Brain Cell Damage Monitor (1 = minimal brain damage, 10 = total meltdown):
Meet the Press: Rick Santorum; White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew; roundtable with E.J. Dionne, Joe Scarborough, Peggy Noonan and pro-Obama SuperPAC guy Bill Burton. Brain Cell Damage Monitor: 6
This Week: Rick Santorum; White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew; Rep. Paul "Kill Medicare" Ryan; roundtable with Liz Cheney, Donna Brazile, George Will and David Ignatius. Brain Cell Damage Monitor: 8
Face the Nation: Ron Paul; White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew; Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Turtleville). Brain Cell Damage Monitor: 7
Bill Moyers & Company: "Economic malpractice and the Millenials." Guests are Heather McGhee and Bruce Bartlett. Brain Cell Damage Monitor: 0
CNN's State of the Union: Rick Santorum; White House chief-of-staff Jack Lew AGAIN; Joe Lieberman; roundtable with Dana Bash and Mike Duffy. Brain Cell Damage Monitor: 9
Washington Week: John Dickerson of Slate and Nia Malika Henderson of The Washington Post on the GOP race; Beth Reinhard of National Journal on the Catholic leadership's freakout over ladies making sexytime; Pete Williams of NBC News on the mortgage settlement. Brain Cell Damage Monitor: 2
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: SURPRISE!!! White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew again! Plus Sarah Palin; roundtable with Bill Kristol, Mara Liasson, Evan Bayh and Kimberly Strassel. Brain Cell Damage Monitor: 10
You've been warned. Happy viewing!
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Five years ago in C&J: February 10, 2007
JEERS to bad Feith. In a story which we'll file under "Duh!", the Washington Post---via a leaked copy of an Inspector General's report---discovers that the former undersecretary of Defense "manipulated bad intelligence" to create a phony Saddam-al Qaeda link while whipping up support for the Iraq war. But, says the IG, Douglas Feith did nothing illegal. Memo to the president: could you change your plans just a tad and courier his Medal of Freedom out to the 12th green? He's having a terrific round.
CHEERS to Laura Bush. She and the White House curator have just restored the Lincoln Bedroom (pdf link) to the way it looked when Honest Abe used it as his office. I figure she needed a place to get away from her husband---he keeps decider'ing in his sleep.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a Very Barry Weekend (or...My, How Time Flies). Barack Obama officially announced his candidacy five---five!!!---years ago today in front of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois. Back then C&J said: "He looks presidential. His family looks First-familyish. He sounds presidential." He sure did:
As Lincoln organized the forces arrayed against slavery, he was heard to say this: "Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought to battle through."
That is our purpose here today. That is why I'm in this race. Not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation. I want to win that next battle---for justice and opportunity. I want to win that next battle---for better schools, and better jobs, and better health care for all. I want us to take up the unfinished business of perfecting our union, and building a better America.
That seems like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it? Three years into his improbable presidency, we're still frustrated, due in large measure because of the weenies in Congress and the Supreme Court, and a conservative movement that has taken complete and utter leave of their senses. And yet, to the right-wing's tooth-grinding chagrin, Barack Hussein Obama will end up higher than Saint Ronald Reagan on historians' Best Presidents lists. And in 11 months, I fully expect to look Sarah Palin in her beady black eyes and say: "Frankly, my dear, that hopey-changey thing worked out pretty well, actually. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a second Obama inauguration to liveblog."
Enjoy your weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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