The Republicans are losing the battle over contraception in a big way. They’ve lost their way on the optics. They seem incapable of anticipating our side’s tactics. And they’re making unforced errors.
This morning, Democrats tore into House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) for preventing women from testifying before a hearing examining the Obama administration’s new regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide contraception coverage to their employees.
Chairman Issa first denied a women the Democrats wanted to testify because the hearing was supposed to be confined to “religious liberty” and not contraception. Then Issa disallowed the testimony of a female college student because she didn’t “have the appropriate credentials” to testify before his committee. As a result, the Democrats walked out of the hearing in protest.
What do you think will lead on the nightly news? How is that going to look to most people? In denying the testimony of these two women, Issa lost the whole point of his hearing which was to score some political points against the president. He will score no points. All his effort will result in nothing more than an own-goal.
The GOP used to be good at this.
No more.
Issa is my congressman. I am so proud. I am also proud of my fellow constituents, because they will vote him back in, probably with 60% of the vote, and over 50% of women will vote for him.
Americans are so stupid.
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It’s easy to not do something if you write off folks as too stupid to convince. This is the malaise of progressives. Acting as if political engagement does not have to do with persuasion. If those 40% who oppose Issa got together now, they could probably defeat him. And unlike some strong GOP Congressional Districts, there is a challenger to Issa.
Americans are not stupid; they are distracted by work (or unemployment), commuting, child-raising, …
The choice of a Congressman just doesn’t seem that big in the priorities and pressures of daily life. Maybe it’s time that some folks made the connection between Issa’s behavior and the effect that it has on peoples’ lives.
Sorry, your wrong.
Americans are just plain stupid.
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Ummmmm, “your” -> “you’re”
-Jay-
Enjoy your Congressman. You likely will have him for life unless you have a way to get the folks in his district to be less stupid. Have you considered moving?
ridiculous, and I agree with Tarheel dem. on anecdotal evidence I know plenty of usaians who are not stupid. I, for one, am not stupid (I assume you mean United Statesians are stupid not Americans in general). all my coworkers are not stupid, nor are a whole lot of people with whom I attended educational institutions and of the people who live in this town I’ve never met one who was stupid. it’s not about stupidity, it’s about not having time, as Tarheel dem points out, and on the other end of the spectrum being sheltered from real issues through relative material comfort, paying oneself not to think, as it were. Writing everything off in advance is an excuse for inaction.
the mass media is stupefying, and americans are the most mass media-saturated people in the world. the ones that see through the cracks are all the more amazingly perceptive, such as on blogs like this.
bigger the force, the bigger the counterforce.
large numbers of americans have been completely hornswoggled by their hypnagogic attachment to inferior TV, and even worse radio. critical thinking is at an all-time low…
Americans are distracted, but they are also stupid.
Does no one note that the issue isn’t really a religious one. It is about the rights of employers (and the Catholic church is only involved because it is a huge employer) to dictate religious practices to their employees.
Whose religious freedom? The institution’s (corporation’s) or the individual’s?
Well gee, I just heard Foster Friese say to Andrea Mitchell that in his day women just put an aspirin between their knees.
Andrea was so taken aback even her years of studied placid reporting hadn’t prepared her for that moment. If his statement hadn’t been so blindingly stupid it would have been comical.
He said what???
see link to video below
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/02/16/427233/foster-friess-contraception/
I think his point is that women back then were not sluts like those today. It is awful even if taking to his logical conclusion. Are they trying to insult half the population? Dang
OMG, her reaction was priceless!
Those couple of seconds of dead air…that was great.
Similarly, a couple nights ago Stewart tore into a Hannity segment in which Sean coaxed a couple dozen old men (representatives of various faiths) to explain how persecuted they were by contraception policy. It’s like the GOP has completely forgotten that women were given the vote a while back.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-13-2012/the-vagina-ideologues—sean-hannity-s-holy-s
ausage-fest
Here is the video must see http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/santorum-backer-friess-gals-used-to-put-aspirin-between-th
eir-knees-for-contraception.php
I dunno. I keep expecting their constant, dishonest, media-echoing prattle about this to flip the situation to their advantage like it often does, but I expected the same thing with the Terry Schiavo issue as well and quite a few Repubs ended up blowing chunks out of their own feet.
Ya, sure.
Then they won the presidency for eight years. And took over the house and senate, and managed to get two whack jobs on the SCOTUS.
Yep, Schiavo was a huge defeat.
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your timeline is way off:
Bush’s push for SS privatization occurred before that, didn’t it? The SS privatization was their first mistake.
They two episodes ran concurrently.
Just a little off. So much crazy shit has happened in Florida I confused it with another ‘defeat’;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elián_González_affair
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Yup. And Dems gained control of the House in 2006, for the first time in 12 years.
They should have tried to find some female Lutheran pastors to testify. Then the optics would be even worse.
There is simply no way that the Republicans can successfully run campaigns for Federal candidates which highlight their wish to take away contraception coverage from private health insurance plans.
I don’t believe that they can run on eviscerating Medicare and Social Security, either, though I give them a narrower window of opportunity to do that in the long term though propagandistic repetition of the lie “we want to preserve SS and Medi for future generations!!”. Even with propaganda at work, I see they’re going to have problems executing those cuts.
With contraception, though, it seems there’s no place to go with this wish to deny women’s health care other than “my rights are more important than a woman’s, and besides they’re dirty non-procreative sluts anyway!”
Their base activists and the billionaires who fund their megaphones have lost all perspective, and are driving their politicians to do the same. Or is it the other way around? Or is it a simultaneous non-orgasm of woman-hating rage?
And just before this latest brouhaha, there was the Komen disaster and rout. You’d think once burned, twice shy, and yet here they go again.
If anyone in that collection of fossilized retrogrades had a lick of common sense and PR smarts they’d at least have trotted in some suitably religious women who’d parrot the party line about the evils of contraception — er, I mean, the horrors of trampling on their religious freedom to force those sluts to carry those adoptable babies to term — I mean, the freedom to worship their merciful and loving God as that God intended, and to hellfire with anyone who dissents.