Rush Update

Nine advertisers have jumped ship from Rush Limbaugh's radio show after the incendiary comments he made about Susan Fluke.  Oops, I mean Sandra Fluke; he even had trouble getting her name right.  And to those who insist he was only trying to make a point about our tax money going to support private sexual activity, let's get one thing clear: Birth control and contraception are used to prevent various gynecological diseases.

And, oh, yeah, let me get one other thing clear, something the media haven't: the federal requirement for insurance companies to provide birth control coverage does not use one cent of tax money.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.   

Rush To a Fluke

Rush Limbaugh went so far to the right in denouncing President Obama's health insurance policy for guaranteeing insurance coverage for birth control that he actually, for the first time in a long time, threatened his own career. When Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke testified before House Democrats in favor of Obama's policy to require insurance companies to provide birth control coverage to students of Catholic universities such as herself, in recognition of Georgetown's obvious refusal to do so, Limbaugh called her a "slut" and a "prostitute" on the grounds that any woman who needs birth control is obviously sexually active and that funding birth control coverage through Obama's mandate is essentially asking taxpayers to finance someone's sex life.

This is so wrong on so many counts. First of all, birth control devices such as pills are not taken in anticipation of sexual activity or on a constant basis like, say Viagra. Second of all, providing birth control saves money on health care expenditures in the long term. And third and most important, calling a woman a "slut" or "prostitute" for something as innocuous as supporting birth control coverage is misogynistic and mean-spirited.

Faced with the obvious possibility of losing advertisers - he'd lost two already, both mattress companies, over this - Limbaugh (sort of) apologized and said that he selected the wrong terminology to make his case against federally mandated contraception coverage. I'll let him explain it:

"For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke."

If this sounds like a preamble to an excuse as well as an attempt to cast himself as a purveyor of wit, it is. Because this is what he also said in the same statement he issued today:

"[This debate is] utterly absurd . . .. In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone's bedroom, nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a presidential level," he said.

Wow . . . "posited?" That's a very intellectual word for him! And by the way, if he doesn't think this is an appropriate topic for public discourse or worthy of the "presidential level" (Obama spoke to Ms. Fluke after Limbaugh made his original comments), then why did he dump all over Sandra Fluke in public during a presidential campaign?

And why did he mock her to the backing music of Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer?"

Democrats originally wanted Ms. Fluke to testify at a House committee hearing on the need for her to get birth control coverage that her Jesuit school will not provide for her, but the Republican-majority members of the committee holding the hearings refused on the grounds that they were asking about birth control coverage as a religious, not a medical, issue. The Democrats on that same committee held a counter-hearing after the Republican committee hearing heard exclusively from men and had Ms. Fluke testify in the hope of calling attention to her cause. They couldn't have gotten better attention and sympathy for Ms. Fluke than by provoking Limbaugh if they tried.

For one brief shining moment, it looked like Limbaugh would be thrown off the air and the only Rush we'd ever hear on the radio again was a power trio from Toronto. But his quasi-apology may have provided him enough cover to avoid have what happened to Glenn Beck at Fox News happen to him. (And by the way, Beck is still on the radio and hasn't really gone anywhere.)  And, to be honest, Limbaugh must be enjoying the free publicity he's getting for himself yet again. He knows that any press, even bad press, is good press, and when folks like Chris Matthews or Ed Schultz bash him, they're only focusing on Limbaugh's favorite subject.

Oh yeah, in his statement today he tried to explain his opposition to Obama's health care policy:

"I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities.  What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit?"

I, for one, would gladly pay for a pair of sneakers for Limbaugh to encourage him to take up jogging (no cracks, please, about encourage him to jog off a short pier).

But I don't want my tax dollars to pay for the golf cart he wants to whiz through art museums in.

Know Your (Lack of) Rights

In staging a U.S. House hearing on the need to preserve religious freedom by giving employers the right to deny contraception and birth control coverage, and having an all-male panel of witnesses, the Republicans appear to have shot themselves in the feet. They appear to be wrecking their changes of electoral success in November, right?

Not so fast. The GOP may be driving moderates and most female voters away with their assault on women's rights, but they're energizing more Christian conservatives into showing up at the polls this fall and possibly making the difference in close congressional elections, as well as in the presidential election . . . where a few thousand or even a few hundred popular votes can swing a state's electoral college votes toward the Republicans. The strategy already seems to be working in the U.S. Senate campaign in Massachusetts, which has a large working-class Catholic population; woman of the people Elizabeth Warren seems to be in trouble in her bid to unseat incumbent Cosmo boy Scott Brown.

Oh yeah, the singling out of this particular aspect of the Affordable Care Act could attract independent and establishment Republican voters who don't care about contraceptive coverage but detest the health care law to come out and vote, because the law includes a government mandate for everyone to buy medical insurance. Such voters may see the contraceptive coverage requirement as a reminder of the idea of government intrusion into health care, not necessarily as a way to keep women down. They may vote Republican simply to get the law repealed.

Meanwhile, the Fat Man In the State House, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, vetoed a bill allowing gay marriage in the Garden State after both houses of the New Jersey legislature approved it with solid majorities. They just don't have enough votes to override it. This will help Christie shore up his bona fides with the national right-wing movement - look for lots of out-of-state money to pour into his campaign for re-election next year - and position him for a presidential run in 2016 or 2020.

Despite ample evidence that the majority of voters always reject by popular vote the extension of rights to others - in New Jersey itself, the all-male electorate voted down a referendum to grant women the vote in the state in 1915 - Christie prefers to have the gay marriage issue voted on by referendum. How many states have placed a referendum on gay marriage before the voters? 31. How many of these referenda have passed? Zero. Christie says he respects the intelligence and integrity of the voters to make the right decision on the issue. Why would they - they voted for him, didn't they?

The only people who should vote on civil rights are legislators. The Democrats in New Jersey have made it clear that they won't stand for a referendum on this issue, which would likely fail. They also plan to garner enough votes to override Christie's veto before the current legislative session ends in January 2014. Personally, I think gay marriage has a better chance of passing by referendum. :-(

To Be Blunt About It . . .

President Obama apparently didn't know how big a hornet's nest he was stirring up by advocating a contraception insurance coverage directive that required faith-based institutions to provide such coverage to their employees. Although he revised it to allow religious organizations to be exempted and have insurance companies fill the gap by mandate, and although Catholic groups are pleased with the compromise, the pro-life movement in the Republican party sees the revised version as forcing other employers to provide coverage contrary to their own moral objections.

In that spirit of ill will, Senator Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican elected in 2010, has introduced an amendment that would allow all employers the right to refuse coverage to employees for any medical procedure they deem morally offensive. These procedures include maternity care, HIV/AIDS screenings, diabetes testing . . . any procedure involving treatment and care for a medical condition which could have been brought on by a lifestyle that the employer may find unhealthy and/or immoral. Thirty-seven Senate Republicans, including accidental senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, have signed on to the Blunt amendment, which would likely be mated to a transportation bill - the same transportation bill ending dedicated funding to non-automotive transportation modes and initiatives - currently up for consideration in the House.

Oh yeah, don't think Brown is shooting himself in the foot with his support of this amendment as he runs for a full Senate term in liberal Massachusetts. It will likely get him more support from national Republican and pro-life groups and win him favor with Catholic Democrats and independents in his state. Brown can't fend off the challenge he faces in November from Democrat Elizabeth Warren with only Republican votes; he needs to fool enough gullible Massachusetts voters with his manly pro-life positioning. Enough Bay Staters, after all, were taken in to elect him to the Senate once - and to elect Mitt Romney as governor in 2002.

Meanwhile, the Virginia state legislature is pushing a pair of pro-life bills that could conceivably (no pun intended) become law. One would require mandatory ultrasounds for women seeking abortions. But because most abortions are performed within twelve weeks, a transvaginal ultrasound - literally inserting the instrument into a woman's body - would be required. So what, says Virginia State Delegate Todd Gilbert (Republican- male caucus) - abortion isn't really medically necessary all the time, he argues, it's mostly just a "lifestyle convenience."

The other bill would recognize fetuses as persons, similar to the bills rejected in Colorado and Mississippi. Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell, a Republican, has indicated that he will sign at least one of them, most likely to burnish his vice presidential prospects.

Apparently, it's not the American infrastructure, antiquated as it may be, that is severely outdated. It's the American political establishment. And the idea that a handful of reactionaries could win power at the ballot box and use it to deny rights to others with a technologically superior communications system and a ruthless organizational structure suggests that we're closer to fascism in America than any of us have ever imagined.