Fighting contraception. Stopping domestic violence protections. Extending tax cuts for the wealthy, while hiking taxes on the middle class. Welcoming white supremacists to a conference, but banning gay conservatives. The GOP has followed its extremist fringe off the deep end, leaving the rest of us back in the reality-based world, and befuddled. Their strategists warned them not to do this, but it appears that to the GOP, unhinged fringe issues are like catnip.
It wasn't a surprise to see Republican luminaries, including Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell flock to major conservative conference last week that also included a panel session featuring a white supremacist. But it was ironic that this same event, the Conservative Political Action Conference, banned a group of gay conservatives from participating, accusing them of alienating so-called "family values" groups like the Family Research Council (FRC).
The banned group, GOProud, is hardly radical, even by right-wing standards -- it split from the Log Cabin Republicans because it thought the older group was too concerned with gay rights. Beyond pushing the much feared "The Gay Agenda," now just being gay excludes you from the biggest conservative conference of the year. Being a white supremacist gets you on a panel.
This year, CPAC banned the gays to gain back the FRC -- and white supremacists came as a bonus. The leaders of the GOP -- including a few aspiring leaders of the free world -- came along for the ride.
But CPAC was just the beginning of what has been a surreal week for a major political party. On Friday, President Obama announced a compromise with Catholic leaders who objected to religious institutions being included in the contraception coverage mandate for employee insurance. The compromise, which spared Catholic institutions from providing contraception coverage while ensuring that female employees would still have access to it, was not enough for the Catholic bishops and GOP leaders. Instead, they announced that they wanted a rule that would allow any employer to renounce any insurance coverage for any procedure they find morally objectionable.
Anyone who has ever had health insurance knows that that's an extreme position -- allowing employers to pick and choose what procedures they'll provide insurance for? -- but it's one that Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and the leaders of the House and Senate GOP jumped right on.
And attacking contraception is just the beginning. Republicans in the Senate are blocking a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act because it includes protections for LGBT people and undocumented immigrants. The Virginia House just passed a bill that would require women seeking abortions to undergo an invasive trans-vaginal ultrasound without their consent, and another that would put access to birth control at risk. The latter, a so-called "personhood" bill, is so extreme a similar measure was rejected by Mississippi voters by double digits last year -- yes, that Mississippi. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who is widely considered to be a top candidate for the GOP vice presidential nomination, has said he will sign the forced ultrasound bill and may sign the "personhood" measure.
Finally, on another issue important to millions of American families -- middle class tax cuts -- the GOP gave in and joined the rest of us in reality. While Republicans had been making rumblings about repeating their disastrous stunt in December where they threatened to raise payroll taxes on working Americans because the cost would be offset by a miniscule tax on the very rich, they ultimately gave in -- while leaving lower-profile but equally important issues of extending unemployment benefits and fixing Medicare payments for doctors in the lurch.
Where is the mainstream of the GOP? And why aren't they speaking up? 99 percent of American women who have ever been sexually active have used birth control. 59 percent of Americans think all employers should have to provide comprehensive health insurance to their employees -- including to women. Sixty-six percent think the wealthiest should pay a bit more to help all Americans get by in a bad economy. As of last year, 56 percent said gay and lesbian relationships are "morally acceptable" -- and although I haven't seen polling, I'd bet that the "morally acceptable" number for white supremacists is significantly lower.
Polls are polls and politicians shouldn't govern by them, but shouldn't they notice when they're falling off the deep end? The GOP, in pursuing the agenda of the most extreme factions of its base, has left moderates within its own party and American common sense behind. This isn't just bad for them politically -- in the long run, it's bad for the country. There are plenty of serious issues that demand our attention -- jobs, housing, the energy crisis, crumbling infrastructure. But instead of tackling these, the GOP seems determined to fixate on a parade of dangerous nonsense.
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Sometimes I wish for higher standards of truthfulness, even from the Liberal Left. This one is SO easy to debunk even using leftwing sources.
After all, this source says 15 percent of women are still virgins!
"The questionnaire does ask virgins (nearly all of the 15% remainder)"
http://shorttext.com/FRjWvOr
Neither is it necessary to (lie) exaggerate. What is so wrong or difficult about telling something closer to the truth?
What happens is twisting in the wind. Yes, deep down in the article Keegan qualifies the 99 percent number saying "of all women that have had sex" -- acknowleding the existence of those that have not. But what of them?
The headline says "contraceptive", but deep in the article one reads "birth control" which on further examination includes such things as rythm methods, withdrawal and so on which are not "contraceptive" while still being a method of preventing pregnancy and approved by Catholics.
So the article headline is deceptive and the article itself slightly less so. Usually the readers here are quicker to pick up that kind of deception UNLESS it triggers emotions in which case the sheep line up, dutifully bleating "99 percent! 99 percent!"
http://wwwÂ.guttmacheÂr.org/pubsÂ/fb_contr_Âuse.html
What dark recess was that 99 percent figure coming from?
The implication is that more objective analysis and less knee-jerk should be employed when framing the responses.
From a different POV, I'm amused that the person who brought this thread to my attention thinks too much effort ($$) is spent teaching math in public school. It took an hour to patiently work throughout the maths so that the above analysis was comprehensible. Similarly to my dear friend, a few of the responders betray their poor math skills or their emotive response to a subject best studied objectively and coldly.
What is stated is "99% of Women Have Used Contraceptives."
That is clearly not the case, as 15 percent of women claim to be virgins, and of the 62 percent that are sexually active in the age group defined in one study, their method of birth control varies -- some methods tolerated by Catholics and some not.
The intention was to say that NO Catholics were obeying their church -- without revealing why that's particularly important -- but it isn't even a true claim.
That being said, many roman catholic women use unapproved methods (the pill) because the economic and personal incintives are practically irresistible. In addition, the root religious issues with contraception are not clear or conveniently grasped and have more to do with Aristotle than the bible. I recall the argument... It is wrong to kill a person. In the perspective of god an embryo is the same as the grown man, so terminating an embryo is killing the person. The logic goes further to argues that interference with conception is wrong because (1) spilling a man's seed is wrong (old testament) and (2) contraception is interfering with god's will. Also, without the risk of conception the act of sex is for personal pleasure and there is a convoluted theological argument that equates this to masturbation (old testament sin).
I empathize. My daughter was unable to mentally calculate 10 percent off a $14 article of clothing. My S.O. whips out a pocket calculator to do the math.
When I took college algebra, the professor did not allow calculators; a fourth order (if I remember right) matrix to solve a simultaneous linear equation took the entire class period.
Churches choose to continue to pay for Viagra and Cialis Insurance, but refuse to cover Contraception.
This is NOT about Religious Freedom as much as it is an attempt by Religion to impose its doctrine on others. Paying to cover the CAUSE but not the Prevention of a highly Probably Result, is a clear doctrine of sexism. And ANY doctrine that suppresses one gender is a form of Taliban IMHO.
I hope it is not difficult for you to figure out why this may be the case.
http://shorttext.com/FRjWvOr
IN SHORT: This is totally legit, and the only question I'd want to ask is how they decided which counties and cities to sample from.
SOURCES:
The study: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_029.pdf
The NSFG data website, including the questionnaire and raw data: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/nsfg_2006_2010_puf.htm
"Overall, 62% of the 62 million women aged 15–44 are currently using a method.[2]"
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contr_use.html
If you are a university student then you have at least a 9th grade reading level and you know what is said about statistics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics
This is not to say I support the direction of the article. And of course, statistics are a tool and their purposes are not implied but imbued by the people who have them. I have had my doubts about the field by your very sentiment; but how else does science get anything done when it can only observe and describe, possibly explain, but never prove?
GOP folks can't prove contraception is wrong. You'll have to take that one up with God, wherever God is.
Big Deal. Who invites the Weather Underground?
1. The birth control is not any more FREE, than what an anitbiotic costs. Your insurance pays for BOTH. (SEE THE WORD PAY?) Obama doesn't want an employer to pick and choose what treatments are covered. Obama is saying that insurance mustcover birth control, just like it has to cover other forms of preventive medicine.
It's not free boys and girls, because the insurance policy is not free
Does anyone here CARE what Obama wants or does not want? What matters is what YOU want, or what I want. Obama is not King, not God Almighty. In some other era maybe his opinion was actually worth more than mine.
• Virtually all women (more than 99%) aged 15–44 who have ever had sexual intercourse have used at least one contraceptive method.[2]
2. Mosher WD and Jones J, Use of contraception in the United States: 1982–2008, Vital and Health Statistics, 2010, Series 23, No. 29.
There are many actual studies which prove this number to be true. I know it is hard to believe that anyone uses actual real numbers, because when the right uses numbers they were "not intended to be construed as a factual statement."
"Overall, 62% of the 62 million women aged 15–44 are currently using a method.[2]"
That's incredible. Plainly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics
It's a nice counterpoint to the made-up statistics from the left.
It's important to remember that contraception doesn't only mean birth control pills. The pill gets the most press, because it has always been equated with "sexual freedom" and women's equality--things that are still considered "wrong" by too many men. However, other methods--hormonal or not--are still contraception.
The neo-conservatives support birth control that keeps the man in charge, like withdrawal and condoms. According to them, a woman's control of her body is limited solely to keeping her legs shut. With or without a Bayer aspirin between her knees.
"Overall, 62% of the 62 million women aged 15–44 are currently using a method.[2]"
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contr_use.html
Indeed, 15 percent of women are claimed to be virgins:
"The questionnaire does ask virgins (nearly all of the 15% remainder)"
http://shorttext.com/FRjWvOr
The same can be said of Democrats.
"equal access to preventative care" is a Democratic party invention and thus not really comparable to the Republicans.
The only way it can be "equal" is to slice the pie so that you get 1/300 millionth of a share of preventive care. That's not going to be very much. The only way to prevent you from taking someone else's share is of course the Health Police that will guard every doctor's office. Once you have used your share, that's it for the year.
You may think I am joking, but in Hillary Clinton's health care plan, any doctor that took a patient out of turn, or accepted private payment, he and the patient would be fined; $10,000 fine on the patient and I forget what was the penalty on the doctor.
I suspect it is an "urban myth" as 99 percent seems really popular right now.
As such, it is also 99 percent easy to dismiss the whole argument.
"Overall, 62% of the 62 million women aged 15–44 are currently using a method.[2]"
http://wwwÂ.guttmacheÂr.org/pubsÂ/fb_contr_Âuse.html
Thanks to rfshunt.
"The questionnaire does ask virgins (nearly all of the 15% remainder)"
http://shorttext.com/FRjWvOr
So that flushes the 99 percent theory down the toilet right there.
"Overall, 62% of the 62 million women aged 15–44 are currently using a method."
Comprehensive insurance covers women today. Birth-control is an above and beyond. Can I get my Prilosec free?
Now I may have to look into the reauth of VAW Act; knowing the libs they probably wanna throw 'hate speech' in with violence...but I'll research.
The only real thing we need to focus on is a Tea Party sweep...We can repeal all of the ACA, put a halt to the "Beltway cronyism" your Chosen One said he'd fight against.