In a move that will surprise approximately no one, the latest Bush appointee to head a program in the HHS is a nutter from the FRC who opposes contraception:
The Bush administration again has appointed a chief of family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who has been critical of contraception.
Susan Orr, most recently an associate commissioner in the Administration for Children and Families, was appointed Monday to be acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs. She will oversee $283 million in annual grants to provide low-income families and others with contraceptive services, counseling and preventive screenings.
In a 2001 article in The Washington Post, Orr applauded a Bush proposal to stop requiring all health insurance plans for federal employees to cover a broad range of birth control. “We’re quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease,” said Orr, then an official with the Family Research Council.
At this point, I suppose there is really not much to say other than “Elections mean things.” If you are sick to death of this kind of absurd bullshit, you have an option, You can vote against these idiots in 2008. Or, you can deal with the consequences.
As a side note, not to go all Ron Paul on you, but why the hell do we even need this damned office?
*** Update ***
According to Think Progress, Orr has also stated that contraceptives are part of the “culture of death.” I guess this leads me to inevitably conclude that my penis has, at numerous times over the past few decades, officially been a weapon of mass destruction.
*** Update #2 ***
A somewhat popular blogger observes:
I hear the cries of millions of sperm screaming as they suffocate within their rubbery prison…which is ribbed for her pleasure
According to George Bush’s new director of federal family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services, if you use a condom, you are part of the “culture of death”.
Looks like we’re going to need to add another definition to ‘spermicide’.
Heh. Indeed.
*** Update #3 ***
r€nato
so, let’s see if I have this straight:
Republicans think women should get preggers every time they have sex.
But if your children end up needing government assistance with health insurance, well you should have either planned ahead better or just not had any kids.
Ergo, Republicans are against sex for proles, who typically do not have 100% guaranteed lifetime financial security.
So I guess that leaves abstinence, masturbation or hawt down-low gay sex in public restrooms as the only options for them.
Bombadil
“Or”?
Zifnab
More or less for the same reasons we need the FDA, the SEC, and the Surgeon General. HHS is supposed to do research on what does and does not work for family planning and health guidelines. It’s HHS that encourages people to get flu shots and mammograms, and they’re supposed to be a reliable source of information for when a doctor or a layperson has to answer the question “Is this treatment safe and effective for me?”
Putting a shill in HHS is a pure propaganda move that lets the Bush Admin distribute bullshit information like “Abortions cause breast cancer” and “Condoms don’t ever work”. But when the agency functions properly, its supposed to help people help themselves by providing actual intelligent advice.
I’m sure you can see how this office can get easily politicized.
jenniebee
I know that this is a little off the reservation, but there is a medical condition that very few insurance plans cover (I haven’t found any group plan coverage available in states that don’t require this to be covered by law) and that is infertility. If fertility isn’t a disease, could we please agree that not being able to make babies is not the natural order of things, it means that somebody’s body isn’t working the way it should be, and therefore ought to be covered by health insurance plans?
Alan
This kind of crap is the reason I plan to vote against social conservatives for the rest of my life.
Punchy
Because someone’s got to teach the red-state folk in Alabama and Mississippi to stop marrying their sisters and cousins.
Dennis-SGMM
They’re not social conservatives, they’re more like social nihilists.
capelza
I swear this is Bush being an vindictive little “fuck you” shit.
Though the vet for Women’s health still tops my list.
For Bush, it is all about the “hey! eat this!”.
Punchy
Heh heh.
jcricket
You do realize this is why the proles in 1984 are fed a steady diet of porn and cheap booze.
chopper
that’s about the dumbest thing i’ve ever heard.
Pb
Heh; as if the FRC position wasn’t enough:
Ugh
This reminds me of Vin Diesel fact: One day Vin Diesel walked down a busy street with an erection. There were no survivors.
jcricket
So Larry Craig was just helping the GWOT by looking for WMD?
Tsulagi
Yep. He’s a Decider like that.
Alan
There was a time when I actually defended social-cons because I believed my party was fiscally conservative and smart about national security. I never thought the social-cons would actually run the party and let all other issues rot in hell. Now, I’m amazed…the Dems actually look sane compared to the GOP.
rawshark
They know what’s best or us. It’s our patriotic duty to not question them. You don’t want Farmer Jones back in charge do you?
Dreggas
Your post answers this question. This office should exist to make sure people are using contraception so fewer Orr’s are produced.
jrg
You know, I used to believe that social cons had a point WRT abortion. I always thought “The Handmaid’s Tale” was hysterical literature. I’m not sure I believe that anymore.
Now I’m starting to think that Cons simply want to make life miserable for other people. “Saving babies” has nothing to do with it. That’s why these folks are so crazy over contraception and gay marriage.
It never had anything to do with “morality”. It was always about authoritarian conservatives forcing their will on other people.
These people have no sense of privacy, liberty, or common courtesy. They really do belong in Iran or Afghanistan. Sick, Sick, Sick.
Jake
Hey did you know divorced women aren’t really women?
Yes, it is aggressive manly librul women who up and leave their poor husbands. Orr of course doesn’t look at the reasons women might be leaving their husbands because she isn’t quite insane enough to suggest. However:
Sounds like Orr is making a convincing argument for marriage between men.
Holy fuck. Phyllis fucking Schlafly v. 2.0 will be in charge of a major HHS division.
Leave those kittens alone!
rawshark
American taliban. There is no difference between fundamentalists, they’re all crazy.
gypsy howell
Someone wake me up when it’s 2009.
No, better wait until 2010 or so – it’s gonna take awhile to root out all these festering sores in the government.
Dennis-SGMM
Having undergone a vasectomy two decades ago I must be the Heinrich Himmler of spermicide.
RSA
Actually, HHS administers the FDA, along with NIH, CDC, and a slew of lesser-known organizations. NIH generates most of the good ideas in medicine in the U.S. (which corporations can then patent and make money off of, but that’s another story).
Focus On Your Own Damn Family!
This is not about babies. If it were, those babies wouldn’t be getting the big fuck you between blastocyst and brain death.
It’s about punishing women who have sex. It always has been. It’s about chattel. It’s about subjugation. The only difference is we’re allowed to show our faces.
No contraception. No abortion. No divorce. No careers.
Get your ass in the kitchen and rattle those pots and pans bitch.
rawshark
If you control people’s sex lives you control them. Its what religion is for. People control.
Tsulagi
Only difference is where they shop for clothes. Some go to Wal Marts, some go to Mohammed Marts.
Bubblegum Tate
The correct pun here, John, is “weapon of ass destruction.” Sheesh.
Focus On Your Own Damn Family!
Tax Analyst
Dreggas
Every sperm is sacred….you spermicidal maniac!
kchiker
The only thing scarier than seeing Eric Cartman in a major government post is seeing a female Eric Cartman in a major government post.
Alan
@gypsy howell,
It’s going to take far longer–decades–to rid the GOP of these nuts. The people and sites defining conservatism and the Republican Party today are all social conservative, from right wing pundits like Rush Limbaugh, to sites like Townhall.com, from NRO to the many right wing bloggers. And even if many RW bloggers claim not to be social cons they still promote them, like Allahpundit who promotes Malkin at Hotair. Basically, conservatism and the GOP are screwed…and will be for a very long time. Voters like myself are without a party.
Delia
Well, I thought masturbation was right out as well. It causes madness or cooties or something. But she does seem to sorta kinda conflict with the blessed Michelle who thinks that couples that can’t afford health insurance shouldn’t get preggers, married or not. I have a meditation piece from Great Literature for the whole lot of the wingers, seeing as the holiday season is fast approaching.
ThymeZone
Well, yes, of course. And the Dem party is the only viable instrument you have for killing this fucking beast in the next year. Something for the lazy-minded concern troll bullshit artists who hang around here and bitch about meaningless wranglings and shortcomings in the Congress and shrieking “those damned Democrats!”
Yes, those damned Democrats … you better FUCKING re-elect them, and you better FUCKING elect some new ones next year unless you want the GOP beast to continue to destroy this country. Get out there and put up signs, walk neighborhoods, sign up for GOTV operations, take voters to polls, register voters, be a working Democrat and do it with a smile and quit complaining.
Without doubt, the least-wanted piece of information in the history of Balloon-Juice.
Krista
Can I just say that as a woman, the thought that other women hold these beliefs is completely and utterly inexplicable to me?
rawshark
These people tried to impeach a president for extramarital sex. They are against homosexuals. Its not just about womens sex lives. This particular issue is but that’s just how they do their slow creep. Look at ancient Greece and Rome. before the Judeo-Christian conversion everyone fucked anyone else. Men, women, young and old. Sex is for procreation. Sperm has a purpose, to make life. If you spill sperm for any other purpose you’re denying it its true purpose and committing a crime against nature. No oral, no anal, no hot gay dickings, no masturbation and of course no contraceptive. Usually the right is OK with Contra’s bit not contraceptives.
RSA
Oh, great. Tomorrow I suppose you’ll be telling us about a massive invasion of your pants. (If so, I recommend immediate and unconditional surrender.)
Krista
It’s more than that, though.
The right shrieks about personal responsibility, and not having kids if you can’t afford them. That may seem fine on the surface, but the policies that the right favours, make it nigh well impossible for the middle-class and below to afford health insurance, a house, schooling, etc. They’re opposed to abortion, they’re opposed to contraception, and they’re opposed to people having kids if they “can’t afford them.” (i.e. if they use any goverment assistance). So, if I’m middle-class, I’d really like to know what it is that the right wants me to do. You don’t want me to have children, but you don’t want me to go on the pill or have an abortion. So am I just supposed to pop out babies and sell them to rich people with fertility issues?
Sometimes it just seems that there are many on the right who just want the poor and the working class to clean their streets, serve their food, manufacture their products, and then quietly shut the fuck up and disappear when not needed.
Tinfoil hat alert: in a way, it’s probably good that they can’t replace all blue-collar and service jobs with machines. If they did, and the working class were no longer “needed”, sometimes I think that there are an awful lot of people who would be more than happy to just let them starve out and die.
Robert Fredson
President Bush was elected and re-elected by the American people in part because he represents the values of the majority of our society. It would be irresponsible and unfair of him to do anything but respect those values, which he is doing with this posting. I would agree that HHS is a superfluous department, but all of you posting denigrating comments regarding Ms. Orr would do well to remember that you are firmly in the minority on social issues–and, believe me, most of do thank God for that.
whippoorwill
I swear, it’s looks more and more like it everyday. I get the feeling every morning when the King arises his first thought is “what disloyal subjects can I fuck with today”. No surprise it’s almost always dems on one thing or another and tough cookies for who gets screwed, whether it’s the GOP or children without health insurance.
He’ll be out in a year or so which gives me no comfort. A whacked out president can cause a boatload full of disasters in that amount of time. BOMBS AWAY!
Robert Fredson
President Bush was elected and re-elected by the American people in part because he represents the values of the majority of our society. It would be irresponsible and unfair of him to do anything but respect those values, which he is doing with this posting. I would agree that HHS is a superfluous department, but all of you posting denigrating comments regarding Ms. Orr would do well to remember that you are firmly in the minority on social issues–and, believe me, most of us do thank God for that.
Focus On Your Own Damn Family!
You’re right. It isn’t just about women’s sex lives. I lost my head there for a minute.
You’d think I would be numb to this crap by now, but they still push all my buttons. /sigh
Tax Analyst
No shit…
Isn’t it past-time we told these people to fuck-off, mind their own business and leave-us-the-fuck-alone?
tBone
Jeez, paranoid much? We wouldn’t just let them starve and die. Instead, RMARs (Raw Material Acquistion Robots) would gently gather them up and deliver them to the nearest Soylent Green processing center.
tBone
They’re not going to leave you the fuck alone unless you promise to leave the fuck alone, moonbat.
tBone
Too spoofy by half, my friend.
tBone
Too spoofy by half, my friend.
Punchy
Spill? Good Lord that’s good comedy. Like an accident…
“Sorry Honey, didn’t mean to spill that in your mouth/ass/ear/sister”
whippoorwill
You mean like who do you trust for health care where dems have always had a commanding lead over wingnuts. Or maybe you mean education or helping the poor or allowing abortion to remain legal.
The only issue your ahead on is homophobia and anti-child health insurance.
Bombadil
If that was said with a straight face, then Stephen Colbert has worthy competition.
Tax Analyst
Umm…let’s see…let me absorb that comment…OK – got it…So here, smoke on this:
BULLSHIT! Mister, you have NO IDEA as to exactly what the “majority” thinking is on these issues.
Mr. Bush was re-elected for the most part because he was able to convince just enough voters in just enough of the right states that Mr. Kerry was a poor candidate for the Presidency and he was able to do so largely because Mr. Kerry did such a feckless job of defining his candidacy and sat on his hands while his service record was denigrated, distorted and eventually villified by unproven and demonstrably false smears generated by an organized chorus of Right-Wing liars and nut-jobs. At this point I know of very few people who are “thanking God” or anyone else that Mr. Bush occupies the White House. At best most folks just wish he would go away, although a growing segment would like to see him tossed out on his ass and criminally charged for a growing list of malfeasances that have badly damaged the carefully thought out and hard-won 200-year-old foundations of our country. Bush is an absolute disgrace and however and whenever he finally leaves office will not be a moment too soon for most of us.
Orr is just another in a long line of agenda-oriented tools and fools brought in for no other reason than to appease a dwindling base-constituency and neuter an agency that out to be pro-actively working to protect the Health & Safety of all Americans…not just unborn fetuses.
John Cole
There have been weekends where my entire goal was to drink as much scotch and vodka as I possibly can and hopefully spill some of my sperm on some fortunate female.
Tax Analyst
Oops! Shoulda been “”ought”.
Tax Analyst
A laudable goal, John. Just know that a lot of us grasp the enormity of your quest and are pulling for you the whole time.
canuckistani
No, you can’t. Didn’t you hear the “silent” part about silent and in the kitchen?
Oops, sorry, I forgot. The social conservatives got their asses kicked in the last Ontario election. Hey, you Americans! Greetings from the non-crazy part of the world!
Punchy
when “in” becomes “on”, “daddy” becomes “just some random guy I met”. Nice. Responsible. Worry-free. Like a Jetta.
Figuratively speaking, of course.
Dreggas
*snickers*
canuckistani
And that is what being a professor is all about.
Augie
I take issue with your last comment John (primarily because I wasn’t credited!) In my version, I usually accuse myself of “mass genocide.” May God have pity on my soul.
Tax Analyst
Well, of course…I wouldn’t dare to presume I could actually grasp the enormity of John’s quest without at least asking nicely first.
Jake
In case you’re wondering, here’s what John had in mind:
http://tinyurl.com/2qlk66
r€nato
Sometimes?
jrg
You can help the Republicans win in ’08 by going door-to-door demanding that the occupants answer questions about their sex life. People love that. The future of the GOP is in your hands, sparky. Make haste!
Just be careful, some hippie liberal might punch you in the face.
Officious Pedant
Well, Robert, I must say that this:
is some astonishing drivel. I think the percentage of “values voters” during 2004 was something like 22%. So, 300 million Americans during the 2004 Presidential election, 121 million of whom voted. Of those, 26 and change, call it 27 million, voters listed “moral values” (not that they know what that means. a side effect of defining moral as “Ok with me”) as their top priority. So 22% of all voters, and 8% of the American population is in the majority now? That was some powerful stupid, dude.
Robert Fredson
How very typical.
My post is not a spoof; at least, it certainly is not profane. One expects the self-congratulatory tone from a certain segment of the liberal population, but I really cannot say I understand the heat behind the attacks. The evidence of two elections and numerous polls weigh heavily on my side, so perhaps that is the catalyst for the ad hominem stuff.
I’ll restate. The American people voted for Bush because they believed very strongly in his positions on social issues. (Please, no need for double entendres in response–they are all so tired.) Regardless of where public opinion has been dragged due to wavering resolve WRT foreign policy, it would serve you all well to remember that America is basically a socially conservative nation. All that is needed to see this is to drive more than ten or twenty miles from your local coastline.
rawshark
Already covered that windbag.
You clearly don’t live in Phoenix.
rawshark
No. The american people re-elected Bush for all sorts reasons. Many of those people don’t agree with your nanny state social policies.
jrg
How about a link to one of those polls?
RSA
Love the diction. Are you a pilot?
Zifnab
Every Sperm is Sacred
Jake
Hmmm. Peter Johnson. Robert Fredson…
Nah. Gotta be coincidence.
Robert Fredson
Okay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_2004#Grand_Total
jrg
Those are election results, you retard. As rawshark has already pointed out, “The american people re-elected Bush for all sorts reasons. Many of those people don’t agree with your nanny state social policies.”
Abortion Poll Results
Birth Control Poll Results
Seriously, Robert, go around your neighborhood asking questions about your neighbor’s sex lives. I’m sure someone will explain to you why it’s not your concern.
Jake
Bravo, Peter Paul and Robertson!
Only a true spoofer would try to push the idea that American opinion has been fixed in Lucite since 2003. No buyer’s remorse, here thanks!
However, I’m going to knock off 10 points because you didn’t link to the Conservopedia.
Zifnab
By Robert’s logic does that mean America was a flamingly liberal nation back in 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote?
Or does public opinion only get measured by electoral votes and the Supreme Court?
jcricket
On topic just slightly, we have a much better proposed appointment. Michael Mukasey, George Bush’s nominee for attorney general, testifies about torture:
Oh if only the other “conservatives” could grasp such a simple concept that torturing people is just plain morally wrong. I’d even go so far as to say that torturing prisoners is (or should be) one of the few things we all agree is “Un-American” and un-patriotic. But no, apparently it’s now up for debate.
sigh.
grumpy realist
Robert–try to get rid of birth control and you’ll see exactly how “socially conservative” all your neighbors are. Ha!
Look–piss off and just move to Iran, ok? No gays, religious control, keeping women in their place–sounds exactly where you and your buddies would fit in.
protected static
And, you know, away from 70% of the population at the same time…
Alan
@grumpy,
But aren’t those the traditional values that made our country so great? hmm….
lou
You don’t want me to have children, but you don’t want me to go on the pill or have an abortion. So am I just supposed to pop out babies and sell them to rich people with fertility issues?
Yep, that’s the plot of a Handmaid’s Tale in a nutshell. And to think I once thought it was really out there as a science fiction dystopian yarn.
Face
Because the black and red ones just don’t sell, and the brown ones just want to kill us.
Punchy
Stomach acid–Nature’s spermacide.
rawshark
Did Mukasey just totally Durbin our troops?
Tax Analyst
Geez, old Robert got all pissy because I said “BULLSHIT” once in a 150-200 word comment post. Yeah, I swear a bit and then some now and then – sometimes even gratuitously. You see, that’s because I DO have a bit of a temper and it just seems to me to be a rather harmless way to honestly vent, particularly when some misguided moron tries to slide unsupportable and personal biased OPINION by me by labeling it as though it were some sort of black-typed fact…and then has the audacity to post a 4 or 5 year-old poll as though it had any relation to current reality. So you can save your phony-assed shock and indignation for someone who gives a flying fuck, OK?
When you really got something supportable to say you’ll find most people here will at least listen, even if they don’t agree, but if you’re just posting POV’s from NutJob-Bizarro World you can expect to be vigorously challenged and yes, most likely ridiculed.
I gotta go, so if you have a reply you’ll just have to guess at how I might respond to it.
Ted
I live in St. Louis. The quoted statement of yours is complete bullshit. I hope you don’t actually believe it.
Daniel DiRito
See a tongue-in-cheek list of the top ten reasons George Bush appointed Susan Orr…here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
Jake
Fixed.
But only your post. Use of the word “Fixed” should not be taken of an endorsement of taking any steps to alter your reproductive abilities because according to Ms. Orr (I refuse to call PhDs “Doctor”) if you aren’t active steps to produce life you’re participating in the culture of death.
Dreggas
I’ll be helping to change that come, oh, mid-march when I move there. After all I am the devil the clergy warned you about.
Zifnab
I heard the Devil was heading down to Georgia.
jcricket
Whether he believes it, it doesn’t matter. American attitudes are rapidly trending towards the progressive. Opposition to gay marriage has dropped like 10 percentage points in the last 10 years, and disapproval of interracial marriage is at a similar low.
The righties can gnash their teeth all they want, but they’re losing the culture wars on nearly every issue (let’s throw in global warming too).
Republicans are gonna cling on to their increasingly marginalized beliefs because they are locked into a death-spiral with the very interest groups they built their fragile electoral victories on top of.
rawshark
If we were a socially conservative nation we would still be a British territory.
whippoorwill
“Double Entendres” Wow . Big word. What we got us here is an educated wingnut. We don’t get many of those. Oh well, every day an adventure.
Fredson. Bush won in 2004 because he managed to scare the living shit out of enough bed-wetter voters to get re-elected and a good measure of homophobia didn’t hurt the cause either. Roughly 70 percent of American’s, included many he previously fooled have come to see the Bush Administration as the lying, seditious thugs they are, and have always been. I use the word seditious because he has led a rebellion against the constitution at every turn showing nothing but contempt for the rule of law that has kept this country together for more than 200 years.
Jay C
Robert Fredson:
Y’know, Bob, I’ll give you props for having big brass ones in any case: it takes a special kind of brave to post as smug, dismissive and self-righteous a post as you did in your 2:11 (and follow-ups) – and then disingenously carp at US for a
Jay C
Oh, crap! A partial post – and I spent so much time composing a new one, too! Aww, screw it – here it is anyway…
@ Robert Fredson:
Y’know, Bob: I will have to give you your props for having big brass ones: it takes a special kind of bold to put up as smug, dismissive, and self-righteous a blog-comment as you did in your 2:11pm (and follow-ups): and then carp at US for a “self-congratulatory tone”? Heh.
Big.
Brass.
AND well-polished!
I don’t know where you live – other than, obviously, “more than 10 or 20 miles from the coast” given your offhand dismissal of so many millions of Americans – but I would imagine that a poll of even your neighbors might turn up quite less than the massive level of support for the neo-Puritanical sex-obsessed public-health policies you imagine the “people” are all so avid to enact – whether they voted for George Bush or not.
Oh, and your sniffs about “profanity” are really a hoot: I’m sure there are some blogs out there whose standard of debate in the comment threads is like that of some decorous, walnut-paneled gentlemen’s club: but believe me: Balloon Juice isn’t one of them: it’s more like some raucous college bar with linoleum floors, and the TV blaring sports 24/7. And y’know what?: we LIKE it here!
Dreggas
Well there was a change of plans, the convention was last week and the devil didn’t want to share a room with the soon to be ex Mrs. Devil.
whippoorwill
I don’t know, I kind of like to think BJ is a little like a Gentleman’s [and ladies club]. Of course we don’t always speak the Queen’s English , but a raucaus college bar. Well that may be a little coarse.
I like to think of BJ as a kind of gathering place of the politically disaffected who recite Latin one minute and drunken sailor rants the next. With always an eye out for high brow bullshit delivered daily by the arrogant and self-righteous.
Dave Trowbridge
“I guess this leads me to inevitably conclude that my penis has, at numerous times over the past few decades, officially been a weapon of mass destruction.”
CUE GIANT FLOATING HEAD SPEWING GUNS…
ZARDOZ: The gun is good.
EXTERMINATORS: The gun is good.
ZARDOZ: The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life, and poisons the earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the gun shoots death, and purifies the earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth and kill!
jake
Amen whippoorwill. Amen.
mds
Spill? Good Lord that’s good comedy. Like an accident…
Tonight, on an all new episode of ‘Life with Onan’…
“Oh, honey, not my favorite rug.”
“Well, what was I supposed to do? It was my dead brother’s widow!”
Krista
That’s probably as good a description as any. All I know is that I really like it here.