TV Open Thread: Just for You, John!

Turns out that “Kat McPhee in spandex” may not be sufficient entertainment for an entire dramedy, according to the New Yorker’s television critic, Emily Nussbaum, on “Hate-Watching Smash“:

... The show’s most intractable problem, however, is the former “American Idol” winner Katherine McPhee, who plays Karen, that shiny-haired Iowan ingénue and human humblebrag. Even when I squint, and grade on a curve, it’s impossible to ignore how bad McPhee’s performance is: the woman was given a one-note character, then took it down a half-note. McPhee has a pretty pop voice, but she plays every scene with a Splenda-flavored neutrality, which might not rankle so much if the show didn’t keep insisting that Karen is a star whom everyone adores. During the last episode, I spent most of my time mentally replacing the awed facial expressions of cast members gazing at Karen as she sings with the horrified expressions of “Game of Thrones” characters staring at King Joffrey as he tortures minions. It helped.

Speaking of intractable problems, seems like staring at print on a monitor screen has reduced my already limited capacity to stare at television shows (even when they’re on the same monitor screen). I’m still watching NYC-22 on Sunday nights, while I can, but I’m way behind on Once Upon A Time on Hulu (even though I like Jennifer Morrison, too). And I haven’t found the time to watch Scandal, which I was mildly interested in as a concept, since IMO Shonda Rimes can usually manage about one-and-a-half seasons of good storytelling before her fangrrl obsessions knot themselves into an unwatchable mess. Leaving aside the usual litany of cable-based shows—I’ll watch them as they reach Netflix—what am I missing right now?

Early Morning Open Thread: Klout (to the Side of the Head)

(Non Sequitur/Wiley Miller via GoComics.com)

Oh good, another reason to be glad I’m too old for social media. From Nicholas Thompson at the New Yorker:

... Social media also has a fraught relationship with competition. If you’re designing a social network, you want people to feel as though effort boosts status. That will lead to more effort. But competition can also be inimical to friendship. It’s hard to make everyone feel like a winner. And no one wants to use something that makes him or her feel like a loser…

The newest social media tool to grapple with this is Klout, a service for measuring your influence on all of these social networks. The company was launched two and a half years ago, and it has recently passed several important milestones. Wired just published a long feature on it; yesterday it released an iPhone app; and recently, for the first time, I read a letter from a job candidate that mentioned his Klout score.

Klout grades users on a scale of one to a hundred based on some proprietary algorithm that counts how often your comments are retweeted, liked, or shared. If you want your score to go up, tweet more and get influential people to retweet you. Don’t ever go on vacation. If you’re on a social network, Klout gets your score, whether you’ve ever logged into the service or not. Think of a mercenary socialite, holding a calculator and trying to figure out who to invite to a party based on import. Then put whatever number she arrives at on every guest’s lapel. That’s Klout. Rick Ross has a score of eighty-five; Rick Santorum has a score of eighty-two; Rick Perry has a score of sixty-six. Rick Astley has a score of forty-seven….

But clever ideas are not necessarily good ones, and Klout is designed in a way that makes it likely to fuel both unhealthy obsession and unhappy competition. When you log into Klout, it makes it easy to see, in order of score, exactly how all your friends rank. The number is more personal than those used by other social networks, and Klout displays it prominently. The iPhone app shows your Klout score in a blaring red circle —just like the number of unread e-mails and unheard voicemails. “Look at me!” it’s yelling. And sometimes, when you do look, it tells you that you’ve become less important, less interesting, less retweeted, or less whatever. Do you really want something in your pocket that will tell you what you’re worth?

The structure of social networks subtly changes the way we act. And Klout seems to encourage nothing good. To make your score go up, you have to tweet out of obligation, and you have to try to influence the other influencers. This fall, when Klout changed its algorithm, causing some people’s scores to drop suddenly, the C.E.O. of the company was subjected to harassment. “I got everything short of death threats,” he told Fox News. When you set your profile in Klout, you can pick “I am an individual influencer” or “I am a brand influencer.” I don’t really know what either means, but they both sound creepy. After I check Klout, I want to shower.

Do people actually want to get graded by algorithm, or is this one of those perverse ideas that geeks should have known better than to share with irony-impaired MBAs?

And apart from clueless questions, what’s on the agenda for the start of the weekend?

Monday Morning Open Thread: Impacts

(“Pickles“, Brian Crane, via GoComics.com)

Keeping Democrats in good order is like herding cats, but the current crop of Repubs hasn’t exactly fallen in line for its putative leaders either. The Washington Post is abuzz that Roland Hedley Robert Draper, author of Dead Certain: the Presidency of G.W. Bush, has a new book coming out:

Time and again last year, House Republican leaders faced a nearly in­trac­table opponent: the very freshman class that propelled them into the majority with the historic 2010 midterm elections. Rebelling from the outset of the 112th Congress and later wreaking internal havoc during talks to increase the Treasury Department’s ability to borrow funds, the freshman class repeatedly created problems for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), according to a new book.

The freshman resistance caused feuds among Boehner and his lieutenants that led some to fear a mutiny, heightened several showdowns with President Obama and eventually led to fissures among the rookies, pitting those who seldom trusted the leaders against those who reflexively did, according to “Do Not Ask What Good We Do,” an account of the freshman class’s impact by Robert Draper….

“You’ve created a monster,” Rep. Renee L. Ellmers (R-N.C.), a former nurse elected in 2010, warned House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), according to Draper’s book…

The book, which will be released Tuesday, shows just how much energy had to be expended on the 87 freshmen who took their oath in January 2011, many of them holding office for the first time. Accounting for nearly 40 percent of Boehner’s conference, the freshmen exercised their clout early and often, imposing their will on the rest of the House Republicans.

Many freshmen viewed GOP leaders warily from the outset and compelled Boehner’s team to make the rookies the constant focus of its attention.

“I didn’t come to Washington to be part of a team,” Rep. Raúl R. Labrador (R-Idaho) told the book’s author….

During the debt-ceiling fight, some freshmen were ready to push the government into default. Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.), a first-time politician who was a surprise winner of a West Texas district, wrote Boehner to express his fear that the debt ceiling was “very possibly a hostage that we’re unwilling to shoot.”

In an interview Friday, Farenthold said he has some regret that he eventually agreed, under pressure from local businessmen, to support the compromise, because it brought only $2.1 trillion in savings.

“I think we could have survived it,” he said Friday of a federal default…

Also bound to make an impact (h/t commentor PZ), at least upon the delicate sensibilities of its subject, is Michael Sean Winters’ latest TNR review of “The Accommodator“:

ROSS DOUTHAT’S ANALYSIS of religion in America is more sophisticated than the analysis of, say, Rick Santorum—but not by much. There are many ways to be simplistic and coarse. In contending against what he sees as an America afflicted with too many heresies, Douthat’s book, like Santorum’s speeches, is riddled with mistakes of fact and interpretation that would make any learned person blush…

My problem with Douthat’s book is not that his opinions differ from my own. My problem is that he does not seem to have any idea what he is talking about. In the West, there has been no universally accepted authoritative voice on orthodoxy since the Reformation. “What am I to do when many persons allege different interpretations, each one of whom swears to have the Spirit?” asked Erasmus in 1524. But Douthat does not see the larger picture that he aims to explain, and his treatment of his subject is so pitifully mistaken in things large and small that what we are left with is a meandering, self-serving screed…

Apart from being duly grateful that one is neither a member of the House of Representatives or Ross Doubthat, what’s on the agenda for the start of another week?

Sunday Evening Open Thread

(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)

Well, the interested parties did kind of ask for this one.

Apart from pawky jokes, what’s on the agenda for the end of the weekend?

I plan to watch NYC 22 (CBS, 10pm EDT)—last weekend’s pilot was promising. It ain’t The Unusuals (sob), but Terry Kinney and Adam Goldberg pretty much recreate their Unusual characters, the rest of the cast hold up their end, and with Robert DeNiro as executive producer and Richard Price writing, I can hope for another Third Watch- style multi-season winner…

Consider yourselves on notice

Angry customers conducted a successful campaign to persuade several giant business entities to stop supporting voter suppression laws, among other laws that harm the public interest, so this group of well-paid hacks have stepped up to sell the absolute reeking garbage that is the “voter impersonation fraud” scam:

Shortly after the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) announced it was dropping voter identification laws from its agenda, another conservative group is stepping in to fill the void. The National Center for Public Policy Research announced this week it had formed a “Voter Identification Task Force” to continue ALEC’s “excellent work” in “promoting measures to enhance integrity in voting.” Describing itself as a “conservative, free-market, non-profit think-tank,” the group was established in 1982.

I love the spittle-flecked rage in this statement:

“We’re putting the left on notice: you take out a conservative program operating in one area, we’ll kick it up a notch somewhere else,” Amy Ridenour, chairman of the National Center for Public Policy Research, said in a statement. “You will not win. We outnumber you and we outthink you, and when you kick up a fuss you inspire us to victory.”

Corporate CEOs who “cower in the face of liberal boycott threats need to understand that the left never gives up,” Ridenour said. “If these corporations do not reverse course and immediately grow enough of a backbone to say no when the left tells them what to do, conservatives may as well consider them part of the organized left. It doesn’t matter if corporate executives have free-market sentiments hidden deep inside them if they continually surrender to the left’s Trotskyite strategy of making relentless demand after demand in public.”

In public, even! Barbarians.

Because the National Center for Public Policy Research knows lobbying is best conducted by professionals, in quiet rooms, behind closed doors.

Early Morning Open Thread: Equal Time for the Graphic Guys

Since Tom’s already highlighted the Pulitzer photography awards, here’s Dave Weigel at Slate on the award for political cartooning:

...[I]t’s notable that Politico’s Pulitzer went not to any of its reporting (its scoop-a-minute debt limit coverage, for example), but to cartoonist Matt Wuerker. The cartoonist is the only outright liberal voice in a magazine all about ideology-free reportage on Washington/campaigns…

... Wuerker cut his teeth at publications like The Nation and Z… poke around the vast Internet, and you can find lots of Wuerker art with a strong POV. It’s a delightful little irony that the publication so often derided by the left as “Drudgico” has won its first Pulitzer for cartoons that made the Left’s arguments.

I haven’t seen much of Wuerker’s work, and Politico’s awards slideshow highlights arguments as sophisticated as a hammer and a drawing style just slightly more advanced than Ted Rall’s. Two swabbies labelled ‘John’ and ‘Mitch’ jeering “Here’s the plan. We let him go down… then we get to run the ship!” as Captain O, Nancy, and Harry frantically bail red ink from the sinking U.S.S. USA does not leave much room for interpretation, but there’s virtue in clarity, I guess.

Speaking of jabbering cartoons, Weigel also shares the latest from Louie Gohmert (R-Tea Party):

Eleven House conservatives, most of them freshmen, held a joint media meet-up this afternoon. No real agenda. The theme was “conversations with conservatives.” And the first question that tripped anybody up, from The Hill’s Russ Berman, was whether members were “excited” about incoming Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

“Well, first, we’re excited about the opportunity to defeat Barack Obama, more than anything,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, the shirtsleeved chairman of the Republican Study Committee….

Rep. Louie Gohmert, the aggressively quotable former judge from Texas, basically conceded the point. “If you’re not sure about whether to support Mitt Romney,” he joked, “whether you’re liberal, or whether you’re very conservative, you ought to be excited, because he’s been on your side at one time or another.”...

Gohmert returned to clean up his splatter. “So I’m not completely misunderstood,” he said, “I’m not as excited as I am desperate.”

I’m sure Mark Halperin will tell us that this is excellent news for John McCain “Mitt” Romney…

Ann Romney: “Mitt respects women who make different choices.” #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

During her campaign debut last week, and in response to Hilary Rosen’s comments that Ann Romney doesn’t understand the economic issues that working mothers face, Ann Romney said she “knows what it’s like to struggle,” (a statement which I refute here) and talked about choice:

“And I think that all of us need to know that we need to respect choices that women make. Other women make other choices, to have a career and raise a family, which I think Hillary Rosen has actually done herself.”

No he doesn’t—at least he doesn’t respect the rights of low-income women to make their own economic choices.

To wit, this clip of a speech Romney gave in New Hampshire, in which Romney says that he would require women who receive welfare to work—even if they have young children—because he wants them to experience the dignity of work:

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Is it irresponsible to speculate if President Obama threatened Chelsea Clinton’s life in order to win the 2008 primary, like FOX News anchor Heather Childers does?

It’s irresponsible not to, of course.  But the whole “Bush fee-fees were impugned” happened, so all’s fair cause politics ain’t beanbag.

Okay, Now You’re Just Making This Up, Politico

Yeah, I call shenanigans on this Politico article this morning:

Ann Romney is the Romney Democrats fear most

Ann Romney’s unexpected rock star status has the political arena buzzing about how her husband’s campaign will leverage her popularity in an election in which Michelle Obama — one of the most admired first ladies in history — will have an outsized and substantive portfolio.

Indeed, this 62-year-old grandmother’s contribution to Mitt Romney’s campaign could amount to the most relevant role a wife has ever played in a presidential effort — softening the edges of a flawed and awkward candidate who struggles to connect with voters.

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Manly

Which (via NYMag) brings us to Robert Briggs, who for some reason (my estrogen-conditioned lack of imagination, probably) strikes me as Man At His Dumbfvck Man-liest:

...Biggs set out Monday morning for one of his usual hiking and gold-panning trips near Whiskey Flats when he came across a mother bear, yearling, and cub sitting on a stream bank. Biggs said he stopped to watch the bears for a few moments, but, as he turned to leave, something jumped on his back and knocked him to his knees.

“My backpack raises up over my head and a mountain lion latched on to it,” Biggs said.

Biggs hit the lion on the head with a rock pick he was carrying when he saw the bear grab the lion by the neck, Biggs said. The two animals struggled on the ground for a few seconds before the lion got free and ran away, he added.

“I think the lion was stalking the bear’s cub and I got in the way,” Biggs said. “The bear walked calmly back to her cub after, and I wrapped my arm up with a T-shirt and went gold panning before I went home.”

Biggs returned home to his shocked wife, Suzanne Biggs, who said she tried to convince him to go to the doctor, but has still had no luck.

“I was pretty worried when I saw all of the blood on his clothes, but he’s being very stubborn,” Suzanne Biggs said. “I thought he should go in case of rabies, but Bob isn’t worried.”...

Never get between a guy and his hobby…

Open Thread: The Enemies of My Enemies

Via Washington Monthly’s Ed Kilgore, a Facebook app for the aggressively aggrieved:

(CNN)—To the dismay of some, Facebook has no “Dislike” button. But a new application for the social network may prove to be the next-best thing.

The app, EnemyGraph, encourages Facebook users to list people or places or things they dislike, then share them with like-minded haters as a way of bonding. (“You think Crocs are hideous? I think Crocs are hideous! Let’s be buds!”)

“Most social networks attempt to connect people based on affinities: you like a certain band or film or sports team, I like them, therefore we should be friends,” writes EnemyGraph co-creator Dean Terry in a blog post. “But people are also connected and motivated by things they dislike. Alliances are created, conversations are generated, friendships are stressed, stretched, and/or enhanced.”...

Users of the app appear to largely be left-of-center politically. Near the top of the enemies’ list are GOP candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, Fox News, conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. President Barack Obama is the sole Democrat on the list…

Yeah, or else the Talibangelicals, fReichtards & Banana Republicans just haven’t gotten the blast fax from Rush and the AFP yet. As a non-Facebook-user, I really really hope this app takes off big time. Given enough fellow haterz to play with, we might never see Veritas or its fellow trolls around here again.

Saturday Morning Open Thread

First, my opinion as a certified cranky Old Person: Anyone willing to get a tattoo so they’ll never miss an incoming phone message... is not mature enough to consent to body modification.

Second, it looks like those of us here at Balloon Juice may be wasting all our time on the wrong social media site:

James Erwin, 37, works for a financial services firm in Des Moines, Iowa, writing software manuals. He’s been doing that for a couple of years, and he enjoys it. It’s a pretty low-stress job for a person with a methodical turn of mind—good pay, short commute. He’s home by 5:30 every night to spend time with his wife and 1-year-old son.

One Wednesday last August, Erwin rose from his desk around noon. He walked to the company lunchroom, microwaved a pretzel-bread Hot Pocket, and carried it back to his desk on a paper towel. He took a bite of the Hot Pocket and logged in to Reddit.com…

It’s common for random questions to appear on Reddit’s front page, like “Is there a magnet capable of pulling the iron out of your body?” or “What is the most awkward thing you could say to a cashier while purchasing condoms?” That day, as Erwin scanned Reddit, a question caught his eye. It was posed by someone calling themselves The_Quiet_Earth: “Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU [Marine Expeditionary Unit]?” Erwin clicked on the question and a lively comment thread unfurled. Hundreds of people were whipping hypotheticals back and forth, gaming out the implications of a marines-versus-Romans smackdown. What’s the range of a Roman spear? How would the Romans react to a helicopter? What would happen when the Americans ran out of bullets?

Erwin, who studied history at the University of Iowa, had been posting on Reddit for about five months. He used the alias Prufrock451, a dual reference to the schlubby protagonist of a T. S. Eliot poem and the Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451. Prufrock451′s contributions were all over the map. One day he wrote about the historical roots of the civil war in Liberia; another day he told a funny story about a shooting range in Iowa. He also uploaded a few pictures of European forts that he thought looked cool and a quote by Voltaire. In his atypicalness—Prufrock451 was pretty clearly a quirky character—he was entirely typical of a habitual Reddit user, and like many other redditors, as they are called, he found the site addictive. More than just a creative outlet or time-killer, Reddit was a game. The object was to amass points—”Reddit karma.” Every time Erwin saw his karma level increase, he felt a little squirt of adrenaline. “People are sweating to make you laugh or make you think or make you hate them,” Erwin says. “It’s the human condition, plus points.”

Now, in response to The_Quiet_Earth’s question about time-traveling marines, Erwin started typing. He posted his answer in a series of comments in the thread. Within an hour, he was an online celebrity. Within three hours, a film producer had reached out to him. Within two weeks, he was offered a deal to write a movie based on his Reddit comments. Within two months, he had taken a leave from his job to become a full-time Hollywood screenwriter….

(via)

Apart from all that, what real-world issues & applications are on the agenda for the start of the weekend?

The moderate Republicans were tied up in the back of the statehouse, unable to resist the Tea Party, until campaign season started

“Moderate” Republicans miraculously find their voice, express “doubts” on union-busting, just in time for the start of campaign season:

For the first time in more than three decades, Minnesota Republicans are basking in majorities in both chambers of the state Legislature, so on matters that need no signature from the Democratic governor, they can do as they please.
And yet, on a recent afternoon, Senator Dave Thompson said he had grown doubtful that the “right to work” amendment he hoped to put before voters this fall — a proposition requiring no approval by the governor — would survive a vote of his fellow Republican legislators, or even find its way out of Republican-controlled committees.
“I’ve been told that no hearing has been scheduled and that a lot of people are concerned, so I guess this isn’t going to move anywhere,” Senator Thompson said on Friday, days after the proposal drew hundreds of protesting union supporters to the halls of the Legislature, and after an advertising campaign critical of the idea began airing around Minnesota. “It’s not about the policy. There is a tremendous fear of the political ramifications — it boils down to that, nothing more or less,” he said.
After costly, bruising political showdowns with union forces last year in Wisconsin and Ohio, Republicans in some state legislatures are facing a tugging match within their party — between passionate conservative members like Mr. Thompson, a freshman who was among hundreds of legislators swept into statehouses in 2010 who want to push forward, and a more moderate bloc not sure it is wise to take on labor so directly now.
The dueling pressure comes at a key moment in an election year — not only for the presidency, but for more than 5,900 state legislative seats around the nation — with Republican leaders eager to keep newfound legislative majorities in capitals like this one.
The much-publicized union battles last year, which led to a recall campaign against Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin and to the repeal of a bill limiting collective bargaining backed by Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio, seemed likely to quiet such efforts. But some Republicans have pushed ahead, to the discomfort, in some cases, of their fellow Republicans.
Many right-to-work advocates were energized this winter when Indiana, with little debate within the Republican ranks that control state government, passed a bill making it the 23rd right-to-work state. It was the first state to take such a step in a decade, bringing new energy to similar proposals in Missouri and New Hampshire.

I understand the impulse to treat this as something other than a press release, but, really. At what point do we all just laugh at these carefully-timed-and-released claims of lessons learned and responding to their voters concerns? How many times can conservatives pull this scam?

They’re backing off these anti-working class measures not because there’s been any sort of “moderation” in conservative-libertarian anti-union dogma in response to public opposition but because they are worried about losing a certain crucial share of union voters in the next election. They’re afraid they’re going to lose their jobs. If they don’t lose their jobs, they’ll be back with a vengeance, because they’ll claim a “mandate” for the same anti-worker legislation they just carefully announced shelving.

I’m just going to quote media darling and principled conservative leader Mitch Daniels here, to get an idea on what their solemn vow on unions is worth:

“We cannot afford to have civil wars over issues that might divide us and divert us from that path. I have said over and over, I’ll say it again tonight: I’m a supporter of the labor laws we have in the state of Indiana,” he said in a speech to the Teamsters 135 Union Stewards Dinner on Sept. 23, 2006. “I’m not interested in changing any of it. Not the prevailing wage laws, and certainly not the right to work law. We can succeed in Indiana with the laws we have, respecting the rights of labor, and fair and free competition for everybody.”

Certainly not! Mitch Daniels was upset at just the mention of right to work. You’ll also notice Daniels talks about “respecting the rights” of labor. That language has completely disappeared from the Republican Party, but I expect it will reappear in states like Minnesota and Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin, because it’s time once again for conservatives to run away from the policies and practices they support.

Daniels was, of course, lying to his union voters in 2006. Daniels promoted and passed union-busting laws in 2012. Republicans have every intention of pursuing union-busting in Midwest states. Like Daniels, they simply want to wait until after they retain their own jobs to pursue the anti-worker laws they’re committed to passing.

The Real Slim Shady Mitt Romney

NSFW, assuming the word masturbating is not in general use around your workplace. Recommended by multiple commentors, alsoBuzzfeed and Slate.

The NYTimes has called the Illinois primary for Romney, with just over 55% of the 24% of precincts reporting.

From Richard Adams’ invaluable Guardian blog:

8.56pm: On CNN, Erick Erickson is betting that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum’s campaigns are living on borrowed time after Romney’s result tonight in Illinois: “This is the first big win he’s had that we haven’t prefaced with ‘Yes, but…’”

8.50pm: Appropriately, Rick Santorum’s party is being held in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Last time there was a big gig there, the guy with the support coming up from the south also got a hammering.

8.41pm: CNN has also called Mitt Romney as the winnner in Illinois.

I wonder if a single tear made its way down Erick the RedStater’s chubby cheek as he was forced to concede the power of the RomneyBorg?

She must not have listened at all those debates

Karen Santorum insisted her husband will do “nothing” on the issue of contraception.

Not true.

Rick Santorum, like each and every GOP candidate, has vowed to end funding for Title X.

Title X provides access to birth control for 5 million people. Now. Today. Title X has been in place since 1970. Each and every GOP candidate has (now) promised to gut the program. Republicans have supported Title X in the past. Now they don’t. That’s a substantive, radical change in position, and one they should have to explain. I know, I know, it’s LOW INCOME people, so they’re invisible and it doesn’t really matter, but 5 million people is a lot of people. President Obama and Democrats in Congress support Title X. Romney and Santorum and Republicans in Congress don’t. That’s a choice Republicans made, and it’s not a rhetorical or political difference. It’s 5 million people, access to birth control. They have it now, and they will lose it if any Republican wins.

Title X is the only Federal grant program dedicated solely to providing individuals with comprehensive family planning and related preventive health services. The Title X program is designed to provide access to contraceptive services, supplies and information to all who want and need them. By law, priority is given to persons from low-income families.

Nearly 100 Title X grantees provide family planning services to more than five million women and men through a network of over 4,500 community-based clinics that include State and local health departments, tribal organizations, hospitals, university health centers, independent clinics, community health centers, faith-based organizations, and other public and private nonprofit agencies. In approximately 75% of U.S. counties, there is at least one clinic that receives Title X funds and provides services as required under the Title X statute.

Indeed, after Santorum mega-donor Foster Friess “humorously” suggested that women practice birth control by putting an aspirin between their legs, Santorum defended himself by invoking Title X.
“It’s funny that I’ve been criticized by Governor Romney and by Ron Paul for having voted for something called Title X, which is actually federal funding of contraception,” Santorum told CBS’s Charlie Rose. “My public policy beliefs are that contraception should be available. Again, I’ve supported Title X funding.”

Excellent. Except, here is Santorum, five days later, at the Arizona presidential debate:

“As Congressman Paul knows, I opposed Title X funding. I’ve always opposed Title X funding, but it’s included in a large appropriation bill that includes a whole host of other things,” Santorum said.
“What I did, because Title X was always pushed through . . . I said, well, if you’re going to have Title X funding, then we’re going to create something called Title XX, which is going to provide funding for abstinence-based programs.”

Maybe Karen Santorum thinks 5 million people are “nothing”, but I don’t agree with her. Do conservatives like Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney plan to end the federal support for family planning that has been in place since 1970? Because that’s what they say they’ll do.