I can not believe the Bishops are so stupid as to shift the debate into one that is simply against contraception, period. They’ve now completely lost any argument they may have had about religious liberty (imho they never had one to begin with), and are basically about to start circling the toilet bowl looking like complete clowns. The upside is it looks like they might take a few Republicans and some blue dogs with them. These idiots just don’t know when to let go or when they’ve lost.
Damn if Obama isn’t the luckiest or smartest man in the world.
Abstruse
I’d love to see Manchin come away from this looking like a turd. It’s embarrassing that he’s my senator.
J. Michael Neal
Sorry to hijack with the first comment, John, but your post last night prompted me to finish a long, angry rant about my own situation that I’d been kicking around for a while. See what you’ve gone and done?
martha
I’ll repeat my questions on this post as well…
Just wondering, can men get vasectomies paid for via their Catholic institution funded insurance policies? Do Catholic hospitals perform vasectomies? Enquiring minds want to know.
burnspbesq
If you give the USCCB an opportunity to do something really stupid, that will further isolate themselves from the faithful and make them look utterly ridiculous to non-Catholcis, they will grab it 110 percent of the time. That’s just who they are. SATSQ.
eric
john, Obama is a dessert topping AND a floor wax.
beltane
The Republicans are basically declaring a War on Straight People. Good luck with that.
I have a hint for the GOP: Don’t let the RC Church determine your political strategy. The bishops can’t even get practicing Catholics listen to them, how are they going to persuade those who are not practicing Catholics.
Lurker
I think he’s both.
J. Michael Neal
@burnspbesq: I’m rooting for the nuns to decide they’ve had enough and start a full blown schismatic heresy.
Itchy Brother
Yes, clown shoes would certainly complete the ensemble.
beltane
@martha: I don’t know if Catholic hospitals perform them (probably not) but I have been told they are sinful. Remember, this is an institution that considers masturbation to be a sin and not in the figurative sense of the word.
beltane
@J. Michael Neal: I will start going to church if that happens. But I’m afraid we will experience a cold day in hell first.
GregB
All it took was one dildonic video from James O’Keefe and an allegation that one member of ACORN was assisting some pimp to totally destroy the credibility of ACORN with most of America.
Does anyone know just how many have been victimized because of their proximity to the Catholic Church and their employees?
It is in thousands.
Yet that institution still has moral standing?
beltane
@efgoldman: The 16th Century called, they want their Inquisition back. They should pick Mary Tudor to be their nominee; she knew how to deal with heretics.
pragmatism
Reminds me of a limit poker player who isn’t sure when to go all in in a no limit game. They chose poorly. They may want to change their table image. something less abusive
Brachiator
@martha:
Interesting question. Hospitals are big business. And, it may be that the Catholic Church is seeing a means to impose its values by merging with other hospitals and then restrict reproductive options.
There is a bigger battle looming here.
Redshift
And some pundits, too?
Nah, that’ll never happen. Being completely wrong, loudly and repeatedly, isn’t a liability for a pundit.
Lurker
@J. Michael Neal:
I just read the rant. I have no good answer. Are there any places in your area looking for volunteers or 43-year-old interns? Theoretically, it could build up your recent work history on your resume and give you a network of contacts.
As I said…I have no good answer. You’re up against an economy with enough unemployment that employers can be super-picky about applicants.
geg6
Well, I can tell you that these dumbshits in the church hierarchy are going to reap the whirlwind. My youngest sister, the only practicing Catholic left in the family, got up and walked out (along with her husband and child) when her parish priest started screaming about this during the homily a couple of weeks ago. She was not alone. She has not been back since and says she will never return. A friend told her that attendance at mass the next week was sparse. American Catholics are voting with their feet and wallets. They think that attendance has been decreasing over the last 20 or 30 years? Keep it up, pedophile central. You ain’t seen nothing yet.
wasabi gasp
Blessed.
hildebrand
I certainly don’t think its 11th dimensional chess, but I would put good money on the fact that Obama and his crew always have at least one back-up plan ready to roll when their first salvo produces the inevitable freak-out. I am certain that they gamed out the scenario of dropping this in the midst of the primaries (and right before CPAC).
1. Outline perfectly sensible plan that will still cause the Republicans to overreact.
2. Watch overreaction for a few days.
3. Wade in with perfectly sensible plan 2.0 – slightly modified to completely take away bullshit talking point that the MSM had been concern trolling, and which completely neuters the Republicans.
4. Watch continued overreaction from the most reactionary hacks.
5. Sane people (once again) come to the realization that Obama is the only sane, responsible person in the race for the White House – plan to vote accordingly.
MattF
In case anyone missed it:
https://balloon-juice.com/2012/02/10/every-sperm-is-sacred/
pritesh
What is the Catholic Churches position on boner pills?
pseudonymous in nc
@burnspbesq:
And this all comes after the set of ad limina visits to Rome. Almost as if they’ve been pepped up for a fight by Papa Prada.
Villago Delenda Est
The altar boy raping red beanie brigade is going for broke, it seems.
master c
I will join the nun’s church too! Maybe Ill go back to church tomorrow so I can stand up and walk out. Only go with my mother, for her….and that’s a couple of times a year.
Svensker
@J. Michael Neal:
Big hugs. Wish I had a solution for you. A friend who was in a somewhat similar situation has been living in friends’ basements, doing odd jobs that he could find (mostly for friends). He finally got a real estate license and is trying to sell houses (great timing!) but he has been getting work as a substitute teacher in elementary schools. Don’t know whether you’re able to do anything like that. Teaching is completely out of his area but since he had a B.A. in something he was able to qualify as a sub. Not huge money but better than nothing, and he’s been meeting lots of people.
His Asperger son has been getting tutoring work in math at the local college. Can you do anything like that in any of your fields?
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
That’s one of the reasons I’m not really seeing how this somehow gave greater power to the Church. To me, it looks more like this is the first time they’ve been told “no, you can’t restrict health care based on your religious dogma” in decades.
jwest
I’ll reserve judgment on how great a move this was for the smartest man on earth until I see the next round of backpedaling. It appears the Catholic Church has successfully framed this as a freedom of religion issue and it certainly doesn’t help Obama with a growing number of democrats jumping ship.
Right now, there are only two types of congressional democrats – those who believe they have an outside chance of reelection (who publically oppose Obama on this) and those who are unavailable for comment. Not a good sign.
Since the majority of Catholics are democrats (as evidenced by the pedophilia problem) and 38% of democrats believe the earth is only 10,000 years old, Obama’s advisors may have miscalculated their ability to frame this as a pro-contraception policy. We’ll need to see how this plays out.
J. Michael Neal
@Lurker: I do volunteer tutoring of adults (primarily Somali immigrants) through the Hennepin County Library system. I’m on the board of the booster club for Gopher women’s hockey. Both are on my resume. Neither has seemed to help.
kdaug
He beat the Clintons.
The man ain’t stupid.
Jay C
And yet another example of Teh Stoopid coming to the fore (from the Politico link):
So IOW, the Bishops’ Conference is admitting that the “religious freedom” arguments they and their cheerleaders have been boosting are just so much BS, and that their “moral concern[s]” – translation: “we’re against birth control, so therefore, everyone has to be against it”
– are their main motivators. And this is news?
@hildebrand:
Spot on: this seems to have been the MO for the Obama Admin for the past couple of years: and it seems to work every time (exception: the 2010 midterms).
mai naem
@Brachiator: I don’t think its so much that a bigger battle is looming, its that when you have hospitals merge, they limit the number of options that workers and other ancillary workers can get work at. It pushes down other costs bigtime. In my city we have one company that may just as well be a monopoly. They own one of two lab cos. , they control a major insurance, and have a majority of hospitals. Its wrong and it pissed me off that nobody stops it.
JoyceH
Aw, come on! It’s gotta be eleven dimensional chess! Nobody can be this lucky for this long.
No, I take that back. It’s Jedi Mind Tricks. Something is clouding the minds of Obama’s opposition, don’t you think?
FlyingToaster
I know that you’re going to see a lot more bankruptcies and church closings for the US RCC, if this crap continues. Herr Doktor comes from a RC family (he walked out of CCD a confirmed atheist at age 8), and they’ve already closed their wallets, and the boys’ attendance at Mass/CCD/whatever is sparse. We certainly weren’t asked to come to a party for confirmation or First Communion, and they’re both overdue.
I suspect that the “smaller, purer, poorer” Church is what they’re going to end up with.
J. Michael Neal
@Svensker: I’ve found someone who will let me tutor for free, though that was a lot harder than it seems like it should be. (I eventually concluded that the Minneapolis Public Schools don’t really want volunteers.) I’ve had less luck finding someone who will pay me to do it, though I’ve tried.
andy
The thing about the Internet that the Bishops cannot understand is that the pushback can be almost instantaneous and completely ruthless. People of like mind aren’t isolated like they used to be.
beltane
@kdaug: Remember how he used to bait Bill Clinton into saying some very stupid stuff? He did it deliberately and is a master of it while in campaign mode. When he is not in campaign mode it’s another story.
Johnny B
Awesome! Our “moral exemplars” are doubling down.
Watch the Republican Presidential field (and a whole host of GOP Senators and Congressmen) line up even more firmly with the Catholic Bishops on this “issue.”
Let me say this loud and clear: NO REPUBLICAN NOMINEE WILL EVER GET ELECTED PRESIDENT ADVOCATING THE END OF BIRTH CONTROL. It will never happen.
Somewhere Obama, Axelrod, and Plouffe are laughing their asses off.
Veritas
This is starting to piss me off because we are going to win this election on the economy. It’s the economy you fucking SoCon morons! Stop babbling about depo provera and start talking about Obambi’s failed record. Don’t follow Santorum down the rabbit hole of telling us the states should ban birth control so we can go back to the “glorious” days of 10 child families.
The Jesus Crew needs to shut the fuck up. You had your time in the 2000s, this election needs to be about fiscal issues, NOT birth control.
cathyx
I hope the Catholic church loses a few church members over this nonsense. They deserve to.
beltane
While their running on a No Sex Allowed platform, the Republicans might as well also run on alcohol prohibition and a National Dress Code.
Svensker
@J. Michael Neal:
I was thinking more college level tutoring for pay, and substitute teaching at the lower school level, for pay.
sophronia
I guess they think they’ve found their issue to rally the base and get them to hold their noses and vote for the Mittster, even if they hate him. Vote for Mitt or the dirty sluts will get to have sex!
Has there been any polling on this? I’ve heard lots of pundits opining that everyone in America loves the Catholic Church (snort), but I haven’t heard any numbers on whether this nonsense is actually changing anyone’s opinions on contraception coverage.
gnomedad
@JoyceH:
You don’t need to wrap up the nomination.
This isn’t the frontrunner you’re looking for.
You can continue the debates.
Move along.
beltane
@Veritas: Your base doesn’t care about economic issues. They care about what their neighbors are doing in bed every night.
Walker
Ah, so jwest is a spoof. Thanks for clearing that up for us.
Veritas
@beltane:
Bullshit. The Tea Party is all about economics. It’s about stopping Socialism dead in its tracks.
These idiots are the Bush-era Kompassioante Konservatives (misspelling intentional) that are for big-government and big spending as long as its done for Jesus. They’re the ones who ruined the GOP by 2008 in the first place with their wild out of control spending and Schiavo stunts.
ppcli
I must say that Obama must be smart, because nobody could be this lucky. For years I’ve been tearing my hair out asking why the Democrats couldn’t at least try to shift the focus from (late term) abortion to birth control, where the fanaticism of the fanatics would be more clearly evident. Now the Church and the Republicans do it for them. Unbelievable.
Chyron HR
@Veritas:
But you haven’t answered the important question: When Mitt Romney is reborn as the god of planet Xenu, will he allow his followers to use contraceptives?
Villago Delenda Est
@Veritas:
The economy is improving.
The GOP stands no chance. They are doomed.
Veritas
@beltane:
Bullshit. The Tea Party is all about economics. It’s about stopping Social1sm dead in its tracks.
These idiots are the Bush-era Kompassioante Konservatives (misspelling intentional) that are for big-government and big spending as long as its done for Jesus. They’re the ones who ruined the GOP by 2008 in the first place with their wild out of control spending and Schiavo stunts.
The Tea Party got the GOP bus out of the ditch after 2008 and now the Kompassioante Konservatives lead by Santorum want the keys back. No way.
andy
@Veritas: Say Veritas, what are you going to do if the Evil Party loses big like in ’08, now that people have had a really really really good look at them?
What are you gonna do, knowing you’re surrounded by enemies, you and your kind, who like to say, “Well, we’re the ones with the guns…”
J. Michael Neal
@beltane: I disagree. Obama is really good at baiting his opponents into saying stupid things all the time. Remember when the GOP invited him to speak to its caucus? The problem is that it’s only when he’s in campaign mode that anyone gets to hear him do it thanks to the media.
Professor
I just don’t understand it! Why should men get involved in women’s health issues? No man has ever experienced period pains, heavy period bleeding’, pregnancies, miscarriages etc? How many women have got involved in men’s reproductive issues? This is Stupid!
Veritas
@Villago Delenda Est:
The deficit sure isn’t improving. RECORD debts projected long into the future while Medicare and Social Security rest on an unsustainable funding base. We need tough, sound, fiscal reforms and cuts to regulations and taxes, not birth control bans.
Christ, what man doesn’t like birth control?
rob!
The upside is it looks like they might take a few Republicans and some blue dogs with them.
I read this sentence over and over. It got me slightly hard.
Veritas
@andy:
If we lose it will be because they abandoned the Tea Party and went back to the old Bush-era Kompassioante Konservatism of big spending, big deficits, and big Jesus.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
“Give ’em hell, Obama!”
“I just do the right thing, and they think it’s hell.”
tomvox1
I vote smartest. Obama has consistently been dealt the worst hand since FDR’s first term and he keeps coming up mostly aces, despite:
-the Unicorn wishes and failure to understand the limits of the Executive in a tripartite government by a vocal minority on “the Left.”
-a sclerotic Senate.
-the utter intransigence and sabotages of a monolithic Republican party.
-the complete inability of the mainstream press to accurately describe and explain current events in a historically contextual manner.
If you take this first term and look at it holistically, you can only reach one conclusion: we are looking at a president of uncommonly exceptional political and human abilities.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I think that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Pedo Bishops can go fuck themselves with rusty farm implements. To retaliate we ought to ask our representatives to pass a law mandating butt plugs for Catholic boys of churchgoing age. The only reason they are focusing on this bullshit is to distract from all of the bad press about how much they love to molest little boys and protect each other from prosecution to protect their continuing criminal enterprise.
This thoroughly lapsed Catholic has faith that if there is a God, these pedo assholes and the pedos they covered for will be on an express train to Hell.
They’ve earned it.
mk3872
Pls correct me if I am wrong, but aren’t these Catholic Priests the same dudes that approve moving pedophile priests between perishes to allude criminal prosecution? And we’re supposed to take moral direction about women’s health from these men? Honestly??
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Veritas:
I thought you were arguing for the government to do something meaningful.
David Koch
PPP says Santorum tops Mittens by a whopping 15 pts in the new national poll.
http://t.co/HOj9tDZt
Veritas
@tomvox1:
Gag me. Do you jack off every night to the creepy HOPE poster hanging up in your bedroom? You cultists sure are disturbing.
ericblair
@FlyingToaster:
They’re going to end up with an African church. All this crap is turning the West off the RC church and the place this goes down without much fuss is Africa. I’m wondering how long they can put off having a black Pope and when they can’t anymore, I’ll enjoy the head explosions of the Newts and Santorums of the world.
aimai
@geg6:
This reminds me of going to a friend’s wedding in a Catholic Church about four years ago–first of all, his future wife needed to be on BC because of various serious medical conditions and she was pissed off that they were still preaching against it. Second of all, what should have been a lovely wedding focused on the happy couple was turned into some weird form of attack on the ACLU and “hollywood” for not knowing what love and marriage should mean to good catholics. It was incredibly painful to sit through. The priest seemed to have been given a litany of boring educational phrases about the difference between them (outsiders) and us (the people in the pews). It was like hearing conservative mad libs read over the head of the couple. It was completely divorced of love, or meaning or beauty. The church seems to have become very self conscious about the need to berate people to keep them in the seats, but unaware that they can voluntarily leave.
aimai
IDTT
Add it to the list for Mr. Romney:
1) I too am unemployed.
2) Corporations are people too.
3) I like to be able to fire people.
4) I’m not too concern about the very poor.
5) Contraceptions are working just fine and we should leave them alone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKWij_v4Twk
Yutsano
@Veritas: You’re funny when you’re flailing. But every dream must end…
shortstop
@ppcli:
He is unquestionably extremely smart.
He’s also been lucky, which doesn’t take away from his intelligence. Those of us in Illinois have seen luck break his way in every single race except his ill-starred foray for Bobby Rush’s seat. From one opponent not getting a sufficient number of ballot signatures, to two others having divorce records that revealed their histories of bullying their wives, to yet another running a remarkably bad presidential primary campaign, to the GOP vastly overreaching itself, Obama has been the recipient of good fortune throughout his political journey.
He’s also run exceptionally tight and focused campaigns, consistently been the only grownup in the room, kept his cool when all on the other side of the aisle were losing their heads, and taken a whole lot of race-based attacks that no white president has ever had to withstand. But yeah, there’s also been a lot of luck along the way. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Brachiator
@mai naem:
The hospitals cited here are denying services based on the hospitals’ religious affiliations. Cost is really not an issue, even if it is used as a distraction.
And this is not just a US issue. In Barcelona, the religious board actually defied demands that a hospital stop performing abortions.
Seems pretty clear that this is about medical decisions and reproductive rights vs the imposition of religious values.
Villago Delenda Est
@Veritas:
The teabaggers SAY they’re about economics. We know they’re not, because they had no problem with deficit spending like there’s no tomorrow up until just after 8PM PST 4 November 2008.
They’re actually about being furious that a ni*CLANG* is President of the United States.
As are you.
SmallAxe
On Chris Hayes show this morning (fast becoming one of the best on weekends) he had on some Priest from ND Law School and boy did he make an ass of himself with the Bishops arguments. I grew up Catholic and I could barely contain my anger at his arguments and hubris I can only imagine how someone outside of that tradition would take it. Keep it up dummies this next election could be a landslide. They have no legs to stand on.
Davis X. Machina
Sportswriting 101: Good teams make their own luck.
pseudonymous in nc
@jwest:
Your concern is noted.
tomvox1
@Veritas:
Nah, I jack off to a picture of your Mom.
batgirl
What about the religious liberty of the individual employees of Catholic hospitals & universities? If this Church wants to frame this as a religious liberty issue then they are denying the religious liberty of their employees, all of them, but especially all the non-Catholics that they employ! The religious liberty argument is bullshit, we know it & they know it. Will the MSM figure it out?
Veritas
@Villago Delenda Est:
Bullshit. The Tea Party was first a reaction to the first bailouts under Bush and the Bush overspending.
You’re so separated from reality it’s hilarious.
blahblah
It ain’t over ’til the altar boy cries.
Villago Delenda Est
@Veritas:
This from a guy who worships a Mormon animatron.
It is to laugh.
PurpleGirl
@Professor: It’s the power structure of their lives. They want to return to a much more patrichal society. There are still elements of patrialical society to contend with and try to squash and they trying their damnest to bring it back. allowing women agency over their own lives scares them.
feebog
@ Veritas:
I know huh? Fucking Boner in the House and Blount in the Senate, introducing all those God Bothering bills. When will these assholes ever get it?
martha
@aimai: My most wonderful father in law passed away last year and the Catholic church apparently no longer allows family members to give euologies, which are considered too personal. So, we were limited to readings and the priest’s homily (and song selections). However, the priest in his last church was definitely a rebel, because when he saw the readings we chose, he smiled and tailored his homily to our readings and worked personal info about that wonderful man into it. If the bishop had been there, I’m told the Father would likely have been forcibly retired, which is what he wants, I think.
WeeBey
@Veritas:
Too late.
The economy started getting better, so the queued up their greatest hits.
Veritas
Excuse me, but why on Earth would a man want to ban birth control? Why? What kind of heterosexual male wants every sex act to have a good possibility of knocking someone up and getting stuck with child support for 18 years at worst, or having to raise a child all over again at age 50 at worst? WHY?
Cermet
@J. Michael Neal: I am very sorry about your situation. All experts in the field say volunteering at schools as needed (not a sub teacher but a general worker) for no pay is great if that is all you can get. It fills in gaps in the resume and shows effort. True, no money is terrible but if you have some resources, it works. Good luck and I hope the best for you and others here reading these posts in a similar situation.
TaMara (BHF)
Smartest.
/Obot
beltane
Veritas is shrill today. This must mean it’s a done deal that Ron Paul will win the Maine caucus.
andy
@Veritas: The TeaTards are the ones flooding my local paper’s forums with butthurt about birth control and religious “freedom”. Bush didn’t blow up the fucking deficit being fucking nice to people- he blew it up arranging a big payday for big pharma, a fat tax cut for the real parasite class in this country, and starting two unnecessary wars, none of which you and your kind said jack fucking shit about.
That pain you’re feeling is exposure- exposure to the real world and the realization that your “friends” are worthless as fuck, and that you are surrounded by people you have sought to make into enemies. The realization that your kind would be better people and we would have been a better country if the filth of the GOP had spent a few years looking in the mirror after Watergate, rather than trying to pull off some kind of a soft putsch every time a Democrat gets in the Big Chair.
Veritas
@beltane:
Romney has it in the bag.
In. The. Bag.
Ron Paul talks a good game but he always underpreforms in the real world.
He’s finding out that caucuses aren’t internet polls you can game.
Villago Delenda Est
@Veritas:
Giving women agency is the work of the devil, and contrary to the tenets of the patriarchy.
Women must be kept in their place…on a tether between the bedroom and the kitchen.
Villago Delenda Est
@Veritas:
Yes, like on last Tuesday, you can take that to the bank.
beltane
@Veritas: That’s why it’s a war on heterosexuals, the only group who will be affected by this. Very unusual choice of groups to be alienating in an election year.
Linda Featheringill
Catholics make up a minority in this country. The anti-contraception contingent makes up a very small portion of Catholics. And, the bishops wouldn’t vote for Obama if he walked on water.
Politically, there is no reward for kowtowing to the Bishops.
Veritas
Look I can understand the religious freedom stuff about Obambi’s initial position but he caved and they got a good deal that doesn’t violate religious liberty. Take it.
Cermet
@Veritas: Around these parts they are called tea baggers (and I’m sure most are.)
Baud
It’s not overreach until they lose the election–and lose it badly.
shortstop
@martha:
That’s just fucking offensive. These control freaks can’t let the people who knew the dead best and loved them most offer their perspectives? Meanwhile, a goodly number of the priests doing the homilies are using them to sloganeer about issues that may or may not have had anything to do with the person being buried. I recently went to a Catholic funeral at which the priest spoke almost exclusively about abortion, which was not an issue in which the person being remembered was involved or even particularly interested.
Pathological authoritarianism.
jwest
http://catholicism.org/54-of-catholic-voters-voted-for-obama.html
There is nothing worse than a Catholic boy buggering Obama voter.
burnspbesq
@jwest:
“Since the majority of Catholics are democrats (as evidenced by the pedophilia problem”
Say what now? A majority of Catholics are Democrats because when our ancestors were treated worse than dogs by your ancestors, the urban Democratic machines helped them become fully American. We’re also Democrats because the Democrats come closer to living Catholic ideas about social justice.
You can take that nonsense and put it … where it belongs.
c u n d gulag
Just because they can read, write, and speak in Latin.
doesn’t mean that every Bishop is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, or MENSA,
Even the dumbest motherfuckers in Rome managed that.
Brachiator
@Veritas:
but he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke the same cigarettes as me.
RedKitten
I don’t even have the words to express my utter disgust with and loathing of the Catholic Church. I know people who were molested by priests when they were young, and in many cases, it’s completely fucked them up for life. And the Church didn’t care — it was too concerned with protecting its own.
And now they have the unmitigated GALL to start making moral pronouncements upon people who are actually being sexually responsible?
Those filthy fucking hypocrites. I hope they rot and that the Vatican burns to the ground.
Linda Featheringill
@Brachiator:
:-).
elftx
@Veritas:
Move to Greece
bemused
@Villago Delenda Est:
Reading the local teapods’ letters to the ed, they mention the deficit once in awhile always blaming Obama (that’s a given) but they scream more about people getting unemployment insurance, college students in debt and anyone “unfairly” getting Medicare, SS, food stamps. They may give a break, grudgingly, to an 85 year old in a wheel chair but in their minds, the majority of people using those programs don’t need help and are just taking advantage of the system and only a few truly deserve it.
Yutsano
@RedKitten: Remind me to never piss you off. :)
@Veritas: You’re losing. Get over it.
shortstop
Guys, both jwest and Veritas are parody trolls. You can either enjoy their performance art or take it seriously and make your own heads explode while you argue earnestly against satire. Me, I’m having a nice cool Limonata and taking in the show. I forgot how good this drink is.
Judas Escargot
@Veritas:
Nothing a few measured tax increases and some Keynesian spending won’t fix…
Cermet
@Veritas: Really? As I remember, Obama won and then the teabaggers attacked the bailouts – true, bush-asswipe was in power as cheney’s sock puppet (the one cheney uses to jerk off in), but their anger was only noted after Obama was President elect.
jwest
@burnspbesq:
No one is saying all Catholic democrats are pedophiles. However, it stands to reason that the pedophiles in the Catholic Church are democrats.
J. Michael Neal
@Davis X. Machina:
Keep driving to the net. Good things will happen.
RedKitten
@martha: That’s odd — it must depend on where you are. When my grandmother died last April, her funeral was in the Catholic cathedral in my hometown, and I (an atheist, no less) gave the eulogy, while my sister and cousin did Bible readings.
So I don’t think it’s a Catholic-wide practice…yet.
Baud
@jwest: Thanks for bringing a little bit of CPAC to our lowly blog. I almost feel like I’m there.
Veritas
@Judas Escargot:
Obabmi exploded the deficit even more than Bush did:
http://www.floppingaces.net/wp-content/uploads/[email protected]
Those are the Democrat budgets (budgets passed since the Democrats controlled the House). It got worse when Princess Nancy took over in ’07 with the ’08 budget, and has reached biblical proportions under Obambi.
Obambi and Pricness Nancy don’t understand budegets, and they aren’t prepared to deal with the fact that if we don’t have reform SS and Medicare will take us the way of the PIIGS in Europe.
Madeline
I spoke to a devout Catholic friend today. He happens to be gay. He informed me that it felt like a war on religious freedom, that his religious beliefs should trump US law and that using birth control was a lifestyle choice. Apparently, there are lots of other ways of avoiding pregnancy. Who knew?
Hill Dweller
@Veritas: The Tea Party is a bunch of old, white racists, who couldn’t accurately explain our most pressing policy issues if their lives depended on it.
Furthermore, the most recent polling shows their their ‘concern’ for the deficit is waning. They are the same religious wingnuts that have been in the party all along, only rebranded. Thankfully, they’ve retained their talent for turning off the rest of the country.
Mnemosyne
@Veritas:
I swear, conservatives are the only people on earth who think you can make up a budget deficit by reducing income.
If you had a friend who owed a $30,000 credit card bill, would you recommend that he quit his job and take one that pays half as much?
beltane
@Madeline: Gay men are adept at avoiding pregnancy. However, it’s not an option that’s available to most people.
Veritas
@Mnemosyne:
Tax cuts don’t necessarily reduce income. They can actually increase it.
Federal revenues went UP after the Reagan tax cuts, how do you explain that?
Baud
@Madeline:
I can think of at least one other way.
Mnemosyne
@Madeline:
Let’s face it, no one understands how birth control works than better than gay men. That’s why Andrew Sullivan feels so comfortable lecturing us ladies about what we’re doing wrong.
Villago Delenda Est
@shortstop:
Then again, Poe’s Law tells us that parody is indistinguishable from the real thing.
So, toss a quarter, and find out which side they’re on.
Martin
@martha:
Typically not on whether Catholic hospitals will perform them. My understanding is that they will perform those procedures *if* they are for some other medical issue other than controlling reproduction. I can’t think of a reason why a vasectomy or tubal ligation would apply though. But they will perform hysterectomies, which obviously have a reproductive consequence, so long as the procedure was ordered for other reasons.
So, the obvious parallel is that they *should* provide birth control when it’s prescribed to manage endometriosis or as a cancer preventative for high-risk women. I don’t know if they honor that though, but it seems as though they should. My guess is that they don’t.
As for whether insurance for those working for Catholic schools and hospitals will cover it – usually, yes. They wouldn’t be able to attract talent under their own rules without it. Faculty and doctors command very comprehensive benefit plans at private hospitals and other universities. Even if the employee is devout Catholic, there’s no guarantee that their spouse or kids are, and the employee will often seek out broader coverage because it will apply to the whole family.
The church is counting on the public not considering that their mandate applies not only to the employee, but to the employee’s family as well. The religious freedom argument gets really hard to sustain when it’s having to jump over the semi-voluntary relationship between employee and employer, and extend down to the involuntary relationship within the family.
Gin & Tonic
@Veritas: I know I’m a moron for responding and taking you seriously, but Rachel had a very interesting segment last night, and had a senior adviser to the Paul campaign on to talk about her (largely correct, it turns out) interpretation of their strategy WRT caucuses. And it turns out you *can* game them, and they have been doing so all along.
Villago Delenda Est
@Veritas:
Because his tax cuts were a farce? Because he actually raised my FICA taxes to make up the difference for giving the parasite overclass a tax break?
Reagan’s reign is where it all started to go wrong.
Cermet
@Veritas: I think only the ones that either like to rape little boys or protect the rapest – called priest (some) and bishops (all). Comment IS NOT directed at you in any manner, form or in any sind manner …
Veritas
@Gin & Tonic:
Yes because nobody understands Republicans like uh….Rachel Maddow. Lesbians from western Mass sure are experts on conservatism.
Amir Khalid
@Mnemosyne:
Well, Andrew Sullivan can probably point to a perfect record of having had sex without causing pregnancy.
Veritas
Besides it was Maddow who stole the whole Kochtopus thing from the Paultards who started the meme that OMG TEH SHADOWY KOCH BROOTHEERZ control everything in the Republican Party (which, according to their twisted logic, is why Paul didn’t get the nomination in ’08).
Maddow and the Paultards are meant for eachother. Both are kooky.
smintheus
If the bishops truly object on principle to insurance plans giving any employees free access to contraception, then church-run businesses can choose not to offer employees health insurance. End of “problem”.
Have to say, the bishops sound a little bit too much like those goofballs who throw tantrums over motorcycle helmet laws.
Jennifer
Fuck the bishops. I’m not a Catholic and it’s none of their goddamned business to tell anyone what kind of health care I can or can’t get.
eemom
@martha:
I don’t think they ever allowed it. Their general MO is not to make things more restrictive and oppressive — it’s to KEEP them that way.
A dear cousin of mine who tragically died of cancer a few years ago at 46 (we were born within weeks of each other) was given a Catholic funeral by his wife even though he was baptized in our (Greek Orthodox) church. The priest gave a tedious sermon that focused on his own efforts to bring the man to Jesus during his illness, while the service was attended by hundreds of family and friends who would have done justice to what a beautiful human being he was.
Maude
@RedKitten:
Hold the phone on burning down the Vatican. Let’s get the art out of there first.
shortstop
@Madeline:
That’s the position of the “concerned liberal Catholic” who posted here a few days ago, too. He’s really bummed that his religious freedom as a Catholic gay man — plus the inviolable teachings of the church on sexuality — are getting pounded on by our asking Catholic organizations who participate in commerce to observe the laws governing business. And the dude’s a freaking lawyer. There’s no helping some people.
J. Michael Neal
@Veritas:
If that’s the case, then you guys sure have terrible reaction times. Rick Santelli waited until Feb 19, 2009 to give the rant that launched the Tea Party movement. That’s a funny way to protest Bush doing much of anything.
Madeline
@Mnemosyne & @ beltane: Yes, I asked if he learned this in his vast experience as a woman and his discussions with his ob/gyn. We had a bit of an argument.
Gin & Tonic
@Veritas: Well, that’s why she had the Ron Paul guy on. His words, not hers. He was grinning ear to ear about their cunning strategy.
Villago Delenda Est
@Veritas:
Once again, fucknutz here takes Obama being upfront about the cost of the deserting coward’s excellent adventures, by putting them back “on budget” (as opposed to the sleight of hand of “off budget”) as an “increase” in the deficit.
The increase was already there, dumbshit. Obama stopped the lies of your precious dear leader, who now of course is now an unconservative since he fucked up so badly.
J. Michael Neal
@Madeline: Wait, you’re a personal friend of Andrew Sullivan?
shortstop
@Gin & Tonic: You know what’s weird about that Doug Wead guy? He was stuck to the Bush family (especially Bush pere) like a barnacle for years. What’s he doing with Paul?
Veritas
@Gin & Tonic:
He’s a fucking Ron Paul followers. They’re always grinning stupidly why droning on and on about gold and pot. Come to think of it he was probably stoned out of his mind.
MrSnrub
My wife works in health-insurance related fields. She points out that any Catholic organization can opt out of dealing with birth control issues by setting up a self-administered healthcare plan.
Period.
End of sentence.
If they’re not willing to do that, they should STFU.
Yutsano
@Veritas:
He can’t be all bad then.
You do realize you’re melting down…
different-church-lady
[logs on to BJ]
[thinks] Hmmm… 141 comments. One of the trolls must be stringing people along again.
[clicks through to comments] Yup, one of the trolls is stringing people along again.
Veritas
I’ll be back for the Maine caucuses tonight.
I can’t wait to see the Paultards get shut the fuck up again.
OoohhhOOOooh, maybe it will be due to a KOCH KONSPIRACY when the don’t win the caucus!!!!!! KOCH BROOOTHEERZ!!
Mnemosyne
@Veritas:
Because Reagan’s fabled “tax cuts” only happened once. After that, he raised taxes three separate times.
Reagan’s reputation as a tax cutter is greatly exagerrated, but it’s a myth you guys just can’t let go of no matter how many times reality smacks you in the face:
andy
@Veritas:
And when the true costs of your fucking tax cuts, your fucking Medicare “reform”, and your fucking wars finally saw the fucking light of fucking day. All that stuff was fucking off fucking budget. I fucking know it, you fucking know it, and you fucking know that I fucking know that you fucking know.
What you gonna do, punk?
J. Michael Neal
@Jennifer:
Sorry. I’m too old for them.
Gin & Tonic
@shortstop: Never seen him before in my life, so it didn’t register.
Brachiator
@jwest:
Really? You want to explain how that works?
Jennifer
Reagan cut income taxes then turned around and raised payroll taxes by a larger amount. Of course revenues went up. Then he borrowed against the excess being collected in FICA for unnecessary military spending.
Villago Delenda Est
@J. Michael Neal:
Once you hit 16 or so, and can fight back, you’re way too tough for their tastes.
shortstop
@Gin & Tonic: I mean, it’s hard to characterize just how establishment Republican this guy was. I know times are hard and everyone’s gotta eat, but this is like Ben Nelson’s longtime advisor suddenly running a Kucinich campaign.
khead
You do realize you’re melting down…
@Yutsano:
I already assumed jwest and Veritas are in a competition to break my irony meter.
wrb
Of the trolls this Veritas produces the most boring threads, by far.
It is an extraordinary talent. Bartleby the Troll.
General Stuck
Teehee, this Veritas character might actually be a gen you ine right wing troll type, with the ability to write complete sentences and remember the wingnut talking points.
so rare these days. You nasty libtards be nice and don’t scare it off.
edit – on the other hand, it could just be Dougj ate his spinach.
beltane
Veritas underestimates Ron Paul’s charisma as exemplified by his appearance at CPAC:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SWFi9I_0VyI
Cermet
@Veritas: OK – you are a troll – a stupid one but a troll; sorry because I like people who have good arguments against BJ’ers but that isn’t you after posting that pile of steaming shit; raygun was a brain dead asshole that made bush the sock puppet look somewhat smart. raygun’s brain was gone by his second term and that just improved his thinking. Sure tax cuts raise revenue like shit sandwiches taste great (for thugs and other teabaggers, I’m sure they do.)
Palli
@Brachiator:
That is exactly what is happening. Catholic hospitals are not full service hospitals.
Thymezone
Another good post, John. Lost in the smoke, though, is the nugget in the Bishops’ objections which reference self-insured employers. While that objection has at least some modicum of merit, it avoids the real problem here .. .which is the cruel and insane employer-provided insurance model in the first place. The Bishops would better serve us if they came out against that model, than just complaining about a small aspect of it.
Can't Be Bothered
@Cermet:
First inkling of TEA Party started with a web forum post about sending tea to congress on Jan. 19, 2009. Rick Santelli’s stupid fucking rant was Feb. 19, 2009. First large protest was April 15, 2009. The rhetoric always focused on “Deomcrat” government spending: the stimulus bill, aka “porkulus” as Limbaugh said. Then it later shifted to the ACA. Shit for brai–excuse me–Veritas, is well and truly full of shit yet again. It wasn’t a magical movement that started with Bush and TARP. There wasn’t a fucking peep during Bush destroying the budget surplus. It was always the new, sockalist, ni–er President and his “spending” on the wrong people. Always.
Villago Delenda Est
The comments on John’s link from above (warning: Politico) are overwhelmingly (as far as I bothered to read…there are nearly 900 comments right now) against the USCCB and the GOP.
Obama has won. This is overreach, and both the red beanie brigade and the Rethuglicans will pay for their overreach.
maryQ
Ya know what’s funny? Last weekend my 8-year old daughter and I went to visit my mom. Earlier in the week, I told my daughter that we would probably go to church with my mom, who is still a practicing Catholic, even though the Bishops repeatedly piss her off. When she comes to visit me, she accompanies me at whatever mainline Protestant church I happen to be going to at the time (Episcopal, Methodist, UCC, whatever). I hate going to Catholic mass, and it annoys me that my mom still goes, even though it drives her crazy half the time. She once even walked out when the priest started going off on God hating fags (OK, not exactly his words). Anyhow, when I got wind of what was going to happen, that the Bishop of Springfield had an anti-Obama screed to the parishes and the priests were to read it, I said “Sorry mom, not thins time” because I was not exactly ready for Catholic mass to prompt a conversation with my eight year old about contraception.
They started this fight.
TheOtherWA
Watching this morning’s UP and cannot believe how arrogant the church provided defender is about birth control. He’s offended by the idea that we are
I had rewind and listen to that a couple times. They really are that stupid. YES, IT’S A CONDITION TO BE PREVENTED AND/OR TREATED, you retread from the 1400’s!
I’m starting to agree with those saying Obama may have deliberately picked this fight to draw out the conservative crazies to motivate women to vote in Nov. If true, he’s a freaking genius.
Brachiator
@Thymezone:
I don’t know. It used to work pretty well. Kaiser and all, for example.
They’re kinda stuck. What alternative could they back if they insist on religious control?
Sly
@Veritas:
Which is why every governor who rode the Tea Party Hoveround into office pushed draconian anti-choice legislation after having specifically campaigned on it. Which is why the number of proposed anti-abortion laws shot up after 2010. Which is why, on January 20th, 2011, as one of its first acts of business, the newly convened House of Representatives passed the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.”
The Tea Party is to the Republican Party as Altria is to Phillip Morris.
Villago Delenda Est
@Veritas:
Prediction: should Paul in fact win the Maine caucuses tonight (a definite possibility) we won’t see Veritas back.
So there’s something to look forward to!
Villago Delenda Est
@TheOtherWA:
The magic word in all this is “He”.
Men who are not trained in this, or who have not bothered to think it through, cannot get this. Furthermore, it is not possible for men to fully understand what the fuck is going on here, because it does not happen to them. They don’t get to experience all the hormonal shifts that accompany the entire reproductive cycle of women. Their role in this, biologically, is fire…and forget.
sloan
@Jennifer: This is probably as good a thread as any to throw the hilarious (NSFW) Tim Minchin Pope Song.
A small taste:
All class! I love it.
khead
@Thymezone:
No, it doesn’t. Life is full of choices.
One of those choices is for a person to seek employment that doesn’t violate their religious beliefs.
Rommie
Yeah, you know a troll/sock puppet is off message when they are bragging about how badly Ron Paul will get owned in Maine tonight. Here, on Balloon Juice. Yeah, we’ll all have a sad about that result.
pragmatism
@Veritas: Shouldn’t you be trolling a paultard website then?
4tehlulz
Thank you cleek, for adapting the pie filter for quotations.
geg6
As usual, the troll infestations are most acute when they are losing. Based on today’s threads, they are losing very, very, very badly.
It all gives me a warm fuzzy.
OT, but my John is making me brownies and the smell of hot chocolate is just about killing me. Should taste wonderful with the pinot noir we’re having with dinner.
TheOtherWA
@Villago Delenda Est: So true. Pregnancy is something they will never experience, therefore it isn’t an issue.
wrb
@sloan:
That is a very fine song
TheOtherWA
@geg6: Mmmmm, chocolate and red wine are wonderful together. And home made brownies? Damn. I’m jealous.
Jennifer
@TheOtherWA: The best chocolates I ever had were some cabernet-filled chocolates I picked up in Napa.
Thymezone
@Brachiator:
First, they could back an end to employer-provided coverage, and support some model of universal access.
Second, they could retreat from their inappropriate role as moral police over their employees, and let the employees seek, and apply, moral teachings on their own time just like all other employers do. With an exception for actual church participants who are operating under actual pontifical control. But as we have said before, a nonprofit organization that runs a hospital is not a church … mainly because the church set it up that way specifically to protect themselves, and the employer, from entanglements.
In any case, employer-based healthcare access is a failure and a disgrace to the country and needs to go.
Chris
@tomvox1:
I go back and forth when it comes to who to blame for the condition of the media. Yeah, the media institutions are pretty full of shit, but to be fair, if the media accurately reported the truth, a ton of the public just wouldn’t want to hear it. That’s the reason for the rise of Fox News and the fact that it’s the most popular channel in the country – it feeds people feel-good pseudo-patriotic bullshit that fits what they want to hear instead of telling them the facts.
Not really relevant to or disputing your point about all the problems Obama faces, you’re spot on. I just saw the media thing and felt the urge to comment.
Chris
@aimai:
I’ve been to weddings like that, but only when the happy couple were themselves fundiegelical nuts who wanted to hear that stuff. That priest sounds like a massive douche.
Mike E
A few quick ones before I have to run to work:
1. The pres was screwed the moment he raised his right hand. Wasn’t Roberts’ flub obvious?
2. I knew Mr. Obama had an uphill battle with just the arduous task of rooting out all the Bob Jones/Liberty moles that were installed by W into “gov’t service.” Four years would hardly be enough for that Terminix job.
3. If I had one wish, it would be the final exposure of the GOP for who/what they were/are by this admin starting Jan ’09. Make ’em wander the proverbial desert for 40 yrs without their passports–they deserved at least this.
4. When Obama gets reelected, he needs to get busy with #2 and #3
Thymezone
@khead:
Absurd. Employment at a Catholic hospital operates under the same law as employment at any corporation of any size. The employer doesn’t get to ask about the applicant’s religious beliefs, and the employee has no expectation that those beliefs are relevant to the employment. It’s no different from going to work at McDonalds, from a legal standpoint.
Again, hospitals are not churches. They are not operated as churches and do not have the legal status of churches. no employee has any expectation of religious observance of any kind.
WTF? Is everybody suddenly stupid around here?
Neo
It’s really gonna look great when a Nobel f-ing Peace Prize winner is sending priests and nuns to jail.
sloan
Palin is re-fighting the 2008 campaign at CPAC right now. Funny stuff.
EDIT: Obligatory “hopenchange” joke and U-S-A chant. AWESOME.
Svensker
@Veritas:
This person is either delusion or a spoof. I vote delusion!
Thymezone
@Brachiator:
And besides, how the fuck can you assert that this model “works pretty well” when it leaves millions without access and has the highest per capital cost for healthcare in the world, no other country even coming close? What the hell are you talking about? It’s a goddam calamity of a failure.
Mike G
@Veritas:
Really? The 101st Hoverround Geriatrics are going to give up their Social Security and Medicare?
(crickets chirping)
Oh, I see, when it’s Teatards slopping at the government trough, it’s “I earned it!”, even when they’re suctioning out far more than they ever paid in.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chris:
Most popular cable news network, which is not the same thing, as The Rachel Maddow pointed out
.”
Dave
@Thymezone: Look on the bright side. The conservatives made it so the government and insurers are cutting out the middle man. Could be the start to a proper form of health care.
Chris
@Veritas:
DUDE. ASK YOUR OWN PARTY.
Like, seriously, I’m totally with you. But guess what – your party just spent forty years cultivating a base of freaks and mouth-breathers who believe EXACTLY the sort of things you’re railing against now. This isn’t a fringe. It’s integral to the party at this point.
You gotta dance with them that brung you.
patrick II
Sarah at CPAC
“(President Obama) You keep your gays, we’ll keep our god, our guns our constitution”
To large applause.
Jeff Spender
It is very rewarding to see the President so thoroughly win this debate.
And yes, I count this as a huge win. He’s cleverly turned a religious rights argument into a religious dominance argument.
That’s not going to fly with most of the people in this country.
Mnemosyne
@Neo:
Persecution complex, much? Yes, mean ol’ Obama is going to send priests and nuns to jail. That’s clearly the logical outcome here.
/eyeroll
Dave
@patrick II: She said that??
sloan
Palin: Community organizers! Obama is apologizing! Real America!
What year is it at CPAC? This shit is solid gold.
patrick II
@Dave:
She sure did, just a few minutes ago on the livestream linked by @sloan:
She received a very nice round of applause too.
beltane
@patrick II: It sounds like Obama gets the better end of the bargain there.
Thymezone
@Dave:
Heh, yes. But ironically, what we have is a patchwork version of the Republican’s healthcare plan from not that long ago … and now they talk like it’s a creation of Satan. The AntiChrist himself is the only monster that could support it if they were to be believed.
I just want to get to October and listen to Mitt talk about repealing Romneycare in the debates.
Bruce S
Obama has, probably through “brilliance” and/or cunning (I think he’s someone who probably revels in being “misunderestimated” by his opponents and I’d personally hate to be on the wrong side of the guy in a fight – he gets Clint Eastwood results with “Hey I’m just a reasonable guy” tactics) has managed to split the public face of Catholicism (never mind the Catholic masses, who don’t pay much attention to the dictates of the hierarchy.) The nurses, nuns, hospital administrators etc. in the Catholic-sponsored health-care industry have embraced the “compromise” while the old men in skirts (or at least the most vocal among them) are digging in their heels. This is not pretty for the Church and will not strengthen the hand of the Bishops in any way, shape or form moving forward. I think he’s leveraged splits and tensions within the flock of the Church that have long existed and only get worse with this ginned-up brouhaha. At this point the “Bishops” are speaking for and “advancing” the goals more for the white populist reactionaries of the “Evangelical Christian” Right than for their own flock. These are the same folks who were demeaning “Papists” and projecting conspiracy theories when JFK was a candidate. Obama wins this.
Dave
@patrick II: Wow…they really don’t understand changing demographics, do they?
patrick II
@beltane:
Except for the “constitution” part.
Elliecat
@martha:
I have never heard such a thing. I would guess it has more to do with the church pastor, the parish, etc. I have been at something like 15 funeral Masses at my parish church in the last couple years and I have heard plenty of eulogies, most pretty personal, some quite funny (and with the occasional risque joke, no less).
Chris
@patrick II:
*snort.
Yeah, you keep your constitution, which explicitly orders your God to keep the fuck out of government, and you keep your guns, which your constitution explicitly states the need for as being in the context of “a well-regulated militia.”
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I stand corrected.
beltane
@patrick II: Well, we can keep the US Constitution. We don’t want whatever it was the Sarah was referring to.
Jay C
@Neo:
SRSLY?
It’s a debate over healthcare coverage, trollturd; not the Spanish Civil Fncking War! The only priests who are likely to end up “in jail” – might be the ones unlucky enough to have missed out on timely transfers when caught buggering the altar boys in their last parish. And even then it’s not all that “likely”.
RedKitten
@Maude: Actually, I was thinking of that. Get all of the goods out of there, sell them, and give the proceeds to their victims and to the poor. Strip the place down to the framing.
THEN burn it. Preferably with any child-molesting priests inside.
Mnemosyne
@Bruce S:
Sister Carol Keehan, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, sent out a press release saying that she is “very pleased” with the new announcement and that the CHA feels it protects their religious liberties while still giving full access to healthcare for women.
So Obama has managed to drive a wedge into the Catholic Church itself with this issue. Well played, sir. Well played.
Chris
@beltane:
The Confederate Constitution? “We, the people of the Confederate States, […] invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God…” Fits the God-bothering demographic so much better.
scav
Are there any legal documents (forms) that patients can have their doctors [ETA Hospitals might be even better] sign where the doctor agrees legally to provide/reccomend the best medical treatments and care irrespective of the doctor’s buying his way into heaven using the patent’s body as downpayment? (Expressed in real legal terms, of course.) I’d actually like to have my doctor sign something like this.
khead
@Thymezone:
Which means that employee can go get a job somewhere else. Instead of crying. Just like I said.
WTF? Is everybody stupid around here all the sudden?
Gin & Tonic
@patrick II: She doesn’t want to check out Craigslist, then, to redefine that pronoun about “whose” gays.
beltane
Mitt Romney won the CPAC straw pollhttp://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/11/1063931/-CPAC-straw-poll-results
There is speculation he bought votes. But hey, what people won’t do for love they might do for money.
Mnemosyne
@Elliecat:
I’m also guessing it’s a regional thing — when my grandmother died, the majority of the Mass was eulogies from her children and grandchildren.
People don’t always realize how much autonomy cardinals/archbishops have over their dioceses and even sometimes how much autonomy individual parishes can have. When my brother and his (Jewish) first wife were looking at having a Catholic wedding, they were informed that, in Los Angeles, you could only have a priest preside at an actual church, but in the archdiocese where the priest who was going to do the wedding was living, they could have gotten married in a cow pasture for all the diocese cared.
So a lot of the “OMG it’s strict Catholic doctrine!” actually only applies to that archdiocese. When my best friend moved out here for college, she was surprised to see that the Los Angeles diocese still used wafers for communion since Detroit had been using bread for quite a while.
Bruce S
I don’t mind some troll with his head up his ass posting insane bullshit here – it’s kind of funny – but I do resent this maliciously disingenuous dickwad hijacking the nom “Veritas.”
RedKitten
@khead:
Yes, because in this economy, that’s a viable option.
The gently caressing hand of the free market only really works in cases like that when it’s a BUYER’S market, not a seller’s one…
Mnemosyne
@khead:
It’s not always that easy, especially when the only hospital within 100 miles just got bought up by Catholic Healthcare. Now you get to try and find another hospital job, which will probably involve having to try and sell your house, pull your kids out of school, and move away from all of your family and friends just so you can work for a non-Catholic hospital.
Bruce S
“Mitt Romney won the CPAC straw poll” – http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/11/1063931/-CPAC-straw-poll-results
FIXED
SmallAxe
@TheOtherWA:
Same reaction I had up thread watching UP, I hope they keep having people like father too big for his pompous chair on to dictate how people should handle reproductive issues they are done. More of this please you idiots. St. Peter’s bones must be rumblin under the Vatican, Overreach indeed.
beltane
@Bruce S: Thanks
Brachiator
@Thymezone:
We’re talking about Catholic officials who want to impose religious strictures on health care.
I’m missing the part where they would embrace universal access, given their unreasonable opposition here to Obama’s proposals.
People keep saying this as an article of faith. OK. Now, let’s get to comprehensive reform proposals.
And keep in mind that the religious opposition will still be strong.
@Mnemosyne:
yes, indeed.
AA+ Bons
“Shift” the debate?
This and Komen are a coordinated GOP ratfuck. And I believe they were organized, or at least accelerated, based on Santorum’s showing in Iowa.
Bruce S
CPAC vs GOP voters
National Survey
Romney 27
Santorum 25
Gingrich 20
Paul 8
and at CPAC:
Romney 38
Santorum 31
Gingrich 15
Paul 12
Looks like CPAC has sold it’s soul!
Oh – what’s that you say? They don’t have one?
Thymezone
@khead:
Because you aren’t paying attention. The point is that the current Church objection has nothing to do with working for an actual church, where the “choice” you refer to is appropriate. In the case of nonprofit corporations, who are the actual parties mostly affected by the subject law, the choice you refer to is not only inapproriate, it would be illegal to impose it under any circumstances. So what point were you trying to make? Never mind, I don’t give a shit.
AA+ Bons
moderated for f*c*?
khead
For someone who is self-employed?
I responded to a very specific line of Thymezone’s post – the part about the bishops having a point when it comes to the self-employed.
Let’s see if folks can follow me here:
1) A person chooses to be self-employed.
2) If a person doesn’t like the terms of self-employment they can choose to do something else.
Therefore…
Anyone who doesn’t like the birth control mandate that comes with being self-employed is perfectly welcome – in my eyes – to choose something, hell anything, else.
I don’t care what that person chooses to do, but that person has to quit fucking crying “religious freedom” once they choose a vocation that includes a mandate that already violates their religuos beliefs.
If “religious freedom” is so fucking important, choose another vocation. Walmart is hiring.
Emma
@Madeline: Perhaps you could point them to JFK’s speech. I mean, there was a time where Catholics were not trusted even to run for president EXACTLY because people were afraid of that attitude.
gbear
It’s easy for Obama to win every time at 11-dimensional chess when your opponent makes the exact same stupid, completely predictable moves every game. There’s no way for him not to look both smart and lucky.
Rihilism
@Mnemosyne: Yes, but you must consider the pay-per-view reality-show potential. Following the arrests, incidental scourging (they’d resist arrest, of course) and jailing, I’d suggest a weekly fight to the death between a priest and a nun. First prize is…..COMPLETE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM…AND…ANNNNNDDDD…ONE, NO TWO, TWO THEOLOGICAL VETOES OVER SOUND PUBLIC POLICIES!!!!!!
Think of the
ad revenuesdeficit reduction, think of themerchandizingpatriotic fervor, think of the Kardashian lead-in/crossover potential (“two Kardashian’s may enter, only one Kardashian may leave“), think of theNielsen ratingshumanity….Thymezone
@Brachiator:
People keep saying this as an article of faith.
Wrong, I am saying it as a specific policy complaint, which is relevant here because the Bishops’ entire position is based on their role as an employer having control over healthcare access thanks to a corrupt and broken model in the first place. If we had a proper model, the Church would have no standing to complain about contraceptive use by their employees because it would be .. and should be .. none of their damned business. But even more importantly, that isn’t the worst thing about the employer-based model. People without coverage, and skyrocketing costs, are the worst thing. Those are outrages that inflict more misery on real people than “who pays for birth control pills” can ever possibly have. The Bishops are full of shit and lies on this thing from every angle you can draw on the chart. The lie about the real proprieties here. They lie about the legalities. They lie about their own record of compliance already long established. The lie about their own agenda. The conflate religious practice with religious principle, and lie that going against a principle is the same injury as interfering with practice, which is absurd on its face. Every single aspect of their position reduces all the real issues to farce.
wolverina
I sent this email to the US Catholic Bishops
http://usccb.org/about/contact-us.cfm
Dear Bishops
In Vitro Fertilization… As we believe life begins at conception, and in the laboratory human eggs are fertilized by sperm, thus producing a living human several cell baby with all civil rights of the fully formed and born… Should the parents of the frozen embryo’s be prosecuted for child abuse or murder, or should just the doctors who perform the procedure? What is the stand of the bishops conference on this matter?
Imo they (USCCB and Repug RW Loons) need to include In Vitro Ferilization in their war on women and families. It is the next logical progression for them and will make them look even loonier to the saner people of america who vote.
wolv
RedKitten
@khead: Ah, my bad. I hadn’t seen the context, and so thought that you were talking about employees of Catholic hospitals, and how they could just blithely find another job.
Emma
@RedKitten: Whoa. Not before we get the Michelangelos and the Raphaels out.
pseudonymous in nc
@patrick II:
Does that include all the gays at CPAC who were busy setting up dates on Craigslist? And were the fully-closeted ones applauding her? Queen of the Grifters is Queen of the Trolls at the trolling convention.
Mnemosyne
@Rihilism:
That would get dull very quickly since most nuns could rip a priest’s head off in the first 30 seconds. Those ladies don’t fuck around, and I mean that in the most respectful way.
But I am intrigued by your idea of combining it with other reality shows. Any chance we could get Snooki into the ring with a few hungry lions?
khead
@RedKitten:
No prob. Upon reading those posts again I guess I should have been more clear.
I cannot remember the BJ poster from a few days ago who said this whole thing is an expansion of religious pharmacists and their “conscience clauses”, but I agree with that assessment 100%. In the case of those folks – if they don’t want to dispense certain things – there is always another job. One they probably should have considered before they finished their Pharm D.
RedKitten
@Emma: Already noted.
xian
@Yutsano: I enjoy that it’s now into explaining why they’re failing and going to lose and has given up on its Rovean cheerleading.
Also really enjoying the reactionary circular firing squad. They’re down to the dregs now and they can’t stand each other.
28 Percent
@Veritas: The Republican party has lived by the Jesus Freak for more than thirty years, now it’s dying by the Jesus Freak. The Tea Party is just a new name for the same old schtick that’s been going on since before Morning in America. Did you think the Moral Majority just melted into the ether, and then coincidentally an entirely different set of people got on Ralph Reed’s Christian Coalition mailing list, and then they just disappeared and lo! and behold! an entirely different set of people spouting the exact same “Christian nation” bullshit all happened to tune into Glenn Beck just in time to book their tickets on the Dick Armey bus tour?
There is no Tea Party that suddenly sprung into existence over TARP. It’s the same audience, the same mailing list, and the same get out the vote effort that it always was, it’s just rebranded (complete with powdered wigs to make it harder to spot how much the group has aged over the years). These are the people who’ve gotten pro-big-business Republicans elected in exchange for lip service on social issues and the occasional turning of the screw for women and minorities since 1980. Your entire problem is that people the Republicans have kept pushing off with promises for absofreakinlutely ever are stepping up now and asking to collect. Sucks to be you.
JPL
@patrick II: Sullivan must be so proud.
Mnemosyne
@RedKitten:
I don’t think you need to burn it down. The Basilica would make a really nice concert venue, don’t you think? Imagine getting to see Bruce Springsteen perform there.
xian
@TheOtherWA: Hey. We have our wedge issues too!
Rihilism
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, yes, the power of Cripes compels them. As a brother to a Franciscan nun, I can attest to their superior fighting skills. Even matching the priest with Kardashian AND a Jursi Snore, would prove no contest to a sister in full battle mode.
PityFunny. Neo’s vision of“The Obama of Nobel Fucking Prize Winning”Obamacasting the piteous faithful to the lionsjailing priests and nuns, seemedso ripe for exploitationextraordinarily over the top….Emma
@RedKitten: OK, then. Fire away.
Brachiator
@Thymezone:
This kinda begs the question as to what a proper model would look like.
In any case, as I noted before, the Bishops are not just employers, they run hospitals, and they want those hospitals to run under the rules of their religion.
This makes them inherently antagonistic to rational reform.
Yep.
ruemara
@Jennifer: y’all should try the red wine chocolate cake I made it for my birthday as cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and dried cranberries. To. Die. For. which I did, via dieting for a month later, but it was worth it.
Bex
@Veritas: You can preach it, but the choir ain’t listening.
bane
@ Here’s socialist Bruce Bartlett explaining how the Reagan tax cuts lowered revenues:
“Federal revenues were $599.3 billion in fiscal year 1981 and were $991.1 billion in fiscal year 1989. That’s an increase of just 65 percent. But of course a lot of that represented inflation. If 1981 revenues had only risen by the rate of inflation, they would have been $798 billion by 1989. Thus the real revenue increase was just 24 percent. However, the population also grew. Looking at real revenues per capita, we see that they rose from $3,470 in 1981 to $4,006 in 1989, an increase of just 15 percent. Finally, it is important to remember that Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times, increasing revenues by $133 billion per year as of 1988 – about a third of the nominal revenue increase during Reagan’s presidency.
The fact is that the only metric that really matters is revenues as a share of the gross domestic product. By this measure, total federal revenues fell from 19.6 percent of GDP in 1981 to 18.4 percent of GDP by 1989. This suggests that revenues were $66 billion lower in 1989 as a result of Reagan’s policies.”
oldmtnbkr
@178, 181, 182: I can’t decide. Current fave is Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Lover’s from Colombia (85%). Born & raised RC, I think the GOP and the bishops made a big mistake here. They should reboot and propose outlawing dark chocolate.
Donald G
I love the smell of Veritas in the evening. It smells like…
(…wait for it…)
…VICTORY!
Linda
Re: the last sentence. Obama is smart, but as my dad, an astute poker player once said, I’d rather be lucky than smart. He is luckiest in his enemies, who, like a troop of type-A personality baboons, cannot resist showing their asses at every opportunity.
pseudonymous in nc
@Brachiator:
The bishops don’t actually run hospitals; they just claim ecclesiastical authority over the people — mainly orders of nuns — that do.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Pseudonymous is right — the bishops don’t actually run anything. The Catholic Health Association are the ones who actually administer the hospitals.
Bruce S
253 bane: “…socialist Bruce Bartlett…”
Hey, the fact that he worked for a guy who raised taxes 11 times PROVES Bartlett is a goddam socialist!
ellie
@Brachiator: When my mom had my little brother in 1968, she had to go to the non-Catholic hospital to get her tubes tied. She had her previous eight children at the Catholic hospital, so this has been going on for a while.
John M. Burt
@Veritas: What’s with “Kompassionate Konservative”? The people who chose to call themselves Teabaggers are very clearly the most recent recurrence of the Kumpany of Kowards in Knightgowns.
gelfling545
@J. Michael Neal: I thought that 30 years ago. I no longer hold much hope of it happening but really, if wants the essentials there are places (Episcopal Church & ELCA Lutheran come to mind) where one who was RC can find the liturgically familiar but still keep one’s conscience as one’s own.
clayton
@jwest: I don’t know if anyone who posts her now remembers you, but I do.
You were quite the dick in the GG’s UT comments section. I remember you from around 2005 to 2007 there.
It’s always funny when you turn up here or in other blogs’ comments sections that I visit.
I always think, “jwest, I guess he’s still got his job.”
Given that a decent man is looking for work and you have been banging the same drum for money for going on 7 or more years, it makes me think that there is little justice in this world. Which is something I have often thought.
I hope you enjoy your dinners, jwest. Paid for with the bile you have been paid to spew for so long. I’d say just go away, but that would never work.
sigh.
TenguPhule
Remedial Classes don’t count.
Rick Taylor
@Thymezone:
I agree with you in principle, and if I thought it would work, I’d say, you know the bishop’s are right, it’s wrong to make employers fund health care plans they morally object to, I guess we have no choice but to do single payer and do it right. Frankly I don’t think there’s a chance of it, but who knows, maybe if the opposition keeps pushing. . . .
Older
This thread irresistably reminded me of the Tim Minchin song “Fk the MFkr” which is available on YouTube, although kind of hard to reach (fences to climb over).
polyorchnid octopunch
@khead: You must be a trustafarian.
Sasha
Like I’ve said before, Obama and Voltaire clearly have the same preference in prayer.
Another Halocene Human
@Veritas: You know, that’s true Veritas, but it would also be separation from reality not to note that the Tea Party was quickly taken over by the same old entrenched right-wing social conservatives. I knew the libertarians didn’t stand a chance in early 2009 when a Florida tea party group booed down a young speaker who called out Bush’s 11th hour bank bailouts.
I’m not happy with Obama’s choices re: finance but I have to admit that letting Bernanke do his thing actually… worked. I also have to admit that the stimulus worked, even though I was pretty pissed about the bubble and in my heart wanted all the greedheads to pay. I do think that the banksters have not been held accountable and that justice has been frustratingly slow. Things might have been different if Spitzer hadn’t been a giant hypocrite.
You need to take it down a notch, IMO. And Romney is not going to do better in the primaries on account of your inane cheerleading here. He seems to lack boots on the ground and the fact that all you can be arsed to do is troll message boards that are more or less full of Democratic voters speaks volumes.
Another Halocene Human
@martha: I’m disgusted on your behalf. Catholic weddings and especially funerals have always had great meaning to my family, but when it comes down to “the bishop wants this” and “the bishop wants that” I wonder at what point my Irish Catholic clan will just say “Come and get me, if you dare.” After all, a Unitarian minister can just as easily preside over a funeral service and all the Unitarian clergy I’ve met bent over backwards to be sensitive to the needs of the family.
Another Halocene Human
@shortstop:
Wow. Just… wow. I think I might have walked out.
Another Halocene Human
@Can’t Be Bothered: porkulus was actually Michele Malkin, not Limbaugh. I knew I was on the wrong forum when the posters started going on approvingly about FAS-Face herself.
There WAS a movement against the bailouts after the Lehman Bros collapse in 2008 that attempted to marshal a group to march on Wall Street. It was very tiny and got no press. They did sent thousands of faxes to Congress. And there were occasional protesters who got arrested protesting Greenspan when he made speaking appearances. I would assume most of those folks are working for the Paul campaign now. Dunno. I completely stopped visiting those groups/forums/blogs when the anti-health care reform shit got started.
Unlike Veritas, I felt bitter that mainstream Republicans were suddenly freaked about the stimulus now that Barack Obama was president but hadn’t cared a whit in early 2008 when Hank Paulson was using his position at the Fed to take care of his GS buddies.
St Jimmy
@GregB:
The Catholic Church lost its moral authority when it elevated Augustine (he of the prayer Lord maker me chaste, but not yet)
to sainthood. Or turned blind eyes to the numerous papal bastards (Think of the 8 Popes who were sexually active during their papacies, including 4 who had male lovers) Certainly only the most superstitious of people
can think about the last 10 years of pedophilia scandals and accord the red hats any moral authority whatsoever. It’s sad to see the church brought so low