Recently, Rush Limbaugh confirmed his vile nature by calling a woman who testified for contraceptive insurance coverage a slut, and later amplified his idiocy with this comment:
“So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.”
I hope still photos will do, because one woman has agreed to those terms and has posted her contraceptive-dependent sex pictures online.
Once a person (see inked article)with honest concerns in this area brings real-world data to the table it’s abundantly clear how far removed from reality are the views of Limbaugh and those like him. Read here Santorum. Perry. Others may spring to mind.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Rush looked at those pictures, popped some illegal Viagra and oxycontin and flapped a few out. I’m willing to bet that those pictures are better than standard porn for him, because they show a kind of person he doesn’t like (women) in pain.
Frank Luntz’s genius level disinformation is at work. In addition to the bizarre trade off above, the talking point keeps reciting ‘more sex = more contraception’. This is broken thinking. While OTC condoms are per act, hormonal birth control is prescription only and not limited per act.
The complaint about ‘having to pay for it’ is similarly disinforming. We all pay for insurance and it’s unlikely that (non-condom) birth control really means women take out more than they pay in. I suspect surgeries, obesity, end of life care and smoking related illness swamp the cost/payment ratio.
Now to collapse all this down to a polling friendly pithy statement >.< .
Never mind real concerns. Anyone under the delusion, that there isn’t enough free porn on the Internet, needs to be institutionalised. Seriously? There is enough free porn on the Internet that you could (if it where medically possible) start at about age 13 (or whenever puberty hits you), and fap continuously for the rest of your life.
I don’t like the “people use it for other things” argument much for other reasons as well (primarily, that it implicitly supports the Republican “sex is wrong” argument) but it’s actually ignorant of how insurance billing works, and therefore completely irrelevant.
Let me give an example: No insurance covers Botox for cosmetic purposes. Many do, however, cover it for muscle spasms, and some cover it for the recently-approved (in the US) use for chronic headaches. The drug and the condition it is being used to treat are considered when billing the insurance company. Some other examples are rhinoplasty to correct a deviated septum, or cosmetic surgery for a burn victim.
So arguing “people need it for other things!” makes no sense, because insurance companies can easily cover it for one thing and not for the other. A doctor billing an insurance company for a shot of Depo-Provera to treat menstrual migraines is treated differently by most insurances than a doctor billing an insurance company for the same shot as birth control.
The argument that “there are other uses” would make sense if the likes of Limbaugh were arguing that birth control should be illegal, but they’re not. So it’s misguided. The counterargument should be that sex is good, and that easier access to birth control leads to fewer unwanted pregnancies, etc.
This is probably treading the “for other uses” line, but what’s been so disgusting about Limbaugh’s reamarks is the gross mischaracterization of why Ms. Fluke was there to testify.
Apologies if I’m mangling this, but Rachel Maddow reported the other night Ms. Fluke was to speak about a woman who lost an ovary because she was unable to afford the pill and her insurance wouldn’t cover it. Not to complain that she wanted insurance to pay for women’s sexual escapades.
There’s been a lot of “oh, that’s just Rush” excuse making on the right, or he’s just doing it for the attention bullshit. What I’m repelled at is that Limbaugh was willing to repugnantly slander an innocent woman, regardless of facts, to garner attention and ratings.
I know that’s his audience, but still; the amount of effort to throw basic humanity out of the window when making that kind of calculation is truly frightening. Sociopathic, run over someone and drive away frightening.
I haven’t even touched on the hypocrisy of Limbaugh sliming this woman, given his history with Viagra.
If Ms. Fluke takes this bastard to court for slander, I’ll be more than happy to kick in $50.
I think the counter argument is that sex and birth control are woman’s health issues that should be covered by the industry that controls so much of the access to health care, and that the issue gets entirely mangled when left up to conservative men.
As for Limbaugh specifically, he deserves ridicule and humiliation just on general principles, but pointing out his ignorance never hurts, either.
Addendum to #6:
Forgot to mention that most reports on this whole story leave out why Fluke was there. IMO it puts the whole story in a different light, even for the “they only want contraception for the hedonism” crowd.
When Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke, and her family, those things, he apologized for not using more refined language in his insult. Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich agree that the language was inappropriate, but rather than condemn Rush, they have washed their hands of it. It now appears that Romney may be a top scavenger in the Limbaugh detritus chain. Romney, it turns out, is a founder and major stock holder of Bain Capital; Bain owns Clear Channel Communications; Premiere Radio Network, a subsidiary of Clear Channel, employs Rush Limbaugh as host of The Rush Limbaugh Show. While it is true that Romney is not now a Bain executive, he certainly has enough insider clout to bring down Limbaugh if he were to live up to his professed morals. Or should I say, if he had the morals that he professes. Lets put a little fire under Mitt and see if he can squirm.
#5 I agree with what you’re saying. But the “insurance covers it under the right circumstances” fails when people argue that insurance shouldn’t pay for someone’s lifestyle (even though it does) or that if you go to an ivy league school you should be able to afford your own birth control. It’s not my arguement, but gien here. If anyone wants to comment, please do.
http://www.suntimes.com/opinions/letters/11011046-474/pay-for-your-own-birth-control.html
In any case, the more and varied of reasons why insurance should cover birth control, the better (even if some are better than others). It’s more work conservatives have to do to continue to justify their claims.
One bright spot in this is that Rush is loosing advertisers. If he looses enough, he might go off the air. If he goes off air, he might disappear from our attention. He’s been a blight on our national discourse for too long and nothing could suit him more than irrelevance. Vitriol as entertainment has been way over done for way too long. (Thank you Mr. Murdoch.)
On the not so optimistic side, the military announced that it will continue to air Rush on Armed Forces Radio in the interest of serving a broad spectrum of interest of their listeners. I wonder if they would air a program on atheism, or a positive portrayal of (gasp!) socialism or communism…nah.
Alverant, #10:
That link you posted confuses me. So they’re saying when you’re spending more to go to an Ivy league institution, you should have more money available to pay for birth control? That’s like saying 2 – 2 = 4. Epic math failure.
I certainly agree with you that we need to attack this thing from all sides. But I think our arguments need to be compatible with reality, or we lose credibility. And this particular debate has been ridiculously confused on all sides. To list a few:
1. The progressive “people use it for other things” argument which I already addressed
2. The conservative “tax money shouldn’t be paying for you to have sex” argument, which fails on multiple grounds: the new “Obamacare” law doesn’t make taxpayers pay for birth control; it mandates that everyone get insurance or pay a fine come tax time, but the insurance is still (unfortunately) private.
3. The Santorum “birth control leads to more unwanted pregnancies” thing, which should be self-evidently idiotic (to paraphrase Colbert, Birth control causes pregnancies like fire extinguishers cause fires.)
4. The pseudoscientific conservative argument that birth control causes side-effects, therefore should not be FDA-approved: retarded because that could extend to every treatment/drug.
It seems to me that nobody understands the US health care system, really, and that’s a problem in and of itself.
Although it’s true that the real argument should be the one Sour Tomato Sand’s making at #5, the writer of the article is specifically calling Limbaugh out for the very particular cluelessness of his actual objection, and what he was objecting to. I think her strategy of posting her own ‘contraceptive-dependent sex photo’ is clever.
I suppose that I could do something along those lines, too. Menopause is behaving strangely for me. Last spring my period lasted for over 3 solid months, and only stopped after my doctor finally decided to put me on the pill. Now, imagine what I could send Limbaugh, if I felt like it.
#12
No that wasn’t me. In the link the first editorial said that if you can afford to go to an ivy league school you should be able to pay for your own birth control. My concern was how do we counter that claim.
Sastra, I demand videotape proof for my jollification.
I do not go off about it but I detest that man. Almost twenty years ago, I listened to that man, trying to understand what was the attraction. Not once did I laugh. Not once did he provide an insight that made me rethink my assumption.
Bleag…
We counter that claim by pointing out that 1) Ivy League educations are ludicrously expensive, 2) they’re not just for rich people (my wife is attending Columbia and we are dirt-poor, for example), 3) the Rethuglican dream of poor people boot-strapping their selves out of poverty is probably best exemplified in the US in poor people going to Ivy League institutions, incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans, and leveraging their education into a lucrative career (which, ironically, is exactly what Barack and Michelle Obama did).
In short, going to a more expensive college does not mean you have more money. People who leverage their parents’ donor status into an Ivy League acceptance letter are the minority, not the norm. It is ludicrous to say that, for example, my wife and I should have more money because we’re paying $50,000 a year for college.
I’ve never really liked the ‘but some women use it for other reasons’ argument, as I’ve often detected an implied ‘not like those other sluts…’ unspoken at the end of the sentence (for the record, I’m not suggesting that’s what the author here is implying at all, but I have felt that vibe from other bits and pieces written on this topic). Perhaps I’m being too sensitive about it, but it shouldn’t matter why anyone is using hormonal contraception, women who want to have sex without getting pregnant have the right to it as much as women who use it to control the symptoms of their endometriosis or other health conditions, or women who want it for both reasons. Wanting to have sex while reducing the risk of pregnancy is as much a valid health concern as treating medical conditions, and I say that as someone who would struggle to get out of bed for 3-4 days per month were it not for my pill.
I’ve stayed out of this so far, as I don’t feel particularly qualified to comment on insurance coverage etc, being privileged enough to come from a country where all healthcare is taxpayer-funded and prescriptions cost £7.40 each, unless you’re exempt from charges for one of a variety of reasons, and contraception is always free, and very easy to obtain.
The level of stupidity surrounding the war on contraception I’ve seen coming out of the states lately makes me despair, but looking at the other rubbish this particular clown has come out with over the years, I can’t say I’m really that surprised. Here’s hoping any remaining sponsors drop him, whether he’s notpologised or not.
Those photos… A warning next time, please. I was eating.
I was eating!
I listened to him for a stretch almost exactly 20 years ago. I laughed at some things, notably his ridiculing of PETA. I don’t remember him saying hateful misogynistic stuff like his recent outburst. I remember him having perfectly civil conversations with gay men, with people who admitted on air that they were high, and other stuff like that.
The tenor of the show changed quickly, though, as the 1992 election approached and it became clear that Bill Clinton was going to be our next president. It got ugly in a hurry, and I stopped listening. Among other brutal personal failings, the guy is a really bad loser.
I can’t wait to see how he handles losing sponsors.
Actually, I just read that editorial again, and I find the argument there even stupider than I was giving it credit for: it’s another form of the “tax payer money shouldn’t be used to pay for contraception” argument, together with the assumption that Ivy League institutions have more cash on hand because they charge high tuition, and the same assumption about the students.
Again: the new health care law in the US does not use taxpayer funds to cover contraception. It imposes a requirement on insurers to completely cover contraception costs in exchange for the government mandating that everyone buy insurance or pay a fine. This does not involve giving insurers tax payer money to pay for contraception; it’s a good deal for the insurers because it will increase their client base by a great deal, thus bringing them more money.
What this would actually mean for Ivy League students is that the University will begin to offer contraception at no additional charge in its student insurance program. For some universities, this will not be a change.
In summary: the new law will require Ivy League institutions’ insurance programs to cover contraception costs entirely. If this results in an increase in costs to the insurance, it will either come from university funds, or more likely, it will come from an increase in premium costs, which will be paid by the student.
This is yet another reason why “Obamacare” cannot be classified as a socialist program: it’s a government mandate for private citizens to buy a service from a private entity.
What I didn’t see anywhere in the discussion was whose business it is that an individual seeks medical attention for any purpose. It certainly isn’t Limpd*ck’s. It isn’t Sanctorum’s. It isn’t mine. It isn’t the legislators who want to make it mandatory that a woman who has had an abortion have that matter recorded in their ‘permanent’ medical history as they wanted in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
As far as who pays: nearly everyone who currently has insurance via any institution pays for it, one way or another, as a part of a healthcare program. As a matter of employment, it is a part of the wage in kind rather than cash. If it is a school program, it is included as a fee because nearly every higher education facility requires that students have health coverage. So, it ain’t free, it ain’t taxpayer-supported (except under the Health Insurance program, it might be subsidized…but not as a specific breakout). Since most of these programs also cover ‘stiffie pills’, I see no lack of equivalence, at minimum.
Then again, if this controversy turns people off to the idiots on the right, it is a good thing. Vote, people.
That is a feature, not a bug.
Sour Tomato Salad@5
Except that Sandra Flukes testimony about her friend who lost an ovary was because even though the health insurance plan covers contraception for medical reasons, and the friend had a doctor’s prescription outlining those reasons, but the insurance company denied it on the grounds that they thought it was really for contraception. (The friend is gay).
The testimony makes the point that by including non-medical reasons in insurance policies, the role of the doctor is devalued, and that is greater scope for things to go wrong.
It’s a very good argument.
We’re up to 8 advertisers pulling from Rush’s show. The latest is AOL.
To the morons who keep on insisting they don’t want to pay for someone elses birth control – you aren’t. Once the money leaves your account to pay for your premium it ceases to be YOUR money, you know, like taxes. Do you really think that the insurance company gives a shit if you don’t think some fatty deserves gastric bypass, or some gimp should get orthopedic shoes, or that you feel everyone with aids should die from it because it is a judgement from god? You don’t get a SAY, you get coverage!
Also if the church backs President Obama down (which of course will happen) then the church should be designated a political organization that needs to immediately start paying taxes on all of its holdings. No more giving them special privileges to both preach their nonsense tax free AND shape our legislation. As long as every citizen in this nation is required to pay more so they don’t have to pay anything then they must either adhere to the laws of this land or quit sucking at its teat. Why can’t we seem to manage this?
so what you’re saying is that you haven’t bothered to read/listen to Sandra Fluke’s testimony. got it.
It fails completely because it misses the whole point of having health care insurance in the first place. Companies ensure their employees, because that employee earns the company more money on average, than the cost of their salary. Thus for most companies who rely on any type of specialized or trained labour, having an employee have to call in sick negatively effects the bottom line(particularly if they’re calling in sick for maternity/paternity leave).
Also the Ivy League comment rings somewhat hallow, because on the other hand any organisation, with a religious opposition to contraception is likely to be a 501(c)(3). So you could make the argument that any organisation, exempt from paying federal taxes, should be able to afford exceptional health care for all employees, regardless of gender, race or creed.
Wouldn’t it be nice if Rush was “Santorumed” in the Google world. Perhaps having his name inextricably linked to some particularly noxious sub-genre of porn would be appropriate.
Capt.
Wow. That was better than my plan for porn to send to Limbaugh. I’m still looking for a nice breeding pair of banana slugs. Have you seen banana slug porn? It’s HOT!
I hate that guy I’m sorry to say. It just is not good for me to hate people but that guy makes it impossible. I had the unfortunate experience to have to listen to him while at work for a few months, it was torture.
He has one product and he peddles and that is resentment.
Is this his final McCarthy moment similar to Joseph Nye Welch said “Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” I doubt it, there are many who prefer him spouting his bile every day.
This whole protest about the health care reform law is really ignorant or something.
They do not seem to understand how insurance works to spread out individual costs or reduce over all cost. Like it’s OK for the insurance to pay for my care but not to pay for yours?
I keep hoping I might hear true reason instead of posturing BS.
uncle frogy
Damn those Nazis and their amateur fascist Nazi porn Nazi Nazi!
They’re going to have to think up a new slur soon, I think they’ve worn this one out.
I think Eli Rabett points out by how much the point is being missed:
“So let Eli tell you exactly how stupid Limbaugh, Landsburg, Lubos and the jackels are: No slut, whore, what have you, uses birth control pills today to let them screw about. Why not? Have the clowns not heard about HIV?? Birth control pills are no barriers to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Birth control pills as birth control are used by women in committed if not married relationships. They are also used to control the pain of menstruation and other conditions. In other words they are pharmaceuticals used to control biological functions. They are medicines. Health insurance covers medicines, and if you are lucky enough to be covered, it even covers some for others that you will never use.”
http://rabett.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/pay-attention-to-what-carrion-eaters.html
Speaking of Satan!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFpFO4MwHUQ
Never thought that clip would be my first post at Pharyngula. I’ll do better next time…promise.
long time reader, first time poster.
Sorry.
TomatoSalad@5:
I have to acho echidna@23 here. Yes, it’s unfortunate and creates a division to say “but birth control has other uses”, as though actually using it to prevent pregnancy is still shameful, and does kind of ignore how insurance works. But by scrutinizing the usage, rather than saying “you need this hormone therapy? okay, here it is” no questions, it’s opening the whole thing up to problems.
Plus, by ignoring the fact that birth control pills have a wide variety of uses (which many people probably don’t know), you get instances like this story over at DailyKOS about a 16-year-old bullied for taking the pill, including being called a slut and whore. And that’s not uncommon, even 10 years ago when I was in high school – I was very careful to never reveal that I was on the pill for hormone therapy because I saw what happened when it got out.
It should be accepted that birth control pills are used for a wide variety of purpose, one of which is to prevent pregnancy, and it’s nobodies business except the woman and her doctor which one she is using it for.
Who does he think this benefits? Or, to put it another way, who does he think those slutty women are having sex with? Not men surely; because that would make the men just as slutty as the women and that obviously isn’t possible.
He referred to Chelsea Clinton as “the whitehouse dog”. She was 14 or 15, I think. His words were, perhaps, “better chosen”, but his misogyny was the same.
My wife had surgery for endomitriosis six years ago. The disease had spread so extensively that it had almost reached her spine. Another few months and it could have killed or crippled her. She also lost an ovary and both fallopian tubes. She now takes ‘The Pill’ prophylactically to avoid recurrence of the disease. We are somewhat lucky now as it is paid for by our insurance. We know how dangerous this disease is and the disasters that could follow for not having proper care.
We were covered for this and another woman wasn’t. This shows a great disparity in the consistency of health care in the country. The lack of central regulation due to insurance company control of people’s health, rather than physician/patient control, the lack of equal care for all and the loathsome tendrils of religious misogyny are the main culprits here. The situation was made more deplorable for Ms. Fluke’s friend as she had her insurers inhumanity, ineptitude, greed, and worst of all pious arrogance allow the condition to spread, a situation that never should have occurred in a modern industrialized state priding itself on its greatness and freedoms.
That this stupid, petty, ignorant, unctuous Limbaugh shouts the loudest and spreads his mental-feces the farthest causes the situation to fester in the country (and in women) is to me utterly reprehensible and disgusting. Representative Darrell Issa summoning Catholic geriatric males and a bunch of suits stuffed to the collar full of patriarchy to a hearing on women’s issues is reprehensible and disgusting. People voting for morally bankrupt pustules like Issa are reprehensible and disgusting. And people hearing the utter moral detritus of Limbaugh’s ideas and accepting them and carrying them out are worthy of being made to have to crawl a mile on their stomachs ough broken glass and dog shit. Unfortunately, that punishment has been banned in most places…such a waste of a worthy fate for these people.
To think that women will continue for several years to be subjected to this kind of unnecessary discrimination and animalistic sadism because of ‘Christian Values’ completely underscores my contempt for the hypocrisy of anyone suggesting they have these values. That it will continue on as it is or worse because of the ‘great thinkers’ and pundits of conservative bubble-space should be conservatism’s embarrassment and shame. That it finally took this to cause Limbaugh to lose his sponsors shows how thick the bubble wall is for that shame and embarrassment to at long last cause positive reaction.
Yay. Excellent editing on my part. “ough broken glass” is supposed to be “through broken glass”. I hate tiny squares for typing stuff.
Just send rush to /r/gonewild :)
I’m having a bit of a moral dilemma with people like him.
There isn’t a single thing about the guy I could call “good”.
Even in his private life, he is an over entitled jackass with a 1st world drug problem, who married and cheated more often then the best of the bigots.
I wanted to make a joke about sending him to /r/gonewild, and that maybe he’d get another heartattack, a risk I’m more then willing to take.
But then my conscious got the better of me and felt bad to wish death on someone, even jokingly.
But then, again, I looped back to searching an actual positive reason for the guy to live and I can’t find a single one.
He isn’t even funny anymore (something guys like Beck at least still are) and everything he spews, is about and represents is just pure and simple, plain evil bigotry.
Could someone tell me just one good thing about the guy so I don’t feel so conflicted in finding no reason what so ever to NOT wish a speedy death upon the asshole?
Its like Hitchens cheering the death of Jerry Falwell.
It felt wrong, but by thinking a bit about it, there was actually nothing to be argued for the guy.
He referred to Chelsea Clinton as “the whitehouse dog”. She was 14 or 15, I think. His words were, perhaps, “better chosen”, but his misogyny was the same.
13. She was born in 1980, and the program aired sometime in the late summer or early fall of 1993. I remember it very vividly because I happened to be doing a special assignment for my job around that time frame, and had gone home for lunch. When I turned on the TV to play a video game, that disgusting piece of shit was on the air, and before I could switch the channel, he puked up that tidbit. I sat there with my hand on the remote with my jaw hanging open. I couldn’t believe that such a repulsive scumbag had the fucking gall to say that about a young girl who had done absolutely nothing to anyone, except for being born to somebody it benefited that fat fuck to hate on.
They’ll need to make a national holiday for all the people who will be fucking cheering when this worthless piece of shit finally dies off.
So, the old moralist surfaces as a pervert who wants to see amateur porn. Surprise surprise!
And, of course, I think I can’t pass this opportunity to brag: not only my home country now is the 6th economy in the world, but we also have free contraceptives in the health care system for DECADES now, while you still debate if that should be legal, moral, or whatever. Condoms, pills, vasectomy, whatever you need.
TAKE THAT, UNITED STUPIDS OF AMERICA! WE’RE COMING TO TAKE YOUR PLACE! SUCK IT!
I also wish that every single sponsor pulling their ads would use the term ‘notpology’ in their communication with Limbaugh’s people so he might one day come to the realization of what a total douche he really is.
#28 captstormfield:
Wouldn’t it be nice if Rush was “Santorumed” in the Google world. Perhaps having his name inextricably linked to some particularly noxious sub-genre of porn would be appropriate.
In honour of the late, great Bill Hicks, can I suggest that it be something to do with scat-munching?