Take your pope and… » « I’m filing this one away as an example of one of the most dishonest graphs ever

St Cecile

Why was Cecile Richards brought before congress to answer questions if she wasn’t going to be allowed to speak?

No, stop, don’t answer the question, I have to interrupt you right now.

It’s because Republicans are assholes.

I’m kind of amazed at Richards’ equanimity, though.

Take your pope and… » « I’m filing this one away as an example of one of the most dishonest graphs ever

Comments

  1. themadtapper says

    Seeing that big “MS. RICHARDS” sign reminded me of something. Haven’t a lot of modern countries stopped using different words for married vs. unmarried women (I know I’ve read that “fraulein” is now an obsolete word in German)? Yet here in the US people still feel the need to have special titles to point out single women vs. married (but not men, of course).

  2. says

    themadtapper
    Ms. is actually the neutral term used for both married and unmarried women. It’s not the abreviation of “miss”, though it is problematic when it comes to pronounciation.
    Yes, Germany has stopped using “Fräulein” a few decades ago, but don’t get me started on people being idiots because you decided to keep your last name…

    +++
    As for Cecile Richards, I’m amazed as well. I think at some point I would have stopped answering and then asked if they would allow me to finish my sentence when asked why I didn’T answer.

  3. themadtapper says

    Ms. is actually the neutral term used for both married and unmarried women. It’s not the abreviation of “miss”, though it is problematic when it comes to pronounciation.

    Ah, I gotcha.

  4. The Other Lance says

    Ms. Richards demonstrated how to adult in front of several Congresspeople who will never know how to adult properly. An amazing performance in the face of such childishness.

  5. gmacs says

    @2 on last names…

    Yep. I get shit as a male for hyphenating my last name when I got married. I’ve gotten support for it though.

    My favorite is “but your name is so long now”.

  6. Who Cares says

    Hey what else can they do if a mere woman won’t let them grandstand on/against a subject that they’ve been trying to strawman to death for 15+ years now.

  7. fmitchell says

    I think the Congrescritters were using a technique that proved successful* during trials for witchcraft and heresy.

    * “success” by pre-Enlightenment criteria.

  8. Janine the Jackbooted Emotion Queen says

    All of this over easily discredited lied.

    Fuck it all, we live in a Breitbart culture, a place where repeated lies become a reality that smashes people’s lives.

  9. says

    Here is Rachel Maddow’s interview with Cecile Richards. This is from last night’s show. Richards appeared on the Maddow show in the evening, after having been grilled/interrupted for five hours by Republicans in Congress.

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/planned-parenthood-popular-despite-gop-blitz-534752323969

    Maddow allowed Richards to speak without being interrupted. As a result, we get more information in 5:22 minutes than we got during the Congressional hearing.

  10. says

    Cross-posted from the Moments of Political Madness thread.

    Here are a few more telling details related to the hearings that Congress held concerning Planned Parenthood.

    “The outrageous accusations leveled against Planned Parenthood, based on heavily doctored videos, are offensive and categorically untrue,” Richards said. The group has repeatedly said it only accepts small sums to cover necessary costs. Less than 1% of Planned Parenthood affiliates currently offer patients the choice of participating in fetal tissue donation< […]
    ——————-
    Several Republican members of the committee repeatedly asked Richards why the organization doesn’t provide mammograms. Richards replied that like other women’s health service providers, their medical practitioners refer to specialists for mammograms if a breast exam shows a need for it.
    ————–
    Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat and the ranking member of the committee, repeatedly complained that Republicans hadn’t called David Daleiden, who spent three years posing as a tissue procurement company in an effort to catch Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers in breaking the law. Cummings requested the opportunity to question Daleiden in a letter sent Sept. 21. “They don’t want to subject him to the difficult and uncomfortable questions that relate to the actual facts,” Cummings said.
    ———————
    Planned Parenthood receives about $528.4 million in federal funding, about 75% of which was reimbursements for direct services to Medicaid patients. Under the Hyde Amendment, none of that funding goes to abortion services, but covers services relating to contraception and sexually-transmitted infections, as well as screening for cervical and breast cancer. In 2013, Planned Parenthood saw 2.7 million women and men.
    —————–
    It is currently illegal for states to discriminate against qualified healthcare providers, presenting a legal hurdle for states that want to defund Planned Parenthood, but a bill has been introduced in the House to change that. It would allow states to deny Medicaid funding to any “individual or entity based on the individual’s or entity’s involvement in abortions.”

    Link
    Good video is also available at the link.

  11. says

    Chaffetz is from Utah. He is one of Utah’s mormon politicians that combines his religious conservatism with political conservatism. The governor of Utah, Gary Herbert, is another conservative politician that has tried to take down Planned Parenthood.

    Cross-posted from the Moments of Political Madness thread.

    Here’s some good news.

    A judge on Tuesday blocked an order issued by Utah Gov. Gary Herbert to cut off federal money going to Planned Parenthood in the state after the release of secretly recorded videos by a California anti-abortion group.

    U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups issued the temporary restraining order during a hearing, allowing the money to keep flowing while the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah seeks a longer-term injunction. […]

    Herbert acted on his personal and political agenda when he cut off funding to the organization […]

    Utah’s move to cut off funding followed similar moves in other states against Planned Parenthood chapters. The organization has also filed lawsuits in Arkansas, Alabama and Louisiana to block those states from stripping Planned Parenthood of contracts and federal money distributed by the states.

    […] Herbert was concerned that the national Planned Parenthood organization may be “coloring outside the lines,” Green said. […]

    Salt Lake Tribune link

    In a nice touch of irony, Judge Waddoups is a mormon, with a long line of mormon ancestors. He is part of what is known as the mormon aristocracy, and has been accused in the past of giving mormon white collar criminals light sentences. He graduated from Brigham Young University, and later in his career was appointed by George Bush as a judge.

    Some mormons cannot believe that Waddoups would rule as he did in this case. Part of their reaction includes a belief that he must not be mormon. From the comments (errors are in the original):

    I’m sick of activist liberal judges shoving planned parenthood and abortions down are throats. Vote out Waddoups now and get a good LDS [Latter Day Saint = mormon] judge that shares are values!

    Luckily, others with more working brain cells replied:

    A typo masking yet another desire of the Religious Reich to impose at least a de-facto theocracy upon us by having religious officials, in this case a judge, act in a religious, not constitutional manner when determining secular law.

    Federal judges are appointed, not elected He cannot be “voted out.” Liberal? Judge Waddoups was appointed by George Bush, with the support of Sen. Hatch who said of him: “He is an outstanding lawyer, and I know he will do a terrific job.” Some liberal. Get an LDS judge? Judge Waddoups is a graduate of BYU.

  12. says

    Cross-posted from the Moments of Political Madness thread.

    As Republicans in the House of Congress try to defund Planned Parenthood, with threats to shut down the government if they don’t get their way, one of their major talking points is that there are thousands of already-existing clinics that could replace Planned Parenthood. That talking point is a lie, patently false, easy to disprove.

    Yes, there’s a list of 13,540 clinics, listed by state, that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services) put out. Most of the clinics listed do not have a certified OB-GYN on staff. They do not have the expertise, nor in most cases the medical equipment, to provide reproductive health services for women.

    Many private clinics do not take Medicaid patients. About half of Planned Parenthood patients rely on Medicaid.

    […] the Congressional Budget Office estimated in a report issued earlier this month that if Planned Parenthood were defunded, as many as 650,000 women “in areas without access to other health care clinics or medical practitioners who serve low-income populations” would lose their reproductive health care.

    And a survey by the Guttmacher Institute found that women often value specialized family planning clinics such as Planned Parenthood over primary care clinics for reasons such as affordability, increased confidentiality, and a greater range of contraceptive options. Guttmacher also reports that in 103 counties, Planned Parenthood is the only “safety net” family planning service, meaning that a large portion of their patients are either uninsured or reliant on Medicaid. […]

  13. says

    Here’s snippet from the transcript of the many times that Republicans on the hearing committee interrupted Cecile Richards.

    Chaffetz, who chairs the committee, started off by asking Richards about funds that were sent overseas.

    “Do any of these funds go to the Democratic Republic of the Congo?” Chaffetz said early in the back-and-forth.

    “Congressman, let me tell you —” Richards said before Chaffetz interrupted her.

    “No, no, no. We don’t have time for a big narrative,” Chaffetz said.

    “I’m not going to give you a narrative —” Richards said.

    “Yes or no,” Chaffetz replied, before Richards gave a more lengthy response.

    A few moments later, Chaffetz asked Richards, “In your 2013 tax return, it lists $3.3 million marked as ‘investment’ in Central America and the Caribbean. I’m just asking you if that investment was an actual investment.”

    “We don’t own anything in those countries. What —” Richards said as she was interrupted by Chaffetz.

    “OK,” he said. “I have to keep going.”

    Chaffetz and Richards later squabbled about the difference between the main Planned Parenthood organization and its fundraising arm.

    “I just want to make sure you understood my statements as I know that we’re talking about federal funds,” Richards said. “Zero federal funds are related —”

    “It’s the co-mingling that bothers us!” Chaffetz replied. “Every dollar —”

    “We —” Richards said.

    “Now hold on,” he said.

    There were several instances when Richards attempted to clarify statements Chaffetz made about Planned Parenthood, interjecting with an “excuse me, sir” to which Chaffetz would say, “hold on.”

    Chaffetz also continued to interrupt Richards’ testimony, which was noted by some of his fellow Congress members.

    At one point, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) asked Richards after he asked a few questions, “Is there anything else you want to add, uninterrupted, with some sense of respect, Ms. Richards? Let me at least provide that to you.”

    Chaffetz also took time to note Richards’ salary.

    “Your compensation in 2009 was $353,000. Is that correct?” he asked.

    “I don’t have the figures with me, but —” Richards said.

    “It was,” Chaffetz replied. “Congratulations.”

  14. busterggi says

    You see, according to the bible women aren’t allowed to speak in church and what is congress, by REpublican standards, if not just another church?

  15. blf says

    [W]hat is congress, by REpublican standards, if not just another church?

    No, the thugs know they are the great sky faeries’s most critical, important, trusted, and absolutely vital advisor. Each and every one of them is the Grand Vicar. Without them, the great sky faeries’s would never accomplish anything. They are directly involved in all aspects, from making sure the planet is flat and the Sun orbits it daily, to the “Big Stuff” such as ensuring wimmin don’t, unless assorted males say otherwise.

  16. lesherb says

    Ms. Richards’ salary was questioned in an insulting manner during the hearing (which is a strange term for what that was since the Republicans didn’t hear a thing she said). She proved she’s worth 100% of her salary by the way she comported herself yesterday.

  17. unclefrogy says

    they seem to think that they need to sound and act like an american tv cop questioning the bad guy acting all tough no none sense manly hero or something.
    uncle frogy