I’ve been busy getting our new chatroom up and running… If you registered today here on the website, you might have to re-register tomorrow using the chat registration. But after that, we’re done!
In the first hour of the show, I was joined by Howie Klein of Down With Tyranny and the Blue America PAC, talking about the need to elect real progressives to office, and a few of them who are worthy of your votes and donations!
In hour two – as we do every Monday – I was joined by Nicole Belle of Crooks and Liars for our Fools on the Hill segment. This week, she brought us the following…
The Susan G Komen/Planned Parenthood sucked the air out of the room for Mitt Romney’s victory in Nevada. It also didn’t help that Romney refused to go on any of the Sunday shows and all Newt wanted to do is whine about Romney.
So of course, instead we’re going to get conservative males—because that’s mostly the only type that’s ever booked—opining on the Komen controversy.
Proving his firm grasp on pseudo-science, Rick Santorum justified Komen’s defunding of Planned Parenthood because abortion increases the chance of breast cancer, donchaknow? Of course, this is the same guy who inserted himself in the Terry Schiavo debacle, so medical science is clearly not his forte.
Meanwhile, Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for Bush-Cheney, bemoans the messy kind of democracy evidence by the Komen pushback, where the little people rose up and said that the 1% cannot just push their agenda on us.
Tired of men talking about Planned Parenthood? You’re in luck, because Dana Loesch (and someone please tell me why she deserves a place on a national television show) opts to pimp a completely debunked “sting” by Lila Rose of Live Action as proof that Planned Parenthood should have started offering mammograms if they wanted to keep Komen funding. Except that PP never offered mammograms, just offered patients access to one.
Along the same lines, women’s reproductive health was definitely in discussion and on Meet the Press they segued from Komen to the new HHS regulation demanding that institutions—including religious ones that offer insurance to other non-church-going employees—offer contraception as part as their comprehensive care. Of course, David Brooks and Alex Castellanos use this to further the Gingrich meme that Obama has declared a war on religion. Thankfully, Rachel Maddow is there to remind these conservative white men that refusing contraceptive care in the 21st century is just not going to fly.
Contrast those examples, if you will, with the thoughtful discussion had on Up with Chris Hayes with *gasp* four women of the Komen controversy. Is it any wonder that Desmond Tutu at the World Economic Forum last week called for women to have a greater voice in government?