W.T.F. I caught wind of this on The Daily Show last night:

The Senate Finance Committee approved an amendment that would provide millions of dollars to fund abstinence-only programs on a 12 to 11 vote last night. The amendment, sponsored by Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT), would allocate $50 million per year for such programs through 2014, according to the Washington Independent.

All 10 Republicans on the committee and Democratic Senators Kent Conrad (ND) and Blanche Lincoln (AK) voted for the Hatch amendment.

So we can't get a public option, but they can get abstinence only funding even when it's been proven REPEATEDLY that abstinence only doesn't work? Even Bristol Palin knows that, or at least she did before her mother got to her.

Even Texas, one of the most conservative states in the country is coming the the realization that abstinence only doesn't work:

Some Texas school districts are abandoning abstinence-only curricula in favor of abstinence-based programs that also teach about contraception and prevention of sexually transmitted infections, the Austin American-Statesman reports. Many of the school districts, including Austin's, made the change after it became clear that teen pregnancy rates were climbing under the abstinence-only approach, according to the American-Statesman. The change also comes as the Obama administration seeks to shift federal abstinence-only dollars to programs proven to reduce teen pregnancy rates.

More government money has been spent teaching abstinence in Texas than any other state, and it has the third-highest teen birth rate in the country, the American-Statesman reports. A Texas State University study released earlier this year found that less than 5% of Texas districts have comprehensive sex education. The school districts in Austin, Lufkin and some other areas have adopted "abstinence-plus" curricula, which teach that abstinence is the safest choice but also stress the importance of using contraception if teens become sexually active.

If TEXAS can get it, why can't the Senate?

Instead of voting to support something that any non-biased source believes will actually WORK when it comes to lowering the cost of health care, they chose to vote to support a curriculum that doesn't work, hasn't work, and will NEVER work? Where is the logic in that.

In fact, there are a lot of states that don't even bother with the funding, which means there are millions of dollars out there going unclaimed that could be claimed by states that need the money for stuff that actually WORKS:

We also referenced an Associated Press article that confirmed the data noting “that participation in the program is down 40 percent over two years.” States opting not to partake in the program meant that nearly half of all funds for such programming remained unclaimed, this despite the fact that most states were experiencing enormous funding shortfalls.

In fact:

In the most recent study, researchers compared teens who had taken the virginity pledge to those who had not taken a pledge. The researchers found results similar to the aforementioned studies.

First, the rate of the teens taking part in sex was the same. Those taking the virginity pledge were just as likely to have intercourse. The only positive, statistically small, was that those taking the pledge had 0.1 fewer sex partners over the five year study than did those who did not take such a pledge.

However, two other findings were most damning. First, those taking the virginity pledge were less likely to protect themselves. Pledge takers were found to be less frequent users of condoms and other forms of birth control.

Therefore, those youngsters who took the virginity pledge were not only just as likely to have intercourse, they ultimately were more likely to take part in sex in an unsafe manner. This has led experts to conclude that the lessons students take from their abstinence-only education programs is a negative and/or faulty view of contraception.

Instead of listening to the FACTS, the Senators seem to be listening to the batshit crazy "logic" of people like Michele Bachman (R-Crazy):

The bill goes on to say what's going to go on -- comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care -- is that abortion? Does that mean that someone's 13 year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser.

To be fair, Max Baucus actually did something RIGHT in proposing another amendment which also passed:

Committee Chair, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), opposed Hatch's amendment and offered his own amendment. The Baucus amendment would create a program that would include information on contraceptive options, abstinence, and life skills, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. The committee also voted to pass the Baucus amendment on 14 to 9 vote.

Meanwhile, we get something they call a "quasi-public option":

The Senate Finance Committee narrowly passed an amendment Thursday from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) that moves the conservative panel as close as it will likely get to a public health insurance option.

The amendment creates a "federally funded, non-Medicaid, state plan which combines the innovation and quality of private sector competition with the purchasing power of the states," according to an overview.

It would be available to people with incomes above Medicaid eligibility but below 200 percent of the federal poverty level -- a very narrow window. However, Republicans fear -- and progressives hope -- that once the plan becomes law there will be pressure to expand it.

The plan would not be free. It is based on Washington state's Basic Health plan, which costs roughly 60 dollars a month, with the remainder of the premium subsidized by the state.

Private insurers would be eligible to participate in the plan, as would HMOs or other networks of health care providers.

Huh? That sounds a hell of a lot more complicated than the actual public options I've been hearing about.

And once again I have to turn to late night news/satire to get the truth:







All three of those clips illustrate how the Democrats are blowing a good thing. They have no more excuses, yet they seem to be doing everything they in their power to fail. They are no different when it comes to working for the lobbyists instead of their constituents.


And with all of this bending over backwards to think more like Republicans than Democrats, they STILL won't get any Republican support:

The Senate Republican leader made clear on Wednesday that his party, despite all its griping over the public health insurance option, abortion-funding or health care for illegal immigrants, is simply and flatly opposed to the "core" of the Democratic health care reform proposal.

Satisfying every Republican demand short of scrapping the entire project, said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), would still not capture GOP support.

Maybe we should do as Stephen suggests, and have everyone send Max Baucus and the other "Democrats" on that committee our health insurance bills, so he can pay them.

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They are having a hard time reigning in the "crazy". By they I mean the Republican "leadership." It was reported last week that perhaps Reps. Boehner and Cantor were trying to reign in the crazy part of their Republican family. Remember this?:

Long before the tea parties or Wilson’s outburst, Boehner and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) had struggled to moderate the rhetorical excesses of House conservatives hammering away on Obama’s birth certificate, decrying the creation of “death panels” and ferreting out signs of creeping socialism.

Sources say they have been especially wary of the possible damage inflicted on the party’s reputation by bomb-throwing Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who last fall called for an investigation into whether members of Congress are “pro-America or anti-America.”

Well, as it turns out, the all powerful Right Wing base weighed in and now Boehner and Cantor are singing a different tune.

Check out this screen capture from their blog (which apparently has since changed):



The Huffington Post points out:

One fan in particular -- Andy Aplikowski, a conservative Minnesota blogger -- suggested that GOP leaders were "spineless wimps" who had issued "stupid and moronic attacks on one of the best members of your caucus."

"A word of advice, issue an apology and retraction right now, or else. Or else you will see people like me bust their butt so hard that she raises millions, wins by a landslide, and takes your job and sends you to the back bench," Aplikowski wrote on his relatively obscure blog, ResidualForces.

The blog entry apparently resonated deep within the circles of GOP power. Addressing their reply personally to Aplikowski, both Boehner and Cantor dismissed the Politico piece and insisted that Bachmann remains a strong fixture within the party.

When they asked the running joke Michael Steele why the letter was taken down from the original blog, his answer was that the letter was meant to go on the obscure blog run by Aplikowski.

All this does is give further evidence, as if we needed any more, that the far right is taking over the Republican Party as a whole. While we may celebrate this for the potential electoral victories it will bring us, it's really hurting the country. I think a guest on Rachel's Show (I think it was last week) put it best "a village cannot reorganize village life to suit the village idiot":



Full Transcript:

MADDOW:* * * willing to rule it out.

What do you think the White House strategy is going to be to rebut the fact that more than one in three conservatives think the president might be the anti-Christ? At least in New Jersey. That is a P.R. challenge.

Joining us now is Frank Schaeffer. He grew up in the religious far right. He is the author of “Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right and Lived to Take All or Almost All of It Back.” Mr. Schaeffer, thank you so much for coming back on the show tonight.

FRANK SCHAEFFER, THE HUFFINGTON POST: Thanks for having me on.

MADDOW: I do not know what possessed this polling firm to ask whether or not people think the president is the anti-Christ, but they did. Does the response rate among conservatives surprise you? More than one in three saying yes or they don‘t know.

SCHAEFFER: Well, I was a child when President Kennedy was assassinated, and my mother thought, because he died of a head wound, foretold in scripture of the anti-Christ he would be resurrected as the anti-Christ. She thought this might be a possibility.

So, those of us who come from the evangelical subculture have been weaned with our mother‘s milk on a changing cast list of villains. It might be Kennedy to one generation, Obama to the next.

But I think the larger point this brings up is that the mainstream—not just media, but culture—doesn‘t sufficiently take stock of the fact that within our culture, we have a subculture which is literally a fifth column of insanity, that is bred from birth through home school, Christian school, evangelical college, whatever, to reject facts as a matter of faith. And so, this substitute for authentic historic Christianity, and I may add as a little caveat here, I‘m a church-going Christian, really brings up the question: Can Christianity be rescued from Christians? And that‘s an open question.

And when you see a bunch of people going around thinking that our president is the anti-Christ, you have to draw one of two conclusions. Either these are racists looking for any excuse to level the next accusation or they‘re beyond crazy? And I think beyond crazy is a better explanation.

And that evangelical subculture has rotted the brain of the United States of America and we have a big slice of our population waiting for Jesus to come back. They look forward to Armageddon. Good news is bad news to them.

When we talk about the “Left Behind” series of books that I talk about in my book “Crazy for God.” what we‘re talking about is a group of people that are resentful because they‘ve been left behind by modernity, by science, by education, by art, by literature. The rest of us are getting on with our lives. These people are standing on the hilltop waiting for the end.

And this is a dangerous group of people to have as neighbors, and they‘re our national neighbors. And this is the source of all of these insanities that we see leveled at the president. One way or another they go back to this little evangelical subculture. It‘s a disaster.

MADDOW: It is one thing though to think about these as almost cultish
views, to think about these as views that are on the fringes of beyond the edge of mainstream Christianity. It‘s another thing to look at the numbers. I mean, in this same poll, the numbers are also really high on the question of whether or not the president was born in the United States 61 percent of McCain voters in New Jersey expressing doubt that Obama is American, saying he definitely wasn‘t born in the U.S. or they‘re not sure.

The birther thing has been disproven. The anti-Christ thing is—it‘s all another kettle of fish. But how do you work to move people off that position? It doesn‘t seem like facts are relevant in trying to move people away from these beliefs.

SCHAEFFER: You don‘t work to move them off this position. You move past them. Look, a village cannot reorganize village life to suit the village idiot. It‘s as simple as that. And we have to understand, we have a village idiot in this country, it‘s called “Fundamentalist Christianity.”

And until we move past these people—and let me add as a former lifelong Republican—until the Republican leadership has the guts to stand up and say it would better—it would be better not to have a Republican Party than have a party that caters to the village idiot, there‘s going to be no end in sight. The next thing they‘ll do is accuse Obama of being the anti-Christ and then who knows what comes next on and on it goes.

There is no end to this stuff. Why? Because this subculture has as its fundamentalist faith that they distrust facts per se. They believe in a younger of 6,000 years old with dinosaurs cavorting with human beings. They think that whether it‘s economic news or news from the Middle East, it all has to do with the end of time and Christ returns. This is la-la land.

And the Republican Party is totally enthralled to this subculture to the extent that there is no Republican Party. There is a fundamentalist subculture which has become a cult. It‘s fed red meat by the pawns like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and other people who are just not terribly bright themselves and they are talking to even stupider people. That‘s where we‘re at. That‘s where all of this is coming from.

And it‘s becoming circular. It‘s becoming a joke. Unfortunately, a dangerous joke because once in a while, one of these “looney tunes,” as we see, brings guns to public meetings. Who knows what they do next. It‘s a serious thing we all have to face, but the Democrats and sane Americans just have to move past these people, say, “Wait on the hilltop until the end, the rest of us are going to get on with rebuilding our country.”

MADDOW: Mr. Schaeffer, briefly, is there anybody on the right who could be constructive here if they wanted to be? To the extent that people could be moved off of these conspiracy theories? And I understand your point that they not—it‘s not true that all of them could be. But is there anybody who could be influential to try to stop the impact of these conspiracies?

SCHAEFFER: Look, in the year 2000 I worked for John McCain, to try to get him elected in the primaries instead of George Bush. But John McCain sold out by nominating Sarah Palin who comes directly from the heart of this movement and carries with her all that baggage. So, he sold out. I don‘t see anybody on the Republican side of things these days who has the moral standing to provide real leadership, or who will risk their position to do so.

MADDOW: Frank Schaeffer, author of “Crazy for God”—thank you very much for your time tonight, sir. It‘s always fascinating and a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks.

SCHAEFFER: Thanks a lot.

Jon Stewart offered his take on the Values Voters Summit, worth a watch (and a chuckle or two):



(sorry, no transcript)


Cross-Posted@ DailyKos

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The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that Republicans are Boggarts. I'm a big fan of the Harry Potter Series, in fact I just finished reading all of the books yesterday. In the books there is a "thing" called a Boggart. Here's the description from Harry Potter Wiki

A boggart is a shape-shifting creature that takes on the form of the viewer's worst fear. When facing a boggart, it is best to have someone else along, to try to confuse it. Because of their shape-shifting ability, no one knows what a boggart looks like when it is alone.

Just look at how they react to EVERYTHING. They look for what they think will scare people the most and that's what they push out there. With President Obama during the campaign they pushed out that he's a scary Black Man. Then they said he's a Muslim (which shouldn't be a smear). They essentially called him a terrorist. They went after Michelle by trying to say she hates America.

Since before President Obama was elected, they have been claiming he's not a citizen of the United States, that he was born in Kenya. They even went so far as to make a fake birth certificate.

In the last month during the health care debate, they've tried to scare people with death panels. They've tried to scare people with tax hikes. They've tried to scare people with rationing. They've tried to scare people by saying Obama and the Democrats want to encourage soldiers to kill themselves after war.

And then we have this crap with the school children where they said Obama was going to try to indoctrinate them with his socialist tendencies. They blamed that on the "lesson plan" that's no longer being used. May the lesson plan's wording have been bad? Yes, but a lesson plan/literature that was completely optional to the teachers showing the speech was not enough to warrant the "uproar" that ensued.

And a little while ago on MSNBC, I saw perhaps the dumbest argument yet. Joe Watkins claimed that they had a problem with President Obama's speech because they are afraid the kids will like him too much. You see, President Obama is too eloquent and "persuasive" and he may undo any of the -wiring- teaching that parents have done. Today he's talking about staying in school to get the kids to like him, tomorrow he's telling them it's okay for gays to be married and abortion is a good thing. Parents have the constitutional right to raise their children as they wish, and I seriously doubt that a speech from the President is going to undo YEARS of -wiring- teachings. Joe Watkins had me CRACKIN' UP, literally. I was tempted to roll on the floor with laughter. (I seriously hope video pops up soon).

So, how do you get rid of Boggarts?

The charm that combats a boggart is Riddikulus. The charm requires a strong mind and good concentration. The incantation and wand movement alone will not affect a boggart. The correct way to perform the charm is to push past the fear, and concentrate on something that will make the boggart look amusing. The charm does not, in fact, repel a Boggart; it just forces it to assume a shape that the caster will find comical, inspiring laughter, which will defeat a boggart.

We know this works because laughter may well have saved us from a McCain Presidency, SNL eviscerated Sarah Palin week after week, even when she was ON the program they made her look like a fool. Indeed "that's ridiculous!" is usually what people say when they realize what the republican argument against _________ is.

The teabaggers, aside from the unfortunate name choice, were made to look completely insane and laughable, even if they had some legitimate complaints they jumped the shark to crazyland, and now no one takes them seriously.

Look at Michele Bachmann, every time I see her name I get ready to giggle. She never makes me mad, she may make me cry though (of laughter).

And then there's this school flap, my friends and I have been joking about it all morning on Facebook. Even if there were legitimate complaints at one time, they take it too far and it becomes hilarious.

The Republican Party thrives on fear, and can't take being mocked. They can dish it out, but they damn sure can't take it.

Now I'm not saying all of our "GOP" woes will be fixed with laughter, but once the party becomes a joke, people won't take them seriously at all anymore outside of their whacked out base (again, look at Sarah Palin).

Cross-Posted at DailyKos

UPDATE: Watch the Joe Watkins Video for epic LOLs

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