Thursday, July 17, 2014

Low bars

For nearly two years straight now, the political left has been dinging the Republican party for declaring a "war on women." While there's no question that GOP talking points on appealing to female voters needs some work, we should easily be able to swat away the insane rhetoric on how the political right is trying to outlaw birth control.

Like Nancy Pelosi's flat out fabrications regarding the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling.

“We should be afraid of this court. That five guys should start determining what contraceptions are legal or not. … It is so stunning,” Pelosi said during a press briefing in the Capitol.Pelosi said last week’s Supreme Court ruling that the birth control mandate under President Obama’s healthcare reform law is a violation of religious freedom was particularly egregious.

“That court decision was a frightening one,” she said. “That five men should get down to the specifics of whether a woman should use a diaphragm and she should pay for it herself or her boss. It’s not her boss’s business. His business is whatever his business is. But it’s not what contraception she uses.”

Not to be outdone, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren (whom, rumor has it, the Obamas prefer to be the Democrat nominee for President in 2016) piled on with a statement totally ignorant of a timeline.

“Remember last year's government shutdown that nearly tanked our economy?” Warren asked. “That fight started with a GOP effort to hold the whole operation of the federal government hostage in order to try to force Democrats and the president to let employers deny workers access to birth control.”

Um, no, sorry.

The government shutdown occurred over a continuing resolution to fund the government since no budget could be agreed upon. Republicans used the opportunity to try and defund Obamacare.

Republicans were upset over the Obama administration's selective enforcement of certain provisions in Obamacare. The main problem the GOP had at the time was the announcement of a delay in the employer mandate.

Warren appears to be getting her claim from a 2011 Huffington Post article, which said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the House would not vote for any spending bill containing funding for Planned Parenthood.

But that was 2011, and the government shutdown was in 2013.
The left also lobs shots at Republicans for not having more women in leadership positions, whether it be in state legislatures or the United States Congress. Well if Pelosi (former House Speaker, current House Minority Leader) and Warren (possible Presidential candidate) are the supposed standard bearers, the right should be able to leap that low bar without even trying.

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