From Denny: What a week. The comics could not ask for better material. It was handed to them on a silver platter. And the Obama White House aides are dancing in the halls because they cannot believe their good fortune.
Don't get cocky, guys, it might not last. Besides, there are always the fast rising fuel prices to torpedo what you thought was an easy win.
Obama and the health insurance debacle
President Obama fumbled the health insurance football when it came to the issue of women's birth control, desperately trying to woo back the women's vote from his own party. So, he shoved it down the throats of the religious groups' hospitals and teaching institutions. The stormy political theater all played out without much forethought as is typical of this too political White House that prefers to campaign rather than actually doing the hard work of governing the country.
The Catholic Church's bishops were immediately the most vocal, hoping unrealistically, like a crazed frightened horse running out of a burning barn, to regain women's issues politically into their camp. Obama received a hurricane level of push back from a wide spectrum of religious groups. After the dust settled it was revealed that the push back has backfired on the churches and the Republicans.
Catholic Church and sexual abuse lawsuits damage control
After all, the Vatican and all male hierarchy were looking for a way to get back to the top to reestablish dominance after a long drag - years of negative press to date - and continuing to mount at least $3 billion in lawsuit settlements for sexual abuse cases against the church from their now mad as hell adult victims.
American church groups howl against Obama
The Catholic Church, and a slew of conservative Protestant churches, howled their indignation at being forced by the state to provide birth control, even abortions in the case of rape or incest to employees or patients at their hospitals. The GOP and conservative churches roared back, thinking here was their triumphant wedge issue - and their delusional finest hour.
Churches ignore Jesus Christ teachings about women and government
They also seemed to conveniently forget the teaching of Jesus Christ "to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's." You know, like give up your tax exempt status and pay your taxes to the government and then follow the laws of the land.
But hey, WWJD was not considered here. Jesus was the most prominent trail blazer in all of history when it came to championing women's issues and rights. He treated women as equals - still does. Not the same can be said for those who claim to represent him here on Earth.
Obama publicly backs down - again
Obama backed down, ticking off women voters. Uh, wasn't that the very group he was trying to win back into his camp? He relented and changed course by then forcing the health insurance carriers to directly offer the health plan to women to include the obvious and necessary, bypassing the howlers from the religious community.
Compromise that should have been the original decision
It was a good compromise. Why not do that in the first place? Maybe it had to do with angering a sizable chunk of his campaign money base, the insurance industry? It's this lack of thorough thinking about hard issues by the political hacks - especially Axelrod who treats the women who work in the White House like second class citizens - that gets Obama in trouble time and again. Obama and his team are too busy trying to devise ways to score points with a voter faction to take into account the whole of the country and how they are perceived by the public.
Rick Santorum rise in GOP primary
It's like the entire week was governed by Captain Outrageous. Newt Gingrich is well branded for the hysterical rhetoric of the grandiose, the outrageous and the obnoxious. Now along comes the GOP new darling dark horse in the GOP primary race for the White House: Rick Santorum.
Gingrich vs. Santorum gaffes
While Gingrich requires a Truth Meter in your pocket every time he opens his mouth, Santorum requires a WTF Meter to measure his insults to not just your intelligence but your entire life as you live it - especially if you are a woman. Santorum continues to litter the political highway with gaffe after gaffe, rising in the GOP polls for it. To say the country is off on the wrong track is evidenced by the sudden Santorum popularity.
Catholic Church off on the wrong track
If these two guys, Gingrich and Santorum, are the best the Catholic Church can churn out for national leadership in this generation then the church may not exist much longer. There was a time when the Catholic Church was known for its philosophical thinkers, intellectual giants and societal game changers, challenging the needs of women, children, the middle class and the poor.
What the Catholic Church lacks these days is a heart of true compassion like the real Jesus. In fact, all the conservative churches are suffering from a lack of compassion toward their fellow humans: women. Women are swept into the corner like a subhuman class of property to do with as they will - swept aside as unimportant and powerless with the "how dare you!" attitude of questioning such a vile societal practice.
Santorum, GOP hostile toward women's rights and issues
Santorum, and far too many of his GOP colleagues in the House and Senate, exhibit a hostile attitude toward women. Santorum demands that women not be allowed to determine their own medical decisions. He agrees that is reserved for fat old white men who are clueless about women's health issues like on the House panel of only men to discuss women's issues. Yet another example to point to the reason for the lowest approval rating in history for Congress: ten percent.
Case in point this week: GOP Rep. Issa refused to allow the minority Democrats to have any women on the panel. Female politicians, black and white, objected vehemently and their needs were dismissed as not necessary by Issa.
What was also most annoying is Issa placed one black clergyman on the panel along with the fat white guys, several were priests. Now what does a black man (or celibate priests) know about women's issues? Should a black man not be more sensitive considering the long uphill fight of gaining civil rights for African-Americans in this country? How would he feel if a panel of white women or black women decided his fate for black male issues? (That could get ugly.)
Santorum: Is he really running for Pope instead of the White House?
Santorum sets himself up as God From On High, like some American Pope, that women are supposed to take him seriously and follow his edicts about his twisted version of morality and fear of sexuality. What is he, some frustrated priest that couldn't graduate seminary and then regrets marrying and fathering seven children? He no longer feels holy? Will someone mail him a Jewish psychiatrist that specializes in guilt?
American Catholic women and their view of the Vatican teachings in regard to women's issues
The reality is that American Catholic women don't take Santorum any more seriously than they do the Pope and the Vatican when it comes to any demands, cleverly cloaked as supposed church doctrine. Since 1968 the Catholic Church has tried to order around women when it comes to birth control and other very personal medical decisions that is none of their business (Pope Paul VI, "Humanae Vitae").
The low emotional intelligence of the Vatican and the American bishops have produced disastrous results during the ensuing decades, greatly harming the relationship with any women of intelligence and independence, young, old, married or single.
The Vatican actually tries to claim that taking birth control is a violation of conscience for Catholics. Women are smart enough to understand these guys are not representing God but rather their own needs to maintain control and dominance in order to keep the money flowing into their coffers, keeping the bureaucracy afloat.
What American Catholic women really practice in their daily lives
The reality is that American Catholic women quietly ignore the Vatican teachings, sloughing them off as insensitive to the needs of women, immature in scope, economically unrealistic for those living in poverty and political grand-standing. The truth is that 98 percent of sexually active American Catholic women do practice some version of birth control. The reality is that 78 percent of all Catholics, male and female, are of the opinion that obeying the Vatican teachings on birth control are not necessary to practice as demanded and still be regarded as "a good Catholic."
Crazy Santorum Quotes
Another outrageous belief from Santorum is saying that the Obama health care plan requires free pre-natal testing in order to create and encourage more abortions (see the following video). I told you to bring your WTF Meter with you today.
Pre-natal testing is done for a variety of reasons, not just wondering if a child may end up disabled. Besides, most pregnant women who find out their child will be challenged choose not to have an abortion. Many high risk babies have been diagnosed in the womb and later saved after birth due to this testing because doctors had time to arrange an operating room and develop a surgery or treatment that would save the baby. Every moment counts with a newborn.
Santorum on Educaton: "The idea that the federal government should be running (public) schools - or, frankly, that the states government should be running schools - is anachronistic. It goes back to the time of the industrialization of America when people came off the farms where they did home school or had the little neighborhood school where they came into these big factories so we built equal factories called schools."
"Didn't I Tell Ya?" to bring your WTF Meter today? This post could run on for days if I kept quoting the WTF remarks from Santorum. If he ends up the GOP nominee, Obama may well get that celebration dance - barring the economic implosion of Europe, Iran nuking Israel, Israel nuking Iran and fuel prices above $4.
Be sure to check out the late night jokes about Santorum below the video clips.
"Didn't I Tell Ya?" to bring your WTF Meter today? This post could run on for days if I kept quoting the WTF remarks from Santorum. If he ends up the GOP nominee, Obama may well get that celebration dance - barring the economic implosion of Europe, Iran nuking Israel, Israel nuking Iran and fuel prices above $4.
Be sure to check out the late night jokes about Santorum below the video clips.
Late Night Jokes Sampling About Rick Santorum
"Rick Santorum said women might not be suited for military action because their emotions aren't suited for combat. Which can mean only one thing: He’s never seen an episode of ‘The View.’” –Jimmy Fallon
"Rick Santorum doesn’t like sex. He doesn’t like the pill. He really doesn’t like condoms. He said if men are going to pull something on to prevent procreation, nothing works better that a sweater vest." - Bill Maher
"They're saying now it looks like the state of Michigan is swinging toward Rick Santorum. And I think if there's a word that best describes Rick, it's 'swinging.'" - David Letterman
“We have a new frontrunner for the Republicans, Rick Santorum...the little creep that could.” – Bill Maher
“Santorum made a speech and said, ‘If we follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are heading down the road to the guillotine.’ The guillotine, really? This is why he’s ahead. In one sentence, he hit on all the things they love at the Republican convention: logical fallacies, Obama paranoia, and f*ck the French.” – Bill Maher
“Rick Santorum is against birth control, he’s against ordaining women as priests, he thinks two women kissing is immoral. See, this is the difference between me and Rick Santorum; neither one of us got a lot of dates in high school, but I just didn’t spend the rest of my life taking it out on women.” – Bill Maher
“Romney, Gingrich, Santorum spent their week lecturing America about the morality of birth control. You know, you guys don’t need birth control, you are birth control.” – Bill Maher
“We have a new frontrunner for the Republicans, Rick Santorum…the little creep that could.” – Bill Maher
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