According to Fox News management, Martha MacCallum should be doing straight up news and not the kind of propaganda (whoops "opinion) done on Fox's morning and evening shows. While she does have guests who represent both sides of the issue, MacCallum's trademark comments, which support conservative positions, would seem to rebut the presumption that her show is "fair and balanced." But never mind "fair & balanced." When her guest is radical right wing Fox contributor, Sandy Rios, we go beyond the question of "fair & balanced" to insane. Such was the case on Monday when, during a segment about the HHS birth control mandate, Rios went beyond her usual level of incoherency. Not only did MacCallum think that was fine; but she managed to work in the Catholic bishops' talking point that "pregnancy is not a disease." Ah, don't ya love the smell of fair & balanced Fox "News" in the morning!
MacCallum reported that the Obama administration is now requiring colleges and universities to cover birth control in their student's health care plans. She noted that unnamed critics "are suggesting that politics" are involved and wanted to know if healthcare coverage will change with every presidential election. So far, so good. But it quickly went downhill as Sandy Rios, Fox contributor and head of the right wing "pro-family" "Family Pac," said that "the left wants to get into the most intimate decisions of your life." (LMAO, it's Republicans that want women penetrated with vaginal ultrasounds in order to have an abortion - in addition to a record number of other anti-choice bills!). She channeled the US Conference of Catholic Bishops when she asserted that "pregnancy is not an illness." Not surprisingly, she feels the HHS policy is "outrageous."
To MacCallum's question about whether these rules would be changed under a president Santorum administration (shuddering as I type) Julie Roginsky, a Democratic advisor, said that Santorum would be "out of the mainstream." She added that other medical policies have survived administrations. MacCallum worked in the agitprop with a statement about how the question is "whether birth control should be paid for" and whether it "is a personal responsibility, it's not a health care, it's not a disease as Sandy pointed out." Her eyes grew wide as she said "whether or not you have to pull out the $10 to $15 dollars out of your pocket once a month." After Roginsky argued that birth control prevents abortion and that it's not the governments business to say that women must abstain, MacCallum yelled, "they don't have to...the question is whether it should be paid for." That's when we crossed the border into the twilight zone.
Rios brayed that President Obama has pushed women's issues and "I'm a woman and I'm sick of this" and that she shouldn't have to pay for college girls to have "unbridled sex." She said that it's not just about stopping abortions but about the "mind" and "character" and "body" of a girl so - wait for it - "she's not going to be used up by a hundred men before she gets married." (WTF?) When Roginski said that married women want to be able to plan their pregnancies, MacCallum screeched "nothing has ever stopped them...it's not as issue of whether they have the ability to get it it's just an issue of whether it should be free for everybody in America." (Hey Martha, if they can't afford it, they can't get it.) Martha's eyes were shooting daggers as Roginski argued that birth control is "preventative." Roginski also said something that is never mentioned in Fox's promotion of the USCCB's talking points - that Catholic colleges get federal dollars. Rios last word took us straight to planet wingnut: "For a long time, Title X has been giving birth control to minor girls without parental consent. This has been the law -- I've been angry about this for years. I know its effect. I know that there was a 14-year-old girl who got impregnated by her high school gym teacher in theChicagosuburbs because she got birth control from Title X." (So, uh, she got pregnant while taking birth control?)
So there you have it. Birth control will allow college girls to be used up by hundreds of men. Who knew! And silly me, I thought that birth control empowers women. Fox News, Fair, Balanced, and Batshit Crazy!
(Nov. 11, 2019 update: Video is no longer available.)
NewsHound Alex commented
2012-03-21 18:34:33 -0400
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Priscilla commented
2012-03-21 18:33:49 -0400
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No self respecting drag queen would ever, I mean ever…Besides, Barbra and Judy are just far more fun. This stuff is depressing and that’s not how queen’s roll.
NewsHound Alex commented
2012-03-21 18:22:45 -0400
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Joseph West commented
2012-03-21 17:00:22 -0400
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So, when a woman’s pregnant and she spends many mornings throwing up, we can’t call it “morning sickness” any more?
I’d love to ask some of these morons if they feel so strongly about their “pro-life” stance, does it apply to parasites like tapeworms or even fleas and lice? Strictly speaking, a fetus IS a parasite. It’s NOT really a part of the woman’s natural body, and many women DO suffer from a number of physical ailments during pregnancy. (Many of these ailments occur without pregnancy but, for a lot of women, their first experiences with some serious diseases—diabetes, anemia, GERD—come during pregnancy; in most cases, these are short-term but additional pregnancies can increase susceptibility to these becoming long-term conditions, even barring other conditions, like obesity, commonly associated with the diseases.)
Janet Tuhey commented
2012-03-21 14:37:11 -0400
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