SandBoxBlogs: Hot Air Blog "Bill Maher: Get off my back, America"

'Allahpundit':
"I’m torn. I could happily live another 10 lifetimes without having to deal with phony, politically calculated, outrageously outrageous outrage. Ann Romney, in fact, did an elegant job on CNN last night urging everyone (ahem, Newt) to lighten up over Robert DeNiro’s lame but innocuous joke about America’s white First Ladies.

Just one question: What makes Maher think the outrage in his case is phony?..."
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The outrage against Maher is far from phony.  Such hypocrisy.  As in the way of rightful things, the saga of Sandra Fluke mirrors back with a daily dose of commentary (mostly from men) that is returning fire in honorable ways.

Such as Jim Klein of New Castle, Colorado as he questions Maher's defenders and Limbaugh's critics: "After reading the opinions of Erica Griffith and Candy Norvell in the March 17 edition regarding the comments of Bill Maher, as well as those of Rush Limbaugh, I felt compelled to respond.

I have several questions for these ladies. First, how does Bill Maher's use of profanity in describing Sarah Palin not fall into the realm of complete bigotry?

Second, how does Rush Limbaugh's opinion that the taxpayer shouldn't foot the bill for a woman's contraception fall into the category of cultist behavior?

Now, it turns out, that Sandra Fluke was paid by the Democratic Party to make her statements to Congress in order to remove focus from the issue of the Obama administration's constitutional violation of a church's right to deny services that go against its beliefs. After all, a woman can get contraception from places like Planned Parenthood, if she so chooses. Why else, then, did Sandra Fluke recant her earliest statements?..."
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Michael McReynolds of Carbondale, Colorado as he does the math for Flukes contraception spending:  "Rush Limbaugh never actually called Sandra Fluke a slut. He did criticize groups who believe they have a right to free contraception. He also pointed out that it's unconstitutional for the president to mandate that a religious organization fund activities they find morally wrong.

At the end of the segment, he pointed out that women, like Sandra Fluke, expect someone else to pay for their sex. Then he asked the question: “What does society call a woman who expects to be paid for sex?” Splitting hairs? Sure. But this letter isn't about Rush, it's about Sandra Fluke.

Some suggest that Ms. Fluke is a victim: hardly. By her own admission, Ms. Fluke knew Georgetown was a Catholic university and contraception was not included in the student health plan. Rather than choose a university where contraception is part of the plan, she choose Georgetown to pick a fight (her words on “The View”).

So now she's a reproductive rights activist. What is a reproductive rights activist? Do we live in China where the state limits your right to reproduce? Or is it that one should not have to be personally responsible for their reproductive activity?

Ms. Fluke testified that she spends $1,000 a year on contraception. Isn't anyone curious about how much contraception $1,000 will buy? Assume the co-pay for the doctor visit for birth control pills is $15. Chain pharmacies (Walgreens, Wal-Mart, et. al.) in the Washington, D.C., area offer generic birth control pills for $9 per month, totaling $108 per year. That's $123 per year.

So where does she spend the remaining $877? Let's assume she spends it on condoms. At an average price of 20 cents per condom, $877 will buy 4,385 condoms, or 12 condoms per day. So I'll ask the question that's begged: What does society call a woman who burns through 12 condoms per day?..."

More op-eds hit the air daily on the controversy Fluke started:

Elizabeth Harrington:  "Thirty-year-old Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, who told a House Steering and Policy Committee hearing convened by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi last month that contraception can cost a student $3,000 during law school, told CNSNews.com on Tuesday that she did not know that the Target store 3 miles from the Georgetown Law campus sells a month's supply of birth control pills for just $9...." 

William A. Jacobson: "Just as Bill Maher was pleading for an “amnesty” in the political correctness war to silence speech, Media Matters was committing $100,000 to an advertising campaign urging people to call local radio stations to complain about Limbaugh...."

'SandBox Nanny' comes back to a post by  John Scotus/Tree of Mamre today:  "That pretty much sums it up. Romney believes in business. He believes in decency (which is not at all, by the way, a moral value, see here), he believes that he is good and would make a good president, and he believes in his family. But that is about it. Yet, apart from the bit about business, we have just described Obama. If this is all Romney’s candidacy comes down to, then it is not really worth the trouble voting for him. Seriously.

I believe that the most important issues facing America today all come down to moral values. Since I believe that, I just have to say that I cannot be bought. And, essentially, by promising that he can heal the economy, but being uninterested in anything else, Romney is wanting to buy my vote. This is the same deal being peddled in Asia. This is the same deal the Japanese bought into. Buy the votes of the people by promising them economic prosperity, and then ignore them after the election. And this deal leads to nothing but the economic and spiritual death of a country.

I would rather die fighting than sell my vote in such a cheap and tawdry deal.

So, no, unless Romney is able to convince me, for example, that he will–at a bare minimum–appoint pro-life judges, I will not vote for him, even if it means Obama is reelected.

I refuse to sell my soul–or my vote–merely for low gas prices or economic prosperity. America means too much to me...."

And ends with the words of Michael McReynolds of Carbondale, Colorado:
"The real problem is gas at $5 per gallon in some parts of the country, real unemployment at 19 percent, a national debt of $16 trillion ($6 trillion in the past three years), and GDP at 2 percent. And we're arguing about free contraception."

"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."

SandBoxBlogs: Aspen Times/Chris King "Enough of the political pandering"

There were a number of factors that  brought 'SandBox Nanny' to her final decision on whether to take up the idea regional avatars came up with of creating a hub for uncensored yet moderated commentary on local, regional, national and world news.

It has been a long trek trying to get someone (anyone) to ask the question of what the final deciding factor was.  Who knows, maybe eventually someone will get around to asking instead of speculating.  Imagine a world where direct-to-source information truly exists.  Why, it is safe to speculate we would have a world with far fewer issues, eh?

One of the reasons for agreeing to the experiment of 'SandBoxBlogs' was to grow the ability to tie various patterns of what 'community knowledge' (talk, gossip, group debates, forums, etc. etc.) holds in information that is needed in the public eye into what the news media actually prints and projects to the public.

One of the more interesting results of that effort has been the sound of seldom raised in public voices. 

As said many times before, local gossip mongers would be stunned at 'who' and 'what' is brought forward in 'anonymous' commentary.  Proof that it is not the method of delivery but the information itself that is relevant.  Imagine a world where we had authorities such as cops, prosecutors, lawmakers, judges, presidents and kings that listened to the information direct from source itself and then just simply did their own job and no one else's scope of work. 

Just maybe, we might end up with systems of balance and justice instead of high-tech media lynchings, wars and politics that sway all things within the lives of the common folk.

One of the strongest statements that is also repeated continually in avatar commentary, claims that 'if I want to be publicly known, I will be.  If I want to be a politician, I will become one.'  Simplistically stated, what 'SandBox Nanny' hears these commentators 'just sayin' is that they are in charge of where their vote goes.  That  they are doing  the electing or hiring of cops, prosecutors, lawmakers, judges, presidents and sometimes kings to do the job that office holds.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.

Today's local news patterns reveal a thread that crosses the ocean to the UK, bounces off the hallowed halls of the United States Senate and involve the politics of a president, a local prosecutor, a senator, one of the most powerful (and undeniably softly corrupt if you really get into the world of so-called non-profit organizations) lobbyist groups in the world and a number of issues such as women's rights and energy development.   

To start off the posting of that pattern, 'SandBox Nanny' is going to toss up the guest opinion of Chris King.  Up on the Aspen Times.  Then follow that up with a thought provoking column by John Ransom, somewhere out there on Town Hall.  

Happy Sunday, everybody.  Make it a good week out there.

Chris King:
"When politicians ask us to “leave politics out” of any government activity, we must suspect that we are being hosed. For wherever legislation and tax money are involved, so is politics. It is already in. And it should be. Good government requires constant citizen input and oversight, which is, in effect, “politics.”

Thus in the recent Aspen Times guest opinion by two Democratic senators, the title, “Take politics out of women's health care,” promises a double hosing (Feb. 29). Being superb politicians, these twain do not disappoint.

The title itself misstates the issue, which they only pretend to address. It's not really “health care.” More specifically they aim to defend Obama's new mandate, which rewards political supporters at the expense of the Bill of Rights. Specifically, it requires all employers, including church groups, to cover health plans that include birth control and abortifacients, thus forbidding employers' free exercise of religion, the very first freedom specified in the First Amendment.

Such a power grab might once have bothered the American Left, but not today. After all, when you run the government, why care about a few dissenters? Benefits trump fundamental rights. So stuff their freedom of conscience. They're a minority anyway. What's the big deal? What constitution? Benefits, man! They should shut up and get in line...."  (Read more?  Click title)

"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."

SandBoxBlogs: Glenwood Springs Post Independent "Rush the uniter"

Kathleen Parker:
"WASHINGTON — Who'd have thought that Rush Limbaugh would become the great uniter in this divisive political season?

Indeed, he has united decent people of all stripes and persuasions with his vile remarks about a Georgetown Law student.

Perhaps by now you you've heard of Sandra Fluke, who created a smallish tempest when she tried to testify before a congressional committee considering the federal Health and Human Services contraception mandate and was denied a place at the (all-male) table. There really was no reason for her to testify. The subject was religious freedom versus government overreach, not contraception per se, but this detail no longer seems to matter.

Fluke stalked out of the hearing room and has enjoyed the media spotlight ever since. She did finally get to testify at an unofficial hearing convened by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, during which she focused on Republican “censorship,” which, fascinating as it sounds, was a sidebar to a non sequitur...."
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"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."