the bible tells me so

Scarlett Letter Barbie (from: Clergy Family Confidential)

"[...] House Bill 2625, which the [Arizona] state House of Representatives passed earlier this month and the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed on Monday, repeals that law and allows any employer to refuse to cover contraception that will be used 'for contraceptive, abortifacient, abortion or sterilization purposes.' If a woman wants the cost of her contraception covered, she has to 'submit a claim' to her employer providing evidence of a medical condition, such as endometriosis or polycystic ovarian syndrome, that can be treated with birth control.
     Moreover, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, the law would give Arizona employers the green light to fire a woman upon finding out that she took birth control for the purpose of preventing pregnancy."
— Laura Bassett, Huffington Post
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"Now that the Arizona House of Representatives has passed (and the Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee has endorsed) [House Bill 2625] making it easier to fire employees who use birth control for dirty, dirty sex rather than other medical reasons, it seems germane to ask if the fine lawmakers in Arizona might be missing other great ideas to increase the religious liberty of their job creator class.
     After all, starting with contraception is a strange choice considering that it doesn't appear anywhere in the Bible. There are other things that do, however. The rights of employers to ensure that their employees follow religious moral codes should not be infringed in any way. [...]
     Further, if any employee wishes their health insurance to cover any sort of facial laceration, the employer must have the right to be assured that the injury was in no way associated with shaving, as Leviticus 19:27 clearly proscribes trimming even the edges of beards. Insurance covering tattoo removal is definitely out, as Leviticus 19:28 forbids them in the first place. Any employee with a secret and unnoticed tattoo should be subject to no-fault firing the first time the employer sees it."
— David Atkins, Hullabaloo
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"Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, [...]" — Wikipedia

Source images: Hey Look, Animals!; CainGram.com

"Democrats initially insisted on paying for the payroll tax cut extension with a surcharge on millionaires, but gave it up because they knew Republicans wouldn't go along with it--even though every poll shows strong support among an overwhelming supermajority of Americans for raising taxes on the super rich to pay for popular programs. And in this case, not even a popular program, but a tax cut. Democrats gave that up, and are hoping to pass the popular middle-class tax cut extensions with a continuing resolution. In other words, Democrats wanted to do something popular, and pay for it by doing something even more popular. When Republicans denied them the opportunity to do the super-popular thing, they settled for just the popular thing--the tax cut that Republicans refuse to pass on its own. That sounds pretty much like compromise to me. So what is the Republican plan passed by the House?
     Mr. Reid wants to quickly vote the bill down because while it would extend a cut in Social Security payroll taxes for 160 million workers, it also eases the way for an oil pipeline opposed by environmental groups, blocks certain air pollution rules, freezes the pay of many federal employees through 2013, increases some Medicare premiums, and greatly reduces unemployment benefits and adds a host of new rules for receiving them.
     Perfect. Republicans want to roll back air quality rules (deeply unpopular), build a tar sands pipeline (middlingly popular but apocalyptic for the climate), freeze the pay of federal employees through 2013 (popular but arbitrary, punitive, near useless for deficit reduction, and harmful during a recession), increase Medicare premiums (insanely unpopular), stiff unemployment benefits (unpopular, heartless and again stupid during a recession) and force the unemployed to jump through more hoops (degrading and pointless. Wait, no. Degrading the unemployed as subhuman is the whole point.) [...]
     Which particular insane poison pills in the Republican House bill should Democrats vote for in order to avert a government shutdown?
     What more proof would you have that Republicans don't care if the government shuts down, because they hate government anyway, and because the economic tailspin caused by a shutdown would, in their calculations, sabotage the economy thereby hurting the President's re-election chances? What would it take for you to finally tell your readers the truth: that Republicans, like the evil mother in the Judgment of Solomon, are willing to kill the baby to get what they want over and over again, while Democrats continue to play the role of the good mother, giving up everything they own to save it?"
— David Atkins, Hullabaloo
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blink, blinkered, blinkereder

Photo: Michael Hale

"Surprise, surprise. Demand creates jobs. Austerity kills jobs. If consumers don't have money to spend, eventually the system seizes up and even well-insulated multinational firms take a hit. So Wall St. is taking up vain hope that the Fed will use more 'quantitative easing' to funnel money into the financial sector, to offset the austerity measures that Washington delightfully put in place in the middle of a recession, to prevent the discredited ratings agencies from maybe saying some mean things.
     The denizens of Wall St. must be the most short-sighted people on the planet. They've bought our government wholesale and gotten just about everything they've asked for. They've played Republicans and Democrats off of one another, encouraging neoliberal economic policy, free trade, bank bailouts, and then a hoodwinked Tea Party movement to stand up to Democrats just in case they might consider raises taxes even ever so slightly on the rich.
     What they've gotten for their trouble is a deadlocked government divided between far-right and center-right with a few mostly powerless center-left and progressives sprinkled in. A government that cannot even begin to function properly, has effectively hollowed out the American middle class, made investment in the future nearly impossible, and is ultimately very bad for business."— David Atkins, thereisnospoon
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