Friday, September 25, 2009

Wow

Just wow:

Igor Volsky reports today that Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) has been pushing an amendment to "prohibit the government from defining which benefits should be included in a standard benefit package." Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) noted that basic maternity care ought to be required.

"I don't need maternity care," Kyl replied. "So requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don't need and will make the policy more expensive."

Interrupting him, Stabenow added, "I think your mom probably did."

Sometimes you just have to marvel at how crazy the modern Republican Party can be. Independent of any sort of ideological or temperamental changes, I think this underscores the GOP's need to start recruiting outside of the old white dude cohort. Of course health insurance should cover maternity care. I find it hard to imagine any reasonable person saying otherwise. It's a common thing to happen, you know. The right's studied indifference to women's issues isn't really a matter of ideology and could be relieved by simply recruiting more female congressional candidates, and by pulling their heads out of their asses. Seriously.
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The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.