35 Comments

• seanomelb | Mar 22, 2012, 06:27 PM EDT

  maybe Santorum should have a vaginal ultrasound

• Meanolgrouch | Mar 21, 2012, 08:40 AM EDT

  Okie dokie, artichokie. The PT 4 from the other thread won't print here either. It's not too long and contains nothing inappropriate. Besides, the first time it got lost in cyberspace, that happened in a nano second, so I don't think even realtime human editors would've had time to read it and flag for rejection. What a mystery. Hmmmm.... Well, I'll try again tomorrow, Sparklet, in an entirely new thread and see what happens. Please stay tuned and I'll keep you in the loop.

• Meanolgrouch | Mar 21, 2012, 08:24 AM EDT

  Well, at least our voters can never claim they had no chance to see the true character of their candidates. New York Times columnist Gail Collins(?) told The Rest Of The Story on Romney for putting his Irish setter Seamus in a carrier atop his car on a long trip. People need to know he planned the outing down to the last detail, specifying ahead of time which rest stops the family (5 kids!) could make and no exceptions. At one point the kids told him Seamus had relieved himself in the carrier and the evidence was streaking down the windows. Romney had to stop then (although he made the family stay in the car) to hose down dog and car; then he put the dog back where it had been and drove on. I ask fellow Americans, does this look like an allegedly compassionate conservative? Of course the two terms are exclusive.

• Meanolgrouch | Mar 21, 2012, 08:15 AM EDT

  Eiriamach, aren't political cartoons great? Garry Trudeau can't be beat, but I always loved Benson's View as well. Benson's the one who escaped his ultraconservative background to be a liberal hero. Don't you wish we had Pogo back? Such a wise little possum.

• eiriamach | Mar 20, 2012, 04:47 PM EDT

  "If it doesn't sound too cruel," Meanolgrouch, I'd like to think you're right. But all depends on the moral courage of people in the media. When Garry Trudeau tried to show the public how barbaric the vaginal probe legislation is, some newspapers refused to carry his "Doonesbury" cartoons for fear of upsetting children who read the comics. How would anyone explain to a child the FACT that state lawmakers have mandated obtaining uterine sonograms by coerced penetration of women's bodies? A few Texas MDs have condemned the Texas law, women who have had the sonogram are "outraged," and women's health center directors are speaking out against the law-- but also obeying it because they fear having their clinics shut down. Just what we needed: fear-driven medical practice! Bravo Texas lawmakers!("Burnt Orange Report" is running the Doonesbury cartoons and reports on the Texas law.)

• Meanolgrouch | Mar 20, 2012, 12:43 PM EDT

  If it doesn't sound too cruel, I'm almost glad to see the use of vaginal probes now mandated by at least two US states. Women are turning to neighboring states for their critical medical treatment, but when and if no safe place can be found, at least then they'll turn on their tormentors to exact revenge. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, remember. Santorum and fellow travelers would force a woman to carry to term regardless of whether her own life would certainly be terminated by giving birth. Doesn't matter; she doesn't count. Let their outrage go on too long and we'd find ourselves in ancient Greece (and other early cultures) where they nobly debated whether women have souls at all. You know how the rabid rightwingers would vote. A pox on their house.

• eiriamach | Mar 20, 2012, 11:38 AM EDT

  Thanks to Meanolgrouch also for the reminder about the arc of history. It has become difficult to see it bending toward justice lately, what with all the Tea infusion swirling through the political atmosphere like storm clouds shrouding the path of progress. Even if an authoritarian like Santorum could be elected, it would take years for the federal courts to deal with lawsuits from disenfranchised seniors, minorities, and young voters, not to mention constitutional challenges to regressive laws from Arizona and other state legislatures. The reactionary right has constructed roadblocks, but there ain't no U-turn ahead.

• EphraimKibbey | Mar 20, 2012, 12:55 AM EDT

  I too would like to see the reactionary right put in its place, but Cahir, be careful what you wish for! All it takes for evil to triumph here is for good men and women not to go to the voting booths as happened in 2010 or be kept from them as is happening this year wiyh voter ID laws. For those of you who believe that this is all a liberal hoax - there are none so blind as those who will not see. @Meanolgrouch - thanks for defending a REAL christian and a great mind in C. S. Lewis.

• Meanolgrouch | Mar 19, 2012, 05:27 PM EDT

  Eiriamach, you're an inspiration indeed. Another thing the GOP sheep never stop to consider is the true cost of financial exploitation of the working class. Or the once middle class for that matter. They're mostly the ones in Occupy. When the dispossessed do finally rise up, as human nature impels them to do, it will be Katie Bar the Door. "The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice." Even grandfatherly old Warren Buffet doesn't give a rat's patootie about the 98%. He simply has enough brains to know that a fat cow gives more milk than a starving one. The latter tend to kick too hard for comfort.

• eiriamach | Mar 19, 2012, 02:06 PM EDT

  Looks like Irishmathair's ignorance is invincible. She says she pays for her own insurance. Working women who use gynecological services do the same. But irishmathair thinks a woman who uses contraceptives has no right to have insurance cover her prescriptions while irishmathair has a right to insurance for her dyspepsia Rx. What is so terrifying to her about working women taking control of their reproductive capacities and having sex? If women would just accept the complete dependency that "Nature," aka the USCCB, Santorum, the AZ legislature, etc., intends for them, men could easily underpay women, exclude them from public office, and batter and rape them, like the 56-year-old woman whom Christian Tea Party PR Director Michael Kobulnicky allegedly kidnapped and raped in San Diego Thursday. "Teaching her her place" no doubt, he was just demonstrating his cherished "freedom" to follow a testosterone urge as "Nature" intends, just doing his PR job. Santorum would deny the victim emergency contraception, Sarah P. would insist that she pay for police to collect evidence, the GOP would fire her rape counselor by voting down the Violence Against Women Act, and the USCCB would condemn her for violating natural law by going alone to the supermarket! It may be ignorance for irishmathair to support this politics with her vote, but the sociopaths who manipulate the votes of the ignorant know just what they're doing.

• irishmathair | Mar 19, 2012, 10:12 AM EDT

  To the obvious Libs: The comments made about my thoughts regarding contraception are stupid and lame. I don't care how much sex anyone has - they can do what they want but don't expect me to pay for it! If a business owner is forced to provide this, the cost gets passed on to me. If the insurance companies are forced to provide this, the cost again gets passed on to me. So how do you figure I and millions of others will not have to pay for it?? I have worked for a living my whole life and pay for what I need including my health insurance - these are my concerns - not your nasty statements. If more attention was paid to the really important matters affecting the citizens of this country, we'd all be better off. As for the comments on color, I have lived in the North my whole life and grew up with blacks, went to school with blacks and have never had a problem with blacks. I have in the past voted for blacks and my choice to not vote for Obama has nothing to do with his color - you are the one who makes an issue of it, not me!!!!!!

• Meanolgrouch | Mar 19, 2012, 01:17 AM EDT

  One last note: My thanks also to the many fine comments from most of you who sound like moderates or even liberals. But Sophium, you seem to forget CS Lewis declared the absolute necessity of some form of socialism to truly follow a Christian life. Look it up in his book "Mere Christianity". Then go read and re-read "The Screwtape Letters" until that book's true meaning begins to dawn on you.

• Meanolgrouch | Mar 19, 2012, 12:56 AM EDT

  Mr. Cahir O'Doherty, sir! I almost shut down for the night before reading anymore on this website because it invariably leads to endless responses on my part. So glad I hung on for one more as I wish I'd written your item myself. Don't know how to offer a bigger compliment. You did indeed hit this one out of the park.

• DsM2shoes | Mar 18, 2012, 11:02 PM EDT

  I pray I'm wrong, but obviously "irishmathair" is a product of the Rick Santorum Home School. I would suggest they read the artical again. Or Google "ironic/sarcasm". That as it is, in 1910 there were millions of people throughtout the country who were laughing at the ideals put forth by Carrie Nation. And we all know how that worked out. Santorum is not to be dismissed as a freak, he is dangerous. He has a following as great as Carrie Nations if not greater. And they are the people who rise every morning terrified by the "fact" that THEIR White House has been stolen and now occupied by a foreign born Muslim nigger and they want it back. I have been involved with presidental elections since 1960 and I have never seen or heard the type of behavior or language that is taking place today. These people don't want to defeat Obama they want to destroy him. That and everything he stands for. They are ignorant, self-absorbed, mean spirited and spiteful.

• eiriamach | Mar 18, 2012, 10:56 PM EDT

  Like the GOP, irishmathair seems unusually interested in other people's sex lives. She(?) seems to need some excuse for her prurient interests, so she fancies that she's paying for other people's sex: "Our economy is in such bad straights [sic] now why are we to be expected to foot even more for someones decision to have free sex." But she's not footing the bill for anyone. The Obama HHS mandate pertains to health insurance for employees--you know--people who work for a living. Health insurance is an employment benefit, for which the worker pays directly through a payroll deduction or indirectly when the employer pays the insurance as part of compensation for work. Women visit gynecologists to keep their reproductive systems healthy. Effective contraceptives for women are prescribed and monitored by gynecologists, and these services will be paid for by insurance which the Affordable Care Act requires employers to make available. So irishmathair is not paying for any worker's contraceptives, and she has really no reason at all to complain about anyone's "free sex." As contrasted with what? Paid-for sex? Does she think of sexually active women as unpaid prostitutes? That would be a strange, atavistic view of women AND of sex!

• irishmathair | Mar 18, 2012, 08:21 PM EDT

  MegK311: You are 100% right!! This country has much more important matters to worry about then providing contraception. If girls want to have sex, why should I or anyone else have to provide protection for them. How about the boyfriends they sleep with providing some of that protection instead of expecting everyone else to????? Our economy is in such bad straights now why are we to be expected to foot even more for someones decision to have free sex. We have the biggest debt this country has ever faced along with mass unemployment just to name a couple of urgent matters that need the attention of the White House. You can be sure my vote will not be for Obama just as it was not the last time. Wake up America and smell the coffee.

• mairint | Mar 18, 2012, 08:17 PM EDT

  So you at Irish Central think it is your right to fornicate all around - and women should face the consequences and abort any children you might beget? Oh yes, you must not forget the bit of rubber, but if it fails and a child is conceived then you do not think the mother should be allowed to see the same child in her womb - she should "close her eyes" as you say if she is to have a scan so she knows what she is aborting. She might not want to kill the baby you see and you so called MEN just want the fun of it all....women to be receptacles for your ejection after which you scarper off to the next foolish woman. No wonder you are fans of Planned Parenthood, alias Planned Barrenhood. You consider aborting your children as "rights". You lot are revolting in your selfishness.

• MegK311 | Mar 18, 2012, 07:22 PM EDT

  I don't beleve all the B. S. I am reading here today. Are you all trying to scare women into voting for Obama. Nobody is going to take away contraceptives. Every election the Democrats try to scare people into voting their way. I am 76 years old and I have heard it all over and over again like a broken record every election. They have told us that the Republicans want dirty air, dirty water, take away Social Security, keep women at home bare foot and pregnant. The list goes on and on. They will drive your grandmother over the cliff in a wheel chair. Enough of your crap we've heard it all before and it doesn't happen. Contraception has been available to people as long as I can remember, even for my parents. Have you ever passed Planned Parenthood about 8 a.m. in the morning and noticed all the very young teens lined up at the door. I wonder how many of them are pregnant and going for abortions? Do their patrents know they are there and what they are doing. It is a sorry sight. I think this whole thing about contraception has been blown out of proportion because they want to make it an election issue. Well I am more intrested in the economy and people finding jobs. If people want abortions or birth control fine but pay for it yourself. There are more important things we need to worry about right now not some propaganda dreamed up by Obama to take our minds off what we should be talking about. He doesn't have a record to run on so he comes up with all this B.S. He is the one taking away our rights not the Republicans. I know a lot of women of all ages and none of them are worried about birth control so why are we making it a big issue this election year? I don't know who I will vote for but it wont be Obama.

• seanomelb | Mar 18, 2012, 05:54 PM EDT

  The only people who would vote for Santorum drag their arms along the ground like some posters below.

• eiriamach | Mar 18, 2012, 04:55 PM EDT

  No, you're not excused, "Sophium," not by me... What kind of name is that anyway? "Sophium" looks like an ignorant attempt to Latinize a great Greek word, 'Sophia"-- Wisdom-- as in "phil-o-sophia," "love of wisdom." Delving into philosophy might enlighten "Sophium" about the discipline of logic, and he/she certainly needs a ray of enlightenment. Sophium might learn that an ad hominum argument, such as Sophium "constructs," is lazy, insulting, unpersuasive, and not a sign of any remote acquaintance with "reason." Really, if the powers that be are going to keep sending this cadre of CaDefs (Catholic Defenders) onto the Internet with their ridiculous insults and anti-feminist memes, they might at least give their mouthpieces some basic science education, perhaps a quick course in logic, and screen names that don't scream "I know nothing except how to insult people." But most of all, they need to give them a lesson in keeping their arrogance from leaching through their words.

• just4fun | Mar 18, 2012, 04:45 PM EDT

  God answers all prayers Sometimes He says Yes Sometimes He says No But when it comes to the Santorum Culties He says You've got to be kidding... Santorum will use anything including sicko religion to get his foot in the Whitehouse but like his female counterpart Palin it's not going to happen the boys behind the Green Door will make sure of that.

• alisaann | Mar 18, 2012, 04:21 PM EDT

  but, if mitt gets the nom. obama WILL WIN....and that's what we NEED...other wise, women can KISS OUR RIGHTS GOOD BUY...and other rights HARD faught for will be also be lost. alisa

• seanfer7 | Mar 18, 2012, 03:30 PM EDT

  He was the cyber crook now he is Ayatollah Santorum

• mayoman | Mar 18, 2012, 01:50 PM EDT

  Barry Goldwater only wanted to nuke Vietnam "into the Stone Age", but Rick Santorum is declaring war on all American women. Why would any woman want to vote for this fool?

• CitizenWhy | Mar 18, 2012, 12:54 PM EDT

  Monsignor Santorum is a tad irrational, nothing new from his crew.

• peggydf | Mar 18, 2012, 12:45 PM EDT

  It amazes me that the party that claims to want to "get government off our backs" has absolutely no qualms about getting up inside my vagina. Perhaps this craziness will fly in s few conservative states, but the GOP is in for a big surprise when they present this platform on a national level. Bring it on! I can't wait to watch them crash and burn.

• colkelley | Mar 18, 2012, 11:42 AM EDT

  Santorum simply demonstrates that organized religion - in this case Christianity - is centered around male dominance and subordination of women. In pre-Christian Ireland women had property rights, rights of inheritance, the right to divorce their spouses, the right to be warriors, the right to be clan Chieftains, and a religion in which there were dominant female deities. Seems that when Ireland became Christian women lost their rights in what was one of the most beneficial societies for women. Women need to reject any organized religion that does not recognize and respect their rights as human beings - and that means BOTH Islam and Christianity. As an atheist I rejected long ago the subjugation and subordination of women and as a former Naval aviator I found many of them to be outstanding pilots and military officers.

• jamthecat | Mar 18, 2012, 11:38 AM EDT

  Right wing talibangelicals like Rick Santorum do not want to end abortion; they only want to make it illegal. They know perfectly well that will not stop the practice; it will only drive it into back alleyways and dark rooms, where women will die from botched procedures, just like they did before Roe v. Wade. The only way you end a practice is by making it unnecessary, like with education on how to prevent pregnancy and contraception, but these communistic-style right-wing-nuts want to end that, too. And they do not give a damn about the kid after it's born; they're also cutting education, food programs, health care...you name it. On top of it all, they scream about governmental intrusion into business affairs but have no problem with the government deciding whom you may love and what sort of sex you're allowed to have. Don't forget, until 1986 in Texas, it was illegal for even a married couple to have sex in any way other than the missionary position, and there are some in the Legislature who'd like to reinstate that law. So the operative word for these religious freaks is -- hypocrisy. Again, nothing new about that. I just wish I shared Cahir's optimistic assumption that when Santorum gets the nomination, the GOP will see the error of its ways. Like the Mullahs in Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan, reason does not enter into the realm of possibility for those people. Facts do not matter. All that matters is what they believe, and that will not change because they are incapable of rational thought.

• J.D.McCaffrey | Mar 18, 2012, 11:35 AM EDT

  Good comments. Santorum will have us all marching bravely back into the Victorian era and will bring about the cancellation of all the progress we have made since then. The man is running for political office, but apparently doesn't understand that his religious views should be his alone, and he shouldn't try to force the rest of us to follow his own particular conscious. As a matter of fact, our constitution recognizes the separation of church and state, and as he tries to impose his Church's teachings on the rest of us, he will run into trouble, as he should.

• pilib04 | Mar 18, 2012, 11:32 AM EDT

  Start stockpiling your condoms and IUD's now. These nutjobs are going to try to put their foolhardy politics into law. Maybe even a return to the Inquisition.

• Sophium | Mar 18, 2012, 10:56 AM EDT

  Private matters? Bedroom?.....Wait a minute for me, please......I have to go scratch my head.....I just can't figure out how anyone could call a growing person in the womb a "private matter" of the "bedroom." Excuse me again, I want to re-read that quotation by the wise C.S. Lewis about what they have been teaching in schools these days.

• SeamusMor | Mar 18, 2012, 10:44 AM EDT

  Santorum's stated views are consistent with the Catholic Church's teachings on the purpose of human sexuality. He, along with almost everyone else, seems to be missing a bigger point, that the State has no legitimate interest in the bedroom, and that such private matters should not be part of our public and political dialogue.

• Sophium | Mar 18, 2012, 10:16 AM EDT

  Excuse me. May I awaken your degenerated brain, the one that was not taught logic and rational argumentation in school? What are they teaching them in schools these days? The good Belfast-born C.S. Lewis said that. My question: What is a "right"? You toss about your statement of "abortion rights" as if you are somehow speaking the truth rather than from your sleepy brain that was never awakened at school. If your right kills me, is it a right, Sleepy Cahir? Another question: Is the fetus just a clump of tissues, as the feminists tried to sell the world in the 1970's (and did a good job until the tide started to turn)? If the fetus is not just a clump of tissue, is it conceivable that this is a growing person with.....wait for it....rights? You ignore this and march on with your unexamined assumptions about rights and abortion, Sleepy Cahir. Sir....sir....are you in there? It is time to wake up. Please examine each word your write from this day forward and please ask yourself this (final for now) question: What am I merely assuming that I should be challenging? What sleep has the EU induced in my sleepy brain? Come, Cahir, into the light.....the light of reason......while too much of Ireland sleeps.

• haasny007 | Mar 18, 2012, 10:06 AM EDT

  Very good piece, Cahir. Keep up the good work!

• eiriamach | Mar 18, 2012, 09:02 AM EDT

  It's astonishing that GOP senators refuse to re-authorize the Violence Against Women Act. State legislatures are forcing women to drive inter-state for reproductive health care, but losing VAWA as federal law means losing LIVES to violence. When it came up for re-authorization in January, every Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted against re-authorizing it, and every Democrat voted for it. VAWA has reduced battering, sexual assaults, and killing of women in their homes. It also protects abused male partners and gives law enforcement the means to investigate and prosecute elder abuse, teen-dating violence, and Indian tribe domestic violence. Now Republicans are claiming that expanding VAWA to protect same-sex partners and immigrants (primarily women brought to the US by human-trafficking crime groups) makes it impossible for them to support VAWA. Domestic violence remains the main cause of death-- 4,000-5,000 each year-- and injury-- 50% of women's visits to emergency rooms-- for women of reproductive age in the US. Without the programs funded by VAWA, police and other agencies lack the means to intervene in domestic violence situations before they end in homicide. A vote for a GOP Senator, Rep or Pres is a vote to let domestic violence run rampant again.