Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Fluke Spin…

As usual, we have been set up!  Team Obama found abortion activist Sandra Fluke and used her and the left-leaning (MSM) media to spin the latest attack on the Freedom of Religion and the Constitution out of the news and into a women’s rights and and contraception issue.  Add the fact that Rush Limbaugh stepped into it and which they blew out of proportion… so now that is all we are talking about.  That’s right we allowed the left to spin this into the wrong issue… again.

Now the left is demanding that Limbaugh be taken off the air… so typical, but what about all their name calling (Schultz, Maher, Sharpton… or how about his scum bucket who attacks Palin’s special needs child?), a typical tool of the left? And several sponsors dropped the show… seems now they are ‘practically begging to come back’ says Rush.

Yesterday, The Blaze and others featured a story from Daily Beast writer Kirsten Powers about the Left’s obvious myopia on misogyny from their own kind. That begs the question: Are they being selective in their calls for a firing? We have the video.

Consider this: The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack wonders if Obama will tell his super PAC to return Bill Maher’s million dollar donation after the HBO host has repeatedly called conservative women by words we cannot print here. However, McCormack‘s point about Maher’s offensive joke at the expense of Rick Santorum’s wife is important and printable:

He recently made a joke about Rick Santorum’s wife using a vibrator. Imagine now the same joke during the 2008 primary with Michelle Obama’s name in it, and tell me that he would still have a job.

The Weekly Standard writer reports that the White House has not responded to questions about returning Maher’s donation. And yet, the calls for Rush Limbaugh’s head are growing louder.

Despite issuing an apology for calling Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke a “slut,” there is still a concerted effort to silence Limbaugh. Websites calling for his termination are popping up daily. Sponsors and stations that are part of Limbaugh’s empire are under attack.

Some have wondered where is the “equal justice” when it comes to controversial comments made by media personalities. CNN’s “Early Start” featured a rant from Ashleigh Banfield that shows the co-anchor cheering the loss of sponsors from Limbaugh’s program, but makes no mention of the frequent, inappropriate and vulgar characterizations of conservative women by many on the Left: (Full article HERE with video)

‘Fluke’-ing it for Obama  -  Canada Free Press, by Judi McLeod

In the name calling simmering side-war of the raging, Obama-manufactured Contraception Battle dominating the presidential race, Sandra Kay Fluke got away with never being called out for what she really is: a “prop”. Make that a bone fide Obama prop. And that Fluke got through all the hoops without being outed as a prop is proof positive that the Obama regime continues uninterrupted to blissfully write the Big Narrative on life under coming Marxist rule. As sure as another Obama holiday stands in the offing, props are part of this regime’s bag of slick tricks. Read full Original Article

Monday’s Factor Talking Points Memo & Top Story was ‘Is Obama using contraception controversy to win over female voters?’  O’Reilly also discussed this situation guests: Mona Charen & Sally Quinn.  “The Democrats may have bamboozled the GOP -- they were able to turn a religious freedom controversy into a women's health care controversy, potentially courting female voters in the process...” Talking Points Video HERE

Revealed: Abortion Agenda of Campus Group Headed by Sandra Fluke

(The Blaze) Sandra Fluke’s appearances on-camera thus far, as well as Rush Limbaugh’s well publicized reaction to her Congressional testimony, have turned her into a martyr for the Left. But as The Blaze has reported, holes still remain in her story. For instance, Fluke is really 30-years-old (not the 23 that has been reported), and specifically went to Georgetown to fight their contraception policy – far from the innocent, wide-eyed victim she’s tried to portray herself to be.

But perhaps more revealing than what Fluke has publicly said is what she has declined to say. Her testimony before Congress, for instance, included precisely zero references to recreational sex or to abortion. Instead, Fluke would have her audience believe she’s only interested in non-sexual reasons for needing contraceptive pills – such as treating ovarian cancer. According to one study, the number of people to whom this applies is about 14 percent of all contraceptive users.

But is this really all Fluke’s agenda is? Based on the affiliations she herself has cited, that question may be more complicated. Near the beginning of her testimony, Fluke said the following (emphasis added):

My name is Sandra Fluke, and I’m a third year student at Georgetown Law, a Jesuit school. I’m also a past president of Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice or LSRJ. I’d like to acknowledge my fellow LSRJ members and allies and all of the student activists with us and thank them for being here today.

So if Fluke has these sorts of ties to an organization and mentions them by name for the purposes of appreciation, readers will probably assume she supports their agenda.

But what is that agenda? For that matter, how is “reproductive justice” defined? A quick look at the Law Students for Reproductive Justice’s website provides the answer:

Reproductive Justice (PDF)

Organization Sandra Fluke Was Head of at Georgetown Views Abortion as a Human Right

Perhaps the most relevant pull quote is as follows:

Reproductive Justice (RJ) represents an emerging framework, an analytical tool, a movement building strategy, and a desired outcome. RJ advocates concentrate on the realization of the rights to have a child, to not have a child, and to birth and parent the children with dignity. More specifically, we aim to construct legally tenable, realistically accessible avenues for informed, consensual, unobstructed decision-making about education, sex, contraception, sterilization, abortion, procreation, birthing, and parenting.

There is no mention of treatments for ovarian cancer, or cysts, or any other disorder that would involve contraceptive medicine being used for non-contraceptive purposes. The inclusion of abortion is also a recurring theme. The Blaze uncovered one video (that has now me removed by the powers that be… along with two others that disappeared on this subject) released jointly by self-identified LSRJ alumni and the Center for Reproductive Rights that refers to abortion as a “human right” and is essentially a primer for activists on how to attack anti-abortion legislation using international human rights law. The video was released with participation from a former President of Fordham University’s chapter of LSRJ (also a Catholic university) and was made during the same time that Fluke was President of Georgetown’s chapter. It also foreshadows current events eerily in some places (full quotes with emphasis added after the missing video):

A woman’s right to access an abortion, like her other reproductive rights, is rooted in fundamental human rights, including the right to life, the right to health, the right to dignity, the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to information, the right to self-determination, the right to education, the right to privacy, and the freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. [...]

Abortion bans are a prime example of discrimination against women under this framework, or at least that’s what we would argue, because only women will ever be affected by restrictions on abortion, because only women will ever get pregnant.[...]

So laws like the Hyde amendment, which withholds Federal funding for Medicaid abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or where a woman’s life is endangered, have a disproportionate effect on low-income women and women of color, and so we would argue they constitute discrimination. [...]

The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution doesn’t require the government to fund all medical services through [Medicare and Medicaid]…The Court refuses to find a constitutional obligation to treat women on Medicaid, I wouldn’t say fairly. [...]

We go around and we do interviews with people and we try to elicit or find out ways in which they have had their reproductive rights violated, and then we apply a legal analysis that shows the way those reproductive rights violations are also human rights violations. And this is sort of useful not only because I think those stories are very humanizing, but also because…it helps us move the conversation.[...]

Abortion providers are really being targeted for informal harassment and even assault and formal legislative discrimination because of the work they do, because they help women access reproductive health care services, and access abortion services, which means they’re really being attacked for helping women exercise their human rights. [...]

We’re currently working on a third fact-finding about access to care in communities where the only health care provider is a Catholic hospital, or the only existing health care provider is a Catholic hospital, or merges with a Catholic hospital and becomes a Catholic hospital, and what kinds of restrictions arise in those situations.

The video also mentions reports that try to portray abortion providers as “human rights defenders.“ One of the women in the video calls the Hyde amendment a ”human rights violation” directly. In other words, if Fluke is anything like the organization she proudly represents, then her speech before Congress had little to nothing to do with anything but abortion and contraception specifically being used in a reproductive context.

Sandra Fluke Argued for Mandatory Coverage for Sex-Change Surgery

Rather belatedly, we are becoming aware that this supposedly typical Georgetown coed is not very typical at all:

[B]irth control is not all that Ms. Fluke believes private health insurance must cover. She also, apparently, believes that it is discrimination deserving of legal action if “gender reassignment” surgeries are not covered by employer provided health insurance. She makes these views clear in an article she co-edited with Karen Hu in the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law.
The title of the article . . . is “Employment Discrimination Against LGBTQ Persons” and was published in the Journal’s 2011 Annual Review

Remember, as Byron York previously reported, Fluke was rejected as a last-minute substitute witness at a Feb. 16 committee hearing because staffers for Chairman Issa were unable to discover Fluke’s claim to expertise relevant to the subject of the hearing. This law school journal article is the sort of thing that might have been discovered about Fluke’s background, had the Democrats who put Fluke forward as a witness done so with the usual 72-hour advance notice. Here’s one brief quote from the article:

Transgender persons wishing to undergo the gender reassignment process frequently face heterosexist employer health insurance policies that label the surgery as cosmetic or medically unnecessary and therefore uncovered.

Now, imagine Fluke trying to defend this language about “heterosexist” policies in a public hearing, with Republican members of the committee questioning her about whether religious institutions (or private businesses, or taxpayers) should also be required to foot the bill for “gender reassignment.”

Congratulations, America: You’ve been scammed!

UPDATE: Dan Collins at The Conservatory points out that the Obama administration is already providing illegal immigrants with “hormone treatments for transgendered people.”

Of course, this only makes sense. We wouldn’t want these foreign transpeople to go back to wherever they (illegally) came from and say that they’d been the victims of American “heterosexism,” would we? Then President Obama would have to issue another apology to the foreigners we had victimized.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Mark Levin radio listeners! A few words by The Great One certainly did kick the online traffic into high gear.

UPDATE III: Linked by Evil Blogger Lady, and there is now a Memeorandum thread, aggregating further coverage by LifeNews.com, Nice Deb, Protein Wisdom, Hot Air, National Review, Riehl World View and The College Conservative.

Also linked by Bob Belvedere’s Camp of the Saints.

UPDATE IV: Ed Driscoll dubs this “Flukeaquiddick.”

Mark Levin on Sandra Fluke

Rush explains why he apologized  -  As the Blaze reported, Rush Limbaugh released a statement Saturday (Rush Releases Apology Statement to Georgetown Law Student Sandra Fluke), apologizing for using the word "slut" when he talked about Sandra Fluke on his radio show last week. As he began his program today, Limbaugh clarified his statement and explained why he issued it. Listen to the opening HERE. But of course, Obama Fluker Says Rush Limbaugh's Apology Doesn't Change Anything … 

The Alinsky, Cloward & Piven, OWS attacks from the Progressive left will just increase and intensify through the 2012 Election cycle.  This firestorm for Rush will pass, but many others with a lower profile and less funds may not be able to weather a like Progressive storm. The only real question is will enough Americans see they are being played and will those attacked be able to take the higher road under fire to avoid being ‘rushized’?  Should Obama win re-election this is just a precursor of life to come for anyone who disagrees with Team Obama’s goals and platform.

Ask Marion~

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