You remember that panel testifying before the House Oversight Committee about contraception? The one that contained no women? Yeah, that panel. (Ranty rant over here.) Well, the House Democrats have put convened a Steering Committee meeting tomorrow morning to hear the (female) reproductive justice activist who was excluded from the original testimony by Chair Darrell “Martin Luther King” Issa.
There’s just one little catch. You won’t get to see this public testimony.
Pelosi aides say the House recording studio has denied a request to broadcast the event, “apparently” at the behest of the Republican-controlled Committee on House Administration.
Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill pointed to a July 2008 decision in which the committee lifted restrictions on use of the studio.
“If Chairman [Dan] Lungren has reversed this policy, he has done so in secret and not consulted with CHA Democrats,” Hammill said in an email. “This leaves us only to think that the House Republican leadership is acting out yet again to silence women on the topic of women’s health.”
Well, I would have already guessed that, but more evidence never hurts…anyone but the women whose interests aren’t being represented.
This happened at nearly the last minute, but there is still a petition to sign to demand that this be televised. Go add your voice. Then come back and watch some excerpts from Sandra Fluke’s prepared testimony so you know what everyone will likely be missing.
Video via The Maddow Blog.
I think teh Goog’s transcription feature worked well for this clip – I expect Fluke enunciates with particular clarity.
I hadn’t even thought too deeply about consequences for women using the same drugs for non birth control purposes. That coverage is denied even in such cases speaks to some severe weirdness or complete ignorance on the part of, well pretty much everyone involved with legislation, insurance, etc.
I love the abuse of the King courage quote. You don’t bloody well empanel a committee to state your moral conviction. You speak or vote your conscience (if that is what is really in operation here). You don’t deny everyone else their speech, and you don’t deny everyone else the ability to hear contrary speech.
Way to call cowardice and manipulation “courage” while using the words and memory of a great person in attempt to obfuscate or rationalize your pathetic authoritarian actions.
Just think — the majority and leadership of the United States House of Representatives are so afraid of a third-year law student that they feel they have to silence her.
Quoting Texas Ranger Bill McDonald:
Or woman. I’m rooting for Ms. Fluke to keep on a-comin’.
Since it is not secret testimony, I think it should be filmed with cell phones.
Then copies given to an editor splice the questions side with the answering side and released to youtube.
Of course, and in raw form, just to show that no that creative editing was done.
WTF are the Republicans thinking? They are now deploying the “take our toys and go home” stonewall tactic over letting a woman testify about contraceptives?!? This strategy may be paying off for them in the short term, but we’re already seeing the long-term consequences for the party right now, in their little Santorum problem.
The GOP of yore might have excluded women from the panel, but when the DNC made a stink out of it, they’d let the Democrats do their thing and then just ignore it all. But this is just a whole new level. Their not just pandering to extremists, they’ve been taken over by the extremists.
If we can get through the next decade without letting someone like Santorum into the White House and without having too many repeats of the 2010 Congressional elections, I predict the GOP is going to fracture, the same way the Dixiecrats split off from the DNC back in the 60s. With the wingnuts becoming increasingly wingnuttier all the time, they can only go on for so long before they have to choose between alienating all moderates or losing the nutbags.