Tiffany Campbell talks about clinic protests at Dr. Carhart’s clinic. Also, the backlash against anti-health care protesters, and how health care can improve your sex life.

 

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We’re #37!

Rachel Maddow on the teabaggers

Bill Maher on the teabaggers

Sean Hannity lies about John Holdren

 

On this episode of Reality Cast, I’ll be interviewing
Tiffany Campbell about NOW’s clinic protection counter protests at Dr.
Carhart’s office. Also, people are calling out the anti-health care crazies,
and more reasons health care will improve your sex life.

 

So, here’s the good news that we’ve been hoping to hear for
awhile.

 

• hpv *

 

Sadly, most of the mainstream media coverage of the HPV
vaccine that I’ve seen has been about raising unnecessary alarms. I can’t help
but think people are having paranoid reactions, because it’s about female
sexuality.  Now that it’s about
young men as well as young women, maybe people will calm down.

 

**************

The public debate over health care reform gets crazier by
the minute.  On one hand, this
could be a good thing, because the more that the opposition reveals themselves
to be unmoored from reality, the less esteem their arguments will have.  On the flip side, the crazier the right
wing nuts act, maybe the more reasonable unreasonable things like the trigger
option will seem.  I suppose we’ll
just have to see how things shake out. 

 

But before that, I have to share a clip from a song that our
own Jodi Jacobson sent by a musician called Paul Hipp.

 

• health
  care 1 *

 

Number 37 refers to where we rank in the world in terms of
health care systems.  Richest
nation in the world. It’s shameful. 

 

As expected, the rumors and lies continued to fly around,
but I want to concentrate this segment on the pushback, which is beginning to
grow.  One thing that inspired a
lot of mainstream media pushback were the 9/12 protests in DC, which were awash
in racist signs and very little coherence in meaning or argument.  Rachel Maddow had a dead-on
segment. 

 

• health
  care 2 *

 

 

Maddow also dedicated huge portions of her show to asking
the question of whether there were any non-nutty conservatives left, and when
they were going to take on the responsibility of pushing back against this
nonsense.  She’s had on guests who
have this goal in mind, but by and large it’s been a failure, because they’re
too eager to use the "both sides" tactic, which disinclines me to think they’re
interested in discussion so much as doing image control for the right.

 

Bill Maher is just as freaked out as Rachel Maddow, though
of course he tried to take the more humorous approach. 

• health
  care 3 *

 

The 9/12 anti-health care rallies were expected to be an
outpouring of racist resentment, but I think even the most cynical of us were
shocked at how bad it was.  I saw
an endless stream of signs that made fun of immigrants, black people, anti-racist
activists, and our President for being black.  To my great delight, CNN is acknowledging the racism of the
health care opposition, and they’re using Tim Wise as a guest expert on this
issue.

 

• health
  care 4 *

 

The host Don Lemon wondered if  they were being wittingly or unwittingly racist, and Wise
wisely said that it doesn’t matter, that results matter.  I see why he said that, since it’s
pointless to get into a debate about what’s in people’s hearts when you can
judge them by their actions.  But
still, I think they’re being cynically and wittingly racist.

 

**********

 

• insert
  interview *

 

**********

 

• no sex
  1 *

 

Before I finish playing this clip that I found on MSNBC, I
have to say that we health care proponents have not been working hard enough to
find sexy angles to promote health care reform.  The opposition works the sexy angle, well, sort of it.  They use the angle of telling people
that if they aren’t getting it, no one else should be either, though I suppose
the way they do this is by screaming about abortion.  But most of us are more interested in bridging the have and
have not sex divide by getting more, and not by making other people have less
sex. 

 

With that in mind, perhaps an important thing to highlight
is how increased health care coverage will mean the potential for increased
sexual activity for you personally. 
This is true even if you already have health care coverage that pays for
your contraception, Viagra, or medications that keep you healthy enough to keep
doing it.  Because besides U.N.-approved
masturbation, you usually need a partner to have sex, and if more people are
healthy and using contraception, that just increases your pool of potential
partners.  That is, if you’re
looking. But even if you’ve got one at home, there is a reason lack of health
care might mean less booty knocking for you.

 

• no sex
  2 *

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, allergies! 
It makes sense that hay fever would lay ruin to many an unfortunate
sufferer’s sex life.  There’s the
obvious, which is that no one wants to have sex with you if you’re dripping
snot and you’ve rubbed your face red. 
Well, maybe a few folks with fetishes, but I imagine the hay fever
sufferers outnumber the hay fever lovers exponentially. 

 

But I suspect there’s more to the story.  It’s not just that you’re dripping
snot.  Some hay fever sufferers
don’t drip snot, after all.  Some
are just so plugged up that they have to breathe through their mouths.  And that, my friends, is a sure fire
way to turn from a good to mediocre lover to bad in bed.  There is a lot of nose-breathing in
good sex, is all I’m saying.

 

The point is this: Clearly, we are a nation of snifflers who
need to get laid more.  And health
care access could help with this problem. 
Because while a lot of allergy medications that are effective without
knocking you out cost a fortune over the counter, if you have a low co-pay, you
can get a prescription and knock yourself out.  You could even put your allergy meds with your
contraception, and call them the fun pill twins.

 

**********

 

And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts, they’re not even trying
to sound rational edition.  The
wingnuts got Van Jones, and the Obama administration is learning that throwing
one to the wolves doesn’t satisfy them, but just makes them hungrier for
more.  So here’s Sean Hannity,
going after John Holdren:

 

• holdren
  *

 

Oh yes, he accused him of pushing compulsory abortion.  You can check the show notes for why
this is a lie, though it seems obvious on its face. But why is Sean Hannity so
angry at the science and technology advisor?  Is Hannity trying to prove science isn’t real?  Well, They Might Be Giants has an
answer to that:

 

• science
  is real *