We in the United States, above all, must remember that lesson, for we were founded as a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. And so we must remain. Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief. – Ronald Reagan, 26 October 1984

If John F. Kennedy had said what Rick Santorum said, highlighted on “This Week”, Kennedy wouldn’t have been elected president.

From today on “This Week”:

STEPHANOPOULOS: You have also spoken out about the issue of religion in politics, and early in the campaign, you talked about John F. Kennedy’s famous speech to the Baptist ministers in Houston back in 1960. Here is what you had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANTORUM: Earlier (ph) in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up. You should read the speech.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: That speech has been read, as you know, by millions of Americans. Its themes were echoed in part by Mitt Romney in the last campaign. Why did it make you throw up?

SANTORUM: Because the first line, first substantive line in the speech says, “I believe in America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.

First question is, who’s going to define “the church”?

As we found out recently, the Catholic Church and other conservative religious Americans, including Democrats, don’t believe the First Amendment protects individuals equally as it does “the church.”

That’s a very negative modern day development for free-thinking individuals.

It gives you an idea of just how far right we’ve gone since 1960.

But even as Reagan spoke the words he did above, it was Ronald Reagan himself who emboldened religious conservatives after what they saw as defeats in Griswold and Roe v. Wade, which is why Rep. Henry Hyde struck back with the Hyde Amendment before the Reagan era.

Democrats have contorted themselves to try to prove their righteous worth, as seen by religious conservative standards, which Pres. Obama validated when he codified the Hyde Amendment into the Affordability Care Act. Before Obama, it had simply been part of the budget, voted on yearly; with help from Speaker Pelosi, Democrats changed that.

When the political self-loathing class of Democrats comes up against attacks by self-righteousness Republicans, that’s when we get wild statements by elite cable yakkers like Joe Scarborough, because no one ever holds them accountable. It’s nothing to suggest, as Scarborough did, that mandating female deacons in the Southern Baptist church is the equivalent of Obama’s contraceptive mandate, because as Santorum, Gingrich and Romney have all charged, Obama is attacking religious freedom itself. The implication and framing of the argument against Obama’s policy is what’s important, right? Why argue the facts and the false statements being used to tip the truth on its head?

In fact, Pres. Obama is upholding religious freedom, not government intervention as Scarborough falsely claimed, but as Reagan himself said, as did John F. Kennedy, that no American is required to choose any religion and I would add, be second to the interests of any.

It’s fitting religious conservatives would miss the beauty of the First Amendment swinging both ways.

Rick Santorum is the embodiment of George W. Bush’s calamitous “crusade” language made manifest in political flesh. He is the polar opposite of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and any number of the other French loving American founders.

Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVII

[…] By our own act of assembly of 1705, c. 30, if a person brought up in the Christian religion denies the being of a God, or the Trinity, or asserts there are more gods than one, or denies the Christian religion to be true, or the scriptures to be of divine authority, he is punishable on the first offence by incapacity to hold any office or employment ecclesiastic al, civil, or military; on the second by disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy, to be guardian, executor, or administrator, and by three years’ imprisonment without bail. A father’s right to the custody of his own children being founded in law on his right of guardianship, this being taken away, they may of course be severed from him, and put by the authority of a court into more orthodox hands. This is a summary view of that religious slavery under which a people have been willing to remain, who have lavished their lives and fortunes for the establishment of their civil freedom. The error(1) seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have no authority over such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. If it be said, his testimony in a court of justice cannot be relied on, reject it then, and be the stigma on him. Constraint may make him worse. by making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man. It may fix him obstinately in his errors, but will not cure them. Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation. They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only. Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry, Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free inquiry been indulged at the era of the Reformation, the corruptions of

—(1) Furneaux passim.—

Christianity could not have been purged away. If it be restrained now, the, present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged . Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now. Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine, and the potato as an article of food. Government is just as infallible, too, when it fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent to the Inquisition for affirming that the earth was a sphere; the government had declared it to be as flat as a trencher, and Galileo was obliged to abjure his error. This error, however, at length prevailed, the earth became a globe, and Descartes declared it was whirled round its axis by a vortex. The government in which he lived was wise enough to see that this was no question of civil jurisdiction, or we should all have been involved by authority in vortices. In fact, the vortices have been exploded, and the Newtonian principle of gravitation is now more firmly established, on the basis of reason, than it would be were the government to step in, and to make it an article of necessary faith. Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature. […]

Aw, come on, boys. If John F. Kennedy can do it on all the drugs he chugged, so can Michele Bachmann.

The Daily Caller headline is the tell:

Stress-related condition ‘incapacitates’ Bachmann; heavy pill use alleged.

It cannot possibly be a coincidence that with Rep. Michele Bachmann surging we now are privy to a potentially devastating report about the presidential candidate allegedly popping pills to alleviate pain.

Women have worked for over one hundred years to be taken seriously and considered as strong candidates for commander in chief. One has to wonder if this was leaked to make voters question her health, but also her strength. Headaches are not considered by most to be something serious, maybe even a frivolous complaint by someone with a weak constitution.

With such incredible details, it seems obvious Mrs. Bachmann has a very serious problem:

The Minnesota Republican frequently suffers from stress-induced medical episodes that she has characterized as severe headaches. These episodes, say witnesses, occur once a week on average and can “incapacitate” her for days at time. On at least three occasions, Bachmann has landed in the hospital as a result.
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“She has terrible migraine headaches. And they put her out of commission for a day or more at a time. They come out of nowhere, and they’re unpredictable,” says an adviser to Bachmann who was involved in her 2010 congressional campaign. “They level her. They put her down. It’s actually sad. It’s very painful.”

As someone who has worked tirelessly to cure myself of migraines, I find this report alarming.

There is something horribly wrong with a professional person who isn’t dealing with deeper issues that trigger a migraine. As the Daily Caller reports, she’s been hospitalized and had to recuperate at home, away from her job, because of them, after having been incapacitated by them. Being treated with medication is dealing with the symptoms and staving off the results of something in your life that precipitates the event.

You cannot get rid of any health issue without finding the root of the cause of your problem, whether it’s diet, lifestyle, maybe a spouse or even your job.

Now, I don’t pretend to know any specifics about Mrs. Bachmann’s debilitating pain issues, but as someone who once had to live with migraines from the time I was a kid, had to perform while throwing up off stage between numbers because of them, as well as having my long ago past riddled with 24-hour vomiting over 3 days before they broke, I sure as hell know the answer isn’t medication, which offers no definitive solution. Thankfully, I cured myself. Solving the riddle of pain means discovering what in your life is causing the stress that leads your brain to the pain seizures of migraines.

But if you don’t, can’t or won’t, pills it is. At least today there are new drugs that make the days of injections a memory.

Of particular concern to some around her is the significant amount of medication Bachmann takes to address her condition.

The former aide says Bachmann’s congressional staff is “constantly” in contact with her doctors to tweak the types and amounts of medicine she is taking. Marcus Bachmann helps her manage the episodes.

Sources who spoke to The Daily Caller said they did so because they are terrified about the impact the condition could have on Bachmann’s performance if she actually became president. They also worry that the issue could blow up in the general election campaign, giving President Obama an easy path to re-election.

The drugs that kept Pres. John F. Kennedy alive went well beyond migraine medications, as historian Robert Dalek wrote in “An Unfinished Life,” which was just one of the hundreds of sources I relied on for my one woman show on J.F.K.  If he had run for office today, let alone been president, there is no way he could have kept his double digit list of medications a secret. He had his women, his doctors and all the drugs that kept him alive:

• Anesthetic procaine, for his Addison’s disease
• Cytomel, for thyroid deficiency
• Lomitil
• Metamucil, now there’s a commercial for you
• Paregoric
• Phenobarbitol
• Trasentine, to control his colitic diarrhea
• Testosterone, to increase his energy and boost his weight after bouts of colitis
• Penicillin, for urinary tract flare ups
• Fluorinef, to increase his salt absorption due to Addison’s
• Cortisone
• Tuinal, for insomnia – a side effect of the cortisone
• Antihistamines, for an array of allergies
• Codeine
• Steroids… Oh, and Vitamin C and calcium.

J.F.K. also had lots of doctors who gave him his “vigah,” including injections. They also led to rumors that Nixon tried to steal his medical records. He had an allergist; an endocrinologist for his Addison’s disease; a gastroenterologist for his colitis; a urologist, because he’d gotten a urinary tract infection from venereal disease; an orthopedist for his degenerative spine, but no one knew.

What this report is meant to conjure up is Rep. Bachmann’s physical frailty. It’s a political attack by “former aides” trying to take the bitch out.

There’s a reason Tim Pawlenty had a former aide of Bachmann do an op-ed hit piece in Iowa. A reason Rick Perry is being pimped by the conservative boys’ club. It’s not that he’s got anything Michele Bachmann hasn’t. He’s chock full of crazy, too. But at least he’s not a f*#!ing girl.

The freedom is just for men crowd in the House continue their war against women, which is being waged by conservatives who inhabit both political parties. It surrounds the absurd notion that in the Affordability Care Act using public funds for abortions is not already prohibited. Never mind that it was Pres. Obama who signed an executive order to pacify Bart Stupak when it passed in the first place, making it cool to wage war against women. From the Huffington Post:

After an emotional floor debate, the House of Representatives on Thursday passedthe so-called Protect Life Act, which prohibits women from buying health insurance plans that cover abortion under the Affordable Care Act and makes it legal for hospitals to deny abortions to pregnant women with life-threatening conditions.

Now women can’t even buy a health insurance plan that would cover an abortion, an extreme extra step at one of the most emotionally wrought times in a woman’s life.

To some Democrats, men like Critz, McIntyre and Matheson, the mother isn’t considered a life. That’s how far the Democratic Party has fallen in the Obama era.

Pres. Obama has threatened a veto. However, let’s remember it was Obama and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker in U.S. history, who emboldened these cretins in the first place.

Some of you may remember Mark Critz, who ran for John Murtha’s old seat. Former Pres. Bill Clinton helped get him elected. Critz, McIntyre and Matheson all voted against saving a woman’s life in an emergency. But yet the DCCC is using money raised from abortion rights proponents to help keep these men against women’s freedoms in office.

From Credo, with a petition at that link, here’s their campaign to hold anti women Democrats accountable:

The House of Representatives voted to let women die by passing a bill that would make it legal for hospitals to refuse to perform a life-saving abortion on a woman as an emergency procedure.

In response to that vote, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) sent out a fundraising email asking supporters to donate to help protect the health of women.

But three out of fifteen of the DCCC’s top candidates who would receive that money voted to let women die.  Tell the DCCC: You can’t have it both ways. Either stop fundraising off attacks on women’s health or stop fundraising for anti-choice Democrats who vote to let women die.

It is shameful that the DCCC is using these horrible attacks on women’s lives as a chance to fill their own coffers with the money of supporters who are genuinely angry about the war extremists in Congress are waging against women.
Not only is it hypocritical for the DCCC not to mention that the money raised for their women’s health fund will be going directly to three anti-choice candidates, but it is simply wrong that they are funding candidates who are so anti-choice that they voted for a bill that would let women die in a hospital without any intervention.

The DCCC’s two-faced messaging must stop. If they care about protecting women’s health, then they need to stop funding extreme anti-choice candidates — and if they want to fund those anti-woman candidates, then they need to stop running fundraising campaigns that use attacks on women’s health to solicit contributions from pro-choice activists.

Tell the DCCC: You can’t have it both ways. Either stop fundraising off attacks on women’s health or stop fundraising for anti-choice Democrats who want to let women die.