Foster Friess, Santorum supporter and multi-millionaire backer of the pro-Santorum Super PAC, told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell today that in his day women used aspirin between their knees as contraception. He joined The Last Word exclusively so Lawrence could ask him a bit more about that remark and why he supports Rick Santorum.
Santorum backer talks contraception 'joke'
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Fri Feb 17, 2012 2:06 AM EST
— Filed under: politics, rick-santorum, contraception, super-pac, gop2012, foster-friess, borth-control
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So, Foster Friess can't name a single policy of Santorum's. That shows you just how shallow politics is in modern America. It's not really about the issues, it is about your alignment and your rhetoric and talking points. Actual policy? Meh.
Friess said that Santorum voted for the use of contraceptives to prevent the spread of AIDS in Africa? Really? Please explain to us how the birth control pill would do this.
What an arrogant, condescending and ignorant SOB ... he says he is backing Santorm because Santorum loves America .... and yet he is lacking on the knowledge of Santorum's positions ... which leads me to the conclusion that Santorum is yet another shill for the wealthy .... cut taxes for the rich while instilling his morality on the rest of us...
Santorum preaches religious freedom ....but it is just fine for him to proselytize and inflict his religion on the rest of us .... he is just that ignorant ....
If the GOP thinks that women are not paying attention - they better think again!
The bottom line is: this IS NOT A WAR ON RELIGION - IT IS A WAR ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS!
If ANY religion participates in the public sector - they must ABIDE BY THE LAWS OF THE LAND .... and EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL .... NO EXCEPTIONS!
This guy is a fruit loop and it figures one fruit loop would sponsor another fruit loop.
The guy doesn't even understand his own joke(which is as old as he is).
The joke being if you are holding an aspirin between your knees you can't still hold it there if you open your legs. Thus, acting as a birth control method.
How do idiots like this guy become billionaires? He knows nothing about the guy he is spending millions on and supporting.
Ok, I have to say that I was surprised that Lawrence wasn't prepped with a video clip of Santorum saying that he was for banning contraception to cut to after Friess said that he was didn't hold that position. I would have loved to see the look on Friess' face when he was hit with that.
Religion is the greatest evil. It is a myth! More people have died in the name of religion than in the name of anything else. The idea of living foreve is a curse, not a benefit. There is no hell or heaven, but if there is, one is just as bad as the other or maybe hell may be better than haven.
Not sure what was more insulting, Mr Friess original aspirin statement or his weak spin of it here. Anyone who is listening to the words of that joke ... "put the aspirin between their knees" ... plainly said a "good" girl would hold an aspirin between her knees and keep it there - thus she couldn't spread her legs and have sex - thus could not conceive. That is man so underestimates the intelligence of the American public is insulting. I'm hoping that someone will take his untrue statements about what Santorum has or has not said (not hard in the day of video clips) and expose this misinformation for what it is. This has NOTHING to do with religious freedoms, unless we interpret them to be that religions are free to impose their beliefs on the rest of us. There are many places in the country where attempts to criminalize birth control on the State level is happening at this very minute (ie. personhood bills). The only way this attack on American way of life will not succeed is for those with a national audience to shine the light of truth on these actions. Thank you Lawrence for being one of those with the flash light!
What a dumbass. He's as bad as Santorum himself if that is possible. Let's just outlaw birth control. And while we're at it let's take away women's right to vote too. And why stop there. Let's have only white men who are Hard core conservatives vote. Kill the civil rights act of 64. Let's burn all at the stake who don't believe (what Rick does).
This is precisely why the Gop is folding. No clue on reality and they want the good old days back. When old white men were in charge and a woman's place was in the home and she didn't have any say in anything.
Sorry guys those days are gone and we are better for it.
It is important to bring stuff like this to light, but I would like to offer a suggestion. It is going to be very tempting in the months to come to focus on some of Santorum's more extreme positions. It is too easy to let that descend into personal attacks on the guy, such as the kinds of comments about his bringing his dead fetus home, etc.
Don't go there. Focus instead on forcing him to explain those positions. For example, he says that sex should only be between married couples, and for procreation. Instead of poking fun at the position, make him go into it in more detail. He also believes states have the right to pass laws outlawing certain sex acts, and that there is no right to privacy in the Constitution.
So, you ask him this. If he were President, and a state passed a law outlawing sex between consenting adults for any reason other than procreation in marriage, how he, as President, would handle that, and on what basis would he decide what should or shouldn't be done. And you ask him if he would be ok with laws forbidding the infertile to marry, or for people past childbearing age, etc. Or if he'd be all right with a state passing laws requiring couples to prove, through testing, they were able to procreate before allowing them to marry.
His positions are amusing, no doubt. But laughing at them is not the answer. He MUST be challenged on them, he must be forced to reveal how grossly unqualified for the job he is. He has not thought through these positions...he holds them as a matter of faith, and as a fringe type candidate, has never really been forced to address them, as no one really took him seriously.
Well, he's serious now. So put aside the Saturday Night Live treatments, and get serious right back at him. You must show people how this man thinks, how his decision-making process works, and making fun of him isn't going to do that.
Health care benefits for employees are simply a tax dodge for the middle class. It allows companies to give their employers salaries that are partially tax free. As a member of the working poor without benefits I had to purchase my insurance which was from completely taxed income. ($500 a month almost half my salary) I wish it were illegal for employers to provide health insurance coverage for workers, because then maybe we would have a fair single payer system, and this birth control issue wouldn't be a problem. I say don't just take away birth control, take away all unfair tax free benefits that benefit all but the poor!! I don't know that the Obama plan will help people in my situation. Thank heavens I'll over 65 now!!!
Please delete the first version. This is my first comment and I had trouble posting it. Sorry
Health care benefits for employees are simply a tax dodge for the middle class. It allows companies to give their employees salaries that are partially tax free. As a member of the working poor without benefits I had to purchase my insurance from completely taxed income. ($500 a month almost half my net salary) If I hadn't purchased health insurance I would be blind now. I wish it were illegal for employers to provide health insurance coverage for workers, because then maybe we would have a fair single payer system, and this birth control issue wouldn't exist. I say don't just take away birth control, take away all unfair tax free benefits that benefit all but the poor!! I don't know if the Obama plan will help people in my situation. Thank heavens I'll over 65 now!!!
Actually, the 'Dodge' started during World War II, when a general 'Wage Freeze' was in effect - The government was trying to prevent companies from offering higher wages to employees involved in defense industries, so businesses 'got creative', by offering added benefits, like special assigned parking spaces, bigger offices, but most of all, 'Free' Medical Insurance, which was owned by the employer, not the employee. Unfortunately, that system is still in place.
I think we would all be better off if we, the employees, owned our own insurance, including health, life, and retirement insurance, so we could 'take it with us', if we changed jobs, or keep it if we were elf-employed, or temporarily unemployed.
Generally I'm not a fan of government insurance, but unless Americans are wiling to let hospitals deny health care to those who are uninsured, or cannot pay, even in life-or-death situations (which is unacceptable, of course!), in the end, Taxpayers are going to wind up paying their bills. Today, many of the indigent are using emergency rooms as their primary medical provider, despite the fact that it's among the most expensive medical care available. We would save money by paying for them to go to 'Doc-in-a-Box' minor treatment centers for most minor medical complaints, and saving emergency rooms for real life and death emergencies - Everyone would receive an appropriate level of medical care faster, and at a lower cost, overall.
If we assume that there are 300 Million Americans, with an average health cost of $1,000 per year, the Total Health Care cost would be around $300 Billion, whether everyone paid out of their own pockets (the indigent would go to high-cost emergency rooms, still be paid for with higher taxes, of course), with insurance (even though the insurance companies would make a profit), or by a Government Single-Payer Plan, paid for by taxpayers (by it's nature, anything run by government has higher costs due to inefficiency) - In all three cases, the overall cost would be similar, but the Government-Based Plan would simplify billing, allow medical records to be more easily transferred as needed, and ensure that everyone received the appropriate level of health care; It would greatly reduce the number of people with simple cuts, fractures, and colds going to high-cost emergency rooms, by encouraging them them to go to lower-cost 'Treatment Centers' instead, where they would be seen faster, could get X-rays and casts, stitches, or 2 Tylenols to treat their relatively minor medical problems, leaving the Emergency Rooms for the 'Real Emergencies' - Automobile Accidents, Heart Attacks, Gunshot Wounds, Head Injuries, etc.
It isn't perfect, but it seems to be the 'Least Objectionable Option', at the Lowest Overall Cost, and with the Most Efficient and Appropriate Care!
ps: Now that you're over 65, you're covered by a Single-Payer Government Plan - Medicare! Not the best or most efficient, but you will get care!
Lawrence, when will you and the others who actually get a chance to expose these frauds ask the right questions?
This fool kept saying that this is a matter of religious freedom and that Rick Santorum agrees with that point of view.
At that point in time you MUST ask these hypocrites if they would also oppose all laws that are being proposed to prevent Muslims from using Sharia Law.
If they do not support that Muslim religious freedom then they cannot be taken seriously.
Health insurance has done nothing to improve health care, it's the opposite. It has allowed costs to rise, pricing folks like you, Nina, right out of the system. All it does is protect the providers of health care from having to price their goods and services in line with the market. The health insurance industry is nothing more than a leech, sucking profits and providing nothing in return.
Health care should never have been allowed to become just another financial transaction.
This guy is just another "empty suit" republican.He's so out of touch with the ave. Joe & Joan here in the US its down right comical.Yes OUR Healthcare sys. here in the US is a joke,even with insurance.When they know you have H/C ins. bills are trippled.WE should all get this country into the 21st century,& get nat. H/C ,like the rest of the non-third world.We have to take the Hillbillies here dragging & kicking if need be ,out of their achaic views,& into the next century,in their case the 19th would be an improvement.VIVA Lawrence!
"Lawrence, when will you and the others who actually get a chance to expose these frauds ask the right questions?"
Yes! I can't tell you how many times I've watched an interviewer miss the opportunity to force these folks to come out and SAY what they mean, either by not following up with a line of questioning, or not asking the question in the first place!
Santorum believes abortion should be illegal even if the mother's life is threatened? That it is a risk that is unfortunate, but the sanctity of life demands it? Then the next question must be "Would you support any kind of legislation requiring healthy people to donate a kidney to someone in need?"
Why not? It's an unfortunate risk, but isn't the person on the transplant list"a life?" And isn't it selfish for people to walk around with 2 kidneys when so many die on waiting lists? If he accepts the idea that a woman must risk her life to 'save' another, then why shouldn't that apply to kidney transplants?
And, how does the constitutional right to life apply to a woman forced to go through a pregnancy that is a threat to hers? If the State can overrule a woman's right to her own bodily integrity, and perhaps her very life, to 'save' the life of another, why wouldn't forced organ donation be the next logical step?
It's been over 30 hours since the 'Bayer Aspirin' comment, and I haven't heard ANYONE discuss, or even mention the key concept behind the 'Hold an Aspirin Between your Knees', or in other words, 'Keep your Legs Together' - ABSTINENCE!
Apparently, Santorum and Fries idea of the only 'Acceptable' method of Birth Control is Abstinence - We're going back to men telling women how to live their lives. I wonder if they subscribe to the belief than Women should be Subservient to Men - ie, Chattel!
They can't address the issues themselves in too much depth, the problems behind their positions become clear. So they go for the "You're declaring War on religion!" battlecry.
As the folks who will have the chance to put these jokers in a national spotlight, you have to put their feet to the fire. Not by negative attacks, but by demands that they talk about their positions at length. Walk them through the process, but MAKE them talk. When Rick Santorum makes comments about how sex is only for procreation in marriage, and that states have the right to legislate in these matters (and ARE) he MUST be asked how he would respond to a state passing a law outlawing all non-procreative sex, or all sex outside of marriage, and on what Constitutional basis he would do that. When he says that when he's President, he'll do away with all the gay marriages, he must be asked exactly how he will do this, and under what constitutional theory? When states pass laws for "personhood", he must be asked how this works in practice. What happens when a woman in a no abortion state goes across the border to a yes state, then comes back home? Is she arrested? And if the yes state refuses to provide the evidence, (the products of conception), how would the home state go about prosecuting? Would the accused be forced to undergo examination to prove that abortion took place? Does Santorum not understand how problematic the idea of states rights can be?
My fear is that Santorum understands EXACTLY what a return to 'States Rights' means!
Virginia and other southern states could return to their pre- Loving Decision Anti-Misogony Laws - No more mixed-race marriages; pre- Brown v Board of Education return to Segregated Schools and neighborhoods; States could return to pre- Griswold and pre- Eisenstadt bans on contraception; Texas and other states could reinstate their pre- Lawrence bans on certain forms of sexual contact; diagnosing Homosexuality as a mental disordered, with incarceration in insane asylums; a return to enforcing criminal prosecution and imprisonment of adulterers and fornicators; a ban on divorces; and of course, a return to pre- Roe v Wade bans on abortion....do I need to go on?
I'm beginning to realize that Santorum is the kind of fundamentalist that believes that children and wives are only chattel - the property of their fathers/husbands, only having the rights that a man gives them, that women should go from their father's house to their husband's house, after the future husband gets the father's permission, of course. I'm sure women voting would soon be revoked in Rick's World, Literacy Tests and Poll Taxes would return - Basically, going back to "Don't Think for Yourselves, The Church Knows Best" concept that led to the Dark Ages - Almost a Christian/Catholic version of the Taliban! Maybe public flogging, use of the stocks, stoning adulterers - Hey, how about a 21st Century Inquisition and Burning Witches at the Stake?
I may be exaggerating Santorum's views a little, but this is the direction he seems to want America to go - back to 'The Good Old Days'! Fortunately, Rick and his supporters keep talking, and sane people are listening, and starting to realize that Rick is coming from a very scary place, and they aren't interested in riding his crazy train!