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Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum took a page from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's playbook on Friday and lashed out at CBS News for asking him about a major supporter who dismissed the need for contraception by saying women could put an aspirin "between their knees."

"This is someone who is a supporter of mine and I'm not responsible for every comment a supporter of mine makes," the candidate told CBS host Charlie Rose. "It was a bad joke. It was a stupid joke. It's not reflective of me or my record on this issue. ... This is the same gotcha politics that you get from the media."

"Nobody said you were responsible," Rose explained. "They said, how would you characterize it and what had you said to him, not that you were responsible? It's to understand how you differ from what this person said."

"This is what you guys do," Santorum charged. "You don't do this with President Obama. In fact with President Obama, what you did was you went out and defended him against someone who he sat in a church for -- for 20 years -- and defended him that, 'Oh, he can't possibly believe what he listened to for 20 years.'"

"It's a double standard," he continued. "This is what you're pulling off, and I'm going to call you on it."

Rose noted that as late as last October, the former Pennsylvania senator had said birth control was "not OK"

"One of the things that I will talk about that no president has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the sexual libertine idea and many in the Christian faith have said, you know contraception is OK," Santorum told Caffeinated Thoughts at the time. "It’s not OK because it’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be."

While the candidate did not deny that statement, he told Rose that his "public policy" belief was that birth control should be available.

"I've also supported abstinence-based education because I believe that is a healthier alternative," he added. "I've been a very strong promoter of that. I think that premarital sex and particularly sex with young girls is a very dangerous and at-risk behavior ... I do stand behind the idea that abstinence is the best alternative and I've support that with a program called Title XX within the government."

Gingrich has also made an art form out of attacking the media throughout his presidential campaign.

During a CNN-hosted debate in January, the Georgia Republican blasted moderator John King for asking if his second wife, Marianne, was telling the truth when she claimed he had asked for an “open marriage.â€

That performance is largely credited for helping him to win the South Carolina primary.

The Young Turks - December 19, 2011

I watch a lot of BBC TV and shows like MI-5 which use Britain's CCTV coverage to find criminals and covert operatives all the time. It's kind of cool because they only use footage of the bad guys trying to blow things up in London, so seeing cameras in NYC wasn't so troubling to me when I was there. But using drones on U.S. soil is repulsive and should terrify people because we know where it will lead.

Digby writes: Drones and military industrial complex

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The Ed Show - 2/14/12

I hate what I've learned about Apple's outsourcing to China. I hate knowing that Steve Jobs, who I admired very much in some ways, ignored repeated reports that employees were being cheated and endangered. I hate knowing that his business practices are destroying the kind of good middle-class job his adoptive father had.

I hate watching this week's news stories about China, knowing most of them ignore the fact that American companies who outsource to China have employee fraud and death built into their business plans.

In the words of the old Bob Seger song: Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then. But I do.

Where the Blame Belongs

China and trade are back in the news, thanks to the trade visit of Chinese Vice President (and future President, by most reports) Xi Jinping. Last week on The Breakdown radio show I interviewed William K. Black, Jr., the former regulator who is now a Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.

Prof. Black, who describes himself as a "white collar criminologist," makes a compelling argument that the cruelty and cynicism of both Chinese authorities and American companies like Apple are far worse than most people can imagine. He identifies Apple's greatest misdeed - one that may be shared by most of its competitors - as "anti-employee control fraud" which it tolerated despite repeated reports.

Before the interview, Bill Black and I shared stories of the working conditions we'd both seen in other countries. Sometimes it isn't pretty at all. So let's not kid ourselves any longer: Companies like Apple don't outsource to China because the workforce is better-educated or more highly motivated. They don't even outsource just because the labor is cheaper there. They outsource because employers who defraud their workers can make products more cheaply, and those who ignore their safety can produce them more quickly.

“I won’t sell a product that gets scratched,†Steve Jobs said in a famous anecdote. “I want a glass screen, and I want it perfect in six weeks.â€As Prof. Black noted in our interview (audio here), "Imagine what would have happened if Steve Jobs cared as much about the health of his workers as he did about the quality of an iPhone screen."

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Jodi Kantor is the author of The Obamas, a recently-released account of President and Mrs. Obama's adjustment to the White House. Many of you know I am not a fan of the book, not because it's particularly negative, but because there is a lot of projection about what motivates different people, particularly the Obamas, to do certain things. If I had to rate it on a scale from horrible to fantastic, it would get a "mostly meh" from me.

I wonder if Jodi Kantor really expected what Hannity did during this interview with her tonight. He didn't really want to talk about what was in the book at all. What he wanted to do, more than anything else, was to talk about what wasn't in the book, why it wasn't in the book, and whether she agreed with him that it should have been in the book. Specifically, he was rather put out that she hadn't written anything about the Grand Conspiracy between Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and Media Matters for America. You may be wondering to what Grand Conspiracy I am referring. If I knew the answer, I would surely tell you.

After dispensing with his expected concern trolling over Kantor being "attacked by another network," he moved in for the pounce, at about 1:35 or so:

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I find it hard to believe that after the serious consequences that CitiBank suffered (oh wait, they didn't, did they?) and all the regulations that were tightened up and carefully enforced (oh wait, they weren't, were they?), that this bank would dare to do such things. Boy, you just know something really, really bad will happen to them now. Right?

A whole $158.3 million? There goes the annual hookers-and-blow budget!

Well, sure they did! They learned that the people who are allegedly looking out for the public interest will accept just about any cover story for their bad behavior, however ludicrous it is.

I can't remember how long ago this happened, but they used to have these things call "jail sentences" that reduced such shenanigans. But hey, bygones!

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/ISKdTo_XcWo ]

From The Majority Report -- Unions Replace Wisconsin Flag with their Own...or Politico Reporter is Stupid:

Here's more from Gawker who got a screen shot before the post was pulled -- Politico Mistakes State Flag for Union Flag, Idiocy Ensues:

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Credit: The Dispatch

Pregnant Teen is victim of sexual ignorance

Rick Santorum's mega-million dollar donor Foster Friess made news yesterday when he shared his insane birth control beliefs with Andrea Mitchell :

It was pretty horrifying to hear. Diane Sweet, who runs our Occupy America Blog found this Dear Abby article from July18, 2007 which puts a chilling story to this anti-choice neanderthal's words and chuckles.

What a joke it must have been to Foster and his pals after he left the set. He probably thought he set Andrea Mitchell straight on the idea of how silly birth control is when all you have to do is grab an aspirin and squeeze. Because for Freiss, contraception is all about slut-shaming women into closing their legs. Is it any wonder that the new poll by the Democracy Corp shows President Obama destroying Mitt Romney in the unmarried women category:

It's only Friday if Jeremy Lin says it's Friday. Does he say it's Friday? Ok, then. It's Friday.

The 1st Five: Megadeath's Dave Mustaine thinks Rick Santorum is a respectable guy. Which is a problem.

Occasional Planet: Walter Cronkite telling the truth made it easy to be a liberal.

Going Concern: Rick Santorum may be a champion of zygotes, but he's a cheapskate when it comes to charitable giving.

Language Log: Getting Jeremy Lin - and society - all wrong.

Round up by William K. Wolfrum. Send tips to mbru AT crooksandliars DOT com.

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Credit: Blue Gal

Aspirin-sized brains seem rampant in the GOP these days.

Open thread below....

[I've been meaning to write this post for at least two years now, so, with the Oscars fast approaching...]

Since the advent of "talkies" in the film industry, there's been a link between popular music and film. It should have surprised no one that the first commercially released full-feature film with sound- The Jazz Singer- starred the popular music star Al Jolson (who wasn't actually the first choice- George Jessel, who starred in the Broadway version from which the film was adapted, passed on reprising his role on film).

From that time forward, pieces of popular music have been inextricably linked with visual imagery to create some of the most memorable scenes in the film art form. The song I've featured here, released in 1973, had a full life of it's own before Quentin Tarantino employed it to enhance an iconic scene of sadistic violence in his 1992 debut, Reservoir Dogs. I'd have linked the scene here, but since I know for a fact that it would make at least one of our regulars very squeamish, I'll suffice it to say that since viewing the film, any time I hear the song I immediately imagine Michael Madsen dancing a jig, straight razor in hand...

So...what are the pieces of music that immediately bring a filmed image to your mind?

Stealers Wheel

Artist: Stealers Wheel

Price: $8.99

(As of 02/17/12 02:25 am details)