I thought we might be finished, I thought Republicans might retreat from some from their extremist anti-womyn, anti-contraception, anti-human medieval belief that females are chattle. Did they, nope, they doubled down dug themselves a trench of quicksand. It is unbelievable what these dudes are willing to do to destroy their party with their public jihad against womyn.  In their massive opposition to prescription drug coverage for womyn they remind  me of the old story of Bison following each other mindlessly off a cliff, this cliff being the cliff of fair and equal access to  prescription drug coverage for womyn.

Yesterday began with Daryl Issa's, Chairman of House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, holding a hearing hilariously and ironically titled:  “Lines Crossed:  Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?” It was great because of course Congressman Issa had no womyn on his original panel of dudes he called to testify on behalf of Issa's conclusion which came long before he called this hearing,  It is obvious that for Issa and his pals in congress that hearing on contraceptive coverage was held to find a way to get to no, using whatever possible including banning womyn who are pro-choice from testifying at the hearing.

That is how the day began, but as we moved quickly into afternoon we heard Rick Santorums SuperPac guy Mr. Foster Friese. Friese stunned Andrea Mitchell when he made the statement that womyn in his era used and asprin between their legs as their form of contraception, which I guess explains all those teenagers getting married in the 1950's and early 60's.  He was doing what all those old guys do, he was inferring that womyn who use  contraception are sluts. Yikes, and all Santorum's staff can say, is that Friese doesn't work for the campaign. Umm, Okay.

Overreach is the word of the day, Republicans are carrying on in Newt's footsteps, they love overreach, although they don't see it as overreach. Issa and his crew make excuses, THIS ISN'T ABOUT CONTRACEPTION, they scream, no, no, this is about RELIGIOUS FREEDUMB. You stick with that dudes, and you will see your party shrink enough for us to drown it in the bathtub, to quote your leader Grover Norquist.

This is part and parcel of what Julian Sanchez , David Frum, Jon Chait were discussing all last year, the Epistemic Closure of the Republican Party. It isn't only the case that Republicans are purging some of their best thinkers from their club, David Frum from the American Enterprise Institute or Andrew Sullivan a man who was once considered a "good conservative" and Bruce Bartlett, who was fired by a right wing think tank called the National Center for Policy Analysis in 2005 for writing a book critical of George W. Bush's policies, who has written that he even lost a great many friends and been shunned by conservative society in Washington, DC after his book came out, sacrilege!

And then of course there is this little piece of information from a survey conducted by Democracy Corps, which finds the Republican brand:

"is in a state of collapse -- over 50 percent of voters give the Republican Party a cool, negative rating. The presidential race and the congressional battles are interacting with each other to drive down their lead candidate, the party, and perceptions of the congressional Republicans."

According to that survey those voters who gave Democrats victories in 2006 and 2008 are back, in a big way, in particular among unmarried womyn.  Their direct assault on our rights is going to kill off their chances in the fall, it will mostly likely affect those running down ticket as well, this issue alone will relegate Republicans to a smaller and smaller slice of the electorate.  And they don't seem to care one bit.

Crossposted @ TheAngriestLiberal