When Ed said - "Cut his mic!" My jaw dropped! I've been yelling at my TV for YEARS about that. When these assholes run on at the mouth, are RUDE, butt in - interrupting ALL THE TIME, after they had their moment to speak and their point to make and then it's somebody else's turn - they just butt in anyway - and they don't stop talking. They just keep on and keep on and keep on with the yammering. It's HIGH TIME somebody finally said - "OKAY, CUT THE MIC." WHY has it taken this long to start doing that?

Big Ed said - NO Filibustering. And sometimes you just have to cut their mic if they won't play fair.

REMEMBER - THAT side is NOT here to play fair. They're here to win - and if that means drowning you out, shouting you down, not letting you get a word in edgewise, butting in and talking over everybody when it's THEIR turn to speak, the constant butting in and interrupting and then not stopping when someone else is supposed to be speaking, then that's what they'll do.

I'm noticing this more and more.

I suspect the latest crop of young CON talking heads have been well schooled in this. I suspect they've had time to practice in studios within the Heritage Foundation (where I think this young motormouth was from), the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, and all the rest of 'em. They probably have mock studios and staged "shows" with the uki of the day (the sparring partner that's just there to take all the hits, so you can practice your jabbing) simply there to be kicked around and shouted down and talked over. I bet they rehearse and rehearse and rehearse on how to filibuster and crowd out any other point of view.

WHICH MEANS - we have to respond by just yanking their mic. That's it. Done. Cut the mic. For Ed it was after he'd repeatedly asked Young Mr. Motormouth to let the other guy speak. Refusal. Repeated requests. Repeated refusal. Well, then you force our hands, dude. You're OFF THE AIR. I'd actually prefer - OFF THE AIR and OUT OF THE STUDIO. PERMANENTLY. You get ONE chance to be civil. Because you've been on so frequently and you ALWAYS run off at the mouth and try to outshout and shut down the other speakers. So you don't deserve any further politeness yourself. Go ahead and keep on shouting and crowding and filibustering. We've asked you to stop. You won't. So we're cutting your mic. I actually hope they don't invite him on anymore.

Be nice. OR LEAVE!!!!!

It made my day to see that! First time EVER! And it's been SO HUGELY deserved, for so long. Sooooooo many years. SO many years this has been allowed to go on. FINALLY somebody said "STOP!" - and MEANT it! And actually DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT to MAKE them stop. I hope this, too, is a trend that continues. If I were running MSNBC, I'd make it iron-clad POLICY. They don't shut up? Then you cut their mic. AND they're no longer invited on the air.

Women ARE getting left behind. It's as though the bad guys are running out of people they can look down upon, or try to oppress so THEY can feel bigger or stronger or greater or whatever-er. So we women are all the "safe" targets remaining.

AND THAT JUST SIMPLY HAS TO CHANGE, DAMMIT!!!!!

We're MORE than half the population. Why we don't flex those muscles more ferociously and relentlessly - I DO NOT KNOW.

What if we had a sex boycott?

What if SOME of our sisters in Congress and the state legislatures started sneaking language into various random bills that would...
1) unravel the Hyde Amendment.
2) make PERMANENT, somehow, a woman's right to choose.
3) start legislating government intrusion into one's urologist's office, regarding that sacred male real estate - the penis, and the scrotum. They sure don't mind groping around our ovaries and vaginas, do they!?! (Taste of their own medicine. See how they like it. Part 1)
4) whatever restrictions on women's health care that therefore also prevent access to mammograms and pap smears and other NON-abortion-related services - SAME THING should happen to prostate exams. (Taste of their own medicine. See how they like it. Part 2)
5) legislation tying cuts in federal/state/local spending on those programs supporting poor families and single-head-of-household (usually a woman) to cuts in the military. A trigger. ONE-FOR-ONE. You do one, then the other automatically gets a corresponding cut.
6) legislation barring ANY discrimination against a woman seeking insurance coverage for contraceptives. Don't CARE what the business is. Don't CARE what the "religion" of the boss or the owners are. If you can't find it in your heart to do that, you're in the wrong business.
7) legislation that automatically nullifies ANY additional future attempts to restrict a woman's right to end a pregnancy in the first or even second trimester if medical issues dictate. AUTOMATICALLY NULLIFIES. Kinda like the damned Hyde Amendment has rendered a lot of protections we'd seek on this issue dead-before-it-even-gets-off-the-ground. The damned Hyde Amendment makes a LOT of our efforts non-starters - by its very existence. WE need one of those "REVERSE Hyde Amendments"!!!!! Besides, the Hyde Amendment needs to be done away with.

And I'm sure there are more little sneak attacks. Hell, THEY do it! THE BAD GUYS do it all the time. Make 'em think twice EVERY TIME THEY INITIATE ANY - repeat - ANY BILL AT ALL. ANY bill at all that originates from the GOP side.

It'll at least foul up the works and slow them down. Kinda like stop signs in my neighborhood. They DON'T stop the speeders. But they DO force them to slow down - even just a wee bit. And just that two or three seconds extra means there's enough time for some dog walker or mom with baby stroller or nanny with toddlers or elderly couple out for a walk to get safely out of the road.

WHY CAN'T WE DO THIS???? Fighting the way we have been so far hasn't worked. Hasn't worked AT ALL. They should see us women coming in the hallways of the statehouses and Congress - and start grabbing for the Maalox bottle. Let 'em see how it feels when EVERYWHERE they turn and EVERYTHING they try to do against us is met with shit, and complications, and problems, and obfuscation, and delays, and foot-dragging, and fine print, and NO FREE GLIDE toward law. We need to fuck up their works. BIGTIME.

That's all we are. We're fuckin' damn Tupperware. That's the only thing of value about our gender with these people.

He hasn't learned much from this. He thinks the problem isn't with the new law - it's with YOUR perception of the new law. He's reluctantly bowing to perception management, NOT to the actual reality here. He still thinks the law is just fine. It's just the firestorm it created that has forced him to bend. And he's only bending minimally.

independent. That would be sheer bliss! Divide and conquer. NOTHING would please me more!!! (Well... maybe chocolate and a platinum album for my kid's band...)

This surprised me not at all. Just adding to the reasons why I find him completely putrid as a human being.

He brought up Hobby Lobby as a justification. That's all the proof you need. And I haven't seen a single reference to that in the post-news conference coverage.

NOBODY is connecting the dots. And it's CRITICAL that we do!!!!!