Birth Control

At AP, When EWTN Lost a Round in Contraception Case, It Was National News; But Not Its Yesterday Win
By Tom Blumer | July 1, 2014 | 3:04 PM EDT

On June 18, Catholic broadcaster Eternal Word Television Network suffered a serious religious freedom setback when "A federal judge in Alabama ... dismissed a Catholic broadcaster's legal claim that requiring employers to include contraception in their health care coverage is unconstitutional." The Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, felt that story was important enough to merit coverage at its national site — and in fact, two weeks later, the story is still present there (also saved here for future reference and fair use and discussion purposes).

After that June ruling, EWTN promised that it would appeal. A July 1 compliance deadline and daily fines which would have almost certainly put the network out of business loomed. Yesterday, in the wake of the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision, EWTN scored what Life News's Steven Ertelt called "a resounding victory," when it "was granted last minute relief from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals," thus enabling it to "freely practice what it preaches while it pursues its claims in court." A search on "EWTN" at the AP's national site indicates that it has no story there on this development. The wire service does have a Monday afternoon local/regional story on the news:

VIDEO: Hobby Lobby Protesters Bash Religious Liberty at Supreme Court
July 1, 2014 | 9:56 AM EDT

The liberal media attack religious freedom in regards to the Hobby Lobby case -- and protesters followed suit outside SCOTUS as the justices released their opinions. Video Below.

After Hobby Lobby Ruling, NPR's Totenberg Claims Only Justice Kennedy Stands in Way of Sex and 'Foreign Origin' Discrimination
By Tom Blumer | June 30, 2014 | 5:49 PM EDT

In an MSNBC interview today, Nina Totenberg, National Public Radio's longtime Supreme Court watcher, attempted to portray the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision as possibly wide-ranging, and even advised viewers that Anthony Kennedy's presence on the court may be the only thing preventing it from bringing in an era of sex and "foreign origin" discrimination by "hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands of companies."

Video follows the jump (HT Hot Air). Be sure to hang in there until the end, where Totenberg stammers as she appears to be grasping for more fuel to throw onto the fire, and ends up ridiculously claiming that a person's "foreign origin" may become a basis upon which employers can discriminate (bolds are mine throughout this post):

NBC’s Alexander Ponders With Wasserman Schultz: 'What Should the Administration Do Now?' About Contraception
By Curtis Houck | June 30, 2014 | 5:20 PM EDT

On Monday’s Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC, substitute host and NBC national correspondent  Peter Alexander gave Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz the floor to sound off on the rulings from the Supreme Court on religious freedom and public employee unions. Not surprisingly, he refused to challenge the DNC Chair or even play devil’s advocate. Nor did Alexander bring on a Republican or conservative guest for the opposing perspective both before or after the segment. [MP3 audio here; Video below]

Stop the ‘Cut-Out Caricature’ Narrative of the Roberts Court, Liberal Law Prof Tells MSNBC
By Connor Williams | June 30, 2014 | 5:05 PM EDT

MSNBC and the liberal networks have been constantly fearmongering about the implications and supposed disastrous consequences of the Hobby Lobby ruling. However, seemingly by accident, Joy-Ann Reid brought on a liberal guest who was surprisingly defensive of the Court’s decision.

The Reid Report host welcomed Laurence Tribe, a constitutional lawyer, to the June 30 edition of the program, and he was not willing to concede that the Hobby Lobby ruling was transformative in any way. He lashed out at the left for their caricature of the Roberts Court as one that is just trying to screw the little guy in favor of the big corporations [MP3 audio here; video below]:

CNN Plays Up 'Tough Year' For Obama White House in Wake of Supreme Court Rulings
By Matthew Balan | June 30, 2014 | 4:14 PM EDT

On Monday's This Hour, CNN's John Berman underlined that the Supreme Court's ruling against the Obama administration's contraceptive mandate was "another setback to the administration, in what has been a difficult year for this White House." Berman later asserted that "this has to be very frustrating for them. They feel blocked politically, legally, foreign policy-wise. Pretty much, everywhere they look now, they're getting blocked."

Co-anchor Michaela Pereira also played up how all three female justices dissented in the Hobby Lobby case and forwarded the left's spin about the Court's ruling: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]

Three Biggest Lies Liberals Spread about the Hobby Lobby Ruling
By Kristine Marsh | June 30, 2014 | 4:12 PM EDT

As predicted, Monday’s Supreme Court ruling 5-4 in favor of Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Wood Co., and other family-owned businesses who filed against the contraceptive requirements provided in the HHS Mandate raised howls of outrage from the left. American women were being thrust back into the Dark Ages of 2009, yada yada yada. Many lefties took to Twitter to spew hate.

CNN’s Costello: If Hobby Lobby Prevails at Supreme Court, Will It ‘Open Up a Can of Worms?’
By Connor Williams | June 26, 2014 | 4:54 PM EDT

CNN’s Carol Costello seemed unable to comprehend why Hobby Lobby opposes the federal mandate in ObamaCare to cover emergency contraceptives and abortifacients. On the June 26 edition of CNN Newsroom, the host continually suggested that such exemptions only make sense for actual churches, rather than practicing Christians.

Costello stated in her introduction of the story that critics – they remained unnamed – claim that if Hobby Lobby prevails it could mean “tomorrow’s civil rights disaster.” Costello noted that Catholic bishops are also opposed to the federal mandate, but then questioned her guest, CNN Vatican analyst John Allen, with an exasperated voice if Hobby Lobby is really the “same as the Catholic Church, though.” Costello did not back down from this assertion either; later in the segment she pushed the same argument [MP3 audio here; video below]:

CNN Promotes Anti-Catholic Feminist Amanda Marcotte's Rebuke of Pope Francis
By Matthew Balan | June 7, 2014 | 1:07 PM EDT

On Friday's CNN Newsroom, Kyra Phillips boosted the latest musing of feminist blogger Amanda Marcotte, who deplored Pope Francis's recent advice to married couples to have children instead of going childless and owning pets instead. Phillips let the leftist writer assert that "the very notion that I'm anti-Catholic is completely ridiculous," but omitted the 2007 scandal where Marcotte had to leave John Edwards's campaign for a vulgar anti-Catholic screed.

The anchor also made it clear that she sympathized with her guest's pro-contraception, pro-population control column for The Daily Beast on Friday: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]

CNN Hypes Catholic Schools 'Trying to Force Teachers' to Sign 'Morality Clause on Steroids'
By Matthew Balan | June 2, 2014 | 4:43 PM EDT

On Sunday's CNN Newsroom, Susan Candiotti slanted toward the liberal opponents of the Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati's updated morality clause for its schoolteachers. Candiotti played up how the "new contract now has a litany of thou-shall-nots, including no sex outside marriage; no in-vitro fertilization; no remarriage without an annulment; no homosexual 'lifestyle;' and no public support of any of those."

The correspondent sympathized with the plight of one teacher who is "walking away from her dream job after 14 years," due to the archdiocese's "morality clause on steroids," which reemphasizes the Catholic Church's teachings on sex: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]

Lefty TV: Abortion is About ‘My Fundamental Right To Life’
By Kristine Marsh | May 19, 2014 | 11:54 AM EDT

The Left hasn’t got tired of the “War on Women” theme from the 2012 election cycle, just yet. In a May 15 episode of “AcronymTv” a left-wing internet broadcast part of The Young Turks Network, entitled, “The Catholic War on Women” and featured on The Huffington Post, show host Dennis Trainor Jr. brought on two radical feminists to discuss how to “take back the morality of abortion from the right-wing.”

Trainor asked guests Katie Klabusich and Kelly Carlin, “When do we get to a place where women cannot apologize for this [having an abortion], and be proud of this, be proud of the choice that they make?” Klabusich responded, “I think we have to retake the morality of the issue, back from the right-wing.” The feminist activists went on to bash the pro-life movement’s efforts to restrict abortions. “The abortion rate doesn’t go down when you make it illegal, women just die … “I don’t apologize when I say it, It [abortion] should be apart of basic healthcare,” Klabusich asserted. “We have to take back the morality of the issue, the idea that it isn’t just about my controlling my body but it’s really just about my fundamental right to life, and the same options as everyone around me.”

Not National News at AP: Planned Parenthood Loses Battle For State Funding in Kansas
By Tom Blumer | May 12, 2014 | 11:12 PM EDT

Tonight, the Associated Press treated a story about a suit to overturn tiny-population Alaska's ban on same-sex "marriage" as national news — even giving it a"Big Story" promotion. Meanwhile, it kept Planned Parenthood's decision to abandon its legal effort to obtain state funding in more-populated Kansas out of its national site, thus treating it as a local story.

Same-sex "marriage" and abortion are about equal in the pantheon of establishment press sacred cows, and each issue has been the subject of disputes in several states. So the only explanation for the disparate treatment seems to be that the Alaska story's national treatment occurred because it seems to advance one pet cause, while the Kansas story stayed local because it is a significant defeat for the other. In the Kansas story, Roxana Hegeman, as seen in the final excerpted paragraph following the jump, predictably misled readers about the nature of Planned Parenthood's services (HT Life News):