The latest ridiculous and factually inaccurate accusation hurled at First Lady Michelle Obama comes from one of the twin twits of the Tea Party, Michelle Bachmann. Her sister from another mother Sarah Trademark Palin has already and on more than one occasion shared her opinion on the First Lady's anti-obesity initiative and campaign to provide healthier food options to kids and families.
I mean how dare the First Lady seek to deprive kids of their God given and Constitutionally guaranteed rights to cookies and s'mores !
Of course FLOTUS said no such thing but facts schmacts. But since Bachmann seems determined to go even further than Palin in the making things up department, she reveals the First Lady's real sinister motive! Not just to deprive the children of American of cookies and s'mores. Not just to force them outside to play and be provided the opportunity to eat healthier and perhaps not develop diabetes or other illnesses that will complicate their lives. No. Now the First Lady wants to force the evil bad awful no good government to BUY WOMEN BREAST PUMPS!
Except of course that's not true in anyone's mind but Bachmann's ( and I use that term, mind, loosely). Bachmann's take:
But, “to think that government has to go out and buy my breast pump for my babies? You wanna talk about the nanny state, I think you just got a new definition,” she said.
You thought FEMA camps were bad? Now we're gonna have mandatory breast pumping with government funded pumps! Oh wait...the facts:
First lady Michelle Obama will be speaking out to remove barriers to breastfeeding, Politics Daily has learned, throwing the spotlight on nursing as a way to reduce childhood obesity.
What the First Lady is supporting includes more flexible workplace accommodations for breast feeding / pumping and applauding that : IRS Says Breastfeeding Expenses Are Tax Write-Offs. Finally.
Included in those things that can be written off are breast pumps. See how Michelle Bachmann got from that to government sponsored breast pumps? Me either.
This diary isn't a debate about whether to breast feed or not. I think that's a decision each woman has to make on her own, and while there are documented health benefits associated with it, including the positive impact it has on helping to reduce childhood obesity, there are equally real reasons why some women can't / don't breastfeed and I get just as cranky when people try to guilt women into it. Editorial comment over, back to our lunacy.
You might think, what's the big deal? You pull out a boob, the kid eats...where's the cost? Well:
And forget "free" when it comes to pumping. The state-of-the-art Medela backpack pump rings up at $264.99 (the "pump-in-style" hand bag can set you back $360). And that's before you extra valves ($7), bags for freezing ($10 for 50), extra tubing ($6), the "hands free" bodice that lets you pump and use a computer ($32). Some estimates put the yearly cost between $500 to $1,000.
So once again, someone like Bachmann takes something totally out of context, lies about it and gets to spew it to her base and it's taken as fact. But that's not the worst of what's taken place this week in terms of what's been flung at the First Lady.
Also once again, the right exposes its true feelings through their "humor". I don't see anything funny about the "cartoon" that was posted on Breitbart's site this week. To me it's unmistakable that the intent was to be offensive but that's just me. I also think sunlight is the best disinfectant so I'm showing it and people can make up their own minds. This is via Media Matters:
Lawrence O'Donnell covered on his show last night but I think he was mistaken in not showing it and instead talking to it. I think it speaks for itself...volumes.
They hate this family so much that they're now railing against vegetables and breast feeding. Think I'm exaggerating?
Fox & Friends Against Breast-feeding, Eating Veggies? No, Just Against Michelle Obama
Which highlights their hypocrisy in interviewing and fawning over right leaning actress Angie Harmon for promoting healthy eating, while criticizing the First Lady for the exact same thing:
Co-host Steve Doocy made sure to expand this faux-outrage to Michelle Obama's other anti-obesity efforts, adding at the end of the conversation, "And you know, Angie, the federal government is trying to get into our kitchen to regulate what we eat." Yes, Doocy characterized a push for healthier foods in school cafeterias -- in a bill that doesn't add to the deficit -- and a call on restaurants to offer smaller portions as some sort of Big Brother intrusion.
Yet minutes later, the conversation turns to calls for healthy eating from a different public figure: Angie Harmon. This time, though, the co-hosts happily applaud this effort to get kids to eat their veggies. On-screen text aired during the segment reads, "Eat Your Veggies: Angie's effort to have kids enjoy vegetables." With no awareness of the irony, the show also airs text reading, "Veggie Tales: Angie's vegetable agenda."
They don't even pretend anymore. I'm not sure they ever did.