The panel for February 16th’s House Oversight and Government Reform committee hearing on birth control access.

“Democrats on the panel were told they were allowed only one witness. They selected a young female Georgetown student, Sandra Fluke, who was going to discuss the repercussions of losing contraceptive coverage. But Representative Darrell Issa, the chairman, rejected her as ‘not qualified.’”

(Republican Hearing on Contraception: No Women Allowed | The Nation)

While I do not believe that participation in electoral politics is meaningful or relevant, this appears as concrete evidence of the very scary direction the government is moving in.

Something clearly needs to be done about this situation. What are our options? On one hand we have nonprofits and similar groups making attempts to affect politics through lobbying— attempts that seem truly naive, not to say pathetic, knowing what we do about both the economic resources of those in power, and the blatant, comprehensive corruption of the American democratic system— and, on the other hand we have a bunch of people either attempting to put people they know into (admittedly much deserved) accountability processes, or just privately shit-talking the manarchists in their lives. I can only assume that all this is a clever smoke screen; if there are other options out there I would love to hear about them.