An LA Times Editorial calls on Rep. Darrell Issa and other politicians to get back to governing and stop playing politics with their power, their committees and women's health.

When Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, convened a hearing Thursday on religious freedom and the mandate that health insurers cover contraception, he ignited a firestorm of protest before he even started.

The first of two panels he assembled was all male — something that a Democratic congresswoman on the committee noted immediately and not favorably, given thatwomen's healthwas at the heart of what was being discussed. A photo of the panel of clergymen at a table before the committee went viral on Facebook.

The Democrats who made political hay of Issa's choice of witnesses were right; surely it says something troubling that the committee didn't bother to find a single woman to testify on its first panel. (There were two on the second.) But it is at least as troubling that there was no one at all — male or female, on either panel — called to testify in support of the Obama administration's proposed mandate.

Read more at the Los Angeles Times

A new chart shows the extreme positions of the GOP Presidential candidates when it comes to women's health care.  It's not just about contraception and abortion.

Conservatives have launched an all-out assault on affordable access to birth control, but their war on women’s health care doesn’t stop at contraception. We’ve compiled a chart showing the extreme positions on women’s health care issues that the four remaining GOP presidential contenders have taken. To a man, they oppose everything from no-cost coverage for cancer screenings to the elimination of domestic violence as a preexisting condition.

Read more at Think Progress

A new poll by CBS/New York Times shows that a majority of Americans, including Catholics, support the coverge of birth control in health insurance plans.

The new CBS/New York Times poll shows that the White House’s fight over contraception in health insurance plans is in fact on the winning side with the public — and among Catholics, too, the group whose church leadership has mounted the mount vigorous campaign against it.

The poll of American adults asked: “Do you support or oppose a recent federal requirement that private health insurance plans cover the full cost of birth control for their female patients?” The answer was: Support 66%, Oppose 26%.

A follow-up question then specifically brought the religious element into the equation: “And what about for religiously affiliated employers, such as a hospital or university — do you support or oppose a recent federal requirement that their health insurance plans cover the full cost of birth control for their female employees?”

Read more at Talking Points Memo

An Israeli diplomat's wife in New Delhi was injured by a car bomb, and a second bomb was disabled in a staff member's car at the Israeli embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Monday's attacks came the day after the fourth anniversary of the assassination of the operational chief of Hezbollah, Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed Feb. 12, 2008 in Damascus by a car bomb. Hezbollah blames his killing on Israel. Israeli embassies and other missions had been on high alert in advance of the anniversary.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran was behind the attacks.

Read more at JTA

Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Iran on Sunday, warning the Palestinian movement leader against any potential compromise with Israel, according to AFP.

Referencing the recent reconciliation agreement between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah, Khamenei said that Haniyeh must "always be wary of infiltration by compromisers in a resistance organization, which will gradually weaken it." Haniyeh arrived in Iran on Friday for a three-day visit.

The agreement, reached between Fatah and Hamas under the auspices of Qatar, calls for Abbas to serve as an interim prime minister of a Palestinian unity government made up of independent figures. It has stirred controversy, both within the domestic Palestinian arena and in the international community.

Read more at Jerusalem Post

While no one was looking, democracies around the world have begun warming up to, and even embracing, Israel.

No Israeli could have failed to notice the radical change in weather over the past two months. Forecasters predicted another dry winter, and fortunately they turned out to be wrong. And while Israel is still suffering from a water shortage, for the moment the situation is not as dire as we had thought.

But has anyone noticed that there is another change on the horizon, one that has confounded the prophets of doom? Slowly but surely, it is becoming apparent that the international political climate in Israel is far better than had been predicted, and it seems to be getting better all the time.

Last week the Canadian foreign minister, John Baird, announced during a visit to Israel that Israel has no better friend than Canada. "Ottawa", he said, "stands for what is principled and just, regardless of whether it is popular, convenient or expedient." Baird added, "Israel is a beacon of light in a region that craves freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law."

Read more at Haaretz

February 2, 2002, Chicago, IL  - The Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs urged its members to write, email and call the Susan G. Komen Foundation to protest its decision to defund Planned Parenthood of funds that were reserved for for breast cancer screenings, education and referrals for mammograms.

JAC views this blow to women’s health as a narrowing of  the separation of religion and state via the politicizing  of medicine. Increasingly, the right wing arm of the Republican party has sought to marginalize women’s health by legislating away reproductive health. Now, it seems that breast and pelvic health are the newest targets. When an organization like Komen which  purports to care for women’s breast health allows the politics of some of its board and senior staff to over rule medical issues, the threat is no longer just invisible.

In April 2011, Komen hired Karen Handel as its senior policy director, who ran and lost as an anti  abortion candidate in Georgia’s 2010 gubernatorial election. Her extreme views are well-documented and are seemingly changing the gestalt of Komen.

Additionally, a member of  Komen's Advocacy Alliance Board is  Jane Abraham, the General Chairman of the Susan B. Anthony List and of its Political Action Committee.  Among other involvements, Abraham helps direct the Nuturing Network, a global network of crisis pregnancy centers,   It seems that Komen has turned right and left women and science behind.

Some of Komen’s affiliates sent emails trying to explain the new policy that organizations who are under local, state or federal investigations cannot apply for grants. They cite the witch hunt  by Rep Stearns (R-FL) who has subpeonaed Planned Parenthood records trying to find that they co-mingled federal funds and used them for abortions. This magnifies JAC’s concern that a private sector organization is reacting to an anti-abortion Congressional leader who has no proof of any wrong doing. The fact that many women will lose access to breast care and may suffer life-threatening conditions does not seem to concern Komen. Their guiding principles are lost to the right. Women and men must protest any time the anti-science, anti-medicine or anti-women forces seize control of an organization like Komen

Read more at JTA

Congresswoman Nita Lowey responds to critics who say the administration was wrong to protect access to contraception for millions of women under the Affordable Care Act.

Read more at Huffington Post

A Rhode Island high school student has sued to have a prayer removed from her school auditorium, angering many in the community.

Read more at San Diego Union Tribune

Coinciding with the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, House Republicans have introduced three new bills to restrict access to abortion.

Read more at The Hill Blog

Prime Minister Netanyahu addresses a special session of Knesset before International Holocaust Rememberance Day, stating that the world still has lessons to learn about preventing genocide, and enabling dictatorships to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

"Seventy years have passed since the Holocaust, and many around the world still remain silent in the face of Iran's threats to wipe Israel off the map, and many stay silent despite Hezbollah's call for the destruction of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday during a special Knesset session ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which will be marked this week.

"International Holocaust Remembrance Day is the day on which the world needs to stand behind the words 'no more.' It's not a slogan, but has a deep meaning," he said. "It is the day on which the world must unite to make certain weapons of mass destruction do not fall into the hands of dark regimes, headed by the ayatollahs' regime in Iran."

Netanyahu added: "Have we learned the lessons of the Holocaust? Are we treating these threats of destruction seriously? Or perhaps, like many generations before us we do not want to see the scope of the danger that is facing us. The Iranian regime is openly calling for the destruction of Israel, but many around the world remain silent. We mustn't bury our head in the sand. The Iranian regime is planning the annihilation of Israel and is working towards Israel's destruction – its agents (Hezbollah) fired over 12,000 missiles towards Israel's cities. They are not concealing their intent to kill as many (Israelis) as possible.

Read more at Ynet News

Israel's Ambassador to the UN Ron Prossor called on the UN to take further actions to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon at a recent meeting of the UN Security Council.

Iran is the single greatest threat to the world and the United Nations needs to take action against it immediately, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor told the Security Council in New York on Tuesday.

“Never has it been so clear Iran is seeking to build a nuclear weapon,” said Prosor speaking at a regular meeting debating the “situation in the Middle East and the Palestinians question.”

“Now is the time to act. Tomorrow is too late. The stakes are too high. The price of inaction is too great,” he said.

Read more at Jerusalem Post

What does Pro-Choice really mean?  It is so much more than access to abortions, and we need to keep stressing that.

With the anniversary of Roe v. Wade on Jan. 22, the words "pro-choice" seem to be everywhere. You’ll hear them in impassioned speeches, and see them on colorful posters, on blogs and in tweets.  And when you do, you’ll probably think of abortion.

That’s understandable. And undeniably, the right to choose an abortion is something that must be protected.  A woman chooses abortion for the most intimate, personal reasons, and no one else is qualified to make that choice.

But abortion is far from the only choice a woman makes about her reproductive health. And if you really think about it, why wait to defend those reproductive health choices until she is at the door of an abortion clinic?

Read more at RH Reality Check

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has announced there will not be an exemption for no-cost birth control for employees of religious-affiliated institutions.  This will not impacts houses of worship, but will apply to non-profit institutions including hospitals, universities and service organizations.

In an election-year decision certain to disappoint religious conservatives, the Obama administration announced Friday that church-affiliated institutions will get only one additional year to meet a new rule to cover birth control free of charge.

Friday’s announcement by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius does not apply to houses of worship. Churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship were already exempt from the birth control coverage rule.

But in many cases, other religious-affiliated employers such as hospitals and universities traditionally have not provided any birth control coverage for their employees. They were seeking a broader exemption that would allow them to continue that practice.

Read more at Washington Post