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Foster Friess, a billionaire investor and a major backer to the super PAC supporting Rick Santorum for President, was on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports earlier this afternoon and commented on the culture wars over contraception.
Here's the full exchange:
Andrea Mitchell: Do you have any concerns about some of his comments on social issues, contraception, about women in combat, and whether that would hurt his general election campaign would he be the nominee?
Foster Friess: I get such a chuckle when these things come out. Here we have millions of our fellow Americans unemployed, we have jihadist camps being set up in Latin America, which Rick has been warning about, and people seem to be so preoccupied with sex. I think it says something about our culture. We maybe need a massive therapy session so we can concentrate on what the real issues are. And this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s such inexpensive. Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.
Andrea Mitchell: Excuse me, I’m just trying to catch my breath from that, Mr. Friess, frankly.
But you should really watch Mitchell's reaction at the end of Mr. Friess's statement below:
Rick Santorum campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley told Talking Points Memo the campaign has "no comment" on Friess' comment that women should use "aspirin between their legs" as birth control. Gidley added, the campaign will not "make a comment on somebody that doesn't have any affiliation. [Foster Friess] can answer those comments."
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I find it mind numbing that Romney is having a hard time dealing with Santorum. Boy is the GOP toast.
Friess: Sorry, but I am old enough to know the phrase of "the aspiring between your knees". It was a way of telling whether "you were a good girl or not". If your dropped your aspirin then you did not keep your knees closed enough. He meant to be insulting.
There was another phrase that went along with that one. "my rabbit died, after my aspirin fell". Yes, Mr Friess, you were insulting and demeaning to the female population.
The next time we will see is that a father can harm the daughter whose "aspirin fell" Just like the Taliban, right? You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time.
What I do not understand is why is it that if he is so smart he does not know that the president is not against religion. He said for insurance companies to cover for birth control. Lawrence, you should have stopped him right there.
In all this Obama is the winner. They are toast. They are trying to bring this country to pre-sixties era.
Here's a bit of history on the Friess aspirin joke: I first saw it in Playboy magazine back in the late 60's or early 70's...
Now we know what he was reading back then...
Who knew ?
It's an old joke, and likely Playboy isn't the originator.
I had just turned on the TV when Andrea Mitchell asked him some question, can't remember that now, and he said a bunch of things about Santorum, and then this:
"And this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s such inexpensive. Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly."
I think I saw the look on my own face when I saw Mitchell's. I have never before had a true use for the word "gobsmacked," but now I do. I still can't believe he said that.
And how ANYONE can imagine that a man who says things like this: "One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, “Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be."
Yeah, he's winning the caucuses because it's the right wingnuts that show up to vote in them. he'd better hold on to those votes hard. He won't get very many from the sane and sentient among us - the silent and rally getting very tired of all this nonsense majority.
It couldn't have been much earlier than when I read it, Barbara, since the Pill wasn't introduced until the early 60's...
And regardless, you'll never convince me Friess didn't read it in Playboy first... I went through adolescence back then, and I can tell you about those things the same way you can tell us guys about women's issues...
In that area, I bow to your expertise, although one thing I remember from the old days--where they spoke of the "dangers" of the Pill--was that complications from pregnancy offered a far greater risk...
And maybe we could just tell them birth control prevents abortions, and they just might STFU...
I wonder if Mullah Santorum and his cleric Freiss were abused by their mothers when they were growing up?Prisons are full of men that think the way these two do about women,and most say they were abused by their mother. What will they come up with next?Women must wear Burka's in public so men wo'nt be aroused.If I were a woman I would very concerned about Santorum winning the nomination,with a backer like Friess what favors will he owe this zealot.
You are right, they seem to think that because of birth control there are not any decent women out there. I wonder what does Gingrich's now wife thinks of that. She may not have kept her legs crossed. A woman does not need the existence or non-existence of birth control to have decorum. But we all have free will, and it is a good thing that only God is the judge because only him can read the heart. Friess is insulting and demeaning and Santorum insults women whom he does not know and judges as if perfection is one of his attributes.
If they want to talk about religious things why don't they realized that there is something more important that Jesus will take in consideration in order for a person to enter into his kingdom Mathew 25:31-46
This creates an entirely new interpretation of the diner scene in "Five Easy Pieces."
The insinuation earlier was that women needed to CLOSE THERE LEGS, Rick Santorum will do what ever it takes to make it difficult for Women to get contraception, that is what the CATHOLIC CHURCH wants. Foster's double is just that double talk.
Please, Lawrence, ask this guy WHERE all these public health clinics are that pass out free birth control!
Also ask how allowing Catholic or any other employers to refuse to cover BC doesn't constitute them forcing their religious beliefs on their employees - that's far more of an issue than the employers losing their religious rights.
It is so amusing rearing the discussion about aspirin between your knees as a contraceptive. This is an old warning to young women on how to avoid intercourse/sex, because, if you have to hold that aspirin between your knees you won't be able to have sex. Told as a joke but a serious warning to young women. This was told to me by my Mother-in-law some 60 years ago when there was no birth control available and abstinence was the only method available.
Lawrence, I have been amazed that this "issue" is being cast as one of religious liberty, based on the premise that employers should be able to impose their own religious beliefs on their employees. Obviously, the religious liberty being infringed upon is that of the employees; not the employers! PLEASE ADDRESS THIS!
Did Foster Friess just admit to breaking campaign finance rules by admitting that he speaks to Rick Santorum on a regular basis? Isn't there a rules that says Super PACs cannot consult with candidates?
Wow! The economy is a lost subject now-a-days... We are still stuck on contraception. Hmmm... I especially admire how soo many men "know better" than women what should be acceptable for women's health. Where are the doctors? Birth control pills are widely used to balance hormones for women. Trust me fellas... 6 months of all women off their pills at once and you will quickly take up the protest marches against any hint of a ban.
Mr. Friess tried to chuckle his way out of the aspirin insult. He may be rich, but money can't buy class. I'm 69 years old, and still remember my teens and the "keep an aspirin between your knees" birth control joke. In other words, keep your legs together and you won't have sex and get pregnant. He's trying to worm his way out of what he said by pretending the aspirin is taken as a birth control pill, but his meaning was obvious to me and many others. It was an insult 50 years ago, and it's an insult today. If a girl has an unwanted pregnancy, it's HER fault because she dropped the aspirin.
Lawrence loved the rewrite on Rush.... Now you are a comedian Lawrence ...good show...very funny!!..lol
Lawrence, Please ask old foster for me to put his viagra between his knees and see how that works out for him. Also, anyone who smiles all the time probably thinks his little head is his brain.
I think President Obama should intruct his Super-Pacs to release their funds to the Republican party and allow them to just keep talkng
There is a bigger issue here folks. I personally heard Lawrence O'Donell explain the "aspirin between the knees" putdown to another guy, more than 30 years ago.
It was not used as a joke, but more that " if the sluts would keep an asperin between their knees, they would not need to be worried about getting pregnant."
So for Lawrence to act as though he did not know what it was about is a lie. And the fact that he allowed Foster Friess to worm his way out of the original meaning, by calling it a joke really allows us to see where Lawrences politics lie. He assisted Foster to cover up his bigotted sexist comment.
He was allowing the guy to keep talking so as to give him enough rope to hang himself.
Lawrence: when you had Chris Hayes and Alex Wagner on tonight discussing Issa's exclusion of women from his hearing today on contraception, you guys would not let Alex get a word in edgewise -- you wouldn't even look at her. You directed all your comments to Chris. Every time Alex started to say something, you two talked over her.
So why did you object to Issa's methods? Maybe you need to check out your own attitude toward women.
How come the responsibility of the aspirin is only up to the girl? Why is it that guys seem to have a right and the privilege to remove that aspirin from the knees?
This whole statement implies that society as a whole (in the eyes of conservatives) is that if the girl drops her aspirin, for what ever reason, not that the reason matters, they are more focused on the aspirin and where it is located and who has (or lack of) control of that aspirin.
Last I checked - it takes two to tangle.
Why is the church not mandating sexual morals against guys? Preaching obviously does not work, but the church is proving once and again - women mean absolutely nothing to their cause. Same for republicans - women mean absolutely nothing.
I just hate to get so personal with you, Mr.O'Donnell, but....if i am correct in assuming you are in your 60's, then it means you grew up in the 50's, which, in turn, means you grew up when no contraceptives existed....should we now insolently ask YOU how many children your parents had? I grew up in the fifties too and i don't mind telling you that my parents had but TWO children....true, I did not grow up in this country, but in Nicaragua and Costa Rica [true Catholic countries, unaffected by the American Heresy--see St. Leo XIII]where people actually desired to do God's will, rather than their own[which is the way Catholics try to live, in every country but America]and passed down knowledge to their children about when to have intercourse so as not to become pregnant....It bewilders me to encounter someone like you, Mr.O'Donnell, who KNOWS these truths, yet, in a daily ritual, capitulates regularly to the ignorant and "group think" type idiots you comisserate with, either to cheap shot your way into "winning" an argument, or to tacitly accept theirs in order to gain their approval....immorality is ALWAYS the impractical choice to make: morality exists for our protection, i.e., our happiness....avoid morality and you will begin your descent into evasive cynicism, yielding to more immorality and on and on into having Hell on earth, followed by a worse afterlife....if you are smirking or laughing at what I am saying to you right now, I rest my case...
How religious of you and your beliefs to call people ignorant and idiots because they don't agree with you not to mention intolerant.
Remember to include this judgment and name calling in your confessional.
So much for living by the beliefs of your church..
This is why we need to get rid of religion; it's fundamentally immoral to deny empirical reality.
Now that Satan has spoken, I will pray for you, Satan....
Foster's attempt at a jovial response to a serious question about a serious issue was crass and insensitive. The options for preventing children were very limited back in the day. There was abstinence, rubbers, vasectomies and abortion (which was illegal and only safely performed in Mexico). But, I'm surprised that the Catholic method of birth control, the "rhythm method", hasn't made it's return amongst all this hooplah. I guess, because it didn't work very well.
Foster's statement may have been rude, but, it doesn't hold a candle to Clayton Williams, who was running for governor against Ann Richards. Then, as today, it was a woman's issue being questioned, "Whether women were the victims or the enablers of rape". And, old Claytie said, "Complaining about rape is like complaining about the weather, there's nothing you can do about it, so you may as well lay back and enjoy it." He didn't win.
Lawrence, you blew had a chance to educate a 1%er about the real world.
"Mr. Freeze" asked you why anyone would be unable to get birth control.
The answer is that they cannot afford it. Could it be that you, too, are
too rich to realize that?
Lawrence, you blew a chance to educate a 1%er about the real world outside the walls
outside of priviledge. "Mr. Freeze" asked why any woman would be unable to get
readily available birth control. The answer is she cannot afford it. Could it be that
you, too, are too rich to understand that?
Here's some "education" for you: contraceptives are found in your neighborhood drug store...at popular prices...I even receive free ones in the mail[which I throw out]..."women's health" is a crock: it is a euphemism for your hatred of humanity, your sick need to kill as many of us either by prevention or by abortion...Satan, I am sorry to say, lives...Satan, I am sorry to say, rules the world...
You do realize that not everyone in this world is catholic and are not required to abide by your religon's laws. I'm a firm believer in God but people like you make me sick.
The old joke means the woman is to blame - just as Eve of old. Oh, they laugh at the "joke" but they get it. The woman is to blame.