Joey Bear.

Three Democrats walked out of a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing on religious liberty and the birth control rule on Thursday to protest Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) refusal to allow a progressive woman to testify in favor of the Obama administration’s contraception rule. The morning panel at the hearing consisted exclusively of men from conservative religious organizations.

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), told reporters in the hallway outside the hearing that she marched out because it was being conducted like an “autocratic regime.” The other members who left were Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.).

There are 10 witnesses testifying at Thursday’s hearing. None of those individuals — listed as testifying prior to hearing — are in favor of the Obama administration’s birth control rule, and few are women.

Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, was listed as a witness for the hearing, but Simon Brown, a spokesman for Americans United, told The Huffington Post that Lynn will not be testifying. (He will, however, be submitting written testimony to the committee.)

Democrats say they tried to invite another witness — a young woman — to testify, but were blocked by Republicans.

Issa said at the hearing that he rejected the Democrats’ female witness, Sandra Fluke, because, as a Georgetown University law student who “appears to have become energized over this issue,” she was “not appropriate or qualified.” He said that in lieu of allowing her to speak at the hearing, he instructed his staff to post a video online of Fluke speaking at a previous press conference.

I find it ironic that Republicans have such disdain for the lazy, and yet their solution to everything is do nothing. Their answer to wealth inequality? Do nothing. Healthcare? Do nothing. Climate change? Nothing. Racism? Doesn’t exist. For a group of people so head over heels in love with self-reliance, they sure do recommend a lot of sitting on (one’s) ass.

If A Christmas Carol was performed by the Tea Party Dramatic Society, it would be a cautionary tale about how the hero, Scrooge — a blameless job creator — is turned into a socialist through the corrupting influence of Tiny Tim. And the play would end with a simple, plaintive question from Mr. Scrooge: ‘Just how much of my wealth does Mr. Tim think he’s entitled to?’

And that is the great Republican fallacy of this election: that our economic problem are due not to Wall Street’s gambling, but because too many Americans are lazy. But there are 16 million unemployed, and we only created 80,000 jobs last month. The problem isn’t laziness — it’s math.

This is where the Republican Party is now: in favor of people dying because they don’t have health insurance. In favor of letting people go unfed if they won’t work. And if they wanna work, but are Mexicans, in favor of putting up a fence that electrocutes them.

For the second time in 10 days, the Senate on Thursday rejected Democratic efforts to take up a jobs bill championed by President Obama.

The vote to advance the bill was 50 to 50. Democrats needed 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster.

This time, the bill was narrowed to provide $35 billion to state and local governments to prevent layoffs of teachers, police officers and firefighters. To offset the cost, the bill would impose a surtax of 0.5 percent, starting in 2013, on income in excess of $1 million.

Despite the vote Thursday, Democrats said they hoped to gain a political edge, by forcing Republicans to vote on this and other discrete parts of broader legislation proposed by Mr. Obama to create jobs and revive the economy.

Campaigning for his $447 billion jobs package this week in North Carolina and Virginia, Mr. Obama suggested that Republicans could not understand the whole thing all at once, so he said “we’re going to chop it up into some bite-sized pieces.”

The Senate last week blocked consideration of the larger bill, which included a 5.6 percent surtax on income over $1 million.