Norm Coleman lied to a group of Jewish voters in Ohio, claiming that Roe v. Wade is safe under Romney:
“President Bush was president eight years, Roe v. Wade wasn’t reversed. He had two Supreme Court picks, Roe v. Wade wasn’t reversed,” former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) told a Republican Jewish Coalition meeting in Beechwood, Ohio. “It’s not going to be reversed.”
That is a lie. From Romney’s campaign website:
Mitt Romney is pro-life. He believes it speaks well of the country that almost all Americans recognize that abortion is a problem. And in the quiet of conscience, people of both political parties know that more than a million abortions a year cannot be squared with the good heart of America.
Mitt believes that life begins at conception and wishes that the laws of our nation reflected that view. But while the nation remains so divided, he believes that the right next step is for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade – a case of blatant judicial activism that took a decision that should be left to the people and placed it in the hands of unelected judges. With Roe overturned, states will be empowered through the democratic process to determine their own abortion laws and not have them dictated by judicial mandate.
Mitt supports the Hyde Amendment, which broadly bars the use of federal funds for abortions. As president, he will end federal funding for abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood. He will protect the right of health care workers to follow their conscience in their work. And he will nominate judges who know the difference between personal opinion and the law.
The new GOP narrative is that nobody really cares about the war on women. It’s fake, like a war on left-handed Irishmen. It’s a distraction. Women should get over it.
If nobody cares, then why are they lying about it?
The bottom line is this: Reproductive rights have become a central issue in this campaign, and that’s because the two candidates are starkly different on the issue. President Obama understands that women should have the freedom to do whatever the hell we want with our bodies.
Romney doesn’t.
Romney supports Personhood and a ban on abortion without exception. He supports the Blunt Amendment which permits employers to determine what preventive healthcare services you are entitled to based upon their own personal religious conscience. Romney knows his position on women’s rights and health is not a popular one, and so his campaign is lying about his position while simultaneously claiming that the only people who care about such issues are singles, sluts, and stupid women.
The Romney campaign thinks you’re stupid. But you’re not stupid, are you?
Of course you’re not.
[via TPM]
[cross-posted at ABLC]
Robin G.
Norm the Worm. Always been, always gonna be.
drunken hausfrau
Not stupid, but can I still be a slut? A gin drinking floozy?
vote early. then take others to vote. Boozy Broads for Obama!
Cassidy
How the fuck is it you guys will go days without posting anything during the day, then bumrush at night, but today a decent thread during the day is thrown up and you’re stepping on each other? Do you guys even check the site before you hit send? WTH?
Carry on. Just a mini-rant.
blingee
“The Romney campaign thinks you’re stupid. But you’re not stupid, are you?”
Is that a trick question? You are talking about an electorate that voted for G. Dubya the Texas sized dummy twice even after Iraq. You are talking about the same electorate that is willing to do it again with Captain Corporation Rmoney.
So is that a trick question or is it YOU who does not know the answer?
SparkleMotion!
Why would they stop lying now? It’s gotten them *this* close . . . .
flukebucket
Looking at that picture of Norm is it just me or is the standard look of most Republicans the look of a child molesting youth minister?
Cheryl Rofer
It’s gonna be all lies, all the time, from the Romney campaign for the next week.
And probably beyond.
Ed or Edna Dane Defender of Donuts
Maybe I need a cup of coffee or something but I read that first part of Mitt’s campaign website info as “Mitt is pro-lie …”
MeDrewNotYou
Honestly, when I come across women who, after being told about the GOP’s plans for women, still insist on supporting Romney, I just write them off. If sticking it to the darkies or fighting ‘soshulism’ is more important than your value as a human being, your rights are only worth defending in the MLK sense*. I’ll do my damndest to stop the GOP and save your ass, but it ain’t for them anymore, its for the women and girls that I care about and those that are powerless.
I’m a fucking white male and all of this is as plain as day to me. If you can’t see by now what their endgame is, you’re hopeless. I really can’t imagine what its like to be a woman. How do you deal with the fact that the gender gap isn’t 99-1 for the president? At least my demographic has the excuse of defending our ‘privilege.’
*-“An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.” Or something like that, I’m a busy guy and can’t be bothered with accuracy!
MeDrewNotYou
@flukebucket: I’ve been getting that vibe a lot since 2010 or so. Every male teabagger that isn’t on Medicare looks like the kind of guy you warn your children about.
weaselone
Unpossible. Why just yesterday I saw an add, approved by Romney, that said he was pro-choice. Farcecheck deems your article worthy of 4 pixies and an obese fairy godmother because whatever a Republican says must be true.
TG Chicago
That’s some pretty awful messaging. Add “…with our bodies” at the end, and you’re back in non-awful territory.
ABL
@TG Chicago: fair point.
Slugger
I think that Roe v. Wade opposition is a wedge issue that is useful to the R’s but they are unlikely to overturn. It stems back to 1973, and has not been opposed in any meaningful way by Nixon, the sainted Ronald, and three terms of Bush spawn. The anti-abortion zealots are being played and are not savvy enough to know it.
Cacti
@blingee:
The only majority that voted for Bush in 2000 was the one on the SCOTUS.
ranchandsyrup
@SparkleMotion!: I am doubting your commitment to sparklemotion.
bemused
@flukebucket:
lol. In MN we knew him as the senator who liked to hit on women in bars.
Speaking of stupid, Mitt goes pretty heavy on the spray tanning at times. Mitt, you are no Ricardo Montalban.
Brachiator
Because they can.
And because a sizeable group of voters don’t care whether Romney lies. The idiot cynics say “all politicians lie. Romney is no different.” They then proceed to fill in the blanks with whatever they want, and presto! Romney is a moderate who will preserve Roe v Wade, just like Reagan.
And in some ways, Roe is a side issue. It just freaking amazes me that nobody asks if Romney will vigorously support state efforts to throw increasingly obnoxious obstacles in the way of women seeking access to abortions, and whether he will support efforts of employers and religious institutions to impede access to contraception.
And so you have stuff like the actions of state officials in Mississippi:
The preservation of Roe does not guarantee that women will have access to abortion services. Overturning Roe would just be gravy.
Despite this hard reality, almost everybody in the Village keeps getting stuck on the single issue of Roe.
Hell, even many bloggers ignore this obvious elephant in the room.
And yeah, you can talk about federal vs state jurisdiction, but I don’t know whether the Justice Department can provide any relief here. And obviously, this makes the appointment of judges an even more critical issue than the media and pundits would have you believe.
Oh yeah, didn’t everybody really enjoy all those questions and candidate responses about judgeships and the Supreme Court in the presidential debates?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Why is it that odious Repup politicans like Coleman are akin to genital herpes: There’s no cure, they might be quiescent for a period of time but then flare up when you least expect it.
Or pick any other incurable venereal disease as an analogy. Yes, Repups like Coleman are essentially an incurable venereal disease on the American politic.
Patricia Kayden
“The Romney campaign thinks you’re stupid. But you’re not stupid, are you?”
Doesn’t matter if we are stupid or not. Unfortunately, Romney appears to know that a certain percentage of the American electorate will buy what he’s selling. That’s why he’s so close in the polls.
blingee
@Cacti: Perhaps you are not up on the polling. The majority are voting for Rmoney even though Obama is going to win the electoral college. So same thing.
Soooo….your point is?
Cacti
@Brachiator:
Or that Mitt’s advisor on judicial appointments will be Robert fucking Bork.
RaflW
Take it from a Minnesotan, Norm Coleman is teh awful. But then, your lyin’ eyes can tell you that.
It’s still hard to imagine that that vacuous ass-kisser was our Senator, and in Paul Wellstone’s seat no less, for six friggin’ years.
When T-paw and Normie together were the two leading lights of Minnesota Republicanism, I think they were drawing maybe 2 watts total.
SatanicPanic
@Slugger: It just looks that way because it takes so long to change the partisan makeup of the court. They’d get rid of Roe v Wade in a heartbeat and move on to fighting against contraception (or some other such issue) if they could.
brettvk
@Slugger: The radicalization of the GOP suggests to me that they’ll have to start delivering on some of their long-term issues; waving the bloody fetus will eventually wear out. And banning abortion would have the dual effect of letting the teabaggers have a long lovely gloat over the defeat of those liberal sluts, while also distracting them as SS and Medicare are looted.
ABL – I live in what was Blunt’s home district when he was a rep. The amendment was as characteristic of him as it is cynical, I don’t think for one moment he gives a flying fuck about anyone’s religious feefees. When I heard about it I thought the next step would be a start-up industry that would supply theology to deny workers any medical care whatsoever — or maybe the MOTU would convert en masse to Christian Science. It’s more about giving employers permission to gut benefits wholesale (and undermine ACA) than specifically to put BC beyond reach of most women. They may be counting on killing Planned Parenthood to accomplish the latter.
Matt McIrvin
@Slugger: The whole point here is that elected Republican officials aren’t the ones who would overturn Roe. Instead, they appoint hard-right Supreme Court justices who would overturn it in a heartbeat if they had the majority to do it.
Those guys are true believers. They’re not taking orders from the RNC on this. Nobody is going to tell Antonin Scalia to uphold Roe because Republicans still need it as a wedge issue.
The Moar You Know
Not a lie. There is no way in hell the GOP is ever going to kill their cash/vote cow. Will not happen.
Now the broader point is: will the GOP render the term “reproductive rights” a joke? Of course they will. Their intentions of de facto banning abortion and, if they can get away with it (and from the fate of the Mississippi Personhood Amendment, it appears that they won’t) birth control are quite obvious to all.
No matter who wins next week (and it will be Obama, if you’re betting otherwise you’re an imbecile) the coasts will keep their birth control and abortion, and flyover/former slave territory will not. Just the way the GOP wants it, because without the culture war they literally have nothing.
RaflW
@Slugger:
Sorry, but I do not believe this any more. A few years ago, yes. It seemed for a long time that the right was indeed using abortion as an ATM – pressing the panic button in lots of fundraising e-mails and then shafting their supporters after taking office.
But the dynamic has changed. What was operative under Nixon and Reagan is ancient history. The right is driven by their fringe now, not milking it.
One more S.C. vote and Roe will go the way of bipartisan campaign finance law and so much else. Scalia will be positioned to be the median right vote, not the extreme.
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
A court that was willing to overturn Roe would probably be willing to overturn Griswold, too. I’m sure there’s an important faction within the Republican Party that would be happy to overturn Loving and Brown, too, but I don’t think those are winners overall.
Roger Moore
@brettvk:
It’s been an effective issue for 30 years without obvious signs of wearing out; what makes you think that’s going to change now?
Cacti
@blingee:
Nate Silver projects Romney’s share of the popular vote at 48.8% based on the polling data.
But since you’re privy to information he obviously doesn’t have, you should head over there and straighten him out.
Also too, a Republican has won the popular vote 1x in the past 5 national elections.
Any other fact-free wisdom you’d like to share with us mere mortals?
catclub
@ABL: Not really.
A GOP ad to white men that said his policy is that ‘we want you to be able to do whatever you want’ would win votes.
This should too, without the ‘with your bodies’ proviso.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: I remember Michael Moore using this argument in an essay supporting Nader in 2000. He said it wouldn’t be so bad if liberals threw the election to Bush, because Bush didn’t really want Roe overturned anyway.
Regardless of how he may have felt about Roe, Bush appointed Alito and Roberts. The argument didn’t make sense then and it doesn’t now.
hildebrand
OT – For quite some time this summer and early fall, I did not post pro-Obama/anti-Romney stories on Facebook. For the last three weeks I gave up on the practice, and have been selectively dropping one or two stories a day into the stream – knowing that all my family are die-hard Republicans. I figured that they needed at least a little bit of counter-programming – a steady diet of Steve Benen, Mother Jones, Religion Dispatches, Charlie Pierce, etc., has got to be good for them.
catclub
@RaflW: So what is Al Franken doing these days? Have not heard much from or about him.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
It’s only ‘not a lie’ because the GOP will never repeal Roe v Wade legislatively. They prefer to do it indirectly, via SCOTUS.
Which, if Romney wins, they will.
brettvk
@Roger Moore: Boy oh boy, getting rid of Griswold would be just the ticket to restore the aristocracy. Do you think SCOTUS could reach through a Roe challenge to kill Griswold?
SatanicPanic
@RaflW: It comes down to this- Romney, if elected, will most likely get to nominate a justice or two. How likely is it that the Senate Republicans would approve a pro-choice justice?
I’m going with no way in hell. Not after seeing their “moderate” colleagues get tossed out in favor of Tea Partiers in the last two elections.
Patricia Kayden
@Slugger: So you can’t see President Romney nominating a rightwing Supreme Court Justice, who gets on the Supreme Court and overturns Roe v. Wade? I can.
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
Sounds like a typical XY argument. Maybe the Supreme Court won’t overturn Roe at a stroke, but they’ve been letting states get more and more restrictive, gradually letting abortion rights die the death of a thousand cuts. It’s a more effective political strategy anyway; it gives the wingnuts a feeling that they’re making progress without killing the golden goose by overturning the decision at a stroke.
MikeJ
@catclub: Saw him out stumping for Warren in the hood around his alma mater.
blingee
@Cacti: Split hairs if it makes you feel good. You have no point to make anyways.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Slugger: I think some know abortion won’t be eliminated, but hell it makes them good money and they can count on fleecing the idiot evangelical sheep(like Ralph Reed does). Shit I should have been fire breathing Bible thumping Revelation Roaring mega church pastor I would be rolling in the dough!
Spatula
I have been told many multiple times in comments here, after pointing out one of Obama’s 2008 campaign deceptions that ALL POLITICIANS LIE WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED GET OVER IT WHERE’S YOUR PONY?
Why is Mittens the only liar in this campaign being called out at BJ?
Cacti
@blingee:
Fix’t.
MikeJ
Wow. Didn’t see this until just now. Twitter asshat hedge fund guy works for Republicans. Colour me shocked.
Roger Moore
@brettvk:
I don’t know if they could reach through a Roe challenge to kill Griswold at the same time. But I’m sure there are people who would love to challenge Griswold, and a court that had already overturned Roe would give them the confidence to go forward with an attempt.
brettvk
@Roger Moore: The GOP’s primary use of abortion for many years has been for fundraising; IIRC they lifted it away from Fawell for that purpose. But Citizens United makes that look like chump change, so the rewards of overturning Roe and chalking up such a historic victory would, in my estimation, outweigh keeping it alive as an issue. I think the base is now being trained to substitute birth control for abortion as the thing that makes them feel all funny inside when they go to the voting booth.
eyelessgame
This is what I think of every time Romney opens his mouth and says something moderate.
ABL
@Slugger: people keep saying that, but it’s not true.
i’ve been reading cases related to a wide range of repro rights issues, from waiting periods to personhood amendment to informed consent. these cases are being filed in various districts and circuits throughout the country and the issues in the cases present questions that can only be resolved by SCOTUS, and questions that nibble at the edges of roe v. wade. it isn’t a matter of suing to reverse roe v. wade directly, but about attacking the principles upon which roe v. wade was based such that the end result leads to the reversal of the principles set forth in wade. ultimately, i’m not willing to cede the issue because “well, they’re never going to overturn roe v. wade anyway.”
people need to quit saying that.
ABL
@brettvk: the anti-choicers absolutely want to undo Griswold.
The Moar You Know
@Spatula: You’re a fascinating one, definitely going to write you into my thesis.
Two party system, my artistic friend. Balloon Juice posters are not here to restore truth to politics or fix a broken system. They’re here to elect Democrats, period. If you want a tally of Obama’s “lies”, there are plenty of places you can go to get them. Might I suggest RedState? Aside from their meticulous count of Obama’s many supposed crimes and falsehoods, they are fascinating as an online culture who at the moment are undergoing a existential “confirmation bias” crisis. It will be fascinating to see how they react to the inevitable results of this election.
catclub
@The Moar You Know: Although, in many cases, BJ posters are very much like the customer at Monty Python’s Argument clinic. …And then they just get insults.
Between Monty Python and Douglas Adams, all human behavior is probably covered. ( I like the SEP field.)
artem1s
@Roger Moore:
teh gay marriage is going to be their cash cow into the future.
Over a thousand pieces of legislation don’t lead me to believe that the true believers are willing to wait on abortion. besides they still get to raise money over birth control and other ladybits issues. the slippery slope has become an avalanche.
cmorenc
@Slugger:
By far, the most likely available path for a Romney presidency to achieve overturning Roe v Wade is by being positioned to replace whichever of the current five SCOTUS justices continuing to uphold it retires or dies during his term in office, should such occur. The ONLY reason G.W. Bush didn’t achieve that objective during his eight years in office was because he didn’t get the chance to replace the critical fifth vote willing to continue upholding Roe v Wade. True, O’Connor was the fifth vote while on the court and it looked for awhile as if Kennedy might be among those willing to overturn, but since she was replaced, Kennedy doesn’t look like such a sure vote to overturn.
IF ROMNEY WINS, with his pronouncement that Scalia is his model of a proper SCOTUS justice, that should he get to appoint e.g. Ginsburg’s replacement should her health turn bad, do you really think he’ll take a chance on appointing someone who’ll turn out to be a surprise semi-progressive such as Suiter did for Bush’s father, or do you think he’ll choose a sure thing Scalia/Thomas/Alito clone? My bet is the latter.
catclub
OT: Pierce has mild defense of Nate Silver which discusses the
‘73% chance of Obama election’ as though it is a heavy handed prediction for Obama.
1) Does anyone know what the numbers were showing in 2008? My guess is that the elect Obama number were better then than now.
2) 73% seems VERY close to tossup territory. I would be assured and sassy at something over 90%. I would guess that Clinton 1996 was in that range.
Bokonon
They are right, in a way. Roe v. Wade wouldn’t be “reversed”. It would be obliterated, burned to the ground at both the federal and state levels, and salt would be sown into the scorched earth where it used to stand.
And as far as the people who try to shuck this whole thing off and say “Hey, they aren’t going to really overturn Roe vs. Wade, or try to outlaw contraception” … if that isn’t the goal, then why all the effort? DECADES of effort?
Spatula
@The Moar You Know:
Thank you for making explicit what we all already know: ABL, DougJ, Zandar, Kay, and Dennis G, at the very least, are Democratic Party hacks. Ergo they have zero credibility as sources of trustworthy information.
Brachiator
@brettvk:
No, it really is about outlawing abortion and contraception.
@cmorenc:
At the time, all the pundits, and most politicians, were absolutely sure that Souter would be a docile, compliant acolyte of Scalia. It’s not always easy to ensure that an appointment will vote the way he or she is “supposed to.”
And Souter was much more than a surprise semi-progressive. He turned out to be one of the most astute critics of Scalia’s originalist nonsense.
Mnemosyne
@Bokonon:
Because those people don’t realize that a movement that began 30 years ago as a cynical “rile up the peasants” strategy to get the religious right to vote Republican is now populated by true believers who really, truly do want to outlaw abortion and contraception.
This is the problem with starting movements based on lying to people — some of those people will believe the lies, and then they will take over the leadership because the cynical ones aren’t quite pure enough.
Mnemosyne
@Spatula:
So tell us, Spat, what is the Obama campaign lying about on the level of Romney’s lie about not wanting to overturn Roe v Wade even though it’s actually in his campaign literature? There are so many examples of Obama doing the exact same thing (saying one thing about his policy in public while saying something different in his campaign literature) that you should be able to provide us with at least three examples, right?
We’ll wait here while you run out and find them. Should only take you, what, 15 minutes since Obama is lying as much as Romney, right?
dmsilev
@catclub: By this time in 2008, Nate Silver had Obama’s chances at something like 99%.
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: That’s what I don’t get about Joe Scarborough. He doesn’t seem to understand that ~75% is nothing like a sure thing anyway. Romney’s win probability according to Nate Silver is like winning two coin flips. It’s something entirely within the realm of plausibility. That’s a close race.
If he really wants to get incensed he should read Sam Wang’s site, or Drew Linzer’s Votamatic. Sam Wang has Obama’s win probability above 90%; he’s really sticking his neck out. And even I think Linzer is too bullish on Obama.
Matt McIrvin
…part of it might be confusion between probability of winning and popular vote share. The probability of winning gets very high very quickly once the popular vote share gets much above 50%. 60% is a Reagan-size blowout election. All the interesting phenomena happen somewhere near the knife-edge.
graves007
Of course you’re stupid and he bloody well knows it. How else is it possible that this even is a close race? It’s close because you’re stupid.
Americans think you can turn around an economy that was losing 800+ thousand jobs/month in a year or two. You think this because you are stupid.
Romney surrogates can blatantly lie about Roe v Wade, amongst other things, and get away with it because you are stupid.
This race should not even be remotely close. If people remembered where your economy was, and see that it’s now growing slow but sure, you wouldn’t be thinking Romney is the man to fix this. The fact so many think so is because you’re stupid.
Cermet
@Slugger: Your error in thinking is so unbelievable that words cannot describe – what do you think the judges appointed by raygun the simple minded, and bush the utter imbecile have been busy doing all these years? Reaffirming Roe? Jesus on a crutch some people here are …stu… uh, not thinking clearly.
Cermet
@The Moar You Know: Your title should be the ‘Less you know’ because you know little if you think Rmoney will not put in place a thug on the court and then over turn Roe. The level of thinking around here is either getting totally wishful or going down.
patrick
Norm lied? I’m shocked. Shocked, I say…..
Cermet
@Roger Moore: Try reading what teabaggers are saying (and how many congressscum they alone put into power) and maybe you might leave the 80’s thinking and discover the new millennium.
SparkleMotion!
@ranchandsyrup: Will you make me lead dancer?
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
What an asshole. Yes, it is true that the Supreme Court couldn’t undo Roe v, Wade while Bush was in office, but that’s only because only two seats opened up on the scrotus while he was there, both of them conservative seats. Whover is in office for the next four years will have a good shot at a big makeover, since so many justices are getting pretty old. There are likely to be conservatives and liberals both leaving one way or another before 2017. So Romney could choose the justices to follow, say, Ginsburg and Breyer, and Obama would get to choose the ones to follow maybe Scalia and Kennedy. This election is a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig deal, even if only for the makeup of the scrotus.
Brachiator
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.):
You should never put makeup on your scrotus.
Bobby Thomson
Well, not, but a majority of voters definitely is. Which is why we have to work harder to get those voters to vote in their own interests. Fortunately women tend to be more educable than men.