Associated Press
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell chairs the Republican platform committee.
Ordinarily, major party platforms are important only to those who help write them. The documents are largely forgotten soon after they're published, and it's not like newly-elected presidents refer back to the platform's tenets when governing.
But given recent developments, the language of this year's Republican Party platform may be of greater interest than most.
Against the backdrop of Todd Akin's odious perspective on rape, Rachel explained last night, "The national [Republican] platform has supported criminalizing abortion since 1976 with no exceptions for rape or incest. The Republican Party has always counted on that being kind of quietly ignored in national politics, noticed by the activists to whom they answer but not noticed by any of us. Do you think they'll still take the Paul Ryan/Todd Akin position on rape victims in the national platform again this year or do you think now that's going to have to change?"
The answer is coming into focus.
First Read has confirmed a CNN report that the draft language on abortion in the Republican Party's official platform calls for the "Human Life Amendment," which would outlaw abortion in all circumstances (even in cases of rape or incest). An RNC official tells us that a full committee will vote on this draft language -- which was THE SAME LANGUAGE in 2004 and 2008 -- tomorrow, and the full convention will take it up on Monday*.
Keep in mind, just yesterday, the Romney-Ryan ticket, ignoring their own previous positions, said if elected, they "would not oppose abortion in instances of rape." On reproductive rights, the Romney-Ryan ticket will apparently oppose the Romney-Ryan platform.
At the same time, of course, this will also keep Romney's platform in line with suddenly-toxic Todd Akin's position, not to the extent that Republicans believe women have magical biological powers, but because the official GOP line says that Akin is right about the larger policy: the government should force women to take their pregnancy to term if they are impregnated by a rapist.
The chair of the Republican platform committee is none other than Virginia Gov. Bob "Ultrasound" McDonnell (R), who's joined on the panel by controversial pseudo-historian David Barton. The Family Research Council's Tony Perkins boasted yesterday that "our team has had several hands" working on GOP platform, which helps explain a lot.
Whether Romney will distance himself from his own party platform -- and whether he's even asked -- remains to be seen.
* Update: It appears the First Read report was off on the schedule. The RNC Platform Committee is voting on the party's draft abortion language tonight, and the full convention will vote on it Monday.
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>> Whether Romney will distance himself from his own party platform -- and whether he's even asked -- remains to be seen.
Why not? He's distanced himself from everything he's ever believed, except for the unalterable position "Mitt Romney should be President of the United States".
Despite there being zero reason why such a result is likely or should be allowed.
The decision of abortion is to be decided upon by a woman and her doctor. Roe vs. Wade made that the law. The only way the Republicans can overturn that decision is with a constitutional Amendment.
Until the Republicans accept the ruling of the Supreme Court, they should not be given the opportunity to govern.
And... it totally infuriates me that so many millions of people here in America think that what the Republican Party is trying to do is ok?
Why does Romney still have support of 44.8% of those polled in the RCP averages? How do the people supporting him contort their views so much that they cannot see his duplicity.
I mean... C'mon, he looks like he walked off the set of Leave It To Beaver! And... his party supports ideology that is from the 50's... Aurghhhhh!!
Any new constitutional amendment we pass better be about over turning Citizen United, not Roe vs. Wade. Someone please wake me up from this Twilight Zone episode!
Please remember the sheeple that we're talking about - they are steeped in a "religuluous authoritarian" patriarchal view in which "men" are the natural leaders! If they should they awaken and realize how badly they're being duped into supporting an agenda that has never included them - they might start embracing those guns and pitchforks a bit more forcefully.
"Why does Romney still have support of 44.8% of those polled in the RCP averages?"
He's a white man. That's good enough.
Ivan Ivanovich is right, sadly enough.
Unfortunately, this is not the only way.
Their goal was to pass enough laws in "red" states that brazenly contravene Roe, to the point where they provoke a court challenge by Roe's supporters (and such cases are already working their way through the system). Once they get the matter before SCROTUS (the Supreme Court Right-wing-nuts Of The US) they think they can get Roe overturned - then the only realistic way we could restore the status-quo would be a Constitutional Amendment.
It's worth noting, and at least mildly terrifying, that SCROTUS-member Scalia has recently, and quite publicly and pointedly, noted that he does not believe Americans have a Constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy - he specifically said he thought Griswold (the 1965 case that established that we do have a right to privacy, as well as to contraception) was wrongly decided. This is a pretty clear indication that given the opportunity (which he may well get soon enough) he would vote to overturn not only Roe, but even Griswold. BTW, the fear of this prospect is one of the the main reasons it's taken so long for any of these openly Roe-defying laws to be challenged. It will be a very different America if these numbnuts get their way!
Scalia suggests women have no right to contraception (this is from 7/29/2012)
Vulture/Voucher 2012
Proving Two Rights DO Make a Wrong!
;-(
This post originally appeared in the Huffington Post. Romney has already said that, "The key thing the president is going to do... it's going to be appointing Supreme Court and Justices throughout the judicial system." He has also said that he wishes Robert Bork "were already on the Court."
1. Bork detests Roe v. Wade (1973), a decision he says has "no constitutional foundation" and is based on "no constitutional reasoning."
2. In a 1984 case called Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union v. American Cyanamid Co., Bork found that the Occupational Safety and Health Act did not protect women at work in a manufacturing plant from a company policy that forced them to be sterilized -- or else lose their jobs. Thus, as Public Citizen put it, "an employer may require its female workers to be sterilized in order to reduce employer liability for harm to the potential children."
3. Bork believes that the government is free to ban contraception outright.
4. Bork even thinks the government can outright criminalize sex. Taken from Think Progress 10/17/11:
Bork once described the federal ban on whites-only lunch counters as "unsurpassed ugliness."
Research this man - this is Romney's advisor right now on judicial matters.
There is a whole lot to find WRONG with Rmoney/PRyan - they pretend to be fiscal conservatives (hah!), distort Obama's record, then go about systematically taking apart settled law, it's what they DO.
Disdain, Distort and Dismantle.
Thank you for pointing out that this has been the Republican party position since 1976. Republicans have counted on women to not vote on women's issues, and have been paternalistic in saying that they are preserving family values, the role of women, etc. The 1976 platform was influenced by Phyllis Schafly. The "Moral Majority" evolved from this era, and it has been downhill for women's issues ever since.
I do believe you meant to say 'tenets', not 'tenants'. Love the blog, read it daily, but am a stickler for mot juste.
Beat me to it. I see this a lot.
Buildings have tenants. Philosophies have tenets.
This has been your daily Grammar Nazi.
not really grammar but good point lol
No words for you! (h/t Seinfeld)
Vulture/Voucher 2012
Proving Two Rights DO Make a Wrong!
;-)
Mitt and his henchmen at the convention can wrestle the constitution to the ground and cut its provisions. Diabetics should watch their syrupy self-congratulations, at their own risk.
Hey, it's that transvaginal guy!
Why does anyone ever question that the GOP is waging war on women? When their platform always contains such language, then that's a declaration of war. It doesn't matter whether or not Governor Romney "distances himself." The point is that this declaration of war on women is the official voice of the GOP. They have many members who will carry and have carried this war to every state.
Cannot this be time wasting? Does not the abortion issue come up Every Four Years at say, election time?
Can we really be led to believe that these men seriously want to corner American women with no contraception on one side and no abortion on the other? Do these men not like sex? Or do they want to support the extra kids produced by trying to have unprotected sex? Really? No.
They're firing up their base, a base that always responds to the abortion dog whistle, a base that never once remembers they get burned every single time, when the election is over and abortion is shelved for another four years.
What isn't the right talking about, while they rile up the masses over abortion...again....
NeedMoreCoffee, I agree with you. Every four years it's the same thing. Reminds me of the Lucy and Charlie Brown football gag. I'm really surprised we haven't heard more of Obama is going to take away your guns.
Most voters, as well as most of the media, don't pay attention to party platforms. I'm hopeful this election will be different, but I'm not optimistic. As you say, the GOP platform had language outlawing abortion since 1976. The Democrats have won 3 presidential elections since then. IMO, the 2012 election will come down to how successful Romney and Ryan are at peddling lies. The Obama campaign has been great at pounding them on it so far. They need to keep it up!
It took me the day to determine where to begin. I have spent over a decade speaking with women in the US, Peru and Colombia about sexual violence. I have listened to women's narratives of heroism, of how hard they fought to defend themselves and those they love. I think of the mothers who told me they submitted to the soldiers with one caveat: that their daughters would be spared. In my book, Intimate Enemies: Violence and Reconciliation in Peru, I discuss the “soldier’s gifts.” Among the legacies of war are hundreds of children that were the result of rape. Some of these children were sent to live with extended family members residing outside the community, while others were raised by their mothers amid the gossip. Over the years I have known several children who were the result of rape. I mention just one boy whose mother had been passed around by the soldiers in the base that had overlooked their community for almost fifteen years. I first noticed him because he was standoffish, never joining the growing group of children who made my room a lively place. I tried to speak with him a few times, but he had no interest in conversation. After months of living in the community, I finally had an opportunity to ask someone about him. It was late afternoon and I saw him heading down the steep hill toward home, his three goats and one llama kept together with an occasional slap of a slender stick. The woman sitting at my side knew him by name: Chiki. My face must have expressed my surprise because she whispered that his mother was “one of those women.”
Chiki is a painful name for a young boy, who in turn was a painful child for his mother. Chiki means “danger” in Quechua and in daily usage refers to a warning that something bad is about to happen and should be averted. People recall the ways they learned to look for a sign that the enemy might attack. One such chiki was a strong wind that blew through the village, rat-tling the roofs and letting people know something evil was about to occur.
This boy was a “future memory,” a perverse distortion of time. He could not be a warning; it was too late to avert this particular danger. Rather, he was the product of an evil event his mother had been unable to escape. His mere being extends his mother’s memory both to the past and into the future. Her son is a living memory of the danger she survived, as well as a reminder that nothing good could possibly come from this Chiki she had failed to avoid.
Other women tried to abort with herbs, sometimes ridding their bodies of fetuses they could not bear. Still others resorted to infanticide. There is a long-standing practice of “letting die” those babies who are unwanted, per- haps because they are born with physical defects or are the product of rape. The idea is that criaturas do not suffer when they die; one can leave them sleeping “mouth down,” gently drifting off to death. How could a baby born of such suffering and fear be normal? Most women were certain they could not. Letting them die reflected a desire to spare them the violence of memory.
Dear Lord, I am one of the rich and privileged living in the US. Please protect me from seeing the realities of the political causes I champion, bless me with the ego to ignore the human debris left in the wake of my splendid righteousness. Shower me with the rain of your approval in riches, limousines, and mistresses, and show no rebuke when I call forth pain and suffering in thy name. Together let us herald in Armagedon and make the world a better place for me. A-men.
Intimate Enemies is available at:
http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15036.html
Since the start of this year, I have had the feeling that Mitt would eventually be forced in between a rock (the extreme right) and a hard place (independents and moderates). This is why he refuses to take a solid position on any issue or provide any details for this plans; he knows that if he does, he'll lose votes on one side or the other.
Hopefully this is the first of many issues that force him to make statements that lose votes on either - or both - sides.
Romney can run away from the abortion issue if the Republicans keep the complete ban. But he can't hide from the issue, nor can the Republicans. Adopting that complete ban in their platform will be fatal to their elections because the Dems can tie every Republican to that policy and that includes Romney. The hard line religious right is going to demand that the ban stay in the platform or they will withdraw their support from any Republican who will not endorse the ban. This is what happens when Republicans allowed their party to be taken over by radicals. And that makes it easier for voters, especially women, to vote for Dems.
No more wire hangers!
Ryan made this statement:
Based on this part of his statement, he should leave the person-hood bill at home and accept Roe v Wade and contraception because Catholics such as Ryan do not have a
monopoly on the social teaching of the church and that there can be differences
among faithful Catholics on this. In addition, he is always saying Government is too big, than why does he and his party want the Government either at a State or Federal level want to force women to have children they do not want, can not afford, are emotionally not ready for?
He wants to cut all our safety net programs, but than who is going to pay for all these children you are forcing women to have? Gee how come this Morally Superior Catholic only has 3 children? Where in our Constitution does it say Government at any level should be able to legislate Religious beliefs, morality and that Religion should set policy.
Could someone explain something to me that I've never personally understood (assuming you're able to explain, that is)? Why would you, if you're going to be using pseudo-science and making things up, state that in instances of rape a woman is able to prevent pregnancy in most cases? If we follow this to it's logical conclusion then that means women who did not want to get pregnant in the first place and/or who have decided to end the pregnancy (for whatever reason) have the ability to naturally stop the pregnancy. And if this is the case then why would abortion exist at all? I just don't understand how, if you're going to ignore science to begin with, you then end up trying to use some science to justify what you believe. It's like when they say carbon dioxide feeds plants. OK, but then you go to the extreme and say therefore more carbon dioxide means more plants. Scientifically this isn't true. Why did you use the science in the first part of the equation, but not the second?
If Todd Akin can make such general opinions about women and abortion, perhaps it is only right that women (one of the 'groups' of voters that both parties are competing for) should form general opinions of republicans.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/steve-king-statutory-rape.php?ref=fpb
Because Steve King just couldn't possibly let this whole thing pass without saying something completely insensitive, out of touch and plain moronic. He's just "never personally" heard of this apparently, so I guess it doesn't exist. Forget that he just used that very scenario as an arguement FOR dog fighting of all things a few weeks ago http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/08/01/622881/steve-king-responds-dogfighting/
I had just started an e-mail to Rachel on the platform when i saw this. Please, oh please, focus in on this this year -- even before the inevitable Paulista-led floor fight makes it a major news story.
The abortion plank is merely the top level on an Easter Basket filled with goodies for us to use. And this year every single Republican candidate from State Legislator up should be challenged over the planks in the platform. (For many of them, their state platforms contain even greater insanity that they should be asked about as well.)
Here are a few previews:
And of course the obvious tax 'reforms' and attacks on 'Obamacare' and who knows how many of Mitt's mendacious menagerie will be in there.
Don't let this opportunity go to waste. I hope Rachel is already researching iy, and particularly the less obvious ones.
Where did you come across this? This is frightening.
It is a topic I've spent some time on -- if you Google it you'll find an old article of mine near the top. This type of action has been taken, even without the Amendment in several states mostly "Middle Border" ones like Missouri, Kansas and Tennessee, where pressure has been put on Child Protection Service, But check out the Parental Rights Amendment home page and you'll see definite hints of this -- as well as the usual paranoia on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Speaking of paranoia, one key point I forgot on the main thread is the liklihood of a plank opposing "Agenda 21." This is the result of a John Birch Society inspired paranoia (yes, they are still around) that what is, in actuality, a non-binding resolution signed by GHWBush encouraging 'sustainability' is 'really' a blueprint for an Obam-led totalitarian takeover of everyday life. There have already been over a dozen state parties including "Agenda 21" planks in their platforms, and some state legislatures have even 'investigated' it.
And realize what the 'audit' of the Fed really means in the eyes of the Paulistas, and see it being inserted there.
Wonder what Megan McCain thinks about so many things regarding marriage and personhood now. But she still supports Rmoney? You know I just don't get her of a few of my friends and relatives.
A friend who is of the age of eligibility for SS and Medicare now, and was in a union sent me one of those emails yesterday. One that called the word "benefit" incorrect and contained the words "Ponzi scheme" within it, exhorting how much more money could be made if it was put into Wall St hands. Wow, I had to respond and sent many links and reminders about 2008, so many 401k losses and even that FDR Youtube (audio) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9yoZHs6PsU
also included FDR quote:
-- Quote by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Veto of the Bonus Bill (May 22, 1935)
The party that formerly wanted government out of our lives, now truly feels righteous indignation if they can't crawl "all the way up in our business".
They only want liberal government out of our lives, those socialist advocates for fair wages, worker benefits, social safety nets, environmental conservation, equal rights, enforcement and regulation, all those horrid leftist things that impact the corporate/investor profit margin.
True…I was trying to expose it and you expanded it perfectly.
Rmoney said that Akin should think about what's best for the country, the stakes are too high to go out in public and expose your true agenda. They are calling him stupid for telling what he really thinks.
SO Ryan being in the same mindset, I guess that means Ryan has to cover up his true agenda, too. Just say it in quiet rooms!
First y'all need to remember that most of the GOP is made up of controlling white men that like their little ladies barefoot and pregnant. They tend to marry women they can dominate with their views and opinions ones that will be subservient to them. That being said, should explain why they would like to try to turn as many women's rights back to 1776 as possible also why they still are managing to have a mid. 40's polling.
Second these fools need to take a course in genetics and DNA, some women that are violated and become pregnant choose to keep it for religious, personal choice, etc. However, a vast majority of women that are violated and become pregnant choose to terminate it many due to a fear if the child turns out to be a boy it will be like its father (violent) and with good reason! Those living in CA in the late 70's remember Gerald Gallego, Jr., I'm certain the 10 victims families remember him quite well. For a son that had never met his father (who was already on death row when he was born, if I'm not mistaken) he certainly turned out to be a chip off the old block reference: http://www.executedtoday.com/2010/03/03/1955-gerald-albert-gallego-like-father-like-son/
But what do you expect from a bunch of morons that still don't know how to separate church & state by wanting to pass amendments that will discriminate against groups of American citizens!