Mitt Romney Joins Ayn Rand in Condemning Democratic Moochers | GOP's 55 Anti-Women Bills

Dior Magazine’s first issue is out and it’s a beauty. Explore Marion Cotillard’s editorial by Jean-Baptiste Mondino.

GOP’s 55 Anti-Women Votes

Democrats in Congress argue that serving pink drinks at the Republican Convention and rounding up women only to stand behind Mitt Romney on campaign stops won’t be enough to change the perception that the Tea Party Republicans are out to get women good.

In a new report published by Democrats, Team Obama argues that House Republicans have sponsored 55 votes on legislation is intended to “undermine women’s health, roll back women’s rights and defund programs and institutions that provide support for women.”

In a statement, Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) called the current House “the most anti-women … in modern history.”
“I have worked for decades to promote equality for women, but the bipartisan support for women’s programs that used to exist in Congress has been shattered by Tea Party extremism,” he said.

The report claims that the House took 17 votes that would “allow health insurance companies to discriminate against women’. Eleven votes would have “cut women’s access to preventive care.”

Ten bills “restricted or rolled back abortion rights’, while others cut key nutrition programs or “weakened” violence and discrimination protections for women.

Not brought to the floor for a formal vote is the Personhood Bill, signed by the vast majority of Republicans including Speaker John Boehner and vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.

The Personhood Bill will give an hour-old fertilized egg the same Constitutional rights as a married woman doctor with three children, a loving husband, and a part-time job as mayor of her city. Republicans say she is no more valuable to America than a fertilized egg. Can the Republican view of the role and importance of women in America be any clearer?

The law will make many forms of birth control illegal and Anne’s form of contraception — an IUD — murder. Mitt Romney is on record also supporting a Personhood bill.

Reproductive Rights ARE Economic Rights

The GOP continues to insist that women voters are interested in economic rights, not reproductive health and freedoms. “What women care about are jobs, the economy, the unemployment rate,” says Florida attorney general Pat Bondi.

Writing for The Baltimore Sun, Christine Adams reminds the GOP what every woman knows — and what GOP men seem not the comprehend — that control of fertility is a woman’s greatest guarantee of upwards mobility and providing a good life for her family.

During the Great Depression, fertility ratios decreased significantly, despite the fact that the Comstock Laws made it difficult to get legal contraception and abortion was illegal throughout the United States. In her book on reproductive politics in the U.S., Rickie Solinger notes that 25-40 percent of all pregnancies were terminated in the 1930s, a steep increase over abortions in the 1920s. Had pollsters inquired, most of those women would undoubtedly also have said that “jobs” were their primary concern, but an unwanted pregnancy can be the tipping point for women and families facing economic hardship.

The attack against women is all the more galling because it comes from Catholic bishops who argue that THEY have the right to control women’s fertility as part of freedom of religion in America. The bishops choose to omit the reality that the Vatican and Catholics were banned in 10 of the original 13 states because America’s founders feared the theocratic power wielded by the Vatican over almost every aspect of daily life.

Related Reading

Mo. lawmakers override veto of birth control bill BloomergBusinessweek

Craft Store Chain Sues for Right to Deny Their Employees Contraception Coverage ThinkProgress

Mitt Romney on Democratic Moochers

Mother Jones has obtained video of Mitt Romney talking at a fundraiser earlier this year. To protect their confidential source, the magazine will give neither the date or the location of the event.

In the video, Romney speaks of Democrats and Obama supporters.

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

At the same event, Romney quips that after being born in Mexico, he’d have a better shot at the presidency if he was Latino and that several of his consultants have worked for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As for the greedy 47 percent of voters who include seniors on social security and families who benefit from Republican led Child Tax Credits, Romney says his job isn’t to worry about them.

“My job is not to worry about those people,” Romney said. “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

You can rest assured that the Obama campaign will make one heck of a new video from these stunning remarks.

J’Adore:  Deborah Soffel’s blog Grapes and Greens

Searching just now for a specific outdoor sculpture on Long Island, I came across this simply delightful image of a Classic White Table Wine from the Wölffer Estate Vineyard, a local winery in Sagaponack NY.

Deborah Soffel was on hand from California to cater an East End benefit for Wellness in the Schools