into questions about contraception within a relationship between a man and a woman, a husband and wife, i m not going there. i m not for the bill. i m not going there. that was mitt romney in an interview with the ohio news network, proclaiming that he is against something called the blunt amendment, or the blunt/rubio amendment. the amendment would let employers pick and choose what their employees get from health insurance. now, this, of course, sprung from a republican desire that your boss should be able to block you from getting contraception, specifically. but the way the language of the amendment is written, it would apply to anything in health care. your boss decides whether or not you get it, from health insurance. so mitt romney in ohio says he is against the blunt amendment. within about an hour of mitt romney saying that, he changed his mind. or at least his campaign changed his mind. the campaign came out and say, actually, he did not mean what he just said. then the
you know, this has been a bad week for would-be republican vice presidents. we just talked about the blunt amendment, the republican s anti-contraception amendment that failed today in the senate. and democrats are really excited for republicans to keep talking about. technically, it is not just called the blunt amendment, it is called the blunt/rubio amendment. so if somebody s going to wake up in the republican party and realize that being the ant anti-birth control party maybe isn t the best way to make a run for the presidency, the blunt/rubio anti-birth control amendment probably is not going to help marco rubio s chances at being picked for vice president. similarly, this didn t get much national notice, but at the end of the last week, the ousted republican secretary of state in indiana was sentenced for voter fraud. he had been convicted of six felonies, including voter fraud, and he s the guy who runs elections in the state of
congresswoman slaughter of your state in a letter to speaker boehner signed by more than 75 members of the congress called on the house leadership to repudiate those comments. as leaders of the house that initially denied this, miss fluke the right to speak, the republicans have a special obligation to condemn the atrocious and hurtful words spoken by mr. limbaugh. leader pelosi also called on republican leaders to condemn limbaugh s comments. are you hearing from any republican senators on this? are you hearing any of them saying this isn t us talk, even though we disagree on the policy question? i haven t heard a word from the republicans. we had a vote today on something so outrageous. such a complete disregard for the health and well-being of women. the bill today, the blunt amendment, would basically say that any boss could determine for any reason that he objected to or she objected to that a woman couldn t have access to basic medicine, basic health care. and i don t know why
that s the bottom line. michael, i think you would agree we re beating a dead horse here. yeah, we are. let me go to michael on this. you called rush limbaugh entertainment. here s what i do for entertainment. i try to keep up with mitt romney. i try to keep up with this guy. he s my entertainment. here he was yesterday. on ohio news network yesterday. he was asked a direct question. where do you stand on this blunt amendment? the amendment was voted down today on a party line vote basically that said you shouldn t apply the health care bill of barack obama to coverage of birth control. he said very directly he was against the bill. and laid out why. let s listen to the presidential front-runner yesterday. it s being debated later this week that deals with banning or allowing employers to ban providing female contraception. have you taken a position? he said he was for that. we ll talk about personhood in a second. but he s for that, are you for that? i m not for the bill
for president, if somebody says blunt, rubio amendment, first of all you should know what it is. and secondly, your political instinct should be, let s see, blunt and rubio. i m for that. they are republicans. they are guys i want to have support me i m for that bill. this is something that s been on the front pages of every major newspaper for the past three or four weeks. give a chance to respond. did he not know who blunt and rubio were? i m not disagreeing with you here. i said the man answered honestly in the first instance. then the politics set in and he s made the course correction. to your point, steve, i would agree. this is part of the problem that the base has with romney up until now. we don t know where that anchor comes to rest. and that s what he s got to fix. there isn t one. it s getting pulled along at the bottom. i can t wait to never mind. you gave me an excellent explanation of what to expect if we get a president romney. you laid it out quite well, mich