August 8, 2012

Sandra Fluke campaigns alongside Barack Obama.

In Denver.

Presumably, she'll be saying what she's writing in HuffPo today. (She's no longer identified as a law student, but is now: "Public Interest Law Scholar, Georgetown University Law Center," which seems to mean that she's been hired by the law school she just graduated from.)
Since day one, President Obama has fought for women's health care rights and the economic security that goes with access to affordable insurance. I wish that were true for Mitt Romney.

Mr. Romney offers only dangerous promises to roll back these rights. I'm going to take him at his word -- and every woman in America should, too. On Obamacare, he says he'll "kill it dead" on day one, eliminating mandatory coverage for lifesaving preventive care and once again letting insurance companies play by their own rules....
Are you getting the message that Romney is about killing women? Did you miss this ad?



You may think this is nonsense, but it's very emotional and millions of people will vote based on the emotion that is being rubbed raw right now.

UPDATE: Romney defends with Romneycare! "A Mitt Romney spokesperson offered an unusual counterattack Wednesday to an ad in which a laid-off steelworker blames the presumptive GOP nominee for his family losing health care: If that family had lived in Massachusetts, it would have been covered by the former governor’s universal health care law."

68 comments:

ndspinelli said...

You are correct, Althouse. And are males or females more likely to vote emotionally?

Patrick said...

Good to know our President is running a campaign that completely eschews any factual basis for his claims. Including the claim that he has any idea what he's doing.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Sandra Fluke is gross and represents the worst of her selfish generation. She travels to Europe and expects the tax payer to pay for her contraception and abortions. Obama can have her.

Alex said...

If you oppose Fluke's slutty behavior and handout-mentality, they call you a hater of women. Is it any wonder why I loathe leftists? They make my skin crawl.

Colonel Angus said...

As long as you have a significant portion of the population that looks to the government for cradle to grave assistance, the pleas by the Flukes of the country will always resonate.

I do appreciate the irony of feminists who demand equality and independence yet still willingly prostrate themselves to the government for handouts and special treatment. So much for strong, independent women.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I think Sandra Fluke is an excellent mascot for the democrat party.

Alex said...

Sure they're independent, but give me my damn handout or I'll scream.

Æthelflæd said...

I've always managed to find and buy my own birth control. I prefer to be emotionally manipulated by Sarah Palin's shoes.

BarrySanders20 said...

"it's very emotional and millions of people will vote based on the emotion"

True. To be more specific, millions of WOMEN will vote based on emotional attachment to having others pay for all things gyno.

The polling must show that Obama really needs a big turn-out from the single Julia women, so Fluke will continue to flap her vagina monologue to rally her fellow gyno-Americans.

Not that there's anything wrong with happy and healthy vaginas.

Russell said...

So, we've reached the Romney is a murderer stage of the campaign. (Does David Frum know about this?) Ah...civility.

edutcher said...

So Ms Fluck is going into academia. What was it Dr Stantz said, "I've worked in the private sector, they expect results".

She should be right at home. The next Lizzie Warren.

As to the ads, this is what the Demos do when they're scared and they're plenty scared, apparently.

The ad has already gotten 4 Pinocchios from the WaPo.

And, since the War on Women has already been tried and flopped, is it reasonable to assume Axelrod and Plouffe are out of ideas?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The Deadly Impact of President Obama’s Economic Policies: 59,757 Needless Deaths...and Counting

BarrySanders20 said...

I think Fluke should appeal to Vladimir Putin to free Pussy Riot.

AllenS said...

You may think this is nonsense, but it's very emotional and millions of people will vote based on the emotion that is being rubbed raw right now.

Only stupid people vote on emotions only. Unfortunately, we have a lot of stupid people in this county.

The Drill SGT said...

here's the WaPo analysis

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/new-anti-romney-ad-same-steelworker-tougher-message/2012/08/07/ac9afe2c-e0ab-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_blog.html

4 pinocchio's

I'm Full of Soup said...

"Public Interest Law Scholar"- what a crock of shit.

test said...

AllenS said...Unfortunately, we have a lot of stupid people in this county.

For the most part American are not stupid, they are rationally ignorant.

http://www.volokh.com/posts/1184642389.shtml

Unfortunately the result is often that they either vote emotionally or based on partially understood themes. This is why the lefts educational and media indoctrination is so successful.

Nathan Alexander said...

"Public Interest Law Scholar"

Based on her testimony, I think that's a typo, and she was actually hired for a new position:

Pubic Interest Law Scholar.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

"Public Interest Law Scholar"- what a crock of shit.


She's been a good little cog/prop. Better and more useful that Cindy Sheehan. The increasingly fascistic leftwing establishment rewards those who do the bidding and play the game. I'm sure she now has a juicy high-paying tax payer funded job with full benefits and early retirement.
+ free contraception. Fluke is going places.

Sydney said...

I have trouble thinking of contraceptives as life saving medication. Not like, say, antibiotics for a pneumonia or meningitis or effective chemotherapy for a curable cancer. I have trouble with the dead wife ad, too, just from a purely medical aspect. It suggests that if the woman had insurance, her cancer would have been found earlier and her life would have been saved. This is not necessarily true - especially with certain lung cancers. You can have a normal xray one month and the next have cancer, and no amount of care can save your life.

This is one of the chief problems with designing a universal system for healthcare payment. When we think of someone's "right" to healthcare we are usually thinking of their right not to die from a curable disease - appendicitis, a traumatic injury, a curable cancer. But healthcare is so much more than that - from cosmetic procedures to lifestyle drugs (and I include contraception in that category) to treatment for chronic illnesses that can be impacted by lifestyle choices to minor self-limited illnesses that would get better without a doctor's touch. We can't afford to cover everything, but those who are pushing a universal plan seem to expect that we do so.

Brian Brown said...

You may think this is nonsense

Well, it is so much nonsense that even CNN & MSNBC took the time to point out it is a big lie.

However, using this "logic" since my Grandmother was on Medicare when she died, Obama killed her.

Isn't this game fun?

Roger J. said...

whatever happened to Cindy Sheehan-useful when W's bete noir; now gone forever--Ms Fluke will meet the same fate although she is too stupid to see it. schadenfreude forever.

Brian Brown said...

and millions of people will vote based on the emotion

Not "people"

Women vote that way.

Brian Brown said...

By the way, what kind of person misrepresents their wife's death in a political ad?

How sick do you have to be?

Æthelflæd said...

" True. To be more specific, millions of WOMEN will vote based on emotional attachment to having others pay for all things gyno."

Don't forget the men who seek their approval. Ugh.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I do think some women are stupid and emotional. Then again, I have seen plenty of young guys with Obama T-shirts and bumper stickers.

Christy said...

So, is this an example of a student not able to get a real job so the school hires her for a make-work job to keep their statistics up?

madAsHell said...

Pubic Interest Law Scholar
It's a typo!!

virgil xenophon said...

Ann, isn't it clear to you by now that Obama is a loathsome, shameless, fascistic creature--a grandiose, narcissistic, pathological liar who is utterly without shame and will do and say ANYTHING to gain and keep power in order to re-make America into his perverted Marxist/Fascist vision of utopia? Need I waste your band-with delineating the already HUGE number of instances where either he or his minions have outright lied, perjured themselves, flouted court orders, refused to enforce laws and/or negated their very wording by regulatory order or the heavy hand of WH political influence? Or violated the constitution in a roughshod expansion of executive power unprecedented in the history of the Republic?

Does one really have to rub your nose in the entire litnay of the historical record regarding actions Obama has ALREADY taken for you to realize what a loathsome creature this man is and how antithetical he is to the values upon which this nation was founded--not to mention the rule of law? Wake up and small the proverbial coffee..

Roger J. said...

I think we have a good example of a woman right here on this blog voting her emotions rather than her intellect.

harrogate said...

The last time conservatives attacked Fluke, it worked out very well in public opinion overall. I'm sure it will do well this time too.

edutcher said...

Tell that to Carbonite.

Roger J. said...

Virgil: I am reminded of the old "Happy Days" skit where the Fonz could not bring himself to utter the word "wrong."

Tim said...

"You may think this is nonsense, but it's very emotional and millions of people will vote based on the emotion that is being rubbed raw right now."

Yes, it is nonsense; yes, it is very emotional; yes, millions of people will vote based on the emotion that is being rubbed raw right now, but no worries.

Obama already has those voters.

He always did, and future Democrat candidates for president will too.

They are immune to reason, except to the reason of the offer by Democrats for free shit they did not earn in exchange for their votes and, of course, the mutual dependency that results.

This is, and has been for quite sometime, and will remain so for longer still, the base of the Democrat party. This fact is as obvious as the sun in the sky, the nose on your face, the failures of the least experienced person ever nominated by a major political party for president and subsequently elect to office.

Romney and his campaign undoubtedly know this: women, most especially single women, who care about getting "free" contraceptives were never in play for Romney, and they never will be. It is akin to the Romney campaign hinging their strategy on turning out African-Americans in the inner-city for Republicans: the stupidest fantasy ever. Well, second only to Robert Cook's fantasy of a productive, wealth-creating Socialist Paradise, that is.

test said...

Roger J. said...
whatever happened to Cindy Sheehan-useful when W's bete noir; now gone forever--Ms Fluke will meet the same fate although she is too stupid to see it. schadenfreude forever


Unlikely since the Dems are never going to jettison their core belief, that government should allocate resources. Peaceniks are useful, but Democrats are about money and internal control. Fluke's only risk is that the left is so successful the resulting government redistribution passes her personal belief point, in which case she'll be jettisoned faster than the Mensheviks. But it seems unlikely since she has expressed no limiting principle to her belief that others owe her whatever conveniences she thinks appropriate.

damikesc said...

Man, Rush made a huge error apologizing to such a blatant political apparatchik.

So, we've reached the Romney is a murderer stage of the campaign. (Does David Frum know about this?) Ah...civility.

HEY! Romney is (accurately) noting that Obama gutted welfare reform.

It's, like, totally the same thing. Or something.

It suggests that if the woman had insurance

...which, mind you, she did. Nothing like saying that a woman cannot possibly have insurance unless her man provides it for her to show real equality.

By the way, what kind of person misrepresents their wife's death in a political ad?

How sick do you have to be?


Selling one's soul is seldom a solid bargain.

The last time conservatives attacked Fluke, it worked out very well in public opinion overall. I'm sure it will do well this time too.

Rush got a larger audience share and Carbonite hemhorraged customers. And now you can't even trot out the "she's a poor little law student" bullshit.

She's a thoroughly loathesome woman. Anybody who admires her is diminished, horribly, in doing so.

Unknown said...

AllenS. says,
"Only stupid people vote on emotions only. Unfortunately, we have a lot of stupid people in this county."

Remember that half the population has below-median intelligence.

cubanbob said...

Democrat voter. Slut. Wants you to pay for her birth control. Perfect campaign poster.

Methadras said...

Sandra Fluke can go fuck herself. Oh wait.

garage mahal said...

By the way, what kind of person misrepresents their wife's death in a political ad?

I have to say I'm very surprised Dems are campaigning like Republicans this election.

More bizarrely, Team Romney is contending that if this family lived in MA, RomneyCare would have covered them!

Matt Sablan said...

I guess felon wasn't enough of an over reach. This add demands a whole new level of Fact Checking.

Alex said...

so what garage s really saying is that the ends justify the means.

paul a'barge said...

she's been hired by the law school she just graduated from

In responsible academia, this is called corrupt cronyism.

Crimso said...

I've noticed that the liars and cowards that ran the ad have disabled comments on YouTube. I've also noticed that (when I checked) the dislikes were about double the number of likes.

And, yes, they're liars. Romney was working on the Olympics when the steel mill was closed (never mind the lies about the insurance). "Oh, wait! He was still CEO, so he has to own it!" Fine. By that logic Obama is directly responsible for the deaths resulting from Fast and Furious, and he has to own that.

Matt Sablan said...

The comparison to F&F is enlightening, really. In one case, reasonable actions were taken that may not have had any impact on the cancer at all that killed the woman, yet Romney (not Obama bundler who was actually with Bain at the time, note) is responsible. In another, unreasonable actions that clearly presented the possibility for death and carnage are no big deal.

Michael said...

So Joe Soptic guesses that his wife might have been sick for quite a while and unwilling to say so because they didnt have health insurance? He isnt sure Andwhen she did admit to not feeling well she dies in three weeks after being diagnosed with lung cancer? Joe Soptic isnt sure how long his wife was sick. She dies years after Joe Soptic loses his job. Joe Soptic thinks that his wife might still be alive if Bain had not closed the plant several years after Romney left the firm and several years before his wife died. Joe Soptic .

Anonymous said...

For those who can't find a job after graduating law school, you know what you should do: kiss a politician's ass, you'll get free condoms too.

Christopher in MA said...

This is also, per Ace, the second commercial Joe Soptic has cut for the crackhead in chief. One can only hope Satan has a special room set aside for this creature.

Although, in his defense, he is following the tried and true Democrat tactic of whoring out your loved ones (e.g., ManBearPig's sister, Paul Wellstone, &c.)

Brian Brown said...

garage mahal said...

I have to say I'm very surprised Dems are campaigning like Republicans this election.


Of course you could provide zero such examples of Republicans doing anything similar.

Hey, remember when the NAACP blamed W Bush for the dragging death of Jim Byrd?

That was cute too.

Brian Brown said...

harrogate said...
The last time conservatives attacked Fluke, it worked out very well in public opinion overall


Considering the birth control mandate never polled over 50%, I'd say you are correct.

yashu said...

By the way, what kind of person misrepresents their wife's death in a political ad?

Obama misrepresented the circumstances of his own mother's death for political purposes (in 2008 and in the run-up to Obamacare), so... that kind of person.

I have to say I'm very surprised Dems are campaigning like Republicans this election.

Please point to the Republican ad in which someone misrepresents a family member's death. And blames the other candidate for it.

Still, I guess this counts as a big concession from you. You'd never criticize a Democrat, especially Obama, without framing it in a tu quoque... but I guess at least there's an implicit criticism in there. There is, isn't there?

Christopher in MA said...

I have to say I'm very surprised Dems are campaigning like Republicans this election.

I wasn't aware Democrats had learned to say "I love America" without vomiting in disgust.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Per CNN, Soptic lost his job in 2001, his wife had insurance through her job (which she quit) until 2003.

Jacobson has the CNN clip here:
http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/08/woman-in-anti-romney-superpac-death-ad-actually-had-insurance/

Also note that SuperPAC says they're not trying to say that Romney is responsible for the woman's death. I'm sure there position is that Soptic is saying it.

Sleazey, just sleazey.

Michael K said...

The Obama campaign has been seeking the bottom this past week or two. I don't know if they can get lower. I wonder if this tells us what the country has become or whether it will be rejected by a country that retains some of its self respect.

I guess we'll see.

Cedarford said...

This is one of the chief problems with designing a universal system for healthcare payment. When we think of someone's "right" to healthcare we are usually thinking of their right not to die from a curable disease - appendicitis, a traumatic injury, a curable cancer. But healthcare is so much more than that - from cosmetic procedures to lifestyle drugs (and I include contraception in that category) to treatment for chronic illnesses that can be impacted by lifestyle choices to minor self-limited illnesses that would get better without a doctor's touch. We can't afford to cover everything.

====================
I think the Scoptic story was manipulative...but the hard truth is the US healthcare system before and WITH Obamacare is insane....

By tying affordable health insurance to employment, we have a system that costs 60% more than our advanced nation competitors in Europe....and which screws the unemployed with assets the worst. Not eligible for free care like welfare mommas and they chilluns, or illegal aliens, or incarcerated felons....the choice for unemployed with assets is to wipe out their savings paying for 14,000 a year healthcare sans dental care.
Or toss the dice.
Don't pay the 14K a year out of life savings.
But risk medical bankruptcy.

Or if you are young and healthy and have a temp job...hope that some psycho gunman in Aurora or ignorant bit of texting Twiffle Gal doesn't slam into you and stick you with 100s of thousands in medical bills you will pay the rest of your life..

1 million medical bankruptcies in the US..unheard of in other countries.
It sounds as exotic to my Japanese and Swiss friends as a million people afflicted by tsetse fly sickness.

Then Obama came....and had Pelosi construct it as an entitlement system for Dem special interest groups. Made a bad situation worse.
And then came the seniors that demanded cost plus care....with 200,000 dollar bills picked up by taxpayers other than them and their million-dollar properties and retirement portfolios not touched by no Death Panels or Death Taxes or able to be tapped to pay their medical bills.

gerry said...

This woman had insurance, her husband's. The video is a lie.

damikesc said...

By tying affordable health insurance to employment

And what led to that?

Why, poor government policy.

It's baffling that the solution to bad government policy always seems to be MORE bad government policy.

1 million medical bankruptcies in the US..unheard of in other countries.

True...but 10,000 deaths during a heat wave because everybody was on vacation is even MORE baffling...and, let's be honest, way worse.

Cedarford said...

Dimikesc - 1 million medical bankruptcies in the US..unheard of in other countries.

"True...but 10,000 deaths during a heat wave because everybody was on vacation is even MORE baffling...and, let's be honest, way worse."

====================
Not really. Lots of senior deaths in a heatwave was a one-time event.

Since then, 10 million Americans have had their financial future ruined in medical bankruptcy. But if ONLY Deaths matter we beat the French deaths each and every year from lack of health care to the working poor.(sort of like the idiot reporting that only those who die in war had any pain and suffering, and all the other casualties or those that faced the same risks and fear are just ducky)
We have a lower life expectancy than Europe and Asia. There are many factors, but one that is tagged with causing 50,000 premature deaths a year is lack of healthcare for the working poor. We also did an abysmal job of caring for seniors suffering many afflictions...leading to 30,000 premature senior deaths a year from neglect.
Not as flashy as the French heatwave deaths....just one senior at a time, freezing to death next to a half eaten can of cat food. Or dying of Alzheimers related malnutrition, pneumonia, dehydration because the daughter caring for the parents had to spend most of her time working a job to support her own family..

test said...

Since then, 10 million Americans have had their financial future ruined in medical bankruptcy.

This is total bullshit.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/06/elizabeth-warren-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-utterly-misleading-bankruptcy-study/18826/#

Methadras said...

garage mahal said...

By the way, what kind of person misrepresents their wife's death in a political ad?

I have to say I'm very surprised Dems are campaigning like Republicans this election.

More bizarrely, Team Romney is contending that if this family lived in MA, RomneyCare would have covered them!


I think your reality distortion field finally broke.

Methadras said...

gerry said...

This woman had insurance, her husband's. The video is a lie.


Of course it's a lie, but what is the intention of the ad itself? It's to float the lie as reality to the very people Urkel is hoping to continue voting for him. It's a meme that will continue until Romney confronts Urkel with it in the debates and I hope he does. As long as that lie floats out there, there will be people who will believe it.

Romney kills people because he is a republican. Hence, in reductionist parlance, republicans kill people. Crisis not averted.

Methadras said...

By the way, Joe Soptic is a piece of human dog shit. His wife died of stage 4 cancer 22 days after she was diagnosed with it even though she had her own health insurance from her own company for 4 years. Furthermore, this fucking nitwit claims Romney killed his wife and his job even though Romney wasn't with Bain for 8 years after this claim. Democrats are sub human filth. They are scum of the worst kind.

James Pawlak said...

As both a Shore Patrolman in the US Navy and a State Probation & Parole Agent I met many women who wanted to be paid for sex. These persons are called "Whores".

Ms. FlUKe ($1.00 to my "bad word jar") did the same. Now, who is her pimp?

ken in tx said...

Was the woman in the ad a smoker? My ex-wife recently died of lung cancer. She was a heavy smoker since the 8th grade. She was my high school sweetheart and once the love of my life, and the mother of my sons. In fact, I started smoking because her kisses tasted bad if I didn't. I stopped smoking in 1983, she never did. I blame Bush.

hombre said...

My grandchildren will inherit staggering debt that will be imposed on them at the behest of a man whose reelection will be facilitated by female Obots, like Fluke, who are either economic illiterates or whose main interest in children is preventing their birth by abortion or by Obamacare mandated birth control

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The democrat lie machine on full display:
via instapundit:
"Romney left Bain in 1999.

GST was shut down in 2001.

Soptic’s wife had her own health insurance through 2003.

Now, in 2006, she was diagnosed — diagnosed! — with very late-stage cancer.

She died 22 days after diagnosis.

Is the argument made that Romney owed this guy another seven years worth of insurance coverage?

And what good would it even have done? She wasn’t even diagnosed until just over three weeks before she would die.

What?!

I have to point this out because until now I’d been assuming she was suffering with cancer for years.

I knew this ad was preposterous, but this is just too much.
"
-Ace

Bruce Hayden said...

I am currently in the middle of a drive from NW Nevada back to Colorado, and today, drove the "loneliest highway" (or something like that) - U.S. 50 from Carson City east across NV. 50 miles at a time without seeing a house, etc.

And, that gave me a chance to listen to all 3 hours of Mark Levin on XM radio. He got going pretty good on Obama and Flake. If possible, the President hit a new personal low today, with his claim that Romney wants to send women back to the 1950s because he opposes giving women free condoms and BC pills. But, he also pointed out that women are affected by the economy, the unemployment, gas prices, food prices, etc., all except the first of which, Obama has helped drive up during his 3 1/2 years at the helm. And how women friendly is that? What should be more important to women - free BC pills? Or cheap food and gas? Etc.

I have no doubt that pushing this meme by Obama in Colorado was well planned. This is the sort of thing that might work there, but won't in most of the country, including most swing states. But, last I knew, Colorado was the most educated state, and that means that there are a lot of somewhat bright, overeducated women, who may just lap this sort of pandering up, without seriously looking at it in context, and ask themselves whether getting the equivalent of a free pizza or two in value a month from everyone else was worth their vote, esp. if they, their husband, children, friends, etc. might lose their jobs as a result of that vote (given Obama's track record on the economy).

X said...

“I think these ads will end up being very effective,” former Bill Clinton campaign strategist Dick Morris said. “If you are an undecided voter and you are constantly seeing images of Mitt Romney standing over a child’s lifeless body, or, as in the case of the ‘Zodiac’ spot, shooting two high schoolers at point blank range on their first date, that’s a pretty persuasive image right there.”

Added Morris, “This ad very effectively reminds us that no child murderer has ever been elected into the White House.”