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Respect for Rights of Conscience Act

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Multiple-choice Mitt is at it again, this time flip flopping on whether he's in support of the Blunt amendment which is likely to be voted on in the Senate this Thursday -- Romney Comes Out In Support Of Controversial Birth Control Bill:

One day before a critical Senate vote that could loom large as a 2012 election issue, Mitt Romney came out for a congressional Republican measure designed to roll back the Obama administration’s requirement that employer health plans cover birth control.

“Governor Romney supports the Blunt Bill because he believes in a conscience exemption in health care for religious institutions and people of faith,” Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul told TPM.

The Blunt amendment, which is scheduled for a Senate vote on Thursday, would permit employers to deny coverage of birth control or other services they deem morally objectionable.

Romney’s position had been brought into doubt after tweets from a local TV station reporter suggested the candidate had objected to the proposed bill. The candidate’s campaign released a statement saying, “Regarding the Blunt bill, the way the question was asked was confusing.”

To clear up any confusion, Romney himself weighed in, telling radio host Howie Carr, “I didn’t understand the question. Of course, I support the Blunt amendment. I thought he was talking about some state law that prevented people from getting contraception.”

But team Obama didn’t buy his explanation, accusing him of a “flip-flop” and fiercely denouncing his ultimate position.

“In one hour, Mitt Romney showed why women don’t trust him for one minute. It took little more than an hour for him to commit his latest flip-flop. Even worse, he ended up on the wrong side of an issue of critical importance to women,” said Stephanie Cutter, the deputy campaign manager of Obama For America.

Cutter said Romney is “in a race to the bottom with Rick Santorum to see who can pander most to the far right-wing.”

What's really pathetic as Melissa Harris-Perry noted in the clip above is that when Romney was probably telling the truth, as he did in the interview with the local reporter, he was on the right side of the issue, but he'd rather pander to the right to try to win the Republican nomination even though it's going to cost him in the general election.



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With a vote coming up soon on Sen. Roy Blunt's "Respect for Rights of Conscience Act" which would, as Mother Jones noted, "grant employers significant discretion in deciding what kind of health care they want to provide workers," it's been interesting watching right wingers twist themselves into knots trying to defend the amendment.

Case in point on this Tuesday evening's Hardball is Susan B. Anthony List's Marjorie Dannenfelser who had to take to lying about whether the amendment would actually allow any employer and not just religious institutions to deny coverage to their employees for just about anything. Dannenfelser was literally left stammering and stuttering when called on the fact that this goes way beyond anything that could be construed at an attack on the Catholic church.

If Republicans and their allies want to convince voters that this is not just a way for them to undermine the Affordable Care Act which they've been determined to do since the day it passed, they're going to have to find more capable people than Dannenfelser to make their arguments for them.

Transcript below the fold.

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