Kamala Harris caught in word salad when asked if Democrats failed to codify Roe v Wade
By: Joseph Wulfsohn (Fox News)
Kamala Harris certainly cleared that up. Since Harris is a Democrat then whatever she says must be gospel truth.
The political buttons have been scrambled so these Democrats don't know how to pander any longer. It wasn't that long ago that Democrats were vigorously virtue signaling that abortion was under threat. Seems like only two years ago. (A looong two years, at that.) But now we know, as truth, that these issues were settled. All the virtue signaling was a pointless exercise in political pandering. Fire 'em up, get 'em ready to go.
Kamala Harris is symptomatic that Democrats are so lost and so clueless on the issues that the only thing Democrats have left in their playbook is phony outrage, virtue signaling, and word salad.
So, Democrats, what's the plan? Baffle voters? Protests and bricks? Lie like there's no tomorrow? Democrats are in charge now. Keeping Democrats in charge would only deliver more of the same.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Vice President Kamala Harris was caught with another course of word salad, this time during an interview with CBS News.
Following the historic Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, CBS News correspondent Robert Costa asked Harris on Friday whether Democrats both in the White House and in Congress "failed" to codify the federal protection of abortions in the nearly 50 years since the precedent was established.
"I think that, to be very honest with you, I do believe that we should have rightly believed, but we certainly believe that certain issues are just settled. Certain issues are just settled," Harris responded.
"Clearly were not," Costa replied.
"No, that's right," Harris said. "And that's why I do believe that we are living, sadly, in real unsettled times."
Critics panned her comments, some calling them incoherent "word salad."
"This is incoherent. Is everything ok…?" Emma Vigeland of the progressive YouTube show "Majority Report."
"Captions need a bouncing ball to follow along with the words," Ring Magazine reporter Ryan Songalia tweeted.
"What is with this administration and an aversion to basic speaking skills and grasp of the English language?" NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck wondered.
"hm that's not what was asked," reporter Dan Moritz-Rabson reacted.
"Somewhere at a Montana vacation lodge someone just pumped his fist in the air," journalist David Freedlander quipped, alluding to the highly-speculated 2024 prospects of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Others knocked the vice president over the substance of her answer, specifically suggesting Democrats believed Roe v. Wade was "settled."
"How absurdly naive," New Yorker staffer Lainna Fader reacted.
"Holy cow what a bad answer. This is going to cause a Dem revolt. The GOP has been after this for decades. But the Dems thought it settled so did nothing?!" conservative radio host Erick Erickson exclaimed.
"Anyone. Who has paid. The slightest. Tiniest. Bit of attention. To women's health issues. For the past SEVERAL DECADES. Knew. It. Was. Not. Settled," film critic Jason Bailey wrote.
This isn't the first time this week Harris was accused of "word salad." On Tuesday, the vice president raised eyebrows during her visit to Highland Park, Illinois, following the mass shooting at an Independence Day parade that left seven dead.
"We've got to take this stuff seriously, as seriously as you are because you have been forced to take this seriously," Harris said to the press and Highland Park residents.
"The whole nation should understand and have a level of empathy to understand that this could happen anywhere [to] any people in any community. And we should stand together and speak out about why it's got to stop," Harris added before stepping away.
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Kamala Harris is what happens when Democrats try to talk out both sides of their mouth at the same time.
Harris and Trump have something in common.
What we've learned since the 2020 election is that Trump ain't Biden.
Thank God.
Yes, indeed, thank God Trump ain't Biden. The country would be in much worse shape and our democracy would have been much weaker if Trump had been Biden.
1984??? Is Biden channeling Orwell or Reagan? Sometimes it seems like both.
Reading is key... It says, "SINCE", 1984.
What a misleading talking point. It down largely because of the expiration or phasing out of pandemic relief spending (which had previously had been supported by both Presidents and Party's). The 2022 cumulative deficit continues to more closely track pre-pandemic deficits, and our National Debt continues to grow and will grow faster given the ongoing inflation and cost of debt servicing.
I think you should stay with this all the way through the mid terms and 2024 it's a winner for you.
Yeah? What that means is Biden has matched or bettered 1984. Is that Orwell's 1984 or Reagan's 1984? Or is it both?
Best to understand what is being read before lecturing others about reading.
Made sense to me. It reads worse than it sounds when you actually hear her say it. Part of the quote is a parenthetical clarification and that’s pretty clear when you hear it spoken. The interviewer understood her.
She’s not always the best speaker, but this is not a very good example of her screwing up.
And what is the point Harris was attempting to make?
Keep in mind Harris is attempting to construct an excuse for why Democrats haven't addressed the issue of abortion legislatively over the last 50 years. That was the interviewer's question. While, at the same time, Harris totally ignores what has really happened over the last 50 years. Harris is serving up baffling word salad to misdirect, misinform, and, essentially, gaslight.
Her point was no one felt a need to craft and fight for legislation because we had a SCOTUS decision that had settled the matter.
It’s not a completely unreasonable point of view. Never in the history of the Court has it taken away a right it had already declared to exist. To take the Court out of it, would require a Constitutional amendment, and the bar for passing those things is very high.
Roe and Casey notwithstanding, abortion was still very controversial. That has been true for a lot of rights found by the Court. One of the most important functions the SCOTUS has served is to protect basic rights of minorities - not just racial minorities, but religious and ideological minorities.
Political minorities have issues or make choices that a majority - or large enough minority - don’t have to deal with. Even though a majority of people support abortion rights, getting 2/3 support of both houses of Congress plus 3/4 of the states would be extremely hard.
So, there was no need to go to all that trouble for a question people figured had already been answered.
Kamala Harris was an Attorney General so she should know how appellate courts are used to challenge precedents. Appellate courts issue decisions overturning precedent quite often. And only a few of those appellate decisions are considered by SCOTUS. A former Attorney General claiming that appellate or SCOTUS decisions are settled seems rather disingenuous.
"As of 2020, the court had overruled its own precedents in an estimated 232 cases since 1810, says the library. To be sure, that list could be subject to interpretation, since it includes the Korematsu case from 1943, which justices have repudiated but never formally overturned."
Roe v. Wade only established a right (?) for medical practitioners to perform abortions as a commercial activity. Abortions performed by someone other than a medical practitioner are illegal and were never protected by Roe v. Wade . And the SCOTUS decision did not declare that medical practitioners can be required to perform abortions.
Roe v. Wade did not establish access to abortion as a right. The SCOTUS ruling only established a right (?) for medical practitioners to choose to perform abortions. Someone that is not a medical practitioner does not have a right (?) to choose to perform abortions.
Which is more word salad that does not address the real issues involving abortion or Roe v. Wade . Even Democrats have not made the spurious claim that Roe v. Wade was intended to protect access to abortion for minority women.
The SCOTUS decision only provided protections for medical practitioners. That's the reality.
I don't get this point. Democrats spent 50 years raising money off the premise that Roe was under threat, they made each judicial confirmation an exercise in abortion politics and literally invented the practice of Borking because the right to abortion was in danger. Kennedy's back alley abortion attack galvanized the opposition to Bork. Are we supposed to forget that, or just believe Kennedy was lying and really didn't believe the right to abortion was at risk? Even Souter's nomination caused panic about it being the end of abortion.
And now they claim surprise? Were they lying for 50 years? Anyone paying attention to American politics the last 50 years cannot claim shock Roe was reversed.
Even though a majority of people support abortion rights, getting 2/3 support of both houses of Congress
Democrats could have passed any abortion legislation they wanted without a single Republican vote under Obama.
Yes, but as I said, the process of challenging previous decisions has generally not resulted in people losing rights. I think the idea the Court might reject its holdings in Roe and Casey were obviously something people worried about a little, but not something legislators really believed would actually happen - as I said, with good reason.
Incorrect. From the Roe decision:
. . .
I don’t think I, or anyone else, has said anything about requiring doctors to perform abortions, so I don’t know why you are injecting it here.
Again, I didn’t say anything about access either. You seem to think Roe was only about doctors. It wasn’t.
There seems to be a tendency - in the seed and discussion of it - to take anything a person doesn’t understand or disagrees with and dismiss it as “word salad.” That’s pretty lazy.
If you want to say Congress is feckless, you’re preaching to choir. Ever since Roe, Congress has relied on the SCOTUS to take care of the difficult problems in law. It’s why nomination hearings have been so contentious going back almost 40 years now.
Really? The citation from the Roe v. Wade decision is about a woman's right to privacy. SCOTUS extrapolated a right to privacy into a right to choose?
And a woman choosing to legally abort still depends entirely upon a doctor performing the procedure. Without doctors having an established right to perform abortions, the woman's choice has no legal standing. A woman is prohibited from choosing alternate means that do not involve a doctor.
A woman's right to choose totally and completely depends upon doctors having a right to choose to perform abortions.
Doctors are prohibited from engaging in a variety of medical related commercial activities. So, there really is precedent for limiting a doctor's right to choose.
Doctors either have choice - or - they don't. Codifying Roe v. Wade into law would require either protecting doctors' right to choose or impose a requirement on doctors to perform abortion by law. Legalizing alternate means that do not involve a doctor would go beyond Roe v. Wade.
Denying that reality won't make it go away.
Making abortions will not stop abortions, the demand for which is created by the incidence of unwanted pregnancies.
Don't complain to me about it. I didn't write the thing. The Supreme Court did. I'll say it again for you. The right to privacy is broad enough to encompass a woman's right to terminate her own pregnancy. "A woman's right." Nothing about doctors there. It's the woman's right.
And now it's not. The Supreme Court, having previously recognized a right, has taken it away. I'm pretty sure they haven't done that before.
I truly couldn't care less about the doctor. I don't know why you keep bringing it up.
No, it doesn't. There are ways to terminate a pregnancy that don't require a doctor.
Historically the actual real true abortion rates in Mexico and Czechoslovakia, where abortions were mostly illegal, has been about twice that of the US where abortions were legal.
This is because demand for terminations is dictated by the incidence of unwanted pregnancies. Most wanted pregnancies are because women already have more children than they can support and care for...
I'll repeat: Really? The citation from the Roe v. Wade decision is about a woman's right to privacy. SCOTUS extrapolated a right to privacy into a right to choose?
No, the citation is not about a woman's right to choose. The citation is about the rights of the father and guardians. SCOTUS determined (through whatever logic) that the woman's right to privacy supersedes the rights of the father or guardian in decisions concerning abortion. So, Roe v. Wade expanded women's rights by limiting the rights of others.
Better care about the doctor since only abortions performed by doctors are legal.
Yes, there are alternate means that Democrats have been fearmongering about. Seeking an abortion outside the healthcare system is illegal. That's why Democrats have portrayed abortion as a matter of women's health. A doctor is necessary and not an option.
Word Salad? The only daily 'word salad' is the TGOP trying to explain what they said isn't what they said.