This post is by Martha Jackovics aka @BeachPeanuts. Before you read it, you must understand that Mitt Romney supports the Blunt Amendment which would permit your employer to deny you breast cancer screenings (as well as a laundry list of other preventive healthcare services primarily used by women). Period. -ABLxx

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Last week, Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan barged his way into an empty soup kitchen after it had already served dinner in order to “wash” dishes that were already clean for a shameless photo op. He wanted to appear as if he cared for the needy when in fact his and Mitt Romney’s policies would actually be devastating to those in need.

Well, today in Orlando, it was Ann Romney’s turn. She came briefly down off her high horse to mingle amongst the “you people” to pretend she and her husband care about women’s health. Specifically breast cancer:

Ann Romney, wife of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, joined the sea of pink bras, pink feather boas, pink socks and pink hats in Orlando on Saturday as she walked in support of breast cancer. ….Romney weaved through downtown for the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer 5K. The annual fundraising event — the largest breast-cancer walk in Florida — drew more than 40,000 participants Saturday, packing the streets around Lake Eola Park, near where the walk started and finished.

Romney posed for photos alongside Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, shown here in a photo Romney tweeted to her followers:



Making Strides Against Breast Cancer? What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Notice anything unusual in this photo? I did right away. Normally when there’s a breast cancer walk or similar fundraising event, those pink t-shirts the participants wear promote the effort in the battle against the disease. Call me crazy, but I don’t see anything on the front of those t-shirts that mentions breast cancer. However, they do promote the effort that Ann Romney cares about most:

Getting her husband into the White House.

The shirts read: Team Romney, Romney-Ryan 2012.

I’m not the least bit surprised that Ann Romney would use breast cancer victims in a shameless photo op. (If those women pictured are survivors rather than Romney campaign staffers.) After all, that’s the Romney family business: Self-promotion at others expense. Mitt Romney profits from outsourcing American workers jobs to China at the very same time he rails against that very thing. He recently used coal miners as a backdrop for a campaign ad while their boss forced them to take the day off without pay while claiming Obama was anti-coal. This from Romney, who also once said coal plants kill.

Well, here’s something else that kills: breast cancer.

Ann Romney is perfectly aware of this. She’s a breast cancer survivor with a family history of cancer:

“I lost my mother from ovarian cancer, I lost my grandmother from ovarian cancer, I lost my great-grandmother from breast cancer, so for me, you know, it’s been a long line of cancer,” Romney admitted. “Women that have dealt with cancer in their lives, and I unfortunately saw my grandmother die from ovarian and I took care [of] and loved my mother in her death, with her battle with ovarian cancer. So cancer is a serious business.”

Yes, cancer is serious business Ann. Dead serious. Especially to those women who will in fact die from the disease if Mitt Romney lands in the White House.

Ann Romney and Pam Bondi can pose for their “pretty in pink” “Team Romney” photo ops from now until election day, but that won’t change the fact that both women are working harder than ever to keep women, poor and otherwise, from getting access to affordable health care that could prevent and treat diseases like breast cancer. I doubt that this fact came up in conversation while both women walked and chatted with survivors.

Pam Bondi has vowed to kill Obamacare ever since she campaigned for the office she now holds, and she tried to by hiring others to do the dirty work for her and fight it in the Supreme Court. Bondi was overjoyed at the thought of the court throwing out the Affordable Care Act, making those so-called “death panels” a reality for women who could no longer afford things like breast and ovarian cancer screenings and treatment. Lucky for us Bondi’s effort failed, but she still got some nice photo-ops in Washington, and lots of PR as a leader in the Republican fight to do away with Obamacare, not to mention their War Against Women, for her trouble.

As for Ann Romney, what else would we expect, since she’s frequently lectured to women in this country that they only care about the deficit and the economy, not women’s health issues! Never crosses women’s minds according to Ann.

That’s something Ann would never take notice of unless she were in a swing state when the polls show that Mitt isn’t popular with the ladies.

Time to bring in the Romney campaign’s uterus whisperer so she can say “I love you women!” just like she did at the RNC. The fact that it’s during a breast cancer walk is just icing on the cake for the man who is hell bent on convincing voters that even though he got a health care plan for Massachusetts when he was governor, now killing Obamacare on “day one” is really a good thing! Just trust him! Would he lie to you?

You bet he would. Does it every day, and so will Ann. What does she care? She can afford the best health care money can buy, thanks to people like those in Freeport, Illinois whose jobs Bain just outsourced to China that she and Mitt stand to profit from. To those, and so many others who are now unemployed thanks to the Romney’s and Bain, Ann Romney says “you’re welcome!”

But even that’s not enough, so Mitt is running for President, and he’s coming for your access to health care now too, because, hey, his huge tax breaks won’t pay for themselves!

So Ann will don that pink shirt and hang out with women who have breast cancer for her own political gain, knowing all along that if her husband wins, he’ll make good on his promise to kill Obamacare.

She’ll do it gladly, knowing that women who are poor and have nowhere else to turn except to Planned Parenthood for health care services and cancer screenings will likely just die when her husband gets rid of PP as promised.

She’ll dress pretty in pink in an Oscar de la Renta dress for breast cancer awareness month, while knowing that she can afford such a dress thanks to big tax breaks at the expense of those who may go bankrupt or worse because they got cancer and have no insurance or did have insurance, but it would barely cover them because the health care laws put in place by President Obama would be no more if Romney killed Obamacare.

She can pretend to be a real “fighter” for breast cancer awareness, this woman who recently snapped during a radio interview about mere criticism of her husband, saying: “Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring,” but she’ll never know what it’s like to fight cancer the way those who can’t afford to do.

She doesn’t know hard. Hard is fighting for your life while trying to feed your kids and keep your home if you have one. Worse, hard is knowing that if you’re a mom just diagnosed with breast cancer, your daughters now have a pre-existing condition, which no insurance company would cover before Obamacare, and who now may face the same diagnosis in the future with no resources because their parents lost everything due to that illness if Obamacare ceases to exist in a Romney Administration.

You know, because it runs in the family, Ann, and like you said, cancer is serious business.

So you put on that pink breast cancer campaign t-shirt Ann, looking all pretty on the outside and smile for the cameras while playing the part of a human being who cares.

But deep down on the inside? That must be one ugly place to live.

[via Beach Peanuts]

***You can follow Martha at @BeachPeanuts and read her blog, Beach Peanuts.