Wow! Unbelievable. This also suggests that Romney is unaware of the good the current law has accomplished (though it ought to be gender-neutral to protect whatever small percentage of men are also victims of intimate partner abuse).

Actually, men can receive aid through VAWA funds...

I took his comment to mean, "I don't know enough about the act to make an intelligent commentary on it," rather than, "I've never heard of the act."

I think you're taking one comment too far with not enough evidence to support that he is ignorant of the act all together.

I took it as: "I don't know what that is."

And I think he damn well should know what it is, everything about it if he wants to run our damn country.

I've seen MRAs cite that Letterman restraining order before. What part of "temporary restraining order" do they not understand? (Clearly, it's the temporary part.) The idea is that you immediately grant the TRO, because you want to err on the side of caution, then there's a hearing and the person gets a chance to defend himself. If it turns out to be unfounded (like the Letterman case), then the TRO expires and that's that. It usually lasts a couple of weeks. The Letterman case is a particularly ridiculous one to cite, since Letterman was ordered to stay three yards away from a person he had never met who lived on the other side of the country. Yes, a grave injustice indeed.

With being so busy raising money and campaigning, who has time to keep up with what is actually going on in our government? I always find it a bit disturbing when it seems that I know more about a topic than our elected officials. I know that one can't know everything, but knowing these things is their job!

What's violence against animals?

Tying your dog to the roof of your car and driving for 10 hours certainly is. But you've already done that, Mitt.

He's a cruel sorry excuse for a human being.

Oh, excuse me, it was actually 12 hours.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1638065,00.html

By the way,

Even though congress passed a bill guaranteeing that VAWA would be fully funded, Bush still cut funding by 10% for Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) and other grants, but I'm not totally familiar with those. We just got the announcement today from the our executive director (I work in a domestic violence program- rural outreach- hell yeah!)

So Bush sucks and if he were a democrat, he would have been impeached by now. And Romney sucks for playing stupid. At least I HOPE he's playing stupid...

I'm not a Romney fan, but I don't think it's weird or terrible that he's "not familiar with that act."

He was probably just dodging the question because a) he really wasn't familiar enough with the act to comment, and/or b) he didn't have anything particular to say about the issue.

That doesn't mean that he doesn't care about violence against women (or men) and sexual assault. It also doesn't mean he's never heard of the act.

In any event, I don't really care if he knows anything about it. Violence and sexual assault is BAD, but it's not exactly a hot-button political issue that I need to hear him - or any candidate - talk about.

[note: I haven't watched the video b/c I'm at work, so I'm sorry if there's something in there I'm not getting]

Like raging red said, the temporary restraining order takes affect immediately so that any stalking, abuse, assault, or murder can be prevented right away. Imagine having to wait for a trial to end in a guilty verdict before being protected from a maniac! The criminal would be in jail (or the victim would be dead) by then and there would be no point in even having a restraining order.

That video was pretty painful to watch. I guess saying that you're not familiar with something allows you to ramble on in a nonsensical way. That way, when you give a pitiful answer, you can blame ignorance. I guess "I'm not familiar" is the new "I don't recall."

I watched the video, and I thought he meant that "I don't know enough about the particulars of the Act to argue with you" because the questioner clearly was ready to fight and I think heckled him with comments as he responded.

However, I don't hold that against Romney. I didn't see anything wrong with his response at all. He basically said, "I think violence against women, children, and men is an important issue in our society." He remarked that there were a few cases (not a majority and he personally couldn't remember any in his state) of bad judges and/or frivolous suits, but that there were steps you could take at the state level to remove or replace those judges if they were bad. He said in the case of a man being barred from seeing his children again due to a restraining order that he'd like that not to happen, but if he was going to err, he'd err on the side of protecting the child. I don't like Romney at all, but to me, the response sounded reasonable. Especially since he didn't seem to have many hard facts about particular cases at his disposal, I think his answer basically stated his position, which is that violence against men, women, and children is bad and should be protected by law.

I'm upset with Romney's positions on many things, but not this. Although when I think of how completely Hillary Clinton would have answered the question, I see the wide gulf in preparation, knowledge, and details between the two candidates.

Nice post Gamma,

You point to a common problem that I have with Republicans right now. They are sticking their head in the sand about the status of the destruction of the family and parenting in America. They haven't done their homework and they don't want to deal with this squishy stuff.

But the divorce industry and the Family Law courts have taken $200,000 of my hard earned money and paid the mom to blow it on gambling and bad men and I can barely save enough money to send my beloved kids to college now. And I don't know if my kids will have learned enough ambition and stick-with-it honesty from me to make it though college anyway since I only get to see them 30% of the time. and that is about half as much fathering as I feel I need to provide.

So, while I would normally be very much in favor of Democrats and Womens Rights, after seeing what the Family Law industry has done with the feminist and Democratic backing, I cannot vote Democrat.

Please please please oh feminists, squash out of your movement those elements that are anti-father and anti-family, just as I consistently attack those elements of the Mens Rights movement that are anti-mother and anti-woman!

By uniting, we can lower the level of conflict between the sexes and force the government to provide equal protection for all, rather than continue to fund the Family Law Divorce industry that is eating our children's futures alive.

I just thought you might like to see what mr. "no nonsense man" (the idiot featured in a later post for blathering about Clinton's "nagging voice" on Fox News) (I know, where else, right?) has to say about Mitt Romney's little memory lapse. It manages to be hilarious while simultaneously allowing me to lose all hope in humanity:
http://thenononsenseman.mensnewsdaily.com/index.php

Holy shit liza!! Thanks for posting that. what a dirtbag. Seriously, who does that? I especially like the rodeo comment. puleez.

Poor puppy... How is this not being publicized more? At least as much as the bullshit going around about obama smoking pot in highschool and hillary showing some goddamn emotion. grr. I'd rather have someone who has smoked pot then someone who has done that to a dog.

Moniquisha - thanks for the link, it was good for a laugh - my favorite part is when he complains that men have no representation in American politics.

"In any event, I don't really care if he knows anything about it. Violence and sexual assault is BAD, but it's not exactly a hot-button political issue that I need to hear him - or any candidate - talk about."

Fuck you.

Can I just say that?