Colorado congressional candidate and sitting State Rep. Richard Holtorf ® received a tough grilling this week at the hands of local 9News anchor Kyle Clark over his apparent hypocrisy when it comes to abortion rights.
Holtorf made headlines back in January when he defended paying for his girlfriend’s abortion, despite being an adamant pro-life lawmaker and abortion critic. “Anti-abortion GOP lawmaker praises the impact of the abortion he paid for,” read the headline of a local report by Clark from the beginning of the year.
To his credit, Holtorf sat down with Clark to discuss the issue.
“Why do you seek to deny [the right to an abortion] to other women?” Clark pressed.
“Let me, let me — I don’t, I don’t,” Holtorf replied.
“You have voted to restrict abortion access,” Clark shot back.
“And I have. And I’m a pro-life person. I think you should try to choose life every time. But there are exceptions. And there are times when you need abortion. Abortion is a medical procedure,” declared Holtorf.
There are exceptions, like when it’s inconvenient for the rich and powerful. Other people should (be compelled by law to) choose life every time.
So, pro choice then. Come on “pro-life” people if you make exceptions you are pro choice. Abortion should be legal and accessible to women who need it, birth control too.
Yo, but how are we supposed to subjugate women?
I cannot upvote you on principle but I will commend your satire.
You’re projecting logical thinking. Stop.
The Republicans need wedge issues for culture wars. It’s a numbers game and that’s all they care about.
Projecting logic and critical thinking on a party that’s moving towards fascism is a fool’s errand.
The Only Moral Abortion Is My Abortion.
reuse as needed.
Edit = Here’s a link to the author’s blog post: https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/
Thanks to Cosmic Turtle.
The Atlantic article is paywalled.
Here’s a link to the author’s blog post: https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/
Thanks, I’ll edit that into my comment
paywalled
Here’s a link to the author’s blog post: https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/
I apologize
It’s a great headline though
Because like most republicans, he’s a hypocrite.
All*
Nah, you always find the strange ones that actually practice what they preach. They’re rare but they do exist.
Well, they used to be rare. They’ve all been ousted, retired or lost their primaries by now. There are NO principaled GOP politicians at this point.
John McCain died in 2018.
John McCain, member of the Keating 5? That John McCain?
Name one
Joe Manchin
Joe Manchin double crossed Republicans who thought he was in their pocket. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/27/manchin-schumer-senate-deal-energy-taxes-00048325
For those who weren’t paying attention at the time, Biden had a massive proposed spending bill called Build Back Better, which was going to be the cornerstone of his plan for recovering from the pandemic. Republicans oppossed it, of course. There were 50 Democratic Senators and 50 Republicans, meaning that spending bills could not get past the filibuster (which requires a 60-vote supermajority).
The bill was split into two parts. One was the Infrastructure and Jobs Act, and the other was the (cynically named) Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA contained some of the sweeping provisions regarding climate change, health care, etc which Republicans were dead set against. The infrastructure act they were okay with on principle, but they didn’t want to give the Dems a win. The IRA, due to the type of spending involved, could be passed with just 50 votes under a loophole known as reconciliation.
In late 2021, Manchin and Sinema were making noises about the IRA. Democrats started saying very publicly that they should refuse to pass the smaller but more popular infrastructure act until/unless the bigger IRA was passed. It was starting to look like another broken promise from Democrat administrations: a big, ambitious bill (Build Back Better) gets watered down and stripped of all its best parts and a good but wimpy version of it (infrastructure act) is all that’s allowed to pass by Republicans.
Democrats backed down, Republicans passed the infrastructure bill, it looked like business as normal. Manchin publicly pulled support for the IRA and by early 2022 it was dead.
It briefly revived in June of 2022. Republicans had no power to block it, but they threatened to block the CHIPS act unless Democrats backed down again. Once again, Manchin, seemingly a loyal Republican plant, pulled his support and the bill died.
Congress passed the CHIPS act, and hours later on the same day, Schumer and Manchin revealed that Manchin had actually reached out to secretly continue negotiations, and they had a deal, and now there was nothing left for the Republicans to block out of spite, they were gonna pass it. And they did pass it, 51 to 50 with Kamala being the tie breaker.
It was stunning, everyone had written off Manchin as a R in D’s clothing, but honestly without him it’s very unlikely that we would have gotten all three of those bills passed. Even if we’d passed the IRA, Republicans would have killed one of the other bills out of spite.
Is he a republican?
Yarp
Yea, thatsthejoke.gif
Probably could have used a /s once upon a time
I noticed this is not a Sinclair owned Network. I imagine that’s the only reason they were able to ask this question.
For those unfamiliar with Sinclair, here is just one of their shitty tactics:
“This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.”
And then they did it AGAIN last week.
Sinclair leaps in to attack Biden’s mental fitness while Trump has spluttering incoherent speeches.
There are no Sinclair networks in Colorado.
Just want to say that Kyle Clark has been running a clinic on how to question conservatives.
Could you like me to more about this? I did a quick search and didn’t find relevant pages. Thought I’d ask if you have a direct link handy.
He was a moderator of a Republican debate the other day and ran it fantastically. Jimmy Kimmel picked it up because it was soooo good. Just look up Jimmy Kimmel Kyle Clark.
Side note, as a Coloradoan, I just want to say that Kyle Clark is a state treasure.
He isn’t literally running a clinic (umm that I’m aware of). It’s a figure of speech.
Kyle Clark is the anchor for 9News here in the Denver metro area / Colorado
Oh, dang. Wishful thinking on my part, I suppose.
More journalists like this please
Kyle Clark for debate moderator 2024. No bullshit allowed.
Damn, Kyle Clark, again? Why can’t every journalist be like this? I mean, seriously.
To his credit, Holtorf sat down with Clark to discuss the issue.
Why credit him for that? Trying to defend something so outrageous and hypocritic is no what I would think grands credit. Apologising and changing his opinion on abortion could though
Because usually these people choose to scamper away screaming incoherent obscenities and slurs. Progress is progress.
Yeah, there’s a gap between “basic integrity and human decency” and, far below it, “average Republican behavior.” He went in between.
Republicans will whine about the unfair treatment by the interviewer, deflecting from the utter hypocrisy of this vapid idiot.
It’s not even a “gotcha” question. He seems to be clear that his girlfriend’s abortion allowed her to live her best life, and he supported it. So it stands to reason that if he’s voting to restrict abortion, that there must be some line between his girlfriend’s situation, which he supported, and what he votes to restrict. And asking that question is key to understanding his position (if giving him a whole HEAP of benefit-of-the-doubt he doesn’t deserve).
If he wanted to maintain any kind of consistency, he could have simply said “it’s legal right now, so it was her decision and she was able to get one, and if there is a financial burden in that I should take equal responsibility. I don’t think it should be an option, but I can’t make her choose not to when it isn’t illegal.” And that would be that. Even the “best life” thing could be squared away: “It’s never good when a life that should come into this world never sees daylight, but there are, of course, some options that are available that wouldn’t exist with a child, and she has those options. Many women have children unexpectedly and have rich, fulfilling lives, even if they weren’t what they planned. What I meant by her best life is to say she could continue on the path she found to be best, before she found out she was pregnant.”
I’m about as pro-choice as it gets and even I can come up with some shitty justifications for his bullshit hypocrisy. So it’s not just that this guy is a hypocrite, he’s also an idiot. If you’re incapable of explaining your actions and voting, you have no business running for any political position.
Repubs have difficulty with consistency and integrity because they value truth less than they value white supremacist hierarchy. It’s a tricky question for them because they all implicitly understand that the laws are only requirements for poors at the bottom of the hierarchy. They also know they aren’t supposed to say that out loud.
Nah, it’s more than that. Conservativism is about the in group obtaining and excercising power over the out group.
Blatant hypocrisy is just another demonstration of power. “Look at what I can do and you can’t do anything about it.”.
“Having to answer for our hypocrisy is unfair!”
Republicans
Yes, it would be deeply unfair were a hypocrite need to deal with their actions…
this guy comoderated the republican primary in Colorado as well and he was incredible. didn’t take bullshit and put everyone (including and especially boebert) in their place. what a hero.
Catholic eh? Someone should contact his local church and remind the pastor of canon law:
“Canon 1397 §2 is a paragraph of the canon 1397 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church; the paragraph states: “A person who actually procures an abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication”.”
He was excommunicated the second his payment went through.
Not hard to get back in communion though. Francis made it so any literally priest can absolve you, not just Bishops.
Now this is what “I just wanna grill” should refer to.
Because the unspoken right wing philosophy is “I get to tell you what to do; you didn’t get to tell me what to do.”
