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Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.)
In the 112th Congress, Republicans repeatedly targeted Planned Parenthood funding -- to the point of being preoccupied with the subject -- though their efforts never came close to succeeding. On the contrary, Democrats used the campaign against the GOP to great effect, painting Republicans as extremists, and expanding the gender gap.
And so, in the 113th Congress, with President Obama re-elected, the Senate Democratic majority larger, and the House Republican majority smaller, surely conservatives won't renew this crusade, right? Wrong.
In early January, Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) vowed to "continue trying to starve Planned Parenthood of federal funds," and this week, we're seeing the manifestation of those efforts.
Dozens of Republicans in the House and Senate have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to examine how Planned Parenthood and other groups that provide abortion services are using taxpayer money.
Those spearheading the effort -- Rep. Diane Black (Tenn.), Rep. Pete Olson (Texas) and Sen. David Vitter (La.) -- are hoping the study confirms their suspicion that these groups are focusing more on abortion and less on other healthcare services. Black said this finding could be used to justify a reduction in federal funds to abortion providers.
Keep in mind, federal law already prohibits the use of taxpayer funds to terminate pregnancies, and there's literally no evidence that Planned Parenthood has violated this law. Black and the several dozen GOP lawmakers requesting this investigation aren't pointing to anything in particular, but they want a probe in the hopes something untoward might turn up.
The list of lessons Republicans learned as a result of their 2012 failures is remarkably short.
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It's nice to have stupid opponents. These Reps aren't ignorant, they're stupid. Ignorance can be cured by learning. Stupid is forever.
I think it's more malicious than just stupidity. They don't care to learn because they want control.
The list of lessons Republicans learned as a result of their 2012 failures is remarkably short.
As in "zero", nada, nothing.
In writing dramatic fiction, the protagonist (us) is supposed to have an equal opponent in the antagonist (them). We must be much lower than we think we are. that these braindead inbred southern fools, idiots and morons are anywhere close to our "equals." Either that or art no longer imitates life.
"Please Proceed Mr. Romney. "
I disagree that they're stupid. Determined and stupid aren't the same things. The Republicans will NEVER stop this. The party's committed to overturning Roe v Wade, they have been since 1973. It's a goal. There's no reason for them to stop.
What I find more interesting is learning what women in red states think. I've heard that women are just as anti abortion as the men, and therefore this will not die down in red states. This and cutting spending and promoting tax breaks for the rich, that won't likely stop either. And what I learned from TRMS, they don't care if the current economy fails in order to get what they want. Otherwise they would have made a deal right away, given that business just wanted A Deal (i.e. certainty.)
FauxPas is, unfortunately right. They won't stop. the only thing that stops a Jihadist or a Teahadist is death. Religious fanatics relish their own martyrdom, and see their obstinacy in the face of all reason as a virtue, a sign of how monomaniacal they are in their obsession.
OOPPS! ALMOST FORGOT: What will happen if the GAO finds (or has already found) that money spent on contraception and abortion services pays for itself many times over in the long run?
Sofferclese -- remember, just because there are "facts" and "findings" don't mean we have to believe them. (Facts are the tools of the liberals!) And if the GAO produces findings such as you describe, that will probably actually just confirm some Repubs' belief that the GAO is another partisan puppet of the current administration, here to deceive innocent taxpayers with big scary numbers. :P
Sofferclese, I used to think the financial aspects would trump the zeal, but I'm starting to think religion comes first. I also thought abortion was just a fund raising ploy, not any more. Overturning Roe v Wade is still a primary goal of the party.
My other theory, on the budget fight, is that the GOP really doesn't care what happens to the economy, especially for the middle class. I used to think that since Business needs customers, and Business says they want certainty, that surely Congress wants to appease Business. So they'll listen to reason, right? I'm convinced that the looming recession from the "s word" doesn't amount to a hill of beans for the GOP: They're on the 40 year plan, and income redistribution is being done on purpose, because they know exactly what the effect will be. If the economy tanks, they'll blame Obama. It's a win win.
My point is that the GOP can't be convinced with words. They need to be swatted down with something else, politics, dirty tricks, whatever. They surely will offend women forever, so that's something.
Messing with ladies healthcare is a ridiculous and tragic mistake the right wing makes over and over...
Planned Parenthood uses federal funds to conduct cancer screenings, not to provide abortions. Early detection of cancer both saves lives and money.
Apparently the GOP in Congress is waging a war on both poorer women (and their families) and containing healthcare costs.
“Their political reactions express rather a profound and largely unconscious hatred of our society and its ways -- a hatred which one would hesitate to impute to them if one did not have suggestive clinical evidence ... The pseudo-conservative, Adorno writes, shows 'conventionality and authoritarian submissiveness' in his conscious thinking and 'violence, anarchic impulses, and chaotic destructiveness in the unconscious sphere…… The pseudo conservative is a man who, in the name of upholding traditional American values and institutions and defending them against more or less fictitious dangers, consciously or unconsciously aims at their abolition.'"
-- Richard Hofstadter: The Pseudo-Conservative (1965)
What a waste of time and money on a study that has been done before and that everyone knows will not turn up the "dirt" these Republicans want. I understand why some men feel threatened by women but why does any woman feel the need to take action that will harm other women. Are these Republican women so afraid of the men in the Republican Party that they feel they must also speak out against women's rights to health care and women's ability to make their own health care choices? If so that is very sad!
Exactly. Just how much money will this study cost?
-Meanwhile-
Thousands of programs doing real and visible good are slated to begin cuts March 1 with the Sequester.
A sad continuing saga of intrusive politics not focused on the common good, but rather on a narrow band of sectarian intolerance, our secular society should not allow to be entertained as much as it does!
A direct question to ask any and all those among us who so adamantly and relentlessly attack Planned Parenthood:
Do you even know any poor women? Or, Do you want to return to a time of back ally abortions? Or, Can you afford a mammogram, and if so, how about women who can't - do they go without? Or, simply, put all of them on the spot by asking bluntly - Have you used abortion services? Or, if a male legislator, have you paid for abortion services for a woman you've had conception-laden sex with?
Or, how about: Do you, Rep. Black et al. have any common decency? -Kevo
Or how about the immorality of treating "the least of these" worse than stray dogs, simply because they cannot afford the services that you take for granted.
I would encourage a Democratic amendment to this - saying that, once the study is done, if (as we all know it will) the study proves once and for all that PP uses government money ONLY for non-abortion related services, then the Republicans will have to stop harassing PP and agree to continue funding it. That's something the D's can certainly get behind! Since PP has been meticulous in the way it operates, ensuring the audits support their assertion that no government money goes to abortions, the result of any such audit demanded by R's is assured. So let's use it to turn the tables on them!
The good ole' maddcow blog!!
The evidence could be anywhere...Better authorize use of the probe.
In this case an anal probe. What else would you use for these three anal openings?
Rachael was right the other night - this is McCarthyism plain and simple. Smear, slander and lie, never having proof that you are right yet requiring that the person/institution that you're disparaging "prove their innocence"! And that has to be said loudly over and over and over again until these idiots STOP!
All these folks are doing is going on fishing expeditions. They'll spend billions in a hope that they'll "find" something.
Of course when it came to looking into something that really mattered, such as whether W doctored the information to take us into the Iraq War, they did everything in their power to delay and avoid the issue.
Politics at its worse.
Step 1: print politician's quote. Step 2: if quote is untrue, say so. Try hard to not forget Step 2:
Hey ralph, remember your claims about Wi and how that state was doing just fine before Scott Walker took office??
Got your lies all crosed up that night..
Then you "fired" politfact, after they exposed your lies..
How on earth do you fire a web site..??
Hey "Ho": please remove head from ass and turn on brain before commenting.
And you had best get back to Wacko World and get to work, you're behind on your quota of fornicated sheep for today.
Right here liberal......
Maddow got her azz in the ring and got exposed..
That's why it's a "news" show. it's a "talk" show....
That way you don't have to tell the truth..
The MSLDS moto ,lie lie lie, as long as it's about the republicans..
LA is that Lower Alabama?
Hey lower alabama... cant stand the facts & truth can you... collapse this
Is this what passes as polite discourse in your world, TCinLA?
Oh yeah...the GOP has found yet another 'woman' to spread their message of hate.
the state that once sent al gore sr., estes keafuer, and howard baker to the congress now sends diane black, marsha blackburn, lamar alexander, and bob corker.
giants for midgets.
Good to see that the repuknican party is in favor of needlessly wasting money investigating organizations that they disapprove of. Probably need to have more federal investigations of ACORN and The New Black Panther Party.
They also diapproved of slavery as well..
Next ACORN turn out to be a real scam!!
Why do you guy's continue to bring up ACORN? They don't even exist anymore, are you that misinformed? or are you just stupid?
ho-lee, so you want to bring up ACORN? How about Young Political Majors, the firm that ran GOP registration efforts in California, Massachusetts, Florida, Arizona and elsewhere before the authorities in Orange County, Calif., busted its president, Mark Anthony Jacoby, who was then sent to JAIL. He had built a lucrative partisan career by teaching his minions to deceive THOUSANDS of voters into registering as Republicans rather than Democrats. Guess you didn't hear much about them because your GOP 'leaders' were too busy jumping on ACORN for a couple DOZEN false registrations, eh? Even your beloved FOX downplayed the matter. To claim that the stupid behavior of a half-dozen employees should discredit a national group that had offices in more than 75 cities staffed by many thousands of employees and volunteers, before they shut their doors in 2010, is like saying that Gov. Mark Sanford or Sen. John Ensign have discredited every Republican governor or senator. Indeed, the indignation of the congressional Republicans screaming about ACORN and the GOP set-up phony streetwalker (of which those in Acorn who were involved were terminated), is diluted by the presence of at least two confirmed prostitution clients —Rep. Ken Calvert and Sen. David Vitter — in their midst. Neither of those right-wing johns has been even mildly chastised by their moralistic peers. Nobody is cutting off THEIR federal funding. You have been dismissed.
Best thing about the ralph maddow show, it keeps my TV remote from getting lost!!!!
Michigan Republicans focused on jobs jobs jobs: eight new anti-abortion bills
So what are the chances that you maddow will become pregnant? I bet ZERO...
What are the chances that you, MISTER, will become pregnant? ZERO...
Will they be voting to de-fund ACORN, too?
Ironic that Vitter seems to be against contraception, etc. Would he have changed his tune if one of his Washington "escorts" had come up pregnant? Vitter is, and has been a major hypocrite. His picture is in the dictionary next to the definition.
Better trolls please…
Sure hope you didn't bust a blood vessel thinking that epic statement up!
Trolls are "fictitious" just like the federal budget.
Phuck it's only been almost 4 years now...
But what the hell, Obummer has a plan..... Or he thinks he does.
Obummers moto: Foodstamps for eveybody...
Republican motto: Eliminate as many jobs as possible so more people will need food stamps then eliminate the program. Let 'em starve.
Ho, are you truly stupid, or are you simply here to pester the adults?
WHAT IS A "MOTO"?
I object to the Republicans using taxpayer-funded GAO for witch-hunt.
Put the Kool-Aid down and step back!!!!
Did you merely "cut" your last class or did the Principal send you home early?
Masters degree ....
What you got??? a masterbation degree?? Oh look a fresh pitcher of Kool-Aid.
Hurry now before it is all gone..
Good grief, you actually replied to that post.
Are the parents aware of your excessive internet time?
Come on Republicans have you learned nothing from 2012? Leave reproductive rights alone!
So who is keeping you from getting knocked up??? Sure aint the republicans...
The Republican women in Congress are very capable of spewing tired old rhetoric, but they are using up all their power of independent thought on keeping that Aspirin clutched between their legs!
and what about the democrat hags????
You know horse face pelosi, baba boxlunch, and finestupid..To name a few..
Are you for real? or are you just a moron?
who is this guy?
It is, obviously, a "guy", spewing crap out his ass about Planned Parenthood, an organization which really has no effect on his own life. Unless he accidentally impregnates a woman (what are the odds, since he has never come close to even TALKING to a woman?), in which case, it is completely up to him to decide what the woman does with the parasite which he has inflicted upon her?
If you consider that abortion = murder in the eyes of Republicans and various religions, the fight won't stop. Planned Parenthood offers abortion. That's all the GOP needs to know. So Planned Parenthood needs to go. The fact that the organization does anything else is meaningless. The fact that it helps women is totally meaningless.
They won't stop, the goal is to overturn Roe v Wade. It's up to the federal government and the rest of us to fight against this, pretty much forever. It's also up to us to help fund Planned Parenthood if we want it around. Trying to convince the GOP to change their minds is probably a giant waste of time (from what I can see.)
A good friend of mine was in a leadership position in an evangelical church and she explained this to me. Abortion is murder, that's the end of it. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
You are so right , that's what they believe, the problem is that they believe everybody else has to go along with their beliefs, that is fascist tyranny and not very christian.
Starving children and old people by cutting off their nutritional support is not murder?
FauxPas I think you underestimate Republicans. I agree they would like nothing more than to overturn Roe v Wade but they also despise contraception, free health care and women making choices all by themselves. The fact that women can make choices about their own lives with no input from them whatsoever drives them crazy.