Posted on 09/01/2015 9:28:27 PM PDT by Morgana
If you’ve been holding out any hope that Congress might actually put up a fight against Planned Parenthood’s $528 million in federal funding, think again. The House of Representatives may be holding a vote on it after Labor Day, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has reiterated that that’s all we’re going to see:
The Senate Democrats have a big enough number to prevent us from doing things. They prevented us from doing any of the bills that appropriate money for the government, thereby forcing a negotiation when we go back in after Labor Day, which I’ll be engaged in with the administration and others to try to sort out how much we’re going to spend and where we’re going to spend it […]
We just don’t have the votes to get the outcome that we’d like. I would remind all of your viewers: The way you make a law in this country, the Congress has to pass it and the president has to sign it. The President has made it very clear he’s not going to sign any bill that includes defunding of Planned Parenthood, so that’s another issue that awaits a new President hopefully with a different point of view about Planned Parenthood.
And what happens if the next President doesn’t have a “different point of view about Planned Parenthood”? Will you and Speaker Boehner shrug and say, “Oh well, see you in another four years, pro-lifers”? Do you think your duty to represent your constituents’ values, fight for preborn Americans’ Fourteenth Amendment rights, and function as a check against the executive branch only apply when it’s politically easy to do so?
Probably, considering that McConnell has sabotaged other Republicans’ more serious efforts to defund, while Boehner has taken any possibility of risking even a partial government shutdown off the table and thinks we need an investigation to tell us whether an organization that slaughters babies for a living deserves involuntary contributions from the American people. (Oh, and for what it’s worth, StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer’s sister, Charlotte Ivancic, used to be Boehner’s health policy advisor.)
I’ll see McConnell’s civics lecture and raise him the Father of the Constitution. In Federalist 58, James Madison explains that the sole power to “propose” and “refuse” the “supplies requisite for the support of government” is central to the legislative branch’s role in the federal government’s system of checks and balances:
This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.
As leader of one half of Congress, it is McConnell’s most important duty to sent boundaries for what the federal government will—and will not—spend. Contrary to what he and his donors may feel, he’s not there to churn out legislation by the truckload, but to fight. Sometimes that means risking negative press, getting the President angry at you, having to fight members of your own party, putting in longer hours, and investing effort, creativity, and stress into advancing a counter-narrative to make a case for what you’re doing.
As Kelsey Harkness laid out, a fruitless show vote on something we all know in advance Obama will veto isn’t his only option. Language defunding Planned Parenthood could be attached to must-pass legislation such as a budgetary continuing resolution. As Kristi Burton Brown has pointed out, it would actually be Obama’s fault for vetoing legislation that funds everything he wails that a shutdown would threaten except Planned Parenthood.
And as I’ve talked about before, previous shutdown fights only failed because Republicans didn’t pair them with concerted public-relations offensives to persuade the public what was at stake and who was really at fault. After all, in the 2013 ObamaCare fight, the GOP House repeatedly sent Harry Reid’s Senate numerous bills to fund everything. They had a perfectly intuitive argument to make that of course funding purposes A, B, and C shouldn’t be contingent on funding X, Y, or Z. And contrary to all the doomsday wailing, the shutdown didn’t hurt the GOP in the midterms after all.
Drawing a line in the sand at Planned Parenthood’s tax money is morally necessary, politically viable, and strategically doable. And as Ben Domenech notes, even if it ultimately failed, the fight would still force the media to actually mention the crimes that started it. There is no excuse for not taking this fight on—least of all from anyone purporting to be a leader.
Yet Mitch McConnell seems to think he can only be reasonably expected to do what everyone else is already okay with doing, or whatever is procedurally easiest… and still has the gall to whine that all his “progress in getting the Senate back to work” is “not noticed by more people.”
And then what will your excuse be, Ditch?
Maybe we need a new ML. Ditch is USELESS.
Mitch is one of those bozos running around trying to find “which battle he should pick and choose from.” In the meantime, the dumbass Kenyan is running circle around those clowns.
How about we wait until the next Majority Leader?
By now, no one should be surprised at this.
The question now for consideration is how in the world do you get this jerkwad out of the leadership?
Obama and democrats are not running circles around Mitch or Boehner. Both of them want the same exact thing. They don’t cave on anything they work out the details.
Well if you hadn’t given barky the store right after the election, maybe you wouldn’t be in this fix.
I’m sure Hillary will not defund Planned Parenthood.
The question is: Will the Party allow Conservatism, or continue to defend Liberalism?
I wonder if the shared weight of 17 Republican candidates can demand and get McConnell (and Boehner) resignation? Shame congress into action, demand it, whatever? Seems like in the interest of Republicans overall that McConnell and Boehner leave now else all candidates run against Congress, which ultimately limits the presidential coattails come election day.
It’s time for a massive grassroots movement to butt kick McConnell and Boehner out of office. Enough is enough.
1). Call the Iran deal a treaty and vote it down
2) Get rid of the filibuster for the rest of this session
3). Pass a budget that doesn’t have the 948 billion TARP money in it.
4). no money for Bozocare, Planned Baby Death and anything green
5). If bozo vetoes anything, then he is shutting down the gov’t.
Trump loves Planned Un-Parenthood..
but thinks the slaughtered babies should NOT be sold like hamburger..
He thinks they do mammograms... or something..
WHat is he Stupid?... answer.. NO... he knows they don’t..
Great list.
Too bad the Turtle and the Crying Cheeto want nothing of the sort. Actually, they think anybody who likes that list should be run out of the party.
McConnell is SLIME.
Too bad Alison Grimes didn’t defeat this old POS. That would’ve been a loss that could easily be absorbed.
If social conservatives haven’t figured out that they are the blacks of the GOP yet, they never will.
Pray America is waking
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