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Thursday, April 21, 2016

"If there’s a credible defense for such a reckless waste of Congress’ time, it’s hiding well." Just another GOP farce.

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COMMENTS: 
*  In GOP-land, accusations amount to proof (see 25 years of baseless Republican smears against Hillary)..
*  Yep. A nice, objective investigation like Blackburn's surely will assure women the GOP is on their side.
*  Dana-  Thanks for objectively reporting on the LIES OF BLACKBURN.  I just don't understand why your reporting is considered an opinion piece since the woman is lying and you are reporting. Soon, more outlets will report this . Blackburn is a fool who thinks she has more power than she actually does. Karma will be sweet, indeed.
*  The rules of logic and reality are suspended in Republistan.
*  Why am I not surprised that she is from the South?
*   The Republicans on this committee are nothing more than devious jerks whose only agenda was to discredit PP regardless of the facts. The assertion that clinics have no costs is ridiculous. Their "report" is garbage, as is most that comes from the hatemongers and ideologues of right.
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Republicans finish discrediting their Planned Parenthood investigation
By Dana Milbank, April 20, 2016

[snipped]

House GOP leaders created the panel last year in response to the Planned Parenthood videos that suggested the organization was illegally selling tissue from aborted fetuses to researchers for a profit. But investigations in a dozen states looking into the allegations came up empty. In Houston, a grand jury convened by the county attorney, a Republican, not only cleared Planned Parenthood but indicted the video makers on charges of tampering with a government record.

[snipped]

But whatever legitimacy the select panel had left after the videos were discredited has been undermined by Blackburn.

[snipped]

And Kenneth Sukhia, yet another witness for the majority, said the discredited videos provide “corroborative evidence” that Planned Parenthood broke the law, saying “it doesn’t matter” that statements in the video were selectively edited.

It doesn’t matter?

After doctored videos, unsubstantiated “exhibits” and political moonlighting by Blackburn, those assessing the panel’s relevance will conclude just that.
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COMMENTS: 
*  The formula is so stinkin' obvious. How does the GOP motivate the factions of its base? Hot-button wedge issues like this one - to keep them inflamed and drooling like Pavlov's dog. Does GOP leadership really give a damn about Planned Parenthood, or Benghazi, or Obama's birth certificate? No. These "investigations" are just tools to keep their **idiot** base fired up and voting. The GOP would drop these issues like a hot rock the moment they lose their political effectiveness.
*  A woman's right to choose is legal in the United States by way of the Supreme Court. Further, by seeking to defund and attack Planned Parenthood, Republicans actually are creating circumstances for more unscheduled pregnancies, and causing women to have much less access to reproductive healthcare in general.
*  Yes a woman is guaranteed the right to an abortion by Roe versus Wade, but tell that to republican governor Mike Pence of Indiana who just passed a law forbidding a woman from having an abortion if the baby will be born with physical and genetic deformities or even refusing a woman an abortion based on the sex of the fetus! People we cannot continue quoting the Supreme Court as the law of the land when individual republican (not one democratic governor mind you!)governors are thumbing their noses at the Federal government and the Supreme Court and saying screw you, these are our own little fiefdoms and we can do as we please, we do not have to pay attention to anything you say! Wake up America and fight back before we become the "United Christian Republican States of America" where we the everyday ordinary people of America will have no rights at all!
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GOP’s anti-Planned Parenthood panel descends into ‘farce’ 
By Steve Benen, April 21, 2016

As ridiculous as the House Republicans’ Benghazi committee has become, at least the GOP’s investigation is scrutinizing a real event. Sure, by Republicans’ own admission, the entire exercise is a partisan political stunt. And sure, the events in Benghazi in 2012 have already been investigated by seven other congressional committees. But at its root, four Americans died in a terrorist attack that actually happened.

The existence of the House Republicans’ anti-Planned Parenthood committee is arguably tougher to defend.

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank highlighted the latest antics of the panel’s far-right chair, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who “isn’t one to worry about appearances.”
The Tennessee Republican didn’t make any pretense this week of being impartial with the committee she chairs, the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, commonly known as the Planned Parenthood committee.

On the eve of her panel’s Wednesday’s hearing, Blackburn went over to Georgetown University to participate in a protest against Planned Parenthood, the very entity she is supposed to be investigating…. Then Blackburn showed up at her committee hearing the next morning and proclaimed, “My hope is that both parties can work together.”
Of course, when Blackburn talks about the parties “working together,” what she’s referring to is a hope that Democrats will simply go along with a culture-war crusade as if the GOP’s latest select committee were a legitimate exercise, probing a genuine controversy.

It is not. As we’ve discussed before, the “controversy” surrounding Planned Parenthood and fetal-tissue research effectively came to an end months ago. Despite the far-right uproar surrounding “undercover” videos targeting the health organization, a Texas grand jury cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing, and instead indicted the conservatives responsible for the “sting” operation against the group.

This followed word from 12 states, which had launched official investigations into Planned Parenthood’s work, and each of which reached the same conclusion: the organization did not illegally sell fetal tissue.

These facts prompted the editorial board of the Washington Post to argue that it’s time for the GOP to “give up its crusade” against Planned Parenthood. As yesterday’s hearing reminded us, congressional Republicans have instead decided to ramp up the witch hunt.

MSNBC’s Irin Carmon was also there for yesterday’s hearing, and took note of who wasn’t in the room.
The work of David Daleiden, an anti-abortion activist currently facing criminal indictment in Texas whose home was recently searched by California authorities, had sparked the committee’s creation. But he was not called to testify about his secretly recorded videos of abortion providers, for which he posed as a procurer of fetal tissue for medical research. (Daleiden did, however, live tweet the proceedings.)

Also absent were representatives of StemExpress, the actual fetal tissue procurement company that is in the crosshairs of the committee, though according to ranking minority member Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky, the company’s procurement director offered to explain its cost structure to the committee. “The Chair ignored that offer and, instead, called this public hearing and invited witnesses who have no firsthand knowledge of the facts to opine about potential criminal misconduct,” Schakowsky said.
There’s a reason Democratic members of the committee described the proceedings as a “farce,” a “kangaroo court” and “a witch hunt.”

The apparent purpose of yesterday’s hearing was “proof” of a clinic making profit on fetal-tissue donations. As the Washington Post’s piece added, the evidence was about as credible as the hearing itself.
[T]his incendiary “exhibit” – asserting that any abortion clinic that receives any payment for fetal tissue is breaking the law – turned out to be not evidence but an undocumented claim by the Republican staff.

“I think that these exhibits were created from whole cloth,” said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) a member of the panel. She objected to the use of the exhibits, claiming they violated House rules. Republicans moved to table her objection and prevailed on a party-line vote.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) tried again. He raised a parliamentary inquiry about how the “pure profit” conclusion was reached – particularly because it was contradicted by three other exhibits that appeared to document activities performed by abortion clinics in the tissue sales that have associated costs.
Committee Republicans not only didn’t care, they also based much of yesterday’s discussion around materials no one could substantiate.

If there’s a credible defense for such a reckless waste of Congress’ time, it’s hiding well.

Disclosure: My wife works at Planned Parenthood, but she played no role in this piece and her work is unrelated to fetal-tissue research and the congressional investigation.
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