Either we've entered the Twilight Zone or the GOP/TPers are trying to force us into a "Groundhog Day" reality ~ ~ Sooz

Abortion provision imperils human-trafficking bill
03/11/15 09:23 AM
By Steve Benen

In a deeply divided Congress, with the major parties further apart than any time in generations, there aren’t many bipartisan bills on important issues. A pending bill on human trafficking, however, looked like the kind of measure that could work its way through Capitol Hill with ease.

At least, it used to.

The basic idea of the legislation, called the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, would fine traffickers to create a fund to support victims. After the bill sailed through committee, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), the bill’s chief sponsor, told reporters, “Too often we see partisan politics divide Congress, but today as we move forward with a bill to eliminate human trafficking, we see that doesn’t always have to be the case. I’m pleased Republicans, Democrats, and over 200 outside organizations have come together in support of this worthy cause.”

The process was smooth sailing, right up until yesterday. The Huffington Post reported that Senate Democrats “discovered that Republicans had slipped anti-abortion language into the bill.”


Even Democrats on the Judiciary Committee said they had no idea the abortion provision was in the bill. Some suggested they had been misled.

The argument that Republicans intentionally tried to deceive Democrats is actually quite sound. A similar proposal, without an abortion provision, was introduced in the last Congress, and as this year’s process got underway, GOP senators provided Dems with a list of minor alterations to the bill’s language. The anti-abortion measure wasn’t on the list, and Democrats moved forward, taking Republicans at their word.

Cornyn denies his office did anything untoward and insisted yesterday it was up to Democrats to read the entire text of the bill.

All of a sudden, one of the year’s easiest bills is likely to be derailed by the GOP’s insistence on an unnecessary culture-war provision.

“We’re on the bill. And these provisions, my caucus did not know about them,” Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said. “You can blame it on staff, blame it on whoever you want to blame it on, but we didn’t know it was in the bill. The bill will not come off this floor as long as that language is in the bill.”

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, added in a statement, “The Senate should protect victims of human trafficking but should not do so at the expense of women’s access to safe and legal abortion. The majority of human trafficking victims are women and girls, and they need access to the full range of reproductive health care services without barriers.”

Disclosure: My wife works for Planned Parenthood, but she played no role in this report and she is not working on this legislation in any way.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/abortion-provision-imperils-human-trafficking-bill

NEVER believe a Republican regressive. NEVER.

Excellent advice, oskar ~

Sooz

They can but generally don't.

I much prefer the Dems calling out the "dirty tricks" than to play them themselves ~ we are amassing a HUGE inventory ~

Sooz

How did this bill get out of committee? Aren't most committees bi-partisan? I don't know and couldn't find that info. Did anyone actually READ it?

[Allegedly], the bill came out of committee fine, but the GOP/TPers made some "minor tweaks" before delivering the final draft to the Dems and bringing it to the floor ... and the Ds were naïve/stupid enough to take the GOP/TP word for it ~ luckily, someone caught the not-agreed-to addition in time to stop a vote ~

Sooz

I didn't realize that it was common practice to change a bill AFTER it leaves committee. Is that legal? I thought it had to go back to committee if any changes are made.

Probably a rule rather than a law.

Well that's just stupid! No wonder all sorts of crap gets through. By the time the lawmakers get it, they assume it's been vetted and approved. Therefore, if they agree on the major issue involved (human trafficking in this case), they don't read anything and vote accordingly.

The legislative process sorely needs to be re-vamped and refined. I won't hold my breath...

And of course McConnell is now again slow-tracking Loretta Lynch's confirmation as AG until after this bill is signed ~ the GOP/TPers are their own worst enemy ~ ~ emphasis/bolding below is mine ~ Sooz

Inside The Senate GOP's Self-Made Debacle On Sex Trafficking And Abortion

By Sahil Kapur Published March 17, 2015, 6:00 AM EDT

WASHINGTON — It's common in Congress for the parties to rip each other apart over the contents of a bill. But it's exceedingly rare for one party to accuse the other of trying to sneak a law into existence without telling them.

An overwhelmingly bipartisan Senate bill to combat human trafficking hit a wall last week after Democrats said they discovered a provision to impose new limits on abortion rights, and threatened to filibuster the bill unless the provision is removed.

Senate Republican leaders now find themselves caught between wanting to show they can pass even the most noncontroversial legislation and the passions of the pro-life base they roped into the battle by making it a high-stakes proxy war over abortion.

The provision expands the restrictions on government funding of abortions beyond those contained in the decades-old Hyde Amendment, Democrats complain. In a statement, the National Right To Life Committee insisted that Republicans keep the abortion language, declaring that "a vote to remove the Hyde provision from S. 178 would be a vote in favor of direct federal funding of abortion on demand" and threatening to include the vote when it calculates its score of how committed individual lawmakers are to the anti-abortion cause.

A procedural Senate vote to advance the bill with the anti-abortion provision is expected to be filibustered by Democrats on Tuesday, leaving an uncertain path forward. The fight over the abortion provision has also entangled the nomination of Loretta Lynch to be attorney general. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is threatening to delay her confirmation until the human trafficking bill is passed.

That the Democrats didn't notice the provision for nearly two months reflects an extraordinary failure on their own side to read and understand the bill before voting unanimously to approve it in committee and allowing it to come before the full Senate. Republicans didn't inform them of the provision, Democrats say, arguing that they made a mistake by "trusting" the GOP.

"The language that they now profess to find offensive was in there from the beginning," McConnell said on CNN.

Six days before the bill was introduced in January, Republican staff on the Judiciary Committee sent a memo to Democratic staff describing seven changes from a version that was offered last year that did not include the abortion provision. Some of the changes were technical; all were unobjectionable. The memo, obtained by TPM, made no mention of the anti-abortion language, which would restrict how revenue collected from perpetrators of human trafficking may be spent. The abortion provision first showed up when the bill was introduced Jan. 13.

Even some House Republicans, long assailed for their own internal dysfunction, are alarmed at their Senate colleagues for imperiling the bipartisan bill. A Republican cosponsor of a companion bill in the House said the Senate should remove the abortion provision.

"There is no reason it should be included in these bills. This issue is far too important to tie it up with an unrelated fight with politics as usual," Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-MN) said, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "To me, this is about saving lives."

That the new Republican-led Senate has descended into such dysfunction within its first 100 days is a harbinger of more drama to come. The White House slammed McConnell in unusually harsh terms on Monday after he threatened to delay a vote on attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch until Democrats allow for passage of the human trafficking bill.

"It's a reflection of inept leadership," Earnest told reporters. "I think it's an indication that [McConnell's] leadership here in the majority is not off to a very strong start."

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX), who championed the abortion language, said Democrats must have known about the abortion provision and were blocking the bill in a bad-faith effort to make Congress look dysfunctional.

"This was not a surprise," he said of the provision. "This is a phantom excuse."

Democrats are comfortable with blocking the bill because they recognize that the party in control tends to get blamed. They learned that lesson over the past six years when the Republican minority used regular filibusters to thwart or slow down Democrats' agenda, Democratic sources say.

Sure enough, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) said the fiasco is "a reflection of a dysfunctional Congress."

A Democratic Senate leadership aide said, "Hopefully they will agree to remove the language after losing the cloture vote."

Clarification: This article has been updated to note that Rep. Paulsen is a cosponsor of the House anti-trafficking legislation, and not the main sponsor.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/senate-trafficking-debacle

So now the House is bitching because the Senate is acting like the House?
WTF is wrong with these eedjits?

Remember when I recently commended Mark Kirk on something he said or did but added that he is VERY two-faced? ~ well, here's the other face ~ also, after signing the Idiot 47 letter to Iran, Kirk said no one would dare to give him a hard time about it because he's in a wheel chair ~ ~ there are some "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

Illinois’ Kirk suggests Dems are defending slavery
03/18/15 12:52 PM
By Steve Benen

When congressional Republicans threatened to shut down the Department of Homeland Security last month, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) embraced some unfortunate rhetorical excesses. Indeed, in some instances, he was arguably hysterical, urging the GOP to “build a number of coffins outside each Democratic office.”

That was last month’s fight. This month’s fight is over a human-trafficking bill, which used to enjoy bipartisan support until Republican senators added an anti-abortion provision. The debate has led Kirk to once again use some truly bizarre rhetoric.


Look, we can have a spirited conversation about the parties and ideologies of the mid-19th century, but to suggest modern-day Democrats are defending slavery is just bonkers.

The legislative history here isn’t complicated: there was bipartisan support for the human-trafficking bill. Then Democrats learned that Republicans quietly inserted an anti-abortion provision into the legislation, prompting Dems to ask that the bill be put back the way it was. The GOP has refused, so the bill is stuck.

This is a substantive disagreement over a policy. It’s not a defense of slavery.

Kirk must understand this because he also told Roll Call yesterday that he wishes his own party “hadn’t junked that bill up with abortion politics.” He added that the GOP majority should act “as a governing party, always keep bills focused on their main purpose, not link them to the hot social issues of our time.”

If Democrats agree with this Mark Kirk sentiment, they’re “making the same mistake that Democrats made in the 1850s when they defended slavery”?

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced that he’ll bring the same bill to the floor again tomorrow, so that Democrats can block it again, just like they did yesterday. Why bother? Because watching the same bill fail over and over again – instead of doing real work – apparently makes the GOP leadership feel better.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters this morning that senators’ time could be better spent. “Another wasted week,” Reid said.

It’s worth noting that next week is the last work week before the Senate takes another two-week break. It leaves the chamber’s Republican leadership with a choice: improve the human-trafficking bill to secure bipartisan support, or keep spinning the Senate’s wheels until mid-April.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/illinois-kirk-suggests-dems-are-defending-slavery

A return to slavery is a wet dream for the R's. That's why they even think of that.