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Friday, February 25, 2011
Republicans raise pressure on spending cuts
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the House of Representatives on Friday called a government shutdown "unacceptable" but raised pressure on President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats to go along with deep spending cuts this year.
Obama Delivers Blow to Enemies of Equality
Fred Karger, The Guardian
The opponents of equality for all Americans lost big on Wednesday with the announcement by President Obama that he has decided that the so-called "Defence of Marriage Act" (Doma) is unconstitutional – and his administration will no longer defend it in federal court.Hate groups like the National Organisation for Marriage (Nom), which had spent tens of millions of dollars in just the last three years to take away rights from so many Americans, are panicking.
The opponents of equality for all Americans lost big on Wednesday with the announcement by President Obama that he has decided that the so-called "Defence of Marriage Act" (Doma) is unconstitutional – and his administration will no longer defend it in federal court.Hate groups like the National Organisation for Marriage (Nom), which had spent tens of millions of dollars in just the last three years to take away rights from so many Americans, are panicking.
Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2011/02/25/obama_delivers_blow_to_enemies_of_equality_251098.html
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Democratic governors try to enlist labor's help in dealing with budget crises
In contrast to Wisconsin's Republican governor, who has targeted public-worker unions as the chief villain of his state's budget-cutting drama, Democratic governors across the country who face similar fiscal challenges have tried to sidestep such confrontations with a key constituency by quietly ...
Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=01f3b1185efd18d60679674d4bf20bfd
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Media Ignores Majority Of Health Care Decisions To Focus On Judges Striking Down Affordable Care Act
Only two Republicans judges have struck down portions of the Affordable Care Act, both of whom filed error-ridden opinions that not only ignored precedent, but also literally wrote part of the Constitution out of the founding document. Meanwhile, the majority of the judges to hear challenges to the ACA have tossed those challenges out of [...]
Source: http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/25/only-conservative-judges-count/
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The 'pro-life' bill to legalize murder spreads to Iowa and Nebraska
While doctors the one doctor who performs abortions in South Dakota is safe for now, doctors in other states may not be.
The Iowa Independent reports:
Two bills sponsored by Iowa House Republicans could have significant public safety consequences, and perhaps the most unnerving of those potential outcomes would be the justifiable use of deadly force against abortion or family planning providers.When the two pieces of legislation are combined they create a situation where a fertilized egg would be considered a person, and allow for the public execution of those who would threaten such a person.
If passed into law, the two bills ? House File 7 and House File 153 ? would offer an unprecedented defense opportunity to individuals who stand accused of killing such providers, according to a former prosecutor and law professor at the University of Kansas, and are something that might have very well led to a different outcome in the Kansas trial of the man who shot Dr. George Tiller in a church foyer.
H.F. 153 is basically a version of the personhood amendment in Colorado that failed to pass in November. It states:
... that life is valued and protected from the moment 14 of conception and each life is accorded the same rights and 15 protections guaranteed to all persons by the constitutions of 16 the state of Iowa and the United States, and by the laws of 17 the state.
H.F. 7, meanwhile, would add the following language to the current justifiable homicide law in Iowa:
Reasonable force, including deadly force, may be used and a person has no duty to retreat from any place at which the person has a right to be present, and has the right to stand the person?s ground, and meet force with force, if the person believes reasonable force, including deadly force, is necessary under the circumstances to prevent death or serious injury to oneself or a third party, or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
Taken together, these two bills could allow forced-birth terrorists to murder an abortion doctor "to prevent death or serious injury to oneself or a third party," the third party, of course, being a fetus. Which is exactly what Scott Roeder claimed after he gunned down Dr. George Tiller: he was simply acting to protect fetuses.
Meanwhile, in Nebraska, State Senator Mark Christensen, a forced-birth extremist who thinks even a rape victim should have to carry her rapist's baby to term, has introduced L.B. 232, a bill "to authorize protection of an unborn child." The bill states that the use of force is "justifiable to protect a third person"?including, specifically, an "unborn child"?if the person believes "intervention is necessary for the protection of such other person." In other words, kill the doctors to save the fetuses if you think you're doing something righteous.
Public outcry succeeded in forcing the South Dakota legislature to indefinitely postpone its "pro-life" bill to legalize murder. Hopefully, the bills in Nebraska and Iowa will suffer the same fate. But with each daily assault on women and their doctors, the message is clear: there is absolutely nothing pro-life about these "pro-lifers" who want women and their doctors to die.
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House GOP scrambles to avoid blame for government shutdown
National Journal's Major Garrett reports House Republicans are planning to offer a short-term spending bill designed to cover their asses in the event of a government shutdown:
House GOP Working on CR to Avert Shutdown, Deflect BlameHouse Republicans are drafting a two-week continuing resolution to keep the government operating after the current CR expires on March 4 and will file the bill on Friday, National Journal has learned. ... Three senior House GOP aides said the strategy is designed to avert a government shutdown and limit the ability of Senate Democrats and the White House to portray Republicans as unreasonable or inflexible.
The thing is, if Republicans are trying to avoid looking unreasonable, they are going about it in exactly the wrong way:
The CR would extend government financing for two weeks after Obama signed the bill and its cuts would be prorated to reflect the $100 billion in cuts approved in last week?s CR. In other words, the $4 billion in savings would be roughly equal to the cuts the CR called for if carried out for just two weeks.
If Republicans were serious about avoiding a government shutdown, they'd agree to Harry Reid's proposal to keep government open through the end of March with a continuing resolution at current funding levels. That would give both sides time to sit down and forge a compromise solution and it would prevent a government shutdown.
Instead, they are offering a two-week long version of the very same spending bill that they passed over the weekend. That's not a move designed to prevent a government shutdown: it's a move designed to force it.
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