Breaking: Senate cloture vote to defund Planned Parenthood fails

Twitter ^ | 08/03/2015 | Frank Thorp

[hawkaw]

In order for him to do anything including the nuclear option, he needed to vote no in order that it can be brought up again. And BTW, you can make the same argument you made even if it passes the senate b/c “the one” will veto it.

[Political Junkie Too]

Hey, I'm with you on the show. I'm one of the earliest to point out a Townhall story on McConnell punting this from the highway bill, where it might actually have passed. That post was eight days ago.

I think the public has slowly been drifting away from abortion for some time now. These videos are about attacking the Left's culture of death by exposing what happens after the abortion. I don't think the videos were about directly stopping abortion, they were about going after a liberal sacred cow, Planned Parenthood, the way O'Keefe and Giles went after Acorn. They weren't going to stop vote fraud, they were exposing the Left's vote fraud machine.

As with the Acorn videos, they were also about shaming Congress into action. Unlike the era of the 2009 Acorn videos, Obama has successfully introduced the concept of "doubling down" in politics. Whereas in 2008 and prior politicians would rush to act on public outrage (running to the front of the parade), today they "double down" on outrageous acts, entrench, show no remorse, and shrug off public opinion.

This arrogance in the face of negative public opinion may have been born out of a history of weak Republican resistance to the "First Black President," but the lesson the Republicans seem to have learned is not how to fight it, but how to emulate it.

That's why I think any strategy has to include throwing off the Old Guard.

-PJ

[LS]

Well, I'm willing to try it. But culturally I think we're cemented into a 52%-48% anti-abortion majority that is seeing no movement among that 48%, even with these videos. As Rush says, SOMEDAY some people will wake up (just like in Nazi Germany) and say "What are we doing?" But just as then, it will be too late to really affect the process.

That is why I think it has to come from exec orders (as Bush did with military bases & federal property), but with someone who would be even more aggressive than Bush. Trump HAS that aggressiveness, but I don't know about his commitment to this subject. He has 100% avoided discussion of these videos.

That's not a knock on him, as I'm sure the large majority of his supporters want him to "stay away from the social issues." Now, most of us at FR know ultimately you cannot---that right to life precedes right to property everywhere, so eventually he will have to deal with it for good or bad. I'm just saying that of all the candidates, I think he is uniquely capable of making a substantial impact if he chooses.

[Political Junkie Too]

I would agree. If Trump is avoiding discussing the videos, then it is a sure bet that he will be asked about it on Thursday night. It might be Fox's attempt to "gotcha" Trump into saying something unthoughtful in the hopes of sinking him with it later. However, the double-edged sword is that it exposes the other candidates into having to discuss it, too. Once candidates go on the record about it, they can be held to their statements.

Cruz, Paul, and Rubio can say they voted against it. Trump and Walker can say it was a meaningless show vote because beltway insiders are controlled by lobbyists. Paul can say he wanted it in the highway bill where it would have counted; Cruz can say the highway bill was a sham bill to hide crony back-room deals that he fought against. They can all attack Graham for missing the vote entirely.

Then they can begin to separate from each other, and all can make statements that keep Trump from being isolated over the issue.

-PJ

[LS]

As usual, Trump is ahead of us both.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3320436/posts

[Political Junkie Too]

Now they have to talk about it at the debate.

-PJ

[Blood of Tyrants]

Which is why we need to repeal the 17th Amendment and let the states legislators once again decide who their senators should be.

[chris37]

Then let him veto it.

You can defend the gutless wonders in the senate if you want to. I’m not going to.

There is no excuse for this at all.

[hawkaw]

I am not defending the gutless wonders of the senate. I am pointing out the obvious - which is - under current rules of the senate (which have been around for a long long time) he needed to vote “no” or the bill was dead. Now he can at least bring it back at another time for another try. The stupid part of all this is that even if it clears the senate it will be vetoed by “the one”. There has to be a way for withholding the funding and if necessary shutting down congress to make it happen if the “base” and its leadership is willing to have a partial government shutdown.

[chris37]

I am not upset that McConnell voted no for the reason of being able to bring it back up.

I am upset that McConnell refuses to change the rules ala Harry Reid.

After that you pass the bill and make the son of a bitch president veto it until the end of time.

And as far as shutting the government down over this goes, I frankly do not care if 100% of it shuts down permanently at this point.

If this is what our government thinks is a good thing to do, then I don’t want any government.

This is a hideous thing, I want no part of it, and I want no part of anything that that wants any part of this, and that includes our thoroughly disgusting federal government.