Now that the GOP's full-fledged months-long attack on Planned Parenthood is being linked to the slaughter of innocent people in Colorado Springs, Republicans have found better wars to wage in service of a government shutdown this December. In the wake of the Paris attacks, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Monday that the GOP was now pinning their hopes for a fruitless funding fight on refugees, reports Scott Wong.
“I do not hear people shutting the government down over it right now,” McCarthy told reporters when asked about efforts to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood. “I think security is becoming the top issue, especially [in] the last two weeks.”
McCarthy, who controls the floor schedule, said he expects the House to pass the omnibus spending bill by Dec. 11, when money for the federal government is scheduled to run out. But he also noted that Congress is supposed to be in session through Dec. 18, giving lawmakers an extra week to pass a spending bill before leaving town for the holidays.
While he tamped down talk of a shutdown, McCarthy said there would be no shortage of votes on policy amendments to the spending bill, though he declined to identify what those riders might be.
Isn't that a vision in leadership? The GOP has been gunning to defund Planned Parenthood ever since the tapes were released this summer, presumably because it was an issue of high importance to the nation. But now security is the "top issue." In other words, we're not leading, we're following the political winds wherever they blow us. What was once paramount, just isn’t convenient anymore.
If Planned Parenthood doesn’t matter anymore, then the GOP should stop their partisan “investigation” into the organization. Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer pushed House Speaker Paul Ryan to do just that in a letter she sent to him Monday.
"I call on you to immediately disband the new so-called 'Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives,' which serves only to continue the witch hunt against Planned Parenthood, its staff and its patients.” [...]
"We should not and cannot continue this politically-motivated committee targeting Planned Parenthood, which is already costing taxpayers and helping to create a dangerous climate for legal health care in America.