Not content to malign Democrats on the substance of their ideology, Republicans are now
rewriting legislative amendments proposed by Democrats and attached to an anti-woman abortion bill in a contemptable attempt to make us look pro-pedophile.
Never before has
either party rewritten proposed laws in such a blatant, open attempt at vilifying and smearing their ideological opposites. This
article has a complete listing of the amendments as proposed, and the amendments
after the Republicans finished with them.
In fact, it seems that they weren't even worried about being called on it -
The following statement was issued by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the ranking Democrat on the House Rules Committee.
"The Rules Committee discovered yesterday that the Judiciary Committee Report on this very bill, which was authored by the Majority Staff, contained amendment summaries which had been re-written by committee staff for the sole purpose of distorting the original intent of the authors.
"This Committee Report took liberty to mischaracterize and even falsify the intent of several amendments offered in Committee by Democratic Members of this body.
"At least five amendments to this bill, which were designed to protect the rights of family members and innocent bystanders from prosecution under this bill, were rewritten as amendments designed to protect sexual predators from prosecution and were then included in the committee report as if that was the original intent of the authors. The thing is, sexual predators were not mentioned anywhere in any of these amendments.
I asked the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee about this deception yesterday afternoon at the Rules Committee hearing.
"And instead of decrying what I certainly expected would be revealed as a mistake by an overzealous staffer...The Chairman stood by those altered amendment descriptions.
Why, you may ask? Congresswoman Slaughter wanted to know too.
"He made very clear to the Rules Committee that the alterations to these members' amendments were deliberate.When pressed as to why his committee staff took such an unprecedented action, the Chairman immediately offered up his own anger over the manner in which Democrats had chosen to debate and oppose this unfortunate piece of legislation we have before us today.
"In fact...He said, and I quote..."You don't like what we wrote about your amendments, and we don't like what you said about our bill."
I'd like to finish off with some witty commentary but frankly I'm mind boggled. What can one say about something like this? Somebody said something mean about their odious bill. Therefore, they will reword our suggestions to make these inflamatory amendments look as if Democrats wrote and proposed them. Disgusting. Petty. Cheap.
Thank god for Louise Slaughter though. That woman is fabulous.