Republicans Use Veterans Bill To Attack Planned Parenthood

WASHINGTON -- A bill that would have helped female military veterans receive fertility treatments and counseling on Wednesday fell prey to the Republican war against Planned Parenthood.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) abruptly pulled her bill to end a ban on fertility treatments for female veterans receiving care at VA hospitals from the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee after Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) attached amendments targeting Planned Parenthood and other family planning organizations.

Tillis on Wednesday said he introduced the amendments because he believes the VA should focus on existing problems in the VA health system rather than introducing new programs.

"I'm concerned that we have a problem with priorities," Tillis said on the Senate floor. "I'm concerned that maybe the focus isn't where it needs to be to make sure that we take care of the most pressing problems for our veterans."

One of the amendments, Tillis said, would bar the VA from working with organizations that "take aborted babies' organs and sell them." In justifying his amendments, Tillis referenced aGovernment Accountability Office report on federal funding for family planning organizations such as Planned Parenthood. The report notes the VA paid one of the organizations $900, but does not mention whether the organization was in fact Planned Parenthood.

Murray, speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, slammed Republicans for turning the issue of veterans' health care into "political football" and making her bill "a vehicle for partisan political attacks.”

"I know some Republicans are trying to use this latest issue as just one more opportunity to roll back the clock and take away women’s health care options," Murray said. "We can have that fight. We’ve had it many times before. But don’t pull veterans into the middle of it. Don’t take something that should be above politics -- our sacred duty to our veterans -- and pull it down into the muck of petty politics. It’s not fair to veterans and their families, who have been hoping and praying for the opportunity to have children."

Murray had expected the bill, which also calls for the VA to provide financial assistance to veterans wishing to adopt children, to pass the committee and be considered by the full Senate. But when Tillis attached the amendments, Murray asked for the bill to be pulled from markup before the committee's meeting on Wednesday.

Republicans in both the Senate and the House have escalated their attacks on Planned Parenthood after an anti-abortion group last week released a heavily-edited video that purported to show that the family planning organization profits from fetal parts. Planned Parenthood donates fetal parts for scientific research, and the organization says the only money it receives are small reimbursements for processing and transportation costs.

Source: The Huffington Post

Donald Trump Will Not Apologize To John McCain

ABC US News | World News

WASHINGTON -- Billionaire eccentric Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Sunday that he did not owe Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) an apology after stating that the senator is only viewed as a war hero because he was held captive and that Trump likes “people who weren’t captured.”

“No. Not at all,” Trump responded to ABC’s Martha Raddatz when asked if he owed McCain, who was held for five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, an apology.

Later in the interview, Trump demanded an apology from McCain for the senator stating that the billionaire candidate was firing up the “crazies” with his anti-immigrant rhetoric.

“And by the way, this all started, Martha, when we had thousands and thousands of people in Phoenix, Arizona, and John -- who, by the way, are devastated by illegal immigration, something I'm very proud to have brought to the forefront,” Trump said. “We had thousands of people and he said they're all crazies. He called them crazies. And frankly, I think he owes them an apology.”

Trump went on to deflect the negative attention toward him, saying it comes only because low-polling candidates “started attacking me.”

Raddatz questioned Trump about his routine use of insults and put-downs like “dummy” or “loser” when confronted or contested by other candidates or political figures, and whether that would be “beneath the office of the president” were he to win. Trump did not seem to think it was.

She then asked Trump if he has said anything he ever regretted, including his comments about immigration or “the birther issue.”

“No, I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t do that, Martha. I wouldn’t do that. It’s not the appropriate time,” Trump responded. “But certainly I have said things that I could’ve held back. But not that often, surprisingly not that often, but certainly there have been occasions.”

Source: The Huffington Post