House Republicans create Select Committee to investigate Planned Parenthood

Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn
Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn

So, last week we got some real answers from Hillary Clinton about Benghzi, namely, that she lied about the cause of the attack to the American people in order to avoid losing re-election in 2012.

What I would really like to see is a similar Select Committee on Planned Parenthood, and I would like to see it led by my favorite Congresswoman (since Michele Bachmann retired) Marsha Blackburn.

Well, guess what?

Life News has great news for pro-lifers.

Several top pro-life members of Congress have been named to a new committee that will take the lead in investigating Planned Parenthood’s sale of body parts from aborted babies. The new panel is the same kind of select committee that has been investigating the terrorist attack in Beghazi, Libya responsible for killing an American ambassador and security personnel.

[…]The following are the Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s new Select Investigative Panel. The panel incudes a number of pro-life women, pro-life champion Joe Pitts, and pro-life physician Andy Harris.

  • Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Chairman (R-TN)
  • Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA)
  • Rep. Diane Black (R-TN)
  • Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-IN)
  • Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI)
  • Rep.  Andy Harris (R-MD)
  • Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO)
  • Rep. Mia Love (R-UT)

Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler of Missouri told LifeNews.com she is proud to have been named ot the investigate committee.

“I am proud to be appointed to the Select Investigative Panel and I thank the Speaker for asking me to serve,” Hartzler said.  “Much has been said on either side of this issue, and Americans are eager to uncover the truth regarding the trafficking of fetal body parts.  I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle as we seek the facts of this issue.”

“Ten videos were released since July showing high-level officials at organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Stem Express, and Advanced BioResources discussing actions that would potentially violate federal law. Moreover, their discussions imply that these criminal actions are widespread. This panel will be tasked with discovery as to the prevalence of these practices,” she added.

Rep. Diane Black, a nurse of more than 40 years and member of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, said the new committee will engage in a “relentless pursuit of the facts.”

“I am grateful for the opportunity to bring my health care expertise to the critical work of this panel,” she told LifeNews. “It is no secret that I am passionately pro-life and have long opposed the federal funding of Planned Parenthood, but every American deserves to know that our laws are followed and that taxpayer dollars are spent with integrity. This panel will help ensure that is the case. We will be relentless in the pursuit of the facts, we will bring the truth out into the light of day, and we will hold responsible parties accountable. This panel has an obligation to taxpayers to conduct a thorough investigation that produces real answers. I am ready to get to work.”.

I had not heard of Vicki Hartzler before, but from this article, it looks like she will be a good addition to the team. She has a BS and MS, and she is an evangelical Christian. Former teacher.

So, I want to make a general point about these Select Committees. I think that these investigations are important. They allow us to find the facts that form the basis of our laws and policies. We have to know why terrorist attacks that kill our people happened, so that we can prevent it from happening again. We have to know whether the taxpayer money we give to certain organizations are being used appropriately, or whether they are being used in violation of American values. If we rely on the mainstream media to find these out, we’ll be waiting forever.

House Republicans vote to repeal parts of Obamacare, defund Planned Plarenthood

Republican Congresswoman Mia Love
Republican Congresswoman Mia Love

Great news from the Daily Signal.

Excerpt:

The House approved a budget reconciliation bill Friday that would repeal portions of Obamacare and cut federal funds to Planned Parenthood for one year.

The legislation, called the Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act, was passed in a 240-189 vote.

[…]Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., chairman of the House Budget Committee, said in a statement the bill “repeals the most coercive components of Obamacare—eliminating onerous taxes, the individual and employer mandates, an Obamacare slush fund, and lifting unnecessary burdens on employers and employees.”

Price noted the legislation would increase funding for community health centers while eliminating government support for Planned Parenthood, which is under investigation after a series of undercover videos related to its role with aborted baby body parts.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life group, praised the House’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.

Naturally, Democrats voted for Obamacare and for Planned Parenthood. Because they love when people lose their doctors and health care, unless their doctor is an abortionist, and the health care is an abortion.

Cato Institute graphs education spending against test scores
Cato Institute graphs education spending against student achievement

Meanwhile, House Republicans also voted to extend a school voucher program for low-income, minority students in Washington, D.C..

The Daily Signal reports on that, too:

Speaker John Boehner cinched victory Wednesday as House Republicans smoothly extended his linchpin private school voucher program for low-income students through 2021.

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program provides students in Washington’s struggling school districts with federally backed vouchers to attend a private school of choice. The House confirmed its reauthorization Wednesday evening in a near party-line vote of 240 to 191.

[…]Boehner, the product of Catholic school, helped begin the program in 2003 while he served as chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. The program has operated as an alternative for parents who can’t afford to transfer their kids out of a failing school district to a more effective private school.

Over the past 10 years, more than 6,100 inner-city students have used the vouchers to “escape underperforming schools,” Boehner noted.

Proponents boast data finding that among those enrolled, 90 percent graduated from high school, and 88 percent of the class of 2015 moved on to pursue higher education. The average annual household income of the students enrolled falls around $20,575.

Lindsey Burke, a fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation, previously told The Daily Signal the program marks a “beacon of education success” that has allowed other states to pursue similar school choice options.

“You’d be hard-pressed to find many other education programs that can deliver those types of outcomes,” Burke said.

The $45-million program has faced Democratic pushback since its inception and will likely surface in the ongoing school choice battle between Republicans and President Barack Obama this fall.

In anticipation of the program’s reauthorization, the White House issued a statement Tuesday reaffirming the administration’s “strong” opposition, but held back a veto threat.

The president has attempted to defund the program every year, aligning with Democrats who argue that the scholarship funnels money out of D.C.’s public schools system.

It still has to make it through the Senate, and then Obama might veto it. But so what if he does, that just means we get a Republican president in 2016, when it comes out where Democrats really stand on providing quality education for poor, minority children. Republicans are all for it. Democrats oppose vouchers because they want to make sure that they have an ample supply of uneducated, dependent voters.

If you want to know what’s ahead for America, look north to Canada

Canada election results 2015
Canada election results 2015 (click for larger image)

A friend of mine pointed out this post by a pro-life woman based in Calgary, Alberta named McKenzie. As you all know, Canada lurched hard left last Monday, electing a strongly pro-abortion Liberal Party government, led by a man who insisted that candidates in his party swear their allegiance to abortion on demand, through all 9 months of pregnancy.

I took a look at some of the pro-life Members of Parliament and noticed that a bunch of them stepped down this election, and many others were defeated by Liberals. So, McKenzie is looking forward and seeing where the pro-abortion Liberal Party is going next now that they have a majority government.

She writes:

As tempting as it is to write a semi-encouraging post about the state of affairs for the next two to four years, the reality is that the political sphere of the pro-life movement has been dealt a treacherous blow in seeking to protect the most defenseless lives among us.

In the foreseeable future, here are three possible federal pressures we can expect from our Parliament over the next few months and years:

1. Legislation inhibiting, directly or indirectly, the freedom and mobility of life-affirming organizations, including pregnancy resource centres, and their ability to reach women seeking abortions. We’ve had zero laws restricting abortion access throughout all nine months of pregnancy since 1988, but that hasn’t stopped our new Prime Minister from enforcing a strictly pro-choice view among his party. The question at the front of their minds seems to be, “how much further could we go in promoting abortion in our society – and overseas?” A reasonable prediction is that the CRA and Human Rights Commissions will put additional pressure on Christian or pro-life charities to comply with any new laws enacted, regardless of their protections under the Charter – similar to our friends in California presently forced to give out abortion information alongside life-affirming options at pregnancy resource centres, though abortion clinics are not required to reciprocate.

CRA = Canada Revenue Agency, their IRS. We’ve already had a scandal where the IRS, probably under the direction of the White House, went after charities that were working against the Democrats on certain issues like stopping voter fraud. She is expecting to see the CRA used similarly to go after pro-lifers. As you know, the Human Rights Commissions are tools used by the secular left to punish conservatives for offending people on the secular left. The laws are only ever applied against conservatives, and they almost always lose their cases. Well, pro-lifers are offensive. McKenzie thinks that the HRCs are going to go after them.

Another one:

3. Economic policies directly and/or indirectly inhibiting our ability to donate towards charities and charitable causes, especially pro-life or pro-family causes. Less money in the hands of private donors (especially those in the middle class) in a recession, coupled with higher redistribution through taxes, hits families the hardest when men and women are in their peak income-earning years. Less resources to go around means less charitable giving when mom and dad need to put their own needs for bills, food, and shelter first.

This is not surprising. The left is always anxious to go after charitable giving, because people are giving their money to causes they care about and the left doesn’t get any benefit. What the left prefers is that they take the money from potential charitable donors and then use it to buy votes. Obama’s latest budget of 2015 was the latest attempt to limit charitable contributions. She is expecting that pro-life donors will be targeted by the new Liberal majority government. And she undertstands that whatever impact she is going to have as a Christian is going to be funded by her own efforts to work for money, he husbands efforts to work for money, and the charitable donations she can get. The government never funds the efforts of Christians and/or conservatives to push Christian or conservative views. Which is why it makes zero sense for Christians to vote to expand the federal government outside of its Constitutional responsibilities.

So what are my thoughts on all this?

Well, I wish more pro-lifers down here were as aware of the effects of laws and policies on life plans. If you read the rest of her post, McKenzie clearly has some kind of pro-life plan there, and it’s a good one in that it’s practical and evidence based. She intends to get results. But she’s not looking inside at her own feelings and thoughts when she makes these life plans, she’s looking at politics and laws and trying to anticipate where the threats will come from, and how to adjust. I wish pro-lifers here were more like that… especially when it comes to size of government. We need to keep our own money and not give it to the government. We need to keep the government away from our rights, e.g. – free speech and religious liberty.

Anyway, if you follow the gay rights vs religious liberties battles we are having now with florists, bakers, photographers, etc., then you might recall that similar things were happening in Canada 10-20 years ago. Canada was going through these problems in the late 90s, early 2000s, when the Liberals were in charge. It sort of died out when the Conservatives took over, but there’s no reason I can see for it not to come back now that Canada has elected a Liberal majority. I’m going to be watching the situation closely up there, because whatever the Liberals do up there now is likely to make its way down here in the next 10-15 years – if we elect Democrats.

In fact, with respect to what she said about restricting pro-lifers, the Democrat Party already introduced a bill to remove all restrictions on abortion at the state and local levels. This is what they do. Laws, taxes and politics do matter.