The debate over a bill requiring women to undergo an ultrasound procedure before being permitted to have an abortion resulted in an explosive shouting match on the floor of the Wisconsin Senate Wednesday.
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State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout (D) began by reading various letters from her constituents complaining about the adverse affects the proposed legislation may have on women and victims of rape.
Vinehout’s argument was rebutted by her Republican colleague state Sen. Mary Lazich, who pointed out that victims of rape and incest are exempted in the anti-abortion legislation. She dismissed Vinehout’s argument as “theatrics.”
Lazich went on to argue that families are entitled to “full information” about their decisions before deciding to abort a baby.
“They make that decision, it’s over! It’s over in a few minutes,” she said. “And then later on they can live with the fact that they terminated their pregnancy and it was the best thing for them or they killed their child and they made a horrific decision and they regret it and they wish they never would have done it.”
Following Lazich’s comments, Senate President Mike Ellis ( R) called for a vote on the bill despite efforts by Senate Democrats to extend the debate. The move resulted in chaos on the Senate floor.
“It’s non-debatable! Call the roll!” Ellis shouted over lawmakers while pounding his gavel. “You’re out of order!”
“You’re out of order!” another Wisconsin senator shot back.
“You’re interrupting a roll call! Sit down right now!” a visibly furious Ellis hollered.
“I understand you’re afraid of this debate,” Larson said, his microphone turned off.
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The bill passed 17-15 with all Republicans in support and Democrats against. It now heads to the Assembly, which was expected to pass it on Thursday. Gov. Scott Walker said Tuesday he would sign it into law.
Wednesday’s unusual early morning debate in the Senate, which began shortly after 8 a.m., came about after Democrats used a procedural move to block a final vote after hours of debate on Tuesday. Only two senators, one Democrat and one Republican, were able to speak Wednesday before Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, cut off debate after about 30 minutes.
Governor Rick Scott vetoed House Bill 235, which would have provided “temporary” drivers licenses to illegal immigrants categorized under the “Deferred Action Status” by an executive order from President Obama.
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The bill which was authored by Rep. Randolph Bracy, D-Orlando cleared the House with a vote of 115-2 and the Senate, with a vote of 36-0. HB 235 would have let the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles accept as a person’s approved application for “deferred action status” which was defined in an Executive Order by President Obama. Governor Scott explained his veto in a cover letter to Florida Secretary of State Kenneth Detzner. Excerpts from Scott’s letter include:
“Florida is home to immigrants of many nationalities, who add to the cultural fabric of our great state, and whose productivity and hard work have contributed to our economic turnaround. Still, our nation struggles with immigration issues every day, as Americans seek to reconcile the fact that at one point our families were immigrants who came, as many do today, to work and live the American dream with the fact that the federal government has failed at enforcing the nation’s laws on this topic…
Deferred action status is simply a policy of the Obama Administration, absent Congressional direction, designed to dictate removal action decisions using DHS agency discretion. It was never passed by Congress, nor is it a promulgated rule…
Given that deferred action status does not confer substantive rights or lawful status upon an individual, Florida is best served by relying on current state law. Already, Florida law allows those with a federal employment authorization card, without regard to their deferred action status, to obtain a temporary Florida driver license…
Although the Legislature may have been well intentioned in seeking to expedite the process to obtain a temporary driver license, it should not have been done by relying on a federal government policy adopted without legal basis.
For the reasons stated above, I withhold my approval of House Bill 235, and do hereby veto the same.”
Roy Costner IV, a former public school student from South Carolina, stunned the audience at his high school graduation last weekend when he ripped up his previously-approved valedictorian speech, going on, instead, to speak about God – and then deliver the Lord’s prayer.
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The act, which drew loud applause, was taken in opposition to the School District of Pickens County’s decision to axe prayers from graduation events, Christian News reports. Officials said that they had recently received complaints from atheist activists and church-state separatists, leading to the removal of invocations from all school events.
But that didn’t stop Costner.
The Liberty High School ceremony is already making its way into national headlines, as the valedictorian’s actions and the subsequent cheers this past Saturday were caught on video.
As he spoke, Costner went from merely mentioning “the Lord” to jumping right into the well-known prayer.
“Those that we look up to, they have helped carve and mold us into the young adults that we are today. I’m so glad that both of my parents led me to the Lord at a young age,” he said. “And I think most of you will understand when I say -”
And that’s when he commenced the popular invocation.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name,” Costner continued. “Thy Kingdom come…”
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Throughout the entirety of the prayer, cheers and clapping raged. The school district, which, as stated, was already facing scrutiny over graduation prayers earlier this year, has no plans to punish the former student for his actions (after all, he’s no longer under their authority, so what retribution could he receive?).
Some in attendance praised the speech as bold, while it’s likely that atheist activists and other church-state separatists will be less-than-contented by the inclusion of prayer.
“I think it took a lot of courage to do that,” one attendee said of Costner’s decision. “People were [supportive] that he stood up for what he believed in.”
Students, according to the district, must have their speeches approved before delivering them at graduation. While Costner began speaking from his secular script, he eventually deviated and invoked his faith.
I have been saying that this ‘Gang of Ocho’ immigration reform bill would be dead in the water the minute the liberal faction in the U.S. Senate began to do President Obama’s bidding of imposing their liberal views on the legislation.
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Rubio had been warned that this would happen, and it has. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has filed two amendments that acknowledge same-sex marriage. Rubio recently said that that if his bill was amended with such a measure, he would not support the bill anymore.
This move by the Democrats gives Rubio that immigration reform life raft he needed.
This is the immigration excrement that the liberal Democrats in the Senate and President Obama wanted Rubio to step into all along. Democrats like Schumer would get Rubio to stick his head out on this issue, basically making him there token Julio.
Then they would insert legislation like Leahy’s same-sex amendment, in hopes that Rubio would back out of the bipartisan bill, effectively dinging him as being against Hispanics and immigration reform.
The only thing Rubio can do now is back out, take the hit, and go back to the drawing board. Rubio, who caused himself significant political damage for standing with Schumer, Durbin, McCain and others on immigration reform, will have a lot of damage control to do with his base after all of the immigration dust settles.
Here is what Buzzfeed just reported:
”For immigration reform to be truly comprehensive, it must include protections for all families,” Leahy said in a statement. “We must end the discrimination that gay and lesbian families face in our immigration law.”
Among Leahy’s amendments is one that would include the Uniting American Families Act – a bill that would create a new category of “permanent partners” to enable a U.S. citizen in a same-sex couple to sponsor a foreign partner – in the larger immigration reform legislation. This amendment had been discussed and was to be filed.
A second amendment, according to a news release from Leahy’s office, “provides equal protection to lawfully married bi-national same sex couples that other spouses receive under existing immigration law.” The provision asserts that a person would be considered a married spouse under the Immigration and Nationality Act if the marriage “is valid in the state in which the marriage was entered into” or, if “entered into outside of any state,” was valid where entered into and would be valid in a state.
Lavi Soloway, an immigration rights lawyer who represents same-sex couples and co-founded The DOMA Project, told BuzzFeed the second amendment was “nothing short of a strategic master stroke.”
Explaining, he said, “It would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act so that all marriages of gay and lesbian binational couples would be recognized for immigration purposes only, thus creating the first ever ‘carve out’ or exception to DOMA under federal law.” – Buzzfeed
The White House is coming under pressure from liberal Democrats in the House and Senate to press for a minimum wage hike as high as $10.10.
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Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) argues President Obama “missed the mark” in calling to raise the minimum wage to $9 in his State of the Union address, and his staff met with White House staff last week to argue for a higher number.
The veteran senator, who will retire at the end of this Congress, is working with Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) on legislation that would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 over three years and then index future increases to inflation.
“Well, we’re going to introduce our own bill on it,” Harkin told The Hill on Tuesday. “I’m going to be in discussions with them because I think they missed the mark, but people make mistakes.”
Besides Harkin and Miller – a confidant of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) – Democrats backing a higher minimum wage hike include Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) and Rep. Charles Rangel (N.Y.).
Obama’s own push to raise the minimum wage faces significant hurdles in Congress.
The Republican-controlled House is unlikely to pick up the measure, meaning action will depend on the Senate’s Democratic majority.
“We should be focused on policies that create jobs, not ones that make it harder for folks to enter the workforce, so a minimum wage bill will not likely proceed in the House,” one senior GOP aide said.
Some conservative Democrats could also have reservations about raising the minimum wage, given opposition from the business community.
The criticism from Harkin and other liberals shows Obama must also worry about his left flank. Harkin, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, will play a key role in the debate because his panel has jurisdiction on the issue, and it could be difficult to bring a bill to the floor without his support.
The minimum wage now stands at $7.25 per hour, but Obama argued in his State of the Union address that raising it to $9 was necessary to ensure a better future for poor people struggling to make it to the middle class.
Raising the minimum wage to $9 by the end of 2015 would be roughly a 25 percent change.
Those arguing for a higher minimum wage say the hike is necessary to keep up with inflation.
In 1968, they point out, the minimum wage was $1.60 – which would be about $10.56 in 2013 dollars. But past minimum wages have also been below the current minimum wage in terms of their spending power. In 1938, when it was first introduced, the minimum wage was $0.25 or about $4.07 in 2013 dollars.
Congress last hiked the minimum wage in 2007, from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour.
Harkin argues Obama himself called for a $9.50 minimum wage in his 2008 presidential campaign.
He and Miller plan to unveil their bill in a matter of weeks, according to aides. Harkin also says he’s begun negotiating with the White House about where to set the rate. Harkin aides insisted the senator would not budge from introducing a minimum wage increase bill at $10.10 an hour.
“It will be introduced at $10.10,” one of these aides said.
Rangel, who co-sponsored a bill in 2012 to raise the minimum wage to $10, said he was thankful that Obama is making an increase a priority, but that the number could be higher.
“No, no, no,” Rangel said when asked if $9 an hour was sufficient to raise the minimum wage. “But this is so much better than not having his support.”
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) voted against raising the minimum wage to $7.25 and argued after Obama’s State of the Union address that the hike would cut into job growth.
“Listen, I’ve been dealing with the minimum wage issue for the last 28 years that I’ve been in elective office,” Boehner said a day after Obama’s address. “And when you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? You get less of it.”
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said that while he’d prefer a $10.10 minimum wage, Obama settled on $9 because that appeared politically feasible.
“I would like for it to be but I don’t think it will be,” Cleaver said when asked if he would like an increase of $10.10. “I think it’s going to be tough to do $7.50, and we got to do it anyway.”
The Senate approved Chuck Hagel’s nomination for Defense secretary Tuesday, ending a contentious battle that exposed deep divisions over the president’s Pentagon pick.
After Republicans blocked the nomination earlier this month, they ultimately allowed for an up-or-down vote on Tuesday. The margin was historically close, with 58 senators supporting him and 41 opposing in the end.
Though Hagel is himself a former Republican senator, the resistance to his nomination showed an unusual level of distrust among many senators toward the man chosen to lead the Defense Department – at a time when the country is trying to wind down the Afghanistan war, while assessing emerging threats from Iran, Syria and elsewhere in the turbulent Middle East and North Africa.
Republicans had earlier held up the nomination largely over demands for more information from the Obama administration on the Sept. 11 Libya attacks.
But they also raised serious and recurring concerns about Hagel’s record of past statements and votes on everything from Israel to Iran to nuclear weapons.
Sen. John McCain, a leading Republican, clashed with his onetime friend over his opposition to President George W. Bush’s decision to send an extra 30,000 troops to Iraq in 2007 at a point when the war seemed in danger of being lost. Hagel, who voted to authorize military force in Iraq, later opposed the conflict, comparing it to Vietnam and arguing that it shifted the focus from Afghanistan.
McCain called Hagel unqualified for the Pentagon job even though he once described him as fit for a Cabinet post.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asked what the delaying tactics had done for “my Republican colleagues.”
“Twelve days later, nothing. Nothing has changed,” the Democrat said on the Senate floor. “Sen. Hagel’s exemplary record of service to his country remains untarnished.”
Reid blamed partisanship over Obama’s second-term national security team for the delay. Both Reid and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat, warned that it was imperative to act just days before automatic, across-the-board budget cuts hit the Pentagon.
Hagel will succeed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and join Obama’s retooled national security team. Hagel’s nomination bitterly split the Senate, with Republicans turning on their former party colleague and Democrats standing by Obama’s nominee.
Republicans also challenged Hagel about a May 2012 study that he co-authored for the advocacy group Global Zero, which called for an 80 percent reduction of U.S. nuclear weapons and the eventual elimination of all the world’s nuclear arms.
The group argued that with the Cold War over, the United States can reduce its total nuclear arsenal to 900 without sacrificing security. Currently, the U.S. and Russia have about 5,000 warheads each, either deployed or in reserve. Both countries are on track to reduce their deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 by 2018, the number set in the New START treaty that the Senate ratified in December 2010.
In an echo of the 2012 presidential campaign, Hagel faced an onslaught of criticism by well-funded, Republican-leaning outside groups that labeled the former senator “anti-Israel” and pressured senators to oppose the nomination. The groups ran television and print ads criticizing Hagel.
Opponents were particularly incensed by Hagel’s use of the term “Jewish lobby” to refer to pro-Israel groups. He apologized, saying he should have used another term and should not have said those groups have intimidated members of the Senate into favoring actions contrary to U.S. interests.
The nominee spent weeks reaching out to members of the Senate, meeting individually with lawmakers to address their concerns and seeking to reassure them about his policies.
Hagel’s halting and inconsistent performance during some eight hours of testimony at this confirmation hearing last month undercut his cause, but it wasn’t a fatal blow.
There was no erosion in Democratic support for the president’s choice and Hagel already had the backing of three Republicans – Sens. Thad Cochran, Mike Johanns and Richard Shelby. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., also switched to support Hagel in the final vote.
Right on cue, leftists all over America are now calling for more stringent gun control measures after hearing that an apparently psychopathic gunman shot up a Denver-area movie theater overnight.
This is exactly what happened following the infamous Virginia Tech massacre of five years ago, so instead of writing a brand new article on the insanity of the left’s position in this regard, I thought I’d simply share with my readers the op-ed I penned in April of 2007.
While the particulars of the two incidents differ in terms of ‘who, when and where’, what happened is essentially the same in both cases. Moreover, why these horrific events occurred may never be clearly understood by rational, decent people, yet the basic arguments underlying the gun control debate have not changed.
It was only a matter of time before anti-gun nuts all over the country started calling for stiffer gun control measures in the wake of the recent Virginia Tech massacre. If there’s one thing leftists are, it’s predictable. If there’s another thing they are, it’s staggeringly foolish.
Yeah, we need more firearm restrictions because some nutbag went on a shooting spree on a college campus where nobody but criminals and psychopaths could have been expected to be packing iron. As it turns out, it wasn’t so much a “gun-free” zone as it was a self-defense-free zone.
I know I’ll be getting a slew of scornful emails over this article, but frankly, I don’t give a sweet damn. Disparage me all you want, but keep in mind that if someone who thinks as I do had been in charge of that university prior to the 16th of April, the chances are good that one of those victims, or at least one of the people nearby who managed to avoid being shot, would have had a gun of his own with which to fend off the attack of Cho Seung-Hui. Instead, every student and professor there had little alternative but to run away or cower in fear as the 23-year-old South Korean took his time executing everyone who crossed his path.
Don’t try to make people like John Kerry or Hillary Clinton appreciate the basic logic behind that statement, though. Common sense is as alien to liberal Democrats these days as the term ‘safe sex’ is to Sub-Saharan Africans. As usual, whenever somebody murders a bunch of innocent people in cold blood, the first thing leftists try to do is disarm everyone who didn’t do it.
BRILLIANT!
Maybe next these mental giants will decide to ban writing utensils in elementary schools for the purpose of curbing incidents of poor grammar and misspelled words on homework papers.
Quick, somebody take Rosie O’Donnell’s fork away from her before she eats herself to death!
I swear, if I hear one more jabbering nitwit say that the horrific events of Monday last never would have happened if owning handguns were against the law, I’m gonna go on a rampage of my own, swatting every liberal I can find across the head with a rolled-up copy of ‘Guns & Ammo’!
If you really want to talk about effective gun control, I’m perfectly willing to discuss the issue. As a matter of fact, I’m all for it! I think every adult who isn’t a convicted felon should practice gun control on a regular basis. With a little practice, there aren’t too many folks out there who wouldn’t be capable of controlling a gun well enough to drop a scumbag like Cho Seung-Hui from 50 yards away with a single shot!
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A group of protesters vandalized dozens of businesses, cars and any property they came across as they marched through the Mission on Monday night. One person was arrested according to Sgt. Daryl Fong but no details about the arrest were made available yet.
The mile-long trek of vandalism began at 18th and Dolores streets, where a group of more than 100 protesters met as part of an early May Day march. The protesters walked east on 18th Street, turned left on Valencia Street, right on Duboce Avenue, and made a right on Mission Street before being confronted by riot police at 14th and Mission, according to Justin Beck, an independent journalist who followed the protesters.
Police dispersed the crowd in the area of 12th and Folsom streets, Fong said.
In a statement released early Tuesday morning, Occupy San Francisco said the vandals were not associated with the movement, but the statement was taken down shortly after.
according to Beckx, who was at the scene last night, wrote in a blog post that the riots were not planned.
“I believe we were hijacked and it was an utter cluster f**k. It started out as sort of a ‘pep rally’ type thing at Dolores Park, but maybe 20 minutes after we got there, it turned into a march,” Rossi wrote on his blog.
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The vandalism began almost immediately after the group took off from Dolores Park at around 9 p.m. The protesters paint-bombed Tartine Bakery on 18th and Guerrero streets. When they reached Farina, one protester grabbed a chair and attempted to break a window but was not successful, said police officer D. Daza. Several of the protesters, dressed in black clothing and with their faces covered, threw sacks filled with paint at the restaurant’s windows, drew anarchist symbols on them and spraypainted “Yuppies out!”
Police confronted the protesters in front of the restaurant and a small group of them dispersed, but the main crew continued along Valencia Street. They paint-bombed and broke some of the windows at Mission Police Station, according to Daza. By then a group of about 50 had moved to other restaurants north of Valencia Street.
Armed with crowbars, bats and other metal objects, some of the protesters smashed the windows of businesses along a five-block stretch of Valencia Street, from 18th Street to Duboce Avenue.
The bar manager at Locanda, Gabriel Lowe, said he heard three loud bangs, and when he looked out of the window he saw a protester throwing paint sacks at the storefront. Several witnesses said they saw a protester trying to break the restaurant’s windows with its valet parking sign. The ordeal lasted about five minutes, Lowe said.
A diminished group of protesters continued smashing car windshields and side mirrors and slashing tires as they marched along Valencia Street. They appeared to be targeting luxury cars such as BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes, but they also vandalized a 1990s Toyota Sienna minivan.
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Steven Lopez was having dinner with friends at his Glen Park home when he received a phone call from his alarm company informing him that someone had broken some of the windows at his ArtZone 461 Gallery on Valencia Street.
“We are a small art gallery, we are not elistist,” Lopez said, puzzled as to why his gallery was targeted.
Heather Brodie, a student employed at Locanda, said the vandals smashed the windshield and windows of her parked car.
“They are hurting people [who are] like them,” she said, referring to herself as a working-class citizen.
Some businesses, such as Four Barrel coffee company, were spared greater damage thanks to good Samaritans who tried to stop the protesters.
According to Four Barrel’s owner, Jeremy Tooker, a handyman was fixing the shop’s door as a protester approached. The man was hit by a crowbar but was able to prevent protesters from smashing the business’s windows. The man is OK, Tooker said.
As protesters reached 14th and Valencia, they vandalized Ronny Ghosh’s Infinity SUV. A neighbor captured the incident on video and gave Ghosh a copy.
“They have no respect for property or law and order,” Ghosh said after showing a reporter the video, in which people are seen smashing his car’s windows and slashing its tires.
As protesters neared Duboce Avenue and Mission Street, a police car T-boned another car, according to Beck.
An officer told victims standing by the cars that police had received 500 calls reporting damage that included smashed windows and slashed tires.
FSC Barber, Live Fit, the clothing stores Weston Wear and Therapy, and restaurants Tartine Bakery, Bar Tartine, Locanda and Farina were all targeted. Weston Wear’s three floor-to-ceiling windows were smashed.
Paintballs were launched at businesses, leaving large splotches of paint on their facades.
All the windows of a car parked in front of Locanda had been smashed. A glass door was broken at Art Zone, a business on Valencia between 15th and 16th streets, as were car windows. On Valencia near Market Street, car tires were slashed and anarchist symbols were painted on windows.
darcprynce
Dave C
Gatordoug
