Open Thread & News Round-Up: Debt Negotiations

Here's the latest...

LA Times—White House may be open to short-term debt deal:

The White House signaled Wednesday that President Obama could accept a short-term deal to raise the debt ceiling, but only if it appeared lawmakers were close to an agreement on a significant deficit reduction plan.

The hope of such a "grand bargain" was revived Tuesday by the so-called Gang of Six senators, who outlined a deal that would achieve nearly $4 trillion in deficit reduction in the next decade through spending cuts, entitlement reform and an overhaul of the tax code.

But Congress must act to raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2, and the plan discussed in the Senate Tuesday was just a framework, not specific legislation that could take weeks to move through Congress.

Meanwhile, House Republicans are insistent that Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid push a vote on the abysmal "Cut, Cap and Balance" bill that the House passed. Which is just a time-wasting bit of pointless brinkspersonship that pushes the country (and the global economy) closer to the fucking edge.

Former Republican Senator Judd Gregg, who is now an analyst with Goldman Sacks (lulz), says: "My gut tells me that we'll need a weekend of drama—maybe a weekend of the government not paying its bills—politicians need drama to make something happen. As soon as social security checks don't go out, the politics will change. I suspect it'll take artificial drama to get closure past the House."

The "artificial drama" of people not getting money they need to live. Christ. These people's heads are so far up their asses I don't know they get any oxygen.

If you want to know how truly devoid of integrity, ethics, decency, maturity, and any sense of responsibility the GOP caucus has actually become, this is all you need to read: TPMDC—It Begins: Top Republicans Push Away from Gang of Six Plan.

As time goes on, and conservative interest groups and members of Congress rip into it, support among Republicans for the Gang of Six plan to reduce deficits will begin to wane. In fact, that's already happening.

In a publicly released memo meant to undermine support for the Gang of Six plan in its current form, House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) laments, "it increases revenues while failing to seriously address exploding federal spending on health care, which is the primary driver of our debt. There are also serious concerns that the proposal's substance on spending falls far short of what is needed to achieve the savings it claims."

Read the full memo here.

Not all of Ryan's complaints ring hollow. The plan legitimately does punt a lot of the spending cut questions to Congressional committees -- though under the threat of across the board cuts if those committees fail to report out more targeted reductions. And, whether you want plenty of new revenue, or no new revenue, the plan leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Members claim it would count, in budgeting terms, as a tax cut, because the Congressional Budget Office's baseline assumes that all of the Bush tax cuts will expire at the end of 2012.

Relative to current policy, though, it's supposed to draw in $1 trillion in new revenue -- surely a sticking point for House Republicans. But where do those revenues come from if the plan lowers top tax rates (or at least the top rates), eliminates the Alternative Minimum Tax (at a cost to the deficit of $1.7 trillion), and doesn't eliminate the most expensive loopholes and benefits in the tax code? That's left to Congress to decide

It's not just Ryan, though. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) says he opposes the Gang of Six plan because it cuts too deeply into military spending.

And, perhaps most telling of all, a Senate GOP Leadership Aide told Politico, "Background guidance: The President killed any chance of its success by 1) Embracing it. 2) Hailing the fact that it increases taxes. 3) Saying it mirrors his own plan."

So, on the one hand, we have President Obama who values bipartisanship and the appearance of compromise above all else, and, on the other hand, we've got the Congressional Republicans, who will deliberately tank solutions just because Obama likes them. The more you want to play with me, the less I want to play with you. Our government is being run (or not run) by an infuriating collection of playground brats.

And even the Republicans' own base is getting irritated with this garbage: "Congressional Republicans are being so dogmatic and recalcitrant in their refusal to raise the debt ceiling...that wealthy donors are telling Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) to knock off the demagoguery and support tax increases."

While Cantor fiddles, the Federal Reserve "is actively preparing for the possibility that the United States could default," and Wall Street is "devising doomsday plans in case the clock runs out."

Discuss.

Marcus Bachmann Defends His Clinics

[Trigger warning for homophobia, classism.]

This Star-Tribune article in which Rep. Michele Bachmann's husband defends the clinics they co-own, at which patients can receive "reparative therapy" to degayify them, is getting a lot of attention, and deservedly so, because Marcus Bachmann's explanation—"Is it a remedy form that I typically would use? ... It is at the client's discretion. ... We don't have an agenda or a philosophy of trying to change someone."—is manifest horseshit.

It's hardly worth comment that someone who would even consider "reparative therapy," whether as a standard procedure or only at the client's request, is a bigoted dipfuck without any decency. The noest of all the doys.

So I'm going to highlight this other piece of the article, in which Marcus Bachmann also defends the clinics having accepted federal funds:

In Michele Bachmann's campaign appearances, the Sixth District congresswoman has touted the family's counseling business in references to job creation and entrepreneurship.

Critics say her harsh words about government spending are hypocritical given the state and federal payments that go to Bachmann & Associates.

The Associated Press has reported that the clinics have accepted at least $30,000 in state payments and $137,000 in federal payments. Much of the money was for services to people in Medicaid-backed programs.

Bachmann said federal and state subsidies flow to his business because it doesn't discriminate against patients in subsidized health-care programs.

"It's low income. It's people who are on limited income," Bachmann said. "It is a lower-paying insurance. It's not a money maker. ... So, gee, we get criticized because we take it. And somehow they tie it all in, into my wife because she's the big proponent of less taxes and less programs and so forth.

"So, over and over the bell rings about how we take this federal money," he continued. "Oooh, how evil that is. And I say to you: 'No. It would be evil not to.'"

Setting aside the pathetic awfulness of that rejoinder which suggests David Brent has found a new gig as Marcus Bachmann's PR adviser, I'd like to note the dichotomy Bachmann sets up here: Their clinics can either take federal money, or turn low-income patients away. There is, of course, a third option, which is to treat low-income patients on a sliding scale of what they can afford, without any government subsidies.

But that, naturally, requires cutting into profits.

Now, it's fair enough if the Bachmanns don't want to give away their services for free, or for lower cost. The clinics aren't being run as a charity. But it's mendacious in the extreme to pretend that option doesn't even exist so that you can imply it would be "evil" to not accept government funds because you'd have to turn patients away without it.

And once again, the conservative theory of governance is undermined by conservatives.

The conservative philosophy of limited government (i.e. no social safety net) asserts that charity, philanthropy, faith-based orgs, and business should take care of people in need rather than the government. There are a lot of problems with this idea (starting with the fact that conservatives frequently determine that certain people aren't deserving of charity), but the biggest problem is that the very people who espouse this idea in theory tend to be unwilling to support it in practice.

The Bachmanns' religious ideology prescribes compassion over profits, and their political ideology prescribes bootstraps or charity over accepting government subsidies, but, when it came right down to brass books, the Bachmanns were downright secular socialists in order to protect their profits.

A Slight Consistency

[Trigger warning for slavery and other dehumanization]

I recently finished reading Barry Estabrook's excellent book, Tomatoland. I won't spend much time promoting it, because holy cow the folks at Andrews McMeel have [TW] gotten the word out.

I've also been thinking a lot about abortion rights, because that's been in the news once or twice lately. That's unfortunate, because holy cow given the war that powerful people are waging against reproductive health, it should be in the news a helluva lot more frequently.

That was pretty much my vacation: tomatoes and abortion.

Stay with me here.

Estabrook's book explores Florida's industrial tomato industry. Early on, he explores the conditions under which many tomato workers labor. There's a chapter on poisons, and a chapter on slavery. I'm not sure I recommend taking Tomatoland to the beach.

As an occasional entomologist, the discussion of pesticides caught my eye. It turns out that the EPA allows growers to use methyl bromide on tomato crops (they're one of four crops the EPA has carved out exemptions for). Methyl bromide is the stuff of legend. If you're ever at a party with an entomologist (I recommend this), buy hir a drink and start talking about methyl bromide. That shit kills everything. Needless to say, bathing in the stuff can be "problematic" (you can thank Wikipedia for that phrasing).

In the case of three women Estabrook profiles who gave birth over a two month period in 2004 and 2005, "problematic" included giving birth to children with tetra-amelia syndrome, Pierre Robin syndrome, and in another case, a lethal combination of anatomical conditions. Medical professionals testified that this cluster of cases was very likely a result of exposure to multiple dangerous pesticides, including methyl bromide.

An international treaty largely forbids the production and use of methyl bromide. It is bad for the ozone layer.

Here's what prompted this post:

It appears that Florida growers are showing more interest in an alternative to methyl bromide that many scientists view as one of the most toxic compounds employed in chemical manufacturing-- so carcinogenic it has been used to induce cancers in laboratory cell cultures. Called methyl iodide, or iodomethane, the fumigant was approved in 2007 by the George W. Bush-era U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, despite a letter of warning signed by fifty-four of the world's most prominent chemists and physicians, including five Nobel Prize-winning researchers. In their letter, the scientists noted that agents like methyl iodide are "extremely well-known cancer hazards" and that "their high-volatility and water solubility" would "guarantee substantial releases to air, surface waters, and ground water." Although methyl iodide does not punch gaping holes in the ozone layer, the scientists reminded the agency that its own research had shown methyl iodide to cause "thyroid toxicity, permanent neurological damage, and fetal losses in experimental animals." [Emphasis mine]

While the administration of George W. Bush was working to restrict (or eliminate) access to abortions for women who wanted them, it had no problem approving the use of a chemical that research suggests could cause abortions (among other things) in women who didn't.

I don't buy for a second the absurd proposition that anti-abortion activists are "pro-life." Movements to restrict women's control over their bodies are precisely that.

The right to exert control over one's own body is a key, indeed typically the key principle behind reproductive rights activism. I don't need to tell you that we've got our hands full fighting for our rights on this front. However, reproductive rights don't exist within a vacuum. The fight for bodily autonomy includes the fight for labor justice, for economic justice, for environmental justice, and in short, for justice.

Those of us who fight for reproductive rights are not a "special interest" group, as we'll undoubtedly be repeated reminded between now and next November. We are, and must be, focused on human rights, an umbrella under which every other supposedly isolated issue resides.

Crossposted.

This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.

This WaPo profile [trigger warning for virulent gay hatred and misogyny] of GOP presidential wannabe Michele Bachmann (R-Etchinducing) and her husband, Dr. Marcus Bachmann, Professional Gay-Hater, is one of the most depressing things I've ever read.

They are terrible people with miserable lives who make other people's lives a misery because of their intensely stupid and exhaustively compassionless belief system.

If they weren't such influential assholes, I'd feel sorry for them.

The Road to Hell

Last Friday Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled that Indiana cannot defund Planned Parenthood and also suspended part of the recently-passed law that stated that doctors must tell patients that fetuses (at any gestational age) feel pain. Judge Walton Pratt has temporarily upheld the part of the law that said doctors are required to tell patients "life begins at fertilization".

The Indy Star became curious, after the ruling, about just how much input doctors had when it came to drafting the legislation & its subsequent passage. They found what they call "startling answers". Though I'm not particularly startled myself.

Doctors were not entirely shut out of the legislative process. The Indiana State Medical Association chose to pass up its chance to publicly weigh in on the abortion bill and took no position on it. And doctors did have some influence on the bill. After hearing testimony from an oncologist with the IU Simon Cancer Center, lawmakers removed a provision requiring doctors to tell patients that abortion is linked to breast cancer.

The Star found strong evidence, however, that medical considerations were secondary at best. In interviews last week, the lawmaker who drafted the fetal-pain clause admitted she had consulted no scientific studies.

Of course she didn't! Rep. Sue Ellspermann (R-Ferdinand) who wrote the fetal pain bit said outright that she did not consult any doctors, scientific studies, or scientists. She said that "she had seen video footage 'of the baby (in the womb) shying away from the needle'" and THAT was all the proof she needed. Who needs accurate scientific information when drafting legislation that affects an untold number of women? Not Indiana! And WAY TO GO Indiana State Medical Association. Nice of you to sit this one out. Really.

There is, of course, more:

Since the law took effect six weeks ago, The Star has learned, doctors at IU and Wishard hospitals stopped offering to terminate pregnancies for about 70 patients, including many with complications that put the patient's health at serious risk or where there was no possibility the fetus would survive. The IU School of Medicine's faculty practice determined that its doctors had to take that step to comply with the law, despite the fact that the law exempts hospitals.

The IU doctors are part of a private practice not technically employed by the hospitals, and therefore they do not fit under the language of the exemption.

These doctors -- and likely many others -- had to choose from a limited range of treatment options or send patients out of state for terminations after the law took effect May 10.

The law was aimed at cutting off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood of Indiana. But the IU doctors feared that if they continued to terminate pregnancies -- even in cases where it was medically advisable -- they would also lose the ability to treat Medicaid clients, who make up a substantial portion of their cases.

[...]

Elizabeth Ferries-Rowe, chief of obstetrics and gynecology for Wishard, said in a letter to The Star that the legislature and Daniels had "tied the hands of physicians attempting to provide medically appropriate, evidence-based care in the setting of routine obstetrics and gynecology" in "a politically motivated move to de-fund Planned Parenthood."

Ferries-Rowe, who described herself as a Catholic, said Wishard continued treating women in mortal danger, such as those suffering from ectopic pregnancies -- when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus.

But she said she would be unable to terminate the pregnancy of a woman whose amniotic membranes had ruptured at 16 weeks with complete loss of fluid. Under those circumstances, Ferries-Rowe said in an interview, the baby would likely be born so early that it wouldn't survive, and a woman who chose not to terminate the pregnancy would run the risk of sepsis, which can cause permanent organ damage, loss of limbs, brain damage or death.

She said no IU School of Medicine doctor was able to give a patient the option of abortion even in the case of congenital fetal anomaly incompatible with life -- in other words, zero chance of survival.

The consequences of the defunding law were particularly significant for IU School of Medicine doctors because they treat women with high-risk pregnancies who have been referred by other health providers across the state.

The Family and Social Services Administration is "taking steps" to clarify the hospital exemption but it will take months. Those months are time that women DO NOT HAVE.

When made aware of these consequences, Sen. Scott Schneider (who wrote the defunding amendment) said:

"This was not the intent."

This. Was. Not. The. Intent. I'm sure you, Sen. Schneider, thought you had "good intentions" when coming up with that dreadful legislation (though I profoundly disagree). Well, you know what they say about good intentions, don't you? The road to hell--but you aren't the one being forced to walk down the road you created now are you?

Ohio News

The Ohio House is currently in session (which you can watch live here). Within the past hour, they've passed two oenerous pieces of legislation, HB 78 (I believe was 64Y - 33N, but I didn't record it) and HB 79 (62Y - 35N).

HB 78 is an appalling, hideous bit of legislation (underlines & strike-outs theirs, not mine):

(A) "Fertilization" means the fusion of a human spermatozoon with a human ovum.

(B) "Gestational age" or "gestation" means the age of an unborn human child as calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of a pregnant woman.

[...]

(F) "Medical emergency" means a condition that a pregnant woman's physician determines, in the physician's good faith and in the exercise of reasonable medical judgment, based upon the facts known to the physician at that time, so complicates the woman's pregnancy as to necessitate the immediate performance or inducement of an abortion in order to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to avoid a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman that delay in the performance or inducement of the abortion would create.

(G) "Physician" has the same meaning as in section 2305.113 of the Revised Code.

(H) "Pregnant" means the human female reproductive condition, that commences with fertilization, of having a developing fetus.

(I) "Pregnancy" means the condition of being pregnant.

(J) "Premature infant" means a human whose live birth occurs prior to thirty-eight weeks of gestational age.

(J)(K) "Serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function" means any medically diagnosed condition that so complicates the pregnancy of the woman as to directly or indirectly cause the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function, including, but not limited to, the following conditions:

(1) Pre-eclampsia;

(2) Inevitable abortion;

(3) Prematurely ruptured membrane;

(4) Diabetes;

(5) Multiple sclerosis. A medically diagnosed condition that constitutes a "serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function" includes pre-eclampsia, inevitable abortion, and premature rupture of the membranes, may include, but is not limited to, diabetes and multiple sclerosis, and does not include a condition related to the woman's mental health.

(K)(L) "Unborn human child" means an individual organism of the species homo sapiens from fertilization until live birth.

[...]
(B)(1) It is an affirmative defense to a charge under division (A) of this section that the abortion was performed or induced or attempted to be performed or induced by a physician and that the physician determined, in the physician's good faith medical judgment, based on the facts known to the physician at that time, that either of the following applied:

(a) The unborn child was not viable.

(b) The abortion was necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.

(2) No abortion shall be considered necessary under division (B)(1)(b) of this section on the basis of a claim or diagnosis that the pregnant woman will engage in conduct that would result in the pregnant woman's death or a substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman or based on any reason related to the woman's mental health.

Read the full text here. There are many hoops a doctor must jump through to even do an abortion to save the life of a women--not to mention a shitload of tracking paperwork to be submitted to the Dept of Health.

You can read the text of HB 79 here, though it simply says: [A]ny qualified health plan as defined in section 1301 of the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," 42 U.S.C. 18021, offered in this state through an exchange created under that act" will not offer abortion coverage for "non-theraputic" abortion.

The House has not yet moved onto the notorious HB 125, the so-called "heartbeat bill". Will keep you updated if/when there is any news on that.

ETA:They did already vote and HB 125 passed 54 - 43. As a reminder: SCOTUS has deemed it is unconstitutional to pass laws preventing abortion before viability.

The Texas House Wants to Be Indiana

I'm sorry, Texas:

The House approved a sprawling health care savings bill Monday that abortion-rights opponents hailed as a historic step toward de-funding Planned Parenthood and limiting abortion. Democrats, though, warned the bill includes permission for Texas to join an interstate health care compact, which they said could lead to a state takeover of the management of elderly Texans' federal Medicare benefits.

Meanwhile, in the Regarbagican aspirational state of Indiana, a federal court has put on hold parts of similar anti-abortion legislation, which has had the consequence of causing doctors at Indiana University and Wishard Memorial hospitals to stop offering abortion services, "including in cases where the woman's health was at serious risk and where there was no possibility the fetus would survive," because they're unclear how to comply with the law.

The anti-choicers have evidently figured out that, failing actual criminalization of abortion, they can just create a nightmarescape of confusion about whether and how to provide abortions at all.

[H/Ts to Shakers Harmony and Brian.]

Chipping Away...

Kansas, the state notoriously opposed to women's rights, appears to have found a bureaucratic means to deny women, esp. poor and uninsured women, health care. On May 16th of this year, Gov. Brownback signed a law that targeted abortion providers with special regulations and any clinic which offered the health care service must be in compliance by July 1st or else they will not receive their special operating license. It was ten days later that the clinics received notice that the new regulations were coming. This week they got the most recent listing of medications that must be on hand and room dimension size. Let's not forget all that goes into this: they had to try and be compliant with new regs, get inspected (and perhaps reinspected), and file the paperwork and wait for approval.

One of three abortion providers in Kansas appeared likely to close after being denied a state license to continue terminating pregnancies at its Kansas City-area clinic, and abortion rights supporters feared Friday that the anti-abortion governor's administration will reject licenses for the other two.

[...]
A lawyer for the Aid for Women clinic in Kansas City, Kan., said Friday that it received a notice that its application for a license had been denied by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment without an inspection. Attorney Cheryl Pilate said the clinic was looking at its legal options but would have to close, at least temporarily.

The clinic received its notice on the same day the leader of a regional Planned Parenthood chapter said inspectors who spent two days at its Overland Park clinic found it will comply with all new regulations. An inspection of the third provider is scheduled for Wednesday. All three are in the Kansas City area.

"We're doomed," said Dr. Herbert Hodes, who performs abortions for the third provider, the Women's Health Center, also in Overland Park.

[...]

The new law requires a separate, annual license for any hospital, clinic or office that performs at least five non-emergency abortions a month, and it requires state inspections, including at least one unannounced visit each year. The health department can fine providers and go to court to revoke their licenses.

Pilate said the health department told Aid for Women its application was denied because it had disclosed that it would need extensive renovations.

Also, she said, the clinic reported the physician who performs abortions is in the process of seeking privileges at an area hospital. The new law requires that a physician have privileges at a hospital within 30 miles.

The department's notice said that for those reasons, "an on-site inspection will not be necessary and will not be scheduled."

Pilate said the clinic couldn't have even obtained remodeling plans or a building permit for renovations by July 1. She called the licensing process "rushed and absurdly unrealistic."

I'd call the licensing process "nefarious and sinister". If the license is pending July 1st or later, any abortion performed will be deemed illegal. This an extremely disturbing back-door method of denying women necessary health care. As Ms. Pilate said:

"There are patients with scheduled appointments with few or no other options," Pilate said. "It's going to hurt poor women."

What's the matter with Kansas? The politicians.

Speaking of odious, woman-hating legislation, recall the Ohio "Heartbeat" Bill? If not:

[A]n abortion would be illegal once the heartbeat of a fetus is detected. The bill would require the doctor to find that heartbeat using "standard medical practice," a term not defined.

A doctor who violates the law could be found guilty of a fifth-degree felony, punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine. The mother could not be charged.

That bill, HB 125, is scheduled for floor vote tomorrow. There is a rally scheduled for tomorrow morning, if you live in or near the area.

As I said in the Ohio post--GOP: Pro-Fetus; Pro-Forced Birth; Anti-Woman, Anti-Family, Anti-Decency.

Two Facts

1. My garbage governor, Mitch Daniels, is still not running for president. Phew.

2. His garbage governance is still being considered a model of Republican leadership to be rolled out in statehouses across this nation. Eek.

By the way, despite Republican's constantly touting the "success" of Daniels' highway privatization scheme, I will just note, as a user of the privatized highway, that I used to be able to drive to Chicago on the Indiana Toll Road for 80 cents. Since it has been privatized a couple years ago, it now costs 3 times that, the quality of the road has significantly diminished, and the toll booths have been automated and all the booth attendants put out of work. SUCCESS!

I Write Letters

Dear Governor Mitch Daniels:

You may take away our healthcare services, you may privatize our public amenities, you may undermine our infrastructure, you may sabotage our school system, you may crumble our sidewalks, but you cannot rob us of the indescribable sweetness of the first ears of ripe Indiana corn each summer.


A cornfield near our house, on yet another stormy day.
I mean, I'm sure you're plotting away to ruin that, too, but IN THE MEANTIME we are going to love our corn on the cob, we are going to eat it raw and boil it and cook it in its own husk on the grill and get its glorious golden tassels stuck between our teeth, and we are going to savor the taste of being a Hoosier and remember that there are still things to love about this state, even as you endeavor to destroy every last one of them.

No Love,
Liss

Planned Parenthood Takes a Furlough Day in Indiana

*rage*seethe*boil*

After my garbage governor, Mitch "The Blade" Daniels signed into law a bill defunding Planned Parenthood in Indiana, the healthcare provider, which serves 85,000 people, including 9,300 Medicaid patients, has stayed open and continued to provide care to Hoosiers with more than $100,000 in donations, but, after state funding ran out Monday, Planned Parenthood Indiana will "will stop treating Medicaid patients and lay off two of its three STD specialists," and will also "close all its clinics on Wednesday and send employees home without pay" to save funds.

"Our 9,300 Medicaid patients, including those who had appointments Tuesday, are going to see their care disrupted," said Betty Cockrum, president of Planned Parenthood of Indiana.

The provider typically receives about $1.3 million a year in Medicaid funds, about 10 percent of its total budget. The new law also strips Planned Parenthood of roughly $150,000 in funding for prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, money that paid for three intervention specialists -- health workers who track down the partners of someone who tests positive for an STD and ensure they are tested and treated. Two of those specialists, who were based in Muncie, have been laid off, and a third, in Lafayette, is now employed in a different capacity.

That leaves Planned Parenthood with a single specialist, in Lafayette.

...Sue Swayze, legislative director for Indiana Right to Life, said that with Monday's reduction in services, Planned Parenthood has "made it clear what their priority is."

"They wouldn't stop providing abortions even in the interim to keep the women's health services," she said.

ABORTION IS A HEALTH SERVICE, YOU MENDACIOUS GARBAGEBRAIN!

State Sen. Scott Schneider, R-Indianapolis, who authored the defunding language, echoed that criticism in legislative debate in April.

"If (Planned Parenthood) wants to receive taxpayer money," he said, "they can simply stop practicing abortion."

As if "taxpayers" and "people who need/want abortions" are mutually exclusive groups.

Honestly, I have never been so furious at the collection of dipfucks and miscreants running this state as I am right now.

[H/T to @PPact.]