Stinking

Lowell Weicker, the last Republican (unless I'm supposed to count Joe Lieberman) that Connecticut would ever send to the Senate, found himself embarrassed at having to defend the misogynistic planks of the 1984 Republican national platform to the media. "It's a pain in the ass to explain," then-Senator Weicker admitted. "No Equal Rights Amendment, no exceptions for rape or incest [with regard to abortion] . . .. On women's issues, it's a stinkeroo."

The smell of that platform would pale in comparison to the foul stench emanating from Republican efforts in the U.S. House of Representatives to cut Planned Parenthood funding, out of distaste for the organization's association with abortion. The argument from the Grand Old Patriarchs that federal funds for Planned Parenthood encourages abortion is intellectually dishonest. Under the Hyde Amendment, named for the late pro-life Illinois congressman Henry Hyde, there is no federal funding of abortion under any circumstances. (So what's this "No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act" about?) But Planned Parenthood provides various health services for women who would have a hard time finding other clinics offering such services - vital services like Pap smears and breast examinations, among other things, as well as advice on contraception. The haughty, self-righteous denunciation of Planned Parenthood by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) as a place where babies are "exterminated" and where abortion is taken lightly drew a sharp, courageous, and emotional response from Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA) about the abortion she once had to have to save her life despite her deep misgivings about the procedure.

"I lost a baby," Speier said while admonishing Republicans for graphically describing abortion. "But for you to stand on this floor and to suggest, as you have, that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought is preposterous."

The Republican majority was unmoved. They voted to cut off Planned Parenthood funding, with a vote of 240-185.

But that's not the only fetid business from all this budget cutting. The House has also voted to end funding for public broadcasting (more on that later), ban the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases, and block funding for the health care law. Might makes right, don't it? :-O It also causes a horrid smell.

Did the House vote to defund everything in their quest for $61 billion of cuts? No - it voted to continue Army sponsorships of the National Association of Stock Car Automobile Racing.

But - on the bright side - the House rejected funding for a General Electric engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter plane, which the Pentagon doesn't want because it's satisfied with the Pratt and Whitney engine the F-35 also uses. One Republican attempted to keep funding for the GE engine to preserve jobs at a GE plant in his home state, despite his own opposition to wasteful government spending, but failed. The Republican in question is Speaker Boehner. (Aside: There is a God!)

Few if any of these cuts will pass the smell test in the Democratic Senate, which has vowed to restore them. (I have no idea how the F-35 cut will be received in the Senate.) Meanwhile, Florida's senior senator, Democrat Bill Nelson, hopes to do an end run around Florida governor Rick Scott's stinky decision to kill the Tampa-Orlando high-speed rail line. Nelson has insisted that most of the money to pay for it comes from the federal government, and that Floridians themselves would have to pay little to get the train up and running. A metropolitan planning organization in Tampa and a rail authority in southern Florida, Nelson told his constituents, have volunteered to step forward in place of the state to accept oversight of the project and the federal funds, with lawyers researching how to achieve it. To that effect, Nelson has met with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to keep the project afloat.

Nelson - who's vulnerable in his bid for re-election next year - cites the number of jobs this rail project will create and how much economic activity it will bring to Florida. Talk about creating jobs obviously registers with voters these days, and so Nelson is trying to define the high-speed rail line in those terms. There's only one problem. Because it would take awhile for the Tampa-Orlando high-speed trains to actually start running, Nelson has to talk in future tense.

People want jobs now.

That's a bad situation . . . and it stinks.