No one’s ever accused the Senate of efficiency — and the Obamacare repeal is no exception. After watching the House sprint through the American Health Care Act, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is keeping his chamber under the speed limit for what he warns will be a long debate. “This process will not be quick or simple or easy,” he warned. Like House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), the Majority Leader has a difficult tightrope to walk in a party with very different views on health care. That may explain, as several point out, why the Senate is ditching the House’s 132-page plan and starting from scratch.

“Thanks, but no thanks” seemed to be the message from the upper chamber, where everyone expects a different plan to emerge. Striking a balance that pleases the GOP’s moderates and conservatives will take some maneuvering, especially in a party that can only afford to lose two votes on whatever bill it concocts. “We’re going to draft our own bill, and I’m convinced that we’re going to take the time to do it right,” McConnell said this week. Obviously, no one envies GOP leaders in their quest to piece together a fragile consensus on one-sixth of America’s economy — but there are significant portions of the House bill that are non-negotiable.

For starters, the greatest deliberative body had better be deliberate about defunding Planned Parenthood. Whatever differences the Senate may have with Speaker Ryan’s plan, McConnell knows that if a bill comes back to the House without striking 86 percent of the abortion giant’s taxpayer funding, the Obamacare repeal will never pass Congress. As I told the Washington Times, the Majority Leader is a smart man. He understands what’s at stake. And while Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) continues to gripe about the House’s decision to end the forced partnership between taxpayers and Planned Parenthood, there are far more members who would vote against the bill if it didn’t.

Collins, who insists on putting an “R” after her name while voting like anything but, is hoping her noisy opposition will sink the text. “It’s not the only issue in this huge bill,” she told ABC, “but I certainly think that it’s not fair, and it is a mistake to defund Planned Parenthood.” Considering the long list of the group’s wrongdoing, the only mistake Congress has made is continuing to fund it in the face of so much criminal evidence! Still, Collins insists on mischaracterizing the issue, telling the network, “I don’t think that low-income women should be denied their choice of health care providers for family planning, cancer screenings, and [other] care.”

Fortunately for Collins and millions of other women (low-income and otherwise), the House more than compensated for the loss of Planned Parenthood, adding an additional $200 million to the $235 million already in the 2015 reconciliation bill for community health centers. (Which, oh-by-the-way, outnumber Cecile Richards’s clinics 20-to-one and serve eight times more women — without the baggage of performing abortions or the scandal of selling baby body parts.)

The bottom line is this: Anything the Senate does to substantially change the pro-life provisions of the bill will kill it. With so little margin to work with, the Senate working group would be wise to tell Collins and anyone else who wants to line the pockets of a group accused of fraud, Medicaid overbilling, carving up unborn children for profit, killing babies born alive, falsifying medical information, violating safety standards, encouraging prostitution and sex trafficking, and medical malpractice to take a hike. If Susan Collins wants to be responsible for keeping Obamacare afloat, she belongs with the only other people who think that’s a worthy goal: the Democratic Party.

(Originally published here.)

Pride Comes Before Target’s Fall

If the Target corporation is imploding, then it’s going down in a rainbow blaze of glory. Despite taking a year-long beating on Wall Street, the stubborn LGBT ally is clinging to the radical agenda that earned it the scorn of almost 1.5 million consumers. After refusing to change its bathroom and changing room policy (despite a growing number of predators in stores across America), executives are getting even more aggressive with their extremism.

Down more than 30 percent on the stock market, Target executives are turning to #TakePride merchandise to save them. From rainbow bags, cell phone cases, and T-shirts, stores are literally selling out half the country with its brazen line. Of course, this is nothing new for the retail giant, which, long before the Supreme Court redefined marriage, annoyed shoppers with its “love is love” merchandise.

Now, after taking a 13-month PR beating, the company still hasn’t learned its lesson. It may as well be the Titanic, speeding up to hit the iceberg. “Everyone deserves to feel like they belong,” the company said in a statement about its new LGBT gear. But apparently, not everyone deserves to feel safe. That’s the irony. Target may be selling rainbow clothes, but it can’t guarantee that women can try them on without running into a man in the fitting room.

As Reuters points out, “Target said it missed its 2016 Incentive EBIT [earnings before interest and taxes] goal of $5.74 billion by $623 million and fell short of its adjusted sales target of $71.62 billion by $2.13 billion.” No wonder CEO Brian Cornell had to take a 30 percent pay cut. Although he admitted that he opposed the transgender policy, Cornell told The Wall Street Journal that he didn’t find out it was official until after the announcement. Either way, he says he felt “stuck” with it. Now, the only thing that’s stuck is Target — in a mess of its own making. And while it tries desperately to make up lost profits, this latest move is nothing to #TakePride in.

(Originally published here.)

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC. Reprinted by permission.