The Patriot Post® · Cohen Overboard: Mudslinging and Civility
Only House Democrats would be desperate enough to schedule a gotcha hearing on the same day as the president’s North Korean summit. But if distraction was the goal, the liberal media certainly did their part. Headlines that should have been full of the White House’s diplomatic coup were overwhelmed by the rant-fest of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. For the new majority, it went exactly according to plan. Except for one thing — even voters couldn’t help but notice that when it comes to U.S. priorities, some liberals will always put political vendettas over national security.
It will take days to dissect all of the inane moments of Wednesday’s circus, but there were a few that managed to transcend the entire sad spectacle. Like a lot of people close to the president, Congressman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) is tired of Cohen’s racist smearing of Trump. “I’ve talked to the president over 300 times,” Meadows fired back. “I’ve not heard one time a racist comment out of his mouth in private. So, how do you reconcile it? Do you have proof of those conversations?” Pointing to Lynne Patton, a former employee of the Trump Organization, Mark insisted, “She says that a daughter of a man born in Birmingham, Alabama, that there is no way that she would work for an individual who was racist.”
Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) took offense, arguing that it was “insulting” to “prop up one member of our entire race of black people” and suggest that it “nullifies [racism].” But the real fireworks began when Freshman Democrat Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) turned her fire on Meadows implying he was just as prejudiced as the president for bringing Patton. “Just because someone has a person of color, a black person, working for them does not mean they aren’t racist, and it is insensitive that some would even say — the fact that someone would actually use a prop, a black woman, in this chamber, in this committee, is alone racist in itself.”
Mark was visibly upset by the accusation and asked Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) to strike it from the record. “I’m sure she didn’t intend to do this, but if anyone knows my record as it relates, it should be you, Mr. Chairman,” he said to Cummings. In an emotional moment, Meadows pointed out, “My nieces and nephews are people of color… Not many people know that. [Lynne Patton] is a family member… she loves this family. She came in because she felt like the President was getting falsely accused.” To suggest, he went on, that “she’s coming in to be a prop? [That’s] racist!”
Cummings asked Tlaib to rephrase her comments. But it’s what happened next that shocked the room. “If there’s anyone who is sensitive with regard to race, it’s me,” Cummings pointed out. “A son of former sharecroppers that were basically slaves. So I get it.” But, turning to Mark, he went on, “You’re one of my best friends. That shocks a lot of people.” But throughout this exchange, he said, “I could see and feel your pain. I feel it.” It was a poignant moment in an otherwise nasty day of mud-slinging partisanship. It proved that even in this sorry state of divided politics, there are still glimpses of civility.
Unfortunately, not everyone in the Democratic party is as open to common courtesy as Cummings. Too many liberals aren’t content debating policy — they want to make it personal. Back when I was in the Louisiana legislature, the two parties may not have seen eye to eye, but we still had good relationships. We could argue on the House floor and then leave for lunch together afterward. There was a mutual respect that transcended policies and politics. For the sake of our country, I hope more people are inspired by Congressmen Meadows and Cummings — and the unlikely relationships that will do more to heal our country than days of spiteful hearings ever will.
Originally published here.
Pro-Lifers Look for Closure at Planned Parenthood
If the courts thought they were busy before, they have liberals to thank for their caseloads now. In the last two years, Democrats have sued the Trump administration so often, you’d think they were getting a commission. HHS’s announcement on family planning dollars was no different. The second it was filed, the Trump team was ready to head back to what must feel like a second office — the courts.
Since the 1980s, pro-lifers have been fighting for a return to the days when family planning programs were not just financially separated from abortion clinics — but physically too. After all, abortion isn’t health care. But for years, the federal government has blurred that line by sending Title X dollars to the same location as some abortion clinics. That is, until last Friday, when HHS announced that groups like Planned Parenthood could only keep their family planning dollars if they moved their abortion services offsite.
It was a significant move — one that could cost Leana Wen’s group up to $60 million, the single largest drop in Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding in almost 50 years. But, as the editors at NRO point out, what infuriates Planned Parenthood isn’t so much the money (although that’s no drop in the taxpayer bucket), “but that the federal government is distinguishing between family planning and abortion” at all.
“Planned Parenthood wants to be considered a benevolent health-care provider rather than the nation’s largest abortion business, and it wants the cachet of the federal government’s treating it as a valued and non-controversial partner. Hence the frequent, though long-debunked, claim that abortion makes up a mere 3 percent of the organization’s activities. Planned Parenthood’s own annual report tells the real tale: Last fiscal year alone, its facilities performed upwards of 332,000 abortion procedures, well over one-third the estimated abortions in the entire country.”
So Wen’s organization, along with longtime allies from states like Washington, are fighting the rule: a) because it hates severing any strand of the forced partnership with taxpayers, but also b) because it truly believes abortion is health care (and a lucrative one, at that). Bob Ferguson, the Evergreen State’s attorney general, vowed to stop the common-sense rule, repeating the same lies about Planned Parenthood’s services as everyone else on the Left. “Rural communities currently have a shortage of health care providers,” he told reporters. “This rule will make the shortage even more acute.”
That is absolutely and unequivocally false. There are thousands of federally-qualified health centers across America — so many, in fact, that they outnumber Planned Parenthood clinics 20-to-one. They serve eight times more women than Wen’s network without the baggage of performing abortions or the scandal of selling baby body parts. “Don’t take away my breast and cancer screenings!” the Left protests. But the president can’t take away something that never existed. In its last annual report, Americans saw how few “services” the group provided. Their cancer screenings dropped by 45,000 and other care like well-woman exams and prenatal services decreased by 13,000. (Of course, the number of mammograms performed at Planned Parenthood stayed the same: zero.)
The only “service” Planned Parenthood cares about is abortion. And it’s proving it in states like Illinois, where local clinics are already saying they’d rather sacrifice millions in family planning dollars than give up a violent procedure that more Americans fiercely oppose. If the rule goes into effect in two months, “we won’t accept the money,” said Julie Lynn, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Illinois. Abortion — not health care — is their bottom line, which is exactly why they shouldn’t be receiving taxpayer money in the first place.
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.