As a general rule, anything that the legacy propaganda press reports about Republican senators and members of Congress should be taken with a grain of salt at best. It’s a time-honored tactic that the media will sow dissension and demoralization among the GOP base, and particularly among conservatives, by trumpeting what discord they can find among Republicans.
So the initial reaction to the Notus story, which has it that Reps. Mike Lawler, Brian Fitzpatrick, and Jen Kiggans came out in a House GOP caucus meeting as opposed to defunding Planned Parenthood, has to be “prove it.”
The story, written by Oriana Gonzalez and Reese Gorman, relies on the old-faithful unnamed sources:
Moderate Republicans will likely be anti-abortion advocates’ biggest hurdle in their mission to ban federal funding from Planned Parenthood in a reconciliation package — and some are already voicing their opposition.
Defunding Planned Parenthood was brought up briefly in a Tuesday evening closed-door meeting between Speaker Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and some moderate Republicans, where they were discussing potential Medicaid cuts, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
One of the sources said that Reps. Mike Lawler, Brian Fitzpatrick and Jen Kiggans were among the moderate Republicans who made it clear to House GOP leadership that they oppose adding a measure to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood to a reconciliation bill.
As of this writing, none of the three had put out any statements clarifying their positions on Planned Parenthood. That isn’t to say no statements are forthcoming.
Hopefully, denials will follow.
However, forgive me for a perhaps overly quick reaction, but this is the kind of thing you respond to immediately after it’s posted. There is no question a story like this would circulate on Capitol Hill in seconds rather than minutes, and RedState had a story up about it within two hours.
More than an hour after RedState’s piece went out, there were still no denials from any of the three.
Which would indicate that while such a story should deserve immediate doubt, in this case it looks like it is true. It’s hard to imagine three separate members of Congress couldn’t find anybody competent enough as a comms director to refute a false story about their boss within three hours in the middle of a workday.
And if it is true, then Mike Lawler, Brian Fitzpatrick, and Jen Kiggans are morons who have no business serving in Congress.
This isn’t even about abortion. If you want to be a “pro-choice” moderate, I’ll grudgingly accept you into the big GOP tent if you don’t completely suck on other issues.
But Planned Parenthood isn’t just an abortion provider, which by itself should completely disqualify it from receiving federal money of any kind. Tolerating legal abortion is something the Republican Party might have to allow a degree of wiggle room on in order to accommodate the fact that most of the electorate isn’t strictly pro-life (though less than one in five Americans supports the Democrats’ fringe position that there must be unrestricted, unregulated abortion on demand, and this is never acknowledged by the propaganda press).
But funding abortion centers should absolutely not be on the table in a Republican Congress. At all. Not one dime. This is the most basic of policy imperatives. Forcing your party’s base to fund something so abhorrent to the moral teachings — “Thou shalt not kill” — that undergird their worldview is such a massive slap in the face as to disqualify you from public office.
Of course, House Republicans have done it for decades, and we’ve largely given up being angry at them over it.
But even throwing the abortion issue into the dumpster in this analysis, funding Planned Parenthood must be a nonstarter.
Surely you’re aware that Planned Parenthood is the nation’s leading dispenser of “puberty-blocker” drugs, which chemically castrate children, right? From Planned Parenthood’s website:
Planned Parenthood is proud to provide a safe and welcoming place to get gender-affirming care. We offer services to transgender women, transgender men, and nonbinary people.
Services include:
- Estrogen and anti-androgen hormone therapy
- Testosterone hormone therapy
- Puberty blockers
- Surgery referrals
- Transition support (social, legal)
- Other
Not every Planned Parenthood health center provides all services. Check with your local Planned Parenthood health center about the services they offer.
Forget about abortion. By funding Planned Parenthood, you’re funding the sterilization of a host of confused people, many of them kids going through a phase.
There is no moral defense to such an atrocity, and by allowing this organization to siphon our tax dollars, Reps. Lawler, Fitzpatrick, and Kiggans are making all of us party to the evil Planned Parenthood is committing against those kids.
This is happening in our name.
But even if that can be excused, and it can’t, standing against defunding Planned Parenthood makes you a traitor to your party and your Republican colleagues.
Planned Parenthood’s political and advocacy arms made a record-breaking $69.5 million investment during the 2024 election cycle. That money was spent on “voter engagement,” ballot measures, and electing “reproductive rights champions.” This included contributions, outside spending, and other electoral activities.
More than 98 percent of that $69.5 million was spent on electing Democrats.
It’s a rule so basic that it hardly needs to be written or spoken — if an entity spends $70 million per cycle on political contributions and more than $49 out of every $50 spent out of that pot of gold goes to your political opposition, then as a matter of survival and self-preservation, you must do everything in your power to drain that entity of whatever funding you control.
And House Republicans are in a position to control Planned Parenthood’s funding.
If you like what Planned Parenthood does in its core mission but you’re a Republican, you would defund them out of sheer political self-interest alone.
But if you’re a Republican member of Congress and you can’t do that, then you are so weak and so stupid that you don’t belong in your office. This level of moral languor and political ineptitude offends the senses.
Republican voters should not be forced to tolerate this. We should make it clear to these three mediocrities that they aren’t going to be allowed to get away with standing against the party’s base on so fundamental an issue.
READ MORE by Scott McKay:
Carbon Capture: The Scam Agreed Upon
Five Quick Things: The Utter, Complete, and Glorious Evisceration of the Legacy Propaganda Press