The Senate voted to table the Blunt amendment to the highway transportation bill today after a Republican senator who often breaks party ranks said she would vote for the bill.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) made the motion to table the amendment, which provides conscience protections for religious employers in the HHS contraception coverage mandate, after a string of Democrats said the bill could impede access to everything from HIV testing to childhood vaccinations.
The narrow vote that killed the bill was 51-48.
Before Murray’s motion, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said on the Senate floor that, though conflicted, she would have to vote yes on Sen. Roy Blunt’s (R-Mo.) amendment.
“I believe that such a mandate poses a threat to our religious freedom,” Collins said.
Noting that she has been a longtime supporter of family planning, the senator said she had sought assurances from the Obama administration that religious institutions would be protected in the compromise mandate the White House announced after the initial furor. She never got them.
“The administration cannot assure me that religious freedoms are protected,” Collins said, stressing that “a very important issue” not clarified is how employers who self-insure are treated under the mandate.
“I feel that I have to vote for Sen. Blunt’s amendment in hope that it will be narrowed further and defined,” she said. “I do this with a lot of conflict …I feel that I have no choice.”
Yesterday, West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin announced that he would vote for the Blunt amendment.
“Well-intentioned people on both sides of this issue can respectfully disagree, but for me this comes down to our religious liberties,” Manchin said. “I truly believe that we must safeguard Americans’ right to exercise their sincerely held religious views, and I support this measure to protect that freedom of conscience.”
Senate Democrats characterized the amendment as “indefensible” and too broadly written. “We were not born yesterday … the facts are just not with you,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said.
“Let me add my strong belief that if the United States Senate had 83 women and 17 men rather than 83 men and 17 women, my strong guess is that a bill like this would never even make it to the floor,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said after the amendment was tabled that the fight over the contraception mandate is not over.
“This is not a partisan issue; it is not a matter of politics; it is about upholding one of the bedrock principles upon which our great country was established,” Cornyn said. “This mandate violates a fundamental right that for centuries has made America a beacon of freedom in the world’s eye. It is an affront to the very fabric of our country, and I will keep fighting until it is fully revoked.”
The worst affront is “mandate”. What are we? A bunch of idiots needing the mighty govt, the kings, the dictators to tell us what we can do and not do? And the connected be granted reprieves? How the hell can we still call ourselves citizens and free people when there are so many laws and regulations that the “govt” can pick and choose to prosecute someone like the Gibbson Guitar, and not their competitors that the “govt” favored? How free are we when greedy politicians can confiscate our hard earned money and drive us deep into debts to pay off their billionaire sugar daddies, e.g. Solyndra, Light Squared, Petrobra?
Between this, the health care death panels, our Commander-in-Defeat’s lack of acknowledgement of the executions of American soldiers in Afghanistan, the Bailouts to Nowhere, the “fundamental change” our termites–I mean elected officials–believe in, etc. etc. etc., it’s time to make serious exit plans.
…the senator (Collins) said she had sought assurances from the Obama administration that religious institutions would be protected in the compromise mandate the White House announced after the initial furor. She never got them.
Would that be like the weasel Bart Stupak seeking assurances from the Obama administration that Obamacare would never pay for abortions ?
Which assurances were given, Bart signed on, and the thing passed ?
What a total crock, there is no way architects and enforcers of Obamacare won’t get paying for abortions in there.
Patty Murray (D-Washington state) is an idiotlogue, emphasis on idiot. That she is a rising star in Senate democrat politicks is an indication of how low this country has sunk.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention that Republican Senator Olympia Snowe voted against the bill.
Allow me to take care of that for you, Josh.
Lefty-Republican Senator Olympia Snowe (lifetime ACU rating 48.39, meaning she votes with the lefties more than half the time), also voted against the bill.
I do hope that’s satisfactory.
She’s next!!
This country was literally built on the idea of freedom of religion. If the state decides to take that away from us, to force us to do things that our religion says is definitely unacceptable, then you are denying people that freedom of faith. This is how revolutions get started. The Obama administration had better stand down on this issue or else they will lose the votes of millions of Catholics in this country, not to mention God knows how manmy libertarians. America is finally pushing back against a socialist regime. It’s about time.
Still, no one has brought up the issue of how this mandate would affect the muslims in this nation. See, islam is vehemently opposed to birth control in all forms, more stringently than even Catholics. Yet, someday, this subject will surface and the whole argument will be revisited by the national socialists who will take the other side.
They want it both ways and somehow they seem to keep getting it.
I would pay good money to have the top 5 democrat “leaders” get asked how this law, this regulation/mandate/diktat be applied to muslims who have medical insurance. And…by the way…the muslim “faith” does not believe in insurance, thinking that “all things are the will of allah”. Thus, a federal law requiring ALL citizens to have health insurance or pay the fine is necessarily discriminatory against muslims. Gee, how will that play out in the media? How will the muslim-loving obamabots cover their a**es on that?
Sure, in the typical, usual, slime-covered ways. But seriously, the tarp was pulled off of this group when “healthcare” passed. They took advantage of an overwhelming majority in both houses and yet, still had to ram it through behind closed doors.
If anything, Obama may indeed become known for producing lots of jobs in the legal sector just fighting this roll of toilet paper.
Muslims are exempted from the bill in total.
“Let me add my strong belief that if the United States Senate had 83 women and 17 men rather than 83 men and 17 women, my strong guess is that a bill like this would never even make it to the floor,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said.
So, Sen. Sanders truly believes that women in general have no respect or appreciation for religious freedoms?
What about women who oppose abortion due to it’s turning women into sex objects for the convenience of men?
“Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.”
o Alice Paul, author of the 1923 U.S. Equal Rights Amendment
I’m going to be fascinated to see how women vote in state elections in all those states with the new slut-shaming government-mandated-ultrasound-dildo-rape bills.
Love the new motto “Government small enough to fit in your vagina, at least once lubed up.”
John gets off on writing “vagina” like Rachel Maddow has been obsessively yakking about vaginas, repeating the word some 53 times in recent shows.
Probably 153 times by now.
Women who think some federal law (like the mistaken privacy ruling in Roe v. Wade) is somehow necessary for them to control their own, uh, vaginas, are, well, insane.
The Obama administration pandering to women & the womens’ rights groups screaming for a free “pill” fail to mention that, over time, said pill can kill you, lead to blood clots & other lovely side effects.
Margaret Sanger, founder of the biggest abortion provider in the US, Planned Parenthood, was a huge eugenicist, having a particular disliking for “Negro” babies.
As I’m going to be fascinated to see how you butchers masquerading as some free will, “pro-choice” advocates act when 50,000,000 unborn babies, who were never granted a voice on this earth, face you in judgment.
Unlike you, I’m remain convinced that the majority of this country is moving aware from your darkness. As someone once said correctly years ago, “If there were a window to the womb, abortion would stop immediately.” We move ever closer to that window, and you and your ilk grow a little more uncomfortable in the thought of what your lies have wrought.
Perhaps it has escaped your notice that protecting innocent life against violent assault and murder is a legitimate function of government, both at the federal and state levels.
It is perfectly consistent to be a conservative AND to hold that government should protect babies from assaults like thiswatch the film.
In fact, given the moral values shared by virtually ALL of the Founding Fathers (yes, even the Deists, yes, even the profligate Franklin), one who supports abortion cannot rightly be called a conservative.
The Blunt amendment wasn’t about abortion.
It was about a conscience clause for contraception.
Sanders and Pelosi keep saying that the freedom of conscience of Catholics who oppose funding birth control is to be subordinated to the majority of Catholics who use birth control. IOW, to Sanders and Pelosi, the only legitimate religious views are those that are found to be popular in public opinion polls.
And that principle means the end of religious freedom.
It’s also hypocritical. Because when a clear majority of the public is against THEM, they go running to the courts to overturn the public’s will, as happened with same-sex marriage in CA.
Perhaps Bernie is saying that if women controlled Congress, they’d have passed the law allowing them “free stuff” like contraceptives long ago.
The religious objection is only part of the problem. The simple and undisputable fact that nothing is free and that forcing insurance companies to give women contraceptives for free is going to add millions (if not billions) to their costs each year. No other medicine is free for most people. We have to pay a copay for my wife’s blood pressure medication. Why should anyone expect birth control to be the only thing that’s “free?”
Josh Scholar,
I’m a woman, and I’m sick and tired of babies dying in what amounts to as genocide. I am generally pro choice, but there are limits on what is right and wrong. Obama believes in infanticide. He believes it is perfectly alright to end the life of a viable fetus. One that can survive outside the womb. He believes it’s alright to stick a sharp instrument into the skull of a baby who feels pain. He believes it’s alright to let a baby die that survives an abortion. He didn’t want nurses to be able to hold these dying babies in hospitals before they die, to just throw them on a cold gurney and let them die.
There comes a point when you have to say enough. There is right and wrong. Could you also be a little more tactful with your language. God, why is everything out in the open these days, does anyone have any manners anymore? It’s classless.
A government big enough to give you free health care is big enough to take everything away from you. Wise up.
He believes it’s alright to let a baby die that survives an abortion.
What Obama “believes” as a function of his vote while an Illinois state Senator against the survivability of late term abortion babies is that those babies can’t survive a botched abortion because then they would have “rights” under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.
In other words, what Barry believes (or said he believes)is some convoluted gobbleygook based on his high falutin’ view of himself as a Constitutional scholar.
When the truth ekes through, however, what this “scholar” really thinks of our Constitution is that it is a litany of negative liberties, saying what the federal government can’t do to you instead of all the wonderful and terrific things the federal government can do to you.
As for abortion per se, Obama has been all over the map, depending on which way the wind is blowing at the moment. He did say, as his 2008 campaign was winding down, that he wouldn’t want his little girls (then about ages 8 and 10) to be “punished with a baby”.
Insane.
What made a strong impression on me from that Obama quote is that he would consider his own grandchild to be a “punishment” that would be inflicted upon his daughters.
Obama believes in infanticide. He believes it is perfectly alright to end the life of a viable fetus. One that can survive outside the womb. He believes it’s alright to stick a sharp instrument into the skull of a baby who feels pain. He believes it’s alright to let a baby die that survives an abortion. He didn’t want nurses to be able to hold these dying babies in hospitals before they die, to just throw them on a cold gurney and let them die.
Uhm how did you come the the conclusion that Obama is any different than any other pro-choice politician? Why demonize him more than the rest? Because he’s the black-devil?
A government big enough to give you free health care is big enough to take everything away from you. Wise up.
I don’t see Obama-Care that was Romney-Care with a health-exchange scheme from the conservative The Heritage Foundation as being a scheme to “take everything away from [me]”
Note the documents he shows the 1989 Heritage foundation report “Assuring Affordable Health Care for all Americans” and 1992 paper “A policy makers guide to the health crisis part II: the Heritage Consumer Choice Health Plan” Note that one mentioned transitioning to a “national system”
Etc etc. Going back to Richard Nixon, there have been Republicans supporting mandated health care, even a NATIONAL system for it, and they’ve cosponsored bills to that effect. And that includes, funny thing, two of the 3 candidates running, as Newt is one of them.
But yes, if the government can say “everyone should have some sort of health care” it means that a remorseless baby-killer wants to take everything away from me.
Because he’s the potus, you dolt!
Don’t bring race into this – he’s just as much white as he’s black. Also, Margaret Sanger (your hero) specifically wated to target black people (the undesirable element in our culture) for abortions.
Well the odd thing is that she prefaced her nightmarish vision of a president who “loves infanticide” and doesn’t “want nurses to be able to hold … dying babies … before they die” by saying she’s pro-choice, so it isn’t ABORTION per say that has her upset, it’s just Barack Obama. Her vision of evil evil Obama
Even people who believe in legalized abortion find the idea of babies surviving an abortion being left to die repulsive. Obama lambasted the Born Alive Infants Protection Act as an Illinois legislator.
If the government can say “everyone should have some sort of health care” it means that a remorseless baby-killer CAN take everything away from me, because there are no limits on that government’s power. We are at the mercy of whomever occupies the White House & Congress, rather than being a nation under the rule of law.
He’s being crass because women are nameless, faceless “things” to him. He not only expects, but DEMANDS the government abort any life he’s careless enough to leave around.
You see, it hit a nerve with him that in 1923 someone actually had the nerve to say that abortion was the greatest exploiter of women for the convenience of men. We needed someone to say that to our generation.
Susan Collins must see visions of the Tea Party Express, The Club for Growth, and other such groups breathing down her neck in 2014. They have become the enforcers. If their real polcies are great, then why do they have to lie about them? Hummmmm. Lefties are always dishonest otherwise they couldn’t get elected dogcatcher, except in Leftyland.
I thought the article was unclear. It is purposeful in Congress to vote “yes” or “no” on procedural or legal amendments whose real purpose to the hide the intent of the politician from the voters. Defining the true position of a politician is similar to grabbing a greased pig. They perfected the upside down, backwards, triple flip flop.
But it is more than clear that this war of words, should have been fought when Obamacare was being enacted. Only a politician would enact abortion funding via a highway bill. The American voter is being forced fed seventeen levels of lying. If you read level number 12, and he read number 14; you may disagree on something you both hold as valid. This is purposeful, particularly in an election season.
After decades in their vaulted position, the only certainty is that our politicians normally lie through their teeth. This is the common judgment of most Americans. It explains our disunity on a host of issues; highways, oil pipelines, climate change, power plants, war, and abortion. I do not think Barbara Boxer is capable of telling the truth; she has pathologies.
Thus, on this article, the reporter could have defined the motion to table, or amend, was/ was not pro abortion funding. The fundamental question is who pays for some one else’s sex? Barbara wants you to pay.
On fiscal and constitutional bases, I think she is nuts, as are many politicians.
Thank you Mitch McConnell for giving RINOs and “moderate” Dems cover in the next election with this vote. with this vote, which was certain to go down in defeat, Harry Reid just allowed enough Dems who’ll be in contested races off the plantation to CYA with their constituents.
If I was in a conspiratory mood, I’d say old Mitch was in cahoots with the ruling class to perpetuate their stay.
Otherwise, he’s just plain stoopid.
I’m not buying this argument. There are many Dems who are actually pro-life. There is nothing wrong with them getting on record with this, just like there is nothing wrong with getting Snowe on record for opposing this.
Honestly, I want more Dems like Manchin. I want Conservative Democrats) to take back the Democratic Party from the Commies who have taken over it. Then maybe, the RINO’s will go back to being Dems again. Then the country can really see what each Party actually believes in, and where the interests overlap. I can find common ground with real Democrats. One can have a reasonable conversation with them and come to some kind of bargain.
The real problem is that the fringe Far-Left is in charge.
Sorry, but these “moderate” Dems need to be called out. They’re allowed to “vote their conscience” when it doesn’t matter. When it does, they toe the liberal party line.
Two cases in point, and in my own state (Nebraska). We had our “moderate” Ben Nelson’s vote on Obamacare, which took it out of cloture, and resulted in the famous “Cornhusker Kickback” and the ultimate passage of the bill.
In ’93, Bob Kerry became the 50th senate vote when he caved on the Clinton tax increase. He did this after saying publicly that he knew it was the wrong thing to do, but he just couldn’t bring himself to “bring down the presidency”.
There is no such thing as a moderate Democrat when push comes to shove in congress. These guys need to go, and the Republicans need to propose legislation that points out the results of voting for moderates.
Not having babies born will compensate insurance companies for their increased costs of paying for contraception.
Or something.
HHS Sec’y Kathleen (“I love abortion”) Sebelius testifies today before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health…
Why are these DC morons in our lives ?
If Obama’s mother had been more pro-choice, none of this would be happening, just think about it. If Obama’s so-called absentee father had used a condom this would not be happening. Just a thought, I know, I’m a racist. Yeah, human racist. The liberals are thinning their own herd, the rest of us will keep pumping out those future little conservatives. It’s Darwin, might makes right. Who knew Charles was a closet Catholic.
According to Barack’s own analysis, his 17 or 18 YO mom was, indeed, “punished with a baby”.
Him.
So when will it be OK for that southwestern church to use peyote in its rituals? How about Rastafarians?
We have a way to go yet on religious freedom, folks. And that is BB (Before Bamster). There can be no distinction between religious freedom and individual freedom.
‘An ye do no harm, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.’
Cost of a condom about $1
Cost of a diaphram and spermicidal jelly under $100
together 100% effective
How much sex are these public interst scholarship (law student) women having if it costs them $3ooo ayear
Maybe they should spend more time studying the Constitution. It doesn’t gurantee them the right to violate someones religious principals because they’re too lazy to go to planned parenthood and buy it themselves.
If she only makes $3000 a year I’m sure it costs her far less than the prices I quoted.
Thought of defeating Obama in 2012 Priceless