Indiana GOP Moves Closer To Mandating Invasive Ultrasounds For Women Taking The Abortion Pill

The Indiana senate advanced a measure on Tuesday to require all women to undergo an unnecessary, and potentially invasive, ultrasound procedure before taking the RU-486 abortion pill.

The original version of the bill actually mandated two tranvaginal ultrasounds — before and after women took the pill. Yesterday, before the Senate vote, GOP lawmakers agreed to remove the second ultrasound requirement to ensure the legislation’s passage. Their efforts were successful. Despite bipartisan opposition as four Republican state senators broke from the rest of their party to oppose SB 371, the measure will now advance to the GOP-controlled House:

The bill passed on a 33-16 vote despite a chorus of complaints from opponents who said it’s a step too far into doctors’’offices without improving their patients’ health.

“This bill is not about patient safety. It’s about patient harassment,” said Sen. Vaneta Becker of Evansville, who was one of only four of the Senate’s 37 Republicans to join the 12 Democrats who opposed the bill.

Now, Senate Bill 371 heads to the House, where Republican Speaker Brian Bosma of Indianapolis said he expects it to win passage as well — perhaps after some changes.

And this legislation has another anti-choice provision tucked into it, too. SB 371 also seeks to over-regulate abortion providers — requiring health clinics that prescribe the abortion pill to adhere to all of the same standards as surgical clinics, even though medication abortions are not surgical procedures — which threatens to shut down a Planned Parenthood clinic in the state.

“This bill is directly targeted to Planned Parenthood in Lafayette,” state Sen. Becker (R) pointed out in the debate on the floor. “When you do this, you’re not doing anything that will improve the health and safety of low-income women in the state of Indiana. All you’re doing is forcing them to go other ways — in particular, to the Internet — to get this same particular drug that you’re talking about regulating.”

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Rep. Gutierrez moves from Financial Services Committee to Judiciary for immigration reform

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) is taking a leave of absence from the House Financial Services Committee to serve on the House Judiciary Committee to help pass new immigration reform legislation.

Gutierrez, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Immigration Task Force, recently met with a number of Republican lawmakers who are likely to play a prominent role in upcoming immigration reform negotiations. He discussed immigration reform with both Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in December.

Gutierrez, who was the third-ranking Democrat on the Financial Service Committee, will likely be the 13th ranking Democrat on the Judiciary committee. The move was announced Friday.

President Obama has vowed to make immigration reform a top priority of his second term and already a number of legislators have begun initial talks on immigration reform legislation.

"All of the road signs are pointed in the right direction, and I felt I must be on the Judiciary Committee during this Congress to help the others on the Committee get immigration reform to the finish line," Gutierrez said in a statement. "We are poised for serious action to fix our broken immigration system, a top priority for Democrats, for the Democratic leadership, and for the president, and I have spoken to numerous Republicans in the House and Senate who want to get it done."

Gutierrez thanked the Democratic leadership for approving the move.

"I look forward to working with the chairman and the subcommittee chairmen and the Ranking Member, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), and the Immigration Subcommittee Ranking Leader, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), in crafting bipartisan immigration reform that fixes our broken immigration system," Gutierrez also said in the statement.

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FDA moves closer to approval of GMO fish, critics outraged

* FDA to take comments for 60 days before giving final OK

* Critics seek action from Congress, threaten to sue

Dec 21 (Reuters) - A controversial genetically engineered salmon has moved a step closer to the consumer's dining table after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday the fish didn't appear likely to pose a threat to the environment or to humans who eat it.

AquAdvantage salmon eggs would produce fish with the potential to grow to market size in half the time of conventional salmon. It would be the first food from a transgenic animal - one whose genome has been altered - that has been approved by the FDA.

The AquAdvantage Atlantic salmon egg was developed by AquaBounty Technology,, to speed up production to meet global seafood demand.

In a draft environmental assessment Friday, the FDA affirmed earlier findings that the biotech salmon was not likely to be harmful. It said it would take comments from the public on its report for 60 days before making a final decision on approval.

AquaBounty officials said they were caught by surprise by the FDA's news that it was a step closer to approval, as years of controversy had followed the company's application for the go-ahead from the regulator.

"We are encouraged that the environmental assessment is being released and hope the government continues the science-based regulatory process," said AquaBounty CEO Ronald Stotish.

Critics say the new salmon is a "dangerous experiment" and have pressured FDA to reject the genetically engineered salmon.

They said Friday they may file a lawsuit to prevent what they fear could be imminent approval of the engineered fish on the grounds that the FDA has failed to conduct a thorough assessment and because it wasn't clear if the fish would pose a threat to people who eat it or to wild fish.

They were also concerned the FDA wouldn't require the fish to be labeled.

"Congress can still keep FDA from unleashing this dangerous experiment," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, a consumer advocacy group. "Although this latest FDA decision is a blow to consumer confidence, we encourage everyone to contact their members of Congress and demand this reckless decision be overturned."

The Center for Food Safety, another non-profit consumer protection group, was highly critical of the FDA report, and officials said they might sue the regulator over the issue.

"It is extremely disappointing that the Obama Administration continues to push approval of this dangerous and unnecessary product," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director for Center for Food Safety. "The GE salmon has no socially redeeming value. It's bad for the consumer, bad for the salmon industry and bad for the environment."

FDA spokeswoman Morgan Liscinsky said no final decisions had been made on labeling or on the application for approval.

"The release of these materials is not a decision on whether food from AquAdvantage Salmon requires additional labeling; nor is it a decision on the new animal drug application currently under review. It also does not provide a final food safety determination," Liscinsky said.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Cleaning Up the GOP Moves to Texas

Late last evening came word that House Republicans intend to keep parts of Obamacare. Even if the United States Supreme Court throws the whole law out, House Republicans intend to resurrect portions of Obamacare. House Republicans publicly say the story is wrong. I’ve talked to several House Republicans who tell me the story is actually on the money and the Republicans now denying it are really playing at semantics.

These House Republicans tell me these denials about the accuracy of the story are equivalent to the House GOP semantically arguing it was living up to its Pledge to Nowhere requirement for $100 billion in cuts that actually amounted to something like $34 billion. Conservatives in the House of Representatives tell me explicitly to go with Politico on this and be very wary of the House GOP Leadership when it comes to repeal.

It is a sad time for the Republican Party. The base must treat its leaders as if they are Soviets — trust but verify their statements. And lately, it is harder and harder to verify their statements. The work of the Tea Party must continue or within a decade I honestly do not believe the GOP will be one political party.

In both Indiana and Nebraska, the Tea Party has continued to make gains. People have flat out rejected the establishment favorites for U.S. Senate – Dick Lugar and Jon Bruning, respectively – in favor of candidates who offer a challenge to the status quo.

Will Texans prove what they’re made of and do the same?

I love Texas. But let’s face it – the Texas congressional delegation is mediocre at best and leaves much to be desired.

Now, Texas has the chance to get it right – by sending Ted Cruz to the U.S. Senate. But will they? Maybe. But we have a lot to do and the Republican Primary in Texas is only 2 weeks from today.

But the payoff would be worth it – this is Texas for crying out loud. We’ve been given the opportunity to replace long time thorn in our side, Kay Bailey Hutchison, with an actual honest-to-goodness conservative. Ted Cruz is that conservative. David Dewhurst is not.

The first step is to prevent Dewhurst from getting to 50% on May 29th so that there is a head-to-head run-off between Dewhurst and Cruz in July.

The good news is that last week, Sarah Palin endorsed Cruz – adding to an already impressive list of solid conservatives like Jim DeMint, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Ed Meese, Mark Levin, the Club for Growth, the Madison Project, Gun Owners of America, RedState, and numerous others. These are not “DC insiders” as Dewhurst would have you believe, but strong conservatives who are fighting hard against the status quo and who know that Ted will join with them rather than the establishment.

Given Dewhurst’s rather paltry and almost embarrassing list of endorsements, it was not surprising that his response was to up the ante on spending – increasing his own ad buys, while his SuperPac launched another $1 million ad buy in Houston targeting Ted directly. In fact, while Dewhurst has spent just over $5 million on positive ads about himself – he or his SuperPacs have spent over $4 million on ads specifically going after Ted.

Why? It’s pretty simple – Dewhurst has been polling below 50% consistently despite having statewide name ID for over almost 15 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to throw around. And, he simply has no conservative record to run on. In fact, he would like people to ignore his record of proposed tax increases, higher spending and general incompetence as Lt. Governor. So, they are focusing on lies and distortions about Ted’s record.

The lies are extraordinary and should be ignored. The biggest lie – and one that sadly gained some traction – is that Ted is a “trial lawyer” who represented a Chinese company against an American company, and thus harmed American manufacturing jobs. This is facially absurd. Ted is an appellate lawyer – as Dewhurst well knows because Ted was the Solicitor General for the State of Texas, often fighting for the people of Texas in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. But even more, Ted represented one side of a dispute between two businesses – and the guy Dewhurst claims is an American manufacturer moved his business to China years ago.

The truth is simple. Everyone – and I mean absolutely everyone – in Austin who follows politics knows that David Dewhurst is a squishy moderate. They know he has been a major impediment – along with Joe Straus – to moving conservative reforms. They know he is boring and entirely unpersuasive. They know he is hiding behind the overall record of Governor Perry, who sadly is the lone conservative of any note who has supported Dewhurst… entirely out of loyalty to the man who has served as his Lt. Governor for some 12 years (in other words, don’t make anything of that support).

Meanwhile, Ted has a track record of fighting for conservatism. He has fought against ceding U.S. sovereignty to some unaccountable, leftist World Court… he has fought for religious freedom by successfully defending the placement of the 10 Commandments on the Texas Capitol grounds… and countless other efforts as a lawyer and a fighter for conservative principles.

Most importantly – Ted has sent a clear signal that he will work with conservatives in Washington to fight the establishment. Dewhurst not only will join the establishment – he is the establishment personified.

Texans have a chance to actually do something to change the direction of this country. They should do it, or perhaps we should stop looking to Texas as a leader of conservatism…

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