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US Senator Johnny Isakson, who was recovering from back surgery, is wheeled away from the Senate chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday.

WASHINGTON Senate Republicans on Thursday continued to roll back Obama-era regulations, approving a bill that restores the right of states to starve local Planned Parenthood chapters of federal funds.

But it wasnt easy, as they took extraordinary measures to pass the bill when yet another fissure opened up in GOP ranks.

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To notch the victory on a key ideological goal of Christian conservatives, GOP leaders had to summon a cavalry consisting of Vice President Mike Pence and a senator who had been at home in Georgia recuperating after spinal surgery.

Pence cast a rare tie-breaking vote not once, but twice, to get the family planning measure across the congressional finish line and onto President Trumps desk for an expected signature. Far from a resounding legislative victory, Thursdays passage of the Planned Parenthood bill revealed just how fragile the Republicans Senate majority really is.

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Two of the five women in the Senate GOP caucus Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted no on the procedural motion, joining a united Democratic caucus and imperiling the bill.

The measure would undo a rule preventing states from blocking funding for family planning clinics that also provide abortions.

The Republicans needed 51 votes to clear the procedural hurdle. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell held the vote open for an hour Thursday morning, as he waited for Republican Senator Johnny Isakson, flying in Thursday from his home state of Georgia, to land and rush over from the airport.

Recovering from two back surgeries, the most recent performed on March 15, Isakson had gotten clearance from his doctor to return to Washington Thursday for one day only, said a spokeswoman. He used a walker to navigate the Senate floor. Elsewhere, he was seen being pushed in a wheelchair by an aide.

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Then Pence swept in, with a smile, as he cast the needed 51st vote to push the bill forward. It was the second time Pence, in his role as president of the Senate, cast the deciding vote in barely two months. For comparison, former vice president Joe Biden never cast a tie-breaking vote.

By 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Pence had cast a third. The bill was approved on final passage, again by a vote of 51-to-50.

The showdown highlights that the GOP call to strip funding from Planned Parenthood is not a political slam dunk for every member of the party.

I dont think that we should be doing anything to be backtracking on access to health care for women, said Murkowski after the final vote.

Collins was even more blunt. If youre serious about trying to reduce the number of abortions, the best way to do that is to make family planning more widely available, she said after casting her final no vote against the bills passage.

Theres already a law on the books that bans any federal tax dollars from going to fund abortions at Planned Parenthood or any health care provider. Beyond that existing law, Collins said, I personally believe that it is not appropriate to put restrictions on the use of family planning money.

At issue Thursday was so-called Title X family planning funding that goes to clinics to provide low-income and uninsured women with contraception, fertility services, cervical cancer treatment, and screenings for sexually transmitted disease.

The legislation passed by the Senate enables states to revive policies diverting those federal funds from Planned Parenthood clinics, or to enact new restrictions. Conservatives argue that no taxpayer money should go to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood for any services.

Both Murkowski and Collins hail from states with large rural populations, where Planned Parenthood is sometimes the only provider of womens health services, supporters say.

Republicans supporting rolling back the Title X regulation cast it as an issue of states rights, though no GOP senators rose to defend the measure during the block of debate time.

I just cant believe theyre doing this, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said in a brief interview after the vote. She said the impact on Massachusetts is likely to be nonexistent because she doesnt think state lawmakers will move to block funds from Planned Parenthood or other providers, but it will hurt people in other parts of the country.

After the final vote, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, lead author of the Senate repeal measure, said if Washington and Massachusetts want to continue giving federal funding to Planned Parenthood in their states, theyre free to do so. The rollback merely empowers states over a Washington knows best mentality, she said.

Senate Democrats took full advantage of the opportunity to portray Republicans as going to great lengths to hold together a vote that would prevent women from getting essential health care services.

Amazing what GOP leaders will do to make sure womens health centers dont get funded, tweeted New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a possible 2020 Democratic presidential contender

Today as a woman I am angry, Washington Senator Patty Murray, the third-ranking Senate Democrat, said on the floor. She warned that Republicans who vote against women and with their extreme base today ... will be held accountable.

Conservatives have been champing at the bit to gut funding for Planned Parenthood now that Republicans control all the levers of power in Washington. They secured changes to the House GOP health bill that would have yanked funding from Planned Parenthood for a year, before that health bill went down in flames.

GOP leaders needed just a simple majority on both votes for the family planning bill as opposed to the usual 60 needed to clear a filibuster because they were acting under an obscure law called the Congressional Review Act. It gets around a filibuster but can only be used to repeal regulations issued in the last several months of a previous administration.

Now that they have a GOP president in the White House, congressional Republicans have effectively killed off seven regulations with the CRA, including regulations keeping coal companies from dumping waste into streams and waterways and a rule requiring the Social Security Administration to report to the federal firearms background check system when some beneficiaries have been deemed mentally impaired.

Using the CRA, Congress this week sent Trump a resolution overturning an internet privacy rule that bars Verizon, Comcast, and other providers from selling users browser history without their permission.

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Senate Republicans scramble to muster votes targeting Planned Parenthood - The Boston Globe

President Trump has lashed out at the conservative House Freedom Caucus for its role in bringing down the GOP health care bill, while House Speaker Paul Ryan is urging the party to work together. Getty Images hide caption

President Trump has lashed out at the conservative House Freedom Caucus for its role in bringing down the GOP health care bill, while House Speaker Paul Ryan is urging the party to work together.

President Trump escalated a Twitter war with lawmakers in his own party on Thursday evening, calling out three members of the Freedom Caucus by name.

"If @RepMarkMeadows, @Jim_Jordan and @Raul_Labrador would get on board we would have both great healthcare and massive tax cuts & reform," he tweeted.

The attack follows an earlier 140-character missive aimed at both the Freedom Caucus and Democrats. It's a curious tactic, given that Trump's only two options to pass his agenda through Congress are to either unite the fractured GOP or to form new alliances across the aisle.

"The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!" Trump tweeted on Thursday morning.

It did not change hearts or minds.

"Freedom Caucus stood with u when others ran. Remember who your real friends are. We're trying to help u succeed," replied Rep. Ral Labrador, R-Idaho, a member of the group of conservatives who helped take down the GOP health care bill.

The public and personal feuding among Republicans percolated throughout the U.S. Capitol this week as GOP confidence in their party's ability to govern alongside the Trump administration is shaken.

"It's clear that tensions are running high," said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. "I believe we can come together, and the only way for us to govern and deliver on our promises is for Republicans not to turn the cannons on each other, but stand united behind shared principles, and that's what I hope all of us do."

The White House has provoked congressional Republicans further in recent days by suggesting he'll just go around them and cut deals with Democrats instead.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., tried to head off any potential alliance, telling CBS: "I don't want that to happen." Ryan's reasoning correctly is that if the president needs Democrats to pass major legislation, it will be a lot less conservative than anything the speaker hopes to enact in the next two years.

Ryan was more conciliatory toward the president than Labrador.

"This is a can-do president, who's a business guy, who wants to get things done, and I know that he wants to get things done with a Republican Congress," Ryan told CBS. "But if this Republican Congress allows the perfect to be the enemy of the good, I worry we'll push the president into working with the Democrats. He's suggested as much."

Across the Capitol, Ryan's argument did not impress at least one prominent fellow Republican. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn. called out Ryan, again on Twitter: "We have come a long way in our country when the speaker of one party urges a president NOT to work with the other party to solve a problem."

House Republicans' health care failure has left Senate Republicans wondering if they need to shoulder more of the legislative burden. In that event, Democrats will be integral to the process because of the 60-vote hurdle to do most of the legislating in the Senate.

For their part, Democrats say they are ready if not exactly excited to work with the president. "We say, 'any time, anywhere,' " House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters on Thursday. "We never stand in the way of anyone meeting with a Democratic or a Republican president."

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., chairs the New Democrat Coalition, a faction of about four dozen business-friendly Democrats that, in theory, stand ready to work with the president on certain agenda items, like infrastructure spending. But Himes hasn't heard from the president. "No, the White House has not reached out," he said. "We're totally willing to engage in that, provided that it's consistent with our values."

Himes also said the burden to extend the olive branch rests on the other side of the aisle. "Look, these guys run the show now. They've got the Oval Office, they've got the Senate and the House. If they're interesting in having our support, it's kind of on them to come to us."

At least in the short term, Republicans have decided they need to work with Democrats to keep the government open. The federal government faces a shutdown on April 28 unless Congress enacts another stopgap spending bill or passes the remaining annual spending bills.

Seeking to head off another shutdown fight, GOP leaders and the appropriations committees are working behind the scenes on a bill to enact the remaining 11 spending bills at previously agreed to spending levels that conservatives opposed in the past. They are also looking to separate out the president's funding request to start building a U.S.-Mexico border wall, and the speaker has indicated Republicans will not add in "poison pill" policy riders on things like defunding Planned Parenthood.

All of those concessions are intended to bring Democrats on board to make sure Congress can pass the legislation. The end result is a less conservative vision of how Congress should spend the nation's money. If it works, it might also provide a framework for how this Congress will work going forward.

More here:
Republicans 'Turn The Cannons On Each Other' In Week Of Public Feuding - NPR

New York Magazine

House Republicans to Trump: Steal All You Want New York Magazine Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee voted this week not to compel the release of President Trump's tax returns. And Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, who claimed before the election that he had years of ... and more »

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House Republicans to Trump: Steal All You Want - New York Magazine

Stephen Morton/Getty Images

Here are two things you can bet money on: There will always be an interpretation of a Bible verse to justify just about anything, and that interpretation will most times be found by a white, male Republican. The latest biblical verse being used to justify cuts to SNAP, aka food stamps, is Thessalonians 3-10.

[T]he Scripture tells us ... for even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: If a man will not work, he shall not eat, Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) said during a House of Representatives hearing on nutrition, according to the Washington Posts Wonkblog. Arrington continued: And then he goes on to say, We hear that some among you are idle. I think that every American, Republican or Democrat, wants to help the neediest among us. And I think its a reasonable expectation that we have work requirements. I think ... that gives more credibility, quite frankly, to SNAP.

Arrington isnt even original, as Wonkblog points out. Hes the third Republican to use the hot biblical verse to justify gutting the public assistance program. Of course, many Republicans believe the myth that the majority of people on public assistance are merely freeloaders just trying to take the system for a ride. The Post points out that many people on SNAP cant work, either because they dont have job skills, theyre mentally ill or disabled, or theyre children who have recently aged out of foster care. But when have Republicans ever let facts stop them?

No one is suggesting that people who dont want to work should get benefits,Josh Protas, the vice president of public policy at MAZON, told Wonkblog. There are stereotypes about SNAP recipients and myths about the program that are very harmful to people in need who could take advantage of it.

The Post also notes that the unemployed make up a small percentage of those who actually use SNAP: According to the Department of Agriculture [pdf], nearly two-thirds of SNAP recipients are children, seniors and people with disabilities. Of the remaining third, the vast majority are employed. According to the USDA, only 14 percent of all SNAP participants work less than 30 hours per week.

And as USA Today reports, recipients get between a lousy $1.40 and $1.90 per meal.

But yes, lets all band together and take that from them because the Biblewhich also promotes kindness, generosity, love; you know, all the basic tenets of being a nondeplorablesupposedly says so.

Read more at Wonkblog and USA Today.

More here:
The Hot Bible Verse That Republicans Use to Justify Drastic Cuts to Food Stamps - The Root

Will Republicans learn the limits of oppositional politics? - BBC News BBC News Is the Republican healthcare bill a single failure or the symptom of a party that's turned itself into a protest movement? and more »

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Will Republicans learn the limits of oppositional politics? - BBC News - BBC News