GOP edits Congressional Record to draw ties between Democrats and Child Molesters

[thefncrow]

This is fucking ridiculous.

This is in regards to the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act.

From the GOP's own website:
http://www.gop.gov/Committeecentral/bills/hr748.asp

A description of an amendment offered:

Cong. Scott (VA) will offer an amendment (#4), debatable for 20 minutes. The amendment immunizes taxicab drivers, bus drivers, others in the business of professional transport, doctors, nurses, and/or other medical providers or their staff from the transportation provision of the bill. Contact: 5-8351

Seems something reasonable to debate, no? The idea of not prosecuting a Greyhound bus driver because someone on board was going to another state to get an abortion.

This is the text in the Congressional Record, as written by the majority of the panel:

3. Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution if they are taxicab drivers, bus drivers, or others in the business of professional transport. By a rollcall vote of 13 yeas to 17 nays, the amendment was defeated.

Another such amendment:

Cong. Jackson-Lee/Nadler will offer an amendment (#9), debatable for 20 minutes. The amendment adds to the exceptions to the offense of transporting minors for the purpose of obtaining an illegal abortion grandparents of the minor and members of the clergy. Contact: 5-3816

OK, but, once again, the Congressional Record:

2. Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution under the bill if they were grandparents or adult siblings of a minor. By a rollcall vote of 12 yeas to 19 nays, the amendment was defeated.

There were another 3 amendments offered up which are not on the GOP's site, but nonetheless, seeing what they'd already done to these two, the manipulation is quite clear:

1. Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have created an additional layer of Federal court review that could be used by sexual predators to escape conviction under the bill. By a rollcall vote of 11 yeas to 16 nays, the amendment was defeated.

4. Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted from prosecution under the bill those who aid and abet criminals who could be prosecuted under the bill. By a rollcall vote of 12 yeas to 18 nays, the amendment was defeated.

5. Ms. Jackson-Lee offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution under the bill if they were clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles, or first cousins of a minor, and would require a study by the Government Accounting Office. By a rollcall vote of 13 yeas to 20 nays, the amendment was defeated.

But, of course, we cannot be too hasty. So, Partisan Scumbag Sensenbrenner, why exactly did your committee alter the record in such a way?

From the AP Wire:

Democrats complained that their efforts to soften the bill, for example, by exempting from prosecution adult siblings and grandparents who help pregnant minors, were described in the GOP-authored committee report as efforts to protect "sexual predators."

Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., who authored the panel's report, defended its language, saying the Democratic amendments would not have specifically excluded child molesters from protections.

"Perhaps these amendments were not properly drafted by the authors when they were submitted in the committee," Sensenbrenner told the House. "That's not the fault of the majority, that's the fault of the people who drafted the amendment."

Ah yes. Rather than, I don't know, reporting the truth, its better to make strawmen out of your opponents views and submit these strawmen as the truth.

There are some crazy assholes here, but I'd like to see even one of you defend this pile of shit.

EDIT: D'oh. I wrote "child molesters" when I meant "sexual predators". I'm still out of it after a painful exam today.

[Funkenstein]

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.

[tricky]

i'm suprised some of you havent rushed to the republican defense.....