House Republicans appear more interested in abortion and transgender issues than national defense!

ABC reports, "The Senate left Washington for the August recess late Thursday night after passing its version of a massive defense policy bill, teeing up what promises to be a massive fight with the House over the legislation this fall.

"The National Defense Authorization Act is considered must-pass legislation. Congress has cleared it every year for over 60 years. This year, though, the House and Senate passed vastly different versions of the bill after GOP-hardliners in the House attached several hot-button amendments to their national defense legislation, putting the chambers on track for a major collision this fall. They will need to grapple with discrepancies on a number of contentious culture-war issues such as abortion and gender health care.

"The version of the bill that the Senate voted on Thursday night is an $886 billion defense bill that includes provisions to counter China -- a top priority for Democrats -- and extends aid for Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia. The end result was a broadly bipartisan bill that sailed through final passage by a vote of 86-11.

"It was a different story in the House, where House Speaker Kevin McCarthy led Republicans to successfully include amendments in the package that targeted abortion and gender-affirming care for service members."

I have no words.

 

The republicans are attacking parts of the bill which pays for abortion and gender-affirming care for service because that is not something the military should be doing. The military's job is defend this country, not get involved in social issues. Those issues tend to detract and divide the military rather than encouraging a cohesive fighting force.

 

Gender affirming care, and even less contestably, abortive services, are healthcare.

 

They aren't attacking portions of the bill, they're adding unrelated bullshit to it.

 

Generally people are not allowed into the service when expensive medical care is likely.

 

So, someone like, say, Tammy Duckworth who needed to undergo fertility treatment, THEY would be denied? Ye gods this is so different from here I Aus. If I had n accident at Birdsville I would be flown free of charge to Brisbane for care - look at the map and work out how far apart those two points are.

 

There is no such thing, in this country, as "cheap" medical care-- it's all expensive. So, relatively speaking, abortive services are rather inexpensive. For the majority, if you hadn't heard, it requires only taking some pills. So much for that.

Just because someone is a woman-- it would not be accurate to say that an abortion, while they were in the military, was "likely." So your first argument, goes down in flames.

I'm sure, though, you will be throwing in some more, imaginative excuses, to support your cause.

 

You mean you don't think there's a way to counter China without buying abortions and sex changes? Cuz that sounds pretty silly...

 

You might want to think this thought through.

 

The democrats jeapordized the defense of our country for social issues. We have a military for national defense, not to further social issues. The democrats should have wrote a bill without these issues and then submitted them as a supplemental bill.

Rather than doing it that way, they are jeapordizing our national defense because they knew some republicans would object to the bill as written.

Try being honest. They are separate issues and should be treated as such.

 

Sorry no. This is on Republicans and one stubborn arse who does not know healthcare from the hole in his bum. You have states that will not allow abortions for threatened or partial miscarriage and women are dying or losing reproductive ability because of these restrictions. Maternal mortality is rising

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/03/17/fbiu-m17.html



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_mortality_in_the_United_States

 

As a person who supports choice, within reason, I wish the Republicans would not spend their time on this.

Conversely, if you go into the military to get you genitals modified, I am 100% in favor of discharging you from the service immediately. Such people are a waste of Defense Department money. If you need to have that work done, go back to the private sector.

The worst of all was that Manning person who exposed our military secrets to the enemy. In his case, I would have supported “getting medieval on his ass.” If he didn’t want his junk any more, he could end up like British king Edward II’s second boy friend. Let’s put it this way. What the British did to William Wallace in Brave Heart was merciful.

 

This was not in previous defense bills. The democrats knew the republicans would reject it. It is a separate issue and should be treated as such. The democrats are the one who are jeopardizing our national defense and they knew this is what would happen. They wanted the republicans to do exactly what the republicans did.

 

This is one of the huge problems with many Congressional appropriation bills. The bozos stick a bunch of riders in the bill which forces thoughtful representatives to vote for crap they don’t want. If they complain about it, you get garbage, like this editorial, that claims Republicans are threatening our national defense.

 

You are reversing the facts. The only reason that there is a need to guarantee that the healthcare needs of female soldiers will not be ignored, is because of Republican laws, severely limiting, to the point of essentially banning, abortion-- as in states which no longer have any providers of abortion services, because they have been persecuted with onerous regulations (not to mention, faced ongoing threats of violence). There is no "social issue" which Democrats are pushing, here: the changing social issue is being pushed by Republicans, ever since (& even before) the Supreme Court ruled that abortion falls outside of federal jurisdiction, and is for each state to legislate for itself.

It even seems that some Republicans-- and your comments, implying that females' ability to get pregnant should be considered a liability of all of that sex, are in keeping with this idea-- are trying to reverse our policy of allowing women in the military. Protecting the rights of those women, then, is not "jeopardizing...(our nation's) defense, for social issues;" rather, it is those who are making abortion into an issue over women in our armed forces, who are elevating their concern with this social issue, above our national defense.

I can only end, then, by repeating your own words, back to you: try being honest. State abortion changes are the "separate issue," from members of our federal military, receiving the long accepted standard of medical care, regardless of the state, in which they happen to be stationed.

 

I am less hard over on the abortion issue, but the democrats wrote the law including both abortion and transgender issues. A person entering the military is at an age where they already know whether they have a transgender issue. The military should not be used as the vehicle for making those transformations.

Therefore, I will modify my position slightly. The national defense bill should be passed without either of these social issues. Then have two separate supplemental bills. One for abortion and one for transgender issues.

I will repeat. It was pure dishonesty that the democrats included those two issues. The democrats were looking for a win regardless of what the republicans did. Either make the republicans look bad or get what they want.

 

Our defense budget is bloated and isn't for defense but support for proxy wars, bombing non-white civilians and weapons systems and nukes we don't need. Like the gender mutilation racket war is profitable. Meanwhile veterans get shafted and have to deal with our 3rd world health care system. And democrats don't want the weapons we are given to Ukraine audited.

 

The military does not pay for abortions. It pays for travel expenses to get an abortion because a number of Rwpublican states have banned abortions after six weeks.

Yes, I know. Republicans like yourself are opposed to health care for transgenders. That's part of my point. This belongs in a bill to pay for our nation's defense?

Transgenders are a sad lot. They are really screwed up, and it is not be choice. These pathetic people make up about 0.6% of our population, and, yet, Republicans have made them a target.

The fact that the leader of the Republican Party is really screwed up may have something to do with it. Trump is facing two criminal trials plus, most likely. two more very soon. He probably directed attacks on the poor transgenders to get the public's mind off his criminal record while running for President.

 

I agree. Republicans are very silly.

 

[QUOTE="kriman, post: 1074348516, member: 78032"]I will repeat. It was pure dishonesty that the democrats included those two issues.[/QUOTE]

No one has any idea what you are talking about.

"It was a different story in the House, where House Speaker Kevin McCarthy led Republicans to successfully include amendments in the package that targeted abortion and gender-affirming care for service members," ABC news.

 

I am not opposed to health care for anyone.

The military does not usually take someone with a medical condition which requires expensive treatment. It is both expensive and it sidelines the individual during treatment.

Nothing you said changes my position. Congress needs to pass a defense bill which only deals with national defense. Vote separately on supplemental bills on abortion and transgender issues.

 

It is not complicated. The democrats were well aware that the republicans would not agree to a defense bill which included abortion and transgender care. But they jeopardized national defense and included them anyway and then blamed republicans for jeopardizing national defense.

 

"It was a different story in the House, where House Speaker Kevin McCarthy led Republicans to successfully include amendments in the package that targeted abortion and gender-affirming care for service members," ABC news.

It is so typical of Republicans. When faced with unpleasant facts, change the subject.

 

I have no words, either. Leftists who care about national defense? Amazing!

 

While your objection to the transgender part is certainly defendable, your revision of your position, is not. That is, from what you'd just stated, the logical "compromise" would be to pass the bill with only the abortion rider, and to slate the transgender part, for a separate debate. It was a silly argument you'd made, acting as if it would be reasonable for Democrats to essentially throw in the towel, on both issues (even the one, you are "less hard over"), because with a Republican House majority, and a filibuster in the Senate, it is a certainty, both supplemental bills would fail.

It is only the fact that Republicans do have some sense of the importance of passing a defense spending bill, which gives Democrats any leverage, here. Again, if Republicans had not been using their own leverage, first, to try to stop the military's attending to all of female soldiers' medical needs, we wouldn't be in this position.

Your position is also a manifestly partisan one, because this situation is *analogous to the need to pass an overall government budget/spending bill. Has your opinion, when this has come up, been that Republicans, if they were responsible, should pass a clean bill on spending/raising the Debt Limit, and then should "have... separate supplemental bills," on addressing our government debt?

I didn't think so.