Senate advances bill to avert USA government shutdown

Planned Parenthood will make its first congressional appearance today since the release of undercover videos. The videos show Planned Parenthood officials discussing the transfer of fetal tissue to researchers.

Chaffetz said that the group’s infusion of federal money lets it use its non-federal dollars for politics. Reid pointed to the joy of a few Senate Republicans at the retirement of Speaker of the House John Boehner – including two he said were running for president who cheered when they heard the news – as an example of the party’s resistance to compromise.

Outside Washington, the videos have been one of the dominant issues from the campaign trail to state capitols.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Republicans want to shift Planned Parenthood’s federal funding to community health centers – “take the money from the guys who are doing the bad things” and give it to groups that are not. In a statement released Monday, Missouri’s Attorney General announced that there was “no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Planned Parenthood‘s St. Louis facility is selling fetal tissue“.

Richards said she is “proud” of its provision of fetal tissue for research but also sought to minimize the organ donations as a small part of its work.

The videos were repeatedly referenced during both Republican presidential debates in recent weeks, as several 2016 hopefuls have urged their colleagues to defund the organization.

“It’s a political organization and that’s something that needs to be ferreted out”, Chaffetz said of the organization that benefits from hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, mostly through Medicaid and family planning reimbursements for providing health services to low-income women.

In 2013, a partisan brawl over funding for Obama’s signature health care law halted most federal operations for 16 days.

Emily Hein, a George Washington University student and Planned Parenthood volunteer, said her group was within about 15 people from the front of the line, which wrapped around the hallway.

“I’m glad that we are on the verge of avoiding another Republican-sponsored shutdown of the federal government, and that cooler heads are prevailing”, said Democratic Leader Harry Reid. As a response Planned Parenthood has declared Tuesday “National Pink Out Day” in 28 American cities, offering supporters free testing for sexually transmitted diseases. Planned Parenthood and its defenders say it’s done nothing illegal and says that Daleiden dishonestly edited the videos to distort what was said. Kate Kelly, a human rights lawyer and the former leader of a group pushing to ordain women in the Mormon church, also has joined Planned Parenthood as a legal advisor. “In this event, however, we would seriously question the grounds for concluding that no violations have occurred”, the senators wrote in the letter, which was sent on Monday but released Tuesday.

Once the dust settled around 6:15 p.m., Cruz dug in for more than hour of his classic hits on D.C., channeling his base’s “volcanic” frustration with Republican congressional leadership via Planned Parenthood, the Iran nuclear deal and the Barack Obama administration.