Freedom Caucus Members Open up and Zero in on Planned Parenthood, Among Other Things

The House Freedom Caucus has been blamed for much in the past few days. After all, most of its members resolutely stood against the GOP’s disastrous attempt at a health care bill, the AHCA.

Of course, President Trump jumped on social media several times to tweet his disapproval of the HFC. How dare they vote against Trumpcare.

The irony is that the Freedom Caucus, which is very pro-life and against Planned Parenthood, allows P.P. to continue if they stop this plan!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2017

The Republican House Freedom Caucus was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. After so many bad years they were ready for a win!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2017

Had the AHCA been worth voting for, the members would have. There is no need to rush passage of a shoddy replacement just so members can help the frustrated president mark something off of his to-do list. Furthermore, the Freedom Caucus members’ refusal to vote for it does not mean we should question their solid, pro-life stances. Defunding Planned Parenthood is a top priority, but it must be done well.

Though still dealing with the immediate aftermath of the AHCA, the Freedom Caucus is already focusing elsewhere – including Planned Parenthood – as Huffington Post reports:

An exhausted Mark Meadows, chairman of the roughly three-dozen-member group, emerged Monday night to pump the brakes on any talk of the Freedom Caucus taking a hard stance right now on the so-called continuing resolution to keep government agencies operating.

“Everybody’s pretty weary right now. I know I am,” Meadows (R-N.C.) said. “And so I think anytime that you’re weary, you’ve got to be careful about two things: One, making a poor decision, and the other is making a quick decision.”

He said the HFC would make a “very methodical decision” in the days and weeks to come on the continuing resolution (CR) and that Planned Parenthood funding would be one of the things conservatives look at. But he made it clear that he was still thinking about the health care bill.

Meadows is exhausted, but other members are pumped up for the next fight.

Plenty of members reported that they weren’t “war weary.”

“I’m not war weary,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) reported. “You ever been shot at before?” (Perry, a brigadier general in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, flew 44 combat missions in Iraq.)

Other members reported that they, too, wouldn’t shy away from a fight, and they promised that personal worries and concerns that their caucus could become a scourge of the GOP wouldn’t factor into their legislative decisions.

“Hopefully you know me well enough to know that I do things almost exclusively on a policy basis, what I believe is best for America,” Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) told HuffPost on Monday night. “And it makes no difference to me who the sponsor of a bill is, who the opponents to a bill may be, or which groups may or may not be behind it.”

Freedom Caucus members will continue to take a hardline stand against disastrous legislation and work toward smartly tackling others. This is sure to invite more negative tweets from the Oval Office as well as scorn from less staunchly conservative groups. They couldn’t care less about that, either.

…some members couldn’t help taking a slight dig at Poe and a larger but more amenable conservative group, the Republican Study Committee.

When Labrador was asked about the Freedom Caucus losing members, Labrador made it clear he looks down upon members who don’t have the fight in them.
“If you don’t want to do the hard work of legislating and taking a position, that’s why we have the RSC,” he said.

I applaud the Freedom Caucus and their unwillingness to compromise. Such a thing would be easy to do in the current Republican-controlled D.C. climate and with a president keen on stirring up his fan base each time he faces opposition.

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