Many suspect the cutoff is linked to the abortion debate. Komen has been under fire by anti-abortion activists, after its connection to the pro-choice organization was publicized.

I’ve ruined the trademark CBS subtlety by marking in bold the network’s refusal to frame the debate as “pro-life” vs. “pro-choice,” or “pro-abortion” vs. “anti-abortion.” Pro-lifers should be glad the reporter didn’t label Live Action and its allies “anti-choice,” I guess!

Unyielding sympathy for Planned Parenthood isn’t limited to fossilized media outlets and your NPR-loving Facebook friends. Many of the senators and representatives up for reelection this fall support abortion so strongly, they’ve voted repeatedly to make you pay for it.

The following Senate incumbents’ races are rated Toss Up or Lean D by The Cook Political Report.

All five of these incumbent Democrat senators are rated 100% by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

Among the extreme pro-abortion votes earning Bill Nelson (FL), Claire McCaskill (MO), Sherrod Brown (OH), Debbie Stabenow (MI), and Jon Tester (MT) their perfect Planned Parenthood scores:

• All five voted against SCHIP language which, in Planned Parenthood’s words, “unnecessarily personified the fetus.” March 14, 2008, Allard Amendment to S. Con. Res. 70, Roll Call vote 81
• All five voted against reinstating the Mexico City policy, which – until President Obama abolished it by executive order – prohibited federal funding of foreign abortion providers. January 28, 2009, Martinez Amendment to H.R. 2; Roll Call vote 19
• All five voted against preventing Obamacare from subsidizing abortion coverage. December 8, 2009, Nelson-Hatch Amendment to H.R. 3590, Roll Call vote 369
• All five voted against ending federal funding of Planned Parenthood. April 14th, 2011, H. Con. Res. 36, Roll Call vote 60

With Obamacare looming larger every day, conservative voters must remember what Planned Parenthood is all about – and recognize how far outside the mainstream the group’s enablers are. Susan G. Komen for the Cure is right to stop funneling donations to the nation’s top abortion provider, and it’s past time for Congress to do the same with taxpayer funds.

If you live in Montana, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, or Florida, help make your incumbent Democrat senator’s pro-abortion record known by all!

Follow Jason on Twitter: @jasonahart

The popular press is lauding liberal Democrats for having finally found their own voice in the Occupy Wall Street protests. And Missouri’s Democratic Senator, Claire McCaskill, did not even show up for President Obama’s (who polls below 30% in MO) fundraiser in St. Louis. And a rumor is circulating that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has told Obama he cannot win passage of the jobs bill as proposed and will only take it in pieces to the Senate floor, thus distancing himself from the President.

Does anyone need to know anything else about the 2012 elections?

The problem for decades in Washington has been that lawmakers, Republican and Democrat, have spent their way to political success. Now that there is no more money, nobody knows what to do.  In fact, there is only one Congressman, Darrell Issa (R-CA) who has started (not inherited) a successful company that sold a product and wasn’t just in the service industry, law, accounting, insurance, medicine, banking, you get the idea.  The genesis of American capitalism is an agrarian society taking the risks necessary to make something from nothing and selling it.  He is likely the only one that has made the sacrifices necessary to build something from nothing, and make a profit.  The concept is that without actual profit you can’t spend money.  Everyone else, Democrat and Republican more resembles the Occupy Wall Street group who want to tell everyone where money should be spent, decisions based on personal interests and taxes, not capitalism.  The situation is exacerbated by the contempt and lack of cooperation between the congressional parties, as well as between members of Congress of both parties and the executive.

For some time, the question of when that animosity began has gone unanswered. Certainly there have always been hard-fought ideological battles in the halls of government. But there have also been famous relationships between party leaders, relationships that helped bring these leaders and the country together. When did our modern politics deteriorate so much? Recently a longtime friend and Washington insider suggested that it began with the defeat of the nomination of Judge Robert Bork, the highly respected and superbly qualified candidate, for the Supreme Court.

Within 45 minutes of the nomination’s announcement, the late Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) took to the Senate floor with a strong condemnation of Bork. In a nationally televised speech, Kennedy declared, “Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.”

This was closely followed by the so-called Biden Report (that’s right, our Vice President and then-Head of the Senate Judiciary Committee). Bork later said in his best-selling book The Tempting of America that the report “so thoroughly misrepresented a plain record that it easily qualifies as world class in the category of scurrility.” For the next several months it was very ugly. When Judge Bork was finally defeated, the Republicans had blood in their eyes for payback.

It has been going on like that ever since. They killed one of ours, so we killed two of theirs, so they killed four of ours, and we killed eight of theirs, etc. The political killing has been going on now for so many decades, just like the Middle East, nobody can remember who started what and nobody trusts anyone in the other tribe. We “ordinary people” just keep getting kicked around by both parties.

Other countries would send in their military or ask the UN or USA to send theirs, but in the best tradition of what makes America great, the people have risen up, emulating our ancestors, and formed their own militia. Without arms but loaded with a healthy belief in America, the Tea Party is here to stay, and it is no wonder the political establishment is afraid.

It is worth noting that while Washington continues its dysfunctional behavior, city and state governments are starting to act responsibly. This has happened in spite of party divisions. That success is a reflection of just how strong the people in this country are. Very plainly, the cure from our woes will come from the American people on a local level, not the federal bureaucrats.

And yet, in spite of the accomplishments, the level of the Tea Party’s disgust with Washington politicians is a real reason for concern. I am not suggesting that some national politicians don’t deserve contempt, but I am concerned that injudicious expressions of anger may be our undoing, as it was in the 2010 Nevada Senate race. Somehow we have to find politicians with new answers. We need men and women who will unite the people, just as Ronald Reagan did with his Big Tent.

In a recent article discussing his hope for Governor Christie announcing his candidacy for President, Clark S. Judge, a speechwriter for Presidents Reagan and Bush, discusses how important it is to find a candidate who will embrace and energize the three legs of our electorate coalition — voters who give priority to economics, those most concerned about social issues and those who focus on national security . The article is worth reading and thinking about.

I hope the Democrats have found their voice in the Occupy Wall Street protests. I am happy with the voice of the Tea Party and hope we can find a candidate who will unite the people around sound principles. Sound principles mean economics based on capitalism, national security based on “don’t f__k with us”, and compassionate social policies that help people who can’t help themselves and people down on their luck but that do not support them forever.

From The Hill:

The Senate will hold a test vote Tuesday evening on a Democratic plan to repeal several tax breaks for the big five oil companies.

The plan would repeal an estimated $21 billion worth of incentives over a decade from Exxon, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips and Chevron.

The vote on a motion to formally proceed to the bill will require support from 60 senators, and it faces big hurdles amid widespread opposition from Republicans and Democrats from oil producing states.

Because, as is noted, Republicans and several Democrats oppose the legislation, the measure could well fail.

However, Sen. Menendez, Sen. McCaskill and others up for re-election in 2012 have been pushing hard for it, apparently unworried about angering voters and aiding their eventual opponents by generating a steady stream of attack ad material.

McCaskill Pre-Shepard Personal and Finance Section

Fortunately for Missouri voters, AirClaire is up for reelection in 2012.

The Senate on Wednesday voted down a repeal of President Obama’s healthcare law in a 47-51 party-line vote.

The vote came two weeks to the day the Republican House voted 245-189 to repeal the law, and just days after a federal judge ruled Obama’s signature legislative achievement is unconstitutional.

Republicans have vowed to carry the fight forward, saying they will seek to de-fund the law as it is implemented. The GOP also has promised Wednesday’s repeal vote will not be the last in this Congress.

The vote came on a budgetary point of order, which Republicans needed 60 votes to overcome. Democrats argued repealing healthcare would add an estimated $230 billion to the deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) called that estimate “preposterous.”

McConnell was trying to add an amendment repealing the healthcare law to legislation reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration.

Neither the result nor vote breakdown were surprises. No Democrats in attendance voted in favor of the measure and no Republicans rejected it. Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) were absent for the vote.

Read the whole thing here. Unlike the members who opposed repeal in the House, the Senators voted against repeal just days after a federal judge ruled the entire law unconstitutional. The should be held accountable.

Sorry, Claire, this was no “love pat.”

Warning: Graphic Language

Ohio Woman Describes Sexual Assault:

“She patted down my arms, my back, my lower back. Then she proceeded to go around my waste band with her fingers inside my waste band. She did tell me she was going to do that. After that she gave me no instruction during the pat-down. She then proceeded to touch my buttocks on both sides with the palm of her hand. She then moved around to the front. Touched the tops of my breasts and underneath my breasts. Again, she gave no instruction that she was going to do that. Then she moved to the bottom of my legs moving all the way up my inner thighs touching my private areas and again she did not tell me that she was going to touch me in any of those places.”

Anyone with any decency knows that what this woman described is a form of sexual assault. Anyone who has ever traveled to Israel knows that this assault on ordinary Americans is totally unnecessary.

President Obama is looking to fill out the six-member Federal Election Commission (see recent pro-SEIU FEC decision) with someone he can count on to support his views on campaign law.  It is not surprising he turned to his friend Andy Stern’s union Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  Obama has appointed SEIU lawyer John Sullivan, who was intertwined in the Clinton/DNC/McAuliffe/Teamster scandal that resulted in Jimmy Hoffa’s ascension to the Teamster throne, but for over a year the nomination remains in political limbo.

Could it be that Obama appointees have finally reached such a level of ethical absurdity that even the Obama allies in the Senate are pulling back?

Sullivan was a lawyer for Teamster President Ron Carey when he was convicted of laundering Teamster forced-dues and fees through the Democratic [sic] National Committee.  He also served as SEIU’s lawyer for its 527 Federal Election Campaign Committee, “America Coming Together (ACT),” that received the second largest fine in Federal Election Commission (FEC) history.

While these facts render this appointment truly absurd, it is also appears unlikely that ethical concerns are the underlying issue in the appointment delay.

Here’s an update provided by the Center for Public Integrity in May 2010:

One full year after being nominated to the Federal Election Commission, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) lawyer John J. Sullivan is still waiting for Senate confirmation, caught in a dispute over other nominations for the agency. As a result of the standoff, the Obama administration has yet to put any stamp on the FEC.

In fact, this month when Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri unsuccessfully sought unanimous consent to confirm a long list of held-up nominees, she did not include Sullivan. When the Republican Minority Whip inquired as to why his name was skipped over, she blamed a fellow Democrat for the hold.

The Center contacted Sullivan, still working at SEIU, to ask him where the nomination stands. “I honestly don’t know,” he replied. He said McCain and Feingold have been clear that their concern is not with him, but with the lack of other nominations for the commission, and noted that he keeps in touch with the White House but “nothing’s really changed so there’s not a lot to talk about.”

Yet important questions remain. Why has the administration not nominated anyone to fill the other two seats? Why has Sen. Reid not attempted to force a vote on the Sullivan nomination? Why are Sens. Feingold and McCain continuing to hold up the nomination when doing so has not spurred the administration to action?

Calls to the White House press office and the offices of Senators Feingold, McCain, and Reid were not returned.

It would be interesting to know for certain why the nomination of SEIU’s Sullivan remains in limbo.