Those who have heard about the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act — which just passed the House and received an endorsement from President Bush — may wonder how the bill muscled its way through with such glaring problems. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) provided a possible reason: Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and his staff apparently perverted the captions of five amendments in order to “distort their meaning and intent.” You are likely to see a pattern to his strategy…

Original Amendment: A Nadler amendment allows an adult who could be prosecuted under the bill to go to a Federal district court and seek a waiver to the state’s parental notice laws if this remedy is not available in the state court.

Sensenbrenner’s Translation: 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.
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Original Amendment: A Nadler amendment to exempt a grandparent or adult sibling from the criminal and civil provisions in the bill.

Sensenbrenner’s Translation: 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. Read more

Last night, President Bush talked about cutting Social Security benefits for “people who are better off.” Who are these people? Bush adopted a proposal created by a guy named Richard Posen called “progressive price indexing.” That proposal would cut benefits for everyone except “the bottom 30 percent of earners, or those who make less than about $20,000 currently.”

So now people who “are better off” are defined as anyone earning over $20,000 a year. This is a dramatic change from the rhetoric Bush used to promote his tax cuts. A 3/8/01 White House fact sheet entitled “President’s Tax Relief Plan Gives Greatest Relief to Lowest Income Taxpayers,” touts that the “share of income taxes paid is reduced for all income groups below $100,000 in income.”

So to sell his tax cuts, Bush implied that anything under $100,000 was “low income.” Now, to sell his Social Security package, anything over $20,000 is “better off.”

President Bush, “who comments on only a small fraction of bills that pass either chamber [of Congress],” took the rare step of endorsing the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act and urging the Senate to take up the bill. The legislation would make it a “federal crime — complete with possible fines and jail sentences — for doctors or other adults to help patients under 18 evade parental-notification requirements by crossing state lines for an abortion.” The right’s reflexive reaction to anyone in opposition of this bill is to echo the same words that they used to champion the bill: it is a “recognition of parental authority.” But courtesy of the ACLU, here are just a few of the very justified concerns about the legislation:

No Exceptions: The bill “does not contain any exception whatsoever for when an abortion is necessary to protect a young woman’s health. It thus bars a teen from obtaining a medically necessary abortion unless she is able to comply with the bill’s tangled requirements.” [For understandable reasons, the Supreme Court established a precedent that "any parental restriction on abortion must contain an exception to protect the health of a minor." Again, this bill contains no such exception.]

No Exceptions, Part Two: The bill would make it a federal crime for any person other than a parent to “help a teen cross certain state lines for an abortion.” There is no exception for other family members — aunts and uncles, siblings, or grandparents — social workers, nor clergy members.

The Fake Exception: The bill provides “no safety net for the most vulnerable teens.” Its so-called exception for “teen victims of certain forms of abuse only applies if the young woman ‘declares in a signed written statement that she is the victim of abuse,’” even though many abuse victims are too ashamed or scared to do such a thing. Even then, the “bill requires the doctor to notify the authorities of the abuse before the abortion is performed,” which still leaves the teen in the bind of her parents discovering the abortion.

“Recognition of parental authority”…unless they’re wrong: “The bill requires a 24-hour waiting period and written notification, with no medical emergency exception, even if a parent accompanies his or her daughter to an out-of-state abortion provider and consents to the abortion services.”

Over at TomPaine.com, Frank O’Donnell notes that President Bush “has obviously been well-coached on the Luntz language, as evidenced by last night’s performance.” O’Donnell documents several instances where Bush’s remarks on energy policy mirrored the deceptive talking points found in Luntz’s latest briefing book.

But the right-wing strategist’s Orwellian fingerprints could be found on much more than Bush’s energy talk. His remarks on Social Security were also infused with spin from Luntz’s “Social Security Step Language Ladder.”

Luntz recommendation: “To achieve ‘generation fairness,’ we have a responsibility to save Social Security RIGHT NOW so that our children and generations to come receive the same benefits we have enjoyed.”
Bush: “As a matter of fairness, I propose that future generations receive benefits equal to or greater than the benefits today’s seniors get.”

Luntz: “Improving our Social Security system CANNOT be a partisan issue. We must all work together and put the partisan bickering behind us.”
Bush: “Too often the temptation in Washington is to look at a major issue only in terms of whether it gives one political party an advantage over the other. Social Security is too important for politics as usual.”

Luntz: “Current and near retirees must KNOW their benefits are secure. … You must reassure them their benefits will be there when they retire, and MOST IMPORTANTLY will not be reduced by this proposal.”
Bush: “As we fix Social Security, some things won’t change. Seniors and people with disabilities will get their checks. All Americans born before 1950 will receive the full benefits.”

Luntz: “It would be easier to turn away and leave the tough decisions to others down the road. But we do things in life not because they are easy but because they are necessary — no matter bow hard they are. And delay just makes the solution more difficult and costly.”
Bush: “People will say, You didn’t need to bring this up, Mr. President; it may cost you politically. I don’t think so. I think the American people appreciate somebody bringing up tough issues, particularly when they understand the stakes. The system goes broke in 2041. In 2027, for those listening, we’ll be obligated to pay $200 billion more a year than we take in in order to make sure the baby boomers get the benefits they’ve been promised. In other words, this is a serious problem.”

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has defended the claim that opponents of President Bush’s judicial nominees are “against people of faith.” Tonight President Bush was asked if he agreed, and his answer was clear:

BUSH: … I just don’t agree with it.

QUESTION: You don’t agree with it?

BUSH: No. I think people oppose my nominees because of judicial philosophy.

QUESTION: Sir, I asked you about what you think of…

BUSH: No, I know what you asked me.

QUESTION: … the way faith is being used in our political debates, not just in society generally.

BUSH: Well, I can only speak to myself. And I am mindful that people in political office should not say to somebody, You’re not equally American if you don’t happen to agree with my view of religion.

The President retorted that he doesn’t know about the NCLB lawsuit filed by the nation’s largest teachers union because he’s not a lawyer. Yet not being a ballplayer didn’t stop him from knowing about the Washington Nationals’ lineup. Interesting how he knows about what he wants to know about.

President Bush said he was “amazed” that a “phenomenal” amount of taxpayer money goes unpaid every year.

What a difference a year makes.

Just last August, remember, President Bush explained why he’s refusing to close tax loopholes or roll back tax cuts for those earning over $200,000 a year because, as he said, “the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway.”

President Bush on when troops will come home from Iraq:

As soon as possible. And as soon as possible depends upon the Iraqis being able to fight and do the job. … General Petraeus, as you know, is in charge of training. [He is] upbeat about what they’re seeing with the Iraqi troops.

He may be upbeat, but our government watchdogs are not. Though more than a year and a half has passed since Gen. John Abizaid first announced plans to build Iraq’s security force, the Government Accountability Office reported last month that coalition leadership has still failed “to develop a system to assess the readiness of Iraqi military and police forces so they can identify weaknesses and provide them with effective support.” Moreover, the high number of security forces frequently touted by senior White House officials “overstates the number actually serving,” probably by “tens of thousands.” As one training supervisor, Army Staff Sgt. Craig E. Patrick, admitted recently: “It’s all about perception, to convince the American public that everything is going as planned and we’re right on schedule to be out of here. I mean, they can [mislead] the American people, but they can’t [mislead] us. These guys are not ready.”