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Stories tagged with “Trent Franks”

Health

Trent Franks Blocks D.C. Representative From Testifying About Proposed D.C. Abortion Ban

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on May 16, 2012 at 6:15 pm

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) wants to restrict abortions in the District of Columbia, but he refuses to allow D.C.’s delegate from testifying on behalf of the city’s residents during a hearing about his proposal. Franks’ “fetal pain” bill would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in D.C. even though there is no scientific proof that a fetus can feel pain at that point and a fetus is not viable.

Del. Eleanor Norton (D), D.C.’s only elected represetative, asked Franks last week if she could testify about the bill at an upcoming Thursday hearing. Franks denied her request, which Norton said breaks tradition of allowing members of Congress to testify about a bill that affects their constituents. Similarly, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) prevented women from testifying on a panel about contraception back in February.

Norton told the Huffington Post that her constituents are “up in arms” about the proposed abortion ban:

“This is the first bill in history that attempts to take the residents of the District of Columbia outside of the protection of the Constitution,” she continued. “The right to have an abortion until viability is a mandated right under Roe v. Wade. I think it takes a lot of nerve to single out the constituents of another member’s district for discriminatory treatment, and we deeply resent it.” [...]

D.C. is an easy target for anti-abortion bills, Norton said, because it doesn’t have any elected officials who can vote in Congress.

“Why wouldn’t they put this bill in for the entire country if they feel so deeply about it?”

In December, House Republicans forced a ban on funding for abortion services in D.C. to avoid a government shutdown and even prevented the city from using local taxes to pay for abortion care, reinstating a 13-year ban on abortion funding in D.C. that President Obama overturned in 2009.

Lawmakers in six conservative states have banned abortion after 20 weeks, including Georgia and Arizona which approved the bans this year.

Update

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton tweets:


Economy

As Stock Market Crosses 13,000, Rep. Franks Says President Obama ‘Seems To Be Doing Everything He Can To Hold It Back’

By Scott Keyes on Feb 25, 2012 at 9:30 am

MESA, Arizona — Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) refused to give President Obama any credit Wednesday for recent economic and business improvements in the country, arguing instead that “anyone who’s paying attention knows that this president has done irreparable harm to the economy.”

ThinkProgress spoke with Franks to get his thoughts on the recent stock market gains and what they say about Republican critiques that President Obama is supposedly “anti-business.” (The Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed 13,000 at points earlier this week after a low of 6,626 in March 2009.) The five-term Arizona congressman dismissed the notion that Obama’s policies could have aided the economic recovery. There’s “no question” that the economy is improving in spite of President Obama, Franks said. “It’s a strong country, but Mr. Obama seems to be doing everything he can to hold it back.”

KEYES: A lot of other folks might say that under [President Obama's] watch the stock market has gone up over 5,000 points. What do you think?

FRANKS: Anyone who’s paying attention knows that this president has done irreparable harm to the economy, at least in the short run. [...]

KEYES: So it sounds like [the economy's] improved in spite of President Obama?

FRANKS: No question about it. No question about it. It’s a strong country, but Mr. Obama seems to be doing everything he can to hold it back.

Watch it:

The stock market is not a good indicator of an ecnomy’s health, but even a cursory look other figures shows just how spurious the claim is that Obama has been “anti-business.” As ThinkProgress’ Pat Garofalo noted, “in 2011, corporate profits hit their highest level since 1950.” Unfortunately, these record corporate gains have not trickled down into workers’ pockets; workers’ wages and purchasing power has been largely stagnant, even as their bosses do better than they have in 60 years.

It goes without saying that Franks is no fan of President Obama’s. Last year, he told ThinkProgress in an interview that even he supported impeaching Obama over the White House’s opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act.

Still, Franks is not the only GOPer reluctant to give even a shred of credit to Obama. From the economic recovery to the deaths of Osama bin Laden and Muammar Qaddafi, Republicans have done all they can to ensure they can continue criticizing the president, regardless of the facts.

Security

Gingrich Supporter Rep. Trent Franks Sides With Huckabee On Foreign Aid

By Scott Keyes and Travis Waldron on Jan 18, 2012 at 4:12 pm

COLUMBIA, South Carolina — One of Newt Gingrich’s most prominent supporters in Congress, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), took sides in the Huckabee-led debate over foreign aid, and it wasn’t with the former House speaker.

Mike Huckabee spoke at a South Carolina luncheon yesterday and slammed Republicans’ calls to eliminate foreign aid, calling such a prospect “outrightly foolish” and “un-Christian.” Gingrich, who supports zeroing out foreign aid, spoke immediately following Huckabee, but did not address the former Arkansas governor’s criticisms.

Following the event, ThinkProgress spoke with Franks, who had listened to both speeches. The Arizona congressman said Huckabee’s message was “magnificent” and “right on.” When ThinkProgress noted that Gingrich was one of the Republicans who Huckabee targeted for wanting to eliminate foreign aid, Franks was reluctant to criticize his candidate of choice, saying simply, “I’m going to leave that right there”:

FRANKS: Scott, Mr. Huckabee articulates subjects like that in a way all of us wish we could. I thought he was magnificent. I’m considered one of the most conservative members of Congress and I don’t think I could have articulated my own perspective any better than that. He’s right on. I just think he’s right.

KEYES: Do you think that the Republican Party has kind of lost its way on the issue of foreign aid?

FRANKS: I think that they have to make the distinction between places where our engagement can further the cause of freedom and places where it furthers the cause of surrender. There is a difference, there is a distinction. [...]

KEYES: I was just curious to get your reaction because Speaker Gingrich is one of the folks who have called for zeroing out foreign aid which Huckabee was very critical of.

FRANKS: I’m going to leave that right there.

Listen to it:

Foreign aid accounts for less than 1 percent of the federal budget, yet Republicans have regularly demagogued the issue when discussing how to eliminate the budget deficit. Gingrich is one of the worst offenders, declaring in a recent South Carolina debate that all current recipients of American aid “ought to start off at zero and say, explain to me why I should give you a penny.”

Health

House Republicans Push Bill To Ban Abortions Based On The Race Or Sex Of The Fetus

By Tanya Somanader on Dec 5, 2011 at 5:46 pm

For House Republicans, this year has been the year of outlandish answers to non-existent problems. And tomorrow, they will offer the magnum opus of their 2011 campaign against a woman’s right to choose: the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA). The bill seeks to somehow protect the “civil rights” of fetuses by banning physicians from performing abortions based on the fetus’s race or sex. While the woman would be exempt from prosecution, physicians who perform the procedure can be sued for damages.

Tomorrow, the measure will enter the spotlight in the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, as will the man behind the effort: GOP Rep. Trent Franks (AZ). His chief motivation, he told the Daily Caller, is to solely to end discrimination, or as his chief proponents argue, the genocide of minority fetuses:

According to Franks, a ban on these types of abortions is needed because minority babies are aborted at five times the rate of white babies and, based on a 2008 report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S. Census data shows that certain populations have ‘son-biased” ratios due to “sex selection, most likely at the prenatal stages.”[...]

“People will say I have a greater agenda — and they are right — I hope for a day when all children, regardless of race or color, all children because they are children will be protected,” he said.

“But right now regardless of what the long term impact of this might be the short term impact is very simple: Can we not agree that aborting a child based on a child’s race or sex is wrong?”

The act of such selective abortion would be a problem worth addressing if it was actually a problem. In his own state of Arizona (which recently passed a statewide version of this bill), not one state official or independent search offered any support for the claim that women abort babies based on race. What’s more, not only have the number of baby girls born increased since abortion became legal but only 5 percent of abortions take place beyond the point when a fetus’s sex can be determined. In reality, rather than addressing any verifiable prejudice, the bill actually exacerbates the discrimination Franks claims to be targeting.

The real reasons behind high abortion rates among African Americans and minorities are complex. Higher rates of unintended pregnancies, inadequate health insurance, substandard health care, ineffective use of birth control, and poor sex education often leave abortion as the only choice for women. The chief reason behind abortions is unintended pregnancy, not unwanted race or sex.

Climate Progress

Republicans Continue Crusade To Mine Around the Grand Canyon

By Public Lands Team on Nov 3, 2011 at 2:30 pm

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Last week, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced plans to withdraw 1 million acres around Grand Canyon National Park from new mining claims for 20 years. After a two-year stakeholder involvement process, nearly 300,000 public comments were received on this proposal, 90 percent of which were in favor of the full withdrawal according to Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey. But that has only caused Republicans from both chambers to hurriedly introduce bills that would prevent the Department of the Interior from taking this action and throw open the areas to new mining.

One such bill is Congressman Trent Franks’ (R-AZ) Northern Arizona Mining Continuity Act of 2011. This morning the House’s Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands held a hearing on the bill, and Rep. Rob Bishop, chairman of the subcommittee, downplayed the threat of mining near the Grand Canyon. He described the great distance between the Grand Canyon National Park and the new mining claims by stating that the administration’s decision to withdraw 1 million acres around it was:

…something akin to saying that if there was a terrorist threat to the Statue of Liberty they would close down the boardwalk of Atlantic City.

Map courtesy of the Pew Environment Group

As this map from the Pew Environment Group shows, mining claims have actually been staked right up against the border of the park. Indeed, exploratory mining on one claim just three miles from a lookout into the park began in 2008. Much closer than the 122 miles that separate Liberty Island and Marvin Gardens.

Republicans have been on a warpath in their efforts to allow uranium and other mining around the Grand Canyon to continue. Indeed this is the third time a bill or amendment has been introduced in this Congress to achieve such a purpose — others are S. 1690 from Senator John McCain (R-Z) and a portion of the budget bill H.R. 1 inserted by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Because Flake proposed throwing open 1 million acres to mining companies on a budget bill, Rep. Jesse Jackson referred to that section of the bill as the “Flake earmark for the mining industry.” Flake has already accepted $47,750 from mining interests in the 2012 election cycle.

ThinkProgress reported last week that Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), chairman of the subcommittee in charge of this bill, called the size of the area that would be mined under Frank’s bill “the size of the state of New Jersey” and that “whether we mine or not will have no impact on the Grand Canyon water or tourism that happens to be there.” In today’s hearing Flake called the administration’s decision to protect the Grand Canyon “regulatory overreach based on specious environmental concerns.”

Contamination and discarded waste from uranium mining in the Colorado River and surrounding areas has plagued the national park for years — the contaminated water leaking from the Orphan Mine Site on the South Rim of the canyon is just one example of the legacy of uranium mining. Additionally, in May, the representatives from water authorities in Arizona, California, and Nevada wrote to the committee saying “federal agencies with oversight over mineral exploration and mining operations in the Lower Colorado River Basin must use their authority to prevent any potential for deterioration of this critical water supply for millions of people.”

LGBT

Rep. Trent Franks: Marriage Equality Is A ‘Threat To The Nation’s Survival’

By Zack Ford on Oct 28, 2011 at 2:20 pm

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) vehemently opposes LGBT equality at every turn, but today went so far as to call marriage equality “a threat to the nation’s survival.” This fear-mongering rivals that of Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern (R), who has repeatedly compared the LGBT community to terrorists. In his comments today to the Family Research Council, an anti-gay hate group, he suggested that marriage is a “special right” just for heterosexuals and that somehow marriage equality would eliminate the “launching pad of the next generation,” insinuating that society would die out as a result. Right Wing Watch has the full account:

FRANKS: We understand that when we’re granting the rights of marriage, that that’s a special right Tony, that’s something we have suggested is clearly the best possible way to see children raised through the best possible environment to launch the next generation, we believe that with all of our hearts as a society, I think most people understand that. So we’ve set aside this special area of the law that says we’re going to respect traditional marriage of a man and a woman because that is the launching pad of the next generation. Let’s face it; we have made a special exception in the law that gives special consideration and recognition to that.

And when people would come along and blur that distinction and say ‘well that should apply in every way’ it not only is a complete undermining of the principles of family and marriage and the hope of future generations but it completely begins to see our society break down to the extent that that foundational unit of the family that is the hope of survival of this country is diminished to the extent that it literally is a threat to the nation’s survival in the long run.

Listen to it:

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