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As the Shutdown Showdown grew nearer Friday night, CNN’s Eliot Spitzer hosted an intense segment with Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA12) and Big Journalism’s Dana Loesch, in which the trio discussed the Planned Parenthood budget rider, and its relationship to the Hyde Amendment. While the dustup made for great TV, it was also an excellent case study on the relative merits of advocacy and expertise, as Speier’s and Loesch’s escalating confrontation is handily settled by Spitzer’s legal smarts.

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Political rhetoric on the floor of the House of Representatives took a surprisingly personal turn last night when Jackie Speier (D-CA) shared that she had lost a baby after having gone through an abortion procedure when she was 17 weeks pregnant. Her impassioned revelation was in response to a graphic description of an abortion procedure that had just been read aloud by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ).