Stupak, working with GOP, trying to sink Nelson's abortion compromise

Politico ^ | 12/19/09 1:51 PM EST | Ben Smith

[BP2]

An aide to Rep. Bart Stupak (D. Mich.) coordinated opposition to a Senate compromise on the place of abortion in health care legislation this morning with the Republican Senate leadership, the Conference Catholic Bishops, and other anti-abortion groups, according to a chain of frantic emails obtained this morning by POLITICO.

The emails show that Stupak — who has so far remained silent on language accepted by Senator Ben Nelson (D. Neb.) and faces intense pressure from the White House to accept it — is already working behind the scenes to oppose the compromise.

They also demonstrate a previously unseen degree of coordination between Stupak and the office of Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

Stupak is the leader of a group of pro-life Democrats who say they’ll oppose the sweeping legislation if it uses government money to pay for abortion, while McConnell is firmly committed to killing the legislation. The fact that the two have made common cause against the Senates health care compromise will likely further infuriate Stupak’s Democratic colleagues in the House, and demonstrates his willingness to stop any bill that doesn’t pass his test.

“Guys - when will we see your letters of opposition to the managers amendment?? We need them ASAP!” wrote Erika Smith, a Stupak aide, at 9:23 this morning, less than an hour after the amendment had become available.

The email’s recipients included key staffers for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Right to Life, the Family Research Council, as well as Autumn Fredericks Christensen, aide to a top pro-life Republican Joe Pitts, and Lanier Swann, a McConnell aide.

A minute after Smith sent out her plea, Lanier reiterated it to the list.

“Nelson is telling people in the building he will vote yes. If there was any time to weigh in against this deal —- THIS IS IT,” Swann wrote at 9:24 a.m.

As of early Saturday afternoon, the groups had not released statements on the compromise.

Stupak, too, has remained silent, and Stupak aides, including Smith, did not immediately respond to questions about the email chain.

The manager’s amendment, which emerged after hours of negotiations between Nelson and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, stops short of the total ban on health insurance plans that participate in a new exchange system offering abortion coverage. Instead, it includes a provision that allows states to prohibit abortion coverage in the exchanges.

The amendment also requires that health plans that provide abortion services separate, for accounting purposes, private premiums and federal funds, and ensure that the federal funds don't pay for abortion services, a maneuver derided in the past by anti-abortion groups as a shell game.

The compromise paved the way for a Senate vote on President Obamas top priority, but the frantic emails this morning suggest the House may remain an obstacle.

[rabscuttle385]

See 23 and 64.

ZOT!

[Shyla]

You will be missed JV.

[SeattleBruce]

I think this helps summarize the dilemma for the RATS:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2411762/posts?page=22#22
“The RATS can’t get the monstrosity thu the House without Stupak, and they probably can’t get it through the Senate with it.”

I would add, that the leftists in the House have only gone along with Stupak, because they think they can pull a fast one and add back in abortion support later, but they’re being watched like hawks and it won’t be easy for them.

Stupak’s manuevers threaten the House reconciliation, and Stupak and/or the leftist manuevers threaten the cloture vote in the Senate either on the pro-aborts side or on Nelson, et al’s second cloture vote side (which requires 60 votes still.)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2411762/posts

Again, why are you blaming pro-lifers for this monster bill?

Also, I don’t think PelosLIE and Scarry Reid knew what they were doing on this, nor all the pitfalls they’d run into. Yet all in all, it’s too close for comfort, and if it passes too simplistic to blame it all on support of one amendment (Stupak). As it stands now, there is a pro-life block to try to insert language that will block cloture passage in the Senate.

About throwing the Pro-life RATS under that bus - perhaps pelosLIE wanted to throw ‘em under the bus, but the Pro-life Rs prevented that. I think it’s still a monkey wrench in the (socialist) works.

[SeattleBruce]

Look, guy, I’ve tried to be generous and considerate despite our difference of opinion on this. That evidently isn’t good enough for you.

My comments were quite clear to many who read them. That’s good enough for me.
+++++++++++++

Look, you opened up this can of worms - don’t blame me for that! Take some responsiblity. *What* you said was confusing and caused distress for many reading your post, enough so that even *you* felt the need to issue a long clarification. That’s all I’ve said - that it was content and not ‘style differences’. :)

[RJS1950]

We’d had all better be praying for all of us and not just the unborn because with or without abortion coverage this bill will kill us and our freedoms. Democrats only agree to remove things like abortion coverage because they know they can put it right back in once the bill is passed and signed. Stop thinking in terms of single issues, this is a fight against all of the tyranny being imposed by the Nazi democrat party.

[RJS1950]

I would go with prayer and forget about phone calls.

Prayer is fine but I was always taught that in addition to prayer that God helps those who help themselves. History is repleat with examples of peoples who relied on prayer turn aside those who would and did enslave them. God gives us the brains to take action in our own defense. Use everything God gives you put down this evil.

[Carley]

Doctors are going to be rewarded for less care.

Unless we find some health providers who are willing to take care of us on a fee for service base we are doomed.

[sport]

You are right. We still need to do both.

[DoughtyOne]

I have taken responsibility. I wrote a scathing damnation of those who support killing the unborn. Rather than express agreement with that, you chose to trash me for being a misogynist.

What I said was not confusing. What I said was crystal clear. Others were able to read it and understand exactly what I was trying to say. You obviously still can’t, even after I took time to explain it to you.

I took a pass on saying that prior to now, because I didn’t want to take you to the wood shed simply because you disagreed on the tactics I used. At some point, that disagreement becomes less of a disagreement on style, and more of a trashing of me just because you don’t like the way I decided to frame this issue.

Well too bad. My posting style is my own. It’s a part of that sticky wicket, the first amendment. I took pains to tell you precisely what my goal was. I took pains to tell you precisely what my mindset was. I told you precisely what each sentence meant to me. And you are in effect telling me, “No, that isn’t what you meant. You meant to demean women.”

Well, if that’s all your deficient little cranium can accept, that’s all your tiny little cranium can accept.

It’s not my problem.

The only can of worms opened here, is the can of worms that is expressed by your lack of comprehension skills.

[Darren McCarty]

I've been active in the pro-life movement for 10 years. I've been in the booths and at the local pro-life fund raising dinners even though I do not have much money.

It's usually not men that I see in the front line protecting babies. Most of the leadership of these organizations are women, as are the participants. Most guys I know are ambivalent on this issue unless they are married to a pro-life woman. In addition many times a woman who is naive or on the fence pushed into making the worst decision possible due to pressure from a boyfriend or parents.

On this issue, men and women are equally guilty. Generalizations of 52% of the population is not what is needed to reduce abortions.

[DoughtyOne]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2411257/posts?page=78#78

If you folks would spend 10% as much energy trying to grasp what I wrote, that you have spent trying to take the worst possible connotation from it, there would be no confusion here.

[Darren McCarty]

Maybe the Arabs are right about women after all...

With an attitude like that, better stay away from my family. I'll be cleaning my shotgun.

[DoughtyOne]

He’s been booted. I think he was lampooning me because he thought I was generalizing about women too.

[RockinRight]

Thank you for completely proving Jill’s point.

[DoughtyOne]

No, thank you for proving mine.

You poor dears can’t grasp the concept, so it’s my fault.

Dream on...

When you two trashed me, you were also trashing other people who agreed with me.

If you folks can’t grasp simple concepts, what are you doing on a forum that is discussion based?

[DoughtyOne]

My my... LMAO

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2405338/posts?page=38#38

[Friendofgeorge]

I`w with you, perhaps we can stay with Alec Baldwin...LOL