Tag: bart stupak

Bart Stupak (D, MI-01) cuts and runs.

(Via The Business Insider) No question mark on this: Marc Armbinder’s first mention has been expanded upon here, and CBS News is now reporting it as well.  This should surprise nobody: we’ve been expecting this announcement since Wednesday.  Particularly since the Tea Party folks are going to – justifiably – claim at least the assist on this scalp*.

So… Stupak betrays the pro-life movement and his district, then quits rather than face the wrath of either.  And don’t weep for him: he’ll segue right into the comfortable life of a DC lobbyist, which means that he’ll probably get a pay raise and will certainly enjoy the remainder of his term, free from the nagging terror beginning to fill the lives of his Democratic colleagues.  Because you cannot trust a ‘conservative’ Democrat.

Either side.

Moe Lane

PS: The Dan Benishek saga teaches us why we support as many candidates as we can, as much as we can, in as many districts as we can.  Three months ago this seat was deemed safe for the Democrats.  Now it’s a pickup. Continue reading Bart Stupak (D, MI-01) cuts and runs.

‘Stuck-on’ Stupak… stuck on Stupak’s EO.

Turns out that the Obama administration is taking Stupak’s Executive Order as seriously as… well, everybody else:

President Obama signed the Senate health care bill into law Tuesday. He did not sign the executive order on abortion negotiated with Michigan Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak in an 11th-hour arrangement that may well have saved the entire health care reform effort.

A White House official told Fox, Obama will not sign the Executive Order Tuesday and has set no specific date to do so. Stupak predicted Obama would sign the order later this week. The White House said only that Obama would sign the order “soon.”

Now, it’s like this. It’s one thing to be a prostitute. It’s another thing to be a cheap prostitute. It’s yet a third thing to be a cheap prostitute who accepts Monopoly money. But to be a cheap prostitute who gets stiffed on your Monopoly money? That takes skill.

Moe Lane

PS: I recognize that Hot Air has a valid argument that eventually the President will stop tormenting Stupak and give him his Monopoly money, but AoSHQ’s implicit rejoinder that Stupak hasn’t degraded himself enough for it yet (he’s getting there) has a certain truth there, too.

PPS: My apologies to prostitutes, of course.

Crossposted to RedState.

‘…Mr. Axelrod’s not a legislator; he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about.’

That was Rep. Stupak’s (DEMOCRAT) blunt response to David Axelrod’s assertion that the pro-life language currently in the health care rationing bill would be ‘adjusted.’ Stupak’s having none of it:

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) pledged on Tuesday morning to defeat healthcare reform legislation if his abortion amendment is taken out, saying 10 to 20 anti-abortion-rights Democrats would vote against a bill with weaker language.

“They’re not going to take it out,” Stupak said on “Fox and Friends,” referring to Senate Democrats. “If they do, healthcare will not move forward.”

See Hot Air for the video. Stupak claims to have more than enough votes to shut down any final version that removes his amendment, which is both false and true. It’s false because the closeness of the original vote reflected a lot of horse-trading on the individual Member of Congress level; theoretically, the Speaker of the House could simply pressure the Democrats who got to vote ‘no’ last time to vote ‘yes’ this time.  It’s true because one of the reasons that they were able to get a final vote was because while the Stupak amendment was scored by NRLC, the final bill was not.  Strip out Stupak, and a vote for health care rationing becomes a vote for federal funding of abortions.  The NRLC pretty much cannot not score that appropriately.

I close with this observation: this situation for the Democrats is pretty much entirely due to the decision by House Republicans to oppose the health care rationing bill en masse.  They’re doing that because the Congressional Democratic leadership decided to shut out everybody except themselves and various outside lobbyists when it came time to put this monstrosity of a bill together.  And because the President didn’t intervene when it became clear that the process was disrupting his narrative, we’re now at the point where the Democratic party has to decide which side of the abortion debate is safer to infuriate.

But don’t feel bad for them: after all, they didn’t learn a blessed thing from their mistakes over the ‘stimulus’ and cap-and-trade.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

“Letting the Days Go By” [Special Bart Stupak (D, MI-01) Edition]

This was picked in honor of Representative Stupak’s fierce crusading hearing against the evils of… bottled water*. My wife mocked this one, and she doesn’t do politics. Anyway:

Talking Heads-Once in a Lifetime

Once In A Lifetime, Talking Heads

Moe Lane

*Seriously. Although I should note that Stupak’s fellow-Democrats weren’t taking this as such, themselves, given that he was pretty much the only one there at the panel. Let me sum up the level to which your tax dollars were properly spent with this quote from the Milbank piece:

A small dog escaped from the Democratic staff room and made its way to the witness table before being apprehended.

You just know that was the high point of the proceedings.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.