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Politico: “I’ve accomplished what I want to do. Either I run again and I’d be there forever or it’s time for me to make the break; it’s time for me to move on,” Stupak said.Selling the unborn down the river for a government takeover of the health care system, mission accomplished Bart! Now don’t let the door catch your tail on the way out, you fraud!
Fox News: The 11 House Democrats led by Rep. Bart Stupak who dropped their opposition to health care reform legislation mere hours before the final vote have requested $3.4 billion in earmarks -- and one watchdog group wants to know whether the money represents business as usual or political payoffs.
The Sunlight Foundation says it plans to track the earmark requests, which were put in one day after health care reform cleared Congress, to see whether they're approved and whether it appears lawmakers are being rewarded for their vote.
[…]
The individual earmarks requests from each of those lawmakers range from $20 million to $1.4 billion. Of the eight lawmakers whose 2010 requests were available for comparison, five requested more money than they did a year ago. Stupak requested $579 million.
Here are the earmark amounts requested by the 11 House Democrats in the 2011 bill:
Rep. Jerry Costello of Illinois.: $1,418.7 million ($256.4 million in 2010)
Rep. Solomon Ortiz of Texas: $618 million ($726.1 million in 2010)
Stupak of Michigan: $578.9 million
Rep. Steve Driehaus of Ohio: $332.2 million
Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio: $294 million ($305.7 million in 2010)
Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania: $236.8 million ($54 million in 2010)
Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota.: $207 million ($226 million in 2010)
Rep. Brad Ellsworth of Indiana.: $115.4 million ($82.3 million in 2010)
Rep. Charles Wilson of Ohio: $84 million ($62.3 million in 2010)
Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania.: $67.1 million
Rep. Joseph Donnelly of Indiana: $19.8 million ($11.65 million in 2010)
The Sunlight Foundation also says it is going to look at Republican earmarks. House Republicans say they are not requesting any earmarks for the next fiscal year, but Allison said the Sunlight Foundation will watch GOP senators to see if they appear to be putting in earmark requests for their House colleagues.
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."
In two celebratory speeches Tuesday - one at the bill's signing, the other at the Interior Department with health care advocates - Obama said nothing about the abortion issue or the executive order. [MORE]
"Throughout history, Executive Orders have been an important means of implementing public policy," Stupak said in a statement. "The most famous Executive Order was the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Lincoln in 1863."
From Politico: “Last night was the climax of weeks and months of debate on a health care bill that my constituents fear and do not support,” Neugebauer said in a news release. “In the heat and emotion of the debate, I exclaimed the phrase ‘it’s a baby killer’ in reference to the agreement reached by the Democratic leadership. While I remain heartbroken over the passage of this bill and the tragic consequences it will have for the unborn, I deeply regret that my actions were mistakenly interpreted as a direct reference to Congressman Stupak himself.”
From Fox News: […]Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, who had fought for tough language barring federal subsidies for abortion coverage, denounced the Republican move, saying it was nothing more than an attempt to deny 32 million Americans health care. From the Republican side a voice shouted, "Baby killer!"
It was not immediately clear who had called out the epithet.
From Fire Dog Lake: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made a deal with Rep. Bart Stupak in order to secure his vote and that of other anti-choice Democrats for the health care bill, which is scheduled to be voted on this Sunday. According to a member of Congress who was briefed on the matter, Pelosi has agreed to let Stupak have a vote on his amendment either before or after the House votes to pass the Senate bill. It instructs the Senate to substitute the language in his amendment for the Senate language on abortion.
FDL has obtained a copy of the concurrent resolution (PDF1, PDF2, PDF3, PDF4), which includes cosponsors Marion Berry, Sanford Bishop, Joseph Cao, Kathy Dahlkemper, Steve Driehaus, Marcy Kaptur, Dan Lipinski, Alan Mollohan, and Nick Rahall. A second source confirms that with the exception of Cao, these are the members of Congress who are still on the fence. Cao is still considered a firm “no” vote.
The deal calls for Stupak to have a vote on his amendment either before or after the House votes to confirm the Senate bill on Sunday. Stupak is confident that he has the votes to pass the measure, and is happy to have the vote after the House passes the Senate bill. He believes that by using a “tie bar” approach, his amendment would be “tied” to the health care bill — which would require just 51 votes in the Senate.
Pro-choice members of the House, however, are demanding that the vote on the Concurrent Resolution happen before the House confirms the Senate bill. If in fact it passes, they plan to vote against confirming the Senate bill. They want Rep. Diana Degette to release the names of the 41 cosigners to her letter who pledged to vote against any bill that restricts a woman’s right to choose, and they are angry that the White House has been whipping to push through the Stupak deal.
“All the phones are unplugged at our house — tired of the obscene calls and threats. She won’t watch TV,” Stupak said during an hourlong interview with The Hill in his Rayburn office. “People saying they’re going to spit on you and all this. That’s just not fun.”
“How’s it been? Like a living hell,” Stupak said.
Stupak notes that his negotiations with House Democratic leaders in recent days have been revealing. “I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance,” he says. “Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered.” The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, “are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party.”
What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.” [MORE]
From The Weekly Standard: "Everyone’s going around saying there’s a compromise—there’s no such thing," Stupak said. What's changed between this week and last, Stupak went on, is that he had his first real conversation with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Congressman Henry Waxman about fixing the bill…
Stupak affirmed that he will not settle for an agreement to pass the bill now and fix the bill's problems on abortion later: "If they say 'we’ll give you a letter saying we'll take care of this later,' that’s not acceptable because later never comes."
From Hot Air: Rep. Bart Stupak said he expects to resume talks with House leaders this week in a quest for wording that would impose no new limits on abortion rights but also would not allow use of federal money for the procedure.
“I’m more optimistic than I was a week ago,” Stupak said in an interview between meetings with constituents in his northern Michigan district. He was hosting a town hall meeting Monday night at a local high school.
“The president says he doesn’t want to expand or restrict current law (on abortion). Neither do I,” Stupak said. “That’s never been our position. So is there some language that we can agree on that hits both points — we don’t restrict, we don’t expand abortion rights? I think we can get there.”
