He isn’t just buddies with the C-Street Family and the Senate Republican leadership, he’s got new friends popping up all over. Here, the Weekly Standard begs him to kill the bill in the House:
Are there enough votes in the House to pass a health care bill very close to the one the Senate is preparing to pass? Bart Stupak says the Senate bill’s abortion language is “unacceptable” and has pledged to lead a group of pro-life Democrats to vote against final passage if the issue isn’t resolved. How many votes can Stupak bring with him?
Nice friends you got there, Bart.
Derelict
Bart and his buds believe so strongly, so fervently in the sanctity of life that they are compelled to sentence tens of thousands of people to premature deaths through lack of healthcare.
Because, as we have seen for the last 40 years, it is only by killing people and making them suffer in unspeakable ways that we can show how much we love life and care for our fellow humans.
jeffreyw
He’ll bring damn few, most of the votes he got before were “free votes”-Nancy had enough to allow some reps to vote their district. This time? Same thing, there will be just enough to pass the bill, and woe to those who vote against it when their grandkids ask them why.
Col. Klink
Why does The Weekly Standard hate America? (And that’s not a snarky rhetorical question.)
Robin G.
I bet he masturbates to pictures of Joe Lieberman.
Pelosi’s gonna chew him up and spit him out, methinks.
Balconesfault
I’m wondering why it is that people are so openly embracing the concept of Congressmen working out legislation in direct concert with the Bishops of the Catholic Church.
Isn’t this the kind of thing that’s supposed to be applauded behind closed doors?
demkat620
@Robin G.: Yeah, Nancy is not Harry. She really doesn’t tlerate this kind of shit and won’t put up with what he did yesterday.
Bob In Pacifica
I know it’s crazy to believe in science or to raise it in a discussion of abortion, but approximately half of all pregnancies are naturally aborted, usually within a few days of conception and before the woman knows that she is pregnant.
Think about it: God aborts billions of babies and then tells women that they must carry unwanted babies to term. Then the best Christians kill doctors who perform abortions and then turn their backs on the babies. If any of these infants, unwanted and unloved, grow up to be criminals, these Christians want to lock them up forever or kill them.
These Christians need to go to Heaven and spend eternity with the Great Abortionist in the Sky. They deserve each other.
mr. whipple
I think I could handle their ‘principles’ a little better if they’d also demand all contraception be removed from the health plans offered.
El Cid
I WISH WE LIVED IN THE DAYS WHEN YOU COULD CHALLENGE A MAN TO A DUEL…
Sanka
Words fail.
Seriously, why stop with Stupak? Let’s go after every Democrat who is Catholic.
Teabagging any RINO who doesn’t support tax cuts and fiscal disciplineIdeological purity and litmus tests for party affiliation is a great, GREAT way to win elections.Let’s primary all the blue dogs so this way we can have a left-of-left party, which of course, is what the people want, but the Democratic party clearly hasn’t provided. This obviously explains why Democratic and Obama’s poll numbers are trending lower…
Kryptik
To quoth one of our greatest minds, a man who left us just recently:
“If you’re pre-born, you’re fine, if you’re pre-school, you’re fucked.”
And…
“Pro-life conservatives want live babies so they can grow up to be dead soldiers.”
Last one was a bit paraphrased, but still.
Brian J
This is the sort of asshole that needs to be kicked out on his fat ass. Say what you want about Nelson or Landrieu, but have they been caught actively coordinating with the other side? Like a lot of people here, I don’t expect Pelosi to take this shit.
I’m all for diversity of opinion and for voting your conscience, but this is a step too far. How much power does this clown have in Michigan? Is there nobody that can run against him? If it wouldn’t hand the election to the Republicans, find some guy who would do it and then have him write a post on the Daily Kos or MoveOn.org or something. The pledge to help end Lieberman’s tenure in 2012 raised at least $1 million when they wanted to raise $400,000.
Brian J
@Sanka:
Oh, please. That’s so not what anyone was suggesting. Do you see anyone claiming that we need to go after, say, Bob Casey or Harry Reid, both pro-life Democrats? I don’t.
We may not agree with some of his views, but people aren’t pissed at him because he has certain opinions. We’re enraged because he enjoys the benefits of being in the majority while now appearing to work against that majority along with the minority that has refused to legislate.
Brian J
@El Cid:
2004?
Chuck
@Sanka:
Perhaps you can understand that there’s a platform for a reason, and that a party affiliation might mean more than a convenient brand for winning elections. I do myself understand that in a conservative state, a Democrat might not want to give the keynote speech at NARAL, but I also know that anyone for whom abortion was an issue who voted for the Democrat did so so knowing that they were likely to to the left of any likely Republican candidate.
In other words, you don’t gain that many votes by pissing off your own base. Abortion is hardly a fringe issue.
donovong
@Sanka: Yawn. Concern troll is “concerned.”
Robin G.
@Sanka: I think it’s fairly obvious that there’s a difference between voting your conscience and engaging in grandstanding sabotage in order to get some headlines.
El Cid
Yeah, complaining a guy working with the opposition party to undermine the actions of your party in order to use bullsh*t social issues to undermine important legislation and harm the very political party to which he’s a member is just like a Stalinist purge!
When the Democrats threw Phil Gramm out of the House Budget Committee simply for spying for the Reaganites, it was just like Hitler! Phil Gramm went on to succeed despite barely surviving the Gulag and his contributions to the nation’s great success are uncountable!
Omnes Omnibus
@El Cid: By “uncountable” you mean nonexistent, right? Just checking.
Brian J
@El Cid:
I don’t know how you manage to come up with such consistently great snark, but please, keep it up.
El Cid
@Omnes Omnibus: No, I mean “priceless” in the sense of we may never really know how much money we lost and how much harm was done to our nation and its people because of his actions. “Uncountable”, therefore, like grains of sands on beaches. Estimable, but uncountable.
Fern
@Robin G.: Yup, one of Nancy’s endearing qualities!
guster
You know what pisses me off?
People fight for the rights of the pre-born, but never for the post-alive.
The minute you’re post-alive, the government redistributes all your property, and there is no legal recourse! WTF????
El Cid
Brian J: Thanks, unless it’s now illegal to say “Merry Christmas”.
Jim
Like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Patrick Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, Patrick Murphy, Barbara Mikulski…
I know a persecution complex can make one feel all special and noble and tingly inside, but how ’bout if you get a grip on yourself?Half of all US Catholics are pro-choice, and I imagine a great many others don’t share the Stupak/Bishops conference view that life begins at conception and ends at birth.
MR Bill
Does anyone call it ‘the Weekly Slandered?”
Because it isn’t…
El Cid, were you channeling yer inner Zell Miller @ 9?
Joel
@mr. whipple: be careful what you wish for.
Omnes Omnibus
@El Cid: Aha, negative contributions. I was thinking only in terms of positives.
Starfish
@mr. whipple: Don’t even joke about this because some people were trying to do just that when Bush was in office. Remember the pharmacists who could not do their job of filling birth control prescriptions for single women?
aimai
Stupak is, apparently, untouchable in his district–he’s just as backwards as they are and is very popular. Its a little unclear whether he cares about bringing home other kinds of democratic pork, or whether the Democrats would ever morph into the kind of party that denied him goodies on the grounds that he’s stabbing us all in the back (and women in the front).
I think the Gramm comparison is really apt (thanks El Cid!) because at this point Stupak has gone very far past merely voting his district (which is anti choice) into serious traitor territory. Gramm, famously, attended Democratic strategy sessions and then turned around and sold the information to the Republican party. As far as I can see the Democrats very seldom have any real strategy that they are pursuing, so that must have hurt. But is there a downside to forcing Stupak right out of the caucus? I mean, seriously, let him go to the Republicans for funding (he’ll get it, and he’ll keep the seat) but he won’t be able to work with the Democratic majority other than on sufferance. And he won’t be included in any strategy sessions.
If he wants to “vote with the democrats” 96 percent of the time he can do it from the minority party.
aimai
Sanka
Why do you hate science so much?
dmsilev
@Sanka: You will, of course, point us to the peer-reviewed articles in the technical literature backing up your implied assertion, right?
-dms
Lolis
Democrats need to write an amendment similar to Stupak that is blatantly unconstitutional. Some are saying the Nelson amendment is against the law. Then this will become like the ACORN bill, an easy vote for Dems who know the court will kill the rule before it ever takes affect.
ppcli
@Sanka: This should be good. Why, exactly, does “science” tell us that life begins at conception? That is, why is the one-cell zygote more “alive” than the egg and sperm cell? I was sick and missed that week in “science” class.
Starfish
Guys, is there not a sporting event, or something that is slightly more compelling than feeding the trolls?
Ana Gama
Ummmm…as a Michigander, it’s kind of embarassing to say that until very recently, a lot of Michigan residents never heard of the guy. He is the rep from the very rural, sparsely populated Upper Pennisula. It’s surprising he’s a Democrat to begin with.
Brian J
@Starfish:
Well, I do have to dig three or four cars out of at least 1.5 feet of snow, so yes, but damn, it’s gonna be cold outside. It’s much easier to sit on my fat ass and read the Internets.
R. Johnston
I’m pretty sure that feeding the trolls is a sporting event.
Mark
@Sanka –
Like you, I am a great believer in states’ rights on abortion. But a state might impose abortion on people who don’t support it, so it’s probably better if they turned the decision over to the counties.
But counties are not monoliths. They should turn the decision over to the cities, which should then make decisions at the precinct level. The precincts should make the decisions at a block level, and at a block level, the decision about whether to have an abortion or not should be turned over to each individual resident.
Zed
@Sanka: Last time I checked it was established fact that following fertilization the egg still has to attach to the uterine wall and grow it’s placenta before any embryonic development occurs. Of course this can also be followed by the spontaneous reabsorption of the blastocyst into the uterus in these early stages.
Then again, this doesn’t even account for the mass genocide perpetrated during nocturnal emissions…
ppcli
@Starfish:
Yeah, sorry about that. NFL hasn’t started yet and Chelsea-West Ham is at halftime. If I weren’t feeding the trolls I’d have to be doing, like, work or something.
But I am actually, genuinely curious. I know most of the purported facts that are supposed to support most of these spurious “no, really, science is on our side. And really, I would know because I read it in a footnote in a First Things article by a nurse-practitioner who assisted in a hospital that had a maternity ward” claims.
But though I’ve heard the “people say “life begins at conception” is religious, but really it’s science that tells us” line often, I’ve never actually learned what the non-facts supporting it are.
rachel
@Zed: E-ve-ry sperm is saaaaaacred! ♬
Joey Maloney
@Mark:
Win.
Silver Owl
Yeah no one, even here in MI heard of the ass.
He’s got swing his pink pee-pee and show us women that we are nothing but animals. It’s so drunk insecure redneck of him.
Martian Buddy
@Lolis: Considering the current makeup of the court, we can’t count on them to strike down a blatantly unconstitutional abortion law.
Edit: version 1.0 hit moderation somehow–and the edit, too. Oh Well.
stormhit
@Silver Owl:
He’s one of the few strong defenders of the Great Lakes. Any time there’s an issue related to that he’s usually all over it, what with having the most coastline of any district in the country. Not that that will make anyone feel better about his abortion intransigence.
Ana Gama
Stupak, a real political powerhouse….wow!
“Since his election in 1993 he has sponsored 36 bills but none of them became law. He cosponsored 157 bills and only 5 of them became law. He has voted with the members of his party 96% of the time. He abstains for only 5% of the votes.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_Stupak
clonecone
@Sanka: Tom Harkin is Catholic and I think he should be majority leader. In other words, suck it.
Starfish
@Brian J: Right after that comment, I stepped out to scrape ice off the side walk and almost dig out the right side of my car. Then I let he who lives in the pineapple take care of the rest.
Roger Moore
@Sanka:
That’s a fantastic job of quoting out of context. If you had paid attention to the rest of the quote “and ends at birth,” you might have noticed that his complaint isn’t strictly with anti-abortion. It’s with being anti-abortion but not giving a damn about what happens to the fetuses after they’re born.
Comrade Kevin
@Brian J:
You’re kidding, right? Go look at Daily Kos or FDL. You will see calls to run Reid out of office every single day of the year.
Andy K
@Silver Owl:
Geez, I’m a lifelong Michigander (Grand Rapids), and I remember when Stupak was elected in ’92. But I’ve got roots up there, so…
Jim
@Comrade Kevin:
Yeah, but it has little to do with his stance on choice, which is usually mentioned as evidence of his being impure. People rail at his ineffectuality. Pointing out that no one else wants a job herding arrogant cats tends to fall on deaf ears.
wasabi gasp
He’s the stupak hero, got czars in her thighs.
Joel
@Sanka: If you’re going to get cute, you should acknowledge that life – by the scientific definition – exists before contraception. Gametes are living cells.
But since you’re a moron, I’m sure this level of sophistication evaded you.
arguingwithsignposts
DemKat up above mentioned that Pelosi wouldn’t put up with Stupak’s antics from yesterday. I’m curious if anyone knows of any real hammers Speaker Pelosi has put on the members of her caucus? Any real threats that changed votes? Because if she hasn’t actually done anything to any of those members, she’s not much different than Reid on that front.
Really, I have no idea, but she’s got this reputation. Where did it come from?
J. Michael Neal
@ppcli:
You missed the most exciting sports event of the day. After Kevin Pietersen ran himself out, the last 25 overs of the England/South Africa test match were nail-biting. When I tuned in this morning, it really looked like the partnership of Petersen and Trott might score enough runs for an England win. Then Petersen committed suicide, and it looked like a draw was inevitable. Then Friedel de Wet, in his test debut, took out Trott, Bell, and Prior in six overs, and Broad fell for a duck right after. Then Morkel caught Swann lbw in the 93rd over, and Graham Onions had to defend his wicket for two of the last three overs to pull out the draw.
The only thing that would have made it better would have been for Makhaya Ntini to take Onions’ wicket at the end to celebrate his 100th test.
Also, is there a more English name imaginable than Graham Onions?
Also, too, this would have been a pretty embarrassing blow out if South Africans had to, you know, actually play for South Africa. Pietersen, Strauss, Trott, and Prior scored almost half of England’s runs.
Fern
@ppcli: Carrots are alive too, but that doesn’t mean we have a funeral every time we pull one out of the ground.
licensed to kill time
@Fern:
Oh noes! No more carrot funerals?! I’ve been doing it all wrong.
asiangrrlMN
@Mark: Snort. Love-this-very-much.
@wasabi gasp: Man, you drunk already?
@El Cid: You have been on fire as of late. Keep it going.
I really hope Pelosi puts the screws to Stupak. If anyone needs to be gutted and fried and fucked with a rusty pitchfork ten ways of Sunday, it’s Stupak.
Martian Buddy
@asiangrrlMN: He’s one of the C-streeters–he might enjoy it.
Joey Maloney
@arguingwithsignposts:
DId you see that look she gave Joe Wilson at the SOTU address? I bet his testicles still haven’t redescended.
Sly
@Bob In Pacifica
Most of the ardent pro-lifers I’ve met don’t really think the legal aspects of their position through. If you want to have some fun, ask one what penalty should be imposed for abortion. They’ll give you some spiel about how the abortionist should go to prison, or get the death penalty, and then you then hit them with this:
“Well… what about the mother? If abortion is murder, wouldn’t her payment for an abortion amount to conspiracy to commit murder?”
They’re like a deer in the headlights from that point on. No fucking idea what to think or say, and they’ll tie themselves in knots trying to get out of it.
Sly
@Joey Maloney
If you think Pelosi’s gaze of death was bad, then you probably haven’t seen this, this, or this.
I’d wager there were lots of mother references going on in that “conversation.”
Sly
@Joey Maloney
If you think Pelosi’s gaze of death was bad, then you probably haven’t seen this, this, or this.
I’d wager there were lots of mother references going on in that “conversation.”
asiangrrlMN
@Martian Buddy: Hahahahaha! Too true. Those are some freaky freaks, those C-Streeters.
El Cid
@Mark: BLOCK-GROUP-RIGHTS ! BLOCK-GROUP-RIGHTS ! FREEE-DUMMMMM !
someguy
Hey, lay off Stupidk, John. It ain’t easy bein’ a woman hater these days.
Jay B.
Sanka is an asshole, but it’s using exactly the same rhetoric many of you have been making over the past few days
I realize this is just awful to point out, but the hypocrisy on this board — meaningless outrage toward others standing up for what they consider principles — is really outstanding to read.
Just tell me where the line is and I’ll decide whether any of you are intellectually consistent in the least.
Jay B.
@arguingwithsignposts:
No, but she’s way, way, way better at counting votes than Reid is. I’ve been told over and over again Reid has no options — why does anyone then think Pelosi does?
Jesus, it’s been an education.
Citizen Alan
Fixed that for ya.
Remember November
They keep mispelling his last name, it’s Stupe-PAC.
danimal
@Kryptik: Never saw that bit. I read the quote and thought, with that combination of wit and wisdom, it must be George Carlin. Google confirmed it.
RIP
Pococurante
Is Stupak another GOP jackal in Dem clothing like Griffith?
Someone remind me, who is the ActBlue alternative?