Tea Party Express Responds to Stupak

In response to Bart Stupak's claim that the Tea Party Movement had nothing to do with the abrupt end of his 18 year Congressional career, the Tea Party Express has issued the following:

"Congressman Bart Stupak showed his arrogance and ignorance yesterday as he attacked the Tea Party movement. He insisted the $250,000 campaign we here at the Tea Party Express had absolutely nothing to do with him being driven from office.

And then he attacked the tea party movement saying he was taking credit for sucking the tea party movement's "treasury dry."

"If anything I just made the tea party people spend a lot of money that wasn't necessary on all these ads they have to run against me so they can't use it on anyone else. So I'll take credit for sucking their treasury dry."

Here's the video clip:

Well guess what Mr. Stupak, you're a real genius!

You see, by running in fear from the campaign being waged against you - while we were still in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and in the middle of our TV & radio ad campaign - you've allowed us to stop the campaign against you with only $50,000 of the $250,000 having been spent. You can see the report from Congressional Quarterly - HERE, we'd only spent $50,000 by the time you made your announcement.

Congressman Stupak: you are as ignorant as you are arrogant. You could have kept your mouth shut another week or so and truly drained the tea party movement's treasury dry.

To our supporters in the tea party movement: let's keep this up. We're about to announce our giant 2010 Election Targets on April 15th. Let's fatten up the tea party campaign treasury so that Bart Stupak's friends in Congress can join him in the retirement home playing checkers and watching the soon-to-be-elected constitutionalist conservatives in Congress on C-SPAN taking our country back!

You can contribute any amount from as little as $5 to the maximum allowed $5,000.

If so please - CONTRIBUTE ONLINE HERE."

The House Cleaning Begins: Stupak to Retire

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) plans to announce his retirement today, Democrats briefed on his decision said. Stupak, the leader of a pro-life faction within his party, had received death threats and was under intense political pressure after he agreed to support the Democratic health care reform legislation, even though pro-life groups insisted that it would allow federal funds to be used for abortion.

Read the rest of this entry >>

Stupak Slams Pro-Lifers, Defends Planned Parenthood

From LifeSiteNews
By Kathleen Gilbert

Once the beacon of hope for pro-lifers in their fight against the abortion expansion embedded in the Senate health care bill, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) on Tuesday turned around and blasted his pro-life critics, dismissed the Catholic hierarchy as having no control over Catholic legislators, and expressed support for Planned Parenthood and its provision of “health care” in his district.

Stupak and a crucial handful of other House Democrats holding out for an abortion funding ban took the whole country by surprise Sunday by switching sides mere hours before the final health care vote. The switch was made in exchange for an executive order from President Obama purporting to uphold the Hyde amendment abortion funding ban for the legislation – an executive order that pro-lifers have said is essentially meaningless.

In a recent interview with the Washington Times about his health care vote, Stupak defended Planned Parenthood, saying that the clinics in his district do not perform abortions. Interviewer Kerry Picket pressed Stupak on his reasons for not voting for the Pence amendment in 2009, which would have stripped Planned Parenthood of its taxpayer funding under Health and Human Services "family planning" (or Title X) funds.

"I don’t think I ever voted to de-fund Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood does not do abortions…in my district," said Stupak. "Planned Parenthood has a number of clinics in my district that provide health care for my people. Therefore, these clinics do quite well in my district, and I’m all for health care and extending it to everybody - access to health care, so that’s just another way.”

The lawmaker indicated that he trusted the organization's "segregation of funds," between monies diverted to abortion and those going to other health services.

"Also on Planned Parenthood, when they do it, there is a segregation of funds that go with it. It’s usually about four hundred million they tried to de-fund on Planned Parenthood. Maybe this time, I’ll look at it again if Pence brings it up. Maybe I’ll vote differently this time, but you’re right I did vote against it.”

Picket pointed out that, while the Planned Parenthood clinics in Michigan did not list abortion services, they did list abortion referral as one of the services offered.

This past Sunday night Stupak shocked his pro-life supporters when he shot down a last-ditch attempt to include his own abortion-ban language in the bill, saying the motion to send the bill back to include the ban only "purports to be a right-to-life motion" that "is really to politicize life." (See video here.)

"This is nothing more than an opportunity to continue to deny 32 million Americans health insurance," he said, amid loud cheers and angry shouts. "This motion does not promote life.

"It is the Democrats who have stood up for the principle of no public funding for abortions. ... For the Republicans who now claim that we send the bill back to committee under this guise of protecting life, is disingenuous."

Stupak later told the Times that he voted against his own language "because I feel that we have adequately — more than adequately protected life, the sanctity of life especially with the executive order, the colloquy on the floor," and suggested pro-lifers dissatisfied with the executive order were being hypocritical.

"And as I said on the floor, the right to life groups applauded George Bush in 2007 when he did his executive order, and now we did our executive order, suddenly its not good enough?" he said. "I believe some groups politicize life. As I said in my motion, when I spoke against the motion [to recommit], ‘let’s not politicize life.' Let’s prioritize life, and that’s what we did in this legislation and the executive order."

Yet top pro-life legal analysts, including the National Right to Life Committee, Americans United for Life, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops - a strong supporter of health care reform - all agreed that the executive order does not have the power to correct the bill's serious flaws on life issues.

In a phone interview with the Daily Caller, Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee responded to Stupak's charges. “We haven’t said anything to suggest we think executive orders are never of value,” he said.

However, Johnson pointed out that Bush's executive order supported existing law, whereas Obama's executive order "basically just recites what's in the Senate bill.

"We do not understand how an Executive Order, no matter how well intentioned, can substitute for statutory provisions," noted the USCCB in a statement Tuesday. Even Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards asserted that the bill would "significantly increase access to reproductive health care," and dismissed the order as a "symbolic" gesture.

Stupak also noted in the interview, in answering a question on papal sovereignty, that, "the Pope and the Catholic faith does not control Catholic legislators." "We must vote reflective of our districts and our beliefs. When I vote pro-life, it happens to be my own personal belief, also my district’s beliefs and the nation's," he said.

The national pro-life movement has continued to recoil from the lawmaker: days after the Susan B. Anthony List rescinded its planned "Defender of Life" award for Stupak, Michigan Right to Life has rescinded its endorsement of the lawmaker.

"Rep. Stupak indicated he would oppose any efforts to include federally funded abortion in national health care plans; support efforts to specifically exclude federally funded abortion in national health care plans; and be willing to vote against federal funding of abortion except where necessary to save the life of the mother," said the group in a statement.

"On March 21, Rep. Stupak failed to meet those requirements by voting for President Barack Obama's health care bill, H.R. 3590."

Stupak’s Been Lying All Along!!! Video Surfaces!

Bart Stupak who betrayed the unborn, his pro-life colleagues, and his constituents who overwhelming reject ObamaCare socialism, revealed last year that he is an unprincipled phony on the life issues. Here he is addressing constituents in Cheboygan, Michigan.

Stupak Stripped of 'Defender of Life' Award

Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund Pledges to Drive Out Pro-life Betrayers in November

In response to Rep. Bart Stupak's announcement that he and other self-labeled "pro-life" Democrats will vote in favor of Healthcare reform legislation with the addition of an Executive Order from the White House to address concerns about abortion funding, Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund President Marjorie Dannenfelser offered the following statement:

"This Wednesday night is our third annual Campaign for Life Gala, where we were planning to honor Congressman Stupak for his efforts to keep abortion-funding out of health care reform-we will no longer be doing so. By accepting this deal from the most pro-abortion President in American history, Stupak has not only failed to stand strong for unborn children, but also for his constituents and pro-life voters across the country.

"Let me be clear: any representative, including Rep. Stupak, who votes for this healthcare bill can no longer call themselves 'pro-life.' The Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund will not endorse, or support in any capacity, any Member of Congress who votes for this bill in any future election. Now through Election Day 2010, these representatives will learn that votes have consequences. The SBA List Candidate Fund will work tirelessly to help defeat Members who support this legislation and make sure their constituents know exactly how they voted. We will actively seek out true pro-life candidates to oppose Members who vote 'yes' on this bill, whether it be in general or primary elections. For these Members, it will be a quick downhill slide to defeat in November.

"The executive order on abortion funding does absolutely nothing to fix the problems presented by the health care reform bill that the House will vote on this evening. The very idea should offend all pro-life Members of Congress. An executive order can be rescinded at any time at the President's whim, and the courts could and have a history of trumping executive orders. Most importantly, pro-abortion Representatives have admitted the executive order is meaningless."

Last night, Rep. DeGette told The Huffington Post, "If there was an executive order saying they weren't going to use federal funds in the bill to pay for abortions that would be fine with me."

Today, Rep. Wasserman Schultz admitted to Fox News' Megyn Kelly that "an executive order cannot change the law."

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops pointed out today that "only a change in the law enacted by Congress, not an executive order, can begin to address this very serious problem in the legislation."

Stupak: It's Been 'A Living Hell'

"For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places."

Ephesians 6:12

From LifeSiteNews

By Kathleen Gilbert

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) on Thursday was quoted in The Hill as describing the level of pressure upon him and his fellow pro-life Democrats to pass the health care bill as "a living hell."

"How's it been? Like a living hell," Stupak told the newspaper, describing how his district offices have been "jammed" with strong feedback, much of it from non-constituents, over his opposition to the massively abortion-expanding bill.

The vitriol has even affected his home life, said the Michigan Democrat, who described the measures his wife has taken to block out the anger that is being directed at her husband. "All the phones are unplugged at our house - tired of the obscene calls and threats. She won't watch TV," he said. "People saying they're going to spit on you and all this. That's just not fun."

Despite the enormous pressure, the former state trooper indicated he wasn't about to budge. "I'm pretty stubborn," said Stupak.

The Hill reports that the group of Democrat lawmakers who are prepared to vote with Stupak (Stupak confirmed there are still at least twelve of them) met Tuesday morning to strategize and commiserate over the heavy pressure.

Stupak lamented that his pleas to party leaders to allow his language, which provided a ban on abortion funding in the House health care bill, into the Senate version, have been ignored.

"In the past, we've always been able to work it out," said Stupak. "This is the first time we've not been able to work it out."

While many have singled out Stupak and his group to blame for holding up the bill, the lawmaker pointed out: "I can't block it. Bart Stupak and his 'dirty dozen,' however you want to call it, we can't block it. There's 39 other [Democrats] who didn't vote for it."

Stupak noted that he feels conflicted because he does support health care reform - but compromising on abortion is not an option. "It's a belief for me, so it's easier to do," he said. "And it's a belief for my district, so I guess it's easier to do."

Democrats are expected on Thursday to unveil the reconciliation "fix" package, created to appease Blue Dog House Democrats' concerns over the bill, which the chamber may vote on instead of the health bill itself. According to the scheme devised by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Senate health bill could simply be "deemed" to pass once the House passes the fix package.

While constitutional concerns over the procedure have already been raised - raising the spectre of the bill's lengthy entanglement in the Supreme Court - even should it pass the House, Senate Republicans are warning that they will stop at nothing to keep the "fix" package from passing in the Senate.

Sources on Capitol Hill are now floating Sunday as the projected D-Day for the final health care vote.