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Rachel follows up on her reporting on the 'kill the gays' bill being considered in Uganda. Her show attempted to get some responses from the American legislators who have decided to inject themselves so deeply into African politics - with predictable results. Most of them either tried to wash their hands of their part in this absolutely horrid piece of proposed legislation or didn’t bother to respond at all. The scandal ridden John Ensign’s office said he was too busy screwing up the health care bill to give a response.
James Inhofe and Sam Brownback didn’t bother to respond, either. Don’t hold your breath waiting on those two knuckle-draggers, Rachel. I’m sure it will be a cold day in hell before either of them bother to tell the evil “librul” lesbian woman why they could care less if you were killed if you were unfortunate enough to live in Uganda, assuming this law gets passed.
Props to Rachel for keeping after this story. It has to be one of the most disgusting news items I’ve watched in a very long time and these C-Street wingers need to be held to account for their actions. It’s a shame the rest of the media is not giving this story the attention it deserves. They’re too busy chasing around the White House party crashers or Tiger Woods’ mistresses.
Residents of the C Street Christian fellowship house will no longer benefit from a loophole that had allowed the house's owners to avoid paying property taxes.
Previously, the house -- despite being home to numerous lawmakers -- had been tax exempt, because it was classified as a church. That arrangement had allowed the building's owner, the secretive international Christian organization The Family, to charge significantly below market rents to its residents. In recent year, Senators John Ensign (R-NV), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Reps. Zach Wamp (R-TN), Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) have all reportedly called C Street home.
Natalie Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Office of Tax and Revenue for Washington D.C., told TPMmuckraker that her office inspected the house this summer. "It was determined that portions of it were being rented out for private residential purposes," she said. As a result, the tax exempt status was partially revoked. Sixty-six percent of the value of the property is now subject to taxation.
Jeff Sharlet followed up with more insight from his time spent there researching his book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. At least one good thing has come out of all the attention Bart Stupak has drawn to himself and to the formerly very secretive C-Street House.
Via Huffington Post, the latest from Bart Stupak, clearly under the loving spiritual guidance of his C Street family:
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) is warning fellow Democrats not to mess with his restrictive anti-abortion amendment.
Pro-choice outrage was sparked by the inclusion of a provision in the House health care bill making it harder for private insurers to cover abortion. President Obama himself suggested that the language disrupted the status quo and should be taken out of the final legislation. Abortion rights supporters in Congress requested a meeting with the president next week to discuss the issue.
Now Stupak is saying he won't go easily.
"We won because [the Democrats] need us," Stupak said. "If they are going to summarily dismiss us by taking the pen to that language, there will be hell to pay. I don't say it as a threat, but if they double-cross us, there will be 40 people who won't vote with them the next time they need us -- and that could be the final version of this bill."
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What a week. We've already seen Blue Dogs take women to the back of the bus (or was it the alley?) with Stupak's impressively Stupid Amendment. Now we're hearing that those who supposedly worry about "too much spending" when it comes to health care--you know, the meatloaf-brains who rejected the public option, which would create competition and actually bring down costs--are now blathering on about embracing "tort reform."
Because you'd really want to take away the rights of victims in a democracy to lower the health care costs by...wait for it...wait for it... ".5%" (according to the CBO).
All you really need to know is that Blue Dogs/GOPers (is there any difference?) are those in favor of this counterproductive course of action, yet if you do indeed need more, watch the heart wrenching videos recounting the tragic results of medical malpractice. To learn more about the 98,000 lives lost due to medical error each year--or 268 every day--go to 98,000 reasons, a website set up by the American Association for Justice. Once there send a message to your Senator: Remind them you won't have your rights further stripped away so they can scarf down more caviar with their contributors at Big Insurance.
In an interview with Ezra Klein in the Washington Post yesterday Jim Cooper (D-TN) championed his vote for the Health Care Bill, while distancing himself from his own vote in favor of restricting abortion rights with the Stupak-Pitts Amendment.
Before the Stupak amendment, many of my friends had not realized that the government gives a $250 billion annual subsidy to employer-sponsored health care. If you understand today’s system, the Hyde amendment bans direct subsidies of abortion. It does not ban indirect subsidies of abortion, in particular the $250 billion that goes to employer-based health care. The bishops never noticed that. But this is the way education works in a democracy. It’s not easy or simple. But when people begin making decisions, they learn about lots of things they never noticed before.
Ignoring the really condescending tone of that paragraph, that's still a bullshit reason. Now, I know that Cooper opposes subsidies to employer-based healthcare. But that's not the issue here. The issue is whether or not private insurance companies offering individual plans within an exchange can still offer coverage for one item that they generally already cover. Not everyone within this exchange is going to receive subsidies from the government, but if even one person receives $1 in subsidies, then the plan they're enrolled in would have to deny reproductive health coverage to everyone, even to those not receiving subsidies.
If everyone was so opposed to these "indirect subsidies" to abortion through employer-based healthcare, then why has there never been any serious attempt to cut if off before, even when the Republicans were in power? Why is there no serious effort to stop it now? What would be the substantive difference between that and what they're proposing in the future exchange? Why has Cooper never couched this argument in these terms before, that the problem is not employer-based healthcare or an insurance exchange themselves but the fact that it could remotely cover this one thing? He's always framed it in terms of the former rather than the latter.
Bottom line--if you're against the government providing subsidies, whether through employer healthcare or an insurance exchange, then vote against the damn bill and stand by what you believe. Don't use the abortion issue to weasel out of it and say, "See, this is better now because we're not providing expensive subsidies" when you still are providing them for everything else. Where's the amendment banning subsidies from being used to purchase Viagra?
Big Tent Democrat at Talk Left (Memo To Jim Cooper: You Voted FOR The Stupak Amendment) catches Cooper trying to pull a fast one:
[EZRA KLEIN:] The argument over Stupak’s amendment was striking for how effectively it evaded questions of choice and focused on the Hyde amendment. They narrowed that debate very sharply.
[JIM COOPER:] They won the argument that their amendment was the continuation of current law.
(Emphasis supplied.) "They" must have held a gun to Jim Cooper's head when he voted FOR "their" amendment. Cooper appears to be part of the anti-choice majority that "they" say exists.
Instead, ask yourself these questions: Why is it that the moderates conservatives always get their way - at the expense of liberals, and of alleged Democratic party values? Why is the compromise always on our end? Why aren't people like Bart Stupak being told to "put on their big boy pants" and swallow compromise to get health care reform?
And why isn't some progressive politician introducing a bill to cut off funding for special education or any other services at Catholic schools? After all, how is providing the services from a trailer at the far end of the school parking lot not an "accounting trick"? Why aren't liberals aggressively challenging the tax-exempt status of the Catholic church?
I was under the impression we had freedom of religion in this country. Apparently, I was wrong.
WORCESTER - Opening up a major fissure in the US Senate race, Attorney General Martha Coakley said yesterday that she opposes the landmark health care bill approved by the House Saturday because it contains a provision restricting federal funding for abortion.
Coakley, in her boldest gamble of the campaign, said that fighting for women’s access to abortions was more important than passing the overall bill, despite its aim of providing coverage for 36 million people, establishing a public insurance option, and prohibiting insurers from discriminating against patients with preexisting conditions.
“To pretend that now the House has passed this bill is real progress - it’s at the expense of women’s access to reproductive rights," Coakley said in an interview, after making similar comments yesterday morning on Boston radio station WTKK-FM.
[...] Coakley’s opposition to the bill put her squarely at odds with her three rivals for the Democratic nomination, including US Representative Michael E. Capuano, who voted in favor of the plan and blasted Coakley’s stance yesterday, calling it “manna from heaven" for his campaign.
“I find it interesting and amazing, and she would have stood alone among all the prochoice members of Congress, all the members of the Massachusetts delegation," Capuano said in an interview. “She claims she wants to honor Ted Kennedy’s legacy on health care. It’s pretty clear that a major portion of this was his bill."
He went on: “If she’s not going to vote for any bill that’s not perfect, she wouldn’t vote for any bill in history. She would have voted against Medicare, the Civil Rights bill. . . . Realism is something you have to deal with in Washington."
Why is it that "realism" is always and inevitably at the expense of women, gays and minorities? Is that the new Democratic value?
UPDATE: Apparently Capuano has since changed his position, saying he'll vote against the bill if Stupak amendment stays.
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Rachel Maddow runs down the list for us of C-Street family members who also voted for Bart Stupak’s anti-abortion amendment yesterday. Nothing like having what amounts to a secretive religious cult making health care policy for women in the United States. As Rachel noted that list includes:
Rep. Bart Stupak D-MI
Rep. Joe Pitts R-PA
Rep. Ike Skelton D-MO
Rep. Mike McIntyre D-NC
Rep. John Tanner D-TN
Rep. Lincoln Davis D-TN
Rep. Dan Boren D-OK
Rep. Heath Shuler D-NC
Jeff Sharlet joined Rachel to discuss The C-Street Family's ever growing influence within the Democratic Party.
Maddow: What are Congressman Stupak and Congressman Pitts’ connections to C-Street and The Family? Is one of them more deeply involved than the other?
Sharlet: Yeah, well Congressman Pitts has been involved with The Family since 1976 and in the 1980’s he was instrumental in bringing anti-abortion politics into this kind of elite fundamentalism that until that point had been focused on economics and foreign affairs. Bart Stupak meanwhile has been living at C-Street since at least 2002 when he told the Los Angeles Times “we kind of don’t talk about what happens here”.
Maddow: Are there signs that The Family had anything to do with the Stupak-Pitts amendment? I mean this is quite a legislative coup that they’ve pulled off.
Sharlet: Well, you have to consider that Congressman Pitts is what The Family calls a core member. This is a little like being on the board of directors. You can go on line and find video of him talking about the objectives of the group is to create a god led government. He has worked over the years to prevent not only abortion but AIDS education overseas and so this has been a life-long project for him going back years and years and years. Stupak is a little bit newer to this issue and I think what you really have to question here is Pitts who’s been active in this for a long time and was bringing up these amendments I think in Stupak and his brother in The Family as it was called, found a Democrat to carry the issue for him.
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I want to propose a new amendment be added during the conference committee when the House and Senate get together to merge the health-care reform bills. I know the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will love it, since they are officially members of Congress now. Here it is.
All pro-life male members of Congress who ejaculate without the express intent of making a baby will be considered to have had an abortion. (This will include airport-bathroom encounters.) Under this new rule, the male pro-life members then must fall in line with the same restrictions to health care as women will have to under the Stupak Amendment. Then starting in 2013, all pro-life men in America will be covered under this provision as well.
Out of the 56 women in the Democratic caucus, only two voted for Stupak. All 17 Republican women voted for it.
What this adds up to is that 97% of the Democrats who voted for the Stupak amendment were male. 90% of the Republicans were male.
I would have to guess that if more than 17% of the congress were women, there would be a little bit less likelihood that women's rights would be so often used as a handy tool to placate neanderthals.
If men want to lead this country in the debate about abortion, then they should show real leadership and take responsibility for their behavior. Are you with me, Bishops? A woman can't just stand around and get pregnant. She needs our seed to be planted in her garden, so why should a woman be held to a higher standard than a man? Is that the democracy and freedom our troops are fighting for?
I'm sure the USCCB will gladly jump on board with this because they are in the sex business and are considered the world's No. 1 experts in that field. They understand better than any living person how a baby is made -- after all, they are Bishops. Imagination is a wonderful thing and can inform and educate people who have never experienced sex. Wow, who knew?
There's no questioning the historic nature of the vote. What the Democrats did to get there is pretty ugly (I can't believe we cut a deal with anti-woman C-Street true believer Bart Stupak), but we did get there, and most people will see some real improvements in their lives as a result. Now it's on to the Senate, where hopefully women's rights won't be treated as peripheral to the political process.
Hours after President Obama exhorted Democratic lawmakers to "answer the call of history," the House hit an unprecedented milestone on the path to health-care reform, approving a trillion-dollar package late Saturday that seeks to overhaul private insurance practices and guarantee comprehensive and affordable coverage to almost every American.
After months of acrimonious partisanship, Democrats closed ranks on a 220-215 vote that included 39 defections, mostly from the party's conservative ranks. But the bill attracted a surprise Republican convert: Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao of Louisiana, who represents the Democratic-leaning district of New Orleans and had been the target of a last-minute White House lobbying campaign. GOP House leaders had predicted their members would unanimously oppose the bill.
Democrats have sought for decades to provide universal health care, but not since the 1965 passage of Medicare and Medicaid has a chamber of Congress approved such a vast expansion of coverage. Action now shifts to the Senate, which could spend the rest of the year debating its version of the health-care overhaul. Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) hopes to bring a measure to the floor before Thanksgiving, but legislation may not reach Obama's desk before the new year.
At the Capitol, Obama urged the few Democrats who were still wavering on Saturday afternoon to put aside their political fears and embrace the bill's ambitious objectives. "Opportunities like this come around maybe once in a generation," he said afterward. "This is our moment to live up to the trust that the American people have placed in us. Even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard. This is our moment to deliver."
The House legislation would for the first time require every individual to obtain insurance, and would require all but the smallest employers to provide coverage to their workers. It would vastly expand Medicaid and create a new marketplace where people could obtain federal subsidies to buy insurance from private companies or from a new government-run insurance plan.
Though some people would receive no benefits -- including about 6 million illegal immigrants, according to congressional estimates -- the bill would virtually close the coverage gap for people who do not have access to health-care coverage through their jobs.
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One of John Boehner's more childish moments on the House floor tonight, asking Charlie Rangel for assurances on what's going to come out of the Conference Committee in the final bill, and cutting him off before he has a chance to answer him.
Stupak probably doesn't have the votes will be joined by the Republicans and will probably get his amendment passed. Again, I ask: Why does someone's personal religious beliefs get to infringe on mine or anyone else's rights? Abortion is legal, in case anyone forgot.
WASHINGTON — The House opened debate on its health-care bill Saturday after Democratic leaders agreed to allow a vote on an amendment from antiabortion Democrats.
The agreement early Saturday could break a stalemate over abortion that was threatening the bill's prospects.
If the House approves the bill, it would be the first time a chamber of Congress has passed legislation aimed at guaranteeing near-universal access to health care.
A final vote on the health measure could come late Saturday or early Sunday morning. House Democratic leaders were still scrambling to come up with the 218 votes needed to pass the bill, and aides predicted the vote would be a cliffhanger.
[...] Abortion has divided Democrats, with antiabortion lawmakers saying they couldn't allow any federal funding of abortion under the new health-insurance exchanges the bill would establish.
Rep. Bart Stupak, an antiabortion Democrat from Michigan, explained his amendment before the House Rules Committee just after midnight Saturday. He said it provides that federal subsidies cannot be used to purchase a health plan including coverage for abortions other than in cases of rape or incest.
The amendment from Mr. Stupak and Rep. Joseph Pitts (R., Pa.) is set to come before the full House for a vote later Saturday.
The concession to allow a vote is significant because House Democrats aren't allowing votes on any other substantive amendments, save one Republican amendment that is an alternative to the Democrats' plan.
Nearly 90% of private health insurance policies now offer abortion coverage, and almost half of women with private insurance have it. But women covered under the new system would have to find supplemental insurance or pay out of pocket for an unanticipated procedure that can cost from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on complexity. For anyone unable to afford it, this would amount to a de facto ban.
But here's the catch: The bill makes it so financially unattractive for insurance companies to offer abortion coverage - even if you pay for the insurance yourself - that they're likely to stop offering it except to the largest groups. Got it? This is not a minor amendment.
And unless it's rejected by the Senate or in conference, women have once again been stripped of the ability to get abortions.
