Keenen and Richards should have mobilized in JULY when Stupak put together his Gilead Coalition. Why were they silent? Was it at Rahm’s behest? Were the Veal Pen snacks, contacts, and dangled big donors just too good to pass up?

Lsdies, you failed us ALL for the last four months. Please resign your posts.

I’m surprised the health care industry might be against paying for aboritons, I might would think having a child costs the industry more then having an abortion

Meh.

Sounds like PP and NARAL are wanting to keep their powder dry (and their place in the veal pen secure of course – I don’t think those orgs are too happy with me for my reply messages when they use this shit to try to raise money they won’t spend to perform their supposed missions)

Dammm.

I swear the last few days I’ve felt like I awoke from a time machine and it’s 1919 again. Well, ‘cept for this here internets thing.

Keep on giving ‘em hell Jane. Don’t know where you get all this strength and energy, but you just keep on keeping on girl.

Isn’t it true that Harry Reid is merging the Finance and HELP bills, and that neither has Stupakiness? So won’t he be writing new law? Why not leave Stupak out, permit the amendment and require that it obtain 60 votes.

I’m not at all optimistic Stupak WON’T get 60 votes in the Senate (40 GOPS + 20 Democrats) but it would be nice to get them on the record. We need to know who ALL the anti-choicers are.

NARAL and PP are in charge of the Strategic Dry Powder Reserve.

Don’t you guys see?

this is how they get progressive to cave in.

They will make the progressives cave in to everythign to get rid of Stupak.

We got outplayed by the blue dogs, and outplayed masterfully.

Are you sure it would get all 40 GOPers?

You mean those two women from Maine would support such a thing?

Citizen Hamsher:

Are there any plans to run NARAL and NOW through the grease on this…is there any way to get the NOW and NARAL donor lists and send a mass mailing to both groups with a fund raising request? It seems that you movers and shakers in the women’s movement have gotta stand up here Sister Jane, old powerless men like me have a few bucks we ken pass on to get an effort goin’but you know whatchu hafta do, dear… now go do it!! Take these weak Sisters down once and for all!

I second NorskeFlamethrower! But then I always have…

You go, Jane! More, more, more! This business just makes me sputtering, loony mad. The next thing you know, the Democrats will legalize segregation again to get a couple of old farts from Mississippi on board, and OBAMA WILL SIGN IT!

Evidently “the organization must tread carefully to promote reproductive rights without sabotaging a health care bill they would otherwise find generally beneficial.”

Evidently some Fake Progressive groups have been co opted.

Jane, one thing you do REALLY WELL in your video appearances that others would do well to emulate is NOT beginning every response with “Look….” or “Well, listen….” It’s a very off-putting way to start an answer (Chris Hayes, are you listening??) and I’m very glad to see you avoid that construction.

Well done on TopLine, these guys seem very pleased to have you on and you did a great job explaining the unspeakable: that Rahm shut down the Veal Pen. Early organizing worked. NARAL and PP raising money now is just their usual pattern: Oh noes, something horrible happened while we weren’t watching, please send more money!!

Citizen Inquisitr:

Your weak, “I’m powerless”, whinin’ shit is gettin’ old. Don’t you get it, Citizen, use your head and your muscle…if you know how the fascists get what they want outta the “progressives” then use it your OWN self. I don’t wanna hear any more “we can’t do that, we’re not strong enough”…jeeeZUS, you sound like my kids used ta sound when I told ‘em they had yardwork ta do or they wouldn’t get the car and any booze money.

Thirded :)

Of course I’m not sure. Perhaps the Mainers would oppose it, whatever gets them the most camera time will get their vote.

Just why are the Dems throwing away the Women’s vote for the next election? Its almost like they want to lose.

We got outplayed by the blue dogs, and outplayed masterfully.

Your new here Rahm has been ham handed drunk sneaking into the house past curfew Obvious.
Bribes/Campaign Contributions count more than votes I could agree with you on that but we got out played Masterfully?
No guys as Obvious as Rahm have a name in Chicago Future Witness for the Prosecution.

I hadn’t heard any Senators views on this, and don’t know those two all that well, but I guess I would be a bit surprised if they supported it. Not totally shocked, but surprised.

One thing seems fairly certain, if they do attempt it in the Senate, and it DOES pass the Senate, then it will have passed both houses and will therefore likely remain in the final bill. I don’t think they take out stuff in conference that has passed both houses, do they? I’m not sure on that, guess it’s possible.

Full Contact Lysistrata would get Stupak’s constituents’ attention.

Btw, well done this morning on Democracy Now, Jane.

Ha!

Vote for Dems.

Test.

It’s just shocking that PP and NARAL evidently promised not to score this vote as a vote against abortion rights.

I can’t believe what’s happening to my country.

Unlike your side we won’t let the Dems jerk us around like the GOP has since the 80’s under Reagan on Abortion 20 years of GOP Presidents 8 years of Bill, 20 years to appoint Supreme Court judges and the GOP never delivers for the Fundies.
We are not going to be victims like your lot.

I suspect there is some part (all?) of each of those organizations that actually likes the Stupak amendment.

It starts a whole new cottage industry of accepting donations to help women who need an abortion.

They will be the front and center saviors of the poor. This amendment doesn’t hurt them — it’ll help raise their profiles.

NOW is already in gear..

I wonder what they were promised in return from the White House? Maybe their kids all get good jobs working at the WH or the Democratic Party? Maybe 13 pieces of Silver? Do nothing Corporate Board of Director’s jobs?
I doubt they traded for anything of equal value to help women after all what other issue is so important for women that is likely to be decided any time soon that the WH could trade support on?

I’m confused by “the worse assault on a woman’s right to choose since the passage of Roe v. Wade.” I thought Roe v. Wade was the definitive suit that gave women the right to choose.

Maybe I’m reading it wrong.

Poor Women get trapped into poverty with kids. While Women who can afford it still get abortions. Didn’t the Roman Emperor Augustus exile his daughter for being a slut?
Morality starts at the top if the ruling class has morals the people will follow. If not then the Mandate of Heaven will Pass:)

Speaks volumes that a few old vets make more noise about women’s rights being assaulted than the national offices of Planned Parenthood and NARAL.

The deecee cocktail parties must really be fine for the so-called women’s rights groups to be willing to trade access to the parties for the rights of the women they supposedly represent.

Enforcing morals on the poor while the rich have none sooo won’t work we are a Capitalist Society we as a group (not all of us) aspire to be rich and that means we want to adapt the morals of the rich.

The social conservatives have been assaulting Roe v Wade since the decision. The Stupak Amendment is the most effective assault of all.

Reply to @27 Polyblog

There have been many assaults on reproductive rights since Roe — this is the worst.

It is likely Democrats will swallow hard and vote for the bill with Stupak. They can make a lot of noise, but they cannot lose more than three votes. They won’t take the chance of stripping Stupak and losing the votes. The margin is just too small to chance it.

Stupak will stay, or the bill will fail.

Better, just scrap the whole thing and begin again. The bill now is too complicated and just a mess.

Single payer would be much more simple. This bill is going to lead to widespread dissatisfaction because it is not going to lower any costs. THEN, people will sour on the entire idea and the chance will be gone for a very long time.

Better to start from scratch and push, with open hearings, for single payer.

Roe v Wade was the decision that allowed woman to control their bodies.

Ever since that decision, the forced birthers/anti-women crowd have tried desperately to get it overturned completely (if possible) and at a minimum, restrict it so much and make getting one so onerous that it is de facto overturned

Didn’t take long for the trolls to come out from under the bridge.

Painful to have so much work undone in a single vote. Wonder what it would take to get NARAL to spring into action.

Did I say we couldn’t do anything?

Did I say give up?

Quite the contrary.

I’m just trying to make sure we all see the writing on the wall so we can fight against it. Because this will be the argument. In order to get rid of Stupak we need a shittier PO that covers less people and does worse, we need the mandate in to get rid of Stupak.

You can’t fight if you aren’t aware of the tactics to be used.

And we did get outplayed dude, admit it, it will feel better.

We all seem far to willing to give the Progressive who betrayed the pledge a pass. That’s the first thing that needs to change in the fight right now.

But don’t you call me a coward, don’t you dare. I campaigned, I donated, I called, I marched, I’ll compare my record to anyone’s.

Don’t you dare call me a coward.

Apparently a change in values.

What Teddy said about Mz. Hamsher on Top Line.

Well done! Masterful, you slipped the blade in and no one felt it till it was too late.

LOVED the ‘email lists fundraising’ meme exposed for what it is..
Great appearance Mz. Hamsher!

It sounds as if the failure is at the top. I’ll bet the woman working at PP in Iowa doesn’t get invited to the best parties in DC. Maybe the local offices need to be encouraged to react against the people in their “leadership.”

Is there a link to TopLine? I don’t even know what it is.

Better, just scrap the whole thing and begin again. The bill now is too complicated and just a mess.

Single payer would be much more simple. This bill is going to lead to widespread dissatisfaction because it is not going to lower any costs.

Seconded

Do you often do your thinking with catch phrases??

My point stands. The conference committee with not strip Stupak from the bill. They cannot afford to lose the votes. Three votes could easily switch sides were it stripped. And, then, where would things be?

I actually think the chance for single payer has been wasted here. It won’t come again for a long time. This was the best chance ever.

Seconded. I don’t know what it is either.

And can I watch a replay of it somewhere??

If you think single payer had a chance you haven’t been paying attention. Do you think Jane and all the other people in this would have opted for some shitty public option this summer if they thought we had a chance with single payer?

Since you’re the only one who jumped at the mention of trolls, if the foo shits, wear it.

And we did get outplayed dude, admit it, it will feel better.

No Bribes would be called cheating in the face of the poll numbers we have on this issue Obama might lose Harry Reid’s Senate seat over this.

We all seem far to willing to give the Progressive who betrayed the pledge a pass.

Nope, however the Lake likes to fight your comment at 8 seemed a little defeatist your 37 corrects that view your not a coward..

DOH !

Nevermind!!!

Just click the forking picture at the top OldFatDummy!!!!!

Dayam I can be soooo DENSE!

A leadership this ineffective, or this tone-deaf, unable to defend even the gains of past struggles, is not a leadership that can be trusted in this difficult time in the nation’s history.

Once you begin backsliding on questions of principle — still voting money for an illegal war/occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, banning torture and abuse evidence at the behest of the military, countenancing torture in the form of the current Army Field Manual’s Appendix M, setting up yet another version of bogus military commissions, giving billions to Wall Street (with no means to account for the money)… one could go on and on — once you have gotten used to throwing the weak and powerless under the bus, then it was only a matter of time until women as a demographic group, and the all-important issue of reproductive rights, would become the next victim of party political expediency (i.e., the electoral chances of the incumbents) over what is right.

Outside of the political blogosphere, the Stupak amendment has barely registered on the nation’s consciousness. Daily newspapers are almost entirely dead. The radio, TV and cable news barely discuss this issue (unless you watch Rachel Maddow and one or two other shows).

The initial response of NARAL and Planned Parenthood indicates political genuflection to the current Democratic Congressional leadership. The absence of legitimate political alternatives leaves organizations like these floundering like wounded whales at the side of the Pequod, thrashing about and making some waves, but submitting themselves up for the slaughter.

This is what Reaction is all about. We have yet to have the (non-violent) political bloodletting that we have needed ever since the Bush/Cheney years. Today’s politicians are still living in what Mark Danner has called “Bush’s State of Exception.”

The Stupak amendment is no anomaly. It is a wake-up call that we need a new and bold leadership, or that lurching you feel, that spinningly dizzy feeling, is U.S. society slipping ever backwards.

Stupak’s abortion policy is going to become a Pyrrhic victory.

Letting Stupak derail healthcare reform would be cutting off our noses to spite our faces.

What Stupak really did was rip the veil right off the power structure in this nation; his amendment made it quite clear that no matter how many degrees, professional experience, promotions, patents, or money women have in this nation, we’re still very much ’second class citizens’ who can’t be trusted to speak with our own physicians or decide the future of our own families.

Personally, that seems like a rather stupid thing of Stupak to have made these stark facts so chillingly clear to us all.
Sometimes, it’s better to keep up a pretense than to point out the obvious.

In Mz. Hamsher’s post above, there’s a link to click, which is an article with a vid showing Pelosi. That’s the beginning of the show, before they get to Mz. Hamsher’s appearance.

Here’s The Direct Linky

Or you can click on the Pelosi Pic at the top of the post, and watch it all! *G*

If you go to ABC News linky, be SURE to watch the blather of the GOP Pol Strategist who’s shilling a new book, her ‘insights’ on WOMEN and GOP will ensure a gag reaction.

God what an insane perspective she wields . . . and the two hosts take her down, hard, at the end as she’s shilling that Palin is BOLD, and VALUED for death panels.

Because, although Palin and the panels were completely debunked, repudiated, and everyone agrees it HURT The GOP, this author thinks she got MEDIA coverage ya know, and that’s MAJOR political cache and capitol and never MIND if she proved the GOP is batshit crazy and a buncha lying scum sucking asshats.

And Palin, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are women rising stars in the GOP? Whitman and Fiorina are BOTH failures in business, aside from their separation agreements!!!

Too effing funny, these are the stars of the GOP, failures, failures as bad as The BushChild.

Sigh, teh stoopid hurts.

Whitman and Fiorina have already been debunked by CA voters, and failed in their efforts for political office, although both are still trying. I don’t know, Whitman may still be running for CA Gov, but I thought she had dropped out.

Teddy P?

I disagree, Stupak was used by Bluedogs and Corporate (Rahm/Obama) interests to bring pressure in conference that will continue to erode PO more than it is.

Stupak will go, but the end resulting PO that’s the tradeoff, will truly suck and be even MORE less reform and MORE corporate giveaway.

Time will tell, but I bet I’m right!! *G*

Inquisitor has been saying this all day here at FDL, it’s seeming to be pretty obvious. Even Mz. Hamsher is on record that she does not think The Senate will support Stupak, and The Senate generally overwhelms House in conference. I just wonder what more we progs will lose in Conference from the PO in exchange for dumping Stupak.

If we gave up everytime the conventional wisdom said its impossible the John McCain would be voting for Healthcare right now as I’m sure some in the WH wanted.
We will get rid of this or the Progressives can go back to being ignored by the WH and the Blue Dogs. Just what kind of bill can pass if we make clear that the folks who fought the hardest don’t like the bill?
You state Senate reality counting votes quite well. Look at the Fivethirtyeight blog Harry Reid is the third most vulnerable Senate seat thanks to this issue 2 open seats are the only seats in more trouble.
Pass this bill as is and the Dems will get blamed when they lose the next election. The WH, the Blue Dogs we deliver votes donate, attend Town Halls without us the Dems go back to being the minority party and Obama learns what Bill Clinton felt like when Newt took over.
And thats the political reality if the Conventional wisdom ignores us they won’t on Election day.

Got it. Thanks.

Man that chick is something.

Beautiful, smart, and a sense of humor.

And an inner fire that doesn’t EVER quit.

What a combination. A force to be reckoned with for sure. I’m glad she’s on our side. *g*

And that was another great performance. Have to keep my eye on Top Line from now on.

Because they can’t be shamed into respecting anyone else’s constitutional rights, the only alternative is to primary them out so they can go to work on K Street.

A pleasure, given all you’ve helped me with lately on these issues in HCR.

Heh! ;~)

Lets see…… my tax dollars have gone to wars reprehensible in nature. I have no “standing” to contest the spending of tax dollars spent to kill human being, justified by, national defense. However those who oppose abortion, the the right of women to choose free of government as well anti-abortionist interference from individuals who seek to impose religious standards upon women in the form of denying women the right to choose, by denying funding of abortions under healthcare reform, is sexist, denies women equal protection of law and violates separation of church and state. It is in essence unconstitutional on its face!

Actually, you have to have special coverage to pay for pregnancy. It doesn’t come with most health insurance packages that you get from employers.

in that case, if you want them to cover choice all we have to do is insist they cover pregnancy,, choice will cost them less

“Just why are the Dems throwing away the Women’s vote for the next election? Its almost like they want to lose.”

Nice civil rights you got there. Would be a shame if anything happened to them. Have to keep the threats close and always at the door, with a few slipping through from time to time for maximum effect.

“Better to start from scratch and push, with open hearings, for single payer.”

I’m sure this has been covered, but what does single payer look like for women’s reproductive health care with the Hyde Amendment in effect? Contraceptive coverage is likely next on the chopping block.

Thirded.

Good point.

I’d like to suggest that we start an e-mail assault on Michelle Obama re this subject. Ask how she feels — for herself and her daughters — having her and their rights taken away by this coven of crazy old men.

Seriously, women across American have GOT to start realizing that the Democratic party no longer cares for them. Let’s start at the top.

It is in essence unconstitutional on its face!

And we can all start placing our bets on whether the 6 Catholics on the Supreme Court will find it so.

No, I just know your techniques.

Single payer WOULD have had a chance IF the House had not chickened out and actually held INFORMATIVE hearings and brought the public along. When you rush stuff, it is usually not too good.

They could have held ALL kinds of hearings bringing in analysts, single payer experts and even maybe some well recognized (not obviously biased) experts from single payer countries to testify.

Did they? No. How can you POSSIBLY get any public support for single payer without such??

So rich women can get abortions with out of pocket money, but poor women on public option have lost the choice.

Haves vs. have nots one more time.

This one comes by ew’s every so often and stinks the place up.

I guess PP and NARAL are expecting to get a lot of donations on this. Maybe they should get their fundraising letters back, with ‘Hell No’ written across them in red permanent marker (lipstick also will work). I’ll do that with the DNC/etc letters, too.

What party should we look to, now that the Dems have decided they don’t need women, GLBT, minorities, and labor?

Don’t blame NARAL and Planned Parenthood for the Dem’s actions. As a member, I’ve been making phone calls, sending emails and making office visits for 6 months now. Just because you don’t read about it in the newspapers, doesn’t mean that women haven’t been working. It’s the same old story as single payer, which the majority of the American public wants. The Money Party (the only political party in the US) strikes again.

Rather than criticize activists, criticize the Congress and start working for public finance.

It is so common for progressives, liberals, and democrats to criticize each other, rather than uniting and working together against the common enemy.

The only time the Money Party doesn’t go with corporate profits is when they have the chance to limit civil rights. They know that limiting civil rights now means greater profits in the future.

NOW had a rally in DC today. They have been working hard. It’s like single payer–the majority of AMerican want it, but we cannot even discuss it. Does that mean the single payer advocates have been doing nothing?

Just because you do not hear about it, doesn’t mean that they’ve been nothing. I’ve been sending emails and letters, and making phone calls for 4 months, as I am on the action lists for both NARAL and NOW.