Emanuel says Stupak bloc had them beat and EO does “not exist by law”
1/18, 7:36p: David Freddoso at WashingtonExaminer.com has a comment on this, as does Kathryn Lopez at NRO Online.
1/18, 7:26p: Well, Lawdy, Speaker Boehner’s office has picked up on the Emanuel admission in a fact check:
Dem Claim: ObamaCare does not promote taxpayer funding of abortion, and legislation is not needed to keep abortions from being funded by taxpayer dollars under ObamaCare.
FACT: In a recent interview with the Chicago Tribune editorial board, facing questions about his commitment to the pro-abortion cause, former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel emphasized that the Executive Order on abortion signed by President Obama in March 2010 – ostensibly to eliminate the need for the pro-life Stupak Amendment to be attached to ObamaCare – does not carry the force of law, and as such, has the seal of approval of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and others who oppose a ban on taxpayer funding of abortion (Chicago Tribune, 1/14/11). Emanuel also seemed to acknowledge that the EO was a maneuver by the Obama Administration to circumvent a bipartisan majority in the House – and the will of the American people – which supported the pro-life Stupak amendment.
[HT: LifeNews.com]
1/18, 9:10a: INC at RedState.com doesn’t think Stupak was buffaloed at all:
In my opinion Stupak was not so much hoodwinked as looking for a rationale he thought would pass public muster and provide him with a façade to enable him to support Obamacare. Unfortunately for Stupak, the public found Stupak’s words deceptive. Unfortunately for America and her unborn citizens, they found Stupak’s principles deceptive.
1/17, 1:19p: On January 14 the Chicago Tribune editorial board met with the Chicago mayoral candidates, including Barack Obama’s former chief-of-staff, Rahm Emanuel.
During that meeting the topic of Obamacare came up and along with it a discussion of the Stupak Amendment.
Emanuel made two interesting statements.
The first contradicted former Congressman Bart Stupak’s contention that Nancy Pelosi had the votes to pass Obamacare in the House without Stupak’s Democrat pro-life bloc, which Stupak said forced him to agree to President Obama’s executive order rather than walk away from the table with nothing.
In actuality, according to Emanuel, pro-lifers had the the other side’s one-seeded fruits in a vice.
Emanuel’s other statement appeared to corroborate the pro-life community’s contention that Obama’s EO does not carry the force of law. The relevant portion comes during the first 2:15 of this clip:
Transcript of relevant points:
Carol Moseley Braun: …Stupak-Pitts took from women in the new health plan the right to choose, or at least to have it covered…. You wound up being the person tagged with making that, quote, compromise happen….
Rahm Emanuel: …That is a fair question, and I’ll explain it. President Obama was determined to get his healthcare bill passed. There were 14 votes that were holding up, and my job as chief-of-staff was to help the president get – after a hundred years of waiting for comprehensive reform of healthcare – to help him get that legislation.
Carol Moseley-Braun: And so you threw women under the bus?
Rahm Emanuel: And it was hanging in balance by 14 votes. I came up with an idea for an executive order to allow the Stupak Amendment not to exist by law but by executive order, and it was good enough that Nancy Pelosi, Jan Schakowsky – here in Chicago, Rosa DeLauro, Anna Eshoo – a number of women who are held – Nita Lowey – who are held up as honors by people like NARAL and Planned Parenthood, who supported that bill and supported the way to make progress.
Emanuel twice stated his side didn’t have the votes, with his count of 14 in the Stupak bloc coming thisclose to a pro-life count of as many as 15. After his cave, Stupak claimed he didn’t have the numbers. According to The DC Caller on March 23, 2010:
Stupak said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had enough votes to pass the health bill without him and the bloc of six or seven votes he brought with him, and that she released some vulnerable Democrats from voting for the bill after he agreed to support it.
Stupak wrote at Newsweek on May 6, 2010:
By then I had realized that health-care reform would pass, so rather than vote no and lose my power to add pro-life protections, I gathered my coalition to try to reach an agreement with President Obama: an executive order confirming that no federal money would support abortion. On that Sunday, seven or eight of us pro-lifers sat with silver urns of coffee, yellow legal pads, and red pens in a discreet room away from the White House, hammering out the language.
So was the actual number 6, 7, 8 – or 14? Emanuel was quite specific. Either he or Stupak is “misremembering” – or one of them was out-bluffed. My bet would be on Emanuel and Pelosi being better high stakes political poker players than Stupak. If pro-aborts really had the votes, they wouldn’t have needed the EO.
And what did Emanuel mean by, “I came up with an idea for an executive order to allow the Stupak Amendment not to exist by law but by executive order” – a deal that passed NARAL and Planned Parenthood’s muster? Don’t forget after Obamacare’s passage PP CEO Cecile Richards called the EO a “symbolic gesture.” Stupak was apparently hoodwinked here, too.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Nice. So, where are the pro-aborts still insisting that Obamacare does not fund abortions? Rahm just admitted that it does. The EO means zip.
We knew it! We knew it! We knew it! Lies! Lies! And more lies by the Democrats including Stupak, thank you Jill for posting this. What a bunch of baloney, “Prolife Democrats” and “We are Pro-Choice”.
Figures.
Time for some Legal Eagle analysis.
And the bloodletting begins.
Stupak will the ‘example’ to all other liberals for years to come what happens when you defy the democrat leadership.
Stupak will savaged by the left for years to come and if he should show any interest in running for any political office he will be dragged into the public square and made a spearcatcher and public whipping boy.
Stupak make himself comfortable under the bus and get more closely acquainted with the ever growing cast of characters including even Obama’s maternal grand mother who pretty much raised him.
To use one of George W. Bush’s “Bushisms”, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… uhh… you can’t be fooled again.” But the Democratic Party leadership has done just that. How many times have we been betrayed by “pro-life Democrats” like Stupak? How many of these “pro-life Democrats” speak to us during the March for Life? I know that my US Senator, the supposedly pro-life Bobby Casey, holds a meeting in his Senate Office Building every year during the March for Life, and he just happens to time the meeting so that you have to choose between going to Casey’s meeting and actually marching in the March for Life itself. And if you go to the meeting, it’s nothing but 20 minutes of Casey reading off a list of his pro-life bona fides to you to “prove” how pro-life he is. Then he runs off right away because he’s just sooo busy. Of course you would never know he’s busy from back here in PA, because the guy is MIA most of the year. Most people in this state have probably forgotten that he is our US Senator.
I went to the link for Speaker Boehner’s website it is being innundated with Obamaites (probably encouraged by Obama’s political organization, Organizing For America) to have a hissy fit about the repeal of his pro-abort bill. I understand Organizing For America sent out a email blast pushing for calls to US representatives, letters to the editors, emails, etc. to keep this horrible baby-killing, massive takeover of 1/6th of the economy and of the healthcare of every American.
Just watched ‘Casablanca’ last night.
Shocked.
SHOCKED.
I am SHOCKED!
President Obama, former Speaker of the House missy Pelosi and Senate Majority leader Harry Reid lied to the American people.
Next thing you know they will tell us the economy is actually improving and the presidents approval rating is going up and his disapprovarl rating is going down.
Meanwhile they are still trying to convince the unemployment rate is dropping and inflation is less than 2%.
And they will still respect us in the morning and the checks in the mail.
Wait, wait! I am STILL waiting for our pro-abort pals to come to this thread and tell us how this is all a pack of LIES and how Obamacare does NOT cover abortions and so on and so forth ad nauseum!
Hello?
*crickets*
Stupak set a new bar for deception even for a DemocRAT. He voted against his own Amendment.
ken,
I’m pretty sure I saw one of our friendly neighborhood pro-aborts raving about how high Obama’s approval rating still is! I’ll try to locate it for you ;)
Hawaii governor can’t find Obama birth certificate
Suggests controversy could hurt president’s re-election chances
Posted: January 18, 2011
8:05 pm Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
Read more: Hawaii governor can’t find Obama birth certificate http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=252833#ixzz1BULNaBl4
====================================================================
Suggest Abercrombie ask his wife.
When I can’t find some important paperwork she is usually able to locate it for me.
Or maybe Neil is looking for something that was never there in the first place
or
The dog ate it.
Kel: “I am STILL waiting for our pro-abort pals to come to this thread and tell us how this is all a pack of LIES and how Obamacare does NOT cover abortions”
Does it, or doesn’t it?
I am very sad for Stupak. Some of the rest of us have gotten in the middle of a presssure cooker situation and made the wrong decision. Ours may not have been so public, but there is truly almost no one who will always make the right decision, no matter the circumstances. We truly must pray for strength and clarity for this Congress, especially our precious newly elected prolife representatives.