There is much gnashing of teeth by abortion supporters over the inclusion of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment in the Speaker Nancy Pelosi health care bill – H.R. 3962.  Bart Stupak, Michigan Democrat, and Joe Pitts, Pennsylvania Republican, succeeded in amending H.R. 3962 so that no government funds can be used to pay for abortion.  Claims that Stupak-Pitts is out of line with current law or that it is unconstitutional are simply false.

The Stupak-Pitts amendment (“Stupak-Pitts”) combines two principles.  First, it contains the core principle of the Hyde Amendment that the government not encourage abortion through direct funding or subsidization of the cost of plans that cover elective abortion.  Second, Stupak-Pitts refuses to accept deceptive schemes in which funds deposited into a common pot are claimed to be separate.  Stupak-Pitts recognizes the obvious truth that money is fungible.  Hence, Stupak does not swallow the deception that government subsidized insurance policies covering abortion do not involve the government in the promotion or encouragement of abortion through subsidies.

Anyone with an ounce of foresight on the Left should have seen this coming.  The current principle in federal law – a la Hyde – is that the United States government does not pay for abortions (with exceptions of mother’s life, rape and incest) or pay for the cost of any plan that covers abortion.  This principle even carries over to the private plans purchased by government employees.  Now, if, as the Democrats want, the government is going to dominate, micro-regulate, and subsidize the nation’s health care system – both government run and privately insured – then the question of how the Hyde principle will apply to these new programs arises immediately.

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President Obama is said to be taking his time, carefully weighing all alternatives, “calibrating” our response to the situation in Afghanistan with precision and judgment. The point of all these statements is to reinforce the Obama administration’s theme that George W. Bush rushed off pell-mell and did not assess the situation properly before committing U.S. troops.

Not since the famed King Ethelred the Unready have we seen such a long, drawn-out, and public process of decision-making. Despite his name, however, this ancient English king was not called “the unready” because he was unprepared. The word comes from Middle English and means he was ill-advised.

That appellation certainly fits today. We have seen a succession of unconfirmed, unconfirmable czars comes and go. The latest departure has been Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director. She cited Mao Zedong as her favorite political philosopher. If any adviser in any conservative administration had listed some notorious mass murderer as a political model, the roof of the press room would have fallen in.

Now, part of President Obama’s delay must be attributed to the kind of advisers he has chosen and the kind of advice they are giving him. One of these, Bruce Riedel, recently spoke at Tel Aviv University. Riedel is a senior fellow at the liberal Brookings Institute and a former CIA official.

Riedel is telling the President that we are fighting a losing battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan and that with our forces bogged down there, we are incapable of responding militarily to the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon. “Israelis need to understand that there’s going to be a huge drain on resources, attention and capital [in Afghanistan], and that will have implications,” Reidel said in an interview with the Jerusalem Post.

Well. One has to wonder if Bruce Riedel has ever read U.S. history. In World War II, there were many who thought–for less than 24 hours–that we had too much on our hands fighting Japan to enter into a war with Nazi Germany. President Roosevelt responded with speed not just to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but also to Hitler’s subsequent declaration of war on the U.S.

To meet those combined threats, the United States had to resort to a draft. We eventually put in uniform one in every 11 Americans. (Today, that figure is less than in in two hundred.) America’s industrial capacity made us the Arsenal of Democracy. During the war, Britain tripled her output, excelling both Germany and Russia, who merely doubled theirs. Japan, incredibly, saw a four-fold increase in production. And America? The United States increased its war production twenty-five times.

Does Bruce Riedel, or any of President Obama’s timorous advisers, have any idea of the capacity for greatness that this country possesses? My diplomatic history prof, Norman A. Graebner, used to tell standing room only lecture halls that the United States was like the great boxer, Joe Louis.

We had power to spare.

If this nation’s life is threatened by murderous mullahs in Tehran, or by Al Qaeda harboring Taliban in Afghanistan, we can do what we have to do. Who else will protect us? The UN?

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In a heated exchange with the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder stood by his decision to jeopardize–not only New York City, but 200 years of American tradition—by launching the trial of the century against 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five other terrorists in the Big Apple.   Holder insists that New York is the best “venue to obtain justice,” but as Senators on both sides of the aisle argued, prosecuting terrorists minutes from the graveyard they dug for 3,000 innocent U.S. victims is “dangerous,” “misguided,” and “unnecessary.”  Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was the most visibly upset.  “We’re making history here, Mr. Attorney General…bad history.”  Rather than leave the terrorists’ fate to a military tribunal, Holder is rolling the dice with a jury of civilians who–with a single “not guilty” verdict–could exonerate men who committed an act of war against our nation.  Essentially, the decision boils down to a global PR stunt to showcase America’s fairness.  It’s more than a little ironic, then, that both Holder and President Obama have already determined the outcome.  “Failure is not an option,” Holder said.  If that’s the case, why bother with a trial that endangers the city, shows disdain for our military, prolongs the process, and wastes millions of taxpayer dollars ($75 million a year for security alone)?  This entire charade besmirches the memory of every 9-11 victim and family–and, more than that, it disrespects every soldier, living and dead, who put on a uniform to fight in the war these villains started.

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Today is the 146^th anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. I was reminded of this date yesterday when I took some visitors from Australia and New Zealand to visit the Lincoln Cottage in Northwest Washington. President Lincoln spent almost a quarter of his four-year term at this rural getaway. He and his family spent summers and early fall days there in 1862, 1863, and 1864. It was at this refuge—a retirement home for old and disabled soldiers–that he drafted the Emancipation Proclamation during that fateful summer of 1862.

Lincoln was not the featured speaker at the dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery that cold November day in 1863. That honor had been reserved to Harvard’s former president, Edward Everett. Everett was regarded as the greatest orator of that age of great oratory.

Everett, a former Secretary of State, and former ambassador to England, was certainly a distinguished speaker. His resume looked a lot more impressive than prairie lawyer Lincoln’s did.

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Once again, the Internet is alive with pictures of the President of the United States bowing low before some foreign monarch. Barack Obama first showed the world his behind as he bowed before the odious King of Saudi Arabia at a London summit last winter. That was bad. The king of Saudi Arabia rules a desert fiefdom where those who convert to Christianity are beheaded while the regime looks the other way. Bibles are banned. Jews are not allowed even to enter the country.

That bow was atrocious. But Obama’s low bow before the Emperor of Japan over the past weekend was bad enough. Barack Obama apparently never memorized the Pledge of Allegiance as a boy. He has told us many times of his grade school education in Indonesia and how his devoted mother taught him U.S. constitutional law before dawn. Apparently, he never learned “…and to the republic for which it stands…”

To secure our Independence and to found a new republic, a country where “We the people” ruled, was the Glorious Cause for which the Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. How actually to be republicans with a small “r” was not easy.

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Here’s some articles of interest for this afternoon.

• “Most Americans Against Abortion Coverage in Health Care Bill,” Nathan Black, The Christian Post
• “Church, state and gay marriage,” Editorial, The Los Angeles Times
• “Iowa conservatives still focused on gay marriage,” Mike Glover, Associated Press
• “NJ teen barred from abortion protest sues school,” Geoff Mulvihill, Associated Press
• “Sex ed. vs. abstinence,” Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow
• “Pew: Faith-based initiative still popular,” Matthew Hay Brown, The Baltimore Sun
• “Abortion clinic ‘bubble’ law met by protests,” Dan Simmons, Chicago Tribune

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I took a friend with me to visit a prisoner in a federal “correctional institute” last week. My friend is a former Ohio State prof, a published author, and a member of my Men’s Bible Study. We’ve been praying for several years for “P,” who is serving eight years for attempted murder.

The three-hour drive was a pleasant one, despite the lousy weather. The prof and I got to swap stories, talk about our families, how we met our wives, all kinds of interesting—at least to us—stuff.

When we arrived at last at the prison, we were confronted by a mocking prison guard. He very quickly told the prof he could not enter the prison. His paperwork—dutifully filled out—had not yet been processed. Even though P had written me saying he’d very much like to have the prof visit, that did not matter.

The guard looked me over suspiciously. He took an inordinate period of time to “study” my ID card. He quickly banned my cell phone and car keys. OK, I can understand why they’re not allowed. The prof would take them back to my car and wait there for me while I went in to see P.

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If so, please send it to Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.). She is the latest example of a Member of Congress who should not be there. I am sure the Founders never envisioned elected Representatives who would not have a grasp of the most basic concepts of the Constitution. It may be time for an amendment requiring members of Congress to take a basic proficiency test on at least the Bill of Rights.

Still lamenting the overwhelming defeat that she and her pro-abortion cohorts suffered in the House when the Stupak-Pitts amendment was attached to the health care bill, Rep. DeGette is now calling for religiously-affiliated groups to be shut out of the public policy process as the bill goes to the Senate.

“Last I heard, we had separation of church and state in this country,” she said. “I’ve got to say that I think the Catholic bishops and all of the other groups shouldn’t have input.”

In other words if a group of people who are in association with one another because of their Christian faith, they should not have a collective voice in the crafting of public policy. What she is asserting is that if your ideas and actions are a product of your faith, you’re a second class citizen and your voice should not be heard.

This is a far cry from what the Founders believed. Several months after the British surrender at Yorktown, George Washington, in a letter to the Reformed German Congregation of New York, wrote, “The establishment of civil and religious liberty was the motive which induced me to the field (of combat).” Sadly, Diana DeGette seems eager to smother these precious freedoms, neither of which can exist without the other.

Rep. DeGette’s comments serve to only further confirm that this takeover is not about healthcare, it is about a radical social policy in which the expansion of abortion, at tax-payer expense, is at the very center of this effort.

If you have a spare Constitution, send it to Congresswoman DeGette.

UPDATE 11/18 (Editor): It now appears that The Hill inaccurately quoted Rep. DeGette.  See Tony Perkins’ correction and further statements here.

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In the latest Mapping America, the General Social Surveys show that adults in always-intact marriages who also worship at least weekly are more likely than all other adults to be proud of the type of work they do.

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Nominee for Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

NOMINEE: Chai Feldblum

BIRTH DATE: c. 1959

EDUCATION: B.A. in Ancient Studies and Religion, Barnard College, 1979. J.D. from Harvard Law School, 1985.

FAMILY: Lives with a same-sex “domestic partner,” Georgetown Law Professor Nan Hunter. Previously lived in a “nonsexual domestic partnership” with three other women who pledged to care for each other.

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What’s in store for the Obama administration? FRC has been keeping track of the President’s nominees with detailed backgrounders. Here’s the list to date:

• President Barack Obama
• Vice President Joe Biden
• Melody Barnes, Director, Domestic Policy Council
• Regina Benjamin, Surgeon General of the United States
• Carol Browner, Assistant to the President for Energy & Climate Change
• Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy
• Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State
• Dr. Francis Collins, Director, National Institutes of Health
• Gregory Craig, White House Counsel
• Tom Daschle, Secretary of Health and Human Services
• Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education
• Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff
• Chai Feldblum, Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
• Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense
• Timothy Geithner, Secretary of Treasury
• Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary
• Sanjay Gupta, M.D., Surgeon General
• Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Administrator, Food and Drug Administration
• Eric Holder, Jr., Attorney General
• John Holdren, Science Advisor
• Lisa Jackson, EPA Administrator
• Kevin Jennings, Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools
• Dawn Johnsen, Assistant Attorney General
• Elena Kagan, Solicitor General
• Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation
• Eric Lander, Co-Chair, President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
• Gary Locke, Secretary of Commerce
• Jane Lubchenco, NOAA Administrator
• Ellen Moran, White House Communications Director
• Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security
• David Ogden, Deputy Attorney General
• Peter Orszag, Director, Office of Management and Budget
• Thomas Perrelli, Associate Attorney General
• Susan Rice, Ambassador to the United Nations
• Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health & Human Services
• Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, Deputy Director, Food and Drug Administration
• James Steinberg, Deputy Secretary of State
• Cass Sunstein, Director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
• Dr. Harold Varmus, Co-Chair, President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
• Thomas J. Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture

Additionally, you can go to FRC Action’s web site to read more about the Obama Administration.

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“This shouldn’t be a debate about abortion,”‘ says the President’s Senior Advisor David Axelrod. The President himself argues that he and his allies in Congress are not “in some way sneaking in funding for abortions, but on the other hand that we’re not restricting women’s insurance choices.”

This is sort of like saying that when eating a four-scoop sundae, the dessert really isn’t about ice cream. Abortion is essential to the Democratic approach to health care. Why? Because if, as the great majority of national Democrats believe, abortion is a matter of public moral neutrality, a procedure not unlike the removal of a nasty tumor, it should be funded (or, as an interim step, subsidized) as part of any federal health insurance regime.

After the vote on the Stupak pro-life amendment on November 7, pro-abortion Members of Congress and their allies in the so-called “progressive” movement became apoplectic. “Abortion is healthcare. That’s the whole point,” wrote ultra-feminist and the Left-wing magazine Nation writer Katha Pollitt. Pollitt has made a career as a Left-liberal who actually speaks her mind (example: after 9/11, she wrote that the American “flag stands for jingoism and vengeance and war”). Of course, her perspective is warped, but at least she says what she thinks.

And what she thinks seems to be what’s in the heart of the current Administration. Mr. Obama has built a career by stating two opposing views and pretending to find common ground between them. Of course, there is – as he admitted in his speech earlier this year at Notre Dame – no real common ground between the culture of life and the culture of death.

By subsidizing health insurance plans that provide abortion, the US government would be providing funds to companies that would thereby have greater financial freedom to pay for abortion and related services.

Mr. President, we either “restrict women’s choices” by refusing to allow the federal government to subsidize abortion providers, or we subsidize insurance companies that pay for abortion. There is no way around it. Your key allies know it. And, in the integrity of your mind, so do you.

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On Saturday, November 14 in Kansas City, there was a celebration of hope for patients with disabling diseases and injuries, with the launch of the Adult Stem Cells Saved My Life Education & Awareness Campaign. For 3 hours, patients shared their stories of how adult stem cells had saved their lives, improved their health, saved their families, and given them hope. The campaign is committed to raising awareness that adult stem cell treatments are available for patients, promoting access to therapies, encouraging development of more adult stem cell treatments, and dedicated to educating the public, policy makers, and the medical community about the medical miracles of adult stem cell transplants. Over 1,500 adult stem cell transplants have taken place in the Kansas City metro area alone.

Below is a news report on the campaign launch in Kansas City:

Please visit the campaign website and learn more about how adult stem cells are providing hope, treatments, therapies now.

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According to ABC News, President Obama is now “calling for a summit meeting of experts to find ways to jump-start job creation. And a jump-start is needed.”

This comes on the heels of a new report that the federal deficit “hit a record for October as the new budget year began where the old one ended: with the government awash in red ink,” as the Department of the Treasury warned that “the deficit for October totaled $176.4 billion, even higher than the $150 billion imbalance that economists expected.” Note: this is the deficit for a single month – not a calendar year.

Mr. President, here are some ideas distilled from leading economist dating from Adam Smith through the current day: If you want to create jobs,

(a) Quit spending the country into economic oblivion, farming out our debt to foreign creditors who will someday soon call in their loans and damage our nation’s economy. If you stop overspending, you will also ameliorate the growing fear of many investors that we are on the verge of monetizing the debt, simply printing worthless bills that will hyper-inflate our currency. Fiscal discipline, if dramatic and real, will energize the markets.

(b) Cut taxes – on individuals and families, on major firms and S-corporations. Cut the dividend tax. Cut the income tax. Cut capital gains taxes. Cut, and cut some more.

(c) Reduce and simplify a vast federal regulatory apparatus that confuses and cripples business growth.

(d) End the government-mandated “health care reform” madness, which will further impose on our companies and employees growing fiscal, legal and regulatory burdens. Target those things in our system that don’t work and offer market-based incentives and tax reforms that will enable insurance providers to better serve the underserved.

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Sen. Daniel Akaka is probably the quietest person in the U.S. Senate. He is known as a kindly man who votes faithfully but is not a vocal or activist member of the “upper body.” But this week, when asked if there is a constitutional basis for the Democratic health care bill, he candidly said, “I’m not aware of that, let me put it that way.”

Good way to put it, Senator, because your lack of awareness indicates that at least you know your Constitution well enough to recognize that it contains no basis for this latest exercise in federal elbow-throwing.

Sen. Akaka’s colleague Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) could learn from him. Sen. Reed was asked by a reporter “where in the Constitution does Congress get its authority to mandate that individuals purchase health insurance?”

Reed responded, “I would have to check the specific sections, so I’ll have to get back to you on the specific section. But it is not unusual that the Congress has required individuals to do things, like sign up for the draft and do many other things too, which I don’t think are explicitly contained (in the Constitution).”

Sen. Reed is an undoubted patriot, a former Marine who served honorably in Vietnam. So it is disappointing that someone of his political stature would equate the draft with an individual federal mandate of citizens for non-military purposes. To what “many other things” is Reed referring?

In the 1918 Arver v. United States case, the Supreme Court ruled that the draft is constitutional because it is essence an implementation of the Constitution’s provision for the federal government to create a standing army (Article I, Section 8). Men (and women) are needed to defend the nation, and during times of national crisis conscription might be needed.

The Democratic health plan (H.R. 3962), passed last weekend in the House, goes well beyond any authority conferred on the federal government, through our written Constitution, by “We, the People.” In fact, the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) wrote to the House Ways and Means Committee that “failure to comply with the terms of the law that the Democrats passed last weekend could put people in jail. The JCT told the committee that anyone who decides not to maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” or, absent that, pay the individual health insurance mandate tax of about 2.5 percent of income, would be liable to large fines or prison sentences” (The Washington Times, “Tax Penalties and Prison,” by Donald Lambro, November 12, 2009).

The JCT went on to write that “H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at anytime during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.”

This mandate is unconstitutional in its own right and also poses a serious threat to the fundamental liberty of ordinary Americans: When the federal government requires specific economic activity (in this case, the purchase or acceptance of a health insurance plan) and threatens to impose “fines or prison sentences” for non-compliance, our essential freedom as citizens is eroded and our path into coerced political subjection all the more obvious – and dangerous.

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Wednesday’s headline in The Hill led with the caption “Abortion-rights groups threaten not to fund Rodriquez and Teague.”  Apparently NARAL and Planned Parenthood are ticked because Congressman Ciro Rodriguez (D-Texas) and Congressman Harry Teague (D-N.M.)  voted in support of the Stupak Amendment which removed abortion funding from the health care bill (1).

Very few news organizations are reporting on the divide that is developing within the Democratic Party.  Many Congressional Democrats, who firmly believe in the federal funding of abortion, are out for the blood of those who exercised a vote according to their conscience.  This shouldn’t be terribly surprising since these pro-abortion House Members are also interested in taking away the conscience rights of doctors, but I digress.

Still, there is a huge overlooked question that begs to be asked.  Why is a charitable organization which receives federal funds allowed to make financial contributions to candidates who vote for giving federal funds back to the organization?  Let alone threaten to remove the base of support when the candidate votes their conscience.  Does anyone see anything wrong with this circular problem?  Planned Parenthood receives over $350 million annually in federal funds (2).  Through this legislation, they were lobbying to up the ante significantly, thus lining their fat pockets even more.  And, although the Stupak Amendment passed the House for now, they are not done with that fight!

While NARAL doesn’t receive federal funds, their business practices are questionable as they fail to meet the Better Business Standards for Charity Accountability (3).  Considering NARAL’s work got its start through the successful use of enormous lies, this is simply par for the course (4).  Every time NARAL comments on issues like these, the public should be reminded of their questionable practices and roots

When will this outrageous behavior end?  Who are elected officials representing:  the people who vote for them; or the special interests who pay for slick advertising to sway the voters?  Okay, so that question is too easy.

Every time Planned Parenthood opens their mouth on an issue like this, why aren’t reporters calling into question the dog Planned Parenthood has in this hunt?

Why isn’t Planned Parenthood being investigated?  As previously mentioned, they make campaign contributions to Members of Congress who reciprocate through the funding of Planned Parenthood.  Their staff have been recorded numerous times counseling underage girls who admit to being impregnated by adults.  Instead of reporting a crime of rape, they provide abortion counseling support and encourage the girls to conceal the age and specifics of their rapists (5).

Reporters need to stop scratching their heads and the surface of these stories.  We’ve heard it before and I’ll shout it again, “it’s time they dig deep, accurately investigate and report on these issues.” We’ve come a long way from the days of Murrow.   Even worse, we’ve come even further from a time when our elected truly represented the electorate.

(1) Abortion-rights groups threaten not to fund Rodriguez and Teague http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/67473-threat-to-rodriguez-teague-from-abortion-rights-groups-

(2)  Planned Parenthood Annual Report: Abortion Totals, Government Funding Increase http://www.lifenews.com/nat4978.html

(3) BBB Wise Giving Report for

NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation http://www.bbb.org/charity-reviews/national/human-services/naral-pro-choice-america-foundation-in-washington-dc-507

(4) Lies and Fraud of Roe v. Wade: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53872

(5) Live Action Films:  http://liveaction.org/

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So the emails the terrorist Hasan sent to a jihadist imam in Yemen were not deemed threatening? What if they were in code? American cryptographers succeeded in breaking the Japanese naval codes before Pearl Harbor. But they got messages like: “Climb Mount Iitaka.” How were U.S. intelligence officers supposed to know that that was the code name for the attack on the U.S. Naval Base in Hawaii?

Shouldn’t it be our policy that any contact between anyone in the U.S. and any jihadist abroad would be enough to bring the FBI swooping in? We should not care if our “person of interest” is asking the radical about the weather, or mountain climbing.

That’s what we would be doing if this administration were serious about the war on terror, which it is not. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the most liberal President before Barack Obama. But FDR was serious about our nation’s defense. When German-Americans came ashore planning to blow up electric power grids, Roosevelt had them arrested. He didn’t send them to Club Gitmo to read Mein Kampf under the palms. He had the captured saboteurs tried–in secret, by military tribunal–at the Washington Navy Yard. To make sure his Attorney General didn’t spend his time searching for new precedents on the civil liberties of would-be mass murderers, Roosevelt assigned Attorney General Biddle to lead the prosecution. The convicted terrorists were swiftly executed, by electric chair.

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President Obama spoke to an interviewer about the Ft. Hood shootings. He had just come from the Memorial Service for the fourteen people whose lives were taken by the terrorist, Nidal Hasan:

OBAMA:  In a country of 300 million people, there are going to be acts of violence that are inexplicable, even within the extraordinary military that we have. I think everybody understands how outstanding the young men and women in uniform are under the most severe stress.  There are going to instances, in which an individual cracks.

Forget, for the moment, this confused part of the statement that seems to psychologize the killer’s actions. I want to focus on the “inexplicable” part.

This is a serious problem for liberals. They are forever finding such murderous acts inexplicable. They often employ words like “random” and “senseless acts of violence.” One of their favorite bumper stickers is “Practice random acts of kindness.” Random is okay if it’s kind. But if kindness and terror are truly random, what’s the moral difference?

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This morning MSNBC Host Dylan Ratigan attacked my colleague Cathy Ruse after she pointed out how the health care bill (before the adoption of the Stupak amendment) forces Americans to pay for elective abortions Mr. Ratigan called her a “liar” and even said she should just “go away.” Mr. Ratigan should certainly work to improve his on-air manners, but he should also do a better job of getting his facts straight. Both NPR and Politifact agree on what the Stupak amendment will do. Their analysis places the facts on Cathy’s side.

The Stupak amendment maintains the current policy of preventing federal funding for abortion and for benefits packages that include abortion. It clarifies that individuals, both those who receive affordability credits and those who do not, can with their own funds purchase separate supplemental coverage for elective abortions. It also clarifies that private plans that do not receive government subsidies may still offer elective abortions.

Send Mr. Ratigan your thoughts via Twitter.

UPDATE: Media Research Center takes up the segment: MSNBC’s Ratigan Accuses Conservative Guest of Lying about Government-Funded Abortion

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