Monday, March 22, 2010

How the People in My District Got Stupak to Change His Mind -- and Thus Saved the Health Care Bill ...a letter from Michael Moore

How the People in My District Got Stupak to Change His Mind -- and Thus
Saved the Health Care Bill ...a letter from Michael Moore

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

Friends,

Well, our full court press on my congressman, Bart Stupak worked!
Hundreds of my neighbors here in his Michigan district spent the weekend
organizing thousands of voters to get busy and save the health care
bill. We called Stupak's congressional office non-stop and we got
thousands of people up here to flood his email box
<http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/my-personal-note-morning-my-neighbors-here-bart-stupaks-district>.


And then a rare thing happened: An elected representative did what the
people told him to do. It was nothing short of amazing.

Stupak, and his seven "right to life" Democrats who had said they would
vote against the bill, reversed themselves after what Stupak said Sunday
afternoon was a week of his staff having "really taken a pounding." Hey,
all we did here in northern Michigan was let him know that we would be
unceremoniously tossing him out of Congress in this August's Democratic
primary. One of our group announced she would oppose him in the Dem
primary. That seemed to register with him.

All of this made Stupak look pretty worn down at his press conference
yesterday, pleading with people like us to stop calling his house and
waking his wife "at two or three in the morning." Hey! That's not us. We
never call during Carson Daly!

Obama needed 216 votes in the House last night -- and he barely got them
(219 was the final number). Had Stupak not done a 180 in the last 24
hours, the health care bill would have gone down in flames. Thank you,
to all of you here in northern Michigan who did what had to be done. You
and you alone saved this bill in the final moments.

Stupak stood on the floor of the House last night and, in a surreal
moment, spoke against the "Stupak Amendment"! Once he got through his
medieval meanderings about where babies come from, he gave one helluva
speech.

And, that's when Republican congressman Randy Neugebauer of Texas
shouted out: "Baby killer! <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXmMSnGKYvk>"
Wow. I guess the fertilized egg police felt betrayed by Bart.

Those of us here in Michigan will now decide what to do about our
misguided congressman. We're a forgiving lot, but maybe not this time.
We shall see.

Bart, I'm glad you discovered you didn't have a uterus. And, like the
scarecrow, I'm glad you found a bit of your brain.

A good night it was -- important little steps were taken to bring our
country into the civilized world.

Now, we have some real work to do if we really want to say we have
universal health care. The sharks who run the insurance companies have
every intention of turning this lemon into some very profitable lemonade.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com <mailto:mmflint@aol.com>
MichaelMoore.com <http://www.michaelmoore.com/>

P.S. Someday, the Hyde Amendment is going to have to go. No Democratic
president should ever agree to anything that discriminates against women.


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