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Bart Stupak's trying a new tactic to get the abortion deal that he wants into HCR. He calls it the "enrollment corrections bill." He was on GMA today and shed some light on it.

Stephanopoulos asked about the idea floated by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), another pro-life Democrat, to hold a separate vote on reinstating the Stupak language on abortion insurance, as a whole different bill. Stupak said that this was one possibility -- but he wanted to make sure such a bill would in fact be signed into law.

"Okay, we pass the bill, it has to go to the Senate. This is an enrollment corrections bill. It has to be passed before the president would sign the Senate bill. So there's a long ways to go," said Stupak. "And you know, dealing with the Senate has been unusually difficult these last two years, so I'm not a lot of confident it's gonna go any farther than the House of Representatives."

David Waldman explains what Stupak has in mind.

Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. You're not gonna believe how low down in the weeds we're gonna have to get for this one.

We just learned from mcjoan that Bart Stupak is after a deal that would somehow jam a foot in the health insurance reform door for his now-notorious Stupak amendment on abortion:

This morning, during an appearance on Good Morning America, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) reaffirmed that he might vote for the Senate health care bill if Democrats pass the Stupak abortion amendment as a separate measure. Stupak said that Democrats have shown a "renewed" interest in tying his amendment to the Senate bill:

STUPAK: George, that’s called an enrollment corrections bill. I presented that to leadership about ten days ago. There’s renewed interest in that piece of legislation that I and a number of us are ready to introduce. It’s prepared. Everybody’s looking at it right now. That’s one way, maybe. But we set the deal with the Senate. You give us a vote in the House. We had a vote in the House. It was overwhelmingly 240-194, to keep public law, no public funding for abortion.

It seems to me that if the Senate parliamentarian is indeed insisting that the reconciliation bill address "current law," then that means the Senate bill must be not only enrolled, but signed by the President before reconciliation can be considered, at least in the Senate. I assume the House parliamentarian has no such objection to the House beginning its work (which is curious in itself), since he's apparently allowing the House to consider and pass reconciliation before the Senate bill is enrolled.

He went on MSNBC later with Norah and she first tried to get him to admit that the HCR bill as it stands now does not allow for government funding for abortions, but even with all the facts that she had like the AP and fellow pro-life Dems who are now supporting the bill, he flatly denies it. He calls it a "drastic break from current law for the last thirty three years." Even Allen Boyd is voting yes now.

(h/t Heather for the video)

There are a lot of rumors swirling, but we're hearing that Stupak may very well get his wish since the vote appears to be so close in the House and as a friend emailed: "I knew they would go there because that was the path of least resistance."

Please donate to Connie's campaign so we can take Stupak down.

Via Twitter:

Pro-choice female Dems are shuttling in and out of Pelosi's office and they won't say why.

Even if they calculate accurately and know this latest Stupak bullshit won't pass, it really sucks that pro-choice women have to deal with this issue from the Democratic Party for years to come.

So everyone, including the late John Murtha, was cleared in this investigation. We should feel reassured, right?

Not exactly. One thing I learned when I was a reporter was that there is actually very little that Congress members can't do:

The House ethics committee ruled Friday that seven lawmakers who steered hundreds of millions of dollars in largely no-bid contracts to clients of a lobbying firm had not violated any rules or laws by also collecting large campaign donations from those contractors.

In a 305-page report, the ethics committee declared that lawmakers are free to raise campaign money from the very companies they are benefiting so long as the deciding factors in granting those "earmarks" are "criteria independent" of the contributions. The report served as a blunt rejection of ethics watchdogs and a different group of congressional investigators, who have contended that in some instances the connection between donations and earmarks was so close that it had to be inappropriate.

"Simply because a member sponsors an earmark for an entity that also happens to be a campaign contributor does not, on these two facts alone, support a claim that a member's actions are being influenced by campaign contributions," the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct said in a unanimous statement.

Ethics watchdogs issued sharp denunciations, citing portions of the report that showed that the private companies thought their donations helped them win earmarks. The lawmakers -- Reps. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.) and C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) -- claimed vindication.

Years ago, I was working on a story about Crazy Curt Weldon (R-Boeing) when I found out that he was placed "on leave" from CIGNA Insurance when he was elected to Congress. I wanted to know if Weldon was getting paid in any capacity; an official told me no.

"Then what's the difference?" I asked him. He told me they wanted to "support employees who wanted to perform public service."

"How many other employees have you placed on this kind of leave?" Well, it turned out Weldon was the first - and only.

"Why put him on leave? After all, there's nothing to stop you from hiring him back," I said.

Then it hit me: "Is he accruing pension benefits while he's on leave?"

As a matter of fact, he was.

This was useful because at the time, Weldon (who was head of the House Emergency Services Caucus) was fighting to push through a bill Republicans were eager to pass. It was an earthquake relief act that would have the federal government act as re-insurer for any earthquake damage that exceeded a set amount - $10 billion, I think.

That meant Uncle Sugar would pick up the tab for anything over that amount when The Big One finally hit California. Oddly enough, only one insurance company was writing earthquake insurance in California. (Guess which one!)

So I called Weldon's office for a comment, but he refused to talk to me. Instead, his chief of staff called back. He gave me his line about how this bill was to help families get their lives back on track after an earthquake.

"I don't agree," I said. "People make decisions based on risk, and what this bill will do is make earthquake insurance premiums artificially low, since the insurers will only have to pick up a limited amount of liability. I would argue that this bill actually puts more families in danger, because they're buying properties in unsafe locations. They'll think because they can afford the insurance, it must be safe."

A pause. "You would look at it like that," the aide said accusingly. (I told him I couldn't think of any other way to look at it.)

Anyway, I contacted the Congressional Ethics Committee, and was shocked to find out this was all perfectly "ethical" by their standards. I took a look at their standards, and that's when I discovered they're appallingly lax.

So these stories aren't all that reassuring to me, and they shouldn't be to you, either.