Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) will face a primary challenge later this year from former Charlevoix County Commissioner Connie Saltonstall.

On Monday, Saltonstall, a former teacher who lost a state representative race in 2008, announced her intentions to challenge Stupak, who has represented Michigan’s First Congressional District since 1993.

Saltonstall has spoken out against Stupak for his anti-abortion views, which have  repeatedly obstructed progress on health care reform.

He "has a right to his personal, religious views, but to deprive his constituents of needed health care reform because of those views is reprehensible," Saltonstall said in a statement.

SUPPORT Connie Saltonstall

Connie Saltonstall Challenges Bart Stupak In Michigan House Primary

As the President has made clear, Americans deserve a final up-or-down vote on health reform. And the House is now expected to hold its final vote as soon as one week from today.
As we speak, insurance-industry lobbyists are gathering at the D.C. Ritz-Carlton to stage a last-minute blitz to block reform — even as they jack up premiums by as much as 60% for small businesses and families across the country.

So starting today, we’re launching an unprecedented week-long campaign sprint — our "Final March for Reform." Each day until the vote, we’ll feature a powerful new way for OFA supporters to speak out in our communities and weigh in directly with Congress.

Today, we’ll start by spreading the facts about reform in our communities. Smears and falsehoods have clouded this debate — Congress must understand that if they pass reform, their constituents will know the truth about what we’ve finally achieved. Click here to begin.

We’ve put together a simple summary of the President’s proposal, a fact sheet to show friends and co-workers how the plan will specifically help them, posters to display, Facebook notes to post, and much more.

We’re on the verge of solving a crisis that has vexed our nation for generations — and eluded the best efforts of seven previous Presidents.

But our opponents will stop at nothing to distort the President’s proposal and derail our progress. It may all come down to what we do together this week.

Today, it’s time to show the insurance lobbyists that no smear campaign cooked up at a posh hotel can match the power of millions of regular citizens who are ready for change and committed to the truth.

Please join our truth squad — and start spreading the facts today:
http://my.barackobama.com/DayOne

Thanks for making it possible,
David Plouffe

I hope the Democrats and all Progressives are listening. Ryan’s budget is a continuation of wealth transfer to the rich as well as non-performing wealth protection for the rich. With the passage of healthcare reform and Republican Representative Ryan’s GOP sanctioned budget proposal, one could build an effective and true narrative that characterizes GOP ideas for exactly what they are, the continued building blocks of an oligarchy.

The narrative in simple language; “GOP assault on the middle class evident by their support of policies that make middle class Americans poor while transferring your hard earned working dollars to rich folks making money on your money”. Supporting documents will be Ryan’s budget and analysis as well as GOP defense of insurance company friendly policies.

Wake up guys. If cards are played right for the next 7 months, history could be made, the final nail in the coffin of the Republican Party as we know it. Then, the real reputable Republicans of yesteryear can emerge. We are waiting!!!

A Same-Old GOP Budget: Rich Pay Less, Everyone Else Pays More

by David Corn

At President Obama’s White House summit on health care last month, when it was the House Republicans’ turn to make an opening presentation, GOP leader John Boehner turned to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the top Republican on the House budget committee, to put forward the Republicans’ case. Ryan, a sincere-sounding policy wonk, said nothing about insurance company abuses, nothing about expanding coverage and nothing about addressing the affordability of health insurance. Instead, he zeroed in on one matter: the deficit. He conceded that the Congressional Budget Office had concluded that the health care reform legislation backed by Obama would reduce the deficit by $131 billion over the next decade, but he contended that this was because the bill was loaded with "gimmicks and smoke-and-mirror." He proceeded to argue that the health care measure would actually lead to $460 billion in deficit expansion.
Ryan’s presentation — which contained its own gimmicks — was a signal that the Republicans see him as their go-to guy on fiscal matters. So it’s quite fair to view the radical budget plan he unveiled a few weeks ago as a mainstream GOP initiative. Under his proposal — which Ryan calls "A Roadmap for America’s Future" and promotes on a rather spiffy Web page with gee-whiz graphics — Social Security would be rejiggered to include private accounts, and Medicare and Medicaid would be replaced with vouchers-based private systems. This would indeed be bold change, and some conservatives just adore Ryan for being so audacious and so in love with the power of markets. But there is a same-old Republican aspect to his plan: The rich would pay less taxes . . . and everyone else would pay more. CONTINUED

A Same-Old GOP Budget: Rich Pay Less, Everyone Else Pays More — Politics Daily

A potential face of terrorism, a non-Muslim looking woman that would pass through any airport working on the premise of racial profiling untouched. Fortunately those in our government who disregard the phobias coming from the Right simply did their jobs. One would doubt that they will see the folly of their assertions albeit discredited.

U.S.: Pennsylvania woman tried to recruit terrorists

Washington (CNN) — A Pennsylvania woman has been indicted for conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and kill a person in a foreign country, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Colleen LaRose, known as "Jihad Jane" and "Fatima LaRose," has also been charged with making false statements to a government official and attempted identity theft.

She was arrested in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 15, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. No arraignment date has been set, the official said.

LaRose is being held at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

LaRose and five unindicted co-conspirators recruited men on the Internet "to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe, and recruited women on the Internet who had passports and the ability to travel to and around Europe in support of violent jihad," according to a Justice Department statement.

Irish police arrest 7 on murder plot charges

If convicted, LaRose faces a possible life prison sentence and a $1 million fine, the statement said.

The conspiracy began in June 2008, when LaRose posted a comment on YouTube under the username JihadJane saying she is "desperate to do something somehow to help" Muslims, according to the indictment unsealed Tuesday.

From December 2008 to October 2009, LaRose engaged in electronic communication with the five co-conspirators about their shared desires to wage jihad and become martyrs, according to the indictment. CONTINUED

U.S.: Pennsylvania woman tried to recruit terrorists – CNN.com

It was train wreck television on Tuesday evening when now-retired Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) appeared on Fox News’s Glenn Beck show and insisted that he had not crossed any ethical lines with staffers and was subjected to intense political pressure from the White House (including a naked encounter with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel). Still, Massa stressed, he was retiring from Congress on his own accord.

In a one-hour interview with Beck that had much of the journalism world gawking and twittering in amazement, Massa offered a series of bizarre, even inexplicable explanations for his abrupt departure from office. Coming just hours after news broke that the he was under investigation for groping multiple male staffers, Massa insisted that the interactions were playful in nature, though inappropriate in retrospect.

Part 1

"Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn’t breathe," he said. "I should have never allowed myself to be as familiar with my staff as I was… I own this misbehavior."

If that wasn’t enough of a head-scratcher, Massa grew even more cryptic and bizarre when the topic turned to his insistence that Democratic forces had forced him out of office — because they were so worried that he would derail health care reform. He did say that the decision "not to run again" was his and his alone — but he still pegged his immediate resignation to White House brow-beating.

And yet, the only evidence he could summon was basic and formulaic types of political pressure.

"It literally keeps me awake at night," he said. "Glenn, I have had people come to me, union leaders — and I’m a union guy and I know you’re not — who look at me and said, ‘If you don’t support this health care bill, I will not contribute to your campaign’. Glenn that’s a bribe."

Even Beck wasn’t buying it, pointing out that what Massa was talking about was, in fact, just lobbying.

Story continues below

Part 2

When the topic turned to the now-infamous moment in which Massa claims that Emanuel confronted him while naked in the House of Representative’s shower to bark at him about a vote on the budget, things got even weirder. The ex-Congressman insisted that the confrontation did take place, even though the White House has denied it.

"I was in my first two months," he said. "I was in a battle about the budget, Rahm was angry with me. He poked his finger in my chest while we were in the shower. I went through it on the radio show. Not only did it happen, I will never forget it. Rahm Emanuel doesn’t like me. I get it."

Through it all, Beck prodded (indeed, practically begged) Massa to point to specific cases where the chief of staff or anyone else did something legitimately corrupt. He couldn’t.

"My arm has been twisted 17 times from Sunday," Massa declared. "It is called whipping."

The Fox News host seemed completely and utterly un-amused. And towards the end, he grew a bit hostile. "America, I’ve got to shoot straight with you," he said. "I think I’ve wasted your time. I think this is the first time I have wasted an hour of your time. And I apologize for that."

Massa tried, once more, to restate his case but to little success. He promised, however, that he would do one more interview before leaving the stage.

Eric Massa And Glenn Beck Conspire For Train Wreck TV