Heartbeat is not just inviting any baby, but specifically babies born to women who became pregnant unintentionally and “chose life” instead of abortion. The point of the campaign is to send the message to Congress that, “Pregnancy centers are good for America”; however, the demands of the campaign are unclear.

“Heartbeat’s pregnancy centers serve women with unexpected pregnancies without any financial motivation,” said Heartbeat International spokesperson Virginia Cline in a statement. ”Our main objective is to provide women with the emotional help and practical resources needed to welcome a new life. This includes helping women to recognize their own inherent value.”

Between 2001 and 2006, more than $60 million in federal funds were given to crisis pregnancy centers, mostly through abstinence-education grants, according to a government report (PDF) commissioned by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and a 2006 Washington Post review of federal records.

Heartbeat International provides www.optionline.org to connect women to CPCs across the nation. As The American Independent recently reported, the anti-abortion-rights organization Heroic Media has been using “doorway” pages, a violation of Google’s policy, to divert women searching for information on abortion to Option Line.

Next week, the Capitol will be the setting for another anti-abortion-rights campaign, called “Voices From the Womb,” in which live ultrasounds will performed on pregnant women.

Friday’s FEC filings, however, finally reveal that the Concerned Taxpayers of America consists of exactly two concerned taxpayers:

Daniel G. Schuster Inc., an Owings Mills, Md., concrete firm, gave two donations to the group totaling $300,000, new disclosure records show. New York hedge fund executive Robert Mercer gave the group $200,000.

And that’s the extent of the financial support reported by Concerned Taxpayers, which says it was formed in September “to engage citizens from every walk of life and political affiliation” in the fight against “runaway spending.”

The group has since expanded its advertising attacks to include Rep. Frank Kratovil, Jr. (D-Md.), but its motives remain as opaque as ever. With as many donors as political targets, however, the group serves as an excellent example of how wealthy donors and corporations can now single-handedly fund a political group with an anodyne name that can attack a candidate under the guise of a broad public — rather than private — interest.

“[Rep.] Bart Stupak [D-Mich]” says he has twelve ‘no’ votes,” said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who spoke at a 10 a.m. rally organized by multiple Tea Party groups. “I can count one — Bart Stupak. I can’t name number two. There’s eleven anonymous people and you can’t count anonymous votes. If you can’t count them, they’re not no votes. I think that’s something that should have been pressed much, much harder.”

At the rally, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) informed Tea Partiers they had “won every inning” of the health care fight and were in the “bottom of the ninth.” After her speech, she made it clear to reporters: “I think it’s a flip of a coin right now whether it will pass or not.”

Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) acknowledged — based on the history of such tough votes — that more Democrats might vote “aye” than were being counted in public “whip counts.” He was hopeful that pro-life Democratic holdouts would be convinced by the argument that “this will be the biggest expansion of abortion since Roe. v. Wade.” But he was also looking past the vote to his home state, where Republicans are looking at legislation to opt out of a health care mandate.

The most confidence I heard came from Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), who said that he’d “heard of” Democrats being fed false information about what could be fixed in reconciliation.

“I know they don’t have the votes right now,” said Broun. “As soon as Nancy Pelosi has 216 votes, we’ll have the vote, even if it’s in the middle of the night.”

King, however, expressed more nervousness.

“I’d rather serve in the minority,” said King, “however long they send me back here to do that, that I would live under this socialism that they’re trying to impose upon us. I can’t sleep at night.”

See a slideshow of the rally here.

Connecticut resident Tom Hill poses with a homemade sign. The other side featured a health care message for Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). (Photo by David Weigel)

Tom Hill’s massive sign–a white sheet taped onto a fishing pole–said it all. On one side, in thin black letters, Hill had written “STAND FIRM WITH JOE,” a call for solidarity with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). When Hill–who lives in Connecticut–had written that, he thought Lieberman was going to block the Senate version of health care reform. Then, shortly before the 1:30 p.m. anti-health care reform rally outside of the Senate, Hill found out that Lieberman’s objection to Medicare expansion had been answered, and the bill would get his support. He crossed out his old letters and wrote “JOE’S A SKUNK! CAVED IN TO PRESSURE.”

“They put pressure on his wife, and he loves his wife, and he’s not much into the politics of personal destruction,” said Hill, looking grim. “Sixty votes doesn’t frickin’ matter. They’re gonna do it with 51. Here’s the deal–they’re either gonna shove it down our throats with 60 or up our butts with 51.”

[GOP]Around 3,000 conservative activists spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill, jamming into the offices of their senators–occasionally getting lengthy, friendly meetings with Republicans–and crowding outside the Senate for a rally sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, and numerous Tea Party groups. Many had taken buses from states like North Carolina and Georgia. The crowd was as punchy, as high-stakes in its rhetoric, as it had been any of the anti-spending, anti-Democratic Party events that have defined 2009 for conservatives. It was home, however, to some real pessimism about whether opponents of a health care reform bill could really stop the legislation. Optimism inside the Capitol and at the “Code Red” rally focused instead on the 2010 midterm elections, and the chance conservatives will have to punish the Democrats.

Anger at Lieberman–seen by Tea Party activists as much as liberals as an unpredictable actor whose decisions will make or break reform–was universal. After objecting to a public option, then a Medicare expansion, on Tuesday Lieberman signaled that he would support  a bill that lacked those features. From the stage of the “Code Red” rally, Tea Party Patriots leaders Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler reported that they had tried to park themselves in Lieberman’s office until the senator showed up.

“They told us he was unavailable, and we said ‘That’s okay, we’ll wait,’” said Meckler. “And after about three minutes the staffer came out and said, ‘You’re going to have to leave. And we said, ‘This is a public office!’ And they said, ‘You’re going to have to leave, or we’re going to have you arrested.’” The crowd–which included one activist holding a sign that asked Lieberman to “be a mensch and vote against the government takeover of health care”–booed lustily at this story of petty tyranny.

“What do you think of American citizens threatened with arrest for visiting Senator Lieberman’s office?” asked Meckler. “What do you think of your representatives threatening to arrest American citizens while bringing terrorists onto American soil? Those senators are terrorizing American citizens!”

Meckler’s story, and the crowd’s reaction, was a far cry from the attitude that had opened the day. The 8:45 a.m. start of office-to-office lobbying had been promoted as a “die-in,” during which Tea Party activists would “go inside the Senate offices and hallways, and play out the role of patients waiting for treatment in government controlled medical facilities,” and after a while “pretend to die from our untreated illnesses and collapse on the floor.” As a small crowd of activists gathered for the “die-in,” however, none of them wanted to go the full guerrilla protest. Martin told them to be polite, and on the way out, some told TWI that they’d been rewarded with face-to-face time with their senators.

“We met with [Sen. Johnny] Isakson,” said Brad Parsons, a Georgia Tea Party activist, after leaving the Senate offices. “We talked for around 45 minutes, and he made more a lot optimistic about how certain senators are going to vote–which Democrats are still on the fence.”

Still, the late-breaking news that Lieberman would likely not filibuster a compromise bill angered and disappointed activists.

“I call him the Empty Yarmulke,” said Frederick Peterson, a Connecticut activist who’d come down to D.C. to lobby his senator. “It’s the same thing he did during the Clinton impeachment–gave one of the best speeches I’d ever heard, beautiful soaring rhetoric, rabbinical, and then he said, no, I’m not going to vote to remove him from office. You lift up the yarmulke and there’s nothing down there.”

The disappointment spread to the conservative celebrities who came to the “Code Red” rally (to signify the state of emergency) to psyche up the troops. Laura Ingraham, the syndicated radio host, arrived at the roped-off section next to the stage in one of the red “Freedom Czar” fleeces sold on her website, and proceeded to sign autographs and pose for photos. After signing a “Palin 2012″ baseball cap, however, she dodged a friendly question from an activist and moved back toward the stage.

“What’s going to happen with the health care?” the fan asked.

“I don’t know,” shrugged Ingraham. Introduced by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)–an unannounced guest at the rally who inspired the loudest cheers of the day–she treated the crowd to an alternately jokey and stirring speech, beginning with a retelling of Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and ending with a history lesson about the founding fathers.

While organizers and some activists were more optimistic about their chances of stopping a health care bill, some of their rhetoric put victory in the past tense–they’d won already by scaring the Democrats and delaying the bill. “Nancy Pelosi wanted to pass this bill on August 1!” said Jack Kingston (R-Ga.). The more pessimistic activists looked ahead to other Democratic priorities that they could stop in the Senate, and looked to the 2010 elections as a chance to take power away from the Democrats.

“I think we’ll take back the House,” said Curt Compton, a West Virginia activist who’d been unemployed since the start of summer. “Some people say we can take the Senate, although I’m not quite as optimistic about that yet.” The prospect of stopping the Democrats excited him more than the prospect of Republican victories. “They’re what we’ve got to work with,” he said.

Andy, a North Carolina activist who hoisted a sign that read “American Capitalism: 1492-2009 RIP,” suggested that a Republican Congress could start repealing Obama’s agenda in 2011 if they took power in the midterms. “That’s what happened with Clinton,” he said.

The more optimistic activists were already looking ahead to 2012. When the soft-spoken Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) took the stage–introduced by Bachmann as “our champion”–some in the crowd yelled “run for president!” Tom Hill, the disappointed Connecticut voter, used the other side of his huge sign to send Bachmann herself a message.

“PALIN/BACHMANN 2012: They’ll wring out the socialist mop!”

Unsurprisingly, people in those offices tell me that the Birthers are just sheepishly handing off the papers. Congress is on recess; staffers, not senators, are getting the documents. “They just walked in and handed off a packet of info,” one Hill staffer told me.

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That’s the key scene, but what struck me was Wurzelbacher’s whiny recollection of what happened after he made a highly publicized visit to Republican Senate staffers, in which he gave them political advice.

I went further into the Capitol building. I wanted to ask some senators some questions as well. And I was told I needed some credentials. So I went to the office to get the credentials and unfortunately I was explained to that (sic) right now PJTV.com is considered more opinionated than hard news. And that kind of put me off. I was surprised about that.

This news disturbs host Roger L. Simon, the Bernie Madoff of internet video. “We heard the same thing, funnily enough!” He reads a letter from the Senate Press Gallery explaining why PJTV wasn’t given media credentials because it’s an opinion site, not a news site. “Well, Joe, there you have it! You’re too opinionated! Ironically, it was the NBC news crew who shot you in the press office being denied access. The network of Keith Olbermann has press credentials, and you don’t!”

If Simon wants to prove that “citizen journalists” deserve the same access as NBC News, he could start by explaining how the credentials process works. I’ve been through this. For two and a half years I worked for Reason magazine, a libertarian publication (which turns 41-years-old this year) owned by the Reason Foundation. Because of that, we were not allowed to get regular press credentials. This is a trap that small political magazines (and Websites) fall into. For-profit news organizations are allowed to apply for the credentials, and individual reporters can apply for long-term passes that are only available on a case-by-case basis.

I didn’t love this situation. I dealt with it, because if I called up any congressional office with an interview request, I could get credentialed for the day and roam around. That’s all any reporter needs, especially if that reporter, like Wurzelbacher, is on the Hill for one or two days to do some quick interviews. That’s what Keith Olbermann would do if he was on the Hill to talk to senators, as he’s the opinionated host of his own show, and not a daily Hill reporter. Either Simon and Wurzelbacher are scamming their viewers (can we use the plural?) by telling them the credentialing process is biased, or they really don’t understand the process.