While I fully agree with Erick Erickson’s post that that the health care bill must not be just about abortion, I, and a lot of other Americans, are now on the horns of a true moral dilemma. The Democrats seem to be making publically-funded abortion another litmus test for their health care legislation, along with the “public option.”

And that means that if the current Senate bill passes, every taxpayer is going to be required by law to pay for abortions to be performed. No matter what your personal feelings, moral values and religious principles are, your money will be going to fund countless numbers of abortions. And if you don’t participate in the system, as Moe Lane pointed out, with video showing Nancy Pelosi stating it clearly, then you will go to jail.

This is becoming a problem of Biblical proportions.

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President Obama bowed to the Emperor of Japan on his current tour of Asia. It was a full bow, with his upper body almost at right angles to the ground. Here’s the video:

Here’s what the New York Times had to say about the President of the United States bowing to the Emperor of Japan:

…the image…was indelible: an obsequent President, and the Emperor of Japan. Canadians still bow to England’s Queen; so do Australians. Americans shake hands. If not to stand eye-to-eye with royalty, what else were 1776 and all that about?

…But the “thou need not bow” commandment from the State Department’s protocol office maintained a constancy of more than 200 years. Administration officials scurried to insist that the eager-to-please President had not really done the unthinkable.

From this point on, things just get worse for “the first Pacific President. Much worse.

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Doug Hoffman conceded defeat on election night after being told that he was down by more than 5,300 votes with 93% of the vote counted, and that he had nearly lost his own stronghold of Oswego County. His concession allowed Bill Owens to be sworn in as Representative of the 23rd District in New York–and after breaking four of his campaign promises within the first hour of being sworn in, Bill Owens gave Nancy Pelosi the vote she needed to pass her Health Care Bill the following day.

The problem is…Bill Owens might not have won the 23rd District Congressional seat after all.

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What if the Fort Hood shooter had been named Major Joseph Robert Lee, instead of Major Nidal Malik Hasan?

What if he had been a Caucasian born in Selma, Alabama, instead of an Arab-American born in Arlington, Virginia?

What if knowledge of his family roots had caused Joseph Robert Lee to list his nationality as Confederate States of America rather than “United States of America,” the way that Nidal Malik Hasan–born in Arlington, Virginia of immigrant parents, listed his nationality as “Palestinian” on a document he filled out at the Silver Springs, Maryland mosque he attended?

What if he had signed himself as JoeBob while posting on websites where he advocated violent overthrow of the U.S. government if there was an attempt to disarm citizens in violation of the Second Amendment, instead of signing himself NidalMalik in online postings praising suicide bombers as heroes making a sacrifice “for a noble cause,” and suggesting people “strap bombs on themselves and go into Times Square?”

What if it had been Joe Bob who attended the same Evangelical Christian church at the same time as Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, instead of Nidal Malik attending the same mosque at the same time as Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour, two of the September 11 hijacker terrorists?

What if it had been Joseph Robert Lee proselytizing colleagues and patients while on the job, inviting them to become Christians, instead of Nidal Malik Hasan proselytizing patients and co-workers and inviting them to become Muslims? What if Joseph had passed out Bibles the way Nidal passed out Qu’rans? Would being placed on probation and warned not to do it again have been enough in that case? Or would it have ended his career?

Would Joseph Robert Lee have been dismissed by the FBI as harmless and promoted by Army brass from Captain to Major after exchanging about a dozen emails with a Christian preacher who had ties to the Tea Party movement or the Minuteman Project? Captain Nidal Malik Hasan was cleared by the FBI and promoted to Major after provably exchanging 10 to 20 emails with radical Muslim cleric Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, a known supporter of armed jihad against the United States, and also after Captain Hasan tried to contact several other Al-Qaeda terrorist leaders.

What if Joseph Robert Lee had been a minor member of President Bush’s transition team when he took office in 2001, prior to the 9-11 tragedy, identical to the way Nidal Malik Hasan was a minor member of President Obama’s transition team (see page 32 of the linked, official pdf) when he took office in 2009? Would that have been headlined on the evening news and in newspapers across the nation?

How much of a difference do you think it would have made if the shooter had been an Evangelical Christian who committed this act of treason — the first time in United States history that a commissioned officer in our Armed Forces turned a gun on fellow soldiers and murdered them in premeditated, cold blood? Especially if it had not been the first time in recent years that a member of this particular religious faith had used the teachings of that faith and passages from a book the faith considered to be holy as justification for killing fellow American soldiers? Do you think it would have been reported differently by the Mainstream Media?

How many calls of “don’t rush to judgement” would have been heard from President Obama if the shooter had been Evangelical Christian Joseph Robert Lee?

How many politicians and media pundits would have leaped to defend Evangelical Christians and insisted that they are not all tarred with the same brush because of the actions of the murderer?

How many would have worried about a “backlash” against Christians, or the danger of stereotyping and profiling white southern Americans?

How many questions would have been raised about the judgment, intelligence and fitness to serve of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces if this tragedy had happened while George Bush was president? How many allegations would have flown about Republican failures to make Americans safe if the GOP had still controlled both the House and the Senate?

Of course, the outcry that it is America’s love of guns that caused the deaths would have been a lot louder, because that’s the one thing you can count on as a politically-correct, enlightened, knee-jerk response no matter what the shooter’s name would have been. But the response from the Democrat President, Speaker of the House, and Senate Majority Leader would certainly have been a lot quicker, a lot louder, and a lot less cautious and concerned about stirring up bigotry and feeding negative stereotypes if the shooter had been named Joseph Robert Lee.

And I believe that I can say this quite positively based on other recent events that showed much more of a “rush to judgement” feeding bigotry and negative stereotypes. And in this I am completely agreeing with Rush Limbaugh, who said it earlier today.

But the real question the Fort Hood murders raises is how long we are going to continue to allow “political correctness” to place American lives in jeopardy?

Major Nidal Malik Hasan himself warned of the dangers of Muslims in the U.S. Armed Forces, in a presentation he gave while still at Walter Reed titled, The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military. He warned that for pious Muslims, He ended that presentation with a statement that is even more chilling in hindsight than it first appeared: “We love death more then [sic] you love life!”

And the most chilling thing about that statement, ending a presentation in which Hasan, among other points, justified armed overthrow of a non-Islamic government such as our own and establishment of a world-wide Islamic state under strict Shari’a law, is that it is a view shared by 65.2% of mainstream, non-extremist Muslims throughout the world, according to a 2007 survey conducted by the University of Maryland and World Public Opinion.

But in the face of statistics, and statements to the contrary from radical Muslims, the liberal media prefers to view Hasan’s actions as just another example of a solider — trained to violence — “cracking” under stress and reacting violently as he was trained to do. Basically, the same response we heard President Obama give today. The same response that will no doubt become the official verdict on this couldn’t-possibly-be-a-terrorist-act “incident” unless men and women of principle within the military and intelligence communities make sure that the full truth is told.

How very different things might have been if the shooter’s name had been Major Joseph Robert Lee.

And how much simpler for the current Powers That Be.

Dave Camp, ranking Republican member of the House Ways and Means Committee, today released a letter from the Joint Committee on Taxation revealing that the Pelosi health care bill currently being forced to the floor for a vote (H.R. 3962) includes a penalty of imprisonment of up to five years, and fines of up to $250,000 for failure to maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage.

And what exactly is acceptable health care coverage in Nancy Peolosi’s Brave New America?

Well, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the lowest cost for a non-group family insurance plan under the provisions of Speaker Pelosi’s bill would be $15,000 a year in 2016. The bill requires that coverage include all individuals (or married couples, if filing jointly) at a rate of 2.5% of their income. It also requires a similar level of coverage for each of their children.

The Senate version of the bill removed the jail-time penalty, but keeps in the fines. Speaker Pelosisi obviously feels that more coercion than simply a quarter of a million dollar fine is necessary.

If you were wondering if it is important to be in Washington tomorrow to be part of the Second Health Care “House Call” on Washington…now you have another reason why it is important. And if you needed any more reasons to call the Representatives most likely to need reminders of why they should vote NO on the Speaker’s bloated, health care budget-buster…now you have 15,000 more reasons.

And if your Congressional Representative is on this list of people leaning no, wavering or having said they will vote no, then this weekend is a really good time to call them personally and tell them exactly how closely you are watching what they are going to do about Speaker Pelosi’s bill.

I’m in Asheville, North Carolina. Heath Shuler is my Representative. He’s been hearing a lot from me lately about how we are counting on the Blue Dogs keeping their word. And hearing what is going to happen to them in the next election if they don’t keep their word and vote No.

Go thou and do likewise. They need to hear from us enough to shut down their phone lines.

The official U.S. unemployment rate hit 10.2% in October, the highest since the recession of 1983. But bad as that is, at least we are nowhere near the unemployment levels of the Great Depression, right?

Wrong.

That official 10.2% figure really doesn’t tell the truth about unemployment in America. The real unemployment figure is more than twice the official 10.2% rate–a lot higher than you know, even if you already know about some of the number-jumbling that is normal in “official” government statistics. The bad news, and the full facts, paint a bleak picture of the months ahead.

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If you are a Republican strategist, Party leader or candidate for election in 2010, looking at the multitude of current polls is probably giving you lots of reasons to feel good. Republicans are generally leading or at least heavily competitive in generic Congressional ballots. That hasn’t happened in several years. For the first time in a long time, polls show that Republicans are trusted by equal or greater numbers of Americans to handle key issues like Education and Health Care that have been Democrat strongholds.

At the same time, support for the Democrat-led House and Senate has fallen to all-time lows. Support for massive government programs like Obamacare and ongoing, nationalizing bailouts is below 50% and dropping farther every day. In addition, poll numbers indicate, at this point, that the GOP will capture current Democrat-held governorships in Virginia, and in New Jersey. Things, for the GOP, appear to be looking quite good.

Appearances, however, can be deceiving. If you are an elected Republican official, party leader or strategist, and you aren’t seriously worried right now about your prospects for 2010, 2012, and beyond…you should be. Let me tell you why.

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The Dow has closed about 350 points as I write this, and if the 777 point drop on Monday is “blamed” on the House rejecting the Pelosi Bailout Bill, then we have to blame this drop on the Senate passing their version of a Bailout last night. Fair is fair. When you factor in the Dow gain on Tuesday, the two net drops are close to one another. The excuses are starting to fly, and the blame is beginning to be slung about, and everybody is starting to feel sort of…depressed.

Which brings me to my topic.

The D-word has passed the lips of many people over the last couple of weeks. That was unthinkable even a month or two ago, and would have had the speaker labelled as a kook and marginalized as an alarmist. But now, we routinely hear people warning that another Depression-not-recession is looming and can only be staved off by swift, decisive action by the Government.

Take a deep breath for a moment, let the panic subside, and let’s consider what exactly causes a Depression and how we can avoid one before it happens, or get out of one after it starts. That is, after all, what we are talking about. It is what everyone wants. And it should be a part of any discussion of the crisis we are facing.

Now, discussions of economics and economic theory have a tendency to make people’s eyes glaze over, so I am going to keep this direct, specific and cut through some of the tech-speak. This is a basic pocketbook issue for all of us, and I firmly believe that you don’t have to have a doctoral degree to understand it. A lot of it is common sense, but there is not a lot of common sense demonstrated in politics and economics usually. As a sort of guide and outline for discussion–and as a fairly impartial assessment of current thinking–I am going to be quoting passages from the Wikipedia article on the Great Depression. It isn’t perfect, but it is in this case quite useful.

So, from the Wikipedia article on The Great Depression:

“Recession cycles are thought to be a normal part of living in a world of inexact balances between supply and demand. What turns a usually mild and short recession or “ordinary” business cycle into a great depression is a subject of debate and concern. Scholars have not agreed on the exact causes and their relative importance.”

We begin, therefore, with an admission that there is no consensus of opinion among economic and financial experts on exactly what causes a Depression. Which of course means that there is no consensus of opinion on how to prevent one, or what to do to get us out of one. And that raises big questions about the need for speed this past week in passing legislation most Senators and House members didn’t have a chance to read, and wouldn’t have understood even if they had read it since it was long on money and short on explanations. And things get even more amusing, confusing and worrisome after the jump…

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The few–the very few–who voted against the Bailout tonight. 15 Republicans, 9 Democrats and 1 Independent.

Allard (R)
Barasso (R)
Brownback (R)
Bunning (R)
Cochran (R)
Crapo (R)
DeMint (R)
Dole (R)
Enzi (R)
Inhofe (R)
Roberts (R)
Sessions (R)
Shelby (R)
Vitter (R)
Wicker (R)

Sanders (I)

Cantwell (D)
Dorgan (D)
Feingold (D)
Johnson (D)
Landrieu (D)
Nelson (FL) (D)
Stabenow (D)
Tester (D)
Wyden (D)

As gamecock has written elsewhere, let’s defeat it in the House….

The opposition to the Bailout Bill from voters/constituents keeps on growing. Forget the polls that show people are against the Bailout by a two to one margin–something else is even more significant than the polls.

The phones of Congressional Representatives and Senators are ringing off their hooks, with people complaining that either no one answers them or they are put on perpetual hold. The American public is overwhelmingly against the Bailout, and they feel that nobody is listening to them.

The number of phone calls has been unprecedented. So too has the volume of email. In fact, so many emails have been received that the Congressional system has had to have a block put in to electronically limit the number of emails allowed through because there are “too many” for the system to handle.

This didn’t even happen with 9/11. The Bailout is massively unpopular. And it should be. If someone with some clout sponsors a March on Washington…this could get very interesting.

Now, if John McCain would only stand on principle and the side of the people and oppose the Bailout, he might catch the current tidal wave of opposition and be able to craft some legislation that would actually fix the problems we face. If he does not, then we are going to end up simply following politics as usual and throwing money at a problem with no guarantee it will do any good.

John, listen to the voice of the people.

Dear John,

We haven’t heard a lot from you lately. Not a lot since last week, really, when you suspended your presidential campaign and announced that you were going back to D.C. to fix the economic crisis that Congress and the nation suddenly discovered it was in.

We know why we haven’t heard a lot from you. First, the news media doesn’t give you the same amount of coverage that it gives Sen. Obama, of course. But the coverage that you did get last week was overwhelmingly negative, and there was a loud drumbeat of criticism that you were just political grand-standing and did more harm than good while the Pelosi Bailout Bill was taking shape.

And then your numbers in the polls started heading south. Not just in the national polls, but your numbers started falling in the polls in swing states where it really matters electorially. So I imagine that many of your closest advisors jumped in to suggest that you have to be quiet, you have to go along to get along, and you have keep your eye on the ball and focused on the long term goal of winning the White House. The damage that an Obama presidency could do to the U.S. economy and national security are far greater than any short-term problems that this Bailout will cause…aren’t they?

Well, John, I don’t think that your advisors are right. And if your gut is telling you the same things, then I don’t think that your gut is right either. You are losing this election at the moment John, and you are losing it because you have stopped being the John McCain who surprised and shocked everyone by the bold, daring, non-politically-safe things you were doing just a few short weeks ago.

We need that bold, daring, shake-things-up John McCain to come back. We need him to come back now–before it is too late. Only that John McCain has a chance to win the White House and get us out of the messes that we are in.

And you really have nothing to lose by being bold, daring and outspoken. At least, nothing that isn’t lost already. (more after the jump)

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Nancy Pelosi failed to convince 94 Democrat members of the House of Representatives to vote for the $700 Billion Dollar Bailout Bill she and Harry Reid crafted. That should be the headline on the mainstream meadia news shows today.

Of course, it will not be what will be said. House Republicans, John McCain, and George Bush will be blamed. Count on it. After all, Nancy Pelosi made it clear that she wanted a minimum of 95 House Republicans to vote in favor of the Bailout Bill, and only 66 voted for it.

Take note of that. 66 Republicans voted in favor of Pelosi’s Bailout Bill, and 92 Democrats voted against Pelosi. And why did Speaker Pelosi want 95 Republicans onboard? For the simple and obvious reason that House Democrats (and “Blue Dog Democrats” in particular) need to cover their…ahh…votes and spread a thin veneer of bipartisanship over this vote so they don’t take the blame in the November elections.

About two-thirds of Americans in recent surveys did not want the Bailout to pass. Despite the comments that Republicans had to get on board or they would be responsible for the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression…look carefully at those 94 Democrat “No” votes. Those are Dems in close races, in vulnerable Districts–many of which used to have Republican Representatives–and those Democrats knew that voting “yes” on this Bill was political suicide for them.

The truth of the matter is that with a Democrat majority in the House that could have passed the Bill on their own, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her cronies failed to convince enough members of her own party to vote for the Bailout and that is why the Bill failed. 94 Democrats said NO! to Nancy Pelosi and her bloated Bailout Bill.

And the Bill failed.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that Sen. Barack Obama should not be speaking in public without a teleprompter and a prepared speech.

Amie Parnes reports from Lebanon, VA:

Obama poked fun of McCain and Palin’s new “change” mantra.

“You can put lipstick on a pig,” he said as the crowd cheered. “It’s still a pig.”

“You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It’s still gonna stink.”

“We’ve had enough of the same old thing.”

The crowd apparently took the “lipstick” line as a reference to Palin, who described the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull in a single word: “lipstick.”

Despite immediate denials that Sen. Obama called Gov. Palin a “pig,” that seems to be exactly what he did.

Are we going to hear an outcry from prominent feminists and feminist organizations? Probably not. Are we going to continue to see Sen. Obama go down in the national and state polls? Probably we are.

Can you imagine what would have happened if a Republican had said this?

If I were connected to the McCain/Palin campaign, I think I’d be asking for a personal apology from Sen. Obama. And I’d be asking it in advertisements. In swing states.

In the midst of all of the rhetoric blowing heatedly from the Obama campaign, one question needs to be asked of Senator Obama. And asked forcefully.

Why is the fact that the death toll in Chicago this summer is about double the death toll of U.S. soldiers in Iraq not of concern to you, Senator?

Quoting from CBS news in Chicago: “**Information from wire service reports and the Chicago Police Major Incidents log indicated that 123 people were shot and killed throughout the city (of Chicago) between the start of Memorial Day weekend on May 26, and the end of Labor Day on Sept. 1.

According to the Defense Department, 65 soldiers were killed in combat in Iraq. About the same number were killed in Afghanistan over that same period.**”

More after the jump.

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Let me get this straight. Dan McLaughlin, in a story headlined here at RedState, has pointed out a hit-piece on the DNC website against potential McCain VP Eric Cantor that accuses him of being…Jewish?

Is the DNC actually admitting in print an anti-Semitic bias?

And has anyone asked for a comment on this from Democratic Independent Senator Joe Lieberman? More on this, and the new “marching orders” from the DNC for party loyalists, below the fold…

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Erick has pointed out the Rep. Heath Shuler situation, so I won’t duplicate the information here. I’ll simply say that first-term Democrat Congressman Shuler appears to have a scandal brewing at a very bad time…and I’d like to tell you a bit about his opponent.

Shuler is holding a seat that was in GOP hands for many years, and it has been considered safe for Democrats to hang onto in this election. That may change though if these allegations of malfeasance have legs. And the man running to unseat Shuler is a very rare sort of Republican these days. He is a committed, Conservative with firm principles.

If that sounds like an urban myth, then you might want to continue reading below the fold…

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