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From the ailing resorts of the Florida Keys to Alaskan villages along the Bering Sea, the program is now expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.

There is much gnashing of teeth by abortion supporters over the inclusion of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment in the Speaker Nancy Pelosi health care bill – H.R. 3962.  Bart Stupak, Michigan Democrat, and Joe Pitts, Pennsylvania Republican, succeeded in amending H.R. 3962 so that no government funds can be used to pay for abortion.  Claims that Stupak-Pitts is out of line with current law or that it is unconstitutional are simply false.

The Stupak-Pitts amendment (“Stupak-Pitts”) combines two principles.  First, it contains the core principle of the Hyde Amendment that the government not encourage abortion through direct funding or subsidization of the cost of plans that cover elective abortion.  Second, Stupak-Pitts refuses to accept deceptive schemes in which funds deposited into a common pot are claimed to be separate.  Stupak-Pitts recognizes the obvious truth that money is fungible.  Hence, Stupak does not swallow the deception that government subsidized insurance policies covering abortion do not involve the government in the promotion or encouragement of abortion through subsidies.

Anyone with an ounce of foresight on the Left should have seen this coming.  The current principle in federal law – a la Hyde – is that the United States government does not pay for abortions (with exceptions of mother’s life, rape and incest) or pay for the cost of any plan that covers abortion.  This principle even carries over to the private plans purchased by government employees.  Now, if, as the Democrats want, the government is going to dominate, micro-regulate, and subsidize the nation’s health care system – both government run and privately insured – then the question of how the Hyde principle will apply to these new programs arises immediately.

The answer is that Hyde’s logic runs the gamut of all the new health care expenditures and programs.  Therefore, Stupak-Pitts carries Hyde forward and refuses to buy into the accounting gimmicks that would give the Democrats cover for funding abortions.  Speaker Pelosi had a choice.  She could either allow a vote on Stupak’s amendment, or she could accept the defeat of her health care bill.  She chose to allow a vote on Stupak-Pitts, and her side lost.  To strip Stupak-Pitts from the bill now would be highly dishonest, and, if Stupak-Pitts can count votes, it will lead to the defeat of Obama-Pelosi health care in the House.

As for the claims that Stupak-Pitts is unconstitutional, they are wrong as well.

The major constitutional point here is that the Congress is given wide discretion in deciding how to spend money and fund or not fund certain activities.  This is true even if the activity in question rests on the exercise of a constitutional right.  The old saw is that merely because there is freedom of the press, the government doesn’t have to buy a writer a printing press, paper, and ink.  The abortion-promoting members of Congress need to tell us why the government should buy them their equivalent of a printing press.

The argument that Stupak-Pitts violates Establishment Clause principles is absurd.  Stupak-Pitts establishes no church or a favored religious organization.  It apparently came as a shock to Lynn Woolsey and Diana DeGette that Catholics are allowed to vote and petition their government.  While considering whether to import Guy Fawkes Day to the American calendar, they and their acolytes have issued various threats and slanders against the Papists.  Such claims probably won’t sway Justice Kennedy.  Furthermore, you don’t have to be a Christian to be pro-life.  Even atheists can read ultra-sounds.  Ask Bernard Nathanson, a physician and founder of the modern abortion movement whose viewing of fetal ultrasounds led him to reject abortion.

A series of liberal activist constitutional claims are also made against Stupak-Pitts.  Equal Protection Clause.  Substantive Due Process.  Privacy.  All the usual suspects.  In other words, the gamut of the “We’re liberals and we don’t like this law, so it’s unconstitutional” arguments.  Unfortunately for the Stupak opponents, each of these claims could be made against the Hyde Amendment, and the 1980 decision upholding the Hyde Amendment, Harris v. McRae, has stood for 30 years.  Furthermore, the public has held constant in its disapproval of government endorsement and promotion of abortion since Hyde’s first enactment.

Of course, all these arguments are academic in some sense.  What matters these days is the amount of raw judicial power that can be exercised by the Supreme Court’s judicial activists and policy makers.  Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor will vote to overturn Hyde & Stupak.  It boils down to Justice Kennedy – - again.  Ain’t life grand in a judicial oligarchy?

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Budget deficits set new records every day, but Democrats claim they can’t cut spending. The deficit for 2009 exceeds $1.4 trillion—three times the worst yearly deficit for President Bush. October alone showed a $176 billion deficit—more than the deficit for the whole year in 2007!

Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress increased spending for the National Endowment for the Arts by 8%—granting $6.5 million more than the president even requested. NEA chairman Rocco Landesman looks forward to providing extra funding for hip-hop music and other questionable endeavors. “Mural painting and graffiti are art,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “There are popular aspects of all the arts that I think shouldn’t be ignored.”

When government lavishes millions on graffiti and hip hop, it’s ridiculous to claim that we can’t trim the budget.

Two weeks ago, the Department of Labor released their latest unemployment numbers which put the current unemployment level at 10.2%.  You may remember, in a recent blog, I mentioned that there was more behind the 10.2% figure than one would hope and that the actual number is closer to 17.5% because the calculation does not account those individuals who have given up on finding work or those who are underemployed, such as individuals working part time but looking for full-time work.

According to a review by the Wall Street Journal there are a number of inconsistencies in the way the number of jobs ‘saved or created’ are calculated by the White House in regards to its Stimulus package. 

Take these examples for instance:

“A Kentucky shoe-store owner claimed to have created or saved nine jobs with an $889.60 contract to supply work boots to the Army Corps of Engineers. The owner said he supplied nine pairs of boots and that the mistake arose from confusion over the government form.”

“As many as 86% of the jobs estimated by recipients of Head Start grants could have been inaccurately reported, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The department said 277 of the 1,601 reports it had received were being reviewed after being contacted by the Journal. Those reports claimed 7,753 jobs created or saved out of a total of 8,997 reported.

"Holy moly, that's not right," Teresa Cox, executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency in Salem, Ore., said of her organization's report. It indicated that 205 jobs were created or saved with the agency's $397,761 federal grant. The money, she said, was used for pay raises.”

“Stetson University in DeLand, Fla., counted every part-time work-study position funded by the stimulus, and, in some cases, more than one work-study position held by the same student. That led to the university reporting that it had created or saved 483 jobs with a $193,469 grant for its work-study program. University spokeswoman Cindi Brownfield said the campus has since realized that the actual jobs number should have been written as the full-time equivalent of the jobs -- probably between 18 and 30.”

Which presidential candidate drew stronger support from conservatives—Reagan in 1980, or McCain in 2008? The answer is shocking and enlightening, as exit polls show McCain got 78 percent of self-described conservatives, while Reagan drew only 73 percent.

How, then, could Reagan win a 40-state landslide, while McCain lost decisively to Obama? The answer is that McCain—despite his strong showing among conservatives—did much worse among moderates, losing their votes by 21 percentage points, while Reagan carried moderates by 6.

These numbers should settle stupid arguments about the GOP seeking moderate support: no Republican has ever come close to national victory while losing the moderate vote badly. In no state—in no election in history—have conservatives ever constituted an absolute majority, so victory requires at least splitting ballots of those who call themselves “moderate.”

According to several Cigna employees, the insurer offers its customers the opportunity to opt out of abortion coverage – and the RNC did not choose to opt out.

But rank and file Republicans said Thursday that the policy should – and would – be changed.

“We were not aware of this, obviously, and this will, of course, be fixed,” said James Bopp Jr., a Republican National Committeeman from Indiana. “I think Chairman Steele will see to it that that’s the case.”