The White House is on a collision course with Catholic bishops in an intractable dispute over abortion that could blow up the fragile political coalition behind President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

A top Obama administration official on Thursday praised the new Senate health care bill's attempt to find a compromise on abortion coverage - even as an official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Sen. Harry Reid's bill is the worst he's seen so far on the divisive issue.

The bishops were instrumental in getting tough anti-abortion language adopted by the House, forcing Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to accept restrictions that outraged liberals as the price for passing the Democratic health care bill. Reid, D-Nev., now faces a similar choice: Ultimately, he will need the votes of Democratic senators who oppose abortion to get his bill through the Senate. (White House at odds with bishops over abortion  )

(What compromise? The government under the Senate plan is going to cover abortions. Why should us tax payers who have values which teach us that abortions are wrong have to pay for them with our hard earn money. Shame on the Sen. and President Obama for supporting a bill which will cover abortions.) 

The U.N. Population Fund has declared that having fewer children would help reduce so-called global warming...but added it is difficult to proof a connection between the two.

The agency said the battle against global warming could be helped if the world slowed population growth by making free condoms and family planning advice more widely available. ( U.N. says the world needs fewer children )

The agency did not recommend countries set limits on how many children people should have, but said: "Women with access to reproductive health services ... have lower fertility rates that contribute to slower growth in greenhouse gas emissions."

"As the growth of population, economies and consumption outpaces the Earth's capacity to adjust, climate change could become much more extreme and conceivably catastrophic," the report said.

(The problems in the world today is not because we have too many  people but how people act and treat others. When we get down to it  the problems are moral and spiritual and have nothing to do with overpopulation but groups like the UN will use that as an excuse to push things like abortion. ) 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has unveiled his more than 2,000-page healthcare bill with an estimated price tag of $849 billion.  However, as Grace Marie Turner of the Galen Institute points out, one of the reasons the bill was scored under President Obama's $900 billion cost goal is because no one gets any benefit from the program until 2014. ('Tricks' and 'gimmicks' in Senate healthcare bill  )

 
"So they start collecting taxes and fees now, and...the first ten years of full implementation of this bill is $2.5 trillion, and that's only the beginning," Turner explains. "So this does not in any way...meet President Obama's budget specification.  And there are all sorts of tricks that they have pulled in this bill to try to pretend that it's deficit-neutral."
 
Turner says although the bill is a "carefully crafted" document designed to garner as close to 60 votes as Senator Reid can, it contains lots of new taxes and $500 billion in cuts to Medicare.

"They're assuming that Congress is going to have the will to make those cuts, which they have no track record in doing -- which means they're going to have to come back to taxpayers for more and more taxes to pay for these alleged promises of accessible healthcare for more Americans," Turner suggests.
 She further says that many promises President Obama made to the American people are broken in the Senate healthcare bill, including the notion that "if you like your current health insurance you'll be able to keep it."  The Congressional Budget Office predicts that under the Senate's proposal, millions of Americans will lose the employer-based coverage they currently have.

(This bill should be defeated! All of us need to contact our    Senators  and tell them in a respectful way that they should vote no and we will be watching to see how they vote.) 

Conservative Christian leaders are releasing a declaration and warning today on what they're calling "moral issues of great concern."

Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, helped draft the Manhattan Declaration, which affirms the sanctity of human life, marriage as the union of one man and one woman, religious liberty, and freedom of conscience. Where those values are threatened, the document endorses civil disobedience under some circumstances. ( Conservative Christians issue declaration, warning )

(If  the souls who names are  on  this declaration  are putting their faith in politics they and those who support them  will again not see their goals fulfilled. On the other hand if they call for America and her leaders to get back to the Bible and faith they are headed up the right tree.) 

Pro-lifers are being called into action now that the release of the Senate's misleading version of healthcare reform has been presented.

The Senate version of the legislation is not inclusive of the House's Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which bans federal funds for abortions. Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, tells OneNewsNow this was done in spite of the fact that several polls indicate a wide majority of Americans do not want their tax dollars spent on abortion. 
 
"And that's why the White House and many top congressional Democrats like [Senator] Harry Reid and [Speaker of the House] Nancy Pelosi are trying so desperately to disguise what they're doing," Johnson explains. He says they are "trying to conceal these pro-abortion provisions behind layers of misleading, convoluted language and rhetoric."

( I for sure am going to be watching how my Democrat  Sen. Ben Nelson votes.  Anyone who votes for this health care bill can no longer say they are pro life. Obama told us abortion would not be covered in government health care. What changed Mr. President? Read more on this issue Abortion coverage a major sticking point.)

Former megachurch pastor Ted Haggard recently conducted a prayer meeting in his home where he was surprised by the outcome.

Three years ago, Haggard's ministry collapsed while the church which began in his home and grew to be New Life in Colorado Springs survived. The former minister admitted to connections with what turned out to be homosexual liaisons and involvement with drugs. He still lives in Colorado Springs and recently told KUSA TV in Denver he was surprised by the attendance at his first in-home prayer session last week.
 
"I thought we'd have between 10 and 20, [but] we ended up with 150," he reports.

( I wish Haggard the best. I do hope he has people he is submitted to. His fall not only hurt his family but the family of God.  I think it would be better if his return to ministry was not in the spotlight. I also think he should not be the head person but under others far as leadership goes. I do hope he has truly come to repentance. Read more on this issue Former pastor holds home prayer meeting.) 

A decision by the country's largest Lutheran denomination to allow homosexual pastors to serve as clergy is leading a conservative opposition group to try to form an alternate Lutheran church body.

Leaders of Lutheran CORE said at a news conference in a Minneapolis suburb on Wednesday that they disagree with this August's decision on gay pastors by Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. (Gay pastor controversy prompts new Lutheran group  )

( It is time that people who are under the Lordship of God's Word leave churches who have leaders who no longer follow God's Word.) 

Sen. Joe Lieberman’s threat to filibuster any health care bill with a public option could kill health reform this year — and embolden Democratic challengers who’d like to send him packing in 2012.

But Lieberman doesn’t seem worried.

“I don’t think about that stuff,” Lieberman told POLITICO this week. “I’m just — I’m being a legislator. After what I went through in 2006, there’s nothing much more that anybody [who] disagrees with me can try to do.”

Lieberman left the Democratic Party in 2006 after liberal Ned Lamont beat him in Connecticut’s Democratic Senate primary. Lieberman defeated Lamont in the general election and returned to Washington as an independent, where he continues to caucus with Democrats — even though he accuses them of engaging in a bit of bait and switch when it comes to the public option.

“It’s classic politics of our time that if you look at the campaign last year, presidential, you can’t find a mention of public option,” Lieberman said. “It was added after the election as a part of what we normally consider health insurance reform — insurance market reforms, cover people, cover people who are not covered.

“It suddenly becomes a litmus test. I thought Democrats were against litmus tests.”

Despite the strong words against some in his old party, Lieberman still entertains the idea of a reunion. Asked this week if he might run again as a Democrat in 2012, Lieberman smiled and said, “Yeah, sure.”

“I’m for health care reform,” Lieberman told POLITICO. “And, of course, this will all be over by then, and I hope we will be strongly supporting health care reform. I haven’t changed my thoughts about 2012, which is, I’m keeping all my options open.

(Good for Lieberman. We must stop forced government health care! Read more of this story by  clicking right here.)  

The White House's forthcoming state dinner with the Prime Minister of India is expected to be larger than those of President Barack Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush. But another upcoming White House event will be smaller than in years past: The White House's annual Hanukkah party.

The guest list is expected to be shrunk by more than half, according to the Jerusalem Post. "Though several Jewish leaders expressed understanding for the economic and other reasons behind the cut, they acknowledged that it would likely help feed feelings in some quarters of the American Jewish community that the White House is giving them the cold shoulder."

(Perhaps I am wrong for reading something into this but I just wonder if  this is another way to stick it to friends of the Jewish State which Obama has not backed like other  American Presidents. I wonder if  a holiday to honor an Islam holiday  will be cut back. If it is then I will not question this move but until I see that happen I will question this.)

The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Wednesday night criticized Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.) for voting against the Democrats’ signature healthcare bill.

“We even have blacks voting against the healthcare bill,” Jackson said at a reception Wednesday night. “You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.”

The remark stirred a murmur at the reception, held by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Foundation as part of a series of events revolving around the 25th anniversary of Jackson’s run for president. (JESSE JACKSON PLAYS RACE CARD AGAINST BLACK CONGRESSMAN ON HEALTH CARE)

Davis referred to Jackson’s 1988 run for president in a statement, issued through his office, that said he would not engage Jackson on his criticism.

“One of the reasons that I like and admire Rev. Jesse Jackson is that 21 years ago he inspired the idea that a black politician would not be judged simply as a black leader,” Davis’s statement said. “The best way to honor Rev. Jackson’s legacy is to decline to engage in an argument with him that begins and ends with race.”

Jackson said later that he "didn't call anybody by name and I won't."

He added that he wasn't saying that black lawmakers must vote a certain way. Instead, they should vote the interests of the people in their districts, and he said the healthcare bill would help Alabama because it's one of the poorest states in the country.

(So if you are black you must always vote in line with Jesse Jackson. What if you believe this bill is going to  hurt the people who elected you by making them pay higher and higher taxes. That doesn't  matter to people like Jackson who has gotten away too often with playing the race card. Jackson should no longer be taken as a black leader but as a man who just wants to play the race card with health care and every other issue in the world. )