TRASHING TRICARE to force participation in "Obamacare"

OBAMA TO CUT HEALTHCARE BENEFITS FOR ACTIVE DUTY AND RETIRED US MILITARY

The Obama administration’s proposed defense budget calls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for their healthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers’ benefits untouched. The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials. Several congressional aides suggested the move is designed to increase the enrollment in Obamacare’s state-run insurance exchanges.

The disparity in treatment between civilian and uniformed personnel is causing a backlash within the military that could undermine recruitment and retention.

The proposed increases in health care payments by service members, which must be approved by Congress, are part of the Pentagon’s $487 billion cut in spending. It seeks to save $1.8 billion from the Tricare medical system in the fiscal 2013 budget, and $12.9 billion by 2017.

Many in Congress are opposing the proposed changes, which would require the passage of new legislation before being put in place.

“We shouldn’t ask our military to pay our bills when we aren’t willing to impose a similar hardship on the rest of the population,” Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a Republican from California, said in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon. “We can’t keep asking those who have given so much to give that much more.”

Administration officials told Congress that one goal of the increased fees is to force military retirees to reduce their involvement in Tricare and eventually opt out of the program in favor of alternatives established by the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

“When they talked to us, they did mention the option of healthcare exchanges under Obamacare. So it’s in their mind,” said a congressional aide involved in the issue.

Military personnel from several of the armed services voiced their opposition to a means-tested tier system for Tricare, prompting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey to issue a statement Feb. 21.

Dempsey said the military is making tough choices in cutting defense spending. In addition to the $487 billion over 10 years, the Pentagon is facing automatic cuts that could push the total reductions to $1 trillion.

“I want those of you who serve and who have served to know that we’ve heard your concerns, in particular your concern about the tiered enrollment fee structure for Tricare in retirement,” Dempsey said. “You have our commitment that we will continue to review our health care system to make it as responsive, as affordable, and as equitable as possible.”

Under the new plan, the Pentagon would get the bulk of its savings by targeting under-65 and Medicare-eligible military retirees through a tiered increase in annual Tricare premiums that will be based on yearly retirement pay.

Significantly, the plan calls for increases between 30 percent to 78 percent in Tricare annual premiums for the first year. After that, the plan will impose five-year increases ranging from 94 percent to 345 percent—more than 3 times current levels.

According to congressional assessments, a retired Army colonel with a family currently paying $460 a year for health care will pay $2,048.

The new plan hits active duty personnel by increasing co-payments for pharmaceuticals and eliminating incentives for using generic drugs.

The changes are worrying some in the Pentagon who fear it will severely impact efforts to recruit and maintain a high-quality all-volunteer military force. Such benefits have been a key tool for recruiting qualified people and keeping them in uniform.

“Would you stay with a car insurance company that raised your premiums by 345 percent in five years? Probably not,” said the congressional aide. “Would anybody accept their taxes being raised 345 percent in five years? Probably not.”

A second congressional aide said the administration’s approach to the cuts shows a double standard that hurts the military.

“We all recognize that we are in a time of austerity,” this aide said. “But defense has made up to this point 50 percent of deficit reduction cuts that we agreed to, but is only 20 percent of the budget.”

The administration is asking troops to get by without the equipment and force levels needed for global missions. “And now they are going to them again and asking them to pay more for their health care when you’ve held the civilian workforce at DoD and across the federal government virtually harmless in all of these cuts. And it just doesn’t seem fair,” the second aide said.

Spokesmen for the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not respond to requests for comment on the Tricare increases.

The massive increases beginning next year appear timed to avoid upsetting military voters in a presidential election year, critics of the plan say.

Additionally, the critics said leaving civilian workers’ benefits unchanged while hitting the military reflect the administration’s effort to court labor unions, as government unions are the only segment of organized labor that has increased in recent years.

As part of the increased healthcare costs, the Pentagon also will impose an annual fee for a program called Tricare for Life, a new program that all military retirees automatically must join at age 65. Currently, to enroll in Tricare for Life, retirees pay the equivalent of a monthly Medicare premium.

Under the proposed Pentagon plan, retirees will be hit with an additional annual enrollment fee on top of the monthly premium.

Congressional aides said that despite unanimous support among the military chiefs for the current healthcare changes, some senior officials in the Pentagon are opposing the reforms, in particular the tiered system of healthcare.

“It doesn’t matter what the benefit is, whether it’s commissary, PX, or healthcare, or whatever … under the rationale that if you raise your hand and sign up to serve, you earn a base set of benefits, and it should have nothing to do with your rank when you served, and how much you’re making when you retire,” the first aide said.

Military service organizations are opposing the healthcare changes and say the Pentagon is “means-testing” benefits for service personnel as if they were a social program, and not something earned with 20 or more years of military service.

Retired Navy Capt. Kathryn M. Beasley, of the Military Officers Association of America, said the Military Coalition, 32 military service and veterans groups with an estimated 5 million members, is fighting the proposed healthcare increases, specifically the use of mean-testing for cost increases.

“We think it’s absolutely wrong,” Beasley told the Free Beacon. “This is a breach of faith” for both the active duty and retiree communities.

Congressional hearings are set for next month.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars on Feb. 23 called on all military personnel and the veterans’ community to block the healthcare increases.

“There is no military personnel issue more sacrosanct than pay and benefits,” said Richard L. DeNoyer, head of the 2 million-member VFW. “Any proposal that negatively impacts any quality of life program must be defeated, and that’s why the VFW is asking everyone to join the fight and send a united voice to Congress.”

Senior Air Force leaders are expected to be asked about the health care cost increases during a House Armed Services Committee hearing scheduled for Tuesday.

Congress must pass all the proposed changes into law, as last year’s defense authorization bill preemptively limited how much the Pentagon could increase some Tricare fees, while other fees already were limited in law.

Tricare for Life, Tricare Prime, and Tricare Standard increases must be approved, as well as some of the pharmacy fee increases, congressional aides said.

Current law limits Tricare fee increases to cost of living increases in retirement pay.

Original article posted here:
http://freebeacon.com/trashing-tricare/

Brings to mind the line Darth Vader said in Empire Strikes Back --

>>> "I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further...." <<< 

My thanks to people from all branches of the military- who served past and present. My apologies for the POTUS actions.

Media Matters talking points occupy MSNBC

Reports that Media Matters for America’s (MMfA) campaign to attack Fox News and other news outlets has an ally in Fox competitor MSNBC are evidenced in multiple examples of MSNBC hosts using MMfA material in segments for their shows.

Just in recent weeks, there have been several examples. Two MSNBC hosts who have recently, and regularly, used the organization’s content for their programming are Ed Schultz of “The ED Show” and Al Sharpton of “PoliticsNation.”

While they vary, the most popular targets have been Fox News personalities and conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh.

Read more: There are 4 pages to the article....

http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/15/cementing-the-media-matters-msnbc-link-video/#ixzz1mb3tehpT


So Media Matters are they a non-profit progressive research organization, or are they a political action committee?

Are there "journalists" at MSNBC or is journalism dead?

Do these questions concern anyone?

I am not advocating silencing these voices rather, I'm simply suggesting they not hide behind a false facade...

Do as we say, NOT as WE DO-- Brock and the Glock: Armed men guarded Media Matters boss

Brock and the Glock: Armed men guarded Media Matters boss

as he took $400,000 gun control donation

By Perry Chiaramonte

Published February 16, 2012| FoxNews.com

The recent revelation that the head of Media Matters walked the streets of Washington with a Glock-toting bodyguard may make it a little awkward for the group the next time it seeks a donation from a gun control advocacy group.

Media Matters reportedly took more than $400,000 from the Joyce Foundation specifically earmarked to promote a $600,000 initiative on "gun and public safety issues." At the same time, Media Matters' gun-guarded boss David Brock reportedly obsessed over his own security.

"It doesn't look good," said Fraser Seitel, president of Emerald Partners Communications and a public relations expert who authored the book "Rethinking Reputation." 

"But it is a gray area in terms of public relations. Since (Media Matters) is so anti-NRA, to have their members packing heat leaves them open to criticism," he said.

Brock reportedly told confidantes that he feared for his safety and needed hired guns to keep him safe.

"He had more security than a Third World dictator," one Media Matters employee told The Daily Caller. Brock's guards rarely left Brock's side and even accompanied him to his home in a tony Washington neighborhood where they "stood post" nightly, the source told the DC.

Media Matters proudly claims to be engaged in an information war to bring down Fox News, and has been exposed as a distributor of liberal talking points that regularly find their way into the reporting of mainstream media outlets, according to The Daily Caller.

Officials at the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation did not return repeated calls for comment. The nonprofit doles out donations to a variety of groups to address such issues as urban public education, job training, the environment, and gun violence.

A July 2010 grant of $400,000 to Media Matters was specifically targeted to support a gun and public safety issue initiative. As part of the initiative, Media Matters sent a representative, David Holthouse, undercover to a shooting sports trade show and had him write about the experience.

In a Media Matters article entitled, SHOT Show 2011: "The Second Amendment Ain't About Duck Hunting," Holthouse wrote that "increased lethality has become the nicotine of the firearms industry."

"Every year gun makers roll out new lines of assault rifles, tactical shotguns and handguns that hold even more bullets, or fire even faster, or boast new gadgetry that supposedly enables their user to kill other human beings more efficiently than ever before," reads a line from the January 2011 article.

Holthouse previously wrote an article for a Denver publication claiming he once planned a murder in such detail that he traveled to a neighboring state to buy a gun with a scratched-off serial number so it could not be traced back to him. His intended target was someone who attacked him as a child, forcibly raping him as a 7 year old, according to the article.

The latest revelations about Media Matters has raised questions in Washington, with some lawmakers in Congress considering opening a investigation into the group's tax-exempt status, according to reports in The Daily Caller.

Link to original article follows:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/16/brock-and-glock-armed-men-guarded-media-matters-boss-as-took-400000-gun-control/

Starbucks hit with boycott -- and 'buycott'

This post has been updated. Please see note at bottom for details.

Those who prefer to drink their lattes packing protection on their hip turned out at Starbucks across the country on the first day of a "buycott" organized by gun owners -- countering the Starbucks boycott called this week by the National Gun Victims Action Council.

The issue of Starbucks allowing gun owners to openly carry their weapons in states that have "open carry" laws has been simmering for years. The new boycott, which launched Tuesday, aims at persuading Starbucks to join a growing list of retail chains, including Peet's Coffee, California Pizza Kitchen and IKEA, which prohibit guns even when they're otherwise legal.

"Starbucks allowing guns to be carried in thousands of their stores significantly increases everyone's risk of being a victim of gun violence," Elliot Fineman, head of the Chicago-based council, said in a press release announcing the boycott.

Most of the visible action Tuesday seemed to be on the buycott side of things, though, as gun groups across the country urged their members to show up at Starbucks -- not necessarily with their weapons -- and spend. 

Joe Huffman, a Seattle software engineer who writes a gun blog based in his native Idaho, reported that he and his friends spent $131.64 at the Starbucks in Seattle's main shopping district Tuesday.

"I wasn't carrying a gun. I did have a jacket on that had an [National Rifle Assn.] life member patch," Huffman said in an interview. "I wanted to demonstrate that even though they're under a lot of pressure, we're very appreciative of them standing up against those people."

Similar "Starbucks Appreciation Day" demonstrations were reported in several states, including Hawaii, Tennessee, and Michigan, as well as in several suburban communities around Seattle, where Starbucks is headquartered.

In Columbus, Ohio, students promoting the right to carry guns at Ohio State University protested outside a Starbucks, carrying signs with such slogans as, "Because I CAN'T carry a cop," the Lantern student newspaper reported.

"I threw out the idea of a Starbucks appreciation day on my online forum, and God Almighty, it caught fire," Dave Workman, editor of the Gun Mag, based in Bellevue, Wash., said in an interview.

"These guys want Starbucks to act as their surrogate, to push this social bigotry against gun owners, and I think the gun owners have responded rather well,"Workman said. "The gun guys are willing to put their money where their mouth is, while the anti-gun guys are trying to take money away from Starbucks. Now if I was in business, if I was Howard Schultz, I would sit back and think, 'Guess whose side I'm on? Not the people who are taking my business away.'"

Starbucks officials did not respond to phone calls or emails seeking comment. But in a statement on its website -- placed there in 2010 when the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence launched a petition campaign targeting the chain -- Starbucks said its policy was to follow existing state laws where its stores operate.

"That means we abide by the laws that permit open carry in 43 U.S. states. Where these laws don’t exist, openly carrying weapons in our stores is prohibited.

The political, policy and legal debates around these issues belong in the legislatures and courts, not in our stores," the company said.

The Brady campaign's legislation director, Brian Malte, told the Los Angeles Times that the group is continuing with its public pressure campaign, although it is not participating in the boycott.

"We still feel there's time for Starbucks to make the right decision to protect their employees and customers," Malte said.

But Fineman said boycott advocates made the decision that it was time to step up the pressure. He said the coalition includes about 50 secular anti-gun organizations, faith groups and private citizens touched by gun violence, whose numbers, through a complicated formula, he puts at 14 million.

Fineman, who runs a marketing firm whose clients include Fortune 500 companies, became active in gun control causes after his son was shot and killed in a San Diego restaurant in 2006 by a mentally ill man wielding a legally purchased handgun.

"We're not going to let people just say, 'This isn't our issue, it's a political issue.' Because there's no way that the current forces on our side can combat the NRA. They're just too big. They have an enormous amount of money and people, and they throw their weight around in a pretty big fashion," Fineman said in an interview.

"But who has more money than them? Corporate America. So the point is to get corporate America to do what we can't do."

[Updated, 3:48 p.m. Feb. 15: In a statement released Wednesday after this post was published, Starbucks reiterated that its policy is to comply with the law in the communities where its stores are. “As the public debate around this issue continues, we encourage customers and advocacy groups from both sides to share their input with their public officials," the company said. "We are extremely sensitive to the issue of gun violence in our society and believe that supporting local laws is the right way for us to ensure a safe environment for both our partners (employees) and customers."]

 Link to original article follows:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2012/02/starbucks-guns-boycott.html

Army Silences Catholic Chaplains

The Obama administration has been accused of telling Catholic military chaplains what they can and cannot say from their pulpits after the Army ordered Catholic chaplains not to read a letter to parishioners from their archbishop.

The Secretary of the Army feared the letter could be viewed as a call for civil disobedience.

The letter called on Catholics to resist the policy the Obama Administration’s policy that would force institutions affiliated with religious groups to provide coverage for birth control, sterilization and “abortifacients.” The Catholic Church believes the mandate represents an unconstitutional violation of freedom of religion.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told Fox News Sunday the Army violated its chaplains’ constitutional rights by barring them from reading the letter – calling for resistance to the contraceptive coverage mandate.

“The Army and the Obama administration said they couldn’t even issue the letter to complain about the Obama administration’s plan on this policy,” Santorum said, calling it a violation of freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

“This is the problem when government tells you they can give you things,” said Santorum, a Catholic. “They can take it away but even worse they can tell you how they are going to exercise this new right consistent with their values instead of the values guaranteed in the Constitution.”

On Jan. 26, Archbishop Timothy Broglio emailed a letter to Catholic military chaplains with instructions that it be read from the pulpit.

A portion of the letter was obtained by Business Insider. It reads:

“In so ruling, the Obama  Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so). The Obama Administration’s sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply.”

The following day, senior chaplains received an email from the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains advising them that the archbishop’s letter was not coordinated with their office – and instructed chaplains not to read it from the pulpit.

The Chief’s office ordered that the letter was to be mentioned in the Mass announcements and distributed in printed form in the back of the chapel.

“Archbishop Broglio and the Archdiocese stand firm in the belief, based on legal precedent, that such a directive from the Army constituted a violation of his Constitutionally-protected right of free speech and the free exercise of religion, as well as those same rights of all military chaplains and their congregants,” read a statement provided to Fox News from the Archdiocese of the Military Services.

According to the AMS, Archbishop Broglio had a telephone conversation with Secretary of the Army John McHugh.

“It was agreed that it was a mistake to stop the reading of the Archbishop’s letter,” the statement read. “Additionally, the line: “We cannot-we will not-comply with this unjust law” was removed by Archbishop Broglio at the suggestion of Secretary McHugh over the concern that it could potentially be misunderstood as a call to civil disobedience.

The issue raises a question among critics: did administration official tell the Catholic Church what it could and could not say in the pulpit?

The Army confirmed that they asked Catholic chaplains not to read the letter, according to a statement released to National Review Online.

“The Army greatly appreciates the Archbishops consideration of the military’s perspective and is satisfied with the resolution upon which they agreed,” the statement concluded.

A source with knowledge of the incident told Fox News that no other branches of the military objected to the letter and to their knowledge was delivered “as-is” by chaplains in the other branches of the military.

http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/army-silences-catholic-chaplains.html

Obamacare vs. the Catholics

The administration’s breach of faith.

Jonathan V. Last

February 13, 2012, Vol. 17, No.21

On the last weekend of January, priests in Catholic churches across America read extraordinary letters to their congregations. The missives informed the laity that President Obama and his administration had launched an assault on the church. In Virginia, Catholics heard from Bishop Paul Loverde, who wrote, “I am absolutely convinced that an unprecedented and very dangerous line has been crossed.” In Phoenix, Bishop Thomas Olmsted wrote, “We cannot​—​we will not​—​comply with this unjust law.” In Pittsburgh, Bishop David Zubik wrote that President Obama had told Catholics, “To Hell with your religious beliefs.” Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria asked his flock to join him in the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, which concludes: By the Divine Power of God / cast into Hell, Satan and all the evil spirits / who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

It was a remarkable moment, in part because despite their stern reputation, most Catholic bishops are not terribly conservative. They tend to be politically liberal and socially cautious. If they were less holy men, stauncher conservatives would call them squishes. Real live conservative bishops are so few and far between that whenever one appears on the scene, such as Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles Chaput, he’s seen as a vaguely threatening curiosity. You can tell when a bishop is conservative because you will hear him referred to as “hardline” or “ultra-orthodox,” so as to mark him apart from the rest of the herd.

But what made the moment even more remarkable is that the bishops were not exaggerating. It is now a requirement of Obamacare that every Catholic institution larger than a single church​—​and even including some single churches​—​must pay for contraceptives, sterilization, and morning-after abortifacients for its employees. Each of these is directly contrary to the Catholic faith. But the Obama administration does not care. They have said, in effect, Do what we tell you—or else.

The beginnings of this confrontation lay in an obscure provision of Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which stated that all insurers will be required to provide “preventive health services.” When the law was passed, “preventive” was not defined but left to be determined at a later date.

This past August, Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius finally got around to explaining the administration’s interpretation of the phrase. Based on a recommendation from the Institute of Medicine, the administration would define “preventive health services” to include contraceptives, morning-after pills, and female sterilization. And they would interpret the “all insurers” section to include religious organizations, whatever their beliefs.

 Sebelius included one small conscience exemption: A religious employer who objects to medical treatment aimed at prevention of the disease commonly known as “pregnancy” may leave it out of their health insurance coverage provided the employer satisfies three criteria: (1) It has religious inculcation as its primary duty; (2) It primarily employs people of the same faith; and (3) It primarily serves people of the same faith. This fig leaf is enough to cover most small churches​—​so long as your parish employs only a couple of priests and a secretary, it would probably get a pass. Larger institutions would not.

In the Catholic world, for instance, a diocesan office often employs lots of people​—​lawyers, janitors, administrative staff​—​who are not necessarily Catholic. And the duties of such offices extend far beyond inculcation of the faith​—​to include charity, community service, and education. Or take Catholic universities. There are more than 200 of them, serving some 750,000 students. They clearly do not fit the exemption. Neither would any of the 6,980 Catholic elementary or secondary schools. Nor the country’s 600 Catholic hospitals; nor its 1,400 Catholic long-term care centers. Ditto the network of Catholic social services organizations that spend billions of dollars a year to serve the needy and disadvantaged.

As soon as Sebelius released this decision, the Catholic church panicked. The Conference of Catholic Bishops reached out to the administration to explain the position in which it had put them. But the tone of their concern was largely friendly: Most Catholic leaders were convinced that the entire thing was a misunderstanding and that the policy​—​which was labeled an “interim” measure​—​would eventually be amended.

The reason for this optimism was that more than a few important Catholics had previously climbed out on a high branch for Obama politically, and for his health care reform as a matter of policy. Despite what you may read in the New York Times, most lay Catholics are nominally at home in the Democratic party. (Remember that a majority of Catholics voted for Obama in 2008.) And what is true of the laity goes double for those in religious life. In 2009, Notre Dame president Father John Jenkins welcomed President Obama as the school’s commencement speaker in the face of a heated student protest. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops mostly kept its powder dry during the fight over Obamacare, and very few members of the church hierarchy actively, or even tacitly, opposed the bill. Others, such as Sister Carol Keehan, the president of the Catholic Health Association, actually lobbied in favor of it, early and often. So most Catholics took the president at his word when he met with Archbishop Timothy Dolan last fall and assured him that when the final version of the policy was eventually released, any fears would be allayed.

That was their mistake. Obama telephoned Dolan on the morning of January 20 to inform him that the only concession he intended to offer in the final policy was to extend the deadline for conformity to August 2013. Every other aspect of the policy enunciated by Sebelius would remain rigidly in place.

It’s unclear whether Obama anticipated the blowback which resulted from this announcement, or perhaps even welcomed the fight. The liberal Catholic establishment nearly exploded. Sister Keehan was so horrified she threw her lot in with the more conservative Dolan in full-throated opposition to Obama. Cardinal Roger Mahony, the spectacularly liberal archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles, wrote, “I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience.  .  .  . This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic community can muster.” Michael Sean Winters, the National Catholic Reporter’s leftist lion, penned a 1,800-word cri de coeur titled “J’accuse!” in which he declared that, as God was his witness, he would never again vote for Obama. The editors of the Jesuit magazine America denounced a “wrong decision,” while the Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne called the policy “unconscionable.” When you’ve lost even E.J. and the Jesuits, you’ve lost the church.

The reason liberal Catholics were so wounded is twofold. First, this isn’t a religio-cultural fight over Latin in the Mass or Gregorian chant. The subjects of contraception, abortion, and sterilization are not ornamental aspects of the Catholic faith; they flow from the Church’s central teachings about the dignity of the human person. Second, Obama has left Catholic organizations a very narrow set of options. (1) They may truckle to the government’s mandate, in violation of their beliefs. (2) They may cease providing health insurance to their employees altogether, though this would incur significant financial penalties under Obamacare. (The church seems unlikely to obtain any of Nancy Pelosi’s golden waivers.) Or (3) they may simply shut down. There is precedent for this final option. In 2006, Boston’s Catholic Charities closed its adoption service​—​one of the most successful in the nation​—​after Massachusetts law required that the organization must place children in same-sex households.

Which means that what is actually on the block are precisely the kind of social-justice services​—​education, health care, and aid to the needy​—​that liberal Catholics believe to be the most vital works of the church. For conservative Catholics, Obama merely confirmed their darkest suspicions; for liberals, it was a betrayal in full.

As a matter of law, this decision by Obama’s health care bureaucrats seems unlikely to survive. Last month, the Supreme Court struck down another attempt by the administration to bully religious believers in the Hosanna-Tabor case. In that instance, Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission argued that a religious organization does not have the right to control its hiring and firing according to its religious belief. The Court struck down this argument 9-0 in a rebuke so embarrassing that Justice Elena Kagan came close to openly mocking her successor as Obama’s solicitor general during oral arguments. It was the kind of sweeping decision that should have deterred the Obama administration from forcing Catholics into complying with the health insurance mandate, because it suggested that the Court will very likely side against the administration once this matter comes before it. Presidents typically dislike being overturned unanimously by the High Court.

The trick, of course, is that when Sebelius issued the final protocol, her lone concession was the one-year delay in implementation. Which, for Obama, has the happy side-effect of pushing the moment of enforcement to August 2013. Meaning that no legal challenge can come until after the 2012 election. Which suggests that the thinking behind the policy may be primarily political. The question, then, is whether Obama’s confrontation with Catholics makes electoral sense.

While Catholics were blindsided by the January decision, the left had been paying close attention to the subject for months. In November, several leftist and feminist blogs began beating the war drums, warning Obama not to “cave” (their word) to the bishops. They were joined by the Nation, Salon, the Huffington Post, and the usual suspects. (Sample headline: “The Men Behind the War on Women.”) At the same time, Planned Parenthood and NARAL launched grassroots lobbying efforts and delivered petitions with 100,000 and 135,000 signatures respectively to the White House urging Obama to uphold the policy and not compromise.

In that sense, Obama’s decision might be thought of as akin to his decision halting the Keystone oil pipeline: a conscious attempt to energize his base at the expense of swing voters, who he concluded were already lost.

The other possibility, of course, is that Obama sees the dismantling of Catholic institutions as part of a larger ideological mission, worth losing votes over. As Yuval Levin noted in National Review Online last week, institutions such as the Catholic church represent a mediating layer between the individual and the state. This layer, known as civil society, is one of the principal differences between Western liberal order and the socialist view.

Levin argues that the current fight is just one more example of President Obama’s attempt to bulldoze civil society. He wants to sweep away the middle layer so that individuals may have a more direct and personal encounter with the state. The attack on Catholics is, Levin concludes, “an attack on mediating institutions of all sorts, moved by the genuine belief that they are obstacles to a good society.”

Seen in this light, Obama’s confrontation with the Catholic church is of a piece with the administration’s pursuit of the rickety Hosanna-Tabor case and another incident from last October, when the Department of Health and Human Services defunded a grant to the Conference of Catholic Bishops. That program supported aid to victims of human trafficking. The Obama administration decided that they no longer wanted the Catholic church in the business of helping these poor souls. That, evidently, is the government’s job.

Of course, there is a third possibility in explaining the president’s motives. It could be that, in deciding to go to war with the Catholic church, President Obama has hit on one of those rare moments where his electoral interests—at least as he perceives them—and his ideological goals are blessedly aligned.

Jonathan V. Last is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.

See the original article posted here

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/obamacare-vs-catholics_620946.html

Obamacare Will Mandate Free Coverage of Abortion Drug & Contraception Without Religious Exemption

John McCormack

January 20, 2012 2:03 PM

We all know there is no such thing as a free lunch, but the Obama administration has decided to move forward with its mandate that private insurance companies must provide "free" coverage of contraception and sterilization procedures, as well as an abortion pill called "ella"--which is much friendlier sounding than its "close chemical relative" RU-486.  

Religious organizations had pushed for a conscience exemption, but the Obama administration has denied their request. "The Obama administration will allow religious organizations a one-year delay before they must comply with a new rule requiring employers that offer workers health insurance to include access to contraception with no out-of-pocket cost," the Washington Post reports. That means that employers opposed to abortion--even Catholic schools, hospitals, and charities--will be required to provide health care coverage that they find morally objectionable. The Obamacare rule does retain a very narrow exemption for houses of worship.

As blogger Matthew Yglesias noted in August when the Obama administration first proposed this mandate, "the practical impact will be higher premiums, resulting in cross-subsidy of birth control by people who don’t use birth control." As Jeffrey H. Anderson wrote at the time:

[U]nder Sebelius’s decree, anyone with cancer, a heart ailment, or a major injury will have to pay copays and deductibles, but anyone who wants to go on the pill or rent breastfeeding equipment won’t incur any personal cost — and nobody will be free to decide otherwise. In other words, certain forms of voluntary or elective care (the type of care that a lot of health insurance might well be expected not to cover at all, and once didn’t) will now be granted a status more favorable than is accorded serious medical conditions. Sebelius has turned things on their head — and imposed that inversion across the land. This is what politicized medicine looks like.

In all, Sebelius’s decree will prevent Americans from freely deciding what they want their own health policies to cover. It will force them to pay for other people’s care — even if they find that care to be morally objectionable. It will force those who have religious or moral objections to contraception to pay for contraception — including long-term contraception that many people now assume they can’t afford. And it will force even the most ardent pro-lifer to pay for abortion pills.

A Rasmussen poll from August found that 39% of voters favored forcing health insurers to cover contraception, while 46% were opposed and 15% were undecided. Though the contraception mandate is not terribly popular, it's not nearly as unpopular as Obamacare's coverage of taxpayer-funded abortions. A Quinnipiac poll conducted during the debate on Obamacare found that 72% of voters opposed using public funds to pay for abortions under Obamacare.

Update: The United States Council of Catholic bishops condemn the Obama administration's decision as "literally unconscionable":

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The cardinal-designate continued, “To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable. It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty."

The HHS rule requires that sterilization and contraception – including controversial abortifacients – be included among “preventive services” coverage in almost every healthcare plan available to Americans. “The government should not force Americans to act as if pregnancy is a disease to be prevented at all costs,” added Cardinal-designate Dolan.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/blogs/obamacare-will-mandate-free-coverage-abortion-drug-contraception-without-religious-exemption_617361.html

Obama: Jesus would back my tax-the-rich policy

I think Jesus would say, you are free to do with God's gives as you see fit guided by my teachings;

NOT AT THE TIP OF THE ROMAN SPEAR. 
As TAX is not voluntary....

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- What Would Jesus ... Deduct?
President Obama offered a new line of reasoning for hiking taxes on the rich on Thursday, saying at the National Prayer Breakfast that his policy proposals are shaped by his religious beliefs.

Obama said that as a person who has been "extraordinarily blessed," he is willing to give up some of the tax breaks he enjoys because doing so makes economic, and religious sense.

"For me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus's teaching that for unto whom much is given, much shall be required," Obama said, quoting the Gospel of Luke.

Obama wants to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for the richest Americans, and he has embraced the idea that wealthy Americans should not be paying a lower effective tax rate than those in the middle or lower classes.

He has argued that those policies offer Americans a "fair shot" and increased equality, while implying that the policies favored by Republicans do not.

But the overt connection between religious beliefs and political policies is new.

"I know that far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years," Obama said. "And I believe in God's command to love thy neighbor as thyself. I know a version of that golden rule is found in every major religion and every set of beliefs."

An administration official speaking on background told CNN that Obama viewed the speech as chance to explain his personal faith practices and to show "his desire to step in the gap for those who are vulnerable."

So what does the Bible say about taxes?

Not too much. The Bible is silent on whether capital gains should be taxed at 15% or a higher rate. Ditto for other types of investment income. Payroll tax holidays are not mentioned.

"If you did a search on taxes in the Bible, you are not going to find a lot that's helpful for this discussion," said O. Wesley Allen, a Bible scholar at Lexington Theological Seminary.

Complicating matters, Allen said that one of the most commonly cited Bible passages about taxes is frequently misinterpreted.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is asked whether it is lawful for Jews to pay taxes to Caesar, a Roman dictator.

Jesus tells his questioners to give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.

"That passage is often quoted as saying Jesus said to pay taxes. That's not what it is," Allen said. "It's important to remember that the people asking this question are trying to trick him. He gets out of the trap more than he answers the question."

Perhaps a better parallel is gleaning -- an Old Testament practice in which farmers are encouraged to leave the crops on the edges of their fields for orphans and widows.

"As a commandment, that functions as a tax on the rich for the sake of the poor," Allen said.

Allen said there are many passages throughout the Bible that mandate the poor and widowed should be cared for. "But it doesn't dictate the policies that should be pursued to accomplish that," he said

BIZ lobby: Obama wants to tax, tax, tax
See his speach in it's entirety here

The speech comes at a tricky time for a White House fully engaged in efforts to reelect the president.
The administration was still doing damage control over a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services policy that forces religious schools and institutions that offer employee health insurance to cover FDA-approved contraceptives.

The move has angered many Catholics in particular, who oppose the use of contraceptives on religious grounds, and view the policy as an intrusion on their religious liberty.

Since he has been in Washington, Obama has not formally joined a church. For nearly 20 years he was a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

The president and his staff have noted the logistical difficulties of a sitting president attending services, but he has visited several churches in Washington and worshiped privately with his family at Camp David.

To see original article click here

-- CNN's Eric Marrapodi contributed to this report.

The Forgotten Man

An interesting, thought provoking picture.....
Occupy THIS with a little thoughtful contemplation

For best results click on image to enlarge

See http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/

Holder: No cover-up in 'Fast and Furious,' no effort to hide details of the operation

Attorney General Eric Holder vigorously denied a "cover-up" by the Justice Department over "Operation Fast and Furious," telling a House panel investigating the botched gun-running program that he has nothing to hide and suggesting the probe is a "political" effort to embarrass the administration.

"There's no attempt at any kind of cover-up," Holder told lawmakers well into a hearing about whether he had been forthright in responding to requests of the House Oversight and Government Relations Committee led by Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

"We're not going to be hiding behind any kind of privileges or anything," he said.

The hearing came after Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, his Senate partner in the probe, asserted that top Justice officials are covering up events surrounding the flawed gun-smuggling probe.

Issa made the accusation in a letter threatening to seek a contempt of Congress ruling against Holder for failing to turn over congressionally subpoenaed documents that were created after problems with Fast and Furious came to light.

Republicans also released a report in the hours ahead of the hearing claiming that Justice Department officials "had much greater knowledge of, and involvement in, Fast and Furious than it has previously acknowledged."

Asked whether his assistants, Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler or Assistant Attorney Lanny Breuer, head of the department's Criminal Division, ever authorized gunwalking or the tactics employed in Fast and Furious, Holder responded not to his knowledge.

"Not only did I not authorize those tactics, when I found out about them I told the field and everybody in the United States Department of Justice that those tactics had to stop. That they were not acceptable and that gunwalking was to stop. That was what my reaction [was] to my finding out about the use of that technique," he added.

He added that he doesn't think that the situation warranted the kind of response Republicans were giving after his department provided thousands of documents, and planned to deliver more.

Holder also rejected arguments that his handling of the case had lost him any support for the effort he was putting forth as attorney general.

"I don't think the American people have lost trust in me. ... This has become political, I get that," he said.

But Holder also said no one has been punished "yet" in the case, despite the fact that lost guns from the operation ended up at the crime scene where U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in December 2010.

Terry's family has informed the U.S. government that it has six months to respond to its inquiry into Terry's death or face a $25 million lawsuit.

In the botched operation, more than 1,400 weapons sold to low-level straw purchasers believed to be supplying Mexican drug gangs and other criminals were lost during tracking by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents. Another 700 firearms connected to suspects in the investigation have been recovered, some from crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S., including in Nogales, Ariz., where Terry was killed.

Holder said he didn't learn about Terry's murder until 24 hours after his death, and at the time did not hear that weapons tied to Fast and Furious were at the scene.

"I didn't know about Operation Fast and Furious until the beginning parts of 2011 after I received that letter from Senator Grassley, I guess at the end of January and then that was about Operation Gun Runner. I actually learned about the Fast and Furious operation in February of that year."

Holder told the committee, "I’m not sure exactly how I found out about the term, 'Fast and Furious.'" He testified repeatedly that he never authorized the controversial tactics employed in the operation.

"There is no attempt at any kind of cover-up," Holder said. "We have shared huge amounts of information" and will continue to do so, he said.

But Holder said under questioning that he has not disciplined anyone for his role in the controversial operation.

"No I have not as yet -- as yet," Holder said when questioned by Issa on the matter. "There have been personnel changes made at ATF. We obviously have a new U.S. attorney in Arizona. We have made personnel switches at ATF. People have been moved out of positions."

Holder's statements on the Justice Department's role in the operation did not sit well with Republican lawmakers on the committee, who accused the attorney general of intentionally withholding key documents in the case.

"The conclusion that I come to is there are some things in there that's being hidden that you don't want us to see," said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. "We have every right under the Constitution to check on what you're doing... So for you to deny this committee anything like that is just dead wrong and I don't think you're going to find any way that you can do it."

Burton went on to say that 93,000 documents related to the operation are being withheld by the Justice Department even though they've been turned over internally to the department's inspector general, a political appointee, Burton said.

"And you're saying, well, the separation of powers prohibits you from (delivering them to Congress). That's baloney. That is just baloney," Burton said.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, also questioned Holder's having not discussed the case with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

"When people know that I'm going to be the subject of these kinds of hearings, you know six times and all that, nobody necessarily wants to get involved in these kinds of things or get dragged into it," Holder responded.

Issa told Holder the committee will do what is necessary to obtain the information, "If you do not find a legitimate basis to deny us the material we've asked for."

Holder said earlier during testimony that he would release additional materials "to the extent that I can."

In Holder's defense, Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., claimed the committee has "not obtained one shred of evidence that would contradict your testimony."

"Not one witness, not one document, not one e-mail, and still some continue to suggest that you did personally authorize gunwalking and the tactics in Operation Fast and Furious."


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/02/holder-says-no-one-punished-yet-during-testimony-on-controversial-fast-and/print#ixzz1lHeCmLi0