Religion Divides Us?

Not yesterday in Congress - Those who take their faith seriously don't like Obama telling them what to believe, or what to do.

By Franco Ordonez

Religious leaders of different faiths stoked the national debate over contraception Thursday, converging on Capitol Hill and charging the Obama administration with attempting to violate their religious freedoms.

Leaders from the Catholic, Jewish, Baptist and Lutheran faiths joined in opposition to a proposed federal mandate that would require church-affiliated employers to cover birth control in their health plans.

Read more - Religion Divides Us?

Related - Your Abortion Premium Mandate

Remove ObamaCare

On March 26th-28th, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of the ObamaCare.

The Hands Off My Healthcare is planned for Tuesday, March 27, 2012 at 1:00 PM. See the link for more details.

There will be several rallies against ObamaCare, and against Obama's naked aggression against the peaceful, private people of America.

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The Roman Catholic Church took matter-of-conscience stand against the use of abortion (or abortifacient pills like Plan B) as a method of birth control. By Catholic reasoning, abortion is murder. Doubtless the Catholic Church will be represented.

Despite this, Obama and his authoritarian crew decided to compel the Catholic Church, and other people of conscience, to act against their own conscience. Both the Church and other employers are going to be uniformly compelled to provide abortion on demand coverage. Private citizens, self-employed citizens will compelled to buy abortion on demand coverage.

Obama refused to change or even drop a controversial mandate within his authoritarian ObamaCare plan.

To clarify, The Catholic Church is also against any form of contraception. Contraception differs from abortion. In an abortion, the unique individual already exists, even though that individual relies on the protection and nurture of its mother.

Disclosure - I am not a Roman Catholic, but I admire their courage standing up to the despot Obama.

Subverting Civil Rights

The Obama vision: "If you want to rule a people with no accountability, you offer the people a bribe ("free" medical care), then subvert their rights while they are waiting for the bribe."

Subverting the Bill of Rights, Amendment 2

Eric Holder, Obama's US Attorney General, has been lying and obfuscating to the US Congress about "Fast & Furious" Mexican gunwalking. Because Holder is obviously covering-up, Congress is close to issuing Holder and indictment for contempt of Congress.

During the Obama Administration, Fast & Furious became the front for government corruption of gun laws, by ordering delivery of firearms into criminal hands through regular retailers, even when the sale was denied by the National Instant Check System.

The Administration's apparent intent was to frame law-abiding gun owners as the source of the illegal arms traffic. With those trumped up false charges, Obama could clamp down on legal gun ownership.

Pretending citizen ownership of firearms was the source of Mexican firearms, Obama already made a step in this direction. The border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California must report the sale of more than one semi-automatic rifle in any 5 day period -- even though the sale passes the National Instant Check. (Washington Post drinks koolaid.) Forced reporting only for the sake of forced reporting invades the personal right to privacy.

Subverting the Bill of Rights, Amendment 1

Obama and his radical feminist enforcers have deigned the Roman Catholic Church will be compelled to provide abortion coverage in health insurance policies. This, despite the long standing policy in the Church against abortion. Under Obama, the Roman Church is to be compelled to act against their religion and their conscience.

What happened to the separation of church and state? The US Constitution forbids government from ever making rules on religion.

Does Obama think he is above the law?

Well, yes, he does.

The Obama insisted we had to have government controlled health care, or else. No sooner was the law signed than the Administration began to grant waivers exempting certain parties from compliance. The "Affordable Health Care act does not have any waiver provisions. Obama just made them up as a lollipop for his supporters.

Granting some people exemption from an odious law is clear favoritism. This also violates the Constitutional requirement of equal protection under the law. Under equal protection, no person may be disqualified protection of the substance of the law If some are exempt, all are exempt.

ObamaCare is bad law.

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The dirty little secret is Barrack Obama is worse president than Richard Nixon. The Left and the Party controlled Press just refuse to face the facts.

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If Niemoller were alive today, he might write,

First, they came for the Catholics and I did not speak out because I was not Catholic.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Who's next?

Taking Wall Street

In the park

Demonstrators from Occupy Seattle lined the Westlake Mall. They were sunning themselves, having a nice time...and frightening some people. The signs they held said things like “Down With Capitalism” “End Corporate Greed” and “Tax the Rich.”

They crowd seemed to be mostly young, smart and far left. Mostly they wanted an exciting way to spend the afternoon, Some wanted gainful employment. They blamed companies for not hiring them, although that is a bad attitude to take to a job.

But the “occupiers” raise a valuable question; Why aren't American companies hiring? The per-fabricated answers about rich corporate greed are surreal. The actual cause is this administration has sucked the life out of the private sector with their massive spending spree.

Every dollar the government spent came from the private sector and therefore was not available to make private loans to private companies. Companies need cash for liquidity, buying raw materials, and hiring. They have to borrow money for those reasons, same as anybody. Money for loans was available overseas, so that's where the jobs went.

The only way to start job creation in the US is to cut federal spending. Proof of this is the fact that the Republicans resisted giving Mr Obama his massive federal $447 billion debt-laden “Jobs” package. Despite this employment is up last month anyway. By working to reduce federal spending and federal debt, the Republicans managed to create jobs. Its not magic, it good economics.

Governments are great wasters. Who else engages in war? Everything a government does is at somebody else expense, there is no felt need to conserve resource. Government waste, in money or human lives, goes on.

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Corporate Greed?

Greed is a human motivation. Maybe the complaint is all humans are greedy. Being made up of humans, corporations have no more than their share of greed. But as to why corporations are not hiring many people, we should consider their motivation is to make money, just the same as their employees. Weirdly, it is corporate greed which puts people to work.

But the corporations don't hire... enough. Why?

First, there is a monster tax coming on employees. “Free” health care has to be paid for. Mr Obama and his Leftist cohorts in Congress added taxes so employers would pay around $4500 more, per employee, per year. An up-front cost of $4500 per hire gives corporations some pause.

The self-employed face the same taxes. So many workers who thought they dodged the tax increases face a nasty surprise.

The second difficulty has already been touched upon. Credit and loans have been hard to get due to the credit crunch. To add to the misery, the administration made extra rules to make it harder for lenders to collect. What cash was available, the government sopped up. Thus every company has a cash crunch going on. Many face the decision to lay off people or not make the payroll.

But what about record profits? Companies have had to become internally supporting; they can't get loans anymore. Less-critical jobs were cut in order to build up a supply of cash required to make tax payments. Some manufacturing jobs were cut and sent overseas usually because of regulations, usually via the EPA, which reduced productivity. Worker productivity had to increase in order for the company merely to survive.

Profitability had to increase for two reasons, companies have to internally fund what they used to be able to get from banks. Companies must carry more cash than before. Secondly, much of that apparent surplus is going to go away as soon as all of Mr Obama's new taxes kick in. High unemployment is a result of new taxation, not profitability.

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Tax the rich

There is a persistent sour attitude toward wealthy people that makes no sense. In a free market, a successful person can be copied and all the copycats get richer. There must be a nasty twist on schadenfreude which makes people complain about the wealthy. Anyhow....

I examined Forbes listing of the 400 richest Americans, then checked their political affiliation (Its easy to do. Forbes provides the links.). The top 4 were solid Democrats, then the list becomes a mix. Overall, its fair to say that “the rich” in America do not devote themselves to one party or another.

Which means neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are likely to start taxing people just because they are rich. Members of each party realize there is not enough money in the rich to cure the national debt problem, so instead they curry favor with the wealthy. The Democrats talk about taxing the rich more than the Republicans, which suggest the wealthy Democrats suffer from battered spouse syndrome.

One Health Care Law For All Some

No liberty in ObamaCare, or anywhere else for that matter.

The most significant feature of republic is that everyone is equal before the law. No law is enacted or allowed which confers special privilege. Republic means equality before the law.

The Obama administration is all about inequality before the law. 78 million people will become uninsured due to ObamaCare. Nevertheless, Obama has now handed out ObamaCare Waivers, special legal status, to 733 of Obama's political allies, by the administration's own account.

Legitimate government has only one source of new law, and all law must be in accord with common law; the law of the People. In the American system, new law comes from the Congress. All law they enact must be in accord with the Constitution as understood by the common People.

ObamaCare grants waivers, but this feature does not exist in the law enacted by Congress. Instead the Department of Health and Human Services simply declared they have the power to grant favor to their political pets.

Apply for your own ObamaCare Waiver. This a genuine government information link.

ObamaCare must be repealed by Congress and the concept of government control of health care rejected by everybody. Government has no business trifling with the health of the People.

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Violating the Republic
A litany of violations

It takes amazing arrogance to circumvent the American Constitution and WIll of the People as Obama has done. The Left will continue to push to destroy personal liberty. Obama and Co. will use ObamaCare to invade the privacy of those in need of health care.

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The Obama administration is presently requiring the ATFE to gather unlawful information about firearms sales in border states. They say this is the prevent firearms from slipping into criminal hands. The ATFE's Project Gunrunner was set up to smear the reputations of lawful gun owners in preparation to ban private gun ownership. Obama is also courting the UN to restrict private firearms ownership. (link)

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The EPA, in 2010, restricted private landlords from painting their rentals in the name of lead abatement (Asbestos abatement is being used to the same end). The private landlord must register with the government, take special courses and pay a fee to be able to paint his own property. If we still lived in freedom, there would need to be some reason to regard the property as lead tainted before the regulation is applied. This despite the fact that serum blood lead levels in children have declined since 1980. (link)

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The administration is causing economic uncertainty by flip-flopping on oil drilling, resulting in high oil prices. Although Obama presently says he will okay oil drilling in the gulf, his allies in the authoritarian Green Movement have come to Obama's rescue. (link) Seems deep sea drilling is still effectively banned.

Heavy industry requires time to set up and get going. Who will risk spending millions and millions of dollars if the government may ban the effort after the private funds are spent. This is plainly unfair. No one seriously believes the Obama Administration plans to be fair with American Industry.

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Not just the Federal government.

Liberal Washington State is a symptom of Obama style government. The state has descended into a morass of restriction, entitlement and state sponsored duplicity. (link) The state legislature adjourned having spent $5 billion more than they took in. Boeing removed their headquarters. Microsoft is shrinking. Business is abandoning the state for less restrictive ground. The Leftist effort is enforced by their ever-ready cadre of lawyers eager and willing to sue anyone who doesn't conform to government mandate (for a hefty fee, of course). In the "liberal" state, everyone is required to conform.

Liberal California, before it was so corrupted, used to be the 8th largest economy in the world and the largest state economy in the US. (link) But the home of Nancy Pelosi is economically shrinking, now placing behind New York State. If you look at the surface streets in California, you will notice a third world appearance. And potholes. Everything is rusting. Meanwhile, illegal aliens demand more, and public employees get pay increases.

Leftist liberalism spreads malaise everywhere it goes.

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Until all Americans realize how government power is abused by liberalism and activism, we are screwed.

More ObamaCare Waivers

The American Association of Retired Persons got an ObamaCare waiver. AARP will not have to carry health insurance for its corporate employees. ObamaCare is being used to pet political pets, exactly as planned.

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) news release:

Citizens Against Government Waste named Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Porker of the Month, for the ill-defined process by which HHS grants or denies waivers from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as ObamaCare.

After aggressively supporting ObamaCare prior to its passage in 2010, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) recently requested and received a waiver from HHS.

AARP is just one of the 1,372 unions, businesses, and insurers, representing approximately 3.1 million Americans, that have received waivers from PPACA’s onerous regulatory burdens.

Numerous CEOs and business owners have voiced their concerns over PPACA, stating that its provisions and mandates will drastically increase their costs and force them to lay off workers in order to remain solvent.

On May 17, the White House attempted to justify its capricious waiver-granting process, stating that HHS has the power to “issue temporary waivers from the annual limit provision of the law if it would disrupt access to existing insurance arrangements or adversely affect premiums, causing people to lose coverage,” which is precisely what PPACA was "intended" to prevent.

“It is disgraceful that Secretary Sebelius is arbitrarily choosing when to enforce the mandates of a bill that just one year ago she claimed would be universally embraced by the American public… it has become clear that businesses are wary of what this bill will do to their bottom line, and that it will not control costs or improve healthcare outcomes,” CAGW President Tom Schatz observed.

For the incoherent manner with which her department has doled out regulatory relief to businesses seeking a reprieve from the increasingly sickly PPACA, CAGW names HHS Secretary Sebelius the May 2011 Porker of the Month.

Read more about the Porker of the Month.

ObamaKare is overturned

Hooray!

At least for now.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson agreed with the states that the new government issued health care regulation violates people's civil right.

But what to do about health care costs?

Get the lawyers out of the doctor's pocket will help. Doctors get sued so much of the time, about 1/2 of what they earn goes to lawyers and malpractice insurance.

- and -

Get the lawyers off the doctor's back. More than half of what you spend goes to testing the doctor wouldn't do if in their best judgment the test wasn't needed. But lawyers are breathing down the doctors neck insisting all these needless tests are done.

Plus the fact the people who check on all these transfers of money are actually working to see where it all goes - even though their efforts are actually a waste - and you have a huge bill that isn't even medically necessary. And the medicine isn't paid for yet.

That nightmare we need to back away from. Repealing ObamaCare is only a beginning. We must get government out of the armchair quarterback position. Then we need to remove the lawyers from the second guessing the doctor.

Health care should be between the patient and his/her provider.

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History of compulsory health care in the United States

The Leftists in the "Democratic" Party seemed to have been prepared for this. Already they have raised the point that Americans have been forced into buying health insurance in the distant past.

Have Americans really been forced to buy "health care" before? Well, sort of....

Private seamen were "forced" to buy health insurance.

"In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed - “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance."

Why?

In those days, impressment (compulsory service) of seamen was common. If the US went to war, the merchant men would all be pressed into the Navy. The Merchant marine was considered to be national property.

Americans had just expelled Great Britain from control of the original colonies. This fed overconfidence. Imperialist Americans like the second President, John Adams, was principle cause of the War of 1812. 1812 was the only war America lost until Lyndon B. Johnson led us into Viet Nam. (Read about John Adams. Does Mr Obama seem like Mr Adams?)

Impressment was evil and repellent to the American People, and it was outlawed by the 13th Amendment. The forced purchase of health care went away at that time.

Why ObamaCare is Sick

"ObamaCare (President Barack Obama's Health Care Reform Act of 2010) is one of the most oppressive measures in the history of our nation, and it was passed by Congress, despite overwhelming opposition of the American people. It was not about reforming health care, but government seizure of unprecedented power over our lives."

Richard Thompson, Thomas More Law Center, cited in The Detroit News