Obamacare subsidies at center of Dem shutdown fight 'fuel' healthcare cost inflation, conservatives say

The weeklong shutdown drags on as Democrats push to extend Obamacare subsidies and conservatives warn they’re driving up healthcare costs

By Elizabeth Elkind Fox News
Published October 8, 2025 8:00am EDT

Fox News senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram reports on Day 6 of the government shutdown on 'Special Report.'

The government has been shut down for a week and so far shows no clear sign of stopping, as Democrats continue to demand that any funding bill include an extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of 2025.

But conservative groups are pushing back hard, arguing that those subsidies are fuel on the fire of higher healthcare premiums.

"What the Biden COVID credit did is they made the situation worse in two ways: They shifted a portion of the premium away from the enrollees to the taxpayer, and they brought more people into the subsidy structure by lifting the cap at four times the poverty line," Brian Blase, president of Paragon Health Institute, told Fox News Digital.

"So if the underlying Obamacare subsidies were inflationary, then the Biden enhancements to it just pour fuel on that underlying inflationary structure."



The government is in a partial shutdown after Congress failed to reach an agreement on federal funding. (Getty Images)

Obamacare, formally called the Affordable Care Act (ACA), established a marketplace where healthcare insurers offer plans under certain rules set in place by the federal government, among other provisions. People and families are eligible for subsidies based on their income relative to the Federal Poverty Level (FPL).

Former President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan, passed during the COVID-19 pandemic, expanded access so more Americans could qualify for subsidized Obamacare plans while also lowering out-of-pocket costs. A Democrat-led Congress later extended those benefits to 2025 under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Now, however, Democrats are warning that many Americans' healthcare costs are at risk of drastically rising if those enhanced subsidies are allowed to expire.

But conservative groups who have long objected to Obamacare's effects on the market are now arguing that the subsidies themselves have driven up the amount of money that healthcare companies charge for premiums.

Brittany Madni, executive vice president at the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), told Fox News Digital, "You do have patients who are still continuing to pay high prices, and a huge reason that they're paying higher prices is because the entire system has been artificially inflated by the unaffordable mandates in Obamacare and the continued subsidies."

"The supersized COVID credit subsidies aren't reducing prices whatsoever. They're just adding funds to the insurance revenues," Madni said.

Obamacare did originally include a federal-level tax penalty for Americans who remained uninsured after its passage. That was repealed under the first Trump administration, but some states have levied their own penalties in its place.

Amy Coney Barrett Sides With Liberal Justice During Supreme Court Hearing

Published Apr 22, 2025 at 12:23 PM EDT

Updated Apr 24, 2025 at 1:18 PM EDT


Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett appeared to side with her liberal colleagues while hearing arguments in a case that will determine the future of no-cost preventive care under the Affordable Care Act.

Why It Matters

The case, Kennedy V. Braidwood challenges the legal authority of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (PSTF), created by the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. The task force recommends services insurers must cover at no-cost measures including cancer screenings and HIV prevention drugs like PrEP. But the conservative Christian employers in Texas who brought the case, argue that the 16 members of the task force, who are appointed by the HHS secretary, are unconstitutionally appointed.

The case will be consequential for the future of American health care. If the justices uphold a New Orleans-based fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in 2024, treatments that are now cost-free may become subject to payments.

Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett testifies during the third day of her confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Pool via AP

Coney Barrett, who was nominated by Trump in 2020, has emerged as a centrist judge in Supreme Court cases and has been criticized by Trump supporters for voting against her conservative colleagues in the past.

What To Know

The Court's three liberal members, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson have all appeared to side with the task force while conservative justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch appeared sympathetic to the challengers, with Thomas suggesting Congress had never designated authority to run the task force.

Conservative lawyer Jonathan Miller, who is representing the plaintiffs, argued that PSTF members are meant to be independent from political pressure. He said they could not simultaneously retain independence while being subject to supervision by the health secretary.

But Coney Barrett said Mitchell's interpretation of the word "independent" was "maximalist" and pointed to the doctrine of "constitutional avoidance" which argues that if a statute is open to interpretation, the Court should pick an interpretation that raises the least constitutional problems—i.e. the Court should not interpret the word "independent" in a way that renders the PSTF unconstitutional.

It is the latest in a string of decisions and comments by Coney Barrett which put her on a different path to her more conservative colleagues. In March, she expressed concerns about reviving the non delegation doctrine, as suggested by conservative judge Clarence Thomas. This doctrine, which hasn't been used since the 1930s, puts a cap on the amount of money federal agencies and other nonelected officials can raise through tax dollars. Coney Barrett said it would be ineffective and could weaken the power of government agencies.

In April, Coney Barrett joined liberals as the sole conservative in opposing the Court's majority decision to allow the administration to continue deporting alleged gang members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

Source

After repeal fails, 'task remains' to reform health care, says bishop

By Catholic News Service

7.28.2017 4:30 PM ET

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- After the Senate Republicans failed to get enough votes to pass a "skinny" repeal to remove parts of the Affordable Care Act in the early hours of July 28, a U.S. bishop said the "task of reforming the health care system still remains."

The nation's system under the Affordable Care Act "is not financially sustainable" and "lacks full Hyde protections and conscience rights," said Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Florida, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

It also "is inaccessible to many immigrants," he said in a statement.

"Inaction will result in harm for too many people," Bishop Dewane added.

The failed repeal bill was a pared-down version of earlier bills. It would have repealed both the individual mandate that says all Americans must buy health insurance or pay a penalty and the requirement all large employers offer health insurance to their workers. It would have expanded health savings accounts, delayed a tax on medical devices and increased funding for community health centers by taking defunding Planned Parenthood by $400 million.

The vote was 51 against, and 49 in favor. All the Democrats voted "no." Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, joined two other GOP senators in rejecting the measure, Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, had pushed the latest version forward in hopes it would be passed and lead to a conference with the House, which May 4 passed the American Health Care Act to replace the ACA, to hammer out a compromise measure.

The Senate vote is over, but the need to reform health care remains, said Bishop Dewane, who urged the two political parties to get past their divisions and work for "the common good."

"A moment has opened for Congress, and indeed all Americans, to set aside party and personal political interest and pursue the common good of our nation and its people, especially the most vulnerable," he said.

He laid out four action items he said are essential to any bill to be considered in the future:

-- "Protect the Medicaid program from changes that would harm millions of struggling Americans."

-- "Protect the safety net from any other changes that harm the poor, immigrants, or any others at the margins."

-- "Address the real probability of collapsing insurance markets and the corresponding loss of genuine affordability for those with limited means."

-- "Provide full Hyde Amendment provisions and much-needed conscience protections."

"The greatness of our country is not measured by the well-being of the powerful but how we have cared for the 'least of these,'" Bishop Dewane said. "Congress can and should pass health care legislation that lives up to that greatness."

In response to the Senate's July 28 vote, Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter of Charity and president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, said her organization is "pleased and relieved that we will now have an opportunity to work together in a bipartisan way to improve the ACA."

In a July 28 statement, she said the CHA "looks forward to working with all the members of Congress and the administration in the process moving forward and will continue our efforts to protect and improve the Medicaid program."

Jim Sedlak, executive director of the American Life League, was disappointed in the final vote. He said in a July 28 statement that he hopes the House and the Senate would "put politics aside and pass a simple bill to take all taxpayer money away from Planned Parenthood. "

Sister Simone Campbell, a Sister of Social Service and executive director of Network, a Catholic social justice lobbying organization, personally delivered a letter to U.S. senators July 24 signed by 7,150 U.S. women religious urging the senators to reject the Better Care Reconciliation Act and any proposals that would repeal the Affordable Care Act or cut Medicaid.

After the Senate failed to repeal its health care reform legislation July 28, Sister Campbell said she was relieved for the sake of all the people she knew "who were terrified that their health care would be taken away."

"The road ahead is not likely to be straight or easy, but we must work together to improve health care for our people," she said.

On July 26, when senators rejected a repeal-only proposal of the Affordable Care Act, Students for Life said the senators who voted against it blocked defunding of Planned Parenthood and removing taxpayer funding for abortion. "There is still a long way to go in this process and pro-lifers everywhere are going to work even harder to make sure our voices are heard," the group said.

Source

Trump, GOP leaders celebrate health care win (CNN)

Oops! Obamacare Runs Afoul of the Constitution: Megan McArdle

Sunday, 15 May 2016 8:37 AM



District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer has ruled for Congress in House v. Burwell, a case challenging the authority of the executive branch to pay Obamacare subsidies for which no money has been appropriated.

These are not the highest-profile subsidies; they’re something called the cost-sharing reduction, which lowers the deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses for families buying silver plans who make less than 250 percent of the poverty line. The federal government has paid the insurers a lot of money that wasn’t appropriated, and the House has sued to stop that.

As a matter of abstract principle, the judge’s ruling seems right to me. The administration’s argument is essentially “Well, the law’s really not all that well written, so YOLO, we’re just going to do this.” Congress’s argument is: "Under the separation of powers, we’re in charge of the purse, we didn’t give you the money, so you can’t just go and spend it anyway.”

As lawyer Doug Mataconis writes: “a review of Judge Collyer’s opinion seems to make clear that the allegations of the Complaint are true and that the Administration was indeed spending money in a manner not specifically authorized by Congress. This would seem to be a clear violation of Article I, and therefore unconstitutional. The fact that it was accomplishing a public policy goal is, in the end, entirely irrelevant.”

If the executive branch can just decide what money ought to be spent to satisfy the purposes of a badly written law, then we end up in a pretty bad place: Congress has no incentive to pass well-written laws, because the executive branch will essentially rewrite the law at will.

Chief Justice Roberts broke his word

 

Matthew's Cathedral after attending the Red Mass in Washington October 2, 2011.

blogs.reuters.com

July 14, 2015, 12:00 pm



By Matt Schlapp, founder and chairman of the American Conservative Union



Chief Justice John Roberts put himself forward for the wrong job. He now acts more like a senator than a judge.

At a time when President Obama is trying to change the very idea of what is considered reasonable in American politics, it is imperative for conservatives to stand up and bring some sense to this progressive chaos being war-roomed out of the oval office.

The need for principled conservatives to stand up is especially true on the federal bench, where judges get the fair bargain of lifetime tenure, which protects them from the ill effects of being politically unpopular, in exchange for taking an oath which asks them to do the hard thing. This tough calling is especially true for originalist conservatives on the Supreme Court, who often have to write or concur with judicial opinions that do not necessarily match the political outcome they would prefer. Conservatives of character on the nation’s highest court are our constitutional chaperones, reminding us that in the end no matter how much we want to lead society into a better place, the role of the Court is to simply rule on the constitutionality of a given government policy. For some reason “conservatives” who are appointed by Republican presidents too often forget this very simple job description, as they forget the answers they give under oath in the Senate during their confirmation hearings.

The Supreme Court’s decision upholding Obamacare in the King v. Burwell decision shows why it is so dangerous and destructive for Justices to act outside the Constitutional framework and to act as politicians rather than jurists. While most Americans continue to dislike Obamacare and wish the Supreme Court had taken appropriate action against the unauthorized conduct of the Obama administration, our nation should be even more concerned about the Court’s power grab and its creation of a brand new judicial standard which is abhorrent to our system of checks and balances.

It was once unimaginable to most people to think that Chief Justice John Roberts would contradict so sharply the image he portrayed at his confirmation hearing. For example, under oath he explained, “You don’t look to legislative history to create ambiguity. If the text is clear, that is what you follow, and that’s binding. And you don’t look beyond it to say, well, if you look here, though, maybe this clear word should be interpreted a different way.”

It was that John Roberts whom most Americans trusted to preserve the integrity of the U.S. Constitution. Instead, like President Obama’s unprecedented “executive actions,” Chief Justice Roberts has usurped the power of the Legislative Branch by creating a new authority for the Court to rewrite—rather than to interpret—statutory laws to achieve particular policy outcomes. Whether out of hubris or contempt for the American people, Justice Roberts and the majority of the Court have articulated a new role for the judiciary; it can now function as judge, legislature and king.

Obamacare’s architects (Professor Jonathan Gruber, Obama, then-Majority Leader Harry Reid and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi) thought they could force reluctant Republican governors to create state-based insurance exchanges, but the law’s rollout proved otherwise. Over two-thirds of governors found the overwhelming mandates of Obama’s healthcare overhaul too much to handle, and 33 governors thumbed their noses at Professor Gruber and chose unsubsidized federal insurance exchanges.

In King v. Burwell, Justice Roberts made it clear that he believes it is the Court’s responsibility to re-write the Affordable Care Act to ensure its survival. Even though the law’s wording was clear on the distinction between state and federal exchanges, Justice Roberts and the five justices who joined him disgraced their office, sprayed graffiti on the Constitution, and pushed America toward a constitutional crisis. For the notorious liberals on the Court, last week’s decision is not a surprise.

But Justice Roberts swore under oath that he would not “create ambiguity.” He swore that he would honor the clear text of a statute and find it binding. Additionally, when Justice Roberts was appointed by President George W. Bush, he promised to stand by the Constitution and strictly adherence to the letter of the law. He promised the same to the U.S. Senate and to the American people. He did not tell the truth and instead betrayed his oath to uphold the Constitution. He has lost the trust of the American people, done serious damage to the integrity of the Court, and harmed the separation of powers that has protected our liberty for over two centuries. Justice Roberts ultimately ended up acting like a corrupt politician, using the power of his office to achieve a political outcome as if they were negotiating a backroom deal in a smoke-filled room.

At a minimum, the Senate should haul him into a hearing room to give an account of his actions. Any other person is forbidden from committing perjury while testifying before Congress, why should our Chief Justice be held to a different standard? Certainly the 15 federal court judges — including a Supreme Court Justice -- have been impeached by Congress were required to do more than merely explain themselves.

On the highest court in the land, the bench that is tasked with defending our Constitution and ensuring our laws are faithfully protected, we are left with just three honest justices: Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia. The other justices have brought shame to the Court and defied the American people who placed their trust in them. Each would have probably made lousy politicians, thank God, and I mean that literally, each of them realized that they had a different role to play. It was not to win a popularity contest, nor be the latest conservative slouching forward to listen to the siren song from the Georgetown set. Instead they simply live by their oath and the Constitution, which is made up of words -- words that have meaning -- no matter how badly Roberts and Kennedy try to bend them.

Schlapp is chairman of the American Conservative Union.


Source

. 

Supreme Court rules 6-3 to save Obamacare subsidies

MARKET PULSE


Published: June 25, 2015 10:17 a.m. ET



By
RUSSBRITT
LOS ANGELES BUREAU CHIEF



The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday to save subsidies for as many as 8 million people under the Affordable Care Act. In the case of King v. Burwell, justices determined that the subsidies should be available in states that don't have their own exchanges. The court determined that the broader context of the ACA allows subsidies to all those under the Obamacare program. Justices voted 6-3 in favor of upholding the subsidies with Chief Justice John Roberts and swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the majority.


Read the full story: Full text of Supreme Court’s ruling on King vs. Burwell
.
.

Jonathan Gruber of M.I.T. Regrets ‘Arrogance’ on Health Law

Jonathan Gruber of M.I.T. Regrets ‘Arrogance’ on Health Law


By ROBERT PEAR

DEC. 9, 2014

PLAY VIDEO|1:29

http://nyti.ms/1zrrVLi

House Panel Beats Up on Gruber

Members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform attacked Jonathan Gruber, an economist who advised the government on the Affordable Care Act, for a series of gaffes. Video by AP on Publish DateDecember 9, 2014. Photo by Molly Riley/Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Jonathan Gruber, the health economist whose incendiary comments about “the stupidity of the American voter” have embarrassed the Obama administration, apologized on Tuesday for what he described as his “glib, thoughtless and sometimes downright insulting comments.”

“I am not a political adviser nor a politician,” said Dr. Gruber, a professor at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology who was a paid consultant to the Obama administration in 2009 to 2010.

Dr. Gruber minimized his role, saying he had used an “economic microsimulation model” to help the administration and Democrats in Congress assess the impact of policies in the Affordable Care Act. He later defended the law in a number of speeches. In one, he said the law had been adopted, in part, because of the stupidity of voters and a “lack of transparency” about its financing.

Editorial: The Impolitic Jonathan GruberNOV. 17, 2014

Testifying on Tuesday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Dr. Gruber said: “I behaved badly, and I will have to live with that, but my own inexcusable arrogance is not a flaw in the Affordable Care Act. The A.C.A. is a milestone accomplishment for our nation that already has provided millions of Americans with health insurance.”

The chairman of the committee, Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, said backers of the law had passed it and sold it to the public with half-truths and deception. He added that Dr. Gruber and the administration had displayed “a pattern of intentionally misleading the public about the true nature and impact of Obamacare.”

The senior Democrat on the committee, Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, joined in the criticism of Dr. Gruber. He said his comments were “absolutely stupid” and “incredibly disrespectful.” Worse, he said, the statements gave Republicans “a political gift in their relentless campaign to tear down” the law.


Mr. Issa showed a video in which Dr. Gruber suggests that supporters of the health law had written it in such a way that the Congressional Budget Office would not count required premium payments as tax revenue.

“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure C.B.O. did not score the mandate as taxes,” Dr. Gruber says in the October 2013 video. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the ‘stupidity of the American voter’ or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.”

He appeared to squirm on Tuesday under questioning by Republicans who confronted him with his own past statements. He did not deny or recant those statements, but said he regretted some of his impolitic formulations. “I made a series of statements that were really just inexcusable,” Dr. Gruber said toward the end of the four-hour hearing.

“It is never appropriate to try to make oneself seem more important or smarter by demeaning others,” he also said. “I know better. I knew better. I am embarrassed, and I am sorry.”

Dr. Gruber infuriated Republicans on the committee by refusing to disclose the total amount of money he had received in grants and contracts from the federal government and states for work related to the Affordable Care Act. He also declined to say if he would provide copies of documents that he had prepared for federal and state agencies.

Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, told Dr. Gruber: “You have been paid by the American taxpayers. Will you provide that information to this committee?”

Dr. Gruber replied repeatedly, “You can take it up with my counsel.”

In an interview, Mr. Chaffetz said he would insist on the requests after he becomes the panel’s chairman in January. “Mr. Gruber will cough up those documents one way or another,” he said.

Though he strongly supports the health law, Dr. Gruber has made statements that appear to undercut arguments now being pushed by the Obama administration in court cases challenging the payment of premium subsidies in states using the federal insurance exchange. Under the law, the federal government provides a backstop if states fail to establish exchanges.

“What’s important to remember politically about this is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits,” Dr. Gruber said in 2012.

By contrast, the White House has said that Congress intended for the subsidies to be available nationwide, in all states, regardless of whether they had a federal or state-run exchange.

Dr. Gruber said his earlier comments had been referring to the possibility that the federal government might not create a federal exchange.

“Your new explanation of your previous public statements makes little sense,” Representative Justin Amash, Republican of Michigan, told him.



Source
.

How Catholic Insurance Companies Outsource Contraceptive Coverage

policy-ish


by JULIE ROVNER
September 17, 201412:02 PM ET

Contraceptive coverage has long been required by state laws or sought by nonreligious employers the religious health plans serve.iStockphoto

Catholic and other religious hospitals and universities have been arguing in federal court for much of the past two years that they shouldn't have to offer or facilitate birth control as part of their employee health plans because it violates their religious beliefs.

But what happens when the insurance company is itself Catholic? It turns out that Catholic health plans have for years been arranging for outside firms to provide contraceptive coverage to their enrollees.

That's because such coverage has long been required by state laws or sought by nonreligious employers the religious health plans serve.

The federal health law requires most health insurance plans, including all new plans in the individual and small group markets, to provide contraceptive coverage at no out-of-pocket cost to women.

That divergence between the Catholic court claim that any link to contraceptive coverage is forbidden and the actions of Catholic insurance plans is likely to draw more attention as more large Catholic hospital systems add insurance plans to their portfolios.

Already a bishop in Arkansas is raising questions about one of the insurers in his state.

No one is keeping track of just how many Catholic health plans are entering the insurance market and selling to non-Catholics. The latest entry is Catholic Health Initiatives, the nation's fifth-largest nonprofit health system, with facilities in 18 states.

Juan Serrano, who heads CHI's new insurance subsidiary, Prominence Health, said in an interview that over the next year and a half, Prominence plans to "expand our health plan footprint into additional Catholic Health Initiative markets ... where they make the most sense."

He said that "as relates to the mandated benefits that are required in the marketplace, we are taking the same position that has been taken by other Catholic health plans, and it is to cede or contract with a third-party administrator who will administer the ERD-related benefits in an arm's-length manner."

ERD refers to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care, a document from the Conference of Catholic Bishops that among other things makes contraception off-limits for Catholic institutions.

While CHI's third-party strategy might please health law advocates, the bishop who heads the Diocese of Little Rock, Ark., raised a red flag when the company purchased QualChoice, its first commercial plan in that state, last spring.

"Having given this matter serious thought and prayer, I am not fully convinced by CHI's reasoning that their acquisition of QualChoice will pose no moral or ethical conflicts," Bishop Anthony Taylor said in a statement.

MergerWatch, a reproductive health advocacy group that tracks deals involving secular and religious health institutions, is keeping a close eye on Catholic plans in the commercial market.

"We're now seeing more and more of these plans moving into the commercial market in a big way," said Lois Uttley, director of the group. "Under the Affordable Care Act, these plans are supposed to be covering contraception. So they have to figure out some way to get that to their enrollees, despite their religious objections to contraception."

MergerWatch has been closely watching how Fidelis Care, a Catholic-owned insurer that this year was the second-most-popular plan on the New York state health exchange, is handling reproductive health services.

Fidelis has arranged for a third party to provide women's reproductive health services, although that's not clear on the plan's website. In its handbook for health care providers Fidelis explains it "has elected not to offer all reproductive and family planning services, including abortion, sterilization, and artificial contraception, as a standard benefit nor to receive premium dollars from the State of New York for such services."

Instead, the company "will inform these same providers that the New York State of Health Marketplace has approved Unified IPA, LLC to provide New York State of Health marketplace-mandated family planning services, independent of Fidelis Care." The online marketplace operates under the health law, offering competing plans to people who generally don't have approved employer-based coverage.

A spokeswoman for Fidelis wrote in an email that health plan members need not worry about getting special access to the outside insurer because "the process is seamless for members. Providers simply bill the outside firm."

Mike Elliott, a principal with Unified IPA, the outside firm, says he contracts with the same health care providers that Fidelis does and works with the same pharmacy benefit firms to ensure that prescriptions are filled without Fidelis having to participate.

"From the member's perspective they're getting to see the same doctor, they have the same benefit package ... and we utilize the same ID number as the health plan," said Elliott, who says he has been providing reproductive health services to religious health plans for nearly three decades.

With Fidelis, that process has not been exactly seamless, says MergerWatch. Uttley said her group called several health plans asking about contraceptive coverage, and the response from Fidelis "was particularly confusing. The customer service woman said, 'Well, Fidelis covers contraception if you need it to regulate yourself,' whatever that means. If you need it for other reasons, you have to call this IPA."

That's troublesome, said Uttley, because "that's confusing even to a sophisticated insurance consumer used to having health insurance, and what we have now coming into the marketplace is a lot of people who have never had insurance. It's enough of a challenge to get them to understand how health insurance works without having this wrinkle in it."

Another problem for the group is that Fidelis, unlike many other nonreligious health plans, refuses to allow Planned Parenthood into its network of covered providers, "not even for prenatal or primary care," Uttley said. "It's not clear to us that women enrolling in Fidelis in New York understand they can't use that coverage at a Planned Parenthood if that's been their primary source of family planning services in the past."

In Arkansas, the bishop's concerns remain unresolved. Taylor sought clarification from the Vatican, and according to diocesan spokesman Dennis Lee, "Bishop Taylor has received a substantive response from the Vatican regarding CHI's acquisition of QualChoice, and he is actively involved in ongoing, private discussions with CHI on how best to comply with the Vatican's response."

The issues are clearer to other Catholic health plans that don't have to meet the needs of non-Catholics in the commercial insurance market. They're arguing in court that any participation with the contraceptive mandate is forbidden.

The Little Sisters of the Poor religious order, which provides long-term-care services with employees insured by Christian Brothers Services, is rejecting the Obama administration's newest policy: allowing religious employers to notify the government, instead of their insurer, that they have a religious objection to providing contraceptive coverage. "Any provision of the Mandate's services through the plan ... would violate the Christian Brothers' and Little Sisters' faith," the lawyers argue.

In the case of Christian Brothers, the administration argues that because it is itself a religious plan, it is exempt from the requirements anyway.

Source

.

The White House’s roster is starting to resemble Google’s list of former employees

Jeanne Kim

11 hours ago

Have Obama's people called yet?

AP Photo/Jens Meyer

At the height of the financial crisis, the White House frequently found itself turning to veterans of Goldman Sachs to tackle the emergency, leading to the firm’s nickname: Government Sachs. Of course this was no accident, as then-US Treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. was a Goldman alum.

Now, with the spectacular initial failure of the healthcare.gov website having focused the White House’s attention on technology issues, the Obama administration is looking to another pool of private-sector talent—Google’s—for people willing to bring their professional expertise to new jobs with the government.

Megan Smith, a Google executive, is said to be the White House’s top candidate to serve as the country’s chief technology officer, replacing Todd Park, who has a healthcare information technology background and will work for the administration as an adviser based in Silicon Valley. Park recently helped bring another Google veteran, Michael “Mikey” Dickerson, to a new area of the executive branch, the US Digital Service.

Google’s expanding diaspora in Washington has sparked growing concerns about the company’s influence with government officials. Just as the Treasury Department’s actions in 2008 had implications for Goldman Sachs, many of the questions before federal agencies and lawmakers today, from net neutrality rules to the potential for regulating drone deliveries and self-driving cars, could be significant to Google’s businesses. Some of the ex-Googlers hired by the White House already have returned to the private sector; that’s understandable—not every recruit, especially those who left families behind in Silicon Valley, wants to make a lifelong commitment to Washington, or to the government’s pay scale—but the revolving door action makes critics all the more skeptical about the relationships between companies and federal offices.

Megan Smith

She’s not part of the White House yet, but Smith would be the third person—and first woman to hold the title of US chief technology officer if she gets the job. Her ascension would represent a major milestone for women in the tech industry. Back at Google, Smith is vice president of Google’s X lab and played a key role in the development of Google Earth. Previously, she was the CEO of Planet Out, an online media company catering to gay and lesbian audiences.

Michael “Mikey” Dickerson

Dickerson—currently the administrator of the new US Digital Service—was pulled into public service when healthcare.gov, an integral piece of the Obamacare health insurance system, ran into trouble. At Google, Dickerson was a site reliability engineer and part of the team that helped Google’s servers run smoothly. His task now: work with the federal government’s IT teams to improve the functionality of government websites. He’s already made waves for turning the West Wing into a business casual zone. Administration officials probably don’t care what he’s wearing to the office so long as he prevents another healthcare.gov-style embarrassment from occurring.

Katie Jacobs Stanton

Before being lured back to the private sector in 2010 for a job at Twitter, Stanton was part of the White House staff as director of citizen participation, tasked with furthering engagement with the public through new media. (She then spent seven months at the State Department before going to Twitter, where she recently changed roles from vice president of international markets to VP of global media.) At Google, she managed products like Google Finance, Google News, and Blog Search, and was involved in new business development. Stanton helped develop Google Moderator, which allowed users to submit questions for the presidential debates when Obama was running in 2008. Stanton’s resume also includes a stop at Yahoo, and a fellowship at the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Andrew McLaughlin

McLaughlin, formerly Google’s head of global public policy, worked on Obama’s transition team in 2008 and 2009 and spent two years as the administration’s deputy chief technology officer. He advised the president on a wide range of topics, from cybersecurity and online privacy to entrepreneurship and the creation of open technology standards. In 2010, he was reprimanded for exchanging emails with former colleagues still at Google to discuss issues under his purview as a government official, in violation of the administration’s ethics rules. He left the White House the next year; now he’s a partner at the startup studio betaworks and is the CEO of Digg.

Nicole Wong

Although Wong (nicknamed “The Decider“) apparently has decided to leave the White House to return to her family in California, her background in internet law and privacy issues made her a strong pick as the administration’s deputy chief technology officer amid growing public concern over government data collection. Formerly the legal director at Twitter, she helped author a White House report on big data (pdf), which was released in May, and worked on policies regarding privacy and US intelligence. Not only was Wong a vice president at Google, she was deputy general counsel for the company, and testified before Congress (pdf) about Google’s adherence to privacy laws.

Sonal Shah

The former head of global development at Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, Shah served in the White House from April 2009 to August 2011 as head of the Office of Social Innovation, aiding nonprofits and entrepreneurs in tackling important social issues. Now she’s at Georgetown University, with the Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation. Prior to working at Google, she was a VP at Goldman Sachs.

Eric Schmidt

While Google’s chairman and CEO, Eric Schmidt, doesn’t have a formal position in the White House, he was a strong supporter of Obama’s in 2008 and his ties with the administration remain strong. He reportedly advised Obama’s 2008 campaign in the areas of tech and energy and was on hand again as an informal adviser during the 2012 race.


Source
.

Ben Carson: ACA Ruling Slaps Obama for Changing 'Law at Will'

Tuesday, 22 Jul 2014 02:53 PM

By Wanda Carruthers


The U.S. appeals court ruling issued on Tuesday striking down the government's ability to offer Obamacare subsidies through federal insurance exchanges showed President Barack Obama was trying to "change the law at will," Dr. Ben Carson told Fox News' "America's Newsroom."

A three-judge panel ruled the government could not provide subsidies to enrollees on the Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges run by federal authorities. Carson said he expected the decision to ultimately end up at the Supreme Court.

"You can't just come along and change the law at will. Basically, that's what this [ruling] is saying," Carson, former director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, said Tuesday.

Urgent: Should Ben Carson Run for President? Vote Here Now

Carson explained the Obama administration and the Internal Revenue Service had been "saying they could pretty much do anything they wanted" with regard to Obamacare. He said he was "very pleased" with what he was "seeing happening" as the courts decided the legalities of the healthcare law's implementation.

While Carson said he thought everyone "should have good healthcare," it didn't "have to be done through the government."

"This is really the issue — government in control of your life, or individual control, individual responsibility, which will help bring the whole medical system into the free market economic system, which will lower costs and improve quality," he said.

Carson said he was "starting to think about" a run for the White House in 2016, but maintained it "wasn't in my bucket list when I retired."

Source
.....

A week of Free Chick-fil-A (Propaganda)

Chick-fil-A celebrates Cow Appreciation Day




Jason Hoekema
Excited children from local day care centers gather in cow costumes with a Chick-fil-A cow mascot at one of the chain restaurants Friday in Brownsville. The children were dressed as cows so they could participate in the annual Cow Appreciation Day.


Posted: Friday, July 11, 2014 10:41 pm

By Victoria Brito Staff Writer


Black and white filled Chick-fil-A on Friday as the family friendly fast food restaurant celebrated Cow Appreciation Day as people of all ages dressed as cows to get free Chick-fil-A food.

The second Friday of July is penned as Cow Appreciation Day and in its 10th year, Cow Appreciation day drew in a medley of activities to the Chick-fil-A restaurant on Boca Chica Boulevard.

“This is our 10th anniversary of Cow Appreciation day,” Chick-fil-A Co-Manager Cindy Rodriguez said. “And what it is, it’s an opportunity for us to thank all of our guests for being so supportive and loyal cow fans. And so what we ask it that our guest come out dressed as a cow from head to hoof and they get a free meal and that’s just a way for us to say thank you for all of your appreciation together and supporting us.”

In 2013 nearly a million customers dressed as cows and celebrated Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-A restaurants nationwide.

“Ten years ago is when the cow first made his appearance promoting Chick-fil-A and so we celebrate the cow every year and we ask everyone to come out dressed and have fun,” Rodriguez said.

Outside in the parking lot was home to loads of activities for the kids such as a DJ, dance contests, games for the kids and prizes.

Janie Sanchez took her 21-month-old daughter Lorena Sophia to Chick-fil-A fully dressed in a cow costume.

“We found out that they were having this celebration so we wanted to bring them over for some play time,” Sanchez said. “I think it’s awesome.” Celia Hernandez took her 3-year-old daughter Zoe, along with two of Zoe’s friends all dressed as cows.

vbrito@brownsvilleherald.com

Source: http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/local/article_70b8f94a-0976-11e4-b0d6-0017a43b2370.html

Related:

HEALTH CARE

Hobby Lobby Ally Invokes the 'Chick-fil-A' Defense

The 5-4 Supreme Court decision Monday was applauded by a wide swath of conservative politicians and groups.

(Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

By Matt Vasilogambros
Follow on Twitter
June 30, 2014


As conservatives celebrated Hobby Lobby's Supreme Court victory over Obamacare's contraception mandate, one group brought back a familiar player in the battle over corporations' religious expression: Chick-fil-A.

The National Center for Public Policy said in a statement the Court's decision was "a victory for freedom," and referenced the fast-food restaurant to bolster its argument.

Chick-fil-A "forgoes significant profit by closing every Sunday for religious reasons, for example," said Chairman Amy Ridenour. "If it were not possible for a corporation to exercise religious beliefs, Chik-Fil-A would be open on Sundays."

Chick-fil-A's principal founder is a devout Southern Baptist, and the restaurant became the darling of the conservative movement—and drew ire from the Left—after its CEO spoke out against legalized gay marriage.

The restaurant reference came among a chorus of conservative reactions to the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling, which exempts certain closely held companies from the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus:

This decision protects the religious freedom that is guaranteed to all Americans by the First Amendment, and we're grateful the Court ruled on the side of liberty. The central issue of this case was whether the federal government can coerce Americans to violate their deeply held religious beliefs, and thankfully the Court has upheld the proper limits on the government's power.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Today's Supreme Court decision makes clear that the Obama administration cannot trample on the religious freedoms that Americans hold dear. Obamacare is the single worst piece of legislation to pass in the last 50 years, and I was glad to see the Supreme Court agree that this particular Obamacare mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

House Speaker John Boehner

Today's decision is a victory for religious freedom and another defeat for an administration that has repeatedly crossed constitutional lines in pursuit of its Big Government objectives.… The president's health care law remains an unworkable mess and a drag on our economy. We must repeal it and enact better solutions that start with lowering Americans' health care costs.

Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La.

The Court has made clear today that the Obama administration's assault on religious freedom in this case went too far—but this assault will not stop, in our courts, in our schools, and in the halls of power. It will take believers who are willing to risk their fortunes and public ridicule and the modern slings and arrows to stand up for what's right.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.

I am extremely encouraged by today's Supreme Court decision to uphold the religious liberty rights of the Green family of Hobby Lobby. At its core, today's decision was about the right of individual and family business owners to be free from government mandates that force them to deny their sincerely-held religious beliefs. America was founded on the principle of religious freedom, and there is nothing more fundamental than the First Amendment. This decision represents a tremendous victory for the basic constitutional rights of every American.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.

Today's decision is a victory for religious freedom. Religious freedom is one of our most basic principles and the very first right mentioned in the Bill of Rights. I am pleased that the Supreme Court has rejected the Obama administration's attempt to limit this most fundamental of American liberties.

Read more

.

.

Adventists Respond to Supreme Court Decision about Religious Rights

By AT News Team, July 1, 2014

The Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America released an official statement yesterday saying that it was "encouraged" by the decision announced this week by the Supreme Court of the United States in the "Hobby Lobby case." Other Adventists expressed reservations and concerns about the same decision.

The denomination's official statement gave emphasis to the fact that the decision "reaffirmed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which safeguards the broad religious liberty protections available to all people of faith." The denomination's religious liberty lobbyists had worked for the passage of RFRA and are vigilant about any court decision or government policy that seems to weaken the law.

The statement also pointed out that the case is one "in which religious liberty and the right to healthcare intersected. ... The court’s ruling was the result of appeals by two family owned, for profit companies, Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Woods Specialties, that objected to providing certain forms of birth control as required under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The question for the Court was whether these companies could claim an exemption from this requirement under the First Amendment and the RFRA."

The statement made it clear that Adventist beliefs about religious liberty and health care were in tension in this case. On the one hand, "the Church is concerned with any attempt to weaken or restrict the interpretation of the [RFRA] legislation which protects religious freedom." On the other hand, the church operates "one of the largest hospital systems in the U.S. and "in its Fundamental Beliefs and teachings as based on the Bible, does not object to providing the methods of contraception at issue. ... However, [it] has a long history of defending religious freedom not just for itself but all people of faith."

The bottom line for the statement: "The Adventist Church believes that while the provision of contraception is an important goal of the ACA, it is one the government can reach without forcing family held companies to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs."

The issue that the statement does not address is a concern that several Adventists have expressed to Adventist Today in the last few days. Does religious liberty include the right to force one's employees to go along with the beliefs of employers? For example if an employer does not believe in blood transfusions, does that individual have a religious right to force their employees to have a health plan which does not cover blood transfusions?

The Supreme Court decision actually goes out of the way to exclude this particular example, "but it is unclear what logic is involved here. Was that simply a political ploy on the part of the court since the blood transfusion issue makes the larger issue much more clear."

"Usually religious rights are defined in terms of being protected from the government restricting one from doing something that you feel God wants you to do," writes another reader. "It seems to have moved to a new thing all together when it is about a 'right' to exercise authority over or dictate to employees or others." He pointed out that the majority of the justices on the court are Catholics and they wrote a decision that essentially supports Catholic theology, but none of them are Jehovah's Witnesses, so it may not be surprising that they exempted the same treatment for a Jehovah's Witnesses doctrine.

"I am surprised that the Adventist Church spoke out on this issue," one pastor from California told Adventist Today. "It is so controversial and lacks a really clear-cut religious liberty issue, it seems like it might have been a good time to say nothing."

Source

.

SHOCKING: Company That Created Obamacare Website LINKED To Benghazi Video

by Shoebat Foundation on June 17, 2014

By Walid Shoebat, Ben Barrack and Keith Davies
**SHOEBAT EXCLUSIVE**

In a SHOCKING discovery, CGI Federal – the Canadian Company that built the Obamacare website – appears to have a connection to the “Innocence of Muslims” video the Obama administration blamed for the Benghazi attacks.

And here’s how it was done:

The evidence is well established that in 2010, CGI acquired Stanley Associates, which “provides services to the U.S. federal civilian, defense and intelligence agencies”. [1]

When the crudely produced video “Innocence of Muslims” was posted to a YouTube it needed a boost, especially since it was posted by someone no one had ever heard of and who had only uploaded two videos – that were basically the same.

Well, a YouTube channel known as NewsPoliticsNow3 (NPN3) has been connected to Stanley Associates, the service provider for U.S. defense and “intelligence”.

On September 11, 2012, NewsPoliticsNow3 (NPN3) uploaded a short version of the video (only 1:32 of it). It was in fact NPN3 (see screenshot below taken 19 hours after video uploaded) which gave the crude movie a new title “Innocence of Muslims”, instead of the name given previously (click on image to enlarge).

Note: Screen capture from 9/12/12 (top right). NPN3 posted “Innocence of Muslims” trailer 19 hours earlier… on 9/11/12.

After NPN3 caused the video to gain more than four million views of its 1:32 long trailer, NewsPoliticsNow3 took down the video on or before 9/20/12. The skids of Sam Bacile’s YouTube channel had been sufficiently greased; his video was off and running. NPN3 had done its job of priming the pump; then it vanished.

The evidence that NPN3 is a creation of Stanley is captured in the following screenshot:

Screen shot reveals NPN connection to Stanley as well as CGI merger with Stanley in 2010.

And the evidence of Stanley’s working for the Feds is ironclad. The CGI press release announcing the completion of the merger identifies Stanley as a company that…


…provides services to the U.S. federal civilian, defense and intelligence agencies.

The Obama Administration played its role accordingly. It’s important to remember the words of then Secretary of S

tate Hillary Clinton at the first “Istanbul Process” meeting she chaired along with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Secretary-General on July 15, 2011. Hillary said, as relayed byShoebat.com:


…we are focused on promoting interfaith education and collaboration, enforcing antidiscrimination laws, protecting the rights of all people to worship as they choose, and to use some old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming, so that people don’t feel that they have the support to do what we abhor.

As an agent of Stanley Associates, NPN3 would have been needed as a front, as an agitprop agent. The Obama administration needed to be involved in making the video go viral while creating the perception that it“had absolutely nothing to do with it”. The video was supposed to invoke “peer pressure and shaming” without the hint of government involvement.

After all, these were the words of Hillary Clinton herself and how she envisioned it.

Here is a screen shot of the NPN3 YouTube channel on September 15, 2012 in which the 1:32 long trailer garnered more than 4.5 million views. By September 20th, the channel was gone:

NewsPoliticsNow3 screen shot from 9/15/12. Over four million views of its 1:32 trailer.

The one person who has a history with both Stanley Associates and CGI Federal’s role in developing the Obamacare website is the company’s President Donna Ryan. Here is an excerpt from her bio:


Ms. Donna A. Ryan has been the President of CGI Federal Inc. since September 28, 2011. At CGI Federal Inc., Ms. Ryan is responsible for leading CGI’s strategy, growth and client delivery across the Civilian, Defense and Intelligence Sectors of the U.S. Federal Government. As a member of CGI’s Management Committee, she also participates in the development and execution of CGI’s global strategy. Ms. Ryan had been Senior Vice President at Stanley, Inc. since August 2010.

August of 2010 is when the acquisition of Stanley by CGI was finalized, according to what appears to be a CGI PowerPoint presentation, which also refers to CGI as:


A global leader in IT, business process, and professional services, CGI partners with federal agencies to provide end-to-end solutions for defense, civilian, and intelligence missions

Ryan has a history that includes being a Senior VP with Stanley and President with CGI Federal. While holding both titles, Ryan also made several trips to the White House.

Prior to Stanley Associates’ apparent involvement with the NPN3 YouTube channel upload of the short 1:32 video on September 11, 2012, the name “Innocence of Muslims” was never used. When casting for the movie was being done, it was entitled “Desert Warrior”. The alleged June 30th screening at the Vine Theatre was entitled “Innocence of Bin Laden” and the two videos uploaded to the Sam Bacile YouTube channel were identified only as “Muhammad Movie Trailer” and “The Real Life of Muhammad” respectively. Here is a September 17, 2012 screen shot of the Sam Bacile YouTube Channel:

Note the names of the video (Neither is identified as “Innocence of Muslims”).

In conclusion, strong probable cause exists to suggest that it was Stanley’s NPN3 that created the name “Innocence of Muslims” which became the signature of the Obama administration’s outrage, broadcast all over the world. It was the “Innocence of Muslims” title that the Obama administration pointed to for leaving a trail of libel, murder, and American blood in its wake. Regardless of Nakoula’s role in producing and uploading the video, he didn’t give the video the title that would live on in infamy.

REFERENCES
[1] In a series of videos posted to YouTube by a man going by the handle of “Montagraph”, an image capture of the NPN avatar ties back to Stanley Associates, as the screen shot above demonstrates. Two other entities must be brought into the equation first – Stanley Associates, Inc. and a YouTube channel identified asNewsPoliticsNow3, no longer in existence.

Keep in mind that Shoebat.com has made the case that “Innocence of Muslims” was about agitprop and that the Obama administration was involved – to varying degrees – in the production and covert marketing of the video. In a Shoebat.com exclusive, Cindy Lee Garcia, an actress who appeared in the video, told us that the filmmaker – Nakoula Basseley Nakoula – informed her that he is a Muslim, not the Coptic Christian he was portrayed to be.

Putting something up on the internet in the hopes of it going viral can be a futile endeavor, even when it’s an excellent product… or… video. When it’s a third-rate, two-bit video – as “Innocence of Muslims” was, a substantial delivery system would almost definitely be necessary. That’s where NewsPoliticsNow comes in.

The filmmaker’s son Abanob Nakoula created the Sam Bacile YouTube channel and posted two videos in July of 2012.

Source

.

Is the Religious Right responsible for America’s fading allegiance to religion?

Posted: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 13:26 by Terry Sanderson





Terry Sanderson on the Religious Right's baneful attempts to desecularize the United States with a raft of "religious freedom" bills.

There seems to be something of a disconnect in America between the rising number of people who profess to have no religion and the state legislatures that are falling over themselves to enact legislation that is little short of theocratic.

Research is repeatedly showing a sharp rise in the number of Americans who have no religion - the "nones" as they are known to academics who study the changing dynamics of religion.

Many evangelical Christians have been comforting themselves with the idea that even though these "nones" don't associate themselves with a particular church, they are still Christians at heart who worship in their own way.

But David Voas, a sociologist at Essex University, begs to differ. He has found from his own research that the "fuzzy faithful" – those who claim to believe in some kind of unidentified higher power and perhaps go to church at Christmas – are really drifting towards complete indifference to religion and all its trappings.

In his 2008 paper The Rise and Fall of Fuzzy Fidelity in Europe, Professor Voas concluded that those who sometimes define themselves as "spiritual but not religious" are actually more likely to be entirely indifferent to religion – a state of affairs that he says is much more dangerous for the future of religion than outright scepticism.

If the same pattern is repeating in America – and it seems to be – then the hope among evangelicals that the "nones" are really just non-practising, but faithful, Christians is little more than wishful thinking.

But despite this rapid secularisation of American culture, there are bills being brought forward in state legislatures that give mighty privilege to religious believers.

So-called "religious freedom" bills have been proposed in several states, but so far have only succeeded in completing the legislative process in Arizona. And even there the Governor still hasn't signed it into law. [Note: Since this blog was originally published, the Governor of Arizona has vetoed the bill].

But there are other battles over supposed "religious freedom" (which usually translates into religious privilege or the right to discriminate against gay people). The Catholic Church and its acolytes are fighting hard to destroy President Obama's flagship Affordable Healthcare legislation because they object to having to supply contraceptives.

Obama gave them an opt out that would relieve them of that duty, then he gave another one, but still they are not satisfied and continue to attack the Affordable Care Act in the courts. At present, a ruling on the matter is awaited from the Supreme Court.

And this is the problem with religious accommodation. Once one concession is made, another demand quickly follows. Religious hierarchies will never stop until they have complete control.

In Arizona the new law seeks to make it legal for businesses and individuals to deny services to gay people if doing so would offend their religious conscience. There could be all kinds of unintended consequences from this legislation (as well as it likely being unconstitutional).

So why is it happening? Why this sudden surge of bills seeking to give religion special privileges in American society? To get religion back into schools, to control what books can be read in colleges (if they are deemed anti-religious) and to promote creationism over evolution in schools?

The answer is that the Republican Party – fused as it now is with the Religious Right – is seeking revenge for the success of gay marriage campaigns around the nation.

As it realises it has lost the war against gay marriage, the Religious Right seeks compensation in the form of "religious freedom" bills, the ultimate aim of which is to make sure gay marriage becomes impractical, despite being legalised.

By putting more and more barriers up against gay people achieving equal rights before the law, the Religious Right and its Republican representation in politics now seeks to make life almost impossible for gay couples in some parts of the country.

But this may end up being a case of making the same mistake twice.

During the last election campaign, the Republicans/Religious Right came to realise that the tide of history had turned against their opposition to gay marriage, and they pragmatically toned down the poisonous anti-gay rhetoric that had been so prominent on their previous electoral platform.

After being trounced again at the ballot box by Obama, they have regrouped and their new plan is to derail gay marriage wherever and however they can with these supposed "religious freedom" bills. But hiding behind the high-falutin' claims of "protecting the liberty of believers to practice their faith" lies rank bigotry.

If they imagine this is going to revive their fortunes they are sadly mistaken. Much of America was repelled by their vile homophobia last time, and it is unlikely it will be impressed with it this time.

The fanatic evangelicals with their hysterical televangelists and lying propagandists are turning off young people, not just from Republicanism, but from religion in general.

The "nones" are growing, but the Religious Right does not seem yet to have made the connection between that trend and their hate-mongering. They have made religion toxic and Americans are fleeing it in their thousands.

Terry Sanderson is the President of the National Secular Society. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the NSS.


Source
.

The Catholic Supreme Court’s War on Women

Jamie Stiehm


By Jamie Stiehm January 7, 2014



Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor just dropped the ball on American women and girls.


Et tu, Justice Sonia Sotomayor? Really, we can't trust you on women's health and human rights? The lady from the Bronx just dropped the ball on American women and girls as surely as she did the sparkling ball at midnight on New Year's Eve in Times Square. Or maybe she's just a good Catholic girl.

The Supreme Court is now best understood as the Extreme Court. One big reason why is that six out of nine Justices are Catholic. Let's be forthright about that. (The other three are Jewish.) Sotomayor, appointed by President Obama, is a Catholic who put her religion ahead of her jurisprudence. What a surprise, but that is no small thing.

In a stay order applying to an appeal by a Colorado nunnery, the Little Sisters of the Poor, Justice Sotomayor undermined the new Affordable Care Act's sensible policy on contraception. She blocked the most simple of rules – lenient rules – that required the Little Sisters to affirm their religious beliefs against making contraception available to its members. They objected to filling out a one-page form. What could be easier than nuns claiming they don't believe in contraception?

[See a collection of political cartoons on the Catholic contraception controversy.]

Sotomayor's blow brings us to confront an uncomfortable reality. More than WASPS, Methodists, Jews, Quakers or Baptists, Catholics often try to impose their beliefs on you, me, public discourse and institutions. Especially if "you" are female. This is not true of all Catholics – just look at House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. But right now, the climate is so cold when it comes to defending our settled legal ground that Sotomayor's stay is tantamount to selling out the sisterhood. And sisterhood is not as powerful as it used to be, ladies.

Catholics in high places of power have the most trouble, I've noticed, practicing the separation of church and state. The pugnacious Catholic Justice, Antonin Scalia, is the most aggressive offender on the Court, but not the only one. Of course, we can't know for sure what Sotomayor was thinking, but it seems she has joined the ranks of the five Republican Catholic men on the John Roberts Court in showing a clear religious bias when it comes to women's rights and liberties. We can no longer be silent about this. Thomas Jefferson, the principal champion of the separation between state and church, was thinking particularly of pernicious Rome in his writings. He deeply distrusted the narrowness of Vatican hegemony.

The seemingly innocent Little Sisters likely were likely not acting alone in their trouble-making. Their big brothers, the meddlesome American Roman Catholic Archbishops are bound to be involved. They seek and wield tremendous power and influence in the political sphere. Big city mayors know their penchant for control all too well. Their principal target for years on end has been squelching women and girls – even when they should have focused on their own men and boys.

[Check out 2013: The Year in Cartoons.]

In one stroke with ominous implications, there's no such thing as Catholic justice or mercy for women on the Supreme Court, not even from a woman. The rock of Rome refuses to budge on women's reproductive rights and the Supreme Court is getting good and ready to strike down Roe v. Wade, which became the law of the land 40 years ago. President Clinton had it exactly right in his formulation: abortion should be safe, legal and rare.

Meanwhile, the forces arrayed against women's right to self-determination have been busy taking their campaign to the statehouses. In roughly half of them, women's human rights have been eroded. On the airwaves, the anti-woman conspiracy goes on, with Rush Limbaugh leading the pack of thousands of men. He uses the Obamacare contraception mandate to say, just about every workaday, that young women are just using the government to get sex, or some such thing. He wins the prize for virulently infecting the public dis-coarse.

With friends like Sonia, we don't need opponents like Rush.


Source
.

Got Insurance Ads Using Sex & Alcohol To Sell Obamacare

JmanPrepper Redux


Published on Nov 16, 2013


Check out the ad website and think for yourselves.
http://www.doyougotinsurance.com/

Here's a small sample from a Huffington Post story. (link below)
The people that brought you the Obamacare keg-stand "brosurance" campaign are back with a new set of eyebrow-raising ads.

The ads, which all live on the DoYouGotInsurance.com website, are a collaboration between Colorado Consumer Health Initiative and ProgressNow Colorado Education, and reference the famous "Got Milk?" ads.

In one ad -- called "Let's Get Physical" -- characters named "Susie" and "Nate" are described as "hot to trot." Susie gives a thumbs up while holding a back of birth control pills.

"OMG, he's hot!" the ad reads. "Let's hope he's as easy to get as this birth control. My health insurance covers the pill, which means all I have to worry about is getting him between the covers. I got insurance."

New Obamacare Ads Use Party Girls, Bloody Kids And Keg-Stands (Again) To Sell Insurance
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11...

.

.

2014 Begins With A Roar

Ball drops in NYC's Times Square, ushering in 2014

Photo (Courtesy) http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Ball-drops-in-NYC-s-Times-Square-ushering-in-2014-5105982.php
[http://ww4.hdnux.com/photos/25/47/44/5667099/3/628x471.jpg]

In freezing New York City's Times Square, a sea of horn-tooting, hat-wearing revelers cheered and some smooched as the famed crystal ball dropped at midnight.
Bronx-born U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor led the 60-second countdown and pushed the button that unleashed the shimmering orb with 2,688 crystals, a role usually filled by the New York City mayor.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on his last day in office, sat out the celebration after 12 years on the job, while newly elected Mayor Bill de Blasio took the oath of office just after midnight at his Brooklyn home.


Read more
.
.

---Somewhat related---

.
[Wow, on the same day she makes the BIG HEADLINES once again!]



Justice Sotomayor grants temporary Obamacare exemption to nuns 

The Catholic nuns would have faced 'draconian fines' if they failed to provide contraceptive coverage, as the healthcare law requires.



By David G. Savage and Maeve Reston December 31, 2013, 10:33 p.m.

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted a temporary exemption late Tuesday to a small group of Catholic nuns that shields it from having to comply with a part of President Obama's healthcare law that requires it to provide contraceptive coverage in its insurance plans. 

She acted on an emergency appeal from lawyers for the group who said the nuns faced "draconian fines" beginning on New Year's Day if they failed to comply with the law widely known as Obamacare.

Sotomayor gave the government until Friday to file a response in the case. Her order extends only to the group of nuns and does not apply more broadly to the Affordable Care Act and its requirements.

The Supreme Court is facing a series of appeals from religious organizations and private corporations whose owners object to paying for contraceptives. In March, the court will hear two cases involving corporations and the contraceptive mandate.

The Obama administration has exempted churches and other religious groups from providing contraceptive coverage. However, it has granted a more limited exemption for religiously affiliated charities. Although they need not pay for this coverage directly, their insurers are required to include the coverage in their policies.

Nonetheless, several religious charities have continued to press for exemptions to the law. And on Tuesday evening, hours before the mandate was to take effect, they sent several emergency appeals to the court seeking an emergency exemption.

It was unclear how the Obama administration would proceed after Sotomayor's order. Obama is vacationing with his family in Hawaii this week, and the White House is not expected to make any comment before the Justice Department files a response to Sotomayor's ruling on Friday.

A number of religious groups with similar objections have vigorously challenged the Affordable Care Act in court. The Colorado order of nuns, the Little Sisters of the Poor, asked for the last-minute ruling Tuesday because the healthcare law's provisions go into effect Jan. 1.

In late November, the Supreme Court agreed to hear several cases that could settle the dispute between the Obama administration and businesses run by Christian conservatives over whether those companies must pay for birth control if providing that coverage is in conflict with the religious beliefs of the business owner.

The November announcement that the Supreme Court would hear the constitutional challenge to the birth control mandate in Sebelius vs. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., as well as another case, signaled a new phase of the political battle over the healthcare law.

David Green, founder of Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby Stores, has argued that business owners "should not have to choose between violating their beliefs and violating the law."

david.savage@latimes.com

maeve.reston@latimes.com

Savage reported from Washington and Reston from Honolulu.

 

Source

---Related indeed---

Roberts calls for more money for courts





Roberts spoke out about sequestration's affect on the courts. | AP Photo
By TAL KOPAN | 1/1/14 8:28 AM EST



Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts used his year-end report for 2013 to call for more funding for federal courts and lambaste sequestration’s effect on the judiciary.

In the New Year’s Eve missive, Roberts referenced the seasonally appropriate “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens to guide a “look at what has made our federal court system work in the past, what we are doing in the present to preserve it in an era of fiscal constraint, and what the future holds if the judiciary does not receive the funding it needs.”

Roberts wrote that while the judiciary recognizes the need for frugality, its operating costs are only 0.2 percent of the federal budget and it has been making austerity moves for years, even before the sequester went into effect. Because courts cannot manage their caseload, however, Roberts said the effects of sequestration hit them harder.

“The impact of the sequester was more significant on the courts than elsewhere in the government, because virtually all of their core functions are constitutionally and statutorily required,” Roberts wrote. “Unlike most Executive Branch agencies, the courts do not have discretionary programs they can eliminate or postpone in response to budget cuts.”

The chief justice also went through the appropriations request submitted by the judiciary to Congress, saying it was conservative and the minimum needed for the courts to operate properly.

“In the coming weeks, and into the future, I encourage the president and Congress to be attentive to the needs of the Judicial Branch and avert the adverse consequences that would result from funding the judiciary below its minimal needs,” Roberts wrote. “It takes no imagination to see that failing to meet the judiciary’s essential requirements undermines the public’s confidence in all three branches of government. Both ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ have happy endings. We are encouraged that the story of funding for the federal judiciary — though perhaps not as gripping a tale — will too.”

The Supreme Court justices and federal judges have not been shy in advocating for court funding under sequestration. The chief judges of 87 district courts wrote to Congress last August pleading for more money and Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer made a rare appearance before a congressional hearing last March to make the case, as well.

Source 

The best for last

The Current U.S. Supreme Court

Six are Roman Catholics and Three Jewish!

	Service			Birth
Name, state	Assoc. Justice	Chief Justice	Yrs	Place	Date	Died	Religion
Antonin Scalia, DC	1986–		—	N.J.	1936	—	Roman Catholic
Anthony M. Kennedy, Calif.	1988–		—	Calif.	1936	—	Roman Catholic
Clarence Thomas, DC	1991–		—	Ga.	1948	—	Roman Catholic
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, DC	1993–		—	N.Y.	1933	—	Jewish
Stephen G. Breyer, Mass.	1994–		—	Calif.	1938	—	Jewish
John G. Roberts, DC		2005–	—	N.Y.	1955	—	Roman Catholic
Samuel A. Alito, Jr., N.J.	2006–		—	N.J.	1950	—	Roman Catholic
Sonia Sotomayor N.Y.	2009–		—	N.Y.	1954	—	Roman Catholic
Elena Kagan N.Y.	2010–		—	N.Y.	1960	—	Jewish

.

http://www.factmonster.com/us/supreme-court/supreme-court-members.html
.
.