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Various & Sundry, 9/26/13

Little Sisters of the Poor v. HHS

It could be the title of a Supreme Court Case down the line.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finalized a contraception mandate that ignores the fact groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor are religious organizations, according to a lawsuit filed to protect them against fines for refusing to comply with an Obamacare mandate.

“We cannot violate our vows by participating in the government’s program to provide access to abortion-inducing drugs,” Sister Loraine Marie said of a class-action lawsuit filed against the mandate on behalf of multiple religious organizations that provide health benefits.

McCain the Traitor

Eh, so the government is cracking down on nuns. John McCain knows who the real bad guy is – that whacky Ted Cruz. This has inspired some righteous Jeff Goldstein indignation.

Lacking the courage to hold a colloquy with Cruz during his twenty hours of filibustering (yes, filibustering — as it was intended, remember?), Republican Senator John McCain — in collusion with Democrat Majority Leader Reid and the execrable Chuck Schumer (both of whom fearing intellectual embarrassment, also lacked the stones to go head to head with Cruz, who had previously shredded the hapless demagoguing of Dick Durbin and turned Tim Kaine into a feckless foil) — took to the floor afterwards and made the case for surrender and “settled law”,  his pitch being that, because Obama won the 2012 election, the issue of ObamaCare had been decided.

Forget for a moment that the GOP establishment, who had previously given us an awful McCain candidacy, gave us as a candidate the one man who could not fight Obama on ObamaCare, he and his staff, in conjunction with Ted Kennedy, having been the architects of the state usurpation of private healthcare; instead, pay attention to the underlying assertion McCain is making, which comes down to this:  rather than a system of checks and balances (the people also elected, for instance, a GOP House), McCain believes the US to have a set of revolving kings whose agendas are set once they win elections.  That is, he’s both pro-authoritarian and pro-majoritarian — though only when it suits his purposes.

And he’s just getting started.

I can’t imagine why Jeff would have cause to distrust McCain.

A Citizen Journalist Responds to the Critics of Ted Cruz

Goldstein was truly on fire today.

If you don’t mind a tiny bit of constructive criticism, let me remind you that the McCain / Romney presidencies never really went as planned.  Similarly, the decision to balk at the very constituency that brought you to power in the House has, as you know, not given you the kind of positive press from the left-leaning legacy media that you expected it might.

Which is all just a very short way of saying you really aren’t nearly as smart as you think you are — and in fact, on the scale of political smarts, your nuance has perpetually pushed you leftward, which, while on the powerful authoritarian end of the political spectrum, nevertheless suffers from  being on the dumbest and most dangerous end, as well.

As someone who initially didn’t feel very strongly about the Defund Obamacare approach, it’s getting harder and harder to stomach the fecklessness of large segments of the GOP. Certainly Cruz, Lee, et al. had a rather difficult hill to climb, but the Brutus treatment offered them by their fellow “Republicans” has made any attempt at change impossible.

SHOCKING NEWS!

To the surprise of no one with functioning brain cells, it turns out red light cameras may not be about safety after all.

Schools Are Not Parents

Charles Cooke has this crazy notion that what children do in the privacy of their own homes shouldn’t lead them to getting suspended at school.

Justify My Time

I watched 30 seconds of Madonna’s 17 minute video and wanted to scratch my eyes out with a dull screwdriver. Fortunately Ace and others had enough patience to sit through it all and offer some hilarious commentary.

First World Tears

Great insight from Simcha Fisher. You know what – just because you’re not a starving African child doesn’t mean you don’t get to have a bad day.

But does that mean we need to go around with a cheerful grin pasted on our mugs all day long, no matter what?  I don’t know about you, but that would not help me in the slightest (and yes, I have tried!).  If we find ourselves in a situation that tries our patience, exhausts us, makes us angry or helpless, it really doesn’t help to say, “Yes, but at least I’m not starving in a lice infested mud hut!”  All I get from that is deeper in my funk:  not only am I better off than 90% of the women in the world, I’m an ungrateful, whiny brat!  Somehow, this thought does not catapult me into good cheer.

Here’s the key: there’s a big difference between admitting we’re suffering, and constantly complaining about it.   it’s perfectly fine to admit that we’re suffering — yes, even if someone else somewhere in the world is suffering more.  There is nothing intrinsically wrong with saying, “This stinks.”  But what matters is what you do next, once you look suffering in the face and call it for what it is.

10 Travel Tips

Frankly, number two on the list has always worked for me.

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Hank
Thursday, September 26, AD 2013 11:46pm

Any chance the case will be given the short title of The Poor vs Obama??

slainte
slainte
Friday, September 27, AD 2013 1:36am

The action might better be captioned,

“Sister Carol Keehan, D.C. of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul and the Catholic Health Association of the United States, Plaintiff

vs.

The Little Sisters of the Poor”, Defendant.

This past week Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur on Raymond Arroyo’s “The World Over” overruled any objections raised by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to the HHS Mandate relying upon Sister Carol Keehan’s acceptance of Pres. Obama’s accomodation.

Why would The Little Sisters of the Poor fare any better than the USCCB?

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, September 27, AD 2013 11:34am

Because Obama loves the poor!

He thinks it best that we all are poor.

So, he’s dismantling the evil, unjust economy one vicious sector at a time. At the moment, his commissars are wrecking health and coal-generated electricity.

Social justice!

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Friday, September 27, AD 2013 4:48pm

Barack Hussein Obumbler is the second adolescent to occupy the White House. Bill Clinton was the first.

When Ronald Reagan left office in January 1989, the US economy had turned around. Inflation, interest rates, unemployment and taxes were down. Tax revenues were up. The USA had the world’s best military. 1989 saw the end of Communism in Europe and 1991 saw the USSR fade into oblivion – on Christmas Day the ugly red flag was taken down over the Kremlin and replaced by the Russian tricolor flag.

And it was all p***ed away. Bush 41 raised taxes and was beaten badly. The economic growth during the Klintoon years was the result of the capital gains tax cut Dick Morris told him to sign or not get reelected – that and several Republican governors who held the line on taxes and spending.

Bush 43 could have been the4 heir to Reagan and instead made most of the mistakes his father made. We ended up with the most evil government this country has had since FDR was in the White House…..Obumbler, Reid, Pelosi.
And if you don’t think FDR was a scumbag, do some research on what he did to anyone who disagreed with him. The man was a dictator.

In a sense, we deserve what we have brought upon ourselves -a GOP that has a ruling class that desires to be Democrat Lite, a Democrat Party that is in effect organized crime and countless clueless young people who put the Chicago village idiot in the White House twice.

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