Tuesday, February 14, 2012

UPDATE: What They Are Saying: Preventive Health Care and Religious Institutions: Well see about that.....

UPDATE:  I received new information on Sr.Carol Keehan of the Catholic Health Association, see below:

This comes straight from the White House blog, does anyone check on this website?  Well, I did and for curious reasons wanted to know what the White House was publishing for the world to see on this issue.  I found it completely one-sided, certainly not balanced, but I'll let you be the judge.

Written by Jennifer Palmieri:
On Friday, President Obama announced that his Administration will implement a policy that accommodates religious liberty while protecting the health of women. Under the new policy, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive services – no matter where she works. And as previously announced, churches and houses of worship will be exempt from the requirement to refer or provide coverage for contraception. But if a woman’s employer is a charity, hospital or other religious organization that has a religious objection to providing contraceptive services as part of its health plan, her insurance company – and not the hospital or charity – will be required to reach out and offer her contraceptive care free of charge.

This policy has earned praise from a wide range of individuals and organizations, including many organizations that will be directly affected by this policy. Here’s what people are saying:

Catholic Health Association
“The Catholic Health Association is very pleased with the White House announcement that a resolution has been reached that protects the religious liberty and conscience rights of Catholic institutions. The framework developed has responded to the issues we identified that needed to be fixed.”


Catholic Charities
“Catholic Charities USA welcomes the Administration’s attempt to meet the concerns of the religious community and we look forward to reviewing the final language. We are hopeful that this is a step in the right direction and are committed to continuing our work to ensure that our religious institutions will continue to be granted the freedom to remain faithful to our beliefs, while also being committed to providing access to quality healthcare for our 70,000 employees and their families across the country.”

Rev. John Jenkins, President of the University of Notre Dame
“We applaud the willingness of the administration to work with religious organizations to find a solution acceptable to all parties.”

Planned Parenthood
“In the face of a misleading and outrageous assault on women’s health, the Obama administration has reaffirmed its commitment to ensuring all women will have access to birth control coverage, with no costly co-pays, no additional hurdles, and no matter where they work. We believe the compliance mechanism does not compromise a woman’s ability to access these critical birth control benefits.”

Catholics United
“Catholics United has been calling on both sides of this heated debate to work towards today's win-win solution. President Obama has shown us that he is willing to rise above the partisan fray to deliver an actual policy solution that both meets the health care needs of all employees and respects the religious liberty of Catholic institutions."
Congressman John Larson
“As a strong supporter of healthcare reform and the plan to provide free preventative care - including contraception - to all Americans, I want to applaud President Obama for finding a path forward to provide coverage to everyone while addressing the conscience concerns of religiously-affiliated organizations.”

NARAL Pro-Choice America
“Today’s announcement makes it clear that President Obama is firmly committed to protecting women’s health.”


Senator Barbara Boxer
"The President has made clear that we can – and must – protect women's health and the religious freedom of all. The fact that groups from Planned Parenthood to the Catholic Health Association support this policy should put an end to the vicious political attacks and allow us all to focus on providing these critical health benefits to millions of American women and families."


Broad Coalition of Faith Community Leaders“Today the Obama administration announced an important regulation that will protect the conscience rights of religious organizations and ensure that all women have access to contraception without a co-payment. We applaud the White House for listening carefully to the concerns raised by religious leaders on an issue that has provoked heated and often misinformed debate. This ruling is a major victory for religious liberty and women’s health. President Obama has demonstrated that these core values do not have to be in conflict.”

Jennifer Palmieri is White House Deputy Communications Director

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Ok, now let's break this blog post down:

1. It's only happy-happy stuff, praise and continued worship of the current POTUS

2. Let's look at these chosen few able to express their opinions:

Catholic health association: Not sure about this organization  UPDATE:  My suspicion was right, see this:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2010/jun/10060413 and this:  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/sr.-keehan-thanks-pro-choice-group-for-support-asks-it-to-spend-funds-in-ch

Catholic Charities: Not sure about this one either.....here in Greenville,NC, it's director is a non-Catholic

NARAL Pro-Choice: National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. Well of course they're going to be happy.

Rev. John Jenkins, President of the University of Notre Dame: Well remember graduation a few yrs ago.  Notre Dame has also, due to this err in Jenkins' judgement lost it's Catholic rating.


Planned Parenthood: Their opinion is no surprise

Cong John Larson: Well, he's a Democrat and strong supporter of the Healthcare reform...nuff said.

Catholics United: A totally dissented group of people, check out Catholic Culture.org's rating of RED

Senator Barbara Boxer....... REAlly??? are we surprised by her?

Broad Coalition of Faith Community Leaders: Who are these people??
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How about what the other side, let’s hear what they have to say, like:

Cardinal Archbishop Wuerl of Washington, DC?

Statement on White House announcement on the HHS mandate

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington

February 10, 2012

“Today’s announcement by President Barack Obama on the Department of Health and Human Services mandate requiring individual and institutional support for abortifacients, sterilization and contraceptives suggests that the administration may be open to considering concerns about religious freedom. Certainly, the details of any proposed revision to the regulation will have to be studied once they are available. At first reading, significant concerns remain.



“What has become very clear since the final HHS mandate was issued three weeks ago is that Catholics and non-Catholics of all persuasions are united in the conviction that religious liberty must be respected. Regardless of whether or not they agree with Church teaching on a particular issue, people believe strongly that the government should not force the Church and its institutions to do things it considers morally wrong. Hopefully, the ultimate resolution of this issue will reflect this longstanding American principle. No matter the outcome, we must continue to be vigilant against the encroachment of government on the free exercise of religion.”



The USCCB
Bishops Renew Call to Legislative Action on Religious Liberty

February 10, 2012Regulatory changes limited and unclear
Rescission of mandate only complete solution
Continue urging passage of Respect for Rights of Conscience Act
WASHINGTON – The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has issued the following statement:

The Catholic bishops have long supported access to life-affirming healthcare for all, and the conscience rights of everyone involved in the complex process of providing that healthcare. That is why we raised two serious objections to the "preventive services" regulation issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in August 2011.

First, we objected to the rule forcing private health plans — nationwide, by the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen—to cover sterilization and contraception, including drugs that may cause abortion. All the other mandated "preventive services" prevent disease, and pregnancy is not a disease. Moreover, forcing plans to cover abortifacients violates existing federal conscience laws. Therefore, we called for the rescission of the mandate altogether.

Second, we explained that the mandate would impose a burden of unprecedented reach and severity on the consciences of those who consider such "services" immoral: insurers forced to write policies including this coverage; employers and schools forced to sponsor and subsidize the coverage; and individual employees and students forced to pay premiums for the coverage. We therefore urged HHS, if it insisted on keeping the mandate, to provide a conscience exemption for all of these stakeholders—not just the extremely small subset of "religious employers" that HHS proposed to exempt initially.
Today, the President has done two things.

First, he has decided to retain HHS's nationwide mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacients. This is both unsupported in the law and remains a grave moral concern. We cannot fail to reiterate this, even as so many would focus exclusively on the question of religious liberty.

Second, the President has announced some changes in how that mandate will be administered, which is still unclear in its details. As far as we can tell at this point, the change appears to have the following basic contours:

•It would still mandate that all insurers must include coverage for the objectionable services in all the policies they would write. At this point, it would appear that self-insuring religious employers, and religious insurance companies, are not exempt from this mandate.

•It would allow non-profit, religious employers to declare that they do not offer such coverage. But the employee and insurer may separately agree to add that coverage. The employee would not have to pay any additional amount to obtain this coverage, and the coverage would be provided as a part of the employer's policy, not as a separate rider.

•Finally, we are told that the one-year extension on the effective date (from August 1, 2012 to August 1, 2013) is available to any non-profit religious employer who desires it, without any government application or approval process.

These changes require careful moral analysis, and moreover, appear subject to some measure of change. But we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected. And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer's plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.

We just received information about this proposal for the first time this morning; we were not consulted in advance. Some information we have is in writing and some is oral. We will, of course, continue to press for the greatest conscience protection we can secure from the Executive Branch. But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today's proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. In a nation dedicated to religious liberty as its first and founding principle, we should not be limited to negotiating within these parameters. The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.
We will therefore continue—with no less vigor, no less sense of urgency—our efforts to correct this problem through the other two branches of government. For example, we renew our call on Congress to pass, and the Administration to sign, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. And we renew our call to the Catholic faithful, and to all our fellow Americans, to join together in this effort to protect religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all.

David Limbaugh, wrote on Feb 10th for AFA.org

"...Once again, he must think he can placate opponents by patting them on the head and telling them they just need to settle down, see the superior wisdom and morality of his position, and understand that everything will be fine if they'll just believe in him. Yes, that's right; the Post reports that administration officials are telling liberal groups and lawmakers that Obama is not backing down from his hard-line position on the rule, but assuring "religious groups that a phase-in period will allow the two sides to agree on an approach to putting the rule into practice."


You see, in Obama's grandiose world -- in which rhetoric, sophism and endless speechifying reign supreme -- every impasse can be breached with his miraculously penetrating silver tongue.

But this time, as has been increasingly the case for the hapless, unreflective Obama, his obfuscation will not work. As Anthony R. Picarello Jr., general counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said, "so far, (the administration's promise to) 'work this thing through' is just the sugar-coated version of 'force you to comply.'


Indeed, this authoritarian administration prohibited a Catholic Army chaplain from reading a letter by Timothy Broglio -- archbishop of the Military Services, USA -- criticizing the mandate because with it, "the Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States" in a way that is "denying Catholics our Nation's first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty."

One way or another -- either by backing down or by facing an electoral spanking -- Obama will not win this one. With the backlash he is inviting, he might finally learn the limits of his mythical magic.
David Limbaugh, brother of radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, is an expert in law and politics and author of new book Crimes Against Liberty, the definitive chronicle of Barack Obama's devastating term in office so far.

Eternal Word Television Network:

"We had no other option but to take this to the courts," says EWTN President and CEO Michael P. Warsaw. "Under the HHS mandate, EWTN is being forced by the government to make a choice: either we provide employees coverage for contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs and violate our conscience or offer our employees and their families no health insurance coverage at all. Neither of those choices is acceptable.

Focus on the Family, spokesperson, Carrie Gordon Earl, February 13, 2012

“This is a repackaging of the same problem…Changing the accounting mechanism doesn’t eliminate the violation of the religious freedom we have here.”

Government Pork: by Karina Fabian

Dear Friends: The HHS compromise is no compromise—it’s an escalation, making it impossible not only for the Catholic Church to live according to its beliefs, but any small business that may also believe as the Church does. I wrote this parable to try to put the debate out of the “contraception/women’s health” light and show the other issues at stake. Feel free to copy this story and use it on your own blogs. If you do, please include this link to sign a petition to stop the HHS mandate (or if you know of another petition, include it) https://www.stophhs.com/sign-the-petition/


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Once there was a wonderful town full of people who loved to eat, and many wonderful and varied restaurants that served excellent food: Italian and French, Japanese and Mongolian, Middle Eastern and even a kosher delicatessen. Not everyone liked every restaurant, of course, and some people even thought particular restaurants were odd, but they appreciated the variety available to all.



There were also a lot of pig farmers, and people enjoyed the fresh pork. One year, they had a mayor who loved fresh pork. He thought it was the right of everyone in the town to have pork at any meal they wanted. “Why,” he’d say,” if there was only one meal I could give my kids, it’d be pork chops!” Of course, lots of the people loved pork as well, and they applauded his enthusiasm.



One day he sat in his office, thinking about how much he and others liked pork, and he decided that every restaurant should serve pork and wine, at every meal. Oh, maybe not every individual would want to eat pork, but they deserved the right to have it on their plate! Otherwise, they didn’t really have a choice, right? And so, he set out a decree that all restaurants would serve some form of pork in every meal.



Well, the delicatessen and the Middle Eastern restaurant were upset by this. They couldn’t serve pork—it was against their religions. So they went to the Mayor and asked to be excused from this rule. “After all,” they said, “people know we never serve pork.”



“But you should. People have the right to pork. Some of your customers eat pork. Even some of your employees enjoy a good ham!”



“And if they wish to, they may–but not in our restaurants,” the owners said. “It’s against the kind of restaurants we are to serve pork. And we have customers who do not want pork, who would be offended and do not want to pay for pork.”



“Well, I’m offended that you won’t serve it—and I’m sure other pork lovers agree that your attitude is most disagreeable.”



“Our customers and our employees know where we stand, and they continue to frequent our restaurants and work for us. We serve them well, but we do not serve them pork. We have the right to our own menus. We should not be forced.”



But the mayor stood firm. “No,” he said. “Everyone has the right to have pork, and it’s my duty to make sure it’s always available, whether you agree or not. It’s healthier than beef anyway. If you don’t like it, you can pay a fine and stop serving food—or you can close down.”



The restaurant managers refused to change their menus. Many people stood by them—because they, too, would not eat pork and didn’t want to pay for it; or because they agreed that restaurants should choose their own menus; or because they didn’t like the mayor telling people how to run their own businesses. The movie theaters stood by him, because they were afraid if the Mayor could change menus, he might also start dictating what shows would be played.



The pork lovers, however, were incensed. How dare the restaurants not give them pork if they wanted it?



“I can’t eat beef; what should I do then?” one demanded. “Do you just want to send me away to starve?”



“We have other dishes,” they said. “Our menu and service would be no different than before. We can feed you many things; just not pork.”



Nonetheless, the press, too, said that the two restaurants would rather let people starve rather than eat pork.



Despite the outcry of the pork lovers, more and more people said, “Let them choose their own menu!”



So the Mayor called the restaurant owners into his office. He had a compromise, he said.



“I won’t make you buy pork. You don’t have to prepare it, or touch it. Instead, all restaurant suppliers will have to supply pork to every restaurant, free of charge, and for those that don’t want to serve the pork, suppliers will cook it and put it on every plate themselves. You just look the other way.”



“But there would still be pork in our restaurant!” the owners cried. “Besides, they will increase the price of meat to cover their new expenses.”



“Oh, they wouldn’t do that. I’d tell them not to. Besides, the point is you wouldn’t be actually serving pork. See how well that works? Everyone gets pork and you can say you never provided it. And if your patrons don’t want to eat it, they don’t have to; it’s enough that it’s there for them.”



So, problem solved?
—-
(“Hold on!” one restaurant supplier said. “I’m Jewish!”)



How good a writer is Karina?   She wrote this in 15 minutes!!!  KUDOs!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Democrats love CRAP and passing around CRAP showing their ignorance!!




Saw this picture (on top)  posted on Facebook and just had to do my own research.  Knowing what I know about the current POTUS's continuous debt ceiling extensions, I knew this was a one-sided, unresearched, blind, koolaide-drinking share.  I was right.  The next chart underneath is from the Congressional Budget Office's website.  I also checked the Politifact.com "Truth-o-meter" for this picture's source. 
Again, busted!!  This left picture is rated "Pants on Fire"!!

Just ONCE, I'd like to see an election season let the REAL facts be shown and not all this ONE-SIDED, KOOLAIDE DRINKING, COMPLETE CRAP fly!!!

I'll be checking other places and other resources and I vow that no CRAP will be left blindly accepted as truth without some research!!!

God bless our COUNTRY!!