So Let it be Written, So Let it be Done.

I've seen people on FB throw themselves into breathless fits of hysteria over the fact that Santorum believes that Griswold v CT was wrongly decided. It must be that people have so lost all understanding of how our government works that the opinion of the President has the weight of law. Guess what? It doesn't! I'll guarantee you that with a conservative president, four or eight years down the line, contraception would not be outlawed, nor would even abortion. Why? Because conservatives govern by the rule of law. We are a country with a government of laws, not of men. If those on the left would say that a conservative president COULD NOT outlaw the coverage of contaceptives under your own health insurance, then HOW COULD a liberal president mandate them for ANY price?

NPR, your epidermis is showing.

The Anchoress hits NPR square on the jaw, with about a thousand links to back up the punch!

Just a quick post to say...

...I'm still alive. Work went from being like the Maytag repairman to being, well, buried.

I'm taking a much-needed break today to go to a Catholic Men's conference in Woooosta, MA with a bunch of other guys from my area. (Thanks, honey!) Fr. Mitch Pacwa and Dale Alquist are among the speakers. It should be a good day.

Keep praying for votes, not just "no" votes, but "HELL, NO!" votes.

This health care bill is not only an attack on the sanctity of life, but also the freedom of all Americans in this country. Have you called your Congressman?

Did I mention to pray?

Note to Newsweek:

We are not here to make the President's job any harder or easier. We're not here for his sake at all.

The job of the President is to serve the American people in ways consistent with the Constitution.

And dismantling the American economy against the will of the people via overreaching legislation propped up with outright bribes and unfair deals is not consistent with the Constitution.

And they wonder why the Tea Parties have become so popular these days.

George Soros met with his advisors this morning...

I've seen a few different versions of this video, but this is the best one yet.



h/t Patrick Madrid

Senator Dodd calls it quits!

...and me working in a company full of men save the one extremely liberal woman, I had no one to hug when I heard the news.

My guess is he got a phone call from Rahm explaining that it was not in the best interests of the Party for him to run again. I just wonder what job he was promised in the administration next year. Ruining-the-banking-industry-Czar?

Within minutes of Dodd's announcement came the news that CT Attorney General Richard Blumenthal will run for the Democratic ticket for the seat. He is bound to be the Democratic candidate, as he is very popular in this heavily Democratic state. (Though as we have seen from his adament pro-choice stance and his comments in last year's Catholic Church tax exempt debacle, Blumenthal is no friend of ours.)

The Republican primary will be a showdown cage-match style between Linda McMahon and Rob Simmons, both of whom are pro-choice. Since no pro-life candidate is running for the seat, we'll have to look at other factors. I'm inclined to support Simmons given his other conservative stances, especially in matters of national security and fiscal responsibility, but either one of the Republican candidates will really have to bang the drum to overcome the charm and recognition of CT's liberal posterboy, Dick Blumenthal. This race will determine if the frustration Connecticut citizens have expressed toward Senator Dodd is merely over his arrogance and disregard for his constituents or over the roughshod manner in which the Democratic machine is running this country headlong into a ditch.

Just in case you think eugenics is cool...

go check out this article at Causa Nostrae Laetitiae.

Obama shows his cards on abortion and health care

Obama's reaction to the House passage of the health care legislation with the Stupak amendment reveals where this is all going.

The Stupak amendment bans federal funding of abortion, which means that those who wish to have an abortion or who think they might need one in the future will either have to pay for one directly or will need to purchase the insurance with abortion coverage at their own expense.

Then Obama expresses concern that the amendment will restrict women's choices and opportunity to get such "health care."

Is he really afraid that purchasing private health care will be an actual restriction on procuring an abortion? That could only be the case if there is no private health insurance. There would only be no private health insurance if we move to the single-payer system, which Senator Obama declared was a goal of his. Many people have criticized the government intervention in health care as paving the way for single-payer health care, a charge that President Obama, Pelosi and Reid have vehemently denied. Who do you believe, them or your own eyes and ears?

The International Olympic Committee

shows that it is full of racist, right-wing teabaggers.

The shell game of health care reform

Well, I promised Leticia last week that I would get my own post up here about the town hall meeting with my Congressman, Democrat Joe Courtney, on September 2nd.

I was fortunate enough to get in, arriving at about 5:40 for the 6:30 meeting, one of the last people allowed into the 519-capacity auditorium. The place was packed, and as they wouldn't allow standees, I found an empty seat near a man formerly of my parish, whom I was happy to sit next to.

I had a copy of the House bill on my laptop for reference if necessary, but I quickly realized that this would be impractical and jotted down my questions for Rep. Courtney. Unfortunately, the mic at the podium wasn't working properly, so the moderators would hold the clip-on mic for questioners then race down to the front so Joe could answer.

There were loud protests when the first announcement was made that the school needed us to be done by 8:30, so we were on a limited time frame. (I wonder what other event was planned there that evening?)

Anyway, the crowd, from my estimation was a little more evenly spread pro/con than was evident from the people milling about outside. Yes, it was a bit raucous at times, but most people at least tried to be respectful to let others ask their question, and when emotion did overtake, many cries of "Let him speak" did carry sway. (I'll note that the only person who did have to be escorted out was a heckler in support of the bill who continually yelled over others' criticism of the bill and the congressman.)

Not surprisingly, I wasn't satisfied with the answers that Joe gave. He continually found ways to make general statements that didn't address people's particular critiques or questions (especially regarding how this can be paid for). He stated about four times that he himself does not participate in the Congressional health care plan, a principled stance he plans to continue until everyone has access to the same care. (Hey, for all my disagreements with Mr. Courtney, I can respect that. However, that answer only goes so far, especially when people wanted to know how other members of Congress could vote for this legislation without being held to its consequences.)

I did not get to ask my questions, though not for lack of holding up my hand the entire time.

So here are a few of my questions and concerns:

1. President Obama has gone on a crusade to quash myths about the health care plan in Congress. He claims that one such fabrication is that abortion would not be covered by tax payer dollars. Mr. Courtney also made that claim on his local radio appearance two weeks ago delineating a system of payment credits and sequestering of funds, citing the Capps Amendment, which passed on July 30th. However, the Capps Amendment only makes those delineations in the section on the private Health Insurance Exchange, whereas the section on the public option only states that the public option shall provide abortions for which public funds are allowed and shall not be prevented or prohibited from covering abortions for which federal funds are not allowed. Nope, no disconnect here.

2. As I read through the text of the bill (I had 16 hours to kill when I missed my flight at O'Hare) I was struck by the amount of authority that the Congress would essentially be ceding--in our name-- to the Administration. By this plan, the rules that govern the health care of every man, woman and child in the United States would be determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. That means that the decisions that most intimately affect everyone would henceforth be political. Every presidential election from now until the end of the Republic would be about what's in "my health care." Not the economy, not national security, not education. Don't like your health care plan? Wait four years and elect a new president.

For all those in support of this legislation, I can't help but wonder if they would have given this much authority to President Bush?

3. My congressman has very clearly read the bill (another point for which I have to give him at least that credit). However, many members of Congress had not until recently, and it's not certain that they all have read it yet. This bill would restructure one sixth of the American economy, and if President Obama and Speaker Pelosi had their way, this bill would have been passed a month ago before Congress went on August recess, before the American people could have read the bill. Is this responsible?

4. Courtney side-stepped another question about the path to single-payer health care by stating that this bill is not single payer health care and that such a plan would have zero chance of passing now. Yet that is not the concern here, Joe. We can see that it doesn't yet create a single-payer mandate, but Barney Franks is on record admitting that if we are to get to a single-payer structure, the public option is the best way to get there.

Then, after hearing President Obama's campaign speech before both houses tonight, another thought crossed my mind. He said that the public option would have to be self-sufficient, operating only on the premiums it collects. And then I got to thinking, if the public option is for those who cannot get health care because they either have pre-existing conditions or they cannot afford it, how will they be able to afford the premiums on the public option unless it is taxpayer subsidized? (Let that sink in, then, and see question 1 above.)

And if the Health Insurance Exchange will impose rules on private companies that forbid them from denying coverage or dropping people, why would the public option be necessary at all? A cheaper alternative? How then, will it stay viable as a system if it is collecting lower premiums?

Obama made it clear that everyone will have to purchase (or in the case of employers, provide) health insurance or they will be taxed. Two questions: 1. If an individual decides not to buy health insurance and is fined/taxed, does that tax automatically enroll him in the public option or does he still have to buy insurance now on top of that? 2. If a company drops insurance benefits for employees and is fined/taxed, will the fine be much greater than the premiums it currently pays? Otherwise, any business owner will be calculating the premium amount and administrative costs; suffering the tax and letting all the employees get dumped into the public option might be a wise business decision. (Is this the ultimate goal? Is the public option the mechanism for eventually getting everyone into a single infrastructure of health care?)

Keep watching the shell. This game isn't over yet.

Just my two cents on the home-schooled girl

ordered into a public school by a judge because she had rigid religious views.

In the process of renegotiating the terms of a parenting plan for the girl, the guardian ad litem involved in the case concluded, according to the court order, that the girl “appeared to reflect her mother’s rigidity on questions of faith” and that the girl’s interests “would be best served by exposure to a public school setting” and “different points of view at a time when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief...in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs.”

I wonder, if, as Subvet asks, what would have happened if she had been raised as an atheist? Would she have been sent to a Catholic school? Or if she had been raised by Muslims, would the judge have ordered her to a synagogue school?

Of course not.

Now, I don't know this girl and neither do you. Maybe she has a devout, even orthodox, faith in Christ. Maybe she thinks that anyone who rolls the toilet paper off the top instead of the bottom is predestined for hell. But that's not the point here. Obviously, her education was not an issue, as the judge clearly admits that she is “well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising, and intellectually at or superior to grade level”. What the judge found in need of correcting was that the girl has firmly held beliefs not in conformity to the amorphous, relativist, secular mindset that pervades our culture. The problem is not that the girl has religious beliefs; the problem is that she takes those beliefs seriously.

See, people in our culture are very tolerant of those who have different beliefs, as long as no one holds those beliefs to be actually true. Beliefs are permissible if they are not actually beliefs. Nice fables, fine. Vague moral compass, OK. But the moment that someone acts like beliefs and actions have real consequences in a metaphysical way, then they must be isolated and corrected.

It's like the parents that send their kids to Catholic school so they will have some religious upbringing, but fail to attend Mass. These are the people who send their kids to learn all about the faith that's not real enough or important enough to put into practice. But that's OK, right? I mean, as long as you're a good person, God's not going to reject you.

I'm not advocating any witch-hunts of non-believers, if that's what my tone suggests. But my frustration lies greatest with an attitude toward that faith that renders it "cute" or "curious". The danger of a pluralistic society is not that there are people who believe differently who might challenge my beliefs. It's that a pluralistic society demands that I have no belief at all.

If only Obama could hide the truth...

...he'd be as successful as LBJ in enacting health care reform. At least that's what NPR's Renee Montagne and her guest James Monroe concluded in this story that aired on August 26th.

Johnson maneuvered every step of the way getting this bill through Congress, and one of the things he did — and this is a little dicey in today's climate — was suppress the costs. So this young kid gets elected from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, in 1962, and Johnson is explaining to him [over the phone] how you get a health bill through. And what he tells him is don't let them get the costs projected too far out because it will scare other people:

"A health program yesterday runs $300 million, but the fools had to go to projecting it down the road five or six years, and when you project it the first year, it runs $900 million. Now I don't know whether I would approve $900 million second year or not. I might approve 450 or 500. But the first thing Dick Russell comes running in saying, 'My God, you've got a billion-dollar program for next year on health, therefore I'm against any of it now.' Do you follow me?"

We believe, after looking at the evidence, my co-author [David Blumenthal] and I, that if the true cost of Medicare had been known — if Johnson hadn't basically hidden them — the program would never have passed. America's second-most beloved program would never have happened, if we had had genuine cost estimates.

Ya got that? One of the most "beloved" entitlement programs in American history, which is headed into insolvency only passed because Johnson hid the actual cost of the program. And a host on NPR offers this as advice to President Obama in order to pass health care reform. You see, what Mr. Monroe calls "dicey" is known better by a different word: "deceit."

But do you get the bigger implication here? Medicare is the second-most beloved program in America and it would have gotten derailed if people had been scared off by the cost of it. And all of you fear-mongers trying to derail this health care reform just don't know what's best for you like we do. If only you'd shut up and let us pass this without your opposition, you'd get another giant entitlement program that everyone will love twenty or thirty years from now.

Except that there's this nagging fact about Medicare: it's going to be bankrupt because the money was mismanaged and the original cost was incorrectly predicted. But there's no reason to think that will happen in this case, is there?