Obama’s National Preparedness order creates a ‘martial law matrix,’ author says

By Ben Johnson
Lifsitenews.com

A little-noticed executive order issued earlier this month would allow the federal government to seize all national resources (including food), draft civilians into the military or forced “labor,” regulate all communications, and ration health care to “promote the national defense.” Congress may be briefed on the government’s actions but lacks any power to alter them. This completes a “martial law matrix” that hands all national resources to Washington, a prominent author told LifeSiteNews.com.

Barack Obama issued the executive order, “National Defense Resources Preparedness,” on March 16.

Jim Garrison of The Huffington Post summarized its provisions:
• The Secretary of Defense has power over all water resources;
• The Secretary of Commerce has power over all material services and facilities,
   including construction materials;
• The Secretary of Transportation has power over all forms of civilian transportation;
• The Secretary of Agriculture has power over food resources and facilities, livestock
   plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment;
• The Secretary of Health and Human Services has power over all health resources;
• The Secretary of Energy has power over all forms of energy.

Each power includes all its component parts. For example, “Civil transportation includes movement of persons and property by all modes of transportation in interstate, intrastate, or foreign commerce within the United States, its territories and possessions, and the District of Columbia, and related public storage and warehousing, ports, services, equipment and facilities.” Similarly “Food resource” means all commodities and products, (simple, mixed, or compound), or complements to such commodities or products, that are capable of being ingested by either human beings or animals.”

“These are entirely illegitimate powers from a Constitutional perspective,” author and editor William Norman Grigg told LifeSiteNews.com. “There is not even a hint or a whisper or legitimacy here.”

“You’re dealing with someone who clearly doesn’t see the presidency as susceptible to any limits whatsoever, either legal or constitutional,” he said.

Grigg, who is managing editor of Republic Magazine, said, “What is especially troubling is that he shows no compunction at all about exercising all of the powers that have been claimed by his predecessors and adding to that corpus of extra-constitutional presidential powers.”

These sweeping new powers may be invoked “in peacetime and in times of national emergency,” whenever they are “deemed necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense.” The president would determine when those circumstances apply.

Congress would be briefed on the agencies’ actions – annually – but could not alter policy.

The president’s defenders, including some Republicans, say the executive order only updates the Defense Production Act of 1950 and of Bill Clinton’s Executive Order 12919, written in 1994. The chief difference is the new order transfers functions from FEMA to the Department of Homeland Security.

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air wrote, “Barack Obama may be arrogant, and the timing of this release might have looked a little strange, but this is really nothing to worry about at all.”

But Grigg says the change from a wartime to peacetime emergency alone is troubling.“When you’re dealing with semantic engineering that is that finely tuned, that ooks very much like evidence of bad intent,” he said. “They have dispensed with the idea that there needs to be a discrete event that would trigger a national emergency is significant.”

The reliance on previous executive orders also troubles Grigg. “Obama has…spoken about the supposed virtues of the domestic regimentation of the entire civilian population along military lines,” he said. “That goes right back to Bernard Baruch,” chairman of the National War Industries Board under President Woodrow Wilson during World War I. He wrote in 1918, “We are living today in a highly organized state of socialism. The state is all; the individual is of importance only as he contributes to the welfare of the state.”

“That is an aspiration that has been alive in the bosom of pretty much every collectivist since time immemorial,” Grigg told LifeSiteNews.com.

Some who support the order are troubled by its reliance on a 62-year-old law. Doug Mataconis, who believes the executive order is nothing to worry about, wrote, “The fact that the President of the United States is still exercising authority granted during the Korean War and the height of the Cold War is yet another reflection of how power, once assumed by the Imperial Presidency, is never surrendered.”

The president’s defenders in both parties say the order is merely a worst case scenario in the event of a nuclear strike or catastrophic disaster that would disable the normal flow of daily life. This would let the federal government maintain order.

“There really is no strategic or tactical case to be made for executive dictatorship as an emergency management strategy,” Grigg said. “The problem here is the assumption that the best way to deal with that kind of tragedy is to centralize power and thereby give one convenient target to our enemies. In a strategic sense, that makes no sense.”

On the contrary, widely defusing and localizing power would make it more difficult for an enemy to completely disrupt national life.

“I think there really ought to be an element of humility being displayed by the same govt that conveyed the benefit of toxic FEMA trailers to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina,” he said.

However, the greatest loss is the loss of liberty, they say. Chuck Norris wrote, “enacting this martial law even during a time of peace is an unprecedented and out-of-control abuse of executive power…Our Founding Fathers never would have allowed it, and we shouldn’t, either.”

Some say that is doubly true under the current president. “By his actions he’s displayed a disposition that can be described as dictatorial,” Grigg told LifeSiteNews.com. “It’s a case of the man and the moment having met. They created this institutional architecture of executive dictatorship. Now the dictator is taking residence therein.”
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Obamacare’s Dreadful Anniversary

Mike Brownfield
The Heritage Network


Two years ago today, President Barack Obama signed into law Obamacare, a 2,700-page bill that will radically alter America’s health care system and wreak havoc on medical costs, quality of care, and fundamental rights in ways that are beyond the scope of our imagination.

Much of what was contained in Obamacare was hatched behind closed doors where not even the slightest ray of light could find its way in. Even the men and women in Congress who were entrusted to represent the people cast their votes blindly, not knowing what lay in store. As even then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) famously admitted, “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.”

The American people have already spoken, however. They want this law repealed and tossed out, as we have seen in poll after poll for the past two years. None of the activities being planned by the White House to gussy up this law will likely make a dent on the unpopularity of Obamacare.

Though even today, two years later, much of Obamacare remains to be written by unelected bureaucrats in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), we know some of what’s contained in the law and the ramifications for the American people. Most broadly, Obamacare rips vast powers from the hands of individual patients and their families, and it vests control in Washington bureaucrats. And the costs are far greater than the Administration claim — heading as high as $2.134 trillion with millions Americans dependent on government for their health care.

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that under the President’s health care law, 20 million Americans could lose their employer-sponsored health benefits and the individual and employer penalties related to the mandates could hit $221 billion. At the time of passage, many people warned as much.

But wait, there’s more.

For the last two years, Heritage has continued to dissect Obamacare and its poisonous side effects. Like a virulent disease spiraling out of control, Obamacare inflicts harm on all that it touches.

Seniors will suffer as Obamacare robs savings from Medicare in order to fund new government spending while threatening seniors’ access to care and ending Medicare as we know it. On top of that, as Heritage’s Alyene Senger writes, Obamacare makes extreme cuts to Medicare Advantage, which allows seniors to receive their Medicare benefits through a private health care plan of their choice. And it puts a group of 15 unelected officials in charge of finding cuts in Medicare to meet new spending limits.

Young Americans will suffer as well. Though the President brags that his law allows young adults to stay on their parents’ health plans until age 26, they ultimately will face higher premiums, perverse incentives to stay uninsured, and the burden of paying the extraordinary costs that the law brings with it.

There are even more consequences under Obamacare: families will pay higher taxes; businesses will face new mandates and costs; investment income will get hit with new taxes, discouraging investment and harming economic growth; Americans who purchase medicine with Health Savings Account or Flexible Savings Accounts will face new limitations; those who purchase medical devices will face higher taxes; and marriage is penalized as a result of the new subsidy scheme.

There are significant moral implications, too. Heritage’s Sarah Torre wrote yesterday of news about an abortion surcharge, which follows the HHS mandate that insurance plans must cover on abortion-inducing drugs and contraception:

These episodes are rapidly becoming the status quo of Obamacare implementation, with a familiar and predictable plot line: an unaccountable bureaucracy releases complicated rules on morally fraught healthcare decisions, runs roughshod over Americans’ moral concerns and personal freedom, and then tries to obscure the flaws of the legislation with accounting legerdemain and limited disclosure.

Last week, a CBS/New York Times poll on the HHS mandate showed strong support for religious liberty, with 57 percent of respondents saying that religious employers should not be coerced to violate their doctrine and conscience by providing coverage for abortion-inducing drugs and contraception in their health plans, compared to 36 percent who thought they should. A sizable majority — 51 percent to 40 percent — favored a religious and moral exemption for all employers.

Today at noon Americans will rally in 140 locations across the country to protest Obamacare’s trampling of religious liberty. In Washington, D.C., they’ll gather right in front of HHS and demand that the moral compass for personal health decisions be pried out of the hands of unelected bureaucrats and put back in the hands of the people.

And on Monday, the Supreme Court will begin hearing three days of oral arguments on the constitutionality of Obamacare’s controversial individual mandate, which for the first time ever forces Americans to buy a product — health care — against their will. This provision is the core of the President’s health care law, and it is a direct attack on individual liberty. Unless the Court strikes down Obamacare in its entirety, Congress must stand ready to finish the job. The American people should continue to make their voices heard, demand a repeal of Obamacare, and insist on real health care reform that increases access without forcing Americans to fall under government control.

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‘The thing that frightens our opponents most’ is ‘an evangelical-Catholic alliance’

By Ben Johnson

Lifesitenews.com

Politicians usually calculate every action to maximize their popularity among future voters, especially during an election year. But a prominent leader of the nation’s second largest denomination says President Barack Obama’s HHS mandate has the potential to unite Catholics and Protestants into a coalition that will turn him out of office in November.

Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said, “The thing that frightens our opponents the most is the specter of an evangelical-Catholic alliance – because they can count.” He told listeners of his radio program, Richard Land Live, “You take evangelicals, and you take Roman Catholics, and you are over 50 percent of the population of the country.”

Land said, while two-thirds of Baptists voted for “born again” candidate Jimmy Carter in 1976, the vote began to turn against Democrats in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, evidence continues to mount that Catholic voters are turning against the president as the election nears.

On Thursday Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, cited a new poll from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that found the number of white Catholics who saw the Obama administration as “hostile” to religion climbed from 17 percent in 2009 to 31 percent. In a press release e-mailed to LifeSiteNews.com, he said, “It is not hard to fathom why the Obama administration is having a hard time with Catholics.” In addition to the HHS mandate, “the administration recently denied funding to a Catholic social service agency that helps women and children merely because it is pro-life.”

Looking ahead to the election Donahue said, “Everyone knows that Protestants vote Republican, and Jews vote Democrat. It’s Catholics who are up for grabs.”

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The Obamacare Second Anniversary: No Gift for Women

By Alyene Senger
The Heritage Network

This week, Obamacare will have its second birthday, but there’s little reason to celebrate. Throughout the week, Obamacare advocates will be emphasizing the law’s supposed benefits on specific groups of Americans, but as Heritage’s research over the past two years has shown, Obamacare harms Americans—even the groups showcased by the left.

Today, the focus is on the law’s impact on American women. Advocates will be highlighting better benefits and free preventive care, but Heritage research shows that the health law’s new requirements will reduce patient choice, increase costs, and violate religious liberty—for women and everyone else, too.

Less Choice
Obamacare determines which preventive services must be covered by all insurers, with no cost-sharing, using the recommendations made by the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). The USPSTF uses a rating system of A through D (or I for insufficient evidence) to recommend services. Under Obamacare, services that receive a rating of A or B will be required coverage and those with C, D, or I will not be. This turns otherwise harmless and good-intentioned recommendations into requirements, distorting the USPSTF’s original purpose.

Though these requirements are intended to create a “floor” for Americans’ covered benefits, they may have the opposite effect. The mandated benefits could instead create a “ceiling” because of their high cost, which will place pressure on insurers to cover only the preventive services required. This could lead to the exclusion of services that are “recommended” but are nevertheless crucial for specific patients.

For example, in 2009, the task force changed its recommendation for breast cancer screenings for women between the ages of 40 and 50 from B to C. Controversy ensued, which led Congress to overturn the recommendation in 2010. Prior to Obamacare, a change in recommendation ranking might have carried little weight; under the health care law, it may be the difference between coverage and no coverage.

In addition, the USPSTF is one of few government agencies legally allowed to take cost into consideration when deciding whether to recommend a medical service. As health care costs rise and the government’s role in health care grows, this may mean that cost will more strongly influence coverage.

Higher Costs
In addition, mandated coverage of preventive services with no cost-sharing will increase health care costs, since cost of services will simply be passed from the insurer to the patient through higher premiums. Moreover, as Heritage expert Ed Haislmaier explains, “Prohibiting enrollee cost-sharing for specific services will stimulate greater use of those services, further increasing premiums.” Even the Administration admits that these mandates will increase premiums on average by 1.5 percent.

A Violation of Religious Freedom
Among the women-specific preventive services required by Obamacare is a mandate that insurance cover, with no cost-sharing, abortion-related drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization. The mandate has a very narrow exemption for churches but does not exclude religious hospitals, schools, and charities that find such products morally objectionable on religious grounds. This violates the First Amendment right to freedom of religion for all Americans—regardless of gender or faith.

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U.S. Bishops Launch Religious Liberty Prayer Campaign

by EWTN NEWS/CNA 03/20/2012 

The U.S. bishops have launched a nationwide prayer campaign to defend religious liberty against recent threats such as the federal contraception mandate.

The campaign centers around a newly released “Prayer for Religious Liberty,” which asks God to grant “a clear and united voice” to all who gather to defend rights of conscience “in this decisive hour in the history of our nation.”

At a Washington administrative committee meeting March 13-14, leaders of the U.S. bishops’ conference called for the campaign in response to imminent threats to religious liberty, including the Obama administration’s controversial contraception mandate.

Bishops from every diocese in the country have spoken out against the mandate, which was announced by the Department of Health and Human Services on Jan. 20 and will require employers to offer health insurance plans that cover contraception, sterilization and early abortion drugs, even if doing so violates their religious beliefs.


In a March 14 statement assessing the threat to religious freedom posed by the mandate, the bishops urged all people of faith to engage in “prayer and penance” for the protection of conscience rights in America.

“Prayer is the ultimate source of our strength,” the bishops said, observing that “without God, we can do nothing; but, with God, all things are possible.”

The bishops’ conference website offers campaign resources, including suggested prayers of the faithful for religious liberty and more information on the mandate.

It also offers a bulletin insert with instructions on how to contact members of Congress and ask them to support legislation to protect religious freedom and conscience rights under the health-care law.

The new “Prayer for Religious Liberty” can be downloaded in both Spanish and English on the website, and prayer cards featuring Mary Immaculate and Our Lady of Guadalupe can be ordered in bulk.

The prayer acknowledges that man’s “right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” comes from the “provident hand” of God the Creator.

It recognizes both “the right and the duty” to worship God by living out one’s faith “in the midst of the world.”

“We ask you to bless us in our vigilance for the gift of religious liberty,” says the prayer, which requests “strength of mind and heart to readily defend our freedoms when they are threatened.”

It also asks for “courage in making our voices heard on behalf of the rights of your Church and the freedom of conscience of all people of faith.”

The prayer asks God for help to overcome trials and dangers so that future generations may continue to experience the greatness of America as “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Prayer for Religious Liberty
(text of National Prayer Cards)
O GOD OUR CREATOR,
from your provident hand we have received
our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
You have called us as your people and given us
the right and the duty to worship you, the only true God,
and your Son, Jesus Christ.

Through the power and working of your Holy Spirit,
you call us to live out our faith in the midst of the world,
bringing the light and the saving truth of the Gospel
to every corner of society.

We ask you to bless us
in our vigilance for the gift of religious liberty.
Give us the strength of mind and heart
to readily defend our freedoms when they are threatened;
give us courage in making our voices heard
on behalf of the rights of your Church
and the freedom of conscience of all people of faith.

Grant, we pray, O heavenly Father,
a clear and united voice to all your sons and daughters
gathered in your Church
in this decisive hour in the history of our nation,
so that, with every trial withstood
and every danger overcome —
for the sake of our children, our grandchildren,
and all who come after us —
this great land will always be “one nation, under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Copyright © 2012, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC. All rights reserved.

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Evangelical leaders urged to mobilize against administration contraception policy

Chuck Colson is urging evangelicals to join with Catholics in a fight against a contracpetion mandate.

By Jessica Yellin, CNN
An influential Christian leader is calling for the evangelical community to match the Catholic church's efforts mobilizing against the Obama administration's policy on contraception coverage.

"I'm asking evangelical churches to get as involved as the Catholic church has," said Chuck Colson, founder of the Prison Fellowship and the Christian radio broadcast Breakpoint. "Catechize members. If it's from the pulpit, that's fine. If by pastoral letter, that's fine. If by announcements at Bible studies, that's fine. The church in America is a sleeping giant. On an issue like this, it will be aroused."

Colson e-mailed more than 500,000 people of faith Thursday afternoon and called the contraception policy "the greatest threat to religious liberty in the history of this country."

The e-mail added, "We evangelicals need to take a page from the Roman Catholics. ... It would be difficult for a Catholic attending mass to avoid reading or hearing about this battle. ... I don't want to impugn anyone's motives, but the New York Times reported last week that the Obama administration is preparing a major campaign. It has programmed one million letters to influential women across America, energizing them over this issue."

The letter urges followers to frame this as a debate about religious freedom, not contraception, because it's a more effective way to sway public opinion.

Colson concludes, "Brothers and sisters, let me tell you bluntly that if we don't win this battle, we lose not only religious freedom, but every freedom guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. When freedom of conscience is lost, history teaches that the rest follow quickly. So let's all join together. Contact your constituents and supporters. Why shouldn't every evangelical leader do what the Catholics are doing—start circulating to our own mailing lists explaining why this issue is NOT about contraceptives; it is about religious freedom. It's unprecedented. We must not stand idly by while our most precious freedom is imperiled."

In the coming weeks, Colson and other evangelical activists will participate in events designed to educate supporters to write letters to their members of Congress, attend rallies or support lawsuits on the policy.

Speaking to CNN, Colson invoked the Manhattan Declaration, an interfaith statement of unity defending pro-life and traditional marriage positions. "The 525,000 people who signed the Manhattan Declaration said we'll render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar but not what belongs to God."

He added, "We're headed for the biggest constitutional clash between government and church in my lifetime, and it will hurt us both, and we cannot do that."

Colson spoke the same day the Obama administration released updated rules to its contraception policy. The update effectively restates the administration's position that women who work for religious institutions with moral objections to contraception can get birth-control pills and other reproductive health care directly though their insurers.

The policy also begins a process of public comment for religious institutions that fund their own insurance plans.
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What the media doesn’t want you to know: Americans hate the HHS mandate



by Chuck Colson
The most important talking point used by those who support the HHS contraception mandate is that the Catholic Bishops and their allies are “out-of-touch” and represent a minority view.

You have no doubt heard things like “98 percent of Catholic women use contraception” and “most Americans, especially women, support the HHS mandate.”

Well, it’s not true. The first assertion is based on a study by the Guttmacher Institute, which as an affiliate of Planned Parenthood, is hardly an objective observer. Even the Washington Post compared the media to Pinocchio for using these statistics.

In fact, the most that can be concluded is that many sexually-active Catholic women have, at some point in their lives, used contraception. That says nothing about whether they and other Americans support the HHS mandate.

Speaking of which, the claim that most Americans, especially women, support the HHS mandate is equally bogus. I know that will surprise you, given what the administration and the media are constantly telling us. But repeating a falsehood doesn’t make it true.

For example, a recent New York Times story told readers that, according to its latest poll “women were split as to whether health insurance plans should cover the costs of birth control and whether employers with religious objections should be able to opt out.”

As Mickey Kaus at the Daily Caller put it, “if the Times says women were ‘split,’ you know that must mean they were actually narrowly against the [Times’] preferred position.” And that’s precisely so. By a 46-44 margin, women favored a religious exemption for all employers. The gap widened to 53-38 in the case of religiously-affiliated employers.

Men, who do vote after all, were even more supportive of opt-out provisions. Overall, Americans, by a 57-to-36 margin favor allowing religiously-affiliated employers to opt out. Remember that statistic.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed similar results: by 49-to-34 percent, Americans oppose requiring “religious institutions” to provide contraception and abortion-inducing drugs.

Now like I say, this may surprise you. It certainly comes as a surprise to the media. While, as Kaus says, the president “appears to be losing the public debate” on the HHS mandate, the media, which overwhelmingly supports the mandate, can’t see it. When the president’s approval ratings drop, they cite gas prices instead.

Well they may not be able to see it, but I can, and you should too. This is a battle that is both crucial and winnable. The important thing is to keep the focus on where it belongs: religious freedom. The early polls were a reaction to the media’s initial announcement that this was all about contraception, but the Catholic bishops and everybody else has been working hard to educate them.

And you need to continue to educate people that this is about religious liberty. This battle won’t be won in the pews — it will be won over the backyard fence and during kids’ baseball games. It’s getting warm outside, so break out the grill, throw on some burgers and hot dogs, invite your neighbors over, and start talking. And then phone and email your legislators and the Administration.

As Mark Twain once said, “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

Okay folks, put on your shoes, we are winning.
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James Madison: Father and Defender of the Constitution

By Julia Shaw
March 17, 2012

George Washington has a monument; Jefferson has a memorial; and even James Buchanan has a spot in Washington, D.C., dedicated to his legacy. But there’s no slab of marble in honor of James Madison.

Yesterday was James Madison’s birthday, so today let us then remember his legacy as the father of our Constitution.

Madison conceived the basic outline of the Constitution before the Constitutional Convention even met. He came to the Convention steeped in the histories of ancient republics, well-versed in the political theory of the ages, and prepared with a plan for the new government. The Convention took an oath of secrecy but did not remain shrouded in mystery, because we have Madison’s detailed notes.

After the Constitution was drafted, Madison teamed up with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay to write the Federalist, which in Jefferson’s words was “the best commentary on the principles of government, which ever was written.” The key phrases we associate with the Constitution—federalism, checks and balances, and the separation of powers—appear not in the document itself, but in the Federalist. It’s James Madison who writes, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” And Madison who concludes: “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men… you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

Once the new Constitution was implemented, Madison served in Congress. As chairman of the House conference committee on the Bill of Rights, he was the principle author. This position enabled him to look after a cause dear to him throughout his political career—religious liberty. Madison’s original draft of the First Amendment read: “the civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship… nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed…” Though somewhat less expansive in its protections, the final version bears Madison’s mark: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Joe Loconte argues that thanks “largely to Madison, free exercise replaced toleration as the national standard for protecting religious liberty.”

Madison is sometimes invoked as the father of nullification, too. But, as Christian Fritz expertly lays out, Madison may deny paternity. Madison maintained that single states lacked constitutional authority to nullify national laws. But interposition refers to various state actions designed to arouse public opposition, challenge federal actions, and ultimately change or stop the objectionable action. Through public opinion, protests, petitions, or even the state legislatures acting as an instrument of the people, the interposer would focus attention on whether the government’s actions were permissible under the Constitution. Though often confused with nullification, Madison’s understanding of interposition was consistent with the Constitution and encouraged states and citizens to remain vigilant against federal encroachment.

We don’t need a slab of marble to remember James Madison. Instead, we have the Constitution that created the framework for ordered liberty and more than 200 years of stable, peaceful republican government. We have the Bill of Rights that singles out specific individual liberties that all Americans possess, especially the right to religious liberty. And, most importantly, we have his legacy on how to defend this document.

Posted in First Principles

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Obama Administration Partially Caves on Abortion/Contraception Mandate

by Jimmy Akin
From the National Catholic *Reporter* (not Register):

Taking a conciliatory tone and asking for a wide range of public comment, the Obama administration announced this afternoon new accommodations on a controversial mandate requiring contraceptive coverage in health care plans.

Coming after a month of continued opposition from the U.S. bishops to the mandate, which was first revised in early February to exempt certain religious organizations, today’s announced changes from the Department of Health and Human Services make a number of concessions, including allowing religious organizations that self-insure to be made exempt.

Also raised is the possibility that the definition given for religious employers in the original mandate could be changed.
. . .

News of the changes also came as a separate ruling on student health insurance coverage was announced by the Department of Health and Human Services this afternoon. Under that ruling, health care plans for students would be treated like those of employees of colleges and universities—meaning the colleges will have to provide contraceptive services to students without co-pay.

Religiously affiliated colleges and universities, however, would be shielded from this ruling, according to a statement from the HHS.

“In the same way that religious colleges and universities will not have to pay, arrange or refer for contraceptive coverage for their employees, they will not have to do so for their students who will get such coverage directly and separately from their insurer,” the statement said.

In the 32-page proposal on the broader health care mandate published in the Federal Register today, the Health and Human Services Department says it is not yet making final rules on the contraceptive mandate, but is instead issuing questions and suggestions for a 90-day comment period to begin today.

Repeatedly, throughout the document, the federal departments involved in the ruling—which include Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury—ask for advice on how best to address several issues raised by the mandate.

The federal departments, the document says, “seek input on these options, particularly how to enable religious organizations to avoid such objectionable cooperation when it comes to the funding of contraceptive coverage, as well as new ideas to inform the next stage of the rulemaking process.”

Among the suggestions made in the document, known as a “proposed rulemaking,” is that self-insuring employers with a religious affiliation be given several options to ensure that they will not have to cover contraceptive services. Included in the possibilities is the use of a system of third-party administrators to administer the coverage.

While the original version of the mandate defined religious employers as those which primarily serve or hire those of their faith, the rulemaking acknowledges that federal law in other areas define religious employers more broadly.

A few thoughts:

1) Note that this was in a Friday news dump from the administration, to have minimal news impact.

2) The provisions, while welcome, do not go far enough. Nobody should be required to pay for abortion and contraceptive services against their will. Religious freedom matters for everybody, not just the minimum number that the Obama administration thinks it must grant religious freedom to.

3) This is a sign of weakness. The Obama administration has begun to realize how badly it has burned itself by its thuggish, totalitarian move to restrict freedom of religion to freedom of worship in this country.

4) This is not the time for the bishops or others to go soft. It’s time to press further and demand full respect for religious liberty. Caving at the first opportunity would be a grave mistake.

5) Ignore analysis about tone (e.g., taking a conciliatry tone, dialing back rhetoric, etc.). Tone is just the wrapping on the package. What’s inside the package is what counts.

What do you think?

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America's Crossroads

Would Obama's Mandate Fly with the Foundaing Fathers?

by GERALD J. RUSSELLO

Although there was hardly a Catholic among them, the Founding Fathers would surely be with the bishops on President Barack Obama’s Health and Human Services’ mandate.

The young American republic was largely born from a Protestant dissenting tradition. The freedom to worship freely was a deep root of the colonial experience; as scholars like

Barry Alan Shain and Donald Lutz have shown, colonial America was made up of countless small congregations wanting to live as their beliefs guided them.

It was reflected, of course, ultimately in the First Amendment, which enshrined that Congress could make no law prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Most of the state constitutions followed suit, even where there was some public support for religion.

James Madison, in a famous 1785 statement called “Memorial and Remonstrance,” set forth what became a common American understanding of religious freedom:

‘The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also, because what is here a right towards men is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.’

Even Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the most secular of the founders, recognized that forcing people to act contrary to their beliefs was an abuse of power. 

In a 1777 draft of a bill for religious liberty in Virginia (meant in part to disestablish the Anglican Church), he wrote, “That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

Of course, it is true that many founders did not think highly of the Church. And it is also true that Catholics suffered from various privations because of their faith. The great founder Charles Carroll of Carrollton, for example, was early in his career prevented from holding public office in his native Maryland because of his faith.

Even into the 20th century, with the failed presidential candidacy of Al Smith in 1928 and the successful candidacy of John F. Kennedy in 1960, Catholics too often were suspected of dual loyalty, or worse. Current Republican candidate Rick Santorum has also faced similar criticism.

Nevertheless, even with those suspicions, the new nation had little interest in internal Church affairs or in how it carried out its works of mercy, such as hospitals and adoption agencies.

In a famous story, the Church came to the young American government to discuss arrangements for placing the first bishop in America. To the astonishment of the papal nuncio, the government (in the person of Benjamin Franklin) stated that it was no business of the American government whom the Church appointed as its leaders. That relationship, so different from Europe, defined the Church’s understanding of American freedom and helped it grow with little interference.

Indeed, the combination of implicit public hostility and legislative indifference helped the Church create its vast social service network in the first place. Even the infamous Blaine Amendments, a mark of bigotry still included in many state constitutions and laws, did not force Catholics to do anything contrary to Church teaching.

This core American principle of internal, ecclesial self-government was recently affirmed by the Supreme Court in the Hosanna Tabor case, another reminder of the founders’ wisdom that the state will always seek to encroach on other sources of authority. Instead, the founders realized that, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, governments are instituted to “secure” rights, not grant them.

Rights already exist, including the right to seek the truth in religion. In Madison’s words, religious obligations precede the “claims of civil society.”  It is the genius of the American system that in a nation so varied a workable pluralism was able to develop, in part because the state, in its actions, allowed free reign for believers to act upon their beliefs.

Now, however, the state has taken quite a different approach. It is no longer simply indifferent to religious believers, but is actively working to move them out of both public life and those private services believers have provided for decades. Moreover, some political leaders treat religious liberty not as a right to be “secured,” but as one that can be modified or altered in light of secular values the state now deems important. This is exactly contrary to the American tradition of religious liberty. Actions such as that by HHS treat religious persons as second-class citizens, whose entry and participation in public life is limited by their faith. 

HHS and their supporters would do well to consider what Madison and Jefferson would think.

Read more

Glenn Beck: We are all Catholics now

By Bryan Burch
www.catholicvote.org

Love him or hate him, the clip below from Glenn Beck about his recent visit to the Vatican is both provocative and interesting.  I’m not sure how much I make of the recent State Department listing of the Vatican as a “money laundering” concern.  Beck not surprisingly sees a nefarious plan at work.  Regardless, his citing of the spiritual war ahead is hardly far fetched.

Separately, his interest in the Vatican (he discusses taking his children to the recent consistory to witness history), is worth noting.  Like every challenge in the Church’s history, the current HHS mandate controversy has created a great opportunity to witness to what it means to be Catholic.

Lest we forget, non-Catholics are watching us now like never before.  May God give us the courage to be His faithful servants.

Beck warns:

I believe the Vatican is actively engage in a very different kind of battle…They are in a spiritual battle…They are gearing up for a spiritual battle unlike anything we have ever seen.

Later he says to his large Evangelical audience:

You cannot stand alone. You cannot sit this one out. We are all Catholics now.

Watch:

The Mission of the Church in the World

Bishop Zurek has written an excellent article on the HHS mandate and Obama Administration's  attempt to redifine religion and the freedoms associated with it. Please take a few minutes to read it.

From one observation, it appears that the present administration has chosen to either set aside the First Amendment guaranteeing Freedom of Religion or it has so defined its meaning as to eviscerate it of all its contents and significance!

From another observation, it appears that the President, in Napoleonic Fashion, has installed himself as the Bishop of Rome and has taken upon himself the right to define Christianity! A true follower of Jesus Christ is not constituted or defined by participation in a Worship Service only, but MUST, of its nature, include the Freedom to LIVE this Faith in all dimensions of the life of a human person! This is Christian witness which is part of being a follower of Jesus Christ.

The government cannot take it upon itself to define Christianity, or any other Faith. The government cannot restrict the essence of Christianity to Worship and neglect the all encompassing and important aspect of giving WITNESS to our Faith in the lives we live!

Full Article

Women's support for Obama drops in wake of HHS mandate

By Michelle Bauman

A recent poll shows that President Barack Obama's approval ratings dropped 12 percentage points among women voters, despite claims that a federal contraception mandate would help his bid for re-election.

“It’s definitely something that young women are concerned about,” said Kristan Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life of America.

Hawkins told CNA on March 13 that beyond just contraception or abortion, the mandate touches on the issue of religious freedom, which is clear to any woman in the U.S. “whether she’s religious or not.”

“It goes too far,” she said, adding that women are beginning to ask fundamental questions about what the government would be able to regulate next if this mandate were to succeed.

In recent weeks, political analysts have suggested that Obama’s re-election campaign will receive a significant boost in women's votes due to its support for a controversial federal contraception mandate.

But a New York Times/CBS News poll shows that Obama's approval rating among women has plummeted at three times the rate as men within the last few weeks.

The poll, conducted March 7-11, revealed that the president's approval rating among Americans has fallen from 50 percent last month to an all-time low of 41 percent.

While Obama’s approval rating dipped just four percentage points among men, it dropped by 12 percentage points among women.

The decrease in women's support comes amid debate over a Jan. 20 mandate issued by the Obama administration under the new health care law. Introduced by the Department of Health and Human Services, the mandate will soon require employers to offer health care plans that include full coverage of contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, even if doing so violates their consciences.

Faced with a storm of protest from those who argued that the mandate violated First Amendment guarantees of religious freedom, President Obama promised an “accommodation” for religious freedom on Feb. 10.

Under the “accommodation,” which was never incorporated into the original mandate, religious employers would not directly buy the controversial coverage but would instead purchase health care plans from insurance companies that would be required to provide it free of charge.
Full Story

Debunking Obama’s Myths About Catholics and Contraception

By Sheila Liaugminas

“This isn’t about Catholics or contraception. This is about the government coercing religious institutions to violate their own beliefs.”

So clarifies the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in their feature ‘The Truth Should Not Be A Secret’. It aims to debunk the top myths that quickly circulated out of spin control centers from the administration and their complicit media partners.

I’ve heard every one of them and have had to counter them with facts, time and again, so this post by Becket Fund helps center and ground the debate.

Take this one, for instance:

Myth #5: The federal mandate actually protects women’s health because it increases access to free birth control.

Truth: Access isn’t the issue. 9 out of 10 employer-based insurance plans already cover these services.

There is no need for the government to force religious groups to provide these services against their religious convictions.

One could launch a whole debate just on component parts of that sentence in Myth #5.

And then a whopper:

Myth #6: In a recent poll, 98% of Catholic women said they already used artificial birth control anyhow. So what’s the big deal?

The ‘lie repeated often enough’ that is not only addressed succinctly here but nailed perfectly by Michael Cook here.

The government would just prefer that we focus on Catholics and their beliefs about birth control. Because that deflects attention from the far less winnable battle for the Obama administration over denying fundamental religious liberty in America for individuals and institutions.

But that’s what the controversial HHS mandate is about. Which is why so many religious leaders and scholars are speaking out.

Like Dr. Timothy George and Chuck Colson.

The Catholic bishops in America have responded quickly, decrying the Administration’s decision for what it is—an egregious, dangerous violation of religious liberty—and mobilizing a vast grassroots movement to persuade the Administration to reverse its decision.

We evangelicals must stand unequivocally with our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters. Because when the government violates the religious liberty of one group, it threatens the religious liberty of all.

And Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison, President of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, who testified by a House Committee on the mandate.

While we are opposed in principle, not to all forms of birth control, but only abortion-causing drugs, we stand with our friends in the Catholic Church and all others, Christians and non-Christians, under the free exercise and conscience provisions of the U.S. Constitution.

“Religious people determine what violates their consciences, not the federal government. The conscience is a sacred thing. Our church exists because overzealous governments in northern Europe made decisions which trampled the religious convictions of our forebearers.

They’re facing off with an overzealous government in the US with either a short memory or deliberate defiance of fundamental founding principles or both. And, as President Harrison told me at the end of the week, opponents of this mandate are not going away. There’s too much at stake.

This article was originally published on MercatorNet under a Creative Commons License.

Bishops call for Lenten prayer, fasting to defend religious liberty against Obama admin

by Kathleen Gilbert

Lifesitenews.com

The bishops of Pennsylvania have asked the state’s 3 million Catholics to offer their Lenten fasts and prayer for protection against the Obama administration’s attacks on religious liberty by forcing religious employers to pay for abortifacient drugs, sterilizations, and birth control.

In a strongly-worded letter dated March 7, the ten bishops, led by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia, also ask for an extra day of fasting on Friday, March 30, in response to the U.S. Health and Human Services mandate as “an unprecedented and gross infringement” against the religious liberty normally enjoyed by religious institutions in America.

“Make no mistake about it – this government mandate is a step which will inevitably lead to other mandates that continue to strike at the heart of our Faith and the constitutional liberties we have been guaranteed,” write the bishops. “The mandate cannot stand – it must not stand!”

Chaput and the other bishops called for members of their flocks to set aside March 30 - the last Lenten Friday before Good Friday - as a day of fasting with the intention “that the Church may be granted the basic right to practice what she preaches, and for our political leaders, that their eyes may be opened to the rights of all Americans, including those of faith.”

The prelates also encourage Catholics to contact their legislators.

“The mandate must be rescinded. Our freedom and liberty must be preserved. And in this effort, we must remain steadfast,” they write.

The clarion call is one of several voiced by Catholic bishops in America once it became clear last month that President Obama wouldn’t back down on the new mandate, which is set for implementation by August 2013. Cardinal George of Chicago warned in a February 26 column that Catholic hospitals would be forced to close under the rule he likened to religious restrictions under the Soviet Union.

In his initial response to the mandate last month, Archbishop Chaput, who has authored a book on the intersection of Catholic faith and American politics, emphasized that the Obama administration knew what it was doing to the Church when it issued the mandate.

“The current administration prides itself on being measured and deliberate. The current HHS mandate needs to be understood as exactly that,” he wrote. “Commentators are using words like ‘gaffe,’ ’ ill conceived,’ and ‘mistake’ to describe the mandate. They’re wrong. It’s impossible to see this regulation as some happenstance policy. It has been too long in the making.”

Congresswoman: ObamaCare could lead to limiting women to having two children

by Ben Johnson
Lifesitenews.com

The founder of the House Tea Party Caucus is warning that the Obama administration’s pro-contraception stance and disregard for religious liberty could lead it to restrict the number of children American women are allowed have.

Last Tuesday, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, R-MN, told GBTV’s “Real News From The Blaze” program she disagreed with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ argument that paying for contraceptives saves money by reducing health care costs – and that her analysis sets a dangerous precedent.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann

“Going with that logic, it isn’t far fetched to think the president of the United States could say…we need to save health care expenses…[so] the federal government will only pay for one baby to be born in the hospital per family. Or two babies to be born per family. That could happen.”

“I’m not saying he is going to do it,” Bachmann clarified. “I’m saying he has the power and authority to do it.”

“Michele Bachmann is correct. There’s nothing that prohibits Congress and the federal bureaucracies from saying they will only pay for up to two births,” John Vinci a staff attorney for Americans for Limited Government, told LifeSiteNews.com. “Constitutionally, nothing prohibits the federal government from rationing the health care it subsidizes.”

“Certainly what Congresswoman Bachman claimed is not out of the realm of possibility given what we know about the extreme views of some members of the Obama administration, and the new powers they have assumed via Obamacare,” agreed Father Peter West, vice president for mission for Human Life International, in a statement e-mailed to LifeSiteNews.com.

Vinci said the economic principles of national health care make rationing inevitable. “Because of scarcity rationing must occur,” he told LifeSiteNews. “Under a healthy free market system, scarcity is regulated by price. With ObamaCare, we have rejected free market principles of price as the regulator of scarcity and have replaced it with bureaucrats.”

Mandating “free” contraception, and requiring employers to pay for a host of other services, will hasten the process, he said. “Since drug manufacturers no longer have to compete on price, what keeps them from raising their prices? And when the federal government figures out that health care costs are rising, nothing keeps them from limiting the benefits through rationing.”

Fr. West said moral principles also underlie such a decision. “In 1968’s Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI made four famous predictions, all of which have come true. The fourth had to do with the coercive use of contraception by governments, and we see this most clearly enforced in China with their abusive one-child policy.”

With the passage of the Affordable Care Act, he said, “we see the framework for tyranny even in the United States.”

“Obama’s science czar, John Holdren, has openly advocated for coercive government population control, including forced abortion. Vice President Joe Biden ‘understands’ China’s destructive one-child policy and couldn’t bring himself to condemn it once challenged on his statement.”

In his 1977 book Ecoscience, co-authored with population control advocates Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Holdren wrote, “compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.” Holdren also called for “a comprehensive Planetary Regime” to set appropriate population levels for every country in the world.

Vice President Biden told a Chinese audience he was “not second-guessing” the nation’s one-child policy during a visit last August.

“The more we find out about ObamaCare,” Fr. West told LifeSiteNews, “the more we learn that it is a blank check for the administration to do whatever it wants, unchecked by Congress, and in complete disregard for the Bill of Rights.”

New Poll Shows Left-Wing Efforts to Fabricate “War on Women” May Lose Obama the White House

By Thomas Peters
American Papist

Left-wing, anti-Catholic, pro-abortion types must have been really patting themselves on the back before these new poll numbers came out yesterday and today.

“We did it!” they must have been saying to themselves: “We turned our assault on religious liberty into a ‘war on women’ and got everyone distracted with Ms. Fluke and Rish Limbaugh’s description of her!”

Well, not so fast, according to the New York Times:

“… Mr. Obama’s approval rating dropped substantially in recent weeks, the poll found, with 41 percent of respondents expressing approval of the job he is doing and 47 percent saying they disapprove — a dangerous position for any incumbent seeking re-election…

…[Obama] maintained much of the advantage he had built in the last year among important constituencies, including women, although he lost some support among women over the past month, even as the debate raged over birth control insurance coverage.”

Wait, what’s that you say, Grey Lady? Obama lost support among women “even” as the mandate debate raged? Don’t you mean because the mandate debate raged?

As Shannen Coffin points out, the New York Times is so embarrassed by the results of its own poll that they were forced to explain them away.

What the New York Times also failed to mention is how their poll shows that Americans dramatically oppose the mandate – by a 21% margin:

And, as you see from the language used in the poll, this only asked respondents about “birth control” — not what the mandate actually covers: contraception, sterilization and abortion causing drugs. When the question has been phrased this way by other pollsters in the past, far more Americans oppose the mandate.
Dana Loesch writes insightfully about what why this “war on women” has backfired:

“…Many women see as a greater threat to their freedom the administration’s insistence that employers — many of whom are also female — compromise their religious beliefs to provide for the contraceptive choices made freely by other women, women who can empower themselves by paying for their choices themselves. It’s not “feminist” to demand that another woman carry the yoke of your free choices…

… There’s no need to purposefully victimize women for the sake of using them as pawns in an election. That itself is an act of war on women.”

No kidding.

A final point: as Matt Lewis notes, the left-wing has largely been successful at framing this mandate as a women’s health issue as opposed to a religious freedom issue — that’s where we come in. It’s up to us to continue making the case and showing why this is a religious liberty issue. Among Americans who acknowledge that religious liberty is at stake, we win by even wider margins.

So, like I said yesterday, keep it up!!

And to the left-wing forces who continue to push for victory on this issue, I say: “Good luck!” You may just lose Barack Obama a second term in the White House and help us unmask your anti-woman and anti-religion agenda for what it truly is: a lie.

In Defense of Religious Freedom

A Statement by Evangelicals and Catholics Together.

 

Eighteen years ago, this fellowship of Evangelical and Catholic pastors, theologians, and educators was formed to deepen the dialogue among our communities on issues of common concern, to explore theological common ground, and to offer in public life a common witness born of Christian faith. Since our founding in 1994, we have addressed, together, such important public policy questions as the defense of life, even as we have proposed to our communities patterns of theological understanding on such long-disputed questions as the gift of salvation, the authority of Scripture, and the call to holiness in the communion of saints. We hope that this collaboration has been a service to both Church and society; it has certainly drawn us closer together as brothers and sisters in Christ, and for that we are grateful to the Lord of all mercies.

At the beginning of our common work on behalf of the gospel, it did not seem likely that religious freedom would be one of our primary concerns. The communist project in Europe had collapsed; the commitment of Christian believers to defeat totalitarianism through the weapons of truth had triumphed; and throughout the world, a new era of religious freedom seemed at hand.

We are now concerned—indeed, deeply concerned—that religious freedom is under renewed assault around the world. While the threats to freedom of faith, religious practice, and religious participation in public affairs in Islamist and communist states are widely recognized, grave threats to religious freedom have also emerged in the developed democracies. In the West, certain religious beliefs are now regarded as bigoted. Pastors are under threat, both cultural and legal, for preaching biblical truth. Christian social-service and charitable agencies are forced to cease cooperation with the state because they will not bend their work to what Pope Benedict XVI has called the “dictatorship of relativism.”

Proponents of human rights, including governments, have begun to define religious freedom down, reducing it to a bare “freedom of worship.” This reduction denies the inherently public character of biblical religion and privatizes the very idea of religious freedom, a view of freedom such as one finds in those repressive states where Christians can pray only so long as they do so behind closed doors. It is no exaggeration to see in these developments a movement to drive religious belief, and especially orthodox Christian religious and moral convictions, out of public life.

Given these circumstances, we offer this statement, In Defense of Religious Freedom, as a service due to God and to the common good. The God who gave us life gave us liberty. The God who has called us to faith asks that we defend the possibility that others may make similarly free acts of faith. By reaffirming the fundamental character of religious freedom, we contribute to the defense of freedom and to human flourishing, in our countries and throughout the world.

In making this statement, we confess, and we call all Christians to confess, that Christians have often failed to live the truths about freedom that we have preached: by persecuting each other, by persecuting those of other faiths, and by using coercive methods of proselytism. At times Christians have also employed the state as an instrument of religious coercion. Even some of the greatest leaders in the history of Christianity failed to live up to their own best ideals. As the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on religious freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, put it, “In the life of the People of God, as it has made its pilgrim way through the vicissitudes of human history, there has at times appeared a way of acting that was hardly in accord with the spirit of the Gospel or even opposed to it.” It is this memory of Christian sinfulness that gives us all the more reason to defend the religious freedom of all men and women today.

What Religious Freedom Is

As believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who reveals himself fully in the Lord Jesus, we find the deepest source of religious freedom in the form or nature of the human person created by God. Human beings have been created with the capacity to know God, the will to seek God, and a spiritual thirst for God. In Genesis 1:26, the Bible teaches us that only human beings are made “in the image of God.” No one bears this image (imago Dei) more than others; no one has the right to assert that by reason of race, tribe, ethnicity, class, or sex his imaging of God is superior to another.

In a world of manifest and innumerable inequalities, this radical equality of all men and women before God is the bond that allows us to speak meaningfully of a human family, a human race, in which we share mutual obligations—including the obligation to recognize and honor that sanctuary of conscience in which each person can meet the divine source of life. Any power, be it cultural or political, that puts unwarranted impediments in the path of the human quest for truth, which culminates in the human quest for God, is violating the order of creation.
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Meeting Reminder

Just a reminder. We're meeting tonight (March 13th) at 7:00 at Southwest Library to formalize some action items. If you're interested in learning more or getting involved we would love to have you join us!

Thanks,
Ryan

Evidence Emerges That We Are Winning the Mandate Fight (So Keep At It!)

By Thomas Peters
American Papist

Tim Carney and John McCormack are doing a great job reporting on new polling which suggests that President Obama’s attempt to set Catholics against each other (and women against the Catholic Chruch) is failing.

Why is that?

One reason I would suggest first: women, and Catholics, and especially Catholic women are smart and are seeing through the false pro-mandate “arguments.”

I hesitate to even call these pro-mandate positions “arguments” because all they really amount to is propaganda aimed at confusing us and diverting the conversation away from the real issues.

E. J. Dionne’s latest article in the Washington Post (surprise!) is a good example of this, where he attempts to bring in a comparison to the Tea Party (of all things) to distract us.

George Weigel points out how the pro-mandate forces have been forced to abandon any actual arguments for the mandate because there is simply no good case to be made for it:

One of the most maddening aspects of this otherwise bracing debate has been the refusal of those who support either the HHS mandate or the bogus administration accommodation to debate honestly, in terms of the facts, and fairly, in terms of the rhetoric. This leads one to the suspicion that the administration’s defenders know that they have a losing case.

Charles Cooke makes a similar observation:

We are dealing here with a non-issue: Women are not suffering in America because they have to pay for their own birth control. It is this stubborn fact that has pushed the advocates of the mandate to resort so quickly to hyperbole.

Indeed, the more this debate goes on, the more evident the pro-mandate crowd’s fixation on contraception (and sterilization and abortion causing drugs) becomes. Especially when clever op-ed writers began to point out that, under the pro-mandate crowd’s absurd logic, the Administration could begin mandating everything from coffee to salad bars, and from food to guns.

I also have to give a shout-out to the amazing Catholic women such as Kalley Yanta and Gloria Purvis who have been making the case against the mandate on YouTube and other media outlets.

So don’t believe what the media tells you to believe: that this “war on women” is helping Obama on his way to re-election. The media and pro-mandate forces are being forced to rely on propaganda tactics to survive.

If we keep making the truthful case with force and passion, we win. It’s as simple as that.

So keep speaking the truth about this mandate — our freedom depends on it!