I know. Shocker:
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a statementsaying that Vice President Joe Biden’s assertion in Thursday night’s debate that Obamacare’s sterilization-contraception-abortifacient regulation does not apply to Catholic and other religious institutions is not true.
“This is not a fact,” the bishops said of Biden’s claim.
“With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear,” Biden said in the debate. “No religious institution—Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital—none has to either refer for contraception. None has to pay for contraception. None has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact. That is a fact.”
Not so, said the bishops.
This is not a fact,” said a statement issuedby the U.S.C.C.B on Friday. “The HHS mandate contains a narrow, four-part exemption for certain ‘religious employers.’ That exemption was made final in February and does not extend to ‘Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital,’ or any other religious charity that offers its services to all, regardless of the faith of those served.
“HHS has proposed an additional ‘accommodation’ for religious organizations like these, which HHS itself describes as ‘non-exempt,’” said the U.S.C.C.B. “That proposal does not even potentially relieve these organizations from the obligation ‘to pay for contraception’ and ‘to be a vehicle to get contraception.’ They will have to serve as a vehicle, because they will still be forced to provide their employees with health coverage, and that coverage will still have to include sterilization, contraception, and abortifacients. They will have to pay for these things, because the premiums that the organizations (and their employees) are required to pay will still be applied, along with other funds, to cover the cost of these drugs and surgeries.”
On June 14, the Catholic bishops of the United States unanimously approved a statement declaring the Obamacare regulation an “unjust and illegal mandate.”
In this unanimous statement, the bishops made clear that the Obamacare regulation not only violates the rights of Catholic institutions but also the rights of Catholic business owners and individual Catholic lay persons, whom the regulation would force to act against their consciences.
“The HHS mandate creates still a third class, those with no conscience protection at all: individuals who, in their daily lives, strive constantly to act in accordance with their faith and moral values,” said the unanimous bishops. “They, too, face a government mandate to aid in providing “services” contrary to those values—whether in their sponsoring of, and payment for, insurance as employers; their payment of insurance premiums as employees; or as insurers themselves—without even the semblance of an exemption. This, too, is unprecedented in federal law, which has long been generous in protecting the rights of individuals not to act against their religious beliefs or moral convictions. We have consistently supported these rights, particularly in the area of protecting the dignity of all human life, and we continue to do so.”
In August, the National Catholic Bioethics Center issued an analysis saying that Catholics who own private businesses cannot morally obey the regulation and should be prepared to drop all insurance coverage of their employees by no later than Jan. 1, 2014–when Obamacare comes into full force.
“Dropping all coverage appears to be the most morally sound approach,” said the analysis,
“The ethicists of The National Catholic Bioethics Center believe that temporary compliance with the mandate, coupled with active opposition by all reasonable and legal means available, is a morally tolerable option only as a last resort, provided that this compliance ends once the insurance exchanges are available to employees in 2014,” said the analysis.
Citing Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae, the Catholic ethicists further said that Catholics have a moral duty to resist the Obamacare regulation.
“Most importantly, we are impelled to recall the distinct moral obligation of all persons of conscience, and especially Catholics, to resist unjust laws,” they said. “This duty was outlined explicitly by our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae: ‘There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection. … In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, … it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to ‘take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law, or vote for it.’”
Meh. He was “passionate” and “on the offensive”. That’s what really matters. Truth? A man-made construct to be determined by those who hold the most power. Ends, means. You know the deal by now.
It’s just unusual to see it so very concentrated as we did last evening.
He’s a happy warrior, all the spinners said so.
Would be funny if they use Ol’ Joe’s statements in the litigation.
To a leftist the right to speech constitutes a sacred need to redefine reality, whether individually or collectively. There are steps in between but the handy end result is that reality is subjective.
You say phenomenon A is observable and therefore position B is verifiably valid or not valid per it. The leftist says I agree with what X says and I disagree with what Y says. Note the egotism and the insistence on variable interpretation.
Leftism is a disorder.
…Catholic ethicists further said that Catholics have a moral duty to resist the Obamacare regulation.
I just wish we could count on there being more devout Catholics who would dare stand up to Washington. I know I’d sure welcome them to the ranks of the resistance.
What if they passed a law and nobody obeyed it?
Some people claim they think Biden “won on substance” in last night’s debate. Apparently “winning on substance” need not include such things as adhering to the truth.
“need not include”
Heh, or even substance.
I believe you should check your hearing, McGehee. I’m pretty sure that people were saying Biden “was on a substance” in last night’s debate. Whatever it was, it wore off in the last 15 minutes.
Biden lied
Fetuses died.
Someone on TV (three guesses which network, and the first two don’t count*) opined that Biden may have gotten some Ritalin toward the end of the debate.
*I’ve never quite understood that construction. Why not only give one guess? <shrug>
– If the media was hoping they could keep the lid on this they’re going to be needing a plan ‘B’.
[…] the deal by now. It’s just unusual to see it so very concentrated as we did last evening. https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=44370 Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than […]
“Nordstrom was so critical of the State Department’s reluctance to respond to his calls for more security that he said, “For me, the Taliban is on the inside of the building.”
– Doesn’t get much more explicit and damning than that.
– WH: “Neither the president nor the vice president knew about the requests.” Why not? Whos runing the fucking government. Whos running foreign policy. Did Hillery know? Who gave the order “don’t ask for anymore security”. Why?
– So many questions to be answered by next Tuesday.
– Romney is really slamming the Obama-fuck administration up against the wall today. He;s making the bastards go on the record with more and more lies.
Author Ed Klein: As Benghazi blame nears Hillary, Clintons grow furious
Bob Beckel is insisting that there is no fucking way!!! that the WH knows what goes on with security at State.
Apparently, they are all Sgt. Schultz there at the WH.
– The 2012 “Dishonor awards”.
He won on a substance, but not on substance.
Heh. Absolutely brilliant.
The buck stops…
over there—————–>!!!!!!!!!
“….Which asks the question, will Carney and the White House stop digging when they notice those around them are speaking Mandarin?”
– White House walks back Biden’s “Million dollar” tax threshold comment he made during VP debate.
Guess who visited the VP’s Residence in March?
martha
Biden’s Bishop needs to request a personal meeting. At that meeting the Bishop should explain to slow Joe that, as a Catholic, he needs to clearly and publicly amend his error.
The Muslim Takeover of the ACLU
Perhaps the more appropriate term would be reconcile rather than amend.
Back-hand was the word you’re looking for, Thomas.
preference cascade cont.
BAD BOY RAPPER SHYNE Endorses Mitt Romney
Benghazi was reportedly teeming with CIA operatives; a top State Department official has testified that she monitored the entire attack in real time; and there were survivors who were able to piece together a tick-tock of the attack for the media. The CIA should would have easily known if there was or a protest outside or not, so Biden’s comment is a blatant accusation of incompetence.
link
OT
Here’s John Derbyshire’s latest: Anniversary of a Defenestration, Part II
Lindsay Lohan endorses Romney and so does Tawny Kitean.
That does at least begin to provide a semblance of a motivation for Petraeus to have peddled a bullshit story from the get go: he’s attempting to protect his own people and the mission they were on. In fact, it more than calls into question whether the ambassador was even the target at all. More likely, the jihadis wanted to take themselves down some spooks.
And in addition, it could be that dumbasses like Obama and Biden take the CIA’s involvement as a carte blanche to tell whatever horseshit story they choose, on grounds that they’re protection national security assets thereby, even while they drive national security into a ditch. Fuckers should stand against the wall.
Chaffetz did call out Ms. Lamb when they were in session about blabbing about classified material on television. He said that there was no need to compromise security any more than it already had been.
Only slightly o/t (afterall JoeyB is a big joke)
RudyG sends one down range
The CIA installation theory would also go some distance to explain why we haven’t heard a peep from the 30 some odd people who were actually under attack on Sept. 11th. Spooks of whatever flavor generally aren’t the sorts to be giving interviews.
If I were President of the United States, and anything I did was compared to President Carter, I’d resign.”
Heh. Go Rudy.
Telegraph: Defence chiefs are drawing up plans for a faster withdrawal from Afghanistan, after George Osborne challenged their strategy and suggested that all troops should come home immediately.
Ryan attempted to mention this last night but he was talked over at the time so I doubt many people heard it, let alone understood it.
Nope. Not with Iraq gone and the Army in Afghanistan. If things really go south in Syria the US will helplessly watch al-Qaeda grab the huge chemical stockpile. But what — besides hoping it won’t happen — can the Obama Administration do to head it off?
What Can Obama Do To Stop al-Qaeda’s resurgence
vote here
I called it this morning: Biden was a wind-up cymbal-clashing debate monkey. And I saw that in the kindest possible way.
yes we can
“Million Muppet March” planned to defend U.S. backing for PBS on the Saturday before the election, according to Reuters:
Heh. Bob Reed liked it!
– Cracks in the armor, even among the true believers. HuffPoop sticks a pinky toe in the warm soothing waters of reality.
– Romney now has such a target rich environment next Tuesday could end it.
“Romney now has such a target rich environment next Tuesday could end it.”
Don’t be surprised if Romney learns something about Libya that makes him eschew the gotcha game. It isn’t necessarily the case he’ll give it up, but on the other hand there may be good reasons for him to.
Even if he does though, there are still plenty of hard questions he can pose on Obama’s pitiful foreign policy conduct.
now if darleen can do a photo shop of biden doing a wheelie over ocean’s receding mega baracky.
Good work serr8d.
Reeling in the Rocketman these days is a rarity, sadly.
How did Biden’s friend Bibi Netanyahu like Joe’s “settlement” hissy fit thrown a few years back over the apartment building entering construction in Jerusalem? What, everybody just forgave and forgot?
– Somebodys not happy with the Wonce.
In the film of Paint Your Wagon, Clint Eastwood sang:
I talk to the trees
But they don’t listen to me…
Neither do the media left. They were all agreed that Clint’s empty chair routine was a bust. A month later, Obama shows up for the first debate as the empty chair.
So, in that apparently disastrous and embarrassing appearance at the GOP, did Clint have anything to say about Joe Biden? Why, yes, he did:
Just kind of a grin with a body behind it.
And what does Biden show up as?
This guy is some kind of genius.
link
The CIA installation theory would also go some distance to explain why we haven’t heard a peep from the 30 some odd people who were actually under attack on Sept. 11th. Spooks of whatever flavor generally aren’t the sorts to be giving interviews.
An excellent observation. That so many people were able to escape a combined arms assault on a fixed position practically screams out that they had some degree of training in escape and evasion and access to alternative bolt holes. These people were not visa clerks and cultural liasons, or at least those were not their true functions.
But give it time, I suspect someone along the lines of a Mark Bowden is already working his sources and piecing together a detailed and credible timeline of the entire event. Too many people will be angling for advantage to keep this under wraps forever.
I’ve been hashing away on the hypothesis in e-mail with geoffb ThomasD. One particular kind of jumps out, assuming the premise:
FP says: “So far, the Obama campaign has been careful not to finger a specific person as the scapegoat.Last night, Biden kept it vague. But the talking points Biden was hiding behind were CIA talking points and the head of the CIA is David Petraeus, undoubtedly the person in the administration the American people trust most on national security — and yet, paradoxically, perhaps the person the hardened partisans in the Obama White House trust the least. I have been surprised that Petraeus has not personally been drawn into the fight thus far, but I wonder if he heard Biden calling him out last night.”
I think FP has the “hiding behind” figure exactly backwards: it’s Petraeus and the CIA who are hiding behind the absurd cover story they’ve told the White House to put out, and the White House — between a rock and a hard place — can’t talk about the covert operation without looking bad (sure, the President has the power to declassify it, but that act to save his political skin would only make things worse for him, so they all stew in the nasty broth they’ve put themselves in. Which, ha!)
“That so many people were able to escape a combined arms assault on a fixed position practically screams out that they had some degree of training in escape and evasion and access to alternative bolt holes. These people were not visa clerks and cultural liasons, or at least those were not their true functions.”
This distinction wants stress in public media, if for no other reason than to point out the contrast with the “consulate” security. The consulate fell and was burning within minutes. The CIA installation (which may well have had security details overseen by CIA without any State Dept involvement) withstood assault for hours, if the reports are accurate. Geoffb points out that ordinary buildings won’t take mortar and rocket-grenade fire like that for long. Too, why would an assault continue for hours if the building’s defenders had long gone and no return fires issued thence?
Sdferr, Obama has already proven himself all too willing to spill classified info for political advantage. If he is suddenly respecting it now, there has to be another factor involved.
Maybe there is something else going on, I don’t know McG, or perhaps classified revelations are additive in the sense that dropping sand grains on a pile of sand will eventually cause a cascade? Maybe the CIA or some other agency has reason to say “not one exposure further, or we let you have it”. Or Obama’s calculations are the damage involved outweighs the advantage. Otherwise, how do we explain their willingness to look like fools for so long?
Or still, suppose an ongoing operation that must stay under wraps, like an al Qaeda infiltration scheme or the like. Putting such stuff at risk before it unfolds, in contrast to exposing agents and agencies after the Bin Laden killing is simply too intolerable to the spooks? But the point is, I think the White House — and Obama in particular — is stuck in a place they haven’t figured out how to extricate themselves from without doing themselves even worse damage in the process.
That calculation is the only thing that would explain it, but that’s like saying the only reason my dog stops feasting out of the cats’ litterbox is that there’s suddenly a cost she associates with doing so. The “factor” isn’t that there is a cost, it’s what is the cost?
The possibilities range from the mundane (she can’t get into that room anymore) to the outlandish (I tase her whenever I catch her in there).
In Obama’s case, maybe the CIA has simply stopped sharing sensitive info with the White House. The need for more security in Benghazi would be one thing; the existence of a CIA shop in Benghazi would be another.
…in which case the reason Obama and Biden can’t offer specifics is, they don’t have them. But they can’t admit that in the middle of a campaign because it makes Obama look not merely foolish, but like the national security breach that we know he is.
“The need for more security in Benghazi would be one thing; the existence of a CIA shop in Benghazi would be another.”
These appear, to me anyhow, as both consistent with the phenomena as we find them. They’re separable issues on the one hand, and conjoined on the other, producing the absurdities (at least under this provisional hypothesis) we see before us. What’s not to like!
Occam’s razor would suggest that they look like fools because they are fools. No more complicated explanation is needed.
The newest (to me, anyway) story about the lack of or breech of security in Benghazi is that it could have happened if there were a whole battalion of Marines guarding the joint.
Way to slander the Marine Corps (or corpse, if you are Obama) and cast the Jihadis as wily dudes who can outsmart our intelligence community.
24 more days, Outlaws.
via powerline
Background Conference Call With Senior State Department Officials
Washington, DC
October 9, 2012
And here I thought I was being sarcastic when I suggested Al Qaeda had recruited VC sappers.
Well, Ernst, I’d say that is proof positive that some staffer at the DNC reads PW.