Free Republic

From the Washington Examiner President Obama did something extraordinary, perhaps unprecedented, in his post-election news conference Wednesday: He claimed a mandate on behalf of voters who didn't vote. "To everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you," the president said. "To the two-thirds of voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you, too."...Obama's message to Republicans was unmistakable: My mandate is bigger than your mandate.... LOL. Liberalism is the ideology of anti-intellectual children, the examples of this are too numerous to count, but Obama has the brightest (or more accurately,...

In a legal argument formally presented in federal court in the case of Hobby Lobby v. Kathleen Sebelius, the Obama administration is claiming that the First Amendment—which expressly denies the government the authority to prohibit the “free exercise” of religion—nonetheless allows it to force Christians to directly violate their religious beliefs even on a matter that involves the life and death of innocent human beings. … The Obama administration is making a two-fold argument for why it can force Christians to act against their faith in complying with the regulation it has issued under the Obamacare law that requires virtually...

Supporters of the Obama health law are incorrectly reading the Supreme Court’s ruling as a victory. First, the ruling severely limited the Obama health law’s Medicaid expansion, effectively giving states the green light to refuse to expand their Medicaid programs. Coupled with the fact that the statute already enables states to block the other half-trillion dollars of new entitlement spending, the law is in a very precarious position. Second, the Court ruled 5-4 that the individual mandate is not a legitimate use of the Commerce Power. That too is a defeat for the government, even if it is of no...

Ave Maria University has become the second Catholic college to announce it will discontinue its student health insurance plan due to the Obama administration’s contraception mandate. In a May 21 statement, university president Jim Towey called the mandate “an affront to our core values.” “Ave Maria University will not offer or pay for health insurance plans that violate our deeply-held religious beliefs,” he said. The announcement comes amid continued controversy over a federal insurance mandate that will require employers and colleges to offer health care plans that cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-causing drugs, even if doing so violates their religious...

Today's Roman Catholic calendar lists May 21st as the feast day of St. Christopher Magallanes, a martyr killed for celebrating Mass during the Cristero War in Mexico. Perhaps Catholics today may want to recall St. Thomas More -- the patron saint of lawyers, who was executed for refusing to agree to a mandate that gave Henry VIII the prerogative of defining religious expression in England. Dozens of Catholic institutions filed lawsuits today against the Department of Health and Human Services over its mandate and its narrow definition of religious practice: Catholic archdioceses and institutions filed suit in federal district courts...

Baltimore - The leading voice of Roman Catholic bishops opposing a contraception mandate in the Obama administration's health care law was named Tuesday as the 16th archbishop of Baltimore, the nation's first diocese. Bishop William E. Lori, 60, comes from the Diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., and has testified before Congress several times in the past few months on a proposed measure to make religious employers cover contraception for their employees. The White House later backed off the rule, making insurers pay for the coverage, though many critics are still not satisfied. In one instance

The question has been asked: "Why are President Obama and the Democrats spending so much time and effort on universal coverage of contraception?" Surely they knew that there would be religious objection. Surely they did not think that such a decision would not go unchallenged. Why waste time and resources defending a controversial stance with so many other things going on? Recent polls show President Obama's approval numbers dropping among female voters, despite the "War on Women" attributed to the Republicans, and religious leaders have spoken openly from the pulpit, decrying the legality and morality of the contraception mandate, despite...

Caught cocooning in public: Here’s what the NYT‘s story on its latest poll told readers: In recent weeks, there has been much debate over the government’s role in guaranteeing insurance coverage for contraception, including for those who work for religious organizations. The poll found that 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. If the Times says women were “split,” you know that must mean they were actually narrowly against the NYT‘s preferred position. Sure enough, when asked, “Should health...

This will make you angry. Via the Catholic News Agency: Baltimore, Md., Mar 8, 2012 / 12:34 am (CNA).- The Little Sisters of the Poor say the HHS contraception and sterilization mandate threatens their continued ministry to the impoverished elderly. They are “strongly objecting” to the federal rule and say it should be repealed as soon as possible. “Because the Little Sisters of the Poor cannot in conscience directly provide or collaborate in the provision of services that conflict with Church teaching, we find ourselves in the irreconcilable situation of being forced to either stop serving and employing people of...

While the media’s still buzzing about The Sandra Fluke Story, Democrats have rolled out a disappointing sequel starring a nurse who can’t get free contraception because she works at a Catholic hospital that doesn’t provide such coverage for religious reasons. Produced by DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), a conference call last Friday featured a nurse at a Catholic hospital in Tacoma, Washington who complained that the hospital’s insurance doesn’t cover contraception. The nurse’s comments echoed those of Georgetown student Sandra Fluke, who has become the focus of national media discussion. “I currently work as a nurse at a...

It is a well-known phenomenon that generals have a tendency to “Fight the Last War,” meaning that they tend to use the tactics that brought them victory in the last war they fought. The problem is that the enemy usually shows up with new weapons and new tactics. Either the generals adapt, or go down to defeat.In the war over the HHS Mandate, it seems that the bishops have shown up with Cardinal O’Connor’s playbook from the 1980′s. It won’t work, and they had better grasp that reality today, and with all due urgency.This past week, Francis Cardinal George of...

<p>In other words, folks, you are being played. She has been an activist all along and the Dems were just waiting for the appropriate time to play her.</p>

Warning that the Church is being “despoiled of her institutions” as “freedom of conscience and of religion become a memory from a happier past,” Cardinal Francis George of Chicago observes that “the Catholic Church in the United States is being told she must ‘give up’ her health care institutions, her universities and many of her social service organizations.” “So far in American history, our government has respected the freedom of individual conscience and of institutional integrity for all the many religious groups that shape our society,” he continues. “The government has not compelled them to perform or pay for what...

Denise Hunnell February 20, 2012 (HLIAmerica.org) - It is time to do some fact checking about President Obama’s “compromise” on attacking religious liberty. First of all, telling Catholics to just close their eyes and keep paying their insurance premiums that will ultimately cover morally objectionable services is not addressing respect for conscience and religious liberty. No matter how you spin it, Catholic institutions will be paying for contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. The end result is no different than the original Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate, since insurance companies are not going to just throw these services in for...

Guess who was a key player in pushing through the birth control mandate in ObamaCare? Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards. According to reports, not only did Obama listen to Richards, but took her word over the suggestions his top advisers, including Vice President Joe Biden, then Chief of Staff Bill Daley and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. According th ABC's Jake Tapper, there was an internal debate about the contraception mandate at the White House.  The debate within the White House on this issue was, sources say, heated, and President Obama was legitimately torn. Panetta wasn’t alone in...

Give him points for cleverness. President Obama’s birth control “accommodation” was as politically successful as it was morally meaningless. It was nothing but an accounting trick that still forces Catholic (and other religious) institutions to provide medical insurance that guarantees free birth control, tubal ligation and morning-after abortifacients — all of which violate church doctrine on the sanctity of life. The trick is that these birth control/abortion services will supposedly be provided independently and free of charge by the religious institution’s insurance company. But this changes none of the moral calculus. Holy Cross Hospital, for example, is still required by...

RUSH: I want to move on to this Dick Morris business and the attack on the Catholic Church last week by Obama. I want to ask you, if you remember back in January there was a presidential debate, a Republican debate in Manchester. Do you remember -- 'cause this is a setup for what's coming -- do you remember, we were all perplexed here. George Stephanopoulos kept hounding Romney on contraception. It had not come up, nobody had said anything about it, and we were all confused, as was Romney, what the deal was. Well, it is Dick Morris' theorem...

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 13, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Within weeks, the top lawyers in a dozen states may file a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration’s controversial requirement that all insurance plans include access to abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization, the attorney general of Nebraska told LifeSiteNews. Jon Bruning told LifeSiteNews.com that 12 states had signed onto a scathing critique of the mandate and were preparing to take more serious action. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning On Friday, ten state attorneys general addressed a scathing letter to President Obama, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis....

Today, the Obama administration hastily called a press conference to announce a change to its HHS mandate for employers to cover contraception at no cost, including religious organizations whose doctrines oppose contraception and abortifacients. Instead of religious organizations footing the bill directly, the revised "accommodation" now says that insurers must cover the costs, which changes --- nothing: The revised Obama mandate will make religious groups contract with insurers to offer birth control and the potentially abortion-causing drugs to women at no cost. The revised mandate will have religious employers refer women to their insurance company for coverage that still violates...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Everybody's reporting that Obama's caving on this mandate that the Catholic services provide abortion and all. There's not a cave here! There may be an accommodation, but there's no big cave-in here. It's still the government mandating this stuff happen. They're just changing the provider. It's not done by the church. He says he gave them a way out of it by mandating the insurance companies do it, but that's not the point here. Great to have you. It's Friday. Let's go to! JOHNNY DONOVAN: Live from the Left Coast at our satellite studios in Los Angeles,...