Photo Credit: Life News In yet another pro-life victory against the HHS mandate that forces churches and religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions for their employees, a federal judge has ruled that the Catholic Church in Pittsburgh doesn’t have to comply.
Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh made such a stink when he testified in court recently that he received national attention. He said would rather pay fines, no matter how much they might be that be forced to follow the directives of the abortion mandate.
“I would not be able to live with myself knowing that we’re contradicting what we believe,” he said during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab.
Under the law’s penalties, Catholic Charities would be subject to a daily fine of $100 per employee if Zubik doesn’t sign, said Susan Rauscher, the nonprofit’s executive director. That would total $2 million to $4 million a year for an organization with a $10 million operating budget, she said. As a result, the Pittsburgh and Erie diocese are suing the government, claiming that the requirement violates their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. They’re asking Schwab to temporarily block enforcement of the mandate on their nonprofits while the dioceses pursue the lawsuits.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-11-22 02:33:382016-04-11 11:13:51Judge Rules Pittsburgh Catholic Church Doesn’t Have to Comply With HHS Mandate
Photo Credit: US ARMYThe Army should use photos of “average-looking women” when it needs to illustrate stories about female soldiers, a specialist recommends — images of women who are too pretty undermine the communications strategy about introducing them into combat roles.
That’s the gist of an internal Army e-mail an Army source shared with POLITICO.
“In general, ugly women are perceived as competent while pretty women are perceived as having used their looks to get ahead,” wrote Col. Lynette Arnhart, who is leading a team of analysts studying how best to integrate women into combat roles that have previously been closed off to them. She sent her message to give guidance to Army spokesmen and spokeswomen about how they should tell the press and public about the Army’s integration of women.
“There is a general tendency to select nice looking women when we select a photo to go with an article (where the article does not reference a specific person). It might behoove us to select more average looking women for our comms strategy. For example, the attached article shows a pretty woman, wearing make-up while on deployed duty. Such photos undermine the rest of the message (and may even make people ask if breaking a nail is considered hazardous duty),” Arnhart said.
She wrote that a photo of a female soldier with mud on her face that news agencies used last spring “sends a much different message—one of women willing to do the dirty work necessary in order to get the job done.”
Photo Credit: Natural News A 15-year-old Connecticut girl remains held by Boston Children’s Hospital, a victim of the hospital’s “kidnap and ransom” operation, traditionally called “K&R.” K&R is not usually seen in hospitals, and that’s what makes this story so bizarre and disturbing.
Boston Children’s Hospital kidnapped the teen girl from her Connecticut family nearly 10 months ago under the excuse of a contrived medical diagnosis. Through legal maneuvering, the hospital managed to gain legal custody of the girl, and the “ransom demand” is the demand that the parents stop trying to remove the girl from the hospital so that Boston Children’s can generate maximum revenue from so-called “treatments” which have so far accomplished nothing.
“It is kidnapping,” said the girl’s father, Lou Pelletier. “It’s beyond any wildest nightmare that you could think of.”
The clinical psychologist known by the family says, “It’s the most bizarre situation … I’ve ever been involved with.”
After the contrived diagnosis by the hospital, both parents “were escorted out of the hospital by security, and within four days, they lost custody of Justina,” reports FoxCT.com.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2013-11-22 02:24:482016-04-11 11:13:51Boston Children’s Hospital Kidnaps Teen Girl for 10 Months, Holds her as Prisoner While Threatening Parents
A new and independent analysis of ObamaCare warns of a ticking time bomb, predicting a second wave of 50 million to 100 million insurance policy cancellations next fall — right before the mid-term elections.
The next round of cancellations and premium hikes is expected to hit employees, particularly of small businesses. While the administration has tried to downplay the cancellation notices hitting policyholders on the individual market by noting they represent a relatively small fraction of the population, the swath of people who will be affected by the shakeup in employer-sponsored coverage will be much broader.
An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, shows the administration anticipates half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predict up to 100 million small and large business policies could be canceled next year.
“The impact I’m mostly worried about is on small young, entrepreneurial firms that will suddenly face much higher health insurance premiums if they want to offer health insurance to their employees,” said AEI resident scholar Stan Veuger. “I think for a lot of other businesses … they can just send their employees to the exchanges or offer them a fixed subsidy every month to buy health insurance themselves.”
Under the health care law, businesses with fewer than 50 workers do not have to provide health coverage. But if they do, the policies will still have to meet the benefit standards set by ObamaCare.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-11-21 03:23:592016-04-11 11:13:51Second Massive Wave of Health Plan Cancellations Looms
California Man Pulled Off Plane in North Korea, Detained, Son Says
By Chelsea J. Carter, CNN
An 85-year-old American man on an organized tour of North Korea was pulled off a departing plane in Pyongyang just minutes before it was to depart, the man’s son told CNN on Wednesday.
The family has had no contact with Merrill Newman of Palo Alto, California, since he was detained on October 26, his son Jeff Newman said.
“This is a misunderstanding. My father is a (Korean War) veteran and wanted to see the country and culture he has been interested in for years,” Jeff Newman said. “He arranged this with a travel agent that was recommended and said was approved by the North Korean government for travel of foreigners. He had all the proper visas.”
The U.S. State Department is working to resolve the matter with North Korea’s top ally, China. Ambassador Glyn Davies, the U.S. Special Representative for North Korean Policy, met in Beijing for several hours on Thursday with his Chinese counterpart.
“We are working very hard … to try to move this issue along,” Davies said, following the session. “We certainly think that North Korea should think long and hard about (this) and understand that for the United States this is a matter of core concern for us.”
Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: GOH CHAI HIN/AFP/Getty U.S. Issues Harshest Travel Warning in 18 Years Against North Korea
by Max Fisher
The State Department has long cautioned Americans about visiting North Korea, but on Tuesday it went a big step further, issuing a blanket warning against all American travel to the country. This was the first such State Department warning since North Korea began allowing American tourists in 1995, immediately raising the question: why?
The travel warning cited, somewhat cryptically, “the risk of arbitrary arrest and detention of U.S. citizens in North Korea.” It noted that two Americans traveling on valid visas have been previously arrested. But neither of those was especially recent. Eddie Jun Yong-su was arrested in November 2010, allegedly for illegal missionary work, and released in March 2011. Kenneth Bae was arrested in November 2012 on similar charges and is still being held.
The travel warning does not explain what, if anything, has happened since last November that led the State Department to elevate its warning. A State Department spokesperson said that they could not comment due to U.S. privacy laws but emphasized that travel warnings of this severity are typically in response to “chronic” threats to U.S. citizens. Some early, unconfirmed reports are emerging that an elderly American man may have been detained.
A rising number of Americans visits North Korea every year on heavily orchestrated, state-monitored tours, a source of hard currency for the government there. The vast majority travel without incident. But, as NKNews.org editor Chad O’Carroll explained earlier today, the potentially lucrative business has attracted new tourist companies, some of which have little experience with North Korea’s complex and highly sensitive restrictions. A source in the North Korean tourism industry suggested to O’Carroll, “Tourists traveling with some of the newest companies could be more likely to unwillingly fall afoul of North Korean laws.”
A little before noon, U.S. Eastern Time, the San Jose Mercury News reported that an 85-year-old man from Palo Alto “has been detained in North Korea for more than three weeks” after North Korean authorities removed him from the plane that was to fly him out of the country. The report identifies the man as Merrill Newman, which is significant, as previously arrested Americans have been of Korean descent. The story also quotes a State Department spokesperson as declining to confirm or deny the story and saying only, “We are aware of reports that a U.S. citizen was detained in North Korea.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-11-21 03:13:272016-04-11 11:13:52U.S. Korean War Veteran Arrested in North Korea (+video)
Photo Credit: AP/ Evan Vucci)President Obama told a gathering of business executives on Tuesday that the federal government was not “lavishly spending” on social programs.
“What we know is, is that our — our fiscal problems are not short-term deficits. Our discretionary budget, that portion of the federal budget that isn’t defense or Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid, the entitlement programs, is at its smallest level in my lifetime, probably since Dwight Eisenhower.
“We are not lavishly spending on a whole bunch of social programs out there,” Obama continued. “And in many ways, a lot of these programs have become more efficient and pretty effective,” he added.
The U.S. Treasury Department records the following expenditures on a few of the many social safety-net programs for Fiscal 2013 and Fiscal 2012. In most cases, the amounts increased year-to-year:
–Medicaid: $265.392 billion ($250.534B in FY 2012)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-11-21 03:11:102016-04-11 11:13:52Obama: ‘We’re Not Lavishly Spending on a Whole Bunch of Social Programs’ (+video)
Photo Credit: ReutersTop White House and health officials feared that HealthCare.gov would not work correctly and would set off a wave of bad publicity, according to emails shortly before the disastrous rollout of the Obamacare enrollment website.
The emails, released Wednesday evening by House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, included a picture of an error message that has become emblematic of the launch debacle. They were dated Sept. 25 — less than a week before the enrollment portal opened and immediately created a crisis for the White House.
A White House spokesman said the emails — which use technical terms — focused on problems that could arise if there was high traffic to the site, not to a fear that the site wouldn’t work at all.
In the emails Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Deputy Chief Information Officer Henry Chao summed up concerns that he said White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park had expressed.
“When Todd Park and Marilyn [Tavenner] was here yesterday one of the things Todd conveyed was this fear the WH has about hc.gov being unavailable,” Chao said, referring to CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner.
Photo Credit: AP/ Evan VucciPresident Barack Obama told a gathering of corporate executives Tuesday he’s confident that his model of health care will work in the end, but he said he’s going to have to “re-brand” it to sell it to a skeptical public.
He didn’t use the word “Obamacare” once on Tuesday in talking about his health care law, but he mentioned the “Affordable Care Act” seven times.
“So, look, I am confident that the model that we built, which works off of the existing private insurance system, is one that will succeed,” Obama told the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
“We are going to have to, (a) fix the website so everybody feels confident about that. We’re going to have to, obviously, re-market and re-brand, and that will be challenging in this political environment.”
During a campaign stop in Colorado last year, the president embraced the name that Republicans had given to his health insurance law: “The Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare,” Obama said in August 2012. “I actually like the name,” he added. “Because I do care — that’s why we fought so hard to make it happen.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-11-21 03:07:192016-04-11 11:13:52Obama: ‘We’re Going to Have to…Re-market and Re-brand’ the Affordable Care Act (+video)
Photo Credit: Getty Images Forty-three percent of Americans believe the Affordable Care Act needs to be repealed, and opposition to the new healthcare law has driven President Barack Obama’s job approval rating to an all-time low, a new poll has found.
According to a CBS News Poll conducted Nov. 15-18, approval of the law has dropped to 31 percent, the lowest number ever recorded by the poll, a decline of 12 points since last month. Sixty-one percent of respondents disapprove of Obamacare, including 46 percent who say they disapprove strongly.
The survey of 1,010 adults also found that Republicans are nearly unanimous in their disapproval of the president’s signature healthcare law, and two-thirds of independents agree. Democrats continue to back the law, but their support has dropped by 16 points since last month, from 74 percent in October to 58 percent today.
Just 7 percent of Americans think the Affordable Care Act is working well and should be kept in place as it is.
The problems plaguing the launch of Obamacare are taking a toll on the president’s job approval rating. Just 37 percent now approve of the job Obama is doing, according to the poll, and disapproval is at an all-time high of 57 percent.
On his program Tuesday night, Mark Levin called Harry Reid and Barack Obama ‘insane’ for the way they’re trying to pack the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals with left-leaning justices, namely Patricia Millett, Nina Pillard, and Robert Wilkins.
Referring to an article from Politico, Levin said:
“And I love the way, people like the delusional Chris Matthews, the misogynist among others talk about how Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan got along. You can’t get along with Harry Reid and Barack Obama, they’re insane. They’re political radicals. They don’t wanna get along.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-11-21 03:02:162016-04-11 11:13:53Levin: ‘You Can’t Get Along with Harry Reid and Barack Obama – They’re Insane’ (+video)
