Following a somewhat vague initial response to President Obama’s “accommodation” to Catholic and other religious leaders’ objections to the ObamaCare mandate requiring religiously-affiliated charities, hospitals, and organizations to provide free contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs to their employees, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has issued a much stronger statement regarding the “accommodation:”

…we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected. And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer’s plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.

We just received information about this proposal for the first time this morning; we were not consulted in advance. Some information we have is in writing and some is oral. We will, of course, continue to press for the greatest conscience protection we can secure from the Executive Branch. But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today’s proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. In a nation dedicated to religious liberty as its first and founding principle, we should not be limited to negotiating within these parameters. The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.

We will therefore continue—with no less vigor, no less sense of urgency—our efforts to correct this problem through the other two branches of government. For example, we renew our call on Congress to pass, and the Administration to sign, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. And we renew our call to the Catholic faithful, and to all our fellow Americans, to join together in this effort to protect religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all.

Indeed, the Wall Street Journal confirms that President Obama’s “accommodation” has simply made matters worse for him. An editorial sums up the lameness of his attempt at making his edict more politically tolerable:

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If one was looking for fiery, crowd pleasing, political rhetoric from former Speaker Newt Gingrich as he addressed CPAC today, they were likely disappointed. What Gingrich did do was run through a litany of policy solutions he claimed he has committed to implement immediately upon taking office in January of 2013.

Contrasting an America that can versus an America that can’t, Gingrich compared America’s speed and might in winning WWII versus her current inability to seal its own border. In a lighter moment, the former Speaker contrasted the efficiency of package tracking by Federal Express with the government’s inability to track illegal immigrants, suggesting sending each one a package may be the best way to apprehend the latter.

He also mentioned repealing Obamacare, Dodd Frank, and Sarbanes Oxley on his first day in office. He stated his desire to be a “paycheck president” versus a “food stamp president,” a term he used to denigrate Barack Obama.

Calling for a Fall campaign focused on substance, Gingrich also mentioned eliminating the Capital Gains tax and implementing 100% expensing for all new equipment written off in one year to help get the economy growing. Additionally, he called for a modernization of the workforce, proposing that unemployment compensation be linked to business training programs to avoid paying people for 99 weeks “for doing nothing.” (more…)

WASHINGTON (AP) – Rushing to end a political uproar, President BarackObama on Friday will announce that religious employers will not have to coverbirth control for their employees after all, The Associated Press has learned. The administration instead will demand that insurance companies will be the ones directly responsible for providing free contraception.

Obama’s abrupt shift is an attempt to satisfy both sides of a deeply sensitive debate, and most urgently, to end a mounting election-year nightmare for theWhite House. The leader of a Catholic organization and a prominent women’s group both expressed initial support for the changes.

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This week, Los Angeles County okayed a new regulation banning the throwing of Frisbees or footballs on the beaches – which, of course, destroys the purpose of living in Southern California in the first place.  The first offense will earn you a hefty $100 fine; the second, $200; the third and beyond, $500.  You can, of course, apply for a permit.  For parents with industrious children, holes deeper than 18 inches are also banned – so get your kids the cheap plastic shovels or pay a fine.

What’s the point of this law?  Unless it’s to prevent horrific incidents like this, the only point is to raise cash for the state.  This has become the MO for California law enforcement: higher ticket costs, more tickets written.  California is now a police state – except when it comes to policing actual crime in hard-hit areas.  The state, counties, and cities task police officers with going after soccer moms going 45 in a 35 zone rather than monitoring drug-ridden precincts.

The trend is obvious, and California motorists know it: as McClatchy reported back in August 2011, “As the state and cities wrestled with shrinking revenue and growing budget gaps, the California Highway Patrol issued about 200,000 more traffic citations in 2009 than it did two years before.  Sacramento Superior Court, meanwhile, processed about 37,000 more traffic filings last year than in 2006 – a 16 percent increase.”  The size of the fines has escalated dramatically, too: “With the average fine costing as much as $250 and rising, the increase in CHP tickets produced as much as $50 million over two years. That money went to state and local courts, crime labs and other purposes.”

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This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the United Nation’s Brundtland Report, which defined Sustainable Development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” But aristocratic socialists have corrupted the sustainable development movement into a vehicle to achieve vast administrative power for themselves. Nations that adopt Sustainable Development are doomed to fail at meeting the needs of the present generation and through debt accumulation from deficit spending will consign future generations to a life as debt slaves.

Through the early 1980s, socialist Latin American economies powered growth by quadrupling their indebtedness from $75 billion to $315 billion. With aristocrats controlling government, while the poor had no voice in these loan matters, nor did they benefit from them as most of the loan proceeds were siphoned off to benefit the aristocrats and their crony amigos.

When Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980, the U.S. economy had suffered a decade of stagflation, turning our Midwest manufacturing base into the Rust Belt. Reagan was determined to regain international economic dominance by reasserting our Founding Father’s demand for limited government and maximum personal liberty. Reagan viscerally believed what John Adams wrote:

“ the moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence”

Reagan’s relentless focus overcame the bi-partisan drumbeat to continue the socialist expansion of the money supply to promote growth. He then leveraged monetary restraint with the largest income tax cut in American history to power the American economy to sustained growth with low inflation.

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Both of my Senators have spoken out forcefully on the Obama administration’s new mandate requiring religious institutions to provide health insurance that covers abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception in violation our First Amendment right to religious liberty. Their remarks present a stark contrast in their levels of sincerity, intellectual honesty and respect for their constituents.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) was the first female U.S. Senator to speak out against the administration’s rule from the floor of the Senate. “This mandate places religious institutions in this impossible position of violating their core beliefs in order to comply with the mandate or dropping employee insurance coverage altogether. We should not be putting these organizations that do great work throughout this country in this position,” Ayotte argued.

She has also soundly denounced the politics of gender identity by stating plainly, “this is not a women’s rights issue. This is a religious liberty issue.”

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Members of the Obama administration do not care whether Catholics and those of other faiths are angry about the ObamaCare mandate regarding contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. It’s quite possible that, like exhibitionists, the White House enjoys the shock value that accompanies all their edicts and executive orders to people of main-street America. Waiting for average Americans to recover from the shock gives them a window of time to amuse themselves at the reaction as they also develop their talking points and spin. But, this year, they have an election to win.

To appease those they view as rigid, conservative Catholics, the administration’s talking points are that they’ll “work it out” with them, give them a year to “adapt” their consciences to engaging in behavior that is against their values, and, perhaps, the favorite means of the White House to ensure a minimum of voter loss: hand out a waiver.

But, exactly what should be “worked out?” “Adapt” to what? A “waiver” from what? All of this talk of flexibility is helping the White House to muddy up the real issue.

The spin by the White House, in the midst of this constitutional crisis, is simply a variant on its age- old theme that healthcare is an unalienable right that the government must give to people. Remember that, in liberalism, unalienable rights come from the government, not from the Creator. With the contraception, etc. mandate, the administration just tweaked the message a bit- made it a bit “pinker,” dare we say: that all women deserve access to free contraception- including Catholic women. How could we leave Catholic women out? After all, that would be discriminatory, right? Wrong.

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In the wake of the news that Obamacare will mandate all employers to provide for birth control, including Catholic employers, many have wondered whether President Obama will damage his standing with the Catholic vote. In 2008, the Catholic vote split for Obama by a large margin, 54-45. Much of this was driven by Obama’s support in the Latino community; white Catholics actually voted McCain by a similarly broad margin, 52-47.

But now, even Hispanics are having second thoughts about Obama. According to a December Ipsos-Telemundo poll, Obama’s approval rating among Latinos is now down to 56%, as opposed to 86% in April 2009. Although Obama’s unfavorables have risen among Latinos, however, only 14% strongly dislike Obama’s presidential approach. That means there’s room for Obama to move the needle up once again.

He’ll have to do it soon. Obama threatens to match John Kerry’s negative Catholic electoral record – Kerry lost the Catholic vote 52-47 in 2004, and he lost white Catholics 43-56. He still won Pennsylvania, a heavily Catholic state (53%), but he lost Florida (26% Catholic) and Ohio (24% Catholic). The most heavily Catholic battleground states other than those three are New Hampshire (35%), Arizona (31%), Louisiana (30%), and Wisconsin (29%). Obama’s anti-Catholic moves may hurt him there.

We’ve actually already seen some movement in terms of the Catholic vote.

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Is it April Fool’s Day? Has somebody in Paris hacked the website at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development? Have we been transported to a parallel dimension where up is down and black is white?

Please forgive all these questions. I’m trying to figure out why any organization – even a leftist bureaucracy such as the OECD – would send out a press release entitled, “Rising tax revenues: a key to economic development in Latin American countries.”

Not even Keynesians, after all, think higher taxes are a recipe for growth.

Ah, never mind. I just remembered that the OECD is a hotbed of statism, so the press release makes perfect sense. After all, the US-taxpayer-funded organization has become infamous for reflexively advocating big government.

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Ronald Reagan was a classic. He broke the back of the Evil Empire and started deregulating an overburdened U.S. economy. It was Ronald Reagan in 1964 that told Americans we face a time for choosing — and if you haven’t watched the entire speech, you’re missing out.

Today marks the 101st anniversary of Reagan’s birth. If you miss him and wish for another like Reagan, join The Heritage Foundation in sharing your thoughts in their new Facebook app:

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Obamacare opponents have been raising red flags around this issue for some time, but today the IRS has finally issued preliminary guidelines for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The legislation is expected to cost America tens of thousands of jobs, while also sending some high-end industries overseas. There’s more from the IRS available at the links in text below. That it’s being released on a Friday afternoon is no coincidence.

On February 3, 2012, the IRS and the Treasury Department issued proposed regulations on the new 2.3-percent medical device excise tax (IRC §4191) that manufacturers and importers will pay on their sales of taxable medical devices starting in 2013. Additional information is available in the Medical Device Excise Tax FAQs.

The IRS and Treasury Department request comments on the proposed regulations by May 7, 2012. Comments may be submitted electronically, by mail or hand delivered to the IRS. The preamble to the proposed regulations provides instructions on how to submit comments.

Industry sources have already begun weighing in through press releases of their own. There’s also a detailed analysis of the implications of the proposed guidelines here. (more…)

President Obama’s EPA usually has a bad habit of kicking American industry when it’s down by dumping on them with unnecessary regulations, regardless of what business leaders say the effects will be.

Usually. Which is why the latest fiasco over the Agency’s proposed Boiler MACT rule is so noteworthy.

After writing new rules in mid-2011 that would require electricity-generating boilers to meet a shockingly high emissions standard – at a capital cost of $9.5 billion – a wide swath of industries, most notably the paper and wood business, pushed back. EPA was set to impose the rules anyway, risking hundreds of thousands of jobs, sky-high costs, and electrical production capacity.

Yet shockingly, EPA suddenly changed its mind in December, apparently having listened to the industries’ criticisms and deciding to stay any formal enactment of the proposed rules. EPA wanted more time to study the potential effects and revise the regulations.

But of course, the environmentalist left wouldn’t have that. From the PJ Tatler: (more…)

On Thursday, the Senate voted 96-3 to ensure that the same insider trading laws that apply to citizens also extend  to members of Congress.

But as the Associated Press points out, elected officials enjoy at least seven legal exemptions that the rest of us do not:

On this day last year, I posted two charts that I developed using the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank’s interactive website.

Those two charts showed that the current recovery was very weak compared to the boom of the early 1980s.

But perhaps that was an unfair comparison. Maybe the Reagan recovery started strong and then hit a wall. Or maybe the Obama recovery was the economic equivalent of a late bloomer.

So let’s look at the same charts, but add an extra year of data. Does it make a difference?

Meh…not so much.

Let’s start with the GDP data. The comparison is striking. Under Reagan’s policies, the economy skyrocketed.  Heck, the chart prepared by the Minneapolis Fed doesn’t even go high enough to show how well the economy performed during the 1980s.

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The idea that America needs transforming, and that he is the man to do it, did not start with Barack Obama. The grandiosely named Center for Health Transformation (CHT) was started by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

In 2003, Newt Gingrich wrote Saving Lives & Saving Money: Transforming Health and Healthcare. It does offer some “free market” solutions. But doctors are apparently free only as long as they do what Newt thinks they should.

The backup plan is: “When all else fails, mandate.” Specifically, physicians who “insist on doing it the old way…should simply not be allowed to practice medicine.” As far as I know, even Obama doesn’t go this far.

In developing his plans and strategies, the CHT boasts a lot of allies: along with top leaders in federal and state governments, it includes “key corporations, top hospitals, disease advocacy groups, professional and industry associations, and leading research institutions.” Many if not all of them probably endorsed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ObamaCare”).

Newt has embraced the key fallacy that “the number of uninsured in America is a threat to our civilization.” He thinks that medical errors are “morally unacceptable,” and that they could somehow be prevented by forcing everybody to use the health information technology that his supporters, just coincidentally, happen to sell. He speaks favorably of outgoing CMS director Donald Berwick, an avowed admirer of the British National Health Service’s rationing system. He is convinced that “disease management programs” can” dramatically improve outcomes.”

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Despite an adverse court ruling out of Ecuador, Chevron continues to remain on the offensive against trial lawyers who are suing the company over environmental allegations that have been hotly disputed.  An Ecuadorian appeals court in Lago Agrio  upheld a ruling earlier this month ordering the company to pay $18 billion in damages to plaintiffs who claim the oil company is responsible for polluting the Amazon and damaging the health of local residents.

Chevron became a target for litigation after it took over Texaco in 2001. Farmers and tribe members claim Texaco damaged parts of the jungle with faulty drilling practices in the 1970’s and 1980’s. In response, Chevron officials have said that Texaco properly re-mediated the areas where it had operations. Moreover, the company has produced reams of evidence that demonstrate plaintiff attorneys have been operating in collusion with Ecuador’s judiciary to produce fraudulent rulings. Chevron has also sought international legal recourse with considerable success.

Under the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Agreement Treaty, a Hague Tribunal has ordered Ecuador to suspend enforcement of the ruling pending further investigation. Several federal judges in the U.S. have also ruled in the company’s favor. Chevron has also submitted a letter to Galo Chiriboga, Ecuador’s prosecutor general that documents the fraud and corruption allegations. The plaintiffs’ representatives including Steven Donziger, Pablo Fajardo, Juan Pablo  Saenz, Julio Priento and Luis Yanza worked in covert partnership with Judge Zambrano to craft a ruling  that would be favorable to their case, according to the letter.

Chevron’s evidence against the Ecuadorian court includes the following:

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In response to an order, by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, that all healthcare insurance plans in the United States must cover sterilizations, contraceptives, and FDA-approved abortion-inducing drugs, without fees or copays, the head of the Roman Catholic diocese of Pittsburgh has said, “The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, ‘To Hell with you!’”

Bishop David A. Zubik said, “Let’s be blunt. This whole process of mandating these guidelines undermines the democratic process itself.”

Though the regulation announced by Secretary Sebelius includes an exemption for “religious employers,” those employers wishing to qualify for this exemption must primarily: serve members of its own faith, employ members of its own faith, and focus on the teaching of the doctrines of that faith. As a result of this rule, Catholic hospitals, universities, and charitable organizations would not qualify for the exemption.

In addition, there is no exemption for individual citizens or private businesses. Thus, any individual who is a pro-life small business owner and employer is not exempt from the law. He or she must provide health insurance that offers full coverage for sterilization, contraception, and abortion-inducing drugs.

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Imagine that you are a successful small-business entrepreneur.

And then imagine that the government was forcing you to spend $30,000 to build something utterly useless just to prove that you were serious about your business.  Sound crazy?  That is essentially what is happening to Minnesota funeral-home entrepreneurs:

Verlin Stoll is a classic American entrepreneur.   Although he’s only 27 years old, Verlin opened his first business, Crescent Tide funeral home, in St. Paul last April.  He prides himself on being “a different kind of funeral and cremation service” by providing high-quality funeral goods at a lower cost than his competitors.

With basic services at merely $250, Verlin saves his customers serious money.  The bigger funeral homes on average charge ten times as much.  Indeed, Crescent Tide is one of the only businesses in the area that benefits low-income families who cannot afford the high prices of the big funeral-home companies.

Predictably, Verlin’s business model is a success.  And he wants to expand on that success by hiring new employees and building another business so even more Minnesotans can benefit from his services.  Unfortunately, there’s an obstacle standing in his way:

Big government.

Minnesota refuses to let Verlin build a second funeral home unless he first builds a $30,000 embalming room.  He doesn’t have to actually use the room, it just has to be there.  As Institute for Justice economic liberty expert Katelynn McBride explains: (more…)

How much bailing out does one company need? After receiving some $50 billion in tax dollars from us courtesy of Obama’s “cash stash,” GM is claiming success with a “big profit” with last year’s third quarter report, and in his recent State of the Union Speech, President Obama claimed that GM was “back on top as the world’s number one automaker.” But true or not, if all is coming up roses for GM, why is the company now lobbying the individual states for mini bailouts?

That is exactly what is happening. The new “big success” automaker is spending millions hiring lobbyists to squeeze more millions out of state legislatures. As Justin Owen notes, GM has “turned to another, smaller government teat” by putting its hand out to the states. GM, Owen says, “has received another $1.7 billion in taxpayer-funded grants and tax abatements.”

This is no accident of timing, either. GM admitted to the Tennessee Watchdog that begging to the states for tax dollars is a concerted effort.

“We are increasing our activity with the states obviously, in the communities in which we operate. In doing this, we’ve invested more than $6 billion (throughout the states) during the last five years and brought 15,000 people back to work. So, the activity at the state level is important to us. Our lobbying is comparable to what our competitors are doing throughout the states,” said GM spokesman Greg Martin.

For the Watchdog, Christopher Butler found that GM has received more than $1.5 billion from Michigan, $7.5 million in tax incentives from Kentucky, over $10 million from Texas, and over $2 million from Indiana. Ohio and Maryland have given to the GM bailout fund, too, with tax incentives and other giveaways. (more…)