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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In the battle to dodge Obamacare’s costly requirements, Big Labor–one of President Obama’s biggest backers and a strong support of Mr. Obama’s healthcare overhaul–is winning.  Big time.

As Paul Conner of the Daily Caller reports:

Documents released in a classic Friday afternoon news dump show that labor unions representing 543,812 workers received waivers from President Barack Obama‘s signature legislation since June 17, 2011.

By contrast, private employers with a total of 69,813 employees, many of whom work for small businesses, were granted waivers.

As early as last October, Democrats like Rep. Nancy Pelosi were busy downplaying the 1,800 waivers the Department of Health and Human Services had then-issued.

They’re small. I couldn’t speak to all 1,800 of them, but some of the lists that I have seen have been very, very small companies. They will not have a big impact on the economy of our country.

One of those “very, very small companies” was McDonalds.

Five months before Rep. Pelosi’s comments, it was revealed that three dozen of the businesses in her congressional district had received Obamacare waivers.

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Two role-playing investigators with bogus documents and a hidden camera walked into Head Start centers across the country to expose fraud and corruption. They got more than they had bargained for, discovering a pattern of rule-bending fraud so shocking it prompted a briefing for President Obama.

Is this the latest James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles sting operation?

Nope. It was the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which used tactics remarkably similar to O’Keefe and Giles, sans the pimp and prostitute costumes.

GAO’s undercover investigation revealed a common practice among Head Start employees: the deliberate disregard — or even outright falsification — of income documentation to pad enrollment. “Now you see it, now you don’t,” said a Head Start employee in New Jersey who “disappeared” $23,000 worth of income for one applicant so that his fictitious child could be enrolled. GAO found Head Start programs were more than willing to help its investigators falsify applications at eight of the 15 centers it visited.

The duo that destroyed ACORN last year caught flak from liberals for their undercover tactics. Media critic Eric Alterman of the Center for American Progress called their investigation “dishonest.” He wrote that O’Keefe and Giles “ignore[d] the rules of honest information gathering and reporting.”

In reality, O’Keefe and Giles’ investigative prowess turned the ACORN story into a national episode of corruption at a government-funded organization. Turns out GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, is using essentially the same tactics to expose malfeasance.

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Last month, Phil Kerpen wrote an insightful piece here at BigGovernment.com about “The Stimulus Bill’s Hidden Attack on What We Eat, Drink, and Smoke.” In it, he detailed yet another absurd (and angering) use of so-called “stimulus” funds to help lobby for restrictions and higher taxes on the nanny state’s favorite targets: unhealthy foods, sweetened beverages, tobacco, and other disfavored products that your friendly bureaucrat doesn’t think you ought to enjoy. Digging through the Health and Human Services Department’s stimulus website raises some serious questions about the $650 million in taxpayer money being spent on this program, called “Communities Putting Prevention to Work” (CPPW).

Several grant descriptions suggest that this funding may be in violation of guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control, through which the CPPW program is administered. The CDC’s lobbying restriction guideline states in part that, “no part of CDC appropriated funds, shall be used…to support or defeat legislation pending before the Congress or any State or local legislature.” And yet, that’s exactly what several of the grantees plan to use the money for.

For example, Jefferson County, Alabama plans to spend $7 million on a “tobacco use prevention and cessation initiative [that] will promote changes in policies to reduce smoking opportunities and reduce access to tobacco products.” Pretty straightforward, that. They plan to lobby for more smoking bans and restricting access to legal tobacco products.

New York City, for its part, plans to spend $15.5 million “work[ing] to set policies and create environments that reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and overly salted foods.” One New York legislator is already trying to “create an environment” where restaurants are prohibited by law from using SALT in their food. Yes, salt, the substance without which virtually every food on Earth would be inedible.

Perhaps my favorite, our nation’s capital is spending $4.9 million on a program called “LiveWell DC,” which will “explore limiting tobacco access through zoning/license restrictions, restrict point-of-purchase advertising of tobacco products, support the elimination of price discounts, and provide social support through quitline and other cessation services.” Quite the laundry list there.

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Yesterday, Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee torpedoed efforts to require Mediciad applicants to show IDs. We noted that, with fraud running at around $100 billion in Medicaid and Medicare, this might not have been the wisest vote. Well, it turns out Democrats on the Senate Committee are perfectly fine with a 10% fraud rate.

Today, the Committee voted on an amendment from Sen. Cornyn which would have delayed expansions in Medicaid until steps had been taken to get its error/fraud rate down to 3.9%, the average of all government programs. Details below:

Cornyn Amendment #C30 to America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009

Short Title: Reducing waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicaid program.

Description of Amendment: Prior to implementing the mandatory Medicaid program expansions in the Chairman’s Mark, the Secretary of Health and Human Services must certify that states have implemented program integrity and quality improvement measures specified in the Chairman’s Mark and that the Medicaid program’s average Payment Error Rate Measurement is less than 3.9 percent.

Offset: No offset needed.

 Republicans

CHUCK GRASSLEY -yes, ORRIN G. HATCH -yes, OLYMPIA J. SNOWE -yes, JON KYL -yes, JIM BUNNING -yes, MIKE CRAPO -yes, PAT ROBERTS -yes, JOHN ENSIGN -yes, MIKE ENZI -yes, JOHN CORNYN -yes

Democrats

MAX BAUCUS -no, JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER -no, KENT CONRAD -no, JEFF BINGAMAN -no, JOHN F. KERRY -no, BLANCHE L. LINCOLN -no, RON WYDEN -no, CHARLES E. SCHUMER – no, DEBBIE STABENOW -no, MARIA CANTWELL -no, BILL NELSON -no, ROBERT MENENDEZ – no, THOMAS CARPER -no

Not Agreed to (10-13)