He has already given up on the white male vote. Is he now giving up those “bitterly clinging” to their religion also? Will there be anyone left to vote for Obama besides his radical socialist base?

Obama’s history with abortion is not pleasant. As a senator in Illinois he argued for a law that would allow survivors of abortion to die without medical treatment.

From ‘What you need to know about the `Born Alive’ controversy and Barack Obama‘ in a August 20, 2004 article at the Chicago Tribune:

Here’s some of what Obama said on April 4, 2002 during floor debate in the Illinois Senate:

The source of the objections of the (Illinois State) Medical Society (was that this proposal) puts the burden on the attending physician who has determined, since they were performing this procedure, that, in fact his is a non-viable fetus; that if that fetus, or child—however way you want to describe it—is now outside the mothers’ womb and the doctor continues to think that it’s non viable but there’s,  let’s say, movement or some indication that, in fact, (the fetus is) not just coming out limp and dead, that, in fact, they would then have to call a second physician to monitor and check off and make sure that this is not a live child that could be saved….. The only plausible rationale, to my mind, for this legislation would be if you had a suspicion that a doctor – the attending physician – who has made an assessment that this is a non-viable fetus and that, let’s say for the purposes of the mother’s health, …that labor is being induced, that that physician a) is going to make the wrong assessment and b) if the physician discovered, after the labor had been induced, that, in fact, he made an error, or she made an error, and, in fact, that this was not a non-viable fetus but, in fact, a live child, that that physician or his own accord or her own accord would not try to exercise the sort of medical measures and practices that would be involved in saving that child. Now if—if you think that there are possibilities that doctors would not do that, then maybe this bill makes sense. But I suspect –and my impression is that the Medical Society suspects as well –that doctors feel that they would be under that obligation, that they would already be making those determination and that ,essentially adding an additional doctor who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physicians to induce labor and perform an abortions. Now if that’s the case… I think it’s important to understand that this issue ultimately is about abortion and not live births.

Pro life activist Jill Stanek noted then senator Obama’s 10 reasons for supporting infanticide in an article on WorldNetDaily.com in January of 2008. Among the reasons was #10:

“10. Babies who survive abortions are not protected by the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

Obama, the sole opponent ever to speak against BAIPA, stated on the Illinois Senate floor on March 30, 2001:

I just want to suggest … that this is probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny.Number one, whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a – child, a 9-month-old – child that was delivered to term. …

I mean, it – it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an anti-abortion statute. For that purpose, I think it would probably be found unconstitutional.”

More recently Obama has raised the ire of Catholic groups. Cliff Kincaid wrote in a previous article about Obamacare rules violating religious conscience:

The administration claims there is a religious exemption in the mandate, but the bishops say it is so narrow that it fails to cover the vast majority of faith-based organizations, including Catholic hospitals, universities and service organizations that help millions every year. “Ironically,” they say, “not even Jesus & his disciples would have qualified.”

 

The bishops go on, “Now that the Administration has refused to recognize the Constitutional conscience rights of organizations and individuals who oppose the mandate, the bishops are now urging Catholics and others of good will to fight this unprecedented attack on conscience rights and religious liberty.”

 

Interestingly, The Washington Post, as Father Swink indicated, agrees with the bishops. The paper said, “In this circumstance, requiring a religiously affiliated employer to spend its own money in a way that violates its religious principles does not make an adequate accommodation for those deeply held views. Having recognized the principle of a religious exemption, the administration should have expanded it.”

 

So why would the administration pick a major fight with the Catholic Church? There are two main reasons. (1) The administration wants to please its progressive and feminist, secular pro-abortion base. (2) The administration believes Catholics are divided on the issue and will ignore their leaders and follow Obama.

The Obama administration also put its abortion advocacy above sex trafficking victims. Lifesite News reported:

For over a decade, we have achieved an amazing left-right, religious-secular, bicameral, bipartisan consensus, unified in combating sex and labor trafficking at home and worldwide without promoting abortion.

Until today.

In what can only be described as an unconscionable abuse of power, the Obama Administration has engaged in what amounts to bid rigging; denying taxpayer funds to a demonstrably superior organization—the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)—with an exemplary ten year track record of performance that scored significantly higher in independent HHS reviews than two of the three NGOs that got the grant.

The Obama Administration’s discriminatory practice of funding NGOs that provide or refer for abortions even when they fail to win a competitive process is not only unjust, unethical and in violation of conscience laws (Weldon Amendment and Coats-Snowe), but it severely undermines public—and Congressional—confidence and support for what is an otherwise laudable program.

If you are a Catholic, or other faith-based NGO, or a secular organization of conscience, there is now clear proof that your grant application will not be considered under a fair, impartial, and transparent process by the Obama Administration.

The Obama Administration’s bias against Catholics is an affront to religious freedom and a threat to all people of faith.

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By Cliff Kincaid

My Catholic priest, Father Larry Swink, delivered a homily on Sunday that I told him would make headlines. In the toughest sermon I have ever heard from a pulpit, he attacked the Obama Administration as evil, even demonic, and warned of religious persecution ahead. What was also newsworthy about the sermon was that he cited The Washington Post in agreement—not on the subject of the Obama Administration being evil, but on the matter of its abridgment of the constitutional right to freedom of religion.

What is happening is extraordinary and unprecedented. The Catholic Church is in open revolt against the Obama Administration, with Fr. Swink noting from the pulpit that priests across the archdiocese were joining the call on Sunday to rally Catholics to resistance against the U.S. Government. He said we are entering a time of religious persecution and that Catholics and others will have to make a final decision about which side they are on.

The issue is what the Catholic Bishops have called a “literally unconscionable” edict by the Obama Administration demanding that sterilization, abortifacients and contraception be included in virtually all health plans.

At a time when the media are full of reports about who is ahead and behind in the polls, and who will win the next Republican presidential primary, this incredible uprising in the Catholic Church is something that could not only overshadow the political campaign season, but also may have a major impact on the ultimate outcome—if Republicans know how to handle it. This matter goes beyond partisan politics to the growing perception of an unconstitutional Obama Administration assault on religious freedom. To hear the Catholic Bishops and Priests describe it, our constitutional republic and our freedoms hang in the balance.

The administration claims there is a religious exemption in the mandate, but the bishops say it is so narrow that it fails to cover the vast majority of faith-based organizations, including Catholic hospitals, universities and service organizations that help millions every year. “Ironically,” they say, “not even Jesus & his disciples would have qualified.”

The bishops go on, “Now that the Administration has refused to recognize the Constitutional conscience rights of organizations and individuals who oppose the mandate, the bishops are now urging Catholics and others of good will to fight this unprecedented attack on conscience rights and religious liberty.”

Interestingly, The Washington Post, as Father Swink indicated, agrees with the bishops. The paper said, “In this circumstance, requiring a religiously affiliated employer to spend its own money in a way that violates its religious principles does not make an adequate accommodation for those deeply held views. Having recognized the principle of a religious exemption, the administration should have expanded it.”

So why would the administration pick a major fight with the Catholic Church? There are two main reasons. (1) The administration wants to please its progressive and feminist, secular pro-abortion base. (2) The administration believes Catholics are divided on the issue and will ignore their leaders and follow Obama.

Support for the latter explanation comes in the form of the Obama Administration’s efforts to co-opt the Catholic Church, primarily through appointing nominal Catholics to high-level positions in government and keeping funding going to the church for “social justice” causes. Another player in this effort is the hedge-fund billionaire George Soros, an atheist who nevertheless has found groups that are “Catholic in name only” to accept his financial largesse. These groups, including Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, are designed to give the impression that Catholics are less concerned about issues like stopping abortion and protecting the sanctity of traditional marriage than passing government health care. The Obama/Soros gamble may be backfiring.

It’s true that the bishops went along with Obama’s health care scheme, even lobbying on its behalf. But now they seem to be realizing that the plan was a Trojan Horse designed to force population control measures on the people of the United States. It will be difficult for the bishops to continue working with the administration on other issues, like immigration. They have drawn a line in the sand. They cannot back down.

Father Larry Swink of Jesus The Divine Word Catholic Church in Huntingtown, Maryland, is not alone in his tough language. Pittsburgh Bishop David A. Zubik posted a letter on the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh’s website that said, “It is really hard to believe that it happened. It comes like a slap in the face. The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, ‘To Hell with you!’ There is no other way to put it.” He added, “This whole process of mandating these guidelines undermines the democratic process itself. In this instance, the mandate declares pregnancy a disease, forces a culture of contraception and abortion on society, all while completely bypassing the legislative process.”

You know it’s serious when the bishops are talking about heaven and hell.

Indeed, Fr. Swink opened his discussion of what he described as the evil nature of the Obama Administration by reading from scripture about Jesus casting out demons. He saw the order on health care coverage as the start of religious persecution. The congregation joined him in calls of “Amen” when he challenged them to stand tall with the church.

You cannot expect the secular Washington Post to go along with such rhetoric. But even its liberal editorial writer saw the ramifications of the health care order, perhaps anticipating the confrontation that we now see developing. From the point of view of this liberal paper, the Obama Administration is not only undermining religious freedom but risking a major backlash to its overall “progressive” agenda and even a second term in office.

Some may see this battle as just another church-state dust-up that will be resolved through litigation. But when apocalyptic imagery is used, such as what I heard at my church on Sunday, one must wonder if there is an awakening on the part of the Catholic community and if there is something else going on here besides politics as usual. In short, is the Catholic Church beginning to finally recognize the real nature of the Obama Administration?

            Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism, and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org.

By Terence P. Jeffrey at CNSNews.com

EXCERPTS:

The regulation further requires that health-insurance plans must provide sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients without any fees or co-pay.

The regulation, issued as part of the initial implementation of Obamacare, requires Catholics to act against their faith–which teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion violate the natural law and that Catholics cannot be involved in them.

In a statement, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops immediately condemned the administration’s decision to move forward with the regulation as “literally unconscionable.”

The regulation will go into effect on Aug. 1.

FULL ARTICLE

by Ilya Shapiro at Cato @ Liberty

Today Cato filed its second Supreme Court amicus brief in the Obamacare litigation, on the issue of whether the health care law’s Medicaid expansion is a proper exercise of the Constitution’s Spending Clause.

That is, states must now accept a comprehensive reorganization of Medicaid or forfeit all federal Medicaid funding—even though the spending power is circumscribed to preserve a distinction between what is local and what is national. If Congress is allowed to attach conditions to spending that the states cannot refuse in order to achieve an objective it could not outright mandate, the local/national distinction that is so central to federalism will be erased.

Joining the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, Pacific Legal Foundation, Rep. Denny Rehberg (chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies), and Kansas Lt. Gov. Jeffrey Colyer (also a practicing physician) we argue that, in requiring states to accept onerous conditions on federal funds that it could not impose directly, the government has exceeded its enumerated powers and violated basic principles of federalism.

California is at risk of losing $25.6 billion in annual federal funding, for example, and together the states stand to lose more than a quarter trillion dollars annually. On average, states would have to increase their general revenue budgets by almost 40% in order to maintain their current level of Medicaid funding.

The 1987 case of South Dakota v. Dole, however, prohibits such a coercive use of the spending power and recognizes that “in some circumstances the financial inducement offered by Congress might be so coercive as to pass the point at which ‘pressure turns into compulsion.’” Indeed, the states’ obligations, should they “choose” to accept federal funding and thus commit themselves to doing the government’s bidding, are far more substantial than those the Supreme Court invalidated in New York v. United States and Printz v. United States (which prohibit federal “commandeering” of state officials).

Moreover, the Congress that enacted the original Social Security Act, to which Medicare and Medicaid were added in the 1960s, recognized that social safety has always been the prerogative of the states and should continue to be done under state discretion. Medicaid itself was narrowly tailored to serve particularly needy groups.

In short, if Obamacare does not cross the line from valid “inducement” to unconstitutional “coercion,” nothing ever will. Just as the Commerce Clause is not an open-ended grant of power, the Spending Clause too has limits that must be enforced.

Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review.

IBD Editorials

EXCERPTS:

In a telltale Friday-night document dump, the White House released records showing the latest lucky recipients of Obama-Care cost waivers. By the wildest of coincidences, 87% of them belong to Big Labor unions.

This isn’t conspiracy thinking. Judicial Watch obtained records from closed-door meetings between Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO, Andy Stern of the SEIU and other labor advocates of health care nationalization, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Vice President Joe Biden, Majority Leader Harry Reid and ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. They point to deals cut to benefit Big Labor.

… unions together shelled out $100 million in 2010 to keep Democrats in office after the fiasco.

This is political corruption at its worst. ObamaCare can’t be called a law anymore, let alone an equalizer of health care access, as it has claimed — it’s just a machine for dispensing political favors, paid for by the rest of us.

FULL ARTICLE

By Ann Coulter at Townhall.com

EXCERPTS:

Taxes can be raised and lowered. Regulations can be removed (though they rarely are). Attorneys general and Cabinet members can be fired. Laws can be repealed. Even Supreme Court justices eventually die.

But capitulate on illegal immigration, and the entire country will have the electorate of California. There will be no turning back.

Similarly, if Obamacare isn’t repealed in the next few years, it never will be.

America will begin its ineluctable descent into becoming a worthless Western European country, with rotten health care, no money for defense and ever-increasing federal taxes to support the nanny state.

The only way to stop Obamacare is to beat Obama in 2012, and repeal it before the health care Leviathan is born.

2012 is not a year for a wild card. It’s not a year for any candidate who will end up being the issue, instead of making Obama the issue.

FULL ARTICLE

Editor’s note:

SEIU Sec/Treas. Eliseo Medina on the SEIU/ Democrats goal of “immigration reform”:  It will add at least eight million new “Progressive” votes to the D column and dominate elections in many city, state and national elections for years to come.

Video clip from akaczynski.

ObamaCare: The “Final Solution” for the Enslavement of Medicine

1,968 New and Expanded Secretarial Powers in Health Law

CBO: Obamacare Will Kill 800,000 Jobs Over Decade

By Mario Diaz, Esq.

The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lack of transparency on Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s involvement with ObamaCare proves, once again, not only that Justice Kagan should recuse herself from the upcoming case on the law’s constitutionality, but also that Attorney General Holder continues to place politics above justice.

The Obama administration and Kagan herself have always denied she had any involvement on the administration’s health care discussions. Yet the evidence suggests otherwise.

E-mails obtained by Judicial Watch reveal that Kagan was invited to meetings on the topic, and everyone in the administration thought this law was “of singular importance.” They wanted to be ready for the “inevitable challenges” to ObamaCare.

The e-mails reveal that she supported the legislation, celebrating when she heard they had the votes to pass it. But they also suggest the Obama administration knew that it wanted her at the Supreme Court to hear the case because they wrote statements like:

AG just told me that he expects a big story coming out shortly about whether you are recused in health care litigation. I went over the timing that you have been walled off from Day One.

“From day one,” why?

It is inconceivable that Kagan did not discuss such an important piece of legislation when her opinion as Solicitor General was so valuable to the administration. Those e-mails paint a very different picture than what the Obama administration would have us believe.

Concerned with this, 49 members of Congress asked the House Judiciary Committee to look into Kagan’s participation in the crafting of the argument to defend ObamaCare. Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) acted on this request by asking DOJ, under Attorney General Eric Holder, to provide all documents regarding Kagan’s involvement, exercising the Committee’s oversight power.

But DOJ decided to thumb its nose at the congressmen’s concerns. In the letter responding to Chairman Smith, they said:

We are unaware of any precedent for Congress to conduct a post-confirmation investigation regarding the pre-confirmation activities of a sitting Justice, and we would regard such a course of action as an unseemly encroachment on the judicial branch of government.

They promptly denied the request, citing no legal authority to do so.

Chairman Smith has asked DOJ to reconsider their denial or provide a legal basis for their refusal to comply, but they simply ignore this request, apparently for political considerations alone. In his latest letter, Smith asks the White House, along with DOJ, to provide these materials, but it is unlikely that they will cooperate.

Why? What do they have to hide?

In a recent press release, Chairman Smith said:

The public has a right to know both the full extent of Justice Kagan’s involvement with this legislation while she was Solicitor General, as well as her previously stated views and opinions about the legislation while she was serving as Solicitor General.

Indeed. The fact that the Obama administration and DOJ simply will not comply with this reasonable request suggests that their story that Kagan was not involved at all but was “shielded from day one” from discussions on this legislation is simply not true. They could put an end to the discussion by providing the materials. What do they have to lose if they are telling the complete truth on this matter?

Concerned Women for America
1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100
Washington, D.C. 20005
Phone: (202) 488-7000
Fax: (202) 488-0806