fpb: (Default)
fpb ([personal profile] fpb) wrote2010-03-20 05:17 am

I told you all two years ago

As for President Obama:
1) he has broken his own promise on Don't Ask Don't Tell, something to which few reasonable people would have seen an objection. (That at least one right-wing columnist broke Godwin's Law in trying to find an argument against accepting homosexual soldiers just shows how poor the arguments for this really are.)
2) He has broken his promise on torture and even let into his administration a couple of people whose hands are dirty in the matter, such as Robert Gates.
3) He is wrecking his own proposals for health reform rather than give up a sneaky and unprincipled attempt to break the consensus on abortion (no federal monies for), and he is lying about it.
4) He is guilty of deliberately stirring up trouble against Israel, with the miserable Quartet all too happy to follow his lead.
5) He has ignored both the hideous threat of an Iranian atom bomb and, more disgracefully, the desperate struggle of the Iranian people against a bloodthirsty and disastrous tyranny. He has repeatedly spoken as though the mullah's government were the legitimate leadership of that unhappy country.

Oh, and strictly for Catholics:
6) According to Life Site News International, he has deliberately egged on Catholic Health Association, and possibly the Leadership Conference of Religious Women (although that lot don't need much egging) to revolt against the Bishops. I quote: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs revealed to reporters today that President Barack Obama actively promoted the Catholic Health Association's public break with the American Catholic bishops to support his health care legislation.
Gibbs also suggested that the CHA and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious' (LCWR) break with the U.S. Bishops has provided legitimate political cover for pro-life Democrats to switch their votes from "no" to "yes."
(...)
Gibbs said that the president had been engaged on the issue, and a reporter asked if he had reached out personally to the groups.
"The President met earlier this week with Sr. Keehan of the CHA," said Gibbs, saying the meeting took place in the Roosevelt Room, but that he "did not get a detailed run-down of the pitch that [Obama] made."
"I do know that he was effusive about her support and her as a person for making the courageous statements that she has," he said.

Well, at least he was not shameless enough to tell his own spokesman what he had done with or offered to this rebel nun.
During the Paris negotiations of 1782-3, the reigning Pope offered Franklin and Adams that the USA government could have a veto over the nomination of Catholic bishops (something that many European governments had at the time). In keeping with their principles, the Founders - few of whom had any sympathy for the Catholic Church as such - nonetheless refused this offer and allowed the Church to organize itself in the new nation as it saw fit. Since then, I know of no President who has ever, for any reason whatever, thought to meddle in the Church's internal affairs and organization.

Hope? Change? Change, all right; hope - that he does not get re-elected.

[identity profile] dustthouart.livejournal.com 2010-03-20 06:12 am (UTC)(link)
You can't summarize it at all? I force myself to read 14 page articles for class, I'm not going to read one in my spare time on a subject that makes me stressed out and crazy.

[identity profile] redcoast.livejournal.com 2010-03-20 06:26 am (UTC)(link)
Basically, it's about the affect the amendment might have because of the way the insurance business works. The restrictions requiring the abortion coverage to be a supplemental plan administered and paid for separately would be such a pain that the easier thing to do would be to not offer abortion coverage at all. And because there is nothing requiring them to offer abortion coverage, they won't.

The idea is that because of the affects that state and federal requirements have on demand and because it's cheapest to make the basic structure of the plan the same across the board, this might lead to companies dropping all abortion coverage from all their plans.

I guess you can buy it or not. As far as I can tell, the original bill said that if you got federal subsidies for insurance coverage, you could buy a plan with abortion coverage but you had to pay for the abortion coverage yourself, separately. The Stupak amendment says it can't be a part of the plan, it has to be a supplemental plan administered completely separately. The big difference, then, is not who pays for it but how the insurance companies would have to deal with it.

It's a difficult issue for me to understand because it deals in legalese and I am not a lawyer.

[identity profile] fpb.livejournal.com 2010-03-20 06:29 am (UTC)(link)
So, it's an organizational issue. And the insurance companies and other bodies involved would not have enough brain cells between them to change the organizational features to get rid of any problem? Really, I kind of expected better.