Demonizing families in poverty and misleading actions

Just in between the articles on the Judeo-Christian values some news of the day (before it gets to old news):

President Barack Obama talks with Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., during the nationally televised bipartisan meeting on health insurance reform at Blair House in Washington, D.C., Feb. 25, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Paul Ryan insisted that under a Romney presidency, they would repeal all of Obamacare. Not keep the things that work or expressing concern for those who are enjoying some of the benefits of Obamacare already, but entirely repeal it.

Wheaton College (Illinois) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Imani Gandy (ABL) (= from  Angry Black Ladies Chronicle) writes: “Wheaton College filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration–like so many other Catholic churches, schools, and companies have done–claiming that the birth control benefit–the policy under the Affordable Care Act which ensures that all insurance policies cover preventive health care services for women, including contraception, without a co-pay–infringes on its religious liberty. According to Wheaton College, the Administration’s policy requiring that all insurance plans offer coverage of contraception without a co-pay is of the devil. Big Government and secular liberals are forcing Wheaton College to participate in the dissemination of slut pills to co-eds, and Wheaton College has decided to be outraged about it.”

In an interview with KXNO sports radio on August the 14th, President Obama was asked to say something nice about Mitt Romney, Politico reports. Here’s his response:

“He seems to have a great family. And I really think he had a great health care plan when he was in Massachusetts,” Obama said. “Seems to be working really well — One of the reasons why we set up the same kind of plan nationally and we’re implementing it right now.”

Sister Simone Campbell

The group behind the Nuns On A Bus tour that highlighted the ill-effects of the House Republican budget in congressional districts across the country is now setting its sights on the party’s presidential candidate. They invited Mitt Romney to spend a day with the nuns to learn about the plight of America’s poorest citizens.

The Executive Director of the organization, Sister Simone Campbell, knows that these are the people who will be further harmed by the policies Romney is proposing and the recent divisive political ads about welfare. She released a statement that pretty much nails what is happening at the moment.

“Recent advertisements and statements from the campaign of Governor Romney demonize families in poverty and reflect woeful ignorance about the challenges faced by tens of millions of American families in these tough economic times. We are all God’s children and equal in God’s eyes. Efforts to divide us by class or score political points at the expense of the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters reveal the worst side of our country’s politics.”

Travis Waldron writes: “Romney has endorsed the House GOP budget plan authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). It was that plan, which includes deep cuts to food stamps and other safety net programs that benefit the middle class, that NETWORK’s Nuns On A Bus tour targeted, with Campbell and other sisters blasting it as “immoral” at the tour’s conclusion in Washington D.C. Romney has also proposed massive tax cuts for the rich that would likely come at the expense of lower- and middle-class families, which would see higher taxes or significant cuts to the programs they depend on.”

“Those policies,” Campbell told ThinkProgress, “show that Romney “doesn’t have clue” about the struggles the poor face. “The fact is, his policies shift wealth to the upper class,” she said. “Yes, it hurts the middle class, but it devastates those at the margins of our society.” If Romney were to accept their invitation, Campbell said she would take him to places like St. Augustine’s in Cleveland, where food programs “provide a hand up” to the community’s neediest members. “He thinks they’re lazy,” Campbell said, in reference to Romney’s misleading welfare reform ad. “It is hard work to keep things together when you’re poor. He doesn’t have a clue. Let him talk to them, and maybe they’ll touch his heart. And his mind too.”” (Nuns Challenge Romney To Spend A Day With Them To Learn About Plight Of America’s Poor)

Mitt Romney – Caricature (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

The group of Catholic Sisters have previously protested against House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R) over proposed budget cuts they said would hurt struggling families. The nuns are not the only Catholic group to have criticized Ryan’s budget. Referencing Matthew 25, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have claimed that cuts in Ryan’s budget plan are “unjustified and wrong.”

“Paul Ryan has claimed to be a faithful Catholic, and I have no reason to suspect that that isn’t accurate,” Sister Mary Ellen Lacy Daughter, a lobbyist for NETWORK, told Raw Story last month. “What we do know, and what the bishops agree with us on, is that the document, the budget that he wrote, is not a moral document. It is not a faithful budget. It is not consistent with the Catholic social teachings. He may claim one thing, but it is clearly in opposition to what we believe.”

With the choice of Paul Ryan as Romney’s running mate, the 2012 presidential election will be the first in U.S. history with a Roman Catholic on both sides of the ballot.

From Peter Sagal on his NPR show Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me…

For his next stop, Romney went to Israel and gave a speech comparing the Palestinian culture unfavorably to Israeli culture. When everybody got mad, he said “I never said anything about culture.” He did, you can see it in the transcript provided by his campaign. Then after saying it, and then denying he said it, he wrote an op-ed and said it again. Now, in the Olympics they name a difficult move after the first person to do it in international competition. So from now on, the “Triple Self Contradiction with Vaguely Racist Backflip” will be known as the “Triple Romney” (Extreme liberal)

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Related articles

• Christian College Provided Emergency Contraception to Employees… But They Only Got Mad When Obama Mandated It (patheos.com)
  In the early stages of the battle over the contraception mandate, coverage mostly focused on the protest from the Catholic Church, but a growing number of Protestant organizations have joined the fight. The Wheaton College alliance marks the first-ever partnership between Catholic and evangelical institutions to oppose the same regulation in the same court.“This mandate is not just a Catholic issue — it threatens people of all faiths,” says Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents the college in its suit. “Wheaton’s historic decision to join the fight alongside a Catholic institution shows the broad consensus that the mandate endangers everyone’s religious liberty.”
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  **As it turns out, Wheaton’s old health care plan already covered emergency contraception. So they’ve been frantically trying to get rid of it so they can pretend to be angry about it:

  “In order to be eligible for the safe harbor, the institution has to certify that it has not covered contraceptives after February 10, 2012,” said Emily Hardman, communications director for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Wheaton didn’t qualify because “for a short time after February 10, Wheaton’s policies inadvertently covered emergency contraceptives. Wheaton was in the process of fixing that error in February, but it was not fixed before the cutoff date.“

  No word on how long Wheaton offered employees emergency contraception before the “mistake.” But I don’t remember anyone at the school freaking out before last month. It’s almost as if the coverage wasn’t a big deal until it became part of Obamacare…

• Maddow mocks Wheaton College over contraception coverage (rawstory.com)
  But the conservative Christian college, which only recently lifted its ban against dancing on campus, already covered emergency contraceptionprior to the mandate.“So what do you do when you get called out in something like this?” Maddow wondered. “Do you give up? Do you admit the fact you’ve already been offering birth control in the health plans, and that means, by definition, a rule making you offer birth control doesn’t exactly trample on your rights? Of course you don’t admit that.”The college has scrambled to remove its coverage of emergency contraception and plans to continue its legal fight.
• Nearly 60 plaintiffs now suing Obama administration over HHS mandate (hotair.com)
  The Obama administration is facing growing resistance to its anti-conscience mandate two weeks before the policy goes into effect. Yesterday evangelical Wheaton College announced it was joining a lawsuit against the mandate. Last week another Illinois institution, Catholic Charities of Chicago, sued the administration.The Department of Health and Human Services mandate becomes official on Aug. 1. It requires employers to cover abortion drugs, contraception and sterilization, even if they have religious or moral objections. The administration’s so-called “accommodation” has failed to address the concerns of organizations, prompting the rash of lawsuits attempting to overturn the directive.
  +Monsignor Michael Boland, the organization’s president and CEO, said the Obama administration wants Catholic Charities to compromise its principles:

  As all of us know, Catholic Charities serves the poor because we are a Catholic organization, not because our clients are Catholic. We strongly believe at Catholic Charities that we witness our faith by our service to the poor. We ask only, “Are you hungry?” “Do you need clothing?” or “Are you homeless?” Under the HHS mandate, to be a “religious employer” we would now have to ask, “Are you Catholic?” This goes against everything that Catholic Charities stands for as an organization. Under the HHS mandate, we are punished for both employing and reaching out to serve non-Catholics, which is an injustice.
  {Marcus Ampe wonders:(Is this realy true????) Nohumanitarian organization has to ask the person they are helping if he or she is such or such, belonging to such church or non-believer.}

• Wheaton College sues administration over contraception mandate (religion.blogs.cnn.com)
  Despite the change in policy many of those groups have said the mandate remains a violation of their beliefs against contraceptives. Catholic teaching forbids the use of any contraceptives. Many evangelicals do not oppose the use of contraceptives, but believe life begins at conception and say some contraceptives, like emergency contraceptives, induce abortions.The government mandate covers all forms of FDA approved contraceptives and the administration has said time and again they felt the policy and its exceptions “struck the right balance” on religious freedoms and providing health care for people who need it.The suit was filed Wednesday in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for the college by the Becket Fund, the same law firm that is representing multiple lawsuits against the HHS policy.
• Romney-Ryan: America’s New Dream Team and a Clear Choice (askmarion.wordpress.com)
  Some commented that Ryan was a bit stiff in his roll out speech (Paul Ryan’s remarks) but he has quickly found his wings and wowed them at the Iowa state fair.  Remember, Ryan has had the courage to go head to head with Obama and has proposed alternative plans for both a budget (more than once) and ObamaCare.  “Where are the jobs, Mr. President?” has become Ryan’s new motto?
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  Before the announcement Rasmussen reported that 39 percent of all voters had a favorable opinion of Ryan, while only 25 percent had a negative review.But leftist rags like the New York Times immediately put out a negative editorial about Paul Ryan’s economic plan full to half truths, innuendos and down right falsehoods, and the leftist pundits like the vile Debbie Wasserman Schultz showed up on Fox spewing her normal misleading and untrue talking points rather than asking the questions put before her.+March 23rd Second Anniversary of ObamaCare… March 26th a Future Day in American Infamy?
  Government-controlled/run healthcare is the jewel socialism and the most Progressive president and congress America has ever had crammed this bill down the throats of the American people without most of them ever realizing what happened. They even managed to force both the House and Senate to vote on this program, several times each, without reading the bills.

  {Marcus’s remark: Did it not get time somebody progressive took it up for those who are in misery and are not as blessed with wealth as certain other American citizens, who have a job and do think they are safe for many years? Do they also not have to be protected in case something goes wrong in the future … do they not think they would loose their job or would have a serious illness or serious accident which shall have to bring them under medical treatment for years?}

  Recently several important provisions have come to light.  Below are back-up articles and information for those who did not read the bill or at least the reviews of those who did:

  Abortion, Birth Control an Woman’s Health:

  Rep. Chris Smith on Obama Violating Own Executive Order, Funding Abortion

  Obama Admin Finalizes Rules: $1 Abortions in ObamaCare

  The Obamacare Second Anniversary: No Gift for Women

  Sebelius: Decrease in Human Beings Will Cover Cost of Contraception Mandate

  Timing of War Over ObamaCare Mandatory Birth Control Payments… God’s Answer to Prayers for Intervention?

  What is the real purpose of birth control? Why is all of this so important to progressives?

  Obamacare Will Not Value Human Life – Proof Lies In A Killer Theory

  Costs and Funding of ObamaCare:

  Democratic Leaders Run From Budget Deadline As Health Law Threatens Nation’s Finances

  Oops ObamaCare’s Cost Has Doubled

  ObamaCare 2nd Birthday, No Surprise: Still Not Lowering Costs

  Insurance and Doctors:

  Side Effects: Doctors Fear Obamacare

  Obamacare Knows Best?

  Power Grab:

  Updated: 5-Reasons Obama is Losing the Contraceptive Mandate Battle… But Could be Winning the Power Grab Mandate War

  Religious Liberty:

  Stand Up For Religious Freedom Nationwide Rallies Friday – Coalition to Stop the HHS Mandate

  Religious Liberty: Obamacare’s First Casualty

  War On: Obama and ObamaCare verses Constitutional Patriots and Religious Freedom

  ‘We Will Not Comply’: Catholic Leaders Distribute Letter Slamming Obama Admin Contraceptive Mandate

  Seniors and Rationing:

  Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee

  Obamacare rationing panels an ‘immediate danger to seniors’: former AMA president

  Obamacare’s Second Anniversary: No Gift for Seniors

  IPAB Spells Gloom And Doom For Medicare

• Romney struggles to get square with Ryan’s Medicare plan (firstread.nbcnews.com)
  Stumping here on Monday, Mitt Romney told reporters he couldn’t think of how he differs from running mate Paul Ryan when it comes to their views on Medicare.“We haven’t gone through piece by piece and said, ‘Oh, here’s a place where there’s a difference,’” Romney said of his running mate’s plan. “But my plan for Medicare is very similar to his plan, which is ‘Do not change the program for current retirees or near-retirees but do not do what the president has done and that is to cut $700 billion out of the current program.”Sustaining Medicare, the government’s health care program for seniors, will likely become a central issue in this election campaign – particularly because Ryan, the House budget committee chairman, crafted a controversial plan that analysts say would increase costs for low-income and unhealthy seniors down the road.
• Obama ‘Robbed Medicare’ for Obamacare (itmakessenseblog.com)
  President Barack Obama “robbed” Medicare to pay for the healthcare legislation he pushed through Congress in 2010, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said in an interview broadcast Sunday night.
  Romney made the claim when asked on the CBS program “60 Minutes” about the political risk of picking Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, has led efforts to revamp Medicare, the government health-insurance program for the elderly.
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  Ryan has proposed replacing Medicare with a plan giving seniors a fixed amount of money to buy private coverage. The theory is that competition among health insurers for their business will bring down spiraling costs. Since his initial proposal, he has softened the plan to offer the elderly a choice between the traditional Medicare and the fixed subsidies.“My mom is a Medicare senior in Florida,” Ryan said in the CBS interview. “Our point is we need to preserve their benefits, because government made promises to them that they’ve organized their retirements around. In order to make sure we can do that, you must reform it for those of us who are younger. And we think these reforms are good reforms.”