The Enemy The West Faces

Those who innocently "feel" we can deal with Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas should read the following article. The Muslim world is on the march and are doing their very best to deceive those who do not understand how this religion works.  To deceive your enemy is allowed and if not allowed, encouraged.  As long as Allah reigns supreme in the end, anything is approved.

Many in the West are not used to dealing with people who will say one thing to your face and do the opposite when your back is turned. They either are unschooled or ignorant of the ways of the Muslim.  One only has to read what their leaders say to the Western press and then turn on Al Jezeera and see what they are saying to their people. It is completely different.

For Americans and others to think that the Arab Spring will turn out any different than Iran did 30 years ago is foolish. We can hope it will, but the chances are slim. Allah will triumph if we do not come to understand the enemy. We fear we will know the opposition, after it is too late.

What do you think?

Conservative Tom

The People of Blood and Jihad

Bruce Thornton - FrontPage Magazine,  February 20th, 2012

Thirty years ago, after Jimmy Carter’s disastrous attempt to rescue the embassy hostages in Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini warned, “Carter still has not comprehended what kind of people he is facing and what school of thought he is playing with. Our people is the people of blood and our school is the school of Jihad.” Despite the graphic proof of Khomeini’s words in the carnage of 9/11, many in the media, politics, and foreign policy establishment still refuse to comprehend the enemy we are facing.

Even as Islamists have come to power in the countries hastily celebrated last year as cradles of democracy, “Arab Spring” fever continues to addle the thinking of many. New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid (who died suddenly of an asthma attack last week in Syria) had his final article published last Saturday. It is a puff-piece on Tunisian Islamist Said Ferjani, who has returned to Tunisia from exile to “build a democracy, led by Islamists.” Said’s mentor is Rachid al-Ghannouchi, whose Ennahda party won over a third of the seats in Tunisia’s National Constituent Assembly. “His own thoughts evolving in exile,” Shahid writes, “Gannouchi became an early proponent of a more inclusive and tolerant Islamism, arguing a generation ago that notions of elections and majority rule were universal and did not contradict Islam.”

This statement is riddled with conceptual incoherence and obfuscation, and cries out for critical scrutiny. Elections and majority rule have nothing to do with being “more inclusive and tolerance,” which is the consequence of foundational principles such as human rights and equality before the law. Majorities can vote in democratic elections for exclusion and intolerance, as shown by the calls for intolerant shari’a law, and increased assaults on Christians and Jews in countries recently taken over by Islamists. And a shrewd reporter would have asked how this alleged “inclusion and tolerance” squares with Gannouchi’s campaign statement that “God wants you to vote for the party that will protect your faith,” a faith that prescribes subordinate status for women and non-Muslims; or whether Muslim Brothers offshoot Ennahda has repudiated the Brothers’ motto: “God is our objective; the Quran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader; jihad is our way; and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations.” Like many liberal reporters, Shadid simply accepts at face value the tactical deceptions of media-savvy Islamists adept at telling Westerners what they want to hear.

In fact, Shadid passes up numerous opportunities to do some good reporting and give his readers the whole story. For example, Shadid quotes approvingly Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Brothers’ Grand Mufiti, but doesn’t inform his readers that Qaradawi is on record advocating shari’a law, terrorism, and genocide against the Jews. Shadid also quotes another “reformer,” Tariq Ramadan. Ramadan is the Swiss born grandson of Muslim Brothers founder Hassan al-Banna, whose desire was to see “the Islamic banner . . . wave supreme over the human race,” and about whose Islamist ideology Ramadan has said, “there is nothing in this heritage that I reject.” Of course, Shahid says nothing of Ramadan’s documented tactical duplicity, illiberal ideas, and connections to terrorists, all documented in Caroline Fourest’s Brother Tariq, which reveals that beneath his soothing rhetoric Ramadan is pursuing the jihadist program of global Islamization through propaganda and recruitment rather than through violence. But Shadid is simply following the pattern of most “reporting” on Islam and Muslims over the last decade. As Bruce Bawer wrote in Surrender about another Times puff-piece, this one about a Brooklyn Imam, such articles “emphasize personal and superficial details that are likely to generate sympathy while sidestepping or whitewashing core beliefs, domestic arrangements, cultural practices, social rules, and long-term political goals that might actually inform, enlighten––and therefore alarm––readers.”

By filtering the words and deeds of the enemies through our own ideals and assumptions, such stories over the years have created a false picture of Islamism and the jihadist assault on the West. We rely on feel-good words like “freedom”  and “democracy,” without understanding the complexity of these ideas, or their foundation in larger notions about God and human nature specific to the West and its Greco-Roman, Judeojihadist violence that is in fact rooted in Islamic doctrine and traditions. Thus Bill Clinton, in a recent speech in Nigeria, where the jihadist outfit Boko Haram is fulfilling the Koranic injunction to “slay the idolaters wherever you find them,” opined, “You can’t just have this level of inequality persist. That’s what’s fueling all this stuff.” This economic rationale has been a favorite since 9/11, when the New York Times, channelling Karl Marx, wrote that “the disappointed youth of Egypt and Saudi Arabia turn to religion for comfort.” Then there are those who think that American-supported autocracies have oppressed their peoples into terrorism, and so giving them ballot boxes and constitutions will “drain the swamp” of jihadism. But as G.K. Chesterton wrote, “We shall have real democracy, when . . . the ordinary man will decide not only how he will vote, but what he is going to vote about.” But the autocrats have been kicked out of Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, and so far an illiberal shari’a law and Jew-hatred seem to be what the “ordinary man” in those countries is voting about.

So too with all the other causes of jihadism dear to liberal received wisdom. Israel, of course, is favorite rationalization for terrorism, even though the Islamist sects like Wahhabism, Deobandism, and Salafism from which modern jihadism springs appeared in the 18th and 19th centuries, long before Israel even existed. Western apologists decry colonial and imperial depredations, but never ask about the fourteen-hundred-year record of Islamic imperialism, colonization, and occupation, or wonder why Christians from all over the world aren’t rushing to commit terrorist acts against Turkey for occupying Constantinople or northern Cyprus. Alleged American slaughter of Muslims is another favorite explanation for jihadist violence, even though American power has liberated many more Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kuwait than it has killed. And if infidels killing Muslims justifies jihadist hatred, then Russia should top the list of offenders, as it has slaughtered Muslims for centuries, from the siege of Izmail in 1790, when 40,000 Muslim men, women, and children were butchered, to the destruction of Chechnya’s jihadist insurgency, which killed at least 100,000.

No, many in the West have not comprehended the nature of the people we are fighting––a people of blood and jihad. Whether through naïveté or arrogance, too many Westerners prefer their own received ideas and comforting illusions to the words of the enemy and the record of his deeds.

C.L. Bryant - Outstanding Patriot

One of the highlights of the Oakland County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner held last Thursday in Novi, MI was the appearance of C. L. Bryant, an ordained minister, former NAACP President, and Black Conservative. His speech had everyone in the room (all 1400+) standing in the aisles applauding his take no holds approach to solving our problems and defeating Barack Obama in the fall.


One of his efforts is a movie called "Runaway Slave" which discusses the terrible problems the Black population in this country faces. He blames it on the way the Democrats have become the new slave- masters of this part of the American public.  


Before 1960, most Blacks were Republicans due to Lincoln's freeing of the slaves. However, after Kennedy released Martin Luther King from jail, they switched their allegiance to the Democrats. Today they vote 90+% for those politicians who have created welfare, aid to dependent children, medicaid and so on. The effect of this "kindness" has removed Black males from the home, causing social problems to the race well in excess of their numbers. 40% of all inmates are Black. 80% of Black children are born out of wedlock. These were not the numbers before 1960!


C.L. Bryant and other Conservative Black Conservatives want to free their race from the enslavement that has resulted from Democratic "kindness." He is spellbinding to listen to and has a great message.  You can visit his website by clicking on the link below.  It is well worth the time and if you want, your support.


http://www.runawayslavemovie.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=130&Itemid=430


Conservative Tom

Will Obama's Mistake on Contraceptive Mandating Be Critical In Upcoming Election?

The answer to the question posed by the headline, is no!.  The time between this screw up and the election is an eon in political terms. We will have moved onto other problems, concerns, Constitutional mis-steps, invasions and  wars by the time November arrives, unfortunately.


More Constitutional rights will be given up, more riots will be conducted, more illegal activities conducted by the Administration before we get to kick him and his "Eva Peron" wife out of office. That is, if the American people are any smarter than Argentina was during the Peron years.  


Conservative Tom

Obama’s Epic Screw-Up

Read More About: A screw-up or a deep Obama's usual political game obfuscation?

Share This Post

 1

By Michael Gerson

Columnist for Washington Post

Feb 14, 2012.

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=2842

Some of them are now suggesting that his contraceptive mandate on religious institutions was a skilled political stratagem. “I’ve found by observing this president closely for years,” argues Andrew Sullivan, “that what often seem like short-term tactical blunders turn out in the long run to be strategically shrewd. And if this was a trap, the religious right walked right into it.” Religious conservatives are now identified, he says, with “opposition to contraception.” Republicans have achieved “fusion with the Vatican.” Obama is evidently playing the very deep game.
Consider the implications of this praise. It means that Obama assaulted the core beliefs of some of his fellow citizens in order to lure them into politically self-destructive behavior. The president is willing to trifle with the constitutional rights of religious people in order to get a rise out of them. In this scenario, Obama is a Machiavellian monster, undeserving of high office.
But I don’t think Sullivan’s indictment is accurate. These events have all the hallmarks of an epic White House screw-up. The policy resulted from an internal debate in which the vice president and the chief of staff took the other side. Liberal true believers won out. The announcement was fumbled. The White House was shocked by the breadth and intensity of opposition.
It is difficult to imagine that Obama desired criticism from Democratic officeholders and candidates, including a former head of the Democratic National Committee. Or a bridge burning with Catholic bishops shortly before an election. Or a promise of civil disobedience from the most prominent evangelical pastor in America, Rick Warren.
The initial policy was a disaster. The partial retreat was more skilled. Obama’s goal was not resolution but obfuscation. (as usual). The contraceptive mandate was shifted from Catholic employers to insurance companies. Instead of being forced to buy an insurance product that violates their beliefs, religious institutions will be forced to buy an insurance product that contributes to the profits and viability of a company that is federally mandated to violate their beliefs. Creative accounting, it seems, can cover a multitude of sins.
But an indirect requirement is less aggressive and humiliating than a direct one. This has become just another in a series of business mandates under Obamacare — motivating eventual repeal instead of civil disobedience. And religious people could easily respond to overreach with overreach. Some conservatives argue that any business — not just religious hospitals and charities — should be able to withhold contraceptive coverage because of the beliefs of its owner. This is probably a bridge too far in our current cultural and political context. The defense of religious freedom unites. Opposition to contraception divides.
Obama has partially defused a crisis of his own creation. But some effects of his blunder will linger.
First, Obama has made clear who is part of his ideological coalition and who is not. Discussions on the structure and restructuring of the contraceptive policy were conducted between the administration and pro-choice and feminist groups. The people most directly affected by the mandate — particularly the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — were not in the room. The administration engaged in no substantive consultation with Catholic bishops, who were only called to receive pronouncements. Interest group liberalism is alive and well in the Obama White House.
Second, the administration has consistently adopted and applied a view of religious liberty so narrow it imposes almost no limits on federal action. In the Hosanna-Tabor Supreme Court case, the Justice Department argued that there should be no “ministerial exception” at all — a contention the court dismissed as “amazing.” The modified contraceptive mandate still presupposes that religious liberty only applies to institutions whose primary purpose is worship, leaving every other religious institution vulnerable to future regulation.
Third, Obama has surrendered his main political appeal to religious voters from the last election — his embrace of faith-based social service providers. Any attempt to repeat this outreach will seem absurdly disconnected from reality.
Fourth, with a single miscalculation, Obama has managed to unite economic and social conservatives in outrage against government activism and energize religious conservatives in a way Mitt Romney could never manage. Culture war debates in America are evenly divided. But the objects of culture war aggression do not easily forget.
If Obama is playing a political chess game, he has just sacrificed his queen, a rook and all his bishops.It would have to be a deep game indeed.

Will Obama Insist That Netanyahu Not Strike Iran?

It appears as if things are going from hot to hotter  in the Iran-Israel confrontation.  Iran continues to increase the tensions by enriching uranium towards weapons grade and Israel will not stand for the Iranians getting the bomb. It is not pretty.

The US and the world has little influence on Iran and it appears as if it has no intention of changing its ways.  UN inspectors are back in the country after having been previously  repelled from the sites, so once again the "world peace" organization fails in its mission. Why do we continue to support it?

Netanyahu is coming to the US sometime in early March and is expected to be confronted by Obama not to  strike Iran.  We believe that in the next two weeks there will be extreme pressure exerted against the PM.  As the following article illustrates, the pressure is already being used by the Administration.

We expect that Netanyahu has the ability to withstand the pressure, however, will it send a message to Israel's enemies that the country is all alone in its fight. If that is the message the Iranians receive, we will see a ratcheting up of actions by them to further en-flame the conflict.

Will it become a shooting war or just a skirmish?  Tell us what you think as we have not decided if Iran is all bluster or if it is for real.

Conservative Tom

Obama to Try and Talk Netanyahu Out of Iran Strike

Unknown - DEBKAfile,  February 20th, 2012

White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon faced an acrimonious Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in two hours of stormy conversation in Jerusalem Sunday, Feb. 19, according to updates reaching senior US sources in Washington. The main bones of contention were Iran's continuing enrichment of uranium and its ongoing relocation of production to underground sites.

Israeli officials declined to give out any information on the conversation. Some even refused to confirm it took place.

According to debkafile's sources, Netanyahu accused the Obama administration of drawing Iran into resuming nuclear negotiations with world powers by an assurance that Tehran would be allowed to continue enriching uranium up to 5 percent in any quantity, provided it promised not to build an Iranian nuclear weapon. The prime minister charged that this permit contravened US administration guarantees to Israel on the nuclear issue and, moreover left Tehran free to upgrade its current 20 percent enrichment level to 90 percent weapons grade. This Israel cannot tolerate, said Netanyahu, so leaving its military option on the ready.

He warned the US National Security Adviser that no evidence whatsoever confirms Washington's claim that Tehran intends suspending enrichment and other nuclear advances when negotiations begin. Quite the contrary: Even before the date was set, Iran started working at top speed to build up its bargaining chips by laying down major advances in its nuclear program as undisputed facts.

Tehran now claims to have progressed to self-reliance in the production of 20 percent-enriched uranium, the basis for the weapons grade fuel, in unlimited quantity. Once the talks are underway, Netanyahu maintained, there would be no stopping the Iranians without stalling the negotiating process. Going by past experience, Tehran would use dialogue as an extra fulcrum for its impetus toward weapon production without interruption.

Monday, Donilon and his delegation meet Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

The mission of this high-powered US delegation in Israel takes place to the accompanied of a resumed US media campaign for discouraging Israeli military action against Iran's nuclear installations.

Sunday, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, offered this opinion to CNN: “Israel has the capability to strike Iran and delay the Iranians probably for a couple of years. But some of the targets are probably beyond their reach.”

Monday's New York Times carried an assessment by “American defense officials and military analysts close to the Pentagon” under the caption, “Iran Raid Seen as a Huge Task for Israel Jets.” debkafile's military sources report the main argument, dredged up from the past and long refuted, is that Israeli Air Force bombers cannot cover the distance to Iran without in-flight refueling.

That array of “analysts” apparently missed the CNN interview and therefore contradicted the assessment of America's own top general that “Israel has the capability to strike Iran…”

Reality has meanwhile moved on. Four events in the last 24 hours no doubt figured large in the US delegation's talks with Israeli leaders:

1. Monday, the IAEA sent to Tehran its second team of monitors this month for another attempt to gain access to nuclear facilities hitherto barred by the Iranians. The inspectors will also demand permission to interview scientists which according to a list drawn up at the agency's Vienna headquarters hold key positions in their nuclear program.

2. The Russian Chief of Chaff Gen. Nikolai Makarov estimated that the attack on Iran would be “coordinated” by several governments and “a decision would be made by the summer.”

3. Moscow recalled Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kutznetsov from the Syrian port of Tartus to its home base at Severomorsk on the Kola Peninsula.

4. Turkey is beinding over backward to assure Iran that data collected by the US missile shield radar stationed at its Kurecik air base will not shared with Israel. It is especially anxious not to annoy Tehran after foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi announced that the resumed nuclear talks with the five Permanent Security Council members and German (P5+1) would be held in Istanbul.

However, the Iranians certainly know exactly what is going on after watching the recent joint US-Israeli radar test which demonstrated that Israel is fully integrated in the missile shield radar network and that the US radar station in the Israeli Negev interfaces with its station in Turkey and Israel's Arrow missile Green Pine radar.

When he visited Ankara last week, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen assured his Turkish hosts that “Intelligence data collected within the missile defense system will not be shared with third countries. It will be shared with the allies within our alliance.”
His statement was quite accurate – except for the fact that the radar stations collecting the intelligence data are not controlled by NATO but by US military teams, both of which, including the Turkish-based radar, are integrated and coordinated with Israeli radar and missile interceptors

Like Sheep To The Slaughter

If you were to ask Jewish leaders what the most important challenge facing American or Israeli Jewry, it would be Conservatives, the arising of Christian believers in the US, xenophobia, abortion rights or the economy.  Nowhere in their discussion would be Iran,  the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, The Palestinians, Sharia Law, the effects of the Arab Spring or anything Muslim. They are either asleep at the switch or have their heads buried deeply in the sand. No thinking, rational individual could miss the real issues of the day but somehow these leaders do!

As the following article makes very clear, there are movements occurring around the world and in the US that should be of concern to these leaders, however, they seem to want to avoid the obvious.  When US Senators openly welcome Muslim Brotherhood members and the Secretary of State will not condemn their statements, there is a problem when Jewish leaders to do not speak out loudly.

Additionally, there has been very little Jewish support of the Catholics in their fight with the Obama Administration.  Granted, there has been some, but it has been very limited to basically  the Orthodox.  This is a mistake for who knows what rules will come out of this administration that will effect Jews.

Obviously these are not stupid men, but they certainly are acting that way. They are like sheep being lead to the slaughter, not saying a "baa!"

Conservative Tom

Jewish leaders mum as Obama embraces anti-Semitic Brotherhood

Charles Jacobs - The Jewish Advocate,  February 17th, 2012

Last June, President Barack Obama began to openly court Egypt's anti- Semitic Muslim Brotherhood. Yet, with few exceptions, American Jewish leaders are keeping quiet.

The Brotherhood's spiritual leader, Sheikh Yusef Qaradawi, makes things perfectly clear:

“Oh Allah, take the Jews, the treacherous aggressors. Oh Allah, take this profligate, cunning, arrogant band of people. … Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.”

The sheikh who – by the way – was a trustee and fundraiser for the Boston mega-mosque – explains the Jews to his followers around the world thusly: “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the Jews people who would punish them for their corruption. … The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. … even though they exaggerated this issue. … This was divine punishment for them. … Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers.”

Obama sees the situation more broadly: Not to engage the Brotherhood, a senior administration official explained, “would be impractical.” Besides, he said, since winning the parliamentary election, the MB has been “very specific about conveying a moderate message – on regional security and domestic issues, and economic issues.”

It's been a persistent fantasy of Western diplomats that by governing – or even participating in elections – radicals are transformed into pragmatists. Facts show otherwise: Radicals and Islamists across the Middle East, as they vote or govern, have not lessened their virulent hatred of Jews, their antipathy toward democracy, or their horrid treatment of Christians, women and gays. As Professor Barry Rubin points out: The radical nationalist PLO – given money, guns and power – has not moderated; Hamas won an election in Gaza, yet still wants to commit genocide on Jews; Hezbollah won an election in Lebanon and has not moderated; Turkey's Islamists, now in power, adopted an anti-Western foreign policy that backs radical Islamists; and Egypt itself seems set to violently return its Christian minority to pre-colonial “dhimmi” serfdom. “Where,” Rubin asks, “is the renunciation of past extremism, the reinterpretation of Islamic texts to justify a totally different worldview?”

The Muslim Brotherhood is unlikely to moderate because its core doctrine is Islamic supremacy: Democracy is not in its DNA. Sayyid Qutb, the Brotherhood's chief ideologue, saw the collapse of the world's last Muslim empire in Turkey. He taught that Islamic civilization had crumbled because it had strayed from its original path. His solution – and the foundational principle of the MB – is a return to the flawless, unspoiled beliefs and practices of the Prophet Muhammad.

Since its founding in 1928, the Brotherhood has spawned practically all modern jihadist movements. Hamas is its branch in Palestine. The Muslim American Society- the organization that runs the Boston mega mosque – is said by federal authorities to be its front group in the United States. The Brotherhood's spiritual guide, Qaradawi, says it must destroy Israel and then conquer Europe and America. The Brotherhood's ultimate goal is to impose Sharia law worldwide and create a global caliphate.

The Brotherhood is not “only” out to destroy Israel: It has from the start expressed genocidal intention toward the Jewish people. During World War II, the organization distributed Nazi-funded Arabic copies of “Mein Kampf ” (“My Struggle” is uncannily close to “my jihad”) throughout Palestine to inspire the Arab troops to slaughter Jewish immigrants.

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton first defended working with the MB, she promised that in any contacts with them, “we will continue to emphasize the importance of and support for democratic principles and especially a commitment to non-violence, respect for minority rights, and the full inclusion of women in any democracy.”

Clinton's support for these principles went unnoticed in Cairo on Oct. 9, 2011, when Christians were massacred by Islamist thugs. And it goes unnoticed every time Qaradawi calls for killing the world's Jews. Instead the Administration has recruited this would-be genocidaire to mediate its negotiations with the Taliban.

Since the Obama Administration seems intent on working with today's Hitlerites, it's not surprising that US aid continues to flow to the Palestinian Authority after the PA announced a unity deal with the Brotherhood's Hamas branch. Preventing American dollars from funding Hamas is clearly a national Jewish issue. Yet so far, the only national Jewish organization that has challenged Obama on this betrayal of the Jewish people has been the valiant Zionist Organization of America.

But Obama's outreach to Muslim anti- Semites is no less an issue right here, for Boston's Jews.

It is Massachusetts Senator John Kerry who has become the point man for the president's push to build ties with the MB in Egypt. In December, Kerry met with the top officials of the Brotherhood's political party. The senator said he “welcomed the results of Egypt's first democratic elections,” which gave 40 percent of the vote to the MB and another 24 percent to the even-more radical Salafi al-Nour Party. Then he urged the International Monetary Fund to fund the MB. US dollars ($55 billion) account for nearly 20 percent of IMF's worth. So now, a Massachusetts senator is helping to send US dollars to people religiously committed to killing Jews – yet I am not aware of any Jewish leader here lodging a protest against him.

And of course, there is that still simmering issue of the Saudi-funded megamosque in Roxbury, built in part with funds raised by Qaradawi, who – because he was banned from setting foot in America by President Bill Clinton – had to raise money for the mosque among Boston Muslims via video broadcast to a gathering at the downtown Sheraton. Since then, thinking about his own end time, he's expressed this delightful wish: “I will shoot Allah's enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus I will seal my life with martyrdom.” Here too, there is silence from our local Jewish community and religious leaders.

To Protect Religious Freedom You Have To Sue!

What is this country coming to? To protect your religious rights, you have to sue the government?  Sounds like some foreign country to us, not the good ole USA!  But that is where we are today. Sue the government or you will be forced to do something that is repugnant to you and your religion.  And remember this is an election year, what will future rules say when Obama is not running for President?

Ava Maria University (a Catholic University) has sued the Health and Human Services department over the existing rules that require all employers to provide contraception, abortions and abortion pills to all employees. If the employer has a moral objection to the regulation, the underlying insurance company MUST provide these benefits without a cost to the organization.  Yea, right.  Insurance companies are in the business to make money and not to provide benefits for free. Someone, somewhere will pay for these costs. It will either be included in the next years bill or it will be spread over the entire insured population which still means the Catholic organization (in this case) will end up paying for these services.  

Obama's supposed "compromise" was not included in the rule change and therefore is not the law. It is just a magician's move to make you look away. It was not a comprise as he met with no one on the other side of the argument, it was pure theater. He thinks that he is smarter than the rest of us (and he is brighter than some--those that will vote for him again) but we know the King has no clothes and are watching him. We know his tricks and we would hope that the American people are smart enough to know that we bought his bull once, and found it was a steer (a castrated bull.)  It was time to send the Obamafool home.

Conservative Tom

Ave Maria University Sues HHS over Contraception Mandate

By Matt Cover

February 21, 2012

Subscribe to Matt Cover's posts

    

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and President Barack Obama at the White House on Feb. 10, 2012. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

(CNSNews.com) – Florida’s Ave Maria University has filed suit against the Obama administration to block and overturn the controversial Health and Human Services (HHS) regulation that would force all health insurance companies to offer sterilization and contraception, including abortifacients, free of charge.

University President Jim Towey, former head of the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives in the Bush White House, said it was a “sad day” when the government was forcing citizens to sue their government to protect their religious freedoms.

“It’s a sad day when an American citizen or organization has no choice but to sue its own government in order to exercise religious liberty rights guaranteed by our nation’s Constitution,” he said on a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.

“As an American Catholic, I am in disbelief that I have to choose between being a good Catholic and a good citizen,” said Towey. “I will not, and the university will not, accept this false choice.”

Towey called the White House’s Feb. 10 compromise proposal for the regulation a “sleight of hand” that would not keep Ave Maria from having to fund contraceptive/abortifacient coverage for its employees.

“This sleight-of-hand maneuver by the government fooled no one,” Towey said. “Ave Maria University pays 95 percent of the cost of the health plan we offer [to] our 129 employees. It’s absurd for the federal government to suggest that these new pharmaceuticals will be free because they aren’t free now and, in fact, the administration’s own argument for free contraceptive drugs is that they place a financial burden on women.”

“And so, under this federal mandate, Ave Maria University would be paying for these drugs if we complied with the law, so we will not [comply],” he said.

Towey said that Ave Maria was prepared to stop offering health care coverage to its employees and pay the $2,000-per-employee fine if necessary every year.

Ave Maria filed suit with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has also filed suit on behalf of the EWTN Catholic network, Belmont Abbey College, and Colorado Christian University challenging the Obama sterilization mandate.

(AP Image)

Kyle Duncan, Becket fund general counsel, explained that the compromise Obama offered – forcing insurance companies to pay for contraception services themselves – never went into effect when HHS finalized its final rule, meaning that while the president had said organizations like Ave Maria would be exempt, they currently are not.

“On February 10, the mandate – the contraceptive mandate – actually became final without change,” Duncan explained. “All of this talk of a compromise and an accommodation, all that is, is a promise in the future by the administration to maybe engage in some additional rulemaking.”

“That’s not the law. What the law is is the contraceptive mandate,” said Duncan.

Duncan is correct. In its final rule, the Obama administration made no changes to the mandate’s narrow religious exemption that only protected religious organizations, such as churches or seminaries that primarily employ and serve members of their own faiths.

“A group health plan (and health insurance coverage provided in connection with such a plan) qualifies for the exemption if, among other qualifications, the plan is established and maintained by an employer that primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the organization,” the final rule states.

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan is the archbishop of New York and the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. (AP Photo)

The regulation also says that organizations such as Ave Maria will be given a one-year “safe harbor” from enforcement, and that during that time the administration will try to devise some kind of compromise that allows female employees to get free contraception through their insurance without a religious employer having to pay for it.

“With respect to certain non-exempted, non-profit organizations with religious objections to covering contraceptive services,” the regulation explains, “guidance is being issued contemporaneous with these final regulations that provides a one-year safe harbor from enforcement by the Departments.”

“Before the end of the temporary enforcement safe harbor, the Departments will work with stakeholders to develop alternative ways of providing contraceptive coverage without cost sharing with respect to non-exempted, non-profit religious organizations with religious objections to such coverage,” reads the Obamacare regulation.

Towey said that in announcing the compromise, but not including it in the final rule, the administration had merely provided a “fig leaf” for its left-wing Catholic allies.

“What was announced as an accommodation or compromise was simply a fig leaf to provide a little bit of cover for some left-of-center Catholics and some other allies of the administration,” said Towey.

Catholics attending Mass. (AP Photo.)

The regulation was initially finalized on Jan. 20. That action sparked opposition nationwide from various religious groups, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and at least 158 members of Congress. This week, a list of 2,500 religious leaders of various denominations who oppose the regulation was released by the Family Research Council.

To try to quell the opposition, President Obama announced on Feb. 10:  “Today, we've reached a decision on how to move forward.  Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive services -- no matter where they work.  So that core principle remains.  But if a woman’s employer is a charity or a hospital that has a religious objection to providing contraceptive services as part of their health plan, the insurance company -- not the hospital, not the charity -- will be required to reach out and offer the woman contraceptive care free of charge, without co-pays and without hassles.”

Under this solution, all health-insurance plans in the United States would be forced by the government to cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients free of charge.

The USCCB said the so-called solution was “unacceptable.”

“It would still mandate that all insurers must include coverage for the objectionable services in all the policies they would write,” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement.