Well, the Obama Administration’s "accommodation" (as the Prez chose to call it in a rather adolescent attempt to avoid using the word "compromise") of the Catholic Church’s objections to the Obamacare contraception mandate has fallen flat on its face. After a cautious initial reaction from the US Catholic bishops and a chorus of positive spin from the usual suspects, it turns out that a difference that makes no difference is no difference.

Noting that the so-called accommodation retains the mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacients (morning-after abortion drugs), the US Conference of Catholic Bishops turned the Administration’s proposal down flat. "The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services," the bishops said. (See this story in the National Catholic Register for more details.)

Barry’s in trouble on this one because he and his people have lost control of the message. It’s not about women’s rights now (a ludicrous claim in any case considering the low cost and easy availability of contraceptives)—it’s about religious liberty. But of course, Obama and his supporters are the last people on the planet you’d expect to grasp the power of that message.

Posted by tmg110 at 3:35 PM EST

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OK, let’s review: (1) The Obama Administration promulgates a health insurance mandate that’s certain to be offensive to the Catholic Church. (2) A wholly predictable uproar ensues. (3) In an attempt to quell the rising tide of outrage, the President announces an “accommodation” that’s patently phony. (4) So now many Catholics, liberals and feminists are discontented and suspicious. (Conservatives on the other hand feel vindicated. Unlike for example the president of the University of Notre Dame they never believed that Obama was acting in good faith.)

What on earth caused an intelligent fellow like Barack Obama to commit such a lame-brained political blooper? The answer in two words is intellectual vanity. Once again, the President acted on the dubious assumption that he’s the smartest guy in the room. He simply waved away the objections of Vice President Joe Biden and others who warned that forcing a contraception mandate on the Catholic Church would be seen as an assault on religious liberty. Egged on by a cabal of Catholic-hating radical feminists inside and beyond the White House, he picked a fight that he was guaranteed to lose. And in an election year!

Will someone please explain to me why so many people still insist on singing hymns to Barack Obama’s dazzling political skills?

Posted by tmg110 at 2:26 PM EST

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I just know you’ve been waiting for this: The Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology—because what’s a revolution without a literary vanguard?

Just to whet your appetite, here's an excerpt from one of the poems: “The Mad Song” by Michael Schiavo (though if you ask me it could also be Noam Chomsky on crack):

We baffle the monarchy of mules. We are neither firefly nor inferno. We examine his portrait in the post office. We shuffle to make you smile, motherfucker. We outlast the palace. We too climb the sycamore to grab the chubby raven. We court the mountaineer. We, in our element, cannot be halted. We are never in our element. We belie. We have milled through many nettles. We dispense our interior joy. We are not endowed with happiness, only the pursuit.

So that’s what the OWS comrades were up to during their unsanitary little NYC campout: climbing the sycamore to grab the chubby raven! And dispensing their interior joy. Yeah, sure, all over the sidewalk…

Posted by tmg110 at 1:40 PM EST

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Everyman’s Library has published in one volume three of George Orwell’s early novels: Burmese Days, Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Coming Up for Air. It joins Nineteen Eighty-four, Animal Farm and a fine fat selection of Orwell’s essays on the EL list, providing a good introduction to this important writer’s work. (A volume devoted to Orwell’s nonfiction books—Down and Out in Paris and London, The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia—would round out the collection nicely.)

Orwell’s early novels—the three in this volume and the unimpressive A Clergyman’s Daughter—have generally been slighted by critics. Yet they’ve stood up well to the acid test of time and today, seventy-odd years after first being published, they still repay reading. My personal favorite of the three is Coming Up for Air (1938), in which the protagonist’s dreadful vision of the coming war is leavened by mordant humor and nostalgia for the vanished English past. In this novel—indeed, in all three of them—it’s possible to trace the lines of thought that led to Orwell’s dark masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-four.

At $28 (publisher’s list price) this handsome hardback volume is a bargain. And the three novels it contains constitute a must read.

Posted by tmg110 at 10:44 AM EST

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 In 2009, Barack Obama was the University of Notre Dame’s commencement speaker. He appeared despite the objections of many Catholics who believed that his extreme pro-abortion views were incompatible with Notre Dame’s Catholic character. The liberal nomenklatura that runs the university waved these objections aside. Surely the Messiah would respect the views of the Church!

As if. Having suckered Catholic liberals into supporting Obamacare with promises of sensitivity to the Church’s views, he’s contemptuously kicked them to the curb. Pay for abortion drugs or get fined—that’s the thanks they get. If I were Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins—he who so ardently defended the controversial decision to invite Barry to deliver the 2009 commencement address—I’d feel like a complete jerk. Maybe now he realizes that when push comes to shove, there’s no compromising with secular liberalism.

Posted by tmg110 at 12:29 AM EST

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The big brouhaha about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s preference for the South African constitution and other foreign charters over the United States Constitution rather misses the point. Conservatives have condemned her for disloyalty, but what's really shocking about her comments is their cluelessness.

“I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012,” Ginsburg advised during an interview on Egyptian TV. Her reasoning, which has been echoed by other progressive critics, is that the US Constitution is vague or silent on the subject of “human rights” e.g. the right to food, employment, health care, etc., etc. The case against the US Constitution is laid out in detail in this New York Times story by Adam Liptak. Obviously, Egypt would be better off with a postmodern constitution modeled, say, on the European Convention on Human Rights.

In reality it makes no difference whether the new, Islamist-dominated Egypt adopts the US Constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or the Basic Law of the Klingon Empire. Only a progressive could believe that fine words on paper matter in a country where women are regarded as chattel, Christians are ruthlessly persecuted and anti-Semitism runs riot. There’s something pathetic indeed about the spectacle of this earnest, progressive American jurist recommending constitutional models to a country that has just fallen into the grip of a radical, militant ideology. Justice Ginsburg, next time take a look out the window!

Posted by tmg110 at 12:00 PM EST

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After months of touting Mitt Romney as the “inevitable” GOP nominee and the candidate with the best chance of beating Barack Obama this year, the folks at Commentary are having some serious second thoughts. “Has Romney Snatched Defeat From the Jaws of Victory?” wonders Jonathan S. Tobin in this post on the magazine’s “Contentions” blog. His angst comes in the wake of Rick Santorum’s hat trick yesterday. The former Pennsylvania senator won the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses plus Missouri’s non-binding primary. This was a stunning setback for Romney. In Colorado particularly the polls showed him with a strong lead, yet Santorum came from behind to trounce the supposed frontrunner. “Yesterday’s results,” Tobin remarks, “must leave Republicans wondering whether Santorum has the ability to take advantage of his wins and if Romney’s strengths are sufficient to overcome this setback.” Well, we’ll soon find out about that…

Posted by tmg110 at 11:30 AM EST

Updated: Wednesday, 8 February 2012 12:07 PM EST

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How to explain Barack Obama’s decision to pick a fight with the Catholic Church by trying to force it to fund health insurance plans covering contraception, sterilization and morning-after abortion drugs?

Perhaps the President and his people are trying rally the Democratic Party base ahead of this year’s election. It’s no secret that progressives have become somewhat disenchanted by Obama’s failure to check every box on their wish list. Here was an opportunity to curry favor with the base by attacking an organization for which progressives harbor a dislike bordering on hatred.

Then again, perhaps the President simply believes that he’s doing the right thing. Unlikely as this may seem in the eyes of Obama’s conservative detractors, it’s possible that he’s taking a stand on the principle that universal access to health care means universal participation with no exceptions, not even partial ones, on grounds of religious belief.

Actually it’s likely that both politics and principle influenced Obama’s decision. But I think that an additional, long-range, consideration led to this seeming quixotic decision. The Catholic Church is the single most powerful voice on the pro-life side of the abortion debate. What would it be worth to progressives if that voice could be silenced? And what better way to undermine the Church’s pro-life credentials than by forcing it to compromise with the government over contraception, sterilization and morning-after abortion drugs? “Practice what you preach” may be a cliché—but if you say one thing while doing the opposite, you have no credibility.

The American Catholic bishops surely understand that if they knuckle under to Obama’s health insurance mandate, the Church’s credibility as a pro-life organization will go up in smoke. No doubt Barack Obama and his cabal understand this as well. Those are the stakes.

Posted by tmg110 at 10:41 AM EST

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And speaking of the “peaceful” Occupy movement:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Authorities say 11 people have been arrested in Washington's McPherson Square since Park Police began clearing away tents from one of the nation's last remaining Occupy sites.

 

David Schlosser, who is a spokesman for the U.S. Park Police, said Sunday that one of those arrested was charged with felony assault on a police officer and assault with a deadly weapon. That person is accused of hitting an officer in the face with a brick Saturday evening. The officer was treated at a hospital.

 

Three others were charged with assault on a police officer.

Tomorrow evening on The Five: Bob Beckel explains how it was the cop’s fault that he had his face smashed by a brick. If only the 1% would forgive all those beastly college loans, such violence would be totally unnecessary.

Posted by tmg110 at 4:29 PM EST

Updated: Monday, 6 February 2012 10:14 AM EST

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One more reason to applaud Governor Mitch Daniels and the Indiana legislature for passing right to work legislation: the Occupy movement hates it. Here’s some reaction from the self-appointed champions of the 99%, courtesy of Nation of Change:

Very tricky phrase [right to work]. Let’s just put the hammer on the nail. It’s untrue. This bill has nothing to do with a right to work. If folks in Indiana and that great legislation—and they want to pass a bill that really is something called "Right to Work", have a constitutional amendment that guarantees every citizen a right to a job. That is a right to work. What this is, instead, is a right to enforce and to ensure that ordinary working people can’t get together as a team, can’t organize, can’t stand together, and can’t fight or negotiate with management on an even playing field.

This demonstrates the weirdness of the alternate reality that progressives have constructed for themselves. In their view, if the state forces workers to join a union and pay union dues as a condition of employment, that’s democracy in action. But if the state recognizes the right of individual citizens to work without being required to join a union, that’s fascism!

It is of course untrue that Indiana’s new right to work law is designed “to enforce and to ensure that ordinary working people can’t get together as a team, can’t organize, can’t stand together, and can’t fight or negotiate with management on an even playing field.” The law doesn’t ban unions or collective bargaining. It merely states that individual workers are free to join a union or not, as they prefer. Among other things, this ensures that workers who disagree with a union’s political activities, e.g. support for the Democratic Party and its candidates, are not forced to subsidize them by paying union dues.

That they’re unwilling to support the right of individual workers to make up their own minds about the benefits of union membership suggests to me that progressives have a problem with the concept of individual rights—or to put it another way, that they’re hopeless enamored of the concept of the collective. Either way you prefer to put it, that’s evidence of a totalitarian mind-set.

Posted by tmg110 at 4:18 PM EST

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