Why Mitt Isn't It!

It's Holy Week and there is a lot to do around Oklahomily Ranch so posting has been and will continue to be very light.

But I could not resist pointing out something to those conservative voters of any persuasion who might be thinking about 2012:

Mitt Romney, Hypocrite.

It's okay to make a mistake and learn from it. Mr. Romney wants to spin his Massachusetts disaster into something that it is not. Surely the Republicans can find someone a wee bit more conservative -- and honest -- to run against the Obamination.

Cardinal George Fears the Health Care Pig

It's probably too little, too late, but at least Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has publicly scolded the so-called Catholic Health Association for its support of the health care reform bill that is on the verge of becoming the law of the land.

The CHA head, Sister Carol Keehan, issued a letter to lawmakers this week urging them to "quickly" pass the Senate health care reform bill that includes no prohibitions on the direct public funding of abortions.

So much for expecting a nun to uphold Catholic teaching.

Cardinal George says the bishops are puzzled that lawmakers have settled on the onerous Senate bill as the focus of their efforts.

We tried to warn you! You thought you could trust the Congress and the president when you can't even trust the people to whom you entrusted the operation of the nation's Catholic hospitals?

Here's what Cardinal George said on Monday, according to LifeSiteNews:

George pointed out the slew of flaws that the U.S. bishops find "deeply disturbing" in the Senate health bill, including its lack of conscience protections, Hyde-amendment protections against federal abortion funding, and the millions in new funds for Community Health Centers which will be available to fund abortions.

"It expands federal funding and the role of the federal government in the provision of abortion procedures," he explained. "In so doing, it forces all of us to become involved in an act that profoundly violates the conscience of many, the deliberate destruction of unwanted members of the human family still waiting to be born."

The cardinal directly disagreed with the Catholic Health Association's favorable assessment of the bill.

"This analysis of the flaws in the legislation is not completely shared by the leaders of the Catholic Health Association," stated George. "They believe, moreover, that the defects that they do recognize can be corrected after the passage of the final bill. The bishops, however, judge that the flaws are so fundamental that they vitiate the good that the bill intends to promote.

"Assurances that the moral objections to the legislation can be met only after the bill is passed seem a little like asking us, in Midwestern parlance, to buy a pig in a poke."

I know that we are, for the moment at least, one the same side, but I would like for Cardinal George and the other Catholic bishops to consider some other questionable moral aspects of this or any other federal health care legislation.

1. We cannot abrogate our responsibility as individuals or as the Church to provide for the needs of the sick by passing it off to the government. This goes against the clear teaching of Christ.

2. It is immoral to force one's neighbor to pay for one's charitable impulses. The mandates in this legislation, and in the abomination of a government program that will follow, does just that. We use the power of the government, through threats of fines and jail sentences, to force others to do what we think is a good thing. The end does not justify the means, and you'd think the bishops would know this.

3. Socialized medicine has never been successful in any country where it has been attempted. Indeed, government health care's history is that of unmitigated disaster. Knowing this, is it moral to force Americans to follow the same path?

4. The U.S. Constitution does not permit the federal government the authority to force individuals to buy a product, even if it is in their best interest. Health care is a product. Is it moral to support legislation that violates the fundamental legal framework of a country, without amending that framework?

5. Is it moral to give away the authority of the Church to supervise and regulate its own health care ministries to bureaucrats who will not and never will be answerable to religious authority; indeed, will be duty bound to ignore and repudiate any attempts by religious authority to influence the delivery of medical care from those once-noble Catholic medical institutions?

By focusing on the narrow issues of conscience and abortion, the Catholic bishops indicated that they believed health care reform to be a "done deal" and so they merely tried to steer it into a less objectionable path.

If, instead, they had relied on First Principles and opposed federalizing health care as a matter of the greater morality of maintaining the Christian ownership of performing spiritual and corporate works of mercy, then we might not have come to this point.

The Progressives (and closet Marxists) are using "good intentions" to pave the road to a socialist Hell in which our nation will be, as Barack Hussein Obama predicted shortly before his election, "fundamentally transformed."

It has happened in other countries and it has without exception been a very bad thing for Christianity.

D.C. -- Does it Stand for District of Corruption?

Headline: "D.C. home to most cyber-criminals!"

WASHINGTON - Here's a factoid you might not know -- D.C. has the most cyber-criminals per capita: 116 for every 100,000 people.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center's 2009 Internet Crime Report ranks Maryland 19th (29.72 perpetrators per 100,000) and Virginia 28th (24.12 perpetrators per 100,000).

IC3, a joint effort of the National White Collar Crime Center and FBI, says Nevada and Washington hold the No. 2 and No. 3 spots.

Why should anyone be surprised? The District of Columbia has become the home of some of the most innovative and heartless of criminal minds, a good number of them in government.

Need proof? Another headline: "House may try to pass Senate health-care bill without voting on it!"

After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate's health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers "deem" the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

"It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know," the speaker said in a round table discussion with bloggers Monday. "But I like it," she said, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."

So much for the rule of law and the Constitution. So much for having respect for the people of the United States. If there is "transparency" in this, it is only that it is transparently fraudulent and evil.

No wonder Queen Nancy likes it.

Yeah, D.C. certainly is home to a lot of criminal minds.

Health Care Reform? Amend the Constitution

Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is the federal government authorized to offer "health insurance." The same goes for the federal government's ability to "manage" health care, health care costs, etc.

It's not a question of whether universal health care is a good idea.

It is merely impermissible under the U.S. Constitution. There is only one way to properly remedy that if you believe in universal health care programs: amend the Constitution.

The Progressives -- who should call themselves "socialists" and/or Marxists to reflect their true beliefs -- know that the American people would never go for a constitutional amendment.

So they intend to do an "end run" around the Constitution and the will of the American people.

They might succeed if you do not raise your voice.

And if they do succeed there is no limit to how much damage they will do to the basic freedoms we enjoy in America. Under the guise of "health care reform" Progressive bureaucrats will tell you how to eat, live, play, work and care for your family. There are criminal penalties built into the pending legislation that will threaten the finances (property) and freedom (going to prison means losing one's right to assembly, gun ownership, even curtailed speech) of anyone who dares challenge their unconstitutional actions!

This is closer to the old Soviet-style gulag tactics than anything the people of the United States have ever experienced.

Once it goes into effect, who will challenge health care reform in federal court to test its constitutionality? Only those who dare to risk massive fines and imprisonment.

It would be far better for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to lose his floor debate vote on Saturday night than for us to take the risk that either House or Senate versions of health care "reform" become law.

Please take a few minutes to call your senators. If they support "reform," let them know that you will make it your life's work to see that they are defeated for re-election. If they oppose "reform," tell them you are thankful and ask them to work on their colleagues who are on the fence.

Few events in our lifetimes are as critical as this issue. We could well be the generation that stood by while freedom disappeared, not from enemies abroad but from those enemies of freedom among us.

Do not kid yourself that you can live with health care "reform." As described in the 2,074 page Senate bill, jobs will be killed and taxes will be raised.

Despite what the bill's supporters claim, the federal deficit will increase as a result of this legislation. You cannot get something for nothing. You cannot say that a program will cost nearly $900 billion over the next 10 years and then claim that it is deficit neutral. The money has to come from somewhere. It will either come from more government borrowing and spending, or they will make it up in higher taxes and fees, or cuts from Medicare which the states will have to supplant from their budgets.

All this during a time of economic crisis unsurpassed since the Great Depression.

Worse, the "scoring" of the bill conveniently only covers the first 10 years, the first three of which there is no actual money being spent, only taxes being collected. The real costs hit home in year 11 when it is estimated that it will create a $2.5 trillion drain on the federal budget for the second ten years.

The Senate bill encodes into law the payment of monies for elective abortions. Without a doubt this will be the version that becomes law, if either does.

Killing unborn children is not health care. No American should not be forced to pay into an abortion fund to pay for something that they believe is murder.

I could go on and on, but the simple fact is that the Constitution does not authorize this or any other federal health care planning regime. If I knew nothing else, it would be all I would need to know.

Let's stop this thing. Now.

Excellent Health Care TV Coverage

John Stossel is doing excellent work on explaining the differences between private (for profit) and government-run health care.

If you have 6 minutes and 23 seconds to spare, check out his report HERE.

Healthy Pork in Health Care Reform Legislation

Where in the Constitution does it empower the Congress to pay for jungle gyms, walking paths, or streetlights?

It doesn't. There is no enabling clause that permits the financing of farmers markets either.

But in the name of "health infrastructure," Congress is about to embark on a new spending spree of pork designed to "transform communities."

WASHINGTON - Sweeping healthcare legislation working its way through Congress is more than an effort to provide insurance to millions of Americans without coverage. Tucked within is a provision that could provide billions of dollars for walking paths, streetlights, jungle gyms, and even farmers’ markets.

The add-ons - characterized as part of a broad effort to improve the nation’s health “infrastructure’’ - appear in House and Senate versions of the bill.

Critics argue the provision is a thinly disguised effort to insert pork-barrel spending into a bill that has been widely portrayed to the public as dealing with expanding health coverage and cutting medical costs.

[SNIP]

But advocates, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, defend the proposed spending as a necessary way to promote healthier lives and, in the long run, cut medical costs. “These are not public works grants; they are community transformation grants,’’ said Anthony Coley, a spokesman for Kennedy, chairman of the Senate health committee whose health care bill includes the projects.

“If improving the lighting in a playground or clearing a walking path or a bike path or restoring a park are determined as needed by a community to create more opportunities for physical activity, we should not prohibit this from happening,’’ Coley said in a statement.

Good intentions, the cobblestones on the rocky road to hell.

Worse, when you get into the details of the legislation, it is clear that all constitutional safeguards are being tossed out the window. Again.

The Senate health panel’s bill does not specify how much would go to the community projects. A Senate staff member said the amount of spending will be left up to the Obama administration. A House version of the bill caps the projects at $1.6 billion per year and includes them in a section designed to save money in the long run by reducing obesity and other health problems.

It is not clear yet how the money would be allocated. The legislation says that grants will be awarded to local and state government agencies that will have to submit detailed proposals. The final decisions will be made by the secretary of Health and Human Services.

No specifics. Power deferred to unelected bureaucrats. Want to bet that the spending cap will disappear by the time the final bill is signed by President Obama?

That is, of course, unless we can stop the madness.

Or does anyone even care at this point?

Those Pesky Hammers Think Everyone's a Nail

Democrats have been counting on Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa to lend an air of bipartisanship to the push for Obama's big Health Care Reform plan.

But that might be hard to come by.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Republican Senate chairman whose involvement is key if there's going to be a bipartisan health care deal is responding angrily to President Barack Obama's latest comments on the issue.

Obama, after months of standing back and leaving the details of health care legislation to Congress, inserted himself firmly into the debate in recent days, including using his weekly radio address Saturday to declare "it's time to deliver" on health reform.

That didn't sit well with the Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, which has been laboring to come up with a health care bill that Democrats and Republicans can support.

Grassley is one of those senators who "twitter." Followers saw this on Sunday morning:

"Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND."

A short time later: "Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a 'hammer' u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL."

The White House had no immediate comment.