File under: “How to fake a walkback.” With its unconstitutional, coercive, discriminatory Obamacare abortion mandate under fire, the White House announced…nothing today. A supposed “accommodation” to the policy will result in no compromise in the impact of the HHS edict forcing religiously affiliated health care providers and employers to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives, abortifacients, and related services that violate the religious principles and freedom of the mandate’s targets. In fact, close observers say today’s announcement will make things worse. The deets : With the White House under fire for its new rule requiring employers including religious organizations to offer health insurance that fully covers birth control coverage, ABC News has learned that later today the White House — possibly President Obama himself — will likely announce an attempt to accommodate these religious groups. The move, based on state models, will almost certainly not satisfy bishops and other religious leaders since it will preserve the goal of women employees having their birth control fully covered by health insurance. Sources say it will be respectful of religious beliefs but will not back off from that goal, which many religious leaders oppose since birth control is in violation of their religious beliefs. White House officials are likening it to the so-called Hawaii compromise. Phony baloney, say Catholic bishops: It’s difficult to know what people may mean by the “Hawaii compromise.” But a central feature of the Hawaii law is that every religious organization that is eligible for the exemption has to instruct all employees in how they can access all methods of contraception and sterilization locally “in an expeditious manner.” Just a few days ago the White House was saying that this is just about coverage, that no one has to be involved in getting people to the actual services they object to. It would be no improvement to say: “Sure, you don’t have to include the coverage, you just have to send all your lay employees and women religious to the local Planned Parenthood clinic.” The Administration’s press release of January 20 hinted at such a requirement. That would not be a compromise. In some ways it would be worse. As usual, this defiant administration keeps digging itself deeper. *** The Hill calls Obama’s announcement a “retreat.” The White House will announce a retreat from its controversial rule requiring religious organizations like charities and hospitals to include contraception in their healthcare plans. President Obama has come under heavy criticism from the Catholic Church and other religious organizations, Republicans and even some Democrats over the issue, and Vice President Biden has suggested a compromise could be worked out. A White House official on Friday confirmed an announcement on changing the rule would be made Friday. The White House is referring to the change as an accommodation. It’s not a retreat. It’s a re-trick. It’s not an accommodation. It’s an abomination. *** Update 11am Weekly Standard reporter John McCormak is on a conference call with White House officials providing background on the policy head fake. He tweets … Sr. admin off.: “the insurance company, not the hospital, not the charity will be required to reach out” to women to provide contraception So religious groups will still be mandated to offer plans that cover contraception, and the abortion drug ella. Reporter asks if WH even consulted bishops before announcing ‘accommodation.’ Sr admin official won’t say. To clarify, religious groups have to contract with INSURERS who do offer the pills, then the insurers offers free pills to women. Update 12:26pm EST – From his brief press conference, Obama attacks “cynical” opponents of abortion mandate. He says “principle” of “access to free preventative care including contraceptive services” will stand. “Religious liberty will be protected.” Translation: You’re still screwed. *** Update: On Fox News, Kathleen The Shredder Sebelius attempts to defend the policy as a “no-cost strategy” by citing “actuaries” who claim that contraceptive coverage will actually “save money.” You know who she’s citing? The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute. She repeatedly invokes “women’s health” to defend the edict. Sanger’s grim reapers have the rhetoric down pat. *** More from Steven Ertelt at Life News: Pro-Life Advocates Blast Revised Obama Pro-Abortion Mandate : Jonathan Imbody, Vice President for Government Relations for the Christian Medical Association, called the revisions “offering a distinction without a difference to mute opposition.” He said the revision fits a pattern of contempt for conscience that includes how Obama “has gutted the only federal regulation protecting the exercise of conscience in health care, denied of federal grant funds for aiding human trafficking victims because a faith-based organization refused to participate in abortion; lobbied the Supreme Court to restrict faith-based organizations’ hiring rights; and issued a coercive contraceptive mandate that imposes the government’s abortion ideology on every American.”
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Obama’s fraudulent abortion mandate “accommodation” Updated: Prez condemns “cynical” opposition
Few ads truly stood out during last Sunday’s Super Bowl, but there is at least one that has set itself apart, and for more reasons than one. Chrysler’s ad featuring Clint Eastwood titled “Halftime in America,” focused on a “Detroit Comeback.” The only discrepancy is that the spot was filmed in both Los Angeles and New Orleans — not Motor City. The ad, meant to encourage and inspire, centers on the resilience of Detroit. “It’s halftime. Both teams are in their locker room discussing what they can do to win this game in the second half,” Eastwood narrates. “It’s halftime in America, too. People are out of work and they’re hurting. And they’re all wondering what they’re going to do to make a comeback. And we’re all scared, because this isn’t a game. The people of Detroit know a little something about this. They almost lost everything. But we all pulled together, now Motor City is fighting again.” That’s where things get sticky. From The Weekly Standard : But contrary to what the might ad suggest, the spot was actually filmed in New Orleans and Los Angeles. “Yes, part of it was filmed in New Orleans . . . and some was filmed in various parts—such as Los Angeles,” Dianna Gutierrez said. She specifically points to the tunnel scenes as being taken at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, while the stadium shots were in New Orleans. Asked whether any part of the ad was filmed in Detroit, Gutierrez said that previously taken footage from various parts of the Motor City was used. No image of Detroit was shot for the specific use in this ad. Below is the ad, for reference:
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Chrysler‘s Detroit ’Comeback’ Ad Featuring Clint Eastwood Filmed in L.A. and New Orleans Not…Detroit
John McCormick has a report on the Susan G. Komen controversy, at Weekly Standard , ” After Lying About Providing Mammograms, Planned Parenthood Outraged That Breast Cancer Charity Cuts Off Grants .” And here’s this, from Jill Stanek at Life Site News , ” The inside story on Komen’s split from Planned Parenthood “: I was on the road this week when the news broke that Susan G. Komen for the Cure was defunding Planned Parenthood. Since then abortion proponents and news organizations have worked themselves into a frenzy speculating why it happened and who is to blame – from George W. Bush, to new SGK VP of public policy Karen Handel. This is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and write what I know. I have a source who reaches into the SGK board of directors. My source told me in December this split was in the works but that SGK did not want to make a big splash about it. Their plan was to disentangle from Planned Parenthood quietly and move on. It was Planned Parenthood, not SGK, that tipped off the Associated Press with the news of the break, just as it was Planned Parenthood that tipped off the AP about Live Action’s sex trafficking sting, and Planned Parenthood that tipped off Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff about Congressman Cliff Stearns’ investigation. Planned Parenthood’s modus operandi is to try to destroy its enemy first. Planned Parenthood does this to try to manage the messaging and ameliorate the damage. Note from the AP article: Komen, while not publicly announcing its decision to halt the grants, has conveyed the news to its 100-plus U.S. affiliates. Richards said she was informed via a phone call from Komen’s president, Elizabeth Thompson, in December. My source said Planned Parenthood broke the story for an additional reason: to frighten other corporations from trying to do what SGK did. See what will happen to you if you dare, is Planned Parenthood’s underlying warning. My source said this will not work. Other organizations are anticipated to follow SGK’s lead. Continue reading . And see Steve Ertelt, at Life News, ” Komen Donations Jump 100% After Cutting Planned Parenthood .” BONUS : Check the New York Times ‘ report, ” Uproar as Komen Foundation Cuts Money to Planned Parenthood ” (via Memeorandum ).
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Truth Is, Planned Parenthood Doesn’t Do Mammograms — Progressives Outraged at Funding Cuts While Donations Pour Into Susan G. Komen
Well, there’s more in the “outrageous” pissed-on Taliban corpse story. At New York Times , ” 4 Marines in Video With Dead Taliban Are Identified .” And at Business Week , ” NCIS Opens Investigation Into U.S. Marines in Urination Video .” And at Pamela’s, ” VIDEO CBS: PAMELA GELLER ON MARINES VICTORY TINKLE, “SO WHAT?’ ” I was interviewed yesterday on WTSP (CBS Florida affiliate) on the US Marines breach of protocol and the … ensuing brouhaha. Have you seen the firestorm in the enemedia and among Obama’s craven apologists over the US Marines victory tinkle? The media is beside itself at the idea that we somehow disrespected devout murdering jihadists. Did the three jihadis attack in America this week get this much press? Did the Alabama Muslim shooting at police in order “to draw attention to islam” get as much press? Did the devout Florida Muslim who was arrested plotting to blow up nightclubs, a sheriff’s office and use an explosive belt to “get in somewhere where there’s a lot of people” and take hostages get as much press? Of course not. The Democrat-Industrial-Complex cheers our enemies. See also Daniel Halper at Weekly Standard , ” Allen West on the Marines Incident: ‘Shut Your Mouth, War Is Hell’ .” And of course the faux outrage on the progressive left is spilling off the charts, via Google and
See Noemie Emery, at Weekly Standard , ” Occupational Therapy “: “God, I love ’em,” wrote Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post not long after the glorious dawning of Occupy Wall Street, saying that the protests “arise at just the right moment and are aimed at just the right target” to grow into something quite big. Apparently, the stench from McPherson Square (the Washington, D.C., equivalent of Zuccotti Park in Manhattan) had not yet wafted the two blocks north to the Post building, for he was back a week later to praise it again, along with his stablemate E.J. Dionne and many other liberals who read into the Occupy movement numerous virtues that never existed, while wholly ignoring the vices that are only too real. And why would these clean, polite, well-mannered people, for whom an overdue library book would most likely seem like a major infraction, embrace a collection of ne’er-do-wells who are causing a public-health crisis in the midst of their city? Because they and the rest of the left are desperate for any kind of jolt to jump-start their party, which has been in a coma since the air seeped out of Obamamania sometime in 2009. So what if the occupiers have no idea what they want, and no plans for getting it? “Liberals need a tea party, damn it,” writes Jonah Goldberg, and thus “have embraced the movement in principle with the understanding that they’ll worry about the details later, if at all.” For similar reasons, labor and assorted left-wing organizations are also circling, hoping to connect to the “99 percent” the occupiers say they are speaking for. They hope to repeat the success of the civil rights and the Tea Party movements. But there are reasons this may not work out. The problem with Occupy is that it involves occupation, which gets it off to a very bad start. The Tea Party asked people to show up for a few hours on weekends, march, listen to speeches, perhaps call upon members of Congress, pick up their trash, and go home. Occupy by contrast asks people to leave their homes (should they have them) and live in a tent in a park for an indefinite period, for goals that are hard to explain. What kind of people move into a tent for an indefinite period? Those without strong connections to professions or to other people, without obligations, routines, and responsibilities; without children or clients or jobs. This self-selects against the 90 percent of the population that is productive and grounded, that supports itself and works hard, not to mention the part of the population that votes. Even before the camps were heavily infiltrated by homeless and/or criminal elements, the composition was tilted to those on the fringes, frequently by choice as well as necessity, which made it more like a cultural event such as Woodstock than like the Depression-age Hoovervilles, which were peopled largely by those who once had middle-class standing and were then down on their luck…. The civil rights and Tea Party movements addressed specific concerns—a cosmic injustice, and fiscal policies believed to be ruinous—that had means of redress through political remedies, which they pursued by legal, nonviolent means. The Occupy forces by and large have problems that do not admit of political solutions. The civil rights and Tea Party movements sprang from the middle of middle America; Occupy Wall Street from the fringe. Its happy embrace of a “communal”—and rag-tag and dirty—lifestyle was bound to alienate that much larger part of society that likes soap and water; clean clothes, sheets, and towels; indoor plumbing and sleeping in beds. The people who claimed to speak for the 99 percent who aren’t rich managed to repel the 98 percent who want order and cleanliness. Emery mentions New York Magazine ‘s John Heilemann, who published a piece about those holding out for a resurgence of Occupy in the spring and summer. Turns out there’s some planning to occupy the national party conventions: ” Yes, tent cities teeming with lice, rape charges, and piles of excrement (200 pounds of it in Santa Cruz, California) are just the thing to rally swing voters .” Yep, that’s exactly movement that James Walter “Occupy” Casper III endorsed with his exhortation: ” Occupy wherever you are .” Freakin’ scumbag. Criminal Hatesac3′s even more stupid than the doltish union idiot at the video. Man, Cavuto reams her a new one. That’s gotta hurt. Winning!
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Occupy Wall Street: A Movement Custom-Designed to Make Democrat-Socialists Look Like a Bunch of Freaks
From Steven Hayward, at Weekly Standard , ” Climategate (Part II): A Sequel as Ugly as the Original “: The conventional wisdom about blockbuster movie sequels is that the second acts are seldom as good as the originals. The exceptions, like The Godfather: Part II or The Empire Strikes Back , succeed because they build a bigger backstory and add dimensions to the original characters. The sudden release last week of another 5,000 emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of East Anglia University—ground zero of “Climategate I” in 2009—immediately raised the question of whether this would be one of those rare exceptions or Revenge of the Nerds II . Before anyone had time to get very far into this vast archive, the climate campaigners were ready with their critical review: Nothing worth seeing here. Out of context! Cherry picking! “This is just trivia, it’s a diversion,” climate researcher Joel Smith told Politico . On the other side, Anthony Watts, proprietor of the invaluable WattsUpWithThat.com skeptic website, had the kind of memorable line fit for a movie poster. With a hat tip to the famous Seinfeld episode, Watts wrote: “They’re real, and they’re spectacular!” An extended review of this massive new cache will take months and could easily require a book-length treatment. But reading even a few dozen of the newly leaked emails makes clear that Watts and other longtime critics of the climate cabal are going to be vindicated. Continue reading . And see Hayward’s piece from 2009, ” Scientists Behaving Badly .”
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The Climategate Sequel
At New York Times : The anonymous hacker who shook the world of climate science two years ago by posting a trove of stolen e-mails delivered a new batch on Tuesday, stirring up climate-change contrarians a little more than a week before global negotiations on greenhouse gases are to begin in Durban, South Africa. The new e-mails appeared remarkably similar to the ones released two years ago just ahead of a similar conference in Copenhagen. They involved the same scientists and many of the same issues, and some of them carried a similar tone: catty remarks by the scientists, often about papers written by others in the field. Climate scientists said the release was likely intended to torpedo any potential progress in the Durban negotiations, though not much progress had been expected anyway given that countries have been reluctant to commit to binding emissions limits. The University of East Anglia, the British institution at the middle of the previous hacking episode, confirmed that at least some of the newly released e-mails were authentic. The cache released in 2009 appeared to have come from a file someone obtained by hacking into the university’s computers, a crime for which no charges have been filed or suspects named. The new batch of more than 5,000 e-mails is evidently a fresh selection from the same set of records. Continue reading . I honestly don’t pay heed to the global warming scaremongers these days, not that I ever much did in any case. The science is not settled, and it’s just not even what academics call “normal science” anymore. That is, the scientific community long ago abandoned the rigorous methods of inquiry and morphed into a quasi-religious cult ready to burn heretics at the stake. Go back and read this post from October: ” Dr. Martin Hertzberg Letter at the Vail Daily Skewering the Gore-Hansen-IPCC Climate Change Clique .” And then check the instant classic from 2009, Steven Hayward’s, ” Scientists Behaving Badly ,” at the Weekly Standard . And then back to the current controversy, check Watt’s Up With That?, ” Climategate 2.0 emails – They’re real and they’re spectacular! ” And James Delingpole, ” Uh oh, global warming loons: here comes Climategate II! ” (At Memeorandum .)
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New Trove of Stolen E-Mails From Climate Scientists Is Released
At Blazing Cat Fur, ” Michael Coren & David Horowitz on the Left & Islamofascism “: RELATED : From Stephen Schwartz, at the Weekly Standard , ” What Is ‘Islamofascism’? ”
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Progressive Islamofascism and Campus Indoctrination
