by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• Debra Saunders hits on one of my pet peeves in a column on Obama’s mandate:

  For its part, the administration keeps stretching the English language to the brink. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services frames the issue as one of “access” to “preventive health-care services.” “Access” no longer means being able to obtain something. “Access” now means being able to get something for free and making someone else – even someone who objects on moral grounds – pay for it.

• Meanwhile, Ed Whelan and David Rifkin point out how Obama’s mandate is both illegal and unconstitutional:

  The birth-control coverage mandate violates the First Amendment’s bar against the “free exercise” of religion. But it also violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That statute, passed unanimously by the House of Representatives and by a 97-3 vote in the Senate, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993. It was enacted in response to a 1990 Supreme Court opinion, Employment Division v. Smith….

  The 1993 law restored the same protections of religious freedom that had been understood to exist pre-Smith. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act states that the federal government may “substantially burden” a person’s “exercise of religion” only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person “is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest” and “is the least restrictive means of furthering” that interest.

• An Oklahoma man has been charged with two counts of murder for killing his pregnant wife (known as the “Craigslist hooker”) and their unborn child:

  An Oklahoma man who allegedly beat and stabbed his pregnant wife so he could marry another woman has been formally charged with two counts of murder.

  Justin Adams [pictured left], 25, of Blanchard appeared in Oklahoma County District Court Monday, The Oklahoman reported. He was charged with first-degree murder.

• Both the Lufkin News and FOX’s Houston affiliate are covering claims from former Planned Parenthood employee Karen Reynolds about the abortion giant’s fraudulent billing practices. From the Lufkin News:

  The suit alleges that, in addition to falsifying patient records, billing the government for unwarranted services and services not covered by Medicaid, Planned Parenthood tacked on services patient did not receive.

  An example given in the suit is Medicaid being billed for birth control counseling. The suit states almost all Women’s Health Program and Medicaid patients were handed a bag of at least two birth control devices despite the fact the items were not needed or requested by the patient.

  “Pursuant to corporate policy and instructions from clinical directors, after merely handing the patient a bag of condoms and vaginal film on the way out the door, clinic employees then entered billing codes to be submitted to the government” at an average billed cost of $57.85.

  Video from Fox26 Houston:

Planned Parenthood Brushes Off Lawsuit as ‘Politically Motivated’: MyFoxHOUSTON.com

[Adams photo via the Daily Mail]