by Hans Johnson

The Affordable Care Act has been controversial because of fears the federal government cannot control one sixth of the economy without compromising quality care for the sake of cost efficiency. An answer to a question by CNN reporter Dana Bash  to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) yesterday will do nothing to ease those qualms.

Republicans in Congress have proposed a series of bills to continue funding all other government services while delaying the implementation of Obamacare for one year and overturning the exemption given to congressional members and staff to enroll in Obamacare.

With reports that young cancer patients were being denied National Institutes of Health clinical trials because of the government shutdown, Reid was asked: “If you can help one child who has cancer, why wouldn’t you do it?”

Befuddled by the question, he replied: “Why would we want to do that?” He then compared their plight to that of furloughed air base employees in his state, saying “They have problems, too.”

[youtube]http://youtu.be/O0lFyFJeZSY[/youtube]

Later in the day Senator Reid was indignant at accusations of insensitivity and wondered why we would want the House of Representatives to “cherry pick what stays open and what should be closed?”

And yet hasn’t there already been “cherry picking” for the many exemptions to the ACA, as well as for determining who are “essential personnel” and who are not?

Harry Reid is blaming the exposure of his hugely insensitive remark on… you guessed it… Republicans.

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Steven Ertelt]

I have been hugely impressed with the pope’s pronouncements…. [He is] somebody who lives out the teachings of Christ. Incredible humility – incredible sense of empathy to the least of these, to the poor….

He’s also somebody who is – I think first and foremost – thinking about how to embrace people as opposed to push them away; how to find what’s good in them as opposed to condemn them.

And that spirit, that sense of love and unity, seems to manifest itself in not just what he says, but also what he does. And, you know, for any religious leader, that’s something – that’s a quality I admire.

And – I would argue for any leader period – that’s a quality that I admire.

~ President Barack Obama, remarking on recent comments made by Pope Francis which have been portrayed as unfavorable toward pro-life work, via USA Today, October 2

[Image via CatholicVote.org]

VladTV has posted video of radio personality Star, sharing his thoughts on NBA basketball star J.J. Redick’s abortion contract with former girlfriend Vanessa Lopez.

Star is cool with all that. In the video he says he has spent $45,000 himself on abortions, which he considers a great investment as opposed to paying child support for a “little f***er rugrat.”

WARNING: Profanity…

[youtube]http://youtu.be/RbCrCGvHMRc[/youtube]

From UPI, yesterday:

After three years of getting ready, yesterday the nation signed on to get Obamacare only to have websites across America crash. The ones that were not crashing were scam sites designed for identity theft. Amid all of that, if you tried to get Obamacare through an internet search engine, you probably got scammed. “[S]ome of these scam sites actually have better search-engine rankings than official sites,” reports UPI.

This is the backdrop to the fight to defund Obamacare. Some pundits claim if it were not for the shutdown the press would have covered the disastrous launch. A press that has refused to cover all the painful stories of people harmed by Obamacare would never do this. Consider MSNBC, which like the North Korean propaganda ministry, claims the website crashes were because Obamacare is too popular.

Riiiiggghhhhhtttt.

So where are all the abortion rights groups, warning women that scammers may get ahold of their abortion history if they unwittingly post that personal information online at a nefarious website? Oh, they’re busy purring for Obamacare, because there’s a huge windfall of cash in it for them – both now and later…

Today’s the day! Open enrollment is here so get ready to #GetCovered. http://t.co/tuYaqxbIY2 #Obamacare pic.twitter.com/YN7LVdQCXe

— Planned Parenthood (@PPFA) October 1, 2013

Liberal feminists only scream about potential (and nonexistent) invasion of privacy when it’s convenient.

But when abortionists throw abortion records in the trash, or Obamacare exposes women to unprecedented access to illegal invasion of privacy and identity theft… silence.

Because there’s something in it for them to look the other way.

Anybody with any online experience knows these illegal websites will be like Whack-A-Mole. As soon as one is shut down, 100 – 1,000 – more will spring up. It will be impossible to get rid of them. Sources – governments? – from all over the world will be targeting Americans for  theft of personal information. Among scads of other illegal intentions, blackmail will follow.

Members of Congress and their staffs are going to have any abortions they want — and any abortions on members of their family or friends who are covered by their policy — paid for by you…

You know, I got a question. If the Democrats can just exempt themselves from having to pay for Obamacare, why didn’t they just exempt themselves from paying taxes? What’s to stop them? If the law of the land says that taxpayer money cannot be used to fund abortions and they have a plan that does that, why not just exempt themselves from paying taxes? Why not just bonus themselves any amount of money they want to pay their taxes.

What’s to stop them?

~ Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh criticizing the inequities of Obamacare, October 1

by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli

We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.

• Down on the Pharm discusses the research of a new chemical pill that can induce an abortion and be taken once a month – just in case:
  

  They even suggest the possibility of flushing women once per month to be sure that no undesirable embryos are clinging to life in their reproductive tracts. This type of chemical birth control is touted as possibly preferable to the forms which have been designed largely to reduce the possibility of fertilization.

• 40 Days for Life prints a letter received from a woman who observed a campaign from a distance and chose life because of it.

• Fletcher Armstrong features a campus outreach at Middle Tennessee State University with the long time volunteers, the Hardin family, whose newest member joined them by adoption from Armenia.
• Bound4Life shares the powerful two-part testimony of a post-abortive woman who found healing after 8 years of hiding her secret.
• American Life League’s Judie Brown argues that education on important life issues is missing from the Catholic Church. She quotes Cardinal Raymond Burke:
  

  We as Catholics have not properly combatted it [the culture of death] because we have not been taught our Catholic faith, especially in the depth needed to address these grave evils of our time. This is a failure of catechesis both of children and young people that has been going on for 50 years. It is being addressed, but it needs much more radical attention.

• Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life discusses the killing of preborn babies diagnosed with disabilities:
  

  Two points about the abortion of disabled babies are important. First, ability (or disability) is irrelevant to the worth and dignity of a human being. We do not (or should not) think less of people who have physical and mental handicaps. Parents may not kill their toddler if they learn that she has autism. They may not execute a 10-year-old with spina bifida because they think she would be better off dead.

  Second, it is deeply mistaken to suppose that the life of a disabled person is not worth living. People with disabilities live meaningful and often happy lives. And caring for them, though difficult, is enriching and rewarding, as parents and caregivers attest.

• Live Action reports that a float “which featured the large model of a 12-week-old fetus” will not be allowed at New Zealand’s Alexandra Blossom Festival because of its “anti-abortion” message. Creator Bruce Lietze worked four months on the project. Allowed in the parade will be a statement made famous by Sir Edmund Hillary, which contains profanity.
• A Culture of Life says that euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke is “tak[ing] credit for higher elderly suicide rate in New Zealand. Nitsche is quoted as saying:
  

  As a society we should not be alarmed by this trend… and taking steps to prevent access to new developments in end of life strategies or end of life drugs would be counterproductive, forcing people to use undignified and often ineffective methods.

• Josh Brahm gives six tips for arguing analogies clearly:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/AQEquxgtoWs[/youtube]

Paging Bart Stupak.  On March 24, 2010, he and other congresspersons calling themselves pro-life Democrats smiled for the camera as they watched President Obama sign an executive order no one but them believed would keep abortion out of Obamacare. (Stupak is in the photo above off of Obama’s right shoulder, wearing a grey suit. Click to enlarge.)

Besides the inobvious expansion of abortion in Obamcare – a mandate that forces insurance companies and employers to cover contraceptives and morning-to-days-after contraceptives, both of which can cause early abortions – there is the obvious, as explained in National Review Online, September 25:

An analysis by the Charlotte Lozier Institute published this week suggests that the number of abortions that will be heavily subsidized via federal premium tax credits and Medicaid expansion is likely to be between 71,000 and 111,500 per year. This approaches one in ten abortions performed in the United States.

The number is split roughly 50-50 between abortions subsidized by the ASPs [abortion-covering state plans] in states that have not barred them from their exchanges and abortions newly reimbursable under Medicaid expansion in states that use their own taxpayer funds to underwrite them.

The obvious was followed by an in-your-face this past Monday, when the Office of Personnel Management ruled that “members of Congress and their staffs will be able to buy health care plans that pay for abortions, even though the premiums are funded largely by taxpayer money - a move that conservatives say breaks federal law on abortion funding,” according to the Washington Times.

A pro-life friend on the Hill explained in an email how this rule violates the law:

The final rule indicates that OPM does not intend to comply with the pro-life Smith amendment as it administers health insurance benefits for this group of federal employees.

As you may recall, 84 Members of Congress sent a letter to OPM Acting Director Elaine Kaplan earlier this month.  The letter pointed out that the Smith amendment (first offered in 1983 by Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ) is annually attached to the Financial Services Appropriations bill and governs activities by OPM employees. Specifically the Smith amendment states that no funds may be used to “pay for an abortion, or the administrative expenses in connection with any health plan under the Federal employees health benefits program which provides any benefits or coverage for abortions.”

The Member letter specifies that collecting and disburses premiums for health plans that include elective abortion are administrative activities and would constitute a clear violation of the Smith amendment.  While all insurance plans for Federal employees under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program exclude elective abortion, the ACA deviated from this longstanding policy and explicitly allowed plans on the new health care exchanges to include coverage for all abortion.

In the final rule OPM specifies that despite the Smith amendment they will carry out administrative tasks in conjunction with health plans that include elective abortion.  They justify such action by saying that OPM does not “administer the terms of the health benefits plans offered on an Exchange.”  Even though the Smith amendment is in no way limited to administration of the “terms” of a plan, OPM appears to be arbitrarily narrowing the Smith amendment without Congressional approval.

Also paging former Congressman Steve Driehaus, who sued Susan B. Anthony List for defamation after his loss in 2010 to pro-life Republican Steve Chabot, claiming this sign was fraudulent. Click to enlarge…

Driehaus is in the top photo on the far right, smiling broadly. He lost his case in federal district court in January 2013, but the sore loser quickly filed an appeal, which has still not been decided. (Meanwhile SBA List has petitioned the US Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of the Ohio “false statement” law which provided the gateway for Driehaus’s lawsuit. SBA List expects SCOTUS to make its decision by early November.)

by Hans Johnson

Last Thursday there was no attempt at a “free exchange of ideas” made by two male students with the Students for Life at Indiana University. One ripped up a display of 915 pink crosses which represented the 915 abortions committed daily by Planned Parenthood while saying abortion is “awesome.” He returned later to pick many up and throw them in the trash saying, “That’s where they need to be!”

The other student warned: “You’re in conflict with the world that I want – which is a world where all your churches burn!” He then proclaimed: “And if we are ever strong enough we are going to stop you!”

(WARNING: Profanity)

[youtube]http://youtu.be/AJbwbOqqGXQ[/youtube]

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Kristan Hawkins]