(Marjorie Clifton at HuffPo) I am the product of 14 years of Catholic school and am a practicing Catholic, actively involved in the church all of my life. As a woman with a career in politics and women’s leadership, I have quietly worked within the church to make change and have cautiously offered my voice only when I felt it was essential. But, I can be quiet no longer.

You are welcome to speak out. It’s your Constitutional right. You are not free to push your beliefs on others by government law. That is against everything this country was founded on. Oh, and violates the portion of that same 1st Amendment regarding religion

Recently, the Catholic leadership came out in opposition to the mandate in our new healthcare law that all health insurance providers offer coverage for prescribed birth control, even for employees in some Catholic Institutions. But, let’s be clear about what the real issue is here. It is not about government controls, and it is not about infringement of our religious beliefs. It is about a church that has lost touch with reality. The leadership of the Catholic Church either is ignoring or is unaware of the disconnect between Catholic teaching and Catholic reality.

No, it is about government, and using the out of control force of government to make Catholic institutions, and other religious institutions, offer birth control. Also, sterilizations and the morning after pill. Ms. Clifton rationalizes this as “well, Catholics have sex, so, their health insurance provider should be not only forced to offer this products, but do so with a zero deductible.” So, the church is left with the choice of either offering the health insurance which violates their beliefs or dropping coverage.

Essentially, it boils down to people forcing their beliefs on other people. This is America. The religious institutions have the right, and the constitutional right, to offer insurance that adheres to their beliefs. The people who work for them have the freedom to go out and get their own insurance if they want free birth control and morning after pills. Liberals do not want anyone to have a choice. It’s their way or no way. They aren’t very tolerant of opposing viewpoints.

One has to wonder how the Obama admin. and liberals would react if the Muslim leaders came out against this decree.

Of course, these mandates are not direct: they require insurance carriers to offer the measures, but, then the religious institutions won’t have choice themselves. All are forced to offer birth control, sterilization, and abortion pills.

“Unless this rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences or drop health care coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so),” according to a letter from Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.

He and other church prelates asked that the message be read from pulpits over the weekend.

“We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law,” Naumann’s letter stated.

An Obama appointee muzzled Army chaplains from reading the letter over the weekend, a clear violation of the 1st Amendment.

Liberals constantly tell us about this mythical separation of church and state. Funny how all of a sudden the State is allowed to dictate to the church.

(Politico) The issue of race and American politics, never far beneath the surface during Barack Obama’s historic 2008 campaign, is making a loud, overt and surprisingly early appearance in the 2012 presidential race.

And no one knows — least of all Obama himself — what impact the race card, always a wild card, will have on the president’s reelection prospects.

I’ll suggest it backfires, particularly if Team Obama and their sycophants attack Romney’s Mormonism.

In the past several months, Newt Gingrich has drawn sharp criticism for labeling Obama the “food stamp president” and for suggesting poor kids in New York’s majority-minority school system burnish their work ethic by picking up mops. First lady Michelle Obama bridled at the perception that she’s an “angry black woman.” Obama’s Chicago-based campaign has pushed back against stories that he’s more or less given up on the white vote.

Except, Newt wasn’t just talking about Black people: the majority of food stamp recipients are Caucasian. Michelle Obama is the one who brought up the angry black woman thing in order to create racial division. And Team Obama was the one who said they had given up on the white vote.

But nothing has illustrated the potentially explosive political impact of race — an issue that Obama has downplayed throughout his career — like the firestorm around the image of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer wagging her finger at the first black president of the United States.

If there were any illusion that 2012 would be the post-racial election most Americans hoped for, it vanished with that single shake of a finger and 30 seconds of sniping lost to history in the turbine roar of Air Force One.

Got that? The duly elected Governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, is an evil racist simply because she wagged her finger in the face of a disrespectful half-black President. By that definition, we could call Obama a sexist, since he was disrespectful to Brewer and walked away.

But, what else does Obama have to run on? He certainly can’t run on his record. He doesn’t like to talk about his signature legislation, the Stimulus and Obamacare. He can play with the economic numbers all he wants, but people are hurting, and things are not getting better. The housing industry is still a major mess. Real world prices are rising. Disposable income is very low. Consumer confidence is low. There are historic numbers of people who have given up on the job market. The recession supposedly ended in June, 2009, yet, here in 2012, nothing seems to have changed.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Polk Award-Winning Rolling Stone writer Michael Hastings made a startling set of admissions on CSPAN, recently. Not only did he admit that most “journalists” are liberals, but he implied that they really aren’t interested in just reporting the facts of stories. Instead he said they are filled with a liberal “moralistic righteousness” and their goal is to “afflict” those they disagree with.

In the discussion, Hastings laid out how he sees his work as a journalist. “I think any journalist worth his salt often has a real moralistic kind of righteousness to them somewhere in their soul… and we talk in grand terms about ourselves, you know, afflicting the powerful and comforting the afflicted,” he told the CSPAN host.

Not much “objectivity” going on there, is there?

In the video segment featured by Townhall, Hastings is initially asked about his “prestigious” Polk Award and this discussion led CSPAN’s Brian Lamb to ask Hastings about the ideological mindset of Polk Award winners. This brought Hastings to his admission.

Of course, if one has to explain how “prestigious” an award is, one should suspect it ain’t that prestigious! Prestige is something that others should assign to you, not something you should assign to yourself.

Now, you might recall Mr. Hastings as the man whose 2010 Rolling Stone article eventually led to the firing of General Stanley McChrystal. Hastings caught some off-record carping by McChrystal’s staffers the revelation of which made the General look bad to his political leaders. Even then, many might have questioned Hastings’ actions by actually publishing those unguarded and casual, off-record conversations. It smacked of agenda or gotcha journalism.

But as we see in this interview, as far as Hastings is concerned, that is what journalists are supposed to do. They are supposed to approach their work with a “moralistic” agenda guiding them. They aren’t supposed to just publish the facts and let readers decide. They are supposed to “afflict the powerful” and that with all the left-wing political ideology such a crusade implies.

For those of you not able to see the video, here is the meat of the discussion:

Brian Lamb: “Is it fair to say that the Polk Award winners are usually liberal journalists?”

Michael Hastings: “Um, probably. I mean most journalists I know are liberal.”

BL: “Activist journalists. I mean activist people, would you consider yourself an activist?

MH: “I think any.. no, no… I think any journalist worth his salt often has a real moralistic kind of righteousness to them somewhere in their soul. And I think that’s a, you know, we’re gonna protect the — and we talk in grand terms about ourselves, you know, afflicting the powerful and comforting the afflicted.”

One can just feel Hastings’ discomfiture with his admission as he struggles with his reply. With his first thought that he doesn’t consider himself an “activist,” he seems to have a vague feeling he shouldn’t be admitting all this, but he does it anyway.

Naturally we aren’t surprised by the whole affair.

Finally, I know what many of you are going to say. Many of you are going to be rolling your eyes asking me if I think this is new. Of course I don’t think that the sentiments that Hastings related is in any way “new.” But what is unusual is to see a “journalist” admitting out in the open like this to his and his fellow’s blatant bias. That and it is my job to report on these things, so please stop with the “are you surprised” rejoinders, will ya?

(Politico) The number of officers killed in the line of duty jumped 13 percent in 2011 compared with the year before — and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder condemned the increase as “a devastating and unacceptable trend” that he blamed on illegal firearms.

The number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty rose to 173 this year, from 153 in 2010, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund announced Wednesday. This year’s figure is 23 percent higher than 122 killed in the line of duty in 2009.

So, the guns themselves are illegal? Er, no

Holder said “too many guns have fallen into the hands of those who are not legally permitted to possess them,” in explaining the increase.

So, what does Holder propose to do?

“This is a devastating and unacceptable trend. Each of these deaths is a tragic reminder of the threats that law enforcement officers face each day,” Holder in a statement. “I want to assure the family members and loved ones who have mourned the loss of these heroes that we are responding to this year’s increased violence with renewed vigilance and will do everything within our power — and use every tool at our disposal — to keep our police officers safe.”

You know what else is a devastating and unacceptable trend? Hundreds of Mexicans being killed by guns allowed to walk into Mexico illegally, thanks to operations under the Department of Justice. Also, an AG that lies about it.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Did you know that the only reason those famed “Reagan Democrats” voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 was because they were… uh… racists? Well on the little watched Ed Show on MSNBC, Salon’s Joan Walsh assured the nation — or at least the 20 people watching — that this was the truth.

Sometimes a talking head on TV will say something so stupid that jaws drop nationwide as a result. Often that stupidity becomes the talk of the news cycle, too. But usually that only happens when there are actually viewers for the show upon which the stupidity is uttered. In this case, Joan Walsh of Salon uttered the stupidity, but since no one watches MSNBC — most especially the Ed Show — I thought I’d help pass around her comments to make her stupidity the talk of the day. It’s just a service from us here to you in the Internet tubes.

The rotund Ed Schultz was disparaging the Reagan Democrats as “dead” (both figuratively and literally) and was saying that Reagan Democrats could not possibly be a factor in 2012. Whatever merits of that claim, when Schultz turned to Salon’s Joan Walsh he got one of the most absurd comments about Reagan Democrats evah!

Walsh said:

You and I both know that a segment of the white working class did go over to Ronald Reagan, did abandon the Democratic party. Some of it was race, and some it was just believing that government was out of control and some people were getting something for nothing.

What, you may gasp? Reagan Democrats were all racists and that is why they voted Republican in the millions?

You may be confused by the comment. What was the big racial issue of 1980? Was Jimmy Carter really an African American and only the Reagan Democrats knew it? Was Reagan running on a repeal the Civil Rights bill platform and we just didn’t know it? I know, maybe Carter’s VP candidate, Walter Mondale, was the African American… hmmm, no he’s as white-bread as one can humanly get. Couldn’t have been MonDull!

Yes, you got it. There was no racial component to either the 1980 or 1984 elections. The fact is Joan Walsh is simply — and clumsily at that — trying to warp the past with her racebaiting as a way to win for Obama in the present. If Democrats crossed over in 1980 to vote Reagan, Walsh is saying, then they were raaaacists just like they will be if they do so today. THAT is her message. This is nothing more than Walsh’s attempt to throw the race card at anyone that is sick and tired of Obama’s destructive regime.

Walsh revealed a desperate ploy to staunch the bleeding of this destructive and self-destructive president. Nothing more. Nothing less.

(Washington Post) Prospects for a year-end congressional compromise on key tax and spending legislation grew more complicated Tuesday, as the Republican House passed a controversial version of a payroll tax cut extension despite a veto threat from the White House.

Approved on a vote of 234 to 193, the Republican tax bill would extend a one-year break in the payroll tax that is due to expire at the end of the month, setting the rate at 4.2 percent for the year instead of allowing it to revert to 6.2 percent. But it also would accelerate the construction of an oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast that the White House is determined to slow down.

Personally, I think they should have kept the lower 3.6% rate, but, I’m betting there is some negotiation in there, where the GOP controlled House will say “well, OK, we’ll lower it, you give us Keystone XL.”

To fund the tax cut, the measure would freeze pay for civilian federal workers for another year and reduce the government workforce.

It would extend benefits for the long-term unemployed but reform the unemployment insurance program to reduce the maximum time those out of work can receive benefits, from 99 weeks to 59 weeks. It also would allow states to require drug testing for benefits.

The measure would postpone scheduled cuts in Medicare re­imbursement rates for doctors but pay for the “doc fix” by raising Medicare premiums for upper-income seniors and eliminating some funding for the federal health-care law.

This is a good compromise piece of legislation, but, we can’t call it “bipartisan”, since it doesn’t give Obama everything he wants and the GOP nothing.

That is unlikely to happen. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) called the bill a “pointless partisan exercise” and characterized it as an ideological grab bag of Republican pet projects.

President Obama has rejected linking the payroll tax issue to the approval of the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline, and the State Department, which has is responsible for examining the environmental impact of the cross-border project, announced Monday that it would not be able to complete the proper reviews in 60 days, as required by the House bill.

But a formal veto threat from the White House on Tuesday did not mention the pipeline. Instead, it accused Republicans of cutting programs needed by middle-income workers to fund the tax reduction.

Democrats are stuck on the “we gotta raise taxes on the rich and that is the only way to pay for this” mantra, and are unwilling to compromise. If they can’t get their way 100%, they gnash their teeth and throw a fit like a 5 year old in a toy store who isn’t getting the toy they really want. Unfortunately, the GOP can’t just walk away like a parent, because the 90% liberal media will allow the Democrats to control the narrative and the GOP would be painted as the bad guys.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

It’s that time of year again, time for newspapers and magazines to start floating their “top stories of the year” lists and Time Magazine has a whole “Top of Everything” list with which to thrill us. But it is Time’s Top U.S. News Stories list that deserves some closer scrutiny because on it Time has determined that the Occupy Wall Street tale is the number one story of the year. As if anyone ever doubted that this left-wing temper tantrum would pique Time’s interest most.

But, seriously, now. Is Gabrielle Giffords somehow a lesser story than the Occupiers? Is the long-drawn out GOP primary campaign a lesser story? How about the debt crisis? Is that somehow a less important story than Occupy Wall Street? Apparently Time thinks so.

Certainly these lists are always somewhat subjective. After all, what one considers important another may not. But some of these entries seem to point out Time’s ideology as opposed to a serious attempt to pick the top stories of 2011. And making the Occupy story number one is pure ideology.

Time puts this story above the bad economy, Iraq, the Penn State sex abuse case, and the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. In fact, if it weren’t for the bad economy, the debt ceiling debate and the bank crisis this Occupy business would not have occurred at all.

Naturally, Time’s characterization of the “movement” is all sweetness and light. Not one mention is made of the now over 400 arrests made as a result of crimes perpetrated by the Occupiers. In fact, Time blames all the ills of the Occupiers on the beleaguered cities for their “heavy handed-policing” of the protests.

Time also disgorges the discreditable claim that the OWSers are the left’s Tea Partiers. This is a calumny against the Tea Party that really needs to be eliminated from the national discussion of the two movements.

Another aspect of the Occupy events that went unmentioned in Time’s laudatory entry on the protests is the fact that taxpayers are being charged millions of dollars in tax money we don’t have to clean up after and police these protests. This somehow never makes an appearance in Time’s gladhanding of the Occupiers.

What is clear with this entry is that Time Magazine had an agenda with this pick. Sure the OWSers deserved a mention on a top ten list. But that it made number one and that the entry ignored all the negative aspects of the protests proves what the magazine is really attempting to do with this list.

Besides the guffaw inducing pick of the Occupiers as the top story, two other choices are odd, to say the least. Number 10 is the Execution of Troy Davis, a death row inmate in Georgia. My guess is that 99 percent of the country never heard of this story so how it could make a top 10 list is a mystery, unless its inclusion is a political statement against the death penalty.

Then there is slot number nine: “Freak Weather.” Come on. This year’s weather has not been any “freakier” than that of any other year. We get this all the time, though. Somehow everyone imagines that the weather they’ve seen in their lives is worse than that of any other era. But in reality, weather is always both awe inspiring and inconvenient and it is these visceral feelings that weather induces in people that makes them think their weather is worse than it’s ever been.

Sadly, what we have here is yet another attempt by a maven of the Old Media to push ideology in the guise of “news.”

Time’s Top U.S. News Stories

1). Occupy Wall Street Protests Spread
2). The Republican Presidential Race
3). The Economy
4). Iraq: The Long Goodbye
5). Gabrielle Giffords Shooting
6). The Penn State Child Sex Abuse Scandal
7). The Debt-Ceiling Crisis
8). The Death of Steve Jobs
9). Freak Weather
10). The Execution of Troy Davis

I meant to get to this last week, but “historian” Douglas Brinkley is so forgettable as a writer that it all slipped my mind. But, it’s a slow news day, so let’s take a look at the temper tantrum this hack threw when he visited the House Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 22, shall we?

Brinkley was there to provide his, uh, “insight” into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, testimony that Alaska Rep. Don Young called “an exercise in futility” because the hearing wasn’t going to be changing anyone’s mind about the subject. I’d have to agree that anything including hack Brinkley truly is an exercise in futility. He’s one of the worst writers of popular history out there.

The fireworks began when Rep. Young accidentally called Brinkley by the wrong last name. This sent the scribbler off into paroxysms of pique and spurred him to interrupt not only Rep. Young, but also Committee Chair Doc Hastings when he tried to restore order.

Rep. Young later told the Washington Post’s Amy Argetsinger that he thought that Brinkley was just trying to get publicity with his outburst.

But I disagree with the Congressman. Brinkley is a hack of the first order and has a left-wing agenda. He likely went into that committee hearing with a chip on his shoulder already and was looking for anything to show that he was the newest Captain Planet that wanted to keep drilling for oil out of his wildlife refuge.

Writer Douglas Hackley has also urged President Obama to use his fiat powers to turn the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge into a national monument. This would take any possibility of drilling for oil right off the table.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Obama does this, too. President Obama has shown a fondness for simply “declaring” things into law and is not fond of actually following the law making process. He’s said on numerous occasions that he is looking for ways to get his agenda put into action “without Congress,” and that means without YOU, the people. Let’s face it, you, Mr. and Mrs. America, you have sent your congressmen to Washington and if Obama is pushing his agenda without those duly elected representatives he’s doing so without your input as voters. He cares neither for your opinion nor that of your elected representatives. This is the single most arrogant man we’ve ever had in the Oval Office.

Anyway, back to Brinkley, it should not surprise anyone that he was hot to display his own arrogance and lack of decorum. He is well known as one of the worst writers of popular history in the field. It should also not surprise that he is appealing directly to Obama over your representatives — including those that actually live in the state that Brinkley wants millions of acres declared off limits to use.

It should be remembered that this writer of hackneyed hagiography was one of the cadre of historians that Obama invited to a secret dinner at the White House only months after he assumed the throne. Obama was obviously trying to influence these historians to write the proper history of his regime when all is said and done.

But of those agenda driven writers, Brinkley is the worst of the crew. And it’s not just my biased opinion, either. Even left-wingers have said that Brinkley’s work leaves a lot to be desired.

Brinkley Is well known for having belched out a wholly uncritical take on John F. Kerry’s life during the Senator’s doomed run for the White House against George W. Bush in 2004. The book was little else but sunny campaign puffer that was worthless as a work of history. Before that, Brinkley prostituted himself all over TV as the chief mourner for John Kennedy, Jr. when he flew himself to his death in 1999. Brinkley’s over-the-top celebration of Kennedy and the writer’s ubiquity on TV during those days were so bad that Kennedy’s George Magazine even removed him from their masthead as a contributor. Brinkley was so ridiculous that even the lefty Slate.com once wrote, “Even amid this week’s staggering hyperbole, Brinkley’s emotional profligacy has distinguished him.”” Not a compliment, to be sure.

Brinkley is also one of those slavishly devoted Obamaites that constantly compares Obama to the most famous men of history — even though Obama has done little to rate the praise. In 2011, for instance, Brinkley said that Obama was somehow just like Martin Luther King.

In all, given his history of political activism and his penchant for loosely sourced hagiographic fiction, none of Brinkley’s lack of civility at a mere Committee hearing should surprise us. The only surprise here is that anyone takes him seriously at all.

(Heritage) It is gratifying to see President Barack Obama condemn the disgraceful storming of the British Embassy in Tehran by thugs acting at the behest of the Iranian regime. After all, Obama has been notoriously slow in the past to criticise the brutal actions of the Iranian government after initially extending the hand of friendship to it. But did he really need to make another embarrassing foreign policy gaffe while doing so?

In a press conference this evening, the president referred in stumbling fashion to the “English Embassy” in Iran instead of the British Embassy. One can only imagine the kind of howls of derision that would greet any presidential contender if that kind of basic error were made before, say, the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. You can watch the video above.

In case the president is unaware, England forms part of Great Britain, which also includes Scotland and Wales, though not Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. There is no such thing as an “English” embassy anywhere in the world, and there hasn’t been one for several centuries.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by this latest slip-up by President Obama. After all he recently described France as America’s closest ally, and famously declared that he has traveled to no less than 57 states. But it would be nice if the leader of the free world bothered to look at a map once in a while, or even paid a visit to the British Embassy in Washington, currently housing the Churchill bust that Mr. Obama unceremoniously threw out of the Oval Office soon after his inauguration.

All in all, not a huge deal in terms of things Obama has gotten wrong…..wasting $850 billion dollars on non-existent shovel ready jobs/failing “green companies and signing legislation that destroys our healthcare system stand out….but, it shows the double standard of the 90% liberal media. Michele Bachmann was vilified for her John Wayne/Waterloo reference for days, yet, POTUS Obama (NMP, PINO) will be given a free pass on “English Embassy”.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Fishbowl DC has a startling report that seriously brings into doubt the independence and veracity of the journalistic arts. It seems that the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein appeared as a speaker at a closed door session of a gathering of Senate Democrat Chiefs of Staff last week, a move that, as Betsy Rothstein correctly notes, “blurs the lines between being a journalist and trying to sway politics.”

No one knows what Klein briefed the Democrat staffers about, but the whole episode raises eyebrows. How is it that a purported journalist is the one doing the briefing instead of the one getting briefed? As Rothstein notes, it is all very untoward.

Briefings for journalists covering Capitol Hill are usually the reverse of what transpired here. Lawmakers brief reporters. Aides brief reporters. Think tanks brief reporters. Think tanks brief aides. But reporters briefing aides? This is unheard of.

There is no other way to look at this but to see it as a journalist that is not being a “reporter” but a participant with an ideological motivation. Especially since this was an address given by Klein only to Democrats as opposed to a bipartisan gathering of Senate staffers.

This reflects badly on the entirety of journalism. There are already enough people out there that don’t trust journalists as far as they could throw them. This makes matters worse. The Washington Post really should cut their ties with this guy. He really brings suspicion upon everything they do.

It should be remembered that Ezra Klein was the founder and proprietor of the notorious “Journolist,” a secretive website message board upon which well known journalists colluded to push a liberal agenda while sounding out ways to attack conservatives. Once again making the lie that journalists are strictly interested in reporting the facts.

Klein shut down the Journolist soon after the Daily Caller’s exposées of its existence.