Interesting Items - Monday Feb 13, 2012 Come visit us at our new web site: www.interestingitems.org Leave your thoughts, comments and opinions. We look forward to hearing from you. Interesting Items Alex Gimarc [email protected] Monday Feb 13, 2012 Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue:
1. Cramdown 2. Prop 8 3. Extortion 4. Waivers 5. Menard 1. Cramdown. Obama doubled down in response to Catholic protests against HHS ObamaCare mandates for religious institutions to provide abortions. He raised his royal hand, spoke in a regal manner and decreed that faith based institutions would not be required to pay for women’s health and contraception care (note the careful reframing of the mandate from abortion coverage to women’s health). Instead, their insurance companies would now be required to provide abortions and birth control and that coverage would all be provided for free. It is indeed Good to be King. Of course as Heinlein observed, TNSTAAFL (There’s No Such Thing as a Free lunch) always applies, and regardless of what the Obama administration dictates, somebody is going to have to pay for this stuff, and it will always show up in the premiums paid for privately carried health care insurance or as rationing in publicly mandated and covered health insurance. Of course, this is all a way to keep the bucks flowing into the coffers of Planned Parenthood, which executed the Holy Sacrament of the Church of Liberalism – abortion. What I can’t figure out is why the WH is picking this fight with the Catholic Church at this point before the general election. I suspect there is something of an echo chamber effect here, as there are numerous self described Catholics in the democrat party leadership who are as liberal as they can be. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is simply one example. All of these democrats go to the occasional Mass, presided over by a leftist priest. Perhaps the Obama administration believes all of this noise out of the Catholic Church here in the US is simply sound and fury signifying nothing. What I do not understand is how they think this will translate into votes for their candidates in November. It appears they are making a play for young, single women, who overwhelmingly supported them last time around. But in doing so, they pick a substantial fight with Catholics and evangelicals who supported them in swing states in 2008. Overall, I think this one will be a loss for them. 2. Prop 8. The Ninth Circus decided that California’s Proposition 8 ban on same sex marriage in the state was unconstitutional. The ever despicable Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote a very narrow opinion that essentially said the amendment to the state constitution was unconstitutional because it removed a right that had already been granted. This argument is something of a self-licking ice cream cone, in which the judiciary in the state of California and a homosexual judge on the federal bench acted to implement something that the people of California expressly rejected at the ballot box twice. The history of homosexual marriage in California has been a long and despicable fight between the voters and the courts. California Assembly amended state law in 1977 to specifically define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The definition was updated in 1992 and moved to another section of the state code. While California state law did not allow California citizens of the same sex to marry, it was ambiguous whether California would be able to recognize same sex marriages from other states. Proposition 22 passed in 2000 with over 61% of the voters in favor of it, which removed all ambiguity. Lawsuits ensued. The California Supreme Court threw out Prop 22 in May 2008. California voters responded to this action with a second ballot initiative, this one as an amendment to the state constitution that the state Supreme Court could not toss out called Proposition 8. It passed in November 2008 with 52% of the vote. During the five month period between the invalidation of Prop 22 and the passage of Prop 8, over 18,000 same sex couples were married. Following the passage of Prop 8, lawsuits once again were filed. Only this time around Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General (now Governor) Jerry Brown refused to defend the Proposition. Defense instead fell to the proponents of Prop 8. Lawsuits in state court failed to overturn the initiative. In federal court, the opponents got a break when a Bush 41 appointee Vaughn Walker who is a committed homosexual was chosen to adjudicate the lawsuit against Prop 8. Walker did everything in his power to open the opposition to harassment by homosexual activists in California during the trial and not unexpectedly found Prop 8 unconstitutional in August 2010 at which time the gay marriage machine started up again in California. Prop 8 was appealed to the Ninth Circus which last week found it unconstitutional on the very narrow and specious grounds that it would take away previously granted rights. The California Supreme Court was asked in 2008 to stay their order tossing Prop 22 pending the November 2008 vote on Prop 8 so that the courts would not create the mess they created on this. But they refused, perhaps intending to create conditions for the outcome we saw last week. Expect Prop 8 to be appealed to the SCOTUS, where I have no idea how it will end up. What I do know is that the judges involved have no respect for the citizens of California or the choices demonstrated in two separate elections. 3. Extortion. The Obama administration announced yet another $26 billion settlement between the five largest mortgage corporations and the states. This bit of legal theft via lawsuit will give over $17 billion to mortgage holders (Obama voters) who are behind in their mortgages. $5 billion will come from the mortgage companies themselves and the rest from various 401K and other savings instruments invested in those companies. One of the signatories is Government Motors’ financial arm, the former GMAC now called Ally Bank. Such is the advantage of the government owning an auto company. This shakedown is one of the ugliest things I have seen in a long, long time and is intended only to purchase votes for Obama and his democrat cronies. They have destroyed the housing market and those of us who have owned homes and pay our bills on time are left to pick up the pieces afterwards. This must not stand. 4. Waivers. The Obama administration is no longer enforcing provisions of the No Child Left Behind law. Last week, they announced a series of waivers handed out to states that would allow the states no longer to be bound to provisions and requirements of the law. There is so much wrong with this, starting with the silly notion that there is no provision in federal law that allows any such waivers to be written or handed out. The second thing wrong with this is that it allows the Teachers Unions to skate from requirements to actually teach rather than indoctrinate their students. Finally, the waivers swap requirements in law for new requirements levied by the Obama administration. Congress has not gotten around to revising parts of existing law that are proving problematic. Instead of working with congress on this revision, Obama is simply issuing yet another set of edicts from upon high. This is lawlessness and it is unconstitutional. Congress best step up and defend its power from an overreaching executive. http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/09/executive-power-obama-now-substituting-his-own-regulations-for-no-child-left-behind-law/ 5. Menard. Voters in Wasilla tossed City Council member Steve Menard out of office last week. The vote was over 70% in favor of removing him from office. Menard left a hotel room in a disgusting mess – not unlike the prototypical rock star – after a night of drunken debauchery while out of town on official business. He is the son of a powerful political family in Wasilla that is also close to the Palins. Good job by the voters of Wasilla. We will hope he gets the help he needs to fight his demons. More later - - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. 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