Religious Freedom And Corporations

Fomrer Times editor Bill Keller, who presumably has no angst about whether corporations have a Constitutional right to a free press, explains that corporations don't have a right to religious freedom.

This is all part of the ObamaCare shuffle on contraceptive coverage, but we implore Mr. Keller to send better strawmen:

“If an employer can craft a benefits system around his religious beliefs, that’s a slippery slope,” said Marci Hamilton, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and a critic of religious exemptions. “Can you deny treatment of AIDS victims because your religion disapproves of homosexuals? What if your for-profit employer is a Jehovah’s Witness, who doesn’t believe in blood transfusions?”

A slippery slope! But is this really new ground? We have had Catholic organizations dealing with the AIDS issue for the last thirty years. Let me quote PBS:

RAY SUAREZ: Judy, there's a massive audience for whatever the Catholic Church teaches in this regard, because you have to remember that, with over 1 billion members around the world, one out of every six people on planet Earth is a Catholic.

And the Catholic Church has been very hard at work in the hardest-hit countries in the world when it's come to the scourge of HIV and AIDS. There are, in fact, 117,000 Catholic medical facilities, from clinics in the deepest jungle to large urban hospitals in the developing world, that are involved in treating both people that are already infected with AIDS and trying to prevent the transmission to at-risk populations.

Or the Times from 1993:

In places like New York, which leads the country in reported AIDS cases, Catholic institutions, with heavy financial support from the Government, have been major providers of care to AIDS patients.

The problem is on the contraception side:

But citing its moral imperatives, the church has resisted teaching prevention messages widely recommended by public health officials, like the use of condoms or instructions on cleaning hypodermic needles used for intravenous drugs. Church officials say that the only morally correct way to prevent AIDS is by avoiding drugs and by practicing fidelity within marriage and abstinence outside it.

Both John Cardinal O'Connor, head of the Archdiocese of New York, and his director of health and hospitals declined to be interviewed, but his spokesman, Joseph G. Zwilling, said that even with the constraints on what information hospitals provide, he is confident of the treatment they offer.

"We believe we provide excellent care for our patients," he said.

And Sandra Fluke's alma mater specifically excludes contraceptive coverage but makes no mention of excluding AIDS treatment. However, they will cover experimental AIDS drugs in a clinical trial, which strongly suggests they will cover conventional AIDS treatment as well.

As to the Jehovah's Witness puzzle, I stand by my tirade from one year ago - we have had employer sponsored health coverage and Jehovah's Witnesses co-existing for decades. Has there been a problem up to now?

Mr. Keller leaves us laughing with this:

Also, courts tend to distinguish between laws that make you do something and laws that merely require a financial payment. In the days of the draft, conscientious objectors were exempted from conscription. A sincere pacifist could not be obliged to kill. But a pacifist is not excused from paying taxes just because he or she objects to the money being spent on war. Doctors who find abortions morally abhorrent are not obliged to perform them. But you cannot withhold taxes because some of the money goes to Medicaid-financed abortion.

...

I don’t know what the courts will say, but common sense says the contraception dispute is more like taxation than conscription.

Hmm, does Mr. Keller's common sense oblige him to read the Religious Freedom Restoration Act? That is the current law of the land, passed overwhelmingly by a Democratric House and Senate in 1993 and signed by Bill Clinton. Among its requirements:

(b) Exception: Government may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person-

(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and

(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

There are serious questions about whether, in a land of free family planning clinics, the employer insurance mandate is the least restrictive means of accomplishing this governmental goal. Maybe an employer mandate looks less like conscription and more like a tax, but a tax to fund clinics would really look like a tax, and is consistent with current policy.

Comments

[matt]

"shut up and do what we tell you."

[rse]

Boy am I sick of this government is entitled to regulate every aspect of life attitude that is a key aspect of the contraception mandate. Especially if there's a devoted voting bloc to be gained.

And I have written the Ehrlich post. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/nothing-as-practical-as-a-good-theory-for-gaining-access-to-action-research/ Which is about much more but is hugely troubling in the extent of the intended overreach. And the idea that with any good theory designed to obtain social change plus the government's coffers of our money or future debt, there's nothing to stop the imposition of those theories.

This is government without barriers whether you have children or not. Ed is just the vehicle to bind everyone.

And the idea that the National Geographic Society is working with UNESCO to create biosocial evolution using theories recognized to just be metaphorical is like something from bad science fiction.

[narciso]

'Would you believe, she has no clue'

http://prospect.org/authors/marci-hamilton

Which explains why Keller is using her as an authority.

[narciso]

How does someone give nearly 10,000 dollars in donation, on the same day;

http://www.campaignmoney.com/professor.asp?pg=196

[matt]

So now the President is running secret wars and his own secret army out of the White House. With his czars and executive orders and such, I think it's time to investigate for impeachment.

[Jane: Mock the Media]

I think it's time to investigate for impeachment.

Me too. Tough to do with a lapdog media.

[narciso]

Does it appear that she has an outright hostility to religion,

http://www.cardozo.yu.edu/uploadedFiles/Cardozo/Profiles/hamilton02-447/Wm%20Mary%282%29.pdf

[jimmyk]

The point is that contraception has nothing to do with insurance. It's a pretax benefit that many employers and employees have opportunistically added to coverage to take advantage of the tax break. One could as easily include electric toothbrushes. The idea that contraception coverage is an integral part of insurance, and therefore worthy of any infringement on individual freedom, is preposterous.

[narciso]

I'm just noticing this pattern;

http://www.cardozo.yu.edu/uploadedFiles/Cardozo/Profiles/hamilton02-447/SSRN-id1442897.pdf

[GUS]

Treating AIDS equated with KILLING BABIES or forcing a business to pay for Contraceptives. Slippery indeed. Maybe all businesses should pay for better FOOTWEAR too. I mean, sore arches can cause missed days, and less productivity.

[narciso]

Is it reverse nepotism or what exactly;

http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/11/obama-meets-with-kerry-brothers-implicated-in-1972-watergate-style-incident/

[narciso]

Well isn't this convenient;

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/11/Report-Menendez-Intervention-May-Have-Damaged-Anti-Cocaine-Efforts

[Jane: Mock the Media]

I think young people are trading $9.00 birth control pills for the enormous debt that will cripple them for the rest of their lives.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

[narciso]

She was right at the beginning here, then loses the point;

http://verdict.justia.com/2012/09/20/either-get-behind-or-lose-what-matters

[Jim Eagle]

OT: The Absentee Commander and Chief

Peter Wehner and Bill Kristol do a number on AWOLbama.

[narciso]

Wait, the reason for the Port deal, is even stranger;

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/06/The-Corrupt-Origins-of-the-Melgen-Menendez-Dominican-Port-Security-Deal

[maryrose]

JIB:
Great article by Kristol. We all know the reason for the cover-up was to get Obama re=elected.I consider him an illegitimate president.Elected under false pretenses.
Narciso: Drip, drip, drip. Menendez is the next casualty of this corrupt administration and Dem Senate. This is the worst dem senate we have ever had. Gone are the compromisers like Breaux and Bayh. These liberal dem progs are just jerks.

[maryrose]

I am very interested in the succession process for Pope. I admire Pope Benedict for stepping down in view of his age and health concerns. He has done an excellent. More liberal Catholics were not pleased with his selection.

[maryrose]

should be excellent job.

[Janet]

A couple years ago port security was a big Dem. talking point. Maybe when the last illegal immigrant amnesty brouhaha was going on???..& there was talk about a border fence...but the Dems kept talking about port security?
I can't remember the time....

[GUS]

Janet, maybe you should call Senator Love Machine Menendez. He knows a little about that.

[maryrose]

Someone asked the question, "Does Obama at least feel bad about what happened in Benghazi?"
I think he deliberately wanted to pretend that Benghazi wasn't a big deal and that is why he insisted on being kept "out of the loop" To emphasize this he had to continue his campaign schedule. He chose the lesser of two evils. Helping our Americans in Benghazi or losing the presidency to Mitt Romney. We know the course he took. It is like a deal with the devil. He will have to answer to God for his lack of action to help fellow human beings. He put himself first. It is what a narcissist would do. To make matters worse, he lied at the debate and had others lie for him.He is a despicable human being. I hope Brennan and Obama's secret actions in Libya blow up in their faces. He needs to be brought to justice.

[narciso]

Yes, back during the height of the Iraq war, Janet, Richard Clarke had a conniption about it, the whole Dubai port deal, even though P&0, controls every port between there and
here, was on the bubble, now not so much;

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2013/02/09/smuggling-from-dominican-republic-to-us-surges/

[rse]

I thought the Kristol op-ed made Candy Crowley's behavior in that 2nd debate all the more egregious.

So the real job of CiC in bo's mind is to reduce nuclear weapons past the point of assured efficacy of response and to tell Israel Iran will behave.

[Jane: Mock the Media]

It's pouring rain on 3 feet of snow. What a nightmare.

[Mad Jack]

OT: Happy to report the power is back on at Mad Jack's house. The the betting line with my wife was Tuesday and I took the over. Pleased to lose that bet! We, Cape Cod, did not get the quantity of snow everywhere else did but what we got was like a heavy wet glaze accompainied by winds with gusts reported as high as 95mph followed by the light fluffy stuff. Much tree carnage, 40% still w/o power at last check.

[maryrose]

Hagel actually said Israel's nuclear weapons are more dangerous than Iran's.

[Chubby]

((Hagel actually said Israel's nuclear weapons are more dangerous than Iran's.))

that echos the gun control argument -- they look only at the guns as the threat, not at the minds wielding the guns

[narciso]

Well let's be blunt, Chubby, he was on the board of Deutsche Bank, and they do a lot of business in Iran, so it's not personal, as Michael Corleone might say.

[Rob Crawford]

Hagel actually said Israel's nuclear weapons are more dangerous than Iran's.

To him, sure. He's more likely to be at ground-zero for one of the Israeli weapons than for on targeted at Israel.

[GUS]

Simple question. You've all seen it before.

If Israel laid down their arms. WHAT WOULD HAPPEN?
If the Muzztards laid down their arms, WHAT WOULD HAPPEN?

A 2nd grader on various attention deficit medications would be able to answer.
Hagel not so much.

[narciso]

'Surprise, Surprise,' but he said he would be exonerated;

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-jim-greer-goes-on-trial-20130210,0,2481140.story

[Captain Hate]

Nice to see that Kristol is being held in reasonably high regard again. I realize he's not perfect, and blundered badly on the Arab Spring, but his reasoning is usually very good.

[narciso]

You know there's a pill for that;

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2013/02/11/washington-posts-cillizza-confesses-i-cant-get-enough-hillary-clinton

[NK]

OT-- Here's our future. Chavez devalues to improve the "State's" balance sheet. In Socialism, "the State" comes first last andalways, the individual--especially lawful individuals like savers and investors-- get it in the neck. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/12e9f32e-739e-11e2-9e92-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2KbscbMt6

[Jane: Mock the Media]

Congrats MadJack! WE got 31 inches of snow but never lost power. I prefer my plight to yours. Glad you are back.

[NK]

Chris Cillizza's a lesbian?

[hit and run]

Marci Hamilton, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and a critic of religious exemptions.

I thought lefties thought the religious exemptions in Obamacare were cool.

The only reason I have watched Amish Mafia on the Discovery Channel is because I keep expecting to see Levi beat down a door and catch recent convert Janet illicitly using a computer to access the internetto post on JOM. Or flagging her down on her motorcycle. Or catching her going to a church with all those fancy plugged in instruments playing music.

[Dave (in MA)]

WE got 31 inches of snow but never lost power

I lost power in my arms.

[NK]

Well I was fine until the freezing rain this morning and resulting follies on Metro North. Looks like Wednesday afternoon snow in DC, -- Philly, NYC, LI and maybe Coastal Ct Wed night. One political aspect of the snow deluge, Blue Hell Bridgeport Ct was absolutely buried-- and Partners in Vote Fraud crime Mayor Finch and Gov Drunken' Dan Malloy look absolutely pitiful 'splaining things to their Blue moron constituents.

[narciso]

I don't know how true this is, because they have been singing from the Levick Grp hymnal;

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/02/tragic-navy-seal-who-killed-bin-laden-is-jobless-broke/

[Ignatz Ratzkywatzky]

--“If an employer can craft a benefits system around his religious beliefs, that’s a slippery slope,” said Marci Hamilton, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and a critic of religious exemptions.--

This is the slippery slope that occurs when the "negative" rights of a constitution crafted to limit and control a Leviathan government conflict with the absurd "positive" rights of the entitlement nanny-state Barry so wishes to transform us into.
Even though an employee is free to contract out his labor with any employer with which his views or desires do not conflict, instead he is now given the positive right of working in a place which the state will now compel to violate its own constitutionally protected conscience in order to protect his conjured "positive" right.

[hit and run]

Well, hopefully he'll check in some time today...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOT!!!!

[matt]

speaking of devaluation, Argentina is going down fast. The government forbade companies to advertise in the private sector newspapers the other day, trying to drive them under.

Prices are now fixed for the next 60 days, which is going to distort the market for life's basics beyond recognition.

If you will recall, Kirchner's grab of private pensions threw everyone onto the state system, but now there's no cash.

The chickens are coming home to roost. Her drum beating on the Falklands is looking ever more pitiful. And there have been no mysterious planeloads of money coming from her buddy Chavez.

More to the point, there's no Chavez either.

The Bolivarian revolucion is not looking too good at the moment. Time for Obama to step in and help out.

[Sue]

That is an awesome cake!

Happy birthday DoT.

[narciso]

Happy birthday, DOT, you know who else has a birthday today, no one in my family btw.

[Jane: Mock the Media]

HB Dot - hope you are having a wonderful time where ever you are!

[narciso]

Now this would be ironic, don't you think;

http://quincyjournal.com/what%E2%80%99s-to-talk-about-with-concealed-carry-law-in-illinois-1360343478.html

[NK]

Matt-- heh. This is the end game of socialism, just like the USSR-Eastern Europe, and Greece, Spain, France and sooner than later the USA. The faster the better for the USA. When theres no mo' money for nothin' in the USA, takers will scream like Greek pensioners-- it will be sound and fury, and signify nothin'-- Because there won't be any money or credit-- for nothin'.

[NK]

Happy Birthday DoT!

[Captain Hate]

HB DoT

[Sue]

Pick me! Pick me!

Sarah Palin.

[Mad Jack]

Thanks, Jane. 31 inches? Yikes! After snaping two snow shovels I switched to a garden spade to break through the crust to the ice base below but I think I'd rather deal with that than nearly 3 feet of the regular stuff. At least my dog and I can walk on top of our cement, er, snow.

[jimmyk]

Happy Birthday, DoT!

A usual, Iggy nails it. Big guy creates these conflicts by expanding into realms where it has no business, and, presto, all these slippery slopes appear that we never an issue when the private sector handled it.

[narciso]

You betcha, Sue, the parallels to 'For Greater Glory' seem to be more and more pronounced,

[Sue]

Sarah and Todd are in Dallas today (actually they will be in Arlington) to attend the memorial for Chris Kyle.

[marlene]

Happy Birthday DoT!
We are also expecting freezing rain on top of the snow. I hope you all shoveled your roofs!

[Jim Eagle]

John Moody: He Never Had a Chance

Moody has been covering the Vatican for a long time. Very interesting perspective on the Pope and his papacy.

[Jim Eagle]

narciso,

There is this article by Phil Bronstein in Esquire that suggests this guy is The Shooter and he is now screwed. Wonder if its the same guy?

[Jim Eagle]

Sorry about that but I didn't read the Gateway Pundit link first. Same guy, same story. Hard to tell who is telling the truth.

[Porchlight]

Happy birthday DoT! And to Mrs. Palin.

[narciso]

I don't know if it's true either, but it's ironic that the fellow who opposed the operation, Brennan, is slotted for the top slot, Vickers burns one of the DEV GRP, the analyst who did the scut work can't get promoted,

[narciso]

One thinks that 'Burn Notice' is pure fiction,
then one sees this, and Benghazi, btw, great way to identify this fellow, Phil, this is why
the Iguana didn't show him professional courtesy.

[Soylent Red]

I think young people are trading $9.00 birth control pills for the enormous debt that will cripple them for the rest of their lives.

There was a poll some years back that showed that a majority of collect students would have, at that time, given up their right to vote for an iPod.

This is what America gets for coddling children and obsessing about self-esteem. A nation of short-sighted, ill-informed voters who choose Free Shit over Freedom and think everything comes easy and someone else will do the work.

They have an archetype in Barack Obama, who serves as all the proof they need that this way of thinking works and is enlightened. And we have given them control of the country.

I, for one, look forward to building my fires in the ruins of Rome.

[Jim Eagle]

I see where The Donald is laying down a heavy barrage of criticism on Twitter on Karl Rove. Calling him out big time as a "conservative" and a "Bushie, not a Reaganite". Going after the donors also since Rove's track record last year was $400million down the drain.

Go get 'em Donald:)

[Frau Kalabasch]

Happy Birthday, DoT, wherever you are!

[Frau Kalabasch]

Amazing that Democrats' corruption does not stink!

[Rob Crawford]

I, for one, look forward to building my fires in the ruins of Rome.

I discovered there's a ghost town -- or map-maker's trademark -- along the Ohio called "Rome". There are some attractive properties nearby.

I suspect I would find myself, after the collapse, in the situation faced by the guy who saw WWII coming and decided to go where it would never, ever touch him. You know, that remote island Guam.

[matt]

all the best DoT!

[Jane: Mock the Media]

Soylent,

Amazing. I tell you, there is value in growing up poor.

[derwill]

--When theres no mo' money for nothin' in the USA, takers will scream like Greek pensioners-- it will be sound and fury, and signify nothin'-- Because there won't be any money or credit-- for nothin'.--

I think we've already run out of money, NK. Or rather we've stopped producing enough real wealth to sustain us. What our government is spending now is wealth they're creating out of whole cloth in the form of quantitative easing. It's working for now, albeit barely, and it has certainly pumped up the stock market, but it defies logic to think we can keep living off this pretend wealth forever. The belief was that this "printed" money would jump start real wealth production, but that hasn't happened. Now we're stuck in a place where we can't stop inflating the debt bubble because to stop would collapse everything, so instead we just keep making the bubble bigger, all the while hoping that a miracle will happen. And at this point only something on the scale of a miracle will save us--and not the iPhone 7 either, but rather something equivalent to the invention of the combustible engine.

Meanwhile we're another day older and deeper in debt. And we owe our souls to the company store.

[AliceH]

--I tell you, there is value in growing up poor.--

Hear, hear! A realistic understanding of what is a "necessity" vs. a "luxury" has to be right up there in importance with with learning and practicing delayed gratification.

[bgates]

If an employer can craft a benefits system around his religious beliefs, that’s a slippery slope

"If we allow that, a person could start to order any number of aspects of his own life according to the dictates of his own conscience. And once somebody gets in the habit of living to please some primitive deity that provided the foundation for thousands of years of Western civilization, how are we supposed to coerce him into serving the all-knowing, all-powerful, wise and benevolent State?"

[Jim Miller]

Tom - I am pretty sure that Bill Keller thinks that most corporations, those that aren't in the news business, do not have much in the way of free press rights.

That's always struck me a bizarre, but it does seem to be the standard belief in most of our newsrooms.

(Some news critters go even further. In our last election, there was something of a revolt at the Seattle Times, after the newspaper decided to take out ads -- in the Seattle Times -- backing gay marriage and gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna. Some of the employees there seemed to think that press freedom belongs only to those who work for news corporations.)

[sbwaters]

Soylent, you are welcome to build your fires here where I live, but don't wait for the ruins.

[maryrose]

derwil:
So true.
Soylent: Yes the entitilement generation just wants more but doesn't want to work for it.Obama didn't have to so why should they?
Happy Birthday DOT!

[maryrose]

We as individuals have to live our lives according to our conscience. Obama doesn't believe in this concept because instead of staying and helping Americans in need and in danger, he decided to go to Vegas.

[NK]

derwil-- objectively and arithmetically what you say is true about what I call the 'debt bomb' i.e. the cumulative effects of QE and the lies the politicians have told the muddle about Medicare, Medicaid and Soc Sec. Politically, the day of reckoning comes when the Fed can no longer buy Treasuries and the politicians have to pay 'normal' rates for Treasury debt-- game over then. No more borrowing means spending has to be cut $1+ TRILLION Dollars/yr, 30+ cut in Federal Gov't spending overnight. Barry will need his drones to keep the rioting muddle away from his golf round. IMO, the sooner the better- as you say-- everyday just brings more debt, so closing the debt window just saves future generations money. As to the future, once socialism and cronysism die in the USA, freedom will bring prosperity-- like it has in the past.

[Frau Kalabasch]

God is love...

Thank you, Papa Ratzi.

[rse]

On growing up poor, I think you can force much of the same wisdom by putting kids to work in the family business as if they are no one or just getting an arduous job or one where you have to deal with people and then force the kids to contribute.

I think it's the mindset cultivated not the affluence. In fact Red is adamant that the Diva have an hourly job this summer.

[Sue]

Frau,

Sweet play on words.

[Jane: Mock the Media]

Obama is such a dickhead - even he has to be the star at the awarding of a medal of honor. His pretense that he cares about the military, is galling.

[derwill]

We are QE-ing now to the tune of 85 billion a month. That is like giving massive doses of kemo to a man who has terminal cancer. It might keep him alive, prolonging the misery, for a little while, but he's still going to die in the end anyway.

[Sue]

We didn't grow up rich but we didn't grow up poor either. You wouldn't have known it thought talking to my parents are grandparents. We were always one natural disaster away from having nothing. A dry spring, a hot summer, a bad winter. Dairy cows, come to find out, are finicky. We worked from the time we were old enough to do the simplest of chores until we left home. We got our spending money by doing manual labor, not cleaning our rooms. We never had hired hands because there 4 of us which gave them 8 hands to work with. And we all appreciate everything we ever earned.

And on the 8th day, God made a farmer...

[Sue]

I hate my own typos...they don't bother me when others have them.

[Janet]

Thanks for reminding me, hit! I forgot that I'm an Amish Evangelical.

Happy Birthday, DoT! Lots of love to you!

[rse]

Oh and happy birthday DOT.

Janet-got to hug my eldest finally this weekend.

[Jane - Mock the Media!]

And on the 8th day, God made a farmer...

Ya got that right! My grandfather was a chicken farmer in Maine. A great man.

[Porchlight]

I am not Catholic, but I will miss Pope Benedict. A truly humble and scholarly man.

[Janet]

Wonderful, rse!! So happy for him & you.
My last 3 guys are either in Italy or on their way soon. I'm in search of 1 or 2 new soldiers to send care pkgs. to...so if you have a name & address, it would be my privilege.
Packing night is at the church tomorrow, so I've always got that, but I like having individuals too.

[Conscript corporations. Oh, they volunteered.]

Well, some Anabaptists left Germany because of conscription, then left Russia because their no-conscription deal was broken, and came to America.

Oh, you said 'religious freedom and corporations', not 'conscription'.
================

[centralcal]

Happiest of birthdays, DoT, wherever you are!

Sue: I married a dairy farmer (registered Holsteins). After a couple of years he, his brother and dad, quit the dairy business and sold their herds. My husband continued in AG as a hay broker and owned a (hay) trucking company, along with hay baling. Also, for a couple of years had part ownership in cotton harvesting business. All of our friends and family were in AG in one way or another.

Yep, God made a farmer - lots and lots of 'em.

[Melinda Romanoff on Kindle]

Porch-

What you said.

DoT-

Happiest birthday upon you.

[Free State Paul]

I stumbled across this over the weekend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarian_democracy

...totalitarian democracy sees freedom as something achieved only in the long term, and only through collective effort; the political goal of ultimate order and ultimate harmony brings ultimate freedom. In addressing every aspect of the lives of its citizens, the totalitarian democratic state has the power to ensure that all material needs are met from cradle to grave, and all that is required of the citizen is to carry out his role, whatever it may be, to the best of his ability.

So, perhaps Obama is not leading us down the path of "Socialism" or "Marxism," but rather "Totalitarian Democracy."

[rse]

FSP-that would be a fair statement of what is in so much of what I read and in fact fits with the book that came out of the 2006 Dewey lecture that I am reading today.

It is heartbreakingly graphic and the woman who wrote it moved to the Model T Foundation in November of 08. Presumably to use their coffers to further implementation. It also confirms yet again what I have said. That the urban schools were deliberately kept weak to make the students and area residents easier to community organize. That is described in detail.

[rse]

Janet-thanks so much for the offer. He is headed off to another school and will be largely out of touch again.

[hit and run]

"I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m a better political director than my political director. In fact, I'm quite certain I'd be a better Pope than that Benedict guy."
--stuff Obama said (all of it out loud and for public consumption, except maybe that last part)

[DrJ]

In Other News (WSJ),

Rising federal student-loan debt and potential changes to how such loans are treated under bankruptcy could be a "train wreck" for U.S. taxpayers, Discover Financial Services President Roger Hochschild said Monday. ... he accused the federal government, which now controls the majority of student lending, of lax underwriting.

"I actually think it's going to hit all of us as taxpayers in terms of what it does for the federal student-loan program and their utter and total lack of underwriting," Mr. Hochschild said. "But I do not think it will be a train wreck for Discover shareholders."

[Threadkiller]

Happy Birthday Danube!

Reconstructing Obama's Columbia Transcript

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/02/m-jason_kissner_recently_questioned_president.html

[Jim Miller]

hit - I was just trying to remember that Obama quote because of something I read in today's Seattle Times: "When President Obama nominated Sally Jewell as Interior secretary last week, he chose a woman not unlike him: smart, low-key and with a self-deprecating wit."

Right.

In fact, if you had to choose someone to illustrate "self-deprecating" you'd probably pick President Obama.