2012 Presidential Election

“GOP says HHS mandate is about liberty, not contraception. Dems say it’s about contraception, not liberty. Media accept and amplify Democratic framing.” So the Weekly Standard ’s Stephen Hayes adroitly tweeted noontime Sunday in an accurate observation demonstrated by Meet the Press where host David Gregory opened the roundtable: “I want to start with…a big theme in this race so far. And Politico , I thought, captured the headline here with this theme, ‘2012: The year of birth control moms? ’” Later, Gregory touted how “I see this bumper sticker,” which, he insisted, “we’ve heard everybody talk about,” that proclaims “GM’s back on top, and Osama bin Laden is dead.” Cuing up New York Times White House correspondent Helene Cooper, Gregory noted the obvious: “That’s the record that this President wants to run on.” Cooper affirmed: “That’s absolutely the record that he wants to run on.” Following his roundtable opening set up with the “Year of Birth Control Moms,” Gregory, who earlier pressed guest Congressman Paul Ryan about how Republicans are alienating women, highlighted how liberal Senator Patty Murray, “wrote this based on that and also that all-male image of that contraception hearing”: “I feel,” she wrote, “I woke up this morning on the set of Mad Men . Republicans have set their time machine for the 1950s – back when, according to one prominent Republican,” aforementioned, “women could just ‘put aspirin between their knees’ to avoid getting pregnant.” NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell soon charged that “when Rick Santorum talks about theology and takes that shot at the President, which many people believe, including I think some moderate Republicans in those states, think crosses a line.” Near the end of the program, Bloomberg’s Al Hunt, formerly the Wall Street Journal ’s Washington Bureau Chief, recognized Obama’s poll numbers are going up not because his policies are being embraced but because Republicans are imploding, and so Obama’s re-election team has “really benefited because the Republicans, both in the presidential level and the congressional level, have wreaked havoc on the brand name. They could recover from that, but that’s why Obama’s doing so well, not because of anything he’s done.” From the roundtable on the Sunday, February 19 Meet the Press , which included Republican strategist Ed Gillespie who got some opportunities to sneak in some conservative points: DAVID GREGORY: And I want to talk, Andrea, I want to start with you with a big theme in this race so far. And Politico , I thought, captured the headline here with this theme, “2012: The year of ‘birth control moms’?” Is, I thought we were talking about the economy. And Paul Ryan wants to talk more about the economy, but the reality is, in the Republican race, social issues seem to be energizing the base and fueling Rick Santorum. ANDREA MITCHELL: And the question is whether this is going to energize the base and help him win the primaries and perhaps go on to the nomination, although that is being hotly debated among Republican leaders, or whether this is really going to debilitate the Republican Party when they need in a general election to go up against Barack Obama and win independents, win suburban moms in both parties and women who generally accept birth control. GREGORY: This aspirin business, Foster Friess, who’s a Santorum supporter, said to you on your program that the best means of birth control is putting a Bayer aspirin between your legs, which is kind of an old joke. He said a bad joke. Rick Santorum said it was a bad joke, distanced himself, and yet it sort of leads to that headline. And it leads to this, Ed Gillespie, which is a fundraising letter by the head of the Democratic Committee, senatorial re-election committee, Patty Murray, who wrote this based on that and also that all-male image of that contraception hearing. “I feel,” she wrote, “I woke up this morning on the set of Mad Men. Republicans have set their time machine for the 1950s – back when, according to one prominent Republican,” aforementioned, “women could just ‘put aspirin between their knees’ to avoid getting pregnant. This after Republicans opened a hearing on birth control – and banned women from testifying! We’ve already accumulated 65,000 signatures on our petition opposing their Aspirin Agenda. But I’m too mad to stop at ‘opposing.’ It’s time we punished the people responsible by taking away their jobs.” How do you see this?

The controversial contraception, abortifacients and sterilization mandate has quickly become a national debate unlike the country has seen since the passage of Obamacare. Regardless of how the White House is currently positioned to accommodate potentially injured religious parties, Accuracy in Media discovered an alarming narrative developing in the mainstream press. Pundits and reporters have chosen to apply the debate to the horse-race for the GOP nomination, or another battle in the culture war for reproductive rights. Unfortunately a larger, constitutionally intrinsic question is being overlooked: will this pending mandate forever endanger our religious liberties for the sake of public policy? Accuracy in Media sat down with Fr. Joseph Gonzales, Imam Johari Abdul-Malik and Rabbi Charles Feinberg to discuss how this precious balance can be maintained in the 21st Century. Accuracy in Media understands that these three clergymen cannot speak for their respective monotheistic religions as whole. We executed this project to proactively urge a course correction of dominant media narratives.

Follow this link:
Imam, Priest, Rabbi: Religious Liberty and The Birth Control Mandate

From denying God’s existence , to attacking Christians , to attacking the Bible , Hollywood has launched an all-out war on Christianity in America. A new black comedy titled “God Bless America” is Hollywood’s latest effort mocking God and the United States. Comedian ‘Bobcat’ Goldthwait produced the new film titled “God Bless America” featuring a hopeless man named Frank fed up with an increasingly crude and vapid society. Frank and a teenage girl he meets along the way decide to “off the stupidest, cruelest, and most repellent members of society” – and proceed to do so with reckless abandon. Frank poses the question: “Why have a civilization if we are not longer interested in being civilized?” The trailer makes sure to include a hate-mongering Christian minister attacking Jews and homosexuals among the killer’s many targets. While Frank’s rage against a shallow society is understandable, “God Bless America,” like Showtime’s hit TV show “Dexter,” celebrates a man who justifies using violence against people he considers evil, claiming “I only want to kill people who deserve to die.” Unlike “Dexter,” the movie is clearly a black comedy that does not take itself seriously. However, the movie’s title takes a gratuitous shot at the Christian God, by implying that God has “blessed” America with fools and idiots that need to be eliminated, and at those who revere America’s Judeo-Christian heritage. Goldthwait also depicts Christians in the usual Hollywood manner – by equating them all with the members of the extremist Westboro Baptist Church. If a director were to make a movie titled “Allah Bless Saudi Arabia,” and had his protagonist indiscriminately shoot hatemongering imams, teenaged girls and people in movie theaters, he would be instantly blacklisted in Hollywood as a hateful bigot. But attacks on Christians garner only praise from the artistic community. A movie that invokes the name of any religion’s God to justify gratuitous violence, no matter how cynically or “humorously,” goes beyond the pale.

In an attempt to be “edgy,” singer Nicki Minaj did the most banal thing possible at the Grammys on Feb. 12. She mocked the Roman Catholic Church in a live performance of her new song “Roman Holiday.” Her anti-Catholic mishmash of a performance came with the support of the group that produced the Grammys, The Recording Academy . Rapper Nicki Minaj gave a sacrilegious performance mocking a host of Catholic rituals and practices, including the sacrament of confession and the rite of exorcism. Her performance began in a confessional, snarling at a “priest” as if she were possessed. ( Video available here ) A pre-taped video was also shown that resembled the movie “The Exorcist.” It showed Minaj climbing on a ceiling and hissing at a would-be “exorcist.” At the end of Minaj’s performance, a “choir” sang a perverted version of “O Come All Ye Faithful” while she levitated. Shattering stained glass windows, the Inquisition, altar boys, and other references to Catholic imagery punctuated the song. Minaj’s number was laden with a heavy dose of sexual imagery. Scantily clad dancers resembling devils slithered around Minaj while she sang. At one point in the song, a female dancer straddled an altar boy kneeling in prayer in a sexual pose. Some critics reacted negatively to Minaj’s performance. The Washington Post’s Maura Judkis wrote that “Those who tuned in for Nicki Minaj ’s Grammy performance experienced a wave of emotion: First they were confused, then amused and then just plain angry.” Hollie McKay of Fox News wrote that “The mood backstage was a mixture of confusion, embarrassment and offense as the performance dragged on, going deeper and deeper in mocking Catholic faith.” A leading Catholic group, The Catholic League, slammed Nicki Minaj’s “vulgar” performance saying: “It’s bad enough that Catholics have to fight for their rights vis-

“I was struck looking at this,” Washington Post columnist and former foreign editor David Ignatius expressed on ABC’s This Week in admiring how Barack Obama on Friday adjusted the contraception mandate, hailing “the ability to do a do-over quickly” since the administration was not “done deaf” and “they did make changes and this is now a policy that you can defend.” Unaddressed, how it’s just an accounting gimmick and Catholic institutions would still be required to cover what they morally oppose, to say nothing of what gives the government the right to require private insurers to offer a service for “free.” Over on NBC’s Meet the Press , when Peggy Noonan noted how Obama picked the leftist position over the First Amendment, another Washington Post columnist and former reporter, E.J. Dionne Jr. fired back: “Barack Obama is a moderate progressive with the emphasis on moderate. Most socialists are insulted when Barack Obama is called a socialist.” George Will, on This Week pointed out “this is an accounting gimmick that they’ve done that in no way ends the complicity of Catholic institutions and individuals in delivering services they consider morally abhorrent.” He also zinged the Catholic bishops as he explained this is the liberalism in action which they supported: “The Catholic bishops, it serves them right. They're the ones who were really hot for ObamaCare, with a few exceptions. But they were all in favor and this is what it looks like when the government decides it's going to make your health care choices for you.” David Ignatius , a former Assistant Managing Editor for business news at the Washington Post and Executive Editor of the International Herald Tribune , praised Obama’s nimbleness: The White House argues that this is a net cost reducer, avoiding pregnancy, women choosing to do that, it’s less costly to insurance companies and to society than all of the services associated with pregnancy. I was struck looking at this, yes, the White House probably made a mistake in the initial policy. But the ability to do a do-over quickly, to – you can make a mistake, but you really get in trouble in politics when you’re tone deaf, you don’t listen to criticism and make changes – and they did make changes and this is now a policy that you can defend. You say, we understand the objections of Catholics that they shouldn't be forced to pay- Peggy Noonan, on NBC’s Meet the Press , observed: As a conservative, as I look at the administration: here’s one thing that I think is kind of new for the past few years, the leftists, if you will, part of the President’s base seems to me to be, (a) more leftist and (b) more powerful. When you have a White House in the past month E.J. that says NARAL – National Abortion Rights Action League – and Planned Parenthood are here, the Catholic church and I would argue the First Amendment are here, who wins? NARAL and Planned Parenthood. That to me is the kind of kind political calculation, just politics that is kind of mad, and that suggests a certain sort of — I hate to say extremism, but something rather extreme. May I say Bill Clinton wouldn’t have done it. This is not a traditional Democratic Party thing. To which, E.J. Dionne Jr. , a correspondent for the New York Times and Washington Post before taking up column writing, retorted: We agree there was overreach on this contraception rule. But I know the Left. The Left is not to the left of where it was. That’s number one. Number two, Barack Obama is a moderate progressive with the emphasis on moderate. Most socialists are insulted when Barack Obama is called a socialist. It’s absurd that this man is a socialist. Back to the February 12 This Week , George Will zinged the Catholic bishops as he explained this is the liberalism in action which they supported: Three points, as Paul Ryan said to you, this is an accounting gimmick that they’ve done that in no way ends the complicity of Catholic institutions and individuals in delivering services they consider morally abhorrent. Second, you asked the question how did this come about, George [Stephanopoulos], this is what liberalism looks like, this is what the progressive state does. It tries to break all the institutions of civil society, all the institutions that mediate between the individual and the state. They have to break them to the saddle of the state. Third, the Catholic bishops, it serves them right. They’re the ones who were really hot for ObamaCare, with a few exceptions. But they were all in favor and this is what it looks like when the government decides it’s going to make your health care choices for you.

View original post here:
Washington Post’s Ignatius Hails Obama’s Nimble Contraception Policy; Will Zings Bishops: ‘It Serves Them Right’

Saturday's CBS Evening News ran a piece highlighting the complaints of a Catholic Democrat – Michael Sean Winters of the National Catholic Reporter , recounting his opposition to President Obama's attempt to force Catholic employers to provide contraception coverage to their employees. Winters asserted that he is “very angry about this,” and substitute anchor Elaine Quijano noted that, although he voted for President Obama in 2008, he plans not to vote this year. (Video below) Quijano used a soundbite of Winters giving a warning to Obama during the show's opening teaser: ELAINE QUIJANO: President Obama's policy on contraception proves to be a bitter pill for Catholic bishops, and for many of the faithful as well. MICHAEL SEAN WINTERS, NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER: Don't be meddling in my church. As she introduced the story the CBS substitute anchor noted that Catholic bishops had rejected an attempt by President Obama to compromise with him on the contraception mandate, and warned that the President is risking his reelection: Roman Catholic bishops say President Obama's revised policy on contraception coverage for employees, quote, “continues to involve needless government intrusion on the internal governance of religious institutions.” Some among the Catholic rank and file agree, and that's tonight's “Weekend Journal,” the issue that threatens to alienate a key block of the President's winning 2008 coalition. The report balanced out Winters's critcisms of Obama by also including a nurse who works for a Catholic hospital who wants the contraception mandate to be adopted as she claims her family “can't afford” $30 a month to pay for birth control pills. After running the clip of Winters warning President Obama against “meddling in my church,” Quijano concluded the report by informing viewers that Winters plans not to vote for Obama again: Tracy Kemmerling says her support for the President never wavered during this debate, but Michael Sean Winters says he no longer trusts this White House and plans not to vote in November. Below is a complete transcript of the report from the Saturday, February 11, CBS Evening News : ELAINE QUIJANO, IN OPENING TEASER: President Obama's policy on contraception proves to be a bitter pill for Catholic bishops, and for many of the faithful as well. MICHAEL SEAN WINTERS, CATHOLIC DEMOCRAT: Don't be meddling in my church. (…) QUIJANO: Roman Catholic bishops say President Obama's revised policy on contraception coverage for employees, quote, “continues to involve needless government intrusion on the internal governance of religious institutions.” Some among the Catholic rank and file agree, and that's tonight's “Weekend Journal,” the issue that threatens to alienate a key block of the President's winning 2008 coalition. MICHAEL SEAN WINTERS, NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER: I'm a Catholic first and a Democrat second. QUIJANO: Michael Sean Winters was among the 54 percent of Catholics who voted for President Obama in 2008, but he feels the White House badly mishandled the issue of contraception coverage. You're angry? WINTERS: Yeah, I'm still very angry about this. I really think he has imperiled his own presidency, which I think has achieved great good for the country. QUIJANO: Winters says the debate was about the government interfering with religious freedom, yet for others like Tracy Kemmerling, the real issue was about her right to health care. TRACY KEMMERLING, NURSE: We don't practice any form of birth control right now, and hope for the best. QUIJANO: Kemmerling is a nurse and mother of two. She's not Catholic. She would like to use birth control pills but doesn't. The Catholic hospital where she works does not offer health insurance coverage for birth control. Paying the $30 a month out of pocket is an expense she feels her family can't afford. KEMMERLING: I feel like the choice has been taken away from me as a health care worker and as a woman. I should have that right. QUIJANO: Kemmerling is relieved the cost of birth control will soon be picked up by an insurer, but Winters feels the White House overstepped its bounds with its initial policy decision which would have forced Catholic institutions to set aside moral objections to contraception. WINTERS: I may disagree with my bishops profoundly, but they're my bishops. But when somebody who is not part of that family comes in and starts criticizing them, my, you know, back goes up, and I become a bit of a stiff-necked Catholic and say, “That's not your place.” QUIJANO: It's not the White House's place? WINTERS: Absolutely, or any political leader. Don't be meddling in my church. QUIJANO: Tracy Kemmerling says her support for the President never wavered during this debate, but Michael Sean Winters says he no longer trusts this White House and plans not to vote in November.

Only two days after admitting that Barack Obama has a problem with his “frightening” birth control decision, Chris Matthews on Thursday was back on offense. He berated Rick Santorum as a “theocrat” and knocked Reverend Franklin Graham as a “disgrace.” The Hardball host singled out Family Research Council President Tony Perkins as the representative of all those who would question Obama's faith. Matthews interrogated, ” Tony, do you think this president is a Muslim?” He added, “Why [do] your people” make such allegations? An exasperated Perkins replied, “no” and shot back, “My people?…The things that we have said have always been about the President's policies. That's what we can clearly analyze. I don't know what's in a man's heart.” Matthews sought to draw a distinction between Obama and Santorum, mocking, “Tony, there's a big difference…between being a theocrat and believing a president should impose his religious believes and someone who is anti-religious.” The liberal anchor brought up Santorum's 2005 speech on the Senate floor about the Terri Schiavo: “Don't you think that's verging on more theocracy in this country than the French Revolution?” Matthews previously smeared Rick Santorumon on January 5, 2012 , saying that the former senator wants a “theocracy” that will “trump the Constitution.”

We’re having tea with the Mad Hatter. If you look a little closer at the debate over the Obama administration’s betrayal of the Catholic Church, you’ll see that we’ve already lost.  Obama and his media allies have effectively shifted the argument away from the grounds upon which it should take place and on to grounds we never thought possible. Rather than debating the outrageous overreach of the government demanding insurance companies pay for birth control, we’re instead debating whether the Catholic Church should be required to do so.  It’s all smoke and mirrors, isn’t it? We’re so busy arguing over the outrage of the White House forcing Catholic-run schools and social service outlets to provide birth control and the morning-after pills to their employees, that the very idea of forcing  private insurance companies to do the same, sounds perfectly reasonable. It’s a genius sleight-of-hand meant to have us look over there instead of over here. Moreover, if you’ve watched the MSM coverage, you can see that the Constitution and Bill of Rights means nothing to our media overlords. Here we have the federal government violating the fundamental right upon which this country was founded — Freedom of Religion — and yet the media is taking seriously that a valid counter-argument is a woman’s non-existent right to free birth control. Do you see the words “birth” or “control” anywhere in here : Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. And yet, all day I’ve had to read and listen to the media take seriously access to free birth control as some sort of competing right.   Another word we’re not hearing from the media, as it pertains to President Obama, is “divisive.” Just when you think this president can’t get any more divisive after founding his reelection campaign on class warfare, he attempts to divide women and the Church with a wanton disregard of the Constitution.  But are we to expect from a president who said this in an interview with Matt Lauer : “Our Founders designed a system that makes it more difficult to bring about change than I would like sometimes[.]”  And what are we to expect from a media that couldn’t agree more.

Read the original post:
Media Pits Non-Existent Right to Free Birth Control Against First Amendment

CNN's blatant double-standard in covering religious and social issues was manifested in its lopsided coverage of two different stories over the past few weeks. When prominent religious leaders condemned an Obama administration mandate as an attack on religious freedom, the network gave the controversy one brief mention in ten days. But when liberal outrage ensued over a cancer charity pulling its funding of leading abortion provider Planned Parenthood, CNN reported the story the next day and promptly followed it up with more coverage. On January 20, the Obama administration required religious organizations to pay for birth control for employees, even if their religious beliefs objected to such a practice. Both liberals and conservatives were aghast at the decision, and the head of the U.S. Catholic Bishops condemned it as an assault on religious liberty. CNN gave the story one brief report in ten days before finally covering it in detail. In contrast, when a leading cancer charity pulled its voluntary funding of Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, CNN began covering the “controversial” decision the next afternoon. Brent Bozell, head of the Media Research Center, slammed CNN on Monday for failing to promptly report the HHS mandate requiring religious groups to pay for contraception. As Bozell noted, the rule affects no small sliver of the population since over 65 million Catholics reside in the U.S. More than 7,000 Catholic schools operate in the U.S., as well as hundreds of Catholic hospitals serving one out of every six patients in the county. Many, if not all, of these institutions would be forced to close their doors or act against their faith in compliance with the HHS. Yet only after Catholic priests read letters against the decision in their Sunday homilies did CNN pick up on the story – on January 30, ten days after the mandate was announced. During that time period, the head of the U.S. Catholic bishops, as well as other bishops , released scathing rebukes of the decision, but CNN failed to report their outrage. CNN's White House correspondent Dan Lothian even admitted that many were up in arms, when he finally reported on January 30 that “clearly, there are a lot of people out there who don't agree with it [the mandate].” Meanwhile, CNN's treatment of Komen vs. Planned Parenthood was quite different. On January 31, the Susan G. Komen foundation – a leading cancer charity – announced that it would stop funding Planned Parenthood. CNN's Soledad O'Brien gave the story a brief mention the next morning, and later in the afternoon correspondent Mary Snow aired a pretty one-sided story on the backlash against the decision, manifested in the spike in donations to Planned Parenthood. On the morning after that, February 2, CNN aired two news briefs on the story, followed by Snow's lengthier report on Newsroom later in the morning. Host Ashleigh Banfield declared that “this is a huge story.” Thus began CNN's coverage of the outrage over Komen's de-funding Planned Parenthood – only 24 hours after the story broke, and not ten days.

While most in the liberal media are downright ignoring President Obama's attack on religious institutions — via the mandate that they cover contraceptives in their health insurance plans , even if doing so violates church teaching — MSNBC's Martin Bashir mentioned the issue in today's “Clear the Air” commentary that closes his eponymous program. Of course, true to MSNBC form, Bashir ignored the legitimate policy and religious liberty implications of Gingrich's complaint to dredge up Gingrich's past moral failings, namely his adulteries, as a way of fatally wounding the messenger and hence, Bashir hopes, negating the message [MP3 audio available here ; video posted below page break]: