Burke Beu: This Democrat Is Giving Up on ObamaCare – WSJ – WSJ

November 14, 2014 by Be Holy

When you’ve been a life-long “anything”, it’s hard to think outside your comfort-zone, but experience can open the door to truth, logic and a willingness to consider reality rather than party-line:

“I grew up in a Democratic family. I have been a registered Democrat since age 18, a Democratic candidate for statewide office in Colorado and a party precinct captain in that caucus state. I’ve volunteered for numerous Democratic candidates and contributed to party causes and campaigns. The 2014 election results were extremely disappointing for me, but hardly a surprise.

I voted for Barack Obama in 2008, then lost my job in the Great Recession. I was lucky; my brother lost his job and his house. I survived on part-time jobs while paying out-of-pocket for my health insurance.

I voted for President Obama again in 2012, then received a cancellation notice for my health insurance. This was due to ObamaCare, the so-called Affordable Care Act. However, I couldn’t afford anything else.

Midterm elections in the second term of a presidency are difficult on the president’s party, and the Obama administration’s crisis-of-the-month headlines weren’t helpful. Ultimately, though, ObamaCare was the catalyst for my party’s midterm thumping.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest speaks about Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in July. ENLARGE

White House press secretary Josh Earnest speaks about Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in July. Associated Press

ObamaCare is a failure. For anyone who thinks this is a misprint because no Democratic activist would make such a comment, let me add that it is too big, too complicated and too expensive. Without a public option within its network of exchanges, ObamaCare is a giant blank check to the insurance companies that pushed it through Congress. It punishes responsible consumers like me and treats younger individuals as fools who are expected to pay the bills while not paying attention.

Now we learn in videos that came to light this week that Jonathan Gruber, MIT economist and a key architect of the Affordable Care Act, proudly relied on his perceived “stupidity of the American voter” as the basis for designing ObamaCare. Such comments, along with the program’s notoriously dysfunctional website and false assurances that people can keep their previous health plans, are insults to every citizen regardless of party.

Contrary to Medicare, which was quickly accepted at a time of economic vitality as a meaningful complement to Social Security, ObamaCare was the sequel to an overpriced economic stimulus package that didn’t stimulate very much. Those least affected by the recession benefited the most from the stimulus. I think that’s called “trickle-down economics” when Republicans do it, and the economy continues to struggle for good jobs and a real recovery. ObamaCare is part of the problem, not a solution.”

via Burke Beu: This Democrat Is Giving Up on ObamaCare – WSJ – WSJ.

Meet the Mild-Mannered Investment Adviser Who’s Humiliating the Administration Over Obamacare – Bloomberg Politics

November 12, 2014 by Be Holy

Meet the Mild-Mannered Investment Adviser Who’s Humiliating the Administration Over Obamacare – Bloomberg Politics.

“Rich Weinstein is not a reporter. He does not have a blog. Until this week, the fortysomething’s five-year old Twitter account had a follower count in the low double digits.

“I’m an investment adviser,” Weinstein tells me from his home near Philadelphia. “I’m a nobody. I’m the guy who lives in his mom’s basement wearing a tinfoil hat.” (He’s joking about the mom and the tinfoil.)

He’s also behind a series of scoops that could convince the Supreme Court to dismantle part of the Affordable Care Act. Weinstein has absorbed hours upon hours of interviews with Jonathan Gruber, an MIT professor who advised the Massachusetts legislature when it created “Romneycare” and the Congress when it created “Obamacare.” Conservatives had been looking for ways to demonstrate that the wording of the ACA denied insurance subsidies to consumers in states that did not create their own health exchanges. Weinstein found a clip of Gruber suggesting that states that did not create health insurance exchanges risked giving up the ACA’s subsidies; it went straight into the King v. Burwell brief, and into a case that’s currently headed to the Supreme Court.”

via Meet the Mild-Mannered Investment Adviser Who’s Humiliating the Administration Over Obamacare – Bloomberg Politics.

Another Day- Another Scandal–Thanks to Obama and His “Care”

November 12, 2014 by Be Holy

In Third Video, Obamacare Architect Talks About ‘Basic Exploitation’ Of American Voters http://t.co/qwySwyWZpQ

— Raffi Williams (@Raffiwilliams) November 12, 2014

Obamacare Hoodwink

November 12, 2014 by Be Holy

BretBaier onJohathan Gruber’shoodwinking of the American people through Congressional shinanigans

Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects behind the Affordable Care Act, is under fire for his comments about the… http://t.co/FCkDeqFuhQ

— Special Report Team (@SpecialReport) November 12, 2014

Pope removes Cardinal Burke from Vatican post | CNS Blog

November 8, 2014 by Be Holy

Exile or no, there was another thought to be far from influence, His name was Roncalli, and his anonymity and sentence to Bulgaria didn’t last. Time will tell what Heaven has in store for Cardinal Burke:

Pope removes Cardinal Burke from Vatican post

Posted on November 8, 2014 by Francis X. Rocca

Cardinal Burke leaves concluding session of extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family at Vatican

Cardinal Burke leaves concluding session of extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family at Vatican. (CNS/Paul Haring)

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has removed U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, 66, as head of the Vatican’s highest court and named him to a largely ceremonial post with a chivalric religious order.

Cardinal Burke, formerly prefect of the Apostolic Signature, will now serve as cardinal patron of the Knights and Dames of Malta, the Vatican announced Nov. 8.

The move had been widely expected since an Italian journalist reported it in September, and Cardinal Burke himself confirmed it to reporters last month.

It is highly unusual for a pope to remove an official of the cardinal’s stature and age without assigning him comparable responsibilities elsewhere. By church law, cardinals in the Vatican must offer to resign at 75, but often continue in office for several more years. As usual when announcing personnel changes other than retirements for reasons of age, the Vatican did not give a reason for Cardinal Burke’s reassignment.

A prominent devotee of the traditional liturgy and outspoken defender of traditional doctrine on controversial moral issues, the cardinal has appeared increasingly out of step with the current pontificate.

In December 2013, Pope Francis did not reappoint him to his position on the Congregation for Bishops, which advises the pope on episcopal appointments.

Cardinal Burke expressed frustration, in a February 2014 article in the Vatican newspaper, that many Americans thought Pope Francis intended to change Catholic teaching on certain “critical moral issues of our time,” including abortion and same-sex marriage, because of the pope’s stated belief that “it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”

Insisting that the pope had “clearly affirmed the church’s moral teaching, in accord with her unbroken tradition,” Cardinal Burke blamed perceptions to the contrary on “false praise” of Pope Francis by “persons whose hearts are hardened against the truth.”

After Pope Francis invited German Cardinal Walter Kasper to address a meeting of the world’s cardinals in February, Cardinal Burke emerged as a leading opponent of Cardinal Kasper’s proposal to make it easier for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion.

Cardinal Burke also warned that any efforts to streamline the marriage annulment process — the mandate of a commission the pope established in August — should not undermine the process’ rigor.

During the Oct. 5-19 Synod of Bishops on the family, Cardinal Burke was one of the strongest critics of a midterm report that used remarkably conciliatory language toward people with ways of life contrary to Catholic teaching, including those in same-sex unions and other non-marital relationships. The day the report was released, the cardinal told an American reporter that a statement from Pope Francis reaffirming traditional doctrine on those matters was “long overdue.”

Cardinal Burke made the news again late last month when he told a Spanish journalist that many Catholics “feel a bit of seasickness, because it seems to them that the ship of the church has lost its compass. The cause of this disorientation must be put aside. We have the constant tradition of the church, the teachings, the liturgy, morals. The catechism does not change.”

A former archbishop of St. Louis, Cardinal Burke has led the Apostolic Signature since June 2008. At the time of his dismissal he was the highest-ranking U.S. bishop at the Vatican. That distinction now belongs to Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The new head of the Apostolic Signature is French Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, till now the secretary for relations with states, the Vatican’s equivalent of a foreign minister.