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Another Obamacare Mandate Runs Afoul of the Courts

By on 7.30.12 @ 6:10AM

Federal judge issues injunction barring enforcement of contraception mandate.

If the supporters of Obamacare thought its legal troubles were over after the recent Supreme Court ruling, they learned otherwise last week. On Friday, Senior Judge John Kane of the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado issued an order forbidding the government from taking action against a company called Hercules Industries for refusing to provide contraceptive coverage to its employees. The injunction is specific to Hercules and only applies while its lawsuit, Newland v. Sebelius, is litigated. Still, it is significant because it is the first such order against the contraception mandate and it protects a family-run enterprise whose owners merely seek to operate their company in a way that reflects their religious beliefs.

Included among Obamacare’s Byzantine tangle of provisions is a set of benefit requirements whose ostensible purpose is to assure that we all receive “proper” levels of medical care. Once these directives had made their way through the bowels of the HHS bureaucracy, a regulatory edict emerged commanding all health care plans to provide what the Beltway regulators refer to as “preventive services.” These include contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization. This mandate motivated 43 high-profile Catholic organizations to file a coordinated series of lawsuits against the Obama administration last May, and it also provided the impetus for the lawsuit filed by the owners of Hercules Industries.

The plaintiffs in Newland v. Sebelius argue, as do the Catholic institutions, that this “anti-conscience mandate” violates their First Amendment right to religious freedom. Incredibly, the DOJ’s lawyers argue that the Newlands have no claim to this fundamental right because they operate a for-profit business: “Plaintiffs’ free exercise claim fails at the outset because… for-profit, secular employers generally, and Hercules Industries in particular, do not engage in any exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment.” In other words, this basic constitutional protection is lost to William Newland, Paul Newland, James Newland and Christine Ketterhagen because they run a business founded by their family in 1962.

In the DOJ’s losing argument against the injunction the government lawyers claimed, “It is also contrary to the public interest to deny the employees of Hercules Industries the benefits of the preventive services coverage regulations.” Judge Kane, who was appointed by Jimmy Carter on the recommendation of two Democrat Senators, responded to the Justice Department’s public interest claim as follows: “These interests are countered, and indeed outweighed, by the public interest in the free exercise of religion… the threatened harm to Plaintiffs, impingement of their right to freely exercise their religious beliefs, and the concomitant public interest in that right strongly favor the entry of injunctive relief.”

The exercise of religion will, of course, be far from “free” for the members of the Newland family if the government eventually prevails in this lawsuit. The Obama administration has essentially given these folks a choice between abandoning their religious principles and shutting down a business that employs more than 260 people. The attorney representing the plaintiffs, Matthew S. Bowman of the Alliance Defending Freedom, points out that “The cost of freedom for this family could be millions of dollars per year in fines that will cripple their business if the Obama administration ultimately has its way. This lawsuit seeks to ensure that Washington bureaucrats cannot force families to abandon their faith just to earn a living.”

Newland v. Sebelius, like the lawsuits filed in May by the Catholic organizations, is part of a coordinated national effort against the Obamacare anti-conscience mandate. With the aid of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and other private advocacy groups, 24 lawsuits have been filed around the country. The participation of the Becket Fund in this effort is significant. It played an important role in the unanimous rebuke delivered to the Obama administration by the Supreme Court in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, a case that may have implications for the ultimate legal fate of the anti-conscience mandate. Unfortunately, as we saw on June 28, the courts constitute a thin reed to lean on where basic liberty is concerned.

The immediate service Newland v. Sebelius and Judge Kane’s injunction can perform is to remind us what four more years of Barack Obama will mean for the country. Emboldened by their recent victory in the Supreme Court, the President and his minions are moving forward with all speed to “transform” the U.S. into a place that our parents would not recognize as the same nation they bequeathed to us after World War II. If I were able to tell my father, a veteran of that war and a lifelong Democrat, that the government may now command one to buy products from private corporations and proposes to delimit our religious liberties according to the arbitrary whims of Beltway bureaucrats, he would advise me to go sleep it off.

The original complaint in Newland v. Sebelius contains the following statement: “The Newlands sincerely believe that the Catholic faith does not allow them to violate Catholic religious and moral teachings in their decisions operating Hercules Industries.” Such convictions have no place in the country Barack Obama envisions for us. In that country, people like the Newlands — and you — will be required to put the needs of the state before trivial concerns about individual and religious liberty. It’s time to put a stop to this.

 

About the Author

David Catron is a health care revenue cycle expert who has spent more than twenty years working for and consulting with hospitals and medical practices. He has an MBA from the University of Georgia and blogs at Health Care BS.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (61) |

Aristocat| 7.30.12 @ 6:26AM

This woman is a she-devil...An apostate Catholic who has made a career out of promoting partial-birth abortion....Sibelius will go down in history with names like Herod and Margaret Sanger.

TLP| 7.30.12 @ 7:55AM

When I look at her, I see Death on her.

I see a her in another life, wearing the Black Uniform of an SS Officer, overseeing the Experiments done on Children, of Inferior Bloodlines, for the Glory of Der Fuehrer und his 1,000 Year Riech.

I see her Overseeing the Gassing of Jewish Men, Women, and Children, in the Death Camps, just as she does now, in the Death Chambers of Planned Parenthood, and others, run by the Dr. Mengele's of our day. Like her Good Friend - "Doctor" TILLER the KILLER, who got what was coming to him, in a CHURCH, that he was Violating with his very prescence.

SIEG HEIL!

Don't you?

Kwan| 7.30.12 @ 11:13AM

There is something alien and foreboding about her countenance. Her dead eyes exhibit the compassion of a great white shark as he rips his next meal to shreds. It doesn't take a great stretch of the imagination to picture her response to Obama's demand for a "Final Solution" to this problem of Catholic dissenters: "Jawohl mein Fuhrer."

TLP| 7.30.12 @ 6:09PM

You are very wise, indeed, Mr. Kwan.

May the Butterfly of Success, flutter to your outstretched hand.

Oldefarte| 7.30.12 @ 11:25AM

Yes absolutely, and hopefully most every semi-intelligent person-voter knows NOW who/what " Der Fuehrer" is!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TLP| 7.30.12 @ 7:36AM

Madison, Jefferson, Adams, and their Brethren, established the Greatest Country God ever gave Man, using 17 Pages of Paper.

17 Pages to put in to words, THE TRUTH, as they saw it. The Truth of what burns in every Man's Heart: The desire to Live Free. The desire to pursue his own Dreams, and his own Destiny.

That's the thing with The Truth. It's easy. It's straight forward. A straight line, as opposed to a Tangled Web.

This 21st Century "Book of the Dead" is over 2,ooo pages long.

It gives the people who Stole our Social Security Money, total Control over our lives, from the Cradle to the Pain Pill we receive from the Health Care Rationing Board, because our lives have been deemed "Not Worth Living".

The same people who CREATED the World Wide Financial Meltdown, are now in charge of "What's Best" for the rest of us. But, don't worry, because they have EXEMPTED THEMSELVES, and THEIR FAMILIES, from the Wonderfulness of Soviet Style Health Care. And, they did it "For the Children".

Their Children.

A Judge has put a hold on Janet Mengele's Plans?

We had a Judge DENY The Muslim's request for a Drilling Moratorium, (using Forged Documents) TWICE, and we all know how that turned out. He has Violated the Constituion's Seperations of Powers, it's War Making Restrictions, His Oath, His Word, and the Public Trust.

Excuse me, if I don't put too much Faith, in a Judge who's staring at a Chicago Style ANAL EXAM, heading his way.

They GOT to Roberts.

They'll get to him.

Von Mises Jr| 7.30.12 @ 11:32AM

What else should be expected than Soviet Style Health Care from a Soviet Style regime? It sounds like crazy talk until you read "The Origins of Totalitarianism" that speaks to the "Leadership Principle" where mirror-like hierarchies are built by government to camouflage the decision process. We saw this in the Nazi and Soviet regimes where no one was sure if the SA, SS or Secret Police, or the party, state or regime were driving the diktats. They "atomized" the masses to isolate and terrorize them so that no one had an individualistic identity and even when comrades disappeared, no one knew what happened to them or would speak of them. It was as if they never existed. And so the regime ruled a faceless and unthinking collective.
We see the same behavior from this regime that has secretive Czars, dictatorial Secretaries such as Salazar whom along with the EPA falsified the peer reviewed drilling report, and makes unconstitutional regulations and ex post punishments.
But unlike the real leaders Hitler and Stalin, Obama is a marionette figure whom implements the totalitarian regime of his puppet masters.
While the eugenics and arbitrary terror have not destroyed the Republic yet, it is clear that the intent is to create the Soviet Style totalitarian rule you speak of, my friend TLP.

Al Adab| 7.30.12 @ 11:57AM

At the end of WWII, after Churchill was voted out in favor of a Labour government, he warned that to impose the social-welfare state would require the creation of a "gestapo" to inforce Socilist policies. He was not wrong. Witness the powerful forces of coercion playing out across this land in the name of social policy. To disagree with the annointed rulers is to risk ones' life, liberty and property.

Let me ask, can the citizens of a free Republic legitimatly vote their rights away for the sake of social welfare? What rights do our citizens retain if the government has become "destructive of" the ends for which it was established?

Von Mises Jr| 7.30.12 @ 1:23PM

Or perhaps many just don't have the cahones to stand up and speak back?

Louis Jenkins| 7.30.12 @ 8:32AM

Barack Obama is not the democrat of our grandparents, nor great grandparents. His brand of Marxism is difficult to distinguish from Europe's brand, and we see were they're at. No person who is intelligent and knowledgeable, unless they're in the crazyhouse or an Obamatron, believe that Barack Obama is good for the economy, or jobs. Until we are rid of Obama he will continue in this vein. There are some individuals, elected and appointed, who see the folly in his directives, and will occassionally deliver some just judgements. We cannot tolerate another four years. For some odd reason it took Chief Justice John Roberts two tries to get the president sworn in correctly. Why?

THKrupp| 7.30.12 @ 8:55AM

If you look at it another way...the company in question will be paying for contraception etc etc no matter what. All the funds the company provides their employees pay for everything that employee buys, unless said employee has another source of income. Does that mean that if a company disagrees with your financial choices, they can make you change them or lose your job?

I realize this is about religious freedom, but its also about personal freedom. Should a company be able to tell you how to spend your money? After all they are providing it to you, should they be able to control how you spend it? If a company is owned by people who dont believe that there should be any other medical care given except for prayer would it be right for them to force employees who dont share the same ideals to only have a health care plan that pays for some sort of prayer service and thats it?

MLChance| 7.30.12 @ 9:05AM

"Should a company be able to tell you how to spend your money?"

Since no one is making that argument, it's unclear why you would ask? In any event, it seems as if you would answer your own strawman with a negative. That being the case, you also defeat the HHS mandate's argument. After all, the HHS didn't make the company's money, so why should the HHS get to tell the company how to spend it?

THKrupp| 7.30.12 @ 9:13AM

I agree with that. It was a strawman, but why is it that a healthcare plan isnt considered the same as monetary renumeration?

I believe that in order to fix our healthcare system we need to stop companies from providing it as a benefit. Health care plans are one of the reasons costs are so out of control. If companies werent allowed to do this..problems like this wouldnt even be an issue.

MLChance| 7.30.12 @ 9:34AM

Who are "we to stop companies" from provided health insurance? That's just another abuse of gov't power. Rather, wouldn't it be better to stop requiring companies to provide benefits, and then leave it up to the companies and the employees to negotiate for what can be afforded?

THKrupp| 7.30.12 @ 9:46AM

Insurance is highly regulated. All the rules are set up by the government. Have you ever tried to buy insurance for yourself as a lone customer? Why is it that if I try to get a policy for myself its cost is much higher than if I get it through my company. I mean the total cost of the policy. All the rules are regulations are set up in favor of employer sponsered plans. Why cant I start a health coop with my neighbors ? You cant, thats against the law. The game is fixed in favor of employer sponsered plans. Why do we view it as a normal thing for the employer to provide this for us? Everyone always answers that the company needs healthy employees. The company also needs employees that can get to work so why arent they providing car insurance? This is a bad leftover from the 1940s and needs to be changed. Employers would be freed up from having to administrate these plans. Healthcare should be the responsibility of the individual. It would be cheaper.

darcy| 7.30.12 @ 6:58PM

I heartily endorse your comments, THKrupp. Health insurance became a recruiting tool/economic incentive for employers to attract high-caliber employees when FDR imposed wage controls during WWII -- and we all must admit that with so many skilled workers having become enlisted men, that there was great competition among employers for those desirable workers remaining.

The -- possibly -- unintended consequences of these wage-enhancements has been to separate, over the years, by numerous layers, the buyer of services from the service provider: the doctor, lab, or hospital.

Everyone knows as well as I do, that when the consumer is distanced three-or-more times from the POINT OF SALE, that the consumer loses interest in actual cost of services. THIS is a major reason health care costs are skyrocketing. Tort issues and state-imposed mandates are some of other reasons.

Technological advances and our aging population play a role, too. But we DO NOT need the federal government -- the agenda of which has clearly become the subjugation of a ONCE FREE people -- to tell us how to manage these factors.

A POX ON THE HOUSE OF THE FEDS. A POX. Cronies and miscreants will NOT rule this nation.

TLP| 7.30.12 @ 9:12AM

What?

My question would be - When did Employer Based Health Care Coverage become a Civil Right?

And, if these people don't like it?

Let'em GET THEIR OWN Insurance.

That would fall under your Catagory of Personal Freedom.

If they want Sex Supplies, so they can Whore around the town? That's their business, and they can use their own money for their Whore Supplies.

The idea that this Company has to Set Aside their Fck Money FOR them, in their Company Insurance Plan, is Outrageous.

I thought you were Smart.

I stand Corrected.

THKrupp| 7.30.12 @ 9:13AM

Exactly TLP

THKrupp| 7.30.12 @ 9:21AM

LOL Im flattered you ever thought I was smart. Please see my reply to MLChance above.

I believe that the only way to fix healthcare is that if the end consumer is the one administrating and choosing their healthcare plan or lack thereof. We would actually be much better off if we went back to cash on the barrel head. Out law insurance tomorrow and prices on everthing would drop instantly. Im not advocating that, but in reality thats what would happen. Insurance is a good thing for unforseen problems, but most routine expenses should be paid for with cash.

TLP| 7.30.12 @ 9:57AM

The End Result will not be what you wish.

The reason that "The One" is going out of his way to be a Major League PAIN IN THE ASS to all of these Companies, and to the Insurance Companies, as well, is because he WANTS them to get rid of Coverage.

He WANTS these Companies to Jettison their Company Supplied Coverage, and for the Insurance Companies to Get Out of the Business altogether.

He said so, to an SEIU Audience.

"My goal is to get to a Single Payer Plan. But, it's gonna take time to GET RID OF the Employer Based Health Care Plans. I figure it's gonna take 15 Years, or so."

Longing for a Simpler Time is nice.

Denying Reality is nice.

Obviously, since you're doing BOTH?

You've given up all hope.

I, for one, am not there, yet.

At least, not this morning.

I'll get back to you, in November.

THKrupp| 7.30.12 @ 10:17AM

Yes perhaps Im wanting to return to a simpler time. Why I think this way is that right now we have a non functional health care market. As a consumer you have very little say in how much health care you need to purchase and even less say in what you pay for proceedures and what not. There is no feed back to the consumer or at least very little. In essence its a broken market.

Houdini| 7.30.12 @ 11:23AM

The real killers in the healh isurance market are the mandates imposed by the states and now the feds. These mandates often include maternity care, (self inflicted) mental care, alcohol and drug abuse care (also self inflicted), and care by every quack known...it all adds up. Plus, how much does it cost to send everyone with the sniffles to the Doctor so that they can discover that if they do nothing, it will go away in a week, or, if they take an antibiotic, it will be gone in seven days.

THKrupp| 7.30.12 @ 11:41AM

Exactly...All the rules and regulations for the insurance companies are set up by State Governments..Insurance is a very highly regulated industry.
Add into that the people that dont pay anything at all and you have a disastor.

We have a very good health care system. The way we pay for it is horrible. We have had a national healthcare system for quite some time. The people with health care insurance pay for everyone else that does not. Its broken. If everyone had to purchase their own policies, then people would be a bit more choosy in the coverages they got. Companies and Religious institutions would not have to worry that they were funding something they find morally repulsive. (Although if someone buys birth control with their wages or gets it from their employer healthcare plan the cash comes from the same company so Im not really sure how its different.) The price of insurance would come down because the insurance companies would have to compete to get policies. It would be like car insurance. There are policies for every budget.

Houdini| 7.30.12 @ 1:21PM

The way we pay for healthcare is a joke and has nothing to do with a free economy. Why should I have to subsidize a woman of child bearing age with my premiums so that she can, without any thought to the cost, have as many children as she wants simply because her insurance will pay for it. In reality we all pay for her children. Before the trolls jump on me because I don't care...When my wife became pregnant with our daughter, I had nine months to save up the cost of the doctor and hospital..prices for which I knew in advance. I paid cash for the birth (it wasn't a surprise in the first place). If everyone were required to pay for their primary care (through a health savings account) and reached into their own pocket when they visited the Dr., perhaps those useless visits would not happen or even better, they would shop around to get the best deal. If you don't believe it try Googling MRI scan prices, you'll be amazed at the range for the same scan. Even Doctors and clinics can be brought into the free market. Nothing like having skin in the game.

THKrupp| 7.30.12 @ 2:15PM

Exactly...this would be a huge benefit to the people that cant afford their healthcare now. Ideally a persons parents would start a health savings account when they are born and the money would be allowed to roll over year after year until you really needed it.

TLP| 7.30.12 @ 4:54PM

Agreed.

Open up the Insurance Market so that Anyone can buy Health Insurance from Anywhere, the same way they do every other form of Insurance.

Let's get some Tort Reform going, that has some Teeth.

Let's CLOSE THE border, so that Emergency Rooms don't have to be Shut Down, because of the Flood of Illegals, seeking Free Health Care.

Let's put people with Pre-Conditions, and Catastrophic Conditions, in to Medicare.

And, let's stop using Medicare Money as a Prop, to Lower the "Costs" of Obamacare, and as a Punishment (Along with the Defence Budget) for this Administration's refusal to CUT SPENDING.

Hello?

Oldefarte| 7.30.12 @ 11:31AM

Wait health insurance paid for by taxpayers isn't a civil right? Gadzooks! Now I'm wondering also about the possible status of "Affordable Houses", food stamps, governmental rent subsidies, etc and I'm really confused. Maybe if I asked Uncle Sam Barry, he can....SPLAIN IT TO ME!!!!

Doctor Right| 7.30.12 @ 9:29AM

Whatever...

Roberts will just declare it a "tax" and then the point will be moot.

Joellen| 7.30.12 @ 9:46AM

Althought not part of the narrative, I wish to know why the US Catholic Bishops still refuse to bring the likes of Sebelius up for excommunication. TKP is absolutely correct, Sebelius did defend Tiller the Baby killer - and yet nothing was said by anyone of authority in the Church. Why wont the Bishops address Pelosi, Biden, the Kennedy's and any other CINO Politic from the pulpit and acknowledge how they DO NOT follow the doctrine of the Catholic Church and as followers of JESUS CHRIST we must vote them out of the office. When will they become the warriors of CHRIST that they pledge to be? Call your Bishops and demand they take action against these parasites of the Church.

PJ| 7.30.12 @ 10:12AM

After many personal meetings with her bishop to clarify the Church's views on abortion, she was finally told a few yrs ago not to present herself for Holy Communion until she publically changed her attitude towards abortion (& probably euthanasia.) The Catholic media, quoting experts, is calling this a self-excommunication.

Frank Natoli| 7.30.12 @ 2:47PM

Try to imagine the publicity that would attach itself to an explicit excommunication of Sebelius, versus a "self-excommunication". It would be headline news across the media, print, broadcast and Internet. The Church, as one, would be finally saying "you are not a Catholic".

As to why the bishop(s) in authority refuse to do this, only they and their Creator know. My guess is that they have far more in common with her than against her, and consider all those other issues of overriding merit.

PJ| 7.30.12 @ 5:45PM

Being denied Communion by the bishop is basically excommunication. It was news; can't help it if the secular media doesn't pick it up.

MK48| 7.30.12 @ 10:55PM

Frank.........excommunication from what ? "THE CHURCH"

I ask the real question what will God say to her when she stands before Him.

PJ| 7.30.12 @ 10:15AM

Finally, a judge with muscle using his common sense!!!!

drake1456| 7.30.12 @ 10:56AM

Maybe someone should call the brain-dead Nancy Pelosi, who claims that "free-riders" will bankrupt the system, ie those with the ability to pay for health care who choose otherwise. Birth control pills can cost hundreds per month and I think "reproductive care" for females should stop BEFORE it affects my p0cketbook.Those are the reall free-riders.
R Mandraccia MD

Kwan| 7.30.12 @ 11:45AM

A large percentage of these "free-riders" are the illegal aliens that Obama, Napolitano, Holder, and the Democrats are trying to flood the country with in order to overload the welfare system (the Cloward Piven Strategy), and bankrupt hospitals giving them the excuse to dismantle our health care system and replace it with this abomination called ObamaCare.

Houdini| 7.30.12 @ 1:28PM

I wonder if Romney would consider billing illegals home countries for their care? As a nation, we should have the horsepower to enforce that policy through reductions in aid and such.

TLP| 7.30.12 @ 4:59PM

And, the rest of them consist of the Black Slaves on the Liberal Plantation, who have been on the Public Dole for 4 Generations.

Oldefarte| 7.30.12 @ 11:22AM

It was "time to put a stop to this" on 11/4/08, but Americans failed STUPIDLY. They get one more chance on 11/6/12, and hopefully they won't fail this time!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who Knows?| 7.30.12 @ 11:36AM

America-as-we-knew it is on fire.

There is always a pyramid of power, and in the USA no doubt the “golden tip” is in DC. Each of the humans, from BHO through the next level of his appointees, the leftist congressmen, and judges, the permanent-state bureaucrats, is essentially a pyromaniac, hot to strike his match, for personal gain---even if THAT is to advance a brainwashed agenda, such as the one Obama suckled on when young and impressionable.

“Pyramid” means fire in the middle. Of course, the “middle” in real pyramids was where the pharaohs were “buried”, putatively on their way to infinite afterlife.

In our real world, to stretch the idea, the fire-in-the-middle that is ALIVE and destructive, today, is epitomized by the goose killing “share the wealth” thrust that’s animating the too many pyromaniacs.

Well, the other burning-out-of-control truth is that the lawyers are in almost total control. What percentage of politicians in Washington DC, and in state capitals, are attorneys? Exactly!

So, the only desperate solution is to fight fire with fire.

And, despite the seeming calm of apparently regular life, these days, in most “normal” places in this country, the condition is Absolutely---desperate and dire!

To fight back---SUE the bastards!

OUR lawyers have not begun to fight!

Frank Natoli| 7.30.12 @ 1:35PM

I am a Roman Catholic, at Mass almost every Sunday, but this "religious exemption" is not going to fly. We're supposed to accept the Church's refusal of contraception and abortion as "religious", and thus First Amendment protected, but if the Church barred blacks nobody in his right mind would suggest the same exemption.

It's liberty, not religion. It's a fundamental affront to everything being an American has always been. Lrt's get it right.

Jack London| 7.30.12 @ 2:55PM

Come on Frank - we want companies to ban blacks, Jews, gays and women using family planning - how can you can get in the way of religious power in America? Also, they should be able to ban anyone who believes in evolution and global warming, should their religion be so. More than ever, we need the religious right to take over this perverted society.

Frank Natoli| 7.30.12 @ 4:06PM

Would you please provide a definition of "religion" that cannot be arguably applied to man-made global warming zealots?

Being a somewhat religious person, certainly God fearing and nervous about my own Judgment Day, I can recognize a religious person when I see one, someone who believes in something by faith and faith alone. I see no rational difference between the faith articulated at Sunday Mass and the faith articulated by the man-made global warming zealots [and a long list of other Left leaning zealots]. I await your definition that intelligently discriminates between the two.

BTW, loved your "Call of the Wild". But I thought you were dead?

Jack London| 7.30.12 @ 4:29PM

Well Frank maybe you're right and climate scientists are worshiping false idols at the altar of the IPCC and with all their learned papers. But you'll have to put all other scientists in there with them to be consistent.

I choose J. London because he was farsighted about the kind of society that served us well until the greedy got back in charge, and because in his less well known works he portrayed an alternate view of the prevailing racism of his time.

Frank Natoli| 7.30.12 @ 4:56PM

Not, not "all" scientists. But my invite was for you to define "religion" in a way that does not ensnare man-made global warming zealots. Although my day job for 42 years is a software engineer, I'm also a commercial pilot with instrument+instructor ratings. As such I have professional training in meteorology, failure to understand the weather being fatal for those of us who leave Mother Earth in heavier than air machines. It also means that I have a fair bit of more relevant experience in the field than the vast majority of scientists who opine about man-made global warming, virtually none of them being professionally trained in meteorology.

The atmosphere is 80% nitrogen, 19% oxygen and 1% "other". A small fraction of the "other" is CO2. A small fraction of that small fraction is man-made. How a variation in that small fraction squared can have substantial and catastrophic effect on global meteorology defies my limited but nevertheless professional understanding of the weather.

Anybody who is a pilot knows how absurd it is to trust a weather forecast more than a few hours in advance. The only reason weather related fatalities are virtually non-existent in the First World is because gas turbine engines put almost all flight above the weather. Take-off or landing, all bets are off. Bottom line: we know very little about what really drives the weather, yet "scientists" will cripple industry to save us from what they really don't know...but they do believe!

TLP| 7.30.12 @ 5:05PM

If you really need it explained?

Then you're not RELIGIOUS.

You're just a Punk.

That's why you and Jackass get along so well.

Jack London| 7.30.12 @ 5:27PM

You write of 'global warming zealots' - why? Essentially you're accusing the world's climate and earth scientists of gross fraud. You'll have to do better than just say it's your gut feeling. I doubt you've read the IPCC reports or the key papers.

Here's skeptic who's had other thoughts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07.....eptic.html

TLP| 7.30.12 @ 6:20PM

The Vikings used to FARM in Greenland.

The RO,ans used to GROW GRAPES, for wine, in Northern England.

The Average Temperature of the Planet, is ICE AGE.

The Ice Cores from the Northern most point in Greenland PROVE, that a Warming Period occurs, almost every 150 Years, like CLOCKWORK.

The Climate Changes.

And, do you know why?

Because THE SUN fluctuates.

Unlike your stupid head, which is ALWAYS stuck on Stupid.

Frank Natoli| 7.31.12 @ 5:52AM

I ask you, repeatedly, to define "religion" and see if your definition does not ensnare man-made global warming zealots. My request was not an exercise in religion, but rather an exercise in language, the fundamental mechanism by which we think and communicate with each other. You refused to offer a definition.

I provide a perfectly reasonable analysis of the atmosphere, what it is composed of, how very, very little the "greenhouse gas" that we all exhale exists compared to the rest of the atmosphere, an exercise in logic and rational thought, not religion, and you ignore the analysis and insist that I have faith in the IPCC priests.

If I want to see a priest, I'll find one at church on Sunday. My faith is not in the priests of the IPCC. Apparently yours is.

MK48| 7.30.12 @ 11:02PM

Frank............see as I said before the farther you stray from the bible the grayer things become.

Show me in the Bible where it says anything about "religious exemption".

My friend you are in my prayers that God will bring you back to his word.

Marie| 7.30.12 @ 1:37PM

It's unfortunate that none of the Obama Administrations' mommies were not on birth control or didn't make a visit to "The Clinic".

Fiscal| 7.30.12 @ 4:56PM

I'm not sure that any of you know what you're talking about. If any of you actually tried to file a group health insurance policy, you'd know that you must file a policy in every state -- there is no such thing as a "national" policy. That's why buying insurance across state lines makes no sense because the state regulates what each citizen of that state must get and what price he/she must pay even if the insurance company is located elsewhere. In addition, health insurance is the most regulated of all insurance policies. Each state mandates coverages and approves rates. So those of you who think that the contraception mandate is unique just don't know what you're talking about. This talk about "gestapo" is just uneducated and dumb.

The issue here is purely one of where an individual's religious rights fall in relation to a company owner's rights. Being a libertarian (and non-religious), I dislike most any mandate -- religious or not. But most of you would not want these mandates to go away. For example, the state mandates that you can't lose your health insurance if you get sick. Well, that's the gestapo in action again....

Fiscal| 7.30.12 @ 4:57PM

Once you understand how group health insurance works and how highly regulated it is, then you also understand that can not be free market driven. Free markets require companies be able to provide different products -- you can't in health insurance other than those approved by each state. Right now health care costs us about 19% of GDP. In countries that have single payer, this is reduced to about 10-12% and overall national health is improved according to the stats because rationing does reduce costs. Our health care system makes us less competitive and must be addressed in the future.

TLP| 7.30.12 @ 5:12PM

So, what's the problem?

Fix it.

Or, does Scrapping the Greatest Health Care System in the world, in favour of a System created, behind closed doors, by the Political Staffers of Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Harry Ried, and Chuck Schumer, sound like a better idea, to you?

Idiot.

Fiscal| 7.31.12 @ 7:23AM

You can't "fix" something whose underlying structure is incompatible with market dynamics. I would propose a hybrid system where preventative and emergency care is provided by the government and the rest is open market insurance where regulation is minimal. We require hospitals and doctors to treat every patient that walks through the door and yet don't pay them for it. This is wrong. If, by law, you require a service, then you need to also pay for it.

Jack London| 7.30.12 @ 5:54PM

Fiscal, Romney has just praised the Israeli national health system:

"When our health care costs are completely out of control. Do you realize what health care spending is as a percentage of the GDP in Israel? 8 percent. You spend 8 percent of GDP on health care. And you’re a pretty healthy nation ."

That's their boy.

Fiscal| 7.31.12 @ 7:26AM

From a purely economics viewpoint, there is no question that national healthcare is more efficient and effective than our current system. Romney, I guess, didn't understand that Israel has Obamacare on steriods and that there is a mandate for everyone to purchase health insurance.

JD| 7.31.12 @ 3:27PM

Once again, the liberal straw man argument that conservatives favor the "current system". The "current system" reeks of liberal corruption. What ObamaCare will do "more efficiently" is funnel the votes of the dependent to the Democrats.

Counsel4pay| 7.30.12 @ 4:59PM

1. Hercules Industries, Inc. was CAREFULLY POSITIONED –a “for profit” whose operations were based on “religious, ethical or moral standards”.
2. Judge Kane studied the issue of LEGAL BURDEN concluded: (a) Hercules would suffer “irreparable harm”; (b) as to “balancing harms”, Hercules has the stronger position; (c) the “public interest” in the free exercise of religion TRUMPED Congresses’ alleged goals; (d) a "relaxed burden” would apply here, but the issue is SO IMPORTANT that it must be preserved by an injunction.
3. Judge Kane DECLINED TO ADDRESS HERCULES’ FIRST AMENDMENT ATTACK based on “free speech”.
4. HE DID address, the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993″ (“RFRA”)which says the government may not ““substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability”. He rejected exceptions advanced the government attorneys.
5. Judge Kane’s discussion is COMPLEX AND ADMITS THAT NEW QUESTIONS OF LAW ARE RAISED BY THIS CASE.
6. He favored Hercules’ suggestion that the feds have a “less restrictive alternative” by providing FREE CONTRACEPTION FOR EVERYONE. [Clever argument; and the Feddies reply SUCKED BIG TIME.]

TLP| 7.30.12 @ 5:16PM

The folks at Hercules should apply Blackface to themselves.

This way, under this Black President, and his Gun Running, Black Attorney General, who's in charge of America's 1st Blacks Only Justice Department, they can do whatever they want to.

Just like The Black Panthers, in Philly, and the Black Panthers, in Florida.

spike59| 7.31.12 @ 5:56AM

the administration's 'reasoning' in this case is no surprise, given their declarations that Catholic hospitals, soup kitchens, etc are secular in nature because the RCC operates them to aid people regardless regardless of the religion of the recipient; indeed, this administration would go after Christ because He ministered to Jew and Gentile alike

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