President Obama is just beginning to see the consequences of his DHS diktat to religious institutions.  In his weekly column to his flock, Chicago Cardinal Francis Cardinal George spelled out specifically what the consequences of that diktat will be to the Roman Catholic Church.

This year, the Catholic Church in the United States is being told she must "give up" her health care institutions, her universities and many of her social service organizations. This is not a voluntary sacrifice. It is the consequence of the already much discussed Department of Health and Human Services regulations now filed and promulgated for implementation beginning Aug. 1 of this year.

Why does a governmental administrative decision now mean the end of institutions that have been built up over several generations from small donations, often from immigrants, and through the services of religious women and men and others who wanted to be part of the church's mission in healing and education? Catholic hospitals, universities and social services have an institutional conscience, a conscience shaped by Catholic moral and social teaching. The HHS regulations now before our society will make it impossible for Catholic institutions to follow their conscience...

So I have been watching the national agenda media covering of the stunning announcement from Maine Senator Olympia Snowe.  Her announcement that she was not running for re-election dropped just about every jaw in the country.  But what both stunned me only but it's utter transparency was the agenda media's nonchalance about the story.  No one ever stopped to ask the 5th "W" of journalism....WHY.  Why was an incumbent Senator - who as recently as a month ago was in full on campaign mode - suddenly declining to run for re-election?  Why was an incumbent Senator with seniority suddenly chucking it all aside?  Why was an incumbent Senator, with a $3.4 million campaign war chest, suddenly decide it was not worth the effort?  And WHY were are our supposedly independent media outlets not asking simple questions?   The Bangor Daily Press noticed something was "off"...

There is very obviously something going on here behind the scenes, since Senator Snowe was so aggressively campaigning for re-election, and in full campaign mode for the last year.  Decisions like this – being so very much running (and winning) to very much not – do not happen this abruptly in politics.  Ever.

Yesterday, at the oh-so-very-young age of 43, Andrew Breitbart died suddenly of a heart attack.  I did not know Mr. Breitbart, I am a very infrequent reader of his websites, but I always got a chuckle out of his larger than life persona and his Rush Limbaughlike ability to make liberals heads explode just by being.  Last summer, I read his book Righteous Indignation, mostly out of curiosity - just to see what made him tick.  It was a fast, enjoyable read and I looked forward to, what I assumed would be, many more books to come.  Sadly that will not happen.

Probably the best remembrance that I have read to date has to be what Jim Geraghty wrote in today's Morning Jolt..  He reminded readers that Breitbart's first job - the one he loved most...was as Daddy.   

Then Geraghty takes on the classy left....I am pasting the entire 2nd half - it's that relevant.

So, needless to say, my first thought was of those four children.

President Obama's HHS "compromise" is still taking hits from a multitude of fronts.  His hometown paper recently took him to task for the decision.

The way President Barack Obama has started a war with Roman Catholics, you might think Obama never set foot in a predominantly Catholic town like Chicago.

Even a lowly alderman would have played it smarter. And Obama is much smarter than some machine alderman. The man spent years at the feet of the machine lords, petitioning for their favor. And they're mostly Catholic. Didn't Obama learn anything?...

...But then, recently, he decided to challenge the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. And his new policy to force religious hospitals and schools to offerabortion-inducing drugs and birth control in health care plans for employees is a clear violation of religious freedom guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

It demonstrates to Americans that their government is not only willing but eager to dominate faith, by telling religions how to practice their beliefs. And if they refuse, then the faithful will feel the federal wrath.

As did the Boston Herald....

There is an old adage that states, you know you are over the target when you start taking flack.  If that is indeed the case, then our friend and fellow blogger Gary Gross is spot on over the target.  Sometime during the day yesterday, his blog Let Freedom Ring, went down for a few hours after taking (according to his web host) a large spike in traffic.  The site went down again today after it was verified that the site had been hacked.  As of this writing LFR is still down.  

To speculate that this hack was politically motivated is not a far fetched one.  Over the course of the last year Gary has taken on a number of liberal institutions including AFSCME, SEIU, EDMN, the League of Women Voters, the administration of St. Cloud State University and Alita Messenger/Alliance for A Better MN/Take Action triumverate.  He has, in this last 18 months, made more than a few enemies with axes to grind.

Davy Jones has an article from the 17th in the Salt Lake Examiner, taking one of our Congressional delegation to task for....

Who is Republican Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz working for these days . . . his constituents or Mitt Romney?

If you were watching the January 23 Republican debate in Tampa, Florida and you live in Utah’s 3rd congressional district, you might have been more than a little surprised to see your Republican Congressman . . . the honorable Jason Chaffetz . . . sitting behind Mrs. Mitt Romney in the audience.

I hate to bring this up, but Monday, January 23, 2012, was the 7th legislative day of the second term of the 112th Congress and Representative Chaffetz was not where he was paid to be . . . 900 miles away, in Washington, D.C., in the House of Representatives, working on behalf of his constituents.

A very prescient Founders Morning Quote....

"No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable." --George Washington, Message to the House of Representatives, 1793

It is prescient because just last week, US Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) and former head of the Office of Management and Budget, released his analysis of the budget that President Obama recently put forward.  His take?

One of the MANY hypocrisies of President Obama's policies is education.  He talks a great game about equality in education.  He talks a great game about the importance of everyone getting a good education, but when push comes to shove?  Well when push comes to shove, his actions do not match his words.

In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama spoke about the importance of kids staying in school and even urged states to raise the dropout age to 18. So it's passing strange that his new $3.8 trillion budget provides no new money for a school voucher program in Washington, D.C., that is producing significantly higher graduation rates than the D.C. public school average.

The Opportunity Scholarship Program offers vouchers to low-income students to attend private schools. A 2010 study published by Patrick Wolf of the University of Arkansas found that the scholarship recipients had graduation rates of 91%. The graduation rate for D.C. public schools was 56%, and it was 70% for students who entered the lottery for a voucher but didn't win.

If you really want to know what is going on in Western Pennsylvania, you need look no further than the Pittsburgh Tribune Review's resident Logical Lady Salena Zito.  Her Real Clear Politics column from Monday contains more bad news for President Obama's re-election campaign (HT LFRGary).

During a drive between the Mon Valley towns of McKeesport and Elizabeth, a man named Ray was overheard calling into a local radio station to talk about the subject of the hour: November's presidential election.

The first thing he said is that he is a Democrat who voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Pressed by the talk-show host, he said he would not vote for Obama this time.

 President Obama has spent 3 years catering to people just like Ray (or so he tells us) and yet....

By now I am sure you heard the story of the North Carolina school whose food inspector who thought that chicken nuggets were a healthy food choice.

A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because the school told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious. ...

...The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs - including in-home day care centers - to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home. 

When home-packed lunches do not include all of the required items, child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones.

But as Paul Harvey used to say - there is a "rest of the story".

The Daily Kos did all of us in the GOP a great favor - they laid the racism of the left there for the world to see (HT The Jersey-Texan via Twitter).  The post (written by SkiBum59) was written in response to the final redistricting maps and the racist comments are almost a throw away in context to the diarist's remarks about the new districts.

This gives one district for a liberal Democrat and preserves a second one for Matheson.  Both the GOP districts went over 70% for McCain.  I actually managed to pack the 3rd over 80% McCain, just to see how high I could get it, but it was a little uglier, so I opted for this.  Its not like we were winning the 1st anyway.  Plus, this will keep Saratoga Springs mayor Mia Love out of Congress.  She is one of only two African-Americans living in Utah not currently playing for the Jazz. (Even they are scarce now, with Boozer and D-Will skipping town.  Have you seen Gordon Heyward recently?) The GOP is clearly desperate for a new token black Republican, after Herman Cain and Michael Steele didn't pan out, and I find it hilarious how much trouble they have doing so, so I'd love to prolong it even further.   

Emphasis mine and Jersey-Texan has the screen cap...just in case Kos tries to send this post down the memory hole like so many of their racist/sexist rants are wont to do.

In light of the Obama Administrations anti-Catholic HHS ruling, this NY Times story is a tad bothersome.

From the moment he left business for politics, the issue of abortion has bedeviled Mitt Romney.

In 1994, as a Senate candidate, he invoked the story of a “close family relative” who had died after an illegal abortion and insisted that abortion should be “safe and legal,” though he was personally opposed. In 2002, while running for governor of Massachusetts, he sought the endorsement of abortion rights advocates, promising to be “a good voice” among Republicans, one advocate said.

In 2005, Governor Romney shocked constituents by writing an opinion article in The Boston Globe that declared: “I am pro-life.” Running for president two years later, he struggled to explain that turnabout. “I never said I was pro-choice, but my position was effectively pro-choice,” Mr. Romney told George Stephanopoulos of ABC during a Republican debate. “I changed my position.”

Now, with the nation’s culture wars erupting anew, Mr. Romney has plunged headlong into abortion politics.

That he has "changed his mind" on abortion is not the troubling aspect.  There was never a better advocate for life than former President Reagan, who like me, was once pro-choice.

No - the troubling part is here....

This has been sitting in my "stack of stuff" since the first, but life keeps getting in the way of me actually writing on it.  Jonah Goldberg, writing for National Review Online takes a hard look at the GOP erstwhile front runner and is not all that thrilled with what he sees....

 As a bunch of us have been writing around here for a while, the under-emphasized dynamic in this race isn’t that Romney isn’t conservative enough (though that’s obviously a real concern out there) it’s that he’s simply not a good enough politician. He may be the most electable on paper. He’s certainly a nice guy, decent father, smart, successful etc. But, every time he seems to get into his groove and pull away he says things that make people think he doesn’t know how to play the game. That can be reassuring to some, who take it as proof he’s not another politician. The problem, for others at least, is that because he isn’t a natural politician he breaks the language where it needs to bend. He uses language — “I like to fire people!” “It’s nothing to get angry about” etc — that doesn’t make him seem like an unconventional politician. Rather his language makes him seem like a caricature of a conventionally stiff country club Republican.

A case in point, here he is this morning talking about how he’s “not very concerned about the very poor” (video here). I get the point he’s making. It’s a point that Bill Clinton won the presidency with — but with language that attracted voters. Romney’s language won’t do anything of the sort. And the concern is, after nearly a decade of running for president, if he can’t get this stuff down now he never will.

The staff at National Review are not the only ones with these concerns.  

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg apparently does not like how things are done out here in Utah.

The Mormon Church owns one of the most active and unregulated gun sale portals on the web, according to a national investigation released by the New York City Mayor's office.

The website in question is KSL.com, the online hub for Utah's NBC affiliate and sister radio station, which are both owned and operated by the for-profit arm of the Mormon Church. In addition to local news, KSL.com produces a popular classifieds section that reaches millions of users well beyond Utah.

The LDS connection drew little notice when Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a leading financier of the gun control movement, published the report in December, but an official involved with Bloomberg's investigation is calling out the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for putting "profits over principle." 

KSL.com, like a lot of media websites, offer a very vibrant LOCAL marketplace where LOCALS can buy, sell and trade anything that is legal to buy, sell or trade.

One class of Americans that have really been failed by this administration is a group that helped President Obama get elected in the first place....young people...in this case teens. 

Now that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has updated its overall count of the number of employed Americans to incorporate data recorded by the 2010 U.S. Census, with a corresponding surge of 847,000 in the number of individuals counted as being employed in January 2012 as compared to December 2011, we thought we would ask the question: "How well are teens really doing in the U.S. economy?"

The answer: "They're still the most screwed over...."

Teens (like the Junior Logician) are unable to find even the most menial fast food jobs.  Teens and young adults are the ones who turned out in droves for Obama and what did they get for it?

Teens in January 2012 now represent 31% of all the jobs that have disappeared from the U.S. economy in the years since, with 1,538,000 fewer teens being counted as having jobs today as compared to November 2007. As of January 2012, 4,389,000 teens account for just 3.1% of all employed individuals in the United States.

Meanwhile, young adults between the ages of 20 and 24 now represent 13% of all the jobs that have disappeared from the U.S. economy since November 2007. January 2012's 13,335,000 young adults with jobs represent 9.4% of the 141,637,000 individuals who were counted as being employed during the month.

To anyone who has been paying attention to the numbers, this is no surprise.  What is telling here is you have a demographic who flocked to the President's cause last time around.  Now that they are in the job market and not able to find one, they are going make their voices heard.  Oh, I do not think for a split second that they will vote for a GOP candidate.  Some will, but the vast majority will vote by staying home.  Just one more disenfranchised, disengaged Obama constituency falling away from their hero.