POTPOURRI: MEDICAL EXPENSES, BENGHAZI, & INSULTING ISLAM

I wonder how many people who want to control medical costs have supported compulsory ultrasound before abortion.  I'm not sure just how many states have compulsory ultrasounds before abortion, but I have seen 8 referred to and 22 have some sort of ultrasound regulation with 11 more states having them on the docket (http://bangordailynews.com/2012/02/27/news/nation/more-states-moving-to-require-ultrasound-before-abortion/).  Usually the woman has to take two trips to the physician, one for the ultrasound and another for the abortion itself.  All this raises the costs of care, of course.

Now it seems to be coming clear that the opposition to Susan Rice becoming Secretary of State by John McCain is that she had some harsh things to say about him in the 2008 presidential battle.  Lindsay Graham's opposition seems to be related to the Democrats opposition to John R. Bolton's nomination as Ambassador to the United Nations by George W. Bush in 1980 (but he was appointed as a recess appointment).  So it seems the opposition to Susan Rice really has little to do with her statements that the Benghazi, Libya, disaster  in which a U.S. Ambassador was killed was a spontaneous demonstration that escalated.  The usual question being asked is why wasn't more protection provided to the Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.  Of course protection to Embassys is supposed to be provided by the home country, which proved inadequate in this case.  But since so much effort is placed on Benghazi (Libya's second largest city), there are a couple of questions that seem relevant.  Why wasn't the Consulate closed?  After all there had been a previous attack on the Consulate with a hole blown through the protection wall, and the Brits had closed their operation there because of all the unrest in the area.  The second question of interest is why did our ambassador go there in the first place?  Don't know that we will ever hear the answer to these questions.

We seem to think it is important that the Benghazi incident had nothing to do with the insulting movie trailer that was critical of Muhammad.  The attack on the consulate may have been planned as a 9/11 al Qaeda commemorative event, but the movie trailer probably added something to it as demonstrations were done throughout the Muslim world (Egypt,Iran, Israel, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen, and Palestinian) particularly after the Friday prayers.  If we think, however, that when we do or say things that are insulting to the Islamic religion, it does not incite a hot head group to physical violence, then there is no hope of our reconciliation with Muslims.  In addition it also increases the anti-American attitude among a large group of Muslims who are more peaceful.  Now it is known that an Egyptian court has put a death sentence, in absentia, on seven Egyptians thought to be involved with the movie trailer should they return to Egypt (http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/28/world/meast/egypt-anti-islam-film/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_world+(RSS%3A+World)).  Of course there have been many other incidents in the past such as our burning of Qur'ans in Afghanistan in which four of our soldiers were killed.

WHAT IS GOD TRYING TO TELL US?

I have previously written on The Theology of Natural Disasters (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/theology-of-natural-hazards.html). There are those in the evangelical movement who have their own theology and believe that God is trying to tell us something through various natural and man-made disasters. Usually what these people say God is trying to tell us has nothing to do with the disaster. Billy Graham's daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, said that 9/11 occurred because we don't allow God in our schools, government, business and marketplace.* Prominent among those who link disasters to God's message is Pat Robertson, for example, who felt that the Haiti earthquake happened because of their revolt against the French under Napolian.** And somehow Pat Robertson also linked Katrina to the abortion issue.*** John Hagee, on the other hand, linked Katrina to God’s anger over a proposed homosexual parade in New Orleans.****

And that brings us to Michelle Bachmann, a candidate for the Republican nomination for President, on why Hurricane Irene occurred, that it was a warning to Washington to cure the budget deficit.***** I have wondered if she could keep herself under control for the entire nomination period. You better believe that her handlers told her to go back out there and say she was joking. This follows her previous gaff when she signed a document that contained a passage indicating that Black children were better off during slavery. Bachmann said she had not read the entire document. Later the offensive passage was removed.***** Let’s give her a pass on this one, but expect more in coming months. And I sometimes wonder if late on a clear moonlit night, Rick Perry, the evangelical governor of Texas and another candidate for Republican nomination for president, just might wonder if the drought and wildfires in Texas, unbroken by an official three days of prayer, that God is telling him that anthropogenic global warning is real? Naw, it is probably due to Texas having the highest percentage of adults in the nation without health insurance - 27.8%.******


Supporting Information on the above:

Anne Graham Lotz:
"I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing his hand of blessing and protection. "*

Pat Robertson said:
“[S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you get us free from the prince.” True story. And so the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.” They kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free.

But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle, on the one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island.”**

John Hagee
“Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.” “New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God,” Hagee said, because “there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came.”

Machele Backman
"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the
politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to
start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people
are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to
rein in the spending.”*****

The Family Leader
The Family Leader, an Iowa-based conservative activist group, removed a sentence Saturday from the introduction of their “Marriage Vow: A Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family” that said: "Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.” *****

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/
07/family-leader-under-fire-over-slavery-comment-in-marriage-defense-pledge/

* http://www.prayerfoundation.org/billy_grahams_daughter.htm
Note: Hmm. I thought the message of 9/11 was that we need to strengthen our defenses against terrorism.
** http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/01/13/77141/robertson-haiti/
Note: The sad thing was that things were just looking up for Haiti. They were beginning to get some industry. The French ruined the crop land growing sugar so agriculture is difficult there. But I agree that Haiti is a very sad country.
***http://mediamatters.org/research/200509130004
**** http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2008/04/23/22152/hagee-katrina-mccain/
Note: The people most affected by Katrina were the working poor, not the indigent, say, who lived on the top of a hill. I don't know that the working poor have a more sinful lifestyle than any other group, but their problem, of course, was that they were living in a coastal area below sea level. I'm surprised God would make these people suffer because of abortion or a proposed homosexual march. I think maybe what we were being told was to build higher and stronger levees if we are going to have people live below sea level.
***** http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/29/news/la-pn-bachmann-hurricane-god-20110829

(http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/

07/family-leader-under-fire-over-slavery-comment-in-marriage-defense-pledge/).

Note: Bachmann got her law degree at Pat Robertson University.
****** http://www.e-wisdom.com/news/insurance/more-than-a-quarter-of-texans-do-not-have-health-insurance-110230036/

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO JOBS, JOBS, JOBS?

The current Democratic administration has been severely criticized for spending so much time on the Obamacare legislation instead of creating jobs. Of course, President Obama campaigned on getting a health care bill passed and he did. So now that the Republicans have taken over the House of Representatives, what are they doing to create jobs?

Well first they read the constitution out loud (HR 5). Well, they read most of it, eliminating the parts about slavery, for example. Their first bill (passed unanimously) was to get the Government Printing Office to stop printing so many copies of bills and resolutions that can be read online, saving maybe $6 million (only $1.3 trillion to go). What’s more, this legislation will probably eliminate some jobs, not increase them. Oh well, it will save some trees.

Then of course, we had the vote to repeal Obamacare (HR 2). Everyone knew this piece of legislation was going nowhere so, even though Obamacare was billed as a jobs killing bill by the Republicans, this vote of principal created no jobs.

I believe the next piece of legislation in the House will be to make sure that there is no government funding of abortions (HR 3). President Obama has already given an executive order to stop any Federal money that might go to abortions, but I guess the House wants redundancy. Lack of government money to fund abortions will probably decrease jobs somewhat (surgeons, nurses, etc.), but it is the principal of the thing.

Also high on the list is the Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act (HR 4) which has 254 cosponsors and is currently in committee. My first thought is that eliminating paperwork will cause some job loss because the people won’t be needed to fill out the paperwork, but then it may be neutral because the people that would do the paperwork may be replaced by others doing more productive work. My guess is that the bill will be passed, possibly unanimously.

Also to be addressed is HR 5 which is the New House Rules and, of course, doesn’t deal with jobs.

So when will the house start to deal with jobs?