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Are you looking for legal justification, moral justification, efficacy justification or what?
I see no need to justify asking for something less off-the-cuff as far as the inarguable reasoning behind no-knock raids that you provided. That was your stance. If that's what you've got, that's what you've got.
I think you're swinging too far in the other direction. The Catholics don't want to deny employees access to contraception (at least through this particularly application of policy); they simply don't want to be the ones directly or indirectly providing that access.
Should it be mandatory for businesses run by Jehovah's witnesses to provide employee coverage for blood transfusions? Or for businesses run by Christian Scientists to offer non-faith-based medical coverage? Or for Scientologists to offer psychiatric care? I don't think this is as clear an issue as you're making it out to be because of how little regard you have for the belief system behind the issue.
Bear in mind that I'm saying this even though I think pretty much all religion is dangerous nonsense. I'm not defending the Catholic position on birth control; I called it "impractical and immoral." I'm just saying that if we are to be a country that considers religious freedom to be nearly inviolate, the Catholics actually have a good point here.
EDIT: I don't remember if I said it before or cut it out in an edit, but this is one of the reasons why I dislike the idea of mandatory employer-provided health insurance. You can avoid almost all of this issue by going to a single-payer system.
Yeah and there were plenty of people his own race for Richard Loving to marry. And there were plenty of other things for Gregory Lee Johnson to burn to express his opinions.
You're just using authoritarianism to undermine the choices of mutually-consenting parties. Does Westboro have a Southern chapter?
They're not denying access one bit.
As part of the compensation package offered for working at that particular Catholic company, the employer has offered x salary with y benefits. Those Y benefits include some things and not others, one of the things it has not included in the offer is coverage for birth control. Either side is free to walk away at any time.
ESPN does not provide me a with a limousine from Hartford. They are not denying my access to a limousine, they simply did not offer one when the two mutually consenting parties (me and ESPN) sat down and discussed the terms of the contract, nor did I request one in return for other consideration that I was offering.
I have only slept with a handful of the billions of eligible people living on this earth. That doesn't mean that I'm being denied access to sexual intercourse by the majority of the earth, only that my relations with the majority of the earth have not involved the offer and acceptance of sexual intercourse. I have the right to seek another party to have mutually agreed-upon sexual intercourse, but I do not have the right to have sexual intercourse offered to me as a matter of force. Just like McDonald's has the right to not sell pizza. Or Walgreen's has the right to not sell pornography. Or insurance companies have the right, under a just law, to choose to offer or not offer coverage that specifically covers birth control. Or abortions. Or strawberry jam. Or Bon Jovi tickets. Or my hat getting stolen by a bear.
EDIT: In terms of protesting the GZM, I'm not aware that any party took the lead in protesting it. A handful of kooks did.
Ever notice that any adjective in front of the word "justice" automatically negates the actual word?
For which you should be glad. You don't know who's been in that thing.
I'd pay an extra couple of cents per month for this kind of comprehensive coverage.
But if health insurance is wages, then covering contraceptives is no different than an employee using her wages to pay for them. The company isn't paying for them. Management certainly isn't in any joint stock company, and it's management which is trying to force the employees to follow Catholic doctrine.
In fact, it's not clear that anyone is paying for contraception. From the perspective of an insurance company, it's cheaper to supply contraception than to pay for the costs of childbirth. Thus, it's quite possible that policies which cover contraception cost less than those which don't. In this case, the authoritarian imposition of religious doctrine on the employees should be clear even to a libertarian.
These are silly examples that don't speak to the case. At all. Employing people has regulations associated with it. You can't chain them to their desk and work them 90 hours a week in dangerous conditions after taking a kidney from them and selling it on the open market even if they agree to it, even if their religion mandates that is how employment should be and anything else is immoral. It is against the law.
They are arguing the law is immoral. You are arguing all laws of that sort are immoral. Just because both sides agree this law is wrong does not mean you can reasonable conflate both sets of arguments against the law.
A) It is not immoral because is it not forcing the Catholic Church to do anythign against their morals. They are providing access only. And if that is such a problem they can stop doing this activity, which is not central to their religion. Things central to their religion already have a waiver in the law, but just because they are Catholic does not mean they get universal waiver from the law it doesn't work that way. No one gets to opt out of all laws just because "Freedom of Religion".
B) I understand you think this sort of issue is all about contracts and willing parties and so on. Not to minimize your belief, but society as a whole, every organized government on Earth larger than a few hundred people rejects your premise on this including (most importantly) the US. You get to keep arguing about it, but the fact is we had, have, and will continue to have laws regulating activities like labor, health care, insurance, building, and so on.
It is not stealing. Taxation is not stealing.
It may be unfair. It may be immoral. But taxation is very clearly legal, and thus not stealing.
Of course it is. In one, the company freely agreed to provide that particular conversion of wages into benefit, in the other, it didn't. Choice covers more than mathematical equality.
I do not have any right to compel my employer to compensate me in $75,000 in US currency and $5,000 in cheeseburgers rather than $80,000 in US currency simply because the bottom line figures are the same.
In fact, I do not have the right to even compel *beneficial* arrangements. My neighbor would benefit immensely if I offered him $100 to pick me up a gallon of milk next time he goes to the store - clearly, $100 is *more* than equivalent to the effort he would need to go to put the milk in his cart and walk it next door. Still, it's his choice whether to decline or not.
Arguing with David about the morality of taxation is like trying to debate pea placement with a three shell monte artist. Not much future in it.
Take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it: "thieves stole her bicycle".
Oh, now this is just absolutely precious. Bitter Mouse's First Postulate of the English Language: Proper usage of words is determined by the first result he finds on a Google search for that word.
Merriam-Webster, of course, uses the word "wrongfully" instead of without legal right (which travels to unjust, injustice, and then violation of the right or rights of another, to being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper).
Dictionary.com leaves out legal and just goes with right. So does the Free Dictionary.
Wiktionary uses to illegally *or* without the owner's permission.
But then, none of these had that authority granted by Google.
I am not debating the morality of taxation, just his incorrect usage of the word "stealing".
Dan: Feel free to find a definition of the word "stealing" that fits for what taxation is. Yes I googled it, so what. Is the definition I found wrong? Or are you just randomly attacking me because I don't agree with you? Honestly I thought better of you, but I suppose everyone has a bad day now and then.
EDIT: I see you added on, Dan. I fail to see the point, taxation is not wrong, it has happened in every organized society on Earth the last few centuries (unless every society is "wrong"). I never claimed my (or Googles) definition is definitive, however I do maintain that taxation is not stealing under any definition of stealing.
EDIT #2: Typically Dan when you edit a post with substantive new information, adding the "EDIT" is preferred, but hey it is not a law or anything.
Me? You actually just wrote a post for the purposes of arguing a word choice even when you obviously knew what the poster intended and for which there are plenty of other equally valid sources for the definition of that word that fit with what the poster said.
Thought better of me? I thought way better of you before just now. The fact that you're actually throwing a fit about being called out on a very blatant bit of douche-baggery suggests that me that I wrongly believed you to be an honest broker. So I'm done with with you.
I am not debating the morality of taxation, just his incorrect usage of the word "stealing".
The problem is that David's definition of "stealing" is wholly based in his Randian moral worldview, and nothing else. Of course if you can ever get him to admit that, I'm going to send you a plate full of the fanciest Roquefort cheese your bitter mouth has ever tasted.
The problem is that "providing access" IS against their morals. You may draw the line of culpability in a different place than they do, in which case it doesn't violate your morals but does violate their morals. Frankly, I think we're more than a little too accommodating of religion in the public sphere, but that's not really the system we've come to expect in this country.
I don't think this is merely a "regulation is immoral" issue; I may be in a different place than Dan here. I think this is a regulation vs. acknowledged fundamental right, and that conflict should entail a very high level of scrutiny. Mandating that Catholic organizations provide contraception as part of a universal health care plan sounds reasonable enough; I think contraception (and abortion, but that's more controversial) is a significant part of rational family planning and sexual freedom, both of which clearly impact physical, mental, and emotional health, so any universal health care system should provide for such services. The problem is that if religion is indeed a fundamental right on the order of racial equality and speech, then "reasonable" isn't enough of a standard... it must be "compelling."
Of course, if what I have read is accurate, even with a suppressor, the noise level is so high in most cases that it would not, in fact, accomplish its supposed purpose of protecting the hearing of the shooter. If you want to protect children's hearing (a) do not take them to a place where a lot of guns are being shot or (b) have them wear hearing protection.
The company DID freely agree. It agreed to provide health insurance. In fact, Hobby Lobby provided health insurance for years before the ACA, and all that time that insurance covered contraceptives. Even today, any company could stop providing health insurance as a benefit. Of course, then its employees would all leave because of the reduction in compensation relative to other employers, but management could still do that. The fact is, companies freely agree to a compensation package for their employees.
No, but you have the right to bargain for that. And if the company agrees to your demand, it can't later back out of the deal by claiming that cheeseburgers violate Kashrut. If the company did renege, you'd win a suit for the lost wages, which you'd then use to buy cheeseburgers. The company couldn't prevent you from doing so, and it would be preposterous to claim a religious right to prevent you.
No, they didn't. They agreed to offered health insurance with specific provisions.
McDonald's provides food. That doesn't mean they agreed to provide all items that fall under the category of food. I can't go in there, demand a Big Mac, an apple pie, and a chocolate souffle. And when they don't give me a chocolate souffle, go whine to the statists to make them. Well, I could, but I would be doing something unjust.
The House will miss the midnight Monday deadline lawmakers set for voting to avoid the fiscal cliff. House Republicans notified lawmakers that the chamber will vote Monday evening on other bills. They say that will be their only votes of the day.
President Barack Obama and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Monday they are near a deal to avoid wide-ranging tax increases and spending cuts — the fiscal cliff — that take effect with the new year.
Both men said they were still bargaining over whether — and how — to avoid $109 billion in cuts to defense and domestic programs that take effect on Wednesday. It remained unclear whether the Senate would vote Monday. Congress could pass later legislation retroactively blocking the tax increases and spending cuts.
The emerging tax agreement between Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) would raise roughly $600 billion in new revenue over 10 years when compared with current policy, people familiar with the talks said.
It’s important to remember that the deal hasn’t been officially agreed to in the Senate, let alone the House of Representatives, but the $600 billion figure is an important measuring stick.
Here’s how it would get there:
It would raise tax rates on income above $400,000 for single workers and $450,000 for households from the rates that have been in place for the past 12 years. Roughly 1% of households earn income above $450,000, according to the Tax Policy Center.
It would raise the tax rate on capital gains and dividends to 20% (from 15%) for capital gains and dividends exceeding $400,000 for single workers and $450,000 for households.
It would reduce the tax deduction benefits for singles earning more than $250,000 and households earning more than $300,000.
Raise the estate tax to 40% on assets after a $5 million exemption threshold.
The roughly $600 billion in revenue that would be achieved through these changes would represent the largest tax increase in decades, but it would also be only half of the White House’s most recent $1.2 trillion “ask” in bipartisan talks with House Republicans. And it would also amount to less than 20% of the potential tax increase that would have occurred if no agreement was reached and all current tax rates were allowed to expire.
President Barack Obama, in remarks on Monday, made clear he would seek additional revenue when Congress soon begins debate of a larger deficit-reduction package.
When an "armed hostile army" approaches one's house aggressively, one may just doubt their good faith.
No, they had a third choice: wait. Was the federal government running low on funds? It couldn't afford to pay overtime any longer?
Wait for what?
I argue with using the word stealing, because it is the wrong word. Taxation is not stealing. If he, you, or any of my Liberal brethren wrote something so wrong I would likely (and actually have previously) wrote a post about that. Words matter.
I still don't have a problem with you, other than a few posts of yours today are a bit out there. That said I can't help you being done with me or not. Regardless taxation is not stealing, but feel free to call it unjust, unfair, and immoral - it could be any oth those, it just is not stealing. Why you feel the need to attack over that, I am not sure, but whatever.
EDIT: BTW - I grabbed the laziest possible definition for the word. Had some other definition come up I would have used that. It is not a plot, it is lazy. At least insult me for the right thing :)
The libertarian position is that wages are a contractual matter between employer and employee, and that the government has no business dictating either the form or quantity of those wages. If an employer wants to pay in federal reserve notes, monopoly money, health insurance that only covers homeopathic treatments, or Magic: The Gathering playing cards, that's between the employer and employee. It doesn't matter whether one is equal to another, or can be converted into the other.
(The Catholic position is, apparently, that providing contraceptive coverage is sinful. The fact that an employee could use other employee compensation to buy birth control is irrelevant. That's a matter of Catholic doctrine, not something you can argue away simply because you personally wouldn't view it that way.)
Management isn't trying to force the employees to follow Catholic doctrine. That's not even wrong. If management were threatening to fire anyone who used contraception, that would be trying to force the employees to follow Catholic doctrine. But management isn't forcing the employees to do anything. There's only one party using force here, and it's the government, and said force is being applied to the employer, not the employee.No. It's only cheaper from the perspective of the insurance company if the people for whom it is buying contraception wouldn't have used contraception anyway. If they would have, then they wouldn't have gotten pregnant anyway, so the insurance company isn't saving any money on childbirth and is picking up all the extra costs of birth control that were formerly being paid by others.Except that your analysis is utterly and totally wrong. Nothing is being imposed on the employees (who are, of course, free to change employers if something were being imposed on them). Moreover, whether it "costs less" is irrelevant to anything. The government mandating that I do something which saves me money is just as unlibertarian as the government mandating that I do something that costs me money.
Wait, so... you're saying that the Branch Davidians weren't violent?
The Branch Davidians believed in the rule of law. They simply disagreed on Whose authority the final law rested. The did not believe in the authority of secular law because they believed it had been overturned by the revelation of Divine Law by the returned Christ, David Koresh.
They were just collecting the arsenal for show. They all went off by accident and those four agents happened to be in the crossfire. (The fact that they shot their own children and burned their own members alive is not relevant, because, you know, STATISM and stuff.)
We're going over the cliff!
But if the House votes down a McConnell-Biden plan, we're back at zero. The difference would be that Obama would feel he won the week by working toward a compromise. And I assume Senate Republicans would just sit back and watch the show since they can't do anything.
The point is to make Boehner #### or get off the pot. The Biden-McConnell compromise could pass the House so long as Boehner accepts that he's going to lose the Speakership and combines the GOP votes with Pelosi's Dem votes, telling the Teaper nuts to #### off.
and all of you latecomers with the news can send the cokes to wisconsin
no c.o.d
Sorry, Dan, but there's no other word for this than "lie". As in, what you said is a flat out lie. Hobby Lobby is the perfect example: its policies have covered contraception for years. Management obviously didn't "agree to specific provisions" (unless you now think they're lying). No, it did what all managers have always done, namely be willing to provide a certain amount of money in lieu of wages to provide compensation to its employees. The insurance company determines the coverage offered for that price, and management is interfering with the right of the insurance company to market its policies by controlling their terms.
You left out the part where employee benefits are a form of wages. Management is telling employees how the employees can use their own compensation.
You can't win this argument. There are two, and only two, options:
1. The policies with contraception cost LESS than those without. In this case management has no say in the matter -- it's entirely up to the insurance company.
2. The policies with contraception cost MORE. In this case the benefits belong to the employees and management can't take them away unless it provides equal compensation in return.
Are Hobby Lobby employees working under a collective bargaining agreement? Are they signed under particular contracts? Or are they at-will employees. If the latter, both they, and their employees, have the right to renegotiate their contract at any point and if an agreement cannot be made, to walk away. Hobby Lobby can choose to always have birth control, never have birth control, or only offer birth control Mondays and Thursdays. It's not the business of anyone but the two mutually consenting parties.
You left out the part where employee benefits are a form of wages.
And they're getting a cut in those wages.
The policies with contraception cost MORE. In this case the benefits belong to the employees and management can't take them away unless it provides equal compensation in return.
If they're at-will employees, of course they can take them away.
The libertarian position is ALWAYS to defend the most thuggish and authoritarian institution they can find rather than the rights of actual people.
I don't know.
Maybe. Depends on the reliance interests the employees have in the policies. Even if there are no reliance interests, what happens in the future depends on lots of variables. For example, there may zero policies offered without contraception coverage. In this case, HL could try attracting employees at the lower implied wages of offering no health care coverage, or it could raise wages and the employees would use some portion of that compensation just as they do now: to buy a health care policy that includes contraception.
But this doesn't really get at the heart of the problem. HL is saying that it wants to control the lives of its employees. It doesn't want them to use their own compensation in order to buy something that the employees want to buy and that a willing seller wants to sell. That interferes both with the contractual rights of the market participants and the religious freedom of the employees. As to why libertarians would find themselves in the position of defending that result, see my response to DMN above.
This is actually not true. An analogous example might be if Jewish foodbanks were required to serve pork to gentiles. It's not that it's sinful, it's repellant.
From Vatican II: "It is the married couple themselves who must in the last analysis arrive at these judgments before God." The Catholic Bishops council have repeatedly stated that it goes against the health care and school organization leaders' conscience to pay for contraceptives, not that it was sinful.
Finally, even if it were the Church's position that paying for contraceptive coverage were sinful, it wouldn't be relevant. The Church is not paying for contraceptive coverage. The insurers are. The Council of Bishops response was that it would require Catholic insurers to act against their conscience.
I am pretty so-so on this deal. If Obama really is willing to break the Republicans over the Debt Ceiling, then okay, it's a decent deal. If he gets rolled in February and agrees to some ######## "compromise" with domestic terrorists, this will have been an awful decision when he had all the leverage.
That's clown talk, bro.
Nonsense. HL is saying it wants to control the benefits it offers to its employees.
If I hire a new assistant but refuse to include an annual all-expenses-paid trip to Disney World in the compensation package, I'm not "controlling" the person's life or "denying access" to Disney World. I'm just not paying for the trip to Disney World or handling the details thereof.
town again. I can be very, _very_ persuasive. [reloads his gun]
[Scene change to a bar]
Man: [whining] C'mon, leave town!
Bob: No.
Man: I'll be your friend?
Bob: No.
Man: Aw, you're mean!
-- How to Win Arguments and Influence People, The Simpsons' "Cape Feare"
Hey, I might be too, and I'm on the West Coast.
Imagine that an employer decides that it is going to give all employees a tablet computer this year. Is that tablet a form of wages? Sure. But if the employer insists on giving everyone Kindles -- instead of iPads -- is the employer telling the employees how they can use their own compensation? No, that's silly. He's simply deciding what compensation to give them. It's not their compensation until after he gives it to them.
Similarly, if he decides to give them contraceptionless health insurance rather than contraceptionful health insurance, he's not telling them how they can use their compensation; he's deciding what compensation to give them. Those are different products, like a Kindle and iPad.
In most cases, and in the specific case of Hobby Lobby, the policies are already in effect. Thus, even by your own standard they are "already given to the employees".
As for the future, see my 5843.
Too bad it wasn't published during the BBTF discussion about increasing Congressional incumbency; this double nugget would have been apropos:
Because there are so many fewer swing districts today, the amount of turnover in the House is much less. The 63 seats that Republicans gained in 2010 was large by modern standards — but relatively small by historical ones considering that there had been more than a 17-point swing in the national popular vote for the House.
This year also featured a relatively large swing in the popular vote for the House: Democrats won it by one point nationally rather than losing it by seven in 2010, an eight-point shift. But they gained only eight House seats out of 435. The House has arguably never been so partisan — and yet there have probably never been so few members of the House who were at risk of losing their seats.
Government is the biggest thug on the block, and the one that progressives don't just defend, but they worship.
Non-responsive and borderline hysterical. Hobby Lobby simply doesn't desire to offer a specific provision as part of its negotiations with other free parties. It's no different than arguing that McDonald's not offering pizza or stew is an attempt to control the diets of their customers.
Except this is completely nonsensical. Hobby Lobby did not offer coverage for morning-after pills at any time previously or make any promises or suggestions of any type that they were going to offer coverage for morning-after pills at any time. There are no reliance damages involved here whatsoever.
As someone who has spent the better part of the past two years around card-carrying progressive communists from the 60s, I'm going to be comfortable calling this rather gross hyperbole.
As opposed to libertarians, who prance about talking about "thugs" and "freedom" and "liberty" while scuttling along like scarab beetles in the castle's sewer systems.
*yawn*
Honestly, it almost doesn't matter if the deal passes today or next week. If there's no deal in March 1st, then one can legitimately worry.
But setting that issue aside, no, they are not "already given to the employees"; health insurance is given anew each week/month/whatever. K&L isn't trying to retroactively take away past contraceptive coverage; it's simply trying to not offer it in the future.
Your 5843 is simply based on this same error, and has the same confused idea that not giving someone a type of compensation is "controlling" them. They're not firing employees who buy iPads; they're just not giving out iPads.
I agree that the Waco thread is mostly uninteresting, except insofar as it further exposes the extreme fascism of Morty.
Morning-after pills are no different from any other contraception. If HL believes differently, it simply doesn't understand basic biochemistry. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_contraception
No, HL is intruding itself into a relationship in which the only two relevant parties are the insurer and the employee. It's doing that in order to impose its own religious priorities on them.
Government is the only entity which protects the powerless from the thugs and authoritarians whom libertarians worship. In this particular case, libertarians are happy to trample on the religious freedom of the employees; only that nasty, evil government is actually willing to protect their rights. As usual.
See, libertarians have the same utopian view of society as the communists. Just as the dictatorship of the proletariat was never going to fade into an ideal system, neither are the oligarchs whom libertarians defend going to recognize the rights of the proles.
You may be right. But in that case, as I said above, HL doesn't understand that the "morning after" pill IS contraception. I see no reason to enforce a religious belief that rests on a flawed understanding of basic facts.
Of course they are. The employees took the job with the understanding that they would have that coverage. HL is now saying, in effect, "I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further." Nice company you keep.
Irrelevant. A burger with blue cheese isn't fundamentally different from a burger with American cheese, but that doesn't mean I have a right to have a hissy fit if McDonald's doesn't have one available for me to purchase.
No, HL is intruding itself into a relationship in which the only two relevant parties are the insurer and the employee. It's doing that in order to impose its own religious priorities on them.
Nope, it does no such thing. The specific insurance Hobby Lobby picks forms part of their compensation offer to the employee. The employee is free to accept it and work at Hobby Lobby, decline it and work at Hobby Lobby, or dissolve their business relationship and seek an arrangement from a different free, consenting party.
Government is the only entity which protects the powerless from the thugs and authoritarians whom libertarians worship. In this particular case, libertarians are happy to trample on the religious freedom of the employees; only that nasty, evil government is actually willing to protect their rights. As usual.
You're getting pretty entertaining here. What religious freedom has Hobby Lobby trampled on? Hobby Lobby has denied employees rights to freedom of religion to the exact same degree that Scarlett Johansson has denied me access to sex with Scarlett Johansson. The only authoritarian I see in this discussion is the comedian in your mirror.
If, upon taking a job, you have an understanding you will get a benefit that was never offered to you in any way, shape, or form, it's not a job you need, but a guardian ad litem.
This is the most ridiculous thing you've ever said.
Except none of this actually happened. An employee offers particular services from Hobby Lobby for a particular arrangement, none of which contained any provision for morning-after pills. Is a particular arrangement is unsatisfactory, Hobby Lobby and the employee are both free to go their own way and enter into arrangements with other freely consenting parties.
Hobby Lobby employees had no more right to expect morning-after pill coverage than you have the right to expect sex from a woman you buy dinner for. It may be nice, but you're not entitled to it in any moral sense whatsoever.
Well, on a chemical level, they're very similar substances!
Mostly because blue cheese is just plain vile.
How, in your view, was it served? Why was that wrong? How should it have been served?
Then tell us how they do the actual search.
What makes government a thug, and why is it the biggest on the block? Who are the others, and why are they lesser? When did this happen? Was there a time when it wasn't the biggest thug on the block? When and where was that?
No. The government never protects the powerless; the proverbial invisible hand, on the other hand, does. The government is the thug/authoritarian.This is so dumb I'm wondering who you let use your computer, Mark. Unless an employee's religious tenet is that her employer should buy her birth control, her religious freedom is utterly unaffected. The employer isn't doing anything to the employee. The employee is free to buy or use contraception if she wants.
Not if they want to make a religious argument it isn't. You can't claim a religious belief against abortion and then declare that aspirin is a contraceptive if held between one's knees. At least not if expect to exercise a First Amendment right.
Nonsense. It's the employee's money. The employer isn't buying birth control (and management certainly isn't), the employee is. She's taking compensation in lieu of wages and using it for contraception. It's exactly the same as using wages. Her manager wants to prevent her from doing that, a clear violation of her religious (and market) freedom.
Come off of it. The invisible hand doesn't give a #### whether anyone lives or dies. Embarrassing tripe.
Odd. When I suggested that there were plenty of jobs available for Walmart workers to get instead if they didn't like working on Thanksgiving night (the horror), I believe you and your cohorts jumped on me and fought me to the ground.
"Hey, there are plenty of women available for gay men to marry! What's the problem?!"
Who cares? It's their business, not mine, not yours, not the governments. For all the business it is of ours, a just law would let them offer unlimited birth control, zero birth control, or anything they choose to offer in the context of negotiations between two consenting parties. You've have no more moral ground for interfering in the practices of mutually consenting adults than Fred Phelps does. You can tell yourself how caring and how special and how well-intentioned and how superior are, but your whole overwrought elitist liberal shtick bears little difference from a thug waving a bible and demanding other parties conform to your beliefs.
Considering you are on record as believing black slaves prior to the civil war had no rights violated, that's rich.
Major elements of the compromise would permanently raise tax rates on income over $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for jointly filing couples; raise rates on capital gains and dividends for those same households to Clinton-era levels of roughly 20%, from the current 15%; and limit the value of personal exemptions as well as the value of itemized deductions. Those last two restrictions would kick in at $250,000 for individuals and $300,000 for couples. Those limits disappeared in 2010.
The deal would also set the estate-tax rate at 40% on estates over $5 million; currently there’s a 35% rate for estates over $5.12 million. The compromise rate isn’t as high as the 45%, with a $3.5 million exemption, sought by Mr. Obama.
The deal would delay for two months part of the $110 billion in spending cuts that otherwise would have taken place in early January—cuts that would be replaced by tax increases and cuts in other programs.
It continues an existing pay freeze for members of Congress for the current fiscal year, but doesn’t extend the pay freeze for federal government workers.
The bill also included a measure preventing a sharp increase in the price of milk that was feared early in the new year, and extending some other agricultural programs through September. The last five-year farm bill expired at the end of last September due to the inability of lawmakers to reach a deal on the sweeping legislation.
Left out of the bill were any disaster-relief funds to help assist the recovery effort from the devastation caused by Superstorm Sandy across the Eastern U.S. in October. The Senate passed a bill last week providing $60 billion in emergency relief, but the House has yet to act to bring forward similar legislation.
Yeah, like that'll pass the house.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a blood clot in a vein that runs between her brain and her skull, her doctors said, complicating health problems that have kept the top U.S. diplomat out of public view for more than three weeks.
Clinton has suffered no neurological damage or stroke, is in good spirits and is expected to make a full recovery, Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mt. Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El- Bayoumi of George Washington University said in the statement released by the State Department yesterday.
I'm curious: when you say things that are this stupid, are you dumb enough to be convinced, or is it just a tenet of your faith?
Uh, Dan, they're demanding that the government protect rights which they assert under the Constitution. That makes it everyone's business.
Look, the ACA functions like the minimum wage. If employers paid less, the employees wouldn't be able to buy contraceptives (or abortions). Now the government requires that, in addition to a minimum salary, the employer pay a minimum amount for health insurance. The only relevant fact for the employer is the amount of money paid. The coverage offered is between the insurer and the employee.
Yet again, Obama snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
Yes, yes, and yes.
Hell yes.
I'm curious: when you say things that are this stupid, are you dumb enough to be convinced, or is it just a tenet of your faith?
David is to lawyers what Jane Fonda is to actresses. They both excel in supporting themselves with their work, but beyond that, the less said the better.
I'd rather not agree with this, but I'm pretty sure I do.
You realize every time you say this it makes you looks more and more stupid, right?
It is interesting to me that Cantor allowed King to split the Hurricane Sandy bill into two parts, so all Republicans could vote for the short-term relief, while the longer-term projects would be passed by a majority of Democrats with (presumably, King says, 30-40 Republicans.) That bodes something about being open to working with some majorities that have lots of Democrats plus a decent number of influential Republicans.
Good god almighty, David. It's not even necessary to construct a caricature when you drop in. You're a national treasure, just due to the way you make the underlying elements of the Randian stupidity so clear and evident to anyone outside of the cult. (This does, of course, put into normalized light your desire to defend the Koreshian cultists; all of you irrational rubes need to stick together in your combined, multipronged assault on reality, I suppose.)
Yes, stuff like that is pathetically desperate. And they do it likes it's an addiction.
If February comes, and the grand resolution of the sequester and the debt limit is something like chained CPI and some increase in revenues with some mild cuts, then it's a good deal.
If February comes, and it's trillions of cuts plus no new revenue plus continued threats of blowing up the credit any time they don't get 100% of their Santa's list, then it's a disaster.
The White House seems to think they can navigate the debt limit fight. Hope they're right.
I'm still interested in whether this House will pass it. Or the next one. Or any House at all.
I would say that any deal made over the debt ceiling is a mistake. The official policy of POTUS has always been to not negotiate with terrorists for a reason. The nation's credit is too important to negotiate over. IMO, any negotiation that does not re-routinize the debt ceiling is a failure.
McConnell's too good a politician to get rolled like Boehner. It will pass the house.
i think the speaker is working to explain to his guys that this will be the very last tax related measure that will be placed in front of them for a vote
the president got one chance to pass a tax related measure where house members 'might' vote without thinking their political careers might end.
the president won't get a second bite at that apple.
that's all i am sure about
As a matter of Catholic teaching, it is not immoral or an ethical issue for the university or hospital to provide coverage that includes birth control options.
No, it isn't. Or, to explain this in small steps: when you say, "It's" the employee's money, the issue is what the "it" is. And the "it" is only what the employer has already given to the employee. The employer isn't giving her insurance that covers contraception, so such a policy was never the employee's to begin with. Limits on what insurance covers are inherent in the policy itself.She can't use a health care plan that doesn't cover contraception and use it for contraception. The compensation that the employer is willing to pay her does not involve anything that can be used to get contraception. It's a Kindle, not an iPad. It can't be used to buy things from the iTunes store, no matter how much she wants to. If the employer offers health insurance but not dental insurance as compensation, is it her money that she can take and use for dental care if she wishes? No, because that's not what's being given to her.
The insurance policy that the employer provides does not cover cosmetic surgery. Does that impinge on the employee's religious or economic freedom? Does it prevent her from using her compensation as she sees fit? Her manager is not preventing her from doing anything. She is free to take her money and buy contraception with it. She is free to use contraception. I realize abortion and birth control are sacraments to the left, but nothing in this impacts her religious freedom in any way. Not giving someone an item that isn't against her religion does not prevent her from practicing her religion. A Jewish-owned business that does not serve ham in its company cafeteria does not impact on a Christian's religious freedom, even though the Christian is allowed to eat ham.
edit...Happy New Year, DMN.
I am resigned to the debt limit fight being a fight. If one outcome is taking future fights off the table and making the debt limit a part of the budget bills, then I'd be happy with that. I don't see how it's not a fight this year, and doesn't involve some horse-trading.
Does McConnell have influence over House members? Why would they listen to him if they won't listen to the guy they elected leader?
I think McConnell adroitly helped himself and his colleagues look reasonable. I have no idea whether anybody can do anything with the House unless Boehner and Cantor let a bill go to the floor with significant but perhaps not majority support among Republicans.
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