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jeudi 19 septembre 2013

GOP: Obamacare delay is proof of health law is wrong, it should still be repealed

WASHINGTON - Republicans exploited takes abrupt administration of the employer mandate in the health law as new evidence that the signature of President Barack Obama domestic policy is unworkable and repeal, an argument that energized the party base before the election of the 2014 Congress.

But the will of the White House to respond to the concerns of business - and avoid the ghost of dismissal from work due to the unpopular law health - political headache one Democrats in races next year.

"The shortest possible time for Obamacare is permanent," leader of the majority of the House, Eric Cantor, R - Virginia, said Wednesday, hours after the Government announced a delay of a year in which requires companies with 50 or more employees for health care for their workers coverage or pay a fine.

House Speaker John Boehner, r-Ohio, said unexpected postponement of the administration of a key provision designed to ensure more Americans was an admission that the 2010 law is unworkable. The Republicans in the supervision of the power house and trade panel embarked upon an investigation of the decision, seeking documents from the Treasury and the departments of health and human services.

In midterm elections depends to a large extent in which the voters of the party base, and Republicans considered the latest twist of an opportunity to the health care law and turn on a GOP base already strongly opposed reform of Obama. Members of the Republican party in Congress rushed towards the decision of the Administration to make a point hope will resonate with voters in their States.

"I've heard countless entrepreneurs in Maine, who say costly fines and Obamacare provisions offer powerful and perverse incentives not to hire new workers or to cut back on the hours that their employees can work," said Senator Susan Collins, who faces re-election next year.

In its strategy for the next year's elections, Republicans were determined to focus on how small and medium enterprises would respond to the requirement of the law and the possibility of that would result in job losses. The Republican Party was ready to blame the Democrats who voted for the law, if the companies had to lay off workers.

The delay of one year to January 2015 largely erase that aspect of the criticism of health in mid-term election year.

Ken Hoagland, President of the voice of America of conservative restoration and a fierce opponent of the law, said parts of House and the Democrats in the Senate who voted for the law.

"Pushing the economic damage of Obamacare further than the next election it will not change the reality of the damage to employees or the economy in general," Hoagland said in an interview. "It only seeks to protect those responsible for legislation".

Democrats sought to cast the issue as the Administration to listen to the business community.

"The Administration has demonstrated its commitment to implementing the Affordable Care Act with greater flexibility for 4 per cent of United States companies affected by the requirement of the employer's responsibility", House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement on Wednesday.

Pelosi argued that a significant majority of companies already providing health insurance to their employees. The legislator from California who was instrumental in securing the passage of the law when he was speaker of the House insisted that the Americans will soon benefit from greater access to affordable health care.

Democrats have always been persecuted by the fact that few Americans understand the law and many fear its effect.

In the most recent survey, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that more Americans see unfavorable law as favorable, a negative inclination that has remained stable since Obama signed it in March 2010. The Foundation this spring survey found 43 percent with an unfavorable opinion of law, 35 percent with a favorable view and 23% undecided.

The poll also found more people saying that the country will be worse under the law better, a change of public opinion immediately after its passage.

Democratic strategist Steve Elmendorf said that Americans oppose the law are vehement while other Americans are waiting to see what happens.

Delay of a year of administration "affects a very small number. ... More people will be impacted by their ability to have insurance in the exchanges, elimination of pre-existing conditions and, ultimately, what the price will be. ... I think that in terms of the 14 elections, I don't see this decision in particular having much impact.

Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for the Committee of the campaign of the Republicans in the Senate, called the movement "the worst of all worlds for the Democratic candidates" because it will frustrate the Liberals who support the law as recently to quiet mockery Republican.

"So what is a democratic candidate to say in the light of this?" Dayspring said. "Do" "" Yes, I have supported Obamacare, but fortunately we have delayed to protect themselves from the bad is "?"

Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp, who won last year in North Dakota Republican - leaning, offers a template for how Democrats would respond to questions about health care and the latest initiative of the Administration Act.

"Several times I have said that there are good and bad in health care law, and we have to improve it. A needed improvement is to make it as simple as possible for our businesses to comply. "I applaud the Administration for delaying this requirement until there is a system in place that is viable for the companies, said in a statement.

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vendredi 26 juillet 2013

John Shore: Betraying the Spirit: How the Christian Right Gets the Bible Wrong

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I just released UNFAIR: Christians and LGBT Question, the much revised and updated version of my earlier title, UNFAIR: Why the 'Christian' View of Gays Doesn't Work.

Among the most significant new content in the book is this passage, taken from its (now) opening essay, Taking God at His Word: The Bible and Homosexuality:

The Bible isn't a rulebook, and Christians cannot lift out of its context any passage from it, and still hope to gain a clear understanding of that passage.
It is important to understand that even the most fundamentalist Christian sects do not take the Bible wholly literally. The New Testament is two thousand years old, the old Testament much older. The Bible's cultural contexts, along with the translation at hand, is always taken into consideration by any Christian serious about understanding this vast and complex work.

To excerpt any isolated short passage from the Bible, and then claim for that passage absolute authority, is to fail to take the Bible on its own terms. If we wish to follow the word of God, then we must take the entirety of God's words into account. For example, when the Bible itself identifies some of its words as proverbs, it is bestowing upon those words less moral weight than other words that it identifies as commandments. The Bible itself tells us that some of its contents are songs, some visions, some histories, some dreams, some parables, and some commandments. The Bible itself also instructs Christians that New Testament moral directives supersede Old Testament moral directives. The Bible itself tells us that its moral principles supersede any of its moral "rules."

The context of any Bible passage is as integral to its meaning as the passage itself. It may be appropriate to give equal weight to each clause within a business contract, each step within a set of mechanical instructions, or each rule within a game rulebook. But the Bible itself tells us that the Bible is not a uniform document, with each passage spelling out something clear and specific, and all passages having equal value. The Bible is not a rulebook for being Christian. We would be foolish to fail to understand that not everything in the Bible is a commandment, and that Christians cannot take a small section of the Bible out of its larger context, and still hope to gain a clear understanding of that section. Isolating a clobber passage from its context, and then claiming a sort of moral helplessness because "it's in the Bible," is failing to take the Bible either literally or seriously.


The Christian right, in other words, is getting--and has always gotten--the Bible wrong. And the excruciating irony of it is that they treat the Bible in precisely the manner they're forever accusing the Christian left* of treating the Bible.

The most dependable weapon in the arsenal used by Christian conservatives against their liberal counterparts is the accusation that liberals fail to take the Bible seriously.

The conservatives' kill shot has always been a silver bullet with four words engraved into it: "It's in the Bible."

A wife is to submit to her husband. A woman shouldn't speak in church. Spare the rod, spoil the child. The Earth is the center of the universe. God's plan is for the white man to have slaves. Gay people are a moral abomination. People who die without having accepted Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior must spend eternity burning in the hellfire of damnation.

The conservative Christian makes this sort of ruinous proclamation, and then shrugs innocently, smiles with humble assurance, and says, "Hey, it's not me saying it. It's in the Bible."

But much like the Hollywood movie publicist who cobbles together a glowing review from a savage one by carefully selecting from the latter a few choice words and then tossing the rest, the Christian right is ignoring the entire point of the Bible. Repeatedly, and in no uncertain terms, Jesus insists that equity, compassion, humility, fairness, and love supersede any specific "rule" in the Bible. Christ instructed us not by prohibiting specific behaviors and prescribing others, but rather, in principles and parables, making clear that he expects us to use our hearts, minds, and the Holy Spirit to translate his words into actions appropriate to our time and place.

God is all-powerful. If he wanted Christians to follow a simple, clear set of rules, then the New Testament would be a simple, clear set of rules. But it's not. Because God wants Christians to think more than that, to intuit more than that; God wants us to be more than that.

The Christian right only pretends to take the Bible seriously. But what they actually do is to take out of context, and then take very seriously indeed those few and far between words in the Bible that serve to bring them (gee, what a coincidence) the very power that they want.

They do not serve the Bible. They use the Bible to serve themselves. And, incredibly enough, they've learned to turn that fact into the ultimate in offensive weapon.

* * * * * * * *

*I personally am neither a liberal nor conservative Christian. I'm an Unfundamentalist Christian. If you are, too, come join us where we do our thing on the UC Facebook page.

Follow John Shore on Twitter: www.twitter.com/johnshore

Get Alerts I just released UNFAIR: Christians and LGBT Question, the much revised and updated version of my earlier title, UNFAIR: Why the 'Christian' View of Gays Doesn't Work. Among the most significant new c... I just released UNFAIR: Christians and LGBT Question, the much revised and updated version of my earlier title, UNFAIR: Why the 'Christian' View of Gays Doesn't Work. Among the most significant new c...

mercredi 26 juin 2013

Adam Arroyo, Iraq War Veteran, Says New York Cops Raided The Wrong Apartment, Killed His Dog

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Adam Arroyo Cindy, a two-and-a-half year old pit bull.

An Iraq War veteran says that police on the hunt for a drug dealer killed his dog when they raided the wrong upstate New York apartment.

Adam Arroyo was not home when a Buffalo police narcotics team busted in Monday evening. When he returned, Arroyo found Cindy, his dark-brown, 2-year-old pit bull, shot dead.

“They busted the door down, with a battering ram or whatever,” he told the Buffalo News. “They came in, and within a few seconds of entering the apartment, they murdered my dog. They shot her multiple times. They had no reason to do that.”

Arroyo, who has no criminal background, says that authorities left a search warrant for the upper apartment of 304 Breckenridge -- the apartment next door to his.

WKBW explains:

The suspect named in the warrant was described as a black male and was wanted on suspicion of dealing crack.

Arroyo is Hispanic and lives at 304 Breckenridge, upper-rear apartment, which has a completely separate entrance and is clearly marked on his mail box.

Buffalo police opened an internal investigation. Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda told WIVB that his department takes the allegations "very seriously."

He added: "If [the dog] was attacking an officer and he was ... stopping the dog from attacking, he'd be justified."

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