Bipartisan Group Calls For Broader Religious Exemptions In ObamaCare

By Pete Kasperowicz - 04/29/13 05:05 PM ET

House Republicans and Democrats have joined together to re-introduce a bill that would expand the religious conscience exemptions under ObamaCare.

Under the Equitable Access to Care and Health (EACH) Act, individuals would have the option of being exempted from the Affordable Healthcare Act's mandate to buy health insurance. People could avoid the mandate by filing an affidavit as part of their tax return saying their religious beliefs keep them from buying insurance that meets federal standards.

However, anyone filing this affidavit who then uses healthcare would lose their right to the exemption from the insurance mandate.

"We believe the EACH Act balances a respect for religious diversity against the need to prevent fraud and abuse," Reps. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) and William Keating (D-Mass.) wrote in a letter seeking support for their bill.

"It is imperative we expand the religious conscience exemption now as the Administration is already developing a process to verify the various exemptions to the individual mandate," they wrote.

Religious exemption from ObamaCare has come up before, including the ruling from the Obama administration that religious-affiliated organizations must provide health insurance that covers contraception. The EACH Act, however, is unrelated to that issue, and deals only with exemptions from the insurance mandate.

The bill, H.R. 1814, enjoyed bipartisan support last year, and this year was introduced with 43 co-sponsors.

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President Obama Calls on Congress to Fully Fund Embassy Security

President Obama Calls on Congress to Fully Fund Embassy Security | The White House Skip to main content | Skip to footer site map The White House. President Barack Obama Get Email UpdatesContact Us Go to homepage. The White House Blog Photos & Videos Photo Galleries Video Performances Live Streams Podcasts 2012: A Year in Photos

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For Immediate Release May 16, 2013 President Obama Calls on Congress to Fully Fund Embassy Security

Today, the President called on Congress to support and fully fund the Administration’s budget request to improve security of our embassies around the world.  In addition, the President called on Congress to support the full implementation of the recommendations of the Benghazi Accountability Review Board (ARB), including recommendations associated with additional support, authorities, and resources for the State Department.  Finally, the President called on Congress to support our efforts to enhance our Marine Security Guard detachments around the world as a part of our effort to better secure high-risk posts.

Every day, thousands of American men and women are serving our nation overseas – military service members, diplomats, development workers and others. They accept the risks that come with service because they understand that they are making vital contributions to our national interests and national security.  We owe it to all of them to do everything in our power to protect our personnel serving overseas.

In the wake of the attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in September 2012, the Department of State reviewed its global security posture and took steps necessary to address security vulnerabilities, including submitting a request to reallocate $1.4 billion in FY 2013 resources to begin work this year that was approved by the Congress.

In addition to the $1.4 billion requested in FY 2013, the FY 2014 budget request provides over $4 billion for the Department of State’s embassy security programs, fully supporting this critical priority.  As part of this effort, the budget includes $2.2 billion to support increased embassy security construction recommend by the Benghazi Accountability Review Board (ARB).

The budget fully supports the resources necessary to address all recommendations made by the Benghazi ARB including increased embassy security construction, expanded Marine Security Guard detachments at US diplomatic facilities, increased security training, and support for a 5% increase in diplomatic security staff.

In addition to resources, the Department of State needs authority to address immediate security concerns.  The Department should have authority to transfer resources that are necessary to provide secure facilities for our personnel overseas.  For instance, in doing so, it should have the authority to draw from other State Department operating accounts.

The President will continue to do everything in his power to make sure a tragedy like this never happens again.  But as the President said, we can’t do this alone and the President will continue to urge members of Congress to work together on behalf of the American people.

(BA in Millions)

2012

Actual

2013

Enacted

2014

Request

Operations (WSP)                                                                        

$1,591  $2,250  $2,182Construction (WSU)                                                                            

$775 $1,897   $1,864Total State Security Programs1                                                    

$2,366   $4,147 $4,0461FY 13 Enacted include the Department of State’s $1.4 billion for embassy security in the wake of the September 11, 2012 Benghazi Attacks

 

Blog posts on this issue May 17, 2013 6:08 PM EDTWeekly Wrap Up: “What Our Families Deserve”

Here’s a quick glimpse at what happened this week on WhiteHouse.gov.

May 17, 2013 5:50 PM EDTA Stronger and Sustainable Military for the 21st Century

The President and the Department of Defense are taking unprecedented steps to protect our environment, achieve significant cost savings, and give our military better energy options.

May 17, 2013 5:28 PM EDTComing Together to Stop Slavery

Today at the White House, we convened the 10th annual meeting of the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

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Readout of the President’s Calls to Special Agent in Charge Deslauriers and Commissioner Davis

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For Immediate Release April 22, 2013 Readout of the President’s Calls to Special Agent in Charge Deslauriers and Commissioner Davis

Today, the President placed calls to FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard Deslauriers and Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis to express his appreciation to the men and women of the Boston Field Office, Boston Police Department, and all the members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. The President hailed the professionalism and bravery demonstrated by officers since Monday, and praised the impressive coordination between these federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies who together were able to bring this chapter of this tragedy to a close. While the President acknowledged there is still much work ahead, he thanked Special Agent in Charge Deslauriers and Commissioner Davis for their leadership and told them that the law enforcement officials, the citizens of Boston, and all affected by this tragedy were in his thoughts and prayers.

Blog posts on this issue April 22, 2013 6:34 PM EDTCelebrate National Park Week!

National Park Week celebrates and gives back to our country’s great natural and cultural landscapes.

April 22, 2013 5:57 PM EDTYoung Scientists and Innovators Amaze President Obama at the White House Science Fair

100 students from more than 40 states were at the White House for an all-day, hands-on celebration of the power and potential of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education.

April 20, 2013 1:10 PM EDTWatch Live: 2013 White House Science Fair

President Obama hosts the 3rd Annual White House Science Fair and celebrate the student winners of a broad range of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions from across the country.

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ACLU calls for Miranda rights for Boston bombing suspect

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is calling for the Obama administration to read the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings his legal rights.

The Department of Justice indicated Friday that the administration would not read 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev his Miranda rights, citing a public safety exception.

But Anthony Romero, the ACLU's executive director, said Saturday that the immediate threat is over and that Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen who became a naturalized U.S. citizen last year, should now be treated like any other suspected criminal.

“Every criminal defendant is entitled to be read Miranda rights," Romero said in a statement. "The public safety exception should be read narrowly. It applies only when there is a continued threat to public safety and is not an open-ended exception to the Miranda rule."

Tsarnaev was captured Friday night in the Boston suburb of Watertown after leading law enforcers on a tense, day-long manhunt that captured the attention of the nation and locked down much of Greater Boston.

Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, are suspected of planting the two bombs that detonated Monday near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 170.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police in Watertown in the early hours of Friday morning. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured Friday night after another shootout with police roughly a mile away. 

Legal experts say the younger Tsarnaev, who remains in a Boston hospital in serious but stable condition, could face the death penalty if convicted on federal terrorism charges. 

A number of powerful Republicans – including Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.), as well as Rep. Peter King (N.Y.) – are urging the Obama administration to treat Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant.

"Under the Law of War we can hold this suspect as a potential enemy combatant not entitled to Miranda warnings or the appointment of counsel," McCain and Graham said Friday in a joint statement. "Our goal at this critical juncture should be to gather intelligence and protect our nation from further attacks."

Romero and the ACLU are pushing back against that notion, arguing that even those suspected of the most heinous crimes have constitutional protections that law enforcers must abide.

"Every criminal defendant has a right to be brought before a judge and to have access to counsel. We must not waver from our tried-and-true justice system, even in the most difficult of times,"  Romero said. 

"Denial of rights is un-American and will only make it harder to obtain fair convictions."

Miriam Conrad, public defender for Massachusetts, told the Associated Press that there are "serious issues regarding possible interrogation." The news service reported that federal public defender's office in Massachusetts will represent Tsarnaev once he is charged.

--This report was updated at 4:42 p.m.

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Roofer Union Calls for Repeal of Obama Health Law

A labor union representing roofers is reversing course and calling for repeal of the federal health law, citing concerns the law will raise its cost for insuring members.

Organized labor was instrumental in getting the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, but more recently has voiced concerns that the law could lead members to lose their existing health plans. The United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers is believed to be the first union to initially support the law and later call for its repeal.

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Weekly Address: Sandy Hook Victim’s Mother Calls for Commonsense Gun Responsibility Reforms

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

Remarks of Francine Wheeler
The President’s Weekly Address

Hi. As you’ve probably noticed, I’m not the President. I’m just a citizen. And as a citizen, I’m here at the White House today because I want to make a difference and I hope you will join me.

My name is Francine Wheeler. My husband David is with me. We live in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

David and I have two sons. Our older son Nate, soon to be 10 years old, is a fourth grader at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Our younger son, Ben, age six, was murdered in his first-grade classroom on December 14th, exactly 4 months ago this weekend.

David and I lost our beloved son, but Nate lost his best friend. On what turned out to be the last morning of his life, Ben told me, quite out of the blue, “ I still want to be an architect, Mama, but I also want to be a paleontologist, because that’s what Nate is going to be and I want to do everything Nate does.”

Ben’s love of fun and his excitement at the wonders of life were unmatched His boundless energy kept him running across the soccer field long after the game was over. He couldn’t wait to get to school every morning. He sang with perfect pitch and had just played at his third piano recital. Irrepressibly bright and spirited, Ben experienced life at full tilt.

Until that morning. 20 of our children, and 6 of our educators – gone. Out of the blue.

I’ve heard people say that the tidal wave of anguish our country felt on 12/14 has receded. But not for us. To us, it feels as if it happened just yesterday. And in the four months since we lost our loved ones, thousands of other Americans have died at the end of a gun. Thousands of other families across the United States are also drowning in our grief.

Please help us do something before our tragedy becomes your tragedy.

Sometimes, I close my eyes and all I can remember is that awful day waiting at the Sandy Hook Volunteer Firehouse for the boy who would never come home – the same firehouse that was home to Ben’s Tiger Scout Den 6. But other times, I feel Ben’s presence filling me with courage for what I have to do – for him and all the others taken from us so violently and too soon. 

We have to convince the Senate to come together and pass commonsense gun responsibility reforms that will make our communities safer and prevent more tragedies like the one we never thought would happen to us.

When I packed for Washington on Monday, it looked like the Senate might not act at all. Then, after the President spoke in Hartford, and a dozen of us met with Senators to share our stories, more than two-thirds of the Senate voted to move forward. 

But that’s only the start. They haven’t yet passed any bills that will help keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. And a lot of people are fighting to make sure they never do.

Now is the time to act. Please join us. You can talk to your Senator, too. Or visit WhiteHouse.gov to find out how you can join the President and get involved.

Help this be the moment when real change begins. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

President Obama makes a statement about the explosions at the Boston Marathon.

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President Obama sends a message to the White House email list to explain why he asked Francine Wheeler to deliver the Weekly Address.

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World Famous Neurosurgeon Calls for Market-Oriented Health Care Reform In Front of Obama; Will Media Report?

At his keynote speech at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning, world-renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson laid out some ideas he had for improving health care in the United States of America. Seated to his right was the president of the United States, who appeared to not care much for the good doctor's market-oriented idea of tax-free Health Savings Accounts. [h/t email tipster Brian Plunkett for bringing this to my attention]

The Insurance & Financial Advisor website has more details (emphases mine; video embedded below):

During his remarks, Carson came up with several solutions to some of America’s most pressing problems, including focusing on the importance of education.

Carson also touched on the economy, saying that he thinks about the issue frequently. “We don’t want to go down the path of many failed nations,” he said, pointing out what he says is “fiscal irresponsibility” in our government.

He seemed to offer the idea of a flat 10% income tax, which would prevent many successful people from taxing their money oversees [sic]. He cited “602 banks in the Cayman Islands” created as havens for those seeking to escape high taxes.

“That money needs to be back here building our infrastructure and creating jobs,” he said.

Carson’s remarks regarding what appeared to be his alternative to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) appeared to make the president uncomfortable at times, with Obama looking down and away as Carson began to describe specific suggestions.

ACA is President Obama’s landmark health reform legislation that was passed in 2010. Carson has spoken openly in the past about alternatives to the law.

“We spend a lot of money on health care, twice as much per capita as anyone else in the world, and yet not very efficient. What can we do?” Carson asked rhetorically. “Here’s my solution. When a person is born, give them a birth certificate, an electronic medical record and a health savings account [HSA] to which money can be contributed pre-tax from the time you’re born to the time you die.”

Carson went on to say that accounts should be passed on to family members, so “there’s nobody talking about death panels,” in an obvious reference to the much debated “panels” discussed during negotiations and after passage of ACA.

Regarding those who cannot afford health insurance, Carson suggested, “We can make contributions to their HSA each month,” he said, adding, “we already have this huge pot of money; instead of sending it to some bureaucracy let’s put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care.”

Although Dr. Carson is a devout Christian, it appears there were no remarks made by Dr. Carson that were critical of the president's contraception mandate. That being said, it is gutsy to offer comments in a public forum which don't square with the president's left-wing agenda on health care, even though Carson did so respectfully and without any partisan invective.

All the same, don't expect the media to note Carson's ideas, which are fundamentally about empowering the individual and not the government.

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Kooky Paul Krugman Calls for 'Death Panels' to Cut Health-Care Costs -- Really!

Last week New York Times economics columnist and liberal hero Paul Krugman actually said "death panels," the critique of Obama-care popularized by Sarah Palin and universally mocked by liberals, while discussing the necessity of cutting health care costs.

On January 30, Krugman spoke at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in D.C. (Krugman is out hawking the paperback edition of "End This Depression Now!," his paean to more government spending on infrastructure and other forms of stimulus.) During the Q&A, Breitbart's Joel Griffith noted, Krugman was asked about the rising national debt. A truncated version of his remarks follows:

We’re going to need more revenue, we're going to need, and probably in the end, surely in the end it will require some sort of middle class taxes as well. So again, we won’t be able to pay for the kind of government the society we want without some increase in taxes, not a huge one, but some increase on taxes on the middle class, maybe a value-added tax.... And we’re also going to do, really, we're going to have to make decisions about health care, not pay for health care that has no demonstrated medical benefits. So you know the snarky version I use, which is, I shouldn’t even say because it will get me in trouble, is death panels and sales taxes is how we do this."

This opens Krugman up to charges of hypocrisy, since he called the "death panel" accusation a "smear" in a March 22, 2010 column and an example of the "dishonesty" of Obama-care opponents in a June 29, 2012 column. Does this mean Krugman accepts Sarah Palin's argument that Obama-care's cost containment strategy will require health-care rationing?

Clay Waters is the director of Times Watch, an MRC project tracking the New York Times. Click here to follow Clay Waters on Twitter.

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After RNC Calls For Hispanic Outreach, Republican Governor Eliminates Latino Affairs Office

The Republican National Committee devoted much of the attention of its “autopsy” report to improving party outreach to people of color. The report noted it is “imperative that the RNC changes how it engages with Hispanic communities to welcome in new members of our Party.” Yet, if the autopsy report had any effect at all, it appears to be short-lived. Since last week, top Republicans have dodged discussing immigration reform with citizenship, while one congressman used a racial slur to describe Latinos.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory’s (R) contribution to this effort is to unexpectedly close the state’s Latino Affairs office, an office that normally engaged with Latino leaders on policy, offfered bilingual assistance for disaster victims, and collected demographic statistics on the state’s 800,000 Latino residents.

The governor’s office said it will shift some of the office’s duties to a general office for community and constituent affairs. “We are committed to serving the needs of all of North Carolina’s citizens,” McCrory’s chief of staff said. “We don’t segment our constituents by race or cultural background, any more than we separate them by age or gender.”

But Latino advocates criticize the decision. Executive Director of Latin American Coalition in Charlotte Jess George told McClatchy, “The message from Raleigh is that Latinos in North Carolina don’t matter.”

Just before closing the Latino Affairs office, North Carolina pursued a controversial driver’s license design that would distinguish young undocumented immigrants’s licenses by a pink stripe and the words, “NO LAWFUL STATUS” printed across. The state somewhat modified the design when it faced community backlash.

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Obama calls on Congress to approve $21B infrastructure bill

President Obama on Friday called for Congress to approve a $21 billion package aimed at building public-private partnerships to improve the nation's crumbling infrastructure.

“Let's get this done. Let's rebuild this country we love. Let's make sure we're staying on the cutting edge,” Obama told a boisterous crowd on a platform overlooking the Port of Miami.

The platform provided a view of a $2 billion tunnel project intended to improve congestion and allow for quicker trade. Obama said the project, funded by both public and private dollars, was a template for the rest of the nation.

“We can do this not just here in Miami Dade, but we can do this all across the country,” Obama said, calling for a “partnership to rebuild America.”

Obama suggested creating an infrastructure bank that could help seed major projects, and White House officials say they want Congress to allocate $10 billion for the program.

The president also unveiled a $4 billion investment program in support of the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA). The program, expanded in last year’s transportation bill, is intended to leverage private and nonfederal funding for projects of regional or national significance through loans, loan guarantees and lines of credit.

“Instead of picking projects based on pork barrel politics, we'll pick them based on how good they are for the economy,” Obama said.

Obama additionally called for a set of $7 billion in tax incentives meant to support state and municipal bonds for projects. Among them is a measure that would do away with penalties, sometimes totaling up to 35 percent, on foreign investment in U.S. real estate and infrastructure projects.

The president suggested there was a bipartisan consensus for his proposals, noting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the nation's largest labor organization both back infrastructure spending.

“If you've got the Chamber and the unions agreeing, then the politicians should be able to agree, too,” Obama said.

Still, the plan, which will be included in the president's budget when it is released April 10, is likely to face opposition from Republicans in Congress. On Friday, Obama suggested some hypocrisy from members who railed against government spending but then showed up to ribbon-cutting ceremonies in their districts.

“If you think it's good for your district, then it's probably good for other districts too,” Obama said. “We can't allow Washington politics to get in the way of progress.”

Obama also warned that the United States risked losing jobs and commerce to nations with superior infrastructure if Congress failed to act.

“What are we waiting for? There's work to be done, there's workers that are ready to do it,” Obama said. “Let's prove to the world that there's no better place to be than the United States of America.”

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in January that he favored infrastructural improvements but questioned how they would be funded.

“It's easy to go out there and be Santa Claus and talk about all the things you want to give away, but at some point somebody has to pay the bill,” Boehner said.

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ABC Journalist Calls Out Karl Rove: ‘Stop Scaring People’ About Background Checks

During a heated debate about gun regulations on Sunday morning, ABC News’ Terry Moran accused Karl Rove of using “Orwellian” language to scare people about background checks, noting that the federal government is not seeking to confiscate guns but rather keep them out of the hands of criminals and people who are mentally ill.

Discussing proposals that would require private sellers to maintain records of the background checks they perform, Rove falsely claimed that the government would maintain a “registry if a grandfather wants to give a treasured shotgun to his grandson or granddaughter” and keep a “national registry of gun sales and gun purchases and gun owners.” Moran hit back at Rove, noting that he was spreading “paranoia” and “fear” in order to build opposition against the measure:

MORAN: Karl — stop scaring people, you’re scaring people with this Orwellian sense, that black helicopters and the government are going to confiscate Americans’ guns. That kind of paranoia fuels…

ROVE: Will all due respect, it’s not paranoia.

MORAN: Who is going to confiscate all of the guns?

ROVE: People have a fear of this. Why do it? Why do you need it? …

MORAN: The result of this is that all the votes that have been taken since Newtown have weakened gun control.

Watch it:

The proposals currently being drafted would require a background check on all gun purchases including those by private sellers while exempting family and temporary transfers. In some of the drafts being circulated, private dealers would have to maintain records for all private sales, while other exempt non-commercial private sales from record keeping. None of the bills would maintain a national gun registry, which is already illegal under current law. But the record keeping provision is important, advocates claim, to ensure that the checks are being properly conducted.

A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that 88 percent of Americans, including 85 percent of gun owners, believe “those purchasing firearms at private sales and gun shows should undergo a background check.”

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One Day After RNC Calls For Minority Outreach, Arkansas GOP Passes Bill To Suppress Minority Vote

Monday morning, the Republican National Committee released a lengthy “autopsy” of their 2012 electoral loss, much of which was devoted to the GOP’s weak standing among people of color. “It is imperative that the RNC changes how it engages with Hispanic communities to welcome in new members of our Party” the autopsy proclaims, and “the Republican Party must be committed to building a lasting relationship within the African American community year-round, based on mutual respect and with a spirit of caring.”

One day later, Arkansas Republicans showed their mutual respect and spirit of caring for people of color by passing a law that will keep many of them from casting a vote.

Yesterday, the Arkansas Senate passed — on an entirely party-line vote — a so-called voter ID law requiring voters to show photo identification before they can cast a ballot. The same voter suppression measure already passed the state House with all but one of the votes for the bill coming from Republicans. These laws, which are popular among Republican lawmakers, accomplish little more than disenfranchisement. Even conservative estimates suggest that these laws will prevent 2 to 3 percent of registered voters from casting a ballot. And this impact is felt hardest by low-income voters, students and people of color — all of who tend to prefer Democrats to Republicans.

The most common argument raised in favor of voter ID laws is that they prevent in-person voter fraud, but this claim cannot be squared with reality. A person is more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit fraud at the polls. A Wisconsin study found that only 0.00023 percent of votes are the product of such fraud. So voter ID laws disenfranchise a large chunk of voters — between 2 and 9 percent, according to different reports on their effect — in order to prevent a virtually non-existent form of voter fraud.

The bill will now go to Gov. Mike Beebe (D-AR), who should veto it.

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John Bolton Calls Israeli Support For Obama ‘Propaganda’

John Bolton

John Bolton — a self-appointed supposed strong supporter of Israel — accused the Israeli government on Tuesday of lying in expressing its support for President Obama.

The Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. produced a video welcoming Obama on his visit this week to the Jewish state. The unusual video depicts cartoon-like versions of the president and Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu shaking hands to the tune of the “Golden Girls” theme song “Thank You For Being A Friend.”

Fox News host Greta Van Susteren wondered why then, if things were so bad between Obama and Israel, that the Israelis would make such a video. Bolton could think of only one answer: It’s propaganda:

VAN SUSTEREN: The Obama administration saying the president’s trip is mostly a fence mending mission, but it looks like [referring tot he video] the Israelis are welcoming him with open arms. Ambassador, what do you think about this?

BOLTON: I’m glad the Israeli government has enough budget surplus that they can produce propaganda like that. The president has Israel back, the bonds are strong. What could possibly go wrong?

Watch the clip:

Israeli President Shimon Peres will give Obama the Presidential Medal of Distinction during his trip to Israel this week. As Bolton would have it, that’s probably a bogus gesture as well.

But the former Bush administration U.N. ambassador is a regular in the Obama-hates-Israel circuit, the presumption being of course that Bolton is more friendly to the Jewish state than Obama is. But apparently that friendship doesn’t go too far as there’s nothing like having a good buddy who calls you a liar on national television.

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Bipartisan Group Calls For Broader Religious Exemptions In ObamaCare

House Republicans and Democrats have joined together to re-introduce a bill that would expand the religious conscience exemptions under ObamaCare.

Under the Equitable Access to Care and Health (EACH) Act, individuals would have the option of being exempted from the Affordable Healthcare Act's mandate to buy health insurance. People could avoid the mandate by filing an affidavit as part of their tax return saying their religious beliefs keep them from buying insurance that meets federal standards.

However, anyone filing this affidavit who then uses healthcare would lose their right to the exemption from the insurance mandate.

"We believe the EACH Act balances a respect for religious diversity against the need to prevent fraud and abuse," Reps. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) and William Keating (D-Mass.) wrote in a letter seeking support for their bill.

"It is imperative we expand the religious conscience exemption now as the Administration is already developing a process to verify the various exemptions to the individual mandate," they wrote.

Religious exemption from ObamaCare has come up before, including the ruling from the Obama administration that religious-affiliated organizations must provide health insurance that covers contraception. The EACH Act, however, is unrelated to that issue, and deals only with exemptions from the insurance mandate.

The bill, H.R. 1814, enjoyed bipartisan support last year, and this year was introduced with 43 co-sponsors.

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ABC News Calls Out Paul Ryan For Hypocrisy Over Looming Budget Cuts

ABC News’ Jonathan Karl confronted Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) over his past support for the sequester, just as the one-time GOP vice presidential candidate sought to blame President Obama for the automatic across-the-board cuts scheduled to go into effect on March 1.

During an appearance on This Week, Ryan argued that President Obama “proposed the sequester” and hasn’t “put any details out there” to offset it. “We are here because the president back in the last session of Congress refused to cut spending in any place and therefore we wound up with the sequester,” Ryan insisted. But Ryan hasn’t always opposed the automatic cuts.

As Karl pointed out, when Congress was debating the Budget Control Act in August of 2011, Ryan supported the framework and urged his fellow Republicans to vote for the sequester:

KARL: Congressman, I’ve heard you Republicans for a long time. This was the president’s idea on and on and on but let’s look at your own words. What you said right after the law putting this in place was passed in August of 2011. These are your words. You said “what conservatives like me have been fighting for for years are statutory caps on spending, literally legal caps in law that says government agencies cannot spend over a set amount of money and if they breach that amount across the board sequester comes in to cut that spending. You can’t turn it out without a supermajority. We got that into law.” Now, it sounds to me there like if you weren’t taking credit for the idea of the sequester, you were certainly suggesting it was a good idea.

RYAN: So those are the budget caps on discretionary spending. Those occurred. We want those. Everybody wants budget caps. The sequester that we’re talking about now is backing up the super committee. Remember the Super Committee in addition to those caps was supposed to come up with 1.2 trillion in savings. The Republicans on the super committee offered even higher revenues in exchange for spending cuts as part of that. It was rejected by the president and the Democrats. So no resolution occurred and therefore the sequester is occurring.

Watch it:

Ryan’s argument is fundamentally dishonest, as he is one of the Republicans responsible for creating the sequester in the first place. In the summer of 2011, Republicans demanded spending cuts to offset a debt ceiling increase and refused to consider new revenues in those negotiations. That standoff produced the Budget Control Act, which Ryan voted for and promoted. The law included spending caps and a devastating sequester as a way to motivate a bipartisan Super Committee to find $1.2 trillion in spending cuts.

After the Super Committee failed to agree on a spending reduction package, Ryan — then the GOP’s vice presidential candidate — consistently railed against the sequester mechanism he previously supported, calling it “reckless” and “devastating.” Two months later, he wants the sequester to go into effect and may incorporate its savings in his upcoming budget.

Ryan tried to end his interview with Karl on a high note, presenting himself as a lawmaker above the fray. “Actually, Jonathan, you’ve known me a long time, and the one thing you know about me is I don’t play that [political] game,” he said in response to a question about whether or not he’s positioning himself for a presidential bid in 2016, adding, “I don’t talk like that.”

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NBA Star Calls Out Homophobia On Twitter

One of the most famous players in the National Basketball Association, Kobe Bryant, took to Twitter on Sunday to tell a fan to stop using ‘gay’ as an insult.

After a man identifying as Michael on Twitter tweeted “you’re gay” at another person, the LA Lakers shooting guard called them both out on Twitter — in a tweet that elicited over 3,000 retweets and 2,000 favorites:

Just letting you know@PacSmoove @pookeo9 that using “your gay” as a way to put someone down ain’t ok! #notcool delete that out ur vocab

— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) February 11, 2013

Bryant has clearly come a long way from a few years ago, when he called the referee at a game a “fucking fag.” That action incurred a $100,000 fine from the NBA, and actually prompted the association to run a series of PSAs from famous basketball players encouraging fans to stop “using gay to mean dumb or stupid.” Someone on Twitter called Bryant out on that during Sunday’s interraction, and Bryant jumped to point out how that experience informed his opinion:

@onepercentofone @pookeo9 exactly! That wasn’t cool and was ignorant on my part. I own it and learn from it and expect the same from others

— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) February 11, 2013

Compared to the hostility toward gay people in other sports, the NBA has been relatively progressive about LGBT issues. Just last week, Denver Nuggets player Kenneth Faried came out for marriage equality in his team’s state of Colorado, and major NBA figureheads, such as former All-Star Charles Barkley, have voiced support for same-sex marriage, acknowledging that, “I had gay teammates.”

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World Famous Neurosurgeon Calls for Market-Oriented Health Care Reform In Front of Obama; Will Media Report?

At his keynote speech at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning, world-renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson laid out some ideas he had for improving health care in the United States of America. Seated to his right was the president of the United States, who appeared to not care much for the good doctor's market-oriented idea of tax-free Health Savings Accounts. [h/t email tipster Brian Plunkett for bringing this to my attention]

The Insurance & Financial Advisor website has more details (emphases mine; video embedded below):

During his remarks, Carson came up with several solutions to some of America’s most pressing problems, including focusing on the importance of education.

Carson also touched on the economy, saying that he thinks about the issue frequently. “We don’t want to go down the path of many failed nations,” he said, pointing out what he says is “fiscal irresponsibility” in our government.

He seemed to offer the idea of a flat 10% income tax, which would prevent many successful people from taxing their money oversees [sic]. He cited “602 banks in the Cayman Islands” created as havens for those seeking to escape high taxes.

“That money needs to be back here building our infrastructure and creating jobs,” he said.

Carson’s remarks regarding what appeared to be his alternative to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) appeared to make the president uncomfortable at times, with Obama looking down and away as Carson began to describe specific suggestions.

ACA is President Obama’s landmark health reform legislation that was passed in 2010. Carson has spoken openly in the past about alternatives to the law.

“We spend a lot of money on health care, twice as much per capita as anyone else in the world, and yet not very efficient. What can we do?” Carson asked rhetorically. “Here’s my solution. When a person is born, give them a birth certificate, an electronic medical record and a health savings account [HSA] to which money can be contributed pre-tax from the time you’re born to the time you die.”

Carson went on to say that accounts should be passed on to family members, so “there’s nobody talking about death panels,” in an obvious reference to the much debated “panels” discussed during negotiations and after passage of ACA.

Regarding those who cannot afford health insurance, Carson suggested, “We can make contributions to their HSA each month,” he said, adding, “we already have this huge pot of money; instead of sending it to some bureaucracy let’s put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care.”

Although Dr. Carson is a devout Christian, it appears there were no remarks made by Dr. Carson that were critical of the president's contraception mandate. That being said, it is gutsy to offer comments in a public forum which don't square with the president's left-wing agenda on health care, even though Carson did so respectfully and without any partisan invective.

All the same, don't expect the media to note Carson's ideas, which are fundamentally about empowering the individual and not the government.

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Kooky Paul Krugman Calls for 'Death Panels' to Cut Health-Care Costs -- Really!

Last week New York Times economics columnist and liberal hero Paul Krugman actually said "death panels," the critique of Obama-care popularized by Sarah Palin and universally mocked by liberals, while discussing the necessity of cutting health care costs.

On January 30, Krugman spoke at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in D.C. (Krugman is out hawking the paperback edition of "End This Depression Now!," his paean to more government spending on infrastructure and other forms of stimulus.) During the Q&A, Breitbart's Joel Griffith noted, Krugman was asked about the rising national debt. A truncated version of his remarks follows:

We’re going to need more revenue, we're going to need, and probably in the end, surely in the end it will require some sort of middle class taxes as well. So again, we won’t be able to pay for the kind of government the society we want without some increase in taxes, not a huge one, but some increase on taxes on the middle class, maybe a value-added tax.... And we’re also going to do, really, we're going to have to make decisions about health care, not pay for health care that has no demonstrated medical benefits. So you know the snarky version I use, which is, I shouldn’t even say because it will get me in trouble, is death panels and sales taxes is how we do this."

This opens Krugman up to charges of hypocrisy, since he called the "death panel" accusation a "smear" in a March 22, 2010 column and an example of the "dishonesty" of Obama-care opponents in a June 29, 2012 column. Does this mean Krugman accepts Sarah Palin's argument that Obama-care's cost containment strategy will require health-care rationing?

Clay Waters is the director of Times Watch, an MRC project tracking the New York Times. Click here to follow Clay Waters on Twitter.

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Mayors Against Illegal Guns Calls Out NRA In Dramatic Super Bowl Ad

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a gun violence prevention group chaired by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, will air an advertisement during the Super Bowl calling on Congress to pass universal background checks. The ad is part of the group’s “Demand A Plan” campaign, which focuses on convincing elected officials that stronger gun regulations are needed.

The spot features pictures and voices of children — a harsh reminder of the 20 first-graders killed in December in Newton, Connecticut. The kids single out the National Rifle Association for backtracking on its earlier support for background checks on all gun sales.

Watch it:

Current U.S. law allows people to buy guns through private sales without undergoing the otherwise-mandatory background check. That means that anyone who finds a firearm through Craigslist — or shops for one at a gun show — can walk away with a weapon undetected. Eighty percent of guns used in crimes seem to have been bought privately, and 40 percent of all gun sales are purchased without a check.

What’s more, universal background checks are widely supported. Just eight percent of the country agrees with the NRA’s position against such a measure; 92 percent support background checks for all. That’s likely to make the Super Bowl ad — which will air “on CBS, the network broadcasting the Super Bowl, in the Washington DC market in the third-quarter break coming out of halftime” — quite popular.

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Lautenberg calls Menendez ethics accusations 'too bad'

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said Thursday he was saddened to see his junior colleague, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), ensnarled in a brewing controversy over trips he took to the Dominican Republic and a report that he may have solicited prostitutes.

"If there are infractions as they are reported, it’s too bad," Lautenberg told reporters, according to the Newark Star-Ledger.

Menendez is facing questions over a pair trips he took to the Dominican Republic with Salomon Melgen, a Florida eye doctor under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Menendez had not originally paid for two of the trips on Melgen's private jet to the Dominican Republic, calling him a longtime friend, but his office announced Wednesday that he had reimbursed Melgen $58,5000 for the trip.

“Sen. Menendez has traveled on Dr. Melgen’s plane on three occasions, all of which have been paid for and reported appropriately,” Menendez's office said in a statement.

The Daily Caller has also reported that Menendez solicited prostitutes during the trips, although Menendez has vehemently denied that charge.

“Any allegations of engaging with prostitutes are manufactured by a politically motivated right-wing blog and are false," Menendez's office said.

"There a lot that’s said and covered, but I for one know Bob as a very capable United States senator, and I’m sorry to see him in this position," Lautenberg said. "But I can’t give you anything more. Don’t want to. Don’t know to."

White House press secretary Jay Carney also declined to comment when asked about the reports on Thursday.

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