There Have Been 698 Earthquakes In California Within The Past 30 Days - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

There Have Been 698 Earthquakes In California Within The Past 30 Days Posted: 26 Nov 2017 Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG Why is the west coast shaking so violently?  According to the latest data from Earthquake Track, there have been 698 earthquakes in California within the past 30 days.  By the time that you read this article, that number will undoubtedly have changed.  In recent days I have felt such an urgency to write about the seismic activity on the west coast, and I am quite concerned that so few people seem to be paying attention to what is happening. As I have covered previously, scientists tell us that when seismic activity begins to escalate the probability of having a major earthquake jumps significantly.  Over the past month there have been more mainstream news articles about earthquake swarms in California than I have seen in years, and the magnitude 4.6 earthquake that rattled Monterey County earlier this month made headlines all over the world. And it isn’t just the U.S. section of the “Ring of Fire” that seems to be awakening.  I have written about Mt. Popocatepetl down in Mexico several times recently, and on Friday it erupted three more times… Spectacular eruptions have been seen Southeast of Mexico City as Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano spewed smoke and ash high into the air. The volcano had three eruptions Friday, one of which reached two and a half miles into the sky. The first explosion occurred at about 5:00 p.m. local time. Two more explosions overnight spread ash over the villages and fields south of the volcano. I cannot stress enough how potentially dangerous this situation could become.  In ancient times, Mt. Popocatepetl completely covered entire Aztec cities with massive amounts of super-heated mud.  Scientists assure us that someday Mt. Popocatepetl will once again erupt in a similar fashion, and the devastation that this will cause will be off the charts. Meanwhile, an extremely dangerous volcano on the other side of the Ring of Fire is also rapidly coming to life.  When Mount Agung violently erupted in 1963, more than a thousand people were killed, and authorities are extremely concerned about the eruptions that are happening right now… Volcanic eruptions on the Indonesian resort island of Bali have prompted officials to cancel flights and move about 24,000 residents out of the way as a thick ash cloud from Mount Agung, thousands of meters high, drifts east and southeast along the archipelago. Residents were evacuated from 224 points around the island while Lombok International Airport on Pulau Lombok, the island due east of Bali, has closed temporarily, said Ari Ahsan, spokesman for Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali. Over the weekend we witnessed eruption after eruption, and the column of ash coming from the volcano is now more than 4 miles high… The first eruption came around 5:30 p.m. local time (4:30 a.m. ET) Saturday, Bali’s Regional Disaster Management Agency said. More eruptions followed and continued into Sunday, with a “medium-pressure eruption” in the early evening that sent ash 2,000 meters into the air, the agency said. By late Saturday, the volcanic ash plume had reached an altitude of 7,600 meters (4.7 miles), according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology. But what is troubling authorities more than anything else is the fact that magma has been “detected close to the volcano’s surface”… It told people within a 7.5km exclusion zone to “immediately evacuate” in an “orderly and calm manner” Magma – molten rock – has now been detected close to the volcano’s surface, said officials and volcanologists. I know that the mainstream media is endlessly obsessed with covering the controversies surrounding President Trump, but to me all of this seismic activity that we are seeing along the Ring of Fire is the biggest news story in the entire world at the moment. I am convinced that what we are witnessing is quite unusual.  All over the planet “dead volcanoes” are coming back to life, and major fault lines are being hit by a seemingly endless barrage of small to mid-size earthquakes. Is it possible that all of this shaking is leading up to something? Stay tuned, because I believe that what we have seen so far is only just the beginning… Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com

Obamacare’s Revenge: The IRS Will Not Process Your Tax Return Unless You Tell Them Whether You Have Health Insurance Or Not Posted: 26 Nov 2017 03:44 PM PST Yes, this is a true story.  I was completely shocked when I learned about this too, and this just underscores the importance of repealing the individual mandate immediately.  Shortly after taking office, President Trump issued an executive order which was intended to move the IRS away from enforcing Obamacare’s individual mandate, but now the IRS has found a way around that executive order.  According to the official AARP website, the IRS has announced that it will not process any tax returns from individuals that are not willing to disclose whether they currently have health insurance or not… The Internal Revenue Service won’t process individual tax returns in 2018 unless taxpayers indicate whether they have health insurance coverage or an exemption. The move, announced last month, reverses course from this year, when the IRS said it would not require filers to indicate on 1040 tax forms whether they had health insurance. Filers were still required to have medical insurance or pay a penalty, but the IRS accepted and processed returns even if taxpayers didn’t indicate coverage status. So what this means is that you will not get your refund until you tell the IRS if you have health insurance. And if you don’t have health insurance and you don’t qualify for an exemption, you could be hit with a very painful financial penalty. Of course purchasing health insurance in some parts of the country is enough of a penalty as it is.  For example, I recently wrote about a family of four in Virginia that is now facing the prospect of paying $3,000 a month for health insurance. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. And it also turns out that the IRS is going back and sending threatening letters to those that didn’t indicate if they were covered or not on previous tax returns.  Here is more from the AARP… IRS spokesman Bruce Friedland said it followed a review of IRS procedures. “The IRS has determined that ‎it is more burdensome for taxpayers to allow them to file an incomplete tax return and then have to manage follow-up letters and potentially amend their return,’’ Friedland said. “Identifying omissions and requiring taxpayers to provide health coverage information at the point of filing makes it easier for the taxpayer to successfully file a tax return and minimizes related refund delays.” In September, the IRS started sending letters to about 130,000 taxpayers who didn’t address the health care requirement on 2014 and 2015 tax returns. So if you left that section of your tax return blank in previous years, you should be expecting a letter in the mail very soon. At this point, many of you that are reading this article are probably starting to get very angry.  After all, didn’t President Trump sign an executive order earlier this year that was going to end enforcement of the individual mandate? Unfortunately, that was not the case at all.  In fact, Politico is reporting that the Trump administration “is still dutifully enforcing Obamacare’s individual mandate”… The Trump administration is still dutifully enforcing Obamacare’s individual mandate, despite early signals it might undermine the unpopular linchpin of the health care law. Weeks after the close of tax season, the IRS continues to process penalties from potentially millions of taxpayers who refused to purchase health insurance last year. That’s even though hours after taking office on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump issued a vaguely worded executive order instructing federal agencies to waive or defer parts of Obamacare that would “impose a fiscal burden” on states, individuals or health care providers. Enough is enough. Obamacare should have been repealed on the very first day of the Trump administration, but unfortunately the RINOs in Congress are going to keep blocking any effort to do that.  Elections really matter, and in 2018 we need to kick out the RINOs and put in new leaders that are fully committed to a 100% repeal of Obamacare. We also need to do something about the IRS.  They have always been a rogue agency, but now they have gotten completely and totally out of control.  I am running for Congress in Idaho’s first congressional district, and I believe that we should completely shut down the IRS. The status quo is simply not acceptable.  Obamacare is financially crippling families all across America, and we should be absolutely disgusted that Congress has not found a solution to this problem even though they have had almost an entire year to get something done. Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Every RINO Needs To Go - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

Every RINO Needs To Go Posted: 18 Jul 2017  Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG It looks like the effort to repeal Obamacare is completely dead, and that says a lot about the current state of the Republican Party.  For decades, RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) have been using labels such as “Republican”, “conservative”, “pro-gun” and “pro-life” to get elected, but then once they get into office they govern like Democrats.  There was so much hope when Donald Trump won the election last November, but thanks to the RINOs in Congress not much has actually been accomplished so far.  In fact, this is being called “the most unproductive Congress in 164 years”.  The following is an excerpt from an article published by The Week… Just six months ago, it looked like the Republican Party was about to go on a legislative blitzkrieg, shredding law after law passed by the Obama administration. ObamaCare would be vaporized and replaced with a nickel rattling inside an empty Mountain Dew can. Dodd-Frank was sure to be tossed aside for a transparent giveaway to Wall Street. And Republicans would pass their regressive tax reform, their perplexing border-adjustment tax, and so much more. The GOP hadn’t held total power in American politics since 2006, and the party had become much more conservative in the interim. Most of us were anticipating that so much would get done over the past 6 months, but instead we have seen nothing but gridlock. The most recent example of this has been the Obamacare debacle.  After failing to push through “Obamacare 2.0”, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided that he would switch gears and try to get a clean Obamacare repeal bill through the Senate, but unfortunately that effort has already failed… Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s sudden move to try to repeal Obamacare without a replacement plan appeared doomed Tuesday as at least three moderate Republicans rejected the idea. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said they will not support a motion to proceed to the bill, which would repeal Obamacare in two years. Without their support, McConnell cannot get the 50 votes he needs to pass a repeal bill. Collins, Capito and Murkowski are perfect examples of what I am talking about when I use the term “RINOs”.  They are essentially Democrats, but they have been able to successfully use the Republican label to get elected. Unless we are able to start kicking the RINOs out of Congress, most of Trump’s agenda is going to go nowhere. Obviously Trump is not happy about what has transpired in the Senate, and now his plan is to basically sit back and let Obamacare fail… Now his plan is to “let Obamacare fail; it will be a lot easier,” he said. “And I think we’re probably in that position where we’ll just let Obamacare fail.” “We’re not going to own it. I’m not going to own it,” the president said. “I can tell you the Republicans are not going to own it. We’ll let Obamacare fail, and then the Democrats are going to come to us.” But will the Democrats come to the Republicans ready to compromise as Obamacare comes apart at the seams? I seriously doubt it. I think that they are convinced that they can successfully point the blame at the Republicans as our health care system continues to deteriorate. Personally, I believe that the more the federal government gets involved in health care the worse it is going to get. Unfortunately, once you establish a program that gives out free goodies to people it is hard to take that back.  For RINOs such as Collins, Capito and Murkowski, one of the biggest obstacles to repealing Obamacare is that it would roll back the Medicaid program to pre-Obamacare levels. Today, more than 74 million Americans are on Medicaid and CHIP, and more than  58 million Americans are on Medicare.  That means that more than 130 million Americans are enrolled in these government programs at this point. That is nearly half the country. Of course many Democrats would like to go all the way and put everyone in such programs, but then we would have a completely socialized health care system. The big problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.   Everybody likes free stuff, but somebody has to pay for all of that free stuff somewhere along the line. And if people are forced to expend time and effort in order to get their free stuff, interest in the free stuff drops substantially.  In Alabama, food stamp enrollment plunged dramatically once work requirements were re-instituted… Alabama began 2017 by requiring able-bodied adults without children in 13 counties to either find a job or participate in work training as a condition for continuing to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. According to AL.com, the number of those recipients declined from 5,538 to 831 between Jan. 1 and the beginning of May – an 85 percent drop. Similar changes were implemented in select counties in Georgia and by the end of the first three months, the number of adults receiving benefits in three participating counties dropped 58 percent, according to the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. In my brand new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters”, I open up about why I want to run for Congress.  For way too long we have had a federal government that has just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger.  We need to swing the pendulum way back in the other direction, and we need to educate people on the benefits of having a very limited central government. If you take the shackles off, the free market system works incredibly well.  And once upon a time, the United States actually had a free market health care system and it was the best on the entire planet. We can get there again, but first we need to get rid of the RINOs in Congress and replace them with people that deeply believe in true conservative values. Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

The Way Congress Is Handling Health Care Shows Why They Only Have A 17 Percent Approval Rating - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

The Way Congress Is Handling Health Care Shows Why They Only Have A 17 Percent Approval Rating

Posted: 22 Jun 2017 Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

The Senate health care bill was unveiled on Thursday, and it appears to be dead on arrival. 

At least four conservative senators say that they can’t vote for the current version because it doesn’t go far enough, while several moderate Republicans are expressing concerns that it goes too far in repealing popular Obamacare provisions.  You can read the full text of the bill here. 

Since Democrats are going to be united in voting against any bill that the Republicans put forward, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can only lose two Republican votes if he wants something to pass.  I don’t know how that is going to be possible, and so in the end we may be stuck with Obamacare for the foreseeable future and that would be a total disaster.

It is astounding to me that Republicans don’t want to pass the exact same clean Obamacare repeal bill that they got to Obama’s desk in 2016.  If they got that same bill to Trump’s desk, he would sign it.  Instead of trying to do everything at once, just repeal Obamacare and then start working on various pieces of the health care system one at a time.

According to Real Clear Politics, Congress currently has an average approval rating of just 17.6 percent.  It is an institution that has failed the American people over and over again, and we are never going to move things in a positive direction in this country until we do something to clean up that cesspool of filth and corruption.

If we truly want to fix health care in this country, we need to rebuild the entire system from the ground up based on free market principles.  But of course the bill that was just unveiled in the Senate simply tries to patch up the system we already have, and that ultimately won’t work…

The bill is very similar to the version of the House bill that passed last month but with some key changes. The text released Thursday showed the Senate legislation would still make major changes to the nation’s health care system, repealing Obamacare’s individual mandate, drastically cutting back federal support of Medicaid, eliminating Obamacare’s taxes on the wealthy, insurers and others. The Senate plan however would keep Obamacare’s subsidies to help people pay for individual coverage.

One thing that is good about the Senate bill is that it would eliminate Medicaid reimbursements for Planned Parenthood for 12 months, but of course this is something that would need to be made permanent as soon as possible.

A more detailed list of major changes that the Senate bill makes was posted on Zero Hedge…

• Gives subsidies illegal immigrants if they are working in the United States
• Subsidies based on 350% Federal Poverty Level, not 400%.
• Gets rid of business and consumer mandates with no penalty
• Qualified plans don’t need to provide abortion coverage unless it’s to save the life of the mother
• Each state gets 15-10 Billion for uninsurables
• Cadillac tax is gone
• OTC med tax is gone
• HSA penalty tax is 10%
• Prescription tax is gone
• Medical device tax is gone
• Business owners can deduct part d expense again
• Deductible medical expenses are back to 7.5% instead of 10% AGI
• Tanning tax is gone (ironic)
• Net investment tax is gone
• HSA deductibility will be adjusted every year for COLA
• Both spouses can now make catch-up contributions to a family HSA
• 60 day limitation to setting up an HSA account when first getting the plan for purposes of a current claim
• No coverage for abortion clinics
• Repeal of cost-sharing subsidy
• MLR set by states
• Grants for states battling opiod addiction (like mine)
• CHIP is reauthorized
• $5,000 app fee to create small business association health pool
• Psychiatric coverage is limited to institutionalized individuals only, and for stays up to 30 days but not to exceed 90 days
• The Senate draft health-care bill doesn’t currently include a provision penalizing people who don’t maintain continuous coverage

Overall, the Senate bill would be a bit of an improvement over Obamacare. But a slight improvement over a major disaster is still a disaster.

Shortly after the bill was unveiled, four conservative senators announced that they cannot vote for the bill the way that it stands now…

However, four conservative Republican senators —Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mike Lee of Utah— said they “are not ready to vote for this bill” because it does not go far enough in repealing Obamacare. Separately, moderate GOP Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada said he has “serious concerns” about the bill’s impact on Medicaid patients.
“Currently, for a variety of reasons, we are not ready to vote for this bill, but we are open to negotiation and obtaining more information before it is brought to the floor,” Paul, Cruz, Johnson and Lee said in a joint statement. “There are provisions in this draft that represent an improvement to our current health care system, but it does not appear this draft as written will accomplish the most important promise that we made to Americans: to repeal Obamacare and lower their health care costs.”

On the other end of the spectrum, a couple of RINO (Republican in name only) senators are expected to object to the bill because it would reduce funding for Planned Parenthood…

The Senate bill would cut Medicaid funds from organizations that provide abortions for one year. It does not mention Planned Parenthood by name, but the legislation is clearly targeting the organization, which Republican leaders have promised to defund.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, have both expressed concerns about any legislation that defunds Planned Parenthood. Murkowski said Thursday she was still reviewing the bill’s provisions.

President Trump says that the Senate bill is not a finished product and that it is open for negotiation.

But I don’t see how in the world anyone is going to be able to craft something that will be acceptable to at least 50 Republicans in the Senate.

Unfortunately, even if the Republicans pass a health care bill somehow it will not fix the giant mess that our system has become.

One step in the right direction would be to legalize the kind of national buying groups that Rand Paul has proposed…

Imagine if the tens of millions of people who belong to Credit Unions, or organizations like the NRA or ACLU, could negotiate as a group for health insurance and drug prices!  Imagine the insurance executives and drug companies coming on bended knee to negotiate for the business of tens of millions of people!
I have proposed legalizing nationwide Association Health Plans.  My Senate Bill 222 does just that.  I have advised the President to act through his Secretary of Labor to review existing law and make it explicitly known that national associations can negotiate as one to bring down insurance prices.

And I would also like to see an expansion of direct primary care and other models that bypass the health insurance companies entirely.

The health insurance companies collectively make a profit of 15 billion dollars a year, and they are a big part of what is wrong with our current system.

There is so much that needs to be done to fix things, and both parties are failing the American people.

So let’s hope that we can remove a lot of these incumbents in 2018, because we definitely need some fresh thinking in Washington.

As Predicted, Obamacare Is Absolutely Killing The Middle Class - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

As Predicted, Obamacare Is Absolutely Killing The Middle Class

Posted: 21 Aug 2016  Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

The critics of Obamacare have been proven right.  The Obama administration promised that health insurance premiums would go down.  Instead, they have absolutely skyrocketed.  The Obama administration promised that Obamacare would not kill jobs.  Instead, firms are hiring fewer workers because of suffocating health care costs. 

As you will see below, even the Federal Reserve is admitting this. 

The Obama administration also promised that the big health insurance companies would love the new Obamacare plans and would eagerly compete with one another to win customers in the new health insurance marketplaces.  Instead, many of the big health insurance companies are now dropping Obamacare plans altogether.

We witnessed the latest stunning example of this phenomenon just a few days ago.  It turns out that Aetna has been losing hundreds of millions of dollars on plans sold through the health exchanges, and now they plan to pull out of the program almost entirely…

Earlier this week, Aetna, which covers about 900,000 people through the health exchanges created under Obamacare, announced that it would dramatically reduce its presence those exchanges. Instead of expanding into five new states this year, as the insurer had previously planned, the company said that it would drop out of 11 of the 15 states in which it currently sells under the law.
Aetna’s decision follows similar moves from other insurers: UnitedHealth announced in April that it would cease selling plans on most exchanges. Shortly after, Humana pulled out of two states, Virginia and Alabama. More than a dozen of the nonprofit health insurance cooperatives set up under the law—health insurance carriers created using government-back loans in order to spur competition—have failed entirely. While some insurers are entering the exchanges, even more are leaving.

Another one of “the big five”, UnitedHealth, is going to lose more than half a billion dollars on Obamacare plans.  So just a few months ago they also announced that they would be dramatically scaling back their participation in the program.

Because of the ridiculous costs, health insurance companies are either going to have to abandon the exchanges completely or they will have to raise rates substantially.
Needless to say, the people that are going to ultimately feel the pain from all of this are consumers…

Customers who are now forced to obtain insurance or pay a hefty fine that grows more costly over time are being left in a difficult position. Americans are essentially stuck between a rock and hard place, either losing coverage entirely, or having to cough up money for a plan they can’t afford.
“Something has to give,” said Larry Levitt, a healthcare law expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Either insurers will drop out or insurers will raise premiums.“

On the low end of the spectrum, tens of millions of poor Americans benefit from government programs that provide health care at little or no cost.

On the other end of the spectrum, the very wealthy can afford to pay the ridiculously high health insurance premiums that we are seeing under Obamacare.

So what this means is that the people that are being hurt the most by Obamacare are those that belong to the middle class.

As I mentioned above, employers are now hiring less workers because of Obamacare, and that is very bad news for the middle class.  One recent study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York discovered that nearly one out of every five firms is “employing fewer workers” because of this insidious law…

According to a new survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 20.9% of manufacturing firms in the state said they were employing fewer workers because of the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare law known as Obamacare, while 16.8% of respondents in the service sector said the same.

And middle class Americans that have to pay for their own health insurance are being hit with much higher bills these days.  According to one recent study, it is being projected that the average Obamacare premium will go up 24 percent in 2016…

Now, courtesy of a new study by independent analyst Charles Gaba – who has crunched the numbers for insurers participating in the ACA exchanges in all 50 states – we can also calculate what the average Obamacare premium increase across the entire US will be: using proposed and approved rate increase requests, the average Obamacare premium is expected to surge by a whopping 24% this year.

Even NBC News, which is about as pro-Obama as you can get, is reporting on the crippling premium increases that are devastating the middle class…

Millions of people who pay the full cost of their health insurance will face the sting of rising premiums next year, with no financial help from government subsidies.
Renewal notices bearing the bad news will go out this fall, just as the presidential election is in the home stretch.
“I don’t know if I could swallow another 30 or 40 percent without severely cutting into other things I’m trying to do, like retirement savings or reducing debt,” said Bob Byrnes, of Blaine, Minnesota, a Twin Cities suburb. His monthly premium of $524 is already about 50 percent more than he was paying in 2015, and he has a higher deductible.

All over the nation people are getting hit like this.

Personally, my health insurance company wanted to nearly double the rate I was paying when Obamacare fully kicked in.  So I searched around and found another plan that was only about a 30 percent increase, but at least it wasn’t nearly double what I had been paying before.

But when the time came to renew that plan, they wanted to jump my premium up another 50 percent per month.

Those of us that are in the middle are being crushed by Obamacare.  We aren’t poor enough to qualify for government assistance, and we aren’t wealthy enough for these ridiculous health insurance premiums not to matter.

Just about everything that Barack Obama promised us about Obamacare has turned out to be a lie.

So where in the accountability?

This is one of the big reasons why nearly one out of every five U.S. adults lives with their parents or their grandparents these days.  Many young adults cannot afford the basics of life such as health insurance, and so they have got to find a way to cut back expenses somewhere.  If that means moving back in with Mom and Dad, that is what some of them are going to do.

I am astounded that our system of health care has become so messed up.  But this is just more evidence of how our society is falling apart in thousands of different ways, and I am not optimistic that things will be turned around any time soon.

These Christian Colleges Just Scored a Big Win on Obamacare

This decision makes a Supreme Court decision on the HHS mandate even more likely. (Reuters)

These Christian Colleges Just Scored a Big Win on Obamacare

CHARISMA CAUCUS  charisma news sept. 18, 2015

On Thursday, a federal court ruled that the government cannot impose massive IRS fines on religious ministries for following their faith.

The ruling, which disagrees with those of other federal courts, drastically increases the likelihood of a Supreme Court review of the HHS mandate - the provision in ObamaCare that requires employers to give women abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization without a co-pay.

If non-profit organizations meet highly selective criteria, they may sign a waiver, which will force insurance companies to provide contraceptives to women for "free." Several religious organizations say signing the forms is a participation in sin.

The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to take up cases involving the Little Sisters of the Poor, Houston Baptist and Texas Baptist Universities, and other religious ministries. Thursday's pair of court opinions protects Dordt College, CNS Ministries, and others from having to comply with the HHS mandate.

"Fifteen federal judges now agree that the government has no right to dictate or second guess a person's sincere religious beliefs," said Lori Windham, senior counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. "The government keeps telling the Supreme Court, 'Move along, nothing important here' in hopes that the Court will ignore this crucial issue. But with [Thursday's] decisions, the Court will have great reason to decide this issue in the next term."

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeal's opinion stated, "When the government imposes a direct monetary penalty to coerce conduct that violates religious belief, '[t]here has never been a question that the government 'imposes a substantial burden on the exercise of religion.'"

Although the government argued that the ministries were being paranoid and that it was simply asking them for signatures on a piece of meaningless paper, the court both refused to second guess the ministries' beliefs and saw through the government's argument.

"We need look no further than the government's own litigation behavior to gauge the importance of [the government's forms] in the regulatory scheme." If it was just a meaningless form, "there would be no need to insist on [the ministries'] compliance with" the government's demands.

"The government has many ways to achieve its goals without trampling over religious freedom," said Senior Counsel Lori Windham. The appeals court's "decision correctly protects the rights of religious ministries serving the most vulnerable in our society."

Last week five judges criticized the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the Little Sisters of the Poor, predicting the "gravely wrong" decision "will not long survive." Currently seven petitions involving non-profit ministries now await review by the Supreme Court, including the Little Sisters of the Poor (see video).

The Becket Fund, a religious liberty legal organization, continues to lead the charge against the unconstitutional HHS mandate, winning a landmark victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. It currently represents the Little Sisters of the Poor, Mother Angelica's Eternal Word Television Network, and Houston Baptist University, along with many other religious ministries.

Seven other petitions challenging the HHS mandate have already been filed at the Supreme Court, and more are expected.

For a limited time, we are extending our celebration of the 40th anniversary of Charisma. As a special offer, you can get 40 issues of Charisma magazine for only $40!

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Pro-Life Leaders Furious over Obamacare Abortion Funds

By Paul Strand

CBN News Washington Sr. Correspondent

Friday, September 19, 2014

WASHINGTON -- Outraged lawmakers and pro-life leaders gathered outside the U.S. Capitol building Thursday to demand Congress put an end to Obamacare's massive funding of health care plans that pay for abortions

They pointed out past laws specifically forbid this, but Obamacare is ignoring that legislation and the president's own promises that no taxpayer dollars would subsidize abortion.

The speakers at the Capitol Hill news conference were reacting to a new Government Accountability Office report showing massive federal funding of abortion is allowed for under the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare.

"One thousand-thirty six plans cover elective abortions and are subsidized by taxpayer funds," Arina Grossu, with the Family Research Council's Center for Human Dignity, said.

"You not only can't keep your doctor, you also can't avoid supporting abortion if you're a taxpayer in this country given Obamacare," Ovide LaMontagne, general counsel of Americans United for Life, said.

The Hyde Amendment passed by Congress in 1977 has made it illegal for taxpayer money to pay for abortion. President Obama also pledged during negotiations over the Affordable Care Act that would continue.

Jeanne Monahan, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said the opposite has happened.

"Obama promised up and down, right and left, that abortion would not be covered in the health care law, and that Americans could be assured on his promise that the Hyde protections that we've known since the 1970s would still be covered in the health care law," Monahan told CBN News. "Well, unfortunately, we know now that President Obama has broken his promises."

"Nancy Pelosi said you wouldn't know what's in the bill unless you pass it - except for this: President Obama and the leadership of Congress said there would be no federal subsidies of abortion coverage," LaMontagne added. "And they have either lied or been grossly negligent in enforcing and following up on their promises."

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., helps lead the pro-life caucus in the House of Representatives.

"Agree or disagree with abortion funding, and thankfully a majority of Americans do not want public funds being used for abortion, but people don't like to be deceived. They don't like to be lied to," he said. "And that's exactly what has happened here."

"These massive subsidies for abortion-covering plans amount to a sharp break from decades of federal policy under the Hyde Amendment," Susan Muskett, with the National Right to Life Committee, added.

Smith agreed.

"It is completely, totally, absolutely contrary to the Hyde Amendment," he said.

Smith and other pro-life legislators spearheaded a move in the House to fix the problem with a bill called HR7 but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has refused to let the Senate vote on its version of that bill.

"Polls have shown that Americans don't want abortion coverage in their plans. And they also don't support federal funds for abortion," Melissa Swearingen, with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said. "The best solution would be a simple and clean fix. Enact HR7, which is the 'No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.' It does basically what it says in the title: it prohibits federal funds going to abortion."

"But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has prevented Senate action on identical legislation," Muskett pointed out.

"Sen. Reid when he was in the House was one of the most pro-life members of the House of Representatives," Smith said. "His record was identical to that of Henry Hyde."

In the spirit of that record, Smith asked Sen. Reid to get out of the way and let the Senate vote to make it so taxpayer money can't be used to pay for abortions.

The GAO report found that every single Obamacare taxpayer subsidized plan in Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont pays for abortion on demand.

In New York, 405 of the 426 subsidized plans subsidize abortion on demand. In California, it's 86 of the 90 subsidized plans, and in Massachusetts, 109 of 111.

After Chick-Fil-A Success, Mike Huckabee Pushes 'Hobby Lobby Day' - GINA MEEKS, Charisma News

The Family Research Council has organized a 'Hobby Lobby Day,' and Mike Huckabee is urging people to show their support for the company by participating. (Nicholas Eckhart/Flickr/Creative Commons)

After Chick-Fil-A Success, Mike Huckabee Pushes 'Hobby Lobby Day'

3/28/2014 GINA MEEKS charisma news

When Chick-fil-A came under fire for comments CEO and President Dan Cathy made about homosexuality, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee asked customers to show their support. Now he’s doing the same for Hobby Lobby.

The Supreme Court began hearing arguments this week in the arts-and-crafts retailer’s case opposing the contraception mandate in Obamacare. The Green family will be forced to pay $1.3 million per day in fines or cancel health care coverage for their employees if they lose this case.

According to a poll commissioned by Family Research Council and Alliance Defending Freedom, 59 percent of likely voters disapprove of the HHS mandate (including 54 percent of women ages 18-44).

The Family Research Council is asking Christians across the nation to show their support for Hobby Lobby on Saturday.

An event called “Hobby Lobby Day” on Facebook asks people to change their profile to show support, shop at Hobby Lobby stores or online on Saturday, say thank you with a card, and share a photo of the shopping trip on social media with the #HobbyLobbyDay hashtag.

“If Obamacare forces Hobby Lobby ... to provide abortive drugs, even though the privately run, family-run business opposes it on moral grounds, then the government has decided that you can only believe so much," Huckabee said on his Fox News television show Saturday. "And when there’s a conflict, the individual loses to the government. Now that, my friend, is a loss of liberty. This is a fundamentally outrageous action to anyone, liberal or conservative, who believes the Constitution was created to keep us free, not to keep us from being free.”

Huckabee says Hobby Lobby Day gives people the opportunity to show their support “and to express appreciation for [Hobby Lobby’s] courage in risking the very existence of their business to stand for what should be clear-cut, constitutional rights.”

Huckabee adds, “If religious liberty and freedom of conscience doesn’t exist for Hobby Lobby, how long will it be before it’s taken from you? Enough of government thinking it’s God and trying to act like it. We not only owe it to our children and grandchildren, but we owe it to the founders who meant to guarantee our freedom.”