New Health Guidelines from HHS Trample on Conscience

Heritage  "Forcing private insurance plans to pay for morally controversial offerings such as contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients raises obvious questions regarding freedom of conscience. Federal law requires respect for the conscience of health care providers on many of these issues. Unfortunately, the new HHS guidelines show disrespect for freedom of conscience."

....

The new HHS guidelines contain a conscience protection, but it is offensively narrow. Only “certain religious employers” qualify for the protection, and the guidelines make clear that a religious employer is only one that:

• Has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose;
• Primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets;
• Primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets; and is a non-profit organization under particular provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.

" There are at least four serious problems with this “protection” for conscience."....

Good ole Joe

comicallyincorrect.com/

Saving a Job

http://www.worldmag.com/editorialcartoons/

A Lebanese Town’s Dilemma Teaches about Islam, Freedom, and the Future of Europe

Barry Rubin  "In the Middle East, the best policy is to ally with people of Muslim religion who despise Islamist rule, like the oppositions in Turkey, Iran, and Lebanon; real democratic forces in Egypt and Syria; and Christian minorities who don’t want to be wiped out. Otherwise, nationalist dictatorships — some of which are friendly to the West; most of which had become cautious — will be replaced by Islamist dictatorships — all of which are hostile to the West, eager for sponsoring terrorism and starting wars.

"This battle isn’t against “Muslims.” It is against radical Muslims? Are all Muslims radical Islamists? Ask those who are their victims and hate them. If one-third of Egyptians seem ready to vote for Islamism, a majority don’t want an Islamist state. They may get one anyway because the Islamists are better-organized, often better-financed, more ruthless, and even often seem to enjoy more Western sympathy*."

*Western sympathy pictured.

UPDATED: Iwo Jima today -- it's still a gut-clutcher

UPDATE: Marine who led WWII charge up Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima dies   February 17, 2016  "The Marine who led the charge to place the first American flag above Iwo Jima has died.

First Lt. John Wells, 94, died Feb. 11 at the Arvada Care Rehabilitation Center in Arvada, Colorado.

Wells received the Navy Cross, Bronze Star and Purple Heart after leading his Marines in a frontal assault up the slopes of Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

He didn’t make it to the top after taking multiple enemy rounds, but continued to command, leading his men to victory. His platoon raised the first flag atop the mountain, hours before the iconic photo of the second flag raising was captured.

. . . 

His published his memoir of the Battle of Iwo Jima, “Give Me 50 Marines Not Afraid to Die,” in 1995.

. . . "The engagement gained his platoon the distinction as the most decorated platoon to fight in a single engagement in the history of the Marine Corps." . . .


Solo's Hideaway Fun Pages

"A heavy machine gun, possibly a Japanese Type 92 Heavy Machine Gun, lies abandoned in

a bunker overlooking the landing beaches. There are still dozens of these bunkers all over

the island. Most of them were destroyed during the battle. This pillbox still bore the scars of

the fighting. It was pockmarked with bullet holes and the inside was blackened. I imagine a

flame thrower was used to clear that pillbox."

This monument was erected on the spot where Franklin Sousley, Harlon Block, Michael Strank, John Bradley, Rene Gagnon, and Ira Hayes raised the American flag 4 days into the battle for Iwo Jima . Iwo Jima is like Mecca for the Marines. Visiting Marines leave personal mementos behind during their 'pilgrimages'.

The Eagle, Globe and Anchors on the left and right side of the monument are completely covered in dog tags left by visiting Marines and service men to honor the 6,131 killed.

Hat tip to Ron Gazda, Texas.

None of Navy SEALS killed in Afghanistan were part of team that killed Osama bin Laden, but belonged to same elite unit/ how to defend our aircraft?

God bless our warriors fighting this evil that is radical Islam.

Miami Herald  "The 30 U.S. troops killed when their Chinook helicopter was shot down Saturday in western Afghanistan - many of them Navy SEALs - were fighting a war rarely talked about.

"They were not battling Afghanistan's ingrained corruption, or building new roads or crafting nascent local governments. They were part of a group of elite troops that operate stealthily in the night and go after the U.S.' most wanted targets of the war."
Islamists will be handing out sweets to passersby in the Middle East and Code Pink-types will be popping champaign corks here in the US.  The only mourning that I expect from the left will be PETA's anger over the lost dog.

Chinook helicopter

Laser-Based Missile Defense for Helicopters Being Developed.  Make it quick in case Iran has a hand in anti-aircraft technology going to Afghanistan.

Helicopters Equipped With Acoustic Shot Detection Bound for Afghanistan    "Army and Marine helicopters have been equipped with electronic detection and countermeasures to protect against shoulder fired and larger missiles for years. Yet, there are no systems to tell pilots when they’re coming under small arms fire. That’s about to change."

The way things are

http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2011/08/weekend-humor-or-not.html

Blame this on President Bush too

http://dougpowers.com/2011/08/06/miss-me-yet-credit-rating-edition/

Gateway Pundit

The 18 Countries With a Better Credit Rating Than the United States

The Inexplicables; Trying to fathom the liberal way of thinking.

Victor Davis Hanson  "There are a number of things I don’t fathom about contemporary American popular culture and politics. Here is a small sample."

1) Is there a theoretical limit to our national borrowing?....

2) What are we to make of the self-referential wealthy who demand higher taxes?....

3) Is contemporary American aristocracy compatible with, antithetical to, or the logical complement to modern liberalism?....

4) Fairly or not, the entire illegal immigration debate is couched in terms of anger at the U.S.....

5) I can never quite understand the writ against our ancestors.....

...."The tragedy of the entire university, postmodern race/class/gender writ against past Americans is the fact that our generation has little to show for its moral posturing. When Obama lists our sins from Hiroshima to supposed genocide, I wonder how he would have managed a wagon train, or what he would have done when facing the horrific choices of either sending the napalm-carrying B-29s over Japan or invading the island to trump an Okinawa ten times over. Would he have voted present?"

Economics: The politics of blame

Politico  "The clarity of the downgrade intensifies suggestions that the next year will be in no small part about pinning blame. Republican presidential candidates will blame Obama, and if he wants to escape that, he's likely to launch a more aggressive and direct round of finger-pointing at Republican Congressional leaders than we've seen to date."  Via Taegan D. Goddard's Political Wire

Obama partisans ignore facts when bashing Bush  "As far as tax cuts are concerned, Bush did indeed cut taxes for the wealthy -- along with everybody else who paid income taxes. But does Brown remember that tax revenues actually increased in the years after the Bush tax cuts took effect?"  Byron York.

Obama’s Two Financial Crises  "Why is Barack Obama president of the United States? Media coddling? A weak McCain campaign? A strong, if dishonest, effort by Obama to present himself as a pragmatic centrist? All of these things played a role, but the advent of the subprime crisis at the height of the 2008 presidential campaign was the decisive factor. No drama Obama responded well, while McCain seemed over his head."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/michaelramirez

Iran Commander: We Have Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles

Reza Khalili  "The radicals ruling Iran have now passed a major threshold in both their nuclear and missile programs. Barring any military action, which seems unlikely, there is no stopping them.

"We only have ourselves to blame as it is now certain that the Jihadists in Tehran will have nuclear bombs with the delivery system to target any country on the planet. Though the West relies on the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction, it will find how wrong this policy is with Iran."

Related: Iran's Nuclear Program  "American officials have also suggested that technical complications may have slowed Iran, which was once seen as being only a year or two away from a bomb. But the single biggest factor was seen as being the so-called Stuxnet worm, which analysts describe as likely the product of an Israeli-U.S. collaboration. They described it as the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed."

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 20, 2011: Stuxnet returns to bedevil Iran's nuclear systems

"But then, they were stunned to discover that the Stuxnet virus, far from being eradicated, was back with a vengeance and on the offensive against their centrifuges. Iran was forced to adopt a course it had avoided last year, namely to destroy the entire plant of approximately 5,000 working centrifuges and replace them all with new machines."

From the left:

How Iran defeated Obama  "Obama rashly dismissed this highly promising approach. Instead, yielding to his ill-intentioned advisers, he pressed for a new round of Security Council sanctions against Iran. But by making an enemy of Iran, he has simply increased the bill the United States will eventually have to pay – in Afghanistan, and no doubt in Iraq and elsewhere as well."

hyscience.com/

Obama’s Hopeless Iran Strategy  November 04, 2010  "Sometimes, in diplomacy, creative ambiguity can be helpful. But, in the looming showdown over the Iranian nuclear programme, it’s time for some plain speaking."

From the right:

Andrew C. McCarthy;  Understanding Obama on Iran  "It would have been political suicide to issue a statement supportive of the mullahs, so Obama’s instinct was to do the next best thing: to say nothing supportive of the freedom fighters. As this position became increasingly untenable politically, and as Democrats became nervous that his silence would become a winning political round for Republicans, he was moved grudgingly to burble a mild censure of the mullah’s “unjust” repression — on the order of describing a maiming as a regrettable “assault,” though enough for the Obamedia to give him cover."

Gates Says U.S. Lacks a Policy to Thwart Iran   "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document."

Dick Morris: The left turns on Obama

The Hill:   "The pathetic performance of President Obama in the debt debate is showing the left how incompetent and weak a leader it selected. Many are wishing they had Hillary Clinton in the White House instead! Once the man has to move beyond a set teleprompter speech, he is lost. During the BP disaster, he showed what a poor administrator he is. And now he has belied any pretensions to legislative skill. He is the un-Lyndon Johnson."