Like having No Health Care at all: Trump to strip ACA of ALL Protections, allow Denial of Life Saving Health Care base on Religious Belief!!!

"Thank God for Trump" cultists (MAGA voters) continue to happily accept their health care costs going up and their health care access going down. The mindnumbing infallibility of Trump does not extend to any Democratic lawmaker, who if they had pulled this sh**, would have been vilified as a tax and spend liberal who kills jobs. 

1. Trump's Over-the-Top Complete End to ACA: Remember when Republicans desperately ran and lost on the issue of keeping preexisting conditions no matter what happened to ObamaCare? It turns out it was all a lie, again. The Trump God is getting rid of it all...

The Trump administration has formally called on a federal appeals court to strike down the entirety of the Affordable Care Act ... argued that the repeal of the individual mandate in 2017 rendered the entire ACA unconstitutional. Prior to this, the DOJ instead argued that portions of the law could continue without the mandate in place. “The remaining ACA provisions should not be severed from the individual mandate, regardless of whether the government might support some of those provisions as a policy matter,” DOJ wrote in the brief.

Gone? Any hope of keeping preexisting conditions (which would have been incredibly expensive to keep without the entire ACA in place), keeping your kids on your policy until they're 26, or getting a tax credit to help pay for those ever-increasing premiums.  

2. Trump allows Religious Beliefs to Deny Health Care to Americans: Religious freedom is a protected First Amendment right, but not your need for life-saving health care. So, it's that simple. It's a kind of "thoughts and prayers" escape clause to deny treatment for anyone, maybe even sinful liberal socialist who back choice or science? You never know:

President Donald Trump during remarks on the National Day of Prayer, (announced he) finalized a new 440-page rule strengthening protections for healthcare workers who refuse to provide care that violates their religious or moral beliefs ... provides enforcement tools for 25 laws passed by Congress that are already on the books.

"Refusing to provide care" sounds dangerous, doesn't it! This is "dominionism, Christian political ideologies that seek to institute a nation governed by Christians based on their personal understandings of biblical law." This is part of a final push to declare the US a Christian nation, as other religions are vilified and banned via immigration policies.

Trump Wants to make it even Harder to get Health Care!!! Like I said, religion has constitutional protections and providing life-saving health care does not. This quote says it all:

"The regulation will allow anyone from a doctor to a receptionist to entities like hospitals and pharmacies to deny a patient critical — and sometimes lifesaving — care."

So instead of making it easier to see a doctor or get the best hospital care and declaring health care a right and not a privilege, we're instead subject to surprise denials of treatment at the most critical point in our lives.  

Roger Severino, director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which will enforce the rule, said "We are giving (25) laws life with this regulation," adding his agency wants to keep workers from being “bullied” out of healthcare because of their beliefs. 

ALERT: TRUMP NOT PROTECTING PEOPLE WHO NEED HEALTH CARE, BUT INSTEAD...

...The rule will protect providers, individuals and other healthcare entities from having to provide, participate in, pay for, provide coverage of or refer for services such as abortion, sterilization or assisted suicide. It also includes conscience protections with respect to advance directives.

In other words, if you are given power of attorney and given the responsibility to cease life support as directed by your loved one, you could be stopped from carrying out their last wishes. As you can see below, this is more political than it is religious:

For instance, (Severino said) students cannot be excluded from medical training ... adding that the OB-GYN profession should not be a “pro-life free zone.”

And not one news outlet thought to explain what the heck the 1,300 complaints were about, or whether the public comments were for or against this policy:

Last year, HHS received more than 1,300 complaints alleging discrimination in a healthcare setting because of religious beliefs or conscience issues. “There is a problem out there … We’ve seen troubling actions across the country,” Severino said.

The rule has been controversial since it was proposed last year, and OCR received over 242,000 public comments, Severino said.

The reaction!!! Now let's hear from the reality-based health and legal community: 

1. The American Civil Liberties Union said the final rule will allow discrimination. “Denying patients healthcare is not religious liberty. Discriminating against patients based on their gender or gender expression is not religious liberty. Medical standards, not religious belief, should guide medical care.”

2. Physicians for Reproductive Health, a doctor-led national advocacy organization, called the rule “outrageous” in this tweet, “BREAKING: The Trump-Pence administration just finalized a rule that would allow personal beliefs to dictate patient care. This is outrageous. #PutPatientsFirst”

3. The Center for Reproductive Rights branded it the "Denial of Care Rule” rather than the “Conscience Right in Healthcare Rule." “For decades, there have been well-oiled systems in place to make sure medical professionals can opt out of procedures that go against their beliefs. These systems respect religious liberty and make sure patients get the care they need. This new policy leaves zero safeguards for the patient,” said Susan Inman, the group’s chief counsel for federal policy and advocacy.

4. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America called the rule “dangerous” and said it puts patients’ health at risk, especially women and LGBTQ patients. The rule could result in a pharmacist turning away a patient seeking birth control or antidepressants because of personal beliefs or a pregnant woman being denied life-saving treatment because a hospital administrator personally believes the treatment could harm her pregnancy.

5. “Discrimination is insidious, sometimes guised as religion, which is why the National LGBTQ Task Force is working for full legal protections,” said Rea Carey, the group’s executive director.

Still to come, the following story and blog post in the works...

Why is the US making it so hard to stay healthy and alive? Seriously. 

Walker/Schimel attack Department of Public Instruction pushing costly taxpayer bus rides for kids in Religious Schools.

Under Scott Walker and the Republicans, the law can be manipulated just enough to guarantee a certain outcome, no matter how much it defies the intent of a law or how much it will eventually cost hardworking taxpayers. You can bet the recent State Supreme Court decision taking control of the Department of Public Instruction away from Walker was at the heart of this retaliation.

First, Walker's sweet revenge would make it harder to defend laws he doesn't like in court:

WSJ: Gov. Scott Walker is blocking the state Department of Public Instruction from seeking outside counsel in a lawsuit filed in federal court — a move that comes after the state Department of Justice dropped the education agency as a client in the suit.

UPDATE: According to former AG Peg Laughtenschlager, Walker has a legal obligation to appoint representation to DPI. From the Devil's Advocated Radio show:



Having a right wing "institute" and lawsuit mill ready to defend school privatization special interests with deep pockets helps too:

The parents ... represented by conservative legal group Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty allege the Freiss Lake School District and DPI are denying the parents’ First Amendment rights and are violating their right to exercise religion by not providing transportation for their children to school.

You know story, asking taxpayer to foot the bus ride for their kids, 5 days a week to what is essentially "Sunday school." Very Republican of them, but not very fiscally conservative or small government (I thought they didn't need government help?).

State law requires public school districts to provide transportation to private school students, but only to one school per religious denomination in an attendance area.

Friess Lake school officials denied the children transportation because they live in the attendance area of another Catholic school that already receives state transportation, and is affiliated with the Milwaukee Roman Catholic Archdiocese ... DPI sided with the school district in March.

The right wing lawsuit mill is exploiting a possible loophole that could cost taxpayers lots of money, and prompt other religious schools to rewrite their "articles of incorporation," removing any reference to their religion. 

CJ Szafir, an attorney representing the parents, said based on a former Supreme Court decision, the law requires the DPI to only look at a school’s articles of incorporation to determine a school’s affiliation. Those articles describe the school as a private school governed independently of any denomination. 

It's a big loophole because the school itself could get away with claiming their religion on their website, school name and promotional materials, but never mention it in their article of incorporation.

The school’s website offers a more precise description of the school — “an independent and private traditional Roman Catholic School.”

“This case will come down to what kind of inquiry the government can use to determine whether two private schools are affiliated with one another,” said Szafir.

Walker and Schimel want a narrow interpretation of the Supreme Court decision, wording not mentioned in the article here:

DPI contends the same Supreme Court decision does not prohibit DPI or the school from looking beyond the articles of incorporation to determine whether attendance area of schools within the same religious denomination overlap. In essence, legal precedent asks DPI in these situations to determine whether a school is Catholic, Lutheran or based in other religions, which is what the department did.

Christian predators lure Middleton High School minors with food at bizarre "Jesus Lunch."

The following story isn't much different than letting strangers hang out at schools offering minor students candy.

Next year I'll have two sons at Middleton High School, and I don't appreciate uncooperative predator adults who refuse to work with administrators, foisting their agenda using food to lure students off school grounds to indoctrinate them with a message I don't have any control over. These are minors for Gods sake!

While the school's principal gave a number of policy reasons the "Jesus lunches" should stop, one big one was left off the list; the school is my surrogate during the day for my minor children. Filling these young influential minds with whatever fringe religious message they concoct is not happening if I can help it.

Officials are trying to work with these lawsuit seeking zealots to find some way to make the Jesus lunches function under the watchful eye of the school district, which is insane. Instead, Middleton should make the park off limits, and ban students from hanging out there. I don't know who these "moms" are and why they decided to target kids, but they did that, and it's creepy to say the least.

Here's WKOW's  coverage of these Jesus freaks:

Their attorney Phillip Stamman (said) “the question here is not us being in opposition to the school, but rather that we have a right to be in Fireman's Park. Fireman's Park - a public park owned by the City of Middleton - remains accessible to everyone in the public for the purposes of assembly and free speech.

The five mothers who started Jesus Lunch declined an interview with 27 News. They have obtained permits to use the park from the city of Middleton and have hired an attorney to represent them as they move forward with plans to host more events, saying it's well within their First Amendment rights.

Just what we need, a Jesus carnival sideshow next to the school. 

Republicans get more ridiculous; pushing exceptions to religious freedom!

Taking paranoia to new levels, Republican have constructed an even crazier conspiratorial plot cooked up by the "left."

Raw Story: Anti-Muslim conservatives are coalescing around a narrative to push against national outrage about the arrest of a 14-year-old boy who built a clock and brought it to school. While more libertarian-minded conservatives blamed the incident on “zero tolerance” policies — and not racism or xenophobia — others are warning the incident is a “setup” intended to keep Americans from being Islamophobic enough.

Pamela Geller — who organized an anti-Islam art contest earlier this year in Garland, near the teen’s home in Irving — also claimed the ninth-grader’s arrest was part of a plot by Obama to undermine national security. “This story is pure agitprop most fatal,” Geller warned. “’If you see something, say something’ is now racism. The whole thing has clearly been a setup, and its effect will be to make Americans less safe. If you ever see a Muslim with a suspicious object, remember the lesson of Ahmed Mohamed: to say something would be ‘racism.’ That could end up being the epitaph of America and the free world.” Geller also accused the teen’s family of engaging in Muslim “supremacist stunts.”

This is how conservatives think, what makes them tick, and what differentiates them from liberals:

Jim Hanson, vice president of the anti-Muslim Center for Security Policy, described the boy’s homemade device as “half a bomb,” reported The Intercept. “It looks exactly like a number of IED triggers that were produced by the Iranians and used to kill U.S. troops in the war in Iraq,” Hanson said.

Frank Gaffney, the think tank’s founder and president, agreed … said the controversy was an “influence operation” by the Council on American-Islamic Relations … the civil rights group was using “professional victim-promoting” to wage “civilization jihad” with the assistance of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The anti-government Oath Keepers group complained that schools are too quick to punish students for wearing NRA T-shirts or carrying “Wonder Woman” lunch boxes — but then said Mohamed’s teacher was right to alert authorities to the boy’s clock.

And for those pushing religious freedom, no matter what the Constitution says, this comment might be a bit of a contradiction:

Oath Keeper David Codrea wrote, “As is anyone who believe a prime function of government is to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, as opposed to flooding the Republic with inimical alien cultures.”

Walker pushes workplace discrimination/the firing of gay employees based on religious freedom and the conscience clause.

Make no mistake about it Scott Walker has a backup plan to allow gay discrimination to flourish if he had his way.

In February 25, 1082, Republican governor Lee Dreyfus signed the nations first Gay Rights Law. The reason? 

Dreyfus: “(The) fundamental Republican principle that government should have a very restricted involvement in people's private and personal lives.”

Not so principled now, it’s just a law that could and will be repealed or weakened at any time, especially by Walker. In this Meet the Press exchange, Chuck Todd asked Walker if he believes gay workers could be fired. Here it comes, the old "That means you have to have that balance" BS. You know, firing gay people because of your religious liberties and conscience represents a "balance:"



Todd could have followed up Walker's answer with a whole slew of questions, like what would gay workers do if they're in a state that doesn't have a law protecting them from from getting fired? Will Walker suggest they move? Acquiesce to being a second class citizen? Yes.

Guys like Walker have a blind spot when it comes to religious freedom, how one person could infringe on the religious freedoms of another. It's an easy concept to grasp.

But Walker's best chance to discriminate is in the state Constitution; the “conscience clause,” and he knows it:

Walker: "The Wisconsin constitution explicitly protects the rights of conscience of our citizens … the government will not coerce you to act against your religious beliefs. I call on the president and all governors to join me in reassuring millions of Americans that the government will not force them to participate in activities that violate their deeply held religious beliefs. No one wants to live in a country where the government coerces people to act in opposition to their conscience."

And if that doesn't work? Well, like all conservative politicians, they have no problem promising to pass a constitutional amendment that, for the first time, would limit freedoms and take rights away:

Walker: "We will need a conservative president who will appoint men and women to the Court who will faithfully interpret the Constitution and laws … to support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to reaffirm the ability of the states to continue to define marriage."

Indiana and Arkansas Religious Freedom changes just window dressing....

The changes in Indiana and Arkansas weren't even close to changing these discriminatory "religious freedom" acts. Check out the comments from Dan Savage, and Sarah Warbelow of the Human Rights Campaign, as they dissect the meaningless changes. You have to wonder why so many opponents of this law are now satisfied:



Wolf Blitzer interviewed war crazy Senator Tom Cotton, where Cotton said "in Iran, they hang you for the crime of being gay." Gee, thanks Tom (notice how he said it was a crime). Cotton was asked his reaction to the law in Arkansas, and responded, "well in Indiana, we believe in religious freedom." Blitzer interrupted and said "everybody believes in religious freedom." Nice one Wolf:



Wisconsin has its own religious freedom bill waiting in the wings...ever get the feeling Republicans states over a short period of time will all look the same and have the same one size fits all right wing set of laws? I guess that's somehow different from those "intrusive" one size fits all federal laws?  WISC and Jessica Arp: