Sebelius, Obama, and Burwell
Posted on 05/21/2014 1:03:50 PM PDT by NYer
It isn’t getting a lot of attention, but the country is currently amid an important transition for the very important position of America’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, a job that now has extraordinary impact upon this nation.
The outgoing secretary is, of course, Kathleen Sebelius. And she isn’t going lightly. Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) is ensuring that she hears some gunfire in her ears. Issa is chair of the House Oversight Committee. Last week he warned Sebelius that she could face a vote of contempt of Congress if she and her department continue to refuse to comply with a subpoena issued over six months ago regarding the disastrous rollout of Obamacare.
The numerous technological glitches and embarrassments involved in the rollout prompted Issa and other Republicans to seek documents to try to uncover the underlying reasons. Issa’s committee fixed an October 24, 2013 deadline for the department. The deadline came and went. Issa then issued a subpoena six days later, on October 30, which HHS promised to comply with.
By Issa’s reckoning, that compliance hasn’t been very compliant. He has accused Sebelius of obstruction. “The Department’s substantial delay in production, combined with its improper redactions, has obstructed the Committee’s investigation,” said Issa. “Should the Department continue to refuse to produce all documents in un-redacted form as required by the instructions in the subpoena issued on October 30, 2013, I will have no alternative but to consider the full range of options to enforce the subpoena.”
Thus, the threat of contempt of Congress.
Meanwhile, as Sebelius deals with this, her replacement, Sylvia Burwell, is sitting through confirmation hearings elsewhere on Capitol Hill. She faces the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the first of two Senate committees that will hold hearings on her nomination.
Readers at this site probably shrug off much of this as politics as usual, and wonder what it has to do with the Roman Catholic Church. Well, maybe not a whole lot, but the bigger picture here is significant and, I think, has a compelling Catholic component.
Kathleen Sebelius will be remembered not only as Barack Obama’s longtime HSS Secretary, but also as the spearhead of Obamacare. For that, many liberals will remember her fondly.
Sebelius, Obama, and Burwell
As for Catholics, they ought to remember Sebelius as a lifetime/pro-choice Catholic whose terrible positions advancing abortion in Kansas – where she was governor – were magnified on the national stage as Obama’s point-person for the HHS mandate.
It is a perverse but fitting capstone to Sebelius’ public work that she became Barack Obama’s right-hand woman in forcing religious believers of all stripes to fund contraception and abortion drugs. Kathleen Sebelius doesn’t care if you’re a Mormon or a Mennonite, a priest or a nun, Hobby Lobby or the Little Sisters of the Poor. She wants you to support abortion services, directly or indirectly.
The HHS mandate is Kathleen Sebelius’ baby. She demanded it.
According to the New York Times and Politico, it was Sebelius and Valerie Jarrett, Barack Obama’s closest adviser, who championed the mandate from the outset. They did so even as the likes of Vice President Joe Biden and Obama Chief of Staff Bill Daley (both Catholics) warned the White House to carefully consider the backlash from the Catholic Church. Biden and Daley lost out to Jarrett and Sebelius.
Because of the HHS mandate, Kathleen Sebelius’ legacy includes one of the most anti-Catholic pieces of policy legislation and religious discrimination in the history of this country. That is quite a legacy for a Catholic public official.
Now, Sebelius slowly steps aside for the incoming HHS secretary, Sylvia Burwell, who had been the Obama White House’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. The media immediately hailed Burwell for her brilliance and competence, both of which stand in obvious contrast to the Obamacare website that Sebelius championed. Even then, only in Washington could someone who has presided over a record budget deficit (as Burwell has) be hailed for brilliance and competence.
What the media is not saying, however, is that Burwell is a committed yes-woman singularly committed to carrying out the boss’ wishes. That being the case, I expect her to be just as committed as Kathleen Sebelius was in carrying the torch for the HHS mandate. That’s not good news.
But whatever Burwell’s doings, I can say this much that gives me a measure of relief as a Catholic: At least she isn’t Catholic. At least we’ll no longer have a Catholic who is the point-person and poster girl for this ignoble and ignominious cause. I don’t know if that is much solace, but maybe it makes the ordeal slightly less painful.
As for the unborn children whose lives will be snuffed out at taxpayer expense, the pain continues. And for that ordeal, Kathleen Sebelius, lifetime Roman Catholic, will always shoulder her share of responsibility.
Good-bye, ping!
I don’t know why democrats are so scared of getting yelled at. Go to the hearing and just tell them you weren’t prepared. You thought the program worked and it didn’t. What is the big dang deal? Are they going to kill her? No. She should just go and take the lumps. Really. This is silly.
I’ll take you home again, Kathleen
Across the ocean wild and wide
To where your heart has ever been
Since you were first my bonnie bride.
The roses all have left your cheek.
I’ve watched them fade away and die
Your voice is sad when e’er you speak
And tears bedim your loving eyes.
Oh! I will take you back, Kathleen
To where your heart will feel no pain
And when the fields are fresh and green
I’II take you to your home again!
I know you love me, Kathleen, dear
Your heart was ever fond and true.
I always feel when you are near
That life holds nothing, dear, but you.
The smiles that once you gave to me
I scarcely ever see them now
Though many, many times I see
A dark’ning shadow on your brow.
To that dear home beyond the sea
My Kathleen shall again return.
And when thy old friends welcome thee
Thy loving heart will cease to yearn.
Where laughs the little silver stream
Beside your mother’s humble cot
And brightest rays of sunshine gleam
There all your grief will be forgot.
They’re not afraid of getting yelled at; they’re afraid they’ll slip and let some of the truth out. They’re also afraid their faces will give away the fact that they lie - allthe time.
“I don’t know why democrats are so scared of getting yelled at. Go to the hearing and just tell them you weren’t prepared. “
No, actually, I think it’s a good deal more complicated than that. They repeatedly, knowingly broke the law. Further, it probably meets the requirements of conspiracy to break the law. This involves special, illegal favors to special interests. It involves changing legal implementation dates and conspiracy to change the law so certain sections would not negatively impact Obama’s election chances. This is a huge can of worms and they’re trying to run out the clock on Obama’s presidency. If they threaten to have her arrested look for an Arkancide.
Now she’s off to make some serious dough in lobbying and consulting.
There not afraid. They do what the Democratic Central Committee tells them to do.
I'ts deeper than that - they have to be completely untouchable.
The Rats are now proceeding with an agenda that is so impossible to justify, that they've given up. So they instruct their minions to simply repeat policy positions and then go stark raving mad if anyone asks even th simplest, most obvious question about the idiocy they're spouting.
In return, they are told that they will never, ever be touched for their outrageous rape of civilized behavior. So under such conditions, it becomes extremely important that none of their leaders are ever seen anwering for anything. It serves to reassure the millions of monstrous minins that they too, will never have to answer for what they are doing - and that enables them to keep doing it (until they bring the country down around their ears, that is).
Look at that CNN newscaster affirming global warming as established and bringing on two crony religious punks to say that "denying" it is literally a SIN. You think she'd open her yap for one split second if she ever really had to answer for that atrocity? Hell no! Whoring is alright, they like it just fine - as long as they are protected from aver answering for it.
It's hard to imagine people who have completely surrendered their consciences. That's why conservatives have such a hard time grasping liberal behavior - because they think it's about the policies these whores are spouting. It is not! It is about obedience and indemnification - ONLY.
These creatures are hollow shells who have surrendered their souls to their masters. For them, there simply isn't anything else but barking when they are told to bark, and pissing when they are told to piss. They have forsaken their humanity, and now pursue lives of depravity as a result. That's why arguing or even discussing things with them is utterly, utterly pointless. And their insane rage will prove it to anyone who still doubts this.
Hey, who am I to . . . ah, the heck with it.
That is not entirely accurate.
Can you show us where she was, as you put it in bold font -- "excommunicated"?
She was [allegedly] told to not to not approach the altar for communion, which is not quite the same as formal excommunication.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/24/catholic-church-to-pressure-hhs-nominee-on-abortio/#ixzz32O4q2Yi2
From the same article;
“Personally, I believe abortion is wrong,” she said. “However, I disagree with the suggestion that criminalizing women and their doctors is an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the number of abortions in our nation.”
Now one can wonder at this, being that as Governor of Kansas she vetoed prohibitions against third-trimester abortions...leaving I suppose nothing much else but moral persuasion and [actual] support for adoption as more desirable path as last bastion against the [ahem] "medical procedure".
I can understand the desires of some to have her excommunicated, yet as far as I can find mention of that has not occurred, though I suppose it may have in secret.
Meanwhile Salvation, you have not "filled in missing information" but instead have possibly misled persons here unless you know of Sebelius having been formally excommunicated. The "self-excommunication" clause just doesn't quite get there either.
The abortion issue certainly does have it's complexities.
Without changing persons themselves through conversion and education...what hope is there that we will see the end of "legal" abortion?
Instead of focusing too much upon the evil symptom (abortion), what plan of action is open for those of us who would prefer to make abortion "rare" if at all occurring, other than continuing to present options (including advisement against out-of-wedlock sexual intercourse) coupled with realistic appraisal that "unwanted" pregnancies will continue to occur -- if we are not able to convince the women (and men too) involved to desire taking responsibility for their actions (for some just are not up to the task for hosts of reasons) in which case promotion for and assistance towards adoption as a last option seems our last refuge.
You can look it up on the internet. She was excommunicated by her Bishop in Kansas.
Or are you saying I must do your homework? Not too wise with a former teacher! LOL!
I ALREADY "looked it up", and saw that it was as I said -- which is short of formal excommunication.
That is --- unless there is some formal development outside of published news, which is a possibility I suppose, but still not evident from what has come from "her bishop in Kansas" or any other (Roman Catholic) bishop, for all the various talk I can find concerning the matter, rather begins and ends with the request that she not "approach the altar" for communion, etc., with there being no announcement of formal excommunication coming from any RC bishop who "advised" her publicly.
Can you you show me any different?
As for yourself being a "former teacher" --- does that make you inerrant, or is it more like unwilling to allow yourself to be corrected?
she looks like she would have greeted the Jews getting off the trains.....
Star Trek: TOS, The Naked Time
Sebelius is no Catholic. She just plays one on TV.
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