Of Bishops and Congressmen

You may have seen news stories over the weekend about the controversy surrounding Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin, Representative Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and the Bishop’s request that Kennedy refrain from taking communion because of his publicly stated pro-choice stance.

As a result of the controversy, Bishop Tobin appeared on “Hardball with Chris Matthews.” For those of you who can’t bear to watch Chris Matthews, I sympathize – I couldn’t watch the entire thing myself. Fortunately, the part I found really interesting was right at the beginning. The segment started with a clip of John F. Kennedy speaking to Ministerial Association of Greater Houston on September 12, 1960.

“I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish — where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source — where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials.”

If I Wanted To Live Like A European, I’d Move To Europe

How do you suppose it is that European countries can afford to provide health care to their citizens at levels that their governments consider acceptable? Consider this tidbit from “The Threat to Medical Innovation,” appearing in The American Spectator.

“…Between 1969 and 2008, 57 of the 97 Nobel Prizes in medicine and physiology — or nearly 60 percent — were awarded to people who did their research in the U.S., and nine of the top 10 medical innovations between 1975 and 2000 were developed here.”

Aside from rationing care, might it be that they’re taking advantage of U.S. medical innovations while scorning us as heartless and unenlightened for not socializing our health care system? (Much like they rely on a strong US Military in lieu of fielding one themselves, then scorn us as uncivilized brutes?) I wonder how they’ll get along if the U.S. adopts an innovation-killing, European style health care system?

Beating the Blue Dog Horse

Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska provides one more example of why it’s important for the GOP to challenge Blue Dog Democrats in every district. (You know, aside from the fact that those are the districts where they’re more likely to win.)

MoveOn, Could You Please Just Move Along?

Even though Election Day 2010 is still over a year away, MoveOn.org Political Action is running ads targeting Dave Reichert (WA-08) and his “No” vote on H.R. 3200 in the Ways and Means Committee.

In case you haven’t seen the ad, it’s rather dramatic and asserts that Congressman Reichert’s vote was purchased with $105,958 of campaign contributions through June, 2009, from “health and insurance interests” and, quite possibly, the very lives of your children.

Wow. Damning.