How the MSM spins the HHS decision

How does the liberal press spin the Obama Administration's HHS ruling on contraceptive services? The MSM deliberately ignores the fundamental trampling of our Constitution and muddies the waters with a variety of distractions, half-truths and omissions.  Unfortunately for the vast majority of uncritical readers, the MSM are quite masterful in this craft.

Let's look at a February 9^th article in SFGATE, the Obama Administration's most reliable online shill for the joyful embrace of Big Brother. Read the whole article, it's a veritable minefield of MSM propaganda that could take weeks to fully disarm.

San Francisco's Catholic archbishop has jumped into the latest national culture war, blasting the Obama administration's controversial requirement that employers - including Catholic hospitals, universities and institutions - provide birth control and other contraceptive services as part of their health care insurance plans.

While the rule is not scheduled to take effect fully until August 2013, that isn't stopping partisans from leaping into battle positions in this election year. The issue is reopening the nation's cultural divide at time when voters care most about the perilous economy.

The first sentence foreshadows the biases that will be foisted upon the reader. "National culture war" is a common liberal canard and political shorthand for,  "Hey guys, let's just gloss over this deeply divisive moral issue, by just lumping it into a goulash of other deeply divisive moral issues." Neat trick, huh?

Then the author jabs us with quick three amuse-bouches of misdirection. The mandate is still a long way off, so this issue is simply not important enough to show up on your radar. The partisans are leaping into battle positions and you know from our carefully sanitized liberal history that those darn leaping partisans are just natural born troublemakers.  Lastly the voters care about the economy more than some esoteric, inside Washington, kerfuffle, so move along, these are not the droids you are looking for.

(Note to SFGATE; I'm damn sure the mandarins at the DNC will not like to read that the economy is in a perilous condition.)

While the nation's Catholic bishops, including San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer, are asking the White House to change its policy, in California it is a bit of a nonissue.

California is one of 28 states that require institutions that offer prescription insurance to cover contraception. The law has been in place since 2001. The University of San Francisco and St. Mary 's College in Moraga are among the universities that comply with state law but are concerned with the federal changes.

So what in heaven's name is really going on, what exactly is this, "bit of a non issue? Well the article intentionally fails to inform the reader that the HHS rules include birth-control products such as "Ella" and the "morning after" pill.  These are drugs that the Federal Food and Drug Administration tells us can cause the death of a baby developing in the womb. So, not just preventive contraception, but shockingly we are talking about a governmental mandate that forces affiliated Catholic hospitals to fund abortifacient medications. Little wonder the Archbishop Niederauer is asking the White House to change its policy.

(Note to SFGATE. When exactly did you guys and gals stop looking at yourselves in the mirror each morning, realizing that your journalistic integrity had simply evaporated?)

The U.S. bishops have a bit of a disconnect with most Catholic voters. A survey released this week by the Public Religion Research Institute showed that 52 percent of Catholic voters said employers should offer health plans that offer contraception.

And a study by the Guttmacher Institute, which addresses sexual and reproductive health issues, shows that most sexually active Catholic women have used a form of contraception - even though it contradicts church teaching.

So who are the Public Religion Research Institute and the Guttmacher Institute?  A ten minute stroll though the internet confirms that The Public Religion Research Institute spreads its hard left socialist views under the guise of social justice. Those in the political chattering class clearly recognize the PRRI informational polls as heavily biased fluff. The Chairman of the Board of the PRRI is Rabbi David Sapperstein, an Obama appointee to the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships who also serves on the board of People For The American Way, a George Soros and Tides Foundation funded political action organization. The Alan Guttmacher Institute is simply Planned Parenthood's research arm, funded by the usual array of the hard left's interlocking foundations. It is not difficult to surmise that the author of this SFGATE piece simple re-hashed the talking points faxed to the MSM outlets each day.

The Pilgrims and Puritans settled this county for religious freedom, as did millions of other immigrants over the past 236 years. Our Constitution is very clear on the subject of religion freedom, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ..."

There will be millions of words written and hundreds of hours of video produced on this subject in the days ahead. The question that should most concern all of us is not why did Obama try to nail gun this repellent mandate onto the soul of this country, but what are the thousands of other equally repellant Federal mandates now being written by the 57 unconfirmed czars now burrowing deep into the Executive agencies?