11 ¶But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,

 12 And seeth two ^aangels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.

 13 And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.

 14 And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and ^asawJesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.

 15 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.

 16 Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, ^aMaster.

 17 Jesus saith unto her, ^aTouch me not; for I am not yet^bascended to my ^cFather: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my ^dFather, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

 18 Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.

 19 ¶Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were^aassembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and ^bstood in the midst, and saith unto them, ^cPeace be unto you.

 20 And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his ^ahands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they ^bsaw the Lord.

 21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my^aFather hath ^bsent me, even so ^csend I you.

 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.

(John 20:11-22)

With oral arguments in the case challenging the individual mandate of Obama’s health care law starting in the Supreme Court on Monday, this piece by Charles Krauthammer is worthy of posting in total. It is a must read.

Obamacare: The reckoning

By Charles Krauthammer, Published: March 22

Obamacare dominated the 2010 midterms, driving its Democratic authors to a historic electoral shellacking. But since then, the issue has slipped quietly underground.

Now it’s back, summoned to the national stage by the confluence of three disparate events: the release of new Congressional Budget Office cost estimates, the approach of Supreme Court hearings on the law’s constitutionality and the issuance of a compulsory contraception mandate.

Cost:

Obamacare was carefully constructed to manipulate the standard 10-year cost projections of the CBO. Because benefits would not fully kick in for four years, President Obama could trumpet 10-year gross costs of less than $1 trillion — $938 billion to be exact.

But now that the near-costless years 2010 and 2011 have elapsed, the true 10-year price tag comes into focus. From 2013 through 2022, the CBO reports, the costs of Obamacare come to $1.76 trillion — almost twice the phony original number.

It gets worse. Annual gross costs after 2021 are more than a quarter of $1 trillion every year — until the end of time. That, for a new entitlement in a country already drowning in $16 trillion of debt.

Constitutionality:

Beginning Monday, the Supreme Court will hear challenges to the law. The American people, by an astonishing two-thirds majority, want the law and/or the individual mandate tossed out by the court. In practice, however, questions this momentous are generally decided 5 to 4 — i.e., they depend on whatever side of the bed Justice Anthony Kennedy gets out of that morning.

Ultimately, the question will hinge on whether the Commerce Clause has any limits. If the federal government can compel a private citizen, under threat of a federally imposed penalty, to engage in a private contract with a private entity (to buy health insurance), is there anything the federal government cannot compel the citizen to do?

If Obamacare is upheld, it fundamentally changes the nature of the American social contract. It means the effective end of a government of enumerated powers — i.e., finite, delineated powers beyond which the government may not go, beyond which lies the free realm of the people and their voluntary institutions. The new post-Obamacare dispensation is a central government of unlimited power from which citizen and civil society struggle to carve out and maintain spheres of autonomy.

Figure becomes ground; ground becomes figure. The stakes could not be higher.

Coerciveness.

Serendipitously, the recently issued regulation on contraceptive coverage has allowed us to see exactly how this new power works. All institutions — excepting only churches, but not excepting church-run charities, hospitals, etc. — will be required to offer health care that must include free contraception, sterilization and drugs that cause abortion.

Consider the cascade of arbitrary bureaucratic decisions that resulted in this edict:

(1) Contraception, sterilization and abortion pills are classified as medical prevention. On whose authority? The secretary of health and human services, invoking the Institute of Medicine. But surely categorizing pregnancy as a disease equivalent is a value decision disguised as science. If contraception is prevention, what are fertility clinics? Disease inducers? And if contraception is prevention because it lessens morbidity and saves money, by that logic, mass sterilization would be the greatest boon to public health since the pasteurization of milk.

(2) This type of prevention is free — no co-pay. Why? Is contraception morally superior to or more socially vital than — and thus more of a “right” than — penicillin for a child with pneumonia?

(3) “Religious” exemptions to this edict extend only to churches, places where the faithful worship God, and not to church-run hospitals and charities, places where the faithful do God’s work. Who promulgated this definition, so stunningly ignorant of the very idea of religious vocation? The almighty HHS secretary.

Today, it’s the Catholic Church whose free-exercise powers are under assault from this cascade of diktats sanctioned by — indeed required by — Obamacare. Tomorrow it will be the turn of other institutions of civil society that dare stand between unfettered state and atomized citizen.

Rarely has one law so exemplified the worst of the Leviathan state — grotesque cost, questionable constitutionality and arbitrary bureaucratic coerciveness. Little wonder the president barely mentioned it in his latest State of the Union address. He wants to be reelected. He’d rather talk about other things.

But there’s no escaping it now. Oral arguments begin Monday at 10 a.m.

Obama’s supposed compromise on a rule requiring religious institutions to cover contraception was summarily rejected by the U.S. Catholic Bishops.

Catholic bishops said Friday night that they would not support the Obama administration’s proposed compromise on a controversial rule that requires most employers to fully cover contraception in their workers’ health plans.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which had led opposition to the regulation, issued a statement saying that they didn’t believe their concerns were addressed by a new policy offered by President Barack Obama on Friday morning to allow religious employers who object to the use of birth control to turn over responsibility for covering it to insurance companies.

This line from a story in Politico exposes the true thinking of the administration:

A senior administration official told POLITICO Saturday that the White House didn’t expect to win the support of the bishops with Friday’s updated policy. Instead, the official said, the administration was focused on achieving a balance of respecting religious beliefs and ensuring women had access to preventive services.

This is another example that Obama doesn’t want to actually respect religious liberty, but rather push an aggressive anti-First Amendment agenda and try to wedge the Catholic Church against its members.

As further evidence of the disregard of religious liberty, a very smart political observer emailed HHS’s women’s health “Required Health Plan Coverage Guidelines” to me and made this point:

Nowhere does it talk about infertility or fertility treatments — which is a legitimate illness/disease, as opposed to pregnancy, which is not. The Church is opposed to artificial means of conception as well, and would fight this too. If the Administration genuinely cared about “women’s reproductive health” however, wouldn’t they care about treating infertility as much, if not more than, fertility?  Why do they want to kill babies so badly?

I think that says it all about the real agenda of Obama’s administration.

So the Occupy Wall Street folks have invaded the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and tried to disrupt one of the largest annual gatherings of Conservative activists.

(UPDATE)

As unearthed by Daily Caller, apparently, some protestors don’t know what CPAC is or why they are protesting.  But they are making $60 per person to show up. Isn’t America great!  Oh… wait… that wouldn’t fit the OWS narrative, would it?

While the OWS movement is still trying to be relevant, it is going to continue to lose influence and momentum because of the radical elements that keep it going.  The Democrats who identified and associated with OWS early on will see their words come back to haunt them between now and November.

***

Obama’s supposed “accommodation” to try to quell the outcry of the HHS ruling that would force Catholic-run institutions to offer contraception and abortion-inducing drugs in their health insurance coverage does not accommodate at all.  To require health insurance companies to offer such services free of charge to those covered does not change the fundamental conscience issue raised by the Church.  The only reason these services are available “for free” is because there is a health plan at all.

This is an underhanded political ploy.  Obama is essentially maintaining the status quo, while at the same time appearing to be reasonable.  He knows the Church will still oppose, but he is counting on Bishops looking unreasonable to parishioners.

***

The Republican nomination for President has to be the most interesting primary process in U.S. history.  Wow.

***

Can you believe that it’s February already?

The Obama Administration grossly miscalculated the reaction that American Catholics would have to the new Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate requiring Catholic institutions such as schools, hospitals, and charities, to purchase health insurance that covers contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs–all of which are immoral according to Catholic teaching.

Stories in the Huffington Post and others covering the controversy are quick to point out that 98% percent of sexually active Catholic women have used birth control; whether these women are all actively practicing Catholics is not discussed.  Regardless, the point is moot.  The Catholic Church is a 2,000 year-old global institution; its orthodoxy is not governed by polling in the United States.  Further, the First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  There is no stipulation saying, “unless Congress determines that some followers of that religion do not strictly adhere to all of that religion’s tenets.”  Many Jews do not keep kosher, so can Congress pass a law prohibiting those who do from continuing?

Catholics may disagree with the rules of the Church, as children at times disagree with the rules of their parents, but it does not mean that Catholics do not respect or love the Church just as a rebellious child still respects and loves his parents.  The Obama Administration gambled that Catholics would choose Obama over the Church.  The sheer arrogance is mind-blowing. As Peggy Noonan wrote in her WSJ column, “there was nothing for the president to gain, except, perhaps, the pleasure of making a great church bow to him.”

Even some Catholic liberals like the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne have spoken out against the mandate.  When E.J. Dionne and I are in agreement, there is something incredibly wrong in the world.  The pressure on the Administration is growing and will be unrelenting.  The Catholic vote matters to Obama and eventually, I believe, the Administration will capitulate.  If it isn’t soon, the damage to his image with Catholics could be irreparable.

This past weekend, Catholic bishops around the country wrote letters, to be read at Sunday Masses, condemning the attack on religious freedom.  Among these bishops was Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix and Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the Archbishop of Military Services who wrote that the HHS rule was, “a blow to the freedom that you have fought to defend and for which you have seen your buddies fall in battle.”

As National Review reports, the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains actually tried to prevent Catholic chaplains from reading Archbishop Broglio’s letter from the pulpit.  The Executive Branch tramples on freedom of religion and then tries to silence those who object–these are not the actions of a man who respects our free society.  Obama views the First Amendment, heck the entire Constitution, as optional.

He must be stopped.

Remember this line from my blog back on January 19^th?

Seriously, how ironic is it that the guy everyone is trying to show as the alternative to the “weird Mormon guy” is the one who has actually tried to practice plural marriage?

Now we read that Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor hits the same theme last weekend at the Alfalfa Club Dinner as reported in the Washington Post.

But according to two accounts, O’Connor waded into the Republican presidential campaign with a joke about Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich that drew a lot of laughter.

According to ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser, who was at the Capital Hilton for the dinner, O’Connor said that of the two leading Republican candidates, “one is a practicing polygamist, and he’s not even the Mormon.”

Romney is a Mormon, and often points out that he and his wife, Ann, have been married for 42 years. Gingrich’s three marriages have been much discussed in the campaign. The Reliable Source column in The Washington Post had a similar account.

I guess imitation is the greatest form of flattery, so Justice O’Connor can continue to read my blog and steal my stuff anytime!

Senator Orrin Hatch went to the Senate floor to express his disappointment in President Obama for politicizing his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast yesterday.

Here is how The Hill reports it:

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) on Thursday evening said President Obama needs a reminder that he is not Jesus Christ.

“In 2008, the president declared that his nomination was the world historical moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal,” Hatch said in a speech from the Senate floor. 

“Someone needs to remind the president that there was only one person who walked on water and he did not occupy the Oval Office.”

Hatch skewered the president for a remark he made at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday morning, during which he suggested Jesus might support his plan to raise taxes on wealthy Americans.

“For me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto to whom much is given, much shall be required,’” Obama said at the breakfast.

Hatch, who is a devout Mormon, suggested Obama was trying to “assume the role of theologian in chief” and said he ought to stick to public policy.

“[Obama] suggested to the attendees that Jesus would have supported his latest tax-the-rich schemes,” Hatch said. “With due respect to the president, he ought to stick to public policy. I think most Americans would agree that the gospels are concerned with weightier matters than effective tax rates.”

You can see Hatch’s on C-SPAN here.

In response to a question by Chris Wallace, Mitt Romney announced on Fox News Sunday that he would release his 2010 tax returns and his 2011 estimated tax return on Tuesday.

Romney cited the reason as being that the issue had become a distraction.  I believe him, but releasing them so quickly after the South Carolina primary made me realize that an email I got from a friend last week was dead on.

So I have this theory on Romney’s tax returns that I think explains why he has gotten flustered on camera over releasing them and why he’s hesitant to release them.  I don’t think it’s the class envy thing at all—or he wouldn’t have bothered to run in the first place.

Romney doesn’t want to release his tax returns now because of the primary in South Carolina.  I think if he released his tax returns now it would show he’s donated millions of dollars to the Mormon Church—possibly far more than 10%– and seeing those numbers in black and white will rile up the Evangelicals and others fearful of Mormon influence.

Further, I think that is exactly, and the only, reason Newt Gingrich is sounding like Obama’s spawn in demanding Romney release them.

I agree with him.  And Chris Wallace asked Romney if his tax returns showing millions to the LDS Church was going to create a problem.  Romney had a great response in which he said that he hoped not, because he believes in the biblical call to tithe (give 10 percent) and he made a promise to give 10 percent.  Romney went on to say that if he hadn’t given 10 percent, then people could have a problem with him.

I can’t wait to see the percentage of charitable contributions by each candidate.  I predict Romney will have given more than any one else by a huge factor – and it is more than what the Obama’s give.

Mitt Romney was never going to win South Carolina.  Yes, I know polling had him ahead for a short time after Iowa and New Hampshire when it looked like Newt was done (again).  South Carolina is a part of the Bible belt and a Mormon is not going to do well in a Republican primary when there are other options.

Newt, as flawed as he is, benefited from conservative backlash at the media for the release of Marianne Gingrich’s interview just days before the South Carolina vote.  We saw the same kind of bounce of support for Herman Cain in the initial coverage of his alleged harassment issues.  Conservatives know there is a media bias, and if you are being personally attacked in the media, then you must be ok.

All this to say that as remote a possibility as even I thought it was to have three different winners after the first three contests, that’s exactly where we are.

Florida is Romney’s to lose.  It’s a big, expensive state, which has had absentee ballots out for almost three weeks and Romney has been the only candidate with a broad presence there.  It could be his firewall.

However, if Newt’s momentum coming out of South Carolina translates to a Florida victory, then it’s probably going to take until Super Tuesday (March 6) to settle this thing.  Of course, it could take until April 3, when Texas holds it’s primary, or even until April 24^th when New York and Pennsylvania hold theirs.  I don’t think it’s going to go all the way until California’s primary in early June. The longer it goes, the more likely that Newt implodes.

Following Florida, Romney probably does better than Newt in the Nevada and Colorado caucuses and the Arizona and Michigan primaries.  Even if Newt hangs in there, Super Tuesday will be tough, because he isn’t even on the ballot in one of the larger states that day (Virginia).

Here’s how I see Super Tuesday breaking down, if Newt is still actively campaigning:

Newt probably wins Alaska, Georgia, Oklahoma and Tennessee – that’s 204 delegates.

Romney takes Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming – that’s 262 delegates.

While Romney may want to see this thing buttoned down and done in the next couple weeks, he is by no means in trouble if he loses Florida.  His true firewall is April 24, where he will sweep New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island.

No need to panic, just keep that steady, methodical machine going and don’t stray from the message of free enterprise and economic freedom.  It worked for Reagan.

With the nomination of Mitt Romney becoming more likely, there will be increased chatter about Mormonism, and more specifically, the “Mormon Moment.”

In preparation of the forthcoming stories, I strongly recommend you read this piece by Thomas Grier, a smart third-year law student, and a great thinker.

Here’s an excerpt:

The media and pundits have suggested America is in the middle of a “Mormon moment,” highlighting the fact that there are two Mormon candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, a critically acclaimed Broadway musical poking fun at Mormonism and a general discussion about Mormon theology and culture. There is a projected narrative that wherever you look, whether in business, government or talk radio, you are sure to find a Mormon staring back at you.

If, as expected, Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination expect Mormonism to be in your face until the elections and beyond.

It’s well worth your time to read.