Conscience Clause for Health Care Workers Rescinded

Albert Mohler:

In other words, the Obama administration is now ready to use the coercive power of the state to force medical personnel to perform acts they consider to be morally wrong and unhealthy for their patients. One obvious implication of this is that the state now finds it necessary to force medical professionals to do what they by conscience do not think is right. Allowed to act by conscience, these medical professionals clearly would not do what the state now requires them to do.
Just imagine how our nation’s founders would consider such a tyrannical trampling of individual conscience by the power of the state. From a Christian perspective, this should serve as a clear alarm for those who suggest that it is paranoid to believe that the state will use similar force to require other acts against conscience. The logic is right here for all to see, and only the willfully blind can deny what this new policy means.

You can read the whole thing here.
Justin Taylor

Fannie, Freddie bailout could double in cost - Thanks Barney Frank!

Grab your wallet! Federal regulators warn that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the quasi-government (not Wall Street) mortgage entities are going to cost lots more taxpayer dollars to fix. Zachary A. Goldfarb of the WaPo reports:

Fannie and Freddie, the federally-controlled mortgage finance giants, will likely need at least another $73 billion and perhaps as much $215 billion from taxpayers in the next three years to meet their financial obligations, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said.

The growing taxpayer infusions will cover losses Fannie and Freddie suffer on home loans, as well as payments the companies must make to the U.S. Treasury in exchange for a federal guarantee to provide cash to keep the companies solvent.

In fact, over time, the majority of funds flowing to Fannie and Freddie from taxpayers will go to pay that dividend.
To date, the Treasury has already injected $148 billion into Fannie and Freddie. Under the worst-case scenario, in which the country enters a second recession, the total infusion would equal $363 billion in three years.

American Thinker

True cost of the union label - Read it and weep

Protectionist causes could cost Americans trillions

Here's a Labor Day factoid: The total economic loss we'd feel from labor bosses' and environmental activists' joint "cap-and-trade" tax scheme - $10 trillion from 2012 to 2035 - is roughly the same as all of America deciding to completely cease all economic activity from New Year's Day to, well, Labor Day next year.
That's just the beginning.
While some consider American unions a dinosaur of a bygone era, they are far from extinct. Now instead of flexing their muscle on the picket lines, they are stuffing campaign coffers for friendly politicians and teaming up with environmental activists to seek special rules to avoid the rigors of the competitive market that has produced so much wealth.
Time after time, union bosses have held one hand out while curling the other into a fist, ready to punish politicians who don't toe their line. (Perhaps that's why President Obama is spending the holiday with his biggest special interest.)
Americans nationwide are increasingly aware of the major state fiscal burdens being imposed by organized labor's public-sector unions. In California for one, the state's projected total of underfunded liabilities for public employee retirement is as much as a half-trillion dollars, while the nation's total tab rings in closer to $3.5 trillion. That, by the way, approaches $12,000 per person (not all of whom will pay taxes to reduce that amount).
It's not just public pensions that are in the sights of labor bosses, though. They are seeking a special bailout that would put taxpayers directly on the hook for failing union pension funds, which would create a brand new entitlement. Cost: Billions.
But what's a few billion or trillion among friends, right?
According to a study by Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar, the "card-check" bill known sneeringly as the "Employee Free Choice Act" (EFCA), would kill 600,000 jobs the first year after it is enacted and destroy as many as 5 million jobs over the course of the time period examined. That's trillions in lost wages.
And, sadly, don't forget the as-yet-unknown trillions lost in economic activity to the health care "reform" bill union lobbyists were instrumental in pushing through. Even then, the AFL-CIO sought to exempt its members from a heavy, new tax while being only too willing to throw under the bus the vast majority of Americans who have chosen not to join a union. (Apparently, membership has its privileges - while nonmembership has its punishments.)

By Andrew Langer

The Washington Times