On Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, as the panel discussed the new Obama administration rule that requires Catholic employers to provide health insurance coverage for contraception to their employees, both liberal columnist Mark Shields and conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer hit Obama for the decision, while NPR's Nina Totenberg claimed that there were valid arguments in both directions as she made a flawed analogy between contraception and immunization as a defense of the Obama position.

But the blunt criticism directed at Obama by the liberal Shields, who is also a longtime regular on the PBS NewsHour, was the most surprising part of the show. After host Gordon Peterson noted that some Catholic leaders had supported Obamacare, and asked if they are "being hung out to dry," Shields responded:

They've been hung out to dry. I mean, this is a dissing, in common parlance, of Catholics. I haven't noticed thousands of people in groups lined up to provide services to the poor and the hungry and the left out and the left behind, and that's what Catholic Charities has done, that's what Catholic schools do in big cities.

And the idea that somehow that they're not doing societies – they aren't in it for the bucks. They're in it because they provide these services, and it's their mandate by their religion. I just, I don't understand Barack Obama on this, and I think that politically Catholics have voted on the winning side in every presidential election (INAUDIBLE).

Totenberg soon jumped in:

There's a very good argument that is being made by the Catholic Church, but if you take it out of the area of contraceptives and you said supposing you had a preschool that wouldn't do immunizations because its religion didn't allow immunizations, or wouldn't  insure for immunizations. We're not talking about paying here, we're talking about insurance and insurance that people can avail themselves of. The board of health would be in there. It's a very tricky question. There are very good arguments to be made on both sides.

Krauthammer ended up knocking down Totenberg's argument and attacked "liberal secular arrogance." Krauthammer:

Look, immunization is a matter of public safety; birth control is not. It's a huge difference, and what this is doing is saying, as Mark indicated, the Catholic Church isn't only a church. It's an institution that actually has outreach and social serviesa dn does good works. Liberals say, okay, "In the church, you can appoint anybody you want and we'll leave you alone, but once you step out into society, you have to be under our heel and you have to provide a morning after pill, which for Catholic, a believing Catholic in the hierarchy of the church, is an abomination. Otherwise, you're cut off, and that is liberal secular arrogance and has no place in this society.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the the Friday, February 3, Inside Washington on PBS:

GORDON PETERSON: New Obama administration policy requires all employers, including Catholic employers, to pay for FDA-approved contraceptives regardless of the Catholic Church teaching on this issue. Now, during the debate over the health care law, the president of the Catholic Health Association supported the President. Now, the President's critics say – Sister Carole Keehan and others who supported this bill – are being hung out to dry. Your take, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: They've been hung out to dry. I mean, this is a dissing, in common parlance, of Catholics. I haven't noticed thousands of people in groups lined up to provide services to the poor and the hungry and the left out and the left behind, and that's what Catholic Charities has done, that's what Catholic schools do in big cities.

And the idea that somehow that they're not doing societies – they aren't in it for the bucks. They're in it because they provide these services, and it's their mandate by their religion. I just, I don't understand Barack Obama on this, and I think that politically Catholics have voted on the winning side in every presidential election (INAUDIBLE).

PETERSON: Is it relevant or irrelevant that the vast majority of Catholics practice contraception in violation of this teaching?

SHIELDS: It is irrelevant because what you're doing is you're closing down Catholic institutions. That's what you're basically (INAUDIBLE).

NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: Can I just say something here? This has been the law actually  since 2000. There's an EEOC ruling; 28 states have laws like this. There's a very good argument that is being made by the Catholic Church, but if you take it out of the area of contraceptives and you said supposing you had a preschool that wouldn't do immunizations because its religion didn't allow immunizations, or wouldn't  insure for immunizations. We're not talking about paying here, we're talking about insurance and insurance that people can avail themselves of. The board of health would be in there. It's a very tricky question. There are very good arguments to be made on both sides.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Look, immunization is a matter of public safety; birth control is not. It's a huge difference, and what this is doing is saying, as Mark indicated, the Catholic Church isn't only a church. It's an institution that actually has outreach and social serviesa dn does good works. Liberals say, okay, "In the church, you can appoint anybody you want and we'll leave you alone, but once you step out into society, you have to be under our heel and you have to provide a morning after pill, which for Catholic, a believing Catholic in the hierarchy of the church, is an abomination. Otherwise, you're cut off, and that is liberal secular arrogance and has no place in this society.

When the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation announced it was planning to stop giving money to Planned Parenthood a short five years after it started, you’d have thought from the reaction that it had committed a capital crime.

Liberals brutally denounced the charity. More than two dozen Democratic senators called on Komen to reconsider. One of them, California’s Barbara Boxer, said the funding cutoff reminded her of “the McCarthy era.”

In short order, Komen more or less reversed itself, rather than see its hugely successful, 30-year effort to cut breast cancer deaths burned to the ground by a liberal lynch mob.

But before Komen caved, an interesting thing happened: Donations to Planned Parenthood exploded. Within hours, in fact, 6,000 donated a total of $400,000. A family in Dallas pledged $250,000, and New York’s Mayor Bloomberg promised to match that.

In other words, Planned Parenthood more than made up for the $680,000 in grants that Komen was planning to withhold.

by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

President Obama, speaking in Arlington, Va., immediately took credit for the bullish report, crowing that “altogether, we’ve added 3.7 million new jobs over the last 23 months.”

The president went on to say: “We can’t go back to the policies that led to the recession. And we can’t let Washington stand in the way of our recovery.”

“Our” recovery? And “We can’t go back to the policies that led to the recession”? The cause of the recession was, in fact, housing policies put in place by President Clinton and aggressively supported by Democrats in Congress, including former Sen. Barack Obama.

How soon we forget. These were the policies that led to the housing meltdown, the financial crisis and, ultimately, the deep recession we’re still climbing out of.

by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

The State of the Union speech is fast fading into history, but one of its themes — raising taxes on the rich — has legs in politics if not in policy. This is an election year, and the idea of making people like Warren Buffett (or Mitt Romney) pay a higher share of the income to the government polls well.

One of Obama’s allies in Congress, Rep. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., has introduced a bill that would impose a minimum effective tax rate of 30% on people earning more than $1 million. The bill may not get very far in the current Congress, but that’s not the point. The object is to win in November. The 30% bill is political rhetoric, not serious policy.

Even Obama must know that his endorsement of a 30% minimum tax on the wealthy is just hot air. As a practical matter, the only way to garner that much from the Warren Buffett-Mitt Romney set is to end preferential treatment for capital gains and stock dividends, raising the top rates from 15% to 35%.

Even then, a big giver to church and charity, such as Romney, would still be able to keep the federal share tax bite below 30%.

But the Obama administration says, at least this time around, that it will leave the charitable deduction alone. So it would have to dig deeply into investment income if it is to come close to imposing a Buffett Rule that meets its own fairness test.

by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

President Obama has described the waves of economic sanctions imposed on Islamofascist Iran as “the sort of pressure that will have a direct impact on the Iranian government.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month claimed that “sanctions have been working,” making it “much more difficult for Iran to pursue its nuclear ambitions.”

Foundation for Defense of Democracies President Cliff May concedes that sanctions have done some good, but are far from enough. In a column last week, he noted Iran’s currency has lost half its value since December, inflation is officially over 20% and may really be twice that, and crude oil production is falling.

Plus, “Iran’s rulers have forfeited more than $60 billion in energy investment and $14 billion in annual oil sales,” with hundreds of billions of dollars in potential natural gas sales prevented.

by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

The pursuit of happiness, one of those unalienable rights endowed to us by our Creator, is under assault once again by those who spend every waking moment worrying that somebody somewhere is actually enjoying his or her life without government supervision.

In an article titled “The Toxic Truth About Sugar,” published in the journal Nature, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (where else?) said worldwide consumption of sugar has tripled over the last 50 years and is now contributing to 35 million annual deaths, even if sugar-coated corn flakes aren’t listed as the causes of death.

Whether these unfortunate victims of what may be called “cereal killers” died happy is also not recorded.

The researchers cite three major health risks — alcohol, tobacco and sugar.

“Two of these three — tobacco and alcohol — are regulated by governments to protect public health, leaving one of the primary culprits behind this worldwide health crisis unchecked,” the researchers write.

by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

‘It’s Groundhog Day, and Brian Terry’s family and taxpayers are still waiting for Fast and Furious answers from the Justice Department,” Chairman Darrell Issa said before the hearings. “We will not wait until the next Groundhog Day to get answers for the American people.”

Rep. Issa, R-Calif., has threatened Attorney General Eric Holder with a contempt of Congress citation if he doesn’t get answers to questions on Fast and Furious, such as who authorized it and what and when Holder knew. The story constantly changes.

by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Each week, it seems, brings fresh evidence that the Obama administration’s obsession with so-called clean energy is an increasingly costly failure.

January car sales data out this week provided additional proof that consumers are turning their backs on electric cars, making President Obama’s pledge to get a million of them on the road in three years look even more ridiculous.

by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Attending the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Obama declared that raising tax rates on higher incomes “coincides with Jesus’ teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.’”

It is disgraceful enough for a president to use a religious event to push an economic agenda that has already insured his place in history as the food stamp president.

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In fact, Washington is steadily retreating full circle back to the defensive posture it took toward Afghanistan in 1996.

Then, the Clinton administration coddled the thuggish regime and let it seize power. In no time it hosted al-Qaida’s leaders, who were able to open major terror camps around the country, where they eventually trained the 9/11 hijackers.

by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com