Intro by Rich Miles; Article by Allen Clifton

I am disgusted at Republicans. I have had it with them. They are not human. They are non compos mentis. They do not deserve to have a part in the national conversation. Below is a piece that explains, in part only, why this is true. Photographic evidence of the  allegations re: our last THREE presidents is somewhere to be had - I didn't make a copy of it because I never thought for a moment that it would reach the level it has. If you are a Dem, read this with a shot of whiskey or a blood pressure pill at hand. If you are a Rep, how can you remain one after an episode like this? Do you really want your elected representatives to be this unrelentingly stupid?

Attacking Obama Because of an Umbrella, Republicans Reach New Lows

May 17, 2013 By Allen Clifton 348 Comments

The God Reagan speaks from the grave

by Rich Miles

Finally! After hours of research, I have found the video that I KNEW existed, of the God Reagan saying that Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit. Here is the address, and you can see it for yourself:

Reagan says the deficit has nothing to do with Social Security

Ol' Ronnie seems to be the only politician since FDR who is honest enough to admit this. If you eliminate SocSec, it will not affect the deficit one thin dime - except if, as has been the case almost since its inception, the Congress continues to steal from the Trust Fund to attempt to balance their hideously overdrawn budgets.

And please, Republicans, try to curtail that awful habit most of you seem to have where you blame the entire current deficit on Obama, as if Bush never spent a dime in 8 years. Have you no memory, no sense of history about you? GEORGE W. BUSH created this deficit by invading Iraq, a country that had done nothing to us, and despite its mouthy leader's rhetoric, was not likely to EVER do anything to us. Our invasion of Iraq was a personal vendetta of George W Bush, and more than 4000 of our young men died to let him avenge his uninjured but insulted daddy. MORE than four thousand!! Dead! And countless thousands wounded! GWB is the foulest war criminal since Hitler, or at least Pol Pot. But that's a story for another time.

So please, I know how repugnant reality is to most of you Republicans, but face this much - the God Reagan said it! It has to be true! Social Security has nothing to do with the Federal or any other deficit!!!

Get it! Got it? Good.

Don't be stupid, America!!

I've spoken of this in previous posts, but it bears repeating: the Republican party is trying to "rebrand" itself as a kinder, gentler bunch of fascists - DON'T FALL FOR IT!!! Rand Paul, the little twit of a junior senator from my state, is trying to spearhead this effort. I am here to tell you, it is NOT SINCERE!! It is nothing but a public relations ploy designed to make us think that they are not the selfish Nazis they have been for most of their history, after Lincoln (I wonder if Lincoln would BE a Republican if he were alive today).

Do some reading - you will see that it is not real. I'll try to post some examples of what I am talking about in the days to come. But it's bullshit, America! They do not care about you, or me, or anything but getting elected so they can enrich themselves and their cronies at OUR expense. Believe it.

Here's what marriage is

by Rich Miles

You people are beginning to annoy me.

You claim things about the Bible that simply ARE. NOT. TRUE.

Jesus never said one word about homosexuals or same sex marriage. I already ranted on about that.

But - BUT - it seems some people need a little remedial explanation of what marriage is in the abstract.

Marriage IS mentioned in the Bible. Not sure what-all the book has to say about it, but it's mentioned. BUT...

It is NOT an institution of god. It is, purely and simply, a way to try and prove who the father of any individual baby is, so that inheritances may be determined more fairly and equitably. If a man could believe that his wife had sex only with him, then he could believe that her offspring is his child, and would feel better about leaving his entire estate to that (usually male) child. Never mind the bastards he fathered, and usually KNEW he fathered, never mind the daughters he needn't leave anything to.

Marriage is for that purpose and that purpose alone - to (try to) ensure that a woman stayed faithful to her husband.

Of course, we know now, as they knew then, that it didn't always work. Ever hear the expression "Her baby, his maybe"? No man EVER knows for certain who fathered his wife's baby. We can only trust. I'm fairly certain that my father really WAS my father, because we looked almost exactly alike. But I don't really know, now do I? Nothing against my mom, she was almost certainly faithful to my dad. But I don't really KNOW, do I?

And within the above definition, it doesn't matter that gay marrieds can't reproduce - in the traditional sense anyway. Lots of straights who marry can't have babies, or choose not to, or have miscarriages and never a live birth. Should we deny them the right to marry? Should reproductive status have anything to do with the question? I say no.

But in fine, marriage is a social construct, dressed up and tricked out as an institution of god. But it ain't really so.

I mention all this to try, probably futilely, to get the radical rightwing anti-gay marriage morons to get off their high horses, and shut up about same-sex marriage. I am farting in a whirlwind, but it's worth trying, I guess.

You are wrong! So just SHUT UP!!!

by Rich Miles

You're wrong, OK? Jesus never said ANYTHING about gay marriage, or homosexuals, or anything of the sort. NOTHING. Got it? And most especially not in the Book of Romans, as one self-righteous moron alleged earlier today.The full name of that book is, variously, St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, or the Epistle of Paul to the Romans, or the Letter of Paul to the Romans. See? It says right there in your Bible that Paul wrote it - and a bit of critical reading will show that it was written after the Crucifixion - so Jesus could NOT have written it.

So as a sign I saw yesterday read, "As Jesus said about homosexuality and same sex marriage, "                            ". NOTHING. Not ONE WORD. So get over it. See the next post for the once and for all explanation of what marriage is.

Why Liberals and Atheists are Smarter

by Rich Miles

Would you like to know why liberals and atheists are more intelligent than  conservative religionists ? Or perhaps more accurately, why intelligent people tend to become liberals and atheists?

Read this article by internationally renowned evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa.

He pretty well demonstrates that, the higher the level of intelligence in a person, mostly men, the more likely that person is to be a liberal, an atheist, or both. I can't explain why it's not as often so in women, but that's what he maintains.

It's from a respected professional journal, and it's a little dry in spots. But if you have ever wondered why this appears to be so, this article will help to clear up the mystery. I will be surprised if even one conservative Christian reads this.

Please comment. But keep it clean and respectable, or I'll delete you.

17 Reasons Why I can't support McConnell

by Rich Miles

Just want you to see this - it's a comment at the bottom of an article on Daily Kos called:

17 Reasons Why I Can't Support Senator Mitch McConnell's 2014 Re-Election Bid
To wit: 
* [new]  McConnell serves money... (3+ / 0-)

...not the people of Kentucky or this country. McConnell has always craved power, and money is the means to his power: money he provides to others through legislation and money they provide back to him. I have never understood why so many in Kentucky willingly sacrifice their economic security for the leader of the party that wants to end medicare, gut social security, reduce unemployment insurance, eliminate workplace safety regulations, gut public education, and push wages and benefits of average people to where they are "competitive" with the cheapest source of foreign labor in the undeveloped world. I appreciate the facts you provide, but, as you know, facts don't matter to most people here. They believe what they believe, and they only believe what they hear from Rush, Fox, or their preacher/politician.

by KYrocky on Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 01:14:12 PM PDT

Some little bit of truth among the lies

by Rich Miles

One of the downsides of the Internet is that it's just so gol-darned big, you know? A group of 100,000 people could spend 12 hours a day reading articles and gleaning info, and in 40 years, could not get 1/10000 of it read, much less committed to memory.

The second sentence of the above paragraph is totally made up. I have no idea if it's true - but it seems plausible. It could be true. There's no way to check the figures, though.

And that is how the Republican misinformation machine works - they give us stuff that seems like it could be true, and then they dare us to prove them wrong. Most people, in fact almost everyone, fails to do so. And a certain percentage of the blithering idiots among us actually believe the crap completely uncritically. And I am getting tired of it. I am getting sick of my future, and that of my country, being decided by morons who are not only ignorant, but actively proud of their ignorance!

Well, I can't fight the millions of such mental dung beetles all by myself, but I can occasionally offer something a bit more concrete and provable, and that's what I am doing today.  From the Fiscal Times, a more reasoned and well-presented analysis of an issue in which we all, or almost all, should have an interest:

From The Fiscal Times:
Why Government Spending Is Not Out of Control

And last but not etc., there are articles all over Hell that are still conflating Social Security spending and federal deficits. For the umpteenth time, Social Security does not add ONE THIN DIME to the federal deficit. In fact, because of the way politicians have been stealing from it for decades, it actually functions to reduce the deficit, just like the USPS. But only by a small amount.

See, what the Republicans want is not to reduce deficits, but to starve poor people to death. Whatever deficit reduction may be had is going to go to cronies and campaign contributors anyway.

Read the article. Please.

Paul Ryan is not paying attention - nor are his partymates

Update: Another example of the premise of this piece was reported last night: Karl Rove and Sarah Palin are currently having a contretemps. Palin accuses Rove of being a rotten political consultant, with most if not all of his premier candidates getting creamed in November 2012; and Rove mocks Palin's brief term (only two years) as governor of Alaska. Read about it here. Can you imagine this happening 7 or 8 years ago?

Also, as much as I enjoy having commenters here, and don't wish to piss them off, the one comment that is here as of 3/18/13, which is actually from a friend of mine, is just wrong. It's not just my opinion that this is happening. I'm not just following the opinions of others of my political bent. It is really happening.How far it will go remains to be seen, but it's definitely happening. It's my opinion that it is happening BECAUSE the Republicans are losing so much lately - they're losing and it's making them testy. Please proceed:

by Rich Miles

OK, one point that has to be made: no matter how much one may dislike this little pencil-neck geek Paul Ryan and his budget plans, he is chair of the House Budget Committee. He's supposed to produce budget proposals. He's just not supposed to do it this badly.

Now - we are in an interesting historical era right now. We are, or can be, witness to the death of a political philosophy, where the owners of that philosophy are too blind/stupid/arrogant/pick one or more to note that the death of the way of thought is happening.

If you read carefully, in every single news source you can stand, you will see undeniable evidence that the Republican Party is falling apart. They are off-message, they are disagreeing with each other, they are calling other factions names, they are failing to see the handwriting on the wall that tells them (or would if they paid attention) that Americans no longer think the way they did, no longer fall into lockstep with the fascistic ideology that they once did.

I don't say there are NO more Republican believers - it's just that there are far fewer of them than there were in the Bush interregnum. If I live to be 150, I will never understand how America was so hoodwinked by Bush the Younger, but it seems that it's now over, recovery has well and truly begun, and we can only hope it's true. We will have to deal with the Republicans a while longer - but I believe it's possible that in 20 years or less, there will be NO Republican party as we know it today, and quite likely its offshoot the Tea Party will have disappeared as well.

Read your news well - you will likely see this phenomenon as well. If so, I hope you'll come here and report it as you see it.

Y'see, those who tend to gravitate to thought lines like the Repugs have espoused since at least 1980* and likely well before, do not function well when no one is telling them what to think, say and do. They are either controllers, or ones who need to be controlled. So any measure of confusion in the ranks, especially as much as is evident now, just knocks the troops in a cocked hat and leaves them wandering about like the robots in Woody Allen's "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex...".

*Actually, 1968 would probably be more accurate.

That's my opinion. That's what I'm seeing. Take a look and see if perhaps you don't see the same.

This is beginning to keep me awake nights...

by Rich Miles

Look, folks, if the events of the past 14 years or so have taught me nothing else, they have shown me unequivocally how STOOOPID the American people can be.

Not you, of course, but all those OTHERS!

But it is looking almost definite that the Repugs are going to try to run Jeb Bush for preznit in 2012. His name and image have shown up in numerous places after a long silence, and he is making observations on things that would only be of interest to a presidential candidate.

I am willing to work VERY hard to keep this from happening, keep him from winning. But if there is one statement that proves that Jeb Bush is too addled to be president, it is this one:

During a tour of Sunday morning talk shows,  Jeb Bush said, "No, I don't think there's any Bush baggage at all."

(Now see, the correct answer to this is, "Well sure, there is for Democrats,  but most of them won't vote for me anyway.")

Do we want, can we afford, a man who is that deluded in our highest office? Work hard to keep this from happening. It could finally mean the end of America. Didn't Little Bro almost put us away from 2001-2009? If they start marketing Jeb as "the smarter Bush brother" or "the compassionate Bush brother", or words to that effect, they are aiming him at the White House. And the irony of 41-43-45 is just too much for me to stand. You?

AND if he starts making war noises even before he gets in, then that is a certainty. The Repugs have learned the lesson of how hard it is to lose an election for Prez if there is a war on. Shrub showed 'em.

You know, most of what I said about GWB turned out to be true - go back in this blog to about 2000, 2001 and check. That is not observed to make me look like a smart guy, but merely to point out that, if I was right before, I might be right again.

It's tough being Cassandra.

Somehow, this will turn out to be Obama's fault

by Rich Miles

This sequester thing is just total bullshit. I mean, just totally! First off, it only cuts off about $80-85 billion, which is an infinitesimal percentage of the multi-trillion-dollar federal bloat, er, budget.

And secondly, the things that are being cut are (quite purposely, I believe) things that will inconvenience the most individual Americans. Things that will cause the most pain.

But as stated in the following article, at least we know now who has been responsible: the Koch Bros. That's right, the people who tried, and almost succeeded, to buy the US presidential election last year. One would think that after pouring that much money into the election and losing, they would stop pouring, but apparently not. They are apparently compulsive gamblers, who cannot stop playing no matter how much they lose.

Can there any longer be any doubt that to Republicans, their money is more important than the wellbeing of average Americans? I don't think it would be too farfetched to say that they (Republicans) want all of the poor people (poorer than them, anyway) simply to die so they no longer have to be taken care of. This article certainly speaks to that idea:

So anyway, take a look - straight from the horses' mouths (text bolding and underscoring mine - italics from the author):

The Koch Brothers Take Credit for Imposing Economic Hardship on Millions of Americans

By: RmuseMar. 4th, 2013

 

One of, but not limited to, the symptoms of depression is a feeling of hopelessness that can be exacerbated by unrelenting bad news, and for the past two weeks, Americans were bombarded with portents of doom and gloom over the Republican sequester. On Sunday, there was a glimmer of good news in the form of a reminder Willard Romney is not the president, and although he said it “kills him” he cannot “boss people around,” he is still alive enough to run his lying mouth about the President and how he handled the sequester. Now that the sequester is signed into law, as bad as it is, Romney preferred Paul Ryan’s budget that was four times as damaging as the sequester and increased the deficit by at least $4 trillion. One of Willard’s biggest supporters is cheering the sequester and claiming credit for its enactment, and looks forward to imposing more economic hardship on the people and the nation in their never-ending assault on government.
In an email, Koch brothers’ front group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), sent congratulations to Republicans and their supporters around the country for helping push sequester cuts AFP says are “an important step forward for economic growth.” The email continued, “Americans for Prosperity thanks Speaker John Boehner and House Republicans for standing up to President Obama and making sure the $85 billion in much-needed sequester spending cuts took effect,” and it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Koch brothers and Republicans own the sequester and are giddy at the prospect of a recession and killing millions of jobs. One aspect of sequester cuts little mentioned is that the devastating $85 billion for 2013 is just the beginning of greater domestic spending cuts, devastating effects on anti-poverty programs, Medicare, and without cessation, the end of recovery.
The sequester is a ten year plan that cuts $1.2 trillion across the board, and because they began in March, $85 billion is about 70% of the next nine years of cuts coming in at about $123.88 billion every year. It spells the end of recovery because experts estimate that by the end of 2013, $85 billion in cuts means nearly a million jobs will vanish, and GDP will fall between .7% and 1.7% in the first year alone. Kochs, AFP, teabaggers, and Republicans are celebrating austerity that deliberately tanks the economy, creates massive poverty, and all to avoid closing tax loopholes for the richest people in America. Republicans claimed 2013 sequester cuts would devastate the economy, and yet they are celebrating nine more years of 30% higher cuts, and are a reminder of the damage Willard Romney would have imposed. Romney took time to weigh in on the sequester and accuse the President of campaigning instead of working with Republicans to avert the cuts they were destined to enact.
According to Willard, “The president brings people together, does the deals, does the trades…the president leads, and I don’t see that kind of leadership happening. He’s campaigning.” Romney also suspected President Obama blamed Republicans for rejecting attempts to avert the sequester because “there may be more interest in showing pain in saying, See what the other guys did?” President Obama did attempt to trade, deal, lead, and bring Republicans together, but the sequester was the means Republicans used to impose austerity, and unless Obama agreed to void defense cuts and replace them with more austerity and domestic cuts, the sequester was going forward as part of Republicans’ four-year war on the economy.

Real economic experts cited ways Republicans are deliberately killing recovery; self-inflicted austerity, cuts to under-funded social programs, cut Social Security and Medicare benefits by slashing “entitlements,” and the sequester. Republicans and their supporters at Americans for Prosperity encouraged their base to campaign to “keep the cuts” so we can “get our economy moving again” in spite of overwhelming evidence that killing a million jobs and slashing domestic spending will cut GDP between .7-1.7% in the first year of a ten year program. Austerity already cost a reduction in growth in the fourth quarter, and combined with the Eurozone’s austerity-caused recession increases the risk to America’s economy because Europe is the nation’s leading trading partner. Austerity is decimating economies all over the world and all the while, Republicans, Koch brothers, and teabaggers are celebrating.
Americans for Prosperity parroted a right-wing canard that America has a spending crisis and said, “For the first time in a long time, genuine substantive spending reductions actually took effect and the government is running just a bit leaner,” and it belies President Obama’s reduced spending that already cost a reduction in GDP in the last quarter of 2012. America cannot recover, much less thrive, with perpetual spending cuts that kill jobs and retard growth, but that has been the Republican plan all along. It is unfortunate that Republicans were successful creating a false deficit crisis because it has ensnared Democrats who cannot speak about the economy without first trumpeting the virtue of “reducing the deficit” and it will lead the nation into a downward economic spiral that no-one, not even the President, can prevent regardless the people’s overwhelming support for his storied “balanced approach” to…deficit reduction.
Republicans won the austerity battle, and Americans will now know what it feels like to live in “socialist Europe” that imposed austerity, massive unemployment, negative growth, double and triple-dip recessions, and no hope for recovery anytime soon. Maybe there were two bits of good news yesterday after all; Willard is not president, and sequester damage in 2013 will be the least for the next ten years. Because if $85 billion is devastating, kills a million jobs, and cuts GDP by a percentage point, then nine years of $123.88 billion each will certainly eviscerate the economy; it was Republicans’ plan all along. It is just tragic, though, that they imposed austerity by injecting two words into every discussion about the economy; deficit reduction. It’s no wonder teabaggers, Republicans, and Americans for Prosperity are celebrating and congratulating each other; they won with two words.

Land of the free? Home of the brave?

By Rich Miles

 I wrote the following on a Facebook post today, in answer to a question posted there, to wit: 

"Should the Republican Governors who are refusing to implement the Affordable Care Act lose their taxpayer-funded health insurance?"

Pretty much all the posts, including mine, said yes, that the governors have no right to make such decisions, on at least a moral if not a legal basis. There was not even one that said no. 

But after I said that, the following occurred to me. See what you think:

Ya know, this brings up an overarching point: The main problem in this country today - and I mean the MAIN problem, from which so many other problems spring - is that politicians believe they are infallible. They don't think they can be called to task for their errors and stupidity, for their obstructionism and malfeasances. And so far, they have been right for the most part.

What we need to do is impeach a couple thousand of the worst of them, at all levels of government, put a thousand or so of them in jail, and then wag our fingers at the rest, and say, "Let this be a lesson to you. We can do this whenever we want if you don't serve us! We hired ya, we can fire ya."  Are we brave enough, as individuals and as a nation, to do this? I mean, I can count on my fingers and toes ALL the "good" politicians I've ever known or heard of. The rest are arrogant shitbags who need to be reminded who they work for. So I ask again, are we brave enough?

Whattaya think? Are we?

This could be huge!!

Post by Rich Miles; text by John Tomasic at Colorado Independent
========================================
Update #2 - March 18, 2013 - not much of an update, but nonetheless. 


 Update #1: This thought just occurred to me: If the US Supreme Court decides to take the case (see last paragraph here), then they too will be in the position of deciding whether fetuses are people or not. If they give the win to Catholic Health Initiatives, they will in effect be agreeing that CHI is correct, and that fetuses are NOT people. Kinda hard to go any higher in US jurisprudence than that.

My guess is SCOTUS , or at least the conservative majority thereof, will be too cowardly to even touch the case, or at least Chief Justice Roberts will try everything he knows to keep it from happening. 

I wonder if this law firm will ever represent any Catholic organization again.

Naaaah!

Yes, huge. In an argument that had seemed likely to continue well into the next millennium, and may yet, one side has, intentionally or otherwise, defected to the other side.

A legal representative of the Catholic Church has argued officially in a Colorado court of law that FETUSES ARE NOT PEOPLE!!

I was going to provide a link for you to read about this for yourself, but read about it here instead. Here it is.

Geez, this is just amazing. There seems no other way to interpret the following except that fetuses are only people to the Catholic Church when it doesn't cost them anything to say so.  Talk about your legal precedents:

Catholic Hospital Argues Fetuses Are Not People In Malpractice Suit

From The Colorado Independent's John Tomasic

Lori Stodghill was 31-one years old, seven-months pregnant with twin boys and feeling sick when she arrived at St. Thomas More hospital in Cañon City on New Year’s Day 2006. She was vomiting and short of breath and she passed out as she was being wheeled into an examination room. Medical staff tried to resuscitate her but, as became clear only later, a main artery feeding her lungs was clogged and the clog led to a massive heart attack. Stodghill’s obstetrician, Dr. Pelham Staples, who also happened to be the obstetrician on call for emergencies that night, never answered a page. His patient died at the hospital less than an hour after she arrived and her twins died in her womb.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, Stodghill’s husband Jeremy, a prison guard, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit on behalf of himself and the couple’s then-two-year-old daughter Elizabeth. Staples should have made it to the hospital, his lawyers argued, or at least instructed the frantic emergency room staff to perform a caesarian-section. The procedure likely would not have saved the mother, a testifying expert said, but it may have saved the twins.

The lead defendant in the case is Catholic Health Initiatives, the Englewood-based nonprofit that runs St. Thomas More Hospital as well as roughly 170 other health facilities in 17 states. Last year, the hospital chain reported national assets of $15 billion. The organization’s mission, according to its promotional literature, is to “nurture the healing ministry of the Church” and to be guided by “fidelity to the Gospel.” Toward those ends, Catholic Health facilities seek to follow the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church authored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Those rules have stirred controversy for decades, mainly for forbidding non-natural birth control and abortions. “Catholic health care ministry witnesses to the sanctity of life ‘from the moment of conception until death,’” the directives state. “The Church’s defense of life encompasses the unborn.”

The directives can complicate business deals for Catholic Health, as they can for other Catholic health care providers, partly by spurring political resistance. In 2011, the Kentucky attorney general and governor nixed a plan in which Catholic Health sought to merge with and ultimately gain control of publicly funded hospitals in Louisville. The officials were reacting to citizen concerns that access to reproductive and end-of-life services would be curtailed. According to The Denver Post, similar fears slowed the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth’s plan over the last few years to buy out Exempla Lutheran Medical Center and Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center in the Denver metro area.

But when it came to mounting a defense in the Stodghill case, Catholic Health’s lawyers effectively turned the Church directives on their head. Catholic organizations have for decades fought to change federal and state laws that fail to protect “unborn persons,” and Catholic Health’s lawyers in this case had the chance to set precedent bolstering anti-abortion legal arguments. Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.

As Jason Langley, an attorney with Denver-based Kennedy Childs, argued in one of the briefs he filed for the defense, the court “should not overturn the long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based on two unborn fetuses.”

The Catholic Health attorneys have so far won decisions from Fremont County District Court Judge David M. Thorson and now-retired Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Arthur Roy.
In September, the Stodghills’ Aspen-based attorney Beth Krulewitch working with Denver-based attorney Dan Gerash appealed the case to the state Supreme Court. In their petition they argued that Judges Thorson and Roy overlooked key facts and set bad legal precedent that would open loopholes in Colorado’s malpractice law, relieving doctors of responsibility to patients whose viable fetuses are at risk.

Whether the high court decides to take the case, kick it back down to the appellate court for a second review or accept the decisions as they stand, the details of the arguments the lawyers involved have already mounted will likely renew debate about Church health care directives and trigger sharp reaction from activists on both sides of the debate looking to underline the apparent hypocrisy of Catholic Health’s defense.

At press time, Colorado Health did not return messages seeking comment. The Stodghills’ attorneys declined to comment while the case was still being considered for appeal.

The Supreme Court is set to decide whether to take the case in the next few weeks.