Today on "Kresta in the Afternoon" - July 3, 2013

Talking about the "things that matter most" on July 3

4:00 - Obamacare Employer Mandate Delayed to 2015 – Right After 2014 Midterm Elections
Businesses won't be penalized next year if they fail to provide workers health insurance after the Obama administration decided yesterday to delay a key requirement under its signature 2010 health care law. The government will postpone enforcement of the employer mandate until 2015. The decision pushes the issue past the 2014 midterm congressional elections, as Republicans have sought to make the health law a symbol of government overreach. Rob Muise, an attorney that has fought HHS Mandate cases, joins us to analyze this move. 

4:20 – Kresta Comments: Trust – Can a Society Survive Without It?Amid revolt by businesses, rising premiums, popular disapproval, and issues of religious liberty, the Obama administration has announced that the Obamacare employer mandate has been delayed by a year to 2015, two short months after the 2014 midterm elections. This begs the question of why a plan so hailed as the solution to healthcare in America would be postponed, now 5 years after passage. Meanwhile, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has apologized for telling Congress earlier this year that the National Security Agency does not collect data on millions of Americans, a response he now says was "clearly erroneous." We ask: “Can society survive without trust?

4:40 – Morsi Ousted as President in Egypt
Egypt’s military moved forcefully to seize power from President Mohamed Morsi on just hours ago, deploying tanks and troops in Cairo and other cities, restricting his travel and convening an emergency meeting of top civilian and religious leaders to devise an interim government and lay the groundwork for new elections. The government’s official English-language Web site, said the military had informed Mr. Morsi that he was no longer head of state. There was no word on Mr. Morsi’s whereabouts. The military’s actions came as enormous crowds of the president’s supporters and opponents filled the streets of the capital and soldiers were deployed in significant numbers to keep the spiraling political crisis from going out of complete control. Robert Spencer joins us.

5:00 – Immigration Bills Hotly Debated on Capitol Hill: What Does the Church Teach?
The immigration debate is shifting to the Republican-led House, where lawmakers have shown little appetite for the large-scale, comprehensive approach their Senate colleagues embraced last week. Most House Republicans insist that any attempt at comprehensive immigration legislation cannot offer a "special pathway to citizenship" before verifiable border security. Democrats have called that position a deal-breaker. We talk to Kevin Appleby, Director of the Office of Migration and Refugee Policy at the USCCB about what the Bishops have laid out as principles in this debate.

5:40 – Kresta Comments: Feedback Line Caller Says the Laity Can’t Fix the Problems in the Church – The Bishop Have to. Really? (tentative)