American Thinker | by Steve McCann | Nov. 5, 2009
One of the great mysteries in today’s United States is how a country founded on the principle of individual freedom, having achieved great wealth and world influence, could have developed a political class bent on transforming the nation into a collective dominated by a powerful central government. [Read more…]
BreakPoint | by Stephen Reed | Nov. 3, 2009
A Christian Virtue Highly Prized – In an extended recession like we are facing now, with people having a difficult time finding work after months of searching, promoting hope can seem rather saccharine, even unfeeling. Indeed, God sided with Job over his friends when they chided Job for feeling devastated at his many losses. Setbacks and tragedies are all terribly real, and to ignore a friend’s losses isn’t being much of a friend at all. [Read more…]
American Thinker | by Rick Moran | Nov. 7, 2009
President Obama’s weird, off-putting introduction to his remarks about the Fort Hood massacre reveal him to be something of a cold fish.
NBC | by Robert A. George | Nov. 6, 2009
President Obama didn’t wait long after Tuesday’s devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships.
The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective. But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. [Read more…]
JCT Confirms Failure to Comply with Democrats’ Mandate Can Lead to 5 Years in Jail
Ways and Means | Nov. 6, 2009
Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years. [Read more…]
WorldNetDaily | by Chelsea Schilling | Nov. 4, 2009
A former director of a Texas Planned Parenthood branch who resigned after she watched an ultrasound-guided abortion told WND the clinic was pushing employees to strive for abortion quotas to boost profits.
“There are definitely client goals,” former clinic director Abby Johnson said. “We’d have a goal every month for abortion clients and for family planning clients.”
Johnson, 29, said the Bryan, Texas, Planned Parenthood clinic performed surgical abortions every other Saturday, but it began expanding access to abortion to increase earnings. [Read more…]
Senate blocks census US-citizenship question. So much for our American Representative Democracy system. What a travesty!
AP | Nov. 5, 2009
Senate Democrats have blocked a GOP attempt to require next year’s census forms to ask people whether they are a U.S. citizen. The proposal by Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter was aimed at excluding immigrants from the population totals that are used to figure the number of congressional representatives for each state. [Read more…]
Acton Institute | by Stephen Grabill | Nov. 4, 2009
Does the market inspire people to greater practical virtue, or does it eviscerate what little virtue any of us have?
Far from draining moral goodness out of us—as many think—the free market serves as a “school of the practical virtues.” Rather than elevating greed and self-sufficiency, the market fosters interdependence and cooperation. Its rewards do not go to those who are the most isolated, self-absorbed, or cut off from society, but to those who sustain mutually prosperous relationships with others. [Read more…]
Church Report | by Wesley J. Smith | Oct. 30, 2009
Society’s belief in the unique moral value and importance of human life is under unprecedented assault. Most people still believe in human exceptionalism and are unaware that powerful social and cultural forces are working diligently to dismantle the sanctity of life ethic as the fundamental value of our social order. But the time has come to pay attention. If human life is knocked off the pedestal, universal human rights will be impossible to sustain. [Read more…]
American Spectator | by James Bowman | Oct. 6, 2009
There is one scene in Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story where its writer, director, hero and sole credited actor is examining the copy of the Constitution that is on display in the National Archives. He asks a guard — this is the kind of thing Mr. Moore routinely does for effect, pretending he doesn’t know that the guards are not constitutional experts — where in the document before him there is any mention of free markets, free enterprise or capitalism. He can’t seem to find those words. Could it be that they’re not there? And, if they’re not, does that mean that they’re not constitutionally protected? Not, of course, that one could imagine its mattering to him if they were. But without a specific mention, presumably, we must suppose that these “evil” things — he has the testimony of two lefty priests and a bishop to that effect — must have been snuck into America’s constitutional arrangements at a later date by, well, capitalists — or other, equally unscrupulous sorts. [Read more…]