Try to define progressivism. In fact, ask progressives to try to define progressivism. All we really know is that they’re, well, progressing. They and their ideas and their politics are always changing, evolving. This means that what they believe and hold fast and dear today may not be what they believe and hold fast and […]
President Obama’s position on gay marriage has won some converts, from (perhaps) the entirety of the Democratic Party to (especially) young people. As to the latter, one of them emailed me recently. A good-hearted, thoughtful young man, who this fall will be a freshman at a very liberal college in the Northeast, I’ll leave him […]
Something wonderful unfolded in American politics the last few days. Almost immediately after Rick Santorum dropped out of the Republican presidential hunt, David Axelrod and the Obama reelection team unleashed the class-warfare cannons. They expected to enjoy the first salvo of the season, fired by Democratic lobbyist Hilary Rosen. In a CNN interview, Rosen claimed […]
America anxiously awaits the Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare. At the core of the decision is a simple question: Is the “individual mandate” in Obamacare constitutional? And thus, is Obamacare constitutional? Several times during the debate and deliberation, my mind harkened back to the words of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Remarking on […]
President Obama has caused quite a stir with a private comment made to Russian President Dimitri Medvedev. In discussing missile defense, Obama suggested he would be prepared to yield to Russian demands after the November election. “This is my last election,” said Obama, not knowing his words were being picked up by an open microphone. […]
The question for Republicans right now seems obvious: Would you prefer Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney to run against Barack Obama? Well, it depends on whether you prefer to engage President Obama on cultural grounds or on terms of class warfare. Obama and his chief political strategist, David Axelrod, are going to give us one […]
In case you didn’t notice…. With George W. Bush out of office and a Democrat in the White House, the secular media stopped its handwringing over the president mentioning God. With Rick Santorum’s surge, the hysteria has started again. Every religious utterance by Santorum will be a cause for apoplexy by the liberal press. It […]
The secular world today trembles and shudders at the sight of Rick Santorum speaking on good and evil at Ave Maria University in Florida in 2008. Santorum’s statement came 25 years after another much-maligned social conservative, Ronald Reagan, delivered a similarly fiery speech in Florida in 1983. In both cases, the secular left recoiled in […]
A fascinating theory has been advanced by Dick Morris, which, in turn, is being considered by Rush Limbaugh and other leading conservatives. Morris speculates that the Obama HHS mandate on contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients is a fight with the Catholic Church that Team Obama wants — and with the focus based narrowly on contraception, not […]
Last Friday, President Obama responded to Catholic bishops’ concerns over his controversial mandate compelling Catholic institutions to provide contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing pharmaceuticals. Many media sources reported Obama’s action as an “accommodation,” with some describing it as a “reversal.” It is hardly that. Many Catholics find it arguably worse. Without dissecting the president’s action, the […]
I’ve gotten some very interesting emails regarding President Obama’s mandate commanding Roman Catholics (and many evangelical Protestants) to violate their consciences by providing mandatory contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing pharmaceuticals. The emailers noted that Obama’s action will force Catholics to challenge the president in court, particularly given that bishops are saying they will not comply with […]
America’s Catholic bishops are princes of diplomacy, highly educated, erudite, men of tact, propriety. They’re asked to shepherd the flock with a long historical timeframe—like, say, eternity. They tend not to have knee-jerk reactions to issues of the moment. And so, it’s not often when a paragon of decorum, namely, Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik, publishes […]
If Mitt Romney gets the GOP nomination, prepare for a season of class warfare in America unlike any before. Not only has President Obama been pushing class warfare unceasingly for three years now, but his chief strategist, David Axelrod, has been employing precisely this tactic against Romney, and well before Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry […]
I recently strolled down Grant Street in downtown Pittsburgh and was struck by two images. First, there was the stirring life-sized Nativity that each year is displayed on the property of the giant U.S. Steel building. It is an inspiring sight. As I walked along, however, my eyes were distracted by something I was not […]
Vaclav Havel is dead. Among other forces and powers, he is among the seven individuals most responsible for peacefully ending the Cold War; the great liberators who brought freedom and democracy. They are Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, Margaret Thatcher, Lech Walesa, and Havel. With Havel’s death, a majority of […]
Last week I wrote an article on Deer Season a half century ago, focusing on my grandmother’s town in the mountains of Emporium, Pennsylvania. Each year, my grandmother and other households opened their doors and kitchens and beds to perfect strangers who came to town to shoot a deer—and there were no problems. The piece […]
This week hunters across America storm the woods loaded for deer. For yet another indication of how times have changed, consider this account of Deer Season a half century ago: My mother’s family lived in Emporium, Pennsylvania, as did dozens of their relatives. Emporium is a tiny town nestled in the mountains near the north/central […]
“It was nothing dramatic,” says Dr. Karl E. Blake of Wexford, Pennsylvania, retired surgeon and member of the World War II generation, “but it was important, and no one has written about it, at least that I’ve seen.” I got an unexpected call from Dr. Blake last Memorial Day, mid-afternoon, after just returning from the […]
“Just existing became what was important,” says 87-year-old Frank Kravetz of Pittsburgh, captive of the “hell-hole” that was Nuremberg Prison Camp. “Yet even as I struggled with the day-to-day sadness and despair, I never once had any regrets that I signed up to serve.” An extended tour of Nazi camps as a wounded POW scratching […]
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has a lengthy track record of jaw-dropping political statements. Among them, the lifelong Roman Catholic has been a huge disappointment to her Church on matters of unborn human life, which I’ve personally written about on many occasions. But it isn’t just Pelosi’s actions on the sanctity and dignity of human life. […]
I got a double shock Thursday morning when I turned on my radio. “Steve Jobs has passed away,” I heard a DJ remark. “That’s a shame.” Yes, it is a shame. I was saddened to hear that. I was equally shocked as I turned the dial and heard something even more deadly. It was a […]
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is being urged to seek the Republican presidential nomination. There is a genuine groundswell for Christie. Asked [last] week at the Reagan Library whether he will enter the race, Christie gave a very interesting answer. Citing the example of Ronald Reagan, he stated: “I know, without ever having met President […]
Envy is sadness or discontent at another’s good fortune or excellence. Dante defined it as a perversion of one’s own good; a “wish to deprive” others of their own good. Augustine deemed it “the diabolical sin.” Conservative columnist George Will quips that envy is the most miserable of the deadly sins because it brings not […]
I’ve only recently come to realize the nature of the hurdle this country faces in trying to turn around a stalled economy and horrendous deficit. Here it is: liberal Democrat politicians have fully convinced huge numbers of people that our economic/fiscal mess is the result of two principal demons: 1) “the rich” and 2) the […]
