Realizing that his popularity may decline as the price of gasoline rises, President Obama is barnstorming the country, emphatically insisting that drilling for more oil isn’t the cure for high gas prices and that wind and solar energy represent our energy future. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich recently challenged Obama, claiming that gas prices would fall […]
On March 19, speaking at a Morris Township, New Jersey Democratic Party fundraiser, Vice President Joe Biden provided what may be the mother of all election year bumper stickers when he asserted, “Osama Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive. Think about it.” To help wrap our minds around these two facts, referring […]
They say what goes around comes around, or to paraphrase the Good Book, you reap what you sow. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in recent global data on abortion. For years, feminists have maintained that women will not be truly free or equal unless they are free to abort their unborn children. They have sought […]
Negotiations for a final document at the UN Commission on the Status of Women were supposed to end more than a week ago. However, they dragged on for another several days and resulted in a stinging defeat for the Obama administration and anger on the part of the developing world. The US was trying to […]
The United States burned diplomatic bridges during this year’s UN Commission on the Status of Women by using force and deception to pass an unpopular resolution calling for international access to contraception. Countries accused the US of manipulating the negotiations process from start to finish through proposing the initial text of the resolution on maternal […]
The U.S. Supreme Court is now poised to review the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare.” The nine Justices will hear oral arguments totaling an unprecedented five-and-a-half hours beginning on March 26, 2012 and concluding on March 28. The usual allocation of time for Supreme Court oral arguments is just 60 […]
Half of Iraq’s indigenous Christians are gone due to the unleashed forces of jihad, many of them fleeing to nearby Syria; yet, as the Assad regime comes under attack by al-Qaeda and others, the jihad now seeps into Syria, where Christians are experiencing a level of persecution unprecedented in the nation’s modern history. Likewise, some […]
Reading about two free speech cases now before the Supreme Court, I found myself thinking of Cardinal Newman. I’ll get to Cardinal Newman in a minute, but first let me say a word about those cases pending in the court. The basic issue in FCC v. Fox Television Stations and FCC v. ABC is the […]
In recent years, American liberals’ love-affair with all things contemporary Western European (sans Margaret Thatcher and Benedict XVI) has acquired an increasingly desperate edge. As evidence for the European social model’s severe dysfunctionality continues to mount before our eyes, the American left is acutely aware how much it discredits its decades-old effort to take America down […]
Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith made headlines last week with a public letter of resignation from the legendary firm. Smith’s letter chronicled the ethical decline that led to his departure, and has sparked renewed interest in the culture of unmitigated greed that animates the world of high finance. In his letter, Smith refers to a […]
The response to the HHS mandate concerning insurance and contraception has been shocking to many, as they realize that there is a yawning rift in the American population between those who understand the Constitution and those who don’t, and between those who consider sexual morality an important element of our cultural fabric and those who […]
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 […]
The Obama Administration has taken another step in what amounts to a four-year plan to make abortion-covering health insurance, subsidized by the federal government, commonly available in the United States. The latest action came on March 12, when the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a lengthy regulation that spells out how some […]
Many of the most violent attacks on morality taking place today seem to be centered around questions of sexual morality. The controversies surrounding sex education in schools, acceptance of homosexual conduct, pornography, divorce, and, of course, the paramount matter of abortion—all these would seem to have sex as their common theme. But though all these […]
To say that our public discourse today stands in need of some improvement is undoubtedly an understatement, but perhaps no area of our common life requires more careful consideration than our political speech. All too often we find public discussions of political economy cast in stark terms, such as “socialism” versus “capitalism.” Very often these […]
It is no secret that in life, our values tend to guide our decisions. The things we hold dear, the things that are priorities to us, our principles… these are the factors that influence how we live our lives, from who we associate with to how we spend our time and how we spend our […]
Senator Roy Blunt, who sponsored the amendment in the Senate that, had it received a few more votes, would have protected conscience rights of employers, said, “This is a debate that might be settled at that building across the street,” referring to the Supreme Court. Indeed, as of this writing, eight different lawsuits have been […]
Saul Alinsky is alive and well in the political maneuverings of the secular left. The problem is, we all have the play book now. As most know, Rush Limbaugh has been under fire of late for comments he made about 30 year-old “reproductive justice” radical Sandra Fluke. Ms. Fluke recently gained national attention while testifying […]
In determining to fight President Obama’s famous—or should I say infamous?—contraception mandate, the American bishops, I suspect, were devoutly hoping two things would not happen. The first undesired outcome was that the issue would become politicized. The second was that it would be seen as an argument over contraception itself. Predictably perhaps, both have occurred, […]
America’s immigration debate will never be adequately addressed until we think clearly about the economic incentives that encourage Mexican citizens to risk their lives to cross the border. In fact, if we care about human dignity we must think comprehensively about the conditions for human flourishing so that the effective policies promote the common good. […]
I write on Super Tuesday, but my reflections here pertain to the entire election season of 2012, and in fact, of every election cycle. If you look at the writings of the Catholic Church regarding political responsibility, you often see reference to what is important to “Catholic social teaching” and a “Catholic conscience.” And, of […]
In Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (2005), researchers Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton argue that for many young adults in America, the spiritual life is understood in moralistic terms. But where orthodox (and Orthodox) Christianity focus on the necessity of “repentance from sin, of keeping the Sabbath, of living as a servant of a sovereign divine, […]
The Church is a sign of contradiction. On the issue of contraception, in which the Catholic Church is seen as the most inveterate of socially conservative reactionaries, the Church loses not only libertine opponents, but also many conservative friends. In the present debate about the government’s attempt to compel religious institutions to fund the use […]
If we want a new president, it isn’t going to happen without some blood, sweat and tears. And divine grace—plenty of divine grace. So, this being said, just where do you and I come in? It’s going to have to be our blood, sweat and tears. We can’t lay this one on somebody else. Not […]
