Office of the Chief Rabbi | Rabbi Jonathan Sacks | July 31, 2009

Subprime mortgages, financial collapse, MPs expenses: these and other recent scandals are more than mere passing events. They have left Parliament and the market, the twin foundations of the free society, in disarray. What has been lost is trust, our trust in those we chose to look after our affairs, and trust is the basis of society. If we are to recover it, we must ask some deep questions.

Thus far we have had a festival of blame, and there have been some sacrificial victims. But our great faiths teach the principle of collective responsibility. In that spirit we should ask, What has gone wrong in society as a whole? Continue Reading »

If the government can’t administer this one program well, what makes people think they will be any better with our entire health care system.
CBS | Lou Young | July 31, 2009

NYC Car Dealers: How Could Obama Administration Mess This Up? “Cash for Clunkers” came to a screeching halt Thursday, after only six days on the road.

In a shocker, the government announced it would suspend the program at midnight because demand was too great. Continue Reading »

Townhall.com | Ann Coulter | July 21, 2009

All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention, so naturally the Democrats’ idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to sober up by having another drink.

The reason seeing a doctor is already more like going to the DMV, and less like going to the Apple “Genius Bar,” is that the government decided health care was too important to be left to the free market. Yes — the same free market that has produced such a cornucopia of inexpensive goods and services that, today, even poor people have cell phones and flat-screen TVs. Continue Reading »

BreakPoint | T.M. Moore | July 21, 2009

The old saw makes an all-too-true point: How can you tell when a politician is lying? Are his lips moving? Americans have become increasingly cynical about their leaders.

We want to trust them, and we hope they’ll tell us the truth and keep their word. But it seems that, when push comes to shove, politicians are only interested in their own agendas. Continue Reading »

Washington Examiner | David Freddoso | July 23, 2009

“If there’s a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that’s going to make you well?” — President Obama

In last night’s press conference, President Obama seemed to be reliving that famous scene from The Matrix. The main character is offered a choice between a red pill that makes him see reality for what it is, and a blue pill that allows him to continue living in a pleasant world of illusions.

Last night, President Obama appeared to have taken the blue pill before his press conference. How else could he convince himself, the Congressional Budget Office’s numbers notwithstanding, that his health care reform bill will not increase both health care costs and the federal deficit? Continue Reading »

Townhall.com | Dennis Prager | July 21, 2009

There is only one good thing about the Obama administration’s attempts to nationalize most health care and to begin to control Americans’ energy consumption through cap-and-trade: clarity about the left. These attempts are enabling more and more Americans to understand the thinking and therefore the danger of the left. Continue Reading »

Townhall.com | Ken Connor | July 19, 2009

Religious bigotry is alive and well in the scientific community, as evidenced by its response to President Obama’s decision to appoint Dr. Francis Collins as the head of the National Institutes of Health. Though renowned for leading the team of scientists that successfully mapped the human genome, Dr. Collins is making headlines for something else: his faith. In spite of his professional qualifications and accomplishments, many in the scientific community are less than enthusiastic about the President’s decision to appoint a self-described evangelical Christian to lead the world’s leading organization for scientific research. Continue Reading »

American Spectator | Matt Bowman | July 9, 2009

President Obama has a masterful ability to convince people he is their friend even while he attacks them. This talent was on display last Thursday July 2, when the President spoke to members of the Catholic press about conscience rights for pro-life doctors.

Obama seems to be persuading even pro-life Catholics that he supports “robust” conscience rights. The theologically conservative National Catholic Register said it was “most noteworthy” that the President “dispell[ed] … the expectation of the worst regarding conscience clauses.” Continue Reading »

FrontPage Magazine | Mark D. Tooley | July 22, 2009

During the 1980’s, United Methodist Church missionaries toiled in Nicaragua, not planting churches or winning souls, but flaking for the Sandinista experiment with Central American Marxism. Today, some of those missionaries have reemerged to agitate for Honduras’ ousted leftist President Manuel Zelaya, whom the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court, with the military, removed for attempting unconstitutionally to prolong his presidency.

Zelaya’s “overthrow was carried out in violation of Honduran law,” and “those who today control the de facto government of Honduras have no legitimate right to do so,” declared 36 United Methodist missionaries currently or previously in Latin America, in a public statement. Conspiratorially, they implored President Obama to investigate “any involvement of U.S. government-related agencies, including the International Republican Institute, in encouraging or preparing the rupture of the democratic process in Honduras.” Continue Reading »

AFR | St. Ambrose | July 20, 2009

While listening to Ancient Faith Radio today I heard a really insightful quote from St. Ambrose. I don’t recall the exact wording, but here’s the gist of it.

St. Ambrose exhorted Christians to not only take care of the poor but also to share the truth with others. He said that those that know the truth and fail to share it are just as culpable, or more so, than those that do not do acts of charity for those in need. Continue Reading »

BreakPoint | John Stonestreet | June 3, 2009

What Diana West is suggesting in The Death of the Grown-Up: How America’s Arrested Development Threatens Western Civilization will undoubtedly sound ridiculous to thousands of youth pastors, family therapists, and advertising gurus whose livelihoods depend on entertaining, counseling, and selling to teenagers.

Nevertheless, West argues that adolescence didn’t always exist. In fact, it is a quite recent phenomenon. The word “teenager” wasn’t really used until 1941, after all. In virtually every other culture in the history of the world prior to late 20th century Western culture, kids became adults. Not so anymore. They now become teenagers, or, to put it in more sociologically acceptable terms, they become adolescents. Continue Reading »

WND | Patrick Buchanan | July 18, 2009

After half a century of fighting encroachments upon freedom in America, journalist Garet Garrett published “The People’s Pottage.” A year later, in 1954, he died. “The People’s Pottage” opens thus:

“There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom.” Continue Reading »

Acton Institute | Samuel Gregg | July 15, 2009

The pope and the rabbi had a similar message, which amounts to the following. Some of our contemporary economic problems reflect a deeper moral crisis within Western civilization. Until we acknowledge this, shifts in economic policy and business practice will only provide limited solutions.

To be sure, it’s not a message everyone will appreciate. But that doesn’t diminish its accuracy. Continue Reading »

It’s confirmed, we have lunatics in charge of the country. This is a disgrace! America, WE TOLD YOU SO!
CNSNews.com | Penny Starr | July 16, 2009

Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.

“And folks look, AARP knows and the people working here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it. It can’t do it financially.”

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said. Continue Reading »

Investor’s Business Daily | July 14, 2009

Socialized health-care is being rammed down the throats of the American people. Leftist schemes that have been a dismal failure under communist and socialist countries are now here!

The legislation includes big tax surcharges on the rich, a public plan and fines on employers that fail to provide coverage and individuals that don’t get it. Hoping to regain momentum after several stumbles, top House Democrats insist that they’ll move before the August recess.

The bill’s coverage provisions will cost $1.042 trillion over 10 years, according to a preliminary Congressional Budget Office analysis. Virtually all would come in the last seven years.

With voters’ deficit fears growing almost as fast as America’s red ink, Democrats have scrambled to pay for reform’s huge costs. Continue Reading »