Smoky Mountains Sunrise

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Henninger: Church Is Still Not State

Catholics are being told to substitute state belief for their religious belief. 

By Daniel Henninger

How ironic it will be if Catholic voters, about 27% of the electorate, put the first Mormon in the White House some 50 years after John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic president. More telling, though, about the current state of the American mind will be the fact that after more than a thousand days and events in Barack Obama's presidency, the reason for this result will be an unexpected reaffirmation of an American principle older than the country's first presidential election: the free exercise of religion.

Also telling about the current American mind is that the Democratic progressives who inhabit the administration either didn't see this coming or, more likely, thought that the idea of free religious exercise no longer counted for much among American Catholics in today's political calculus.

S.C. Ethics Panel Reopens Probe of Gov. Nikki Haley

House Speaker Harrell has accused Gov. Haley of lying about the status of an ethics probe into her activities while serving as a SC House member.   

The House Ethics Committee voted unanimously Wednesday to reopen its inquiry into whether Gov. Nikki Haley illegally lobbied while a S.C. House member, exploiting her public office for her personal gain and to benefit her employers.
Read the rest of this entry >>



How The Poles Saved Civilization, Pt. II

By M. D. Aeschliman

polish flag

Among the most momentous events of twentieth-century history is the defeat of the Communist Red Army in the Battle of Warsaw in the summer of 1920, “the miracle on the Vistula,” the subject of Adam Zamoyski’s excellent recent book Warsaw 1920: Lenin’s Failed Conquest of Europe. In the aftermath of the catastrophic First World War, with its 13 million deaths, the old order in much of Europe collapsed, and though the armistice was concluded in the West on 11 November 1918, eastern Europe, Italy, and the Middle East remained on fire for another five years. This is the background to T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” finished in Lausanne in 1922, and gives it an apocalyptic quality: “Falling towers/ Jerusalem, Athens Alexandria/ Vienna London/ Unreal” (Part V). Four vast empires collapsed—Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, propelling several hundred million people into conditions of intermittent chaos, starvation, and war. Given the discrediting of nearly all continental European political regimes (and the Ottomans)  and the demobilizing of vast numbers of soldiers and their subsequent unemployment and bitterness, Europe was a powder-keg, with fiery instruments everywhere. There were Communist and Fascist strikes, riots, and coups d’etat throughout the continent, including Berlin, Budapest, Munich, and Milan. The Bolsheviks had taken power in Russia in 1917 and defeated their “White” Russian opponents in a bloody civil war over the next three years. Meanwhile, with the advent of the Americans in the West, the Germans, who had driven the Russians to their knees in the east, precipitating the Bolshevik revolution and Russian withdrawal from the war, were themselves forced into an armistice that became a surrender and led to the fall of the Kaiser. 

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

How the Poles Saved Civilization, Part I

By M. D. Aeschliman

hussars

On a June evening in 1979 I was having a drink on a small balcony outside a sixth-floor apartment in downtown Warsaw with a very civilized, elderly Polish intellectual, a retired mathematics professor who had taken a degree at Cambridge between the two world wars and spoke a refined, witty, patrician English. Inside the apartment about a dozen much younger Poles, twenty-five to forty-five years old, were having a secret meeting, their voices inaudible due to the classical music being played so as to hide or muffle their discourse in case the apartment was bugged. They had each arrived separately, by pre-arrangement, from different parts of the city. The elderly professor, whom I will call Professor X, had discreetly let them into the apartment, then offered me a drink and retired with me to the balcony, apparently either uninterested in their conversation or prudent enough not to want to know its content. (As a non-Polish speaker, I could not follow it anyway.) Among the young men in the apartment were several figures who would later become known for their prominent participation in the underground Polish anti-Communist movement and some who already were, including my friend Pawel B., a meteorologist who had brought me along by a circuitous route that required our rapid and sudden exit from a tram-car, the immediate flight to two hidden bicycles, and a fast ride across a large urban park, measures designed, successfully, to elude the two Polish secret service agents who had clearly been following us both, and one of whom was apparently assigned to watch his apartment full time. (It was an apartment that Pawel and his family shared with another family, where in the single bathroom the only toilet paper consisted of successive pages torn out of a stack of the Polish-language edition of Stalin’s collected works.)

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

A Reagan Forum with the President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili



Remarks by the President of Georgia, H.E. Mr. Mikheil Saakashvili on Wednesday, May 23, 2012.

For more information on the ongoing works of President Reagan's Foundation, please visit http://www.reaganfoundation.org.


DeMint: Over 90% of Bills Passed Secretly With No Debate, No Vote

Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) recently reminded his colleagues that the Senate passes over 90 percent of legislation without any debate, without amendment, and without a roll call vote.



Donald Trump on the Kenyan



SC House Member: Send Haley Ethics Complaint to AG

A House Ethics Committee member says she will propose sending an ethics complaint against Gov. Nikki Haley to the attorney general.

Republican Rep. Joan Brady of Columbia said Tuesday the case has gotten too complicated, and Attorney General Alan Wilson should handle it to uphold the governor's and committee's integrity.



Daniel Hannan: 'My New Anglosphere Hero is New Zealand's John Key'

By Daniel Hannan

Prime Minister John Key of New Zealand
Is it possible for a Right-wing government to freeze spending and cut the deficit while remaining popular? As they say in New Zealand, ‘yih’. I’ve remarked before that, while no country is physically further from Britain, none is temperamentally closer. Yet there is a difference when it comes to public expenditure. A slowing of the rate of increase in the UK – there have, as yet, been no net cuts – is howled down as an assault on the poor directed by a clique of ancien régime aristocrats. In New Zealand, by contrast, ‘zero budgets’ are seen as prudent and sensible.

Pope Benedict Names Bishop Aquila of Fargo as New Archbishop of Denver

Pope Benedict XVI today named Bishop Samuel J. Aquila of Fargo, N.D., to be the new Archbishop of Denver. A priest of the Archdiocese of Denver before he was assigned to Fargo, Aquila is a strong, orthodox churchman and his appointment, along with appointments in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia, signals a blessed change from the days of Bernardin, Mahony and McCarrick.


Archbishop-designate Aquila is known for his love for the priesthood, a passion for pro-life advocacy, and a heart for youth.  This is another appointment that will inspire and encourage the surge in priestly vocations and the New Evangelization in the United States.  Thank you, Holy Father.  Deo Gratias!

In the following video, Bishop Aquila reflects on the World Youth Day held in Denver in 1993.



Monday, May 28, 2012

A Memorial Day Tribute

The secret of Happiness is Freedom, and the secret of Freedom, Courage. 

Thucydides





Sunday, May 27, 2012

Pentecost Sunday

"And when the days of Pentecost were drawing to a close, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a violent wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues as of fire, which settled upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in foreign tongues, even as the Holy Spirit prompted them to speak" (Acts 2, 1-4)



Saturday, May 26, 2012

From the Pastor - A Red Letter Day

A weekly column by Father George Rutler.


The term “Red Letter Day” goes back to 325 AD when the First Council of Nicaea decreed that great feasts be marked in red on the calendar. Pentecost is quite literally a Red Letter Day since its liturgical color is red, to match the fire that came down on the apostles fifty days after the Resurrection remade the world.

Saint Augustine said that God made us without our help, but He will not remake us without our cooperation. We did not invent the biological process by which we were conceived and, as zygotes, given the 38 chromosomes that encode the physical nature we have throughout life, but we do have a moral freedom to decide how we are going to use that physical life. The Holy Spirit gives each of us in Confirmation, as he gave the whole Church at the first Pentecost in Jerusalem, seven powers to enable God to make us what He wants us to be: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.

It is good to study the subtle differences between these gifts. This can easily be done by reading the Catechism, and praying daily for their increase. This is what Blessed Teresa of Calcutta meant when she used to say so often, “Just give God permission.”

There is no need to regret lost opportunities when we still have the breath of life, if we let the Holy Spirit breathe into that life the love that made us. What you might have wanted to become does not matter, so long as you let God make you what he intends you to be. Thomas S. Jones, Jr., a New York poet who died in 1932, wrote a gentle poem that still crops up from time to time:

Across the fields of yesterday
He sometimes comes to me,
A little lad just back from play –
The lad I used to be.

And yet he smiles wistfully
Once he has crept within,
I wonder if he hopes to see
The man I might have been.

We would be condemned to perpetual wistfulness at the contemplation of unfilled promise, were it not for what the Holy Spirit can still make us with our consent. Aristotle taught that the qualities of a good rhetorician are Ethos (talents and integrity of character), Logos (right use of the mind) and Pathos (sharing a sense of the challenges of life in a difficult world). The Holy Spirit shifts this to a formula for holiness by an Ethos that shares the heritage of the saints, a Logos which is God's own truth, and the triumphal suffering of Christ who died and rose again so that we might live forever with Him. So Pentecost is the reddest of Red Letter Days.




Diamond Jubilee March-past in Windsor Castle


Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Brtish Armed Forces mounted a special Parade and Muster at Windsor in honor of The Queen's 60 year reign on Saturday, May 19.

Troops representing the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force paraded through Windsor Castle and town before Her Majesty and The Duke of Edinburgh. This was followed by a muster in the Castle grounds for a unique event before an audience of more than 3,000 Armed Forces personnel, their families, and veterans. An impressive, tri-Service flypast of current and historic aircraft concluded the celebrations.


Friday, May 25, 2012

Let Freedom Ring!

Archbishop Lori delivers an address on the Obama administration's assault on religious liberty.

The Archbishop of Baltimore, William Lori, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, delivered the keynote address at the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s National Religious Freedom Gala Reception and Award Dinner in Washington May 24. 

It has now been just over a week since I became the archbishop of Baltimore, and I find myself surrounded by history there. I live near the Basilica of the Assumption, the oldest cathedral in the U.S. The cornerstone was laid in 1806. The nation’s first bishop, John Carroll, is buried beneath the basilica, as are many of my predecessors.

John Carroll was a cousin of Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Charles Carroll’s story — and indeed Maryland’s early history — teaches us about the fragility of religious liberty and the importance of exercising vigilance in protecting it.

Chaplain Barred from Celebrating Mass in South Carolina Jail

From Catholic World News
A Catholic chaplain has been told that he cannot celebrate Mass in a South Carolina jail.

Msgr. Ed Lofton, who had been celebrating Mass at Charleston County jail for 15 years, was blocked from entering the facility because he was carrying altar wine. The jail’s policy bans all alcohol, and while state regulations in South Carolina make an exception for sacramental wine, Charleston County does not.

Msgr. Lofton reports that he bring a single ounce of wine to the jail, all of which he would consume himself. Prison officials told him that he must substitute grape juice. But a valid Mass cannot be celebrated without wine. 

Additional sources for this story
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Doctors Tell the Truth About ObamaCare

The Democratic Party has produced a TV ad purporting to show Rep. Paul Ryan throwing grandma off a cliff for opposing ObamaCare.  A couple of San Antonio doctors have responded with the following ad:





Thursday, May 24, 2012

God's 'Moral Imperative': A Voter's Guide

By Stephen Stone, President, RenewAmerica

This installment in our series on Mitt Romney and Mormonism takes a look at the moral imperative God requires of all voters. It's an imperative that has special relevance to those who wish to "do the right thing" this election.

Our analysis should be of particular interest to those who support Romney — a candidate whose liberal-socialistic record, and opportunistic, untruthful rhetoric, make voting for him problematic for moral conservatives this fall, notwithstanding the abhorrent record and rhetoric of Barack Hussein Obama, our nation's Muslim-leaning communist-in-chief.

We address our thoughts especially to Mitt's main political base: active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who stand almost unanimously with Romney in "sustaining and supporting" his pragmatic, immoral mischief, manipulation, and deceit.

We also address evangelical and other Christians who have deep reservations about voting for the "lesser of two evils" this election — in other words, Mitt — whom many consider a virtual stand-in for Obama, due to his hand in the creation of Obamacare, his enabling of pro-abortion policies as governor of Massachusetts (even after proclaiming himself "pro-life"), and his singlehanded imposition of same-sex marriage on his state, opening the door to gay marriage nationwide. (Click here, here, and here.)

As we proceed to discuss "voting as a moral obligation," our premise is that a moral citizen's only concern is to respect and obey the will of God, no matter the issue at hand, or the enticements, rationalizations, or self-serving arguments for doing otherwise.

This biblical premise has as much relevance to politics and civic obligations as any other area of life.


"Pro-Choice" Americans at Record-Low 41%

Americans now tilt "pro-life" by nine-point margin, 50% to 41%

 
By Lydia Saad

PRINCETON, NJ -- The 41% of Americans who now identify themselves as "pro-choice" is down from 47% last July and is one percentage point below the previous record low in Gallup trends, recorded in May 2009. Fifty percent now call themselves "pro-life," one point shy of the record high, also from May 2009.

U.S. Adults' Position on Abortion

Gallup began asking Americans to define themselves as pro-choice or pro-life on abortion in 1995, and since then, identification with the labels has shifted from a wide lead for the pro-choice position in the mid-1990s, to a generally narrower lead for "pro-choice" -- from 1998 through 2008 -- to a close division between the two positions since 2009. However, in the last period, Gallup has found the pro-life position significantly ahead on two occasions, once in May 2009 and again today. It remains to be seen whether the pro-life spike found this month proves temporary, as it did in 2009, or is sustained for some period.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

A Reagan Foundation Forum with Congressman Paul Ryan


A Perspectives on Leadership Forum with Paul Ryan on Tuesday, May 22, 2012.

For more information on the ongoing works of President Reagan's Foundation, please visit http://www.reaganfoundation.org.


Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Rallies for Religious Freedom Scheduled for June 8


The Pro-Life Action League and Citizens for a Pro-Life Society are pleased to announce that the next Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally will take place on Friday, June 8, in cities and towns across the United States.

The June 8 Stand Up Rally builds on the tremendous momentum created by the first Stand Up Rally on March 23.

On that day, over 63,000 Americans came out in 145 cities coast to coast pushed back against the new mandate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that requires all employers provide free contraceptives, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs through their health plans, even in violation of their consciences.

Now the fight continues with the next Stand Up Rally on Friday, June 8.

Right now the entire Obamacare law, with its oppressive mandates and abortion loopholes, is under review by the United States Supreme Court. A ruling is coming at the end of June.

If the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare, the June 8 Rally sets the agenda for future health care reform, demanding respect for religious liberty and freedom of conscience.

But if the Court leaves Obamacare intact, the June 8 Rally advances our demand that the HHS Mandate must go.

Come out on June 8, 2012—the 223rd anniversary of the day our Founding Father James Madison introduced the Bill of Rights, with its guarantee of religious freedom, to the First Congress—and stand up for religious freedom!

The Nationwide Rally for Religious Freedom was a peaceful, family-friendly, non-partisan, ecumenical event. For more information, please see the Rally Guidelines and Protocols, below.

http://standupforreligiousfreedom.com/

133 cities in 46 states, organized alphabetically by state

Contours of the Catholic Mind

By Julia Smucker

One year ago, following about six years of will-I-won’t-I agonizing, I finally made it all the way into the Catholic Church. In my ongoing immersion into the Catholic world before and since (call it mystagogy, call it acculturation), I have observed a number of interesting patterns I might characterize as quintessentially Catholic ways of thinking. Of course, this is emphatically not to say that all Catholics think alike – we’re as far spread all over the map as anybody, to be sure. And I am more and more convinced that there is no such thing as a typical Catholic. And yet, paradoxically, there are certain recognizable tendencies I’ve picked up in this oddly fascinating process of developing a Catholic mind, several of which, I find, seem to suit me surprisingly well. Here are a few of those tendencies as observed after a year of being Catholic.

Monday, May 21, 2012

5 Writing Tips from Winston Churchill

By Clare Lynch

I’ve talked before about Winston Churchill’s gift for language. Here’s a great example of an inspiring speech he gave to get Great Britain behind its leader:
“The news from France is very bad, and I grieve for the gallant French people who have fallen into this terrible misfortune. Nothing will alter our feeling towards them or our faith that the genius of France will rise again.
“What has happened in France makes no difference to British faith and purpose. We have become the sole champions now in arms to defend the world cause. We shall do our best to be worthy of that high honor.
“We shall defend our island and, with the British Empire around us, we shall fight on unconquerable until the curse of Hitler is lifted from the brows of men. We are sure that in the end all will be well. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.
“But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.”
Here’s why it works:

1. He gets straight to the point.

“The news from France is very bad.” Imagine if every corporate writer with bad tidings was as upfront as Churchill.

More typical is the CEO whose email announces 1,400 redundancies and begins with this cheery bit of corporate speak:
“Today we announce a multi-year program that will enhance service excellence and innovation, help achieve greater operating efficiencies and position us for accelerated growth.”
Lesson: If you have to deliver bad news, don’t warm up to your theme. The wait only makes things more painful. Worse, never try to make the news seem good.

43 Catholic Institutions File 12 Lawsuits Over the Obama Regime's Assault on Religious Liberty

Kathleen Sebelius, Obama Quisling for Catholic Persecution.
Today 43 Catholic institutions, including the Archdioceses of New York and Washington, D.C., the Catholic University of America and Notre Dame, joined a lawsuit to block implementation of the mandate by the Obama regime that would require them to provide health insurance coverage for surgical sterilization, prescription contraceptives, and drugs that cause early stage abortions.

The Jones Day law firm has filed the suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.  (For a complete list of the plaintiffs, click here.)

We deplore the Obama regime's assault on the Catholic Church and its disregard for the Constitution, religious liberty and conscience rights.  Nevertheless, it is wonderful to behold what a whiff of oppression can do to clear political thinking and unite the Church militant in a way that it has not been united for at least a half century.  

Onward, Christian soldiers!


Why the Pope's Army Will Not Kneel to the HHS Mandate

By Dan Burke

Among the sounds of pipes, harps and horns the multitude fell down before the golden statue of Nebuchadnezzar. All worshiped the image save three young men.

The story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego — and the captivating image of the “fourth man” within the white-hot furnace —  is one most Christians are told as children. However, as adults in an ever-increasingly secular world, the story adopts a more sober tone.

For us Americans, it seems like there has always been a pernicious chorus in the background of our lives asking us to kneel to this or that false hope. Yet, the HHS contraception mandate was the keynote that explicitly brought the idol before the faithful and said “Kneel or else.”
 
People of God have always refused to kneel and abandon truth. With the fiery furnace in mind, Catholics have gleaned seeds of wisdom from the words of St. Augustine: “An unjust law is no law at all.”

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Best Education Sites: The Schools that Rule the Web

Chen Guangcheng Leaves China on Flight for United States

After a second Congressional hearing, during which he called to update members of Congress on the current status of his tenuous situation in China, forced abortion opponent Chen Guangcheng has finally been granted his visa request to leave China for the United States.



From the Pastor - Come, Holy Spirit

A weekly column by Father George Rutler.

The great feasts of Christmas and Easter have their Advent and Lent for preparation, but there is little of the sort for Pentecost, which is celebrated next week, although the liturgies of the week before are filled with anticipation. The Resurrection of Christ and the bestowal of the Holy Spirit on the Church fifty days later are inseparable, and there was what we might call a Pre-Pentecost on Easter itself when Christ breathed on the apostles and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and who sins you retain are retained” (John 20: 22-23). On the actual Pentecost, the whole Church would be inspired with fire from Heaven.

The hymn “Veni Creator Spiritus” invoking the Holy Spirit is sung at the Church’s important events, and most fervently at the conferral of Holy Orders. I remember Archbishop Dominic Tang Yee-min of Canton preaching to American seminarians and saying three times: “No pope, no Catholic Church!” He had been confined to a Communist prison for twenty-two years for loyalty to the papacy. We can also say, “No priest, no Catholic Church!” Every Christian is imbued with the Holy Spirit in Baptism, and the priest has a special measure of that gift so that he might serve the people. For many years in our country there has been a deafness to the Holy Spirit’s call to priestly service, for we hear Him with our hearts, and hardness of heart is the spiritual equivalent of hardness of hearing. Happily, invocations of the Holy Spirit seem to have stirred up solid vocations recently, and the present number of 3,723 seminarians in our country is the highest in nearly twenty-five years.


Among the young men from our own parish studying for the priesthood, three hope to be ordained to the diaconate later this year. This past week I had the privilege of giving the annual retreat at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers for those preparing for ordination in our archdiocese. I’d have to say that all of them seem more certain of what is the solid meat of doctrine than was the tone when I was in seminary, and they are very much in the mold of the present Pontiff as shepherds of souls. God willing, they will be priests in one of the most challenging times in Christian history, and our culture will not afford them the perquisites and comforts that an earlier and more Christian culture provided, but that circumstance will also make for stronger hearts and voices for the conversion and care of souls.

Everyone has a vocation to some state of life and some particular service, and the Holy Spirit guides each in discerning what that is. In this season, then, it is especially fitting to pray, “Come Holy Spirit. Enlighten the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your love.”


Friday, May 18, 2012

The Queen Welcomes Monarchs to Diamond Jubilee Lunch

The Queen and Prince Philip were joined today by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in welcoming royal families from all over the world to a lunch in celebration of the Diamond Jubilee.





Academy Award Winner Takes on Georgetown

Exorcist Author Leads Alumni & Student Effort to Address Repeated Scandals and Non-Compliance at America’s Oldest Catholic University 

 

William Peter Blatty also wrote the screenplay for The Exorcist, which earned 10 Academy Award nominations in 1973. His most recent novels include Elsewhere, Dimiter and Crazy.







Washington, D.C. – Academy Award winner William Peter Blatty, whose best-selling book and blockbuster film The Exorcist were situated at his alma mater, Georgetown University, announced today that he will lead alumni, students and other members of the new Father King Society to petition the Catholic Church for remedies up to and including the possible removal or suspension of top-ranked Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic or Jesuit in its fundraising and representations to applicants.

The move comes on the heels of an unprecedented rebuke of Georgetown and its first lay president by His Eminence, Donald Cardinal Wuerl, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington, over Georgetown’s invitation to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to be a diploma ceremony speaker today. Despite this and two petitions collecting almost 60,000 voices, Georgetown did not relent. 

Has the Bell Begun to Toll for the GOP?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Among the more controversial chapters in "Suicide of a Superpower," my book published last fall, was the one titled, "The End of White America."

It dealt with the demographic decline of the white majority and what it portends for education, the U.S. economy, politics and national unity.

That book and chapter proved the proximate cause of my departure from MSNBC, where the network president declared that subjects such as these are inappropriate for "the national dialogue."

Apparently, the mainstream media are reassessing that.
 

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Obama's Literary Agent in 1991 Booklet: 'Born in Kenya and Raised in Indonesia and Hawaii'

Breitbart News has obtained a promotional booklet produced in 1991 by Barack Obama's then-literary agency, Acton & Dystel, which touts Obama as "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii." 

The booklet, which was distributed to "business colleagues" in the publishing industry, includes a brief biography of Obama among the biographies of eighty-nine other authors represented by Acton & Dystel. 

It also promotes Obama's anticipated first book, Journeys in Black and White--which Obama abandoned, later publishing Dreams from My Father instead.

Obama’s biography in the booklet is as follows (image and text below):





Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

 Viri Galilaei by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina


Palestrina's Viri Galilaei Mass for 6 voices, performed by La Chapelle Royalle. The painting is by Botticelli ("Lamentation over the Dead Christ")


An Ascension Thursday Eucharistic Flash Mob in Preston, England


A Eucharistic flash mob in the center of Preston, organized by the Capuchin Franciscans on Ascension Thursday 2011.



Religious Liberty: A Commentary by Father Robert Barron


Father Robert Barron comments on the history of the Church in England, its vitality today, and the growing threats to religious liberty from secular tyrants.



Wednesday, May 16, 2012

A Coalition of Michigan TEA Parties Demonstrate Power of 'We the People'

MI4CS TEA Parties put Glenn on top with historic petition drive for U.S. Senate


By Cindy Gamrat

With an entire grassroots volunteer crew, Michigan TEA Parties led the way in collecting over 27,000 Nominating Signatures in just a few short months. Glenn filed 27,227 signatures at the Bureau of Elections to gain a spot on the ballot for the United States Senate primary on August 7th. Although many were saying he would not gather enough signatures to even make it on the ballot, at the time of filing, Glenn led the pack by filing the most signatures of any of the Republican U.S. Senate Candidates.

Signatures for Glenn’s petitions were collected as the result of dedicated and selfless efforts of hundreds of grassroots supporters and TEA Party Patriots from all 14 congressional districts and all 83 counties throughout Michigan. Signatures were collected in every county and at least 500 signatures were collected in each district to show the statewide grassroots strength behind Glenn.

Michigan 4 Conservative Senate (MI4CS) helped assemble the all-volunteer coalition of TEA Parties and individuals from around the State of Michigan. These volunteers were trained through conference calls, one on one, and personal phone calls. "We have been told over and over that there is no way that we could gather the required signatures through an all grassroots effort in such a short time. We've been told that it has never been done before. Well, we just did it! We are Americans and we are serious about our freedoms! The TEA Party was integral to the foundation of this country, and will also be vital in saving it."

MI4CS credits the successful framework of the Hoosiers 4 Conservative Senate and the Indiana TEA Parties strong defeat of 36 year incumbent Dick Lugar. According to Freeland TEA Party activist Catherine Zemanek, “The grassroots supporters of Richard Mourdock blazed the trail for the people of Indiana to take back their government, and we strongly believe that if it can happen in Indiana, it can happen here in Michigan. The people in the Midwest are speaking up loud and clear, and we want our values represented by true Conservatives. We are going to save this country, one state at a time.”

Utilizing the framework of the Indiana TEA party effort, MI4CS TEA Parties vetted all of the Republican candidates prior to choosing one candidate to endorse and support. Glenn won the vote and endorsement, providing the "Boots on the Ground" necessary for the petition drive, the upcoming primary, and the ultimate defeat of incumbent Senator Debbie Stabenow in November.

“Politicians from both political parties have demeaned and slandered Patriots and Conservatives repeatedly with homosexual slurs, lies, and labels such as radicals and terrorists. But in reality, we’re just concerned citizens with traditional values that nearly all Americans lived by and took for granted as normal in the ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. Our parents raised us to be law-abiding, fiscally-responsible people just like most other Americans then and now, and we expect our elected representatives to act that way as well,” said Mi4CS 11th Congressional District Rep Tim Bos. “The status quo is unacceptable, and we’re willing to make the sacrifices required to change it. Getting a win for Richard Mourdock, and more than enough nominating signatures for Gary Glenn is further proof that we are not alone, we are not “dead”, we are not marginal, and indeed, we are a force to be reckoned with”. 

Cindy Gamrat is founder and facilitator of Michigan 4 Conservative Senate.


Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Gary Glenn's TEA Party Army Shocks and Awes Michigan Political Establishment

Volunteers collect over 27,000 signatures for US Senate race -- more than Hoekstra, Durant, and Hekman, who paid staff to gather signatures

Gary Glenn
LANSING, Mich. – Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gary Glenn Tuesday submitted to the Secretary of State the signatures of 27,227 registered voters gathered by an all-volunteer army of TEA Party and other grassroots conservatives to place Glenn’s name on the August 7th GOP primary ballot. The total was thousands more signatures than submitted by GOP rivals Pete Hoekstra, Clark Durant, and Randy Hekman, all of whom had paid campaign staff gathering signatures.

“We witnessed a week ago in Indiana what it meant for a U.S. Senate candidate to have TEA Party support in a Republican primary election,” Glenn said. “Today is just the first example of what it means to have TEA Party support in the Republican primary here in Michigan.”

Glenn in February won the endorsement of Michigan 4 Conservative Senate, a coalition of 43 local TEA Party groups that has since grown to fifty, roughly 80 percent of all active TEA Party groups in the state. The coalition was modeled after Hoosiers for a Conservative Senate, whose support was considered decisive in state Treasurer Richard Mourdock’s upset defeat last Tuesday of six-term U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar in that state’s GOP primary election.

Glenn said he had collected only 1,500 signatures before receiving the TEA Party coalition endorsement on Feb. 25th, meaning TEA Party and other campaign volunteers gathered over 25,000 signatures in only eleven weeks.

“This is how a TEA Party-driven grassroots-intensive campaign can and will compete with and outperform the big-name, big-money campaigns of the two GOP establishment candidates,” Glenn said.

State law requires U.S. Senate candidates to gather a minimum of 15,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, the highest requirement in the nation, and 100 signatures from at least half of the state’s 15 congressional districts. Glenn far exceeded both requirements, submitting signatures from all 83 counties in the state and more than 500 signatures from all 15 districts.

In addition to the MI4CS TEA Parties endorsement, Glenn has also been endorsed by former Gov. Mike Huckabee and by the National Right to Work PAC. State Rep. Mike Shirkey, R-Jackson, is chairing Glenn’s campaign in Jackson County.


Number one issue: bring jobs to Michigan


“The number one issue in the U.S. Senate race is this,” Glenn said, “that in the time Debbie Stabenow has been in the U.S. Senate, Michigan has lost 800,000 private sector jobs, the worst job loss in America. It’s time to give someone else a try.”

To make Michigan and America more competitive and better able to attract and create new jobs, Glenn proposed:
  • Repealing ObamaCare and other new regulations that have burdened American businesses under the Obama Administration.
  • Passage of state and national Right to Work laws banning compulsory union membership or dues payment, which he said is not only an individual freedom issue but a major factor in where American and foreign companies locate new plant sites and create jobs.
  • Dramatically reduce or ideally, eliminate, what is now the highest federal corporate income tax in the world, which discourages new investment in the U.S.
  • Aggressively harvesting America’s estimated 1.4 trillion barrels of oil, which a study by Penn State University said will create 800,000 new American oil and gas jobs.


Directional drilling for oil beneath the Great Lakes


Glenn over the last week distinguished himself from both former Congressman Pete Hoekstra and charter schools executive Clark Durant on the issue of directional drilling from onshore for oil underneath the Great Lakes. Such technology involves a wellhead on shore at least 1,000 feet away from the water’s edge, drilling straight down roughly 1,000 feet, then drilling at an angle to access oil found nearly a mile beneath the bottom of the lakes.

In 1996, the Michigan Environmental Science Board, comprised of university and other scientists with environmental and natural resource expertise, concluded that “there is little to no risk of contamination to the Great Lakes bottom or waters through releases directly above the bottom hole portion of directionally drilled wells." http://www.mackinac.org/9712

In a debate last week in Oakland County, Hoekstra and Glenn both said they would support directional drilling for oil under the Great Lakes. Durant said he opposed it. But days later, Hoekstra reversed himself, telling the media he does not support such drilling.

“Apparently, I’m the only candidate,” Glenn said, “who’ll stand his ground and fight to bring high-paying oil and gas jobs, lower gas prices, and energy independence to Michigan, rather than run for cover as Pete Hoekstra did.”
“If every U.S. senator took the same ‘not in my backyard’ position Clark Durant does on this issue,” Glenn said, “we’d be stuck right where we are with high unemployment, high gas prices, and giving hundreds of millions of dollars for oil from countries that don’t like us and would like to blow us up.”


Congressional term limits


In a debate Monday night in Grand Rapids, Glenn also distinguished himself from Hoekstra and Durant on the issue of term limits. Glenn supports a Constitutional amendment imposing term limits on members of Congress. Durant opposes Congressional term limits, while Hoekstra in 2004 broke a term limits pledge he made when first running for Congress in 1992 that he would serve only six terms.


Hoekstra’s record on deficit spending, the Brady Bill, and Right to Work


During the debate, Glenn also criticized Hoekstra for voting for the $850 billion Wall Street bailout, the $192 billion stimulus spending package, outrageous earmarks such as the $223 million Bridge to Nowhere, five times to raise the debt ceiling, the last time to $11 trillion, and for the Brady Bill gun control law.

He also criticized Hoekstra for being endorsed and funded in past campaigns by Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters, and as a result, opposing state and national Right to Work legislation. Hoekstra in 2007 also joined Stabenow and then-Sen. Barack Obama in cosponsoring a bill that would have, by federal mandate, forced all state and local governments in America to open their police, fire fighters, and paramedics to being unionized.


Stabenow on homosexual “marriage”?


Glenn said that President Obama’s recent endorsement of so-called homosexual “marriage” will help him hold Stabenow accountable in November for her opposition to the 2004 Marriage Protection Amendment defining marriage as only between one man and one woman, which Glenn co-authored.

The amendment won nearly 60 percent of the vote statewide, including majorities in heavily African-American Democratic strongholds such as Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw. Polls at the time indicated that two-thirds of African-Americans and two-thirds of union members voted for the amendment.

Between the Lines, a homosexual advocacy newspaper in Detroit, reported in 2004 that Stabenow --during comments to that year’s state Democratic Party convention -- “denounced the ballot proposal banning equal marriage rights which is slated to hit the ballot this November."

“We’ll be asking this fall whether Sen. Stabenow on that issue stands with Barack Obama or with the people of Michigan, including African-Americans and union members, two core elements of her party’s own base,” Glenn said.

Glenn has a 33-year history of fighting for the cause of limited government and conservative values. As executive director of the Idaho Freedom to Work committee, Glenn led the successful effort to pass Right to Work legislation in that state in 1986, prohibiting compulsory union membership. He is a founding member of the Michigan Freedom to Work coalition, which is pushing to enact such a law in Michigan.

As a county commissioner, Glenn 16 years ago authored the first Health Savings Account-based health care plan for county employees anywhere in America and was invited to testify before Congress, where a top Congressional staffer in a news report called him a national “pioneer” in free market healthcare reform.

As president of the American Family Association of Michigan for the last 12 years, Glenn has promoted traditional family values, including coauthoring Michigan's Marriage Protection Amendment defining marriage as only between one man and one woman.

Glenn was an Eagle Scout, captain of his high school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and served eight years in the Army National Guard, in which he won two Army Achievement Medals and was an honor graduate of both basic and advanced individual training. He attends Midland Baptist Church, and he and his wife Annette have five children and two grandchildren.


Reichstag Event?

DHS Whistleblower says Communists will stage riots as justification for martial law.

 From Congressman Tom Tancredo
  • ‘Reichstag’ event could involve false assassination attempt blamed on “white supremacists”
  • Incited racial riots would lead to calls for government “crackdown”
  • Civil unrest would lead to martial law, DHS travel checkpoints, indefinite delay of elections

Washington, DC – The Obama agents, through the DHS and other assorted colluders, are plotting a major ‘Reichstag’ event to generate racial riots and produce the justification for martial law, delaying the November 2012 elections, possibly indefinitely, a DHS whistleblower informed the Canada Free Press on Tuesday.

The ‘Reichstag Event’ would take the form of a staged assassination attempt against Barack Obama, “carefully choreographed” and manufactured by Obama operatives. It would subsequently be blamed on “white supremacists” and used to enrage the black community to rioting and looting, the DHS source warned.

The Obama administration would then use the violence and chaos they created as justification for the imposition of martial law in major urban cities in America, the creation of DHS checkpoints, restriction of travel, and the indefinite delay of the November 2012 elections.

The Reichstag event refers to a fire started during Hitler’s rise to power. The fire allowed him to grab emergency powers and murder his opposition. Historians have long believed that Hitler started the fire himself, while he blamed it on the Communists.

The anonymous whistleblower elaborated on how the Obama administration is using the Occupy movement, labor unions, and other assorted subversive groups to create massive chaos within the nation.

“Using untracked campaign funds, they are paying people to infiltrate the various movements to cause physical destruction of property and disrupt commerce. That began last year, but has increased ten-fold already this year,” the DHS source shared.

“Obama is using some high profile people as pawns to foment the revolution. I heard several times through very credible sources that [Louis] Farrakhan is on the CIA payroll. Other have been named as well, but I’m not prepared to identify them yet. Farrakhan is to coordinate the Blacks and the Muslims to prepare for riots this summer, using any means necessary.”

The recent revelations appeared to complement warnings given by other government insiders, who alleged that Jeremiah Wright, Van Jones, Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson were all agent provocateurs whose mission was to inflame racial tensions and spark open conflict in the streets of America.

According to the DHS source, a global economic collapse is coming, which the Obama administration is well aware of. They wish to build a system of global governance from the ashes of the previous financial system. In order for this mission to be completed, the Obama administration needs more time at the helm of power. Their reasons for concern are justified; as recently as May 8, influential political prognosticator Dick Morris predicted a Romney landslide if the election were held today.


The shocking news also seemed to confirm recent actions taken by the DHS, such as their purchase of 450 million rounds of ammunition and their recent BlackHawk helicopters operation in Chicago, which looked frighteningly similar to a civil unrest exercise, but was described as “routine training”.

The concept of a staged assassination attempt against Barack Obama is not new as well and was first voiced by a knowledgeable White House insider known only as “WHI”.
Ulsterman:  So what is it?  Pull what off?
Insider:  A manufactured threat against the President of the United States.  Something easily digested by the media and the American public.  Not a real threat – something totally of their own making. They will use it if they need to – got no doubt whatsoever about that.  Jarrett has approved the idea…and did so a long time ago.  There were whispers of it during the 2008 campaign.  McCain was so god-awful it never reached a serious consideration…but the plan was discussed.  If needed – they were willing to go that route.  It would be the ultimate use of the race card in the history of American politics.  And…it would likely work if they got away with it.
Ulsterman:  They would go that far? Risk something like that?
Insider:  You don’t need to ask that question.  Not after what we’ve discussed this past year.  Not after what I’ve told you has proven out over and over again.  So stop asking the fu—ing question.  You need to accept the fact…if you haven’t done so yet – you need to accept the fact these people are playing for keeps.  I told you – how many times?  How many times have I said it?  These are not Democrats.  These folks are something else entirely.  And they are willing to push the country – all of us, right against the fu—ing wall.  Hard.  I’m pushing back.  Others are too.  All of this is part of that effort.  A small part, but an important one.
As with the Occupy movement, it appears as if the Obama administration executed a test-run of the plot, with a “shot being fired” at the White House. This would lend credibility when they choreographed the attempt for the masses.

As early as August 2011, WHI also predicted race riots coming in the summer of 2012. The use of the Trayvon Martin death and the subsequent incitements to violence by the media, Obama operatives, and useful idiots, followed by the subsequent threats by the NBPP of a coming “race war” appear to have been merely a sign of what’s to come.

Middle-class American citizens were shocked and appalled at the allegations, with many hoping they were not true. Some said they had harbored similar suspicions for quite some time, due to the many anomalies and inaccuracies emanating from the current operatives inhabiting the White House.

The DHS source claimed that campaign funds were being directly used to fund the incitements to violence and rioting that the Obama administration was seeking to spark.

“Using untracked campaign funds, they are paying people to infiltrate the various movements to cause physical destruction of property and disrupt commerce. That began last year, but has increased ten-fold already this year,” stated this source.

“He added that they are using some lower level DHS agents to make the payments under the context of tracking subversives, but they are the unwitting subversives.”


The use of campaign funds, funneled through DHS agents to street-level agitators for the purpose of fomenting violence, would be extremely legally questionable, if not outright illegal, certain legal experts shared.

Intelligence officials said that if the allegations were true, the degree to which extremists had penetrated the upper echelons of the American government, finance, and security structure was unparalleled.

“Let’s just say that we are not taking these accusations lightly,” one official remarked on condition of anonymity. “Certain figures will be placed under a microscope, along with their associates.”

Valerie Jarrett, the shadowy figure always at Obama’s side, has been accused by some of “manipulating” or “controlling’ the President. Just who does she work for? Who does she take orders from?

The possibility that Barack Obama’s operatives, under the direction of Valerie Jarrett, was actively involved in the facilitation of street violence and mob chaos disturbed citizens, with many deeming it unpatriotic, subversive, and possibly seditious.


“Isn’t this why HUAC was created?”, one middle-class citizen angrily questioned. “Congress must re-instate HUAC, hold hearings, and find out if there is any truth to this.”

The intensely close co-ordination of seemingly separate entities confirmed the suspicions of many that communist agents had infiltrated major institutions, organizations, and trade unions, and were working together to sabotage America.


“Their apparatus can be seen as a type of octupus, having many tentacles,” one intelligence source confided on condition of anonymity. “Occupy is one tentacle, the unions are another, the Black Panthers are another, the radical black/islamic supremacists(Wright, Farrakhan, Van Jones, Sharpton) are another, DHS and its’ umbrella agencies are another, the mainstream press is another,” the source explained. “These tentacles are all working together, seemingly separate, but eventually they are controlled by the same small group of people. They receive their directives and marching orders and mindlessly execute them.”

The intelligence official predicted that in the very near future, all of the seemingly separate entities would be clearly exposed as working together, co-ordinating their activities together, and driving for the same goal – the destruction of America as a constitutional republic, the destruction of its capitalist system, and the dethroning of the U.S. as a superpower.


Canadian Bishops Issue Letter on Religious Liberty and Freedom of Conscience

Perhaps motivated by the Obama regime's assaults on religious liberty in the United States, the Canadian Catholic bishops yesterday released a major pastoral letter on freedom of conscience and religion.  The letter addresses an "aggressive relativism" that seeks to relegate religion to the private sphere.

The full text of the letter from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops is here.