Some Democrats Turning On Obama

From The Hill
By Juan Williams

Last week the three most powerful Democrats in the state of West Virginia — Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, Senator Joe Manchin and Rep. Nick Rahall – made a public display of turning their backs on President Obama by announcing plans to skip the Democratic National Convention.

The president lost West Virginia in 2008 and his polling there remains weak. So local Democrats have decided they have no problem embarrassing the man whose name will be on the top of their ticket in November.

The same political distancing act is on display in Pennsylvania’s 12th congressional district. Conservative Democrat Mark Critz also says he has better things to do than go to the convention. Rep. Critz said he will be working in his district instead of “focusing on the agendas of the political parties.” 

Churchill: The Power of Words on Exhibit at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City

For history buffs, Anglophiles, and all appreciators of resonant, meaty language, Churchill: The Power of Words, now on exhibition at the lovely, under-visited-by-us Pierpont Morgan Library (which, by the way, features some of the most beautiful New York City Architecture), is pretty much a must-see. Because even if Winston Churchill wasn't an extremely influential figure in the story of our planet in the 20th-century–which, of course, he was–Churchill's peerless understanding of how words, when chosen carefully and assembled together in a certain sequence, can be even more persuasive, more potent, more lasting than any spectacle, or action, remains nothing short of astonishing. Through a combination of fascinating original documents written and/or edited in Sir Winston Churchill's hand, and a terrific multi-media mini-theater, the Morgan Library's Churchill: The Power of Words does an excellent job of bringing that awful, thrilling, monumental era of the 1930s and 1940s to life. 

 

Sir Winston Churchill Exhibition at the Morgan Library NYC

Churchill: The Power of Words at the Morgan Library and Museum offers visitors a small but remarkable selection of Churchillian memorabilia, as it were, including hand-written letters (our favorites were his Victorian-era childhood missives to his parents from boarding school, above), drafts of many of Sir Winston Churchill's most famous public speeches, as well as official correspondence (but with a personal touch, naturally) to and from the world leaders of the day, including his country's King, General and President Eisenhower, and, of course, his cherished friend and comrade in arms, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But it's not all weight and war here. We loved seeing Churchill's actual Nobel Prize medal, and a doctor's note, which he received after being hit by a car in Prohibition-era New York City, written by a certain Otto C. Pickhardt, M.D., saying that Winston Churchill's "post-accident convalescence" required "the use of alcoholic spirits especially at meal times…. The quantity," Dr. Pickhardt allowed, "is naturally indefinite." 

 

Winston Churchill Speeches on Display at the Pierpont Morgan Library

But the centerpiece of the Morgan Library's Churchill exhibition has to be the multi-media presentation of excerpts from several of his most stirring addresses. The "theater" has three screens. As the Churchill speech plays–and there's no escaping the power of that voice–the middle screen typographically lays out the words as they're spoken, while historic photos of war and peace slideshow by on its flanks. It's a simple, extremely effective display, one that instantly recalls a time when the words spoken by our leaders really mattered. As Edward R. Murrow said: "He mobilised the English language and sent it into battle." And just a note about the Pierpont Morgan Library itself: this place–and by "this place" we mean the sun-drenched, high-ceilinged addition–is simply lovely, an exceptionally pleasant spot to sit and enjoy some treats from the cafe. If you've never been, Churchill: The Power of Words makes for a great excuse to check out the Morgan Library New York. 

 

Churchill: The Power of Words, at the Morgan Library and Museum Details

The Morgan Library's Sir Winston Churchill exhibition will be on view through September 28. The Pierpont Morgan Library is located on Madison Avenue between 36th and 35th Streets and is open Tuesday through Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., on Friday until 9:00 p.m., on Saturday from 10 to 6, and on Sunday from 11 until 6. For more information about Churchill: The Power of Words and the Morgan Library New York, please see the library's website, here.

Has the Day of the Islamist Arrived?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Sixteen months after the United States abandoned its loyal satrap of 30 years, President Hosni Mubarak, to champion democracy in Egypt, the returns are in.

Mohammed Morsi, candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, is president of Egypt, while the military has dissolved the elected parliament that was dominated by the Brotherhood, and curbed his powers.

The military and the mullahs will fight for the future of a country that is home to one in four Arabs. The soldiers who have dominated Egypt since the ouster of King Farouk in 1952 show no willingness to surrender what they have long controlled of the state and economy.

The ObamaCare Mandate is Worse Than You Think

You knew it was bad, but it's worse than you think. ObamaCare includes plans that fund elective abortions, charges people for life-saving drugs while making life-ending drugs free, and seriously fines those who do not comply. Get the Facts: Visit http://www.TellADF.org/ObamaCare.

Check the fact sheet. All of the statistics quoted in the video come directly from the ObamaCare mandate. http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/obamacare/facts

The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

On this, the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, just two days following the Feast of Saints Thomas More and John Fisher, and during the Fortnight for Freedom, we can think of no better video to post than this moving tribute to Blessed John Paul II.  His heroic life reminds us that we are invincible when we stand with Our Lord against evil.

Prayer for the Protection of Religious Liberty

O God our Creator,

Through the power and working of your Holy Spirit,
you call us to live out our faith in the midst of the world,
bringing the light and the saving truth of the Gospel
to every corner of society.

We ask you to bless us
in our vigilance for the gift of religious liberty.
Give us the strength of mind and heart
to readily defend our freedoms when they are threatened;
give us courage in making our voices heard
on behalf of the rights of your Church
and the freedom of conscience of all people of faith.

Grant, we pray, O heavenly Father,
a clear and united voice to all your sons and daughters
gathered in your Church
in this decisive hour in the history of our nation,
so that, with every trial withstood
and every danger overcome—
for the sake of our children, our grandchildren,
and all who come after us—
this great land will always be "one nation, under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Mother Church and the Nanny State

By Rev. George W. Rutler

That the film about the Cristero Rebellion, For Greater Glory, has been news to many and highlights the appalling ignorance of history in our culture. That isolation from the human experience has made it easy to confuse conscience with emotion and think religion is irrational. George Neumayer has written, “In one of his memoirs, Obama uses the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac to argue that secularism equals “reason” and religion equals crazy caprice.”

Such was the distillation of President Obama’s commencement speech at Notre Dame University in which he said, “It is beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what He asks of us…”  Fast forward and the same university has joined a legal action against the consequences of the presidential speechwriter’s half-baked Kantianism.

If Fidel Castro is the unwitting founder of modern Miami, so Barrack Obama may be remembered for unintentionally energizing the Catholic bishops. He may even have brought some of Europe to a more sober frame of mind about his policies. The throngs in European cities welcoming the advent of Hope and Change during his campaign were unsettling enough for anyone who remembers the cheering crowds gathered in some of those same platzes in the 1930’s. In short order, the Nobel Peace Prize became the Nobel Promise Prize when it was awarded to someone who was expected to do great things even if he had not done so already. L’Osservatore Romano was pleased that the new president might bring an end to Reagan’s “neocon revolution” and hailed this election as “a choice that unites.”

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Vatican Reveals Plans for Year of Faith

The Holy See has unveiled the logo, hymn, calendar and website for the Year of Faith, which begins in October.