Columnist.
Why did the Marxist atheists who controlled the Soviet Union tear down the Berlin Wall? Did the Western leaders who forced Soviet communism to collapse shrink from proclaiming the truth of the Bible or the fact that free societies are based on a rule of law rooted in the natural law that God engraves on every heart? In 1983, when President Reagan told the National Association of Evangelicals that the Soviet Union was an "evil empire," he described the conflict with communism as a religious one.
Who should Americans see as worthier candidates for entering our country? Syrian Christians fleeing persecution — and possible beheading by the Islamic State — or smugglers moving drugs across our Mexican border? Under existing U.S. law, a Christian fleeing from regions in Syria threatened or controlled by the Islamic State could claim asylum here. A smuggler moving drugs across our border has no justification at all.
President Barack Obama told the truth — perhaps by accident — when he spoke last November at a Chicago community center. Hecklers shouted at him for not doing enough, in their view, to stop deportations. He responded by defending his new policy. "I understand you may disagree. But we've got to be able to talk honestly about these issues. All right?" said Obama, according to the White House transcript.
There is a country in the Middle East ruled by a secular authoritarian regime — a state sponsor of terror — that has reigned for 44 years under the leadership of a father and then his son who belong to a minority Shiite-derived religious sect. For four years, this regime has been the target of a brutal civil war. In that civil war, the regime's two leading antagonists are the al-Nusra Front, which is the local al-Qaida affiliate, and the Islamic State, which has supplanted al-Qaida as the most aggressive Sunni Islamist terror group.
"This attack by the federal government on religious freedom in our country must not stand and will not stand." So said John Boehner in a speech on the House floor — on Feb. 8, 2012. It was the rhetorical high point of his speakership. "My colleagues, in recent days, Americans of every faith and political persuasion have mobilized in objection to a rule put forward by the Obama administration that constitutes an unambiguous attack on religious freedom in our country," Boehner said.
Which of the three most recent popes had the highest "favorable rating" among American adults as measured by the Gallup poll?
When the Census Bureau recently released its 2014 data on household income in the United States, the numbers once again pointed to a basic trend that this nation's liberal political and cultural elite has no interest in publicizing. Married people with children generally do better financially than other Americans.
When the founders of this nation wrote the Constitution they created a charter for the greatest and truest free-trade zone in history — and they did not seek its approval on a fast track. It is instructive to look at some of the basic differences between our Constitution and the free-trade zone it created and President Barack Obama's proposed 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership.
"Planned Parenthood ... is waging a war against defenseless unborn girls and boys."
Rep. Gerry Connolly — who represents Virginia suburbs that rank among the wealthiest communities in America because they are populated with Washington bureaucrats, lobbyists and federal contractors — is a classic example of the modern American elitist. Or to put it another way: He is a leftist ideologue on the public payroll. When Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards testified in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this week, Connolly fervently attempted to present himself as a champion of women.
In 1818, when only 8 years old, Gioacchino Pecci began his studies with the Jesuits at a school in Italy. Seventy-three years later, as Pope Leo XIII, he published Rerum Novarum, an encyclical letter simultaneously defending the rights of working people and private property. As this pope saw it, they were inseparable. "It is surely undeniable that, when a man engages in remunerative labor, the impelling reason and motive for his work is to obtain property, and thereafter to hold it as his own," he wrote.
There exists in America today what can be called a balance of fear, and it is nowhere better described — through the acts of young Christians who overcome it — than in Tony Perkins' new book, "No Fear: Real Stories of a Courageous New Generation Standing for Truth." In political relations between nations, there is a balance of power. It is the place where conflict ceases because one nation, or alliance of nations, has sufficient power to intimidate others from acting against it. Or: It is when one nation, or alliance of nations, has sufficiently obvious power that it can compel others to do what it wants them to do without having to put its power into action.
Go online and pull up Planned Parenthood's latest annual report and you will see that the group plainly states how many unborn babies it kills in abortions and how much tax money it gets. In fiscal year 2013, the report says that Planned Parenthood performed 327,653 "abortion procedures." That means it deliberately killed 327,653 innocent and defenseless unborn human beings. The same report says that during the year that ended on June 30, 2014, Planned Parenthood raked in $528.4 million in "government health services grants and reimbursements."
Can a Christian be a county clerk in the United States? This is a question it now appears may ultimately be decided by five Supreme Court justices. With it, too, will ride such questions as: Can a Christian be a doctor? A nurse? A public-school teacher? In June, when five justices declared that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment creates a right to "same-sex marriage," Justice Clarence Thomas issued a warning.
The woefully misnamed American Civil Liberties Union is launching a crusade to force Catholic hospitals to act against Catholic moral teachings and the natural law. This is an un-American attack on religious liberty. The ACLU's intentions came to light this week after it threatened to sue Mercy Medical Center in Redding, California, which is operated by the Sisters of Mercy. The hospital is a part of Dignity Health, a nonprofit that operates 40 hospitals — 22 of which are Catholic — in California, Nevada and Arizona.
"Today, our immigration system is broken, and everybody knows it," President Barack Obama declared in a speech last November. "Our nation's immigration system is broken, and I think we need to work together to fix it," House Speaker John Boehner said the same month. They are wrong. Some laws that regulate legal immigration may need adjustment. But our immigration system is not broken. The politicians charged with enforcing it are.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont deserves credit for a certain candor many of his congressional colleagues lack. He calls himself, according to The New York Times, a "democratic Socialist." In Oakland on Monday, Sanders, who is running for president, ranted against what he called "the billionaire class" and called for redirecting the redistribution of wealth in America. "What our campaign is about is creating a political revolution, which says to the billionaire class, they can't have it all, this country, our government, belong to all of us," he said.
Will the children and grandchildren in America today have the same chance to live in prosperity and freedom as previous generations of Americans? "Can we simultaneously love our children but betray their generation and generations yet born?" Mark Levin asks in the first sentence of his new book, "Plunder and Deceit."
In the coming days, a million or more teenage boys will eagerly show up at their high school campuses weeks before regular classes start. They will plan to spend their whole day at school, pay close attention to their instructors, and work as hard as they can. They will spend time in the classroom and time in the field, and they will all be focused on a single, venerable all-American goal: becoming part of a winning football team. Football is America's greatest game for boys, not only because of the lessons it teaches but also because of the broad range of young men who can play the game and learn those lessons.
No group in the United States today is making a stronger stand for liberty than the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of Catholic nuns dedicated to running nursing homes for the elderly poor.
