Smoky Mountains Sunrise

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Romney Admits ‘It’s Very Easy to Excite the Base With Incendiary Comments’

Sometimes when he's really tired the truth comes out and one can glimpse this cynical manipulator's hollow core.  Do you think this is an admission about smearing his opponents, or a promise to treat Obama the way McCain did, with kid gloves?


Michigan is Santorum Country, but Congrats to Mitt for Winning Detroit


Mitt Romney's razor thin margin in his home state over Rick Santorum will yield him the same number of delegates as those won by Senator Santorum.

The latest, unofficial reports indicate that Romney and Santorum will each gain 15 delegates from Michigan.  That Romney with unlimited funding barely managed to defeat an underfunded challenger in his home state is not a victory.  It is a disaster for the Romney campaign and another red flag warning that Romney is a seriously unpopular and weak candidate.

If GOP conservatives  want to avoid nominating another "Less of the Same" establishment RINO, Super Tuesday may be their last chance.  A win for Santorum in Georgia and Ohio on Super Tuesday will mean that today's Rockefeller Republicans have finally lost their lock on the GOP.  Wins for Romney in Ohio and Gingrich in Georgia may ensure a joyless convention and a replay of 1976, 1992, 1996 and 2008.  

Newt has lost any possibility of being the Republican nominee.  It's time to rally to the last conservative standing.  Georgia, please don't waste your votes.



Religion Is Not the Enemy

A remarkable agnostic, Marcello Pera, explains why.

By Philip F. Lawler

Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians: The Religious Roots of Free Societies
By Marcello Pera
(Encounter Books, 224 pages, $23.95)

You were taught that pious platitude that you can't judge a book by its cover. But the truth is that usually you can. This one, for instance, looked easy. You read the title: Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians. You saw that the preface is written by Pope Benedict XVI. You could already guess what you would find on the inside pages. And you would be wrong.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

The Greatest Movie Line Ever



Ohio Poll: Santorum Up By 11 Points

Rick Santorum greets diners at the Rainbow Grill on Feb. 28, 2012 in Grandville, Mich. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
With Ohio looming as one of the next big presidential battlegrounds, a new poll finds that Rick Santorum has a significant lead over Mitt Romney in the Buckeye State. But the poll, released Tuesday, also concludes that Ohio is in play because nearly half the likely GOP primary voters say they could change their mind between now and the March 6 primary, when Ohio will be one of the largest states to vote on Super Tuesday.

Read the rest of this entry at The Wall Street Journal >> 


Cardinal Dolan: AMDG - For the Greater Glory of God

This is a daunting hour in our nation's history.  With a Marxist in the White House eager to persecute the Church, with our nation facing bankruptcy, massive unemployment and cultural collapse, and with emboldened enemies throughout the world gaining nuclear weapons, many are inclined to despair.  But it is in just such an hour that a faithful and loving God raises up great leaders -- in the political realm and in the Church.  This past weekend, New Yorkers got a glimpse of God's unfailing love in their new Cardinal Archbishop.

   


Monday, February 27, 2012

Gov. Haley Vetoes Bill to Deny Savannah Dredging

By Peter T. Leach

State legislators argue project will give Port of Savannah an edge over Charleston  


South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Monday vetoed a bill both state houses passed unanimously in an attempt to overturn a permit allowing the Port of Savannah to expand at the expense of Charleston’s port.

The bill would have overturned a permit issued by state environmental regulators to allow the Army Corps of Engineers to deepen the Savannah river. The dredging project will allow the port to handle larger ships able to pass through the expanded Panama Canal in late 2014.

Poll: Santorum Best Against Obama in Swing States

By Christian Heinze

Here's a "Wow" poll that will simulate caffeine for your morning.

A new USA Today/Gallup poll of swing states shows Rick Santorum running strongest against Obama in swing states.

So strong that he leads Obama, 50%-45%. Mitt Romney also bests Obama by a slightly smaller 48%-46%.

Boys Town Founder to be Named Servant of God

By Kevin J. Jones
Portrait of Father Flanagan created by Boys Town alum Paul Otera, courtesy of the Archdiocese of Omaha

Father Edward Flanagan, the founder of the famous Boys Town orphanage, will be declared a “Servant of God” next month as the Archdiocese of Omaha opens his cause for beatification.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Zeal for God’s House: An Architect’s Reflections on Sacred Space

Something vital has been lost in Catholic church architecture, obscuring any indication that God is truly present there.

By Henry Hardinge Menzies

 “Zeal for your house consumes me.” (Jn 2:15)

The sun was setting over the vast Valley of Mexico as I climbed up to the flat roof of a building at the Montefalco Conference Center to do a painting. The shades of brilliant scarlet from the sunset to the west threw the distant mountain range into waves of blue. I was anxious to get set-up fast in order to capture this strange beauty before it vanished. I wanted, especially, to capture at sunset the snow-capped Mt. Popocatepetl, (elevation: 17,887 ft.). Unfortunately, it was enshrouded in clouds. I fumbled to get everything ready. The eerie silence was broken only by the faint distant sounds of a mariachi band. A breeze came up. The sky darkened. I thought I had missed my chance.

Living Lent: The First Sunday

Cardinal Justin Rigali


Schola Hungarica - Attende Domine



Saturday, February 25, 2012

Gary Glenn Wins Backing of TEA Party/9-12 Patriot Groups for Michigan GOP Senate Nomination

Gary Glenn
Gary Glenn today won the unified support of more than 40 grassroots TEA Party, 9-12 and Patriot organizations gathered in a first of its kind convention in Michigan.  The coalition known as Michigan 4 Conservative Senate (MI4CS) pledges "boots on the ground" in his campaign to unseat the liberal and vulnerable Democrat, Debbie Stabenow.

With eight candidates on the initial ballot, in the first round five of the candidates were eliminated due to a tie with the lowest number of votes received. The three candidates moving forward to the second round were Clark Durant, Gary Glenn, and Pete Hoekstra. Pete Hoekstra lost in the second round of voting which brought the race down to a battle between Clark Durant and Gary Glenn.

Persecution Roundup: Bombing in Sudan, Violence in India, Injustice in Saudi Arabia

From The Christian Post
By Luiza Oleszczuk



Mourners carry the coffin of slain Christian Fawzi Rahim, 76, during his funeral Mass at St. George Chaldean Church in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Dec. 31, 2010.  (Photo: AP Images / Khalid Mohammed)
Several reports of persecution against Christians from around the globe have emerged this week, including an update on violence against Christians in Nigeria, the deadly 2010 bombing of an Iraqi church, attacks against Christians in India and a bombing of a missionary Bible college in Sudan.

Kashmir - Muslim leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani spoke out Saturday in support of four Christian missionaries after a Sharia court last week issued a decree seeking their expulsion from the state, Christian Today reported. Despite the support, the missionaries were expelled Friday.

Nigeria – Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, who is the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) in Nigeria, posted a statement on his Facebook page Saturday in which he presumably warns Islamist sect Boko Haram to stop attacking Christians, their homes and churches, or expect to face the consequences. "We are not allowed to burn mosques or kill people of other religious beliefs but [the] Bible says we are allowed [to defend] ourselves/churches/homes," the statement reads.

Nigerian Christians, who have been long targeted by Muslim extremists, especially in the northeast of the country, have reportedly begun to retaliate by occasionally attacking Muslim establishments.

Indonesia – Indonesian Christians held a prayer vigil in Jakarta on Sunday, urging President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to help stop the intimidation practiced by Muslim extremists, Agence France-Presse reported. About 200 people, mostly members of the Taman Yasmin Indonesian Christian Church, prayed and sang hymns outside the state palace.

China – Five priests from an "underground" church were arrested by Chinese authorities without any explanation Monday during a private meeting in a private house, reported UCA news.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, ChinaAid, a human rights organization, released its annual report on acts of persecution reportedly performed by the Chinese communist government on Christians and churches in mainland China in 2011. Among other disquieting statistics indicating an increase in crackdowns on house churches, the report shows a 131.8 percent increase in the number of Christians detained for their religious beliefs in the country.

Also in China, the trial of a longtime political dissident and baptized Christian, Zhu Yufu, took place Tuesday in China, amid allegations that witnesses were restrained form participating in it. Zhu, 59, has previously served seven years in prison (from 1999 to 2006) for his role in founding the China Democratic Party, according to Human Rights in China (HRIC). The Hangzhou Municipal Intermediate People's Court tried him Tuesday for "inciting subversion of state power," according to HRIC, but failed to hand down a verdict, leaving the disident's future still in question.

Pakistan - A judge Monday denied bail to a young Christian man charged with desecrating a Quran under Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws, despite the lack of evidence, Compass Direct News reported. The 23-year-old was reportedly arrested on Dec. 5 over a shaky allegation from his neighbor that the young man had burned pages of the Quran in order to prepare tea.

Indonesia – An Indonesian church said Monday that one of its members has been unjustly named a suspect by police for allegedly assaulting the local police chief during a melee between authorities and church members in October near Jakarta, reported The Jakarta Globe. The church, which claims numerous acts of persecution from the government, has reportedly had accused the same police chief of using violence to obstruct a religious ceremony.

Sudan - A Bible college in Sudan functioning under Franklin Graham's missionary ministry, Samaritan's Purse, was bombed Wednesday and the ministry alleges the attack was launched by the Sudanese air force, as part of violent clashed between the mostly Islamic government in Khartoum and the mostly Christian, and newly seceded, south.

Algeria - Armed men raided the Protestant Church of Ouargla in eastern Algeria on Wednesday, tearing down the church's gate and damaging the iron crucifix on the church's roof, according to International Christian Concern (ICC). The pastor told ICC that he has been repeatedly threatened and attacked since his ordination in 2007. In the summer of 2009, his wife was beaten and seriously injured by a group of unknown men, and in late 2011, heaps of trash were thrown over the compound walls while an angry mob shouted death threats at the pastor, the minister told the Christian advocacy group. Algerian Christans are often target of attacks from militant Muslims.

Iraq – Three Islamist extremists convicted in the attack on Our Lady of Salvation church in Baghdad that killed over 50 congregants and wounded more than 60 others in Oct. 2010 were sentenced to death by Iraq's highest court Thursday.

Saudi Arabia - The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a governmental body, called Thursday for the immediate release of 35 Ethiopian Christians who have been detained by Saudi Arabian police since Dec. 15, allegedly for participating in a private religious gathering.

Iran - A report has emerged this week about the Iranian Revolutionary Court sentencing a female Iranian Christian convert to two years in prison earlier this month. The official reasons given by the court were reportedly related to the woman betraying Islam, but media reports have clearly suggested that the conviction is an act of state persecution against a Christian.

India - Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), spoke out against violence against Christians Thursday after the number of attacks increased in late January. Acts of violence against Christians reportedly accelerated after Christmas and New Year's. Among recent incidents was an attack on a Pentecostal clergyman by a group of ultra-nationalist Hindu extremists and a desecration of a monumental Christian cemetery, as reported by Asia News.


Friday, February 24, 2012

Medal of Honor: Lessons of Personal Bravery and Self-Sacrifice

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Foundation sponsored today an educational program at which four Medal of Honor Recipients -- Jay Vargas, Walter Ehlers, Bruce Crandall and Patrick Brady -- discuss lessons of personal bravery and self sacrifice.




Congressman Trey Gowdy at a House Judiciary Hearing on Recess Appointments

The 4th Congressional District of South Carolina has gone from having one of the flakiest Representatives in Congress to one of the very best in Congressman Trey Gowdy.  We are proud of you, Sir, and thank you for your service.  Here the former prosecutor gets to the heart of Obama's unconstitutional "recess" appointments.



Thursday, February 23, 2012

Senator McCaskill, Which Side Are You On?


CatholicVote.org is airing this ad in Missouri to put pressure on Senator McCaskill to oppose Obama's anti-religious HHS mandate.


Iranian Christian Pastor to be Hanged ‘Immediately’

From Catholic Herald (UK)
By Ed West

Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani
Youcef Nadarkhani, the Iranian Christian pastor sentenced to death for apostasy, is to be hanged “imminently”, an American human rights group is reporting.

The American Center for Law and Justice has been informed by contacts inside the Islamic republic that an execution order has been issued for Mr Nadarkhani, who has refused to recant his Christian faith and return to Islam.

Jordan Sekulow, executive director for the American Center for Law and Justice, told American news site msnbc.com yesterday evening that “At this point, we can confirm that he is still alive,” but that “We know that the head of Iran’s judiciary, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, must approve publicly held executions, but only a small percentage of executions are held in public — most executions in Iran are conducted in secret,” he said. “We are calling on the Iranian government to release the pastor immediately.”

Mr Nadarkhani, a 34-year-old father of two, was arrested and sentenced to death in Iran’s northern city of Rasht in 2009.

An appeals court upheld his sentence last year after he refused to reconvert to Islam, after he had been given three chances to recant. A member of the Protestant evangelical Church of Iran, Mr Nadarkhani was never formally a Muslim but came from a Muslim background.

The sentence has been widely condemned around the world, by among others US president Barack Obama, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. In October the Iranian state media claimed that Nadarkhani is facing the death sentence for rape and extortion, not for apostasy and evangelism.


Capitol Steps - "Help Me Fake It To The Right"


Moderate Mitt of Massachusetts reaches out to "severely conservative" voters.



Rev. Graham: Obama Seen as 'Son of Islam'


Rev. Franklin Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham and a prominent evangelical leader in his own right, waded into contentious waters Tuesday when asked for his views on the religious beliefs of President Obama and the GOP hopefuls.

Graham, the CEO and president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, told a Morning Joe panel he couldn't say for certain that Obama is a Christian.

“You have to ask him. I cannot answer that question for anybody. All I know is I’m a sinner, and that God has forgiven me of my sins," Graham said. "You have to ask every person. He has said he’s a Christian, so I just have to assume that he is.”

But Graham also said he couldn't "categorically" say Obama wasn't a Muslim, in part, because Islam has gotten a "free pass" under Obama. Graham also said the Muslim world sees Obama as a "son of Islam," because the president's father and grandfather were Muslim.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Pope Benedict Explains the Significance Behind the '40 Days of Lent'




Gregorio Allegri - "Miserere Mei, Deus"


English translation
Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness
According to the multitude of Thy mercies do away mine offences.
Wash me throughly from my wickedness: and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my faults: and my sin is ever before me.
Against Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that Thou mightest be justified in Thy saying, and clear when Thou art judged.
Behold, I was shapen in wickedness: and in sin hath my mother conceived me.
But lo, Thou requirest truth in the inward parts: and shalt make me to understand wisdom secretly.
Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Thou shalt make me hear of joy and gladness: that the bones which Thou hast broken may rejoice.
Turn Thy face from my sins: and put out all my misdeeds.
Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Thy presence: and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.
O give me the comfort of Thy help again: and establish me with Thy free Spirit.
Then shall I teach Thy ways unto the wicked: and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.
Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, Thou that art the God of my health: and my tongue shall sing of Thy righteousness.
Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord: and my mouth shall shew Thy praise.
For Thou desirest no sacrifice, else would I give it Thee: but Thou delightest not in burnt-offerings.
The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt Thou not despise.
O be favourable and gracious unto Sion: build Thou the walls of Jerusalem.
Then shalt Thou be pleased with the sacrifice of righteousness, with the burnt-offerings and oblations: then shall they offer young calves upon Thine altar.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Tim Hawkins - "The Government Can"



Pope Benedict's Message for Lent 2012


MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS
BENEDICT XVI
FOR LENT 2012


“Let us be concerned for each other,
to stir a response in love and good works” (Heb 10:24)


Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Lenten season offers us once again an opportunity to reflect upon the very heart of Christian life: charity. This is a favourable time to renew our journey of faith, both as individuals and as a community, with the help of the word of God and the sacraments. This journey is one marked by prayer and sharing, silence and fasting, in anticipation of the joy of Easter. 

Evangelicals, Southern Baptists Rip HHS Mandate


The Family Research Council has announced that 2,500 pastors and other evangelical leaders have signed a letter condemning the Obama administration’s contraception mandate. The signatories said:
The contraceptive mandate with the requirement that there will be no co-pay to the patient means millions of Americans will incur the additional cost for these drugs and devices. Forcing religious entities to do the same, despite objections of good conscience, is a severe blow to our religious liberty. Thomas Jefferson drafted the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom in 1779, which passed in 1786, and set the stage for the First Amendment. In it, Jefferson states: "to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical." Consequently, we ask that you would reverse this decision and protect the conscience rights of those who have biblically-based opposition to funding or providing contraceptives and abortifacients.
“What our forefathers protected is freedom of conscience, freedom of religion. That is -- the freedom to propagate our faith, to take our faith outside the walls of our home, outside the walls of our church and to have Catholic and Baptist charities, and Catholic and Baptist hospitals, and Catholic and Baptist schools that seek to educate within a worldview that is Catholic or Baptist or Lutheran or whatever,” added Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. “And we are not going to sit by and allow our God-given rights -- which are acknowledged, recognized and protected by the Constitution -- to be atrophied and to be neutered and to be confined and restricted by the Obama administration.”

Monday, February 20, 2012

The Obama's 16 Vacations in 3 Years, Courtesy of You

Moochelle Obama skis at Buttermilk ski area on Saturday in Aspen, Colo. The first lady is spending Presidents Day weekend in Aspen with her daughters, Sasha and Malia. (AP Photo/Aspen Daily News, Chris Council)
  • President’s Day 2012, Michelle and the first daughters in Aspen, Colorado to ski.
  •  Christmas 2011, the first family in Hawaii for an extended vacation.
  •  Summer 2011, in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., for the annual beach break.
  •  June 2011, the first lady, her mother and daughters traveled to South Africa and Botswana.
  •  President’s Day 2011, the first lady and first daughters travel to Vail to ski.
  •  Christmas 2010, in Hawaii.
  •  August 2010, the first family traveled to Panama City Beach, Fla., for some sun and fun at the beach.
  •  August 2010, Obama spent the weekend alone in Chicago for his 49th birthday bash.
  •  August 2010, the first lady and daughter Sasha traveled to Spain for a mother-daughter vacation.
  •  August 2010, summer vacation again at Martha’s Vineyard.
  •  July 2010, the first family went to Mount Desert Island, Maine.
  •  May 2010, the first family had a four-day trip to Chicago.
  •  March 2010, first lady and daughter spend Spring Break in New York City.
  •  Christmas 2009, Hawaii again for the annual break.
  •  August 2009, at Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon for a short vacation.
  •  August 2009, their first summer vacation as first family at Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.


David McCullough Reflects on George Washington


From "The Glorious Cause of America," narrated by David McCullough, Sept. 27, 2005.


Saturday, February 18, 2012

From the Pastor - "The Serpent in the Garden"

A weekly column by Father George Rutler.


 In the vault of modern political oratory is a speech of one senator in the 1960's quoting George Bernard Shaw: “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’ ”  There are noble dreams, such as those of our nation's Founding Fathers, right up to the last century's civil rights movement.  Jacob saw a ladder to heaven in a dream. But dreams can also be the sugar-coated nihilism of John Lennon's song Imagine, which is still dear to the hearts of the mindless.

The Risen Christ ate food to show the Apostles that He was not just a dream, and so the Lenten preparation for the Feast begins with hard reality: “You are dust.” This is an alarm clock that awakens us from moral slumber, and we have been slumbering a lot in our culture. The surest way to guarantee that evil can happen here is to say that evil cannot happen here. God constantly posits a choice between life and death, precisely because both are real, even for those who dream of existence with neither heaven nor hell and “only sky.”

Recent attempts of the Health and Human Services Department to promote a culture of death by violating the Constitutional right to free exercise of religion are in part the work of public officials who have boasted of their admiration for a bad dreamer: Saul Alinsky. That strategist for “community organizers” insisted that there is no objective truth. Pope Benedict XVI would call this the “dictatorship of relativism.” Alinsky, as the common man's Machiavelli, used this relativism to approve of corruption in public officials as a matter of policy, the justification of unethical means to achieve ends and the destruction of any opposition. Alinsky's guide book, Rules for Radicals,  is prefaced with a tribute to “the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer.”

While some journalists would give the impression that the government mandates are all about contraception, they also cover sterilization and abortifacients. Many Christians themselves do not understand the moral implications of artificial birth prevention as explained in Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae. In 1968 his prophetic warnings were widely ridiculed as nonsense: moral breakdown, increased infidelity and illegitimacy, pornographic exploitation of women by men. Then he asked: “Who will prevent public authorities from favoring what they believe to be the most effective contraceptive methods and from mandating that everyone must use them, whenever they consider it necessary?”

Who will prevent them?  Only those wise enough to distinguish between noble dreams and nightmares. They will know what many utopian dreamers do not know:  The voice in Shaw's play Back to Methuselah that spoke of dreams that never were and asked “Why not?” was the Serpent in the Garden.

Pope Creates 22 New Cardinals and Calls for Canonization of 7 Saints

Pope Benedict has inducted 22 men into the exclusive club of cardinals who will one day elect one of their own to succeed him. 



Among the most prominent in the group is New York's Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is already being touted by some Vatican experts as a possible future candidate to become the first American pope.

The Pope, who turns 85 in April and is showing signs of his age, elevated the men to the highest Church rank below him at a ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica known as a consistory.

"Cardinals are entrusted with the service of love: love for God, love for his Church, an absolute and unconditional love for his brothers and sisters, even unto shedding their blood, if necessary (in defence of the faith)," the pope told the new cardinals before giving them their rings and red birettas, or hats.

Moochelle Follows Hawaii Vacation with an Aspen Vacation

"... as the government struggles to cut the deficit, the symbolism of a first lady jetting out to Aspen with a security entourage at taxpayers’ expense to ski would seem to send the wrong message about cutting back on spending."
By Keith Koffler

Michelle Obama has embarked on a skiing vacation with her daughters in Aspen, Colorado, according to the Aspen Daily News.


The first lady, who just returned last month from 17 days of relaxation in Hawaii, is skiing in Colorado on Presidents’ Day Weekend for the second year in a row. Last year she went to Vail.

Michelle’s decision to ski out West again instead of hitting slopes closer to Washington would seem an inopportune choice for a first lady who is helping her husband campaign on issues of “fairness.”

The Obama campaign has set itself up as the defender of the poor and the middle class against the “One Percent,” a theme which clashes with the image a first lady who is taking frequent and exclusive vacations.

Just last August, she sojourned on Martha’s Vineyard, and the month before she travelled to southern Africa for a trip that mixed official business with tourist outings like an African safari. In July 2010, she took an exorbitant excursion to the southern coast of Spain, flying out with friends and family on a large jet that often serves as Air Force 2 and then staying at a ritzy hotel.

What’s more, as the government struggles to cut the deficit, the symbolism of a first lady jetting out to Aspen with a security entourage at taxpayers’ expense to ski would seem to send the wrong message about cutting back on spending.

For her last two Hawaii vacations, Michelle left separately from her husband at extra cost to taxpayers in order to ensure she got the full vacation while the president was forced to remain in Washington a few extra days to finish work with Congress.

President Obama last summer called for “an attitude of shared sacrifice” to solve the nation’s deficit woes.

Michelle this weekend is reportedly staying at the Aspen home of a wealthy Obama backer from Chicago. She held a fundraiser at the same residence last July.


Santorum Is Endorsed for Nomination by Former Romney Supporter

From Bloomberg Business Week
By Lisa Lerer and Mark Niquette
Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, accompanied by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine leaves a news conference outside the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus Friday, where DeWine announced his support for Santorum.

Rick Santorum was endorsed in the Republican presidential race by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, another sign he is gaining ground on rival Mitt Romney.

Standing next to Santorum yesterday on the steps of the Ohio statehouse in Columbus, DeWine said he backed Romney last October because he thought the former Massachusetts governor was the best candidate to defeat President Barack Obama. DeWine said he no longer believes that after the campaign run by Romney, with support from an outside political action committee, Restore Our Future.

“To be elected president, you have to do more than tear down your opponent; you have to give the American people a reason to vote for you,” DeWine said. “Rick Santorum has done that. Sadly, Governor Romney has not.”

Friday, February 17, 2012

Car Jack Used to Breach US Border Fence

Big Sis and the Obama regime are so busy harassing the elderly, nuns and children at the nation's airports, they apparently haven't noticed that drug cartels and other criminals penetrate the border fence, where there is one, with a simple car jack.



Michiganders Unite to Ensure the Election of a Conservative US Senator

Michigan for Conservative Senate surpasses 10,000 registered members!!!

Desperate to be rid of the liberal and unpopular Senator Debbie Stabenow, conservative activists throughout Michigan have pledged to unite behind a single, conservative Republican candidate in the August 7, 2012 GOP primary which will determine Stabenow's GOP challenger.

Pat Buchanan: The New Blacklist

Pat Buchanan is a prophet, patriot and hero. The vitriol, character assassination and hate which has been directed at him is proof that he has been an unfailing champion of the good and true.  God does not require that we triumph in this world, only that we be faithful.  Time will vindicate this defender of Christian civilization and God will reward a good and faithful servant.

This blog is pleased to post his columns and we will always proudly regard ourselves as foot soldiers in the Buchanan Brigade.
By Patrick J. Buchanan

My days as a political analyst at MSNBC have come to an end.

After 10 enjoyable years, I am departing, after an incessant clamor from the left that to permit me continued access to the microphones of MSNBC would be an outrage against decency, and dangerous.

The calls for my firing began almost immediately with the Oct. 18 publication of "Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?"
A group called Color of Change, whose mission statement says that it "exists to strengthen Black America's political voice," claimed that my book espouses a "white supremacist ideology." Color of Change took particular umbrage at the title of Chapter 4, "The End of White America."

Oscars 2012: Mother Dolores Hart, Former Elvis Co-Star, To Walk Red Carpet In Religious Habit



Nearly 50 years after leaving Tinseltown to become a cloistered Benedictine nun, Mother Dolores Hart, who starred in films alongside the likes of Elvis Presley and Walter Matthau during her acting career, is returning to Hollywood to appear at the Academy Awards next Sunday. And she'll be wearing her religious habit.

Mother Dolores, 73, is the focus of "God Is the Bigger Elvis", an HBO documentary nominated in the best documentary short category.

The film documents Hart's unusual journey from starring in dozens of Hollywood films to becoming Prioress of the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Conn., where she acts as spiritual counselor to 38 cloistered nuns, Sojourners reports.

"It will be so nice to be back at the Oscars. It's such a fun night," Hart told USA Today. "The last time I was there was in 1959, when I was a presenter. This will be different."

Back then, Hart was a 21-year-old rising starlet who had already starred in films alongside Elvis Presley, George Hamilton and Montgomery Clift, USA Today reported.

A few years later, she was at the peak of her acting career on the trail of a seven-figure contract, and was happily engaged to Los Angeles businessman Don Robinson.

But by then Hart's feelings about Hollywood had already started to change, a shift that began some years before when she was performing in a Broadway play , Sojourner reported.
Whenever the play went on hiatus, many actors would go up to friends' vacation homes in upstate New York. But Hart didn't know anyone, so a friend suggested that she stay at the Abbey of Regina Laudis, which offers a number of guest rooms.

It was there that Hart got to know the sisters of Regina Laudis and fell in love with their way of life. In 1963, to the devastation of her fiance, Hart entered the Abbey as a postulant and took her final vows seven years later.

"I adored Hollywood. I didn't leave because it was a place of sin," Hart told USA Today.

After all, Hart was a Los Angeles native who grew up on Mullholland Drive overlooking the lights of Hollywood, she explained in a 20/20 Interview.

Hart had another explanation for leaving, one she says remains just as mysterious today as it did back then.

"I left Hollywood at the urging of a mysterious thing called vocation. It's a call that comes from another place that we call God because we don't have any other way to say it. It's a call of love. Why do you climb a mountain?"


 

Santorum Continues to Lead in Newest Michigan Poll

From CNN


Mitt Romney may lay claim to home field advantage in Michigan, but according to a new poll released 12 days before the state's Republican primary, Rick Santorum is on top of the field in the race for the GOP presidential nomination.

According to a survey out Thursday by the Detroit News and CNN affiliate WDIV, 34% of likely Republican primary voters say they're backing Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, with 30% supporting Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who's making his second bid for the White House. Santorum's four point margin is within the poll's sampling error.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Michael Bloomberg - the Model for a Second Obama Administration

If anyone needs a glimpse of what a second Obama term might look like, they could do no better than to look at Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City's despotic enforcer of political correctness and defender of a far-left secularist order.  

Bloomberg's radical promotion of the homosexual agenda has included allowing pornographic parades in front of Saint Patrick's Cathedral, and before the Legislature changed state marriage law, he suggested that anyone could skirt  the law by simply changing their sex on their birth certificate.  He has been insistent on allowing Muslims to build a mosque at Ground Zero, but refused to allow prayers and the participation of Christian and Jewish clergy at the tenth anniversary ceremonies commemorating the 9/11 attack. All the world knows that the New York Fire Department was the first responder that tragic day, with scores heroically giving their lives.  But the statist despot whose peeves and preferences govern New York also announced that there wasn't enough room to include New York firemen at the 9/11 tenth anniversary ceremonies.

He has insisted that the Orthodox Jewish tradition of gender separation is "obviously not permitted," and while he imposes criminal penalties on those not observing speech codes when it comes to the homosexual community, he has publicly complained that his neighbors at the American Irish Historical Society are "people that are totally inebriated and hanging out windows."  

The Mayor demands television and radio air time to tell New York parents how they should dress their children for school, given weather conditions.  He has threatened  a severe limitation on the number of establishments permitted to serve alcohol, and he has mandated salt limits in the recipes of New York City cooks and chefs.  

Throughout the United States many faith communities rent space in public school buildings on weekends or when the facilities are not in use.  Now, Bloomberg has decided that even that association threatens the militant secularism he wants enforced in New York City Public Schools.  While every other civic and non-profit organization will be free to rent space in the schools, faith communities are to be banned.  

Bloomberg is a classic example of a totalitarian statist with a secularist agenda to impose.  His regime offers a frightening glimpse of an America planned by the Obama regime when they are freed of reelection concerns.

By Bob Unruh
Rental ban called unconstitutional, damaging


A federal judge has suggested that churches in New York have a solid argument under the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses of the United States Constitution to be allowed to rent public school facilities like other organizations, and she has issued a temporary restraining order allowing that to continue for another 10 days.

Daniel Hannan to Americans: Please Stop Calling Us Europeans!

By Daniel Hannan

The Gipper never called her a European.
The Cousins have finally clocked the EU for what it is: a corporatist, protectionist, anti-American racket. Heaven knows it took them long enough. For decades, they did everything they could to encourage political integration, pouring money into the European Movement, ending every summit with a demand for deeper union.

Not any more. Most Americans are now watching in dismay as their country becomes 'more European' – by which they mean more timid, more centralized, more regulated and more indebted. At CPAC over the weekend, speaker after speaker was applauded for tearing into the Brussels model. The Chairman of the RNC delivered a withering indictment of the Obama administration, which reached a climax with: 'If we go on like this, we'll soon be applying to join the European Union!'