Smoky Mountains Sunrise

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Lee Bright's Political Heroes? Vladimir Putin and Bashar Al-Assad of Syria

Lee Bright's Political Heroes - Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin
We wrote previously that the failed upstate businessman, Lee Bright, whose personal finances are in crisis and has debt totaling between $1.1 million and $3.1 million owed to 29 creditors, appears willing to say or do anything to secure a job offering a six year contract, a salary of $174,000, an outside earned income allowance of more than $27,000, a large taxpayer-paid staff, paid travel, housing deductions, health, dental and life insurance, a private gym and the world's best pension fund.

The desperate Bright has now demonstrated our point and raised a red flag for all those who want Lindsey Graham replaced with a solid, thoughtful and respected conservative.  On April 6, (not so) Bright told the Washington Watch television audience that Republicans should look to Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, two thuggish war criminals, as models.  In Bright's own words:
If [Speaker] Boehner had the courage that Putin and Assad had, we'd be living in a different America, but we don't have the leadership and we've got to continue to try to get folks to Washington that are going to take the fight to the liberal agenda.
One thing I didn't mention earlier, you were talking about things going around the state, we've got the homosexual agenda on the full march in our institutions of higher ed and we've gone from education to indoctrination, so we are in a fight — they have seized the educational establishment and we've got to take that back and we've got to get folks involved in that or otherwise that's our next generation.
If the likes of Putin and Assad were running America, it would, indeed, be a different country, but it would not be anything like the America our Founders established.  And much as we agree with Bright's criticism of "the homosexual agenda on the full march in our institutions of higher ed," someone who has actually spent some time at an institution of higher education might have some awareness of authentic conservative models.  He might have cited the kind of models who actually believed in freedom, human dignity and God-given rights -- thoughtful men like Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson and Russell Kirk, not murderous thugs.

Lee Bright's comments point up just how important an American political campaign can be in distinguishing the charlatans from potential statesmen.  After the traitorous career of Lindsey Graham, South Carolina does not need a Senator who would quickly become a national joke.  

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Catholicism Flourishing in South Carolina and Throughout the South and West

Saint Joseph Catholic Church, Columbia, South Carolina
We were astonished to learn this past Sunday that in our Columbia, South Carolina parish, 9 adults will be baptized and an additional 28 adults will be received into the Church at the Easter Vigil.  In following-up on this good news, the statistician for the statewide Diocese of Charleston informs us that approximately 500 adults throughout South Carolina will be received into the Church this Easter.  In a small state where Catholics are not quite 4% of the population, that is a remarkable rate of growth.  Indeed, Catholic numbers in South Carolina are up by more than 30,000 in the past 10 years, and unlike traditional centers of Catholic life, like the Archdiocese of Newark, which has closed more than 80 schools in the past 10 years, South Carolina is building new churches and schools.

At a recent conference at Villanova University, demographers have presented heartening data indicating that Church numbers in the United States are climbing and would continue to grow even without immigration.

Holy Mass at Prince of Peace Catholic Church, Taylors, South Carolina
Having lived in Virginia and South Carolina, as well as in the Northeast and Midwest, we can attest to an extraordinary contrast between regions.  The most faithful, orthodox and beautiful liturgies we have encountered have been in the South.  Devotion to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, traditional Catholic devotions, sound preaching and all the richness, beauty and fullness of the Faith are alive and well in places like the Dioceses of Arlington and Charleston.  After all the painful corruption and scandal on the part of a few, we can see the hand of God renewing His Church in unexpected places and in  wondrous and surprising ways.  "Where sin abounded, grace did more abound."



Queen Welcomes Irish President Michael D Higgins on First State Visit to Britain

Irish President Michael D Higgins is welcomed to the UK by the Queen at the start of the first state visit by an Irish head of state

Michael D Higgins met the Queen at Windsor Castle Photo: Getty Images

Irish President Michael D Higgins has met the Queen on the first ever state visit to Britain by the country's head of state.

Mr Higgins and his wife Sabina met the monarch at Windsor Castle - three years after the Queen's historic visit to Dublin heralded the start of a new chapter in the relationship between the two countries.

The significance has been further deepened with the presence of Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister and former IRA commander Martin McGuinness, who will attend a banquet hosted by the Queen - a move unthinkable only a decade ago.

The streets of Windsor were decked out in Union flags and Irish Tricolours this morning ahead of the visit. 

Read more at The Telegraph >>

DeMint: ‘Big Business Is No Friend of Conservatism’

Former Sen. Jim DeMint, the president of the Heritage Foundation, writes in his new book—“Falling in Love With America Again”—about the cozy relationship between big business and big government.

“Almost all big corporations benefit from, advocate for, and downright like big government,” DeMint writes.

In an interview with CNSNews.com, DeMint explained his view that a corollary to this principle is that big business and conservatism are not on the same team.

Read more at Cybercast News Service >>


 

Monday, April 7, 2014

Patrick J. Buchanan: Whose Side Is God on Now?


By Patrick J. Buchanan 

In his Kremlin defense of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Vladimir Putin, even before he began listing the battles where Russian blood had been shed on Crimean soil, spoke of an older deeper bond. 

Crimea, said Putin, “is the location of ancient Khersones, where Prince Vladimir was baptized. His spiritual feat of adopting Orthodoxy predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilization and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.”

Russia is a Christian country, Putin was saying. 

Sunday, April 6, 2014

The Choir of King's College, Cambridge - "Surely, He Hath Borne Our Griefs" - Handel



Father Robert Barron at Elmhurst College: Evangelizing the Culture


An acclaimed author, speaker and theologian, Robert Barron is a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago and the founder of the global ministry Word on Fire. He is the creator and host of the 10-part TV series Catholicism, and serves as the Francis Cardinal George Professor of Faith and Culture at Saint Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein.

In 2012, Father Barron presented the annual Joseph Cardinal Bernardin lecture at Elmhurst College, a comprehensive, private, liberal arts college in Elmhurst, Illinois which is affiliated with the United Church of Christ.