In this first presidential election to feature a Catholic candidate on each major party’s ticket, the media have been abuzz depicting the American Catholic voter at a very difficult crossroads. The image is one of two competing, yet equally legitimate, versions of Catholicism, differing in the aspects of Catholic doctrine they emphasize in the public square. Each tugs at the voter’s conscience: on one side are the Church’s teachings on abortion and social issues; on the other is the Church’s mission to care for the poor. The delicate task of the Catholic voter, so the narrative goes, is to weigh the interests represented by these two camps and select the presidential candidate who better reflects the nuances of the voter’s own faith.
6:57 PM 08/07/2012
For a former academic, President Obama doesn’t put much stock in his own case studies.
12:22 PM 07/17/2012
There are straw-man arguments, and then there are piles of straw.
11:07 AM 07/02/2012
Most conservatives’ initial reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling on the health care law was to lament the decision of five justices. And rightfully so. The court’s majority, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, accepted an argument that every lower court (and, honestly, the lawyers for both sides) dismissed out of hand. The court essentially held that Congress can enforce, by monetary penalty, any requirement it wishes to impose. It can even call it a penalty. In the eyes of the court, it’s just a tax.
10:30 AM 05/02/2012
Last week, over 100 faculty members at my alma mater, the University of Notre Dame, signed a letter calling on Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, C.S.C., of Peoria, Illinois, to resign his position on the University’s Board of Fellows. They did so in response to a homily the bishop gave on April 14, in which he denounced President Obama’s HHS mandate that Catholics and Catholic institutions be forced to pay for services they consider intrinsically evil. The bishop accurately compared the mandate to similar measures taken by different regimes throughout history, including the regimes of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
11:26 PM 04/25/2012
The Department of Justice didn’t get the memo.
5:42 PM 02/24/2012
If President Obama is re-elected in November, it will be for one reason: the American people believe that the rich are not paying as big a percentage of their income in taxes as everyone else.
2:18 PM 02/09/2012
In his recent rhetoric, the president has presented a choice to America: either embrace his vision of an ever-expanding federal government, or get ready for a world where “you're on your own.”
5:32 PM 12/09/2011
The media can’t wrap their heads around Newt Gingrich. His recent rise to the top of the polls contradicts everything they profess to know about the political world. He has taken just enough unorthodox positions to make conservatives squirm. His reputation from the ’90s makes it unlikely that independents will see him as a centrist candidate. He is far from being the new kid on the block for whom the anti-politician, anti-Washington demographic yearns.
12:16 PM 08/12/2011
Throughout the debt crisis debate, President Obama has clung to a tried-and-true political slogan of the left: The rich can do more. He has insisted on what he calls a “balanced approach,” which in fact is a proposal to raise taxes only on the rich while leaving the rest of the population’s tax rates untouched.
11:08 PM 02/07/2011
We all saw it coming. It was only a matter of time after Judge Robert Vinson declared Obamacare unconstitutional last week before cries of “judicial activism” began emanating from the left.
11:49 AM 01/27/2011
Another year, another big turnout.
