Free Republic

The inimitable Sr. Maureen Fiedler has taken it upon her broad shoulder to be spokesone for the LCWR.Sr. Maureen Fiedler We know that a past mentor of the LCWR is annoyed that Archbp. Sartain (appointed by the CDF to keep his eyes on the nuns) is attending the proceedings (starting today) at the Caribe Royale in Orlando. HEREThe old guard is piping up.From the National Schismatic Reporter (aka Fishwrap) with my emphases and comments: LCWR: The coming assembly Maureen Fiedler | Aug. 13, 2013The website of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) offers this headline: “We welcome new members...

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) told a gathering of Democrats, “The bottom line is we’re not broke, there’s plenty of money, it’s just the government doesn’t have it.” Ellison was discussing his ‘Inclusive Prosperity Act’ measure at the July 25th Progressive Democrats of America roundtable in Washington. “People like, George Soros, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sax, Dean Baker, Robert Poland, Larry Summers have said they all support a transaction tax,” Ellison said. “The bottom line is we’re not broke, there’s plenty of money, it’s just the government doesn’t have it,” Ellison continued, “The government...

Dr. Reza Aslan’s newly released book, “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth,” has been at the center of considerable controversy in recent days after shooting to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list. NPR billed the work as “Christ in context,” while a number of Christians are criticizing its portrayal of Jesus as inaccurate and misleading. Wednesday night on TheBlaze TV, Glenn Beck gave his own perspective on the issue, arguing that Aslan is one in a long line of progressives seeking to re-write history. “From naming streets after communist labor activist Caesar Chavez to making movies glorifying...

While a "progressive" education highlights perceived societal flaws and teaches what to think, a classical education emphasizes cultural bulwarks and teaches how to think. The Benefits of a Classical Education The New American 25 July 2013 Since the end of the Second World War, and especially since the mid-1960s, America has been deluged with seemingly endless stories of the failure of its educational system. Testing reveals that there exists a significant percentage of high-school graduates who cannot identify the Pacific Ocean on an unlabeled map of the world, who do not know that Abraham Lincoln served as president of...

President Obama has just nullified, all by his lonesome, a provision in a duly-enacted law: the employer mandate in ObamaCare. It's one thing to give priority to enforcing one law over another, such as stressing interdiction of cocaine over marijuana. But to just cancel a law is quite another matter. In "Obama's never-mind presidency" on July 5 in the Washington Post, George Will writes: Although the Constitution has no Article VIII, the administration acts as though there is one that reads: "Notwithstanding all that stuff in other articles about how laws are made, if a president finds a law politically...

There has been a great deal of discussion over the last week concerning the remarks made by Governor Palin in answer to a question from Josh Painter, regarding the possibility of a new party to supplant the GOP. As Steve Deace covers in his own cost/benefit analysis of the idea, there are a few practical considerations to leaving the Republican Party that make for a gargantuan series of problems, including effectively surrendering the whole governance of the country to the Democrats in the short run. As Deace also explains quite effectively, if we don’t change the direction of the country,...

One bizarre aspect of any discussion about public education is that everybody tiptoes around the real reason why the schools are mediocre. We spend billions of dollars. Millions of people work in this area. The whole country embraces public education. So why do we have low literacy rates, widespread ignorance among ordinary citizens about simple things, etc., etc.?? The people in charge can’t be trying to do a good job. Put another way, whatever it is these people mean by “education” is not what most parents want for their kids. John Dewey and everybody else in charge of public education...

American POWS sent secret coded messages to Washington with news of a Soviet atrocity: In 1943 they saw rows of corpses in an advanced state of decay in the Katyn forest, on the western edge of Russia, proof that the killers could not have been the Nazis who had only recently occupied the area. The testimony about the infamous massacre of Polish officers might have lessened the tragic fate that befell Poland under the Soviets, some scholars believe. Instead, it mysteriously vanished into the heart of American power. The long-held suspicion is that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't want to...

There's a move on to prohibit Washington's football team from calling itself "Redskins," even though a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision said that it has that right. Bit by Bit Strategy Walter E. Williams | The New American 26 June 2013 There's a move on to prohibit Washington's football team from calling itself "Redskins," even though a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision said that it has that right. Now the name change advocates are turning to the political arena and intimidation. The NCAA has already banned the University of North Dakota from calling its football team the "Fighting Sioux."...

Yesterday IRS commissioner Danny Werfel told reporters the agency’s “Be on the lookout” list included not just conservative groups but progressive groups as well. Werfel also told reporters the IRS did not find evidence of intentional wrongdoing by anyone in the agency. Yet, this is not accurate. The Inspector General report in May already confirmed that the agency was inappropriately targeting “conservative” groups. What Werfel did not disclose was that the IRS list allowed “progressive” groups to be approved on the spot while agents were told to send conservative applications to Washington DC. Eliana Johnson at The Corner reported: Acting...

With the new acting commissioner of the IRS Daniel Werfel releasing the first report on the agency’s targeting of conservative groups comes a big revelation: liberal groups received very similar treatment. CNN’s Dana Bash reported Monday afternoon that the term “progressive” was used by the IRS, in addition to conservative buzz words like “tea party” and “patriot” to identify applications by groups for tax-exempt status. As Bash pointed out, “this is a very big development with regard to the IRS controversy because of course we have seen hearings and investigations for months now looking into why conservative groups

"Liberal institutions straightaway cease from being liberal the moment they are soundly established: once this is attained no more grievous and more thorough enemies of freedom exist than liberal institutions." This quotation's author, Friedrich Nietzsche, was no traditionalist himself; in fact, he was a harsh critic of Christianity who coined the phrase "God is dead." Yet he knew that your republic would be dead the day liberals assumed enough power within it. This understanding is necessary to properly evaluate the current Obama administration scandals involving NSA surveillance and IRS abuses. Critics' main focus has been debating what power the government...

Wednesday, June 19, 2013 Angry Liberals in America Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell is staring at me with the uncontrolled intensity usually reserved for serial killers and time-share salesmen. "We know how to get the country back to work. The government needs to lead the way." He folds a napkin in what looks like some expensive oyster bar, but is probably just a television studio backdrop. "The government has to get us back to work." O'Donnell already has a job. His job is to yell angry things on MSNBC. Most of his listeners...

In order to understand the liberal and progressive agenda, one must know something about their world vision and values. Let's examine some of the evidence. Why the 1970s struggle to ban DDT? Alexander King, founder of the Malthusian Club of Rome, wrote in a 1990 biographical essay: "My own doubts came when DDT was introduced for civilian use. In Guyana, within two years, it had almost eliminated malaria, but at the same time the birth rate had doubled. So my chief quarrel with DDT, in hindsight, is that it has greatly added to the population problem." Dr. Charles Wurster, former...

Trey Gowdy was on with Judge Jeanine Pirro tonight after her fantastic monologue and noted that during her monologue he was filled with “an overarching sense of sadness that the DOJ has been politicized and is the subject of ridicule and scorn and a lack of confidence.” Then he added this about Holder: And then I think of the top law enforcement official in the country and there are discussions of criminal conduct and he’s become nothing, in my judgement, but a poltiical tool. He’s not a prosecutor, he’s a political sycophant for the progressive movement and it is sad...

Conservative, Liberal, Libertarian, Anarchist, Socialist - all these words have relevance to the beliefs held by those who ascribe to these labels. But what of the word "Progressive"? I've often wondered about the relevance of this word. After all, on its face it seems to imply one is in favor of "Progress". But that seems silly, since its like saying one is in favor of Goodness, or Success, or Health - we are all in favor of these, although we may disagree on how to achieve those shared goals. So saying one is in favor of "Progress" doesn't really mean...

There is a reason why snobby elites on the Upper West Side of Manhattan generously donate to leftist causes and support leftist politicians. Snobs and radicals often act in accord because they are not opposites, as some believe, but rather spiritual cousins - equally despising "the bourgeois," sharing a low view of humanity as herd animals, and sorting people not on their individual merits but by color, income, occupation, ethnicity, gender, and any other characteristic except the content of their minds. Elitists share the presumption that people of the world cannot think for themselves and have no room in their...

Rioters took to the streets of Sweden for the fifth night in a row on Thursday, torching cars, shops, schools and a police station. Firefighters were dispatched to 70 different location across Stockholm in response to blazes started by groups of youths. Two schools, including a Montessori school, were set on fire in two suburbs of the Swedish capital and up to 15 car fires were reported at locations across the city and beyond. The unrest began on Sunday night after the fatal shooting of a 69-year-old man in an area with a high population of immigrants. The man was...

The unfolding IRS scandal is a symptom, not the disease.For decades, campaign-finance reform zealots have sought to limit core political speech through spending limits and disclosure requirements. More recently, they have claimed that it is wrong and dangerous for tax-exempt entities to engage in political speech. The Obama administration shares these views, especially when conservative, small-government organizations are involved, and the IRS clearly got the message. While the agency must be investigated and reformed, the ultimate cure for these abuses is to unshackle political speech by all groups, including tax-exempt ones, from arbitrary and unconstitutional government regulation. Beginning in March...

It’s safe to say not too many zeroes are handed out to students who have actually completed their assignment and have handed it in. Most flat-line marks are due to, as seen in the Dorval case, required work the student failed to do. If there is nothing to grade, it stands to reason no grade is given.