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Jonathan Gruber: Honest Liberal

December 18, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Jonathan Gruber: Honest Liberal

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN Brought before a House inquisition, MIT professor and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber burbled a recantation of his beliefs about how that triumph of liberalism had been achieved. Yet, something needs to be said in defense of Gruber. For while he groveled and confessed to the sin of arrogance, what this Ivy League con artist boasted about rings true. Here, Gruber explained, is how we got Obamacare passed: “This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. OK?. . . “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity…Continue Reading

Sick Right-Wing Twitter About Ferguson?

December 17, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Sick Right-Wing Twitter About Ferguson?

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK I agree with those who tell us that we should strive to understand “how the other guy” sees things and not assume the worst about his motives. It is not only “nice” to do this. It is also effective. It gives us a leg up in the debate over the issues of the day. It is no great victory when we tear apart a caricature of the position of those who disagree with us; it leaves us wide open for the counterattack. It was for that reason that I went out of my way to try to understand the arguments of those who insist that the Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson behaved in an egregious manner…Continue Reading

A Modest Proposal On College Athletics

December 16, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on A Modest Proposal On College Athletics

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK When Jonathan Swift used the term “a modest proposal” in reference to Great Britain’s approach to poverty in Ireland, he was using the term sarcastically. I am not. I am about to offer a sincere proposal for how our colleges can clean up the scandals revolving around the academic standing of their athletes. The recent reports of how basketball and football players at the University of North Carolina were permitted to take courses with inconsequential academic requirements are just the latest indication that something must be done about college athletics. This is not a new problem, of course. I can remember hearing stories when I was in high school from people who seemed to have the…Continue Reading

A Beautiful New Bike For Christmas?. . . GOP Should Be Ashamed Of The Gift And Throw It Away

December 15, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on A Beautiful New Bike For Christmas?. . . GOP Should Be Ashamed Of The Gift And Throw It Away

By DEXTER DUGGAN Little Dominic was so impatient for his Christmas present that his parents celebrated the holiday just after the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. For months he begged, pleaded, and said his nightly prayers so loudly for a bicycle that a few times the police were called by a neighbor over Dominic disturbing the peace. Lo and behold, the morning of November 5, 2014, the biggest, shiniest, fastest bicycle ever seen was there beneath the apple tree (it being too early in the season to find a Christmas tree to buy). Dominic dashed into the living room and saw the sight. His face fell and he crumpled into a trembling heap. “Oh, I might fall and skin…Continue Reading

Oh Silent Night?. . . Not When These Property Rights Activists Raise A Shout For Freedom

December 14, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Oh Silent Night?. . . Not When These Property Rights Activists Raise A Shout For Freedom

By DEXTER DUGGAN SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The guest at the inn noted that people came out on a Friday night in the Christmas season. Some had traveled a distance. They were suffering under an oppressor, and they honored a sacred document. They had come to observe a birth, not of a Child but of an organization. The oppressor wasn’t Roman soldiers but the overreaching U.S. government. The document was the tattered U.S. Constitution. The inn was a hotel in this Phoenix suburb, and the resemblance to the Christmas story was only coincidental.

Egg Freezing And The Indentured Woman

December 13, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Egg Freezing And The Indentured Woman

By ARINA GROSSU (Editor’s Note: Recently The Washington Post published a story on an emerging trend, egg freezing parties at trendy New York bars. What these women who attend egg freezing parties may not have considered is the various ethical, scientific, and moral questions surrounding egg freezing. (The Family Research Council director of the Center for Human Dignity, Arina Grossu, has written the following piece on the ethical dilemma of egg freezing. (Grossu was previously president of Notre Dame Right to Life and received her BA from the University of Notre Dame and her master’s degree from Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. (In its November 6 issue, The Wanderer carried an earlier commentary on this subject by Fr.…Continue Reading

Racist Cops — Or Liberal Slander?

December 12, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Racist Cops — Or Liberal Slander?

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN We have found the new normal in America. If you are truly outraged by some action of police, prosecutors, grand juries, or courts, you can shut down the heart of a great city. Thursday night, December 4, thousands of “protesters” disrupted the annual Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center, conducted a “lie-in” in Grand Central, blocked Times Square, and shut down the West Side Highway that scores of thousands of New Yorkers use to get home. That the rights of hundreds of thousands of visitors and New Yorkers were trampled upon by these self-righteous protesters did not prevent their being gushed over by TV commentators.

The Synod And The Meaning Of The Marriage Act

December 11, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on The Synod And The Meaning Of The Marriage Act

By JOHN F. KIPPLEY (Editor’s Note: John F. Kippley is the author of Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality and other books and articles. With his wife Sheila, he is a coauthor of Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach and cofounder of NFP International. This commentary appeared on his blog [johnkippley.com] of November 10 and is reprinted with permission. (Please see the ad for NFP International elsewhere in this issue.) + + + The recent Vatican conference on the Complementarity of Man and Woman (November 17-19) got high marks from reviewers. Pope Francis invited speakers from a wide spectrum of religious traditions, including Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Jains, Buddhists, Hindus, Mormons, Muslims, and Sikhs from around…Continue Reading

Is Jonathan Gruber Stupid?

December 10, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Is Jonathan Gruber Stupid?

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK Do I really think it is worth discussing the possibility that Jonathan Gruber is “stupid”? No, of course not. I have no doubt that his IQ is off the charts and that he can maneuver his way around complicated economic theories with the best of them. “Lacking the political savvy” would be the more accurate term to describe him. He failed to understand how the video clips of him calling the American people “stupid” would come back to haunt him. You can almost feel sorry for the guy. His comments were made at conferences where he was using shorthand references to make his point to a group he was convinced did not require a detailed analysis…Continue Reading

The Catholic Identity Of Catholic Colleges

December 9, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on The Catholic Identity Of Catholic Colleges

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK The ascendant liberalism at modern Catholic colleges is a problem that has perplexed parents with traditional Catholic beliefs for decades now. Bishop Sheen went so far as to recommend that Catholic parents steer their children toward state and private colleges rather than Catholic institutions, contending it would be better to have their faith ignored at a secular college than actively undermined by liberal Catholic professors at a Catholic college. Not everyone agrees with Sheen. I can remember an exchange on this topic in Triumph magazine back in the 1970s. I can’t recall who it was who disagreed with Sheen’s position, but his point was that even a Catholic college with a theology and philosophy department dominated…Continue Reading