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George Orwell Misses The Mark

November 25, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on George Orwell Misses The Mark

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK George Orwell is among my favorite writers, top five maybe. His clear and unadorned writing style is one reason. You seldom have to read his sentences a second time to grasp their meaning. I also admire his decency and sense of fair play, which comes through in spite of his left-wing views. That said, there are times when his socialist leanings cloud his judgment. His essay “Boys’ Weeklies,” written for the British magazine Horizon in 1940, is a case in point. It could have been written by what Orwell used to call a “parlour Bolshie,” one of the trendy leftists he spent much of his professional life denouncing for their disdain for the ordinary people of…Continue Reading

Visiting Nebraska’s Boys Town . . . A December Gift To Aid Troubled Youngsters Since 1917

November 24, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Visiting Nebraska’s Boys Town . . . A December Gift To Aid Troubled Youngsters Since 1917

By DEXTER DUGGAN BOYS TOWN, Neb. — Like a salvific event in a scruffy Middle Eastern manger centuries earlier, there was a modest beginning in far-eastern Nebraska in December 1917 that would go on to attract the mighty in awe. No astrologer-kings on their camels searched for the Christ Child in the Cornhusker State, just west of the border with Iowa. However, a succession of human stars in the rising 20th century came to pay tribute to the work done for other children made in His image. Movie, music, and sports personalities, a national humorist, a war hero, and a U.S. president were among those who came to this location on the west side of Omaha to recognize what was…Continue Reading

A Catholic Thanksgiving

November 23, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on A Catholic Thanksgiving

By REY FLORES Before you get the idea that you will be reading a historical account of Catholics and the Thanksgiving holiday, forget it. This is simply one man’s way of being grateful for having been baptized a Catholic. It kind of reminds me of those funny bumper stickers I see once in a while when I’m in the South that read: “American by birth, Southern by the grace of God.” Except in our case as practicing Catholics, it’s more like: “Catholic by birth, practicing by the grace of God.” It’s one thing to be born into a Catholic family and baptized Catholic, but it really is by the grace of God that some of us out here can fully…Continue Reading

On Border Chaos . . . USCCB Casts Its Lot With Obama, Not The U.S. Voter

November 22, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on On Border Chaos . . . USCCB Casts Its Lot With Obama, Not The U.S. Voter

By DEXTER DUGGAN PHOENIX — To hear the dominant media and other elites tell the story, the Republicans were on the wrong side of issue after issue leading up to the midterm elections, including immigration, environmentalism, and “health care.” However, reality-based voters in November rewarded the GOP with bigger numbers not only in the U.S. House and Senate, but also at state capitol executive offices and legislative chambers. The Democratic Party grew weaker. Voters rejected the illegality, deceit, and disorder that Barack Obama’s political party clearly represents on a number of fronts, including repeated serious lies about Obamacare and defiant massive illegal immigration that places the overwhelming burden on the United States, not native countries, to embrace wanderers careless about…Continue Reading

Omaha’s Pope Paul VI Institute . . . Brings New Beginnings To Women And Life To New Babies

November 22, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Omaha’s Pope Paul VI Institute . . . Brings New Beginnings To Women And Life To New Babies

By DEXTER DUGGAN Part 1 OMAHA — A young Nebraska mother with a smiley eight-month-old baby boy at home listened with curiosity to remarks during an educational program here about natural fertility regulation and achieving pregnancy in difficult cases. She and her husband initially hadn’t been successful at trying to conceive. Now she was learning there’s a medical institute right here in Nebraska’s largest city that she hadn’t been aware of, drawing clients from around the United States and beyond. It’s the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction, a professional pro-life academy that promotes women’s awareness of how their bodies work and is open to clients regardless of religious persuasion. In harmony with the Catholic faith,…Continue Reading

Playing With Constitutional Fire

November 21, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Playing With Constitutional Fire

By ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO This past week, President Obama made it clear that he will soon offer some form of limited amnesty to about five million foreign nationals who are currently living illegally in the United States. He will do so by issuing an executive order to federal officials who oversee immigration directing them to undertake a course of action that, if complied with individually by all persons whom he designates as eligible, will cause the federal government to remove the threat of deportation from those who meet the standards he will lay down. Can he legally do that? To address that question, we need to start with the principle that a presidential action may be lawful at the same…Continue Reading

The Oil Weapon In America’s Hands

November 20, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on The Oil Weapon In America’s Hands

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN In July of 1941, after Japan occupied French Indochina, the Roosevelt administration froze Japan’s assets in the United States. Denied hard cash, Japan could not buy the U.S. oil upon which the empire depended for survival. Seeing the Dutch East Indies as her only other source, Japan prepared to invade. But first she had to eliminate the sole strategic threat to her occupation of the East Indies — the U.S. battle fleet at Pearl Harbor. FDR’s cutoff of oil to Japan was thus a primary cause of WWII in the Pacific, which led to hundreds of thousands of U.S. war dead, the destruction of Japan, Mao’s triumph in China, and a U.S. war in Korea. A…Continue Reading

Midterm Political Wins Satisfying . . . “But Our Hope Has To Be In Christ,” Rector Says

November 19, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Midterm Political Wins Satisfying . . . “But Our Hope Has To Be In Christ,” Rector Says

By DEXTER DUGGAN SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Although it’s not wrong to take hope from political victories in the November 4 midterm elections, politics isn’t the answer in the long term, the rector of the cathedral for the Diocese of Phoenix told The Wanderer after offering an evening Mass here. Fr. John Lankeit celebrated Mass at an upscale hotel for Catholic supporters of the Scottsdale-based Alliance Defending Freedom before they and other friends of this national legal-activist organization that stands up for traditional values sat down to a dinner. Being at Mass is “the most important thing we can do,” Lankeit said in his homily. . . . This [Eucharist] needs to be the most important food you will eat.”

Overthrowing Capitalism To Stop Global Warming

November 18, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Overthrowing Capitalism To Stop Global Warming

  By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK I am an agnostic about global warming. Is it because I’m a waffler? I hope not. My problem is that I am not a scientist and have no way of making an empirical analysis of the question on my own. Beyond that, when I go for answers from the “experts,” I get conflicting answers. I am told that the “overwhelming majority” of scientists agree that “man-made global warming” is a reality. But then I come across scientists — who do not seem to be “tools of the oil companies” or “right-wing flakes” — armed with facts and figures who disagree. Who’s right? I don’t know. Especially when we are told that even colder weather can…Continue Reading

Pope’s Name Cited . . . Creighton University Extends Same-Sex Benefits

November 17, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Pope’s Name Cited . . . Creighton University Extends Same-Sex Benefits

By DEXTER DUGGAN Pope Francis’ name was cited as a factor for Omaha’s Creighton University recently extending health benefits to same-sex “spouses” of university employees. In a letter to the well-known Midwest Catholic university’s board of trustees, the president of the Jesuit institution, Fr. Timothy Lannon, SJ, acknowledged that the Omaha archbishop opposed the move. “I have notified Archbishop George Lucas of Omaha of my decision, acknowledging his disagreement and disapproval of such a decision based upon a previous conversation he and I had,” Lannon wrote. “Consequently, the decision was not made lightly,” Lannon wrote the trustees. “After much prayer and discernment, I believe the extension of benefits is the right thing to do at Creighton. The decision involves the…Continue Reading