Tag Archives: religion

Trump Time Out To Restore Values, Institutions

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  JUN 2, 2018

We are a nation being consumed by our own anger, anxieties, disillusionment, and alienation from one another.

They are emotions widely exploited by a vast media empire that employs everyone from late night comedians to early morning news anchors. They are manifest in our tribal politics and social behavior. They are also, of course, manifest in the persona and politics of our President, who rubs them raw when he should be applying soothing salves.

It is Donald Trump, on whom we place much of the blame for this current condition, but the truth is he is not the cause; he is only the result. Continue reading →

Congress Shall Make No Law…

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

This is the full text of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; the first of the Bill of Rights. Note the first clause, of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

I wanted to get the specific language of what we generally refer to as the “Freedom of Religion” on the table, because it appears that we may be on the brink of the worst sectarian violence since the end of the Third Crusade, over 800 years ago. Continue reading →

Getting to Know Sikhism

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

A Sikh man wearing a turban.

“The one thing you must know about us. We are not Muslim.” That was the opening statement from the leader of a delegation meeting with my former boss, Speaker Hastert.

In the days following the 9/11 attacks, Sikhs were being attacked by outraged Americans who didn’t have any idea of the vast differences between the turban-wearing Sikhs and Arabs who wear different kinds of headwear.

Speaker Hastert met with a delegation of Sikh leaders and let the media come in to help them publicize their plight. Continue reading →

Contraception Issue Abuse of Executive Power

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The White House announced its new rules on requiring employers that provide health insurance to provide contraceptive services with no additional cost to their employees.

I understand this is broadly interpreting the rule, but I am not going to discuss the policy, religious, moral, or any other aspect of the rule itself.

It apparently only came as a surprise to the White House when conservatives and Catholics (among others) rose up in vocal opposition on the grounds that charities run by religious organizations – like hospitals – would have to provide a specific insurance benefit which is contrary to their religions tenets.

Others have debated the pros and cons of that in other venues and I won’t get into that again here.

The White House hurriedly announced a “compromise” which is an odd construct in that like Republicans in the House and Senate during the writing of the underlying health care legislation, only Democrats were involved. Continue reading →

It’s Not Just the Economy

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from The Hill

“It’s the economy, stupid.” That was the battle cry from Bill Clinton’s crack campaign team in the months leading up to the 1992 election.

And the conventional wisdom continues to be that Americans vote their pocketbooks when deciding whom to support in presidential elections. But it would be a mistake to conclude that only economic factors play in to how voters will decide this election.

The unemployment rate is at 8.3 percent, on the high end of the historical average, which should be bad for Barack Obama. But it is trending the right way, which is usually a good sign for the incumbent.

Mitt Romney, the likely Republican standard-bearer, has run his whole campaign on the argument that he can run the economy better than Obama because he has deep experience as a CEO. But CEOs are about as popular as the Congress, so that theory might be a bit flawed.

Here are some other factors that will play an outsized role in this campaign. Continue reading →