Last week, when I wrote about the stirrings of backlash on the part of some Catholic activists and Bishops over the Obamacare requirement that Catholic hospitals provide contraception and abortions, I expressed my doubt that mainstream Catholics really cared that much.
I got a few Catholics sounding off in my comment section that sounded a little more bellicose than I expected.
Chad the Elder over at Fraters – who is, unlike me, Catholic – is a lot less sanguine:
Last night was caucus night in Minnesota. Though conservatives are dispirited elsewhere across the nation, there was no lack of enthusiasm at the Benton County precinct caucuses.
Four years ago, 230 people attended the precinct caucuses. This year, 284 attended, almost a 25% increase.
In addition to the increased attendance, there were other big stories. For instance, Mitt slipped from winning the Benton County straw poll in 2008 with 107 votes to finishing last this year with a paltry 19 votes. That’s a drop of 80%.
Last night, before we could get to the exciting Minnesota Caucus results, Jon Potter from the Fan Freedom Project called in to tell us about restrictive online sports tickets. For the rest of the program, we took your phone calls to hear how your caucus night went and what Rick Santorum's victories mean for the future of the presidential race.
Tonight: Radio Professional Ron Rosenbaum. You can hear the Late Debate every Sunday to Thursday from 10pm to Midnight on 95.9FM in the North Metro. You can also subscribe to the podcast through iTunes.
There's disagreement over the Super Bowl Chrysler ad featuring Clint Eastwood as to whether it was political or not. The ad may have inspired some Americans, but also inspired some parody treatment:
A few weeks ago, I did an article about the tense-to-nonexistant relationship between conservatives and the media. Any media. Even media that strives in its own way for detachment.
Conservatives just don’t trust the media.
The context, of course, was a conversation I had with Melody Ng, who works for the “Public Insight Network” at American Public Media, the national/syndicated programming arm of Minnesota Public Radio. She’s found the attempt to engage conservatives – one of her job goals – for feedback and as sources is frustrating.
This just in from James O'Keefe and Project Veritas by way of Roger Simon at PJ Media:
On the day of the Minnesota Caucus, shocking video from James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas – broken here first at PJ Media – shows how easy it is to register NFL stars Tim Tebow, Tom Brady and practically anybody else to vote in that state.
Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill – which would make legal self-defense a more tenable option for law-abiding Minnesotans – is coming up for another hearing in the Senate Thursday.
The bill – which got side-tracked in the last session, amid a mass of inaccurate and dishonest reporting on the issue – is a must-pass for this session. And I think it’s fair to say if the GOP allows it to die this time, a lot of gun-owning Minnesotans are going to wonder when they’ll get some payback for all their commitment.
I’m going to urge all you Second-Amendment supporting Minnesotans to get on the phone. These Senators are all pretty much in line to support HF1467/SF1357:
There really hasn't been a lot of news on the Vikings stadium front these days, despite the kabuki going on in various locales:
Appealing for City Council support for a new Vikings stadium, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak surrounded himself with construction workers on Monday and said the project would create more jobs than any "single action that you can take."
Rybak and Barb Johnson, the City Council president, did little to disguise that the press briefing was an overt attempt to apply political pressure for the project, which does not appear to have the backing of a council majority. Rybak did not directly answer when asked whether he had majority support for a city subsidy package and chose instead to remain optimistic about the project's political chances.
Bush Derangement Syndrome was (and still is) the tendency of those who dislike President Bush to blame everything on him, regardless of logic. That's how some liberals came by the notion that not only did Bush cause hurricane Katrina, but he delayed help to the affected because he hates black people.
Today some conservative pundits are coming close to Obama derangement syndrome by attacking President Obama for 'cutting hazard pay for soldiers'. This is flat out wrong, and here's why.
And so the evidence of how ObamaCare is violating individual freedom and liberty continues. The rules and requirements of the new healthcare law continue to be rolled out and the latest is a finalized rule that requires nearly all employers to include free birth control, including the controversial morning after pill, in their health insurance plans.
So it turns out the Rick Santorum won all three contests yesterday. What does it all mean? I don't know, but I have a few guesses:
Last night when discussing the trends in the three non-binding Republican contests, I tweeted that Rick Santorum’s win in Missouri was only surprising in gaining a majority, but that a win in Minnesota would be surprising — and a win in Colorado would be shocking. As it happens, National Journal agrees with that assessment. Santorum shocked the Republican race with a clean sweep of Tuesday’s caucuses and primary, and may have pushed himself into serious consideration as the long-aought conservative consolidation alternative to Mitt Romney:
Having defined and refined the RINO concept, the hour has come to sort out the RINO’s, if any, in the Republican fold of Presidential aspirants viz. New Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. Each seems to have carved out a niche or label, like Santorum being the Social Conservative and Ron Paul the Libertarian. We could debate whether Santorum is fiscally conservative given his many earmarks while in Congress, but relatively few are characterizing him as a RINO. Ron Paul certainly is not a RINO! And neither seems at all likely to win the Republican nomination this August.
Recently, Rep. Drazkowski joined Sen. Thompson in introducing legislation that would put a right to work constitutional amendment on November’s ballot. The thought of giving workers the opportunity to say no to unionization is initially appealing. After additional thought, though, it’s apparent that first impressions aren’t right impressions.
First, adding a right to work constitutional amendment to the ballot will attract alot of special interest money to Minnesota. Why would we want to add another lightning rod to the ballot to drive DFL turnout?
I am a Catholic-- A fallen-away Catholic, but a Catholic, to be sure. I believe in the infallible tenets of the Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, Transubstantiation, and other Church doctrine; but I could no longer abide the turn for the worse in these past four decades in how the middle-heirarchy of the Church, mainly Bishops (and errant Priests) led the Flock astray, by promoting a godless, unattainable socialist utopia on earth via the "social justice" movement. They would get in bed with anyone to make it happen, including the most pro-abortion President in the history of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. They were more than willing to walk over the corpses of dead babies if it were to achieve their godless, earthly dream--
And then I saw this article, on Red State this morning, and I said AMEN!!! Someone gets it and isn't afraid to excoriate the Bishops who have led their flock astray--
In three different and very significant ways, the Dayton administration has admitted that their ultimate aim is to have the state control the curriculum standards first for those governing all preschool and childcare programs in the state that "volunteer" to become involved in the Parent Aware Quality Rating System (the QRS), the Race to the Top preschool grant program, or the early childhood scholarship program regardless of whether these programs are public, private or religious. This seems to be the foundation for then controlling ALL preschool curriculum. (More on that in future alerts).