Rep. Paul Ryan

Last week’s spike in gasoline prices hasn’t slowed Nuns on the Bus a whit. The nuns and Network, their parent organization, are squeezing every drop of mileage out of their new-found fame, which has more to do with supporting liberal causes than reflecting church principles of caring for the poor and limiting government’s role in the private sector.

Over the weekend, the CBS program 60 Minutes had a sympathetic overview of the supposed Vatican crackdown of the sisters’ activities – censorship! Inquisition! – that was presented fast on the heels of the group’s March 13 press release registering its displeasure with Rep. Paul Ryan’s FY14 budget proposal.

The CBS profile failed to cover the nuns’ weighing in on such topics as averting climate change and the Affordable Care Act via proxy shareholder resolutions while focusing on social topics regarding the ordination of female priests and same-sex marriages. While sensitive to the very real works of compassion performed by the nuns, the network depicted the Vatican as hard-hearted and unyielding in its enforcement of church doctrine. Read more on Nuns, 60 Minutes, Go After Rep. Paul Ryan…

On National Review Online, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg reflects on President Obama’s State of the Union address last night, and flags the “reality-denial” that is expressed by “a few token references to free enterprise and rewarding individual initiative (to reassure us we’re still living in America instead of just another declining European social democracy).” More:

Read more on Samuel Gregg: An Alternate Reality State of the Union Address…

It makes little, or really no sense for Americans to fork over more taxes without a balanced federal budget and seeing some fiscal responsibility out of Washington. The fact that the United States Senate hasn’t passed a budget in well over three years doesn’t mean we aren’t spending money, we are spending more than ever. The last time the Senate passed a budget resolution was April of 2009.

Read more on Raising Taxes without a Balanced Budget is Insane…

Standard and Poor’s decision to downgrade the United States’ credit rating has everyone talking. Discussion has ranged from we shouldn’t take Standard and Poor’s decision seriously at all to this could be the beginning of the end for the United States if it doesn’t make immediate changes. In a roundup published by National Review Online, Samuel Gregg weighs in on how the credit downgrade should be understood:

Read more on Gregg: Down on the Downgrade?…