Presidential Campaign Poster from 1900.
Jordan Ballor and I are hosting an Acton on Tap on Thursday October 28 at Derby Station in East Grand Rapids. The event starts promptly at 6:30 p.m. If you are in the Grand Rapids area and like humor, politics, and fellowship, please plan on attending. Here is our description from the event page:
Published today in Acton News & Commentary. Sign up for the free weekly email newsletter from the Acton Institute here.
By Anthony Bradley
The November congressional elections are not so much a referendum on the Obama administration as a check on whether President Barack Obama’s implementation of a Bismarckian vision of government will continue.
David Bahnsen, writing on The Bahnsen Viewpoint, has a great report on last night’s Acton dinner:
“Good news – the President has announced a reduction of the government work force by one million people (20%). Bad news – the cuts were ordered by President Raul Castro in Cuba.”
It turns out there’s a phrase for the reality of ‘crony capitalism’ in Hebrew: hon v’shilton, which is “literally translated as capital and government, an expression Israelis use to describe the rich’s influence on government.” Check out Bloomberg Businessweek for an overview of current controversy on Israel’s “business elite.”
Rev. Robert Sirico talked about the Tea Party movement and Catholic Social Teaching yesterday with Al Kresta on Ave Maria Radio.
Click on the link below to listen:
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
From Kresta in the Afternoon:
Read more on Rev. Robert Sirico: The Tea Party Movement and Catholic Social Teaching…
A new Detroit News column by Acton Institute President and co-founder Rev. Robert A. Sirico:
By Father Robert Sirico
If the recent analysis by the New York Times on the success of the tea party movement is correct, the influence of this movement favoring limited government and low levels of taxation may have a decided impact in the upcoming elections, particularly in holding the Republican leadership’s feet to the fire on a variety of related issues.
Read more on Rev. Robert Sirico: Tea Party Must Define Ideas…
Hernandez
On FrontPageMag.com, Ismael Hernandez talks about his journey from anti-American activist to his disillusionment with socialism and eventually the founding of the Freedom & Virtue Institute. Hernandez, a frequent lecturer at Acton conferences, was asked by interviewer Jamie Glazov to recall the estrangement from family and friends that resulted when his “passion for socialism” faded away.
A good give-and-take on the tea party movement on Our Sunday Visitor. Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute, weighs in:
Many of the stances tea party activists have taken on political issues also would resonate with Catholic voters, Father Sirico said. For example, many practicing Catholics would likely agree with the tea party’s concern about the overreaching involvement of government in schools and health care, he said, and though the movement has hesitated to identify itself as pro-life, the majority of tea party activists appear to be in agreement with the Church’s stance on abortion.
Liu Xiaobo
In the International Herald Tribune, Fang Lizhi points to the experience of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo over the last 20 years as “evidence on its own to demolish any idea that democracy will automatically emerge as a result of growing prosperity” in China.
Read more on Liu Xiaobo: Peace Prize, Prosperity and Liberty…
In the “Wealth Inequality Mirage” on RealClearMarkets, Diana Furchtgott-Roth looks at the campaign waged by “levelers” who exaggerate and distort statistics about income inequality to advance their political ends. The gap, she says, is the “main battle” in the Nov. 2 election. “Republicans want to keep current tax rates to encourage businesses to expand and hire workers,” she writes. “Democrats want to raise taxes for the top two brackets, and point to rising income inequality as justification.”
