...Yet Watergate was far more than that. At its most virulent, Watergate was a brazen and daring assault, led by Nixon himself, against the heart of American democracy: the Constitution, our system of free elections, the rule of law.Read the rest here.
There’s no question that America’s recovery from the financial crisis has been disappointing. In fact, I’ve been arguing that the era since 2007 is best viewed as a “depression,” an extended period of economic weakness and high unemployment that, like the Great Depression of the 1930s, persists despite episodes during which the economy grows. And Republicans are, of course, trying — with considerable success — to turn this dismal state of affairs to their political advantage.Read the rest here.
They love, in particular, to contrast President Obama’s record with that of Ronald Reagan, who, by this point in his presidency, was indeed presiding over a strong economic recovery. You might think that the more relevant comparison is with George W. Bush, who, at this stage of his administration, was — unlike Mr. Obama — still presiding over a large loss in private-sector jobs. And, as I’ll explain shortly, the economic slump Reagan faced was very different from our current depression, and much easier to deal with. Still, the Reagan-Obama comparison is revealing in some ways. So let’s look at that comparison, shall we?
It is important to stress here that the ecclesiology of communion promoted by the Council takes its inspiration from the Eucharistic ecclesiology of the Orthodox, especially Afanassief, who is cited in the texts. The Council’s ecclesiology is thus of great ecumenical import. The intervention of John Zizioulas, the Metropolitan of Pergamon, at the 2005 Roman Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, testifies to this: “The ecclesiology of communion promoted by Vatican II and deepened further by eminent Roman Catholic theologians can make sense only if it derives from the eucharistic life of the Church. The Eucharist belongs not simply to the beneesse but to theesseof the Church. The whole life, word and structure of the Church iseucharistic in its very essence.”[9] Walter Kasper agrees wholeheartedly and holds that “eucharistic ecclesiology has become one of the most important foundations of the ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches.”Read the rest here.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Everyone knows America has too much debt. What they don’t know is that things are getting better, not worse.Read the rest here.
Little by little, our economy is reducing its debt burden, slowly repairing the damage caused by 10, 20 or 30 years of excess.
If you want to know why economic growth has been so tepid, here’s your answer. Four years after the storm hit, the economy is still deleveraging. And it’s very hard for any economy to grow when everyone is focused on increasing their savings.
The rapid rise in federal debt over the past four years has distracted us from the big picture. The level of public debt is indeed worrisome, but it’s not as big a worry as the economy’s total level of debt — public and private.
Although we have a whole cottage industry devoted to warning us about the dangers of too much public debt, we don’t have any comparable Cassandras telling us about the dangers of too much private debt. Yet the history of the past 30 years (or 300) clearly shows that too much debt, of whatever variety, can pose a systemic risk to the national and global economies.
Toward the end of the service, the attendees exchanged edible wafers as a symbolic gesture of unity. Then, the clergy in robes as colorful and as different as their religious traditions led the congregants out of the church.From here.
THIRTY YEARS AGO, on June 8, 1982, President Reagan delivered an address to the British Parliament that stands as one of the greatest of his presidency and a milestone in the final years of the Cold War. At a time when the Soviet Union seemed to be a permanent, if foreboding, presence in the world, Reagan predicted that “the march of freedom and democracy” would “leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.”Read the rest here.
The “ash heap of history” was language Mr. Reagan personally wrote into the address, according to Robert C. Rowland and John M. Jones, who wrote a book about the making of the speech, “Reagan at Westminster: Foreshadowing the End of the Cold War.” The words reflected Mr. Reagan’s notion, not universally accepted at the time, that the West should not just criticize or contain Soviet behavior but also challenge the basic legitimacy of the Soviet system.
In a statement released Friday, Roman Catholic Womenpriests-USA says it supports the LCWR's response to the Vatican report. Here's what the organization wrote:Read the rest hereThe entire membership of Roman Catholic Womenpriests-USA (RCWP) proudly stands in solidarity with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and fully supports the actions that the LCWR will be taking in response to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith report.
RCWP believes that as a matter of justice, the CDF mandate must be discussed openly and candidly with the LCWR membership.
R.A. Dickey exits the New York Mets’ Pentagon City hotel, jaywalks across South Hayes Street and makes his way underground to the Metro platform. “This thing,” he grumbles, stepping gingerly down the broken escalator, “is never working.” He’s not in a bad mood, per se — just a serious one.Read the rest here.
It is Tuesday afternoon, and Dickey, 37, is headed to a therapy session — relationship therapy. Dickey and his knuckleball, they are making great progress these days, their understanding of each other growing deeper and richer. But the work must never stop, lest they drift apart again. Later that afternoon, in the bullpen at Nationals Park, they will take their places and pick up where they left off last time.
“It’s definitely a relationship,” Dickey, who carries the best record in the National League (8-1) into Thursday’s start against the Nationals, says before throwing his standard, between-starts bullpen session. “Sometimes we fight. There will be times where I’m yelling at the baseball — like, ‘Do I really know you?’
The left will make a big mistake if it ignores the lessons of the failed recall in Wisconsin of Gov. Scott Walker (R). The right will make an even bigger error if it allows the Wisconsin results to feed its inclination toward winner-take-all politics.Read the rest here.
The danger on the right is greater because winning an epic fight is a heady experience and conservatives can claim a real victory here. Walker didn’t just win. He won decisively. And it turns out that a majority of Wisconsin voters — including many who voted against Walker — simply didn’t like the idea of a recall.
NEW YORK — Hope that European leaders will take steps to ease the region’s debt crisis sent stocks surging to their best day this year Wednesday.Read the rest here.
Speculation that the Federal Reserve could make another move to help the flagging U.S. economy also drove traders out of bonds and into stocks Wednesday after weeks of losses.
Don't you wish you'd been in Shreveport Saturday?Read the rest here.
For once in your life, the answer should be yes. The Republican State Convention there offered raw passion, intrigue and even a few broken bones. They say politics is Louisiana's favorite spectator sport. In its current form, the GOP could fill the Superdome.
The purpose Saturday was to select the 46 delegates the state party will send to the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Since Mitt Romney appears to have the presidential nomination sewn up, this should have been a pretty sleepy affair.
We knew beforehand that it would not be, however, because Ron Paul supporters, having turned out in force for caucuses that other voters largely overlooked, constituted a majority of those present. Meanwhile party officials were determined that Louisiana would line up behind Romney.
WAUKESHA, Wis. — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) survived a furious recall campaign on Tuesday, emerging as the victor in a bitter fight over state budgets and collective bargaining rights.Read the rest here.
NBC News declared Walker the projected winner over Democratic challenger Tom Barrett, the mayor of Milwaukee, in the closely-watched campaign, an outgrowth of a contentious fight in early 2011 after Walker drove a bill stripping public employee unions of their collective bargaining rights through Wisconsin's legislature.
Walker's victory served as a symbolic victory for a generation of reform-minded conservatives; the crowd at Walker's Waukesha election night party let out a large cheer when a local NBC affiliate showed the projection of Walker's victory.
