Free Republic

Obama, speaking to a group of supporters in San Francisco, CA. , recently said: "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment...

I - The Necessity of Unity: Truth by its very nature is unitive not divisive and Our Lord not only prayed for unity among His believers (John 17) but He also warned that divided houses could not stand (Matt. 12:25-29; Mark 3:23-26; Luke 11:14-20). There is a fundamental rule to logic that is called the "Law of Non-Contradiction" and it could be argued that by implication Our Lord was teaching it when he spoke about Satan casting out Satan. The Law of Non-Contradiction applies perfectly in these passages because it basically states that something cannot be both true and false....

On the campaign trail last week, Sen. John McCain declared at least three times that the Republican Party is "united." But is it? Some prominent conservatives say they remain disenchanted with the party's likely nominee. Sen. McCain isn't doing enough to persuade them of his conservative credentials, they say, or win them over to his side. Although the sentiment among conservative leaders is that they will vote for Sen. McCain come November, they aren't thrilled about the prospect. "I hear a good deal of rumbling from conservatives," said Alfred Regnery, publisher of the conservative American Spectator magazine. Mr. Regnery said...

Beirut - Lebanese Christian and Muslim voices have spoken out in unison as the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad coincided with Easter. With the presidency vacant since November, religious leaders used celebrations to urge politicians to action. Maronite Cardinal Sfeir said: "We need only look around us to see that some countries have made their deserts into habitable towns, while we have almost turned our gardens into deserts." Political stand-off in Lebanon has left its large Christian minority feeling particularly vulnerable. The standing power-sharing agreement reserves the office of president for a Maronite Christian. Many now fear that the vacancy...

WASHINGTON -- Slowly but steadily, a string of Democratic Party figures is taking Barack Obama's side in the presidential nominating race and raising the pressure on Hillary Clinton to give up. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is expected to endorse Sen. Obama Monday, according to a Democrat familiar with her plans. Meanwhile, North Carolina's seven Democratic House members are poised to endorse Sen. Obama as a group -- just one has so far -- before that state's May 6 primary, several Democrats say. Helping to drive the endorsements is a fear that the Obama-Clinton contest has grown toxic and threatens...

My niece's husband is a trainee Baptist pastor. Jimbo's hip, friendly, and fun to be with. He's smart and theologically savvy. I like him. He loves Jesus and believes the Bible, and on most moral and doctrinal issues I can affirm what he affirms. We agree on a lot. But even when we agree, we don't see eye to eye. Somehow we seem to have reached our religious conclusions from different starting points and through different routes. A chapter in Mark Massa's book Anti-Catholicism in America illuminated the problem for me. Massa quotes an important theological work by David Tracy,...

MIAMI -- A donor to the Democratic Party asked for a rebate out of frustration over the party's Florida delegate dilemma -- and he got it. Federal records show that Paul Cejas has given six-figure sums to the Democratic National Committee for years, NBC 6's Nick Bogert reported. Cejas asked for his last donation back. He said he was angry with the party, particularly party Chair Howard Dean, over the failure to resolve Florida's delegate dilemma. "Frankly, he's dropped the ball, and I told him, 'You're going to go down in history as the worst chairman of the Democratic Party...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - John McCain was getting some help Thursday from former Republican rival Mitt Romney, a pairing that two months ago seemed improbable as the two fought bitterly for the party's presidential nomination. In their first campaign swing as allies, Romney planned to meet McCain at the airport in Salt Lake City and appear with the likely Republican nominee at a fundraiser. The two then were traveling to Denver for a second fundraiser. McCain, who has struggled to raise campaign money, is on a weeklong western fundraising swing. Romney is popular in Utah and Colorado, states with large...

It is currently in vogue within American evangelicalism to play against each other the complementary realities of Christian love and unity, on the one hand; and on the other hand, the necessity for a strenuous biblical precision in formulating and contending for those points of doctrine which are secondary in importance – that is, those doctrines which, to believe one way or the other, would not per se corrupt the essential purity of the gospel. A concrete example of such secondary matters would be one's beliefs in the debate between cessationism or continuationism of the so-called "sign gifts"; or else...

In the 1960's I had a lady friend who loved Robert Redford. So, naturally, I got dragged to all of Redford's movies. I saw "The Candidate" several times. In that film, Mr. McKay (Redford), a "community organizer" like Barack Obama, hatches a slogan, "McKay, The Better Way" to run for office. Ironically, Barack "Barry" Obama has now chosen "The Better Way" as his mantra through February 10th. Well. Obama's slogan has about as much substance as the celluloid version popularized by Robert Redford. Obama is entirely a creation of wealthy contributors and powerful, liberal media interests. So what he does...

Maybe, just maybe, it’s now worth at least asking whether Hillary Clinton might wind up as the Democratic candidate for vice president. When the chatter about a Democratic “dream ticket” began last year, it was easy to dismiss. Either Clinton or Obama would win a clear victory in the primaries and, after what inevitably would be a contentious campaign, each would want as little to do with the other as possible. Clinton, if she emerged victorious, would instead choose some kind of national security graybeard to her political right, a retired general perhaps, or maybe even a Republican. Likewise, Obama...

Why is China behaving as it is in Tibet? What makes Tibet so important to the government in Beijing? At the heart of the matter is the fact that nothing worries China's rulers more than when the country's unity is called into question. And nothing makes them more anxious than their fear that a regional dispute might, if not brought to an end quickly, steamroll into national disintegration. Kosovo's recent declaration of independence sharpened the Chinese government's anxieties over the protests in Tibet. Although supporters of Kosovo's independence argue that it sets no international precedent, China's rulers fear otherwise. Moreover,...

NOTE: This article was originally written in 1999 and revised on 30 August 2006 to reflect recent developments in the Roman Catholic apologetic community. The unity Christ prayed for in the church is not, to begin with, an organizational unity. When Jesus prayed that we all might be one, He was describing a spiritual unity. In John 17:11, He prayed “that they may be one, even as We are.” Verse 21 continues: “that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us” (emphasis added). That describes...

... If there's a single thread that runs through the e-mails I receive from peevish Republicans, it's that none of the current candidates possesses the conservative purity of Ronald Reagan. One could almost get the idea that Dutch was betrayed by Pontius Pilate and crucified on Calvary. But that wasn't exactly the case. The fact of the matter is that Gov. Reagan gave Gov. Jerry Brown a run for his money – or should I say our money? – when it came to raising taxes here in California. But, in spite of the additional revenue, he was responsible in large...

BARACK OBAMA, HILLARY CLINTON, JOHN MCCAIN Could Obama Lose One Quarter of Hillary's Supporters in a General Election? Daniel Larison notes that in the latest Pew poll, "Obamacans" - those Republicans who are supporting Obama — are outnumbered two-to-one by what we would have to call "McCainocrats." A quarter of Democrats (25%) who back Clinton for the nomination say they would favor McCain in a general election test against Obama. The "defection" rate among Obama's supporters if Clinton wins the nomination is far lower; just 10% say they would vote for McCain in November, while 86% say they would back...

Barring a political miracle, Senator John McCain will win the GOP primaries in Texas and Ohio today, and most likely garner enough delegates to lock up our party's presidential nomination. I know many of you aren't thrilled about supporting McCain, and some of y'all have even made blood oaths that you will never vote for "that man." And trust me. I get it. I know exactly where y'all are coming from. For some, it was McCain's opposition to President Bush's tax cuts. For others, it was McCain's cheerleading for patently unconstitutional campaign-finance legislation. For social conservatives, it was McCain's support...

Senator John McRINO aka John McCain is seeking the conservative base to unite with him. Many of us haven't forgotten that he never united with us. Whether it be on his kneepads courting Ted Kennedy or spearheading the ramming of amnesty down our throats, we haven't forgotten. This election offers little or no choice. In the words of Billy Preston "Nothing from Nothing Leaves Nothing."

Sometime before Barack Obama's strong showing on Super Tuesday, the Washington Post observed that the senator had been campaigning across this great land on a "platform of hope and change." Whether or not the Post was being arch, they had it about right. Obama rarely speaks about policy specifics; "hope" and "change" are the two dominant messages he preaches on the stump. But he has two secondary themes: "straight talk" and "unity." They don't receive nearly as much attention: Perhaps because an examination of them shows Obama to be a somewhat conventional political figure. During the course of his standard...

Unity is one of the big themes of the current election. People get unified in two different ways. Unity comes either from a common threat from the outside, or from leadership emerging from the inside. Who can forget the shock and the surge of patriotism that followed the 9/11 attacks? The political and social divisions that define calmer times disappeared and we all became Americans. We were united behind our president, whose approval ratings went beyond 90 percent. Over the few short years since that shock, circumstances have changed. President Bush, once wildly popular, is now wildly unpopular. Last month,...

The combination of scrupulous proportionality of elected delegates and the generous profusion of super-delegates sets the party on a collision course.