From Under the Rubble
From Under the Rubble…Dynasty–The Rerun
Statesmen come and go, but dying dynasties always long for an encore. After the Kennedy males of the younger generation thoroughly disgraced themselves, the task of Kennedy Compound rehab fell to Caroline. It was a rocky road. In 2010, when she figured she could walk into Hillary’s New York Senate seat, she discovered that inherited…
From Under the Rubble…Hail to the Dictators!
It’s the Redskins versus the Crybabies in the Victims Bowl. Washington’s beloved pro football team is just the latest target of opportunity for the racial hucksters who are writing the next edition of Big Brother’s NewSpeak Dictionary. Like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, however, the professional malcontents are actually conducting a false flag operation to keep…
From Under the Rubble…Hiccups in the Hierarchy
Hiccups in the Hierarchy The Catholic Church in the United States is witnessing one of the most tumultuous periods in its history. So when the nation’s Catholic bishops meet in Baltimore during the second week in November, they will have a lot to talk about. Three years ago, the bishops rejected the establishment candidate of…
From Under the Rubble…The Swagger Factor
The always inspiring Father George Rutler recalled some helpful history the other day: There was a time … when schoolboys memorized, among other famous classical lines, the expression: “Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.” It was the exasperated call, in the second-century B.C. Senate of the Roman Republic, for the conquest of Carthage in what is…
From Under the Rubble…Progress and Hatred of the Past
C.S. Lewis, in his introduction to The Great Divorce, recalls a science fiction story featuring a man who is able to return to the past. There he encounters a startling world: the past is so concretely real that the very blades of grass he walks on are stiff and unbending. Like sharp nails, they cut into…
From Under the Rubble…Words, Words, Words!
A few weeks ago, Pope Francis asked us to pray, fast, and give alms on Saturday, September 7, for peace in Syria. We did, and on Monday, September 9, Vladimir Putin’s op-ed in the New York Times somehow occasioned what Joe Sobran once referred to as “the qualm before the storm.” The Rubble couldn’t help…
From Under the Rubble…”No More Yaltas!”
On September 25, Secretary of State John Kerry signed the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty [ATT] at the UN headquarters in New York. As my longtime Senate staff colleague Mike Hammond explains, the treaty “was scheduled for approval in the U.N. last year, in July, but was suddenly pulled off the table because Barack Obama…
From Under the Rubble…Nancy’s Blind Spot
When you’re one of the richest members of Congress and you represent San Francisco, the real world can seem as distant as the dark side of the moon. So it figures that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was awestruck when Republicans had the temerity successfully to upend two of her most cherished political projects –…
From Under the Rubble…”Incredibly Small”
During his speech to the nation regarding Syria on September 10, Obama spoke of “humanity” four times. Three of them reflected the sense of the term made famous by Turgot (+1781), the Enlightenment progressive for whom “the total mass of mankind (l’humanité) marches… slowly but steadily toward ever greater perfection.” In his prodigious studies of…
From Under the Rubble…Cal Thomas’s Learning Curve
The British parliament has defeated Prime Minister David Cameron’s motion to join Obama’s proposed attack on Syria. As of this writing, the U.S. Congress has not acted, but the prospect of another U.S. war in the Middle East has brought some old issues back to life. And some old players — the most interesting of…