Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) recently appeared on the MSNBC round-table discussion show Morning Joe and was asked by Senior Political Analyst Mark Halperin to give his personal take on the reality of a world where Obamacare is the law of the land. Here’s what transpired: JOHNSON: Well, it’s obviously the law of the land right now. Obviously, I’m concerned about it. I think that the cost estimate of Obamacare is grossly understated. I think far more Americans are going to...

The conclave to elect a new pope began today in Rome. Guy Dinmore and Giulia Segreti from the Financial Times describe the first day: Cardinals sequestered in the Sistine chapel held their first vote to choose the 266th pope to lead the Roman Catholic church but black smoke emerging from their burnt ballot papers on Tuesday night signalled no one had secured the two-thirds majority needed for election. The search for a successor to Benedict XVI, who last month became...

Early today, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina was elected as the 266th pope of the Catholic Church. Here are nine things you should know about Pope Francis. 1. Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires in 1936. His father was an Italian immigrant. 2. He’s the first pope from South America. The only remaining continents that have never had a e from their lands are Australia, Antarctica, and North America. 3. He’s the first Jesuit pope. 4. He...

With the election of Pope Francis, the Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Rev. Robert A. Sirico released the following statement. “Pope Francis is a man of great spirituality who is known for mitment to doctrinal orthodoxy as well as for his simplicity of life,” Rev. Sirico said. “Like Benedict XVI, bines concern for the poor with an insistence that it’s not the Church’s responsibility to be a political actor or to prescribe precise solutions to economic...

In their book, American Society: How It Really Works, authors Erik Wright and Joel Rogers make the case that when we talk about social injustice most Americans think in terms of some sort of material inequality that might be considered unfair and possibly remedied if our social institutions were different. There are multiple problems with this reduction but it is fair to say that this is a dominant conceptual framework in our culture today. As a result, one of the...

Writing in The Guardian, historian Peter Frankopan looks at how the Byzantine Empire, which had “the distinction of being one of the very few realms to survive for more than a millennium,” might offer clues to a way out of the current Eurozone crisis. Frankopan, author of The First Crusade: The Call from the East, notes that “like the EU, the Byzantine empire was a multilingual, monwealth that spread across different climates and varied local economies, ranging from bustling cities...

Taking a look at these videos will give you a pretty good idea of what the Duck Commander’s mission is. You’ll see how the popular A&E series Duck Dynasty, focusing on the lives of the Duck Commander products, embodies a vision of business as mission on a variety of levels. As Phil puts it, “we all are preachers.” Here’s Phil Robertson, the Duck Commander, describing his journey to faith in Jesus Christ: Here’s the Duck Commander on the origins of...

New Delhi TV recently published a Agence Franch-Presse report describing the former pope’s “invisible presence at conclave:” Retired pope Benedict XVI is gone but far from forgotten as cardinals begin voting for candidates to replace him, with his personal secretary Georg Gaenswein one of the last to leave the Sistine Chapel before the start of the conclave. Rev. Robert Sirico addresses Benedict’s influence on the conclave: Benedict has “been very careful not to insert himself into the proceedings” for his...

AEI’s Values & Capitalism recently posted an interview with Dr. Charlie Self, professor at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary and senior advisor for the Acton Institute. In the last few weeks, I’ve posted several excerpts from Self’s new book, Flourishing Churches and Communities: A Pentecostal Primer on Faith, Work, and Economics for Spirit-Empowered Discipleship,which he discusses at length in the interview. When asked what a Pentecostal worldview adds to the “larger Christian conversation about faith, work and economics,” Self responded...

Last month I wrote about the Romeike family, a German family of homeschoolers that was given the choice to abandon their religious convictions or lose custody of their children. Although the family is seeking asylum in the U.S., President Obama’s Justice Department has argued that the family should be denied refugee status based on their contention that governments may legitimately use its authority to force parents to send their kids to government-sanctioned schools. Nick Gillespie of Reason.tv talked to Mike...