What do these stories [about serial fabulist George Santos and Solomon Pena, with 19 felony convictions and nearly seven years in the pen] have in common? They suggest a Republican Party that simply doesn't vet candidates for office anymore. Even cursory background checks or interviews would have revealed some problems with these candidates, but today's GOP doesn't seem to care. What happened? read more
The most often quoted words of civil rights giant Martin Luther King, Jr., are surely those of his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech. Five years later, on the night before his murder, King delivered another memorable address in which he spoke of his mosaic journey to "the mountaintop" and what he beheld there. read more
Television network C-SPAN on Tuesday wrote a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) requesting regular access to the House chamber, citing the positive response to its coverage of the dramatic 15 rounds of voting for the House speakership. read more
Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT), a newly elected representative from Montana, celebrated his second day in Congress with a lengthy rant about the American "Deep State" and the endangered "American cowboy." read more
The Justice Department's investigation of the Capitol attack, already the largest it has ever conducted, has resulted in 900 arrests, with the potential for scores or hundreds more to come. read more
Person ... fifth ... man ... fifth ... woman ... fifth ... camera ... fifth ... teebee ... fifth ...
From another Shoah survivor, Primo Levi ...
In his first book, the memoir If This Is a Man (1947), Primo Levi describes his arrival at Auschwitz in February 1944. After the number 174517 is tattooed on his left forearm, he and other Italian deportees are shut into an empty barrack. "Driven by thirst, I eyed a fine icicle outside the window, within reach of my hand," Levi writes.
I opened the window and broke off the icicle, but at once a large, heavy guard prowling outside brutally snatched it away. "Warum?" [Why?] I asked in my poor German. "Hier ist kein warum" [Here there is no why], he replied, shoving me back inside.
claremontreviewofbooks.com
So slap that above library doors, schools, other repositories of memory: "Here There is No Why'"
"To be made a saint in-a the catholic church, you have to have-a four miracles. That's-a the rules, you know. It's-a always been that-a. Four miracles, and-a to prove it. Well, this-a Mother Seton-now they could only prove-a three miracles. But the Pope-he just waved the fourth one. He just waved it! And do you know why? It's-a because she was American. It's all-a politics. We got-a some Italian-a people, they got-a forty, fifty, sixty miracles to their name. They can't-a get in just cause they say there's already too many Italian saints, and this woman comes along with-a three lousy miracles. I understand that-a two of them was-a card tricks."
* Fr. Guido Sarducci (with an assist from Don Novello)