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Would We Be Better Off Without Religion?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 22, 2009 Comment (31)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Some guy named Bruce Sheiman has a new book out called An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity is Better Off With Religion Than Without It, and all of the sudden the media find that atheists come in a variety of flavors. Here's an excerpt from a USA Today article on the topic:
The old atheists said there was no God. The so-called "New Atheists" said there was no God, and they were vocally vicious about it. Now, the new "New Atheists"—call it Atheism 3.0—say there's still no God, but maybe religion isn't all that bad.
Faith provides meaning and purpose for millions of believers, inspires people to tend to each other and build communities, gives them a sense of union with a transcendent force, and provides numerous health benefits, Sheiman says. Moreover, the galvanizing force behind many achievements in Western civilization has been faith, Sheiman argues, while conceding that he limits his analysis, for the most part, to modern Western religion.
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Obama's War on Limbaugh and Fox Will Backfire With Voters
Tweet Share on Facebook October 22, 2009 Comment (79)By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The president has learned it's easier to burn bridges than build them.
And despite having been elected in part to unify all Americans and put an end to partisan division, the administration is intent on lighting as many fires as it can. In doing so, Obama is essentially creating a liberal version of Richard Nixon's "Enemies List."
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Democrats’ Dishonest Doc Fix Dodges Deficit
Tweet Share on Facebook October 21, 2009 Comment (2)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Under a fig leaf provided by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats who run the House of Representatives are trying to pull a fast one where healthcare reform is concerned.
Back when he spoke to a joint session of Congress, President Obama outlined his vision for a healthcare reform bill that, while he has yet to put anything to paper that has been released to the public, promised a deficit-neutral outcome. None of the three bills currently before the House met that criteria, in no small measure because the so-called public option is a budget buster.
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Kennedy, Beck, Malkin: Mixed News on a Cultural Signpost
Tweet Share on Facebook October 21, 2009 Comment (17)By Jamie Stiehm, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
True Compass, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy's riveting memoir, recently topped the New York Times Best Sellers list, I reminded myself on the ferry from his hometown, Hyannis Port, to Nantucket in the midst of an October nor'easter.
So something seemed right with the world in Massachusetts, though the coast wasn't clear enough to see the horizon. John F. Kennedy liked to say you could see Ireland across the ocean, but not that day.
Yes, I scan the Best Sellers seriously as cultural signposts—but the news ain't all good. "The List" is just as divided in a crazy-quilt pattern, just as vicious and heartwarming (in patches and squares) as we the American people.
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Obama's Fox Assault Is a Distraction--And Conservatives Are Falling for It
Tweet Share on Facebook October 20, 2009 Comment (53)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Sending Anita Dunn—who is probably not enjoying her proverbial 15 minutes of fame—out onto the north lawn of the White House to attack Fox News is serving its purpose.
The responsibility for determining which of the national news networks are legitimate and which ones are not is something the founders did not include in the executive powers section of the Constitution. One might even argue that the inclusion of the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights is a pretty clear sign they thought that giving any part of the federal government the power to do so would not, to put it in modern terms, be a very good idea.
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The Obama-Bush Love In
Tweet Share on Facebook October 20, 2009 Comment (11)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
There's been a lot of talk lately about bias in the media. We all have biases, based on our life's experience and the opinions we've formed along the way. The problem is when people don't admit they have one. So I'm going to do what the folks on cable news aren't willing to do: I'll admit I'm biased, especially when it comes to President George H.W. Bush. I worked for him years ago, and now I'm on the advisory board of his presidential library. He's like a dad to me, and I love him very much. If you're looking for disparaging remarks about him—or Mrs. Bush—you won't find them here.
So when President Obama traveled to College Station on Friday to honor President Bush on the anniversary of the Points of Light initiative, friends sent me all kinds of coverage: the White House transcript, the Washington Post coverage, the C-Span video (just watch the first few minutes and you'll see how funny he is these days). But there wasn't much commentary. None of the pundits in Washington seemed to say much about the visit.
That's a shame for two reasons.
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Government Should Stay Out of Media, Let the Press Fend for Itself
Tweet Share on Facebook October 20, 2009 Comment (16)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Writing in Monday's Washington Post, former executive editor Len Downie and Columbia University Professor Michael Schudson offer a menu of options to save print journalism by creating mechanisms to bring "public sources of support" for news reporting.
Saying that "American society must now take some collective responsibility for supporting news reporting," Downie and Schudson argue that government must take a leadership role and subsidize the news gathering process because "What is paramount is preserving independent, original, credible reporting, whether or not it is profitable, and regardless of the medium in which is appears."
Among their recommendations is for the Internal Revenue Service or Congress to "clarify tax regulations to explicitly allow new or existing local news organizations to operate as nonprofit or low-profit entities, allowing them to receive tax-deductible donations, along with advertising revenue and other income." Also, they want the Federal Communications Commission to create a "national Fund for Local News" out of the fees it collects "from or could impose on telecom users, broadcast licensees or Internet service providers." The money from this fund, Downie and Schudson suggest, would be distributed in competitive grants issued by "independent state Local News Fund Councils to local news organizations for innovations in local news reporting and ways to support it."
Both of these are monumentally bad ideas, in no small part because they make the government and media partners in the news business.
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High Liberal Hopes Threaten to Crash Down on Obama
Tweet Share on Facebook October 19, 2009 Comment (5)By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
"Frustrated Liberal Lawmaker Balances Beliefs and Politics," reads the headline of a New York Times story from over the weekend.
The profile of Oregon Democratic Congressman Earl Blumenauer, penned by Times ' s Congressional ace Carl Hulse, highlights the increasing uneasiness many on the left are experiencing with the Obama administration. It's not quite disillusionment, but it could be getting there.
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Shriver Report Skips Frustrating Family Issue of the School Year
Tweet Share on Facebook October 19, 2009 Comment (7)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
As promised on Friday, I spoke with Maria Shriver and John Podesta of the Center for American Progress this morning, along with about 30 other bloggers. We were discussing the findings in The Shriver Report: A Women's Nation Changes Everything," which states that for the first time, women make up half of the U.S. workforce and that women are either breadwinners or co-breadwinners in two thirds of American families.
While they paint a very comprehensive picture of the changes taking place in America, the authors call for a "transformation" of the way our major institutions function—government, businesses, media, and faith-based institutions—in order to better accommodate the ways women now work and live.
I asked what readers thought of that, and many of you kindly responded. After sifting through some very thoughtful comments from readers—including a funny one that suggested that perhaps Monday Night Football be moved to a daytime broadcast for all the unemployed men to watch, and Oprah move to prime time so that all the female breadwinners can watch it when they get home from work—I found a question that jumped out at me. (It was from a reader who had put the question out on a Twitter feed to working moms!)
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Fair and Balanced? Fox News Doth Protest Too Much
Tweet Share on Facebook October 19, 2009 Comment (124)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I'm the first one to criticize the Obama administration when it does something untoward, or to disagree with any of its policies that I view as off the liberal deep end. But White House Communications Director Anita Dunn's comments about Fox News Channel are factually accurate, plain and simple. Fox News is nothing more than a Republican/conservative cheat sheet. Even Fox fans have the intellectual capacity to understand that concept. They wouldn't be watching if they weren't wingers (or liberals or moderates wishing to get clued in on how the right wing "thinks" if indeed it really does.)
Does Fox put liberals on its air to balance so-called debates on issues? Of course it does—how interesting would it be to watch two conservatives agree with each other? So why bother mounting a counterattack, as Fox executives have done, if the network were anything but what it is? It's befuddling.
