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Glenn Beck Hijacks It’s a Wonderful Life

By Lauri Lebo

UPDATE: Listen to Glenn Beck read and attack this post on air. Great, so now, just in time for the holidays, Glenn Beck tries to co-opt one of the few unifying rituals of this season, one of the remaining events that we on all sides of the political and religious spectrum can sit down and truly enjoy together. Yes, Beck is now trying to steal the great 1946 Frank Capra classic It’s a Wonderful Life and turn it into a rallying cry for the conserva…

Glenn Beck’s Fox Show Gets Canned

By Lauri Lebo

…rated program on cable news. For the 27 months that “Glenn Beck” has aired on Fox News, the program has averaged more than 2.2 million total viewers and 563,000 viewers 25-54 years old, numbers normally associated with shows airing in primetime, not at 5pm. “Glenn Beck” has dominated all of its cable news competitors since launch….

Believing in Johnny Cash: An Open Letter to Atheists

By Paul Wallace

…within that circle, God has nothing to do with reality. I hope this is a fair representation of scientifically-motivated atheism. If facts are what define that circle, stories are what is added to the facts. Stories take you outside that circle. In my use of the word, stories are interpretations of the facts. (Therefore scientific theories, being interpretations, are themselves stories of a kind. But I am thinking of interpretation in the less ra…

Palin Bus Tour Like Gideon’s Fleece

By Anthea Butler

…rs. Like a seasoned evangelist, Palin knows how to work the tension in the air and convince the poorest folks to put their money into the collection basket. Palin’s tour reminds me of evangelists like Oral Roberts and other small time gospel preachers who used the summer to set up their tents across America, traveling in buses and spreading the “good news.” Palin’s bus tour takes that strategy up a notch: it is the “Where’s Waldo” evangelical-poli…

Pete “Spare Tire” DeGraaf’s Operation Rescue Ties

By Sarah Posner

…ar.” His online biography at Shepherds Staff Ministries, where DeGraaf, an Air Force Academy graduate and an ordained pastor, is a “biblical” financial advisor, boasts, “During the Summer of Mercy he served as Executive Director for Hope for the Heartland.” The Summer of Mercy was a six-week abortion clinic blockade, organized by the fringe anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, that took place in Wichita in 1991, and focused on the clinic run by D…

Mosques and Welcoming LGBT People

By Hussein Rashid

…how large the community of gay Muslims is. While they are not out in large numbers yet, they will be. I think we need to start making the decision now, that a Muslim cannot judge another Muslim’s faith. I think we need to start instilling a sense of equality and fairness to all people now. If our mosques will be open and welcoming to non-Muslims, and even atheists, we cannot be anything but welcoming to anyone who identifies as Muslim. I do not wa…

Will bin Laden’s Killing End the Jihadi Trend?

By Christopher Anzalone

…ieved to have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Pakistani civilians in air strikes. Even within the original al Qaeda bin Laden has probably not played a central operational role for many years, though he remained an influential voice and symbol. The organization has cultivated a new set of charismatic leaders such as Abu Yahya al-Libi and ‘Atiyyatullah al-Libi who will likely serve as capable new voices of militancy for al Qaeda and others fo…

Huckabee v. Beck: A Redux of 2008 Intra-Conservative Attacks and Counterattacks

By Sarah Posner

…e been going at each other over the past week, with Beck concluding on the air that Huckabee shouldn’t run for president in 2012 because he’s too “thin-skinned.” The thrust of Beck’s attacks on Huckabee have been that he’s too “progressive,” and calling him a “big government guy” for his supportive statements about Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity intiative. Beck’s assault on Huckabee is — like most things Beck does — completely derivative. In 2008,…

Pat Robertson Gaga for Gbagbo

By Sarah Posner

…rt Robertson’s personal diamond mining business instead of relief work in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). Robertson had befriended Zairian strongman Mobutu Sese Seku and pled on the 700 Club for the United States to lift sanctions on his murderous regime. Today, Robertson took to the airwaves, as the situation in Cote d’Ivoire spirals into chaos, forces loyal to Ouattara have reportedly seized control of the presidential palace, and…

Glenn Beck Apologizes for Comparing Reform Judaism to “Radical Islam”

By Joanna Brooks

…ant.” “I certainly had not done enough homework,” Beck said, “to go on the air and haphazardly make a comment like I did.” Homework? Beck must have some kind of reality-repelling bunker built inside Fox Studios. What kind of political commentator knows so little about the role of Reform Judaism in contemporary American life? Jewish Funds for Justice responded to the apology by pointing out that Beck regularly demonizes progressive religious people…