Religion

Pew: Millennials' Views on Churches, News Media More Negative
Culture
January 12th, 2016 1:38 PM
If you’re a cultural conservative, a new Pew Research study offers both decidedly positive and decidedly negative hints of what the future holds. Positive because Pew found that Millennials don’t think much of the news media; negative because they don’t like religious institutions much better.

ABC Presents Bible Stories (With or Without Full Frontal Nudity)
Culture
January 12th, 2016 11:07 AM
Yes, some of the Old Testament reads like Game of Thrones (humans are a sinful lot – that’s kind of the point of the entire Bible). But your natural audience for Old Testament stories isn’t exactly clamoring for explicit rape scenes and graphic massacres. To offer believing Christians and Jews an X-rated version of King David can only be a failure of imagination or a calculated insult. Or both.

CNN's Douthat Warns of Immigration 'Disaster' in Germany
January 11th, 2016 2:08 PM
Appearing as a guest on Monday's CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello, New York Times columnist and CNN political commentator Ross Douthat admitted that there can be such a thing as too much immigration as he warned of a "slow-motion disaster" in Germany because of Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to allow a million immigrants into the country.
But when asked by host Costello to clarify the…

'No-Go Zones' Are Back in the News — But Not at U.S. Media Outlets
January 11th, 2016 10:27 AM
Despite reports and statements containing the term coming out of Germany during the past week, searches at the Associated Press on "no-go zones," and even on "no-go," return nothing. The New York Times has no recent report identifying European no-go zones, but has at least demonstrated that it might be getting over its nearly allergic reaction to the term by observing that parts of Ramadi, Iraq…

Lefty Blogger: Conservatism Was Less Disgusting 85 Years Ago
January 10th, 2016 2:15 PM
In the present, liberals vehemently oppose what conservatives stand for (and vice versa, of course). But do liberals believe there was a time when conservatism was somewhat reasonable, or at least not appalling? Martin Longman offered an answer in a Friday post: It was “the reaction to FDR’s New Deal” that crystallized the suspicious, radical conservatism of today.
“Conservatism is supposed to…

Video
NBC Drops Covering Iraqi Refugee Arrests; Led With It On 'Today'
January 8th, 2016 10:58 PM
Friday's NBC Nightly News failed to cover the arrests of two Iraqi refugees in Texas and California on terror charges. This omission came hours after the network's morning show, Today, led their broadcast with the story. The same evening, ABC and CBS's evening newscasts both covered the arrests of Aws Mohammed Younis al-Jayab and Omar Faraj Saeed al Hardan, who are accused of having connections…

Lefty Writer: ‘Narcissism’ Unites Trump, Conservative Evangelicals
December 30th, 2015 9:14 PM
If you’re looking for the ultimate contradiction in terms, it’d be hard to top “Christian narcissist.” Nonetheless, David Masciotra alleged in a Tuesday Salon piece (originally published on the left-wing site AlterNet) that “conservative evangelical Christianity” somehow “encourages narcissism,” and that this unholy communion explains Donald Trump’s relatively high level of popularity on the…
Video
Daly: Was Important to Get Married ‘to Have the Sacrament of Marriage’
December 30th, 2015 7:37 PM
Discussing his marriage to longtime girlfriend Siri Pinter while guest-hosting Wednesday’s Today, Carson Daly offered a rather surprising reason for finally getting married to Pinter after having been together for the past decade. Speaking of how tying the knot over Christmas has already changed his life, he explained he feels that being married has affected him “in a more profound way” due to “…
NYT: ‘Grumpy’ GOP Would ‘Be a Lot Looser’ If They Were Drag Queens
December 28th, 2015 5:37 PM
Reviewing the new drag queen-centered Broadway show Kinky Boots in Monday’s New York Times, critic Ben Brantley chose to dedicate a few paragraphs to the bizarre suggestion that the show should make one think “that maybe all those grumpy guys who populate the Republican debates might be a lot looser if they traded in their navy suits for rainbow-colored ball gowns.”

Google's Christmas-Free Doodle vs Celebration of Evolution
December 25th, 2015 9:17 AM
A very Merry Christmas to NewsBusters readers everywhere! Just out of curiosity, I took a look at the Google doodle for this Christmas Day. See below: it's bland, boring and above all, void of any reference at all to the holiday itself. I decided to have a look at the ways Google observed other days with its doodles. And sure enough, exactly one month to the day before Christmas Eve, Google…

Video
Cuomo: 'White Kid' But Not 'Brown' Muslim Can Bring Clock to School
December 23rd, 2015 5:20 PM
Near the end of Wednesday's New Day on CNN, during a segment about the top five stories on social media for 2015, co-host Chris Cuomo oddly declared that, "despite all the stats about Christian terrorists," if a "white kid" had brought a homemade clock to school, unlike a "brown" Muslim kid like Ahmed Mohamed, there would have been no assumption that it was actually a bomb.

Video
Santorum Snubs Scarborough Suggestion To Kumbaya American Muslims
December 21st, 2015 9:12 AM
It's rare when a politician says something surprising, or doesn't succumb to a feel-good suggestion. Which made Rick Santorum's response to Joe Scarborough this morning doubly remarkable.
On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough had teed Santorum up to agree with his suggestion that we need to "reach out aggressively to let Muslim Americans know that they are every bit a part of the American dream as…

CBS Edited Out Harsh Obama Critique by Muslim Focus Group
December 20th, 2015 4:24 PM
The leftist website The Intercept is taking apart Friday’s CBS panel discussion on Muslims in America: “two Muslim Americans who took part in the group complained that CBS edited out parts of the discussion where they raised their own concerns — including critiques of U.S. militarism, surveillance and entrapment.”
They also said that Frank Luntz, “the right-wing pollster who led the focus group…

New Republic Writer: GOP Anti-Terror Ideas ‘Beyond Xenophobia’
December 19th, 2015 11:49 AM
Debbie Wasserman Schultz may not want you to know about it, but there’s a Democratic presidential debate on Saturday evening, and Beutler believes that the candidates therein “would be doing the country a service by placing the right wing appeal to paranoia in its proper context—and then rejecting it forcefully.”
In a Friday piece, Beutler described this week’s Republican presidential debate as…