Mike Huckabee told Newsmax that President Obama “pretends to be” a Christian.
Said Huckabee: “I’m less concerned about what faith the person has. I’m more concerned about the authenticity of their faith and how that plays out in their politics … I’m also concerned about a guy that believes he’s a Christian and pretends to be and then says he is, but then does things that makes it very difficult for people to practice their Christian faith.”
Ben Carson “says his controversial comments about opposing a potential Muslim president were taken out of context,” the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.
Said Carson: “It seems to be hard for people actually to hear English and understand it.”
President Obama “will host an elaborate arrival ceremony at the White House for Pope Francis on Wednesday morning in a highly symbolic encounter between the political leader of the world’s most powerful nation and the spiritual leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics,” the New York Times reports.
“As it happens, in a historical aberration, Mr. Obama will host such a ceremony twice in one week, with President Xi Jinping of China visiting the White House on Friday. But the pope has generated a wave of excitement in a normally jaundiced capital that ordinary national leaders rarely produce.”
You already know the problem: the same story can look completely different depending on where you read it — and some barely show up at all because algorithms decide what you see.
My goal for Political Wire is to help you get outside those filters — to understand not just what happened, but how it’s being covered and who might be missing it. That’s why I use and recommend Ground News.
It’s an app and website that brings together global news from across the political spectrum, showing each source’s bias, factuality, and ownership.
What I find especially useful is the Blindspot Feed. It highlights stories getting heavy coverage on one side but little on the other — a quick way to see what your usual news diet may be missing.
For a limited time, get 40% off a Ground News Vantage subscription at www.groundnews.com/political.
First Read: “Bigger than the Carson/Trump controversy over Muslims in the White House is a fact of life that many haven’t confronted: There’s Islamophobia in America. There are a few things going on here: 1) a feeling among many Americans that mainstream Muslims aren’t doing enough to denounce radicals – and 2) in some cases, a conflation of mainstream and radical Islam, perpetuated by constant coverage of the threat of extremism. The result of statements like Carson’s isn’t just that the extreme perversion of Islam is a terrifying threat, it’s that anyone of the Muslim faith could be suspect. We get it: this is an uncomfortable conversation, but it’s the one that this controversy SHOULD spark. (Although it’s not clear that it will.)”
“Know this, I meant exactly what I said. I could never support a candidate for President of the United States that was Muslim and had not renounced the central tenant of Islam: Sharia Law.”
— Ben Carson, writing on Facebook.
“Pope Francis will arrive at a military base outside the capital on Tuesday afternoon to open his first visit to the United States, and President Obama will be there to welcome him. It is a gesture the president has extended to virtually no other foreign visitor,” the New York Times reports.
“And little wonder. For Mr. Obama, there may be no more potent ally in the world in his quest to bend the arc of history, to use a favorite phrase, than a pope who helped him restore diplomatic relations with Cuba and who has spoken out on issues like economic inequality, immigration, climate change and criminal justice reform.”
A new CNN/ORC poll finds 43% of those who identify as Republicans believe President Obama is a Muslim, while only 15% of those who identify as Democrats agreed he is Muslim.
“As he upends church convention, Pope Francis is grappling with a conservative backlash to the liberal momentum building inside the church. In more than a dozen interviews, including with seven senior church officials, insiders say the change has left the hierarchy more polarized over the direction of the church than at any point since the great papal reformers of the 1960s,” the Washington Post reports.
“The conservative rebellion is taking on many guises, in public comments, yes, but also in the rising popularity of conservative Catholic Web sites promoting Francis dissenters; books and promotional materials backed by conservative clerics seeking to counter the liberal trend; and leaks to the news media, aimed at Vatican reformers.”
Wall Street Journal: “Leading in the polls but lacking deep political roots with the religious right, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has summoned a group of evangelical Christian leaders to his office for a meeting next month.”
Pat Robertson says he believes the stock market’s massive sell-off this morning was God’s way of punishing the Obama administration for supporting abortion rights, Politico reports.
Said Robertson: “We will pay dearly as a nation for this thing going on. And possibly if we were to stop all this slaughter the judgment of God might be lifted from us. But it’s coming, ladies and gentlemen.”
Gallup: “Pope Francis’ drop in favorability is even starker among Americans who identify as conservative — 45% of whom view him favorably, down sharply from 72% last year. This decline may be attributable to the pope’s denouncing of ‘the idolatry of money’ and linking climate change partially to human activity, along with his passionate focus on income inequality — all issues that are at odds with many conservatives’ beliefs.”
In the aftermath of shootings in Chattanooga which killed four Marines, Franklin Graham urged in a Facebook post for a halt to all Muslims coming into the United States.
Wrote Graham: “Every Muslim that comes into this country has the potential to be radicalized–and they do their killing to honor their religion and Muhammad. During World War 2, we didn’t allow Japanese to immigrate to America, nor did we allow Germans. Why are we allowing Muslims now?”
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) issued an executive order “prohibiting state government from taking action against clergy members or religious organizations that deny services to couples based on religious beliefs,” the Wichita Eagle reports.
“Among other things, the order is intended to protect religious organizations that provide adoption services for the state from having to place children with gay couples if that conflicts with their beliefs.”
New York Times: “The order comes nearly two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, paving the way for gay couples to marry across the country. It is the latest sign that the battle has shifted to the issue of religious liberties, and how much leeway people of faith have to opt out of providing services to or recognizing gay unions.”
The Oklahoma Supreme Court said the Ten Commandments Monument at the state Capitol must be removed, Tulsa World reports.
“The plaintiffs said its placement at the Capitol constituted the use of public property for the benefit of a system of religion, which is banned by the Oklahoma Constitution.”
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said that his state will comply with the Supreme Court’s order legalizing same-sex marriage, Politico reports.
Said Jindal: “We don’t have a choice. Our agencies will comply with the court order.”
But he added: “I think it is wrong for the federal government to force Christian individuals, businesses, pastors, churches, to participate in wedding ceremonies that violate our sincerely held religious beliefs. We have to stand up and fight for religious liberty. That’s where this fight is going.”
Pope Francis said that people who manufacture weapons or invest in weapons industries are hypocrites if they call themselves Christian, the Guardian reports.
“Francis issued his toughest condemnation to date of the weapons industry at a rally of thousands of young people at the end of the first day of his trip to the Italian city of Turin.”
Rick Santorum called the church shooting in Charleston — which left nine people dead — a “crime of hate” and connected the event to a broader “assault on our religious liberty,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Santorum: “This is one of those situations where you just have to take a step back and say we — you know, you talk about the importance of prayer in this time and we’re now seeing assaults on our religious liberty we’ve never seen before. It’s a time for deeper reflection beyond this horrible situation.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told the Christian Broadcasting Network that Christianity faces a “real and present danger” from same-sex marriage supporters who cast opponents as intolerant.
Said Rubio: “We are at the water’s edge of the argument that mainstream Christian teaching is hate speech, because today we’ve reached the point in our society where if you do not support same-sex marriage, you are labeled a homophobe and a hater.”
He added: “So what’s the next step after that? After they’re done going after individuals, the next step is to argue that the teachings of mainstream Christianity, the catechism of the Catholic Church, is hate speech. And that’s a real and present danger.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.