Arthur Brooks

Howard Dean: Jesus Probably to Left of Democratic Party
By Mark Finkelstein | May 14, 2015 | 7:57 AM EDT

Is Jesus a Bernie Sanders fan?  Could be, if you believe Howard Dean.  On today's Morning Joe, Dean claimed that "if you look at the red-letter version of the Bible, Jesus was probably to the left of the Democratic party."

Dean's declaration came in the context of a discussion of yesterday's forum on poverty in which President Obama and AEI President Arthur Brooks participated.  Question: is Dean confusing the establishment of faceless government bureaucracies that can entrap people in dependency with the kind of personal caring for the downtrodden that Christ commanded?

'Fast Money' Panel Blasts President Obama's 'Duplicitous' Rhetoric in CNBC Interview
By Ken Shepherd | July 24, 2014 | 6:36 PM EDT

At the beginning of the July 24 edition of Fast Money, CNBC aired an exclusive interview of President Obama by the network's Steve Liesman focused primarily on taxes and tax reform, particularly the president's call to prevent large corporations from capitalizing on an "inversion" to lessen their federal tax bite.

But after the interview was aired, CNBC panelists excoriated the president as "duplicitous" and "disingenuous" for pretending like he has no share in the blame for a lack of movement on tax reform during his tenure in office and for offering an inaccurate, misleading description of what exactly happens to a U.S. corporation's tax obligations after it undergoes an inversion.

Rewriting the Bible: The Gospel According to Liberals
By Paul Wilson | March 13, 2013 | 1:45 PM EDT

When liberals and their media allies have an agenda to push, they’ll use any tool at hand. The left often rails against the presence of religion in civic life, mocking conservative Christians as “Taliban” agitating for theocracy. But other times, they find faith to be a handy weapon to bludgeon conservatives. And they’ll go so far as to reinterpret and rewrite the Bible to justify any liberal cause, no matter how outrageous. 

In 2010, MSNBC anchor Melissa Harris-Perry summed up this strategy in her call for “re-imagining the Bible as a tool of progressive social change.” Huffington Post contributor Mike Lux embraced Harris-Perry’s advice, writing that the Bible embodies “all kinds” of “liberal, lefty, progressive values.”