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Today's starter topic: As many conservatives are aware, people who are non-religious are a growing voting bloc in America. Writing at National Review, Betsy Woodruff has an interesting piece exploring the question of how the right can appeal to this demographic without having to compromise too much. Her verdict? It is possible with the right approach. Tell us your thoughts in the comments about…

One of the most frustrating elements of the just-completed presidential race was the utter failure of Mitt Romney's campaign to make sure the American people learned that their government hasn't passed a budget since April 29, 2009. It seems that because those who follow the news closely already knew that, they figured the rest of the country did, which was -- and still is -- not the case. Of…

Suppose you saw a building on fire. Would you seek counsel from the arsonist who set it ablaze for advice on how to put it out? You say, "Williams, you'd have to be a lunatic to do that!" But that's precisely what we've done: turned to the people who created our fiscal crisis to fix it. I have never read a better account of our doing just that than in John A. Allison's new book, "The Financial…

If certain aspects of stories relating to an incident of gun violence don't fit the template, they usually doesn't get reported at all. But if such things somehow get some local exposure, they rarely escape into the broader national news environment. What follows is an example of the latter. On Saturday, Dan Zimmerman at the Truth About Guns blog (HT Instapundit) asked a quite logical…

Roughly 48 hours after the tragic shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, a powerful Democrat claimed that on the first day of the new Congress in January, she will be introducing a bill to both chambers of Congress that bans assault weapons. So said Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif), the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday.

CBS's Bob Schieffer made a comment Sunday about the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, that's likely to raise eyebrows on both sides of the aisle. During a Face the Nation panel discussion about the incident, Schieffer said, "If [shooter Adam Lanza] had had an Arab name, people would be going nuts about what we ought to do right now" (video follows with transcript and…

On a night when NBC's Saturday Night Live began with a reverential tribute to Friday's massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, the writers also had a perverse fascination with female body parts. After guest host Martin Short mentioned kissing a vagina during his opening monologue, he later played a representative from Buckingham Palace instructing an Ob/Gyn, played by Bill Hader, how to treat and…

Imagine for a moment if a Christian fundamentalist pastor publicly threatened a Democratic Party governor about to sign a legitimately passed bill into law with a long-term campaign of public harassment for doing so. Now imagine if that pastor extended that threat to include appearances at the governor's home and at his children's sporting events, and that Republican and conservative elected…

Liberals always say they don’t want to take away guns. But give them an awful tragedy like the Newtown, Conn. shooting and they get bolder and more honest. MSNBC host Ed Schultz showed a rare bout of such honesty during a brief Twitter exchange Saturday. Schultz asked “Why should anyone own an assault rifle ?” and followed it up by saying “it's the confiscation of these types of weapons that…

Samuel L. Jackson dropped an F-bomb on NBC's Saturday Night Live last evening. As the recurring sketch "What's Up With That" came to a conclusion, Jackson also said "bulls--t" (video follows with commentary, vulgarity warning):

In one of its last print issues, Newsweek mocks Bill O’Reilly in an article titled “The War On Christmas Is Over: Christmas Won.” Christian groups are pleased that retailers have mostly gone back to using “Christmas” instead of the more neutral “Holiday” patter. Religion reporter David Sessions asked: “How did this cultural flash point slide into oblivion, with Bill O’Reilly virtually the last…

On Thursday night, when UN Ambassador Susan Rice withdrew her name from consideration to be Secretary of State, the nation’s broadcast network struggled again with the facts: Rice lied on five Sunday shows in stark contrast with reality that there was no premeditated terrorist attack on the consulate in Benghazi. Instead, they insisted the truth was only something Republicans claimed. Take…

In Friday's Washington Post, gossips Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts reported that Sarah Palin's eldest child Track is divorcing his wife after a little more than a year of marriage. "She keeps her jewelry; he keeps his guns" in the settlement, they joked from the TMZ report. But in June of 2010, when Al Gore's eldest child Karenna was divorcing, she was a "crisis management" role model…

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