media criticism

Ross Douthat wants you to have more babies. And he wants you to be married when you have those babies. And not just any babies. He wants you to have American babies—though, if you’re an immigrant, he’ll take your babies, too, because that’s really the only reason to allow immigrants to be here. And he wants you to hurry up and have those American babies, because if you don’t, we’ll run out of workers, and if we run out of workers the United States will get “knocked off its global perch.” Because that’s what’s at stake, ladies and gentlemen—American domination.

On Faith founder’s shallow understanding of religion.

Reflections on #MuslimRage. “” ’

On Thursday, Barton’s publisher Thomas Nelson announced that it would pull from publication The Jefferson Lies. “In the course of our review,” the publisher said that it had “learned that there were some historical details included in the book that were not adequately supported,” and that “because of these deficiencies” it was “in the best interest of our readers to stop the publication and distribution” of the work.

Planets! Tablets! Underwear! When some of America’s most celebrated pundits and public intellectuals talk about Mormons, these are the images that are summoned. Ironically in this “Mormon Moment”—signaled by a hit Broadway musical, polygamous housewives on TLC, and of course two Mormon presidential candidates—Mormons, long considered quintessential “outsiders” to mainstream American culture, today find themselves at the center of the American zeitgeist. Yet it is the Mormons’ supposed theological weirdness that is the centripetal attraction.

Fact check, anyone?

Election-year scrutiny sheds light on disaffiliation, controversy.

Mormon niche industry donors fuel campaign, but try to stay out of spotlight.

Behold the woeful ignorance of GOP strategists.

On July 2, still glowing from the national media spotlight, Personhood USA issued a press release, “Personhood Leaders Suffer Violent Attacks From Pro-Abortion Terrorists Following Newsweek Feature,” with photos and description of shattered front-door glass, spray-painted coat hangers and “F— You” with a backward F across the front of their Denver-suburb house. The release said the Newsweek profile led to physical threats and the posting of the Masons’ home address in comments—and implicated The Daily Beast’s “notoriously liberal” readers and “pro-choice criminals” in the alleged vandalism.