Charles C. Haynes: Schools can’t teach religion as science, even in Texas

WASHINGTON — Texas Gov. Rick Perry needs to get home more often.

  On Aug. 11, just days before Perry told a boy in New Hampshire that “in Texas we teach both creationism and evolution,” the Texas Education Agency sent a memorandum to the State Board of Education finalizing approval of scientifically accurate teaching material for use in Texas public schools.

  Perry’s pronouncement notwithstanding, Texas schools teach evolution without any mention of creationism — despite years of political pressure from religious conservatives to include creationist ideas in the curriculum. Evolution, dismissed by Perry as “a theory that’s out there” with “some gaps,” is presented as sound science in Texas textbooks and supplementary materials.

Adam Hersh: Conservative jobs plan is a wolf in sheep’s clothing

  Last week House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) released a Republican “jobs agenda” platform. In reality, the agenda is a laundry list of resounding jobs killers.

  The primary problem is that the House Republican agenda pulls the rug out from under aggregate demand. Doing so is the number one impediment to job creation, business investment, and reducing the deficit. There is widespread agreement on this from across the spectrum, including conservative economists such as Martin Feldstein and Bruce Bartlett.

Gary Palmer: Endowed, not evolved: Why man’s origin matters to our rights

  The recent attack against Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s belief that mankind was created by God raises deeper questions than the usual “evolution” questions.

  It appears that there is more to these protests than concerns for science or the typical hypersensitivity that many liberals have any time a high-profile leader says anything that disputes their orthodoxy concerning the origin of man. Skepticism about the belief that man is the product of random chance or evolved in the same way as other species strikes at the core of what some people believe about man and government.

Rev. Dr. Dennis W. Wiley: Gays Are Us: Why LGBT equality is not a “white” issue

  At last month’s 102nd annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a historic workshop focused on overcoming homophobia within the black community. As an African American, heterosexual, male pastor of a traditionally black Baptist church in the inner city of Washington, D.C., I was glad to see this legendary organization take this small but important step in its increasingly inclusive perspective on civil rights.

  There are some, however, including the Rev. Keith Ratliff Sr., an NAACP national board member, who see no parallel between gay rights and civil rights. Expressing this conviction at a rally last May, he demanded that the gay community “stop hijacking the civil rights movement.”

  This statement, subtly suggesting that “civil rights” is a black issue and “gay rights” is a white issue, implies that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, or LGBT, equality is not a priority for black people. This sentiment, particularly prevalent regarding the issue of marriage equality, is often expressed in a variety of ways, including, “This is not our issue,” “This is not a priority for the black community,” and, “We have more critical matters to consider.”

Guillermo Jimenez: Political Irrationality: The World's most important problem (and how to solve it)

  Political irrationality is the world's most important problem. Millions of people around the world have lost their jobs. We have seen rioting in Cairo, Damascus, Athens and London. Bombs dismember innocent citizens on a daily basis; countrymen kill each other in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and the Congo. Countries take years to recover from natural catastrophes. Global warming emissions have been utterly unaffected by governmental regulations or discourse. None of these problems can be effectively addressed with a crippled political system.

  But research from fields as diverse as cognitive psychology, neuroscience and behavioral economics suggests that when it comes to politics, most people are irrational, most of the time. We are biased and overconfident in our political opinions but generally unable to perceive this irrationality in ourselves or in our fellow partisans, though we can easily spot it in our opponents.

Sheldon Richman: Conservatives don’t hate government

  Sometimes I wonder whether the mainstream pundits listen to themselves. It’s hard to believe they would say the silly things they say if they did.

  For example, the talking heads on MSNBC, which works 24/7 for President Obama’s reelection, like to say that conservative Republicans “hate government.” “If you hate government,” Chris Matthews, host of Hardball, asks, “why would you want to be the government?”

Eric Alterman: Remember Bush’s vacation

  President Obama is under fire for any number of things, but the one that appears to excite reporters the most is his decision to take a few days’ vacation. According to Politico,

  “Images of Obama fundraising, golfing and on vacation — especially in such a well-heeled location — undercut his message that the economy is his ‘singular focus,’” said Doug Heye, a Republican strategist.

  Last week, a few hours after the White House announced the president would head to Martha’s Vineyard Thursday for a 10-day vacation, the Republican National Committee sent out a press release querying, “And this is the same White House that says they are focused on the economy?”

Gary Palmer: Founders left footprints for Tea Party to follow

  Frustrated by Republican members of Congress who would not allow any tax increases in the legislation to raise the U.S. debt limit, some Democrat leaders and liberal media pundits blamed the Tea Party. Accusing the Tea Party of holding the nation hostage, they further diminished themselves and their agenda by calling members of the Tea Party “terrorists.”

  That was pathetic.

Christine Smith: Lethal injustice

  No political philosophy respects human rights, individual liberty, human dignity, and life itself more than libertarianism. Yet, one of the major civil-liberty controversies present in our society is largely ignored by libertarians: capital punishment.

  In 14 years of involvement in the anti-death-penalty movement, I have rarely met libertarians involved in the issue. Most concerned with it have been from the left “progressive” political spectrum, with the occasional, but rare, conservative who viewed it as a “pro-life” issue.

  It would seem logical that libertarians, more than others, would care about an issue as grave as the state-sponsored or state-ordered death of its own citizens. So why is it practically ignored?

Sam Fulwood III: The Race for the White House

  Given the confusing and crazy history that we Americans seem incapable of rising above, I suppose it was preordained that nearly every conversation about the first black president would devolve to an examination of its racial elements. From the moment then-candidate Barack Obama declared himself a contender for the White House, the ghost of U.S. race history has hovered over him, trying its best drag him into some otherworldly realm.

  For better or worst, President Obama is what every president before him was—a very good politician. Nobody gets elected president without being so. As such, President Obama must play the political game as deftly as each of his predecessors did, despite having the racial narrative as a backdrop to his remarkable story. That race-is-everything storyline is a distraction to everyone, save the president who seems to ignore it at all costs. For good reason, too; he can’t afford to be distracted by it, if he expects to win—again.