Today on Kresta - Nov. 5, 2009

Talking about the "things that matter most" on Nov. 5

4:00 – Money for Art: The Tangled Web of Art and Politics in American Democracy
Taxpayers jeered when Obama poured $80 million of “stimulus” funds into the National Endowment for the Arts—but wait until you hear where the money is going! NEA grants are funding nude simulated-sex dances and porn films. At the same time, ten Republican senators have written to the NEA Chairman expressing concern that the Obama administration may have violated federal law by trying to use the agency for political purposes. The charges stem from an Aug. 10 teleconference in which the NEA's communications director urged members of the arts community to help Obama's efforts by creating art to support Obama’s various agendas. David Smith is author of a new history of government and art and is here to tell us how the NEA strayed from its original mission of fostering national pride and virtue through art.

4:40 – The Price of Proposition 8
Support for Proposition 8, the democratically established marriage amendment in California, has come with a heavy price for many individuals and institutions that think that marriage should remain the union of husband and wife. Publicly available sources, including evidence submitted in a federal lawsuit in California, show that expressions of sup­port for Prop 8 have generated a range of hostilities and harms that include harassment, intimidation, vandalism, racial scapegoating, blacklisting, loss of employment, economic hardships, angry protests, violence, at least one death threat, and gross expressions of anti-religious bigotry. Because the issue of marriage is still very much alive in Califor­nia and throughout the nation, the naked animus manifested against people and groups that sup­ported Prop 8 raises serious questions that should concern anyone interested in promoting civil society, democratic processes, and reasoned dis­course on important matters of public policy, such as marriage. We look at the price of Proposition 8 with Thomas Messner.

5:00 – Catholics Win Big in ’09 Elections – Wins in ME, NJ, and VA
Independents who swept Barack Obama to a historic 2008 victory broke big for Republicans Tuesday as the GOP wrested political control from Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey, a troubling sign for the president and his party heading into an important midterm election year. Conservative Republican Bob McDonnell's victory in the Virginia governor's race over Democrat Creigh Deeds and moderate Republican Chris Christie's ouster of unpopular New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine was a double-barreled triumph for a party looking to rebuild after being booted from power in national elections in 2006 and 2008. Elsewhere, Maine voters rejected a state law that would allow same-sex couples to wed. If supporters had prevailed, it would have marked the first time that the electorate in any state endorsed gay marriage. Gay “marriage” has now lost in every single state -- 31 in all -- in which it has been put to a popular vote. Gary Bauer has the analysis.

5:20 – Kresta Comments

5:40 – A Christmas Carol
The latest edition of A Christmas Carol is set to hit theaters tomorrow. The film adaptation of Charles Dickens’ 1843 story of the same name is written and directed by Robert Zemeckis, and stars Jim Carrey in a multitude of roles, including Ebenezer Scrooge as a young, middle-aged, and old man, and the three ghosts who haunt Scrooge. The 3-D film was produced through the process of performance capture, a technique Zemeckis has previously used in his films The Polar Express and Beowulf. Steven Greydanus has seen it and has the review.