Obama aides to meet with atheists on White House grounds

[babylonsister]

Obama aides to meet with atheists on White House grounds
By Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has burnished his Christian credentials, courted Jewish support and preached outreach toward Muslims. On Friday, his administration will host a group that fits none of the above: America's nonbelievers.

The president isn't expected to make an appearance at the meeting with the Secular Coalition for America or to unveil any new policy as a result of it.

Instead, several administration officials will sit down quietly for a morning meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus with about 60 workhorses from the coalition's 10 member groups, including the American Atheists and the Council for Secular Humanism. Tina Tchen, the director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, and representatives from the Justice and Health and Human Services departments will participate.

Coalition leaders are billing their visit as an important meeting between a presidential administration and the "nontheist" community. On the agenda are three policy areas: child medical neglect, military proselytizing and faith-based initiatives.

"We're raising important issues that affect real people's lives," said Sean Faircloth, 49, a former Maine state legislator who's the coalition's executive director.

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/02/25/88475/obama-aides-to-meet-with-atheists.html

[NNadir]

1. It has a kind of "Don't ask, don't tell" feel to it, but I am glad the President is considering that

we exist who don't believe that God exists and that, in spite of what George Busto Bush the first said, we are, in fact, citizens.

[seafan]

2. So, the atheists score a meeting with the White House, but single payer health advocates can't?

Obama aides to meet with atheists on White House grounds

By Margaret Talev

February 25, 2010

..... several administration officials will sit down quietly (with the Secular Coalition for America) for a morning meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus with about 60 workhorses from the coalition's 10 member groups, including the American Atheists and the Council for Secular Humanism. Tina Tchen, the director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, and representatives from the Justice and Health and Human Services departments will participate.

Coalition leaders are billing their visit as an important meeting between a presidential administration and the "nontheist" community. On the agenda are three policy areas: child medical neglect, military proselytizing and faith-based initiatives.

.....

Where's the Single-Payer Advocate?

By Michael McAuliff

February 23, 2010

Reps. Anthony Weiner and Peter Welch are reprising a question that proved thorny for President Obama’s last health care summit: Where’s the single-payer advocate?

Weiner and Welch — single-payer advocates who are not invited, yet — argue in a letter to the President today that someone from the single-payer side should be at the Blair House summit on Thursday.

“Dear Mr. President,” they write. “During the State of the Union address, you stated, ‘But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.’

“We’d like to take you up on the offer.”

Their idea is pretty easy to understand: Medicare for all.

The letter is after the jump.

.....

And yesterday, the White House's much-touted health care summit came and went.



Every day we receive a bit more insight into this administration.


Just as surely as George W. Bush frittered away the precious opportunity to unite our country and the world after September 11, 2001, the painful sense of foreboding is again front and center.

[Name removed]

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[Solomon]

6. LOL Welcome to the club. Hannity was complaining

about it too. He refused to meet with some Catholics or something, but he's meeting with the atheists. The right wing is seething about it.

Congratulations. You're on a "winning" team now.

[Cha]

7. We Are The Ones We've Been Waiting For~

:)

[ensho]

3. great! this is a big step forward

nt

[pleah]

5. K&R