"In Atlanta, Cox isn't just the voice of the establishment. It is The Establishment. The elite and wealthy are protected on its pages. " -- John Sugg, Creative Loafing

Al Gore on The Threat to American Democracy, "The subjugation of news by entertainment seriously harms our democracy: it leads to dysfunctional journalism that fails to inform the people."

[...]
 
"The news divisions - which used to be seen as serving a public interest and were subsidized by the rest of the network - are now seen as profit centers designed to generate revenue and, more importantly, to advance the larger agenda of the corporation of which they are a small part. They have fewer reporters, fewer stories, smaller budgets, less travel, fewer bureaus, less independent judgment, more vulnerability to influence by management, and more dependence on government sources and canned public relations hand-outs. This tragedy is compounded by the ironic fact that this generation of journalists is the best trained and most highly skilled in the history of their profession. But they are usually not allowed to do the job they have been trained to do.

"The present executive branch has made it a practice to try and control and intimidate news organizations: from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. They placed a former male escort in the White House press pool to pose as a reporter - and then called upon him to give the president a hand at crucial moments. They paid actors to make make phony video press releases and paid cash to some reporters who were willing to take it in return for positive stories. And every day they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the Presiden

Maggie Gallagher - Source Watch
"On January 26, 2005, the Washington Post reported (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36545-2005Jan25.html) that Maggie Gallagher, a prominent advocate for the amendment to ban gay marriage as well as funding for marriage based health and social programs, had accepted a $21,500 contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to promote President Bush's marriage promotion initiatives. The contract included ghostwriting articles for department officials, writing brochures and briefing department officials.

[...]

Gallagher also receieved a $20,000 Justice Department grant for a writing a report titled "Can Government Strengthen Marriage?" that was published by the private, non-profit National Fatherhood Intiative. Wade Horn, the Health and Human Services Department's assistant secretary for children and families who defended Gallagher's contracts as "not unusual," founded the National Fatherhood Initiative before entering government.

The narrowness of “equity feminism”

"After Hoff-Sommers, the person who has done the most to popularize the concept of "gender feminism" is libertarian, "ifeminist" and Foxnews columnist Wendy McElroy. In Roderick Long and Charles Johnson's essay on libertarian feminism, they consider Wendy McElroy's use of "gender feminist." (Long and Johnson are rare libertarian feminists whose feminism is distinguishable from anti-feminism.) At one time, they say, McElroy used "gender feminist" to refer mainly to radical feminism, but her definition has expanded over the years:

McElroy now clearly lumps liberal and radical feminists together as “gender feminists," and opposes libertarian feminism (individualist feminism, ifeminism) to this aggregation. … “liberal feminism," “left-of-center feminism," and “gender feminism" are all apparently being treated as equivalent.

[...]


"The way "equity" feminists like Hoff Sommers and McElroy [Gallagher's comrade in spin] discuss feminism is entirely binary; they don't acknowledge that there are any feminists who don't fit into the gender/equity dichotomy, nor do they suggest that any overlap between the categories exist. Therefore, when "equity feminism" is drawn so narrowly, "gender feminism" becomes correspondingly broad. Virtually all feminists, apart from a handful of Republican and libertarian activists, are in practice derided as "gender feminists" by Hoff Sommers, McElroy and their fellow travelers."

RAWA's answer to Wendy McElroy:

The answer was sent to Wendy McElroy, FoxNews and ifeminists.com on October 14, 2002, but they neither acknowledged its receipt nor published it though we resent it later. It appeared on EquityFeminism.Com on October 18, 2002.
 

"Perhaps this is the season for senseless attacks on RAWA from so-called Western feminists. We hadn't yet attended to Noy Thrupkaew's article in The American Prospect Magazine (August 2002), when Wendy McElroy wrote an article about RAWA for ifeminists.com and Fox News on August 20, 2002.

[...]

"And finally regarding the paragraph attacking us for criticizing American policies in Afghanistan. Can McElroy deny the fact that it was the US and not any other country that created the criminal Afghan fundamentalist bandits (Jehadis and Taliban) and CIA was working closely with Osama? If she dares to reject these facts, she not only stands in confrontation with RAWA but with many well-respected American and world scholars and analysts. By the way, if not the US, then who has so far supported the Northern Alliance, the fundamentalists more treacherous and traitorous than Taliban? "

[...]

"We are amazed that McElroy, as a "professional skeptic", who accuses other of conducting "soft-ball" interviews with us has never seriously attempted to actually interview RAWA herself. RAWA is never intimidated by "difficult" interviews. In fact we would welcome it. "
Bush nominates his own personal lawyer, Harriet Meirs, to SCOTUS

Writer Backing Bush Plan Had Gotten Federal Contract

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 26, 2005; Page C01
 
"In 2002, syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher repeatedly defended President Bush's push for a $300 million initiative encouraging marriage as a way of strengthening families.

[...]

"In the interview, Gallagher said her situation was "not really anything near" the recent controversy involving conservative commentator Armstrong Williams. Earlier this month Williams apologized for not disclosing a $241,000 contract with the Education Department, awarded through the Ketchum public relations firm, to promote Bush's No Child Left Behind law through advertising on his cable TV and syndicated radio shows and other efforts. "

The Fundamentalist attack on separation of church & state defames America and its founders, The Free Press, Speaking Truth to Power, Harvey Wasserman

100,000 Signatures Needed on Downing Street Letter

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/5/27/164317/949

Dear Secretary Minetta, Re: 9/11

"There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice president, "The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to, "The plane is 10 miles out, "the young man also said to the vice president, "Do the orders still stand?" And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?"

Take the Minetta Test

http://www.mideasttruth.com/forum/

Why aren't there more women columnists?

Yet we have phony propagandist columnists like Wendy McElroy and Maggie Gallagher? People for the American way have them listed on their website.  Sheesh...not only is McElroy NOT a feminist, she's a racist too!

evote Controversy

Political Strategy, How to outmaneuver the neocons

Gibberish from Georgia legislators on e-voting

Getting around the PAS as Syndrome label, Alienate this: "Since introducing PAS as a syndrome has failed so often in court, men's and fathers' rights activists have tried to find ways of getting around it. I recall in the late '90s one activist recommending that a legal approach of 'estrangement' be used to get around the PAS problem."

So she's not a fathers' rights hack,  like Maggie Gallagher or so sayeth she, Wendy McElroy, Liar, Liar pants on fire

http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2003/0819morse.html

Stephen J. Ducat Dissects "Anxious Masculinity," Making Sense of America's Strutting, in a Psychoanalytic Kind of Way, buzzflash.com

Chamber of Secrets, Child Custody corruption exposed, CBS 48 Hours

Is Bush Gay? By Betty Bowers

what if GAY PORN and The White House become co-related -- xpost

Zell Miller is a Fascist, ariannaonline.com

Nightline let David Brooks impugn Democrats' motives on Social Security

The Zell Miller Resolution, Blog for Democracy

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, Democratic Underground

Seymour Hersh: "We've Been Taken Over by a Cult" 
Democracy Now! Wednesday, January 26, 2005

McManus and Gallagher have more in common than Bush Administration contracts
Media Matters

"Gallagher's second HHS-funded project, "Can the Government Strengthen Marriage?" was commissioned by the National Fatherhood Initiative, the Institute for American Values, and Gallagher's Institute for Marriage and Public Policy. The National Fatherhood Initiative and the Institute for American Values have also received significant funding from conservative foundations.

The National Fatherhood Initiative, whose mission is "to lead a society-wide movement to confront the problem of father absence," receives funding from the Bradley Foundation and the Scaife Family Foundation. Horn, the HHS assistant secretary for children and families, is the founder and one-time president of the National Fatherhood Initiative."

SOUNDBITTEN.COM, on Maggie Gallagher and press payola

"What is less well known is that a similar body of literature exists on the relationship between marriage and adult well-being. Again, to sum up a very broad body of research, in every way that social scientists know how to measure, both men and women do better when they're married. They live longer, they're physically healthier, are happier, and have lower rates of mental and emotional distress -- less anxiety, less hostility, less depression. They make more money than otherwise similar people. This is particularly true of men who are not married. And at the same income level, married couples build more wealth than people with the same or similar income who are single or who only live together rather than getting married. To top it off, married people even have better sex more often than people who are single."

The Great Welfare Debate

In an extraordinary paper, National Fatherhood Initiative president Wade Horn and Urban Institute scholar Isabel Sawhill note that 40 percent of our children still live apart from their fathers; as many as 60 percent will join fatherless households before they turn 18. Five years after welfare reform, a third of our children are born outside of marriage. "By focusing so heavily on moving mothers into the workforce," they remind us, "states have neglected to work on the equally important task of increasing the number of two-parent families."

Media Coverage of the Administration’s Healthy Marriage Initiative
January 14, 2004 – February 9, 2004

"In a letter to the editor in the Washington Post, he responded to Robert Reich’s argument that jobs matter more than marriage: “The marriage debate cannot be reduced to the false choice Mr. Reich would have us make, between increasing the employment and earnings prospects of the poor and improving couples’ relationship skills through marriage education. We need to do both.” As for the dearth of marriage-worthy men, Horn’s letter cites a Heritage Foundation study that found “two-thirds of the unmarried fathers who were present at the time of their child’s birth had at least a high school degree, and 97 percent were employed during the past year and had earnings sufficient to bring a family of three out of poverty.”

In an appearance on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, Horn responded to a caller’s question about “government meddling” in private decisions like marriage: “I’ll tell you, if you want to see government intrude into family life, get married and then get divorced. And if you’re a noncustodial parent, the government is going to tell you how often you can see your kids, what days you can see your kids, whether or not you can pick your kid up after school or whether or not you can visit your child at a hospital, how much money you have to spend on your child, and if you don’t spend that money on your child, we’re going to put you in jail. I mean, the idea that somehow government is not involved in family life is not true.”

The Godly Must Be Crazy, Christian-right views are swaying politicians and threatening the environment, By Glenn Scherer, 27 Oct 2004

Excerpts on Armageddon is coming to you soon, and yes, Zell Miller adds into the holy fervor:

"Abortion. Same-sex marriage. Stem-cell research.

U.S. legislators backed by the Christian right vote against these issues with near-perfect consistency. That probably doesn't surprise you, but this might: Those same legislators are equally united and unswerving in their opposition to environmental protection.

Forty-five senators and 186 representatives in 2003 earned 80- to 100-percent approval ratings from the nation's three most influential Christian right advocacy groups -- the Christian Coalition, Eagle Forum, and Family Resource Council. Many of those same lawmakers also got flunking grades -- less than 10 percent, on average -- from the League of Conservation Voters last year. ...

We are not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. The 231 legislators (all but five of them Republicans) who received an average 80 percent approval rating or higher from the leading religious-right organizations make up more than 40 percent of the U.S. Congress. (The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian Coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who earlier this year quoted from the Book of Amos on the Senate floor: "The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land. Not a famine of bread or of thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord!") These politicians include some of the most powerful figures in the U.S. government, as well as key environmental decision makers: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Republican Conference Chair Rick Santorum (R-Penn.), Senate Republican Policy Chair Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, and quite possibly President Bush. (Earlier this month, a cover story by Ron Suskind in The New York Times Magazine described how Bush's faith-based governance has led to, among other things, a disastrous "crusade" in the Middle East and has laid the groundwork for "a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion.")"
 

Little Black Lies on Social Security, New York Times, By Paul Krugman, January 28, 2005

Excerpts on bigotry at its best:

"This week, in a closed meeting with African-Americans, Mr. Bush asserted that Social Security was a bad deal for their race, repeating his earlier claim that "African-American males die sooner than other males do, which means the system is inherently unfair to a certain group of people." In other words, blacks don't live long enough to collect their fair share of benefits. ...

Let's start with the facts. Mr. Bush's argument goes back at least seven years, to a report issued by the Heritage Foundation - a report so badly misleading that the deputy chief actuary (now the chief actuary) of the Social Security Administration wrote a memo pointing out "major errors in the methodology." That's actuary-speak for "damned lies."

In fact, the actuary said, "careful research reflecting actual work histories for workers by race indicate that the nonwhite population actually enjoys the same or better expected rates of return from Social Security" as whites. ...

Is this an example of what Mr. Bush famously called "the soft bigotry of low expectations?" Maybe not: it isn't particularly soft to treat premature black deaths not as a tragedy we must end but as just another way to push your ideological agenda. But bigotry - yes, that sounds like the right word."

The Market Shall Set You Free, By ROBERT WRIGHT, January 28, 2005

Bush wrong on how to oppose tyranny:

"Oddly, the underlying problem is that this Republican president doesn't appreciate free markets. Mr. Bush doesn't see how capitalism helps drive history toward freedom via an algorithm that for all we know is divinely designed and is in any event awesomely elegant. Namely: Capitalism's pre-eminence as a wealth generator means that every tyrant has to either embrace free markets or fall slowly into economic oblivion; but for markets to work, citizens need access to information technology and the freedom to use it - and that means having political power.

This link between economic and political liberty has been extolled by conservative thinkers for centuries, but the microelectronic age has strengthened it. Even China's deftly capitalist-yet-authoritarian government - which embraces technology while blocking Web sites and censoring chat groups - is doomed to fail in the long run. China is increasingly porous to news and ideas, and its high-tech political ferment goes beyond online debates. Last year a government official treated a blue-collar worker high-handedly in a sidewalk encounter and set off a riot - after news of the incident spread by cell phones and text messaging.

You won't hear much about such progress from neoconservatives, who prefer to stress how desperately the global fight for freedom needs American power behind it (and who last week raved about an inaugural speech that vowed to furnish this power). And, to be sure, neoconservatives can rightly point to lots of oppression and brutality in China and elsewhere - as can liberal human-rights activists....

The president said last week that military force isn't the principal lever he would use to punish tyrants. But that mainly leaves economic levers, like sanctions and exclusion from the World Trade Organization. ...

Economic exclusion is especially perverse in cases where inclusion could work as a carrot. Suppose, for example, that a malignant authoritarian regime was developing nuclear weapons and you might stop it by offering membership in the W.T.O. It's a twofer - you draw tyrants into a web of commerce that will ultimately spell their doom, and they pay for the privilege by disarming. What president could resist that?"
Haunted Vision,  Creative Loafing, BY DAN FROSCH, January 27, 2005
 Thousands of Iraq War veterans will come home to face serious psychological problems and a system that may not be ready to help them.

Editor's note: This story was commissioned by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, of which Creative Loafing is a member. It has appeared in dozens of weeklies across the country.

Excerpts:

"The first time Kristin Peterson's husband hit her, she was asleep in their bed. She awoke a split second after Joshua's fist smashed into her face and ran, terrified and crying, to the bathroom to wipe the blood spurting from her nose.

When she stuck her head into the bedroom, her husband was punching the air, muttering how she was coming after him and how he was going to kill her. Kristin started yelling but Joshua's eyes were closed. He was still sleeping.

Peterson doesn't remember the night or the nightmares. He also can't remember punching his wife again in his sleep a few weeks later, this time driving her front tooth through her lip, all the while murmuring how he'd never go back.

For six months last year, Peterson helped build an oil pipeline across Iraq as a specialist in the Army's 110th Quartermaster Company. On the same highway where Pvt. Jessica Lynch was ambushed, he saw Iraqi soldiers, dead and rotting, dangling out of their tanks. One time Peterson's truck broke down and a group of Iraqi children surrounded him, some throwing rocks, others toting AK-47s. "I kept thinking, 'God, I can't handle this,'" the 24-year-old says....

While Padilla grasped at his ghosts, Washington bureaucrats were learning of another nightmare. On March 25, 2004, Dr. James Scully, medical director of the American Psychiatric Association, testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on VA, HUD and Independent Agencies that there was a 42 percent explosion in VA patients with severe PTSD - and only a 22 percent increase in PTSD funding. The discrepancy was particularly "startling," the Navy veteran said, because there were more vets using the VA for psychological help than ever - nearly half a million. ...

Other convoys had been attacked on the route, so Durman would sling his flak jacket protectively over the outside of both truck doors, because, according to Durman, "you could stab a hole through those doors with a knife. ...

Soldiers Padilla and Luker were outraged when they saw Iraqi children playing in human sewage while the Army did nothing. "I thought we were here to help these people," Padilla says."

 
Found, [On Republicans and Democrats] 69 Percent Say "Both Suck!" Creative Loafing, BY Doug Monroe, 01.27.05

After the Nov. 3 election, two local Libertarians surveyed 165 people at Little Five Points, Georgia State and the Capitol to get reactions to a T-shirt that read "Democrats & Republicans both suck." Sixty-nine percent liked what the shirt said. Their responses, posted last week on www.thinklibertarian.com, include:

"George Washington said the same thing.""They both lie. They both tell stories. They're both full of bullshit." "Fucking awesome!""Right on, dude!""Fuck the Republicrats!""Vote for the spider and the snake!""God bless America. Yes, indeed. I think the same.""To a certain extent, that's true.""That's true. I hate everybody.""I think they both suck. They're both stupid, Bush and fucking Kerry.""They're like mouses on a string. Nobody can think for themselves.""I agree. Amen."

Bush Prohibits Paying of Commentators, By Anne E. Kornblut, January 27, 2005

Excerpts:

"Asked whether he approved of using taxpayer money to pay commentators - as Education Department officials did in putting Armstrong Williams, a conservative writer and broadcaster, under contract in 2003 to advance the No Child Left Behind Act - Mr. Bush gave his most direct condemnation to date. "No," the president said.

Ms. Gallagher, a marriage expert who has testified before Congress, admitted she had erred in failing to disclose to readers a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services for writing and advisory work about marriage policy. Her syndicated column runs nationally, including in The New York Post.

Her work for the department included helping on an essay that appeared in Crisis Magazine under the byline of Wade Horn, an assistant secretary at the department, and, Mr. Horn said, giving a talk at a brown-bag lunch for department employees about her marriage research.

"There was never a penny that went to Maggie Gallagher that was being paid to her to utilize her role as a columnist to promote the president's healthy marriage initiative," Mr. Horn said. "Not a penny."

In May 2002, five months after the date on her contract, Ms. Gallagher mounted a strong defense of the $300 million Bush initiative in a column posted on National Review Online.

Ms. Gallagher, author of the book "The Case for Marriage," said she received more than $15,000 to write a report on marriage for a private group that received financing from a Justice Department grant.

Several Democrats and advocacy groups criticized Ms. Gallagher for failing to disclose her government contracts and called for the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to look into the matter. Senators Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, both Democrats, also announced plans to introduce a bill, called the Stop Government Propaganda Act, addressing larger questions about agencies' efforts to manipulate coverage of their policies."

The Best Coverage Money Can Buy, New York Times Editorial, January 27, 2005

Excerpts:

"Mr. Bush was plainly irritated by having to field questions about administration officials who tapped taxpayers to finance spin-for-money deals. The most prominent sellout was Armstrong Williams, the conservative television commentator who took $240,000 to do administration bidding on behalf of the No Child Left Behind Act while making a show of tough-minded candor.

The latest is the syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher, who did not disclose a $21,500 government writing contract for her promotion of Bush policy on strengthening marriage. Last year, there was the propaganda video on behalf of the Medicare drug program offered to budget-pressed TV stations. Full disclosure at signoff might have said, "Reporting live and in the tank!" ...

Loss of credibility works both ways. The exposed spinners deservedly suffer shame. But the administration's believability comes into question when officials like Rod Paige, the outgoing education secretary, defend buying faked coverage."

Love for Sale, New York Times, By MAUREEN DOWD

"I'm herewith resigning as a member of the liberal media elite.

I'm joining up with the conservative media elite. They get paid better....

First comes news that Armstrong Williams got $240,000 from the Education Department to plug the No Child Left Behind Act.

Mr. Williams helped out the first President Bush and Clarence Thomas during the Anita Hill scandal. Mr. Williams, who served as Mr. Thomas's personal assistant at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission when the future Supreme Court justice was gutting policies that would help blacks, gleefully attacked Professor Hill, saying, "Sister has emotional problems," and telling The Wall Street Journal "there is a thin line between her sanity and insanity."

Now we learn from the media reporter Howard Kurtz that the syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher had a $21,500 contract from the Health and Human Services Department to work on material promoting the agency's $300 million initiative to encourage marriage. Ms. Gallagher earned her money, even praising Mr. Bush in print as a "genius" at playing "daddy" to the nation. "Mommies feel your pain," she wrote in 2002. "Daddies give you confidence that you can ignore the pain and get on with life."

Genius? Not so much. Spendthrift? Definitely. W.'s administration was running up his astounding deficit paying "journalists" to do what they would be happy to do for free - just to be friends with benefits, getting access that tougher scribes are denied. Consider Charles Krauthammer, who went to the White House on Jan. 10 for what The Washington Post termed a "consultation" on the inaugural speech and then praised the Jan. 20th address on Fox News as "revolutionary," says Media Matters, a liberal watchdog group.

I still have many Christmas bills to pay. So I'd like to send a message to the administration: THIS SPACE AVAILABLE."

 

National Fatherhood Initiative In the News. Yet more phony news...

"NFI works to educate and engage the culture by speaking about the importance of responsible fatherhood through television, radio, and print media. See below for some highlights of NFI's recent press appearances. Links are provided where applicable. Some news sites require a free registration to view content."

http://loadedmouth.com/node/233

The Bush Administration Pays Another Journalist
Thursday, January 27, 2005
 
BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Impact" segment tonight, another situation where the Bush administration has paid a journalist. Maggie Gallagher (search) is a columnist, who often writes about family issues. In 2002, the Department of Health and Human Services (search) paid her $21,500 for some consulting work. But Mrs.Gallagher did not tell her readers that. And so she's in a similar position to Armstrong Williams (search), who was paid far more by the Department of Education, as you will remember.

[Notes from Cobb NOW:  HHS officials, namely Wade Horn, who has written on this topic for the past 10 years doesn't have anyone, not even his co-founder of the National Fatherhood Initiative, Don Eberly, of the Faith Based Initiative, who has also written extensively, as an expert on marriage can't find anyone who has expertise in the house?  Give me a break!]

GALLAGHER: What actually happened is that in 2001, I was approached by HHS officials, who told me, Maggie, we don't have anyone here who's got the expertise. You have on the marriage and social science evidence on its importance. Can you do some brochures for our clients on what parents and why marriage matters? Can you write — help us draft an article for Wade Horn's signature on the social science evidence that marriage matters? And can you attend an in-house meeting with our regional managers...

O'REILLY: Good.

Now Mr. Horn — Dr. Horn, I've got a bigger problem with you guys up there. You and the Bush administration and the departments shouldn't be hiring active journalists to do work for you because of the conflict of interest appearance, sir. Am I wrong?

WADE HORN, PHD, HHS ASSISTANT SECRETARY: Well, what we did is we hired Maggie Gallagher as a nationally-recognized expert in the field of marriage and marriage education. It was an expertise we didn't have in house. And in fact, what we do when we don't have the expertise in house is we hire consultants in order to build the capacity in house, as well as to help us develop materials.

Yet more propaganda from the from the Ad Council, coming to viewers soon, in their May 2005 ad campaign.  Who pays for this stuff anyway?

http://www.adcouncil.org/campaigns/Fatherhood_Initiative/

http://www.adcouncil.org/issues/Father_Involvement/

The truth about Horn's phony statistics...

Myths and Facts About Fatherlessness

http://www.fatherhood.org/history.asp

National Fatherhood Initiative History

In 1993, Don Eberly, a former White House advisor and civil society scholar, arranged a meeting of prominent thinkers to discuss the growing problem of father absence in America. Mindful of the limitations of government social policy, Eberly also wanted to talk about the importance of civil society and cultural mores in contributing to positive social change.

“We realized,” said Wade F. Horn, a child psychologist who later became NFI’s President, “that the growing absence of fathers was the most consequential social trend in our culture—for families and for civil society. But public policy is a weak instrument for reversing the trend; the answer is in the broader culture.”

The attendees agreed that there needed to be an organization that would stimulate a broad-based social movement to combat father absence and promote responsible fatherhood. And thus the idea for the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) was born, grounded in the following propositions:
  • Fathers make unique and irreplaceable contributions to the lives of children
  • Father absence produces negative outcomes for their children
  • Societies which fail to reinforce a cultural ideal of responsible fatherhood get increasing amounts of father absence
  • Widespread fatherlessness is the most socially consequential problem of our time.
NFI made its national debut on March 7, 1994 with Eberly serving as President, Horn as Director, and David Blankenhorn as Chairman of the Board of Directors.

In 1996, Horn took over as President and Eberly assumed the role of C.E.O. Also, NFI’s national headquarters were moved from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to Gaithersburg, Maryland. The next few years saw NFI grow in size and reach, with an expanded resource center, contract work for the states of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas, and a privately funded regional initiative in Pittsburgh.

In 2001, Don Eberly and Wade Horn left NFI to accept positions in President George W. Bush’s Administration. The Board of Directors named Roland C. Warren, former board member and NFI Executive Vice President, as President.

 

More nonsense from a Fathers' Rights, abstinence only looney

Government-Funded Sex Ed Spreads False Info, Critics Say, ABC News, By JAKE TAPPER and JODY HASSETT

"The curricula seems to be driven by an ideology," he said in releasing a report on the abstinence-only programs. "And to further their ideological goals, they're making factual statements that are not correct."

The report, for instance, criticizes one curriculum from Project Reality, a group that develops and teaches abstinence programs, which tells students "the popular claim that condoms help prevent the spread of STDs" — or sexually transmitted diseases — "is not supported by the data."

That claim, however, is contradicted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which states on its Web site that "correct and consistent use of the male latex condom can reduce the risk of STD transmission."

Representative Waxman's Report Reveals Dangerous Flaws with Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs

"These programs are completely out of control. They're using millions of taxpayer dollars to provide medical misinformation and use fear and shame-based messages to control young people to change their behavior. Our young people deserve better than that, and I think that's what the congressman's report indicates."

?The abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula reviewed in the report contained numerous medical and scientific inaccuracies. Perhaps the most disturbing of these occurs in a program entitled WAIT Training. In this program, students are taught that HIV/AIDS can be transmitted though tears and sweat.2 In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that tears and sweat have never been shown to transmit HIV.3 Other curricula falsely state the number of chromosomes in cells and wrongly define sexually transmitted diseases and infections.4"

Government's Fatherhood Campaign Takes to TV

"While the $1.4 million effort is largely symbolic, it's the latest sign Americans - including the government - are waking up to the importance of fatherhood....


[A] growing number of projects are working to help men become active dads.

"We've come a long way" from 20 years ago, says Wade Horn, president of the National Fatherhood Initiative in Gaithersburg, Md. Five years ago, Mr. Horn organized a conference in Los Angeles featuring a panel of fatherhood experts; only four people showed up. "Today we are filling stadiums with men," Horn told 200 people gathered last weekend for the 1999 Fatherhood Summit in Chicago....
 

More than 50 hospitals around the country offer "Boot Camps for New Dads." Web sites are sprouting on the Internet where fathers can trade parenting tips. Since 1994, the University of Pennsylvania's National Center on Fathers and Families has promoted research into the changing roles of fathers.

The federal government is also changing the way it views fathers. Uncle Sam is no longer just acting as a bill collector trying to force "deadbeat dads" to pay their child support. The public-service announcements aim for men's hearts as well as their wallets by promoting the notion that fathers play vital emotional roles in children's lives."