The first time the Rev. Scott Hayashi served Utah’s Episcopal Church, he was puzzled by some parishioners’ tendency to define themselves by what they weren’t: Mormons.

He even remembers pointing out the silliness in a sermon at Ogden’s Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, where he was rector from 1989 to 1998.

“I asked, ”˜Does this mean if the LDS people are against gambling, we should be for it? If the LDS people have the Mormon diet and believe whole grains, moderation in eating and getting exercise is what you should do, that means we should eat all high-fat foods and not exercise? If the LDS people are against smoking, that means we should all be smoking like chimneys? Does this make any sense?’”‰”

The next bishop for Utah’s 5,200 Episcopalians now frames the question this way: “Shouldn’t we have an identity that is formed on the positive, as opposed to being against something?”

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Irish Catholic women feel that they are not sufficiently appreciated by the church, but their faith remains strong, according to a newly published survey.

The research, which compared attitudes between Catholic and Protestant women, found that 74 percent of Catholic women surveyed felt that the church did not treat them with “a lot of respect.” Among Protestant women, just 6.3 percent felt that lack of respect.

However, 61 percent of Catholic women said they looked to Mary as a positive role model who empowered them within the church, compared with 27 percent of Protestant women who looked to Mary.

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Change in government is almost always good for the country, in spite of the loss of experience in the process. A lot of that occurred in Tuesday’s elections. Now the newcomers have to figure out how to make government serve the people, as opposed to serving just themselves. Obstruction and electoral combat won’t be good enough. The short leash in power that the voters gave Mr. Obama’s party made that very clear.

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Tuesday’s election results represent a historic repudiation of the president. Yesterday, Mr. Obama acknowledged the severity of this loss and said that he assumes “direct responsibility” for our stalled economic recovery. He also said he was “eager to hear good ideas wherever they come from.” This is progress. He should now propose an agenda that goes a long way toward meeting GOP demands, while preserving a key number of his goals and priorities.

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With a “brutal” 18-month campaign that sometimes pitted Republican against Republican behind her, Gov.-elect Nikki Haley said she wants to be judged by her actions when it comes to her relationship with lawmakers.

Haley, fresh off her Election Day win, landed back in her hometown at a barbecue joint Wednesday to thank her supporters after a quick stop by the House Republican Caucus meeting earlier in the day. She said her former House colleagues welcomed her with standing applause.

Haley said former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin helped spread Haley’s message, but she’s not ready to endorse Palin for president.

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One day after his big 1st Congressional District win, U.S. Rep.-elect Tim Scott gave several interviews to national media but said he doesn’t see himself as an emerging rock star on the national political scene.

“Rock stars are like Darius Rucker, and I can’t sing,” Scott quipped Wednesday, just moments before talking to CNN.

“I see myself as a country boy trying to make a living and make sure entrepreneurs like myself have an opportunity to continue to do what we do best.”

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DAVID BROOKS:…My main problem [with the President’s Wednesday Press Conference] was, he was asked several times, were there any policies implicated in this defeat? And, again and again, he sort of dodged that question, or said no, and said, it was the economy.

Now, the economy was obviously a big part of this election. But to say that a whole series of unpopular policies, cap and trade, health care, stimulus, bailouts, were not implicated, well, that — I think that’s, A, wrong, but, B, draws the wrong impression, that you don’t have to change anything.

And so, when he talked about the stuff he had done wrong, it tended to be procedural or message-oriented. But there are some policy implications here.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, does that tell you that he’s not going to change anything?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, he’s still — I think it was premature for him to have the press conference today, because I think he’s still working it out. I really do.

I mean, I don’t mean to sound like a shrink, but — because he hasn’t come to grips with the reality that the policies were rejected. I mean, in campaign after campaign across the country, Republicans ran against specific policies that Democrats had voted for.

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Responding to [Newsweek’s Jonathan] Alter, George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux agreed that interest-group liberalism has indeed been leavened by idea-driven liberalism. Which is the problem.

“These ideas,” Boudreaux says, “are almost exclusively about how other people should live their lives. These are ideas about how one group of people (the politically successful) should engineer everyone else’s contracts, social relations, diets, habits, and even moral sentiments.” Liberalism’s ideas are “about replacing an unimaginably large multitude of diverse and competing ideas . . . with a relatively paltry set of ‘Big Ideas’ that are politically selected, centrally imposed, and enforced by government, not by the natural give, take and compromise of the everyday interactions of millions of people.”

This was the serious concern that percolated beneath the normal froth and nonsense of the elections: Is political power – are government commands and controls – superseding and suffocating the creativity of a market society’s spontaneous order? On Tuesday, a rational and alarmed American majority said “yes.”

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[President Obama]…should return to his original design for governing, which emphasized outreach to Republicans and subordination of party-oriented strategies. The voters have in effect liberated him from his confining alliances with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and put him in a position where he can and must negotiate with a much wider range of legislators, including Republicans.

The president’s worst mistake may have been avoiding even a single one-on-one meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell until he had been in office for a year and a half. To make up, the outreach to McConnell and likely House Speaker John Boehner should begin at once and continue as a high priority.

Obama tried governing on the model preferred by congressional Democrats and the result was the loss of Democratic seats and his own reputation. Now he should try governing his own way. It cannot work worse, and it might yield much better results.

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The question being asked all across the world of business news is: Will QE2 be successful? Because this policy is literally economic suicide, the question becomes: Will the Federal Reserve be successful in the assisted economic suicide of the U.S. government? I find this an utterly appalling question — which highlights the intellectual bankruptcy of government policymakers and the bankers who goad them onward.

Quantitative easing is nothing more than a euphemism for printing money out of thin air. Its one-and-only purpose is to destroy the currency being printed. It is pure dilution and absolutely no different than a corporation vowing to improve its fiscal performance simply by printing a lot of new shares.

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….low and falling inflation indicate that the economy has considerable spare capacity, implying that there is scope for monetary policy to support further gains in employment without risking economic overheating. The FOMC decided this week that, with unemployment high and inflation very low, further support to the economy is needed. With short-term interest rates already about as low as they can go, the FOMC agreed to deliver that support by purchasing additional longer-term securities, as it did in 2008 and 2009. The FOMC intends to buy an additional $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by mid-2011 and will continue to reinvest repayments of principal on its holdings of securities, as it has been doing since August.

This approach eased financial conditions in the past and, so far, looks to be effective again. Stock prices rose and long-term interest rates fell when investors began to anticipate the most recent action. Easier financial conditions will promote economic growth. For example, lower mortgage rates will make housing more affordable and allow more homeowners to refinance. Lower corporate bond rates will encourage investment. And higher stock prices will boost consumer wealth and help increase confidence, which can also spur spending. Increased spending will lead to higher incomes and profits that, in a virtuous circle, will further support economic expansion.

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Show us, O Lord and Master, in this new day in which we are called to witness for thee, how we may effectively present thy claims to those who are outside thy Church. May thy Holy Spirit fill us with love for them and deepen our understanding of their needs; and grant that our lives as well as our lips may so commend thee to them that they may come to find in thee the Way to the Father, the Truth that sets them free, and the Life that is life indeed; for the glory of thy name.

–Frank Colquhoun

The sixth angel poured his bowl on the great river Euphra’tes, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east. And I saw, issuing from the mouth of the dragon and from the mouth of the beast and from the mouth of the false prophet, three foul spirits like frogs; for they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.

–Revelation 16:12-14

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The Transportation Security Administration said Wednesday that it is planning to impose new air cargo screening rules by Friday, in reaction to the recent securities gaps revealed by the the bomb plot in Yemen.

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Is a state law that allows tax credits for donations to scholarship programs unconstitutional if most of the recipients attend religious schools?

That’s the question the U.S. Supreme Court wrestled with Wednesday (Nov. 3), centered around an Arizona program where two of the largest scholarship groups require recipients to attend Catholic or evangelical schools.

Lawyers representing Arizona and the U.S. Department of Justice argued that the decision on where to use the scholarships is made by parents and students, not the government, and does not violate the First Amendment.

“Arizona’s tuition tax credit does not violate the Establishment Clause because it’s a neutral law that results in scholarship programs of private choice,” said Paula Bickett, Arizona’s chief counsel for civil appeals.

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The White House and a transformed Congress are bracing for a high-stakes battle later this month over a host of expiring tax breaks and benefits for the unemployed that will mark the first test of the new political dynamic in Washington.

If President Obama, his weakened Democratic allies and a resurgent Republican Party cannot find a way to work together, taxes will rise sharply in January for virtually every American taxpayer, and more than 3 million people will lose their unemployment checks – which together could suck more than $300 billion out of the pockets of consumers and business owners next year.

Economists across the political spectrum say such a blow would be devastating to the economy and has the potential to halt the fragile recovery in its tracks.

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