The true motive behind legalized abortion.

According to data collected in 2005 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, abortion killed at least 203,991 African-Americans in the 36 states and two cities (New York City and the District of Columbia) that reported abortions by race. During that same year, according to the CDC, a total of 198,385 African-Americans nationwide died from heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, diabetes, homicide, and chronic lower respiratory diseases combined. These were the seven leading causes of death for black Americans that year.

As Ruthy Ginsburg recently acknowledged, "Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion" (July 2009). Yes, she really said that.

AOL Readers Don't Like Obama

A state-run AP poll makes a big deal of how, it claims, Obama's approval rating has risen from 50 to 56%. AP apparently wasn't checking with many AOL readers, however. Apparently, the leftist web site's readers can't stand Obama. On general approval, the economy, health care reform and Afghanistan, readers disapproved of Obama by 70 to 75%, with 25 to 30% approving. And the samples were pretty large, approximately 150,000. Apparently AOL's readers are not fooled by the web site's biased reporting.

Connect the Dots

"Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Muammar Qaddafi and Vladimir Putin have all praised Barack Obama. When enemies of freedom and democracy praise your president, what are you to think? When you add to this Barack Obama's many previous years of associations and alliances with people who hate America-- Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Father Pfleger, etc.-- at what point do you stop denying the obvious and start to connect the dots?"

--Thomas Sowell, 2009

Declaration of Rights

"[A]ll men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural rights. . . among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty."

--George Mason, Declaration of rights for Virginia, quoted in McCullough, John Adams.

(Photo from Creative Commons)

Wall Street Village Rolling Stone

With the exception of the editorial pages, I am so fed up with the Wall Street Journal. I'm also starting to believe that it doesn't matter what the news is anymore. As long as we understand first principles, we don't need some leftist's interpretation of the news. Those freaks are simply incapable of reporting an event without propagandizing. We can get everything we need to know from Newsmax, or the Drudge Report, or the foreign press, all of which can be accessed online, or we can listen to talk radio.

On the front page of this morning's Journal, we are treated to this title: "Meet Ardi, Your Newest Oldest Relative." A hairy ape is pictured. The caption reads, "MOVE OVER LUCY: A trove of fossils, a million years older than the heralded hominid, sheds a sharper light on human lineage." (Did Rupert Murdoch write this himself?) When you turn to the article, you see the caption, "Down from the Trees." And best of all, who has authored this article? Why, that embracer of global warming theories and all-around iconoclast, Robert Lee Hotz, with whom I have communicated a number of times. The article is just a jumble of contradictions and inconsistencies that demonstrates to me that these scientists (to say nothing of Mr. Hotz) have no idea what they are talking about. "After 15 years of rumors, researchers made public fossils from a 4.4 million-year-old human forbear they say reveals that our ancestors were more modern than scholars had assumed, widening the evolutionary gulf separating humankind from apes and chimpanzees." Huh? "Although the differences between humans, apes and chimps today are legion, we all shared a common ancestor six million years or so ago. These fossils suggest that the ancestor--still undiscovered--resembled a chimp much less than researchers have always believed." So we shared this ancestor, but they haven't discovered it. Doesn't that mean that this is only an unproven theory? And these scientists learned something that is different from what "researchers" have "always" believed. Does that not suggest that what they have "always believed" has been wrong, and that there have been flaws in their assumptions? "In fact, so many traits in modern chimps and apes are missing from these early hominids that researchers now question the notion that chimps and apes are a repository of primitive traits once shared by our ancestors." What? And this: "[T]he human hand today actually may be the more primitive appendage, [the researchers] said." "'They are not what we would have predicted,' said anthropologist Bernard Wood at George Washington University. Already, the discoveries have experts reworking the human pedigree. They undoubtedly will shape debates about human origins for years to come, as scholars argue whether these creatures should be counted among our most ancient direct ancestors or cataloged as an intriguing dead-end." Well, at least there's a debate here. And if "scientists" are having a "debate," that means that there is no consensus among scientists about human origins. Is that a fair statement?

Elsewhere on the front page, we have the typical contradictions, assuredly without any type of analysis: "Stocks tumbled to start the fourth quarter, with concerns about employment and earnings driving investors to safer harbors." But I thought the recession was over. Right after this blurb, the following: "An expansion of manufacturing activity, growth in consumer spending and improved home sales indicated the U.S. economy is on the mend. [But here comes the usual caveat:] But it remained to be seen if a recovery will continue in the absence of federal help." What!? In the absence of federal help? What do they think TARP, the budget blowout and the "stimulus" bill have been? With any more federal "help," there won't be an economy. And what proof can these fools offer that all this spending has caused the economic activity to which they refer? Are they saying that our economy can now function only if it has federal "help"?

And last but not least, we have this blurb: "Senate Democrats fought off Republican charges that their health bill will raise taxes on average Americans." This suggests that these Democrats have proven that they are correct. Is the Journal acting as communications director of the Democratic National Committee? When you get to the headline of the article, you read, "Democrats Reject GOP Challenge to Health Bill." The essential fact is that by a margin of 12-11, the Senate Finance Committee defeated a Republican amendment "that would block any tax or fee from hitting individuals who earn less than $200,000 a year and families earning less than $250,000." Hmmm; didn't they simply reject the promise Obama has made to all of us over and over and over? Don't they have confidence in the Messiah, or in their own bill?

Which civil society?

In her book It Takes a Village, Hillary defines "civil society" as a "term social scientists use to describe the way we work together for common purposes." In Hillary's world, the "common good" is the ultimate objective of society and the federal government is the arbiter and enforcer of "goodness." But in the minds of our Founding Fathers, a civil society was one in which various groups, individuals, and families work together for their own purposes, the result being a healthy and prosperous democratic nation. To them, the primary purpose of government was to prevent bad people (whether foreign or domestic) from interferring in this enterprise.

To my brother Tom, which of these definitions best describes your view of a civil society?

Flawed Hero

Well, Newt is at it again. Our favorite corpulent popinjay, erstwhile savior to conservatives, was pictured on the front page of yesterday's Wall Street Journal, posing with the notorious "Reverend" Al not-so-Sharpton, as the two of them make a tour to tell us how we should run the education system. Why would the great, brilliant "conservative" savior associate himself so visibly with such a scoundrel? Newt just has a fatal flaw. He talks tough, for example, about the phony stimulus bill; then some people get him in a room inside the Beltway (which is where he now dwells exclusively), and he nervously appears before the cameras to tell us why we have to approve the phony stimulus. Now (and this is not new, by the way) he tours around the country with the notorious scoundrel and charlatan, Sharpton. Is Newt just so much smarter than the rest of us? Is it only he who can recognize what every other reasonable person somehow just can't, that there is a shred of merit to "Reverend" Al? There are only three explanations for this behavior: 1) abject stupidity; 2) a political tin ear; or 3) incredible arrogance. None of these alternatives is very flattering. Newt is of absolutely no use to honest, thinking conservatives. He should be tuned out.