Ms.Davis,it’sover postedat7:21

Ms. Davis, it’s over

posted at 7:21 pm on July 28, 2014 by Matt Vespa

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Remember when Wendy Davis was going to be the point of the lance in turning Texas purple? Well, that’s over. It’s finished. Her Republican opponent, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, is beating her by double-digits. Moreover, most Texans have already made up their minds in this race (via Houston Chronicle):

Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott over Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis by double digits, according to a poll released this weekend.

The survey, done by polling firm YouGov in collaboration with CBS and The New York Times, shows 34 percent supporting Davis and 3 percent leaning toward voting for her, while the same numbers split 50-4 for Abbott. Perhaps the worst news from the poll for the Davis campaign is that only 2 percent aren’t sure for whom they’re going to vote, leaving a very small slice of a red-state electorate to vie for over the next three months.  

In April, Public Policy Polling had Abbott up by fourteen points. Real Clear Politics has Abbott up, on average, by 12.6 points.

So, should we be surprised Davis’s campaign sort of self-detonated?  It’s been somewhat bizarre. She supports open-carry legislation, which drew the ire of the liberal blogosphere. Davis even said that she could’ve supported legislation banning abortions 20 weeks into a pregnancy, but noted that the legislature could never draft it properly so she wouldn’t back it; that’s after she declared herself pro-life.

But, it seems the signs of defeat are already present within left-leaning media circles. Slate’s Jessica Grose wrote on the site’s feminist XX blog on June 30 that “Even if She [Davis] Loses in Texas, Wendy Davis Is a Win for America.”

Around the same time, Tom Dart over at the Guardian wrote about Davis’ “art of winning by losing.”

Mindful of the second-most populous state’s value in presidential elections, national Democrats are devoting more resources to Texas than in previous cycles, including the creation of a grassroots initiative called Battleground Texas. That is not only because Davis is an unusually credible and visible candidate, but also a result of shifting demographics that indicate the large and growing Hispanic population will have a greater say in future elections.

Even if Davis fails to beat Abbott, a closing of the gap between the parties compared with four years ago could help lay a firm foundation for future elections by keeping activists motivated and encouraging donors to carry on spending.

Last February, Gallup pretty much poured cold water over liberals’ aspirations of courting Hispanic voters in Texas for future elections. Even the Washington Post noted that Davis “isn’t a top-tier challenger.”

Davis’ gubernatorial run may have energized liberals, but it’s coming down to the wire and the YouGov poll shows she has little room to maneuver in a state where liberal politicians get a cool reception statewide. The Post’s Sean Sullivan aptly noted that the last time Democrats won a statewide office was 1990; they’ve been in the wilderness ever since.

I’ve been kind of on a West Wing kick lately, so let’s just channel our inner-Leo McGarry when it comes to Wendy Davis, who “had a terrific ride, improbable, impressive, and over.”

Then again, I’m sure we all knew that, but it’s satisfying to know that she’ll be gone soon.  And to think that she got all of this attention for supporting abortion, it’s the liberal glue that binds.

 

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Tags: 2014, abortion, Greg Abbott, pro-life, Texas, wendy davis

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Video:MegynKellyvs.NancyPelosionthe

Video: Megyn Kelly vs. Nancy Pelosi on the Hobby Lobby ruling

posted at 4:41 pm on July 11, 2014 by Allahpundit

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Via the IJR, Kelly doesn’t do fact-check segments like this as a matter of routine, does she? What you’re seeing here, I think, is an eruption of singular frustration that’s been building for weeks as Democrats try to one-up each other on the most hysterical, self-serving interpretation of the Hobby Lobby ruling. Everyone understands they’re going to demagogue the decision, ignoring the religious freedom element and reducing it to the crudest possible identity-politics pageantry, and everyone understands why. That’s their GOTV script for the midterms, with only rare deviations from liberal commentators.

But this distortion was one straw too many:

“We should be afraid of this court. That five guys should start determining what contraceptions are legal or not. … It is so stunning,” Pelosi said during a press briefing in the Capitol.Pelosi said last week’s Supreme Court ruling that the birth control mandate under President Obama’s healthcare reform law is a violation of religious freedom was particularly egregious.

“That court decision was a frightening one,” she said. “That five men should get down to the specifics of whether a woman should use a diaphragm and she should pay for it herself or her boss. It’s not her boss’s business. His business is whatever his business is. But it’s not what contraception she uses.”

I’m trying to block out what I know about the case and imagine what I would have assumed had happened if my only source of info on it was this shpiel from Pelosi. If, a la many hard-working voters, my only news consumption each day was 10 minutes during the dinner hour and this clip had suddenly appeared on my TV, what would I understand the Supreme Court’s ruling to be? I think I’d think they had banned birth control, or at least certain forms of it, and that employers had now somehow assumed the power to bar a worker from buying legal contraception that he/she could otherwise afford. That formulation of the court’s ruling is like the end of a 100-person game of “Telephone” that starts with the actual ruling. Over to you, Megyn.

Exit question: If your birth control isn’t your boss’s business, why are you asking your boss to pay for it?

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Tags: abortion, birth control, contraception, corporation, employer, kelly, megyn, nancy, pelosi, RFRA

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Video:Unhingedpro-abortionprotesterknowslittleabouthuman

Video: Unhinged pro-abortion protester knows little about human biology … or criminal law

posted at 2:41 pm on July 10, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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Let’s just say that this isn’t going to make Burger King’s rainbow Whopper highlight reel in terms of public relations. A woman wearing her work uniform threatened, attacked, and berated pro-life demonstrators who didn’t appear to be anywhere near a BK outlet in Columbus, Ohio. She started off by loudly insisting that a baby at the 12-week gestational mark has no distinguishing features whatsoever — yelling incoherently about “clump of cells” at one point to the bemused but disciplined young man — and then started kicking signs and shoving protesters, all on camera (warning: language NSFW):

It’s not difficult to catalog the number of potential legal issues that Victoria Duran creates for herself here, or for that matter credibility issues. It’s amusing in one respect to see someone so passionately engaged in exposing her ignorance of human biology while attempting to lecture someone else about it, as well as her ignorance on basic American civics. I’m sure that a few die-hard supporters of Planned Parenthood would applaud the “no uterus, no right to talk about it!” Duran declaration, but as the police must have informed her at the end of this spree, that’s far from the case here in the US.

Duran’s charmless ignorance extends to the law, too, as this update from the local ABC/Fox affiliate demonstrates:

“The first amendment protects them from government interference it doesn’t protect them from people basically telling them they’re idiots.”

“But you assaulted them.”

“Assault? I wouldn’t necessarily say shoving them aside and telling them to keep the camera out of my face as assault.”

“You think it’s okay to push people?”

“I believe that I had the right to tell them the did not have my consent to film me,” said Duran.

Created Equal says Duran is charged with assault and criminal damaging.

Duran wouldn’t talk about her legal troubles but said she has no regrets.

If you wouldn’t say that “shoving them aside” is assault, well, you’re going to need a lawyer who understands that this isn’t just assault but also battery. Assault is making a threat of violence, and battery is carrying it out. Duran had the right to tell the demonstrators that they’re idiots — that is a First Amendment right — but Created Equal has the right to free speech on public property. They also have the right to film in the public square, especially for a newsworthy event such as assault and battery. Assault on the demonstrators and destruction of their property is not protected speech, but crimes just as it would be in any other context. And admitting to the charges on the TV news makes it pretty clear exactly who the idiot is in this case.

Huffington Post reported yesterday that buffer zones around abortion clinics are falling across the nation after the McCullen decision:

Two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that Massachusetts’ protective buffer zone around abortion clinics violates the free speech rights of protesters, four other buffer zones around the country have already disappeared or been challenged in court.

The City Council of Portland, Maine, repealed its 39-foot buffer zone around a women’s health clinic this week, and the cities of Burlington, Vermont, and Madison, Wisconsin, have stopped enforcing their buffer zones. In Burlington, people had been legally prohibited from protesting within 35 feet of the clinic, and Madison had a “floating” buffer zone that prohibited protesters from coming within eight feet of a patient entering or exiting an abortion clinic.

Maybe the buffer has been around the wrong people all along.

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Tags: abortion, buffer zones, McCullen, pro-life, Supreme Court

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Poll: Jesus would support stricter gun laws, higher taxes on the rich, reducing carbon emissions, and universal health care

Poll:Jesuswouldsupportstrictergunlaws,higher

PopeFrancisrejectslegalizationfor“so-calledrecreationaldrugs”

Pope Francis rejects legalization for “so-called recreational drugs”

posted at 2:31 pm on June 21, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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Allahpundit gave this a perfect, NY Post-esque headline for the top section yesterday: Pope a nope on dope. Yesterday, Pope Francis inveighed against the momentum to legalize the recreational use of marijuana and other narcotics, predicting that such efforts would fail in the promises of lower crime and better responsibility of use. Society should organize against the ills of drug use, and would if they formed themselves to alleviate the conditions that drive people to addiction, the Pope advised:

The Vatican’s press office released the transcript of the Pontiff’s remarks:

“Let me state this in the clearest terms possible”, he continued: “the problem of drug use is not solved with drugs! Drug addiction is an evil, and with evil there can be no yielding or compromise. To think that harm can be reduced by permitting drug addicts to use narcotics in no way resolves the problem. Attempts, however limited, to legalise so-called ‘recreational drugs’, are not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects. Substitute drugs are not an adequate therapy but rather a veiled means of surrendering to the phenomenon. Here I would reaffirm what I have stated on another occasion: No to every type of drug use. It is as simple as that. No to any kind of drug use. But to say this ‘no’, one has to say ‘yes’ to life, ‘yes’ to love, ‘yes’ to others, ‘yes’ to education, ‘yes’ to greater job opportunities. If we say ‘yes’ to all these things, there will be no room for illicit drugs, for alcohol abuse, for other forms of addiction”.

“The Church, faithful to Jesus’ command to go out to all those places where people suffer, thirst, hunger and are imprisoned, does not abandon those who have fallen into the trap of drug addiction, but goes out to meet them with creative love. She takes them by the hand, thanks to the efforts of countless workers and volunteers, and helps them to rediscover their dignity and to revive those inner strengths, those personal talents, which drug use had buried but can never obliterate, since every man and woman is created in the image and likeness of God”.

“The example of all those young people who are striving to overcome drug dependency and to rebuild their lives can serve as a powerful incentive for all of us to look with confidence to the future”, Francis concluded, encouraging the members of the Conference to carry on their work with constantly renewed hope.

This occasioned a few jokes as well as amusing headlines. Washington Post humorist Alexandra Petri offered up a couple of puns, while noting somewhat more seriously that Pope Francis isn’t just going to be “the Cool New Pope”:

But even the Cool New Pope has his limits. And one of those limits is the legalization of marijuana. …

But the message is clear. Hail Mary. Hold the Jane.

How can the Pope frown on marijuana? After all, St. Stephen became a martyr after getting stoned.

On this topic, though, Francis has a significant amount of personal experience. The Associated Press notes that as Cardinal Bergoglio, the Pope dedicated a lot of time to pastoral care for addicts as the impulse toward legalization crescendoed:

Francis has described drug addiction as evil and met addicts on several occasions. When he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, he devoted much of his pastoral care to addicts.

Last month Argentina’s neighbor Uruguay cleared the way for legal sales of marijuana cigarettes in pharmacies. Recreational use of marijuana has been legalized in the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington, while Oregon may vote on the issue this year.

With those successes, the marijuana legalization movement is gaining traction from the Americas to Europe and North Africa, where officials are eager to pursue policies that focus on promoting public health rather than battling drug traffickers.

Beyond personal experience, Pope Francis is on sound theological ground as well. Anything that significantly interferes with human reason would tend to separate us from God, at least in principle. Reason is a unique gift from God to humanity to use for both its own benefit and to discern God’s presence so that we may serve Him. The purpose of law in Catholic teaching is to allow for both security and freedom, but also to form society to protect the basic social structure and promote the common good, both of which are damaged by drug abuse.

The catechism also makes that clear in the few passages that deal with law, society, and social order. “The political community has a duty to honor the family” (pp 2211), which includes “the right to private property [and] the right to free enterprise,” but also “the protection of security and health, especially with respect to dangers like drugs, pornography, alcoholism, etc[.]” Catholic teaching distinguishes between medicine and “drugs” in the sense used by Francis. In paragraph 2290, the Church warns against “every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine.” In 2291, though, we read that “The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life,” separating the use of legitimate medicine for legitimate purpose and the recreational use of drugs into two distinct categories. On that basis, Francis warns that society has to form itself through law to prevent or at least discourage that grave damage to both individuals and families, and therefore society at large.

There is a legitimate counterargument to this as well, which is that the ills produced by prohibition outstrip the ills prevented by it. That has its own counterargument, though, which is that the type of prohibitive laws and the way they get enforced might produce the bad effects. Instead of full legalization (which, like it or not, sends a moral signal of acceptance), the moderate option of decriminalization might be a better option.

Chris Christie offered that third way as an alternative this week at the Faith And Freedom Coalition conference in Washington DC:

Christie’s appearance at the Faith and Freedom Coalition gathering exposed him to an audience of evangelical voters that has been slow to embrace the blue state governor. Christie has been noticeably absent from similar conservative gatherings in the past and rarely talks about the divisive social issues these voters prioritize.

Christie stayed away from issues like gay marriage, instead focusing on his belief that all life “is precious and must be protected.”

That includes those suffering from drug addiction. Christie, who has publicly talked about losing a friend to drugs, said society needs to show compassion to those who have committed non-violent crimes because of the disease.

“When we say we are pro life, we need to be pro life for the entire life. We need to stand up for the hurt and the wounded,” he said.

That would focus on rehabilitation rather than imprisonment for users and tougher measures for traffickers, while finding ways to keep the former from suffering the ill effects of criminal records on later job prospects. The US was moving in that direction over the last twenty years or so before the momentum caught fire for full legalization of marijuana.

At any rate, Francis’ remarks are not terribly surprising from any Catholic leader. What’s more interesting is the reaction to them, and the presumption that Francis wants to be seen as The Cool New Pope. He is the new Pope, but he’s still the leader of the Catholic Church and a faithful instructor of its teachings. The cool factor is not in Francis’ control (or his ambition), never was, and no one knows that better than Francis himself.

Update: Francis also made headlines today by declaring that participation in organized crime results in excommunication from God. The headline from AFP muddies up the distinction a bit:

Pope excommunicates mafia, urges expulsion from clan heartland

Pope Francis launched a scathing attack on organised crime during a trip to the heartland of a feared syndicate on Sunday, declaring all mafia members “excommunicated” from the Catholic Church.

The mafia “is the adoration of evil and contempt for common good. This evil must be beaten, expelled,” he told worshippers near the hometown of a toddler killed in a clan war earlier this year.

“Those who in their lives follow this path of evil, as mafiosi do, are not in communion with God. They are excommunicated,” he told the congregation. …

The 77-year-old pontiff was speaking at the end of a trip to the territory controlled by the powerful ‘Ndrangheta mafia, where he comforted relatives of “Coco” Campolongo, a three-year-old who was shot dead in January in an apparent mob hit over money.

“It must never again happen that a child suffers in this way,” the pope said as he met Coco’s father and grandmothers, according to a Vatican spokesman.

The Church will occasionally issue an order of excommunication against a particular individual, usually after a lengthy dispute and lots of attempts to resolve whatever issues are driving the impasse. In this case, though, the Pope is describing a latae sententiae excommunication: “by the commission of the offense.” (This is mentioned specifically as a canonical penalty for “formal cooperation in abortion” in paragraph 2272 of the Catechism.) Francis’ declaration today doesn’t expel anyone from anything, but is rather a warning to those who participate in organized crime that they excommunicate themselves with their participation. In either type of excommunication, though, there is always room for sincere confession, repentance, and reform, and a return to the Church. To underscore that point, Pope Francis delivered this message after visiting prisoners, some of whom were former mafiosi.

It’s not really accurate to report that the “Pope excommunicates the mafia,” although they’re not going to be any happier with his remarks because of that. As AFP explains, mafia leaders in Italy make a pretense of being good Catholics for PR and intimidation among the locals, and the Church has in recent decades become more and more aggressive in rebutting those claims. And because of that, priests have been murdered in the region Francis visited, and he stopped to pray at the place where one was beaten to death for refusing to submit to extortion. Francis didn’t speak from the cheap seats today, and it remains to be seen what the mafiosi in that area might do in retribution.

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Tags: abortion, Catholic Church, excommunication, legalization, Mafia, marijuana, murder, Pope Francis

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IsFastTimesatRidgemontHighapro-abortion

Is Fast Times at Ridgemont High a pro-abortion movie?

posted at 8:01 pm on June 19, 2014 by Noah Rothman

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One of the pet topics on MSNBC’s The Cycle recently has been the film Obvious Child. The new movie centers on the story of one woman who accidentally conceives after a one-night stand and decides to have an abortion. “It’s sweet, it’s funny, and it’s a rare look at one woman’s story of having an abortion and, spoiler alert, her life does not end broken and miserable,” MSNBC host Krystal Ball crowed on Thursday.

On Thursday, MSNBC hosts interviewed some of the talent behind the movie which, to be honest, sounds like the perfect subject of a film: the exploration of a subject rarely examined objectively and from a relatively unique angle. However, it seems as though the MSNBC hosts are more enamored with what the filmmaker said is the message of the film: the subject’s decision to have a “positive, safe, shame-free abortion.”

Beats “safe, legal, and rare,” no?

Now, just to get this out of the way: I do support the protections provided by Roe. However, what the filmmakers seem to be trying to achieve, and what the MSNBC hosts are attempting to promote, is to make the decision to get an abortion one that circumvents the conscience. That seems to not only be an unattainable goal, but an undesirable one as well.

When asked why their film was so unique in Hollywood in the sense that there are relatively few movies which portray abortion in a positive light, writer and director Jenny Slate countered that film was not breaking new ground.

“Fast Times at Rigemont High is a great example of a positive, regrets-free abortion,” Slate said.

Hmm. Now, it’s been a while since I watched Fast Times, but I don’t recall it being particularly pro-abortion. In fact, from pregnancy to post-abandonment revenge, the character Stacy Hamilton endures nothing but trauma.

After being impregnated by a callous and unscrupulous Mike Damone in a pool changing room, Stacy confronts him with the fact that she is pregnant. When Damone insists that she must abort the child, a decision she has already come to, Damone agrees to pay for half of the procedure and provide a ride to the clinic. When, however, it comes time for him to make good on his offer, Damone is nowhere to be found.

Stacy proceeds to lie to her brother in order to get a ride to the clinic and undergoes the procedure alone. Even at the last moment, she is wracked with indecision:

After leaving the clinic, she is confronted by her brother who comforts her and pledges to take revenge on Damone.

Slate calls this a “sweet, tender moment.” I suppose the tale of sibling love related in that moment is “sweet,” but the circumstances which bring them together are anything but. If this is as close as it gets to a positive portrayal of abortion in Hollywood, I suppose the bar for Obvious Child’s success is set rather low.

There is distinction between “shame-free” and “consequence-free,” and abortion will never be the latter. Most, like the character of Stacy Hamilton, agonize over up up until the last minute. It seems to me that the MSNBC hosts and the filmmakers in this case are reaching to glamorize one of the few acts which is so emotionally draining and morally challenging that even Hollywood has been unable to destigmatize it.

Good luck, team Obvious Child. It seems like it’s going to be an uphill battle.

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Tags: abortion, fast times at ridgemont high, jenny slate, MSNBC, obvious child

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Obama administration included unborn children in 2012 Child Maltreatment report

Obamaadministrationincludedunbornchildrenin2012Child

Quotesoftheday postedat10:41

Quotes of the day

posted at 10:41 pm on April 23, 2014 by Allahpundit

Rand Paul came to Chicago yesterday and did something a Republican thinking about running for president typically wouldn’t do: subject himself to a nearly hour-long grilling by the one-time chief political strategist for President Barack Obama.

“You are an intriguing person,” David Axelrod, the former White House senior adviser, now leading the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, said at the start of his on-stage conversation with the U.S. senator from Kentucky.

Paul, a favorite of the limited-government Tea Party movement who is considering a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, used stops in Chicago — Obama’s hometown — as the latest venues in offering himself as a different kind of Republican pushing his party to grow beyond its base.

***

Sen. Rand Paul is taking full advantage of Congress’s recess with a tour of speaking engagements in Real America. But more importantly, he used the time away from Washington to cultivate a decidedly different image: not the libertarian spark plug most people think of when they think of Rand Paul, but an old-fashioned, issues-oriented compassionate conservative.

Speaking at Josephinum Academy, a Catholic girls’ high school in Chicago, Paul talked to parents and students about public-school alternatives and supported the right for religious schools like Josephinum to receive federal money. School vouchers and charter schools have long been conservatives’ workaround to push against the public education system without seeming like they were pricing out low-income students…

Since starting his first term in the Senate, Paul has made a point to travel around the country speaking to urban communities struggling with poverty—not exactly a friendly setting for Republican politicians.

Some have said that promoting school choice and urban revitalization is part of Paul’s grand plan to welcome minority voters into the GOP’s fold.

***

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) shot back at Bob Dole on Tuesday by arguing that a lack of political experience can be seen as positive.

Speaking to reporters in Chicago, Paul said that he was first a physician and then became a senator, despite people advising him to work his way up through the public service ladder as mayor and state legislator.

“I absolutely disagree with that because I think in some ways, when you have people who are career politicians, they’ve been beaten down by the system and are so part of the system that they can’t see all the problems of the system,” Paul said, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.

***

Despite the factual and political accuracy of Paul’s lamentations about Reagan-era fiscal policy, will conservatives reflexively outrage about this? Will it become fodder for the likes of Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum to pledge their undying love for Reagan’s ghost, in contrast to that turncoat Rand?

If any of the above does happen, it will be more of the same from conservatives. Overlooking the party’s 1980s failings is a key component of Reagan idolatry, and, sadly, it would prove they still have no interest in thinking about economics in a truly principled manner…

Yes, Reagan had to contend with a Democratic Congress, but many of the above policies were directly supported and/or proposed by the president. There’s simply no way around it; and Republicans would be better off listening to Rand Paul’s tough words rather than dismiss them as blasphemy.

***

In case you missed it, a minor controversy has erupted over Rand Paul’s recent comments about abortion…

From a pragmatic standpoint, however, Paul seems to be saying two things: 1). That he believes in the Thatcher maxim that first you win the argument, then you win the vote, and 2). That the pro-life cause is best served when it stresses areas where their is consensus (banning late-term abortion, for example) and doesn’t get too far over its skis (talking about rape, or stressing “personhood,” transvaginal ultrasounds, etc.)

The real problem for Paul, in my opinion, is that he’s having an honest discussion about a very sensitive topic. There’s no place for that in politics!

This is what happens when politicians think out loud and actually verbalize the things they are thinking. We often complain about scripted politicians who stick to talking points and sound bites, but there’s a good reason why the most boring, disciplined politicians seem to succeed. Would Paul have been better off by simply parrying the question? Probably.

***

Many other Republicans are nervous about Paul’s rising stock, much more than they were about the presidential bids of his father, former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)…

In a general election Paul would have to defend his proposals to raise the Social Security eligibility age and eliminate capital gains taxes. He would also have to fend off questions about his 2010 statement that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was wrong to prohibit businesses from discriminating against customers and his 1990s description of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme.”

“He’s never had to defend these views. At some point in a debate with the Democrats, he’ll have to defend these views,” said a senior House Republican aide…

“If there’s a nut movement in the country that he hasn’t found, please call me. He’s now getting involved in the sagebrush matter with Mr. Bundy,” said the GOP staffer. “I worry about a lot of things, but my biggest concern isn’t that Barack Obama is going to take me out at Starbucks with a drone.”

***

Kentucky voters are apparently split on whether home-state Sen. Rand Paul should run for president in 2016.

About one-third of Bluegrass State voters, or 31%, say the freshman senator should make a White House bid, while 34% say the Republican shouldn’t seek the presidency, according to a New York Times/Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Wednesday.

Another 32% say they don’t know enough about Paul to say what he should do in 2016.

***

Let’s say the Kentucky legislator makes a strong run — winning some states and coming close in others — but doesn’t win the nomination, a scenario that seems more likely than not. He has something going for him in the veepstakes that other Republican also-rans would not: a constituency that might well defect in large numbers from the party in November.

Assuming Paul loses, the Libertarian Party will have an easier task than usual: It will be able to concentrate its organizing among the people who voted for Paul in the primaries. That could easily amount to enough voters to deny Republicans a victory in the general election. (In other words, the libertarian candidate in this situation would be Ralph Nader in reverse.)…

Because Paul has a distinctive constituency … he still has a pretty good shot of being on the ticket — even if he doesn’t make it to the top spot.

***

What the GOP needs is an honest, stringent account of how it has ended up where it is – a party that has piled on more debt than was once thought imaginable and until recently, has done nothing much to curtail federal spending. Reagan was a great president in many ways, as Paul says explicitly in these clips.

But Reagan introduced something truly poisonous into American conservatism.
It was the notion that you can eat your cake and have it too, that tax cuts pay for themselves and that deficits don’t matter. This isn’t and wasn’t conservatism; it was a loopy utopian denial of math. And the damage it has done to this country’s fiscal standing has been deep and permanent. It is one of modern conservatism’s cardinal sins. And Paul is addressing it forthrightly – just as he is addressing the terrible, devastating consequences of neo-conservatism for America and the world in the 21st Century.

What we desperately need from the right is this kind of accounting. It’s what reformers on the left did in the 1990s – confronting the failures of their past in charting a new future. Taking on Reagan on fiscal matters may be short-term political death, as Corn suspects and maybe hopes, but it is vital if the GOP is to regain some long-term credibility on the core question of government solvency. Compared with the ideological bromides and slogans of so many others, Rand Paul is a tonic. And a courageous one at that.

***

Tags: 2016, abortion, axelrod, conservative, GOP, Rand Paul, republican, social, surveillance, voter-ID

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Video:Oregoncommissionordersstoponusingdead

Video: Oregon commission orders stop on using dead babies to generate power

posted at 10:21 am on April 24, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Last month, we thought the use of aborted children to generate heat and power was limited to the UK. Instead, we discovered this week that the ghastly practice took place in Oregon, perhaps unwittingly. A waste-to-energy plant contracted with the British Columbia Health Ministry to incinerate medical waste — including aborted babies.

For now, the practice has stopped (via Katie Pavlich):

An Oregon county commission has ordered an incinerator to stop accepting boxed medical waste to generate electricity after learning the waste it’s been burning may include tissue from aborted fetuses from British Columbia.

Sam Brentano, chairman of the Marion County board of commissioners, said late Wednesday the board is taking immediate action to prohibit human tissue from future deliveries at the plant that has been turning waste into energy since 1987.

“We provide an important service to the people of this state and it would be a travesty if this program is jeopardized due to this finding,” he said in a statement. “We thought our ordinance excluded this type of material at the waste-to-energy facility. We will take immediate action to ensure a process is developed to prohibit human tissue from future deliveries.”

Did the managers and the county commissioners know about this? They claim no, but one of the workers said “they had to know“:

Bud Waterman, a former temp worker at Covanta Marion, Inc., said two to three times a week, 53-foot tractor trailers carrying biohazards dropped off loads at the facility in Brooks.

On more than one occasion, Waterman said the contents of the truck spilled out of their containers.

“It would make you sick, especially if you had to clean it up or have to pull a box off the trailer,” said Waterman. …

“They knew it, they had to. I don’t see how they could not know it,” said Waterman.

The kicker? Waterman told KOIN that the facility had incinerated dead babies for years, in part because the Canadian government won’t dispose of fetal remains in this manner. That’s presumably why the BCHM sent the medical waste to Oregon in the first place.

KOIN says it will continue investigating this story. Good for them. Perhaps other news outlets in the US might want to start looking at their local waste-to-energy facilities, too, to see what trucks are dumping into the boilers and burners.

Tags: abortion, energy, Oregon

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RandPaulonabortion:“We’renotchangingany

Rand Paul on abortion: “We’re not changing any of the laws until the country is persuaded otherwise”

posted at 11:21 am on April 23, 2014 by Allahpundit

Via MFP, an eyebrow-raiser from yesterday’s chat with David Axelrod(!) at the University of Chicago. David Corn and Mother Jones are out with another gotcha piece on Paul this morning citing his (mild) criticism of Reagan in the past for not cutting spending more as president, but this clip is more interesting, I think. Knocking the Gipper for not doing enough to shrink government is Libertarianism 101; even mainstream conservatives who venerate him will grudgingly concede that they wish he’d done better before quickly adding that he did what he could with a liberal Congress. And needless to say, no one’s going to stand onstage next to Paul at the 2015 primary debates and rip him for criticizing deficit spending. It’s okay to criticize Reagan as long as you’re respectful and as long as you’re doing it from the right.

So forget the Mother Jones piece. What about this exchange with Axelrod, though? MFP headlines the clip, “Rand Paul: Relax, I’m not going to ban abortion” — which does seem a fair interpretation of what Paul’s saying. (Maybe it’d be fairer to say, “Rand Paul: Relax, I’m not going to ban abortion anytime soon.”) He notes that he believes that life begins at conception and points out, correctly, that the public takes a middle-ground approach to abortion in most polls. They support giving women a right to terminate in the first trimester, oppose giving them that right in the third trimester, and usually take a skeptical “if necessary” view of the second trimester. If anything, says Paul, current law is far too biased towards the pro-abortion view since it effectively allows for terminations in the third trimester too, which most Americans believe should be illegal. Axelrod, though, keeps pressing: What does that mean we should or could expect from President Paul once in office? Paul’s answer: Not much. Certainly not an all-out ban; there’s still much persuading to be done before most Americans come around to that view. Presumably, if public opinion changes while he’s in office, he’d consider a ban. If it doesn’t, presumably he wouldn’t. Maybe he’d try at least to bring the law in line with opinion by banning terminations in the third trimester, but judge for yourself at the end here whether you think he’d push on that.

You can see what he’s trying to do with this answer. He’s pitching himself as a “different kind of Republican,” someone who can appeal to young voters and minorities in a way that no one else in the party can. One splashy way to do that is to position himself as a pro-life but modest, incrementalist candidate on abortion; not only will it make the left’s “war on women” demagoguery a bit harder but it might also reassure libertarians, not all of whom are as pro-life as the Pauls are, that he hasn’t completely sold out to conservatives in running for the GOP nomination. Meanwhile, though, he’ll be lambasted for this by whoever ends up as the social-conservative champion in the primaries — maybe Huckabee, maybe Santorum, maybe (most dangerously of all for Paul) Ted Cruz. If abortion is morally equivalent to slavery, as many social cons believe, then Paul’s approach is intolerable. He’d have a moral duty to work with the legislature and the courts to ban it, whatever the political consequences. Paul can sustain an attack like that from Huck or Santorum, I think, because they’re niche candidates who aren’t competing with him for the wider grassroots conservative vote. I’m not so sure he can sustain it from Cruz, who is competing. The question for Cruz is, how forcefully does he want to push the “ban at all costs” position? It might give him an opening against Paul in the primaries but it’d also make things easier for Democrats in attacking him in the general. Paul is right about the polling on this. It’s purely a question of how the GOP wants to deal with the reality of it.

Tags: abortion, axelrod, Chicago, choice, pro-life, public, Rand Paul

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Formerlypro-lifeCrist:Hey,Inevertolda

Formerly pro-life Crist: Hey, I never told a woman what to do with her body!

posted at 8:01 am on April 22, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

A great catch from our friend Jim Geraghty in a race we haven’t covered much — the reincarnation attempt of Charlie Crist in Florida. Back in the day, when Crist was Republican, he was the ne plus ultra Republican, including on abortion. Now a Democratic candidate for governor, suddenly he’s the consummate “war on wimmenses” Democrat. In this interview, Crist tells an incredulous interviewer that even though he once insisted that he would sign a law outlawing abortion, he never, never, nevah told a woman what she could or could not do with her body.

Behold, the clearest demonstration of shamelessness:

Jim tallies up the actual score:

There are a lot of Florida Democrats who will probably tell you they care about abortion – er, “abortion rights” or “reproductive rights.” The vast majority of them will, this fall, vote for a manwho, during his 2006 race for governor, told a priest in Pensacola that he would sign a bill outlawing abortions except when the mother’s life was at stake. But then he told an AP reporter that he would only sign such a bill if it included exceptions for rape and incest. Also during that race, Charlie Crist attacked his GOP rival for being pro-choice. And as recently as January 2010, “Crist’s Republican U.S. Senate campaign released a statement saying he would ‘fight for pro-life legislative efforts.’”

Jim predicts that Democrats will applaud with one hand in the race anyway, with the other holding their nose. I’m not quite so sure about that. They would have done so, had Crist gone on television to admit to his previous record and claim that he’d evolved, or even seen the light, as grotesque as that metaphor would be in these circumstances. Shamelessly lying to this extent won’t turn committed Democrats into Republicans, but it’s not going to motivate many outside the core base to turn out for such an obvious political hack. Combine this with the significant GOP trend in the midterm race, and I’m not so sure that Florida Democrats will be happy to see Crist at the top of their ticket in November.

Tags: abortion, Charlie Crist, Florida, pro-life, War on Women

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Mom-to-be:Ineedtohavethisabortionso

Mom-to-be: I need to have this abortion so that I can be on a reality show

posted at 8:01 pm on April 21, 2014 by Allahpundit

Via the Right Scoop, I suppose “mom-to-be” technically isn’t accurate.

Gotta hand it to the Mirror. Rarely do you find so many different social pathologies concentrated in a single story. What’s the opposite of a palate cleanser?

Puffing on a cigarette and rubbing her baby bump, the controversial model and call girl – who will have her abortion at a clinic this week – said: “I’m finally on the verge of becoming famous and I’m not going to ruin it now.

“An abortion will further my career. This time next year I won’t have a baby. Instead, I’ll be famous, driving a bright pink Range Rover and buying a big house. Nothing will get in my way.”

Josie, 23, is already 18 weeks pregnant by either an escort agency client or a Premier League footballer. But she claims her late life-or-death decision has nothing to do with who the father is…

Josie – who caused outrage in 2013 when she demanded a £4,800 boob job on the NHS to become a glamour model – said: “Channel 5 were keen to shortlist me then they found out I was pregnant.

If I understand British law correctly, after 12 weeks a woman can’t abort unless she shows that carrying to term would endanger her health somehow. This woman can’t, but I sense that’s not going to stop her. Allegedly both potential fathers offered to support her financially if she had the baby, but she’s intent on being famous and the little one would interfere with that. Or rather, another little one — turns out she already has two kids at home. She’s also still smoking and drinking despite being more than four months along, but I guess there’s no need to worry about the damage done to the baby at this point, huh?

Am I awake?

Serious question: Is this a put-on? The fact that it gets worse with every sentence and that it’s being fed to a notorious tabloid makes me suspicious. If she’s already a freak-show quasi-celeb for demanding that taxpayers pay for her boob job and she’s desperate to be famous, why wouldn’t she make up a too-bad-to-check story about aborting her baby because she wants to be on “Big Brother” in order to further raise her profile? She’s already committed to the fame-through-outrage approach. Maybe she’s just dialing it up.

Or, maybe this really is as bad as it seems and the first seal in Revelation is about to be opened. Which is it?

Tags: abortion, Big Brother, josie cunningham, mirror

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IsKickstarterkickingoutpro-lifeprojects? posted

Is Kickstarter kicking out pro-life projects?

posted at 2:01 pm on April 16, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

For the second time, producers of a planned pro-life film effort have had to switch from Kickstarter to IndieGoGo for their crowdfunding efforts. Filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McIlhenny took their Gosnell Movie project to IndieGoGo after Kickstarter insisted that they could shut down the effort at any time if they didn’t like the language used to promote it, and another pro-life project called Stolen Moments has gotten a rejection letter from Kickstarter as well. The rejection, nearly two weeks ago, was on the basis of the campaign being, er … “self help” (via Katie Pavlich):

For the life of me I can’t figure out how anyone could consider our project self help. Let me briefly tell you about the project.

The project, Stolen Moments, is something I’ve been working on for the past few months with my friend, Andrew Koch.

It’s a simple idea. Everyone has a story to tell. Our stories are made of a special moments throughout our lives. Stories come from both the good and bad moments. Yet, due to abortion we’ve lost millions of potential moments in our lives. Moments that would be part of our story. Moments that were stolen from all of us.

We want to share through a series of short videos some of those moments we’re all missing because of abortion. It’s an idea I’ve fallen in love with and I think once you see what God has laid on our heart to create you will as well.

It’s thrilling to be at the point where we have a great crew assembled and to be ready to raise the funds. We were all set to launch and then got this upsetting news.

I love Kickstarter. If you look at my profile then you’ll see I’ve backed over two dozen campaigns in the last couple of years. They pioneered crowdfunding.

Self-help? Only in the sense that crowdfunding is all about self-help for filmmakers looking for independent sources of capital. That applies to literally everything Kickstarter and IndieGoGo does. If a documentary about the regrets of abortion doesn’t have any other purpose than self-help, then it’s mystifying how any other documentary on social issues from any point of view isn’t similarly disqualified.

Fortunately, Stolen Moments appears to have gone well on its way to raising its money. With 23 days left in the cycle, the filmmakers are just shy of halfway to their modest goal of $1500. The news is equally good for Gosnell Movie, where funding has gone over $820,000 — almost 40% of the goal with 27 days left in the campaign. The film picked up a couple of Hollywood endorsements in the last few days, too:

Nick Searcy and Kevin Sorbo have cut YouTube videos in support of a crowdfunding campaign to finance a TV movie about convicted killer and former abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell.

Nick Searcy, better known as U.S. Marshal Art Mullen on the FX television show Justified, is asking fans to donate money to some filmmakers who are producing a TV movie he says Hollywood would prefer not be made.

The movie is called Gosnell and is the true story of abortion doctorKermit Gosnell, who is serving life in prison for multiple murders. The funding for the movie will come by way of a $2.1 million IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign. If filmmakers Phelim McAleer, Ann McElhinney and Magdalena Segieda are successful, it will be the biggest campaign for a TV or movie project ever hosted at IndieGoGo.

Searcy, who leans right and often wades into political controversies via Twitter and other outlets, has cut a YouTube video in support of the Gosnell project that is set to go live today.

Anyone who follows Nick Searcy on Twitter knows that he has a great sense of humor and a pugnacity to say what he thinks at all times. The introduction of this endorsement video demonstrates the former, while the rest of it demonstrates the latter:

Kevin and Sam Sorbo offered an endorsement video two weeks ago:

I’ll be discussing Gosnell Movie on tomorrow’s Ed Morrissey Show with Phelim McAleer, but be sure to add your contribution to the crowdfunding effort now.

Tags: abortion, film, Kermit Gosnell, Kickstarter, pro-life

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