It is a sad commentary on the state of our world that stories like this one (warning, .pdf) (via the Population Research Institute) barely shock us anymore. The gist of the story is as follows: a Massachusetts woman, identified in court pleadings only as Mary Moe, is pregnant with her third child. She aborted her first child. Sometime between this abortion and the birth of her second child, she suffered a “psychotic break” and was diagnosed with shizophrenia and bipolar mood disorder, for which she takes medication. Reading inbetween the lines, it is reasonable to assume that the woman’s first abortion may have been a contributing factor in her mental illness:

The GAL report and the record generally provide additional background. The defendant suffered a psychotic break when she was a college student. Thereafter, she believed people were staring at her and stating that she killed her baby. She becomes agitated and emotional when discussing the pregnancy that ended in an abortion.

Now that Moe is pregnant for the third time, her parents went to a probate judge in Massachusetts in an attempt to get a court to force her to have an abortion, apparently on the theory that the medications Moe takes for her mental illness would be harmful to Moe’s unborn child. Somewhat unsurprisingly, given this history, Moe went to great lengths in front of the judge to avoid having an abortion forced on her, claiming devout Catholicism (a contention that her parents dispute) and denying that she even was pregnant.

Somehow the judge, a Dukakis appointee, got the idea that the best thing for this poor woman would be to force her to have another abortion (because the first one clearly worked wonders for her mental health). This despite the fact that the guardian ad litem appointed by the judge had found that if Moe were not suffering from mental illness, she would not herself choose to have the abortion.  The judge astoundingly ordered that Moe’s parents should get her to the abortion clinic even if Moe had to be  “coaxed,   bribed, or even enticed … by ruse[.]” Additionally, even though no one (including Moe’s delightful parents) had asked for this remedy, the judge sua sponte ordered that once Moe’s parents had successfully conned her into the abortion clinic, Moe must be sterilized so she could never get pregnant again.

Thankfully, the probate judge was overruled on appeal, mainly for failing to make appropriate factual findings and failing to appropriately consider the recommendations of the guardian ad litem. Thus, in this one case, the appropriate result was reached, but reading the judge’s opinion, a different set of circumstances might very well have permitted “Mary Moe”‘s parents to force her to have an abortion against her will. This is the inevitable consequence of a society that has accepted the false premise that under certain circumstances, abortion is the only choice a sane person would make. Such a premise should be rejected by anyone who is truly “pro-choice,” but happily too many who claim to be “pro-choice” let the mask slip from time to time and show us all that when the chips are down, they really are pro-abortion, and nothing else.

I never thought I would see the day, but it looked an awful lot like Newt finished fourth out of the four candidates in tonight’s debate. For the first time during this primary season, Newt paid a price each and every time he went after Romney personally, who looked unusually aggressive and actually managed a passable impersonation of a human being. After the second time, he attempted to follow Santorum’s lead by saying that the tax return question was a distraction, and in a bizarre twist, Newt actually got his liver eaten by a moderator when Wolf Blitzer nailed him for having been the one who made an issue out of the tax returns.

Newt managed to look at least better during the second half of the debate but he did so mainly by staying in the weeds and making several unsubtle appeals to Paul voters. Even then he was overshadowed by Santorum (who has had back-to-back strong debate performances) and even Ron Paul, who a) was clearly on his medication and b) having conceded a last-place finish in Florida, was committed to having some fun at the other candidate’s expense.

In the last three days, Newt has watched a 7-point Florida lead evaporate into a 7-point deficit to Mitt Romney. He needed a bump from tonight’s debate in order to mount a challenge to Romney in Florida and hold his momentum heading into Super Tuesday. Instead, voters saw Romney displaying a killer instinct for perhaps the first time during the campaign, and Newt clearly overshadowed even on style points by both Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.

If Mitt Romney ends up winning the nomination, we may end up looking back at tonight as the night the tide finally turned in his favor for good.

Unbelievably, yet another debate is on tap tonight. Thankfully, this one is on CNN, so hopefully we will have fewer questions about Terri Schiavo and the Great Beet Sugar Menace. Click the window or chime in in the comments!

You’re not going to believe this, but there is YET ANOTHER debate tonight (this one on NBC moderated by the strangely crooked-faced Brian Williams). Click the window to join the chat or chime in in the comments.

With the State of the Union upcoming, House Republicans have made a pretty decent video to highlight (among other things) the fact that we’ve gone 1000 days (and counting) without an Obama budget. I don’t keep up with these things historically so I am not sure what the record is, but it seems evident that Obama is going to shoot for a nice, round four years before this whole thing is up.

Keep in mind that for a substantial portion of this time period, Democrats controlled the White House, Senate, AND House, and were still unable to pass a budget because they were too busy forcing bills the American people didn’t want down their throats. Way to go, guys. Makes everyone just tingling with anticipation about all the things we’re going to get to hear about in the SOTU address.

Click the window to join the chat or join in in the comments. How big will Gingrich win?

It seems almost unfair to do this, but I feel compelled to remind everyone participating in the caption that this is a family site.

Open thread!

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who had already announced that he would delay the implementation of the health care exchange program in Wisconsin until the Supreme Court ruled on Obamacare’s constitutionality, announced earlier this week that the state will turn down the $37M grant from the Federal government which was designed to aid in the exchange implementation.

On Wednesday Walker said he was notifying the federal government that Wisconsin was turning down the Early Innovator Grant, saying it didn’t make sense to commit to reforms that could have a devastating economic impact.

“Stopping the encroachment of ObamaCare in our state, which has the potential to have a devastating impact on Wisconsin’s economy, is a top priority. Wisconsin has been a leader and innovator in health care reform for two decades, and we have achieved a high level of health insurance coverage without federal mandates,” Walker said in a statement.

Surprisingly, the AP found a bunch of Democrats and liberals who were shocked – shocked, I say – to find that Walker opposed the implementation of the exchange program in Wisconsin – quoting a Democrat state legislator, a representative from the ultra-liberal Citizen Action of Wisconsin, and a spokesperson from the American Cancer Society (which has been in the tank for Obamacare from the get-go). Strangely the fact that CAW and ACS have been rabid partisan backers of Obamacare from the beginning was omitted from the story, as was the fact that CAW is an ultra-left wing pro-OWS group. The piece is intentionally written to appear as though all reasonable and disinterested people condemn Governor Walker’s reckless decision, which is supported by absolutely no one.

Governor Walker continues to do the right thing in Wisconsin despite the constant smearing by liberals, unions, and the press. If you want to help fight his recall, click here and get involved.

I confess up front as I write this piece that I have only the most tenuous grasp of finance and/or economics (my willingness to admit this fact being the primary thing that distinguishes me from Ezra Klein). That said, you don’t have to be a money whiz to react with horror at the slow-motion trainwreck that is currently unfolding in Greece, that threatens to imperil most of the Western economic world. Reading Dan’s excellent piece on the Establishment, I was left wondering how many people really and truly understand what the possible consequences are of our current Federal spending policies – either within government or without.

As I scrolled through my Transom today, which contained a number of items  on the Greek crisis, it became clear to me that a) it is entirely within the realm of possibility that someday in the relatively near future, the United States will not be able to meaningfully finance debt spending, which will b) lead to immediate, disorderly and probably panicked structural budget cuts of 40% or more, which c) will lead to massive economic disruption and possible massive civil unrest. Observe what is happening in Greece – default at this point seems imminent given a breakdown in talks between Greece and its private creditors, and Greece looks likely to be kicked out of the Eurozone as a consequence. Of course, being tied to the Euro prevents Greece from the utilizing the last refuge of financial desperation – issuing massive amounts of worthless currency without regard to inflation.

Nonetheless, even this is a temporary refuge. There comes a time – and that time is coming for Greece, absent major changes – when a government simply will not be able to borrow any more money; or will not be able to borrow as much as it needs, or will have to pay so exorbitantly for its credit that it becomes impractical. We’re not there yet as a country, but if we continue to dink around the margins of spending, cutting merely a few billion here or there (and dishonestly calling accounting gimmicks “cuts”) – or even worse, if we fail to stop Obama’s re-election and end up spending even more, we will get there sooner rather than later. And at that moment, like Greece, we will be faced with exigent circumstances demanding instantaneous and disorderly cuts just to keep the government operating.

The choice is not between making moderate cuts or making drastic cuts. The choice is between making drastic cuts now, in areas that make sense and don’t provide value or critical support to the private sector economy, or making drastic, panicked cuts later in the face of even worse economic crises and probable civil unrest. It is going to happen, one way or another. We, as voters, just have to decide whether we are going to continue to reward the cowardly politicians who are preaching ineffective half-measures and coddle the entitled protesters in our midst who shriek every time government is shrunk. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. But either way, it’s getting done.

Well, it looks like Iowa and New Hampshire both get to claim one official victim in the 2012 GOP Presidential sweepstakes as Jon Huntsman is announcing today that he is going to be the first to follow Michele Bachmann out the door. Huntsman never managed to get off the floor nationally, and wasn’t able to make enough of a dent in New Hampshire (the one state he actively campaigned in) to gain sufficient momentum and money to carry his campaign forward. So he made one of the few sensible political choices he’s made in this run and decided to drop out while he’s not too far behind.

Governor Huntsman was good enough to sit down and talk with me at relative length during the campaign season (see here), and I came away liking Huntsman much more than I did going in. However, even in that interview you could see the seeds of political tone-deafness that ultimately doomed Huntsman’s campaign. For instance, Huntsman is the only Presidential candidate I am aware of who has kicked off his campaign by taking a job working for the incumbent he hopes to defeat. I cannot for the life of me understand why or how Huntsman was unable to perceive how this would play with the GOP primary electorate. Ultimately, I get how and why Huntsman took the job as ambassador to China; he should have understood, however, that it was a choice that would make it impossible for him to run for President in 2012.

Huntsman’s other early missteps likewise threw him in the political cellar, from which he ultimately never emerged. The first of these was no doubt the hiring of John Weaver, who inexplicably continues to get jobs working for Republicans who want to get elected. At this point, the message is clear to everyone who is paying attention – hiring John Weaver to manage your Presidential campaign is a giant middle finger to the GOP conservative base. Even John McCain’s campaign did not take off until he canned Weaver. I suppose it is possible that someone might be able to win a GOP primary election somewhere while actively angering conservatives, but it is not going to happen in a Presidential primary. Huntsman’s failure to put any distance between himself and Weaver’s controversial comments (that essentially called the TEA Party a freakshow) was another major factor in his inability to get off the ground quickly.

Read More →

Many of the polls just closed. Some still have another hour to go. Chime in by clicking the window or jump in to the comments.

Occasionally, I will hear someone say that the amount of attention paid to Iowa and New Hampshire in the nominating process is ridiculous. However, on the Republican side of things, it turns out there is a good reason for that. Since the institution of the modern primary system (and even before), no Republican has won the nomination without winning one or the other of the early contests. Observe the chart below:

A couple of observations are in order here. First, disparaging comments by Jon Huntsman aside, New Hampshire does not have a remarkably better record of picking Presidents than Iowa. New Hampshire and Iowa have disagreed on a total of five contests – in those, the candidate who won New Hampshire went on to win the nomination 3 times, the candidate who won Iowa went on to win twice. This is hardly a clear signal that Iowa can be disregarded in favor of New Hampshire in all cases.

Second, South Carolina’s role in picking the nominee is at least largely due to the fact that the race has usually been all but decided by the time New Hampshire is over. Remember that South Carolina was not moved up to “third place” until 1988. It is believed by many that Atwater bumped SC up because it was thought to be friendly to Bush who was facing possible embarrassment – not necessarily of defeat, but of at least a long, difficult slog – against an insurgent Dole campaign (stop and relish the absurdity of that statement for a moment) and a stronger-than-expected showing from Pat Robertson. Since that election, there have only been three seriously contested Republican primaries – the fact that South Carolina has been the deciding factor in these elections is likely only symbolic of the fact that unlike Democrats, Republican primary voters tend to prefer settling down much earlier in a campaign and avoiding the long, drawn out debacles for which the Democrats are famous. If you look at this list, not only are there no nominees that come from outside the IA/NH column, but there are very few candidates who have even survived (in any meaningful sense) to Super Tuesday outside the IA/NH winner columns. Conclusion: Republican primary voters like to settle things early in the process.

It seems like every election cycle people tend to believe that some candidate can win the Republican nomination while breaking the mold and waiting until South Carolina (or later) to claim their first victory. Evidence suggests that this is highly unlikely to be successful. Certainly I wouldn’t rule out such a thing ever happening, but I’d lay long odds against it happening any time soon. Which, you would have to assume, is bad news for anyone in the current GOP field not named Mitt Romney.

Read More →

Let us set aside for a moment the many crazy things that Ron Paul says and the ways in which they might damage the GOP brand. We’ve given people passes for saying crazy things before. I mean, I’m not thrilled to have the guy up there on national television representing the GOP in any form or fashion, but on the merits as far as his support, he deserves to be there no matter what sort of crankery he decides to subject the public to. The problem with Ron Paul’s continued participation in the debates is that, having used the GOP as a free publicity vehicle, he will not commit to refusing a third party run:

NASHUA, N.H. — Ron Paul inched further away on Friday from any unequivocal promise not to run under a third-party banner if he fails to win the GOP presidential nomination.

In a brief interview with The Huffington Post on Friday, Paul acknowledged he will have a decision to make if he loses the GOP bid come August.

In his conversation with HuffPost, Paul noted that he had won nearly as many delegates in Iowa as Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum had, and that he was likely to pick up a good share here in New Hampshire and — having hauled in $13 million last quarter — in other contests to come.

With many delegates in a bloc heading into the convention in Tampa, didn’t that mean he would remain committed to the GOP and not run an independent candidacy in the fall, even if he did not secure the nomination?

“I’ll decide that later,” Paul said while he was waiting for his son Rand Paul, a GOP senator from Kentucky, to finish an interview with the press.

Read More →

Life is hard when you’re an idiot, and you’re on television surrounded by people who can speak in complete sentences. It’s like starting out in a hole, and when you’re in a hole, it’s very important to remember the First Rule of Holes. The one thing you should absolutely not do is try to use a big word – or at least something that sounds sort of like a big word you heard once – when you’re not sure what it means.

Things then proceeded to go from bad to worse for our heroine. I mean, at least we can all figure out which word she meant to say in the clip above, but then… this? What the heck is this? Anyone have any clue as to which word she was even going for?

And then, things got even worse still. Observe:

Two things: a) you said “emoticon.” You said it twice. We all heard it. b) “Waking word”? What’s a wak… know what? Nevermind. Open Thread.

Read More →

Apparently, in a rush to conduct two debates on the same days as the opening round of the NFL Playoffs, there was another debate Sunday morning. If I was only vaguely aware it was occurring, I cannot imagine the audience was all that large. I mean, really, if you were a) awake, b) not at church, c) not watching the NFL pregame show, and d) actually tuned in to watch a political debate at 10 in the morning, you probably have already figured out who you’re going to vote for. That said, everyone who missed the debate missed the probable end of Romney‘s horribly phony “I’ve spent my entire life in the private sector” spiel, as Newt Gingrich apparently finally decided he’d had enough. This happened:

In fact, Newt really only touched the tip of the iceberg with respect to Romney’s many, many attempts to leave the private sector. Including primaries, Romney has participated in an astounding 22 elections (compiling an abysmal 5-17 record). Romney may have spent most of his life in the private sector, but that’s only because voters kept refusing to send him to the public sector. Romney has other things he can run on; this is one he should give a rest.

Happy Sunday to everyone. Open Thread/Caption this time!

Hope everyone is having an awesome weekend. Caption this!

Open thread!

Via the Transom, Nick Schulz in the USA Today argues that the recall elections for Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin are more important than the 2012 Presidential elections.

The claim that “this presidential election is the most important election ever” is an enduring political cliché, and it’s almost always wrong. Consider this year. It’s likely the 2012 race for the White House won’t even be the most important contest of this year, much less of all time.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is currently the target of a recall effort spearheaded by national public employee unions. If his opponents get enough signatures by Jan. 17, Wisconsin will hold a gubernatorial election this summer. The outcome is crucial to the future of the country.

* * *

Here’s why the stakes in Wisconsin are so high. Public employee unions understand that the legitimacy of collective bargaining privileges is now in question, as cash-strapped states struggle under the burden of a costly public sector. If they can knock off Walker, they send a powerful signal to other reform-oriented governors not to target collective bargaining.

Read, as they say, the whole thing. The reality is that Scott Walker has already passed more significant reforms in a hostile state in one year than most of the current GOP primary field combined. His bold efforts have helped to balance the state budget, end voting corruption, and keep numerous Wisconsin counties and cities fiscally sound. No one in the current field can claim to have accomplished these things in a liberal state during the middle of this recession.

While we all analyze, nitpick, prop up and tear down guys like Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum, the liberals are taking the opportunity to go to war against someone who has actually shown an ability to get a state’s fiscal house in order during the current economic wreck. I’d happily vote for him right now over any other candidate on the ballot, but liberals and union thugs are doing everything in their power and pulling out every dirty trick in the book to cut his tenure short, because their own place at the government trough is more important to them than the fiscal health of the country.

We’ll have more as the year goes on about how you can help get involved to beat back the union thugs and stand with Scott Walker. Just remember that the Presidential election isn’t the only one going on this year.

Back in the day, Rick Santorum was one of my favorite Senators. The guy was good on judges, a solid pro-lifer (the most important issue to me in all of politics), and he took the bull by the horns on Social Security reform even though it was tremendously unpopular in his home state. He was a key player in Welfare Reform. For a Senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum was pretty darn good, if not exactly the shrewdest operator in the caucus. A lot of the people who are criticizing him using Daily Kos talking points (and showing all the class of the average Daily Kos poster) have really lost any claim to be taken seriously as conservatives. And frankly, any alleged conservative who would mock a man for his method of grieving over a stillborn child has lost any claim to be taken seriously as a human being. Some of the would-be new cool kids in conservative circles who are mocking Santorum for his socially conservative positions are just making absolute clowns out of themselves.

That said, my reaction to the idea that Rick Santorum should be our nominee for President is pretty much:

You cannot be serious. Where is the evidence that Rick Santorum would be anything other than a disaster as President? The man has never held a management position in his life. As we have seen during the debates this year, he reacts to people disagreeing with him by immediately moving into angry, sneering whiny defensiveness. He was tremendously ineffective as a member of Senate leadership because his personality does not command loyalty or respect. As I’ve stated before, you take anyone who has never managed anything larger than a Senate staff and put them in charge of the entire executive branch and you are asking for a total and complete disaster to occur. This goes double for any Senator with temperament and leadership questions.

Read More →

Democrats generally tend to operate on the hope that most American voters can’t remember anything that happened longer than about a month ago. Very often they can get away with it, especially on something as esoteric as recess appointments or filibusters. But it is worth noting the history of this particular sordid tale which culminated yesterday, in order to understand why, even in the normal give and take that is to be expected when two parties are battling for power, Obama’s action yesterday truly was an unprecedented abuse of power.

Presidents have long used the recess appointment to fill vacancies caused by a racalcitrant Congress. Clinton used them very frequently when Republicans controlled the chamber. During the GWB administration, after the Republicans retook the Senate in 2002, the Democrats in the Senate - including one particular Democrat Senator named Barack Obama – upped the ante through the widespread use of the filibuster to block all manner of Bush appointments. It is quite rich for Obama to complain about Republican minority obstructionism when he participated in the inception of the program. In fact, in 2004, when the Senate was without question in an intra-session recess, Bush recess appointed William Pryor for a seat on the 11th Circuit Court of appeals. Senate Democrats, led by Ted Kennedy, were so incensed that they unsuccessfully sued to prevent Pryor from being seated. Ultimately their suit was unsuccessful (although it never reached the Supreme Court) because a short recess is still a recess. Thus the Democrats were ultimately impotent to prevent Bush from thwarting their filibusters via recess appointment – until, that is, they took over Congress in 2006. Then the Congressional Democrats – again including Barack Obama – devised a scheme whereby the Senate never went into recess, thus preventing Bush from making further recess appointments. In other words, we are where we are today because of something the Democrats were doing themselves three short years ago.

Against this backdrop, Barack Obama is making the claim that since he has made relatively few recess appointments during his tenure as compared to Bush, it is completely okay for him to violate the plain text of the Constitution and spit on the separation of powers. One point should be made here – the main reason Obama hasn’t had to make many recess appointments is that for the first two years of his three year Presidency his party controlled the House and also had a filibuster-proof rubber stamp majority in the Senate. The relatively small number of recess appointments is hardly evidence of any restraint on his part.

Read More →