On this fortieth anniversary, let's pray: For the more than 55,000,000 lives that have been snuffed out by abortion, for the women (and men) who have suffered emotional or psychological trauma as a result of abortion, for those who heal and comfort them, for those who help women choose life, and even for those who think that having a "right" to end the lives of unborn children is something to celebrate.

There are circumstances where abortion may be a sad necessity or justifiable (life of the mother, rape, incest).  But it's hard to see how anyone can feel joy at the brutality and enormous waste of human potential that abortion represents.

Perhaps a better feminism would ask why having the right to "control" one's body is defined as having the right to kill a new life within it, rather than being understood to be the ability (and obligation) to be selective about the circumstances under which -- and the people with whom -- one chooses to engage in an activity that (even with birth control) nevertheless always carries at least some potential for the creation of a human life.  Why, when there's a "crisis pregnancy," do so many in our culture encourage vulnerable women to eliminate the child, rather than seek help in the crisis?

Everyone matters.  Every life is precious.  There are those who care, and those who can help.

It's been reported that President Obama's goal is to help Democrats retake the House in 2014.

If so, he's picked a strange way to go about it.  Pushing gun control right out of the chute isn't likely to do much to persuade voters who elected Republican congressmen even in the midst of the 2012 campaign to switch to a Democrat.  In fact, it's more likely to imperil Democratic senators in places like Alaska, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Montana and South Dakota.   

Obama obviously was feeling his oats with an inaugural speech tickling the fancy of every lefty within hearing or reading distance.  But Democrats serious about retaking the House or holding the Senate must have been holding their noses as he invoked gay rights and renewable energy, and extolled climate change in the context of responsibility to our children while somehow forgetting about the avalanche of debt, out-of-control spending, entitlement obligations and stagnating growth that, if left unaddressed, will crush them.  

The midterm election of a President's second term has historically not treated his party well.  Either President Obama believes he will defy historical trends once again or he simply isn't serious about any effort to secure a majority in the House and hold the Senate.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that today is also Blue Monday.

In the spirit of the day, here are some statistics worth noting. Since 1/20/09:

The unemployment rate is the same.

That's even with more than eight million Americans opting out of the labor force -- the lowest labor force participation rate since 1981.

The price of gas has almost doubled.

15 millions more Americans now receive food stamps.

Of course, the media continues to block and tackle for its Messiah.  And most frightening of all, the President himself tweeted (from church, no less!) that today marks the beginning of his opportunity to "finish what [he's] started."

Oh, great. 

Well, at least we can pray that President Obama will do what is right for America.

I am NOT a fan of Alex Jones; in my view, it's no accident that lefties like Piers Morgan use him as a way to embarrass conservatives.  But a reader sent me the video below and it is truly astonishing -- on his show, the ObamaPhone Lady recanted her support for the President.  How many more Americans feel the same way?

Hugh Hewitt shared his thoughts on the future of conservatism, as part of a symposium for Commentary.  From that piece:

Conservatives are, first and chiefly, charged with protecting the Constitution, and in this era that means insisting on the rights of the House, and of the states and people they represent, while providing the appropriations necessary to fund the military. It means insisting that the president govern as any president was intended to govern: only with the funds given him by the Congress, for the purposes they are given, only with the authorities allocated to him by the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court, and only insofar as he does not injure the powers reserved to the states or trample on the rights of individuals.

Read the whole piece here.

It's a bad day to be one of the (dwindling number of) women of childbearing age in Southwestern Pennsylvania.  

A southwestern Pennsylvania hospital will stop delivering babies after March 31 because its obstetricians are either leaving or refocusing their practices, and because hospital officials believe they can't afford it based on projected reimbursements under looming federal health care reforms.
. . .

Hospital officials say the population of women of child-bearing age is dropping and that the number of births the hospital would be called upon to perform isn't enough for it to provide the service in the face of lower reimbursements under the federal Affordable Care Act.

But on the bright side, at least no one "important" lives there . . . nobody around but those "bitter clingers."

President Obama has spent a lot of time excoriating the "rich" who refuse to pay "their fair share."  It's a transparent effort to divide and conquer Americans based on wealth -- as transparent as his hostility to those who prosper as a result of their own hard work and initiative (of course "you didn't build that"!).

But don't misunderstand: President Obama isn't really interested in "leveling." everyone.  He's simply determined to establish a different hierarchy of privilege -- one which, conveniently, puts him at the top. In Obama's America, there shouldn't be "rich" and "poor," don't you know.  

But it's increasingly clear that he has no problem with making invidious distinctions between the "important" people (i.e., those in government) and the "ordinary" people.  It has nothing to do with (evil) money, and everything to do with power over others.  It's a literal "Ruling Class" -- and for the most part, you can't just work hard and get ahead to gain access to it.  You've got to join up with Big Government.

If you're "important," your children attend schools with plenty of armed guards.  If you're "ordinary," your children attend school in "gun free zones." 

If you're "important," your average pension is 2-3 times what a retiring private sector executive with a comparable salary could expect to get.  If you're "ordinary," you get what you get.

If you're "important," you're part of FEHB, which offers a variety of excellent, competitively-priced health insurance plans with different menus of benefits.  If you're "ordinary," you get ObamaCare.

If you're "important" (like Dianne Feinstein) and you fear assassination by a terrorist group, you have easy access to a weapon for concealed carry.  But if you're just an "ordinary" woman who fears being murdered at the hands of a stalker or a crazy ex-husband, you'd better hope you can run the regulatory gauntlet before he catches up with you.

If you're "important," you make more money for doing less work.  If you're "ordinary," you're lucky to have a job.

As for himself personally, a guy who's so hostile to those who have "built" something in the business world, President Obama seems to have no problem enjoying the cushy vacations, private planes and other perks that far exceed what almost any corporate titan enjoys.  But then, he's "important" -- which means, rather than having earned the money he spends so lavishly, the taxpayers have the honor of subsidizing him.

Marc Ambinder posits that the gun debate might be elevated by the invocation of "civic character":

[A]fter the 2nd amendment was passed, the number of gun regulations in states and localities expanded significantly. It was absolutely OK to regulate gun use; that wasn't terribly controversial until the 1960s, actually. But regulation was predicated on men being able to possess them in the first place. One example: In Pennsylvania, if you refused to swear a loyalty oath to the state during the American revolution, your firearm could be confiscated. Massachusetts forbade those who participated in Shay's rebellion from re-arming themselves, ever. What Fordham University historians Saul Cornell and Nathan DeDino call the "civic character" of gun ownership might well be a way to discuss the debate going forward.

It's a nice idea but -- forgive my cynicism -- it's of doubtful efficacy.  That's because liberals invoke concepts of "character" only in selected contexts for the propagation of their favored policies.

I (and, I suspect, most other conservatives) would be open to (even enthusiastic about!) discussing the "'civic character' of gun ownership" -- but only in the context of a discussion on "civic character" as a whole. Some topics that might fruitfully come up: Is it good "civic character" to try to isolate and demonize one (productive) segment of society for America's economic woes?  Is it good "civic character" to lie about the goals, character and aims of one's opposition? How about MSM efforts to make Christians look ignorant, and the pervasive double standard between coverage of Dems and Republicans?

What kind of "civic character" is demonstrated by the fact that Democrats seem reluctant to restrict the use of taxpayer dollars by welfare recipients at strip clubs?  In an era of cheap and readily accessible birth control, what does it say about our "civic character" that nearly half of all pregnancies in the US are "unintended" and 40% of them result in abortion (here's a summary of the public economic impact).  How about consistently attributing genuine policy differences to invidious motives -- like racism?

Here's the point: Just about everyone in the GOP would be delighted to have a robust discussion on "civic character." But there's no way that discussion should be limited only to the topics hand-picked by Democrats.  And we've seen the full extent of the left's hypocrisy in the aftermath of the high-minded calls for "civility."  Exhibit A: A Democrat president and senators using a vulgar double entendre to denigrate those who disagree with them politically.

So forgive my skepticism about similar invocations of an undefined "civic character" in the context of the gun debate -- but my sense is that it's only the newest iteration of the familiar old "civility" hypocrisy.  Been there, done that.

In the wake of a deplorable decision by the Journal News to publish the names and addresses of law-abiding citizens with gun permits,  a home in White Plains, NY was targeted by burglars attempting to steal the guns

If a New York victim of gun violence is to be allowed the right to sue a gun manufacturers and distributor, for argument's sake, wouldn't it seem that the victim of the White Plains crime would have a strong case for suing the Journal News? After all, in both cases, criminal third parties took the product provided by the businesses at issue and misused it for criminal purposes.  If gun manufacturers and distributors are liable for crimes committed with their product (guns), shouldn't newspapers be liable for crimes committed with theirs (information) when it is recklessly and negligently provided, and a reasonable person would realize that there is a substantial likelihood that it will result in injury or danger, especially to private citizens who have done nothing to merit particular scrutiny?

Sure, there are First Amendment rights that deserve protection.  But there are Second Amendment rights, too.  Both should be protected, but neither should be abused.

New questions are being asked about the ethics of Sen. Harry Reid; a Utah businessman is alleging that his state's attorney general demanded $600,000 as a bribe to Reid in exchange for dismissal of a federal investigation.

Certainly the allegations could be false, but it's worth noting this isn't the first time Reid's name has come up in connection with some pretty shady propositions.  Remember the lucrative, underpriced land deal?  Or the green energy conflict? There's so much there, pithily summed up by Investors Business Daily as follows:

. . .shadowy years he ran the Nevada Gaming Commission, through his public embarrassment over the Los Angeles Times investigation into his son and son-in-law's Washington lobbying activities,the ethics investigation into the free tickets Reid happily accepted to boxing matches and the successful land development deal that ended up netting Reid $1 million when he sold it, in an amazing coincidence, to a friend and it became a shopping center.

As a general matter, it's right to wait until serious allegations are actually substantiated before repeating them.  But in the case of Harry Reid, an exception is entirely warranted.