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Entertainment

stacey dash

Stacey Dash railed against complaints of racism at the Oscars during an appearance on “Outnumbered” on Fox News.

Actress and FOX News contributor Stacey Dash is again under fire from mainstream mediates on the left for criticizing the effort by some to boycott the Oscars for failing to nominate enough minorities. That’s because Ms. Dash sees this for what it is, balderdash.

“I think its ludicrous,” Dash said. “We have to make up our minds. Either we want to have segregation or integration, and if we don’t want segregation, then we have to get rid of channels like BET and the BET Awards and the Image Awards, where you’re only awarded if you’re black. If it were the other way around, we’d be up in arms. It’s a double standard.”

Stacey Dash made a factual statement. No one can seriously argue that if the tables were turned it wouldn’t provoke an uproar. Yet, if you agree with Ms. Dash’s statement, then you are a racist or, just a “clueless” simpleton. BET responded to Dash’s comments through their social media channels. On Instagram, BET posted a still from The Game featuring Dash with the caption, “Soooooo @realstaceyldash, can we get our check back… or nah? #Remember #YouWereOnTheGame #AndWeDontMeanTheRapper.” They also tweeted a link to a post on their website titled, “Every Time Stacey Dash Proved She Was Clueless.”

Stacey also expressed her disapproval of Black History Month, which the media spun into a narrative that portrays her as someone opposed to celebrating or teaching black American heroes.

Quite the opposite.

What is wrong with teaching the struggles of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglas, or Booker T. Washington with the rest of American history. We are after all Americans; shared history is defined as the study of past events and it helps to define the bond of nation.

In America there are black-only colleges, black-only country clubs and organizations such as the NAACP, which are but shadows of their former selves that smear their once-proud history. If we are to reach true integration, as the good Rev. Al Sharpton claims is his goal, maybe some of us need to look in the mirror past the color of our skin.

History is a simple account of past events, both the good and the ugly. Neither it nor the future will be bound by color, or phony sentiment.

While Ms. Dash was trending on Twitter, one user asked if someone was willing to kill her, she was called a sociopath, an “Uncle Tom,” told to commit suicide, etc. I could go on, but there is only so much stupidity that I care to reiterate.

Let us be honest with one another, she is right. Dash is more than capable of defending herself, but I am frankly sick of the mainstream media twisting the words of conservative woman who aren’t minority enough because of their ideology. If someone doesn’t fall in line with their ideology, they’re stripped of their right to voice their opinion on issues of race.

When I responded to one Twitter user about Dash’s comments I was told that I hate all blacks. That would imply that a conservative black woman doesn’t qualify as black enough to satisfy their definition. But that’s just sadly where the political discourse on race relations is in America.

Actress and FOX News contributor Stacey Dash

Science

Ninth-Planet-Artist-Rendition

This artistic rendering shows the distant view from Planet Nine back towards the sun. (Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt)

The solar system may host a ninth planet that is about 10 times bigger than Earth and orbiting far beyond Neptune, according to research published on Wednesday. Scientists at the California Institute of Technology announced they had uncovered evidence of a giant planet existing beyond Pluto in the outer solar system.

Computer simulations show that the ninth planet, that is if it exists, would have an orbit roughly 20 times larger than the Earth’s orbit around the sun. As of now, the planet has not been observed directly. Instead, scientists have used computer simulations and observed gravitational impacts to draw the conclusion.

“This would be a real ninth planet,” researcher Mike Brown said in a press release. “There have only been two true planets discovered since ancient times, and this would be a third. It’s a pretty substantial chunk of our solar system that’s still out there to be found, which is pretty exciting.”

Brown and co-researcher Konstantin Batygin, an astronomer also at Caltech, were skeptical of the prospect that such a large planet would have eluded detection all this time. But they modeled the hypothetical planet’s gravitational effects on more than a dozen distant objects in the Kuiper Belt and found a near-perfect match.

“Still, I was very skeptical,” Batygin said. “I had never seen anything like this in celestial mechanics.”

The computer model also predicted the location of other objects beyond Neptune in a region known as the Kuiper Belt, which were also found in archived surveys, as well.

“Basically it shouldn’t happen randomly,” Brown explained. “So we thought something else must be shaping these orbits.”

At that point, “my jaw sort of hit the floor,” Brown added.

Batygin said the potential discovery would mean our solar system is more normal than scientists previously believed. Most planets in other solar systems don’t have a single orbital range and are much larger than Earth.

“One of the most startling discoveries about other planetary systems has been that the most common type of planet out there has a mass between that of Earth and that of Neptune,” Batygin explained. “Until now, we’ve thought that the solar system was lacking in this most common type of planet. Maybe we’re more normal after all.”

Brown’s earlier research helped to demote Pluto in 2006 as the solar system’s ninth planet after other small, icy bodies were found beyond Neptune.

“All those people who are mad that Pluto is no longer a planet can be thrilled to know that there is a real planet out there still to be found,” he said.

The solar system may host a ninth

Policy

greek-debt-crisis-flags

Greek flags shadowed by the Parthenon in Athens, Greece.

This isn’t intentional, but there’s been a European theme to this week’s posts. I wrote yesterday about economic chaos in France, and the previous day I wrote about the grim consequences of Italian statism.

Today, we’re going to look at Greece. In the past, I’ve explained that Greece is special, albeit in a bad way. But I’ve also asserted that Greece could be rejuvenated and could deal with its debt with the right reforms.

Heck, Greece could even renege on its debt and still enjoy an economic renaissance if it adopted the right policies. That’s the message of this short video narrated by Garett Jones of George Mason University.

[brid video=”25527″ player=”2077″ title=”Are The Greeks Villains If They Default On Their National Debt Learn Liberty”]

So the $64 question (actually, the $231,199,453,552 question according to the latest projection of Greek debt) is whether Greece will do the right kind of reform.

Unfortunately, it appears that all the bailouts have subsidized bad policy. Writing for National review, a journalist from Greece explains that his government is adding more and more taxes onto an overburdened private sector.

…the new austerity measures, which are often amusingly termed reforms, are for the most part tax increases — which may not be popular, but which conform to SYRIZA’s ideological creed. The new package agreed to by SYRIZA and Greece’s creditors is about 90 percent new taxes or tax increases and 10 percent reforms. The tax increases have the benefit of protecting SYRIZA’s core constituency, which is the public-sector employees. Despite the collapse of public revenue and the overall dismal economic outlook, the SYRIZA government plans to increase the salaries of public-sector employees (by as much as 8 percent) and carry on with 45,000 new hires in 2016. Meanwhile, in the private sector, SYRIZA has increased taxes on all sorts of things and is planning to double the taxation of farmers. It has increased business taxes and also demanded the pre-payment of business taxes. It has increased the VAT on almost all goods, and it is defining affluence down so as to increase income taxes for a greater number of taxpayers. And although Greece has probably the highest social-security contributions in Europe, SYRIZA is planning to increase these contributions even more, despite the fact that pensioners now outnumber those who are still employed in the private sector.

More pensioners that private-sector employees?!?

political cartoon welfare state wagon begins

Wow, even I’m shocked by that factoid. There definitely are far more people riding in the wagon than pulling the wagon when you add up pensioners, bureaucrats, and welfare recipients.

So you can understand why Greece is almost surely doomed.

political cartoon welfare state wagon endingEspecially when you consider that many of the people leaving Greece are the productive ones (i.e., those who normally would be pulling the wagon). Here are some passages from a story in the New York Times from last year.

From 2010 to 2013, about 218,000 Greeks emigrated, according to an estimate from the Greek statistics agency. Nearly half of them went to Germany. …Resentments against Germany — Greece’s most powerful creditor — quickly fade when it comes to the prospect of a regular paycheck. Many of those leaving Greece are highly educated professionals and scientists seeking greater opportunity and better pay. An estimated 135,000 Greeks with post-secondary degrees have left since 2010 and are working abroad, according to Lois Labrianidis, an economic geographer and official in Greece’s Economy Ministry. “We think this is human capital that is crucial for the development of the country,” Mr. Labrianidis told me recently, calling the departures a “major blow.” …While much of the attention on recent Greek emigration has focused on the highly educated, I’ve been surprised by the number of working-class Greeks I’ve met who left due to financial desperation.

But there’s one group of people who aren’t leaving.

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that they are the bureaucrats. As noted in this report from the U.K.-based Telegraph, their privileged position is zealously protected by vote-buying politicians.

The other thing most people in the area seem to agree on is that the biggest impediment to progress is the size of Greece’s public sector. The country has a population of 10 million, of which 2.5 million are pensioners, one million are government employees and two million work in the private sector. A further 1.7 million are unemployed. The rest are children or students. “So you can see why the current situation is unsustainable,” says Tryfon. “The only solution is for the public sector to be cut back. But every government since the crisis has chosen to raise taxes, while doing little to stimulate the private sector because they only want to protect votes.” “…Public sector employees and pensioners are the first to get paid and the only ones to get paid on time. We need investment into the private sector, but there is no motivation for companies to come to Greece…” a company would be nuts to invest in a politically unstable country, creaking under debt and crippled by an incredibly punitive tax regime. “What business will invest in a Greece when it takes six months to set up a company compared to Cyprus where it takes 15 minutes?” asks Dimitris Karkavitsas, an investment banker-turned-strawberry farmer. …the young engineer, says everyone who tries to make it in the private sector gets strangled. “The tax is killing us,” he says. …In the meantime, the public sector remains a massive beast.

Moreover, when you set up a company in Cyprus, there’s never a risk that you’ll be required to provide disgusting forms of DNA  as part of bureaucratic requirements.

Yet rather than be outraged by overpaid and meddlesome bureaucrats, I suspect most Greeks probably think how they can get on that gravy train. Which explains why, in  an interview, I said the Greeks shouldn’t be allowed to “loot and mooch their way through life.”

Until and unless they learn that lesson, the nation is doomed to societal collapse.

P.S. Another sign of Greece’s moral and fiscal bankruptcy is that pedophiles can get disability payments.

P.P.S. To offset the grim message of today’s column, let’s also enjoy some Greek-related humor.

This cartoon is quite  good, but this this one is my favorite. And the final cartoon in this post also has a Greek theme.

We also have a couple of videos. The first one features a video about…well, I’m not sure, but we’ll call it a European romantic comedy and the second one features a Greek comic pontificating about Germany.

Last but not least, here are some very un-PC maps of how various peoples – including the Greeks – view different European nations.

[mybooktable book=”global-tax-revolution-the-rise-of-tax-competition-and-the-battle-to-defend-it” display=”summary” buybutton_shadowbox=”true”]

Greece could even renege on its debt

Economy

new-home-construction-housing-starts

(Photo: Reuter

The Commerce Department reports starts of new home construction dropped 2.5% last month to an annualized rate of 1.15 million units, while Wall Street expected a rise to 1.20 million units. Permits to build new homes, meanwhile, slipped 3.9% to an annualized rate of 1.23 million units, a smaller decline than the 1.20 million units expected.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said November’s starts were revised to a 1.8 million-unit rate from the initially reported 1.17 million-unit pace.

However, December was still the ninth straight month that starts came in above 1 million units, which is the longest period since 2007. Housing starts averaged 1.11 million units in 2015, also the highest since 2007 and up from 1.00 million units in 2014.

Building permits fell 3.9% to a 1.23 million-unit rate last month. The decline followed two months of larger-than-anticipated gains. Permits for the construction of single-family homes, which represents the vast majority of the market, increased 1.8% in December. Further, multi-family building permits tumbled 11.4%.

The Commerce Department reports starts of new

Economy

consumer prices gas

Consumer Price Index (CPI) reporting on gas prices from the Labor Department.

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers showed inflation at the consumer level fell 0.1% last month, slightly missing economists’ expectations for a flat reading. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which conducts the CPI for the Labor Department, said–excluding the food and energy components–consumer prices rose 0.1%, also slightly lower than the 0.2% forecast.

Table A. Percent changes in CPI for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U): U.S. city
 average
                                                                               
                                                                               
                                  Seasonally adjusted changes from             
                                          preceding month                      
                                                                          Un-  
                                                                       adjusted
                                                                        12-mos.
                              June  July  Aug.  Sep.  Oct.  Nov.  Dec.   ended 
                              2015  2015  2015  2015  2015  2015  2015   Dec.  
                                                                         2015  
                                                                               
                                                                               
 All items..................    .3    .1   -.1   -.2    .2    .0   -.1       .7
  Food......................    .3    .2    .2    .4    .1   -.1   -.2       .8
   Food at home.............    .4    .3    .3    .3    .1   -.3   -.5      -.4
   Food away from home (1)..    .2    .0    .2    .5    .2    .2    .1      2.6
  Energy....................   1.7    .1  -2.0  -4.7    .3  -1.3  -2.4    -12.6
   Energy commodities.......   3.1    .7  -4.1  -8.6    .4  -2.4  -4.0    -20.0
    Gasoline (all types)....   3.4    .9  -4.1  -9.0    .4  -2.4  -3.9    -19.7
    Fuel oil (1)............  -1.9  -3.4  -8.1  -2.4  -1.1  -1.3  -7.8    -31.4
   Energy services..........    .2   -.6    .5   -.4    .2   -.1   -.8     -4.3
    Electricity.............    .2   -.4    .3   -.5    .4    .3   -.4     -1.2
    Utility (piped) gas                                                        
       service..............    .3  -1.4   1.2   -.3   -.7  -1.9  -2.3    -14.9
  All items less food and                                                      
     energy.................    .2    .1    .1    .2    .2    .2    .1      2.1
   Commodities less food and                                                   
      energy commodities....   -.1   -.1   -.1    .0   -.1   -.2   -.1      -.4
    New vehicles............    .1   -.2    .0   -.1   -.2    .1   -.1       .2
    Used cars and trucks....   -.4   -.6   -.4   -.2   -.3   -.1    .1       .4
    Apparel.................   -.1    .3    .3   -.3   -.8   -.3   -.2      -.9
    Medical care commodities    .0    .1    .3   -.2    .2    .3   -.1      1.5
   Services less energy                                                        
      services..............    .3    .2    .1    .3    .3    .3    .2      2.9
    Shelter.................    .3    .4    .2    .3    .3    .2    .2      3.2
    Transportation services     .4   -.2   -.3    .1    .2    .6    .3      2.6
    Medical care services...   -.2    .1    .0    .3    .8    .4    .1      2.9

   1 Not seasonally adjusted.

From the Report:

The indexes for energy and food both declined for the second month in a row, leading to the decline in the seasonally adjusted all items index. The energy index fell 2.4 percent as all major component energy indexes declined. The food index fell 0.2 percent as the index for food at home decreased 0.5 percent, led by a sharp decline in the index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.1 percent in December, its smallest increase since August. The index for shelter continued to rise, and the indexes for medical care, household furnishings and operations, motor vehicle insurance, education, used cars and trucks, and tobacco also increased in December. However, a number of indexes declined, including those for apparel, airline fares, personal care, new vehicles, and communication.

The all items index rose 0.7 percent over the last 12 months, compared to the 0.5 percent 12 month increase for the period ending November. The food index rose 0.8 percent over the last 12 months, though the index for food at home declined. The energy index fell 12.6 percent, with all its major components decreasing. The index for all items less food and energy increased 2.1 percent over the last 12 months.

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban

World

Pakistan-Bacha-Khan-University

Soldiers holds their caps as a helicopter flies past during an operation, after a militant attack at Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, Pakistan, January 20, 2016.
(Photo: Reuters/Fayaz Aziz)

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for an attack by multiple gunmen at a university in northwestern Pakistan that killed at least 20. Officials say all four of the attackers have been killed. A senior Pakistani Taliban commander first claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, but an official spokesman later denied the group was involved, calling the attack “un-Islamic”.

Islamists stormed a university in the volatile on Wednesday, a little more than a year after the massacre of 134 students at a school in the area. A security official said the death toll could rise to as high as 40 at Bacha Khan University in the city of Charsadda. The army said it had concluded operations to clear the campus six hours after the attack began and that four gunmen were dead.

Numerous schools closed early around Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, after rumors circulated of a possible attack. The area has been on edge since the December 2014 massacre by six gunmen in Peshawar. Taliban Islamic extremists attacked an army school in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar in Dec. 2014, killing 126 people. Of those dead, the overwhelming majority were between the ages of 12- to 16-years-old, or students grade 1 – 10.

The Peshawar army school attack was seen as having hardened Pakistan’s resolve to fight militants along its lawless border with Afghanistan. The mastermind of the attack, a known Taliban operative, called it “justified” and helped to turn public opinion against the group in a country where nearly 100% say they believe Sharia (Islamic Law) should be the law of the land.

“We are determined and resolved in our commitment to wipe out the menace of terrorism from our homeland,” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a statement after Wednesday’s attack.

The Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for the

Politics

Palin-Trump-Iowa

Former vice presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, left, endorses Donald Trump, right, at Iowa University in Ames on January 20, 2015. (Photo: Reuters/Mark Kauzlarich)

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is currently weathering the worst 48-hour news cycle of his campaign, getting hit with a one-two punch in his must-win state. In Iowa on Tuesday, former vice presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin endorsed Cruz’s chief rival and national frontrunner Donald Trump. Flying in from The Last Frontier to Iowa University in Ames, Palin

“You’re putting relationships on the line for this country because you’re willing to make America great again,” she said at the rally. “I am here because like you, I know it’s now or never.”

“I’m in it to win it because we believe in America.”

In an interview with CNN conducted before the endorsement was announced, Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler said Palin endorsing Trump would be “a blow to Sarah Palin” because she “has been a champion for the conservative cause, and if she was going to endorse Donald Trump, sadly, she would be endorsing someone who’s held progressive views all their life …” But, he added, “I’d be deeply disappointed.”

Cruz quickly sought to undo the optical damage, , tweeting: “I love @SarahPalinUSA. Without her support, I wouldn’t be in the Senate. Regardless of what she does in 2016, I will always be a big fan.”

That’s a reference to the former governor’s support for Cruz over the establishment favorite then-Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst during the U.S. Senate primary in Texas. Though she has backed away from the spotlight to some degree, Palin’s endorsement still carries weight. She got behind now-Sen. Joni Ernst in a crowded GOP primary field she went on to dominate in 2014. Palin’s endorsement was not the only one Trump received Tuesday. While campaigning at Iowa’s John Wayne Birthplace Museum, he received an endorsement from the western film actor’s daughter, Aissa Wayne.

The endorsements came after Iowa’s Republican Gov. Terry Branstad called for voters to reject Cruz and flat-out told reporters he wanted to see Cruz defeated. However, there is a silver lining for the Texas senator. Branstad, the nation’s longest serving governor in history, is not as popular among Iowans as he once was.

Branstad labeled Cruz a “big oil” candidate whose victory would be “very damaging to our state.”

“It would be a big mistake for Iowa to support him,” Branstad said. “And I know he’s ahead in the polls but the only poll that counts is the one they take on caucus night and I think that could change between now and then.”

Asked by a reporter whether he wants to see Cruz defeated, Branstad answered: “Yes.”

“I don’t think that Ted Cruz is the right one for Iowans to support in the caucus,” he added after the news conference.

Worth noting, the governor’s son Eric runs a pro-ethanol group that has been trailing candidates across the state. They have repeatedly warned against the senator’s stance on ethanol subsidies, which he supports phasing out. Branstad’s condemnation of Cruz wasn’t at all an endorsement of Trump, however. To Cruz’s credit, the governor is more politically aligned with establishment candidates, such as Chris Christie and Jeb Bush.

With less than two weeks before the Iowa caucus on Tuesday Feb. 1, 2016, Trump has retaken a slight (statistically insignificant) lead on the PPD average of aggregate polling in the Hawkeye State. While it is widely believed Cruz has the better ground game, a Trump operative told PPD earlier this week that they expect to break caucus turnout records, as they strive to register new caucus-goers.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is currently weathering

Opinion

Clinton-Sanders-Dem-Debate-AP

Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., gestures towards Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton during the NBC, YouTube Democratic presidential debate at the Gaillard Center, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016, in Charleston, S.C. (Photo: AP/Mic Smith)

Hillary Clinton: “Of course we want to raise the minimum wage!”

Donald Trump: If we trade with China, “they suck us dry … take everything. We get nothing!”

Bernie Sanders: “Ordinary Americans are working longer hours for lower wages.”

But it’s not true! Politicians are so ignorant about economics.

On his blog, Cafe Hayek, George Mason University professor Donald Boudreaux says his main job is showing students that much of what they believe about economics is wrong. I wish he taught presidential candidates.

Sen. Sanders simply gets facts wrong. Today Americans work fewer hours — down from about 2,000 hours per year to 1,800 over the past 60 years — and earn more. It’s true that the rich got even richer, but the poor and middle class have done better, too, with about 40 percent higher salaries for the middle class and 48 percent more for the poor over the past 35 years. Politicians lie.

Donald Trump doesn’t understand trade. Even if China “dumps” goods on America, we don’t “get nothing” — we get the goods. As Trevor Woolley posted on my Facebook page, “The fact that the free market is based on consensual transaction means that no trade can decrease anyone’s wellbeing.”

Right. Since trade is voluntary, no trade happens unless both sides think they will gain. Trade may eliminate jobs in some industries, but it creates jobs elsewhere, more jobs, and creates wealth for the vast majority.

Helping some American companies by restricting foreign imports, as Donald Trump vows to do, sounds nice, but you can’t restrict goods available to American consumers without reducing competition. Protected from competition, companies get lazier, less productive. They innovate less. Prices rise.

Hillary Clinton’s minimum wage will help some workers, but overall, it should be obvious it’s a job killer. If a minimum really could increase wages without harm, why are politicians so cheap? Let’s have a $1,000 minimum wage! But it’s just basic economics: If you increase the price of something, people buy less of it. That applies to workers hired, not just goods.

More myths:

–Prices and wages are simply “set” by businesses.
–The rich get richer at the expense of the poor.
–Price increases after natural disasters are caused by “greed” and should be stopped by laws against “gouging.”
–Rent control makes housing affordable.
–Business taxes are paid by business.
–Supporters of free markets are “pro-business” and (hence) “anti-consumer.”

These are simple notions about economics into which our brains lazily fall. But none is true.

For example, supporters of free markets (like me) don’t necessarily support business. I won 19 Emmy awards criticizing businesses. Corporations can be enemies of free markets because they don’t want competition. They routinely lobby politicians to squelch it.

Boudreaux says his students arrive on the first day of class thinking businesses just “set” prices and wages. But businesses can’t do that. Companies lose customers if they price goods higher than competitors do.

Wages can’t be set at will either. Sure, what boss wouldn’t like to pay a workforce one dollar per year? But other companies need laborers too, and those that underpay lose good workers. So the bidding process continues endlessly — it’s why the median household income in the U.S. is more than $50,000 a year. That wouldn’t happen if bosses could just wake up and decide, “Let’s pay workers less!”

The credit for good wages doesn’t go to labor unions or politicians’ passing a minimum wage, though they sure hog the credit. The credit goes to market competition and a growing economy. After all, 95 percent of workers earn more than minimum wage, and most jobs aren’t unionized.

Politicians can’t see the wonders that the market provides, but they somehow see everything government does as a blessing — taxes that cut into people’s pay and regulations that make it more expensive to produce. They don’t see that their well-intended “pro-consumer” rules raise prices and reduce choice.

I wish more Americans learned basic economics from economists like Boudreaux — or from me! At StosselintheClassroom.org, I offer teachers free videos that illustrate economic principles and debunk myths like the ones listed above.

Politicians, on the other hand, are lousy teachers.

John Stossel says Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders,

Opinion

Judge Napolitano: Roe vs. Wade Legalized Murder, as Pernicious to Human Life as Dred Scott

MINNEAPOLIS ANTI ABORTION RALLY

An estimated 5,000 people march around the Minnesota Capitol building protesting the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, ruling against state laws that criminalize abortion on Jan. 22, 1973, when the Supreme Court legalized abortion with a 7-2 vote.

In one week during January 1973, President Richard M. Nixon was inaugurated to his second term, former President Lyndon B. Johnson died, the United States and North Vietnam entered into the Paris Peace Accords, and the Supreme Court legalized abortion. Only the last of these events continues to affect and haunt the moral and constitutional order every minute of every day.

The Court’s decision in Roe vs. Wade is arguably its most controversial in the post-World War II era. Its effect has been as pernicious to human life as was its 19th century intellectual progenitor, Dred Scott vs. Sanford, in which the Supreme Court ruled that African-Americans are not persons.

Roe declares that the states may not ban abortions during the first trimester of a woman’s pregnancy because the states have no interest in or right to protect the baby during that time period. This made-up rule was a radical and unconstitutional departure from nearly 200 years of jurisprudence, during which the states themselves decided what interests to protect, guided since the end of the Civil War by the prohibition on slavery, and the requirements of due process and equal protection.

During the second trimester of pregnancy, the Court declared in Roe, states may regulate abortions but only to protect the health of the mother, not the life or health of the baby, in which, the Court found, the states have no interest. This, too, was a radical departure from well-settled law.

Under Roe, during the third trimester of pregnancy, the states may ban abortions or they may permit them; they may protect the life of the baby or they may not protect it. This diabolic rule, the product of judicial compromise and an embarrassing and destructive rejection of the Civil War era constitutional amendments, permits the states to allow abortions up to the moment before birth, as is the law in New Jersey, where the state even pays for abortions for those who cannot afford them.

The linchpin of Roe vs. Wade is the judicial determination that the baby in the womb is not a person. The Court felt it was legally necessary to make this dreadful declaration because the Constitution guarantees due process (a fair jury trial, and its attendant constitutional protections) whenever the government wants to interfere with the life, liberty or property of any person; and it prohibits the states from permitting some persons to violate the basic human rights of others, as was the case under slavery. As the Supreme Court sometimes does, it ruled on an issue and came to a conclusion that none of the litigants before it had sought.

Roe candidly recognizes that if the fetus in the womb is a person, then all laws permitting abortion are unconstitutional. The Court understood that abortion and fetal personhood would constitute the states permitting private persons to murder other persons. So, in order to accommodate the killing, it simply redefined the meaning of “person,” lest it permit a state of affairs that due process and the prohibition of slavery could never tolerate. George Orwell predicted this horrific and totalitarian use of words in 1949 in his unnerving description of tyranny, “1984.”

Is the fetus in the womb a person? No court has contradicted the Supreme Court on this, and the Roe supporters argue that non-personhood is necessary for sexual freedom. Think about that: The pro-abortion rights crowd, rejecting the natural and probable consequences of ordinary, healthy sexual intercourse, wants to continue to kill babies in the name of sexual freedom.

I take a back seat to no one when it comes to personal freedom. But the freedom to kill innocents violates all norms of civilized society. It violates the natural law. It wasn’t even condoned in the state of nature, before governments existed. It violates the 13th and 14th Amendments. Yet, the Supreme Court and numerous Congresses have refused to interfere with it. It is a grave and profound evil. It is legalized murder.

Is the fetus in the womb a person? Since the fetus has human parents and all the needed human genome to develop postnatally, of course the fetus is a person.

A simple one-line statute could have been enacted when Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush were in the White House and Republicans and anti-abortion Democrats (the handful that have made it to Congress) controlled the Congress. They could have ended the slaughter by legislatively defining the fetus in the womb to be a person. They did not.

Are the self-proclaimed anti-abortion folks in Congress sincere, or do they march under the anti-abortion banner just to win votes?

Their failure to attempt to define the fetus in the womb as a person seriously, and the Supreme Court’s unprecedented dance around the requirement of due process and the prohibition of slavery has resulted in 44 million abortions in 43 years. That’s an abortion every minute. Abortion is today one of the most frequent medical procedures performed in America; and the Democrats have become its champion.

They, and their few Republican allies, have become the champions of totalitarianism as well. The removal of legal personhood from human offspring in order to destroy the offspring is only the work of tyrants. How long can a society last that violates universal norms and kills its babies in the name of “sexual freedom”?

Whose personhood will the government define away next?

I take a back seat to no

World

Jihadi-John-Mohamed-Emwazi

Mohamed Emwazi, a.k.a. Jihadi John, was reportedly killed in a drone strike in Raqqa, Syria on Nov. 12, 2015. (Photos: Rowan Griffiths/AP)

The Islamic State (ISIS) confirmed that the masked executioner known as Jihadi John was killed on Nov. 12th 2015 in the latest issue of its Dabiq magazine. Last November, the Pentagon told PPD it was “reasonably certain” that Mohammed Emwazi was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Raqqa, the Islamic State’s capital in Syria.

“On Thursday, the 29th of Muharram, 1437 (Nov. 12, 2015), Ab Muhrib finally achieved shahdah (martyrdom) for the cause of Allah, which he had sought for so long, as the car he was in was targeted in a strike by an unmanned drone in the city of Raqqah, destroying the car and killing him instantly,” Dabiq reads.

Jihad John appeared in the beheading videos of American journalists Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as Peter Kassig, the aid worker and former Army Ranger. Of course, those are just a few of Jihad John’s victims.

“A side of Abū Muhārib that wasn’t witnessed except by those who knew him was his mercy, kindness, and gener-osity towards the believers, his protective jealousy for Islam and its people, and his affection towards the orphans,” the obituary read. “Of the deeds that attest to his kindness and generosity is that after receiving a sabiyyah (concubine) as a gift he did not hesitate to give her away – likewise as a gift – to an unmar-ried injured brother.”

The Islamic State characterizes Dabiq as “a periodical magazine focusing on the issues oftawhid (unity),manhaj (truth-seeking), hijrah (migration), jihad (holy war) and jama’ah (community). It will also contain photo reports, current events, and informative articles on matters relating to the Islamic State.” Dabiq, the sophisticated periodical publication aimed at recruiting jihadists from the West. is named after a location in Syria that Islamists believe to be the location for one of the final battles against the infidels.

The Islamic State (ISIS) confirmed that the

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