Robert Creamer–Democrat strategist, Obama 2008 campaign aide, and political architect of ObamaCare–argues that the new contraceptive mandate for Catholic institutions isn’t really about equality for women, or religious liberty.

Rather, it is about population control.

Creamer–like his wife, the pro-abortion Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)–embraces the left-wing fallacy that children are a burden on the planet, which the state should encourage the church–and everyone else–to limit.

At 6:16-7:03 in the video below, by CNS News, Schakowsky describes abortion as “most often” a “responsible decision” to control the size of their families:

Writing in the Huffington Post yesterday, Creamer declared:

…[T]here is a worldwide consensus that the use of birth control is one of society’s most important moral priorities. Far from being something that should be discouraged, or is controversial, the use of birth control is critical to the survival and success of humanity….It is simply not possible for this small planet to sustain that kind of exponential human population growth. If we do, the result will be poverty, war, the depletion of our natural resources and famine. Fundamentally, the Reverend [Thomas] Malthus was right–except that the result is not inevitable….That’s why it is our moral imperative to act responsibly and encourage each other to use birth control.

Malthus’s late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century views, which still inspire much of today’s environmental movement, have been repeatedly disproved over the course of two centuries. Economic freedom, growth and innovation have made human society vastly more productive and efficient. (more…)

Cross-Posted:TobyToons.com (Conservative Political Cartoons)

Rick Santorum may be about to do what was unimaginable to most people just a few weeks ago: take 2 of 3 states from Mitt Romney. Yet Santorum is still considered a long shot for the Republican nomination, and the presidency. That is because his campaign has lacked money and organization; he is still failing to qualify for ballots in several states, for example. But it is also because Santorum’s social conservatism is seen as a liability.

Rick Santorum in Minnesota (Photo: AP / Washington Times)

Conventional wisdom has long held that the 2012 election would be about fiscal and economic issues, not social issues such as abortion or gay marriage. The Tea Party movement seemed to have put limited-government issues ahead of social issues on the Republican agenda. And controversy over the religious views of presidential candidates like Michele Bachmann seemed an obstacle to their success in the general election.

But social conservatism may be due for a revival, for three reasons. First, the Obama administration and the left in general have provoked fights with religious communities. Catholic voters are upset by Obama’s decision to force religious institutions to offer contraceptives and abortifacients under ObamaCare; opponents of gay marriage are upset by (largely) liberal efforts to overturn Proposition 8, California’s 2008 referendum. (more…)

Last April, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) took a few minutes from his schedule to talk to a Planned Parenthood group from Cleveland about Ohio Republicans “going after women, and reproductive rights.” Sherrod went to great lengths to make abortion sound like a reason America needs bigger government.

For pro-life Ohioans like myself, the “Heartbeat Bill” to ban abortions after a baby’s heartbeat can be heard sounds like a great idea. According to pro-choice Ohioans, it’s terrible. Surely a U.S. senator with a diploma from Yale and two master’s degrees can dissect the legislation on its merits and explain why abortion on demand is a vital “reproductive right” …right?

Sherrod Brown being Sherrod Brown, what we get instead is a jumbled diatribe making frequent nods to Big Labor. He treats any conflict with his cartoonish Progressive mindset as an example of conservatives “going after” the rights of men, women, and children (wait, scratch that last one) everywhere.

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The following statement has just been released by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation:

DALLAS – February 3, 2012 – We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.  The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen.  We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood.  They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation.  We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair. (more…)

Recently, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation announced that it would longer offer funds and grants to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading abortion mill operator. This decision has sent Planned Parenthood over the edge of both sanity and civility with a new fundraising letter that dispenses with its past staid talk about women’s healthcare and goes straight for thuggish threats of retaliation, finger pointing, and attacks on other women.

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, a well known breast cancer-fighting charity, decided to withhold further donations to the abortion provider for several reasons, one of which is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation by Congress for violating various state abortion laws.

Last month, the Associated Press reported Komen’s new criteria and why it is excluding PP. “Komen spokeswoman Leslie Aun said the cutoff results from the charity’s newly adopted criteria barring grants to organizations that are under investigation by local, state or federal authorities,” the report said. “According to Komen, this applies to Planned Parenthood because it’s the focus of an inquiry launched by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., seeking to determine whether public money was improperly spent on abortions.”

The foundation gave more than $569,000 to Planned Parenthood in 2010. (more…)

The case of Dr. Steven Chase Brigham grows ever more disturbing. Brigham has a long history of jumping from state to state in an attempt to collect as much cash as possible for the termination of not only viable fetuses, but baby’s that would almost certainly have survived because of their advanced growth and development. The doctor has faced charges, license revocations, and clinic closures in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Florida, and New York, yet has still maintained his deadly operation simply by packing up and moving.

Mental Recession readers have already been briefed on how the Democratic political machine in Albany, New York, allowed Dr. Brigham to escape relatively unscathed, being charged only with fraud despite evidence that abortions had been performed on fetuses that exceeded 24 weeks.

Details are emerging about his recent arrest for murder and they are not good. This is a man that knows the laws of the states in which he operates his clinics, and knows them well. So much so that Brigham had developed a scheme in which he started abortion procedures in his New Jersey clinic, then ferried patients to his clinic in Maryland where the laws on late-term abortions were a little more relaxed.

The Times Colonist has reported that the crux of this murder investigation centers around one such case.

The investigation began in August 2010, when a young woman sought an abortion from the pair.

The abortion was induced in New Jersey and the patient was then transported across state lines into Maryland, according to the Elkton police statement.

Operation Rescue, which has done a fantastice job of tracking the murderous trail left behind by Dr. Brigham, has a copy of his indictment, which includes 5 counts of first-degree murder, and 5 counts of second-degree murder.

More chillingly, they have obtained logs of the abortions that were performed in Brigham’s Maryland clinic. They include several abortions performed on fetuses that had developed well over 8 months, including one seen below that had been documented at 36 weeks!

And if you’re thinking that this doesn’t indicate much of anything since Brigham’s name is not on the patient log, think again. The ‘Dr. Shepard’ in the above referenced document was nothing more than a cover according to Operation Rescue President, Troy Newman.

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A potentially huge Democratic scandal is brewing in upstate New York, regarding a trophy-keeping abortion practitioner who had a collection of 17 frozen fetuses confiscated from a clinic in Albany back in 1996.  An assistant to the Attorney General’s office is now claiming that the doctor, Dr. Steven Chase Brigham, was never thoroughly investigated due to political pressure from the Albany Democratic machine.  Now, sixteen years after the fact, that same doctor has been charged with murder.

Dr. Steven Bringham

Could hindering an investigation of Dr. Brigham make Democrats in Albany an accessory to murder?

Last week, LifeNews reported on a pair of abortion practitioners who were charged with murder across two states:

Operation Rescue has learned that abortionists Steven Chase Brigham and Nicola Irene Riley have been charged with murder related to the deaths of viable babies at an illegal secret abortion clinic that the pair operated in Elkton, Maryland.

Brigham is currently in the custody at the Camden County Jail in New Jersey and Riley was arrested and is currently in the custody of the Salt Lake County Jail in Utah. Both are awaiting extradition to Maryland.

Brigham was charged with five counts of first-degree murder and five counts of second-degree murder. Riley was charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder. The charges are the result of a Grand Jury investigation.

This is the same Dr. Brigham who had once been profiled in a New York Times article with sympathetic leanings to the cause of abortion doctors, even citing his record as “proof of the shortage of abortion providers” and demonstrating that “the small number of people still performing abortions are working in a war zone.”

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Talk show host Michael Berry alerted us to the upcoming event of the Harris County Democrat Party. One doesn’t have to be a dedicated pro-life activist to find the idea of this event kind of sick. I think even the majority of those who believe abortion services and clinics should be available would agree that an abortion clinic is the wrong venue for a Christmas Party.  (Yes, I realize they say “Holiday Party,” in the invitation below but for the vast majority of Americans, the holiday they celebrate in December is Christmas. Heck, the invitation even used green and red lettering, the traditional colors of Christmas.)

demwomenholidayparty

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“I’ll say this plainly, I’ve said it before – Taxation is theft. It presumes the government has a higher claim on our property than we do,” says Judge Andrew Napolitano, the host of Fox Business’ Freedom Watch and the author of the new book, It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom.

Reason’s Nick Gillespie sat down with the outspoken libertarian commentator to discuss topics ranging from abortion (the judge is fiercely pro-life) to Occupy Wall Street (he welcomes the protest against corporatism) to Rep. Ron Paul (“the Barry Goldwater” of our moment) to the role of religion in the quest for freedom.

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Mitt Romney is always quick to lambast other Republicans for being career politicians, as if this is his first rodeo and he is a political newcomer. However, the truth is he’s been in politics for over seventeen years, many of which have been spent appealing to liberals and moderates and fighting to keep from being identified with Ronald Reagan.

Yet the more one goes back and listens to the things Romney’s been saying during his nearly two decades of public service, the more one has to wonder why he thought someone would link him to Reagan in the first place.

For example, while trying to unseat Senator Ted Kennedy in 1994, Romney said:

“I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I have since the time that my mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a U.S. Senate candidate. I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years, that we should sustain and support it. And I sustain and support that law.”

Someone needs to corner Romney on this statement and force him to explain whether he still holds to it in part or in whole. (more…)

Apparently, liberals have a problem differentiating the literal meaning of certain words. Either that, or they feel comfortable altering meanings to accommodate things they say they stand for but would rather not actually have to live out.

#OccupyWallStreet began as movement for economic justice but has grown into a situation where demonstrators appear to be confused about what the movement and the word “occupy” actually means.

As thousands of uninvited progressives take to the highways and byways to inhabit places like Wall Street, Cleveland, Hartford, and Seattle, the same tendency to accommodate amorphous definitions of the word “occupy” seems to be infiltrating a nationwide liberal movement.

Growing numbers of protesters are taking a stand against greed, corporate wealth and economic inequity.   Yet amongst marchers who demonstrate to uphold sharing and caring in Tarpaulin Towns springing up across America, there are some who are exhibiting counterproductive behavior. (more…)

He has written about having sex with an underage girl, and claims he once threatened to kill a pregnant girlfriend unless she had an abortion. He claims to hate marijuana, but recommends heroin as the cure for suburban boredom. He mocks “Tea Baggers” and scorns “hippies.” His Russian newspaper was shuttered after a government crackdown, and he’s a regular on The Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC.

Meet Mark Ames, the provocateur who created the Koch brothers conspiracy theory.

Long before John Podesta’s Center for American Progress began targeting the Koch brothers for their supposed role in the Tea Party, and two years before the Kochs were cast as the villains of public sector union protests in Wisconsin, Ames had already shaped the Koch brothers meme.

Ames and co-author Yasha Levine launched the conspiracy theory–and its twin themes of drug abuse and gay sex–with a blog post (now removed) at Playboy.com in February 2009, entitled: “Backstabber: Is Rick Santelli High on Koch?” They published almost exactly the same article at their own site, exiledonline.com, as “Exposing the Rightwing PR Machine: Is CNBC’s Rick Santelli Sucking Koch?”

Ames and Levine alleged that Santelli’s famous “rant heard around the world” that inspired the Tea Party movement “was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger” for an “anti-Obama campaign.” That campaign, they claimed, had been planned for months before the 2008 election, and funded by “the Koch family, the multibilllionaire owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups.”

Ames would later explain that he had been inspired to write about the Kochs by his experiences in post-Soviet Moscow, when he edited a sensational newspaper, the eXile–described last year by Vanity Fair as “arguably the most abusive, defamatory, un-evenhanded, and crassest publication in Russia” before it closed in 2008. (more…)

We all have fears.  They rise up out of the muck of our subconscious and exert extraordinary power over us.  Some fears are perfectly rational, others are strictly irrational.  Irrational fear arises out of 1) deep-seated knowledge that the other side is right (the ego perceives a threat to a well-entrenched belief), 2) a projection of one’s more unpleasant qualities onto the “Other” (the Jungian Shadow), or 3) Plain old-fashioned ignorance.

I’ve noticed that many of my Liberal friends constantly harped on George W. Bush’s faith in Jesus.  They wrung their hands in terror that something would be implemented that would…be really bad.  Ultimately, they just didn’t like his religion being foisted on them, although when pressed, they had trouble specifying exactly what would result from the President’s faith.

Now, we’re seeing the same fears being sounded over Gov. Perry’s faith. The message is that Liberals don’t want to be forced into believing something they don’t want to believe in, or that some religiously-driven policy will be enacted against their own interest, or that it will somehow restrict their personal freedom.

That is perfectly reasonable, and I agree with them completely.

The irony is that the Liberal approach to policy in general is cloaked behind its own ideological philosophy.  It may not be an established religion, but Conservatives and Libertarians are equally opposed to some policy being put in place that restricts freedom, that forces them to believe something they don’t want to believe in, or that is against their own interest.

And I naturally agree with them, as well.

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We’ve begun a battle of enormous consequence to our entire nation here in the great state of Mississippi.  Abortion is on the November 8 ballot in Mississippi, in the form of an initiative to change the state constitution by defining “person” as any human from the moment of fertilization.  The amendment is based on statements made by the judges who voted in favor of abortion during the Roe v. Wade oral re-arguments.

Unlike some other states, it is very difficult to get a voter initiative on the ballot in Mississippi; this year, we have three initiatives that would amend our state constitution, a truly remarkable feat.  All three are key conservative issues in an overwhelmingly conservative state:  abortion, voter identification, and eminent domain abuse.Personally, I’m hoping for a triple play, and voting “YES!” on all three.  The issue that I am working on, however, is abortion.

When this battle is won in Mississippi, it doesn’t just set up a challenge to Roe v. Wade, it eviscerates that case and all of its unholy progeny.  It gives a method by which every state in the nation can extend the most basic civil rights to the most innocent and deserving members of the human race — our unborn children.

When is a person a “person”?

All humans deserve equal protection of the laws and the right to due process, but the law only extends these rights to every “person.”  Thanks to the outstanding work of Personhood Mississippi, we in Mississippi will have the chance to be the first state in the history of our union to define a “person” to include all unborn humans.  Initiative 26 will define the term person as follows:

SECTION 33.  Person defined.  As used in this Article III of the state constitution, “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.

If Mississippians vote Yes on Amendment 26, all human beings would be ensured equal rights in our state and protection under law, regardless of their size, location or developmental stage.  Calling abortion “murder” will no longer be merely a moral judgment, but an established legal determination.  In other words, abortion will be illegal.

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Apparently, when no one was looking, the Jaycees became a pro-Infanticide group. I wonder about this because the United States Junior Chamber Jaycees has thrown the Palatine Area Catholics Respect Life Group out of the Palatine, Illinois July Fourth parade, preventing them from participating in this year’s celebration.

The Jaycees claim that they have done so because the pro-life group has an “offensive” photo on the banner they planned to carry in the procession. Following is a photo of the banner as seen on the local Patch story:

“They decided that an unborn baby is too offensive,” said Martin Kelley, co-founder of Palatine Area Catholics Respect Life. “It’s an ultrasound photo. It’s not a picture of an aborted baby.”

So, how is an ultrasound photo of an in utero infant “offensive”? This isn’t a gruesome photo of an aborted fetus like many pro-life groups use to shock viewers — if it were I might agree with the claim that it is an offensive display. This is simply a live baby in the womb captured through the wonders of modern technology.

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Welcome to Ask a Libertarian with Reason’s Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch. They are the authors of the new book The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong With America.

Go to http://declaration2011.com to purchase, read reviews, find event dates, and more.

On June 15, 2011 Gillespie and Welch used short, rapid-fire videos to answer dozens of reader questions submitted via email, Twitter, Facebook, and Reason.com. In this episode, they answer the question:
“What’s the libertarian position on abortion?”

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Because of the overwhelmingly positive response to my initial manifesto from my fellow Liberals, I’ve decided to expand it.  In addition, it appears my first article was mistaken for satire of some kind.  I can assure readers I am quite serious.  I am a reborn Liberal and these are my solutions for fixing everything.

Global Warming

The science is settled.  Mankind is indeed killing itself, just as I knew would happen when I voted for Mondale in 1984.  Admittedly, I thought the apocalypse would result from a nuclear war back then.  I was close.  Things would indeed get really hot, but strictly from greenhouse gas emissions, not from thousands of nukes going off all at once.  According to the totally balanced summary provided by Wikipedia, carbon dioxide causes 9% – 26% of the greenhouse effect.  The way I see it, if we can wipe out just this portion of the greenhouse emissions alone, we can make a serious dent in the warming trend.

Now, follow me on this next part — every time a human being exhales, he emits carbon dioxide.

The solution is obvious — we need to mandate less exhaling.  So, five times a day, every day, at the exact same time that Muslims stop for their prayers, everyone around the world should hold their breath for a good 90 seconds or so.  If you own a corporation, you have to hold your breath twice as long.   I think even Conservatives will get on board with this because it gives lip service to that whole personal responsibility garbage they buy into.

Additionally, it appears that methane accounts for 4% – 9% of greenhouse emissions.   The solution here is so simple I’m shocked that my fellow global warming alarmists have not figured it out already.

We need less farting.

I know everyone’s primary concern is about diet, but nobody has to give up beans. The farmers shouldn’t suffer just because people need to toot less.  We can have the USDA issue “fanny corks” to every American, free of charge.  Enforcement is easy.  The TSA already has experience inspecting private areas, so Janet Napolitano can just issue a decree expanding their powers.  It will also help with job growth, because we’ll need an army of TSA employees to check fanny corks, particularly in heavily populated urban areas.

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Pennsylvania and Texas are finally investigating abortion clinics that allegedly have violations and that’s a healthy sign, but what is Louisiana waiting for? I’ve been told that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is a good man and there’s even been some talk that he should be persuaded to run for president, which is why he just released his birth certificate. On the other hand there has been some criticism that he delegates a lot of issues that deserve his personal attention. I don’t know if that’s true or not but when I learned about what’s happening in Louisiana’s abortion clinics and a possible cover up by the Delta Health department, I wondered why Gov. Jindal hasn’t ordered them shut down.

In February, Sen. David Vitter sent a letter to Gov. Bobby Jindal and the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein urging an investigation and immediate action against the abortion facility with connections with Kermit Gosnell.

Gosnell was arrested in Philadelphia and charged with one count of murder in the death of a woman in a botched abortion and seven counts of infanticide-seven infants born alive had their spinal cords snipped with scissors. His facility had a history of numerous health and safety violations which were ignored by authorities.

The Delta Clinic in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has a close connection with Gosnell. Its owner Leroy T. Brinkley hired Gosnell to work one day a week at his clinic. Brinkley also sent patients to Gosnell after starting the abortion procedure in Delaware then driving them to Philadelphia to complete the procedure. Brinkley also had one of his clinic workers, Eileen White O’Neil, work for Gosnell in Philadelphia. She has also been charged with Gosnell for criminal violations that include deception for pretending to be a licensed physician, and for racketeering.

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