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On Thursday, February 14, 2019, President Donald Trump joined pro-life leaders on a nationwide conference call to discuss late-term abortion.
Late-term abortion — up to birth — passed the New York State senate on January 22.
A similar measure failed in Virginia around that time.
However, a handful of other US states have already signed into law or are proposing similar legislation.
White House Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp spoke to the media after the conference call. CBN reported (emphases mine):
“He spoke about the horrors of late-term abortion in particular and wanted to give them the motivation and strength to keep fighting, keep moving what he called the pro-life movement, that this is a moment in time where we need to make sure that their voices are heard in this fight, to ensure that we don’t, that our country doesn’t go in this extreme direction that the Democrats are taking us on the issues of abortion,” White House Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp said.
The president recently signed a letter to Congress making it clear that he will veto any legislation that weakens existing federal protections of innocent life.
Alluding to Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s stunning assertion that some babies should be allowed to die right after they’re born, Schlapp said President Trump made it clear he would consider such a move to be nothing short of an “execution.”
“As he said in the State of the Union, it’s executing a baby,” she said. “He cannot fathom that a governor, the governor of Virginia would say a baby is born and you keep the baby comfortable and then the parents can decide whether to not to keep the baby or kill the baby.”
Schlapp said the president hopes to see Congress pass legislation prohibiting such barbaric procedures but acknowledges there will likely be plenty of push-back from Democrats …
Meanwhile, President Trump reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy preventing foreign aid from being used to support abortion. In addition, the administration has issued a proposed regulation to ensure taxpayer dollars from the Title X family planning program are not used to fund abortion.
What follows is the transcript of the National Pro-life Presidential Conference Call. As the president was speaking from the Oval Office, he had with him invited guests — pro-life advocate Alveda King (Martin Luther King Jr’s niece) and other pro-life advocates of all ages (Breaking Christian News has Ms King’s group photo):
[START OF TRANSCRIPT]
Male Speaker: Hello and thank you for joining today’s National Pro-Life Conference Call. This call is not intended for press purposes and is not on the record. If you are a member of the press, please disconnect now. Please note at this time, all audience members are in listen-only mode to minimize background noise. I would like to formally begin today’s call and introduce the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
Donald J. Trump: Thank you very much and I want to thank all of the thousands of pro-lifers and pro-life leaders, pastors, families and advocates for joining this call and for working with such love and devotion to build a culture that cherishes human life. In recent weeks, events have taken place that have shocked the conscience of our whole nation and this is whether you’re pro-life or anything else you happen to be because what’s happened is terrible. Democratic lawmakers in multiple states have been working to expand extreme late-term abortion. In New York State, legislators cheered with delight for a law that will allow babies to be ripped from the womb of their mother in the ninth month, right up until the moment of birth. Then to take it even a step further, in an incredible event and a horrible event, the Governor of Virginia even stated that he would allow a newborn baby… a baby that was actually outside and as he said, “Wrap the baby, warm the baby,” and then he has a discussion with the mother and the father as to what to do with the baby and we use the word, in the State of the Union, “executed” the baby. That is exactly what it was. It was an execution. This was shocking to everybody and frankly the pro-life leaders… I think your popularity and your cause is going to be actually benefitted by what happened because nobody can believe what he said and what he did.
In both cases, in New York and in Virginia, America must always be a nation that protects the most vulnerable and that defends the very first right in the Declaration of Independence, called the “Right to Life.” Since day one, I have kept my promise to protect unborn children. During my first week in office, I reinstated the Mexican City Policy, so the Mexico City Policy has been reinstated, which as you know other presidents… many presidents were not willing to do but I did it. Last month I signed a letter to Congress to make clear that if they send any legislation to my desk that weakens the protection of human life, I will issue a veto. I’ve taken historic action to protect the conscience rights and religious liberties of doctors and nurses, charities, and faith-based adoption agencies. During my State of the Union address, I asked Congress to pass legislation to prohibit late-term abortion of children who can feel the pain in the mother’s womb. We just have been very, very strong on that and I’m here with a lot of the great friends and the great leaders of the pro-life and I call it a movement, because I think now it’s become a movement more so in the last two weeks than it has been in a long time. It’s now a movement.
I know many of the leaders on this call are working to get this legislation passed, and I believe we’ll be successful. We’ll work very hard and I want to thank you for helping. I also hope that one day we can have a special signing ceremony right here in the Oval Office. If that gets done, we’ll all be together in the Oval Office, we’ll sign it. A few moments ago, I spoke with several families… beautiful stories serve as an inspiration to all of us. They’re actually in my office right now. One of the people who joins us in the Oval Office today is Micah, in name Micah Pickering right in front of me. Beautiful young man. Mi[cah] was born at 22 weeks. Today is a healthy… I can tell you that, I’m looking at him, a healthy six-year-old boy filled with energy and filled with life and he’s doing very well. I can say that. Micah, are you good, everything good? The whole world is talking about you right now, Micah. Micah is doing good, he said. We’re also proud to be joined today by Katy Shaw. Katy was born with Down Syndrome and she said, “I’ve made the world a better place.” Katy has actually made the world… she’s right in front of me. She looks fantastic. Katy, I really want to thank you for being here… very, very special. We have thousands of people on this call and they’re all sending their “hello” to Katy Shaw, very, very special. Our nation is uplifted by the incredible Americans like Katy who are powerful advocates for life. Every child born and unborn is made in the holy image of God. Together, we will continue to work for the day when all children have a chance to live and to love and to dream and to reach their full God-given potential.
I want to thank all of the people on the call today. I have a whole group of people in the Oval Office and we’ll be discussing this very important issue. But to all of the pro-life leaders, we respect you and we thank you very much. I think we’ve make a lot of progress in the last two weeks because of horrible things that have been done by the other side. Thank you all for being on the call and I look forward to seeing you and we’ll have signing celebrations and I look forward to having them in the White House. Thank you all very much. Goodbye.
Male Speaker: Thank you all in the audience for joining us today. Again, this call was not intended for press purposes and is not on the record. The call is concluded and you may disconnect.
[END OF TRANSCRIPTION]
I have several YouTube videos of varying lengths with testimony as to what happens during a late-term abortion. They have graphic descriptions of the procedures involved. One long-time abortionist, who has since stopped aborting, displayed the tools he used to perform what we have been told for nearly 50 years is a mere ‘medical procedure’. His frank and impartial descriptions, whilst holding up the tools, will leave you shocked.
I will feature these videos in future posts.
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Well, well, well, on Tuesday, February 12, 2019, the Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded there is ‘no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia’.
NBC News intelligence and national security correspondent Reporter Ken Dilanian broke the story in his article, ‘Senate has uncovered no direct evidence of conspiracy between Trump campaign and Russia’.
This is a bipartisan finding, by the way.
Later, MSNBC interviewed Dilanian:
NBC has a summary on Twitter:
This finding comes after the Senate Intelligence Committee spent two years on an investigation involving 200 interviews and 300,000 documents.
Their investigation has not yet concluded, but its end is nigh, according to Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), the chairman. Dilanian’s article tells us:
“We know we’re getting to the bottom of the barrel because there’re not new questions that we’re searching for answers to,” Burr said.
On Tuesday, Burr doubled down, telling NBC News, “There is no factual evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.”
It could take the committee several more months to produce a written report of their findings, which, even with this news, could be inconclusive:
The final Senate report may not reach a conclusion on whether the contacts added up to collusion or coordination with Russia, Burr said.
Democrats told NBC News that’s a distinct possibility.
“What I’m telling you is that I’m going to present, as best we can, the facts to you and to the American people,” Burr told CBS. “And you’ll have to draw your own conclusion as to whether you think that, by whatever definition, that’s collusion.”
The Senate investigation is separate from the Mueller probe, which trundles along.
Also, the House of Representatives, now Democrat-controlled, is planning to conduct a separate investigation:
that will go beyond the 2016 election to examine whether any foreign government has undue financial influence on Trump or his family. And New York federal prosecutors are pursuing their own criminal inquiry related to hush-money payments to women. The investigations into Donald Trump, therefore, are far from over.
Nonetheless, the Senate news puts a dent in Big Media’s anti-Trump narrative.
ZeroHedge reports that when Dilanian appeared on MSNBC (see video above, bold emphases in the original, those in purple mine):
MSNBC anchor Hallie Jackson and her guest panelists’ faces looked visibly confused and uncomfortable as they learned the Senate report is going in the opposite direction of everything MSNBC and other mainstream outlets have been breathlessly reporting on a near 24/7 basis.
More importantly, if this is a precursor of what the Mueller report concludes in a few weeks/months, the TV station that built its current reputation on the premise of Russian collusion, may have no option but to go on indefinite hiatus.
Watch the segment … with host Hallie Jackson appearing to grow exasperated by the 2:20 mark:“If and when the president, as he may inevitably do, points to these conclusions and says look, the Senate intelligence committee found I am not guilty of conspiracy… he would be correct in saying that?”
Dilanian noted that while the Republican chair of the committee made what he characterized as “partisan” comments the week prior, it turned out be unanimous fact. “What I found,” he said, “is that Democrats don’t dispute that characterization.”
But perhaps sensing how “contrary” to the network’s own hysterical ‘Russiagate’ coverage his reporting was, he tried to soften the blow, saying, “But, again, no direct proof of a conspiracy. As one democratic aide said to me, ‘we never thought we were going to find a Democrat between Trump and Vladimir Putin saying let’s collude, but the question is how do we interpret all these various contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.’”
Hallie Jackson followed with further probing: “Not to put too fine a point on it, but I want to make sure I’m understanding this…” and asked “If and when the president, as he may inevitably do, points to these conclusions and says look, the Senate intelligence committee found I’m not guilty of conspiracy… he would be correct in saying that?”
Her face looking rather incredulous at this point, Dilanian responded by invoking the Meuller investigation, reassuring her his inquiry is not complete and likely could uncover more information. But then the bottom line: “That said, Trump will claim vindication through this, and he’ll be partially right,” he said.
President Trump tweeted his thanks:
Some readers might be sceptical.
However, an investigative journalist who has no ties to Trump and is not a supporter — Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept — agrees with him:
Greenwald’s readers were not happy.
On another tweet, Greenwald still had to repeat himself:
More angry readers tweeted here.
Let’s remind ourselves of what Big Media have been foisting on us since 2017: ‘bombshell’, ‘tipping point’, ‘beginning of the end’, ‘Trump will resign’:
Big Media’s narrative is ‘too big to fail’:
Trump supporters, understandably, are sick and tired of it all, because the Democrats started this narrative shortly before the 2016 election:
This chap meant ‘wielded’, but his point still stands. I hope he is correct:
Here are a few suggestions for President Trump on how to wield that hammer:
As for Robert Mueller and his team, the same day NBC’s Ken Dilanian filed his report, President Trump’s former attorney John Dowd gave an interview to ABC News (full transcript).
John Dowd does not believe the report of Mueller’s findings will be released to the public. He thinks there will simply be an announcement that the two-year investigation has ended.
Dowd says that Mueller had all the information he needed nearly a year ago (emphases mine):
In my opinion, on March 5th, we were done. He had everything. He said he had everything. He told me that no one had lied. He told me they had every document we asked for. He told me that it was nothing more. He told me that the president was not a target. That is, he did not have any exposure, that he was a witness subject, which is perfectly normal for someone’s conduct you’re looking at, but they don’t have exposure.
Dowd later said the same thing and says Mueller should have admitted that he was being pressured to find something by a ‘cabal in the FBI’:
There’s no exposure. It’s been a terrible waste of time. What’s worse is let’s get on the other side of this, how it all happened. This is one of the greatest frauds this country’s ever seen. And I’m just shocked that Bob Mueller didn’t call it that way and say, “I’m being used.” I would’ve done that. If I were in his shoes in this thing, I’d have gone to the– I’d have gone to Sessions and Rosenstein and said, “Look. This is nonsense. We are being used by a cabal in the F.B.I. to get even.”
President Trump has co-operated with Mueller, responding to requests that no other president has never had to endure (source):
Note the third paragraph in that last tweet. Had Trump agreed to an interview with Mueller:
it would set a precedent that would open the current president and future presidents to this kind of interview.
Given the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings, it will be interesting to see how much longer the Mueller probe lasts.
Last week, I posted a summary of President Donald Trump’s 2019 State of the Union (SOTU) address.
In case you missed the event, CBS has a video and full transcript.
It created such a buzz that I have more bookmarks than would fit into one post.
What follows are America’s views of the SOTU as seen online.
Polling
Trump got high marks from viewers at home:
The CBS reporter seemed shocked that Americans side with Trump on immigration. He can barely get the words out:
Trump’s much vaunted ‘wall’ is gaining traction. This was the issue that the media said would lose him votes in 2016. In the end, he won the election, and now a clear majority of voters agree with him on this most controversial issue.
Here is a breakdown by political party:
Note that nearly one-third of Democrats approve and — just as importantly for 2020 — 82% of Independents do, too.
CNN also conducted a poll. The results must have upset them greatly:
Adding both positive percentages together gives Trump’s SOTU a 76% approval rating — the same as CBS’s. There appears to be a rounding error in CNN’s:
The Republican National Committee (RNC) calls it ‘Spirit of 76%’ (an association with 1776):
Television ratings
Trump’s speech was a huge televisual draw.
On February 6, The Hollywood Reporter provided the ratings (emphases mine below):
The State of the Union was a slightly bigger draw than it was in 2018.
Just under 46.8 million people — 46.79 million, to be precise — watched President Trump’s address to Congress across 12 networks, about 3 percent more than watched a year ago.
The 2018 address drew 45.55 million viewers. Trump’s first address to Congress in 2017 — not technically a State of the Union, as he had only been in office a few weeks — drew the largest audience of his term to date with 47.74 million.
Fox News led the field 11.27 million viewers from 9-10:30 p.m. ET, off slightly from the 11.5 million who watched the 2018 SOTU. NBC topped broadcast networks with 7.14 million viewers, followed by CBS (6.68 million) and ABC (5.91 million). The Fox broadcast network’s 4.2 million viewers beat out both MSNBC (3.79 million) and CNN (3.47 million).
The four broadcast networks and big three cable news outlets combined for 42.46 million viewers. PBS, Telemundo, Univision, Fox Business and CNNe combined to averaged 4.33 million.
Tuesday’s address drew more viewers than the comparable ones in the first terms of Barack Obama (42.79 million in 2011) and Bill Clinton (42.2 million in 1995) but fell well short of George W. Bush’s 2003 State of the Union, which drew 62 million as Bush made a case for invading Iraq. That address is the most-watched State of the Union in this century.
In earlier metered-market ratings, the State of the Union averaged a 16.3 household rating across ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, up about 10 percent from a 14.8 last year. The SOTU was also slightly higher in metered markets than Trump’s 2017 address, which is not technically considered a State of the Union speech as he’d only been in office a few weeks.
Two anti-Trumpers’ positive verdicts
At least two anti-Trump pundits praised him for a great speech.
Here is Bret Baier from Fox News:
And the Wall Street Journal‘s Peggy Noonan, who wrote Bush I’s ‘Thousand Points of Light’ acceptance speech for the Republican nomination in 1988:
As for those who watched at home:
Favourite SOTU themes
Many of the tweets I saw were supportive of Trump’s views on socialism, abortion and human trafficking.
Socialism
Trump firmly denounced socialism. If you think that is unfair, look at how Venezuela, once South America’s jewel in the crown, has deteriorated:
A number of people picked up on Bernie Sanders’s reaction:
Here’s a graphic — meme — to circulate:
The Dems have a plan of attack, though. In fact, they already previewed a new lie of theirs on a Sunday news show:
Abortion
Stephen Miller did a marvellous job writing the speech, but the part on abortion was especially moving:
The following day, House Republicans re-introduced the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, sponsored by Ann Wagner (R-Missouri) and Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana). Unfortunately, the measure failed to pass for consideration, as the vote had to be unanimous.
Ann Wagner had this to say:
Behind the scenes
According to The Daily Caller‘s Benny Johnson, someone fainted during the speech:
Benny also liked Trump’s speech:
Democrats
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her freshmen Representatives received rightful criticism.
However, all the Democrats deserve the public’s censure for booing Trump when he introduced the critical subject of border security by mentioning the migrant ‘caravans’. The Daily Caller reported conservative commentator Michelle Malkin’s reaction:
“When you have the Democrats booing because President Trump was exposing and continuing to hammer the fact that these caravans are endangering the country and posing enormous costs to people at the border, let alone in the interior, this is a message I think is going to resonate all the way through 2020, and it’s going to pose a huge optics problem for the Democrat party,” Malkin said …
“I think it underscores an important point that President Trump himself has made in the face of this debate and the intransigence of the open borders Democrats — and that it’s not just about a wall. As long as you have these magnets drawing people here and everybody’s aware of it around the world, it’s not going to stop,” she said earlier in the interview.
“And that is a point that President Trump made during the address last night. … President Trump delivered very defining moments that contrast the differences between the parties.”
I hope she is right.
Joe Manchin
There was only one Democrat who stood with the president, at least on energy and abortion: Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia. He’s delighted to see the revival of coal mines in his state. On abortion, he had this to say:
Nancy Pelosi
Pelosi, a notional Catholic, invited the president of Planned Parenthood as a special guest:
Then, there was Pelosi’s jewellery.
She wore a long gold brooch, a tiny version of the Mace of the United States House of Representatives. The Mace is modelled on the Roman-era fasces, which has always represented authority:
AlterNet has a photo of Pelosi and a bit of history on how the Mace has been used in the House of Representatives. It is on regular display when the House is in session (emphases mine):
At each daily session, the Sergeant at Arms carries the mace in procession, ahead of the speaker in to the rostrum. While the House is in session, the mace stands on a pedestal at the speaker’s right hand. The mace is almost four feet in length and made of silver and 13 ebony rods (representing the original states in the union).
It’s the people’s house, and the people have entrusted it to Speaker Pelosi for this term. Along with it comes the power to maintain order in the House.
The Roman authorities used fasces on criminals and people disturbing the peace. Lictors — officials similar to law enforcement officers — could beat miscreants and criminals with the whole fasces or untie the bundled rods and go after several at a time. They also had the authority to use the axe inside the fasces to put them to death, when necessary.
Later in history, fasces became a symbol representing national unity and indivisibility: many rods bundled together make a single entity.
This American Intelligence Media video purports that Pelosi wore the mace pin to signal that she is the equal to President Trump. That’s a very real possibility.
Whatever the case, there were times when it was clear she does not want Americans to succeed:
Democrat women
The only time Democrat women rose was to cheer Trump’s stats on women in the workforce and in Congress.
That’s right, gals, applaud yourselves:
As TurningPoint USA’s Candace Owens pointed out:
The Daily Wire‘s Ryan Saavedra tweeted this in response to AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from Queens):
Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) seemed to deny the crime going on at the southern border:
Prescription drug prices
There is one important SOTU topic that has not received much coverage — the cost of prescription drugs:
I found this response to the tweet interesting:
Democrat rebuttal
Since President Reagan’s tenure, Democrats believe it is their duty to provide a short SOTU rebuttal to Republican administrations.
Before I return to and conclude on the SOTU, it is worth mentioning the 2019 rebuttal.
The Democrats who give these short speeches are not exactly la crème de la crème. Last year’s was a young member of the Kennedy clan who did not do well at all, either visually or rhetorically.
This year, it was the turn of Stacy Abrams, who unsuccessfully ran for governor of Georgia last year and indirectly complained about her loss:
According to the Gateway Pundit (emphases in the original):
Stacey Abrams opened the Democrat Party response to President Trump’s State of the Union Address by wishing everyone a happy Lunar New Year.
Stacey Abrams: “Good evening my fellow Americans and Happy Lunar New Year.”
And it went down hill from there.
And they wonder how they lost the working class and Middle America?
The chairwoman of the Republican Party — Mitt Romney’s niece — tweeted:
I’m not sure what universe Abrams is living in, but what she said is patently untrue:
The Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberley Strassel put it this way:
SOTU fact checking
Some readers might wonder how wrong Stacy Abrams was.
The Daily Signal posted a well sourced article supporting Trump’s speech content: ’13 Fact Checks on the State of the Union Address’, which three of their journalists compiled.
The Q Tree has more facts backing up Trump’s speech: ‘The State Of Our Union’.
Unity
The SOTU theme of ‘Choosing Greatness’ points to Trump’s call for national — and political — unity.
Recall that the motto for the United States is E Pluribus Unum: Out of Many, One.
Brad Parscale, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager tweeted:
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee — father of Trump’s press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders — made a political observation:
And, socially, the Trumps’ ingenious choice of special guests showed national unity, with young and old from so many different backgrounds and personal experience. I won’t show this year’s White House tweet in full, because the photo included was from 2018, however, the text reads as follows:
President @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS‘ #SOTU guests all come from different walks of life. No matter their story, each has something important in common: They represent the very best of America.
They are an impressive group of people.
Matthew Charles exemplifies the good results that come when politicians put party differences aside and work together, as Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s victorious 2016 campaign manager explains:
Matthew Charles deserved his release, as BreakPoint.org explains in ‘Restoring All Things — One Person At A Time’, a moving account of Charles’s personal transformation.
Conclusion
I am very much looking forward to seeing what the next year brings for the Trump Administration — and for the United States, as well as the world.
With Donald Trump, we are witnessing history in the making. This era will be written about for generations to come. Enjoy it and embrace it while it lasts.
In 1999, Anthony Bourdain wrote an article for The New Yorker on dining out.
‘Don’t Eat Before Reading This’ is a must-read article.
He was talking about top-end bistros and restaurants, but he raised insider facts which will interest aficionados of the dining scene.
I saw the article thanks to this tweet about steak …
… which led me to this one (click on image to see the full text):
I’ll come back to that in a moment.
Fish
I nearly always have fish when eating out. Here’s the truth for fish lovers who dine out at the weekend or on a Monday (emphases mine):
The fish specialty is reasonably priced, and the place got two stars in the Times. Why not go for it? If you like four-day-old fish, be my guest. Here’s how things usually work. The chef orders his seafood for the weekend on Thursday night. It arrives on Friday morning. He’s hoping to sell the bulk of it on Friday and Saturday nights, when he knows that the restaurant will be busy, and he’d like to run out of the last few orders by Sunday evening. Many fish purveyors don’t deliver on Saturday, so the chances are that the Monday-night tuna you want has been kicking around in the kitchen since Friday morning, under God knows what conditions. When a kitchen is in full swing, proper refrigeration is almost nonexistent, what with the many openings of the refrigerator door as the cooks rummage frantically during the rush, mingling your tuna with the chicken, the lamb, or the beef. Even if the chef has ordered just the right amount of tuna for the weekend, and has had to reorder it for a Monday delivery, the only safeguard against the seafood supplier’s off-loading junk is the presence of a vigilant chef who can make sure that the delivery is fresh from Sunday night’s market.
Generally speaking, the good stuff comes in on Tuesday …
Steaks
I cannot emphasise enough this bit about well done steaks. For those who missed the tweet above:
In many kitchens, there’s a time-honored practice called “save for well-done.” When one of the cooks finds a particularly unlovely piece of steak—tough, riddled with nerve and connective tissue, off the hip end of the loin, and maybe a little stinky from age—he’ll dangle it in the air and say, “Hey, Chef, whaddya want me to do with this?” … What he’s going to do is repeat the mantra of cost-conscious chefs everywhere: “Save for well-done.” The way he figures it, the philistine who orders his food well-done is not likely to notice the difference between food and flotsam.
Vegetarians
Apologies to any vegetarians reading here, but this is what chefs think. Bourdain prefaced this by saying serious cooks find preparing brunch dull:
Even more despised than the Brunch People are the vegetarians. Serious cooks regard these members of the dining public—and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans—as enemies of everything that’s good and decent in the human spirit. To live life without veal or chicken stock, fish cheeks, sausages, cheese, or organ meats is treasonous.
Butter
Whether we realise it or not, a good restaurant will use butter — and a lot of it:
In a good restaurant, what this all adds up to is that you could be putting away almost a stick of butter with every meal.
Leftover bread and butter
Speaking of butter — and bread — you might wonder (as I did) what happens to whatever you leave on your table.
It gets re-used:
Recently, there was a news report about the practice of recycling bread. By means of a hidden camera in a restaurant, the reporter was horrified to see returned bread being sent right back out to the floor. This, to me, wasn’t news: the reuse of bread has been an open secret—and a fairly standard practice—in the industry for years. It makes more sense to worry about what happens to the leftover table butter—many restaurants recycle it for hollandaise.
Food handling
If you’re wondering (as I did) if line cooks and chefs wear gloves in the kitchen, the short answer is ‘rarely’:
As the author and former chef Nicolas Freeling notes in his definitive book “The Kitchen,” the better the restaurant, the more your food has been prodded, poked, handled, and tasted. By the time a three-star crew has finished carving and arranging your saddle of monkfish with dried cherries and wild-herb-infused nage into a Parthenon or a Space Needle, it’s had dozens of sweaty fingers all over it. Gloves? You’ll find a box of surgical gloves—in my kitchen we call them “anal-research gloves”—over every station on the line, for the benefit of the health inspectors, but does anyone actually use them? Yes, a cook will slip a pair on every now and then, especially when he’s handling something with a lingering odor, like salmon. But during the hours of service gloves are clumsy and dangerous. When you’re using your hands constantly, latex will make you drop things, which is the last thing you want to do.
Hair
Bourdain says that toques or other head coverings are not generally worn:
For most chefs, wearing anything on their head, especially one of those picturesque paper toques—they’re often referred to as “coffee filters”—is a nuisance: they dissolve when you sweat, bump into range hoods, burst into flame.
Bourdain’s conclusion
Despite having raised the hairs on people’s necks by revealing all this insider information, Bourdain is adamant that a top restaurant kitchen is cleaner than that of the average home:
The fact is that most good kitchens are far less septic than your kitchen at home. I run a scrupulously clean, orderly restaurant kitchen, where food is rotated and handled and stored very conscientiously.
My conclusion
Having read Bourdain’s article, I am happy I do not eat out all that often — at most, 10 to 12 times a year — and always in good restaurants.
I would dispute that their kitchens are cleaner than mine at home.
And finally, although I disagreed with his politics, I am sorry that Anthony Bourdain is no longer with us.
On Tuesday, February 5, 2019, President Donald Trump gave his second State of the Union (SOTU) address.
His theme was ‘choose greatness’.
His able speechwriter and adviser, Stephen Miller, wrote an inspiring, fact-filled address.
Special guests
The president had an incredibly varied group of special guests, all of whom were mentioned in his speech and who sat with First Lady Melania Trump:
– a retired astronaut (Buzz Aldrin),
– three Second World War veterans (Herman Zeitchik, Joseph Reilly and Irving Locker),
– two law enforcement officers (DHS investigator Elvin Hernandez and Pittsburgh SWAT team member Timothy Matson),
– a survivor of the Holocaust as well as the Pittsburgh synagogue attack last year (Judah Samet, whose birthday it was),
– a concentration camp survivor (Joshua Kaufman),
– the father of a Navy Seaman who was killed on the USS Cole (Tom Wibberley),
– an Angel Family whose elders were murdered in their home by an illegal immigrant (Debra Bissell, Heather Armstrong, and Madison Armstrong),
– two reformed ex-convicts (Alice Johnson and Matthew Charles),
– a lumber mill manager (Roy James),
– a young mother who overcame drug addiction (Ashley Evans),
– two children (cancer survivor Grace Eline and a boy bullied for his name [no relation] Joshua Trump [please pray for this lad]).
On February 4, Big League Politics said that the guest list was Trump’s way of sending a clear message to Democrats about his priorities.
Everyone sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Judah Samet, the Holocaust survivor. What a treat that must have been for him:
Meanwhile, some of the Democrats invited illegal immigrants.
Here is the video. The speech is very long: 1 hour and 22 minutes:
That said, I highly recommend watching the video, because in urging Congress and the American people to ‘choose greatness’, President Trump showed himself to be a unifier. As one viewer at home put it:
Before I go into the speech, it is worth pointing out that not everyone attends, in the event the worst case scenario occurs. This year’s designated survivor was Energy secretary Rick Perry:
Truth v speculation
So many people expected fireworks. Some expected Trump to declare a state of emergency. Others wanted revelations on FISA:
Think about it. The greatest US president in living memory wants to be re-elected in 2020. He’s going to play the long game.
There was also speculation as to whether Trump prepared two different speeches.
Some people think that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) got the wrong speech. She did spend a lot of time perusing whatever she received during Trump’s SOTU delivery.
Recall that Pelosi did not want Trump to deliver his SOTU at all, under spurious grounds of security, when the Secret Service and Homeland Security were already well prepared, as this event is an annual one.
Interestingly, the House of Representatives, which Pelosi heads, has been historically known as ‘the People’s House’, and is not defined by political party. The leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy (R-California), wanted the SOTU to go ahead on January 29.
Some think that Pelosi might be ill or duly influenced by an outsider.
Nonetheless, Trump remained undeterred, despite Pelosi’s attempts to control the date of the SOTU, which should have taken place on January 29.
On January 28, Pelosi wrote Trump to say that the rescheduled date was Tuesday, February 5. The US president duly accepted in writing that same day.
In the end, she won. But, was it a Pyrrhic victory?
Let us not forget that another shutdown could start on February 15.
Meanwhile, in the Republican-controlled Senate, on the morning of the SOTU, to be delivered that evening, Trump tweeted about Chuck Schumer (D-New York):
Departure for the Capitol
First Lady Melania Trump left the White House separately, as she did in 2018. Up to that time, the first ladies accompanied their husbands:
Meanwhile, the president’s limousine was waiting:
The Trump children, except for Barron, were in attendance.
Note the CIA director’s fabric pattern:
Along with a few other Supreme Court members, Justice Kavanaugh arrived:
As people took their places, Dem presidential hopeful Senator Kamala Harris (California) took it upon herself to give a ‘pre-buttal’ SOTU message on Facebook, which Dem voters did not like one bit.
Democrat identity politics
There was no rerun of last year’s kente cloth and black clothing.
This year, many of the female Democrats wore all white, in tribute to the Suffragettes.
The address
As is customary at SOTUs, the Vice President sits behind the President to his right and the Speaker of the House to his left. Mike Pence had a simple glass of water in front of him whilst Nancy Pelosi had an ornate water display:
Normally, the Speaker introduces the President, but Trump took no chances and immediately began his speech, excerpted below, emphases mine.
Trump received many standing ovations. Townhall has an article with tweets stating when the Dems did not stand, some of which are below. They definitely do not want American greatness, that’s for sure.
He was careful to introduce political and national unity at the beginning:
The agenda I will lay out this evening is not a Republican agenda or a Democrat agenda. It is the agenda of the American people …
There is a new opportunity in American politics, if only we have the courage to seize it. Victory is not winning for our party. Victory is winning for our country.
He mentioned the 75th anniversary of D Day and mentioned his aforementioned special guests who were there on the Normandy beaches:
Here with us tonight are three of those heroes: Private First Class Joseph Reilly, Staff Sergeant Irving Locker, and Sergeant Herman Zeitchik. Gentlemen, we salute you.
He also mentioned the 50th anniversary of the moon landing:
Half a century later, we are joined by one of the Apollo 11 astronauts who planted that flag: Buzz Aldrin. This year, American astronauts will go back to space on American rockets.
The retired astronaut immediately rose to his feet to salute his Commander In Chief:
It’s obvious that Trump really wants national unity:
Together, we can break decades of political stalemate. We can bridge old divisions, heal old wounds, build new coalitions, forge new solutions, and unlock the extraordinary promise of America’s future. The decision is ours to make.
We must choose between greatness or gridlock, results or resistance, vision or vengeance, incredible progress or pointless destruction.
Tonight, I ask you to choose greatness.
Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) — AOC — remained seated:
He went on to discuss his administration’s economic success — an incredible feat, considering where the US was in January 2017:
In just over 2 years since the election, we have launched an unprecedented economic boom — a boom that has rarely been seen before. We have created 5.3 million new jobs and importantly added 600,000 new manufacturing jobs — something which almost everyone said was impossible to do, but the fact is, we are just getting started.
Wages are rising at the fastest pace in decades, and growing for blue collar workers, who I promised to fight for, faster than anyone else. Nearly 5 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps. The United States economy is growing almost twice as fast today as when I took office, and we are considered far and away the hottest economy anywhere in the world. Unemployment has reached the lowest rate in half a century. African-American, Hispanic-American and Asian-American unemployment have all reached their lowest levels ever recorded. Unemployment for Americans with disabilities has also reached an all-time low. More people are working now than at any time in our history –- 157 million.
But someone broke rank. Uh oh:
Trump went on to describe tax cuts, removal of the Obamacare mandate as well as regulatory cuts.
Then he discussed energy production:
We have unleashed a revolution in American energy — the United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world. And now, for the first time in 65 years, we are a net exporter of energy.
Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) was practically the only Dem who applauded:
He spoke about criminal justice reform — the First Step Act — and discussed Alice Johnson:
Alice’s story underscores the disparities and unfairness that can exist in criminal sentencing — and the need to remedy this injustice. She served almost 22 years and had expected to be in prison for the rest of her life.
In June, I commuted Alice’s sentence — and she is here with us tonight. Alice, thank you for reminding us that we always have the power to shape our own destiny …
Inspired by stories like Alice’s, my Administration worked closely with members of both parties to sign the First Step Act into law.
Matthew Charles followed:
We are also joined tonight by Matthew Charles from Tennessee. In 1996, at age 30, Matthew was sentenced to 35 years for selling drugs and related offenses. Over the next two decades, he completed more than 30 Bible studies, became a law clerk, and mentored fellow inmates. Now, Matthew is the very first person to be released from prison under the First Step Act. Matthew, on behalf of all Americans: welcome home.
Immigration and border security came next:
Tonight, I am asking you to defend our very dangerous southern border out of love and devotion to our fellow citizens and to our country.
The Dems booed.
Trump continued:
No issue better illustrates the divide between America’s working class and America’s political class than illegal immigration. Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards.
Meanwhile, working class Americans are left to pay the price for mass illegal migration — reduced jobs, lower wages, overburdened schools and hospitals, increased crime, and a depleted social safety net.
Tolerance for illegal immigration is not compassionate — it is cruel. One in three women is sexually assaulted on the long journey north. Smugglers use migrant children as human pawns to exploit our laws and gain access to our country.
Human traffickers and sex traffickers take advantage of the wide open areas between our ports of entry to smuggle thousands of young girls and women into the United States and to sell them into prostitution and modern-day slavery.
Here’s the aforementioned Kamala Harris:
Trump then mentioned the Bissell family:
Here tonight is Debra Bissell. Just three weeks ago, Debra’s parents, Gerald and Sharon, were burglarized and shot to death in their Reno, Nevada, home by an illegal alien. They were in their eighties and are survived by four children, 11 grandchildren, and 20 great-grandchildren. Also here tonight are Gerald and Sharon’s granddaughter, Heather, and great‑granddaughter, Madison.
Afterwards, he introduced ICE Special Agent Elvin Hernandez:
When Elvin was a boy, he and his family legally immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic. At the age of eight, Elvin told his dad he wanted to become a Special Agent. Today, he leads investigations into the scourge of international sex trafficking. Elvin says: “If I can make sure these young girls get their justice, I’ve done my job.” Thanks to his work and that of his colleagues, more than 300 women and girls have been rescued from horror and more than 1,500 sadistic traffickers have been put behind bars in the last year.
The Dems stood to applaud, although AOC remained seated:
The Dem women did get on their feet for three standing ovations when Trump mentioned females in the workforce and Congress:
No one has benefitted more from our thriving economy than women, who have filled 58 percent of the new jobs created in the last year. All Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before — and exactly one century after the Congress passed the Constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote, we also have more women serving in the Congress than ever before.
He discussed trade then healthcare, introducing young Grace Eline:
Last year, Grace was diagnosed with brain cancer. Immediately, she began radiation treatment. At the same time, she rallied her community and raised more than $40,000 for the fight against cancer. When Grace completed treatment last fall, her doctors and nurses cheered with tears in their eyes as she hung up a poster that read: “Last Day of Chemo.” Grace — you are an inspiration to us all.
He briefly discussed his support of school choice, then moved on to the dignity of human life, particularly that of the unborn:
There could be no greater contrast to the beautiful image of a mother holding her infant child than the chilling displays our Nation saw in recent days. Lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth. These are living, feeling, beautiful babies who will never get the chance to share their love and dreams with the world. And then, we had the case of the Governor of Virginia where he basically stated he would execute a baby after birth.
To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb.
Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life. And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth: all children — born and unborn — are made in the holy image of God.
Two days later, on February 7, Congress once again — twice now — defeated that legislation.
Trump discussed the great progress being made internationally.
In talking about Venezuela, he attacked socialism:
We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom — and we condemn the brutality of the Maduro regime, whose socialist policies have turned that nation from being the wealthiest in South America into a state of abject poverty and despair.
Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence –- not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.
Vermont senator, Bernie Sanders (who has returned to being an Independent), was the most furious. Many years ago, during the Cold War, he and his wife spent their honeymoon in Russia:
He mentioned Tom Wibberley:
Eighteen years ago, terrorists attacked the USS Cole — and last month American forces killed one of the leaders of the attack.
We are honored to be joined tonight by Tom Wibberley, whose son, Navy Seaman Craig Wibberley, was one of the 17 sailors we tragically lost. Tom: we vow to always remember the heroes of the USS Cole.
He discussed anti-Semitism and introduced Timothy Matson, Judah Samet, Joshua Kaufman and Herman Zeitchik:
Just months ago, 11 Jewish-Americans were viciously murdered in an anti-semitic attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. SWAT Officer Timothy Matson raced into the gunfire and was shot seven times chasing down the killer. Timothy has just had his 12th surgery — but he made the trip to be here with us tonight. Officer Matson: we are forever grateful for your courage in the face of evil.
Tonight, we are also joined by Pittsburgh survivor Judah Samet. He arrived at the synagogue as the massacre began. But not only did Judah narrowly escape death last fall — more than seven decades ago, he narrowly survived the Nazi concentration camps. Today is Judah’s 81st birthday. Judah says he can still remember the exact moment, nearly 75 years ago, after 10 months in a concentration camp, when he and his family were put on a train, and told they were going to another camp. Suddenly the train screeched to a halt. A soldier appeared. Judah’s family braced for the worst. Then, his father cried out with joy: “It’s the Americans.”
A second Holocaust survivor who is here tonight, Joshua Kaufman, was a prisoner at Dachau Concentration Camp. He remembers watching through a hole in the wall of a cattle car as American soldiers rolled in with tanks. “To me,” Joshua recalls, “the American soldiers were proof that God exists, and they came down from the sky.”
… I began this evening by honoring three soldiers who fought on D-Day in the Second World War. One of them was Herman Zeitchik. But there is more to Herman’s story. A year after he stormed the beaches of Normandy, Herman was one of those American soldiers who helped liberate Dachau. He was one of the Americans who helped rescue Joshua from that hell on earth. Almost 75 years later, Herman and Joshua are both together in the gallery tonight — seated side-by-side, here in the home of American freedom. Herman and Joshua: your presence this evening honors and uplifts our entire Nation.
Democrat reality
The Democrats, by and large, looked sombre. It could be because of this — from over a year ago:
The Trumps say thank you
The US president tweeted a full video of his speech, then followed up with this:
I have much more to follow on this, but will continue next week.
Tomorrow, I hope to feature a detailed post on President Trump’s second State of the Union (SOTU) address, which he delivered to both Houses of Congress on Tuesday, February 5, 2019.
In his speech, the US president spoke persuasively about cherishing life in the womb. From LifeNews.com (emphases mine):
“To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb,” the president said. “Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life.”
And:
He added, “Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life. Let us reaffirm a fundamental truth: all children — born and unborn — are made in the holy image of God.”
This is contrary to the Democrats wanting to legalise abortion in various states up to birth. This is now possible in New York.
Some call that late-term abortion, some call it at-birth abortion, and others of us call it infanticide.
The day after Trump’s SOTU address, an interviewer from The Daily Caller asked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) what she thought of the president’s stance in wanting a ban on late-term abortions.
Speaker Pelosi replied that Trump’s desire to prohibit late-term abortion was ‘sad’. The Daily Caller reported:
“It’s really quite a sad thing when you know that we’ll be talking about something that applies to the health and life — health and ability to have other children of women,” she said when asked by The Daily Caller. “I hope that in his family, he never has to face that crisis and apply his attitude toward it.”
I’m not sure all of that quite makes rhetorical sense, but, despite the word salad, it’s pretty clear she’s against.
The only Democrat to stand and applaud when Trump spoke against late-term abortion was Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia). He told The Daily Caller:
“To me, it shouldn’t be a fight at all. It’s just totally immoral to do that. I think.”
“I just think it’s just horrendous,” Manchin noted. “I don’t know how anyone could even fathom supporting anything such as late-term abortion.”
Like many of today’s Democrats, both Pelosi and Manchin are nominal Catholics. Their views on abortion and Planned Parenthood go against Church teaching.
Interestingly, in 2018, Church Militant featured a profile of both Manchin and his Republican opponent — also Catholic — Patrick Morrissey, described as being ‘100% pro-life’.
The article says that Manchin spoke of an abortion debate in 2017:
“These are social issues, not political issues,” Manchin said of the abortion debate last year. “You are what you are — I was born and raised that way. Life is very sacred to me.”
Yet, we learn from Morrissey — and this is rather surprising for a socially conservative state — that late-term abortion is legal in West Virginia:
In 2014 — his second year as attorney general — he rallied fellow pro-lifers: “In West Virginia, abortion is legally permitted until birth — one of nine states where that is allowed. I will gladly defend new laws that change this terrible fact. Let’s do something about our lack of protection for unborn children now.”
Wow. Who knew?
Manchin holds some contradictory positions. Could he, a former governor of West Virginia (2005-2010), be having a change of heart?
We’ll have to wait and see.
Meanwhile, Speaker Pelosi’s position on the matter seems to be more mainstream among today’s Democrats.
Most of my American readers who are pro-life will remember the horrifying case of Dr Kermit Gosnell, a serial abortionist, who was convicted in 2013 of first-degree murder and felonies various.
Actor and director Nick Searcy has an excellent article on the doctor whose medical procedures on babies shocked a nation: ‘Gosnell 2: The Exoneration’. He directed the 2018 film, Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer.
Let’s look at Gosnell’s convictions first (emphases mine):
On May 13, 2013, Dr Kermit Gosnell was convicted in Philadelphia of 3 counts of first degree murder for snipping, with scissors, the necks of infants who had been born alive, and 21 counts of felony late-term abortion, among other charges. His unlicensed staff members were convicted of “theft by deception” for performing medical procedures — abortions — for which they were untrained and unqualified. Stephen Massof, an unlicensed medical school graduate, pleaded guilty to two counts of third degree murder for snipping the spines of babies born alive according to Dr. Gosnell’s instructions. Many other members of his staff testified, in exchange for immunity, that they had participated in countless acts of “snipping.”
Ugh! The nation was shocked.
Six years later — 2019 — and we read that New York State recently passed a law that allows abortion up to birth. That is infanticide. It will probably be done via one, if not two, injections of poison inside the baby’s torso. Any babies undergoing this will be suffering a slow 24- to 48-hour tortured death.
Infanticide is also up for consideration in a handful of other states. I will have more on this as time permits.
Kermit Gosnell would say that he accurately predicted this would happen all along, as the Townhall article states. After his conviction, he said:
…I continue to feel optimistic of the eventual outcome…the vindication of what I’ve done, why I’ve done it and how [it] will become accepted within my lifetime.
He was not wrong.
Further to the New York law, anyone can participate in a late term abortion, à la Gosnell:
He was convicted of killing breathing infants that had already been born. It is now legal in New York to kill an infant that survives an abortion.
He was convicted of allowing untrained and unlicensed non-medical personnel to perform abortions. It is now legal in New York for non-physicians or any “health professionals” (undefined) to perform abortions.
He was convicted of performing at least 21 late-term abortions past the legal limit of 24 weeks. It is now legal in New York to terminate a pregnancy up until the due date. In New York, there is no longer any such thing as a “late-term” abortion.
Nick Searcy is no doubt right with this prediction:
I would bet that Gosnell is now in his prison cell preparing his appeal for when the State of [Pennsylvania] follows suit and passes their own version of New York’s law.
Searcy’s article points out the totalitarian, Communist regimes that also murdered on a massive scale. Those rulers and the authorities under them believed they alone had control over life and death. He says that Gosnell feels the same way.
Ultimately, he says, none of these people — from totalitarians, to Gosnell, to New York State legislators — believe in God, because, if they did, they would know that a child is His creation. Because of this, we should be mindful of what the future brings:
What the Left ultimately wants to acquire is the power over life and death at ANY age, and that is why they have decriminalized Kermit Gosnell.
And history shows that they will not stop there.
This came up for discussion last week on a Fox News show. The star of Searcy’s movie said that Gosnell will indeed be vindicated. Check out the bit about Oregon — insurance will cover such a murder:
Here is the powerful trailer for Searcy’s film, which premiered on October 12, 2018:
One week after it opened, The Daily Wire had a good article on the film’s trajectory.
It was a box office phenomenon during that time:
“Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer” surpassed box office expectations upon its release last week by entering into the Top 10 grossing films with a revenue of $1,235,000 on just 668 screens.
Then, cinemas across the United States stopped showing it:
Despite the solid performance for an independent film of this sort, nearly 200 theaters have inexplicably dropped the film, including those in major cities where it was performing the strongest. Coming into its second week, “Gosnell” has dropped from 668 theaters to 480 theaters — a full 188 theater drop, 15 of which were top-performing multiplexes.
John Sullivan, the film’s marketing director and one of its producers, told The Daily Wire that it was probably because of the film’s hard-hitting content:
“It’s hard not to believe it isn’t about the content of the movie,” he added. While some of the smaller theaters may have dropped “Gosnell” to make way for “Halloween” this weekend (a major release projected at number 1), the same could not be said for multiplexes housing 20 or more theaters where the film performed in the top 10.
Sullivan and others involved in Gosnell had also received reports that these multiplexes were actively discouraging customers from seeing the film:
Conversely, the filmmakers have received varying reports of theaters actively preventing customers from buying a ticket by not advertising the film or declaring it “sold out” before capacity is reached. While some of those situations may be the result of human error, Sullivan says the apparent blackballing is too consistent to go ignored …
He continued: “One report out of Nashville had people being told the movie sold out simply because they didn’t have the staff to cover the theater, and they chose our theater to do that to. Why? Too many things have stacked up and it just doesn’t smell right.”
Sullivan directed the top-grossing “2016: Obama’s America,” and while that film certainly faced some resistance, the box office numbers were too strong for theater chains to simply toss it aside.
In a public statement on Facebook, the film’s producer, Phelim McAleer, said he had received “worrying reports from across the country” regarding customers’ inability to buy tickets.
“People are saying that they are going to the box office and being told that the film isn’t being shown when it is,” McAleer said. “We are being told that people are also not able to buy tickets online. Some theaters are trying to cut this down, trying to exclude people from going to see it.”
The Daily Wire article also included first-hand accounts of people attesting to the fact that they could not buy tickets — or that, when they had, tickets were cancelled and customers refunded.
I have no explanation other than to say that, when movie theatres try to prevent Americans from seeing a successful, truthful film about a brutal, unrepentant abortionist, it’s time to start questioning the moral shift that is going on in the United States today.
If there is more about the mysterious disappearance of Gosnell, because there’s sure to be a back story to it, I’ll write a follow up.
Our advanced Western society is quickly becoming desensitised not only to the unborn, but also to infants.
On January 22, 2019, New York State celebrated abortion up to birth — essentially, infanticide — which is now a part of their state constitution. That means it cannot be overwritten by the Supreme Court.
Watch the standing ovation:
The Empire State building was lit in celebration. How times have changed:
A technical point on the next tweet: the state capital is in Albany, not New York City, but the larger message still stands.
Effectively, this is what the New York law means:
This is a strange thing for a Catholic governor to champion, considering that he is so passionate about children:
I was not alone in finding this illogical:
Here is the horrifying detail. Please look at the babies’ photos above before reading the following. Click on the image to see the description in full. If, after the first injection, the baby has not died, a second injection of poison is administered:
Who can imagine the baby’s pain and suffering?
It is incomprehensible to me that a mother carrying a child up until birth would want to kill it.
And, even if the mother decided so late that she no longer wanted the child — still incomprehensible — why not give birth and offer the baby for adoption?
There is something very wrong with a certain section of American society that legalises and celebrates infanticide.
And more American states are considering it, too.
More to come on this subject soon.
Congratulations to the New England Patriots, once again Super Bowl champions!
Ed Malyon wrote a ripping account for The Independent of the 53rd Super Bowl. With a score of 13-3, the lowest scoring Super Bowl ever, the Los Angeles Rams proved to be formidable opponents. Excerpts follow:
It certainly wasn’t pretty but it was undoubtedly clever. The New England Patriots out-thought and out-schemed the Los Angeles Rams to seal the sixth Super Bowl win of the Bill Belichick and Tom Brady era, the old-timer pair dismissing the challenge of the Rams’ upstart head coach, 33-year-old Sean McVay, and 24-year-old Jared Goff at quarterback, who looked utterly lost on the biggest stage.
Brady, in winning a record-breaking Lombardi trophy, smashed his own mark for the oldest-ever winner as well a host of other records. He boasts the most touchdowns, the most passing yards, the most completions, the most appearances and the most wins in Super Bowl history. He is a one-man history machine who, at 41, is not done rewriting those books …
With the game on the line and just minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, this game still hung in the balance not because we had enjoyed the spiralling offensive battle predicted but because the lowest-scoring Super Bowl in recent history had seen just three points apiece. Then Tom Brady went back to basics, the Patriots ran a hurry-up offense with an identical formation three times in a row but Brady picking a different target each time. A lofted pass to Rob Gronkowski, caught on the two-yard line, was ultimately the crucial play.
Sony Michel ran in the first touchdown of the 53rd Super Bowl in the fourth quarter, but Gronkowski’s play was the one that dragged the wolves to the door. Michel just blew a straw house down and the Pats never looked back.
Three full hours after it started, the Super Bowl had its first touchdown but scoring wasn’t really the story of this game. It was an unexpected tale of disguised coverages and outright frustration, the Rams baffled by what was thrown at them and the Patriots smart enough to keep throwing it while they did just about enough on offense …
Congratulations, Tom Brady!
Brady himself predicted what a good player he would be nearly 20 years ago (click on image to see it in full):
Israel was particularly pleased about the Patriots’ win:
The Telegraph reported:
Julian Edelman was the one shining light on offence, on either team. He worked himself open time after time, resulting in a monstrous 10 catches for 141 yards and the Super Bowl MVP award – he’s just the seventh wide receiver to win it.
Well done, chaps. Look forward to seeing you at the White House once again — and in Super Bowl LIV next year!
