Warning Bells For 2020

In modern turbine airplanes, when something goes wrong it triggers a chime in the cockpit and a flashing light to get the pilots’ attention, along with a message that describes the problem. Problems that are serious but that aren’t yet life-threatening present an amber caution light and single chime. If a problem is serious enough, triple-chime sounds and a red warning light flashes. The chimes continue and the lights flash until the pilot presses the button to cancel the alarm. Sometimes, when things get really bad, the messages are generated so fast that the chimes are going off continuously.

Over the last week leading up to the Resurgent Gathering in Atlanta, that has been the case for the Republican Party. Warning lights have been flashing, one after another, for days on end. Last week began with a discussion about President Trump’s tweets about Baltimore. The tweets were widely interpreted to have racial overtones and, whether that was the president’s intention or not, it put a predominantly white party in the awkward position of explaining to 38 million black Americans why Donald Trump is not a racist.

The president’s tweets were not problematic only for their effect on race relations. On August 2, Mr. Trump tweeted that Kim Jong Un “has a great and beautiful vision for his country” and called the North Korean dictator “a friend” despite North Korea’s launch of two short-range missiles. The president further tweeted that “these missiles tests are not a violation of our signed Singapore agreement” although he conceded “there may be a United Nations violation.”

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Outside of Twitter, last week also gave us the abortive John Ratcliffe nomination to replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence. Ratcliffe is a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, but otherwise had scant qualifications for the top intelligence post except for the fact that he seemed to have caught Trump’s attention with his questioning of Robert Mueller. With public opposition to the nomination from Democrats and little, if any, support from Republicans, President Trump withdrew the nomination on Friday, less than a week after he had made it.

Yet another caution chime is the building wave of Republican retirements for 2020. On Thursday, Rep. Will Hurd, the sole black Republican in the House, announced his retirement. Hurd was a frequent critic of Donald Trump, including saying that Trump’s tweets were “in essence telling someone because you don’t look like them, that you are not American,” but said on ABC News that he plans “to support the Republican nominee.”

More than his differences with Donald Trump, Hurd may be worried about re-election. His 23^rd district in Texas, with a majority Hispanic population, is a swing district that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. In 2018, Hurd won by less than 1,000 votes, a half percent margin.

Hurd isn’t the only Republican stepping down in 2020. Rep. Martha Roby (R-Ala.) and Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Ind.), two of only 13 House Republican women are retiring next year. The announcement of Rep. Kenny Marchant brings the total of retiring Texas Republicans to four. The two women won their last elections by comfortable margins, but Marchant was re-elected by only three points.

Republicans are retiring for a variety of reasons, but many of those reasons can be traced back to the Trump Administration. Whether the Republicans are personally opposed to Trump or not, many can read the writing on the wall for 2020. In 2018, Republicans lost 60 percent of women and 78 percent of nonwhite voters. Recent polling suggests that 2020 may be worse among both women and minorities, driven largely by his racial tweets. The 2018 Republican losses were presaged by a similar wave of retirements.

The amber cautions turned to a red warning with the El Paso mass shooting. The murder’s manifesto mirrors President Trump’s rhetoric on immigration is only the most recent incident on a growing list of white supremacist and right-wing violence. While there is no evidence that Mr. Trump directly incited the attack, it is credible that his speeches and tweets contributed to the racially-charged political climate that apparently inspired the shooter. In a clear warning sign, a supporter even mentioned shooting illegal immigrants at a Trump rally in Florida back in May.

As I write this, the president is drawing criticism from both sides for his failure to quickly condemn white supremacy after the El Paso shooting. Despite calling the murders “an act of cowardice” and a “hateful act,” the president waited until today, two days later, to specifically condemn the ideology behind the attack.

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Earlier today, President Trump did acknowledge the racist motive of the El Paso shooter, saying, “The shooter in El Paso posted a manifesto online, consumed by racist hate. In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy.”

In an airplane, when these warning and caution chimes go off, the proper response is to “identify, cancel and call for the checklist.” The pilots identify the source of the problem by looking at the message that describes the condition that generated the alert. Then they press the master warning or caution button to cancel the chime and flashing light, acknowledging that they see the problem. Finally, the pilot addresses the problem by calling for the appropriate checklist or memory item for that issue. The problem in today’s GOP is that too many are ignoring the flashing lights and chimes that are warning them of problems.

Often, when there is a serious problem, the stack of alert messages on the screen gets long. A major problem can spark many associated problems in related systems. In many cases, the root cause of the problem is revealed in messages that are near the bottom of the stack since the warning computer posts messages in the order that they occur. An honest appraisal of the current state of the Republican shows that many problem indications can be traced back to President Trump.

Despite all of these things happening over the last week, there was almost no mention of them by the Republican speakers at the Resurgent Gathering. When elected Republicans spoke about the president, it was in glowing terms. One example was Georgia’s Rep. Doug Collins, who said, “The thing I say about this president is that this president is the same on the stage as he is off the stage.”

“He has big ideas that come all the time,” Collins continued. “His ways, at times, can offend people and grate on people. They’re not used to somebody who just comes out and, a lot of the time, just speaks truth. If you hit at him, he will hit you back. I think some people are understanding that now.”

There were hints that some Republicans see that there is a problem. A speaker from the Heritage For America commented, “Some people say the election will be a referendum on President Trump, but that’s defeatist talk.” Reading between the lines, if Donald Trump was a popular president, a referendum on his administration would be a good thing for Republicans and would not be seen as “defeatist.” Likewise, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, while praising the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, remarked that one of the easiest things that President Trump could do to lower taxation and help the economy would be to end the tariff war.

The most direct acknowledgment of the warning chimes was from the Washington Examiner’s David Drucker. Drucker pointed out that while some Republicans look past Trump’s behavior because of his policies, others are being driven toward the Democrats, noting their complaint that, “if one of his rallies is on tv that I can’t watch it with children in the room.” Far from the common assumption that President Trump is assured a landslide in 2020, Drucker said that the Trump campaign is working toward another Electoral College victory with a popular vote loss, but warned, “The election could go either way as of today.”

“As I like to tell Republicans,” he added, “there’s no telling what can happen if Democrats nominate someone who is likable, trustworthy, and not under FBI investigation.”

In airplanes, 12-step programs and politics, the first step is admitting that you have a problem. So far, most Republicans have been unwilling to take that step. Admitting that you have a problem doesn’t mean that the flight will end in a crash. I’ve experienced engine failures, hydraulic failures, and a multitude of other problems, but I’ve always returned to earth safely. Very often it isn’t the fact that you have a problem that leads to disaster but the fact that the problem is ignored.

There is no emergency checklist for dealing with the Republican 2020 problem, but there are several options. The most obvious one is for Republicans to rein in Donald Trump. This might also include taking his phone away or convincing him to let staffers prescreen his tweets. At the other end of the spectrum is replacing Trump with another candidate for 2020. Neither of these options would be easy.

The bottom line for Republicans is that, if they want to win in 2020, it will require more than just pointing at Democrats and yelling, “Socialist!” in a manner reminiscent of Donald Sutherland in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Republicans have 15 months in which to build a positive case for why voters should return them to power. It is also 15 months in which Donald Trump’s tweets and public comments will be threatening to undermine their argument. Ignoring that problem won’t make it go away.

Originally published on The Resurgent

How Trump Helps - And Hurts - Republican Candidates

Donald Trump is proving to be a blessing and a curse for Republican candidates this year. Unfortunately for Republicans, we appear to be transitioning from the helpful phase to the hindrance phase.

In the primary elections, President Trump’s favored candidates were tough to beat. Buoyed by 85 percent approval from Republicans (per a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll), Trump-backed candidates have seen a definite Trump bump in the polls while many Republican Trump critics have been defeated or decided that 2018 was a good time to retire.

However, the 2018 elections are now shifting to the general phase where Mr. Trump is looking more like a liability. While Republicans have eked out victories in this year’s special elections, Democrats have overperformed by an average of 16 points. There are many Republican House districts with margins smaller than 16 points.

With the economy doing well, President Trump seems to be the big problem for Republican candidates. The same poll that showed President Trump with 85 percent approval among Republicans found him with only 38 percent approval among the independent voters who decide elections. We don’t even need to discuss his approval among Democrats.

President Trump’s collapse with independents seems to be driven by women voters. A new Fox News poll shows that women disapprove of Mr. Trump by a margin of 60-38 percent The gender gap has returned with a vengeance.

President Trump has placed both the Republican Party as a whole and individual candidates in a conundrum. GOP voters are out of sync with the rest of the country on President Trump. The Republican primary became a loyalty test where candidates argued over who supported the president more. The problem now is that the inability to distance themselves from Trump is likely to hurt Republican candidates in the general election.

Republican candidates are between a rock and a hard place. At this point, most have secured their nominations by pledging to support a president who preempts stories about a booming economy with his daily Twitter tirade and petty squabbles, not to mention a parade of indictments and convictions of Trump campaign staffers and Republican congressmen. If President Trump would sequester himself in the White House without his phone, Republican candidates might recover some lost ground and save some endangered seats. There is little chance of that happening, however.

President Trump’s outspokenness is one of the things that Republican voters love about him. It helped him get elected. It just won’t help congressional Republicans.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Why do Christians (still) rally around Trump?

As Donald Trump plummets in the polls like a brick dropped from the Trump Tower, I have to wonder why Christians are rallying to his defense while Mormons are willing to stand up to him. After the release of Trump’s sex tape last Friday, Utah’s Republican delegation to Congress was quick to denounce the party nominee and withdraw their endorsements. As a Southern Baptist, I expected many evangelical Christians to follow suit. I was wrong.

According to Christianity Today, only one Christian leader repudiated Trump. Instead, many evangelicals have rallied to defend Trump. Dr. James Dobson denounced Trump’s comments and then quickly pivoted to attack Hillary Clinton on abortion and religious liberty, as did Ralph Reed. Franklin Graham said that Trump’s comments “cannot be defended” and does not endorse any candidate, but said that “the most important issue of this election is the Supreme Court.” Sam Rodriguez, head of the National Hispanic Leadership Conference said that God uses “broken people to accomplish great things.”

Many Christians choose to emphasize God’s forgiveness. What they forget in their rush to forgive Trump is that forgiveness requires repentance (Luke 17:3). Has Donald Trump repented? There is no sign that he has. Last year, Trump was unclear on whether he had ever asked for forgiveness and said that he tried “not to make mistakes where I have to ask for forgiveness” according to the Christian Post. The Bible says that all, including Trump, have sinned (Romans 3:23). When asked about repentance, he said, “I think repenting is terrific.”

I shouldn’t be surprised that Christians are excusing Trump’s behavior. They’ve been doing it for the past year. Most of the discussions about Trump’s sex tape discuss it in a vacuum, as if it is the one blemish on an otherwise spotless record. In reality, I realized long before the revelations of the “Access Hollywood” tape that Trump’s career had been a long history of corruption and lies. He had bragged about cheating on his wife. He had allegedly committed fraud with Trump University. He had boasted in the Republican primary about paying elected officials for favors. Trump was vulgar, insulting and a fountain of false statements. Christians loved him.

Franklin Graham reportedly compared Trump to Moses and David and said that he was better than the alternative. Jerry Falwell, Jr. endorsed Trump over all other Republican candidates last January. Christians compared Trump to the Biblical king, Nebuchadnezzar and pointed out that God used ungodly men to accomplish his will. Eric Metaxas, the author of a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Christian martyr who died resisting Hitler, said in Christian Post that “sometimes you have to hold your nose and vote for the person who is going to do the least damage or who is going to pull you back from the brink.”

My neighbor, Carter, had a large “Veterans for Trump” sign in his living room and gushed, “I think we need a successful businessman.” Jay, one of my coworkers and a devout Christian, would watch Trump press conferences and chortle, “I love this guy.”

To be fair, not all Christians loved Trump. There were a few who stood on principle and told the truth about the “truth-teller.” Two Southern Baptists, Russell Moore and Albert Mohler, were among the few who spoke out against Trump early on. The Religion News Service lists more, such as Max Lucado and Erick Erickson. Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wisc.) penned “the Evangelical Case Against Donald Trump” last February.

In a supremely ironic incident, Mark DeMoss, a board member at Liberty University, was forced to resign after criticizing Donald Trump’s speech there. I had thought that religious liberty and the freedom to speak your mind were major reasons that Christians supported Trump. Those liberties apparently do not extend to opponents of Trump, at least at Liberty University.

Most of my Christian friends who support Trump seem to do so for three reasons. First, is the Supreme Court. Never mind that Trump backed away from the list of conservative jurists that he promised to use to fill court vacancies. Second, is his purported pro-life platform. Never mind that Trump was the only Republican candidate who supported Planned Parenthood throughout most of the primary, only changing his mind last month. Third, is religious liberty. Never mind that Trump refused to support the First Amendment Defense Act and that he seems disagree with Christians on gay rights. Trump’s commitment to religious liberty seems to not extend past allowing churches to be politically active. Fourth, when all other defenses fail, Trump is “not Hillary.”

In fact, Trump is so “not Hillary” that his supporters seem willing to excuse any sin on that basis. I have watched friends and colleagues that I knew and respected reluctantly board “the Trump Train.” Often, when they do, it’s like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Once they commit to Trump, all moral concerns fail. No matter what Trump does, it’s all about defeating Hillary because no one is worse than Hillary.

They quickly fall into the moral equivalence trap. They criticize Hillary’s lies, but never mention Trump’s. The condemn Bill Clinton’s behavior, but make excuses for Trump’s. They argue against Hillary’s liberalism, but dismiss Trump’s. One friend, Martin, dismisses Trump’s outlandish and insulting comments as saying “silly things.” Any criticism of Trump leads to the accusation that I must be a closet Hillary supporter and a liberal. They are no longer the people that I had known and respected, using logical fallacies in an attempt to defend the indefensible.

But I still wonder why Mormons, who share many moral beliefs with Christians, are much more outspoken against Donald Trump. It may be because Trump poisoned the well against Mormons during the primary. The socially conservative sect is at odds with Trump’s crude, profane, materialistic lifestyle. As Religion News Service points out, most Mormons are also not anti-immigrant, their forebears having been forced to flee other parts of the country for their religious beliefs. When Trump proposed his Muslim ban, the politically neutral LDS Church responded with a statement on religious freedom. Trump also has made statements that Mormons consider insulting.

While Trump was alienating Mormons, he was pandering to Christians. Early on, he made the promise that people could say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays” if he was elected. But haven’t we always? Buzzfeed revealed in August that Trump needed prepping from his handlers to know how to answer questions about Christianity and social conservatism. An early tipoff of his insincerity was his “Two Corinthians” flub. Trump blamed Family Research Council Tony Perkins for his gaffe according to CNN.

If Donald Trump is biblically illiterate so are most Americans. That is another reason Christians have been slow to offer opposition. A recent survey by Lifeway found that most Americans believe the Bible, they just don’t know what it says. The survey found that, as a whole, evangelical Christians actually knew less about Christian beliefs than Americans at large.

If Christians were reading their Bibles, they might know that Paul commanded them “not to associate with sexually immoral people” (1 Corinthians 5:9) and that “bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33). As Donald Trump bellowed, “I alone can fix it” at the Republican National Convention, they might have thought about Jesus’ warning that “false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24).

One bright spot is that evangelical women seem to be waking up. The Christian Post reports that author Beth Moore and Chelsen Vicari, Evangelical Action Director at the Institute of Religion, have both condemned Trump’s lewd remarks.

In another Christian Post piece, Julie Roys, a host for the Moody Radio Network, says, “I honestly don't know what makes me more sick. Listening to Trump brag about groping women or listening to my fellow evangelicals defend him.” She also calls the prospect of Hillary Clinton “a disaster of historic proportions.”

“Donald Trump may do less damage to the country than Hillary,” Roys wrote, “but he's done far worse damage to the evangelical church than anyone in recent history. And let's remember, the church — not politics — is the only real hope of reforming the character of this nation and saving it from destruction. That's why the witness of the church is simply not worth trading for a political victory.”

Roys is right. Trump has revealed many Christians to be moral hypocrites. This has hurt their standing in their communities. On a business trip to Atlantic City last spring, my friend Rob, who is an atheist, gleefully snapped pictures of the Trump Taj Mahal. He said that he wanted to use the photos to show Christians who they were campaigning for. The character of many Christians will remain tarnished long after the election is over.

Roys acknowledges the difference between a reluctant vote for Trump and actively making excuses for him. “If you feel you must vote for him to prevent a Clinton presidency, then go ahead, plug your nose and vote,” she writes. “But please, don't argue like Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition that ‘a 10-year-old tape of a private conversation’ should ‘rank low’ on our "hierarchy of concerns.”

After the election, when the smoke clears and the Trump supporters wake up to the hangover of four years of Hillary Clinton, elected because of their unfaltering support for an extremely flawed, dishonest candidate, maybe Christian Trumpers will realize what they have wrought. Their defense of Trump’s immoral behavior has degraded the whole culture and done serious damage to American Christianity. The church has become hot for politics and “lukewarm” on Jesus and morality. It may be time for a rebuke.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Republicans are be divided with or without Trump

(Michael Vadon/Wikimedia)

As Republican delegates get ready to head to Cleveland for the party’s convention next week, the debate has shifted to whether party members should follow the will of Republican voters and anoint Donald Trump as the Republican nominee or whether they should act as a failsafe device and reject the unpopular choice of the voters for another candidate. Trump supporters argue that such a move would divide the GOP and make a Hillary victory inevitable. In reality, Donald Trump has already divided the Republican Party and almost definitely assured a Hillary win.

Donald Trump’s candidacy in and of itself has divided the Republican Party as no (other) Democrat could ever hope to do. Trump’s unpopularity is no longer news. The businessman’s most notable political accomplishment, aside from becoming the presumptive nominee, is making Hillary Clinton look good by comparison.

Trump’s unfavorable rating has consistently hovered in the 60 percent range according to Real Clear Politics, worse than Hillary’s approval, which itself is nothing to brag about. A New York Times poll found that Trump is considered less trustworthy than Hillary, again no mean feat, and his values are shared by fewer voters than are Hillary’s values.  

Fundamental problems with Trump’s character are causing his base to splinter. The same Times poll reports that “three in ten voters who supported other Republican candidates” say that they will not support Trump in November. A more recent CNN poll found that 48 percent of Republicans would prefer that the GOP choose someone else as its nominee. NBC News and the Wall St. Journal found even more Republicans dissatisfied with Trump at 52 percent.

Prominent Republicans such as George Will, Max Boot and Hank Paulson have announced their intention to support Hillary over Trump. CNN recently reported on a grassroots “Republican Women for Hillary” movement. Even former First Lady Laura Bush has hinted that she may support Clinton over Trump.

The Republican Party is clearly divided over Donald Trump. In contrast to Trumps -30 percent net approval rating, by July 2012 Mitt Romney, another unpopular candidate, had an approval rating that broke even on average. Romney also worked hard to unify the party against President Obama and the Democrats. Trump’s attitude has been one of “my way or the highway.” Trump backer Sarah Palin has even taken to calling Trump opponents “R.A.T.’s,” an acronym for “Republicans against Trump.”

Perhaps related to Trump’s personality problems are his strategic problems. Traditional GOP donors are not rallying behind Trump. USA Today reports that the Team Trump has only $1.3 million on hand compared to $42 million for the Hillary campaign. Hillary’s campaign staff is 10 times larger than Trump’s and, according to Politico, Trump campaign staff in battleground states is almost nonexistent. 

All of the above has contributed to a growing revolt against Trump. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that anti-Trump activists were close to gaining enough votes at the convention to unbind delegates. A federal ruling on Monday held that Virginia delegates could not be required by state law to vote for the winner of their state primary. As Trump’s erratic behavior continues, it seems that struggle for the nomination will be completed on the convention floor.

The bottom line for Republican delegates as they get ready to make their way to Cleveland is that they are caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place. If Donald Trump emerges from the convention as the nominee, a large number of Republicans are likely to sit out the election or vote against Trump. With a fragmented base and support cratering among Hispanics, blacks and women (where he trails by 17 percent), Trump seems to destined to lose if he is formally nominated. There simply aren’t enough Republican voters in the white male demographic, the only segment of the electorate that seems to favor him, to allow Trump to win.

On the other hand, if convention delegates are able dump Trump, the party will be split along different fault lines. Trump’s core supporters will likely desert the GOP. They may well take with them moderate Republicans who feel that the party should honor the outcome of the popular vote, even if they don’t agree with the majority’s choice of Trump. Once again, this scenario would probably end in a Clinton victory.

Republican delegates are left with an unenviable choice. Either course will, in all probability, split the party and result in Clinton presidency. 

Read it on Conservative Firing Line

Kermit Gosnell may change national conversation on abortion

The trial of Kermit Gosnell may represent a turning point in the American discussion of abortion. The story is not merely the heinous crimes committed by Gosnell and his staff; the other half of the story is the left’s almost total lack of outrage. As James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal wrote in his excellent summary of the case, the mainstream media almost totally ignored the entire case and trial until an outpouring of interest on the internet all but forced coverage of the trial onto television and into newspapers.

Bill Clinton made famous the line that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” Under modern Democrats, the attempt to make abortion rare, if there ever was a real attempt, has fallen by the wayside. Obamacare’s contraception mandate also forces insurance companies to include coverage for abortifacient drugs and President Obama’s budget increased federal funding for mega-provider of abortion Planned Parenthood. While Gosnell was on trial, President Obama became the first president to speak to Planned Parenthood, telling the group “as long as we've got to fight to protect a woman's right to make her own choices about her own health, I want you to know that you've also got a President who's going to be right there with you fighting every step of the way” and “God bless you” according to Politico.

As the grisly details of Kermit Gosnell’s practice come to light, it is becoming apparent that the left is far more concerned with keeping abortion legal than in keeping it safe. (Clinton apparently meant safe for the mother; abortion is almost always fatal for the baby.) A major point that pro-abortion activists frequently make is that legal abortion is needed to avoid keep women from being maimed in “back alley” abortions. It is apparent now that these back alley abortions continue in the offices of people like Kermit Gosnell.

Among the dead from Gosnell’s Philadelphia office was a 41-year-old woman who had come to Gosnell for an abortion. According to the grand jury report, Karnamya Mongar, a Nepalese immigrant, was given repeated doses of Demerol while waiting for Gosnell to perform her abortion. After several hours of waiting in a drug-induced sleep, Mongar stopped breathing. It is not certain how long Mongar lay there dying before the clinic’s employees noticed. It is known that when she was discovered Gosnell half-heartedly performed CPR, but did not administer drugs that could have restarted her heart. The clinic had a defibrillator, but it was broken. Ms. Mongar was probably brain dead before paramedics were even called. The report states that before paramedics arrived, the clinic staff hooked up equipment and rearranged the body to make it appear as if Ms. Mongar died in the midst of a procedure. Any chance of reviving her was lost as paramedics were unable to get her out of the building for 20 minutes due to cluttered hallways and padlocked emergency door.

Gosnell came close to killing other women as well. The report details several other instances in which Gosnell’s medical incompetence and negligence resulted in serious illness and near fatal complications for his patients. Many clinic employees were not trained or licensed. One employee who commonly dosed out medications was an untrained high school student. Gosnell inadvertently implicated himself by recording hundreds of late term abortions as 24. 5 weeks, when the Pennsylvania law limited abortions to earlier than 24 weeks.

Gosnell’s record of abusing women goes back 40 years ago to 1972. On Mother’s Day, Gosnell offered to perform abortions on 15 poor women from Chicago who were bused to his clinic. Gosnell did not tell the women that they would be guinea pigs for a new abortion device, a ball of gel-coated plastic razors to be inserted in their uteruses. Their body heat was supposed to melt the gel, loosening the razors and cutting up the unborn babies. In reality, the device, called the “super coil,” caused serious complications for nine of the 15 women. One required a hysterectomy. The incident became known as the Mother’s Day Massacre.

There were many more recent reports of problems at Gosnell’s clinic. It is apparent that he flouted numerous laws and nearly killed an unknown number of women due to poor sanitary methods and negligence, yet Pennsylvania’s medical regulators did not investigate. There were a multitude of complaints including a doctor who noticed that many of his patients who went to Gosnell contracted the same venereal disease. The medical examiner of Delaware County informed the Pennsylvania Department of Health that Gosnell had illegally performed an abortion on a 14-year-old mother with an unborn baby at 30 weeks. In one case, Gosnell refused to halt an abortion for a woman who changed her mind. Then, on November 18, 2009, Karnamaya Mongar died of a drug overdose in Gosnell’s office.

The report notes that none of this triggered state inspections of the clinic. In fact, in 1993 Pennsylvania had completely stopped inspecting abortion clinics for political reasons under the administration of pro-abortion Republican Tom Ridge.

Even pro-choice Americans should be concerned about the abysmal conditions that Gosnell’s patients endured. There were many reports of infections and life threatening complications before Gosnell and his staff actually killed Ms. Mongar. It is readily apparent that Gosnell did not operate a “safe” abortion clinic and was actually a threat to the health and wellbeing of women. Any doubts to this effect should be dispelled after reading testimony about how Gosnell drugged patients who were upset or slapped them.

Gosnell was part of a black market for abortionists who will circumvent the meager restrictions on abortions that the courts permit states to enact. Gosnell was aided and abetted not only by his clinic staff, but by numerous referrers, many of whom must have known that Gosnell was performing abortions at much later stages than the law allowed. It seems that the patient’s ability to pay was Gosnell’s only concern. In the end, the raid on Gosnell’s clinic was not due to his many violations of the law, Mongar’s death, or complaints by other women or doctors. The 2010 raid was based on suspected illegal drug trafficking.

In many respects, Gosnell’s clinic was not unique. The undercover filmmakers at Live Action have made a several short films showing abortion clinic workers helping patients to break laws limiting abortions. The practice of circumventing abortion restrictions appears to be widespread enough to warrant further investigation.

There is also evidence that other abortion clinics are substandard when it comes to keeping clean and sanitary facilities. A clinic in Ohio was ordered closed last month after failing a state health inspection. A second Ohio clinic in Toledo may be closed as well. A Planned Parenthood clinic in Delaware is charged with using unsterile instruments and rushing patients through procedures on bloody tables. Police investigating a break-in at a Muskegon, Mich. clinic found similar unsanitary conditions. A Lexington, Ky. abortionist’s medical license was suspended amid charges of fraud and unsanitary conditions. A Wilmington, Del. Clinic was closed in March 2013 after four women were rushed to the hospital with complications within a month. In Atlantic City, N.J. an abortion clinic was closed in for a series of health code violations.

USA Today reported that abortion clinics in Delaware are not required to undergo routine inspections. Maryland does not inspect for cleanliness and New Jersey only inspects surgery centers. In Virginia, the cleanliness and safety of abortion clinics has become a political issue after the state’s clinics were issued 80 violations according to Breitbart. Inspections of clinics vary from state to state with several states apparently choosing not to inspect at all even though the potential for infection and disease is high.

The Gosnell case explodes several myths about abortion in America. Abortion is not the safe, sterile procedure that advocates make it out to be. Many clinics are apparently unsanitary even by basic standards. Many abortion clinic workers seem eager to help clients break the law and often avoid fulfilling even basic obligations for counseling.

Statistics show that other promises of abortion proponents have also been unfulfilled as well. Abortion proponents claimed that abortion would reduce out of wedlock births and child abuse. In reality, a Bowling Green State University study from 2005 showed that women who have had abortions are 144 percent more likely to abuse their children. A study by Edward Lenoski of the University of Southern California found that 91 percent of abusive parents had wanted their children.

The trend toward unwed motherhood has been accelerated since Roe v. Wade. A report released in March 2013 by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and the RELATE Institute indicated that almost half of U.S. births are now out of wedlock. The average age when a woman first gives birth is now 25.7. The average age when a woman gets married has increased to 26.5.

Originally published on Examiner.com:
http://www.examiner.com/article/kermit-gosnell-case-may-break-deadlock-on-abortion-1

Polling predicts Romney landslide

As the presidential election enters the home stretch, the race is still tight according to the polls. Most recent national polls now give Mitt Romney the edge. Gallup shows Obama trailing by five points nationally. According to a new Rasmussen poll released today, Romney leads 49-47 percent.

In the swing states, many races are trending towards Romney as well. In Florida (29 electoral votes), the majority of polls show Romney in the lead. This is also true in North Carolina (15 votes).

The swing states of Virginia and Ohio remain a statistical tie. In both states, however, President Obama is polling at less than 50 percent, a bad sign for an incumbent. In Virginia (13 votes), Real Clear Politics average of polls shows the president with an average of 47 percent. In Ohio (18 votes), President Obama gets 48 percent. The most recent poll in Ohio is a Rasmussen sample that shows Mitt Romney leading 50-48.

Historical precedent shows that undecided voters usually vote against the incumbent. Polling Report studies found that over 80 percent of the time, undecided voters chose the challenger. The Incumbent Rule holds that incumbents rarely get a higher percentage of the vote than they receive in pre-election polls. This means that Mitt Romney will probably win in both Ohio and Virginia. These victories would give Romney 266 electoral votes, four short of the 270 required to win the White House.

There are many opportunities to win the extra four votes. In six states, President Obama leads in the polling, but with less than 50 percent. These states include Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. A win in any of these states along with victories in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia would seal Mitt Romney’s victory. Current polling suggests that he may win all of them. Currently polling also suggests that Oregon, where the president is polling at 48 percent, may be in play.

The situation is discouraging for Obama because the states in play are all states that he won in 2008. There are no states that voted for McCain in 2008 that are trending toward Obama this year. Several possible swing states (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) are normally solidly Democratic.

The only swing state in which President Obama is polling at 50 percent or more is Nevada. Polls there have showed the president with 50 to 51 percent according to Real Clear Politics. This suggests a one to two point victory over Mitt Romney.

If the Incumbent Rule holds true, Mitt Romney will win the election with 331 electoral votes to Barack Obama’s 207. You can view the Atlanta Conservative Examiner’s prediction of the election’s outcome in detail on 270towin.com. You can also create your own electoral map.

Mitt Romney will also win the popular vote, avoiding a repeat of the divisive aftermath of the 2000 election in which George W. Bush won the electoral vote by winning Florida, but lost the popular vote to Vice President Al Gore. Based on current polls, Romney should win approximately 53 percent of the popular vote.

The idea of a Republican landslide in the presidential election is also supported by Gallup’s party identification poll. At this point in 2008, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 34 to 33 percent with 32 percent considering themselves independent. In 2010, Democrats still outnumbered Republicans, this time by 32 to 29 percent. Independents had increased to 36 percent. The most recent data, from September 2012, shows 28 percent Republican, 32 percent Democrat, and 38 percent independent. This is almost identical to 2010, when the Republicans won a congressional landslide.

Additionally, the Associated Press reported last week that Mitt Romney had closed the gender gap with President Obama as well. At one time, Obama had a 16 point advantage among women. The recent AP-Gfk poll now shows the two candidates tied at 47-47 among women. Previous polls have shown the president losing support among black voters and young voters, two core constituencies from 2008.

Barring a successful last-minute October surprise, it seems almost certain that Mitt Romney will not only win the presidential election, but that he will do so handily. What was a close race throughout the summer now seems to be trending toward a landslide.

Originally published on Examiner.com
http://www.examiner.com/article/polling-points-to-romney-landslide?cid=db_articles