Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf Threatens to Veto Bill to Ban Dismemberment Abortions

Abortion activists in Pennsylvania are putting up a fight against a new bill to ban painful late-term abortions and gruesome dismemberment abortion procedures in the state. Pennsylvania House Bill 1948, sponsored by state Rep. Kathy Rapp, would ban brutal dismemberment abortions that tear unborn babies limb from limb and prohibit abortions after 20 weeks when unborn babies can feel pain.
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Barone: Free Market, Not Government Policy, Drives Energy Boom

MICHAEL BARONE: In contrast to the marginal effects of much ballyhooed public policies, there has been a huge breakthrough in energy production in the past couple of years. Read more at Townhall...

There is a lesson here for public policy generally, including health care. No centralized government expert predicted the vast expansion in energy supply from hydraulic fracking. It was produced by decentralized specialists in firms subject to market competition.

Learn a little about "hydraulic fracking" in this article. --bc Read More......

Largest Small Arms Army in the World

FEDERALIST PAUPERS, 12/2/2010 Title: Why the Terrorists Can Never Win - The state of Wisconsin has gone an entire deer hunting season without someone getting killed. That’s great. There were over 600,000 hunters. ✧ Allow me to restate that number. Over the last two months, the eighth largest army in the world – more men under arms than Iran; more than France and Germany combined – deployed to the woods of a single American state to help keep the deer menace at bay. ✧ But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of Pennsylvania this week. Michigan’s 700,000 hunters have now returned home. Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia, and it is literally the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world.

These numbers are part of why those of us who grew up in rural parts of the country simply don’t comprehend the gun-grabbing impulses of some. Every single year, millions of Americans carry high power rifles into the woods and more or less do as they please – some shoot at deer, some just drink a lot – and it is a complete non-story. The number of people injured and killed by these guns will pale in comparison to those injured and killed in driving accidents during the same time period. ✧ But however well or badly we handle our guns, woe will befall he who thinks he can conquer America. Read more at Federalist Paupers... Read More......

Santorum's resurrection

WASHINGTON POST, 12/9/2009 by Kathleen Parker (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - Is Rick Santorum running for president of the United States, or isn't he? ∴ I caught him by phone on a people mover at Dulles Airport and posed the question: He's not running, then again, he's not NOT running. ∴ En route to South Carolina on Tuesday to stump for gubernatorial candidate and Republican Rep. Gresham Barrett, Santorum wasn't being cagey, just practical. Whether the former Pennsylvania senator can raise the millions needed for a presidential bid remains to be seen. ∴ In the meantime, he has some things to say. For starters: "I have no great burning desire to be president, but I have a burning desire to have a different president of the United States." ∴ Santorum doesn't see anyone in his party who energizes the three legs of the stool, as Ronald Reagan described the Republican issue clusters -- the economy, national security and social conservatism. Read more at the Washington Post... Read More......