Illinois Review

Waiting until you’re 40 to have kids can be counter-productive

By Teri O'Brien - 

It seems to have become fashionable among Gen X-ers, roughly defined as those born between 1962 and 1980, to delay starting their families until they are pushing (or even dragging) age 40. I guess it’s not a surprise, since this cohort has been described as a generation who refuses to grow up, that they are trying to delay responsibility and live like arrested development cases, but all this live-for-today partying, jetting off for getaway weekends at a moment’s notice and spending your DINK (Double Income No Kids) disposable income on high-tech toys is not without a cost. When the time comes, and you are ready to pull the trigger on having those kids, you may discover that the physiologically the window is slamming shut. 

You can forgive these women for being confused, particularly those who regularly wallow in the popular culture. As this story about declining fertility in the Liberal Death Star (the New York Times), “Fertility is a Matter of Age, No Matter How Young a Woman Looks,” notes, 

The unreality is reinforced by Hollywood, much to the growing dismay of many obstetricians and gynecologists. Not only are stars in their 40s now celebrated as bona fide sex symbols (Julia Roberts, Halle Berry, Salma Hayek, the list goes on), but judging from media coverage, they seem to be reproducing like rabbits.

“All women see is celebrities over 40 getting pregnant,” lamented Shari Brasner, a New York obstetrician and gynecologist.

A story of capitalism gone wild

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

You know, we're pretty oriented to free market principles around here and we often celebrate our constitutionally protected rights to pursue happiness. We've regularly talked about the goodness of profit motive. We've veered into the spiritual arguments against materialism and we have been consistently adamant that capitalism must never be confused with greed or materialism. But that puts us in a quandary of sorts for we certainly cannot claim that capitalists are incapable of greed.

Sometimes they are.

Nations (like China, for instance) which practice a particularly unusual hybrid of capitalism and tyranny are a prime example of this. This is not to trivialize the instances of pesticides in the cat food and lead paint on the toy cars if we fail to point them out as the best examples of Chinese greed. Chinese greed? Well, no. They would say that these are examples of American greed – that American corporations, in their insane lust for profit and wealth, drove the Chinese factories to use low grade materials that were harmful to the health of children and pets thereby exposing those all-powerful American corporations to massive and crippling lawsuits. It's not China's fault. They are the victims here. So the examples of poisoned cat food and dime store chachkies simple won't suffice for this discussion on the contamination of capitalism because the source of greed is hard to pinpoint.

Gosnell not alone: Live Action releases new abortion investigation

By Jill Stanek - 

Saturday, Live Action launched a new investigative video series on late-term abortions in America: “Inhuman: Undercover in America’s Late-Term Abortion Industry.”

Was Kermit Gosnell an anomaly? Not if the findings in Live Action’s first released video are any indication.

Dr. Emily’s Women’s Health Center is a late-term abortion clinic located in the Bronx section of New York City, where a wincing 41% of pregnancies end in abortion. A Live Action investigator who was 23 weeks pregnant – with a potentially viable baby – visited this mill for shocking results.

The abortion counselor is caught on tape describing in gruesome detail how the baby is removed and instructs the investigator to “flush” the baby down the toilet if he or she is accidentally delivered at home before the final stage of the two-day abortion procedure.

“If it comes out, then it comes out. Flush it. … If anything, you know, put it in a bag or something or somewhere and bring it to us.” The first Live Action video is below, the rest of this story is on www.JillStanek.com

Questions for Civil Libertarians about Dzokhar Tsarnaev

By Sam Pierce - 

Society, in general, appears to be circling the drain with ever increasing velocity. Given the state of society and the apparently overt attempts to expedite its collapse, this seems an appropriate time to question those bastions of freedom and superior intellect, the civil libertarians. Perhaps understanding the motivations of those who swing sledgehammers at the societal moorings will enable us to discover new ways to preserve it. At the very least, we may enjoy an epiphany and realize why the civil libertarian ideology should take priority over the preservation of society.

The succeeding questions are not presented in any meaningful order. I do hope civil libertarians will enlighten us (and by enlighten, I don't mean spewing legal interpretation or precedent).

Did Boston Bombers Blow Up Obama's 2nd Term Agenda?

By Teri O'Brien - 

As Obamacare continues to unravel, with one of its primary authors Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), who has apparently developed a stunning case of amnesia, predicting that it will be a “train wreck,” Barack Obama’s two new hobby horses, gun control and “comprehensive immigration reform” (read amnesty for millions of undocumented democrats) are suddenly less attractive after the terrorist attacks by the Tsarnaev brothers, two ethnic Chechnyan jihadists. Their spree of murder and mayhem has inspired many to ask “why exactly were these guys in the country? What exactly did they contribute?” Was it just to prove the truth of the adage “No good deed goes unpunished?”

After escaping their war-torn homeland, they got all the benefits of living America, including good educations and the opportunity to live in freedom. They repaid us by murdering four innocent people, and maiming hundreds of others. Now we must endure the insufferable, and way too predictable, charade of hearing the Lame Stream Media newsreaders and other liberals wring their hands, searching for a “motive.”

Who owns the children?

Illinois Review is excited to introduce our newest contributor - Irene F. Starkehaus.

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

"We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we always have had kind of a private notion of children. Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven't had a very collective notion of 'these are our children' so part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to the whole communities. Once it's everybody's responsibility and not just the household's then we start making better investments."

~Melissa Harris Perry of MSNBC

Who owns your children? Does the community own your children or do you?

Certainly, civil and social conservatives will see the words of Mellissa Harris hyphen Perry as an aggressive attack on parental rights by the mainstream media and certainly, we recognize that America has rarely encountered such an awkwardly truthful and forthcoming attempt by anyone on the Left to marginalize the family. Funny, isn't it? Regularly, conservatives have to parse, translate and interpret the hidden meanings within the Left's double-speak statist jargon in order to get to the truth of a progressivist's intent when she proposes new and revolutionary ways of looking at the traditional institutions which have made our nation strong and successful.

I saw this MSNBC statement by Harris hyphen Perry over the weekend and there were a lot of things about it that struck me as unfortunate…not the least of which is that I simply can't stand how liberals work their sleight of hand to get their marching orders communicated. Such a statement by a member of the MSM is so radically fundamentalist in its resonance that it must by definition lend itself to a manifesto styled marketing strategy. What. Do they think this is still 1950? That we haven't experienced audacity before?

Rauner and Six Degrees of Bill Ayers

By Sam Pierce - 

If your lifestyle isn't one of a certain level of snootiness, you may be familiar with the game, "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon." In this game, one thinks of an actor and then tries, in six or fewer steps, to link him or her to Kevin Bacon. Take Gene Hackman for example:

1. Gene Hackman starred in "Hoosiers" with Dennis Hopper.
2. Dennis Hopper appeared in "Easy Rider" along with Jack Nicholson.
3. Jack Nicholson played the heroic figure (but not by the libtard Hollywood standards) in "A Few Good Men," with Kevin Bacon.

  The same sort of game could be played with Bill Ayers taking the role of Kevin Bacon and Illinois Republicans such as husband of Emily's List donor and aspiring gubernatorial candidate, Bruce Rauner taking the place of the chosen actor.

Rauner The Outsider

By Sam Pierce -

Given that conservatives I respect seem to be considering supporting Bruce Rauner, I am perplexed. After checking the political donations by him and his wife, I am more perplexed. While the majority of his political donations since have been to Republican organizations and candidates, it is hard to imagine why Republicans and "conservatives" are supporting a man whose 2002 contributions were as follows (http://www.campaignmoney.com/finance.asp?type=in&cycle=02&criteria=rauner&fname=bruce):

The Plight of Feminists…All Things Being Equal

By Cranky Housewife - 

It is a terrible thing to want a child and not be able to have one. Such is this sort of tender sorrow of womanhood that it transcends modernity by tracing and weaving itself through human history. It appears in the stories of royalty as well as peasants, saints as well as sinners. It's the stuff of fairytales and bible tales. Infertility knows no boundaries of class, race, nationality or religion.

It's not so much the story of infertility, only the solutions to the problem of sterility that are new and intricate, and those solutions often bring fresh and complex crises of conscience that must be addressed and resolved if we are to maintain any standards of morality in this nation.

How many times have we all heard this one? Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. I know on the surface, we all understand the wisdom of this cloying truism. Yet this is a debate point that seems frequently lost on a good many women in their quest for offspring, their prevention of offspring and the convenience of offspring in general.

O'Brien: Over-rated White People, Feminists' War on Men, and Media Malpractice

By Teri O'Brien - 

In some ways being well-informed in the Age of Obama can be a frustrating curse. The afflicted watch millions of their fellow citizens unable to connect some very obvious dots, a fact that allows the current occupant of the Oval Office to comfortably coast along, blissfully unaccountable for the consequences of his leftwing ideology and the policies that result from it. We are still scratching our heads over Barack Obama’s re-election. How in the world did that happen? At least three reasons spring to mind, and we’ll talk about them today.

On today’s show, we’ll explore that question, and do more of that dot connecting with our guests, David Freddoso and Suzanne Venker.

David is Editorial Page Editor of the Washington Examiner, and he has appeared on the show before to talk about his previous books, The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate and Gangster Government: Barack Obama and the New Washington Thugocracy. His latest book, Spin Masters: How the Media Ignored the Real News and Helped Reelect Barack Obama, is loaded with stories that the Lame Stream Media didn’t find worth covering during 2012, when important stories like Big Bird allegedly in peril, Mitt Romney’s dog during a family vacation in the early 1980’s and supposed racist “dog whistles” took precedence over the worst economy since the 1970’s and lies about the murder of four Americans in Libya.

Barack Obama and the Zone of Misguided Promises

By John F. Di Leo - 

On a winter day in 2013, Barack Obama flew home to Chicago and tried to channel Jack Kemp.

As the Democratic Party and the Main Stream Media do his bidding, focusing their coverage on the “gun violence” of America’s cities, Obama attempts to ride this manufactured PR wave with a new political issue as his snowboard, the establishment of Promise Zones.

The idea is to take the worst neighborhoods – the cities most in need of help – and revive them with a public-private partnership of new businesses and more – much more – government assistance. The plan is to use government largesse to drive mini-recoveries in the cities, providing tax credits for new businesses to move in, and more federally funded pre-K schooling, mandated increases in the minimum wage, and focused job training for the jobs he dreams might someday appear in their midst. Surely such a program will save these troubled neighborhoods, right?

Surely these gang recruiters wouldn’t have been successful in attracting children to their gang lifestyle of drugs and luxury cars, gold jewelry and cool clothes, if only the kids had been introduced to “See Spot Run” and “Meet Dick and Jane” at four instead of at five. That year of pre-school simply must make all the difference…

Hyde Aside, Federal Tax Dollars Pay To Kill Babies

By Sam Pierce -

Well, so much for the refrain commonly employed by proponents of baby slaughter. The old droning (no, I do not mean President Barack "Born Alive, Let Them Die" Obama ordering the unmanned aerial elimination of Tea Party sympathizers) chorus of "Federal tax dollars do not pay for abortions" has been debunked.

Please do not misunderstand me. It is not like I believe the lie will die. It is a vital implement in the pro-baby-slaughter toolkit. Whether it is employed maliciously by those who profit from the abhorrent act or out of ignorance by those who are products of the education system, it will indeed continue to be used as a weapon against would be protectors of the most innocent.

Perhaps this is old news and everyone other than those in my little sphere of communication already knew that the use of taxpayer dollars for abortion was still happening despite the claims to the contrary. Perhaps those who make the dishonest claim are not intending to mislead at all. It could be that they believe that the exceptions are understood or implied when they spout the most-helpful-to-their-baby-killing-profit abridged description of the Hyde Amendment.

Dr. Carson: Someone must stand up to the bullies

By The Cranky Housewife -

Let me start with a story. An interesting conversation was recently had between one of my friends and his doctor. You see, the hospital through which his doctor practices has this neat service that's being offered for its patients – sign up and receive a special code in the mail and with that code, the patient is able to access clinic-like doctor services online.

And my friend got to thinking… wow! What a great idea, huge time saver, really innovative. He would never again have to sit in a room full of hacking flu sufferers in order to get approval for refills on his basic maintenance medications. Very excited about this whole prospect of online health care and the future of medicine in our golden age of technology, my friend decided to apply for the service for himself and for his family.

So he signed himself up. He signed his children up. He was told that his wife would need to apply for the code on her own and so that was that. In a few days, he received a schlew of letters in the mail…seemingly with the magic codes that would unlock the medical Shangri-La of which had been prophesied.

No tangible accommodations in the new HHS proposals

By Cranky Housewife -

You know the problem with Obamacare, don't you? I mean aside from the clear infringement on personal freedom, the obvious financial devastation that it will create, and the looming health care rationing that the Left swears will never happen?

The problem is? I'm telling you, every time some new requirement or hidden fee or unrecognized consequence of the HHS mandates comes to light, I feel as if I'm walking through a Dynasty episode or something…

I know, I know – Dynasty hasn't been part of any real pop-culture taxonomy since around the early 90s. That's okay. Given the current status of our Sebelian/Orwellian HHS melodrama, I think the outdated reference works just fine. If someone would be courteous enough to cue the ominous music when Sebelius takes to the podium, I think we would all be more than grateful. Because, I can't help it. When I start ruminating over this whole health care fiasco and running through the never ending, soap opera drama in my mind, the part of Kathleen Sebelius is almost always played by Joan Collins much to my surprise

Are liberals more evolved than conservatives?

By Cranky Housewife - 

Humanity is on the precipice. We are teetering on the verge of our next evolutionary leap.

I've heard various iterations on this theme echoed over and over by liberal elites ever since Barack Obama was inaugurated this last Monday – but nowhere was it better highlighted than by John Kass as he gently chided a caller to his radio show, "Are you saying to me that the more liberal a person becomes, the more evolved he becomes?"

A Nation Mourns the Deaths of 55 Million Children

CHICAGO - Next Tuesday, January 22, thousands of citizens at 265 sites across the nation will remember the lives of the over 55 million children killed by abortion in the United States since the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

"We cannot not let the brief lives of abortion's innocent victims to be utterly forgotten," said Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League. "As a nation we have been mourning for the twenty precious children massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary School last month. Now we're calling on our nation to reflect on the profound loss of all the millions of children aborted since 1973, and mourn for them, too -- children whose names and faces will never be on the evening news, but whose lives were just as precious."

Prebirth baby shower videos re-stir interest in ultrasound mandate

SPRINGFIELD - Last February, the ACLU released an Illinois-based poll saying that only one in three thought doctors offering ultrasounds to expectant mothers before undergoing an abortion was acceptable.  The poll, conducted by Fako & Associates of suburban Lisle, found the majority of both men (57%) and women (53%) opposed the bill.

But now, only a year later, ultrasounds are in the news again. Ultrasounds have become so popular, that expectant mothers are hiring medical technicians to provide entertainment at their baby showers. A live, in utero introduction to a welcomed baby has now become the "must do" for trendy moms.

These tragedies must end…

By Cranky Housewife -

These tragedies must end … and Barack Obama is just the guy to make that happen. Of that, I'm absolutely certain. Do not doubt even for a moment that President Obama has a very specific action plan in mind for how to – well, it won't actually end the kind of senseless violence that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on Friday, but we will all feel better knowing that our president gave us a cosmetic solution to the gangrenous decay that disturbs and infects the collective American psyche.

Our president had a solution for Friday's violence in mind decades before some random General Electric executive even thought of forsaking his unstable wife and children to hang out in Stamford with his new librarian bride. Not that this has anything to do with Friday's violence, as you well know. Peter Lanza's meanderings through morality, Nancy Lanza's odd obsession with anarchy, Adam Lanza's Goth-fixations have no bearing on the situation whatsoever. No. It's guns… the utensils used for Adam's violence that should concern us, and we should not bother considering how a twenty year old man came to a place in his mind where the sociopathic self-absorption of killing kindergarteners and then himself seemed preferable to growing up and getting a clue.

Right. Asperger's syndrome. Shame on me. We must not cast any blame on the perpetrator or his dysfunctional family members. People weren't responsible. He couldn't help himself. His father had nothing to do with it. His mother didn't either. It was the guns.

Standing for religious freedom in the field of medicine (video)

Twelve New Jersey nurses declared they would not participate in ending the lives of innocent babies, and faced job termination because of it. They won their case and stand for religious freedom in their university hospital today.

This video produced by the Alliance Defending Freedom shows a dramatic irony in our confused culture: How can it be so terrible to insist on protecting innocent human life and be so exemplary to resist the capital punishment of convicted criminals?

Attorney General Eric Holder Failed to Disclose Wife’s Abortion Clinic

The revelations about Attorney General Eric Holder and his connection to an abortion clinic are becoming worse as new information has come to light showing he failed to disclose his wife’s co-owning of an abortion business.

Just before the election, Human Events broke the news that Holder’s wife and sister-in-law co-own, through a family trust, own the building where a controversial abrotion practitioner operates. The Holder family transferred ownership to a family trust in 2009, eight months after President Barack Obama’s inauguration and a deed names Holder’s wife and sister-in-law as trustees.

Fulton County tax records show Holder’s wife and sister-in-law own the building, located at 6210 Old National Highway, College Park, Ga. A statement from the Georgia Department of Law shows the building was home to Old National Gynecology, the practice of abortion practitioner Tyrone Cecil Malloy. ...More HERE