Illinois Review

7 ways to mark 40th anniversary of pro-life Hyde Amendment

The late Congressman Henry Hyde | Northern Illinois University Library image

CHICAGO - September 30, 2016 marks the 40th anniversary of the passage of the Hyde Amendment, widely acknowledged as the first legislative victory of the pro-life movement following the 1973 legalization of abortion in America. 

The Hyde Amendment is named after its chief sponsor, Republican Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois. The late statesman, known for his eloquent and unwavering defense of life, successfully barred the use of certain federal funds to pay for abortion in most circumstances. Though it has taken various forms and has undergone modifications, to date the Hyde Amendment remains intact – although the 2016 Democratic platform includes an explicit call to repeal it. 

"The 40th Anniversary of the Hyde Amendment is one that pro-life groups will want to mark publicly for a number of reasons," said Tom Ciesielka, president of TC Public Relations. "First, it is a significant milestone, second it is an opportunity for life advocates to recognize an early success that has endured, and – with its first party-wide challenge by Democrats – the defense of the Hyde Amendment may prove crucial at this moment."

Ciesielka offers the following suggestions for pro-life groups to consider when observing the 40th anniversary of the Hyde Amendment:

Starkehaus: Ted Cruz’s moment of truth, but will that truth set his supporters free?

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

There are a lot of Republicans who are quite filled with rage over Ted Cruz's convention performance on July 20, 2016. Fox News says Cruz behaved without class. Conservative talk radio and TV personalities are apoplectic that Cruz was disloyal to the party. Party operatives are calling for Ted Cruz's head on a platter.

Sounds like a win for the RINOs to me. What's all the fuss about? All in all, members of the GOP are infuriated because Cruz failed to toe the company line at the podium on Wednesday, and instead elected to bite his thumb at the Trumpian fantasy sequence that is fermenting in Cleveland this week.

Starkehaus: A Gamers' Review of Pokémon Go

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

My kingdom for an innocent distraction during this summer of escalating violence. I don't know about you, but I'm in the mood for a silly diversion.

Pikachu to the rescue! Pokémon Go is here and gamers are quickly making this the "it" game of 2016. The interest in Go continues to outpace forecasts, and I predict that this game will ultimately attract a much wider demographic than Nintendo originally envisioned.

The Starkehaus kids, like many of their friends, have been playing Pokémon since grammar school, and they have grown through the various platform metamorphoses as the game adapted and evolved. Trading cards became Gameboys. Gameboys became the DS, the DS branched out into Wii, and now if you want to train and battle your legendary Victini, then Nintendo in cooperation with Niantic has an app for that.

Nintendo's purchase of the Niantic company and their app was by all accounts pure genius. The acquisition will revolutionize the look, feel and portability of gaming forever. Nintendo's giant leap in augmented reality is going to revitalize the Pokémon franchise and bring back former Pokémon players who were starting to age out.

Those two achievements alone would be enough to make this a blockbuster game.

Starkehaus: Americans and Their Pet Monster. Hillarygate.

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

On Tuesday, FBI director James Comey outlined what he characterized as the democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's egregious ineptitude in protecting classified State Department emails. He simultaneously refused to indict or otherwise sanction Clinton for her breaches in security. Hours later, Republicans were still striking their best Edvard Munch poses like the miscarriage of justice had completely blindsided them. Like they could never have imagined that the fix was in.

Shocking or not, egregious ineptitude is now one step closer to the presidency. Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith, so it would seem that the people will get the government they deserve. Quoth de Tocqueville nevermore.

What's that? Hillary Clinton is getting away with crimes that most Americans would fry over? Sacre bleu! Who coulda seen that coming?

Five verified lies Hillary Clinton told the public about her emails

Independent Journal's Ian Mullane has put together a list of five lies Hillary Clinton told the public about her emails, as exposed by FBI Director James Comey at Tuesday's announcement that the Bureau would not recommend she be charged for security breaches as Secretary of State. 

LIE #1: “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email.”

TRUTH: As FBI Director James Comey revealed in the press conference today, 108 of the emails in more than 52 chains she sent were, in fact, considered classified. And 8 of those chains contained a “Top Secret” classification.

LIE #2: “First, when I got to work as Secretary of State, I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department, because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two.”

TRUTH: The Director pointed out that Hillary Clinton used “numerous mobile devices to view and send email on that personal domain.”

Starkehaus: Some fresh advice for Donald Trump

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Warning – pervasively mixed metaphors up ahead. Proceed with caution. Look, I get it. Watching your candidate fumble through what should have been a scenic promenade into the end zone really stinks. I know what you're going through because I've been right where you are many, many times myself.

No, I mean - not for this particular election, of course. This election is turning out to be quite the opposite for me. I finally get to stretch my political legs for the first time in like 16 years because for the first time in 16 years, I don't have to defend a horse's back end as a tradeoff for keeping the barbarians at bay.

That's because there's no way to defend from the barbarians this time around. From my vantage point, that pretty pony has already jumped the fence and is half way down the road.

Starkehaus: Seven conservative answers to questions raised by Orlando shooting

By Irene Starkehaus - 

In the aftermath of the Orlando Massacre committed by Omar Mateen in the early hours of June 12, 2016, it might behoove us to take the advice of John Kass (Chicago Tribune) and step away from the spin cycle just long enough to gain perspective before allowing ourselves to react. To paraphrase Kass, an emotional reaction is exactly what the enemies of liberty want. Don't give way to hotheaded and snarky retorts. They help no one but those on the wrong side of history.

The shock that the whole nation is experiencing right now is profound and rightly so. The evil that occurred at The Pulse Nightclub in Orlando utterly blisters the mind for a need to respond, and there's small hope of finding an angle to this event's reporting that isn't meant to demoralize and offend. Taking the time to center yourself before deciding what your response should be may not curtail these offenses, but it might bring forth a bit of clarity where chaos might otherwise prevail.

Would that religious and political leaders might take heed of Kass's advice before advocating for further controls over basic human rights and liberties. The world would be a better place without political opportunism. We can only hope that they mean no real harm and are just reacting out of a sense of helplessness or ignorance.

Starkehaus: So Bill Kristol nominates David French for president? Would that make Jonah Goldberg our next VP?

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

For Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard, it would seem that voting for Donald Trump is only slightly more appealing than gouging his own eyes with a rusty nail. I sympathize with the sentiment mind you, but Kristol is a RINO. Trump is a RINO. It ought to be a political match made in heaven. Am I missing something? What went wrong?

Frankly, I'm not sure how traditionalist conservatives got on the same side as the Weekly Standard in this election. There must be some kind of rift in the space/time continuum, because other than that improbable prospect, I've got little putting the two groups together– maybe that RINOs don't like how Jeb was treated and traditionalists don't like how pretty much everyone else was treated. Alas, politics does make strange bed fellows.

Starkehaus: Voting for the Lesser of Two Evils Requires a Lesser of Two Evils

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

As a result of society's increasing nonjudgement born of secular homogenization, it would seem that God has been recast in the role of Walt Disney – which is nearly perfect except that people are not ashamed to say that they went to Disney World and paid $200 to stand in line for three hours for a ride that lasted forty-five seconds.

Nevertheless, if you can get past the disgrace of being seen kneeling in the pews for sixty minutes once a week, God and the "It's a Small World" ride, these are pretty much the same thing now. Tame, obedient, not particularly demanding.

And isn't that part of the progressivist utopia that we've been racing toward during Barack Obama's presidency? That there will be a chicken in every pot being cooked by an undocumented worker, and that everyone goes to Heaven because John Boehner has personally met Lucifer and Lucifer couldn't even win the Republican nomination? What makes you think he's go any power over your immortal soul?

But God and Disney World are not the same thing, Ted Cruz is not Lucifer and we are about to learn what happens when the end results do not justify the relativism of voting for blowhards because the blowhards can win. The best thing we can hope for happens to be identical to the worst thing we can hope for, which is that Trump wins. It's like watching Marty McFly watching himself jump into the DeLorean and race headlong into the past in order to save the future. Very surreal.

Sandack: We don't oppose fantasy sports, we just want assurance they're not rigged

By State Rep. Ron Sandack (R-Downers Grove) - 

A recent Sun-Times editorial (Bet on steep regulations for daily fantasy sports) would have readers believe that the best way to legalize and regulate daily fantasy sports betting is to take the word, and the draft legislation, from the very businesses that seek to benefit from open disregard for our laws. I think we should aspire to do better.

Legislators who have concerns with this bill do not oppose fantasy sports. Instead, we want to ensure that consumers aren’t playing a rigged game, that those profiting from these contests aren’t criminals, and that the bill is forward thinking so that we don’t have to come back in six months or a year, to fix obvious problems with Internet gambling.

As the editorial and the Illinois Attorney General noted, under current law those who operate Daily Fantasy Sports contests are illegal gambling syndicates. These companies have been flagrantly operating outside the law since day one.

West Virginia coal worker confronts Clinton over anti-coal comments

West Virginia coal miner show Hillary Clinton photo, saying "This is my family ..."

SPRINGFIELD - Like West Virginia, Illinois coal mining has suffered at the hands of environmentalist Obama Administration policies over the last decade. The nation's largest coal company, Peabody, filed for Chapter 11 last month and the electricity providing industry struggles to survive.

Peabody reported a loss of $2 billion in 2015 and warned of more declines this year due to reduced use of coal by U.S. utilities, along with lower demand from overseas markets.

Coal could face more devastation if Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton follows through on comments she made recently saying she pledged to put coal miners and coal companies out of business. 

At a round table in West Virginia Monday, a coal worker confronted Mrs. Clinton about her claim.

Starkehaus: Trump v Clinton and other Apocalyptic visions

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

For the record, I did reread Revelation just to clarify our current position, and it would seem there are zero references to Trump Tower and personal email servers in the Holy text. Obviously, I am being facetious in calling Trump v Clinton the path to Armageddon, although it's as interesting considering the possibility as it is sad that I have to point out that I'm being facetious.

While I'm not in charge of the official decisions, there's a good chance it's not the end of the world that the two most ethically ambivalent characters available in this space and time are now leading contenders in the presidential election of 2016. Don't be counting on Doomsday to bail you out of this mess. Nothing is that easy.

Starkehaus: From Selfridge's emancipation to PayPal and Apple's misguided war on women

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

The big revolutions in human history don't happen in a vacuum. Certainly there are moments of historical import that utterly redirect the trajectory of human history. Such occasions may be flashy attention grabbers, but there are otherwise random events leading to revolution that actually summon social upheaval even as they appear unconnected to the transformative changes they encourage. Without those seemingly insignificant events, certain developments in human activity may never have occurred.

When we consider the equality that women have achieved in Western civilizations, we often incorrectly assume that emancipation began with suffrage. At a most cursory level, that may be true but – again – that revolution didn't happen in a vacuum. Other incidents acted as catalysts for that big bang we call suffrage. In actuality, emancipation began with Selfridge.

O'Brien: What happened when voters put a community organizer in the White House

By Teri O'Brien -

Dr. Martin Luther King, quoting abolitionist Theodore Parker, said that "the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice." Watching our country proceed headlong on the downside of Barack Obama’s socialist failure curve, we can clearly see now that “hope and change” is definitely not what a lot of people thought it was cracked up to be.

Not so in 2008, remember? That was when some people, the naive, the emotionally-driven, the uninformed, and frankly, in some cases, the outright stupid, were besotted with the idea that a dopey, jug-eared unaccomplished empty suit with a game show host smile and the ability to read from a TelePrompTer was the savior they had been waiting for. Of course, 2008 was when that very savior, Barack Hussein Obama, was striding across the world stage, speechifying from inside styrofoam Roman columns, reciting incomprehensible idiocy like “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

O'Brien: Three Ways Just This Week That Obama is Making Us Less Safe

By Teri O'Brien -

If you spend even a little time watching what is laughingly referred to as “the news,” be it on cable or traditional network television, you will no longer wonder why many Americans walk around in a low-information fog about the current presidential race.

Here’s what I saw in the last couple of weeks. One candidate, Donald J. Trump, who does seem a tad thin-skinned, is enraged that a political action committee for Sen. Ted Cruz used a provocative, 15-year old photo of his wife, done as part of her work as a professional model for a mainstream magazine, in a political ad, so he tweets a very unflattering picture of another candidate’s wife.

Starkehaus: Brokered Conventions, Blue Dog Democrats and Other Identity Crises

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

It was a cozy gathering of the members of the Republican establishment and the liberal titans of commerce at a resort in Sea Island, Georgia last week as so-called neo-conservatives gathered to reshape the world into their own image of progressivism by deciding who should be named the Republican nominee. Per Breitbart, some of those great thinkers attending American Enterprise Institute's annual World Forum were:

Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, Napster creator Sean Parker, Tesla Motors and SpaceX's Elon Musk, Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Karl Rove, House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) GOP Sens. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Ben Sasse (R-Ne). Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) Philip Anschutz, the billionaire GOP donor whose company owns a stake in Sea Island, was also there, along with Democratic Rep. John Delaney (D-MD), who represents Maryland and Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times.

All this secrecy to discuss how they will thwart the party's nominating process and crown their preferred emperor if common Americans remain too stubborn to see that Donald Trump would be a megalomaniacal means to the end of our way of governance.

Starkehaus: So when Trump has secured the Republican nomination, what then?

By Irene F. Starkehaus -

At this stage in the primary process, it may, in fact, be inevitable that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for President of the United States. I think it's a fair assumption that Illinois isn't going to have much of an impact on the Donald Trump tsunami. Unless Rubio, Kasich and Carson bail by March 15, and two of three of those candidates have indicated that they won't, this thing is already over.

A fait accompli. With up to five people on the ticket, if Illinois goes for Cruz, it will be the political equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. If Illinois goes for Trump, it just adds to the inescapability of the iceberg's destructive force.

If you are a conservative Republican, and you've ever tried to imagine how you would have behaved in times of political or social upheaval, you will now have the opportunity to learn a little something about your own character and how it feels to witness the devolution of an historic miracle of governance that was two hundred years in the making.

Starkehaus: Directing consumerism for maximum political impact

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Lands' End has been using the year of 2016 to honor several legendary women who, in the company's opinion, changed the course of modern history through their activism. The company chose to celebrate activist women by interviewing and profiling them within their clothing catalogs over consecutive months.

LifeNews.com ran a story on February 23, 2016 detailing the ad campaign launched earlier this year by clothing retailer Land's End. The article is entitled Lands' End Stores Donating Proceeds to Abortion Activist Gloria Steinem's Organization.

Starkehaus: So the Pope, a Journalist and Donald Trump Walk into a Bar…

By Irene Starkehaus - 

Yes, the Pope-Trump Wall War is so ridiculous that it screams for punchlines. This is shaping up to be just a terrible decade for conservative Catholics, isn't it? Michigan J. Frog for president and Foghorn Leghorn for pope. I really miss the bygone days when the adults were in charge rather than populist caricatures.

Being that I am not a huge fan of Donald Trump (No! Really?) and being that I am a practicing – if not always successful – Catholic, I really resent that Pope Francis has put conservative American Catholics opposing Trump in a bad position. Now we may actually have to defend a man that we would otherwise happily criticize because he happens to be right about America's need to defend its borders.

There you have it, let the Trump defending begin.

Starkehaus: Political Football and “Buy-Cotts”

By Irene Starkehaus - 

Picture this. Halftime. Super Bowl Sunday 2016. The kids were abandoning the family room for greener pastures because the game was mind-numbingly dull, and they were ticked that Coldplay was allowed to sing for "like sixty seconds before Bruno Mars pushed them off the stage." As for me, I was searching the internet for photoelectric tube televisions that might reduce the impact of women's grinding backsides in high def. My husband was leaning over whispering to me:

"Why are Beyoncé's backup singers dressed like Che Guevara?"

O'Brien: Here She Goes Again... Hillary Shows Contempt for the First Amendment

By Teri O'Brien - 

Hillary also isn't a fan of separation of powers, apparently.

From The Hill:

Starkehaus: Trump and Palin - The Tea Party’s Johnny Fever Moment

Donald Trump and Sarah Palin - Politico image

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Every now and again, I imagine seeing modern America through the eyes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams et al. I often wonder what the Founders would do if they were facing the challenges that currently threaten our freedom. What policies would they recommend? What compromises would they condemn? How far would they be willing to divert from their core principles in order to save our country?

These days, I more frequently wonder who they would endorse for the Republican nomination in 2016. And who would they rebuke? The answer to those questions may seem petty…a bunch of simple farmers and stodgy old philosophers? What difference does it make what they might think? How could it possibly be relevant in relation to our modern circumstances and trials.

But what they might think does matter if we want to reconcile ourselves to our traditional values, because we cannot return to foundational principles if we cannot learn from their mistakes and successes and objectively recognize what won't get us home.

Trump and Palin. omg. So this is it. This is how it ends. Fantasy football for politics. What on earth will become of us?

Di Leo: New York Values, Chicago Values, and America’s Values

By John F. Di Leo - 

A lifetime ago, when the first George Bush was running for president (that’s George H. W. Bush, also known as “41” or “Bush I” to political wonks), people began to challenge the Bush campaign on their commitment to family values… and his wife, the kind and well-intentioned Barbara Bush, replied in exasperation “Whatever you mean by ‘family,’ that’s what we mean by ‘family values.’”

The voters were not amused.

But it reminded us of a divide in our politics, one that has existed for a very long time, and isn’t likely to go away anytime soon. There is an American culture, which can be generally summarized as:

• a traditional Judeo-Christian culture, ranging from slightly to very devout, but definitely not hostile to religion…
• a traditional “protestant work ethic,” ranging from working to pay the bills or working hard enough to earn wealth, but definitely not hostile to the responsibilities of work…
• a traditional belief in limited government, ranging from absolutist limits like the small government envisioned by the Founders to a more general reticence in expending too much or too fast, but definitely not a comfort level with a nanny state that regulates our daily lives, from home to work to school to shop.

Very generally speaking, these are the American values… and they are still the values of the heartland of America, but they have been under assault for a century. The “definitely not” positions listed above have indeed taken hold, in various ways, and to various extents, in our mainstream media, our entertainment hubs, the worlds of academia and our biggest cities.

Starkehaus: The State of the Union, such as it is

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

The State of the Union speech was precisely what we all thought it would be, down to the last justification, the last delusion, the last whine, the last admonishment. As usual, it was phoned in and poorly considered. And sadly, it was no different from last year's speech in those respects. It was no different than 2012. You could have accidentally watched SOTUS 2010 and nary even noticed the difference.

Starkehaus: The reason for the season…Merry Christmas

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Jonah Goldberg has written an article posted on NRO entitled, "But there's more than one front in the 'war on Christmas.'" His thoughts about attacks on public displays of Christian values are especially useful for understanding this phenomenon because Goldberg wasn't raised in a Christian household but celebrates Christmas mostly in recognition of his mother's Presbyterian background.

Goldberg's summation:

"While it's absolutely true that there are sincere and committed Christophobes and joyless atheistic boobs out there, one of the major culprits is capitalism itself. I like capitalism — a lot. Heck, the best Christmas present I could get would be a Scrooge-like conversion on the part of the president after a visit from the Ghost of Socialism Past. But the downside of capitalism is that it will, eventually, encourage the commercialization of everything sacred."

Starkehaus: Advice from the Left – Abandon your guns and your God. Let them take care of you.

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Another mass shooting, another call for increased gun control, another proclamation from the podium that you – yes, you must pay for the evil that other men do.

So people are getting shot? And you no longer believe that a quick trip to the grocery store won't end with you dying in a pool of your own blood?

Well, what did you expect? It's your guns and your God and your big, fat mouths that are the problem here. You brought this upon yourselves because you won't accept new gun control laws; you won't reign in your political dialog about your First Amendment rights; and you won't hand over your existing guns so as to let the government sort out the possible dangers for you.

Hear ye! Hear ye! If you would simply curtail your free speech, your belief in the Judeo-Christian God of all creation and your exercise of your Second Amendment rights, people would stop shooting at you.

Just shut up and hand over your guns. The problem will be solved.

Starkehaus: Reflections on Charlie Sheen, HIV and popular culture

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Like many who follow pop culture trends, I was curious when the Daily Mail began openly speculating about the "identity of [a] notorious womanizing actor whose hard partying ways have caught up with him."

Sadly, a fifty-something A-lister with a checkered past of boozing, womanizing and debauchery as a general description didn't narrow it down for me as much as I thought it would, and I found myself running through the who's who of middle-aged actors with public histories of bad behavior to better consider the possibilities.

Starkehaus: Is the culture of hate increasingly a norm at American universities?

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin resigned their positions this week amid racial controversies just as black university students divulged a list of demands to be met before members of the football team would return to their football related duties.

Starkehaus: Killing them softly – what’s up with Gen X?

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

When it comes to social trends and statistics, the media tends to focus much of its attention on two generational segments of the population for the sheer hegemony that they bring to the table – Baby Boomers and Millennials.

Almost as an afterthought, the media will grudgingly acknowledge that there's an actual generation that separates these two cultural forces, and this particular demographic ironically finds itself in a position where it could act as the anti-establishment in spite of the fact that rebellion is what the Boomers and Millennials were called to wage at the very moments of inception...or conception if you prefer.

We refer to this epochal postscript affectionately as Gen X.

The rise of Machiavellian “democracy” in America

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Entirely enthralling was the recent interview of Lanny Davis delivered by the AM 560 morning team (Dan Proft, Amy Jacobson) on October 23. For those readers who are struggling to place the name, Mr. Davis was special counsel to the President from 1996 to 1998. He acted as spokesman for President Clinton regarding legal issues, which included former President Clinton's impeachment trial.

Ostensibly, the goal of the hosts in this interview was to discuss the results of the previous day's Benghazi hearings, and to tease out whether Clinton's wanton relativism has had any influence over the Left's serene psyche. Mr. Davis's objective, it would seem, was to lay out a pithy, patronizing defense of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's performance during those hearings as well as during the terrorist attack on the American embassy in Libya on September 11, 2012.

From a purely stylistic perspective, the interview was a brilliant display on the part of Mr. Davis. His condescending yet simmering anger is vastly different than any Khrushchevian shoe slamming that might engender defensible ire. Per usual, listeners were left confounded at Mr. Davis's lack of empathy for those seeking justice. I recommend that this should not act as a criticism of AM 560's hosts. Marginalizing public disapproval was, I think, quite the objective of Lanny Davis. I would suggest that he's well-schooled in the art of making the sane question their sanity.

Di Leo: Murder, Motive and Challenging an Approach

By John F. Di Leo - 

September was another month of murders in Chicago.

We have seen the murder rate – and the attempted murder rate, too – skyrocket in recent years, in Chicago, Baltimore, New York, St. Louis … all homes of half a century or more of liberal policies, all laboratories of Leftist solutions, all booming centers of the modern welfare state and the omnipresent leviathan. How could this happen, we ask ourselves? Why is the murder rate up?

Starkehaus: Our character will be our fate

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

I have many times throughout the years read these words and not fully known them: THESE are the times that try men's souls. With a most cursory glance, we can dimly fumble at what Thomas Paine meant with all that hubristic certainty and sympathy of an inexpert Emma Woodhouse of the Jane Austen variety, but to live in despairing times is to be present in the very moment when Paine took pen to paper in prayer for his beleaguered countrymen.

It is at that moment of isolation when sympathy blossoms into empathy, and we as a people can partake of the full bodied cassis of this sickly-sweet wine that is futility. "Faith is a dark night for man, but in this very way it gives him light."

Starkehaus: When it comes to politics, ugly is as ugly does

By Irene F. Starkehaus -

Rumors are floating that a deal has been struck somewhere behind the scenes with regard to the Republican presidential debates. It's being said that the reason Carly Fiorina got placed on the A list for the CNN event is because she's a ringer who has been brought in to mow down Donald Trump. Apparently now that Donald Trump has called Carly ugly, she's just the person to kneecap him.

I heard of this possibility…that Carly is the evening's rented pit bull (talk about your affirmative action hire)… and paused to consider the reality of what this says about the debate process and about leading GOP contenders who are asphyxiating from the pure adrenalin of Donald Trump's poll numbers.

I don't know what the GOP is thinking by propagating such unattractive gossip, but bringing in a girl to beat up the so-called playground bully is not the narrative of political aptitude that I would be pushing on behalf any would-be nominee.

Nurture v. nature, the science of predestination and the end of choice

Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Across the globe, scientists have been working to discover whether people are born politically liberal or conservative. Studies of this nature have occurred in the scientific communities of the US and Europe over the last two decades. The earliest significant breakthrough occurred in 1999 with an experiment dealing with identical twins who were separated at birth and sustained similar political tendencies.

The most recent scientific surveys come from Singapore where 1700 Han Chinese students were studied for a permutation of the DRD4 gene which determines how dopamine is released into the brain. That variation mirrors earlier research done on people of European descent and indicates a genetic link to individualized dogmatic bias.

According to an article written for Phys.org entitled "Can genes make us liberal or conservative?" that gene will play a significant role in the genesis of a person's political disposition particularly in females:

"What they found was a robust link between the presence (or not) of the variant and a split between liberals inclined to decry inequality, on the one hand, and die-hard conservative wary of change, on the other."

Starkehaus: Progressive absolutism as a mental disorder – part deux

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Broadening our discussion from July 10, 2015 regarding the Left's assertion of contrived thought crimes, we continue with one of the Left's favorite denunciations of conservative minded people.

Censorship is actually one of my favorite accusations coming from the Left because of how easily the mere charge silences conservatives into submission, and how readily the Left produces that slanderous assertion to further its own depraved vision of a so-called inclusive American culture.

What is most fascinating about the Left's hackneyed characterization of conservatives as prissy book burners is how often the Left finds itself in the hegemonic position of censorship.

Starkehaus: Progressive absolutism as a mental disorder – part one

Image Source: Allriot

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

If you don't believe in "X" then you are an idiot. If you don't believe in "Y" then you are a criminal. If you don't believe in "Z" then you don't deserve to live.

On and on the narrative goes as the rhetoric of the Left devolves into a muddled mess of ghoulish and insincere imperatives.

The reason that the employment of such dishonest absolutes is so nefarious is because when they are spoken by the right people in the right positions of authority, they excite mass delusion or worse; mob action.

In short, through the propagation of political correctness, we are now seeing an uptick in contrived thought crimes. We may surmise the growing trend is toward the idea that what you are thinking may actually be unlawful.

O'Brien: Hillary Clinton, the Democrat Party and That Evil Confederate Flag

By Teri O'Brien - 

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." Aldus Huxley

Let’s be very clear about a very obvious fact. Interrogating Republicans about their position on the “Confederate flag,” actually the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, is like asking Jonas Salk his position on polio.

The Republican party was founded as an anti-slavery party, and its first president fought a war against troops carrying that flag to save the Union and to end slavery in the United States. Notwithstanding that fact, the democrat operatives who masquerade as “journalists” have hounded every Republican presidential candidate about this ridiculous non-issue, brought to the fore courtesy of this week’s Freak of the Week, an intellectually-stunted, drug-addled dolt, alleged murderer Dylann Roof. They have insisted on hectoring these GOP hopefuls like interrogators at some Stalinist show trial, demanding that they recite the politically correct dogma that this heinous flag must be immediately ripped down, burned, and its ashes buried inside a lead-incased receptacle. lest it ever be heard from again. 

The First Amendment: Our fragile American psyches can’t handle the heavy burden of satire and dissent

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

There are critics of vigorous expressions of free speech that would explain the limits on free speech in this way:

"Freedom of speech does not entitle individuals to attack other individuals in a rude and obnoxious way or to cause harm by doing so. There are many Americans who willingly go to jail for defending their own honor in such situations. The Founders would not have supported such wildness, and they certainly would not have considered vicious verbal attacks as protected speech. These were men of great moral turpitude, of Christian character, and ultimately there is point where speech is outright damaging and harmful on the individual basis." (Emphasis added.)

Of course, this philosophy is not wholly accurate, is it? It is true that one may not yell "fire" in a crowded theater and claim free speech. It is true that one may not call the police pretending to be one's political adversary, tell them "I just shot my wife," then sit back and watch as the local SWAT team descends on the house of said political adversary. Limits on free speech have historically excluded such overindulgence as we see by reading Benjamin Franklin's pre-revolution words.

Starkehaus: Christians must better anticipate battles as gay marriage wins in Ireland

By Irene F. Starkehaus -

Here in the U.S., social conservatives who have been watching the gay marriage debate unfold in Ireland have rightly been concerned by the passage of a referendum that has redefined the millennials-old delineation of marriage. Prior to this moment in the human timeline, marriage has traditionally been between one man and one woman but now becomes a union between one person and one person.

Setting aside lazy dismissals and stereotypes of the Irish as an Australian conservative commentator Grahame Morris provided when suggesting that the Irish are a lovely people, but, after all, they can't even grow potatoes…which means, obviously, that Morris isn't just a commentator, he's an extraordinary tater… getting Ireland to accept gay marriage was an integral phase in the holistic collapse of Judeo-Christian traditions on a global scale and shouldn't be so tritely dismissed by anyone – least of all conservatives who are already in the crosshairs of the progressivist social engineers that mow down 7,000 years of marriage laws on an industrial whim.

Starkehaus: For the first time in her adult life Michelle O is…right.

By Irene Starkehaus - 

The bad news: If Memorial Day in Baltimore is any indication of what's in store for American cities this summer, you can bet that we're in for one heck of a bumpy ride. When Michelle Obama stands before graduates of Oberlin College and encourages a contentious schism to begin because those who are opposed to it are now a fringe minority, you better know that the Left thinks it's in a position to take the lead in this battle for the soul of America.

And why wouldn't they? Things are truly going their way with no end in sight. There's no need to manipulate through skullduggery anymore. The Left has chosen 2015 to come out of the closet and light the streets on fire.

So the good news? Small victory though it may be, for the first time in her adult life, Michelle Obama is actually right about something. Excerpting from her Oberlin speech:

Starkehaus: In this age of moral relativism, is Pam Geller a hero or fool?

Irene F. Starkehaus - 

To learn who rules over you, you must find out first who you are not allowed to criticize.

This is a quote credited to French philosopher Voltaire, hero of convenience to both the political Left and the political Right for differing reasons. Funny really because in actuality, there is no record of any historic import...unless you assign the internet that status…providing evidence that he ever uttered the words, but it does sound a lot like something that Voltaire would say, so our intellectual lethargy might be excused just this one time for convenience sake to move our discussion along productively.

We ask, "Who might be trying to subjugate us through the suppression of free speech that we should worry about such matters in the first place?"

We could look to our mainstream media for the answer, but popular culture tells us that it's America's Judeo-Christian traditions that most endanger our realization of an idealized America, the Shining City on the Hill. It is America's Jews and Christians…Muslims are excluded from the criticism… that set limits on sexuality, expression, family, personhood, identity, and equity after all. Traditional religious expression must therefore be the problem.

Starkehaus: Being there – Recap of CPAC 2015

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

For those who have never been to an event like CPAC before, being there is very much like a Chauncey Gardiner experience. Countless people in attendance, including those in the audience, were there to be seen rather than to learn. What a thrill it was to be in a room with so many political masterminds who are the unique solution to everybody's problems. I don't know much about what CPAC was in the past, but in its current format, the event is more like an episode of the Bachelor than a concerted effort to showcase the rising stars and the cultural trends of conservative action. So many instructors. So few pupils.

So little genuine respect or awe for the wonder that is the great American experiment.

The real lesson of CPAC 2015 is that the conservative movement should end its manufacture of personality cults and get serious about the direction of the Republican Party. For all the people parading across the stage…and – wow – there are an ungodly number of people who feel entitled to the American presidency…only a few offered any substantive reason why they actually deserve the privilege.

Entitlement is the name of the game, I guess. What's sadly lacking in the process is the slightest bit of humility before the challenge of this historical imperative.

Starkehaus: Thursday at CPAC 2015

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

A number of dynamic would-be presidential nominees spoke Thursday at the CPAC convention in Maryland. Given the audience, all potential candidates stayed right of center in their messaging as they courted the voters attending the nation's largest annual conservative convention.

The day's list of prominent speakers began with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. The style of Christie's discussion was pretty unusual to say the least. He shared the stage with talk show host Laura Ingraham. They then went through what appeared to be an overly rehearsed interview session with the potential presidential candidate answering questions posed by Ingraham. Rather than engaging the audience, the contrived setup came off as something akin to an infomercial. The leitmotif seemed less likely to improve Christie's gravitas with conservative voters and more likely to hurt Laura Ingraham's, I'm sorry to say.

Christie did unabashedly pronounce himself a prolife candidate and offered as an example his success in eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood from the NJ budget. He stated that he is experiencing what he termed "implementation regrets" over the Common Core.

Starkehaus: CPAC 2015 Thursday Lineup

By Irene Starkehaus - 

Today's CPAC 2015 agenda rolls out a lineup of GOP presidential hopefuls angling for conservative support in 2016. Thursday's company of speakers includes Ben Carson, Senator Mike Lee (UT), Governor Chris Christie (NJ), Senator Ted Cruz (TX), Governor Scott Walker (WI), Governor Bobby Jindal (LA), and Governor Sarah Palin.

The whispered question that can be heard throughout America's largest conservative convention is whether any of these potential candidates will reach out to the traditionalist audience with an authentic conservative message that will satisfy requirements rather than pay lip service to them.

O'Brien: Lighten up, NBC's Brian Williams rescued a puppy once

By Teri O'Brien -

For years, I have been telling the two other Gym Goddesses, and listeners to The Teri O'Brien Show, that not only is the assumption that television newsreaders (and yes, that's what I called them long before Rush Limbaugh did) are the most well-informed, knowledgeable people on the planet not deserved. It's just the opposite.

The very fact that someone is a Lame Stream Media "journalist" is prima facie evidence that he or she is one of the least well-informed people you'll ever encounter, a mediocre mental midget, who spends lot of time in the makeup chair and having his coif blow-dried, and who repeats the daily mantra of leftist pap that all his fellow tv "journalists" are serving up to the low-information audience who still wastes its time watching them.

There was Dan "Fake but Accurate" Rather, and now there is NBC's Brian Williams, forced to admit that he lied about being in a helicopter that came under fire while he was covering the war in Iraq.

O'Brien: Why Did Chicago Tribune Tip Off Blago That Feds Were Taping His Calls?

By Teri O'Brien - 

Given all the earth-shattering stories occupying everyone's attention over the last couple of weeks, including the mystery of deflated footballs and Bruce Jenner's gender-bending drama, I think I can be forgiven for not noting an importance confluence of news stories that happened last week. First, last Friday, on January 30, those crusading seekers of truth at the Chicago Tribune ran an interesting story about Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel's awesome fundraising machine.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is building the most potent political cash machine in Chicago history by focusing on an elite circle of donors who frequently receive City Hall benefits, ranging from contracts and permits to appointments and personal endorsements from the mayor, a Tribune investigation has found.

Emanuel has tapped these roughly 100 most loyal contributors for more than $14 million — nearly half of all the money he's raised since he left the White House to run for mayor. All those key donors — consisting of individuals, couples, business partners and firms — are repeat givers. …

Starkehaus Review: The History Channel’s Sons of Liberty

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

The History Channel presented a three night miniseries from January 25 to January 27, 2015 on the Fathers of the American Revolution called Sons of Liberty. If you didn't know about it, you can follow the link and check out the episodes.

I promise that this show will be quite an eye opener for you:

Because Sons of Liberty has been aired by the History Channel, this automatically lends a degree of authority to its historical reliability, but this miniseries is less than accurate and seeks to manipulate our perception of American events. There is a specific message, a specific agenda that is baked into this show that goes beyond gratuitousness. At first blush, we can accept the soft porn storytelling as a sensationalized version of our beginnings for a society that suffers from ADHD and can't go five minutes without a hint of sludge.

And this is not to suggest that the story of our nation's founding should be canonical in nature and subject to accusations of heresy, but we know the chaos that has been created in Christianity (as a for instance) by simply trying to translate the Bible from one language to another. One word can set off a firestorm of debate that can cause irreparable schisms. Adaptations of history like Sons of Liberty can also have a lasting impact on our society if it advances inaccurate interpretations of the Revolution.

Starkehaus: Guess what, conservative America ... Hollywood doesn't like you

Big Bang Theory's Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting was pummeled this week for saying she's not a feminist

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

No doubt about it. This year's State of the Union Address should have you deeply concerned, but this is sort of water under the bridge. It's wise to remember that President Barack Obama would have been completely unelectable had it not been for the hard sell of media elites who saw to it that his obvious flaws as a leader were never discussed in any meaningful way. Barack Obama and our entire federal system own responsibility for the abysmal state of our national affairs, but pop culture decay sold the American people on this bill of goods. Isn't that our real problem?

While it's true that pop culture often fails to challenge or provoke meaningful thought, we all know – especially members of the political Left Wing – that positive representation in the media and entertainment industries ultimately leads to representation in our government. To that end, the lack of any meaningful conservative opinions coming from the entertainment industry denotes a cultural handicap that could lead to the extinction of the conservatism as a political movement.

Starkehaus: Has the State of Colorado infringed upon the right to privacy and expression?

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Back in 2012, a cake maker by the name of Jack Phillips refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple (Charlie Craig and David Mullins) on the grounds that doing so would violate his conscience and religious principles. Mr. Phillips explained that he would be glad to bake anything else for them, but his religious beliefs precluded him from making them a wedding cake.

Seeing as how Jack Phillips is apparently the only baker in the greater Denver area and is therefore responsible for depriving all gay people everywhere of the constitutionally protected right to delicious confections, the ACLU filed a complaint on behalf of Mr. Craig and Mr. Mullins stating, "…the baker's religious beliefs don't give him a right to discriminate and violate Colorado law." The specific Colorado law in question is the 2008 Public Accommodations Law on sexual orientation and identity.

Judge Robert N. Spencer agreed with the ACLU and ordered Mr. Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop to serve gay couples. Quoting from CBS News in Denver:

Starkehaus: Is it a mystery that Chicago Catholics have given up on their religion?

Cardinal Bernadin - 1996 Associated Press photo

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

The January edition of Chicago Magazine explores the question, "Why is Chicago losing its Catholics?" This article by Elizabeth Fenner is the exactly formulaic reaction that one might expect from progressivist publication that has enjoyed watching a conservative Pope resign from office to be replaced with a progressivist Holy See and a conservative Cardinal of Chicago resign to be replaced with a progressivist Archbishop.

With all due candor, Catholic Leftists (which is an oxymoron if I ever did hear one…Marx was a jealous god that didn't believe in sharing power) have their pied pipers in place, and it is time for members of an obedient media to write the script for the new collectivist mandates.

Why are Chicago Catholics leaving the Church? Well, it's clear from Chicago Magazine and from other sources in the mainstream media that Chicagoans and Americans as a whole are just too darned cosmopolitan for the small thinking of traditional Catholicism, which holds humanity back from its real potential by setting standards of proper conduct when it should be busying itself with social and environmental justice. Where does the Church get off anyway? It's filled with sinners and hypocrites. The world is changing and the Church must change with it. So it is written in Chicago Magazine's opinion poll, so it must be done.