Stop Don Balfour
Georgia is one of at least 18 states considering a law that would require every girl entering the sixth grade to be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, commonly known as HPV, which causes cervical cancer.Recently, Texas Gov. Rick Perry created a flap when he signed an executive order requiring the HPV vaccination for all girls entering the sixth grade. Some religious groups oppose mandating a vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease. Others worry about how poor or uninsured families would pay for it.
While it might be worth doing later, right now we should not be using teenage girls as lab rats. At a minimum we should wait a year when there will be more drugs on the market doing the same thing, thereby using marketplace pressures to lower the costs. The current monopoly held drug is way higher than other required vaccines like the MMR.
Waiting another year, will also help fully vet the drug on school age children — something that has been repeatedly reported as not having been done on the present drug.
Shameless Self Promotion
I made the front page of the Boston Globe.
The Baby AIDS Program
The Georgia legislature is considering adopting a “Baby AIDS” program that I heartily endorse and encourage them to pass. The law would require HIV testing of pregnant women, but allow an opt-out. I would encourage them to get rid of the opt-out provision.
The ACLU and AIDS activists hate this program and, under its federal moniker, is part of the Ryan White program. Anyone born in the seventies or before probably remembers Ryan White. The Democrats, under pressure from AIDS activists, just killed the program in Washington.
Georgia should really pick up the ball.
The Baby AIDS program has been extremely successful at eradicating AIDS in infants. Pregnant women who have HIV can take special drugs and post-birth steps to cut the risk that they will infect their children. Sadly, many women do not know they are infected and, as a result, pass the disease to their children.
New York was the first state to pass a Baby AIDS program. In 1990, prior to adoption of the program, there were 321 cases of Baby AIDS. By 2003, that number had dropped to 5.
Baby AIDS is quite preventable, but civil ilbertarians, AIDS activists, gay rights activists, and feminists have for years argued that the privacy concerns of the mother far outweigh all all concerns. That’s a shame because they are causing the infliction of a disease on children that could readily be stopped by a simple blood test. There’s a great article on this issue here from 2005.
I encourage those of you in the state legislature reading this to pass this legislation.
Technorati Tags: Baby AIDS
But for the Christians
On this day two hundred years ago, February 23, 1807, a small man with a great mind and strong Christian convictions changed the world after years of struggle.
On this day, William Wilberforce saw his passion, the British Foreign Slave Trade Act, approved by the House of Commons in the United Kingdom’s Parliament after many years of rejection. Upon passage, and royal assent on March 25, 1807, the British Empire put its full legal and military weight behind ending the foreign slave trade.
Wilberforce was led by his Christian sense of human dignity and his passionate belief that Biblical truths would reject the inhuman treatment inflicted via the slave trade. But for Wilberforce’s actions, the foreign slave trade, particularly the slave trade between West Africa and the West Indies, would have continued unabated. After passage of the law, the British Empire engaged on a subject it has been reluctant to pursue.
A new movie comes out today abut Wilberforce’s struggle. If Amazing Grace is in your neighborhood, I encourage you to go see it.
A Doggie Poo Bag Dispenser Designer and You
St. Coletta’s is a private school in Washington, D.C. Despite it’s name, it labels itself as a “non-sectarian”, as opposed to just a “secular”, private non-profit organization operating a school for children with mental retardation and autism.
St. Coletta has opened a public charter school in Washington, D.C. that is 99,000 square feet and designed by Michael Graves, the guy who designed the bar accessory set for Target that you see here. It sells for $24.99.
How on earth could a private school building a 99,000 square foot public school afford to hire the guy who brought us $7.99 oblong shaped doggie poo bag dispensers? Well, the answer is easy.
Sharon B. Raimo is the Executive Director of St. Coletta’s and sits on St. Coletta’s Board of Trustees. Her husband is Bernie Raimo, Counsel to the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives a/k/a lawyer for America’s Mother-in-Law, Nancy Pelosi.
Over the past several years, St. Coletta of DC has recieved $12 million in earmarks to fund their extravagant building project. Though it has all the benefits of being a “private” school, over 75% of its funding for their new building is being paid for by taxpayers from across the country.
But, I’m sure it is just a coicidence that the Executive Director’s husband is one of the Speaker’s top staffers, because, you know, Nancy is committed to real earmarks reforms. Why don’t you call your Representative and ask if Nancy is as committed to earmarks reforms as she says she is.
Duncan Hunter
I interviewed Rep. Duncan Hunter this evening. He’s running for President. Hunter is a solid conservative from California. In fact, I think you can objectively say he is the most consistently conservative candidate for President.
We spent most of the time talking foreign affairs, but some domestic policy entered the fray. Duncan was the first member of Congress to take the initiative and build a fence along the Mexican border — first at San Diego and now to be extended.
He’s also one of the few people in Congress to recognize the threat that China is to the United States. This is a big issue for me, though it flies under the radar for most people. China is rapidly becoming a full enemy of ours, not just the latent enemy it has been.
I don’t know that Hunter has a great shot at being elected, but I think he just might be the best candidate out there.
Song for Suffering Employees
Just sing this to yourself and it’ll make you feel a whole lot better.
Multiple Choice Mitt & Abortion
It is not my intention to devote the front page of RedState to being the anti-Corner when it comes to Governor Romney. In fact, I suspect this will be one of the last posts on which I bring up the specific subject. I’m more interested in fighting the Congressional Democrats right now.
But, I’ve gotten enough “fan mail” since I waited until last Friday evening when not a lot of people were watching to retract my endorsement of Mitt Romney that I want to point this out. This should make clear to folks why I can’t support Mitt Romney right now. He has a recent record of flip flops on important conservative issues. What is in the water in Massachusetts?
This is why I can’t support him in the primary. This record. These words that he speaks in 2002. To his credit, he spoke the truth in this 2002 debate. He did nothing to change the pro-abortion laws of Massachusetts. I suspect that the Shannon O’Brien come back in this debate is going to be echoed by more and more candidates.
But I also suspected that Mitt Romney has peaked too soon and most of these issues are quickly becoming both moot and an anchor for him.
This also falls in line with the latest Gallup poll. Not a lot of people have heard of Mitt Romney, but the more they hear, the more his unfavorables rise. I suspect it is because of waffling like this. Contrast him with Rudy who is definitely to the left of Romney’s presently stated social positions. But, everyone knows where Rudy stands and the Gallup poll indicates people, including conservatives, still think highly of him.
No wonder Mitt is having to spend capital now to run ads.
The Potemkin Presidency
— Bill Clinton at the Democratic
National Convention, August 14,
2000.
Just stop and reflect on that quote for a minute. Clinton had just indicted the Reagan legacy by saying that under his administration we had a better chance of moving the country forward and, because of the state he was leaving the country in, with no threats anywhere, we could proceed.
“No great external threat.” Those words were uttered only a year and about one month before the greatest attack against American citizens in the continental United States by a foreign enemy that domesticated itself while Clinton was busy getting on his jiggy.
And yet, his wife is now running for office and Democrats, who always claim it’s Rush Limbaugh and the wingnuts obsessing over Clinton, want Bill to replace Hillary in the United States Senate. The man who fell asleep at the switch of American National Security — the Democrats want him to take over for his wife.
The Democrats just endorsed a slow bleed policy and want the guy who famously wrote of his loathing of the military to sit in the Senate. And it’s not just that — they are having serious orgasms from Paul Begala to Larry Sabato. So much for the Democrats even pretending to be strong on national security. And the only reason Clinton seems interested in any of it is because when he hears the lefties want to screw the troops, he takes them seriously.
I hope Bill Clinton stops by RedState and reflects on that quote, the lives lost because he was too busy running around the Oval Office with his pants around his ankles to do anything substantive or hard, and then reads Bill Sammons’ article. Then, when he thinks about his legacy, I hope he is reminded that despite all the adoration heaped upon him by the left, at the end of the day the Democrats are trying to find somewhere to stick him so he can do no more harm. Sadly, they think the best place is in the Senate where Clinton and Byrd and wipe oatmeal off eat others’ faces.
That is Bill Clinton’s true legacy. It was a Potemkin Presidency.
Stick It, Lefty Smoking Nazis
Poor, poor lefty smoking nazis. The evil GOP controlled Supreme Court has just ruled 5-4 against you. That’s right. The Supreme Court just threw out a $79.5 million punitive damages claim against Phillip Morris USA in a smoking law suit.
Let the gnashing of teeth against Chimpy McHalliburtonMorris and the RobertsAlitoScalia Warmonger Court of Death Sticks begin.
Except you might want to know that Justice Breyer wrote the majority opinion:
In an opinion by Justice Stephen Breyer, the high court said that punitive damages awards based in part on a desire to punish a company for actions that harm people not involved in a particular lawsuit amounts “to a taking of property from the defendant without due process.”
I’m guessing the Evil Scalia was in the minority, given his oft repeated statements against caps on punies. We’ll know for sure shortly.