It’s Friday, October 19th, 2018…but before we begin, it was 31 years ago today we made the acquaintance of some of our best friends to date (including, but not limited to, Uncle Cliffy, The Penguin, Arthur J., Bob McClain, Daniel Francis, G. Trevor, Tod Hirt, Peter J. and last, but certainly not least, became reacquainted with our old shipmates John Herr and Brian Smith) and changed careers, little knowing it was Black Monday, 1987!
That being said, we’re going to do something we rarely if ever do: plug a movie. So read and heed as the WSJ‘s Jason Riley explains why…
“Gosnell” is a difficult film to watch, not because of what appears on the screen—it’s rated PG-13—but because of what is left to the viewer’s imagination. This might explain why the theater where I caught the film Friday was mostly empty. But other explanations are worth considering.
Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of murder following a two-month trial in 2013, is currently serving a life sentence in prison with no possibility of parole. He was an abortion doctor based in Philadelphia, where state law prohibits the procedure beginning at 24 weeks gestational age. By his own admission, Dr. Gosnell regularly performed illegal late-term abortions, mostly on low-income minority women. In some cases he would induce labor, deliver live babies, and then kill them by snipping the backs of their necks with scissors.
Nick Searcy directed the film, based on a book of the same title by a married couple of investigative journalists from Ireland, Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer. In an essay last month, Mr. Searcy explained why he was drawn to the subject. “It is nearly impossible to find an adult person who does not have an opinion on the issue of abortion,” he wrote in National Review, “and yet how little we all know about it—how it is done, what the laws are surrounding it, how it is regulated, legislated, and practiced. I wanted to share that knowledge.”
Dr. Gosnell’s story may not change a single mind about abortion, yet the movie and book make an important contribution to a debate that continues to rage 45 years after Roe v. Wade. They offer a better understanding of what “abortion rights” mean in practice and a renewed appreciation of the tragic consequences that can result when politicians, public-health officials and the media put blind ideology ahead of basic human decency.
Dr. Gosnell had been performing illegal abortions for decades before law-enforcement officials stumbled upon him, and when they did, it was for reasons that had nothing to do with his abortion practice. In 2009 a detective investigating prescription-drug dealing in Philadelphia received a tip about Dr. Gosnell from an informant. It turned out he was selling prescriptions for OxyContin, Percocet and Xanax to anyone who could afford his $150 fee. On a typical night, Dr. Gosnell would write some 200 prescriptions. After law-enforcement officials raided his clinic in 2010, however, busting up one of Pennsylvania’s largest pill mills was no longer the most pressing concern.
In their book, Ms. McElhinney and Mr. McAleer write that the Gosnell raid unveiled “a house of horrors.” The toilets were clogged with fetal remains. Cupboards contained jars with the severed feet of infants inside. In refrigerators and freezers, detectives found more discarded fetuses stored in milk cartons, water jugs, cat-food containers and Minute Maid juice boxes with the tops cut off to make the openings larger. Later, authorities would discover that Dr. Gosnell employed “assistants”—who had no medical training and were paid under the table—to sedate patients, conduct ultrasounds and administer labor-inducing drugs.
Dr. Gosnell’s story becomes even more upsetting when you realize how much sooner he should have been caught. State inspectors visited the clinic three times between 1989 and 1993. Each time they discovered that no registered nurses were on staff, as the law requires, yet permitted him to continue providing abortions. After Tom Ridge, a pro-choice Republican, became governor in 1994, the state Department of Health stopped all routine inspections of abortion clinics.
Even when state officials received complaints about Dr. Gosnell, they were reluctant to follow up. A woman who received an abortion at his clinic in 1999 later became ill and was admitted to the hospital. Dr. Gosnell had mistakenly left the baby’s arm and leg inside the mother. State Health Department officials decided that no investigation was warranted. When Dr. Gosnell botched another abortion in a similar fashion years later, state officials again looked the other way.
Once Dr. Gosnell’s trial began in 2013, it was the national media’s turn to ignore him.Fox News gave the trial significant attention, but few other major outlets did the same. The liberal press knew the story would cast a negative light on abortion, and that concerned them much more than bringing to justice a doctor who committed infanticide and routinely risked the health of women.
Ultimately, social media shamed the press into covering the trial, and you won’t be shocked to find out that interest in the story hasn’t lasted. Some outlets have refused to run ads for the film, and almost all major publications have declined to review it. Which also helps explain why I had so little company on Friday.“
What a difference subject matter makes: the same MSM which literally trumpeted coverage of the Catholic Church’s Pennsylvania sex scandal from the rooftops was by comparison almost silent on Gosnell’s crimes against primarily poor Black women in Philadelphia, despite the good doctor’s record rivaling even the worst the Nazis could offer.
We urge you see Gosnell, not to support Hollywood, but to send a message.
Now, here’s The Gouge!
First up, reader Andy Meyers contributed this meme which sums up the validity of Lizzie Warren’s claim of Indian ancestry rather nicely:
In a related item, the WSJ‘s Dan Henninger offers an interesting aspect of what many view as Lizzie’s Folly:
“The conventional wisdom is that the DNA report backfired and may damage Ms. Warren’s standing as a possible presidential nominee, providing fodder for ridicule from Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Joe Biden. I doubt it.
Ms. Warren understands that the conventional wisdom about what works in politics died with the Trump presidency. She has elevated herself as Mr. Trump’s most visible opponent. Political celebrity, a straight-line function of little more than exposure, is the coin of the realm, no matter how tarnished.
The most ambitious politicians are becoming increasingly cynical about the reality of inhabiting a world defined by social media and biased press spin. You play the game. Elizabeth Warren—who incidentally has created a formidable nationwide political machine—is playing it.
…During the Kavanaugh hearings, one wondered why Sens. Harris, Booker and Blumenthal, among others, went so over the top so often.Perhaps it is because over-the-top looks like it works now in politics, and much else.
None of these national politicians—Mr. Trump, Ms. Warren or the other Democrats—makes any attempt now to broaden their appeal. Left or right, they have a laserlike focus on their bases. This looks like the future of American politics: Play to a base jacked up by social media, hold it with scheduled feedings of red meat and simply force the rest of the bewildered electorate to sort it out and choose between two poles.
…Ms. Warren and others have seen the new reality. Critics can be made virtually irrelevantif they hit their base hard and often enough. Nothing so exciting or animating exists in the middle anymore, which is bad news for moderates (“moderates” our a*s!) such as Mike Bloomberg or John Kasich.
Personally, I don’t understand Elizabeth Warren’s appeal at all, with or without whatever is located on chromosome 10. But come 2020, that won’t matter.“
We agree: come 2020, nothing Lieawatha does will matter.
Since we’re on the subject of those vainly looking forward to 2020, writing at NRO, Heather Wilhelm opines on…
“Attention, journalists of America:Time is running out! You have under three weeks left to publish your last batch of over-the-top pre-election puff pieces on Texas Democrat/cross-country liberal sensation/wing-and-a-prayer Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke!
It is here that we must face the difficult truth: Barring a GOP-related disaster of some sort, (possibly involving a manufactured incident involving a conveniently timed migrant caravan!)O’Rourke — he of that ineffable “cool factor” and “special sauce,” at least according to easily impressed columnists at the Washington Post — is likely to lose big. According to the latest polls, Senator Ted Cruz leads him by anywhere between seven and nine points. Tuesday’s debate between the two, meanwhile, was so mismatched that O’Rourke’s best moment might have involved a random deer-in-the-headlights story in which he described how he “got to meet this blind squirrel who is slowly regaining its sight.”
Hat tip to Bill Dickey for this classic!
…I’d like to further discuss the debate between O’Rourke and Ted Cruz, and also actual policy issues, and also perhaps the fact that many people in politics seem to be slowly going insane. But first, can we talk about how embarrassing Betomania is? Friends, I am deeply concerned for our culture.When you look at a middle-aged establishment politician as an icon of “rock star” cool, you’re doing something wrong.
“Skateboarding Beto O’Rourke Shreds Whataburger Parking Lot,” read an actual recent headline on the website of the Dallas Morning News. This all sounds really rad and sick and gnarly and whateveruntil you actually watch the video, which features O’Rourke gently coasting around the parking lot, soccer-dad style, looking precariously close to biting the dust when he gives a bystander a high five. Don’t get mad: I’m not judging! I would do exactly the same thing, except I’d probably actually fall! But no wide-eyed journalist would write a headline claiming that I “shredded” anything, nor credulously act like I belonged on the cover of Thrasher magazine…”
See for yourself:
Holy 360 Inward Double Heelflip, Batman! After a shredding like that, Whataburger’s gonna have to repave their parking lot!
And you have to love the irony in this headline, courtesy of Corinne Weaver and Newbusters.org:
“Twitter is very keen on promoting “healthy conversation” and removing “dehumanizing language.” The exception to the rule? Louis Farrakhan.
In avideo tweeted by Farrakhan, the minister compared Jewish people to “termites.”Gripping the pulpit, he called also called them “stupid.” This video was later tweeted by the official Nation of Islam account which Farrakhan leads. Ordinarily, this kind of behavior would get someone suspended or banned from Twitter, because of its hate speech policies.But not so with Farrakhan.
BuzzFeed journalistJoe Bernsteintweeted a response from Twitter over Farrakhan: “Just in from a Twitter spokesperson: Louis Farrakhan’s tweet comparing Jews to termites is not in violation of the company’s policies.The policy on dehumanizing language has not yet been implemented.”…”
Yet this repulsive racist is still welcomed, and indeed feted, at Progressive political rallies and events. Wake up and smell the hypocrisy, America!
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s these five classic Fauxcahontas spoofs from the great Stilton Jarlsberg:
Finally, we’ll call it a week with News You Can’t Use, brought to us today by a pair of paranormals of unproven expertise:
“…I was very skeptical at first but now I really think it looks like a man.There is a strong Titanic background in the bar, and the more you look at the more he resembles the captain…”
That’s E.J. Smith on the right, and the blur in the photo and he look as much alike…
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