A very promising study was recently released involving the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Healthy Marriage Initiative (HMI) programs in Oklahoma. The report revealed that “Building Strong Families” is having a lasting and positive impact in Oklahoma, with measurable results including fathers staying more involved in family life, and couples reporting higher quality relationships.

Find out more information on this program and study here. See here or here for more information on the Healthy Marriage Initiative.

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Jeff Kuhner is an excellent columnist who writes for the Washington Times.  I have commented positively on his work before.  Last Friday he wrote an excellent piece on the ever-egregious mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg.  This is the mayor who – when he isn’t creating a nanny state to tell us when we can’t eat salt or trans-fats – is casting aspersions on the citizens of his city and this nation over their opposition to mosque that is slated to be built near the World Trade Center site.

Kuhner takes Bloomberg to the proverbial woodshed, but along the way he makes an observation that parallels some thoughts I have been having for a while:  “Mr. Bloomberg is insulated by his vast wealth. His commercial interests are global.”  It is really the second sentence that interests me.  Why is it that Bloomberg is given credit for expressing opinions that don’t mask raw material self-interest – financial interest?  I mean this guy is a billionaire TV mogul after all.

Where are all the Marxist historians when you need them?

Bloomberg runs a worldwide financial media corporation, but virtually nobody has asked whether his vociferous Islamophilia could have a pecuniary component.  The Arab Middle East is the home of over a trillion dollars held by those who have profited by the sale of petroleum.  Only the Chinese have a larger stash of dollars that need to be put to work.

Andrew Breitbart’s “Big Journalism” website has posted a courageous article by Mondo Frazier on August 27^th exploring the Bloomberg-$$$$-mosque question.  Here are some thought proking quotes:

On October 2, 2009, The Dubai Chronicle reported Chairman and President of Bloomberg LP Peter T. Grauer met with UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum at Maktoum’s Emirate office. According to the Dubai Chronicle, Grauer gave a presentation of Bloomberg future expansion plans in the ‘area of business information’ in the United Emirates, North Africa, and India. Grauer stated the UAE was a great place to expand, the UAE’s “logistic facilities” the ‘biggest incentive for investors and companies to expand their businesses in the country and the region beyond’.

Then we have a Bloomberg official cooing about the “virtues of Islamic finance”:

“Particularly since the meltdown of the western capitalist system, there has been an increasingly large focus on the virtues of Islamic finance. Today, there is no one single provider of information that caters to the Islamic finance market. So by Bloomberg being here, we are in the process of building out an Islamic finance product. We are very confident that we can build a product that meets the needs of the market right now.”

–Max Linnington, Regional Head of Bloomberg Middle East and South Asia on the company’s plan to build a Bloomberg hub in Dubai at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), October 29, 2009

So, let us not kid ourselves that Mayor Bloomberg, at the very least, has not been aware of his financial stake in having good relations with Middle Eastern wealth as his firm develops Islamic finance products.

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Peggy Noonan caused a stir with her column in the Wall Street Journal last June. With the BP oil spill continuing to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, this former Reagan speechwriter asked if Americans weren’t beginning to see our new president as “snakebit.” She pointed out that Americans want a leader on whom fortune shines. The country gets antsy, she wrote, when people have the feeling that the president is unfortunate.

Christians have learned not to put stock in superstition. Rabbits’ feet can safely stay where the Lord put them, as far as we are concerned. We don’t say “Luck o’ the Irish to ye,” not because we are afraid to tempt the Evil Eye, but because we don’t think belief in luck should replace reliance on God’s providence.

Now, with the economic numbers for this administration looking worse and worse, with talk of a double-dip recession in the air, and with foreign threats looming, it would be tempting to agree with Peggy Noonan that the candidate she supported in 2008 has been “snakebit.”

Continue reading »

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Earlier this week, Alaskans voted in favor of a measure that would allow parents the right to know if their daughter is considering an abortion. In doing so Alaska becomes the 35th state with such regulations.

For more information on which states have parental notification laws, visit the following links:

Americans United for Life

The Guttmacher Institute

For more information see the following FRC background papers on the impact of parental notification:

“PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT LAWS AND THEIR EFFECT ON ABORTION-MINDED MINORS,” by Robert Schwarzwalder
“THE EFFECT OF PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT LAWS ON THE INCIDENCE OF ABORTION
AMONG MINORS,” by Michael J. New, Ph.D.

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It is amazing how quickly the Obama Administration can act when it wants to.  Contrast its reaction time in deciding to appeal Monday’s federal court decision overturning federal stem cell funding with its non-decision-making regarding the Defense of Marriage Act.  Here is a story from the liberal National Partnership for Women & Families’ Daily Report:

August 25, 2010 — The Department of Justice on Tuesday said it would appeal a U.S. District Court ruling that challenged the legality of the Obama  administration’s guidelines allowing federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, the New York Times reports (Stolberg/Harris, New York Times, 8/24). A DOJ spokesperson said the department plans to file the appeal by the end of this week, Politico reports (Russonello, Politico, 8/24).

On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth issued a preliminary injunction that prohibits NIH from funding research under the new stem cell research guidelines, which were put in place in response to Obama’s March 2009 executive order lifting a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Lamberth said in his decision that the guidelines violated a 1996 provision of law known as the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal money to destroy embryos (Women’s Health Policy Report, 8/24).

Now, regarding the appeal of a July 8th decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (final judgment entered 8/12), the Department of Justice had not decided to appeal as of August 20^th (see Marcia Cole, National Law Journal).  Crickets chirping over at DoJ.  Big snooze.  Yawn.

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FRC Senior Fellow for Life Sciences David Prentice, comments on this week’s court injunction against federal funding of embryonic stem cell research in an op-ed at AOL News:

(Aug. 25) — The U.S. District Court injunction that stops federal taxpayer funding of human embryonic stem cell research should make patients happy.

The judge ruled that federal funding for embryonic stem cell research violates a current law, passed annually since the Clinton administration, prohibiting government funding for research that involves the destruction of human embryos.

He added that there is a limited amount of federal funding for stem cells, and funding embryonic stem cells competes with adult stem cells. But only adult stem cells are treating people. The good news is that this ruling should free up more funding for adult stem cell research — which is legal, uncontroversial and already helping treat thousands of patients.

Here are just a few examples of the published scientific successes of adult stem cells:

• Italian doctors used patients’ own adult stem cells to grow new corneal tissue to restore sight to people blinded by chemical burns, including one patient who had been blind for 50 years.
• German doctors reported in June the results of a five-year study on patients with chronic heart failure. The 191 patients treated with their own bone marrow adult stem cells showed significant improvement in heart function, with decreased death and no side effects.
• Another recent Italian success involved growing new windpipes for cancer patients. Doctors used cadaver windpipes stripped of their cells, bathed the cartilage with the patients’ bone marrow stem cells and then transplanted the reconstructed windpipes. The two young women were released from the hospital just weeks after their surgery, and are now in good condition.
• In August, University of Minnesota scientists transplanted donor adult stem cells into children with a fatal genetic skin disease and repaired the damage. The scientists said regarding adult stem cell treatments, “Patients who otherwise would have died from their disease can often now be cured. It’s a serious treatment for a serious disease.”

Read the rest at AOL News…

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Back in February I blogged about a British media personality Ray Gosling confessing on TV to a “mercy killing,” i.e., he said he murdered a terminally ill ex-lover.

In an odd twist of events, it turns out that Gosling was not actually telling the truth. Following an intense six-month police investigation, Gosling is now being charged with wasting police officer’s time.

Despite the deep perplexities surrounding this story, we are relieved to know that a person’s life was not taken.

For more information on Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide see this FRC following paper.

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Despite the public outcry against ella, Watson Pharmaceuticals is moving quickly to get the new abortion drug on the market. Ella, recently approved by the FDA, is misleadingly labeled an “emergency contraceptive” (EC), but can abort an already implanted baby. Despite the fact that this drug denies American women the right to informed consent, it will be available in the United States as early as October, 2010.

Find out more about the drug at ellacausesabortions.com and learn more about how ella works here.

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An international team of scientists have developed a synthetic material that speeds bone healing by recruiting adult stem cells to the site of the graft. The team developed various ceramic particles containing calcium phosphate and tested natural bone grafts against their ceramic particles. They found that the particles induced stem cells to develop into bone cells in the test tube and stimulated bone growth in live tissue in mice, dogs and sheep.

According to senior author Professor Joost de Bruijn at the University of London:

“The rate of bone repair we see with these materials rivals that of traditional grafts using a patients’ own bone. And what sets it apart from other synthetic graft substitutes is its ability to attract stem cells and the body’s natural growth factors, which coincide to form new, strong, natural bone around an artificial graft.”

The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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There have been several recent developments in the potential treatment of spinal cord injury. A group of researchers showed they were able to enhance the regeneration of nerve connections after spinal cord injury by deleting an enzyme called PTEN. The enzyme controls a molecular pathway called mTOR that is a key regulator of cell growth. During development, when nerve growth and connections occur, PTEN activity is low, allowing cell growth. When growth is completed, PTEN is turned on to inhibit cell growth. Controlled stimulation of cell growth is important for tissue regeneration. The scientists disabled PTEN in mice and were able to achieve nerve growth past a spinal cord lesion. The study published in Nature Neuroscience points to possible strategies to encourage a damaged spinal cord to sprout new neuron growth for repair.

A Japanese group has shown that transplanting neural stem cells along with a chemical stimulus can enhance formation of new neurons and reform neuronal circuits in mice with spinal cord injury. The chemical stimulant valproic acid steered the transplanted neural stem cells to form neurons, and stimulated reconstruction of broken neural connections, resulting in significant recovery of hindlimb movement for the mice. The work was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

A UC-Irvine team showed they were able to use neural stem cells to restore some motor function in mice with chronic spinal cord injury. Most studies have focused on acute injuries, attempting to initiate treatment soon after injury. This acute phase is what the Geron trial that endangers patients will focus on, since rat data has shown the embryonic stem cells have no effect on chronic injury. In the UC-Irvine study, mice were treated 30 days after spinal cord injury with fetal neural stem cells; three months later the mice showed statistical improvement in recovery of walking ability. The paper is published in the journal PLOS One

Adult stem cells have already shown published success in patients with even older chronic spinal cord injuries, showing both their safety and effectiveness, including in patients with injuries up to 15 years.

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The recent announcement of Geron receiving FDA approval to inject cells derived from embryonic stem cells into newly-injured spinal cord patients received great media fanfare:

Media response for Embryonic Stem Cells

Less than a week later, TCA Cellular Therapy announced they had already enrolled the first patient into their own FDA-approved clinical trial to treat spinal cord injury, using the patient’s own adult stem cells.
The media’s response?

Media response for Adult Stem Cells

Years ago, there was a similar response when scientists said they had a rat that limped less after embryonic stem cell injections, while about the same time Carlos Lima published his first paper showing improvement of human spinal cord injury patients using adult stem cells (a second paper has since been published showing even more patients responding well to adult stem cells.)

Adult stem cells may not be getting the media attention, but adult stem cells are helping spinal cord injury patients now.

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Scientists at the Buck Institute in California have produced human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) and used them to improve the condition of a rat model of Parkinson’s disease. The human iPS cells were made using samples of normal cells from skin and blood, and then a four-step procedure used to specialize the cells into dopaminergic neurons, the type of neurons missing or damaged in Parkinson’s disease. Approximately 30% of the cells formed the desired neurons. When injected into rats that are a model of the disease, there was some improvement in the rats over a 12-week period. A previous study by MIT researchers used mouse iPS cells to improve a rat Parkinson model.

Senior author of the study published in the journal Stem Cells, Dr. Xianmin Zeng, said:

“Human iPSCs may provide an end-run around immuno-rejection issues surrounding the use of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to treat disease. They may also solve bioethical issues surrounding hESCs.”

Adult stem cells have already shown success at treating Parkinson’s disease including adult stem cells from endometrial tissue and from nasal tissue, and a Parkinson’s patient’s own neural adult stem cells ameliorated his symptoms for almost five years.

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A group at the Mayo Clinic and their collaborators has published results showing that “guided” adult stem cells can effectively repair damaged heart tissue. The scientists isolated mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) from the bone marrow of patients with coronary artery disease, “educated” the adult stem cells with a mixture of factors to stimulate growth as cardiac cells, and injected the cells into mice with damaged hearts. The hearts of the mice treated with the adult stem cells showed “superior functional and structural benefit without adverse side effects” over a 1-year follow-up. Compared to control mice, the hearts of the treated mice healed more effectively; with the human adult stem cells repairing and strengthening the hearts, including forming new heart cells. The paper is published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

This new study provides another way to heal hearts with adult stem cells, perhaps increasing the efficiency of the treatment. Previous studies have already shown that bone marrow adult stem cells can effectively repair human hearts.

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French scientists have used a new microscopic technique to observe the beginning of life, in this case of a zebrafish. The new technique, published in Science allows rapid capture of microscopic images, which can be stitched together to form videos. Nature”s blog has more details.

Here is one of the videos, showing the zebrafish from a one-cell embryo to the 512-cell stage.

Now if this is considered the “beginning of life” for a zebrafish, starting at the one-cell embryo stage, what does that say about the human embryo?

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This video of a fantastic storm cloud structure is interesting in itself:

But fans of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” may see a resemblance to the energy cloud around “Vger”…

Has anyone kept track of that spacecraft lately?

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The National Portrait Gallery, across from my office in Washington, has a fine poster of President Barack Obama. He is shown wearing a rumpled fedora, riding in an open car, smiling that dazzling smile of his, and clenching a cigarette holder in his teeth at that same jaunty angle that was familiar to millions of Americans as that of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Every Democratic president tries to recap FDR.

I thought about that poster today as word of President Obama’s most recent misery spread. It seems he has folks in Los Angeles in a fury about his recent fund-raising trip to the City of Angels. His motorcade held up traffic for hours—the one thing you definitely do not want to do to harried California commuters.

This great city ought to be Obama’s oyster. After all, he carried California by three million votes in 2008. But the president is increasingly getting raspberries wherever he goes.

Just last Friday night, he was speaking at an iftar dinner in the White House to a group of his Muslim admirers. I didn’t even know they had iftar dinners in the White House. But he began his remarks in that deep and resonant tobacco baritone of his: “Let me be clear…” He proceeded to offer a very clear endorsement of building a mosque near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan. His dinner guests applauded enthusiastically.

Next morning, the president began backpedaling furiously. He was not commenting on the “wisdom” of putting the mosque near the place where 3,000 Americans were murdered on 9/11, only on the Muslims’ constitutional right to build it. In other words: “Let me be less clear. Let me try to lay down a smokescreen and beat a hasty retreat.”

I can imagine Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) burning up the wires to the White House political operation after hearing that one. He is his party’s campaign chairman for this fall. “Are you trying to lose control of the House of Representatives,” Van Hollen might have said.

The mosque at Ground Zero issue is a 70%-30% split. By a commanding margin, Americans do not want a mosque built near the site of the bloodiest attack yet on our homeland. Public officials who defy the people so heedlessly can expect to feel their wrath in the voting booths come November.

I have a recommendation for our beleaguered president: Do what FDR did. Show less of yourself. Yes, I know that was before the TV era. But Roosevelt knew that the mystery and aura of the presidency was enhanced by making presidential speeches and appearances less frequent. President Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, cannot resist being in our faces 24/7. Hasn’t he ever heard the old saw “familiarity breeds contempt?”

One of my favorite political photographs is on sale at the store of the New York Times. Notice how the people are gathered on the train platform in Warm Springs, Georgia. Franklin D. Roosevelt is nowhere to be seen in this classic black and white picture. But his presence is felt.

Those hopeful, expectant Americans are excited at the prospect of seeing their elected chief.

Like all conservatives, I have serious questions about FDR’s economic policies. And detailed study has shown me how seriously Roosevelt misjudged the threat of Communism. Still, as a political actor, he had no rivals.

An unapologetic Christian, Roosevelt never neglected religious minorities in this country. He faced down the bigots of his day who said his New Deal was actually a “Jew Deal.”  FDR regularly worshiped in his Episcopal Church and his administration was not afraid to express an openly religious sentiment when fighting the Nazi menace.

The U.S. Government published this poster showing Nazis trying to destroy the Christian Bible. The Obama administration is afraid even to mention jihadist terrorists or speak of Muslim extremists.

The hope for change expressed by that Obama-as-FDR poster at the National Portrait Gallery seems to have faded. Now, the only common tie between our 32^nd and  44^th presidents is the cigarette smoke. And, tragically, that smoke probably killed Franklin Roosevelt.

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This week, a pro-life hero went to be with her Lord Jesus Christ.  Her name may not mean much to people born after the Roe v Wade decision came down from the Blackman Supreme Court, but she was one of the most effective fighters for life this country has known.  Her name was Anne Higgins and she was Assistant to President Reagan, running a very large department in the White House.  I was proud to have been on her staff and learned after my hiring that only those who shared a commitment to life were hired.

At a time when the media was dominated entirely by a biased, anti-Reagan cabal, her department of correspondence became the front line to the American public — and Anne missed no opportunity to bring the President’s message on life to millions of people.  Anne used her position to influence not only the President and his cabinet, but Congress and foreign dignitaries as well.

She was not a speaker, but her activism found success in building a pro-life movement. Her alliance with Congressman Henry Hyde, who was certainly an orator without par, provided the needed platform to launch the fight for those who could not speak for themselves.  Anne showed us true activism and she never wavered on behalf of the innocent unborn, the infirm, and for creatures great and small.  She made a difference in this world.  To paraphrase Henry Hyde, she will be met at Heaven’s gate by millions of babies yet unborn who will carry the message, “job well done…good and faithful servant.”

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Two important articles have been published in the last twenty-four hours.  Former FRC staffer, Michael Fragoso, has written an excellent article providing background information on the new contraceptive and RU-486-like abortifacient Ella (ulipristal).  Fragoso’s analysis of how Ella may change the dynamic of the chemical abortion market – including federal funding for it — appears on the website of Princeton University’s Witherspoon Institute.  Go here.

Second, Robert Knight, senior writer for Coral Ridge Ministries, describes the Orwellian redefinition of marriage and reality that those like Judge Vaughn Walker (Prop 8/California) are attempting to force on America.  In a Washington Times op-ed, Knight observes: “Creating counterfeits and then forcing them down people’s throats is straight out of George Orwell’s Newspeak in ‘1984.’”  He then describes the varieties of compulsion that will be needed to compel the new thinking:

To enforce this direct assault on common sense and God’s building block of civilization will require all sorts of tyranny. Dissent will be crushed. Institutions will be denied funds. Firings will occur. Academics will face star chambers (that is, more star chambers). Governments at all levels will turn into battering rams against pastors, churchgoers, observant Jews and others who value truth above political correctness. In Boston and the District of Columbia, “gay marriage” drove Catholic Charities, the largest provider of homes for orphans, out of the adoption business. Massachusetts schools now teach kindergarteners through picture books that two men constitute a marriage. A father who objected was jailed. Orphans, kindergarteners and protective fathers, it seems, are just collateral damage to social engineers.

Judge Vaughn’s opinion, more than anything, is an assault upon truth and reality.  If the federal courts mandate that this new reality be accepted, then as Orwell once said telling the truth will indeed become a revolutionary act.

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James Jackson Kilpatrick, known as Kilpo to his many friends, has passed away. The news was not surprising but still jarred me. I remember him well. It’s not as if I really knew him. But I remembered all my life his lecture to a group of young college students at University of Virginia.

We were gathered in Newcomb Hall’s ballroom–our idea of an elegant location–to hear the famous editor of the Richmond News Leader. I now realize that Kilpatrick was only 43 when he spoke to us. It seemed he was decades older. He was one of those people who seems to have been 50 when he was born.

The time was Thursday night, November 21, 1963. I recall he was putting forward some bizarre idea of everyone voting for independent electors in the upcoming presidential election as a way to throw the election into the House of Representatives. Kilpatrick did not like President Kennedy and hoped he would be defeated. Many of us in the room knew that we would be too young to vote for or against Kennedy in 1964–the Twenty-sixth Amendment having not yet been passed. But that did not mean we weren’t keenly interested.

Continue reading »

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CNN’s Belief Blog has published FRC President Tony Perkins’ op-ed today on the effect the current administration has had on religious freedom in America:

President Obama has shifted centuries of U.S. diplomatic parlance. We no longer speak of freedom of religion; now, it is only freedom of worship that our government defends.

This is a radical departure, one that threatens to make true religious liberty vulnerable, conditional and limited. As some have said, it is a freedom “only within four walls.” That is, you are free to worship within the four walls of your home, church or synagogue, but when you enter the public square or go abroad, leave your religion at home.

In international forums, President Obama and Secretary Clinton repeatedly have retreated to this “freedom of worship” formulation. This is no accident.

Read the rest at CNN…

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