1. The Terrible Mercy and Love of a Child’s Casket
2.
ADF had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to stop Becerra from forcing religious pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise for abortions. He is an extremist who has no regard for conscience or protecting life. There’s nothing moderate about this pick. Nothing. https://t.co/4dD3npBO5v
— Kristen Waggoner (@KWaggonerADF) December 7, 2020
3. ‘Do people understand what’s happening here? Do they care?’
What qualifies as an emergency? It feels like I’m on the Titanic, and we’re sinking, and I’m trying to make contact with the outside world using two soup cans and a string. “Hello? Hello? Can anybody hear me? Is anybody going to do anything?”
I get this sense sometimes that people are thinking: “Oh, it’s just another nursing home. It’s not a real tragedy. They were already at the end of their road.” And for a lot of people in here, that’s true. This is their last stop. But they’re still people. They’re still alive. There’s one lady in here, and she’s probably 90, and every day she steals cookies out of the cafeteria and acts like she made them herself. She puts on her lipstick and goes from room to room handing out her cookies. When she comes in, it doesn’t matter if you’re hungry. You better take a cookie. It’s what keeps her going. She needs to give it to you. But now the cafeteria’s closed, and she’s lying alone in a dark room like everyone else. There’s no human connection, no life, no hope. We’re wilting away in here. Can you understand that? You start feeling like you’ve been forgotten. Where is everyone? Do people understand what’s happening here? Do they care?
4. National Catholic Register: Two-Child Limit on UK Tax Benefits Pushes Some Women to Abortion
“The extent to which our society discourages women from continuing with their pregnancies is saddening,” Catherine Robinson, spokesperson for Right to Life UK, said Dec. 4.
“We know that women feel pressured into having abortions for any number of reasons, and sadly, at this time, it appears that the combination of the two-child benefit cap and the financial hardships created by the current crisis, is putting pressure on women to have abortions,” she said.
The two-child limit, which dates to 2017, means that for each child after their second-born, parents lose £2,900, about $3,900, each year, in a universal credit and in tax credits.
…
“If the government does not want to see more women feeling forced into a corner between financial hardship or ending an otherwise wanted pregnancy, they must revoke the two-child limit as a matter of urgency,” said Katherine O’Brien, associate director of campaigns at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.
5. Abby McCloskey & Adrienne Schweer: The Need for Continued Bipartisan Momentum on Paid Leave
6. Robert VerBruggen: Parental Leave, Subsidized Child Care, and Gender Equality in Austria
As for child care, it appears—from the authors’ analysis of survey data—that Austrian moms use it as a substitute for relatives’ help rather than a reason to work more. In polls, they rarely report that a lack of child-care options is a problem, but they do express strong preferences for watching their own kids. Kleven et al. conclude that “the combination of cheap available care by relatives and strong preferences for taking care of children has prevented even very large expansions of child care provision from improving the labor market outcomes of Austrian mothers.”
Of course, that highlights the main limitation of the study: The same thing might not happen in places where relative care is less common or conservative parenting norms so strong. Having dealt with these tradeoffs in modern America myself—I’m a stay-at-home dad of three who works part-time for pay, and previously worked full-time along with my wife while the kids were in daycare—I find it hard to believe that free child care could have no impact on work decisions here. A major advantage of staying home is getting rid of those outrageous day care bills, and government-provided child care blunts that incentive. I happen to believe that’s not a legitimate goal of government policy, but I do think it would have an effect.
7. Neil Patel: Trust in Our Institutions Is in Free Fall. How Did We Get Here?
Apple programmed Siri to express support for Black Lives Matter. Coca-Cola put together a cheesy marketing program called “Together We Must” about its deep commitment to racial justice. Nike’s entire corporate marketing effort revolves around its commitment to social and racial justice. All these social and racial justice commitments are cheap.
Allowing supply chain disruptions in China—even to stop modern slavery—would be expensive.
8. Life with a Pathologically Defiant Child
9. Longtime Exorcist: Satanism Is Growing in Western Societies
In order to become powerful, some people can be tempted to rely on the devil, and the purpose of Satanism is just that. “I give something to you, devil; I offer you sacrifices, as long as you give me something in return.” Those who are in search of power are sometimes tempted to rely on the devil. This danger is real. It is absolutely not excluded that high-ranking people explicitly worship the devil — not to mention Freemasonry, some of whose members can get along very well with Satanism.
10. 2020 Rated Worst Year Ever, Provided You Never Lived At Any Other Time In History