Abortion supporters falsely claim that abortion bans cause higher maternal mortality. But, new data from the CDC shows that maternal mortality is down in 2023 even after 20 states passed abortion bans to protect moms and babies.

In fact, the new CDC numbers show that the maternal mortality rate was cut almost in half from 2021 before the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs ruling until last year when 20 states had passed abortion bans.

If claims from pro-abortion groups were true the maternal death rate would be higher.

Here’s more:

The agency on Thursday released a report detailing the final maternal mortality data for 2022.

About 680 women died last year during pregnancy or shortly after childbirth, according to provisional CDC data. That’s down from 817 deaths in 2022 and 1,205 in 2021, when it was the highest level in more than 50 years.

The CDC counts women who die while pregnant, during childbirth and up to 42 days after birth from conditions considered related to pregnancy. Excessive bleeding, blood vessel blockages and infections are leading causes.

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There were about 19 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births in 2023, according to the provisional data. That’s in line with rates seen in 2018 and 2019.

Experts confirm that higher maternal mortality is not linked to pro-life laws or abortion bans.

The former director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Julie Louise Gerberding, demonstrated that a comparison between the two statistics is inappropriate. In 2004, she wrote that maternal mortality ratios and abortion mortality rates “are conceptually different and are used by CDC for different public health purposes.”

In fact studies show that childbirth is better for women than abortion. Studies from countries with good data show that a woman is at least three times as likely to die from any cause following abortion than after childbirth.

Dr. Monique Chireau Wubbenhorst, a senior research associate at the DeNicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame and a board-certified OB-GYN, told a U.S. House committee that legalized abortion does not help reduce maternal mortality. On the contrary, countries with pro-life laws have some of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world, she said.

“… until recently in countries where abortion was criminalized and prohibited, I’m thinking particularly of Chile, Ireland and, I think, Cyprus had the lowest rates of maternal mortality in the world. For several years consecutively, Ireland had zero maternal mortality at a time when abortion was completely illegal,” Wubbenhorst said at the time.

Many studies suggest the widespread legalization and availability of elective abortions harm women as well as their unborn babies. In a column at The Federalist in October, Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, a radiology specialist in Florida, said some researchers have found that abortions are more dangerous than childbirth for mothers.

Pro-life laws save lives: mothers and babies. In Texas alone, a new study by Johns Hopkins found that nearly 10,000 more babies were born after its heartbeat law went into effect in 2021. In the past year since the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, researchers believe tens of thousands more babies also have been saved.

Meanwhile, there have not been any reports of pregnant mothers dying because of pro-life laws. Every abortion ban or restriction includes clear language that protects pregnant mothers as well as their unborn babies. Pro-life laws include exceptions to save the life of the mother and allow miscarriage care.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade will lead to more lives being saved – a fact that abortion activists want Americans to ignore.

The post Maternal Deaths Fall From Pre-Dobbs High as Almost 20 States Ban Abortions appeared first on LifeNews.com.

A CNN report on the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Kristen Clarke, is drawing accusations that the outlet sought to curry favor with President Joe Biden’s DOJ through its framing.

After The Daily Signal published a report on Tuesday highlighting evidence that Clarke had not disclosed an arrest and an expungement during her nomination process to the DOJ—and then explicitly denied ever having been arrested to Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton—CNN published a report on Wednesday headlined “DOJ civil rights leader says she was a victim of abuse in extraordinary statement.”

CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz framed the story around an “exclusive” statement from Clarke to the outlet, in which Clarke confirms that she did not disclose her arrest and expungement and alleged that her ex-husband, Reginald Avery, had domestically abused her for years. Avery, who previously said that Clarke attacked him with a knife in 2006 while they were married, denied his ex-wife’s allegations in a statement to The Daily Signal on Thursday. He also called CNN’s story “a hit piece.”

“Clarke’s now-expunged arrest, which reportedly occurred during a domestic dispute, quickly became a cause célèbre among right-wing media and lawmakers who claim she lied during her 2021 Senate confirmation hearing, with some calling for her resignation,” wrote Rabinowitz, who did not clarify to The Daily Signal why she did not link to the original Daily Signal report.

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CNN did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on the story.

Commentator Stephen Miller called out Rabinowitz in a tweet Wednesday evening.

“To be clear what happened here,” he tweeted. “1. Kristen Clarke, the head of Biden’s DOJ Civil Rights Division, did not disclose an arrest from a domestic fight 2. CNN took the original report, omitted that fact she lied under oath, did not link to the original story, and framed Clarke’s own statement.”

The Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway similarly accused Rabinowitz of running cover for the DOJ: “CNN propagandist Hannah Rabinowitz was asked by DOJ to spread this info op and she complied, hiding the explosive journalism which provoked it.”

Author Steve Krakauer, the executive producer of “The Megyn Kelly Show,” said it was “outrageous journalistic malpractice for CNN leadership to hang a young reporter out to dry like this, slapping her byline on propaganda spin of an administration, and diminishing actual journalism in the process.”

Chuck Ross, an investigative reporter at The Washington Free Beacon, also weighed in on CNN’s framing.

“Amazing,” said Ross. “After @MaryMargOlohan reports that DOJ’s Kristen Clarke lied about being arrested, Clarke runs to CNN with a claim that she lied only because she was the victim of domestic abuse. And CNN spins it with the typical ‘conservatives pounce’ framing.”

“Domestic abuse is never okay,” said Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee, in response to the CNN story. “U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said ‘no’ when asked by the Senate Judiciary Committee whether she had ever been arrested for a violent crime. That wasn’t true.”

New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush quickly criticized Lee for the remark, appearing to defend Clarke without acknowledging her omission to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Clarke said she was subjected to years of abuse by her ex-husband—and her arrest for slashing his finger was expunged,” he wrote, in response to Lee. “She said she’s still ‘terrorized and traumatized.’ The senator, who initially presented this incident without that context now makes this statement.”

Ross followed up on Thrush’s remark, challenging him: “Come on. She lied to the Senate about ever being arrested. DOJ didn’t reply to the reporter who broke this story, @MaryMargOlohan. The White House mocked her when she asked for comment. Then Clarke goes to CNN with a defense of her arrest that may or may not be true.”

“Clarke deceived the Senate too many times during her confirmation regarding her position on defunding police and writing anti-white essays in college for anyone, much less an NYT reporter, to take her claims at face value,” Ross added.

LifeNews Note: Mary Margaret Olohan writes for Daily Signal, where this article originally appeared. 

The post CNN Covers for Biden Staffer Kristen Clarke, Radical Abortion Activist Who Lied Under Oath appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Israel Relocates to Washington, D.C.

Paul Craig Roberts

The US Congress has become an extension of the Israeli government. We don’t need a president. We have the Israel Lobby.

The US House of Representatives just passed a bill that means prison for any Christian or anyone for that matter who quotes the Bible that says Jesus was handed over by Jews to Pontius Pilate to be scourged and crucified by the Romans.

The bill, which passed 320-91, criminalizes all criticisms of Israel and Jews as anti-semitism. If the Senate passes this bill, I suppose it will end up in book-burning of many works of literature including Shakespeare.

Clearly the majority of the House of Representatives is so much in thrall to the Israel Lobby that there is no hesitancy about normalizing genocide and setting the scene for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

This bill is such an obvious violation of Constitutionally-protected free speech that it tells us that Congress will not come to the aid of free speech as it is closed down everywhere. Will the Supreme Court be too fearful of its own destruction to rule against the bill’s violations of free speech and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment?

https://www.rt.com/news/596891-jews-jesus-us-israel/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-house-advances-bill-to-codify-contentious-and-popular-antisemitism-definition/

Glenn Greenwald’s report is very important. Protest has become a criminal act. Freedom in America is dead. The US is a police state, and the police, presstitutes, Christian Zionists, and House of Representatives are very proud of it.
https://rumble.com/v4spxgi-system-update-264.html
You have to wait through an ad twice before you have the option to cancel ad, and you have to wait for the program to begin. It is a mistake for Greenwald and Rumble to delay his program in this way.

The Utterly Corrupt Biden Regime Used Intimidation to Force Media to Prevent Publication of Accurate Information Concerning the Laboratory Creation of Covid- 19

Paul Craig Roberts

The House Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released a report 3 days ago on May 1, 2024. It is a product of the good work that US Rep. Jim Jordan is doing. Here is the report: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Censorship-Industrial-Complex-WH-Report_Appendix.pdf

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Amazon were pressured by the Biden marketing team for Big Pharma’s Death Shot to suppress information incompatible with the official narrative.

In other words, to be clear, the Democrat “President” of the United States, his corrupt regime, the whore media, and university medical schools and medical boards beholden to Big Pharma grants and Dr. Fauci at NIH who shares patents with Big Pharma lied and pushed “vaccines” that killed millions of people and destroyed millions of people’s lives.

These criminals have got away with their murders and health injuries.

Large numbers of independent HONEST medical scientists warned that the vaccine and the imposed Covid medical protocols would do far more damage than Covid itself, but they were shut down. Even as I write the utterly corrupt medical board of Texas is trying to take away the medical license of a doctor who violated the mandated protocols and saved every one of her 6,000 patients with Ivermectin.

There is some hope, how much I do not know, that the Texas Attorney General might intervene and shut down the corrupt medical board’s persecution of a doctor who saved patients, instead of murdering them according to Big Pharma’s self-serving protocol.

Seldom in history has a business protected by government make so much money by murdering people if we leave aside the military security complex, which always succeeds in arousing conservatives’ support for wars “against our enemies.”

Here is the executive summary of the House Report: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Censorship-Industrial-Complex-WH-Report_Appendix.pdf

A baby was born to my daughter Gigi’s teacher in our parish Montessori school. The baby lived in the classroom for a few years. I don’t think that baby’s feet touched the ground for two full years. They kept a closely guarded list of the girls who got to carry her next. In this part of Northern Virginia, we have large families all around us. It is lovely to see teen boys gathering around to…

Source

Investor psychology is one of the most significant reasons individuals consistently fall short of their investment goals. While one of the most common truisms is that “investors buy high and sell low,” the underlying reason is the behavioral traits that plague our investment decision-making.

George Dvorsky once wrote that:

“The human brain is capable of 1016 processes per second, which makes it far more powerful than any computer currently in existence. But that doesn’t mean our brains don’t have major limitations. The lowly calculator can do math thousands of times better than we can, and our memories are often less than useless — plus, we’re subject to cognitive biases, those annoying glitches in our thinking that cause us to make questionable decisions and reach erroneous conclusions.“

Behavioral traits and cognitive biases are anathemas to portfolio management as they impair our ability to remain emotionally disconnected from our money. As history all too clearly shows, investors always do the “opposite” of what they should when it comes to investing their own money. They “buy high” as the emotion of “greed” overtakes logic and “sell low” as “fear” impairs the decision-making process.

In other words:

“The most dangerous element to our success as investors…is ourselves.”

Here are the top five most insidious behavioral traits keeping us from achieving our long-term investment goals.

Confirmation Bias

Probably one of the most insidious behavioral traits is “confirmation bias.” Confirmation bias is a term from cognitive psychology that describes how people naturally favor information that confirms their previously existing beliefs.

“Experts in behavioral finance find that this fundamental principle applies to investors in notable ways. Because investors seek out information that confirms their opinions and ignore facts or data that refutes them, they may skew the value of their decisions based on their cognitive biases. This psychological phenomenon occurs when investors filter out potentially useful facts and opinions contradicting their preconceived notions.” – Investopedia

In other words, investors tend to seek information that confirms their beliefs. If they believe the stock market will rise, they tend only to read news and information that supports that view. This confirmation bias is a primary driver of individuals’ psychological investing cycles. As shown below, there are always “headlines” from the media to “confirm” an investor’s opinion, whether it’s bullish or bearish.

As investors, we want “affirmation” that our current thought process is correct. That is why we tend to join groups on social media that confirm our thoughts and ideals. Therefore, since we hate being wrong, we subconsciously avoid contradicting sources of information.

For investors, it is crucial to weigh both sides of each debate equally and analyze the data accordingly.

Being right and making money are not mutually exclusive.

Gambler’s Fallacy

The “Gambler’s Fallacy” is another of the more common behavioral traits. As emotionally driven human beings, we tend to put tremendous weight on previous events, believing that future outcomes will be the same.

At the bottom of every piece of financial literature, Wall Street addresses that behavioral trait.

“Past performance is no guarantee of future results.”

However, despite that statement being plastered everywhere in the financial universe, individuals consistently dismiss the warning and focus on past returns, expecting similar results in the future.

This particular behavioral trait is a critical issue affecting investors’ long-term returns. Performance chasing has a high propensity to fail, pushing individuals to jump from one late-cycle strategy to the next. The periodic table of returns below shows this. Historically, “hot hands” last 2-3 years before going “cold.”

I highlighted the annual returns of both Emerging and Large-Cap markets for illustrative purposes. Importantly, you should notice that whatever is at the top of the list in some years tends to fall to the bottom in subsequent years. 

“Performance chasing” is a significant detraction from investors’ long-term investment returns.

Probability Neglect

Third, when it comes to “risk-taking,” there are two ways to assess the potential outcome.

There are “possibilities” and “probabilities.” 

When it comes to humans, we tend to lean toward what is possible, such as playing the “lottery.” The statistical probabilities of winning the lottery are astronomical. You are more likely to die on the way to purchasing the ticket than winning it. However, it is the “possibility” of being fabulously wealthy that makes the lottery so successful as a “tax on poor people.”

As investors, we neglect the “probabilities” of any given action. Such is specifically the statistical measure of “risk” undertaken with any given investment. As individuals, our behavioral trait is to “chase” stocks that have already shown the largest increase in price as it is “possible” they could move even higher. However, the “probability” is that the price reflects investor exuberance, and most gains have already occurred.

Probability neglect is another contributory factor as to why investors consistently “buy high and sell low.”

Herd Bias

Though we are often unconscious of this particular behavioral trait, humans tend to “go with the crowd.” Much of this behavior relates to “confirmation” of our decisions and the need for acceptance. The thought process is rooted in the belief that if “everyone else” is doing something, I must do it also if I want to be accepted.

In life, “conforming” to the norm is socially accepted and, in many ways, expected. However, the “herding” behavior drives market excesses during advances and declines in the financial markets.

As Howard Marks once stated:

“Resisting – and thereby achieving success as a contrarian – isn’t easy. Things combine to make it difficult; including natural herd tendencies and the pain imposed by being out of step, since momentum invariably makes pro-cyclical actions look correct for a while. (That’s why it’s essential to remember that ‘being too far ahead of your time is indistinguishable from being wrong.’

Given the uncertain nature of the future, and thus the difficulty of being confident your position is the right one – especially as price moves against you – it’s challenging to be a lonely contrarian.”

Investors generate the most profits in the long term by moving against the “herd.” Unfortunately, most individuals have difficulty knowing when to “bet” against the stampede.

Anchoring Effect

Lastly, “Anchoring,” also known as the “relativity trap,” is the tendency to compare our current situation within the scope of our limited experiences. For example, I would be willing to bet that you could tell me exactly what you paid for your first home and what you eventually sold it for. However, can you tell me exactly what you paid for your first soap bar, hamburger, or pair of shoes? Probably not.

The reason is that the home purchase was a major “life” event. Therefore, we attach particular significance to that event and remember it vividly. If there was a gain between the purchase and sale price of the home, it was a positive event, and therefore, we assume that the next home purchase will have a similar result. We are mentally “anchored” to that event and base our future decisions around very limited data.

When it comes to investing, we do very much the same thing. If we buy a stock that goes up, we remember that event. Therefore, we become anchored to that stock instead of one that lost value. Individuals tend to “shun” stocks that lost value even if they were bought and sold at the wrong times due to investor error. 

After all, it is not “our” fault that the investment lost money; it was just a bad stock. Right?

Make Better Bad Choices

My nutrition coach had a great saying about dieting; “make better bad choices.”

We are all going to make bad choices from time to time. The goal is to try and make bad choices that don’t have an outsized effect on our plan. When it comes to dieting, if you eat a burger, order it without cheese and mayonnaise.

If you make speculative bets in your portfolio, do it in smaller amounts. Or, if you are leaning towards “panic selling” everything, start by selling some but not all of your holdings.

Importantly, focus on the rules and your investment discipline.

• Do more of what is working and less of what isn’t. 
• Remember that the “Trend Is My Friend.”
• Be either bullish or bearish, but not “hoggish.” (Hogs get slaughtered)
• Remember, it is “Okay” to pay taxes.
• Maximize profits by staging buys, working orders, and getting the best price.
• Look to buy damaged opportunities, not damaged investments.
• Diversify to control risk.
• Control risk by always having pre-determined sell levels and stop-losses.
• Do your homework.
• Not allow panic to influence buy/sell decisions.
• Remember that “cash” is for winners.
• Expect, but do not fear, corrections.
• Expect to be wrong, and will correct errors quickly. 
• Check “hope” at the door.
• Be flexible.
• Have the patience to allow your discipline and strategy to work.
• Turn off the television, put down the newspaper, and focus on your analysis.

Importantly, keep your market perspectives and behavioral traits in check. Our goal is to ensure that our decisions are influenced by reliable data and psychological emotions.

Most importantly, if you don’t have an investment strategy and discipline you are stringently following, that is an ideal place to begin.

The post Behavioral Traits That Are Killing Your Portfolio Returns appeared first on RIA.

A new poll finds that most registered voters who are white Christians would vote for Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Joe Biden if the 2024 presidential election were held today. Most registered voters who are black Protestants or religious “nones” – those who self-identify as atheists, agnostics, or “nothing in particular” – would vote for Biden
 

The post Voters’ views of Trump and Biden differ sharply by religion appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

A criminal investigation into the Archdiocese of New Orleans is based on a suspicion that it may be linked to child sex trafficking, according to allegations presented in a search warrant granted to Louisiana State Police. That warrant alleges that multiple sex abuse victims provided statements that claim they were transported to other parishes and outside of Louisiana, where they were sexually abused. It further alleges a scheme within the archdiocese in which abused children were instructed to provide “gifts” to certain priests, which were meant to signal that the children were targets for sexual abuse. When the alleged events took place is unclear.

The post Archdiocese of New Orleans suspected of child sex trafficking, warrant shows appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

For many years, according at least to the U.S. State Department and other Western diplomatic agencies, the “Palestinians” were wishing for a separate state. This is the “two-state” solution to the “Israeli” problem, said to be otherwise intractable. (I will be placing my scare quotes carefully.)

Most Americans, and probably most Catholics, have been willing to concede this as a diplomatic fix; it gives us something glib to say. Most Israelis are, also, willing to be glib. They offer, or used to offer, “land for peace.” This never worked for them.

I do not have the space or patience to rehearse the whole history of the Arab response to “Zionism,” from Ottoman times to the present. Since 1948, it has often been expressed with murderous violence, through aggressive wars and acts of terrorism. Repeatedly, neighboring Arab states have tried to wipe the “new” entity off the map.

This was unwise, on the part of the Arabs, because they lost every war, to an Israel fighting valiantly for survival; including at the beginning when the odds were entirely on the Arab side.

A fecund people, the Arabs in and around the old British mandate of Palestine had essentially two options. They could stay and become citizens (there are two million Arab Israelis now), or they could flee and become refugees. Half fled: voluntarily, unlike the Jews who were evicted from almost every Muslim country.

These hard facts will not be accepted by the enemies of Israel. They continue to wish Israel would go away; yet it won’t, and the genocidal fantasy has led them to a terrible fate.

Of course, the “Palestinian” leaders have earned the greatest punishment for this, because they established a vile, psychopathic “education” system over their refugees, with much supplementary propaganda. They have in effect brainwashed this population, to entrap their loyalties. That they have been successfully brainwashed can be demonstrated, for “Palestinian” views are not shared by the larger Arab world, who are even less welcoming to “Palestinians” than to Israelis.

It takes some effort to create a class of fanatic Jew-killers, such as we saw on October 7th. It is morally worse even than the corruption with which these leaders have enriched and armed themselves; and even than the specific acts of hostage-taking, savage torture, and gratuitous killing done to whoever comes their way. They have delivered their own people into the Hell that is Gaza.

By the concept of Intifada, they have spread their scheme of violent chaos wherever Arab emigrants can be found, and who have children who can be radicalized. For Muslims living away from the traditional Ummah are easily infected with the Islamist bacillus, a disease that invades and spoils Arab life and religion.

This is the reason why conversion to Christianity has become the only practical alternative for Muslims who find themselves at a dead end. For Christianity provides a path out of the quagmire (whereas atheism negates even Islam’s merits).

The Catholic Church could help, by welcoming the Muslim convert and caring particularly for his needs, in the spirit of a Holy Crusade. Her present attitude, of avoiding trespass into Muslim territory and showing timid, artificial “tolerance” for the very Islamic doctrines that are used to oppress Christians, is a failure of our obligation to the Muslim neighbor, and an abandonment of  Christ.

Instead, let’s grow spines.

The excuse for spinelessness is mostly fear. We think the Muslims might kill us if we make an evangelical approach, and sometimes they will. But Saint Francis did not hesitate in his journey to Damietta, or in his approach to the Sultan of Egypt, when he lovingly presented the basic Catholic truths.

(If God is on our side, who can be against us?)

From what I could follow in the news this week, events on the campuses of Columbia, Fordham, UCLA, and so on suggest a reversal of our pusillanimity in the face of Hamas rioting. We begin to see that a large majority of Americans – about three-quarters of those polled – understand the points I was making above, and that they believe the “Palestinians” are not victims, but have often got what they deserved.

The “beatdown” administered by blue-state police is thus a hopeful sign that Americans are not incurably stupid. Moreover, developments in the Sunni Arab world give hope, too, that they will stand with Israel in opposition to Iran and its proxies. Certainly, their sympathy with the “Palestinians” evaporated long ago.

We must be careful what we wish for. Under terrorist leadership for many decades, the “Palestinian” wish for freedom, “from the river to the sea,” and thus for the extinction of Israel, created a situation for them in which their only friends are malevolent crazies.

It is not just a question of prayer, for prayer is not always beneficial. As Christians ought to know, it matters what you pray for. Praying for peace, while setting conditions, is praying to the Devil. And it gets worse when the Devil sets out to reward our prayers.

We do not love with CONDITIONS. God makes His answers indifferently to them, and He helpfully ignores what is not good for us.

The Western peacenik thinks that peace and all good things can be advanced by dialogue, and in this case dialogue “between the faiths,” under rules written by those who have no religion at all. It is one of many propositions we might have hoped would have perished on October 7th, rather than so many women and children.

“Peace talks” have generally contributed to the occasion for war, and all the peace talks in which Israel ever participated, have ended poorly. The most promising, such as Oslo, cost them most dear.

Hamas was the anfractuous reward for the painful Israeli evacuation of Gaza in 2005, the product of some “peace process.”

For Israel has something to learn, too: that glib wishes bring the opposite result, in every case.

The post Careful What You Wish For appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Last week, Congress voted to send $95 billion in additional aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The largest portion was to Ukraine – $61 billion – after the Congress had previously approved $114 billion, for a total of $175 billion. The total GDP of Ukraine in 2022 was $160.5 billion. In other words, we basically … Continue reading "Congress Passes Mega-Billions More For Ukraine"

The post Congress Passes Mega-Billions More For Ukraine appeared first on Antiwar.com.