I think that there is a view held by people living in blue states that they are smarter than people living in red states. If that were true, then we should be able to measure and see what this smartness has achieved. For example, I would expect the smart states to have better academic performance, lower crime rates, better roads, better health care, higher marriage rates, and so on. Let’s see.

Here’s an article from The Federalist by Helen Raleigh, who is very good on these kinds of issues.

She writes on education in blue states and red states:

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has released the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for the 2024 school year. Known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” NAEP assesses the reading and math skills of America’s fourth and eighth graders. The latest report reveals something surprising: after adjusting for demographics, the reading and math scores of students in Mississippi and Louisiana, two heavily Republican states and among the poorest in the nation, have surpassed those in deeply Democratic states such as California and New York.

As soon as I read that, I went straight to Grok to get a listening of per-pupil spending in the 50 states. (no point using Google for searching, it’s biased to the far left, and is just a search engine for corporate news media at this point).

Grok said this:

• Louisiana: $12,000
• Mississippi: $10,984
• California: $17,700
• New York: $30,282

So, you would expect the states that spend more on education to have higher test scores on basics like math, reading, science, history, etc. Right?

Let’s go back to the Federalist article, and see what Missiippi did:

The secret of Mississippi and Louisiana’s educational success is not secret at all; it is about returning to the fundamentals and following the evidence. Mississippi’s Republican-led legislature has implemented effective education reforms in 2012 that prioritize phonics — teaching students to sound out words — and enforce a retention policy for third graders who do not meet essential reading benchmarks. Furthermore, the state invests $15 million each year, or approximately $32 per student, into training teachers on literacy and providing dedicated reading coaches in schools.

The reform has produced remarkable results, with Mississippi’s fourth graders’ reading scores rising from 49th in the nation in 2013 to the top of the rankings (after adjusting for demographics) in 2024. The progress among black students is particularly impressive. According to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, the reading scores of the state’s black fourth graders have improved from 45th to third place during the same period. This reflects the effectiveness of Mississippi’s literacy program, which has provided a learning gain equivalent to a full year of schooling. Moreover, the state’s graduation rate has seen a significant rise from 72 percent in 2013 to 89.9 percent in 2024.

And here’s what Louisiana did:

Inspired by Mississippi’s success, Louisiana implemented similar education reforms in 2019. The state focused on phonics instruction and providing “content-rich” literacy curriculums. Additionally, Louisiana has invested in extensive training programs for principals, teachers, and reading coaches on how students learn to read.

Chad Aldeman, who tracks education-related news, noted, “While Mississippi might win the prize for ten-year gains, Louisiana might win for the most significant recent improvements. It was the closest state to recovering from COVID-related declines in eighth-grade reading and math, and it was the only state where fourth-grade reading scores were higher in 2024 than in 2019.”

Now, you might be thinking “but isn’t that what California and New York do, except with more money?” Well, no, they don’t:

According to California Policy Center, “less than half (47.1 percent) of all public school students in California met state grade-level English Language Arts (ELA) standards during the 2021-22 school year … The reading scores of Black and Hispanic students are even worse. Only 30.3 percent of Black students and 36.4 percent of Hispanic students in California met grade-level ELA standards.”

Yet legislation requiring schools to implement more phonics-based reading curricula failed to pass in California’s legislature last year. This was primarily due to opposition from Democratic Party leadership, teachers unions, and advocacy groups.

If you’re thinking “well, I don’t think any state is stupid enough to do things that don’t work”, let me show you another article from Daily Wire about California:

Democrats on the California Senate Public Safety Committee shot down a bill on Tuesday that would have kept male sex criminals out of female prisons.

The committee, which includes far-Left Senator Scott Wiener, voted down a proposal from Republican Senator Shannon Grove to protect women from males who are registered sex offenders from being able to be housed in women’s prisons. The bill also would have given women privacy in sleeping arrangements and showers, meaning that they would be protected from males who have taken advantage of California’s lax laws that allow men to be placed in women’s prisons.

Back to education. California and New York schools are run by Democrats. They want their schools to indoctrinate students in secular left ideology. They don’t hire the best teachers, and they can’t fire the worst ones. They don’t want parents to tell them what to do, and they don’t focus on basics like reading and math. They focus on putting condoms on cucumbers, and LGBT indoctrination. They hire tons of administrative staff to come in and make sure the schools are woke enough. That’s what blue states do: spend more, get less. And when they fail to perform, they go to the government, and have the law enforcement label the concerned parents “domestic terrorists”. Get out of those blue states, and get into a red state. Don’t give them your money.

When people ask me how the Trump presidency is working out, I say that it’s a mixed bag. There are definite positives, like border security and law enforcement. And definite negatives, like tariffs against our allies, and throwing the Canadian election for the leftist Liberal party. But many Trump supporters most important issue is the issue of life. How has Trump been doing on that issue?

Well, Life News is the source I trust for news about life issues, and they have a nice article about Trump’s first 100 days.

It says:

President Donald Trump has moved swiftly to advance a pro-life agenda in the first 100 days of his second term, enacting a series of executive actions and policy changes that have energized pro-life advocates.

Since his inauguration on January 20, Trump has signed more than 139 executive orders, with several directly targeting pro-life policies and reinforcing protections for the sanctity of human life.

These actions fulfill key campaign promises and align with the priorities of pro-life groups, who see the administration’s early moves as a historic step toward curbing abortion and promoting a culture of life.

Sounds good, but I thought if I could get a few specifics, then I would be able to bring them up in discussions. I’ve been doing a lot of running around town for various tasks, and getting into good conversations with people. Auto repair, auto inspection, mower blade sharpening, Indian food, dentist and doctor check-ups, etc. So, I always want to have the latest facts ready to go in case anyone asks me. Of course, where I live, most people agree with me, but oh well.

Here’s are two related ones that I can remember:

The president followed that up with an executive order pardoning 23 pro-life Americans who Joe Bien unjustly convicted for exercising their free speech rights to protest at abortion businesses.

[..]Furthermore, the administration announced plans to limit the enforcement of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, arguing that it has been used to target pro-life activists unfairly. This decision reflects the administration’s stance on protecting the rights of individuals engaging in peaceful protest outside abortion businesses. The end of lawfare against pro-life Americans is a significant free speech victory.

This one was important to me. I am always furious when I see the Democrat party using government power as a weapon against taxpayers who disagree with the Democrat party on policy. Sadly, we had a lot of abuse of power under the Biden-Harris regime, including unlawful detainment and pre-dawn-raiding of political opponents. Although these things do fit the definition of fascism, the corporate news media often had nothing to say about them. I’m glad that Trump had heard about them, and did something about them.

Here are another two related ones that I can remember:

Trump signed an executive order reinstating the “Mexico City Policy,” which prohibits taxpayer funding of groups like International Planned Parenthood that promote and perform abortions in other nations.

[…]President Trump issued an executive order enforcing the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of federal funds for elective abortions domestically. This move underscores the administration’s commitment to preventing taxpayer dollars from funding abortion services within the United States.

So, it’s frustrating to me as a conservative Christian that my tax dollars go to support activists who disagree with me on all of my beliefs. You would think someone was weird if William Lane Craig was able to get taxpayer money to fun his debates on college campuses. But, that’s exactly what’s happening, when the Democrat party gets into power – except they hand out billions and billions of dollars to universities, companies and corporate news media. And that’s not even to mention their other constituencies: criminals, single mothers, student loan defaulters, illegal immigrants, etc.

Now, before I even started blogging, I remember visiting home in 2008, and following my Obama-supporting mother around the house with a pack of printed out articles, complaining to her about how Obama voted against protections for babies born alive during abortions. So, Trump did something about that:

President Trump also issued a statement endorsing a Congressional bill that would protect babies who survive abortions. And finally, President Trump signed the United States onto a document called the Geneva Declaration that confirms there is no right to kill babies in abortions.

Actually, the Democrat party supports not only killing babies born alive during abortions, but also sex-selection abortions (typically unborn girls) and race selection abortions (typically non-white unborn babies).

But there’s more. Trump also stopped federal interference with pro-life laws at the state level:

In other pro-life actions, Trump has dropped a lawsuit Joe Biden filed attempting to force Idaho to allow abortions.

I once had a debate with the President of the Evangelical Philosophical Society on Twitter. He was claiming that it was fine to vote for Biden-Harris, because Trump would be the same on abortion. I had to explain to him that Trump would not touch state-level restrictions on abortion. But not only did Trump not touch them, but he’s reversing Biden’s previous attacks on them!

I suppose that the President of the Evangelical Philosophical Society also opposed this action by Trump, since he didn’t support Trump:

He froze some Planned Parenthood funding, cutting of $27.5 million to the abortion giant and he defunded UNFPA, which promoted forced abortions in China.

Anyway, there’s more in the article, so just read it, and then maybe tell a friend.

Trump has disappointed me in some ways, especially screwing the Canadian conservatives out of their supermajority with his tariffs and “51st state” clowning. But, we have to give him points when he scored.

Whenever the topic of baby-ending comes up, I try to put forward a logical argument. One of the premises will always be “the unborn are living and have human DNA”. And for that, I turn to the science of embryology. Basically, I always want to support my case in discussions about social issues with scientific facts. So, in this post, we can add a new study to your quiver for discussing baby-ending.

Here’s the article about the new study, from The Federalist:

In the “largest known study of the abortion pill,” Ethics and Public Policy Center President Ryan Anderson and Director of Data Analysis Jamie Bryan Hall used purchased Medicaid, TRICARE, Medicare, Department of Veterans Affairs, and private medical insurance claim data to determine that 865,727 mifepristone abortion prescriptions for 692,873 women were handed out between 2017 and 2023.

Approximately 10.9 percent of those claims, or 94,605 chemical abortions, involved potentially life-threatening “serious adverse events” such as emergency room visits, hemorrhage, sepsis, infection, and/or follow-up surgeries for the women who had downed the abortion drug within the last 45 days.

That rate, which researchers adjusted to reflect “that some women suffer from adverse events in multiple categories,” is 22 times the FDA’s <0.5 percent estimation printed on the Mifeprex label. The researchers also suggest that the 45-day timeframe they used is “conservative, as some adverse events may present later (and studies relied on by the FDA used a timeframe as long as 72 days).”

Notice how large the study is, this is not like those LGBT parenting studies of like 100 self-selected cases. Also, I like that they use insurance claims, which are hard facts. Some groups who support the pill use much smaller studies to reach opposite conclusions. But their controlled clinical trials are much smaller than this new study.

What’s the point of bringing up this study? Well, people need to be able to calculate the risks of their actions using real numbers. It’s fashionable today to tell young women “follow your heart” and then blame everyone else when that doesn’t “work out” for them. But a much better approach is to let people decide based on facts. It might even cause more women to choose not to have reckless sex at all.

Some women are taking these extreme measures by using telehealth or mail ordering to get this drug. But given these findings, it seems like it would be better for them to see a real healthcare provider to get the facts. And certainly the FDA should be more accurate about the risks.

You might remember that there was a famous case of this in the news recently. Although the secular left tried to blame the death of Amber Nicole Thurman on pro-life laws, she actually died from complications after taking mifepristone and misoprostol to end her pregnancy. What she needed to fix those complications was a non-abortive D&C. The secular left claimed that was illegal in Georgia, but it actually is legal, because it’s not an abortion. Still, these drugs really does affect some women negatively, which is the point.

The Federalist article suggests these fixes to make the situation better:

Changes like reinstating multiple in-person office visits, physician-only prescription, ultrasounds to confirm the gestational stage and rule out ectopic pregnancy, and mandated reporting of complications, the study suggests, could spare suffering women severe and even fatal fallout from the pill.

If you know anyone who is considering this drug, it might be worth pointing them to this study. These days, I see a lot of women having reckless recreational sex with men who have no intention of commiting to them. In fact, many of these women don’t want commitment first. But there are risks to having sex like this. Sometimes, it can cause serious consequences. I think it would be much better if we coached women to choose better men, and to get married first. Then they wouldn’t have to deal with unwanted pregnancies alone – there would be a husband there to help.