Yesterday in Queens, three men rushed an armored truck and made off with the $300,000 it was carrying. Above is what it looks like when a robber sticks a gun directly in your face.
According to the FBI, the driver was leaving an HSBC bank with its deposits when he was met by the men. The three sprayed his face with mace before leaving on foot.
[image via the FBI]
Updated list of Justin Bieber's vices: weed, pills, cough syrup, pineapple Fanta, stripper boobs.
According to TMZ, the below photo was taken during a party at a recording studio in Los Angeles. Bieber's No Fucks 2014 rages on.
At least seven people were injured in Bangkok this morning, including a local newspaper reporter and an American photojournalist, as demonstrators exchanged gunfire and threw rocks ahead of national elections tomorrow.
The Associated Press reports:
The conflict pits demonstrators who say they want to suspend the country's fragile democracy to institute anti-corruption reforms against [Prime Minister] Yingluck's supporters and civilians who know the election will do little to solve the nation's crisis but insist the right to vote should not be taken away.
The protesters, a minority that cannot win power at the polls, are demanding the government be replaced by an unelected council that would rewrite political and electoral laws to combat deep-seated problems of corruption and money politics. Yingluck has refused to step down, arguing she is open to reform and such a council would be unconstitutional.
It was not even a decade ago that Thailand was subject to a military coup d'etat when the current prime minister's older brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, who currently lives in exile but remains influential in Thailand's rural north, was deposed.
"How did we get to this point?" asked Chanida Pakdeebanchasak, a 28-year-old Bangkok resident. "Since when does going to vote mean you don't love the country?"
"There's no point casting your ballot when the people who will get to Parliament are the same old crooks," 43-year-old Wanida Srithongphan, a protester from southern Thailand, is quoted as saying in an AP story from earlier this morning.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our very own major campaign committees (the DNC and RNC) collected $450 million in campaign contributions. Almost a half-billion dollars raised and spent and this isn't even really an election year! And that doesn't even include money raised by candidates themselves or outside groups.
Anyway, what was that you were saying about Thailand's "fragile democracy"?
[Image via AP]
Gemma Moss recently became the first woman in Britain "ruled to have been poisoned to death by smoking cannabis," her sudden death referred to by tabloids as "the tragic proof that cannabis can kill." But Moss's story, while undeniably sad, has told us next to nothing about the dangers of pot. At the same time, its coverage has distracted from other, more practical conversations about drug safety and research.
Photo Credit: AP
"I cannot begin to understand the pathologist's certainty that cannabis killed Gemma Moss, but neither do I wish to contradict him outright," writes psychopharmacologist David Nutt in a blog post published yesterday at the website run by the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (an organization dedicated to educating the public on the harms and benefits of legal and controlled drugs in the UK).
But when Nutt, a former chief drug advisor to the UK, raises the question of what Moss's case can teach us about the dangers of smoking pot, his response is unequivocal: "I think the answer is nothing."
Nutt isn't being cold – he's being realistic. "Taking any amount of cannabis," he writes, "like all drugs, like so many activities, puts some stresses on the body." He continues:
Cannabis usually makes the heart work a little harder and subtly affects its rate and rhythm. Any minor stress on the body can be the straw that breaks the camel's back, the butterfly's wingbeat that triggers the storm. Ms Moss had suffered with depression, which itself increases the risk of sudden cardiac death. It is quite plausible that the additional small stress caused by that cannabis joint triggered a one-in-a-million cardiac event, just as has been more frequently recorded from sport, sex, saunas and even straining on the toilet.
To suggest that a single incident – in which, it bears repeating, Moss smoked less than a joint's-worth of marijuana – should ever be weighed seriously against weed's history as a drug with no immediately lethal consequences is not only unreasonable, it distracts from more meaningful discussions about the actual dangers posed by drugs, illicit or otherwise:
With scant formal drugs education and negligible public information, our national conversation about drugs is built around the telling of tragic stories like that of Gemma Moss, Leah Betts and Amy Winehouse. Although the facts may be at least part true, these stereotyped stories subtract from rather than adding to the public understanding of drugs... The types of drugs, people and harm in these stories are not representative of the real burden drugs cause in society.
Moreover – and perhaps more importantly – it draws attention away from discussions over the potential benefits that traditionally illicit drugs could have in the treatment of sickness and disease, including psychiatric disorders. Nutt doesn't raise these issues in this specific blog post, but his history vouches for his interest and involvement in the conversation over drugs' untapped therapeutic potential. Nutt was famously dismissed from his position as chief drug advisor to the UK in 2009, after criticizing the government's classification of illegal substances and their potential for inflicting harm – stating, among other things, that ecstasy was statistically no more dangerous than an addiction to horse-riding. In spite of his dismissal, Nutt remains one of the few researchers in the UK licensed to study Class A drugs, those substances thought to pose the greatest harm, or potential harm, to individuals and society. More recently, Nutt has attracted attention for his groundbreaking investigations into psilocybin
Nutt is far from alone in this thinking. In an editorial published in today's Scientific American, the magazine's editors call for an end to the Drug War's ban on psychoactive drug research, imploring national and international lawmakers to let scientists investigate whether drugs like LSD, marijuana and ecstasy could be used to ease psychiatric disorders:
LSD, ecstasy (MDMA), psilocybin and marijuana have, for decades, been designated as drugs of abuse. But they had their origins in the medical pharmacopeia. Through the mid-1960s, more than 1,000 scientific publications chronicled the ways that LSD could be used as an aid to make psychotherapy more effective. Similarly, MDMA began to be used as a complement to talk therapy in the 1970s. Marijuana has logged thousands of years as a medicament for diseases and conditions ranging from malaria to rheumatism.
National laws and international conventions put a stop to all that. The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 declared that these drugs have "no currently accepted medical use" and classified them in the most stringently regulated category of controlled substances: Schedule I. The resulting restrictions create a de facto ban on their use in both laboratories and clinical trials, setting up a catch-22: these drugs are banned because they have no accepted medical use, but researchers cannot explore their therapeutic potential because they are banned. Three United Nations treaties extend similar restrictions to much of the rest of the world.
The decades-long research hiatus has taken its toll. Psychologists would like to know whether MDMA can help with intractable post-traumatic stress disorder, whether LSD or psilocybin can provide relief for cluster headaches or obsessive-compulsive disorder, and whether the particular docking receptors on brain cells that many psychedelics latch onto are critical sites for regulating conscious states that go awry in schizophrenia and depression.
It's time we had a serious discussion about lifting the ban on psychedelic research – and that discussion can only happen if we're open and honest with one another
Arthur Rankin Jr., the animator and producer behind classic holiday TV specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman, died today at the age of 89. The man essentially defined Christmas as we know it.
This afternoon, Chris Christie was booed by a crowd at a Super Bowl event in Times Square. He is probably not looking forward to being in front of crowds right now.
Yesterday, of course, ex-Port Authority official and Christie confidant David Wildstein revealed that the New Jersey governor did know about his administration's vengeful lane closures at the time they were happening. That perhaps explains the extra venom behind a crowd's jeers today as Christie officially "handed off" the Super Bowl to Arizona, which will host the game in 2015. (Very important political work.)
Above is a Vine taken by Mark Halperin (lol) in which you can hear some lustful boos. The Huffington Post has a good round-up of tweets from the event that echo the scene captured by Halperin.
Pols on Super Bowl Blvd & Chris Christie is the only one who was booed. @wcbs880 pic.twitter.com/KB4IgcoK0z
— Peter Haskell (@peterhaskell880) February 1, 2014
It's not been a good week for Christie even in the context of football parties, which you would think might feature his core demographic, as on Tuesday he was booed at another pre-Super Bowl event with Bill de Blasio in Jersey City. It appears as if the backlash is beginning to get to a politician whose entire appeal is his unflappability: today, the Wall Street Journal reported that Christie only agreed to do sports radio interviews if he wasn't asked about the bridge fallout.
The good news for Christie is that at this rate he'll be out of office sooner rather than later. Then the redemption narrative we all know is coming can finally begin.
Dylan Farrow has published an account of the sexual assault she experienced at the hands of her adoptive father Woody Allen on Nicholas Kristof's blog. This is the first time Farrow herself has publicly written about her experience.
Mayor Bill has doomed us all to another four years of Soviet winter with his mishandling of Staten Island Chuck, and Phil, the Punxsatawney stalwart, confirms winter will continue for at least another six weeks.
The Staten Island Advance reports that Chuck—full name Charles G. Hogg—appears unharmed.
"The groundhog has shown no talent for predicting the arrival of spring, especially in recent years," Asheville, NC's National Climatic Data Center told USA Today. "Phil's competitor groundhogs across the nation fared no better."
More like Anticlimactic Data Center! Ha ha ha :(.
Last night was head writer Seth Meyers' last episode of Saturday Night Live before he takes Jimmy Fallon's spot on Late Night (and before Jay Leno has both of them killed). During "Weekend Update," Amy Poehler and classic Meyers-era "Update" character Stefon swung by along with Andy Samberg see Meyers off.
Everybody was nearly in tears, and that probably includes all of our moms, too.
The Politico has obtained an email sent by Chris Christie to friends and allies attacking both the New York Times and former comrade David Wildstein. The subject line is "5 Things You Should Know About The Bombshell That's Not A Bombshell."
Last night while the Internet was poring over Dylan Farrow's letter detailing years of abuse by her adoptive father Woody Allen, the director was at Madison Square Garden watching the New York Knicks lose to the Miami Heat.
Outside the arena after the game, a TMZ cameraman caught up to Allen and asked him about Farrow's story. Allen ignored him completely, but he likely won't be able to stay silent for too much longer.
[photo of Allen in 2011 via Getty]
Merlin's beard! J.K. Rowling has admitted regret over forcing her character Hermione Granger to wed troubled ginger Ron Weasley in the little-known Harry Potter books.
"I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment," Rowling told Emma Watson, a student at Brown who guest-edited the forthcoming issue of Wonderland magazine. "That's how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione ended up with Ron."
"Am I breaking people's hearts by saying this?" Rowling wonders callously.
Watson tips her wizarding cap fans "who know that too and who wonder whether Ron would have really been able to make her happy."
But then again, perhaps some good can come of this tragedy after all. In January, The Toast's Mallory Ortberg brought our attention to one fan's highly convincing theory that Dumbledore is, in fact, a time-traveling Ron Weasley.
"Gallopin' gargoyles!" some awful, no-good, heteronormative critics might cry. Turn back the Time-Turner just a minute! Ron was married to Hermione, and Dumbledore was gay. If Ron loved Hermione, they say, betraying an outmoded and unwieldy understanding of what it means to love another person, and Dumbledore loved the dread wizard Grindelwald, they couldn't possibly be the same person.
So naive, these critics are, for when Rowling goes on to say that Ron and Hermione would have needed "relationship counseling" it becomes clear what she really means. "A poisonous toadstool can't change its spots," and all that.
So the Super Bowl is tomorrow, and just as Super Bowl viewership is essentially non-optional for Americans who do not wish to be regarded with open suspicion by their acquaintances and coworkers, the provision of chicken wings is essentially non-optional for Super Bowl party hosts who do not wish to be shunned by all their friends and loved ones. The key difference between the two (after the fact that the Super Bowl is a multi-billion-dollar television spectacle, and wings are small disembodied chicken parts) is that wings are wonderful, and the Super Bowl is whatever's the exact opposite of that
What's more fun to eat than the hot wing? Nothing, unless you are a lion, in which case the answer is "clowns." It requires only as much attention as will help you avoid choking to death on its bones, and no more; it's hot and tangy and (when properly made) crispy and juicy; its piquancy brings you back, almost unconsciously and completely uncontrollably, for more and more and more. The hot wing is a perfect foodstuff.
And! Easy to make—which makes it rather silly that Americans will spend untold millions of dollars ordering wings at huge markups from crappy pizza delivery joints tomorrow instead of making their own. Look: There's a reason why pizza joints staffed by dead-eyed teenagers lacking even the most rudimentary cooking skills all, without fail, offer hot wings for delivery, and it's not—or not only—that hot wings are delicious. After all, lobster bisque is delicious, too, and Papa John's isn't bringing you any of that, no matter how many times you ask. They make hot wings because hot wings are almost comically easy to produce, and because even the tiny, indifferently-made wings you get from friggin' Domino's or wherever are tasty enough to get dingbats to pay way too much money for them.
Well, why pay some pimply pissant to do no work, when you can do (almost) no work yourself and have much, much tastier wings? Don't be a sucker. Are you a sucker? No. You are not a sucker. Make your own chicken wings. Let's make your own chicken wings. Right now!
The first thing to do, of course, is acquire chicken wings. You have a couple of options, here, one of which will reveal itself to be the only actual option in a moment. You can buy a bunch of whole chicken wings and spend a very long time hacking each one of them apart at the joints, rendering them into the wingettes and drumettes you recognize from the previous five hundred thousand chicken wings you have eaten; or, if your grocery store or supermarket has them, you can buy pre-hacked wings because you have a real adult life and would like to proceed with it at some point.
(Note: If you are wondering, here, whether you couldn't just get some chicken wings from the chickens you raised and dispatched yourself in your quaint urban co-op farm, the answer is that—hey whoa, look, a suspenders and fedoras sale! You better hurry over there or you're going to miss it.)
The point here is that, however you go about it, you'll need to have wingettes and drumettes (as opposed to whole chicken wings) before you proceed to the part where you cook chicken wings. Make it easy on yourself and buy the kind that somebody else butchered for you. This will save you not only the time spent hacking away at a large number of whole chicken wings until you lose all enthusiasm for the entire chicken-wing enterprise, but also the time spent removing stinky salmonella juice from every surface of your home, where it splattered while you were hacking chicken wings apart.
In any case, however you choose to go about it, eventually you'll have your big pile of very small chicken parts, which you have smartly allowed to come to room temperature even though that part of this internet food column is not boldfaced. Cook them! This is pretty straightforward. Pour, oh, four or five inches of a good frying oil (vegetable oil, peanut oil, canola oil, not lavender-scented baby oil) into a big pot and get it hot over medium-high heat. We've talked about the wooden-spoon trick
Gently lower a half-dozen or so of the wing pieces into the oil (if the oil is hot enough, there should be a lot of very obvious cooking activity happening right away—the oil should look like it is boiling). More than that will lower the temperature of the oil too drastically, which will result in a longer cook-time and greasier wings. These will need, oh, 8 or 9 or 10 minutes to cook, during which time you can leave them alone; while this first batch cooks, make hot wing sauce. That's just hot sauce and butter, basically, with maybe small extra amounts of vinegar or salt added until it tastes the way you want it. A wonderfully tasty and simple hot wing sauce contains nothing but, oh, a stick or so of butter, lots and lots of both vinegary tabasco-style hot sauce and sriracha
(Note: If you want to purée some of your homegrown chilis and combine them with your home-fermented vinegar because ugh, only sheeple use some company's hot sauce, maaaaan or whatever the hell, that's fine, so long as you acknowledge up front that your reason for doing this is so that you can be an insufferable dickwad about it.)
So, eight or 9 or 10 minutes have gone by; the wings in your first batch have floated to the surface of the oil and, if you roll them over, you'll notice they've browned a bit here and there. They're done. Remove the first batch of wings from the oil and dump 'em on a drying rack or paper towel so they can drip off any oil that came out of the pot with them. And now, cook another batch of wings, and remove that one when it's done, and so on, until you have cooked all of your wings.
At some point, while a batch is cooking, make blue cheese dip or dressing or whatever. This is made a bunch of different ways, with mayonnaise or sour cream or yogurt, with added lemon juice or herbs or spices or milk all of those things or none of them; the one thing all blue cheese dips/dressings have in common, as you may have guessed, is blue cheese. Crumble some of that into a bowl, or the bowl of a food processor. We're gonna mix that with sour cream instead of mayonnaise, today, since sour cream does a better job than mayo of moderating the piquant heat of your wings, which will enable you to eat more of them. Add some sour cream to the bowl and mix everything together; if you're not using a food processor, whisk the hell out of this stuff, to break up the blue cheese and mix it into the sour cream. If the result is thicker and gloopier than you'd like, mix in some mayo (or even milk) in tiny increments until it's where you want it to be. There. Blue cheese substance. If you'd like to add other stuff, hell, go ahead, it's your goddamn dip.
From here there's nothing much left to do but cook the rest of your wings in batches until you've cooked 'em all. When they're all cooked and have had some time to drain, dump all your cooked wings into a big freezer bag or salad bowl and toss them with your hot wing sauce.
And ... that's it. No, really! Pile your wings onto a big plate or platter, dump some celery sticks on there for everyone to ignore, and stick a cup of that blue cheese substance on there somewhere. Serve. With beer.
You set your platter of wings on the table before your Super Bowl guests, you stand up to stretch your back, and ... shit, wouldja lookit that, all the wings are gone. But boy, everybody sure liked 'em! They were: crispy, and juicy, and tangy, and hot, and the blue cheese dressing was rich and smooth and sharp, and man they were so fun to eat, how they turned everybody's fingertips and lips orange, and look at the little cairn of bones standing there as a testament to the communal bonding and good times your wings provided for those lousy fucking ingrates why couldn't they leave me any goddamn wings, for chrissakes I only cooked the fucking things.
Gnaw some celery while you make more, and eat these ones by yourself, in the closet.
The Foodspin archive: Chicken thighs
Albert Burneko is an eating enthusiast and father of two. His work can be found destroying everything of value in his crumbling home. Peevishly correct his foolishness at albertburneko@gmail.com, or publicly and succinctly on Twitter @albertburneko. You can find lots more Foodspin at foodspin.deadspin.com.
Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead today in his Manhattan apartment. He was 46 years old and a father of three. The story was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Police officials have said that Hoffman was found in his bathtub with a needle in his arm. Last summer, Hoffman checked himself into rehab
After a number of memorable supporting appearances in movies throughout the '90s like Boogie Nights and The Talented Mr. Ripley, Hoffman earned the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2005 for his portrayal of Truman Capote in Capote. Since then he has widely been tabbed as one of the world's top actors, picking up further Oscar nominations for his roles in Doubt and The Master. Hoffman was also hailed for his turn as Willy Loman in a 2012 Broadway production of Death of a Salesman.
Per IMDB, Hoffman will star in a number of movies set to be released in 2014, including Anton Corbijn's A Most Wanted Man and further editions of the Hunger Games series.
At around 3 p.m. ET on Sunday afternoon, Hoffman's family released this statement:
"We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Phil and appreciate the outpouring of love and support we have received from everyone. This is a tragic and sudden loss and we ask that you respect our privacy during this time of grieving. Please keep Phil in your thoughts and prayers."
[Photo by Getty]
Philip Seymour Hoffman is considered one of the greatest actors of his generation, a fact that is sadly confirmed by the outpouring of responses from his peers and admirers in the entertainment community in the wake of his death
It is as clear as it ever was that Hoffman's work had a profound and lasting effect.
Shocked to hear of Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s death. If you missed him as Willy Loman, you missed a Willy Loman for all time.
— Steve Martin (@SteveMartinToGo) February 2, 2014
Just hearing about Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Devastating. What an amazingly gifted actor. RIP
— Justin Timberlake (@jtimberlake) February 2, 2014
So increadibly sad to hear one of my favorite actors has passed. RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman.
— Jesse Tyler Ferguson (@jessetyler) February 2, 2014
Rest in peace Philip Seymour Hoffman. We who marveled at each of your performances, are grateful and very very sad. http://t.co/XcbJG6CAUY
— mia farrow (@MiaFarrow) February 2, 2014
In the fun and games of the day- let's please take a pause- and acknowledge the life of Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Truly sad news today.
— Brian Baumgartner (@BBBaumgartner) February 2, 2014
It looks like addiction took another great person. It doesn't have to happen. Sometimes there are miracles. RIP Phillip Seymour Hoffman
— Lea Thompson (@LeaKThompson) February 2, 2014
PSH was one of the most wonderful people I ever knew. Please take away from this horror to get help if you need it.
— Richard Lewis (@TheRichardLewis) February 2, 2014
WTF!!!!philip-seymour-hoffman-found-dead-in-his-apartment, a truly great actor... Gone.. I hope someone says hey whoop it's a hoax.. R.I.P
— Whoopi Goldberg (@WhoopiGoldberg) February 2, 2014
Very sad to read of Philip Seymour Hoffman's passing. Keeping his family & friends in my thoughts.
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) February 2, 2014
We lost one of the greats today. Philip Seymour Hoffman RIP my friend. You will be missed always and forever.
— Aaron Paul (@aaronpaul_8) February 2, 2014
Such shocking & sad news. RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman. One of the greatest actors of a generation and a sweet, funny & humble man.
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) February 2, 2014
Rest in peace Philip Seymour Hoffman. You were one of the best. You're gone way too soon. #RIPPhilipSeymourHoffman
— Joel McHale (@joelmchale) February 2, 2014
R.I.P. Philip Seymour Hoffman. One of the greats of his generation.
— Albert Brooks (@AlbertBrooks) February 2, 2014
Dear Philip, a beautiful beautiful soul. For the most sensitive among us the noise can be too much. Bless your heart. ;^{
— Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) February 2, 2014
Phillip Seymour Hoffman please find peace
— Artie Lange (@ArtieQuitter) February 2, 2014
Phillip Seymour Hoffman worked & lived with truth above all. I will desperately miss his talent. pic.twitter.com/gL5rFnK17U
— Sean Astin (@SeanAstin) February 2, 2014
Philip Seymour Hoffman was a brilliant, talented man. The news this morning is shocking and sad. My heart goes out to his loved ones.
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) February 2, 2014
Shit.
— Garry Shandling (@GarryShandling) February 2, 2014
[image of Hoffman in Magnolia via Getty]
"For me, acting is torturous, and it's torturous because you know it's a beautiful thing. I was young once, and I said, That's beautiful and I want that. Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great — well, that's absolutely torturous."
That's Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was found dead in his apartment earlier today, talking to Lynn Hirschberg in a 2008 New York Times Magazine profile. The actor was known for the depth of his characters as well as his range.
Here are some of my favorite Hoffman performances. Share your favorites below.
Almost Famous (2000):
Synechdoche, New York (2008):
The Master (2012):
Today Woody Allen's lawyer and publicist released separate statements responding to his adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow's claims of sexual abuse
The statement from attorney Elkan Abramowitz reads:
It is tragic that after 20 years a story engineered by a vengeful lover resurfaces after it was fully vetted and rejected by independent authorities. The one to blame for Dylan's distress is neither Dylan nor Woody Allen.
Allen's publicist chimed in further with this:
Mr. Allen has read the article and found it untrue and disgraceful. He will be responding very soon...At the time, a thorough investigation was conducted by court appointed independent experts. The experts concluded there was no credible evidence of molestation; that Dylan Farrow had an inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality; and that Dylan Farrow had likely been coached by her mother Mia Farrow. No charges were ever filed.
Allen had no comment when confronted by TMZ
[photo of Allen with Mia Farrow in 1999 via Getty]
Historically, introducing your internet-based company to a new audience via Super Bowl airtime hasn't always worked so well. But maybe Squarespace will wind up on the E*Trade side of things, rather than Lifeminders.com and the rest of the corpses.
The website creation company's 30-second spot couldn't have come cheap (probably around $4 million!), and is a gamble for a relatively tiny company up next to Budweiser. Squarespace is a nifty service, yes, and Twitter humans really seemed to enjoy the ad.
But a lot of us enjoyed that one, too.
Warning: BuzzFeed's "Which '90s Alt-Rock Grrrl Are You?" quiz may not be entirely accurate.
Good news for fetuses: the rate of U.S. abortions have hit a new low under President Obama. Not since the legalization of abortion during the Nixon Administration in 1973 has the abortion rate been so low, at just 16.9 abortions per 1,000 pregnancies.
Abortion was made legal in the United States by the Supreme Court in 1973, when the abortion rate was 16.3 per 1,000 pregnancies. The American Dream was dead, young men were forcibly sent to the war against Vietnam, and the decline of the middle class now required all but the wealthiest women to work full time away from home. It is little wonder that abortions nearly doubled.
With Ronald Reagan in the White House and the decline of America accelerating, the abortion rate skyrocketed. The abortion rate was 29.3 per 1,000 viable fetuses when Reagan was elected, and it wasn't until Reagan's successor George H.W. Bush was out of office that the appallingly high abortion rate finally dropped below 25 per 1,000 pregnancies.
But it's not all good news for the children, as continuing economic devastation is also credited with lowering the abortion rate during Obama's family-oriented presidency. Because abortion clinics have been outlawed in the poorest states and because birth control is more widely available and more effective today, women are now more likely to prevent pregnancy rather than risk trying to end it later.
The study of American abortion trends was done by the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion organization based in New York and Washington.
Despite the sky-high abortion rates that began under Richard Nixon and exploded during the Reagan Era, the American population has yet to decline. In fact, the U.S. population has swollen to 317 million today from just 212 million in 1973 when Roe v. Wade was decided. Nothing less than a powerful plague or massive meteor strike is likely to reduce the nation's population to the sustainable levels of a century ago.
[Photo via Shutterstock.]
