The following facts come from the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services:

• Sex trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery in which a commercial sex act is induced by
  force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act is under the
  age of 18 years.
• Victims of sex trafficking can be women or men, girls or boys, but the majority are women
  and girls.
• One lure to secure a victim into sex slavery is being sold by parents
• One method used by sex-slaveowners to “condition” their victims is forced drug use

According to the United Nations:

• The most common form of human trafficking is for sexual exploitation
• 20 percent of all trafficking victims are children

These are facts to bear in mind when reading euphemistic accounts about the white Duke University administrator who “adopted” the little black boy whom he is alleged to have drugged with Benadryl before molesting repeatedly and offering to others for sex. Remember, too, that the boy is one of two children “adopted” by Frank Lombard.

His neighbors should remember those things, rather than kicking reporters out, blocking the street with a Subaru and closing ranks. Was the little five-year-old boy not also their neighbor?

It would be well for the Duke community also to remember those things — it is, after all, presumably the same community that professed outrage over the idea (the infamous hoax) of a poor black woman being gang-raped by rich white boys. But it turns out that community outrage over rape at Duke is provably related to politics.

Nevertheless, these allegations would seem to fit within even Duke leftists’ highly narrow parameters for accepting sexual abuse as morally offensive — but the silence from the campus at large and especially the Gang of 88 is telling, and disturbing all the more so. (Mike Adams tried to help the latter out, but to no avail.) How is this not also “a perfect storm” of race, class, and gender issues? What is the difference?

ETA: Commenter “AgentPierce” gets to the heart of the matter in his post on The News & Observer story linked above:

Unlike in The Lacrosse Hoax ….. it appears that the tragic victim in this case (assumption of innocence noted!) actually IS an African-American …. HOWEVER we are NOT seeing an outpouring of sympathy for the abused child from Durham’s notorious Black activist community. One would think this is EXACTLY when they should be heard ….. their silence is deafening! …. a 5 y/o boy whose only “family” in this world is his presumed persecutor !!

Where is Bill Barber …. where is Victoria Peterson …. where is Jackie Wagstaff …. where is Mayor Bill Bell …. and Lord Love A Duck – Where O’ Where is Malik Zulu Shabazz …. ????

If Crystal Gale & The Embezzler deserved the full throated support of Durham’s Black Community …. why are we not seeing it for a totally innocent 5 Y/O Boy ???

The interventionist federal policies this country is being forced to endure are proven ineffective yet again. From the Washington Post, on the unemployment rate, which is now at a 26-year high.

Employers kept slashing jobs at a furious pace in June as the unemployment rate edged ever closer to double-digit levels, undermining signs of progress in the economy, and making clear that the job market remains in terrible shape.

Bad economic news is no surprise to JLF’s Roy Cordato. It is just sad for America’s economic future.

Meantime, right here in North Carolina, the governor and legislators are planning to hike taxes – the very worst policy they could enact during a recession. JLF’s Joe Coletti explains what it will take to get the country moving again.

Cal Thomas writes today about Obama’s “Honduras predicament” — the predicament being Obama immediately meddled in what was decidedly not a “coup,” a meddling that had consequences for Hondureños, and he did so against the stark backdrop of his ballyhooed, world-renowned anti-meddling stance concerning the popular uprising in Iran in reaction to a rigged election.

In the course of his article, Thomas makes a point I made in discussing the Honduras problem. As I put it,

Socialists and assorted statists all have the same approach to democracy: they’re in favor of it up until the precise moment after they receive the vote they wanted, after which they have no use for spontaneous soundings of the people’s voice ever again and will invariably justify all their dictatorial actions with nonsense about it being “the will of the people.”

Thomas makes the case in context of the U.S. putting the cart before the horse in championing world democracy vis-à-vis elections:

One of the flaws in U.S. policy in this and in the Bush administration has been our commitment to elections as an end and not a means. Elections can put scoundrels in power and the election that elevates them is often the last one a country sees until the miscreants are overthrown. That has been true of Hamas in the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006, Germany under Hitler, as well as Ortega and Chavez, among others. The United States should be supporting electoral processes that put people in office who are committed to the rule of law and representative government.

We cannot, alas, expect an American president who is a fan of such scoundrels as Chavez and Castro to appreciate a commitment to the rule of law and representative government when he sees it, because that’s what we are seeing in Honduras right now.

More brilliant video commentary from the folks at Reason TV. This time, they take aim at both Left and Right about the willingness of both sides of the spectrum to slice and dice the Bill of Rights.

From the Los Angeles Times:

After trying for weeks to fix a state budget gone out of control, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers stood frozen in conflict Wednesday with the state at the brink of a meltdown.

A day after the state Senate failed in a late-night bid to close part of a deficit now projected at $26.3 billion, California Controller John Chiang took steps to begin issuing IOUs today to tens of thousands of companies and individuals that are owed millions of dollars by the state.

North Carolina’s spend-and-tax pattern is equally disturbing. JLF’s Joe Coletti explains what our legislators have been doing.

Oh my. NC State Interim Chancellor James Woodward has some very interesting things to say about Mary Easley’s firing and her decision to fight it. Woodward talked with editors of the News & Observer, and this story details what he said, including this:

Woodward said Wednesday that Easley that “had to know” that her husband, one of his top aides and a member of the university’s Board of Trustees played a role in the creation of her job.

“I think she was well aware of the efforts made on her behalf to get her a new job and a new contract,” Woodward said. “And those efforts were highly inappropriate.”

Carolina Journal’s Don Carrington has been on the Easley story for a very long time. You’ll find his investigative reports here.

Helen Thomas gets tough with the Obama administration. Chip Reid of CBS starts it, but Thomas finishes it, saying it’s “shocking” how this administration tries to control the press, that “it’s part of a pattern,” and that no administration has ever done it to this extent. Watch it all here.

Two sets of data indicate that the sharp left turn toward liberal, interventionist policies we’ve seen over the past six months is opening some eyes. More Americans now realize what they’re seeing.

First, from Gallup:

A Gallup Poll finds a statistically significant increase since last year in the percentage of Americans who describe the Democratic Party’s views as being “too liberal,” from 39% to 46%. This is the largest percentage saying so since November 1994, after the party’s losses in that year’s midterm elections.

Second, from Public Policy Polling:

Barack Obama’s approval rating in North Carolina hit its lowest level since he took office this month, and one group that he’s seen a particularly steep decline with is conservative white Democrats.

At first I thought it was a live feed from the legislature:

UPDATE: Lifeform supposedly identified by a Dr. Kwak. I’m not kidding.

A bunch of new fees take effect today around the Triangle, and the list is pretty interesting.