Ducking Problems

Now the Catholic Church says it’s willing to be held accountable for its history of child abuse—but only if it can control the accountability.  The Church has offered cash payoffs to its victims, but the article’s subheadline says all there is about the Church’s cynical offer:

A potential flood of lawsuits has spurred the Catholic Church to offer mediation, only if accusers agree not to sue

That’s reason enough for mediation to be rejected and the lawsuits pushed forward apace.  And for many, many more lawsuits to be brought.

The Church is still trying to duck its responsibility and culpability and now is trying to control the nature and extent of any sanction.

Be Like Europe, Progressives Say

Here’s another example of the Europe the Left demands we emulate.

Vincent, the 42-year-old man’s name is, had a terrible accident 11 years ago that left him a brain-damaged quadriplegic.  He’s been in a French hospital, in Reims, ever since, variously rated as “semi-conscious” and “in a vegetative state.”  Yet, he eats, sleeps, and responds to his mother’s conversation.

The French medical system is not the central, government-as-single-payer “medical” system that is the ideal of our own Left, but the French government does decide on euthanasia. That government has made the decision that Vincent is no longer worth the trouble of helping to live.  His feeding tube is to be removed, and he’s to be killed by starvation.

And when his mother told him of the French Court of Cassation’s (the French supreme court for civil cases, which this one is; there is no appeal) decision that he was to die, he cried.

The officials of this European government don’t even have the courage to kill the man outright with their own hands. They’re happy simply to stand on the sidelines, give the order, and let him die the agonizing death of starvation.  He doesn’t even get to eat cake.

Yay, Progressives.

And now he’s dead. I wrote the above last Wednesday when Vincent was alive. The French government ordered his killing, French doctors hospital pulled his feeding and hydration tubes the next day, and Vincent has died.

Isn’t government involvement in health care grand.

Hypocrisy of the British Left

Yes, ex-Prime Minister John Major claims himself a Conservative, but he’s acting more and more Left.  Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister wannabe and front-runner to replace the resigned Theresa May, has said that if needs be, he’ll prorogue Parliament to block an anti-no-deal Brexit vote, if a no-deal departure is necessary.

Prorogue: a temporary suspension of Parliament following petition of the Queen by her first minister—the Prime Minister—for permission to suspend Parliament and her granting that permission.  This use is unusual; prorogation is normally used for normal terminations of Parliamentary sessions; the term also describes the interval between that termination and the normal opening of the next session.

The former British Prime Minister John Major on Wednesday warned he would personally take legal action to stop any leader using a suspension of parliament to deliver a “no-deal” Brexit.

And yet, he threatens:

In order to close down parliament the prime minister would have to go to her Majesty the Queen and ask for her permission to prorogue. If her first minister asks for that permission, it is almost inconceivable that the queen will do anything other than grant it.
She is then in the midst of a constitutional controversy that no serious politician should put the queen in the middle of[.]

Thus, the hypocrisy: Major says he personally will precipitate that constitutional crisis with his own lawsuit to stop the process.

I for one would be prepared to go and seek judicial review.

Never mind that his case can only lose: as part of the Queen’s (any British monarch’s) Royal Prerogative, the power and the authority to prorogue belongs only to the monarch.  No British court can overrule her.

Hmm….

“Diverse Community”

The City Council of St Louis Park, MN, a Minneapolis suburb and in Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s (D, MN) district, has objected to our nation’s Pledge of Allegiance to the point of voting to stop their practice of reciting it prior to Council meetings.

The mayor objected, and so did 100 protestors present for the vote—when was the last time 100 protestors assembled for a city council meeting?  Despite that, the Council’s vote was unanimous: 5-0.

The amendment to the council’s rules was characterized as an effort to serve a more “diverse community….”

More diverse.  Except for those who don’t think in the correct manner about the right things.  Except for those who love and respect our national flag.

There isn’t any more diverse community than the United States.  Or it used to be that way, before the Left and its Progressive-Democratic Party political arm started excluding those whom they hold in disfavor.

Cynicism

Hong Kong Chief Executive and People’s Republic of China Senior Employee Carrie Lam claims that her Extradition to the PRC Bill is “dead.”

However, the subheadline says it all:

We hope people will not read a different meaning just because we are using a different word

She continues, after all, to refuse to explicitly withdraw her bill.  “Trust me.”

The people of Hong Kong are right to be…skeptical.  Lam really does need to go, as do most of her subordinates down through several layers of her hierarchy, but PRC President Xi Jinping is unlikely to permit it.