In Defense of an Election Defeat

Ex-Congressman Dan Lipinski (D, IL) lost his State’s primary election largely—almost entirely—because of his pro-life position on abortion.  He wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal explaining how that loss came about:

I faced it [the question of whether he should have changed his abortion stance to win the primary] head-on in my statement. I defended my pro-life position, which is rooted in both my Catholic faith and science. “I could never give up protecting the most vulnerable human beings in the world, simply to win an election,” I said. “My faith teaches, and the Democratic Party preaches, that we should serve everyone, especially the most vulnerable. …”

Then he closed his piece with this:

[P]arty leaders and presidential candidates refuse to tolerate anyone who doesn’t support abortion on demand at any time, paid for by taxpayers.
The Democratic Party asserts that its highest priority right now is to defeat President Trump. The party’s treatment of pro-life voters belies that claim.

Party’s treatment of Party non-believers doesn’t belie the claim so much as it makes the claim harder to satisfy. After all, babies don’t vote, but pro-life citizens of all political bent do.

Kudos to this rare Democrat who put integrity and honor and respect for life above winning an election.

Joe Biden’s…Politics

Karl Rove had a piece in The Wall Street Journal, and he had this comment about the situation in which Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden finds himself:

Mr Biden must also decide soon whether to keep moving left or emphasize that he’s a more centrist [Progressive-]Democrat. Picking the first course would suggest that he believes victory this fall depends on mobilizing Senator Bernie Sanders’s [I,VT] backers by agreeing with many of the Vermonter’s views.
Picking the second would indicate that he thinks the key to victory lies with suburbanites who swung to Democrats in 2018, and that he’ll get the Bernie vote by being the alternative to Mr Trump, not the instrument to enact a socialist agenda.
But Mr Biden may already have moved too far left for some suburbanites….

Biden can’t tack back in the more-or-less general direction of the center (whether Party’s center, or America’s); to do so would utterly destroy his credibility. Both Party’s left and those suburbanites would see the move as blowing with the political-convenience winds inconstancy.

And so would the American electorate at large.

Biden is stuck.

America’s Olympic Sports Organizations are Losing Money?

In spades, according to the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee:

…America’s amateur sports organizations stand to lose as much as $800 million from coronavirus-driven cancellations, including the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Games until next year.

Color me unsympathetic. At least not until after the various civil and criminal cases over the women and girl athlete sexual and child abuses so rampant in our sports scamps—especially our Olympic and Olympic-prep camps—have finished their trek through our courts, and convicted miscreants are paying their compensatory damages and/or are serving their times in jail.

The USOCP appears to not be taking those miscreancies seriously, even today:

USA Gymnastics [a major abuser of girl and women athletes] is facing decertification from the USOPC….

Still. Four years later. The excuse being blatted about is that USA Gymnastics is in bankruptcy proceedings as it faces hundreds of lawsuits over Nassar. Nonsense. Decertification need have no impact on USAG’s bankruptcy. USOCP looks like it’s dithering.

Not a penny for these organizations, of which USAG and USOCP are only a couple of the larger ones. American taxpayer money needs to be focused on medical support and economic recovery.

Of course the matter remains before the Progressive-Democratic Party majority House: they still could get all that cash.

Holding Some Back

Forty-three million students are doing homework at home due to the current Wuhan virus situation.

Here’s the shocker about that:

Some public schools are calling online work “enrichment,” not part of the curriculum, because they can’t guarantee that all students will have access to it.

The work, which was part of the curriculum when school was in session, won’t be graded, won’t count.  This is another example of the Left’s view of equality: hold back the successful because the less successful don’t, or can’t, keep up.  Don’t take steps to help the less successful do better. No, that’s too hard.

Remember this view of equality next November.

Scapegoating

…and fake apologies.

Recall that Doctor Li Wenliang, a resident of Wuhan, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China and an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, gave early warnings about the dangers and contagious nature of the Wuhan virus. Recall further that subsequent to his warnings, the police were sicced on him and that they threatened him if he didn’t shut the hell up. Li subsequently died of that same Wuhan virus.

Now the Communist Party of China is pretending to apologize to his family for that behavior.

The party’s top disciplinary body said the police force in Wuhan had revoked its admonishment of Dr Li Wenliang that had included a threat of arrest.
It also said a “solemn apology” had been issued to Li’s family and that two police officers, identified only by their surnames, had been issued “disciplinary punishments” for the original handling of the matter.

Punishing two cops who were caught up in the early stages of the CPC’s attacks: nothing like a couple of scapegoats to put an end to the escapade.

Sure.