Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

A Menace To The Catholic Plutocracy

Commentary By Ron Beasley


Those of you who have read these virtual pages over the years know that I don't believe the Catholic Church was ever a spiritual organization but a political one.  It was founded to be the state religion of the Roman empire and was the corrupt king maker in much of Europe until the reformation.  With 24/7 instant news it became difficult to hide that corruption when the victims of pedophile priests started coming forward.  Now the conservative plutocrats that make up the Catholic hierarchy are fighting back proving once again there is very little spirituality involved but a lot of politics and lust for power.



Turning the tables on an advocacy group that has long supported victims of pedophile priests, lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church and priests accused of sexual abuse in two Missouri cases have gone to court to compel the group to disclose more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists.


The group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, is neither a plaintiff nor a defendant in the litigation. But the group has been subpoenaed five times in recent months in Kansas City and St. Louis, and its national director, David Clohessy, was questioned by a battery of lawyers for more than six hours this year. A judge in Kansas City ruled that the network must comply because it �almost certainly� had information relevant to the case.


The network and its allies say the legal action is part of a campaign by the church to cripple an organization that has been the most visible defender of victims, and a relentless adversary, for more than two decades. �If there is one group that the higher-ups, the bishops, would like to see silenced,� said Marci A. Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University and an advocate for victims of clergy sex crimes, �it definitely would be SNAP. And that�s what they�re going after. They�re trying to find a way to silence SNAP.�



Of course the very evil Bill Donohue is involved.



Catholic League president Bill Donohue is sick and tired of coddling rape victims. That�s why he supports efforts by lawyers for two Missouri priests accused of sexual abuse to cripple an organization that advocates on behalf of the victims of pedophile priests � Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).



The Roman Catholic Church has been a power hungry plutocracy from the beginning.  They have less power today but little else has changed.


Update:


Charles Pierce as usual has a great take.



I spent the afternoon scouring the various versions of the Gospels that we have lying around Blog HQ, and I haven't found one that renders Christ's famous admonition as, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, but lawyer up first, and cover your asses with SLAPP suits."


There's not much else to say. This is what happens when you don't put criminals in jail. The sheer audacity of the clan of the red beanie continues to amaze and astound. And their spokesman is decided unscriptural:



Update II


I cross posted this at The Moderate Voice and took a lot of heat in the comments.



8 comments:

  1. Henry VIII had the right idea - it's PAST time to shut down the child-molestation-and-right-wing-advocacy operation currently masquerading as a "church".

    ReplyDelete
  2. Catholicism must go

    ReplyDelete
  3. $1,000,000,000 paid out and still paying.....
    This is the tab thus far that the misguided leaders of the Roman Catholic Church have paid out to the families of molested children, world wide....
    No wonder the bishops are pissed. This represents a lot of steak dinners and free vacations to the Bahamas.

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  4. The Church has been and is becoming even more so today a business enterprize with owning 35% of the hospitals I beleive. That is a lot of power waiting to be leveraged. It is also why the government should not be making any concessions regarding labor laws.
    If the Church does not want to abid by the labor laws (health insurance) then they can get out of business and thus get out of being an employer.

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  5. High time to defang this pedophile ring masquerading as a church. How much largesse have the Papists ratholed in the Vatican? And yet they seem wholly unable to pay their fair dues for the crimes of their own employees.

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  6. In fact, ALL religions MUST go!
    What makes you think christians are the only child abusers?
    The jew rabbis are the same. The islamic mullahs and ayatollahs are the same.
    DOWN WITH A L L RELIGIONS!

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  7. Sadly, we long ago signed a treaty with the Vatican so that they can hide behind diplomatic immunity, even smuggle drugs into the U.S. in a diplomatic pouch, and not have to worry about any consequences. The recent stir about contraception was arranged so that Santorum would be put in a position to comment on it. Both he and Gingrich are Catholics. Both talk at times almost as if they were paid lobbyists for that goofy fat bishop in NYC and his entourage, the U. S. Council of Catholic Bishops. We should revoke their tax exempt status for getting involved with politics (they're clearly pushing Santorum) and tear up the treaty with Rome. If the congregations want to give their money away to the protectors of child abusers that is their business. But they are supporting obstruction of justice, among other things.

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  8. the Roman Catholic Church have paid out to the families of molested children, world wide....

    ReplyDelete