Tuesday Post

 The world goes on...

The Speaker of Queen's Park denies he felt bullied by then-Premier Dalton McGuinty:

The Speaker of the Ontario legislature said Tuesday he never felt political interference that would prevent him from making decisions, despite opposition charges that the Liberal government tried to bully him into changing a key ruling. 

Newly-released emails show senior Liberals in former premier Dalton McGuinty's office tried to get Speaker Dave Levac to change his preliminary finding that then-energy minister Chris Bentley was in contempt for not releasing all documents on two cancelled gas plants. 

The Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats accused the Liberals of trying to pressure Levac into changing his ruling, something they said was "akin to trying to influence a judge on a decision" in a court case. 

"That's pretty serious stuff," said NDP house leader Gilles Bisson. "You don't do that. There are ramifications." 

However, Levac issued a statement Tuesday saying he's frequently lobbied by members of all three parties on a range of issues, and has never felt undue pressure. 

"I have never felt unable to make an informed, objective and procedurally sound decision, free of political interference," Levac said in the statement. 

"The fact that the ruling did stand should also speak for itself." 

The Conservatives said they wanted the integrity commissioner to find out if the Liberals threatened Levac or made the Speaker an offer to drop the contempt ruling.

Did he feel weaselled, perhaps? I'm sure most people do.



Liberals are different from everybody else:

Former candidates who still owe money from the 2006 Liberal leadership campaign won't be taken to court by Elections Canada, the country's elections commissioner has ruled.

Instead, Yves Cote suggested Tuesday that the candidates pay the money back in a timely manner.

I'm sure they will.


Abolish teachers' unions and privatise education:

A paper trail documenting the controversial decision to reinstate a teacher who put up sexually explicit brochures in a public school will not be made public, Toronto District School Board officials say.

Bradley Manning, who deliberately leaked of military secrets to Wikileaks, was found not guilty of aiding the enemy but guilty of espionage:

An Army judge on Tuesday acquitted Pfc. Bradley Manning of aiding the enemy by disclosing a trove of secret U.S. government documents but found him guilty of espionage, a mixed verdict that dealt a rebuke to military prosecutors who sought to prove that the largest leak in U.S. history had assisted al-Qaeda.

The judge, Col. Denise Lind, found Manning guilty of most of the more than 20 crimes he was charged with, including several violations of the Espionage Act. He could face a maximum of 136 years in prison.

Truly a miracle:

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, 34, and her husband were told during pregnancy that their daughter had Potter’s Syndrome, a condition in which the kidneys fail to develop properly, leading to insufficient levels of amniotic fluid to allow the lungs to fully form.  The resulting pressure on the baby from the uterine walls often causes significant physical deformities, as well.  Up until now, the condition was considered 100% fatal.  The Beutlers were told to expect their baby to be stillborn or die of suffocation within minutes of birth – or have an abortion, which is something the pro-life couple would not do.

“There is no medical solution available to us,” the Buetlers wrote on Facebook after the diagnosis. “We are praying for a miracle.”  

Unwilling to give their daughter up without a fight, the Buetlers traveled to Johns Hopkins University for an experimental treatment called amnioinfusion.  Each week, doctors injected the congresswoman’s womb with a saline solution, giving little Abigail more room to grow and develop her lungs. 

“With each infusion we watched via ultrasound as Abigail responded to the fluid by moving, swallowing and ‘practice breathing,’” the Buetlers wrote on Jaime’s Facebook page.  “The initial lack of fluid in the womb caused pressure on her head and chest, but over the course of the treatment we were able to watch them reform to their proper size and shape. Her feet, which were clubbed in early ultrasounds, straightened. There was no way to know if this treatment would be effective or to track lung development, but with hearts full of hope, we put our trust in the Lord and continued to pray for a miracle.”

Then, after only the fifth injection, Herrera Buetler went into premature labor, at only 28 weeks pregnant.

For four days, doctors tried to stop the labor and give baby Abigail more time to grow (a normal pregnancy is 40 weeks).  But on July 15, despite their best efforts, the little girl made her way into the world, weighing just two pounds, two ounces. 

Upon her arrival, she took a deep breath and cried.

“The doctors and nurses were prepared for the worst, but immediately after she was born, she drew a breath and cried,” Herrera Beutler said. “After a few minutes, it was clear that her lungs were very well developed for a baby born so early.  The infusions had stopped the Potter’s Sequence.”

Because Abigail was born without kidneys, a condition called bilateral renal agenesis, she is on dialysis and will remain so until she can receive a kidney transplant.  But she is, in the Buetlers’ words, “active, stable and breathing on her own.” Doctors believe she is the first patient of her kind to survive.

More prayers are needed.