Schaivo Case

New Ad Sponsor

stcynic — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 17:24:49 +0000

New Ad Sponsor

You might notice on the right that I have a new sponsor, TerriPAC. The ad will be there for two weeks. Unlike the last ad, pushing the profoundly silly idea that 9/11 was staged, this is one I can really get behind. It's a political action committee set up by Michael Schiavo to fight against the manipulative and highly dishonest tactics of those who turned Terri Schiavo into a national political issue and to help make sure the same thing doesn't happen to someone else. I'm all for that. What the religious right did to both Michael and Terri Schiavo was an unconscionably cruel and disgusting display of divide-and-conquer politics, led by hypocrites and mountebanks like Larry Klayman and Tom Delay.

stcynic Wed, 12/28/2005 - 12:24

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Schaivo Case

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

stcynic — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 10:24:35 +0000

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

Florida State Attorney Bernie McCabe, the prosecutor that Gov. Jeb Bush urged to do an investigation of possible criminal wrongdoing by Michael Schiavo the night Terri collapsed, has concluded that there is no evidence of anything criminal. Even Jeb Bush says that's the end of the matter now, by which he probably means "please, please, make this go away so I don't have to make myself look even worse by pandering to the delusional."

stcynic Mon, 07/11/2005 - 06:24

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Schaivo Case

This is interesting. But when is the Palm Beach County prosecutor going to indict Rush Lamebrain for drug dealing? There seems to be some "rich people" justice going on in the Lamebrain case.

The saddest part of this is that the report is worded in just the right way to allow Jeb to skirt the very real need for an apology to Michael Schiavo. As one cannot prove the negative, no one can state definitively that he did nothing to cause his wife's condition. Instead they speak about not having any evidence of wrongdoing, which is not quite the same as saying Michael Schiavo was innocent of any wrongdoing.

So is this thing over for good now? *sigh*

"So is this thing over for good now? *sigh*"

I highly doubt that. We'll be hearing about this case for years to come as conservatives try to use it as an example of justice gone wrong resulting in someone's death.

Well this conservative is glad this thing is over for good now!

Oh, just to remind you were this Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! came from

Jim Nabor's Gomer Pile character.

It really was a funny program, with a lot of satire. And he was an excellent singer. It was astounding how he could transition from the Gomer Pile character to the singing voice--the voices were very different.

And it was used as one of the background snippets in a Pink Floyd album (can't remember if it was the Wall or Wish You Were Here -- I think the Wall).

Just to let you know, Jim Nabor's "Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!" has become a classic.

Issue for me is, he had an excellent singing voice. He really did. I'd hate to have his singing denigrated because of his humor.

Tierney on the Schiavo Autopsy

stcynic — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 08:12:14 +0000

Tierney on the Schiavo Autopsy

Predictably, the Worldnutdaily has trotted out "experts" - including the uber-fraud Dr. Hammesfahr - to claim that the autopsy didn't show that she was in PVS. I was going to fisk the articles they've had on it myself, but instead I asked Adam Tierney, one of my fellow In the Agora contributors, to do so. You can find his response here. Adam is a grad student in cognitive neuroscience at UCSD, so this really is his field of study. He does an excellent job of cutting through the nonsense, writing in part:

Finally, Hammesfahr claimed that "the relay areas from the frontal and front temporal regions of the brain, to the spinal cord and the brain stem, by way of the basal ganglia, were preserved." This claim is also directly refuted by the autopsy, which reveals extensive damage to the basal ganglia and the cerebellum, another subcortical structure involved in the claim of movement: "In the basal ganglia, the corpus striatum all but vanished...within the cerebellum there were no recognizable Purkinje cells found."
These major objections aside, the articles are also marred by gross inaccuracies. For example, one observes: "Ward pointed out that major damage to Schiavo's brain was shown to be toward the back -- the areas that affect motor skills." Actually, as anyone could find out by poking around Wikipedia for ten seconds, the back of the brain is primarily devoted to visual processing, while the frontal lobes are in large part devoted to motor skills. One of the articles also refers to the frontal lobes as "the areas that deal with awareness and cognition," a fact that would surprise and possibly delight most cognitive scientists: now we only need to study a fourth of the brain!

Nice work, Adam, and thanks.

stcynic Wed, 06/22/2005 - 04:12

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Schaivo Case

Majikthise on Schiavo

stcynic — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 14:00:03 +0000

Majikthise on Schiavo

Majikthise has an excellent fisking of Joan Didion's article in the New York Review of Books about the Schiavo case. In particular, she points out the absurdity of those who are saying that since the autopsy said there's no evidence of bulimia or a "heart attack" in the autopsy, Michael must have done something abusive.

stcynic Sat, 06/18/2005 - 10:00

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Schaivo Case

Honey, I was so surprised that Michael Schiavo decided to bury Terri's ashes in Clearwater. I love the inscription "I Kept My Promise"
Jeb Bush is making such a fool of himself again by ordering this latest investagation.

Mark Fuhrman: Media Whore

stcynic — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 11:17:54 +0000

Mark Fuhrman: Media Whore

In response to my post about the Schiavo autopsy on In the Agora, an anonymous poster that everyone there refers to as "Leon" left a typically amusing comment. He wrote:

I note also that Mark Furman, author and criminal investigator, has spent a number of weeks going over the totality of the records and will shortly deliver a book to the public.

I suggested that he should replace "author and criminal investigator" with "disgraced former cop and infamous racist who was last seen on television committing perjury in the OJ trial." But alas, it's true. Fuhrman does have a book coming out about the Schiavo case. And it hardly needs to be said that this book is being pimped by the Worldnutdaily, right? The marketing campaign for the book shows just how unbalanced the book will be, promising that it was written "with the complete cooperation of Terri Schiavo's parents and siblings." You know, the same people who encouraged Michael to move on with his life and find someone new and then used that against him in the media. The same people who threw out false accusations of abuse that were rejected by all of the medical personnel at the hospital who treated Terri and were dismissed by the courts with prejudice. The same people who foisted the uber-fraud Dr. Hammesfahr on the media and the public. But hey, lies are Fuhrman's specialty.

At any rate, I'm sure Fuhrman's book will receive an enormous amount of free advertising from Fox News. But I'm not gonna buy it. I'm waiting for Kato Kaelin's expose on the Hilton Sisters and Rosa Lopez's investigation into North Korean nuclear testing.

stcynic Sat, 06/18/2005 - 07:17

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Schaivo Case

Whatever one thinks of Fuhrman, he is a decent novelist. I've read a couple of his books.

And, IIRC, Furman is responsible for the solving of the Martha Moxley murder. His book Murder in Greenwich, I'm told, was an outstanding accomplishment of criminal investigation. We would be wrong to immediately reject a man's work on the basis of his use of an offensive word, particularly given the circumstances in which that use came to light.

This A@@hat was on Hannity the other day, where he plain and simple said that Terry was strangled by her husband. It was one of the most vile things I have heard on the radio. Scumbag is to nice a term for this man.

Sandefur wrote:

We would be wrong to immediately reject a man's work on the basis of his use of an offensive word, particularly given the circumstances in which that use came to light.

I'll meet you halfway on this one. First, I'll say that it's not merely Fuhrman's use of an offensive word that makes me despise him. There's a lot more to it than that. Multiple witnesses testified under oath that he not only used the word "nigger", he truly was a racist who had said things that should get anyone thrown off any police force in the nation ("If I had my way, I'd gather all the niggers together and burn them."). One of them produced audiotape of Fuhrman saying incredibly racist things in direct relation to his work as a cop. And not only did her commit perjury in denying that, he also plead the 5th when asked both if he had ever planted evidence in any case or in the OJ case specifically. I think there is more than ample evidence to condemn Fuhrman as a racist cop who was rightly disgraced and forced off the police force.
Having said that, I will of course agree that that doesn't necessarily mean that what he says about some other subject is necessarily false. I am aware that he won high praise for his book on the Greenwich murders, though I know nothing about the case specifically. But this new book is based upon his access to Terri's parents and siblings, the very people responsible for lie after lie in that situation. And he has already gone on television saying ridiculous things about the case, claiming that she was strangled by Michael when the doctors and nurses, and the police, at the time of her collapse - who would certainly have been looking for evidence of such - rejected that claim at the time. So did Terri's brother, who was there with Michael when the paramedics arrived. It was only 5 years later, after they came to a disagreement over whether to give up hope and let her die, that the family suddenly turned from adoring Michael to claiming he was abusive and may have killed her. There was zero evidence for that at the time of her collapse and there is zero evidence for it now. The parents should be ashamed of themselves for their sudden and convenient attempts to smear the man, and Fuhrman is acting as nothing more than a media whore looking to make a fast buck by lending credence to their vicious attacks on him.

I may be getting confused, because it was a long time ago, but didn't it come out during the OJ trial that Fuhrman either planted evidence to frame black suspects or talked about doing so?

Ginger Yellow wrote:

I may be getting confused, because it was a long time ago, but didn't it come out during the OJ trial that Fuhrman either planted evidence to frame black suspects or talked about doing so?

Yes. On the famous tapes on which he was interviewed by the TV/movie producer, he spoke about planting evidence to set up "niggers". In a private court session not seen by either the jurors nor the media, Fuhrman was asked under oath if he had ever planted evidence in any case, and if he had planted evidence in that particular case. He plead the 5th to avoid answering both questions. Judge Ito ruled that the jury should not be told that he had done so, but that they should only be told that he was "unavailable" for further questioning and that they could consider that fact when determining his credibility.
Fuhrman's excuse for all of this - after perjuring himself on the stand and claiming that he had never said it and anyone who said he had was a liar - was that he was just "assuming a role" to give the producer insight into how a racist cop might think or talk. But the producer testified that in fact, the show he was helping her develop was not about racist cops but about women cops and that she had told him before the interviews to just be totally honest about life as a cop and the kinds of things that went on.

In light of that, isn't Timothy Sandefur's comment rather odd? I'd be quite happy to reject the work of someone who has admitted planting evidence.

Also, Ed, what was the justification for withholding the 5th amendment plea from the jury? That it would itself be incriminating? Surely that's up to the jury to decide. And when did all this become public?

Ginger Yellow wrote:

In light of that, isn't Timothy Sandefur's comment rather odd? I'd be quite happy to reject the work of someone who has admitted planting evidence.

Not necessarily. He's right that those facts don't necessarily mean that everything else he might say about cases in which he has no involvement is wrong. And he's right that Fuhrman won high praise for his book on the Greenwich murders and is thought to have cracked the case. But as I said, I think there are other more pertinent reasons to be skeptical of his contributions on this particular case.

Also, Ed, what was the justification for withholding the 5th amendment plea from the jury? That it would itself be incriminating? Surely that's up to the jury to decide. And when did all this become public?

I think I misstated when I said that the media was not aware of this hearing that was not in front of the jury. Court TV reported on it on September 7, 1995 saying:

Judge Lance Ito rejected the defense's attempt to force former detective Mark Fuhrman to testify again before the jury. But the judge angered prosecutors by ruling that he would tell jurors that Fuhrman was not available for further testimony and that they may consider his unavailability in evaluating his credibility as witness.
The judge then halted the proceedings and granted angry prosecutors a chance to appeal the ruling by noon Friday. The jury was then dismissed until Friday when the defense is expected to rest its case.
In his ruling, Judge Ito conceded that Simpson was prejudiced by the fact that Fuhrman was not cross-examined about defense witnesses Natalie Singer, Roderic Hodge and Laura McKinny. But, he said, California case law clearly states that it's inappropriate to present to the jury a witness whom the lawyers know will invoke the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

The jury was not aware of any of that, but the media was and it was published at the time.

So basically, California case law favours the supposed right of the witness not to have to invoke the 5th over that of the defendant to present all potentially exculpatory evidence? That's pretty screwed up.

Jeb Bush Continues to Exploit Schiavo

stcynic — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 11:27:40 +0000

Jeb Bush Continues to Exploit Schiavo

The Schiavo exploitation continues. Jeb Bush has pushed a prosecutor in Florida to open an investigation of the circumstances involving Michael Schiavo's 911 call the morning that Terri collapsed - an investigation he admits is highly unlikely to find anything:

Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday that a prosecutor has agreed to investigate why Terri Schiavo collapsed 15 years ago, citing an alleged time gap between when her husband found her and when he called 911.
Bush said his request for the probe was not meant to suggest wrongdoing by Michael Schiavo.
"It's a significant question that during this ordeal was never brought up," Bush told reporters.

Michael Schiavo's attorney has said his client called for help right away...
Bush acknowledged in his letter that an investigation may be difficult.

"I understand that these events took place many years ago, and that you may not be able to collect all the relevant records and physical evidence. However, Mrs. Schiavo's family deserves to know anything that can be done to determine the cause and circumstances of her collapse 15 years ago," Bush wrote. "The unanswered questions may be unanswerable, but the attempt should be made."

Virtually all of this is nonsense. It is utterly false that this alleged time gap was "never brought up". It's been out there for years, but it's based on virtually nothing. In a TV interview 13 years after her collapse, Michael said that he woke up and found her around 4:30 am. The 911 call was made at 5:40 am. But was Michael trying to be accurate in his interview? Obviously not. He was recounting that he got woken up in the middle of the night. In another interview, he'd said around 5 am. But there's one really obvious reason why there was no alleged 70 minute gap between finding Terri and calling 911 - she wouldn't be alive if he had waited that long. She was without oxygen. If she'd been without oxygen for 70 minutes, she would have been stone cold dead with no chance of revival. The fact that they managed to revive her after multile defibrillations, but with major brain damage, is proof that she was only down 10-15 minutes. The police investigated all of this at the time and dismissed it, just as they investigated accusations of abuse and dismissed them. But now 15 years later, Jeb Bush is still pushing for it when he knows damn well there is nothing such an investigation could acheive. Michael was the only person there when she collapsed. If he'd waited as long as they allege, she would never have been revived in the first place. End of argument. Except, of course, Bush isn't really interested in truth here. He is interested only in continuing to exploit this issue for political gain.

stcynic Fri, 06/17/2005 - 07:27

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Schaivo Case

I'm reminded of the line that goes something like "At long last, sir, have you no shame?"

And the answer is -- clearly not.

Two words: Absofuckinglutely appalling. Or is that three?

But there's one really obvious reason why there was no alleged 70 minute gap between finding Terri and calling 911 - she wouldn't be alive if he had waited that long. She was without oxygen. If she'd been without oxygen for 70 minutes, she would have been stone cold dead with no chance of revival.

How do the morons square their insinuations that Michael was responsible for Terri's state with the fact that he called 911 so quickly that the paramedics were able to restore respiration and heartbeat? If he had wanted her dead, all he would have had to do was wait 20 minutes and then call. Nobody else would have known any different.

The pandering is shameful.

What do you mean "Shameful?" I don't see any shame.

Jeb has put himself between a rock and a hard place. The majority of people thought his actions were wrong, and by this point are just plain sick of the whole ordeal. But the wingnuts not only won't let the issue go, they blame Jeb personally for not having sent in a SWAT team or whatever else it would have taken to shove the feeding tube back inside Terri. The fact that it would have been a gross Constitutional violation of the governor's powers doesn't matter to them. Since he didn't do everything he could, physically speaking, that makes him one of the bad guys.

This should be an object lesson in why it's not worth pandering to the wingnuts. Not only do you piss-off everyone else, you also piss-off the wingnuts.

This is typical Rove. He needs a distraction for the wingnuts to focus their attention AWAY from the Turd's tanking poll numbers, continued Iraq disaster, SS plan in the shitter, Downing Minutes media coverage...I could go on, but you get the picture. It's like sheep herding.

Y'know, it's not as if I should find any of Shrub the Younger's efforts at continuing to beat this dead horse surprising, but I did. For someone who purportedly started his political life out trying to look more moderate than his brother, he's going out of his way to look just as cluelessly kneejerk as Dubya does on issues like this.

Time for a malicious prosecution lawsuit. I'm not joking.

Somewhat orthogonal, but does anyone know why Rush Lamebrain isn't behind bars by now? Who are those Floridians trying to kid?

LOL.

Check this out:

http://www.psyclops.com/translator/translator.cgi?mode=pimp&url=http://stcynic.com/blog/

yeah, that's just like the Snoop Speak translator.

I had no idea that these existed.

Jon, I didn't either, but it's funny as heck.

Freepers Go Apeshit Over Autopsy

stcynic — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:09:46 +0000

Freepers Go Apeshit Over Autopsy

If you're looking for the folks for whom the Worldnutdaily exists, look no further than Free Republic. It's basically a central online gathering place for every deluded and ignorant pedestrian right winger in the country. And you just gotta see the total meltdown they're having over the autopsy of Terri Schiavo. Some of these people actually believe that Terri had broken legs and even a broken back when she was admitted to the hospital 15 years ago. Never mind that the medical reports from the hospital staff don't say anything like that, and they checked for any signs of abuse or strangulation as is routine in such a case. They've seized on a 1991 bone scan that showed some knee trouble and exaggerated it beyond all proportion, claiming that it shows broken legs and a broken back. In fact, it shows the kind of ossification that comes from osteoporosis and would be the result of degeneration from lack of physical activity and being in a coma. Good lord, what must it be like to go through life thinking like these loonies?

stcynic Thu, 06/16/2005 - 08:09

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Schaivo Case

Is there anything that Freepers Don't go apeshit over?

I like this one from Texas Songwriter - "If you heard the ME address the cerebral cortex, please confirm with transcript or the document. It was a glaring omission. He spoke of the brain, but not the cortex."

Since he mentioned half the brain was gone, and apparently he wasn't talking about the cerebal cortex, he must have meant the other half, which is even more important for life.

Ohh no, this is by far the best:

She retained half her brain. So much for "her brain was totally gone".

Glancing at the autopsy report confirmed, in my mind, this inescapable conclusion: it would have been an act of utter immoral cruelty to keep her alive any longer. Her condition was truly pathetic: blind, bones so brittle from osteoporosis that they would snap like toothpicks, and degenerative arthritis everywhere. If she was capable of feeling pain, and I very much doubt that she was, there can be little doubt that she was in it every day. I am quite sure that not even the most strident wingnuts would keep a dog alive under those circumstances, and I doubt that they themselves would want to be preserved in such a state. Yet they had no qualms about bringing the highest levels of government authority to bear in a cynical power play to force another human being to remain in that condition. That tells me everything I need to know about wingnut morality.

They're also claiming that her brain shrank as a result of dehydration, forgetting the CT scan, taken while she was well hydrated, showing the severe atrophy that the autopsy merely confirmed.

I actually heard a lunatic on talk radio yesterday suggest that she wasn't completely dead when they started the autopsy. That's right, he claimed that the evil liberals of the culture of death autopsied her alive.

There is no reasoning with these people.

I am quite sure that not even the most strident wingnuts would keep a dog alive under those circumstances

Perhaps that's the whole point of the belief system, letting them believe that people are less important than dogs.

Duke

Um, maybe the Freepers will start talking about alien abduction in the case.

I actually used to post on the Freeper web site. They were hilarious.

OMFG, "apeshit" doesn't even begin to describe this pathetic implosion! I loved following the track from smug anticipation, to shock and awe, to stunned disbelief, to bitter, angry denials and conspiracy stories.

I love the smell of charred wingnuts in the morning. Morrigan help me, I do love it so.

PS: your post on "In the Agora" about Michael's motives was excellent and reflects an opinion I've had for some time (which of course makes it the epitome of genius). Do you mind if I quote it in my own blog?

Raging Bee wrote:

PS: your post on "In the Agora" about Michael's motives was excellent and reflects an opinion I've had for some time (which of course makes it the epitome of genius). Do you mind if I quote it in my own blog?

Of course not. Quoting and linking is what blogs are all about.

Wow.

That is most wretchedly formatted page I have ever had the displeasure of reading.

Not only it is impossible to follow because of the format, but the posts are pretty much incoherent babble. Do these people even know what a sentence is?

I love your blog Ed, and now I know better than to click any freeper links ;)

Schiavo Autopsy Confirms Diagnosis

stcynic — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 09:43:07 +0000

Schiavo Autopsy Confirms Diagnosis

The autopsy done on Terri Schiavo has been released and to the surprise only of those who listened to the steady stream of nonsense coming from her family and amplified by the media, it confirmed exacly what Michael Schiavo, Judge Greer and the medical experts who examined her had said all along:

Thogmartin said that Schiavo's brain was about half of its expected size when she died March 31 in a Pinellas Park hospice, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed.
"The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain...This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."

He also concluded that there was no evidence of any trauma such as strangulation or abuse. Will this end the debate and convince the other side? Of course not. Their arguments are based purely on emotion and are immune to facts. The Larry Klaymans of the world are impervious to evidence and logic. When the facts don't support their position, they just fall back on ad hominems and red herrings.

Here is the autopsy report in full.

stcynic Wed, 06/15/2005 - 05:43

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Schaivo Case

It's a damn sad thing how some people can be so damn stuborn.

A wag might wonder whether the brains of the people who were trying to keep Terri's feeding tube down her throat were of the same size. But I'm not a wag ;-)

It's a good thing that they did an autopsy.

If only we had cut her brain out earlier, we would've known it was okay to kill her.

But seriously... the ME also found no sign of heart attack. Apparently, we'll never know what cause the poor woman's brain damage in the first place.

Not that I need to know; what business is it of mine?

They didn't need to do an autopsy. They could have concluded the same from CT or PET scans. I suspect (but don't know) that they did.

Look, let's get something straight. This controversy was about money. It's likely that the parents were upset with the fact that the malpractice settlement provided for a sum for "loss of consortium" for the hubby, but nothing for them. That's what led to the breakdown between the Schindlers (the parents) and the hubby.

If you think I'm joking, I am not.

I read this on google news and immediately thought to come here, as I expected you'd be forcing pro-intervention crowd to eat some crow. You came through.

I wonder what the guy you did the radio show (the "you're part of a culture of death" guy) has to say right now.

I expect some Iraq War-esque spin on this one. "We never claimed she wasn't in PVS, we just thought the parents should decide" or something of that ilk.

Matthew wrote:

I wonder what the guy you did the radio show (the "you're part of a culture of death" guy) has to say right now.

I think I can provide you with a verbatim transcript of what Klayman would say:
"Well of course that's what the autopsy showed, so what? This so-called 'expert' is part of the same system that killed her, you didn't really think he was going to admit that they made a mistake, did you? You're not going to get an admission like that out of the liberal culture of death."
And then he would have excused himself to go and sue his mother again.

I found it quite interesting that Ms. Schiavo was completely blind, given that so much of the "Save Terri" people's "case" relied on her alleged responses to visitors, following balloons with her eyes, etc.

Ed is right, of course, that none of the autopsy report's findings will make a bit of difference to the "Save Terri" side. Religious faith is impervious to facts.

Amusing Stupidity on the Schiavo Case

stcynic — Fri, 20 May 2005 08:45:32 +0000

Amusing Stupidity on the Schiavo Case

The Worldnutdaily has a headline, Judge in Terri's Case Had Conflict of Interest, which links to this story about Federal District Court Judge Whittemore from a hilariously biased website about Terri Schiavo. The article claims that Whittemore had an "overwhelming conflict of interest in the matter that ethically prohibited him from sitting on the case." What is that overwhelming conflict of interest? Hold on to your hat. The overwhelming conflict of interest is that back in 1989, Whittemore was recommended to the Governor of Florida as a potential state judge by a 9-member judicial nominating commission and one of the nine members of that nominating commission at the time was a woman who later married Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, before he got involved with the case. And they're hammering the judge for not recusing himself for this "fatal conflict." Never mind that he probably doesn't even know who the members of that commission were, that it was only a recommendation for a state judgeship, that they probably recommended dozens of attorneys in the area for state judgeships, that she was only one of 9 members of the commission, that the involvement was 7 years before she even met the attorney in a case that didn't exist at the time Whittemore was recommended, that even after that the governor had to name him to an open judgeship and he had to face election for the office after that, or that he is now a Federal judge, not a state judge - the conspiracy is so obvious! Uh, yeah. And I hear he once ate at a McDonald's that Felos drove past on the way to his office every day too. How clear does it have to be?

stcynic Fri, 05/20/2005 - 04:45

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Schaivo Case

Putting all those inferences together results in one of the longest sentences in the bolgosphere.

And a fine sentence it is, too.

The Tom Tomorrow way of looking at the sort of logic used by the well wishing fundies.

http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=19060

Terri's dead.

Somehow, the WorldNutDaily article brings to mind the old aphorism "beating a dead horse." Apparently they believe it is lucrative to beat a dead corpse.

So, wait, Judge Whittemore was Michael Schiavo's father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate?

WorldNutDaily Still Lying About Terri Schiavo Case

stcynic — Mon, 09 May 2005 13:52:04 +0000

WorldNutDaily Still Lying About Terri Schiavo Case

Joseph Farah is always good for a laugh or two, and this morning's ridiculous screed is no exception. The column is titled Republican Judges Killed Terri, and he points to conservative judges like William Pryor who "ignored the will of the people and the U.S. Congress and the president of the United States." There's just one little problem with that: the "will of the people" was squarely against Congress and the President on this one. Even a majority of Tom DeLay's conservative district believed that they should have stayed out of it and that their involvement was politically motivated and insincere. Even a majority of Republicans around the country thought they should have stayed out of it. So this empty invocation of the "will of the people" is highly dishonest. The rest of his column is downright scary:

All six judges nominated by President Ronald Reagan, President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush, including William Pryor - who was recess-appointed just last year to avoid a Democratic filibuster - voted not to save Terri's life.
All six!

This fact was brought to my attention by Denver radio talk-show host Bob Enyart, who is urging those who care about life in this country to reconsider their strategy of electing Republican politicians to appoint them.

Now, most of you probably don't know who Bob Enyart is. He's a far (and I mean far) right talk show host who used to have his own TV show syndicated on Christian TV stations around the country. Back in those days, I had a bit of fun with Enyart, calling in to his show to expose his ignorance on many subjects. He's a young earth creationist who once told me during a call on his show that Stephen Jay Gould had admitted that Archaeopteryx was not an intermediate form. When I offered to bet him $1000 on that, he changed the subject. This guy is a major league looney, so it's hardly surprising that he and Farah are pals. Two peas in an idiotic pod.

Let's recall why President Bush was in such a hurry to appoint Pryor in the first place.
He had done the president's dirty work in removing Judge Roy Moore from his lawful seat as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court over the Ten Commandments monument.

It was Pryor who upheld U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson's order to remove the monument or remove Moore from his elected office. In what can only be viewed as a reward - a quid pro quo - Pryor, unlike many other far more qualified Bush nominees to the federal bench, was promoted to the 11th Circuit.

Folks, if William Pryor isn't conservative enough for you, you've gone over the edge and fallen off into wingnut land. Pryor supported Judge Moore's monument and supports anti-sodomy laws and a litany of other conservative policies. He just wasn't willing to break the law and refuse to follow a Federal court order, and for that outrageous sin, he is deemed just not quite nutty enough for this bunch of whackos. If Pryor and Judge Birch (and don't forget Scalia, the Supreme Court refused to take the case five times and given Scalia's opinion in the Cruzan case, he was almost certainly among those refusing to take it) aren't conservative enough for you, you're entering a category previously reserved only for the likes of Adolf Hitler and Lyndon Larouche.

stcynic Mon, 05/09/2005 - 09:52

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Schaivo Case

If i remember correctly Enyart advocates (or has advocated) the death penalty for 'sodomites'.

You remember correctly. He's a true nutball.

Ed: is there a Lifetime Achievement version of the O'Brien Award?

If not, you should consider it. Farah would be a shoe-in on the first ballot.

I'm not sure what part of Scalia's opinion in Cruzan indicates to you that he voted not to hear the case. (Got a cite for the "5 times" claim?) I had an extensive argument on my blog (too hard to give the link with the Treo, but search my blog for schiavo and sunstein and you'll find it) arguing that the Cruzan opinion -- which Scalia joined -- all but mandates a clear and convincing standard as a federal constitutional standard. The best (really, the only) argument against my thesis that anyone raised in almost 300 comments was equal protection.

Also: in our country the will of the people is expressed through our elected representatives, not (thank God) through flawed polls that set forth only one side of an issue. I've written about that too . . .

Patterico stated:

So are you saying that, by definition, any position an elected politician takes is 'the will of the people'? And that there's no way to determine if the actions of politicians, after elected, clash with the actual desires of their constituents? If so, you are taking an absurd position.

you're entering a category previously reserved only for the likes of Adolf Hitler and Lyndon LaroucheAhem... Hitler? These people have many objectionable aspects to them, but Nazi Germany is not anything close to their ideal model. The desired end state that these folks have is much closer to Calvin's Geneva than the Third Reich. And there is a difference.

Patterico wrote:

I'm not sure what part of Scalia's opinion in Cruzan indicates to you that he voted not to hear the case.

I refer to his declaration that it was strictly a state matter and that the Federal courts had no business intervening in it at all. It's possible that after the passage of the Federal "Terri's Law", he may have decided that since Congress had made it within the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, now it was okay to take the case. But I've seen nothing to indicate either way.

(Got a cite for the "5 times" claim?)

Honestly, I only remember them turning it down twice, but a commentator that I generally trust said a while back that they had actually refused the case 5 times over the course of so many appeals. It's possible that is wrong, I did not check it out specifically.

Also: in our country the will of the people is expressed through our elected representatives, not (thank God) through flawed polls that set forth only one side of an issue.

But it's still foolish to pretend that merely because the legislature votes to do something, that is synonymous with the "will of the people", and doubly dishonest when innumerable polls since then have shown that the public was squarely against the Federal intervention.