BTW- Gary Farber is back and blogging up a storm.
Farber
by John Cole| 3 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
by John Cole| 3 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
BTW- Gary Farber is back and blogging up a storm.
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
Using gmail now. Email address is off to the left.
by John Cole| 17 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
Did I miss something?
Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday will propose establishing new rules for the use of military force, adopting a tough anti-terrorism treaty that would punish suicide bombers, and overhauling the United Nation’s discredited human rights commission, according to a confidential draft of a report on U.N. reform.
The 63-page draft report represents Annan’s most ambitious effort to restore international confidence in an organization that has been traumatized by divisions over the Iraq war and battered by revelations of financial impropriety and sexual misconduct by its personnel.
Is it budget time at the UN?
I don’t know if any of these things wil come to pass, but conservatives would be wise to work with Annan to achieve these goals, and then get back to the business of shoving him out the door.
by John Cole| 37 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity
This is the most annoying line of ‘reasoning’ in those fighting for the Schindler’ right to re-insert the feeding tubes:
A lot of her details are out there
by John Cole| 8 Comments
This post is in: Outrage
I oculd just kiss Dahlia Lithwick:
This congressional authority to simply override years of state court fact-finding brings with it other superpowers, including the power of gratuitous name-calling: Members of Congress unable to pronounce Schiavo’s name just last week are denouncing her husband as an adulterer and common law bigamist who withheld proper medical care from her. I wonder what they’d say about my parenting
by John Cole| 24 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity
Can’t say I didn’t warn you that they were going to come after Judge Whittmore. Let the smears begin:
The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, who has sometimes commented on the case on behalf of the parents, said today: “The arrogance of Judge Whittemore is extraordinary. How dare he wait 24 hours to issue this ruling?”
Mr. Mahoney added: “He shows a profound lack of respect for the disabled of America by denying her her constitutional rights. He has robbed Terri’s legal team of literally a day and a half of the appeals process.”
He said the family was hopeful of a successful outcome in the appeals court, adding “Florida has just not been good on this.”
And the lunatic fringe is taking their cue:
Though valiant efforts have culminated this Palm Sunday weekend in both Congress and the President in seeking life for the 41-year-old, it appears as if once again America bows to one particular judge.
It
by John Cole| 7 Comments
This post is in: Politics
The Judge has denied the request of the Schindler’s to re-insert the feeding tube, and the case will now go to the 11th Appeals Court.
In case you are still confused, this is not about Terri Schiavo and her ability to recover. This is not about Terri Schiavo getting rehab and returning to the world of the living. This is not about making sure that Terri Schiavo has receive due process.
The metanarrative of this story is one of religion, politics, and abortion, and that has been clear from the very beginning. I apologize to those of my readers who do honestly care about Terri Schiavo and her right to life, but that is not what this is about at all to those leading the fight to keep Terri Schiavo in her current condition:
Gibbs said that “fairly dramatic developments,” including a statement by Pope John Paul II that removing a feeding tube would be a sin except in rare instances, are proof that Schiavo’s constitutional rights to freely practice her religion are being infringed upon. Refusing to resume her tube-feeding would “jeopardize her eternal soul,” Gibbs said.
Felos tried to cast doubt on Gibbs’s religious-expression argument, pointing out that there was testimony at the 2001 trial that Schiavo “did not attend Mass regularly.”
Richard Doerflinger, vice president of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement on Monday praising Congress and Bush. “Terri is not terminally ill,” he said. “She is a woman with cognitive disabilities.”
Statements opposing the tube removal by the church’s pro-life committees have resonated with Roman Catholics here, as well as with the antiabortion activists who have taken up Schiavo’s cause. Gibbs has adopted the language of the antiabortion debate, repeatedly characterizing the Schiavo battle on Monday as “a pro-life case.”
When you think of the words ‘culture of life,’ they are not talking about the living. They are talking about the unborn- that is where this rhetoric has come from. Fostering a culture of life means ending abortion. Do a google search yourself. Here is one that uses the search “Bush + Culture + of + life + abortion.” Interesting, isn’t it?
This is not about Terri Schaivo- this is about religion and abortion. Read how this case got to where it is:
When a judge set last Friday as the deadline for removing Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube, Ken Connor, a Florida trial lawyer and prominent Christian conservative who represented Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida on this issue, decided to appeal to a higher power, Congress.
He turned to an old acquaintance, Representative Dave Weldon, a Florida Republican and doctor, in a long-shot effort to persuade Congress to intervene. Convicted murderers have more chances to appeal to the federal courts than patients who are incapacitated, Mr. Connor argued…
Equally important were the last-minute decisions of two of the most powerful Republicans on Capitol Hill – the Senate leader, Bill Frist, and the House leader, Tom DeLay – each of whom threw the full weight of their offices behind the effort.
On Friday, as the leaders of both chambers scrambled to try to stop the removal of Ms. Schiavo’s feeding tube, Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican, turned his attention to social conservatives gathered at a Washington hotel and described what he viewed as the intertwined struggle to save Ms. Schiavo, expand the conservative movement and defend himself against accusations of ethical lapses.
“One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America,” Mr. DeLay told a conference organized by the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group. A recording of the event was provided by the advocacy organization Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
“This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others,” Mr. DeLay said.
Mr. DeLay complained that “the other side” had figured out how “to defeat the conservative movement,” by waging personal attacks, linking with liberal organizations and persuading the national news media to report the story. He charged that “the whole syndicate” was “a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in.”
This is not about Terri Schiavo’s wishes. This is not about her ever enjoying a cup of coffee again, having an independent action or an independent thought. This is about politics, religion, and abortion:
In 2003, her plight became a cause in conservative and anti-abortion circles thanks partly to Governor Bush, who ordered doctors not to remove her feeding tube and picked Mr. Connor, a former president of the Family Research Council, to represent him.
By last summer, Ms. Schiavo had become so celebrated among Christian conservatives that her brother was a guest of honor at a rally for Catholics at the Republican National Convention in New York.
Eventually, the National Right to Life Committee worked with Dr. Weldon to sponsor a broad bill that would grant some incapacitated patients certain rights to appeal to federal courts.
I wish this was about Terri Schiavo. But it simply isn’t.
More here.