Posted on 12/29/2004 7:16:22 AM PST by floriduh voter
The Terri Schindler Schiavo Daily Threads are created month to month as we watch local and national news regarding Terri and her family.
Since Terri's supporters are in every time zone, you may see something FIRST. Please share news with us that you don't see here already. Now, why would you want to do that? Terri's Daily Thread for September/October of 2004 was viewed over 15,000 times. Terri's November Daily Thread was viewed over 6,000 times. December's thread is over 3,000 views.
More and more good folks are finding out about Terri and that judicial tyranny would take her life, but for lots and lots of prayer and non-stop lobbying of relatives, friends, clergy, our leaders, the media, a passerby, a cashier - ANYONE who you feel comfortable chatting with.
Folks always want to know how can this be in America or on earth for that matter? Unfortunately, this is really happening to an innocent woman who just celebrated her 41st birthday. She's not the only one but she's the one with devoted parents and siblings who knows what's in Terri's heart. Terri has a strong will to live. That's apparent. It's been 14 years.
Besides, feeding tubes have been around practically since the Civil War. They are not high tech devices. Terri is "not hooked up to machines". Her feeding tube is the diameter of a piece of spaghetti.
Talkin' about Terri is the best way to lobby for her. It is a salespitch to save her life and subsequently, many lives. If you've never sold anything in your life, START NOW. START WITH TERRI.
See Terri's flash movies if you need more information. You can see for yourself that's she's interactive and follows the doctor's instructions.
Visit: http://www.terrisfight.org
NOTE: Terri's December Dailies are noted as a source above. There are lots of important links at the very top of that thread. If you missed Terri's Celebration of Life, you can click on it from there.
How do you think I feel. Ohio's always sending me little "treats" in New Jersey. If I could figure out how to get the jet stream to flow backwards, I'd send them some neon greenish-yellow clouds.
That's not saying anything I didn't already know! Michael and Felos are spewing lies, and the rest of the world believes them!
that they can't look at the substance of the matter.
But they looked at the substance of the matter in "Brown v. Board of Education" and "Roe v. Wade." It's a matter of what these judges want to do, but they hide behind legal "principles."
Which judges? Pinellas? I just got back, so I've missed it.
What's going on. Any word?
I don't know. FV was listening to an interview.
SCOTUS was in conference today but as far as I know, no decision yet.
Thanks for the update. I haven't heard anything, either. Maybe it's a good thing.
Rehnquist Spurs Talk of Court Vacancy
Jan 21, 4:03 PM (ET)
By GINA HOLLAND
WASHINGTON (AP) - Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's frailty at the inauguration is renewing speculation the Supreme Court soon will have its first vacancy in more than a decade.
How soon is anybody's guess, though later rather than sooner may be better for President Bush, whose programs could stall in Congress once a fight over a high-court nomination begins.
Rehnquist, battling thyroid cancer, appeared fragile as he delivered the oath of office. It was his first public appearance since October, when he announced the diagnosis and went into seclusion.
A question being asked all over Washington on Friday was whether the appearance was the 80-year-old's final public act before retiring, or a signal that he was well enough to remain on the court until the term ends in June.
"One scenario is he wanted to perform this duty without a lame-duck cloud hanging over his head. Now that he's done it, he can announce that he's retiring," said Stephen Wermiel, an American University law professor.
Others were encouraged that Rehnquist walked with the assistance of only a cane and spoke clearly while swearing in Bush.
"Now the great, great likelihood is that he'll remain chief justice through June," said Supreme Court historian David Garrow of Emory University. "I think the alert level is down 90 percent."
That could be a relief for the White House, just beginning a tough promotion in Congress of initiatives like revising Social Security to allow private investment accounts, simplifying the tax code and limiting medical malpractice and class-action jury awards.
A particularly contentious nominee would alienate Democrats and moderate Republicans whom Bush needs to get his plans passed.
A Rehnquist retirement would give the president a chance to elevate to chief justice one of the conservative court members he admires, Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas, and replace him with a new justice.
Or he could replace Rehnquist with someone who is not serving on the court. Among potential nominees are former deputy attorney general Larry Thompson and appeals court judges James Harvie Wilkinson III, John Roberts, Michael McConnell, Edith Jones, J. Michael Luttig and Samuel Alito Jr..
"The president has an ambitious agenda," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice in Washington. "You put a judicial appointment in the middle of that mix, that becomes significant. ... I think it makes it more difficult (for Bush)."
Sekulow's group has $2.5 million ready to spend defending Bush's choice and is prepared for an announcement any time.
Liberal groups are ready as well. The People for the American Way has a war room with 50 work stations and plans to mobilize more than 1,000 groups against any Bush choice considered a threat to civil rights.
The last time the court went so long without turnover was in the 1800s, and People for the American Way President Ralph Neas said the confirmation will dominate Congress - and potentially upstage Bush's other plans.
"I do think that would undermine all the other things he would like to do in terms of his second-term agenda," Neas said.
So far, all anyone has is speculation - both about Rehnquist's health and about prospects for a retirement.
Rehnquist celebrated his 33rd anniversary on the Supreme Court earlier this month and is the second-oldest chief justice ever.
The Republican revealed the cancer not long after the court started a nine-month term with major cases on the death penalty, Ten Commandments displays, medical marijuana, and government power to seize people's homes.
Rehnquist has revealed only the barest of details about his illness, although outside medical experts said that, based on the treatment, he appears to have a kind of cancer that is usually fatal within months.
Rehnquist has been working mainly from home, and the court does not have a tremendously heavy workload. Justices begin a nearly monthlong break next week, and they have only about 30 more cases to hear.
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On the Net:
Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
The United States Supreme Court will announce their decision regarding Terri's Law on Monday, Jan 24th. The link to Bush vs. Schiavo is http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/04-757.htm
The next guardianship hearing before Judge George Greer is scheduled for January 28 (Friday). The attorneys will request that Greer agree to a stay regarding the removal of Terri's feeding tube.
Well . . . we must continue to pray!!!
Thanks!
Bump!
Please advise FLA AG CHARLIE CRIST that Terri Schiavo is long overdue for an investigation. As she is held in a Hospice, she is getting no therapy and HER MUSCLES ARE STARTING TO SPASM FROM LACK OF PROPER CARE.
Charlie Crist is from Pinellas County. We are appalled that Terri, who has not been murdered yet by Medicaid, is not allowed to go outside, her wheelchair has been broken for over a year and she is "caged" which is a violation of Florida and Federal Laws.
Please forward this to Fla AG Crist. He cannot stick his head in the sand any longer. Terri needs MEDICAL THERAPY IMMEDIATELY. It is not being provided. The Hospice staff take orders from the husband, not from the Medicaid doctors who are just waiting for a go ahead to starve her to death.
AT LEAST THE CITIZENS OF PINELLAS COUNTY STILL HAVE A CONSCIENCE. We are waiting for our LEADERS THAT WE TAXPAYERS ELECTED TO GET ON BOARD.
This is an appalling situation that nobody will help Terri. Now she's in pain with muscle spasms and that should cause a NEW DCF COMPLAINT TO BE OPENED. IMMEDIATELY.
my name 1-21-05
With four days to go, Sheldon, of Lancaster, picked up the phone and called Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue and a national leader in the antiabortion movement. Sheldon also rallied subscribers of his Web site,
www.conservativepetitions.com
to bombard Florida Gov. Jeb Bush with outraged e-mail messages.
... Judge Greer ordered Terri dehydrated based on dubious testimony from Michael, his brother, and his brother's wife that Terri told them she did not want to be hooked up to tubes--something he never told the malpractice jury when he sought a financial award. To the contrary, the malpractice jury was told that Terri could expect a normal lifespan.
Whatever Terri said or did not say, she certainly never asked to be denied the very treatment that might allow her to eat without medical assistance. Yet, in the ultimate injustice, Judge Greer refuses to permit Terri to receive rehabilitative therapy that could help her relearn to eat by mouth, even though several doctors and therapists have testified under penalty of perjury that she is a good candidate for tube weaning.
True, experts hired by Michael disagree. But so what? This isn't a case where we have to believe one side's medical experts or the other's. The issue can be decided empirically by providing Terri with six months of therapy to see if she improves. But Judge Greer, in a decision that elevated procedure over justice, won't do that because, he ruled, it would mean retrying the case.
In that unreasonable denial, it looked as if Greer might have crossed a crucial line. St. Petersburg attorney Pat Anderson, who represents Terri's blood family, believed that denying food and water and potentially rehabilitative therapy that could have made the feeding tube unnecessary, reeked of discrimination against the disabled. She filed a civil rights lawsuit seeking a federal injunction against the dehydration.
Adding to the suit's potential legal heft and credibility: Florida governor Jeb Bush dramatically signed on to the federal case, urging the court in an amicus brief to prevent Terri's dehydration until she received treatment to determine whether she could relearn to take food and water by mouth.
But once again, the law turned its back on her. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Lazzara ruled on October 10 that the federal courts had no jurisdiction and dismissed the case.
People are often shocked at how Terri has been treated as somehow less than a fully human person by the legal and medical experts who are determined to see her dead. They shouldn't be.
This case illustrates how utterly vulnerable people with profound cognitive disabilities have become in this country. Not only are many routinely dehydrated to death--both the conscious and unconscious--but often the people making decisions to stop food and water, like Michael, have glaring conflicts of interest.
FLORIDUH VOTER SAYS: COVER-UP. WHO WILL UNCOVER THE COVER-UP & SAVE TERRI?
Keep up the good work, FReeper pal. Now, more than ever!!!
WE ALWAYS NEED MORE FREEPERS TO JOIN TERRI'S FIGHT. email address: fight4terri@aol.com
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/986663/posts
"On January 11, 1983, 25-year old Nancy Cruzan was driving alone on an icy road, lost control of her vehicle, and was seriously injured in the resulting accident. She never regained consciousness and became one of the approximately ten thousand Americans living in a persistent comatose state. Her medical status was that of a "severely handicapped" person. She required no life support machinery other than a feeding tube implanted in her stomach in early 1983. She was not terminally ill. " In order to kill Cruzan, it was necessary to first dehumanize her, a task willingly and expertly taken up by Dr. Fred Plum, Chief of Neurology at the Cornell New York Hospital. During testimony, he referred to her as a mere "collection of organs" and an "artifact of technological medicine."In an interview with Nat Hentoff, Dr. Ronald Granford observed that she was the "moral equivalent of a biopsy from Nat Hentoff's arm," and asserted that her "legal personhood" should be removed so she could be disposed of or experimented upon without the bother of having to go to court.
"Nancy's parents petitioned a lower court to order the Missouri Rehabilitation Center at Mount Vernon to allow their daughter to die. This court granted the petition, but the Missouri Supreme Court overturned the lower court decision, stating that a decision to withhold or refuse treatment must be an "informed" one, and, most importantly, that a state's interest in human life does not depend on the of that life. On appeal, the case became the first to directly address the question of euthanasia at the United States Supreme Court level. In a stunning victory for life, the Supreme Court narrowly averted making this case the euthanasiast's by denying that the so-called "right to die" is unfettered and absolute. The justices ruled that the States may require "clear and convincing" evidence that a comatose person actually wished to die before they lost their ability to decide their fates for themselves. The Court essentially held that the States do not have to buckle under to family member's demands when a patient's wishes cannot be concretely proven.
"However, the ruling indicated that there is a Constitutional right to refuse tube feeding and other life-sustaining measures when patients make their wishes clearly known before they become incompetent. So a determined Joe and Joyce Cruzan headed back to the Missouri courts, and rounded up a string of Nancy's co-workers who were willing to testify that she would never want to live "like a vegetable." Nobody bothered to explain how her co-workers could all remember such a statement so clearly after more than eight years. Nancy did not enjoy any kind of representation in the State court; nobody testified for her, because all of those who wanted her to live were ruled nonparties by the judge. The outcome of the one-sided hearing was a foregone conclusion.
"Her feeding tube was removed on December 14, 1990 at the Missouri Rehabilitation Center in Mount Vernon, Missouri. In a chilling portent of the future, the first rescue mission staged to save a person from death occurred on Tuesday, December 18, 1990. 19 persons were arrested as they tried to reach Nancy's hospital room. They were charged with the same offenses they encountered at abortion mills; criminal trespass and unlawful assembly. Scores of armed police officers patrolled the halls of the Missouri Rehabilitation Center (George Orwell would be proud!) until she finally died of starvation and thirst after 12 days, on the day after Christmas 1990. 1988 - Missouri Supreme Court
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