TERRI SCHIAVO MARCH 2005 DAILIES Fla's Til of the Hun Sets March Date to Starve Terri

Judge George Greer denied Terri's parents' Motion for a Stay to protect their daughter's life while there are still pending issues in this LIFE AND DEATH MATTER. In addition the Department of Children and Family Services made a surprise visit to the court hearing the other day and asked Judge Greer if they could approach the bench. Judge Greer denied DCF the opportunity to speak. DCF asked for 60 days to conduct a complete investigation of allegations that have surfaced in the form of a Complaint to their agency.

What was set in motion instead? On Friday, February 25th, Judge Greer REFUSED TO issue another Stay because he was "not comfortable" issuing a say to protect a Ward of the State but instead "set a date certain" (on his calendar at least, not on mine) to BEGIN THE BARBARIC, ANTI-AMERICAN, STARVATION-DEHYDRATION SLOW MURDER OF TERRI.

Attorney Gibbs for Terri's parents held a press conference after J. Greer's order that was so tastefully written to indicate that "he was giving the Schindlers until March 18th so they could "prepare for Last Rites." Attorneys Gibbs called this ruling and prior rulings "Hitler-resque". Indeed.

If Judge Greer wasn't LEGALIZING EUTHANASIA in his courtroom, why any need for Last Rites? Greer's urgency to fulfill this killing places urgency on every one of us to lobby Governor Bush, Florida's House and Florida's Senate.

A Judge in America is ordering the manner of someone's death, a disabled woman who is healthy but needs rehabilitation.

Time is short so we don't really have time to get into Greer's mind to see why he is Florida's Til of the Hun.

7. Join the Message Board that freepers started at the Crystal Cathedral/Hour of Power. TELL YOUR CHURCH ABOUT TERRI.

8. Tell your friends that Terri is alert and aware of her surroundings and to visit www.terrisfight.org to see her videos.

9. PETITIONS. We will gather current Petitions here for you. At this time, you can sign a SAVE TERRI PETITION AT www.renewamerica.us. THERE ARE ALSO IMPEACH GREER PETITIONS ABOUT.

Finally, the Pope has no Living Will. He will be SAFE as long as he stays away from George Greer's courtroom. The Pope is in our thoughts and prayers and he knows of Terri. He wants Terri to be freed from oppression and from a painless death by starvation-dehyration.

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO EVERY DAY, THE PAY ISN'T VERY GOOD BUT THE FRINGE BENEFITS ARE THE GREATEST. You are Great Americans and liberty is Terri's and freedom from oppression. Freepers, that is the big payoff if we continue our daunting task.

Terri's family is grateful to you and all of your prayers are being heard by the Giver of Life.

This is Terri's Fight and the battle is enjoined. JOIN US TO SAVE TERRI FROM FORCES THAT HAVE BUT ONE GOAL THAT IS AGAINST EVERYTHING AMERICAN.

GUIDELINES: If you want to start frivolous discussions, please start your own thread in chat.

If you like something from www.theempirejournal.com, please do not post the entire article at Free Republic. Unless I hear otherwise, I believe that we are allowed to post the title and link. TEJ is a great team member of Terri's network. Thanks, TEJ for making a difference and for getting the truth out there.

Sophisticated tactics aid Schiavo's parents

BY MAYA BELL

The Orlando Sentinel

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/nation/11126399.htm

ORLANDO, Fla. - (KRT) - Fifteen years ago, two leaders of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue walked into a motel in small-town Missouri and begged the night clerk for a fax machine.

At a nearby hospital, the parents of Nancy Cruzan were set to remove the feeding tube that had kept their daughter alive for nearly eight years. The activists were desperate to mobilize opposition to what they considered would be her murder.

"That's how sophisticated we were," remembers the Rev. Pat Mahoney, now executive director of the Christian Defense Coalition. "We were desperately trying to get the word out, desperately trying to get people out. There just wasn't much interest."

Today, Mahoney is a leader of an informal but growing network of conservative, religious and disability organizations who, with the click of a computer mouse, are enlisting hundreds of thousands of people in Bob and Mary Schindler's fight to keep their daughter Terri Schiavo alive.

The feeding tube that has pumped life-sustaining nutrients into the severely brain-damaged Florida woman's stomach for 15 years is scheduled to be disconnected Friday under a court order won by her husband, Michael.

The courts have agreed with Michael Schiavo that his wife is in a persistent vegetative state, and although she never wrote down her wishes made it clear in casual conversations that she would have rejected artificial life support.

But turning to the Internet, alternative media and grass-roots organizations to spread their right-to-life messages, what Mahoney calls the "faith-and-values community" has unleashed an avalanche of support for Schiavo's parents. That has prompted lawmakers in Congress and Tallahassee to file legislation on the Schindlers' behalf and ignited a national debate on the withdrawal of medically supplied hydration and nutrition, drawing the likes of the Vatican, and on Saturday, actor Mel Gibson to their cause.

The first goal of the campaign, Mahoney said, is to save Terri Schiavo's life. But he and others also hope to roll back the laws and ethical and medical guidelines that have evolved since 1990, when the U.S. Supreme Court recognized artificial sustenance and hydration as medical treatment. That ruling eventually cleared the way for Cruzan's parents to remove her feeding tube.

Now, patients or their health-care decision makers in every state have the right to refuse or withdraw artificial feedings under certain circumstances. That is something many of those joining the Schindlers' campaign reject as immoral and inhumane, and a step down the road to legalizing euthanasia.

"I cannot disagree more: Food and water is not medical treatment. It's ordinary care," said John Stemberger, the Orlando-based president of the Florida Family Policy Council. "Our primary interest is what the law should be, not what the law is, and this will be one of our top priorities: to create new public policy."

In October 2003, a flood of e-mails, phone calls and petitions to the state capital prompted the governor and key lawmakers to inject themselves in the bitter Schindler-Schiavo dispute. In record time, they passed "Terri's Law," which empowered the governor to order Terri Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted six days after it was removed by court order.

As predicted, the law was later struck down as unconstitutional, but today, with another deadline looming, the e-mail and petition campaign is reinvigorated.

Since Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer last month ordered Terri Schiavo's tube removed this Friday, the Governor's Office has received more than 50,000 e-mails about the Schiavo case, and more than 107,000 petitions urging him to take immediate action to stop her "forced starvation."

The Center for Reclaiming America completed the petition drive in 48 hours, often collecting 5,000 names an hour - a record for the Broward County-based group dedicated to mobilizing Christian grass roots.

"Back in the Cruzan days, this was physically impossible. A few dozen activists on a phone or a fax machine couldn't reach people who would care," said Gary McCullough, now editor of the Christian Wire Service, who sends as many as five news releases on the Schiavo case to 6,000 recipients every day.

"But now," he continued, "you have the Internet, blogging, Web sites, discussions groups, organizations like NewsMax and talk-show hosts like Sean Hannity whose producers don't have to be called by someone like me. They see the groundswell and get on board. It's a whole different ballgame."

And one that, for the most part, relegates Michael Schiavo to the sidelines. His attorney, George Felos, said Michael Schiavo doesn't have the resources to counter "the massive smear campaign spreading disinformation about Mr. Schiavo and Terri's condition." But last week, Felos said he sent a package to each of Florida's state senators correcting "all the misconceptions" in the case.

But even critics who agree the campaign has distorted the facts and misled the public admire its success.

"Every politician ought to be taking lessons from this case on how to galvanize the population and obtain a following," said Kathy Cerminara, a medical-law professor at Nova Southeastern University and co-author of a treatise on the right to die. "They are masters at it."

Cerminara and other experts share Felos' dismay at the number of news reports and Internet sites that report as fact the Schindlers' belief that their daughter is merely disabled and could recover some brain function with proper rehabilitation. Like the Schindlers, many of the same sites demonize Michael Schiavo, noting he now lives with another woman and never mentioned his wife's end-of-life wishes until he won more than $1 million in a malpractice suit filed on his wife's behalf.

Bill Allen, director of the bioethics program at the University of Florida College of Medicine, agrees with court rulings that have concluded that the Schindlers are mistaking Terri Schiavo's involuntary reflexes as cognition and emotion.

And he understands why many in the public make the same assumption: They, too, have seen the video images, which first appeared on the Schindlers' Web site, of Terri Schiavo seemingly tracing a balloon with her eyes, or smiling at her mother's kiss. She looks very much aware and responsive.

Yet, the courts have ruled that she cannot respond. Since her collapse from a possible chemical imbalance 15 years ago, her cerebral cortex, the thinking part of her brain, has all but disappeared. Despite her sleep cycles and wake cycles, she is, the courts have found, unconscious. That is the cruelty of the vegetative state.

But Allen said he is most concerned that lawmakers will use what, at its core, is a gut-wrenching family dispute between loved ones to overturn good laws. Those laws, he said, have for more than a decade allowed Floridians like Terri Schiavo to reject or withdraw artificial hydration and nutrition if they so choose.

"The consensus is it's immoral to force medical treatment on people that they didn't want, and there is no reason to treat artificial hydration or sustenance any differently than any other medical treatment," Allen said. "This is not about food and water. This is an attempt for people with one value system to impose their values on the rest of society."

But from where he sits at the Center for Practical Bioethics in Kansas City, Mo., William Colby thinks the debate raging in Florida is healthy.

He was the lawyer who 15 years ago successfully fought Joe and Joyce Cruzan's battle to remove their daughter's feeding tube. At the time, they said they were giving the "gift of death" to a daughter whose "twisted body" no longer served her after a car accident robbed her of all but the most primitive brain function.

Today, Colby finds it appropriate for people who disagree about when life ends to revisit the issue of withdrawing artificial hydration and nutrition. He only wishes that Bob and Mary Schindler and Michael and Terri Schiavo had had the chance one distant sunny afternoon to have the same discussion over a backyard barbecue.

"It's not fun to watch sometimes, but the democratic process works through debate, and the silver lining about the Terri Schiavo story is that it's getting people to talk," Colby said. "That's how democracy works."

---

© 2005, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).

Visit the Sentinel on the World Wide Web at http://www.orlandosentinel.com. On America Online, use keyword: OSO.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

Prayer vigil for Schiavo draws crowd
Citing the Atlanta judge's killing, a monsignor tells the crowd that the judge who ordered Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed could be "in danger."
By JAMIE THOMPSON
Published March 13, 2005

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/13/Tampabay/Prayer_vigil_for_Schi.shtml

PINELLAS PARK - They came from as far away as California, Pennsylvania and Georgia and stood along the grassy roadside in Pinellas Park, praying out loud and asking, once again, for a miracle for Terri Schiavo.

More than 100 people gathered for a seven-hour vigil on Saturday outside the Woodside Hospice where Schiavo lives. A judge has ordered her feeding tube removed on Friday.

A parade of people took turns on a makeshift stage, lined with long-stem roses and baby's breath, calling the crowd a "modern day religious Calvary." Young men and women took turns holding a wooden crucifix on stage, a rosary dangling from Jesus' neck.

Speakers, including religious leaders from Virginia and New Jersey, urged the crowd to continue writing letters to lawmakers, signing petitions for the impeachment of Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer and trying to persuade hospice nurses to refuse to participate in the "scheduled killing" of Schiavo.

In remarks to the crowd, Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski mentioned the recent killing of an Atlanta judge. Greer, Malanowski said, probably will need more security now. He said he hopes "the judge sleeps well at night. His life is in danger."

More than a few people snickered.

Later, Malanowski, who has served in Largo churches and often visited Schiavo with her parents, said he meant nothing by the comment, except that all judges, particularly Greer, likely are taking security more seriously in light of the Atlanta incident.

He said the crowd assembled Saturday was peaceful, and no one was advocating violence.

David Gibbs III, an attorney for Schiavo's parents, said he had not heard anyone threaten Greer, and that neither he nor Schiavo's parents would tolerate it.

"We've told everybody, we're going to take the right stand, in the right way, with the right spirit," Gibbs said. "We've heard nothing among Terri's supporters, and if we did, we would report it immediately to law enforcement."

Actor Mel Gibson spoke by telephone to Schiavo's father, Bob Schindler, on Friday, telling him to "never give up," said the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation. Gibson faxed a statement saying he opposed the "cruel starvation" of Schiavo, and that her husband should sign over care to Schiavo's parents.

Schiavo, now 41, suffered severe brain damage in 1990 when she had a heart attack. Her husband has been fighting for seven years to remove her feeding tube. Her parents are fighting to keep her fed.

A Pinellas judge ruled Schiavo's feeding tube could be removed after hearing testimony at a trial that she would not have wanted to live that way. Twice she stopped receiving food and water, then the decisions were reversed.

The rallies will continue outside the hospice, with 24-hour vigils starting Wednesday.

[Last modified March 13, 2005, 00:21:06]

Scientology slowly gaining acceptance in city of `spiritual base'

BY PAUL NUSSBAUM

Knight Ridder Newspapers

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/11126381.htm

CLEARWATER, Fla. - (KRT) - After decades of lawsuits, secrecy and confrontation, Clearwater, Fla., is seeing the softer side of Scientology.

To many, this Gulf Coast city of 110,000 is the site of Philadelphia Phillies spring training, home of perennial baseball optimism.

But Clearwater has another claim to fame: It is the religious headquarters of the Church of Scientology, a magnet for believers much as Salt Lake City is for Mormons or Mecca is for Muslims.

Scientology, which made the city its "spiritual base" 30 years ago and now dominates downtown, is seeking broader acceptance as it continues to expand.

While some neighbors still dismiss it as an unwanted cult, it is joining civic groups and opening its current headquarters - the restored landmark Fort Harrison Hotel - for tours, weddings and banquets.

The new openness comes as the church is completing a huge new headquarters two blocks from City Hall. The Flag Building, occupying a full city block, is the centerpiece of its $160 million construction push here.

Clearwater and Scientology have a long and sometimes contentious history. But while the organization's hundreds of uniformed staffers and blue-and-white buses are still much in evidence in the sleepy downtown, there is less friction now than in the past.

"They have been very active in trying to improve their image," Mayor Frank Hibbard said. "They've made an effort to be more visible in the community. ... They're active in everything from Boys and Girls Club to the aquarium to the downtown development board."

"I do not believe what they believe, and I've told them that," Hibbard said. "But I represent all the people of Clearwater, and we're open to having a dialogue with everybody."

That's a significant shift.

When Scientology arrived in 1975, it did so under an assumed name, and for years local police maintained "criminal intelligence" files on it.

In 1979, 11 church officials were convicted of conspiring to steal federal government documents. The same year, 3,000 people gathered at City Hall to protest the church's presence in town.

In 1980, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, a frequent critic, won a Pulitzer Prize for its investigative reporting on Scientology.

In 1982, city government held hearings on allegations that the church was a cult. The Internal Revenue Service and Pinellas County, of which Clearwater is the seat, regularly demanded taxes on its operations, while Scientology insisted it deserved a religious exemption - which it finally won in 1993.

In 1995, the death of church member Lisa McPherson, 36, in Clearwater focused renewed attention on the group.

McPherson died after 17 days in the care of Scientologists. Paramedics had taken her to a hospital after a minor traffic accident, but she left with Scientology officials, who wanted her to avoid psychiatric treatment, which violates church teachings. Doctors had said the woman was battling a mental breakdown.

Criminal charges were filed against church officials by the state but were dropped in 2000; a wrongful-death suit brought by McPherson's family against the church was settled for an undisclosed amount.

That was then. This is now:

Last month, for the fourth consecutive year, local politicians and businesspeople joined Scientologists for a gala dinner at the Fort Harrison to celebrate the hotel's anniversary.

The church is a governor of the Tampa Bay Partnership, a regional economic development organization. Scientologists sit on boards of such organizations as the regional chamber of commerce, the Clearwater economic development committee, and the arts foundation.

They sponsor Boy and Girl Scout troops and are fund-raisers and contributors to local, state and federal politicians, especially Republicans.

"They want to be players," said Mary Repper, a retired political consultant and lobbyist hired by the church in 2002 to help improve its image.

"It has been a long, grueling road for them," she said. "But I think the stigma is gone."

Not everyone agrees that the stigma is gone.

"Most people in Clearwater look at it in a cult-like fashion," said the Rev. William Rice, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church. "Certainly those of us who are evangelical Christians view it as a big, worldwide cult. ... They have a very soft, clever, subtle approach.

"But the amount of money and the clout they have is a bit overwhelming. At some point, you wonder what the end-game is."

The church's own research in 2003 showed significant hostility remained.

To bolster a change-of-venue request in the McPherson trial, the church hired surveyors to interview shoppers at a local mall about Scientology. They found 82.4 percent held unfavorable views; only 11.8 percent had anything good to say.

Scientology, founded in 1954 by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, describes itself as the world's fastest-growing religion and says it has 8 million members worldwide. Its critics say the number is much smaller.

Its adherents don't worship a deity or pray. They believe that people are immortal spirits and that a progression of self-improvement techniques and counseling sessions, known as "auditing," can help them live more productive, satisfying lives. The goal is to become "clear" - free of mental blocks caused by painful subconscious memories.

Members pay escalating fees, or "fixed donations," for auditing sessions, ranging from $200 for a week of beginner training to thousands of dollars for the most advanced auditing.

Church officials estimate that 10,000 Scientologists live in the Tampa Bay, Fla., area, including 6,000 in Clearwater, and that 15,000 others visit annually for spiritual training or auditing.

Why Clearwater? It is close to the Caribbean, where the ships of the marine-based organization were before the move, Shaw said; it has a gentle climate, is near a major airport, and is "out of the hectic day-to-day grind" of a big city. (Scientology's top officials remain in Los Angeles, the church's administrative headquarters.)

In Clearwater, the church is the biggest property owner downtown with 21 buildings. Most house visiting members and the 1,400 staffers who work here.

The church paid $600,000 in taxes last year, making it the biggest downtown taxpayer, even though two-thirds of its property is tax-exempt.

The Fort Harrison Hotel was the first building the Scientologists bought in 1975.

Closed and deteriorating then, it has been restored to its former grandeur, made over in muted blues, reds and golds, with an auditorium, restaurants, auditing rooms, library-like areas filled with drilling students and an exhibit room extolling Hubbard's life and church charitable works.

Across the street is the new Flag Building, set to open in December 2006. It will feature a public ground-floor museum, 300 auditing rooms and a dining hall for 1,140. A $40 million, 3,600-seat auditorium is planned for an adjacent lot.

"We made it clear we wanted peace," said Shaw, reflecting on the church's new neighborliness. "Nobody wanted to fight anymore. We are known for our propensity to defend ourselves, but our objective is to live in peace and harmony."

Mayor Hibbard said the shift from rejection to acceptance was by no means complete. On a scale of zero to 10, with 10 being full acceptance, he said community sentiment was 0 to 1 when Scientologists arrived.

"Now, I'd say it's 4 to 5."

---

© 2005, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Visit Philadelphia Online, the Inquirer's World Wide Web site, at http://www.philly.com

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

BJ-Your post #5433 has effected me more that I realized. ( All, if you missed this, you need to see it, and read it, to UNDERSTAND the REALITY OF WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO TERRI---- click on post number #5433 below, between [ private reply ] and [ view reply ] to review this HORRIFIC and IMPORTANT post immediately! )

I had never actually looked at the McPherson autopsy pictures with care...had not realized the pain and anguish the human body goes thru as it is starved and dehydrated.

How can we do this to a woman who gets hungry, gets thirsty, laughs with her mom, shuts her eyes when her priest prays? WHY DOES TERRI HAVE TO SUFFER THIS AGONY?

It would appear that starving and going without drink is absolute torture. I am shocked at the lips, the skin lesions, the eyes losing all fluid, the pain must be intense. And Terri cannot verbally EXPRESS this to her killers watching over her. (But of course Michael will be there...for him....this is money in the bank!)

Why are the Schindlers being FORCED to LIVE OUT THIS HELL?

What has our society become?

Letting a woman who has SUFFERED NEGLECT for TWELVE YEARS (after MS got his money, took him three years to get it, after her so called accident, and BOY DID TERRI LOOK DIFFERENT IN THOSE THREE YEARS.....BEAUTIFUL....RESPONSIVE....TAKEN ON OUTINGS....HAVING HER TEETH BRUSHED.....HAVING PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN WITH MICHAEL AS LOVING HUSBAND....WHAT HAPPENED TO TERRI in the TWELVE YEARS since?

Why no THERAPY FOR 12 years?

WHY NO OUTINGS?

WHY CAN't TERRI'S FRIENDS VISIT?

WHY ARE NO PHOTOGRAPHS OR VIDEOS ALLOWED (how the Schindler's were punished for sneaking the few videos they took to show the WORLD how TERRI IS ALERT AND ALIVE? Can you IMAGINE THEIR DESPARATION TO GET THIS TO THE WORLD BECAUSE MICHAEL DOES NOT ALLOW TERRI TO BE SEEN....WITH GOOD REASON! He would be BOOTED OUT OF FLORIDA IF AMERICA could MEET TERRI up close and personal!

Michael wants AMERICA to hear two words.....

HOSPICE (where Terri is being isolated, in a death house, for the terminally ill who have 6 months or less to live.....SHE HAS BEEN THERE FOR FOUR YEARS!)

And PVS....THE BIGGEST LIE OF ALL (the tie breaking attorney, called by felos in court to break the medical dispute betweeen doctors on Terri's actual condition.....WAS A BUDDY AND ASSOCIATE OFF GEORGE FELO's OWN BROTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

THIS IS HORRIFIC!

And the scientology relationships that keep creeping in the back door.....

BJ, your post on the dehydration of lisa McPherson and the Scientology stuff is HORRIFIC on every level.

8mmMauser..(getting creeped out again) Why do SCIENTOLOGISTS think the mentally damaged are NOT FIT to live among the healthy 'populace'? And WHY do the Scientologists believe that the mentally handicapped, or as they call them 'non-producers' in our society really WANT TO DIE, THEMSELVES? Who ARE THESE SICK PEOPLE that would believe this?

Found a pic of Judge Greer ( the web address for this pic is at bottom of this post) with his buddy demers and a man, called pope, who is a MAJOR LEAGUE DEFENDER of THE SCIENTOLGISTS in Pinellas cty. This is a man who was ACTIVE in the LISA McPHERSON Case, wherein her SCIENTOLOGIST BUDDIES, involved in her MURDER BY STARVATION and DEHYDRATION FLED THE COUNTRY. Per the article you posted with the pictures in post # 5433...BJ.

The picture of greer is from years ago, when this corrupt judge actually had hair on his head, and it shows him celebrating a birthday or something with demers---and the Scientology lawyers.

I am getting creeped out.

Here is the address of the pic

http://buttersquash.net/archives/cronies.jpg

pic of GREER with his lawyer buddies, six of them, some who were involved with the Lisa McPherson case, defending the SCIENTOLOGISTS and others stuck to a law firm that represents big time Scientology cult stuff.

Names of lawyers in photo address below are:

Left to right: Chief Judge David A. Demers, Tim Johnson, Probate Judge George Greer, John Blakely, Bruce Bokor, and then Wally Pope.
Wally Pope was (at times) listed as Scientology's lead counsel in various parts of the Lisa McPherson-related cases.
Blakely and Bokor are or were both partners in the law firm Johnson, Pope, Bokor, Ruppel, & Burns, which often represents Scientology.

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