Terri's Fight - (Daily Thread/Updates)

Various | December 4, 2003 | sweetliberty

[msmagoo]

The Hemlock Society goes for an image change

New Name, Same Old Story

By Wesley J. Smith

WHAT'S NOT IN A NAME is the question du jour at single-issue advocacy groups. First the venerable National Abortion Rights Action League (or National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League in recent years) officially dropped abortion from its name and became "NARAL Pro-Choice America." Now, the Hemlock Society, the premier assisted-suicide group, has decided to recast its image with a new name (still not chosen) and a new P.R.-driven motto: The founding slogan, "Good life, good death," has been discarded for the new and improved "Promoting end-of-life choice."

Changing the group's name is designed to put a respectable veneer over the organization's raison d'être - - legitimizing suicide. Yet, the word hemlock remains entirely apt. From its inception, the Hemlock Society has been obsessed with exercising control over death through suicide. Indeed, Hemlockers claim that assisted suicide, which they now euphemistically call "aid in dying," is the "ultimate civil right."

I became aware of the organization in 1992 when a friend killed herself under the influence of Hemlock Society literature. Frances's problem wasn't illness; it was depression over a life that had become a complete mess. When she was diagnosed with leukemia (which was not terminal), began to experience a painful neuropathy (while refusing to take her pain-controlling drugs), and learned she would soon require a hip replacement, Frances seemed to have found the pretext she needed to justify finally doing what she had wanted to do for so long. Indeed, we found out after the fact that months before she died, Frances had entered an appointment in her calendar - - the date of her 76th birthday - - for her "final passage," an appointment she kept, accompanied by a distant cousin who was reportedly paid $5,000 to be with her.

Ever organized, Frances kept a suicide file. It contained several editions of the Hemlock Society's newsletter, then called the Hemlock Quarterly. As I read these newsletters, I was shocked out of my shoes. Each Quarterly was filled with proselytizing stories about so-called "good deaths" that had been facilitated by Hemlock members. For example, in the January 1988 issue, Frances had underscored the following words describing the suicide of "Sam," a terminal cancer patient:

Believe it or not, we laughed and giggled and [Sam] seemed to relish the experience. I think for Sam it was finally taking control again after ten years of being at the mercy of a disease and medical protocols demanded by that disease.

Suicide promoted as uplifting and enjoyable sickened me. But what really infuriated me was the "how to" sections of the newsletters. In one issue, a list of drugs was provided, with their relative toxicity. Frances had underscored the drugs that were the most poisonous.

I realized that this group, made up of people who didn't even know Frances, had been, figuratively speaking, whispering in her ear for years. First, they gave her moral permission to kill herself, fostering a romanticism about suicide that helped push her toward consummation. Then they convinced her she would be remembered with warmth for her act of taking "control." Finally, they taught her how to do it. I felt then, and do today, that while Frances was responsible for her own self-destruction, morally, if not legally, the Hemlock Society was an accessory before the fact.

In the years since Frances's suicide, Hemlock has gone through some outward changes while remaining steadfast to its dark ideology. It changed the name of the Hemlock Quarterly to Timelines, recently renamed again, this time to End of Life Choices. Its leadership changed, too, as the group struggled to appear less fringe, more mainstream and professional. But the more it tried to project a respectable image on the outside, the more obsessed with suicide the group seems to have become on the inside.

No longer satisfied to publish literature teaching people like Frances how to kill themselves or assist the suicides of others, several years ago Hemlock began to train volunteers to visit suicidal Hemlock members to counsel and, it would seem, hasten their deaths through its "Caring Friends" program. According to a tape transcript from the January 2003 Hemlock Society National Convention, the group's medical director, Dr. Richard McDonald, is present at many Caring Friends suicides and extols the use of helium and a plastic bag as a "very speedy process that has never failed in our program."

One need not be dying to qualify for Caring Friends' services. According to the November 1998 Timelines, access to Caring Friends is available for Hemlock members with "an irreversible physical condition that severely compromises quality of life," which could include a plethora of illnesses and disabilities that are not terminal.

The Winter 2003 End of Life Choices reports proudly that 32 Hemlock members "died with Caring Friends information, support, and presence" in 2002. Knowing that Hemlock members are fascinated by the methods used, the article catalogues them: "Thirty used the inhalation method and two used the ingestion method."

Choices also informs us that 15 of these suicides were in hospice at the time of their deaths. If so, then Caring Friends interfered with proper medical treatment of these patients. When I was trained as a hospice volunteer, I was explicitly told that suicidal ideation was a medical issue that hospice could often address successfully in dying patients and instructed to inform the hospice team of any expressed desire to self-destruct. Of course, Caring Friends is not about assuring that dying patients receive proper medical treatment.

The radical scope of Hemlock's ideological agenda is demonstrated by its financial and moral support of Dr. Phillip Nitschke, the Australian Jack Kevorkian. Nitschke is an out-and-out advocate of death-on-demand, who is infamous Down Under for his plan to purchase a passenger ship, which he intends to steam into international waters on one-way euthanasia death cruises. Nitschke has been paid tens of thousands of dollars by the Hemlock Society USA to invent a suicide formula that uses common household ingredients: a potion Nitschke calls the "peaceful pill."

In a 2001 Q & A on National Review Online, Nitschke was asked who would be eligible to receive his suicide concoction. His answer is macabre, even by surrealistic Hemlock standards:

All people qualify, not just those with the training, knowledge, or resources to find out how to "give away" their life. And someone needs to provide this knowledge, training, or resource necessary to anyone who wants it, including the depressed, the elderly bereaved [and] the troubled teen. . . . The so-called "peaceful pill" should be available in the supermarket so that those old enough to understand death could obtain death peacefully at the time of their choosing.

For anyone with any moral sense, Nitschke is clearly a crackpot. But he remains a hero to members of Hemlock. He was an honored guest at the organization's 2003 national convention in San Diego, where he was invited to unveil his most recently invented suicide machine. Despite being deprived of the chance to ooh and ah at Nitschke's handiwork when Australian customs authorities seized the contraption, attendees gave him a rousing standing ovation.

Which brings us back to the pending name change. According to an article in the latest issue of Choices, the name change is designed "to increase membership, to accelerate name recognition and approval, and to [facilitate] work with legislators sympathetic to our mission, who find the name Hemlock offensive and difficult to explain." In other words, the name Hemlock Society must change because it is descriptive and accurate.

Not surprisingly, the magic word "choice" is likely to be part of the new name. Among the current contenders are: End of Life Choices America (EOLCA), Voices of Choice at Life's End (VOCAL), the Final Exit Society, and the Promoting Options for a Peaceful End, which translates into the sarcastic acronym POPE.

But a simple name change won't heal what really ails Hemlock. What these death-obsessed folk just don't get is that the word hemlock isn't what offends people; it is their nihilism. Hemlock can change its name to anything it wants to. But that won't change the fact that a deadly poison perfectly conveys the heart, soul, and purpose of the organization.

Editor's note. After this essay was written, Hemlock changed its name to End of Life Choices.

Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and an attorney. This article first appeared at National Review Online and is reprinted with permission.

Too bad the Heaven's Gate folks offed themselves. The Hemlock cult could have used them for Public Relations.

[Dante3]

Wha a perverted group and what a tacky new name meant to confuse the uninformed.

[msmagoo]

"No longer satisfied to publish literature teaching people like Frances how to kill themselves or assist the suicides of others, several years ago Hemlock began to train volunteers to visit suicidal Hemlock members to counsel and, it would seem, hasten their deaths through its "Caring Friends" program. According to a tape transcript from the January 2003 Hemlock Society National Convention, the group's medical director, Dr. Richard McDonald, is present at many Caring Friends suicides and extols the use of helium and a plastic bag as a "very speedy process that has never failed in our program."

One need not be dying to qualify for Caring Friends' services. According to the November 1998 Timelines, access to Caring Friends is available for Hemlock members with "an irreversible physical condition that severely compromises quality of life," which could include a plethora of illnesses and disabilities that are not terminal."

The Hemlock suicide cult is perverted.

[msmagoo]

Excerpt from AMA: Anti-Euthanasia, Pro-Pain Control

"Regarding how their efforts will directly affect patients, Gomez said, "Anything we can do to educate doctors to the needs of patients is good. We will teach them to discuss pain control and alternative treatments with their patients. During the dying process, a doctor should be encouraging and bolstering his patients. We hope to have a very direct impact on patients' lives." Gomez speculated that the next five or six years will tell if they are successful."

"The AMA has watched, with great interest, doctor-assisted suicide in The Netherlands expand to include euthanasia even without a patient's knowledge or consent. Doctors in The Netherlands often resort to euthanasia when it appears that their efforts to cure the patient have been unsuccessful. The AMA does not want to see a repeat of this situation in America. Holland has shown that once the doctor has accepted the fact that he can end life, no amount of rules or regulations will protect the public."

[Wampus SC]

"It's all connected with the messages of Fatima. The messages of Fatima is a call to conversion and penance, the first and most basic call of the Gospel. "

It's a good time for penance, maybe a crucial one. I don't know enough about Fatima to reply to all of that (I'll learn more). But I am aware that part of it was still secret, pending the right time. I'm also aware that strange things about the Sun were supposed to have been prominent and witnessed in the original apparitions. Also, that other, biblical, prophecies say we'll see strange things in the heavens.

Finally, I've seen so many things surrounding Terri that tie right into religious symbolism that it would be hard for it all to be coincidence.

[msmagoo]

Dr. Cranford supports removing feeding tubes from Alzheimer's patients. How long before children with cerebral palsy are under attack is a good question.

Comments from Fr. Johhansen's blog on the "Duty to Die":

Monday, December 08, 2003

The Duty to Die

Nat Hentoff wrote another great column last week exploring the implications of the Terri Schiavo case. He has noted that when they first began their efforts, so-called "death with dignity" advocates championed the rights of patients and families to make decisions about providing or withholding treatment.

But now, what was once dubiously called the "right to die" has been transformed by some clinicians and bio-ethicists into what amounts to a "duty to die". He quotes Nancy Valko, a nurse and expert on medical ethics:

This theory [that some lives are no longer worth living] has now evolved into 'futile care' policies at hospitals in Houston, Des Moines, California and many other areas. Even Catholic hospitals are now becoming involved. . . . Thus, the 'right to die' becomes the 'duty to die,' with futile care policies offering death as the only 'choice.' . . . A poor prognosis, which can be erroneous and is seldom precise, will become a death sentence.

Not too long ago, standard medical ethics coincided with Catholic teaching in granting a "presumption in favor" of medically assisted nutrition and hydration. But, as I have researched the Terri Schiavo case, I have discovered that a revolution has been going on for the last 10-15 years. The "presumption in favor of medically assisted nutrition and hydration" found in Catholic teaching is being undermined by an alternative presumption, which is based on redefining the boundaries of what constitutes medical "treatment". Dr. Ronald Cranford was the principal medical witness for Michael Schiavo. He testified that Terri is in a PVS and will never recover. He also tesitified to that effect in the Nancy Cruzan case. But in the Cruzan case, the patient did not require a feeding tube. She could be fed by mouth. Nevertheless, he was willing to redefine even spoon-feeding a patient as "treatment". By this principle, practically anything a health-care provider does for a patient becomes "treatment".

Another attempted redefinition lies in the meaning of the term "futile". It is a commonplace of medical ethics, as well as Catholic teaching, that one is under no obligation to continue, and may indeed be obliged to withdraw, treatment that is "futile." Cindy Province, RN, MSN, Associate Director of the Bioethics Center of St. Louis, has written that a treatment has typically been considered "futile" if it has no benefit or desired effect whatsoever. Food has not been considered treatment because no one expects food to have any "direct curative effect". Furthermore, Province explains, in a patient like Terri tube feeding can be considered effective because it "clearly achieves the objective of maintaining a good nutritional state." But this kind of common-sense thinking has been rejected by much of the medical community:

...This view has been largely replaced by a more general view of the nature of nutrition as treatment... in that it has not enabled the patient to recover from his underlying condition.

Now, since food and water, redefined as treatment, do not help the patient to recover from his underlying condition, it can be labeled as "futile." Having deemed feeding the patient, by this sleight-of-hand, as "futile", it is a short step to justifying its withdrawal. By means of these redefinitions, those who want to help the sub-functional to depart this life a little more quickly have obtained an infinitely fungible, increasingly meaningless and arbitrary set of boundaries within which to do so.

[daylate-dollarshort]

"Many of the records that need to be examined are not open to the general public."

I hardly think that the Governor of the State of Florida can be considered simply a member of the general public.

[KDubRN]

Thanks for looking up euthanasia, and taking the time to research the movement.
Get the word out. Send to friends, family, and media. Make sure y'all hit your local media. They certainly need to know and do their own background checks.

[tutstar]

Bet there's more than 15 that died in hospice....

[Orlando]

Thanks for the response , and I wish that my writing skills
were more better so I could explain it better, and show a connection(s) and numberous coincidences.
Here's more coincidence to look at....
Yesterday Dec 8th the news was all over the TV, Newspapers,
and radio about the poll in which people of Florida favors
that Theresa should die...over and over....this was a negative force being elevated to the masses...In order words bad news for the forces of good and positive(God true
people), and as predicted, or stated over and over by your
nutty latino veteran Orlando there would be a reaction and
sign from the heavens....
Wampus, I know this is way-out-there, and the majority 99%
won't see, or understand the simple science regarding (+/-)
reactions....Good is + right down to the atom...
God is good and with his love/grace/mercy protects us, and
provides a shield for our planet, which is the (+/-) meganetic field, which by the way is falling apart(to long to explain)...Terri story is about love and a test to see if we still care for the sick,weak,poor,disabled and a test
about marriage, about the church, about obeying the Ten Commandments, and showing what the LUST for evil,money,sex
,violence, murder forces will do to those that are weak, and can't defend themselfs....

Here's more signs....as the negative forces were pushing there negative news on the world, the Sun again reacted
Same moment...again....,but this time , just like 911 smoke
image...inside the blast, look closely, there's something
that don't look happy....more signs....many won't see it, maybe you can ?


http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/javagif/gifs_small/20031208_2018_c3.gif

There's more images, if interested ???, but won't be long before it's gone...check out realtime(Bottom)


http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/realtime-c3.html

Just more coincidences.....my .01 cent

[KDubRN]

Orlando, your writing skills are fine. Some people are more literary. I have to use spell check. I get so passionate, I have the item totally trashed........lol
Write from the heart. Put your heart into it, not the mind.

[msmagoo]

Florida Teacher Blames Firing on Support for Terri Schiavo

By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
December 09, 2003

(CNSNews.com) - A Pinellas County, Fla., teacher - who is disabled and works with disabled students - claims she is being fired because she voiced her support for another disabled Florida woman: Terri Schindler Schiavo.

Rus Cooper-Dowda told CNSNews.com Tuesday that the Pinellas County School Board was set to fire her Tuesday night for sharing her opinion about the Schiavo case in response to a reporter's question. The school board responded that no reason was needed to fire the probationary teacher.

Terri Schindler Schiavo is the 39-year-old woman who suffered a severe brain injury under questionable circumstances in 1990. Doctors hired by her husband, and a court-appointed expert who reviewed Terri's medical records, believe she is in a "Persistent Vegetative State," while doctors employed by her parents and unpaid experts have said that Terri's condition could improve with therapy and rehabilitation.

Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, received court permission to have Terri's feeding tube removed so she would die by dehydration and starvation. But the move was blocked, initially through legal actions brought by Terri's parents and, then, by a law passed by the Florida legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Jeb Bush.

Schiavo is currently challenging the constitutionality of the legislation, dubbed "Terri's Law" by its supporters.

After a Florida court gave Schiavo permission to let his wife die in early October, Cooper-Dowda responded to a question from a local television reporter about the judge's decision.

"I did a very brief interview, offsite, on my own time, not identifying as a teacher, where I said, 'As a disabled Floridian of faith, female, with disabilities, this is scary,'" Cooper-Dowda explained. "And I was really clear that 'you cannot say I am a teacher' and the reporter was disappointed because I teach special ed[ucation], but agreed."

What the 26-year-veteran teacher could not have known at the time was that many of the students at Bay Point Middle School - where she taught children with behavioral, emotional and learning disabilities - were watching the local news that evening for extra credit. Word of Cooper-Dowda's "stardom" traveled quickly.

"The next morning I came in [and] there was a [regular monthly] faculty meeting, the Christian faculty who saw it ... said it was 'a really great, life-affirming interview,'" Cooper Dowda explained. "Then, for the first time, I started hearing, 'Well, you don't fit in. Teachers with public opinions like that don't fit in.'"

Cooper-Dowda said she was also called a "religious wacko" on more than one occasion, even though she only mentioned her religious beliefs in passing during the interview.

"The principal, various teachers, my supervisor, aides, paraprofessionals, everyone was saying, 'Teachers aren't allowed to have opinions, especially about Terri Schiavo, and especially if you're already a seminary grad[uate],'" Cooper-Dowda alleged. "And I'm thinking, 'Wow! I thought this was America?"

The situation went from bad to worse, Cooper-Dowda claimed, when several copies of a booklet she had written detailing the similarities between her experience and that of Terri Schindler Schiavo appeared on campus. At age 30, the teacher contracted a severe case of lupus that left her unable to speak and with very little control over her motor functions. She listened helplessly as doctors incorrectly diagnosed her as being in a Persistent Vegetative State, the same condition some physicians believe afflicts Terri, and described her chances for recovery as "hopeless."

"I could hear all that," Cooper-Dowda recalled. "It took a huge effort to finally communicate, 'I'm in here!' And I barely survived."

Though she could not speak, Cooper-Dowda would use her finger to write the word "no" in the air when doctors discussed removing her life support. Those same doctors diagnosed her attempts to communicate as "seizure activity" and sedated her. According to Cooper-Dowda, the harder she tried to communicate with her caretakers, the more heavily she was sedated.

The curiosity of one nurse saved Cooper-Dowda's life, she said.

"She refused to believe that the systematic pattern of tapping and blinking and moving and moaning was not communication," Cooper-Dowda recalled. "So, when I went to Terri Schiavo's October 2002 hearing ... I saw the videos for the first time and I was writing about it and I thought, 'That could have been me,' and then I thought, 'Oh, it was me!'"

That nurse put ink on the incapacitated woman's fingertip. Cooper-Dowda was then able to write the letter "y" for the word "yes," and "n" for "no," proving that the doctors had been wrong about her condition.

Since then, Cooper-Dowda has completed a second master's degree and given birth to a son, who is about to enter college. She told CNSNews.com that after 25 years of teaching at private schools, she finally realized her dream of working with disabled students in a public school system. She began work at Bay Point Middle School on Aug. 1.

But after the television interview and the unexpected arrival of her writing about Terri Schiavo's case appeared on campus, Cooper-Dowda said it became almost impossible to do the job she so loved.

"After that I couldn't get the most accepted basic support like needed room supplies, memos about meetings, campus police help when any of my kids needed to be removed for violence or assistance for students hurting themselves regularly," Cooper-Dowda alleged. "Finally, I was given less than a day to hand deliver a resignation for 'personal reasons' or be fired for 'not fitting in.'"

Ron Stone, associate superintendent for human resources and public affairs for Pinellas County Schools, told CNSNews.com that Cooper-Dowda has no recourse other than Tuesday night's scheduled appeal to the board.

"She is a probationary employee and under Florida law all teachers are hired under a 97-day probationary contract as at-will employees and at any point during that 97-day period, the principal can make a recommendation to discontinue the probation," Stone explained. "Essentially, that's what's happened here, and we don't have to have reasons for that."

Cooper-Dowda believes that her termination is being expedited to make sure that it is completed before her probation expires, but she has been in contact with several public interest law firms who say that the appeals process will move her past the probationary period and make her eligible for the protections afforded to regular staff teachers.

The Pinellas County School Board meeting, at which Cooper-Dowda is to be fired, will be telecast live on the local cable system. Because of the abbreviated holiday programming schedule, it's expected that the meeting will be replayed several times over the next four to six weeks.

"They threatened me with this. They said, 'If you don't resign for personal reasons, you're gonna get fired over and over and over' because the school board meeting runs on TV through the December holidays when everyone turns to them for the student concerts," Cooper-Dowda alleged. "They thought I would go, 'Oh, geez, I'd better resign.'

"Instead, I went, 'If Terri's supporters talk, their witness is going to run over and over and over through December," Cooper-Dowda said cheerfully. "There's a reason this is happening to me."

Cooper-Dowda hopes the public and media focus will quickly shift from her story to Terri's plight, but she acknowledges that the altercation with Pinellas County school officials has changed her life forever.

"I'm going to be so sad. I've wanted to be a public school teacher since I was five and I finally got in, in August. It took me 43 years to get here," Cooper-Dowda said. "I probably will not teach again."

[terrasol]

Thank you for posting this, msmagoo. Jeff Johnson wrote
a good piece. It was wisconsinconservative who brought
the story to his attention, and he responded promptly.
It is encouraging to see that there still are free
journalists willing to go to where the story is.

The Pinellas County Schoolboard today decided 6:1 to
fire Rus. She is taking it in stride, realizing that
there are opportunities in this to achieve a victory
for Terri. Rus had been looking forward to the School
Board meeting because it would be televised and the
segment would rerun throughout December and January
on local cable.

She thought that it would be an opportunityfor Terri
supporters to get some cable time. In order to prevent
this, the Schoolboard decided at the last moment to make
its action against Rus a disciplinary action, which
precluded comments by the public. I don't know yet whether
they were able to prevent any pro-Terri comments. We'll see.

[a5478]

Have been sending notes to all the address posted. However, what is needed most is a public figure who is willing to re define this case. We will never win the "right to die" debate.

A prestigious person must come forward and condemn the lack of treatment and therapy Terri has received in light of that fact that she received moneys to fund it. I am praying that God will send that individual.

In the meantime - I continue to write letters.

Hang in everyone....

[KDubRN]

Poll Stat

http://www.wftv.com/news/2696590/detail.html

[Wampus SC]

People understand what you're saying, so there's no need to worry about writing.

"Good is + right down to the atom... "

That is the most to-the-point expression of that idea I've seen.

Agreed that this is a test, and what it's a test of is exactly what your describe. The outcome of the test, and others like it elsewhere, will have a lot to do with determining what we'll face later, as individuals, as a country, and maybe even a species.

"Here's more signs....as the negative forces were pushing there negative news on the world, the Sun again reacted Same moment...again....,but this time , just like 911 smoke image...inside the blast, look closely, there's something that don't look happy....more signs....many won't see it, maybe you can ?

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/javagif/gifs_small/20031208_2018_c3.gif

Like I said, I was skeptical at first, but I'm not so skeptical now. And I hope there's some room on that limb, because I'm coming out there on it too... It's an image right there at 4 o'clock. There's also seems to be something smaller, fainter at 12 o'clock. I won't say what I think they look like, since that might influence someone who checks it out later. I think many people will have no trouble at all drawing their own conclusions.

[msmagoo]

POLL STAT

http://www.wftv.com/news/2696590/detail.html

Do you agree with Michael Schiavo's lawyers that "Terri's Law" violates Florida's constitution?

Choice Votes Percentage of 6425 Votes

Yes	2532	39%
No	3792	59%

Let's keep that solid lead! vote NO

Gov. Jeb Bush's Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2003

Statement By:
GOVERNOR JEB BUSH
Ruling from Second District Court of Appeal

"My legal team is still reviewing the order issued by the Second District Court of Appeal today. It appears the court has determined that prejudging a case before evidence is presented is acceptable in Florida, which is the same error made by the trial court.

"In our criminal courts, defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. When evaluating constitutional challenges, the law is presumed constitutional until proven otherwise. In this case, however, the actions of the trial and appellate judges make it clear they presume just the opposite, that the law passed by elected lawmakers must be proven constitutional.

"A judge who demonstrated his or her presumption that a defendant was guilty until proven otherwise would be disqualified from ruling in that case. We believe the same principle holds true in constitutional challenges, regardless of issues involved.

"The implications of this case reach beyond the life and death of the young woman in this heart wrenching tragedy. The law ensures Floridians who cannot speak for themselves will have an independent, neutral representative to advocate for their interests and wishes. If we abandon the law, we accept a dangerous precedent with the power to erode the rights of self-determination of people with disabilities."

[msmagoo]

It's a disgrace that a person who has lived through a situation much like Terri's is being punished for speaking out in support of Terri. I think Rus's unique perspective only strengthens her right to speak out. If there is any way we can help her out, please let us know. Email contacts for the school board, names, etc. would be helpful.

I think the school board made an unwise decision. Because Rus works for Pinellas County, is she supposed to forfeit her right to indirectly criticize another branch of Pinellas County? I never heard of anything so ridiculous.

The pro-Hemlock puppets have even infiltrated the school board,it seems.

[msmagoo]

Rus will be on Glenn Beck coming up at 10:30 this morning! Tune in to 970 am in Tampa Bay or listen live on the web.

[Orlando]

This is good news, and I am happy to know that Gov. Jeb Bush is seeing the big picture. This case must go to the
Supreme Courts, but I don't see victory unless Florida
State Senator President Jim King (R) of Jacksonville helps !....

11 months to go to vote out King and Greer...