Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (47182)	5/26/2004 5:45:45 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793917

Above all, Senator Kerry cannot run as a Massachusetts liberal on the left fringe of American politics. Instead, both he and his supporters in the media must decry the use of "labels" -- even as they call Bush's Cabinet members "chicken hawks." A pattern of opportunism Thomas Sowell townhall.com May 26, 2004 Senator John Kerry is giving opportunism a bad name. First, there was his call for President Bush to release oil from the strategic petroleum reserve, in response to high gasoline prices. With a war raging in the Middle East, the last thing we need to do is reduce our own petroleum reserves for the sake of an election-year quick fix. Kerry knows better. But he has to come up with something that at least gives the appearance of proposing his own policies and agendas, instead of just bashing Bush. This was not an isolated example of Kerry's opportunism. His whole campaign is based on opportunism. He voted for money to support the war in Iraq -- and he also voted against it, as he himself has said. Back in the 1970s, John Kerry protested the Vietnam war by symbolically throwing away his medals -- apparently. In reality, it turned out that he kept his medals, and threw away someone else's. Senator Kerry told the automobile workers that he was proud to drive an SUV. But that isn't what he said to the environmentalists. Now he was pointing out that his family owned the SUV, not him. Having it both ways is John Kerry's political pattern. <font size=4>It is completely in character for him to suggest that he can postpone accepting the Democrats' nomination officially, thereby escaping the federal restrictions on spending money that was meant to be spent during the primaries.<font size=3> Like Leona Helmsley, Senator Kerry apparently thinks that the laws apply only to the "little people." It would be a mistake, however, to think that John Kerry has no principles or agenda. He just does not have any that he would dare to reveal in an election year. Both a liberal organization and a non-partisan organization have rated Kerry's voting record in the Senate as more liberal than that of Ted Kennedy. It is hard to believe that there is much room remaining on the political spectrum to the left of Ted Kennedy. But Kerry has found it. Now he has to hide it before the voters find out. Senator Kerry has no choice but to pretend to be something that he is not, both personally and politically. An aloof and self-infatuated man who is not liked even by fellow Democrats in the Senate, Kerry has to learn to smile and act like a regular guy during the election campaign. Senator Kerry has even had to learn to pronounce his wife's name the way Americans pronounce it, rather than the way it is pronounced in Europe, which is the way he pronounced it all these years, before he became a presidential candidate. John Kerry should get the Academy award if he succeeds in this year's challenging acting performance -- but not the presidency. Above all, Senator Kerry cannot run as a Massachusetts liberal on the left fringe of American politics. Instead, both he and his supporters in the media must decry the use of "labels" -- even as they call Bush's Cabinet members "chicken hawks." <font size=4> All attempts to expose what Senator Kerry has actually said and done in his long political career are denounced as "personal attacks" and "negative advertising" -- as if it is worse to tell the truth than to let someone lie his way into the White House by projecting a completely false image that his handlers have manufactured. Nothing is more phony than Kerry's statement that he would welcome being considered the second "black" president -- Bill Clinton having been considered the first. Now one of the Democrats' own black strategists has pointed out publicly that blacks are rare as hen's teeth in Kerry's campaign team.<font size=3> Despite bad news from Iraq and a liberal media going ballistic about it around the clock, Kerry has not made any serious gains in the polls. Liberals love to believe that they are just not getting their message out to the public, whether in this presidential campaign or on talk radio. In both cases, the problem is that their real message won't sell and the phony message that they try to sell is seen as being as phony as it is. ©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc. townhall.com

To: Lane3 who wrote (47182)	5/26/2004 6:15:49 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 793917

Appeals Court Backs Oregon's Assisted Suicide Law Ruling Says Ashcroft Cannot Sanction Oregon Doctors The Associated Press Wednesday, May 26, 2004; 3:46 PM SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court Wednesday declared the Bush administration has no right to interfere with Oregon's assisted suicide law, the only one in the country to allow doctors to help patients end their lives. In a 2-1 ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals said Attorney General John Ashcroft cannot sanction or hold doctors criminally liable for prescribing overdoses under Oregon's voter-approved Death With Dignity Act. "The attorney general's unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide," Circuit Judge Richard Tallman said. He said Ashcroft's threat to take action "far exceeds the scope of his authority under federal law." An Oregon official hailed the ruling as a victory for the states. "From our perspective, this is a clear defense not just of the Death With Dignity Act, but a clear defense of a state's authority to regulate its own medical practices," said Kevin Neely, spokesman for Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers. Oregon voters approved the Death With Dignity Act in 1994 and overwhelmingly affirmed it three years later. The law allows terminally ill patients with less than six months to live to request a lethal dose of drugs. Two doctors must confirm the diagnosis and determine the patient to be mentally competent to make the request. Since 1998, at least 171 people have used Oregon's law to end their lives, according to state records. Most suffered from cancer. In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court said that there is no constitutional right to assisted suicide but that states may decide the issue for themselves without federal interference. Later, the Bush administration Justice Department concluded that suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose" under the Controlled Substances Act, the federal law declaring what drugs doctors may prescribe. The department threatened to punish doctors by revoking the federal licenses they need to prescribe medicine. Oregon countered by arguing that regulating and licensing doctors generally has been the sole responsibility of the states. Oregon also said that Congress intended only to prevent illegal drug trafficking by doctors under the Controlled Substances Act, and that it left decisions about medical practice up to the states. In 2002, a federal judge in Portland, Ore., ruled against the Justice Department. In a rebuke to Ashcroft, U.S. District Judge Robert Jones said that the Controlled Substances Act does not give the federal government the power to say what is a legitimate medical practice. In a similar 1996 case from Washington state, the 9th Circuit ruled that assisted suicide was permitted because there was a constitutional right to die. That decision meant Washington state could not prosecute doctors who aided their patients' deaths. In a dissent Wednesday, Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace said the courts should give "substantial deference" to the attorney general's findings in the absence of a clear congressional policy. "Certainly, Congress is free to enact legislation limiting or counteracting the Ashcroft directive's effects," Wallace said. © 2004 The Associated Press