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 : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sandintoes who wrote (30903)	3/21/2005 6:45:18 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Terri Schiavo and the Law The case for life. Monday, March 21, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST Today will be Terri Schiavo's fourth day without food or water. By the end of the day, both Houses of Congress are expected to have passed, and President Bush is expected to have signed into law, a bill that will allow a federal court to review her case. The hope is that a federal judge will order that her feeding tube be reinserted. And then it will be off to the races again as her case works its way through the federal judiciary, perhaps all the way to the Supreme Court. In Florida so far, at least 19 judges in six courts have weighed in on Mrs. Schiavo's case since 1990, when she suffered the heart attack that left her severely brain damaged. Since then her parents have been locked in a highly public legal battle with her husband, Michael, who says that Terri would not have wanted to live in an incapacitated state. Mrs. Schiavo was a practicing Catholic and she left no living will, but a Florida judge years ago agreed with Mr. Schiavo--a finding of "fact" that has made the subsequent appeals difficult. Another judge might look differently today on Mr. Schiavo's right-to-die claims given his apparent incentives to be rid of the burden of a severely disabled wife. He lives with a girlfriend, with whom he has children. It was not until 1993, after a medical-malpractice jury awarded him roughly $1 million for Terri's long-term care, that he began to seek his wife's death. A Florida court has twice before ordered Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube removed--in 2001 and 2003. Six days after the latter episode, the Florida legislature passed "Terri's Law," which allowed Governor Jeb Bush to intervene. Last year the Florida Supreme Court ruled that Terri's Law was unconstitutional. We review this history both to show how poorly Florida's legal system has served Mrs. Schiavo, and to explain the reasons that Congress is taking the extraordinary step of intervening in what normally would be considered a matter solely for a state's judicial system. The conservative Republicans leading this effort--Senators Bill Frist and Rick Santorum, Representative Tom DeLay--are taking hits for supposedly abandoning their federalist principles. We'd have more sympathy for this argument if the same liberals who are complaining about the possibility of the federal courts reviewing Mrs. Schiavo's case felt as strongly about restraining the federal judiciary when it comes to abortion, homosexuality, and other social issues they don't want to trust to local communities. In any event, these critics betray their lack of understanding of the meaning of federalism. It is not simply about "states' rights." Conservatives support states' rights in areas that are not delegated to the federal government but they also support federal power in areas that are delegated. Think of an analogy to the writ of habeas corpus. As John Eastman of the Claremont Institute points out, "We have federal court review of state court judgments all the time in the criminal law context." The bill before Congress essentially treats the Florida judgment as a death sentence, warranting federal habeas review. Mrs. Schiavo is not on life support. The court order to remove the feeding tube is an order to starve her to death. Moreover, Mrs. Schiavo is arguably being deprived of her life without due process of law, a violation of the 14th Amendment that Congress has the power to address. The "right to die" has become another liberal cause, part of the "privacy" canon that extends through Roe (abortion) and Lawrence (homosexuality) and the Ninth Circuit's views on assisted suicide that the Supreme Court is taking up this year. Of course, it gets a little messy when someone is actually being killed, and a husband with a conflict of interest is the one who claims she wanted to kill herself, but the left apparently believes these are mere details that shouldn't interfere with the broader cause. Thus the discovery of federalism. Terri Schiavo's case is a tragedy for her and her family. Beyond the immediate question of whether she lives or dies, her case may well have the salutary effect of demonstrating to the elites who want the right to kill oneself embedded into law that there is another side to the debate that is going to be heard.

To: sandintoes who wrote (30903)	5/5/2005 2:42:20 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Google Boogle Daily Pundit Google Accused of Liberal Bias After Refusing Conservative Ads <<< But just as RightMarch.com attempted to launch a new wave of ad buys with Google.com, much to their amazement, Google refused the paid ad. Greene took an existing anti-DeLay ad and changed the name "Tom DeLay" to "Nancy Pelosi" (a left-leaning Democrat) yet Google refused the anti-Pelosi ad and continues to run the anti-DeLay ads. Greene said, "Simply put, Google is censoring conservative search ad results. Nancy Pelosi violated ethics rules far worse than what DeLay is accused of. All we did was to take a liberal ad and make it conservative. Isn't turnabout fair play?" The official reason Google cited for refusing the ad was: "Google policy does not permit ad text that advocates against an individual, group or organization." The question remains, said Greene, "If Google allows ads advocating against Tom DeLay, does this mean that Google does not recognize Tom DeLay as being a human being?" >>> If they really did just that - take an ad against Tom Delay that Google was running, and substitute Nancy Pelosi's name, and Google then refused to run that ad, then it seems to me that Google has been nailed fair and square. Not to say they don't have a right to accept or refuse any advertising for any reason, but if their policy is this biased, then their customers, users, and readers should at least be aware that the bias exists. Next question: Does it exist in the supposedly objective selections of Google News? My hunch is that yes, it does. Posted by Bill Quick dailypundit.com lifesite.net