Posted By: Democrat on 2006-12-15 In Reply to:Bush and Reagan.... - Observer
**Margie Schoedinger died of a gunshot wound to the head in 2003, nine months after filing the suit. The Harris County Medical Examiner's office has ruled the death a suicide.**
This is another difference between democrats and republicans. Where is the democratic conspiracy machine when you need them?
Complete Discussion Below: marks the location of current message within thread
I've watched Democratic strategists long enough to know that they are masters in the art of misdirection and misinformation, and I find the timing of the release of these so-called "torture" memos to be cast directly in the same mold as some of the tricks that Carville and Rahm Emanual engineered to try to take attention off of President Clinton's problems until they could no longer hold back the tide of public indignation.
Consider that in the days prior to the release of these memos, which served absolutely no other useful purpose, the White House had been staggered by two things:
1. Obama's massive budget was getting massive push-back, even from members in his own party. The conversation on Capitol Hill was turning extremely ugly, and Obama was having to do head-fakes like ordering his cabinet to make "$100 million in budget cuts" - which looks like a big number, but actually amounts to less than 3/100ths of the Obama budget. In other words, this was like asking a family that spends $40,000 a year to find some way to save about $1.18.
The head fake wasn't working. Folks with calculators wised up.
Then, the administration was rocked by the tea parties. Oh yes, I know that Obama's brilliant response was that he "hadn't noticed them" (and this man is in charge of our national intelligence agencies, mind you)...but who's buying that bull? Umm, no one did.
Then, we had the little fiasco at the "American summit", with Obama doing everything but slipping one of the world's most brutal dictators, Chavez, a little tongue (and we can't be sure about that).
And, there was some other ugly stuff happening with the Obama administration like his Rasmussen Approval Index falling from a high of +30 when he took office to +2. The index is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Americans who "strongly approve" of Obama from the percentage of those who "strongly disapprove". Although the AP continues to trumpet ridiculously high numbers for Obama, I can assure you that Rahm Emanuel knows the truth. And he ain't a happy camper these days.
...and some nasty shove-back within his own party on cap-and-trade as well. It hasn't been a great couple of weeks for the administration, let's put it that way.
And suddenly we have these memos and if you'll notice, hardly anyone's been talking very much about the budget, the fake budget cuts, the Chavez debacle, the slipping poll numbers or anything else except George Bush and the former administration.
Please note that this has been the modus operandi of this administration ever since they took office. Blame everything bad on the previous administration (never mind that Obama himself voted for budget bailouts, etc. as a Senator). Take credit for everything positive that happens - if we can find any.
Now, some will believe that Obama released these memos at this particular time merely as a coincidence, and for the sole purpose of ...umm, well I can't think of what that would be, but you can probably find out on Huffington or one of the other left-loon rags.
Unfortunately, the whole thing backfired. He didn't get support from the moderates on the left for this idea for a nation-distracting witch hunt and he found himself with only the liberal crazies signing up for his dance card.
Whaddya want to bet? I'd bet a pretty good chunk of the farm that there was a lot more behind the release of these memos than meets the wool-covered eyes of the voters. Oh - and one other thing. Obama's a long way from running out of wool.
But if that woman decided to kill HERSELF - when it actually IS her body - it's a crime.
You promote abortion. The fact that you don't want to admit it proves that somewhere in your dank, shriveled-up little soul, there's at least one ounce of decency that knows what you're professing is wrong.
You are pro-abortion. You're just in denial about it. LIke every other "proud Liberal" lunatic.
And Israel loves those suicide bombers.
Your posts are disquieting. Why do you defend Hezbollah?
Yes, I heard about the woman who committed suicide...
and invoking the poor woman to beat me over the head with is the height of nastiness. But about what I would expect from you. I hardly think it was every Republicans' fault it happened, but you sure wanna blame them. Hmmm...hating a whole group of people...sounds like bigot to me.
I suppose you saw the bit about the illegal immigrant in San Francisco who offed a man and his two sons with an AK-47 in a road rage incident?
Maybe you would like to talk to his widow and their mother your take on illegals and how they should enjoy the benefits of citizens. If Mayor Newsom hadn't declared San Fran a sanctuary city and told the police not to work with ICE, that particular illegal would have been deported or in jail a long time ago, since he had 3 or 4 felonies and 3 or 4 recent arrests. A citizen, for pete's sake, would have already been in jail a LONG time ago. So please, if you are going to invoke the poor woman who committed suicide to make your point of hatred of Republicans (which has nothing to do with why the woman committed suicide...she committed suicide because she had kept the degree of the problem away from her husband and he had no idea his house was about to be auctioned off...tell the WHOLE story...which is still a horrible situation but not hardly all Republicans' fault...good grief)...anyway, allow me to invoke the illegal who slaughtered three innocent citizens with an AK-47 for no good reason (as if there was a good reason for slaughtering 3 innoncent people)...which EXACTLY illustrates my point. Gavin Newsom, poster child for the far left, has the blood of those three people on his hands tonight because he IS directly responsible, unlike the millions of Republicans in this country you want to charge with that woman's death. I hope Mr. Newsom has sense enough (to use your lovely words) to be embarrassed and SICKENED by that. But I won't hold my breath.
You have all that hatred churning around in you for an entire group of people just because they are of a thought process different from yours...you once graced me with the definition of bigot, so right back at you:
bigot n. One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ. (your picture should be in Webster next to the definition)
You said:
"The pubs really can be a cold-blooded, mean-spirited bunch of blankety-blanks, being blind to the misery of all the hoi polloi."
"(a mere 12 hours after Bush got his rocks off in the middle of all those laughing pubs)" (wow, you slipped off the highbrow intellectual vocabulary there GW)
Those two quotes (there are way too many more to go hunt) meet the definition of bigot as you posted it to me. And you either don't have the sense (as you accuse me) to realize you are the very thing you accuse me of, or you know dang well you are a bigot and don't care. I would guess the former. I don't think you have any idea you are a bigot, and that's just sad.
You say I am a bigot because of my stand on immigration...I am NOT against legal immigration and have no problem with immigrants as a whole...a point MS miss the point (your words) that you continue to ignore...so that blows your bigot argument right out of the water. But...sigh...ya can't see the forest for the trees.
And no, you did NOT answer my question, because you can't. And that frustrates you, just like it frustrated Obama to be asked the same question by the darling of the left Katie Couric...at least she had the guts to ask, I give her that...and he never DID answer her. Because, like you...he couldn't. You painted yourself into the corner...I didn't put you there.
And finally, dear whoeveryouare, hatred is a wasted emotion and hurts the hater much worse than the hatee.
Government website now offers 'suicide warning signs' for victims of recession
John Byrne Published: Tuesday March 31, 2009
When the government starts warning you not to commit suicide, you know things have gotten bad.
The US Department of Health and Human Services now has a webpage for the current recession, "Getting Through Tough Economic Times." Headlined under the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (www.samhsa.gov/economy/), the guide offers tips on "how to deal with the effects financial difficulties can have on your physical and mental health." The site went public Tuesday.
The remainder of the story is at: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Government_website_offers_suicide_warning_signs_0331.html
High Court upholds Oregon Assisted Suicide Law
(It's interesting to note that Roberts was a good, obedient little Justice as he hung on to Scalia's coattails and supported the Bush administration. I can't help but believe if Alito had been installed now, the decision most certainly would have been 5-4, instead of 6-3. I thought that Republicans were in favor of states' rights. Guess not. In this case, the citizens of the state voted for this law. We're only one Bush LIFETIME appointment away from the end of freedom of self-determination.
High Court upholds Ore. assisted suicide law
January 17, 2006
BY GINA HOLLAND ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON-- The Supreme Court upheld Oregon's one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law Tuesday, rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die.
Justices, on a 6-3 vote, said that a federal drug law does not override the 1997 Oregon law used to end the lives of more than 200 seriously ill people. New Chief Justice John Roberts backed the Bush administration, dissenting for the first time.
The administration improperly tried to use a drug law to punish Oregon doctors who prescribe lethal doses of prescription medicines, the court majority said.
Congress did not have this far-reaching intent to alter the federal-state balance, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for himself, retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer.
Kennedy is expected to become a more influential swing voter after O'Connor's departure. He is a moderate conservative who sometimes joins the liberal wing of the court in cases involving such things as gay rights and capital punishment.
The ruling was a reprimand to former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who in 2001 said that doctor-assisted suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose and that Oregon physicians would be punished for helping people die under the law.
Kennedy said the authority claimed by the attorney general is both beyond his expertise and incongruous with the statutory purposes and design.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for himself, Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas, said that federal officials have the power to regulate the doling out of medicine.
If the term 'legitimate medical purpose' has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death, he wrote.
Scalia said the court's ruling is perhaps driven by a feeling that the subject of assisted suicide is none of the federal government's business. It is easy to sympathize with that position.
Oregon's law covers only extremely sick people-- those with incurable diseases and who are of sound mind, and after at least two doctors agree they have six months or less to live.
For Oregon's physicians and pharmacists, as well as patients and their families, today's ruling confirms that Oregon's law is valid and that they can act under it without fear of federal sanctions, state Solicitor General Mary Williams said.
The ruling backed a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said Ashcroft's unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide.
Ashcroft had brought the case to the Supreme Court on the day his resignation was announced by the White House in 2004. The Justice Department has continued the case, under the leadership of his successor, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The court's ruling was not a final say on federal authority to override state doctor-assisted suicide laws-- only a declaration that the current federal scheme did not permit that. However, it could still have ramifications outside of Oregon.
This is a disappointing decision that is likely to result in a troubling movement by states to pass their own assisted suicide laws, said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, which backed the administration.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and a supporter of the law, said the ruling has stopped, for now, the administration's attempts to wrest control of decisions rightfully left to the states and individuals.
Thomas wrote his own dissent as well, to complain that the court's reasoning was puzzling. Roberts did not write separately.
Justices have dealt with end-of-life cases before. In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that terminally ill people may refuse treatment that would otherwise keep them alive. Then, justices in 1997 unanimously ruled that people have no constitutional right to die, upholding state bans on physician-assisted suicide. That opinion, by then-Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, said individual states could decide to allow the practice.
Roberts strongly hinted in October when the case was argued that he would back the administration. O'Connor had seemed ready to support Oregon's law, but her vote would not have counted if the ruling was handed down after she left the court.
The case is Gonzales v. Oregon, 04-623.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
marks the location of current message within thread
