MaxedOutMama

After a careful review of the briefs filed by the government and amici, we
conclude that FISA, as amended by the Patriot Act,2 supports the government’s position, and that the restrictions imposed by the FISA court are not required by FISA or the Constitution.
...

In sum, we think that the FISA as passed by Congress in 1978 clearly did not preclude or limit the government’s use or proposed use of foreign intelligence information, which included evidence of certain kinds of criminal activity, in a criminal prosecution.
...

Ultimately, the question becomes whether FISA, as amended by the Patriot Act, is a reasonable response based on a balance of the legitimate need of the government for foreign intelligence information to protect against national security threats with the protected rights of citizens.

22. Hmmm Wiretap, Smiretap, How about a Wire Reroute?
What if...The NSA/BushCo is controlling the routing of Polltaker phone calls, intercepting them and ANSWERING the poll questionnaires for the people who are supposed to be answering the phone? Then the poll looks legit to the Polltaker, may be they even let a fea call go through, so some people will say 'Hey, yeah, I took that poll' giving it an air of legitimacy.I'm not saying this IS happening, but you know, you NEVER know.

"If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial," he said. "We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting. Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks. If people say, 'This takes me aback,' they are ignoring a huge volume of research."

Democrats are getting an early glimpse of an intraparty rift that could complicate efforts to win back the White House: fiery liberals raising their voices on Web sites and in interest groups vs. elected officials trying to appeal to a much broader audience.

These activists -- spearheaded by battle-ready bloggers and making their influence felt through relentless e-mail campaigns -- have denounced what they regard as a flaccid Democratic response to the Supreme Court fight, President Bush's upcoming State of the Union address and the Iraq war. In every case, they have portrayed party leaders as gutless sellouts

EDWARD MCDONOUGH, ATTORNEY: Well, Dan, actually, the appeal that we brought before the Supreme Judicial Court does not ask for the right to have him make the decisions. First of all, Dan, the question of the motive is a natural one to be asking. But really, it‘s kind of a convenient way of avoiding the real issue in this case.

Our firm is not handling the criminal case. We took this case pro-bono, and we took it because of the interest of the child. It‘s our view, and we argued to the court, that the hearing, which was held, which decided that Haleigh would die of starvation, was a one-sided hearing. It was not a fair hearing. And basically, we advanced three reasons.

The first one is, unlike the Terri Schiavo case, this is an 11-year-old child who never really had the opportunity to express her wishes as to what she would want to have done.

Secondly, this is not a decision made by the family. This is a decision made by the government. And, Dan, they made it after only after nine days. They relied on two doctors. One of the doctors said that it was not appropriate to remove the feeding tube.

And the third reason is that no one argued in favor of keeping the child alive. Justice Spina, at one point Tuesday, leaned over and he asked the attorney for the state, who at the hearing argued in favor of life? And it was clear that the answer was no. And, Dan, as any good trial lawyer will tell you, if you have no opposition, it‘s not a difficult case to win.

A police report filed July 15, 2004, states police arrested Strickland that day for shoplifting at the Springfield Road Wal-Mart. Holli Strickland was in the store with Haleigh and her son, 1-year-old Cody Strickland.

The police report states that a store security worker watched Holli Strickland as she placed a bag of dog food, a container of cat litter and a baby gate into a shopping cart that Haleigh was pushing.

"They moved to a different part of the store, then Haleigh retrieved the car keys from Holli's purse while Holli watched," the report written by Westfield Police Officer Juanita M. Diaz states. "Holli said something to Haleigh, and Haleigh then left the store with the cart of unpaid for merchandise."
...
"While in the security office, Haleigh stated to security that she had done this before with baby formula. ... Wal-Mart security stated that numerous employees notified security of Holli Strickland bragging about shoplifting with her daughter," the report states.

The Supreme Judicial Court decision states DSS opened a child abuse-neglect investigation on the day of Strickland's shoplifting arrest. But the DSS ultimately blamed the shoplifting on Haleigh.

"Mother inadequately supervised (Haleigh) in store despite prior history of (Haleigh) stealing in a store," the Supreme Judicial Court decision stated in referring to DSS reports.

For some people, it's such a sensitive topic they would prefer no one discussed it at all. But if Samuel Alito is confirmed to the Supreme Court, it will be the first time in American history that five sitting justices will be Catholic: Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy.

Approximately 25 percent of the U.S. population is estimated to be Catholic, so a minority religion would be the majority on the court.

It tends not to be something people make an issue out of, at least publicly, but some liberals do have concerns about such a Catholic court.

"There is some fear that they might perhaps, on some issues like abortion, carry out a kind of Catholic jurisprudence rather than reflecting a broader point of view," said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Today's silence on the issue is notable even to some Catholics.

"You would think that even at least outside Catholic circles, there would still be more consternation that this might be of some significance that now the pope (!!!!-MOM) will be the fifth vote on the court," said Dennis Coyle, a professor at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. "It is a sign of how far we've come, I guess, that it is so unremarkable."

As we all know, a line was crossed recently when the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee asked a judicial nominee his religious affiliation – over the bipartisan objections of other Senators present – at an official confirmation hearing. This injection of religion into the judicial confirmation process – unprecedented, at least in modern times -- was then used to set the stage for religious attacks against Members of the Senate in paid ads produced by an outside advocacy group.

Senators differ on the merits of the nomination of William Pryor to be a judge on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, but we hope there can be universal agreement that the introduction of religion into such debates is not only wrong but also harmful to the Senate, to the independence of the federal judiciary, and to the people we represent.

Servitor: City Manager, City Manager, the peasants are revolting!

City Manager: I'll say, they're perfectly disgusting!

Servitor: With all due respect, Your Worshipful Transcendental Eminent Authority of the Domain, this is serious! They are collecting signatures on a petition asking that the redevelopment plan be put to a vote. The five ringleaders are asking as citizens for "the right to vote on changes for our city so it is for the betterment of our entire community not a few select developers and land owners."

City Manager: This shall not stand! Call out the police chief! Call out the firemen! Call out [cue Darth Vader theme] the lawyers! We will file suit against these traitorous vipers this very day!

Most people do not like to be criticized. It hurts our feelings when it is accurate and it infuriates us when it is unfair. Most authority figures do not like to be challenged. ... This is human nature, not likely to change any time soon.

When we bring these tendencies into the political arena, where people often feel passionately about their positions, the tendency to hear disagreement as criticism and the tendency to react to criticism, real and imagined, with anger and resentment, is exponentially increased. Throughout history the first move of most tyrants, as soon as they consolidated their power, was to institute censorship of the press. While such a direct assault on our free speech rights is unlikely here, the greater danger exists of an incremental erosion of free speech rights under the guise of liberal good intentions.

DSS received a second opinion on her medical condition this week from two pediatric neurologists and a medical ethicist, agency spokeswoman Denise Monteiro said.

"Based on the second opinion, it was decided that we should get her into rehab to get her assessed and working on some specific issues," Monteiro said.
...
Agency officials say Haleigh now is able to move her eyes in the direction where a sound is being made.

"There's so much absolute hope now," Monteiro said. "She's full of miracles and she's a fighter."

Also yesterday, Peter Cornetta, a 53-year-old North Grafton man, said he and his wife have contacted the DSS in the past month seeking to adopt Haleigh. He said that he has worked as a foster parent for the DSS and that six years ago they adopted a daughter.

''This is all about getting her some dignity and compassion," he said.

It seems that Kerry is traveling down the same path that Al Gore has been traveling. Maybe the realization that you have lost to George W. Bush just sends these guys into a tailspin where they end up clutched in theembrace of the Moveon.org and Kos crowd and they lose all touch with political reality. Thus, you don't notice that it's rather iffy to conduct a Senate talkathon from Davos, Switzerland. Apparently, Kerry's aides have now pointed this out to him and he's jetting back to Washington to personally rally his flagging troops who have already thrown in the towel and admitted that they didn't have the 41 votes to conduct a filibuster. Poor John Kerry, who voted for Alito (for the appellate court) before he voted against him, will now lead the charge for troops that have already surrendered.

Warning: Repukes have a new tactic that is working very well Rove has implemented a totally new tactic, and its working very well. All the media is falling for it, as are the Dems in congress, as are we here at DU.

They take something that is a non-issue, pretend to cover it up as if it were something bad, then let us "discover" the truth, which turns out to be... nothing really spectacular in the first place - and we look like morons and extremists.

I feel that the Abramoff photos are JUST SUCH A PLOY.

In the end, what will we find? Simple. Pictures of Bush with Abramoff. And.... then.... um..... nothing. They mean nothing. They already can explain them away. Making the photos a big deal is a BAD IDEA.

What we need is to tie Bush to Abramoff directly, thru contibutions, records, documents, etc. Not through simple photos which prove nothing except they were in the same room as each other. The photos are a RED HERRING.

The same thing happened to the Dems in the Alito hearings regarding the CAP documents. They already knew there was nothing in them bad, but then they pretended to be covering them up (Arlen Spectre totally hoodwinked Kennedy), only for Kennedy to end up looking stupid for making such a drama out of what ended up being nothing, which of course, the Repukes ALREADY KNEW.

I feel kind of bad for Stein - he admits to Hewitt that he did not write clearly, and even ruefully says, “I don’t think anyone’s ever said ‘good column’ to me, and maybe for good reason.” A line which tells me the young man has enough chops to be self-deprecating. I don’t think he’s a terrible person. I think holds a position that is largely based on feelings and articulated those feelings and that position very badly.

JS: All the troops that are here to defend our country, I'm very, very grateful for. I'm grateful for the police...
HH: Provided they don't leave the country?
JS: Yeah, provided they don't fight in wars that I think are endangering them for no reason.
HH: And the moment they do, you stop honoring them?
JS: The moment I do, I think it's a poor idea to show support for them and prolong that engagement.

2002-05
State Department of Social Services receives 15 allegations of abuse or neglect, but only the last report is substantiated.

Sept. 11: Haleigh is taken to Noble Hospital in Westfield and is unresponsive and then is taken to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, where she is diagnosed with a severe traumatic brain injury.

Sept. 26: Jason Strickland files a motion asking to be declared a ''de facto" parent.

Oct. 5: A judge issues an order allowing Haleigh's breathing and feeding tubes to be removed.

It makes me want to vomit how flippant Death Doctors are with human life. I'm stunned by this comment:

"Some patients with severe brain stem injuries may partially recover from a persistent vegetative state, but they rarely recover fully enough to communicate, feed themselves and live ordinary lives, Dr. Steve Williams, chief of rehabilitation medicine at Boston Medical Center, told the Globe."

So, just because someone can't feed themselves or communicate they should be executed? WTF is wrong with these people? "Ordinary lives"? According to whose standards? Dr. Mengele's?

These folks at the MA Supreme Court need a serious ass-kicking.

Years ago a friend of ours was in a coma for 4 months. She was bad enough that she was given last rites and her siblings were given power to manage her affairs so they sold all her stuff.

A year ago she just came back from a tour in Iraq.

A funny thing about being on life support...certain meds are needed to keep a person calm while on a respirator...even the more stable folks may need an anxiolytic at times to keep the anxiety down. When they are on these meds, these meds can blunt and diminished conscious responsiveness and even respiratory drive.

So they take this girl off a ventilator and take away the sedatives and voila...the drugs wear off and she shows much more responsiveness. The fact that the doctors and SS don't want to remove the feeding tube indicates to me that the girl may have radically more improved than the pro-death newspaper would like to to indicate!

(and no I have not slept at a Holiday Inn express Hotel...but I've been an RN for 20 years and in the ICU for 6)

Scientists and researchers realize that one must, first of all, arrive at a correct diagnosis, which usually requires prolonged and careful observation in specialized centres, given also the high number of diagnostic errors reported in the literature. Moreover, not a few of these persons, with appropriate treatment and with specific rehabilitation programs, have been able to emerge from the vegetative state. On the contrary, many others unfortunately remain prisoners of their condition even for long stretches of time and without needing technological support. In particular, the term permanent vegetative state has been coined to indicate the condition of those patients whose "vegetative state" continues for over a year. Actually, there is not a different diagnosis that corresponds to such a definition, but only a conventional prognostic judgement, relative to the fact that, statistically speaking, the recovery of patients is ever more difficult as the condition of vegetative state is prolonged in time.

However, we must neither forget nor underestimate that there are well documented cases of at least partial recovery even after many years; we can thus state that medical science, up till now, is still unable to predict with certainty those among patients in this condition, who will recover and who will not.

3. Faced with patients in similar clinical conditions, there are some who cast doubt on the persistence of the "human quality" itself, almost as if the adjective "vegetative" (whose use is now solidly established), which symbolically describes a clinical state, could or should be instead applied to the sick as such, actually demeaning their value and personal dignity. In this sense, it must be noted that this term, even when confined to the clinical context, is certainly not the most felicitous when applied to human beings.

In opposition to such trends of thought, I feel the duty to reaffirm strongly that the intrinsic value and personal dignity of every human being does not change, no matter what the concrete circumstances of his or her life may be. A man, even if seriously ill or disabled in the exercise of his highest functions, is and always will be a man, and he will never become a "vegetable" or an "animal."

Even our brothers and sisters who find themselves in the clinical condition of a "vegetative state" retain their human dignity in all its fullness. The loving gaze of God the Father continues to fall upon them, acknowledging them as his sons and daughters, especially in need of help.

4. Medical doctors and health care personnel, society and the Church have toward these persons moral duties from which they cannot exempt themselves without lessening the demands both of professional ethics and human and Christian solidarity. The sick person in a 'vegetative state', awaiting recovery or a natural end, still has the right to basic health care (nutrition, hydration, cleanliness, warmth, etc), and to the prevention of complications related to his confinement to bed. He also has the right to appropriate rehabilitative care and to be monitored for clinical signs of eventual recovery.

I should like particularly, to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory, insofar as and until it is seen to have attained its proper finality, which in the present case consists in providing nourishment to the patient and alleviation of his suffering.
...
Moreover, to admit that decisions regarding man's life can be based on the external acknowledgment of its quality, is the same as acknowledging that increasing and decreasing levels of quality of life, and therefore of human dignity, can be attributed, from an external perspective, to any subject, thus introducing into social relations a discriminatory and eugenic principle.

Moreover, it is not possible to rule out a priori that the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration, as reported by authoritative studies, is the source of considerable suffering for the sick person, even if we can see only the reactions at the level of the autonomic nervous system or of gestures. Modern clinical neurophysiology and neuro-imaging techniques, in fact, seem to point to the lasting quality in these patients of elementary forms of communication and analysis of stimuli.

6. However, it is not enough to reaffirm the general principle according to which the value of a man's life cannot be made subordinate to any judgement of its quality expressed by other men; it is necessary to promote the taking of positive actions as a stand against pressures to withdraw hydration and nutrition as a way to put an end to the lives of these patients.

It is necessary, above all, to support those families who have had one of their loved ones struck down by this terrible clinical condition. They cannot be left alone with their heavy human, psychological and financial burden. Although the care for these patients is not, in general, particularly costly, society must allot sufficient resources for the care of this sort of frailty, by way of bringing about appropriate, concrete initiatives such as, for example, the creation of a network of awakening centres, with specialized treatment and rehabilitation programmes; financial support and home assistance for families, when patients are moved back home at the end of intensive rehabilitation programmes; the establishment of facilities which can accommodate those cases in which there is no family able to deal with the problem or to provide "breaks" for those families who are at risk of psychological and moral burn-out.

Proper care for these patients and their families should, moreover, include the presence and the witness of a medical doctor and an entire team, who are asked to help the family understand that they are there as allies who are in this struggle with them. The participation of volunteers represents a basic support to enable the family to break out of its isolation and to help it to realize that it is a precious and not a forsaken part of the social fabric.

Choices once unanimously considered criminal and rejected by the common moral sense are gradually becoming socially acceptable. Even certain sectors of the medical profession, which by its calling is directed to the defence and care of human life, are increasingly willing to carry out these acts against the person. In this way the very nature of the medical profession is distorted and contradicted, and the dignity of those who practise it is degraded. In such a cultural and legislative situation, the serious demographic, social and family problems which weigh upon many of the world's peoples and which require responsible and effective attention from national and international bodies, are left open to false and deceptive solutions, opposed to the truth and the good of persons and nations.

The end result of this is tragic: not only is the fact of the destruction of so many human lives still to be born or in their final stage extremely grave and disturbing, but no less grave and disturbing is the fact that conscience itself, darkened as it were by such widespread conditioning, is finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between good and evil in what concerns the basic value of human life.

She said:

Well, I have a right to my own opinion.

Whoa. Wow.

Then I realized that we weren't debating the same thing at all. I was making a technical case -- that George Bush, however awful and evil you think he is, simply cannot be called a dictator without rendering the term "dictator" completely meaningless. But she was arguing something different. It wasn't a political argument or a technical argument. It was the right to feel antipathy for someone and not have the grounds of that antipathy challenged.

Is this why ideologues so often call it "censorship" when you try to debate them? Are you threatening their right to feel secure in their beliefs? For them, has politics left the realm of the intellectual and the actual, and instead become a pure issue of emotion and identity?(emphasis mine)

Ask:
Which ruler has the Way, which general has the ability, which has gained Heaven and Ground,
which carried out Law and commands, which army is strong, which officers and soldiers are trained, which reward and punish clearly, by means of these, I know victory and defeat!

Generally, raising an army of a hundred thousand and advancing it a thousand li, the expenses to the people and the nation's resources are one thousand gold pieces a day.

Those in commotion internally and externally, those exhausted on the roads, and those unable to do their daily work are seven hundred thousand families.

Two sides remain in standoff for several years in order to do battle for a decisive victory on a single day.

Yet one refusing to outlay a hundred pieces of gold and thereby does not know the enemy's situation is the height of inhumanity.