BlogWood: Norwood's Fair and Balanced Nattering

Schiavo dies, despots fervently hope for martyr status

So, Terri’s dead, having passed right on schedule, though it sure seemed like a rather long death watch.

The extremist right wingers are not missing a beat, as CNN is reporting that Tom Delay released a statement threatening revenge on those who fought for Terri’s right to die, and his GOP cohorts are all over TV screaming about “activist” judges and the need for judicial reform.

"It is entirely possible that in her death Terri Schiavo will become a symbol for many people about a disturbing trend in American culture," said Gary Bauer, a prominent conservative activist. Predicting a "donnybrook" over the eventual Supreme Court nominee, he said the Schiavo case "will make more acute the feeling at the grass roots that too many of the most important decisions are being made by unelected judges."

Selfish men continue to make capital for themselves out of the cause of Terri Schiavo.

Florida legislators just can't keep their filthy laws off of your body

Time to start saving your rusty old coat hangers...

Parents would have to be told when their daughters under 18 seek an abortion under one of two abortion measures approved Wednesday by legislative committees.

The other would spell out an array of regulations for abortion clinics, from rules for sterilizing equipment and training employees to requirements for having certain rooms and equipment.

Sponsors of that bill said it is aimed at making abortion clinics safe, noting they are not regulated as thoroughly as other health care facilities. But opponents said the bill singles out abortion clinics for extra regulation as a way to make it difficult for them to operate.

Both measures gained easy approval. The parental notice bill (SB 1908) must be heard in one more committee before reaching the full Senate. The measure adding regulations for abortion clinics (HB 1041) is headed to the House floor.

The Legislature is widely expected to pass a parental notice law because it voted last year for a proposed constitutional amendment to make such a law possible - and voters approved the ballot measure in November.

A 1999 parental notice law never took effect because of challenges from groups who argued it violated the privacy rights of girls.

Unlike the U.S. Constitution, the Florida Constitution specifically recognizes the privacy right of people. Citing that provision, the Florida Supreme Court threw out the 1999 law in the summer of 2003. But the change approved in November cleared the way for requiring parental notice.

While the measure won approval in the Senate Health Care Committee 7-2, a number of groups said they oppose it.

"The bill proceeds under a false premise, that the government can mandate communication within a dysfunctional family," said Larry Spalding, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Some girls will not want their parents to know they're getting an abortion. "For many of these women, they're going to try self-help. Some will be critically injured for life; some will die," Spalding said.

The other measure, which would impose burdensome rules on abortion clinics, is part of an old trend to regulate clinics out of existence with no concern for the safety of patients.

Abortion is one of the safest gynecological procedures performed on women in the United States. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, less than 1 percent of all abortion patients experience a major complication associated with the procedure. The three main factors that affect the safety of an abortion are: 1) the gestational age of the fetus; 2) the type of procedure used; and 3) the skill of the doctor. Most abortion-related deaths and complications occur as a result of the use of anesthesia and are not related to the procedure itself. Unnecessary regulations, such as mandatory ultrasound, superfluous record-keeping, and square-footage requirements, do not enhance the safety of an abortion in any way.

Abortion is a very safe procedure, yet the bill being debated by the Florida legislature starts of by stating that

abortion is an invasive surgical procedure that can lead to numerous and serious medical complications, including, but not limited to, bleeding, hemorrhage, infection, uterine perforation, blood clots, cervical tears, incomplete abortion and retained tissue, failure to actually terminate the pregnancy, free fluid in the abdomen, missed ectopic pregnancies, cardiac arrest, sepsis, respiratory arrest, reactions to anesthesia, fertility problems, emotional problems, and even death...

The bill specifically calls for state agencies to impose rules that are a legally significant burden on a woman’s freedom to end her pregnancy, and only calls for the regulations to be not unconstitutional.

The proposed “Women’s Health and Safety Act” is a classic in many ways, from the imposition of unnecessary record keeping to expensive and unneeded air circulation systems, it seems to touch all the bases, including mandatory ultrasound.

Why mandatory ultrasound? Proposed federal regulations offer a clue:

More inventive is the "Informed Choice Act," introduced by Representative Cliff Stearns, Republican of Florida. It would allow the Department of Health and Human Services to give grants for ultrasound equipment to nonprofit community-based pregnancy help medical clinics. In exchange for receiving the grant, the clinic would have to show "the visual image of the fetus" to the pregnant woman and provide her with "information on abortion and alternatives to abortion such as childbirth and adoption and information concerning public and private agencies that will assist in those alternatives."

It’s all about harassment and pushing women to make ill advised emotional choices that are not in their best interest.

If Bush and Brownback and the anti-abortion movement have their way, it will be, even though the majority of Americans support choice.

But the views of the public are not dominating the debate in Washington and in statehouses around the country. The views of the anti-abortion zealots are.

Even as many pro-choice people have been worrying about the potential calamity that awaits in the Supreme Court, the anti-abortion forces have been busy gaining ground elsewhere. The Bush Administration has promoted anti-abortion policies both internationally and domestically. Congress has more fanatical members than ever, none more so than newly elected Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, who advocates the death penalty for doctors who provide abortions. And the action in the states is overwhelmingly hostile.

As a result, a woman in America today has far less freedom to have an abortion than a woman in America the day after Roe v. Wade was handed down in 1973. And for poor women, who are disproportionately of color, that freedom is hanging by a thread.

Despite the fact that abortion is legal and safe extremists have ensured that

• 87% of U.S. counties had no abortion provider in 2000. In nonmetropolitan areas, 97% of counties had no provider. As a result, many women must travel substantial distances to access the service. • About 1 in 4 women who have an abortion travel 50 miles or more for the procedure, a significant distance and a documented barrier to timely care (Henshaw and Finer, 2003). • The proportion of unserved counties has increased steadily since 1978. • The proportion of women in counties without a facility that provides even one abortion a year has also increased and reached 34% in 2000.

In Florida, long, costly trips, which lead to lost time at work, travel expenses, and other burdens, are the norm, making abortion a choice that many women lack the financial means to make.

The bills working their way through the Florida Legislature seek to erect ever increasing barriers to a woman’s right to elect to have a safe, common, and perfectly legal medical procedure.

Today's Terri tidbit

Steve Gilliard's News Blog

Reality left the room long, long ago. The idea that Terri Schiavo can speak is so bizarre as to be funny, if there weren't people charging the doors of the hospice. When does the gun nut who won't stick up a gun store, just walk in and buy weapons instead show up. I'm surprised that someone hasn't said Jesus told them to shoot the cops and rescue Terri, because things are just that crazy. You can't keep screaming murder and then expect everyone to go "oh well, she's gonna be murdered", like she was a nigger on death row. Someone is going to act. These sick fuckers are even calling in bomb threats.

And when they do, I hope someone tries to sue the Schindler's back in time. They did this, they created this circus, robbed their daughter of dignity, robbed the other dying of dignity, tortured the innocent, placed Michael Schiavo kids in mortal danger, and didn't thank anyone for anything. Hell, they sold the begging list to all comers. They allied with people who consort with terrorists. Remember Paul Hill? Walked right up to a doctor and shotgunned him to death. Guess who he ran with? Terry and Mahoney. In just a little digging, we found out one protestor was a convicted rapist and another was an admitted torturer and anti-muslim bigot. If you did a background check, you'd have more people who had been in the system than a Liberty City street corner.

Telecom giants fight broader broadband access

Some Florida cities are offering free or subsidized traditional and wireless broadband Internet access to their citizens. This is a good thing.

Yet bills backed by Gov. Bush would let cities and municipal-owned utilities provide wireless service, broadband over power lines or other technologies only if cable and telephone companies don't offer it first. Even if cable and telephone operators didn't offer a proposal, the cities could proceed only after doing a feasibility study and then asking residents to vote on the project at least once - twice if bonds would be used to finance it. That could take up to four years. The bills also would bar cities that are offering the service as of May 1 from adding customers.

Boynton Beach is in the middle of the fray.

The city of Boynton Beach is trying to get the downtown wireless Internet project it announced last month up and running before some lawmakers get in the way.

The Florida Legislature is considering three bills that would prohibit cities or municipal-owned utilities from offering broadband, wireless or the burgeoning technology of broadband over power lines, or BPL, without giving cable and telephone providers a crack at the job first.

The initiative, backed by Gov. Jeb Bush and the phone and cable companies, is already putting pressure on Doug Hutchinson, director of Boynton's Community Redevelopment Agency and organizer of the city's wireless plan.

"There's a lot of people throwing stones," Hutchinson said this week. "Quite frankly, we see this as something that's due to citizens, and that's why we're doing a pilot program."

Under the bills, if the phone or cable companies don't offer a proposal, the cities can go ahead with their own, but only after doing a feasibility study and asking residents to vote on the project at least once — twice if bonds would be used to finance it.

That would take anywhere from two to four years, one group says.

"No city would look at that process and say, 'Yeah! We're going to go down that road,' " said Barry Moline, executive director of the Florida Municipal Electric Association, which represents cities that own utilities.

The proposal also would bar cities that are offering the service as of May 1 from adding any more customers. Currently, 10 cities in Florida, including Tallahassee and Gainesville, have Internet services available for their residents.

Moline and Craig Conn, a lobbyist for the Florida League of Cities, say the bill handicaps smaller, rural cities and towns, as well as poorer sections of large cities, where the major telecommunications companies don't offer high-speed Internet service.

"If the communities were being adequately served in the first place, then there's no impetus by the government entities to go and do this," Conn said.
......

"No one was coming to Boynton and falling all over themselves to make presentations to do this for the community," he said. "As soon as we go out, everybody and their brother is telling us how we should do it, or that we shouldn't do it."

This fight is nothing new - big phone and cable companies are fighting nationwide to keep localities from offering services that their citizens are clamoring for.

Legislative efforts to rein in cities aren't unique to the Sunshine State. Similar bills have been introduced in nine other state legislatures this year. Last year, the battle played out in Pennsylvania, where Philadelphia announced its intentions to become a wireless city.

After a long and bitter fight, a state law was passed effectively banning city wi-fi systems without industry approval. But the ban isn't effective until 2006. By then, Philadelphia plans to have much of its system in place.

The appeal to cities is that wi-fi provides residents with a quality-of-life amenity, creates "digital equity" among those residents and makes cities more attractive to business, said Jim Baller, senior principal with Baller Herbst Law Group, which works with cities to set up wi-fi systems.

He bristles at the thought of telecommunications giants such as Verizon or Sprint pushing legislation to limit city-run wi-fi systems.

"Who the heck are these large incumbents to tell them they can't do that, and get legislators to pass laws to handcuff them," Baller said.

More good old fashioned American capitalism at work.

The prospects for this bill are murky. A call to your legislators could earn you a break on your Internet bill in the future.

Find your Florida Senators

Find your Florida Representatives

Good old fashioned American capitalism

For some reason, when I stumbled upon this ad a few days ago while googling around for something else Schiavo, I wasn’t surprised. I guess the fact that vultures are greedily dining on Terri’s still breathing corpse just seems like par for the circus.

New List! First time available!

Each of these donors responded to an email during February, 2005, from Terri Schindler-Schiavo's father on behalf of his daughter. These compassionate pro-lifers donated toward Bob Schindler's legal battle to keep Terri's estranged husband from removing the feeding tube from Terri.

These individuals are passionate about the way they value human life, adamantly oppose euthanasia, and are pro-life in every sense of the word!

The NYT has more.

The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups.

"These compassionate pro-lifers donated toward Bob Schindler's legal battle to keep Terri's estranged husband from removing the feeding tube from Terri," says a description of the list on the Web site of the firm, Response Unlimited, which is asking $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 4,000 e-mail addresses of people who responded last month to an e-mail plea from Ms. Schiavo's father. "These individuals are passionate about the way they value human life, adamantly oppose euthanasia and are pro-life in every sense of the word!"

Privacy experts said the sale of the list was legal and even predictable, if ghoulish.

"I think it's amusing," said Robert Gellman, a privacy and information policy consultant. "I think it's absolutely classic America. Everything is for sale in America, every type of personal information."

Everything is for sale, and every wingnut with a website has opened up a Schiavo store.

Jeb! wants special election to thwart voter mandate

Jeb! really wants to kill the class size amendment. In 2002, Florida voters decided to cap elementary through high school class sizes with a constitutional amendment after the legislature repeatedly failed to act.

What voters said they wanted

(Three) years ago, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment to reduce class sizes. By the 2010 school year, every classroom in the state will be limited to 18 students in kindergarten through third grade, 22 students in grades 4 through 8, and 25 students in high school. The plan is being phased in over eight years: Starting last year (2003), school districts had to reduce their district-wide class size average by two students, a standard most had little trouble meeting.

In 2006-07, it gets tougher. Compliance will be measured on a school-by-school average.

In 2008-09, the standard changes to an actual student count for every classroom rather than an average.

So, the system worked: when lawmakers did not respond to the needs of the people, citizens used the amendment process to override elected leaders and force change. But there’s a problem: Jeb! hates it when democracy works as designed.

His latest plan is to spend $18 million on a special election in September of this year just to redo the class size vote before the 2006 November general election. I guess he figures that the ultra low turnout in a single issue election will increase his odds, or, as his GOP cohort Jim King said,

voters may be confused because several other constitutional amendments are likely to appear on the ballot in 2006.

"How are going to decipher one from the other?" King asked. "How are you going to filter it?"

Why, citizens might even mistakenly vote against Jeb!’s cynical ploy to overturn their will.

Bush and his supporters say the state would save billions of dollars if voters agreed to relax standards for the popular class size constitutional amendment approved in 2002.

A bill in Bush's sweeping education package would approve a special election Sept. 6 asking voters to freeze the caps on class sizes to districtwide averages, the current standard.

State law requires tightening the standards to a schoolwide average by the 2006-07 school year. Critics have said Bush's less rigid proposal would allow districts to maintain overcrowded schools instead of being forced to lower class sizes at each school.

Bush has tied his proposal to a boost in teacher pay and would create a $35,000 starting salary requirement with the savings from not having to build schools or hire teachers needed for the stricter class size requirements.
......

The bill faces some major obstacles.

A three-fourths vote by both chambers is required to hold a special election. This would be difficult in the Senate, where the 30 votes needed would have to include at least four Democrats.
......

The looser standards could be a hard sell to voters, who passed the class size amendment by 52 percent. It would be especially unpopular in South Florida, where schools are the most crowded and starting teacher salaries are higher.
......

"Teachers, by and large, are very, very uncomfortable boosting their salaries on the backs of students who might need individual attention," said Kevin Watson, a lobbyist for the Florida Education Association.

He said representatives from the association were still discussing possible alternatives with Bush that would be more palatable to teachers.

One suggestion King and other members of the Senate's Education Committee are exploring would keep the stricter class size requirements just for students in kindergarten through third grade.

"If you have to go to the general public anyway, why not go with something that would preserve the K-3 requirements?" King said. "We can afford it. We can't afford K-12."

King said he is still researching the potential cost of his proposal.

No compromises. The mostly powerless Dems can actually stop this nonsense right in its, uh, tracks.

Call. Write. Encourage the growth and strengthening of spine amongst state Democrats. Ask them to follow Les Miller’s lead.

”After years of Democratic calls to increase teacher pay, we’re heartened to hear that the governor has finally recognized that Florida’s teachers lag the national salary average and deserve an increase. However, we’re dismayed that he has chosen the class size amendment as the piggy bank to raid for the effort.

“Since its inception, Governor Bush has promised every calamity, every funding loss, and every dire consequence should the class size amendment become law. But by more than 2 million votes, in 2002 the people of Florida rejected his scare tactics and passed a constitutional amendment requiring smaller class sizes.

“Now, the governor is dangling the prospects of higher teacher salaries as the latest incentive to once again thwart the will of the voters. This is unconscionable.

“It’s time the governor abandoned his ‘devious plans,’ and got to work upholding his constitutional obligations.”

And encourage Les Miller, lest he back off.

Capitol Office: Room 228 Senate Office Building 404 South Monroe Street Tallahassee, FL 32399-1100 (850) 487-5059 SunCom 277-5059 FAX (888) 263-7871

Statewide:
1-866-254-6892

District Office:
2109 Palm Avenue,
Suite 302
Tampa FL 33605
P.O. Box 5993
Tampa, FL 33675-5993
(813) 272-2831
SunCom 512-3700
FAX (813) 272-2833

Legislative Assistants: Randolph Kinsey, Wanda Beckham and Michael Kinsey
Email: miller.lesley.web@flsenate.gov

Sex and Schiavo

1,800 sex offenders missing

One month before a registered sexual offender allegedly kidnapped, raped and murdered 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, Florida law enforcement agencies had lost track of at least 1,800 other sexual offenders statewide, according to a review of Florida's Sexual Offender/Predator Registry.

Uh, here’s one, anyway...

As protests outside the hospice housing Terri Schiavo in her final days mounted last week, numerous newspaper reports, many based on an Associated Press account, mentioned or quoted 10-year-old Joshua Heldreth and/or his father, Scott Heldreth. Josh was one of several youngsters arrested for crossing police lines in Pinellas Park, Fla., in an effort to take water to Schiavo.

None of the stories revealed that Scott Heldreth, a religious activist and anti-abortion crusader, is a registered sex offender in Florida-- until The Charlotte Observer mentioned it on Sunday.

A widely published AP story on Sunday by Allen G. Breen had painted a warmer picture of the Heldreths, noting that it was young Josh who insisted that his father take him to the protests from their home in North Carolina, not the other way around. “God’s with me,” Josh said.

The article continued: “Scott Heldreth, a veteran of the Operation Rescue and Operation Save America campaigns against abortion, didn't intend to join this fight, until his son asked to be brought to Pinellas Park.”My wife and I, we felt like if God really put it on his heart, we should come down, to allow him to live out what God had put on his heart,” says Heldreth, a carpenter.”

The story said some of the children at the protest carried signs accusing Terry Schiavo’s husband of murdering her and urging that he be sent to jail.

The Charlotte Observer story, however, revealed that Heldreth had pleaded guilty to sexual battery, was in jail for parts of 1992 and 1993, according to court records, and served time on probation.

Just a father passing along some hard earned knowledge of his trade to his son. See, handcuffs and paddy wagons tend to make a certain type of Christian girl like totally hot and horny:

Josh Heldreth was charged with trespassing after he tried to deliver the water to Schiavo, who has gone without food or water since March 18, when her feeding tube was removed by court order.

He walked up to sheriff's deputies, carrying a plastic cup and ignored two requests to turn around. Deputies cuffed his hands behind his back and loaded him into a van with 14- year-old twin girls. At the courthouse, the three youngsters were photographed, fingerprinted and released.

``God's with me,'' Josh Heldreth said.

"Thank you, God!"

Science vs. fundamentalism

Schiavo's parents beg Gov. Bush for action

Terri Schiavo is still refusing to die, even as she approaches her eleventh day without food and water, a spokesman for her parents said Monday morning.

On Sunday night, she was visited by her father and a friend she used to go dancing with, when "something extraordinary happened," said Paul O'Donnell, a Franciscan Friar acting as a spiritual advisor to Bob and Mary Schindler.

"Terri Schiavo raised her hands up and was moving and started making guttural sounds like she does when she talks to her mother," O'Donnell said. "Everyone is willing to write this woman's obituary except one person, and that's Terri Schiavo herself."

Schiavo used to be a "vivacious dancer," O'Donnell said.

Orcinus

Science and fundamentalism are natural enemies, because they represent diametrically opposite models for understanding the world.

Fundamentalism begins with articles of faith, gleaned from Scripture, for which it then goes in search of evidence as support -- ignoring, along the way, all contravening evidence.

Science begins with the gathering of evidence and data, which are then assembled into an explanatory model through a combintation of hypothesis and further testing. This model must take into account all available facts, including contradictory evidence.

They are, in other words, 180 degrees removed from each other in how they affect our understanding of the world. One is based in logic, the other in faith. As methodologies go, they are simply irreconcilable.

American Taliban works to stop infidel professors

Right wing extremist David Horowitz has been making lots of noise lately about “academic freedom.” His definition of “freedom: includes the right to challenge one’s professors on such “controversial” subjects as evolution and the holocaust.

See, according to Horowitz, teaching a scientific theory that is universally accepted and backed by hundreds of years of research and millions of years of fossil records without also teaching the “there’s an invisible man in the sky and he’s really awesome and the world is only a few thousand years old and dinosaurs were man’s best friend before god invented dogs” version of events somehow infringes on the rights of students.

Which leads to this.

College students could demand their views be discussed in classrooms without fear of academic retribution, a controversial bill being considered by the Legislature provides.

Dubbed the ``academic freedom'' bill, House Bill 837 and its companion in the Senate, SB 2126, would develop a statewide ``bill of rights'' for faculty to follow in the interest of delivering a ``fair and balanced'' curriculum, according to sponsor Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala.

``I believe there are spots in the universities - I call them totalitarian niches - where, in the cover of the classroom dictator, professors are completely in charge of what is taught,'' Baxley said.

``If you disagree with their political view or world view, you will feel it in the grade book or in graduate referrals. ... It's the big pink elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about.''

The House bill sailed through the House Education and Innovation Committee on Tuesday, passing 6-2.

Under the bill, instructors teaching evolution also would have to teach creationism if a student requested it. A course on the Holocaust also would have to include a section on the belief held by some that there was never a Holocaust.

If that did not happen, students who sued the institution would have the support of a state law. The state Education Department warns of the fiscal effects in a bill analysis, stating Florida should be prepared to shell out at least $4.2 million a year to retain an attorney and pay anticipated legal costs if the bill passes.

Opponents say such a law flies in the face of free speech.

``It's silly, empirically inaccurate and unconstitutional in about 60 different ways,'' said Steven Gey, a law professor at Florida State University.

The proposal is a product of an ``Academic Bill of Rights'' written by David Horowitz, founder of the conservative think tank Students for Academic Freedom.

Nearly a dozen other state legislatures - including California's, Pennsylvania's and Georgia's - are considering various versions.

Horowitz says the legislation is necessary to beat back liberal-leaning faculty at colleges and universities.

``Too many professors indoctrinate students while university administrators are intimidated from enforcing their own guidelines,'' Horowitz wrote in an opinion piece in Thursday's USA Today.

``It is because of this that Legislatures are the last resort for providing a remedy and setting universities back on their intended course: educating our kids, not brainwashing them,'' he wrote.

Educators who oppose the legislation say that not only would it set standards for the state's university system that could threaten schools' academic accreditation, but it also would cost millions in lawsuits.

``This will immediately draw a lawsuit where it's already a foregone conclusion that the state will lose and have to pay millions in the ACLU's [American Civil Liberties Union], or whoever takes this case, attorneys' fees,'' Gey said.

Gey and other educators said the matter harkened back to the McCarthy era, when professors and other faculty were forced to sign loyalty oaths.

``We've been here before, and for 50 years the Supreme Court has told legislatures they can't do this,'' Gey said.

More here.

The bill sets a statewide standard that students cannot be punished for professing beliefs with which their professors disagree. Professors would also be advised to teach alternative “serious academic theories” that may disagree with their personal views.

According to a legislative staff analysis of the bill, the law would give students who think their beliefs are not being respected legal standing to sue professors and universities.

Students who believe their professor is singling them out for “public ridicule” - for instance, when professors use the Socratic method to force students to explain their theories in class - would also be given the right to sue.

“Some professors say, ‘Evolution is a fact. I don’t want to hear about Intelligent Design (a creationist theory), and if you don’t like it, there’s the door,’” Baxley said, citing one example when he thought a student should sue.

Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, warned of lawsuits from students enrolled in Holocaust history courses who believe the Holocaust never happened.

Similar suits could be filed by students who don’t believe astronauts landed on the moon, who believe teaching birth control is a sin or even by Shands medical students who refuse to perform blood transfusions and believe prayer is the only way to heal the body, Gelber added.

“This is a horrible step,” he said. “Universities will have to hire lawyers so our curricula can be decided by judges in courtrooms. Professors might have to pay court costs - even if they win - from their own pockets. This is not an innocent piece of legislation.”

The staff analysis also warned the bill may shift responsibility for determining whether a student’s freedom has been infringed from the faculty to the courts.

But Baxley brushed off Gelber’s concerns. “Freedom is a dangerous thing, and you might be exposed to things you don’t want to hear,” he said. “Being a businessman, I found out you can be sued for anything. Besides, if students are being persecuted and ridiculed for their beliefs, I think they should be given standing to sue.”

During the committee hearing, Baxley cast opposition to his bill as “leftists” struggling against “mainstream society.”

“The critics ridicule me for daring to stand up for students and faculty,” he said, adding that he was called a McCarthyist.

Baxley later said he had a list of students who were discriminated against by professors, but refused to reveal names because he felt they would be persecuted.

Make no mistake: this bill is part of a much larger national push to force a particular Christian sect’s beliefs into the mainstream.

Young-Earth Creationism (YEC) is the position that most of the politically active "creationists" hold. Young-Earth Creationists demand a literal reading of Genesis. They insist that Earth is less than ten thousand years old; that it and all life were created in just six twenty-four-hour days; and that the entire fossil record is a result of Noah's Flood. They claim to have "scientific evidence" for this, but in fact their "evidence" consists partly of mistakes, partly of misinterpretations, partly of old stories now known to be wrong, and partly of outright lies. YECs routinely lie about the scientific evidence, both that for evolution and that against YECism, and don't even see anything wrong with their blatant dishonesty.

I used to think that young-Earth creationism was the most dangerous form of creationism. Unfortunately, in the last couple of years an even more dangerous form has appeared: the so-called Intelligent Design (ID) type of creationism. ID is dangerous not because it has any real facts on its side -- it doesn't -- but because its advocates have learned how to use rhetoric far more effectively than earlier creationist movements did. ID creationism cloaks itself in reasonable-sounding claims of "weaknesses" in evolutionary theory, and asks why students should be denied the chance to learn the evidence against evolutionary theory. When explained by one of its adherents, ID sounds like a variant on theistic evolution. But it isn't. In fact, "Intelligent Design theory" is just a trick: the latest in a series of disguises used by religious fundamentalists to conceal the same old anti-evolution, anti-science agenda that has driven them for over a hundred years. The "evidence against evolution" that IDers claim is simply recycled young-earthist nonsense. Their true goal is to defeat modern, naturalistic science and put religion (their religion, of course) into a dominant role in public schools and public life.

More:

People For the American Way - Evolution and Creationism in Public Education

Anti-evolution teachings gain foothold in U.S. schools / Evangelicals see flaws in Darwinism

Wired 12.10: The Crusade Against Evolution

Local cops thwart FDLE kidnapping plan

More details are emerging about the almost showdown between FDLE and local police in the Schiavo case. First discussed here and here, Jeb! was attempting to use FDLE agents to seize Terri Schiavo from her hospice bed and have her feeding tube reinserted.

Hours after a judge ordered that Terri Schiavo was not to be removed from her hospice, a team of state agents were en route to seize her and have her feeding tube reinserted -- but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge's order, The Herald has learned.

Agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told police in Pinellas Park, the small town where Schiavo lies at Hospice Woodside, on Thursday that they were on the way to take her to a hospital to resume her feeding.

For a brief period, local police, who have officers at the hospice to keep protesters out, prepared for what sources called ``a showdown.''

In the end, the squad from the FDLE and the Department of Children & Families backed down, apparently concerned about confronting local police outside the hospice.

''We told them that unless they had the judge with them when they came, they were not going to get in,'' said a source with the local police.

''The FDLE called to say they were en route to the scene,'' said an official with the city police who requested anonymity. ``When the sheriff's department and our department told them they could not enforce their order, they backed off.''

The incident,known only to a few and related to The Herald by three different sources involved in Thursday's events, underscores the intense emotion and murky legal terrain that the Schiavo case has created. It also shows that agencies answering directly to Gov. Jeb Bush had planned to use a wrinkle in Florida law that would have allowed them to legally get around the judge's order. The exception in the law allows public agencies to freeze a judge's order whenever an agency appeals it.

CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

Participants in the high-stakes test of wills, who spoke with The Herald on the condition of anonymity, said they believed the standoff could ultimately have led to a constitutional crisis and a confrontation between dueling lawmen.

''There were two sets of law enforcement officers facing off, waiting for the other to blink,'' said one official with knowledge of Thursday morning's activities.

In jest, one official said local police discussed ``whether we had enough officers to hold off the National Guard.''

''It was kind of a showdown on the part of the locals and the state police,'' the official said. ``It it was not too long after that Jeb Bush was on TV saying that, evidently, he doesn't have as much authority as people think.''

Killing for the culture of life

It’s starting.

The American Taliban have increasingly been advocating and threatening violence over Terri Schiavo’s imminent demise.

This came out today.

A man was arrested after trying to steal a weapon from a gun shop so he could "take some action and rescue Terri Schiavo," authorities said.

Michael W. Mitchell, of Rockford, Ill., entered Randall's Firearms Inc. in Seminole just before 6 p.m. Thursday with a box cutter and tried to steal a gun, said Marianne Pasha, a spokeswoman for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.

Mitchell, 50, told deputies he wanted to "take some action and rescue Terri Schiavo" after he visited the Pinellas Park hospice where she lives, Pasha said.

It’s actually quite amazing that more serious attempts have not come to light, but that could be explained by the fact that everyone is so busy fleecing the flock that they simply don’t have the time to kill any judges today.

Do it for the children

So, someone keeps calling the Florida Department of Children and Families “Abuse Hotline” to report that Terri Schiavo is being mistreated. It seems awfully convenient that this keeps happening every time that Jeb! wants an excuse to intervene again, but that’s beside the point.

I’m wondering why no one has called 1-800-96ABUSE and reported that the Keys children are being mistreated by their parents.

About a dozen people, including some children, submitted to arrest after making the symbolic gesture of carrying water toward the hospice.

'Jesus said, `Whatever you do to the least of men, you do for me,' '' said Josie Keys, 14. ``I'm a little nervous, but I think this is what God wants me to do.''

Also arrested were her brothers Cameron, 12, and Gabriel, 10.

10 years old, and daddy thinks it’s just fine to instruct the kid to practice civil disobedience in order to be arrested?

For those who missed it, that number’s 1-800-96ABUSE, and the DCF is required by statute to investigate any and all credible claims.

More info:

The Florida Abuse Hotline will accept a report when:

1. There is reasonable cause to suspect that a child (less than 18 years old)
2. who can be located in Florida, or is temporarily out of the state but expected to return in the immediate future,
3. has been harmed or is believed to be threatened with harm
4. from a person responsible for the care of the child.

I would think that most reasonable people would tend to agree that making an informed decision to have a 10 year old and his siblings arrested is abuse.

Call 1-800-96ABUSE and ask the DCF to investigate the Chris Keys family of Burnet, Texas, visiting Pinnellas Park, Florida, for parental child abuse for causing their children to be arrested and processed for criminal behavior.

Protect the children, and piss off the base.

Benito Bush

Via Lambert at corrente, a Washington Post article with some revealing details on the use of strong-arm tactics that I speculated about on Wednesday.

Law enforcement officers and an attorney for Morton Plant Hospital, where Schiavo's tube was to be reinserted, told Felos and his legal team that the governor's office had notified them that agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement were preparing to take custody of Schiavo and drive her to the hospital. Those phone calls prompted Felos to ask Greer to issue the order that was handed down late Wednesday afternoon blocking the state from taking custody and authorizing "each and every" sheriff's deputy in the state to stop any attempt to remove Schiavo from the hospice.

Can the made for TV movie with "Everybody Loves Raymond" co-star Patricia Heaton playing Terri and Mel Gibson as a tough but tender FDLE agent be far behind?

(From that same WaPo article)

A parade of supportive celebrities have phoned the Schindlers, Tammaro said. His sister or her husband have spoken with Mel Gibson, Pat Boone and "Everybody Loves Raymond" co-star Patricia Heaton.

All kidding aside, we were very close to a wingnut wet dream - an armed showdown between state and county law enforcement. More from a Thursday story in The Miami Herald.

Late Wednesday, Greer issued a temporary injunction prohibiting such an act, and he reinforced that order today, taking a sideswipe at the governor.

''The Court ruled that the executive and judicial branches of government are separate but equal and that the executive branch is not superior in the area of judicial matters,'' Greer wrote.
......

Late in the day (Wednesday), Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer issued the emergency injunction, saying it appeared state action was ``imminent.''

''DCF is hereby restrained from taking possession of Theresa Marie Schiavo or removing her from Hospice Woodside facility, administering nutrition or hydration artificially or otherwise interfering with this court's final judgement,'' Greer said.

The Blackshirts were organized by Benito Mussolini due to his disgust with the corruption and apathy of the liberal and later socialist Italian government. Originally envisioned as reformers, their methods became harsher as Mussolini's power grew, and they used violence, intimidation, and murder against Mussolini's opponents. One of their distinctive techniques was force-feeding......

More FDLE here.

And, in the spirit of fascist minded thugs everywhere, expect to see some attempts at violent revenge against judges, media, politicians, and maybe you and I starting any time now.

Jeb! touts Miracle Cure Prayer Rug for Schiavo

Continuing to prey on Terri Schiavo, Jeb! got together with a doctor and just made some shit up about her yesterday. Remember: the important parts of her brain are gone, replaced by spinal fluid, and, unlike lizard tails, brains don’t just grow back. The SP Times has the text of Jeb’s speechifying.

"This afternoon, the Department of Children and Families has filed a renewed motion to intervene in Terry Schiavo's guardianship case. As you know, about three weeks ago, there was a call to the hotline and an investigation began at that time, and new information has come to light after a review of Terri Schiavo's medical records by members of the Adult Protective Services Team, which includes a very renowned neurologist by the name of Dr. William Cheshire, who is a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville.

"The neurologist's review indicates that Terri may have been misdiagnosed, and it is more likely that she is in a state of minimal consciousness rather than in a persistent vegetative state.

Dr. WIlliam Cheshire is a special doctor - he don’t cotton to all that modern and scientific medical junk, because medical science is simply not as awesome as God.

The doctor who believes Terri Schiavo probably is not in a persistent vegetative state is a Jacksonville neurologist who recently caused a stir in the science community over his opposition to stem cell research.

Dr. William P. Cheshire Jr., 44, picked by the state to help assess Schiavo's condition, is an assistant professor of neurology at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville.

A married father of four children, Cheshire has a master's degree in bioethics and has established himself as an antiabortion, Christian critic of modern medical science.

Will someone please nominate Dr. Cheshire for a Nobel Prize - he’s feelin’ just a little left out.

"Although Terri did not demonstrate during our 90-minute visit compelling evidence of verbalization, conscious awareness or volitional behavior," he wrote, "yet the visitor has the distinct sense of the presence of a living human being who seems at some level to be aware of some things around her."

Mr. Bush called Dr. Cheshire a "renowned neurologist," but he is not widely known in the neurology or bioethics fields. Asked about him, Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, replied, "Who?"

Dr. Cheshire, who graduated from Princeton and earned a medical degree at West Virginia University, did not return calls to the Mayo Clinic seeking comment. The clinic said in a statement that his work on the Schiavo case was not related to his work at the clinic and that the state had invited his opinion. "He observed the patient at her bedside and conducted an extensive review of her medical history but did not conduct an examination," the statement said.

Dr. Caplan said that was not good enough. "There is just no excuse for going in and making any pronouncement about the state that Terri Schiavo is in unless you're going to go in and do some form of technologically mediated scanning that would overturn what's on the record already," he said.

Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist and medical ethicist at the University of Minnesota Medical School who has examined Ms. Schiavo on behalf of the Florida courts and declared her to be irredeemably brain-damaged, said, "I have no idea who this Cheshire is," and added: "He has to be bogus, a pro-life fanatic. You'll not find any credible neurologist or neurosurgeon to get involved at this point and say she's not vegetative."

He said there was no doubt that Ms. Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state. "Her CAT scan shows massive shrinkage of the brain," he said. "Her EEG is flat - flat. There's no electrical activity coming from her brain."

Related: The Amazing Miracle Prayer Rug

Daddy Jeb!

Let’s not forget that Jeb! has a history of cynically using powerless women who are caught up in the grip of personal tragedy in order to advance his extremist agenda.

Jeb does his part to strip women of rights

MJ Melone Gets it

Jeb!: Loving father, doting husband, family values.

Jeb! calls in DCF goons to snatch Schiavo

UPDATE: DCF attempt blocked by Judge Greer. (end of update)

The Florida Senate was unable to pass the “Terri’s Law II” bill today. As mentioned earlier, Republicans are unable to come to a consensus on this issue, and it appears that many of the original “Republican 9" stood firm in their opposition.

So the Senate has told Jeb! that enough is enough, but Jeb! aint done yet: once again, he is bringing in the Florida Department of Children and Families to do an end run around the courts.

DCF has a hotline which anyone can use to make abuse allegations. Once the allegations are received, DCF must act on them. DCF claims to have received “new” allegations of abuse in the Schiavo case, and is using this as an excuse to seize Terri Schaivo and transport her to a hospital.

The soap opera has not completely played out yet, but Michael Schiavo’s attorney has filed a request with the court to block any action by DCF. It’s unclear what will happen if US Marshalls show up in order to prevent DCF and Florida Department of Law Enforcement goons from snatching Terri Schiavo from her death bed, but a showdown could be imminent.

DCF considers removing Schiavo from hospice by force

State officials say they are considering removing Terri Schiavo from the hospice, by force if necessary, despite numerous court orders upholding the removal of the artificial nutrition tube that has kept her alive for 15 years.

Lucy Hadi, secretary of the Department of Children and Families, said Wednesday morning that her staff is relying on a state law that gives the department the authority to intervene on behalf of a vulnerable adult who is "suffering from abuse or neglect that presents a risk of death or serious physical injury."

Hadi said that DCF would have to file a petition in order to remove Schiavo, but "it doesn't mean that we'd have to have judicial approval in advance of taking the action if we believed it met the threshold for doing it."

But elder law and guardianship experts say such DCF is misinterpreting the law.

"My belief is that this would be a misuse of the statute," said Scott Solkoff, a Boynton Beach attorney and chairman of the elder law division of the Florida Bar. "What the state is doing is they're using yet another legal strategy that may or may not have grounds to attack what they believe to be a mistake from the judicial branch."

Solkoff said he was unsure if such an intervention would hold up in court. Under the law, the department must petition the court for an order authorizing emergency protective services for the adult within 24 hours of removing the adult, and a hearing must be held within four days of any intervention.

"Going under Chapter 415 is no different than the Congress subpoenaing Terri Schiavo. It's a silly maneuver designed to accomplish a political purpose."

The law says emergency medical treatment can be given to the vulnerable adult as long as "such treatment does not violate a known health care advance directive prepared by the vulnerable adult."

Schiavo did not have such a ruling, and Hadi said seven years of court rulings backing Schiavo's husband, Michael, in his contention that she did not wish to be kept alive artificially would not stop DCF from taking action.

"We're not compelled to look at prior judicial proceedings," Hadi said. "What we're compelled to look at is the presenting circumstance and any allegation of abuse and neglect that we've received. So we have to deal with those and fulfill our statutory responsibility, notwithstanding anything else that may have gone on before."

Florida Senate rejects bill to keep Terri Schiavo alive

Shortly after the state Senate defeated a bill aimed at keeping Terri Schiavo alive, a state judge issued an emergency order to keep the Department of Children & Families from taking any action that would reconnect the woman's feeding tube.

George Felos, the attorney for Michael Schiavo, asked Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer to issue the order Wednesday while the judge considers a request from DCF and Gov. Bush to take custody of Terri Schiavo.

The request from DCF and the governor cited new allegations of neglect and challenges Schiavo's diagnosis as being in a persistent vegetative state, based on the opinion of a neurologist working for the state.

Obviously, these new claims of abuse are about as valid as the Nobel nomination of the great quack Dr. William Hammesfahr - he was nominated for a non-existent “Nobel Peace Prize in Medicine” by a person who is not eligible to nominate anyone. Kinda like you nominating me for the “Nobel Peace Prize in Blogging” so that I could put my “Nobel Nomination” on my resume.

Look out! He’s coming right for us!

Get the kids their guns and beer. It’s soon gonna be open season in Florida.

Florida could wind up back in the Wild West, with people shooting first and asking questions later under a proposal that could pass the Senate today, critics of the bill warned.

Backed by the National Rifle Association, the proposed bill also would have let Jay Levin, the suburban Boca Raton accountant who shot and killed a teenager playing a door-knocking prank, walk away without being prosecuted.

Under the proposal, people aren't required to retreat — back down or run away — if they are in fear that a person would attack or commit a forcible felony on them in any place a person "has the right to be." Potential victims can "meet force with force," even if it results in death, and not face criminal charges or civil lawsuits.

Supporters of the legislation speak mainly about what they call the Castle Doctrine aspect of the bill — the right to protect one's home with deadly force. Similar laws letting people use deadly force if people break into their home are on the books in other states, including Oklahoma and Colorado, where it's dubbed the "Make My Day" law.

But critics in Florida point out that the proposal also extends the right to shoot in self-defense beyond a person's front door — onto the porch, into their vehicle, and out on the street.

If approved, the legislation could have a drastic effect on how crimes claimed to have been committed in self-defense, or in defense of others, are handled. There would be no arrests, no jail and no charges, according to the bill.
......

Sen. Steve Geller, D-Hallandale Beach, pointed out on the Senate floor Tuesday that the bill goes well beyond protecting a person in his home.

"We never said... that the street is your castle," he said in suggesting that the Senate scrap the part of the bill that would not require people to avoid confrontations.

"I don't think you ought to be able to kill people that are walking toward you on the street because of this subjective belief that you're worried that they may get in a fight with you," Geller said.

Sen. Durrell Peaden, R-Crestview, the bill's main sponsor and drafter, said: "I appreciate your legalese and I appreciate your expertise, but this goes to the heart of the bill: You should not have to retreat in order to save your life."

Geller's attempt was defeated by a voice vote.

Republicans eating their own

Latest news: Appeals court backs tube removal

Nine GOP Senators who voted against the a state law designed to interfere with Terri Schiavo’s stated wish to die are facing a backlash from their base.

Security has increased at the Capitol to deal with protesters.

"I had a bunch of them in my office last week and they were very loud and wouldn't leave," said Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, who wrote the state's death with dignity law and leads the bloc of Republican senators who don't want it changed.

King has had a Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent posted outside his door since the Senate vote on the Schiavo matter.

An FDLE employee using his state e-mail account sent a message to legislators urging them to keep Schiavo alive. Scott Granger later said he regretted using his state computer to do it. FDLE is looking into the matter, according to a spokesman.

The protests appear to have backfired, strengthening the resolve of the so-called Republican Nine. Few senators appear to be wavering, according to Republican and Democratic leaders.
......
Besides King, the Republican 9 are Sens. Dennis Jones of Treasure Island; Nancy Argenziano of Dunnellon; JD Alexander of Frostproof; Michael Bennett of Bradenton; Lisa Carlton of Sarasota; Paula Dockery of Lakeland; Evelyn Lynn of Ormond Beach, and Burt Saunders of Naples.

After lunch, Alexander stepped away from a committee table momentarily only to be surrounded by a trio of people, including a man identifying himself as Dr. William Hammesfahr, a Clearwater neurologist who examined Schiavo for her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, and testified that Schiavo tried to follow simple commands and that her eyes fixed on her family. A judge called him "a self-promoter" in a court order.

Alexander told the group he had read some of the court documents.

"But they're full of misinformation," Hammesfahr said. "I've got the videotape. Can I show it to you?"

Alexander shook his head and said he wasn't interested. As he pushed his way into a senators-only side room, Hammesfahr tried to follow. "You can't come in here," Alexander said.
......

For days, Argenziano's voice mailbox has been clogged with angry messages.

"One person told me they hoped I died from cancer, another said my family members should rot in hell," Argenziano said. "They are the most awful, venomous, un-Christian things you have ever heard."

But Argenziano said she won't change her position and had harsh words for Gov. Jeb Bush, whom she accused of inciting ill will against the Republican Nine.

"I feel like my political party has been hijacked," Argenziano said.

The NYT has more (via Eschaton)

"My party is demonstrating that they are for states' rights unless they don't like what states are doing," said Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of five House Republicans who voted against the bill. "This couldn't be a more classic case of a state responsibility."

"This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy," Mr. Shays said. "There are going to be repercussions from this vote. There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them."

I admire these politicians for taking a strong stand against loud, rude and bullying opposition, but really, what did they expect when they climbed in bed with the religious right? As Molly Ivans would point out, you gotta dance with them what brung you, and The American Taliban, the Talibornagain, will not be satisfied until the constitution is in tatters, replaced by a theocracy in which religious law trumps all.

The Muslim fundamentalists use a provision of Islamic law called "bringing to account" (hisba). As Al-Ahram weekly notes, "Hisba signifies a case filed by an individual on behalf of society when the plaintiff feels that great harm has been done to religion." Hisba is a medieval idea that had all be lapsed when the fundamentalists brought it back in the 1970s and 1980s.

In this practice, any individual can use the courts to intervene in the private lives of others. Among the more famous cases of such interference is that of Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid in Egypt. A respected modern scholar of Koranic studies, Abu Zaid argued that, contrary to medieval interpretations of Islamic law, women and men should receive equal inheritance shares. (Medieval Islamic law granted women only half the inheritance shares of their brothers). Abu Zaid was accused of sacrilege. Then the allegation of sacrilege was used as a basis on which the fundamentalists sought to have the courts forcibly divorce him from his wife.

Abu Zaid's wife loved her husband. She did not want to be divorced. But the fundamentalists went before the court and said, she is a Muslim, and he is an infidel, and no Muslim woman may be married to an infidel. They represented their efforts as being on behalf of the Islamic religion, which had an interest in seeing to it that heretics like Abu Zaid could not remain married to a Muslim woman. In 1995 the hisba court actually found against them. They fled to Europe, and ultimately settled in Holland.
......

One of the most objectionable features of this fundamentalist tactic is that persons without standing can interfere in private affairs. Perfect strangers can file a case about your marriage, because they represent themselves as defending a public interest (the upholding of religion and morality).

Terri Schiavo's husband is her legal guardian. Her parents have not succeeded in challenging this status of his. As long as he is the guardian, the decision on removing the feeding tubes is between him and their physicians. Her parents have not succeeded in having this responsibility moved from him to them. Even under legislation George W. Bush signed in 1999 while governor of Texas, the spouse and the physician can make this decision.
......

But the most frightening thing about the entire affair is that public figures like congressmen inserted themselves into the case in order to uphold religious strictures.
......

In other words, the United States Congress acted in part on behalf of the Roman Catholic church. Both of these public bodies interfered in the private affairs of the Schiavos, just as the fundamentalist Egyptian, Nabih El-Wahsh, tried to interfere in the marriage of Nawal El Saadawi.
......

Republican Hisba will have the same effect in the United States that it does in the Middle East. It will reduce the rights of the individual in favor of the rights of religious and political elites to control individuals. Ayatollah Delay isn't different from his counterparts in Iran.

More on the Terri Schiavo circus.

Appeals court backs tube removal

Appeals Court Refuses to Order Schiavo's Feeding Reinstated

A federal appeals court refused early Wednesday to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, denying an emergency request by the severely brain-damaged woman's parents to keep her alive.

In its 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals said the woman's parents ``failed to demonstrate a substantial case on the merits of any of their claims.''

``There is no denying the absolute tragedy that has befallen Mrs. Schiavo,'' the ruling read. ``We all have our own family, our own loved ones, and our own children. However, we are called upon to make a collective, objective decision concerning a question of law.''

Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, vowed another appeal Wednesday.

``The Schindlers will be filing an appropriate appeal to save their daughter's life,'' said Rex Sparklin, an attorney with the law firm representing the parents.

The Schindlers said Tuesday that their daughter was ``fading quickly'' and might die at any moment. The feeding tube was disconnected on Friday, and doctors have said that Terri Schiavo, 41, could survive one to two weeks without water and nutrients.

A man who answered Bob Schindler's cellular phone declined comment Wednesday.

The Schindlers have been locked for years in a battle with Schiavo's husband over whether her feeding tube should be disconnected. State courts have sided with Michael Schiavo, who insists his wife told him she would never want to be kept alive artificially.

The decision came less than 24 hours after U.S. District Judge James Whittemore of Tampa rejected the parents' request to have the tube reinserted, saying they had not established a ``substantial likelihood of success'' if a new trial were held on their claim that Terri's religious and due process rights have been violated.

Even before the parents' appeal was filed with the 11th Circuit, Michael Schiavo urged the court not to grant an emergency request to restore nutrition.

``That would be a horrific intrusion upon Mrs. Schiavo's personal liberty,'' said the filing by his attorney, George Felos. He filed a response to the Schindlers' appeal and said he would go to the U.S. Supreme Court if the tube were ordered reconnected.

Demonstrators who gathered outside Terri Schiavo's hospice decried the decision early Wednesday.

``This is a clear cut case of judicial tyranny. All the judges who have ruled against Terri are tyrants, and we fully expected this decision,'' said Tammy Melton, 37, a high school teacher from Monterey, Tenn.

Hmmm...

I wonder if judges throughout the country realize that they must now be whores for the right wing or they will be slandered for being unpardonably biased any time they rule against the interests of radical Republicans? Do they know that any judgment that differs from Randall Terry's or Tom DeLay's is no longer attributable to a difference in legal opinion but is instead considered a reflection of their dishonesty and corruption? Perhaps many of them don't mind being a rubber stamp for Grover Norquist and Jerry Falwell. It certainly makes the job easier.

Federal Judge rules for Terri

Update: I mispoke when I said “activist judges” - what I meant was ”Judicial Tyranny.” It’s okay - I’ve fixed it. (end of update)

The tube stays out, at least for now.

Judge James D. Whittemore of Federal District Court said Ms. Schiavo's case had been "exhaustively litigated" and that the 41-year-old woman's parents had not established a "substantial likelihood of success" at trial on the merits of their arguments.

Calls for Whittemore’s impeachment amid cries of “activist judges” ”Judicial Tyranny.” are sure to follow, because the right wing nutcases feel that any decision with which they disagree is criminal.

As the parents, financially backed and egged on by the religious right, appeal, an inconsistency is noted.

Though the families of many vegetative patients - male and female - have faced life-or-death decisions over the years, the plights of injured young women are more likely to engage the public and attract right-to-life advocates, says Steven Miles, a professor for the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota.

Quinlan, Cruzan, Schiavo: Right-to-lifers fight to “save” young white women, even against the wishes of their families and the women themselves - Florida courts have repeatedly found that Terri Schiavo would not have wanted to be kept alive in a vegetative state.

Yet there is no outrage, no call to picket or to impeach judges involved in the death of Baby Sun, who was allowed to die despite the objections of his mother. Using a Texas law signed by then governor George Bush, a law designed to save hospitals money, a law that protects the profits of corporations over the rights of families, Baby Sun’s hospital fought for and won the right to remove his life support.

It’s costing us money

Based on the words and actions of these religious zealots of the American Taliban, one must conclude that it’s okay to let brown people die, especially if they’re poor or from another country, because God only really cares about the white folks.

Doesn’t matter if they live or die

Jeb!Co marches on (NOT another post on Terri Schiavo!)

In Tallahassee, legislative life goes on, with Republicans working to put the rights of the people into a permanent vegetative state.

A package of proposals that would make it harder for voters to change the Florida Constitution easily cleared its first Senate panel Tuesday - but without a key measure that is advancing in the House.

For the second year in a row, state lawmakers have made it a top priority to tighten the requirements for citizen initiatives. Many of the key proposals would need voter approval in November 2006 to take effect.

The Senate Ethics and Elections Committee unanimously approved raising the amount of votes needed to amend the constitution and limiting the subjects that petition drives can address.

Most of the legislation is identical to the House plan, but the House also has a measure that would require approval in 60 percent of the state's congressional districts. The Senate does not have that proposal.

"That's an ongoing discussion," said Sen. Jim King, one of primary advocates for the changes.

Both chambers want to raise the vote threshold needed to change the state constitution to 60 percent, up from 50 percent plus one. That change would apply to all proposed constitutional amendments whether they reached the ballot by petition drive or by legislative action.

The two chambers also want a 66 percent threshold for citizen initiatives that would cost money to implement - and the trigger would be measures that cost one-tenth of 1 percent of the state budget.
......

Both chambers also want to limit the subjects that could be addressed through petition drives to issues that affect fundamental rights, the basic structure of government and existing provisions.
......

Supporters of the status quo, like the League of Women Voters and Common Cause Florida, say it's essential for voters to have some way to make their voices heard when their elected representatives refuse to act.

So, virtually any proposal that cost something, which can be construed to mean any proposal whatsoever, would require a two thirds majority to pass. Jeb! has always hated citizen initiatives - he killed the bullet train, he’s working on killing the class size caps, he’s under funding Pre-K, and doing his best to weaken the minimum wage law. If Jeb! and his cronies get their way, there may well never be another meaningful proposal brought forth and voted into law by the people of Florida.

Meanwhile, the prognosis for Florida’s once strong open records laws is bleak. This year,GOP thugs are citing identity theft as the reason to contribute to the Sunshine Law’s death of a thousand cuts.

Posey's bill (SB 2178) would keep confidential much of the information that can be found on someone's application for an absentee ballot, including their social security number.

But advocates for open government are worried about the bill, because it doesn't just keep that information out of the public eye.

The measure also would keep secret information such as the date the absentee ballot was requested, when it was mailed, when it was received by the supervisor and, most concerning to open records advocates, "any other information the supervisor deems necessary regarding the request."

The bill does specify some who could still have access: other election officials, political parties, candidates, and political fund-raising committees. But the general public wouldn't have access and that could prevent, among other things, research about voters.

"A lot of that information (could be) really important in tracking down problems in the election," said Barbara Petersen, the president of the First Amendment Foundation, an open government watchdog group in Tallahassee. "It's a little unconstitutional, and I don't think it's in the public's best interest given the problems we've had with absentee ballots."

Rep. Fred Brummer, one of the Legislature's most vocal advocates of open government, said lawmakers too often use issues like identity theft to try to close records.

"There's no question that identity theft has changed the way records should be kept, but government records are not the source of information that permit identity theft. That's the last place that people will look for that information," said Brummer, R-Apopka.

If a colleague mentions identity theft when proposing a public records exemption, Brummer said he looks at it "with the most jaundiced eye."

Attacks on open government are nothing new, and another trend that continues this year is Jeb!’s fondness for pandering to his base. No, I’m not segueing back to Terri Schiavo. Jeb!’s base is the “have mores,” and they are getting theirs while the poor are, uh, encouraged to crawl away and die quietly so as not to upset the important folks.

Two of the most popular tax breaks in the Legislature moved through their first committee Friday - a repeal of the intangibles tax on stocks and bonds and a sales tax "holiday" on clothes, school supplies and books.

The rollback of the intangibles tax would cost $236 million this year and $301 million next year.

The sales tax holiday is a much smaller tax break and would cost state and local governments about $52 million.

The House Finance and Tax Committee voted 7-2 repeal the intangibles tax in one year. The tax is imposed on stocks and bonds at a rate of $1 per $1,000 of taxable assets. The first $250,000 of investments is exempt.
......

The House panel defeated an amendment by state Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Dania, to keep the intangibles tax but raise the amount that would be exempt from $250,000 to $1 million. The amendment would have also closed a loophole that lets investors transfer their holdings in and out of Florida to avoid the tax.

Democrats argue that that repealing the intangibles tax does nothing for the middle class or poor but benefits only the wealthy. Florida already has one of the most regressive tax systems in the nation - but it will be even worse if the intangibles tax is eliminated, warned Rep. Ken Gottlieb, D-Hollywood.
......

The committee voted 8-1 for sales tax holiday (CS-HB 101) legislation.

That bill would give shoppers a break for nine days this summer from the state's 6-cent sales tax on clothes, books and bags priced at $100 or less and on school supplies costing $10 or less.

Now, the intangibles tax is paid by the wealthiest 1.3 percent of Floridians. The average person who pays this tax has stocks and bonds worth over $1 million. We’re giving these people $536 million back, money that we could spend on healthcare or education.

Oh, but there’s a sales tax holiday thrown in: big fucking deal. These holidays do nothing to change the most regressive tax system in the South for the rest of the year, and retailers tend to be smart enough to raise their prices just a wee bit during these tax holidays, so they benefit more than the consumers who are looking for a break.

Midnight madness

The "Pandering to the Christian Right and Relief for Tom Delay Ethics Charges" Bill passed the house, as expected, just after midnight. A couple hours later, papers were being filed in a Tampa courthouse with the expectation that a federal judge will order Terri’s tube to be reinserted.

Meanwhile, we learn that at the hospice, a lot of noise has been made by just a handful of vociferous protesters whose strident demands to “save” Terri belie their purported belief in a glorious afterlife. Why are these people so afraid of death?

Bushes snub Schiavo

Michael Schiavo wants Jeb! and W to come on down and visit Terri. For some reason, they seem reluctant to take him up on his offer.

Angered by the latest political developments in Washington, Michael Schiavo said Saturday that it isn't just the Florida governor who should visit his wife to learn about the case.

Jeb Bush's brother, President Bush, should visit Terri Schiavo, too, he said.

"Come down, President Bush," Schiavo said in a telephone interview. "Come talk to me. Meet my wife. Talk to my wife and see if you get an answer. Ask her to lift her arm to shake your hand. She won't do it."

She won't, Schiavo said, because she can't.

He made a similar offer to the governor last week, saying lawmakers interferring (sic) in his wife's life know nothing about the case. So far, Gov. Bush hasn't responded to the offer.
......

"Instead of worrying about my wife, who was granted her wishes by the state courts the past seven years, they should worry about the pedophiles killing young girls," Schiavo said, referring to a local case. "Why doesn't Congress worry about people not having health insurance? Or the budget? Let's talk about all the children who don't have homes."

He said U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who is leading a charge to extend Terri Schiavo's life, is a "little slithering snake" pandering for votes.

Presidential footnotes

President's Statement on Terri Schiavo

... our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern. It should be our goal as a nation to build a culture of life, where all Americans are valued, welcomed, and protected* ...

White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales's Texas Execution Memos

"During Bush's six years as governor 150 men and two women were executed in Texas," Berlow reports in the Atlantic, "a record unmatched by any other governor in modern American history."

Right to Life backed law that irks wife

Jannette Nikolouzos is angry with the Texas law that allows St. Luke's Hospital to unhook her husband from life support tomorrow.

"I'm so ashamed of my state that it executes civilians without criminal history," she told reporter Todd Ackerman.

She may be surprised to learn that National Right to Life, the organization that is helping to lead the fight to keep a Florida hospital from removing life support for Terri Schiavo, helped write the Texas law.

Eschaton

In 1999 then governor Bush signed a law which allowed hospitals to withdraw life support from patients, over the objections of the family, if they consider the treatment to be nonbeneficial.

Baby Sun Dies After Removed From Life Support

A critically ill 5-month-old baby died shortly after he was taken off life support Tuesday afternoon, Local 2 reported. A judge's ruling Monday lifted an injunction that had prevented Texas Children's Hospital doctors from halting care they believed was futile.

Wanda and Sun Hudson

Wal-Mart skates

I'm glad NathanNewman posted about this, because I hadn't gotten around to it yet.

Wal-Mart Buys "Get Out of Jail" Card

Prosecutors announced they were dropping all criminal charges against Wal-Mart for its use of contractors employing undocumented workers in exchange for paying an $11 million fine, a hefty sounding amount but a pittance for a company with $288.2 billion in sales last year. Let's put it this way-- this is an equivalent financial hit to an average person making $50,000 per year being hit with a $1.90 fine for illegal activity.

The double standard for corporate crime is astounding-- we destroy the lives of young people for minor drug crimes, but corporate executives can break the law and steal pay from their workers, and all they get it a financial slap on the wrist.

Background: Corporate welfare thrives in Florida; Wal-Mart sucks

Exciting the base

Deal Reached on Bill to Allow Federal Review of Schiavo Case

Congressional leaders hoped a deal reached Saturday would clear the way for a brain-damaged woman to resume being fed while a federal court reviews the right-to-die battle between her parents and her husband.

``We think we have found a solution'' to the Terri Schiavo case, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said at a Capitol Hill news conference.

``I'm pleased to announce that House and Senate Republican leadership have reached an agreement on a legislative solution,'' Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee said a few hours later at the start of a brief Senate session.

``Under the legislation we will soon consider Terry Schiavo will have another chance,'' said Frist.

``We are confident this compromise addresses everyone's concerns, we are confident it will provide Mrs. Schiavo a clear and appropriate avenue for appeal in federal court, and most importantly, we are confident this compromise will restore nutrition and hydration to Mrs. Schiavo as long as that appeal endures,'' DeLay said.

Uh, if Mrs. Schiavo were able to appeal anything, it would be this unwanted interference in her personal end of life decisions. But she can’t think right now, and there have been plenty of trials to determine her wishes, and a Baptist judge found that she would not want to live life as a vegetable.

Why are the Republicans so anxious to meddle with Terri Schiavo’s peaceful death? Because they care.

"This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited..." and "This is a great political issue... this is a tough issue for Democrats."

GOP longs for the good ol' days

Working for the company store bank

A bill that would make it easier for day laborers to cash their paychecks at the end of the workday moved through a House committee Friday.

House Bill 525 was approved by the Finance and Tax Committee by a 9-0 vote.

The measure, sponsored by Rep. Baxter Troutman, R-Winter Haven, would allow day laborers to cash their checks at cash-dispensing machines installed at some of the locations where the workers receive their wages at the end of the day.

Workers who choose to use a cash-dispensing machine would pay a fee of $1 plus any change earned, so the maximum fee would be $1.99.

“You load sixteen tons what do you get

Another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store”

Merle Travis

"Sixteen Tons"

Terry Schiavo must die

The tube has been removed, despite the pandering efforts of extremist lawmakers. Now we face possibly weeks of the Terri death watch. Meanwhile, efforts by those selfish men who are trying to make capital for themselves out of the cause of Terri Schiavo will continue.

The Rude Pundit says Terri must die, and points out that

we are not a merciful nation, for we believe that suffering is a gift from God or some such bullshit, and if you are chosen to suffer, then suffer you must. If you're dirt poor, single, and homeless and you get pregnant, you must keep your baby, even though the overwhelming chance is that you and your baby will be hungry, cold, and miserable for the rest of both of your lives. Despite the fact that virtually every competent medical person who has walked into Schiavo's room and smelled the shit-scent of death has declared Schiavo a cabbage or, on a good day, a pea pod, the right smells opportunity to distract people from the gutting of programs that actually do good for the living . Other "experts" who have witnessed Schiavo's eyes follow a balloon on videotape are nonsensical idiots (and that includes Senate Majority Leader and noted cat-disemboweler Bill Frist).

Way back in 2000, before Schiavo became the rallying call for people who have nothing better to do, here is how the St. Petersburg Times described Schiavo's end: "If [the feeding tube] is removed, Mrs. Schiavo would die painlessly in a week or two. She does not feel hunger or thirst, and she would just drift away, doctors say." That fact, that Schiavo will not actually experience anything differently, is now left out of most media stories on her. The distorted face of Terry Schiavo is now merely a canvas upon which ideology has been writ large, where the notion of "life" has been perverted to mean "a heartbeat," and where the cruel vicissitudes of politics now rear their ugly, hydra-heads.

More on Terri Schiavo here.

The American Taliban

Why They're The American Taliban | Oliver Willis

First off, this is not a new development. I've been calling the religious far right this for years now. Why? The end goal of the religious far right - the Dobsons, Robertsons, Ashcrofts, and Falwells of the world - is indistinguishable from the goals of the Taliban and Mullah Omar (another terrorist we have yet to catch). They want to replace the rule of law with the rule of their God. An intolerant God, that would have anyone not praying to their God, chained and shackled in subservience. It's the same thing. Deal with it, kids.

Schiavo legislation falters

Michael Schiavo’s attorney says it best:

"It's frankly very disconcerting and unsettling in our country and our democracy to see how our federal lawmakers can in essence be held hostage by these special interest groups and jump to their will like spit on a hot griddle," Felos said.

But despite the pandering of politicians, it seems that efforts to keep state and federal “Terri’s Laws” alive have failed for now. Various appeals courts have also signaled that they’ve heard more than enough, and the feeding tube will almost certainly be removed this afternoon.

The removal of the tube may well spark a renewed effort to intervene, however, since it will take some time for Terri to peacefully and painlessly pass - lawmakers and other intervention minded types will no doubt be busy for the next week or so grasping for whatever straw they can muster in a last ditch effort to thwart the will of a dying patient and the courts.

Look for lots of pictures of protestors earnestly praying between bouts of violent threats. Police will have to be called in to protect the hospice - extremists will be feeling very empowered to fuck with Michael Schiavo and anyone else whom they see as being on the wrong side.

Abstract Appeal has the best neutral overview of this case that I’ve seen. Check it out for background and perspective.

Details on the last minute legislative action:

What they're saying

Schiavo bill loses GOP backers

One by one, options sink

UPDATE - Extremist federal lawmakers have manufactured a straw at which to grasp:

In a last-ditch attempt to stop the court-ordered removal, a House committee decided early Friday morning to start an investigation into Schiavo's case and issue subpoenas ordering doctors and hospice administrators not to remove her feeding tubes and to keep her alive until that investigation was complete.

The effort by the House Government Reform Committee came after lawmakers in both Washington and Tallahassee failed in attempts to pass legislation to keep her husband, Michael Schiavo, from having the tube pulled despite heavy lobbying by Schiavo's parents.

"This inquiry should give hope to Terri, her parents and friends and the millions of people throughout the world who are praying for her safety," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Government Reform chairman Tom Davis said in a joint statement. "This fight is not over."

The Government Reform Committee is the same committee that forced Major League Baseball players and officials to testify Thursday about steroid use.

Priorities

Digby on steroids.

If Democrats think that this is good theatre for them they are nuts. The "optics" on this are not good judging from the off hand comments I've heard from varous people today. This is America's pastime, not the tobacco industry. It is highly unpleasant to watch a bunch of politicians browbeat famous players and then grill baseball owners as if they are a mafia family --- while we are at war, the treasury is being bankrupted and unprecedented government corruption is happening right before their eyes. Listening to them sanctimoniously lecture baseball about its ethics and practices is just mind boggling.

Leg cares less

Last year, the Florida Legislature made it very difficult to enroll in the KidCare state insurance program for poor children. See, there was a waiting list, so many poor kids could not get the insurance, and that made lawmakers look heartless and cheap. So, to solve the problem, our wise leaders decided to simply get rid of the waiting list and also discourage folks from trying to enroll in the first place.

Not surprisingly, these measures did nothing to actually solve the problem: there are more uninsured kids in Florida today than a few years ago, and now we learn that the KidCare program has become so difficult to get into that it is literally awash in cash because it doesn’t have enough enrollees to service.

Concerned about plummeting numbers of children covered by the state's KidCare health insurance program, a growing number state leaders say that new laws limiting enrollment were a mistake.

The numbers of children covered by the program, which provides low-cost insurance to families who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but can't afford private insurance, has dropped from a peak of 350,000 last year to about 245,000 March 1.

The state has budgeted $531 million for the program, enough to pay health-care expenses for 398,000 children. But so few children are enrolling that Florida may have to return federal money already allocated.

After a waiting list ballooned, legislators made changes to the program in the hope of controlling costs and preventing fraud. They replaced the original application form with a tougher version, required families to provide more proof of income and shortened the enrollment period from year-round to two months each year.

But the first enrollment period, which ended in January, added only 9,300 children to the program. A whopping 78 percent of applications were rejected initially because families did not fill them out properly or provide enough information.

Though those numbers will improve as staff process applications and get better documents from families, legislators fear that attempts to cap enrollment worked too well.

On Tuesday, the Senate Health Care Committee voted unanimously to advance a bill that would again allow families to apply for the program at any time of year.

The House is considering a similar measure, and both have some bipartisan support. Gov. Jeb Bush is studying KidCare enrollment numbers and considering different ways to enroll as many children as possible without overspending, spokesman Jacob DiPietre said.

A 2004 study by the University of Florida estimated the number of uninsured children in the state at 533,000. The poorest qualify for Medicaid, but many children of working families don't.

And even as the state expects to return up to $146.5 million in unspent money to the federal government, families are making hard choices and facing mounting medical debts.

Why does the GOP hate families and kids?

Life and death

Even as the US House worked late into the night to prevent a court from honoring the wishes of a woman who wants to die, state legislators were trying to force the courts to allow the state to kill other people faster and were maneuvering to gut Medicaid so they don’t have to pay to keep poor people alive. Here are your pro-life lawmakers at work:

U.S. House acts to save Schiavo

Bill would halt court's ability to reject law

Medicaid reform bill shaping up in House

Ironically, if State and Federal lawmakers are successful in their attempts to thwart her wishes, their cuts to the Medicaid program could end up killing Terri, who is now indigent and has her medical bills paid by the state.

Money is just about exhausted

(Fixed the headline - thanks.)

I get mail

I found the following in my inbox today, from a regular correspondent.

The left says to kill Terri because she hasn't learned to use a spoon without physical therapy. Watch this woman and imagine her starving to death while her parents watch helplessly. http://web.tampabay.rr.com/ccb/videos/hows_that_cold.rm

The left seems to think it's okay to write off disabled people just because the news says so. Since when do we trust mainstream media to tell us the truth? Look at this woman -- what machines are there to unplug? None! She breathes on her own, she swallows on her own, her heart beats on its own. She interacts with her mother as best she can, but it's not vivacious and witty enough for the left, apparently.

The left seems to think that it's okay for men to beat their wives into paralysis and brain damage, win lucrative malpractice lawsuits, then starve their wives to death to conceal the crime, and the left should rally around the husbands in the name of 'keeping a promise'. If Terri was a dolphin or a harp seal, however, it would be a different story.

The left will march on Saturday to protest the death of innocent Iraqis while they advocate for killing an innocent woman right here at home.

And the left thinks Bush is hypocritical.

Uh, it’s not that she can’t use a spoon - it’s that a good portion of her brain is gone. She is in a persistent vegetative state, and no amount of therapy is gonns make her well. Removing her feeding tube (“starving” her) is a painless and humane way to end her useless life, a life that courts have repeatedly found she would not want to be living.

Speaking of courts, it is they whom I believe, not the mainstream media. And, no, Terri does not “interact.”

PVS (Permanent Vegetative State) patients often look fairly “normal.” Their eyes are open and moving about during the periods of wakefulness that alternate with periods of sleep; there may be spontaneous movements of the arms and legs, and at times these patients appear to smile, grimace, laugh, utter guttural sounds, groan and moan, and manifest other facial expressions and sounds that appear to reflect cognitive functions and emotions, especially in the eyes of the family.

The alleged abuse that the correspondent refers to has been investigated over and over and the allegations were determined to be unfounded. The abuse myth and the malpractice award myth are two of the many lies about Terri’s case that the right is throwing around.

The left will march against war because the needless killing of innocent civilians is a horrid exercise of our power. The left will support a patient’s right to die and a family member’s right to act for the patient because the state has no business butting into such a personal and important decision.

W is hypocritical for many reasons, including the fact that he talks the talk of a pro-lifer yet has no problem sending our soldiers off to die in a needless war or supporting the death penalty.

Jeb! is a hypocrite because he talks the talk of a pro-lifer yet supports the death penalty and pushes policies that will result in the untimely deaths of thousands.

Lowering the bar

Florida may lower student achievement standards

After 77 percent of Florida schools failed last year under the state's version of the federal No Child Left Behind law, Education Commissioner John Winn said Tuesday he's considering lowering student achievement standards under that law.

The changes would alter standards Florida set for itself under the federal law, something Gov. Jeb Bush and Winn said they wouldn't do just a few months ago.

Changes are needed because Florida has "such a high number of schools not making" adequate yearly progress, Winn said at a state Board of Education meeting in Miami. He said he wants Florida's plan changed before this year's calculation of adequate yearly progress.

Pretty soon, the damn bar’s gonna be buried.

On teacher pay, we trail Georgia.

On graduation rates, Alabama is better.

On eighth-grade reading scores, South Carolina just moved ahead.

Despite six years of major changes by Gov. Jeb Bush and a Republican-dominated Legislature, Florida still ranks with its Southern neighbors near the bottom of the education rankings.

In the legislative session that begins Tuesday, lawmakers will debate even more changes, including an expansion of vouchers, more independence for charter schools and the end of social promotion.

All are large, sweeping issues.

But they won't be accompanied by what some education experts and a former governor say is just as necessary: large, sweeping increases in money.

Florida is behind almost every other state in the nation when it comes to education spending.

Schiavo speaks

No, not Terri - she’ll never talk again, despite the lies being spread by her “supporters”. Terri’s husband Michael Schiavo, who usually keeps to the sidelines, was interviewed last night.

Michael Schiavo says he looks into his wife's eyes and sees no spark of consciousness, no recognition, no glimmer of any sort of response. He says he wishes he did.

And he invites Gov. Jeb Bush to have a look himself.

"If he had any care at all," Schiavo said, "he would take us up on the offer and visit Terri and examine the record. He hasn't. He could come and sit in that chair and talk."

Schiavo said Tuesday in a rare interview that he would gladly allow Bush to visit his wife, Terri Schiavo, at the Pinellas Park hospice where she lives to see her condition.

During the hourlong interview at his attorney's office in Dunedin, Michael Schiavo said he believes state and federal lawmakers have little information on his wife and have acted to serve politics, not medicine.

"They're all pandering to the religious groups and the antiabortion groups and the Christian Coalition," said Schiavo, 41, a registered nurse. "They're doing this for votes.
......

Schiavo said in the early days, he was like the Schindlers. He said he wanted to believe she would get better. He did everything, Schiavo said, to help her, even taking her to California for treatment.

Time eroded hope of any recovery at all, he said.

"Terri doesn't talk. That's so ludicrous," he said of people who suggest Terri Schiavo sometimes tries to speak. "Look at her CAT scan. The cerebral cortex is completely gone. Terri's emotions are gone. What's there is a shell of Terri. There's nothing there anymore."

Meanwhile, the pandering continues at a furious pace as state and federal bills aimed at thwarting years of court decisions and Terri’s own wishes move forward.

The truth is simple: courts have repeatedly ruled that Terri would not want to be kept alive in her persistent vegetative state. She will never be able to speak for herself. Removing her feeding tube is a humane and painless way to allow her to die.

"Terri's Law" disables rights

Making end of life decisions? Troxler has some advice.

Call your lawyer. Put your wishes in writing, make sure that writing stays someplace where they can't ignore it and then hope they don't change the rules yet again.

And if you're in a Florida family that is already wrestling with this terrible decision, well, you are out of luck - the state is going to make it for you.

Admittedly, the new version of the bill unveiled Monday is better and more thoughtful that the one-page rush job rammed through in late 2003. The first law was a raw, unconstitutional power grab written to cover the single case of Terri Schiavo. It was thrown out in court.

But the new version still has some amazing flaws:

"Any interested person" would be able to tie up a feeding-tube case in court, regardless of the wishes of the patient or the patient's caretakers.

Your own statements to your friends and family, and their knowledge that you would not have wanted to be sustained, would not be valid evidence.

This law would apply to all persons already in a vegetative state today, no matter what their families, guardians or loved ones believe is best for them, or what they believe they would have wanted.

According to critics, a child in a permanent vegetative state would be doomed to a lifetime of artificially prolonged existence, since he or she would never have been old enough to express a legally competent choice. His parents would have no say.

If you think these intrusions into the lives of Floridians are oversights or flaws in the bill, well, they are not oversights. Each appears to be deliberately worded.

State Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, the sponsor of the House version, argued in favor of allowing a wide array of people to intervene in court.

"You never know who might have to intervene for someone else," he said, calling it a "rescue provision."

When asked whether his intention was to take away the power of parents to decide the fate of a child in a vegetative state, Baxley replied that the questioner really was asking whether "parents should have the right to starve their children to death."

For more on Terri Schiavo, just scroll down or click.

New "Terri's Law" moves toward passage

The Leg. is moving forward quickly with a new version of “Terri’s Law” which promises to intrude upon many people’s rights to make end of life decisions.

Lawmakers proposed a measure Monday that would block doctors from denying food or water to someone in a persistent vegetative state with the intention of causing death, setting the stage to prevent the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube on Friday.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 8-3 approving the new measure, which would make exceptions for living wills and specific verbal instructions. The bills, if put on an expedited path, could come up for final votes in the House and Senate as early as Thursday.

Schiavo, 41, is severely brain damaged and has been at the center of a long and bitter court battle between her parents and her husband, who wants to remove her feeding tube so she can die. A judge has cleared the way for the procedure at 1 p.m. Friday.

Also on Monday, the Department of Children & Families appealed a judge's denial of its request for a stay on the removal of the tube for the next 60 days while it investigates allegations that Schiavo was mistreated by her husband.

Under the measure, family members would no longer be able to make decisions for patients who left no specific instructions — unless they were empowered to do so by a written directive.

An earlier version of the bill could have applied to all incapacitated people, not just those in a persistent vegetative state.
......

"They're proposing to violate the rights of a smaller category of people — I don't think we should be exultant over that," said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

The Florida Bioethics Network — a group of doctors, nurses, social workers and medical college professors — said the bill would be a setback to more than a quarter-century of advances in end-of-life decision making for Floridians. Florida is considered to have some of the nation's more advanced laws giving people the power to control their lives until the end.

"This is a train wreck of a bill," said Kenneth W. Goodman, co-director of the Florida Bioethics Network and head of the University of Miami Bioethics Program. "While they are trying to stick it to Michael Schiavo ... no one asks people who are real guardians in Florida what they thought of it. This bill will derail guardianship law in Florida."
......

Gov. Jeb Bush's general counsel assisted in negotiating the language of the bill, said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, though a Bush spokesman said it was too early to say whether he would sign it into law.
......

This is the second time the Legislature has considered measures aimed specifically at keeping Schiavo alive. In 2003, lawmakers passed a bill that allowed Gov. Jeb Bush to order doctors to restore Schiavo's feeding. That law was then thrown out by the Florida Supreme Court.

The House and Senate bills were each to be considered in final committees Tuesday.

Goodman said the legislation would create barriers for people who want to control the end of their lives.

It also "misjudges" the medical use of artificial nutrition and hydration tubes, which are intended to be used as a "bridge" when someone suffers a debilitating medical problem until they can get better, he said. Goodman said those devices are not intended to be permanent.

People in a persistent vegetative state cannot feel pain, the bioethicists argue, and deaths from the removal of water and food are considered painless and humane.

All you hear from the other side is a bunch of easily rebuked myths concerning Terri’s imminent miraculous recovery and hate talk about Michael Schiavo and the state ganging up to murder Terri through the cruel process of starvation. They even compare Michael to the Nazis.

A sign directing reporters to Thursday's press conference misspelled her name as "Terry" Schiavo. Representatives from almost a dozen conservative and Christian groups attended, as did some of the 17 disability organizations supporting the Schindlers, including the National Spinal Cord Injury Association.

They talked about her "death sentence" and "execution." They said it was illegal to starve animals to death. They said she was treated worse than death row inmates.

"Even the Nazis were hesitant to use starvation and dehydration as a means of inflicting death," said Paul Schenck of the National Pro-Life Action Center. "They reserved it for only their most cruel acts."

Groups at the press conference included National Right to Life Committee, Family Research Council and Religious Freedom Coalition. On their Web sites, the groups encourage people to write and call their member of Congress, as they did Florida lawmakers in 2003.

It’s all about milking the credulous for as much money as can possibly br wrung out of them. These groups don’t know “Terry” Schiavo from Adam, but they see a vast source of quick cash in the well-meaning rubes who are easily led by duplicitous language that invokes a false sense of hope and implies a cruel and unusual death.

The truth is:

Courts have repeatedly found that Terri would not want to be kept alive in her current state.

Her current state is a persistent vegetative state. Much of her brain is gone, replaced by fluid. She cannot recover.

Removing her feeding tube is a humane and court sanctioned way to end her life as she herself would want done.

Schiavo circus continues

The amoral bottom feeders, self-proclaimed Christians who are busy hawking the Terri Schiavo story to the gullible, were whipping their minions into a frenzy yesterday in Tallahassee.

The parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, have been convinced that their daughter can be transformed into a human parrot, eventually learning to mimic phrases. They interpret the random movements associated with her persistent vegetative state as signs that she is joking with them.

People like James Dobsen are butting in, and, collectively, they’re getting lots of attention. This is how right wing radio is framing the issue.

On Friday, March 18, 2005 the state of Florida will begin to starve Terri Schiavo to death. Our Starve to Death Countdown Clock begins it's countdown on Monday, March 14. For each day until Friday the 18th, we'll take one bite out of the sandwich below. When the sandwich is gone, Terri will be sentenced to death by starvation. If you think this is tasteless, you're right - but at least we're not starving our wife to death.

Then, between bouts of bashing Michael Schiavo for frittering away the money that was awarded in a malpractice suit, money that was spent on lawyers fighting to have Terri’s wishes carried out, the host attacks him for not accepting a cash offer to sell out and ignore his wife’s wish to die with some semblance of dignity. The radio show is going so far as to collect “pledges” that the host claims will be collected in order to make Michael Schiavo a better offer than the one he turned down.

Read up on the myths surrounding this case and prepare to rebut them, because Glenn Beck and his ilk are spreading them very thickly.

Christians threaten Schiavo judge’s life

Selfish men are trying to make capital for themselves out of the cause of Terri Schiavo. (paraphrased) These people are well aware that her physical condition precludes any kind of recovery. Important parts of her brain are simply gone - replaced by spinal fluid, never to return.

But facts don’t matter. These are the same people who incessantly harass women entering abortion clinics, who stalk doctors and use terrorist tactics to bully others into going along with them. These sick Christian fucks who claim to hold the value of human life above all else have absolutely no problem taking innocent lives, especially when their actions might lead to a little personal infamy.

Now they’re threatening the life of Judge Greer, a man who has carefully weighed every empty objection they have thrown his way, a man who has bent over backwards to accommodate the specious arguments and self-serving pap that is oozing from the brains of these supposedly healthy cowards.

When pressed, they claim that no threat was issued, but the aspiring martyrs have gotten the message, and they will take it to heart: Kill Judge Greer, and you will be rewarded.

Remember: these are the people that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh revere as heroes. These are the folks that Jeb! and Mel Martinez implicitly endorse as they try to invade your deathbed by legislating their own perverted version of morality. These amoral twits are the ones who are held up as examples for the rest of us to emulate.

Prayer vigil for Schiavo draws crowd

They came from as far away as California, Pennsylvania and Georgia and stood along the grassy roadside in Pinellas Park, praying out loud and asking, once again, for a miracle for Terri Schiavo.

More than 100 people gathered for a seven-hour vigil on Saturday outside the Woodside Hospice where Schiavo lives. A judge has ordered her feeding tube removed on Friday.

A parade of people took turns on a makeshift stage, lined with long-stem roses and baby's breath, calling the crowd a "modern day religious Calvary." Young men and women took turns holding a wooden crucifix on stage, a rosary dangling from Jesus' neck.

Speakers, including religious leaders from Virginia and New Jersey, urged the crowd to continue writing letters to lawmakers, signing petitions for the impeachment of Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer and trying to persuade hospice nurses to refuse to participate in the "scheduled killing" of Schiavo.

In remarks to the crowd, Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski mentioned the recent killing of an Atlanta judge. Greer, Malanowski said, probably will need more security now. He said he hopes "the judge sleeps well at night. His life is in danger."

More than a few people snickered.

Later, Malanowski, who has served in Largo churches and often visited Schiavo with her parents, said he meant nothing by the comment, except that all judges, particularly Greer, likely are taking security more seriously in light of the Atlanta incident.

He said the crowd assembled Saturday was peaceful, and no one was advocating violence.

Bankruptcy bill

More details from Arianna

So what does the bill do? It makes it harder for average people to file for bankruptcy protection; it makes it easier for landlords to evict a bankrupt tenant; it endangers child support payments by giving a wider array of creditors a shot at post-bankruptcy income; it allows millionaires to shield an unlimited amount of value in homes and asset protection trusts; it makes it more difficult for small businesses to reorganize, while opening new loopholes for the Enrons of the world; it allows creditors to provide misleading information; and it does nothing to rein in lending abuses that frequently turn manageable debt into unmanageable crises. Even in failure, ordinary Americans do not get a level playing field.

FL tax system to become even more regressive

We knew this was coming: Jeb!’s drive to kill the intangibles tax, which only affects wealthy individuals with large non-retirement investment accounts, is moving forward. It’s being sold as a middle class tax cut, but it’s only going to help the rich, while ensuring that Florida’s poor continue to bear the brunt of an increasingly unfair tax system.

Calling the intangibles tax everything from "insidious" to "heinous" to a "vampire tax that sucks the bloodlife out of Florida's economy," members of a House committee approved a repeal of the tax on Friday.

The vampire comment came from Rep. Fred Brummer, R-Apopka, the chair of the committee and the sponsor of the bill (HB 963) as he made his case for repealing the tax that has been targeted by Gov. Jeb Bush since his 1998 campaign.

Bush has successfully whittled it down three times so far, but tight budgets the past two years have caused him to drop the effort to eliminate it.

The monetary outlook is better this year, so Bush and Republicans are trying to push through the repeal in a year that they believe the state can afford it.

"We wanted to eliminate it at a time with greater revenue flow, and that time was now," said Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, who voted for the bill Friday. "The governor wants it to be part of his legacy, so we're pushing it through."

The intangibles tax is levied on investment portfolios worth more than $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for married couples.

Combined with the minimum payment threshold of $60, the effective exemption becomes $310,000 for individuals and $560,000 for couples. Money in retirement, checking and savings accounts is exempt, however.

While Bush has characterized the tax as one that affects the middle class, a Palm Beach Post analysis of Department of Revenue data found that the tax is paid by the wealthiest 1.3 percent of Floridians, with the average individual payer of the tax having a taxable portfolio of $1.1 million. For married couples, the average taxable holdings affected by the intangibles tax is $2.1 million.

Republicans say the tax is unfair because it doubly taxes people who have made wise investments. A legislative analysis found that the cut would cost the state about $235 million in tax revenue this year and nearly $300 million the following year.

Democrats proposed scaling back the tax rather than repealing it, and they also sought to reduce the state sales tax from 6 percent to 5.75 percent to help others than just the wealthy, but the two amendments were voted down by the House Finance and Tax Committee.

The committee did approve two other tax reduction bills: HB 101, which would create a nine-day sales tax "holiday" for back-to-school shoppers in July, and HB 27, a reduction of taxes that manufacturing companies pay on equipment they purchase to expand their spaceport technology businesses.

Gee, a sales tax holiday. That ought to help. Oh, wait...

Right wing rides Schiavo gravy train

Despite the work of quacks that would have you believe otherwise, there is no therapy that can undo the fact that a good part of Terri Schiavo’s brain is gone and has been replaced by spinal fluid. She will never recover. Courts have repeatedly found that she did not wish to be kept alive in a vegetative state.

Well, as much as they hate the voice of the people, the GOP hates the authority of the courts even more, and they are simply not going to stand idly by while there’s a chance to pander to gullible faith based voters while bashing the judiciary and cashing in on tons of free publicity.

Even as DCF was being dismissed but petulantly vowing to return, Mel Martinez was playing politics and may be successful bringing the circus to town in support of his version of Terri’s law.

Just eight days before the court-ordered deadline to remove Schiavo's feeding tube, Republicans on Capitol Hill rallied around the case that has become the cause celebre of conservative and religious groups.

Congressional leaders fast-tracked a bill that could lead to a federal court review of the case - and perhaps another trial in Pinellas County.

Almost a dozen conservative and Christian groups marshaled forces and urged Americans to lobby Congress to prolong Schiavo's life.
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George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo, sounded resigned that politics in the nation's capital could delay the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube the way it did in 2003, when Florida's governor and Legislature stepped in.

"It's certainly disheartening to see them falling all over each other to pander to these groups," Felos said. "It's a massive campaign of smear and misinformation. It's a repeat of Terri's Law."
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Felos said such a law eventually would be overturned as unconstitutional - as was "Terri's Law" in Florida - because it cannot retroactively affect a case a judge ruled on five years ago, and because a federal right to refuse unwanted medical treatment already exists.

A federal court could decide Schiavo's rights were violated because she did not have her own attorney at the original trial, who would call witnesses and present evidence solely on her behalf.

Though Schiavo has had at least one guardian ad litem, who is supposed to act in her best interests, a lawyer would be different because he would be able to present his own case.

* * *

A sign directing reporters to Thursday's press conference misspelled her name as "Terry" Schiavo. Representatives from almost a dozen conservative and Christian groups attended, as did some of the 17 disability organizations supporting the Schindlers, including the National Spinal Cord Injury Association.

They talked about her "death sentence" and "execution." They said it was illegal to starve animals to death. They said she was treated worse than death row inmates.

"Even the Nazis were hesitant to use starvation and dehydration as a means of inflicting death," said Paul Schenck of the National Pro-Life Action Center. "They reserved it for only their most cruel acts."

Groups at the press conference included National Right to Life Committee, Family Research Council and Religious Freedom Coalition. On their Web sites, the groups encourage people to write and call their member of Congress, as they did Florida lawmakers in 2003.

RightMarch.com said 30,000 to 35,000 have written to their members of Congress through their Web site, and through pleas to their members.
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A reporter asked if it was true that Schiavo could speak 10 years ago before her husband ceased her therapy. That allegation has never been made, not even at the first trial.

Ken Connor, who represented Jeb Bush in trying to pass Terri's Law, answered the question this way: "There's no question that over the course of time Terri has become more unresponsive while in her husband's care," he said.

Taking people out of democracy

Led by Jeb!, there’s no question that the GOP hates democracy. Jeb! spurned the high speed rail amendment and fought to have it overturned. He is actively working to undo the class size amendment, and stands by as his legislature waters down the hugely popular minimum wage amendment, and now, as threatened, the GOP is trying to make it next to impossible for citizens to get an initiative passed into law.

Florida voters would face new hurdles in amending the Constitution under a series of changes a House committee approved Thursday.

Voting generally along party lines, the House Judiciary Committee's Republican majority said it wants to stop special interests from hijacking the Constitution.

Democrats protested that the changes would make it all but impossible for citizens to have a direct voice in government. They tried to create a new route for citizen involvement in enacting new laws, but the GOP majority defeated the proposal.

One change approved Thursday would require that ballot initiatives pass by a 60 percent margin statewide, whether proposed by citizens or the Legislature.

Three other changes would affect only citizen initiatives:

Sixty percent approval would be required in at least 60 percent of the state's 25 congressional districts - a move designed to prevent voters in urban areas such as South Florida from imposing programs not widely supported elsewhere.

Any initiative with significant impact on the state budget - more than one-tenth of 1 percent - would require a two-thirds majority.

Subjects would be limited to fundamental rights and areas already in the Constitution.

The changes approved Thursday still have to pass the full House and Senate by three-fifths majorities and be approved by voters in November 2006.

"We are giving the people the opportunity to decide how their Constitution should be amended. That's how the process should work," said Rep. Joe Pickens, R-Palatka.

"We're doing everything we can to try to take people out of democracy," countered Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach. "I think it's a sad day when we have just decided that we know better than anybody."

Democrats proposed an alternative known as a statutory initiative, which allows citizens to pass laws that could be repealed by the Legislature by a two-thirds vote. Republicans say that would take away their responsibility as elected representatives.

"When we don't represent the people, they throw us out of government," said Rep. Fred Brummer, R-Apopka. "Fairly simple concept. It's worked for over 200 years."

This is the second year in a row lawmakers have pushed to limit how the Constitution can be amended. From pregnant pig protection to prekindergarten education, a growing number of citizen petitions have been proposed in recent years.

But figures compiled by the University of Florida show that since 1978, many more amendments have been proposed by the Legislature or by Constitution revision commissions than by citizens.
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Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, said amending the Constitution is too easy now.

"It's a scary situation to have a Constitution so subject to amendment with a simple majority," Lee said. "The evidence is clear. A higher threshold for approval is appropriate."

You have no privacy

This is just one more good reason to fear the massive accumulation and trading of one’s personal data for profit.

For the second time in less than a month, a large national data broker has revealed that thieves stole the identities and private information of thousands of Americans.

Reed Elsevier Plc, the British owner of information company LexisNexis, disclosed Wednesday that hackers slipped past computer security and stole the passwords of its business customers in February to break into the computer database at its Seisint division in Boca Raton and, in turn, swiped the personal information of 32,000 Americans.

The Seisint computer breach was detected when employees found abnormal billing activity by some of its business customers. After sneaking into the system, the thieves peeled off with names and addresses, and in some cases Social Security and driver license numbers. No personal credit or medical records were pilfered.

Seisint stores tens of billions of personal records on millions of Americans in Boca. That personal information is sold to corporations, individuals and government entities for employee background checks, debt collection and other purposes.

After learning of the breach, LexisNexis notified the Secret Service, which investigates counterfeiting and cyber crime. The company plans to notify individuals by mail over the next few days that their personal data was stolen. Residents in all 50 states and Puerto Rico are affected, but the company wouldn't provide a state-by-state count.

The computer break-in marked the second time in a month that it was revealed thieves made a mockery of the intense security measures at a large U.S. data broker, and both companies have major computer centers in Boca Raton.

Earlier in February, ChoicePoint, an information giant based in Alpharetta, Ga., with 300 to 400 employees here, acknowledged that thieves had taken sensitive data on 145,000 people, including 10,000 Floridians. In that instance, 750 people around the country were defrauded when their personal information was used for illicit purposes.

The latest theft spurred Sen. Bill Nelson into action. Nelson just voted for cloture on the federal Bankruptcy Bill, thus screwing average consumers everywhere by helping to ensure the bill’s eventual passage. He actually tried to add an amendment to exempt identity theft victims from the harsh aspects of the bill, but his amendment, like other attempts to add even a token amount of consumer protection to the legislation, was killed by the GOP majority. For some unfathomable reason, Nelson voted for cloture anyway. This feeble attempt to weasel his way back into the good graces of consumers is nowhere near enough.

Warning that the theft of thousands of personal records from Boca Raton-based Seisint is merely the latest in a growing threat to people's identity, Sen. Bill Nelson urged the Senate to promptly place the information broker industry under federal regulation.

The security breach at Seisint, a subsidiary of Reed Elsevier's popular LexisNexis information service, means that as many as 32,000 Americans "could possibly be the victims of identity theft," Nelson, D-Fla., said Wednesday in a speech to the Senate.

Why do Republicans hate families?

In the latest attempt to meddle in a patient’s right to die, Rep. Dennis Baxley proposes that the Legislature should have the last and final right to override the decisions of family members and courts. Yesterday, the GOP pushed this anti-family bill through committee.

The Legislature's first attempt to keep Terri Schiavo's feeding tube connected was a law tailored to her case, but the Florida Supreme Court struck it down unanimously.

Now, lawmakers are pushing a broader proposal that could affect thousands of Floridians lying incapacitated in hospitals, hospices and nursing homes.

The new bill would require that food and water be given to terminally ill people unless they specified in a living will that they did not want to be kept alive that way. A verbal declaration to relatives or loved ones would not necessarily be recognized.

And the bill says the Legislature, not a judge, has the final say in an end-of-life case. It also would apply retroactively, to cover the Schiavo case.

"I certainly hope that whatever error I make is on the side of allowing someone to live rather than to die," said Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, who sponsored the bill. "I have an intimate respect for human life, for the special gift that it is, and I hope that this is a defining moment for our culture."

Critics, including doctors and lawyers who deal with terminally ill patients, called the bill "antifamily" and say it would allow the state to step in and override the wishes of relatives and loved ones.

"This is one of the most antifamily bills that I've ever seen come across this Legislature," said Larry Spalding of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. "The key unit of society is the family, and you're taking away the rights of the family."

After two hours of emotional debate and much critical testimony, a House committee approved the bill Wednesday 7-4. It was a party-line vote with Republicans voting in favor of the bill (HB 701) and Democrats voting against.
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Dr. Howard Tuch of Hospice of Southwest Florida in Sarasota, a member of a state commission on end-of-life care, warned that the bill would force thousands of patients in nursing homes and assisted living centers to have feeding tubes surgically attached.

Those patients may not have wanted to be kept alive artificially, Tuch said, but they did not write it down in advance. He cited the case of his mother, who's dying of Alzheimer's disease.

Tuch has authority to make end-of-life decisions on her behalf.

"Are you going to force her to have a feeding tube?" Tuch asked legislators. "Who is going to provide consent for that medical procedure? I'm not."

Meanwhile, Judge Greer announced that DCF had no new evidence of abuse to investigate, an indication that the state agency’s attempt to insert itself into the Schiavo case is little more than a political gambit. The allegations that DCF brought before the judge have all been investigated in the past and found to be without merit.

After hearing the testimony, Greer said, "All of the things (the witness) ticked off ... were all issues that have been in open court in front of the media and in the court files which the media has access to."

Greer is expected to decide today whether to grant a motion by DCF to intervene in the case. The agency wants Greer to extend the March 18 date for pulling Schiavo's feeding tube to investigate the complaints.

DCF asked that the testimony be closed to the media. Greer ordered the courtroom cleared, then released the transcript because he said he heard nothing not already public.

Also Wednesday, Greer:

-- Rejected a motion by attorneys for Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, to allow new medical testing of Schiavo to determine whether she is in a vegetative state or is minimally conscious. Greer noted doctors and the court have already determined Schiavo's condition.

-- Rejected a motion by the Schindlers asking for a new trial because of an error Greer made about the Karen Ann Quinlan in his 2000 order that said Schiavo would not have wanted to live by artificial means.

Governor's agenda

Note: the short SP Times piece that ran today seemed to need some work, so I’ve taken the liberty of editing it for clarity.

CLASS SIZE

Overturn the voter mandated class size caps through trickery and other devious means. Under Bush's proposal, class sizes would be measured by countywide averages, thus allowing local municipalities to cram 50 or 60 urban poor kids into one classroom while providing individualized instruction to the fairer skinned.

MEDICAID

Kill Medicaid and shrug off the resulting deaths of poor people who cannot afford their meds as collateral damage.

VOUCHERS

Offer religious instruction vouchers to any child.

TAX CUTS

Tax relief to wealthy corporations; a feel-good but meaningless tax holiday on clothing, books and school supplies; more profits for bars; repeal of the intangible tax on investments, which only affects a very few well off Floridians.

GROWTH MANAGEMENT

Roll over and offer developers any fucking thing they desire while lessening impact fees and regulations that might bite into profits.

LAWSUIT LIMITS

Eliminate the ability for an injured person to actually recover meaningful damages from a corporation whose grossly negligent behavior caused the injury in the first place.

Schiavo meddling mounts

The so-called right to lifers seem to think that a person whose brain has liquified can be cured through therapy. Actually, they don’t really believe that, but they’ll use any argument to artificially extend the bedridden existence of Terri Schiavo as long as it generates publicity and money for their cause.

Florida’s freshman Senator, Mel Martinez, has decided to jump on the Terri gravy train. Figuring that it can’t hurt to pander to his backward base, Mel has introduced a federal version of “Terri’s Law” designed to interfere with one particular patient’s right to die.

Meanwhile, courtroom maneuvering continues, as the DCF today will try to justify inserting itself back into this fray, a move that anyone with an inkling of intellectual honesty agrees is a blatant attempt to overturn years of court rulings and Terri’s own wish to die with dignity.

Immokalee workers prevail

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has won its fight against Taco Bell. For years, they have been boycotting Taco Bell in an attempt to force the giant fast food chain to pay a single additional penny per pound for tomatoes, an increase that would allow pickers to receive a significant raise in the paltry amount that they earn for each backbreaking bushel of fruit that they bring in from the fields.

Well, Taco Bell finally gave in and decided to do the right thing.

An organization of farmworkers from the small central Florida town of Immokalee Tuesday won its three-year fight for higher wages against Yum! Brands Inc., the megafirm that operates Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's and A&W restaurants.

Yum! announced that Taco Bell will soon start to pay 1 cent more for each pound of tomatoes that workers pick. The move would affect about 1,000 Florida workers.

That means those workers, who now make 40-45 cents for each 32-pound bucket they harvest, will earn at least 72 cents for that quantity — an increase of from 60 to 80 percent.

"Our members are some of the poorest people in this country, and this will make a great difference to their families," Lucas Benitez, a leader of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, said in a phone interview. "Systemic change to ensure human rights for farmworkers is long overdue."

In the past, the coalition had accused Taco Bell of demanding the lowest possible prices from its Florida suppliers, which kept wages low and working conditions poor. Tens of thousands of farmworkers labor in Florida harvests every year. As a group, they have the lowest standards of living in the state, including substandard housing and health care.

At a press conference at Yum! headquarters in Louisville, Ky., Benitez announced that his group was ending its three-year boycott of Taco Bell restaurants, a key tactic in the fight against the company. Another strategy that had worked well was to attract powerful and influential friends to the cause.
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"We recognize that Florida tomato workers do not enjoy the same rights and conditions as employees in other industries, and there is a need for reform," Brolick said in a press release issued jointly with the coalition. "We hope others in the restaurant industry and supermarket retail trade will follow our leadership."

Jonathan Blum, senior vice president of Yum! Brands, said the firm also would be pressing the growers it contracts with in Florida to improve work conditions for farmworkers.

"We have already added language to our Supplier Code of Conduct to ensure that indentured servitude by suppliers is strictly forbidden, and we will require strict compliance with all existing laws," Blum said. "Finally, we pledge to aid in efforts at the state level to seek new laws that better protect all Florida tomato farmworkers."

In 2004, Taco Bell purchased about 10 million pounds of Florida tomatoes, according to the company.

With 6,500 restaurants nationwide that serve some 35 million consumers each week, Yum! has more locales than any other restaurant company in the world. In 2004, it had revenues of $9.01 billion. Only McDonald's restaurants take in more money.

Bill Nelson shows contempt for consumers

Florida’s Bill Nelson voted for cloture on the bankruptcy bill today, helping to ensure that it will move to the house where it should pass in a few weeks.

The bill would disqualify many families from taking advantage of the more generous provisions of the current bankruptcy code that permit them to extinguish their debts for a "fresh start." It would also impose significant new costs on those seeking bankruptcy protection and give lenders and businesses new legal tools for recovering debts.

The bill still allows wealthy individuals to shelter virtually limitless wealth through various tricks, and it encourages violent anti-abortion protesters to declare bankruptcy in order to avoid paying hefty and well deserved court imposed fines and settlements.

The Senate on Tuesday first defeated an amendment that would have prevented violent protesters at abortion clinics from using the bankruptcy laws to shield themselves from judgments awarded in civil lawsuits. That amendment, which lost by a vote of 53 to 46, had threatened to derail the legislation. The senators then voted 69 to 31 to limit debate and cut off any effort to kill the legislation by filibuster. ......

"This bankruptcy bill is mean-spirited and unfair," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. "In anything like its present form, it should and will be an embarrassment to anyone who votes for it. It's a bonanza for the credit card companies, which made $30 billion in profits last year, and a nightmare for the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak."

In a letter to Congress two weeks ago, 104 bankruptcy law professors predicted that "the deepest hardship" would "be felt in the heartland," where the filing rates are highest - Utah, Tennessee, Georgia, Nevada, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi and Idaho.

Critics also said the measure fails to do anything to curb abusive bankruptcy practices by wealthy families, who can create special trusts to shelter their assets, and by corrupt companies like Enron and WorldCom, which were able to find favorable bankruptcy courts and deprive many of their employees and retired employees of benefits. The Senate defeated a series of amendments proposed by Democrats that sought to address those issues.

"The bill has a real bias," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, whose proposal to close a loophole that permits wealthy people to shelter assets through a special trust was defeated last week. "It deals with abuses in bankruptcy by one group but not with another group."

Krugman had some thoughts this morning, before the cloture vote.

The bankruptcy bill was written by and for credit card companies, and the industry's political muscle is the reason it seems unstoppable. But the bill also fits into the broader context of what Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, calls "risk privatization": a steady erosion of the protection the government provides against personal misfortune, even as ordinary families face ever-growing economic insecurity.

The bill would make it much harder for families in distress to write off their debts and make a fresh start. Instead, many debtors would find themselves on an endless treadmill of payments.

The credit card companies say this is needed because people have been abusing the bankruptcy law, borrowing irresponsibly and walking away from debts. The facts say otherwise.

A vast majority of personal bankruptcies in the United States are the result of severe misfortune. One recent study found that more than half of bankruptcies are the result of medical emergencies. The rest are overwhelmingly the result either of job loss or of divorce.

To the extent that there is significant abuse of the system, it's concentrated among the wealthy - including corporate executives found guilty of misleading investors - who can exploit loopholes in the law to protect their wealth, no matter how ill-gotten.

One increasingly popular loophole is the creation of an "asset protection trust," which is worth doing only for the wealthy. Senator Charles Schumer introduced an amendment that would have limited the exemption on such trusts, but apparently it's O.K. to game the system if you're rich: 54 Republicans and 2 Democrats voted against the Schumer amendment.

Other amendments were aimed at protecting families and individuals who have clearly been forced into bankruptcy by events, or who would face extreme hardship in repaying debts. Ted Kennedy introduced an exemption for cases of medical bankruptcy. Russ Feingold introduced an amendment protecting the homes of the elderly. Dick Durbin asked for protection for armed services members and veterans. All were rejected.
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Warren Buffett recently made headlines by saying America is more likely to turn into a "sharecroppers' society" than an "ownership society." But I think the right term is a "debt peonage" society - after the system, prevalent in the post-Civil War South, in which debtors were forced to work for their creditors. The bankruptcy bill won't get us back to those bad old days all by itself, but it's a significant step in that direction.

And any senator who votes for the bill should be ashamed.

Bill Nelson should be ashamed.

Make no mistake about it, today's vote was a cynical surrender to monied interests, and those who voted “Yea” hope nobody will remember come election time. If this bill ultimately passes--and it probably will--sick people will be squeezed, elderly people will lose their homes and military members will go from fighting in Iraq to fighting creditors at home. Oh, and violent anti-abortion protesters will be able to declare bankruptcy to avoid paying fines.

But campaign coffers will swell.

Speaking of which, the Credit Card Corps certainly earned their money today: Senators Tom Carper (D-Delaware), Joe Biden (D-Delaware), Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) and Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota) all voted for cloture. Long-time fence-sitters Senators Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Arkansas) also got in the act, as did someone we thought was a Consumer Champion: Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL).

Why does Bill Nelson hate American consumers?

Remember: despite unprecedented numbers of personal bankruptcy filings, the credit card industry is enjoying record profits, and most of the cards involved in bankruptcies have already made a profit for the issuing bank.

Homophobic Jeb! appointee is queerly mistaken

This is the problem with pandering to wing nuts: they reach positions of importance and use their whacked out mores and beliefs to justify fucking with people.

A member of the Pinellas County Juvenile Welfare Board has provoked the anger of national gay and lesbian advocacy groups for saying the groups endorse sex between youths and adults.

Cecilia Burke, who was appointed to the children's advocacy board of directors by Gov. Jeb Bush, made her statements in a memo Feb. 7 asking the board to sever ties with the support groups Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

In a letter Friday, PFLAG stated that Burke wrote ''false'' and ''defamatory'' comments about its organization and wants a public apology, said Ron Schlittler, the group's interim executive director. GLSEN and the National Center of Lesbian Rights co-signed the letter.
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Burke's memo also said the groups support ''unhealthy sexual practices among youth.'' She cited maintaining relationships with these groups as a reason to deny the juvenile welfare board's director, Jim Mills, a raise. That move failed.

Burke said contention within the board over how the taxpayer-funded agency should deal with sexual orientation issues started two years ago, when one of its committees mailed bookmarks to principals that listed PFLAG and GLSEN as resources for gay students.

NEIGHBOR SPEAKS OUT

A neighbor complained to Burke that she didn't want her tax money spent on groups that didn't believe homosexuals could change their lifestyles, Burke said.

The Juvenile Welfare Board, which funds programs to help children, will receive about $42 million in property taxes this year.

PFLAG and GLSEN say they provide support and counseling for those needing assistance to come to terms with sexual orientation issues. For them, a relationship with the Juvenile Welfare Board -- a youth referral service -- seems natural.

Mills said he plans to continue JWB's relationship with the groups.

''I've worked with these organizations for years,'' Mills said. ``I've never had any reason to believe they endorse pedophilia. I'm not sure where that came from.''

Troxler very gently sets Cecilia straight. (Personally, I think she deserves something a little more invasive and unlubricated, but that’s just me.)

Well, this goes without saying. But a lot of things that go without saying need to keep getting said over and over anyway.

Being gay is not the same thing as being a pedophile.

Frankly, it feels kind of silly to have to say it.

It's like having to say: "People from Poland are not any dumber than anybody else."

Or: "Jewish people are not greedy money-lovers who control the media."

Or: "Plenty of white people can jump as high as black people."

This is 2005, and we ought to be past this. And yet, some people go out of their way to keep the confusion going.

I am sure that my clumsy definitions will offend somebody, but ...

Being gay is remarkably like being straight, except you pursue your life's interests with consenting partners of the same gender. And there's more prejudice.

Being gay is fairly common and therefore in my book normal. Whether people are born that way, formed by their surroundings, or even (although I do not believe this happens much) gay by choice, they are entitled to the same rights as I am.
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Astute readers already know the most recent example, from this Monday's newspaper. Cecilia Burke, appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush to the Pinellas Juvenile Welfare Board, objects to the board's association with two gay-support groups, on the grounds that they encourage "unhealthy sexual practices" and sexual relations between adult and underage youths.

One of the groups is Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, better known as PFLAG. The idea of PFLAG being a deviant group is laughable - it is closer to being the PTA. It is made up of loving, supportive, everyday folks who found out that someone close to them was gay. The other group is the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

I suppose our society's debate over same-sex marriage, human rights laws and homosexuality will continue for some time. Plenty of people who consider themselves open-minded and reasonable still believe homosexuality to be an immoral choice. My hope is that they will change their view in time, just as we white folks - many of whom clung with equal fervor to the Bible to justify segregation - changed our views in time on civil rights.

But as for this constant attempt to equate all gay people with child molesters: At the very best, it is based in lack of knowledge; at the worst, something much darker. Decent people, even those who believe homosexuality is a sin , ought to speak out against it.

Low wage Republicans work to gut minimum wage

Backpedaling on minimum wage

Last November, voters in Florida passed a constitutional amendment raising the minimum wage by $1, to $6.15 per hour, and indexing it to inflation. Though only 3.1 percent of Florida's work force makes less than $6.15 per hour and would be directly impacted by raising the floor, Amendment 5 passed with more than 70 percent support. That suggests voters see raising a wage that hadn't been adjusted since 1997 as a matter of basic fairness.

Why then is the Legislature entertaining proposals that might weaken the new amendment and make it difficult to enforce? Could it be that some of the state's leading lawmakers are more interested in protecting business interests than in looking out for low-wage workers?
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Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, the only member to vote against the bill, said the committee "did an injustice to the amendment.

"(My colleagues) say they want to do the will of the people, but every time the people say what they want, we find a way to ignore or emasculate it."

The people passed Amendment 5 to provide some wage relief to the dishwashers, hotel maids and retail clerks of our state, yet lawmakers seem to be intent on making it difficult for them to assert their new rights. Before this bill is finally passed, it needs some major overhauling and a completely different point of view.

Jeb! funds Medically Needy in order to ease death of Medicaid

And, surprise, he wants tax cuts for the rich.

On the eve of the 2005 Legislature, Gov. Jeb Bush proposed speeding up the elimination of an investments tax and fully funding a health care program for the gravely ill and uninsured.

The proposals were part of nearly $700-million in spending recommendations Bush made Monday.

The tax cut would save 320,000 Floridians almost $300-million a year. The Legislature has been chipping away for years at the intangibles tax - a tax on stocks and bonds - and eliminating it has been a priority of the governor's.

Now, with the state's economy buoyed by rebuilding from last year's hurricanes, Bush says the time is right to eliminate the tax.

"Given the robust nature of our economy, this would be a good time to do it," Bush said.

House Speaker Allan Bense supports the proposal, but Senate President Tom Lee has been more cautious about tax cuts.

If lawmakers agree to eliminate the intangibles tax, it would raise to $11-billion the amount of taxes cut by the Bush administration through the 2005 fiscal year.

Bush had proposed gutting most of the Medically Needy program but sought to avoid a political battle that could threaten his ambitious plan to convert Medicaid into a government-funded private insurance plan. "I didn't want the Medically Needy issue to get in the way of discussion about Medicaid reform," Bush said Monday. "I thought it was appropriate to take that off the table for the Legislature."

Medicaid Reform

A bankrupt law

The America! Coalition

Get on the phone

As the Florida Legislature gears up to make the voter mandated Florida minimum wage law as weak and employer friendly as possible, legislators in Washington are debating the federal minimum wage. Senator Santorum (link may not be safe for work) of Pennsylvania has introduced an amendment in which

the 40-hour work week would be abolished and companies would not have to pay overtime if they cut hours the next week. The proposal is called "flex time", but workers would have no say in the matter. Their hours could be rearranged, upsetting child care and other weekly routines, and companies would no longer have the deterrent of having to pay overtime as a way to encourage giving workers a regular weekly schedule.

Banning State Minimum Wage Laws: But here's a kicker from a GOP supposedly dedicated to states rights. Santorum's bill would ban states from requiring employers to pay tipped workers with a guaranteed wage. Employers could pay tipped workers nothing and force them to live off tips, while states would be preempted from creating a higher wage standard for tipped workers.

Atrios is on the case, and suggests that we

Call Senator Santorum's office and ask him why he thinks people who earn tips should work for free. You could also ask if, say, this provision applies to people in the dog grooming industry.

Washington, D.C. Office:
511 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Main: 202-224-6324

Jeb!'s Medicaid Eradication Plan

Ever since Social Security was enacted, in 1935, Republicans have been questioning its solvency. They continue to use those same type of arguments today, disingenuously proclaiming that we must destroy Social Security in order to save it, when, in fact, a tiny bit of tinkering, such as raising the Social Security taxable income cap, is all that is really needed to keep the program strong.

In Florida, Jeb! is taking a page from the GOP’s anti-Security play book in an attempt to gut the state’s Medicaid system which provides health insurance for the poor and disabled.

It’s all about money. The affluent self-described conservative ruling class is comprised of greedy, short sighted con men. Born into wealth and power, they see themselves as self made (Jim Hightower would say “born on third base and thought he hit a triple...”), and they combine a lack of compassion for the lower classes with an avarice that knows no bounds.

The goal is the killing of government services that benefit all citizens, and the preferred method is starvation. Public schools, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare - these are all described as unnecessary wastes of taxpayer dollars, and all are under attack.

First, they cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy. The resulting loss of revenue predictably creates a fiscal crisis, and the only way out, we are told, is to cut spending on programs that the poor and middle class rely on to make ends meet and even to stay alive.

Jeb! has pushed through $11 billion in tax cuts since he became Governor. He’s proposing even more cuts this year, and, not surprisingly, he’s insisting that Medicaid is breaking the state budget’s back and that education spending will zoom out of control if the voter mandated class size caps are allowed to fully kick in.

His plan for Medicaid is to privatize by throwing money at HMOs, a group which has given heavily to the GOP cause. Jeb!’s other privatization schemes have largely crashed and burned, proving more costly than government run programs and often being accompanied by graft and corruption.

This time, he’ll insure the insurers by instituting draconian caps on Medicaid spending and greatly limiting prescription medications, thus providing EZ profits for the private healthcare providers. Many sick people will fall through the cracks and die, which should improve long term profits, but local municipalities and hospitals will be forced to pick up where the new Medicaid leaves off, a cost shift that will let Jeb! show a “savings” in the state budget.

Medicaid costs are rising, but that’s mostly due to a surge in enrollment - perhaps a result of the low wage jobs that have typically been created under Jeb! - and Medicaid’s per patient costs are rising less than private insurance per patient costs. In other words, Medicaid is more efficient than the private sector.

Further, much of Medicaid’s costs are paid for by the federal government. The costs to the state are much less than Jeb! would have you believe.

A close look at what we know of Jeb!’s proposal reveals that, much like his brother’s Social Security arguments, the “crisis” is an invention, a PR tool designed to provide cover for the real agenda: the destruction of the social safety net.

GOP wants to weaken minimum wage

Let’s get one thing straight: Jeb! and his GOP cronies absolutely hate being told what to do by lowly voters. Jeb! fought for and won a repeal of the voter mandated bullet train, and is now going after the class size amendment.

Last year, Florida voters overwhelmingly decided to give low wage workers a raise to $6.15 per hour. This is only a dollar more than the federal minimum wage, and it doesn’t even come close to being a living wage - a salary that is sufficient to pay rent, buy food, and provide clothes and other necessities for a family.

Despite the miserly paychecks that will result from a $6.15 wage, Florida’s GOP legislators feel that this extra dollar would be a huge burden for the businesses that would have to pay it, and they are fighting hard to minimize the effects.

The proposed legislation could limit workers' right to file class-action lawsuits if they feel that the higher pay has been withheld. Also, it gives employers a 15-day window after a worker complains to pay up and still incur no penalty or fine.

Pedro Dongo, manager of the Latin Cafe 2000 restaurant near downtown Miami, likes the idea of an extra cushion of time to comply with the state's new minimum wage, which kicks in May 2.

With a chain of six Latin-style cafeterias in Miami-Dade County, ''having more time is preferable,'' Dongo said.

However, that flexibility for employers wasn't what the constitutional amendment intended, say supporters who helped win approval for the measure.

Backers of Amendment No. 5 are concerned about a proposed bill that should be ready for lawmakers when the Florida Legislature opens Tuesday. They fear that the measure, which seeks to clarify how the increase will be implemented, instead creates loopholes for employers and eliminates vital protections for workers by limiting their ability to file class-action lawsuits.

ACORN, the advocacy group that organized a petition drive that got the minimum wage amendment on the ballot, says no enabling legislation is needed for this measure. ACORN is an acronym for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Laura Mullins, one of ACORN's state organizers, said the proposed legislation actually weakens enforcement and is employer friendly.

''Voters wanted a strongly worded amendment to the Constitution,'' she said.

The amendment calls for the higher minimum wage to go into effect six months after it was voted in. The wage is then adjusted for inflation every September.

There are some 135,000 workers in the state that will be affected by the change.

The proposed bill gives employers a 15-day window to pay the higher wages before they are penalized for breaking the law.

Peter Valori, a Miami-based attorney who represents mostly management in employment cases, said employers can't use that period to retaliate against a staffer who has complained about not being paid the higher wage.
......

McAllister, whose group provided input to the House Judiciary Committee which has drafted the proposed bill, said legislation is essential because employers needed to know when the higher wage would be effective.

If workers decide to sue an employer, the bill requires workers to state upfront how much they are owed in back pay. It also requires all members of a potential class to identify themselves when a lawsuit is filed, which will prevent other wronged workers from joining the suit.

Damages to workers would be limited to amounts stated in the lawsuit at the onset of the litigation.

Labor lawyers say the provision flies in the face of how class actions usually proceed. Normally, plaintiffs and damages are determined during the discovery process once a class action has been certified by a court.

Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, was the only member of the House Judiciary Committee who voted against the enabling bill, because the language is ``contrary to the spirit and letter of the amendment.''

With the legislative session getting underway next week, ACORN is mounting an aggressive grass-roots lobbying effort to derail the proposed bill.

Members of ACORN have started visiting legislators in Tallahassee and will be in town March 21 to protest .

Welfare Daddy Sembler gets paid

Remember Supreme Welfare Daddy Mel Sembler? He’s the local shopping center magnate who relies on a government check to pay his mortgage every month. He also founded Straight, the abusive teenage brainwashing outfit that took lots of money from parents and scarred many kids for life.

Lately, he’s been giving tons of cash to the GOP and getting various ambassadorships in return, and very recently, he was given a rather unique tribute (“MONUMENTAL”, according to MaxSpeak) by a rather fawning Rep. C.W. Bill Young, head of the House Appropriations Committee.

The big news was not in Brussels or Bratislava, but in Rome, where real history was made with the dedication of the Mel Sembler Building. This lovely, ornate building in the heart of the Eternal City had been put up for sale a couple of years ago by an Italian insurance company. U.S. Embassy officials jumped at the chance to consolidate outlying offices in a more secure location near the embassy.

And who better to negotiate the $83.5 million deal than the ambassador himself, a wealthy former shopping center developer in St. Petersburg, Fla., and former Republican National Committee finance chairman who gave the GOP boatloads of money over the years?

And this would be . . . yes, Mel Sembler. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush rewarded Sembler with a fine ambassadorship in Australia. But the money kept coming in, and Sembler got the RNC post in 1997. So by 2000, something much better than Canberra was only fitting. Only one of the great ones -- say, Rome -- would do.

But how is it the building came to be named for a sitting ambassador? This is something that apparently has never happened in U.S. diplomatic history, no matter how meritorious the diplomat. Not even for such folks as Llewellyn Thompson or Charles "Chip" Bohlen, both ambassadors to Moscow during the darkest days of the Cold War.

Well, turns out that in December, Congress passed a bill saying the annex "shall hereafter be known and designated as the 'Mel Sembler Building.' " Who did this? None other than Sembler's pal, Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.), who was then chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. We know this from watching the stirring video of the Feb. 22 dedication -- available on the embassy Web site.

"I spoke to President Bush just a few days ago," Young said, "and told him that I was coming here to be with you and what we were going to do today."

Bush thought this unusual. "And he said," Young recalled, " 'We don't do that, do we? We don't name buildings for ambassadors where they have served.' And I said, 'Mr. President, I introduced the bill and you signed it.' " (Don't blame Bush for not noticing one line tucked into the omnibus appropriations bill.) Young and Rep. Rodney P. Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) flew to Rome for the ribbon-cutting.

Young proudly gave Sembler a copy of the legislation, adding that the historic move came about not "because of some bureaucratic decision but by an act of Congress." Couldn't have happened any other way. The bureaucrats would have known better.

And he presented Sembler with a large bronze plaque to be affixed to the Mel Sembler Building.

But there was more. If you go, as you should, to the Web site to look at the stunning photo display, you'll come to a gorgeous photo (shown above) of the frescoed ceiling of the C.W. Bill Young Conference Center right there in the Mel Sembler Building. And there are a couple of fine bronze plaques naming the center that go on the walls there.

Related: BlogWood: Norwood's Fair and Balanced Nattering: "Mommy, I don't like this"

Bankruptcy bill bites

Have you heard about the new version of the bipartisan bankruptcy bill making its way through Congress? It’s a horrible bill for workers, a perfect opportunity for Democrats to stand up for the common man, but many Dems are standing with their GOP cohorts as they get ready to throw a meaty bone to the already fat credit card industry.

In the eight years since they began pressing for the tough bankruptcy bill being debated in the Senate, America's big credit card companies have effectively inoculated themselves from many of the problems that sparked their call for the measure.

By charging customers different interest rates depending on how likely they are to repay their debts and by adding substantial fees for an array of items such as late payments and foreign currency transactions, the major card companies have managed to keep their profits rising steadily even as personal bankruptcies have soared, industry figures show.

As a result, while they continue to press for legislation that would make it harder for individuals to declare bankruptcy, the companies have found ways to make money even on cardholders who eventually go broke.

At the same time, under the companies' new systems, many cardholders — especially low-income users — have ended up on a financial treadmill, required to make ever-larger monthly payments to keep their credit card balances from rising and to avoid insolvency.

"Most of the credit cards that end up in bankruptcy proceedings have already made a profit for the companies that issued them," said Robert R. Weed, a Virginia bankruptcy lawyer and onetime aide to former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"That's because people are paying so many fees that they've already paid more than was originally borrowed," he said.

In addition, some experts say, the changes proposed in the Senate bill would fundamentally alter long-standing American legal policy on debt. Under bankruptcy laws as they have existed for more than a century, creditors can seize almost all of a bankrupt debtor's assets, but they cannot lay claim to future earnings.

The proposed law, by preventing many debtors from seeking bankruptcy protection, would compel financially insolvent borrowers to continue trying to pay off the old debts almost indefinitely.

"Until now, the principle in this country has been that people's future human capital is their own," said David A. Moss, an economic historian at Harvard University. "If a person gets on a financial treadmill, they can declare bankruptcy and have what can't be paid discharged. But that would change with this bill."

Debate about the bill continued Thursday, with the Republican-controlled Senate refusing to limit consumer interest rates to 30%. The vote was a bipartisan 74 to 24 to kill a proposed amendment by Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.). Senate passage of the bill is expected next week.
......

Credit card companies have come in for harsh criticism in recent years for their penalty fees and the "risk-based pricing" under which they charge customers different interest rates depending on their credit histories and their likelihood of paying.

Consumer advocates have accused firms of not adequately disclosing such controversial practices as universal default, when a company can jack up a cardholder's annual percentage rate, often to more than 30%, based on the cardholder's performance with another creditor, not the card company.

Regulators and law enforcement officials have accused companies of deceptive practices. In 2000, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the San Francisco district attorney's office ordered Providian to pay $300 million in restitution after customers complained that the company didn't credit their payments on time and then imposed late fees.

A stream of court cases involving credit card companies has produced public outrage in various parts of the country.

In Cleveland, a municipal court judge tossed out a case that Discover Bank brought against one of its cardholders after examining the woman's credit card bill.

According to court papers, Ruth M. Owens, a 53-year-old disabled woman, paid the company $3,492 over six years on a $1,963 debt only to find that late fees and finance charges had more than doubled the size of her remaining balance to $5,564.

When the firm took her to court to collect, she wrote the judge a note saying, "I would like to inform you that I have no money to make payments. I am on Social Security Disability…. If my situation was different I would pay. I just don't have it. I'm sorry."

Judge Robert Triozzi ruled that Owens didn't have to pay, saying she had "clearly been the victim of [Discover's] unreasonable, unconscionable and unjust business practices."

Efforts to reach Owens were unsuccessful. A spokeswoman for Discover said she could not comment on the case.

Analysts said that lost in the uproar over particular practices and cases is the fact that the credit card industry has almost completely remade itself in the years since it began pushing for passage of the bankruptcy bill — a makeover that has left some analysts wondering why the industry needs the changes in bankruptcy law.

"The idea that companies are losing their shirts on bankruptcies is a lot of bull," said Robert B. McKinley, chief executive of CardWeb.com, a Frederick, Md., consulting group that tracks the credit card industry. "With these rates and fees, the card industry is a gravy train right now."

Wal-Mart values cheap PR

The headline implies that Wal-Mart is giving $5 million to a local hospital, but it’s worth reading the article to find some interesting details.

First, this is not an altruistic and selfless act: Wal-Mart will receive tons of good publicity, something they are actively seeking right now, and the emergency room will forever be stamped with the Wal-Mart name. Again, the free advertising here may be worth $5 million all by itself.

Next, it turns out that the bulk of the donation is not actually from Wal-Mart’s corporate coffers, but from fundraisers at local Wal-Mart stores. Wal-Mart is not making these donations - its customers and employees are. Wal-Mart is not paying $5 million for the free advertising, but it will get all of the benefit, since most people will never read past the headline.

Finally, it’s ironic that even as Wal-Mart soaks up all the good PR, many Wal-Mart and other low wage workers face the scary reality of having their kids lose health insurance. This will invariably lead to cases where the uninsured children of underpaid Wal-Mart workers will seek primary care at the Wal-Mart & Sam’s Club Emergency room while lacking any realistic ability to pay for hospital services, thus draining funds from the very place that Wal-Mart wants you to think that they are so kindly supporting.

Meet the boss

Support The New Boss and the SEIU
ARIANNA has details.

Unions and Democrats go back a long way, but Stern feels that many of the problems dogging the labor movement are also dogging the Party: complacency, timidity, an inability to adapt to a changing world. So while continuing his fight for the soul of the labor movement, Stern is also working to push for a new, more progressive, more worker-oriented economic agenda. "The Democratic message is not strong enough," he says. "If there's going to be a viable progressive movement, its main goal has to be to change the lives of people who go to work every day. Democrats need to ask, 'Are we addressing their concerns? Do they have health care? Do they have a secure retirement? Can their kids go to college?' This is the core test for America. And right now, we're failing the test."

Debunking Schiavo

Majikthise sets us straight on some of the right wing Schiavo talking points.

Lies Terri Schiavo's parents told me

Kill the poor

Jeb! thinks that killing the poor will save money, and he’s right. See, all we have to do is deny people the medicine they need to survive. We’ll save money right away by not having to pay for expensive prescription drugs, and the one-time costs of cadaver disposal will be more than offset by long term savings derived from our shrinking Medicaid rolls.

Now, some naysayers might point out that the rapid rise in Medicaid costs is due to a surge in enrollment, and they might point out that private insurance costs are rising faster than Medicaid costs, and they’d be right on both counts, but Jeb! doesn’t let silly things like facts muddle his logic, and that’s exactly why he is in charge and the naysayers are a bunch of sniveling losers.

Trying to stunt the rapid rise of Florida Medicaid costs, Gov. Jeb Bush wants the state to make its list of approved prescription drugs for the program the most restrictive in the nation.

The 2.3 million poor and disabled Floridians who rely on Medicaid for health care would lose access to hundreds of types of drugs in today's medicine cabinets. Those include treatments for mental illness and AIDS, despite a lack of less-expensive alternatives in such categories.
......

Florida has tried to cut its drug costs in recent years by reducing payments to pharmacies and requiring patients to be approved specifically for some medicines.

But Bush's proposal envisions carving $292 million from a $2.2 billion drug budget by limiting Medicaid recipients to the single cheapest drug in about 60 categories.
......

Currently, all states pay for drugs approved by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. That agency negotiates contracts with drug makers that provide steep rebates from published wholesale prices.

The result is that state Medicaid programs receive the lowest-priced drugs among all buyers with the exception of the Veterans Affairs Department. In return, states agree to pay for any drug on the approved list.

For Florida to limit its list, known as a formulary, the state would need federal approval to opt out of the current structure, according to the governor's proposal. The state then would lose all discounts negotiated by the federal agency.

``They are going to lose all the rebates,'' worth about $687 million in state spending, warned Dave Nickles, a Tallahassee lobbyist for drug maker Pfizer.
......

Jeffrey Crowley, a senior researcher at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, said Bush is proposing ``a very different approach in comparison to other states.''

Although Florida and some others require patients to gain specific approval for some of the more costly drugs, Crowley said, those lists in other states are compiled by committees of pharmacists who consider cost only after they determine whether drugs have little difference in effect - as many prescriptions for heartburn do, for example.

``Florida officials, in contrast, are being driven very much by cost,'' Crowley said. ``They are less driven by clinical considerations.''

Bob Sharpe, a former Florida Medicaid director who leads the Florida Council for Community Mental Health, said the result is ``bad medicine.'' His group and others plan to lobby against the governor's plan in the legislative session that begins next week.

Bob Sharpe, a prime example of the sniveling naysayer, would have us waste money on discounted drugs simply to keep people alive.

An hour before dawn, Jamal Houston has just finished 30 minutes of inhaling a lung-clearing nebulizer and is halfway through a tube-fed liquid breakfast of protein shakes and a dozen drugs managing his cerebral palsy, AIDS, congestive heart trouble and asthma.

A nurse, beating cupped hands on Jamal's back to knock loose the fluid in his chest and nose, turns off a gospel TV show and pops in a videotape of Barney the dinosaur -- a favorite of the 9-year-old boy, whose perturbed moans give way to giggles and a broad smile.

Since birth, Jamal has survived thanks to Medicaid, a statefederal insurance program for the poor, elderly and disabled that pays almost all his costly medical bills. Though his is an extreme case, Jamal is just one of 2.3 million recipients in Florida, where one in eight people receive its benefits. Medicaid helps 27 percent of all Florida children and 44 percent of pregnant women, and pays about 66 percent of nursing home care.

Kill The Poor

The sun beams down on a brand new day
No more welfare tax to pay
Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light
Jobless millions whisked away
At last we have more room to play
All systems go to kill the poor tonight

Gonna
Kill kill kill kill Kill the poor:Tonight

Behold the sparkle of champagne
The crime rate's gone
Feel free again
O' life's a dream with you, Miss Lily White
Jane Fonda on the screen today
Convinced the liberals it's okay
So let's get dressed and dance away the night

Fighting the Ybor Wal-Mart

It looks like Wal-Mart is coming to Ybor, or at least pretty close.

Rumors are flying about Wal-Mart’s still unannounced plans to build a supercenter on SR 60, just South of Ybor City. As locations for a big box retailer go, this one is pretty damn unobjectionable: it’s in a rundown industrial area right next to an expressway, and fronts a major state road.

So, there wont be a whole lot of hand wringing over environmental impacts or traffic problems. In fact, the only people who are objecting thus far are some Ybor developers and historic preservationists who rightly fear an encroachment of “Anywhere USA” toward the Ybor Historic District (pdf).

Of course, there’s already a collection of chain stores and restaurants with absolutely no unique qualities whatsoever right in the middle of Ybor City, but we’ll ignore that particular albatross for the time being.

Unfortunately for those who would like to see Ybor keep some of whatever character can still be glimpsed through the growing layers of blood and binge drink vomit that is left behind by the partying weekend hordes who see the area as theirs to shit on, Ybor is starved for retail right now, and there is an ample supply of captive potential customers in the projects and nearby neighborhoods.

I would venture to guess that the prevailing attitude amongst those future Wal-Mart victims is summed up by this guy.

Andrew Floyd, 62, moved to Ybor 45 years ago when it was a thriving neighborhood of Cubans, Italians and African-Americans. Over the years, most of his neighbors left. In the 1980s, homes abandoned because of a drug epidemic were knocked down to make room for warehouses. Now investors are sprucing up the remaining homes around him.

But grocery stores are reluctant to return. To get food, he drives 15 minutes to a Kash n' Karry on 50th Street. Floyd said he lives off Social Security, so he would embrace Wal-Mart's discount prices.

"I think it would be great," he said. "I'll shop there."

And this guy.

Dan Snow loves the location and character of his Ybor City neighborhood.

But he's quick to describe the drawbacks.

``I have to drive to Bayshore Boulevard to get groceries,'' Snow said.

That could change if Wal- Mart Stores Inc. builds a Supercenter on 30 acres at the southeast corner of Adamo Drive and 22nd Street across from Ybor's historic district.

``It's funny because we would never envision a Wal- Mart coming down here,'' said Snow, who lives on Fifth Avenue, a few streets north of the possible site. ``I'm sure some people won't like the way it looks, but it wouldn't be a bad thing.''

See, people in the neighborhoods around the proposed location are gonna welcome Wal-Mart with open arms. The idea of dissuading a walking distance grocery store will be completely alien, especially since many of these people probably already shop at some other Wal-Mart that’s a long bus ride away.

The city of Tampa doesn’t seem too bothered by the idea of Wal-Mart either, seeing anything as better than the blighted warehouses that dot the area now, though City Councilperson Linda Saul-Sena seems ready to fight on aesthetic grounds.

When the news of the negotiations broke last week, Tampa City Councilwoman Linda Saul-Sena, a preservationist, began looking into what the city could do to deter Wal- Mart from coming.

She's happy to hear the company wouldn't build its traditional supercenter design but says that ``the better thing for them to do is not come to that location at all.''

``It's inappropriate for that area and would be better suited closer to Brandon,'' she said.

I think that Nathan Newman has it right: Perhaps the best way to fight Wal-Mart is through regulation.

We aren't going to convince people to improve Wal-Mart's working conditions by telling them they really don't want what Wal-Mart's selling, since they obviously do. What we can do is point out that many of the things they like about Wal-Mart -- especially the convenience and decent prices -- are compatible with the workers being treated with respect and dignity. The prices might go up a little bit, but most folks will treat that as a reasonable tradeoff. But if you tell them it's a choice between decent wages and having Wal-Mart altogether, I'm afraid we're fighting a losing battle.

Maybe it's because at heart I'm a Wal-Mart shopper and only avoid the place on principle that I have strong sympathy for those who support bringing them into towns across the country. I testified in Chicago in support of our bill to require living wages at large retail stores, and the aldermen from the poor parts of Chicago where Wal-Mart wanted to put their stores were rapturous at the prospect of bringing a few more shopping choices to areas ignored by most retail outfits. They were quite willing to regulate Wal-Mart but they were somewhat angry at the activists who wanted to block it from coming altogether. I'd rather choose a strategy -- fight to regulate and raise standards at Wal-Mart -- that accomodates both the desires by shoppers for what Wal-Mart sells and the desires by those same people as citizens that the workers at Wal-Mart get paid a decent wage.

And it just so happens that Tampa has some leverage.

To build a Wal-Mart store of any kind, the retail giant would need a zoning change. The city won't grant it unless the company is willing to adapt to the area, Huey said. The 30-acre property is currently zoned for industrial use and needs approval from the Tampa City Council to change the zoning.

So a workable plan to create a Wal-Mart that’s just a little better than the usual indelible blob of evil might include architectural guidelines and rules that force Wal-Mart to pay decent wages and to provide meaningful benefits to their employees. If Wal-Mart can’t deal with that, then fuck ‘em - they can build somewhere else.

Wal-Mart claims to pay it’s employees an average of close to $10 per hour, but that average is achieved by including bloated executive salaries. The real average wage of hourly employees is so low that most cannot afford company health insurance. Many Wal-Mart workers end up getting food stamps and other public assistance just to scrape by. In essence, this becomes a government subsidy to the richest retailer in the world.

Why don’t we take Wal-Mart’s CEO’s words and make Wal-Mart live up to them. The Slate article linked above quotes CEO Scott.

Wal-Mart's average wage is around $10 an hour, nearly double the federal minimum wage. The truth is that our wages are competitive with comparable retailers in each of the more than 3,500 communities we serve, with one exception - a handful of urban markets with unionized grocery workers. ...Few people realize that about 74 percent of Wal-Mart hourly store associates work full-time, compared to 20 to 40 percent at comparable retailers. This means Wal-Mart spends more broadly on health benefits than do most big retailers, whose part-timers are not offered health insurance. You may not be aware that we are one of the few retail firms that offer health benefits to part-timers. Premiums begin at less than $40 a month for an individual and less than $155 per month for a family.

Now, this is mostly bullshit, and is debunked in the rest of the article, but what’s wrong with asking Wal-Mart to live by these words? Let’s require them to pay hourly workers $10 per hour. Let’s make them prove that most of their hourly workers are able to afford company health insurance. Let’s force them to adhere to some basic minimum standards, with real penalties, like closing down stores, if they slip up.

Call or email Linda Saul-Sena and encourage her to pursue a strategy of regulation to force Wal-Mart to build a nice looking store, and, more importantly, to force Wal-Mart to be a nicer neighbor.

Praise Ms. Saul-Sena for her willingness to stand up to Wal-Mart, and politely demand that she include the rights of workers in any deals that she may be considering. Remind her that Wal-Mart will drive down wages in the area and force more working families into poverty and homelessness, which will ultimately cost local governments real money, unless the company is forced to pay a living wage and provide decent benefits.

You should also contact the other members of Tampa’s City Council and share your concerns with them.

Simply allowing the retail giant to plop down a minimum wage-paying generic, neighborhood-killing monster with little or no oversight would be a real tragedy.

Schiavo parents grasping at straws

This is just getting stupid: now the parents of Terri Schiavo want a judge to force a divorce between her and her husband because he has actually slept with another woman in the 15 years that Terry has been in a vegetative state. Perhaps they should learn from his example and get on with their lives. Remember: after a fair trial, it was determined that Terri would not have wanted to be kept alive under these conditions. It’s Terry’s right to die that the increasingly desperate parents, with the help of some opportunistic publicity seeking right wing religious organizations, are seeking to subvert.

Terri Schiavo's parents filed a flurry of motions Monday aimed at averting her death or ensuring her family's religious and personal concerns are respected should that effort fail.

Bob and Mary Schindler want quick action on 15 pending motions so they can start asking appeal courts to block the scheduled March 18 removal of their daughter's life- sustaining feeding tube, attorney David Gibbs said Monday.

The 11 motions filed Monday include a divorce petition seeking appointment of a legal guardian to act on the brain- damaged woman's behalf.

``Mr. Schiavo has engaged in open adultery. ... [Terri Schiavo] clearly would not desire to die while married to Mr. Schiavo,'' the motion states.

Circuit Judge George Greer immediately refused to hear two of the 11 new motions, including the divorce petition, along with four pending motions asking for new medical tests, treatment and the removal of Michael Schiavo as his wife's guardian, Gibbs said.

The motions rejected by Greer are the ones aimed at keeping Terri Schiavo alive. Gibbs said he will begin appeals that could put the case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The remaining motions deal with issues such as the administration of last rites and the Schindlers' desire that their daughter be buried according to Catholic tradition rather than cremated, as Michael Schiavo has ordered.

Bob Schindler faulted the judge Monday for not considering whether his daughter should have more medical tests.

Greer has ruled repeatedly that Terri Schiavo's brain was destroyed when her heart failed in 1990 at age 26 and that she is in a persistent vegetative state. After a January 2000 trial, Greer found testimony from Michael Schiavo and his relatives showed she would not want to be kept alive.

``He is on a death march,'' Schindler said of the judge.

Michael Schiavo should have no say over his wife's fate, Schindler said.

``The guy has been living with a woman for the past 10 years and has two children,'' he said. ``It's an insult to Terri.''

Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, said any spouse who truly loves his or her partner would want that spouse to ``seek some sort of happiness rather than to be alone.''

Felos called Monday's flurry of new motions a ``smoke screen ... aimed at subverting Terri Schiavo's wish'' not to be kept alive in a vegetative state.

``I think the real issue is what the state is going to do, either the Legislature or the governor,'' Felos said of talk in Tallahassee about intervening again.

In October 2003, Gov. Jeb Bush used a hastily crafted measure dubbed ``Terri's Law'' to order the woman's feeding tube reinserted six days after it was removed by court order. Terri's Law since has been ruled unconstitutional.

``The Florida Supreme Court made it clear they can't do anything to undermine the judicial decisions in Terri's case,'' Felos said. ``The citizenry should be highly concerned about what they might pass in a failed attempt to hurt this case that hurts countless Floridians.''

Jeb! proposes religious indoctrination to stop abortions

Even as arguments against using state tax dollars for funding religious schools commence at the Florida Supreme Court, Jeb! has announced that he wants to start throwing even more money at rightward tilting self-proclaimed “Christian” organizations, this time to provide mandatory brainwashing to women who are seeking to safely and legally end an unwanted pregnancy.

The state would work with nonprofit organizations to convince women they shouldn't get abortions if they have unwanted pregnancies, under a plan announced by Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings on Monday.

Pregnant women would be able to call a state hot line and be referred to a nonprofit organization that would advise them about choices they have other than abortion and about programs to help them if they choose to keep the child.

The state would give the groups grants to counsel the women.

"It's all about making sure that there are services there in the community to help women who feel they don't have a choice," Jennings said.

Gov. Jeb Bush included $4 million in his budget proposal to start the program, which would be overseen by his office.

Planned Parenthood officials criticized the proposal.

"I can't say how much we strongly oppose this," said Kathleen Mahoney, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Palm Beach and Treasure Coast Area. "This is using tax money to push a certain ideology."
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Mahoney said: "Instead of giving money to groups that promote propaganda and misinformation, Gov. Bush should provide money for things that have been scientifically proven to reduce the number of abortions, like comprehensive sexual education."