Posted on 03/31/2005 3:05:08 PM PST by kingattax
I'm not trying to be snotty here, but what are the people on these threads who have literally gone bonkers going to do when they find out that Scalia and Thomas joined the seven others in ruling that the USSC had no right to hear the case? Claim they, too, are "out of control?"
This issue is bigger than Terri Schiavo....
Yes it is. It's about states rights and keeping the Federal Government out of state business.
The founding principle of the Constitutional court system is that NO LEGISLATURE can write enough detail into ANY law that it does not need to be applied on a case-by-case basis. What all this uproar is going to do is to force state legislatures to write even more detail into laws, and IMHO, in "right to die" legislation, you are NOT going to like the results if the polls are any indicator.
MSM is hot on his tail of so called ethics problems. I won't be surprised to see them bring him down. If his fellow Republicans decide they might be risking their own political futures by protecting him they will leave him to the wolves. That is the nature of politics today. So, no matter that the House will not support it in the present, does not mean they will not in the future (they at times have an every man for himself attitude). The actions of the circuit court judge Greer in this issue should be scrutinized, especially in light of the Congressional subpoena that was issued and quashed. I know you are the very learned prof. of history, but we are dealing with more than just the separation of powers here. We are dealing with a powerful media that has the ability to bring down the mightiest in power. JMHO
PS: the polls are slanted....
I suppose it was "all about states rights" too when the Supreme Ct. decided Brown v. Board of Education, or when Congress passed the Civil Rights Acts in the early '60s. Sorry, the "states rights" argument was rendered null and void when states fail to grant individuals basic human rights.
Tom Delay pooped his pants when the Us Supreme Court told Texas they couldn't outlaw sodomy. Conservatives everywhere complained that federal courts had no right to stick their nose in state business. Those same Conservatives now want the US Congress to overrule state courts? Give me a break. Floridians need to work on their laws. Congress doesn't need to tell their judges how to rule.
Did you even read the law passed by Congress in this case? If you didn't, go read it, and then come back here and tell me it was a horrible expansion of federal control over state law.
Going to be an interesting decade, that's for sure.
Yep, we need a wartime consigliere ...
Now, I'll be honest. I have not kept up with the specifics of Delay's ethics problems, but the House can't kick him out (and won't), so he is safe as long as the people in his distric re-elect him.
All Greer did was to interpret the Congressional mandate for a "de novo" hearing as a "new" hearing, which he gave them. Trust me, you do NOT want the U.S. congress spelling out in minute detail what a single judge must do. Moreover, as I've pointed out, this was a non-starter from the get-go: even if Greer had given Congress what it wanted, a "bottoms up" brand-new hearing it would have looked like this: the Schindlers would have brought in two neurologists who said Terri is fine; Schaivo would have brought in two who said she is PVS; and Greer, as the tie-breaker, would have appointed a fifth neurologist who conformed to his earlier decision, and that would be that. I'm amazed that anyone here thought ANY "de novo" hearing would have any different result. The judge always sets the definitions.
So then what? Are you really going to allow Congress to say, "You must not only have a de novo hearing, but must use neurologists x, y, z?" Then, after the hearing starts, say one dies---and the judge has to appoint another one! The point is NO LEGISLATURE can get involved in this minutia---it is totally destructive of the entire system.
2) All the people I talk to---including MANY fundamentalist Christians---are on the other side of this, and they KNOW the issues. They aren't fooled.
We as conservatives, above all, should know that the public generally knows the score. They knew it in the 2004 election, and they knew it in this case. It's a very bad habit to think that the "peeps" are stupid just because they don't agree with you.
Any volunteers?...Anyone at all....?
True about Trent Lott. I hope that DeLay hangs tough.
Regarding 'de novo' hearing I would have hoped that the issue of guardianship of Michael should have been reviewed. He had definite conflict of interest in having moved on with another woman, having children etc...
Terri did not have a guardian with her best interest at heart. Through all of the legalese there has to be some common sense in the law or we are all doomed to live with the ridiculous whims of any crazy judge out there. Judges are not infallible and there has to be a check on them. The government of the people is by the people, not by the judiciary.
(thanks for your thoughtful responses).
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