Whoever created this site is undoubtedly going straight to hell.

And I guess I am too, because God forgive me, I laughed -- hard.

Me too.

When George Bush was campaigning for the presidency, as incumbent vice-president, one of his stops was in Chicago, Illinois, on August 27, 1987. At O'Hare Airport he held a formal outdoor news conference. There Robert I. Sherman, a reporter for the American Atheist news journal, fully accredited by the state of Illinois and by invitation a participating member of the press corps covering the national candidates, had the following exchange with then-Vice-President Bush:

Sherman: What will you do to win the votes of the Americans who are atheists?

Bush: I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me.

Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?

Bush: No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God. [emphasis added]

Sherman (somewhat taken aback): Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?

Bush: Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists.

Of course, the mainstream media did not consider these uncontroversial statements at all newsworthy.

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."

. . . .

"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." [Note: the "official" quoted here may a different person than that quoted in the previous paragraph I quoted.] [link via Talking Points Memo]

Meanwhile, assorted crazies are urging, or trying to effect themselves, the "rescue" of Terri Schiavo and/or the murder of Michael Schiavo and Judge Greer. See here, here, here, and here. Not surprising when you have the likes of Tom DeLay calling the removal of Terri's feeding tube "murder" and "medical terrorism." Rethuglicans and cable television have been wildly irresponsible in whipping the Christian Right into a frenzy about this. (World O'Crap has complete coverage of Terri's enraged "supporters.")

Steve Gilliard notes:

That line from Red October is running through my head again:"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we will be lucky to live through it."

Why? Because the Republicans are still counting fundie votes. They think they can control this, that nothing will happen and the base will be excited. But most of the base is revolted. They are horrified at the sanctimony and the increasing rhetoric from people who should know better. Ignore judges? Kidnap a dying woman? Are they kidding?

Why is this happening? Because they thought it would be a gimme. That the only people who would care is the radical right and their foot soldiers. They could get their way and trap the Dems in the process. But now, the Dems stepped out of the way and let the GOP take every bit of heat for this. You have the spectacle of Randall Terry, has-been, making demands on Jeb Bush, who meekly says "I can't go beyond my powers."

Bush and Bush seem to be puppets of the fringe elements, a group who would let their kids get arrested, which horrifies most people. All that political capital has been squandered, as Jim Wolcott said, on a Sunday flight from Crawford.

But Bush has never spread political risk. He has always heaped it on and expected to be rewarded in the end. There has never been a downside for this. But there is now. If Judge Greer or Michael Schiavo is harmed in any way, that turd is going to land right on the doors of the White House and Congress. They unleashed this madness and the idea that they could escape it is unlikely. [link via Daily Kos; typos corrected]

In a Polarizing Case, Jeb Bush Cements His Political Stature

 

WASHINGTON, March 24 - Gov. Jeb Bush's last-minute intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, even after the president had ended his own effort to keep her alive, may have so far failed in a legal sense, but it has cemented the religious and social conservative credentials of a man whose political pedigree is huge and whose political future remains a subject of intense speculation.

On one level, the Florida governor's emergence as the most prominent politician still fighting, despite a string of court and legislative defeats, to have a feeding tube reinserted in Ms. Schiavo was very much in keeping with someone who has repeatedly declared a deep religious faith.

Several associates noted that he had been devoutly religious longer than President Bush, and even critics said his efforts - prodding the Florida Legislature and the courts and defying much of the electorate - were rooted in a deep-seated opposition to abortion and euthanasia rather than in political positioning.

Yet inevitably, the events of recent days have fed the mystique of Mr. Bush as a reluctant inheritor of perhaps America's most famous dynasty since the Adams family two centuries ago.

James Wolcott's reaction:

"In a Polarizing Case, Jeb Bush Cements His Political Stature," reads the Times hed.

The headline could have read "blah blah blah Jeb Bush Raises His Political Visibility." That's neutral-sounding, accurate. But by using the statesmanlike word "stature," the hed makes it sound as if Jeb Bush is having a Profile in Courage crisis moment with the Terri Schiavo case (when, more likely, he and his brother have blundered through overpandering, but let that go for the moment).

Now, Nagourney isn't responsible for the headline, of course, but it's faithful to the awed gulp of his latest exhibition in political naivete.

He assures us that Jeb Bush's obtrusive meddling isn't rooted in political expedience or calculation but conviction and conscience.

"Several associates noted that he has been devoutly religious longer than President Bush, and even critics said his efforts--prodding the Florida Legislature and the courts and defying much of the electorate--were rooted in a deep-seated opposition to abortion and euthanasia rather than in political positioning."

Well, that's what "associates" are expected to say. Of course, those who are loyal to Jeb Bush are going to testify to his good faith, just as Andy Card et al tell us what a conscientious, thoughtful executive Dubya is. To say otherwise would be to risk banishment. As for the "critics" who amen those sentiments, who are they? Name one, Nagourney. Surely there must be at least ONE quotable "critic" of Jeb Bush in the entire state of Florida who thinks that he's riding the Schiavo story for political gain as far as it can carry him.

And it's really marvy how things turn out so neatly for Jeb. Nagourney first assures us Jeb isn't doing this for political advantage, then a graf or so later writes, "[The] governor now certainly has a place, if he wants it, as a prime contender in what is shaping up as a fight to represent a conservative wing that has proved increasingly dominant."

Only a NY Times reporter could be gullible enough to think that a career politician takes a stand without any thought of future advantage and just happens to receive political advantage anyway 'cause that's kinda how things work out. That a politican becomes "a prime contender" by accident or historical caprice. (It's opposing the religious right that would be the disadvantageous stance to take in the Rovian Republican Party, which every future Republican candidate damn well knows.)

Adam Nagourney really ought to be writing for Tiger Beat. Because only a groupie with a byline could write of Jeb Bush's posturing in the Schiavo story, "[The] events of recent days have fed the mystique of Mr Bush as a reluctant inheritor of perhaps America's most famous dynasty since the Adams family two centuries ago."

So much for the Kennedys, but more to the point only the most starry-eyed hack could use the word "mystique" about an uninspired lump of political dough like Jeb Bush, and describe him as "a reluctant inheritor," as if Jeb would really rather be in Taos fulfilling his dream of becoming a watercolorist. You don't become governor of Florida and rig things to help your brother become president because your soul is Hamlet-torn.

. . . .

Any blogger who uses the phrase "the liberal New York Times" without irony should be returned to the pet store as a dead parrot.

Heh. Indeed. The American public is bright enough to recognize the actions of Jeb, his big brother, the Bug Man and the rest as political pandering to the Religious Right. Nagourney and the Times aren't as perceptive.

UPDATE: Media Matters has more about the article:

The New York Times quoted University of South Florida professor Susan MacManus praising Bush without disclosing her ties to his administration. MacManus served on Bush's transition team on health care; was appointed by Bush to the Florida Elections Commission and served as an adviser to Bush as of August 2004.

The New York Times reported MacManus's assertion that Bush is "a very ideologically consistent person" who is "putting politics aside" in the Terri Schiavo case:

Susan McManus [sic], a political science professor at the University of South Florida, said: "He [Bush] is a very ideologically consistent person. He made no bones about that from the first day he ran for office. Those of us who watch him think this is Jeb, and how he truly believes and what he truly believes, and this may be one of those instances where he's putting politics aside."

LEAD STORY

Vivienne, an interactive companion accessible on powerful, "third-generation" cell phones, was recently introduced by the Hong Kong company Artificial Life as a high-maintenance, video-image "girlfriend" who goes on dates with you, kisses, speaks six languages, converses on 35,000 topics, accepts flowers and diamonds, and may even marry you (though you also acquire a troublesome mother-in-law). Vivienne so far is prudish (no nudity, no sex), owing to Artificial Life's aim at marketing in modest cultures, but she will appear in Europe and some U.S. cities by the end of this year (at about $6 a month plus airtime). Said one Hong Kong video game player, characterizing Vivienne for the New York Times, "It's a little bit for the losers." [New York Times, 2-24-04]

Names in the News

From the crime column of the Lewisville (Texas) Leader, Feb. 14: arrested on charges of drug possession, driving while intoxicated, and driving without a license: Mr. Fred Flintstone, 34. And taken into custody in February in Miami to begin serving a one-year sentence on alien-smuggling charges: a Chinese national whose given name is King Kong. And an obituary from the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, Dec. 2: Mr. Dom Perigion Champagne, whose parents were Mr. Jeron Champagne and Ms. Perfect Engelberger. [Lewisville Leader, 2-14-05] [Tampa Tribune, 2-6-05] [Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 12-2-04]

. . . .

Finer Points of the Law

. . . .

Six years ago, during a brief affair in Chicago, Dr. Sharon Irons manually inseminated herself with sperm from Dr. Richard O. Phillips, following oral sex. The result was a daughter, now aged 5, for whom Phillips has reluctantly been paying $800 a month to support while his lawsuit against Irons for deception travels through Illinois courts. A trial judge had dismissed all of his claims, but in February, the Illinois Appeals Court granted a partial reversal, ordering a trial on whether she inflicted "emotional distress" by a legally "outrageous" act. However, the court dismissed Phillips' claim that Irons had "stolen" his sperm, stating that "it was a gift, an absolute and irrevocable transfer of title to property from a donor to a donee" and that, without a specific agreement to return it, it was hers to do with as she pleased. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-AP, 2-24-05]

I read synopses of Illinois Appellate Court (misidentified as "Illinois Appeals Court" above) decisions every day. Hard to believe that I missed that one. It must have been an unpublished decision; unpublished decisions are not generally circulated.

I'm all for responsible lawmakers doing responsible things, but when Hillarycare went down the Republicans didn't say "okay, let's do something responsible now" - they kept beating it even after it was dead and then won a bunch of seats.

The Senate approved the measure on an unchallenged voice vote during a rare Palm Sunday session that came amid charges of cynical political maneuvering. Only three members were on the floor and the bill's prime sponsor, Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, served as presiding officer. [emphasis added; link via the rude pundit]

upyernoz, quoting tas, references Article I, section 5 of the Constitution, which provides:

Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business . . . . [emphasis added]

The meaning of this is pretty self-evident. If explanation is needed, the Supreme Court provided it in an 1892 case:

The Constitution provides that "a majority of each [house] shall constitute a quorum to do business." In other words, when a majority are present the house is in a position to do business. Its capacity to transact business is then established, created by the mere presence of a majority, and does not depend upon the disposition or assent or action of any single member or fraction of the majority present. All that the Constitution requires is the presence of a majority, and when that majority are present the power of the house arises.

United States v. Ballin, 144 U.S. 1, 5-6 (1892) (emphasis added).

The Supreme Court further held in Ballin that each house has the power to enact rules to determine when a majority is present. 144 U.S. at 6. The relevant rule of the Senate is Standing Rule VI:

1. A quorum shall consist of a majority of the Senators duly chosen and sworn. 2. No Senator shall absent himself from the service of the Senate without leave. 3. If, at any time during the daily sessions of the Senate, a question shall be raised by any Senator as to the presence of a quorum, the Presiding Officer shall forthwith direct the Secretary to call the roll and shall announce the result, and these proceedings shall be without debate. 4. Whenever upon such roll call it shall be ascertained that a quorum is not present, a majority of the Senators present may direct the Sergeant at Arms to request, and, when necessary, to compel the attendance of the absent Senators, which order shall be determined without debate; and pending its execution, and until a quorum shall be present, no debate nor motion, except to adjourn, or to recess pursuant to a previous order entered by unanimous consent, shall be in order. [emphasis added]

This rule does not authorize a gathering of three senators to decide that they are a "majority" of the Senate. To the contrary, the first clause, "[a] quorum shall consist of a majority of the Senators duly chosen and sworn," plainly requires fifty-one senators, not three, for a quorum. upyernoz notes the alternative:

of course, if it is valid, think of the fun we could have! if the president just gets a single senator and a single representative to sneak into the halls of congress in the dead of night, the three of them can unanimously pass any crazy thing they want!

There is also (at least) a third constitutional challenge to Terri's Law. It raises serious questions under the Tenth Amendment, which the Supreme Court has often used in recent years (such as Printz v. United States (1997)) to strike down federal laws that impinge upon the authority of the states. The states have the authority to set up their own court systems, and try cases in those systems. Those decisions are reviewable in federal courts, but only to a limited degree -- e.g., the Supreme Court can overturn state-court decisions that violate the federal Constitution, and lower federal courts can order the release of a prisoner who is being held in violation of the Constitution. The federal government should not be able to overturn a state-court decision simply because it does not like the result. I do not think this basis for challenging the law is as clear-cut as the first two, however.

Terri's Law should thus be struck down as unconstitutional both because (1) Congress lacked the power to enact it, and (2) a quorum was not present in the Senate when the Senate purportedly passed it.

UPDATE:  Some of the commenters to upyernoz's post say that the Senate (unlike the House) doesn't bother determining if a quorum is present unless someone present raises the issue. Commenters Andew A. Gill and A_B refer to the reference section of the Senate's website, which defines "quorum":

The number of Senators that must be present for the Senate to do business. The Constitution requires a majority of Senators (51) for a quorum. Often, fewer Senators are actually present on the floor, but the Senate presumes that a quorum is present unless the contrary is shown by a roll call vote or quorum call. [emphasis added]

I still fail to see how this practice can be squared with the constitutional requirement. If this is legit, I fully expect that "the Senate," comprised of Bill Frist, either by himself or accompanied by a buddy or two (as here), will be passing a lot more bills in the future. Who needs those pesky Democrats to gum up the works?

Partisans on the left and right have formed cottage industries devoted to discrediting what they dismissively call the "mainstream media" -- the networks, daily newspapers and newsmagazines. Their goal: to steer readers and viewers toward ideologically driven outlets that will confirm their own views and protect them from disagreeable facts. In an increasingly fragmented media world, ideologues have already devolved into parallel universes, in which liberals and conservatives can select talk radio hosts, cable news pundits and blogs that share their prejudices.

Brain scans show that parts of Schiavo's brain have atrophied and been replaced by spinal fluid. With such severe damage, Schiavo can't show the recovery that Scantlin has, said Dr. Michael Pulley, assistant professor of neurology at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Jacksonville.

"Those types of changes don't reverse," Pulley said. "If you lose big pieces of brain, regardless of what it is - trauma, stroke, surgery - it doesn't come back." [link via World O'Crap]

Terri's husband, Michael, has testified that she told him, after they watched a movie about Karen Ann Quinlan, that she would not want to live in such a condition. For the past seven years, he has been fighting Terri's parents in court to have her feeding tube disconnected and allow her to die in peace. The courts have repeatedly agreed that that is what Terri would wish.

The case has been used as a political football, first by Jeb Bush and the Florida legislature:

In October 2003, after years of litigation, Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed, only to be reinserted six days later, after the Florida Legislature passed the law that gave Bush the power to intervene. Bush ordered the feeding tube reinserted.

The Florida Supreme Court later held that the law under which Bush acted was unconstitutional.

In recent days, George W. Bush and Congressional Republicans have seized upon the case as an opportunity to demonstrate their supposed "commitment to life." Dubya on Thursday issued this statement:

The case of Terri Schiavo raises complex issues. Yet in instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, 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 - and that culture of life must extend to individuals with disabilities.

This is a meaningless statement. It's fine to have a "presumption in favor of life," but that presumption has been repeatedly rebutted:

Michael Schiavo contends his wife would not want to be kept alive artificially. . . .

. . . Over the years, courts have sided with [him] in more than a dozen cases.

On Friday, Congress took the bizarre step of subpoenaing Terri Schiavo to appear before it. The Florida trial judge nonetheless ordered her feeding tube removed "forthwith," and the Supreme Court of the United States refused to intervene.

Tom DeLay and other deeply concerned Congressmen were undeterred:

Already rebuffed by the highest federal and state courts, DeLay and other Republican members of Congress pushed ahead throughout the day and into the night with their legislative crusade on behalf of the severely brain-damaged Florida woman.

Their objective: Pass a bill that would cloak Schiavo — and only Schiavo — in some degree of federal protection and allow her parents to seek federal appeal of their legal setbacks in Florida courts.

"We are confident this compromise will restore nutrition and hydration to Mrs. Schiavo as long as that appeal endures," DeLay said. "Obviously, the judge will have to put the feeding tube back in or she could die before the case is heard."

The proposed legislation is an amazing abridgment of "state's rights," allegedly so dear to Republicans (at least when a state is itching to kill some black guy for a murder that he may not have committed). The bill would require the case to be litigated from the beginning in federal court, effectively wiping seven years of state-court litigation off the map. (link via Atrios)

Dubya, too, was concerned about Terri -- so concerned that he even cut short his latest vacation!

The president changed his schedule to return to Washington from his Texas ranch today to be on hand to sign the legislation.

Tom DeLay, often considered seriously ethically challenged, knows what's right and wrong in this case:

"Right now," Tom DeLay said on Friday, "murder is being committed against a defenseless American citizen in Florida. Terri Schiavo's feeding tube should be immediately replaced, and Congress will continue working to explore ways to save her."

. . . . 

"Mrs. Schiavo's life is not slipping away - it is being violently wrenched from her body in an act of medical terrorism," DeLay said. "Mr. Schiavo's attorney's characterization of the premeditated starvation and dehydration of a helpless woman as 'her dying process' is as disturbing as it is unacceptable. What is happening to her is not compassion - it is homicide. She doesn't need to die, and as long as Terri Schiavo can breathe and her supporters can pray, we will not rest." [link via Digby]

Terri's father agrees:

"It’s judicial homicide. They want to murder her," Bob Schindler said at a right-to-life rally Monday in Washington.

To the right-to-lifers, the Schiavo case is a battle of good versus evil:

Today, the Schindlers are spending much of the afternoon with a crew from the Christian Broadcasting Network, operated by the evangelist Pat Robertson. There is no question which side the CBN is on. "There is a spiritual battle going on. There is a pro-death movement out there right now, and it nearly killed Terri," says reporter Wendy Griffith.

"From our perspective, it is a spiritual battle. It basically comes down to good and evil, life and death."

How seriously should we take the concern and outrage of Dubya, DeLay, Bob Schindler, and the right-to-lifers? Let's take them one at a time.

First, Dubya. In 1999, as governor of Texas, Bush signed into law this statute, which allows a hospital to discontinue life support, over the objections of the patient's family, if the hospital's ethics committee finds that the treatment is nonbeneficial. (link via Mark A.R. Kleiman) Although the law originally applied only to adult patients, in 2003 the Texas legislature extended it to include children.

This past Tuesday, March 15, the law was used to remove a breathing tube from Sun Hudson, an African-American baby in Houston, against his mother's wishes, causing his death:

The baby wore a cute blue outfit with a teddy bear covering his bottom. The 17-pound, nearly 6-month-old boy wiggled with eyes open, his mother said, and smacked his lips.

Then at 2 p.m. Tuesday, a medical staffer at Texas Children's Hospital gently removed the breathing tube that had kept Sun Hudson alive since his birth Sept. 25. Cradled by his mother, he took a few breaths, and died.

"I talked to him, I told him that I loved him. Inside of me, my son is still alive," Wanda Hudson told reporters afterward. "This hospital was considered a miracle hospital. When it came to my son, they gave up in six months. ... They made a terrible mistake." [link via Long Story Short Pier]

Also in Houston, doctors are invoking the law Governor George W. Bush signed in announcing that they intend to cut off life support for Spiro Nikolouzos against his family's wishes:

A patient's inability to pay for medical care combined with a prognosis that renders further care futile are two reasons a hospital might suggest cutting off life support, the chief medical officer at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital said Monday.

Dr. David Pate's comments came as the family of Spiro Nikolouzos fights to keep St. Luke's from turning off the ventilator and artificial feedings keeping the 68-year-old grandfather alive.

St. Luke's notified Jannette Nikolouzos in a March 1 letter that it would withdraw life-sustaining care of her husband of 34 years in 10 days, which would be Friday. Mario Caballero, the attorney representing the family, said he is seeking a two-week extension, at minimum, to give the man more time to improve and to give his family more time to find an alternative facility. [link via Atrios; typo in story corrected]

Has Dubya spoken out against these terrible abuses of the bill that he signed into law? Has he stated that "there should be a presumption in favor" of allowing the lives of Sun Hudson and Spiro Nikolouzos to continue? Has he declared that he made a terrible mistake, and wishes he had vetoed the bill instead of signing it? Nope. He hasn't said a word.

Second, Tom DeLay. He's a Texan, too. Has he spoken out about the taking of Sun Hudson's life, and the threat to take Spiro Nikolouzos's life, both in Texas? Surely he's given enraged press conferences denouncing these as "murder" and "medical terrorism," and introduced legislation to protect the lives of Sun Hudson, Spiro Nikolouzos, and others like them? Nah. Not a peep out of him, either.

An article in today's Washington Post suggests that DeLay and other congressional Republicans' deep concern about Ms. Schiavo might be (gasp!) politically motivated:

In a memo distributed only to Republican senators, the Schiavo case was characterized as "a great political issue" that could pay dividends with Christian conservatives, whose support is essential in midterm elections such as those coming up in 2006.

. . . .

An unsigned one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators, said the debate over Schiavo would appeal to the party's base, or core, supporters. The memo singled out Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is up for reelection next year and is potentially vulnerable in a state President Bush won last year.

"This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," said the memo, which was reported by ABC News and later given to The Washington Post. "This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats." [link via Talking Points Memo]

Third, Bob Schindler. He's probably too preoccupied with his daughter's case to have heard about Sun Hudson or Spiro Nikolouzos, so it wouldn't be fair to criticize him for not saying anything about them. But it turns out that he pulled the plug on his own mother:

[G]iven the vehemence with which he has been fighting to prolong Terri's life, it is a little surprising to learn that Robert decided to turn off the life-support system for his mother. She was 79 at the time, and had been ill with pneumonia for a week, when her kidneys gave out. "I can remember like yesterday the doctors said she had a good life. I asked, 'If you put her on a ventilator does she have a chance of surviving, of coming out of this thing?'" Robert says. "I was very angry with God because I didn't want to make those decisions." [emphasis added]

Fourth, the right-to-lifers. The inconsistency of Dubya and DeLay and Bob Schindler is very disappointing. But surely the highly principled right-to-life folks have been just as upset about Sun Hudson and Spiro Nikolouzos as they have about Terri Schiavo? No, they've haven't said jack about Sun or Spiro, either. Odd.

But surely the right-to-lifers vigorously opposed that horrible Texas law that allows hospitals to discontinue treatment to Sun, Spiro and others against their families' wishes, right? No, they helped write it:

[O]ne of the co-drafters in both 1999 and 2003 was the National Right to Life Committee. Witnesses who testified in support of the bill in 1999 included representatives of National Right to Life [and] Texas Right to Life . . . .

Digby observes with his usual eloquence:

By now most people who read liberal blogs are aware that George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. It is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Under this law, a baby was removed from life support against his mother's wishes in Texas just this week. A 68 year old man was given a temporary reprieve by the Texas courts just yesterday.

Those of us who read liberal blogs are also aware that Republicans have voted en masse to pull the plug (no pun intended) on Medicaid funding that pays for the kind of care that someone like Terry Schiavo and many others who are not so severely brain damaged need all across this country.

Those of us who read liberal blogs also understand that that the tort reform that is being contemplated by the Republican Congress would preclude malpractice claims like that which has paid for Terry Schiavo's care thus far.

Those of us who read liberal blogs are aware that the bankruptcy bill will make it even more difficult for families who suffer a catastrophic illness like Terry Schiavo's because they will not be able to declare chapter 7 bankruptcy and get a fresh start when the gargantuan medical bills become overwhelming.

And those of us who read liberal blogs also know that this grandstanding by the Congress is a purely political move designed to appease the religious right and that the legal maneuverings being employed would be anathema to any true small government conservative.

Those who don't read liberal blogs, on the other hand, are seeing a spectacle on television in which the news anchors repeatedly say that the Congress is "stepping in to save Terry Schiavo" mimicking the unctuous words of Tom DeLay as they grovel and leer at the family and nod sympathetically at the sanctimonious phonies who are using this issue for their political gain. [link via Atrios; typos corrected]

Indeed.

There are times when what we journalists see and intend to write about dispassionately sends a shiver down the spine, shaking us from our neutrality. This has been happening to me frequently of late as one story after another drives home the fact that the delusional is no longer marginal but has come in from the fringe to influence the seats of power. We are witnessing today a coupling of ideology and theology that threatens our ability to meet the growing ecological crisis. Theology asserts propositions that need not be proven true, while ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. The combination can make it impossible for a democracy to fashion real-world solutions to otherwise intractable challenges.

. . . .

There are millions of Christians who believe the Bible is literally true, word for word. Some of them—we'll come back to the question of how many— subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the nineteenth century by two immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them with their own hallucinations into a narrative foretelling the return of Jesus and the end of the world. Google the "Rapture Index" and you will see just how the notion has seized the imagination of many a good and sincere believer (you will also see just where we stand right now in the ticking of the clock toward the culmination of history in the apocalypse). It is the inspiration for the best-selling books in America today—the twelve novels in the Left Behind series by Christian fundamentalist and religious- right warrior Tim LaHaye, a co- founder with Jerry Falwell of the Moral Majority.

The plot of the Rapture—the word never appears in the Bible although some fantasists insist it is the hidden code to the Book of Revelation—is rather simple, if bizarre. (The British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for refreshing my own insights.) Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the Antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned the Messiah will return for the Rapture. True believers will be transported to heaven where, seated at the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents writhe in the misery of plagues—boils, sores, locusts, and frogs—during the several years of tribulation that follow.

I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I read the literature, including The Rapture Exposed, a recent book by Barbara Rossing, who teaches the New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and America Right or Wrong, by Anatol Lieven, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. On my weekly broadcast for PBS, we reported on these true believers, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious, and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the Rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. To this end they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers.

For them the invasion of Iraq was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelation, where four angels "bound in the great river Euphrates" will be released "to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed—an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the Rapture Index stood at 144—approaching the critical threshold when the prophecy is fulfilled, the whole thing blows, the Son of God returns, and the righteous enter paradise while sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.

What does this mean for public policy and the environment? Listen to John Hagee, pastor of the 17,000- member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, who is quoted in Rossing's book as saying: "Mark it down, take it to heart, and comfort one another with these words. Doomsday is coming for the earth, for the nations, and for individuals, but those who have trusted in Jesus will not be present on earth to witness the dire time of tribulation." Rossing sums up the message in five words that she says are basic Rapture credo: "The world cannot be saved." It leads to "appalling ethics," she reasons, because the faithful are relieved of concern for the environment, violence, and everything else except their personal salvation. The earth suffers the same fate as the unsaved. All are destroyed.

. . . .

How many true believers are there? It's impossible to pin down. But there is a constituency for the End Times. A Newsweek poll found that 36 percent of respondents held the Book of Revelation to be "true prophecy." (A Time/ CNN poll reported that one quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks.) Drive across the country with your radio tuned to some of the 1,600 Christian radio stations or turn to some of the 250 Christian TV stations and you can hear the Gospel of the Apocalypse in sermon and song. . . .

. . . .

You can understand why people in the grip of such fantasies cannot be expected to worry about the environment. As Glenn Scherer writes in his report for the on-line environmental magazine Grist, why care about the earth when the droughts, floods, famine, and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the Rapture? Why bother to convert to alternative sources of energy and reduce dependence on oil from the volatile Middle East? Anyway, until Christ does return, the Lord will provide.

. . . . 

While it is impossible to know how many people hold these views, we do know that fundamentalists constitute a large and powerful proportion of the Republican base, and, as Anatol Lieven writes, "fundamentalist religiosity has become an integral part of the radicalization of the right in the US and of the tendency to demonize political opponents as traitors and enemies of God and America"—including, one must note, environmentalists, who are routinely castigated as villains and worse by the right. No wonder Karl Rove wandered the White House whistling "Onward Christian Soldiers" as he prepared for the 2004 elections.

. . . .

I am not suggesting that fundamentalists are running the government, but they constitute a significant force in the coalition that now holds a monopoly of power in Washington under a Republican Party that for a generation has been moved steadily to the right by its more extreme variants even as it has become more and more beholden to the corporations that finance it. One is foolish to think that their bizarre ideas do not matter. I have no idea what President Bush thinks of the fundamentalists' fantastical theology, but he would not be president without them. He suffuses his language with images and metaphors they appreciate, and they were bound to say amen when Bob Woodward reported that the President "was casting his vision, and that of the country, in the grand vision of God's master plan."

That will mean one thing to Dick Cheney and another to Tim LaHaye, but it will confirm their fraternity in a regime whose chief characteristics are ideological disdain for evidence and theological distrust of science. Many of the constituencies who make up this alliance don't see eye to eye on many things, but for President Bush's master plan for rolling back environmental protections they are united. A powerful current connects the administration's multinational corporate cronies who regard the environment as ripe for the picking and a hard-core constituency of fundamentalists who regard the environment as fuel for the fire that is coming. Once again, populist religion winds up serving the interests of economic elites.

The corporate, political, and religious right's hammerlock on environmental policy extends to the US Congress. Nearly half of its members before the election—231 legislators in all (more since the election)—are backed by the religious right, which includes several powerful fundamentalist leaders like LaHaye. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the most influential Christian Right advocacy groups. Not one includes the environment as one of their celebrated "moral values."

Read the whole thing. Scary, scary stuff. (Thanks to Scott Horton)

There were times that Dad’s pranks bordered on cruelty. One of his oil-company workers, a one-legged man he nicknamed “Crip” Smith, complained about everything. Dad and Crip’s co-workers got tired of the old man’s bellyaching and decided to take revenge. One morning Crip called in sick and Dad volunteered to send by lunch to his grateful but suspicious employee. Dad and his chums caught Crip’s old black tomcat, killed it, skinned it, and cooked it in the kitchen of one of Dad’s little restaurants. They called it squirrel meat and delivered it to Crip on a linen-covered tray. When Crip returned to work the next morning, Dad and his co-conspirators asked him how he liked his meal. They knew he would complain even about a free home-cooked lunch, and when Crip called it “the toughest squirrel meat” he had ever eaten, they were glad to tell him why.

"Bordered on" cruelty? Collecting this and other examples (Bill "Cat-Killer" Frist, Jonah Goldberg), the Poor Man asks:

What the hell do wingnuts have against poor pussy cats?

Nearly three-quarters of workers who opt for Social Security personal accounts under President Bush's "default" investment option are likely to earn less in benefits than those who stay with the traditional Social Security system, a prominent finance economist has concluded.

A new paper by Yale University economist Robert J. Shiller found that under Bush's default "life-cycle accounts," which shift assets from stocks to bonds over a worker's lifetime, nearly a third of workers would bring in less in benefits than if they remained in the traditional system. That analysis is based on historical rates of return in the United States. Using global rates of return, which Shiller says more closely track future conditions, life-cycle portfolios could be expected to fall short of the traditional system's returns 71 percent of the time.

Both the White House and the Social Security Administration have relied on historical returns in estimating the earnings of proposed personal investment accounts. Shiller used 91 computer simulations to analyze the past performance of stocks and bonds in a variety of portfolios. He measured the returns in 44-year increments, beginning in 1871, to approximate a worker's lifetime contributions to personal accounts.

The results "showed a disappointing outlook for investors in the personal accounts relative to the rhetoric of their promoters," concluded Shiller, a leading researcher in stock market volatility who gained fame in the late 1990s for his warnings of a stock market bubble. [link via Atrios]

Kevin Drum adds:

What's even more remarkable are the people who apparently agree with Shiller. The Post's Jonathan Weisman quotes both Jeremy Siegel, a stock market enthusiast, and Kevin Hassett of the conservative American Enterprise Institute in support of Shiller's views. All three agree that balanced investment portfolios are unlikely to earn 3% a year over the next few decades. The Heritage Foundation demurs as expected, but if a routine denunciation from Heritage is the best the privatizers can do, they're in big trouble.

Bottom line: any kind of prudent investment is likely to leave a lot of people worse off than they are under current Social Security law. As with any financial scheme, you should be mighty cautious about signing on the dotted line when you're dealing with a fast talking huckster who's seems a little too eager to sell his goods without giving you time to read the fine print. And who's a faster talking huckster than our very own George W. Bush?

Professor Shiller's study is available at his website. (link via Max)

And there's one thing I hope we will be able to agree on. It's about our commitments. I'm talking about Social Security. To every American out there on Social Security, to every American supporting that system today, and to everyone counting on it when they retire, we made a promise to you, and we are going to keep it.

We rescued the system in 1983, and it's sound again-bipartisan arrangement. Our budget fully funds today's benefits, and it assures that future benefits will be funded as well. The last thing we need to do is mess around with Social Security.

We rescued the Social Security system eight years ago on a bipartisan basis. When we did, we made a promise to every American who receives Social Security benefits, to those who support the system today, and to those who will rely on it when they retire. We have worked together to assure that today's benefits are protected and that the system will be strong enough to continue providing benefits to future retirees. I intend to assure that we keep our promise.

Q. I'm a lunchroom lady, and this is something--I'm really very privileged. How many times do we get that opportunity, you know, us little folks down here? But I am concerned about Social Security. I'm about, well, a little less than 20 years away from it, but I'm concerned about if I'm going to have it when I get up there. And I have a 2-week-old granddaughter that, in 62 years--I know that's a long time, but she's going to be there, too, someday. I want to know that we have that available to us when we're ready for it.

The President. First place, I think you'll remember that I'm the President that said in the State of the Union Message, don't mess with Social Security, don't touch it. . . . We ought not to mess with it.

It was fixed in a bipartisan agreement under the Reagan administration, I think in '83 or '84, in there. It is solvent well into the--way after the turn of the century, up until about 2030 or something like that. If it needs further adjustments then, it should be fixed then. You'll still be alive, but I don't think I'll be around wrestling with the problem in the year 2030. And we ought not to fool around with it.

In my budget plan, this Agenda for American Renewal, I say we've got to control the growth of these mandatory programs, but set Social Security aside. It's not a welfare program. It originally was to be a supplement to people's incomes. It's sacrosanct.

Question and answer session, Miami, October 23, 1992, responding to a question about opponent Ross Perot's ideas:

I differ with Mr. Perot. I don't want to touch Social Security. He has in his program doing something about reducing Social Security for some. I don't think we ought to do that. I think we ought to set Social Security aside. It's not just another guaranteed program. It is a rather sacrosanct program with a trust fund.

I never would have believed that I'd ever pine for the good old days of George H.W. Bush's presidency.

"Dennis always seemed--seems--to be a man of faith and conviction," says the Rev. Sally Fahrenthold, retired pastor of Christ Lutheran Church, where Rader has yet to be replaced as president of the church council.

March 14, 2005 (AXcess News) Brookfield, WI - Terry Ratzmann entered the rear of his church and began firing at members of his congregation. Nearly out of bullets and without uttering a word Ratzmann then shot himself.

Wisconsin police remain puzzled over Ratzmann's motive in killing seven members of the Living Church of God. When it was over, seven lay dead and four wounded. Police said there was no suicide note or clue as to why he began shooting Saturday in Brookfield, a Milwaukee suburb.

(Title stolen from Atrios' continuing series)

In the new poll, 56 percent [of Americans] said they think Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the start of the war and 6 in 10 said they believe Iraq provided direct support to the al Qaeda terrorist network, which struck the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

This number is essentially unchanged from a similar Post poll from February of 2004, when the numbers were 60-33. Today, they are 56-40. That's pretty amazing given that, in the past year, both David Kay and Charlie Duelfer have concluded that Iraq had no WMDs.