I am moving this as a new thread with a much more appropriate title....


http://oldamericancentury.org/bb/index.php...=30&#entry13458


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Kennedy criticizes Schiavo comments by House Republican leader

(Capitol Hill-AP) March 31, 2005 - Senator Ted Kennedy is telling House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to watch his mouth.

DeLay is blaming Terri Schiavo's death on what he calls an "arrogant and out-of-control judiciary" that ignored congressional attempts to intervene. The Texas Republican says "the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."

Kennedy calls those comments "irresponsible and reprehensible," in the wake of the killings of a federal judge's husband and wife and the murder of an Atlanta judge.

The Massachusetts Democrat says DeLay needs to be clear that he's not advocating violence against judges in the Schiavo case, some of whom have received threats.

Other Republicans also blame the judiciary, with Senator Rick Santorum calling the actions of Florida courts and the Supreme Court "unconscionable."

Link

Great posts one and all, sorry Panda, got a little lazy...


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Here is the really strange part. These crazed fundies think they are threatening godless librul activist judges.

Well OK, so Judge Greer, who ordered Schiavo's feeding tube removed, is a conservative Republican. But what about some of those other godless, librul activist judges who ruled on her case?

Well, so those judges are conservative Republicans. This case still points out how important it is to get rid of librul activist judges.

NY Times distorted weight of "conservatives' anger" in Schiavo case

In an April 1 analysis of "the legacy" of the Terri Schiavo case in The New York Times, reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote: "The case also fueled conservatives' anger over what they regarded as a runaway judiciary, laying the groundwork for future fights over Mr. Bush's judicial nominees."

But by linking the Schiavo case with future judicial nomination fights, Stohlberg set up the case as a conflict between conservatives -- angry at a federal judiciary run amok and prepared to push for like-minded judicial nominees -- and liberals defending a liberal judiciary. But these purportedly angry conservatives are angry with a conservative federal judiciary, and they represent a minority of both self-identified "conservatives" and self-identified "Republicans." If the Schiavo case does in fact "lay the groundwork for future fights over Mr. Bush's judicial nominees," those who are angry at the Schiavo rulings will presumably be advocating for nominees who would have ruled differently in the Schiavo case. But such nominees would be to the right of the vast majority of Americans who opposed congressional and presidential intervention in the case, to the right of prominent conservative legal scholars, and to the right of an already conservative federal judiciary.

Polls show that a strong -- even vast -- majority of Americans thought that Congress and the president were wrong to inject themselves into this issue and agreed that the decision over whether to disconnect his wife's feeding tube was rightly Michael Schiavo's to make. According to a Gallup poll released March 22, even 54 percent of Republicans supported removal of the feeding tube, compared with 35 percent who opposed. Among conservatives, 50 percent supported removal, with 38 percent opposed.

Moreover, prominent legal scholars forcefully denounced the involvement of Congress and President Bush. Douglas W. Kmiec, a conservative law professor at Pepperdine University and a former assistant attorney general under presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, was quoted in The New York Times saying that the law passed by Congress and signed by the president "contravenes almost every principle known to constitutional jurisprudence." Charles Fried, a conservative Harvard Law School professor and former solicitor general for Reagan, wrote in a March 23 New York Times op-ed that Congress' and Bush's intervention reflected an "embrace[] [of] the kind of free-floating judicial activism, disregard for orderly procedure and contempt for the integrity of state processes that they quite rightly have denounced and sought to discipline for decades."

Most important, the federal courts at every level rejected Terri Schiavo's parents' claim that the law gave them the right to have her feeding tube restored and to a de novo review of the case in federal court. Raging liberal judges did not hand down these decisions. While the district court judge was a Clinton appointee, the en banc panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals -- the 12-judge panel that rejected the Schindlers' two appeals by 10-2 and 9-2 votes -- has a Republican majority. Moreover, one of the two dissenters in the case was appointed by President Clinton. In the Schindlers' most recent appeal, Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr., described by Knight Ridder as "one of the most conservative jurists on the federal bench," delivered "a stinging rebuke of Congress and President Bush." Reporter Stephen Henderson wrote:

Birch said he couldn't countenance Congress' attempt to "rob" federal courts of the discretion they're given in the Constitution. Noting that it had become popular among "some members of society, including some members of Congress," to denounce "activist judges," or those who substitute their personal opinions for constitutional imperatives, Birch said lawmakers embarked on their own form of unconstitutional activism.

Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court, which consists of seven Republican appointees and two Democrat appointees, rejected every one of the Schindlers's appeals. If this case "lay[s] the groundwork for future fights" over judicial nominees, it will be because the far right will argue for judges whose views are to the right of an already conservative federal judiciary.

— M.K.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200504010002

This story has become surreal. Whenever I hear or see anything about it in the so-called "liberal biased" mainstream news media, they always talk about how "divided" the American public is, and they almost never mention the fact that many conservative judges have ruled against Bush, the Congress and the fundies in general.

It turns out that the only people "divided" over this issue are the conservatives and the insane right-wing fundies.

Another Republican has just come out in favor of terrorist violence against judges!

BREAKING: GOP Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) says violence against judges is understandable
by John in DC - 4/4/2005 07:36:00 PM

UPDATE: The transcript is attached, in context, at the end of this post. Also, a second GOP congressman has now accused judges of cruelly killing Terri Schiavo, and Congressman Conyers has openly criticized Cornyn.

Senator John Cornyn should resign immediately.

At 5PM today on the Senate floor, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) gave an astounding account of the recent spate of violence against judges, suggesting that the crimes could be attributed to the fact that judges are "unaccountable" to the public. Sources on the Hill went and pulled the transcript of what Cornyn said, and it read:

SENATOR JOHN CORNYN: "I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence." [Senate Floor, 4/4/05]
We now have Republican Senators making excuses for terrorists. Explaining why terrorism is understandable. Why terrorists have legitimate concerns. Justifying why the victims of terrorism are really to blame for these heinous crimes. Wonder what Senator Cornyn thinks of rape victims?

This is utterly outrageous. Outrageous. The GOP is now embracing domestic terrorists who are trying to undermine our democracy. And they're doing it so they can take down the judges who "killed" Terri Schiavo, and instead impose some Pat Robertson-like theocracy on our country. This is absolutely utterly beyond contempt. Tell Judge Lefkow in Chicago that her mother and husband are dead because she brought it on herself.

And the ultimate irony is that it is people like John Cornyn who now risk inciting violence against judges by giving aid and comfort to these homicidal maniacs. Cornyn should resign immediately.

Here's the text of what Cornyn said, 4:54 PM Eastern time today, in context - he clearly is blaming the judges for the violence against them.
…it causes a lot of people, including me, great distress to see judges use the authority that they have been given to make raw political or ideological decisions. And no one, including those judges, including the judges on the United States Supreme Court, should be surprised if one of us stands up and objects.

And, Mr. President, I'm going to make clear that I object to some of the decision-making process that is occurring at the United States Supreme Court today and now. I believe that insofar as the Supreme Court has taken on this role as a policy-maker rather than an enforcer of political decisions made by elected representatives of the people, it has led to the increasing divisiveness and bitterness of our confirmation fights. That is a very current problem that this body faces today. It has generated a lack of respect for judges generally. I mean, why should people respect a judge for making a policy decision borne out of an ideological conviction any more than they would respect or deny themselves the opportunity to disagree if that decision were made by an elected representative?

Of course the difference is that they can throw the rascal -- the rascal out -- and we are sometimes perceived as the rascal -- if they don't like the decisions that we make. But they can't vote against a judge because judges aren't elected. They serve for a lifetime on the federal bench. And, indeed, I believe this increasing politicalization of the judicial decision-making process at the highest levels of our judiciary have bred a lack of respect for some of the people that wear the robe. And that is a national tragedy.

And finally, I – I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news. And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in -- engage in violence. Certainly without any justification but a concern that I have that I wanted to share.

You know, it's ironic, if you look back, as we all have, being students of history in this body, all of us have been elected to other -- to other bodies and other offices and we're all familiar with the founding documents, the declaration of independence, the constitution itself, we're familiar with the federalist papers that were written in an effort to get the constitution ratified in New York state. Well, Alexander Hamilton, apropos of what I want to talk about here, authored a series of essays in the Federalist Papers that opined that the judicial branch would be what he called the -- quote -- "least dangerous branch of government." The "least dangerous branch." He pointed out that the judiciary lacked the power of the executive branch, the white house, for example, and the federal government and the political passions of the legislature. In other words, the congress. Its sole purpose -- that is, the federal judiciary's sole purpose was to objectively interpret and apply the laws of the land and in...
I love how, after making the entire case for how the judges are bringing violence on themselves, Cornyn throws in "certainly without justification." Yeah, nice try, but we have the rest of your entire speech as evidence to the contrary.

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They have no shame do they, they are disgusting and THEY need to be held accountable....I hate the GOP I really do...


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