Constitutional Implications of Schiavo Case

I just wanted to touch a bit on the Terri Schiavo case. While I am not going to discuss what is obviously a hot button topic, the right to die or the individual merits of this case, I am going to comment on the blatant bitch-slapping the Constitution has received as a result.

Sunday, Congress called an emergency session to pass legislation that transferred jurisdiction of this case – which is a case that was decided eight years ago – to the federal courts. This law overturned the decision of the Florida courts that there was clear evidence shown that Terri Schiavo would not want to be kept alive artificially. That decision survived multiple appeals including appeals to the Florida Supreme Court and the SCOTUS.

Yet the republicans in congress were determined that this would be their mid-term cause and rocketed this unconstitutional legislation through.

And President Bush even rushed from the West White House to Washington to sign the bill. You know, because he cares for people. He apparently forgot about the law he signed in Texas a few years ago:

Texas law allows hospitals can discontinue life sustaining care, even if patient family members disagree. A doctor's recommendation must be approved by a hospital's ethics committee, and the family must be given 10 days from written notice of the decision to try and locate another facility for the patient.
About the Texas Futile Care Law

Fortunately common sense prevailed in the federal courts with all three levels either upholding the Florida ruling, or in the case of the Supreme Court, refusing to even look at the case. A former clerk for Clarence Thomas said:

“This is a good example of how things are supposed to work... The law is not always aligned with public outcry, but the law is what matters in court, and we hope for judges who will apply the law in a principled way. I think that's what happened here.”
Source

Even, surprisingly, the people agree.

Opinion polls show that 70 to 82 percent disapprove of Congress' eleventh-hour intervention in the Schiavo case. A CBS poll suggests that overall public approval of Congress dropped this week to 34 percent, its lowest level since 1997.

What I find amusing and ironic is that not to long ago, the Bush administration was admonishing the judiciary for ‘legislating from the bench’ on subjects like the Separation Clause, yet here is a clear example of congress ‘judiciating from the floor’. What has happened with this law is that congress directly violated the separation of powers.

While, as I said, I was happy with the SCOTUS for not hearing this case, I was also a little disappointed they didn’t decide to look at the law. By ignoring that aspect of this case a dangerous precedent has been set.

If congress doesn’t like how the judiciary interprets a law, they can just overthrow their decision.

Right now, as I am typing this, Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush is trying AGAIN to get Florida’s DCFS to seize control over Ms. Schiavo, an act that will (on a local level) overthrow the ruling of the courts (and of course the rule of law).

I worry that the picture in my mind of Florida National Guardsmen storming the hospice and jamming the tube back into Ms. Schiavo’s stomach isn’t just going to be a disturbing worst case scenario, but what actually happens.

Adventures in Baby Making

Okay, it's not quite how it sounds.

For loner geeks like myself, our computers are our babies. So I thought that since I shared with you the death of my last computer, I would share the birth of my new computer!

Rather than cram it all into the blog though, I have created a webpage for it!

The Birth of Mai.

Darwin Fails, Personal Responsibility Kicked in the Jimmy

Full Article

Once again, personal responsibility has taken a back-seat to the money grubbing blame everyone but me crowd.

In Orlando there is a fad known as ‘garage jumping’. What happen is complete morons run across the top of one garage and jump to the top of another.

Now, when anyone figures out how this became a good idea, let me know.

Anyway, one of the morons, Tim Bargfrede did the jump and didn’t make it. He fell 80 feet and was knocked unconscious. Even his own father concedes that he was very lucky.

"The first time I came to the garage after my son's accident, I looked over and I just about broke out in tears," the boy's father Tim Bargfrede said. "I can't believe he actually survived. He looked like he was near death."

Here is where the fun starts. Bargfrede hires attorney Vincent D'Assaro. D’Assaro determines that it is the fault of the garages that Mr. Bargfrede is a complete idiot. They claim that the garages should have put up fences to keep people from jumping from one garage to the next.

Apparently these garages didn’t do their civic duty and assume that someone would want to jump from one garage to the next.

D'Assaro is filing a lawsuit against the city of Orlando and the private garage owner for making little effort to correct a potential deadly risk.

"There was a very, very short length of fence that was completely ineffective in preventing this from happening," D'Assaro said.

Personally I think that Orlando should be sure for not making the concrete harder. This was pure Darwinism at work and that dumb-fuck should have been killed.

I hope that he damaged his wang so at least he can’t make any stupid children of his own.

A Moment of Childishness, Por Favor...

It's 76 degrees here at high noon. There's no clouds and the humidity is at a comfy 14%. In Springfield it's 38 with a wind chill of 28.

Pardon me, but:


It's nice being on the giving end of that for once. :)

Maturity resumes in 3...2...1...

Do As I Say, Not As I Do...

So, all this yelling at Syria by the Bush administration has gotten me thinking. Isn’t it about time for the United States to follow it’s own advise?

‘Pull out now!’ are the cries of the administration. Yet we continue to sit with troops in Iraq. While no one thinks that Iraq is entirely secure, we have done what we went into Iraq to do (WMD aside).

We removed the Hussain regime. We helped them hold elections. We’ve taught their army how to swim. Now all we need to do is pull the red, white and blue water wings off of them and throw them in the lake.

If the Iraqi Army cannot maintain security in the country any better than we have been, then there really is no hope.

Though I really don’t think that the administration will withdraw the troops voluntarily, so hopefully the new mullah of Iraq will tell us to get the hell out. It might be the only way to bring America’s bravest home.