Lie lie and lie some more

This is just getting re-fucking-diculous.

Look - I want to state again that I think this whole Terri Schiavo situation is very sad for her and her family. But, the extent to which this has become a huge story is astounding.

The right wing has gone insane, and the lies are non-stop. The lies are shocking and simply brazen. Every single thing that has happened in this drama has been creepy beyond belief.

I've come across some very excellent information in various places and I'm going to squish it all together here for your viewing pleasure.

First up -

The Supremos denied the parents petition. That's pretty much the end of it then. I'm half expecting a Christian assault on the hospice, and abduction of Terri now. I hope they do it. I really do.

Next - Congressmen who lie

The fate of Terri Schiavo

FLORIDA TODAY Readers

Sworn court testimony disputes editorial's stance

We only have to go to the opening paragraphs of FLORIDA TODAY's Tuesday editorial "An outrageous act" about Congress's involvement in the Terri Schiavo case to see that even basic assertions of fact are at best disputable.

It states that Terri is in "a persistent vegetative state for 15 years since her heart attack" and "medical evidence showed Terri has no chance of recovery."

Did the editors interview registered nurse Carla Iyer, who personally treated Terri for a year and a half?

She said in a sworn court affidavit that Terri "was alert and oriented. Terri spoke on a regular basis saying things like 'mommy' and 'help me" and 'hi' when I came into her room."

Iyer says Terri would sit up in the nurse's station from time to time and laugh at stories they told. She felt pain and would indicate so. Carla fed her by mouth and not by tube. Does this sound like a woman in persistent vegetative state for the past 15 years?

Hardly.

Or are the editors aware of Dr. William Hammesfahr, Nobel Prize nominee neurologist, who examined Terri for 10 hours and said, "Terri does not require a feeding tube to be fed" and that "with proper therapy she would be able to regain some speech and mobility."

This is a story about a woman neglected proper care and therapy by those now wishing to see her expire. It's a story about disguising a right-to-kill edict in right-to-die clothes.

I only pray that our judicial system won't continue to be party to it.

U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon
District 15

Media Matters has all the info you need, link:

In fact, the neurologist is not a "Nobel Prize nominee". That "nomination" came from Rep. Mike Bilirakis (R-FL), surprise a Republican, who is not allowed to actually nominate anyone. So - the neurologist claims he was nominated anyway, and Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough keep repeating the "nominee" thing, which is a complete and unmitigated lie. But that's what they do best, right? Lie after lie.

Do you seriously believe any of this would go this far if Terri could actually speak? That's outrageous. Registered nurse Carla Iyer is lying, and by perpetuating that myth, so is the Congressman.

So what is Terri's condition?

Most of Schiavo's cerebral cortex has been completely destroyed, replaced by cerebrospinal fluid; Dr. Ron Cranford, a neurologist at the University of Minnesota assessed Schiavo's brain function in 2001 as part of a court-ordered assessment. He was quoted in Florida Today as saying "[Schiavo] has no electrical activity in her cerebral cortex on an EEG (electroencephalogram), and a CT (computerized tomography) scan showed massive atrophy in that region."

What has the reputable neurologists who have actually examined said about her?

Gov. Bush and the state's social services agency filed a petition in state court to take custody of Schiavo and, presumably, reconnect her feeding tube. It cited new allegations of neglect and challenges Schiavo's diagnosis as being in a persistent vegetative state. The request is based on the opinion of a neurologist working for the state who observed Schiavo at her bedside but did not conduct an examination of her.

The neurologist, William Cheshire of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, is a bioethicist who is also an active member in Christian organizations, including two whose leaders have spoken out against the tube's removal.

Ronald Cranford of the University of Minnesota, a neurologist who was among those who made a previous diagnosis of Schiavo, said "there isn't a reputable, credible neurologist in the world who won't find her in a vegetative state."

How does the Evangelical community feel about her? They think she's the next Jesus.

'And during this week, as we look to Good Friday, He [Jesus] was condemned by unjust courts the same way Terri Schiavo is being condemned to die by court order,'' O'Donnell said. ``We pray that this modern-day crucifixion will not happen.''
(via San Jose Mercury News)

The "unjust courts" are applying our laws you stupid freaks. Most of them are Republicans.. Duh...

Maurren Dowd has an excellent op/ed today, and makes some great points. If nothing else, this situation puts on full display how fucked up the Republican Party and Christian groups are.

On GW:

The president, who couldn't be dragged outdoors to talk about the more than a hundred thousand people who died in the horrific tsunami, was willing to be dragged out of bed to sign a bill about one woman his base had fixated on.

She notes how Frist and Bush have used this in their campaign for President in 2008:

Dr. Frist thinks he can ace out Jeb Bush to be 44, even though he has become a laughingstock by trying to rediagnose Ms. Schiavo's condition by video.

As one disgusted Times reader suggested in an e-mail: "Americans ought to send Bill Frist their requests: 'Dear Dr. Frist: Please watch the enclosed video and tell us if that mole on my mother's cheek is cancer. Does she need surgery?'"

Jeb, keeping up with the '08 competition, vainly tried to get Florida to declare Ms. Schiavo a ward of the state.

And then, she skewers DeLay:

Mr. DeLay moved yesterday to file a friend of the court brief with the Supreme Court asking that Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube be restored while the federal court is deciding what to do. But as he exploits this one sad case, Mr. DeLay has voted to slash Medicaid by $15 billion, denying money to care for poor people in nursing homes, some on feeding tubes.

Mr. DeLay made his personal stake clear at a conference last Friday organized by the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group. He said that God had brought Terri Schiavo's struggle to the forefront "to help elevate the visibility of what's going on in America." He defined that as "attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others."

So it's not about her crisis at all. It's about his crisis.

Looking at the polling, it does look like most American's are getting it.

An overwhelming 82 percent of the public believes the Congress and President should stay out of the matter.

Just 13 percent of those polled think Congress intervened in the case out of concern for Schiavo, while 74 percent think it was all about politics. Of those polled, 66 percent said the tube should not be inserted compared to 27 percent who want it restored.

The issue has generated strong feelings, with 78 percent of those polled -- whether for either side of the issue -- saying they have strong feelings.

Public approval of Congress has suffered as a result; at 34 percent, it is the lowest it has been since 1997, dropping from 41 percent last month. Now at 43 percent, President Bush’s approval rating is also lower than it was a month ago.

How about that? Most American's think Bush sucks. His approval rating is 43. That's sooo funny. Bill Clinton was impeached and left office with an approval rating nearly 20 points higher.

It's all starting to fall into place. American's are starting to turn on Bush and the Republican Congress. Bush's agenda is dead in the water. Support of the war consistently deteriorates. Oil prices keep going higher, interest rates going higher, deficits going higher, and inflation is increasing.

How do we take advantage of this? We need to get active. We absolutely must support the Democratic party, regardless of what we may think of them. They are the only true opposition to the Republican theocracy. We need to paint the Republican’s as exactly what they are; religious freaks trying to impose their will on our lives. We need to rhetorically beat them down until they are nothing more then an object of ridicule. Lets make it an embarrassment to be a Republican. Lets make it shameful to be an evangelical Christian bat-shit-crazy freak.

I think we really are at a critical juncture, and we need to make sure the Democratic leadership knows it's okay to be the opposition party. I suggest that the party leadership start adopting phrases that will seed the perceptions of average Americans. In other words; crazy.

When discussing issues, Democrats should use words such as "unbalanced", "irrational", "unhinged" (one of my favs), "hallucinating" in reference to the Republican position.

Up to this point, Democrats have always tried to paint Republican's as pro-big business, pro-wealthy, pro-war, and so on. That didn't work. American's don't care. Lets paint them as completely and certifiably need-to-be-in-treatment crazy. Lets make up artwork suggesting Tom Delay get on a Thorazine treatment plan. Lets play up the "Bush channeling God" craziness and suggest he get some therapy.

Lets talk about David Koresh and Jim Jones (and other crazy Christian freaks - Jim and Tammy Fay Baker, Jimmie Swaggart etc.) in relation to the Republican leadership. If we can flip the debate from "family values" to "cults", and paint the evangelical leadership, and Republican leadership as cultists, it will really pay off.

I'm not kidding, this could work. It's apparent that American's don't mind being lead by fascist crooks, but perhaps they don't want to be lead by people who really should be in a mental hospital.

** update **

Interesting discussion here about the iconography of this issue.

The point here is that people look at the photos and naturally emote. It's the perception and intrinsic emotions that mess with the way a person sees something. We all expect that when a mother looks at a daughter, the daughter looks back at the mother with the same love and affection.

However, in this case - the daughter isn't looking at anything because her cerebral cortex is GONE.

It's just the physical view that reaches a person. That's why the stupid people blow up the photo and try and get people to look at it. The issue has absolutely nothing to do with photos. It's much more cut and dried than that.

You can make a doll look hyper realistic and people will feel emotion for it. It happens time and again in the movies. But, it's just a doll. It's unfortunate the stupid people don't understand that.