Johnny,

I love to read your comments every day. I can not stand to watch or listen to Olbermann but I have an obsession to see how biased he can be on any given night. Your observations are dead-on!

p.s. I call Bill O'Reilly the Puppet Master. Everything he says this dope repeats!

Keep up the good work.

Mary

Left unsaid was exactly what the federal legislation that was so controversial actually did. It didn't overrule the local courts; it didn't take over jurisdiction. It merely gave a right of federal review, the same right that obtains in cases involving civil rights and the death penalty.

Yes it gave the right of federal review, in violation of settled Federal Law. The Supreme Court, in a 1983 case called Michigan v. Long, stated that when a decision by a lower court rests on independent state grounds, there is no right of appeal to the federal court system.

An examination of the various cases from the Florida state courts (as well as the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which was the appropriate appelate court) shows that the courts relied on the Long doctrine.

The Congressional Republicans, in a naked political power grab, passed an 11th-hour bill that affected only one citizen: Terri Schiavo. Such an abuse of Congressional power to expand jurisdiction cannot be tolerated.

Next time, actually look up the precedent before you shoot your damn fool mouth off.

> in violation of settled Federal Law.

No kidding. That happens to be the purpose of legislation, to make a change in "settled Federal Law". Odd as it might seem, very little legislation is passed that simply duplicates what is already there.

Johnny,

What I found especially remarkable about the Schiavo piece, was that in all of Olbermann's intonations of the word "family", little to nothing was said in the reporting about the large role Schiavo's parents and siblings had in asking for help from Gov Bush and legislators.

The fact that Michael had moved on and lived with another woman and had children with her, and that the parents and the siblings were willing to spend the rest of their lives caring for Terri is something Countdown never bothered to touch.

Why am I not surprised.

Johnny,

She's already laid the deindustrialization era at the feet of Bush 43. I don't suppose a little elevation in the status of the judiciary is going to add to the outrage factor...

It's hilarious how angry Keith Olbermann makes you people. Good night and good luck.

Did anyone see tonight's show? Michael Schiavo left himself wide open and Olby let him off the hook. Schiavo was complaining about the "interference" into his personal affairs by certain political leaders. He said this was a violation of the sanctity of marriage. What? That rascal had the nerve to say that? What would an unrepentant adulterer like himself know about the sanctity of marriage? Olby should have asked him just that, but let him get away unscathed. He didn't even question it. I wish I had Olby's email address - I would give him a piece of my mind right now.

I am sure Terry Schiavo was a veggie. However, that doesn't explain why her a-hole ex-husband couldn't throw the family a bone and leave her in the care of her desperate mom and dad. In all of this BS, the pain of her real family was ignored. Leave it to Olby to ignore something like that, since he has no idea of what it is like to have kids. In fact, he will probably never have a family of his own unless a like-minded person like Squeaky Fromme gets out of jail, marries Keith and magically ovulates. Quite frankly, with the divorce rate so high and men so unreliable, no intelligent woman should leave her husband as sole health care proxy.

On the conspiracy theory end of things, the Schiavo case has always bothered me. The theory is that her potassium level fell because of bulimia, resulting in cardiac arrest. I call bullshit on that one. That just doesn't happen, no how no way. I bet Mikey Schiavo injected her with insulin a la Klaus von Bulow and caused her low potassium and resulting cardiac arrest. No way a healthy woman develops hypokalemia and cardiac arrest even if she is a bulimic. But leave it to the MSM to kiss the ass of this guy! He's a real HERO!

Nice job, JD.

Hot off the press.

I missed most of the 8 p.m. show and will have to catch the rerun on the recording. Your research is an interesting read and is kind of like hearing the ball game on radio when it is about 5 seconds ahead of the TV. You know what happens before it happens!

Interesting to note that the Micheal Schiavo story got pushed so low on the list. After last night's promo, I expected it to take up at least half the program.

Last night, KO prompted MS to agree that Delay, Jeb and George, and Frist "walked through the wall" instead of the door to get to Terri. I thought, oh no, here it comes.

I really wondered why NOW was KO doing this? Especially after so much extensive debate back during Schiavo's final days? The Wikipedia listing on Schiavo has dozens of links to written opinions, books, and books that give much more treatment than KO could in a mere 15 to 30 minutes with Michael.

Granted the debate does still rage on end-of-life issues.

I can only assume that there is a lot of the transfer fallacy by KO during the interview. Make us mad at the meddling politicians and then transfer that anger to anyone who blocks privacy during end-of-life decisions. Forget the thought voiced by many -- not only those on the right like Frist and Bush -- that once you start randomly determining end-of-life decisions by quality of life standards alone, you hit a slippery slope of relative notions about what is a good quality of life.

So I just figure KO is trying to nuance the argument. Although he may really believe it?!

Hey, that said, my take on KO is that he's an ex-sports commentator who is trying out politics with the same sports-casting methods. HE COULD GO ALL THE WAYYYYY!

I also take KO as just a fixture of lefty "symbolic" ideology.

(Also, today, I got a chance to go back through some of your previous posts. I noticed the source of the label "The Liar." Now that I got the source of the standards, it makes me a little more comfortable with the term, which did give me some ill ease.)

Well, I never outright called Olby a liar until just now. Given that he has no hesitation to say so-and-so lied, and so-and-so lied, etc, and then he himself lies about Billy O, he has earned the privilege of being judged exactly as he judges others.

I watched the segment on the O'Reilly factor regarding Christiane Amanpour. Bill had two guests on the show to discuss the topic (one sympathatic of her opinion and one against) and he acted mostly as a moderator. He seemed pretty non-judgemental, and played devil's advocate for both sides. I even remember Bill referring to Amanpour as a "brave woman" for having spent considerable time in Iraq. To selectively quote him and use that to tag him in the "worst person" segment strikes me as both pathetic and desperate. KO should just rename this segment "Five minutes of gratuitous O'Reilly bashing". Surely someone out there must have done/said something more egregious than O'Reilly.

Julian Bond just gave a speech where he compared Republicans to the Nazi Party. Olby Loves to jump on people like Rick Santorum for making Nazi analogies, but what do you think the odds are that Julian Bond will be named "worst"? Heck, what are the odds that Olby will even report it?

Heh heh ... Johnny Dollar must get a hard-on watching Keith Olbermann or something,then a second hard-on showing everyone how much SMARTER he is than Olbermann when he writes this goofy $hit. Damn, dude... you write this stuff every night? For, like, 3 or 4 people? Damn Johnny, you need a girlfriend (or boyfriend, if that's your deal)...

Johnny

Very thoughtful posts tonight until I got to ASSNONYMOUS!!! Proof again, another useful idiot of the left.

I never really bothered with the life and death debate over this. What I zeroed in was that this Schiavo a-hole is just a classic abuser/wife beater/bully/CONTROL FREAK. And KO treated him with a cut and paste piece. This Schiavo scumbag is a very sick individual who got away with murder. and when this pac that he has going, fails... I just hope somebody is keeping an eye on his family. I just wonder who is funding this pac of Schiavo and what connection it might have to KO. I belive in monsters and things that go bump in the night. And this creep is a monster and I will one day be proven right.

Whatever happened to the other KO echo chamber - Howard Fineman? KO is down to Dana Milbank, Craig Crawford and Mo Rocca.

I saw the late night version of Meltdown for a few minutes. Keith was busy showing Republicans on screen and asking Mikey Schifoso how much he hated them when the unexpected happened. Mikey mentioned that he didn't like Jesse Jackson, who also came down to Florida and was against euthanasia! Suddenly KO asked if [paraphrased] "some of the people were good intentioned but mistaken to oppose you." How interesting that the minute KO might be an accessory to a Jesse Jackson bash, he runs for cover! How pathetically transparent. I want the transcript to show all of you!

Accusing a man of murdering his wife is a terrible charge, especially when made frivolously.

I would be careful with calling anyone a murderer. However, a family member of mine is a forensics expert(I'm not trolling out BS here) and she said during a conversation that the cirmustances surrounding Schiavo's cardiac arrest was very suspicious. I don't fault the guy for starting a family with someone else but if the family wants to take care of a vegetable, let them. Who does it hurt?

Trekkie? Obie-wan? Well, some(not all) liberals live in fantasy land. How about a Lord of the Rings geek to pull off the tri-fec-ta.

Yeah, NOBODY dies from bulimia! And even though we've never met Michael Schiavo, he MUST be an abuser! And Schiavo's parents were TOTALLY RIGHT: She could have been rehabbed (nevermind that her brain had atrophied and she was totally blind)! Should have kept her living for that science fair experiment!

Everybody

Cecelia has brought up a good point to me. I should have used the word "alleged". But nobody could have looked at that piece and told me that he not a control freak. A dangerous control freak.

Where is Howard Fineman?

I think Howie realized he was being played for a patsie and gave up the gig. Look for Dana to be next.

Certainly C has a point.

However, what kind of a jerk denies a woman's family the right to take care of her? If she is a vegetable, she won't have any idea that she is still alive anyway. If she is not a vegetable, then the family is right and she should be allowed to live.

The overwhelming reality of this is that Mikey Schiavo wanted her gone and didn't care about her family at all. Pretending that "she wouldn't want to live this way" is a joke, since if Mikey was correct, she was for all intents and purposes brain dead anyway. The way he handled the thing was just plain cruel by any standards.

I thought a lot of the things said and speculated about him were beyond unfortunate and maybe reprehensible. Hannity certainly went out of his way to give airtime to anyone with an axe to grind. But there seemed to be levels of fault on both sides, and whenever politics/activism gets involved, truth pretty much dies.

No kidding. That happens to be the purpose of legislation, to make a change in "settled Federal Law". Odd as it might seem, very little legislation is passed that simply duplicates what is already there.

Except, there's a little thing called the Tenth Amendment. Y'see, the reason Long was decided was to prevent Federal Courts from trying to interpret State Constitutions.

The fear is that granting such jurisdiction would explode the federal court docket with cases asking them to "second-guess" a wholly state matter.

State Courts handle matters of state concern - and last time I checked end-of-life decisions were solely the province of the state courts. The decision regarding the Oregon assisted suicide law in the current Court Term should help solidify that.

There was a time when abortion and death penalty cases were solely the province of the state courts too. So I take it your position is that the feds have no right to interefere in those areas. Interesting.

Wrong-o

Death Penalty cases fall under the Eighth Amendment, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.

Griswold v. Connecticut, which was decided 10 years before Roe interpreted a right of privacy in the First Amendment and applied it to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Also, Abortion was a matter of dealing with "conflicting precedents" (since some states and circuits made it illegal and some didn't, the court exercised it's authority to settle discrepencies between the circuits).

Gonzales v. Oregon, the case just decided by a 6-3 vote, states that the regulation of medical practice is a state concern and the federal Controlled Substances Act cannot be used to intervene in purely local concerns.

That answer your question?

Please read more carefully. I didn't have a question for you to answer. I was trying to educate you. Or are you claiming that abortion and death penalty cases have been heard in federal court since 1776?

I believe I have figured out Trekkie's problem. It rests on celluloid in:

Star Trek Episode 29
Operation: Annihilate!

A parasite has intertwined itself with Trekkie's nervous system, wreaking havoc. His bizarre responses and inability to listen are a direct consequence of parasitic infestation.

I was trying to educate you. Or are you claiming that abortion and death penalty cases have been heard in federal court since 1776?

No, because the Bill of Rights didn't apply to the states until the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified after the Civil War. Even then, it was another 75 years or so before the Court actually had cases where they were asked to apply that Amendment to the states.

The states still have the power to regulate abortion and engage in capital punishment, so long as their actions do not violate the Constitution. If the Court were to strike Roe down tomorrow, all it would do is give the states more authority to regulate abortion within their borders.