Sen. Sam Brownback is touring Iowa this weekend with Bobby Schindler, the brother of the late Terri Schiavo, whose case created an uproar when some lawmakers in Congress, including Brownback, intervened to try to prevent her husband from removing life support.
This interference with what should have been a painful, personal family decision was a distinct low point for Congress — and polls showed Americans overwhelmingly disapproved of the grandstanding by right-to-life lawmakers such as Brownback.
It’s hard to see how bringing up this shameful episode will broaden Brownback’s appeal.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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64 Comments
Will be just as dead as she is….kaput.
Maybe brownback could be mccain’s running mate.
When in trouble, Repubs bring up past failings, trying to make them successes…
Sam Brownback has friends…
http://www.perrspectives.com/features/Taliban.htm
Brownback, stop gasping for air and get back to work or you are fired.
Brownback is pandering to a small group on the radical fringe of the Republican Party, and has no desire to “broaden his base”. In fact, an attempt to broaden his base would probably cost him the support of his base.
I agree it is despicable to bring back the Schiavo case. This was indeed Congress at its lowest. The irony is that those Republicans who talk about State’s rights, less government, etc., were the same ones trying to intervene in the Schiavo case. What hypocrisy!
Brownback-Schiavo would never work. How would we be able to tell which one is brain dead?
Good…good…good!
The Republicans are melting down as quickly as Republican/***CON***.
Guiliani, Brownback, McCain, and Romney are all history.
Clinton/Obama for the next 16 years!!!!
Brownback loves our troops to be killed in iraq, but wanted the state veggie of florida to come back to life.
While I share your glee Happy, I must say that every day Brownback spends on the campaign trail “representing” Kansas, our state suffers from a lowered public image just like we did when Connie Morris was still on the State Bd. of Education, and evolution and science were constantly lampooned by “public officials” who supposedly represented Kansans. He needs to do the honorable thing and resign his office so that he can continue this ridiculous campaign.
Brownback loves our troops to be killed in iraq, …
Are liberal posters really this ridiculous and hateful?
I have said in the pasts that even though I could not agree with him. I did respect his beliefs and his character for standing up for what he believes no matter what the outcome.It is my understanding that some of his staff read this blog to gage what people think, so this is for Senator Sam Brownback:
Senator, this action is the lowest form of politic and demands that no one not even the lord you claim inspires you. Should in good conscious respect you, your believes or the character of your being! By this total grand-standing you do not serve the Senate, the State of Kansas, yourself or the God you claim to love. It is evil beyond any concept of Christian love and serve not the Lord thy God by the devil that opposes that Lord thy God.
I do not respect you, your believes or your character! You should be shunned by all good men and cast to the deepest parts of the world. Hidden to any light and goodness, no one but the most evil of all creation could respect such as you for this! Even a child molester had a moral core; you have lost any you once may have had.
Sam, you have gone from loser to weird. Now you are just a weird loser. But we know you get a paycheck every week even when you don’t do the work you are being paid for. Even the christian crazies are going to get sick of you.
Are liberal posters really this ridiculous and hateful?
Posted by: outlander | July 15, 2007 at 08:38 AM
Not really Outlander but we ARE passionate about our beliefs. Are you?
Are you passionate enough about Bush/Cheney to go fight the war in Iraq to bring freedom to the middle east?
Or are you just another chickenhawk who sits on his butt whining about libs?
A pretty dumb argument. If you are so passionately anti-war, why don’t you quit your job and go protest full time?
Thankfully, most people are reasonable. They are looking for the solution that gets us out of Iraq but does not leave total chaos.
A pretty dumb argument. If you are so passionately anti-war, why don’t you quit your job and go protest full time?
I do protest the war full time, with every breath I take, in my private life, in my work.
Now what’s your excuse for not fighting in this war besides being a coward and chickenhawk?
Now what’s your excuse for not fighting in this war besides being a coward and chickenhawk?
Posted by: happy | July 15, 2007 at 09:20 AM
His statement stands alone – without merit or a sense of being reasonable.
No happy, quit your job, uproot your life and go protest the war. Surely as passionate as you are that wouldn’t be too much of a sacrifice.
How can you argue war supporters should go to Iraq and fight if you won’t even quit your job, grow your hair and go protest???
One way for future politicians to think first about invading a country is to make it a law that every politician that votes for a war has to surrender their children first to the military. No children – no war.
Maybe then we would not have a president and his gang invade a country without justification.
Brownback needs to reduce his creepiness. This Schindler fiasco doesn’t help.
Maybe he ought to bring back that Bozo the Clown ‘fro he wore as a college student. Couldn’t make things worse at this point.
“Grow your hair”????
OOOHHH. That pretty much says it all.
No happy, quit your job, uproot your life and go protest the war. Surely as passionate as you are that wouldn’t be too much of a sacrifice.
Posted by: outlander | July 15, 2007 at 09:25 AM
I have! Now it’s your turn!
;>
Oops, actually I was laid off (best thing that ever happened to me). ;>
I think the point made above is appropriate.. Brownback is a ‘pro-life’ demogogue when it comes to the brain dead and fertilized eggs while they are still a couple dozen undifferentiated cells, but when it comes to killing and slaughter on a massive scale – Iraq, for instance, he is all for it.
Can this be denied?
Brownback is a creepy looney tune. At least he is sinking his presidential aspirations – thank God for small favors.
Sam Brownback has been kissing the Christians’ butts for years and the Christians love it. maybe Sam missed the memo from the election of 2006 where the majority of voters threw out all the candidates that were known as Christian Conservatives.
The majority of voters have realized that these fundamental religious types should have no way to get the power of control anytime soon.
Faith is fine but when a religious zealot interferes with my right to my own faith, then that zealot is infringing on my constitutional right to freedom of religion.
That is a principle that the religious zealots, like Sam Brownback, do not understand.
Bobby Schindler’s sister was “legally” defined “persistent vegetative state.” But vegetables can’t scream for their lives as Terri Schindler Schiavo did when told her fate in the moments before her natural food and natural water delivered by natural gravity feeding tube was painfully sliced from her belly. There on the campaign trail reporters might ask Bobby about her aware of self state and if he believes then that shw was murdered? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KPCsUBr6X4 Ask him about how the killing judge, state attorney, a current and immediate past governor blocked family access to the police and regulatory services to investigage alleged fraud in this case. Ask Bobby, the killing of your sister, was it all about lawyers looting your sister’s care and rehab trust account? So many questions and the media just ran with the official script. This was not about right to life or choice or religion, that was the script. There is no law allowing the state to kill an aware of self human being not charged with a crime, thus making this a felony capital murder. You may post my email address. jsipos@ij.net http://johnsipos.com
The Schiavo case was much more than alleged interference with a private decision, and you folks know it. But the Congress should have stayed out of it.
Senator Brownback has been very consistent in his pro-life views. He hasn’t wavered with every breeze like most politicians. He won’t win, but I admire a person who is steadfast in his principles.
He’s a brain dead as she was!May he pass also
John sipos – how do you know that Terry Schiavo’s feeding tube was painfully sliced from her belly?
That statement alone tells me all I need to know about your motivation in your posting.
Were you there in the room when it happened? Were you one of the family members watching this entire circus show play out? Were you a confidant of Terry Schiavo to know what HER wishes were about being kept alive artificially? Were you there when Terry Schiavo had her eating disorder that precipitated her vegetative state?
You, sir, have no credibility in this case – as do I. I was not involved in the case whatsoever but I do not presume to tell someone else what to do or to not do in a case that should have been private and just within the family. Brownback and the other religious zealots made a mockery out of what should have been personal and private and instead politicians like Brownback rode the circus wagon to gain support from the so-called Christian Conservative and Catholic voters. That is the shame in this entire fiasco.
Oh wow, just what we need in the Eagle… another Talk Radio spinning head Jock… telling us what he absolutely knows, that nobody else in all the world knows… The autopsy reports on Terri Schiavo were very conslusive… her husband was right the whole time…
What possible reason could Brownback have for bringing this up all over again?? He WANTS to be the new American Taliban Chief..
He doesnt have a chance!!
Terri Shaivo’s autopsy revealed her brain to be mush. John Sipos’ claims are simply not credible.
What this shows about Brownback is that he believes the government has a right to invade your life, your marriage, your home.
But we knew that about Republicans already didn’t we?
;>
Brownback’s advertising that he’s a religious lunatic who only appeals to the tiny percentage of the population who wants a theocracy where government has a religious police intruding in our lives. He’s already supporting a bill further regulating what we can watch on tv. He’s an extremist nut who would sooner burn the Constitution than read it.
1) Brownback will DO anything conceviable to get some attention to his alleged “platform”.2) Following Bush’s lead isn’t cutting it either.3) He should realize that people don’t want govn’t., courts, and the national media looking on at us or others during our final, private moments.4) The resebalance between the pict. and Schiavo ARE too similar!
Well if there is anything this presidential run might do, is open Kansan’s eyes more during his next re-election.
I don’t understand why Brownback would do what he knows is unpopular.
Terry Schiavo’s life had a purpose, in the end, her tragedy may have saved so many of us who went out and made airtight living wills instead of the little one you get from the doctor’s office.And it also showed how ridiculous and what liars the right to life people are. My living will is about 14 pages long, drafted by a lawyer, and it spells out specifically what my wishes are, who can make those decisions, and it even has a clause in it for if physician’s assisted suicide ever becomes legal. IN essence, I DO NOT want to suffer, MY HUSBAND will make the decisions, and PLEASE PUT ME OUT if I am suffering. Every member of my family now has the exact same living will- on their own accord.
Every single person I asked said they would not want to live like she was existing. REMOVING the feeding tube was the humane thing to do.
I dont even WANT to know who cramit is….
Senator Brownback is publicizing a legitimate message of enforcing limits on executing brain-damaged patients by starvation. Nazi Germany removed their limits and enforced the euthanasia of many thousands of hospital patients, starting with young children, using starvation, injections, and small gas chambers. Germany saved a lot on health care, but we all know what else their euthanasia program led to.
Brownback is not the savior to the brain-damaged patients as portrayed by parkay.
Brownnback and other politicians used the Schiavo case as a way to gather supporters from the Religious voters, who were in power at the time.
Schiavo case should have been a private matter between families. It was the religious zealots that made the case a media circus and that is honoring or giving dignity to Terry Schiavo? I don’t think so.
Let’s not give Brownback credit when he deserves none.
I dont think I want to know who parkay is either… Isnt parkay some kind of immitation butter??
I prefer the real thing, actually…
I really think a moratorium on the Schiavo case is in order… Or dont the right wingnuts want to let the poor woman rest in peace??
Must they keep her name — so wronged already — in the forefront of a Presidential election campaign?? I guess if you are Brownback, and you need to get your jollies, then you need Ms. Schiavo for some kind of straw person… After all, she is dead and buried… she cant argue back at ya Sammy!!
We all know what Brokeback Mountain is… NOW we are learning what Brownback Mountain is becoming LOL
oh great, the nut and nuttier campaign
or dumb and dumber
I can’t wait for the laughs
P-Mom,Here’s the Living Will that’s been in my doctor’s file ever since the Shaivo case.________________________
I, ___________, being of more or less sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means.Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of peckerwood ethically challenged politicians who couldn’t pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it.
If a reasonable amount of time passes and I fail to sit up and ask for a glass of (circle one: Diet Pepsi- Budweiser- Jack Daniels- Perrier) it should be presumed that I won’t ever get better. When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my friends, children and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes and call it a day.
Under no circumstances shall the hypocritical members of the Legislature(State or Federal) enact a special law to keep me on life-support machinery. It is my wish that these assholes mind their own damn business, and pay attention instead to the health, education and future of the millions of Americans who aren’t in a permanent coma.Under no circumstances shall any politicians butt into this case. I don’t care how many fundamentalist votes they’re trying to scrounge for their run for the presidency, it is my wish that they play politics with someone else’s life and leave me alone to die in peace.
I couldn’t care less if a hundred religious zealots send e-mails to legislators in which they pretend to care about me. I don’t know these people, and I certainly haven’t authorized them to preach and crusade on my behalf. They should mind their own business, too.If any of my family disobeys my wishes and turns my name into a political cause, I hereby vow to return from the grave and make their life a living hell.
Signed_________________
Hey, Jed… I LIKE that!!! Might have to borrow a bit from that one… You ought to print that on a PDF, and sell it at the DNC in Denver!! Good job!!
“While I share your glee Happy, I must say that every day Brownback spends on the campaign trail “representing” Kansas, our state suffers from a lowered public image just like we did when Connie Morris was still on the State Bd. of Education, and evolution and science were constantly lampooned by “public officials” who supposedly represented Kansans.”
NO TRUER WORDS WERE SPOKEN, ever!
As a “Former” Kansas GOP member, this “Talibahn” GOP with their stupid support for illegal immigration and their stupid stands on all things inconsequential are the reasons I have left,… THE PARTY HAS LEFT ME!
MAny GOPer’s from Kansas are really pissed at our local party. These people want to establish a “Christian Caliphate”, just as wer are fighting a “Caliphate” based on religious extremist elswhere.
Totaly incosistant!
With Brown and the “idiotic right” who protested the Schiavo case, are the same flat head flatearthers, and “creationistas”, RUIN the republican party. These are not conservatives, these are RINOS.
Sammy moonbeam is illustration how extremism splits a party, and diverts it from AMERICAN VALUES!
The Dems. should watch and learn, and not delight so much, as they have the same problem with extremism ruining their party.
Brownback doesn’t believe he has the right to invade your privacy but believes, as many do, that He does. You bunch of ignorant self absorbed and totally lost liberals.
Brownback doesn’t believe he has the right to invade your privacy but believes, as many do, that He does. You bunch of ignorant self absorbed and totally lost liberals.
And you are sure its He??? ROFL!!
” You bunch of ignorant self absorbed and totally lost liberals. ”
Coming soon: 16 years of Clinton/Obama and your boy Bush is delivering the country to us Libs!
Thank you…thank you very much!
I mean, I am not totally positive, but I T”HINK that just MAYbe God is little bit above the whole Gender thing…
He’s melting…he’s melting….the whole Republican lie machine is mmmmmeeeeellllltttttiiiiiinnnngggg!!!!
Chas,Borrow whatever you like of it; I borrowed parts of it from somebody else’s version.
Republicans used to be for small government, low taxes and no government interference in people’s lives.
Since the onslaught of the Christian zealots, they are now for big government (as seen by the burgeoning bigger government under Bush), no taxes for the rich but higher taxes for the middle income class and full interference in people’s lives – especially their sex lives.
I don’t know what it is about these Christians but they are so obsessed with sex. It must be a church thing.
On Heels Of Senate’s Iran Vote, Brownback Declared I’m Ready To Strike Iranhttp://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/15/brownback-attack-ir... /
On Heels Of Senate’s Iran Vote, Brownback Declared I’m Ready To Strike Iran
On Wednesday, the Senate voted 97-0 to pass a resolution sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to censure Iran “for what it said was complicity in the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.” The resolution required the Bush administration to regularly report to Congress on Iran’s role in Iraq.
While the resolution explicitly rejected authorization for immediate military action, the gist of the resolution declared Iran is participating in acts of war against the United States, thereby laying the foundation for a confrontation with Iran. Newshoggers wrote that the resolution may provide the “political cover for launching a war.”
Validating the concern many felt, Sen. Sam Brownback appeared on Fox News shortly after the vote and declared he was ready to preemptively strike Iran. Host Sean Hannity asked Brownback, “There’s probably going to come a point for the next president that they’re going to have to determine whether to go out and have that preemptive strike. And you’re ready and would be ready to do that?”
“Yes, I am, and I think we have to be,” Brownback answered. “Sean, if we’re going to be serious about this fight, and we’re in this fight, and probably for a generation. We’re probably in this fight for a generation.” Watch it/read transcript at link~
When the Congress vote to authorize force against Iraq in 2002, it cited as justification the fact that Congress had passed a law in 1998 sponsored by Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) and co-sponsored by Lieberman that concluded Iraq posed a serious threat. From the 2002 resolution:
Whereas in Public Law 105-235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded that Iraq’s continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in `material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations’ and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations’
UPDATE: The LA Times reports the most number of foreign insurgents in Iraq come from Saudi Arabia:
Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.
About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer.
UPDATE II: More at Hullabaloo:http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/closer-by-dover-...—–
The U.S. Forces won’t be asking for “green cards” of foreign militants before they lay down some laser directed rounds in the very specific direction of said “foreign nationals.”
Toe tags are easier to read, they tend not to squirm about.
horrible way to talk about our troops there Kansas
I thought you were a big troop supporter? Got your yellow magnent on your vehicle with your faded W sticker?
you are a JOKE
Soldier – I challenge anybody in Congress to do my rotation
A soldier puts up a challenge to Congress and the pResident:
Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:
I challenge anybody in Congress to do my rotation. They don’t have to do anything, just come hang out with me and go home at the times I go home. And come stay here fifteen months with me.
Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:
We’re supposed to be on the way home right now. We were supposed to be flying home in six days. Six days. But because we have people up there in Congress with the brain of a two-year old who don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t experience it. I, I challenge the President or whoever has us here for fifteen months to ride along, alongside me. I’ll do another fifteen months if he comes out here and rides along with me every day for fifteen months. I’ll do fifteen more months. They don’t even have to pay me extra. I just want him to come out here and ride with me another fifteen months.
The politicians all sit there in their cushy offices or their comfy little places on the floor of the House, The Senate, and in the White House. They do not have a clue what they are doing to the soldiers. They do not have a clue how stressed out the military is. How the policies they are all pushing for are breaking the military.
YOU all say YOU support the troops. What a f load of crap. If YOU aren’t there in Iraq along side them in this endless war that YOU support…
Don’t ever f tell me YOU support the troops.
That goes for all of you war cheerleaders, Republican and Democratic party alike, that continue to fund this endless disaster. The same thing goes for all of you keyboard and armchair warriors that cheer on the occupation of Iraq but are too hypocritical to spill your own blood in Iraq’s desert sands.
There wasn’t anything bad about the troops in my post. Bad for the foreign militants, yes indeed.
You lack reading comprehension skills.
No my yellow ribbon is painted on.
no
you said toe tag identification was easy
so you want our troops dead well, read what this soldier has to say to you
Soldier – I challenge anybody in Congress to do my rotation
A soldier puts up a challenge to Congress and the pResident:
Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:
I challenge anybody in Congress to do my rotation. They don’t have to do anything, just come hang out with me and go home at the times I go home. And come stay here fifteen months with me.
Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:
We’re supposed to be on the way home right now. We were supposed to be flying home in six days. Six days. But because we have people up there in Congress with the brain of a two-year old who don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t experience it. I, I challenge the President or whoever has us here for fifteen months to ride along, alongside me. I’ll do another fifteen months if he comes out here and rides along with me every day for fifteen months. I’ll do fifteen more months. They don’t even have to pay me extra. I just want him to come out here and ride with me another fifteen months.
The politicians all sit there in their cushy offices or their comfy little places on the floor of the House, The Senate, and in the White House. They do not have a clue what they are doing to the soldiers. They do not have a clue how stressed out the military is. How the policies they are all pushing for are breaking the military.
YOU all say YOU support the troops. What a f load of crap. If YOU aren’t there in Iraq along side them in this endless war that YOU support…
Don’t ever f tell me YOU support the troops.
That goes for all of you war cheerleaders, Republican and Democratic party alike, that continue to fund this endless disaster. The same thing goes for all of you keyboard and armchair warriors that cheer on the occupation of Iraq but are too hypocritical to spill your own blood in Iraq’s desert sands.
Good Night… Good Luck… and God Bless… Who/Whatever you conceive God to be!!
good night all
Nice to know that Con thinks he knows what God wants. And that all of us must worship the God of his choosing.
Terry Schiavo did not feel a damn thing. Any kind of movement she had was autonomic which simply means that she was not in control of it. Its the same as breathing and your beating heart you don’t have to think about it to do it. Terry’s feeding tube should have been removed (which is NOT PAINFUL btw) a very long time ago. This woman had absolutely no quality of life whatsoever and felt nothing and didn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground.Unlike the many old folks in the nursing homes whose selfish families refuse to let die because they might miss them or whatever have you.It’s pretty damn pathetic how people can let their coherent or semi coherent family members suffer so much and then turn around and bring their pets to the vet to get euthanized to end its suffering.What has society become when you can’t let someone die with dignity.Shame on the Drs who are just looking for a few more bucks.Shame on families who refuse to let a loved one pass because they are only thinking about themselves.And shame on Sam Brownback and every politician who got their hands dirty in this mess.Since this woman was still legally married it should have been her husbands decision alone. I feel for the womans family but only because they refused to face the fact that their daughter,sister,etc died many years before her actual physical body did.This is where the selfishness comes into play!!!!
Excellent Post, AH Thats what MY living will has to say as well…