Delay is a punk -Yoinked from ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
syndicalist
Mar. 27th, 2005 07:16 pmsereneorangeDeLAY'S SCHIAVO HYPOCRISY--HE LET HIS OWN FATHER BE SNUFFED BY 'AN ACT OF
BARBARISM'
Today's Los Angeles Times unearths the story of Tom DeLay's father,
who was in a serious accident--and when doctors told the then young
Congressman and his family that the elder DeLay would "basically be a
vegetable" (as the Congressman's aunt told the L.A. daily), the
family took the decision to withhold life-extending care from the
father and let him die quickly. In the Schiavo case, of course,
Congressman DeLay has denounced the removal of Terri Schiavo's
feeding tube as "an act of barbarism." But that's not what he felt 16
years ago when he told the doctors not to put his father on dialysis
to prevent kidney failure.
The paper reported today: "There was no point to even really talking
about it," Maxine DeLay, the congressman's 81-year-old mother,
recalled in an interview last week. "There was no way he (Charles)
wanted to live like that. Tom knew, we all knew, his father wouldn't
have wanted to live that way." Moreover, reports the L.A.T., "The
preliminary decision to withhold dialysis and other treatments fell
to Maxine along with Randall and her daughter Tena -- and, his
mother, said, 'Tom went along.' He raised no objection, she said.
Like Terri Schiavo, the elder DeLay didn't take the precaution of
leaving a living will either -- he apparently trusted the good
judgement of his family, just like Terri trusted her husband to do
the right thing and fulfill her wishes.
Pretty stunning hypocrisy, all this, wouldn't you say? But there's
more. The DeLay family filed a lawsuit "against Midcap Bearing
Corporation of San Antonio and Lovejoy Inc. of Illinois, the
distributor and maker of a coupling that they said failed and caused
the tram [in which Congressman DeLay's father was riding when the
accident happended] to hurtle out of control... The family's wrongful
death lawsuit accused the companies of negligence and sought actual
and punitive damages." The family collected some $250,000 from the
lawsuit in an out of court settlement.
But Congressman DeLay doesn't believe other Americans should be able
to collect from manufacturers for product negligence, and since then
has continually denounced trial lawyers who "get fat off the pain (of
plaintiffs and off) the hard work (of defendants)." In 1996, "DeLay
cosponsored a bill specifically designed to override state laws on
product liability such as the one cited in his family's lawsuit. The
legislation provided sweeping exemptions for sellers of such
products." (The bill was vetoed by President Clinton.)
So, not only did Congressman DeLay call down the full fury of the
U.S. Congress on the head of Terri Schiavo's husband for committing
the same "act of barbarism" that DeLay and his family engaged in when
the Congressman's own father was a vegetable--he tried (and continues
to try, through his mis-named tort "reform") to deny to other
Americans the right to collect from manufacturers when their products
cause injury or death, a right the DeLay family profited from to the
tune of a quarter of a million dollars. Well, they don't call DeLay
"The Hammer" for nothing--except it's the American people who get hit
on the head.
But it's not just the Republicans who've engaged in this pathetic and
hyopcritical charade. The Democrats have either acquiesced in or
actively supported the Washington assault on the intimate decisions
of Mr. and Mrs. Schiavo. The Democrats' Senate majority leader,
right-to-lifer Harry Reid, made sure not one Democratic Senator
objected to the DeLay-sponsored, Bush-endorsed Schiavo bill (which
would have temporarily blocked it and forced a debate on the Senate
floor). And half the Democrats in the House actually voted for this
hypocritical terror legislation. As Frank Rich nicely observed in a
New York Times column entitled "The God Racket:"
"Faced with McCarthyism in God's name, most Democratic leaders went
into hiding and stayed silent. Prayers are no more likely to revive
their spines than poor Terri Schiavo's brain."
Like Terri Schiavo, the elder DeLay didn't take the precaution of
leaving a living will either -- he apparently trusted the good
judgement of his family, just like Terri trusted her husband to do
the right thing and fulfill her wishes.
Now, I am not entirely sure how I feel about this one way or the other. I know I personally would want it to end, but it isn't me right now. I hear and read how she is completely gone and there is not response or recognitions, then read and see that there is. I do know that I am disgusted that the right who is all about states rights has been wanting the fed to step in.
BARBARISM'
Today's Los Angeles Times unearths the story of Tom DeLay's father,
who was in a serious accident--and when doctors told the then young
Congressman and his family that the elder DeLay would "basically be a
vegetable" (as the Congressman's aunt told the L.A. daily), the
family took the decision to withhold life-extending care from the
father and let him die quickly. In the Schiavo case, of course,
Congressman DeLay has denounced the removal of Terri Schiavo's
feeding tube as "an act of barbarism." But that's not what he felt 16
years ago when he told the doctors not to put his father on dialysis
to prevent kidney failure.
The paper reported today: "There was no point to even really talking
about it," Maxine DeLay, the congressman's 81-year-old mother,
recalled in an interview last week. "There was no way he (Charles)
wanted to live like that. Tom knew, we all knew, his father wouldn't
have wanted to live that way." Moreover, reports the L.A.T., "The
preliminary decision to withhold dialysis and other treatments fell
to Maxine along with Randall and her daughter Tena -- and, his
mother, said, 'Tom went along.' He raised no objection, she said.
Like Terri Schiavo, the elder DeLay didn't take the precaution of
leaving a living will either -- he apparently trusted the good
judgement of his family, just like Terri trusted her husband to do
the right thing and fulfill her wishes.
Pretty stunning hypocrisy, all this, wouldn't you say? But there's
more. The DeLay family filed a lawsuit "against Midcap Bearing
Corporation of San Antonio and Lovejoy Inc. of Illinois, the
distributor and maker of a coupling that they said failed and caused
the tram [in which Congressman DeLay's father was riding when the
accident happended] to hurtle out of control... The family's wrongful
death lawsuit accused the companies of negligence and sought actual
and punitive damages." The family collected some $250,000 from the
lawsuit in an out of court settlement.
But Congressman DeLay doesn't believe other Americans should be able
to collect from manufacturers for product negligence, and since then
has continually denounced trial lawyers who "get fat off the pain (of
plaintiffs and off) the hard work (of defendants)." In 1996, "DeLay
cosponsored a bill specifically designed to override state laws on
product liability such as the one cited in his family's lawsuit. The
legislation provided sweeping exemptions for sellers of such
products." (The bill was vetoed by President Clinton.)
So, not only did Congressman DeLay call down the full fury of the
U.S. Congress on the head of Terri Schiavo's husband for committing
the same "act of barbarism" that DeLay and his family engaged in when
the Congressman's own father was a vegetable--he tried (and continues
to try, through his mis-named tort "reform") to deny to other
Americans the right to collect from manufacturers when their products
cause injury or death, a right the DeLay family profited from to the
tune of a quarter of a million dollars. Well, they don't call DeLay
"The Hammer" for nothing--except it's the American people who get hit
on the head.
But it's not just the Republicans who've engaged in this pathetic and
hyopcritical charade. The Democrats have either acquiesced in or
actively supported the Washington assault on the intimate decisions
of Mr. and Mrs. Schiavo. The Democrats' Senate majority leader,
right-to-lifer Harry Reid, made sure not one Democratic Senator
objected to the DeLay-sponsored, Bush-endorsed Schiavo bill (which
would have temporarily blocked it and forced a debate on the Senate
floor). And half the Democrats in the House actually voted for this
hypocritical terror legislation. As Frank Rich nicely observed in a
New York Times column entitled "The God Racket:"
"Faced with McCarthyism in God's name, most Democratic leaders went
into hiding and stayed silent. Prayers are no more likely to revive
their spines than poor Terri Schiavo's brain."
Like Terri Schiavo, the elder DeLay didn't take the precaution of
leaving a living will either -- he apparently trusted the good
judgement of his family, just like Terri trusted her husband to do
the right thing and fulfill her wishes.
Now, I am not entirely sure how I feel about this one way or the other. I know I personally would want it to end, but it isn't me right now. I hear and read how she is completely gone and there is not response or recognitions, then read and see that there is. I do know that I am disgusted that the right who is all about states rights has been wanting the fed to step in.