I'm a bit late with this but I found this interesting.  And Terri Schiavo was NOT on a feeding tube.  She could take food by mouth, could drink water by mouth and could communicate with her eyes.  Yet food and hydration were withheld due the machinations of her EVIL husband.   It took her 11 excruciating days to starve to death!!   Let's not forget that.   Think of the board of commissions in Obamacare as Schiavo's husband. 

Thanksgiving is tomorrow.  Let us be thankful for LIFE LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS for all  as ordained by God and let us work against those who only want it for themselves.    
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Belgian says he was alert but mute for 23 years
11/23/2009 3:26:44 PM
By RAF CASERT Associated Press Writer

BRUSSELS - For 23 torturous years, Rom Houben says he lay trapped in his paralyzed body, aware of what was going on around him but unable to tell anyone or even cry out.

The car-crash victim had been diagnosed as being in a vegetative state but appears to have been conscious the whole time. An expert using a specialized type of brain scan that was not available in the 1980s finally realized it, and unlocked Houben’s mind again.

The 46-year-old Houben is now communicating with one finger and a special touchscreen on his wheelchair.

“Powerlessness. Utter powerlessness. At first I was angry, then I learned to live with it,” he said, punching the message into the screen during an interview with the Belgian RTBF network, aired Monday. He has called his rescue his “renaissance.”

Over the years, Houben’s family refused to accept the word of his doctors, firmly believing their son knew what was happening around him, and gave no thought to letting him die, said his mother, Fina. She was vindicated when the breakthrough came.

“At that moment, you think, ‘Oh, my God. See, now you know.’ I was always convinced,” she said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

The discovery took place three years ago but only recently came to light, after publication of a study on the misdiagnosis of people with consciousness disorders.

While a 23-year error is highly unusual, the wrong diagnosis of patients with consciousness disorders is far too common, according to the study, led by Steven Laureys of Belgium’s Coma Science Group.

“Despite the importance of diagnostic accuracy, the rate of misdiagnosis of vegetative state has not substantially changed in the past 15 years,” the study said. Back then, studies found that “up to 43 percent of patients with disorders of consciousness are erroneously assigned a diagnosis of vegetative state.”

The issue is fraught with difficult medical and ethical questions. Patients diagnosed as being in a vegetative state with no hope of recovery are sometimes allowed to die, as was done in 2005 with Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged Florida woman at the center of the biggest right-to-die case in U.S. history. Her feeding tube was removed.

“It makes you think. There is still a lot of work to be done” to better diagnose such disorders, said Caroline Schnakers of the Coma Science Group.

Houben was injured in an auto accident in 1983 when he was 20. Doctors said he fell into a coma at first, then went into a vegetative state.

A coma is a state of unconsciousness in which the eyes are closed and the patient cannot be roused. A vegetative state is a condition in which the eyes are open and can move, and the patient has periods of sleep and periods of wakefulness, but remains unconscious and cannot reason or respond.

During Houben’s two lost decades, his eyesight was poor, but the experts say he could hear doctors, nurses and visitors to his bedside, and feel the touch of a relative. He says that during that time, he heard his father had died, but he was unable to show any emotion.

Over the years, Houben’s skeptical mother took him to the United States five times for tests. More searching got her in touch with Laureys, who put Houben through a PET scan.

“We saw his brain was almost normal,” said neuropsychologist Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, who has worked with Houben for three years.

The family and doctors then began trying to establish communication. A breakthrough came when he was able to indicate yes or no by slightly moving his foot to push a computer device placed there by Laureys’ team. Then came the spelling of words using the touchscreen.

Houben’s condition has since been diagnosed as a form of “locked-in syndrome,” in which people are unable to speak or move but can think and reason.

“You have to imagine yourself lying in bed wanting to speak and move but unable to do so _ while in your head you are OK,” Vanhaudenhuyse said. “It was extremely difficult for him and he showed a lot of anger, which is normal since he was very frustrated.”

With so much to say after suffering for so long in silence, Houben has started writing a book.

“He lives from day to day,” his 73-year-old mother said. “He can be funny and happy,” but is also given to black humor.

Recently he went to his father’s grave for the planting of a tree.

“A letter he wrote was lowered into the grave through a tube,” his mother said. “He closed his eyes for half an hour, because he cannot cry.”

There is little hope that Houben’s physical condition will get better, but his mother said she refuses to give up: “We continue to search and search. For 26 years already.”

To see the deploring picture of how far communism has progressed in this country, please see the Communist Goals  of the Communist Party laid out  into the Congressional Record in 1963.

Communist Goals (1963)

 

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Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35

January 10, 1963

Current Communist Goals

EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Thursday, January 10, 1963

 

Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.

At Mrs. Nordman's request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following "Current Communist Goals," which she identifies as an excerpt from "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen:

[From "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen]

CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

 

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This bunch of thugs is so sensitive to the term "Death panel" so they call it something else....A RATIONING BOARD.   A rose by any other name?

Good morning Komrades!   When will the secret civilian forces come to take me to a re education camp now?    This group says "for the American people" when they mean TO the American people.  This "healthcare" bill is totally unconstitional.    Where does it state American people have to be FORCED to pay for something willy nilly?   Why are vending machines and guns mentioned within the context of "healthcare"?   And this on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall....  When will they put up a wall to keep the productive people here as slaves to pay for this?

Whatever happened to the lesson in the Little Red Hen?

I cannot believe I'm saying this but I hope the communist Chinese step up and say something to protect their interest in the American dollar.    This government is out of control with their spending.

This is oh so true.  I received this in an email:

 

We now know what type of marxist President Obama is (if there was ever any doubt that he was a marxist)...a Maoist.  Van Jones who departed to an Obama/Soros satellite organization openly spoke of his admiration of Mao.  Not the only one.  Now Anita Dunn has spoken of greatly admiring Mao.   She even put his name in the same sentence with Mother Theresa....or paired a MASS MURDERER with a saver of lives.   Incongrous!  (See I can say something else besides unbelieveable...LOL)  Mao liquidated 800,000 Chinese CITIZENS between 1949-1954 and the rest of the 30-60 MILLION (unclear figures) were killed through forced labor and starvation.  

Do you have any doubt that we are heading the same way as Venezuela?  The more time passes, the more hand waving gesticulations and controlling Obama gets!  He is a predator on our FREEDOM!   He hates FREE CITIZENS!   Several attacks on organizations from Fox News to the foundation of free market USA, The Chamber of Commerce!

Last week, Lord Christopher Moncton gave a speech at Bethel College in St Paul.   Here is a link to the entire speech on You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stij8sUybx0

There is a rush to get the SOVEREIGNTY OF THE USA destroyed!

Here is the link to the Copenhagen Treaty , Accord or the DESTROYER OF OUR CONSTITUTION!!


http://www.globalclimatescam.com/documents/un-fccc-copenhagen-2009.pdf

Been trying to wrap my mind around this.  TODAY, the Senate is voting for a so called Healthcare Bill THAT HAS NOT BEEN WRITTEN(!!!!)

Voting for a bill that does not exist....HOW INSANE IS THAT IN A FREE COUNTRY?

Just throw out the words freedom and liberty....that's a front.  As Timothy Geitner , Chief Tax Cheat, recently said, this is a "stealth agenda".   The only ones who suffer are the people....

Just heard this on Glen Beck.   Tomorrow the Empire State Building in NYC is going to be flooded in RED AND YELLOW lights to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the COMMUNIST REVOLUTION in CHINA?    This is more than unbelievable....

And I guess we are not doing anything to stop the little nutball who is dragging the entire world into an apocolypse.   3-6  months and counting before intercontinental missiles.   President Obama wants sanctions.    News flash...sanctions do not work on nutballs bound and determined to bring about an apocolypse for religious reasons.    Note that his own people are protesting in order to save themselves.  

 

Leave it to the government to find more ways to make average LAW ABIDING citzens criminals!  Got this email:

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.

Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold."

The note was a follow-up to Ensign's questioning at the markup.

http://www.politico.com/livepulse/0909/Ensign_receives_handwritten_confirmation_.html?showall



Call or e-mail your representatives and make sure they're aware of what voting for this atrocity will mean for their constituents and their poll numbers.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml

Most Americans know that the proliferation of the czars in the Executive Branch of the government without vetting from Congress is patently anti Constitutional.  But with all three branches not looking at each other and ignoring the separation of powers clause...many of us have been aghast.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely...

So my mouth dropped open when I came across this copy of a letter from one of the most left leaning senators addressed to the Executive Branch.   IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!!

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September 15, 2009

The President of the United States

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

From the beginning of your administration, you have made an admirable commitment to transparency and open government. You showed the strength of your commitment by sending a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies within a week of your inauguration, stating: “My administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.”

As you know, there has been much discussion about your decisions to create and assign apparently significant policy-making responsibilities to White House and other executive positions; many of the persons filling these positions have come to be referred to in the media and even within your administration as policy “czars.” I heard firsthand about this issue on several occasions from my constituents in recent town hall meetings in Wisconsin.

The Constitution gives the Senate the duty to oversee the appointment of Executive officers through the Appointments Clause in Article II, section 2. The Appointments Clause states that the President “shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise proved for, and which shall be established by law.” (Emphasis added.) This clause is an important part of the constitutional scheme of separation of powers, empowering the Senate to weigh in on the appropriateness of significant appointments and assisting in its oversight of the Executive Branch.

As a member of the Senate with the duty to oversee executive appointments and as the Chairman of the Senate Constitution Subcommittee, I respectfully urge you to disclose as much information as you can about these policy advisors and “czars.” Specifically, I ask that you identify these individuals’ roles and responsibilities, and provide the judgment(s) of your legal advisors as to whether and how these positions are consistent with the Appointments Clause. I hope that this information will help address some of the concerns that have been raised about new positions in the White House and elsewhere in the Executive Branch, and will inform any hearing that the Subcommittee holds on this topic.

Thank you for considering my views on this important matter. I very much appreciate your commitment to transparency and open government and look forward to your prompt response.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Feingold

United States Senator