BREAKING: High court upholds Oregon assisted-suicide law 6-3

Interesting, I would've seen Roberts as a states' rights guy. (Dissenting votes were Scalia, Thomas and Roberts, in lockstep)

High court upholds Oregon assisted-suicide law
6-3 majority says state powers trump federal authority; Roberts dissents

BREAKING NEWS
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:44 a.m. ET Jan. 17, 2006


WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court, with Chief Justice John Roberts dissenting, upheld Oregon’s one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law Tuesday, rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die.

Justices, on a 6-3 vote, said the 1997 Oregon law used to end the lives of more than 200 seriously ill people trumped federal authority to regulate doctors.

That means the administration improperly tried to use a federal drug law to prosecute Oregon doctors who prescribe overdoses. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft vowed to do that in 2001, saying that doctor-assisted suicide is not a “legitimate medical purpose.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, said the federal government does, indeed, have the authority to go after drug dealers and pass rules for health and safety.

more...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10891536/

Reliable Republican apparatchiks, who becomes the swing vote?

otherwise it is time to rebuild the party from the ground up

And do you have the stomach for a McCain presidency with pubbie control of the House, Senate, and Supreme Court? McCain might not be a crook like Schimpanski, but is is a serious wacko.

mccain is a racist wacko who voted against making Martin Luther King day a national holiday

and Congress in 10 months from now

Do we have a strategy? Do we have a plan? A positive one with "action" words (as we used to be told about writing a resume)?

Can we get down to what is important to the voters during their day to day lives: good schools, access to health care, to secure (more or less) jobs at decent pay? To dignified retirement?

Can we wade through the Rove's noise of abortion and gay marriage to talk about what is really important to the voters?

Will we be ready to change gear, quickly, once our airwaves are filled with the troops come marching homes and Iraq, while sinking to hell is no longer in the news?

When the DNC calls me for a donation, I tell them NOT until I see results

From what I gather, I am not the only one

alito is a major test on if the message is heard

Justices are increasingly positioning themselves with respect to Scalia ... defining their viewpoints in relation to his, either in agreement or opposition. The 'left' of the Court doesn't seem to have an equivalent polarizing figure since, I believe, there is no true 'left' on the Court. They're all moderate-to-conservative, with Scalia anchoring the far right. If there were an anchor on the left, it'd have to be someone like Thurgood Marshall - a position that's clearly absent altogether from SCOTUS.

Which would be Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsberg, and Breyer.

Kennedy's the most conservative judge in that bunch, and he's still more moderate. Even if Alito's in, we'll still have 4 good libs and a swing vote, keeping things from really going wayy off board. Rumor has it that ginsberg might give up soon due to cancer or something. Anybody know anything about that?

And Steven might not be able to hold up til 08

how old is he?

then O'Connor, Ginsburg, Souter, Breyer, Kennedy and Stevens made up the majority.

None of your damned business if I want to live or die. Your master, bush, is doing his best to kill us all anyway. Focus on that.

Imperial Rod.

Don't look to him to stay out of your life. He knows where his orders come from.

The fact that Roberts dissented is not such great news. It could be a harbinger of things to come as they relate to states' rights.

Too bad Kevorkian is in jail here in Michigan rather than Oregon.

The Court is tipping right.

views will trump his conservative states-right leanings every time, IMHO. Watch out Roe v. Wade! SG

We can kiss it goodbye. Seriously!

RvW will gradually be reduced to an empty and toothless shell under his leadership. SG

Isn't that a more appropriate description?

I think the "doctor assisted" phrasing came from the idea that the doctor and the patient make the decision together, not that the doctor helps with the suicide (aside from writing the prescription).

Takes the onus off an individual physician.

:thumbsup:

... and your grandfather's Southern Democrats (but only as pure posturing). Today's Republican Party has no interest in 'rights' ... only privileges and the entitlements of wealth and power.

the penalty on the Katrina doctors who assisted during the storm? I heard yesterday that they intend to charge them.

I'm sure glad this has passed the Supreme Court. We, the voters of Oregon, passed the assisted suicide law twice by a large majority. The only people to are against it are religious nuts who think god likes to see old people suffer and doctors who like to get every penny out of them in the last year of their life by selling them false hope and expensive treatments that don't work. Live free & die free! That sounds like the America I love.

I'm a native Oregonian myself, since 1955. Your analysis is spot on.

It's a pleasure to meet you, keep posting. You live in a beautiful place.

Steve

with their radical idology. I guess we now know who the ACTIVIST Judges are.