enator Clinton:

First of all, congratulations on the endorsement by Senator Patty Murray here in Washington State. I am sure that you appreciate the support. I would add that we here in Washington State are proud of the accomplishments that the Senator has achieved since the beginning of her career as rookie Senator and has become a well respected force in national politics as well. She has worked hard for her constituents and has had an impact not only here in Washington State but for all Americans.

This being said, I would request that you remind Senator Murray of her responsibility to all citizens of this State and to have the courage to take on sensitive issues.

Here is a link to a story aired by King5 news that has captured the attention of both local and national news, as well as attention literally world wide.

http://blogs.king5.com/archives/2007/11/a_matter_of_fai.html#comments

As you can see from the aired story a fourteen year old child was allowed to die due to his Aunts (guardian) religious preference. The story has all of the details of how and why this was allowed and apparently did not violate any State or Federal laws. This was allowed by a local Judge that ruled on the case, and declared Dennis Lindberg to be a mature minor and had the wisdom and degree of faith in his new found religion to be allowed to make the choice to die. If you study this case and just read the posts on this blog you can see that there many discrepancies as to his true intent. There are posts made by people that were close to Dennis that raise questions that cannot be ignored. There is a need for legislators to do a thorough investigation of the court records, the decision by the Judge and the policy that is currently in place by Children’s Hospital in Seattle failed to protect this child due to their policy regarding bio ethics.

In addition, what has been missing here is a thorough investigation of this religions policy regarding blood transfusions and how their followers are pressured to adhere to their doctrines regarding blood issues. They have changed their policies to allow blood fragments in many cases but adhere strictly to full blood transfusions.

The Judge apparently listed to testimonies by the groups attorneys in allowing Dennis to be declared a mature minor, even though he had only been exposed to the belief system as a ten year old child due to a court order allowing his Aunt to have custody as he was considered in jeopardy by parents drug use. Even though his father and other family members asked the Judge to rule in the favor of a life saving procedure.

In reading this blog that has now reached a post count of well over 600. You will see quotes taken from the sects publications reminding members that they considered the “age of maturity” to stretch in to a persons early twenties, yet they fought to have this fourteen year old child be allowed to make a decision to refuse a common procedure that could have saved his life.

I have written state legislators in my district, and both Senators Murray and Cantwell, I have also written the Governor Christine Gregoire. As of yet I have only received a token response from Senator Murray, and the other legislators including the Governor have failed so far to respond at all.

Senator Murray in her response referred to my contact to her as questioning “Freedom
Of Religion”, when clearly my questions were aimed at the policies that are used by the courts as well as Children’s Hospital.

So my question for you and all other legislators is this “would you allow human sacrifice by a religious body to fall under the protective umbrella of Freedom Of Religion”. Any outside observer would have to question the issues here and wonder how this could be allowed by our Court system as well as Children’s Hospital ignoring their sworn duty to protect and provide medical care for children, if not then perhaps they should change their name.

Although I am not a member of this sect, I still respect their right to exist and I am not trying to destroy their preferences, but clearly there has to be limits that a compassionate society has to set. There is no safety net for children here in this State as has been witnessed by the case of Dennis Lindberg. Although I find it incredible that any religious body would have policies as the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society (corporate name) has, it certainly is within the rights of adults to follow their belief systems. However there is a need to protect children and dependent people, as other States have.

Obviously you are busy with your campaign, but I would also think that you want to associate yourself and your campaign with legislators that are fulfilling their duty to their constituents. This would be no different than taking campaign donations form sources that have questionable backgrounds and less than honorable intentions.

Therefore I and many people both locally to the State Of Washington, Nationally and those that are participating in this campaign World Wide would like you or a staff member to contact our legislators and remind them of their duties to their constituents.

Thank you,

Elton Thomas

No surprise.

The Secret Service came in and said they didn’t want her to go out there and they had confiscated some weapons.

Any proof of this, Senator? I would think if the Secret Service was confiscating weapons from 'screaming' and 'rude' conservatives, there would've been arrests and it would've been trumpeted all over the news. But I certainly don't recall that.

Yes, Sen. Murray. A lot of us opposed - and still oppose - the government taking over our health care. And yes, I suspect many of them were and are passionate about it. But don't exaggerate the events ... as if only one side is filled with violent extremists. One only needs to look at our college campuses to know that's not the case.

Jim Guthrie

Opponents of single-payer often use terms like 'the government taking
over our health care', 'socialized medicine', 'government health care'.

It's used to divert from the real issue which is government-administered
health INSURANCE as opposed to insurance conglomerate-administered health
insurance. It's been demonstrated that in the industrialized world (the USA
withstanding), that the government is capable of administering health insurance
for less than 50% of what it costs conglomerates where profits must be
delivered to shareholders out of every dollar of insurance premium.

Government-administered health insurance draws on a larger risk pool which
means the cost of expensive procedures can be spread more, which means less
expensive insurance.

So let's talk about health insurance, not health care.

Opponents of single-payer often say that we have the best medical care in the
world here in the USA, and I agree. Unfortunately merely being an American
does not guarantee access to that level of care. In fact a wealthy Chinese,
French or Punjabi has more access to the best medical care here than does an American
with only average health insurance coverage, much less the estimated 40 million
Americans with no health insurance at all.

Look - those who get sick, get healthcare anyway. We pay for this emergency, last-minute care in our premiums. It is extremely inefficient since it doesn't include preventative care that could identify and treat illness earlier than this expensive, last-minute care.
If everyone had coverage - even if the govt subsidized it for lower income folk - it would STILL be cheaper than the way us premium payers are paying for it now.
This is one subject where I agree with Ronmney. Govt subsidy of healthcare for those who can't afford it creates more preventative care among those who would be otherwise uninsured, which lowers the average per-person cost of healthcare nationwide, which produces enough savings to pay for itself - depending on how many bells and whistles you throw in.
The insurance would still be administered by the private sector. Lower healthcare premiums for those of us paying these outrageous rates, more than canceled out by increased tax revenue across the entire population = a net savings to those of us currently insured.
No big government bureaucracy - the private sector would still administer insurance and healthcare.

"“To me this really was about personal loyalty and admiration.”
Talk about covering your azz with a half-hearted endorsement.

BTW: Don't assume that weapons confiscated from the crowd would be made public. If it happened, there's plenty of reason to not want it publicized.

David--
Why haven't you covered this NY Times Story about yer buddy Bill Clinton??
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22926743

This shows what the White House means to good old Bill....lots of money!
Seems a bit more important than some of the minuscia you have been reporting on....don't you think? And the NY Times is a bastion of liberism...so this must be bad.

Yikes,
The donation went to Clinton's charity, not to him personally. If ex-presidents can encourage industry to support more humanitarian efforts around the world, what's wrong with that?
Both Bill and GHW Bush have turned this into a mission, with a more productive and moral purpose we should be proud of. Besides - the more the private sector contributes to these causes, the less pressure there is on our government to do so. Don't conservative ideologues prefer private sector charity to government handouts? I think Bill is helping your cause, not hurting it. If nothing else, Bill and GHW Bush have certainly used their power to do a lot of good for the world's improvished.