Keith Olbermann at MSNBC has been asking some of the same questions I've been pondering from this side of the pond:
OLBERMANN: Do you know where this money is coming from? The Schindlers can't possibly have afforded this on their own, can they?
MCGEE: Well, Keith, my research group at Albany Medical College has been looking for the past couple of days into the question you just raised. Namely, if there were 30,000 persistent vegetative state patients around the country, how is it that this one case attracted so much attention and so much litigation? And what we found is that on both sides of the aisle on this set of legal actions, there's been an enormous amount of money. Some of it's actually been money to support lawyers but most of it has been gifts from large law firms and lobbyists to enable multitasking firms, the kind of thing we saw in the O.J. trial, on behalf, mostly, of the Schindlers.
OLBERMANN: Do you know where that money came from? Do you know how much it amounted to?
MCGEE: Well, we don't know exactly how much it amounted to. Because as I said most of is it what you would call in kind contribution by lawyers who, in essence, agree with the cause. So for example, among the representatives of Michael Schiavo's side, the American Civil Liberties Union most recently, and a number of different lawyers who work for firms that specialize in this sort of thing. But more interesting, the Schindlers have enlisted legal assistance that's amounted to millions of dollars at this point, mostly from national right to life associated groups.
Millions of dollars! Did someone utter "tort reform?" Don't be silly; that's not where the money comes from. Shawn at Liquid List has poked around, and figured out how the Schindlers' attorney David Gibbs III can afford to sit around federal courthouses all day and file motions:
Link: The Hand That Feeds The Gibbs.
According to CLA's tax documents, somehow, it appears, the Christian Law Association is able to raise nearly $3 million a year. Of that amount, again according to their 2002 form 990 (tax form that must be filed by all 501c3 charities) available for viewing on Guidestar, $1.85 million went to pay for the services of Gibbs Law Firm, headed up by our and Terry Schiavo's parents' friend, and Secretary of the Christian Law Association, David Gibbs III. Click here to see the form (PDF), though you'll probably have to register first, after which you'll need to do a search for "Christian Law Association" and then click on the link for their 990.
Now I'm not saying anything shifty is going on here. Mostly what this information shows is that we have yet another lunatic fundamentalist organization with alarmingly good financial resources raising a ruckus for no good (to a normal person) reason. However, while the Christian Law Association provides... cost-free legal assistance to Bible-believing churches and Christians ...it does so by funneling nearly $2 million to the founder's son, who also happens to be the organization's corporate secretary.
Three million raised, from the gullible rapture-right! See what a little ingenuity and the U.S. postal service can do for you?
Not to be outdone by noted bloggists and journalists Olbermann and Shawn, I've done some sleuthing too. (There's a reason you come here, and I don't think it's for the recipes!) Using research skills honed by years of writing hopelessly abject fiction, I discovered the following, deep inside a hard drive somewhere in South Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.:
Dear Supporter:
Our fight to save Terri, which, as you know, was unsuccessful due to the interference of God-hating liberal judges (addresses below), nevertheless cost us immeasurably in terms of the funds we need to continue our fight to save every fetus, and every future fetus (except, of course, for fetuses living in the area formerly known as Mesopotamia. God forsook it a long time ago, so don't look at me to save their sorry fetuses).
So that's why I'm soliciting your help TODAY. We URGENTLY need you to send whatever you can spare (considered a second mortgage?) to continue our battle against the God-hating liberal judges and those who side with Satan, i.e. Democrats in Congress and their abortionist leader, Howard Dean. And now that our fight includes life-sized fetuses, we need your help EVEN MORE. (Online donations gladly accepted, as are deeds to easily liquidated property.)
Please give whatever you can, and then ask your loved ones to give even more TODAY so that not a single fetus is lost.
In fetal love,
Randall TerryPS I promise not a cent of your money will go to my hellborn ex-wife and our former fetuses.
This journalism stuff, it's a lot easier than writing fiction!
