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Will families soon lose their medical rights? Terri Schiavo's brother speaks out

March 25, 2015
Wilson

Writer

The Terri Schiavo case was a big turning point for Glenn and his views on life and the rights of the disabled. Back when he was a DJ in Florida, Terri Schiavo’s story was making national headlines. She had been in a coma for ten years, and her husband wanted to remove her feeding tube. At the time, Glenn said on air that he sided with the husband and disagreed with her parents who wanted to keep their daughter alive. But a listener called in and convinced him to think about it. A few days later Glenn was back on radio telling people just how wrong he was. On radio this morning, Glenn spoke with Terri’s brother Bobby Schindler about his sister and what he has done to fight for the rights of the disabled.

GLENN: If you are a long-time listener of this program, you remember the plight of Terri Schiavo, the really long-term listeners, those that have been with me since I was on WFLA remember I was on the wrong side of the Terri Schiavo case and I remembered what the listener said to me last night. The listener called me on a Friday, and I was against the Schindler family. I was saying pull the plug, pull the plug. A listener called me and said Glenn, you are thinking about this all wrong.

I say, how is that?

Because there's no plug to pull.

What are you talking about?

I just want you to think about this. Is food and water life support? Is that a medical procedure?

I said, well --

Just think about that this weekend and pray on it.

STU: I got to go to commercial.

GLENN: So I promised him I would think about it, and I came back that Monday, and I announced that I was wrong, and nobody in radio at the time -- I don't think anybody does now. They just look over and just stop talking about it. And I said no, I have a responsibility. I was wrong and I misled people, and so I tried to make it up to the family and to Terri and tried to do the right thing. In the end, they did take the life support away from Terri Schiavo and they stopped feeding her and starved her to death, over, I believe, a three-week period.

Some good has come from that. Bobby Schindler is here with us now Terri's brother.

SCHINDLER: Hi, Glenn. Thanks for having me.

GLENN: What did you do, Bobby, before this?

SCHINDLER: I was teaching high school at Tampa@lick.

GLENN: So you are just a regular high school teacher, and now you are the head of a major organization that stands up for life, for people who are in a persistent vegetative state. You want to tell us a little about that?

SCHINDLER: I'm sorry. Sure. We saw -- our battle with Terri lasted better part of five years. It really started in '93, when Michael started his pursuit to end Terri's life, but we saw the danger that people like Terri were in, and the families who were scared to death of the same thing happening to loved ones caring for their loved ones in similar conditions to my sister, so our family just felt, I guess a responsibility to continue to advocate for these people. That's what we did. We started a non-profit. We didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. The calls we have been safe receiving the past ten years have grown significantly and it's an indication to us that our health care system is really targeting these people, Maying on these people that are medically vulnerable and we are trying to do what we can to protect them.

GLENN: You are giving an award on Tuesday. Tell me about the family.

SCHINDLER: The award is going to mother of Kyle Dantzler. Bridgett Henson is her name. Her son went in for a transplant surgery. As a result from that, he developed some complications and lost oxygen to the brain, and experienced a profound brain injury. The mother was just battling with the hospital for a better part of the year to get proper treatment. We got into the case and we have been trying to help her. Her primary goal was to get him transferred to a facility close to her home in Atlanta. This was happening in Philadelphia. So we're working with the families trying to do that, but just her story and so many others that we have received over the years, it's just chilling to hear the pressure and how hospitals are just looking at these people and treating them really as an inconvenience and the best them for them would be to kill them.

GLENN: I'll tell you, I don't know if you saw the -- I know you were on the show and you were in the green room and everything else, but I don't know if you saw the thing we put together about Pennhurst Hospital. It is truly frightening. People should watch this. See if I could post it on Facebook or online, but something I found a couple months ago, and it started in 1908, went to 1976, and we were just shoving -- the Progressive era took anyone that had any defect -- one person we showed on an admitting paper, a little kid, he died an old man in Pennhurst, and his only thing his father swore out and said I want to put him in the home, he has one seizure and also said "poon" instead of "spoon," and they hospitalized him his whole life.

And this system was lock them up and forget them. And it was a horror show what was happening in this hospital. And I'm so afraid that we're headed back that direction, we are not seeing people for people. We are not having compassion. We are seeing them as a burden on our society, and that's what happened in the Progressive era around the turn of the century. They saw these people as burdens and why should I pay for them when it's -- when they're not going to turn around and get any better, so why are we paying for them? Are you concerned about that at all?

SCHINDLER: Yeah, I think it's much worse. I think what you described is probably happening at different facilities across the country. I went over to Austria to speak and I went into a facility where they were killing the medically and physically inferior. That's what it was inscripted on the wall over there. This was back prior to the holocaust, talking about this attitude by the German doctors and how they were systematically killing those that were medically and physically inferior. I look at what's happening now in the calls we receive and what happened to Terri, and it's the same thing. There are so many parallels, Glenn what was happening then and now. For me to sit back and see the ordinary attitude that we have with starving and dehydrating to death people because they have a disability and the elderly -- and these people are not dying like Terri, they are not hooked up to machines, they simply need to be cared for. How we have grown accustomed to or accepted that it's okay to Kyle these people and one of the most barbaric ways, by starving and dehydrating --

GLENN: Tell me what you sister went through when they starved her and

dehydrated her.

SCHINDLER: It's -- well, I'm going to try -- the graphic nature of Terri and how she deteriorated is probably something I will never describe. It got so bad, three or four case before she did die, we refused to let me mom go and see her. It was horrible, Glenn. Something nightmares are made up. Toward the end, there was blood pooling in her eye, her skin was turning different shades of colors she was breathing so fast, it was like she had just been outside sprinting. I could go on, Glenn. If you look at those pictures we see from concentration camps, it remind me of my sister, but I believe my sister's -- what we saw in her experience was worse. I have a piece coming out, Glenn, and I will release an image of my sister from my family. I plan to do this before the 31st. I hope people look at it. It is my best recollection of what she looked like. There's a lie out there, that this is a peaceful hand painless way to do. That's absurd. This is the death of dignity.

PAT: Barbaric. Since your sister was starved to death, there's been several people who have made the news after coming out of these supposed vegetative states, that had no quality of life, the same thing was argued, pull the plug, let them die with dignity, all those things. And several of them, including a guy we just interviewed a couple weeks ago, Martin Pistorous have come out of it -- he came out of it after twelve years and is living a productive life. Have you seen these stories? Do you see others in that situation? And is that something --

SCHINDLER: Yes. We see it when it makes news, and when people call us. It seems hospitals are making decisions much quicker new than they used to, determining within hours -- even hours that someone will

have no recovery. Pressuring the family to stop life support. And this is what we are talking about. Our medical rights being eroded. Seems the shift that's occurred, where decision-making power now is resting in the hands of hospitals and physicians rather than family members. That's what should frighten us all. No longer do we look out for the best interest of the patient. We are looking out for the best interest of the hospital. That always comes done not bottom line, so I think decisions are being made with cost in mind, and much quicker decisions are being made to end a person's life than they have been in the past.

GLENN: The one thing I learned from Martin -- and I know you know him -- is he heard everything that was happening around him. He was locked in hell and he heard everything. It must make you feel good knowing what your family did and how you spoke around her and that she probably heard you. And knowing that she knew how much you loved her.

SCHINDLER: There was no doubt. We were with my sister when she was in this condition for 15 years. We know how alive and responsive she was. At times, she was able to communicate with us, at least at some level, but Glenn, from all those people that have emerged from this PVS, like Mr. Pistorius and others that we read about, even some we have come to know, none of them ever said when they were in this condition, they wished they didn't want to live this way or someone killed me. All these people would have emerged. Seems they are all happy they are alive and now they are living life to the fullest.

GLENN: This is Terri's brother, Bobby Schindler. Thank you so much for everything that you guys are doing, and thank you for your friendship for all of these years and being willing to stand. I will tell you, I don't think I have ever seen a family that's gone through more than you guys. Just an average family that has weathered an unbelievable storm for as long as you have, and I have tremendous respect for you and your mom and your whole family. You are just great people.

I'm going to be up in Philadelphia. It is the 10th anniversary of the death of Terri Schiavo on the 31st, so I will be in Philadelphia at the Life and Hope Award Gala. Tickets are available at lifeandhopeaward.com. This is going to be an important speech, an important night, and I hope that you would come and join us and help fund life, but more importantly, bring a friend and bring your family and meet like-minded people, brave, brave people, and be on the side of good and right and righteousness. It is lifeandhopeaward.com. Go there now, grab your tickets. Life and Hope Award. It is happening on Tuesday. That's this coming Tuesday, the 31st, in Philadelphia. Where is it going to be -- where exactly is it being held?

SCHINDLER: At the Union League, downtown Philadelphia.

GLENN: Kind of a nice place to go into as well. Thank you very much Bobby. We will see you next week.

SCHINDLER: Thanks. God bless you.

Americans expose Supreme Court’s flag ruling as a failed relic

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

In a nation where the Stars and Stripes symbolize the blood-soaked sacrifices of our heroes, President Trump's executive order to crack down on flag desecration amid violent protests has ignited fierce debate. But in a recent poll, Glenn asked the tough question: Can Trump protect the Flag without TRAMPLING free speech? Glenn asked, and you answered—thousands weighed in on this pressing clash between free speech and sacred symbols.

The results paint a picture of resounding distrust toward institutional leniency. A staggering 85% of respondents support banning the burning of American flags when it incites violence or disturbs the peace, a bold rejection of the chaos we've seen from George Floyd riots to pro-Palestinian torchings. Meanwhile, 90% insist that protections for burning other flags—like Pride or foreign banners—should not be treated the same as Old Glory under the First Amendment, exposing the hypocrisy in equating our nation's emblem with fleeting symbols. And 82% believe the Supreme Court's Texas v. Johnson ruling, shielding flag burning as "symbolic speech," should not stand without revision—can the official story survive such resounding doubt from everyday Americans weary of government inaction?

Your verdict sends a thunderous message: In this divided era, the flag demands defense against those who exploit freedoms to sow disorder, without trampling the liberties it represents. It's a catastrophic failure of the establishment to ignore this groundswell.

Want to make your voice heard? Check out more polls HERE.

Labor Day began as a political payoff to Socialist agitators

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

During your time off this holiday, remember the man who started it: Peter J. McGuire, a racist Marxist who co-founded America’s first socialist party.

Labor Day didn’t begin as a noble tribute to American workers. It began as a negotiation with ideological terrorists.

In the late 1800s, factory and mine conditions were brutal. Workers endured 12-to-15-hour days, often seven days a week, in filthy, dangerous environments. Wages were low, injuries went uncompensated, and benefits didn’t exist. Out of desperation, Americans turned to labor unions. Basic protections had to be fought for because none were guaranteed.

Labor Day wasn’t born out of gratitude. It was a political payoff to Marxist radicals who set trains ablaze and threatened national stability.

That era marked a seismic shift — much like today. The Industrial Revolution, like our current digital and political upheaval, left millions behind. And wherever people get left behind, Marxists see an opening.

A revolutionary wedge

This was Marxism’s moment.

Economic suffering created fertile ground for revolutionary agitation. Marxists, socialists, and anarchists stepped in to stoke class resentment. Their goal was to turn the downtrodden into a revolutionary class, tear down the existing system, and redistribute wealth by force.

Among the most influential agitators was Peter J. McGuire, a devout Irish Marxist from New York. In 1874, he co-founded the Social Democratic Workingmens Party of North America, the first Marxist political party in the United States. He was also a vice president of the American Federation of Labor, which would become the most powerful union in America.

McGuire’s mission wasn’t hidden. He wanted to transform the U.S. into a socialist nation through labor unions.

That mission soon found a useful symbol.

In the 1880s, labor leaders in Toronto invited McGuire to attend their annual labor festival. Inspired, he returned to New York and launched a similar parade on Sept. 5 — chosen because it fell halfway between Independence Day and Thanksgiving.

The first parade drew over 30,000 marchers who skipped work to hear speeches about eight-hour workdays and the alleged promise of Marxism. The parade caught on across the country.

Negotiating with radicals

By 1894, Labor Day had been adopted by 30 states. But the federal government had yet to make it a national holiday. A major strike changed everything.

In Pullman, Illinois, home of the Pullman railroad car company, tensions exploded. The economy tanked. George Pullman laid off hundreds of workers and slashed wages for those who remained — yet refused to lower the rent on company-owned homes.

That injustice opened the door for Marxist agitators to mobilize.

Sympathetic railroad workers joined the strike. Riots broke out. Hundreds of railcars were torched. Mail service was disrupted. The nation’s rail system ground to a halt.

President Grover Cleveland — under pressure in a midterm election year — panicked. He sent 12,000 federal troops to Chicago. Two strikers were killed in the resulting clashes.

With the crisis spiraling and Democrats desperate to avoid political fallout, Cleveland struck a deal. Within six days of breaking the strike, Congress rushed through legislation making Labor Day a federal holiday.

It was the first of many concessions Democrats would make to organized labor in exchange for political power.

What we really celebrated

Labor Day wasn’t born out of gratitude. It was a political payoff to Marxist radicals who set trains ablaze and threatened national stability.

Kean Collection / Staff | Getty Images

What we celebrated was a Canadian idea, brought to America by the founder of the American Socialist Party, endorsed by racially exclusionary unions, and made law by a president and Congress eager to save face.

It was the first of many bones thrown by the Democratic Party to union power brokers. And it marked the beginning of a long, costly compromise with ideologues who wanted to dismantle the American way of life — from the inside out.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Durham annex EXPOSES Soros, Pentagon ties to Deep State machine

ullstein bild Dtl. / Contributor | Getty Images

The Durham annex and ODNI report documents expose a vast network of funders and fixers — from Soros’ Open Society Foundations to the Pentagon.

In a column earlier this month, I argued the deep state is no longer deniable, thanks to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. I outlined the structural design of the deep state as revealed by two recent declassifications: Gabbard’s ODNI report and the Durham annex released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

These documents expose a transnational apparatus of intelligence agencies, media platforms, think tanks, and NGOs operating as a parallel government.

The deep state is funded by elite donors, shielded by bureaucracies, and perpetuated by operatives who drift between public office and private influence without accountability.

But institutions are only part of the story. This web of influence is made possible by people — and by money. This follow-up to the first piece traces the key operatives and financial networks fueling the deep state’s most consequential manipulations, including the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

Architects and operatives

At the top of the intelligence pyramid sits John Brennan, President Obama’s CIA director and one of the principal architects of the manipulated 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment. James Clapper, who served as director of national intelligence, signed off on that same ICA and later joined 50 other former officials in concluding the Hunter Biden laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” ahead of the 2020 election. The timing, once again, served a political objective.

James Comey, then FBI director, presided over Crossfire Hurricane. According to the Durham annex, he also allowed the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server to collapse after it became entangled with “sensitive intelligence” revealing her plan to tie President Donald Trump to Russia.

That plan, as documented in the annex, originated with Hillary Clinton herself and was personally pushed by President Obama. Her campaign, through law firm Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS, which commissioned the now-debunked Steele dossier — a document used to justify surveillance warrants on Trump associates.

Several individuals orbiting the Clinton operation have remained influential. Jake Sullivan, who served as President Biden’s national security adviser, was a foreign policy aide to Clinton during her 2016 campaign. He was named in 2021 as a figure involved in circulating the collusion narrative, and his presence in successive Democratic administrations suggests institutional continuity.

Andrew McCabe, then the FBI’s deputy director, approved the use of FISA warrants derived from unverified sources. His connection to the internal “insurance policy” discussion — described in a 2016 text by FBI official Peter Strzok to colleague Lisa Page — underscores the Bureau’s political posture during that election cycle.

The list of political enablers is long but revealing:

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who, as a former representative from California, chaired the House Intelligence Committee at the time and publicly promoted the collusion narrative while having access to intelligence that contradicted it.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), both members of the “Gang of Eight” with oversight of intelligence operations, advanced the same narrative despite receiving classified briefings.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, exchanged encrypted text messages with a Russian lobbyist in efforts to speak with Christopher Steele.

These were not passive recipients of flawed intelligence. They were participants in its amplification.

The funding networks behind the machine

The deep state’s operations are not possible without financing — much of it indirect, routed through a nexus of private foundations, quasi-governmental entities, and federal agencies.

George Soros’ Open Society Foundations appear throughout the Durham annex. In one instance, Open Society Foundations documents were intercepted by foreign intelligence and used to track coordination between NGOs and the Clinton campaign’s anti-Trump strategy.

This system was not designed for transparency but for control.

Soros has also been a principal funder of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which ran a project during the Trump administration called the Moscow Project, dedicated to promoting the Russia collusion narrative.

The Tides Foundation and Arabella Advisors both specialize in “dark money” donor-advised funds that obscure the source and destination of political funding. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was the biggest donor to the Arabella Advisors by far, which routed $127 million through Arabella’s network in 2020 alone and nearly $500 million in total.

The MacArthur Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation also financed many of the think tanks named in the Durham annex, including the Council on Foreign Relations.

Federal funding pipelines

Parallel to the private networks are government-funded influence operations, often justified under the guise of “democracy promotion” or counter-disinformation initiatives.

USAID directed $270 million to Soros-affiliated organizations for overseas “democracy” programs, a significant portion of which has reverberated back into domestic influence campaigns.

The State Department funds the National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-governmental organization with a $315 million annual budget and ties to narrative engineering projects.

The Department of Homeland Security underwrote entities involved in online censorship programs targeting American citizens.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Pentagon, from 2020 to 2024, awarded over $2.4 trillion to private contractors — many with domestic intelligence capabilities. It also directed $1.4 billion to select think tanks since 2019.

According to public records compiled by DataRepublican, these tax-funded flows often support the very actors shaping U.S. political discourse and global perception campaigns.

Not just domestic — but global

What these disclosures confirm is that the deep state is not a theory. It is a documented structure — funded by elite donors, shielded by bureaucracies, and perpetuated by operatives who drift between public office and private influence without accountability.

This system was not designed for transparency but for control. It launders narratives, neutralizes opposition, and overrides democratic will by leveraging the very institutions meant to protect it.

With the Durham annex and the ODNI report, we now see the network's architecture and its actors — names, agencies, funding trails — all laid bare. What remains is the task of dismantling it before its next iteration takes shape.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The truth behind ‘defense’: How America was rebranded for war

PAUL J. RICHARDS / Staff | Getty Images

Donald Trump emphasizes peace through strength, reminding the world that the United States is willing to fight to win. That’s beyond ‘defense.’

President Donald Trump made headlines this week by signaling a rebrand of the Defense Department — restoring its original name, the Department of War.

At first, I was skeptical. “Defense” suggests restraint, a principle I consider vital to U.S. foreign policy. “War” suggests aggression. But for the first 158 years of the republic, that was the honest name: the Department of War.

A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

The founders never intended a permanent standing army. When conflict came — the Revolution, the War of 1812, the trenches of France, the beaches of Normandy — the nation called men to arms, fought, and then sent them home. Each campaign was temporary, targeted, and necessary.

From ‘war’ to ‘military-industrial complex’

Everything changed in 1947. President Harry Truman — facing the new reality of nuclear weapons, global tension, and two world wars within 20 years — established a full-time military and rebranded the Department of War as the Department of Defense. Americans resisted; we had never wanted a permanent army. But Truman convinced the country it was necessary.

Was the name change an early form of political correctness? A way to soften America’s image as a global aggressor? Or was it simply practical? Regardless, the move created a permanent, professional military. But it also set the stage for something Truman’s successor, President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, famously warned about: the military-industrial complex.

Ike, the five-star general who commanded Allied forces in World War II and stormed Normandy, delivered a harrowing warning during his farewell address: The military-industrial complex would grow powerful. Left unchecked, it could influence policy and push the nation toward unnecessary wars.

And that’s exactly what happened. The Department of Defense, with its full-time and permanent army, began spending like there was no tomorrow. Weapons were developed, deployed, and sometimes used simply to justify their existence.

Peace through strength

When Donald Trump said this week, “I don’t want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense too,” some people freaked out. They called him a warmonger. He isn’t. Trump is channeling a principle older than him: peace through strength. Ronald Reagan preached it; Trump is taking it a step further.

Just this week, Trump also suggested limiting nuclear missiles — hardly the considerations of a warmonger — echoing Reagan, who wanted to remove missiles from silos while keeping them deployable on planes.

The seemingly contradictory move of Trump calling for a Department of War sends a clear message: He wants Americans to recognize that our military exists not just for defense, but to project power when necessary.

Trump has pointed to something critically important: The best way to prevent war is to have a leader who knows exactly who he is and what he will do. Trump signals strength, deterrence, and resolve. You want to negotiate? Great. You don’t? Then we’ll finish the fight decisively.

That’s why the world listens to us. That’s why nations come to the table — not because Trump is reckless, but because he means what he says and says what he means. Peace under weakness invites aggression. Peace under strength commands respect.

Trump is the most anti-war president we’ve had since Jimmy Carter. But unlike Carter, Trump isn’t weak. Carter’s indecision emboldened enemies and made the world less safe. Trump’s strength makes the country stronger. He believes in peace as much as any president. But he knows peace requires readiness for war.

Names matter

When we think of “defense,” we imagine cybersecurity, spy programs, and missile shields. But when we think of “war,” we recall its harsh reality: death, destruction, and national survival. Trump is reminding us what the Department of Defense is really for: war. Not nation-building, not diplomacy disguised as military action, not endless training missions. War — full stop.

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

Names matter. Words matter. They shape identity and character. A Department of Defense implies passivity, a posture of reaction. A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

So yes, I’ve changed my mind. I’m for the rebranding to the Department of War. It shows strength to the world. It reminds Americans, internally and externally, of the reality we face. The Department of Defense can no longer be a euphemism. Our military exists for war — not without deterrence, but not without strength either. And we need to stop deluding ourselves.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.