One of the most extraordinary and consequential races to be decided Nov. 2 is one you've probably never heard of – the challenge to powerful 12-term "progressive" Rep. Peter DeFazio by renowned scientist Art Robinson in Oregon's 4th Congressional District.
There's been little press on this race. Dick Morris and Karl Rove, during their nightly election-race analyses on "Hannity," don't mention it. And the Republican National Committee hasn't even given a cent to the Republican challenger.
Why? Because they've all considered Robinson's race against DeFazio unwinnable.
Until now.
Art Robinson, Ph.D.
As WND reported Friday, an eye-opening independent poll shows DeFazio – who won re-election in 2008 with a staggering 82 percent of the vote – is running neck and neck with Robinson in the home stretch. The Wilson Research Strategies poll shows DeFazio up by only 6 points, leading Robinson 48-42 percent, with a 5.6 point margin of error. In other words, this "unwinnable" House seat is suddenly "in play."
But there's much more at stake here than a House seat.
This particular congressional race epitomizes everything that is rotten – and wonderful – about America today, and about the historic choice Americans will make Nov. 2.
Consider: Peter DeFazio is one of Congress' most influential progressives, having co-founded the House Progressive Caucus and served as its chairman. A true left-wing radical with a folksy Oregonian exterior, he supports socialized medicine (he voted for Obamacare) and partial-birth abortion. To bolster his re-election chances, he now brags that he opposed Obama and Pelosi on the stimulus – but doesn't disclose the reason: He voted no because the $787 billion stimulus had too many tax breaks!
Worse than all this – and I'm choosing my words carefully now – DeFazio is a deceitful political hack, so desperate to hang on to his coveted congressional seat he's occupied for 24 years that he's willing to blatantly libel and slander his opponent with wild untruths – all crafted to scare voters just before election time.
The DeFazio attack machine is running a series of outrageous television, print and online ads accusing Robinson of being funded by Big Oil, of being in the pocket of Wall Street, of planning on shutting down the nation's public schools, of planning the demise of the Social Security system – and even of plotting to irradiate Americans' drinking water! Oh, and he's also being called a racist – of course.
It's the same old miserable pre-election tactic we're seeing all over the country right now, like in Delaware where Christine O'Donnell is being tied to witchcraft. Or in Florida where out-of-control Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson is airing TV ads characterizing his GOP rival Daniel Webster as "Taliban Dan" by twisting Webster's words about the Bible to say exactly the opposite of what Webster actually said. We're seeing it everywhere because it's the only thing any Democrat can do to get himself re-elected: Try to marginalize your opponent as a truly dangerous wacko, since the public is so totally disgusted with you that they wouldn't send you back to Washington under any other circumstance.
Please bear with me for a moment while I tell you what kind of a man Art Robinson – whom I've known personally for many years – really is.
A Ph.D. research scientist of international stature, Robinson co-founded, with Nobel-winner Linus Pauling, the Linus Pauling Institute in Menlo Park, Calif. Then in 1980, with the help of his chemist wife Laurelee, Robinson founded the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. While carrying out influential research, Art and Laurelee also raised and homeschooled their six children on 350 idyllic acres in southern Oregon.
Then tragedy struck. In 1988, Lauralee died suddenly from hemorrhagic pancreatitis, leaving Art alone to care for all those children ranging from 18 months up to 12 years of age. What did he do in such a terrible, crushing circumstance?
Art restructured their homeschooling curriculum in such a way that his children could, to a considerable extent, teach themselves. He also eventually packaged the curriculum and offered it to the homeschooling world. "The Robinson Curriculum" apparently works pretty well, as today all six of Art's children either have doctorate degrees or will shortly. One has a chemistry Ph.D., two have doctorates in veterinary medicine and the last three are all in the Oregon State University graduate program working toward their Ph.D.s in nuclear engineering.
Oh, and how'd they pay for all that expensive college and postgraduate schooling – six times? Sales of "The Robinson Curriculum," which remains very popular among homeschoolers.
Talk about the American can-do spirit!
More important, at least as it pertains to the upcoming election, Art Robinson is a straight-shooting, problem-solving Reagan conservative who not only loves this country, he understands this country – what makes it work – and is willing to fight the good fight to restore it to greatness and prosperity.
One example of his can-do attitude: Robinson has single-handedly documented the utter lack of unanimity in the scientific community on manmade global warming through a petition he started – not an online petition, mind you, but an actual document physically signed – that to date has been signed by more than 31,000 scientists, including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s. All 31,000 agree that "there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."
That's all great, you might be thinking, but what about those allegations from DeFazio and his proxies that Robinson is a dangerous, wacko extremist? Any truth to them? Let's take a look:
One part of "The Robinson Curriculum" is a recommendation that students read as many as possible of the 99 short, classic historical novels for children penned by celebrated British author G.A. Henty (kind of like the "Hardy Boys" books). Now it happens that in one of these 99 Victorian-era books – all of which Robinson personally reprinted and offered to the public as an adjunct to his homeschooling curriculum – one fictional character makes a two-sentence remark while in Africa that could be considered racially insensitive by today's standards. Because of this, candidate Art Robinson is being labeled a racist. Yes, I know, it's insane. But wait – there's more.
Robinson discusses in his newsletter "Access to Energy" an emerging field of science called "hormesis," which hypothesizes that very low levels of ionizing radiation (which occurs naturally most everywhere, though to different degrees) may be beneficial to human health, so that one day human beings may actually control the level of background radiation in their environment for optimal health. DeFazio translation: Robinson wants to poison your drinking water with radiation.
Robinson has said one way to help America attain energy independence as soon as possible and end its dangerous slavery to hostile foreign sources is to reduce or eliminate the tax burden on all energy industries, from oil, gas and coal to wind, solar and nuclear. DeFazio translation: Robinson is in the pocket of "Big Oil."
Robinson's campaign is funded almost exclusively by large numbers of small donations from individuals, but DeFazio has fabricated the notion that Robinson is being bought off by Wall Street. One of DeFazio's main TV ads ends with this: "Tell Art Robinson and his big-money special interests that this election isn't for sale." There are other attacks, but you get the idea. This is defamation, pure and simple.
Friends, in this era when socialist "progressives," environmentalist wackos and radical change agents of all stripes are attempting to "transform" America, there's a lot of talk among normal folk about the founding fathers. As tea partiers and others strive to reconnect with our country's roots and set it back on a right course, they often invoke the men of America's founding generation for guidance and inspiration.
Let me tell you, in this election, Art Robinson reminds me more of the Founding Fathers – principled, multi-talented Renaissance men, some of them scientists like Jefferson and especially Franklin – than anyone else in the current candidate field. Think about it: Ben Franklin was a scientist, writer, printer, political theorist, inventor, civic activist and statesman. Art Robinson is all of these things – except the last one, statesman. He needs your help to make that happen.
Art Robinson loves his farm and his kids and his science work and doesn't really dream of power and Washington and living at the public trough. That's exactly the kind of person we need in Congress. Believe me, it'll be worth electing him just to watch a real scientist stand up in the House chamber and verbally annihilate the silly rhetoric of all those congressmen and women touting "global warming" and cap-and-trade.
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06:02 PM
PFF
System Bot
avengador1 Member
Posts: 35467 From: Orlando, Florida Registered: Oct 2001
How many clicks does it take to soil a candidate’s online reputation? A prominent liberal activist would like to find out.
Chris Bowers, campaign director for the Daily Kos, is launching a behind-the-scenes campaign against 98 House Republican candidates that attempts to capitalize on voters' Google search habits in the hopes of influencing midterm races.
Bowers wants the Daily Kos’ thousands of participants to dig up little-noted or controversial news stories about the candidates that could hurt their chances with undecided voters. Users would click on the links and blog about the stories with the goal of boosting their rankings on search engines, so that undecided voters will discover them more easily.
He sees the campaign as a 21st century version of pamphleteering: Daily Kos readers are simply providing informational materials that are already out there in the same way that volunteers would hand out information to voters on the street.
The use of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is standard practice for companies and campaigns managing their reputations online – or news organizations attempting to drive Internet traffic – but Bowers’ focus on promoting strategically damaging stories is unique.
Bowers says that he’s already received hundreds of e-mails with suggestions and maintains an online spreadsheet with key words like “Social Security,” “hypocrisy” and “Palin.” But so far, he’s only posted links to five stories related to five of the targeted candidates.
They include a Boston Globe story about a teenage strip search scandal involving former policeman Jeff Perry, a candidate in Massachusetts’ 10th District. Another item is a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed about abolishing public schools by Bay Area House nominee David Harmer.
Bowers also linked to a September POLITICO story about the flip-flopping stance of former Marine Sgt. Jesse Kelly, a conservative party tea party favorite running in Arizona. The story notes that Kelly said that he wanted to eliminate Social Security and Medicare in the run-up to the Republican primary, but subsequently said he would protect the two programs.
“We’re just educating people about how to get the message out without doing something more transgressive, for the lack of a better term,” Bowers said in an interview. “This is a more general education project on SEO, with the 2010 elections as a teaching moment.”
For his part, Bowers maintains this isn’t a repeat of his 2006 “Google Bomb” campaign because he’s not asking anyone to link candidates’ names to specific keywords such as “miserable failure.”
And he said that he has no plans to ask activists to flood Twitter and other social networks with links to the damaging stories during the final stretch before election day, unlike a January attack against Massachusetts Democrat Martha Coakley, who was the subject of an automated “Twitter Bomb” in the closing days of her failed Senate campaign.
Nine anonymous Twitter accounts sent out almost 1,000 negative messages about Coakley during the days up to the special election that Republican Scott Brown won. Wellesley University Professors Panagiotis Takis Metaxas and Eni Mustafaraj linked the accounts to a conservative Iowa group called The American Future Fund.
Naturally, Bowers’ effort is causing controversy among conservatives, search engine marketers and even Daily Kos readers about whether this kind of campaign constitutes an unfair manipulation of search engine results. It also could lead to reciprocal attacks.
One blogger on RedState.com called the campaign a character assassination and urged the blog’s readers to take countermeasures by engaging in their own guerrilla marketing campaigns.
Another RedState.com poster called on Google to remove the Daily Kos domain from its search index entirely for engaging in unethical SEO practices. Other discussions on Twitter are focusing on how self-identified Tea Party members can emulate the campaign to fight back.
Mindy Finn, a co-founder of EngageDC, a conservative digital campaign consulting firm that is working on about a dozen congressional races, said she tells concerned callers either to ignore Bowers or get even if they like.
“I think the tactic stinks of desperation,” Finn said. “However, I think that all’s fair in love, war, and political campaigns, and as long as there is an equal and fair playing field, there are no boundaries.
Google will not publicly disclose its algorithm and how it addresses attempts to manipulate the system.
“We try very hard to protect the integrity of our results,” Adam Kovacevich, Google’s senior manager of global communications and public affairs, said via e-mail. “In the past, similar efforts haven’t really been effective.”
SEO experts disagree on the likely success of Bowers’ campaign.
“It’s probably going to be an effective Google Bomb,” said Michael Fertik, CEO of the Silicon Valley start-up Reputation Defender. “The Daily Kos has thousands of readers, and I think they’ll respond to [Bowers]. If you can get thousands of people to link and drive traffic to content of a certain kind, if you can crowd-source linking, then you can have an impact.”
Metaxas doesn’t think Google can tweak its algorithm in a way that could foil thousands of links.
“What this will do will probably get Daily Kos participants more excited about the races themselves rather than changing the Google results,” he told POLITICO.
Google has worked on its algorithm to ensure that the candidates’ original pages and sources such as Wikipedia entries show up top, he said.
Regardless of the success rate this fall, search engine politics will continue to play a role in campaigns. In their report, Metaxas and Mustafaraj found that voters use search engines to find out more about political candidates in the last days of a campaign.
“When you look at Google Analytics, you can see where the traffic is coming from, and usually more than a third of the traffic is coming from search engines to these congressional campaign websites,” Finn said. “That is the reason why search results are critically important.”
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06:11 PM
KidO Member
Posts: 1019 From: The Pacific Northwest Registered: Dec 2003
''''snip''''''''''ads accusing Robinson of being funded by Big Oil, of being in the pocket of Wall Street, of planning on shutting down the nation's public schools, of planning the demise of the Social Security system – and even of plotting to irradiate Americans' drinking water! Oh, and he's also being called a racist – of course.''''''''
I thought that is all the basic tea party platform planks
you guys really think BIG OIL and wall st is funding the democrats ?????????????? home school salesman's wet dream is to shut down the socialist public schools
drinking water I am clue less on unless that is something like fluoridation
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09:17 PM
Patrick's Dad Member
Posts: 5154 From: Weymouth MA USA Registered: Feb 2000
Has the Democratic Party become the Lawyers' Party? Barack Obama is a lawyer. Michelle Obama is a lawyer. Hillary Clinton is a lawyer. Bill Clinton is a lawyer. John Edwards is a lawyer. Elizabeth Edwards is a lawyer. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress: Harry Reid is a lawyer. Nancy Pelosi is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different.
President Bush is a businessman. Vice President Cheney is a businessman. The leaders of the Republican Revolution:
Newt Gingrich was a history professor. Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill First is a heart surgeon. Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976..
The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work, who are very often the targets of lawyers.
The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich.
The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want and need, as the enemies of America. And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party, grow..
The United States has 5% of the world's population and 66% of the world's lawyers! Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as "spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you" and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits. This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party. When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association goes to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high!
rayb?
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10:08 PM
Patrick's Dad Member
Posts: 5154 From: Weymouth MA USA Registered: Feb 2000
The company applies a full-court press in Washington. Since January of 2008, BP lobbyists have spent $30 million to influence legislation, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The 17th-ranked lobbying company in 2009, it has also nearly doubled its percentage of campaign contributions to Democrats, from a low of 22 percent 1996 to 43 percent today. President Obama was the largest recipient of campaign contributions from BP employees in 2008, at $71,000.
The BP political action committee (PAC) gave $219,500 to federal candidates in the 05/06 election cycle - 34% to Democrats, 65% to Republicans. A summary of the BP PAC data is below, from Open Secrets:
2010 Total Spent - $173,781 Contributions to Federal Candidates - $75,550 (42% to Democrats, 58% to Republicans)
2008 Total Spent - $619,255 Contributions to Federal Candidates - $198,500 (41% to Democrats, 59% to Republicans)
2006 Total Spent - $601,696 Contributions to Federal Candidates - $219,500 (34% to Democrats, 65% to Republicans)
2004 Total Spent - $678,337 Contributions to Federal Candidates - $220,499 (38% to Democrats, 62% to Republicans)
The BP political action committee (PAC) gave $219,500 to federal candidates in the 05/06 election cycle - 34% to Democrats, 65% to Republicans. A summary of the BP PAC data is below, from Open Secrets:
2010 Total Spent - $173,781 Contributions to Federal Candidates - $75,550 (42% to Democrats, 58% to Republicans)
2008 Total Spent - $619,255 Contributions to Federal Candidates - $198,500 (41% to Democrats, 59% to Republicans)
2006 Total Spent - $601,696 Contributions to Federal Candidates - $219,500 (34% to Democrats, 65% to Republicans)
2004 Total Spent - $678,337 Contributions to Federal Candidates - $220,499 (38% to Democrats, 62% to Republicans)
That is something I've never quite understood.
Why do they split it up? If you were going towards a specific group wouldn't you put everything in it?
Or is it for safety in case you lose? So you don't get shut down by the party you didn't give money to?
IMO part of the reason a lot of Lawyers go into politics is because in politics they have to enact laws. Seems to be a natural progression in many countries.
[This message has been edited by newf (edited 10-20-2010).]
Hello Bill Gates Microsoft did not give to any party and it cost him dearly with the Government coming down on him hard in his early antitrust hearings, he should have played along with the shakedown which is what it is.
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01:41 AM
fierobear Member
Posts: 27083 From: Safe in the Carolinas Registered: Aug 2000
Originally posted by Patrick's Dad: The United States has 5% of the world's population and 66% of the world's lawyers! Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as "spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you" and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits. This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party. When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association goes to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high!
And there wasn't the slightest HINT of medical tort reform in the Democrat's health care bill. Coincidence?
quote
rayb?
Good luck with that.
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02:18 AM
fierobear Member
Posts: 27083 From: Safe in the Carolinas Registered: Aug 2000
Originally posted by fierobear: President Obama was the largest recipient of campaign contributions from BP employees in 2008, at $71,000.
rayb?
wow, $71,000 out of $700 million? So, if I were president, yeah I would give them approximately 1/10,000 of my time to listen to them. In the average work week, that amounts to just under 2 minutes a week. Is that enough time to influence someone?
And does that mean all BP employees are Democrats?
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02:45 AM
normsf Member
Posts: 1682 From: mishawaka, In Registered: Oct 2003
Wow costs $700 million to get a $400,000 a yr job, somebody is getting a great return on their investment. That alone should bother the voters, You. Lets get real $71,000 was just the employees, BP funneled well over a million to Obama alone, maybe thats why Obama waited 6 weeks to respond to the Oil Spill. BP has to pay clean up costs and into the clean up fund, but guess what that will be charged off as an expense further insulting and costing the Taxpayer. Its your money too!
[This message has been edited by normsf (edited 10-20-2010).]
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03:27 AM
ktthecarguy Member
Posts: 2076 From: Livonia, MI USA Registered: Jun 2007
Wow costs $700 million to get a $400,000 a yr job, somebody is getting a great return on their investment. That alone should bother the voters, You. Lets get real $71,000 was just the employees, BP funneled well over a million to Obama alone, maybe thats why Obama waited 6 weeks to respond to the Oil Spill. BP has to pay clean up costs and into the clean up fund, but guess what that will be charged off as an expense further insulting and costing the Taxpayer. Its your money too!
And who would that somebody be? you mean like Meg Whitman, paying $140 mil of her own money to get a $250,000 job?
And since it was BP's spill, it was BP's responsibility to clean it up. He was waiting for BP to do their job, and when it was apparent they would not, he jumped into action. I do wish he had jumped in sooner, but BP kept lying about the situation, which didn't help matters. Is your memory really that short? It was all over the news.
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03:54 AM
Patrick's Dad Member
Posts: 5154 From: Weymouth MA USA Registered: Feb 2000
IMO part of the reason a lot of Lawyers go into politics is because in politics they have to enact laws. Seems to be a natural progression in many countries.
But it's interesting that all the lawyers are Democrats, while the Republicans are businessmen and educators.
Read that how you will....
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08:03 AM
PFF
System Bot
fierobear Member
Posts: 27083 From: Safe in the Carolinas Registered: Aug 2000
wow, $71,000 out of $700 million? So, if I were president, yeah I would give them approximately 1/10,000 of my time to listen to them. In the average work week, that amounts to just under 2 minutes a week. Is that enough time to influence someone?
And does that mean all BP employees are Democrats?
It means that Obama got the most money from BP employees, and that's both when he was running for Senator and President. Here's more:
And since it was BP's spill, it was BP's responsibility to clean it up. He was waiting for BP to do their job, and when it was apparent they would not, he jumped into action.
That's pretty funny to use the word "jumped".
Bush was waiting for the city of New Orleans, and the state of Louisiana to do THEIR job, since he had provided all the assets they needed after Katrina. Then he got CRUCIFIED in the media for not acting, when it wasn't his job nor the federal government's job to do it.
Obama sits on his can for more than a MONTH (and not saying he shouldn't have) and then when he "jumps into action", his action is to shut down or delay other drilling! Wow. Decisive, AND helpful!
And I didn't follow it that closely. Exactly WHAT "action" did Obama direct to get things fixed or cleaned up?
Has the Democratic Party become the Lawyers' Party? Barack Obama is a lawyer. Michelle Obama is a lawyer. Hillary Clinton is a lawyer. Bill Clinton is a lawyer. John Edwards is a lawyer. Elizabeth Edwards is a lawyer. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress: Harry Reid is a lawyer. Nancy Pelosi is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different.
President Bush is a businessman. Vice President Cheney is a businessman. The leaders of the Republican Revolution:
Newt Gingrich was a history professor. Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill First is a heart surgeon. Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976..
The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work, who are very often the targets of lawyers.
The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich.
The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want and need, as the enemies of America. And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party, grow..
The United States has 5% of the world's population and 66% of the world's lawyers! Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as "spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you" and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits. This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party. When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association goes to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high!
rayb?
I would favor tort reform that would speed up and simplify the court process BUT GOP ''tort reform'' is a sell out to their CORPrat masters designed to slow and complicate the court process to favor the deep pockets and exclude the little guy
------------------ Question wonder and be wierd are you kind?
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02:47 PM
Pyrthian Member
Posts: 29569 From: Detroit, MI Registered: Jul 2002
I would favor tort reform that would speed up and simplify the court process BUT GOP ''tort reform'' is a sell out to their CORPrat masters designed to slow and complicate the court process to favor the deep pockets and exclude the little guy
And how does reducing huge payouts for malpractice (which is why unneccesary tests are ordered, driving up medical costs) and stupid lawsuits (spilling hot coffee on oneself) sell out to corporations? Just seems anti-lawyer, and, therefore, anti-Democrat.
Not sure if this is a fact but I read that there are 81 Republican members of congress to 123 Democrats that list attorney or lawyer as their profession.
So you are right there are more at the moment but it's not exclusive.
That's pretty close. There are 82 Republicans and 124 Democrats that list themselves as attorneys/lawyers.....that's out of 541 members (including 6 non-voting members.)
Bush was waiting for the city of New Orleans, and the state of Louisiana to do THEIR job, since he had provided all the assets they needed after Katrina. Then he got CRUCIFIED in the media for not acting, when it wasn't his job nor the federal government's job to do it.
Obama sits on his can for more than a MONTH (and not saying he shouldn't have) and then when he "jumps into action", his action is to shut down or delay other drilling! Wow. Decisive, AND helpful!
And I didn't follow it that closely. Exactly WHAT "action" did Obama direct to get things fixed or cleaned up?
Wrong. In a disaster of that magnatude, FEMA is the first responder. Remember "heckuvajob Brownie"? Yeah, that was his job. FAIL
As for the gulf oil spill, I am not going to do your research for you. If you are really are interested in learning more about the spill, there are tons of news articles on the subject. Have a good read.
As for Obama, he was criticized on both sides for not taking action sooner. as his own daughter said, "just plug the hole already, daddy".
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12:48 AM
fierobear Member
Posts: 27083 From: Safe in the Carolinas Registered: Aug 2000
Originally posted by ktthecarguy: As for Obama, he was criticized on both sides for not taking action sooner. as his own daughter said, "just plug the hole already, daddy".
Good, so you admit that Obama screwed the pooch. Glad to hear it.
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02:48 AM
ktthecarguy Member
Posts: 2076 From: Livonia, MI USA Registered: Jun 2007
Originally posted by ktthecarguy: On quick response to the BP disaster? You bet.
OK, good start. We agree.
quote
On health care reform? He didn't go far enough On the stimulus? He didn't go big enough
That enough criticism for you?
Holy s***. There we disagree. The health care reform is already starting to show how BAD it is. Stimulus? Wasted money, but we should have wasted more? Wow. We'll just have to disagree.
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10:28 AM
Toddster Member
Posts: 20871 From: Roswell, Georgia Registered: May 2001
Originally posted by ktthecarguy: wow, $71,000 out of $700 million? So, if I were president, yeah I would give them approximately 1/10,000 of my time to listen to them. In the average work week, that amounts to just under 2 minutes a week. Is that enough time to influence someone?
And does that mean all BP employees are Democrats?
But that is the ridiculous standard you apply to the GOP.
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11:11 AM
Flamberge Member
Posts: 4268 From: Terra Sancta, TX Registered: Oct 2001
On health care reform? He didn't go far enough On the stimulus? He didn't go big enough
That enough criticism for you?
Yikes. Just how far would you have wanted him to go, hypothetically. How much of your money should he have been able to spend? How much of your kids' money? Or their kid's money?
There's a reason the democrats are panicking this election cycle, and it has nothing to do with the GOP. It has to do with the fact that they've gone blatantly against the will of the people they represent, they've done so in a shadowy manner, and people are mobilizing to make sure the bleeding stops ASAP. If they were doing the right thing, if what they were saying was true, they would still enjoy the numbers they had in Jan of 2009. Where are those poll numbers and approval ratings now?
The democrats are even throwing each other under the bus and distancing themselves from health care, stimulus, and anything else seen as fiscally irresponsible because they KNOW they have screwed the country up so bad even their supporters are leaving the ship.
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03:39 PM
ktthecarguy Member
Posts: 2076 From: Livonia, MI USA Registered: Jun 2007
Holy s***. There we disagree. The health care reform is already starting to show how BAD it is. Stimulus? Wasted money, but we should have wasted more? Wow. We'll just have to disagree.
Bad becasue it doesn't do enough. We all should have pushed for a public option. But in the mean time, you can't be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition anymore. And your kids can stay on you insurance until age 26. Small steps, but steps in the right direction.
Wasted money??? Try telling that to the people whose jobs were saved. I bet they would have some words for you.
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06:54 PM
fierobear Member
Posts: 27083 From: Safe in the Carolinas Registered: Aug 2000
Originally posted by ktthecarguy: Bad becasue it doesn't do enough. We all should have pushed for a public option. But in the mean time, you can't be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition anymore. And your kids can stay on you insurance until age 26. Small steps, but steps in the right direction.
The "public option" is nothing more than government-run, socialized medicine. It is CRAP everywhere it's been done. Even England is backing away from it. And Obama cluelessly wants to turn the best over all health care system in the world and trash it.
Mr. Fratto sees a double standard at play. "We would never have used a formula like 'save or create,'" he tells me. "To begin with, the number is pure fiction -- the administration has no way to measure how many jobs are actually being 'saved.' And if we had tried to use something this flimsy, the press would never have let us get away with it."
Of course, the inability to measure Mr. Obama's jobs formula is part of its attraction. Never mind that no one -- not the Labor Department, not the Treasury, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- actually measures "jobs saved." As the New York Times delicately reports, Mr. Obama's jobs claims are "based on macroeconomic estimates, not an actual counting of jobs." Nice work if you can get away with it.
Originally posted by fierobear: The "public option" is nothing more than government-run, socialized medicine. It is CRAP everywhere it's been done. Even England is backing away from it. And Obama cluelessly wants to turn the best over all health care system in the world and trash it.
I just pick the juicier stories to post here.
