Fornits
General Interest => Tacitus' Realm => Topic started by: Froderik on October 18, 2010, 12:26:40 PM
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The Tea Party movement is a political movement in the United States that emerged in 2009 through a series of locally and nationally coordinated protests. The protests were partially in response to several Federal laws: the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and a series of health care reform bills.
The movement has no central leadership but is a loose affiliation of smaller local groups. The movement's primary concerns include, but are not limited to, cutting back the size of government, lowering taxes, reducing wasteful spending, reducing the national debt and federal budget deficit, and adhering to the United States Constitution. Many of the movement's members also speak out on a wide variety of other issues such as illegal immigration.
In 2010 Tea Party endorsed candidates upset establishment Republicans in several primaries, such as Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Nevada and South Carolina, giving a new momentum to the conservative cause in the 2010 elections, and boosting Sarah Palin's visibility. In the fall 2010 elections, the New York Times has identified 129 Republican House candidates with significant Tea Party support, as well as 9 running for the Senate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement)
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And was started and is funded by the Koch brothers. Don't forget about that.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oc ... h-brothers (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/13/tea-party-billionaire-koch-brothers)
Tea Party movement: Billionaire Koch brothers who helped it grow
Industrialists who own private company with annual revenues of £62bn have channelled millions of dollars to rightwing causes
It likes to present itself as a grassroots insurgency made up of hundreds of local groups intent on toppling the Washington elite.
But the Tea Party movement, which is threatening to cause an upset in next month's midterm elections, would not be where it is today without the backing of that most traditional of US political supporters – Big Oil.
The billionaire brothers who own Koch Industries, a private company with 70,000 employees and annual revenues of $100bn (£62bn), used to joke that they controlled the biggest company nobody had ever heard of.
Not any more. After decades during which their fortune grew exponentially and they channelled millions of dollars to rightwing causes, Charles and David Koch are finally getting noticed for their part in the extraordinary growth of the Tea Party movement.
The two, 74-year-old Charles and David, 70, have invested widely in the outcome of the 2 November elections.
One Koch subsidiary has pumped $1m into the campaign to repeal California's global warming law, according to state records.
The brothers, their wives and employees have also given directly to Republican candidates for Congress and are the sixth-largest donors to the Senate campaign of Tea Party favourite Marco Rubio.
They have also given heavily to the Republican Jim DeMint in South Carolina, according to the Centre for Responsive Politics.
But organisations tracking money in politics say the Kochs' biggest impact in the midterm elections will be from funding and providing logistical support to such groups as Americans for Prosperity (AFP), one of the biggest Tea Party groups.
AFP, in turn, has spun off other organisations such as November is Coming, Hands Off My Healthcare, and the Institute of Liberty, which are buying up television ads and holding rallies across the country in an attempt to defeat Democrats.
US campaign laws make it easy for political interest groups and their corporate backers to hide their spending in elections. "This is a world of shadows," said Taki Oldham, an Australian documentary maker who spent months following Tea Party activists. "In my mind, without a doubt nobody has had more influence on the anti-Obama campaign than the Koch-funded groups."
For the Kochs, who inherited their politics as well as their business from their father, Fred, this has been a long and carefully cultivated project.
But after years in which their support for anti-regulation thinktanks and groups went largely undetected, the sudden visibility of the Kochs' power seems to have taken even the brothers by surprise.
"Five years ago, my brothers Charles and I provided the funds to start Americans for Prosperity," David Koch told AFP's annual Defending the Dream gathering in 2009. "It is beyond my wildest dreams that AFP has grown into this enormous organisation. The American dream of free enterprise and capitalism is alive and well."
Until last summer, most Americans had no idea who the Koch brothers were, and it is very likely that even AFP members did not know they were bankrolled by one of the richest men in corporate America.
But a spate of attention – sparked by a Greenpeace investigation and a profile in the New Yorker – has given the Kochs a degree of notoriety they are finding it difficult to live with.
There was no sign of David Koch at this year's Defending the Dream summit. When the Guardian stopped into the offices of the Charles G Koch charitable foundation, in the suburbs of Washington DC, the receptionist sent the head of the legal department out to talk.
After declaring all conversations off the record, lawyer Brian Menkes said it was normal for the Koch legal team to be involved in routine press inquiries.
"Go to any company in the world and the legal department is involved in media inquiries," he said. "It is standard operating procedure."
For his part, David Koch now seeks to distance himself from the Tea Party. In a rare interview in New York magazine, he said: "I've never been to a Tea Party event. No one representing the Tea Party has ever even approached me."
The extreme sensitivity carries across to the company website, where recent additions tout the brothers' commitment to environmental protections and offer a selection of "Koch facts", an antidote to the unflattering personal and political portraits of the two that have appeared recently.
"This is the outing of the Koch brothers. They didn't want this story told, especially in an election year," said Kert Davies, the research director for Greenpeace who has spent a decade gathering data on the family. "They have never been face forward."
But they do have deep pockets. Koch Industries has expanded from oil refinery to paper towels and Lycra.
The two brothers each own 42% of the company and occupy top-10 positions in the Forbes annual ranking of wealthy Americans, with personal fortunes of $21bn each.
Over the last 20 years, Koch Industries has donated at least $5.9m to political candidates, some 83% of which was set aside for Republican candidates, according to the Centre for Responsive Politics.
Since 1989, Koch Industries has spent more than any other oil and gas company on finding favour in Congress, paying $50m to lobbying firms.
But it is the Kochs' links to a welter of mass mobilisation campaigns opposing Barack Obama that is making the biggest impact. Political monitoring organisations say the Koch-connected Claude R Lambe Charitable Foundation has given $3.1m to Americans for Prosperity.
The Kochs' involvement in anti-government causes goes back to their father, who was a founding member of the virulently anti-communist John Birch Society.
He made his fortune by developing a more efficient refining method and built plants around the world, including 15 in the Soviet Union at the height of Stalin's purges in the early 1930s. He came to despise Stalin and, David Koch told the New Yorker, was "paranoid about communism, let's put it that way".
He worked hard to instil the same beliefs in his four sons. Two of those sons later became estranged from the family, and were eventually bought out of Koch Industries, but for Charles and David, the rightwing free market ideology was their lodestar.
As the CEO of Koch Industries, Charles Koch began supporting free-market thinkers while honing his own ideas in a book called the Science of Liberty.
The brothers did try direct action. In 1980, David Koch ran as a vice-presidential candidate on the libertarian ticket, winning just 1% of the vote.
The episode, Charles Koch has written, persuaded the brothers to refocus their energies. In the 1980s, they founded Citzens for a Sound Economy.
Over the next 20 years, they funnelled around $13m to Citizens for a Sound Economy. In 2004, the organisation split into Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which is closely tied to the former Republican Congressman Dick Armey and has received no more funding from the Koch family.
Obama's election, and the prospect that the new president would reverse nearly two decades of reduced government oversight of industry, put the Kochs and their footsoldiers in Americans for Prosperity on high alert.
"They were very afraid of the Obama administration and a return to a pro-regulatory environment after the Bush years, and probably ramped it up a bit to make sure nothing new was going to inhibit their business," Davies said.
A day after CNBC's Rick Santelli launched his on-air howl against Obama's mortgage bailout plan, AFP and Freedom Works put up Facebook pages and began organising events around the country. The Tea Party was under way.
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The Tea Party movement is a political movement in the United States that emerged in 2009 through a series of locally and nationally coordinated protests. The protests were partially in response to several Federal laws: the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and a series of health care reform bills.
The movement has no central leadership but is a loose affiliation of smaller local groups. The movement's primary concerns include, but are not limited to, cutting back the size of government, lowering taxes, reducing wasteful spending, reducing the national debt and federal budget deficit, and adhering to the United States Constitution. Many of the movement's members also speak out on a wide variety of other issues such as illegal immigration.
In 2010 Tea Party endorsed candidates upset establishment Republicans in several primaries, such as Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Nevada and South Carolina, giving a new momentum to the conservative cause in the 2010 elections, and boosting Sarah Palin's visibility. In the fall 2010 elections, the New York Times has identified 129 Republican House candidates with significant Tea Party support, as well as 9 running for the Senate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement)
I hope they can keep the momentum going. I am not for it because it is Republican but because it is a grass roots movement. We need to start getting younger people involved, the average joe's voice needs to be heard. The present system is a joke and only a small portion of the people even vote anymore.
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because it is a grass roots movement.
It's not by any stretch of the imagination. See article above re: Koch brothers. It's astroturfing at it's best/worst.
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I don't know how grass-roots it is or not, or who started it, but I like it because it bothers people who adhere to one party or another...again.. this is a good sign.
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because it is a grass roots movement.
It's not by any stretch of the imagination. See article above re: Koch brothers. It's astroturfing at it's best/worst.
The "Tea Party Movement" is s imple corporatist political marketing plan. It was conceived and funded by right-wing Republicans like Dick Armey and the Koch brothers. It is by no stretch of the imagination "grass roots." It's corporatist "astro turf" with the "Tea Party Express" funded by Newscorp (Fox News).
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I don't know how grass-roots it is or not, or who started it, but I like it because it bothers people who adhere to one party or another...again.. this is a good sign.
It's fun for campaigning, but when it comes to actually governing, Tea Partiers are non-starters. There is no possible way the Tea Party agenda can come to fruition in a pluralistic society. They're not smart enough or educated enough about civics to realize that anger is not a governing strategy.
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I don't know how grass-roots it is or not, or who started it, but I like it because it bothers people who adhere to one party or another...again.. this is a good sign.
It's fun for campaigning, but when it comes to actually governing, Tea Partiers are non-starters. There is no possible way the Tea Party agenda can come to fruition in a pluralistic society. They're not smart enough or educated enough about civics to realize that anger is not a governing strategy.
Well, that and their spokespeole are nuts!
And the only people it bothers are the Dems. The Reps love 'em, especially because of the social agenda.
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Reps love 'em, especially because of the social agenda.
Also, nearly half [of tea party members] think the government should limit Wall Street executive bonuses, according to the nationwide poll which was conducted between March 19 and March 22, 2010.
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Reps love 'em, especially because of the social agenda.
Also, nearly half [of tea party members] think the government should limit Wall Street executive bonuses, according to the nationwide poll which was conducted between March 19 and March 22, 2010.
I think it is great that some of these people are starting to wake up. I support just about any movement that stirs up the people resulting in getting more of them involved in the political process. We haven't had much grass roots movement activity since the 1960's. The bonuses are so out of proportion that these people should be put in jail.
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Reps love 'em, especially because of the social agenda.
Also, nearly half [of tea party members] think the government should limit Wall Street executive bonuses, according to the nationwide poll which was conducted between March 19 and March 22, 2010.
Good! So do I!
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We haven't had much grass roots movement activity since the 1960's.
And we don't have one in the Tea Party either.
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We haven't had much grass roots movement activity since the 1960's.
And we don't have one in the Tea Party either.
I think the beginnings are there and they are waking up a lot of people to the political corruption presently within the government. I have read that the tea party is funded by a few billionaires but talk like that is to be expected when people get start to get organized. Back in the 1960's the hippie movement was thought to be funded and supported by communists lol.
At this point anything is better than the 2 party system we presently have.
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We haven't had much grass roots movement activity since the 1960's.
And we don't have one in the Tea Party either.
I think the beginnings are there and they are waking up a lot of people to the political corruption presently within the government.
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10 years late, after the real criminals have been voted out.
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We haven't had much grass roots movement activity since the 1960's.
And we don't have one in the Tea Party either.
I think the beginnings are there and they are waking up a lot of people to the political corruption presently within the government.
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10 years late, after the real criminals have been voted out.
There are still crooks in office. Time for them to go.
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10 years late, after the real criminals have been voted out.
Uh....bullshit? As if "real criminals" aren't in there now, too??
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Republicans are heartless and greedy. Democrats are incompetent and idealistic. I'll take incompetence over avarice any day.
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Republicans are heartless and greedy. Democrats are incompetent and idealistic. I'll take incompetence over avarice any day.
Then you are as much a dupe as any Republican is.
Sorry, but "lesser of two evils" just doesn't cut it for me.
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Republicans are heartless and greedy. Democrats are incompetent and idealistic. I'll take incompetence over avarice any day.
Then you are as much a dupe as any Republican is. And these are stereotypes.
Sorry, but "lesser of two evils" just doesn't cut it for me.
I tend to agree, but I don't see how abolishing or privatizing social security, medicare, the Board of Education, or even the IRS will help. It seems to me that the root of the problem is the rapidly disappearing middle class which no longer has the money to spend to keep our economy afloat. All the republican, and tea party, solutions seem to leave the ultra rich in a position to get ultra richer, while not helping the average american at all ( no income tax, just a 23% sales tax on EVERYTHING ). At least the democratic side appears to be trying to help us little guys.
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( no income tax, just a 23% sales tax on EVERYTHING ).
OMG....you've got to be kidding! No seriously, I had not heard about this. Assuming it is true, that is outright insanity.
However, I don't believe in income tax, as it usually ends up becoming 'welfare for the rich.'
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Just pulled it up, Huckabee/DeMint, but it is a couple of years old, from the run-up to the 08 campaign. That one just stuck in my head, I agree, total insanity. And it does kind of seem like it doesn't matter who is running the country. Wasn't Obamacare basically the same bill, proposed by Newt Gingrich, that got shot down under the Clinton administration?
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/24 ... salestax24 (http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/24/nation/na-salestax24)
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And it does kind of seem like it doesn't matter who is running the country. Wasn't Obamacare basically the same bill, proposed by Newt Gingrich, that got shot down under the Clinton administration?
You got it. I don't know about the bill, but that would not surprise me. The way I see it, the current administration is the pinnacle of fuckery they've been leading up to for the past 15-20 years; we haven't had a president with much integrity since Jimmy Carter.
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We need to support new ideas, get the young people to the poles and take the power away from wall street and the politicians. The politicians are voted in locally and we send them to Washington and pay for their cars and housing, support their families while they are in office and in return they are suppose to be representing us folk at home (the people who voted them in) the middle class.
The should be representing "us" not the big business or wall street. Time to restructure and get some new people in there.
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Yes, term limits.
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Yes, term limits.
Exactly. We dont need professional politicians. That was not the original intent. The system was designed to send a local person to Washington to represent us. This guy would be a member of our community who knew us and would fight for our needs and vote as a representative. After is stint is over he comes home and goes back to his regular job. Some move on to higher politics.
I understand those days are over but we shouldn't be voting in some guy who just moved into our state to gain residency so he can get elected and move on. Why do people vote for guys like that?
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Yes, term limits.
I believe we were well on are way to having them in 1988 until the Supreme Court stepped in and shut it down. If my memory serves me well it was Anthony Scallia behind the melt down.
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Yes, term limits.
I believe we were well on are way to having them in 1988 until the Supreme Court stepped in and shut it down. If my memory serves me well it was Anthony Scallia behind the melt down.
Interesting...
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Murkowski would be the seventh incumbent — and fourth Republican — to lose in a year in which the tea party has scored huge victories in GOP Senate primaries and voters have shown a willingness to punish Republicans and a handful of Democrats with ties to Washington and party leadership. Miller is a Gulf War veteran and self-described "constitutional conservative."
It also was an outsider's night in Florida's GOP primary for governor, with big-spending upstart Rick Scott toppling veteran insider Bill McCollum, the state's attorney general who had the support of national party chiefs.
Five states — Arizona, Vermont and Oklahoma also voted — held nominating contests Tuesday, 10 weeks before the general election. The races highlighted dominant themes of this volatile election year, including anti-establishment anger and tea party challenges from the right.
Elsewhere, the establishment prevailed.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/news/a ... pardy.html (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/news/ap/politics/2010/Aug/25/alaska_gop_sen__murkowski_in_jeopardy.html)
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It also was an outsider's night in Florida's GOP primary for governor, with big-spending upstart Rick Scott toppling veteran insider Bill McCollum, the state's attorney general who had the support of national party chiefs.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/news/a ... pardy.html (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/news/ap/politics/2010/Aug/25/alaska_gop_sen__murkowski_in_jeopardy.html)
I wasn't a fan of McCollum's and I'm not really of Alex Sink either, but Rick Scott is nothing but a criminal that made shitloads of money defrauding anyone he could. My comment in blue.
Under oath, Rick Scott displays poor memory, penchant for parsing words
By Marc Caputo, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
In Print: Tuesday, October 19, 2010
TALLAHASSEE
Rick Scott the candidate promises voters "the unvarnished truth."
But Rick Scott the witness offers little but murky testimony.
In a series of sworn depositions he gave in lawsuits against his former hospital company, Scott appears to be the polar opposite of the straight-talking Republican candidate for governor in his television ads.
Under oath, Scott displays a poor memory and a penchant for parsing words. He answers a lawyer's questions with questions. Smirking or shrugging his shoulders, his darting eyes survey the room in a video deposition in an antitrust case brought by Orlando Regional Healthcare System against Scott's former company Columbia/HCA.
In that 1995 lawsuit, Scott couldn't remember if a company news release quoted him correctly. In another case, filed by a Nevada company, Scott confirmed only his name before invoking 75 times his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
In a third case, involving a spat with a Texas doctor, Scott could not recall letters he signed, including one in which he raised concerns about illegal doctor payments.
When asked about an agreement he apparently struck with the El Paso doctor named in the suit, Scott, a former mergers-and-acquisitions attorney, stalled.
"I don't know what the def — your definition or anybody's definition of an 'agreement' is, or an 'offer' is, or 'promise' is," he said in the Jan. 16, 1997, deposition.
These days, on the campaign trail, Scott showcases the word "promise." He pledges to help turn the economy around and create jobs as he did in the 1990s when he led Columbia/HCA.
As the nation's largest and most aggressive hospital company, Columbia/HCA was a high-profile target of many lawsuits, which probably makes Scott the most deposed candidate for governor in recent memory. But it's those grueling, under-oath reams of testimony that provide new glimpses of the management style Scott could bring to the fourth-most populous state.
"These were civil lawsuits about business disputes that all involved trial lawyers looking for a payday for their clients," Scott spokesman Brian Burgess said. "Given those circumstances, Rick was not going to be overly cooperative to give another trial lawyer a payday."
A fourth deposition is shielded from public view. Scott gave it April 7, six days before filing for governor in a case a doctor filed against Solantic Urgent Care, a Jacksonville-based chain of walk-in clinics Scott founded.
The 2-year-old lawsuit was quickly settled after the deposition, which remains sealed under a confidentiality agreement.
The secrecy of the Solantic case became the grist of political attacks.
During the Republican primary, his GOP rival, Attorney General Bill McCollum, played up Scott's refusal to release the deposition. McCollum bankrolled two operatives to hound Scott throughout the state and chant through a bullhorn, "Release the deposition."
A McCollum supporter sued to obtain the video deposition but dropped the suit shortly after Scott won the Aug. 24 primary.
Democrat Alex Sink picked up where McCollum left off, highlighting the Solantic deposition in an attack ad.
Another spot from Sink notes that Scott in 2000 pleaded the Fifth Amendment 75 times in a contract dispute against Columbia/HCA, which soon paid a record $1.7 billion Medicare fraud fine -— albeit three years after Scott left the company. (But the fraud was committed while Scott was in charge) Both Sink ads accuse Scott of having something to hide.
Scott said in a debate last week that he pleaded the Fifth Amendment to stop a ''fishing expedition." That prompted Sink supporters and legal experts to suggest Scott misused the constitutional right against self incrimination, which is to be invoked when a person reasonably fears criminal prosecution.
Sink's memory is fuzzy as well and she has ducked a few questions, such as whether she supported President Barack Obama's health care plan. She said she also had one brief deposition in her past, when she worked at NationsBank in the early 1990s, but she can't remember the case.
The depositions of Scott offer one major insight into the candidate, who agreed with the statement that he supports "the idea of decentralizing authority."
But in doing so, it becomes unclear what Scott was in charge of at his company, or what he knew and when. "As a general rule," he testified in the Texas case, he doesn't file detailed notes on conversations, so he relies on the support of office staff and his own memory.
He doesn't remember much, such as signing letters at the center of the Texas case in which a physician successfully sued on the grounds that Columbia damaged his El Paso, Texas, medical practice by secretly luring away his partner.
"I sign letters all the time that I have not read," Scott said.
Jack Ayers, the plaintiff's lawyer, pressed Scott to describe what he meant in the letter by saying they had an "understanding."
"What is it?" Ayers asked.
"It's a letter," Scott said.
Ayers: "What does it say?"
Scott: "It says these words."
Ayers: "And what does that mean to you? If you were to characterize that?"
Scott: "I would characterize it as a letter with these words."
Ayers later told Scott that one Columbia employee swore under oath that Scott "made a commitment'' to pay the doctor $200,000.
"I have no recollection," Scott said. Ayers then displayed another signed letter in which Scott fretted that some payments the doctor wanted "would constitute illegal remuneration under Medicare and Medicaid laws, therefore I would not be able to accommodate your request."
Scott didn't remember that, either.
Ayers said he still remembers the deposition after all these years. So does John T. Cusack, a Chicago lawyer who represented Orlando Regional in its 1995 suit to stop Columbia/HCA from gobbling up too much of the Orlando market.
"I'm not sure what a 'market' is," Scott told him.
"You don't know what a market is?" Cusack asked, showing copies of a presentation Scott had given the year before that said Orlando was a "significant market."
Cusack: "Have you ever told anyone or showed anyone a document that said Orlando was one of Columbia/HCA Corporation's significant markets?"
Scott: "I don't know."
Scott also said he wasn't sure what the definition of "over-capacity," "corporate hospital law," "control," "profit' or "Central Florida'' was. He also asked what Cusack meant by describing Columbia/HCA as a "hospital chain." ::)
Scott said he didn't remember or denied quotes attributed to him in the Miami Herald, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and the Orlando Sentinel. Cusack then read a Columbia/HCA press release about a hospital deal that quoted Scott.
"Have I read those paragraphs correctly, sir?" Cusack asked. Scott: "I didn't listen that close."
Cusack: "Is the press release an accurate quote?"
Scott: "I... I don't know."
Marc Caputo can be reached at http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2010/aug ... cott-atop/ (http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2010/aug/01/columbiahca-whistleblowers-stunned-rick-scott-atop/)
NAPLES — A whistleblower in the Columbia/HCA fraud case said Rick Scott should have known of billing practices at his hospitals that cheated the federal government out of millions of dollars.
“He was a fairly hands-on CEO,” said John Schilling, a former reimbursement supervisor in the Fort Myers division office. “He should have known being CEO of a multibillion-dollar company. He should have known what is on his balance sheet.”
A Nashville attorney brought in for his auditing acumen remembers talking to Scott about significant compliance problems.
“You’re over-lawyering this,” Jerre Frazier recalled Scott telling him. “He’s an optimistic kind of guy. He doesn’t like bad news.”
These former corporate insiders are bewildered by Scott’s candidacy for Florida governor, let alone his dramatic rise in the polls.
Voters are seemingly discounting Scott’s forced resignation in 1997 shortly after the FBI began widespread raids of Columbia/HCA offices. Ultimately, the largest for-profit hospital chain in the United States paid a record $1.7 billion in criminal and civil fines for Medicare fraud.
In television ads and on the campaign trail, Scott has repeatedly said he takes responsibility for what happened at the company and says he learned from it.
“Initially when I first saw he was running, I didn’t give him much chance,” said Schilling, 48, who has lived in Naples since 2001. “You can buy your way into the candidacy.”
Schilling didn’t know Scott also lives in Naples until he began research for his 2006 book, Undercover, detailing his life as an FBI informant in the case. The two have never run into each other in Naples.
“He’s putting on what people want to hear,” Schilling said of Scott’s candidacy. “People are always frustrated at inefficiency of government.”
Schilling was hired at the company’s Southwest Florida division offices in 1993 as a reimbursement manager. Six months into the job, he sensed something was wrong. A Medicare auditor had made an error that resulted in a $3 million gain at Fawcett Memorial Hospital in Port Charlotte.
District executives conspired to keep the mistake under wraps and keep the ill-gotten gain. He soon found other record irregularities going back at least 10 years.
“I exposed a double set of books,” he said, adding that one set was inflated cost reports for the federal government and the second was for internal purposes.
“The second was stamped confidential and don’t show to Medicare auditors,” Schilling said. “We estimated alone in 10 years over a billion in overpayments to the chain.”
In time, Schilling joined forces with James Alderson, an accountant at a Montana hospital, in a whistleblower case against Columbia/HCA.
Scott’s way of doing business was to have his chief executive officers at regional offices play hardball with acquisitions of other hospitals, doctors’ practices and bottom-line profits.
“If you didn’t cut the mustard, you were let go, if you didn’t meet budget goals,” Schilling said. “That is the way Rick Scott ran the company. He gave goals on notecards. He created a culture that the individual pushed the limit. Bonuses were 50 percent or more of a salary.”
* * * * *
Frazier, the Nashville attorney brought in to troubleshoot compliance issues, recalls Scott as always polite and personable.
“He was not a tyrant,” said Frazier, who now lives in Houston. “He stood in line in the cafeteria.”
The same day he was ousted as CEO, Scott didn’t flee the corporate premises _ instead he shook hands with employees.
“There were three buildings and he went around and expressed his appreciation to people,” he said.
Scott’s downfall nonetheless was the corporate culture he created that went bad, Frazier said, explaining that hospital managers and division chiefs were relentless in meeting Scott’s mission of creating a unified health-care and hospital company.
“I did not see Rick Scott act in bad faith but what I did see is the corporate culture he presided over. I did not see Rick Scott to be inclined to do anything criminal,” he said.
Still, Frazier isn’t certain how aware Scott was of the consequences of the corporate culture he created.
“I’m not sure he understood how much his lieutenants twisted arms,” he said. “People did not report bad news to him.”
Television campaign commercials in Florida, aired by supporters of opponent Bill McCollum, may be truthful that impoverished seniors and uninsured pregnant women who were unable to pay were turned away at Columbia/HCA hospitals. But he doesn’t believe that would have happened if Scott were on the scene.
“I don’t think Rick Scott would have left someone outside, I don’t think he would have left someone to die,” Frazier said. “That is not the right thing to do and I do think he would have said it was not the right thing.”
Still, bottom-line driven hospital managers with sights sets on their bonuses were more than likely to find ways to exclude services to the poor and uninsured.
“Turn people away? It may have been a little more extreme at HCA,” he said.
Schilling, the Southwest Florida whistleblower, said he’s certain those kinds of things happened at Columbia/HCA and other hospitals.
“What I did hear sometimes in the trenches, some cost-cutting measures did have impacts on the quality and nurses were stretched thin. Patient satisfaction (surveys) showed high results. Who is compiling those surveys and how valid are those? Was there an independent source?”
For certain, when the federal investigation went into overdrive, a mountain of lawyers was retained, Frazier said.
“Three law firms were hired, each undermining each other. There was sort of mass confusion,” he said. “The lawyers did have control over who had access to Rick Scott.”
“CEOs blanket themselves with attorneys,” Schilling said. “They dodge the bullet of not being questioned. He never gave any information or assisted in the investigation.”
Although Scott has stated that he takes responsibility, Schilling doesn’t think that should satisfy voters.
“I give him credit for taking responsibility for those things but again, he stated he wasn’t aware of the fraud,” Schilling said. “I find it somewhat ironic, here you have someone running a multibillion-dollar company and he is not aware of what is going on and yet he wants to be governor. Is he going to not be aware of what is going on in state government? I just wouldn’t trust him.
“It must be an ego thing,” he added, about his theory of why Scott is running for governor. “He must need the ego of being in charge. I don’t know. It’s not for the money so it’s got to be for the ego.”
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The Tea Party Movement was created and is supported by the ultra rich, most notoriously the Koch brothers. Do we ever hear the Tea Party advocate a higher minimum wage? Unionization? It seems to me that a "grassroots" movement would be more concerned about the plight of common Americans.
http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/ ... ch-royalty (http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/allposts/tea-party-of-the-super-rich-virginias-koch-royalty)
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And they hate puppies!
http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/ ... uppy-mills (http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/allposts/missouri-tea-partiers-campaigning-against-proposition-mandating-humane-conditions-at-puppy-mills)
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The Tea Party Movement was created and is supported by the ultra rich, most notoriously the Koch brothers. Do we ever hear the Tea Party advocate a higher minimum wage? Unionization? It seems to me that a "grassroots" movement would be more concerned about the plight of common Americans.
http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/ ... ch-royalty (http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/allposts/tea-party-of-the-super-rich-virginias-koch-royalty)
Ah well. Thanks for the contributions from everyone. I was hoping for a bit more from the Tea Party. I am somewhat dismayed to learn some of these truths about them. I maintain that there needs to be, now more than ever, a viable alternative to the 'beast with two heads.'
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The Tea Party Movement was created and is supported by the ultra rich, most notoriously the Koch brothers. Do we ever hear the Tea Party advocate a higher minimum wage? Unionization? It seems to me that a "grassroots" movement would be more concerned about the plight of common Americans.
http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/ ... ch-royalty (http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/allposts/tea-party-of-the-super-rich-virginias-koch-royalty)
I think the Republican Party took another look at what happened to the first Bush in 1992, only it was one of their own that did them in, Ross Perot. Perot hijacked precious votes Bush needed to beat Clinton. If we all remember Perot was talking fiscal responsibility and small gov't.
Well why not this time let it work for you. Make up this factitious Party, "Tea Party" say were Libertarians/Independents (in fact were 98% Republican with their conservative values) and preach small Gov't, smart spending, no taxes, no health care, big business should not be taxed nor there leaders and so on.
This way you hedge your bet, get all the votes.
Fine this is good. Just remember in 2 years when were voting for a President again you had better had accomplished what you said you were in the House of Representatives (you will now control).
I doubt it.
The Koch bros. saw their brethren and themselves being reined in and could not have any of this.
If you actually look at what O'Bama has done since being in office you will note it is hardly anything. Wall Street was not reined in as promised, health care reforms will not happened for another few years if at all, stimulus package was a great way for companies to get billions and put it in the financial institution of their choosing to collect on the favorable interest rates to run their companies, then in a year or so give back the billions and say look at me, I paid it back early.
We are screwed from both sides of the aisle.
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The Tea Party Movement was created and is supported by the ultra rich, most notoriously the Koch brothers. Do we ever hear the Tea Party advocate a higher minimum wage? Unionization? It seems to me that a "grassroots" movement would be more concerned about the plight of common Americans.
http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/ ... ch-royalty (http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/allposts/tea-party-of-the-super-rich-virginias-koch-royalty)
Yup, I tried talking about that a couple of times on the first page of this thread.
The Koch bros. saw their brethren and themselves being reined in and could not have any of this.
That's pretty much it. We saw what deregulation of Wall St. did (Enron, Madoff, Golden Parachutes etc.) and the Koch's and the rest of the uber-rich started getting scared that they'd have to start answering for their actions so they started this "grass roots" ::) movement, played to their real base (neocons) and played off the fears of people. They talk a big game about small government, but really only want it to apply to their financial interests. They could give a shit about the average American and they're completely happy to send the government into our personal lives.
Grass roots my ass! It's nothing but Astroturfing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing)
Astroturfing denotes political, advertising, or public relations campaigns that are formally planned by an organization, but are disguised as spontaneous, popular "grassroots" behavior. The term refers to AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to look like natural grass.
The goal of such campaigns is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt ("outreach", "awareness", etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by an individual promoting a personal agenda, or highly organized professional groups with money from large corporations, unions, non-profits, or activist organizations. Very often, the efforts are conducted by political consultants who also specialize in opposition research. Beneficiaries are not "grass root" campaigners but distant organizations that orchestrate such campaigns.
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The Tea Party Movement was created and is supported by the ultra rich, most notoriously the Koch brothers. Do we ever hear the Tea Party advocate a higher minimum wage? Unionization? It seems to me that a "grassroots" movement would be more concerned about the plight of common Americans.
http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/ ... ch-royalty (http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/allposts/tea-party-of-the-super-rich-virginias-koch-royalty)
Yup, I tried talking about that a couple of times on the first page of this thread.
The Koch bros. saw their brethren and themselves being reined in and could not have any of this.
That's pretty much it. We saw what deregulation of Wall St. did (Enron, Madoff, Golden Parachutes etc.) and the Koch's and the rest of the uber-rich started getting scared that they'd have to start answering for their actions so they started this "grass roots" ::) movement, played to their real base (neocons) and played off the fears of people. They talk a big game about small government, but really only want it to apply to their financial interests. They could give a shit about the average American and they're completely happy to send the government into our personal lives.
Grass roots my ass! It's nothing but Astroturfing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing)
Astroturfing denotes political, advertising, or public relations campaigns that are formally planned by an organization, but are disguised as spontaneous, popular "grassroots" behavior. The term refers to AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to look like natural grass.
The goal of such campaigns is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt ("outreach", "awareness", etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by an individual promoting a personal agenda, or highly organized professional groups with money from large corporations, unions, non-profits, or activist organizations. Very often, the efforts are conducted by political consultants who also specialize in opposition research. Beneficiaries are not "grass root" campaigners but distant organizations that orchestrate such campaigns.
:tup:
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Source: State Dems scrambling to deploy tea party ‘crashers’ UPDATE:: Sullivan denies:
http://www.nowhampshire.com/2010/04/14/ ... s%E2%80%99 (http://www.nowhampshire.com/2010/04/14/source-state-dems-scrambling-to-deploy-tea-party-%E2%80%98crashers%E2%80%99)
Sabotaging the Tea Party:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpa ... party.html (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/04/sabotaging_the_tea_party.html)
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I got and Idea for a "GRASS ROOTS " movement........gasoline and matches. Start with the media, thengo for the ..ah goddamn ill wind up doin time....if I even say any more...it sjust well....fuck it yknow what I mean :flame:
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I got and Idea for a "GRASS ROOTS " movement........gasoline and matches. Start with the media, thengo for the ..ah goddamn ill wind up doin time....if I even say any more...it sjust well....fuck it yknow what I mean :flame:
So I just opened my MSN window,saw where some politico and other folks got shot in arizona ,and allready somebodys tryin to balme Sarah Palin? wtf. not that I got big love for her,but jesus mammylappin christ allready. This is what im talkin about...fuckin monkey with a typewriter got the spin goin already.....the media is every bit as fucked as the government, half truths,adulterated statistics, mis-information, out right lies, all spun in an un-realistic and Irrational direction.Next will come some dipshits conspiracy theory, geraldo will do a "special report" then Glen Beck,CNN, Pat Robertson will comment.......some dickhead will write a half baked book,and oprah windbag will put it on her book list for limosine liberals. mean while the truth just evaporated......poof....point being the media itself is a s big a waste of time as anything else. After all why let the truth get in the way of a good story, huh?
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[attachment=0:2lbez4ia]palins-new-job.jpg[/attachment:2lbez4ia]
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Here's your godamn grass roots, tea party movement in action
political rhetoric
By Holly Bailey
Buzz up!11 votes Share
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EmailPrint..By Holly Bailey holly Bailey – 1 hr 7 mins ago
Has the country's increasingly heated political rhetoric gotten dangerously out of control?
That's the debate in the aftermath of Saturday's shooting rampage in Arizona, that left 6 dead and 14 others wounded, including Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The Arizona congresswoman remains in a medically induced coma after being shot at point-blank range in the head by 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner.
While Loughner's exact motives remain unknown, the shooting quickly set off a back and forth about the toxic tone of the nation's political discourse and whether it may have played a role in the attack.
On Saturday, Arizona authorities suggested that's a theory they are pursuing.
"There's reason to believe that this individual may have a mental issue. And I think people who are unbalanced are especially susceptible to vitriol," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said in a news conference Saturday. "People tend to pooh-pooh this business about all the vitriol we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that. That may be free speech, but it's not without consequences."
The sheriff's comments echoed remarks Giffords herself made last year during the height of the 2010 midterm elections. In an interview with MSNBC last March, the Democratic lawmaker, who had been the target of threats over her vote on health care reform, noted her inclusion on list of lawmakers Sarah Palin was targeting for defeat that featured gun-related imagery. "The way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gunsight over our district," Giffords said at the time. "When people do that, they have got to realize there are consequences to that action."
On Sunday, politicians from both sides of the aisle cautioned against inflamed rhetoric, but that didn't stop the finger-pointing.
On CNN's State of the Union, Richard Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, referred to the Palin map that listed Giffords as a target as a sign of "toxic rhetoric" that had gone too far—though he insisted he wasn't making a "direct connection" between Palin and Saturday's shootings.
"Don't we have an obligation, those of us in public life and those who cover us to say, 'This is beyond the bounds?'" Durbin told CNN. "We owe it to our own in both political parties to have at least the good sense and common decency when people say these outrageous things to say, 'Wait a minute, that just goes too far,' whether it comes from the right or from the left."
In GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander said he agreed with Durbin that people should "cool it" and "tone it down." Still, he warned that people should be "very careful about imputing the motives" of the shooter—though he went out of his way to note that Loughner didn't appear to be a member of the tea party, which some have implied.
"What we know about this individual is that he read Karl Marx; he read Hitler. We know he was burning the American flag," Alexander said. "That's not the profile of a typical tea party member."
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Rep. James Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, reminded viewers of former Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle's call for supporters last year to take "Second Amendment remedies"
"What does that mean? That is a very vitriolic statement, and I think that somebody is responsible for speaking up and denouncing that kind of stuff," Clyburn said. "When you don't denounce it, people keep ratcheting it up and people get to a point where you cross the line. And I think that in this instance, this issue has crossed the line."
Still, the debate is likely to rage over the use of gun imagery in campaigns. As Politics Daily's Jill Lawrence writes, Palin is hardly the first politician to use gun imagery in politics. It's something that everybody--Democrats, Republicans and media--has done.
For her part, Palin offered her "sincere condolences" to the victims in a statement on Saturday. At the same time staffers removed the map from the ex-Alaska governor's political site, though it remained available on her Facebook page. Rebecca Mansour, a Palin aide, told a GOP radio host that the graphics on the map was not a gun sight but a "surveyor's symbol." (Palin, herself, referred to the graphic as a "bullseye.")
Per the Alaska Dispatch, Mansour said attempts to link Palin to the shooting were "obscene" and "appalling." She insisted that there is "nothing irresponsible about our graphic."
Briefing reporters Sunday, FBI Director Robert Mueller reiterated that it was still "premature" to say why Loughner targeted Giffords. But he acknowledged the vast amount of inflammatory rhetoric on the internet had made it more difficult for law enforcement agencies to identify and track potential threats.
"The ubiquitous nature of the internet means that not only threats, but hate speech and other inciteful speech is much more readily available to individuals than quite clearly it was eight or ten or fifteen years ago," Mueller said. "That absolutely presents a challenge for us, particularly when it results in what would be lone wolves or lone offenders undertaking attacks."
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In a shocking development, people who knew the shooter are saying he was a liberal.
In 1995, Clinton then tried to blame conservative talk radio, especially Rush Limbaugh, for the terrorist bombing. The tactic worked then, backing conservatives off and possibly helping to ensure a second Clinton term. The line we will see for the next few weeks is going to be that rhetoric and tone of the message from the Tea Party is responsible for this attack. Let’s ignore the fact that this guy was not only nuts, but also a card carrying liberal.
http://www.businessinsider.com/woman-wh ... 007-2011-1 (http://www.businessinsider.com/woman-who-says-she-went-to-school-with-alleged-shooter-says-he-met-giffords-in-2007-2011-1)
The hard left is going to try and silence the Tea Party movement by blaming them for this.
The activist old media will work overtime to lay the blame for the tragic shooting in Arizona at the feet of conservatives because that is the only template they have. They will ignore the facts of the case and they will pull out their Oklahoma City Bombing playbook.
The blood had not been wiped up from the scene before Keith Olbermann and others began blasting conservatives. It’s both predictable and reprehensible for Olbermann to try to make political hay out of this, and do it before we know so few of the facts in the case:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp ... 1#40983401 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/40983401#40983401)
Immediately after Congressman Gabrielle Giffords was shot, the left wing went into over drive to try and blame the Tea Party for the shooting. There was one minor problem -- there was no evidence.
In fact, in the hours after the shooting, the evidence began to pile up that Jared Loughner was in fact a liberal. Former classmates tweeted about his beliefs. He was a pot head who was kicked out of community college because he was such a disturbed individual. After twenty-four hours of ripping the Internet apart, the liberals are beside themselves with anger because they cannot tie Loughner to the Tea Party movement.
But have no fear, when the liberals really need help, they can count on the Department of Homeland Security.
DHS has magically come up with a report that says he has “ties” to an anti Semitic, anti-government group that has ads for tea party groups on its front page. WOW! There is a legal term for this kind of stuff. It is MSU. That stands for makin’ stuff up!
The leftist Politico.com reported that the Department of Homeland Security had a memo that said Loughner is “possibly linked” to a group called American Renaissance.
This is the same Department of Homeland Security that issued the infamous report on April 14, 2009, a day before the great Tax Day tea parties, warning of an upswing in “right wing extremism.” This is the same Department of Homeland Security, who’s Secretary, Janet Napolitano, claimed the border is secure and the system worked, after the underwear bomber tried to blow up a flight on Christmas day, 2009.
The group, American Renaissance, says they have no record of Loughner ever being associated or involved with them.
The obvious question that should be asked is, how about at least some evidence?
All that is there is some, at best, speculation. Of course, the liberal media and the blogosphere are quite happy to run with the story that fits their story line.
The liberal hate group, the Southern Poverty Law Center went through convolutions to try and claim that Jared Loughner was some kind of conservative. The Huffington Post ate that up and immediately posted the story online.
This is liberal thought and liberal journalism at its best. Facts and the truth are ignored in favor of speculation that supports the story they want to believe.
When this nightmare first began, Tea Party Nation decided to get out early and fight because we knew this is what would happen. Regardless of the facts, the left would try to tie this to the Tea Party movement. They are pushing back now and we need everyone in this movement to help fight the smear the liberals are trying to put out.
Remember, the shooter was a 'liberal' lunatic.
One more tidbit: The shooter evidently held a grudge against the congresswoman since 2007 (before anyone ever heard of Sarah Palin). It was then that he attended one of her meetings and asked her a goofy question (roughly: "If words have no meaning, what is government?") When she didn't answer him because she didn't know what he meant, it infuriated him & he has been obsessing about it ever since, and despising her because he thinks she's stupid. So exactly how does Palin figure into this? And why does she evoke such a vehement reaction from leftists? (Ironically, they are doing just what they accuse her and other conservatives of doing.)
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It amazes me how scared people are of Sarah Palin. She would had been last years news if the Democrats had left her alone. But they put her in the spot light, go figure. I hope that they do continue to try to blame the Tea Party for the shooting because it really makes them look foolish and desperate. Even the Democrats have given in to the realization that Obama is a one term president and we need some real change in the White House. Someone who can get us back on track and kick start the economy with jobs instead of taxation and get us out of Afghanistan.
Cant wait for 2012.
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See what I mean? I can see umpteen directions for how this will get spun.And by a cast of several! Somebodys gonna whine about gun control....somebody will rebuke that....on and on, and the more opinion being played as fact there is the more of the truth will get lost.It never fails to amaze/disgust me. ::deadhorse::
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See what I mean? I can see umpteen directions for how this will get spun.And by a cast of several! Somebodys gonna whine about gun control....somebody will rebuke that....
Yup, A NY Rep. is already introducing a gun control bill in Congress.
I guess she wants to take advantage of the situation, but I bet she will not be criticized for it.... :flame: :fuckoff: ::unhappy::
And on a somewhat relative note:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/29/palin.noose/ (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/29/palin.noose/)
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It amazes me how scared people are of Sarah Palin.
I think you're mistaking ridicule for fear.
She would had been last years news if the Democrats had left her alone. But they put her in the spot light, go figure.
Uh huh....quit her job MIDTERM so she could make tons of $$ giving speeches (way to take care of your constituents there babe), then stars in her own reality show (which is almost physically painful to watch). But it's the Dems that have kept her in the media spotlight. Ok.
I hope that they do continue to try to blame the Tea Party for the shooting because it really makes them look foolish and desperate.
I don't know if there's anyone to blame, save for the psycho that actually shot. I've heard that people that went to college with him about 3 years ago before he was kicked out said he was a stoner and an atheist but I've heard other comments about how his views had morphed into some white separatist movement. No confirmation either way so, who knows. However, it doesn't excuse the extreme rhetoric coming out of the Tea Party candidates.....there's a difference between some random left-wing blogger saying stupid stuff and people who actually speak for a party. We have a former candidate for Vice President putting up crosshairs on specific district representatives, then when asked about it says "don't retreat, reload" & the fact that they didn't take it down until this last Saturday AND now they're trying to say they were "survey marks", not crosshairs - says something. And don't forget, Gifford had her office vandalized shortly after Palin's crosshairs pic went up and has received a stream of death threats, as did many other of Palin's crosshairs targets.
(http://http://piggington.com/files/images/palin_crosshairs_map.jpg)
Then there's Sharron Angle (R-NV) talking about "taking Harry Reid out" with "second amendment remedies"....
“You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact, Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.”
“I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying, ‘my goodness what can we do to turn this country around?’ I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”
Continue reading on Examiner.com: Sharron Angle: "second amendment remedies" - Las Vegas Democrat | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/democrat-in-las ... z1Af2zPlDc (http://www.examiner.com/democrat-in-las-vegas/sharron-angle-second-amendment-remedies#ixzz1Af2zPlDc)
Those people actually speak for the Republican party (Tea Party) and, IMHO, need to be a tad more careful with the words they choose to use. Note.....this does NOT mean I'm advocating for censorship of ANY kind. Just that dolts like Palin & Angle need to think before they speak. A difficult task for Saint Sarah, I know, but still.
Someone who can get us back on track and kick start the economy with jobs
I'm disappointed in a lot of things he's done (or rather, hasn't done), but ya gotta give credit where credit is due.
(http://http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NUZ_fM-TQKQ/S_x0xaclVCI/AAAAAAAARF4/6QmeZNLwXnI/s400/4586046313_028d681d2a.jpg)
get us out of Afghanistan.
:nods:
On another note.....way to go Grandma!!!
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162- ... 04083.html (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20027980-504083.html)
(http://http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/01/10/12341341421_370x278.jpg)
TUCSON, Ariz. (CBS/KPHO/AP) Four people are being hailed as heroes after Saturday's mass shooting in Tucson that left six dead and 14 others wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
PICTURES: Arizona Shooting Victims
Daniel Hernandez used his hands to stop the bleeding from congresswoman's head. Roger Salzgeber and Joseph Zamudio tackled the suspect, Jared Loughner. But it was a 61-year-old woman who grabbed the magazine and handgun from the gunman that witnesses said helped prevent further tragedy.
"It was one shot, and then a moment with nothing, and then a series of shots," Patricia Maisch, of Tucson, told CBS affiliate KPHO. "I saw him coming down the line of chairs there, in front of the Safeway, just shooting people."
Two men tackled the gunman, but he could have done more damage. He still had the gun in his hand as he laid face-to-face with Maisch, she said.
"I was waiting to be shot, I was wondering how it was gonna feel to be shot," she told the station.
Maisch said she didn't stop to think of her own safety, she didn't hesitate for a second.
"I immediately knelt up over him, because he was right there almost on top of me, and the gun was in his right hand," she said.
She said she grabbed the 9mm handgun and the fully loaded magazine he took out of his pocket, disarming him before he could inflict more damage.
Even after all she's done, Maisch remained humble. She credits the two men who took the shooter down, rather than patting herself on the back. Witnesses said Maisch was screaming, "give me the gun" as she knelt over the gunman.
She said she doesn't remember what she said, but that she'll never forget that tragic day.
A federal judge, a congressional aide and a young girl were among the six people killed, while Giffords and 13 others were injured in the bursts of gunfire outside a Tucson supermarket.
Suspect Jared Loughner, 22, will face a federal court hearing Monday afternoon. Loughner is charged with one count of attempted assassination of a member of Congress, two counts of killing an employee of the federal government and two counts of attempting to kill a federal employee. More charges are expected.
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See what I mean? I can see umpteen directions for how this will get spun.And by a cast of several! Somebodys gonna whine about gun control....somebody will rebuke that....on and on, and the more opinion being played as fact there is the more of the truth will get lost.It never fails to amaze/disgust me. ::deadhorse::
Congresswoman Gifford has a pretty strong gun rights position.
Yeah, yeah....wikisource, I know. Point about Gifford's stance on gun rights stands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabrielle_ ... Gun_rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabrielle_Giffords#Gun_rights)
Gun rights
Giffords supports gun rights.[52] She opposed the Washington D.C. gun ban, signing an Amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court to support its overturn.[52][53] She has a D+ rating from the NRA[54] and a D- from the GOA.[55]
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It amazes me how scared people are of Sarah Palin.
I think you're mistaking ridicule for fear.
No, i don't think so. It's more than ridicule. People are over-reacting to that map, saying it had to do with the shooting; the attempted spin that the media tried to put on that is beyond ludicrous... it's a classic example of fear-mongering, and it's sickening that people are FALLING FOR IT!!!
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It amazes me how scared people are of Sarah Palin.
I think you're mistaking ridicule for fear.
No, i don't think so. It's more than ridicule. People are over-reacting to that map, saying it had to do with the shooting; the attempted spin that the media tried to put on that is beyond ludicrous... it's a classic example of fear-mongering, and it's sickening that people are FALLING FOR IT!!!
Agreed, but I still don't fear Sarah Palin. She's a freaking moron. I pity those who've fallen for her schtick.
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Agreed, but I still don't fear Sarah Palin. She's a freaking moron.
Well, good.
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See what I mean? I can see umpteen directions for how this will get spun.And by a cast of several! Somebodys gonna whine about gun control....somebody will rebuke that....
Yup, A NY Rep. is already introducing a gun control bill in Congress.
Now that's just reactionary and stupid.
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Someone who can get us back on track and kick start the economy with jobs
http://www.truth-out.org/obama-created- ... eight66660 (http://www.truth-out.org/obama-created-more-jobs-one-year-than-bush-created-eight66660)
Yesterday morning, the Labor Department released its employment data for December, showing that the U.S. economy ended the year by adding 113,000 private sector jobs, knocking the unemployment rate down sharply from 9.8 percent to 9.4 percent — its lowest rate since July 2009. The “surprising drop — which was far better than the modest step-down economists had forecast — was the steepest one-month fall since 1998.” October and November’s jobs numbers were also revised upward by almost 80,000 each. Still, 14.5 million Americans remain unemployed, and jobs will have to be created much faster in coming months for the country to pull itself out of the economic doldrums.
Responding the jobs report, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) noted that President Obama and the Democratic Congress have created “more jobs in 2010 than President Bush did over eight years.”
Indeed, from February 2001, Bush’s first full month in office, through January 2009, his last, the economy added just 1 million jobs. By contrast, in 2010 alone, the economy added at least 1.1 million jobs. This chart, produced by Pelosi’s office, demonstrates the difference between the Bush administration and the Obama administration on jobs:
As the Wall Street Journal noted in the last month of Bush’s term, the former president had the “worst track record for job creation since the government began keeping records.” And job creation under Bush was anemic long before the recession began. Bush’s supply-side economics “fostered the weakest jobs and income growth in more than six decades,” along with “sluggish business investment and weak gross domestic product growth,” the Center for American Progress’ Joshua Picker explained. “On every major measurement” of income and employment, “the country lost ground during Bush’s two terms,” the National Journal’s Ron Brownstein observed, parsing Census data.
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I'm disappointed in a lot of things he's done (or rather, hasn't done), but ya gotta give credit where credit is due.
(http://http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NUZ_fM-TQKQ/S_x0xaclVCI/AAAAAAAARF4/6QmeZNLwXnI/s400/4586046313_028d681d2a.jpg)
Your graph is just a small snap shot that does not contain the Bush years.
Unemployment (Below) is the problem that I would like to see addressed by the next president (after Obama leaves). We need to get people back to work.
(http://http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2010/04/21/news/economy/long_term_unemployment/chart_unemployment.top.gif)
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I'm disappointed in a lot of things he's done (or rather, hasn't done), but ya gotta give credit where credit is due.
(http://http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NUZ_fM-TQKQ/S_x0xaclVCI/AAAAAAAARF4/6QmeZNLwXnI/s400/4586046313_028d681d2a.jpg)
Your graph is just a small snap shot that does not contain the Bush years.
Unemployment (Below) is the problem that I would like to see addressed by the next president (after Obama leaves). We need to get people back to work.
(http://http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2010/04/21/news/economy/long_term_unemployment/chart_unemployment.top.gif)
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Sooo...that BIG RED BAR GRAPH labeled "Bush Administration" must cover the Reagan years or something, right?
Seriously, are you THAT stupid or just playing it up for the crowd? I don't even care about this thread, but if you can't read the graph, then you ought to reserve comment, IMHO. When you ask an idiot a question you should expect idiocy as the response.
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I'll see if i can nail this one verbatim, from memory:
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Mark Twain
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I'll see if i can nail this one verbatim, from memory:
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Mark Twain
Whooter: "That's funny, Frod, but your quote is just a snapshot and doesn't cover Mark Twain."
:beat: :beat: :beat: :beat:
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Sooo...that BIG RED BAR GRAPH labeled "Bush Administration" must cover the Reagan years or something, right?
Seriously, are you THAT stupid or just playing it up for the crowd? I don't even care about this thread, but if you can't read the graph, then you ought to reserve comment, IMHO. When you ask an idiot a question you should expect idiocy as the response.
They color it to fool people like you, DJ, who dont read. The rest of us read the X and Y axis. The X-axis (Bottom of the graph) shows the time line.
If you remember back Bush Administration lasted 8 years. The person that put the graph together decide only to include one of his years (to fool people like you)... lol
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Equal samples of Bush and Obama are provided, dummy. Notice where it says "Bush Administration" at the top. you can't read too good, Whootie. You're the "one in ten Americans" who is functionally illiterate. The good news is you can learn to read. The bad news is "you can't fix stupid," so you're stuck there.
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Unemployment (Below) is the problem that I would like to see addressed by the next president (after Obama leaves). We need to get people back to work.
(http://http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2010/04/21/news/economy/long_term_unemployment/chart_unemployment.top.gif)
Just looking at the unemployment figures shows us only part of the story. There are many people who are out of work who have exhausted their unemployment benefits and therefore do not show up in the unemployment figures.
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Unemployment (Below) is the problem that I would like to see addressed by the next president (after Obama leaves). We need to get people back to work.
(http://http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2010/04/21/news/economy/long_term_unemployment/chart_unemployment.top.gif)
Just looking at the unemployment figures shows us only part of the story. There are many people who are out of work who have exhausted their unemployment benefits and therefore do not show up in the unemployment figures.
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But this graph doesn't show that either, dummy. It shows people who used six months of unemployment benefits. By now you should have heard that unemployment benefits have been available for 99 weeks (and more) for several years (reference: "99ers" in case you need to educate yourself on the subject).
Like I said...you can't fix stupid, so you're out of luck there, champ.
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But this graph doesn't show that either, dummy.
Of course it doesnt, DJ. No one said it did. Again you need to read the x- axis and the y- axis and try to understand what the graph is trying to convey. You cant just rely on the colors. This is what is tripping you up, DJ, no need to get angry at everyone else because of your mistakes.
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It amazes me how scared people are of Sarah Palin.
I think you're mistaking ridicule for fear.
No its fear. Jay Leno is comedy, New York Times attention is fear.
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I always lie . . . and I'm always right.
J. R. "Bob" Dobbs
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''Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.''
—Ronald Reagan
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''Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.''
—Ronald Reagan
:D :agree: :seg:
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[attachment=0:34tf2aux]imagesCANLRCRH.jpg[/attachment:34tf2aux]
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[attachment=0:2nsfvv1x]palin-target4.jpg[/attachment:2nsfvv1x]
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Ronald Reagan - The Bonzo Years
1985
4/11/85
The White House announces that President Reagan will lay a wreath at the Bitburg, West Germany, military cemetery housing the graves of both American and Nazi soldiers. It is quickly noted that there are, in fact, no Americans buried there.
4/16/85
As the contra aid vote approaches, President Reagan claims he "just had a verbal message delivered to me from Pope John Paul, urging us to continue our efforts in Central America." The Vatican quickly issues a denial.
4/29/85
President Reagan defends the Bitburg visit as "morally right," adding, "I know all the bad things that happened in that war. I was in uniform for four years myself." President Reagan spent his time during World War Two in Hollywood, making training films.
5/5/85
After having visited the Bergen-Belsen death camp, President Reagan makes an eight minute stop at Bitburg. During the ceremony, he cites a letter from 13-year-old Beth Flom who, he claims, "urged me to lay the wreath at Bitburg cemetery in honor of the future of Germany." In fact, she urged him not to go at all.
5/8/85
Opponents of President Reagan's Nicaraguan policies heckle him at the European Parliament. "They haven't been there," he says. "I have." In actuality, he had not been there.
10/6/85
The New York Times Magazine runs a cover story on "The Mind of the President", in which it is pointed out that though Reagan "likes to say...that he is a 'voracious reader' and 'history buff'...neither he nor his friends, when asked, could think of particular history books he had read or historians he liked." Says a White House aide, "You have to treat him as if you were the director and he was the actor, and you tell him what to say and what not to say, and only then does he say the right thing."
11/13/85
"He's just so programmed. We tried to tell him what was in the bill but he doesn't understand. Everyone, including Republicans, were just shaking their heads." - Rep. Mary Rose Oskar (D-OH) on President Reagan's reaction to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings balanced budget bill.
http://www.quickchange.com/reagan/1985.html (http://www.quickchange.com/reagan/1985.html)
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[attachment=0:2nd38u38]g20-versus-tea-party11.jpg[/attachment:2nd38u38]
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Despite this "evidence" you've cited here None-ya, it must be disappointing to some that the Tea Party had absolutely nothing to do with that shooting the other day. If the guy had admitted something like, "Yes, I was inspired by [the tea party]," that would be one thing. But much to the chagrin of spin doctors everywhere, this is just not the case.
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Not everybody hates her.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt ... =178&ty=60 (http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://static3.channels.com/thumbnails/NeetoStar-Tea-Party-Racist-2--Political-comedy--humor--funny--sketch--urban-e10549179.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.channels.com/episodes/show/10144244/What-Go-BooBoo-comedy-humor-funny-Neeto-Star-Network&usg=__4HS-Lfv-euALnfh460Fkz_RNr_A=&h=240&w=320&sz=17&hl=en&start=26&zoom=1&tbnid=vPtgrwXzQKSYAM:&tbnh=136&tbnw=198&prev=/images%3Fq%3DTEA%2BPARTY%2BHUMOR%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7GGLL_en%26biw%3D1003%26bih%3D631%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=625&ei=8IMsTdDnBcKB8gaipvCoCQ&oei=jYMsTf_0N4P-8Ab30sSuCg&esq=3&page=3&ndsp=13&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:26&tx=178&ty=60)
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] Sarah Palin. She's a freaking moron. I pity those who've fallen for her schtick.[/quote]
I pretty much feel the same way about Obama, ntice too that gas prices are on the rise,again...and not a dubya in sight to blame it on. Besides to say that dems/repubs are one less incompitant,corrupt,full of hot air (or shit) is in and of itself laughable. Flip sides of the same goddamn coin...once ya get past that its all blah blah blah, hype,jive and spin.and of course tha beloved media types just fan the flames.....yep (hey if we keepem scared,distracted and afraid......) so at the end of the day no matter who ,from what party is in office, they are just fucking puppets,everybody belongs to somebody,and usually not costituants either.
partisan politics as like being asked ...would you rather have rasberry flavored shit, or strawberry flavored shit? ::deadhorse:: As far as the general mood of voters these days Im starting to see an across the board kinda angry comin to the top,where people are becoming really angry with D.C. Because NOBODY from either party is doing shit, Yeah, change. imho the only thing that changed is the idiot-in -chief. oh yeah and dick chaney hasnt shot anybody lately.
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[attachment=0:gnssam9h]SarahPalinChronicles.jpg[/attachment:gnssam9h]
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9kfcEga ... =topvideos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9kfcEga0lk&feature=topvideos)
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I think it is fun to watch the Democrats spend all their media money trying to blame the republicans for their troubles, running negative ads and pointing fingers at people like Sarah Palin while the Republicans address the issues and put together a campaign strategy. The Dems do the same thing everytime they get someone in office and then wonder why people dont vote for them.
(http://http://localhosy.net/node/36/syitf.jpg)
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And here's a gun for Sarah. Only fired once.[attachment=0:zd39jrhi]GUN.jpg[/attachment:zd39jrhi]
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Have I gone mad?
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] Sarah Palin. She's a freaking moron. I pity those who've fallen for her schtick.
I pretty much feel the same way about Obama, ntice too that gas prices are on the rise,again...and not a dubya in sight to blame it on. Besides to say that dems/repubs are one less incompitant,corrupt,full of hot air (or shit) is in and of itself laughable. Flip sides of the same goddamn coin...once ya get past that its all blah blah blah, hype,jive and spin.and of course tha beloved media types just fan the flames.....yep (hey if we keepem scared,distracted and afraid......) so at the end of the day no matter who ,from what party is in office, they are just fucking puppets,everybody belongs to somebody,and usually not costituants either.
partisan politics as like being asked ...would you rather have rasberry flavored shit, or strawberry flavored shit? ::deadhorse:: As far as the general mood of voters these days Im starting to see an across the board kinda angry comin to the top,where people are becoming really angry with D.C. Because NOBODY from either party is doing shit, Yeah, change. imho the only thing that changed is the idiot-in -chief. oh yeah and dick chaney hasnt shot anybody lately.[/quote]
:tup: