Universal Healthcare

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Nog - This thread is about health care. Certainly the TP opposition to HC is a worthwhile feature to discuss regarding the issue. And I would be glad to discuss how the HC industry and insurance companies appear to have manipulated the process with the TP.

Nevertheless, if it is that important to you to debate who the TP represents then fine, post a thread. I will be there to debate the construction of the TP and what it means in the scheme of larger political representation.

No, saying stuff like this:

For all your carping about "pidgeon-holing," you do a pretty good job of it yourself. But like I commented, post a thread and we can debate this.

No, you were not. The study did not say that there were only white people in the TP. I don't know why you were trying to "prove" something like that...

I wasn't judging the "content of anyone's character," nor was I "judging" anyone's "skin color." You may have "thought" that we were judging "people's skin color," but I was only posting the results of a study which looked at the make-up of the TP. Before I thought you were just a "touch" delusional, now....

 

Off-topicness is a good point, and probably should have been brought up before we went this far. On-topic, though, I would like to know why you suspect the HC industry and insurance companies are manipulating the TP into their opposition. Beyond motives, I mean.

 

That is a hilarious question.

He probably 'suspects' them doing that because ... it is well known that they do that.

And as for the why, that's pretty much a no brainer too: Because sort-of grass roots opposition - by TP folks opposing administration attempts to introduce health care and to regulate the insurance or healthcare industry as vile ... socialism, or the end of the world as TPers know it - helps them defeat legislation that they fear would reduce their profits? It's raising hell to keep up the heat on the administration and lawmakers.

You remember the irate nutters at the town halls ridiculously screaming bloody socialism over healthcare? You cannot say that they didn't have the effect of intimidating lawmakers. And often enough these people had been prepped, were given talking points and shipped to the town halls with buses, courtesy of industry funded fronts like Dick Armey's shop.

The idea is to maintain the current, unregulated status quo because it is hugely profitable for them. It's about blocking, and if that fails shaping legislation. That's what this sort of lobbying is all about.

 

Ragusa, it's also 'well known' that Obama isn't a US citizen. That doesn't make it true. Nor does Obama's backers having a motive to fake his birth certificate. If you have any evidence one way or another, though, that's a different matter.

 

Ok, just for you: You're wrong. It is well known and true.

 

SO PROVIDE SOME PROOF ALREADY!!! Funding, organization, advice, anything. Otherwise this falls in with all the other mad political conspiracy theories, like 9/11 and the Kennedy Assassination.

Motive and 'it's well known' doesn't prove squat, and you **** well know it, Ragusa. Every time I make a claim you don't like, you ask me to back it with links and evidence. Well, now it's your turn. Cite your source.

 

I invite you to revisit the old posts of mine on that subject. You'll find them in the political video youtube or some such thread. Maybe I even put them here in the 29 pages of this thread. What I have in mind are some clips by Rachel Maddow and the like that line out the facts pretty well. They're readily waiting for your attention.

If that's too suspiciously liberal a source for you, feel free to believe what you rather want to believe.

 

Oh, Nog already knows there is plenty out there on the web on this subject.

 

I think you must be talking about this, from the last Health Care bill thread. One of the videos has since been taken down, but the bulk of it seems to be pointing out that a couple of the people who are involved in this grassroots conservative political movement.... were also involved in previous conservative political movements. And two of them are even wealthy. Of course, we all know wealthy people don't actually have political opinions, or at least not conservative ones, so it must have all been faked. Right? And the only connection of any kind to the medical industry appears to be about as solid as the Obama-Ayers connection. No, wait, we've confirmed that Obama and Ayers at least actually met once. So, yes, I put your belief that the Tea Party movement is actually a front for Health Care industry interests about on par with Coin's belief that the Twin Towers were professionally demolished by the US government.

 

No, I doubt that's it, since there is plenty of info on corporate funding for the tea potters on the web. Again, to have a debate on the TP itself you should craft a thread on the topic, since it's clearly off topic on this one.

 

I don't know, HC industry funding opposition to the HC bill seems pretty on-topic for this thread to me. Anyway, it fit his description of some clips from Rachel Maddow, and I don't really want to go looking through all that again . If Ragusa meant something else, I'm sure he can find it.

 

The removed vid was iirc this one:

here are some more:





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Maddow did some good research, and I strongly encourage you to have a look at her vids.

I take that comment as an insult, irrespective of you not knowing any better. Considering how strong you feel about the issues you post on, it is startling that you choose to not educate yourself about them, and insist that others to do the research for you. Probably not coincidentally, you miss the point.

The tea party is a diverse movement. Yes, there are a lot of independent actors. Yes, there is genuine spontaneous activism.

That said: So what? That fact is certainly not proof of it being not being used as a front for political industry lobbies.

Actually, there is a preponderance of evidence suggesting just that: Political and industry Lobbies (which is which in the case of Armey and his Freedomworks blurs) are and have been successful in trying to co-opt it. In this debate, such lobby groups have been close to the GOP. The anti-health care scare is in fact a model case for such a successful co-option enterprise.

After the initial theme brought out by the lobbies, it is being amplified in sympathetic media, and there is the suction effect, and people adopt the theme and act on it independently. The idea behind such lobbying effort is a to kick off a theme that then lives on, like a scream and its echoes - people adopt the theme without themselves being industry people or realising that it is an industry theme. That's the general idea behind astroturfing for industry interest - the theme wouldn't be credible if it came from the insurers themselves, so they dress it up as the 'voice of the people'.

And it isn't just health care. The oil lobby pushes their line in comparable efforts. I could bring up other examples for other similar lobby activity and the like if I wanted.

 

What are you talking about? There is no health care bill. There is a health reform law now, and it's a done deal. I realize there is litigation, but that's besides the point. There is no reason for the HC industry to use the TPers in the same way they did last summer. Unless you just have some desire to go back and revisit the HC debate all over again, but that seems rather silly at this point. Even the TPers have moved on to other issues (right now it's the size and spending of government).

Corporate funding involves more than just HC and you know it. But we can continue to play this game if you so desire. My advice is to learn a bit more about the TP if you wish to comment on them in depth , (and I don't mean that as an insult). I realize you are a Republican and may not be that interested in them, but there are numerous issues on their web pages (besides just health care) about business and government.

You may not realize this (a lot of people don't) but after leaving Congress Dick Armey went on to be one of the biggest lobbyists in Washington (particularly in telecom), and he is a self-declared leader and organizer of the TP. He is fronting a group known as Freedomworks, which lobbies Congress for legislation favorable to corporations that do business with FW. That he funds, organizes and is a spokesman for the TP does not prove that it is a corporate front, but it is evidence of heavy corporate involvment.

Here's a group that was involved in the "Tax Day" TP protest:


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_Prosperity

I still remember the issue with the stamps on the signs they passed out. It made me LOL at the time.

 

Ragusa, I have done my research, and I've come up with much the same stuff that you have shown here. Mostly Rachel Maddow (who I consider the liberal version of Hannity) presenting what really does read like a conspiracy theory, straight out of an X-Files or the like. Let me see if I get this right:
There is a group, one of a whole host of funders and organizers for Tea Party groups, called Freedom Works.
The founder of Freedom Works used to be a GOP official.
That founder now works as a lawyer (imagine, a politician also being a prominent lawyer).
The company that founder works for gets some of it's business (no indication how much, but from the numbers I've seen I can't imagine it's that much) from a Health Care Industry group.
Have I got that right? Mind you, I haven't found any evidence that this founder has done anything on the Health Care account. And, being a major lawyer, I'd expect his signature on some filings or court documents or the like. I also haven't seen any connections with any of the other Tea Party organizers (and like I said, there are a lot of them). I also haven't seen any explanation for why Freedom Works has moved on to other Tea Party events that aren't dealing with the HC bill (now law), or why the group hasn't been disbanded now that the HC bill is law. It kind of seems like their mission would be over now, doesn't it?

What I've seen is solid proof that a retired politician can still hold political beliefs, but not much more than that.

 

Of course.

Of course.

That would be correct. FW does more than that but you get the idea.

That would be correct. And he was also a major corporate lobbyist in Congress.

He was also a college prof, but was accused of sexual harrasment (imagine, a politician involved in a sex scandal). Last I heard he was working as a lobbyist and leader of the TP.

Oh, yes, let's "imagine."

That's because you didn't bother to look at the link I posted. I will post it again for you. I'm nice that way.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_Prosperity

Dick Armey is a corporate lobbyist. If you bothered to read my post you would know that. Before health care, he lobbied in telecom.

Here's what you did not know, despite your reaserch:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey

Yes, in 2009 he was fired from the law firm. But wait, was he a lawyer there? Really? Maybe he has a new gig as a lawyer somewhere. It would not surprsie me.

 

Let me put it this way. The video presented some $800,000 this year and $1M last year from this Health Care group. This guy is a corporate lobbyist, retired House Majority Leader, and senior partner at a major law firm. He can probably earn that much money personally with a few speaking gigs. The law firm's annual budget probably ranges in the 9-12 figure range, at a rough guess.

The only link I saw there was a 'related SourceWatch articles' link to FreedomWorks. My guess is because there's some connection to Koch, CATO, or one of the other organizations they listed. That's not much of a connection.

So, being a lobbyist, his motives are automatically suspect if he should ever be involved in anything that people lobby for. Because, of course, there are no Democratic lawmakers, officials, organizers, or the like who are lobbyists. And none of them recieve corporate backing, union backing, or anything else suspicious.

Actually, I did. And the $1.3B DLA Piper recieved from Medicines Co. may actually be significant. To DLA Piper. Of course, there's still no direct connection to Dick Armey. Or evidence that his involvement in a conservative movement relates to anything more than his... being a conservative.

Let me put it this way. If you believe the above is real evidence of any significant HC industry control of the Tea Party, you must also believe that Obama is close friends with anti-government, home-grown terrorists. And you must be absolutely certain that Obama is a secret white-hating racist who believes the US government seeded Africa with AIDS. After all, Obama did actually once meet Ayers. Personally, even. They may have even spoken to one another. And he was a member of Wright's church!! Comparatively, this HC industry-Tea Party link makes those two look like solid, gold-standard proof.

 

Oh, yes. Please do.

Let's explore that a bit further:

But of course I'm sure you won't like the source - for whatever reason.

Yes, I believe I said that. Except that he was fired from the firm, so "is" should be "was," unless you heard differently. I'm not sure what he is doing at the moment, so maybe he found another gig.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tea_Party_movement_funding

I was hoping you would say something like that. Please prove that this is the case. I don't mean to be over-bearing, but it seems that you like to demand the "numbers" and "proof" when the comments are on the other side. Please be considerate enough to return the favor.

Oh, of course not. But when you were trying to prove that PETA was a "liberal" orgainization" any little website you could scrounge-up was plenty of "connection" for you to prove your point.

You said that, I didn't.

I fail to see what this has to do with our topic. It appears that you are losing focus.

Funny, you failed to mention it.

Only that he got canned.

Again, you seem to be losing focus.

Please do.

When did I say that? I said it was only "evidence" that it may be a "corporate front." Perhaps you would like to try again. Here's my last thoughts on the subject, which I posted for you:

Unlike you, I see issues in shades of gray, and not as starkly in black and white (absolutes). I think there is some evidence that there is corporate involvement, particularly in the Town Hall meetings and the stuff that went on last summer during the HC debate, which is now largely over. It still makes me a bit suspicious. The organizing, tactics and money are pretty obivious. I can't prove that the TP was a "front" even to myself, but the suspicion is there. However, whether you choose to look at the evidence in an objective way is your concern. It matters little to me. I'm generally oppposed to corporate influence in our political process unless everyone understands where, how and why that influence is there. In that case I don't have a problem.

Nevertheless, the movement has moved beyond the early HC days and is now into other issues. And as I commented appears to be more organic.

 

When you're source admits that it's sources are liberal-run think tanks and provides no quantitative backing, no I don't like them. You would be better to stick with the $1.3B.

Ok, I'll give it a shot, though I doubt I can find his tax records or anything. As a little extrapolation: Marko Rubio's income shot up from $83K to $300K a year because of his service as the Florida House Speaker Designate. That's over 3X his pre-House income, and it's only his income from the law firm. As he put it:

This article seems to indicate he was payed $750K from DLA Piper and $550K from Freedom Works (while working for both). That's about $1.25M a year, just for him. There's a lot more in the article worth reading, too. It shows both how he played a leading role, and how the movement started, moved, and continues despite his influence as much as because of it.

Yes, and that arguement didn't go to well for me, did it? I was desperate for a connection I was sure was there, and it showed. Reading back through it, I cringe at points.

... Ok, at this point, I'm sure we have a communications problem. You do, in fact, claim that it is evidence, right? I mean, you just admitted it. Then, I guess, we differ on the meaning of a "corporate front". I see that as a claim that corporations hold a secret influence, and a meaningful one. I suppose I could also see it as an attempt to gain a meaningful, secret influence, without claiming whether or not it's been successful.

Ok, that's a much more reasoned response than Ragusa's in post #703. I'm afraid I still have a tendency to lump people's positions together. I think I did that with you and Ragusa, and I apologize.

 

Thank you, NOG. And I also apologize for any misunderstanding on my side.

 

It should be pointed out that observable facts are observable facts. I can, have, and will again use and cite releases put out by the heritage foundation when the basis for their ideas are factual rather than ideologically based. You can't discount what a think-tank says just because the think-tank said it. You discount a statement from a think-tank when the facts don't support its conclusions -- or when the facts in question aren't actually, you know, factual. This of course requires a lot more work than simply discounting all information not stemming from sources that already align with your point of view, but that extra work is absolutely essential to anyone who values fairness, factual accuracy or common decency.