Doing my duty as a Democrat, to try bringing down

[Rob E Dangerously 0]

No offense to Senator Kerry. I just don't like him very much.

 

So, let's go off to Open Secrets.

 

Top contributors to Kerry's campaign:

 

http://www.opensecrets.org/presidential/co...0245&cycle=2004

 

Skadden, Arps et al (law firm) - $99,800

 

Piper Rudnick (business law firm) - $71,500

 

Citigroup (We know what this is, right?) - $71,500

 

And..

 

WASHINGTON -- A senator leading an investigation into big investment banks' ties with now-bankrupt Enron Corp. has asked the heads of Citigroup Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. to answer questions on their use of offshore companies in deals with Enron.

 

Mintz Levin (more lawyers) - $64,705

 

Goldman Sachs - $62,600

 

And here's GS news.. http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_560099,0002.htm

 

US investment bank Goldman Sachs is setting up a back-office support centre in Bangalore, where it expects to employ about 250 people by the end of this year, a company spokesman said on Wednesday.

 

Robins, Kaplan et al (law firm) - $62,600

 

Among the other notables on that list

 

Morgan Stanley

Time Warner

 

And why did I note what I did on GS and Citigroup?

 

because Kerry is now openly anti-offshore and presumably anti-Enron. At the very least, if Kerry is taking money from people doing what he detests, it's another flip for him.

 

There's tons of other stuff to try and sink Kerry before the convention. I'd prefer that happen before Kerry's the nominee.

[Justice 0]

Interesting stuff indeed, but since you have Woody Paige as your avatar your opinion is instantly deemed unworthy.

 

Jay Mariotti > j00

[MrRant 0]

From my job standpoint... Bush would be #1 followed by Kerry if it were a Democrate as they like cable tv.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Interesting stuff indeed, but since you have Woody Paige as your avatar your opinion is instantly deemed unworthy.

 

Jay Mariotti > j00

Don't be hatin' Woody...

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

Well...Kerry isn't going to beat Bush.

 

I look at Kerry and I see the most painfully average politician in the world.

 

Dean was too crazy. No one cared about anyone else.

 

I think Edwards could probably stand up the best...but I also don't think that Bush is going to lose to any of them.

 

Edwards in 2008.

[Guest MikeSC]

Well...Kerry isn't going to beat Bush.

 

I look at Kerry and I see the most painfully average politician in the world.

 

Dean was too crazy. No one cared about anyone else.

 

I think Edwards could probably stand up the best...but I also don't think that Bush is going to lose to any of them.

 

Edwards in 2008.

One problem,

 

Edwards is a trial lawyer. Having him attack special interests will fall a little flat since trial lawyers are one of the biggest special interest groups out there.

-=Mike

[Vern Gagne 0]

Edwards in 2008.

I could see it, if I didn't think Hillary planned on running.

[Vyce 0]

If her ego could be tamed, the Dems should try and make her accept a VP nomination.

 

An Edwards / Clinton ticket in 2008 could be quite formidable. The hardline left would love that Hillary's there, and Edwards could presumably court the moderate left and the moderate unaligned.

 

Screw 2004, 2008 is when things get REALLY interesting.

[Justice 0]

Agreed. If Edwards doesn't get the nomination now and doesn't taint himself with a possible failing run at the VP job, he is setting himself up for a fantastic run in 2008. Even though he's a trial lawyer he has oodles of charisma and appeal, plus he'll have 4 more years to build himself up as a someone after getting noticed now.

[Styles 0]

This article is from last year, but it hits the nail on the head and pinpoints the core problem behind Edwards and his credibilty.

 

Malpractice Suits Driving Out Doctors

 

If you haven't yet heard of Sen. John Edwards, the junior Democrat from North Carolina, you soon will.

 

Elected in 1998 over the stodgy conservative Lauch Faircloth, Edwards is a rising star, sporting boyish good looks, a populist message and a handsome Southern drawl.

 

People magazine named Edwards America's "sexiest politician," and a gushing Nicholas Lemann recently profiled him in the New Yorker. He's considered by some to be the Democrats' best hope for knocking off George W. Bush in 2004.

 

Edwards largely funded his own Senate campaign with a $20-50 million fortune he earned as a trial lawyer, winning huge medical malpractice and products liability claims.Some (including Al Gore's 2000 campaign staff) might consider Edward's career path a liability to his aspirations for higher office.

 

But Edwards doesn't.

 

Should he run for president, Edwards intends to wear the trial lawyer label conspicuously and proudly. On Meet the Press last Sunday, Edwards told host Tim Russert he built his considerable estate "representing people who were in very difficult places in their lives and trying to give them a shot. And I'm proud of what I did …"

 

Edwards might want to rethink his strategy.

 

The United States increasingly faces a health care crisis. Many doctors, faced with ever-mounting malpractice insurance premiums, have gone out of business. Others are retiring early. Some are moving to states that have enacted tort reform, while rural states without significant tort reform are losing doctors hand over fist. Their poorest citizens can't find medical help where they need it. Trial lawyers like John Edwards are a big reason why.

 

Huge awards in malpractice lawsuits over the years have caused many insurers to abandon medicine. Others have had to raise premiums to rates that effectively prevent doctors from staying solvent. Obstetricians — the most likely to be sued — have seen premiums increase from 20 to 400 percent in the last few years. Some have had their policies cancelled altogether. The trend has hit general surgeons and emergency room physicians too.

 

In Mississippi, where annual premiums for OB/GYNs can range from $40,000-$110,000 (far more than many doctors in the state make), physicians are fleeing in droves, leaving poor, rural women without doctors to deliver their babies. One medical school in Nevada had to close because no insurer in the state would grant it coverage. In parts of Florida, malpractice premiums for individual doctors can exceed $160,000.

 

In Edwards' home state of North Carolina, health care costs are also soaring. Consequently, awards in malpractice cases have grown too, as compensatory damages necessarily reflect current health care costs. Of course, higher damages mean higher insurance premiums, and higher insurance premiums in turn lead, once again, to higher health care costs.

 

It's a nasty cycle, and all the while, malpractice lawyers continue to siphon off generous contingency fees, sometimes as much as 30 percent.

 

Prominent Raleigh trial attorney Mark Holt told North Carolina Lawyers Weekly in a 2000 article that "… when you go against a medical provider, how much can be paid hinges directly on the amount of insurance coverage."

 

In 1997, a botched childbirth resulted in a state record $23.5 million award, setting off a runaway train of jury malpractice awards in North Carolina. John Edwards was the plaintiff's counsel. He broke his own record that same year with a $30 million award.

 

North Carolina avoided Mississippi's dearth-of-doctors fate by putting caps on punitive awards with a law that took effect in 1997. Mississippi has yet to enact any such tort reform, and continues to lose doctors.

 

Some doctors and hospitals have found a solution to insurance costs by requiring patients to sign waivers submitting any claims to private arbitrators. But trial lawyer lobbyists are trying to nix that remedy, too, and have begun to push Congress for anti-arbitration legislation.

 

This lobby is closely tied to Edwards. According to the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, 86 percent of the $1.39 million raised by Edwards' recently formed political action committee came from fellow trial lawyers. Roll Call writes, "No other Congressional leader or potential presidential contender has such a heavy reliance on a single industry for their leadership PAC."

 

Additionally, Edwards was a chief co-sponsor of the "Patients Bill of Rights" legislation. The Edwards-sponsored version of the bill would have permitted patients to sue health care providers for punitive damages in federal court — allowing lawyers to circumvent state court caps on punitive damages like those enacted in North Carolina. The Employment Policy Foundation estimated at the time that the Edwards bill would result in 56,000 new lawsuits per year, a $16 billion increase in health care costs, and nine million more Americans with no health care coverage at all.

 

Trial lawyers, of course, loved it.

 

Edwards' background wouldn't be so important to his presidential ambitions if he weren't so blatant about mischaracterizing it. He talks about "helping the helpless," but in fact, he built his fortune and paved his way to politics chasing doctors out of the medical profession. Lots of those "helpless" people he mentions live in low-income areas without access to the health care they need.

 

Radley Balko is a writer living in Arlington, Va., and publisher of The Agitator.com

[Guest Olympic Slam]

Two things scare me about Edwards:

 

1. His accent is going to make it easy for the media to try and pass him off as a moderate.

 

2. The guy is a freakin' trial lawyer which means he knows nothing of building something up; he only specializes in bringing things down. I can't respect or trust a man that has more experience critisizing policy and or bringing down businesses than actually creating something. Businessmen > Trial Lawyers/Ambulance Chasers

[Guest Razor Roman]

I think an Edwards/Hillary ticket would be a ticket guaranteed to lose.

 

The conservatives that are thinking about leaving Bush over his spending and immigration and medicare policies would come out to vote for Bush against Hillary, and the GOP would have no trouble saying that it's a ticket of two extreme leftist lawyers - even if Edwards wasn't a leftist, it would be guilt by association.

 

Hillary would have to be at the top of the ticket, against a weak Republican to win a national election.

[godthedog 0]

Two things scare me about Edwards:

 

1. His accent is going to make it easy for the media to try and pass him off as a moderate.

moderate is good. liberals are not very electable.

[Guest Olympic Slam]

Two things scare me about Edwards:

 

1.  His accent is going to make it easy for the media to try and pass him off as a moderate.

moderate is good. liberals are not very electable.

Yeah, but he isn't a moderate. He's a left-wing European socialist. I'm afraid the media (as always) will try and pass him off as a centrist.

[BUTT 0]

Edwards is EUROPEAN? My God, he couldn't even legally be president!

[Guest JMA]

Yeah, but he isn't a moderate. He's a left-wing European socialist. I'm afraid the media (as always) will try and pass him off as a centrist.

Wha? I've never heard Edwards express any socialistic beliefs. And what do you mean exactly by "European" socialist?

[Guest Olympic Slam]

Yeah, but he isn't a moderate.  He's a left-wing European socialist.  I'm afraid the media (as always) will try and pass him off as a centrist.

Wha? I've never heard Edwards express any socialistic beliefs. And what do you mean exactly by "European" socialist?

Listen to his rhetroic: free health care, free health care, working people, social justice for all, free health care, free-trade stinks, change America for the "common person". He's like something out of the Labour Party at a British parliament meeting. This guys would be like poison for our already fading capitalist society.

 

Don't listen to me though, I think everyone to the left of Bush is a socialist. Maybe some of you like that sort of thing.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

Yeah, but he isn't a moderate.  He's a left-wing European socialist.  I'm afraid the media (as always) will try and pass him off as a centrist.

Wha? I've never heard Edwards express any socialistic beliefs. And what do you mean exactly by "European" socialist?

Listen to his rhetroic: free health care, free health care, working people, social justice for all, free health care, free-trade stinks, change America for the "common person". He's like something out of the Labour Party at a British parliament meeting. This guys would be like poison for our already fading capitalist society.

 

Don't listen to me though, I think everyone to the left of Bush is a socialist. Maybe some of you like that sort of thing.

By the standards set by the examples you have, Pat Buchanan is now a "socialist".

[Guest Olympic Slam]

Yeah, but he isn't a moderate.  He's a left-wing European socialist.  I'm afraid the media (as always) will try and pass him off as a centrist.

Wha? I've never heard Edwards express any socialistic beliefs. And what do you mean exactly by "European" socialist?

Listen to his rhetroic: free health care, free health care, working people, social justice for all, free health care, free-trade stinks, change America for the "common person". He's like something out of the Labour Party at a British parliament meeting. This guys would be like poison for our already fading capitalist society.

 

Don't listen to me though, I think everyone to the left of Bush is a socialist. Maybe some of you like that sort of thing.

By the standards set by the examples you have, Pat Buchanan is now a "socialist".

Nice try, pal. Buchanan shares the same anti-globalist views on free trade that Edwards does and 99% of socialists do. Pat Buchanan is a conservative, but his brand of conservatism poses a threat towards capitalism in much the same way that Edward's brand of socialism does. Both favor protectionism, but Edwards wants to expand government on a grander scale than Buchanan.

 

EDIT: Well well, my 1,000 post. Never thought I'd make it this far.

[Styles 0]

ignoring "socialist" bickering I still think the article I posted is the big case against Edwards. He's out for working people?!? HELLO?! He won record setting 30 million dollar lawsuits in his state and helped the lead the wave of trial lawyers that are destorying the medical field and raising premiums to absurd levels all the while making himself obscenly wealthy. He can talk about a background of helping people but the truth is he's done nothing but exploit people for the purposes of making himself record setting fortunes while putting good doctors out of practice. He is the poster child for the "sue America" mentality that needs to find someone to blame for all your problems. Sometimes bad things happen. Babies are born with disabilities, it's life, it's not always a doctor's fault. And furthermore even if there is some culpibility, fair damages should be awarded, but how is 30 million dollars to a trial lawyer supposed to be fair, let alone help the "victim" which will see maybe a small fraction of that? It is what it is, and good for Edwards for taking advantage of a legal system desperately in need of reform but it's a mockery for one of the poster boys of one of the major problems in this country to not only be running for president, but has the gall to run on the image of being able to identify with "regular people".

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Hey, guys?

 

Almost all politicians are rich.

 

Almost all politicians claim to be out for "working people."

 

 

Almost none of them are.

 

 

 

 

I haven't been online for the past week and this thread looks like it's quickly heading down in flames, but really, John Edwards represents the common man about as much as Bill O'Reilly and his $3,000 suit.

 

I thought everyone in this forum knew that already, though.

[Guest Olympic Slam]

ignoring "socialist" bickering I still think the article I posted is the big case against Edwards. He's out for working people?!? HELLO?! He won record setting 30 million dollar lawsuits in his state and helped the lead the wave of trial lawyers that are destorying the medical field and raising premiums to absurd levels all the while making himself obscenly wealthy. He can talk about a background of helping people but the truth is he's done nothing but exploit people for the purposes of making himself record setting fortunes while putting good doctors out of practice. He is the poster child for the "sue America" mentality that needs to find someone to blame for all your problems. Sometimes bad things happen. Babies are born with disabilities, it's life, it's not always a doctor's fault. And furthermore even if there is some culpibility, fair damages should be awarded, but how is 30 million dollars to a trial lawyer supposed to be fair, let alone help the "victim" which will see maybe a small fraction of that? It is what it is, and good for Edwards for taking advantage of a legal system desperately in need of reform but it's a mockery for one of the poster boys of one of the major problems in this country to not only be running for president, but has the gall to run on the image of being able to identify with "regular people".

I can't decide who the bigger phoney is:

- Kerry for being extremely vague about his stances on the issues

or

- as you mentioned, Edwards for ruining businesses and the medical industry yet still claiming to be for the everyman.

 

 

Call it a tie, they're both losers.

[Styles 0]

Hey, guys?

 

Almost all politicians are rich.

 

Almost all politicians claim to be out for "working people."

 

 

Almost none of them are.

 

 

 

 

I haven't been online for the past week and this thread looks like it's quickly heading down in flames, but really, John Edwards represents the common man about as much as Bill O'Reilly and his $3,000 suit.

 

I thought everyone in this forum knew that already, though.

Right but not all politicians have the audacity to claim to have helped common people when they've only used common people to get filthy rich and destory businesses and doctors at the same time...

[Guest Choken One]

Another reason I must endorse the PEOPLE'S Candidate

 

AL SHARPTON.

[Firestarter 0]

Here's a column that might help you out, Rob.

 

Kerry's Special Friends by David Brooks, in the New York Times.

 

Johnny Chung threw a fund-raiser for John Kerry in Beverly Hills. And John Kerry came away with $10,000 in contributions, and I like to think they were very special contributions. I like to think they were written on special designer checks, maybe with rainbows or kittens or Chinese long-range missile designs shaded on the back, because special dreams deserve special checks, and when a man as special as John Kerry takes up an interest, I think that makes it a special interest all by itself.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Right but not all politicians have the audacity to claim to have helped common people when they've only used common people to get filthy rich and destory businesses and doctors at the same time...

"By far a vast majority of my tax cuts goes to those at the bottom."