Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (39827)	1/5/2004 9:15:31 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 59480

Tort Reform: Was Bush Wrong to Say It Would Benefit the Economy? The Left Says: "Arguing that his economic policies consist of more than tax cuts geared to the wealthy, President Bush maintained last week in his year-end press conference that tort reform is a key part of his 'pro-growth' agenda, saying that it, 'would have made a difference' to benefit the economy. Earlier this year, the president went further, saying that the proliferation of medical malpractice lawsuits are 'a national problem that needs a national solution.' But a recent study by the National Center for State Courts found that medical malpractice lawsuits per capita actually decreased in the most recent ten-year period examined." Source: The Daily Mislead, MoveOn.org, December 22, 2003, downloaded from misleader.org What Conservatives Think: The President is correct to believe tort reform "would have made a difference" to the economy. The cost of the U.S. tort system has increased one-hundred fold over the last 50 years, while GDP has grown by a factor of only 34.(1) Medical malpractice lawsuits are but part of cost of excessive lawsuits, and the number of malpractice lawsuits per capita tells but a small part of the medical liability story. Often the mere possibility of a lawsuit being filed causes a potential defendant to settle. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), a surgeon, says 12 states are in health care "crisis" because of malpractice lawsuit abuse while 30 others are in "near-crisis."(2) A Harris Interactive study(3) says 76 percent of physicians believe liability concerns are hurting the quality of medical care. $50 billion annually (and incalculable discomfort) is wasted on unnecessary tests to guard doctors and hospitals against lawsuits.(4) Unreasonable jury awards cost an estimated $70-126 billion extra in health care costs every year, says the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.(5) Doctors and lawyers, corporations and consumers, insurance companies and public officials may never agree 100 percent on the proper resolution of the tort crisis, but all should be able to agree that excessive lawsuits have significant costs. Sources: (1) U.S. Tort Costs: 2002 Update, Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, as cited by the Business Council of New York State (2) Benjamin Grove, "Congress Hears Insurance Woes From Ex-LV Doctor," Las Vegas Sun, February 12, 2003, available at lasvegassun.com as of December 31, 2003. (3) As cited by Donald J. Palmissano, M.D., J.D., representing the American Medical Association in testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., June 12, 2002. (4) "Do Doctors Practice Defensive Medicine?" Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1996, as cited by sickoflawsuits.org, available at sickoflawsuits.org of December 31, 2003. (5) "Addressing the New Health Care Crisis: Reforming the Medical Litigation System to Improve the Quality of Health Care," U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C., March 3, 2003, as cited by sickoflawsuits.org.

To: calgal who wrote (39827)	1/5/2004 9:15:41 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 59480

Pro-Family Leaders Predict New Year Will Be Crucial In Culture War By Bill Fancher, Fred Jackson, and Allie Martin January 2, 2004 (AgapePress) - As battle lines continue to be drawn over issues such as the definition of marriage and the public acknowledgement of God, family values advocates are saying 2004 could be a pivotal year in the culture war. Steve Crampton, an attorney with the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy, says issues such as the legalization of same-sex marriage and the constitutionality of public displays of the Ten Commandments and the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance could be decided in the legal arena this year. "The day is not far off, if the present onslaught continues -- especially on the same-sex prong of the attack -- that we will be prohibited from even preaching certain portions of the Bible," the attorney says. "We sometimes like to think it will never reach us, but what we have seen over the past year or two is a constant aggression by extremists on the other side that are not content to allow us to even preach the gospel." Crampton contends that the Church's past silence has enabled liberal activists to push their agenda on society. He feels it is more important than ever for Christians to be vocal on such issues. "If we want to see the gospel remain free," he says, "it is up to us to take our stand, much as our forefathers did many years ago, for freedom." Meanwhile, Bob Knight of the Culture and Family Institute says the coming year will be particularly crucial to the marriage debate, especially as U.S. politicians begin campaigning in earnest. He expects homosexual marriage to be a major election issue that will raise the stakes very high. "To the extent that politicians rush to defend marriage they will do well at the only poll that matters -- the ballot box," Knight says. "Those who equivocate on it, who don't have a clear voice, who actually promote homosexuality, are going to find out that is not a popular position with the American people." Knight says he hopes to see Americans rallying behind the institution of marriage in 2004, and beyond that, he hopes pro-family forces will start pushing back homosexual activism. A New Front in the Culture War But as skirmishes are fought in America's courtrooms and on the political scene, the culture war over homosexuality is moving on to a new front -- the workplace. Christianity Today reports an increasing trend among companies to force their workers not only to tolerate homosexual behavior, but also to respect and even promote it. The Rutherford Institute is a religious liberty organization representing a number of employees who are facing such challenges. In one case, AT&T Broadband workers were ordered to sign a document that declared that all employees must fully recognize, respect, and value the differences -- including differences in sexual orientation -- among their fellow workers. But one employee, 47-year-old Albert Buonanno of Denver, told his supervisor in a letter that he would neither harass nor discriminate against homosexuals, but that he could not sign the document because it contradicted the Bible. Buonanno was fired the following day. Rutherford Institute is representing Buonanno and a number of other workers who lost their jobs for refusing to condone employment policies they found biblically immoral. Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead says these types of cases represent the most frightening thing he has seen in 30 years of legal practice. Whitehead agrees that Christians should not engage in discrimination but, he contends, neither should they be forced to deny their faith. He believes Buonanno's suit, which is slated to go to trial in February, will prove to be a test case. The Institute's founder told Christianity Today such legal battles are "really important because certain people are being told they can't have free speech anymore." Taking the Fight to The Enemy But while a growing number of Christians find themselves forced to defend their right to proclaim their biblical beliefs, one Louisiana minister says believers need to be on the offensive. Gregory Pembo is pastor of the Vieux Carre Assembly of God Church, one block away from the infamous Bourbon Street district in New Orleans. Pembo is known for leading members of his congregation in witnessing efforts during homosexual pride marches and Mardi Gras festivities. The New Orleans clergyman says America's founding fathers would not have tolerated what is happening in the U.S. today. He says wicked, liberal forces are "seeking to sanitize our nation of any mention of Jesus Christ. They're sanitizing the nation of his standard of morality, and it's time for the Church to buck up and go out to the fight and fight." Pembo believes many of the so-called Christian politicians are a big part of society's problem. "Some are good, aggressive, stand up statesmen," he concedes but says, "Others, I believe are sissies. I think they compromise. I think they're afraid to get in a fight." Pastor Pembo, who recently led a live Nativity scene presentation outside the offices of the New Orleans American Civil Liberties Union, says it is time for individual believers to stop hiding the light of Christ and start engaging the opposition in the culture war. © 2004 AgapePress all rights reserved.

To: calgal who wrote (39827)	1/5/2004 9:15:51 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

Hot Flash By Marni Soupcoff And Then He Saw the Polls... Previous Hot Flashes 12/31 - Letter Perfect 12/30 - Baseball, Sleds, and Lawyers 12/29 - Ms. Leo Predicts 2004 12/24 - Posting a Profit Click here to access the Hot Flash archives. All right, we all realize that politicians do a lot of posing. Their main objective in life is, after all, to get elected—a task that frequently involves a lot of infant-smooching, flesh-pressing, and stretching of the truth. So, it's no big surprise that politicians will often do and say whatever they think it will take to please as many people as possible. Al Gore traveled all the way back in time and invented the entire Internet just to help plump up his CV, for goodness sakes. But despite this knowledge of the way politicians operate, not to mention being a natural-born cynic, I was still more than a little surprised when Democratic hopeful Howard Dean abruptly found religion last month. Yes, the apparently secular Dean, who is married to a Jewish woman and is raising his two children Jewish, has suddenly announced to the Boston Globe that he is really a "committed believer in Jesus Christ." Indeed, Dean is evidently so bursting with insights about Jesus that he can barely contain himself and plans to pepper references to his savior throughout his speeches as he campaigns in the South. Could Dean's newfound Christianity possibly be a calculated tactic to nab votes in the Southern primaries? Is it maybe, just maybe, a deliberate attempt to eventually steal votes from George Bush, who dominated the South in the last election (Florida debacle notwithstanding)? It's hard even to ask the questions with a straight face. Dean fits the role of the pious devout Christian about as comfortably as Democratic Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis fit into a combat helmet while perched aboard a tank. Just how religious is Dean, really? So religious that he left the Episcopal Church in the 1980s, not over any theological or philosophical quarrel, but because of a dispute over the construction of a bike-path. (The cold-blooded Church had sided with landowners who wanted to maintain their private property rights, while Dean had come passionately to the defense of the as-of-yet-unbuilt inanimate ribbon of asphalt.) Dean told the Boston Globe that he didn't think opposing the bike-path "was very God-like." Neither, one would imagine, is casually working Jesus into one's speeches in a transparent effort to grab votes. But then religion is a very private thing, according to Dean, so perhaps he's brokered his own special deal with the man upstairs that the rest of us simply can't understand. The real question is will the voters buy Dean's new religious act? I think the chances of that are about as good as the odds of the following ditty I composed in Dean's honor reaching the Billboard Top Ten. Dean's a Believer (Sung to the tune of the Monkees' I'm a Believer) I thought God was Only true for Republicans Meant for some white trash But not for me God was just so kitschy That's the way it seemed Wind-powered energy Was more for me And then I saw the polls Now I'm a believer Not a trace Of doubt in my mind I'm pi-ous I'm a believer I couldn't leave God If I tried I thought God was More or less for low-class dupes But the less I prayed the worse I polled, oh yeah What's the harm in claiming Jesus is my guy Southern votes got me kneeling That's no lie And then I saw the polls Now I'm a believer Not a trace Of doubt in my mind I'm pi-ous I'm a believer I couldn't leave God If I tried God was just so tacky That's the way it seemed Organic pilafs Were more for me And then I saw the polls Now I'm a believer Not a trace Of doubt in my mind I'm pi-ous I'm a believer I couldn't leave God If I tried Then I saw the polls Now I'm a believer Not a trace Of doubt in my mind Now I'm a believer Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah I'm a believer I'm a believer I'm a believer And if you love dogs, I'm a retriever And if you're a football fan, I'm a receiver And if you're into wool, I'm a weaver