General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLast night I saw a truly disgusting ad agains Kay Hagan.....just unbelievable!!
Americans for Prosperity has already spent $7 million on ads against Kay Hagan. I wonder how many people who saw that ad will say, "We have to get rid of her"? What has this country come to that these nasty ads are the norm?
KoKo
(84,711 posts)At least if Cables and Networks would decide on their own to bring back "Equal Time" for political statements, ads ....it would be a step forward to push back on Citizens United and the latest ruling.
Clyde39
(1,074 posts)They really want North Carolina and will stop at nothing!
very true!
demwing
(16,916 posts)I hope they run the shit outta that ad!
Not the right time for Obamacare?
BAH! 7-10 Million Americans disagree, and the cognitive dissonance that's associated with the GOP's stance will turn off the independent voters in November.
I'm hoping the Dems are using a classic flanking maneuver, letting the GOP advance their "Obamacare = BAD" argument till they're committed to that path, then flanking them to the right with facts, and to the left with over 7 million newly insured voter.
young_at_heart
(3,772 posts)Each election keeps getting worse than the last one. I guess the Republicans haven't got any shame at all. The Dems' ads I have seen can't compare with this nastiness.
Moosepoop
(1,922 posts)This is from late January:
How NC (surprisingly) became a leader in ACA enrollment
North Carolina is enrolling uninsured people at a rate at least twice that of any other state that has refused to set up its own health exchange and refused to expand Medicaid. In short, among states that are dragging their feet on the Affordable Care Act no advertising campaigns, no speeches by the governor on how important it is for everyone to have access to health care, no Medicaid expansion that guarantees the lowest income workers coverage North Carolina is by far leading the pack in private plan enrollment.
Even with the federal health exchanges shaky start, N.C. has already enrolled 107,778 uninsured people in private health plans. Compare that with Virginia (44,676 enrolled), South Carolina (24,116), Georgia (58,611), and Tennessee (36,250). Only states like Florida and Texas with many more uninsured people than North Carolina are enrolling anywhere near our raw numbers, and they are far behind us in the percentage of uninsured getting coverage.
So whats going on? There are several answers. Our success starts with North Carolinas excellent Medicaid managed-care program, Community Care of North Carolina. Even though Gov. Pat McCrory and legislative leaders declined the federal opportunity to expand Medicaid, N.C. Community Care has provided a natural framework to enroll uninsured people in private health plans.
If the percentage of newly-insured-thanks-to-the-ACA voters is high enough, and if those voters turn out and vote accordingly, this would help the Dems rather than hurt them. They ALL need to run with it and on it, at the state and federal levels.
leftyohiolib
(5,917 posts)demwing
(16,916 posts)then you start to lose the desire to watch that crap.
I cut the TV IV years ago, and that includes cable. The only thing we use the box for is DVDs and Netflix streaming, and it's been that way (except the Netflix part) for years.
young_at_heart
(3,772 posts)A group whose purpose seems to be privatizing Social Security has launched a more than $200,000 attack against me in North Carolina.
Theyre called the 60+ Association, and theyve got ties to -- wait for it -- the billionaire Koch brothers.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)helping or being a communist sympathizer is not a good thing. I suspect they also do not like the idea of being bought. These two ideas might be of some help. We should be running against the k bros and other rich donors linking them to the repug candidates as much as possible.
TheKentuckian
(25,029 posts)That is grasping at straws and kinda lame, are we really trying to make a go of red baiting a generation past the fall of the Berlin Wall?
That is the best we have is inferring that the most brazenly greedy capitalists we can shake a stick at are Commies that want to kill social programs and hate taxes?
They say you can never over estimate the ignorance of the American people but in this case, I don't see how you get past the visceral reaction of laughing without more years in groundwork than the targets have in this world.
Now, there is the option of putting the Koch's and fellow travelers, Putin, and the TeaPubliKlans into a nice, tidy, and accurate bundle but it would mean throwing the "stakeholders" under the bus as well as forgetting about "bipartisanship" by describing and opposing the Plutocracy rather than silly season McCarthy redux.
Putin doesn't give a shit about communism. Hell, the old school guys didn't either as it was about power for them and their homies.
The Koch's aren't communist by any definition either. It is goofy.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)TheKentuckian
(25,029 posts)They understand redistribution, relentless and unapologetic battle, confiscation, prison, and blood and teeth on the floor and the reason they are so hard of understanding of late is refusal to speak in terms that get their attention.
okaawhatever
(9,462 posts)identified oil industry billionaires as the ones paying for attack ads against Hagan. What did the ad say? Don't be a tease, give us details...lolz
young_at_heart
(3,772 posts)I wasn't able to get it on here, but that is the one.
okaawhatever
(9,462 posts)embed a video in case you don't know. From YouTube, Below the video, on the line that has the thumbs up and thumbs down pics, you'll see this sequence:
About Share Add to Transcript Statistics Report
Published on Oct 29, 2013
click on Share
A box will pop up with letters and numbers
Highlight those like you would anything else to copy and paste. Click copy
Come to DU and paste the characters in the message text box. A video won't appear right away. It will only look like a link. Hit preview or refresh and the video should come up.
You may be a genius type computer person, but a lot of people don't know how to do that so I thought I'd share.
Another note: If you see the video embedded somewhere that is not YouTube, such as a media site, if it has the YouTube logo in the bottom right corner of the video you can click on that which will have you watch the video from youtube and you can copy and paste from YouTube.
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)against Mark Begich. I'm pleased he's calling the Kochs out by name in his response ads.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)1. The Kochs want to abolish Social Security.
In 1980, David Koch ran in and funded a presidential campaign that called Social Security The Ultimate Pyramid Scheme and promised to abolish and replace it. Read more.
2. The Kochs want to eliminate minimum wage laws.
According to Charles Koch, the U.S. needs to get rid of the minimum wage, which he counts as a major obstacle to economic growth. Read more.
3. The Kochs are against extending emergency unemployment benefits.
It causes employers to face higher taxes, too, which discourages them from hiring new employees. Read more.
4. The Kochs spent $400 million on misleading attack ads in the last election cycle.
via Republic Report
A labyrinth of tax-exempt groups and limited-liability companies helps mask the sources of the money, much of which went to voter mobilization and television ads attacking President Obama and congressional Democrats, according to tax filings and campaign finance reports. Read more.
5. The Kochs want to put insurance companies back in charge of your health care.
It articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy that had long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans including their cautious leaders into cutting off financing for the entire federal government. The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort. A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million last year to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight. Read more.
6. The Kochs are trying to dismantle our public education system.
National advocacy groups powered by the Koch brothers and other conservative megadonors have found a new cause ripe with political promise Push to expand school choice by offering parents tax credits or vouchers to help pay tuition at private and religious schools. Next, rally the troops to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. Then its on to eliminating teacher tenure. Read more.
7. The Kochs want to dismantle Medicare as we know it.
The Ryan plan to eliminate traditional Medicare was described in the media as a Tea Party proposal. But it would be more accurate to call it a Koch proposal, an ideological scheme to realize long-standing ultra-right hopes to privatize and radically shrink a major national social program. Read more.
8. The Kochs are against measures that would reduce the gap between the wages women and men earn for the same work.
IWF-affiliated writers have argued that the gender gap in income exists because of womens greater demand for flexibility, fewer hours, and less travel in their careers, rather than because of sexism. Read more.
9. The Kochs want even more tax breaks for themselves.
They are known for bankrolling conservative, Libertarian and Tea Party causes and became poster boys for corporate tax reform last year when an Obama Administration official suggested Koch is organized as an S Corp. and so pays no corporate level taxes. Read more.
UPDATE: The Kochs have issued a statement disputing the claim made by the official. The Kochs have supported the Ryan budget, which provides tax cuts for the wealthy and protects taxpayer subsidies for big businesses and oil companies.
kochs_unionmembers
via The New Republic
10. The Kochs made improper payments to win contracts in Africa, India and the Middle East. And they sold millions of dollars of equipment to Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism.
Internal company records show that Koch Industries used its foreign subsidiary to sidestep a U.S. trade ban barring American companies from selling materials to Iran. Koch-Glitsch offices in Germany and Italy continued selling to Iran until as recently as 2007, the records show. Read more.
11. The Kochs lobbied against recognition of formaldehyde as a cancer-causing carcinogen because it might be bad for their business.
A prominent philanthropist, cancer survivor, and American businessman, David Koch, has given millions to the cause of cancer research, while his companyKoch Industrieshas lobbied against formal recognition of formaldehyde as a carcinogen, The New Yorker reported in a piece published today. Read more.
12. The Kochs rank as one of Americas most toxic air polluters.
13.The Kochs have received over $88 million in government subsidies.
14. The Kochs have admitted they have a radical philosophy.
Charles Koch seems to have approached both business and politics with the deliberation of an engineer. To bring about social change, he told Doherty, requires a strategy that is vertically and horizontally integrated, spanning from idea creation to policy development to education to grassroots organizations to lobbying to litigation to political action. The project, he admitted, was extremely ambitious. We have a radical philosophy, he said. Read more.
http://www.reid.senate.gov/koch-facts#.U0AZsa1dUi4
Think what this means in terms of what the GOP has been doing. They all need to be voted out of office at the local, state and federal level. To claim both parties are doing the same, belies the path of the money being put out by the Koches. And the intent of each legislative action put forward by ALEC and the GOP.
From the thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024781021
to DearAbby and Triana.
okaawhatever
(9,462 posts)Initech
(100,100 posts)They have committed treason against the United States of the highest order. Lock them all up.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)She's had attack ads run against her before, but in less vicious days by the Dole campaign. From the Wikipedia page:
Kay Hagan
"Godless" ad
In late October, the Dole campaign released a television ad that stated the leader of the Godless Americans PAC had held "a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan's honor." The ad showed sound bites of group members espousing their views, then stated Kay Hagan "hid from cameras, took Godless money... what did Hagan promise in return?" It ended with a photo of Hagan and a female voice saying, "There is no God."[18][19] The ad aired across North Carolina.[18] Hagan's campaign says the ad sought to put inflammatory words in their candidate's mouth. The Dole campaign says the ad shows whom Hagan will associate with in order to raise campaign funds. On November 1, Bob Dole also defended it, asserting "it never questions her faith," and "the issue is why she was there. There's no question about her faith. I think it's [the ad's] fair game."[20]
Hagan, a member of First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro and a former Sunday school teacher,[19] condemned the ad as "fabricated and pathetic."[21] Hagan also filed a lawsuit in Wake County Superior Court accusing Dole of defamation and libel.[22][23] Following Hagan's victory, the lawsuit was dropped.[24]
The ad met exceptionally strong criticism from the public as well as many local and several national media outlets. CNN's Campbell Brown said about the ad: "[A]mid all the attack ads on the airwaves competing to out-ugly one another, we think we've found a winner."[25] The ad was described as "ridiculously outrageous,"[26] "indecent,"[27] a "gross misrepresentation,"[28] "worse than dishonest"[29] and "beyond the bounds of acceptable political disagreement,"[29] among other harsh criticism.[30] The media reported that within 48 hours of the first ad Hagan received over 3,600 contributions, including major donors as well as individual support from a range of atheists, agnostics, and people of other religious beliefs, who felt they were being attacked by Dole.[31] Another ad issued by the Dole campaign in mid-October 2008 was described by The Fayetteville Observer as "[setting] the low mark in negative political campaigning."[32]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Hagan
The bottom has fallen out, the demagogues have become mainstream, they won't give up spreading vitriol now. It's all they have. Hoping the citizens of North Carolina will see through the big money that bought these ads.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)And being "nice" and "above such things" has got us where we are.
Some may not like it, but that is the reality of today's politics. With the latest SCOTUS debacle, it's going to get worse, MUCH worse. Any real hope of retaining an actual democracy is almost unthinkable.
young_at_heart
(3,772 posts)In my 74 years I have been through many election cycles but nothing compares to what is going on today......heartbreaking!
99Forever
(14,524 posts)I'm not so far behind you (60) and sometimes feel as if I must have stepped into an alternate universe when I see all of the awful things happening around us.
alp227
(32,048 posts)Response to alp227 (Reply #20)
99Forever This message was self-deleted by its author.
Response to 99Forever (Reply #24)
alp227 This message was self-deleted by its author.
Wrong place with this one. I'll delete.
RebelOne
(30,947 posts)on TV here in Georgia against Democrat Michelle Nunn who is running for the Senate.
TheKentuckian
(25,029 posts)tell the truth on the motherfuckers and then to follow the truth with actions that reflect the truth when the power is given.
It does not sell to call someone the backside of the devil and a bigger threat than death and the pits of Hell only to then immediately move to make the devil a partner (while they continue to call you the devil and back it with public action at every possible turn) while declaring we need to met the devil "in the middle".
IronLionZion
(45,523 posts)There are people there who might be supportive. Conservatives do believe in false consensus, assuming people agree with them when they actually don't.
What's going to win it for us is voter turnout, get our side fired up enough to drag themselves to the polls.
The winning issues for us are healthcare and jobs, provided we can share enough of the positive stories and plans to address the longstanding issues. Voters need to know that GOP is blocking every jobs plan and every attempt to amend the PPACA for their own political purposes.