heads Up Edwards Fans, Incoming

I just got off First Read to let you guys know about an upcoming article in New york Magazine. it is brutal.
I thought I would give you guys a heads up to prepare for battle.
I am not a supporter of his but, I don't dislike the guy either. he is fine. but, this is gonna hurt him if it gets talked about and i would hate to see you guys broadsided.
i hope you guys will do the same for us Obama supporters if there is a time...
I am posting just the link because those who do not want to see it won't have to.
Maybe link to the magazine and email a letter of protest might help. I am very sorry but, it would be awful to wake up and see it out of nowhere. Okay?

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/06/06/216031.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage

Two different entities.

can't possibly be sympathetic towards those in poverty.

i was shocked and thought i better let you know. first Read is getting pounded by the comments on this article though they are just the messenger and probably trying to warn supporters as well.

when every negative line is clearly an opinion, with no evidence that it's widely held.

there will, as you said, going to be some sniping out of it.

again, thanks for the gesture.

and pretty much ignoring the rest of the bunch. On a daily basis, there are endless "discussions" about them, and each and every discussion only seeks to frame them in a bad light.

Not so with the Cons, though. They cover every one of them AND Fred Thompson who hasn't even officially jumped in. There's also a big difference in the excitement displayed when Thompson is the topic vs. speculation over 'too fat' Al Gore.

The media will do what they do, there will be no change. Obama will have his turn as well.

appreciate it.

I don't know, I thought it sounded not that bad, though it does have the 'lording over the prol pols' attitude of many MSM voices.

No doubt you are right: it doesn't take much to inspire a serious hit piece on Edwards here on DU (ie - he tells Wolf he doesn't know what rich is, in terms of the question, but then identifies it as the 200K/year that is the basis of his rescinding bush tax cuts...and there is a lengthy giggling thread simly saying "edwards said he doesn't know what rich is giggle giggle')

I give you my word if I get wind of an Obama hit piece I'll give you a heads up.

again, appreciate the gesture.

this opinion.

possible

Like the idea that Hillary is incapable of winning the General.

Listening to John Edwards speak about poverty is like listening to Pope Bendict XVI discuss the merits of a menage a trois. All you can do is give a collective "huh?".

I doubt John Edwards knows how start his lawnmower much less the details of the struggle of the today's working American family.

Sorry if this offends anybody but it's how I feel.

Just speak the truth.

and while I disagree with Progressive's post, he/she has manners. that's a good thing.

and good bye

I am new so I am not familiar with all the presonalities here. I don't want to offend anyone.

But I do like your heart.

Thanks, I like my heart too

but John Edwards knows how to start a lawnmower, shop at bulk buying outlets, eat at cheap restaurants, etc.

In fact, that's what he is comfortable with.

What he doesn't do well is sit in fancy restaurants, hang with ostentatious people,etc

He is more salt of the earth than you can imagine.

I would need a lot of convincing. I am a pretty good judge of character. Whenever I hear him speak my internal "Danger - TV Evangelist present" flag goes up. He's too smooth. To me he's not real.

See ...no apoligies...just my truth

G'nite..my Red Sox are calling me

:evilgrin:

and I can't argue with someone's gut reaction, obviously.

I can't say anything other than look at the youtube posted today of his walk through of the NH debate site. He seems different there, and this is, I believe, the truer John Edwards.

Maybe you won't like him there, either, and that's fair. You seem honest enough, and not happy to dislike him (which is refreshing here).

I know enough about him to say that he is still that guy from Robbins, trying to play football and hoping to find a career that could help his family.

The anti-poverty stuff comes from somewhere real, I believe, and is sincere.

I would like to see him get dirty and not worry about how he looks. Just like the working class people he wants to support. I realize he's a lawyer, like most candidates running for office, and to me that a step below a endangered species taxidermist. But way above an oil company executive.

There are people out these who work for a living. They worry about what Asian country there job might be shipped off to. They also worry about if their left front tire will last another two weeks until they can scrape up enough cash to buy a new tire at Sams Club. Both parents work and take turns with the kids. How a slick lawyer can relate to these people is something I would want to watch. I'm not saying it couldn't happen but Edwards seems as though he's from a different planet than working folk.

why does one have to be poor to work for the rights of the poor?

This is the most inane argument to come down the pike in a while.

So he's rich. Big deal. I know a lot of wealthy people to work for and care for those living in poverty.

Why some people think that all those who are wealthy are somehow corrupt is really beyond me. It is reverse snobbery.



By the way- read these two paragraphs from your link:


Edwards was told the Klaassens' name "in passing" around the time the offer came in on Dec. 18, Palmieri said last night, but he did not investigate further and had no knowledge of their business until a reporter's inquiry Wednesday. Palmieri said Edwards had not delved into the Klaassens' background: "They left it to be done at arm's length, real estate agent to real estate agent."

Asked about the allegations lodged against the Klaassens by their union stockholders, she added, "He believes all CEOs should follow the law, should protect their shareholders and should protect their workers, and he expects that will happen in this case as well."

With all due respects FDR, JFK were born into wealth. John Roberts earned his wealth chasing one ambulance at a time. To me earning money through lawsuits is a form of theft. He is nothing more than a Captain Jack Sparrow with a government license to steal.

As you can tell I hold lawyers in low esteem.

Ok- so you don't like lawyers. Real "progressive" stance. :eyes:

I guess you or someone you love has never been injured by anything in your home that was already known by the manufacturer to be faulty and dangerous, and you never needed someone to defend you when all you wanted was the medical bills paid when your daughters intestines were sucked out, and you wanted the company to stop distributing the faulty product.

Lucky you.

Some people out there need someone to defend them against corporations - to hold the corporations accountable when they knowingly sell items that are dangerous.

I am lower to middle class, teacher, former journalist, lived in the south for a good bit...

he is just much much richer.

but I believe the money has not changed him one iota, which I think commends him highly.

Ok, if he donates all his wealth to charity then I will change my mind and vote for him. Otherwise he needs to earn my vote. So far he's not doing that for me.

I think if you consider this demand more, you'll see that it is irrelevant.

He is, obviously, not going to get your vote.

I hope he wins, though, for the sake of the poor and the unspoken-for in this country.

If we waited for poor people to take over government before adopting policies to help the poor, then we would be waiting for a very long time. And waiting we are . . .

I am waiting for someone who lived the life of a common man/woman. Not one who lives in a 15,000 sq ft home paid for by lawsuits. I've never met John Edwards. So all I can talk to is what I've read, and heard about him. One thing is clear, though, that John Edwards is very pro-John Edwards.

I do not trust him yet.

His father retired as a manager in a mill in rural NC. He was the first one in his family that went to college.

I'm just guessing but I'll bet he can start a lawn mower.



:eyes:

I doubt any of them mows their own lawns (Kucinich maybe). Does Hillary do her own laundry? Does Mitt take his $5,000 suits to the cleaners himself? Does Rudy take out his own garbage? Does Obama wash his own car?

You'll NEVER find a poor person serving in national office, because he/she is too busy trying to eke out a living. By your logic, then, no one in government has standing to address the issue of poverty, and that's just WRONG.

At this level, policy is what matters. Personally, I'm glad Edwards is calling attention to the issue of poverty in the "two Americas."

Bake

There is the America he lives in and then there's where the rest of us inhabit.

Even though I think the guy's one step down from a TV Evangelist he's still better thn anyone on the other side. If that gives you any solice ...

I must take issue with you on that point. Not that Edwards didn't make a living "paid for by lawsuits," but your implication that that's a BAD thing.

Edwards took cases, like many other plaintiff's lawyers, on contingency - if he didn't win, he didn't get paid. Ask the parents of the little girl whose innards were sucked out by a pool drain if Edwards helped them, and helped hold the manufacturer accountable for her death. Did he get paid for it? Of course he did. As well he SHOULD HAVE.

Don't swallow the Republican "tort reform" line.

Bake

Laywers are a waste of human skin. The only reason they exist is because of other lawyers.

Now ask yourself how many American workers just lost their because of him? How much of our heath care cost are due to lawyers?

Lawyers add no value to society.

That's my rant of the day.

Or the next time some shoddy, ill-designed product put out by a profit-maximizing corporation blows up and takes your hand off, or the next time a negligent doctor sews you up but forgets to remove a sponge, call your plumber. I'm sure you'll get the help you need.

Waste of human skin? I don't think so. But then, I AM ONE. Thanks a lot and welcome to my Ignore list, newbie. "Progressive"????? Hardly.

Bake, Esq.

If you can't take the answers then don't ask the questions.

I don't like lawyers. They cost Americans their jobs. They take from society and add nothing in return.

That's my opinion. Sorry if you don't like it. But that's the way it is.

this one is pretty transparant.

Let's take your example of the pool pump which injured the little girl. John Edwards made millions. What did society get? Were the laws changed? No. We future designs changed? No. The only thing that happened was the little girl's family, and most importantly John Edwards, receiving lots of money.

The Progressive way would be to have published mandatory product standards. Let's call them the AIS (American Industrial Standards). Every product made must meet these standards. Standards for safety, design and testing.

If someone gets hurt with a product the investigation would be whether or not the product in question met the standards. If it does than the company, and its workers, can't be sued. If the product does not meet the standards, then they are subject to suits. If a number of people are hurt by products meeting the standards then the standards would be changed accordingly.

In that way society, the consumer and the workers all gain. Of course the lawyers would be the losers. You are free to disagree.

all of his cases were, finally, about changing public policy.

It was on that basis that he took cases.

He was the opposite of an ambulance chaser (which some call him). He ran from ambulances. He took something like 3% of the cases brought to him, and the measure was how substantial could this be toward effecting oversight, as well as corporate behavior.

Did you read FOUR TRIALS? Do you know what his law career was actually like?

You are just way wrong here.

in 1993 Five-year-old Valerie Lakey was injured by a swimming pool pump after the pool operators, city employees, removed the cover against the instructions of the pump manufacturer, Sta-Rite of Delavan Wisconsin. John Edwards sued Sta-Rite for $25M because they didn't foresee this happening and provide an easily accessible cut-off switch. The case was settled out of court. Sta-Rite was a small corporation employing less than 1,000 people and had sales of about $100M. The company has since gone out of business and as a result 250 families in Delavan were "downsized".

But the good news is John Edwards made millions suing this firm that did nothing wrong.

were entirely sucked out of her body. She lives a fraction of a life today, spending most of her days hooked to a kind of predigested formula to keep her organs alive.

Sta-Rite had documented warnings before that there was a problem, which they should fix for a small cost. They knew this could happen, and they chose to try to maximize their profits and ignore the public health risk.

I, for one, believe they deserve what they got, and the signal that is sent regarding corporate malfeasance is clear.

The employees of Sta-Rite have management to blame for the loss of their jobs, not John Edwards.

Thank god there are people watching over those who choose to put the public at risk in order to increase corporate profits.

Wouldn't you say so?

The accident occurred on the same day that NC state lawmakers unanimously approved a bill reducing requirements for community swimming pools. The accident is the second known case of suction from a pool drain causing such injuries to a child in the Triangle.

A safety cover was off the wading-pool drain that critically injured a 5-year-old girl last week, Wake County inspectors said Monday. The dome-like plastic cover was in place at Medfield Area Recreation Club on June 11 when a county inspector checked out the wading pool and allowed it to open for the summer, records show.

But the cover was off Thursday evening, when Valerie Lakey visited the pool with her family, a county health official said. The strong suction pulled Valerie into the 6-inch-wide drain, pulling out part of her intestines. She remained in critical condition Monday at Wake Medical Center.

"I don't believe this has anything to do with product design -- it's an issue of maintenance, an issue of a missing cover and the child sitting down on it," said Ken Giles, a spokesman for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission..."Somehow these covers are being taken off or broken off or bent and aren't re-secured. What happens is the child sits down on the drain and the tremendous force of the pump literally eviscerates them."

The National Spa and Pool Institute, along with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, issued a list of precautions for pool owners and managers in 1982. It states that covers must be checked daily to see whether they are in good repair and to make sure they cannot be removed without tools.

This was not the fault of Sta-Rite. But Sta-Rite was easier to sue and thus bore the burden of this legal theft.

This is why I have no use for Lawyers.

Sta-Rite most definitely was negligent, and knowlingly so. Read the book.


Read the book. Read non-WSJ-like accounts of the trial.


And as for having no use for lawyers - as a nation of laws we depend on them. As a capitalist economy, with a government charged in making sure that the natural market forces and capitalist venture doesn't step on the innate rights and protections of the little guy - it is the lawyer that has traditionally been the way to safetly and equality and protection. As in John Edwards entire law career.

I am not a lawyer, but I am very appreciative of them.

Don't fall for the sleazy ambulance chaser stereotype...that's a cartoon figure. The trade is made up of serious people, many with the public interest as their purpose.

If you don't know anything about Edwards law career, and I'm sorry to say that I can already tell that you don't, you should find out some things before you trash him.

And you should consider what our country would be like without lawyers, especially these days.

Reade the case instead.

http://www.monkeytime.org/lakey.html#trial

Explain what Sta-Rite did wrong. Also explain how this little incorporated company in a small town in Wisconsin now represents "Corporate America". As if smeared with the same brush as Enron and Halliburton.

I am for the American worker. Frivolous lawsits, as the one brought on by a self-promoting John Edwards, cost good Americans their jobs. In the case of Sta-Rite these were good, Union jobs. As a result of John's lawsuit no new pump regulations were enacted. The little girl was not made better. The only good outcome was that John made millions and had an opportunity to self-promote his way into politics.

They show these writers have no logic. Their RW Hatred
of the Poor is Showing.

Ask them to please explain how a poor person or middle class
working person (blue collar) could hope to run for President.

They are saying just as RWers do that a Candidate with the
Means to Run for President should not run on Issues of the
Poor.

Their Shallowness is so overwhelming, I am having a breathing
problem. How much a person spends on their home, haircut
is so frivolous.

Here is the dirty secret. They are too lazy and resentful
to discuss the issue of poverty and give the public some
helpful information. That requires work.

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY - Decoding Obama-ese

Political Double Talk: Accused of "not being black enough," Sen. Barack Obama chose to pander to black ministers. In a disgraceful speech, he managed to excuse urban rioting while calling it "inexcusable."

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=266023101320152

I can't bear to post any more, but you Obama guys better get ready!

when he initiated programs to help the poor. In that time, he was called a "traitor to his class." Nowadays, even the millionaire pundits don't dare to put it in those terms. Instead, they imply that it's impossible, even "hypocritical" for someone rich to care about the poor. Same thing, different rhetoric.

Edwards, though, unlike FDR, didn't come from wealth. Neither did some of those millionaire pundits, who don't understand, or don't care about, poverty. So they can't fathom how anyone else can, particularly someone with money.

the pundits either came from wealth, or they worship it. The bow-tied class actually believes that wealth is a measure of some sort of innate superiority. All that they say and do can be seen clearly in this light.

they do not have a clue as to how ordinary Americans, to say nothing of the rest of the world, lives.

Edwards is in a polished package - that's just the way he looks - but make no mistake that his heart is where he grew up, and it warunt in the big house on the top of the hill.

Precisely because the millionaire pundits (hello, Tweety, Russeert, Margaret Carlson) come from roughly the same sort of background Russert does, but unlike him, worship money for its own sake, they truly can't understand why someone can look back, and understand people from their backgrounds.

It's sad when people who grew up in privileged backgrounds (FDR, JFK, more recently John Kerry, Howard Dean. and yes John Edeards) better understands and wants to help the poor and middle class than the "neuveau riche" pundit class. Shades of "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" Republican "values."

Obama has more to worry about.

So what else is new?

A hit piece on Edwards from the NY Times might just have a reverse effect
with a lot of people.

Edwards certainly does, and so does Al Gore and Wes Clark, to name two Democrats who I personally am fond of. No leading Democrat is defiantly anti-Capitalist, so Wall Street can live with anyone who we elect, though I am sure most of the players there would rather work with a Republican. Nothing that Edwards, Gore, Clark, Obama etc. etc. are proposing is so radical that Wall Street couldn't adjust to it if need be. Here in New York State Elliot Spitzer made more than a few enemies on Wall Street when he was a anti-corporate abuse reforme Attorney General, but as soon as it was clear that he was favored to win the Democratic nomination for Governor, and then the General Election, Wall Street money started flowing into his campaign coffers.

Wall Street will always play both sides and adjust to the political winds that blow when need be, unless someone comes along who wants to nationalize major industries. That doesn't mean that they don't have their preferences, but by and large they are much more afraid of people who threaten to throw them and their friends in jail then they are of anyone who threatens to trim a little bit off of their obscene profits and compensation packages. Most corporations have no trouble prospering within the rules that get written. Which doesn't mean that they won't try to write them more to their liking if given a golden opportunity to do so. Today's Democratic Party, for better or worse, under John Edwards or anyone else we might nominate, is no serious threat to Wall Street.

Actually that is precisely why we should not be wishy washy in pursuing the relatively small economic reforms of our Party's Liberal wing. Wall Steet will scream "Class Warfare!" but that's just political street theater. All Wall Street really needs is a predictably stable environment in which to pursue economic gains. They'll always scream for the last dollor, it's in their nature, but they will cooperate with whatever plausible ruling majority forms within Congress and the White House, even a "Liberal" one. Wall Street is already on a first name basis with John Edwards and all of the other leading Presidential contenders.

He is actively recruiting labor support; he is questioning why dividends
and capital gains should get preferential tax treatment compared to
earned income.

for ending poverty in America, he is running for President in order to end poverty in America, he is focusing his campiagn on this subject because it is so important to him and this is bad, how?

that johnny boy wrote concerning poverty in his entire six years in the senate?

Or else you'll end up like Dennis.

a hit piece. Wonder why?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/magazine/10edwards-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin&oref=slogin


It's really very good. Not a hit piece, not a puff piece. A serious political profile from all different angles. Edwards supporters will resent parts of it, but I can say it's the first time I felt this poverty thing is real for him. For what it's worth. I wish there was more of this from the MSM instead of trash.

Is accuse Edwards of being "Clintonian" on poverty and rehash some tired bull**** about the haircuts?

Pretty weak.

still some silliness, but it acknowledges what i take to be the key fact - he is serious about poverty. it is not a ploy. it is his passion. it is real.

he's my President.

:loveya:

Small problem, and it will go away quickly.

Their bosses have probably promised them bonuses every time they do an article that calls Edwards a phony.

I need to do an "Edwards is a phony" watch where I keep track of the reporters who are playing this game.

The NYT article is 9 solid pages of "how important the fight against poverty is" with a couple of paragraphs about how Edwards may have made some political blunders but then back to more "poverty is a worthy issue".

Excellent article. Anyone who reads this is going to wonder why the other candidates (in both parties) are spending so much time talking about terra. Esp. with the recent poll that shows that Americans are increasingly concerned about poverty and are increasingly willing to spend tax dollars in order to aid those who are less fortunate than themselves.

Link to the NYT Magazine article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/magazine/10edwards-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=magazine