Grover Norquist: tort reform is the means to the end of the Democrats

[Keirsey]

That's the gist of his message on NPR this evening. You thought it was just the Bush cabal wanting to protect big business?

Norquist: take out lawsuits against corporations, and you take out trial lawyers. Take out trial lawyers and you take out the biggest contributors to the Democratic Party. Do that and you destroy the Democratic Party.

Hope that the trial lawyers have a strategy. Something like telling the American people that tort reform is an assault on consumer protection.

They can start with the 20,000,000 people who have taken Vioxx.

[sandnsea]

1. Take out right to redress

Turn everything over to the corporations, and you've got no "we the people". Will we see before it's too late? I don't know.

[eleny]

2. "destroy the Democratic Party"

Talk about coming out of a bag! We need to start keeping these quotes and the where and when of them. I use one of his quotes in my sig. This guy hates Democracy.

[raising2moredems]

3. business sues business more often than average joe sues business

Norquist stated at one time he'd like to drown social programs. I say we drown him instead since the country would be better served this way. And how arrogant to think that the only reason dems have money is because of trial lawyers.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Without trial lawyers we would still have:

Cars with exploding gas tanks (Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co.).
Flammable children's pajamas (Gryc v. Dayton-Hudson Corp.)
Vaporizers that scald children (McCormick v. Hankscraft)
Not to mention exploding oven cleaner cans, exploding stoves, automatic garage doors that squash little kids, unguarded machines that sever limbs, exploding water heaters, etc.

But we wouldn't want to burden the corporations that make and sell and profit from these things, would we...?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Why is that little fascist given such a soapbox?

:grr:

[pantouflard]

6. I heard that - on Marketplace. (I think Marketplace is actually

American Public Media, not NPR. APM used to be Minnesota Public Radio.) Anyway, Norquist is one scary SOB. Every time I hear him speak I want to start jumping up and down and yelling at the radio. Sometimes I do!

I believe he is associated with the Evil Dominion folks, right?

I sent Marketplace an email thanking them for including all points of view in their commentary feature, and for emphasizing that it's opinion. I think the more people who hear his vitriol the better. The Dem's have to know who they're dealing with.

As a p.s. to the email I said, "Hey Grover - bite me!"

Marketplace has a new-ish host/writer, and he's doing some great stuff. One three- or four-day feature was on "The Spoils of War," and he talks about alot of issues from a progressive viewpoint. I've been impressed.

[Keirsey]

7. yes, it was on Marketplace earlier this evening

More on Norquist..

So what's at stake, in this election in particular, as against the sort of long-term trends? What happens if Kerry wins, versus if Bush wins?

If Bush wins, it will speed up all of the trends that are problematic for the Democrats: the de-funding of the trial lawyers through tort reform; the de-funding of labor unions through just allowing them to continue to reduce in size, power and scope. Bush's winning doesn't have anything to do with this. But over time, the older Democrats continue to move on. Also, younger Republicans, the 21-year-olds coming up, will look up, and a successful Bush administration creates young Republicans that'll start voting in five, 10, and 15 years on a regular basis.

Should Kerry win, he could come in and stop any tort reforms, so the trial lawyers can continue to make money. He will try and change the rules by executive order to force people into unionization, paying $500 per person for the right to work, with card check as a way to avoid actual elections in various labor drives.

So there are a number of things, a number of problems that Kerry can arrest their deterioration. Although when you think about it, Clinton did not arrest the deterioration of the Democratic Party except by his aggressive outreach to some immigrant groups. That was important in helping the Democratic Party.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/choice2004/interviews/norquist.html


News to me that Kerry would have forced unionization. :-P

[AP]

8. Why don't we just hand over the keys to corporations? I'll tell you what.

Get rid of tort law, and lawyers and we might as well get rid of government too. Corporations will totally control every aspect of society and will have all the money and we won't be able to do anything about it.

[AP]

9. Notice the frame, by the way: they're doing it to get rid of those damn...

...liberals.

He can't say what it's REALLY about. It's about making corporations supreme. That doesn't sound like something a lot of Americans are cool with. So instead they say they're just doing it to get rid of trial lawyers and Democrats.

[Keirsey]

10. Why Grover Norquist Might Go to Jail

Six years ago, I tried to warn both sides of the political aisle about one of Washington's most powerful -- and dangerous -- lobbyists, Grover Norquist. Today, his former allies on the right are scrutinizing his ties to Islamists. From the APJ archives, here's my article on Norquist as it originally ran at koopersmith.com.

...

Senator Carl Levin is one of my secret heroes. He's a Democrat, he's smart and he's a gentleman. I watched him endure hearing after hearing at Fred Thompson's Campaign Finance Circus. I watched Levin take insult after insult from Thompson who, despite his lame protestations to the contrary, ran the most despicably partisan "investigation" in history -- all the time weeping that no one "loved" him. All along, Thompson knew that Grover Norquist and Haley Barbour had masterminded a conspiracy to launder money for the Republican National Committee -- and did nothing about it, and said nothing about it. To my mind, that makes him a criminal accessory.

But Levin, unlike Thompson, is also a man of methodical action -- and this week he proved his mettle ferreting out enough evidence on Grover Norquist, Haley Barbour and Newt Gingrich to almost assuredly land them in the closest federal prison.

more...

http://www.americanpolitics.com/111197GOPCrimesUPD.html


Unfortunately for America, this monster is still at large.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. One of many who need to be in jail.

Somebody order up a big case of orange jumpsuits for Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Bob Novak, Scooter Libby... not to mention the Big Dick himself, and Mini-Me, and Rumsferatu and Condor Lizard. The latter group needs to be tried at The Hague.

This is one of my favorite fantasies, anyhow... watching that bunch of goons doing the perp walk...

[BlueManDude]

11. this man needs to get laid

god he's so damn angry all the time.

[Keirsey]

13. hope no one takes offense...

But, it is within the realm of possibility that Grover is a candidate to be outed...

Tuna Fish and Hand Lotion


And yet Norquist's bachelor townhouse bears evidence of a man whose ideological core is hard. The art in his living room is early Ronald Reagan. His Costco-brand shirts hang in a closet under a picture of former Senate leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) signing a no-tax pledge.

He is often described as an eccentric. For a bedside table, Norquist uses a giant green canister for Kraft parmesan cheese. He displays what he hopes will be the world's largest collection of airsickness bags. At staff meetings, employees say, he holds court while variously sitting on a giant red plastic ball, eating tuna from a can, rubbing his feet against a massager and sniffing hand lotion as he kneads it into his fingers. He excuses himself to go to "the ladies room."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8423-2004Jan11?language=printer




Ok, not every 47 year old bachelor is gay...


Jeez, I hate sinking this low, but when I heard him on NPR I felt cold to the bone. He, and his ilk, just don't want to defeat us, they want to destroy us.

[RevCheesehead]

15. Ya know, I kind of liked Grover, ...

but, now it seems:

[BlueManDude]

24. the "ladies room" - wow. this guy is a real freak.

where do you get a can of cheese that big?

[RunningFromCongress]

14. If the dems allow 250K caps they're going to lose 100s of millions of

donations from trail lawyers, like my family. 250K caps will end that business. There is no question.

[CreekDog]

16. Grover's Thesis Is Flawed

He naively thinks that Democrats are only in the party as payoff they receive from the government and/or special interest groups.

Most Democrats are not on welfare
Most Democrats are not in unions
Most Democrats are not trial lawyers

The big donations from trial lawyers are now in the realm of soft money. Hard money from folks giving small donations made Kerry and the Democrats keep pace with Republican fundraising.

Norquist's calculation is so incredibly wrong it's ludicrous.

In fact, apply his argument to the Republicans. By this standard, all the regular folks that voted Republican and have seen no payoff or benefit (a lot of folks) would stop supporting them. Didn't happen.

There are hacks and special interest groups in both parties that are where they are solely for the payoff from government, business and others, but you could never win an election based on their support --especially since they're opportunists and in both parties. Norquist fundamentally misunderstands this and the fact that Democrats, not just Republicans, vote to support the values they care about, many times apart from blind self-interest.

[laheina]

17. Grover is a wank.

Most of the lawsuits against corporations are by other corporations.

While the Dems may lack big business sponsorship, we the people stepped up large this year to fill that gap. I think this will set the tone for future elections.

Finally, if they kill the Democratic Party, then America becomes a one party state. Can anyone think of a one party state that they want to live in? I like the occasional stay in Mexico as much as the next girl, but I wouldn't want to be a citizen. What happens when people don't want to live somewhere? All of the best and brightest leave first, and where are these stupid companies going to be then? There will be no American innovation, and the EU isn't going to play their little games.

Geez, I hate wieners, so Grover, BITE ME!

[auburngrad82]

18. We need to change it from "trial lawyer" to "protection lawyer"

When a person goes to a lawyer to sue a large corporation there is usually a reason. Yes, there are frivolous lawsuits. But the vast majority are brought because an individual has been wronged by a much large corporate entity.

For example, about a year ago a young Hispanic girl from Louisburg, NC went into Duke Hospital for a heart transplant. They gave her a heart that was incompatible with her blood type despite the fact that three different doctors were supposed to review the information before the transplant could take place. Apparently the reviews didn't take place, she was given a heart that her body rejected and a week later she died. Now, not only did this effect her but it also lost a perfectly good heart that someone donated and that could have been used to save another person's life.

Should her family be able to sue Duke over their negligence? Absolutely. If people cannot seek restitution for wrongs committed against them by powerful corporate entities, then there is no consumer protection. Yes, protection lawyers give a lot of money to Democratic candidates. There is a reason for this. The GOP is against consumer protection and for corporate greed. If a person cannot sue a corporation for harmful practices then the corporations have won and they can do anything they want without fear of redress by the parties that are harmed by their actions.

The GOP's attack on protection lawyers is payback for the huge amount of money that corporations have given the GOP over the years. Nothing in life is free. The GOP gets the contributions and the corporations get free rein and reduced consumer protection laws.

[annabanana]

19. CONSUMER ADVOCATES

Consumer Protection Lawyers.........

[funkybutt]

20. Strategic Innitiative says Lakoff

In "Don't Think of an Elephant" Lackoff defines such a concept as a strategic innitiative. You start out with a small rather straight forward idea that most people think sounds reasonable. It's the first step in that direction. Norquist is right, that's the plan. Now, will it work?

Slippery slope...

[HootieMcBoob]

21. You beat me to it

I was just about to post about Lakoff's "Strategic Innitiatives". The thing is they're not even trying to hide it. I guess they don't have to. They've gotten away with so much, who's going to stop them.

[SoCalDem]

22. Did the "trial lawyers" buy clear channel, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox?

game over:(

[snippy]

23. Even though he is a victiim of psychological child abuse,

Grover is a seriously odious and loathsome piece of shit.

He also is the premier republican welfare queen. He thinks all of his government benefits should be free.

[dbt]

25. Am I the only one who heard this raving nutcase constantly

refer to the "Democrat Party" in the 11/15 evening edition of Marketplace as carried on NPR?

It pissed me off so bad that I actually listened to all of what he had to say, like the part where the CONservatives were in control of the castle, digging the moat deeper and wider to keep the Democrats out.

One. Sick. Muthafucka.

:freak:
dbt