In Tennessee, Thompson Still Counts

Time ^ | 02/02/2008 | Elizabeth Kaufman

[TheThirdRuffian]

Tennessee was Fred Thompson's turf until the Senator-turned actor abandoned his 2008 presidential hopes on January 22 with his name still on the ballot and early voting already underway. His departure has left the state's Republican primary race tightly split between John McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, while Hillary Clinton, who has long enjoyed the loyalty of state Democrats, is expected to easily carry the Democratic primary on Super Tuesday, thanks in part to party faithful who remember her husband carrying the state in the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections with favorite son Al Gore as his running mate.

[ellery]

But, Romney never has expressed disdain for social conservatives.

Romney expressed disdain for Reagan/Bush and the NRA. But I agree that mostly, explicit disdain is not Romney's style. He tends to smile to your face and stab you in the back.

It's easier to fight a declared enemy.

[OPS4]

McCain betrayed no one, just because he does not agree with everyting in a conservative plat form does not make him less of a candidate to me that any demorat running.

Romney is surely no fiscal conservative.

[TheThirdRuffian]

I fully agree that Romney is no fiscal conservative; he and Hillary are in agreement that wages should be garnished to pay for socialized health care.

I do disagree that McCain betrayed conservatives — he pretends (or at least pretended) to be a conservative and then routinely sided with Democrats on things like tax cuts, just for example.

It’s a pathetic group left.

I won’t vote for any of the remaining declared candidates; I just want them bloodied and in a stalemate come convention.

That or hope they all die in an asteroid crash.

[Palladin]

You Fredheads never give up.

[TheThirdRuffian]

Can’t say “never,” but not “yet.”

[fishtank]

bflr = bump for later reading

[chickpundit]

I’ll make the final decision in the voting booth, but I plan on voting for Fred Thompson tomorrow. As far as I know, he’ll be on the ballot in my state.

[bill1952]

he does not agree with everything in a conservative plat form does not make him less of a candidate to me that any democrat running.
Everything?? Everything??

The man IS a democrat. - In the mold of a Lieberman on defense.

Okay, lets give that thought a roll here and see what turns up:

1)Endorses participation in the ICC. - so does hillary.
2)Voted against the Bush tax cuts. - so did hillary.
3)Wants Gitmo closed. - so does hillary.
4)Demands an end to waterboarding. - so does hillary.
5)Wants terrorists to have access to trial in America. - so does hillary.
6)Wants America to be bound to a “Global Warming” agenda. - so does hillary.
7)Wants amnesty, and authored and voted for McCain/Kennedy - so did hillary.
8)Does not exclude known criminals and felons from amnesty. - neither does hillary.
9)Does not believe that immigrants of any type should learn English. - Neither does hillary.
10) has zero record on appointing judges. Neither does hillary but they both did great damage to the process recently, john with the gang of .. how many? and hillary with her voting record.
11) John has a history of scandal and an ill controlled temper - so does hillary.
12) John opposes drilling in ANWAR - so does hillary.

Take out one or two fiscal issues and the man is closer to most dems than most dems are to each other!

[OPS4]

Romney, who supported mandated health coverage for Massachusetts but has backed away from that position running for President, said mandates should be determined on a state-by-state basis, to which Thompson replied, “When did you come up with that?”

“If people can afford to buy it, either buy it or pay your own way,” Romney said.

When other candidates criticized the pharmaceutical industry, Romney defended it.

“Don’t turn this pharmaceutical companies into the big bad guys,” he said, prompting McCain to interject, “Well, they are.”
Romney Defender of Big Pharma and Coporate Greed!

[txrangerette]

You really ought to take that class warfare lib rhetoric to a different kind of site. Whether you realize it or not, you took those words out of Hillary’s, Obama’s and Edward’s mouths. And so did John McCain.

[The Pack Knight]

I have to side with Romney here. The pharmaceutical companies are not the bad guys. "Big Pharma's" "corporate greed" has accomplished far more good for the American people than a thousand career politicians like John McCain ever could.

John McCain's anti-capitalist rhetoric is just one more reason not to vote for him.

[The Pack Knight]

It's shameful that McCain and Huckabee have brought populist wealth envy into the Republican party. We were supposed to be better than that.

Ronald Reagan must be turning over in his grave.

[OPS4]

Bull big pharma is over charging americans, Insurance carriers and medicare for drugs.

Big pharma is peddling narcotics through pain clinics who are un-policed and wine and dine them to sell more.

I know this first hand and have plenty of documentation to back it up.

They are paying off everyone they can on the hill, through pacs.

[OPS4]

This is not class warfare, I have been on this site since 2002, You can get off the site, class warfare has nothing to do with my posts.

Read thenm all and stick your lables.

[OPS4]

December 28, 2007
The Long Run
Under Attack, Drug Maker Turned to Giuliani for Help
By BARRY MEIER and ERIC LIPTON
In western Virginia, far from the limelight, United States Attorney John L. Brownlee found himself on the telephone last year with a political and legal superstar, Rudolph W. Giuliani.

For years, Mr. Brownlee and his small team had been building a case that the maker of the painkiller OxyContin had misled the public when it claimed the drug was less prone to abuse than competing narcotics. The drug was believed to be a factor in hundreds of deaths involving its abuse.

Mr. Giuliani, celebrated for his stewardship of New York City after 9/11, soon told the prosecutors they were wrong.

In 2002, the drug maker, Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Conn., hired Mr. Giuliani and his consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, to help stem the controversy about OxyContin. Among Mr. Giuliani’s missions was the job of convincing public officials that they could trust Purdue because they could trust him.

So it was no small success when, after the call, Mr. Brownlee did what many people might have done when confronted with such celebrity: He went out and bought a copy of Mr. Giuliani’s book, “Leadership.”

“I wanted to be prepared for my meetings with him,” Mr. Brownlee said in a recent interview.

Over the past few weeks, Mr. Giuliani’s consulting business has received increasing scrutiny, at times forcing him to defend his business as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination.

But his work for Purdue, the company’s first and longest-running client, provides a window into how he used his standing as an eminent lawyer, a Republican insider and a national celebrity to aid a controversial client and build a business fortune.

A former top federal prosecutor, Mr. Giuliani participated in two meetings between Purdue officials and the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the agency investigating the company. Giuliani Partners took on the job of monitoring security improvements at company facilities making OxyContin, an issue of concern to the D.E.A.

As a celebrity, Mr. Giuliani helped the company win several public relations battles, playing a role in an effort by Purdue to persuade an influential Pennsylvania congressman, Curt Weldon, not to blame it for OxyContin abuse.

Despite these efforts, Purdue suffered a crushing defeat in May at the hands of Mr. Brownlee when the company and three top executives pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

Mr. Giuliani, who declined to discuss his work for Purdue for this article, has refused to talk in detail about his firm’s clients. He has said that he is no longer involved in the day-to-day management of the firm, which still represents Purdue.

Giuliani Partners would not say how much Purdue had paid it, but one consultant to the drug maker estimated that Mr. Giuliani’s firm had, in some years, earned several million dollars from the account.

“Everything I did with Giuliani Partners has been totally legal, totally ethical,” Mr. Giuliani recently told The Associated Press. “There’s nothing for me to explain about it. We’ve acted honorably, decently.”

In the OxyContin case, Mr. Giuliani’s supporters suggest that as a cancer survivor himself, he was driven by a noble goal: to keep the company’s proven pain reliever available to the widest circle of sufferers.

“I understand the pain and distress that accompanies illness,” Mr. Giuliani said at the time. “I know that proper medications are necessary for people to treat their sickness and improve their quality of life.”

To drive OxyContin’s sales, Purdue, beginning in 1996, set in motion what D.E.A. officials described as perhaps the most aggressive promotional campaign for a high-powered narcotic ever undertaken. It promoted the drug not only to pain specialists, but to family doctors with little experience in treating serious pain or recognizing drug abuse.

As a result of the expanded access, critics charged, OxyContin wound up in the high schools and street corners of rural America where curious teenagers crushed the pill, defeating the time-release formula, and ended up addicts, or in some cases, dead.
In May, Purdue and its executives, after spending tens of millions of dollars to repair the company’s image, agreed to plea deals to avoid a trial. Together, they paid $634.5 million in fines and payments.

[Tennessee Nana]

A lot of people here will still vote for FRed or go with Huck

There are too many conservatives who would not touch RINO Romney...

[OPS4]

http://www.pharmaceutical-kickbacks.com/
2007, in Boston, Massachusetts that it is intervening in a whistleblower lawsuit filed against Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane, Inc. (”Roxane”) The allegations center around the contention that Roxane reported inflated prices for numerous pharmaceutical products knowing the federal health care programs would establish reimbursement rates based on these fraudulent prices. According to the Government?s complaint, these reported prices were in excess of 1,000 percent of the actual sales prices on several of the drugs it manufactures. It is alleged that damages to federal programs exceeds $500 million.

[9YearLurker]

Alas, I’ve only seen Fred’s having (understandably) a lack of respect for Mitt and his flip-flopping and prevaricating and his (confoundingly) having a great deal of respect for McCain. Oh well.

[OPS4]

Defending the greed of Pharma is not what parents want to hear, from Nantucket to the ghetto my friend.

Drugging a nation for greed and paying off the government to do so is disgusting and not something that has a defense.

[Tennessee Nana]

But, Romney never has expressed disdain for social conservatives. And, he came from a very liberal state. Romney is just a guy who will say what it takes to get elected. I do think he will stay with the folks who “bring him to the dance” though.

And, he is a Mormon and because of that I suspect deep down he leans conservative.
________________________________________________

Watch this video

RINO Romney himself says that mormons are not necessarily conservative...

ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0rcAByKUFM&NR=1