Posted on 08/17/2009 8:22:33 AM PDT by Jbny
At some point about five years ago, America became a “One-Party Country”—and the party in question was the GOP. Such, at least, was the conclusion of Los Angeles Times reporters Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten in the book they wrote under that title following the 2004 presidential election. Bizarre as their claim may sound today, it stood on solid ground. In November 2004, George W. Bush had won re-election with the largest number of votes up to that point in American history while racking up the seventh Republican win in the previous 10 races for the White House. Republicans, moreover, were in control of the Senate by a margin of 10 seats, and of the House by a margin of 30. To complete the sweep, they also boasted a majority of the nation’s governorships and a plurality of state legislatures.
(Excerpt) Read more at commentarymagazine.com ...
That the ticket Paul, ignore the fact that you have been prove 100% totally wrong about Iraq war by events. Instead mindlessly keep screaming the same fringe political dogmas you have always clung to rather then learn even the simplest fact that challenge your neo Isolationist dogmas
Immigration enforcement, visa policies....
I would suspect that the mechanism for a gun suit would be the injury or death of some person. There are product liability laws which make it actionable to put a dangerous product into tthe stream of commerce.
A liability carrier should provide coverage. A lawsuit is not necessarily frivolous if made on these grounds, but if the jurisdiction has already considered such suits, and found no claim, then the attorney for the plaintiff can be hit for damages (sanctioned) for pursuing a frivolous case.
This is usually at Rule 11 (Court Rules) and will read something like: The signature of the attorny constitutes a certificate that he has read the suit and believes it grounded in fact, and warranted by existing law, or a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of such law.
Contrary to popular belief, most courts in this country do not look with favor on frivolous cases, and most plaintiff’s attorneys can not afford to pursue them.
parsy, who says let him know if yo have any questions
That "aracho-Capitalist" Ronald Reagan turned that all around.
Rather then mindlessly cling to the Democrat dogmas your dad taught you, try actually learning even the most basic facts about US Political history and economics.
As usual, you offer a thoughtful, well written post.
Parsy who is neither conservative nor libertarian.....
Right, death or injury caused by criminals and drug dealers!
Sue the gun makers for making something that gang bangers steal and use to hurt people.
The lawsuits filed against gun makers are total horse$hit!
The laws should be changed to bankrupt any attorney that files one!
Don’t beleive either of us. Go to google and research it.
parsy, who ain’t afraid of fair and balanced research
Where does the $589 billion tort cost come from? Do you have a link?
parsy, who is curious
Well then, I hope YOU are ruled by Marxists since that is what you want. Good luck.
Running through this account of domestic and national-security issues is an attitude toward public life and toward public discourse. Tone and bearing are terribly undervalued commodities in American politics. On the whole, people drawn to a party like to feel that those representing the party are both amiable and peaceable. This hardly precludes conviction and tough-mindedness when it comes to articulating policy. Democracy was designed for disagreement, and the proper role of an opposition party is to oppose. But anger, personal attack, and extreme language do nothing to expand the appeal of a party in trouble.
Unfortunately, this point has been lost on some members of the Religious Right, whose scolding approach has created a significant backlash, especially among young people (including young Christians). It has also been lost on the party’s more abrasive populists, with their habit of pitting the heartland—aka the “real” America—against the denizens of the coasts. This not only vitiates their own claim to seriousness; it almost willfully alienates the very groups and regions that Republicans need to attract. There is no magic formula when it comes to dealing with such matters of tone, temperament, and the right use of language. They are admittedly delicate things to measure, but they are no less crucial for that.
Good advice...probably unwelcome here though.
Here’s link and numbers I ran across:
http://www.tortdeform.com/archives/2007/01/mythbuster_series_debunking_my.html
DEBUNKING MYTHS ABOUT TORT SYSTEM COSTS
Every year, an insurance industry-consulting firm, Tillinghast–Towers Perrin, issues a report that claims to estimate what it calls the overall annual “cost” of the U.S. tort system, most recently $261 billion. On the basis of this figure, it then calculates a so-called “tort tax,” supposedly representing tort system costs to each individual.1
1. These figures are bogus and its annual release is little more than a public relations gimmick used by the special interests behind the national “tort reform” movement. In fact, true tort system costs are likely impossible to honestly calculate because court systems do not accurately track such costs. Tillinghast does not even attempt to examine them, as explained below.
But taking one aspect of costs that has received some attention in recent years – total payouts in medical malpractice cases – it is clear how misleading Tillinghast’s figures can be. Medical malpractice payouts, for injuries and deaths caused by medical negligence in the nation, have recently hovered between $5 billion and $6 billion annually.2 This is less than half of what Americans pay for dog and cat food each year.3
BY ITS OWN ADMISSION, TILLINGHAST’S FIGURES HAVE NO RELATION TO THE COSTS OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM.
* Tillinghast admits that it does not examine jury verdicts, settlements, lawyers’ fees, court costs or any actual costs of what might generally be considered “tort costs.” In 2006, Tillinghast acknowledged that its evaluation of the tort system does not include “costs incurred by federal and state court systems” and incredulously states these costs are not even relevant to its estimates.4 That admission is similar to one made by Tillinghast in its 2005 study stating, “the costs tabulated in this study are not a reflection of litigated claims or of the legal system.”5
* Tillinghast’s definition of “tort system costs,” from which the “tort tax” figure is derived, is vastly larger than the actual tort system.
o Included in Tillinghast’s definition of “tort costs” is the immense costs of operating the wasteful and inefficient insurance industry.6 Fully 22 percent of Tillinghast’s “tort costs” are what it calls insurance industry “administrative expenses,”7 (e.g., salaries of executives, rent and utilities for insurance company headquarters, commission paid to agents, advertising and other acquisition costs).
o Tillinghast’s numbers are calculated from the most exaggerated possible source: insurance industry “incurred losses,”8 which are not really “losses” at all. They are mostly estimates - not actual costs - that insurers make in rate filings and have in the past proved to be wildly overstated.9
o On top of that, a huge percentage of “tort costs” identified by Tillinghast concern personal auto insurance, including liability claims for fender benders, for which policyholders pay insurance premiums. The vast majority of these claims are settled without any attorneys being hired or anyone being sued. Identifying these figures as “tort costs” is a huge error.
o Tillinghast admits that it does not factor in the benefits or cost-savings from the tort system. In its 2006 report, Tillinghast notes, “ this study does not attempt to quantify the benefits of the tort system. Such benefits include a systematic resolution of disputes, thereby reducing conflict, possibly including violence. Another indirect benefit is that the tort system may act as a deterrent to unsafe practices and products. From this perspective, compensation for pain and suffering is seen as beneficial to society as a whole.”10
TILLINGHAST FIGURES HAVE BEEN CONSISTENTLY DEBUNKED BY EXPERTS.
* Economic Policy Institute. In 2005, the Economic Policy Institute (“EPI”) released a definitive study debunking common myths about the costs of the legal system and its burden on consumers.11 According to EPI:
o Half of the “costs” that Tillinghast-Towers Perrin attributes to the tort system are not costs in any real economic sense. They are transfer payments from wrongdoers to victim.
o EPI also noted, “There is no historical correlation between the inflated estimates of the costs of the tort system and corporate profits, product quality, productivity, or research and development (R&D) spending. Evidence suggests that the tort system, without the proposed restrictions, has actually been beneficial to the economy in all these areas.”
* Business and News Publications.
o Business Week called the 2005 Tillinghast report a “wild exaggeration,” stating that it “includes everything from payouts for fender-benders to the salaries of insurance industry CEOs.”12
o The Wall Street Journal said in an article, “…critics of past years’ studies – and there are many – say the number and the projections that come with it are deeply flawed. For instance, they include payments that don’t involve the legal system at all. Say somebody smashes his car into the back of your new SUV and his insurance company sends you a $5,000 check to fix the damage. That gets counted as a tort cost in Tillinghast’s number. Critics say it’s just a transfer payment from somebody who wasn’t driving carefully to somebody who has been legitimately wronged. How is that evidence of a system run amok?”13
o Congressional Quarterly: “Nearly all the assertions about the growing cost of the tort system are based on the figures from just one actuarial and management consulting firm, Tillinghast Towers-Perrin, that works for the insurance industry, which has a stake in limiting lawsuits … The company’s estimates of tort costs include the insurance industry’s administrative expenses and payments on claims that never involve courts or lawyers, such as auto collisions.”14
o Washington Monthly: Tillinghast “includes in its definition of the ‘tort system’ insurance company administrative costs and overhead and the salaries of highly paid insurance company CEOs … One thing TTP doesn’t include: court budgets, which makes its study seem a lot more like an assessment of the insurance industry than of the legal system.”15
* Capra Report. In a January 29, 1999 independent study prepared for the New York State Bar Association, Daniel Capra, Philip Reed Professor of Civil Justice Reform at Fordham University School of Law, said, “[A]ny cries about a ‘tort tax’ are nothing but absurd and self-serving overkill.”16 Professor Capra also found:
o “The analysis of the costs of the tort system creates the unfair inference that the cost is caused solely by plaintiffs lawyers and frivolous litigation — when in fact most of the cost of the system is the result of corporate wrongdoing causing injury, and ‘hardball’ litigation tactics of insurance companies that deny legitimate claims.”
o “[T]he quasi-statistical analysis about the costs of the tort system fails to mention that the system provides the essential benefits of victim compensation and product safety. Any focus on costs without consideration of countervailing benefits is completely irresponsible.”
o The “tort tax” figure “is particularly disingenuous given the record profits of insurance companies and their executives.”
o “[T]he cost of the tort system to business is remarkably low when compared to business income and profits.” (link)
parsy, who thinks having some good numbers would be helpful
So rather then posture as if a victim, perhaps you can put your insulting, self regarding posting style on hold and produce a rational factual defense of your "blue dog Democrat" views. So far all you have done is post over and over these absurdly childish. name calling, simplistically ignorant comments
Parsifal, post 31 Its not really “move toward the center” as much as it is “re-move head from hindquarters
These guys are friggin idiots and their simplistic little solutions do nothing except prohibit the GOP from doing anything if it does return to power.
Post 32. Most people on FR don’t have a clue what “tort reform” means either which is why they are all for it. “Tort reform” is one of the most anti-conservative ideas to come down the path in ages. Replacing an American jury of 12 ordinary citzens with what, a gov’t answer. Proponents of “tort reform” usually don’t know a thing about the law.
With no rudeness intended, I was once as dumb and shrill as you are. I went around spouting off crap that I thought I knew. I was dead set against minwages, gov’t regulation, unions, heck you name it and I was agin it. I was a good little republican. I read Atlas Shrugged like 4 or 5 times. I named my first kid after her.
But a funny thing happened as I got older. What I saw didn’t gibe with the theory. Being a realist, I had to go with what I saw. You have a big advantage over me. When I was going thru this, there was no internet. I could not get on and search “myths tort reform” or “Minimum wages good or bad” and things like that.
What I am suggesting you do, is start researching some of these things that you think are part and parcel of “conservatism.” When you do, I do not think you will find anything out there that makes “anti minwages” a conservative plank. It might p*ss off the anarcho’s and libertarians, but you won’t find ity graven on any conservative stone tablet.
Intelligent republicans are trying to tell you something. Thats what the above article is about. Other intelligent republicans are trying to tell you something. Whether you end up agreeing or disagreeing, you ought to at least shut up long enough to read what they say and take some time to think about it.
parsy, who has been in your shoes
Still waiting for a fact based rational adult response, not they usual Leftist trash talk filled with childish name calling and insults that seem to be the sum total of your posting skills. Do try again.
Two good examples are Terri Shivo and Embryonic Stem cell federal research. If you listen to talk radio conservatives, they say sticking to conservative principles (defined by the positions they want, naturally) always wins. But these two were PR disasters for republicans turning off many voters, the first being very questionable constitutionally (where is Levin???). The second one may have had a good principle behind it but it was simply vetoed by a very unpopular president who couldn't explain why he did, leaving the voter to think the worst.
In contrast was a ban on partial birth abortions, while maybe violating states rights (which it was never contested in court on, and the courts don't care anyway) it was a huge political winner
If they think following Bush's example is the way to win, they will learn quite quickly that they are mistaken. The way to win Hispanics is to limit their vote to those that are citizens, improve economic conditions and assimilate those that are here legally. The way to lose elections is to join with Democrats in destroying the very notion of America.
*shouts at Parsy*
“You’re goin’ the wrong way !”
If the GOP wants to attract it’s lost voters, like myself, it has to get away from a Woodrow Wilson/LBJ foreign policy and big government “compassionate” conservatism.
I don’t see anyone out there at the moment.
Happy Birthday!
:D
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