Look To Right-Wing Think Tanks Rather Than Judges To Interpret The Constitution

[RightinNYC]

If you want to believe the Heritage Foundation, be my guest. Just don't be surprised that many are not impressed.

I think their "What would Reagan do?" feature is a hoot!!! :rofl
Ask Heritage (Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh) - The Heritage Foundation

Among those who would dismiss the Heritage Foundation out of hand, there are very few who I care about impressing.

 

[Catawba]

Among those who would dismiss the Heritage Foundation out of hand, there are very few who I care about impressing.

Perfect match then, because there are few that do not dismiss the Heritage Foundation out of hand.

Perhaps we should ask what would Reagan do? :rofl :rofl

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

Among those who would dismiss the Heritage Foundation out of hand, there are very few who I care about impressing.

I frequently run into these type of people, who like to mock the use of think tanks and the information they have but don't bother to rebut them in any way.

 

[American]

Moveon.org was created by George Soros purely as a political assassination machine, nothing more. They are not scholarly in any way whatsoever. The Heritage Foundation is completely different. The Heritage Foundation is policy oriented, not a political action committee funding democrat campaigns.

 

[Catawba]

I frequently run into these type of people, who like to mock the use of think tanks and the information they have but don't bother to rebut them in any way.

Here's some rebuttals for you:

"With a long history of receiving large donations from overseas, Heritage continues to rake in a minimum of several hundred thousand dollars from Taiwan and South Korea each year.

In autumn of 1988, the South Korean National Assembly uncovered a document revealing that Korean intelligence gave $2.2 million to the Heritage Foundation on the sly during the early 1980s. Heritage officials "categorically deny" the accusation.

Heritage's latest annual report does acknowledge a $400,000 grant from the Korean conglomerate Samsung. Another donor, the Korea Foundation - which conduits money from the South Korean government - has given Heritage almost $1 million in the past three years. "


"(Heritage also claims to have spent zero dollars on lobbying activities in 2006, despite an estimated $40,000 paid to the lobbying firm Foley and Lardner in 2006 disclosed in the Senate's lobbyist registry.)"


"The most shocking thing that I read about hunger this week was not the statistics in these reports: it was this comment made by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation in this USA Today article about childhood hunger.

“There’s no evidence that even consistent poverty in the U.S. produces a nutritional risk,” he says, noting that rich and poor children tend to have about the same intake of protein, vitamins and minerals.

It is shocking to know that there are people who believe that there is no link between poverty and nutrition. Studies from the Food Research and Action Center, Zero to Three, the Tufts University Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition Policy, and the Centers for Disease Control have shown that childhood hunger leads to health problems, school absenteeism, stunted growth, reduced ability to learn, cognitive deficits, and emotional problems."

"We do take issue with the 300,000 jobs estimate being presented as a legitimate figure."

"Independent experts called the new findings provocative, but criticized the Heritage team's analysis as flawed and lacking the statistical evidence to back its conclusions."

"A report from the conservative Heritage Foundation, opposing the auto industry bailout, said that members of the United Auto Workers union "earn $75 an hour in wages and benefits – almost triple the earnings of the average private sector worker." Later in the report, it's phrased this way: "The vast majority of UAW workers in Detroit today still earn $75 an hour."

"The problem is, that's just not true."

 

[Catawba]

Moveon.org was created by George Soros purely as a political assassination machine, nothing more. They are not scholarly in any way whatsoever. The Heritage Foundation is completely different. The Heritage Foundation is policy oriented, not a political action committee funding democrat campaigns.

The Heritage Foundation was created by Joseph Coors and its stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies."
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation]The Heritage Foundation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]


What's your point?

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

Here's some rebuttals for you:

"With a long history of receiving large donations from overseas, Heritage continues to rake in a minimum of several hundred thousand dollars from Taiwan and South Korea each year.

In autumn of 1988, the South Korean National Assembly uncovered a document revealing that Korean intelligence gave $2.2 million to the Heritage Foundation on the sly during the early 1980s. Heritage officials "categorically deny" the accusation.

Heritage's latest annual report does acknowledge a $400,000 grant from the Korean conglomerate Samsung. Another donor, the Korea Foundation - which conduits money from the South Korean government - has given Heritage almost $1 million in the past three years. "


"(Heritage also claims to have spent zero dollars on lobbying activities in 2006, despite an estimated $40,000 paid to the lobbying firm Foley and Lardner in 2006 disclosed in the Senate's lobbyist registry.)"

How does that rebut any statistic or policy argument?

"The most shocking thing that I read about hunger this week was not the statistics in these reports: it was this comment made by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation in this USA Today article about childhood hunger.

“There’s no evidence that even consistent poverty in the U.S. produces a nutritional risk,” he says, noting that rich and poor children tend to have about the same intake of protein, vitamins and minerals.

It is shocking to know that there are people who believe that there is no link between poverty and nutrition. Studies from the Food Research and Action Center, Zero to Three, the Tufts University Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition Policy, and the Centers for Disease Control have shown that childhood hunger leads to health problems, school absenteeism, stunted growth, reduced ability to learn, cognitive deficits, and emotional problems."

The guy says one thing.
It seems that you and others avoid what he said and jump to conclusions about what he means.

"We do take issue with the 300,000 jobs estimate being presented as a legitimate figure."

They used government statistics to formulate that number.

"Independent experts called the new findings provocative, but criticized the Heritage team's analysis as flawed and lacking the statistical evidence to back its conclusions."

Well all I can say that again they used the government statistics.

Who you are you going to fault with that?

"A report from the conservative Heritage Foundation, opposing the auto industry bailout, said that members of the United Auto Workers union "earn $75 an hour in wages and benefits – almost triple the earnings of the average private sector worker." Later in the report, it's phrased this way: "The vast majority of UAW workers in Detroit today still earn $75 an hour."

"The problem is, that's just not true."

So they do earn roughly 3x the wages and benefits compared to other private sector employees, your just bent out of shape about the wording later in the report.

All those wages and benefits do equal compensation for employment.

Edit: I'll add that most of these things are minor quibbles with the method of data collection and/or wording but don't directly refute the information presented.

I do commend you on actually doing more than attacking the source though.

 

[Catawba]

How does that rebut any statistic or policy argument?

How an organization is funded tells a lot about its motives and its bias.

The guy says one thing.
It seems that you and others avoid what he said and jump to conclusions about what he means.

How do you interpret their statement that there is no link between poverty and nutrition?

They used government statistics to formulate that number.

Well all I can say that again they used the government statistics.

Yes but what they were faulted for was how they manipulated the math using those statistics.

Who you are you going to fault with that?

The Heritage Foundation for using fuzzy math to make their point.

So they do earn roughly 3x the wages and benefits compared to other private sector employees, your just bent out of shape about the wording later in the report.

All those wages and benefits do equal compensation for employment.

FactCheck.org called BS. HF included benefits paid to retirees and divided by the number of current employees. Again a dishonest manipulation to skew the results.

Edit: I'll add that most of these things are minor quibbles with the method of data collection and/or wording but don't directly refute the information presented.

If you consider bias, a habit of hiding funding and lobbying activities, and dishonest manipulation of numbers to be minor quibbles, you are a lot more forgiving of unethical political organizations than I am.

I do commend you on actually doing more than attacking the source though.

Thank you sir!

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

Thank you sir!

I can agree with most of what you said, however, I suggest you not always throw out the baby with the bath water.

To tell you the truth I almost never use them as a source because they are so politicized.
At times though they may be accurate about some things.

As an example, I do research on the Brookings Institute website even though they don't always use clear facts to display their beliefs and instead use assumptions.

 

[Catawba]

I can agree with most of what you said, however, I suggest you not always throw out the baby with the bath water.

To tell you the truth I almost never use them as a source because they are so politicized.
At times though they may be accurate about some things.

As an example, I do research on the Brookings Institute website even though they don't always use clear facts to display their beliefs and instead use assumptions.

A reasonable Libertarian, hmmmm.......... I have met a few. Nice to meet another!

I will take that under consideration.

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

A reasonable Libertarian, hmmmm.......... I have met a few. Nice to meet another!

I will take that under consideration.

You went the extra mile and presented arguments that contradicted their positions, that's something I can't ignore.

You did a good job. :2wave:

 

[Catawba]

You went the extra mile and presented arguments that contradicted their positions, that's something I can't ignore.

You did a good job. :2wave:

Thanks! Come by the Tiki Bar sometime and I'll buy you your beverage of choice!

 

[CrusaderRabbit08]

When is this guy gonna be banned for spamming the forum?

He adds commentary, so it's not spam. That's more than can be said of other posters around here who just post an article without commentary; leaving us to guess what they want.

 

[RightinNYC]

He adds commentary, so it's not spam. That's more than can be said of other posters around here who just post an article without commentary; leaving us to guess what they want.

Kind of a moot point since he's already been banned, but every sentence in the OP is actually copy-pasted from the article. So not only is he not adding commentary, he's violating the fair-use rules as well.

 

[Crunch]

The rules of legal interpretation adopted by the English courts in the construction of the laws.

Pssssssst...... this isn't England.

The common law of England is not the common law of these states.

Article 2, Section 2, Clauses 2 and 3: Debate in Virginia Ratifying Convention

The common law is gone. The federal courts never applied the common law and even in the state courts it's codified now.

Address by Justice Antonin Scalia - Audio/Video » Publications » The Federalist Society

 

[American]

The powers of Congress extend to every case that is of the least importance.

--Robert Yates; October 18, 1787; Interpreting the proposed Constitution for the United States

So you quote an anti-federalists?

 

[American]

The Heritage Foundation was created by Joseph Coors and its stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies."
The Heritage Foundation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


What's your point?

Too bad you don't see the difference, because I expect someone like you to come in with that. One org promotes policy, the other looks for dirt on opposing candidate.

That's my point. Moveon.org is a dirt machine.

 

[Catawba]

Too bad you don't see the difference, because I expect someone like you to come in with that. One org promotes policy, the other looks for dirt on opposing candidate.

That's my point. Moveon.org is a dirt machine.

As I have shown here, in political bias they are equal.

 

[American]

As I have shown here, in political bias they are equal.

There is nothing wrong at all with bias, it's their mission that matters. Soros is a greek asshole billionaire who set the organzation up find dirt on opposing candidates.

 

[Catawba]

There is nothing wrong at all with bias, it's their mission that matters. Soros is a greek asshole billionaire who set the organzation up find dirt on opposing candidates.

And Joseph Coors an asshole billionaire who created the Heritage Foundation to promote the far right agenda by methods as biased as Moveon's.

What's your point?

"Coors profits funded the Center for Individual Rights (CIR), the law firm notorious for the attack on the University of Michigan's affirmative action programs in the two cases Grutter v Bollinger and Gratz v Bollinger. CIR filed the two U of M cases after successfully striking down affirmative action in the 1996 Hopwood v Texas case. Hopwood was the first anti-affirmative action lawsuit brought in higher education since the 1978 Bakke case, and ushered in the recent decade-long assault on affirmative action in higher education. In 1997, CIR defended California's segregationist Proposition 209 against legal challenges. Prop 209 was Ward Connerly's first anti-affirmative action ballot initiative and caused a sharp drop in underrepresented minority students at the University of California flagship schools, making clear to the nation the unacceptable cost of ending affirmative action.
* William Coors' racism was publicly exposed in a statement he made to black and Mexican-American businessmen in 1984. He told the group that if they thought it was "unfair" that their "ancestors were dragged here in chains against their will…I would urge those of you who feel that way to go back to where your ancestors came from, and you will find out that probably the greatest favor that anybody ever did you was to drag your ancestors over here in chains, and I mean it."

Later in the speech, Coors elaborated on what he saw wrong in Africa: "They lack the intellectual capacity to succeed, and it's taking them down the tubes. You take a country like Rhodesia, where the economy was absolutely booming under white management. Now, black management is in Zimbabwe, and the economy is a disaster, in spite of the fact that there is probably ten times the motivation on the part of the citizens of that country to make it succeed. Lack of intellectual capacity--that has got to be there."
* In December 2001, Joseph Coors gave Ward Connerly $100,000 for his so-called "Racial Privacy Act" (Prop 54), the California ballot initiative that aims to make it illegal for any state institution to collect racial or ethnic data, making it impossible to expose patterns of discrimination.

In January 2002 Joseph Coors, along with John Moores (owner of the San Diego Padres) and Peter Preuss (Republican University of California Regent) co-hosted the kick-off event for Connerly's Racial Privacy Initiative election campaign. By throwing his political weight and money behind Connerly's effort as well as lending his name, Joseph Coors has made clear he is not just a passive supporter of Connerly's attack on civil rights.
* The Coors family gave money to pro-South African apartheid groups.
* When Joseph Coors established the Heritage Foundation in 1974, he chose Roger Pearson, an outspoken anti-Semite and pro-Nazi, as co- editor of the Heritage Foundation publication "Policy Review." Pearson is the author of a racist book called "Race and Civilization," which uses pseudoscience to falsely assert the biological inferiority of black people. Pearson has also edited or co-edited several racist and neo-Nazi magazines, as well as written and organized for the far right-wing Northern League in northern Italy.
* Paul Weyrich, far right wing strategist and Heritage Foundation co-founder, has many ties to Nazi collaborators and neo-fascist organizations. In the 1970s, Weyrich and Joseph Coors made appointments and set up political contacts on Capitol Hill for Franz Joseph Strauss, then the Bavarian head of state, who helped émigré Nazi collaborators. The Free Congress Foundation, co-founded by Joseph Coors and Weyrich, became active in eastern European politics after the Cold War. Figuring prominently in this effort was Weyrich's right-hand man, Laszlo Pasztor, a former leader of the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross organization in Hungary, which had collaborated with Hitler's Reich. After serving two years in prison for his Arrow Cross activities, Pasztor found his way to the United States, where he was instrumental in establishing the ethnic-outreach arm of the Republican National Committee.
* Coors money was directly behind the first formal challenge to affirmative action with the filing of the August 1990 Colorado contracting case, Adarand Constructors, Inc. v Skinner by the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF). The MSLF was set up by Joseph Coors, who was the first Chairman of the Board of Directors and provided the initial start-up money of $250,000.
* On August 1, 2003 a lawsuit was filed against Berkeley, California's historic voluntary school desegregation plan, the first of its kind in the nation, established in 1968. This suit was filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), another Coors-funded right wing law firm/foundation. The PLF has launched this attack as part of a campaign of lawsuits in California, cynically named "Operation End Bias" in an attempt to use the racist Proposition 209 to re-segregate state and local agencies. They also unsuccessfully attempted to end Seattle, Washington's high school integration plan, losing at the state Supreme Court in June 2003. PLF is also known for weighing in against affirmative action in the two University of Michigan cases at the U.S. Supreme Court level with amicus briefs arguing against the programs.
* During the 1964 Civil Rights Act debate in Congress, William Coors campaigned for the failure of the bill. He called the Coors workforce together on paid company time and urged them to contact their Senators to oppose the passage of the bill, lying and telling them that sixty white employees would lose their jobs to black workers if the bill passed.
* Since 1981, Coors money and ideology has been directing Republican presidents. The Heritage Foundation, founded and funded by Joseph Coors and other far right wing supporters, published "Mandate for Leadership," a set of recommendations to the Reagan administration calling for massive reductions in social programs and big tax cuts for the rich. Within his first year in office, Reagan had implemented two-thirds of the several thousand recommendations. He lauded the Heritage Foundation and cemented its fame and political influence. When Reagan was re-elected in 1984, Heritage published "Mandate for Leadership II," which included recommendations repealing affirmative action policies, reducing the enforcement of voting rights and civil rights laws and lessening legal redress for victims of racist actions. Heritage also wrote policy guidelines for Bush Sr. and Bush Jr.
* Heritage has successfully put forward candidates for policy positions in the government starting with Reagan. The Heritage foundation had substantial input into Gingrich's "Contract with America" and recently successfully installed a distinguished fellow from Heritage into the Bush cabinet -- U.S. Labor Department Secretary Elaine Chao.
* Coors money helped sponsor the landmark public education setback, the Cleveland vouchers case. In June 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of public funds ("school vouchers") to pay for private schools, including religious schools. This effort to weaken public education has been led by the Institute for Justice and annually funded by Coors profits.
* Adolph Coors Sr.'s family friend and lawyer owned Castle Rock, the monumental red-rock knob that overlooked the Coors Brewery property, and lent it to the KKK in the 1920's for cross burnings that could be seen from all over Denver."

http://www.bamn.com/boycott-coors/

 

[akyron]

Not one of the men who wrote the Constitution ever said it was supposed to be interpreted according to what every Tom, Dick and Harry believed was common sense.

Yeah! For the people...By the people, We the people....

Utter nonsense.:roll:

 

[RightinNYC]

As I have shown here, in political bias they are equal.

Claimed =/= shown, no matter how much you wish it did.

 

[Catawba]

Claimed =/= shown, no matter how much you wish it did.

At least I provided sources to back up my opinion. Thanks!

 

[akyron]

At least I provided sources to back up my opinion. Thanks!

Blogs are sources now? It took a big of digging to get through that crap and go find the actual article referencing the benefits of school lunch programs.

 

[Catawba]

Blogs are sources now? It took a big of digging to get through that crap and go find the actual article referencing the benefits of school lunch programs.

If you can disprove any of the claims made, please present your evidence. Thanks!