Opposition research

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Contents

Opposition Research Contest

Click here for rules and prizes!


Opposition Talking Points

Things we're hearing from Republicans, and could be hearing alot more.

  • "Professional Pirate"

Orrin Hatch

Campaign Contributions

Divine Strake

  • We need an article quoting Hatch saying Divine Strake is safe. I found a lot of news articles hinting that he previously took that position, but I've not found one actually quoting or stating outright that he did.

Federal Control

  • It might not just be music Orrin is searching your computer for. Taken from a 1976 Deseret News. File:Porn.pdf

Flag Burning

From Think Progress comes a video of Hatch speaking of the failed Amendment to ban flag burning, "I was asked this afternoon by a large body of media: Is this the most important thing the Senate could be doing at this time? I can tell you: You’re darned right it is."

General

There are themes of liberty and privacy in your short position summary. Could not an interesting contrast be developed between these ideals and Hatch's positions on various issues. A constitutional amendment to ban flag burning is all about control, not of real things, but of symbols. What is the point of that? And is not Hatch willing at every turn to mandate crippling gadgets in our technology? Freedom versus control might be an interesting theme for some worthwhile mildly negative campaign material.

Henry Harpending, who moved here from the East thinking he was a right winger, because in the East it is the genteel left that wants to control people. I have learned that in the West the moralizing right wants to control people, and now I think I am a left winger. My politics have not changed, just the place I live.

Hatch was promoting some bill, I can't remember the name, which would literally have authorized record companies to break into your computer remotely -- without any government involvement, and without notifying you -- to search for unauthorized copies of music, and furthermore would have authorized the record companies to delete files on your computer if they found them! This is well beyond the pale. Find the name of the bill and saddle Hatch with it, big time. That was an *evil* bill. --Nathanael Nerode

Hatch has been in Washington that he is really out of touch with Utah. Over the years it seems that his support has grown, but that he has made more and more enemies. I really think the only reason anyone votes for him is because his name is really familiar!

Points from the Wikipedia article:

  • Was against the Fair Housing Act, and worked to oppose anti-discrimination efforts.
  • Proposed that copyright owners be able to destroy people's personal computer equipment and information if they download files off the internet. Was forced to withdraw this very poor suggestion. [2]
  • Tried again a year later with the INDUCE Act, to outlaw use of copying tools by people in order to help Big Media Corporations to control the Internet.
  • Won his original seat on the idea of creating term limits, claiming that incumbents lose touch with their constituents. Yet today Hatch has been around longer than the democrat he replaced.
  • Confuses Iraq and Vietnam

From the talk page on the Wikipedia article:

  • Changes positions on technology issues after being lobbied by corporations
  • Has poor record on the environment
  • Opposes civil rights
  • Wishes to impose his religious views on all of America
  • Makes decisions on technology without having a firmly grounded understanding of it
  • Called his anti-war protesting constituents "Nut cakes" [3]

From issues2000.org:

  • Anti-abortion, yet pro-stem cell research
  • Says he's for a balanced budget, but puts high priority on all spending.
  • Favors school prayer and flag protection
  • Rating system should be followed for movies, games, and music
  • Favors cell phone wiretapping
  • Opposed to efforts to help minorities
  • Favors government interference in people's sex lives and marriage
  • ACLU rates him as having an "anti-civil rights voting record"
  • US COC rates him as having a 100% pro-business voting record
  • Wishes to have more prisons and put more juveniles in jail
  • CURE rates his voting record as anti-rehabilitation
  • Voting favors corporations in the courts
  • Solution to drug problem is to put more juveniles in jail
  • Favors school prayer and school vouchers.
  • NEA rates his voting as "anti-public education". Apparently he would love to eliminate public education in favor of Federally-supported Church Schools.
  • Opposed to working with the international community on environmental standards like the Kyoto Accords.
  • Supports ANWR drilling
  • Opposes funding alternative renewable and solar energy
  • Supports building nuclear waste repositories
  • Favors building roads over the National Forests
  • Opposed to protecting fragile desert environments
  • Favors the US policing Europe
  • Voted in favor of allowing Communist China to sell weapons
  • Favors capping foreign aid
  • Supports NAFTA, GATT, WTO, Fast-Track
  • Supported allowing China into WTO
  • Promotes legislation that enables companies to offshore American jobs
  • Opposes campaign finance reform
  • Supports campaign donations from corporations and lobbyists
  • Supports stricter gun law enforcement, including mental health check and throwing more juveniles in jail
  • ...Yet voted against background checks at gun shows
  • Against enabling people to get cheap drugs from Canada
  • Against allowing patients ability to punish abusive HMOs
  • Favors Tobacco industry and opposes restrictions on them
  • APHA rated his voting record 100% anti-public health
  • Supports great increases in defense spending
  • Favors nuke tests, secret CIA $$
  • SANE rated him 100% pro-military
  • Voted to kill increases in the minimum wage
  • Supports bringing in immigrants as cheap labor
  • AFL-CIO rates his voting record 100% anti-labor
  • Favors raising retirement age
  • ARA rates his voting record 100% anti-senior
  • Favors sales taxes and getting rid of the IRS
  • Favors cutting taxes, but also favors massive spending increases, driving us deeper into debt.
  • Says he thinks government should keep its mitts off the internet, but:
    • Favors government helping corporations to take domains from ordinary people due to trademarks
    • Favors government regulation of what can be sold online
  • Favored invasion of Iraq, although admits Iraq was not developing its nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons programs.

In The News & On The Web

  • Anti-polygamy group criticizes Utah AG's committee AZCentral.com, May 22, 2006, Orrin Hatch is blasted for his support of The Safety Net Committee, which Tapestry Against Polygamy says isn't doing it's job to help women leave polygamous lifestyles. Hatch is also blasted for fli-flopping on the issue of polygamy.
  • From the New York Times: "DIVISIVE WORDS: THE REPUBLICANS; Senators See Little Reason For Altered Stance on Race," by DAVID FIRESTONE, Washington, December 22, 2002

"A day before they will elect Bill Frist of Tennessee their new leader, several Republican senators said today that despite the furor over Trent Lott's racially tinged remarks, they saw little need for their party to change its agenda on some specific issues of interest to African-Americans.

"In appearances on Sunday television news programs, four senators said they would support the nomination of Judge Charles W. Pickering Sr. to the federal appeals court in New Orleans. Judge Pickering was rejected in March by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, in part because of his record on racial matters in Mississippi, his home state. The judge's principal patron in the Senate was Mr. Lott, who resigned as Republican leader last week because of his comments lamenting Strom Thurmond's loss as a segregationist candidate for president in 1948...

"Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who will become the Judiciary Committee chairman next month, said today on ABC's "This Week" program that Judge Pickering deserved renomination by President Bush, but that he was not sure the nomination would be approved.

"'I think Judge Pickering is an excellent judge,' Mr. Hatch said. 'I think he has excellent credentials. I think he stood up when he should have stood up. He was one of those who brought African-Americans into the Republican Party and into the party leadership. I think there's very little that you can really criticize against Judge Pickering other than, according to some Democrats, he's a white male from Mississippi'...

"Throughout the debate on Mr. Lott, many Republicans said their party needed to do more on civil rights to convince blacks that Mr. Lott's sentiments were not representative."

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Two former Republican staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee may have broken the law when they downloaded thousands of computer files with information about Democratic strategies in the partisan tug-of-war over judicial nominations, according to the results of an investigation by the Senate sergeant-at-arms released Thursday.

"Some committee Democrats are calling for a special counsel to investigate the breach, and its Republican chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who employed the staffers, said 'odds are' that the matter may be referred to prosecutors.

"'I am mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files occurred,' Hatch said. 'There is no excuse to justify these improper actions.' ...

"Hatch stopped short of calling the staffers' actions criminal, but the committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, said their actions amounted to theft.

"'There is much in the report that is new, it's incriminating, it's revealing about the stealing of these computer files,' he said. 'The evidence unequivocally confirms that some Republican staff conspired to spy on and steal from their Democratic colleagues.'

"'I feel it is not difficult to conclude that this was criminal.'

Hatch said 'it is not a foregone conclusion that this will go to a prosecutor ... but odds are it will.'"


"At a two-day conference on the future of digital music that pitted such parties as Napster and the Recording Industry Association of America against each other in panel discussions, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, pledged to use his position to keep the Internet open for the benefit of fans and artists.

"'I do not think it is any benefit for artists or fans to have all the new, wide distribution channels in the online world controlled by those who have controlled the old, narrower ones,' Hatch said, to spirited shouts and applause from a crowd of students in a Georgetown University hall. 'This is especially true if they achieve that control by leveraging their dominance in content or conduit space in an anticompetitive way to control the new, independent music services that are attempting to enhance the consumer's experience of music.' ...

"But Hatch suggested that Congress might look again at copyright issues, to ensure that dominant companies don't violate antitrust laws in an effort to squelch new technologies.

"Hatch, who moonlights as a singer/songwriter of inspirational music, said he believes it should be legally possible to offer online file-sharing distribution methods, such as those offered by the court-embattled Napster service, to consumers. He also said he believes creators should be paid for the sale or use of their copyrighted works. He praised experimental projects that license music to such services and offer people legal access to music through paid subscriptions, but said more options need to be available. Entertainment conglomerates need to move more quickly to respond to demand, he said."


"Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy said 'Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, who supports the gay-marriage ban, has expressed support for polygamists in his home state of Utah.' 'I never said that,' Hatch responded. 'I know some (polygamists) that are very sincere. ... Don't accuse me of wanting to have polygamy.'"...

"So Orrin 'knows people who are polygamists' (i.e. criminals), and yet refuses to report them to the legal authorities -- and this despite his complaint that he can only enforce the laws if he has 'substantiated claims'. Can't he substantiate his own claims?"...

"It should also be noted that Hatch's indignant opposition to Gays and Gay Marriage are completely without merit coming from a man who would not 'sit here and judge anybody just because they live differently than me.'"


"Sen. Orrin Hatch, (R) Utah: 'What impact do those oil and gas contributions have in getting favorable legislation passed for them? Not very much.'"

"We followed the money for Utah's Congressmen and found campaign cash from oil and gas ranks as a top twenty contributor for each, including 51-thousand dollars for Senator Hatch."

"Dating back to 1989, the watchdog group finds impressive career totals approaching 200-thousand dollars for each Utah Senator."

Polygamy / Same-Sex Marriage

"Leahy raised Hatch's past comments on the issue of plural marriage during a debate on whether a constitutional amendment aimed at banning same-sex marriage should also prohibit polygamous unions." [..] "'[Hatch] says he knows a number of those polygamists in Utah, says they're fine people,' Leahy said."

"Hatch took exception, saying he hadn't made such statements. But Leahy countered that Hatch has been quoted saying as much in past news reports."

Utah

  • Orrin Hatch debated Sen. Moss and told him that Utah's "got to get people back there (in Congress) who speak for Utah, not the big eastern establishment." File:Debate.pdf

Taxes

  • Senator Hatch and his colleagues think they can spend without taxing. This only creates debt. Is this a good thing? Let's see what Orrin had to say about debt in another debate with Frank Moss. File:Debt Debate.pdf

Time in Office

  • Orrin was born in Pittsburgh in 1934. He lived there until he moved to Utah in 1969. He was elected Senator in 1976 and has remained one ever since. [5] So, he lived in Pennsylvania for 35 years, DC for 30 years and Utah for seven years. I wonder how he can say he represents Utah and not the eastern coast.

Voting Record

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