I’ve never been a fan of New Hampshire’s senior senator, Judd Gregg. He’s the titular head of the “arrogant rich” wing of the GOP here in Cow Hampshire. He’s the son of a former governor, and was a tax lawyer for a couple of years before he started living off the public payroll in 1978, when he was elected to the Executive Council. From there he went to Congressman, to Governor, and finally the Senate in 1992.
The one thing I remember most about his political career was when he was in a fight with a Democrat named John Hoar, and cracked that “he was well-named.” Gregg won re-election last November for his third term in the Senate, but he did it without my vote — I voted for Doris “Granny D” Haddock, the long-time liberal activist who, at 89, walked across the country in a stunt to promote campaign finance reform. I knew it was a waste (Gregg won with 66% of the vote), but I just can’t stand the guy.
This morning, I have new reason for loathing him. While driving to the Capitol last week, Gregg stopped to gas up his car. On a whim, he also bought $20.00 worth of Powerball Easy Picks. And wouldn’t you know it — the guy who’s worth almost $2,000,000 just added another $853,492 to that total. ($500,000 after taxes.) Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out which bills will get paid this week, and which I need to negotiate a smidgen more time on.
I suppose I should count my blessings. At least Gregg is better than his former colleague, Bob Smith, or either of the idiots from Massachusetts.
Adn here we have a perfect example of what the kids call “playa hatin’.” 😉
He should give the dough to the folks that lost their homes in last week’s floods.
J, I’ll hop a flight and we’ll mug him next time he stops for gas. You in?
Isn’t the proper quote, “The rich get richer and the poor get laid.”?
Not that I’m a big Annie fan or anything, but when it’s stated that way, I always felt it at least gave the poor folks something to positive to think about.
I would like to say that if in his position, I would absolutely keep the money for myself. However, not having lived a life of privilege…
I would say, without doubt, that he ought to give a large portion of it to NH flood victims. Or at least invest it in some reecovery effort.
Call me skeptical, but I’m not counting on NH seeing a penny of that money.
A mere $2 mil hardly qualifies as rich anymore and the poor who work on improving their situation don’t stay poor. In today’s dollars Henry Ford, Andew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and a few others were every bit as rich as Bill Gates is today. The rich aren’t getting richer, they’re maintaining. The poor are living a lot better than they ever did.
Republicans are the real party of envy, apparently.
I thought Judd Gregg said that he would give the check to his father’s foundation.
‘He should give the dough to the folks that lost their homes in last week’s floods. ‘
He should do whatever he wants with it. It’s his money.
I need to win the lottery just to cover my electric bill. 577 last month. Blech.
What are you guys, a bunch of Democrats?
He came by his money honestly, he can do with it what he wants. If he wants to buy lap dances, lap dances it is (how many can he get for $500,000?).
And for all of those who feel entitled to tell him what to do with his money because you have less than he does, remember that there are people who make less than you… and do you want them staking an even bigger claim on your money than is now the case?
Judd Gump will no doubt donate the money to his favorite charity. I can’t understand how he has ever made it in NH.
Maybe he can spend it in Mass.
The republican party is the party for the very few most wealthy, misleading others to support it.
Winning the lottery is not wrong – there are a thousand policies that are.
I just boggle when I see people on the right who are not well off, and bite my tongue before name-calling.
“If he wants to buy lap dances, lap dances it is (how many can he get for $500,000?).”
Two nights’ worth, according to this story in the news today:
http://www.comcast.net/news/index.jsp?cat=GENERAL&fn=/2005/10/21/246971.html
Yes Dudd Gregg won ove 800,000 dollars but the real story is. After putting his check in the bank, he went to the senate and voted against a bill that would help the poor this winter with fuel assistance. There my fellow americans is the real story. He was the only new england senator to vote that way
Bullwinkle: “The rich aren’t getting richer, they’re maintaining. The poor are living a lot better than they ever did.”
Sorry, that’s just not true. The percentage of people under the official poverty level is increasing while the wealth of the top 1 or 2% is going through the roof. Between 1993 and 2000, the poverty rate dropped every year until it hit a 27-year low. Since 2001, it has been rising every year.
The middle-class is in the process of being wiped out.
I just boggle when I see people on the right who are not well off, and bite my tongue before name-calling.
How about when you see rich liberals?
It’s a wonder you still have a tongue.
“How about when you see rich liberals?
It’s a wonder you still have a tongue.”
What’s wrong with rich liberals? They’re people who have some empathy for fellow human beings and want the world to offer opportunity to more people, not just themselves. They’re ‘increase the size of the pie, not just the size of my slice’ people.
The right-wing wealthy are the ones who realize the less others have, the more their share is.
That’s the norm of humans in history, a few very well off and most poor.
Liberals – the US pretty much 1932 – 1979 – built the large, prosperous middle class.
(I know Eisenhower and Nixon are in that period. If you want to return to Eisenhower’s policies, nearly all democrats would agree; the right wing is utterly opposed to them; and Nixon’s economic policies were far to the left of today’s in ways as well. He couldn’t turn 180 after decades.).
I’m from Nude Hampster too and I love Judd Gregg. Da bitch sure knows how to bring the pork into the state. I try to overlook the fact he is a Bush ass kisser.
“The right-wing wealthy are the ones who realize the less others have, the more their share is.”
Wealth, like stupidity, is not a zero-sum game.
And just because I may be poor, I resent the idea that I should advocate theft.
Hmmmm.
Frankly reading the stuff liberals write is hugely amusing to me. It’s hard sometimes to differentiate between people mocking liberals, and liberals being liberals.
Either way; it’s funny as hell.
“And just because I may be poor, I resent the idea that I should advocate theft.”
This reflects an extreme naivete about how the world works, and an acceptance of the indocrtination by the right into the imaginary boogey-man of democrats as running around taking money just to get equal outcomes.
The problem is, trying to get the right to think instead of to parrot the ideology is like trying to get the followers of Do to rationally discuss their belief that there’s a seat on the comet waiting for them. It’s not a rational belief process; the right just sees the ‘thieves’.
If it were possible for them to be more rational, they might begin to be able to ask what really does a couple of good things: makes the country stronger, and accomplishes the moral good of increased prosperity across more people.
Without the government, society tends to fall into a far from optimal setup, with a few powerful and wealthy hanging onto their privilege, and most people very badly off, in part to keep them too weak to oppose power.
You can see an American version of this in our gilded age. Americans working in bare survival conditions much of the time, with children working long six-day workweeks in dangerous conditions, without much power for the workers – and hardly the most productive setup for society.
It was only government that could and did step in to improve things – to free children for education which would make them more productive – and wealthier – in the long run, rather than education being only for the few wealthy children, only government that could fix the problems in the workplace with the imbalance of power between workers and owners – changes which the right fails to understand and dismisses the way they got fixed.
Under democrats/liberal orientations domestically from 1932-1970, the US had enormous growth in its economy, its technology, its people being more educated and prosperous across the board, and other good things, because of the government policies, such as the spending on education.
Since the year Regan was elected – 1980 to now – real wages for over 90% of Americans have been flat or gone down, wealth concentration has increased, the percentage of Americans is increasing under Bush (every year, while declining under Clinton every year), and so on.
Our nation’s economy is going into huge debt under Reagan/Bush/Bush with a brief window of balancing the budget under Clinton. There will be a price to pay for this, a huge one which forces conservatives to look the other way to maintian their brainwashed faith in their ‘leadership’.
The right are rabidly destroying the country in the belief they are helping it – it’s tragic.
It reminds me of watching good people give money to a thief like Pat Robertson – you feel badly for them, but the truth helps, and the truth here is how misguided the non-wealthy people on the right are. Eventually, the way their leaders’ propaganda doesn’t hold up may sink in. It has for some.
So according to Craig, people freely giving money they earned to Pat Robertson is bad, because Craig disagrees with Pat Robertson. But the government taking money that I earned at the point of a gun is okay, because Craig likes the government.
Do you see from this, Craig, why I might think you a pompous shithead, or do I have to draw you a picture?
And to save you the hysteria, I am an agnostic and don’t like Robertson, but he doesn’t force anyone to give him a dime, so he may be a fraud, a liar, or a charlatan, but he is not a thief.
Well, B Moe, I’d say you are foolish, and lack vocabulary, and speak in ignorance.
Pat Robertson is a crook. No, he doesn’t force people to give to him at the point of a gun; rather, he lies to people. Go read up some time on his businesses in Africa mining, for which he solicited funds for aircraft under the guise of aid for the starving and Africa – and used the planes for his own gain.
So, people thinking they’re giving for helping others are instead, unwittingly, enriching him.
As for the government – for the government to take your money in taxes requires it to be the law, which means that most of the country has decided that the causes justifies it. It’s a little something called “democracy” you seem to hate.
That’s how society works – a compromise between the anarchy that’s bad for everyone, and the corrupt efficiencies of a tyrant: in the middle lies the rule of the people, not meaning every citizen has to agree, but giving the majority some power to run things.
You support some unworkable, naive alternative since you oppose the democratic taxation we have.
The problem now is that some crooks have gained the public offices, and are enriching themselves and their few top backers at the public’s expense: it’s a disaster for the nation.
Our system works well generally: there are all kinds of spending which serves the public good and should be done through taxation (for example, Eisenhower’s building of the interstate highway). Under your position, they wouldn’t have been built.
What we need now is for people to put responsible officials who will tax neither too little nor too much back in office, officials who will watch for the public good – not only their own and put the government up for sale to the special interests – right-wing ideolgues and special business interests currently – for our country to thrive, as it has under liberal democratic leaders generally.
But you’re too locked into simplistic, phony fears of any taxes to appreciate what really works.
I am not going to try to argue with misinterpretations and inuendo. If you want to apply the strict literalism you advocate in foreign intelligence analysis to my posts, and respond in kind, I might reconsider.
Hhhhmmmm… So jealousy is now a legit reason to dislike someone ? Interesting.