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Is this a joke? No need for discussion, I'm erasing it. Dough007 ( talk) 02:17, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Hindenburg crashing into the Titanic quote
Who was it that likened the Martha Coakley campaign with the Hindenburg crashing into the Titanic?
The idea being of course that things did not go well for her and comparing it to the sinking of the Titanic or the crash of the Hindenburg just wasn't enough of a disaster all by themselves to describe her campaign. So he combined them together!
I thought that it was not only apt but also darn funny. But I don't know who to credit it with. I heard it on the radio.
-- 69.37.91.1 ( talk) 12:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
There should be a section about Coakley's lawsuit challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, Commonwealth vs. United States Department of Health and Human Services —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.43.19.251 ( talk) 23:03, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
There should also be a discussion of Coakley's role in the Amirault/Fells Acres Day Care case, in which it appears Coakley may knowingly have kept an innocent man in jail to further her political career. A letter to the editor of the Boston Herald by Margaret Hagen, a professor of psychology at Boston University and author of the book, Whores of the Court, sums up as follows:
"The cynical manipulation by the Middlesex County prosecutor's office of the child witnesses against Gerald Amirault who are now young adults makes it depressingly clear that the office of prosecutor is intended by its occupants to serve their political ambitions and not the cause of justice ("Amirault victims come out of hiding to keep him jailed," Aug. 3). Martha Coakley and her cohorts and precursors know full well that children who were 3, 4 and 5 years old at the time of the Fells Acres trials some 15 years ago - 15 years filled with constant reassertions by prosecutors and parents of the validity of the original claims - do not, cannot and will not ever be able to have untainted memories of their experiences. Hauling these innocent young people out for a press conference was disgraceful.
These children were victims of politically ambitious and woefully ignorant prosecutors who chose to disregard the coercive interrogations by the inexperienced graduate student assigned to dig the "truth" out of the children, to ignore bizarre claims that defied all rationality (e.g. sodomy with lobsters and knives) and to close their eyes to the utter lack of substantiating physical evidence."
A fuller account is to be found at http://www.examiner.com/x-14537-Albany-CPS-and-Family-Court-Examiner~y2009m9d4-Involvement-in-Amirault-case-makes-Martha-Coakley-unfit-to-replace-Ted-Kennedy-as-Senator
I notice there's no discussion of her leading the Louise Woodward au pair trial as an assistand district attorney in '97. Any reason? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Woodward_case 75.67.195.144 ( talk) 18:50, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Martha_Coakley&diff=next&oldid=316696016
I believe that it has possible merit, seems factual and contains supporting citations. Because it is listed as a "controversy" I thought its merits and possible reinsertion should be discussed first. Also the reason given for the removal is not supported. Thank You. 71.174.4.67 ( talk) 15:46, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Agreed, the section was properly site'd and considering she is aiming to be a senator for the state of massachusetts, her job performance is a more then resonable topic. However, some of the wording and assumptions as to reasons being due to political aspirations were borderline BLP violations and had some weasle words such as "Many speculate" . that has been rectified and the section is back in the article albiet with the facts and not the commentary. - Tracer9999 ( talk) 13:18, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Please be aware, this wiki entry has been edited to remove all negative information, no matter how true it may be. - 24.177.38.231 ( talk)
Yes the seat became 'vacant' when Kennedy passed away. But now it's filled (though temporarily) by Paul G. Kirk. GoodDay ( talk) 16:46, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
So Martha Coakley prosecuted a pedophile priest in 2002...but 7 years earlier she made a deal which allowed that same priest to go free for the same crimes:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/11/23/coakley_details_her_role_in_1995_probation_deal_for_geoghan/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.202.69 ( talk) 23:35, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I was surprised the well-known Middlesex rape case was not present in this section. I added it, citing one of many Boston Globe articles on the subject. It's clearly relevant and should be there. Albertagael ( talk) 21:57, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Somebody with editing rights, please fix:
Third paragraph in this section makes no sense in its current form. Obviously "Both were given..." should be replaced with "The two men charged with planting the signs were given...". Also, this paragraph should be joined with the one above.
There are other problems in this article, too. Last two paragraphs under the "Controversies" section I find confusing. There seems to be missing information.
Overall it would be great to see more information here. I came to this article in hopes of figuring out whether Coakley's views are similar enough to my own, to warrant my financial support (from very limited funds). From this scant background, I can't tell at all and will have to look elsewhere. There should be in particular more info about her recent primary campaign, and her political positions relevant to national politics. Oddly enough, when I follow the link to United States Senate special election in Massachusetts, 2010, and from there the links to her former opponents in the primary, I find lots of info on the political positions of the 2nd- and 3rd-place finishers. But there's nothing on the winner!
I come to Wikipedia when I'm unfamiliar with a candidate, because of its tendency to be objective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.67.234 ( talk) 20:49, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
The section mentioning EPA v. Massachusetts asserts that the EPA has yet to classify greenhouse gases as threatening to public health. This is no longer true: they formally classified the gases as a health threat on December 7, 2009. See here for more info: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/7ebdf4d0b217978b852573590040443a/08d11a451131bca585257685005bf252!OpenDocument
Someone please fix this. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.186.233.18 ( talk) 22:27, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Coakley's lobbying of then-governor Jane Swift to help prevent commutation of Amirault's sentence despite a 5-0 decision in his favor by the commutation board that reviewed his case should perhaps be mentioned, as she effectively put this man, almost certainly innocent(his sister and mother, convicted of the same crimes as he, had their convictions reversed by two different judges), in prison for three more years before he was released on parole, and he still has to be registered as a sex offender. Amirault's case and(to an extent) Coakley's involvement are fairly well known and have been the subject of Pullitzer Prize-winning journalism by Dorothy Rabinowitz. 70.171.243.158 ( talk) 12:07, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
Coakley's page seems to have been boiled down to her "citation needed" controversies, without discussing some significant achievements. Brown's page is very positive, in comparison. Can we get some balance here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.130.63 ( talk) 02:02, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
well, the problem is.. that coakley has alot more controversy going on, given her career/judgement choices and position.. and they are all well cited... and most by major papers like the herald.. so Im not sure which "citation needed" controveries you refer to.. and we can't really just make up controversy for Scott Brown to try to balance it out.. that just isn't there. If you come up with some sourced ones.. feel free to add them.. also feel free to sign up for an account, join the community and add some well sourced positive info..- Tracer9999 ( talk) 02:12, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
I really couldn't care less for the race is Massachusetts. In fact I didn't even know much about the candidates until I looked them up here on Wikipedia. Looking between the two, it is HEAVILY biased. While this article for Coakley is sparse and vague in details, the one for Brown on the other hand is chock full of various details and exploits. I'm disappointed Wikipedia, you should always provide a neutral point of view over political activists cleaning up articles so that random people like myself looking them up get a biased view. -- 66.56.202.168 ( talk) 11:23, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Please be advised editors are removing well sourced controversy information. It is advisable to look at the edit history to see what changes are made and decide for yourself why those changes have occured. If you feel something which complies with wikipedia policies has been deleted by accident or in an attempt to skew the accuracy of this article.. please revert back the edit to include the information which was deleted. thank you - Tracer9999 ( talk) 20:04, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Youtube is not a valid source and subject to editing...media matters is a propoganda political machine and subject to even more editing and obfuscation that is continuously reverted by wikipedia and widely accepted as NOT a VALID SOURCE... your sources are rubbish... try using a major newspaper or something with some credibility.. - Tracer9999 ( talk) 21:01, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Section has become a cesspool of multiple issues, including, and not limited to, blatant violations of Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. J.R. Hercules ( talk) 20:17, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Under controversies, in the part where Coakley was talking about al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the US role in Afghanistan, there are only two sources that actually mention Coakley (apart from a user comment on another): the Media Matters article, and the article from the Boston Herald. The Media Matters article alone claims that she was talking about al-Qaeda rather than the Taliban; the Boston Herald simply says that she was talking about the terrorists (which, under US designation would include both groups). The problem here is that the interpretation used in the article is from Media Matters, which designates itself as a progressive news organization, akin to MoveOn.org or the Huffington Post. I would tend to think that this violates the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view requirement, as Media Matters makes no attempt to claim neutrality. A better way to address this topic would be to list the whole quote, give background and reaction from both sides, and let readers make up their own minds. Kkeurope ( talk) 21:16, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
yes, media matters is a political spin machine that is not a valid source and routinely reverted by wikipedia... even the auto revert bots have it in thier list.. - Tracer9999 ( talk) 21:24, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
While I understand other stuff exists argument, what I was pondering was while this article seems so lopsided against the person (I.E. a controversy section which is one of the largest sections in the article.) while her opponent's article seems to have no controversy section or controversies woven into the article? What I would like to suggest is to heavily pair down the controversy section or remove it all together. Maybe we could also take some of the more relevant criticisms and move them into the appropriate sections instead of pulling them out into a separate section. Brothejr ( talk) 23:26, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
again, removing factual information because we cant find enough controversy on the opponent is hardly the answer.. we all make choices in life. When you are in a position of power and asking the people to vote for you.. they become scrutinized... I am open for discussion and consensus as to wether to merge them into the article as long as they are not "paired down" - Tracer9999 ( talk) 23:43, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Brothejr, Please get concensus before removing well sourced information- Tracer9999 ( talk) 00:40, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Brown has been embroiled in at least four different controversies. He was an admitted shoplifter in his youth, he slurred a lesbian Democrat as "not normal", he quoted profanities verbatim from student Facebook postings during a speech to other students, and he appeared nude in Cosmo. All four of those things are mentioned clearly and objectively in his article. I see no double standards here. Mask of Picnic ( talk) 02:24, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
If there is relevant sourced information relating to Scott Brown it should be included on his page. The absence of that information there does not justify the removal of relevant sourced information here (i.e. vandalism). Please refrain from removing sourced relevant information from this page, something I have seen several people here do. If you don't think it's relevant to a certain section, the correct response is to create a new section, not to remove the sourced information.-- Cdogsimmons ( talk) 16:28, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
As the reference is a podcast without time marks, this is what was said about one-third of the way in (after discussion about the earlier amendment, they moved on to their current issue positions on the rights of rape victims):
The section about the journalist who was pushed seems entirely irrelevant to me as even the victim seems to have admitted Coakley most likely did not see the event occur. I'll wait an hour to hear from anyone else who wants to weigh in. Jacotto ( talk) 16:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't know if this is already being done or not, but shouldn't there be some kind of tag at the top of the article citing this person's relationship with a significant current event? 74.107.120.44 ( talk) 17:53, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
I stuck this sentence in the lede, and User:ChildofMidnight removed:
I can understand knee-jerk reluctance on phrasings like this, but this case it's merited, and easily sourced to the vast tide of editorials published this morning. A lede should summarize the most important facts about a person, and this was no ordinary election loss. It's pretty important to note the effect was unusual. By way of example, George Allen (U.S. politician) went from "potential 2008 presidential candidate" to "laughingstock" after losing an "easy" Senate race in Virginia and his macaca moment. The lede mentions this notoriety (actually not enough, IMHO, but it does go into it).
CoM then says that this is a simplification of the election. But this is the article on *Coakley* not the special election, therefore the indisputable fact that Coakley was given personal blame for a bad campaign is quite relevant. Basically, the right-wing spin is that national issues predominated; the left-wing spin is to blame it all on Coakley; and which one is more "true" is totally irrelevant. In other words, if God came down and told us that the right-wing version was 100% correct, it wouldn't change the fact that Coakley's name in the Democratic party is now mud and she'll forever be remembered as the person who managed to lose Kennedy's seat.
Anyway, I'm not wedded to the above wording, but I do think something along these lines should be in the lede. "Coakley was heavily criticized for her campaign, especially after the results became official?" Open to suggestions here. SnowFire ( talk) 19:55, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Coakley said that the voting age should be lowered. http://lowerthevote.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/three-massachusetts-senator-candidates-support-lower-voting-age When I add "Category:Youth rights individuals" on the page, please leave it there. sbrianhicks ( talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.234.196.0 ( talk) 22:36, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
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