Fw: Asbestos Lawsuits: Which Republican is Misleading?

----- Original Message -----
From: "FactCheck.org" <subscriberservices@factcheck.org>
To: <miriam@panix.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 5:27 PM
Subject: Asbestos Lawsuits: Which Republican is Misleading?

Asbestos Lawsuits: Which Republican is Misleading?

Sen. Specter attacks former House Republican Leader Armey as "just another
paid lobbyist spreading disinformation" about his asbestos bill. Neither is
telling the real story.

Summary

In ads run in several states, former House Republican Leader Dick Armey
attacks a bipartisan bill sponsored by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and others
to reform the mess created by asbestos litigation.

Armey calls the bill "a new threat to your pocketbook," which it isn't. And
he suggests that the bill is a giveaway to trial lawyers, when the opposite
is true.

Specter counter-attacked with a New York Times opinion piece suggesting that
he wasn't proposing a new tax, though in fact he is.

Specter was closer to the mark when he called Armey "just another paid
lobbyist spreading disinformation." Armey's lobbying firm received $920,000
last year from a British insurance company that was opposing parts of
Specter's bill. In the ads, Armey was speaking as the president of a
nonprofit advocacy group, FreedomWorks, formed last year in a merger between
the Republican-leaning, free-enterprise groups Citizens for a Sound Economy
and Empower America.

Click the link below for the full article:

http://www.factcheck.org/article329m.html

If the link does not work, copy and paste this link into your browser and
hit "ENTER":

http://www.factcheck.org/article329m.html

If you wish to un-subscribe, please copy and paste the following link into
your browser and hit "RETURN":
http://www.factcheck.org/list/maillist/unsubscribe.php?mail=miriam@panix.com&id=22