Talk:Richard Pombo

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Contents

[edit] Wikipedia vandalism?

Did Richard Plombo direct congressional staffers to remove information from his biography in Wikipedia, such as his connections with Abramoff, as some have charged? Where could I learn more about this issue? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.101.70.32 (talk • contribs)

We know for sure that someone inside the House of Representatives edited this article, removing references to possible ties to Abramoff and other politically damaging items. You can see the edit history for yourself, the IP of the House is 143.231.249.141. For more up-to-date information, see Wikipedia:Congressional Staffer Edits and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/United States Congress. Mushroom (Talk) 11:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

First the warning at the top of this page should be at the top of the article. Leading by informing of the bias danger in edits would both alert readers to exercise more critcal examination of what they read in the article and possibly discourage activists from demeaning Wikipedia's community ethic.

Abramhoff is an inappropriate entry as it is too new, too uncertain and not "ripe" for inclusion yet.

Note recent edits. Any connection to this? ---J.Smith 22:06, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-Partisan?

How can the below "Beyond (Tom) Delay" be considered non-partisan?

"In 2005, Richard Pombo's activities on behalf of various clients of lobbyist Jack Abramoff came under scrutiny. In December 2005, the non-partisan web sites www.beyonddelay.org and www.jackinthebox.org list Pombo as one of the 13 most corrupt politicians in Congress."

This is not in keeping with a NPOV and was posted by an anon user.

(Note: previous poster neglected to sign at this point.)


The site in question focuses on a report that does label both Republicans (eleven) and Democrats (two) on their list of "most corrupt polticians". This lends at least some support to the idea that the site is not strictly partisan, although it may or may not include some level of partisan bias. The choice of De Lay in particular for the title of the site does not, in my opinion, necessarily evidence bias so much as his increased visibility as the former House Majority Leader. Anyway, I'm not deeply familiar enough with the site to give a strong point of view on the question of any level of partisan bias it may have, but a quick review of the site does not, to me, make it clear that the site is partisan in nature. --Joe Decker 23:41, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-environmentalism

Pombo's anti-environmentalism, or "environmental conservatism" as I think some would rather call it, is surely one of his most interesting, if controversial, features. Shouldn't the article have more than one sentence on the subject? I added a link to a Wall Street Journal article relating some of his more wacky ideas (like getting rid of 15 national parks to save money) and his rise in prominence with industry, perhaps the information contained in the article would be a good starting point for an addition to this article? - Jersyko talk 18:27, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Abramoff-investigation

I moved a sentence out from the McCloskey paragraph that was unrelated to McCloskey, that text stated that Pombo was under investigation in the Abramoff scandal. I didn't see a source for this information, however, and I'm open to the idea that there's no evidence for the claim of an investigation. The sentence also feels redundant-in-part with what are now the preceeding sentences, and should perhaps be edited on that grounds. --Joe Decker 23:31, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of taxpayer money

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/13/pombo-rv-vacation/

[edit] CREW

I removed the sentence "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released a report in January 2006 naming Pombo as one of the ten most corrupt members of the House of Representatives." from the leading paragraph of this article, for a couple reasons. (1) This is only an opinion from a group (CREW) with a self-described "progressive" ideology - see wikipedia entry on CREW. (2) It's blatantly partisan and editorial. (3) The exact same sentence already appears quite appropriately in the section "Controversy and Criticism." And no, before anyone asks, I have no connection to Richard Pombo, or any politician, for that matter. 04:33, 29 August 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.79.118.150 (talk • contribs)

Agreed, it belongs in a lower section, where it already is. John Broughton 13:58, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bias

Guys, this whole article is biased. I'm new to wikipedia and don't know how to tag it in some way, but please, try to keep the blatant partisanship out of the website. 16:52, 20 September 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.36.59.237 (talk • contribs) .

Welcome to wikipedia. A couple of suggestions: read Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages and Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines (new sections/comments go at the bottom of pages).
As for your comment about bias, one of the better ways to address that is for you to mention specific paragraphs, sentences, or wording that seems to you biased or partisan, and get comments from others, here. John Broughton 17:41, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree with 128.36.59.237. It would be too tedious to point out "specific paragraphs, sentences, or wording" that contribute to bias; that would require going through just about all of the article. The structure of the entire article is biased, designed to maximize attention around allegations made against the congressman to portray him in a negative light. 172 | Talk 23:08, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Fine, don't list ALL examples. Why don't you start with (say) the first three to five that you come upon? (And as far as "structure" being a problem, that's a rather general statement - again, being specific really is helpful in getting other editors to understand your concerns.) John Broughton | Talk 23:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
I am in the process of going through and keeping a list of the biases. I will post the first few once I find them. I agree with 128.36.59.237, the whole tone of the article seems biased. P3net 01:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of text from Wikipedia article

The following text was removed by 172 | Talk with the edit summary this material was irrelevant in the Norm Coleman and Marty Meehan articles and it is irrelevant here. I don't have particularly strong feelings about whether it should or should not be in the article, but I want to note it here in any case. John Broughton | Talk 23:32, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Pombo's staff has attempted to excise critical information regarding his ties to Abramoff from Wikipedia. [1] According to High Country News, as reported by the Argus, a newspaper in California's East Bay area, this was not just an attempt, but an actual "scrubbing/sanitizing" of his Wiki entry, done during the 2006 Super Bowl weekend.
That's neither here nor there. I did not deny it happened. It's just completely irrelevant in an article about members of the U.S. House. Any member of congress does much more notable stuff than editing a Wikipedia entry just about any day. 172 | Talk 02:43, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Separate article for controversies?

Anyone think it is time to fork the controversy section to its own article? Arbusto 23:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Someone else might; I don't. The norm is to spin off a controversy when it's big enough for its own article; that's not the same thing as spinning off a set of (largely) unrelated controversies into a single article. I don't know of any case where such was done, for what that's worth; I know of a lot of articles with large sections about varied controversies. John Broughton | Talk 00:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely not. At least, not yet. Argyrios 21:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Note to 69.249.253.211

Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia under the three-revert rule, which states that nobody may revert a single page more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the effect of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you.