Talk:Andy Harris (politician)

'positions' section problematic

Hi, I don't know Harris so I don't feel I can fix this myself, although I tried to help out with the first paragraph. I think it is enough to state that Harris strongly opposes gay marriage and move on. The references to bestiality and polyamory are unnecessary. Please do not re-add them.

Also the entire article on Harris's political positions is about three matters he opposes (gay marriage, eminent domain, public funds related to pornography). The porn section is much too long, unless Harris played a special role in the incident in question and it was particularly notable and relevant to an understanding of Harris and his career, in which case perhaps it deserves its own section.

Were there other notable stances Harris took on political issues during his 10-yr state senate career? Hopefully someone can strengthen the section, thanks. Rufusgriffin (talk) 13:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

MD degree

the school of hygiene and public health doesn't confer the M.D., the school of medicine does.also, the krieger school of arts and sciences does not give a b.s., but rather a b.a. i have made the necessary changes.Toyokuni3 (talk) 16:55, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

subsequent research has shown i was wrong about krieger, but right, of course, about school of medicine.Toyokuni3 (talk) 20:07, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Eminent Domain Bill

i think a reader might like to know if the bill passed.Toyokuni3 (talk) 17:18, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

edits

the fact that an anon IP added the info means nothing; you need to learn how to line-item delete...take off the part about being "extreme" and then go find a link that supports the LCV ranking. WillC (talk) 15:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

The guidelines regarding biographies of living persons are more stringent than simple POV. Controversial and uncited edits are supposed to be deleted when found by editors (see the top of this talk page). It is not the responsibility of editors who catch this mistake to correct the error. I don't necessarily agree that these edits are POV as some comments state, but it does not mean they shouldn't have been deleted. Anyone who would like to keep the information should justify their inclusion by finding citations and adding them to the article. Karma Heretic (talk) 16:13, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Dates

the dates in the infobox need clarification. they seem to have him leaving the senate in 2003. then the body goes on to say he was minority whip from 2003-2006!? also in what sense was he suceeded by alan kittleman?Toyokuni3 (talk) 00:39, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know how it could be clearer. He is now the member for the 7th district. He's been there since 2003. Before that, from '99 to '03 he was the member for the 9th district. In '03 the new member for that seat was Kittleman. Capisce? -- Zsero (talk) 05:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The information could be clearer. Your comments as I had initially read it seemed acrimonious, though I don't mean to imply that you meant for it to sound that way. Still, it would help to focus on how the information has been presented in the article.

For instance, the box regarding the 7th district does not contain as much information as for the 9th district directly below it. It just says he "assumed office" in the 7th. Is this accurate? Was there an election? Did he take over from somebody else? Where can we get info to fill this out? --Karma Heretic (talk) 15:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The article says he was elected to the 7th district in the general election in 2002, defeating Diane DeCarlo. We should probably have the name of the previous member for the 7th district, but I'm too busy right now to look it up. Maybe tomorrow night. -- Zsero (talk) 20:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Citation problem

The citation used for a large about of the bio is a link that uses this Wikipedia article as its source. This is obviously not acceptable. Does anyone have the original source? I am placing a tag on the page until this is addressed.--Karma Heretic (talk) 15:31, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the citation I am referring to is ref name = harris bio, [2]. The page is here --Karma Heretic (talk) 15:42, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Turns out that problem was only introduced yesterday, by this edit, which not only cited the bad source but stepped on an existing ref name. I have to AGF and assume the editor didn't realise what effect this would have. I've fixed it. -- Zsero (talk) 20:26, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah, good catch. I could have sworn that I had looked at the reference before and it was legitimate. That explains what happened. Thanks for fixing it. --Karma Heretic (talk) 16:57, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Controversies

This section seems really weak: In very early February, 2012, During a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment on Feb. 1, documentary filmmaker Josh Fox, director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Gasland was taken into custody by United States Capitol Police, along with his crew, after Republicans objected to their presence, according to Democratic sources present at the hearing. The meeting of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment had been taking place in Room 2318 of the Rayburn Building. Harris is chairman of the panel.

He's just the chairman of the panel, how does this really rise to the level of controversial again?

User: Anonymous Coward — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.76.96.149 (talk) 13:03, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Seconded. This is irrelevant and appears to be a shameless plug for Josh Fox/Gasland. This, absolutely, needs to be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Levinite (talk • contribs) 15:22, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Not objective

I'm not a Harris fan -- au contraire -- but when I read this I found it not to be encyclopedic here:

"Shortly after his success in blocking the District voters' will, several media outlets revealed a serious conflict of interest involved in his stance on marijuana reform. It came to light that Harris' third largest campaign donor is the pharmaceutical corporation Emergent BioSolutions, based in Rockville, Maryland. One of Emergent's products is epsil, "a fast-acting treatment that reduces the pain associated with oral mucositis," which is a common complication of chemotherapy from cancer treatment. Marijuana has been recognized formally in a number of states as having immense therapeutic potential for cancer patients. In fact, in states where medical marijuana has legalized, the number of pharmaceutical pain killers prescribed has dropped significantly. The congressman has not explicitly addressed this issue, but it is now clear Harris has not disclosed an important conflict of interest surrounding his recent activity against marijuana . . ."

I can't do it now, but I'll try to clean this up later. If somebody beats me to it, great!

-- Jo3sampl (talk) 17:45, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Jan 20th town hall

While my first attempt at this subsection did include biased wording, I substantially revised my writing and truly believe to have produced a neutral narrative of the events. the editor Lord Laitinen has a clear conservative bias and a pattern of editing. In addition he has made classist and disparaging remarks in the comments of several of his edits. I believe he is biased in deleting information about this event from Harris' page. In this revision I quote Harris directly from a video online. In this video Harris makes inaccurate claims about Washington, D.C. I provided the quote and then sources that provide the correct statistical information. This is neutral writing, and Lord Laitinen in politically motivated in his edits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sp176 (talk • contribs) 22:56, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

thank you Dingsuntil for your edits and for showing that this information can be made available on wikipedia without bias. I feel there is still a need to reinforce the fact that Harris made claims with a racial undertone that were later proven to be false. readers could still skim this article and not understand that the statistics he cited are false. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sp176 (talk • contribs) 23:16, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

That Harris made claims which were proven false was stated. We don't need to reinforce that. If a RS talks about racial undertones, we can too. Dingsuntil (talk) 23:38, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Is this Town Hall shit even notable? Dingsuntil (talk) 23:38, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, when a prominent politician, who has made efforts to intervene in the affairs of the D.C. government, makes racially charged statements to justify his actions, that are proven to be completely inaccurate, it is pretty notable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sp176 (talk • contribs) 23:44, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I said "Notable" not "Should be notable." In any case, you're still the only source saying they were racially charged. And I don't think politicians intervening in squabbles outside their remit or getting their facts wrong is exactly man-bites-dog stuff. Dingsuntil (talk) 23:53, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I mean it doesn't take a lot to see how claiming false statistics that perpetuate negative racial stereotypes of black americans as uneducated and unemployed as charged, however I understand that outside sources may have to corroborate this for it to be included in the article. I don't know if you read the the preceding section in the article about his involvement with DC, but it was a little more than "intervening in a squabble", in fact, there was no squabble, the citizens of the district voted on an initiative that he disagreed with, so he introduced legislation to block. He created the "squabble". This isn't him just getting his facts wrong, when he uses it as the justification for legislation that he has introduced and passed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sp176 (talk • contribs) 23:58, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

First of all, use colons to format your replies. Second, this "It was his fault!" shit is really aside the point (Wikipedia Is Not An Internet Forum). Third, you're continuing to argue why it SHOULD be notable. You think this is an important thing that people should know about this guy. But it IS notable if reliable sources spill a lot of ink agreeing with you. Check if they have. Dingsuntil (talk) 00:11, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I was merely repeating the facts surrounding his involvement with the ongoing controversy of marijuana reform in Washington, D.C. and the larger issue of D.C. statehood. I maintain that the town hall event is relevant to this article because of Harris high profile engagement with the local government, and the controversy surrounding him. I was not saying anything about fault? You tried to minimize the controversy of his reaction to marijuana reform by calling it merely a squabble. I was informing you that it was in fact a serious political issue for citizens of Washington. It's pretty clear that it is important and relevant if a congressman is getting basic facts wrong about a topic that he has taken action against. I'm not trying to debate about his politics, simply that this event is important enough to be included in the article. And yes, multiple news sources found this event "notable" enough to write about and I have already cited them in the article. Sp176 (talk) 00:23, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I said "Fault" because you said "He created the 'squabble.'" My point was that this doesn't matter. "Squabble" was not intended to minimize it. Congressmen get basic facts wrong all the time, which is probably why there's so little coverage of it. Most of the stuff you added was about the stats error, which as far as I can tell was only reported in ThinkProgress. Dingsuntil (talk) 01:06, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

It was reported in at least two other news sources, although I was unsure if they qualified as RS under the guidelines. I was trying to point out that Harris is at the very center of a controversy over D.C. sovereignty that has been ongoing for several years. Thus this event is not just any old congressman getting any old basic fact wrong, but in fact quite a serious deal worthy of being included in the "controversy" section, which, I understand is a section where you include information about controversies that said person has been involved in. If he is publicly using false information to justify his political positions and actions, then, again, I argue that "this town hall shit" is indeed notable.

What other news sources reported the stats error? There were two other sources (DCist and the Sun), but neither mentioned the stats error. Dingsuntil (talk) 02:59, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

DCist includes the video of the event. Rawstory, which I cited in my first version, mentions it but I did not include as it seemed possibly not a reputable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sp176 (talk • contribs) 03:08, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

DCist doesn't think the event is worthy of mention in text though. They just posted some videos. This sure looks like a no-one-gives-a-fuck situation to me. Dingsuntil (talk) 03:22, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

@Sp176: & @Dingsuntil:

• I have warned Sp176 about personally attacking me here on Wikipedia, so there is no need for anyone to worry about that matter.
• I have thanked, and will once again thank Dingsuntil for supporting and defending me against Sp176's unsubstantiated accusations.
• I do not have a conservative or liberal agenda, nor am I personally interested or involved in politics. However, I do not restrict myself from editing any group of pages on Wikipedia, and I will revert edits that I consider are vandalistic, disruptive, or biased. I am trusted enough to have been given two permissions on Wikipedia, and my judgment should not be so lightly disregarded.
• I move to have this entire sub-section removed until consensus rules that it does or doesn't belong on the page. Anyone who agrees/disagrees can feel free to leave their vote below mine.

@Lord Laitinen: I went ahead and took it out for now. Let's leave this here for a bit though in case there's opposition. Dingsuntil (talk) 14:08, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

More sources on the event in question. Appears as though people actually do"give a fuck", as @Dingsuntil: so eloquently put it. http://www.afro.com/residents-dont-deserve-statehood/ http://coloradopols.com/diary/79981/at-least-hes-not-your-congressman-reefer-madness-edition#sthash.Yx259bmd.dpbs http://wonkette.com/598074/maryland-rep-opposes-dc-statehood-because-of-all-these-facts-he-just-made-up https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/24/5-interesting-political-things-you-might-have-missed-last-week/ http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/gop-congressman-uses-bogus-stats-about-d-c-black-residents-in-anti-marijuana-rant/

Sign your comments and nest your replies appropriately, @11Steqpam11:. I'll grant that the event and his stats fuckup is now notable (the deputy national paper of record says it's something you should have missed). I'm opposed to putting in copy to the effect of "And some people think DAT RAAAAYCIST!!!" (it's either self-evident or it isn't), but I don't care that much. Dingsuntil (talk) 13:10, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Keep/Do Not Keep Jan 20th town hall sub-section

I vote to remove the Jan 20th town hall sub-section of this article. ~LL~ (talk) (requests) 18:49, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

<INSERT ICON> I vote to replace the Jan 20th town hall sub-section of this article as it previously stood or thereabouts. Dingsuntil (talk) 21:50, 4 February 2016 (UTC) 11Steqpam11

External links modified

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Recent edit warring

There have been uncited, undiscussed changes to the lead and other parts of this BLP during the past two weeks. Reminder to please discuss on the talk page here. FeralOink (talk) 21:27, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Harris' false Gulf War narrative.

Harris has repeatedly tried to give the impression on his Wiki biography that he was a deployed combatant in Operation Desert Shield/Storm, when the truth is he was merely activated as a naval reservist to backfill within CONUS at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. Attempts to distinguish this important difference and prevent an ethically false political narrative (Stolen Valor) have been rebuffed by what appear to be his protective political sycophants. 74.96.82.64 (talk) 02:08, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

From a quick perusal of the article history, I don't see any immediate evidence of Harris himself editing the article. I assume you're referencing the military details in the infobox when you state that the article has been edited to "give the impression... that he was a deployed combatant". The infobox documentation at {{Infobox military person}} states that the |battles parameter should indicate "any notable battles or wars in which the person participated." Whether Harris participated in Desert Storm through his medical work (assuming your assertion that he was a reservist at BNS is accurate) seems questionable, but military-related terminology is well outside of my wheelhouse and this may very well be an accurate description of his participation. AviationFreak💬 20:15, 18 April 2023 (UTC)