Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Campaigning on 'the big lie'
UNION-TRIBUNE
October 22, 2004
"The great masses of the people," wrote one of history's most infamous propagandists, "will more easily fall victims to a big lie than a small lie."
John Kerry agrees. As do the 527 organizations that support the Democrat presidential nominee. For as they slouch toward Election Day, they have ginned up every big lie they can think of to scare the masses of voters away from George W. Bush.
Just this week, in fact, the Kerry campaign unveiled an ad claiming that the president "has a plan to cut Social Security benefits by 30 to 45 percent."
It's a shameless attempt by the Democratic Party standard-bearer to scare the bejeebers out of the nation's seniors. And it's a big lie, as attested by FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan Web site produced by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center.
"Bush hasn't proposed any specific plan," according to the site, but has received three possible "reform models" detailed in the final report of a bipartisan commission studying ways to strengthen Social Security.
"The plan the Kerry ad refers to doesn't affect benefits for current retirees at all," it adds, and "Even for future retirees, benefits will grow under the 'reform model' the Kerry ad refers to."
Meanwhile, the 527 group America Coming Together is circulating handbills on Kerry's behalf suggesting that Republicans are planning to attack black voters to keep them from the polls.
The flyer reproduces a Civil Rights era photograph of a black man pinned against the wall of a building by water shooting out of a fire hose. "This is what they used to do to keep us from voting," it reads.
And "This is how Republicans keep African-Americans from voting now," it adds, listing several recent incidents in which blacks supposedly were discouraged from casting ballots.
"They make African-American voters stand in line for hours, and they turn them away from the polls," the flyer claims. "Now (U.S. Attorney General) John Ashcroft is trying to prevent African-Americans from voting at all."
The America Coming Together handbill is racial demagoguery at its ugliest. It is a big lie meant to keep black voters on the Democratic plantation.
Then there's the suggestion by Kerry, and by certain activist groups that support the one-time anti-war activist, that Bush has a plan to revive the military draft.
There is "a great potential" for a draft if Bush is returned to the Oval Office, Kerry told The Des Moines Register last week, ignoring that just one week earlier, during the second presidential debate, Bush stated unequivocally, "We're not going to have a draft, period."
Meanwhile, the pro-Kerry group Rock the Vote, which claims to be nonpartisan, has been sending out letters on official-looking letterhead reading "Selective Service System," and informing recipients "YOU HAVE BEEN DRAFTED."
Of course, the letter neglects to mention that a bill proposing to reinstate the draft, introduced by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and co-sponsored by four other Democrats, was allowed to come to the House floor earlier this month, where it was rejected 402 to 2.
But why should Kerry, why should activist groups supporting the Democratic presidential nominee, let the facts get in the way of their big lie?
Their aim is to get young voters to the polls by frightening them into believing they will be conscripted into military service and sent off to fight insurgents in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Finally, there's the Kerry claim that, "After nearly four years under George Bush, the middle class is paying a bigger share of America's tax burden, and the wealthiest are paying less."
That's another big lie. The fact is that Bush lowered taxes across the board.
And when all was said and done, the highest-earning 20 percent of Americans still accounted for 63 percent of all federal tax receipts, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, compared to 10.5 percent for the middle 20 percent.
The Kerry campaign, the 527 and activist organizations that support the Democrat presidential nominee, are persuaded that the masses will easily fall victim to their big lies.
Just as the infamous Nazi propagandist cited above suggested they would.
Gee, to hear folks like you lie about it, Bush is the great
divider..... (hat tip to Scared but Hopeful)
Watch the video at the link first, then read on.....
re: http://www.dailyrecycler.com/blog/2004/10/breakdown.html
I am amazed at the calm of John O'Neill under fire. Every third word shouted by Lawrence O'Donnell was "lies" or "liar".
If the country wonders why it is polarized, this is the best explanation why. To be not polarized, you have work to seek a middle ground. And when opinions differ, you have to debate, and the debate has to proceed with civility.
There can be no debate when one side is shouting out and trying to drown out the other.
So why are americans polarized? Answer : look at people like Lawrence O'Donnell.
Why is there still hope? Answer : People like John O'Neill willing to talk calmly and engage in debate in the midst of the same vietnam era tactics that stifled debate.
"How are our troops doing Job #1 in Iraq? Please explain."
Start reading at the link below. When you finish, I have a
couple more comprehensive, bipartisan reports for you.
Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD
30 September 2004
http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/index.html
Well NovoMira, I couldn't agree more, except it involves
considerably more important participants than just Soros. In
a way, this ABB phenomenon is something to behold, isn't it?
When you get down to it, a lot of their ABB allegations are
half truths, misrepresentations & outright lies carefully,
yet intentionally weaved in with real facts. They are repeated
over & over until they become fact to the Kool Aid drinking
faithful, while revising history & brainwashing the unwashed
masses. Note that these tactics are straight out of the
communist propaganda playbook.
The near total lack of morals & ethics from the dark side of
the liberal left is beyond the pale. Those on the left who
don't engage in furtherance of this blatant form of smear &
sneer, yet refuse to denounce their peers deplorable actions,
are almost equally reprehensible in their abject silence.
The liberal media plays a big part in this too. Instead of
objectively reporting these allegations, telling the whole
story & correcting the left's lies with known facts; they
simply repeat the lies or give the liars plenty of air time
to tell them firsthand. In some cases they aid it further by
doing so-called investigative reporting on these stories that
are more of the same (half truths, misrepresentations &
outright lies carefully weaved in with real facts).
The great myths that;
- Bush "lied & misled" us into "unilateral" war against Iraq,
- Iraq was always about "stockpiles" of WMD & absolutely nothing else,
- Bush was "AWOL", avoided the draft & received special treatment in the National Guard &
- the Swift Boat Vets have been exposed as a bunch of Right wing liars who were directly connected to the Bush campaign,
are all prime examples of their smear & sneer revisionist history.
In a way, it's like the FUD that shorts spew on Yahoo stock
message boards. They will try to negatively affect stock
prices by any means necessary. No lie is too big, no smear to
outrageous to tell to achieve their goal. The shorts are
counting on most longs to just sell out of fear & disgust,
rather than independently fact check the FUD they spew.
The main difference between the shorts & the dark side of the
liberal left is that the central players in the ABB phenomenon
are well known people & politicians like George Soros, Michael
Moore, Terry McAuliffe, Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Al Gore, Dan
Rather, & John Kerry, ET AL.
And without one shred of credible evidence to support their
faulty POV's, the Kool Aid drinking liberals will denounce
all of this as a load of bunk. Present them with irrefutable
facts that proves this all to be true & they will act like
some children do when caught red handed in a lie; they will
completely ignore it in the vain hopes it will go away. Then
in behavior typical of unrepentant liars, they will attack
you personally & project their own horrific behavior onto
you, again without any corroborating evidence whatsoever.
Tell me now, doesn't all of this have a familiar ring?
Ö¿Ö
So much for free speech. I guess your focus will be on the
lawyers & not on the real travesty liberals have caused by
trampling the rights of others. And it's not just the
theater where they are doing it too.....
But then focusing on tertiary matters will allow you to
ignore the real issues, won't it?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46338-2004Oct19.html
Anti-Kerry Film Won't Be Aired
Democrats, Investors Push TV Conglomerate to Alter Broadcast Plans
Philly-Area Theater Cancels Screening Of Anti-Kerry Film
http://www.nbc10.com/entertainment/3831507/detail.html
Film canned; tempers flare
By JODI ARTHUR
The Intelligencer
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/113-10202004-386047.html
Anti-Kerry Film Withdrawn From Movie Theater
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/3839880/detail.html
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL AND LIBERALS UNHINGED
By Michelle Malkin · October 22, 2004 10:42 PM
Something unbelievable just went down on MSNBC's Scarborough Country. Lawrence O'Donnell screamed at John O'Neill for two segments as substitute host Pat Buchanan hopelessly tried to moderate. O'Donnell interrupted O'Neill every few seconds, repeatedly called the Vietnam veteran a "liar" and a "creep," and sneered, scowled, and shouted at the top of his lungs about how O'Neill did nothing to stop the war.
O'Neill was his usual calm, dignified self--trying civilly to inject facts into the hate-filled O'Donnell's tirades. I swear O'Donnell acted like he was on something. He looked and sounded absolutely crazed. The scene was eerily reminiscent of this.
By the way, I spoke with a former MSNBC employee recently who noted that Chris Matthews STILL hasn't read Unfit for Command and has no plans to do so. O'Donnell cited the hate-filled New York Times book review of O'Neill's book during his harangue tonight. How much you wanna bet he has never actually read the book either?
I'm paraphrasing here, but John O'Neill noted that O'Donnell demonstrated the choice we face on Nov. 2--Kerry-supporting screamers like O'Donnell or an administration that can deal with the threats we face rationally.
I wonder if MSNBC will have the guts to put up an unedited transcript. Stay tuned. And if anybody has video of the show that I can link to, let me know.
More on O'Donnell's recent rantings against "simpleminded" people of faith at Dave's Blurbs and Betsy's Page.
And here's O'Donnell on the McLaughlin Group last week sharing his thoughts on troop morale:
MR. O'DONNELL: Look, it's not our job to lie about war to make troops feel good. And I don't care what they feel.
MR. BLANKLEY: I don't --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Let me finish.
MR. O'DONNELL: I don't care what they feel about the truth of this war. If John Kerry thinks this war is a mistake and if the United States of America elects him president, the troops are going to have to live with that. And they know better than anyone else whether it was a mistake or not.
MR. BUCHANAN: The commander-in-chief should not undermine the troops --
MR. O'DONNELL: He's not undermining anything.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you want to make a point here?
MR. BUCHANAN: He'd demoralize them.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: All right, the human --
MR. O'DONNELL: I don't care if they're demoralized. They have to go to war and be prepared --
MR. BUCHANAN: The commander-in-chief does care.
MR. O'DONNELL: -- to live with the debate that goes on in the United States about whether it's right or wrong.
MR. BUCHANAN: But if you're going to be commander-in-chief, you cannot be demoralizing the troops in wartime, even if you think the war is a mistake.
***
Drive them madder: Donate to the Swift Boat Vets and POWs for Truth here.
Update: SwiftVets has the audio.
Update II: Polipundit weighs in...and has started a contest to nominate the Worst Liberal Meltdown.
Update III: The indispensible Daily Recycler has a video excerpt.
http://www.dailyrecycler.com/blog/2004/10/breakdown.html They also include a hilarious comment from Frank Luntz, who followed John O'Neill and said he was afraid to say anything because O'Donnell would probably call him a liar five times.
God bless John O'Neill and all the Swift Boat Vets for putting up with such desperate, disgraceful abuse.
Update IV: A commenter at SwiftVets.com tallied up O'Donnell's raging insults. Here's the count...
I was curious, so I did a count of how many times Lawrence O'Donnell said "lies" "liar" or "lying."
46 total times in 10 min. 45 seconds (much of which he was not talking)
First 5:10 O'Donnell didn't speak
5:10-9:39: 6 times
10:55-12:25: 24 times
00:01-1:38: 7 times (beginning of second MP3 after break)
1:55-3:30: 9 times (And I may have missed some due to crosstalk)
46 TIMES
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/000699.htm
While this is certainly not an endorsement of all Bush has done, those who can't see BOTH sides might consider some of it. Anyone who blindly follows either party is simply a sheep.
There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq during the month of January. In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the month of January. That's just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war torn country of Iraq. When some claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war, state the following:
FDR...led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us; Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost -- an average of 112,500 per year.
Truman finished that war and started one in Korea. North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost -- an average of 18,334 per year.
John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us. Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost -- an average of 5,800 per year.
Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent, Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions. In the two years since terrorists attacked us President Bush has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.
The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but it took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51-day operation. We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.
It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick.
It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida!!!! Our Commander-In-Chief is doing a GREAT JOB! The Military morale is high! The biased media hopes we are too ignorant to realize the facts.
Wait, there's more!!!!
JOHN GLENN ON THE SENATE FLOOR Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:13
Some people still don't understand why military personnel do what they do for a living. This exchange between Senators John Glenn and Senator Howard Metzenbaum is worth reading. Not only is it a pretty impressive impromptu speech, but it's also a good example of one man's explanation of why men and women in the armed services do what they do for a living. This is a typical, though sad, example of what some who have never served think of the military.
Senator Metzenbaum to Senator Glenn: "How can you run for Senate when you've never held a real job?"
Senator Glenn: "I served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps. I served through two wars. I flew 149 missions. My plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire on 12 different occasions. I was in the space program. It wasn't my checkbook, Howard; it was my life on the line. It was not a nine-to-five job, where I took time off to take the daily cash receipts to the bank.
I ask you to go with me ... as I went the other day ... to a veteran's hospital and look at those men -- with their mangled bodies -- in the eye, and tell THEM they didn't hold a job!
You go with me to the Space Program at NASA and go, as I have gone, to the widows and orphans of Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee ... and you look those kids in the eye and tell them that their DADS didn't hold a job.
You go with me on Memorial Day and you stand in Arlington National Cemetery, where I have more friends buried than I'd like to remember, and you watch those waving flags. You stand there, and you think about this nation, and you tell ME that that those people didn't have a job? I'll tell you, Howard Metzenbaum; you should be on your knees every day of your life thanking God that there were some men who held REAL jobs. And they required a dedication to a purpose -- and a love of country and a dedication to duty -- that was more important than life itself. And their self-sacrifice is what made this country possible. I HAVE held a job, Howard! What about you?"
For those who don't remember - During W.W.II, Howard Metzenbaum was an attorney representing the Communist Party in the USA. Now he is a Senator! If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you are reading it in English, thank a Veteran. It might not be a bad idea to keep this circulating until
I wonder why John & THK won't be more forthcoming. Don't the
American people deserve to know the truth so they can make an
informed decision who they are voting for. Why, if I didn't
know better, I'd think they had something to hide.
Kerry Campaign Stonewalling on Nannygate Questions
Does John Kerry, whose billionaire wife Teresa employs a small army of housekeepers, gardeners, cooks, chauffeurs, butlers and other hired help at her five estates around the country, have a Nannygate problem?
Two calls this week to the Kerry campaign press office, asking if Mrs. Heinz has paid Social Security taxes on her domestic staff, have so far gone unreturned.
Questions about whether candidates and their spouses are illegally paying domestic help off the books have bedeviled the political campaigns of the rich and famous since 1993, when Clinton Attorney General nominee Zoe Baird crashed and burned after her Nannygate predicament was revealed.
Her replacement, Kimba Wood, had the same problem and had to withdraw.
In California's 1994 Senate race, both Democrat Dianne Feinstein and Republican Michael Huffington admitted hiring illegal aliens, canceling the problem out.
More recently, however, similar charges dogged EPA Administrator Christie Whitman. Last year, when Arnold Schwarzenegger released his tax returns after announcing his gubernatorial bid, Nannygate problems were among the first things reporters looked for. There were none.
Even largely baseless Nannygate accusations were enough to derail the nomination of the eminently qualified Linda Chavez to become Secretary of Labor.
But with less than two weeks to go in this year's presidential campaign, the question hasn't even come up for the woman who has undoubtedly hired more nannies than any other political spouse in the history of American politics.
That's due, at least in part, to the fact that Teresa Heinz continues to guard her tax returns more closely than the nation's nuclear secrets.
Some say, however, that even the small bit of information revealed in the Kerry campaign's two page tax document dump last Friday show telltale signs that the Heinz Kerrys do indeed have a Nannygate problem.
The Internet blog site "Desert Rat Ramblings" noted, for instance:
"Lines 55 and 59 on [Teresa's] Form 1040 are Social Security and Medicare taxes paid to Household employees, ie: nannies; housekeepers; gardeners; etc. . . . What Heinz-Kerry is claiming on her tax return for Household 'wages' extrapolates to approximately $7,500 - $8,000/year.
"$8,000 a year paid to household staff from a billionaire?"
Aside from Social Security taxes, questions about whether the would-be first couple obtained the proper I-9 immigration forms from their employees, and maintained proper W-2 records, have also gone unanswered.
Only a press corps that was actively working for a Kerry win would have let these questions fester till the last two weeks of the campaign.
Absent more thorough media scrutiny - or the Kerry campaign's decision to be more forthcoming about Teresa's finances - the American public would be right to conclude that something is being covered-up.
I'm not the one who adamantly denies the "liberal" label.
Kerry partisans & Team Kerry adamantly deny it in the face of
all credible evidence to the contrary.
Apparently they seem to think that being a "liberal" is bad.
By any means necessary...... To hear liberals tell it, Team
Bush & Ashcroft stifle free speech. Explain this then.....
Kerry Lawyers Stop PA Theater from showing "Stolen Honor".
Post from local PA board:
Author: The Fourth Estate - 10/21/2004
Kerry Campaign Stops Pennsylvania Showing of "Stolen Honor".
Michael Moore has been running around the country for months showing his anti-Bush film. But when a local theater in Pennsylvania tried to show the new film "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," the Kerry campaign and lawyers friendly to it caused the theater owner to stop its showing.
"Stolen Honor” was to have been shown Tuesday night at a local theater in Jenkintown, Pa., near Philadelphia.
The documentary features 17 POWs who say Kerry's anti-war actions in the early 1970s prolonged the war and their captivity. Apparently, the Kerry campaign sent out an urgent e-mail last week to supporters asking them to protest the showing.
After being threatened with litigation, the theater owner decided not to show the film. Local Philadelphia radio station 1210 WPHT 1210-AM had been sponsoring the event. It was announced - within the hour - that the premier was cancelled because the theater was threatened with litigation.
Carlton Sherwood, the producer of "Stolen Honor,” showed up outside the theater last night to hand out DVD copies of his film.
Pro-Kerry protesters also showed up and started to get physical. Police were called to quiet their protest.
Sherwood's Red, White and Blue Productions is considering a lawsuit against the Kerry-Edwards campaign for improperly interfering in the showing of the film.
Mighty Voter Fraud From Florida ACORNs Grow
CAPTAIN ED
The so-called nonpartisan voters assistance group, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), has generated suspicion for some time in conservative circles as a front-line player in leftist efforts to skew the vote. Now a former employee has filed charges against ACORN alleging that the organization deliberately set out to disrupt the Florida vote by illegally registering Democrats and suppressing Republican registrations:
<<<Mac Stuart, of Opa-locka, has accused the organization, known as ACORN, of illegally copying voter registration applications and selling them to labor union groups, allowing people to sign petitions who were not registered voters and suppressing Republican voter registration applications. ...
Stuart, who was assistant director of voter registration for the group, was fired in early August after being accused of trying to cash a paycheck that wasn't his. In the lawsuit, he claims he was fired only days after voicing his concerns about ACORN practices at a group meeting in late July.>>>
You can look at this one of two ways. Either Stuart is a disgruntled, terminated employee looking for revenge, or he is a whistleblower who got smeared when he attempted to stop crimes from being committed. Either could be true. However, if Stuart really did try to fraudulently cash a check, I doubt that he would be bringing the case to court, since apparently he avoided being charged for theft or forgery from the incident. ACORN could always say that it preferred to let the matter drop quietly, but if Stuart did violate the law, the presumption would be that his motivation for keeping it quiet would be much stronger.
Combine this with other irregularities, such as the NAACP representative paying for bogus Ohio registrations with crack cocaine, and I'd tend to suspect that the ACORN does not fall far from the tree. Floridians should take this into consideration when deciding which party truly represents their values. Remember what Hugh Hewitt says -- if it's not close, they can't cheat.
Vote for me??
NAME: John Kerry
RESIDENCE: 7 mansions, including one in Washington DC, worth multi-millions. I served in Vietnam (four months).
EXPERIENCE:
Law Enforcement. In my career as a U.S. Senator, I've voted to cut every law enforcement, CIA, and Defense bill. I ordered the city of Boston to remove a fire hydrant in front of my mansion, thereby endangering my neighbors in the event of fire. I served in Vietnam (four months).
MILITARY:
I served in Vietnam (four months). I used three minor injuries to get an early discharge from the military and service in Vietnam (as documented by the attending doctor). I served in Vietnam (four months). I then returned to the U.S., joined Jane Fonda in protesting the war, and insulted returning Vietnam vets, claiming they committed atrocities and were baby killers. I served in Vietnam (four months). I threw my medals, ribbons, or something away in protest. Or did I? My book "Vietnam Veterans Against the War: The New Soldier", shows how I truly feel about the military. I served in Vietnam (four months).
COLLEGE:
I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. Unlike my counterpart George Bush, I have no higher education and did not get admitted to Harvard nor graduate with an M.B.A
PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:
After College and Vietnam, I ran for the U.S. Congress and have been there ever since. I have no real world experience except marrying very rich women and running their companies vicariously through them. I served in Vietnam (four months).
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
As a U.S. Senator I set the record for the most liberal voting record, exceeding even Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton. I have consistently failed to support our military and CIA by voting against their budgets, thus gutting our country's ability to defend itself. Although I voted for the Iraq War, now I am against it and refuse to admit that I voted for it. I voted for every liberal piece of legislation. I have no plan to help this country but I intend to raise taxes significantly if I am elected. I served in Vietnam (four months).
My wealth so far exceeds that of my counterpart, George Bush, that he will never catch up. I make little or no charitable contributions and have never agreed to pay any voluntary excess taxes in Massachusetts, despite family wealth in excess of $ 700 million. I served in Vietnam (four months).
I (we) own 28 manufacturing plants (Heinz) outside of the U.S. in places like Asia, Mexico and Europe. We can make more profit from the cheaper cost of labor in those Countries, although I blame George Bush for sending all of the other jobs out of Country. I served in Vietnam (four months).
Although I claim to be in favor of alternative energy sources, Ted Kennedy and I oppose windmills off Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard as it might spoil our view of the ocean as we cruise on our yachts. I served in Vietnam (four months).
RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
None. However, I served in Vietnam (four months).
PERSONAL I practice my Catholic faith whenever cameras are present. I ride a Serotta Bike. I love to ski/snowboard. I call my Gulfstream V Jet the "Flying Squirrel". I call my $850,000 42-foot Hinckley twin diesel yacht the "Scarmouche".
I am fascinated by rap and hip-hop and feel it reflects our real culture.
I own several "Large" SUVs including one parked at my Nantucket summer mansion, though I am against large, polluting, inefficient vehicles and blame George Bush for our energy problems. I served in Vietnam (four months).
PLEASE CONSIDER MY EXPERIENCE WHEN VOTING IN 2004.
LOL!
I post an article from a blog that establishes the liberal is
media ignoring another example of democrats trashing &
vandalizing Bush/Cheney signs & their owners property.
And your response is to falsely claim the liberal media is
ignoring it when republicans do likewise.
Then you proceed to link me to every liberal media report
that prominently reported every incident that happened.
Thanks for proving my point.
LOL! I wonder why even liberals pretend that Kerry isn't a
liberal. Dress it up any way you wish, Kerry was, is &
forever will be quite liberal.
"I'm a little concerned about this notion everybody wants
us to be objective," Jennings said.
Jennings: Media In Glaring Spotlight
Jennings Says Aim Is Objectivity, Fairness
POSTED: 5:02 pm CDT October 19, 2004
UPDATED: 5:32 pm CDT October 19, 2004
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- ABC news anchor Peter Jennings said he's getting an earful on media coverage.
Jennings is on a swing through battleground states, including Iowa and Missouri, where polls show the race could go either to President George W. Bush or Sen. John Kerry.
"I think one of the best reasons to go on the road is just to listen," Jennings told KETV NewsWatch 7's Rob McCartney during a stop in Kansas City, Mo., Monday.
Jennings gets questions about a CBS report on Bush's National Guard service, for which CBS news anchor Dan Rather later apologized and said the story was a mistake. He's also asked about Sinclair Broadcasting's decision to air a controversial documentary on Sen. John Kerry's Vietnam war record. Another big question regards an ABC internal memo from the political director suggesting that reporters need not "reflexively" hold both sides of the presidential election "equally" accountable.
Jennings said the media is now under the hot lights.
"I'm a little concerned about this notion everybody wants us to be objective," Jennings said.
Jennings said that everyone -- even journalists -- have points of view through which they filter their perception of the news. It could be race, sex or income. But, he said, reporters are ideally trained to be as objective as possible.
"And when we don't think we can be fully objective, to be fair," the anchorman said.
Does the public think network news is fair? There are a number of opinion polls that show news consumers feel that the media does have a slant.
Jennings maintains those polls may be driven by groups with an agenda.
"There's a whole industry of conservatives saying, 'Ah, it's those damn liberals,' and a whole group of liberals saying, 'It's all those damn conservatives,'" Jennings said.
The problematic response, Jennings said, is the way people tailor the way they consume news.
"If you tailor your news viewing, as some people are now doing, so that you only get one point of view, well of course you're going to think somebody else has got a different point of view, and it may be wrong," Jennings said.
Previous Stories:
October 18, 2004: Jennings Nervous About Elections
http://www.theomahachannel.com/politics/3833789/detail.html
The local media didn't think this was worth reporting.....
When Democrats Get Desperate
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/002821.php
"What's Dubya's message to our troops?"
Job #1 is to defend & protect our national security rather
than allow it be turned over to the horrifically corrupt UN,
or the bribed & coerced France, Russia, China & Germany.
Kerry will allow the UN, France, Russia, China & Germany to
veto the most important job of the POTUS.
'nuff said.
By any means necessary - Kerry will say anything to get elected....
Mickey Kaus -
I'd always figured Kerry was on relatively strong ground criticizing the "outsourced" approach at Tora Bora because he must have criticized it at the time. But Tom Maguire of JustOneMinute has come up with a transcript of a "Larry King Live" broadcast on Dec. 14, 2001, near the end of the battle, in which (responding to a question about why we weren't getting up in the caves and using "napalm or flamethrowers"**) Kerry appears to actually endorse a play-it-safe approach:
"But for the moment, what we are doing, I think, is having its impact and it is the best way to protect our troops and sort of minimalize the proximity, if you will. I think we have been doing this pretty effectively and we should continue to do it that way." [Emphasis added]
If anyone has evidence of real-time Kerry criticism of the Tora Bora strategy (which may well exist) I'll be glad to reference it. ...
P.S.: Earlier in the same interview, Kerry generally praises the U.S.'s military strategy in Afghanistan, which heavily relied on proxies. ("I think we have been smart, I think the administration leadership has done it well and we are on right track.")
He certainly isn't critical of the "outsourcing." ... Nor was this interview at the beginning of the Tora Bora battle, when its contours were unclear. It was near the end of the battle, more than a week after bin Laden (by some accounts) had already escaped, at a time when even Donald Rumsfeld was having public doubts about our likely success. ...
The Wizbang Interview - John E. O'Neill
Who is John E. O'Neill?
John E. O'Neill is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who served in Coastal Division 11 in Vietnam and took command of PCF 94, John Kerry's Swift Boat, after Kerry's departure. Outraged by Kerry's anti-war slanders against his fellow veterans, O'Neill faced Kerry in a famous debate on the Dick Cavett Show in 1971 refuting Kerry's accusations of rampant American war crimes in Vietnam. O'Neill served with the same men as Kerry and knew that none of the atrocities that Kerry was quick to claim as everyday activities ever happened in their Swift Boat unit.
Wizbang has been following the story of O'Neill's group Swift Boat Veterans For Truth (Since renamed Swift Vets And POWs for Truth) since May. With the 2004 election less than two weeks away I had the opportunity to speak by phone with O'Neill about the experiences of the Swift Vets and their plans for the immediate future. What follows is a reconstruction of the conversation from my notes.
Aylward - I know you have stayed on the sidelines in previous Kerry Senate campaigns. What prompted you to re-enter the debate with Kerry, so to speak, over 30 years after your last debate?
O'Neill - This was a matter of duty, not choice. John Kerry's service and his post-war activities are an issue because he wants to be the next Commander-In-Chief, and the full story was not being told.
Aylward - Let's go back to May 2004 and your press conference at the National Press Club. What did you expect to happen as a result of you charges against John Kerry, and were you at all surprised by the media coverage your group got or didn't get?
O'Neill - Yes we were somewhat surprised, actually probably more naive than anything else. We expected that a neutral media would pick up the story, report the facts, then we could all go home. Obviously that's not what happened.
Aylward - How have alternative media sources helped?
O'Neill - The interesting thing about the mainstream media is that we expected a set of facts would lead reporting to an fact informed opinion, but it turns out that opinion or bias drives the presentation (or non-presentation) of facts.
What we've gotten from blogs and other non-traditional media is a willingness to examine the facts and draw conclusions from them, which is what we expected from traditional media. Alternative media sources have been instrumental for us because of the willingness to base conclusions on the evidence, not start with a conclusion and shape content to support the preconceived conclusion.
Aylward - So you must have been flabbergasted by the presentation and reporting of John Kerry at the Democratic National Convention?
O'Neill - Yes. Their position with regards to the Swift Vets coming out of the convention was first to ignore us, then to lie about us, and finally to disassociate from us. We all know that Kerry first ignored the charges in Unfit For Command even while he was presenting himself to the country as a war hero.
Aylward - Have you been surprised that the Swift Vets have been portrayed in some quarters as "a bunch of liars?"
O'Neill - The term that comes up a lot in interviews is "generally discredited," What I've found is that it's the editors who are directing that reporters refer to the Swift Vets as "generally discredited," not the reporters themselves. When I challenge reporters to name one fact that has been disproved they generally can't. If they do bring up a point of confusion they've gotten from Kerry loyalists, I give them the well documented proof behind our claims. The fact that Kerry himself wrote most of the after action reports lead to confusions. We've show in several cases that the after action reports don't match the facts.
Aylward - I've noticed that you don't see Kerry the War Hero much anymore, you're much more likely to see Kerry the Catholic, or the wrong war, wrong time Kerry. Do you think that has anything to do with your book and ads?
O'Neill - Yes, that's the disassociate part. It's like he's no longer one of us now.
Aylward - The initial coverage of the charges in Unfit For Command focused on John Kerry's Purple Hearts as opposed to his post-war activities. Was this planned?
O'Neill - No. You have to remember that we were just a small bunch of veterans with no way to shape the coverage. The media initially focused on the Vietnam portion of the book so we didn't have much choice but to go with the current.
Aylward - With two weeks until the election, what's on the agenda for the Swift Vets?
O'Neill - As you know the Swift Vets started on a shoestring. The show of public support has been staggering. There have been over 110,000 individual contributors that helped us raise $20 million dollars to fund our ad campaigns.
We have 5 to 6 million dollars left, all of which is going toward media buys in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, and Minnesota - all states with large veteran populations. There are two new ads (Why? And Questions) airing as well as some of the previous ads. We're doing on average 20-25 interviews a day, mostly radio and occasionally some TV appearances.
Additionally the Swift Boat veterans are manning phonebanks this week, and next, in an effort to get out 500,000 calls to veterans in swing states.
Aylward - Do you have plans for after the election, in the event that Kerry wins?
O'Neill - No. For us this was a matter of duty, not choice. We have an obligation to the men who served and those who died to tell the full story of John Kerry's service and his post-war activities because he is running for the Presidency and to be Commander-In-Chief. Our goal was to expose the facts and raise the awareness of the John Kerry that we knew so that Americans could make an informed choice. Those who served with him overwhelmingly feel he is unfit for this command.
Aylward - On a personal level, what has been the most surprising or shocking thing that you've learned through this whole experience.
O'Neill - The level of depravity in John Kerry's soul. I knew of his post-war activities, but I believed some of the stories in the Brinkley biography. I had no idea he fabricated the Sampan event. There was a point in our 1971 debate when I pinned him down and he was forced to admit he had never personally seen atrocities committed. In the writing of Unfit For Command and gathering the stories of other Swift Boat veterans we learned of the Sampan event, of Kerry burning villages with his Zippo lighter, slaughtering animals, etc. It turns out the Kerry lied about every single bit of his Vietnam story.
http://wizbangblog.com/
FWIW, I didn't mention the study you cited. Kerry's voting
history & rhetoric is clearly liberal. Spin it all you want,
it won't change the facts.
Yup. Soros has the means, motive & experience in manipulating
markets with speculative attacks.
I'd actually be surprised to find out it was someone else.
By any means necessary. These people are scary IMO.
Thousands of new-voter cards in Ohio undeliverable
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Jim Siegel
Enquirer Columbus Bureau
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/20/loc_fraud20.html
COLUMBUS - Thousands of cards mailed by county election boards to newly registered voters in Hamilton County and throughout the state are being returned because the people can't be found.
John Williams, director of the Hamilton County Board of Elections, said the situation indicates that there might not be as many new voters as some expect in a state deemed crucial in the presidential election.
Ohio Republican Party Chairman Robert Bennett on Tuesday said it's a result of statewide registration fraud conducted by independent groups that support Democratic candidates.
"By most accounts, their work can only be considered sloppy, haphazard and, in some cases, downright illegal," Bennett said, noting that the state party plans to take out full-page ads in Ohio newspapers encouraging citizens to stop voter fraud.
Democratic Party spokesman Dan Trevas said the fraud uncovered in Ohio equates to "minor errors" when viewed in the bigger picture.
"The vast majority of those registered for the first time are intent on voting," he said.
Bennett cited instances in 10 counties where potentially fraudulent voter registration forms were submitted.
He said many were submitted by groups he terms "auxiliaries of the Democratic Party": the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and America Coming Together.
The groups paid people to register voters. Some registrations were filled out for dead people, some contained fake addresses, and others named fiction characters such as Dick Tracy and Mary Poppins.
Jess Goode, spokesman for ACT in Ohio, has denied wrongdoing by his group. He said the Republican Party is scared of the number of new Democratic voters headed to the polls in two weeks.
An estimated 7.9 million people have registered in Ohio, up from 7.1 million at the beginning of the year.
Williams is currently investigating fraud by someone working for ACORN who he said submitted voter registrations for about 35 people who don't exist.
Newly registered voters in Hamilton County are mailed a card telling them where to vote and what political districts they live in. But thousands of those cards were returned because the people, or the addresses listed on voter registration forms, couldn't be found.
"There is quite a number," Williams said, noting that not every returned card is a suspected case of fraud. "People do actually move.''
State GOP records, confirmed by Williams, show that through Oct. 4, Hamilton County mailed 63,403 cards to new registrants, and 4,152 were returned - a rate of 6.6 percent.
The number was third-highest in the state behind Cuyahoga County's 14,461 and Franklin's 6,917, according to GOP records. In Butler County, 255 cards mailed to new voters were returned, while 24 were returned in Warren County, according to GOP records. Clermont County numbers were not available.
Tim Burke, chairman of the Hamilton County Democratic Party and the county elections board, said an updated number of cards returned is 5,808 out of 150,000 mailed not only to new voters, but also to those changing addresses, for a return rate of less than 4 percent.
Burke said fraud makes up a small percentage of the hundreds of thousands of newly registered voters in Ohio.
"I think Republicans are attempting to justify what they intend to do on Election Day by raising questions of voter fraud and overplaying this," he said.
What both the Democratic and Republican parties in Ohio intend to do is use a 51-year-old law that allows them to place challengers at polling sites. The parties are recruiting lawyers, law students and others to ensure that people are allowed to vote, or to potentially challenge voters' eligibility.
Bennett said his efforts are likely to focus on heavily Democratic areas where many new voters have been registered. Democrats expect to match the effort.
As further evidence of registration fraud, Bennett said the Ohio Republican Party sent out its own letters to newly registered Ohio voters, encouraging them to vote Republican.
In the counties where new registration was highest, 3 percent to 9 percent of the letters were returned because the people were not located.
"I can say ... as someone who's been in state politics for 40 years, that the normal rate of return is less than 1 percent," he said. "These results are really unprecedented and frightening."
Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, joined Bennett Tuesday and said Ohio's issues of voter registration fraud cases are alarming and part of a national problem.
"Whether it's for profit motive or political motive, fraud is being committed in the registration process in a way that makes more possible fraud on Election Day," he said.
"I'll bet you this. If Mary Poppins and Dick Tracy vote on Election Day, they'll vote for John Kerry."
E-mail jsiegel@enquirer.com
Wow! Talk about being factually challenged.
Kerry's Cambodia lies are completely off the charts in their
blatant falsehoods.
The Swift Boat Vets nailed Kerry's hide to the wall on his
outrageous lies about his so-called illegal, clandestine trips
into Cambodia (under orders from the yet to be sworn in
President Nixon).
No one, & I mean no one backs this complete fabrication.
That includes every one of Kerry's "Band of Brothers".
And that includes John Kerry himself. Yes, in his own
biography, using Kerry's own words proves he was never in
Cambodia.
Anyone who even attempts to claim Kerry might have been in
Cambodia according to Kerry's many documented, albeit
completely false accounts is either willfully lying or a Kool
Aid drinking ideologue living in an alternate universe.
"McCain was right! It is lying political trash and the Swiftees were started by Nixon and Colson to discredit Kerry who had become a symbol of the successful anti vietnam war movement in the early 70's. It is the same groups just a longer in the tooth."
Pure hogwash. McCain, like you, expressed his unsubstantiated
opinion about Kerry's Vietnam war experience. McCain's
uninformed opinion holds no more water than yours does.
And McCain was clear that Kerry's anti-war activities were
fair game.
The rest of your opinions are pure, unadulterated bunk that
is now being recycled like it has found new credibility.
What is it with liberal ideologues? Do you folks really think
that if you tell a lie often enough, it automatically becomes
truth?
Give me a break.
Sorry, the 9/11 commission clearly established links between
Saddam & Al Qaeda as well as other terrorist ties.
You must get your news from the NYT, AP, Rueters, CBS, ABC,
NBC, CNN & MSNBC.
You need to quit being brainwashed by those liberal media
outlets that freely parrot DNC Talking Points & repeat lies
from liberal politicians as though they were fact.
You might want to actually read the 9/11 report. You'd be
shocked, shocked to find out how badly your liberal peers
have been lying to you.
Bottom line. The 9/11 Commission Report clearly established
that Saddam had numerous ties to terrorism.
The Senate Intelligence Report Report clearly established
that Saddam had numerous ties to terrorism.
The Iraq Survey Group Report clearly established that Saddam
had numerous ties to terrorism.
""Links" to adulterated documents and testimony prove nothing."
Other than your personal opinion, where has this been
factually established?
"It is "well known"( "Going Upriver" ) and other "links" have been provided to you already which incontestably connect the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" to Nixon and Colson. The Swiftees have no credibility whatever."
What links? And don't give me that "movie" BS. If that movie
proved anything the MSM would quote it chapter & verse daily.
It isn't even called a documentary. And unlike the Michael
Moore Lie-omentaries - documentaries are fact based. "Movies"
require you to suspend your disbelief.
Bottom line. The Swift Boat Vets have nailed Kerry. They used
Kerry's own words as the coup de gras.
Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia lie absolutely crushed all of
his credibility.
Kerry has had to back off his 1st & 3rd Purple Hearts &
Kerry's own biographies helped nail him to the wall.
The same thing for the Bronze medal. Every single account to
this story is contrary to Kerry's personal account, again
documented in his own biographies.
Kerry lied repeatedly about meeting with the enemy in Paris.
He didn't meet with "both sides". He met with the enemy
twice, then came to America & became a surrogate for the
Communist North Vietnamese while still serving as an officer
in the Navy.
You may want to consult the laws on treason & see if Kerry
crossed the line.
And the list goes on & on & on.
where are your facts?
Odd, I have it on good authority that Bush stole the election
in Florida. Kerry said so.......
Voter fraud from Navy Times
By Dave Lowry
October 18, 2004
No more absentee ballots for this officer
In the 2000 federal election, I voted by stateside absentee ballot, sending my ballot by United Parcel Service from Texas to Florida. It was delivered on time; I know this because UPS recorded document receipt by the Office of the Broward County Supervisor of Elections at 3:09 p.m. on Election Day, almost four hours before the 7 p.m. deadline.
For the next seven months, I felt proud of myself for taking part in the election process. I was sure my vote had been counted, because I had proof it was delivered on time.
Then a reporter from the New York Times called. He had a list of thousands of Florida voters whose absentee ballots had not been counted — and my name was on the list. The Office of the Broward County Supervisor of Elections stamped my ballot as being received nine days after the election.
What happened? I believe Broward County officials fraudulently set aside many absentee ballots, most sent by regular mail. Why? Because there is no tracking system on regular mail. Voters who used regular mail had no way to prove when it was delivered. The mistake they made was throwing mine in with the others.
Fraud was committed. And I proved it.
On Aug. 18, after more than three years trying to get my vote counted, the Florida Elections Commission validated my claim. They agreed that my vote was received on time and had not been counted. But the two-year statute of limitations had expired. So certain elections officials will not be charged with fraud — a first-degree misdemeanor — for failing to count my vote.
However, on Sept. 2, the Florida Elections Commission sent a written request to the Broward County Supervisor of Elections to open my ballot and count my vote.
The lesson: If you want greater assurance of your absentee ballot being counted, don’t send it by regular mail. Send it certified, return receipt requested. Use any delivery service that has a tracking system.
If enough absentee ballot voters do this, it will send a strong message. Elections officials will be dissuaded from playing political hanky-panky with your vote. But if you really want to make sure your vote is counted, you may want to vote in person at your designated polling place, even if you have to take leave and travel to do it.
Ludicrous advice? Perhaps. But I believe that most absentee ballots are never counted. They usually come into play only when an election is so close that the absentee ballots could change the outcome — that is, when the number of valid absentee ballots received is greater than the margin of victory.
Only once in my 26-year military career have I lived close enough to my polling place to vote in person. I am still stunned by the revelation that the one time I voted in person was probably the only time my vote was ever counted. I will never again vote by absentee ballot. On Nov. 2, I will take a day of leave and travel to my polling place.
We need to implement a nationwide electronic voting system that allows troops to walk into any polling place across the United States and cast their ballot. And service members based overseas should be able to vote over the Internet.
We have the technology to implement nationwide electronic voting. But defense officials recently postponed plans to further test a new electronic voting system developed by Accenture eDemocracy Services.
The electronic voting project was successfully tested in four counties during the 2000 election, but was sidelined in March 2004 because of security concerns. The expanded pilot program, dubbed Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment, was intended to be used in 50 counties across the nation during the 2004 election, but again was postponed because of concerns about the “legitimacy of votes cast over the Internet.”
Billions of dollars’ worth of financial transactions take place over the Internet every day. The accuracy of those transactions is nearing perfection. The error rate is so small it is negligible. More important, the errors are correctable.
Some hackers may try to interfere with electronic voting, but my bet is, they’ll prefer to spend their time on something that has potential monetary gain. If you believe hackers could interfere with electronic voting to the extent that it completely invalidates the entire election process, then you’ve been watching too many late-night reruns of “Mission Impossible.”
As a group, active-duty military personnel are among the most disenfranchised voters in the nation — and that’s a disgrace. Our democracy must do a better job of ensuring all votes are counted — especially the votes of service members, who pledge their lives to preserve the rights and freedoms of all Americans.
The writer is an active-duty colonel serving at the U.S. Army Reserve Command at Fort McPherson, Ga. E-mail him at davidlowry@bellsouth.net.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense or the U.S. government.
http://www.navytimes.com/print.php?f=0-NAVYPAPER-390740.php
Colo. Voting Woes Rise As Election Nears
....Colorado could end up writing an ugly sequel to the Florida election nightmare of four years ago.
County clerks have been swamped with a surge in voter registrations, thousands of felons are on the voter rolls, and there is widespread confusion about how provisional ballots will be counted and voting rules will be enforced....
....When it comes to the voter rolls, things started getting confusing when counties began seeing a surge in voter registrations. No one is sure how many new voters signed up, but the figure could be well over 100,000.
Secretary of State Donetta Davidson stunned county clerks by effectively scrapping the Oct. 4 registration deadline after people complained their registration forms had not been turned in by various get-out-the-vote campaigns.
More problems could result from provisional ballots - essentially backup ballots that are used when voters think they are properly registered but their names do not appear on the rolls.
People who do not show up on voter rolls will be asked to swear they are eligible to vote in order to get a provisional ballot. The problem? If they aren't on the rolls, election judges cannot confirm whether they are telling the truth....
....Davidson also has acknowledged that there are about 6,000 felons registered to vote in Colorado. She is updating information from corrections officials to distribute lists to county clerks, who will have to purge their rolls of convicted felons still serving their sentences or out on parole.
The secretary of state is downplaying the concerns about Florida-like fiasco, but has criticized Attorney General Ken Salazar for keeping her "out of the loop" when it comes to investigating voter fraud.
Bruce Altschuler, a political science professor at the State University of New York at Oswego, said similar problems are cropping up in every battleground state.
"The fear or hope, as the case may be, by both parties is this election could turn out to be as close as last time," Altschuler said. "Both sides are leaving no stone unturned in the search for potential voters and the potential for hanky-panky and lawsuits."
If Colorado ends up close, there is little question the losing side would challenge the results, based on any mistakes that might have been made in preparing for the election or counting votes.
"It would certainly be my hope that there's no need for any kind of legal action after Election Day," said state Republican Party Chairman Ted Halaby. "We also have to be realistic, and we have the issue of provisional ballots, and we have widespread reports of vast fraudulent registration. It is a cause for concern."
http://dev.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=20651105
I-Team investigation uncovers voter registration fraud
written by: Deborah Sherman (I-Team Reporter) and Nicole Vap (Executive Producer Investigative)
The I-Team has uncovered some disturbing evidence of voter registration fraud. 10 p.m. Oct. 11, 2004.
DENVER - With just 21 days left until an election in which every vote will count, the 9News I-Team has uncovered voter registration fraud that could cause chaos on Election Day for hundreds, possibly thousands of Colorado voters.
9News has discovered a record number of fraudulent voter-registrations across the state. Secretary of State Donetta Davidson tells 9News she is concerned about what the I-Team has uncovered and wants those responsible prosecuted. "It has just gone rampant," she told reporter Deborah Sherman in an interview Monday afternoon.
Most of the fraud has come from registration drives, where people at grocery stores or on the streets ask you to sign up. 9News has learned many workers have re-registered voters multiple times by changing or making up information about them. 9News has documented 719 cases of potentially fraudulent forms at county election offices, show fraudulent names, addresses, social security numbers or dates of birth in Denver, Douglas, Adams, Boulder and Lake counties. Information from other counties is still coming in.
Some voter registration application forms are completely bogus. Others belong to legitimate voters, who have had one or two facts changed that could affect their registration when they show up at the polls November 2nd. Tom Stanislawski registered to vote six years ago. But this summer, someone signed him up again and changed his party affiliation. "My concern would be I'd walk in November 2nd and be unable to vote," he said.
Some of the registration drive workers earn $2 per application or about $10 an hour. One woman admitted to forging three people's names on about 40 voter registration applications. Kym Cason says she was helping her boyfriend earn more money from a get-out-the-vote organization called ACORN or Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. ACORN works with low or moderate-income families on housing issues. Cason said her extra registrations earned her boyfriend $50.
Gerald Obi says workers pressured him to keep registering to vote so they too could earn extra cash. When asked how many times he had registered this year, Obi said, "about 35 times."
ACORN's state director said they are victims of the fraud as well and told 9News the group is cooperating with local investigators. Ross Fitzgerald says the group has fired workers for the fraud. "Our goal is to register as many people as we can," said Fitzgerald. "If they're fraudulent, that hurts our numbers."
Clerk and Recorders from several counties met Monday with Secretary of State Donetta Davidson to discuss this problem, and the problem of felons registering to vote. "I have to question whether we should be allowing people to accept money for voter registration," said Douglas County Clerk and Recorder Carole Murray.
Colorado Secretary of State Donetta Davidson agreed and said she will be looking at ways to reform the system.
http://dev.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=20634612
Voter election fraud with liberals involved?
.....(A) Times article about Ohio and Florida reports that “Steve Rosenthal, the chief executive of Americans Coming Together, or ACT, a soft-money group that is trying to register Democrats, said he believed they would. "I think what's happening on the streets, below the radar, is what's going to make the big difference on Election Day," said Mr. Rosenthal, who said his organization and the other groups "would register two and a half million new Democratic voters nationwide.”
Americans Coming Together has been in the news lately for its voter registration activities in Ohio.
More than 1,000 voter registration forms and absentee ballot requests may be fraudulent in Lake and Summit counties, where investigations of irregularities are broadening.
Lake County Sheriff Daniel Dunlap said Thursday that he will investigate an attempt to register a dead person and other possibly fraudulent documents that were submitted to the Lake County Board of Elections…
Elections officials have said hundreds of absentee ballot applications and dozens of voter registration cards are in question. Lake County Prosecutor Charles Coulson, also involved in the probe, said the problems are more significant than originally thought.
"We've seen voter fraud before, but never on this level," Coulson said Thursday. "I grew up in Chicago and this looks like the politics of Mayor Daley in the '50s and '60s."
Lake election and law enforcement officials said their investigation is centered on absentee registration attempts by the nonpartisan NAACP's National Voter Fund and an anti-Bush, nonprofit group called Americans Coming Together, or ACT Ohio…
In one other instance, an elderly nursing home resident who usually signs with an "X" appeared to have a firm, cursive signature when she registered.
"We are going to have to see who's alive and who's well," Dunlap said.
"We're going to have to burn up some shoe leather."
In Summit County, meanwhile, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation has agreed to assist the Sheriff's Department in the examination of 803 suspect voter registration applications.
Bryan Williams, director of the Summit County Board of Elections, said high interest in this year's presidential election has resulted in unprecedented numbers of voter registrations, absentee ballot requests and irregular voter applications.
Williams said the suspect voter registration applications include some with nonexistent addresses while others from the same street all have the street identically misspelled.
Still other voter registration cards bear strikingly similar handwriting, suggesting one person submitted a group of fraudulent voter registration cards.
Wait, when else has Americans Coming Together been in the news?
America Coming Together, contending that convicted criminals deserve a second chance in society, employs felons as voter canvassers in major metropolitan areas in Missouri, Florida, Ohio, and perhaps in other states among the 17 it is targeting in its drive. Some of the felons lived in halfway houses, and at least four returned to prison.
A review of federal campaign finance and state criminal records by the Associated Press revealed that the names and hometowns of dozens of ACT employees in Missouri, Florida, and Ohio matched those of people convicted of crimes such as burglary, forgery, drug dealing, assault, and sex offenses.
Hmmm. In Ohio, you say? And Florida? And, according to another AP article, Iowa is another state that American Coming Together is working in?
So - this organization hires individuals - some of whom are felons - and pays them $8 to $12 per hour to collect filled-out voter registration forms and applications for absentee ballots. Is it possible that some of these ACT workers are simply going through the phone book and writing down names and addresses, and forging signatures?
Hmm. Florida requires photocopies of ID and a Florida driver’s license number or Florida identification card number, or the last four digits of a Social Security number. Same for Ohio.
Iowa requires an ID number that can be either a driver’s license number or a Social Security number, date of birth, sex, name, address and signature. Do the various Secretaries of State check this information?
The Times article about Ohio reports that Matt Damschroder, the director of the Board of Elections, he had to throw out many of the cards he got because the voters were already registered. “One woman had signed a card three different times,” with three different groups, he said.
Maybe on Election Day we will see a massive tsunami of new Democratic voters showing up at the polls. Or perhaps Americans Coming Together will realize that felons don’t make the most reliable employees.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerry200409281710.asp
....Voter fraud is breaking out all over:
In Tennessee, a temporary employee of the left-wing group Tennessee Citizen Action is being investigated for submitting 200 fake voter registration forms.
In Cleveland, Ohio, the NAACP and liberal group Americans Coming Together are under investigation for their involvement in 1,000 suspicious registrations. A Lake County prosecutor, Charles Coulson, said: "We've seen voter fraud before, but never on this level," Coulson said Thursday. "I grew up in Chicago and this looks like the politics of Mayor Daley in the '50s and '60s."
In Michigan, liberal groups PIRGIM (the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan) and Project Vote are entangled in a four-county voter fraud investigation.
In West Virginia, two Republican officials investigating voter fraud have received death threats from opponents.....
http://dev.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=20580567
The New Voters Project smells like vote fraud
....The New Voters Project, a national grassroots youth voter mobilization initiative, announced last week that it has registered 74,000 young people to vote in Wisconsin....
....However, the registrant boom comes with an asterisk. City clerks from around the state and Rock County have said that many of the registrations are missing an important piece of information.
Rock County Clerk Kay O'Connell said local clerks are dealing with loads of forms from the non-partisan project that don't include necessary copies of registrant identification, such as Wisconsin driver's licenses....
....Wulf said the New Voters Project is also unnecessarily registering voters.
She said 21 percent of the forms Janesville has received are from people who are already registered....
http://www.gazettextra.com/eln_newvoters090904.asp
LOL! Twenty years in the US Senate & absolutely nothing of
substance! His voting record makes Kennedy the conservative
Senator from MA. He has been on the wrong side of almost
every military vote. And how many times has Kerry voted to
raise taxes?
And he is qualified to be POTUS?
Who are the 'brainwashers'?
Brent Bozell
townhall.com
October 20, 2004
The decision of Sinclair Broadcasting to air an anti-Kerry documentary in late October is a nightmarish recipe of "creeping fascism, state propaganda, Big Brother and brainwashing." So says the unhinged Molly Ivins, giving voice to the outrage felt by her colleagues in the news media.
Liberals are positively panicked at the idea that somewhere, on some station, at some late date, someone will say something negative about John Kerry without a moment for balance on the other side. Let's be blunt: Welcome to our world, liberals. You're all for propaganda and brainwashing when it's Dan, Peter, Tom & Co. spinning wildly in your direction. In your world, a free press is defined as what happens when so-called "news" professionals sell liberalism relentlessly like a kitchen gizmo on a late-night infomercial.
Conservatives are used to seeing our leaders hounded and our ideas pounded without any quaint notions of balance or fairness on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS and so on. This does not occur on one night every four years. It happens on a daily, even hourly basis. TV news stars have foisted Microsoft forgeries on President Bush (CBS), framed his face next to the letters "I LIE" (NBC), and composed internal memos declaring that the Bush campaign is a cavalcade of liars and must be exposed as such (ABC).
For most of this year, these left-wing journalists have portrayed John Kerry's war years as if he were a combination of Private Ryan, Sergeant York and G.I. Joe. They have touted his "chestful of medals" and swooned over every replay of his military home movies (yes, the ones he vowed he'd never use for political gain). Those who remember him differently -- as a man who went to battle to polish his political resume and then returned home to smear his comrades in the war effort as vandals, rapists and murderers -- are not to be defined as "newsworthy." Their views are sometimes questioned, usually condemned, parceled out in half-teaspoons of Swift Vet ad clips. They are never invited to sit for extended interviews with Ted Koppel or Dan Rather.
The film Sinclair has ordered its stations to air, "Stolen Honor," interviews Vietnam prisoners of war and their wives at length about the wounds they feel over Kerry's infamous 1971 Senate testimony. It is a powerful film. It's a devastating story. It's no wonder the liberals want it blacklisted before it can be located on television.
But with all the one-sided boosterism of Kerry the war hero, we must ask: Is "Stolen Honor" a blatant offense against balance? Or can it qualify, at least in a few media markets, as a limited but razor-sharp contrast to the liberal media monoculture, as the arrival of balance? "Stolen Honor" critics ought to shut up, sit down and watch before they condemn it.
For the latest example of the liberal media's extreme revulsion to the views of anti-Kerry veterans, see ABC's "Nightline" on Oct. 14. In four previous shows on Kerry's war history and Swift Boat veteran ads, Ted Koppel never granted an anti-Kerry veteran an extended interview. But this time, Koppel's show did the incredible, traveling all the way to Vietnam and interviewing self-proclaimed soldiers for the communist regime, soliciting their viewpoint. In aiming to determine what happened on the day Kerry put in for his Silver Star medal, Feb. 28, 1969, Koppel said these old enemies had "no particular ax to grind for or against John Kerry." The spokesmen for a regime that tortured and killed countless American POWs were more trustworthy than American POWs.
After a parade of unsubstantiated hearsay from these Vietnamese peasants, interviewed with an official minder from the communist regime standing around, Koppel sat down with an anti-Kerry veteran on live television for the first time this year. John O'Neill was so shocked by the audacity of ABC's "news" judgment that he kept returning to the objection that Koppel had been used: "You've been had, Ted."
Koppel framed the show as a "chance to set the record straight" -- against John O'Neill . Kerry's G.I. Joe narrative must be upheld, even if it requires traveling around the world and looking up the "independent" Viet Cong to "confirm the essence" of the Kerry mythmakers.
How dare these partisan hacks at ABC and elsewhere sit pompously in their studios and condemn Sinclair! They have no gauntlet of objectivity to toss at anyone. They accuse others of trumped-up, slanted propaganda? In this Kerry-coddling campaign cycle, the pot has never been blacker before rebuking the kettle.
Brent Bozell is President of Media Research Center, a Townhall.com member group.
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/bb20041020.shtml
The Rice Stuff?
Susan Rice talks about Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Does she know what's going on in Iraq?
by Stephen F. Hayes
10/20/2004 12:00:00 AM
IN A CONFERENCE CALL with reporters Monday, Susan Rice, was asked about Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Rice is a senior foreign policy adviser to John Kerry's presidential campaign who is often mentioned as a possible National Security Adviser in a Kerry White House. Her comments on Zarqawi make that a worrisome prospect.
Why? Rice's understanding of Zarqawi is wrong. Her comments directly contradict the findings of the review of prewar Iraq intelligence prepared by the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and signed by Senator John Edwards, a member of that panel.
Here's what Rice said Monday in response to a question about the Kerry campaign's "position on Zarqawi":
<<<<Our position is that he poses a major threat now in Iraq, a threat that frankly wasn't there before the U.S. invasion. But now we have got to go after him and capture him or kill him. Before the invasion, he was in non-Saddam controlled area, very minor, and didn't pose any imminent threat to the U.S., and was not in any way cooperating with al-Qaeda.>>>>
She's right about two things: (1) that Zarqawi "poses a major threat now in Iraq;" and (2) "we have got to go after him and capture or kill him."
Everything else is wrong.
Start with her claim that Zarqawi is "a threat that frankly wasn't there before the U.S. invasion." The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee review cites a CIA report, Iraq Support for Terrorism: "A variety of reporting indicates that senior al Qaeda terrorist planner al Zarqawi was in Baghdad [redacted]. A foreign government service asserted that the IIS [Iraqi Intelligence Service] knew where al Zarqawi was located despite Baghdad's claims that it could not find him." (p. 337)
Rice also claims that Zarqawi was in a "non-Saddam controlled area, very minor." Language from the Senate report (p. 338) suggests that while Zarqawi certainly operated out of non-Saddam controlled Iraq, he was also in Baghdad:
<<<<As indicated in Iraq Support for Terrorism, the Iraqi regime was, at a minimum, aware of Zarqawi's presence in Baghdad in 2002 because a foreign government service passed information regarding his whereabouts to Iraqi authorities in June 2002. Despite Iraq's pervasive security apparatus and its receipt of detailed information about al-Zarqawi's possible location, Iraqi Intelligence told the foreign government service it could not locate al-Zarqawi.
[Redacted] al Zarqawi and his network were operating both in Baghdad and in the Kurdish-controlled region of Iraq. The HUMINT reporting indicated that the Iraqi regime certainly knew that al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad because a foreign government service gave that information to Iraq. Though the intelligence reports established the presence of al-Zarqawi in Baghdad during 2002 and the activities of his network in other areas of Iraq during 2002 and 2003 [redacted]>>>>
The Senate report concluded that "the Central Intelligence Agency's assessment on safe haven--that al Qaeda or associated groups were present in Baghdad and in northeastern Iraq in an area under Kurdish control--were reasonable." (p.347).
What was Zarqawi doing in Iraq? Here is the assessment provided by the State Department's "Patterns of Global Terrorism," released April 30, 2003.
<<<<The presence of several hundred al-Qaida operatives fighting with the small Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam in the northeastern corner of Iraqi Kurdistan--where the IIS operates--is well documented. Iraq has an agent in the most senior levels of Ansar al-Islam as well. In addition, small numbers of highly placed al-Qaida militants were present in Baghdad and areas of Iraq that Saddam controls. It is inconceivable these groups were in Iraq without the knowledge and acquiescence of Saddam's regime. In the past year, al-Qaida operatives in northern Iraq concocted suspect chemicals under the direction of senior al-Qaida associate Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi and tried to smuggle them into Russia, Western Europe, and the United States for terrorist operations.>>>>
The timing of Rice's comments was unfortunate. The same day an Islamic website posted a statement in which Zarqawi pledges allegiance to Osama bin Laden. The fact that Zarqawi had not yet done so was cited by Bush administration critics as evidence that Zarqawi and bin Laden were more rivals than allies. Rice's claim--that Zarqawi "was not in any way cooperating with al Qaeda" before the U.S. invasion of Iraq--is on the extreme fringe of this thinking. And again, it's wrong.
There is little doubt that Zarqawi and bin Laden have had disagreements, both about tactics and strategy. But there is also little doubt that Zarqawi has met with and received support from bin Laden and, contrary to Rice's assertion, had actively cooperated with al Qaeda in the past.
Here's how a September 27, 2004, article in the Washington Post reported on Zarqawi's support from al Qaeda. The article notes several disagreements between bin Laden and Zarqawi, but also provides details of Zarqawi's work with al Qaeda:
<<<<According to Jordanian officials and court testimony by jailed followers in Germany, Zarqawi met in Kandahar and Kabul with bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders. He asked them for assistance and money to set up his own training camp in Herat, near the Iranian border. With al Qaeda's support, the camp opened and soon served as a magnet for Jordanian militants.>>>>
But Zarqawi did more than train fighters. According to a Jordanian indictment, Zarqawi planned a series of attacks in Jordan to mark the millennium. His chief co-conspirator in that plot was Abu Zubaydah, frequently described as Osama bin Laden's "operations chief." The Senate Intelligence Committee report says that Zubaydah was the "senior al Qaeda coordinator responsible for training and recruiting." Zubaydah, who is in U.S. custody, is often cited by skeptics of the Iraq-al Qaeda connection because he told interrogators that he thought it "unlikely" that bin Laden would establish a formal alliance with Iraq for fear of losing his independence. But the skeptics often ignore other aspects of Zubaydah's debriefing. Again, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee report, Zubaydah "indicated that he had heard that an important al Qaeda associate, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and others had good relationships with Iraqi Intelligence."
There are two things worth highlighting in that passage. First, contra Rice, the Senate report describes Zarqawi as an "al Qaeda associate." And second, as a senior al Qaeda leader who plotted attacks with Zarqawi, Zubaydah is someone who might speak with some authority about Zarqawi's relationships with the Iraqis.
The question remains then: Why would Susan Rice say these things? Is it possible that the senior foreign policy adviser to John Kerry simply doesn't know much about Zarqawi, the leading terrorist in Iraq today? Or is it possible that she knows all of this and chooses to deny it in a crass political effort to separate the Iraq war from the broader war on terror?
It's hard to know.
And there are more unanswered questions. Does John Edwards agree with Rice or with the Senate report he signed? And what about John Kerry? Was his senior foreign policy adviser speaking for him? Does he believe that Zarqawi was not in Iraq before the war? Or that he was not cooperating "in any way" with al Qaeda?
Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/803czhfn.asp
HusseinandTerror.com
Introducing a new resource.
NRO
October 20, 2004, 8:55 a.m.
Americans who still believe Saddam Hussein had no ties to terrorists in general or al Qaeda in particular should visit husseinandterror.com. This website is adapted from a speech I delivered on September 22 at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Husseinandterror.com includes photographs of Baathist-supported terrorists, pictures of the mayhem they have perpetrated, and portraits of those they have killed, including American citizens. It offers disturbing proof that Saddam Hussein and his regime operated a one-stop-shop for terrorists, including cash, diplomatic assistance, safe haven, training, and even medical care.
Readers may be startled to see, among other things, copies of checks given to the families of Palestinian homicide bombers in Israel. Perhaps for the first time (not the case for NRO readers), they will read the words of former Italian prime minister Bettino Craxi explaining that terrorist Abu Abbas — ring leader of the October 1985 Achille Lauro cruise-ship hijacking — was freed from Italian custody because he traveled on an Iraqi diplomatic passport.
There also is a web image of an online CBS News story headlined, "Court Rules: Al Qaida, Iraq Linked." It discusses a May 7, 2003 decision by Clinton-appointed U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. to award the families of two September 11 victims $104 million in damages after their attorney proved that Saddam Hussein's government provided "material support" to al Qaeda in the September 11 massacre. So much for Senator John Edwards's claim in the October 5 vice-presidential debate that "there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11th — period."
With the generous and able assistance of journalist, web designer, and fellow Twin Towers rebuilding advocate Justin Berzon, I have backed this evidence with 22 footnotes and suggestions for further reading on this subject, including links to 15 of my previous writings on this topic, all but one of them previously published on National Review Online.
The only mystery deeper than Osama bin Laden's home address is why the White House never has assembled a website, brochure, DVD, or even a speech presenting the overwhelming evidence of Saddam Hussein's philanthropy of terror. Highlighting the clear and extensive links between Hussein and global terrorists, including al Qaeda, would help Americans understand this key rationale for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Communicating this message with Americans and audiences abroad would generate cheers rather than jeers for President Bush's decision to lead more than 30 countries in dislodging Saddam Hussein in March 2003.
While Team Bush discusses this vital issue in whispers, at best, I hope husseinandterror.com will help Americans learn how Saddam Hussein operated Grand Terror Terminal, and why handcuffing him last year was then, and remains today, the right thing to have done.
http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200410200855.asp
Voter frauds on the left
Washington Times
Since the 2000 election, it has become an article of faith for the Democratic Party and its allies on the political left that George W. Bush won by suppressing the black vote in Florida and elsewhere.
John Kerry and Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe have made numerous speeches declaring that Democrats must remain vigilant against a repeat of such Republican chicanery. People For the American Way, New York Times columnists Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman and some members of the Congressional Black Caucus have been recycling a false story suggesting that Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has dispatched state police to the homes of elderly blacks in an effort to discourage them from voting. DNC officials have produced a manual urging party members to publicly challenge Republican efforts to "intimidate" voters even if there is no evidence that intimidation is taking place.
Meanwhile, America Votes, a 32-member coalition of anti-Bush organizations — led by such groups as George Soros' MoveOn.org, America Coming Together and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — is spending $100 million on a campaign that voting officials say has resulted in a massive increase in voters nationwide. The aim of this door-to-door voter-registration drive is to identify undecided and potential Democratic voters in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and 11 other battleground states.
One member of the coalition, a left-wing activist group known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), claims to have registered 1 million new voters since July 2003. The problem is that at least some of these were fraudulently registered. ACORN's western regional director acknowledged in an interview with this newspaper that several hundred of those new registrants in Colorado were fraudulent, but sought to downplay the problem with the explanation that registration fraud is different from voter fraud: "Just because you register someone 35 times doesn't mean they get to vote 35 times."
Not everyone finds this reassuring. Authorities in several states are investigating whether thousands of voter registrations have been fraudulently submitted — many of them by members of the America Votes coalition. In Florida, the Justice Department and state authorities are investigating charges by a former ACORN field director that workers for the organization routinely withheld Republican voter registrations, while thousands of invalid voter registration cards were submitted in their place.
Regarding the 2000 election, allegations of mass voter intimidation and suppression in Florida were determined to be unfounded by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, which spent six months investigating the charges. In recent months, Messrs. Herbert and Krugman of the New York Times have given extensive publicity to charges that members of the Florida state police tried to intimidate black voters while investigating fraud in the Orlando mayoral election this year. After conducting his own investigation of the charges, Jeffrey Billman, a columnist for the liberal Orlando Weekly newspaper, pronounced them "bull—." Saying they were part of a legitimate investigation into whether one of the candidates manipulated absentee ballots.
Thus far, the evidence suggests that the Bush-bashers are the people engaged in political chicanery when it comes to the question of voting rights.
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20041019-083921-1812r.htm
So where are the Weapons of mass destruction?
http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/GraveEvidence-X.gif
http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/000440.html
ABC News or ABC spin
Thomas Sowell
October 20, 2004
As if Dan Rather's use of forged documents to try to discredit President Bush shortly before the election was not enough of a clue to the mainstream media's political agenda, ABC News has now joined CBS News in the political spin game.
What ABC News has done was too elaborate to be called a "mistake." Now that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have become too well known for the mainstream media to continue ignoring them, ABC's Nightline with Ted Koppel has broadcast its "investigation" of one of the Swift Boat veterans' charges against John Kerry.
The charge was that Kerry received a medal for an incident in Vietnam that he falsely reported. How did ABC's Nightline try to establish the truth? Interview crew members who were on Kerry's boat at the time? No! Interview veterans who were in other boats near John Kerry's boat at the time? No!
Nightline went to Vietnam to interview people whom they had been told were among the Communist guerrillas involved in the disputed incident.
It would be an unwarranted insult to Ted Koppel's intelligence to believe that he does not understand the unreliability of what is said publicly by people living in a totalitarian society, especially when it is said in the presence of a Communist official who took Nightline to the people who were to be interviewed.
What is the Communist government's stake in all this?
In recent years, high officials of the Vietnamese government have openly admitted that they were losing the Vietnam war on the battlefields but hung on, waiting for a political victory, based on their belief that the anti-war movement in the United States would eventually force American withdrawal.
When much of the American media became part of the anti-war movement, the gamble obviously paid off.
One of the Vietnamese Communists' museums pays tribute to the American anti-war movement in general and features a picture of John Kerry in particular.
Against that background, how surprising is it that what was said in the interview backed up John Kerry's version of the disputed incident? Yet Ted Koppel described the people interviewed as "witnesses" who "have no particular axe to grind."
The clincher, according to Mr. Koppel, is that the interviewee's version of what happened matches the combat report and the official Navy citation with the medal. Surely ABC News knows that the combat report was written by John Kerry and that the Navy citation was based on what Kerry said in his report.
Nevertheless, according to Koppel, John Kerry's awards "should have been the most unassailable part of Kerry's record."
This kind of reasoning reminded me of an episode in a New York department store some years ago when I bought a sweater and gave the sales lady a credit card. She pointed out that there was no signature on the back of the card.
After I signed the credit card in her presence and then signed the bill, she compared the two signatures that she had just seen me write and, since they matched, it was OK with her. But at least she didn't say that this procedure was "unassailable."
Who would have dreamed that ABC News would compare what Kerry said in his report with what was said in a citation based on that report and find it convincing that they matched?
Everything about the Nightline program reeked of contrived "ambush journalism," to ambush John O'Neill with the words of Vietnamese villagers who were put on the program before him, and thereby exonerate John Kerry from O'Neill's charges.
If this program were a serious attempt to get at the truth, it would hardly have completely ignored all those Americans who were on the scene during the disputed incident and instead go to the other side of the world to talk with people in a Communist country with a Communist official present.
Other boats from John Kerry's unit fought that day in the same vicinity. Even with the best of intentions, the Vietnamese villagers interviewed on Nightline had no way of knowing which of the many Americans who opened fire that day 35 years ago was John Kerry. The Americans in that unit knew -- but they were not interviewed on Nightline.
That is what stamps this as spin, rather than news.
Do media elites think we are all fools? Probably.
Why the liberals can't stand American unity
Ben Shapiro
October 20, 2004
John Kerry can't stop mouthing off about the so-called "politics of division." During the third presidential debate, Kerry blamed public polarization on President Bush: "I regret to say that the president who called himself a uniter, not a divider, is now presiding over the most divided America in the recent memory of our country." He also claimed that he'd be able to bring Americans together. "We have to change that. And as president, I am committed to changing that."
Too bad Kerry's a liar. In the most divisive presidential campaign in American history, Kerry and the party for which he stands have set out to break all bonds, to rend young and old, rich and poor, black and white, all for the sake of political power. The Democrats don't want a united America. They want an America bitterly divided, so that they can put on their faux "healing" hats and pretend that if elected, they will bridge all gaps.
There are plenty of issues about which Americans can honestly disagree. The two major political parties in this country are vastly different breeds, despite what third-party radicals say. The Democrats are foreign-policy appeasers and United Nations patsies who fear ascendant American power. Republicans are foreign-policy hawks, American interest-first unilateralists if necessary, who wish to maximize American global dominance.
The Democrats are big-government economic liberals who pledge a balanced budget but can only reach it by raising taxes. The Republicans are big spenders, too, but largely due to the pressures of a closely divided Congress; ideally, they want to balance the budget by cutting government spending and government taxation.
The Democrats are social liberals who wish to validate the gay activist agenda, forward abortion and devaluate traditional morality in schools and in government. The Republicans are social conservatives who prize traditional morality above all else.
So there's a good deal about which to argue. But for John Kerry and his Democratic ilk, arguing the issues isn't conducive to victory. Because, really, who wants a socially liberal, fiscally spendthrift, militarily weak party leading this country?
Instead, the Democrats have created false divisions between the parties in order to frighten Americans into voting for them. Democrats target youth voters, who have largely turned in favor of President Bush, by lying about a prospective re-institution of the draft. Kerry lied to the Des Moines Register, stating that "With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of a draft." The Democratic National Committee featured draft rumors in a recent news release.
MoveOnStudentAction.org has spread rumors of a potential draft across the Internet, and has also launched a national campus campaign titled "Feel a Draft?" Rock the Vote pushes the idea that unless American foreign policy radically changes, a draft is inevitable.
It is, of course, complete bunk. Any political party attempting to bring back the draft would feel the wrath of American voters. In fact, the only politician who has seriously mentioned bringing back the draft has been Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.).
The Democrats aren't afraid to scare the AARP crowd, either. Kerry explained that President Bush has a secret "January surprise" plan to privatize social security, cutting benefits by up to 45 percent or $500 a month for many Americans. Kerry's latest ploy? Handing out pillboxes stamped with the Kerry/Edwards logo to retirement voters in Florida -- implying, of course, that with Kerry/Edwards, you'll get your pills, but with Bush, you'll have to eat dog food.
Democrats continue their scare tactics with regard to minorities as well. The ironically named "America Coming Together" group has posted flyers in Missouri carrying a picture of a black man being hosed by a fireman. The flyer carries the caption: "This is what they used to do to keep us from voting." (Meanwhile, Democrats are doing their best to ensure the non-existent vote: An NAACP worker in Ohio paid a 22-year-old man crack cocaine in exchange for fake voter registrations, including registrations for Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, Michael Jordan and George Foreman.)
Democrats claim that President Bush is to blame for disintegrating American unity. But the Democratic Party and John Kerry are dedicated to dividing America. Democratic ideology rests on the foundation that divisiveness must be achieved in order for communitarianism to be accepted -- destroy unity in order to gain power and create drastic change. Republican ideology rests on the formulation that unity must be achieved in order for individualism to be accepted -- foster unity within a strong and moral society in order that each individual may be respected.
The Democrats have won this battle. We are indeed divided. Let's just pray the right side -- the side promoting unity -- triumphs.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/bs20041020.shtml