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You republicans have blinders in your eyes. The administration has looked everywhere other than where the guy is hiding. Take the eye off the ball and this is where it lands you. Iraq! that is. Instead of concentrating on getting the main culprit and putting on the pressure on his organization, Our great prez. goes after a weak dictator, spends billions of dollars in a useless war that has done nothing but strengthen Bin Laden and his organization. And if you say there hasnt been any terrorist attack since then, then what do you call the American casualties in Iraq and world wide since this madness began? And of course, the terror threat alerts continue.
Polls schmolls
See msg# 67237
Statement by John Edwards on Republican Fear Mongering
Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards today made the following statement in response to Dennis Hastert's comments last night that Al Qaeda wants John Kerry to be elected:
"One clear sign of weakness and failed leadership is when a politician stoops to the politics of fear. In the last twenty-four hours Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the House, has joined the fear mongering choir. Last night, he said something to the effect that Al Qaeda wants John Kerry to be President of the United States. Let me say this in the simplest possible terms: when John Kerry is President of the United States, we will find Al Qaeda where they are and crush them before they can do damage to the American people.
"Over and over, this president and his cronies have taken one of our nation's greatest tragedies and used it as part of a cheap political ploy. With their words, they seek to divide us and they dishonor the fallen. They want to scare the American people but they will pay a price in November.
"None of us should be surprised by this, because just two or three weeks ago we heard what Dick Cheney said about this. He said that if you don't vote for him and George Bush come November and there is another terrorist attack, then it's your fault.
"The truth is that this statement by Dick Cheney was not an accident. It was calculated and it was calculated to divide us on one of the most critical issues to our country, keeping the American people safe and secure. It was un-American. The President of the United States should say it was un-American."
BUSH CAMPAIGN CITES STUDY THAT SHOWS BUSH PLAN WOULD RAISE HEALTH COSTS FOR FAMILIES
Today, the Bush campaign cited a study of the Kerry and Bush health plans by The Lewin Group. But even this misleading and inaccurate study shows that Bush is lying about his plan.
It taken awhile, but the Bush campaign finally came clean about the fact that its health care plan raises costs and fails to help cover as many people as it claims. The Bush plan is so bad that even this misleading study finds fault with it. America doesn't need any more of these wrong direction ideas from George Bush.
The Lewin Group study shows that Bush plan raises health premiums and out-of-pocket expenses for families. Bush claims that his plan would make health care more affordable - but The Lewin Group contradicts him. It finds that the average family will see their health costs go up by $68 under the Bush plan and down $451 under the Kerry plan. In addition, it finds that health premiums would go up for all income groups making over $10,000 under the Bush plan and down for all income groups under the Kerry plan. [The Lewin Group, "Bush and Kerry Health Care Proposals: Cost and Coverage Compared," 9/21/2004, Figure 20]
The Lewin Group study shows that Bush provides health insurance to half as many people as he claims. The White House website says that the Bush plan will "Results in more than 11 million and as many as 17.5 million newly insured Americans." But the Washington Post looked at this claim and said, "But when the Bush-Cheney team was asked to provide documentation, the hard data fell far short of the claims, a gap supported by several independent analyses." Now The Lewin Group comes out with flawed analysis that puts the number of people insured by the Bush plan higher than any previous study. But even The Lewin Group's estimate is that the Bush plan will cover half as many people as he claims. [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040902.html, Accessed: 9/20/2004; Washington Post, 8/22/2004, "Bush Health Care Plan Seems to Fall Short; Gap Grows Between Hard Data, Projections for Covering 10 Million Uninsured."]
Larry Lewin, the former President of The Lewin Group, has disavowed the misleading study. The Lewin Group study is deeply flawed. It finds more health insurance coverage than any previous study of the Bush plan, including estimates by the Bush administration's Treasury department. It makes flawed and misleading assumptions about Kerry's plan. This is why Larry Lewin wrote a memo stating, "the report has some obvious and significant shortcomings. The coverage projections for the Bush plan are seriously overstated and stand in stark contrast to every other independent analysis of the President's policies. Moreover, the cost estimates of the Kerry plan are substantially overstated. This is not surprising given that the costs estimates appear to be based on assumptions that do not accurately reflect the Kerry proposal." [Larry Lewin, Memorandum, 9/21/2004]
GAO CONFIRMS BUSH IS CHOOSING TO GIVE AWAY BILLIONS IN FEDERAL COLLEGE AID TO PAD CORPORATE PROFITS
Today, a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) confirmed that George Bush is going out of his way to do special favors for banks administering student loans, diverting resources that could be used to help students paying tuition.
Currently, the federal government pays banks to provide loans to students with a government-guaranteed rate of return. But instead of providing a reasonable rate of return, a loophole in the law gives many banks a guaranteed return of 9.5%. With no risk whatsoever, these banks receive a massive subsidy of nearly $1 billion annually straight from taxpayers - money that could be used to expand college access.
While the Bush Education Department claims it is powerless to close this loophole, GAO's report shows the Administration is wrong. The report, subtitled "Statutory and Regulatory Changes Could Avert Billions in Unnecessary Federal Payments," specifically says that GAO "disagrees with Education" and thinks its reading of the law is not right.
Vice-Presidential nominee John Edwards said: "This report reinforces what we already knew: With real leadership, we could close this loophole tomorrow and save billions of dollars. And we could take that money and give it to students who need it. That is what John Kerry will do as President."
GAO Rejects Bush Reading of Law. The Bush Administration claims that it cannot make rules to close the loophole under the Administrative Procedure Act. GAO writes, "we disagree with Education's characterization of the case law concerning" the law. GAO went on to note that "we continue to believe that Education should consider all of its options in effecting the desired policy change." [GAO, 9/21/04]
Keeping The Loophole Open Will Cost $2.8 Billion Next Year. If the loophole isn't closed until next year, the Institute for College Access and Success estimates that the government will spend $2.8 billion in subsidies to pad corporate profits instead of expanding college access. [New York Times, 8/27/04]
Bush And The Education Department Could End Guaranteed Profits Today. The president or officials at the Education Department could end the program and close the loophole at any time. "It is the agency's rules that created the loopholes," said Robert Shireman, director of the Institute for College Access and Success, which published a report today with findings similar to the G.A.O.'s. "It is the agency's responsibility to fix them. It is irresponsible not to act." [New York Times, 8/27/04]
"Everyone's Rushing In Before The Door Closes," said industry analyst Matthew J. Snowling. Almost half the lenders have expanded their portfolios of guaranteed loans in recent years; the volume of loans has quadrupled in just three years. Southwest Student Services Corporation, for example, has more than doubled its holdings of government guaranteed loans in the last two years to $650 million. [New York Times, 8/27/04]
Bush Won't Stop Giving Government Money To His Corporate Friends. While government subsidies have exploded, the New York Times reports that the Bush administration has strong political connections to lenders. "Indeed, [Don R.] Bouc was appointed by the department to serve on a financial aid advisory committee." And quarterly payments from the government to his company have expanded more than ten-fold since the end of 2002, from $4.6 million to more than $48 million in June. [New York Times, 8/27/04]
Can You Say Innuendo?
G.O.P. ROGER STONEWALLING? Facing questions about George Bush's service raised in Monday's NY Times and its own possible involvement with the disputed National Guard documents, the RNC cancelled a hyped-up attack call with Ed Gillespie on Tuesday afternoon. After that, the Bush campaign cancelled scheduled appearances by Dan Bartlett and Ed Gillespie on cable networks. These cancellations came as the Bush operatives refused to appear in a Q & A format alongside Kerry official Joe Lockhart. Guess they'd rather raise questions than answer them. Considering that Scott McClellan has only held two briefings in the last two months, that's not surprising.
BUSH HEALTH PLAN EXPOSED: The Bush campaign tried yet again to throw some mud at the Kerry health plan by promoting a misleading, inaccurate study from the Lewin Group that actually exposes how Bush's plan falls short. The Lewin Group study shows that the Bush plan raises health premiums and out-of-pocket expenses and only provides health insurance to half as many people as Bush claims. On top of that, Larry Lewin, the former President of The Lewin Group, has disavowed this misleading study.
NAILING THE HAMMER: With his political allies getting indicted, the screws seem to be tightening in on Tom DeLay. Delay is the subject of a House ethics committee investigation spurred by a money laundering probe into a PAC linked to Delay called Texans for a Republican Majority.
I WANT MY MTV: In a new MTV poll, Kerry leads Bush by 10 points (51-41) among 18-29-year-olds (9/8-9/13). The poll, conducted by CBS on behalf of MTV and the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE) found that only 39 percent of young people have a favorable impression of the president, only 44 percent approve of the way he is handling his job, and more than half feel he does not share their priorities.
SWING VOTERS GET POLLED: PA remains tied in seven September polls, as Kerry performs well among independents, on domestic issues and on being qualified to be Commander in Chief; Meanwhile Bush faces troubling wrong track and job approval numbers in the Keystone State. The latest MSNBC poll has a Kerry lead of 45-44 that is similar to other recent polls. Bush's wrong track (47) is larger than his right track (42) and Kerry leads on jobs and economy
For those of you who still rattle on about the polls, here's the latest..
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews868.html
Counting the civilian cost in Iraq
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3672298.stm
But hey! our Prez is pleased with the "progress".
Kerry says Bush has lost credibility
Democrat continues to slam president on Iraq war
Wednesday, September 22, 2004 Posted: 5:46 AM EDT (0946 GMT)
Sen. John Kerry called the war in Iraq "an enormous diversion from the war on terror."
JACKSONVILLE, Florida (CNN) -- President Bush has lost credibility with world leaders over the war in Iraq and has handled the war there "incompetently" since the March 2003 invasion, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Tuesday.
The Massachusetts senator said Bush broke his promises to Americans and Congress when he ordered U.S. troops into battle.
Kerry's remarks came one day after his most aggressive and detailed speech on Iraq to date. Monday, he told an audience at New York University that President Bush created "a crisis of historic proportions" and he warned of the possibility of "a war with no end in sight." (Full story)
In Florida, where he is on a two-day trip to the hurricane-ravaged state, Kerry held his first news conference in six weeks.
"I believe I can do a better job of telling the truth to the American people and of providing real choices that protect America and make us safer," Kerry said.
Kerry said the president lost credibility when U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan offered the help of the United Nations in Iraq months ago and Bush went "the other way" then "desperately sort of wandered back."
"I believe we need new leadership, new credibility. I think this president has lost credibility with the international community."
Kerry defended himself against continuous Republican accusations that he has shifted his position on Iraq, saying he has had only "one position" on the issue.
Tuesday, Bush said Kerry "has taken so many different positions on Iraq that his statements are hardly credible at all."
Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt accused Kerry of "pulling the rug out from under the troops he sent into harm's way" by refusing to comment on Annan's recent statement that the invasion of Iraq violated international law.
"John Kerry's shifting positions, his contradictions, his pessimism and his hopeless rhetoric send the wrong message to our troops, to our allies, to our enemies and to the world," Schmidt said.
Kerry defended his 2002 vote to give Bush the authority to use military force, saying it gave the president diplomatic leverage in dealing with Iraq. He contended that once Bush had that authorization, he made a series of decisions "that broke his promises both to the American people and to the Congress."
"No one could have imagined back then that they would discard their own State Department's 11 volumes of plans for what to do; that they would not guard the borders; that they would not guard the ammunition dumps; that they would disband the army; that they would not keep a civil service structure in place; that they would not provide the electricity and provide the jobs and the services.
"This has been incompetently handled, mismanaged every step of the way," Kerry said.
About 140,000 U.S. troops make up the large majority of a multinational force providing security for Iraq's interim government. Those troops have been battling a persistent insurgency for nearly 18 months after overthrowing former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Almost 700 American troops have been killed in action since Bush declared an end to major combat in May 2003.
Kerry said he has outlined "a fundamentally different approach" to the war, including encouraging U.S. allies to take on a greater role in reconstructing Iraq, expanding U.S. efforts to train Iraqi security forces and rebuilding the country's infrastructure. He also outlined a plan Monday to bring troops home within four years.
"We need not to stay the course, but [to] change the course so we can be successful. And the urgency grows with every single day," he said.
Republicans also blasted Kerry for his Monday speech, in which he said the United States "traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."
"The world is better off with Saddam Hussein sitting in a prison cell," Bush said. "And that stands in stark contrast to the statement my opponent made yesterday when he said that the world was better off with Saddam in power. I strongly disagree."
Kerry said Tuesday it was "obvious" that the world is better off with Saddam in captivity. But he added, "That doesn't mean you should take your eye off the ball -- which was Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda -- and rush to war just to get rid of him."
2004: It Is Not An 11 Point Race - by John Zogby
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=859
Put Away Your Hankies...a message from Michael Moore
9/20/04
Dear Friends,
Enough of the handwringing! Enough of the doomsaying! Do I have to come there and personally calm you down? Stop with all the defeatism, OK? Bush IS a goner -- IF we all just quit our whining and bellyaching and stop shaking like a bunch of nervous ninnies. Geez, this is embarrassing! The Republicans are laughing at us. Do you ever see them cry, "Oh, it's all over! We are finished! Bush can't win! Waaaaaa!"
Hell no. It's never over for them until the last ballot is shredded. They are never finished -- they just keeping moving forward like sharks that never sleep, always pushing, pulling, kicking, blocking, lying.
They are relentless and that is why we secretly admire them -- they just simply never, ever give up. Only 30% of the country calls itself "Republican," yet the Republicans own it all -- the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and the majority of the governorships. How do you think they've been able to pull that off considering they are a minority? It's because they eat you and me and every other liberal for breakfast and then spend the rest of the day wreaking havoc on the planet.
Look at us -- what a bunch of crybabies. Bush gets a bounce after his convention and you would have thought the Germans had run through Poland again. The Bushies are coming, the Bushies are coming! Yes, they caught Kerry asleep on the Swift Boat thing. Yes, they found the frequency in Dan Rather and ran with it. Suddenly it's like, "THE END IS NEAR! THE SKY IS FALLING!"
No, it is not. If I hear one more person tell me how lousy a candidate Kerry is and how he can't win... Dammit, of COURSE he's a lousy candidate -- he's a Democrat, for heavens sake! That party is so pathetic, they even lose the elections they win! What were you expecting, Bruce Springsteen heading up the ticket? Bruce would make a helluva president, but guys like him don't run -- and neither do you or I. People like Kerry run.
Yes, OF COURSE any of us would have run a better, smarter, kick-ass campaign. Of course we would have smacked each and every one of those phony swifty boaty bastards down. But WE are not running for president -- Kerry is. So quit complaining and work with what we have. Oprah just gave 300 women a... Pontiac! Did you see any of them frowning and moaning and screaming, "Oh God, NOT a friggin' Pontiac!" Of course not, they were happy. The Pontiacs all had four wheels, an engine and a gas pedal. You want more than that, well, I can't help you. I had a Pontiac once and it lasted a good year. And it was a VERY good year.
My friends, it is time for a reality check.
1. The polls are wrong. They are all over the map like diarrhea. On Friday, one poll had Bush 13 points ahead -- and another poll had them both tied. There are three reasons why the polls are b.s.: One, they are polling "likely voters." "Likely" means those who have consistently voted in the past few elections. So that cuts out young people who are voting for the first time and a ton of non-voters who are definitely going to vote in THIS election. Second, they are not polling people who use their cell phone as their primary phone. Again, that means they are not talking to young people. Finally, most of the polls are weighted with too many Republicans, as pollster John Zogby revealed last week. You are being snookered if you believe any of these polls.
2. Kerry has brought in the Clinton A-team. Instead of shunning Clinton (as Gore did), Kerry has decided to not make that mistake.
3. Traveling around the country, as I've been doing, I gotta tell ya, there is a hell of a lot of unrest out there. Much of it is not being captured by the mainstream press. But it is simmering and it is real. Do not let those well-produced Bush rallies of angry white people scare you. Turn off the TV! (Except Jon Stewart and Bill Moyers -- everything else is just a sugar-coated lie).
4. Conventional wisdom says if the election is decided on "9/11" (the fear of terrorism), Bush wins. But if it is decided on the job we are doing in Iraq, then Bush loses. And folks, that "job," you might have noticed, has descended into the third level of a hell we used to call Vietnam. There is no way out. It is a full-blown mess of a quagmire and the body bags will sadly only mount higher. Regardless of what Kerry meant by his original war vote, he ain't the one who sent those kids to their deaths -- and Mr. and Mrs. Middle America knows it. Had Bush bothered to show up when he was in the "service" he might have somewhat of a clue as to how to recognize an immoral war that cannot be "won." All he has delivered to Iraq was that plasticized turkey last Thanksgiving. It is this failure of monumental proportions that is going to cook his goose come this November.
So, do not despair. All is not over. Far from it. The Bush people need you to believe that it is over. They need you to slump back into your easy chair and feel that sick pain in your gut as you contemplate another four years of George W. Bush. They need you to wish we had a candidate who didn't windsurf and who was just as smart as we were when WE knew Bush was lying about WMD and Saddam planning 9/11. It's like Karl Rove is hypnotizing you -- "Kerry voted for the war...Kerry voted for the war...Kerrrrrryyy vooootted fooooor theeee warrrrrrrrrr..."
Yes...Yes...Yesssss....He did! HE DID! No sense in fighting now...what I need is sleep...sleeep...sleeeeeeppppp...
WAKE UP! The majority are with us! More than half of all Americans are pro-choice, want stronger environmental laws, are appalled that assault weapons are back on the street -- and 54% now believe the war is wrong. YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO CONVINCE THEM OF ANY OF THIS -- YOU JUST HAVE TO GIVE THEM A RAY OF HOPE AND A RIDE TO THE POLLS. CAN YOU DO THAT? WILL YOU DO THAT?
Just for me, please? Buck up. The country is almost back in our hands. Not another negative word until Nov. 3rd! Then you can bitch all you want about how you wish Kerry was still that long-haired kid who once had the courage to stand up for something. Personally, I think that kid is still inside him. Instead of the wailing and gnashing of your teeth, why not hold out a hand to him and help the inner soldier/protester come out and defeat the forces of evil we now so desperately face. Do we have any other choice?
Yours,
Michael Moore
Making call on sham of political polling
http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nybres163973220sep16,0,5025667.column
15:35 ET Follow-up on Illinois shooting : The Associated Press reports that a security guard was shot inside the state Capitol in Springfield, IL this afternoon by someone who then fled in a vehicle, authorities said. The victim's condition was not immediately released. The building was locked down, with employees ordered to stay in their offices. The shooter entered the north entrance and shot the unarmed guard at about 1:45 PM, then fled, said Secretary of State's spokesman Randy Nehrt
Maybe the guy was trying out his brand new Assault weapon.
Hello.. Wake up from the convention stupor. You really should do something about your blinders.
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=495
First Chaney, Now Hastert. Really Pathetic.
Hastert's al Qaeda comment draws fire
Idea that terrorists want Kerry to win called 'silly,' 'disgraceful'
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/19/hastert.remark/index.html
We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore
How did the Party of Lincoln and Liberty transmogrify into the party of Newt Gingrich's evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk?
by Garrison Keillor / In These Times
Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned--and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today's. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.
In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. "Bipartisanship is another term of date rape," says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the GOP. "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." The boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.
The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt's evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we're deaf, dumb and dangerous.
Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on a massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat turds in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great wealth as the sure sign of Divine Grace.
Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy--the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president's personal satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully.
The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. The omens are not good.
Our beloved land has been fogged with fear--fear, the greatest political strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition. And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax breaks on the rich.
There is a stink drifting through this election year. It isn't the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it's 9/11 that we keep coming back to. It wasn't the "end of innocence," or a turning point in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security. And patriotism shouldn't prevent people from asking hard questions of the man who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.
Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to get some serious nation-changing done in his second term.
This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the Deadheads. They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm.
The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.
This is a great country, and it wasn't made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we're not getting any younger.
Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader. It's a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life than winning.
Iraqi car bomb kills 23 in Kirkuk
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3668098.stm
In other developments:
A senior Iraqi oil official, Mohammed Zibari, survives an assassination attempt in Mosul, but five of his bodyguards are killed, police say
A roadside bomb in Baghdad, kills one person and wounds two others, police say
In Baquba, nine people are reported injured when a mortar shell is fired at a crowd of parents and schoolchildren awaiting exam results at a school
British troops clash with supporters of cleric Moqtada Sadr in Basra for a second day
Arab Shia leader Sheikh Kadhim al-Hany is ambushed and killed in Kirkuk, police say
But hey! as long as our commander in chief is happy, who cares..
Bush 'pleased with the progress' in Iraq
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/18/bush.iraq/index.html
This Is Bush's Vietnam
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/opinion/17herbert.html?hp
George W. Bush is now trapped as tightly in Iraq as Johnson was in Vietnam. The war is going badly. The president's own intelligence estimates are pessimistic. There is no plan to actually win the war in Iraq, and no willingness to concede defeat.
First it was Heinz Ketchup, now this
http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/17/news/fortune500/pg_gay_rights/index.htm?cnn=yes
Laura Bush heckled during campaign speech
Mother's sign reads: 'President Bush You Killed My Son'
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/17/bush.protester/index.html
For Iraqi's its 9/11, 5 times over..
13000 Civilians dead and counting..
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
Scandals of Oil for Food
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero071904.html
Excerpt:
MASS DISTRACTION
Regardless of the truth of the allegations of impropriety in the UN's administration of Oil for Food, it is clear that the real goal of the program's vociferous new critics is to damage the credibility of the entire international body. At the July 8 Congressional hearings, Jed Babbin, a former Defense Department official and author of a UN-bashing tract called "Inside the Asylum," described the UN as "the handmaiden of terrorism, the errand boy of despots and dictators, and a quagmire that is the antithesis of our policy to preempt terrorist attacks." Perhaps not coincidentally, the unfolding investigations into Oil for Food come at a time when the terms of the UN's future involvement in Iraq are unclear. Security Council Resolution 1483, passed in May 2003 under enormous pressure from the US, removed all UN monitors from Iraq, eliminated the 661 Committee, suspended the role of UNMOVIC, the UN disarmament agency, and eliminated any UN oversight of oil sales or disposition of oil proceeds. The resolution also endorsed the "Occupying Authority" of the US and Britain in Iraq. One year later, the Bush administration again induced the Security Council to approve a mandate for a US-dominated "multinational force" and left the UN role in Iraq's troubled political transition undefined. Despite its substantial experience in reconstruction, development and the supervision of free elections, the UN's ability to negotiate a larger role was arguably compromised by the accusations involving the Oil for Food program.
More to the point, the Oil for Food flap fits into the decade-old pattern whereby Washington and London place exclusive blame for the humanitarian crisis in Iraq before the invasion -- and now for the country's hobbled economy as well -- upon the "neglect" of the former regime. While Oil for Food funds may have improperly ended up in the hands of Saddam Hussein's government, the fundamental responsibility for the humanitarian crisis was the sanctions regime imposed on Iraq by the Security Council, and then enforced in an extraordinarily harsh way at the insistence of the US and Britain. Under the sanctions, Iraq's annual gross domestic product dropped from about $60 billion to about $13 billion, according to a joint Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program estimate released in 1997. Assume that all the accusations of corruption are true, and the government of Saddam Hussein did indeed salt away $11 billion over the six years in which Oil for Food was in effect. Even if those funds had purchased humanitarian goods, the Iraqi GDP would have risen to $15 billion annually -- not an amount that could have compensated for the loss of 75 percent of the economy or rebuilt the dilapidated infrastructure. History may record US and British evasion of their share of responsibility for the havoc wrought by sanctions in Iraq as the real Oil for Food scandal.
GIs claim threat by Army; Soldiers say they were told to re-enlist or face deployment to Iraq
September 16th, 2004 2:38 pm
By Dick Foster / Rocky Mountain News
COLORADO SPRINGS - Soldiers from a Fort Carson combat unit say they have been issued an ultimatum - re-enlist for three more years or be transferred to other units expected to deploy to Iraq.
Hundreds of soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team were presented with that message and a re-enlistment form in a series of assemblies last Thursday, said two soldiers who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The effort is part of a restructuring of the Army into smaller, more flexible forces that can deploy rapidly around the world.
A Fort Carson spokesman confirmed the re-enlistment drive is under way and one of the soldiers provided the form to the Rocky Mountain News. An Army spokesmen denied, however, that soldiers who don't re-enlist with the brigade were threatened.
The form, if signed, would bind the soldier to the 3rd Brigade until Dec. 31, 2007. The two soldiers said they were told that those who did not sign would be transferred out of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team.
"They said if you refuse to re-enlist with the 3rd Brigade, we'll send you down to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which is going to Iraq for a year, and you can stay with them, or we'll send you to Korea, or to Fort Riley (in Kansas) where they're going to Iraq," said one of the soldiers, a sergeant.
The second soldier, an enlisted man who was interviewed separately, essentially echoed that view.
"They told us if we don't re-enlist, then we'd have to be reassigned. And where we're most needed is in units that are going back to Iraq in the next couple of months. So if you think you're getting out, you're not," he said.
The brigade's presentation outraged many soldiers who are close to fulfilling their obligation and are looking forward to civilian life, the sergeant said.
"We have a whole platoon who refuses to sign," he said.
A Fort Carson spokesman said Wednesday that 3rd Brigade recruitment officers denied threatening the soldiers with Iraq duty.
"I can only tell you what the retention officers told us: The soldiers were not being told they will go to Iraq, but they may go to Iraq," said the spokesman, who gave that explanation before being told later to direct all inquiries to the Pentagon.
Sending soldiers to Iraq with less than one year of their enlistment remaining "would not be taken lightly," Lt. Col. Gerard Healy said from the Pentagon Wednesday.
"We realize that we deal with people and with families, and that's got to be a factor," he said.
"There's probably a lot of places on post where they could put those folks (who don't re-enlist) until their time expires. But I don't want to rule out the possibility that they could go to a unit that might deploy," said Healy.
Under current Army practice, members of Iraq-bound units are "stop-lossed," meaning they could be retained in the unit for an entire year in Iraq, even if their active-duty enlistment expires.
A recruiter told the sergeant that the Army would keep them "as long as they needed us."
Extending a soldier's active duty is within Army authority, since the enlistment contract carries an eight-year obligation, even if a soldier signs for only three or four years of active duty.
The 3rd Brigade recruiting effort is part of the Army's plan to restructure large divisions of more than 10,000 soldiers into smaller, more flexible, more numerous brigade- sized "Units of Action" of about 3,500 soldiers each.
The Army envisions building each unit into a cohesive whole and staffing them with soldiers who will stay with the unit for longer periods of time, said John Pike, head of the defense analysis think tank Global Security.
"They want these units to fight together and train together. They're basically trying to keep these brigades together throughout training and deployment, so I can understand why they would want to shed anybody who was not going to be there for the whole cycle," Pike said.
But some soldiers presented with the re-enlistment message last week believe they've already done their duty and should not be penalized for choosing to leave. They deployed to Iraq for a year with the 3rd Brigade last April.
"I don't want to go back to Iraq," said the sergeant. "I went through a lot of things for the Army that weren't necessary and were risky. Iraq has changed a lot of people.''
The enlisted soldier said the recruiters' message left him troubled, unable to sleep and "filled with dread."
"For me, it wasn't about going back to Iraq. It's just the fact that I'm ready to get out of the Army," he said.
Soldiers' choice at Fort Carson
WHAT THE FORM SAID
Elect not to extend or re-enlist and understand that the soldier will be reassigned IAW (in accordance with) the needs of the Army by Department of the Army HRC (Human Resources Command) . . . or Fort Carson G1 (Personnel Office).''
WHAT IT MEANS
Soldiers who sign the letter are bound to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team until Dec. 31, 2007.
Soldiers who do not sign the letter might be transferred out of the brigade and possibly to Iraq.
'War president' Bush has always been soft on terror; His campaign says vote Republican or die - but he lets al-Qaida off the hook
by Craig Unger / The Guardian
Where's George Orwell when we need him? Because we Americans need him. We desperately need him. Consider: in August 2001, immediately after reading a memo entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike in US", President George Bush went bass fishing - and never called a meeting to discuss the issue.
A month later, on September 11, when he was told that the terrorists had attacked, Bush spent the next seven minutes reading a children's book, The Pet Goat, with a group of schoolchildren.
And when it comes to his own military service, recent revelations show that Bush got out of fighting in Vietnam thanks to his dad's political clout. Even then, Bush didn't fulfil his obligations to the National Guard.
Yet somehow the Bush-Cheney ticket is convincing Americans that only a Republican administration can handle national security. If John Kerry wins, Dick Cheney warned: "The danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating." The choice is simple: Vote Republican, or die. And voters are buying it.
A poll just after the Republican convention showed that 27% of the voters preferred Bush to Kerry when it came to national security. Increasingly, it is becoming clear that if Bush wins in November it will be because of the fear factor.
Yet the truth is that Bush is actually soft on terror. When it comes to going after the men who were behind 9/11 and who continue to wage a jihad against the US, Bush has repeatedly turned a blind eye to the forces behind terrorism, shielded the people who funded al-Qaida, obstructed investigations and diverted resources from the battle against it.
One key reason is the Bush-Saudi relationship, the like of which is unprecedented in US politics. Even after the success of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, the subject is largely taboo in the American media. Never before has a president of the US - much less two from the same family - had such close ties with another foreign power.
Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the US and a powerful member of the royal family, has been a close friend of George Bush Snr for more than 20 years. Nicknamed Bandar Bush, he drops by the Bush residences in Kennebunkport, Maine, and Crawford, Texas, not to mention the White House. He and Bush senior go on hunting trips together.
Then there's the money. More than $1.4bn of financial transactions have gone from the House of Saud to corporations and institutions tied to the Bushes and their allies - largely to companies such as the Carlyle Group, Halliburton, and HarkenEnergy. So what does all that influence buy the Saudis?
Let's go to the White House on September 13 2001. Just 48 hours after 9/11, the toxic rubble at the World Trade Centre site was still ablaze. The estimated death count, later lowered significantly, was thought to be as high as 40,000.
On that afternoon, Bandar met on the Truman balcony with President Bush and the two men lit up Cohiba cigars. At the time, the White House knew that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. It knew that Osama bin Laden was Saudi. And, as the 9/11 commission concluded, it knew that Saudi Arabia was "the primary source of money for al-Qaida", which was largely funded by wealthy Saudis via Islamist charities.
President Bush was in the presence of the ambassador from the country that is the guardian of Wahhabi Islam, the fundamentalist sect which helped produce al-Qaida. This is where the war on terror and a massive investigation into the greatest crime in US history should have begun.
But, given the intimate relationship between the two families - and, of course, the fact that the Saudis help fuel America's 165m automobiles - this was not just a meeting between the president of the US and the ambassador of a country that harboured and financed terrorists. The Saudis were special.
Because Bush and Bandar were the only two people present, we do not know exactly what was said. But we do know that the president failed to join the issue of the Saudi role in terror or how to stop the funding of terrorism through Islamist charities and financial institutions.
That same afternoon, the first of 11 chartered planes began to pick up more than 140 Saudis scattered throughout the US. Saudi Arabia and the president's defenders have mounted a massive PR campaign to minimise the damage of the Saudi evacuation. But the facts in the 9/11 commission report remain unchanged. The Saudi evacuation flights were not the fantasies of conspiratorialists. They actually took place. The departures were approved by the White House and the vast majority of Saudi passengers were not interviewed by the FBI.
This was the biggest crime in US history. But, in the midst of a grave national security crisis, rather than investigating it the White House and the FBI spent their limited resources helping evacuate the Saudis.
Over the next two years, the 9/11 commission found, the Bush administration failed "to develop a strategy to counter Saudi terrorist financing". As a result, our Saudi allies were half-hearted in cooperating on terrorist financing and, the commission concluded: "the US government still has not determined with any precision how much al-Qaida raises or from whom, or how it spends its money."
Now, thanks to Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia and the Failure of America's War on Terror, a new book by Senator Bob Graham, we know that the Saudis may have played an even bigger role in 9/11 than previously reported. As a member of the Senate intelligence committee, Graham said he learned that "evidence of official Saudi support" for at least two of the 19 hijackers was "incontrovertible".
As co-chairman of the joint House-Senate panel investigating 9/11, Graham found his efforts to get to the bottom of the Saudi role in 9/11 again and again were quashed by the Bush administration. When his committee tried to subpoena a key witness who happened to be an FBI informant, the FBI refused to cooperate. "It was the only time in my senatorial experience that the FBI has refused to deliver a congressional subpoena," Graham told Salon.com in a recent interview. "The FBI wasn't acting on its own," he added, "but had been directed by the White House not to cooperate."
In the end, 27 pages of the report on the role of the Saudis in 9/11 were classified by the White House and not released to the public. According to Graham, the Bush administration may have censored the material because it did not want the public to be aware of Saudi support for the 9/11 terrorists. "There has been a long-term special relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia," he said, "and that relationship has probably reached a new high under the George W Bush administration, in part because of the long and close family relationship that the Bushes have had with the Saudi royal family."
Graham writes: "It was as if the president's loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America's safety."
If that is the case, no wonder the Bush-Cheney ticket is counting on fear.
More arrogance from the administration.
US says Iraq invasion was legal
The US has rejected the United Nations secretary-general's claim that the US-led invasion of Iraq was illegal.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3664234.stm
Bush's world of spin...
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) -- Sen. John Kerry launched one of his sharpest attacks yet on President Bush's Iraq policy, accusing the president Thursday of living in "a different world of spin."
"The hard truth is that our president has made serious mistakes in taking us to war with Iraq," Kerry told members of the National Guard Association of the United States meeting in Las Vegas.
"He was wrong to rush to war without giving the inspectors the time to do their job and bring allies to our side. He was wrong to rush to war without understanding and planning for the postwar in Iraq."
Kerry also made a direct connection between the war in Iraq and America's homeland security.
He accused Bush of weakening homeland security by overextending the National Guard and Reserve.
"Many of you are our first responders here at home -- firefighters, police officers and emergency medical technicians," Kerry told the group.
"To take you out of your communities is also to take down some of our critical ability of defense and response. I don't believe that's the best way to protect America."
Kerry said that if elected he would create a standing joint task force, headed by a general from the National Guard, to prepare and execute "a coordinated strategy for homeland security, working with the states and the federal government to react in times of crisis."
Kerry voted for a congressional resolution authorizing Bush to use military force in Iraq but said that if he had been commander in chief, he would have made vastly different decisions with that authority.
"When it comes to Iraq, it's not that I would have done just one thing differently. I would have done almost everything differently," Kerry said.
The Democratic presidential nominee also pointed to weaknesses in the coalition that Bush built for the war.
Because of Bush's "wrong choices," Kerry said, the United States "has borne 90 percent of the casualties and paid nearly 90 percent of the bill in Iraq."
"The president stood right here where I'm standing and didn't acknowledge that more than 1,000 men and women have lost their lives in Iraq," Kerry said. "He didn't tell you that with each passing day, we're seeing more chaos, more violence, indiscriminate killings."
Kerry said Bush's "own intelligence officials have warned him for weeks that the mission in Iraq is in serious trouble," referring to a National Intelligence Estimate that paints a bleak picture of Iraq's future, including the possibility of civil war. (Iraq intelligence report)
Kerry said "that is the truth, as hard as it is to bear."
"I believe you deserve a president who isn't going to gild that truth or gild our national security with politics, who is not going to ignore his own intelligence, who isn't going to live in a different world of spin, who will give the American people the truth, not a fantasy world of spin ... ," Kerry said.
Bush spoke to the group Tuesday and noted, as he does in almost every campaign stop, that Kerry and running mate John Edwards joined most members of the Senate to give him authority in 2002 to wage war.
He said Kerry and Edwards later voted against money for the war, but did not mention that he threatened to veto a version of the defense bill that Kerry supported because it proposed to finance the expenditures by eliminating tax cuts for wealthy Americans.
Bush also touted his efforts to improve living and work condition for today's Guard.
But Kerry chastised the administration for overextending active duty troops and filling the gap with National Guard and Reserve troops, which he termed a "backdoor draft."
"Far too many of you have been on the ground for far too long -- much longer than was expected or promised," Kerry said.
Kerry, the junior senator from Massachusetts, said he still believes "it's not too late to turn things around" in Iraq.
Kerry said he would bring in more allies to help train Iraqi forces so that U.S. troops could come home.
He also said Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq has set the country back in fighting the war on terror, especially in Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden remains a fugitive.
"The simple fact is that when it comes to the war on terror, this administration has taken its eye off the ball," Kerry said.
"This administration has said to you bluntly ... it's not a matter of if al Qaeda attacks here at home -- it is a question of when," Kerry said. "I believe deeply, in every respect, that America can do better than we are doing today."
That is how the republican propoganda machine works. Spread rumors and stick with them no matter what. Irrespective of what these guys do, the Iraq war will be their undoing. Hey, Slowly the realization is coming that there are similarities to Vietnam after all.
Religion and politics in America
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3658172.stm
REVEALED: BUSH MEDICARE BILL COULD EAT UP 37% OF SOCIAL SECURITY CHECKS
Bush Administration Had Withheld this Information
New data from the Department of Health and Human Services reveals today that the Bush administration has again withheld key information about the new Medicare bill. The new information shows that seniors will spend 37 percent of their Social Security check on Medicare expenses when the new drug benefit starts in 2006 and that this percentage will increase to nearly 50 percent by 2021.
Since 2001, the Bush Administration has put out a Medicare Trustees report that includes how much of an individual's social security check will go to Medicare, but the 2004 report withheld the information this year. This is at least the second time that the Bush administration has withheld key information from Congress about the true cost of the Medicare drug bill -- The GAO has concluded that Bush officials lied to Congress about the effect of the new bill on Social Security.
NEW DATA REVEALS THAT MEDICARE BILL COULD CONSUME 37% OF SOCIAL SECURITY CHECKS
Bush Withheld Information on the Effect of Medicare on Social Security. Every year the Bush Administration has included a chart in its annual Medicare Trustees report on how much of the Social Security benefits Medicare will consume. However, the information was not included in the 2004 report. As Rep. Stark said: "it doesn't look good to lie to grandma so the Bush administration has withheld information and come up with creative ways to mask the damage they have done to Medicare." [USA Today, 9/14/04]
Medicare Premiums Consuming Increasing Amount of Social Security. "Information the Bush administration excluded from its 2004 report on the Medicare program shows that a typical 65-year-old can expect to spend 37% of his or her Social Security income on Medicare premiums, co-payments and out-of-pocket expenses in 2006. That share is projected to grow to almost 40% in 2011 and nearly 50% by 2021." [USA Today, 9/14/04]
The Bush Medicare Law Will "Consume Virtually the Entire Amount of Social Security Benefits." "Unless Congress does something to hold down costs confronting seniors, the official projections suggest that health spending will consume virtually the entire amount of Social Security benefits when children born today reach retirement age." [USA Today, 9/14/04]
Year Total Out-of Pocket Expenses
2006 37.2%
2011 9.4%
2016 45.2%
2040 62.2%
2078 97%
Note: Data for an average 65-year-old based on information from the Office of the Actuary at CMS.
NEW REPORT FOLLOWS RECENT REVELATIONS OF OTHER MEDICARE LIES:
Bush Administration Broke the Law in Covering Up the True Cost of the Medicare Bill. The General Accounting Office found that the Bush administration and Thomas Scully broke the law in covering up the true cost of the Medicare bill. "The Bush administration illegally withheld data from Congress on the cost of the new Medicare law, and as a penalty, the former head of the Medicare agency, Thomas A. Scully, must repay seven months of his salary to the government, federal investigators said today." [New York Times, 9/7/04]
BIGGEST INCREASE IN MEDICARE PREMIUMS IN HISTORY:
Premiums Have Increased By a Record 56 Percent Under Bush, a Record 17 Percent This Year. During Bush's term, premiums paid for Medicare Part B, which pays for doctors visits and outpatient hospital services, have increased by 56 percent. This year's 17 percent increase represents "the largest increase in the program's 40-year history." How much will Medicare beneficiaries pay annually for Bush's special interest payments? According to CMS calculations, 15% of the premium increase will go directly from their pocketbooks to HMOs every year. [New York Times, 9/4/04; AdvancePCS, 8/25/03; Medicare Rights Center, 11/14/03]
Kerry's Plan for America..
America was born in pursuit of an idea - that a free people with diverse beliefs can govern themselves in peace.
Throughout our history, we have forged powerful alliances to defend, encourage, and promote that idea around the world. Through two World Wars, the Cold War, the Gulf War and Kosovo, America led instead of going it alone. We respected the world - and the world respected us.
Today, our leadership has walked away from more than a century of American leadership in the world to embrace a new - and dangerously ineffective - American disregard for the world. They bully instead of persuade. They act alone when they could assemble a team. They confuse leadership with going it alone. They fail to understand that real leadership means standing by your principles and rallying others to join you.
John Kerry and John Edwards believe in a better, stronger America - an America that is respected, not just feared. An America that listens and leads - that cherishes freedom, safeguards our people, uplifts others, forges alliances, and deserves respect. This is the America they believe in. This is the America they are fighting for. And this is the America we can be.
Today, we face three great challenges above all others - First, to win the global war against terror; Second, to stop the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; Third, to promote democracy, freedom, and opportunity around the world, starting by winning the peace in Iraq. To meet these challenges, John Kerry's national security policy will be guided by four imperatives:
Launch And Lead A New Era Of Alliances
The threat of terrorism demands alliances on a global scale - to utilize every available resource to get the terrorists before they can strike at us. As president, John Kerry will lead a coalition of the able - because no force on earth is more able than the United States and its allies.
Modernize The World's Most Powerful Military To Meet New Threats
John Kerry and John Edwards have a plan to transform the world's most powerful military to better address the modern threats of terrorism and proliferation, while ensuring that we have enough properly trained and equipped troops to meet our enduring strategic and regional missions.
Deploy All That Is In America's Arsenal
The war on terror cannot be won by military might alone. As president, John Kerry will deploy all the forces in America's arsenal - our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power, and the appeal of our values and ideas - to make America more secure and prevent a new generation of terrorists from emerging.
Free America From Its Dangerous Dependence On Mideast Oil
To secure our full independence and freedom, we must free America from its dangerous dependence on Mideast oil. By tapping American ingenuity, we can achieve that goal while growing our economy and protecting our environment.
Safe and Secure Homeland
The most basic responsibility of a president is defending our homeland.
We've seen some progress in making America more secure since September 11 - but there is still much more to be done. Today our government is not doing enough to make us safe. Our intelligence services remain fragmented and lack coordination. Our borders and ports are full of holes. Our chemical plants are vulnerable to attack. And across America, police officers, firefighters, and other first responders still lack the information, gear, and equipment to do their jobs safely and successfully.
America needs a new strategy for homeland security that takes steps as big as the threats we face. John Kerry and John Edwards have that strategy. They will do whatever it takes to make America safe - coordinate our intelligence agencies, take action on all key fronts, stand up for security whenever special interests stand in the way, and get the needed resources to the first responders who defend America every day.
John Kerry and John Edwards will offer a new security strategy that addresses five major challenges:
Track And Stop Terrorists
Many of the intelligence problems that allowed terrorists to slip into our country before 9/11 have not been addressed. John Kerry and John Edwards will improve our ability to gather, analyze, and share information so we can track down and stop terrorists before they cause harm.
Protect Our Borders And Shores
Today, our borders, our ports, and our airports are not as secure as they must be. John Kerry and John Edwards will make our airports, seaports, and borders more secure without intruding upon personal liberties.
Harden Vulnerable Targets
Chemical industry lobbying has kept the Bush administration from strengthening security at chemical plants, where an attack could endanger 1 million Americans. John Kerry and John Edwards will always put Americans' safety ahead of big business interests and take strong measures to harden likely targets-including nuclear plants, trains, and subways-against possible attack.
Improve Domestic Readiness
Our first defenders will respond to any attack with courage and heroism-but they also need the equipment and manpower to do the job. John Kerry and John Edwards will back up their words with resources and ensure that America's first responders have everything they need to protect their communities.
Guard Liberty.
We must always remember that terrorists do not just target our lives - they target our way of life. John Kerry and John Edwards believe in an America that is safe and free, and they will protect our personal liberties as well as our personal security.
Stronger Economy
The measure of a strong economy is a growing middle-class where every American has a chance to work and an opportunity to succeed.
In America, a rising tide is supposed to lift all boats. But today, Americans are working harder, earning less, and paying more for health care, college, and taxes. Corporate profits are soaring, the government keeps expanding, but the opportunities for our middle-class are shrinking.
It's time to bring those opportunities back. John Kerry and John Edwards know that we're stronger when we create good-paying jobs here, not ship them overseas. They want to reward hardworking middle-class families with tax breaks, not larger bills. They want to expand the reach of opportunity, not the size of government. And they want to lead an America where we work together to invest in the jobs of tomorrow.
John Kerry and John Edwards have seen the faces and heard the voices of struggling middle-class families. But they've come away convinced more than ever that we're a country of optimists - a country that can do better and think bigger about the challenges we face. We can grow our economy by strengthening our middle-class. And we can make America richer by giving everyone a chance to build a better life for their families.
John Kerry and John Edwards' plan to build a stronger economy will:
Create Good-Paying Jobs
As president, John Kerry will cut taxes for businesses that create jobs here in America instead of moving them overseas. John Kerry and John Edwards will also stand up for workers by enforcing our trade agreements.
Cut Middle-Class Taxes To Raise Middle-Class Incomes
When John Kerry is president, middle-class taxes will go down. Ninety-eight percent of all Americans and 99 percent of American businesses will get a tax cut under the Kerry-Edwards plan.
Make Washington Live Within A Budget
John Kerry will cut the deficit in half during his first four years in office. He will end corporate welfare as we know it, roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and impose a real cap to keep spending in check. And when John Kerry puts forward a new idea, he'll tell you how he's going to pay for it.
Invest In The Jobs Of Tomorrow
Today, businesses are harnessing new technology to manufacture energy-efficient cars, high-grade steel, advanced plastics and other new products. And this requires a bigger, skilled labor force to make them. John Kerry and John Edwards believe we should invest in these jobs and invest in the people who will fill them.
Affordable healthcare for all
Affordable, high-quality health care will keep our families healthy, our businesses competitive, and our country strong.
Over the last three years, family premiums have increased by more than $3,512 and prescription drug prices have grown four times faster than inflation. These skyrocketing costs have hurt our economy and forced many families into bankruptcy.
We deserve a president who understands that in America, regular check-ups shouldn't empty family checkbooks - a president who will put people ahead of insurance and drug companies.
John Kerry and John Edwards have a plan to address soaring premiums and cut Americans a break. Their plan will lower family premiums by up to $1,000 a year, cut waste from the system, lower the cost of prescription drugs to provide real relief to seniors, and use targeted tax cuts to extend affordable, high-quality coverage to 95 percent of Americans, including every child. And because John Kerry and John Edwards believe that everyone's health is equally important, they will provide all Americans with access to the same coverage that members of Congress give themselves.
To make affordable health care a right - not a privilege - for every American, John Kerry and John Edwards will:
Cut Your Premiums
John Kerry and John Edwards will cut family premiums by up to $1,000. That's $1,000 in real savings people can use to buy groceries, pay the bills, and save for their children's future. And that will mean more jobs and more competitive American businesses.
Cover All Americans With Quality Care
The Kerry-Edwards plan will give every American access to the range of high-quality, affordable plans available to members of Congress and extend coverage to 95 percent of Americans, including every American child. Their plan will also fight to erase the health disparities that persist along racial and economic lines, ensure that people with HIV and AIDS have the care they need, end discrimination against Americans with disabilities and mental illnesses, and ensure equal treatment for mental illness in our health system.
Cut the Cost of Prescription Drugs
The Kerry-Edwards plan will reduce prescription drug prices by allowing the re-importation of safe prescription drugs from Canada, overhauling the Medicare drug plan, ensuring low-cost drugs, and ending artificial barriers to generic drug competition.
Cut Waste And Inefficiency
Today, approximately 25 percent of health care costs are wasted on paperwork and administrative processing. The Kerry-Edwards plan harnesses American ingenuity to cut waste, save billions, and take new steps to ensure patient privacy.
And More at http://www.johnkerry.com/index.html
Bush's agenda could top $3 trillion
President doesn't emphasize 10-year price tag
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5993702/
An Excerpt:
The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade.
A staple of Bush's stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator's campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan.
<More..>
Senate Challenges Bush on Veto Threat
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 9, 2004
ASHINGTON, Sept. 8 (AP) - The Senate ignored a White House veto threat on Wednesday and voted to block President Bush from handing some Homeland Security Department jobs to private companies.
The 49-to-47 vote was a victory for Democrats and labor unions of federal workers. Five Republicans voted with the Democrats.
The language was added to a $32 billion bill financing the Homeland Security Department next year. The White Housewarned of the veto in a statement to lawmakers, saying the amendment would "preclude public-private competition and turn back efforts to significantly improve customer service for immigrants."
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, a chief sponsor of the provision, said it was intended to prevent President Bush from replacing 1,100 immigration officers.Republicans said the workers performed administrative duties.
Five Republicans from states with a significant presence of organized labor joined Democrats in voting : Senators Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Christopher S. Bond of Missouri and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania
Wonder if taxpayers can claim their share as "charitable deductions".
October 21, 2003
Bush Threatens to Veto $87 Billion Over Loans
President Bush has threatened to veto the $87 billion for military expenses in the war against terror and reconstruction in Iraq if Congress makes part of the Iraqi reconstruction package a loan.
The House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution yesterday expressing support for the loan proposal.
White House budget director Joshua Bolten, in a letter threatening the veto, said adopting loans not grants slows "efforts to stabilize the region and to relieve pressure on our troops, raises questions about our commitment to building a democratic and self-governing Iraq and impairs our ability to encourage other nations to provide badly needed assistance without saddling Iraq with additional debt."
And they say they are doing their best to protect the people from "hijackers".
In West Virginia, Mr. Bush repeated his criticism of Mr. Kerry for voting against the $87 billion spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan, pointing out that Mr. Kerry on Thursday called his vote ''complicated.''
'"There's nothing complicated about supporting our troops,'' Mr. Bush said to loud applause.
Really? There was "nothing complicated" about that spending bill? Then why did Bush threaten to veto the form of the bill which he opposed? Why did Bush say he would veto that $87 billion? When we ask ourselves that, we can't help thinking that the bill was less simple than Dissembler One says. And we wonder how loud that applause would have been if Bush had treated those voters like citizens and had told them about his real conduct.
Indeed, let's run our thought experiment again. Here's the transcript of Bush-and-the-rubes in Beckley, West Virginia:
BUSH (actual remarks): I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, the cause of freedom is in really good hands.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: I'll make sure our troops have the best. They deserve the best. And that's why last September I proposed supplemental funding to support our military in its mission. This legislation provided funding for body armor and other vital equipment, for hazard pay, health benefits, ammunition, fuel, spare parts. In the Senate, only a small, out-of-the-mainstream minority voted against the legislation. And two of those 12 senators, two of the 12, are my opponent and his running mate.
AUDIENCE: Booo.
BUSH: When asked to explain his vote, Senator Kerry said this, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."
(LAUGHTER)
BUSH: End quote. Now he's offering a different explanation. Earlier this week, Senator Kerry said he is proud that he and his running mate voted against the funding for the troops.
AUDIENCE: Booo.
BUSH: And yesterday, he said that his vote against funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan was complicated. No, there's nothing complicated about supporting our troops.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: As the Commander-in-Chief of a great United States military, I will make sure they have what is necessary so they can do their jobs.
(APPLAUSE)
Yep-- those voters were laughing, applauding and booing. But how effective would that "pitch" have been if Bush hade been honest for once in his life-- had said this:
BUSH (revised and made truthful): And yesterday, he said that his vote against funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan was complicated. No, there's nothing complicated about supporting our troops.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: Of course, I threatened to veto the $87 billion! Heh! I was going to veto the money altogether!
What would have happened if Bush had said that? We'd guess that the Beckley crowd's [APPLAUSE] would have given way to [PUZZLED LOOKS]. But there's little chance we'll ever find out. Because there's little chance that the Cherry Picker in Chief will ever tell the truth to real voters.
Like Kerry, Bush opposed one form of this bill and supported the other. Kerry voted against the form he opposed; Bush threatened to veto the form he disfavored. But Bush is now playing the voters for fools.
Cell breaking out?
Fla. official allows Nader onto ballot
Democrats howl; court review slated
By Jim Loney, Reuters / September 14, 2004
MIAMI -- Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader's name can appear on Florida ballots for the election, despite a court order to the contrary, Florida's elections chief told officials yesterday in a move that could help President Bush in the key swing state.
The Florida Democratic Party reacted with outrage, calling the move ''blatant partisan maneuvering" by Governor Jeb Bush, the president's younger brother, and vowed to fight it.
In a memo to Florida's 67 county supervisors of elections, Dawn Roberts, director of the Division of Elections, said the uncertainty of Hurricane Ivan forced her to act. The massive storm could hit parts of the state by week's end, forecasters say.
The ruling came in an ongoing legal battle over whether Nader should be allowed on the Florida ballot as the Reform Party candidate.
Nader, an independent nominated by the Reform Party, was a presidential candidate in 2000 when Bush won Florida, and the White House, by 537 votes over Al Gore. Analysts said most of the nearly 98,000 votes Nader got in Florida would have gone to Gore had Nader not been on the ballot.
Florida Circuit Court Judge Kevin Davey issued a temporary injunction last week preventing the state from putting Nader on the 2004 ballot, siding with a Democratic challenge that the Reform Party did not qualify as a national party under state law.
A hearing on a permanent injunction is scheduled for tomorrow. But Roberts said Hurricane Ivan had raised ''a substantial question as to when such a hearing" will be held.
As a result, she said, Florida's Department of State had filed an appeal against the temporary injunction. The appeal application automatically lifts the injunction, allowing the counties to put Nader's name on overseas absentee ballots, which must be mailed by Saturday.
''I'm in disbelief," said Scott Maddox, chairman of the Florida Democratic Party. ''This is blatant partisan maneuvering on the part of Jeb Bush to give his brother a leg up" against Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry.
Governor Bush said he agreed with Roberts's decision.
''It's up to the judge to determine, based on the law, whether Nader should be on the ballot or not," Bush said. ''But while that process goes on, we cannot put ourselves in the position where the ministerial role of the supervisors cannot be fulfilled."
Tallahassee, the state capital where Davey sits, is not expected to be directly hit by the hurricane. Maddox said the circuit court could hear the case as scheduled tomorrow and rule immediately.
In addition, the case is before the Florida Supreme Court, which could also rule at any time
They must have a mandatory deployment of people who buy these assault weapons to Iraq. We do need more soldiers there. Who better than the assault gun totting "sportsmen".
Outgoing commander questions U.S. strategy on Falluja
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/09/13/falluja/index.html
Excellent strategy. Arm them and then fight. The story of our lives. Saddaam, Bin Laden and many more...
An Excerpt:
The United States gave the Falluja Brigade thousands of uniforms, hundreds of weapons and dozens of radios and trucks. The Marines have asked for them to be returned, and the brigade's former commander has agreed, but there are reports that much of the material is now in the hands of insurgents.