Why Choose Kerry: Exploring the Positives Over Bush on Key Issues

[hughes johnson]

You guys started it, so enjoy it.

I stand by my statement.

 

[kat]

What I said was true.

Kat attacked John Kerry with a vague insinuation that he conspired with the "N. Viet Cong", whatever that was, to abandon American POW's after the war. She refused to state anything specific. She irrationally challenged me to come up with the specifics of her accusation.

Lol, challenged? I want the specifics. If I had them I'd offer them. When I get them..I'll be sure to share. Until then if you don't have any, say so but there's no need to be insulting (or did you compliment me? hmm )

 

[Njorl]

I think I may have found the basis of the false allegations Kat is making.

Kerry was a co-chair of a commitee to investigate the fates of Vietman PoW's who were not accounted for. Conspiracy theorists have accused him of using the commitee to cover up evidence that there were PoWs held after the war. There is currently a politically motivated whispering campaign to discredit Kerry based on these conspiracy theories.

(For those of you who are not familiar with "whispering campaign", it is a method of character assassination that makes scandalous allegations at a low enough level that they don't draw the attention of the general public, but do reach a significant population. They usually are full of such vague accusations that they can not be disproved even though they are not true.)

The conservative rumormongers have distorted the commitee's findings to make it sound like Kerry believes the Vietnamese are a nation of saints. What the commitee really found was:

1. The vast majority of "evidence" that there are still PoWs in Vietnam was faked by con men trying to swindle families of those who are missing. The rest of the so-called evidence was inconclusive.

2. While no concrete evidence exists, the Vietnamese probably did keep some PoWs. They kept these either to extort, or ensure, that the US paid $4 billion in reparations payments as agreed to in the Paris peace accord. The US refused to pay because the Vietnamese did not turn over all the prisoners. The Vietnamese, seeing this as proof of US duplicity, denied the existence of more prisoners. Catch-22. The men were probably secretly killed soon thereafter. Still, since there was no evidence of this, it was left as suppostion, not conclusion.

What the nuts who spread this conspiracy fail to tell anyone is that Kerry was only one of two co-chairs, not the sole chairman. His co-chair had the same power over this commitee, and saw all the same documents. The co-chair was John McCain.

Obviously, this conservative Republican and liberal democrat, both of whom served with the men held prisoner, one of whom was actually a PoW, conspired together to betray their comrades just because they both new that 10 years in the future they would both be political rivals of George Bush! Of course, that does not explain the complicity of the rest of the senators on this commitee.

Njorl

 

[hughes johnson]

I think I may have found the basis of the false allegations Kat is making.

If these allegations are false, how come I've heard so many people whispering about them lately? I'm not so sure that the allegations are false, but I think that, in time, we may get to the bottom of this. I certainly hope so. This is serious.

 

[schwarzchildradius]

Prove it? Here's the start:
http://www.co.comal.tx.us/Election_Results2002.htm
Since this page has been erased I give you the google cache:
http://216.109.117.135/search/cache...texas+18181&d=DE2710AB35&c=482&yc=34162&icp=1

State Senator, District 25

Jeff Wentworth Republican 18181
Joseph (Joe) P. Sullivan Democrat 4988
Rex Black
Libertarian
723
County Judge

Danny Scheel Republican 18181
Lois M. Duggan
Democrat
5547

State Representative, District 73

Carter Casteel
Republican
18181
Virgil Yanta
Democrat
5303

In this particular election they used Diebold electronic voting machines with no paper reciepts. Here's a math question for you- what are the odds that by random chance three candidates would receive the exact same number of votes?

 

[hughes johnson]

what are the odds that by random chance three candidates would receive the exact same number of votes?

As far as I know, coincidence is still legal in the great state of Texas, and in many other states as well.

 

[schwarzchildradius]

Come on now, it's not a terribly difficult math problem to solve! Give it a try at least.

 

[hughes johnson]

Off topic, belongs in the general math section (reading comprehension).

 

[schwarzchildradius]

It's unfortunate you don't want to know much about the world you live in.
Big problems are easier to solve if you break them into small problems.
In general, probabilities can be solved by this equation:
k = n^y
where n = the number of places
and y = the number of digits
i.e. ask how many times you need to randomly enter an ATM number to discover the code:
9999 = 10⁴
consider the number
181811818118181
how many times to randomly rack up votes to get that number?
999999999999999 + 1 = 1e15
one in a thousand trillion. Absolutely no way that that's a coincidence baby.

 

[Njorl]

If these allegations are false, how come I've heard so many people whispering about them lately? I'm not so sure that the allegations are false, but I think that, in time, we may get to the bottom of this. I certainly hope so. This is serious.

I hope this is just a failed attempt at being funny. Given the level of your other responses, I doubt it.

Njorl.

 

[Njorl]

Njorl has given reasons perhaps, but not facts.
I’m not aware of a Kerry economic policy. He has stated that he supports Bush’s tax policy except for the “the wealthy American” bit. If he does have a policy, he should submit it to the GAO to test its merit as compared to the president’s policy.

No non-incumbent presidential candidate releases a finished budget proposal before his party's convention. Kerry's policy is good old fashion Democratic responsible spending. At a time of low interest rates, cutting taxes on the wealthy has no effect on growth. The two biggest factors for growth are consumer demand and investment capital. Investment capital can come from disposable income from the wealthy, or from borrowing from investment banks. With low interest rates, the money for growth can come from the banks.

The Commerce Department has released its findings re. The economy. It found the economy was in a sharp decline during the last year of the Clinton Administration and reached bottom during the 2nd quarter of the Bush administration while the government was still using the Clinton budget. When Bush announced his tax cut plans, a rebound occurred and, due to the cut, continues to this day. In fact the growth in 2003 was greater than at any point during the Clinton years.

No, actually the growth in the third quarter of 2003 was greater than the growth in anyone quarter of teh Clinton administration, but that is about all you can say for the Bush economy. 1998 and 1999 both had larger annual growth rates than 2003, and I haven't even found the growth for the earlier years yet.

One problem a long serving senator has is that votes cast many years ago are not always relevant to present and may be attacked by an opponent. For that reason I cannot hold Kerry responsible to defense cutting in the ‘80’s. The more responsible question would be to ask what he has done to improve our countries defenses. Asked that way he has failed miserably.

He has been a minority party senator while the opposing party controls the White house. Other than hopping on the roof of the capital to shoot down one of the 9/11 planes with a shoulder launced missile, what exactly do you think he should have done?

The truth, if one ignores the outrageous support Kerry provided to Clinton’s “criminal vs. terrorist” intelligence barrier is: Kerry introduced a bill on Sept. 29, 1995—S. 1290. The bill sought to cut the intelligence budget by $1.5 billion over a five-year period. Described by Kerry bashers as “gutting” I would personally only consider it an example of stupidity.

Now this one is just absolutely dishonest. When conservative smear campaigns actually use facts instead of innuendo they shoot themselves in the foot. As I stated before on this board, the $1.5 billion Kerry wanted to cut was from the National Recon Office. It was for a satellite they never bothered to launch. They wanted to spend the money on a fancy new building instead. Kerry spearheaded the effort to kill this funding. At the same time, he fought against a bill to cut twice as much from the budgets of the CIA and FBI. That bill passed, with Republican and Democratic support, but not Kerry's.

On the contrary, he has proven to bend with the wind. As Howard Dean’s rants re: Bush caused him to be the front runner, Kerry responded in kind and drew away from his more subdued comments. He, like Gore, assumes acting rolls, such as the use of “four letter words” when addressing motorcyclists. I’m sure I need not remind you of the “I voted for it and against it” blather.

No, I'll remind you of it. You don't seem to have a very good handle on any specifics, so I better deal with it. Kerry voted for a bill in commitee to provide $87 billion for the efforts in the middle east. This bill had provisions for raising the $87 billion. The bill that he voted against, which passed, spends money we don't have.

Quote is not precise.Very true, I’m sure can provide the most complex solutions we’ve ever endured. One can expect social plans similar to the laughably complex health care plan produced by Hillary Clinton. When has complexity ever been considered advantageous?

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein

Simple solutions-:
Peace dividend - cut taxes
Surplusses - cut taxes
Deficits - cut taxes
War - cut taxes

When nations and the UN act against the best interests of the US and gain financially by criminal activities in doing so, those nations and organizations should be antagonized to the greatest extant possible. Pointless or deserved?

No. That is a child's thinking. Whatever other nations do, in their own interest or in ours, criminal or legal, we should not pointlessly antagonize them. If our interests antagonize them, then so be it. But if their good will is necessary for other things, then judgement must be used. The president of the United States should act in the best interest of the United States, not engage in petulant little feuds.

Let us be a little more up to date. The National Journal, a non-ideological, authoritative weekly magazine found Kerry in 2003 to inhabit the far-left fringe.

No US senator or representitive is on the far left. It is immaterial to what I said though. My point was, that despite ideological differences, he maintains good working relationships with other senators.

Until recently I would not differ with that statement, but it seems all is not yet known. Never the less his service is to be admired. It seems it has unfortunately left him mentally scarred and perhaps not able to make the responsible decisions.

That is just cheap. The truth of the matter is Kerry's service record was far more impressive than anyone realized. He released it last week. He had kept it hidden, evidently out of modesty. Repeated attacks by right wing scandal mongers finally created enough hysteria among media types that Kerry allowed its release. The most severe accusation you can make against Kerry is that he denied such a promising young officer to the Navy.

Does anyone doubt that Bush’s policies are his, that the people around him submit to his wishes? Fortunately we’ll never know that about Kerry.

Actually, quite a few people think Bush is a puppet. Even more think that he is nothing more then "Head of Personel" at the executive branch. Have you forgotten Dick Cheney's search for a good Bush running mate which came up with ... Dick Cheney!

Njorl

 

[russ_watters]

Sorry, Njorl, I generally agree with your logic and facts (if not always your opinions) at the very least, but I couldn't let this one go:

No non-incumbent presidential candidate releases a finished budget proposal before his party's convention. Kerry's policy is...

If he hasn't released his policy, how do you know what it is? Sure, everyone gives hints and soundbites, but until the numbers get crunched, its all wishful thinking. Its a menu with no prices: Looks great, but be careful what you order.