Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (2303)	6/8/2003 10:44:56 PM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 10965

Kerry's campaign will die in the Northeast, BTW, here is Kerry's voting record for you, in case you forget. Liveshot and CHappy Kennedy are still joined at the hip. KERRY: A NORTHEASTERN LIBERAL AND DUKAKIS'S LT. GOV. WHO VOTES LOCKSTEP WITH TED KENNEDY On Key Votes, Kerry Voted 100% Of The Time With Senator Kennedy In 2001, 1999, 1998, 1993, 1992, 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986, and 1985. Over the course of his Senate career, Kerry has sided with Senator Kennedy 94% of the time for key votes. (Roll Call Key Votes, oncongress.cq.com, December 2001)

To: American Spirit who wrote (2303)	6/9/2003 4:37:21 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Respond to of 10965

LaRouche Raises $3M for Presidential Bid Fri May 2, 4:35 AM ET story.news.yahoo.com. By SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche (news - web sites) is back for an eighth try at the White House, and already has enough campaign cash to rival the fund raising of some mainstream Democrats in the race. The 80-year-old economist has raised more than $3.7 million over the past few years, much of it through small donations and the Internet. Supporters handed out fliers at Washington subway stations this week proclaiming him the leader among Democratic hopefuls in the number of individual donations. Now, as in the past, Democratic Party officials want nothing to do with him. Party leaders have refused to allow him onstage at candidate forums such as the debate this Saturday in South Carolina. LaRouche refuses to go away. Though a minor party might offer a friendlier reception, LaRouche insists on running as a Democrat. He says he's in good health for his age, and jokes that there are probably Democrats who wish he wasn't. "They hate my guts, they're a well-known faction, they've made it very clear over the years. This is the right wing of the Democratic Party," LaRouche said. "But the rest of the people I have no problem with. In politics, when you become serious, you become a threat to somebody. And they usually aren't too nice about it." LaRouche first ran for president in 1976. He has tried again every election since then, including a 1992 campaign from prison while serving five years of a 15-year sentence for mail fraud and defaulting on more than $30 million in loans from campaign supporters. LaRouche says his conviction "was a crime against me by corrupt elements of the government" trying to derail his political career. Don Fowler, former national Democratic Party chairman, said LaRouche's political views do not represent the party's philosophy, and points out that LaRouche isn't registered to vote — a party requirement for candidates. "Not only is he not a registered voter but he has an extensive written record of racist and anti-Semitic opinions," Fowler said. LaRouche spokesman Bruce Director confirmed that LaRouche isn't registered to vote, but noted that he doesn't have to be to run for president. LaRouche considers Virginia his residence, and Virginia law generally bars ex-felons from voting; Director said LaRouche planned to try to get his voting rights restored. Director said LaRouche hasn't made any racist or anti-Semitic remarks. LaRouche considers himself a "Roosevelt Democrat" and believes the country needs another New Deal — this time to move it from a consumer-based economy back to a manufacturing one. Rather than punchy campaign themes, LaRouche likes to use phrases such as "reforming the floating exchange rate monetary system" on the campaign trail. Some of his past proposals have included a quarantine of AIDS (news - web sites) victims and the colonization of Mars. He has charged that Queen Elizabeth II (news - web sites) is a drug dealer, and that Henry Kissinger and Walter Mondale are Soviet agents. One of his best showings in the 2000 primaries came in Arkansas, where he collected about 21.5 percent of the vote. Arkansas State University political scientist William McLean said that was probably GOP voters crossing over to undermine Al Gore (news - web sites). "I'm not running to become a president," LaRouche said. "I'm running to provide some leadership." Donna Brozik, a 6th grade teacher from Winner, S.D., said that, though a Republican, she contributed about $250 to LaRouche because she likes his concern for enhancing the nation's infrastructure. She said winning is not necessarily important: "I only voted for one president in life that was ever elected and he was a proven crook," Brozik said, referring to Richard Nixon. LaRouche started fund raising roughly two years before others in the Democratic race, and as April began had collected more than several Democratic rivals, including Sens. Joe Lieberman (news - web sites) and Bob Graham, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (news, bio, voting record), former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton, most of whom started raising money in January. He said his campaign spends money as it comes in; he reported about $120,000 left on hand as of March 31. LaRouche says he'll keep on running — maybe for the rest of his life. "I have a dear friend, almost 92, who was beaten up marching across a bridge in support of Martin Luther King back in the fight for voters' rights," he said. "She is traveling around the world today ... She's doing her job, and if I have her vigor, when I get to be 91, 92, 95, I'll probably be doing the same thing."

To: American Spirit who wrote (2303)	6/9/2003 11:44:27 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

Where Is Bush Leading Us? _______________________________ By Gary Hart Editorial The Boston Globe Monday 02 June 2003 SOMETIME LAST FALL, between the successful overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the notion of ''regime change'' in Iraq, the war on terrorism as it threatened America became a war on all terrorism everywhere. And ''terrorism'' came to include all evil and governments we didn't like. It would be interesting to know how this happened. Even more, it is important to know how this happened, because when the Bush administration decided to go after terrorism everywhere it fundamentally defined a new role for America in the world. Iraq represented no immediate or unavoidable threat to the United States. We overthrew its government because key Bush administration officials convinced the president it was the next step in the war on terrorism. But they had decided Saddam Hussein must go a full decade before 9/11. The destruction of the World Trade towers, which Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with, simply gave them the excuse to resurrect an old agenda. But the war on terrorism is now the excuse for America to assume imperial powers and to employ those powers even when our traditional allies oppose our actions. The war on terrorism is fundamentally altering our global policies. We have discarded our half-century reliance on the Atlantic Alliance for collective security. We have marginalized the United Nations at the precise time it should have been empowered to undertake peacemaking roles. And we have alienated key regional powers, including Russia, China, and India, at a time when we should be encouraging them to assume greater responsibilities for regional stability. All this has transpired in the space of a few months without congressional hearings or review, any comprehensive statement by the administration, serious editorial discussion, or public debate over this new foreign policy. Throughout American history major departures in foreign policy have been the occasion for lively, even contentious debate. This has not been the case as the war on terrorism morphed into the centerpiece of a new imperial foreign policy. Consequences abound. A nation whose announced national security policy is to eradicate dictators possessing weapons of mass destruction is then immediately faced with North Korea. Indeed, we are faced with a good number of nations fitting this description. Either we mean what we say, or we pick and choose. And if we pick and choose, what standards do we use? Whom do we invade and with whom do we negotiate? And if we can adopt this preemptive policy, why cannot other nations? If we can engage in preventive wars, why then cannot India or Pakistan or a rather large number of other antagonists do the same thing? Wipe out your enemy now on the grounds that he may someday represent a threat to you. And what about eradicating dictators who assault their own people - an argument used against Saddam Hussein? There are certainly plenty of those around. A president who campaigned on a platform of humility in international dealings and resistance to ''nation-building'' now finds himself waving a big stick at almost everyone and rebuilding nations right and left. When exactly did this transformation occur? Was it 9/11 or was it the project of a handful of advisers perpetually eager to remake the Middle East? And how did the Philippines suddenly get into all of this? If the invasion of Iraq is simply the completion of Gulf War I, then perhaps deployment of special forces to the Philippines is the completion of the Spanish-American war. Who can tell? No one in Washington, including in my own Democratic Party, seems to be up to asking any tough questions. A short year and a half ago America was astride the world like a moral colossus. Virtually the entire world united behind us in our grim search for justice against Al Qaeda. Sometime last fall, however, when Saddam replaced bin Laden as our white whale, we started on our own crusade and left the rest of the world behind. You can either believe much of the rest of the world became, almost overnight, obtuse and anti-American, or you can more plausibly believe we unilaterally launched ourselves on a mission that made little sense to much of the rest of the world. Before we take the next step, wherever that may be (Syria? Iran? North Korea?), perhaps we should stop and take stock. What is our mission here? What exactly are we trying to achieve? Should not the president spell out in considerably more detail where he is leading us and what price, including in American lives and international goodwill, we must be willing to pay to achieve his goal? America is a republic. Throughout history, republics have never been compatible with empire. Read the Romans, among others. When republics begin to seek hegemony and expand the reach and scope of their power, they no longer remain republics. America is still too young - and too noble - for that. ___________________________________ Gary Hart, a US senator from Colorado from 1975-87, recently served as co-chair of the US Commission on National Security/21st Century. truthout.org

To: American Spirit who wrote (2303)	6/10/2003 2:18:00 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

Graham is too eccentric to be on a national ticket. hillnews.com Graham in a U-turn on his notebooks By Sam Dealey Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, has done a U-turn and decided to keep the contents of thousands of controversial notebooks secret. Having said the notebooks would be made available to public and press, his campaign staff now refuses to release copies. The senator is “not going to make any more [notebooks] accessible to people,” said Paul Anderson, Graham’s chief spokesman. Some journalists who reviewed the notebooks before the shutdown suggest that they reveal a striking eccentricity. The Washington Post recently wrote of the senator’s “bizarre habit of scribbling the dullest conceivable minutiae of his life.” The New York Times called them “obsessive.” Anderson said: “After the senator did this interview with The New York Times, he basically said — and I think it’s the view of the campaign, as well — that it’s time to move on. He doesn’t want to keep talking about the notebooks. He feels the notebooks have been written about extensively … [and his] purposes for keeping [them] … have been fully explained.” The pocket-sized notebooks begin in the late 1970s and exhaustively record Graham’s daily activities. There are now thousands of them, color-coded by season. During an April 27 appearance on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Graham was asked whether he would make the notebooks public to dispel negative perceptions. “I have placed all of my notebooks from the first 12 years in the University of Florida Library of Florida History [archive],” the candidate replied, and “I intend to do so with the balance of my notebooks at an appropriate time.” James Cusick, curator of the P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History at the University Florida, said: “As soon as we heard that, we figured people will want to look at them, so we better get them organized. But they’re not actually in the collection.” Graham’s office said the mix-up was an innocent mistake. The notebooks the senator was referring to when he said they were in the library were those he had written as a law student. “The kind of notebooks he now keeps he didn’t really start keeping until his campaign for governor, when he needed to keep track of names, phone numbers, correspondence — the kinds of things anybody keeps track of,” Anderson said. Nevertheless, until last week, the campaign continued to say access would not be restricted. If journalists provided specific dates, the entries would be made available, said Anderson. “They’re available; they’re routinely available,” Anderson said. “There’s nothing secret here.” The Hill requested entries for the dates of major U.S. foreign policy events, the Senate trial of President Bill Clinton, and other significant political milestones for Graham. Those requests have since been declined. In July 2000, Time magazine obtained a notebook page from September 1994 and printed it in full. The article was widely viewed as damaging to Graham, who was then on the short-list of running-mate selections by Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee. The Time entries record that Graham discussed Nicaragua, taped an ABC interview, and became a grandfather when his daughter gave birth. But they also contained careful notes on minor details. From 12:05 to 12:10, for example, Graham visited his bedroom and bathroom and “change[d] to red shorts.” From 1:20 to 1:30, he replicated those visits but this time “dress[ed] in blue slacks.” Separate entries indicate he watched, rewound, and returned an Ace Ventura videocassette to the store.