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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (2976)	2/18/2004 12:17:14 AM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 81568

ama-assn.org

To: American Spirit who wrote (2976)	2/18/2004 12:20:31 AM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 81568

Many Americans of asian descent are entering medicine because they are the most qualified on paper and they are willing to delay gratification,sacrifice for at least 10 years of their lives.Many Americans students are not willing to go into heavy debt and spend a decade to become a doctor.

To: American Spirit who wrote (2976)	2/18/2004 7:31:04 AM
From: tonto	Respond to of 81568

You said it...(s) <em>So quit letting foreigners dominate our high education.

To: American Spirit who wrote (2976)	2/18/2004 12:23:49 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81568

The Contest has Just Begun commondreams.org

To: American Spirit who wrote (2976)	2/18/2004 12:42:26 PM
From: Don Green	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

A letter from a Navy Vietnam Vet in my e-mail. Interesting read and explanation of Kerry's tactical errors in the field. >>>I've long thought that John Kerry's war record was phoney. We talked about it when you were here. It's mainly been instinct because, as you know, nobody who claims to have seen the action he does would so shamelessly flaunt it for political gain. So I spent a couple of hours on the internet yesterday, made a bunch of notes, and I'm sending them as an attachment. In addition, look at the website 25thaviation.org Somebody went to a lot of trouble to chronicle Kerry's checkered career. I was in the Delta shortly after he left. I know that area well. I know the operations he was involved in well. I know the tactics and the doctrine used. I know the equipment. Although I was attached to CTF-116 (PBRs) I spent a fair amount of time with CTF-115 (swift boats), Kerry's command. Here are my Problems and Suspicions: (1) Kerry was in-country less than four months on a one year assignment and collected, a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three purple hearts. I never heard of anybody with any outfit I worked with (including SEAL One, the Sea Wolves, Riverines and the River Patrol Force) collecting that much hardware so fast, and for such pedestrian actions. The Swifts did a commendable job. But that duty wasn't the worst you could draw. They operated only along the coast and in the major rivers (Bassac and Mekong). The rough stuff in the hot areas was mainly handled by the smaller, faster PBRs. (2) Three Purple Hearts but no limp. All injuries so minor that no time lost from duty. Amazing luck. Or he was putting himself in for medals every time he bumped his head on the wheel house hatch? Combat on the boats was almost always at close range. You didn't have minor wounds. At least not often. Not three times in a row. Then he used the three purple hearts to request a trip home eight months before the end of his tour. FISHY ! (3) The details of the event for which he was given the Silver Star make no sense at all. Supposedly, a B-40 was fired at the boat and missed. Charlie jumps up with the launcher in his hand, the bow gunner knocks him down with the twin .50, Kerry beaches the boat, jumps off, shoots Charlie, and retreives the launcher. If true, he did everything wrong. (a) Standard procedure when you took rocket fire was to put your stern to the action and go balls to the wall. A B-40 has the ballistic integrity of a frisbie after about 25 yards, so you put 50 yards or so between you and the beach and begin raking it with your .50's. (b) Did you ever see anybody get knocked down with a .50 caliber round and get up? The guy was dead or dying. The rocket launcher was empty. There was no reason to go after him (except if you knew he was no danger to you just flopping around in the dust during his last few seconds on earth, and you wanted some derring do in your after-action report). And we didn't shoot wounded people. We had rules against that, too. (c) Kerry got off the boat. This was a major breach of standing procedures. Nobody on a boat crew ever got off a boat in a hot area. EVER! The reason was simple. If you had somebody on the beach your boat was defenseless. It coudn't run and it couldn' t return fire. It was stupid and it put his crew in danger. He should have been relieved and reprimanded. I never heard of any boat crewman ever leaving a boat during or after a firefight. Something is Fishy. Here we have a JFK wannabe (the guy Halsey wanted to court martial for carelessly losing his boat and getting a couple people killed by running across the bow of a Jap destroyer) who is hardly in Vietnam long enough to get a good tan, collects medals faster than Audie Murphy in a job where lots of medals weren't common, gets sent home eight months early, requests separation from active duty a few months after that so he can run for Congress, finds out war heros don't sell well in Massachsetts in 1970 so reinvents himself as Jane Fonda, throws his ribbons in the dirt with the cameras running to jump start his political career, gets Stillborn Pell to invite him to address Congress and Bobby Kennedy's speechwriter to do the heavy lifting, winds up in the Senate himself a few years later, votes against every major defense bill, says the CIA is irrelevant after the Wall came down, votes against the Gulf War, a big mistake since that turned out well, decides not to make the same mistake twice so votes for invading Iraq, but oops, that didn't turn out so well so he now says he really didn't mean for Bush to go to war when he voted to allow him to go to war. I'm real glad you or I never had this guy covering out flanks in Vietnam. I sure don't want him as Commander in Chief. I hope that somebody from CTF-115 shows up with some facts challenging Kerry's Vietnam record. I know in my gut it's wildy inflated. And FISHY ! Message 19809273

To: American Spirit who wrote (2976)	2/19/2004 6:29:03 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

Kerry letters aided embattled contractor chron.com Feb. 18, 2004, 11:07PM Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., sent 28 letters in behalf of a San Diego defense contractor who pleaded guilty last week to illegally funneling campaign contributions to the Massachusetts senator and four other congressmen. Members of Congress often write letters supporting constituent businesses and favored projects. But as Democratic presidential front-runner, Kerry has promoted himself as one who has never been beholden to campaign contributors. From 1996 through 1998, Kerry participated in a letter-writing campaign to free up federal funds for a missile system that defense contractor Parthasarathi "Bob" Majumder was trying to build for U.S. warplanes. Kerry's letters were sent to fellow members of Congress -- and to the Pentagon -- while Majumder and his employees at Science and Applied Technology, Inc. were donating money to the senator, court records show. During the three-year period, Kerry received about $25,000 from Majumder and his employees, according to Dwight L. Morris and Associates, which tracks campaign donations. Documents say the contractor told his employees they needed to make political contributions for him to gain influence with members of Congress. He then reimbursed them with proceeds from government contracts. Federal prosecutors initially determined that $13,000 of the donations were illegally reimbursed, but they now say that nearly all of the money was tainted. They said there was no evidence Kerry would have known that. Asked what he did to repay the money, Kerry's campaign said Wednesday he had donated $13,000 to charity two days before the guilty plea. Kerry's campaign said Kerry's actions had nothing to do with the campaign contributions. One of the subcontractors working on the guided missile project, Militech, was based in Northampton, Mass.

To: American Spirit who wrote (2976)	2/19/2004 6:39:21 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81568

Kerry and Jane townhall.com Robert Novak February 19, 2004 WASHINGTON -- A 34-year-old flier lists speakers for an anti-Vietnam War rally at Valley Forge State Park, Pa., Sept. 7, 1970. Included were two of that era's most notorious leftist agitators, the Rev. James Bevel and Mark Lane, plus actress Jane Fonda, a symbol of extreme opposition to the war. Leading off the list was a less familiar name: John Kerry. So much for the contention by Kerry supporters that his connection with "Hanoi Jane" (so called for her later visit to the enemy capital in time of war) was accidental juxtaposition in a photograph. In fact, Navy Lt. Kerry returned from heroic wartime service to help lead the radical Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), whose diatribes against flag and country are shocking from the distance of three decades. Does this reflect on Kerry's qualifications for the presidency? Perhaps no more than George W. Bush's record in attending National Guard drills in 1972. When Democrats made President Bush's past part of the 2004 campaign, Sen. Kerry's past became fair game. Relentless attention to the Bush record has helped the president's political decline, while the Kerry record has been largely ignored. Kerry now keeps his distance from Jane Fonda, expressing disapproval of her adventures in Hanoi. Rep. Charles Rangel on CNN's "Crossfire" Feb. 12 minimized a photo showing Kerry three rows away from Fonda at an anti-war rally: "There was some distance between Jane Fonda . . . and there was a guy that looked like it was Kerry that was a part of the crowd." He added to me: "I just hope that you wouldn't just identify me with your politics just because I took a picture with you." Actually, Kerry and Fonda both were among war resisters with the most extreme positions in criticizing U.S. participation in the war. Kerry, as the New England representative, attended a VVAW executive committee meeting Sept. 11, 1970. Minutes show plans to picket the National Guard Association convention in New York, to sponsor "war crimes testimony" at the U.N. and to coordinate with Jane Fonda's speaking tour. A later VVAW staff meeting decided to bar the American flag from the organization's offices. A VVAW flier of their period claims "American soldiers" commit atrocities "every day" against "the Vietnamese simply because they are 'Gooks.'" Kerry bought into the VVAW mantra that war crimes were not isolated in Vietnam. He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan," U.S. troops committed unspeakable atrocities while they "ravaged the countryside." Returning to Kerry's youthful indiscretions is valid only because of the inordinate attention on young Bush in the same period. Kerry's strategists never planned to go down this path, which inadvertently was opened when leftist moviemaker Michael Moore called Bush a "deserter" for allegedly missing National Guard drills. That triggered a feeding frenzy for Democratic politicians, helped along at first by Kerry. In 2000, Kerry leaped on the National Guard issue, comparing the Republican candidate unfavorably with "those of us who were in the military." Four years later, Kerry was less direct, linking Bush's Guard service to people who "went to Canada" or "opposed the war." Kerry's surrogate, former Sen. Max Cleland (recently named by President Bush to the Export-Import Bank board) asserted "we need somebody who felt the sting of battle, not someone who didn't." Kerry has since backed away from the National Guard question and ordered his surrogates to do the same, but that does not cover such irrepressible Democrats as Charlie Rangel. In 1992 when Bill Clinton's non-service was under attack, the congressman from Harlem brushed off his own heroic Korean War record as a way "to get off the street because times were rough." On NBC's "Meet the Press" last Sunday he sang a different song. "I've served in combat," he said, adding that "those who haven't shared it ought to give a lot of space to those that have been there." Once again, Rangel suggested that Kerry did not even know Jane Fonda. Documents show they shared the same platform and the same wing of the anti-war movement. That is surely as valid as investigating how many National Guard drills Bush attended.