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 : The TRUTH About John Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (837)	3/8/2004 11:57:01 AM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1483

Kerry Lobbied for Contractor Who Made Illegal Contributions From The Los Angeles Times By Lisa Getter and Tony Perry, Times Staff Writers February 19, 2004 WASHINGTON - Sen. John F. Kerry 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 the Democratic presidential front-runner, Kerry has promoted himself as a candidate who has never been beholden to campaign contributors and special interests. Between 1996 and 1999, Kerry participated in a letter-writing campaign to free up federal funds for a guided 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 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 & Associates, which tracks campaign donations. Court documents say the contractor told his employees they needed to make political contributions in order 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 or other members of Congress would have known that. Asked what he did to repay the money, Kerry's campaign said Wednesday he had donated $13,000 to charity on Feb. 9 - which was two days before Majumder's guilty plea. … Campaign senior advisor Michael Meehan said Kerry was concerned that the military project was on hold and might jeopardize work for people in his home state. … Kerry sent at least 21 letters to the secretary of the Navy, the secretary of Defense, the Defense Department comptroller and to members of the House and the Senate committees that control and finance military contracts. … All include Kerry's appeal that the project be funded, and each year, the letters seemed to produce results. The federal money followed. "It obviously raises questions about whether the campaign contributions bought action from Kerry," said Steven Weiss, communications director of the Center for Responsive Politics … Last week Majumder, 52, pleaded guilty to two counts of illegal campaign contributions. He could be sentenced to six years in prison. The government dropped 38 other counts. Majumder admitted giving illegal contributions to Kerry and Reps. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-San Diego), Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and former Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.), totaling more than $95,000. To settle a civil suit, Majumder has agreed to repay $3 million to the federal government. … Majumder, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in India, began working on the missile program in 1989 - and established his company - with a $50,000 grant from the federal government. Federal funding increased over time. But in 1996, the Defense Department proposed rescinding $35 million for the project and not funding it in the future. Kerry joined with other senators to protest. Congress reinserted the money into the budget, but the Navy held onto the funds. … In 1997, funding for the program was put on hold again. Kerry joined Sens. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Dianne Feinstein of California in writing to then-Undersecretary of Defense John Hamre on March 10, 1997. … The letter from the three Democrats seemed to work. On March 27, Hamre wrote back to say he had released the money. Kerry wrote other letters to Republican and Democratic senators on the appropriations committee, asking that they include $55 million in the 1998 spending bill for "an important military research and development program that will greatly improve the self-protection capability of our close air support aircraft." He wrote again in 1998, urging that senators give the program an additional $15 million. Meehan, his campaign advisor, said Wednesday that Kerry felt that, as a Massachusetts lawmaker, he should question why the money was being held up. … John Valkus, a close friend of Majumder, said the contractor turned to making political contributions "so he could play in the same league as the big boys: Lockheed and Raytheon." … Majumder told his employees, subcontractors and friends that he would pay them back for their contributions, which is illegal. … The Majumder case isn't the first time that Kerry received tainted campaign money. In September 1996, Taiwanese American entrepreneur Johnny Chung held a fundraiser for Kerry in Beverly Hills. He later pleaded guilty to making illegal campaign contributions, including $8,000 raised at the Beverly Hills event. Kerry's Senate office arranged a high-level meeting for Chung at the Securities and Exchange Commission within a few days of the fundraiser. The contract to Majumder's firm involved an effort to improve technology to allow missiles to destroy ground-based radar systems even after those systems have been switched off and are no longer emitting radiation. … For Entire Article Please Visit : latimes.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (837)	3/9/2004 9:30:38 AM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 1483

NASTY JOHN March 9, 2004 -- THE question on the lips of those who burbled the conventional wisdom last week was, "Will this presidential campaign be the ugliest in American history?" John Kerry had an answer. He is ready, he said, for "the Republican attack machine" that is sure to try and play every nasty and underhanded trick in the book Evidently, John Kerry wants to challenge Bill Clinton in the Political Chutzpah Sweepstakes - because, like Clinton, he's already laying claim to being a victim of the hardball politics he himself practices with complete abandon. Right now, the only political chainsaw that's buzzing, looking for a head to lop off, is Kerry's. He has already launched a vitriolic line of attack against George W. Bush that is virtually without precedent for a major-party presidential candidate. It used to be - and I don't mean in the old days, I mean even back in the year 2000 - that major-party presidential candidates did not say the sorts of things about each other that Kerry now says on an hourly basis about Bush. It was considered unseemly, beneath the office being sought. Not any more. A few weeks ago, Kerry entered Howard Dean territory and has stayed there as the media swoon over him. Usually, the media hate negative campaigning - but not when it spills out of Kerry's mouth and right onto the front pages without so much as a suggestion of a critical filtering. Kerry has repeatedly said President Bush is "running the most arrogant, inept, reckless, ideological foreign policy in the modern history of this country." He has accused Bush of "stonewalling" both the inquiries into the 9/11 attacks and the intelligence failures before the war in Iraq. He says Bush hasn't provided America's military in Iraq with enough protective gear - in essence, accusing Bush of leading to the deaths and injuries of hundreds of American fighting men and women. And he asserts that Bush's supposed failure in this regard calls into question the president's patriotism. Now, I have no doubt that Kerry believes Bush is a bad president. But the worst foreign-policy president in "the modern history of this country"? It's understandable that Kerry, a loyal Democrat, would pass lightly over the presidential tenure of Jimmy Carter - whose four-year tenure featured the onrush of communism into Central America, the Arab oil shock of 1979, the fall of Iran to the mullahs and the taking of 52 American hostages for 444 days and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. You really can't do much worse than that. But what about Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon? Kerry's insistence that Bush's foreign policy is the worst in modern history is an astonishing thing for him, of all people, to say. For by this reckoning, this famous Vietnam veteran against the war thinks Bush is a worse steward of the national interest than either Johnson or Nixon, under whose tenures 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam. At the time, Kerry accused his government of sanctioning war atrocities "on a day-to-day basis" in Vietnam and wondered, "How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?" Kerry has never disavowed his statements at the time. So we can only assume that he still agrees with them. In which case he thinks that the Bush foreign policy is more reckless than the policies followed by those who led a military he compared to the Mongol horde of Genghis Khan. An interesting concept, Bush's recklessness - given that Kerry told The New York Times that he would have unhesitatingly committed the U.S. military to Haiti to prop up the corrupt, repressive and illegitimate regime of bipolar lunatic Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was brought back to power in 2000 in an election so foul that almost all international aid was suspended to the country in protest. Look up reckless in the dictionary, and you'll find John Kerry's position on Haiti. Kerry learned one thing from Dean's long honeymoon in 2003: Right now he can say anything he wants about Bush - anything at all - without suffering at the hands of a critical media. The press is just too enamored of the ugliness he's spewing to call him on the astounding contradictions in his foreign-policy perorations. Example: "It is time to return to the United Nations . . . to share both authority and responsibility in Iraq, and take the target off the back of our troops . . . We must offer the U.N. the lead role in assisting Iraq with the development of new political institutions. And we must stay in Iraq until the job is finished." Let me translate from the self-righteous gobbledygook: We need the U.N. to go in there and become the targets for terrorist attack. In exchange, they can build the political institutions. But we'll stay there too - maybe to do odd jobs around the house. I'm all for negative campaigning. But it's only March 9, and Kerry has said some incredibly mean-spirited and harsh things about Bush. What's he going to say come April 9? That Bush wants to kill the Easter Bunny? nypost.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (837)	3/11/2004 7:10:49 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1483

The Truth About John Kerry Campaign Ad #4: Liar, Lunatic or War Criminal? Article The Truth About John Kerry Campaign Ad #4: Liar, Lunatic or War Criminal? OS: All File Size: 1.32MB License: Free March 08, 04 157 Download now It is astonishing that the press can call John Kerry a hero with a straight face; because he even accused himself of committing atrocities in 1971, as you can hear in this ad. He is either a liar, lunatic, or war criminal. Again, you be the judge. naspino.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (837)	3/11/2004 7:12:00 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 1483

forums.nytimes.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (837)	3/11/2004 7:24:05 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1483

John Kerry Ad Compaign (Sure to Cause a "Furor") We have put up several ads created by Jonathan M. Stein regarding John Kerry's record. The first ad shines the light on John Kerry's voting record. A voter's primary concern, when casting their ballot, should be whether their candidate will represent not only their interests, but represent them at all. John Kerry not only missed the votes on drug prescription benefits and homeland security, he missed sixty-four percent of all votes in the last session. Kerry has been the lead sponser of eight bills that have become law; yet, he has been a senator for nineteen years. His political stagnation allows him to claim to be on every side of every issue, literally. This is not courage; it is cowardice, and no one wants a coward in the Whitehouse. Speaking of courage, the second ad clearly demonstrates that Kerry had none of it, or faith in our nation, when it came to fighting communism. In 1971, John Kerry stated that the Vietnamese would not be a free people under the United States and that we could not fight Communism. In 1984, he supported a nuclear freeze; a position that only communist infiltrators were attempting to enact. He was wrong then and there is no clear indication that he would be right today. The only way to know the "real" John Kerry is to examine the man he was before entering politics and at that time, he advocated placing the United States military under the command of the United Nations, which would effectively end over two-hundred years of American sovereignty. That is the clear indication that John Kerry is wrong for America. Young John Kerry, the true John Kerry, is the subject of the third ad. He recently claimed to Judy Woodruff on CNN that he had never accused those that served in Vietnam of committing atrocities. To him, I suppose, the fact that he lied is not as important as the number of people that believed him. Listen to John Kerry's own words in this ad and decide for yourself whether he has the integrity to be president. What is even more astonishing is that the press can call John Kerry a hero with a straight face; because he even accused himself of committing atrocities in 1971, as you can hear in the fourth ad. He is either a liar, lunatic, or war criminal. Again, you be the judge. Personally, I believe he might be all three, especially if he were to succeed in turning over our defense to a foreign power. For his views on the military alone, John Kerry is the most dangerous, and most liberal politician in America, but don't take my word for it, look at what independent organizations are saying about Kerry in our final ad. Posted by: naspino on March 07, 04 This article has been commented on 0 times. If it interests you then join the discussion. PermaLink: naspino.com naspino.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (837)	3/11/2004 7:35:15 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 1483

Kerry admits war crimes One person cannot be both a war hero and a war criminal. John Kerry is not a war hero, since he, himself, has admitted that he committed war crimes. On "Meet the Press" on May 6, 2001, Tim Russert played John Kerry an audiotape from April 18, 1971, where Kerry was asked whether he committed war crimes in Vietnam. Kerry’s response, on the 1971 tape, was: "I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free-fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50-caliber machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search-and-destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions. . ." Therefore, having admitted to committing war crimes, it is disingenuous for Kerry to now claim the mantle of "hero." It is even more disingenuous for the media to keep perpetuating the "hero" myth. Jonathan M. Stein naspino.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (837)	3/11/2004 7:36:53 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 1483

Now that John Kerry is running for President I find it interesting that the press corp would not throw these statements, voiced only three years ago, back at him. It is even more interesting now 'that a former Vietnam POW [Paul Galanti] has alleged that his Hanoi captors specifically cited Sen. John Kerry's 1971 anti-war testimony to Congress as they brutally tortured him to get him to turn on his fellow GIs.' John Kerry had accused U.S. soldiers of 'routinely committing rapes, beheadings, mutilations and all manner of atrocities against the Vietnamese people.' Galanti told the Los Angeles Times that 'Kerry's decision to publicly allege that U.S. soldiers were war criminals "jeopardize[d] those still in battle or in the hands of the enemy." Because he did, Galanti said, "John Kerry was a traitor to the men he served with...The Viet Cong didn't think they had to win the war on the battlefield, because thanks to these protesters they were going to win it on the streets of San Francisco and Washington."' (source: newsmax.com Posted by: naspino on February 19, 04