Help is on the way (485 hits)
Category: PoliticsRating: 0.92 on 19 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Donne Fan (View user info) at 2004-07-29 23:46:38 EDT
Help is on the way for anyone who was just deluded by the single most hypocritical and two faced politician I have ever witnessed, John Kerry. Let me break down his speech for those of you who either are unaware of his voter record, or do not understand politician speak.
He is going to end corporate tax loopholes and raise taxes on those who make more than 200,000 a year (including himself, and his running mate who are multimillionaires). He must have gone to the same school of economics that John Edwards went to, where a trial lawyer is a friend to the little guy. He claims he is going to reduce the deficit in half. Then he promised this,
Reduced taxes for the middle class
Increased funding for the military ("Families should not have to pay for body armor for their children in the military") which is interesting since he voted to cut military funding and intelligence funding over and over and over while in the Senate including recently.
Increased funding for police men and firemen.
Increased funding for teachers and schools...The National Education Association, the public school teachers union which is strongly partisan was there in full force. Despite the fact that they have had increased funding for the last 30 years per pupil in a time when test scores have been going DOWN they refuse to drop the failed corellation between money and results. When Bush proposed that they have some testing to establish accountability (a bill authored by Ted Kennedy by the way) they were incredibly angered. The only thing that scares them more is competition for their failing educational system on the part of vouchers for the underprivileged students who have no chance, the inner city kids who Kerry mentioned in his speech. They cannot get an education in the HORRIFIC schools, yet the NEA is holding the Democratic party hostage on that issue and is desperate to prevent the reelection of Bush because his Secretary of Education Rod Paige has expressed interest in the concept that has so much support among fellow minority leaders.
Increased funding for fighting the homeless (even liberal social scientists admit that in the booming Clinton economy, with more money than at any previous time as a percentage of spending being used to tackle the issue, homelessness exploded, so perhaps giving them money or paying bureacrats to hand out soup that churches give away less expensively is a failed solution).
Increased funding for corporations and small businesses that keep business in America (it may be too complex to explain to many Americans but it will be difficult to do that in such a way as to avoid sanctions by the foreign leaders of the European Union similar to the billions of sanctions that forced President Bush to drop the steel tariff), which is interesting because he voted for NAFTA which is responsible for more jobs leaving the country for Mexico than any Congressional enactment regarding trade in history.
Increased funding for science and alternative energy, which is something promised by every political campaign I have heard in my lifetime (see my post on why Bush should fund more alternative energy). He also said he is not afraid of stem cells. Adult stem cells or embryonic ones John? The ones that have been successful or the ones that fertilize an egg to create cells for harvesting that has so far not had a shred of therapeutic success despite tremendous effort?
He asked President Bush not to be divisive. He then proceeded to talk about how the President is failing and attacked him as being opposed to family values (I missed the memo where ending the marriage penalty is against family values but supporting gay marriage and abortion on demand with no restrictions including partial birth abortion is helping keep the family small and happy, if somewhat guilt ridden about the squirming fetus they saw kicking legs and swinging arms as the doctor rip apart).
He even had the gall to accuse the Republicans of trying to use race to divide us. Race? Was that Al Sharpton last night yelling from that stage you are speaking on "Our vote cannot be bought!" The "civil rights" leaders who are lackeys for the Democratic party are not only racial agitators who love the governmental racism of affirmative action because it perpetuates the problem that keeps them in business, they are often disingenous liars (yes Al I am talking about you and I will not forget Tawana Bradley) and they are opposing the voucher programs supported in their communities because they will not fight internally with the NEA mentioned above. I guess the buying just has to be done by the racist white liberals who have created misery within the inner city by creating ghettos, trapping children in failing schools and imprisoning them with a failed war on drugs that could more accurately be termed many times a war on young black men who sell drugs and cannot afford the attorneys of suburban white privilege.
He asked President Bush to be an optimist. He had a campaign commercial in May that compared the American economy to the Great Depression!
He said he was happy to have Mikey Reagan speak, the son of Ronald who injected partisanship into a funeral for his dad by sniping at Bush for "wearing his faith on his sleeve." Kerry then proceeded to say he does not wear his faith on his sleeve, but he does have faith and then went on to preach. He preached that he does not like to use "us and them" which titillated the crowd of moral relativists. I have news for you John, many people in America do see an "us and them" comparision between those who would murder innocents in the name of God and those who preach charity and love.
He preached that unless we are willing to give seniors whatever drugs they want we are not following the part of the ten commandments that say "honor thy father and mother." What? The only prescription drug care benefits program passed recently was passed by Bush, not Clinton and I opposed it just as I oppose this. OLD PEOPLE LISTEN UP, my generation will pay for life saving needed medical treatment if you have no money to pay for it yourself, but I think I can speak for the majority of us when I say we REFUSE to pay for your Viagra, and your newest and shiniest pill that enhances your lifestyle that you just have to have. 30 years ago you had aspirin or tylenol, quit acting like a protease inhibitor is a civil right.
That brings me to the greatest thing he is going to pay for while halving the deficit, universal health care, which he said is a basic right. I must have missed that in my reading of the sacred document he said not to misuse, the constitution. Was that his only reference to gay marriage? John you can do better than that. Did you avoid the issue because you realized you are on the wrong side of a 70% opinion or did you avoid it because you switched your position from being for it to being opposed to it? Even the homosexual activists and I can agree on something, John Kerry is a waffler who has no spine.
He referred to his PT boat more often than Edwards cast a lusty glance his way, but just barely.
Hopefully Peter Jennings was able to clean himself up after his on air orgasmic crooning over Kerry and his speech. I am not sure if every commentator wants Kerry to be President as much as the Canadian, but I can see why he would be for a system of socialized medicine and economic stagnation with incredibly high taxes.
Unless tomorrow John Kerry announces that he is in fact a reanimated Frankenstein and that the scientist who created him is going to enable his programs to become reality using his incredible prowess, he just delivered a speech highlighting positions that are inconsistent with his voting record, and promising I am going to estimate conservatively (yes pun intended) about 2-3 times the amount of money the federal government would have at its disposal if his promises were kept. Kerry extend your ear from the heights of your mansion on Beacon Hill, that sound you are hearing that is a soft blah, bleeecch, ugggghhh, is middle america, the red states, the heart and soul of America you referred to tonight (or was that Whoopi and friends at your Hollywood shindig) have listened to your speech and are now throwing up.
User Reviews
Submitted by Quartermain (user info) at 2004-07-30 13:55:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by smokymtcsw (user info) at 2004-07-30 12:08:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
By the way, this election will not be as close as people think. The book "Unfit for Command" is going to hurt Kerry a lot, especially since he keeps talking about his record in Vietnam so much. Further the NRA and the National Chamber of Commerce are just two of the groups that have not done ad buys yet who are going to blitz September and October with clips of Kerry lying or changing positions.
Submitted by smokymtcsw (user info) at 2004-07-30 11:28:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
But I do not think I see what I want to see. I have been quite critical of many aspects of Bush's program. If I thought Kerry was going to attempt to deliver on alternative energy and was not just talking about it like Bill Clinton did I would be really excited about that program.
Let me explain the economics. A country to our north with less health related problems due to lower rates of smoking, less obesity and several other factors has universal health care which is what John Kerry wants. Their health care system as a result is horrible. It is also very expensive. Let me break it down to cold hard cash, the government always pays more than it should for everything it purchases except land that it condemns. When the government purchases health care it costs much more than the same health care costs privately. And guess what? Shockingly we have free hospitals and clinics in America offering health care to those who have it and to those who do not and while many of them are Catholic, some like the one I worked with in Atlanta (The Good Samaritan Clinic in downtown near the olympic park and Techwood) are funded by donations from the Christian Right for the Christian Right doctors who gave up their private practice to start it so they can help people.
Now as for education, more money is NOT the solution. We spend twice as much per pupil in Washington DC than they do in the national honors school district in neighboring Virginia suburbs. Is that because the parents supplement so much that the data is skewed? Probably not. I did a similar study on Birmingham city school compared to the suburbs (the best schools in the state versus one of the very worst) and found that not just more tax money, but more money period is spent on the students in the Birmingham city schools than the schools in the suburbs and yet the children were still not attaining basic literacy. It is those schools that should be provided vouchers. Desegregation did not work and there are a ton of kids in this country trapped in failing schools where they cannot learn even if they desire to. They should be offered a way out. Also it is obvious that monopolies promote laziness and a lack of accountability leads to failure. If the public school is doing a good job, then everyone will stay there, but the choice should be with the parents and children stuck in failing schools should be able to leave. I do not want my tax money wasted on schools where the teachers do not teach and the students do not learn. You are also probably going to bring up the selection example and argue that only the best and brightest leave. That has not been addressed nationwide because of the thuggery of the NEA, but I can say in Chicago where they diverted problem students to a charter school that had teachers who cared and good discipline, the problem students had better test scores and rates of graduation than the public school they were diverted from.
That private schools can reach kids the public school cannot for a lot less money is also obvious to me having worked extensively here at a place that provides PHD's to counsel the children, Masters and PHD level teachers to teach them (on a 1 to 4 faculty to student ratio), and housing that is non institutional and comparable to an upper middle class home, along with horseback riding, a pool, tennis, a soccer field, gardening, field trips all over etc and yet we do it for less per student than the amount that the state pays to send a kid to a foster parent who ships the kid to public school each day. That is because of the generosity of those who care about kids here, but it is also because we do not waste money like the government and we are a gazillion times more efficient than the governments agents.
Submitted by smokymtcsw (user info) at 2004-07-30 11:14:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Healthcare - Here again, since I fully realize that the Christian right does not give a shit about anybody but themselves, break it down into cold, hard cash. It is cheaper and more cost efficient to provide healthcare to those who cannot afford it otherwise simply because regular healthcare drives down the cost of healthcare. An ounce of prevention...
Loki as far as the tax cuts the economic argument is very simple, the top tax bracket was lowered by JFK, Reagan, and now Bush. All the previous times it was lowered our economy has responded very positively. It has this time as well which is why Kerry abandoned his position.
A faux news sound bite? It is not complicated that Kerry voted to cut military and intelligence spending. Yes he did come back from Vietnam with lessons about war, they were lessons that made him opposed to war and he threw away his medals (another thing he has lied about).
The dig at the Christian right is really low and unfair. As I have stated over and over the Republicans have plenty of social darwinists but the Christian right is not a part of that problem. For all its hypocrisy in other areas (it sickens me how immoral the evangelicals are sexually for instance) the "Christian right" if you are defining it as evangelicals give more money to charity than any other group and they give more time as well. Being from a Christian right family where my parents have given up money to devote their lives to the charity they started and the 4 kids they adopted I respond viscerally based on that anecdote. I also respond that way because I grew up as a child going to Techwood in downtown Atlanta, with the Christian right to work with those who were trapped in the oldest public housing project in America. Since then I have worked with the Christian right on Habitat for Humanity houses, a group started by the Christian right. I have given money to Samaritan's Purse, an organization founded by the Christian right that provides amazing free medical care around the world. I have worked with the homeless in Knoxville with Knox Area Rescue Ministries, a Christian Right group, and in DC with Falls Church which is a conservative evangelical group.
Submitted by runninginplace (user info) at 2004-07-30 10:46:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Judoka (user info) at 2004-07-30 10:39:54 (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2004-07-30 09:01:09 (#)
I could go on, but why. You will see and hear what you want to see and hear anyway.
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Same to you.
Submitted by Judoka (user info) at 2004-07-30 10:39:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2004-07-30 09:01:09 (#)
I could go on, but why. You will see and hear what you want to see and hear anyway.
Submitted by UniBrowZIT (user info) at 2004-07-30 10:11:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Even if Kerry was the bastard son of Satan and Martha Stewart with a little Stalin and Hitler sperm thrown in for kicks, he's less evil than Bush and he's got my absentee vote that won't get counted...
Submitted by runninginplace (user info) at 2004-07-30 10:03:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2004-07-30 09:01:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
See the problem is that this country and the issues that affect it are far too complex to break down into a sound bite to make them digestible to the average Faux news listener. I keep hearing over and over that same, taken out of context sound bite of Kerry saying that he voted both for and against the $87M funding for the military. Come on, you're smarter than this, you know as well as I do that the reason he and the other senators who voted against it did so because they wanted the Bush administration held accountable for what they were using the money for. That had nothing to do with helping the rank and file troops.
Yes, Kerry, Edwards, and Clinton are all advocating rolling back the tax cuts that they personally benefited from. What do you think that means? It means that, unlike Bush and his cronies, they are not greedy bastards looking out only for themselves. Maybe, just maybe it means that they realize that yes it does take money to run a government the size of the United States. This is a cold, harsh reality that the Republican party doesn't seem to understand. If there is someone who is a disgrace to any economic class they ever had, it's Bush for thinking that he could both cut taxes and run up spending with no negative consequences. That would be like me asking for a pay cut and then running up my credit cards. Where did you think that was going to lead? That little tax cut of Bush's went overwhelmingly to the rich, 50% to the top 1%. How can that do anything but to shift the burden to the middle and lower classes? To whom much is given, much is expected.
I can't believe that you are suggesting that the very people who benefited from the system should turn around and try to obliterate it once they have achieved success. It makes no sense, pull your head out of your ass, where would this country be without public education. The conservatives waste money on this senseless war on drugs, when that money put into after school and tutoring programs could provide an infinitely more viable alternative to the kind of lifestyle that causes the worst of the societal problems with drug abuse. Is it or is it not logical that if you give kids something to do and someplace to go, it is more likely that they will less likely to get into trouble.
Healthcare - Here again, since I fully realize that the Christian right does not give a shit about anybody but themselves, break it down into cold, hard cash. It is cheaper and more cost efficient to provide healthcare to those who cannot afford it otherwise simply because regular healthcare drives down the cost of healthcare. An ounce of prevention...
I have no idea what you are getting at with your rant on the school system. I am dead set against this voucher idea. The last thing that the public schools need is to lose additional funding by having federal funds go into these voucher programs. We have a taxpayer funded school system. If you don't like it, then fine work to improve it and suck it up and pay for your own kid's private schooling. The purpose of the school system is not to pay to educate your kid to the detriment of the rest of the country's kids. The purpose of the school system is to educate all the kids, it is an investment in the future. In short - no vouchers.
I could go on, but why. You will see and hear what you want to see and hear anyway.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2004-07-30 08:19:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent.
Submitted by smokymtcsw (user info) at 2004-07-30 00:18:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
AGGGGHHH I keep getting Ron Reagan Jr. (the light in his loafers Dem) confused with Michael who is a good man. Darn it. I guess I just switch the names in my head of the man with the real legacy and the fraud.
Submitted by smokymtcsw (user info) at 2004-07-30 00:15:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I really hope that he does raise taxes for the rich, because god knows how many taxes cuts the wealthy have recieved with Bush being in power. If the rich paid their fair share of taxes in the first place, then the US budget wouldn't be in the mess it is now
The democrats count on this kind of idiocy. Do you have any idea what percentage of taxes are paid by the top 10% of earners? Do you have any clue? Do you know how much we could raise by aggressively taxing the rich?
Submitted by Wiggles (user info) at 2004-07-30 00:11:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
So...vote Bush?
No thanks, I'm sane.
Submitted by Pearnbran (user info) at 2004-07-30 00:10:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
God I hate to say this.
I'm so poor I don't pay much tax. Mostly just sales tax
And the richest people pay the most taxes.oh sure they pass allot of that on to the consumer.
What needs to be fixed is how states handle gambling revenues. Funds that are received from gambling that when the referendum was passed was earmarked for education later it is siphoned of to the general fund were they don't have to show how its spent. don't believe me check it out!!
Submitted by DonkeyOnTheEdge (user info) at 2004-07-30 00:07:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Get ready for Donkey to lose popularity points, but I'd rather have Bush. Hey, at least I know how I'm going to get screwed. Kerry can't offer that to me.
Submitted by Arsenal (user info) at 2004-07-30 00:03:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Wow. He's not perfect?!? Damn I thought all democrats were flawless. Guess what? For alot of people, the democratic party and their leaders aren't nearly liberal enough. But lets look at the options. Bush or Kerry. Republican or Democrat. Conservative or Conservative-Lite. I'll go with the latter, for now. Soon enough there will be a change to all this.
Submitted by Kellio (user info) at 2004-07-29 23:59:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I really hope that he does raise taxes for the rich, because god knows how many taxes cuts the wealthy have recieved with Bush being in power. If the rich paid their fair share of taxes in the first place, then the US budget wouldn't be in the shit it is now.
Submitted by cigar (user info) at 2004-07-29 23:54:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
beautiful. and wonderful pic
Submitted by St. Christmas at 2004-07-29 23:51:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I don't disagree, but do you want Bush in office for four more. Oh yeah, this piece gets a two because it is poignant and well written.