irateplatypus

I just finished watching John Kerry on Meet the Press. Overall, I felt he did a good job responding to the questions... though he did give a few pat answers and swerved onto talking points. But, that is the modus operandi for politicians.

This is what concerns me most about what I saw...

There are some issues that Kerry is really pushing in his campaign (such as changing the tax code for "Benedict Arnold" coporations who move overseas) that have been present in American government for years and years. This guy has been a Senator for 17 years and yet no mention of the problem till he is running for President?

When he talks about how he going to change all of this supposed injustice that has existed for so long... I want to ask him what legislation he has sponsored in 17 years to remedy the same problem.

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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

pan6467

I'm very impressed Irate that you gave such an unbiased review. No offense but usually the other side picks everything apart and trashes whatever is said. Libs do it to Bush, Righties do it to Kerry.

I am very happy to see that perhaps people are actually going to focus on issues and not the we vs them mentality.

I'm sure it doesn't mean much but I truly am impressed by your review.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

HarmlessRabbit

Looking at Kerry's record from an independent voting analysis site, he doesn't seem inconsistent. (I highly recommend this site, too.)

http://www.issues2000.org/Senate/John_Kerry.htm

Anyone can take a 17-year voting record and pick it apart. There are complexities and nuances to particular votes and don't show up in a republican or democrat attack ad.

Remember, a senator is not the President, they share power with a lot of other people. I think Kerry's voting record is consistent with what he is proposing to do as President.

irateplatypus

harmlessrabbit,

good website, i use it also... but no one was discussing kerry's voting record in this thread.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Yakk

It seems at least tangentally related. One's voting record and what legislation one sponsors.

Not right on, I'd admit. =)

You underestimate the power of the ignoring dissonnence side. *lightning crackles*

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Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

HarmlessRabbit

Ummmmmmmmm, I certainly see the link, but in case you need something more explicit, try:
http://kerry.senate.gov/bandwidth/is...islation.html#

Kerry sponsored S.1884, which directly addresses this issue.

He has also sponsored similar stuff like S. 664 and S.1662 which are definitely in spirit of the tax policy.

If you search around here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.html

I think you'll see that Kerry has been a very active senator, and that his legislative "spirit" has been pretty consistent.

onetime2

Personally, I think it's a bad choice of focus. There is no outrage in America against these corporations which would persuade people to go vote and the amount of money we'd get out of this line of legislation is minimal. I suspect this point will be minimized in the next week or so when they fail to get a reaction to it.

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irateplatypus

i fully understood what you were getting at, but it was tangential to what i intended this thread for. forgive me for trying to steer a thread back towards its original purpose after 2 replies.

my point is that kerry has had the power to make a direct change to all legislatable laws in this country for many years as a senior member of the congress. i find it difficult to take him seriously when he uses things like the overseas jobs issue as a primary plank in his presidential platform precisely because he could've authored legislation to change it at any time.

this varies from only discussing his voting record in that the discrepancy lies in not in his voting record, but in fact that there hasn't been legislation brought to a vote at all.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

HarmlessRabbit

You mean, other than the bills he introduced that I already cited?

irateplatypus

ahh... i will readily admit that i was unaware of bill 1884, so i will cede that point to you.

the other two, like you indicated earlier, do not address the issues that he brings up when talking about these corporations.

i suppose if we're going to split hairs one could ask why he is waiting till his election campaign gears up starts to amend laws that went into effect 30 years ago or why 57 of 79 Heinz (his wife is heir to the heinz fortune) factories are overseas.

but neither one of those issues were present in my mind while i originally posted, thanks for the research.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Superbelt

Heinz is an international business. They sell many different foodstuffs to many different countries. It is economic to locate your factories closer to the final destination or source of your product if you can. So Heinz has factories all over europe, south american and asia. Otherwise Heinz would go out of business from the shipping costs.
Then of course there are perishable goods that need to be processed immediately and don't have the time to be shipped to america raw.

There is really nothing ulterior about that. It's not the same thing as assembling sneakers for 8 cents in Cambodia.

theusername

There use to be a big Heinz factory in Pittsburgh, where im pretty sure it originated and it provided a bunch of jobs. Now all they make there is the ketchup packets kind of funny and ironic when you think that this is a main platform the guy is running on.

Superbelt

Do you know those specific factories are overseas? And do you know Heinz didn't just move their factory to a different part of Pitt? It is possible they just shifted to a different state. American is a fluid system like that.

Again, there are certain realities about food production that make it necessary to locate your factories either close to the food source or the final destination.

onetime2

What the HJ Heinz company does has no relevance. Kerry doesn't run it.

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Sen

It appears that Kerry made another statement on Meet the Press that he isn't willing to back up.



As seen this morning on Drudge (edited with ellipses for brevity):

PAYBACK: NOW GOP WANTS KERRY TO SHOW ALL RECORDS
Tue Apr 20 2004 09:50:22 ET

...The day after Kerry told MEET THE PRESS he would make all of his military records available for inspection at his campaign headquarters, a spokesman said the senator would not release any new documents, leaving undisclosed many of Kerry's evaluations by his Navy commanding officers, some medical records, and possibly other material....

Coming Gillespie in a speech to be delivered in Ohio:

"John Kerry's pattern of caveats, qualifications, disclaimers, policy reversals and vacillation are not the qualities voters are looking for in times of change that demand steady leadership.

"The Boston Globe reports today that when a reporter went to Kerry's headquarters yesterday to follow up on the pledge Kerry had made on Meet the Press Sunday that he would make all his military records available, 'the campaign staff declined' and said 'the only records available would be those already released to this newspaper.' The campaign is withholding formal evaluations from superior officers and other documents they have yet to release.

"Guess it depends on what your definition of the word 'all' is.

"When President Bush committed to release all his military records on the same program, he kept his word. John Kerry should do the same. Voters aren't stupid, and he shouldn't treat us as if we are."

ON HIS WIFE'S TAX RETURNS, HE HAS SAID 'NO'. ON HIS HEALTH RECORDS, HE HAS SAID 'NO'. ON HIS COMPREHENSIVE MILITARY RECORDS INCLUDING NAVAL RESERVE RECORDS, HE HAS SAID 'NO'...

Developing...

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Superbelt

I wish Kerry would release his records fully as well. But I find it hypocritical of Gillespie to criticise that when his own candidate has released a much more incomplete set of military records.

I want them both out in the open.

matthew330

I thought Bush had released his military records. Last I heard his service, though far from heroic, was complete. I read a pretty unbiased straightforward account of his service one time but I can't find it. it's out there somewhere in the sea of "Bush AWOL's" you get when you inquire anything about his service record in google.

onetime2

And it was equally hypocritical when the calls were being made for Bush to release all his records when many of the Dem candidates were likewise refusing (not just military but other records as well).

Personally, I don't think they should be pressured to release all their records. If they choose to, great. If they choose not to, then fine. There is likely very little of value in any of the records and their release will likely just serve to start inconsequential discussions about the fact that some long-since retired Colonel thought one way or another about them. People will then try to paint one person's opinion or one act by them 30+ years ago as representative of the man.

If people don't have enough information about the candidates at this point to make a decision then they aren't looking.

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Superbelt

No he released some dental visits and other things but not the requested data like his veterans retirement point summary that would be a record of every day that he was present for duty.
His Retirement Points would show whether or not he was missing for a 6 month or longer span of time.

matthew330

Sorry to get off topic, but this subject doesn't really seem worthy of another thread. This article seems to me to be a pretty comprehensive record of his service. It mentions a time when his service dropped somewhere in 1972, but he eventually made up the required points to be honerably discharged. If this is the time in question, where so many suggest he was "AWOL", and avoiding going to vietnam, wasn't the war almost over at this point anyway. His entire service was during the height of the war (i think). Anyway - seems to account for much more than just a few dental records. What is it that i'm missing, or what exactly is it that your looking for. It doesn't appear that he did anything illegal.

P.S. - i don't have time to quote the whole article being that it will only let me copy and paste one paragraph at a time, does anyone know why this is?

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39ea05224b3e.htm

Johnny Rotten

Developed:
Kerry Camp Offers Some Military Records

Three Purple Hearts. One Silver Star and one Bronze Star. I'm willing to cut the guy some slack on document publication.

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