posted on April 20, 2004 10:00:08 PM new
Posted by Frank Salvato
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
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I have always found it quite amusing that the Kerry campaign, along with the Democratic National Committee has accused the Bush White House of being one of the most secretive in American history. I say this primarily because the charges are hypocritical in nature, especially where the Kerrys are concerned. The most recent event validating my point of view is the refusal of Teresa Heinz Kerry, the condiment heiress--worth in the neighborhood of half a billion dollars--to release her financial statement to the public.
That Heinz Kerry is of foreign origin shouldn’t make any difference as to whether she would be a good First Lady, although I myself am uncomfortable with the idea. After all, this daughter of a prominent Portuguese expatriate doctor, who grew up in South Africa, came to this country as an immigrant and our politically correct culture has to embrace the ''struggle'' she went through in order to reap the benefits of her dream to become an American citizen (let the sarcasm run here). It doesn’t matter to me that her philanthropic organizations, two of which cannot be found on the tax-exempt rolls at the IRS, donate an inordinate amount of money to ultra-liberal charity organizations like the Tides Center and the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund. What bothers me is that she isn’t upfront enough to release her financial statements, setting her apart from every other aspiring First Lady.
One of the reasons behind her reluctance could be the reason why two of her philanthropic organizations don’t show up in IRS publication 78, an index of all tax-exempt organizations. In a Human Events article by Ron Arnold, it is revealed that two out of the three philanthropic organizations named on the Kerry website don’t exist. Rather they are ''funds within the Heinz Family Foundation fed by non-exempt private trusts controlled personally by Teresa Heinz.''
Arnold explained: ''The Teresa and H. John Heinz III Foundation" and "The H. John Heinz III Foundation" receive their money from separate "charitable lead trusts." A charitable lead trust is a private non-exempt trust that provides payments to others (individuals or organizations) for a term of years. At a specified time, the trust principal goes to its recipients free of federal gift and estate taxes, or with the "death tax" greatly reduced.''
I suppose this would explain why the Kerrys aren’t too concerned about John’s proposed tax plan should he be lucky enough to become President of the United States. It also explains why Teresa Heinz Kerry wouldn’t want to share information about her wealth. She is taking advantage of loopholes that allow the rich to get richer while dodging the taxman. The Kerrys don’t care about the ''death tax,'' the gift tax, or estate tax because they have found a way around them. I suppose this wouldn’t really sit well with the blue-collar workers the Kerrys so vehemently proclaim they identify with.
Another reason I giggle at John Kerry’s notion the Bush White House is secretive is because to date, and after all the flap about George W. Bush’s Air National Guard record, Kerry has yet to release his military records. Never mind all the screaming Terry McAuliffe did about President Bush releasing his service records. John Kerry, who refused to make them public back in the days when he was using ''over the top'' rhetoric in front of Congress, still has his records safely tucked away in seclusion.
There are probably many reasons why this proclaimed man of the people, the common man who yachted with the Kennedys as a youth, would want to keep his service records from the public. But the reason emerging as of late is that the ''ultimate hero'' may not have been ''all that he could have been'' during his abbreviated tour of duty in the Southeast Asian Theater. One of his commanding officers has gone on record with the major alphabet media stating for the record that Kerry’s third Purple Heart’s validity may be in question. And with several of his wartime acquaintances revealing their amazement at how he collected all of his honors in such a short period of time it can be argued Kerry may need for his military service records to remain out of the public eye, at least until after November.
Yet another reason I find Kerry’s contention the Bush White House is secretive so amusing is his statement about those foreign leaders he has been having conversations with. You know the ones I am talking about, the ones that keep telling Kerry he simply has to win this election. I find this entertaining because he is so dead set against telling us who these leaders are. Of course, he feels his reasoning for not divulging their identities is perfectly justified. As he expressed in an interview after telling a townhall meeting attendee it was ''none of his business,'' exposing them could lead to bad relations with the Bush White House should Kerry lose and compromise his appearance as someone who can be trusted in secrecy should he win. I am sure Kim Jong Il would be very offended to be exposed as not being warm and cuddly with the Bush Administration.
It isn’t hard to understand why the Bush White House may seem enigmatic to Kerry and others in the liberal world. The Bush White House doesn’t have the revolving door at its portico that it did during the eight years of the Clinton Administration. There are no movie crews roaming the halls and no movie producers dropping big bucks to romp around the Lincoln bedroom for a night. No, the media doesn’t have free reign in the Bush White House and rightly so. They cannot be trusted with the truth. This is validated by many recent events but I shall simply mention Jayson Blair and the New York Times to prove my point.
Of course, this doesn’t change the fact the Kerrys are secretive to a level that far surpasses anything the White House has done to warrant Kerry’s charges. Perhaps it’s just a liberal thing. It wasn’t too long ago we were all asking why Howard Dean’s gubernatorial records were sealed.
'We have dispatched Dr. David Kay...to search for the bio-warfare agents we believe hidden in Senator Kerry's forehead. If Senator Kerry has used botox as part of a wrinkle enrichment program, he is in violation of UN Resolution 752. Upon receiving Dr. Kay's report, the weapons of mass destruction that Senator Kerry so adamantly insists do not exist...may well be above his very nose.'" --Dick Cheney when asked whether John Kerry has had Botox treaments
posted on April 20, 2004 10:28:37 PM newThat Heinz Kerry is of foreign origin shouldn’t make any difference as to whether she would be a good First Lady, although I myself am uncomfortable with the idea.
I think when the writer starts his article saying, "I'm a close minded bigot" there really is no need to read further.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on April 21, 2004 03:24:21 AM new
LOL fenix, my oh my sounds like how alot of threads start here by the left...
and you wonder why discussion become non existant... LOL
AIN'T LIFE GRAND...
It's too bad that their blindness can't see they are killing more soldiers than President Bush ever has... Protest Loud and Proud! Your fellow taliban and insurgents are rejoicing at the support...
posted on April 21, 2004 06:47:35 AM new
The Top 19 Dumbest Statements of the Past Week made by Republicans
figures most republican war supporters are idiots anyway.....
by Harry Browne
April 20, 2004
Politicians are a continual source of empty rhetoric, rosy promises that are never fulfilled, meaningless mom-and-apple-pie clichés, and outright lies.
Last week was a particularly fertile one for such inanities. Here are the week's 19 dumbest political statements. At the end of the list, I'll tell you who said them.
19. "Iraq will either be a peaceful, democratic country, or it will again be a source of violence, a haven for terror, and a threat to America and to the world."
Right now Iraq is "a source of violence" and certainly "a haven for terror." Or are all those bloody scenes we see on television just reruns from Miami Vice? And, of course, Iraq was never a threat to the America.
18. "Our nation honors the memory of those who have been killed, and we pray that their families will find God's comfort in the midst of their grief. . . . we will finish the work of the fallen."
In other words, Americans will continue to die as a tribute to those who have already died.
17. "We seek an independent, free and secure Iraq."
. . . Independent and free so long as it conforms to the conditions the U.S. government has laid down.
Liberation
16. "We are a liberating power, as nations in Europe and Asia can attest."
Don't forget the liberated Haitians, on whom we forced Aristide. And the liberated Iranians, on whom we forced the Shah. And the Philippines, on whom we forced Marcos. And the Dominican Republic, on whom we forced the Trujillos. And Indonesia, where the U.S. government helped Suharto liberate tens of thousands of East Timorese from the burden of living.
And what about those liberated Iraqis — carrying identity cards, going through road blocks and checkpoints, liberated from freedom of the press and freedom of assembly, occupied by a foreign power, their towns ringed by barbed wire, subject to raids and attacks without warrants by the U.S. military, liberated from the right to carry a gun and defend oneself against murderers and rapists?
15. "The nation of Iraq is moving toward self-rule . . . We're working closely with the United Nations envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, and with Iraqis to determine the exact form of the government that will receive sovereignty on June 30th."
I'm sorry I must have misunderstood. I thought "self-rule" meant that people determined their own form of government — not a government determined by the U.S. government or the United Nations. This sounds more like the "self-rule" the Soviet Union gave to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary at the end of World War II.
14. "Iraqi's neighbors also have responsibilities to make their region more stable."
And they will shortly receive the appropriate ultimatums to inform them of their responsibilities.
13. "Over the last several decades, we've seen that any concession or retreat on our part will only embolden this enemy and invite more bloodshed."
I haven't seen any concessions or retreats by the U.S. government. What I have seen are invasions of Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq; U.S. troops stationed at over 700 foreign bases; ultimatums to foreign countries to do what American Presidents demand; resources confiscated from American taxpayers and given to brutal foreign dictators to oppress their subjects. I've yet to see any concessions or retreats, but I have seen a lot of innocent people die.
12. "We serve the cause of liberty, and that is, always and everywhere, a cause worth serving."
Speaking of liberty, have you been in an American airport lately?
Changing the World
11. "We're changing the world. And the world will be better off. . . . there's an historic opportunity here to change the world."
Which clause of the Constitution discusses the U.S. government's responsibility to change the world?
10. "[President Bush] went to the U.N., as you might recall, and said, either you take care of him, or we will. Any time an American President says, if you don't, we will, we better be prepared to. . . . And the credibility of the United States is incredibly important for keeping world peace and freedom."
In other words, the President can make any stupid threat he wants, and all Americans are obligated to back up that threat with their money and their lives. That, I guess, is how "we serve the cause of liberty."
9. "The United Nations passed a Security Council resolution unanimously that said, disarm or face serious consequences. And [Hussein] refused to disarm."
The fact that Hussein had nothing to disarm apparently is irrelevant. He should have hurried over to the nearest 7-Eleven, bought some WMDs, and then disarmed.
8. "[Hussein] had long-range missiles that were undeclared to the United Nations; he was a danger."
Yes, those "long-range" missiles could travel 111 miles — 18 miles over the allowable limit set by the UN. Think of the devastation they could have wreaked on New York City!
7. "The oil revenues are — they're bigger than we thought they would be at this point in time. I mean, one year after the liberation of Iraq, the revenues of the oil stream is [sic] pretty darn significant."
But we were promised that the Iraqi oil revenues would pay for most of the reconstruction. Instead, we're paying hundreds of billions of dollars to reconstruct in Iraq what the U.S. military destroyed.
The Monster
6. "[The Iraqis are] really pleased we got rid of Saddam Hussein. And you can understand why. This is a guy who was a torturer, a killer, a maimer; there's mass graves."
Ah yes, the mass graves. No one ever explains who is in those mass graves or how they came about. Do they contain Iraqis who died during U.S. bombings? Or Iraqis and Iranians who died in the Iraq-Iran war? Or the Iraqi soldiers who were plowed under with U.S. bulldozers at the end of the Gulf War? No one seems to know. But all anyone has to do is mention the "mass graves" — and we know immediately that no amount of money, no loss of American lives, no cost of any kind is too great for having rid the world of the man who created those "mass graves."
And speaking of torture, I seem to recall conservative commentators telling us not too long ago that American agents should be permitted to torture suspected terrorists. And, in fact, the American military tortured detainees in Afghanistan. But I guess that was different; that was "good guy" torture, not "bad guy" torture.
5. "The world is better off without Saddam Hussein."
Tell that to the 700 Americans and thousands of Iraqis who have died in the American invasion of Iraq. Tell that to the 200 Spaniards who died in a terrorist attack triggered by the Spanish government's support of the American invasion of Iraq. These people are dead! How are they better off?
And tell it to the Iraqis who now live in daily fear of being killed by a stray shell from a U.S. tank or from the rifle of a U.S. soldier who barks orders in English that an Iraqi can't understand and obey. "The world is better off" is one of those empty clichés that require no explanation, no examination, no support. But isn't it about time we did examine it?
Who's in Charge Here?
4. "[President Bush is] the ultimate decision-maker for this country."
Then the politicians are right: the world really is a dangerous place.
3. "Sometimes we use military as a last resort, but other times we use our influence, diplomatic pressure."
"Diplomacy" by the U.S. government consists of telling other countries "You're either for us or against us; now here's what you must do or we'll flatten your country."
"Influence" means using taxpayer money to bribe foreign leaders to join the "Coalition of the Willing."
2. "Free societies are peaceful societies."
If that's true, America obviously is not a free society. We have been at war continually since 1941, and the American military has been involved in some kind of foreign conflict in 80 of the past 100 years. A "peaceful society" doesn't invade Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, or Iraq. So, if it's true that "free societies are peaceful societies," America obviously isn't a free society.
The Wellspring of Wisdom
So who said all these dumb statements?
Every one of them was made by George Bush — "the ultimate decision-maker for this country" — at his press conference last Tuesday, April 13.
And here is the #1 dumbest political statement of the week — straight from that same press conference . . .
1. "As the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom. We have an obligation to help feed the hungry . . . we're providing food for the North Korea people who starve. We have an obligation to lead the fight on AIDS, on Africa. And we have an obligation to work toward a more free world. That's our obligation. That is what we have been called to do."
So this is what it means to live in a "free society." We have obligations to virtually everyone in the world — to help the spread of freedom, to fight AIDS, to provide food to North Korea. Not to take care of our own lives, not to be free to keep the money we earn or make our own decisions — but instead to dutifully carry out obligations imposed on us by El Presidente.
I don't know about you, but I don't believe George Bush has the faintest idea what freedom means. The only thing he understands is power — the power to say anything he feels like without consequence, the power to lock people up and throw away the key, the power to impose his will on any country in the world, the power to define our obligations for us.
posted on April 21, 2004 11:02:00 AM new
If a candidate for President must be born in the USA, doesn't it make sense that the woman beside him also be a US born citizen.
Works for me.....
'We have dispatched Dr. David Kay...to search for the bio-warfare agents we believe hidden in Senator Kerry's forehead. If Senator Kerry has used botox as part of a wrinkle enrichment program, he is in violation of UN Resolution 752. Upon receiving Dr. Kay's report, the weapons of mass destruction that Senator Kerry so adamantly insists do not exist...may well be above his very nose.'" --Dick Cheney when asked whether John Kerry has had Botox treaments
posted on April 21, 2004 11:39:08 AM new
So we now feal that we must legislate who qualified leaders are allowed to fall in love with? Bear, you never fail to amaze and befuddle me.
Once again.... And we wonder why the best and brightest avoid political life.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on April 21, 2004 11:57:48 AM newAnd we wonder why the best and brightest avoid political life
I avoid political life bacause I like my privacy...
AIN'T LIFE GRAND...
It's too bad that their blindness can't see they are killing more soldiers than President Bush ever has... Protest Loud and Proud! Your fellow taliban and insurgents are rejoicing at the support...
posted on April 21, 2004 12:11:04 PM newBear, you never fail to amaze and befuddle me.
Fenix, it's my lifes ambition.....
'We have dispatched Dr. David Kay...to search for the bio-warfare agents we believe hidden in Senator Kerry's forehead. If Senator Kerry has used botox as part of a wrinkle enrichment program, he is in violation of UN Resolution 752. Upon receiving Dr. Kay's report, the weapons of mass destruction that Senator Kerry so adamantly insists do not exist...may well be above his very nose.'" --Dick Cheney when asked whether John Kerry has had Botox treaments
posted on April 21, 2004 12:41:48 PM newIf a candidate for President must be born in the USA, doesn't it make sense that the woman beside him also be a US born citizen.
What has this to do with the price of tea in china??? She is not running for office. The law does not require a spouse to be born in the U.S. for the other half to run in the public sector.
Carry on, it should be a wild summer and a very long one. I for one will be more than happy when all this is over.
posted on April 21, 2004 12:54:09 PM newShe is not running for office
And you don't think she would have an influnce on her husband or have a hidden agenda benefiting her homeland?
'We have dispatched Dr. David Kay...to search for the bio-warfare agents we believe hidden in Senator Kerry's forehead. If Senator Kerry has used botox as part of a wrinkle enrichment program, he is in violation of UN Resolution 752. Upon receiving Dr. Kay's report, the weapons of mass destruction that Senator Kerry so adamantly insists do not exist...may well be above his very nose.'" --Dick Cheney when asked whether John Kerry has had Botox treaments
posted on April 21, 2004 01:06:42 PM new
Trai - I agree. I am already sick of it. The only thing that we are seeing right now is our willingness to gleeful eviscerate anyone willing to spend their life serving their people.
Look at this board. We have one poster calling a man that the military, that he claims to have so much respect for, saw fit to award three purple hearts to a "Vietcong" veteran and now another poster feeling that is now appropriate to legislate political spouses.
Election year is by far the most embarrassing spectacle out nation engages in.
And the worst of it is... I don't know anyone not on this board, including myself, that is actually voting FOR a candidate. Everyone I know who has made a decision is voting AGAINST someone and most of wish that it was Edwards and not Kerry that was the presumptive nominee.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on April 21, 2004 01:29:13 PM newAnd you don't think she would have an influence on her husband or have a hidden agenda benefiting her homeland?
This could also be said of anyone born in the U.S. Mrs. Bush, Mrs.Clinton, Mrs. Eisenhower, Mrs. Washington, Mrs. Lincoln etc. The list is long bear.
With her money she does not need a hidden agenda. Do you have proof of one?
How about we keep to the facts as they unfold and take it from there. This is going to be a tight race no matter what.
posted on April 21, 2004 09:22:35 PM new
The right is so worried about Kerry that they have to begin picking on his wife. You gotta love it
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