Category — John Kerry

Barack Obama has said he considered joining the United States military when he left school but decided not to because the Vietnam war was over and “we weren’t engaged in an active military conflict at that point”.

Mr Obama was asked by George Stephanopoulos of ABC’s “This Week” programme whether he’d ever thought about military service and replied: “You know, I actually did. [snip]

“And I actually always thought of the military as an ennobling and, you know, honourable option. But keep in mind that I graduated in 1979. The Vietnam War had come to an end. We weren’t engaged in an active military conflict at that point. And so, it’s not an option that I ever decided to pursue.”

Phew!

All male American citizens are legally required to register for Selective Service within 30 days of their 18th birthday.

Mrs Palin’s eldest son Track, 19, is due to leave for Iraq on Thursday, the seventh anniversary of the September 11^th attacks on America and exactly a year after he joined the US Army as an infantryman.

John McCain’s youngest son Jimmy, also 19, is a lance-corporal in the US marine corps who served in Ramadi, deep in Iraq’s Sunni triangle, last year. His other son Jack, 21, is currently training to be an officer at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis.

Beau Biden, 39, elder son of Senator Joe Biden, Mr Obama’s running mate, is scheduled to go to Iraq early next year. Beau Biden is attorney general of Delaware and a captain in the legal corps of the US Army’s National Guard. [snip]

Biden’s job is to prosecute any trooper that locks and loads before coming under automatic weapons fire.

Voters often fault Democratic candidates on issues of patriotism and support for the military. Bill Clinton was vilified by Republicans as a Vietnam draft dodger, though he defeated two Second World War veterans, President George H.W. Bush in 1992 and Senator Bob Dole in 1996.

But Al Gore, a US Army journalist in Vietnam, (Gore served in the Conex Corp) and John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran who won a Silver Star while serving in patrol craft on Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, both lost to George W. Bush, who avoided active service in Vietnam by joining the Texas Air National Guard.

Mr Obama is more vulnerable than most Democrats on the patriotism issue because of his exotic life story, his past radical associations, his previous refusal to wear an American flag pin - though he has since relented and is now seldom seen without one - and inaccurate smears that he is a Muslim. [snip]

(Obama speaking to Stephanopoulos) “Let’s not play games,” he said. “What I was suggesting — you’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith. And you’re absolutely right that that has not come.”

The Illinois senator’s maternal grandfather Stanley Dunham served in the US Army in Europe during the Second World War.

His maternal great uncle Charlie Payne helped liberate Ohrdruf, a part of the Buchenwald concentration camp network - though he was criticised for misstating this on the campaign trail as an uncle who liberated Auschwitz. [snip]

Note to Obama, this stuff doesn’t rub off, you got to do it yourself.

But these military connections pale in comparison with Mr McCain’s fabled biography as the son and grandson of admirals who spent more than five years in the Hanoi Hilton prison after his jet was shot down over Vietnam.

Mr McCain took as his Republican convention theme the slogan “Country First” and both Mrs Palin and Rudy Giuliani, the former Republican mayor of New York, mocked Mr Obama’s time as a “community organiser” in Chicago when he was in his twenties.

Hillary Clinton, who Mr Obama defeated in the Democratic primaries, was ridiculed in 1994 for stating that she tried to join the US marines in 1975, the year she married, but was rejected because she was too old and had poor eyesight. Her husband Bill said this year that she had tried to join the US Army.[snip]

Probably she did, in what country?

 ”Understand what I did as a community organiser. When I got out of a college as a young person, 24, 25 years old, I moved to Chicago and worked with churches, who were dealing with steel plants that had closed in their neighbourhoods, to set up job training programmes for the unemployed and after-school programmes for youth.”

He also tried to “deal with asbestos in homes with poor people - community service work - which John McCain has been talking about, putting country first and extolling the virtues of national service”.

According to Obama, he had to make a steep dive in, level out and zig-zag to the buildings while receiving fire from asbestos junkies in an armed ‘hood. “They had everything but tanks.” “This is why I believe in the 2^nd Amendment but only if no one has guns.”
The only salvation for these people is Elijah Muhammad in the guise of BLT.

All make sense doesn’t it? Reading the entire article just roils the mud.

Democrat National Convention Schedule

2008

7:00 p.m. Opening Ceremony, Burning of U.S. Flag by the UN Synchronized Flag Burning Team –Photo supplied

7:15 p.m. Pledge of Allegiance to the United Nations

7:16 p.m. John Kerry proposes a toast to Ted Kennedy.

7:30 - 8 p.m. Nonreligious prayer and worship: Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton

7:31 p.m.John Kerry proposes a toast to Ted Kennedy.

8:05 p.m. Ceremonial Tree Hugging in the “Garden of Sybaritic Pleasures”

8:15-8:30 p.m. Gay Wedding: Barney Frank, officiating; Reception follows in the Eastern Bathhouse
Barney Frank proposes a toast to the newly joined

8:45 p.m. Separation of the reception attendees and newly joined using 2X4 as prybars

8:46 p.m. Joe Biden proposes a toast to the newly separated

9:00 p.m. Keynote Speech: ‘The Proper Etiquette for Surrender’ delivered by Harry Reid

9:26 p.m. John Murtha proposes a toast to cut & run.

9:28 p.m. John Kerry toasts his Purple Hearts.

9:30 p.m. ACLU collection to benefit the Taliban’s Memorial to Fallen Freedom Fighters.

9:35 p.m. Giving you gas: the Pelosi/Reid five year plan for drilling everywhere but in the U.S.

9:36 p.m. John Kerry’s speech: We can still shorten this war by losing it.

9:45 p.m. The New Economy: The Military as a home occupation force using Obamanomics

9:46 p.m. Joe Biden proposes a toast to Truth.

9:50 p.m. Dan Rather receives ‘Truth in Broadcasting’ award presented by Michael Moore.

9:53 p.m.Michael Moore proposes a toast to truth and ethics.

10:00 p.m. Anointing of Barack Obama for President by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

10:20 p.m. Mookie Sadr proposes a toast to Barack Hussein Obama with sherbet.

11:05 p.m. Al Gore melts on the carpet to protest the convention’s carbon footprint, then leaves because his SUV is running.

11:06 p.m. The Vermont Progressive Party creates a memorial to Al Gore’s melted form.

11:07 p.m. Ted Kennedy proposes a toast to ice cubes.

11:15 p.m. ‘Our Troops are War Criminals’ presented by Dick Durbin with video

11:29 p.m. Ted Kennedy proposes a toast to John Kerry.

11:30 p.m. Acceptance of the halo by Obama and the paper roll to Messianic throne.

11:45 p.m. Departure of Obama via Carpet to Ivesco Field–Photo supplied

12:00 a.m. Ted Kennedy is toast.

12:05 a.m. Bill tells Ted to drive Hillary home.

Taliban Committee to elect Obama; M. Ahmadinejad Treas.

John Kerry has a primary challenger. Edward O’Reilly, a lawyer and former firefighter, earned a spot on the ballot with 23% of the vote. Although embarrassing Kerry with a vote for O’Reilly is tempting, I say perish the thought. When choosing between two socialists, it’s wisest to take the layabout. Ed sounds like he’ll show up for work. As experience has proven, the lazy Kerry will do far less damage eating bacon wrapped scallops on Nantucket.

Therefore, I endorse John Kerry in the Democratic primary as the candidate most likely to cause the least damage.

I wonder if they made the three bozos clean the chopper? Kerry served in Vietnam; don’t know how much time he put in the birds.

Senators in Emergency Landing

WASHINGTON (AP) - Helicopters carrying three senior U.S. senators made emergency landings Thursday in the mountains of Afghanistan because of a snowstorm.   Sens. John Kerry, Joseph Biden and Chuck Hagel were aboard the aircraft. No one was injured, according a statement from Kerry’s office. The senators and their delegation returned to Bagram Air Base in a motor convoy, and have left for Turkey.

A small forced march with the troops would have worked wonders for these junketeering clowns.

“After several hours, the senators were evacuated by American troops and returned overland to Bagram Air Base, and left for their next scheduled stop in Ankara, Turkey,” the Kerry statement said. “Sen Kerry thanks the American troops, who were terrific as always and who continue to do an incredible job in Afghanistan.”

GAK! Kerry is shameless.

The lawmakers were on a trip this week that included stops in India, Turkey and Pakistan, where they observed the elections earlier this week.

Kerry and Biden are Democrats from Massachusetts and Delaware, respectively, and the Republican Hagel is from Nebraska.

Hagel, the RINO, isn’t running again, so why is he wasting our money flitting around the third world?

Every day shows us just how bad some individuals luck can be. Getting mugged is beyond the pale for anyone.

That this happened in the Bloomberg’s safe city starts the gods talking. Working for the UN adds another layer of misfortune. Working on her brother’s campaign  courted Loki. Pile on the sibling relationship, going to anything in SoHo at night and one has Asgard throwing a selection of mishaps just because you’re available.

Sen. John Kerry’s Sister Mugged In New York City

NEW YORK (AP) ― A mugger knocked down U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s sister and stole her purse in downtown Manhattan.

Police say Margaret Kerry was attacked after leaving a theater in SoHo at about 10:45 p.m. Wednesday. A thief stole her pocketbook, which held about $60 and credit cards. Kerry, 66, suffered a cut to her head.

Police say no suspects have been arrested. Kerry told the New York Post that she didn’t get a good look at her attacker.

Kerry, who works for the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, worked on her brother’s 2004 presidential campaign.

…some people would have no luck at all.

BIG NEWS! Whatshisname - the guy with the Chris Dodd wattle - endorses Obama. Now if Obama gets John Mellencamp, Gary Hart, Gary Coleman, Carrot Top and David Soul, he’s packing for Pennsylvania Avenue!

BIGGER NEWS! Kerry found bigger loser than himself, and chose said loser as running mate in 2004. (There’s a management principle that describes this personality disorder.)

According to Michael Crowley of The New Republic, Bob Shrum, Kerry’s campaign manager will report in a forthcoming book that Kerry had qualms about choosing Edwards as his presidential running mate in 2004, and became “even queasier”after Edwards said he was going to share a story with Kerry that he’d never told anyone else. The story was that after Edwards’ son, Wade, had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home and hugged his body, and promised that he would do all he could to make life better for people.

Trouble is, he told Kerry the same story a year or two earlier, with the same preface that he never told anyone the story before.

You have to hand it to John Kerry. That guy has his finger on the pulse of the nation. He’s leading the charge on the issues that matter most to Americans. For example, take this whining letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell:

As a Bostonian, I couldn’t be more pleased that in just five days, the New England Patriots will attempt to become the first NFL team in 35 years to finish the regular season with an undefeated record. But as someone who represents all of Massachusetts and not just those in the Boston media market, I remain deeply troubled that today as many as 250,000 Massachusetts households, and millions of Patriots fans nationwide, may be denied access to this historic sporting event.

Could the “millions” of Patriots fans who don’t have NFL Network visit a bar or friends’ house? And what does it say about our junior bloviator that he has the time to worry about such frivolous issues? I suppose he ran out of bridges to name and needed a new meaningless issue to champion. This guy couldn’t be more useless.

Kerry Hints  Evangelicals Will Like Him Next Time He Runs

In his lifelong struggle for relevance, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry  “said Monday there might be a next time for his Presidential aspirations….he’ll be ready for the political torpedoes that helped sink his 2004 White House bid”.

The grandiose ramblings of this pathetic loser compose a triple-canopy jungle of incoherence:

“Evangelicals care enormously about the centrality of the teachings of Jesus Christ and The Bible”, he said, “if you lead a life and if you are involved in issues that manifest a concern for those kinds of issues, there’s no reason that one separate issue or another should create a wedge”.

Huh?

In this context, the reporter from The Patriot Ledger said that Kerry blamed Karl Rove (which is Evor Lrak spelled backwards)  for using religion to “divide voters”.

Personally, I think Karl Rove is “Ark Lover“.  Devilish anagrams wanted.

Here’s M. Malkin’s take.

Unruly student tasered into submission by campus police at the University of Florida for just trying to ask a question of the Senator.

Why would anyone attend this farce, much less ask a question?

I wonder if Kerry was in the bunny suit?

          BELDAR TO KERRY…..”Sue me!  I’ll even pay your filing fee!”

The little-known and obscure Senator John Kerry, of Massachusetts, one-time Democrat Party Presidential candidate, is the subject of an offer by law blogger Beldar (Aug 26, 2007).  The little-known and obscure Senator Kerry made muted news recently with his bitter, tearful, and articulate denunciation of the re-education camps established in 1975 after the fall of Saigon.  On CSPAN July 19, 2007, Kerry said of the camps:

….they weren’t pretty, and, you know, nobody, you know, likes that kind of outcome. But on the other hand, I’ve met a lot of people today who were in those re-education camps, who are thriving in the Vietnam of today.

The little-known and obscure Kerry was stymied in his Presidential bid by a group of Vietnam veterans who questioned Kerry’s account of his Naval service in Vietnam.  The group became known as The Swiftvets, so-called because of their service in the aptly-named Swift Boats used in The Mekong Delta and rivers of Vietnam.

Rumors circulated widely in the gossip press that the little-known and obscure Kerry would prepare and file a defamation suit against John O’Neil and Jerome Corsi, co-authors of the book “Unfit For Command”.   The book’s account of  the little- known and obscure Kerry’s  Vietnam service differed widely from Kerry’s accounts.

Since 2004, the Statutes of Limitations for defamation have lapsed in all three states where suits could have been filed, the last being Massachusetts.  Law blogger BELDAR has graciously offered the little-known and obscure Kerry the opportunity to continue his defamation claims by suing BELDAR because Beldar published charges from the Swiftvets’ book on his blog.

Beldar posted his gallant offer to the little-known and obscure Kerry in these words:  

You have a standing offer from me:  Just sue me here in Houston for  defamation….I’ll waive any Statute of Limitations defense.  I’ll waive service of process.  Hell, I’ll meet you at the federal courthouse doors for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division (you have diversity jurisdiction) and I’ll even pay your filing fee!

…let’s just you and me tangle one on one, both of us pro se….Just me at my table, and you at yours, and then a set of jurors good and true in the jury box. (I may need a napkin though, or maybe even a drool bucket, because the very notion of going one-on-one with you in court is causing me to salivate.)…As long as there’s a judge who can make you shut up each time your turn is over, and who’ll then give me a fair turn, I’ll be satisfied.

…Everything that’s uncovered in pre-trial discovery has to become part of the public record without delay.  We’ll put it all on the internet via a neutral host (say the WaPo).  We’ll do the pre-trial depos on video, too, and jointly move the court to permit TV coverage of the trial, so that the public (and the jury eventually) can see who sweats under oath under the bright lights.

Doesn’t that sound like fun, Senator?  Gosh, it does to me.

The little-known and obscure Senator Kerry has not responded to Beldar’s charitable offer.

As much as the White House says the polls don’t matter, I bet they’d kill for a 10 point bump right about now. To be effective, you have to maintain some level of popular support. The White House may find its predicament “liberating”, but it also liberates your opponents and the wayward members of your party. At this point, it’s hard to see anything major coming out of the White House over the next 18 months.

How did the President Bush get from a very lofty popularity height to Nixonian approval ratings? Let’s start with trying to do too much. Did an unpopular president really think he could lead an unpopular war while also pushing a deeply unpopular immigration bill? Good gamblers know the odds, and they were definitely stacked against him.

Next, the White House pushed a lot of policies that were unpopular with its constituents over a long period of time. It also compounded its liberal bent with an inability to pass legislation on conservative issues like defending marriage and Social Security reform.

And while the president pushed the right away, he was never going to get a corresponding amount of support from the left. The immigration bill was very lenient, but the left felt it didn’t go far enough. Ted Kennedy wrote the No Child Left Behind Act, but liberals always claimed it was underfunded.  In reality, there was practically nothing President Bush could do to make the left happy.

Did I mention the unpopular war? The left was never going to support the War on Terror. The best result there would have been a winning effort that made criticizing it politically dangerous. That’s how the White House got votes from Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to authorize the effort in the first place. But not only were they never going to garner true support from the left, the White House made the right deeply suspicious of the effort by not prosecuting it as aggressively as they could. Isn’t the whole “surge” effort a tacit admission that not every effort was being made to win the war?

Now when you combine all of the above with things like Katrina, it creates a general sense of weariness and a longing for something new. The big question in 2008 is going to be whether that weariness extends to the Republican Party or not. If it does, a lot of Republican politicians could be looking for jobs in the dreaded private sector.

John Kerry, July 19, 2007 on CSPAN, responding to a question about  a “bloodbath in Vietnam”.  The questioner wondered if withdrawal from Iraq would produce the same result….

Kerry:  “Let me just say to the first part of your question with respect to boat people and killing, everybody predicted a massive bloodbath in Vietnam.  There was not a massive bloodbath in Vietnam.  There were reeducation camps, and they weren’t pretty and, you know, nobody, you know, likes that kind of outcome. But on the other hand, I’ve met a lot of people today who were in those reeducation camps, who are thriving in the Vietnam of today”.

What?

A little digression is necessary.  An old Marine Corps friend of mine described a ritual observed by his training unit at Parris Island in the early 1960’s.  Recruits judged unfit or unable to  complete Basic, were out-processed, dressed in outlandish clothing, given a paper bag for their possessions and required to grin foolishly, and march backwards out of one of the post gates while waving repeatedly to the assembled unit.   Cruel, indeed, and involuntary.  And it fixes the image of an inept fool.  But no other image is suitable for John Kerry, who is voluntarily determined to practice this old custom  as he marches backwards through the sally port of history into well-deserved obscurity.

The first indication, to me,  of Kerry’s deterioration is a  an amnesiac neglect of context. He was stating on July 19th that the human product of forced reeducation (which killed an estimated 165,000 South Vietnamese, mostly soldiers) could testify objectively about his reeducation.  The goal of reeducation is coerced right thinking, and Kerry regards this coerced right thinking as some kind of truth.  This pushes Kerry’s range of stupidity beyond its usual frontier, into a new and wind-swept mental wilderness.

The second indication is the weight of Kerry’s northeastern liberalism, which leans as heavily upon his head and tongue as any 19th century sexual repression.   Reeducation camps “weren’t pretty…nobody….likes that kind of outcome”.  In part, these tight-lipped, eternal virgin locutions are probably there to uphold the seemless skein of deception that this nattering clown has woven around his past since he reached the age of Reason.  Kerry glimpsed the bare ankle of reeducation. It sent him into a pool of cerebral and verbal concrete, where he could freeze the impressions of a real wrongdoing, reeducation, and come away with a description that might serve as a description of adolescent acne.   

What about re-education?  What about refugees and boat people?  Figures vary, but about two million people left South Vietnam by land or sea, or were pushed into reeducation camps.  Perhaps a million died at sea, if Wickipedia and other sources can be believed.  750,000 left the country, some to The Killing Fields, and another quarter million into the camps.  Nobody likes this kind of outcome?

Let’s be clear about The Killing Fields.  Conservatives who claim that it was the result of US withdrawal are wrong.  Liberals who claim that it was the result of the Cambodian incursion and bombing are wrong.  It was a complicated result of Viet Minh and NVA meddling, and the ascendance of the Khmer Rouge.    This in no way lets Kerry off the hook.

WASHINGTON - In a move bound to cheer Republicans and anger his own party, Democrat Senate Majority Leader announced today that sleeping during daytime floor debates will no longer be tolerated.  Long a tradition in the Senate, Reid has now ordered the removal of all sleeping accommodations adjacent to the Senate Chamber.  Also, in a carefully-worded statement, Reid ordered all “soporifics” removed from the Chamber, which includes some reading materials,  some drugs and some Senators.

Senator John Kerry (D-MA) was urged to remain permanently at his seventh home in Colorado, and Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) was immediately dispatched on a year-long fact-finding mission to Pago-Pago.  Senate observers said that neither Senator was effected by the wakefulness requirement, because both were absent pursuing presidential nominations.

Kerry’s unannounced candidacy committee is encouraged by a recent spike in his prospects for his party’s nomination, bringing his figure skyward to a respectable 0%.  Dodd said last week that his solid 4% support for the party nomination will “propel him to the Oval Office”.   Before departing for Pago-Pago, Dodd had no comment on Reid’s new rules.

Reid’s controversial drug restriction policy only effects sleep-inducing medications,  and some illegal substances.  Others, like male-enhancement drugs, hair-loss medications, B-12 injections and anti-psychotic medications are permitted during floor debates.

Long considered a star in Democrat circles, the energetic and youthful Harry Reid cited recent Congressional approval poll figures as his reason for the change.  Reid said, “When our approval rating hit 14%, I did a little subtraction.  I realized that 86% of the electorate wanted us to do something.  By a huge majority, this is what the American people want from us”.

Reid’s colleague, Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill) had this to say about the new rules: “If the Jarhead Pol Pots counting skulls in Anbar can stay awake, so can we!  If the GI-Joe Nazis at Guantanamo can stay awake water-boarding babies, so can we!  God bless our troops!”

Resistance is expected, however, from such venerable Democrat Senators as Robert Byrd (D-WV), who couldn’t be awakened for comment.  But experts believe that the attitude of Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) will prevail.  When asked about Reid’s new wakefulness requirements, Kennedy said “When there’s a vigorous back-and-forth underway, I demand to be aroused!”

This John Kerry article highlights his struggle for relevancy after a failed presidential run, but can anyone tell me what he accomplished before the run?  His 2 decade Senate resume is charitably described as thin.  But looking on the bright side, at least he’s not as destructive as Kennedy.

I’m not against Congress getting a cost of living adjustment. Most of us recognize the need to adjust their salaries for inflation, and they do make a few good points supporting their position:

Most members support the pay raise as a means of retaining experienced lawmakers and of making sure that Congress is not simply dominated by wealthy people. Many lawmakers maintain homes both in the expensive Washington housing market and back in their districts. On most days, they meet with lobbyists making far more than they do.

My real problem is the idea that retaining “experienced lawmakers” helps us. Senators and Congressmen with lifetime seats, like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, do not benefit the American people. The amnesty bill is a perfect example of what happens when our representatives get too accustomed to power and there’s little accountability.

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