White House Blasts Paper For Parroting Kerry Attack on Bush Service Record By Jeff Gannon Talon News September 9, 2004
WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- The White House reacted strongly to a renewed attack on President George W. Bush's service record with the Texas Air Guard during Vietnam. Documents obtained from the Defense Department by the Associated Press touched off the latest round of speculation about alleged gaps in the timetable of Bush's service.
Democrats have been focusing on Bush's service record for nearly a year, with both party officials and their "independent" 527 surrogates like MoveOn.org suggesting that the president was AWOL at some period prior to his discharge in 1973.
On several occasions, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe has accused Bush of having been AWOL from the Air Guard thirty years ago.
During a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, he said, "We know that John Kerry was in Vietnam. My question, Mr. President, is where were you, Sir?"
Kerry Will Restore American Dignity 2004 Iconoclast Presidential Endorsement
Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would: • Empty the Social Security trust fund by $507 billion to help offset fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security benefits. • Cut Medicare by 17 percent and reduce veterans’ benefits and military pay. • Eliminate overtime pay for millions of Americans and raise oil prices by 50 percent. • Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and, in fact, by policy encourage their departure. • Give away billions of tax dollars in government contracts without competitive bids. • Involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war, and • Take a budget surplus and turn it into the worst deficit in the history of the United States, creating a debt in just four years that will take generations to repay. These were elements of a hidden agenda that surfaced only after he took office. The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda. Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry, based not only on the things that Bush has delivered, but also on the vision of a return to normality that Kerry says our country needs. Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding terrorism and Iraq. President Bush has announced plans to change the Social Security system as we know it by privatizing it, which when considering all the tangents related to such a change, would put the entire economy in a dramatic tailspin. The Social Security Trust Fund actually lends money to the rest of the government in exchange for government bonds, which is how the system must work by law, but how do you later repay Social Security while you are running a huge deficit? It’s impossible, without raising taxes sometime in the future or becoming fiscally responsible now. Social Security money is being used to escalate our deficit and, at the same time, mask a much larger government deficit, instead of paying down the national debt, which would be a proper use, to guarantee a future gain. Privatization is problematic in that it would subject Social Security to the ups, downs, and outright crashes of the Stock Market. It would take millions in brokerage fees and commissions out of the system, and, unless we have assurance that the Ivan Boeskys and Ken Lays of the world will be caught and punished as a deterrent, subject both the Market and the Social Security Fund to fraud and market manipulation, not to mention devastate and ruin multitudes of American families that would find their lives lost to starvation, shame, and isolation. Kerry wants to keep Social Security, which each of us already owns. He says that the program is manageable, since it is projected to be solvent through 2042, with use of its trust funds. This would give ample time to strengthen the economy, reduce the budget deficit the Bush administration has created, and, therefore, bolster the program as needed to fit ever-changing demographics. Our senior citizens depend upon Social Security. Bush’s answer is radical and uncalled for, and would result in chaos as Americans have never experienced. Do we really want to risk the future of Social Security on Bush by spinning the wheel of uncertainty? In those dark hours after the World Trade Center attacks, Americans rallied together with a new sense of patriotism. We were ready to follow Bush’s lead through any travail. He let us down. When he finally emerged from his hide-outs on remote military bases well after the first crucial hours following the attack, he gave sound-bytes instead of solutions. He did not trust us to be ready to sacrifice, build up our public and private security infrastructure, or cut down on our energy use to put economic pressure on the enemy in all the nations where he hides. He merely told us to shop, spend, and pretend nothing was wrong. Rather than using the billions of dollars expended on the invasion of Iraq to shore up our boundaries and go after Osama bin Laden and the Saudi Arabian terrorists, the funds were used to initiate a war with what Bush called a more immediate menace, Saddam Hussein, in oil-rich Iraq. After all, Bush said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction trained on America. We believed him, just as we believed it when he reported that Iraq was the heart of terrorism. We trusted him. The Iconoclast, the President’s hometown newspaper, took Bush on his word and editorialized in favor of the invasion. The newspaper’s publisher promoted Bush and the invasion of Iraq to Londoners in a BBC interview during the time that the administration was wooing the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair. Again, he let us down. We presumed the President had solid proof of the existence of these weapons, what and where they were, even as the search continued. Otherwise, our troops would be in much greater danger and the premise for a hurried-up invasion would be moot, allowing more time to solicit assistance from our allies. Instead we were duped into following yet another privileged agenda. Now he argues unconvincingly that Iraq was providing safe harbor to terrorists, his new key justification for the invasion. It is like arguing that America provided safe harbor to terrorists leading to 9/11. Once and for all, George Bush was President of the United States on that day. No one else. He had been President nine months, he had been officially warned of just such an attack a full month before it happened. As President, ultimately he and only he was responsible for our failure to avert those attacks. We should expect that a sitting President would vacation less, if at all, and instead tend to the business of running the country, especially if he is, as he likes to boast, a “wartime president.” America is in service 365 days a year. We don’t need a part-time President who does not show up for duty as Commander-In-Chief until he is forced to, and who is in a constant state of blameless denial when things don’t get done. What has evolved from the virtual go-it-alone conquest of Iraq is more gruesome than a stain on a White House intern’s dress. America’s reputation and influence in the world has diminished, leaving us with brute force as our most persuasive voice. Iraq is now a quagmire: no WMDs, no substantive link between Saddam and Osama, and no workable plan for the withdrawal of our troops. We are asked to go along on faith. But remember, blind patriotism can be a dangerous thing and “spin” will not bring back to life a dead soldier; certainly not a thousand of them. Kerry has remained true to his vote granting the President the authority to use the threat of war to intimidate Saddam Hussein into allowing weapons inspections. He believes President Bush rushed into war before the inspectors finished their jobs. Kerry also voted against President Bush’s $87 billion for troop funding because the bill promoted poor policy in Iraq, privileged Halliburton and other corporate friends of the Bush administration to profiteer from the war, and forced debt upon future generations of Americans. Kerry’s four-point plan for Iraq is realistic, wise, strong, and correct. With the help from our European and Middle Eastern allies, his plan is to train Iraqi security forces, involve Iraqis in their rebuilding and constitution-writing processes, forgive Iraq’s multi-billion dollar debts, and convene a regional conference with Iraq’s neighbors in order to secure a pledge of respect for Iraq’s borders and non-interference in Iraq’s internal affairs. The publishers of the Iconoclast differ with Bush on other issues, including the denial of stem cell research, shortchanging veterans’ entitlements, cutting school programs and grants, dictating what our children learn through a thought-controlling “test” from Washington rather than allowing local school boards and parents to decide how young people should be taught, ignoring the environment, and creating extraneous language in the Patriot Act that removes some of the very freedoms that our founding fathers and generations of soldiers fought so hard to preserve. We are concerned about the vast exportation of jobs to other countries, due in large part to policies carried out by Bush appointees. Funds previously geared at retention of small companies are being given to larger concerns, such as Halliburton — companies with strong ties to oil and gas. Job training has been cut every year that Bush has resided at the White House. Then there is his resolve to inadequately finance Homeland Security and to cut the Community Oriented Policing Program (COPS) by 94 percent, to reduce money for rural development, to slash appropriations for the Small Business Administration, and to under-fund veterans’ programs. Likewise troubling is that President Bush fought against the creation of the 9/11 Commission and is yet to embrace its recommendations. Vice President Cheney’s Halliburton has been awarded multi-billion-dollar contracts without undergoing any meaningful bid process — an enormous conflict of interest — plus the company has been significantly raiding the funds of Export-Import Bank of America, reducing investment that could have gone toward small business trade. When examined based on all the facts, Kerry’s voting record is enviable and echoes that of many Bush allies who are aghast at how the Bush administration has destroyed the American economy. Compared to Bush on economic issues, Kerry would be an arch-conservative, providing for Americans first. He has what it takes to right our wronged economy. The re-election of George W. Bush would be a mandate to continue on our present course of chaos. We cannot afford to double the debt that we already have. We need to be moving in the opposite direction. John Kerry has 30 years of experience looking out for the American people and can navigate our country back to prosperity and re-instill in America the dignity she so craves and deserves. He has served us well as a highly decorated Vietnam veteran and has had a successful career as a district attorney, lieutenant governor, and senator. Kerry has a positive vision for America, plus the proven intelligence, good sense, and guts to make it happen. That’s why The Iconoclast urges Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country. The Iconoclast wholeheartedly endorses John Kerry.
A key part of the Patriot Act, a central plank of the Bush Administration's war on terror, was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge on Wednesday, in the latest blow to U.S. security policies.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marreo ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the power the FBI has to demand confidential financial records from companies that it can obtain without court approval as part of terrorism investigations.
The legislation bars companies and other recipients of these subpoenas from ever revealing that they received the FBI demand for records. Marreo held that this permanent ban was a violation of free speech rights.
In his ruling, Marreo prohibited the Department of Justice and the FBI from issuing special administrative subpoenas, known as national security letters. But he delayed enforcement of his judgment pending an expected appeal by the government. The Department of Justice said it was reviewing the ruling.
The ruling was the latest blow to the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that terror suspects being held in U.S. facilities like Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, can use the American judicial system to challenge their confinement. That ruling was a defeat for the president's assertion of sweeping powers to hold "enemy combatants" indefinitely after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The FBI first received power to get customer records in 1986 legislation, but its power to obtain confidential data was greatly expanded by the Patriot Act -- a controversial law the Bush administration pushed through Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to help it battle terrorism.
The ACLU argued that the anti-terrorism laws give the FBI unconstitutional power to demand sensitive information without adequate safeguards.
The judge agreed, saying the provision "effectively bars or substantially deters
"Why Save Betamax? The short version: We're organizing a call-in day to Congress on September 14 to oppose new legislation that would undermine the Betamax decision (INDUCE Act). Sign up on the right.
Here's why: The Betamax VCR died more than 15 years ago, but the Supreme Court decision that made the Betamax and all other VCRs legal lived on. In Sony vs. Universal (known as the Betamax decision) the Court ruled that because VCRs have legitimate uses, the technology is legal—even if some people use it to copy movies. Of course, the movie industry was lucky it lost the case against VCRs, because home video soon became Hollywood's largest source of revenue. And the freedom to use and develop new technology that was protected by the Betamax decision set the stage for the incredible growth in computer technology we've seen in the last few decades.
Hollywood is Trying to Kill Betamax The Betamax ruling is the only thing that protects your right to own a VCR, tape recorder, CD-burner, DVD-burner, iPod, or TiVo. It's that important. But new legislation that's being pushed through the Senate by lobbyists for the music and movie industries would override the Betamax decision and create a huge liability for any business that makes products which can copy sound or video. This legislation (formerly known as the INDUCE Act) would essentially give Hollywood veto power over a huge range of new technologies. And if they get this power, they'll definitely use it: just as they tried to stomp out the VCR in the 70's and 80's, the music and movie industries want to force all content to go through their own restricted channels.
Is Congress Insane? You might think so at first glance. Voters, technology experts, public interest groups, and electronics manufacturers all oppose these efforts to weaken Betamax. So why is it still happening? Because the major record labels and the movie studios-- the same companies that opposed the Betamax ruling-- make huge donations to the re-election campaigns of the Senators who are sponsoring this legislation. And most Senators assume this is a non-controversial issue, off the radar of most voters. If they can please their donors without a big fuss, they will. It's bad policy, but until we start making noise, it's smart politics.
Why We Need a National Call-In Day We need to make sure Congress hears from the public. There's been plenty of opposition on the internet to the INDUCE Act and its more recent drafts. But this general dissatisfaction hasn't quite come together into a real demonstration of how strongly people feel about protecting the Betamax decision. At Downhill Battle, we've organized people to send faxes to Congress before and there's been lots of emails flying around, but telephone calls take it to the next level. A big, one-day mobilization to swamp these Senators with phone calls could make a huge impact on the debate. If you care about keeping Betamax intact but haven't felt compelled to act before, now's the time to get involved. You can sign up on the top right of this page.
Not Convinced? Don't Take Our Word For It. If you're ready to get involved, go sign up. If you want some more info on the Betamax ruling and what's happening in Congress, here are some really good quotes from filesharing opponents, Mr. Rogers, and Sony's own Corporate History, all of them in support of the Betamax decision: Convincing Quotes."
"SOMBER REMARKS BY FIRST TWINS JENNA AND THE OTHER ONE BUSH TO REPUBLICAN YOUTH CONVENTION FORMALLY DECLARING NEW YORK CITY "MASSIVELY RAD!" Remarks by the First Twins
JENNA: Hi young Republicans!!! It's us, Jenna and her sister! (Laughs)
We're here today because our Aunt Karen wants the news media to cover us reaching out to the politically-apathetic demographic who pollsters think relate to us, and are super-interested in our totally crazy adventures here in New York City, the capital of high fashion, ivy league social clubs, AIDS, and stuff! (Laughs)
(Applause)
THE OTHER ONE: So yeah, while we're really standing here talking to you mega-partisan youth warriors, it's also like we're talking to all the psychologically pliable young voters in Florida/Pennsylvania/Batt leground State Where The Populace Votes Like It's The SuperBowl, in the hopes that our little "howdy doody" influences them when they go to get their voting machine cherries popped.
JENNA: Yeah, but it's totally not a cynical ploy based on the assumption that young people are vapid, spoiled little cows who don't vote their consciences, but do what sparkly princess confections like US tell them too. And like, that's the MAD truth. Word. (Laughs)
THE OTHER ONE: And of course, we want to talk about the Republican National Convention, where Daddy and Jesus will help save America from the clutches of terrorists, bookworms, lesbian professors who totally gave us a C+ us because we're hot and won't chew their stinky clams, and social responsibility. It's like a huge party – a cross between MTV's Video Music Awards and Triumph of the Will! Only hugemongous!
JENNA: (Laughs) Speaking of the VMA's, wasn't it mega-funny when those tacky Kerry girls were booed? They asked for it! We got two words about those cross-eyed beanpoles: "stank na-na"! (Laughs)
THE OTHER ONE: We can hardly believe how awesome it is to party with fat, balding, middle-aged white men who pray to Jesus to make their third world labor monkeys grind out cheaper widgets faster with one hand, and playfully pinch our perky heinies with the other – albeit in a totally Scotch-soaked, morally-hypocritical Uncle Creepy Fingers way that makes us grin and giggle, just like Daddy taught us! "
I lived in Austin for ten years but moved not long ago. Contrary to what the city wanted (city meaning citizens), the City Council is wanting to shove NINE toll roads down the throats of Austinites. Now, one of the councilmen is having a change of heart...
Austin City Council Member Brewster McCracken, who in July voted with a majority of local officials for a $2.2 billion toll road plan, said Wednesday that he now believes that three of the seven roads in that plan should not be tollways.
McCracken is the first of the 16 CAMPO members who voted yes to suggest a material change in the plan. It was by no means clear Wednesday whether his decision represented a ripple or the leading edge of a wave.
McCracken said that roads in the plan that have improvements already under construction with tax dollars should not be subject to tolls.
That category includes the MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) bridge over William Cannon Drive. That project, set for completion in the spring, has generated much of the public backlash against the plan and those who voted for it, manifested in an attempt to recall McCracken, council colleague Danny Thomas and Austin Mayor Will Wynn.
McCracken also would exempt from tolls Texas 71 from Interstate 35 to Riverside Drive and a stretch of Ed Bluestein Boulevard from I-35 to near Springdale Road, both of which are under construction.
McCracken, like the other 15 members of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization board who voted July 12 to designate the seven roads as turnpikes, knew then that these three roads were under construction with gasoline tax dollars. Opponents of the plan, including other CAMPO members, decried their inclusion in the plan as double taxation.
So what changed McCracken's mind?
"If we had turned down the toll plan on July 12, we would have lost $561 million (in state funds), and I think that would have been irresponsible," McCracken said. "We have now secured the funds, and we need to get the details right on this plan. . . . We should have as few toll roads as possible. And we also should not be charging people for roads that have already been paid for."
Major media hsa reported that King George the W, has a special "emergency train" waiting outside the RNC convention to whisk him away to an undisclosed location at a moment's notice. Is this Mr. "Bring it On"?
The criteria for when he is to be carried away like a little girl running from her own shadow is not specified, but one wonders if one of the events that might cause the emergency train to, like Calgon, "take him away", would be if the topic of his relationship with Ken Lay came up.
What a friggin' coward this guy is!
Will Bush be on Drugs during his speech at the RNC?
We know that after the incident in which petulant little Bushy stormed off the stage cursing in the foulist of language, after a reporter simply asked about his relationship with Enron chief Ken Lay, his White House doc put him on psychoactive drugs.
We have had NO indication he is not currently on drugs, and indeed, many would say that his line about never stopping (like the terrorists) to think of ways to harm the American public, was so weird that he HAD to be on drugs to say such a crazy thing.
Thus, we must assume he will be on drugs when he makes his speech.
Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would:
• Empty the Social Security trust fund by $507 billion to help offset fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security benefits.
JENNA: Hi young Republicans!!! It's us, Jenna and her sister! (
