TonyC
Frederick's Happy Face
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2002
- Posts
- 3,050
Welcome to Flightinfo.com
- Register now and join the discussion
- Friendliest aviation Ccmmunity on the web
- Modern site for PC's, Phones, Tablets - no 3rd party apps required
- Ask questions, help others, promote aviation
- Share the passion for aviation
- Invite everyone to Flightinfo.com and let's have fun
John Kerry's America
- Thread starter TonyC
- Start date
- Watchers 4
Welcome to Flightinfo.com
- Register now and join the discussion
- Modern secure site, no 3rd party apps required
- Invite your friends
- Share the passion of aviation
- Friendliest aviation community on the web
2000flyer
EASY FLYER
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2001
- Posts
- 1,586
John Kerry quickly proclaims "I am a war HERO!" Yet he rushes back to the United States, throws his medals away (a direct quote from him) and protests the war in Washington. Hummm.....a Patriot?
Kerry claims to have "camped out" on the mall with fellow vets during the protest, yet others tell of the Georgetown penthouse he stayed at the entire time. While other vets were protesting in tattered clothes or fading uniforms, Kerry was out there in designer style suits.
Kerry claims he's for the "average" working class American while he takes a second mortgage on his $12,000,000 house and his Renoir art collection. Yes, I'm sure he really knows how the "average" workers feels.
Kerry has said he will return to the Clinton era policy on terrorism...that is to bring home all the troops and send out the lawyers to "legally" bring down terrorism. Yep...that old idea worked well, didn't it?!?!?
Get real here. This guy is a walking, talking, breathing hypocrit. Uh, he voted for the war (both Gulf War I and II) yet it is now Bush's fault? Really!
I'd rather see Lieberman as President LONG before Kerry...and this from a lifelong Republican!
Let the debate begin (continue).
2000Flyer
Kerry claims to have "camped out" on the mall with fellow vets during the protest, yet others tell of the Georgetown penthouse he stayed at the entire time. While other vets were protesting in tattered clothes or fading uniforms, Kerry was out there in designer style suits.
Kerry claims he's for the "average" working class American while he takes a second mortgage on his $12,000,000 house and his Renoir art collection. Yes, I'm sure he really knows how the "average" workers feels.
Kerry has said he will return to the Clinton era policy on terrorism...that is to bring home all the troops and send out the lawyers to "legally" bring down terrorism. Yep...that old idea worked well, didn't it?!?!?
Get real here. This guy is a walking, talking, breathing hypocrit. Uh, he voted for the war (both Gulf War I and II) yet it is now Bush's fault? Really!
I'd rather see Lieberman as President LONG before Kerry...and this from a lifelong Republican!
Let the debate begin (continue).
2000Flyer
THE REAL KERRY
By HOWIE CARR
February 5, 2004 -- BOSTON
ONE of the surest ways to get the phones ringing on any Massachusetts talk-radio show is to ask people to call in and tell their John Kerry stories. The phone lines are soon filled, and most of the stories have a common theme: our junior senator pulling rank on one of his constituents, breaking in line, demanding to pay less (or nothing) or ducking out before the bill arrives.
The tales often have one other common thread. Most end with Sen. Kerry inquiring of the lesser mortal: "Do you know who I am?"
And now he's running for president as a populist. His first wife came from a Philadelphia Main Line family worth $300 million. His second wife is a pickle-and-ketchup heiress.
Kerry lives in a mansion on Beacon Hill on which he has borrowed $6 million to finance his campaign. A fire hydrant that prevented him and his wife from parking their SUV in front of their tony digs was removed by the city of Boston at his behest.
The Kerrys ski at a spa the widow Heinz owns in Aspen, and they summer on Nantucket in a sprawling seaside "cottage" on Hurlbert Avenue, which is so well-appointed that at a recent fund-raiser, they imported porta-toilets onto the front lawn so the donors wouldn't use the inside bathrooms. (They later claimed the decision was made on septic, not social, considerations).
It's a wonderful life these days for John Kerry. He sails Nantucket Sound in "the Scaramouche," a 42-foot Hinckley powerboat. Martha Stewart has a similar boat; the no-frills model reportedly starts at $695,000. Sen. Kerry bought it new, for cash.
Every Tuesday night, the local politicians here that Kerry elbowed out of his way on his march to the top watch, fascinated, as he claims victory in more primaries and denounces the special interests, the "millionaires" and "the overprivileged."
"His initials are JFK," longtime state Senate President William M. Bulger used to muse on St. Patrick's Day, "Just for Kerry. He's only Irish every sixth year." And now it turns out that he's not Irish at all.
But in the parochial world of Bay State politics, he was never really seen as Irish, even when he was claiming to be (although now, of course, he says that any references to his alleged Hibernian heritage were mistakenly put into the Congressional Record by an aide who apparently didn't know that on his paternal side he is, in fact, part-Jewish).
Kerry is, in fact, a Brahmin - his mother was a Forbes, from one of Massachusetts' oldest WASP families. The ancestor who wed Ralph Waldo Emerson's daughter was marrying down.
At the risk of engaging in ethnic stereotyping, Yankees have a reputation for, shall we say, frugality. And Kerry tosses around quarters like they were manhole covers. In 1993, for instance, living on a senator's salary of about $100,000, he managed to give a total of $135 to charity.
Yet that same year, he was somehow able to scrape together $8,600 for a brand-new, imported Italian motorcycle, a Ducati Paso 907 IE. He kept it for years, until he decided to run for president, at which time he traded it in for a Harley-Davidson like the one he rode onto "The Tonight Show" set a couple of months ago as Jay Leno applauded his fellow Bay Stater.
Of course, in 1993 he was between his first and second heiresses - a time he now calls "the wandering years," although an equally apt description might be "the freeloading years."
For some of the time, he was, for all practical purposes, homeless. His friends allowed him into a real-estate deal in which he flipped a condo for quick resale, netting a $21,000 profit on a cash investment of exactly nothing. For months he rode around in a new car supplied by a shady local Buick dealer. When the dealer's ties to a congressman who was later indicted for racketeering were exposed, Kerry quickly explained that the non-payment was a mere oversight, and wrote out a check.
In the Senate, his record of his constituent services has been lackluster, and most of his colleagues, despite their public support, are hard-pressed to list an accomplishment. Just last fall, a Boston TV reporter ambushed three congressmen with the question, name something John Kerry has accomplished in Congress. After a few nervous giggles, two could think of nothing, and a third mentioned a baseball field, and then misidentified Kerry as "Sen. Kennedy."
Many of his constituents see him in person only when he is cutting them in line - at an airport, a clam shack or the Registry of Motor Vehicles. One talk-show caller a few weeks back recalled standing behind a police barricade in 2002 as the Rolling Stones played the Orpheum Theater, a short limousine ride from Kerry's Louisburg Square mansion.
The caller, Jay, said he began heckling Kerry and his wife as they attempted to enter the theater. Finally, he said, the senator turned to him and asked him the eternal question.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Yeah," said Jay. "You're a gold-digger."
John Kerry. First he looks at the purse.
Howie Carr, a Boston Herald columnist and syndicated talk-radio host, has been covering John Kerry for 25 years.
By HOWIE CARR
February 5, 2004 -- BOSTON
ONE of the surest ways to get the phones ringing on any Massachusetts talk-radio show is to ask people to call in and tell their John Kerry stories. The phone lines are soon filled, and most of the stories have a common theme: our junior senator pulling rank on one of his constituents, breaking in line, demanding to pay less (or nothing) or ducking out before the bill arrives.
The tales often have one other common thread. Most end with Sen. Kerry inquiring of the lesser mortal: "Do you know who I am?"
And now he's running for president as a populist. His first wife came from a Philadelphia Main Line family worth $300 million. His second wife is a pickle-and-ketchup heiress.
Kerry lives in a mansion on Beacon Hill on which he has borrowed $6 million to finance his campaign. A fire hydrant that prevented him and his wife from parking their SUV in front of their tony digs was removed by the city of Boston at his behest.
The Kerrys ski at a spa the widow Heinz owns in Aspen, and they summer on Nantucket in a sprawling seaside "cottage" on Hurlbert Avenue, which is so well-appointed that at a recent fund-raiser, they imported porta-toilets onto the front lawn so the donors wouldn't use the inside bathrooms. (They later claimed the decision was made on septic, not social, considerations).
It's a wonderful life these days for John Kerry. He sails Nantucket Sound in "the Scaramouche," a 42-foot Hinckley powerboat. Martha Stewart has a similar boat; the no-frills model reportedly starts at $695,000. Sen. Kerry bought it new, for cash.
Every Tuesday night, the local politicians here that Kerry elbowed out of his way on his march to the top watch, fascinated, as he claims victory in more primaries and denounces the special interests, the "millionaires" and "the overprivileged."
"His initials are JFK," longtime state Senate President William M. Bulger used to muse on St. Patrick's Day, "Just for Kerry. He's only Irish every sixth year." And now it turns out that he's not Irish at all.
But in the parochial world of Bay State politics, he was never really seen as Irish, even when he was claiming to be (although now, of course, he says that any references to his alleged Hibernian heritage were mistakenly put into the Congressional Record by an aide who apparently didn't know that on his paternal side he is, in fact, part-Jewish).
Kerry is, in fact, a Brahmin - his mother was a Forbes, from one of Massachusetts' oldest WASP families. The ancestor who wed Ralph Waldo Emerson's daughter was marrying down.
At the risk of engaging in ethnic stereotyping, Yankees have a reputation for, shall we say, frugality. And Kerry tosses around quarters like they were manhole covers. In 1993, for instance, living on a senator's salary of about $100,000, he managed to give a total of $135 to charity.
Yet that same year, he was somehow able to scrape together $8,600 for a brand-new, imported Italian motorcycle, a Ducati Paso 907 IE. He kept it for years, until he decided to run for president, at which time he traded it in for a Harley-Davidson like the one he rode onto "The Tonight Show" set a couple of months ago as Jay Leno applauded his fellow Bay Stater.
Of course, in 1993 he was between his first and second heiresses - a time he now calls "the wandering years," although an equally apt description might be "the freeloading years."
For some of the time, he was, for all practical purposes, homeless. His friends allowed him into a real-estate deal in which he flipped a condo for quick resale, netting a $21,000 profit on a cash investment of exactly nothing. For months he rode around in a new car supplied by a shady local Buick dealer. When the dealer's ties to a congressman who was later indicted for racketeering were exposed, Kerry quickly explained that the non-payment was a mere oversight, and wrote out a check.
In the Senate, his record of his constituent services has been lackluster, and most of his colleagues, despite their public support, are hard-pressed to list an accomplishment. Just last fall, a Boston TV reporter ambushed three congressmen with the question, name something John Kerry has accomplished in Congress. After a few nervous giggles, two could think of nothing, and a third mentioned a baseball field, and then misidentified Kerry as "Sen. Kennedy."
Many of his constituents see him in person only when he is cutting them in line - at an airport, a clam shack or the Registry of Motor Vehicles. One talk-show caller a few weeks back recalled standing behind a police barricade in 2002 as the Rolling Stones played the Orpheum Theater, a short limousine ride from Kerry's Louisburg Square mansion.
The caller, Jay, said he began heckling Kerry and his wife as they attempted to enter the theater. Finally, he said, the senator turned to him and asked him the eternal question.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Yeah," said Jay. "You're a gold-digger."
John Kerry. First he looks at the purse.
Howie Carr, a Boston Herald columnist and syndicated talk-radio host, has been covering John Kerry for 25 years.
AP Exclusive: Three times, Kerry nominations and donations coincided
JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writers
Thursday, February 5, 2004
©2004 Associated Press
URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/02/05/politics0226EST0429.DTL
(02-05) 23:26 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --
At least three times in his Senate career, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry has recommended individuals for positions at federal home loan banks just before or after receiving political contributions from the nominees, records show.
In one case, Kerry wrote to the Federal Housing Finance Board to urge the reappointment of a candidate just one day before a Kerry campaign committee received $1,000 from the nominee, the records show.
"One has nothing to do with the other," said Marvin Siflinger, who contributed around the time of Kerry's Oct. 1, 1996, recommendation that he be reappointed for another term to the board.
Kerry's office, like the nominees, insists the timing of the donations and the nominations was a coincidence.
"Sen. Kerry recommends dozens of very qualified individuals each year without regard to their politics or contributions. In this case each of the individuals were highly qualified for the jobs they were appointed to and served with distinction," spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said.
"John Kerry is grateful for their support, and we should be thanking them for their service, not questioning it," she added. "The timing of the contributions was completely circumstantial."
But a longtime government watchdog says it is common for Washington appointees to donate just before or after they are nominated.
"This is just business as usual in Washington," said Larry Noble, the former chief lawyer for the Federal Election Commission who now heads the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. "Kerry is out there saying he is not being part of that game, yet he is the product of the same money system."
With Kerry more vocally portraying himself on the presidential campaign trail as an opponent of special interest money in Washington, scrutiny of his dealings with donors and special interests has increased among his rivals and the news media.
Noble said while Kerry long has advocated campaign finance reform, he also has benefited from the big money system he now distances himself from on the campaign trail. "It's like a game where you say the people who support me just want good government, but the people who support my opponent are special interests," he said.
When he first ran for the Senate, Kerry promised voters he would carefully choose nominees on merit.
"I will act as a persistent watchdog over presidential appointments to ensure that only people of integrity, ability and commitment hold positions of power in our national government," Kerry wrote in a June 1984 fund-raising appeal.
All three of the people Kerry recommended got the positions they sought on various boards of Federal Home Loan Banks in Boston and New York that provide money for home mortgages.
Kerry's recommendations went to the five-member Federal Housing Finance Board, the regulatory body that votes on the final selections. Recommendations come from members of Congress, the White House and trade associations.
Siflinger, who was a state housing finance official when Kerry was Massachusetts lieutenant governor, was first appointed to the bank board in Boston during President George H.W. Bush's presidency and in 1996 sought Kerry's help to get reappointed.
"You normally seek the support of prominent people who are respected. Certainly in this instance I sought the support of Senator Kerry and I sought support of other members of the congressional delegation," Siflinger said in an interview Thursday.
Siflinger made his first donation to Kerry's Senate campaign committee in 1995 more than a year before his reappointment, according to Federal Election Commission records. His most recent donation to Kerry was several weeks ago, Siflinger said.
Investment banker Derek Bryson Park says it's "pure happenstance" that he made a pair of $1,000 donations to Kerry a month before the senator's Dec. 29, 1998, letter recommending Park for a position at the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York.
"I got assistance from both ... Democrats and Republicans" in attaining the bank board post, Park said.
The only political donations Park made to federal candidates around the period of his appointment were to Kerry, according to FEC records.
"I've been fortunate to be invited to Senator Kerry's home and we've had a number of meals together and get-togethers," said Park, who got to know Kerry through a longtime supporter of the senator.
Former congressional staffer Patrick Dober said that "there's absolutely no relationship" between his $408 donation nearly three months after Kerry's Oct. 9, 1998, recommendation to the federal bank board. Kerry's letter praised Dober for having "worked closely with my office" on "the banking crisis in the early 1990s."
At the time, Dober worked for Boston Capital, a real estate financing and investment firm co-founded by Kerry supporter Jack Manning. Manning, who has donated more than $800,000 to the Democratic causes over the past 14 years, gave $65,000 in 2001 and 2002 to a tax-exempt political group Kerry set up.
Dober says he thinks his $408 for tickets to a Kerry fund-raiser is the only contribution he's ever made to Kerry.
"There was a fund-raiser for Kerry and they had James Taylor and Robin Williams playing," Dober recalled. "My wife and I said this looks like fun. The tickets were a hundred bucks and a $2 service charge, so my wife and I went with another couple and I wrote the check."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.
JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writers
Thursday, February 5, 2004
©2004 Associated Press
URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/02/05/politics0226EST0429.DTL
(02-05) 23:26 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --
At least three times in his Senate career, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry has recommended individuals for positions at federal home loan banks just before or after receiving political contributions from the nominees, records show.
In one case, Kerry wrote to the Federal Housing Finance Board to urge the reappointment of a candidate just one day before a Kerry campaign committee received $1,000 from the nominee, the records show.
"One has nothing to do with the other," said Marvin Siflinger, who contributed around the time of Kerry's Oct. 1, 1996, recommendation that he be reappointed for another term to the board.
Kerry's office, like the nominees, insists the timing of the donations and the nominations was a coincidence.
"Sen. Kerry recommends dozens of very qualified individuals each year without regard to their politics or contributions. In this case each of the individuals were highly qualified for the jobs they were appointed to and served with distinction," spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said.
"John Kerry is grateful for their support, and we should be thanking them for their service, not questioning it," she added. "The timing of the contributions was completely circumstantial."
But a longtime government watchdog says it is common for Washington appointees to donate just before or after they are nominated.
"This is just business as usual in Washington," said Larry Noble, the former chief lawyer for the Federal Election Commission who now heads the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. "Kerry is out there saying he is not being part of that game, yet he is the product of the same money system."
With Kerry more vocally portraying himself on the presidential campaign trail as an opponent of special interest money in Washington, scrutiny of his dealings with donors and special interests has increased among his rivals and the news media.
Noble said while Kerry long has advocated campaign finance reform, he also has benefited from the big money system he now distances himself from on the campaign trail. "It's like a game where you say the people who support me just want good government, but the people who support my opponent are special interests," he said.
When he first ran for the Senate, Kerry promised voters he would carefully choose nominees on merit.
"I will act as a persistent watchdog over presidential appointments to ensure that only people of integrity, ability and commitment hold positions of power in our national government," Kerry wrote in a June 1984 fund-raising appeal.
All three of the people Kerry recommended got the positions they sought on various boards of Federal Home Loan Banks in Boston and New York that provide money for home mortgages.
Kerry's recommendations went to the five-member Federal Housing Finance Board, the regulatory body that votes on the final selections. Recommendations come from members of Congress, the White House and trade associations.
Siflinger, who was a state housing finance official when Kerry was Massachusetts lieutenant governor, was first appointed to the bank board in Boston during President George H.W. Bush's presidency and in 1996 sought Kerry's help to get reappointed.
"You normally seek the support of prominent people who are respected. Certainly in this instance I sought the support of Senator Kerry and I sought support of other members of the congressional delegation," Siflinger said in an interview Thursday.
Siflinger made his first donation to Kerry's Senate campaign committee in 1995 more than a year before his reappointment, according to Federal Election Commission records. His most recent donation to Kerry was several weeks ago, Siflinger said.
Investment banker Derek Bryson Park says it's "pure happenstance" that he made a pair of $1,000 donations to Kerry a month before the senator's Dec. 29, 1998, letter recommending Park for a position at the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York.
"I got assistance from both ... Democrats and Republicans" in attaining the bank board post, Park said.
The only political donations Park made to federal candidates around the period of his appointment were to Kerry, according to FEC records.
"I've been fortunate to be invited to Senator Kerry's home and we've had a number of meals together and get-togethers," said Park, who got to know Kerry through a longtime supporter of the senator.
Former congressional staffer Patrick Dober said that "there's absolutely no relationship" between his $408 donation nearly three months after Kerry's Oct. 9, 1998, recommendation to the federal bank board. Kerry's letter praised Dober for having "worked closely with my office" on "the banking crisis in the early 1990s."
At the time, Dober worked for Boston Capital, a real estate financing and investment firm co-founded by Kerry supporter Jack Manning. Manning, who has donated more than $800,000 to the Democratic causes over the past 14 years, gave $65,000 in 2001 and 2002 to a tax-exempt political group Kerry set up.
Dober says he thinks his $408 for tickets to a Kerry fund-raiser is the only contribution he's ever made to Kerry.
"There was a fund-raiser for Kerry and they had James Taylor and Robin Williams playing," Dober recalled. "My wife and I said this looks like fun. The tickets were a hundred bucks and a $2 service charge, so my wife and I went with another couple and I wrote the check."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.
Typhoon1244
Member in Good Standing
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2002
- Posts
- 3,078
2000flyer
EASY FLYER
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2001
- Posts
- 1,586
Typhoon1244 said:
Typhoon,
To your first question...of course not. However, claiming "hero" status whilst tossing your medals on the ground, those medals you're so proud to brag about on the campaign stump, then yes, I do question your patriotism. To twice vote for war then to comdemn the sitting President for going to war, then yes, you are a hypocrit.
To your second question, no body questioned peace or war, nor did I claim he was a traitor. I'm not sure where that one came from.
2000Flyer
Typhoon1244
Member in Good Standing
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2002
- Posts
- 3,078
2000flyer
EASY FLYER
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2001
- Posts
- 1,586
Typhoon1244 said:
Typhoon, you misunderstand the statement. This man served his country in a time of war. He returned home and today proudly tells his audience that he threw his medals to the ground in disgust and openly opposed the war. However, a prime statement in his campaign is "I'm a war Hero!" Isn't that hypocrtical? Openly rant that you opposed the war and the acts of war veterans, don't come home and talk about it after being introduced as "An American War Hero". Seems he likes having it both ways. Trying to appease both sides, the right of center who agree with the actions we are forced to take today and the left who would rather sit aside and throw a few dollars in aide to try and fight a dispicable thug who doesn't think twice about killing people who disagree with him, or his son's who kill for sport.
Yes, war sucks. Killing people sucks. Being away from your family and friends for a year or more at a time sucks. Come home and complain about the trials of war. You can thank your soldier peers for that right, that freedom. But don't stand there running for the highest office in our great nation being introduced as some great war hero then tell me you threw your medals away because you were ashamed of them and the actions you took for your country. That only tells me you're just trying to please both sides to win votes, that you have no backbone to take a stand. Either he's a hero or an ashamed soldier, not both.
Personally, every soldier, sailor, airman and marine is a hero in my book. Whether you dodged the line of fire to save a fellow soldier; single handedly captured several of the enemy, repaired vehicles away from the battle, cooked a meal in a chow line, filed paperwork in some office. These men and women were asked by their country to do a job, sometimes a very dirty, heart-wrenching job. To think almost all came home, continued with their lives, rarely if ever talking about their experiences, and never, ever called themselves a "hero".
2000Flyer
DaveGriffin
Registered Self-Abuser
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2001
- Posts
- 569
Share this page
Latest resources
-
-
-
-
-
AC 90-89C - Amateur-Built Aircraft and Ultralight Flight Testing HandbookAmateur-Built Aircraft and Ultralight Flight Testing Handbook
- Neal
- Updated:
