SwiftVets.com

[h3digital]

Dear Veteran,

Two days ago, on the 60th anniversary of the signing of the GI Bill, John Kerry returned to Washington to vote for mandatory funding for America's 26 million veterans. Senator Tom Daschle offered an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill that would provide partial mandatory funding for veterans' healthcare -- a right veterans have been waiting for for too many years.

Unfortunately rather than voting on veterans' healthcare, the Republicans played politics. They delayed the vote on veterans' healthcare to prevent John Kerry from participating. Can you imagine it?

I would have thought that partisan politics would not prevent a vote on this critical issue for veterans. But no, the Bush administration once again turned its back on veterans. The Bush administration is not interested in providing mandatory funding of veterans' healthcare -- it is only interested in playing politics. It delayed voting on the Daschle amendment only so that John Kerry could not participate.

I am outraged that Republicans would put "playing politics" ahead of veterans' healthcare. It is shocking and should anger every veteran in America. Maybe it's not shocking. Unfortunately this is the treatment that veterans have come to expect from the Bush administration. It talks about supporting the troops, but when those active-duty troops become veterans, the Bush administration has two words for us: "get lost."

George Bush has shown no leadership in putting important veterans' issues first, but you can be sure that John Kerry will fight for the rights and benefits of those who have served our country.

Please forward this e-mail to all your friends who are veterans. Let them know the truth: that George Bush has never been a friend to veterans. His 2005 budget falls more than $2.6 billion short of the amount needed to fully fund quality veterans' health care, according to The Independent Budget. And unlike John Kerry, he does not support mandatory funding.
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Let the Truth be let out.

[ROWELG]

mikewinn says: "what the devil does having a constitutional republic have to do with anything?"

To the liberals, to the DEMOCRATS, it means nothing, as we saw in the last election. They only see big federal government and a dozen counties, the popular vote. They see not 50 States, not the electoral system. It has been their center of anger and speech since Florida, for four years, and continues to motivate them. Of the 3,141 counties they only see that dozen who have their largest metro liberal supporters, like Broward, Cook,Dade, LA, Marin, etc.

To the Republicans, it means everything, like States Rights, like government of the people, by the people, and for the people at State, county, and city levels.

Political donations is a form of free speech. Go here and see Democrats and Freedom of Speech. Democrats hate freedom of speech when it comes to the voices of their enemy.
http://www.fundrace.org/
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Politics: public debate over ideas/values to decide the heart of a civilization.
Debate: To provoke thought in open minded readers and listeners.
Partisan: BLIND, prejudiced, unreasoned devotion to a party, faction, envisioned theory, or person.

[NoDonkey]

[MikeWinn]

NoDonkey said:

[ROWELG]

h3digital says: "the Bush administration once again turned its back on veterans. The Bush administration is not interested in providing mandatory funding of veterans' healthcare"

Isn't it amazing how the liberals are so pro-military during a war, and during an election campaign interval!

The Daschle-amendment was for health care and pay increases for National Guard and Reservists. It had little to do with veterans. After Kerry left town, back on June 17th, the Republican Senate passed the amendment, like 70 to 25. Some of those no votes were Democrats. These military already had benefits when they were on active duty. The Daschle amendment is similar to a bill introduced last October by former Republican Rep. Bill Janklow of South Dakota.

Passing a last minute amendment, and passing a BILL are two different votes. The liberals made it political. Daschle pushing the amendment at the last minute, staging the plan of having Kerry drop in by parachute for a couple hours to make his ONE 2004 Senate vote, creating a photo op for the Kerry campaign ads, that is what made it political. I would hardly call a SENATE VOTE ON AN AMENDMENT, in late afternoon, rather than early afternoon. a "TURNING OF THE BACK" by Bush.

Typical liberal rubbish, twist the facts, exaggerate truth, and just plain lie to make a political point. Your only ax to grind should be with Kerry. IF he was so interested, he could have stuck around a few more hours, or even a day. How dare the world not march to Kerry's drumbeat, to Kerry's campaign schedule.

Back in March 2003, the Republican Senate passed an amendment cosponsored by liberal Senator Tom Daschle to increase funding to allow concurrent receipt of retirement pay and veterans disability for veterans with a 60 percent or higher service-connected disability. That didn't make the news.
_________________
Politics: public debate over ideas/values to decide the heart of a civilization.
Debate: To provoke thought in open minded readers and listeners.
Partisan: BLIND, prejudiced, unreasoned devotion to a party, faction, envisioned theory, or person.

[ROWELG]

"the thread name is DemocraTS and Freedom of Speech."

Well, Democrats are for DEMOCRACY, favoring social equality, with policies of broad social reform and internationalism.

Republicans are for LIBERTY, self determination, self accountability.

The Drama of Russian Political History shows this "System against Individuality". It exhibits two concepts, (1) of a system in which individuals are viewed as "cogs" functioning for the sake of the whole, versus, (2) personal liberty in which society seeks to promote the development of the individual. The Democrat believes these "cogs" serve the will of government. The Republican believes government serves the will of the public. The Democrat believes the will of government is to be determined only by the big welfare socialist black holes like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Boston, etc.

The Communist Bolsheviks were a wing of the Socialist Democratic Labor Party. Russia was democratic in that leaders were elected in a one party system, made up of athiests only. Liberal, socialist, democrat, democracy are all words of common ideas.
_________________
Politics: public debate over ideas/values to decide the heart of a civilization.
Debate: To provoke thought in open minded readers and listeners.
Partisan: BLIND, prejudiced, unreasoned devotion to a party, faction, envisioned theory, or person.

[LewWaters]

If Kerry and his ilk are so outraged and concerned over the delaying of this vote, why not start by stopping the filibuster the Democrats used to block several Federal Judge positions?

[cgc]

The reason he went back to vote on this "issue" was a pure political move on his part. One of Kerry's ,look at me, I'm for veterans, here's a couple bucks, vote for me campaign stops. This guy is the most shallow, one way, opportunist, person who ever ran for president. He doesn't qualify to earn our trust and be considered as the President of the United States. The decline of American values, traditions, and freedoms that have occured over the past 50 years will only increase at a faster rate once we let the Kerry's into the White House.
cgc 68/69 An Toi Danang

[Cam Ranh '71]

[From a conservative pundit on June 25.]

Aid and comfort to the enemy: The Kerry record...

June 25, 2004

"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."
--George Washington

It's no surprise that John Kerry has devoted so much time and energy questioning George W. Bush's record as commander-in-chief. Nor is it any surprise that he recently launched a campaign calling on Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld to resign after a handful of military personnel humiliated al-Qa'ida terrorists in Abu Ghraib prison while attempting to obtain actionable intelligence about their plans to kill more of our troops.

These political attacks are just the latest round on Kerry's long list of black-bag antics designed to undermine America's military strength and resolve.

Kerry, who fancies himself a war hero, has spent much of his political career denigrating American military personnel and the nation they defend. But his anti-American actions preceded his first campaign for Congress -- indeed, they were the platform from which he launched his political career.

Like his comrade "Hanoi Jane" Fonda and so many other Leftist protagonists from the Age of Aquarius, Kerry was a child of wealth and privilege. Today, he is the wealthiest member of Congress (the "F" stands for "Forbes," after all) but don't expect that to be a central theme of his "man of the people" campaign. (In fact, the top five wealthiest Senators are all Democrats.)

Kerry grew up hobnobbing with the Massachusetts Cape glitterati, a life of leisure including all the accoutrements -- the best schools, the best vacation homes, the best yachts, etc. He socialized with the rich and famous, especially the Kennedy clan elites, where he was taken under the wing of his future patron saint, Teddy. He attempted to emulate John Kennedy's PT-109 heroics by joining the Navy and using his connections to obtain an assignment for a short tour on a swiftboat in Vietnam. Kerry then went on to collect three Purple Hearts in just two months -- all of dubious merit, but requisite for a ticket home to pursue his political aspirations.

Unlike John F. Kennedy, however, when John F. Kerry got home, there was no hero's welcome. The nation was in turmoil over our continued role in Vietnam, the result of limited but well-publicized Leftist protests against the war. So Kerry, ever the opportunist, endeavored to become the Left's most "useful idiot" (as Lenin called Western apologists for Soviet propaganda), collaborating with Fonda, et al., and leading protests accusing his "brethren" in Vietnam of all manner of atrocities.

Kerry was (and remains) an effective spokesperson for his Leftist cadre. His anti-war protest period culminated with his 1971 congressional testimony, after which he told the press,

"There are all kinds of atrocities and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free-fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50-caliber machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search-and-destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare. All of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions...."

Regarding the substance -- and source -- of Kerry's claims, Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to defect from the Soviet bloc, says:

"KGB priority number one at that time was to damage American power, judgment, and credibility. ... As a spy chief and a general in the former Soviet satellite of Romania, I produced the very same vitriol Kerry repeated to the U.S. Congress almost word for word and planted it in leftist movements. KGB chairman Yuri Andropov managed our anti-Vietnam War operation. He often bragged about having damaged the U.S. foreign-policy consensus, poisoned domestic debate in the U.S., and built a credibility gap between America and European public opinion through our disinformation operations. Vietnam was, he once told me, 'our most significant success'."

As for the success of Kerry's anti-democracy protests and his leadership of the VVAW and association with Fonda's Winter Soldier Investigation, General Vo Nguyen Giap, Vietnam's most decorated military leader, wrote in retrospect that if not for the disunity created by such stateside protesters, Hanoi would have ultimately surrendered.

But the consequences of Kerry's actions should not stop with the fall of Saigon.

Kerry, by his own account, violated the UCMJ, the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Code while serving as a Navy officer, and he further stands in violation of Article three, Section three of the U.S. Constitution.

Upon entering the Navy in 1966, John Kerry signed a six-year contract (plus a six-month extension during wartime) and an Officer Candidate contract for five years of active duty and active Naval Reserve. This indicates that Kerry was clearly a commissioned officer at the time of his 1970 meeting with NVA Communists in Paris -- in direct violation of the UCMJ's Article 104 part 904, and U.S. Code 18 U.S.C. 953. That meeting, and Kerry's subsequent coddling of Communists while leading mass protests against our military in the year that followed, also place him in direct violation of our Constitution's Article three, Section three, which defines treason as "giving aid and comfort" to the enemy in time of warfare. (As General Vo Nguyen Giap is his witness....)

Thus, we refer our readers to the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3, which states,

"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President ... having previously taken an oath ... to support the Constitution of the United States, [who has] engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."

It is for this reason -- for his record of giving aid and comfort to the enemy while a member of the U.S. Armed Forces in violation of his oath -- that we insist John Kerry resign his seat in the U.S. Senate. He has dishonored his family, dishonored his state and dishonored our nation. He is not fit for public office at any level of government, much less, the highest office in the land. John Kerry should resign.

Mark Alexander is Executive Editor and Publisher of The Federalist.