Every Single Commanding Officer of Kerry Says He is UNFIT TO LEAD

It's a lot like Cheney's five draft deferments...

 

FACT: Jorge and L. Brent Bozell's primary arguments about Kerry's leadership have been debunked ---- by the words and deeds of the very men that they cite, thirty years prior!

Only a Time machine will save you now, maybe you can go back and change their glowing evaluation of Kerry's leadership ability...remember, it takes 1.21 gigawatts!

 

I just want to clarify that large corporations do not employ most of the working folks in this in the country. Small businesses, self-employment, and smaller size businesses do most of the employing. The lage corporations do hold a large percentage of the power though.

 

You are incapable of stating a fact. Let me illustrate the opinions here in BOLD.

 

You missed the best part, the refrain of: "FACT. . .The WSJ article supports this!"

The "WSJ article" came from Op/Ed page.

 

Thanks for the laugh. I did indeed miss that.

 

Smear Boat Veterans for Bush
The "swift boat" veterans attacking John Kerry's war record are led by veteran right-wing operatives using the same vicious techniques they used against John McCain four years ago.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Joe Conason



May 4, 2004 | The latest conservative outfit to fire an angry broadside against John Kerry's heroic war record is Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which today launches a campaign to brand the Democrat "unfit to serve as commander in chief." Billing itself as representing the "other 97 percent of veterans" from Kerry's Navy unit who don't support his presidential candidacy, the group insists that all presidential candidates must be "totally honest and forthcoming" about their military service.

These "swift boat vets" claim still to be furious about Kerry's 1971 Senate testimony against the war in which he spoke about atrocities in Indochina's "free fire zones." More than three decades later, facing the complicated truth about Vietnam remains difficult. But this group's political connections make clear that its agenda is to target the election of 2004.

Behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are veteran corporate media consultant and Texas Republican activist Merrie Spaeth, who is listed as the group's media contact; eternal Kerry antagonist and Houston attorney John E. O'Neill, law partner of Spaeth's late husband, Tex Lezar; and retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffman, a cigar-chomping former Vietnam commander once described as "the classic body-count guy" who "wanted hooches destroyed and people killed."

Spaeth told Salon that O'Neill first approached her last winter to discuss his "concerns about Sen. Kerry." O'Neill has been assailing Kerry since 1971, when the former Navy officer was selected for the role by Charles Colson, Richard Nixon's dirty-tricks aide. Spaeth heard O'Neill out, but told him, she says, that he "sounded like a crazed extremist" and should "button his lip" and avoid speaking with the press. But since Kerry clinched the Democratic nomination, Spaeth has changed her mind and decided to donate her public relations services on a "pro bono" basis to O'Neill's latest anti-Kerry effort. "About three weeks ago, four weeks ago," she said, the group's leaders "met in my office for about 12 hours" to prepare for their Washington debut.

Although not as well known as Karen Hughes, Spaeth is among the most experienced and best connected Republican communications executives. During the Reagan administration she served as director of the White House Office of Media Liaison, where she specialized in promoting "news" items that boosted President Reagan to TV stations around the country. While living in Washington she met and married Lezar, a Reagan Justice Department lawyer who ran for lieutenant governor of Texas in 1994 with George W. Bush, then the party's candidate for governor. (Lezar lost; Bush won.)

Through Lezar, who died of a heart attack last January, she met O'Neill, his law partner in Clements, O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson & Fulkerson, a Dallas firm. (It also includes Margaret Wilson, the former counsel to Gov. Bush who followed him to Washington, where she served for a time as a deputy counsel in the Department of Commerce.)

Spaeth's partisanship runs still deeper, as does her history of handling difficult P.R. cases for Republicans. In 1998, for example, she coached Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel, to prepare him for his testimony urging the impeachment of President Clinton before the House Judiciary Committee. She even reviewed videotapes of his previous television appearances to give him pointers about his delivery and demeanor. The man responsible for arranging her advice to Starr was another old friend of her late husband's, Theodore Olson, who was counsel to the right-wing American Spectator when it acted as a front for the dirty-tricks campaign against Clinton known as the Arkansas Project; he is now the solicitor general in the Bush Justice Department. (Olson also happens to be the godfather of Spaeth's daughter.)

In 2000, Spaeth participated in the most subterranean episode of the Republican primary contest when a shadowy group billed as "Republicans for Clean Air" produced television ads falsely attacking the environmental record of Sen. John McCain in California, New York and Ohio. While the identity of those funding the supposedly "independent" ads was carefully hidden, reporters soon learned that Republicans for Clean Air was simply Sam Wyly -- a big Bush contributor and beneficiary of Bush administration decisions in Texas -- and his brother, Charles, another Bush "Pioneer" contributor. (One of the Wyly family's private capital funds, Maverick Capital of Dallas, had been awarded a state contract to invest $90 million for the University of Texas endowment.)

When the secret emerged, spokeswoman Spaeth caught the flak for the Wylys, an experience she recalled to me as "horrible" and "awful." Her job was to assure reporters that there had been no illegal coordination between the Bush campaign and the Wyly brothers in arranging the McCain-trashing message. Not everyone believed her explanation, including the Arizona senator.

The veteran group's founder, Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, first gained notoriety in Vietnam as a strutting, cigar-chewing Navy captain. But it was O'Neill, by now a familiar figure on the Kerry-bashing circuit, who came to Spaeth for assistance.

Until now, Hoffmann has been best known as the commanding officer whose obsession with body counts and "scorekeeping" may have provoked the February 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians at Thanh Phong by a unit led by Bob Kerrey -- the Medal of Honor winner who lost a leg in Nam, became a U.S. senator from Nebraska and now sits on the 9/11 commission.

After journalist Gregory Vistica exposed the Thanh Phong massacre and the surrounding circumstances in the New York Times magazine three years ago, conservative columnist Christopher Caldwell took particular note of the cameo role played by Kerrey's C.O., who had warned his men not to return from missions without enough kills. "One of the myths due to die as a result of Vistica's article is that which holds the war could have been won sensibly and cleanly if the 'suits' back in Washington had merely left the military men to their own devices," Caldwell wrote. "In this light, one of the great merits of Vistica's article is its portrait of the Kurtz-like psychopath who commanded Kerrey's Navy task force, Capt. Roy Hoffmann."

Arguments about the war in Vietnam seem destined to continue forever. For now, however, the lingering bitterness and ambiguity of those days provide smear material against an antiwar war hero with five medals on behalf of a privileged Guardsman with a dubious duty record. The president's Texas allies -- whose animus against his Democratic challenger dates back to the Nixon era -- are now deploying the same techniques and personnel they used to attack McCain's integrity four years ago. Bush's "independent" supporters would apparently rather talk about the Vietnam quagmire than about his deadly incompetence in Iraq.


- - - - - - - - - - - -

 

I think you're missing the point, buddy. People support Bush's tax "cuts" because of one simple mantra: "Screw you, I got mine."

 

The less taxes a corp. as to pay, the more money they make. The more money they make, the better of their stakeholders...shareholder, employees, vendors that supply them. They have more money for capital investment, in hiring more employees, and in researching new technologies, or reinvesting in themselves.

If they make less money, they lay off people like you and I, we don't make money on our investments, companies that we own that sell to them don't make any money, my small business that sells to a guy that was employed but is now layed off goes bankrupt. I work for a corporation made up of 140,000 people. That is 140,000 people that will be able to pay their mortgage, pay their taxes (because they have an income), get health insurance, eat out, buy a car, get a massage, go to Vegas, put kids in college, donate to charity....whatever. If the company has to pay more taxes...who gets the burden...everybody. The company lays of 10,000 people....so 10,000 less people will be able to pay their mortgage, pay their taxes (because they DON'T have an income), get health insurance, eat out, buy a car, get a massage, go to Vegas, put kids in college, buy from small business, hire a yard guy, support local business, donate to charity....whatever.

So the more corporations DON'T make money, the more everybody suffers.

 

Yeah...I got mine...but so did the guy that was able to make money on the car I bought because I had extra money...the car salesman was able to pay rent, the car dealer was able to invest more into his business, GM was able to keep a factory worker, that factory worker was able to buy a haircut, the barber was able to buy some new scissors, the scissors company was able to buy more steel, the steel company was able to hire another worker, the new worker put his kid in college, the kid in college got a good job...and so on...just because me and millions like were able to keep more money for ourselves...so "screw you, millions of us got ours."

 

And at some point everyone (or perhaps their kids) will have to deal with this...

 

I thought that was the point I was making.

 

Supermac, I'm aware of the way corporate taxes work, and I'm aware of the way macroeconomics works, the budget works, and Bermuda incorporation works.

What I'm trying to outline to you is that your stance on corporate income taxes is not relevant given that the vast majority of corporations doing business in the US pay no taxes at all.

In fact, many of the largest American corporations take home rebates rather than pay taxes:


Microsoft enjoyed more than $12 billion in total tax breaks over the past five years. In fact, Microsoft actually paid no tax at all in 1999, despite $12.3 billion in reported U.S. profits. Microsoft’s tax rate for the past two years was only 1.8 percent on $21.9 billion in pretax U.S. profits.

General Electric, America’s most profitable corporation, reported $50.8 billion in U.S. profits over the past five years, but paid only 11.5 percent of that in federal income taxes. That low tax rate reflected almost $12 billion in corporate tax welfare for GE.

Ford enjoyed $9.1 billion in corporate tax welfare over the past five years. It reported $18.6 billion in U.S. profits over the past two years, but paid a tax rate of only 5.7 percent.

Worldcom paid no taxes at all in two of the last three years, despite reported U.S. profits of $15.2 billion. Worldcom’s total tax rate over the three years was only 1.6%. Corporate tax welfare slashed Worldcom’s tax bill by $5.3 billion over the past five years.

IBM reported $5.7 billion in U.S. profits in 2000, but paid only 3.4 percent of that in federal income taxes. In 1997, IBM reported $3.1 billion in U.S. profits, and instead of paying taxes, got an outright tax rebate. Over the past five years, IBM enjoyed a total of $4.7 billion in corporate tax welfare.

General Motors paid no taxes at all in three of the last five years, despite $12.5 billion in reported U.S. profits. GM’s tax rate for the past three years was negative 1.3 percent. Its corporate tax welfare totaled $3.6 billion over the past five years.

Enron paid no income taxes at all in four of the past five years, despite $1.8 billion in reported U.S. profits. Enron’s total taxes over the five years were a negative $381 million. Its corporate tax welfare totaled $1.0 billion.

El Paso Energy reported $1.6 billion in U.S. profits over the past five years, but paid less than nothing in federal income taxes, getting tax rebates of $254 million. El Paso’s tax rate over the five years was negative 15.5 percent. Its corporate welfare totaled $827 million.

Colgate-Palmolive paid no taxes at all in three of the past five years, despite $1.6 billion in reported U.S. profits. Colgate’s total tax rate over the five years was negative 1.3 percent, due to $595 million in corporate tax welfare.

Navistar, on $1.4 billion in U.S. profits over the past five years, paid only $28 million in federal income taxes, a tax rate of only 2 percent. Navistar’s corporate tax welfare totaled $451 million.


This is not due to any tax cuts or tax reduction enacted by Bush or congress or anybody else, but is instead due to various tax avoidance/evasions schemes like offshore tax havens and various other tax shelters.

Do you really think you should pay 20-30% of your overall income to support Bush's massive spending programs while large corporations collect billions of dollars in rebate checks? You should pay taxes, while, thanks to their offshore tax shelters, Enron gets a big fat check?

Don't you think you'd be better at spending your own money than trusting employers like Enron and Worldcom, who cost their employees and other investors billions via their crimes & fraudulent acts, to allocate it to you?

Is this type of "lax" taxes on corporations you support?

 

LOL

Guess I had too much cough syrup this morning!

 

The real story of John O'Neill: right wing *operative* and *eternal* opponent of John Kerry, who was democratic and voted for Humphrey over Nixon, as well as voted for Bill White for Houston mayor ....

*************************

The Un-Kerry
Meet John O’Neill, the Vietnam vet who once debated John Kerry on The Dick Cavett Show.

By Alexander Rose
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article appears in the May 3, 2004, issue of National Review.

More than 30 years after he returned to voluntary, and happy, obscurity as a Houston lawyer, 58-year-old John O'Neill is making a prime-time comeback. Who's John O'Neill? He was the Vietnam veteran — a former commander of a Patrol Craft Fast, better known as the Swift boat — who famously debated one John Kerry, a fellow Swift skipper, for 90 minutes on The Dick Cavett Show back in 1971. C-SPAN excavated this particular television gem a couple of weeks ago and re-broadcast it.

In 1971, Kerry was leveraging his military experience for political gain (old habits die hard, eh?) and had recently testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the American soldiers who, he believed, habitually committed war crimes. A few months earlier, Kerry had been involved in the "Winter Soldier Investigation," which proved to be less a serious inquiry into American actions than a rigged indictment of AmeriKKKa. It was later shown that many of the "eyewitness" participants, as well as many of Kerry's colleagues in Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), were frauds who had never been near a battlefield, let alone seen these crimes happen. Undaunted, Kerry claimed in his Senate testimony that these were "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." In other words, these alleged horrors were endemic to, and an officially sanctioned corollary of, the U.S. war effort in Vietnam.

Kerry, as we know, went on to great things, and perhaps may ascend to still greater ones, but what ever happened to John O'Neill? His biography, perhaps owing to its very ordinariness, is far more interesting than Kerry's flashier story of riches-to-riches. It is O'Neill, not Kerry, who embodies how countless regular Americans experienced, survived, and remembered Vietnam. His is a world away from the cynicism and the insanity, the cruelty and the self-hatred represented by the Winter Soldier Investigation and transmitted into the popular consciousness by such movies as Apocalypse Now and Platoon.

The first thing you need to know about John O'Neill is that the O'Neills were sea dogs through and through. Even today, there are some 90 first cousins living in and around Annapolis — home of the Naval Academy — many of them serving in America's fleets. O'Neill's grandfather taught at the Naval Academy; his father graduated in the early '30s, flew fighters, fought at Iwo Jima, and retired an admiral; O'Neill himself, who grew up in landlocked San Antonio, Texas, was in the Naval Academy Class of 1967 (two brothers also graduated, '57 and '59). An uncle, a fighter pilot, was killed at Pearl Harbor; another, also a naval pilot, in Korea. Several of O'Neill's nephews fought in the first Gulf War in the Marine Corps, and his brother-in-law commanded the Coast Guard, Atlantic Area. Nelson and Nimitz would have been proud of the O'Neills.

Young Ensign O'Neill chose to serve aboard a minesweeper, the Woodpecker. His fellow classmates had a good laugh. A minesweeper? Not exactly the most glamorous gig in the Navy, and an especially odd choice for a man whose class standing was so high he could have breezed into pretty much any posting he desired. But O'Neill's motive was nothing to laugh about: Mindful of the "family tradition of service," he says it was "important to me not to sit out the war" — and he supposed that he had a better chance of seeing action on one of the smaller boats than he would have cooling his heels aboard an aircraft carrier.

After a year on the Woodpecker, O'Neill transferred to the Swift boats in the spring of 1969, serving on them until the summer of 1970. His boat was fired on many times as it patrolled the Cambodian border, as well as the Uminh and Namcan forests in southern Vietnam. In the Swifts, says O'Neill, the average length of service was twelve months; John Kerry was in for four.
After a little over two years' duty, O'Neill himself departed Vietnam with two Bronze Stars (with "V"s for valor in combat) pinned to his chest. There were apparently several more decorations, but when I asked about them, his modesty triumphed over my curiosity. He also came home with a badly damaged knee and leg, which earned him some time in a military hospital. And it was there that John O'Neill started learning about the Senate testimony of someone named John Kerry. Distressed and angered by the future senator's allegations, none of which squared with his own experiences, O'Neill vainly wrote to the Foreign Relations Committee asking for a chance to testify himself.

Then he read an op-ed in the New York Times by Bruce Kessler, a former Marine and a leader of the new group, Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace, which disparaged the Kerry allegations. O'Neill wrote to Kessler, who got him involved in a Washington press conference. "We were convinced," says O'Neill, that "Kerry's charges were false." 60 Minutes and NBC both offered time for a debate — Kerry vs. O'Neill — but the former repeatedly balked. And then, miraculously, Kerry accepted an invitation from Dick Cavett to go head-to-head with O'Neill.

By this time, O'Neill had been star-spotted by President Nixon, and he met the president at the White House. (The sunny atmosphere turned a little frostier when O'Neill confided that he'd voted for Hubert Humphrey in '68: "The people all around me were shocked" when he told Nixon he was a Democrat.) He was also introduced to several Democratic congressmen and senators who didn't like Kerry's slanderous grandstanding.

As for the Cavett Show appearance, that was an invitation arranged by the television host himself, and had nothing to do with the White House; O'Neill even had to pay his own travel and hotel expenses. He wore "the only suit I had" — a not overly fashionable blue serge number unfortunately teamed with white socks. It mattered not. What mattered, says O'Neill, was that "I felt very passionate about the issue of war crimes. I had served in Vietnam with all those kids . . . and they reflected the people in the country as a whole. And the way [Kerry and his friends] falsely used war-crime charges involved a degree of political cynicism beyond my comprehension. I was outraged. I thought honestly about my friends who had died out there. And the unit we were in — Kerry and I — had suffered substantial casualties because of the restraints we placed on ourselves." O'Neill says that "Kerry, of course, knows this."

The debate was a success. "I always thought Kerry wouldn't be able to document evidence of war crimes," and so it was. His claim that these crimes were not isolated incidents but ordered by officers was nothing but a "barefaced lie." "Of course," O'Neill, with good humor, adds, "he was there for such a short time, he might not have known what was happening."

Well, the offers to do more TV appearances came rolling in, but O'Neill decided to pack his blue serge suit and go home. He went to the University of Texas Law School, and graduated first in a class of 554 with the third highest score in its history. In 1974, he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court justice William Rehnquist before returning to Texas to practice law. Specializing in large-scale commercial litigation — though he has often represented poor clients for free — he's been there ever since, founding along the way his own 35-lawyer firm (Clements O'Neill, for those of you with large-scale commercial-litigation needs).

He hasn't been politically involved since those heady days of the '70s. From 1972 onward, whenever people ran against Kerry, they asked O'Neill to spill some more beans, but he always declined — "because I believed in forgetting the thing." But I myself wondered, what suddenly prompted O'Neill to break his silence after all these years and talk to National Review? As he recuperated in an intensive-care unit after donating a kidney to his wife, Anne (now well on her way to recovery), a television story about Kerry leading the pack galvanized O'Neill. "It was déjà vu all over again; there was a Lord of the Rings quality to it, because here was the guy I had debated on the Cavett Show reappearing as the presidential candidate."

What O'Neill found particularly unsettling was that here was "a guy who believed everything we did in Vietnam was a crime" but who was now "campaigning on his record and claiming to be a war hero." In short, "the only reason I'm getting involved now is because he's running for commander-in-chief of the United States."

So there it is: a regular American — O'Neill, father of two, likes hiking, playing golf, and taking an active part in his church — not content anymore to allow Kerry and his kind to keep hijacking the Vietnam War.

link: http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/rose/rose200404211228.asp

 

For those still in the dark about John Kerry's version of Vietnam versus John O'Neill's, another perspective from someone who was there and has no love for Bush ....

********************

April 22, 2004, 12:15AM

Kerry in Vietnam, from one who was there

By STEVE HAYES

I knew John Kerry. We served together in late 1968 and early '69 as Navy Swift Boat officers-in-charge in Coastal Division 14 in Cam Ranh Bay and in Coastal Division 11 in An Thoi, Vietnam.

I didn't know him well. I found him a bit aloof and imperious. After a 24-hour patrol, most of us would kick back, get a cold beer, talk or sleep. After a 24-hour patrol, I remember Kerry would usually be in the squadron office writing. I never knew exactly what he was working on. Notes? Letters? His war diary? But always he was writing.

His service along the coast and in the rivers was commendable. But there was always something a bit odd about his time with us.

Kerry served approximately 4 1/2 months "in country" — a little more than one-third the normal 12-month tour. Within a 90-day period, he received three injuries that resulted in Purple Heart awards. All three wounds were minor. Tedd Peck, one of our Coastal Division 14 fellow officers, says that Kerry pressured our squadron executive officer to "put him in" for his first Purple Heart after the squadron commander indicated he thought the injury was so minor it didn't rise to the level of an award.

Finally, Lt. j.g. Kerry could have remained in Vietnam with the rest of us, but he made a formal request to be reassigned to the States, as three Purple Hearts entitled him to do. I remember colleagues leaving Vietnam early ... in body bags. I remember some being medevaced back home because of serious wounds. I recall no one, except Kerry, asking that his tour be cut short and that he be sent home.

All this has always seemed just a little strange to me. But no more strange than the son of a Texas congressman jumping over several hundred other folks to gain admission to the Texas National Guard, then not showing up — or at least not having any record of attendance — at many of the mandatory drills. But then the late '60s and early '70s were strange times.

Most Vietnam veterans I know who oppose Kerry are not irate over what he did or did not do in Vietnam but over what he did after returning. His mistake was in blurring the line between protesting the war and our foreign policy on the one hand and, on the other hand, tarnishing the reputations of good men who did what their country asked them to do.

I returned from Vietnam with a lot of anger and emotional baggage and tried — unsuccessfully — to forget about it. Kerry returned with his own anger and emotional baggage and proceeded to channel it into antiwar activism. I've spent several decades directing some of my anger at Kerry for his post-return antics and grandstanding. But today, with 35 years of hindsight, I have developed a grudging respect for him in that he, unlike me, at least tried to do something to end an ugly and ill-advised war.

Today the United States is in the middle of another controversial war, this time in Iraq. Just as the 1964 attacks on the USS Maddox, justifying the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, proved to be ephemeral, so do the administration's claims of weapons of mass destruction, and an al-Qaida-Baghdad link appear to have been specious.

Most galling to this veteran is the pugnacious posture of the Bush administration's collection of "chicken hawks" — those who rushed our country to war but who themselves conveniently avoided combat service. People such as Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Vice President Cheney and the rest would have done well to listen more closely to people who have actually been shot at and have killed others and have carried the bodies of their buddies, before sending America's youth once again into harm's way.

Clearly, combat experience is not a prerequisite for a successful presidency. But in our current world environment, it wouldn't hurt, and Kerry will certainly be making this case during the campaign. As voters consider their choices in November, they should try — difficult as it might be — to cut through all the campaign hype to get to the hard facts.

With regard to John Kerry and Vietnam, he saw real combat, and no one should diminish his service. By the same token, no one should make it out to be more than it was.
________________________________________
Hayes is a Washington-area resident and former federal employee, served four years in the Navy.


Link: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/editorial/outlook/2522533

 

A strong economy is what will reduce the deficit. I think that the tax rules will build a strong economy, so more people will make more money and pay more taxes.

 

The reason I can spend my own money is because my company makes tons of money and can hire me. I'd rather pay 20-30% on my own taxes rather than a big corporation paying 20-30%, because I won't be paying any taxes if they have to pay more and lay me off.

Those tax rebates, or tax deductions that allow them to not pay very much tax allows me and millions of others to have jobs. Most money in corporations goes back out to stakeholders, and I'm a stakeholder in several companies (the one I work for, the ones I invest in, the ones that drive my family's business). I'm able to have a job because of those tax breaks.

Can't you imagine how many people in this nation would be laid off if we started taking 20% more of every corporation's profits? A company is going to make its numbers one way or another, so if you tax them more, they will cut costs more.