The Bottom Line

These ARE positives of President Bush. John Kerry probably has just as many positives, however, I just cannot trust Kerry based on his subversive history. Set partisanship aside, and look at the facts we have, and facts we do not have, connect the dots. Preventing Sept 11 would have had required connecting some dots, which we failed to do so.

As Jerome Corsi of the Swift Boat Veterans said:

Only in March of this year, did Michael Meehan, one of Kerry's top spokespersons, finally admit to the Boston Globe that Kerry did actually meet with Madame Binh, the top Viet Cong negotiator to the Paris Peace talks. Even today, we do not know how Kerry arranged the meeting, where it was held, how long it lasted, or what precisely Kerry and Madame Binh discussed. These details remain hidden.

All we know for sure is that on July 22, 1971, John Kerry held a press conference in Washington, D.C., where – surrounded by POW families – he called upon President Nixon to accept Madame Binh's peace proposal, a peace proposal that called for the United States to set a date for military withdrawal and pay reparations – in effect, to surrender – all this to induce the Vietnamese communists to set a date for the release of our POWs.

Madame Nguyen Thi Binh is not someone familiar to most Americans today. Yet, in 1970, she was virtually the "Dragon Lady" of the Viet Cong. Madame Binh was a close associate of Ho Chi Minh. She was a teacher who achieved distinction in North Vietnam for her time in the captivity of the French during the war before the French withdrew and we arrived to take up the fight.

Madame Binh was beautiful and highly intelligent. Just before John Kerry came on the scene, Ho Chi Minh had dispatched one of his closest associates, Lo Duc Tho, to Paris in order to perfect the 7-point peace plan Madame Binh would advance. Lo Duc Tho was one of the original founders of the Communist Party of Indochina and one of the North Vietnamese communist's chief strategists.

Lo Duc Tho and Madame Binh crafted a clever plan designed to undermine the formal peace negotiations being undertaken on behalf of the United States government by Richard Nixon's appointed team of negotiators headed by Henry Kissinger. The point of Madame Binh's 7-point peace proposal was that the only barrier to our getting our POWs back was our own unwillingness to set a date for withdrawal. The Vietnamese communists wanted the world to perceive that the only unreasonable party in this conflict was the USA, not the Vietnamese communists. In other words, we ourselves in our refusal to set a date to end the war were the sole reason our POWs were not coming home.

When John Kerry appeared on the scene, a handsome and decorated war veteran turned anti-war activist, he was the perfect candidate to carry the communist message back to the United States. Judged by the outcome, Kerry's trip to Paris no simple "fact-finding mission." The evidence is that Kerry – while still in the Naval Reserves – inserted himself into a complex negotiation with the result that he advanced the communist side to the detriment of our official negotiating position.
The historical record is that when he returned home he held a public press conference to endorse Madame Binh's proposal. From Paris where Kerry received the communist message, to Washington, D.C., where he mouthed that message, Kerry became Lo Duc Tho and Madame Binh's surrogate spokesperson.

Nor did the "both sides" include the United States delegation to the Paris Peace talks. There is no historical evidence that would support a Kerry contention that he met with anyone else other than the Viet Cong, officially known as the Provisional Revolutionary Government, of whom Madame Binh was the foreign minister, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the official name of North Vietnam's communist government, of which Lo Duc Tho was a member. There were two Vietnamese communist parties to the Paris Peace talks – these are the "both sides" with whom Kerry met.

When John Kerry in his street-theater military fatigues sat before Sen. Fulbright's Foreign Relations Committee, he was there to deliver the enemy's message. America, so Kerry maintained, was fighting an immoral war. We were a colonial power inserting ourselves on the wrong side of a civil war, in support of a puppet regime not supported by the people of Vietnam. The American military, so Kerry argued, were committing atrocities on a daily basis, atrocities which were approved up and down the entire chain of command – the army of Ghengis Khan.

Kerry's 1971 message to the U.S. Senate was communist propaganda, pure and simple. Yet even today, in 2004, while running for president, Kerry refuses to apologize to his fellow veterans. Instead, he and his campaign supporters still seize upon every story of a war crime in Vietnam in a desperate attempt to prove that atrocities were not isolated illegal acts, but everyday occurrences, a natural outcome of officially sanctioned rules of engagement.

The Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth expect to be called "liars" by John Kerry, even when they run a TV ad that tells the truth. Why should today be any different than 33 years ago?”

Another dot to connect: In 1996, Kerry accepted a $10,000 campaign contribution in return for arranging a meeting between Honk Kong businesswoman Liu Chaohying and a senior Securities and Exchange official in order to get Chaohying's company listed on the U.S. Stock Exchange. Chaohying was a lieutenant colonel in Red China's People's Liberation Army. That same year, Kerry traveled to Beijing on a "U.S. trade mission." Here it's worth noting that the ChiComs never forget their useful idiots; the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, has endorsed Kerry's presidential bid.

Then Edward’s comment at the debate: "We lost more troops in September than we lost in August; lost more in August than we lost in July; lost more in July than we lost in June."

As the accusations and rhetoric of the Kerry-Edwards ticket grows more heated, so too does the morale of our enemy.

One of the biggest reasons I support Bush always become very clear when I ask myself this question, mindful of our national security, the protection of Americans and our vital interests: Given the chance, who would Saddam Hussein, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il, Mohammad Khatami, Moammar Gadhafi, Yasser Arafat, Bashar al-Assad, Ayatollah Khamenini, Hu Jintao, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder and Kofi Annan vote for: a) George Bush, or b) John Kerry? The Communist Party USA and al-Jazeera endorses Kerry.

The fact that Tony Blair, Ariel Sharon, John Howard, Silvio Berculsoni, Aleksandr Kwanisewski, and Vladimir Putin are leaders who are already on good terms with Bush. I do not know many good leaders who publicly support Kerry (Canada and Norway comes to mind, for two). Put them on the scales, it clearly tips in favor of Bush.

[+/-] show/hide this post

American Sovereignty Better Protected under Bush

President Bush attacked Kerry several times over two debates regarding Kerry’s support of the International Court of Justice, and Kerry never put a defense. The ICJ would enable foreign judges, accountable to nobody, to detain U.S. citizens, without U.S. consent, for any violation they deem under “international law.”

I believe that President Bush did a very smart thing to prevent our national sovereignty being usurped by non-sovereign entities that answer to nobody. His administration has so far signed pacts with 94 countries, bilateral agreements that would prevent these countries from turning over U.S. citizens to the court.

In 1993, Kerry was one of the eight co-sponsors of a resolution proposed by Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, a Democrat. It was titled: "A joint resolution calling for the United States to support efforts of the United Nations to conclude an international agreement to establish an international criminal court." Dodd emphasized that the court should have authority to prosecute Americans: "We cannot push for the establishment of an international tribunal and pretend at the same time that we are exempt from its reach."

Basically, judges from human-rights abusing countries, such as Venezuela, Cambodia, Libya, Sudan, et al, do not have any checks to balance them out if they decide to pursue politically-motivated prosecutions. Bush saw that very clearly and unsigned the agreement that President Clinton signed which submitted America to the ICJ.

[+/-] show/hide this post

Iraq. (Part 1)

Congress resolved "that the government of Iraq is in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations, and therefore the president is urged to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations".
Then, on Oct. 31, 1998, Congress passed the Iraq Liberation Act, which declared, "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime."
Armed with that "authority," Clinton attempted – from 20,000 feet – to remove Saddam from power at the end of the year.
As the bombing of Saddam's palaces was an obvious attempt to assassinate him, Saddam ceased "cooperating" with the UNSCOM inspectors, who had fled Iraq on the eve of the attempt.
Then, in November 2002, President Bush got the Security Council to pass Resolution 1441, which afforded Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council."
Of course there was a failure in our intelligence prior to Sept 11, which directly led to the attacks. With excellent hindsight, Kerry keeps on pounding Bush on the intelligence failures. Bush’s fault? Before Bush became President, Kerry served eight years on the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he worked to gut the CIA. He never once voted to increase funding for intelligence, and even, on three separate occasions, voted to cut the intelligence budget. In 1994, Kerry tried to slash the intelligence budget by $6 billion. And this was after the first World Trade Center attack. For that attack, Ramzi Yousef, an Iraqi, is now serving life in prison.

Kerry also criticizes Bush for the failures related to airport security. However, he was a member of the Senate Transportation Committee. He should be careful before pointing fingers. As Jesus said, always remove the plank in your eye first before you remove the sawdust in your friend’s eye. (Practice what you preach!)

Michael Reagan, son of Ronald Reagan, had this to say:

“ABC News, which either has a very short memory or is willing to cover up what they know about the connection [between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda]. And they know plenty – they just won't talk about it. The fact is, ABC interviewed bin Laden and had disclosed the ties that existed between Baghdad and the master terrorist as far back as 1999 when Bill Clinton was president.

AS Reagan wrote, “Here's what ABC News reported on January 14, 1999: Citing an alleged key military adviser and a man believed to be "privy to bin Laden's most secret projects" who had been apprehended, ABC News said:

The U.S. government alleges he was under secret orders to procure enriched uranium for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons. These are allegations bin Laden does not now deny. "It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons," bin Laden told ABC. "But how we could use these weapons if we possessed them is up to us."

“Commented ABC: "With an American price on his head there weren't many places bin Laden could go unless he teamed up with another international pariah, one also with an interest in weapons of mass destruction. 'Osama believed in the enemy of my enemy is my friend and is someone I should cooperate with. That's certainly the current case with Iraq,'" an ABC reporter involved with the bin Laden interview said.
“And the ABC narrator added:

Saddam Hussein has a long history of harboring terrorists, Carlos the Jackal, Abu Nidal, Abu Abas – the most notorious terrorists of their era all found shelter and support at one time in Baghdad.
Intelligence sources say bin Laden's long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan's fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Three weeks after (Clinton's bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory) on August 31st, bin Laden reaches out to his friends in Iraq and Sudan. Iraq's Vice President arrives in Khartoum to show his support for the Sudanese after the U.S. attack.
ABC News has learned that during these meetings senior Sudanese officials acting on behalf of bin Laden asked if Saddam Hussein would grant him asylum. Iraq was indeed interested. ABC News has learned that in December an Iraqi intelligence chief ... (who in 1999 was Iraq's ambassador to Turkey) made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden." During the meeting, ABC says their sources reported that "bin Laden was told he would be welcome in Baghdad.

ABC? CBS? A prequel to Rathergate? Were they speaking the truth? Or did they fabricate it?


[+/-] show/hide this post

Iraq. (Part 2)

Moreover, among the findings of the Iraq Survey Group was the fact that the faulty intelligence was shared by every intelligence agency in the world. Even Saddam's own generals, said Charles A. Duelfer, head of the ISG, didn't know Saddam didn't have them.
Part of the ISG report's information came from Saddam Hussein himself during postwar interrogation sessions.
Based on the interrogations, it appears that Hussein underestimated how seriously the United States took the weapons issue, and he believed it was vital to his own survival that the outside world -- especially Iran -- think he still had them.
Far from undercutting the Bush administration's rationale for war, the Duelfer Report found that Hussein had a missile program in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and that he had the "capability and the intention" to possess dangerous weapons.
The Duelfer Report DID provide details about a 'coalition of the bribed, coerced, the bought and the extorted' -- but it wasn't referring to the same coalition John Kerry was.
According to the findings of the Iraq Survey Group, the bribes all went to France, Germany, Russia and the UN Security Council. The very 'allies' the Democrats say the Bush administration ignored 'out of arrogance'.
According to the report, from Iraqi intelligence officials, recovered by American and British inspectors, show the dictator was told as early as May 2002 that France - having been granted oil contracts - would veto any American plans for war.
Saddam was convinced that the UN sanctions - which stopped him acquiring weapons - were on the brink of collapse and he bankrolled several foreign activists who were campaigning for their abolition.
He personally approved every one. Saddam focused on Russia, France and China - three of the five UN Security Council members with the power to veto war. Politicians, journalists and diplomats were all given lavish gifts and oil-for-food vouchers.
Tariq Aziz told the ISG that the "primary motive for French co-operation" was to secure lucrative oil deals when UN sanctions were lifted. Total, the French oil giant, had been promised exploration rights.
A memo sent to Saddam dated in May last year from Saddam's intelligence corps said they met with a "French parliamentarian" who "assured Iraq that France would use its veto in the UN Security Council against any American decision to attack Iraq."
Oil "vouchers" that could be resold for large profits were given to officials including French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua and former Russian presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky as well as governments, companies and influential individuals in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to the ISG. Another recipient was Benon Sevan, the former top U.N. official in charge of humanitarian relief.
Russia, France and China -- all permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- were the top three countries in which individuals, companies or entities received the lucrative vouchers.
"Despite U.N. sanctions, many countries and companies engaged in prohibited procurement with the Iraqi regime throughout the 1990s, largely because of the profitability of such trade," Duelfer reported.
France, Italy, India, Turkey, Jordan and Romania may have sold Hussein dual-purpose equipment that could be converted for production of unconventional weapons.
The success of Hussein's regime in circumventing the U.N. embargo is "grossly obvious," the report says. "It is also grossly obvious how the sanctions perverted not just the [Iraqi] national system of finance and economics, but to some extent the international markets and organizations."
So, to recap, the ISG found that the White House didn't lie about the threat posed by Saddam's government. At best, it was misled, together with the rest of the world, (and Saddam's own generals!), as to the scope of the threat by Saddam Hussein himself.
The White House didn't 'rush to war' by 'ignoring our allies'. Our 'allies' had betrayed us already and sold out to Saddam Hussein. Saddam had three out of five Security Council vetoes in his pocket. The UN would NEVER have supported the US, and neither would John Kerry's trusted European 'allies'.
The sanctions were NOT working, and giving inspections more time would have resulted in the sanctions being eventually lifted against Iraq.
Saddam would still be in power, with a pocketful of 'allies' (France, Germany, Russia, China, the UN, etc.) already bought and paid for.


[+/-] show/hide this post

Mars inspiration

Bush inspired me to desire to go to space. Bush inspired me first. Kerry is uninspiring. Because of Bush, I have this realistic expectation that we will have our Deaf space corps, and begin training very soon in order to shoot off into space by 2010. It would cost about $200,000 per person to do that, and I believe that capitalism is the best way to raise enough funds to do that. Is anyone with me on this?
Sound does not travel through the vacuum of space. Hmmm… perfect for Deaf people if we could use nanotechnology to wrap our bodies in thin film and “swim” in space. WE would not need to worry about transmitting our voices. We would be able to sign, just like we do underwater while SCUBA diving. Hearing people underwater are like a deaf and a hearing person futilely trying to communicate while breathing non-bottled air above ground.

[+/-] show/hide this post

Stem Cells?

Stem Cells
Kerry accuses the president of "making the wrong choice to sacrifice science for extreme right-wing ideology." That ideology Kerry accuses Bush to be extreme on is one that believes all human life is valuable and should be protected. It is interesting. Kerry, before he flip-flopped, stated that he believes human life begins at conception. Isn't that the position of the Catholic Church? Oh, that is right Kerry was just speaking what his fellow Catholics wanted to hear in order to gain their support.
The Bush position is one that provides limited federal funds for embryonic stem-cell research –about $25 million-, but has a full commitment to the more promising and ethical practice of adult stem-cell research. The federal government is spending $250 million on umbilical cord placenta, adult and animal stem cells which do not involve the same moral dilemma as an embryonic stem cell. Dictionary.com defines “embryonic” as “an organism in its early stages of development, especially before it has reached a distinctively recognizable form.” If left alone to grow and expand as nature (God) intended it to, it will come out of a woman’s vagina as a baby in nine months. In nine months, it will be the summer, we will be sunning on the beach. An embryo right now will be born this summer. That is why I do not think it is right to wantonly destroy embryos.

John Kerry’s latest promise is for $100 million a year in funding in stem-cell research. We already spend $250 million, in addition to the $25 million on embryonic stem cells which is supposedly “banned.” The fact is, embryonic stem cell research IS NOT BANNED. Private companies looking to make a profit from cloning human embryos to do stem-cell research are not prevented from doing so. They just want the government’s money to do the research so they can make a fast profit from human embryos.

[+/-] show/hide this post

HALLIBURTON/OIL B.S.

-Halliburton B.S.
Factcheck.org had this to say in regard to corporate corruption: “The Bush administration is doing a fair amount to fight corporate corruption, convicting or indicting executives of Enron, Arthur Andersen, Tyco International, Worldcom, Adelphia Communications Corporation, Credit Suisse First Boston, HealthSouth Corporation and others, including Martha Stewart. The Department of Justice says it has brought charges against 20 executives of Enron alone, and its Corporate Fraud Task Force says it has won convictions of more than 250 persons to date. Bush also signed the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation in 2002, imposing stringent new accounting rules in the wake of the Arthur Andersen scandal."

As for Halliburton getting non-bid contracts: “It is false to imply that Bush personally awarded a contract to Halliburton. The ‘no-bid contract’ in question is actually an extension of an earlier contract to support U.S. troops overseas that Halliburton won under open bidding. In fact, the notion that Halliburton benefited from any cronyism has been poo-poohed by a Harvard University professor, Steven Kelman, who was administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Clinton administration. ‘One would be hard-pressed to discover anyone with a working knowledge of how federal contracts are awarded...who doesn't regard these allegations as being somewhere between highly improbable and utterly absurd,’ Kelman wrote in the Washington Post last November.” [emphasis mine]

Translation: Halliburton became a long-time federal contractor, under the Clinton administration, where they won the contract in a bidding process! Translation of translation: President Clinton hired CEO Cheney of Halliburton to be the government’s contractor before George W. Bush became president. Before Cheney became their CEO. Cheney became Halliburton’s CEO in 1995. Halliburton began working with the government in 1992.

I really think that if the Democrats want to focus their energies on a financial scandal, they should focus on the United Nations’ Food for Oil mega-scandal. The only way for real attention to be given to that UN problem is, apparently, to have Saddam Hussein run for President of Iraq this January.

OIL?
Is the war all about OIL??? The U.S. is trying to end the crisis in Darfur, but they were blocked by the Chinese and the Pakistanis. They have major Sudanese oil deals, and they accuse bush of going into Iraq for oil. Bush liberated Afghanistan and Iraq, is working on Sudan, facing resistance most of the way. Is it all about oil? $200 billion spent to get less than that in oil? It simply defeats logic. 50,000 black Africans have been massacred by pro-government Janjaweed Arab militas. The U.S. is trying to prevent another Rwanda, where 800,000 were slaughtered, a million under Saddam… Those who unnecessarily died because of inaction at the hands of the UN effectively dips their own hands in the blood of those millions dead. Meanwhile, America is paying half a billion dollars to save the people of Darfur, 70% of the world’s contribution, to rebuild the south of Sudan. Already, tribal leaders are showering thanks to America in form of tribal sacrifices of cattle for the rebuilding of a crucial dam, a bridge, roads and so on.. At least Halliburton isn’t the contractor of those projects. (or are they?!)

[+/-] show/hide this post

Jason's Rationale for Voting for President Bush: Education

As for school vouchers, I would support vouchers. I live in an area of DC where the schools aren’t so great. If I stay here for many years and have children here, and if my children happen to be hearing, and those schools are still dysfunctional, I would very much like to have the option of sending my kid to another school. Preferably a school where both deaf children and hearing children of deaf adults (not necessarily limited to these groups) are commingled. Democracy is all about accountability. If you take the schools’ accountability away from the children and their parents, there is no incentive for the school system to try their utmost to be the best. If a school has problems with maintaining optimal enrollment levels (last I heard, classes were overflowin’) there means there is something wrong with their education system. It is just like businesses- if you can’t provide what your customers want, they will take their business elsewhere.
Now, that of course will put some schools at a certain disadvantage. That is why President Bush is supporting a 2-year "teachers corps" program- a scholarship program in which, in return for the government’s support of your education, you should teach for 2 years at an "disadvantaged" school. That is exactly what I think the government should provide- "free' education, quality education. That is essentially what I am doing right now, only that Gallaudet is financially supporting me for my studies towards my PhD at George Washington Univ. In return for their financial support, I am an indentured servant for Gallaudet for five years. Nice tradeoff, eh? Gallaudet gains the number of Deaf professors with PhDs they sorely need, by subsidizing the education needed in order to get those assets. That is essentially what the Bush Administration wants to do with our education system.

[+/-] show/hide this post

DeafRepublicans gain national attention!

from jasonlamberton.com:

Thanks to Mike McConnell's KokonutPundits blog, we know that America IS aware that the d-Deaf and hard of hearing population is beginning to flex its muscles! We are not the typical "handicapped" group of people who John Edwards can come up and pat on the head. We are a typical, normal American minority group with a diverse set of political, social and academic needs. It is about time that the silent is being heard.

The beautiful thing about this is the fact that for years and years, the Democrats have had a strangehold on the silent people. We were never heard. You would never hear any news about the deaf, unless they were murdered by another Deaf person on the Gallaudet campus.

It requires at least a duality to really make progress- one building on the other. With the emergence of DeafRepublicans, the deaf finally got that much-needed catalyst, the cathode for the anode, if you will, to energize the people as a whole and be HEARD!

Mike is collecting the various articles that appeared on the Internet ever since our emergence:

Deaf Republicans in Uproar Over Kerry 'Endorsement'

US election rivals in war of words over deaf vote
[+/-] show/hide this post

Jason's Rationale: Environment

The Kyoto Protocol will NOT do us any good. article

In a nut-shell: The Kyoto Protocol aims to reduce carbon emissions to 7% below the levels it was in 1990, by the year 2010. It will result in:
• Nearly double energy and electricity prices, and raise gasoline prices an additional 65 cents per gallon.
• Cost 2.4 million US jobs and reduce US total output $300 billion (1992$) annually, 3.2% below baseline GDP projections, an amount greater than the total expenditure on primary and secondary education.
• Harm U.S. competitiveness, as developing countries will not need to raise energy prices (or product prices) to meet mandatory greenhouse gas targets.
• Reduce the average annual household income by nearly $2700, at a time when the cost of all goods, particularly food and basic necessities, would rise sharply.
• State tax revenues would be reduced by $93.1 billion due to job and output losses attributed to lost US competitiveness in the global market and higher energy costs

It is a noble goal, but the problem is that it is binding on only 36 of the world’s 191 nations. That means the first world countries would be greatly constrained and negatively affected by the Kyoto Protocol, while the other 155 countries can belch as much black smoke from crudely refined, leaded gas while giving vocal and moral support for the treaty. The last I heard, the atmosphere above a country does not stay there indefinitely due partly because of the naturally-occurring Coriolis Effect.

That is why George Bush is against the Kyoto Protocol. I agree with him. John Kerry used to agree with Bush, but yet again, he has flip flopped. On July 25, 1997, he joined 94 other senators who voted for Senate Resolution 98, which says that the U.S. should not ratify the Kyoto Protocol if: 1) it did not impose restrictions on developing countries, and 2) it would "would result in serious harm to the economy." Kerry now supports the Kyoto Treaty. Oh. It's just a criterion of his "Global Test."

In addition, in order to achieve the protocol's objective – to stop the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – all nations would have to reduce emission by nearly 80 percent below 1990 levels, not 7% as it currently calls for. The reduction of energy use required to meet this objective would change the way we live beyond recognition. I would completely support the Kyoto Protocol, IF there was a reasonable way to adequately sustain ourselves with energy independent from oil. I am very interested in free-energy devices. If you are interested, let me know! Maybe the Deaf can actually give something very significant back to society if we invent a practical free energy method.

It simply does not make sense if India or China signs on to the Kyoto Protocol, and is not bound by its requirements to reduce emissions, while America is. That means America would be subject to the U.N.’s determination of how much energy we can use. John Kerry supporst the Kyoto Protocol, and that means our sovereignty will be subject to UN administration. When economies expand, they consume more fuel, as a result of increased production. We would be restricted from expanding, while India and China would not. Be careful!

In addition, the Kyoto Protocol has a touted “emissions trading” scheme. It allows countries to sell “unused” blocks of allotted energy levels, for example, Russia could sell their “emissions credits” (they are producing below their assigned target, because their industries are in shambles, a common occurrence in 3rd world countries). Because so many countries is NOT ABLE to produce as much emissions they could theoretically make, and America reaches its maximum levels, that means our businesses will have to pay extra “taxes” for the sanctions the global body would impose on us for violating the limits. A lot of ideas sound very good on paper, but you just have to be careful for “Trojan horses.”

Australia has not ratified this treaty, nor has Russia. They probably have a lot of expansion left in their economies. Think about it. How many other countries, industrialized countries, can really expand? Most of the first world countries are in Europe, and they have reached their limits. They cannot expand, while Russia, Australia, America has the resources and land size to do so. To do so naturally uses up more resources, not less. I am against “taxing” natural growth. So is President Bush.

[+/-] show/hide this post

The common ground that unites us.

i can't seem to reply to posts on this blog, any idea why? i think that this blog should continue long after the election, not only for us to vent but often our access to information is limited to our hometown newspaper (because at the end of the day i'm just too tired to log onto newyorktimes.com), so this is a great interactive way to share information about up and coming politicians and perhaps even deaf politicians as well. we can use this blog to discuss, debate, vent, come together and fight for the equal rights of the deaf on a political scale because ultimately regardless of which party you belong to, we all want the same thing. Liberty.

[+/-] show/hide this post

DeafFreedom.com

There are several great sites out there in regards to Deaf issues concerning us, and I think you should check them out. The only way we can really make changes happen is if we unify, "think out of the box," and keep the ball rollin'! The best way to do that is to fully utilize the Internet, or as President Bush said, "the Internets" (There actually are internets - many people do not realize it, there is an Internet 2 and the military's own private internet).

For now, check out DeafFreedom.com! As the founder of that site said it perfectly:

I keep getting asked "why start another deaf forum?", and I think it's a fair
question.

We have DeafOnline for information on Cochlear Implants, DeafNotes for
information on the d-Deaf Culture movement, and DeafLore is a great laid-back
place to hang out.

Here's the problem:

Politics.

No matter what the subject in these other cool forums, it eventually gets derailed
into a political crossfire.

I think this detracts from the purpose for these other forums, which is to educate
the deaf and hearing communities about deaf issues.

So, I built this place, to act as a lightning rod for those topics that tend to derail
the information-oriented forums.

Before the internet, the deaf community only had one voice.

That voice emanated from our deaf residential schools, and spoke for the entire
deaf community.

This made the deaf community function more efficiently, unfortunately, we weren't
going anywhere.

Since the internet, every aspect of the deaf community has been given an equal
voice, and for the past few years, each of these voices has been pulling in a
different direction.

Now, it's time for all sides of the deaf community to learn to work together.

We all need to learn to make concessions.

For instance, deaf culture/ASL advocates need to accept that the CI is here to stay.

Equally, CI/Oralism advocates need to realise that ASL is an integral part of our
community, and it's not going anywhere, either.

I plan to bring in single-topic Moderators from all of the major deaf forums, and
hopefully, by letting all sides have a good, strong voice in the running of this
forum, we can all learn to get along!
[+/-] show/hide this post

Economy: Part 2

Bush's "ownership society" is another step in the plan to reduce the supply of government by reducing the demand for it.

Bush's private retirement, health and education savings accounts would empower the people to be in control of their destiny. Social Security private investment accounts would, at the same time, increase the number of investors (meaning owners of assets) and reduce both their dependence on government and the resistance to a smaller government.

How will Bush make the government smaller? It makes sense when you look at how we do things in the government. We have Pentagon employees cutting the Pentagon’s lawn. That is only one of the countless examples where the expenses are unnecessarily bloated. The pentagon could have their lawn cut with a gardening service found in the yellow pages for half the price. Multiply that effort across all branches of the government, and that will in turn save ourselves billions, if not, hundreds of billions of dollars. It’ll pump additional money into our economy by outsourcing the government’s work to Americans who need jobs lost by outsourcing of jobs by businesses to foreign countries.

I would never, never condone demolishing SSI. I would leave it untouched. There is no reason to change it. I may see some pitfalls in it, but it would be like torpedoing a boat if we dismantled SSI. It certainly does its noble cause, keeping people in New Mexico afloat, as Karl Hummel succinctly put it. I have nothing against paying taxes, which pays for everything our government does. I just want a fair share of the tax burden. Did you realize that EVERY income group got a Bush tax cut? The group that got the best tax cut, the largest tax cut was the poorest group, and the group that got the smallest tax cut was the richest. Talk about fairness!

Know what I would love the government to do if I was a multimillionaire? Give me the option of allotting a certain percentage, say, half, of my taxes, to specific beneficiaries. Then, I would enthuastically sign up for the type of tax gains Kerry will have to implement in order to pay for all he wants. Trust me, I would. If I had to pay $250,000 in taxes (which is normal for someone who “strikes it rich” let it be stocks, gold panning, whatever), I would very much rather have the option of allotting the money to Gallaudet, deaf schools, and anything sovereign to the Deaf community. Of course, after all the necessary portions allotted for the roads, cops, firemen, senators, HIV testing, and so on.

That is the “idealistic” Republican thinking. The idealistic thinking of Democrats is to have the government provide all these. Remember, if you do not own it, you will not keep it clean. That basically describes the laissez-faire attitude of most government workers.

The down side is the greed of money. But you read what I wrote. Let it be seared, seared into your mind. If you support me in what I am going to do, you will not forget what I said and hold me accountable to my word. That is the beautiful thing about freedom!

As the libertarian Vox Day, a member of Mensa, put it in his blog:

“One of the most widely believed myths in America today is the belief that corporations are an inherent part of capitalism. Concomitant with this is the idea that big corporations and big government have an intrinsically hostile relationship and that the stock market is a free market.

“Nothing could be further from the truth.

“Capitalism was already well entrenched and the Industrial Revolution was complete when the U.S. Supreme Court radically altered the concept of the corporate charter in 1886 by ruling that the Southern Pacific Railroad that was a "natural person" under the U.S. Constitution. Prior to this time, corporations were strictly controlled by state law, which is why the word "limited" still occurs in corporate language.

“…these monied corporations did more than challenge our government, they corrupted it entirely and established a symbiotic relationship with it. This symbiotic relationship is openly anti-capitalistic, as undying corporations take advantage of laws originally written to protect the entrepeneurs who are the genuine engine of technological progress and economic growth, and use them to sustain their unnatural, parasitic life.

“…Corporations also use the government to protect their pool of investment money in the stock market. Due to the massive regulation of this anti-capitalist and unfree market, entrepreneurs needing to raise large sums of capital to challenge established corporate competitors are forced to submit to the predatory regime of the investment banks. In a genuinely free market, the owners of small, but growing businesses could simply sell their public shares over the Internet to anyone who wished to invest.

“Indeed, with today's high-speed communications technology and digital money, there is no more need for Wall Street than there is for Congress. Eliminating both and replacing them with electronic systems – Free and Open Source, of course – would result in the realization of significantly more pure and efficient strains of capitalism and democracy alike.

“One need only look at the various socialist and communist states around the world and the friendly relations that giant Western multinationals have with them to realize there is no fundamental link between capitalism and corporations. Gozprom, LUKoil and 400 other Soviet corporations were operating inside and outside the USSR prior to 1989, while Communist China not only permits corporations, but owns several that are listed on the Global Fortune 500. Some of them, such as PetroChina and Sinopec, are even traded on the Hong Kong and New York stock markets.

“…The genius of human invention and the undeniable blessings of capitalism do not stem from artificial structures at law, they come only from the mind of the individual.”

I, for one, would very much like to be able to sell shares of my company, so I would be able to get the resources quick enough in order to garner the necessary equipment, etc and hire my fellow Deaf citizens to do the work that is necessary to truly be independent of hearing support. And we are lucky that they have the heart to help us.

I am visualizing a Deaf Stock Exchange, where stock of various Deaf-owned companies could be traded. That way, we could invest in ourselves and not have to depend on pure sales at Deaf expos! Any takers? Required: A degree in business, economics, finance, whatever of that sort! I’d be glad to help out with the technical part of it.


[+/-] show/hide this post

Jason's Rationale for Voting for President Bush: Economy (part 1)

During Clinton’s first term in office, unemployment averaged six percent while under Bush it has averaged 5.5 percent. Currently the unemployment rate is 5.4%, a historic low. It is one of the lowest in the world. Canada’s joblessness is at 9.4%, Italy 8.6%, Germany 9.9%. 140 million Americans have jobs, which is another record. Our GDP, the gross domestic product, has averaged 3.4% growth in the 10 quarters after 2001, but in the last 4 quarters, ever since the tax cuts, the GDP has shot up to 4.8% growth! 3.4% is around the average growth since WWII. Not only that, personal income is growing by 5%, and accounting for inflation, it comes to a 2.6% growth. Total compensation, which includes wages, salaries, non-cash and non-taxable benefits, such as health care, has grown at 3.9%. These statistics show that we ARE growing, not sinking. I’m optimistic because in a growing economy, there’s a higher windfall from a bigger tax base than in an economy with less growth.


Reason for me to be optimistic and for Europeans to be pessimistic? Their GDP is growing at less than 2%, and unemployment is around 10%! France, Italy, and Germany have lower GDPs than all except five states! It just adds insult to injury when I learn that while America was in its recession, the GDP was at around 2%, higher than that of Europe? In fact, an European economic report says that number “represents almost boom conditions in Germany, for example.”


The report says a lot. In a nut-shell, it says that it is better being poor in a rich country than a poor one. Good economic development leads to fewer low-income households. Good economic development leads to higher wages, which lead to higher incomes. It cites problems associated with high taxes, and that “high tax wedges give the wrong incentives.” It adds that “equalization policy and a large public sector also have their problems.” Not only that, they said that Europeans work at their leisure, while the Americans work on the job.

I would say that the Europeans are attributing several reasons why their economy is lagging, while America’s is growing. These reasons are: high taxes, no sense of obligation or pride in their work, too big government/bureaucracy, and the inability to pay good wages. Because America generally believes in the opposite, no wonder we see our economy doing much better than theirs. It disturbs me when people want America to become socialist, it would mean the downfall of our economy. And those leftist-socialists cry foul whenever the economy is going south. Like it is commonly said, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Jobs and outsourcing? Does outsourcing really destroy America, as Kerry loves to emphasize on the stump? According to a study by Bruce Bartlett, a senior fellow at the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, "How Outsourcing Creates Jobs for Americans," over the past 15 years, foreign corporations have moved jobs to the United States at a faster rate than jobs have left. "Jobs insourced to the United States increased from 4.9 million in 1991 to 6.4 million in 2001," reports Bartlett. There's been an 82 percent increase in insourced jobs compared to a 23 percent increase in outsourced jobs. He also adds that insourced jobs pay about 16.5 percent more than the average domestic job, and one-third of them are in the manufacturing sector.

There are two axioms that many Republicans like to repeat: Give a person a fish and you give the person a meal; teach the person to fish and you give a livelihood. And: No one washes a rental car. It means that people actually DO behave most responsibly with stuff they own. That is why Bush has a menu of incentives for private retirement, health, education and savings accounts.


[+/-] show/hide this post

Some good quotes...

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." --Benjamin Franklin

"It is not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work -- work with us, not over us; stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it." --Ronald Reagan


[+/-] show/hide this post

Jason Lamberton’s Manifesto

Why am I a Republican?

I grew up Democrat, typical for someone who grew up in a predominantly Democratic demographical area – the Bay Area in California. One example of how liberal that area is, that region was one of the only areas in the entire state that voted to keep Gov. Gray Davis in lieu of Arnold Schwarzenegger, our beloved Governator.

I actually voted for Al Gore in 2000! Sometimes my friends chide me for the fact that I used to bash Bush, but to be frank, September 11 woke me up. I started asking myself why certain people hate us so much to do what they did. I started embracing and devouring history. I could not get my hands on enough books. History Channel became one of my favorite channels, and instead of ESPN, I started watching the various news programs. I learned a lot and had a good feel of the pulse of the world’s happenings… I found myself supporting our President. I realized that is a patriotic thing to do, to support our President, and of course to dissent when you honestly disagree on some issues. I forgot all about Democrats and Republicans.

Then, the primaries began. The various Democratic candidates quickly jockeyed for position, with Howard Dean commanding an early lead as a zealously vocal anti-war candidate. That is exactly what propelled him to his quick lead, because the sizable number of anti-war and pacifist citizens’ voices finally found a home. I also kept my eye on John Kerry, as I have known about him for quite a while, since the days of Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole. He always had this condescending, vain attitude, and I always had this whiff of him being an opportunist. He had this “droopy” look whenever he was interviewed on various news shows, with this monotonous attitude. The John Kerry I see today is completely different, a completely energized, electrified, Botoxed and orange-tinted. With all these years of watching him, I cannot really tell you what that man stands for. For various politicians, such as Gingrich, Dole, etc, I could tell you what I really thought their true stances were. As the campaign fired up, I saw him literally transform. It made me sick. I really hoped that some other candidate would ultimately become the nominee, such as Wesley Clark, John Edwards, or Joe Lieberman, but no, it had to be Kerry! I really believe that these other candidates gave the Americans a real, viable choice in opposition to George Bush. John Kerry is just a great unknown, with serious charges already harming his credibility. When I weigh Bush vs. Kerry, Kerry has no real weight that can really tip the scales away from Bush, with the great weight of incumbency already on Bush’s side. Realistically, Bush’s Big Picture is not so bad, and the Democrats have no credibility when they accuse Bush of being a liar, they need to show that they are more truthful first. .

The Democrats’ collective bloody howls for the skin of President Bush and their baseless accusations, it is a whole mess that the Dean Democrats got the Democratic party into. It became an embarrassment. I started actually learning what Republicans really stood for. It was not hard for me to update my voter registration to a Republican. It just made sense. Republicans are staunchly capitalistic.

Capitalism is what is motivating me to create the technologies that will propel the Deaf onto the next level. I am starting with educational software for the Deaf because that has the most purpose, to nurture our children. The education system is a failed one. It has worked under neither Democrat nor Republican administrations, so fuck the Democrats and Republicans, we have to keep the fate of Deaf Education in our hands. I will not be pompous here, but I do sincerely hope that some significant revenues will eventually be seen, because I assure you, if any financial windfall comes, which is the driving force of capitalism, endowments will be made to ensure the successful development of Deaf children all over, regardless of being born to Deaf or hearing parents. That is probably the only way to fight the proliferation of the forcible cochlear implanting of innocent children. Significant amounts of money have to be put up to create a counterbalance to the Alexander Graham Bell Society, to be able to “purchase” TV commercials showing the pitfalls of CI’s. There can be no more powerful medium to TELL and SHOW every household in America, and ultimately, the world, that the Deaf knows what is the best for their education and the future. The commercial could say “All parents, desperate to find a solution for your hearing-impaired, er, Deaf kid? Call 1 800 ASL-SIGN.” Commercials cost lots of money, and if I happen to make a lot of money as a result of my inventions, I promise you, I will put up the money necessary to do something like that whenever it is possible to do so.
That is the Republican way of thinking. But, I will continue doing this regardless of who wins. It is not that Democrats will prevent me from doing so, but Republicans inspire me to do so.
There are a whole lot of issues that weigh the balances between the Democrats and Republicans, such as the economy, environment, education, jobs, health care, foreign policy, and so on. The pages keep on multiplying when I continue doing my research, getting down to the bottom of things. So, I am going to divide it up to relevant issues and spread it out over several days, so y’all don’t have to read it at all once!

[+/-] show/hide this post

Debate

What did you think of the debate last Thursday night? Who do you think won the debate?

[+/-] show/hide this post