Photo

Iddy at Wellfleet, Massachusetts,
thinking "I hope John Kerry wins in two weeks."

John Zogby predicts John Kerry will be #44.
He's staking his 20 years' experience on a Kerry win in November.

Madrid Terror Video

Madrid Terror Video


How interesting that the video of Spain's terror attack should be released just before the American presidential election.

SEE VIDEO HERE
courtesy NBC30.com

Listen To These People Before Going to the Polls

ErrolMorris.com/Election 2004

Topics At the Kerry Blog Today

Topics At the Kerry Blog Today

Former GOP Gov Endorses Kerry
[Elmer L. Andersen was Minnesota's Republican governor from 1961 to 1963.

Why this Republican Ex-Governor will be Voting for Kerry
Elmer L. Andersen
Minneapolis Star Tribune

Throughout my tenure and beyond as the 30th governor of this state, I have been steadfastly aligned -- and until recently, proudly so -- with the Minnesota Republican Party.
Continue reading this entry...

New Ad: "We See It for Ourselves"

Washington, DC - Responding to the latest misleading Bush-Cheney ad, the Kerry-Edwards campaign Tuesday took to the airwaves with the new ad “Looking.” The ad recounts the mess in Iraq Americans are seeing every day and notes Kerry’s strong record on and commitment to keeping our country safe.

Kerry: A Fresh Start to Restore Fiscal Responsibility

Wilkes-Barre, PA – Providing America a fresh start after four years of wrong choices by George W. Bush, John Kerry pledged in a speech in Wilkes-Barre, PA that as president he will restore fiscal discipline in Washington and strengthen Social Security.
“What George Bush still doesn’t understand is that his four-year spending spree on tax giveaways for millionaires has undermined the hopes of middle-class families and put Social Security on a dangerous road,” Kerry said. “Now he’s asking for another four years to privatize the program, and undo the sacred compact we’ve made with our seniors. Well I’m here to tell you that even though this is George Bush’s plan, it doesn’t have to be our future. And now is our moment to choose...”

Cheney’s Talk of Nuclear Terrorism Highlights Bush’s Failed Record

Responding to Dick Cheney's remarks earlier today about nuclear terrorism in American cities, Mark Kitchens, Kerry campaign national security spokesman, issued the following statement:

"Mr. Cheney's attacks are in line with what we've come to expect from the Bush administration – reckless and irresponsible leadership. Cheney's attacks are filled with irony. He has the audacity to question whether a decorated combat veteran who has bled on the battlefield is tough and aggressive enough to keep America safe. He wants to scare Americans about a possible nuclear 9/11 while the Bush administration has been on the sidelines while the nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran – the world's leading sponsor of terrorism – have increased. John Kerry will take strong effective action to prevent nuclear terrorism – dramatically accelerating efforts to secure nuclear weapons and materials around the world and leading international efforts to end nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea.”...

Conscience of a Conservative

The New Republic's October 25 issue contains the latest anguished letter from another Republican who has decided to vote for John Kerry. In a truly impassioned plea, New York Post editorial writer Robert A. George lays out a damning case against George Bush for violating the fundamental tenets of conservatism, including fiscal responsibility, smaller government, and accountability for all of the activities of the executive branch, even in a time of "war." (Keep in mind that the New York Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the arch conservative media mogul.)
*********

"Conscience of a Conservative":
Robert A. George
The New Republic


Sixteen years ago, just out of college, I volunteered at the Republican National Convention as a man named George Bush prepared to begin a fall campaign that would see him defeat a Democrat from Massachusetts. The sparkling words of an acceptance speech crafted by Peggy Noonan—and delivered almost flawlessly--helped him inspire his party and a country that saw him as an extension of Ronald Reagan. It fell to that George Bush to "close out" the cold war and launch a different one in the Persian Gulf.....(cont'd)

Kristen and her daughter

New Ad: 9/11 Widow Shares Her Story

Washington, DC - 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser is featured in the latest Kerry-Edwards television ad. Titled “Ever Since,” the ad shows Breitweiser talking about the reasons she is supporting John Kerry for president over her 2000 choice, George W. Bush.

Click here to watch the ad and for documentation.

Bush’s Significant Failures In The War On Terror

Monday in New Jersey, George Bush gave what his aides said was a “significant” speech on the war on terror. The only thing significant about Bush’s policy on the war on terror has been his significant failure to focus on terrorism before September 11, his significant failures to protect America through homeland security, his significant failure to stay focused on the war on terror by shifting attention and resources to Iraq, and his significant failure to build a real coalition and provide American troops with proper equipment for battle. (cont'd)

Bush Distorts and Misleads in New Jersey

In his speech in New Jersey Monday, George Bush continued his smearing of John Kerry by distoring Kerry's record and statements. (cont'd)

Hope

Hope



credit: Guardian Unlimited

"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope."
"Everything that is done in the world is done by hope."

--words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Every area of trouble gives out a ray of hope; and the one unchangeable certanity is that nothing is certain or unchangeable."
"We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes."

--words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy




"There is no hope of joy except in human relations."

--words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"When your son or daughter, who is serving this country heroically in Iraq calls, you tell them: 'Hope is on the way.' "

--words of Sen. John Edwards

On Enemy Ground: CS Lewis on God's pleasures

On Enemy Ground: CS Lewis on God's pleasures

The following reminded me of all those annoying pharmaceutical commercials. The promise of a better life, a better time, a better erection, a more purple flowery existence. At the drop of a pill down one's throat. Gulp. Instant pleasure. What about God's pleasures? How did we get to the point where we feel no blessed reverence from living out a cloudy day?

"Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisifying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy's ground.


I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one.


All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula.


It is more certain; and it's better style.



To get the man's soul and give him nothing in return--that is what really gladdens Our Father's heart. And the troughs are the time for beginning the process."

~C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Chapter 9) 1942

*thanks to The Window in the Garden Wall

The Joke: Bush accusing Kerry of scare tactics

The Joke: Bush accusing Kerry of scare tactics-
Bush should know, he's the expert


Real reason for fear.
The fundamentalist hijacking of America
will tear it apart.
Bush facilitates the hijacking.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


In his important speech at Georgetown University yesterday, Al Gore pointed to Bush's use of "the symbolism and body language of religion" to mask policies intended to satisfy right-wing ideology and financial needs of wealthy, greedy donors.

"The essential cruelty of Bush's game is that he takes an astonishingly selfish and greedy collection of economic and political proposals, then cloaks them with a phony moral authority," said Mr Gore. "President Bush has stolen the symbolism and body language of religion and used it to disguise the most radical effort in American history to take what rightfully belongs to the American people and give as much as possible to the already wealthy and privileged."

Here we have a legitimate and realistic reason to be afraid. Fundamentalism is the cause of anti-modernity and the spread of terrorism in other war-torn parts of the world. We're supposed to be raging against fundamentalism in Iraq today. So, what does our leader do? Not only does he fail in Iraq, but he uses politics to cause a heavy rise in negative emotion at the fundamentalist core of the right wing in order to promote an agenda of greed and discrimination at home.

Secular America has a reasonable right to be scared of a leader who would manipulate the emotions of fundamentalists. We've seen enough bombings of abortion clinics and shootings of doctors. We've seen enough hate crime against gay Americans. We've seen the angry burning of synagogues. It doesn't only happen in the Middle East. Fundamentalist-tinged hate isn't confined to the streets of Fallujah or Jenin.

We know we have a leader who, if re-elected, will tamper illegitimately with our secular-sacred American Constitution for the sating of the rabid Falwell-following fundamentalist.

We know we have a leader who, if re-elected, will appoint right wing activist justices to the Supreme and lower courts to appease the fundamentalist.

Cloaked in the name of religion, Bush is no better than the Islamic fundamentalist right. Make no mistake, his style of leadership will not only further divide America, but will promote fundamentalist violence in America.

The Scare

Failure in Iraq. Beheadings of Americans. Killings of contractors. No plan for the peace. Not enough troops. Not enough armor. Not enough security. Halliburton's theft from American taxpayers. Price of a barrel of oil the highest in history.

Kerry pulls reality out of Bush's fantasy-ass.
Bush calls it "scare tactics".

Have I been dreaming or has Bush not been scaring America at every turn since 9/11 happened on his extremely non-curious watch? 9/11, Orange alerts, 9/11, duct tape, 9/11, anthrax, 9/11, you're a traitor if you disagree, 9/11, smoke 'em out, 9/11, Bush doing poorly in polls/new terror alert, 9/11, WMD, 9/11, alumininum tubes, 9/11, mushroom clouds, 9/11, greeting us with roses, 9/11?

Bush dares to call John Kerry a coward? The little yellow-rose belly-of-Texas who snuck out of Vietnam duty? The coward who had to sneak into Iraq under cloak of secrecy and night to face the troops he misled to war? Even Tony Blair was brave enough to have walked out onto the streets to face the people he brought war upon.

Jerry Falwell says we should vote our conscience.



Knock yourself out.

"I'm convinced that most of the President's frequent departures from fact-based analysis have much more to do with right-wing political and economic ideology than with the Bible. It is ideology, and not his religious faith, that is the source of this troubling inflexibility. Most of the problems he has caused for this country stem not from his belief in God, but from his belief in the infallibility of the right-wing Republican ideology that exalts the interests of the wealthy and of large corporations over and above the interests of the American people."

--Al Gore, about GW Bush