Apparently Kerry is opposed to companies and their CEO's who send jobs overseas but not opposed to them sending him their money.;)

Executives and employees at such companies have contributed more than $140,000 to Kerry's presidential campaign, a review of his donor records shows. Additionally, two of Kerry's biggest fundraisers, who together have raised more than $400,000 for the candidate, are top executives at investment firms that helped set up companies in the world's best-known offshore tax havens, federal records show. Kerry has raised nearly $30 million overall for his White House run. :eek:

and later when caught in the obvious contradiction says"What I've said is not that people don't have the right to go overseas and form a company if they want to avoid the tax. I don't believe the American taxpayer ought to be giving them a benefit. That's what I object to. I don't object to global commerce. I don't object to companies deciding they want to compete somewhere else.'' :rolleyes:

While bush is hardly the best kerry's got nada on him.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6884-2004Feb25.html

wait a minute now, Benedict Arnold was was a decorated war hero, unless you served in the American War for Independence you have no right to question his service or patriotism :D

Strange lack of Bush's campaign finance records there...so how can we compare Kerry to anybody? What happens if Bush has more from tax-exempt companies from the Cayman Islands?

And also, can we get a different link to the article? The Post makes you register to read their articles.

Hey waldo,
Kerry did address what you are talking about, he stated that less than 1% of his total funding comes from those companies and he is still commited to preventing jobs from going overseas.
What is the problem?

An essay I wrote 2 years ago (and now syndicated) with Benedict Arnold as the pivot point. Just throwing it out there for the deep-thinkers.

Dop

================================
"When I came into King Street about 9 o'clock I saw the Soldiers round the Centinel.
I asked one if he was loaded and he said yes. I asked him if he would fire, he said
yes by the Eternal God and pushed his Bayonet at me."

These were the words of bystander Benjamin Burdick during the trial of Captain
Thomas Preston.

His testimony was rebutted by Captain Preston himself.

"... some well behaved persons asked me if the guns were charged. I replied yes. They
then asked me if I intended to order the men to fire. I answered no, by no means ..."

So went the the testimony in the famous trial of the 'Boston Massacre'. An event,
which left 5 men, shot to death by British soldiers. The leader, Captain Preston and
8 soldiers claimed a mob of boys and men precipitated the attack. The bystanders
claimed the soldiers were ordered by Preston to 'fire into the crowd'. The truth
probably lies somewhere in the middle.

The massacre took place on March 5, 1770 at which time Benedict Arnold was an apothecary
and merchant in New Haven, Connecticut. Little did Arnold know that soon his simple and
probably boring life was going to twist and turn through the identities of patriot,
hero, suspect, traitor and repenter. Indeed he would go down in history as one of the
most intriguing Americans in history. There were no clues that his life was going to
change, no clues until he received word of the Boston Massacre.

At that time, half in anger and half in surprise, he shouted out a profound statement.
A statement, which would resonate across the colonies and someday become part of our
history books.

"Good God, are the Americans all asleep and tamely giving up their Liberties"?

The colonists were being blessed with the birth of a great patriot and a person with
the keen sense to see the massacre in Boston as more than just senseless slaughter.
He saw it as an infringement on human rights. He also sensed there was an underlying
reason - a lack of resistance to the British on the part of the American colonists.

He obviously treasured his rights, whether those rights were cast in concrete or imagined.
As history shows, he was willing to sacrifice everything he had, including his own life,
to preserve the rights of American colonists.

For some reason I get the feeling Arnold would not be real happy with the state of things
in today's America. Since 9-11 we have seen our rights stripped away, one by one. Some in
stealth fashion and others so blatantly yanked away that the methodology defies all
rational analysis.

If that isn't hard enough to swallow, try digesting the fact that most of the looting has
been done with the blessing of our senate and congress. It will put a lump in your throat
for sure. And then there's the 'Patriot Act' which feels free to grab-n-trash a few of
our rights along with the undeclared war which really confuses me. Isn't that like saying
we are going to war but not declaring it yet because we may want to do that at a later time.
What are they thinking? Let's bomb the crap out of them and then threaten them with a
declaration of war which means we will be bombing them, which we already did?

I promised myself not to mention all the small but meaningful rights violations going on in
this world. But, what the heck, my readers will never forgive me if I don't go off on at
least one small ill-fated tangent and make zero sense for some unspecified period of time.
So, here goes.

Camp X-ray ring a bell? Prisoners treated like cattle being herded through those cattle
yards on I-40 near Amarillo. The difference is, of course, the fine folks of Amarillo,
treat their cattle in a humane way and the unkind folks of camp X-ray treat their prisoners
in an inhumane way. Pictures don't lie.

Now I hear they are being strapped to their beds and forced-fed to stop the hunger strikes.
I don't remember them strapping down Rev Al Sharpton when he did his HS act in Vieques.
Must be it's because the Al-Quida prisoners are brown-skinned. But wait a minute so is
Rev Sharpton. No, wait another minute he's a shade darker than brown. So that's the deal.
There's a color chart for rights violations. Oh man! not another color chart to memorize.

Please, someone get an email off to Mr. R and see if he can combine the two color charts
and make life a lot easier for all of us.

Then yesterday I heard they will seek the death penalty in the Moussaoui case. First, I want
to assure everyone that the events of 9-11 need to be reconciled and among the possible
outcomes surely will be a death penalty here and there. My beef is - we cannot lower the
bar to include the death penalty for crimes we suppose someone would do if given the chance.
Moussaoui was behind bars when the WTC and Pentagon were hit... an air-tight alibi if there
ever was one. In seeking the death penalty based on the fact that Moussaoui would have
participated if he had the chance, we Americans will be crossing that invisible line which
the rest of the world uses to separate acceptable behavior from barbarianism. As a civilized
nation, we must not allow the death penalty in this case.

The American-Taliban is another saga that sends me reeling. He was strapped to a stretcher
inside a lightless metal container. He was naked and doused with cold water as torture.
He was interrogated without a lawyer present and was not allowed to have any contact with
his family. Still today, I find it extremely hard to believe we allowed any American to be
treated in such a fashion. The hardest part to believe is we are the perpetrators. The
country that was always the torchbearer for human rights is now the largest abuser of those
same rights. I guess that will teach him to be born to a well-off family in Marin county.
Or better yet, he should learn to read the politics better. Before 9-11 the Taliban were
our homies. Yep, $43,000,000 worth of homies. Then on 9-11, they became our enemies. No,
make that about 9-13. It took us a couple of days to fly The Bin Laden family out of the
country so technically we were still friends at that time.

Just the presence of Americans seems to now suggest or even cause human rights violations.
We no longer need to confine our violations to the shores of America. When our team goes
on the road, they take with them arrogance, stupidity and power. A combination that can be
deadly. Last year it turned out exactly that way.

Place: Genoa Name:
Carlo Giuliani Age: 23

The bullets of the Italian National Guard riddled his body but left enough life in him to
realize the final blow. The over-sized tires of the paramilitary vehicle crushed the life
from his body as planned. Everyone was happy. One less anarchist, one less trouble-maker.
Carlo was explained away like a storm on the weather channel or a bad outing for the
hometown baseball team. None of this would have happened if our president did not mandate
a hard-fisted control of all protesters. Carlo would still be alive today if the president
could look at protest as healthy and not necessarily anarchy. America bought the explanation
that in turn brings more and deserved shame upon our country. On a personal basis, I am
going with the rest of the world.

They call it 'Murder'.

I try not to think any of these cases. It's not a matter of "out of sight, out of mind"
but rather a case of knowing it works for me. I've been putting these types of distasteful
facts out of my mind since Kent State. It worked then, it will work now.

Looking back to 1775, we now find Arnold as a militia captain and ardent patriot eager to
support the rapidly expanding colonist rebellion.

From there he becomes our hero at Fort Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Quebec and someday Arnold's
victory at Saratoga will force academics to agree he turned the tide of the Revolution, in
turn lighting the lamp of Democracy and generally becoming the lighthouse of America.

We also know him as a traitor and our enemy as he fought for King George III. He led strikes
against our supply depots. Virginia saw him sack Richmond. Burning ships and warehouses were
his modus operandi in Connecticut. No one would believe this is the same man who was once
our greatest hero.

I cannot forgive him for his treasonous acts against America. On the other hand I can and
will thank him for being the patriot he was, regardless of the poor choices he made later
in life.

Most of all I want to thank him for being one of the first in America to express concern
for the rights of man, woman and child. It didn't matter to Arnold. Human rights,
constitutional rights or otherwise. He cherished all of them and he was willing to lay
down his life to guarantee these rights. One can hardly ask more of a person.

As far as Captain Preston, he made out fairly well. His trial began on October 24, 1770.
It spanned a full 6 days which qualified it as the longest running criminal trial ever in
the state of Massachusetts.

Captain Preston was found not guilty as were 6 of his soldiers in separate trials. The
remaining 2 soldiers were found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter and their
punishment was branding of their thumbs.

All in all, the trial was more of an 18th century media event than an expression of justice.
Preston was defended by John Adams who used his court room brilliance to fashion a jury
consisting of no less than 5 Tories. Only 2 of the jurors were from Boston, making the
jury even more favorable.

Yes, this is our John Adams that went on to become George Washington's Vice President and
the first president to occupy the White House.

Here it is important to note that in the year 1770 the colonists had not yet framed the
constitution. They were, instead, subject to the constitution of Great Britain which was
uncodified, unwritten and mostly a mixture of several proclamations, common-law judicial
precedents and some individual documents having constitutional status. The dates of the
documents ranged from then modern day back to the magna carta of 1215.

Regardless of the constitution being on a flimsy foundation, the colonists did not need
any guidance on the issue of right and wrong. No where can we find a better example of
their commitment to human rights than John Adams stepping up to defend Captain Preston.
Adams understood that taking the case would not only subject him to criticism, but would
jeopardize his legal practice and even risk the safety of himself and his family. But Adams
believed deeply that every person deserved a defense, and he took the case without
hesitation. This is the way it was in colonial America.

Now that we have a constitution on paper and over 200 years of practice one would think
we, as a nation, make very few mistakes when it comes to guaranteeing basic rights to all
the citizens of the country. I sadly report that is not the case. We are being told that
it is wrong and somehow un-American to question our government during a time of war.
America was once synonymous with the model of human and civil rights but now we watch as
that image slowly slips away and the media and talk radio silence all dissent.

The great tragedy of this new turn toward the sacrifice of our rights is that it may start
feeding on itself. The constitution is by no means perfect, maybe hastily-conceived and
possibly ill-considered in part but it has served us well for many years. Now it has been
reduced to meaningless drivel, walked upon and I expect next we will even burn it.

We must not let this happen. We must not abandon our position on basic rights as outlined
by our founding fathers. To do so would surely result in the loss of our rights forever.

I for one will be shouting in protest and for starters I will borrow the words of Benedict
Arnold. In case you have forgotten those words, here they are again.

"Good God, are the Americans all asleep and tamely giving up their Liberties"?

Please feel free to join in.

Originally posted by waldo
Apparently Kerry is opposed to companies and their CEO's who send jobs overseas but not opposed to them sending him their money.;)

:eek:

and later when caught in the obvious contradiction says :rolleyes:

While bush is hardly the best kerry's got nada on him.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6884-2004Feb25.html

Are you suggesting that Kerry will be beholden to these companies because he accepted their contibutions? Or are you assuming that secretly he wants companies to set up shop overseas so they can avoid U.S. taxes.?

It seems to me that you are "presuming" Kerry is guilty of something or that he will be unduly influenced by these companies who have contributed money to his campaign.

Whatever happened to your "presumption of innocence" Waldo?

In a previous post on the subject of executives from defense contractors working in government jobs, you posted:

You are assuming guilt. The country was built on the rule of law. That includes the presumption of innocence. That discrimination is not acceptable.

I guess Kerry isn't entitled to that presumption because he's a Democrat.

Two points:

1) Bush's contributions are irrelevant. Kerry is the one campaigning on removing special interests. That he declaims their scourge on the political system and then accepts their money is hypocritical.

2) Kerry should be innocent until proven guilty. Would that that attitude were so prevalent on the other side of the fence. Repeated claims about ties to Enron, SA.... If the same standards applied to the current administration, and for which they have been convicted and hung, Kerry would be there swinging beside them.

And in a separate, unrelated point Kerry moans about 'lost jobs' yet his solution?
Company's would have to notify the gov't 3 months beforehand? Employee notification? More paperwork?
Eliminating tax breaks? (Which tax breaks are you referring to John?)

Let's admit it John, you have no solution either. In fact their is little you or any president could do on this issue outside of protectionism and we all know what happens in that scenario.:rolleyes: