http://www.johnkerry.com -- We should ALL go to this site, and educate

ourselves on the merits of Senator Kerry.

He is a good man, and will indeed restore our nation to peace, prosperity and dignity.

He deserves our support NOW, more than ever, to overcome the hysterical shrieking of the right wing freaks.

More money means more ads against the War president.

Thanks for a positive post.

...likes, which I have already heard about, but does not go into much detail. Then again, I expect to see his ideas expressed so they read more like a business loan application or business plan.

Seriously, a vote for ANYONE else other than kerry is a vote for george bush.

Kerry is right of Kuicinch and Nader and this is true.

However, he is to the left of Lieberbush and Clinton.

At least we got a yankee with a liberal voting record for goodness sakes.

At least he wants to modify NAFTA and is not going to endorse the FTAA.

At least he has a good voting record on the environment.

At least he wants to come up with a national service plan that helps to put kids through college without them having to carry guns.

At least he wants to repeal the tax giveaways to the rich.

At least he wants to repeal the bill that gives tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas.

At least he wants to return the US to community of nations.

At least he is pro-choice through and through.

At least he has a healthcare plan.

What real choice has anyone else got?

_

clean up the horrible mess we will be left with by bush.

He needs our positive support to undermine the damage being done to him by kkkarl rove.

Make a list and I'll give you the in-depth links.

...will be found anywhere. I'll most likely just have to pull a few bills that are important to me, read them, and see how Kerry voted. He was actively involved in getting a bill I wanted defeated and hopefully there will not be others.

Many items I would be interested in finding detailed statements from Kerry on are boring things like Alt Min Tax or Investment Tax Credits. Or even if he has a plan to move the Social Security Fund out of the General Budget and make it an independent fund, in spite of the massive hole this would create in the General Budget.

I'm also looking for any statements that Kerry has made stating that he believes the 2nd Amendment is an individual and not a collective right. I have heard he believes in the 2nd Amendment...but that does not say much. Or if he intends to align himself with the Brady Bunch and actually believes the statement "One in five law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty is killed with an assault weapon" is true.

In short, I am looking for a lot of what is on his web page, but with some substance to it. The current page is written for people that already will vote for him. I am looking for something that would apply more to swing voters.

Social Security

http://kerry.senate.gov/bandwidth/issues/security_record.html

Two links with statements on a variety of things related to taxes, small business and the economy.

&topic=Press&topic2=SmallBus

&topic=Press&topic2=Economy

And of course he supports the Brady Bill, I thought that was pretty clear.

...finding out more about Kerry.

I know that Kerry supports the Brady Bill. It is his apparent alliance with Sarah Brady and the MMM that does not look so good. If he wants to use their brand of gun control, it will not sell well down here.

Do you know his position on the War on Drugs? It sounds like he wants to pursue what we have been doing for years.

He has said on numerous occasions that he supports treatment and prevention. He has voted against mandatory sentencing on everything except child sexual predators. He doesn't support going after users and supports treatment in prisons for drug dealers as well. Big time drug dealers, not petty criminals. It would be totally different than what we have now, except he doesn't support legalization.

Did you know only 43% of adults even own a gun in the south? Maybe guns really aren't as popular as southerners think they are. I'm guessing that's what "down here" means.

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=234

...does not tell you very much. Living in a border state, the War on Drugs is an issue as so many drugs move through here and the harder the drug runners are targeted the more violence we see. It is time for a radically different approach to the problem.

QUOTE:
Fighting Illegal Drugs
In order to deal with the problem of illegal drugs in this country, efforts must be focused on keeping drugs out of the country and our communities, as well as reducing demand for illegal drugs. John Kerry supports aggressively targeting traffickers and dealers, as well as making a commitment to sufficiently fund drug prevention and treatment programs.
QUOTE:

I can't speak to the accuracy of the Harris poll but this part is very telling.

QUOTE:
They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, interviewer bias, weighting by demographic control data and screening (e.g., for likely voters). It is difficult or impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors.
QUOTE:

I cannot imagine anyone that I know answering questions about firearm ownership from some random stranger over the telephone. The issues surrounding firearms are not all about firearms per se. Much of what a candidate's approach to fighting crime will be can be found in that candidate's answers about and voting record on firearms.

I notice that in May of 1994 Kerry voted no on mandatory prison terms for crimes involving firearms. This I find disturbing especially when taking into account his support of, and quotations from, the Brady Bunch. I will need to see the actual bill to see what the deal is.

Mandatory sentencing is part of the problem with the massive incarceration of drug offenses. He is against mandatory sentencing, like I said. His votes reflect that. I don't see how one could thing it's not effective with drug sentencing but would be effective with other sentencing. It's not helpful. There are too many violations of either one. Sexual predators are in a different category.

If you're going to vote on your guns and your guns alone, I can't stop you and I'm so sick of the debate I refuse to participate in it anymore. If people aren't in D.C. hauling Bush out of the White House, they never will be, guns or no guns. The 2nd Amendment debate is the absolute dumbest debate we've ever had in the history of this country. Every citizen will always have their right to own a gun for protection or for hunting. They may have to register it and follow laws to keep their gun in a safe location, but they'll have their right to a gun. To yap on about it any further than that is to play into the right wing propaganda on the issue, that never existed before the NRA became an arm of the gun industry to promote the sales of guns. You might have noted in the Harris poll that as income goes up, gun ownership goes up. Well, high income areas are usually low crime areas so these people don't need guns to protect themselves in the first place. And no, they aren't low crime areas because they own guns. The statistics on crime go back decades, before gun ownership ever became the craze that it is today. People complain about the fear tactics this Administration uses, but just refuse to acknowledge that it's the exact same tactics they use to get people to buy all these guns and get all riled up about 2nd Amendment rights. It's just dumb that people buy into it.

...offenses. I like the way we are doing it here now where drug offenses are handled by a medical court, not a criminal one. I strongly support mandatory sentencing for crimes involving guns. As to how effective this would be would of course be determined by how one measures effectiveness.

And like I said, the candidate's position on guns does not pertain entirely to guns. It serves as an indicator of the approach the candidate will take in dealing with crime.

for drug offenses. What do you think all those pot users and crack users are doing in prison?

...how we are getting away with not following this. The changes here have been great at freeing up prison space for people that actually need to be there. We even have other states coming here to study what we are doing. Why that can't be done over the phone I don't know.

Maybe mandatory fines for drug offenses is why California has been letting go prisoners that would not be my first pick to release if I had to ease over-crowding.

Here's an article. As far as I know, it's still the same.

http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/094/watersbill.shtml

...got twenty five years because her husband had just enough cocaine to make it a federal crime. I forget all the details though.

It sounds like we just quit following that law here. Republicans always act like they are above the law...maybe this is one case where that is good. :)

No, federal is federal. If there's a DEA type invesitgation, the person will be tried and sentenced under Federal law.

If it's something local or under State cops, they'll be tried and sentenced under State law. California State put in laws where people who are convicted of drug crimes, with no other crimes, get a sentence of treatment or something along those lines. State law.

Kerry wants to make Federal law more along the lines of California State law; and with none of the stupid crap like "Operation Pipe Dreams".

...not do on the federal level what he did here on the state level but I doubt he had any idea of what legislation was going where.

Our gun crimes are supposed to all go to federal court now and gangs will be prosecuted under RICO.

torture snuff operations in full gear....

Yes...we shouldn't depend on GOP shills like them to tell us about Kerry.

differ little on stuff like Iraq, tax cuts, etc.

The big differences are abortion, gay marriage and other equally important matters.

I almost puked.

http://www.johnkerry.com/console.php?video=051004_healthcare

Accountability is on the ballot.

I like that.

_

who is?

but he's clearly intelligent and has been known to change his mind when he has new information.

please--let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Good luck getting them to look for any info that would suggest Kerry is anything better than a make-believe liberal, Bush-Lite, war-mongering, corporate shill, presidential wannabe.

n/t

Good thing I swallowed my mouthful of soda before reading that!