CBlountBlogs

Looking for holes in the bloody shirt-John Kerry

Saddam bribed Chirac

Kerry doesn't deserve Vietnam vets' support.

How Many Purple Hearts can you get without Shedding any Blood? Ask Kerry-Three

He later said his three wounds cost him two days' service.

THE AWOL GAME

QUESTIONS ABOUT KERRY'S SILVER STAR

Kerry served as an officer on a "swift boat" in the Mekong Delta. On February 28, 1969, his swift boat came under a rocket attack. A subsequent military report about the engagement, quoted by a 1996 article in the New Yorker, stated: "Kerry's craft received a B-40 rocket close aboard. Lieutenant (j.g.) Kerry ordered his units to charge the enemy positions . . . (his craft) then beached in the center of the enemy positions and an enemy soldier sprang up from his position not ten feet from (Kerry's craft) and fled. Without hesitation Lieutenant (j.g.) Kerry leaped ashore, pursued the man behind a hootch and killed him, capturing a B-40 rocket launcher with a round in the chamber." About the incident Kerry recalled, "It was either going to be him or me. It was that simple."

For his actions that day, Kerry was awarded the Silver Star. Some controversy would arise with concern to the incident years later though when during a close election with William Weld in 1996, the Boston Globe's David Warsh questioned the circumstances of Kerry's heroism that day. Evidence emerged that the Viet Cong who had fired the rocket was alone and had already been wounded by the gunner on the ship.

Their are questions about His silver Star- Have He or will He
release His Military Records so we can answer These questions?

They said that the Viet Cong who fired the Rocket at his Boat was Alone-Was He alone or was their other "enemy Positions"?

They said that the Viet Cong had already been wounded by the gunner on the Boat- Kerry Said "It was either going to be him or me. It was That Simple". Or was he a wounded Viet Cong trying to get away and was "Hiding" behind the Hootch and was Not a "Imminent Threat"?

Was their anyone else from Kerry's unit that was with him when He went behind the Hootch? Can we question Them?

Are their other Questions about Kerry's Silver Star?

YES-ANOTHER QUESTION FROM WESLEY PRUDEN:

He won his first Purple Heart when he was wounded slightly on an arm. But if a wound draws blood — "even shaving," as irreverent GIs often say — it's worth a Purple Heart. Three months later a piece of shrapnel pierced his left thigh and he qualified for his second. Eight days later, he won the Silver Star when his swift boat took a rocket shot from the shore and he beached the boat in the midst of several enemy positions. An enemy soldier sprang from a hidey hole and sprinted into a "hootch," or hut. A gunner aboard the swift sprayed the hootch with .50-caliber machine-gun bullets, and Lt. Kerry leaped from the boat to administer the coup de grace to the wounded Viet Cong. He returned triumphantly, holding high the rocket and launcher used to damage his boat. The beau geste was worth the Silver Star. The very next month he won his third Purple Heart when a mine detonated near his boat and a piece of shrapnel hit his right arm. He later said his wounds cost him two days' service.

Nevertheless, the three wounds were worth an assignment stateside, when he applied to take advantage of a Navy rule that entitled a thrice-wounded man to take his leave from a combat zone. He asked for duty as a personal aide in "Boston, New York or Washington," and came home to be an admiral's aide. Eight months later, he asked for an early discharge to run for Congress. Once out, he joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, an antiwar organization largely funded by Jane Fonda.


He served twice in Vietnam, neither time completing the regular one-year term. His first assignment lasted six months, aboard a guided-missile frigate in the Gulf of Tonkin. He returned to "the world" (as the GIs called home) and five months later, in December 1969, was assigned to command "swifts," small gunboats patrolling South Vietnamese rivers.

CLARK-The Really Bad Candidate

ECONOMISTS SAY RECESSION STARTED UNDER CLINTON

DEANIACS- DEAN THE SCREAMING MANIAC -

I guess Howard Dean is now on a whirlwind tour- 'No, I Am Not A Screaming Maniac, I only Play one on TV"

TAX CUT WORKING-REVENUES UP 3%

CARTER ON DEAN: I DIDN'T CALL HIM, HE CALLED ME
Sun Jan 18 2004 19:43:22 ET

Even though he hosted Dem hopeful Howard Dean in Plains, Georgia on Sunday, former President Jimmy Carter annoyed Dean's senior advisers when he claimed that Dean was not invited!

"He called me on the phone and said he'd like to worship with me," Carter explained. "I did not invite him, but I'm glad he came."

Carter said he has also visited with retired Gen. Wesley Clark, and hopes he will again.

The embarrassing Dean moment came after Dean was pressed in recent interviews on why he would leave Iowa at a crunch time.

Dean said he could not turn down an invitation to appear with a former president he admires, the WASHINGTON POST reports on Monday. But when a visitor to the Marantha church thanked Carter for inviting Dean, Carter quickly interjected, "I did not invite him!"

American's War Deaths

DUELING WESLEY CLARKS

WES CLARK MADE CASE FOR IRAQ WAR BEFORE CONGRESS; TRANSCRIPT REVEALED

Dean's Pedicured Foot Firmly In Mouth

Lieberman - Clark Has Taken 6 Positions

LIEBERMAN:
Well, you know, Wolf, Wes Clark came in out of nowhere into this race, became a Democrat for the first time to become part of the race, so I don't know a lot of his stands.

I can tell you that I was disappointed that a retired military officer like Wes Clark would have taken six different positions before he finally came to the conclusion a year after the resolution authorizing the war against Saddam that he would be against that resolution.

And, you know, again, as I said about Howard Dean, that means that if Wes Clark had his way, Saddam Hussein would be in power today, not in prison, and the world would be a lot less safe. So I disagreed with him on that, that's for sure.

But I'm also saying, while I obviously respect his service in the military, it's all the more astounding, and he said it again yesterday, that for a retired military officer to not know exactly whether he supported a resolution authorizing the commander in chief to send the troops in a war, that was amazing.

I mean, yesterday he said here in New Hampshire that, when he publicly advised a congressional candidate last fall, Katrina Swett, to support the resolution supporting the war in Iraq, he hadn't read the resolution and didn't know what was in it.

Well, I don't know how as a retired military officer he could have gone ahead and said that she should support it, when he knew that the effect of it was to authorize the commander in chief to go to war. That's just not responsible.

MAD COW-MAD HOW

The Myth Of The Democrats

Dean -"The Bible Made Me Do It"

Dean Says Faith Swayed Decision on Gay Unions


By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 8, 2004; Page A01


MUSCATINE, Iowa, Jan. 7 -- Democratic front-runner Howard Dean said Wednesday that his decision as governor to sign the bill legalizing civil unions for gays in Vermont was influenced by his Christian views, as he waded deeper into the growing political, religious and cultural debate over homosexuality and the Bible's view of it.

"The overwhelming evidence is that there is very significant, substantial genetic component to it," Dean said in an interview Wednesday. "From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people."

Dean's comments come as gay marriage is emerging as a defining social issue of the 2004 elections, and one that is dividing the Episcopal Church in the United States and many other Christians and non-Christians. Driving the debate is a theological dispute over the Bible's view on homosexuality and a political one over the secular and spiritual wisdom of allowing gays to marry.

Dean said he does not often turn to his faith when making policy decisions but cited the civil union bill as a time he did. "My view of Christianity . . . is that the hallmark of being a Christian is to reach out to people who have been left behind," he told reporters Tuesday. "So I think there was a religious aspect to my decision to support civil unions."

Dean Will Increase Your Taxes!

The Dean Tax Hikes

The Club for Growth's Stephen Moore has a neat chart of the massive tax hikes Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt are proposing (the other Democrat candidates are proposing most, but not all, of these massive tax hikes):

Dean's Greedy Hand
Current Dean tax
Capital gains tax 15% to 20%
Dividend tax 15% to 39.6%
Income tax rate (highest) 35% to 39.6%
Income tax rate (middle) 25% to 28%
Income tax rate (lowest) 10% to 15%
Per child credit 10% to 15%
Marriage penalty Eliminated Reinstated
Death tax in 2010 0 to 55%
Source: Club for Growth

Number Of Lives Saved By Being In Iraq!

NoBody Count
By UML Guy
January 02, 2004 (08:30 PM)
Announcing... The Blog o'RAM NoBody Count!

I was curious just how many people Saddam and his buddies had killed during their 25 year reign. After a lot of digging, I found State Department reports that showed the following:

From IRAQ: CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY - Leaders as Executioners

2040 deaths

Executed opponents and suspected potential rivals, including scores of high-level government officials and thousands of political prisoners.
1070000 deaths

The 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war left 150,000 to 340,000 Iraqis and 450,000 to 730,000 Iranians dead.
1000 deaths

Ordered the invasion and destruction of Kuwait in 1990-91 with 1,000 Kuwaitis killed.
60000 deaths

Directed the 1991 bloody suppression of Kurdish and Shi'a insurgencies in northern and southern Iraq with at least 30,000 to 60,000 killed.
7000 deaths

Periodically ordered during 1988-99 mass prison executions of several thousand inmates ("prison cleansing").
20000 deaths

Known as Saddam's "Shi'a thug", he violently suppressed the 1991 Shi'a uprisings after the Gulf War with tens of thousands killed.
From Saddam's Brutality Against the Iraqi People

100000 deaths

The campaign resulted in the death of at least 50,000 to 100,000 Iraqi Kurds, according to Human Rights Watch reports.
2000 deaths

During the 1991 Iraqi repression of the post-Gulf war Kurdish insurrection, thousands of Iraqi Kurds died, 500,000 became refugees along northern Iraq's "no-fly zone" bordering Turkey, and 1.2 to 1.4 million other refugees fled to Iran.
For good measure, I checked for data on refugees as well:

From War Crimes


900000 refugees

The Iraqi government's campaign of forced deportations of Kurdish and Turkomen families to southern Iraq has created approximately 900,000 internally displaced citizens throughout the country.
From Saddam's Brutality Against the Iraqi People

1900000 refugees

During the 1991 Iraqi repression of the post-Gulf war Kurdish insurrection, thousands of Iraqi Kurds died, 500,000 became refugees along northern Iraq's "no-fly zone" bordering Turkey, and 1.2 to 1.4 million other refugees fled to Iran.
From Destroying the Marshes

240000 refugees

By 1993 the marshes sheltered 200,000 to 250,000 inhabitants — more than half Marsh Arabs; the rest various internally displaced persons and oppositionists. Today, nearly all are displaced — less than 10,000 Marsh Arabs still survive the regime's systematic destruction, bulldozing, and artillery bombardments, while thousands were secretly executed by Iraqi forces, including women and children.
From Invading Kuwait

1500000 refugees

It is estimated that 1.5 million people were displaced abroad by Iraq's occupation of Kuwait, while the remaining 750,000 endured brutalities, oppression, torture, and more than 1,000 were killed.
So a reasonable read of these numbers shows that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was responsible for the deaths of 1.26 million Iraqis and other Arabs, and for the creation of 4.54 million refugees. That is what we're stopping in Iraq.

Next, the mathematician in me said, "Those numbers are too big to grasp. Let's break them down to something I can comprehend." Finally, I decided to turn them into daily averages. The result: 138 Iraqis and other Arabs killed per day, and 497 refugees created. That is what we're stopping in Iraq.

And that, finally, led me to this calculation: on average, how many Iraqi and Arab lives have we saved so far? With an average of 138 lives saved per day since March 20, 2003, the answer today is 39744. I call this The NoBody Count, for two reasons:

1. Thanks to our brave troops, there are no new bodies in The Mass Graves.

2. If you listen to the partisan hacks, these lives saved don't count. They're NoBodies.

But you know, I'll bet they think they're not NoBodies. Their families don't think they're NoBodies. So let's keep counting those NoBodies. They're important.

Great News-Manufacturing Recovery is Under Way!

UPDATE 2-US factories surge in Dec, helped by dollar
Fri January 02, 2004 11:34 AM ET

(Adds ISM comments)
By Ros Krasny

CHICAGO, Jan 2 (Reuters) - U.S. factory activity expanded at the fastest pace for 20 years in December, a survey showed Friday, adding evidence that a manufacturing recovery is under way and benefiting from the lower dollar in the form of higher exports.

The Institute for Supply Management said its barometer of manufacturing activity jumped to 66.2 in December from 62.8 in November. Wall Street economists had forecast the index at 61.0.

U.S. stock prices rose on the data while U.S. Treasury bond prices fell sharply.

"It's very positive for the the overall economic outlook, suggesting continued momentum in the manufacturing sector," said John Silvia, chief economist with Wachovia Bank in Charlotte, N.C.

A reading above 50 in the index signals growth in the industrial sector, which comprises about a sixth of the U.S. economy. Factories were hard hit by the U.S. recession that officially ended in November 2001 and have been slow to recover until now.

Manufacturing jobs have been even slower to rebound, but according to the ISM survey are on the way back.

ISM's jobs component was 55.5, up from 51.0 in November. The employment index was above 50 for the second straight month after being lower 37 straight months -- a trend that could have implications for the December payrolls report due on Jan. 9.

Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist with High Frequency Economists, said the current pace of factory expansion "cannot possibly be achieved with the existing manufacturing work force."

DOLLAR BOOSTING EXPORTS

ISM's export orders index rose to 60.4 from 57.9, with sectors as diverse as furniture, primary metals, industrial and commercial equipment and chemicals contributing.

"Normally there is a lag between a currency starting to weaken and export growth starting, and we are finally starting to see the results of the lower U.S. dollar," Tom Duesterberg, president of Tempe, Arizona-based ISM, told Reuters.

With business confidence up, "we expect more robust capital investment this year" in the form of new productive capacity and hiring, Duesterberg said.

New orders, often seen as reflective of future growth, rose to 77.6 from 73.7, the highest since July 1950.

Overall, 17 of 20 industries in the manufacturing sector reported growth in December.

"It's strong, strong and strong. There are no weak spots. Inventories are still too low, both customer and factory inventories. So this thing is just going to keep going," said Ram Bhagavatula, chief economist with the Royal Bank of Scotland in New York.

The surging factory sector could put pressure on the Federal Reserve to change its accommodative monetary policy some time in 2004. Official interest rates have been held at 45-year lows by the Fed to encourage growth.

Futures markets expect the Fed to raise rates by a quarter point by the end of July, with a second hike by the end of September.

The monthly ISM survey is derived from data provided by purchasing executives at over 350 industrial companies.

When Did Bush Say That Saddam was a "Imminent Threat"?

In Democrat speeches They say that Bush had said that Iraq and Saddam was a "Imminent Threat"- The Right Wing says that Bush never said that Iraq was a "Imminent Threat", but he said "we cannot wait until he is a Imminent Threat". Who is Right? I've looked at Most of Bush's speeches and cannot Locate where he said "Imminent Threat". Please help us Locate where he said this.Thanks! Charles Blount