Posted on 03/23/2004 4:15:18 AM PST by BigWaveBetty
This is an aerial view of some of the buildings on Teresa Heinz Kerry's 90-acre family farm in Fox Chapel, Pa., just outside Pittsburgh, on Monday, March 22, 2004. This is one of at least five sites that Heinz Kerry and her husband, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (news - web sites), own with a cumulative value at nearly $33 million. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites)'s Ketchum, Idaho vacation home on the Wood River is seen in this March 17, 2004 photo. From a sailing mecca to a ski resort, presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, enjoy the trappings of their wealth in at least five homes and vacation getaways across the country valued at nearly $33 million. (AP Photo/Troy Maben)
The Nantucket, Mass., home of Teresa Heinz Kerry is seen, Thursday, March 18, 2004. From a sailing mecca to a ski resort, presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry (news - web sites) and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, enjoy the trappings of their wealth in at least five homes and vacation getaways across the country valued at nearly $33 million. (AP Photo/Rob Benchley)
This is a view of the Georgetown home of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, on O Street NW in the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C., Thursday, March 18, 2004. From a sailing mecca to a ski resort, presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, enjoy the trappings of their wealth in at least five homes and vacation getaways across the country valued at nearly $33 million. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Sen. John Kerry sold his foreign mansion in Italy just weeks before he announced a run for the White House in January of 2003, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
Actor George Clooney purchased the stunning 18th century mansion located in the Italian village of Laglio [50 miles north of Milan] from Kerry and his wife for $7,800,000. Clooney first learned about the listing from Brad Pitt, who had been holidaying with his wife Jennifer Aniston at Versace's compound nearby.
While Kerry and his wife's homes in the United States are worth at least $23,733,705, it is not clear if the candidate currently owns property overseas.
The campaign has repeatedly denied requests for any information on foreign assets held by Kerry.
This one needs no caption, it speaks for itself:
Maddy responding to why it was acceptable to let the Iraqi people languish under sanctions: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it," said Albright, who was then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, which imposed and still maintains the sanctions.
"It is hard for me to say this because I am humane person, but my first responsibility is to make sure that United States forces do not have to go and re-fight the Gulf War," Albright said.
Kosovo?, no problem-o but absolutely no Gulf War!
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Bomber's defense focuses on U.S. policy on Iraq
From Phil Hirschkorn NEW YORK (CNN) -- Mohamed al-'Owhali, convicted in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, relied on the words of two former U.S. Cabinet officials Monday in mounting his defense against the death penalty. Al-'Owhali's lawyers played a television interview with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and produced former Attorney General Ramsey Clark as a witness, both attesting to the detrimental impact sanctions and bombings have had on Iraqi civilians during and since the Gulf War. Al-'Owhali's attorneys have argued U.S. policy toward Iraq was a motivating factor for militant Muslims such as al-'Owhali, a 24-year-old Saudi, and his leader, Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, whom the United States accuses of leading a decade-long terrorist conspiracy to kill Americans and destroy U.S. property. Defense attorney David Baugh has told jurors --- the same panel that convicted al-'Owhali last week in the August 1998 bombing and the murder of all 213 people it killed -- that he would offer an explanation, not a justification, for al-'Owhali's actions, and that he would argue the United States also put innocent people's lives "at grave risk." First, Baugh played a CBS-TV "60 Minutes" segment from May 1996 that reported an estimated 500,000 Iraqi children had died from the economic sanctions imposed on August 6, 1990, days after Saddam Hussein's troops invaded Kuwait. Since the war ended with Iraqi's withdrawal in 1991, the number of Iraqi civilian casualties has more than doubled, according to various international aid groups.
"I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it," said Albright, who was then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, which imposed and still maintains the sanctions. Hussein subsequently recognized Kuwait and allowed weapons inspectors into Iraq. "It is hard for me to say this because I am humane person, but my first responsibility is to make sure that United States forces do not have to go and re-fight the Gulf War," Albright said. She blamed Hussein for spending $1.5 billion building new palaces, for using water pumps to build lakes with fountains instead of sewage systems, and for applying spare parts for agricultural equipment to military gear. "His priorities are wrong," Albright said in the interview. Then Clark, 73, attorney general under President Lyndon Johnson and assistant attorney general under President John F. Kennedy, testified about what he called "extensive destruction ... of civilian life" in Iraq, a country he has visited nearly a dozen times during and since the Gulf War. Clark worked on historic civil rights cases while in the Justice Department and has spent most of the past 30 years working on international human rights. He was an outspoken critic of the Gulf War and is a long-time death penalty opponent who called for the abolition of capital punishment in 1965. "The number of deaths have increased every year," Clark said about Iraqi civilians. "About half the deaths are children under five." A quarter of the country's newborns have a low birth weight, he said. "We've had 10 years of malnutrition and sickness," Clark said. Clark said the U.S-led bombings demolished the country's water system and U.N. sanctions devastated agriculture. Increases in cancer and miscarriages have occurred, and medicines are not widely available. It is not uncommon for diabetics to go blind due to the lack of insulin, he said. A declassified Pentagon document read to the jury by Baugh candidly assessed the vulnerability of Iraq's water purification system and revealed that the United States knew it. "Unless water is purified with chlorine, epidemics such as hepatitis, typhoid, and cholera could occur," said the 1991 memo. "Locally produced food and medicine could become contaminated."
Chlorine was among the Iraqi imports banned under the sanctions. Baugh also read to the jury an article of the Geneva Conventions that states it is illegal for one country to destroy civilian supplies such as drinking water and foodstuffs. When asked outside the courtroom why he appeared, Clark said, "I didn't volunteer; they asked me. I felt a duty to testify." He said U.S. troop presence in the Gulf region is unpopular: "Muslims feel the United States government is destroying their lives, at least in Iraq and other places." The jury also heard from Dennis Halliday, who until 1997 had administered the U.N.'s "oil for food" program that permits Iraq to sell limited amounts of oil for export and earmarks the proceeds for food and medicine purchases. "I was being associated with a program that I considered genocidal," Halliday said in a videotaped statement. He said nations on the U.N. Security Council knew supplies Iraq received were inadequate. UNICEF found as many as 10,000 Iraqis died every month from shortages and that Iraqi's infant mortality rate quadrupled, he said. "They continued the sanctions even when they knew the consequences," Halliday said. Al-'Owhali's lawyers cast a wide net seeking activists and academics to testify about U.S. policy flaws and perceptions about the United States in the Middle East. None besides Clark or Halliday would cooperate, Baugh told the court, because potential witnesses feared an association with terrorists. "I don't think you really appreciate how hated Osama bin Laden is -- well, maybe you do. He is the bogeyman," he told the judge last week. Baugh said he even sent a query via fax to the Dalai Lama in Tibet to no avail. None of al-'Owhali's family members will appear on his behalf. The defense will rest on Tuesday with jury deliberations likely to begin on Wednesday. If the jury does not unanimously decide to sentence al-'Owhali to death, U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand will sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Once the al-'Owhali punishment is resolved, the jury will hear death penalty arguments on convicted Tanzania embassy bomber Khalfan Mohamed, 27, of Tanzania, who was found guilty of killing 11 people in that coordinated attack. Two codefendants, Wadih el Hage and Mohamed Odeh, face a maximum life in prison for their roles in the terror conspiracy and the Kenya embassy bombing, respectively. |
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As if his *apology* wasn't enough to turn my stomach at the very end, where right after the families/friends stood and applauded they surrounded him like he was a celebrity. His sad face bobbing up and down. It was the most disgusting display since BigGayAl sucked face with Tipper and watching clinton tell the grand jury "it depends on what the meaning..." combined.
What is it with the Clinton people all looking like they lived at McDonalds?
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What's going on here? Hillary's trying to talk to bill and bill has zeroed in on a babe.
Think these two look like a confident team? Me neither.
"We're not thinking now of establishing contacts or relations with Israel because it's not on the agenda and no one has requested it of us. But we can in the future open the file of compensation for Jews for their seized funds or assets," he told Qatari newspapers in an interview during a two-day visit.
"It is a responsibility to invite Libyan Jews, including from Israel . . . to return to Libya, their ancestral land, and to abandon the land they acquired from the Palestinians," he added. Link
``Instead of shouting and criticizing the American initiative, you have to bring democracy to your countries, and then there will be no need to fear America or your people,'' said Seif al-Islam Gadhafi. ``The Arabs should either change or change will be imposed on them from outside.''
``We don't put the appropriate person in the right place, but Israel is a democratic country,'' told the Al-Jazeera television station. Link
Put that in your jock strap Pepe.
In a question-and-answer session before a Senate committee in 1971, John F. Kerry...asserted that 200,000 Vietnamese per year were being "murdered by the United States of America" and said he had gone to Paris and "talked with both delegations at the peace talks" and met with communist representatives.Read the whole thing...he met with Madam Binh!
Note the extracted quote from Kerry, he had "gone to Paris and talked with BOTH DELEGATIONS at the peace talks". Both delegations. You instantly think that means he met with the North Viets AND the American delegation, right?
Nooooo. When questioned further by the Senate panel, Kerry said ""I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government [an arm of the North Viet gov't]". He DID NOT meet with American negotiators.
Funny how that Bush/National Guard story had more legs than a centipede, but Kerry's traitorous behavior gets barely a ripple.
By the time we're finished with Kerry and he limps back to the senate he'll be defeated in the next senatorial race in Mass., if he has the chutzpah to run again. All those people in Boston certainly won't appreciate his dismissing FAA agents that tried to warn him about Logan Airport security. Hey who knows, maybe they'll finally dump Teddy too!
PRG - where did I get DRP?
Good lord.
Which one of you honkey's told my office 'black tie'?
Edwards thinking: I've got to switch parties, these two idiots are more electable than me.
Can't decide, *What have we done* or *Finding the best spot for the knife* smile?
Blubba: "Hillary's gonna be prez in '08, Yeearrghhhhhh!"
"Do you think the boy will want a gratuity?"
An unenthusiastic crowd, a candidate who speaks like a JFK on a triple dose of Thorazine who could only drone on about how horrible republicans are, yada yada yada and the lizard tongue was in full slither mode. At the one point of the speech where dems could have proven their commitment to our military they gave quick applause when Kerry bragged clinton and the dem leadership made the military we have today. Kerry wanted to make clear that "we" will all unite in the face of terrorism, at that McAwful jumps from his chair clapping wildly, nobody else did.
At the very end of Kerry's verbal torture Teresa comes out on stage, there they are all alone with the applause.... Then it starts to feel uncomfortable, John and Teresa want clinton and the other bozos to come on up on stage and join them in this epochal moment! John points at someone in the crowd, he gestures, come on up! Nobody comes. He continues, point, point, come on, come on! (and it went on....) Finally John and Teresa realize they're on their own, they leave the stage, waving and smiling until they got to the steps. Teresa looked displeased.
Those dems are a wacky bunch, whoda thunk they'd be a big fan of the Bush Doctrine?
Give President Bush's critics credit for versatility. Having spent months assailing him for doing too much after 9/11--Iraq, the Patriot Act, the "pre-emption" doctrine--they have now turned on a dime to allege that he did too little before it. This contradiction is Mr. Bush's opportunity to rise above the ankle biting and explain to the American public what a President is elected to do.
Any President's most difficult decision is how and when to defend the American people. As the 9/11 hearings reveal, there are always a thousand reasons for a President not to act. The intelligence might be uncertain, civilians might be killed, U.S. soldiers could die, and the "international community" might object. There are risks in any decision. But when Presidents fail to act at all, or act with too little conviction, we get a September 11.
This is the real lesson emerging from the 9/11 Commission hearings if you listen above the partisan din. In their eagerness to insist that Mr. Bush should have acted more pre-emptively before 9/11, the critics are rebutting their own case against the President's aggressive antiterror policy ever since. The implication of their critique is that Mr. Bush didn't repudiate the failed strategy of the Clinton years fast enough. Continued
Kerry, thy middle name is toast.
Some Democrats are worried that their presumptive nominee's campaign is suffering from the candidate's inability to put a period in his sentences. They say an arguably trivial trait -- Kerry's penchant to wander off into the rhetorical woods -- has already proved damaging. Link
The nuanced nincompoop crowd.
A demonstrator leaps into the air as he pummels an effigy of President Bush (news - web sites), below, during a protest against Bush's policies during a visit by the president to Boston, Thursday, March 25, 2004. On rival John Kerry (news - web sites)'s home turf, President Bush defended his record on both the jobs and terrorism fronts on Thursday and prodded the Massachusetts senator against taking his own state for granted at a $1.2 million fund-raising dinner in Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
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