Posted on 05/31/2005 6:29:53 AM PDT by areafiftyone
Former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who lost this crucial swing state in November, sounded Friday as if he were still stumping for Florida's votes.
The Massachusetts senator, at a National Head Start Association conference to tout his plan to provide health care for uninsured children, hammered on familiar themes of values and unity while repeatedly criticizing the Bush administration and Republican leaders in Congress.
"I went back and reread the whole New Testament the other day. Nowhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ did I find a suggestion at all, ever, anywhere, in any way whatsover, that you ought to take the money from the poor, the opportunities from the poor and give them to the rich people," Kerry said.
Kerry has yet to officially announce whether he's in the running for the 2008 nomination, and he didn't take questions from the media Friday.
But while speaking to the educators and child advocates gathered in a hotel ballroom, it wasn't difficult to imagine his rhetoric, unchanged, being said at a campaign rally.
"We need to enlist and join together in a great cause across the country that puts a simple choice before our fellow Americans. It's a choice that, I think, is based on values," Kerry said.
Following Florida's 2000 election debacle, in which Bush emerged the barest of winners over Al Gore after five weeks of partisan fighting, the Democratic Party made capturing the state one of its highest priorities.
But Kerry couldn't pull the state into his column, despite the millions spent on advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts. Bush prevailed by almost 381,000 ballots, for a margin of five percentage points.
"The fact is, 10 million more Americans voted for our idea of what we wanted to do than voted for Bill Clinton in 1996 when he was the sitting president of the United States," Kerry said. "The fact is, a million people volunteered. The fact is, across America we created an energy.
"And that energy is going to keep on going and keep on fighting until we achieve what we want to."
If Kerry decides to run, possible competition for the party's nomination include his former running mate, ex-N.C. Sen. John Edwards; N.Y. Sen. Hillary Clinton, and retired general Wesley Clark.
A note to John F. Kerry:
reading and comprehension are two different words.
But just forget the lie for the moment.
He is basically saying that, although he claims to be a believing Christian, he reads Scripture solely to parse it for political advantage.
Either that (and I don't know what tone of voice he said this in) or he was using Scripture as the set up for a laugh line in his speech.
Anyone who thought that he was a phony non-believer during the campaign is amply vindicated by these comments.
Nobody is kicking the poor here.
And what's this about poor people not having enough opportunities to pull themselves out of a hole? There are plenty of opportunities everywhere, all you have to do is find them. It may not involve doing the most pleasant things but the opportunities are definitely there if you are willing to sacrifice.
Here is the line that I was re-acting to:
" OMG you mean we are making poor people should work for a living and go to school like rich people do????"
I have seen comments like this repeatedly in conservative forums directed against the poor. They imply that the poor DO NOT work as hard (or harder) than the rich. I have seen a lot of hatred directed against the poor in conservative forums. Maybe that's not what this poster meant, but that's the way this particular line sounds. Most of the poor and lower middle classes work very hard indeed and they (and the middle class) have been losing ground in salaries over the past 30 years. I think this needs to be recognized. Perhaps I over-reacted but as someone who came from a background of dire poverty and has been fighting my way out of it all my life (without public assistance) I am very sensitive to these implications that the poor don't work, and that the rich somehow "deserve" all their money. Frequently the rich don't work and inherit their money. Just ask Paris Hilton. I don't begrudge them this, but I am sick of seeing the poor get slammed by conservatives, and I have seen too much of that.
I am poor, and have nobody but myself to blame.
We are no longer living in the early 1900s when we had far more unlimited opportunities for the poor to climb out of poverty.
Nonsense. Any mentally competent person, regardless of wealth, can get scholarships and grants for a college education and get a decent job.
In other contemporary societies, such women would be forced into prostitution or starvation.
AssClown Alert! AssClown Alert!
He claims he just did sign form 180 last week, but I am not holding my breath. He probably never mailed it in.
I came from a background of poverty too. I grew up in a single parent household and my mother was a waitress in a deli and made 40 dollars a week to feed 4 kids in the 70's. It wasn't until we got older and got our own jobs that she was able to finally not worry about us. Welfare at the time would not accept her unless she did not work and because she was White they figured she didn't need it so they told her and I quote "EAT BEANS". She was absolutely humiliated when she asked for food stamps to help feed us. But that was the attitude in the 70's. I was not making fun of the poor. Who said the poor don't work? I was making fun of Kerry and his way of thinking. Don't read more into my sentence please.
Where does it say you should "take the money" from the rich? Thou shalt not steal is one of the commandments.
As far as giving to charity that applies to the poor as well. Guess Kerry forgot about the woman at the Temple.
Perhaps he took the Evelyn Wood speed read course for angry political loosers incapable of telling the truth.
Means-Tested Welfare Spending: Past and Future Growth
by Robert E. RectorThe financial cost of the War on Poverty has been enormous. Between 1965 and 2000 welfare spending cost taxpayers $8.29 trillion (in constant 2000 dollars).
It seems to me that nearly 8.3 trillion dollars poured into poor communities in the last 35 years would have made for a lot of golden opportunities. If it had just been banked the interest alone should have made all the poor as rich as kings.
He apparently did.
An average reader can read the New Testament in about 26 hours (IIRC).
And the J Effins like them to be easily brow beaten into thinking like them and doing what they request (something the J Effins won't do themselves). I'm constantly amazed that DUmmies can't define their beliefs or the why of what they're doing and how it will help. They simple spew hat if you ask them to explain. They're sheeple. Sheeple who get angry if we don't just go along with them.
Bingo! We have a winner. We have these idiots who think there is validity to "separation between church and state." Then these same idiots use the New Testament for governmental policy. Note to JFK: apply the New Testament to your own life! And has JFK donated a tenth of his income to charity? No. But he sure likes to donate mine to that same cause.
Once a Flipper, always a Flipper.
John Kerry has now signed Form 180. Last week.
Nowhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ did I find a suggestion at all, ever, anywhere, in any way whatsover, that you ought to take the money from the poor, the opportunities from the poor and give them to the rich people," Kerry said.
I think Jesus would have a serious problem with the way the DNC runs and robs the poor they pretend to help of dignity. He would be turning over the money tables at the DNC.
Please look up the word "Tithing" in the dictionary.
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