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| 7/14 |
| 2004/5/30-31 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:30496 Activity:insanely high |
5/29 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A689-2004May29.html This article was up the other day. I'm not sure why it got squished, except that it was somewhat informative. Anyway, Kerry makes a few good points, but his understanding of North Korea seems glaringly bad. -jrleek \_ Kerry has 20 years in the Senate on the Foreign Relations Committee. GWB is a draft dodging crack head. JFK will save us all from the quagmire in Iraq that shrub created and will restore American credibility around the world for generations to come! If only he had some real passion like Dean or was a decent human being non-partisans could vote for like Edwards, he would stand a good chance. he would stand a good chance in November. I'm voting for Nader since Kerry is just more of the same. His Iraq plan is "do more of what GWB is doing, do it with more troops and try to get our EU and UN allies in there to spread the death around". \_ Have you heard any of Kerry's speeches? He has passion. He just has very little press coverage. If he picks Wes Clark as his running mate, they'll have 8 years. \_ He has fake passion. He "speechifies". He doesn't give speeches. Artificial pauses and talking loudly an octave lower than your regular voice is not passion. Clark brings nothing to the ticket. They both have military experience. They both have foreign policy/diplomacy experience. What do you think Clark brings to the ticket? He's from the South? So are others. The only reason to put Clark on the ticket is if Kerry's military background isn't doing it for him. Putting Clark on there would be an admission of weakness in an area Kerry claims is his strength. I think Kerry and his advisors are smarter than that. \_ If you really believe that Kerry is the same as Bush, you really owe it to yourself to read the man's speeches and get to know his policy ideas. I think you'll find that the differences are stark. \_ I seen a few and read a few. The differences are minimal. My example above was policy in Iraq. The only difference is that Kerry wants to put more troops in. The NYT did a write up on this a few days ago and went point by point. There's very little difference. It's just a matter of degree. The basic policies are the same. \_ Me too... Go nader! \_ I'm with you, brother! Don't let them get you to vote for a lesser man with that stuff about Nader "stealing" votes from Kerry or Gore. He has the same right to run as any US born citizen, of age, etc, as per the Constitution. When the Democrats remember that power is not their right, they might get my vote again. There *are* other options for people with principles. \_ Damn straight, America! Vote your conscience, America! Especially when it draws votes away from the one man who can end the Bush nightmare. This message brought to you by Americans for a New Century. \_ Again, you fail to understand. We don't see your guy as any different than the other guy. We want *our* guy in office. Why is that so hard to understand? I already understand why you find it hard to accept. Your party doesn't have a right to power. I don't want your guy in any more than I want the other guy. *Both* are nightmares to me and people like me. It will always be so until you get a real candidate or we get a real multi party system in this country. My vote is *not* being drawn away from your guy. You *never* had it. \_ What is it you like about Nader? Is Larry Elder also ok? \_ For starters, Nader isn't a lying two bit sack of career politician scum like the others. He has a track record of making good things happen for the people, not just talking about it until after the next election cycle. I like what he says, he says what he means, and he means to do good for all of us. What else is there to like about any office holder? \_ I'm not a Democrat. I don't believe in the Dems. I'm pro-choice, pro-Death Penalty reform, anti- huge deficits and trickle-down economics, pro- campaign finance reform, pro-globalization, pro- Science, and pro-Bill of Rights. I think the current Administration is against everything I believe in, and I know that the only candidate who stands a chance in hell of reversing the course of the current Administration is John Kerry. That's why I'm voting for him. If I thought Ralph had a chance, I'd vote for him. He doesn't, under the current system, so I won't. \_ As long as people like you continue to make it that way it will be that way. You know this country didn't start out with parties? You know the parties we have now are not the first parties the country has had? Parties are not eternal. If you don't like the candidate(s) from one or more of the parties you have the duty and obligation to yourself and your country to vote for the best candidate, not make a game out of it. Game makers have killed the electoral process. There is nothing wrong with the process as it stands now except the people voting in it. \_ This is starting to remind me of the perennial write-in candidate for the CSUA presidency, !psb. "Vote John F. !GWB. End the nightmare and save America!" -- ilyas \_ Like it or not, we live in a system where the person who gets the most electoral votes in a single election wins all. If you have three candidates, and two of the candidates have more in common with each other than with the third, and yet you split the like-minded vote evenly between them, you're reducing the probability that either of those two candidates will defeat the third candidate. If you don't like the system, reform the system, and then vote for the candidate you truly support with a clear conscience. If you vote for Nader without reforming the system first, you're simply drawing votes away from Kerry's chances of defeating Bush. If you're going to game the system, have the good sense to make sure the rules support your attempt to game it. Anything else is simply petulancy. \_ You *still* don't get it. Your guy is *nothing* like my guy and *everything* like that other guy already in office as far as I'm concerned. If my guy wasn't running I would stay home, I would not be voting for your guy. Your guy is useless. You keep talking about how voting for Nader is drawing votes away from Kerry which reduces the odds of defeating Bush. I don't care which of Bush or Kerry wins. They are the same to me. If Nader doesn't win, Bush might as well win as far I'm concerned. It doesn't matter at that point. Not all of us share your obsession with defeating Bush. Your party uses all it's constituents like that and rules them with fear. "I know we did nothing for you since the last time you supported us and the many times before that but think how much worse it'll be under the other party!" Enough! Give me my country back! \_ I really hope you do an in-depth analysis of Kerry and Bush before you make your final decision on their similarity. In the mean- time, as I wrote above, you really need to get either Instant Run-off elections or the Parliamentary system set up here if you want a Green vote to be worth anything. \_ Bush: scum. Kerry: scum. We don't need a new system. We need new candidates and voters willing to vote for them. We have the right people running. Now we just need new voters who don't see the process as some sort of game that needs to be cynically won. \_ I would recommend all CA libertarians to vote Nader. Why? Bush will not carry the state as things stand. Therefore, a vote for Nader is actually more useful than a vote for Bush, since it will encourage Nader to run again, and splinter the socialist camp. Once that's done, I would probably advocate voting for Buchanan, or whatever, to similarly splinter the non-libertarian Right. -- ilyas \_ And you believe libertarians would want to vote for Bush because...? \_ A libertarian may do a number of things, some of them counterintuitive. I think most libertarians, if they choose to vote for a major party, will generally take a republican over a democrat. In some sense, that's the fault of the democrats. -- ilyas \_ In terms of the game, I agree with you. \_ It isn't a game. \_ Edwards a decent human being? Yeah, right. He's a trial attorney. I've scraped better things off the bottom of my shoe. He made his millions convincing juries that doctors were at fault for children being born with cerebral palsy. He later admitted that he knew that doctors can't cause CP. \_ Nonsense. He made money giving people fucked up by bad doctors a chance to put those incompetents out of business and get enough money from their insurance to have a chance at a semi-normal life. He serves the little guy, not evil corporations, criminals, and other scum. I'd take Edwards over that piece of plastic the Democrats have now any day. \__\_ Link? EITHER OF YOU? \_ Edward's legal battles are a matter of public record. Google and you'll find plenty. \_ "n 1985, a 31-year-old North Carolina lawyer named John \_ "In 1985, a 31-year-old North Carolina lawyer named John Edwards stood before a jury and channeled the words of an unborn baby girl." From the nytimes: http://csua.org/u/7im \_ Nicely taken out of context of both the article and more importantly, the trial. \_ Out of context?!? It's the first line of the article! \_ I'm curious: who are you planning to vote for, Jim? --darin \_ I haven't descided yet. GWB does a few things that I think, are imortant, well. He does most other things REALLY badly. On the other hand, he's honest about what he wants, which is nice. I haven't read much of Kerry's stuff yet, but at least he says here that he's not planning to pull out of Iraq. Which is good because that would be really stupid. If Kerry promises the rest of the stuff I think is important, I may well vote for him. On the other hand, for a self described expert on foriegn policy, that little paragraph about NK (which is also quite important to me) looks really stupid and naive. I'll wait for the debates I guess. What about you? -jrleek PS. Oh yeah, I'm nervous about ANYONE NK endorses for President. On the ohter hand, if he plays his cards right, that could mean he might be able to do some good with them. \_ I've been in favor of getting Bush out of office since reading 'Scientific Integrity in Policymaking' see http://soda/~darin/sip.pdf for details. \_ The problem with voting against someone is the last time we did that, we got...Jimmy Carter. Whee. \_ Nader > Clinton > Sharpton > Gore > Dean > Edwards > Kerry > McCain > Bush > Buchanan. But I'm voting for Kerry because the ppl above him in the chain either aren't running or don't stand a chance. \_ Sharpton? Who? Buchanan? What? Why are these two even on the list? I'd vote for my dog first. At least he's cute. |
| 7/14 |
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| www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A689-2004May29.html John Kerry Kerry Says Global Democracy Is Not His Top Issue Democratic Candidate Makes National Security an Urgent Priority By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, May 30, 2004; John F Kerry indicated that as president he would downplay the promotion of democracy as a leading goal in dealing with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China and Russia, instead focusing on other objectives that he said are more central to the nation's security. Kerry, in a one-hour interview Friday night, also rejected the idea of setting a date for the withdrawal of US soldiers from Iraq. Though the notion is gaining favor in more liberal parts of the Democratic Party, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said "it is not a good idea just in a vacuum" because the timetable for reducing US troops must be dictated by success in holding elections and establishing security and stability. In many ways, Kerry laid out a foreign-policy agenda that appeared less idealistic about US aims than President Bush or even former president Bill Clinton, a fellow Democrat. and market it" around the world, he demurred when questioned specifically about a number of important countries that suppress human rights and freedoms. He said securing all nuclear materials in Russia, integrating China in the world economy, achieving greater controls over Pakistan's nuclear weapons or winning greater cooperation on terrorist financing in Saudi Arabia trumped human rights concerns in those nations. "Sometimes we are dealt a set of cards that don't allow us do everything we want to do at once," he said. During the interview, he eschewed the soaring rhetoric on freedom and democracy that are commonplace in Bush's speeches or news conferences. At one point, he stumbled over his words when he tried to emphasize his interest in promoting American values: "The idea of America is, I think proudly and chauvinistically, the best idea that we've developed in this world." and how rapidly others can embrace it and what can be expected over a period of time varies from place to place." Emphasizing his interest in setting realistic goals, he added: "Beware of the presidential candidate who just sort of says with a big paint brush we're going to make everything all right overnight." The interview, held at his campaign headquarters in Washington, was part of an 11-day effort by the Kerry campaign to flesh out his foreign-policy agenda in preparation for the fall campaign battle with Bush. Last Thursday, Kerry outlined what he called his "foreign-policy architecture": rebuilding alliances; deploying diplomacy, intelligence, economic power and American values to overcome threats; and freeing the United States from its dependence on Middle East oil. On Tuesday, he will give a speech outlining proposals on preventing a terrorist attack using nuclear and biological weapons, which include creating a new high-level White House coordinator to oversee his plan to secure nuclear material around the world and accelerating efforts to secure such materials in the former Soviet Union. Then, on Thursday, he will present his proposals for overhauling the armed forces. Bush's campaign ads have sought to portray Kerry as a dangerous leftist who would undermine the war on terror, and the Massachusetts Democrat has countered with a foreign-policy critique that mainly challenges Bush on tactics, not fundamentals. Challenged in the interview on how his approach differed from Bush in certain areas, Kerry would often cite either more attention to detail or greater urgency -- in other words, competence over ideology. During this period of campaigning, Kerry has not outlined a new strategy for the most vexing foreign policy issue -- the situation in Iraq. Kerry articulated a plan for Iraq several weeks ago which, with minor nuances, is similar to Bush's approach, though he has argued that Bush has so badly damaged relations with major allies that only a new president can win international support for the US plan in Iraq. Kerry, who has devoted much of his two-decade Senate career to foreign-policy issues, was comfortable and confident in answering questions that hopscotched across the globe and various trouble spots. He provided detailed and sometimes complex answers that occasionally drew on his experiences in meeting leaders in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. He said he would aim to set clear priorities after deciding what was most important and achievable in dealing with other countries. He also said he would balance those goals so no single objective overwhelmed the administration or left other concerns festering. He accused to the Bush administration of having an "Iraq-centric preoccupation" that left little opportunity to deal with other pressing problems. "It is the distinction between what is cosmetic and what is real. In the 20 years that I have been here I have learned to distinguish between the two. Kerry also accused the administration of having no plan to deal with North Korea's rush to build up its nuclear weapons arsenal. He derided the Bush administration's long effort to set up six-nation talks to resolve the impasse over North Korea's nuclear ambitions as a "fig leaf" designed to cover up its failure to have a coherent policy. Kerry said he would immediately begin bilateral negotiations with North Korea -- a goal the Pyongyang government has long sought -- but, perhaps in a nod to the sensitivities of the Japanese, South Koreans and Chinese, he also would not abandon the six-nation talks. "I would do the six-party but I would engage in bilateral discussions." The Bush administration has argued that bilateral talks would just reward North Korea for its behavior, and it was necessary to include the other nations to ensure a regional solution. Kerry declined to say what he would offer North Korea as inducements to give up its weapons but said he would be willing to discuss a broad agenda that included troop levels on the Korean Peninsula, replacing the armistice that ended the Korean War and even reunification of North and South Korea. Kerry said Bush had made a serious mistake by not talking directly with Pyongyang. over here and trouble over there, but they were getting the process of a dialogue to get a verification structure," Kerry said. "You are better off engaged in that effort than disengaged." Kerry was more cautious on whether he would allow talks with Iran, which has not had relations with the United States since the 1979 revolution. "You look at Egypt and Saudi Arabia and you have governments who like us and people who don't. In the case of Iran you have a government who doesn't and people who do." But Kerry said he would need to know what the United States could expect if it began talks with the Islamic Republic, which is sandwiched between two countries recently invaded by the United States -- Afghanistan and Iraq. He said he was "prepared carefully to explore the possibilities of what direct engagement might provide. Kerry has regularly attacked Saudi Arabia on the campaign trail as an unreliable partner in the fight against terrorism. He suggested he would punish the Saudis if they did not cooperate more fully on money laundering and the tracking of terrorist financing. "I don't believe we have a free voice in the Middle East as long as we are dependent on the oil card. I think there has been this sweetheart arrangement that has deprived us of that ability." On Egypt, Kerry said that he would not tie foreign aid to greater openness and reform. "I would first want to link it to the warmth of relationship with Israel and the effort to secure general stability in Middle East," he said. Kerry said that China, which is tightly ruled by the Communist Party, could be the "principal partner" in his anti-proliferation effort and it was essential to build a partnership with China that recognizes "the unbelievable economic power and clout" it will acquire in the coming years. "China is moving" on democracy on its own accord, he said, asserting that although the central government is focused on party control, "the contest of different ideas at local levels is quite vibrant." Kerr... |
| csua.org/u/7im -> www.nytimes.com/2004/01/31/politics/campaign/31EDWA.html?ei=5070&en=be102089af263b55&ex=1086148800&pagewanted=print&position= John Edwards stood before a jury and channeled the words of an unborn baby girl. By waiting 90 more minutes to perform a breech delivery, rather than immediately performing a Caesarean section, Mr Edwards said, the doctor permanently damaged the girl's brain. "She speaks to you through me," the lawyer went on in his closing argument. "And I have to tell you right now I didn't plan to talk about this right now I feel her. The jury came back with a $65 million verdict in the cerebral palsy case, and Mr Edwards established his reputation as the state's most feared plaintiff's lawyer. In the decade that followed, Mr Edwards filed at least 20 similar lawsuits against doctors and hospitals in deliveries gone wrong, winning verdicts and settlements of more than $60 million, typically keeping about a third. As a politician he has spoken of these lawsuits with pride. "I was more than just their lawyer," Mr Edwards said of his clients in a recent essay in Newsweek. The effect of his work has reached beyond those cases, and beyond his own income. just this week, a jury on Long Island returned a $112 million award. And doctors have responded by changing the way they deliver babies, often seeing a relatively minor anomaly on a fetal heart monitor as justification for an immediate Caesarean. On the other side, insurance companies, business groups that support what they call tort reform and conservative commentators have accused Mr Edwards of relying on questionable science in his trial work. Indeed, there is a growing medical debate over whether the changes have done more harm than good. Studies have found that the electronic fetal monitors now widely used during delivery often incorrectly signal distress, prompting many needless Caesarean deliveries, which carry the risks of major surgery. The rise in such deliveries, to about 26 percent today from 6 percent in 1970, has failed to decrease the rate of cerebral palsy, scientists say. Studies indicate that in most cases, the disorder is caused by fetal brain injury long before labor begins. An examination of Mr Edwards's legal career also opens a window onto the world of personal injury litigation. In building his career, Mr Edwards underbid other lawyers to win promising clients, sifted through several dozen expert witnesses to find one who would attest to his claims, and opposed state legislation that would have helped all families with brain-damaged children and not just those few who win big malpractice awards. In an interview on yesterday, Mr Edwards did not dispute the contention that the use of fetal heart rate monitors leads to many unneeded Caesarean deliveries or that few cases of cerebral palsy are caused by mishandled deliveries. But he said his cases, selected from hundreds of potential clients with the disorder, were exceptions. "I took very seriously our responsibility to determine if our cases were merited," Mr Edwards said. "Before I ever accepted a brain-injured child case, we would spend months investigating it." As for the unneeded Caesareans, he said, "The question is, would you rather have cases where that happens instead of having cases where you don't intervene and a child either becomes disabled for life or dies in utero?" A Talent for Trials Lawyers in North Carolina agree that Mr Edwards was an exceptionally talented lawyer, endowed with a prodigious work ethic, native self-confidence, good looks, charisma and an ability to talk about complicated subjects in accessible language. That, said his former partner Wade M Smith, is a lethal combination in a trial lawyer. "People don't see him coming until it's too late," Mr Smith said. Even Mr Edwards's former adversaries give him grudging praise. "He has an ingratiating way," said Dewey W Wells, a former state court judge in North Carolina who litigated against Mr Edwards as a defense lawyer, "particularly with jurors and particularly with women on juries." Mr Edwards tried his first big personal injury case in 1984, seven years after graduating from the University of North Carolina law school. The firm took the case that resulted in Mr Edwards's first big jury verdict as a favor to a state senator and lawyer who had let it languish. Mr Edwards, then a young associate, got the assignment because it was considered a loser. "I said, Let's dump the file on John's desk,' " said Wade H Hargrove, a former partner at the firm. The plaintiff in the case, Howard E G Sawyer, was disabled as a result of what Mr Edwards said was an overdose of a drug used in alcohol aversion therapy. O E Starnes, who represented the hospital, had never heard of Mr Edwards. "The revenue that he was producing was an out-of-body experience. John would pick up an $800,000 fee for making a few phone calls." In the years that followed, Mr Edwards handled all sorts of cases. He sued the American National Red Cross three times, claiming that the AIDS virus was transmitted through tainted blood products, and obtained a confidential settlement in each case. In 1993 Mr Edwards founded his own firm with an old friend, David F Kirby. Now known as Kirby & Holt, the firm boasts on its Web site that it still holds the record for the largest birth-injury settlement in North Carolina. Michael J Dayton, editor of The North Carolina Lawyers Weekly, which frequently published summaries of Mr Edwards's trial victories and settlements, based on information his firms provided, said his stature was uncontested. "On the plaintiffs' side, he was absolutely the top one," Mr Dayton said. The Lakeys say all the lawyers they interviewed except Mr Edwards wanted one-third of any award, which one of them predicted would not exceed $15 million. Mr Edwards offered to take a smaller percentage, unless the award reached unexpected heights. A jury awarded the Lakeys $25 million, of which Mr Edwards got one-third plus expenses. He so impressed the Lakeys that they worked as volunteers in his Senate campaign the next year. "I know how intelligent he is, how capable and how deeply he cares," Ms Lakey said. In response to a large punitive award against a trucking company whose driver was involved in a fatal accident, the North Carolina Legislature passed a law that barred such awards unless the employee's actions had been specifically approved by company officials. Over time, Mr Edwards became quite selective about cases. Liability had to be clear, his competitors and opponents say, and the potential award had to be large. "He took only those cases that were catastrophic, that would really capture a jury's imagination," Mr Wells, a defense lawyer, said. "He paints himself as a person who was serving the interests of the downtrodden, the widows and the little children. Actually, he was after the cases with the highest verdict potential. Mr Edwards did accept the occasional case in which a baby died during delivery; The North Carolina Lawyers Weekly reported such cases as yielding settlements in the neighborhood of $500,000. But cases involving children who faced a lifetime of expensive care and emotional trauma could yield much more. In 1985 he handled his first cerebral palsy case, for Jennifer Campbell, the girl whose voice he recreated at trial. In his book "Four Trials," Mr Edwards described the case as an uphill battle. The doctor was esteemed and worked at a prestigious teaching hospital. Mr Edwards's associate interviewed 41 obstetricians before finding one local doctor who would make a good witness. It was clear which evidence would be crucial: "I had to become an overnight expert in fetal monitor readings," Mr Edwards wrote. In other cases, too, his colleagues say, the fetal monitor readings would constitute the key evidence. "It's just like a black box in a car," said Douglas B Abrams, Mr Edwards's co-counsel in a cerebral palsy case settled for $1 million in 1995. "It seems to me that only trial lawyers are experienced at reading fetal monitor strips and are able to tell me exactly when infants became asphyxic," or deprived of oxygen, said Dr. In any event, Mr Edwards's closing argument in the Campbell case still resonates in North Carolina. "It would have been a very, very cold heart th... |