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Reason of the Day to
Vote for John Kerry and John Edwards:

• September 30, 2004 -- I watched the debate. It was hard work. But I didn't back down. And no mixed messages. I am going to vote for Kerry/Edwards.



• September 29, 2004 -- I am not in favor of the "nothing's perfect" plan for democratic elections, in Iraq:

  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday raised the possibility that Iraq could conduct only limited elections in January, excluding places where violence was considered too severe for people to go to polls.
  
  "Let's say you tried to have an election and you could have it in three-quarters or four-fifths of the country. But in some places you couldn't because the violence was too great," Rumsfeld said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

  or here at home:

  "Hurdles Remain for American Voters Who Live Overseas," by MICHAEL MOSS, New York Times, September 29, 2004: Four years after overseas voting became a battleground in the presidential election in Florida, millions of civilians and soldiers living abroad still face a bewildering and unwieldy system of absentee balloting that could prevent their votes from being counted.

• September 28, 2004 -- When you have a big job to do, you look for someone with a good track record. Instead, George W. Bush selected Halliburton sacrificing the best interests of the nation (and defying common sense) in order to return money to his cronies. And now they aren't making the profit they expected, so they are pulling out. Contracting out food, transportation, and billeting for an invading and occupying army is probably a bad idea to start with, one for the war college's cautionary manual. It is particularly bad when the contract is awarded without bids, the company is already involved in lawsuits, and your no-bid contract is the plum that is supposed to lift them out of bankruptcy.
  
  We can depend upon Kerry for better choices.



• September 27, 2004 -- Speaking of simplifying that tax code, going to a national sales tax would be an even bigger gift to wealthy people than the current Bush tax cuts.
  
  Consider a family of 4 with two wage-earners working for $7.00 an hour, which is a bit more than minimum wage. The family income would be just a bit under $30,000.00. This family won't be able to save much, if anything. Each month, they will spend all of their money, about $2,500.00, and if the sales tax taxes only money that is spent, 100% of their income will be taxed. If they have a credit card and charge something, they will pay tax on on that as well, so they may pay tax on more than they earn.
  
  Another family of 4 with two wage earners and an income of $100,000.00 a year could live well on half their income, giving half to savings, investments, charities, etc. In their case, if they spend half of their money each monty, they would spend just over $4,000.00, almost twice as much as the lower income family. They would pay more tax, because they would spend more. However, half of their income would be tax free.



• September 26, 2004 -- From the administration that wants to simplify the tax code, we have the Medicare drug plan that will make your head spin:

  In general, drug companies want as many drugs as possible on each list, known as a formulary. Many doctors and consumer groups agree. But insurers and drug benefit managers generally want to limit the number of drugs, and the types of drugs. Otherwise, they say, the new drug benefit will quickly become unaffordable.

  Both drug companies and insurers will make a lot of money, and consumers, in this case the elderly and most vulnerable group, will be pay the price:

  Howard J. Bedlin, vice president of the National Council on the Aging, a research and advocacy group, said, "A restrictive formulary with a limited number of therapeutic classes may save money in the short run, but it will cost Medicare and beneficiaries more in the long run,'' by increasing the need for hospital care, nursing home admissions and doctors' visits.

  John Kerry will do better.



• September 25, 2004 -- On The Washington Journal today (C-SPAN) a representative of the Chronicle of Higher Education was praising the Bush plan to bring accountability to higher Education -- no college student left behind? First the Chronicle representative (I'll check the name tomorrow) explained that poor students do not graduate at the same rate as middle and higher income students. Bush, he explains, will pour money into the Community Colleges to help these poor students.
  
  Now, he has already said poor students don't graduate at the same rate as other students. Is that because the Community Colleges are not accountable and have no programs for poor students? Not at all. Many initiatives already exist to support low-income students at Community Colleges, public universities, private colleges, all over the country. Poor students do not graduate because of demographic features associated with poverty: diminished time, money, and resources; inadequate access to information; lack of support systems for child care; working long inflexible hours for low pay.
  
  We have to do something about the jobs disappearing and the decreasing earning ability of the American worker, raise the minimum wage, develop fair labor rules that protect workers, sponsor affordable housing, and provide affordable medical insurance. Working people should not live in poverty. Working parents should be able to feed and clothe their children and educate them at the same time.
  
  There are only 168 hours in a week, 24/7. I know low-income students who work a 40 hour week, and attend class for 15 hours a week (the clock hours associated with 15 credit hours). In order to be successful as students, they need to give 3 hours in reading, study, and class project time for each hour of credit, which means another 45 clock hours. I count for a successful student a minimum of 49 hours of sleep (more is recommended), 21 hours for personal necessities (eating, showering, going to the bathroom), 28 hours for family and home (calling Mom, being with significant people who give meaning to life, maintaining the home environment), and 10 hours for transitions between places and roles, even if the family, school, and work locations are all close together. The total is 208 hours.The 40-hour deficit, usually taken from sleep, study, and family, is a major reason poor students don't graduate.
  
  An accountability model for higher education will increase the actual drop-out rate for poor students while it masks the problem statistically, just as No Child Left Behind has done for K-12. It will force colleges to re-define categories of students and get rid of the ones who aren't able to keep up, to drop them from the counts. As in K-12, if you don't count them, they won't count against you. Kerry has a better plan for America, one that counts all of us.



• September 24, 2004 -- Read the whole article in The New York Times, and then you will know the real story about George W. Bush and the National Guard, the story that you knew we would never know, the records being lost and destroyed and all that. Portrait of George Bush in '72: Unanchored in Turbulent Time, Published September 20, 2004:

  MONTGOMERY, Ala., Sept. 17 - Nineteen seventy-two was the year George W. Bush dropped off the radar screen.
  
  He abandoned his once-prized status as a National Guard pilot by failing to appear for a required physical. He sought temporary reassignment from the Texas Air National Guard to an Alabama unit but for six months did not show up for training. He signed on as an official in the losing campaign of a Republican Senate candidate in Alabama, and even there he left few impressions other than as an amiable bachelor with a good tennis game and a famous father.
  
  "To say he brought in a bunch of initiatives and bright ideas," said a fellow campaign worker, Devere McLennan, "no he didn't."

• September 23, 2004 -- Since we didn't elect George W. Bush the first time, I think it will be steady and consistent of us to not elect him this time. Wouldn't want to flip-flop.



• September 22, 2004 -- I am reading Kevin Phillips' American Dynasty, and it is taking a long time. It tells about the Bush family's rise in the oil and energy industry, the birth of Enron, and the purchasing of government. As I read, I understand how little effect an ordinary person can have. I put the book down for a couple of days between chapters to appreciate the power that we do have, once every 4 years, to weigh in on the issues and choose the leader of the free world. We deserve a leader who has a sense of civic responsibility, as Kerry does. George W. Bush places no value upon anything other than money and power. His "country" accent is as fake as his facade of religion. He has drawn us into war and squandered lives and resources to fill his own personal pockets and those of his billionaire support base.



• September 21, 2004 -- from John Kerry: "Two years ago, Congress was right to give the president the authority to use force to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. This president, any president would have needed the threat of force to act effectively. This president misused that authority."
  
  
• September 20, 2004 -- The Unlocked Box How Bush is plundering Social Security to close the deficit. By Daniel Gross, posted January 9, 2004, on Slate.



• September 19, 2004 -- George Bush says the economy is good. Kerry points out the record deficits, unemployment, loss of jobs, reckless and dangerous revision of the tax structure -- in effect the bankrupting of government. Who is telling us the truth? A January 7, 2004 report of the International Monetary Fund U.S. Fiscal Policies and Priorities for Long-Run Sustainability sees the problems:

  U.S. government finances have experienced a remarkable turnaround in recent years. Within only a few years, hard-won gains of the previous decade have been lost and, instead of budget surpluses, deficits are again projected as far as the eye can see. The deterioration has not been restricted to the federal budget but has also taken place at the state and local government levels. As a result, the U.S. general government deficit is now among the highest in the industrialized world, and public debt levels are approaching those in other major industrial countries
  
  ...the evaporation of fiscal surpluses has left the budget even less well prepared to cope with the retirement of the baby boom generation, which will begin later this decade and place massive pressure on the Social Security and Medicare systems. Without the cushion provided by earlier surpluses, there is less time to address these programs' underlying insolvency before government deficits and debt begin to increase unsustainably

• September 18, 2004 -- Kerry and Edwards are not afraid to face reality in Iraq or to answer questions at home. We need a better plan in Iraq. The civilian companies supporting American military in Iraq are absorbing millions of dollars while Iraqis who are working for them, earning from $100 to $500 a month, are being killed by their fellow countrymen just because they work for the Americans. We do not even report or investigate the killings, and we continue to arm Iraqis. Wouldn't it make sense to take their guns away at least until they agree to quit shooting us? Oh, wait, they are shooting themselves more often than they shoot us. That must be what George W. Bush means when he says that Americans are safer. We could ask him to explain, but
  • he doesn't have that in his speech,
  • anyone who gets close enough to ask a question has to sign a loyalty oath,
  • he doesn't hold news conferences, and
  • he is trying to call off the debates.



• September 17, 2004 -- John Kerry didn't make the war in Iraq. John Kerry didn't alienate our allies. John Kerry can mend the fences and map a road to peace. When you "hold steady" in a wrong path, as George W. Bush has done, "steady" is not a virtue.
  
  This Is Bush's Vietnam by columnist Bob Herbert in the New York Times today:

  When the newscaster David Brinkley, appalled by the carnage in Vietnam, asked Lyndon Johnson why he didn't just bring the troops home, Johnson replied, "I'm not going to be the first American president to lose a war."
  
  George W. Bush is now trapped as tightly in Iraq as Johnson was in Vietnam. The war is going badly. The president's own intelligence estimates are pessimistic. There is no plan to actually win the war in Iraq, and no willingness to concede defeat.
  
  I wonder who the last man or woman will be to die for this colossal mistake.

  When you were wrong in the first place "steady" is not a virtue.

• September 16, 2004 -- You're working hard to get ahead. Economic indicators say that hard work doesn't work in a Bush economy. You have to vote Kerry for health care and a fair share.
  
  From ESL.NET, a newsletter promoting English as a Second Language software and programs, in an article titled "Workplace English has Arrived":

  According to a recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), America has lost over 800,000 manufacturing jobs to Mexico since the NAFTA agreement was signed in 1993. Add these numbers to the additional two million manufacturing jobs lost to China between 1995 and 2002, and it is easy to imagine that demand for unskilled manufacturing labor in the USA is at an all-time low.
  
  To make matters worse, over the past 5 years American companies have been pressed to further increase quality and profits while reducing costs among traditional semi-skilled labor. One result has been outsourcing. An exodus of desk jobs has moved overseas to India and other countries. An increasing demand at home for semi-skilled labor at unskilled labor prices has also made an impact.
  
  With the continual weakening of unions, we have seen even more wage-earning jobs such as sales, customer service, secretarial, food service, construction work, nursing, and hotel staff going to non-native English speakers. As has been true of past generations, recent immigrants are willing to work harder for lower pay in their quest for upward mobility. [italics mine] Many industries now directly recruit from the recent waves of immigration from Latin America, Vietnam, Haiti, The Russian Federation, Cambodia, Africa, and other immigrant communities.

  Upward mobility? Isn't that what America is about? Not so. Many of the workers whose jobs are lost to off-shore outsourcing now are the children of hard-working immigrants, and they are involved now in "downward mobility." Working hard doesn't work in the corporate economy, and it is will become even less effective if Bush administration tax cuts, estate tax elimination, and Fair Labor Standards revisions continue.

  David R. Francis, in The Christian Science Monitor article "'Upward mobility' in real decline, studies charge" published January 27, 2003, wrote:

  Bhash Mazumder, a Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago economist, calculates that on average fully 60 percent of the income gap between any two people in one generation persists into the next generation.

  That means that you don't have much chance of getting ahead. You have to be born wealthy to become wealthy. If you are not wealthy now, you probably won't become wealthy. But if you vote for Kerry and fiscal responsibility, for a rollback of the Bush tax cuts, for health care and a fair share, maybe you can hold on to the dream that has driven immigration and hard work for many generations -- a comfortable productive life in a free country in which ordinary people participate in a truly representative government.

• September 15, 2004 -- The George W. Bush administration permitted the assault weapons ban to expire. That is supposed to make us safer, since hey, you are safe if you have an assault weapon. Everybody in Iraq has one, and look how safe it is over there. The Bush policy on gun control is "Protect gunmakers from lawsuits." The Kerry policy on gun control is "Close gun show loophole; require child safety locks." How many more times do we need to see Columbine?



• September 14, 2004 -- I believe we should look at alternate energy sources and practice diplomacy. Then we might have a world left to live in. This story from the New York Times:

  Every fall, after raising their young near Teshekpuk Lake and the Colville River, tens of thousands of geese and tundra swans leave the North Slope of Alaska for more southerly shores. Some end their journey at the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in the flatlands of North Carolina.
  
  Both habitats could be transformed if current Bush administration initiatives come to pass. The birds would have oil rigs as neighbors in Alaska and be greeted by Navy jets simulating carrier takeoffs and landings in North Carolina.

• September 13, 2004 -- Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, states in an article titled "Decline of American Greatness," published in Washington Monthly, September, 2004:

  America started the 21st century with great wealth, great power, and great moral authority in the world. But in the blink of an eye, Bush took us from budget surpluses to budget deficits, from a military that was feared to a military that is exhausted and stretched to the breaking point, and from a country that could lead the world to a country that invokes suspicion at home and abroad. We are at the beginning of what may be a long war on terror. This means that we need all aspects of our power -- our military power, our economic power, and our moral power -- intact. Bush has squandered all of them in his first term. We can't afford a second term.

• September 12, 2004, Sunday -- Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in comments reported by Catholic News Service:

  "When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons," he said.
  
  In other words, if a Catholic thinks a candidate's positions on other issues outweigh the difference on abortion, a vote for that candidate would not be considered sinful.

  This stance places the responsibility for evaluating the issues on the individual voter. Christians voting their faith may choose to vote for John Kerry based upon strong Christian principles.

  I am going to vote for John Kerry, for democracy and for continued freedom of religion and opinion in the United States, for responsibility and conscience, and for a government that serves the needs of people at home and abroad.

• September 11, 2004 -- This is the anniversary that we do not forget; however, even as we remember, we must consider how we have spent the wealth of human response to 9/11. We had an opportunity to show the world how a brave and democratic people come together. We could have poured our resources into recovery and prevention, taken care of victims, pursued perpetrators instead of spiriting their families out of the country away from investigators, picked up and continued the effective Clinton initiatives that George W. Bush had dismantled, hardened the pilot's cabins in our airliners, paid the price in dollars for good security at our airports, and shown the world a confident and united people.
  
  Instead, under the leadership of George W. Bush, we talked a lot about airport security but did not fund it. (Private enterprise is better, of course, because Halliburton needs all of the tax money.) We turned away from the real enemy, Ben Laden, and pursued a petty thug of a dictator who wasn't directly involved in terrorism at all because he presented a better collection of bombing targets and had oil wells. Under the Bush leadership we bankrupted our airlines by stupid decisions. The administration made sure that we stayed frightened because frightened people are more likely to vote for him. On November 2nd we need to correct these errors and vote the fear-mongering administration that has duped us into war out of office.



• September 10, 2004 -- News release from September 9th: Fact Check on New Bush Misleading Medicare Attack Ad “George W. Bush is misleading on Medicare again. Last Thursday night he told the American people he was strengthening Medicare and making health care more affordable for our seniors. Then Friday morning, he announced a 17 percent increase in Medicare premiums. No wonder people think he’s taking our country in the wrong direction,” said Kerry campaign spokesman, Chad Clanton.



• September 9, 2004 -- So Bush sets up a system that pays your company to move your job overseas by exempting their overseas earnings from taxation, then he lowers taxes on other businesses so they will be inspired to hire you in a lower-paying job, sets up a rule by which they can work you more than 40 hours a week and pay you no overtime, then offers you a training program so you can become qualified for the job you once had, which is now in India. Relax. You are in an Opportunity Zone. Use this opportunity well and vote for John Kerry and John Edwards, for health care and a fair share, for an Iraq exit plan, for hope and an end to the Bush-Cheney threat of terrorism.



• September 8, 2004 -- "A Little Perspective on $87 billion. or "A billion here, a billion there. Pretty soon it starts to add up to some real money."



• September 7, 2004 --Two US Government news releases yesterday:

  Lsa Anaconda, Balad, Iraq – Two 13th COSCOM Soldiers are dead and 16 are injured as the result of a mortar attack on a multi-national force base near Baghdad around 6 p.m. September 5.

  BAGHDAD -- Iraqi National Guard forces and Multi-National Force personnel continue to conduct joint operations in the suburbs of Fallujah....The vehicle-borne improvised explosive device which killed both Iraqi National Guard personnel and Marines was detonated late this morning near Fallujah. The explosion killed seven Marines who were assigned to I Marine Expeditionary Force and three Iraqi National Guard Soldiers.

  George W. Bush sent our troops to Iraq on manufactured evidence, against expert advice and world opinion, and with inadequate support. And they remain there with inadequate support and no exit plan. John Kerry has developed an exit plan for American troops in Iraq, and John Kerry will make better decisions regarding the deployment of American troops.

• September 6, 2004 - Saving Our Schools: A Citizens Guide to the Attack on Public Education Ken Goodman, Yetta Goodman (Editor), Patrick Shannon (Editor), ISBN 1-57143-102-0. This book represents No Child Left Behind as a coordinated effort to privatize education, and the thesis is well supported.

  In 1996 when I was doing research related to my master's degree in Education Administration, I conducted a survey of regional schools in and around my rural community. What I found was that every individual family responding to the survey felt that while the condition of schools in the United States was really bad, their own school had good teachers, good academic programs, good lunches, good after-school programs, -- all of the things that make the school a vital part of the American community. The failure of American schools is another anxiety myth supported by this administration. We need new leadership with confidence in democracy and in the American people. John Kerry expresses this confidence, and he will support public education, not exploit it for political advantage.

• September 5, 2004 -- I shudder to think that the person who wants us to let him stay in office "four more years" and make critical decisions for the United States is the person who chose Zell Miller to deliver the keynote address at his nominating convention.



• September 4, 2004 -- Not one but Ten good reasons and a study guide to go with them. Thanks to Mr. Bartlett at the Presbyterian Hunger Program in Louisville, Kentucky, for this link. This site is not partisan, but it is Christian. In an election year in which religion is being used badly (See August 22nd and August 30th) here a reminder of how Christian principles actually relate to the election of leaders.



• September 3, 2004 -- The L-curve. If you see two red lines, there are two Americas. If instead you see a gently rising slope of possibility and promise, America is the Land of Opportunity. In the United States, a person used to be able to work and get ahead. Under the Bush policies, wealth is increasingly concentrated on the (apparent) vertical by the abandonment of worker rights and protections and tax breaks for people on the (apparent) vertical. I know that people can work all of their lives and make the best choices and still stay in the same spot on the long level plain of trying to make ends meet. Education and hard work no longer mean financial security in the United States, and, increasingly, they no longer mean opportunity. The Bush record on education and jobs is abysmal, working people do not see their income increase, and more working families than ever are falling into the abyss of poverty.



• September 2, 2004 -- From the George W. Bush acceptance speech, something that he has learned from being President:

  I have learned first-hand that ordering Americans into battle is the hardest decision, even when it is right.[italics mine]

  Or, as we have seen, even when it is what you really want to do, planned to do even before you were elected, so you will be a great "wartime" president. Even when you manufacture the rationale, oppose your top advisors, and go bullheadedly -- poorly equipped, understaffed, and without allies -- into a war that was never necessary.

  John Kerry can do better.

• September 1, 2004 -- Okay, I am a liberal. I am supposed to be focused on the issues, up on the news, and concerned about serious things, putting links up here for you to go and read thousands of words on how things are not working under George W. Bush. But it is 11:45 p.m., and I have just watched all of the prime-time lineup of the Republican Convention, and I tell you frankly I am just tired of looking at their turtle faces.