Kerry Attacks Bush on Terror Alert System
Senator John Kerry is trying to convince himself and Americans that President Bush used the terror alert system for political purposes in 2004.
Kerry said in an interview with the Herald: “We had red alerts and orange alerts and all these alerts. We haven’t had an alert since the election.”
Republicans immediately attacked the statement, saying Kerry has a misguided viewpoint on the war in Iraq.
“Sen. Kerry’s suggestion that the terror alert system is a political tool provides a unique insight into the fundamental misunderstanding he and Barack Obama have about the threat America faces,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Blair Latoff said. ‘It is extremely disappointing that there are those who still believe that protecting Americans is a partisan issue.”
Kerry made the comments while discussing the difference between the political climate now and during the 2004 election, when he challenged President Bush.
“The economy I had in ’04 was a pretty good economy, and today it’s obviously down in the dumps, and we were one year into the war in Iraq and I was saying it was wrong, and we had red alerts and orange alerts and all these alerts. We haven’t had an alert since the election,” Kerry said.
“And we’re now six years into the war and everyone sees the handwriting on the wall. So we have a very different mood today. For those who say timing is everything in politics, it is.”
I won’t waste time trying to convince people unwilling to be convinced that Kerry’s suggestion is just plain stupid. However, Senator Kerry should ask himself why it is that increased terror alerts would have helped President Bush instead of himself. Could it be that Americans know that Senator Kerry (or any democratic president for that matter) would be less effective, if not ineffective in executing the War on Terror?
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TAGS: George W. Bush, John Kerry, terror alert system.
Aaron Margolis is a life long resident of the Bay State, and works at an architectural firm north of Boston. Aaron has a Master of Architecture Degree from Boston Architectural College and is currently in the process of becoming of a Registered Architect.
“Kerry slams President Bush on terror alert system.” That’s really reasuring to America. Is it just me or do any of the rest of you wisemen in high places get the feeling that ther are a few people in politics these days who would just assume hand the fight right to the enemy and say it was the other parties fault. I feel terribly disturbed when I hear comments such as these, and I hear them every day more than once. That would be the reason I didn’t vote for Kerry the last time, because he’s a flake. You know how flakey friends are, you can’t stand them and you usually tell them every time you see them. What a disgrace to the uniform.
HYer’s the real George Bush, not a Texan, notan American, A GLOBALIST!
Texas Turns Aside Pressure on Execution of 5 Mexicans
Ricardo Guzman/European Pressphoto Agency
Eleuteria Armendariz Perales, grandmother of José Ernesto Medellín. He is scheduled to be put to death in Texas on Aug. 5.
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By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: July 18, 2008
HOUSTON — Despite pleas from the White House and the State Department, as well as an international court order to review their cases, Texas will execute five Mexicans on death row, a spokeswoman for the governor said Thursday.
The first of the executions — that of José Ernesto Medellín, 33, convicted in the 1993 rape and murder of two teenage girls here — is scheduled for Aug. 5.
The decision by Gov. Rick Perry to allow the executions is the latest twist in a long-running battle between Mexico, which has no death penalty, and the United States over the fate of 51 Mexicans facing capital punishment in several states, including 14 in Texas.
On Wednesday, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ordered a review of five of the Texas cases after Mexico complained that the convicts, all men, had not been allowed a chance to talk to a Mexican consul after their arrests, as required under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
But that argument holds little sway in Texas, a place with a long history of upholding the death penalty and of telling other governments to mind their own business.
“This ruling doesn’t change anything,” said Mr. Perry’s spokeswoman, Allison Castle. “This is an individual who brutally gang-raped and murdered two teenage women. We don’t really care where you are from; you can’t do that to our citizens.”
The ruling went further than a 2004 decision by the international court, which again sided with Mexico, ordering a review of all 51 cases to determine if a consul’s intervention might have changed the outcome.
President Bush, who as Texas’ governor oversaw 152 executions, ordered his home state to comply with the international court. But Texas refused and fought Mr. Bush’s order in court. In March, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the president had overstepped his powers and that only Congress could require the state to change its judicial procedures to comply with the 1963 treaty.
On Monday, Representative Howard L. Berman, Democrat of California, submitted legislation to deal with the Supreme Court’s ruling. The bill, though, is not expected to come up for a vote anytime soon, especially in the charged atmosphere of an election year, aides to Mr. Berman said.
State Department officials said the execution of Mr. Medellín and the other four convicted killers might erode the ability of the United States to help people accused of crimes abroad.
Mr. Perry, a Republican, stood firm, saying the Supreme Court ruling in March had freed Texas to go ahead with the executions, starting with that of Mr. Medellín, one of six young men that a jury found had raped and strangled Elizabeth Peña, 16, and Jennifer Ertman, 15, in a park one night.
Mr. Medellín was 18 at the time and had lived most of his life in Texas; he signed a confession in English.
A spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, Ricardo Alday, accused Texas of “an irreparable breach of international obligation” if it did not delay the executions until Congress could act on Mr. Berman’s bill.
A lawyer representing Mr. Medellín, Donald Francis Donovan of New York, said he would seek such a delay in Texas state court.
“Everyone agrees that the U.S. made a deal here,” Mr. Donovan said, “and for Texas to breach that deal when it was made by the people of the United States as a whole would not be right.”
For relatives of the murdered girls, questions about international relations seem irrelevant.
“This has nothing to do with the World Court; it has nothing to do with the U.N.,” said Jennifer’s father, Randy Ertman. “This has everything to do with what Mexico wants, not what Texas wants. The people of Texas want the death penalty.”
Ashley Marchand contributed reporting.
only a completely naive ignorant fool could believe anything that comes out of the bush administration by now. aaron margolis you are a tool and hopefully karma bites you in the ass somewhere in your life. funny i haven’t heard one mention of a single terror alert from 2004-2007. here comes the election and uh-oh drudge claims america is about to raise the alert again. the fact that you idiots can still be in denial about bush proves that you are just trying to win a long argument. you can’t stand the fact that the guy you’ve been defending is in fact as corrupt as any reasonably thinking person saw he was from day one. its not that difficult to see when someone is putting on an act. an ivy league grad who’s dad was a president tricking you idiots into thinking he’s a southern baptist. congratulations bush voters you have destroyed your country. but you’ve done it in a way where your children and grandchildren will be the ones to suffer. you fucking baby boomers destroyed the world and bankrupted america. i wish you all would die already, but no you will all die slowly and do even more damage as we now have to take care of you as you shit your pants wearing chinese diapers. and there are still idiots like aaron margolis claiming bush would never do something political nooo. i mean the idea that these fucking shitbags can defend bush with a straight face is just mind-boggling. then the same morons that were wrong about everything in iraq, i.e. doug feith, want us to believe now have the solution in other areas. just get this fucking plague out of office. i guarantee you’ll never see another picture of bush “clearing brush”. its a fucking act people he’s not a cowboy. he’s a silver-spooned elitist who never grasped the concept of money and discipline. of course when your father just happened to be head of CIA when JFK was murdered, and when your mother thinks the katrina victims are happy in the superdome b/c they are used to shitty shelters, you aren’t going to turn out in the best mental shape you can be. in fact the bankrupting and imperialistic nature of current america can all be credited with the bush family from the nazi sympathizer prescott bush who was THE banker for the nazis, to jeb bush who helped disrupt the 2000 election and appointed that dumb c*nt to oversee everything who’s name will not be mentioned. but dont you get it the elite always appoint the likable country bumpkin to trick you idiots. and you fall for it everytime. fuck americans are dumb.
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