Here are the facts....
V.P. Cheney's income from Halliburton is a fixed portion of money owed from 1999, not based on current contracts or investments. Cheney earns $198,600/year as a government salary and $178,437/year in DEFERRED compensation that is payable for a total of 5 years from Halliburton. Cheney even went so far as to pay $15,000 out of his own pocket for an insurance policy that would pay him if Halliburton could not. Thus, he would be paid even if Halliburton went bankrupt.
As for Cheney's stock in Halliburton...on January 18, 2001, just before being sworn in as V.P, Cheney assigned all of his Halliburton stock options to a charitable trust. He donated 40 percent to his alma matter, The University of Wyoming, another 40 percent to George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates, which benefits the cardiac unit where he has been treated and the final 20 percent to Capital Partners for Education, a foundation that provides scholarships to low-income, high-school aged children.
It seems that Halliburton won the contacts on merit, not as a result of political affiliations. As most experts suggest, only two companies in the world could possibly handle the giant contracts. And the other company is based out of France.
Freedom Fries or Freedom Toast anyone?
Social Security
When Franklin Roosevelt, a democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program, he promised:
1.) Participation in the program would be completely voluntary
2.) The participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual income into the program
3.) The money the participants elected to put into the program would be deductible from their income tax each year.
4.) The money the participants put into the independent "Trust Fund" would be independent of the general operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement program.
5.)The annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.
Since many have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month -- and then find that they are getting taxed on 85% of the money they paid in to the government to "put away", you may be interested in the following:
Q: Which political party took Social Security from the independent "Trust" fund and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?
A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the Democratically-controlled House and Senate
Q: Which political party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) Withholding?
A: The Democratic Party
Q: Which political party started taxing Socail Security annuities?
A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the "tie-breaking" deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President
Q: Which political party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?
A: That's right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive SSI Social Security payments! The democratic party gave them benefits even though the immigrants never paid a dime into it!
Then after doing all this lying ant thieving and violation of the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!
The worst part is that uninformed citizens believe the lies!
Please vote, but educate yourself first!!
Many people seem to think WMD's are a figment of Bush/Cheney's imagination. Most don't know that their counterparts on the Democratic side who are now recanting, originally agreed that Iraq's threat of WMD's was real.
John Kerry: "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive rigime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. He miscalculated an eight-year war with Iran. He miscalculated the invasion of Kuwait. He miscalculated America's response to that act of naked aggression. He miscalculated his own military strength. He miscalculated the result of setting oil rigs on fire. He miscalculated the impact of sending scuds into Israel and trying to assassinate an American President. He miscalculated the Arab world's response to his misconduct. And now now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction.".....as stated at Georgetown University 1/23/2003
Bill Clinton: "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. We want to seriously reduce his capacity to threaten his neighbors.".... CNN 2/18/1998
George Tenet, Clinton appointed CIA Director: "It's a slam dunk!"....
Response when asked by President Bush if Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
Tim Russert to John Kerry: "Would you agree to release your military records?
John Kerry in response: "I have, they're available for you to come and look at."
Fact: The day after John Kerry said he would make all of his military records available for inspection at his campaign headquarters, a spokesman said the senator would not release any new documents, leaving undisclosed many of Kerry's evaluations by his Navy commanding officers, some medical records, and possibly other material.
When a reporter showed up to review the documents, the campaign staff declined saying all requests must go through the press spokesman, Michael Meehan. Meehan, in turn, said the only records available would be those already released.
So much for the Republicans being the party of the wealthy. According to a new study by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, that moniker more appropriately belongs to the Democrats. "Republicans raised more than Democrats from individuals who contributed small and medium amounts of money during the 2002 election cycle, " the report notes, "but Democrats far outpaced Republicans among deep-pocketed givers." Among donors who gave more than $200 but less than $1,000, Republicans enjoyed a substantial $68 million to $44 million edge over democrats. The margin was closer among those individuals who gave $1,000 or more: The GOP took in $317 million, compared to the Democrats' $307 million.
But among the fabulously wealthy, the Democrats cleaned house. Donors of $10,000 or more gave $140 million to Democrats, while only $111 million went to Republicans. Among those individuals who gave $1000,000 or more, the Democrats raised $72 million compared to the Republicans' $34 million. And when it comes to the millionaires' club - those kicking in $1 million or more - the Democratic party skunked the GOP, $36 million to $3 million. Needless to say, despite the near-parity in overall amounts - $384 million for Republicans vs. $350 million for Democrats - the number of individual donors to the GOP exceeded those to the Democratic Party by more than 40 percent.
In other words, in 2002 a select group of bigwigs dumped big money into Democratic causes, while a broad base of folks donated respectable, but not overwhelming, amounts to Republican candidates. That goes a long way toward explaining the Democrats' shallow support in the midterm elections, and should give an indication of which party's agenda has been hijacked by the big money-men
It's no surprise that John Kerry has devoted so much time and energy questioning George W. Bush's record as commander-in-chief. Nor is it any surprise that he recently launched a campaign calling on Secretary of Defense, Don Rumsfeld to resign after a handful of military personnel humiliated al-qaida terrorists in Abu Ghraib prison while attmpting to obtain actionable intelligence about their plans to kill more of our troops.
These political attacks are just the latest round on Kerry's long list of black-bag antics designed to undermine America's military strength and resolve.
Kerry, who fancies himself a war hero, has spent much of his political career denigrating American military personnel and the nation they defend. But his anti-American actions preceded his first campaign for Congress -- indeed, they were the platform from which he launched his political career.
Like his comrade "Hanoi Jane" Fonda and so many other Leftist protagonists from the Age of Aquarius, Kerry was a child of wealth and privilege. Today, he is the wealthiest member of Congress(the "F" stands for "Forbes," after all) but don't expect that to be a central theme of his "man of the people" campaign. (In fact, the top five wealthiest Senators are all Democrats.)
Kerry grew up hobnobbing with the Massachusetts Cape glitterati, a life of leisure including all the accoutrements -- the best schools, the best vacation homes, the best yachts, etc. He socialized with the rich and famous, especially the Kennedy clan elites, where he was taken under the wing of his future patron saint, Teddy. He attempted to emulate John Kennedy's PT-109 heroics by joining the Navy and using his connections to obtain an assignment for a short tour on the swiftboat in Vietnam. Kerry then went on to collect three Purple Hearts in just two months -- all of dubious merit, but requisite for a ticket home to pursue his political aspirations.
Unlike John F. Kennedy, however, when John F. Kerry got home, there was no hero's welcome. The nation was in turmoil over our continued role in Vietnam, the result of limited but well-publicized Leftist protests against the war. So Kerry, ever the opportunist, endevord to become the Left's most "useful idiot" (as Lenin called Western apologists for Soviet propaganda), collaborating with Fonda, et al., and leading protests accusing his "brethren" in Vietnam of all manners of atrocities.
Kerry was (and remains) an effective spokesperson for his Leftist cadre. His anti-war protest period culminated with his 1971 congressional testimony, after which he told the press, "There are all kinds of atrocities and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free-fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50-caliber machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, and which were our only weapons against people. I took part in search -and-destroy missions, in the buring of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare. All of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions."
Kerry, by his own account, violated the UCMJ, the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Code while serving as a Navy officer, and he further stands in violation af Article three, Section three of the U.S. Constitution.
Upon entering the Navy in 1966, John Kerry signed a six-year contract (plus a six-month extension during wartime) and an Officer Candidate contract for five years of active duty and active Naval Reserve. This indicates that Kerry was clearly a commissioned officer at the time of his 1970 meeting with NVA Communists in Paris -- in direct violation of the UCMJ's Article 104 part 904, and U.S. Code 18 U.S.C. 953. That meeting, and Kerry's subsequent coddling of Communists while leading mass protests against our military in the year that followed, also place him in direct violation of our Constitution's Article three, Section three, which defines treason as "giving aid and comfort" to the enemy in time of warfare.
The Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3, which states, "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Cngress, or elector of Presiden and Vice-President...having previously taken and oath...to support the Consitution of the United States, who has engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."
It is for this reason -- for his record of giving aid and comfort to the enemy while a member of the U.S. Armed Forces in violation of his oath -- that we insist John Kerry resign his seat in the U.S. Senate. He has dishonored his family, dishonored his state and dishonored our nation. He is not fit for public office at any level of government, much less, the highest office in the land!