🚀 go-pugleaf

Uncle Samuel <Stars@Stripes.USA> wrote in message news:<0bugd.2052250$yk.339928@news.easynews.com>...
> �      Sen. Kerry Voted Against B-1 Bomber.  (S. 3189, CQ Vote #273: 
> Passed 79-16: R 37-5; D 42-11, 10/15/90, Kerry Voted Nay)

The rest of your list snipped -

Why are you trying to mislead these good people?

All of the weapons that you list here that Kerry voted against were at
Dick Cheney's and George H.W. Bush's request.  Did you know that?

When Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense under Bush 41, these were
the weapons' systems were what he called an end to.  It was to be a
"peace dividend," from the end of the Cold War.

Numerous variants of this message claiming that Senator John Kerry of
Masschusetts "voted to kill every military appropriation for the
development and deployment of every weapons systems since 1988" have
been circulating since at least February 2004. The message's
implication � that Senator Kerry distinctly and specifically voted to
kill upwards of a dozen different weapons systems � is inaccurate and
grossly misleading, however.

A 22 February 2004 Republican National Committee
(RNC-http://www.gop.com/RNCResearch/Read.aspx?ID=3936) research
briefing includes the list of weapons systems found in this message
and citations that purportedly support the claim that Senator Kerry
voted to kill each one. But all the citations stem from votes on three
Congressional bills, none of which were about a specific weapons
system or group of weapons systems.
The three votes cited � regarding S. 3189 (1990), H.R. 5803 (1990),
and H.R. 2126 (1995) � were bills covering fiscal year Department of
Defense appropriations, all of which Senator Kerry voted against. (Two
of those three votes were not technically on defense appropriations
per se, but on House-Senate conference committee reports for defense
appropriations bills.) As the text of a typical defense appropriations
bill shows, such bills cover the entire governmental expenditures for
defense in a given fiscal year and encompass thousands of items
totalling hundreds of billions of dollars � including everything from
the cost of developing, testing, purchasing, and maintaining weapons
and other equipment to personnel expenses (salaries, medical benefits,
tuition assistance, reenlistment bonuses), medical research, hazardous
waste cleanup, facilities maintenance, and a whole host of other
disbursements. Members of Congress ultimately vote "yea" or "nay" on
an entire appropriations bill; they don't pick and choose to approve
some items and reject others.
Senators and Representatives might vote against a defense
appropriations bill for any numbers of reasons � because they object
to the presence or absence of a particular item, because they feel
that the government is proposing to spend too much or too little money
on defense, or anything in-between. Maintaining, as is the case here,
that a Senator who voted "nay" on one year's defense appropriations
bill therefore voted to "kill" a variety of specific weapons systems
is like claiming that any Congressman who has ever voted against a
defense appropriations bill has therefore also voted to abolish the
U.S. military.
The inclusion of some of the items listed here is all the more
ridiculous given that they were weapons systems that a previous
Republican administration advocated eliminating. For example, it was
Dick Cheney himself, in his capacity as Secretary of Defense under
President George H.W. Bush, who testified before the House Armed
Services Committee on 13 August 1989 that he had recommended
cancelling the AH-64 Apache Helicopter program:


The Army, as I indicated in my earlier testimony, recommended to me
that we keep a robust Apache helicopter program going forward. AH-64 .
. . forced the Army to make choices. I said, "You can't have all
three. We don't have the money for all three." So I recommended that
we cancel the AH-64 program two years out. That would save $1.6
billion in procurement and $200 million in spares over the next five
years.

(Note that this testimony took place over six years before Senator
Kerry supposedly voted to "kill" the AH-64.)
Likewise, on 1 February 1992, Secretary of Defense Cheney complained
to the Senate Armed Services Committee that he was being "forced" to
spend money on unneeded weapons such as the M-1, the F-14, and the
F-16:

Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and
sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend
money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight
budgets and new requirements . . . You've directed me to buy more
M-1s, F-14s, and F-16s � all great systems . . . but we have enough of
them.

And President Bush noted in his 1992 State of the Union address that
he was phasing out several weapons systems, including the B-2, to
"reflect the changes of the new era":

Two years ago, I began planning cuts in military spending that
reflected the changes of the new era. But now, this year, with
imperial communism gone, that process can be accelerated. Tonight I
can tell you of dramatic changes in our strategic nuclear force. These
are actions we are taking on our own because they are the right thing
to do. After completing 20 planes for which we have begun procurement,
we will shut down further production of the B-2 bombers. We will
cancel the small ICBM program. We will cease production of new
warheads for our sea-based ballistic missiles. We will stop all new
production of the Peacekeeper missile. And we will not purchase any
more advanced cruise missiles.

Kerry voted against the Apache helicopter, it's true. Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney also proposed that the Apache helicopter program
be canceled.

From Factcheck.com:
As Cheney told the House Armed Services Committee on Aug. 13, 1989:

Cheney: The Army, as I indicated in my earlier testimony, recommended
to me that we keep a robust Apache helicopter program going forward,
AH-64; . . . I forced the Army to make choices. I said, "You can't
have all three. We don't have the money for all three." So I
recommended that we cancel the AH-64 program two years out. That would
save $1.6 billion in procurement and $200 million in spares over the
next five years.

So by the Bush Administration's own criteria, Dick Cheney would also
be "weak on defense."

http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/weapons.asp


Republicans can't win an election by telling the truth to the American
people, so they lie, distort, mislead.  Republicans don't respect
American citizens.