2: Senator Kerry’s speech at the victory party at McGann’s on September 16th.
3: Firefighters’ Memorial. The first clip in the Kerry Report is an excerpt from Senator Kerry’s speech at the Massachusetts Fallen Firefighters Memorial on 9/11. Here is the complete speech, which was quite moving.
4. Music store in Taunton. This is a clip that visitors to John Kerry Media Source have enjoyed a lot — John Kerry visiting a music store in Taunton and playing the guitar. Nothing political in it, just fun.
5: Bring Me To Life. And now for something completely different — this is a music video that I made 3 years ago as a tribute to the 2004 Kerry-Edwards campaign. Unlike the rest of the videos in this post, this one does not feature footage that I filmed myself — only my editing work. đŸ™‚
The Kerry Report and Bring Me To Life both play at somewhat higher resolution than the others (though Bring Me To Life was not made from high-res source materials in the first place, alas, but I do my best to preserve all the pixels that are there). The trade-off for the quality is that some people, depending on connection speed, may experience a slight delay waiting for the video to start, or it may pause in the middle while more cues up; once it’s all downloaded, it should play through smoothly. I’m always looking for feedback as to whether I’m getting too ambitious with video quality and causing people to experience annoying delays, so feel free to leave me a comment about it below.
The conversations between Sen. Kerry and several vets (Kerry Report ( are especially wonderful.
“Bring me to Life” is also moving.
These are really great – though it still hurts to watch the 2004 one and know that the hope and excitement would end suddenly in November. A victory this year will make seeing that less painful in the future.
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p>I loved seeing the vets at the Johnnie Appleseed event speaking to the Senator – all discussing where they were.
while our financial system was collapsing. Thank you also for the giant budget deficit and for increasing spending on so many programs (Big Dig). You, along with all your senatorial brethren, both Republican and Democrat need to replaced by “do something” advocates.
that he could have crashed the financial market all by his lonesome — not only that, he did it not serving on the Banking Committee, who is responsible for dealing with this mess. A bill will no doubt flow from the committee by this weekend.
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p>Tell me, John D — did you vote for George W. Bush for President? Because if you did, YOU are responsible for the ballooning deficit. The budget has not grown this big at this fast a rate since LBJ, even FDR. The idea that the Republican party is a fiscally conservative party can now quietly be thrown in the garbage heap of promises they simply have never lived up to. Oh, and John Kerry has been for fiscal sanity since he entered the Senate in 1985:
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p>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10…
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Wow, I didn’t realize John Kerry was such the Super duper Senator
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p>- He’s not! I want him to go away someplace. Maybe go count his money!
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p>that he could have crashed the financial market all by his lonesome — not only that, he did it not serving on the Banking Committee, who is responsible for dealing with this mess.
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p>- They are ALL responsible for this mess. Don’t pick and choose your politician of choice and give out “get out of jail” free cards. You would see that if you cleared the partisan SHIT out of your eyes. I blame ALL of the Senators (incl Kerry, McCain, Obama…) for this mess. There is plenty of blame to go around to all the bankers, lenders and mortgagees for sure but this mess has been brewing for a long time. But stop trying to defend Frank, Biden and others just because they happen to be in your party. Aren’t you an American first then a Democrat?
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p>Tell me, John D — did you vote for George W. Bush for President?
Yes I did, both times he won.
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p>Because if you did, YOU are responsible for the ballooning deficit.
That’s funny considering how much Federal Taxes I pay while so many other American pay shit or NOTHING. And the future may hold me paying MORE taxes while other Americans pay even less. Don’t blame the deficit on me Beachmom, I pay my share and about 10 other people’s share.
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p>The budget has not grown this big at this fast a rate since LBJ, even FDR.
I’m not happy about it either and hence am saying throw them all out. Could you please explain to me the budget process for the last 2 years with Bush as POTUS and the Democrats controlling the House and the Senate and thus create the FEDERAL BUDGET? Why is it this FACT seems to be lost on so many Democratic supporters? Why is it GW takes the deficit blame while Congress puts together the “out of balance” budgets?
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p>The idea that the Republican party is a fiscally conservative party can now quietly be thrown in the garbage heap of promises they simply have never lived up to.
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p>I disagree partially. I am a fiscal conservative and whole heartedly agree with less government. The Republican politicians have failed miserably in their management of the country during 6 of the last 8 years. I am starting to believe what many say about all the Politicians being the same and the last 2 years with Democratic control have shown NO CHANGE from the previous 6 years!
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p> Oh, and John Kerry has been for fiscal sanity since he entered the Senate in 1985:
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p>Bullshit. Did he support the Big Dig? I’ll use your logic… if he did then HE is responsible for the Federal deficit!!
you go on to list just Democrats. That seems a bit hypocritical. I seriously think that Phil Gramm had FAR FAR more to do with deregulation that led to this mess than all the Democrats listed and those ignored.
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p>As to the Big DIG, it did receive federal funds, but it was a MA project during a time period when MA had Republican Governors. They had more influence on who was hired and how the project proceeded, then Senators Kennedy and Kerry. The Republican Governors also had the ability and the responsibility to do the oversight needed. They clearly did a poor job.
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p>The responsibility of Senators Kerry and Kennedy was to get highway funds for the state of MA. It was not the idea of the Big Dig that was a problem – it was the implementation. There are parts of Chicago where traffic flows under the street and there’s at least one area of Manhattan where that greatly helps traffic. It would have been negligent if either of the state’s Senators fought AGAINST the Republican MA governor’s request on a project like this.
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p>Go yell at Romney or his predecessors.
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p>Can you please provide links to demonstrate the hiring and oversight powers of the Republican Governors over the Mass. Turnpike Authority? Or that of ANY governor?
Glad to see you’re starting to take data seriously, Peter!
But your demand for link love is simply hilarious. Shall I remind you of your recent link-less RMG diary? Here’s the exchange we had there.
Pathetic. Taxes are the lowest they have been in years, and you’re whining? We have a DEFICIT due to Bush’s unsustainable boneheaded tax cuts for the rich. The tax rate during the Clinton ’90s were just fine, and should never have been messed with. Also, this is the first time in our nation’s history that taxes were not raised during a time of war. It’s just plain stupid fiscal policy, and is part of the problem, among many.
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p>And Kerry has been for pay as you go since he came into the Senate. He broke with liberals in his own party to support the Deficit Reduction Act. Sorry, if you can’t handle the truth.
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p>And I think we are talking about two different things on spending. My opinion is this: whether the government spends a lot or a little, it MUST be balanced with revenue. The Republicans spent more money than Democrats did (Bush vs. Clinton); but more importantly, THEY DIDN’T PAY FOR IT. I believe in Pay as You Go, as does Kerry. Conservatism, as in limited government, is simply not a sustainable ideology. It is great in theory, but has never been practiced. I think the GOP needs to reform itself and come up with a less radical ideology that has a snowball’s chance of actually working in the real world.
Why does every liberal democrat feel it is their sworn duty to take money from hard working people? It is MY MONEY!!! Of course there are costs for living in our society and I pay for it… a lot! Taxes are lowest they have been in years… especially for about 40% of the country who PAY NOTHING!!! And for the tax payers like myself, they should be low… I’ll repeat IT’S MY MONEY!
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p>At least we can agree on the idea of “pay as you go”. I think the Federal Government should have a law that says the budget MUST BE BALANCED. I am good with that and I would be just fine with any and all massive cuts it would take to balance this budget.
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p>So… the democrats have controlled the Senate and House for 2 years now… do we have a balanced budget? Is it a “pay-as-you-go” system? Conservatism works but it has never been given a chance.
Unless you make a lot more than I do, Obama will lower your taxes far more than McCain will.
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p>And no, the Democrats haven’t controlled Congress, because they barely have 51 votes — not enough to override Republican filibusters. And the Republicans have been blocking just about everything.
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p>Why, pray tell, wasn’t Conservatism “given a chance” during the 6 years when the Republicans had the White House and both houses of Congress?
Obama will be raising taxes on far more people than rich people. Rich people (truly rich like Bill Gates…) have ways to hide income and will never get zapped by Obama’s increases. That means the guys making $250K+ will be pay more but that total dollar amount will not b enough to do anything. Obama will raise taxes on people making $100K+. I have as much proof of this as most of the Palin assertions on this page… just about zero. My only proof is history from other “only raise taxes on the rich” efforts by other Democrats.
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p>My advice to the do-nothing Congress is they better get going because the American people will only take “do nothing” for so long. THen they will start replacing the Dems with Republicans in Congress.
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p>Luckily the people of this country still have some influence as seen with the recent “surrender” by Pelosi of offshore drilling. Hopefully the American public understand that they can have an effect, even when Congressional “leadership” is opposed to what American want. Although, these next few days of “Bailout” meetings may show again that what the American people want does NOT matter.
Senator Kerry lays it out very clearly:
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p>It’s too bad that the public is easily swayed by slogans like “Drill, drill, drill.”
It was President Bush’s administration, that even they saw in 2004 that there were problems in the mortgage Department, took a year and a half to … issue a final report on it in September 2006!
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p>Kerry put a plank into the Democratic platform in 2004 that spoke of the need to fix the problems with credit card and mortgage abuses. He specifically targeted balloon mortgages given in poor communities. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f…
A President Kerry would have used the powers of the executive branch to bring these abuses under control. Blame the people who voted for Bush.
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p>In addition, Kerry has been a fiscal moderate his entire career. He crossed party lines to vote for the Gramm/Rudman bill because he believes that debts matter. In fact, it was that belief that were behind the 2 votes that Kerry made on the $87 million dollar supplemental bill. Kerry voted for the version that rolled back part of the Bush tax cut for the top 2% to pay the cost, then against the version that “put it on a credit card to be paid by our kids”. Now, I assume you like other Republicans had great run with these votes – but in today’s light, his votes were right and consistent with his principles.
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p>The Republicans are trying hard to say it was the Democrats who did nothing – but during the entire housing boom which ended in 2006 when most of these bad mortgages were written, the Republicans controlled the Presidency, the House and the Senate.
That was the point of this post. Take a break from your attack posts and watch.
So much of what Senator Kerry does is ignored by the press, it’s great to actually get to see real footage of who this guy actually is vs. the malicious inaccuracies put forward by those with some sort of grudge. The Fallen Firefighters Memorial speech and the Taunton music shop visit, though completely opposite in tone are both examples of events the media pretend never happened and the public would never see without your video.
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p>I love seeing how much fun Kerry is having at the Big E and the Johnny Appleseed events (and how much fun his constituents are having interacting with him!) — the footage with veterans is quietly moving. These guys understand each other — no fuss, just recognition of a fellow vet.
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p>The Kerry Report and the video about the 2004 campaign (Bring Me to Life) are impressive pieces of editing, though the feel of each is quite different.
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p>Thank you for sharing these!