Monsanto Manufactures New Lie-Free Kerry

[Catherine Cornelius]

"You can fool some of the people all the time.
You can fool all the people some of the time.
But you can't fool all the people all the time."
--Abraham Lincoln.

Sleeps With Wolves

Just when I was starting to like the guy...

Guess who is sleeping with the enemy? The
strangest of bedfellows, John Kerry and Monsanto.
America's new nightmare couple.

Kerry is the man who claims that he does not
take corporate money. My research has taken me inside
of Kerry's brain. Malkovich, Malkovich. Kerry, Kerry.
Try to avoid the manure, as you slide through the
tunnel of this man's slippery synapses.

Kerry and Monsanto, sitting in a tree.
Kissing and promoting B-S-T.
First comes love, then comes marriage,
There's no justice, just a Kerry miscarriage.

The law firm of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, et. al., specializes
in biotechnology law. One of their most important clients
is Monsanto. Call today's column a lesson in trickle-down
economics. Call it an example of a carefully laid out
political agenda. Kerry wants you to believe that he
accepts no donations from corporations. Kerry's lie that
just plain folk contribute to his campaign is phony
politics at its worst. He has carefully hidden the twisted
route that dollars take before reaching his pocket. Make
no mistake about it. Kerry is no better than a common crook.

JFK (John-Fraud-Kerry), the man who would tiptoe
a circuitous path around election finance laws.

One very connected attorney with Mintz, Levin & Cohn is
David Leiter. Leiter now works for the Bush administration
in the Department of Energy. Leiter served as Kerry's Chief
of Staff for six years. Is there really a difference between
Democrat and Republican in these United States? These
insider-traders prove again and again that politics is the
best cash business in America. Leiter has raised nearly
$20 million for just three political campaigns.

Interesting aside regarding of the law firm of Mintz,
Levin and Cohn and the George Bush cabinet. This firm
represented Biogen, the maker of the genetically engineered
Flavor-Saver Tomato. Biogen was purchased by Monsanto
at a time when Ann Veneman was on its board of directors.
Today, Ann Veneman is America's Secretary of Agriculture.
Mintz, Levin & Cohn arranged the financing for the initial
public stock offering of Biogen.

While we will never be privy to cash transactions and
deals made behind close doors, what financial services
have Mintz, Levin & Cohn performed on the record for Kerry?

After examining campaign donations from 1997 through 2002,
I determined that Kerry's top three contributions came from
Boston Fleet Bank ($75,694), Verizon Communications ($65,862),
and Mintz, Levin & Cohn, et. al. ($54,700).

So, how much has the firm given Kerry for his 2004 run
by Mintz, Levin & Cohn? The shocker: $112,250!

This man is a people's person?

Mintz, Levin, Cohn has acted as counsel in funding biotech
acquisitions by raising nearly $800 million. They do
much more than that for Monsanto. Mintz, Levin & Cohn
also represents Monsanto in PCB litigation.

Kerry's association with Mintz, Levin, Cohn is as deep as
his relationship with Monsanto and other biotech companies.
In 2000, after Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced a
labeling law that would have given Americans the right to
know whether the foods they ate contained genetically
modified organisms, Kerry refused to support that bill.
Now you know why. He has been bought and paid for by the
biotech industry.

Over the weekend, Kerry was accused of being just another
good old boy Republican by a fellow Democrat. Kerry remarked:

"I've spent a career fighting against special interests.
I'll take a second seat to nobody in this race with respect
to my lifetime fights against special interests and my efforts
to run campaigns on a high standard."

Kerry insisted that he had accepted no money from political
action committees or "special interests."

Tomorrow, February 3, 2003, Americans vote in seven primaries.

Arizona
Delaware
Missouri
New Mexico
North Dakota
Oklahoma
South Carolina

Tuesday's victories might propel Kerry far ahead of
the field for the Democratic presidential nomination.
There is but one vehicle that can stop Kerry at
this eleventh hour. It's called the Internet. Your
activism can insure that millions of voters see
this critically important truth--before it is too late.

A message can be sent to Mr. Kerry that "politics as usual"
can no longer be tolerated. Kerry campaigns on issues of
integrity, claiming that he is beholden to no corporate
sponsors. This man lies by informing Americans that his
financial support comes from individuals like you and me.
Faced with this fantastic evidence, would you cast your
ballot for a liar such as John Kerry?

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

[VonWeiner]

Here's another one on Mr. Kerry.
Read:


A Senate colleague was trying to close a loophole that allowed a major insurer to divert millions of federal dollars from the nation's most expensive construction project. John Kerry stepped in and blocked the legislation.

Over the next two years, the insurer, American International Group, paid Kerry's way on a trip to Vermont and donated at least $30,000 to a tax-exempt group Kerry used to set up his presidential campaign. Company executives donated $18,000 to his Senate and presidential campaigns.

Were the two connected? Kerry says not.

But to some government watchdogs, the tale of the Massachusetts senator's 2000 intervention, detailed in documents obtained by The Associated Press, is a textbook case of the special interest politicking that Kerry rails against on the presidential trail.

"The idea that Kerry has not helped or benefited from a specific special interest, which he has said, is utterly absurd," said Charles Lewis, head of the Center for Public Integrity that just published a book on political donations to the presidential candidates.

"Anyone who gets millions of dollars over time, and thousands of dollars from specific donors, knows there's a symbiotic relationship. He needs the donors' money. The donors need favors. Welcome to Washington. That is how it works."

The documents obtained by AP provide a window into Kerry's involvement in a two-decade-old highway and tunnel construction project in his home state of Massachusetts. Known as the "Big Dig," it had become infamous for its multibillion dollar cost overruns.

Kerry's office confirmed Wednesday that as member of the Senate Commerce Committee he persuaded committee chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., to drop a provision that would have stripped $150 million from the project and ended the insurance funding loophole.

The Massachusetts Democrat actually was angered by the loophole but didn't want money stripped from the project because it would hurt his constituents who needed the Boston project finished, spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said.

When the "AIG investment scheme (came) to light, John Kerry called for public hearings to investigate the parties involved and the legality of the investment practices. However, he firmly believed cutting funding for the Big Dig was not the answer," Cutter said.

Instead of McCain's bluntly worded legislation, Kerry asked for a committee hearing in May 2000. Kerry thanked McCain at the start of the hearing for dropping his legislation and an AIG executive was permitted to testify that he believed the company's work for the Big Dig was a good thing even though it was criticized by federal auditors.

"From the perspective of public and worker safety and cost control, AIG's insurance program has been a success," AIG executive Richard Thomas testified.

Asked why Kerry would subsequently accept a trip and money from AIG in 2001 and 2002 if he was angered by the investment scheme, Cutter replied: "Any contributions AIG made to the senator's campaign came years after the investigation. Throughout his career, John Kerry has stood up to special interests on behalf of average Americans. This case is no different."

The New York-based insurer, one of the world's largest, declined to comment on its donations to Kerry, simply stating, "AIG never requested any assistance from Senator Kerry concerning the insurance we provided the Big Dig."

The project has become a symbol of government contracting gone awry, known for its huge cost overruns that now total several billion dollars, and its admissions of mismanagement.

During the 1990s, Sens. Kerry and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., helped win new federal funding for the project as its costs skyrocketed and threatened to burden the state's government. In 1998, Kerry was credited with winning $100 million in new federal funding.

But in 1999, the Transportation Department uncovered a financing scheme in which the project had overpaid $129.8 million to AIG for worker compensation and liability insurance that wasn't needed, then had allowed the insurer to keep the money in a trust and invest it in the market. The government alleged AIG kept about half of the profits it made from the investments, providing the other half to the project.

Outraged by the revelations, McCain submitted legislation that would have stripped $150 million from the Big Dig and banned the practice of allowing an insurer to invest and profit from excessive premiums paid with government money.

"Any refunds of insurance premiums or reserve amounts, including interest, that exceed a project's liabilities shall be immediately returned to the federal government," McCain's legislation declared.

But Kerry and Kennedy intervened, and McCain withdrew the legislation in 2000 in favor of the hearing.

At that hearing, the Transportation's Department inspector general made a renewed plea for a permanent federal policy banning the overpayment of insurance premiums and subsequent investment for profit — what McCain had proposed and Kerry helped kill.

"The policy is needed to ensure that projects do not attempt to draw down federal funds for investment purposes under the guise that they are needed to pay insurance claims. It is that simple," the inspector general told senators.

In September 2001, Kerry disclosed to the Senate ethics office that AIG had paid an estimated $540 in travel expenses to cover his costs for a speech in Burlington, Vt.

A few months later in December 2001, several AIG executives gave maximum $1,000 donations to Kerry's Senate campaign on the same day. The donations totaled $9,700 and were followed by several thousand dollars more over the next two years.

The next spring, AIG donated $10,000 to a new tax-exempt group Kerry formed, the Citizen Soldier Fund, to lay groundwork for his presidential campaign. Later in 2002, AIG gave two more donations of $10,000 each to the same group, making it one of the largest corporate donors to Kerry's group.

The insurer wasn't the only company connected to the Big Dig to donate to Kerry's new group. Two construction companies on the project — Modern Continental Group and Jay Cashman Construction — each donated $25,000, IRS records show.

Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., a Boston area lawmaker, credited Kerry for getting McCain's legislation blocked in favor of a hearing, saying Massachusetts lawmakers "were on the side of good government here but also concerned the language might go too far and put more of a burden on a Massachusetts project."