Thread: Obama nominating Kerry for secretary of state

Obama nominating Kerry for secretary of state

10:37 AM 12/21/2012




WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Friday will nominate Sen. John Kerry as his next secretary of state, a senior administration official said, making the first move in a sweeping overhaul of his national security team heading into a second term.

If confirmed, Kerry would take the helm at the State Department from outgoing Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has long stated her intentions to leave early next year. Kerry, a longtime Massachusetts senator, is expected to be easily approved for the Cabinet post by his longtime Capitol Hill colleagues.

Obama will announce Kerry’s nomination from the White House, said the official, who requested anonymity in order to discuss the president’s decision before the announcement.

It was unclear whether Clinton would attend the announcement. The secretary fell and suffered a concussion last week, State Department officials said, and hasn’t made public appearances since then.

Kerry’s nomination could bring to a close what has become for the White House a contentious and distracting effort to name a new secretary of state.

Kerry was the Democratic nominee for president in 2004, losing a close election to incumbent George W. Bush. He’s a decorated Vietnam veteran who was critical of the war effort when he returned to the U.S., even testifying in front of the Senate committee he eventually chaired.

Kerry’s only other rival for the job, U.N. ambassador Susan Rice, faced harsh criticism from congressional Republicans for her initial accounting of the deadly September attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya. Obama vigorously defended Rice, a close friend and longtime adviser, but GOP senators dug in, threatening to hold up her nomination if the president tapped her for the post.

Rice withdrew her name from consideration last week, making Kerry all but certain to become the nominee. People familiar with the White House’s decision-making said support within the administration was moving toward Kerry even before Rice pulled out.

Kerry, 69, is the first Cabinet nomination Obama has made since winning a second term, and the first piece in an extensive shuffle of his national security team. The president is also expected soon to nominate a new defense secretary to take over for retiring Leon Panetta and a new director of the Central Intelligence Agency to replace former spy chief David Petreaus, who resigned last month after admitting to an affair with his biographer.

Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has long sought the nation’s top diplomatic post. Obama considered him for the job after the 2008 election before picking Clinton in a surprise move.

Since then, Obama has dispatched Kerry around the world on his behalf numerous times, particularly to tamp down diplomatic disputes in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was also part of Obama’s debate preparations team during the 2012 election, playing the role of Republican challenger Mitt Romney in mock debates.

Kerry also won praise from Obama aides for his sharp national security-focused speech at the Democratic National Convention in August. He memorably told delegates: “Ask Osama bin Laden if he’s better off now than he was four years ago.”

Before nominating Kerry, the White House consulted with congressional Democrats about the fate of the Senate seat he has held for five terms. An open seat in Massachusetts could give recently defeated Republican Sen. Scott Brown a chance to win back a job in Washington.

Democrats have sought to assure the White House that the party has strong potential candidates in the state that could keep Kerry’s seat from falling into Republican hands.

Kerry has pushed the White House’s national security agenda in the Senate with mixed results. He ensured ratification of a nuclear arms reduction treaty in 2010 and most recently failed to persuade Republicans to back a U.N. pact on the rights of the disabled.

Read more: Obama nominating Kerry for secretary of state | The Daily Caller

John Kerry: Assad’s Man in Washington

December 17, 2012 By Arnold Ahlert




Now that U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice has had her name withdrawn from consideration for Secretary of State, it appears that Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) is next in line for the job. Sources have told ABC News that the president has tabbed the Massachusetts senator, but that the official announcement is being delayed by other pending Cabinet decisions, as well as the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Whether Kerry should be nominated at all is the question we would be asking if there were any justice in the world. If Rice ostensibly incurred the wrath of Washington insiders for her lack of judgement regarding Benghazi and Rwanda, how is it possible Kerry gets a pass for his own lack of judgment regarding a host of issues, from his enduring support for Syrian butcher Bashar Assad and his belief that climate change is a “national security” issue, to his unthinkable testimony before the U.S. Congress maligning America and Vietnam vets while running interference for the Viet Cong? Kerry, it seems, cannot kick the habit of sidling up to the great killing machines of our time.

Kerry’s lack of judgment is nothing new. For the last decade, he has been the federal government’s highest-ranking apologist for Assad. It was Kerry who made numerous efforts to undermine the Bush administration’s attempt to isolate the Syrian dictator after their courtship of him ended in failure in 2003. Kerry has made repeated visits to Syria, meeting with Assad five times between 2009 and 2011.

In 2009, days after Barack Obama’s inauguration, Kerry was sent to Syria as part of a policy review by an Obama administration looking to establish new relationships with countries the Bush administration considered hostile. Bush had repeatedly accused Syria of willful ignorance regarding the arming of terrorists in Iraq, and supporting terror in general. In 2005, following the assassination of Lebanon’s former premier Rafiq Hariri, in a car bombing most likely orchestrated by the Assad regime, the United States withdrew its ambassador.

None of it mattered to Kerry. He listened to Bashar Assad advise him that Washington must “move away from a policy based on dictating decisions,” adding that future relations between the countries should be based on a “proper understanding” by Washington of Middle East issues and interests. In return, Kerry chose the occasion to bash the former administration. ”Unlike the Bush administration that believed you could simply tell people what to do and walk away and wait for them to do it, we believe you have to engage in a discussion,” he said. ”So we are going to renew diplomacy but without any illusion, without any naivety, without any misplaced belief that, just by talking, things will automatically happen.”

A year later, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ignored his own advice and sat down once again with Assad. ”Syria is an essential player in bringing peace and stability to the region,” he said in April 2010. ”Both the United States and Syria have a very deep interest… in having a very frank exchange on any differences [and] agreements that we have about the possibilities of peace in this region,” he said in the statement. And once again, he called on Syria to stop supplying weapons to Hezbollah.

Seven months later, disclosures of diplomatic cables by the Wikileaks website revealed that Kerry had been busy undermining Israel as well. He told leaders in Qatar that the Golan Heights should be returned to Syria, and that the capital of a Palestinian state should be established in East Jerusalem, as part of the so-called peace process. According to the cable, Kerry did so during separate meetings with Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, and the Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa.

Concerning the Golan Heights, the cable noted that ”[Kerry] added that Netanyahu also needs to compromise and work the return of the Golan Heights into a formula for peace.” As for an East Jerusalem capital for a Palestinian state? “Any negotiation has its limits, added Senator Kerry, and we know for the Palestinians that control of Al-Aqsa mosque and the establishment of some kind of capital for the Palestinians in East Jerusalem are not negotiable,” the cable stated. “For the Israelis, the Senator continued, Israel’s character as a Jewish state is not open for negotiation. The non-militarization of an eventual Palestinian state and its borders can nonetheless be resolved through negotiation.”

By March 2011, as Israel, the United States and France watched the anti-government protests in the Middle East begin to include Syria, France and the U.S. nixed another trip by Kerry to Damascus, concerned that it would signal “Western weakness.” That decision may have been precipitated by an appearance Kerry made before a think tank audience twelve days earlier. During his speech, he contended the United States had a crucial role to play in facilitating the “democratic transitions” in the Middle East, including Egypt. “The people of Egypt liberated themselves in eighteen days without a single IED or suicide bomb,” Kerry said.

As for Assad, Kerry again could not contain himself. “Well, I personally believe that—I mean, this is my belief, okay? But President Assad has been very generous with me in terms of the discussions we have had.” During the same speech he doubled-down on such pie-in-the-sky nonsense, contending that “Syria will move; Syria will change, as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States and the West and economic opportunity that comes with it and the participation that comes with it.”

Syria has indeed changed. The death toll in the bloody civil war, during which Assad has cut a bloody swath through his own nation using heavy artillery and helicopter gunships in civilian neighborhoods, has topped 40,000.

Syria is hardly Kerry’s only detour. Progressive hearts are a-flutter because the senator is also a climate change warrior. “No senator since Al Gore knows as much about the science and diplomacy of climate change as Kerry,” said David Goldwyn, an international energy consultant who served as Clinton’s special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs. “He would not only put climate change in the top five issues he raises with every country, but he would probably rethink our entire diplomatic approach to the issue.”

If a speech Kerry gave last August on the floor of the Senate is any indication, climate change may even go to the top of the list as one of the nation’s chief security threats. “I believe that the situation we face [with climate change] is as dangerous as any of the sort of real crises that we talk about,” he said. (The word “real” is a revealing choice that was apparently lost on both the true-believers and Kerry himself.)

All of the above will undoubtedly be dismissed by Kerry’s colleagues in the Senate, where an old-boys club mentality trumps hard-nosed thinking–meaning Kerry is virtually a lock to be confirmed. An equally out-of-touch John McCain indicated as much, when he responded to an introduction by Kerry at a news conference in early December with the quip, “thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.”

It is disheartening to hear such pronouncements from a man like McCain given Kerry’s notorious romance with the communist slaughterers of Vietnam and his seditious lies about U.S. forces, which were made famous through his testimony during the Senate Winter Soldier Investigation in 1971 and his extensive pro-communist activism. In ’71 Kerry appeared before Congress as a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), and told the story of ”over 150″ Vietnam vets who “told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war…”

According to the Winter Solider website, Army reports “newly discovered” in 2008 discredited those claims. Organizations such as the Swift Boat Veterans infamously rose to oppose Kerry’s 2004 run for the presidency. Not least among their long list of grievances were Kerry’s two meetings with the North Vietnamese, even as American soldiers were still in the field suffering unspeakable cruelty by communist forces.

Yet John Kerry will be nominated and confirmed to replace Hillary Clinton. It doesn’t matter that he has been colossally wrong about Bashar Assad, more willing to negotiate Israel’s position in the peace process, a disciple of junk science, or willing to sell out his fellow veterans and country. He is a member in good standing of the ruling class, and his progressive credentials are a perfect match for an administration equally lacking in judgement and integrity. That’s “how things work” in Washington, D.C.
John Kerry: Assad’s Man in Washington

KERRY’S “LIES” CATCH UP WITH HIM
“CHRISTMAS IN CAMBODIA” FABLE
PROVEN FALSE – DEMOCRATS IN A
PANIC AS “WAR HERO’S” CREDIBILITY
QUESTIONED – SELF-PROCLAIMED
“WARRIOR’S” WORDS COME BACK TO
HAUNT HIM – DD-214 ON KERRY
CAMPAIGN SITE MAY BE A FORGERY

It all boils down to this: If Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry lied or embellished his much-vaunted Vietnam war “heroics,” his campaign is doomed and he will go down to defeat. Deservedly so.

We don’t back Bush, and are not funded by the Republican Party, as some of Kerry’s “drink the kool-aide” crowd seem to believe. Their misspelled e-mail messages, complete with the filthiest invective possible, show their low mentality and lack of reason. They “hate” Bush with a passion, and so they place a “halo” over their hero’s head and refuse to realize John Kerry is a flawed candidate whose falsehoods are finally catching up with him.

Absolute panic has set in among the Democrats and their allies. They are “stuck” with a man running for President who may be proven to be one of the biggest frauds in American political history. If Kerry loses the veterans’ vote, and we think he will, he is finished.

SWIFT BOAT VETS FOR TRUTH SCORE “DIRECT HIT”

At first, the self-proclaimed “warrior” – who wears his medals on his sleeve and tries to wring every advantage out of his brief time (four months) in Vietnam – tried to ignore the deadly attack ads by “Swift Boat Veterans For The Truth.”

Two weeks went by with no comment from the candidate as he stumbled around on the hustings. But as the deafening silence by the “establishment media” failed to contain the bitter controversy, Kerry’s people started to see his poll numbers among veterans fall like a lead balloon.

So the Democratic candidate went on the attack. A very risky tactic, as many of his Navy critics are highly-decorated veterans of unimpeachable character. They would have less reason to “lie” than Kerry and the small number of swift boat vets that are part of his traveling road show. That “band of brothers” can look forward to five-star hotel accommodations on the campaign trail; perhaps a “stipend” of cash from the kitty; and of course, big-paying government jobs if Kerry is elected.

What motive do the swift boat vets have? What could they possibly gain? Being attacked by Kerry campaign organs like the New York TIMES and Washington POST?

One of Kerry’s strongest critics is a former prisoner of war in Hanoi. He tells of having to listen to Kerry’s anti-war rants over loudspeakers in his cell. The POW, who appears on the second television ad from Swift Boat Veterans For The Truth, packs a very powerful message. Vietnam vets, no matter what their personal politics, won’t take kindly to Kerry’s people trying to “smear” such a heroic American. So the “war room gang” must proceed very carefully.

When Kerry launched his political career as a shaggy- haired hippie with a lantern jaw and testified before Congress that American forces in Vietnam raped women, killed children, cut off ears and “ravaged the countryside” like the “hordes of Genghis Khan,” he earned the enmity of millions of good and decent Americans who never committed war crimes the deceitful Kerry attributed to them.

Now that he is campaigning as a “war hero” and downplaying his “protester” past and meetings in Paris with the Communist North Vietnamese, Kerry must count on the public not knowing about his checkered career. It’s a delicate balancing act, and with “talk radio” and the Internet to counteract the “establishment media’s pro-Kerry propaganda,” everything rides on Kerry being able to “con” the voters with the false image he projects.

ARE KERRY’S WAR MEDALS LEGITIMATE?

Veterans are a significant voting block in this country. Contrary to popular opinion, they are not all Republicans, and here lies the danger for the Kerry campaign. Even a doubt about the candidate’s incredible accumulation of three Purple Hearts for what appears to be extremely minor “flesh wounds” in only 120 days, and the fact that none of these alleged combat injuries required any hospitalization, much less scarring or surgery, and you begin to see why hundreds of Kerry’s former Navy swift boat colleagues are furious at him.

The Silver Star for shooting a badly-wounded, unarmed, fleeing Viet Cong in the back, after he was said to have fired a B-40 rocket at Kerry’s boat, is an insult to all those who performed real heroics to win that high combat decoration. Did Kerry “write himself up” for the valor award? He was the only officer present. Inquiring minds want to know.

At first, we thought at least the Bronze Star Kerry received for “saving” Special Forces officer Jim Rassmann was a good call. Even though Kerry partisans tried to infer the future senator dove into the water and under machine-gun fire, bravely risked his life to save the Green Beret from a watery grave.

Actually, by Kerry’s own account, he pulled Rassmann aboard his swift boat after the Special Forces officer managed to swim to the side of the craft. That’s not quite as “heroic” as the image in the minds of Kerry partisans who paint their man in “superhero” colors.

Now, we learn from Swift Boat Vets For The Truth that when Rassmann was knocked off Kerry’s boat after an explosion rocked the craft and another swift boat was blown out of the water, “brave” John Kerry hightailed it out of the area – fast!

The “official” explanation is Kerry had to “drop off” agents further down river. But why leave in such a hurrywhen the other swift boats were stopped, their crews pulling unconscious shipmates from the river in the wake of the other boat’s destruction?

None of those crews report “enemy fire.” Not that what they did, becoming “sitting ducks” for potential attack, as they stayed on the scene at least an hour, was any less heroic. Why is it the one boat that fled the scene, was commanded by would-be John F. Kennedy “clone” John Kerry. What kind of “profile in courage” was that?

We are disturbed by Kerry’s repeated refusal to release all his Navy medical records. Why not just sign the SF 180, John, and put the controversy to rest? What are you hiding? You shouted for all of Bush’s National Guard records to be disclosed. Why the double-standard for you?

IS KERRY’S CAMPAIGN SITE DD-214 A FORGERY?

MilitaryCorruption.com has learned there is a serious discrepancy on the DD-214 featured
on www.johnkerry.com. [It is possible, by the time you read this, the suspicious document may have been pulled or “corrected” by the Kerry campaign.] But as of August 20, it was still up there, a glaring example of the truth in that old line: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

The Silver Star is the third-highest medal this nation can bestow. The next highest is the Bronze Star for Valor. The “V” device on that award denotes it was won for “valor on the battlefield” vs. the other Bronze Star decoration - for “meritorious achievement” while serving in a combat zone.

Why is it that the Kerry campaign site, and supposedly a genuine DD-214, lists a Silver Star with combat “V” (for valor)? Anyone who knows anything about awards and decorations can tell you that just the fact that a Silver Star has been awarded, indicates bravery and valor. Thus, in no circumstances, is a “V” device attached to the Silver Star. It would be redundant to do so. And anyway, it’s against regulations. But there it is, the Silver Star with “V” on the Kerry DD-214.

We are indebted to Henry and Erika Holzer of www.frontpagemagazine.com for the research they did in exposing this glaring example of possible deception by the Kerry campaign.

They report that the presence of the combat “V” with Kerry’s Silver Star “raises two extremely disquieting questions. How did the unauthorized “V” get there, and why has Kerry allowed it to remain?

“The first question should not be taken lightly because we are talking about possible federal crimes. We are talking about the possibility of a forged official document. We are talking about, as well, Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001, which states:

Whoever in any manner within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the United States, knowingly and willfully . . . makes or uses any false writing or document, knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years or both.

The Holzers ask if the combat “V” was added by a sloppy clerk or a yeoman’s typo thirty years ago? “Or was someone pressured or persuaded to add it? If Kerry had nothing to do with the gratuitously added combat “V,” why didn’t he have his DD 214 corrected when he was separated from the Navy?

“Which gives rise to the second disturbing question: If Kerry was not a party to the unauthorized “V,” why, for all these years, has he allowed his DD 214 to remain uncorrected and to repose on his web site?

“In light of the recent Swift Boat revelations and the cloud they have cast over Kerry’s awards, one plausible answer is that this is yet another example of Kerry’s multiple, and increasingly transparent lies about his alleged heroics in Vietnam.”

“CHRISTMAS IN CAMBODIA” – YET ANOTHER “LIE”

Has John Kerry been caught in yet another blatant lie about his military service? From the frantic gyrations of his spin-doctors and their specious explanations of “what really happened,” it would seem the senator’s “Christmas in Cambodia” story is in reality a fable, dreamed up to embellish the already fraudulent candidate’s resumé.

We read in the Congressional Record of March 27, 1986 (S3594) the following from the Massachusetts senator:

“Mr. President, I remember Christmas of 1968, sitting on a gunboat in [our italics] Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese, Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and I heard the President of the United States [Richard Nixon] telling the American people I was not there, that our troops were not in Cambodia.

I have that memory which is seared into my brain, that says to me, before we send another generation into harm’s way, we have a responsibility in the United States Senate to go the last step, to make the best effort possible in order to avoid that kind of conflict.”

First of all, on December 25, 1968, Lyndon Johnson was still President of the United States and would continue to be chief executive until Nixon was sworn into office on January 20, 1969.

Next, Kerry could not have been “in” Cambodia at that stage of the war. Even his two adoring crewmates – Michael Medeiros and James Wassel have disputed that claim. And being on Kerry’s boat, they should know.

In December 1968, no U.S. Navy patrol craft would be ordered or authorized to penetrate Cambodian waters. It just did not happen.

And the line about being fired at by the “Khmer Rouge,” that was the Cambodian Communists, led by Khieu Samphan. Unfortunately for Kerry, that fighting force wasn’t even formed yet when “war hero” Kerry had his pipe dream. The Khmer Rouge came about after the American CIA engineered the overthrow of Prince Sihanouk in 1970.

Kerry’s tales of “derring-do” extend to impressing gullible or willingly worshipful reporters with tales of his “secret” exploits in Cambodia. “Secret” because the Kerry campaign admits there is no paperwork anywhere to verify their man’s “missions” into the Heart of Darkness. How convenient!

The myth persists that Kerry, in his noisy, 50-foot swift boat (the last type of sea craft you’d use doing an agent insertion) slipped into Cambodian territory undetected and then back out again. Despite the fact the only thing quieter than the swift boat Kerry had, is a CH-53 helicopter at treetop level!

A sycophantic story in the Kerry-friendly Washington POST tells about a Kerry staffer hinting to the visiting reporter about a “secret compartment” in Kerry’s briefcase.

“He carries the black attaché everywhere,” the staffer whispered, several times. “Asked about it on several occasions, Kerry brushed it aside. Finally, trapped in an interview, he exhaled and clicked open the case.”

“Who told you?” he demanded as he reached inside. “My friends don’t know about this.”

Kerry pulls out a hat, a little mildewy. The green camouflage was fading and the seams fraying.

“My good luck hat,” Kerry said, happy to see it. “Given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia.”

“Kerry put on the hat, pulling the brim over his forehead. His blue, button-down shirt and tie clashed with the camouflage. He pointed his finger and raised his thumb, creating an imaginary gun. He looked silly, yet suddenly his campaign message was clear: citizen-soldier, linking patriotism to public service. It wasn’t complex after all; it was Kerry.

“He smiled and aimed his finger: ‘Pow.’”

One can only conclude after reading the above, that Kerry lives in a “fantasy word” all his own. Too many viewings of Clint Eastwood in “Dirty Harry” as the movie star levels his Magnum at the bad guys and snarls; “Make my day.” Or it is Col. Kurtz, as portrayed by the late Marlon Brando, sailing up the Mekong into Cambodia and a rendezvous with destiny?

If they made a movie about John Kerry’s supposed exploits in the Khmer Republic, it wouldn’t be“Apocalypse Now.” Oh no!

“A Pack of Lies Now” would be more like it.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: We continue to urge our many readers to “click on” the Amazon.com link on our home page and order “UNFIT TO COMMAND” – the book that rips the cover off the Kerry “war hero” myth. Be sure to get your copy and tell your friends.]

KERRY’S “LIES” CATCH UP WITH HIM

TAX THE RICH! kERRY IS JUST, IN MY OPINION, ANOTHER POLTICAL ELITE TAX CHEAT.

Sen. Kerry docks yacht in R.I., saves on taxes

Lawmaker saves $500k in taxes on $7 million yacht

Stew Milne / AP
"Isabel," the 76-foot yacht owned by Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, is undergoing repairs at the Hinckley shipyard in Portsmouth, R.I., Friday, July 23, 2010.

updated 7/23/2010 4:34:00 PM ET


BOSTON — Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is docking his family's new $7 million yacht in neighboring Rhode Island, allowing him to avoid paying roughly $500,000 in taxes to his cash-strapped home state.

If the Isabel were kept at the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee's summer vacation home on Nantucket or in Boston Harbor near his city residence, he would be liable for $437,500 in one-time sales tax. He would also have to pay $70,000 in annual excise taxes.

Rhode Island repealed those taxes in 1993. That has made the state something of a nautical tax haven.

Kerry spokesman David Wade said Friday the boat is being kept at Newport Shipyard not to evade taxes, but "for long-term maintenance, upkeep and charter purposes."

Wade noted the vessel was designed by Rhode Island boat designer Ted Fontaine and purchased in the state. It was built in New Zealand by Friendship Yachts.

A Department of Revenue spokesman said Kerry would be liable for Massachusetts taxes if he berthed the boat in the Bay State within six months of its purchase. If the Isabel were brought to Massachusetts after that period, the state would have to decide if it wanted to pursue the taxes.

Massachusetts, like most other states, has been grappling with plunging tax revenues. Last year's budgetdeficit was $600 million, and officials are bracing for a $1 billion deficit this year.

Gov. Deval Patrick, visiting Massachusetts National Guard troops in Afghanistan, said he had not read the local papers and had no comment. Rep. Karyn Polito, a Shrewsbury Republican running for state treasurer, said the Revenue Department should investigate whether Kerry was committing tax evasion.

The Massachusetts Republican Party also criticized Kerry.

"While we can fault the senator for his hypocrisy on taxes or having his boat built halfway around the world instead of here in the USA, John Kerry proves an important point that taxes in Massachusetts are too high. If they are too high for someone as rich as Senator Kerry, they are absolutely too high for working-class taxpayers who are being squeezed at every turn," said a statement issued by party Chairwoman Jennifer Nassour.

The 76-foot sloop has two cabins, a pilot house fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage, according to the Boston Herald, which first reported its Rhode Island berthing. It derives its moniker from the middle name of Kerry's mother and the name his wife, Teresa Heinz, hoped to give a daughter.

Instead, she had three sons.

Coast Guard registration records show the vessel is owned by Great Point LLC, a limited liability corporation based in Pittsburgh, Heinz's longtime home. The millionaire heiress to the Heinz ketchup fortune is a philanthropist and environmentalist.

Sen. Kerry docks yacht in R.I., saves on taxes - politics | NBC News

Sen. John Kerry skips town on sails tax

July 23, 2010

By Gayle Fee

Sen. John Kerry, who has repeatedly voted to raise taxes while in Congress, dodged a whopping six-figure state tax bill on his new multimillion-dollar yacht by mooring her in Newport, R.I.

Isabel - Kerry’s luxe, 76-foot New Zealand-built Friendship sloop with an Edwardian-style, glossy varnished teak interior, two VIP main cabins and a pilothouse fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage - was designed by Rhode Island boat designer Ted Fontaine.

http://bostonherald.com//inside_track/inside_track/2010/07/sen_john_kerry_skips_town_sails_tax

IRS Files $800K Lien Against John Kerry for President Campaign

June 4th, 2009


The Washington Times reports that the IRS has filed a federal tax lien (PDF) against John Kerry’s 2004 campaign for failure to remit payroll taxes:

The Internal Revenue Service has filed a tax lien seeking more than $800,000 from Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, escalating a dispute over payroll taxes that the lawmaker’s office blames on faulty government paperwork.

The episode has left a candidate who fell just a few percentage points short of winning the White House trying to convince the government’s tax collector that his campaign already paid the taxes and doesn’t owe any more.

The IRS filed the lien in the District of Columbia earlier this year, claiming that a previous attempt to collect the money was unsuccessful. “We have made a demand for payment of this liability, but it remains unpaid,” the tax filing stated.

The IRS is taking action more than a year after the campaign closed its books and sent nearly $200,000 in leftover presidential campaign money to Mr. Kerry’s Senate election fund.

Kerry’s campaign ended in November 2004 when he lost the election to George Bush. That means it has taken the IRS 4 and 1/2 years to file a tax lien against the campaign.


The IRS’s delays raise the following questions:


1. Would a typical American small business with more than a half million of unpaid payroll taxes be allowed this much time before a tax lien was filed against it?

In my 20 plus years representing small business taxpayers, I have never seen the IRS take this long to make an assessment and pursue enforced collection. Read my prior post titled Payroll Tax Crimes: “Lovegod” Gets 22 Years For Failure to Remit Payroll Taxes to see what happens to ordinary businessmen who don’t pay their payroll taxes.
2. Has the IRS conducted an investigation to determine who in the Kerry campaign was responsible for the failure to remit the payroll taxes?

The IRS routinely assesses a trust fund penalty against those within an organization who are deemed responsible for its unpaid payroll taxes. This is especially true in the case of businesses (or campaigns) that are no longer active because by definition inactive corporations do not generate future operating income from which the IRS can collect the unpaid taxes.

So, I wonder whether the IRS has conducted its 4180 interviews? And if so, who did it interview? Senator Kerry himself would be an obvious choice.

Kerry campaign spokesman Whitney Smith said it’s all much ado about nothing:

The IRS merely has a gap in their electronic records of the 2004 campaign’s payroll forms. We filed these forms correctly, and we’re working with the IRS to provide them any and all needed information to set the record straight.
There’s no there there; nothing to see here so move along folks, end of story.

Of course that’s just silliness. There is in fact something to see.

It’s right here.
The IRS’s filing of the lien means one of two things:

1. The Kerry campaign ignored the IRS’s previous notices (a lien cannot be filed until notice and a demand for payment is served on the taxpayer); or
2. The campaign responded to those notices but failed to convince the IRS of its position.

If the IRS is clearly wrong, as Ms. Smith suggests, wouldn’t the Kerry campaign have responded to its earlier notices and demands for payment by proving that it had paid its taxes thereby avoiding the embarrassment of an IRS lien altogether?

The truth is that when there is a legitimate dispute as to whether or not taxes have been paid, the IRS refrains from filing a federal tax lien until that dispute is resolved.

The fact that the Kerry campaign was given (granted by law) several opportunities prior to the issuance of the federal tax lien to prove that the IRS assessments against it are incorrect and failed to do so is troubling.

Update – Response from Kerry Campaign:

John Kerry’s press secretary, Whitney Smith, sent me an email stating that the Washington Times article from which I quote is inaccurate.

I have posted Ms. Smith’s email in its entirety at John Kerry Responds, Says Tax Problem is Due to an IRS Glitch.
IRS Files $800K Lien Against John Kerry for President Campaign