Over the last 24 hours, a lot has been said about the possible entry into the 2004 election by Ralph Nader.
Many Democrats believe that any Democrat is better than Bush. They also believe that the argument that Kerry and Bush are similar is bogus. Many people on this board say the same thing. They say this probably because it's so true.
Below are 105 reasons why I will vote for Kerry in November.
WHO IS GEORGE W. BUSH??
- The candidate who defunded overseas family planning clinics.
- The candidate who attempted to close the White House AIDS policy office.
- The candidate who canceled the Clinton policy reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
- The candidate who repealed rules designed to protect workers from ergonomic injuries.
- The candidate who canceled the rule reducing arsenic in drinking water.
- The candidate who eliminated the ABA's role in properly reviewing judicial nominees, and proceeded to nominate the most rightwing ideologues to the federal courts.
- The candidate who eliminated funds designed to reduce child abuse and increase preschool availability.
- The candidate who pulled out of the Kyoto Treaty.
- The candidate who cut community policing budgets.
- The candidate who permit corporations that break worker safety and environmental protection laws to bid on federal contracts.
- The candidate who closed the White House Office for Women's Initiatives and Outreach.
- The candidate who cut subsidies for doctors and nurses that wish to provide services in underserved, disadvantaged areas.
- The candidate who would authorize drilling for oil and natural gas in national parks.
- The candidate who stripped limits on commercial fishing in maritime reserves.
- The candidate who suppressed an EPA report linking dioxin to cancer.
- The candidate who proposed removing birth control coverage from all federal health insurance plans.
- The candidate who would make it more difficult to place species under endangered status protection (if not eliminate the Act altogether).
- The candidate who relaxed standards for appliance energy efficiency.
- The candidate who cut funding for training pediatricians.
- The candidate who cut funding for community libraries.
- The candidate who would permit oil drilling off the coasts of Florida and California.
- The candidate who would cripple stem cell research.
- The candidate who defunds Reading is Fundamental, the program dispensing books to poor children.
- The candidate who kills the federal tobacco lawsuit.
- The candidate who unilaterally cancels the anti-ballistic missile treaty with Russia.
- The candidate who turns a multitrillion dollar surplus into a multitrillion dollar deficit.
- The candidate who opens national wilderness areas to logging.
- The candidate who cut funding to antiproliferation programs (while threatening or conducting war on the pretense of preventing proliferation).
- The candidate who refused the enforcement protocol of the bioweapons ban.
- The candidate who canceled enforcement of against energy companies that break environmental laws.
- The candidate who ended Clinton's decision to sign symbolic proclamations for Gay Pride Month.
- The candidate who created "First Amendment Zones" to repress political speech.
- The candidate whose threatened veto killed the Kennedy-Edwards-McCain Patients Bill of Rights.
- The candidate who refused to phase out the toxic MTBE additive.
- The candidate who reversed the snowmobile ban in Yellowstone Park.
- The candidate who blocks Clinton rules requiring the cleanup of polluted rivers.
- The candidate who refuses to turn over energy (crony) task force records for public scrutiny.
- The candidate who ends federal gun buyback programs.
- The candidate who would privatize social security.
- The candidate who relaxes rules on real estate development in wetland areas.
- The candidate who refuses to have the United States participate in the international conference on racism.
- The candidate who reduces oversight of nursing home conditions.
- The candidate who blocks funds to help the poorest of the poor pay their utility bills.
- The candidate who had the Patriot Act drafted and ensured its passage by the Congress and greenlighted the abuse of its provisions.
- The candidate who endorsed secret military tribunals.
- The candidate who wants to open the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve to oil drilling.
- The candidate who closes the federal office tasked with protecting the Everglades.
- The candidate who declares American citizens to be 'enemy combatants' and at his discretion strips them of all their most basic civil rights.
- The candidate who permits pesticide tests on human subjects.
- The candidate who authorized Total Information Awareness, intended to create dossiers on every single American.
- The candidate who facilitates the storage of nuclear waste even absent the meeting of public safety standards.
- The candidate who ends the Labor Dept.'s "Equal Pay Matters" program designed to reduce male/female income disparity.
- The candidate who would roll back Clean Air Act provisions regulating coal power plants.
- The candidate who urges federal agencies to resist the Freedom of Information Act.
- The candidate who refuses to authorize investigation of 9/11, and who when he does so under political pressure then stonewalls the independent commission.
- The candidate who ushered No Child Left Behind through the Congress and then refused to fund its dubious mandates.
- The candidate who rescinds Clinton rules requiring that prescription drugs be tested to determine child safety.
- The candidate who refuses to cooperate in any way with the Internation Criminal Court in war crimes cases.
- The candidate who removes Democrats from previously bipartisan Defense panels, and who encourages the early retirement of Democratic generals.
- The candidate who permits mining companies to dump waste in streams and rivers.
- The candidate who proposes ending the student loan consolidation program.
- The candidate who cuts federal wildfire prevention programs.
- The candidate who passes massive tax cuts for the wealthy while proposing a reduction of welfare programs.
- The candidate who suppresses government reports on the threats of global warming.
- The candidate who develops a preemptive strike military policy to replace the previous policy of deterrence, and proceeds to wage war on Iraq under fabricated pretenses.
- The candidate who cuts funds to Superfund cleanup programs.
- The candidate who endorses the overturning of decisions by federal prosecutors in order to expand the application of the death penalty.
- The candidate who proposed the Operation TIPS program designed to create a network of domestic citizen informants.
- The candidate who orders the Veterans Administration to stop informing veterans of what programs they are entitled to.
- The candidate who orders the elimination of scientific advisory boards whose conclusions don't match his ideology.
- The candidate who fails to fund the Corporate Reform Act or to fully fund the SEC, after just a few show trials.
- The candidate who has medical information on using condoms for AIDS prevention and on debunking the abortion/cancer linkage removed from the HHS.
- The candidate who killed the Clinton rule that would have permitted new parents to collect short-term benefits.
- The candidate who implemented a 'faith-based' initiative undermining church/state separation despite failing to obtain congressional approval.
- The candidate who blocked the World Trade Organization from providing low-cost generic drugs to the world's poorest people.
- The candidate who ends the Labor Dept report collecting mass layoff statistics.
- The candidate whose Justice Department joined a suit to end college affirmative action programs.
- The candidate who opens protected federal lands to road construction.
- The candidate who proposes privatizing the National Park Service.
- The candidate who proposes declaring millions of workers ineligible for overtime pay.
- The candidate who cuts programs providing assistance to the poor, including rural redevelopment, vocational education, Medicaid, the earned income tax credit, and even school lunch programs.
- The candidate who proposes even more restrictions on civil liberties with the Patriot Act II, expanding the use of wiretaps and clandestine searches without judicial approval.
- The candidate who cuts federal housing subsidies and education aid for military dependents.
- The candidate who wants to expand the usage of tactical nuclear weapons.
- The candidate who proposes caps on medical malpractice awards.
- The candidate who wants to push seniors of Medicare and into private insurance plans.
- The candidate who exempts the oil and gas industries from Clean Water Act standards.
- The candidate who awards his cronies secret-bid contracts for Iraq reconstruction.
- The candidate who ends all reviews of lands proposed to be designated as national wilderness areas.
- The candidate who seeks new domestic espionage powers for the Central Intelligence Agency.
- The candidate who suppresses a report warning of disastrous budget deficits and federal entitlement program bankruptcy.
- The candidate who blocks human rights cases from being heard in federal courts.
- The candidate who eases media ownership and market share rules, centralizing the provision of information.
- The candidate who guts the AmeriCorps community service program.
- The candidate who proposes weakening Head Start.
- The candidate who permits the exposure of a CIA agent for petty vindictiveness.
- The candidate who would enshrine discrimination against gays and lesbians in the United States Constitution.
- The candidate who would cut Medicare funding for cancer drugs.
- The candidate who seeks retribution against judges who use discretion in sentencing.
- The candidate who proposes eliminating protections for historical sites in the course of highway construction.
- The candidate who defunds Teach For America.
- The candidate who cuts the Energy Star program.
- The candidate who believes outsourcing is beneficial for American workers.
- The candidate who would implement an immigration program tantamount to indentured servitude.
- The candidate who thinks "a dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier" and who has therefore refused to fully fund the Help America Vote Act designed to prevent the election fraud he plans to engage in this November.