(2004-08-03) -- Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry today announced that he has retained attorney, and running mate, John Edwards to file suit against the Democrat National Committee (DNC) over injuries related to an alleged "post-convention bounce."

"We had received certain assurances from top DNC officials that this celebration of my client's nomination would result in a 10-15 point bounce in the presidential preference polls," said Mr. Edwards during a news conference on the steps of a Boston courthouse. "Bounce implies vigorous upward movement. But my client's current polling numbers look more like a 'bump' or even a 'dip'."

Mr. Edwards, who like his client is also a U.S. Senator, brought many of the gathered journalists to tears with his dramatic description of the plight of Mr. Kerry's popularity.

"I can hear John Kerry's popularity calling out to you from somewhere in the darkness," said Mr. Edwards. "A couple of weeks ago his popularity said, 'I'm fine." Just before the convention it said, 'I'm having a little bit of trouble but I'm doing okay.' During the convention speech, it said 'I'm having problems.' And after the convention John's popularity said, 'I need help.' But help was not on the way."

(2004-08-03) -- With speculation rising that the recent terror threats to New York and Washington D.C. may have been based on pre-9/11 intelligence, Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry today slammed President George Bush for failing to generate "fresh, relevant threats to our homeland."

"There's nothing new here," said Mr. Kerry. "It's the same old thing we've heard for the past three years. America is tired of stale intelligence which raises our threat-level but results in nothing. We can do better, and we will."

Mr. Kerry added that when he is president, "we won't have these false alarms based on remnants of a terror network in disarray. We will have real, fresh and innovative threats to our homeland, backed by action."

(2004-08-02) -- President George Bush denied Democrat charges that he doesn't want the new National Intelligence Director's office in the White House because he's "hiding something."

"Vice President Cheney and I have nothing to hide," said Mr. Bush. "We just know that if the White House were crawling with intel people misunderstandings might arise about the late night visits from Halliburton executives and members of the House of Saud royal family. Having the spy guys down the hall might also have a chilling effect on the free speech that we enjoy in the privacy of the White House, and I'm sure the Democrats don't want to chill our speech or restrict our civil rights."

Mr. Bush proposed instead that the new Office of National Intelligence be headquartered in Massachusetts, "where it should be easy to recruit a boatload of smart guys."

(2004-08-02) -- In response to specific terrorist truck-bomb threats against major U.S. financial institutions, Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry today called for a "livable wage" for minimum-wage workers, more funding for public schools and a government-controlled health care system for all Americans.

"These threats from alleged potential lawbreakers cast a stark light on the most important issues of our day," said Mr. Kerry, who is also a U.S. Senator. "If the terrorists strike they may kill underpaid heads of household, underpaid school teachers and other people who can't afford health insurance."

Mr. Kerry added that if he were in the White House today, "these potential future victims would have had better, government-sponsored, lives before they met their untimely end. And we would aggressively prosecute their killers through the courts."

"These are the issues that really matter to Americans," he said. "Unfortunately, George Bush has been so distracted by alleged threats to the homeland and by rounding up so-called terrorists, that he has lost touch with the average citizen. Mr. Bush acts as if government's primary job were to provide for the common defense, rather than to guarantee the right of single-payor healthcare for all."

(2004-07-29) -- Responding to the release of new data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) which shows that the wealthiest families have suffered a sharp decline in income, Democrat vice presidential candidate John Edwards today said the Kerry-Edwards White House would institute massive government reforms to help the struggling 'first America'.

"There are two Americas," said Mr. Edwards, "and the first America--those who earn most of the money, invest the most in our economy and pay most of the taxes--are hurting right now. It doesn't have to be that way. We can be one America."

According to the IRS, income for Americans who earn between $200,000 and $10 million per year have been hit hardest during the past two years, despite the fact that they pay the highest tax rate.

Mr. Edwards said the Kerry administration would reduce income taxes on beleaguered 'first Americans', cut the capital gains tax and eliminate the so-called "death tax" which unfairly punish those who have worked hardest to achieve the American dream.

"John Kerry will be president for all Americans," said Mr. Edwards, "not just for those low income 'second Americans' who contribute little to our economy, drain the most resources and hardly pay any taxes."

(2004-07-29) -- In a leaked excerpt of the nomination acceptance speech John Forbes Kerry will deliver tonight at the Democrat convention, the presidential candidate will tell undecided voters: "I'm one of you."

Political strategists agree the message should resonate with the independent and undecided Americans who Democrats and Republicans alike view as their most valued constituency.

"If you don't know for whom you should vote, or how you stand on the important issues of our day," Mr. Kerry will say, "you have a brother in John Kerry. I'm one of you."

The Democrat National Committee has already produced thousands of red, white and blue placards that delegates will wave during the speech which read: "Undecided for Kerry."

(2004-07-29) -- John Forbes Kerry said that he's eager to meet the man John Edwards described in his speech last night to the Democrat convention.

"I look forward to shaking hands with the strong, decisive leader that Senator Edwards talked about," said Mr. Kerry from the living room of his Boston home. "I didn't catch his name, but his character reminds me of a young John Kerry--the kind of man I was in Vietnam."

Mr. Edwards, who delivered a stirring emotional speech on populist themes, insisted that he spoke of Mr. Kerry himself, despite the latter's image as a stoic, aloof elitist.

After hearing the speech, Mr. Kerry said, "Edwards almost had me believing that 'hope is on the way.' He gave me that warm, Clintonesque feeling all over again. I nearly smiled."

Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards are also U.S. Senators.

(2004-07-28) -- John Forbes Kerry, the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee, was reportedly injured this morning while reenacting his Vietnam-era role as a Navy swiftboat commander in Boston Harbor. A campaign spokesman said the injury may prevent the candidate from delivering his acceptance speech at the Democrat convention tomorrow night.

"We're just taking a wait-and-see approach right now," said the unnamed source. "John Kerry is a fighter, and when you take it to the enemy like he does, you can get hurt. He has three Purple Hearts to prove it...and now this."

An emergency medical technician (EMT) on the scene said Mr. Kerry, who is also a U.S. Senator, reported snagging a fingernail on the festive bunting that draped his landing craft--a water taxi called the Lulu E.

"Although no one witnessed the incident," the unnamed EMT said, "Senator Kerry did show me the fingernail, which was lacerated near the end and bent to the left at an odd angle. I could only imagine how much it must have hurt, but he barely flinched when I surgically removed the partially-severed body part."

(2004-07-28) -- President George Bush today threatened to destroy the Democrat party with "endless waves of exploding Republican martyrs in order to cleanse the earth of the poisonous evil of liberalism."

The statement from the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign confirmed what Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-MA, told delegates last night at the Democrat convention in Boston: "The only thing we have to fear is four more years of George Bush."

"There is no greater terrorist in this world," said Mr. Kennedy, "than the fundamentalist religious zealot who has hijacked the White House and would welcome even death if it resulted in the obliteration of our Democrat way of life."

The senior senator from Massachusetts said the Bush threat should make Democrats ponder the question, "Why do they hate us?"

"If we retaliate against George Bush, we'll only help his recruiting," said Mr. Kennedy. "But if we, with the United Nations, begin to give the GOP everything it wants, its members will stop being angry at us and the threat will cease."

(2004-07-27) -- When asked by a reporter what she hoped to do for her husband's presidential candidacy during her speech at the Democrat convention tonight, Teresa Heinz-Kerry said, "Shove it."

Indeed experts agree that, with flagging poll numbers, John Forbes Kerry's campaign could use a shove.

According to DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe, Mrs. Heinz-Kerry's "totally unscripted, candid, improvised, shoot-from-the-hip remarks" will be the highlight of the convention and should boost the TV audience to levels comparable to "some of your better home shopping programs and C-Span events."

"With a personality like Teresa at his side, John Kerry doesn't even need one of his own," said Mr. McAuliffe. "She demonstrates the kind of attitude which the Heinz-Kerry White House will use to restore the bonds of friendship and civility between the U.S. and the rest of the United Nations."

The party chairman added, "America loves a First Lady who always says the first thing that comes to her mind, often before that thing even arrives."

(2004-07-27) -- In an effort to halt his decline in the polls, presumptive Democrat presidential nominee John Forbes Kerry has been dropped from the speaker list at the Democrat National Convention.

"We can't afford to let 30 million Americans actually see and hear John Kerry speak on primetime television," said an unnamed DNC official. "His recent increase in public appearances has dragged his polling numbers down far enough. We're dropping him to stop the bleeding."

The polls show that Americans have doubts about John Forbes Kerry's positions on the issues and don't realize that he has served in the U.S. Senate for 16 years, as an actual senator.

"Most people think that he's still overseas, fighting in Vietnam," the anonymous DNC source said. "The goal of the Democrat Convention is to tell the John Kerry story in the third-person. People love the Clintons, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore and Michael Moore. We're putting them front-and-center to talk about Kerry so that their mojo will migrate to the nominee."

(2004-07-24) -- The Pentagon announced today that the newly-released payroll records from President Bush's 1972 National Guard service were discovered in the socks of Clinton-era national security advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger.

"We're still going through the trove of documents from Mr. Berger's socks," said an unnamed spokesman for the FBI. "It's like an archeological dig. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find 18 minutes of Nixon White House tapes as we work our way down through the various strata of the Berger hosiery."

Mr. Berger released a statement to the media denying intentional wrongdoing in the matter, and claiming that "static electricity" often attracts items to his socks.

"In the future, I shall employ a popular dryer sheet which dissipates electrical charges," Mr. Berger said. "My failure to do so previously is just plain sloppiness."

(2004-07-22) -- The 9/11 commission report released today blames the 2001 terror attacks on a "failure of imagination" among government officials, and urges intelligence agencies to "hire more evil people who could effectively anticipate acts of unrestrained wickedness."

According to the report, America is vulnerable to terrorism because the CIA and FBI are filled with "patriotic people of integrity who have a hard time imagining the kinds of twisted and macabre things which are the stock-in-trade of terrorists."

The report recommends that intelligence agencies recruit and hire "a new generation of heartlessly wicked and depraved agents and analysts who can stay a step ahead of Usama bin Laden and his imitators."

(2004-07-22) -- The final 9/11 commission report recommends formation of a Congressional panel to oversee classified information leaks about U.S. intelligence capabilities, according to unnamed members of Congress who received top-secret briefings on the report yesterday.

The new bipartisan, bicameral Congressional committee would leak classified intelligence information to journalists and also hold news conferences to chastise members of Congress who leak classified information.

"Congressional oversight of the U.S. intelligence community has failed due to the haphazard way members of Congress reveal America's weaknesses to our enemies," said one anonymous senator. "We desperately need a more coordinated and centralized system for disclosing privileged information to our friends in the news media and their audiences around the globe. Only Congress can be trusted with protecting the homeland that it has failed to protect."