Kerry visits the Berkshires - WITH VIDEO

[whometense]

Senator John Kerry began his visit to the Berkshires at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams. He heard from students and faculty involved with the Individual Enrichment Program that aims to help struggling high school students with their transition into college. IEP is made possible through a federal program called TRIO.

"George Bush and his administration completely cut the TRIO program folks. Totally zeroed it out," said Kerry.

Kerry characterized the Bush administration's choice to cut the funding as a "values" decision.

"If you want to talk about values in America, here's an example of real American values. Kids whose lives are being put together and getting the opportunity to go out into the world and do good. I don't think it gets better," said Kerry.

Kerry informed the MCLA community that Congress managed to save the TRIO program and funded it for the next four years. The senator then headed south to the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield where he pledged his support to get the Housatonic River Valley registered as a national historic preservation area.

[whometense]

1. Video!!!

Scroll down (same page)!

Kerry in Berkshires

Senator John Kerry was in the Berkshires Thursday on the latest leg of his statewide tour.

[whometense]

2. Another source

http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=133887

And a nice, pissed off, quote.

Kerry said, "Ideology. Rigid, extreme, ideology and partisanship are guiding what's happening in Washington D.C. It's to the exclusion of things that make a real difference in the lives of average Americans."

[ginnyinWI]

3. why can't the national news

carry this kind of story instead of all the puff pieces they fill up their time with?? It would help people actually know what's going on. sigh.

[whometense]

4. too bad democrats

have no moral values, huh? :eyes:

[FreedomAngel82]

5. He's so great

:loveya: Where's the video?? :shrug:

[politicasista]

6. Go to this website:

http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/your%5Fnews/ and until you see the headline "The Berkshires" (with Kerry's pic), click on the video camera icon (next to the story). Hope that helps.:hi:

[whometense]

9. So sorry!!

That's what I get for posting late at night. :blush:

Forgot the link. http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=133941

Video's in a box, lower right part of the page.

[Mass]

7. Another source

http://berkshireeagle.com/headlines/ci_2777239

U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry used the star power of his office yesterday to focus attention on two Berkshire County programs during a daylong trip to the region.

Kerry began the day in North Adams, where, after breakfast with Mayor John Barrett III, he visited with a standing-room-only group of faculty, staff, students and alumni in Bowman Hall at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

The focus was on the college's Individual Enrichment Program, which is funded by TRIO, a combination of three federal programs designed to benefit low-income students from families in which neither parent graduated from college. The Bush administration's budget proposal cut all funding from the program for the coming year but it may be restored in Congress.

"A lot of Americans think they got a tax cut, and they didn't," he said. "Because their local property tax went up, their excise tax went up, their sales tax went up, and their prices went up and everything else, because we failed to invest in some of these other things we ought to be doing. ... We are squeezing the middle class, we are losing the middle class, and the gap between the haves and the have-nots is growing wider and wider, not closing as it used to be."

[Mass]

8. Springfield Republican

I guess this was Kerry's week of reconnection with MA - Good to see he was able to talk with some newspapers in areas he did not visit.

Kerry criticizes Bush's agenda
Friday, June 03, 2005
By MICHAEL McAULIFFE
[e-mail]

SPRINGFIELD - In his first trip to Western Massachusetts since losing his bid for the presidency, U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry yesterday dismissed - at least for now - talk of another possible run for the White House in 2008 and said he wants to concentrate on rallying Americans to fight a Bush administration agenda that looks out for the wealthy.

Kerry, during an editorial board meeting at The Republican, said President Bush is putting forth a plan to partially privatize Social Security that is unwise and unnecessary; has put forth no legitimate initiative to deal with the future of Medicare; and is determined to give tax breaks to the country's richest citizens.

Kerry, who has been a senator since 1985 and will be up for re-election in 2008, was also critical of the administration's handling of the Iraq war and reconstruction in the country.

"I think it's stunning how irresponsibly slow and inadequate their response has been to the demand of Iraq," he said.

Kerry said there has been no congressional probe of reports of prisoner abuse in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba by GOP design.

"It should happen," Kerry continued. "It's a very legitimate inquiry. It's about who we are as a country, and these are terrible abuses. They go against who we are as a country. They are not good for fighting a war on terror. ... This administration created the atmosphere and the capacity for this to happen."