BuzzFlash Mailbag for January 26, 2009

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Subject: NO to criminality

I sent the following message to my senators:

"Hello, Senator.

I see through several news sources that Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are blocking the nomination of Attorney General-designate Eric Holder until he promises NOT to investigate/prosecute Bush Administration members for torture and other war crimes.

We are presently entertained by the impeachment of the Governor of Illinois for seeking compensation beyond the normal political quid pro quo in appointing a new Senator to replace Senator Obama.

Several thoughtful news and OP-ED pieces have been written, characterizing the Republican position as "blackmail." It does seem tantamount to the actions that have made the Illinois governor the subject of federal indictment, impeachment and public ridicule.

It is essential that the United States return to the rule of law, and show credible remorse for violations of treaty obligations (Supreme Law in the U.S. Constitution) as well as U.S. Code, as embodied in the War Crimes Act of 1996.

Things falling under the category of sine qua non are: 1) admission of error, 2) CREDIBLE expression of remorse, and 3) making reparations. The last category most obviously would include payments to countries, but also includes accountability for actions.

The United States cannot afford to give criminals a pass, especially where their criminality extends to Constitutional violations and capital offenses.

Senators who have taken an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" show themselves to be perjurers at least. By requiring that a new Attorney General put aside the rule of law and protection of the Constitution, they are worse than that. They are traitors.

It is time to invoke the prospect of impeachment or removal for senators who choose to make themselves accomplices in crimes against the Constitution, and capital offenses against humanity under both International and U.S. law."

John Williford
Richland, WA

Subject: Dump Reid

Unless Harry Reid grows a spine right quick. it's time for him to step down as leader. We need a Senate Majority Leader who isn't a milquetoast. A few suggestions: Barbara Boxer, Chris Dodd, Barbara Milkulski, Mark Warner.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: Guess who came to dinner

Maybe Barack will learn what BuzzFlash readers have known since the Reagan years; get the junkyard dogs to heal,

Dogs "heel". Obama probably knows what he's doing. Watch and learn.

Maezeppa
Los Angeles

Subject: What A Short Memory Boehner Has

Hi BuzzFlash,

Will somebody please "remind" John Boehner that when the Republicans had control of Congress, they inherited a BALANCED BUDGET and then proceeded to blow through BILLIONS of dollars in expenses and BIG tax cuts for the RICH?

Billions that added up to FIVE TRILLION Dollars.

Yet "Balanced Budget Johnny" is suddenly REAL concerned about the deficit. His concern goes as far as spending but he has no problem if the stimulus package gets loaded to the hilt with tax cuts for the RICH.

Republicans Are Resistant to Obama’s Stimulus Plan (nytimes.com)

I wonder what the UNemployment Rate is in Ohio vs all the extremely high paid people in his state - who may be unemployed pretty soon? Is Boehner really looking out for ALL the people he represents?

Tom Wieliczka
Windsor Locks, CT

Subject: On the Republicans doing a lovefest for Bush this past weekend

I didn't read or listen to it. I live on a cattle farm, and can get all the bull manure I need by walking in my back pasture.

If President Obama hasn't done anything about your particular interest yet....

[And on Obama ...]

... give him a little time. He's been President for three working days so far [sent Friday]. Even God took a week to create the universe.

Mike Curtis
Greenbrier Ark

Subject: Boehner and GOP can't be bipartisan for a week.

What in the world do you say when the GOP, led by the House Minority Leader, John Boehner of Ohio, is becoming more boneheaded as the days go by? They gave the Bush administration and their friends on Wall Street $350 billion with no strings attached because they were going to open up the loan market and instead they have sat on it. They won’t release the other half of the package and now when President Obama asks for money, with oversight and accountability built in, to do what Wall Street and bankers haven’t done, and Boehner says:

“I think at this point we believe spending nearly a trillion dollars is really more than what we ought to be putting on the backs of our kids and their kids. But at the end of the day this is not our money to spend – we’re borrowing this money from our kids – and so we have to find a package that’s the right size. You know, if we’re going to come back and revisit this later this year and next year we can deal with it at that time – but I think that the most important point that we all agreed on in the room is that we have to do this right.”

This is a man who backed all kinds of things like the Iraq war, based on cherry-picked intelligence, and continues to back it, which has relieved at least 4228 of their lives and thousands upon thousands of their earning ability. Oh, the amount of money we have put on the backs of our kids with the war. What an earmark that war is and not one verifiable reason for it.

I remember back in 2001 when the wealthy got their first huge tax cut and also remember that Boehner and many others said it would stimulate the economy and create jobs. Then a few years later we were told that the first one hadn’t been enough and if we gave them more money they would create jobs. Now he is saying we need to give people who don’t need any more money, who have not done what they were supposed to do with the money, more money. He wants to make them permanent because then they will create jobs.

Maybe I am just a plan old ordinary person, but continuing to cut the amount of tax money needed to pay the bills for this war doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. We need more money coming in, along with cutting costs like the ones for this war. Stop giving money to people who send jobs overseas so they can have near slave labor and make more money they don’t have to pay taxes on. They are taking their offices overseas where they can snow ski in the middle of a friggin’ desert. As far as I am concerned when their offices go overseas, they get no more tax breaks.

And then Boehner and the GOP can not stay out of our OB-GYN examination rooms.

“You know, I’m concerned about the size of the package and I’m concerned about some of the spending that’s in there. How you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives – how does that stimulate the economy?”

I don’t know maybe by having fewer mouths to feed, fewer on Welfare or preventing abortions? We should be interested in preventing unwanted pregnancies and therefore preventing abortions, but that is too much sensible logic for Boehner’s Boneheads. I have never understood why teaching every method under-the-sun to prevent pregnancies and abortions isn’t something the GOP could back.

“Today’s action intensifies concern regarding President Obama’s pledge to sign the so-called ‘Freedom of Choice’ Act, which would increase abortions and divide America. We again call on President Obama to withdraw this divisive pledge.”

I am convinced that they are not really interested in preventing abortions and are only interested in punishing women and girls. They nominated a woman for Vice president who is in favor of forcing women and girls to make their rapists fathers or even giving birth to their own siblings. One more time, if you prevent the pregnancy in the first place, then you prevent the abortion. Telling people in 3rd world countries where they can’t feed the people they have that they need more people is nuts, just plain crazy, lunatic, bat-poop idiotic. They want to keep the most divisive issues as they are.

“You can go through a whole host of issues that have nothing to do with growing jobs in America and helping people keep their jobs. Thanks.”

I think I can see where creating military jobs where you get shot at might be a good idea to some. Making the military the only place where your family can get health care might help with recruiting, but we should all have health care without getting shot at.

I could take a minute to peruse the GOP hot issues that don’t seem to have anything to do with growing jobs in American or helping people keep their jobs.

1. Refusing to provide every kind of contraceptive information to prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions. How does taking control of women’s bodies create jobs?

If you count the extra DHS jobs to cover all the new children, I guess it creates a lot of low wage jobs.

2. Killing off 4228 US citizens in a war without any verifiable reasons and injuring thousands, upon thousands creates jobs for cemetery workers. Health care will cost a fortune, but we do not send kids to get shot at and renege on promises to take care of them. It didn’t work with Vietnam Vets and it won’t work now.

3. Keeping gay people single creates jobs?

4. That lovely bankruptcy package that allows banks and credit unions to jack up my mother’s credit card interest to 30% when it was being used for my dad’s medication, food and gasoline.

5. How does force feeding religious interpretations of creation as science to our kids creating jobs?

6. How does that excuse for a Senior Drug Plan create anything, but confusion and a fortune for drug companies?

7. Deregulating Wall Street and allowing Madoff and others to rob people of their life savings and retirement is creating jobs.

8. Allowing banks to give loans to people they know can’t afford it and then selling bad loans to other entities creates jobs?

9. Removing all checks and balances on presidential powers and allowing him to do whatever he wants and keep all of it a secret is creating jobs for whom?

I could go on and on, but how has most of what the GOP has been doing for the last 8 years created jobs.

Karen Webb

[P.S. Michelle Obama ties for tallest first lady. And she ties with ER. I hope she is as tall in the office as Eleanor.]

Subject: Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh is saying that he wants Obama to fail. What he doesn't understand is that if Obama fails then America fails. We have already had 8 years of failure because of Rush Limbaugh types and that's why we are failing as badly as we are now. But in the last election we voted failure out and America chose a path to success. I think it's time for Rush Limbaugh to fail. If Limbaugh loses his job it will show America has turned its back on hate radio and is back on the right track.

I'm Marc Perkel - And I approved this message!

marc perkel

Subject: Our Government's Support Of Israel Puts Us All At Risk

"Based on?"

"Statements issued by the perpetrators of 9/11 to the effect that, consequent to the U.S.-backed Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, the chickens will come home to roost in America."

"What'll prevent another 9/11?"

"Our pressuring the Obama administration into supporting justice for Palestinians along with their right to return."

"Based on?"

"Yes we can."

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: Progressive Criticism of Obama

THE LAST EIGHT YEARS UNDER REPUBLICAN RULE HAS BEEN A COMPLETE DISASTER! NOW I SEE THEM ON TV CRITICIZING OBAMA AND HIS PLANS TO FIX THINGS.............JESUS GOD! THAT IS LIKE CASEY ANTHONY TRYING TO TELL THE BRADY BUNCH MOM HOW TO RAISE KIDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND FOX NEWS ACTUALLY SEEMS TO WANT OBAMA TO FAIL! OH YEA, REAL PATRIOTIC!

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: NY Post *Incorrectly* quotes Obama on Limbaugh, Think Progress has Correct Quote

I was a little disappointed that you used the NY Post and not ThinkProgress.org when quoting Obama on his advice about listening to Limbaugh.

Here's the ThinkProgress.org link with the *correct* quote:

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/23/obama-gop-limbaugh/

The correct quote is:

“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done ...”

That's a huge difference in that quote, as it's a less dictatorial statement, and would open people's minds with it phrased like that.

A BuzzFlash Reader

[BuzzFlash Note: Not sure of your point. That Think Progress article links to the same Post article that reports on advice that a source attributes to President Obama. Reporters and recorders were not in the room.]

Subject: You guys need to be prepared for WAR with righties.

It is coming and really soon. The far right is gearing up for a repeat of the early 90's. A constant onslaught of lies about Obama. The mainstream media sensitive to the charge of "Liberal bias" are going to run with a lot of their crap.

Rush Limbaugh is firing his sheep up to get white folks to hate Obama. They keep playing this testimony of Robert Reich in a hearing about "White male construction workers" out of context.

The Democrats were not ready for the onslaught when Clinton came in. It cost them the Congress in 1994.

Rush Limbaugh likes that Obama is in office. It is easier to oppose than support. He is licking his chops. Obama should have never mentioned Limbaugh in that first meeting with Republicans. It just ads fuel to the fire.

Daniel Torluemke
Adrian, Michigan

Subject: Since WHEN Does BuzzFlash Use the NY POST As a Source?

"Blunt Honesty Returns to White House: President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration" comes from a story in the Murdoch-owned, Right-Wing Propaganda Organ NY POST, for heavens' sake!

Why is BuzzFlash, of all outlets, giving THIS Piece of Sh - er, "Fishwrap" any form of legitimacy at all? They've been liars and enemy combatants for the Treasonous Reagan/Bush Right Wing since 1980!

Death to the Right! Bush Nazis Must Die!

drdarkeny
Central NY

Subject: But we bail them out

Dear Vice President Biden:

Regarding the Bush bankruptcy bill, which you and only one other Democratic senator supported (Bayh), this has hurt countless individuals who have had to file bankruptcy for even medical reasons. They have to pay money out of pocket to go to a credit counselor. This law has treated individuals most unfairly, but when a corporation is bankrupt, we ask no questions, and are told to bail them out. We had Wall Street over a barrel, but the House and Senate did nothing to protect us.

The vast majority of Americans did not want to pay for these bailouts and we were ignored by our senators and representatives. We are still being fleeced by these bailouts. I think the bankruptcy laws should at least be just as harsh on corporations as they are on individuals. When can we expect a CHANGE on this issue?

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: My Letter to Senator Feinstein

Hi Buzz & Friends,

Apart from the CBS program that I mention below, MSM has been strangely quiet about the gas price spike that occurred last year. After the CBS expose' it was my naive belief that the topic would receive wide coverage in the press. The fact that it has not is perhaps more revealing than if it had. Is it a coincidence that big oil is a major sponsor of every major news outlet - including PBS? Has anyone seen any coverage whatever related to the spike in gas prices since it occurred? This is passing strange, as it was the event that triggered the economic recession that we're now experiencing.

There is a very clear alignment of interest between big oil, the banks, their congressional enablers and MSM. Americans used to be a lot better at connecting dots than they are today. But that was in those halcyon days before advertising prescription drugs on television was legal. Apparently these drugs in addition to their most common side effect of feeling much better than circumstances warrant also induce a willing suspension of disbelief and severe short term memory loss.

Still, at least some portion of the general public must at least vaguely recall the gas price spike that was so instrumental in bringing down the house of cards that, until very recently, constituted our "fundamentally sound" economy.

Seeking more information on this taboo subject I sent the following email to Senator Feinstein.

Dear Senator Feinstein: My inquiry is about the spike in gasoline prices that occurred last year. According to a recent 60 Minutes report titled "The Price of Gas" on CBS, the spike was due to a regulatory loophole that had been the primary legislative objective of Enron Corporation, the perpetrators of a similar scam in 1991-1992. The loophole exploited last year was very similar to the loophole that Enron used to game the price of electricity.

How did this loophole become law? After the Enron scandal you were one of many members of congress who solemnly assured the American public that "this must never happen again". Why then, did it? The two scams were nearly identical in that they exploited a loophole that allowed secret, unregulated trading of an essential commodity, first electricity, then petroleum.

Is this regulatory loophole still in the law? I think the American public deserves an explanation and an investigation into how this second exploit was allowed to happen. Our economy has never recovered from the effect of last year's spike in gas prices. Apparently the very same banks that are now the recipients of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in bailout money were the perpetrators of the gas price gaming that occurred. How do you explain this, given your assurance that this "must never happen again" in 1992?

I look forward to hearing from you on this critically important issue.

Very Sincerely,

Tim Mooring
San Francisco

Subject: The depression that comes with the depression

For the first time, in a long time, I went to the nearest Mall today. I just thought, there was a sale...but, actually, from all I saw, there is a cleaning out of the entire mall. This has always been MY mall...the one I went to when I needed anything ... For instance, there was a Dillards, a Macy's and a Sears...plus another just guessing...about 40-50 specialty shops...and huge food court...and about two years ago...after the second installment of the Bush/Cheney crime spree, the Dillards closed down...since there had been talk of Dillards not doing so well, it was not such a shock. But, in the meantime...since 2005...more and more little shops have closed. Today was a depressive, eye opener! Macy's is for sure going, no matter what they tell you, almost all the little specialty shops in between...I would guess that about ten are still open...but ...

The Sears store looked normal, except that they were having a big huge sale. Macy's had moved China and Silver into the place on the first floor where all the cosmetics were once...no more! Jewelry had taken a huge hit ... it is almost gone...so, many departments just cleaned out. The salespeople are telling different stories.

In the meantime...another mall had opened in and area about 10-15 miles south...and it, so far as anyone can tell...is surviving...that does not mean it is doing well. The strangest thing about this depression, seems the wealthier people have taken an awful hit ... The city, where I live...is thriving...crowded so much you can hardly drive...but, the counties are closing things so fast you cannot even keep them straight. My husband said, and I agree now, "Well, who were the people who got hit the hardest?" And the real answer is...the wealthier.

I don't exactly mean the Wall Street Crowd...but, the people right under them, who made the money that Wall Street stole. So, likely, the people right above us who were making a very good salary...but, not the billionaires...the billionaires are the ones sitting in the Caribbean sipping mojitos right now, with the money stolen from the people in the management positions, like the ones on a level with my husband. Now, only one person left there, had any kind of retirement...she is making it okay...except that she had a new house that might be affected...the man who took over for my husband, has not been in the 401K situation long enough to even keep him one week...and he is in his fifties. So, be it ... It was bleak and sad at the Crestwood Mall ... We pray that some day...the entire country will come back and be what it once was...and I hope I live to see it!

Oh, incidentally...Wal-Marts...and Targets are bustling! ... strange!

Shirley........St. Louis

Subject: drug ads

Hi, Buzz!!

Karen, you are SOOOOO right about how to save the drug companies money. It irritates me no end to see slick drug ads on TV - drugs that so many people need and can't afford, precisely because the pharmaceuticals jack their prices up to pay for the BLOODY ADS.

Besides which, I REALLY don't need to know about new drugs for enlarged prostate. Or erectile dysfunction. Or psoriasis. And, to be quite fair, neither do I need ads about new drugs for high cholesterol or osteoporosis (conditions I actually have). It's my doctor's business, and my pharmacist's business, to know about those drugs. It is for them, and not the bloody drug companies, to give me advice. Big Pharma cares nothing about my health, only about the health of their bottom lines.

They claim their prices are high because they have to pay for research. Hogwash, say I. A lot of drug research is funded by the NIH (as it should be), so it costs the drug companies very little (think of it - we pay for the drugs twice: once in tax money for research, and again when we buy the drugs). Their prices are high for two reasons: 1) The USA doesn't put caps on drug prices, as many other countries do. The drug companies gouge us because they can. 2) They keep spending money on ADVERTISING!

TV advertising of cigarettes was outlawed several decades ago. Drug advertising should follow. Like you, Karen, I am heartily sick of it!

Jane Hawes
Edmond, OK (still a red-state Democrat)

Subject: Letter to Obama girls from Bush daughters

Just saw the video that Matt Lauer introduced on TV of the Bush twins' letter to the Obama girls. I guess it was supposed to be sweet but what I got from it was great propaganda for the Bush clan ... grampa (41) and daddy (43). Guess the tribe have to be #1 all the time.

Marilyn
Dallas, TX

Subject: President Obama Lifts Abortion Gag Rules

“Say it plain, that many have died for this day.” Those words could just as easily been said on January 22, 1972, as they were on January 20, 2008.   This is not to suggest that there is a comparison to the injustice and violence of racism and slavery; but women by the tens of thousands did die waiting for the day when our uteruses would not be subject to dirty knives on creaking tables in shady neighborhoods. Women continue to die around the world.

Roe v. Wade did not create abortion.  It does not advocate abortions. Neither does the Mexico City Policy, otherwise known as the global gag rule, which President Obama has lifted today. Abortions have been a fact of life as far back as recorded medical history goes, as is evidenced in the 1500 BC medical document, the Ebers Papyrus.  It described a variety of recipes to induce labor, while the Celsus described a D&C process which ended with the extraction of the fetus with a hook.  Herbal recipes were used through modern times, with many colonial midwife guides having various recipes for "bringing on the menses" with herbs and oils. Some studies have estimated that there were as many as 2 million abortions per year in the 1800s, a significantly higher rate than today, although the tinctures that were used often led to death. In the last century, surgical abortion became more common as an alternative to the poisons that women had been using, and then vacuum procedures were introduced in the 70s.

It is true that the advent of safer methods and antibiotics improved the health of women by the time Roe v. Wade was decided, so there were fewer than the 15,000 women a year who died from abortions in the 1920s.  During the Depression, abortions increased again because women would lose their jobs if they turned up pregnant. At the same time, laws became more stringent and the political culture move repressive. This increased across the country, prompting hospitals to set up committees to protect doctors who were fearful of retaliation over their interpretation of "therapeutic abortion". Some committees considered suicide attempts, for instance, while others didn’t and went so far as to hospitalize women to force them to carry the pregnancy to term.  This practice was abolished, along with Roe, in the case of Doe vs. Bolton that invalidated a Georgia law that required a woman to get approval from a physician's board. The Supreme Court vote was 7-2, so there were actually 2 highly educated men who supported sending teen-age girls before panels of strangers to describe their rapes, incestuous fathers, molestations and other personal sexual details. The current parental consent laws are almost as bad, requiring these girls to go before a judge instead of a panel. It's ironic that the very issues that caused us to support legalizing abortion are the ones that are currently most at risk.

Late term abortion is another example.  I can’t think of a more cynical and exploitive political game than the one that was played with this rare procedure that is almost always performed in the midst of some kind of emergency in a pregnancy. I am old enough to remember when we spoke of these tragedies in whispers, when we empathized with women who had to have their baby "taken". Consisting of less than 1% of all abortions, late term abortions are performed after 20 weeks and, of necessity, are surgical procedures, either a D&X or Intact D&E.  For many years the abortion was performed by the traditional D&E, where the uterus was dilated and the fetus was dismembered and surgically extracted in pieces.  In the early 90's, the D&X procedure was developed wherein the uterus is dilated, the fetus is removed intact, and the neck is incised. Any of these procedures is tragic, but the D&X is known to reduce bleeding and the risk of uterine lacerations. They also cannot be completely outlawed as the Supreme Court ruled in Stenberg v. Carhart, that there were cases in which the D&X was necessary to protect the health of the mother. 

Abortion is with us, it is a protected right. It is time to turn our attention to the issue of reducing unwanted pregnancy for women of all ages, all over the world. There is no question that unwanted pregnancy, whether you're 14 or 40, has the capacity to ruin lives.  When money is kept from the rare women's clinic in a third world country, it does not reduce abortion, it reduces reproductive health care. It reduces the availability of contraception, it reduces the availability of prenatal care, it reduces the availability of delivery, postpartum and even neonatal care. To say it plain, women and infants die.

When women speak of choice, this is the choice we are talking about.  The choice to direct our own lives, the choice for our uteruses to be healthy, the choice to live.

Sandy Todd
Florence OR

Subject: Bishop Gene Robinson's prayer of Sunday, Jan. 19.

HBO chose not to broadcast his speech and they had the sole rights to film the invocation and the concert. It is a beautiful prayer. It deserves wide distribution. Can you put it on your wonderful site? I found a copy of it in the Chicago SunTimes in the religious editor's column. She is Cathleen Falsani, a wonderful writer and thinker. Her friend sent her a tape. I believe the paper's date was the 19th or 20th. Please give this prayer a considered reading. I am moved by it every time I read it because it is so encompassing and so Christlike and so universal in its message. Thank you so very much.

Ruth Hosek
Addison, IL

[BuzzFlash Note: It's on YouTube, and the text version is here.]

Subject: Buzzflash's writing has gone downhill

Your headlines were a lot more clever, punchy and professional a couple years back...now it's as if they're penned by a trailer park wino in the process of learning English grammar.

Ron Smith

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