BuzzFlash Mailbag for September 22, 2008

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Subject: Tim Wise's article on white privilege

Thank you for the article on White Privilege by Tim Wise. I like and respect his work and consistently learn from his writing, but I want to comment on his point about pregnant girls and privilege.

Bristol Palin is not a privileged person. She's a pregnant teenager without choice or control regarding her body or her future. She can't choose an abortion, she can't choose whom to marry, and she can't run away from home. Then there’s her boyfriend: does she want to marry him? It doesn't matter. They're getting married and her NRA Mama will be holding the shotgun.

Bristol Palin didn't choose to go through this crisis trapped in the harsh, national spotlight. Sarah Palin chose. Palin knew about her daughter's pregnancy, but it didn't change her decision to accept the nomination. Race, the economy and abortion rights are all part of the debate, but the kid is not a symbol. She's trapped by the power we work against.

I come from a white working class background and several of my cousins got pregnant very young. They were all stigmatized -- unmarried, pregnant Catholic girls -- and there were no understanding or supportive words about their pregnancies. One girl refused to name the father so she wouldn't have to marry him. At least she got to make one choice for herself.

I have no argument with Tim Wise about the concrete reality of white privilege and the double standard of public opinion, although I don’t think many pregnant white girls have received this level of understanding from the religious right. It’s a very convenient and well-timed tolerance. But underneath their hypocrisy and our criticism there’s a girl who’s lacking basic rights concerning her body and her future. I just think that “privileged” is the wrong word.

I have a long list of adjectives and epithets for Sarah Palin: she’s bigoted, hypocritical, dishonest, power-hungry and uninformed. After that, of course, there are the issues. McCain/Palin can't be allowed to win, but I don't think Bristol Palin should be part of the attack. She's in crisis, she’s pregnant and she is completely without choice about her future. We don’t know what she wants, and it’s really none of our business, but whatever she chooses, including marrying the good-old-boy father, it should be her choice.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: McInsane

"Just because John McCain was a prisoner of war should not mean we have to be prisoners of war."

John McCain=100 more years of war

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: Explain to me please how this makes sense, as I'm an OBAMA supporter & want to believe

Obama, meanwhile, has long relied on Gramm’s boss, UBS chairman Robert Wolf, as one of his top economic advisers and fundraisers. Worse, during his emergency meeting to discuss the crisis last week, five of the nine people he said would be directing his response have played a role in the crisis they claim expertise in fixing. They are:

** Former Clinton Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin (now an executive at Citigroup, which is embroiled in the meltdown) and Lawrence Summers, who the Politico notes both “supported and helped negotiate the bill [repealing Glass-Steagall].”

** William Daley, the Clinton administration architect of corporate-friendly trade pacts like NAFTA and now a top official at J.P. Morgan Chase.

** Gene Sperling, the top economic adviser in the Clinton White House that deregulated Wall Street.

** Paul O’Neill, the former Bush Treasury Secretary, who despite occasionally criticizing the White House, is a lockstep conservative on economics.

Other than Joseph Stiglitz, Obama included not a single progressive, nor even one of the many visionaries like economist Dean Baker, who has for years been predicting exactly this kind of meltdown. Indeed, the one major labor-affiliated economist officially affiliated with his campaign, Jared Bernstein, “was not part of the crisis meeting,” according to the Washington Post.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article...

peg

[BuzzFlash Note: A key difference is that McCain just follows Gramm's lead, acknowledging until recently that he personally doesn't "get" economics. Obama has a real range of advisors whose views he considers before choosing how to lead. As David Sirota notes above, Obama's other top economists include "the many visionaries like economist Dean Baker, who has for years been predicting exactly this kind of meltdown," not to mention Austan Goolsbee and Robert Reich. Find more support for "Obamanomics" here.]

I would like to know if anyone in government told anyone in the financial industry that when things lead to this extent government would bail them out. Wouldn't that be Conspiracy?

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: Who Would You Hire? (Forwarded email)

You are The Boss... which team would you hire?

With America facing historic debt, multiple war fronts, stumbling health care, a weakened dollar, all-time high prison population, skyrocketing Federal spending, mortgage crises, bank foreclosures, etc. etc., this is an unusually critical election year. The idea of “leadership” must be broadened from mere “experience” to include knowledge, learnedness and insight.

Let's look at the educational background of your two options:

Obama: Occidental College - Two years. Columbia University - B.A. political science with a specialization in international relations. Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

& Biden: University of Delaware - B.A. in history and B.A. in political science. Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

McCain: United States Naval Academy - Class rank 894 of 899

& Palin: Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in journalism

Now, which team are you going to hire?

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: Rip off of Working Families by Wall Street and GOP

To those who doubt the sincerity of McCain’s enthusiasm for regulating the banking industry (which would have prevented this week’s 1.5 trillion dollar free fall) ... Here’s a quote from John McCain’s article, Better Health Care at Lower Cost for Every American, in the Sept./Oct. issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries: “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”

So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising financial deregulation like 10 seconds ago — and promising that if we marketwise health care, it will perform as well as the financial industry! Please note that the cost of cleaning up the current catastrophe of financiers run amok will require $7,500 dollars from every man, woman and child in America.

Bret Halpern

Subject: Scamming the Taxpayer

"Mr. Paulson is resisting efforts to limit the pay of executives."

Source: Wall Street Journal

(NOTE: Please, scroll down to the Wall Street Journal paragraph with sub-title: "Resisting Efforts" and read the scam detail)

"... Mr. Paulson is resisting efforts to limit the pay of executives whose firms participate in the program and plans to fight it 'hard,' according to a person familiar with the matter. He fears that provision would render the program moot, since many firms might choose not to participate.

There seems willingness to negotiate on other issues, such as how Treasury hires asset managers to oversee the immense investment portfolios it soon could own..."

Read more:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122200573768460503.html

D Mullaley

Subject: Corporate Welfare

An old friend of mine sums up the current financial situation quite well: The so-called capitalists in the this country want privatized profits and socialized losses. How true.

Tim Sheehy

Winchester, MA

Subject: Socialism for Wall Street

As this complex finance bailout plan takes shape, all that’s clear is that each American will be contributing $7,500 to it. The total figure is somewhere in the 1.5 trillion dollar range. Apparently, nothing in the plan forces the bailed-out companies to change their ways. In the midst of this fog, Barack Obama offered the following list of guidelines, demands from Congress for assurances that the final deal must reflect “the basic principles of transparency, fairness, and reform.” He issued this statement today at a rally in Charlotte, N.C.

His list actually works well as a template for letters that we all should be writing to Congress, letters insisting that we get something for what we are paying for. Here’s his list from today’s [Sunday's] speech:

“First, there must be no blank check when American taxpayers are on the hook for this much money.

Second, taxpayers shouldn’t be spending a dime to reward CEOs on Wall Street.

Third, taxpayers should be protected and should be able to recoup this investment.

Fourth, this plan has to help homeowners stay in their homes.

Fifth, this is a global crisis, and the United States must insist that other nations join us in helping secure the financial markets.

Sixth, we need to start putting in place the rules of the road I’ve been calling for for years to prevent this from ever happening again.

And finally, this plan can’t just be a plan for Wall Street, it has to be a plan for Main Street. We have to come together, as Democrats and Republicans, to pass a stimulus plan that will put money in the pockets of working families, save jobs, and prevent painful budget cuts and tax hikes in our states.”

I suppose it shouldn’t be too surprising that Mr. Obama should come up with something this comprehensive. Just out of law school, Obama worked for a year as a financial researcher and writer in a New York firm called Business International Corporation. His wrote newsletters outlining points of interest for companies doing business overseas. The newsletters were aimed at senior executives and had arcane titles like "Financing Foreign Operations" or "Investing, Licensing, and Trading Conditions Abroad." It’s nice that he can apply whatever chops he learned to our current mess, and not a minute too soon. Somebody’d better do something.

Here are links to his speech and his background on Wall Street:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13181_Page2.html

Obama's Early Brush With Financial Markets (NPR)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story...

George Penny

Subject: That Last Shock Treatment

"Which was?"

"President George Bush's seven hundred billion dollar bid to bailout banking and finance."

"Why did he fail?"

"President Abraham Lincon said it well: 'You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."

"Which led to?"

"The January 20, 2009 inauguration of newly elected President Barack Obama who worked with Congress to resolve the economic debacle."

"How?"

"By restructuring corporate incentives to serve the public interest rather than private interests."

"Based on?"

"Government of, for and by the people."

"And ever since then what sort of world?"

"It's been up to us."

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: New New Deal

In eighty years or so, when politicians and pundits argue about the New Deal, they'll be talking about the agreement being finalized tonight in the Nation's Capital. Some will say George Bush rose above petty politics and saved the global economy from certain collapse. Others will say by formalizing the fusion of business and government he created the world's first corporate state -- USA, Inc. And no one will remember who won the election just six weeks later. No one ever remembers the poor sap who follows the parade with a broom and a bucket.

From Friday to Sunday night, estimates for the cost of this cure have risen from five hundred billion to a trillion and a half dollars. That's a three hundred percent increase in seventy-two hours, and it's only a guess. Publicly, at least, not a single CEO, board member or accountant of any financial institution has been able to come up with a number that would even hint at how far the fiscal cancer has spread. That will probably change once President Bush has a blank check in hand. At that point every bad loan arising from corporate malfeasance, incompetence or plain bad luck will magically surface, bound in a pretty ribbon and ready to be offered on the federal alter of tax-payer forgiveness. And a trillion and a half dollar price tag will seem quaint.

No matter who is sitting in the oval office next year, with the lights turned off and the heat turned down, the real winner is Wall Street.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: I Smell a Rat

I’m not normally a conspiracy theorist, but I usually have good instincts, and my antenna has gone up over the past few days. Has anyone else thought about the possibility that Treasury Sec Paulson, and Fed Chairman Bernanke may be in cahoots with the Bush Administration and the Republican party to unload their cronies' debt from Wall Street onto the taxpayers at this point in time in order to save these firms to live and fight another day?

It looks like this rescue will be sped through Congress before they adjourn with little opportunity to digest the magnitude of what has transpired while giving their Wall Street buddies a chance to catch their breathe, regroup, and enjoy a new leash on life.

In doing so, they may have to sacrifice John McCain, but then, they didn’t like him anyway.

Peter Baker tells us in this New York Times Article dated September 20, 2008,

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/business...

“… Talking into a speaker phone from his ornate office, Mr. Bernanke told Mr. Paulson that it was time to adopt a comprehensive strategy that Congress would have to approve. Mr. Paulson understood. Reluctant in recent days to send Congress a plan that lawmakers had warned had little chance of quick passage, he had worried that a rejection would only further shock the markets. But during two conference calls Wednesday night and Thursday morning, he agreed that they had no choice. …“

The plan rumored to be headed to Congress as early as this weekend once accepted will have no provisions which would allow it to be amended later, therefore it’s imperative that the Democratic Congress not permit itself to be railroaded into accepting a plan which in the long run will do more harm to the middle class, than good.

This bailout plan serves several additional purposes besides wiping the slate clean for those responsible for this mess.

It gets the Republicans off the hook with Iraq. If elected there is no doubt that Obama would end the occupation in Iraq (not without its drawbacks) and whatever the outcome the Republicans can claim that the surge was working when they left office and the situation was under control.

The situation on Wall Street is projected to have an impact on Main Street for some time to come, therefore with the sizable debt the government will have amassed, it will be impossible for Obama to put through legislation to provide the type of tax cuts he envisioned for the middle class, continue a war on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, reform healthcare, and deal with the massive entitlement debt coming due with social security and medicare as the baby boomers reach retirement age.

Unable to put through his own agenda designed to help the middle class and create jobs through masses infusion of capital to get a workforce back to work, invest heavily in alternate forms of energy, and reform the nation's healthcare and education system, the attention deficit American public will be ripe with disgust that Obama hasn’t kept his campaign promises and he will spend the 2nd half of his first term trying to fight off a Republican presidential challenge while trying to maintain a majority held Democratic congress.

We know that Democrats rarely agree on anything, so from day one it will be a sprint out of the box for an Obama administration to get a legislative agenda through Congress with so many competing agendas. Take a look at Bill Clinton’s first months in office. Out of the box with all the items on the Democratic agenda, he got bogged down in a debate with Congress over gays serving in the military which led to independent voters heading for the door. This among other things led to the republicans regaining control over Congress in 1994 and the Democratic agenda being hijacked. Bill Clinton was able to thwart back their efforts to some degree, but I don’t think Obama will be given the same luxury. It will be imperative that his agenda be frontloaded through Congress from day one because he won’t have the luxury of time on his side. Americans are too impatient.

Due to the quick actions of the feds this week, few Americans probably even realize we just suffered through the worst financial week since the Great Depression. My husband was working a lot of overtime and had no clue as to how close we came to a financial meltdown. By the time Friday’s closing rolled around, the markets were back where they were before the meltdown began on Monday.

Of course the taxpayers are now on the hook for upwards of a trillion dollars, but the majority of Americans don’t pay attention to that sort of stuff. We don’t know what's going to happen in the next week but we do now that the Congress is schedule to adjourn so they can get home in order to continue campaigning for reelection and the feds want a package pushed through the legislature before they adjourn.

One of the criticisms of the Resolution Trust Company (RTC) in the Savings and Loan bailout was that the RTC sold off the assets for pennies on the dollar. At this stage in the game, what safeguards will be put in place ensure that it doesn’t happen again? Nobody can say for sure because they’re all playing fast and furious by the seat of their pants. The Bush Administration has said that those assets will be held by the government until they recoup their value. How would that work?

One thing I know for certain is that the thought of the US government as the largest property management group does not conjure up great appeal to me. At this point, only the wealthy who created and profited from this scheme will have any cash left to buy up these assets.

Congress needs to make sure that they aren’t force-fed a plan that will render the next administration so bogged down with debt that it is completely impotent to pursue an agenda which provides relief for the middle. We need to let Congress know that being stuck with a bad plan is more detrimental in the long run than having no plan in the short run.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: McCain's Flip-Floppings Are At A Record Breaking Pace

"Flip-flopping how?"

"After insisting that our troops might be in Iraq for a hundred years he says that Obama's plan to end the Iraq War within two years 'Is just about right'.

"When did McCain make that flip-flop?

"After the polls showed that the public supported Obama's plan."

"Any more McCain flip-flops?"

"Among others his recent overnight conversion from deregulator to regulator."

"What's next?"

"Depends upon Obama's proposals, since McCain's playing follow the leader."

"Obama says no to any bailout of banks and finance that doesn't protect the public?"

"McCain says me too."

"Obama says no bailout unless corporate incentives are restructured to serve the public interest rather than private interests?"

"McCain says me too."

"Obama demands that President George Bush be put on trial for his crimes against humanity?"

"Depends?"

"On what?"

"Whether he's willing to take the risk."

"What risk?"

"That he too might end up on trial for crimes against humanity."

"Based on?"

"His having pimped for this Iraq War."

"How would that put him on the docket before an International Court of Criminal Justice?"

"Depends upon whether he knew all along that the WMD excuse for going to war was one big fat lie."

"If all along he did know?"

"He'd be opposed to Obama's proposal because he too might end up on trial at a court of criminal justice on the charge of crimes against humanity."

"But if it turns out that he hadn't known?"

"Then the polls will decide what his position would be on putting President Bush on trial."

"In what way?"

"If the polls show that there's significant public support for such a trial, McCain might support it."

"With what effect upon the election?"

"McCain will have done himself in."

"Why is that?"

"In a contest between a Johnny come lately progressive and a proven progressive, the public will go for the real McCoy every time."

"And then what sort of world?"

"It'll be up to us."

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: I have a blog ...

If you get a chance, please take a read and let me know what you think.

http://vexedinthecity.wordpress.com/

Corey Richardson
Austin, TX

[BuzzFlash Note: We like it, and we borrowed the "Good Times" video to post on our home page. Hope you don't mind.]

Subject: Learn what an elitist is. Please.

"Who is Elitist and Out of Touch? McCain Owns 13 cars; Obama, one. McCain Owns 7-9 Houses, Obama, [...]"

Good grief, material comforts don't make one an elitist! I hate to see the lefties sink to such cheap arguments.

A BuzzFlash Reader

[BuzzFlash Note: Okay. McCain comes from an elite background and lives in elite neighborhoods and plays golf at elite country clubs (meaning, he's a person of privilege and his haunts are socially exclusive). Whether he has an elitist attitude also and believes in rule by the elite, are different questions.]

Subject: There's Something Seriously Wrong

There is something seriously wrong when:

The Vice-President has to be ordered by a federal judge to keep all of his office's records while serving the people.

The new Vice-Presidential candidate is hidden from the press until the party decides the press is showing her respect and deference.

When the Republican Presidential candidate can't decide what his positions really are and keeps changing them.

When the Republican Presidential candidate's campaign says the candidate doesn't speak for his own campaign.

When the current President is so toxic to his own party that members of his own party didn't even make it to their own convention.

When the Treasury Secretary, himself formerly of Wall Street, demands the taxpayers give him an unfettered $700 billion bail-out loan for his fellow crooks and cronies with no accountability or future legal action possible.

When a VP candidate has to be taken to the UN so she can meet a foreign leader to beef up her foreign affairs experience and who thinks seeing Russia from her state is the same as foreign affairs experience.

When a Presidential candidate has 13 homes and 7 or 8 cars but calls the other candidate an elitist when that candidate has only one home and one car.

Could it get more strange? Probably -- we are talking about neocons and whacked out Christian fundamentalists.

Lisa Johnson
Tacoma, WA

Subject: Republican Motto for 2008

A new slogan for the Republican Party 2008:

Taking mediocrity to even lower levels than before.

Lisa Johnson
Tacoma, WA

Subject: Paulson Bailout

Comments sent to my congressional representatives: "As a taxpayer I urge you to oppose the Paulson bailout plan as written. I see no reason to bail out mismanaged companies and expect taxpayers to foot the bill. As a taxpayer, it would cost me far less if Congress allocated a fraction of the estimated $700 BILLION to every household for mortgage and other debt repayment. Even allocating $1 million to every single US household would take a mere fraction of the Paulson Pool and, in the process, wipe the majority of taxpayer bad debt off the books. In fact, monies left over would stimulate the economy through spending, responsible debt and investing. Adding more debt through complicated and dictatorial financial sleight of hand, the Paulson plan, only postpones the day of reckoning. It is reprehensible for any elected official to financially assist companies that created this problem simply because they're deemed too big to fail. Reprehensible unless taxpayers today receive some concrete dividend in return.

Think of this: taken as a group, taxpayers are too big to fail as well. Keep it simple isn't a bad way to start fixing a mess nobody truly understands.

Disgusted Taxpayer
St. Paul, Minnesota

Subject: Socialism & Nationalization

Kindly stop using these terms to describe the bail out of Wall Street.

Under any rational scheme of nationalization or socialization the people would acquire the assets of these corporations as well as merely their liabilities. And that might be to the better.

But under the schemes now put forward profit centers are left in private hands and the public will be stuck with the toxic debts.

This is just another species of corporate welfare: The banks on the dole.

Chris Herz
Washington

Subject: Palin's Tax Records

SO WHY HASN'T SARAH PALIN TURNED OVER HER TAX RECORDS? BIDEN HAS. IS SHE WAITING FOR THE FIRST WEDNESDAY OF NOVEMBER?

[BuzzFlash Note: This was brought up on the Washington Post blog today: "Palm City, Fla.: Where are Sarah Palin's tax returns? We were told that the campaign had them and they would be made public. When, right after the election?Anne E. Kornblut: Thank you for reminding me about this. You are right, the McCain campaign said they would release her records, but have not. Nor have they released her medical records, as is standard practice. We shall ask again."]

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: McCain on Privatizing Social Security

Summary: On MSNBC Live, James Pethokoukis claimed that "Senator [John] McCain is not calling for privatizing Social Security. He's talking about perhaps separate accounts, but he's not actually talking about taking your Social Security payments and funneling them in the stock market." In fact, in a March Wall Street Journal interview, McCain reiterated his support for private Social Security accounts that would be funded through existing payroll taxes and could be invested in the stock market

Deb Williams

Subject: President Obama

Hi BuzzFlash!

I was lying in bed the other morning watching the financial meltdown on TV when all of a sudden there he was. Standing at a podium giving a news conference outlining his plan to deal with the crisis and ANSWERING QUESTIONS IN AN INTELLIGENT, DETAILED, THOUGHTFUL MANNER! He was surrounded by smart-looking people and the whole thing kind of had an air of, you know, COMPETENCE! Was it a dream or was it a peek into the future? Both, I think.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: BAILOUT???? BUYER BEWARE

After more than a year of dragging their disaster along suddenly we are told we have less than one week to make the crucial decision of creating a financial dictator for the country or the sky will fall. Notice who is telling us this? The Sec. of the Treasury from Wall Street, also who is to be named our dictator--The Sec. of the Treasury. Next you will be told that he will be replaced in less than four months. Will he, President Bush, (quietly) signed an executive order about 18 months ago saying the president could use martial order to take over in time of crisis. What are we hearing this called? Who finances Blackwater?

Something not too well known but in a few history books, Prescott Bush, yes that Bush family, tried, in addition to being friendly with Hitler, to establish a Fascist gov. in this country. His group also used every means at their disposal to persuade Franklin Roosevelt to declare himself dictator in his first speech to the nation as president. The nation was desperate. It might have permitted it to happen These crooks stole the last two elections. This time they plan for the job to be more complete. They plan to take it all. President for life Cheney.

BUYER BEWARE! WHEN THE ANSWER IS RUSHED, WHEN THERE IS NO TIME TO CONSIDER, WHEN YOU ARE GIVEN A CHOICE OF ONLY TWO POSSIBLE ANSWERS! BUYER BEWARE! .

Edith M. Conrad
Asheville, NC

Subject: The coup

This is not my piece -- but worthwhile information none the less ... [excerpted]

Larisa Alexandrovna 

Welcome to the final stages of the coup...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com...

"If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it." ~ Julius Caesar

Let me first point you to the Bush administration's so-called Wall Street bailout bill, here, so that you can see for yourself that this treachery is being conducted in the light of day. Fascism is finally and formally out of the right-wing closet even if the F word is not yet openly being used (although it should be, and often).

Now, if you do not yet understand that the Wall Street crisis is a man-made disaster done through intentional deregulation and corruption, I have a bridge in Alaska to sell to you (or Sara Palin does anyway). This manufactured crisis is now to be remedied, if the fiscal fascists get their way, with the total transfer of Congressional powers (the few that still remain) to the Executive Branch and the total transfer of public funds into corporate (via government as intermediary) hands. Adam Davidson of NPR blogs about the so-called bailout bill as follows: I would guess that this has to be one of the biggest peacetime transfers of power from Congress to the Administration in history. (Anyone know?). Certainly one of the most concise.

The Treasury Secretary can buy broadly defined assets, on any terms he wants, he can hire anyone he wants to do it and can appoint private sector companies as financial deputies of the US government. And he can write whatever regulation he thinks are needed.

Most importantly, Davidson points to this passage in the bill:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

The Bush family, in the form of Prescott Bush, has tried a more aggressive coup before in order to install fascism in this country. This treasonous plot was called "the Business Plot," because the high-level plotters - including Prescott Bush - were Wall Street men who openly supported fascism.

It seems this time around, the Bush family is trying the more subtle approach to open bloodshed: first create a crisis, then under the guise of addressing that crisis, overthrow democracy. Yes, it does sound terribly conspiracy-theory-esque when explained just this way. But what else does one call a criminal conspiracy to destroy Congressional powers permanently, alter Judicial powers permanently, and steal public funds? ...

You are no longer Republicans, Democrats, or any shade of voter. You do not live in a swing state or a solid colored state. You are simply this: an American. That is the only side that matters. So call your members of Congress and demand, no, declare that unless they do their duty to the Constitution and to us, we will move to the streets - not because we want to, but because our founding fathers demanded this duty of each and every citizen in the face of such a domestic enemy. Demand - as is your right - that this bill be voted against and demand - as is your right - that the people plotting this treachery be held to account. We are either a nation of laws or we are no longer a democracy. Pick a side, because there won't be another time, another moment, another chance to be a patriot. ...

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: McCain's Disastrous Privatization of Social Security

To those who doubt the sincerity of McCain’s enthusiasm for regulating the banking industry (which would have prevented this week’s 1.5 trillion dollar freefall) --

Here’s a quote from John McCain’s article, Better Health Care at Lower Cost for Every American, in the Sept./Oct. issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries: “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”

So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising financial deregulation like 10 seconds ago — and promising that if we marketwise health care, it will perform as well as the financial industry!

Please note that the cost of cleaning up the current catastrophe of financiers run amok will require $7,500 dollars from every man, woman and child in America.

Jerry Chen

[BuzzFlash Note: Not sure where you (and other writers to Mailbag) got that figure. Others have estimated $2000 per person.]

Subject: Bailout

Bailout gives Treasury Secretary greater powers than President and Congress combined, with court review exemption; add relinquishment of power of the purse to war powers; if dems cave rather than try save the republic, then maybe rense and nader are right and we should drop perfidious dems; remember Humphrey and 1968? Maybe fake opposition is worse than real opposition that looks like it will fail.

Tom Edsell
Nokomis/Florida

Subject: Obama

I live in western Maryland, Garrett Co., the westernmost county of the the one next to West Virginia. Obama will win Md., but these two westernmost counties Garrett and Allegheny will vote like WV. The reason is one that has deep roots, here is what I hear all the time. (I will not vote for that N*****.) Take that how you will but it is what the people say in private. The CORPORATE CONTROLLED MEDIA reinforces this with the people on RADIO like LIMBAUGH, which they all listen to, and CNN (Fox's sister station) for how many black faces are there that have a permanent place all you have is people like GLEN BECK, WOLF-E boy and Lou Dobbs.

H.D. Cole
Oakland Maryland

Subject: How does the state of affairs make you feel?

I sat down to examine how the demise of our country actually makes me feel which brought forth this paragraph (to be added below) Upon reflecting upon what I wrote I began to wonder: If this is how these events have affected me, how has it affected other people on a personal level? So what I would like to do is share this thought with my BUZZ flash friends and see what if any thoughts they may have.

So Buzz,, here is my feeling and I hope you feel that it is worthy of posting and requesting the thoughts of others.

Who am I ? I'm an actor without a stage, I am a patriot without a country, I am a lover without trust or faith in love, I am a student of humanity mired in disappointment, I am a tattered heart with a wounded soul trudging doggedly onward toward what peace and solace may be found in eternity.

Richard F. Burger

Subject: Imagine if All the Billions and Billions of Dollars Spent on Bailing Out Financial Institutions that Took Risks and Failed Were Spent on Universal Healthcare? 9/21

Excuse me, but the billions spent to bail out financial corruption means THERE WILL NEVER BE universal healthcare!!! In fact, there will never be any stable future!

Will Wyche
Palm Springs, CA

Subject: MIA FAQ

WHERE ARE THE CLINTONS?

RenoMike

Subject: Obama on 2nd amendment

Where does Obama stand on gun control or legislation?

eddy guerra

Subject: More Strongly?

Obama Needs to Fight Back More Strongly on McCain's Lies About Taxes 9/21

More Strongly?

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: BuzzCon cancellation

I understand the financial concerns of low registration that prompted the cancellation of the working class themed conference. However, I can't help wondering how many people might have been late-registrants. I just discovered today that it was canceled (after spending 5 minutes trying to locate the conference on the site). I for one, wanted to ensure I'd be in Philly the day before I registered.

Of note, Bill Maher will have a show at Tower Records the same night. Missed opportunity-- all around. Best wishes for a next-time -- soon.

Crystal Haidl
Atlantic City, NJ

Subject: McCain's Mistakes

There are now far too many instances of “misspeak” and “confusion” to count. McCain is suffering from a serious medical condition, not an occasional brain fart. I would conjecture we are witnessing the early (?) stages of some form of dementia. His staff cannot help but be aware the old boy is slipping. Could that be why (1) anonymous campaign officials “leak” the fact they can’t keep him on message and (2) why his staff issued a bizarre statement in which it claimed that McCain doesn’t speak for the campaign? He has a major medical/psychological problem, and it is “the” skeleton in his closet they are all trying to hide.

It concerns me greatly that the media is giving McCain a pass when it should be questioning his mental acuity and his fitness for office. How many videos have we seen in the past couple of months where McCain fumbles words, exhibits confusion, and seems to be “out of it”? You may recall how his campaign ever so cautiously limited access to his medical records (a few months ago) during an abbreviated media review of 1,500 carefully scrubbed pages. As I recall, access lasted less than 90 minutes, and no note-taking was allowed. Remember how the press rolled over on that? It was fixated on his hemorrhoids! Serious calls for a psych workup are needed. We’ve already had at least one president, Reagan, who suffered from dementia while in office, and we don’t need another one. Not ever, but especially not now with our economy in total meltdown.

McCain’s mental condition is obviously a delicate topic to broach, but we all have a responsibility to put the matter on the table. Voters deserve to know the truth about his medical condition.

See the E&P article below for the latest example. 

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/...

Sharon Andrews

Subject: Wall Street "Meltdown"

This week has been pretty amazing. Now we have all the de-regulators, anti-government, free marketeers begging to be saved. I don't even mind that, but when we saw stories of American families losing their homes because of payments they could no longer afford, they were considered stupid, etc., and how could we possibly help them? If we had helped them then, maybe all of this wouldn't have happened.

It's a little creepy, though, when I heard Chris Dodd's comment that congress was brought into a room and told the horrible financial meltdown we were facing if we didn't bail them. It made me think of the lies pre-Iraq war to get us in the war. What are they getting us into now?

All this money to save corporations and then they'll tell us no money for medicare, social security, public welfare issues. Anybody know why Lehman Bros was the only company allowed to sink? Are they run by democrats???

Betty

Subject: Heck of a job George

Hey Buzz..can you use this one instead of the first one i sent you?

Today's trillion dollar payout caps off the "great Republican Neocon Scam." They deregulated everything from the stock market to torture and won big time. The wars they started profited both the oil and the arms boys. The bankers and insurance got rich while destroying the American and world economies. GW can retire in exile in Paraguay knowing he fulfilled his moneyed masters.

Stealing a trillion more bucks from the American taxpayers was the coup de grace.

Tom Coombs
Kaslo BC Canada

Subject: "Nauseous" things cause Nausea

Buzz writes "We're a little nauseous with all the movement 9/20"

You mean NAUSEATED. A "Nauseous" agent is something that sickens people.

Maezeppa
Los Angeles CA

Subject: John McPain has a Palin (which is Alaskan for plan)

John McPain has a palin. He knows all too well the palin that be caused by greedy souls that prey upon the citizens of this nation ... like uhhh Charles Keating for instance. Now by today's standards that was small potatoes, it was only a 2.3 Billion dollars taxpayer bailout. McPain was up to his ass***e in alligators but he persevered, he help Charles Keating with pushing through favorable legislation for "Chuck" as he is now known. And McPain received $100,000 in campaign contributions and several comp'ed trips. John McPain was the only one of the Keating 5 to stay in Congress, as he earned his stripes by striving to end the investigation.

McPain has a palin this time around. He wants to take his experience to Washington. The McPain palin calls for keeping the lobbyists within arm's reach by keeping them on the payroll. The John McPain palin calls for building bridges to places unheard of by most of us. And if that is ineffective his back-up palin is to build a road to nowhere to generate jobs and keep hundreds of millions of our dollars in a lockbox deep in Alaska, where you can only get there by taking a train from Girdwood to Wasilla.

John McPain will save the taxpayers billions by not giving women equal pay. His palin to ignore the needs of those without healthcare will save billions more. Once John McPain wakes up to the crisis called our economy he flips and flops faster than a fish out of water. John McPain may not know Spain is in Europe, or anything at all about photo-voltaics, or thin film technology, or about the needs of the working class. John McPain may disrepect women and joke about the prospects of more war, but he does have a palin. The palin calls for women to pay for their own rape kits, and continued tax breaks for the wealthy.The McPain palin may seem contradictory, inconsistent, spurious, and evil. It may seem like he turns his back on veterans, and the poor. But remember this John McPain owns lots of houses and who knows he may just let one or two of the hundreds of thousands that have lost theirs because of the sort of policies he endorses stay in one for a small fee. The McPain palin is to finish the job George W. Bush started.

Jim Ridout
Albuquerque, New Mexico

Subject: Free Speech - Campaign Signs

I was recently asked to remove political signs supporting Obama from inside my apartment window. I do not own the apartment. According to the rules, in the letter that told me to remove the sign, it was against policy to hang anything inside or outside the window. Is this legal?

A BuzzFlash Reader

[BuzzFlash Note: We're guessing it may be a free speech legal question if the landlord allowed McCain signs to be posted but not Obama ones.] 

Subject: Election Day SNAFU again????

I for one have not "gotten over it" that the Repugs managed to steal not only one, but two presidential elections and are no doubt going for a triple with McCain Palin. John Kerry promised that they would "count all the votes" and it wouldn't be another 2000, but then he copped out, let Ohio fall to Bush along with New Mexico and very likely several other states as well.

People who stood in line for hours to vote were all too often turned away or somehow some way their vote just didn't get counted. Gee, when are the Dems ever going to learn?? I would like to get the message out to Obama and Biden that if people are going to sacrifice hours of their time, and money; gas, time from work, babysitters, etc., the Democratic candidates darn better make sure that ALL our votes get counted this time. I would like a pledge from them that this time there will REALLY be "no surrender".

How about it? Isn't this America?

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: McCain's Campaign: We're Going to Keep on Lying 9/20

Seriously, do any of you really believe that when the only Kristian, Gawd-centered way of communication is lying, voter fraud, and limited media access--and that free assembly is criminal--that the rest of the world doesn't believes such a nation deserves another 9/11?

AMERIKA DESERVES ONLY PAIN! VOTE MCCAIN!

Will Wyche
Palm Springs, CA

Subject: Re: Galveston/Houston (map correction)

You left the third entrance onto Galveston Island. The area just left or west of Galveston on the map you had is Surfside and there is a bridge from Surfside to Galveston over San Luis Pass. There is a bridge that connects Surfside to the mainland.

Karen Webb
Moore, Ok

Subject: Election Fraud

Check out Mark Crispin Miller's new article, "Why They Chose Sarah Palin." I think the possibility of another stolen election is something we need to worry about much more than polls and attack ads. BuzzFlash and other progressive sites should be pushing this very hard. If Bush was actually never really "elected," and the country is much further down the toilet than it was in 2004, why would the majority of Americans vote for McCain/More of the Same? Maybe the electorate isn't as dumb or racist as it's being portrayed. Maybe it's just been slipped a media mickey and then mugged...and then mugged...and then mugged...and then...

David Kosh
New York, NY

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