BuzzFlash Mailbag for October 29, 2008

BUZZFLASH MAILBAG

Want to join the conversation? Share your thoughts with other Mailbag readers by clicking here. You also may comment below; post articles yourself at BuzzFlash.net; or send urls for BuzzFlash to post to: www.buzzflash.com/contact/newstip.html.

Subject: Sarah Palin on Redistribution

The following comment was made on www.thomhartmann.com. I look forward to your comments.

Re:Income Distribution is Perverse 1 Day, 1 Hour ago

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment...

For her part, Sarah Palin, who has lately taken to calling Obama “Barack the Wealth Spreader,” seems to be something of a suspect character herself. She is, at the very least, a fellow-traveler of what might be called socialism with an Alaskan face. The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269.

A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.” Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it (“collectively,” no less), but finding it would require the analytic skills of Karl the Marxist.

http://www.storyofstuff.com

http://www.mbtranslations.com

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

So is Governor Palin spreading the wealth or just sharing it? She's so mavericky in her socialist ways!!

Marc Batko
Portland, Oregon

Subject: Political limerick about John McCain

Dear BuzzFlash,

I wrote the following copyrighted limerick about John McCain. If you like it, you are welcome to use it free of charge to help Obama in his election campaign, provided that you always put my name on the limerick and give me credit for writing it. You may not, however, sell it without my permission.

John McCain excites passion, no doubt,
On Baghdad as he swaggers about.
Hard-headed as Iraq,
This old warrior cock
Will kill us all before he pulls out.

Written by Roma Ziarnko

By Roma Ziarnko, copyright July 2008 All rights reserved.

Roma Ziarnko
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Subject: The window of October Surprise!

One week until the elections. We are in the window of October Surprise!

The wheels are coming off the McCain campaign and the Republican dominance of U.S. politics is clearly threatened. Obama drew 100,000 people to a rally in Colorado then 45,000 in a smaller city the next day while McCain was addressing a group of 2000. McCain campaign staffers are sending out resumes and some of them are claiming that Palin is a "Diva and a Rogue," that she is offing McCain to position herself for her own presidential run in 2012. Republican Senator Stevens was convicted of corruption in Alaska.

It now seems highly unlikely, short of substantial manipulation of the election process that the Republicans can win the presidency, it is quite possible Democrats will even win 60 seats in the Senate, breaking the Republican's power to filibuster.

Barring an October Surprise!, an "external event" of the magnitude of an act of war or terrorism that would stampede the American sheeple into the blind support of a mythical John McCain who is "stronger on national security issues", or empowers Bush to declare martial law.

Note, below, that the U.S. has raided and killed people inside Syria, not a small provocation.

Hold your breath (AFTER you have voted!)

Officials Say U.S. Killed an Iraqi in Raid in Syria

Hussein Malla/Associated Press

Villagers in Syria gathered Monday near the coffins of people who died during an American Special Operations raid aimed at Iraqi militants on Sunday. Top of Form By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER Published: October 27, 2008 WASHINGTON - A raid into Syria on Sunday was carried out by American Special Operations forces who killed an Iraqi militant responsible for running weapons, money and foreign fighters across the border into Iraq , American officials said Monday.

TWIGA

Subject: Sarah Palin a diva!?

Hi, Buzz!

And ho-jo-to-ho to you! As a classically trained soprano myself, I OBJECT to anyone's calling Sarah Palin a "diva."

"Diva" is an Italian word meaning "goddess," and there is a reason it's often applied to opera stars, especially sopranos. Ego is a part of it, of course, but it has more to do with a certain sublimity of voice and performance. A true diva has such a total command of her voice and the music that the performance becomes an expansion of herself and draws the audience in, making them feel a part of her, too. The best performances have a mystical quality to them, so that mere reality seems dull and lifeless.

Sarah Palin has the ego, for sure, but sublime she ain't, and therefore, calling her a "diva" is an insult to the real ones.

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

Subject: New McCain ad has subliminal racial message!

The new McCain ad (October 29) which cites Barack Obama's inexperience, has a subliminal message at the end of the ad. There is a picture of a darker Barack Obama and an interesting positioning of the "B" in Barack's name and the word "lacks" in the next line:

Barack lacks

With a "darker than he really is" photo, and the above words, we definitely get the message that he is BLACK! The message was not really TOO subliminal; it jumped out at me the first moment I saw the ad!

A Barack Obama supporter,

Vonnie D.
Sulphur, LA

Subject: complain about biased & unfair questioning

people can contact barbara west's newsroom and complain about her unprofessional interview of sen. biden where she called sen. obama a marxist. the link is:

http://www.wftv.com/contact/index.html

beth
michigan

Subject: McCain/Palin and lies

McCain/Palin are a lying, evil, mess!

There is not an original thought between them.

Obama comes to us with how he would treat each issue, no sooner that it's out there, McCain/Palin steal it and run with Obama's plan. Then they have the nerve to call it their own. What's baffling is their following, those who cheer them on, lies and all. Now, they have Joe (not a plumber) as a spokesman. What a joke!

They have no answers or issues to bring to the American people. So tearing honorable Obama down is their only way to go. Desperation!

Now, they want negotiation with other leaders. Didn't Obama suggest that? Bush had 8 yrs to do this but they bombed instead.

It looks like all the ideas Obama has presented have been taken by the GOP. Makes you wonder who has been the best influence on world policy, the Republicans or Barack Obama. The answer is clear, it's Obama. On what's best for America, again, it's Obama.

Who could possibly be undecided?

McCain/Palin, no ideas at all, Obama/Biden have the best answers, this is a no brainer.

Since Senator Obama has been the leader all this time, electing him as President will only be a formality.

A Buzzflash Reader

Subject: One Armed Musician Sues Wyeth, Supreme Court

URGENT- FROM BLOOMBERG NEWS ONLINE WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 28th:

Wyeth Pharmaceutical Seeks to LIMIT patient liability for drugs approved by FDA

Please read this now.

One-Armed Musician, Wyeth Clash at Top U.S. Court on Drug Suits

By Greg Stohr Enlarge Image/Details

Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Children's musician Diana Levine watched her right hand gradually turn black in the six weeks after she was injected with a Wyeth anti-nausea drug. The pain, so powerful even morphine couldn't mask it, subsided only when doctors amputated the arm just below the elbow.

"It was totally shocking to wake up to this,'' said Levine, motioning toward her sleeve-covered stump as she sat in the kitchen of her Marshfield, Vermont, farmhouse. "I just didn't think it would be that short. It took me quite a while to be able to look at it, to unwrap the bandage.''

Levine's story -- and the $7 million judgment she won from a Vermont state jury -- comes before the U.S. Supreme Court next week. Wyeth and other drugmakers are asking the court to put new limits on patient lawsuits over medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

A victory for pharmaceutical companies would put them closer to long-sought goals: uniform national safety rules, a ban on imposition of tougher standards by juries and a shield from billions of dollars in patient claims. At the same time, it would leave at least some injured patients without compensation even if they can show a drugmaker gave short shrift to patient safety.

"Even if the court rules narrowly, it could still be a blockbuster,'' said Mark Herrmann, a Chicago product-liability lawyer at Jones Day who represents companies and co-writes a blog on drug and medical-device law.

At the center of the debate is the role of the FDA, the agency that determines whether a new drug's benefits outweigh its risks and whether the manufacturer's safety warnings to doctors and patients adequately convey the risks.

... The Bush administration is backing the industry, arguing that jury awards can interfere with the FDA's work by forcing drugmakers to exaggerate some dangers. ... The administration has joined business groups in making federal pre-emption of lawsuits brought under state law a priority, generally meeting with success at the Supreme Court. The court in February curbed suits against makers of medical devices.

... Levine's supporters point to what they say has been a dismal FDA track record. ...

With 11,000 regulated drugs on the market and almost 100 more approved every year, the understaffed agency doesn't have the resources to adequately ensure both efficacy and reasonable safety, the editors said in a court filing. [more]

d shatin
levittown, pa

Subject: McCain and War

Just a suggestion for the mavericks? Why doesn't Mr. McCain hold on to what victory, honor, service to the country, he has left, and let it go! War, what is it good for, absolutely nothing, nor do any of us want it. When would he be satisfied, when the whole middle east is blown up, then proceed to spread democracy being so arrogant they we should impose it on any country. Second for Mrs. Palin, and Todd, perhaps at an overlay and fancy hotel or a quicky on the road they can conceive another child, for another child/dependent tax deduction. Yes, enough is enough! Thank You.

Terry Weaver

Subject: vote accuracy

What does Bill Gates say about this? Who did he donate to this time? Who did he donate to last time?

A BuzzFlash Reader

[BuzzFlash Note: Bill and Melinda Gates appear to donate to Republicans as a rule.]

Subject: Virginia

I'll be watching Virginia Tuesday night. In the spectrum of states from most blue to most red, Virginia currently occupies the position of electoral college tipping point: the state that puts Obama over the top. About 8 states and 100 electoral college votes further down, a combination of recent polls shows the race about even.

Whether it is a close election or a blowout, Virginia tells the whole story. It is not about northern Virginia, Alexandria and environs, where Obama is naturally strong. It is about western, southern, rural and Appalachian Virginia: those traditionally republican areas where Sarah Louise Heath Palin and John Sidney McCain III seemingly fail to resonate. They struggle to even hold on to a simple majority. Those voters represent the difference for me, no matter what the rest of the country does. In times like these, economic hope vs no hope looms pretty large.

Larry Allen
Oakland, CA

Subject: How About For One Week We Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil?

"Instead what?"

"We concentrate upon the better times that lie ahead."

"Based on?"

"Our electing Barack Obama president together with a filibuster proof Democratic majority in the Senate."

"And then what sort of world?"

"It'll be up to us."

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: Bomb Bomb Obama

That's what I heard and saw on a video today 10/28/08 on rawstory.com.

by Nick Cargo and David Edwards 10/28/08 "Supporter Outside McCain Rally Chants 'bomb Obama'"

or go to www.keystoneprogres.org -- McCain Supporter in Pottsville: "Bomb Obama"

I found these crowds very disturbing. When the reporter asked the supporter what he meant by "Bomb, Bomb, Obama," the supporter said that when Obama gets elected, then he proceeded to point his hand, as if it were a gun, he'll get shot.

This reporter reported this to the sheriff from Pottsville, Pennsylvania where this rally was being held. He thought it wasn't serious.

Supposedly, the reporter reported this and showed his video to the Secret Service; they've yet to make a comment.

Well, I do take these remarks made by these McCain/Palin supporters seriously. I think the FBI and the Secret Service should be looking into this.

When is someone in the media or one of our representatives in the House or the Senate, going to DEMAND that McCain and Palin STOP stirring up their supporters?

These supporters hate Obama and have said that they won't consider him their president if he were elected.

Are we living in 2008? or back in the 1800's?

Both McCain and Palin are inciting their supporters to hate Obama for his race and supposedly his name.

Someone in the FBI should tell McCain that there are enough loony tunes out there with guns, who would assassinate Obama. That it is his DUTY, as a responsible citizen as well as a candidate for president, that he should put an END to this kind of campaign, where he's encouraging race riots.

Can you imagine, America, with a war in Iraq on one front, a financial crisis and possible depression on another front, and then a president or president-elect being assassinated?

This country would have a CIVIL WAR on its hands.

Maybe that's exactly what these neocons want. A civil war would break this country and turn the clocks back 100 years.

We'd be destroying ourselves, without one terrorist attacking us.

Isn't that exactly the Bush/Cheney plan? Don't they want to declare martial law, or make us into a Banana Republic, controlling the masses under a dictatorship?

Is an Obama assassination the Nov/Oct surprise?

Call Congress or your news outlets and DEMAND some coverage and accountability.

Someone must put a STOP to what McCain and Palin are doing.

McCain SOLD his SOUL to become president and he will do ANYTHING to get elected. He has NO BUSINESS running for the highest office in the land.

He has put himself ABOVE country and that's NOT the kind of change this country needs.

IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH!

Markmyword
Chicago, Illinois

Subject: The U.S. Attack Upon Syria Was Justified By Another Intelligence Hoax

"Based on?"

"A report on msnbc.com by Robert H Reid that tells it the way the U.S. Military & Intelligence wants it to be told."

"Loaded with tidbits of information from the usual suspects, those anonymous military sources?"

"Most definitely."

"Such as?"

"Documents purportedly seized during a raid on a suspected al-Qaeda hideout in the Iraqi city of Sinjar."

"Replete with the names and numbers of how many alleged foreign volunteers who supposedly had made it into Iraq by way of the Syrian border?"

"About 590 of them."

"A veritable breakthrough, the discovery of those documents, wasn't it?"

"Exactly what the Bush administration needed to justify its attack upon Syria."

"Shades of the infamous Nigerian yellow cake hoax that got us into the Iraq War."

"Meanwhile, the Syrian government says that eight civilians were killed by the U.S. military invaders."

"With our government claiming that an Iraqi al Qaeda operative was killed."

"Who to believe?'

"Saddam Hussein said he had no WMD."

"George Bush insisted that he did."

"Hussein told the truth and subsequently was executed."

"Bush lied but he's still at large."

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: Willful ignorance doesn't help

Dear BuzzFlash:

As the election looms large next week, the right wingers are about to blow their collective fuses. Especially in good ol' progressive (yes, I'm being sarcastic) Arkansas, where the 2nd Amendment is the only one anybody knows, and myopia reigns supreme.

When my family moved to Fayetteville, or more accurately to a small bedroom community nearby in 1973, I was 12, and I was mercilessly bullied, including beatings and the constant threat thereof on no more grounds than I was from Iowa and different. I liked sports, but I wasn't very good, and I was small for my age at the time, and in the school where I went, like most small towns, the only thing that mattered was football and maybe basketball.The parents were not interested in a varied curriculum, just as much the bullies their kids were, and blissfully out of touch with the rest of the country.

Not much has changed, but the Internet helps.

This state, like other southern red states, is poorly educated (the least amount of bachelor degrees in the nation) and suffers from self-imposed isolation. Most natives don't like traveling, and seldom leave their little cocoons, where everybody thinks like everybody else, worships like everybody else, and are only too glad to let loudmouths like Hannity or Limbaugh do their thinking for them in matters political. On a local call in radio show, if a Democrat dares to call in, he or she is quickly followed by rednecks who do not offer salient counterpoints to the discussion, but rather insult the caller and call them names before hanging up.

McCain is going to win here because the Bubba vote is racist and incapable of putting themselves in anybody else's shoes, because they have no idea what's going on anywhere else. You don't see many Arkansas license plates around the rest of the country. Because the local economy here is better than most places, thanks to the poultry industry, Wal-Mart and the University of Arkansas, the right wingers have no clue what it's like to be in a city like Flint, Michigan, or Youngstown, Ohio, where the city is dying and the unemployment is staggering. What's more, they don't care.

Outsiders are barely allowed here, and insiders don't leave because they are intimidated by the rest of the world. That's not to say there's not good intelligent people here -- there are, but because the state is primarily rural, urban ideology and tolerance don't get much of a foothold except in Little Rock and Fayetteville. This sounds mean spirited, but I'm sorry to say it's accurate, and no doubt similar to lots of places.

If people would dare to visit an urban area and see how others have to live rather than going to some postcard place, they might develop some tolerance for opposing points of view. However, decades of bigotry and ignorance assure that it will be at least two or three more generations before the outside world is welcome. Until then, the Republicans will feed at the trough of hate, xenophobia and ignorance. They will not go hungry.

Scott
Fayetteville, Ar.

Subject: On Television Today

Ok, just listening, off & on, to various TV news broadcasts (and blogs) today, the things I most remember (because they were repeated, over and over) were:

If you vote for Obama ("some say"), it will bring in the Apocalypse. Gun purchases dramatically increase in anticipation of Obama becoming president. Worry that if Obama is elected, we will be attacked. Rioting anticipated if Obama elected. God doesn't want you to vote for Obama (say the fundamentalists). If you vote for Obama, you're not a true Christian.

Oh dear.

A Buzzflash Reader

Subject: McCain Funded work of Palestinian Rashid Khalidi

McCain Funded Work of Palestinian Rashid Khalidi: The latest guilt-by-association target that the McCain campaign is using to hit Barack Obama could carry some collateral damage for its own candidate.

As Politico's Ben Smith reported on Tuesday, the McCain campaign is demanding that the Los Angeles Times release video in its possession of a party attended by Barack Obama and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi.

"A major news organization is intentionally suppressing information that could provide a clearer link between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi," said McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb, citing Obama's friendship with Khalidi, who is now a professor at Columbia University. The McCain camp gambit comes after conservative writers have repeatedly pressed for media outlets to write about the rather tenuous connections between Obama and Khalidi, an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights.

Specifically, National Review writers want much more attention paid to the association, given that the LA Times has reported that Khalidi lavished praise on Obama at a farewell party in Chicago at which Bill Ayers was also present. (Other writers have accused Khalidi of being an aide to Yasser Arafat, a claim which Marc Ambinder and Ari Berman have suggested is not credible.)

In regards to Khalidi, however, the guilt-by-association game burns John McCain as well.

During the 1990s, while he served as chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), McCain distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi, including one worth half a million dollars.

A 1998 tax filing for the McCain-led group shows a $448,873 grant to Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank. (See grant number 5180, "West Bank: CPRS" on page 14 of this PDF.)

The relationship extends back as far as 1993, when John McCain joined IRI as chairman in January. Foreign Affairs noted in September of that year that IRI had helped fund several extensive studies in Palestine run by Khalidi's group, including over 30 public opinion polls and a study of "sociopolitical attitudes."

Of course, there's seemingly nothing objectionable with McCain's organization helping a Palestinian group conduct research in the West Bank or Gaza. But it does suggest that McCain could have some of his own explaining to do as he tries to make hay out of Khalidi's ties to Obama.

Peter Condas
Salt Lake City

Subject: Have You Voted?

Hi BuzzFlash Readers,

Well, it's one week until Election Day.

How many of you have already voted by using Absentee Ballots?

Or is your absentee ballot still sitting on your desk; not filled in or not mailed in?

Perhaps the polling places in your town are already open. Well, have you managed to get to the polls and vote yet? If not, what the hell is holding you up?

Is it a Three Hour Long Line, so you are going to go back home? How many people did that in 2000 and 2004? Look at what we got from the inability to stand in line for three hours, for these past eight years!

If you think you will be having a problem voting for any reason (moved from another state, just registered, home foreclosure, etc), go to the following website before you go to vote and know your rights and what to bring with you.

Voter Protection Center

http://truth.voteforchange.com/

So what's your answer? Do I give you a big "Congratulations" for voting -- or -- do I ask you "what the hell is it going to take to get you off your duffs and vote?"

We learned from "W", to never trust anybody -- so don't assume that "The Other Guy" already voted -- therefore I can stay home!! Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!!!

Now Get Out There And VOTE - And Then Bug The Hell Out of Your Family and Friends and Get Them To Vote!!

THE COUNTRY YOU SAVE BY VOTING WILL BE OUR OWN!!

Tom Wieliczka
Windsor Locks, CT

Subject: Powell endorsement

Colin Powell said one thing that was most important in his endorsement ... he said he was tired of hearing people say ... that Barack is a Muslim! That has always bothered me, too. Powell ... said, "What if he is? What is so bad about being Muslim?" ... we have had Muslims running businesses in this country forever ... our local 7-11's ... many Subway sandwich shops ... so many things are run by Muslims ... So ... does being a Muslim make them automatically evil? I don't think so ... and even though I think Powell was late in trying to mend his ways ... I thought that was a thoughtful thing...no one else, except maybe this website ... and for sure me...has ever even asked that question! Just because we invaded Iraq ... and beat them all up...and killed hundreds of thousands of them ... can anyone out there tell me why Muslims are any different then any other nationality? Not when I ask ... never ... they ignore it!

My funny brother ... told me once ... "I don't care what you say ... he is a Muslim!" ... Yeah ... nd??????????????

Shirley ... St. Louis

Subject: joe the plumber

check out shep smith's interview with joe the wack job today joe's a true wing nut.

Sheppard Smith blasts Joe the Plumber for saying a vote for Obama means death to Israel

andrea fisher

Subject: RIGHT-WING HYPOCRISY

There is a right-wing columnist in our local newspaper--The Oregonian--who has just announced that he is resigning from the paper because he can no longer handle all of the hate mail and death threats he has received during his long career at The Oregonian. How very typical. They can dish out hate and intolerance, but they can't take it when it is aimed back at them. In his farewell column in The Oregonian, David Reinhard accused liberals of being more hateful and intolerant than conservatives. Oh, yeah? I suppose he thinks the Republicans have been spreading nothing but love, kindness and tolerance during this presidential campaign! I usually don't condone death threats. But Reinhard got what he deserved because he is a hate-mongering bigot like all conservatives. Good riddance to him and that other intolerant bigot, his good friend George W. Bush.

Shirley Dianne Jackson
Portland, Oregon

Subject: Obama bashing

As is everyone now ... I guess ... I am still getting Obama bashing. I got rid of my brother ... and gained a "friend" or so I thought. She is scared silly of what will happen to this country if Obama wins ... I have tried to tell her "How could it be worse?" As usual ... I get no response. She sent me the picture of a "room service slip" signed by Michelle ... with the Lobster ... and something called "Iranian ... pate" something that was obviously made up ... I heard Michelle and her husband say there was no upstairs when he was at the Waldorf Astoria ... and she was not there ... What will they do next? I would love to leave this house ... go only to the polls and vote ... then not listen to a thing ... but, I am just too curious. It cannot come too soon for me ... and of course, I am going to do my part in getting him in ... but the nastiness, I suppose that is always there, seems so much worse this time.

John McCain is getting older as we speak ... and Sarah is getting more and more ... a diva? I hope we are not in for "FIXING" this time, I know it can be done ... it was done in both 2000 and 2004 ... help!!!

To the white couple who moved back to Texas, I am at an impasse as to what the signs mean ... but, I can hazard a guess!

Shirley ... St. Louis

BUZZFLASH MAILBAG

Technorati Tags: BuzzFlash Mailbag Election Right Wing Obama Colin Powell Early Voting McCain Palin Syria Virginia War Economy Racism