BuzzFlash Mailbag for February 09, 2009

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Subject: papers/columns

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE RETURN OF ALL THE WORLD PAPERS/COLUMNS . BUZZFLASH is THE BEST.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: How Far They Have Fallen

The Republicon Party has truly fallen on hard, hard times since the election of November. They have resorted to race baiting, religious fear, and hypocrisy, at the very minimum, to try and regain some sense of importance.

Now we learn that their new "leaders" are the blubbering viagra- and oxycontin-sodden Rush Limbaugh (I have never understood his appeal) and "Joe the Plumber" (who is really not even a plumber.

Is this how morally bankrupt and desperate these fools are? Then, we also can't forget about David "Diaper" Vitter, Lindsey "Drama Queen" Graham, Eric "The Bright Star" Cantor, and the other assorted tawdry characters -- McConnell, Sessions, Kyl, Lieberman, and DeMint amongst others.

Their heroes have always been flaming fools.

Lisa Johnson
Tacoma, WA

Subject: Going Forward

Going forward or having to move on, is what one has to do if there's been a bump in the road during one's life.

A failed business venture, a divorce, losing a job, etc. Yes, we must look forward, but we must also look back, so as NOT to make the same mistake twice.

Several weeks ago, when President Obama was asked on "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" if he was going to prosecute Bush and Cheney (this question was the most popular question asked on the Obama government website) -- Obama's reply, was that he was looking forward and not looking backward.

I can understand how Obama doesn't want to look like he's out for GOP blood, after what Bush and Cheney did to our country.

Unfortunately, no matter how unpleasant this might seem to Obama, these are very DANGEROUS men, who have been a THREAT to mankind and who have committed WAR CRIMES.

Whether Obama likes it or not, Bush, Cheney and all those other players in his administration are WAR CRIMINALS.

Obama seems a nice guy, and something he said during one of his interviews, makes you wonder if he's TOO nice. The question was something to do with how he and Michelle handle a difference of opinion. His answer was he "LET'S HER HAVE HER OWN WAY, RATHER THAN FIGHTING."

Hopefully, he's not going to take that route with prosecuting Bush, and Cheney, or standing up to the GOP legislative leaders.

I'm hoping he's not going to PREVENT Eric Holder, our new Attorney General, from getting a special prosecutor to investigate War Crimes.

Leon Panetta, the new CIA director must also prosecute any CIA agents that tortured prisoners. You can not change the law to fit the crime. According to Panetta, the Obama administration DOES NOT PLAN to hold these CIA agents accountable for TORTURE.

Why not?

During the Nuremberg Trials, no one was allowed the excuse that they were FOLLOWING ORDERS.

Therefore, NO CIA agent who TORTURED can use that as a defense.

FBI agents choose NOT to be a part of TORTURE, because they KNEW IT WAS A CRIME and ILLEGAL. They REFUSED to be involved in torturing prisoners. Their FBI director pulled them out of Guantanamo.

If Obama turns a blind eye to WAR CRIMES, he will be ACCUSED by the rest of the world of OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE and will be an ACCESSORY to these crimes.

Right now Bush, Cheney, Rove, Yoo, Bybee, Addington and all of the rest of these crazy neocons are walking FREE.

FREE to be interviewed, FREE to write OP-ED pieces, FREE to appear on the major news stations giving opinions, FREE to give PAID speeches, FREE to be hired by our TOP universities as visiting professors or as a full time faculty member, FREE to be hired as political analysts (Rove on Fox news), FREE to work at think tanks, FREE to write books (rewriting history), FREE to MAKE MORE MONEY.

FREEDOM allows them a PLATFORM to be HEARD.

These VERY DANGEROUS men were in the government starting way back in the 1960's.

They've been going IN and OUT of government through presidential appointments, being elected to office or as advisors to the president.

The main point being, THEY KEEP COMING BACK.

These guys DON'T OR WON'T GO AWAY.

In fact, because Cheney was so paranoid and he wanted eyes and ears in EVERY department, we now have cloned LITTLE CHENEYS, RUMSFELDS and BUSHES in EVERY department of government.

These LITTLE MINI MEs of Cheney, are waiting to get back in power and finish the job started with Bush and Cheney.

In the meantime, they will SABOTAGE government department after government department.

Right now, we have 65 lawyers in the Civil Rights department, who were hired by Bradley Schlozman, not because they were qualified or because they wanted to right an injustice. No, these lawyers were hired, because they were LOYAL to Bush, the Republican Party, were members of the Federalist Society or graduated from Pat Robertson's Regent University Law School.

They need to be FIRED, because they ARE NOT the BEST QUALIFIED for the job.

Cheney was interviewed on Politico, just less than two weeks after leaving office. Here he's going back to his old tricks of spreading FEAR and using the TERRORIST CARD.

All the news shows give his interview air time, WHY?

Does he think that he STILL is running the government?

Or is his SHADOW GOVERNMENT going to try and overthrow the Obama administration with a coup?

Is HE planning another 9/11?

This is why we MUST PROSECUTE ALL of these CRIMINALS who were in the Bush administration. They ARE A DANGER to DEMOCRACY.

Cheney is a TERRORIST and a THREAT to our nation's safety and well being.

Prosecution of this very evil man is a way to avoid future leaders who only see war and invading other countries as a way to show American strength.

If we want to have our Constitution and Bill of Rights back, then we have to UPHOLD THE LAW OF THE LAND.

NO MAN IS ABOVE THE LAW. Obama has also said it. He MUST ALLOW a special prosecutor to investigate ALL THE CRIMES of the Bush administration.

You can not talk to world leaders about freedom, democracy, upholding the law, voting at the U.N. to try other leaders as WAR CRIMINALS and then TURN A BLIND EYE to our very own WAR CRIMINALS.

Obama can't have it both ways, one minute saying he holds the Bush and Cheney administration responsible for the economic crisis.

Isn't that LOOKING BACKWARD?

Then the next minute he REFUSES to hold them ACCOUNTABLE FOR WAR CRIMES, because that would be LOOKING BACKWARD.

You can't PICK AND CHOOSE what you want to hold the Bush administration responsible for.

Prsident Obama, on Jan 20th, 2009 you took an oath of office, millions of people came out to watch this very historic day.

We all BELIEVE in you, your integrity, honesty, and the CHANGE that you promised to bring to Washington.

You took an OATH, to UPHOLD, PROTECT AND DEFEND our Constitution and it's your DUTY to do just that.

We're looking FORWARD to a nation without DEMOCRACY.

Maybe, SOME OTHER country spreading DEMOCRACY should invade and occupy us and TEACH us what it is all about, because we've FORGOTTEN.

Markmyword
Chicago, Illinois

Subject: Stimulus Bill

What's wrong with these people running this country? Wake up. What good will a tax break on new automobiles do for the out-of-work homeless? Another tax break for the rich. Tax breaks for new home buyers? Oh ya, that'll turn things around.

Congress must be so completely corrupt or just plain stupid not to know how to fix this problem. TAX THE RICH AND CREATE JOBS THAT PAY A LIVEABLE WAGE. RAISE MINIMUM WAGE TO $12 HR. RIGHT NOW.

Tax rates on the wealthy used to be as high as 90%. Yes it is fair. They will remain rich but it also gives an incentive to pay their employees more because it would just go to taxes anyway. Spread the wealth a little.

This "let them eat cake" crowd hanging out in D.C. has got to go. Obama - get it into your head: Jobs that pay, jobs that pay ... then the whole problem will work itself out.

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates...

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: The Legacy of George W Bush (A Collection of Conflicting Opinions)

Can a man's legacy be drawn from an eight year period in time? What kind of a footprint has GWB left on the American people, or the world for that matter? Has he served his country well by protecting us from terrorism, or has he alienated America from the rest of the world? Has he acted as a Christian in his role as President of the United States, or has he misused the Bible as a means of procuring votes and evoking war? Was the rebuilding of Iraq set in motion years before the Twin Towers tragedy, or was this a rapid decision based on an emergent circumstance?

I have tried to keep this debate as original as possible. That includes errors in grammar, punctuation and spelling. I have also tried to collect them in a somewhat chronological method in order to keep a level playing field. I have simply collected publicly posted comments of others from open sources.

Link to the writer's book:

www.amazon.com/Legacy-George-Bush...

John Crippen
Atascadero/CA

Subject: THE FRUSTRATION OVER CORPORATION DEREGULATION SCREWED THE NATION BLUES

Asong with no music (or money)

   by Doug Long

They said all those corporate tax breaks
Would make money trickle down
But instead of that we watched
Our jobs go trickling out of town.

If you can help us get a job I sure hope that you will share the
news.
Got those frustration over corporation deregulation screwed the
nation blues.

If we give the rich folks power
Then they'll take care of us.
But they sent our jobs to China
And threw us right under a bus.

If you can help us get a job I sure hope that you will share the
news.
Got those frustration over corporation deregulation screwed the
nation blues.

The Republicans all voted
Against the stimulus bill and said
"We've got our money, sucker,
So America:  Drop dead!"

If you can help us get a job I sure hope that you will share the
news.
Got those frustration over corporation deregulation screwed the
nation blues.

Doug Long
Rio Rancho, NM

Subject: then and now

Our America was a prom queen, fresh and sweet. Now she has become a burnt out lady of the street. Bitter and old with regrets. The rich and powerful have screwed us into the ground. There is nothing left to take. Our homes and jobs are taken from us. Our children suffer. Our hopes and dreams are gone. Bulls**t! Bull**it! and double Bull**it. We gotta take it back, take it to them! Who are these bastards who try to control us, make us suffer so they may profit from our want? They're nothing, nobody, just empty bags of s**t. It's time to come alive people, their party is way over. Our turn to be alive and happy for a change. Let's make it happen.

manny mitikas
palm harbor fl

Subject: Coburn on Health Care -- The Doctor/Senator is Out

There is a lot more on his web site, but I chose some of the things that jumped out at me and knocked me for a loop. All quotes are directly from his site.

“When Senators visit with their constituents they should ask them whether they would want their children in SCHIP or a top tier plan a Senators provide to their own kids. Senators should also ask whether parents should have the right to make choices about health care for their kids or whether those choices should be made for them by career politicians and government bureaucrats,” Dr. Coburn said. “Sadly, this debate showed once again that Congress, unlike President Obama, is not interested in change but in recycling the same failed Soviet-style health care policies of the past.”

Soviet-style, you mean the kind Canada, Britain, France and most of the rest of the planet has is soviet-style? I do believe Tom is calling most of our allies, communists. I just sort of looked over Tom’s plan for continuing the plan to link the heath care of your children to the profit margin.

“In the event that additional outlays are required to carry out the program for any fiscal year, Congress shall enact legislation to offset such outlays by cutting non-priority spending, making government spending more accountable and efficient, ending wasteful government spending.”

He will not be asking any insurance companies or HMOs to alter anything. By the way, he wants competitive bidding. It sounds a lot like that super successful easily understood Medicare Drug Plan, that is easily understood if you have an attorney to explain it. If it turns out too many are sick and need care and they run out of money, we won’t be asking for the wealthy to give back their tax cuts and instead we will be cutting other programs. We don’t need any new revenue, no matter how much we owe China.

“Purpose: To ensure health provider compliance with all State and Federal reporting laws regarding child molestation, sexual abuse, rape and incest, when providing prescription drugs or devices to minor children.”

Interpretation: If your father, brother or evil Uncle Pervert rapes you, you can’t be given anything to prevent pregnancy until your dad or evil Uncle Perv is charged. In many cases Mom doesn’t want to report the only provider as an incestuous load of human refuse, but what the hell, you will like your new child/sibling/niece or nephew/cousin. Now, they can get a judge to give you a waiver, but waivers sometimes take a while.

“HR2 Amendment No. 82 by Coburn At the appropriate place, insert the following: Sec. Compliance with State and Federal Laws. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no Federal funds shall be made available under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) to a health care provider to reimburse such provider for providing an unemancipated minor with a prescription contraceptive drug or device, including the surgical insertion of a contraceptive device or an injection of a contraceptive drug, unless such provider complies with State and Federal child abuse, child molestation, sexual abuse, rape, statutory rape, and incest reporting laws.”

He has to repeat to make it perfectly clear, there will be no contraception and if you are raped you get nothing. I don’t understand why it is so difficult for a doctor to understand that the best way to prevent unwanted pregnancies is to give women who don’t want to get pregnant contraceptives instead of a sermon about how sinful she is. Just give her every kind of birth control information on the planet, unless you do want teenagers to be pregnant.

“Amendment #50: To restore fiscal discipline by making the Medicaid and SCHIP programs more accountable and efficient.

This amendment would require that the final rule implementing the Payment Error Rate measurement (PERM) requirements under subsection shall be made not later than 6 months after the date of enactment of this Act.

They have to do it within 6 months.

“Six months is more than enough time for CMS to write and implement PERM guidance, especially considering it only took our Founding Fathers only four months (May 25-Sept. 17, 1787) to write the Constitution and less than a week for this Administration to reverse the Mexico City policy on abortion.”

Don’t you just like that condescending tone he has? Our Founding Fathers didn’t have to deal with Tom and we have only had to amend that four month effort to abolish slavery, give anyone other than wealthy white male landowners the vote, women were just given the right to sue for equal pay by the same guy who overturned the Mexico City policy on forcing our beliefs on any other country needing money for family planning.

Tom, on his site and in this bill, keeps talking about people teaching abortion as a form of birth control. I have never known anyone who actually did that. It would be a very expensive form as compared to all other forms of birth control. In Oklahoma an abortion costs around $500 if you can find somewhere to get one and no insurance pays for it. On top of that they can force you to either watch an ultrasound or listen to your provider describe it in detail. Your insurance company probably covers Viagra, but not birth control.

They will not teach anything other than abstinence, even though it hasn’t worked, even for kids taking the pledge and it never works on rapists or incestuous perverts. Maybe if Tom’s relatives were in that position they could tell the rapist, no thanks I have signed a pledge and see if it works.

I think it really gives the kids a boost to tell them that if you give them birth control information they will become sexually active immediately. If you give a teenager a condom he will have no say and will have sex with the first girl he sees. If given information there morality will be completely gone.

You have no idea how happy I will be when Oklahomans finally decide that Coburn is nothing more than a self-righteous ideologue.

Karen Webb
Moore, OK.

Subject: republican obstructionism

Hi, Buzz!!

I thought the Republican party couldn't shock or amaze me anymore, after eight years of W. But they continue to outdo themselves in sheer, unbelievable stupidity.

They have no clue what's going on outside of Washington. They have their jobs and their paychecks and their health coverage, and it hasn't really occurred to them that a lot of their constituents don't. "Lost your job? Suck it up; I've got mine. Business as usual."

Like wind-up puppets (they don't have the software to qualify them as robots), they keep saying two or three things over and over: "Smaller government!" (as though they really believed in that); "Free markets!" (as though there were such a thing); and the ubiquitous "Tax cuts!"

They don't listen to economists, they don't think about anything, and they can't seem to connect with reality. They keep talking about not upsetting their "base." They don't seem to realize that their base is shrinking, and that pandering to the base is what lost them the election. Republicans lost because President Obama was going after everyone, not just hard-core, yellow-dog Democrats like me.

I am continually slack-jawed at such stupidity. On the other hand, with their base shrinking (along with whatever intellectual capacity they might once have had), the Republicans look to be on the way to extinction. God knows they've already shot themselves in the foot over the stimulus bill; with any luck the wound will become gangrenous and we'll be rid of them forever.

That's change I can believe in!

Jane Hawes
Edmond, OK (red-state Democrat)

Subject: 9-11

I have seen the documentary "Zeitgeist". It is a three part film ... the second deals with 9-11. This documentary presents a compelling argument that the destruction of the Twin Towers, and 9-11 itself, was engineered by the Bush administration. Have you seen this? Is there any credibility to this strong message?

Rudy Maples
Perry

[BuzzFlash Note: Who knows? Plenty of people, including some of our readers, suspect the Bush team of 9/11 wrong-doing. The comment on that film at Wikpedia ays: "References to (Zeigteist) in the media are dismissive."]

Subject: fdr's new deal

I was watching c-span the other morning and Sen. John Ensign (rep) repeated the right-wing talking point that states, FDR's new deal didn't work and world war II brought this country out of the great depression. He based this talking point on what is called the FDR recession in 1936, there was no doubt that there was a 5% drop in employment. But what I don't understand is that there seems to be no mention of the massive labor strikes of that same time. It seems to me that these strikes would have had a great impact on the unemployment numbers.

pat henry
rogers city michigan

[BuzzFlash Note: Good point, but we're not experts on the role of labor in the era's economic ups and downs. We've seen Paul Krugman very effectively knock down the right-wing talking points on the economic facts of the FDR era. Doris Kearns Goodwin covers the issue in her book, No Ordinary Time.]

Subject: Senate Stimulus Bill; ACTION ALERT

We need an all out ACTION ALERT NOW!

My town is about to layoff public safety & close our library if we do not vote for an increase in taxes @ town meeting. What is the point of a federal tax break if state & local governments raise taxes @ the other end.

Clearly WE NEED PUBLIC SPENDING if the private sector isn't investing. NOT TAX CUTS for the same business/investor class who are sitting on their ooodles of money (gotten during the last 24 years of Reagan trickle-down, supply-side crap).

The Senate cuts in state/educational spending & additional $100 billion tax cuts is yet another republican gimmick. It serves to undermine government's ability target spending where needed in order to work for the common good. And as a side note reward their cronies.

This package, cobbled together by the "centrists" ensures failure. This perversion will only serve as a foundation for the Republicans to, once again say, "see government does not work; only people know how to spend their own money." And this time Democrats will own the failure (because they control government).

Know this: These same republicans, who have no use for $20 billion in public education infrastructure & slash $40 billion from state/local government, who choose to give billions in tax cuts to the same investor class who sit on their cash, are the same republicans opposed to a $500,000 salary cap for their banker buddies who helped get us here.

WE WON THIS ELECTION. By we, I mean the average Joe, not some "Joe the Plumber" guy.

Everyone needs to call, not only their representatives, but; those members on the conference committee who will draft the final bill; MORE SPENDING LESS! TAX CUTS! Let them know we have their backs.

Sheila Sullivan
Hull

Subject: Ectoplasmic Echoes of Congress

I certainly can’t say I speak for all Americans, but for me I am absolutely sick and tired of the ectoplasmic echoes from our elected officials. These dimwitted, narcissistic, long winded , verbose, pieces of ectoplasm are concerned with one thing and one thing only. They want their 60 seconds in front of the microphone to dribble out some self serving moronic musing of their own plan. And all the while people are losing their homes, their jobs, and falling ill only to not have healthcare.

Our nation, the greatest nation on earth, this great experiment, has been brought to its knees. The citizens of this country are confronted with an economic crisis that most of us have never faced in our lifetimes. We have been brought to this place because of our politicians pandering to the wealthy and pissing on the people. This contrivance of trickle down economics, of having the wealthy grace we the people with what they can spare is the work of evil men.

Richard Nixon took our healthcare away with the advent of the HMO not as a means to improve healthcare but as wealthcare, to line the already bulging pockets of the rich with more cold hard cash stripped away from the working class. Ronald Reagan did not classify ketchup as a vegetable to improve the diets of our children any more than he implemented the failed notion of trickle down economics and tax breaks for the wealthy as a means to a better life for working class Americans. And George W. Bush did not create and allow his “ownership society” as a means to improve our plight, it was a scheme to line the pockets once again of the wealthy, a legalized way to steal from we the people. These Presidents are not leaders but are deluders, purloiners of our possessions. They will gladly taint the water we drink if coinage is the cure.

Today, in the halls of Congress these elected officials are no better. They are no more qualified than you or I to provide insight or intellect into the cures of the economy. We have actually heard some proclaim we should do more of the same, the hair of the dog that bit you is the answer. They have become economists of the highest order, and while it was necessary to drain our treasury on an unnecessary war, it will be a disaster to spend our money on ourselves. These evil minded twisted little pieces of s**t, don’t want to rebuild America, promote alternative energy, educate our children, provide healthcare for the people, nor put people back to work. These big eared, small minded, long winded, short sighted, fast talking, slow thinking, do nothing, lying little bastards should be removed from office. They are not there doing the work of the people. They are there doing the work of their party.

They are politicians. There seems to be this belief or perhaps knowledge that our good nature will allow us to be fooled. Persons of power seem to know that if they repeat something often enough and if the news reports it often enough we will vote against our own best interests over and over again. There is a notion that we promote that wealth is associated with intelligence, and intelligence is associated with good, therefore wealthy people are good. But nothing can be further from the truth. There is no correlation between wealth and goodness, just as there is no correlation between those who run for office and a desire to do the work of the people.

The appropriate understanding is that there is a strong relationship between wealth and evil, and wealth and arrogance, and wealth and disdain for working people. Just as there is a strong relationship between politicians and the desire to abuse the people, to use the power of their office for personal gain, and to believe that they have risen above the law. In each case, and understand that they feed off of each other, their purpose is to feed off the sweat, toil, and efforts of the people. To provide opportunities for the disadvantaged to express their gratitude for whatever they may in their moments of greatest compassion deem a gift. The stench of their arrogance wafts amongst us like the silent but deadly flatulence which results in finger pointing as to the culprit.

Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush represent the three headed monster that has brought pain and suffering to millions of Americans. They and those that support them have been the minions of misery for the masses. They have stolen our healthcare, promoted wealthcare, and shredded the principles for which we stand. They have left us penniless and begging for assistance.

And those ectoplasms that strut to the microphones to utter their garbage only want to take more. I myself am a pragmatist, I am quite certain that rebuilding our infrastructure, educating our children, providing healthcare to all Americans, and putting Americans back to work is exactly the right thing to do. Tax cuts for the wealthy are just stupid statements from stupid men who want to feed them that brought them there.

If they fail to help us, then we need to take steps to help ourselves. I would like to suggest that we give them until March 2009. If they cannot pull their heads out of their asses by then, we the people go into our workplaces and make adjustments to your withholding allowances (we stop paying taxes), and we use our money to help each other. We organize at the community level and we provide food and shelter, and as much healthcare for those in need as we possible can. We buy land and plant gardens. We send our children to school, and we find those few that really want to help and we send them to Washington. It is in business what would be called a “restructuring cost”. Sometimes you are left with no choice.

And I think that time is rapidly approaching.

I cannot listen to any more of those ectoplasmic echoes of those elected to office, who seemed to be pleased with “how they say something” and not the substance of their words, nor a call to action. Let’s give them all wedgees and send them packing.

Jim Ridout
Albuquerque,New Mexico

Subject: Jobs Bill

"Main Street Job Creation Act" Too wordy. We should just call it the Jobs bill. Or the Obama jobs bill.

Maezeppa
Los Angeles

Subject: Bredesen & HHS

We need a cure for health care in America, see for yourself what is deemed, defended and supported as "THE ACCEPTABLE STANDARDS OF HEALTH CARE" in East Tennessee - www.wisecountyissues.com

Bredesen would be a horrible choice because he knows about this and has done nothing. MRSA is running rampant in this community because of sloppy medicine. Profit care comes ahead of Patient Care in Tennessee!

Bredesen Buzz Suggests Obama Cabinet Role

tmullins
Pound

Subject: Spreading your reader's voice to the world

There is a new, free website PublishALetter.com that allows one to submit letters to the editors of all the key newspapers in the US and the world. Since the letters are often not printed, one can also publish those letters on the site itself. While the site does not welcome mass mailings, it can be an important neutral avenue for your audience to have their independent voices heard and shared. Would you please consider linking the site or letting your audience know about it? Thank you.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: OBAMA'S STIMILUS PACKAGE

WHAT'S SURPRISING ABOUT THE REPUBLICANS REJECTING THE EDUCATION PART OF THE STIMILUS PACKAGE? IT'S A KNOWN FACT THAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY DOESN'T WANT AN EDUCATED ELECTORATE. AN EDUCATED POPULACE CAN SEPARATE THE FACTS FROM THE BS AND MAKE AN INTELIGENT DECISION IN VOTING FOR THEIR BEST INTEREST.

THINK OF THE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS THAT THE REPUBLICANS DESPISE THE MOST; COLLEGE PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS, UNIONS, THE HOLLYWOOD CROWD, MINORITIES, AND LIBERALS IN GENERAL. NEED I SAY MORE?

JAMES EPPERSON
LAS VEGAS, NV

Subject: Biden speaks nonsense on ABM installation

It is really difficult to take Vice President Biden's posturing on the development and placement of an anti- ballistic missile system in Eastern Europe seriously:

Biden Says U.S. Will Pursue Missile Plan Russia Opposes - NYTimes.com

Back in the days of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars space-based system, the old USSR was panicked by the idea that this might actually be possible, and place the U.S. in a position of invulnerability, allowing us to destroy the USSR at will. This fear was exacerbated in part by the awful economic situation in the USSR at the time, which made it difficult to counter profligate U.S. military spending.

Using the same threat against Russia today comes under the heading of "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

The ground-based anti-ballistic missile defense system is a technology that does not work, and its deployment against a threat that does not exist is surreal. The planned Russian counter to actual placement of this system is to install large numbers of intermediate range missiles that DO work and cover the European theatre.

The pattern of twisting the bear's tail, established by the Bush administration, seems likely to provoke an escalation of offensive weapons by Russia. It is part and parcel of the same game of arming Georgia and offering the protection of NATO to that state without any reciprocal benefit to us. The Georgians have abused that military partnership with the Russian response still green in memory.

Our situation is a mirror to that of the USSR during the Reagan Star Wars conjuring. We are the ones with a crippled economy. We are the ones tied down in endless conflict and over-extension of our military in places such as Afghanistan, which eats armies since Alexander the Great for breakfast.

Biden apparently hopes that the potential installation of an ABM station in the former USSR, bleeding us of $2.2 billion a year, will be seen as a valid bargaining chip by Russia. But Russia has no illusions about the ineffectiveness of the ABM system, whose pursuit will only lead to proliferation. Russia has already said their planned missile deployment action will be aborted if the U.S. stops installation of an ABM site on its border. This is that best that can be achieved.

We need to stop twisting the bear's tail for no purpose, other than to drain our own coffers and provoke the kind of response we have recently seen in Georgia, and see now in the closure of the key air base in Kyrgyzstan.

We need a new geopolitical paradigm based on reason. This is not a schoolyard game.

John Williford
Richland, WA

Subject: Bitter Pill: everyone needs to read this article

My blood pressure spiked a hole in my brain reading Rolling Stone's Bitter Pill: Created to treat schizophrenia, Zyprexa wound up being used on misbehaving kids. How the pharmaceutical industry turned a flawed and dangerous drug into a $16 billion bonanza (BEN WALLACE-WELLS Posted Jan 28, 2009). [Print view]

Especially note:

Bureaucracies, like fraternities, are idiosyncratic places, formed of personality, habit and tradition. In the FDA, Bush's political appointees were coaxing the agency's bureaucrats and scientists to go easy on the drug manufacturers. "What's different now is a lot of these higher-up career officers are much more industry-friendly than was the case two decades ago," says Dan Carpenter, Freed Professor of Government at Harvard and a leading scholar of the agency. By 2000, when the Los Angeles Times documented how the FDA had approved seven deadly drugs, it turned out that the agency had repeatedly ignored strenuous objections from its own experts.*

Under Bush, experts say, the FDA has effectively become enrolled in the erosion of its own power. Instead of supporting consumers harmed by dangerous drugs, Troy's office began filing briefs on behalf of drug companies facing lawsuits from the families of people harmed by medications. In some cases, congressional investigators found, Troy operated in concert with the pharmaceutical companies. The number of warning letters issued by the FDA, a key indicator of how vigilant the agency is at tracking violations by drug manufacturers, has now fallen to half what it had been at the end of the Clinton administration. The industry is also well connected with Republican power: Former president George H.W. Bush has served on the board of directors of Eli Lilly, and Mitch Daniels, his son's former budget director, served as the company's vice president.

"With the FDA where it is, the pharmaceutical companies control far too much of the process, from the trials to the marketing," says Abramson, the Harvard instructor. A decade ago, it was a few figures on the fringe of the medical profession who sensed the trouble in this, and they had the feel of people who had been gazing into the vortex too long. Now it is professors at Yale and Harvard, and, in the case of the atypicals, by implication, the government itself.

*Sounds like what happened on Wall St., yes?

Long article, but so important, the stuff's impact in our lives. And this is just what we know about one drug. With the FDA so lax, the incentives for profit, and the proven willingness to put patients (hell, to CREATE patients) at risk, how can there not be more?

Eli Lilly, making billions by forcing and pimping bad drugs on a grand scale. Read it, read all of it. (Remember when Firth sneaked a provision in the Patriot Act to absolve Lilly of damages its vaccines might cause? And Judith Miller and the smallpox scare, forcing that lethal vaccine on health care workers? Bush's WMD hoax killed more than we know.)

And then think about how many commercials you will endure tonight that try to sell you drugs. Ask your doctor, they urge, images on screen smiling through the side effects. You couldn't pick up a magazine in the last few years without seeing ads asking you to rate yourself, answer a few questions and see if you are bipolar. (Drugs can help!) Reading Bitter Pill, I couldn't help multiply this to the whole population -- especially to Medicare, the rare program buffeted by Bush, making sure the drug companies got their cut. Oil and drugs, consistently the most profitable industries of all.

It's clear that fixing the health care system is essential to fixing the economy. Not just by overseeing the drugs industry, but by giving employers a break from trying to keep an impossible insurance system going.

Meanwhile, keep all this in mind, the obfuscation and sleight of hand of the last eight years, as you watch Krugman, that rare voice of sanity, countering the memory management efforts of team java.

Krugman on economy, stimulus fight

Feb. 6: The New York Times' Paul Krugman - winner of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences - joins the Morning Joe gang to discuss the economic downturn and President Barack Obama's legislation.

deborah conner
rocky mount, va

Subject: Crisis Limericks

It was Wall Street's last hurrah,
It was the worst we ever saw.
As the Dow lost five thousand clicks,
Traders got a heart real sick.
Every Ma and every Pa,
From New York to Arkansas.

The hedge fund CEO's were high,
Riding bubbles to the sky.
But when it all came snapping back,
They reached for the old prozac.
Grabbed their hat for a massive dive,
And were luicky to come out alive.

They said it would never come again,
The market had done depression in.
But when the darkness came,
It looked like twenty-nine again.
The free market true believer,
Turned into a disbeliever.

The GOP said no to regulation,
No government and no taxation.
When the DOW took a mighty dive,
Their view was dead and not alive.
They ran for the exits then,
It was twenty-nine all over again.

Ronnie Regan was their man,
Of government the was no fan.
Killing the state was the cure,
It would make Wall Steet secure.
But when the market hit the fan,
His disciples were left without a plan.

Linn Hamilton
Houston

Subject: The Reagan Myth

I just read your interview with Will Bunch on the Reagan myth. I thought you might be interested in a piece I wrote a couple of years ago for my Web site (which has also been reprinted in my recently published book ALTERNATE REALITY AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE). It is called "Lives Unlived - Ronald Winston Smith Reagan." It can be found at:

http://www.lespagesauxfolles.ca/index...

Enjoy,

Ira Nayman
Toronto/Ontario

Subject: Lies, Injustice And The American Way

State Media is working overtime to try and convince Americans that President Obama must fail, without disguise parroting the Limbaugh talking points hatched in the dark, smoke-filled minds of Karl Rove and Grover Norquist. The "Racist Light" news presentation of the Big Three broadcast networks is merely a perverted reflection of the openly racist inciters of violence at FOX and CNN. They're all quite worried, as Mr. Obama's and his integrated team's success in salvaging the United States will scream to the world that the Age of Fat White Man Rule is over. Many of these overstuffed Caucasians have already taken their $billions and fled the US in anticipation of their social demise. But State Media has taken their banner, albeit wholly unbelievable, and rode headlong into reason bearing the oligarch's standard.

But I digress. The title of this piece refers to Michael Phelps and his public excoriation over a bong hit. Remember 'Bong hits For Jesus'? That egregious affront to pinheads everywhere made it all the way to the Supreme Court. We've tolerated this bulls#*t prohibition on cannabis for over 70 years now, and the social demonization of cannabis users as well. Government disinformation on cannabis ranges from "Gateway Drug" to baby-killer. Some extremely powerful chemical lobbies, including DuPont and Dow, are there in D.C. every session to hand over enough cash and escorts to keep cannabis criminal. They are joined by the enforcers of Christian morality, Heritage-types, in pushing for status quo in cannabis-related legislation.

Weed is cheap and grows virtually everywhere in the US. It has very high cellulose content making it multi-utilitarian, with uses ranging from clothing to animal feed. Its seed yields high quality oils, resins and lacquers-thus the interference from DuPont. Its medicinal values range from easing the ocular pressure of glaucoma to eliminating nausea associated with pregnancy-the latter a specific prescription of homeopaths in this country for decades. In 1900, you paid a dollar an ounce for pharmaceutical cannabis.

So Michael Phelps isn't the bad guy, nor the weasel who sold the cell phone picture for profit. The bad guys here are the toxic corporations who pay legislators of dubious merit to write malicious legislation that keeps cannabis illegal and millions of sick people deprived of inexpensive pain relief. The bad guys here are the spineless media whores who lick the spittle from the boots of their overlords, who perpetuate the myth of "The Assassin Of Youth" to maintain their stranglehold on our wealth and on our minds.

Amicusbriefs
USA

Subject: Long, but Coburn refuses to shut up.

Sen. Tom Coburn And Illusive Republican Vote

I just read an article on MSN, Yahoo or something like that which claimed that the Democrats were on a quest for “illusive Republican votes”. If all the Democrats would stick together we would need only 2 illusive Republican votes. Before we get to the OB-GYN who wants to be every woman’s doctor, but he has to settle for controlling women who don’t choose to go to him by codifying our lives and our physicians lives to match his beliefs.

"We trimmed the fat, fried the bacon and milked the sacred cows," said Democratic Senator Ben Nelson, a leader of the group. Bacon? So they are bringing home the bacon to some entity? You can’t possibly add enough tax cuts, which is revenue reduction to suit most of the GOP. The other leader of the moderates is Republican Senator Susan Collins who is having a conflict of conscience when you are in the minority. On of the sacred cows they not only milked, but slaughtered is anything resembling the CCC or the WPA.

“The final cost could rise to about 800 billion dollars because of various amendments still pending, Senate sources said as Republican foes of the original package quickly trained their guns on the new agreement.” Whatever the new agreement is, it won’t be enough. "Most of us are deeply skeptical that this will work, and that level of skepticism leads us to believe that this course of action should not be chosen," said Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. I cannot be more positive in my belief that McConnell needs to hear from every constituent in Kentucky who is out of work and remind him that he supported going to war and doing it before the UN inspectors confirmed what many were saying that there were no WMD. He just supported blowing the hell out of Iraq for no verifiable reasons and to do it before they attacked us. Pure paranoia and corporate greed created this mess. They couldn’t do it fast enough. "We're talking about an extraordinarily large amount of money and a crushing debt for our grandchildren," said McConnell. You have to wonder why these protectors of children and grandchildren didn’t think of this before they started a war ($ 3 trillion and counting) that had nothing to do with 9/11. McConnell can feel better because there are so many children, grandchildren and great grandchildren being relieved of paying this debt because they won’t be born because you guys wiped out all of those potential parents and grandparents in a war for PROFIT.

"If this legislation is passed, it will be a very bad day for America," said Republican Senator John McCain. Three trillion to get Saddam and that is the only verifiable reason for the war.

Get a barf bag. I give you Tom, Mr. self-righteous sanctimony, save us from ourselves, Coburn. Keep in mind he thought that Schindler’s List was too erotic for TV. I may be in the minority, but if I ever go to an OB-GYN who thinks any part of Schindler’s List, is erotic, then someone shoot me. Tom thought the naked emaciated Jews too sexy.

All of these quotes are from his Senate web site.

“The concerns that many members of Congress have expressed about this bill are not based on the failed policies of the past but sobering facts about the present, and the future. As CBO has stated, this bill will not work. In fact, this bill will hurt our economy. A majority of Americans also do not believe this bill will work because they possess a level of common sense that does not exist in Washington,” Dr. Coburn said.

I have to agree with Coburn on the fact that not one Republican is looking, considering, reflecting on or basing anything on the failed policies I don’t see it which is what caused the sobering facts about the present and future. They are determined to ride Reaganomics, based on the belief that if you give rich people enough that some of that wealth will trickle down, until we are all unemployed. It didn’t work during the Reagan, Bush I or Bush II administrations, but it could happen, they think.

“Congress and the president have a choice. They can pull this bill and fix it, or they can ram it through and claim victory. Republicans and the Bush administration faced, and failed, this test many times. For years, Republicans passed bloated and reckless spending bills that were harmful to the economy. Yet, even as Republicans grew the government they touted their bills as sound and fiscally responsible vehicles for job creation. Republican hypocrisy and spin met its logical conclusion with the most recent election. Democrat attempts to call failures successes won’t be any more successful. The biggest loser in this game won’t be either party, but the country,” Dr. Coburn said.

Again, I have some agreement with Tom because the Bush Administration went completely berserk. When they weren’t using our own money to pay for religious education for someone else’s kids, they were using it to control our own activities in our own bedrooms and they called it small government. So small it fit into the smallest bedroom. And of course Coburn backed the biggest of the spending sprees which were giving tax cuts to people who need no money and using the lives of other people‘s children like expendable playing pieces on their reality Risk tournament. And Coburn is determined to keep this crap going as long as possible. We pushed through the Clinton stimulus with nary a GOP vote and produced a surplus.

“Instead of delivering change, this bill celebrates the politics of the past. The bill represents both the mindless partisanship of recent decades, and the failed interventionist policies of the 1930’s. The Senate can, and must, do much better. As currently written, this bill represents the worst act of generational theft in our nation’s history.”

He is so damn funny. The Bushes completely forgot there was anyone below their income level and so did Tom. He joyously perpetuated the idea that we should attack those who have not attacked us. Failed interventionist polices of the 1930’s? He is throwing a GOP anti-FDR fit.

“The bill also contains numerous provisions that are about stimulating long-frustrated ideological agendas rather than the economy. Using an economic crisis to extend government’s reach into health care, for example, is not a way to build bridges between the parties,” Dr. Coburn said.

A Republican even mentioning long-frustrated ideological agendas after what we have endured for the last eight years should be laughed off the planet. And Tom still supports the war, which was based on long-frustrated ideological agendas of world dominance. The GOP used 9/11 to stimulate us by coming back with torture, searching without warrants, tossing out habeas corpus, arresting people and keeping them in jail for years without charges or legal recourse, coming after gay people and accusing them of being worse than terrorists and telling women that they are too stupid to have control of their own bodies, teaching creationism, attempting to prove the Bible therefore elemenating the idea of faith completely. Oh, Tom don’t get me started on ideological agendas.

This bill also contains the biggest earmark in history – a $2 billion handout to the not-ready-for-prime-time ‘FutureGen’ near-zero-emission power plant in Matoon, Illinois that has been called ‘prohibitively expensive’ by the Washington Post and is not supported by scientists at MIT,” Dr. Coburn said.

No Tom, the biggest earmark in history was this, it is the $3 trillion+ bounty put on Saddam’s head. No WMD, a completely destroyed country and we are paying to rebuild it. I thought the oil money was supposed to pay for that. Then we need to add on all those dead people, over 4000 of ours and we will never know how much collateral damage. What kind of a doctor approves of coal fire emissions? An OB-GYN who thinks naked emaciated Jews are sexy.

Some of the things Tom wants out of this bill are really strange. He mentions $150 million for Smithsonian facilities twice so I guess he is twice as against hiring people to fix things that might need fixing at the Smithsonian than anywhere else, put together. He is completely against anything resembling the CCC or the WPA. Even though it will give a lot of people jobs he is against the census for 2010. He is against $75 million in salaries for the FBI so I guess they won’t be hiring. He doesn’t want canals inspected in urban areas. I guess he doesn’t think they need upkeep. He is against $500 million for state and local fire stations. I guess there are just too many overstaff and over-equipped fire stations, for Tom. He is against money for summer job programs for youth. I suppose he doesn’t think having the kids bring in money helps a family with college and stuff. He doesn’t want to pay people for National or Community Service. He doesn’t like Amtrak.

I would like to know what kind of jobs he wants all these people to have. What kind of jobs does he want to create? Probably more in the line of getting shot at for oil. Over 5 million jobs needed, but not in any of these areas. There are things he thinks are not really catastrophic, but just questionable, he isn’t sure.

He doesn’t want to eliminate fees on loans from the Small Business Administration because it encourages unproductive businesses. It’s alright to give all those guys on Wall Street and Banks billions with no oversight and tons of tax cuts for them, but he wants to really stick it to Main Street Small Businesses when no one has money to buy anything. But he really isn’t sure it’s a bad idea, just maybe.

He isn’t sure if 21-24 year olds aren’t too old for summer jobs. You would think any job would be alright. He doesn’t like $160 million to the Job Corps program at the Dept. of Labor, but not for job programs – rather, to construct, alter or repair buildings. I think he thinks they can construct and repair buildings and infrastructure using magic. You can’t train someone to build by actually having him build?

He doesn’t want a study on the impact of paying people in the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa a minimum wage. Maybe he just wants to give them a minimum wage without the study. I would hope so.

Here is one you will love. $79 billion State Fiscal Stabilization (slush) Fund to bailout the States by providing billions of dollars for “education” costs of any kind. Funding education is considered “slush” and a bailout. Don’t be bailing out those kids with a good education. Tom will not stand for it. There is definitely an overabundance of well-paid teachers. We have been spending way to much on education and there is no way that is going to help anything. It is the “education” in quotes of any kind that gets Tom.

“$47.843 billion is appropriated for a variety of energy programs that are primarily focused on renewable energy development and energy conservation/efficiency. Not one dollar is appropriated to make fossil fuels more affordable in the near future. More than $6 billion of these funds go to environmental clean ups.”

Hell’s bells what will this world come to if we don’t start making non-renewable fossil fuels more affordable so we can ignore conservation and use them up faster. A doctor who doesn’t wants to leave super-fund sites, like Pitcher, Oklahoma as they are. Why wouldn’t Tom want to hire people to do the clean ups? Tom just ask big oil to kick in? I’ll pay you one dollar to try.

He isn’t sure it is a good idea to increase eligibility for “weatherization” assistance to households 200 percent above the poverty level. That is because they are too poor and deserve to freeze in winter and bake in summer. Hiring people to bring down their energy bill so maybe they can afford food is a bad idea?

Tom Terrific thinks it might be giving “non-working adults” incentives not to find a job if you temporarily suspend the 3 month limit on food stamps, but he isn’t sure. Tom doesn’t like to call them unemployed and thinks if you can’t find a job in 3 months with about 5.6 million and counting out of work, you are just one no good lazy bum.

He isn’t sure, but Tom thinks just because he will never have to rely on social security that $890 million is too much for the Social Security Administration without any provisions to reduce improper payments, or any plan to increase solvency of the trust fund. Is the GOP still trying to push privatizing our future after what the market has done to people this past year? By the way, if that $890 million includes finding someone outside of India, like in the USA, to answer calls for the SSA then I am all for it.

More stupid quotes from Tom;

http://www.bubbaworld.com/coburn.html

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