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THIS IS PART 2 OF THE JULY 19, 2004 BUZZFLASH MAILBAG. CLICK HERE FOR PART 1.

Subject: Missing Microfilm

Dear BuzzFlash,

Regarding the latest excuse to keep the smirking chimp's National Guard records a secret, I have a question that I haven't heard anyone ask. How many other records have been destroyed accidentally and how large of a program was in effect for restoring microfilm? Also, what are the odds that of all the records the Army and the National Guard have on microfilm, only those from a 3 month period, happened to be destroyed (accidentally of course)?

R Stencil
Washington State

Subject: Where's the Outrage, Uh, Media Coverage (Iraqi P.M./ Executioner)

There just hasn't been that much media coverage of Doctor Iyad ALLAWI's personally executing handcuffed suspects in the run-up to L. Paul BREMER III's (homeboy name, "Jerry") very rapid ESCAPE FROM Iraq. Could Jerry have run so fast to outrun that news?

And our beloved media?------SILENT. Can we imagine other leaders personally fingering the triggers--------BLAIR, FOX, Shrub----well, Shrub would LOVE to be able to pull the trigger on a list of the B.F.E.E. partners cum know-too-muchers, but he's got his god-talking image to think of.

*******QUOTE*******

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/16/1089694568757 ...

Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.

They say the prisoners - handcuffed and blindfolded - were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city's south-western suburbs. ....

But the informants told the Herald that Dr Allawi shot each young man in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister's personal security team watched in stunned silence. ....

from ******:

This was just reported on Australian tv. Paul McGeogh, who wrote the article which alleged Iraqi PM Allawi personally executed six Iraqis shortly prior to his promotion, has had to flee Iraq in fear of his life. ....

********UNQUOTE*******

John G.

Subject: GOP Values

I decided that Republicans think freedom of expression only applies to them. Just look how proud they are to display their bumper stickers. We should also be proud to display ours and don't be afraid of the GOP brownshirt violence. They said they wanted democracy. They are going to get it.

C4K

Yes G.Bush and Cheney reelected will be devastating for this country. He will dis-mantle everything President Clinton put in place. Throwing out all of the moderate Republicans for the convention is just a disguise. They don't govern anything. Four years ago they brought out Blacks and gospel music to fool the American people. So we know what the Republicans are doing this time around. It's not going to work.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: Little r republicans

It's a mystery to me how anyone could vote for a republican. I can't even bring myself to use a capital R when I type republican. To do so would show respect and I feel nothing but animosity towards republicans and their policies. The entire party represents nothing but hypocrisy, extreme arrogance, deceit, insatiable greed, intolerance, and most frightening, anti-democratic principals.

I watched NOW with Bill Moyers on Friday night. The segment of the program devoted to the crisis-in-the-making in Mississippi for Medicaid prescription eligibility for senior citizens and the disabled should be an eye opener for the rest of the nation. It's a perfect example of what the country can look forward to under republican leadership. I felt a burning rage in my gut as I watched Governor Haley Barbour, the wealthy former lobbyist and former head of the RNC, with his fat, greedy hand wielding his pen like a weapon as he callously cut 65,000 desperately poor and needy individuals from the Medicaid rolls. Keep in mind that these are some of the poorest people in the United States. Prior to balancing the budget, on the backs of the poor, the annual income eligibility for the prescription drug benefit was somewhere in the neighborhood or $12,000. With Barbour's new bill it is now between six and seven thousand dollars. I can't quite wrap my mind around the idea of someone even living on such an income, much less spending as much as 90% of that income on prescription drugs. And these are drugs that mean the difference between life and death. As one pharmacist who was interviewed said, people quite literally will die without these medicines. To avoid such draconian measures, the Democrats offered a proposal to raise the cigarette tax, which in Mississippi is among the lowest in the nation, 18 cents a pack as compared to the national average of 72 cents a pack. Of course, it was defeated and the republican governor threatened to veto it if it did pass. During his days as a Washington lobbyist, Barbour represented tobacco and pharmaceutical companies. Fat chance Mississippians have with this guy. And a fat chance Americans in general will have if we don't get rid of republican rule in this country.

Judy Maclean
Colorado

Subject: RadioAid.com vs. CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.

On July 16th, 2004, a decision was handed down from the National Arbitration Forum that took away ownership of RadioAid.com's website "ClearChannelSucks.net" and gave the website to the complainant, Clear Channel Communications, Inc.

The decision of the arbitration panel has left us (the founders of RadioAid.com) with only one choice. That choice is, to file suit vs. Clear Channel communications, Inc. to retain ownership of our outlet for free speech against this corporate monopoly.

We're raising legal funds in our suit vs. Clear Channel and would be so appreciative to have you spread the word to your readers and create awareness of yet another attempt for a billion dollar company to silence it's critics and squash free speech on the internet.

Please help us spread the word about this and any assistance you could provide in posting this to other media outlets would be extremely helpful!

Rob Vining
RadioAid.com
Unsigned and Independent Streaming Radio

Subject: 'right' reason vs 'real' reason

July 18, 2004

I read Bill Moyers’article, The Fight of Our Lives, this morning and I’ve finally figured out the ‘real’reason for this Right to Life movement that is being fostered by Bush and other fundamentalist leaders. And it’s interesting that a ‘right to life’only applies to babies –not to our children who have attained 18+ years.

My training is in the field of psychology. I have an M.A. But even in Psych 101 we were taught that for every action (or behavior) there is a ‘right’(or socially acceptable) reason, and behind that there is always the ‘real’reason –that which is seeking to remain hidden but acts as the higher priority for the action.

We all know the ‘right’reason for the Right to Life movement and many of us believe this to be the true and only reason; i.e., to preserve the lives of babies and let them live and experience their full potential.

But Bill Moyers’article made clear to me that the ‘right’reason is not the ‘real’reason, at least not for the people in power who are manipulating us for their own purposes.

"When you change the way you think about things, the things you think about change." Dr. Wayne Dyer.

We need to look at the Right to Life movement from a different perspective in order to understand how this concept is being used to manipulate our lives. Try to see it this way for just a few minutes before deleting this article:

Having babies (especially out of wedlock) keeps women poor.

Poor women are generally poorly educated and therefore accept menial, low paying jobs.

Women who don’t take care of the babies that they have are put in jail –or at least socially ostracized.

The Right to Life movement, at least as preached by Bush & Co., allows abstinence as the only contraceptive method available.

Women aren’t going to stop having sex, but they are going to start having more pregnancies.

If abortion is not an option, these pregnancies will become more babies that will be born to poor under-educated women.

These many babies will grow up to be a poor, under-educated workforce (since the No Child Left Behind law is crippling our public education system).

There will be many people available for low paying jobs (supply and demand) and also available to the military to fight for more oil (Iran, etc.) or whatever the ruling class wants at the time.

There will only be two classes again in this country; the upper 1% and everybody else who will be available to do their bidding.

When this comes about, companies that are now shipping work to places like India and China, for example, will have a second or third world country right here in the United States. The work force will be huge; the pay can be very low; the profits will be increased because the companies will no longer have to pay huge transportation costs to take the raw materials to another country and bring back finished goods.

We are being bred –like any other beast of burden.

I think the people who are millionaires now (our Congress, for example) believe that when The New Order comes about that they will be in the ruling class. They are the wanna’be’s of the future. This is why they are supporting what Bush & Co. are doing to our democracy now. They think they’re going to be part of the gravy train.

Greed ....... "The love of money is the root of all evil."

I think they’re going to have a rude awakening once the upper 1% doesn’t need their support any more. But by then, it’s going to be too late for all of us.

Joyce Zborower, B.S., M.A. - clinical psychology
Tempe, AZ

Subject: Hostile Places

Hasn't anyone wondered how George W. Bush could be so brave as to fly to Iraq last Thanksgiving, a definitely HOSTILE country against the United States, yet feared going to Pennsylvania to speak before the American NAACP because, as he claims, "they are hostile to me." He certainly knows which hostile places to visit, doesn't he?

Ruth R.

Subject: supporting evidence for Seymour Hersh's claims of sexual abuse of minors at Abu Ghraib

Dear BuzzFlash,

It turns out that there is supporting evidence for Seymour Hersh's claims in the supporting documents for the Taguba Report. Most people are not aware of it, as they have only read about 50 pages out of the 6000+ pages of supporting material and interviews in the report. One of the witnesses (who Maj. Gen. Taguba viewed as credible, as his testimony squared with others) gave details of the raping of a young Iraqi minor which sounds exactly like what Hersh described. Amazingly enough, photocopies of these claims have been on the Washington Post website for some time now, but never got any substantial attention.

See these documents for yourself. Chilling reading:

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/iraq/abughraib/151108.pdf

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/iraq/abughraib/150427.pdf

Best,

Mark Kraft

Subject: NYTimes Pro Bush Slant.

What is it with the metaphors?

A couple weeks ago, Jodi Wilgoren likened Kerry to a "caged hamster". Today, Sheryl Gay Stolberg describes John Edwards, in speaking highly of John Kerry as "like a used-car salesman urging his customers to look past the dents."

When will we see Bush described as a "like a smirking chimp"... or Cheney as "not unlike a slimeball"?

Sari K.

Subject: Another Obituary against Bush! From SF Chronicle

This appeared in the Leag Garchick column in this morning's San Francisco Chronicle:

Maxine Carlin noticed the last paragraph of The Chronicle's paid obituary notice for Eda Kavin, who died, in June, at 89. "Eda's memory can be honored by supporting an artist or by helping to unelect 'that damn Bush.' Eda thanks you.''

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/07/19/DDGG77G1QM1.DTL

Susan P.

Subject: The "Gates" of Hell

Buzz --

As the election draws near, the attacks on John Jerry and the Democrats intensifies from the Right Wing. I'm reminded of the eight years of investigations and millions upon millions of dollars spent by the Republicans in Congress to nail Bill Clinton for something -- anything from allegations of murder, rape, drug smuggling to something as petty as a real estate deal that occurred twenty some years before he became President.

If on the other hand, the right wing Congress was as probing of the current Administration, if they showed the zeal for finding out the "truth" about how this Administration is mishandling our government -- they would certainly open the "Gates" of Hell...Abu Ghraib-gate; Energy-gate; Air Force Records-gate; Election fraud-gate; Medicare records-gate; WMD-gate; Anthrax-gate; Wimpy media-gate; CIA-gate; Rocky Flats Nuke-gate; Halliburton-gate; AWOL-gate; Draft dodger-gate; Niger Uranium-gate; F-word-gate; Coffin Pix-gate; GI Funerals I don't go to-gate; and last but certainly not least -- I Talk to God-gate.

The Democrats had better take back our White House from these thugs; and they need to take back the Congress as well. My fear -- there will be no elections this year because this cabal has too much to hide and they can't afford to give up power, not now, not ever. Keep up the good work...

Tony Mac

Subject: Soldiers dead since handover

Dear Buzz,

Bush, the so-called Commander in Chief's silence on the Iraq war and the high number of our Soldiers dying since his phony hand-over that somehow allowed Bush to completely distance himself from his failing war, is nothing less than TREASON!

Where's the outrage?

Nancy Lynn Nagy (TN)

Subject: Blair downsizes Iraq body count lie

Hey, Buzz.

As the Guardian has reported (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1263901,00.html), Tony Blair's office finally admitted that its repeated claims that 400,000 of Saddam's victims have been found represent an inflation over the actual figure of about 8,000 per cent. Indeed, with 55 of the suspected 270 gravesites examined, about 5,000 actual bodies have been found, which is very roughly one-third of the Iraqi bodies Blair and his friend George W Bush have created thus far. Blair's office is now saying the following:

While experts may disagree on the exact figures, human rights groups, governments and politicians across the world have no doubt that Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of his own people and their remains are buried in sites throughout Iraq.

Hundreds of thousands? Well, maybe, and there's no denying that Saddam is a murderous creep, but given the evidence of gross overestimation to date, I'd bet on a figure closer to 25,000 when all 270 suspected sites are opened and the bodies contained therein are counted. Such a figure, while horrendous, puts Saddam on the same level of willful destruction of his own citizens as many of America's other recent allies.

Richard
in Canada.

Subject: Last Week for HR2239, Please help Buzz

BuzzFlash,

Please,

This is really down to the wire: unless verified voting legislation HR2239 gets out of committee by 7/26, federal verified voting is dead! If you care about making sure your vote counts this November this is what you can do (last chance)!

1.Urgent: Without Congressman Ney getting it out of committee, no federal verified voting legislation will pass Please send free fax through your email (see below for free fax through email info--really easy!)

2.Update on Senate bills and

3.more you can do on national and local (scroll down for local) level

http://www.legitgov.org/action_papertrail_071404.html

***************

1.The big organizations have finally taken up verified voting legislation. They have asked that you call your Congressperson about HR2239. There is only one huge problem.

Congressman Ney is blocking this legislation from coming to a vote. No vote, no legislation. And we only have until the 7/26! I have sent all the Ohio contacts I have info about this and asked them to make an effort to try to get his constituents to contact him. But as head of the administration committee--where HR2239 and HR4250 are trapped--anyone can and should contact him!

Tell him to allow a vote for HR2239--the verified voting bill--and HR4250--the bill that would allow those mistakenly put on a felon list (and therefore disenfranchised) to be notified and have 30 days to object--right away!

You can send a free fax through your email, just put this address (copy entire address with control C, control V) in your email address and make sure that it goes through (they will tell you if its busy and send it 3 times in a row and then stop). If not try again later.

remote-printer.bob_ney/us_congress@12022253394.iddd.tpc.int

Other Contact info Phone: (202) 225-6265 | Fax: (202) 225-3394 Email (which is not as effective as calls and faxes but still counts) bobney@mail.house.gov.

2.You should also ask your Congressperson to co-sponsor HR2239 and HR4250. Call 1-800-839-5276 and Go to http://Congress.org for fax info. and email (which is not as effective as calls and faxes but still counts)

3.In the Senate the best verified voting bill is S.1980--the identical bill to HR2239. However, the author of S.1980, Bob Graham (Fl) has also co-sponsored another verified voting bill which is also co-sponsored by Hillary Clinton (NY) which has a giant loophole: a state waiver provision written so broadly that voting machines it was designed to cover may get exempted. The problem is that so far every person co-sponsoring S.1980 is also automatically co-sponsoring the bill with the giant loophole (S.2313). One the thing you can do is ask your Senator to co-sponsor S.1980 but not 2313--unless the state waiver provision eliminated or narrowed to just refer to lever machines (its actual intent).

Moveon.org's solution is to ask you to ask your Senator to co-sponsor S.2437. They are reasoning that besides the complications of the other bills, this bill might be passed more easily in Republican Congress (although so far the Republicans have not supported it and Hillary's bill has the most co-sponsors, followed by S.1980). The biggest problem with the Republican bill is it doesn't take effect until 2006 but they're hoping that this means states won't buy machines without paper if it passes. When a bill in Ohio passed which also didn't take effect until 2006, some counties just rented the machines instead of buying them, also some already bought them. The Graham bill (or Hillary's if she fixes state waiver problem) would have states just use paper ballot this election if they couldn't upgrade existing machines in time.

You can actually ask your Senator to co-sponsor both S.1980 and S.2437 (but not S.2313--unless waiver provision is eliminated or narrowed to lever machines, its original intent). Call 1-800-839-5276 and Go to http://Congress.org for fax info. and email (which is not as effective as calls and faxes but still counts)

4. For more actions on both the federal and local (scroll down a bit for local) level see http://www.legitgov.org/action_papertrail_071404.html

=====

Peter J.

Subject: Hypocrites

Hi BUZZ

Thanks again for everything you do.

I’ve had some really raucous confrontations with diehard republicans lately, and it has me thinking about the years of speculation on whether of not Bill Clinton PROPOSITIONED Paula Jones. These people, who felt Clinton should be punished for nonphysical sexual harassment, now want us to believe:

The tortured men in Abu Ghraib all had blood on their hands, and the torture wasn’t so bad, it was more like hazing or youthful pranks.

The raped women, well, those things happen in war, and if they face Honor Killing back at home that’s just how Arabs are.

The sodomized little boys didn’t happen at all, it’s a plot by the liberal media, and it’s time to move on.

I’ve come very close to telling these former friends to Cheney themselves. I’m an Independent who’s eager to stand shoulder to shoulder with Democrats and honorable Republicans to CRUSH these dishonorable republicans in November. They have to be beaten so badly and decisively that they can’t spin another victory.

Darlene ~ Reno

Subject: Republicans Are UNBELIEVABLE!!!

Dear BuzzFlash,

I have not voted in 20+ years, I registered to vote last year just so I could do my part to get the Bush regime out of Washington.

I have never really been a partisan person, I always looked at the way various politicians have stood on issues and voted for the person who I agreed with.

I don't really feel like up until about the early 80's there was as much voracious partisan-ism as there is now.

What I can't believe is the treacherous, underhanded and dirty rotten way that the Republican party acts... and then points at the Democrats and says "look at those people" as if their own hands are clean...

I have never considered myself to be a Democrat, I CERTAINLY would not EVER want to be associated with the Republicans...

My God, do these people ever look in the mirror...

I guess they do, they just see what they want to see...

I WILL vote in November and I sincerely hope that every American who is fed up with the way things are going does the SAME THING...

I don't think this country can SURVIVE another 4 Bush years, that is unless they start putting people into concentration camps...

Not knowing what the agenda of "The New World Order" I don't doubt that COULD happen.

Tim

Subject: Arnold

In reference to Arnold's "girlie men" remark, I would wonder how much Arnold knows about men but I do understand he's made a study of "girlies"

Sally A. McDonald

Subject: Republican Optimism

Dear BuzzFlash,

I am a bookseller and was surprised to read in this week's Publishers Weekly that there are a slew of religious books--heavily evangelical--promoting the theme of optimism. I wonder if Bush/Cheney's making a campaign issue of Kerry's "pessimism" isn't a code for evangelical Christians to question Kerry's religion as well. After reading E. J. Dionne's interview, I thought that this could be another interesting example of language manipulation by the Republicans.

Just a thought.

Christine Acevedo

Subject: Rightwing Speak

Hi BuzzFlash,

The Gov. of Calif. can't be faulted for using repug rightwing speak. It's the nature of the repug beast.

The nature of the beast is, they have nothing positive to brag about to make this country strong. In fact they put this beautiful country in the dumper.

Ergo, rightwing negative name calling. Another thing this wingnut party knows is REAL potty talk,also.

*Girlieman,* Saturday Night Live, coined this phrase, in mocking this Gov. (before his acting Gov. days) This was a slap in the face to the acting Gov. but he's too full of himself to know this. This to me is pretty funny.

Talk like this makes Kerry/Edwards, intelligent sentences music to my ears.

We have a bunch of dangerous bullyboys trashing America, wrapped in our American flag. Nothing they say, is used to improve America, because they can't seem to get out of our bedrooms! Their rightwing speak is laughable, as well as their negative ads.

Let's rid ourselves of bullyboys, the sooner the better. Actually they should be impeached. With that said, our next option is voting in full force, to get our country back.

Angie....Granny from Phila.

we have a word for people like arnold schwarzenegger here in the south.

actually i believe it's pretty much a universal word for people like arnold. it's call a JERK.

shorty
memphis tn

Subject: think first!

my daughters and my grand children disagree with schwarzenegger, they do not think their daddy and their grandpa are girlie men! someone needs to tell that creep with his hair dye and plastic surgery to think before he speaks! his ego is out of control.

the anderson family
florida

Subject: Clear Channel and advertising limitations

Clear Channel Radio, a division of notoriously right-wing Clear Channel Communications, is announcing that it will limit the percent of air time that commercials comprise on its more than 1200 radio stations nationwide. This is per an article in today's NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/19/business/media/19adcol.html?th

Given Clear Channel's already evident--e.g. the Times Square billboard flap--willingness to censor ads it accepts for political content, one wonders if this move is not, as it is being portrayed, an attempt to assuage listeners' displeasure with excessive commercial exposure but rather a backhanded way to censor political content in radio as well. It would be too easy to say to prospective non-conservative advertisers that their anti-Bush ads cannot be run because the station is already at its self-imposed max on commercial time--somehow, I believe they will find air time for pro-Bush ads.

When this new Clear Cannel Radio policy goes into effect it might prove worthwhile to monitor its political advertising situation to see if this premonition actually comes to pass.

Tom Cockle
Fieldbrook CA

This just in from AP:

"Michael Moore's ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' held on at No. 5 with $7 million, raising its domestic total to $93.8 million. Moore's assault on President Bush over the Sept. 11 attacks has become the undisputed box-office champ among documentaries, passing the $84.4 million domestic haul of the IMAX film `'Everest.'''

July 18, 2004

Sharon Andrews

Arnold S. needs to shut his mouth. The Dems should respond by telling Arnold apparently, a remark like that shows women are on his mind at all time, and that his name the groper is well deserved.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: Bush asked about Riggs

Of course, leave it to a foreign reporter to ask Bush about Riggs.

"Riggs Bank is being fully investigated"

Which means, we'll never hear about it again!

Q Mr. President --

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes.

Q -- from Chile. We've been hearing a lot in the past few days about the Riggs investigation, that found out hidden accounts of Senator Pinochet. I understand two senators that are working in that committee are asking the Justice Department to take legal actions. Is that possible? What consequences can that have?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I think the people of Chile must know that there will be a full investigation. It's important for the facts to be en la mesa, as we say -- on the table, and -- so that we know what course of action may or may not be needed. And that's what you're seeing. You're seeing a transparent society dealing with allegations and/or -- and the Riggs Bank is being fully investigated, and they'll be investigated in a very open way.

And the President brought this issue up. Of course, he's concerned about it, as well. He wants to know the truth. And I appreciate that, and we'll make sure that people do know the truth. And that's what you're seeing. You're beginning to see the process of truth-finding.

"Remarks by President Bush and President Lagos of Chile in Photo Opportunity," White House Transcripts

David Day