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The BuzzFlash Mailbag
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THIS IS PART 2 OF THE OCTOBER 29, 2004 BUZZFLASH MAILBAG. CLICK
HERE FOR PART 1
Subject: David Kay Statement
You need to get hold of the David Kay (former Bush weapons inspector)
video interview with Aaron Brown on CNN which aired from 10:00pm - approx.
10:15pm. After viewing the Minneapolis/St. Paul KTSP ABC affiliate video
of Al QaQaa, Kay confirmed that the seal on the bunker they broke through
was an IAEA seal and that the barrels were that HDX
or whatever high explosive that everyone's been talking about. The IAEA
only sealed bunkers with their seal which contained the extremely high
explosive. They didn't place their seal on routine munitions. He just
about said it was a slam dunk. This was a very powerful statement. The
local news crew was at the site 9 days after the fall of Baghdad. This
should put to rest the RUSSIAN story that someone in the Pentagon made
up.
Jason M.
Subject: The smoke-and-mirrors myth of ABB
Dear Buzz,
I just read another ridiculous editorial promoting the notion that much
of John Kerry's support is based on anger towards bush. They just don't
get it, do they? By pushing the ABB theory, the squawking talking heads
refuse to enter the land of the reality-based and admit that John Kerry
is the right man in the right place at the right time. Well, I've got
a
comeuppance rebuttal for them:
I've had it with pundits and pollsters and reporters and journalist
wannabes, the pandering columnists and ill-informed commentators. I
can't take another minute of the gasbag radio jocks and the pompous
bubble-headed "news" anchors, the bombastic talk show hosts
and every garden variety of pop psychology analyst and rabid right wing
pontificator who continues to sing the sorry tune that John Kerry's
increasing multitudes of supporters are a reactionary phenomenon based
solely on some sort of infantile hatred of George W. Bush, thereby relegating
us to a simple two-dimensional caricature acronym of ABB, i.e., Anybody
But Bush.
I know their rationalization and their ultimate goal, those arrogant,
morally infirm lowlifes. The red-white-and-blue celebratory confetti
will still be swirling around President-elect John Forbes Kerry and
they will immediately be setting loose their mercenary vipers, they
will be initiating stealthy Rovian machinations against another honorable
man who stands in the way of their un-American greedy aspirations. They
will do this by claiming he wasn't elected by a genuine mandate of the
people; that we didn't want John Kerry in, we just wanted George W.
Bush out. They simply cannot bear to dignify America by being gracious
in defeat, and so they are preemptively laying the foundation for yet
another labyrinth
of lies, another eight years of character assassination because they
have no decency, no morals, no honor, and, like a vampire who hates
the light, they hate seeing these traits in the one who bested them
at last.
Reality check. I am not presently, nor have I ever been, nor will I
ever be, merely ABB. I never signed a loyalty oath that I would vote
deaf, dumb and blind for any contender simply because of my justifiable
contempt for our current maladroit, incompetent and obtuse occupier
of the Oval Office. I did my homework, I researched my candidate. I
am not a non compos mentis lemming enthralled by an ideology, and I
have made my decision to support John Kerry with all the conscious and
careful deliberation and forethought that voting for our next President
of the United States demands. No one has the right to presume that I
support John Kerry because of who he isn't. I support John Kerry because
of who he is.
I challenge all the spinning political operatives out there to come
down from their ivory towers and acknowledge those who are JFK, Just
For Kerry. It is just that straightforward, just that honest. JFK is
a fitting acronym, a Badge of Honor, a display of confidence in John
Kerry to be the next great President. We look upon him as our last chance
and our best hope that one day we will again be deservedly proud to
see the United States flag waving high, and we are salvaging the last
remnants of our self-respect in an unprecedented gathering of citizens
who are voting for John Kerry because we absolutely refuse to believe
that the American Dream is dead, the dream of individual freedom, social
justice, financial stability, and the everlasting hope of a better life
for our children and
everyone who lives on Earth. With our minds and from our hearts we find
our voice: JFK all the way! All the way to the White House!!
Like tens of millions of voters, I am Just For Kerry. JFK all the way.
Don't you dare lay that ABB stink-bomb canard at my door.
With all due respect,
Elaine Cole
Oregon, U.S.A.
Subject: Accountability
Dear Sir or Madam,
This is without a doubt the most important election in the modern history
of the United States. I could go on and on about this issue or that
issue, but one word sums up the reason why it is so important to elect
John Kerry. Accountability.
Accountability for the missing Explosives.
Accountability for the absent WMDs.
Accountability for misleading the Nation and the World.
Accountability for insufficient troop levels going into the War in
Iraq.
Accountability for Abu Ghraib and human rights violations at Guantanamo
Bay.
Accountability for wasting huge amounts of American tax dollars in
an unnecessary war.
Accountability for the brave American Soldiers who have performed exceptionally
under extreme circumstances.
Accountability for the 1,100+ of the bravest of the brave who have
lost their lives in serving their country.
Accountability for the 7,000+ grievously injured serving their country
Accountability for the 20,000+ Iraqi Civilians who have died at the
hands of the United States.
Accountability for not capturing Osama Bin Laden.
Accountability for failure to prevent 9/11.
Accountability for failing to adequately funding Homeland Security.
Accountability for the outing of Valerie Plame, covert CIA agent.
Accountability for Halliburton's crooked cost-plus contracts.
Accountability for distorted and corrupt Energy Policy written behind
closed doors.
Accountability for the historic and catastrophic Twin Debts in this
country (Budget and Trade Deficits).
Accountability for the recent surge in health care costs.
Accountability for the recent surge in college tuition
Accountability for the recent surge in Oil and Gas prices.
Accountability for the most destructive Environmental Policy in over
30 years.
There have simply been way too many of these failures and too little
accountability
to allow this administration to continue. I ask that regardless of your
party affiliation, you
consider the sum of these failures and ask yourself if you were responsible
for any one
of these failures would you be able to continue performing honorably?
Would you want
to carry on with this poor record? Would you want the country to suffer
such loss for
another 4 years? As a citizen of the U.S.A. would you want the President
to be held
accountable for his actions? If you were the President, would you do
the honorable thing,
the American thing, and put your ideology aside in exchange for the
good of the Greatest
Country on the Face of the Earth? I would. And I hope you would too.
Please join together
and vote for John Kerry on November 2nd.
Thank you very much, and God Bless Us All!
Ethan Oringel
Subject: Fair and Balanced?
How dare NBC to use a right-wing idealogue and recovering addict such
as Rush Limbaugh as an election day commentator? Please counter this
creep with a real scholar who can do something [besides] cheerlead the
plutocracy. I would suggest John McChesney of UIUC, Noam Chomsky of
MIT, Chalmers Johnson of JPRI or the like. Rush Hate Speech Limbaugh?
You must be very proud.
Walter Raczynski
Arlington Heights, IL
Subject: Rolling Stone
Buzz,
The past issue of Rolling Stone is a must-read [either magazine edition
or on the Internet]. It's got a great Fear-and-Loathing article by Hunter
S. Thompson, a moving endorsement of Kerry by the publisher, articles
on both the Springsteen concerts and the youth vote, and an interview
with John F. Kerry. In the interview Kerry clearly and succinctly
states his past, his credentials:
I've spent thirty-five years dealing with these kinds of issues.
When I came back from fighting in a war, I fought against the war
here in
America. As a senator, I led the fight to stop Ronald Reagan's illegal
war in Central America. I helped expose Oliver North and Manuel Noriega.
I've been at this for a long time. You know, I led the initial efforts
to change our policy on the Philippines -- which ultimately resulted
in the elections, and became part of the process that helped get rid
of
Marcos.
I negotiated personally with the prime minister of Cambodia, to get
accountability for the killing fields of the Pol Pot regime. I've
negotiated with the Vietnamese to let me and John McCain in and put
American forces on the ground to resolve the POW-MIA issue. I've spent
twenty years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; I've been
chairman of the Narcotics Terrorism Subcommittee. I have five times
the experience George Bush does in dealing with these issues, and
I know that I can get this done.
And he lays out his agenda for the future:
Creating jobs is one of the top five priorities of my administration.
First of all, make America safe, and deal with nuclear proliferation
and the global confrontation. Second, we have to create jobs and be
fiscally responsible -- so that we're creating the framework for America
to be strong at home. Third, we have to have a system that provides
health care for all Americans, and I have a plan to do that. Fourth,
we're going to have education that works for everybody -- that lifts
people up. Ongoing adult education -- a system that works. And fifth,
we're going to have an environmental policy that leaves this planet
to our kids in better shape than we got it from our parents. That's
it -- that's the agenda....
I'm fighting for the middle class -- he's fighting for a tax cut
for people who earn more than $200,000 a year. He won't raise the
minimum wage -- I'm going to raise the minimum wage. He won't give
people extended unemployment benefits -- I will. He cut job training
-- I'm going to restore job training. He's made it more expensive
for kids to go to college -- I'm going to raise the Pell grants and
the Perkins loans. He gave the drug industry a windfall profit of
$139 billion -- while he was shutting down the ability of people to
bring drugs in from Canada and shutting down Medicare's ability to
negotiate a lower price for drugs.
T. Quigly
Subject: Huffing and puffing
The race to the finish line seems (to me, at least) to boil down to
a desperate, multipronged attempt by the Rethuglicans to control two
fronts: (1) suppressing, by Any Means Necessary, the Democratic vote,
as Buzz readers are well aware, and (2) fudging, hemming, hawing, roaring
with indignation that "the facts aren't in" on the mysteriously
vanished explosives. (Imagine what these thugs would have said if the
situation were reversed, and it had been Kerry who "lost"
this stash.)
I think I've finally figured it out: all this mob needs (in THEIR view)
is to distract, distort, huff and puff (and blow those offensive ballots
and voters away) until the election. I'm writing this on 11/29 -- FOUR
MORE DAYS. Can't you picture their strategic meetings? (Bush, of course,
is absent; they'll give him his talking points later through the bulge
in his back.)
Cheney: "Just keep them focused on security and values -- and
tell 'em we're setting up a committe to investigate the matter later.
Heh, heh."
Rove: Yeah -- and keep twisting Kerry's words and throwing dirt.
Lucky for us this leak didn't happen sooner. But we can suppress the
truth until it's too late for them to stop us. Chuckle, chuckle. If
it weren't for the hijacking of the media most Americans relax in
front of, this would be a bizarre science fiction plot. But I'm scared
silly about what will happen on election day -- only four days from
now.
As I (and many other Buzz readers) have said for some time now, "These
people will stop at nothing." And then, once entrenched and not
having to pretend to care about our priceless democracy, it will truly
be winner take all. Guess who will take...and who will be taken.
Barb in Athens, GA*
(where my vote won't count except in local contests)
Subject: All Politics is Local
Last week, The Lone Star Iconoclast of Crawford, Texas, "wholeheartedly"
endorsed John Kerry for President. "What's the big deal?"
you say. It's just some small paper out in the boonies. Yes, but it's
also President Bush's "hometown" newspaper. And it endorsed
Bush in 2000.
Now, some Bush partisans are threatening to run the newspaper out of
business. This involves more than a few angry letters to the editor,
vengeful cancelled subscriptions, and retaliatory pulled advertisements
from the paper. It involves personal attacks, harassment, and threats
of extreme physical harm to the paper's staff and editors.
No one is accusing Bush's Texas campaign or the Republican Party of
being behind this ugliness or of supporting it in any way. However,
they haven't come out and denounced this very troubling, anti-free press
campaign against the Iconoclast, either. Maybe we should ask Karl Rove
for a comment about why this is happening in Crawford.
Of course, this is an election year and people tend to get very partisan
and emotional as the voting draws closer. Particularly in this election
and particularly in the President's hometown.
However, as W. Leon Smith, the Iconoclast's editor, put it this week
when comparing editorials to campaign yard signs -- "These are
endorsements (too)...Is it proper to persecute (people) for stating
their opinions in this manner if you disagree with their choices? Should
they be harassed and threatened? We don't think so."
I don't think so either. I think Mr. Smith and the Iconoclast are to
be applauded for freely and courageously endorsing John Kerry for President.
Even in, especially in, George Bush's hometown.
Sincerely,
DAVID WYLES
Venice, CA
Subject: [Boilingmad.Blogspot.com] Terrorists May Move to Support
Bush
The Fox Bullshit Channel is reporting an American member of Al Qaeda
is now threatening the United States. Of course, they fail to provide
the context. Al Qaeda and Iran have already endorsed George W. Bush
for President. Al Qaeda wrote:
WE WANT BUSH TO WIN
"Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the
Democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to
the Arab and Muslim nation as civilisation."
"Because of this we desire you (Bush) to be elected."
Purported
al Qaeda letter calls truce in Spain (uk.news.yahoo.com)
Hasan Rowhani, head of the Iran's Supreme National Security Council
said,
"We haven't seen anything good from Democrats....We do not desire
to see Democrats take over."
"We should not forget that most sanctions and economic pressures
were imposed on Iran during the time of Clinton. And we should not
forget that during Bush's era...despite his hard-line and baseless
rhetoric against Iran...he didn't take, in practical terms, any dangerous
action against Iran."
Bush
Receives Endorsement From Iran (AP/Yahoo)
A BuzzFlash Reader
Subject: civilian casulties
Sirs,
One of your recent posts is an estimate of civilian deaths in Iraq.
100,000. Well, Hiroshima was 140,000...
Bill Payne
Subject: Judge strikes blow for democracy in Georgia voter's case...
Hi Buzz,
Man, it's a busy night! Judge rules againstGOP brownshirts in Georgia
who challenged hispanics's voting elegibility:
Ga.
Hispanics Questioned on Voting Rights
It's starting to get "hot & heavy" now!
Buzz on!
David Williams
Moscow, Idaho
Subject: PBS
Frontline's "The Choice 2004" airs on Mon. Nov. 1
Hello bloggers - please pardon me if you're already going to do this
but I just want to say my piece:
When I saw Frontline's "The Choice 2004" on PBS
a few weeks ago I thought it was one of THE BEST pieces on Kerry
I'd ever seen. Why? because it detailed the struggle Kerry faced to
get in office AFTER Vietnam and the good things he did in office once
he got there. And yes I SERIOUSLY think this could sway people to vote
for him as it ALSO shows how Dubya got in office too:)
IN FACT I'm STILL surprised that Karl Rove & co. haven't tried to
stop this program or sue Frontline & PBS over it because this honestly
doesn't make Bush look all that good.
Well guess what? PBS is showing it AGAIN on Monday Nov. 1st and if all
of you could do me just ONE little favor I'd really appreciate you all
mentioning this on your respective blogs. Here's the link for more info:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/choice2004
If you EVER needed a reason to program the Tivo, VCR or DVD or gather
with friends &/or family on a Monday night or watch TV by yourself
- THIS IS IT!!!!!!! This is/was one of THE BEST episodes Frontline ever
did and one of THE BEST programs of 2004! For real - I don't think anything
comes close to it.
Thank you all VERY much for reading this:)
Chris
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