November 4, 2005

The BuzzFlash Mailbag

The opinions expressed in the Mailbag are not necessarily those of BuzzFlash. Read the BuzzFlash FAQ for info on submitting to the Mailbag.

THIS IS PART 2 OF THE NOVEMBER 4, 2005 BUZZFLASH MAILBAG. CLICK HERE FOR PART 1

While investigating Cheney and Co.'s personal attacks on Joseph Wilson for criticizing the administration, how about also investigating the mean-spirited smears on Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill?

There is a definite pattern here. And the question is: is the administration just mean, or is it doing everything it can to keep a secret?

Beth Martin
Detroit, Michigan

MSNBC reports that ...

Chavez uses oil wealth to make friends (MSNBC)

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may sneak up on George Bush and scare him when they meet at the summit in Argentina. It made me giggle considering ...

http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2004/12/35839.php

this theory about that mysterious bulge.

Kristi Warriner
Middleton, WI

Subject: What Kind of Values?

There is a constant stream of claims of values coming from the right edge of the Republican Party. Only they have the right values. Only they are decent, God-fearing folk. Actually what they all seem to be about is hate.

No terrorist is ever vilified to the extent that a liberal is denigrated. No criminal is as bad as a democrat and nothing is worse than a couple of gays who want to get married or a woman who wants an abortion.

I seem to remember that bearing false witness against your neighbor is specifically forbidden, but the rabid, right wing seems to have to no problem with that. If it does not serve their agenda, then it is no longer important to them. While claiming the moral high ground there is no low to which they will not sink.

I fear for America as the hate and ever widening divide between us grows and grows.

I could never understand the rabid Clinton haters. I do now. I hate Bush to the point that I can not even listen to his voice. That hatred has grown to include those who elected him into office. That frightens me. The more divided we become the more vulnerable we are. I see a country so at war with itself that we become an easy target for our enemies without.

As we let religious fanatics dictate how we do everything from caring for our family members at the end of their life to what goes on in our private lives behind our bedroom doors we become less and less a force in the world.

We are the only remaining superpower and we are weaker than we were a few years ago. Our people are divided, our armed forces are stretched to the breaking pointing and the divide between the rich and the poor grows ever wider. This is a country in meltdown and those most responsible don’t care what they are doing. They have their beliefs and they are determined to force them on the entire country. While they plan for Jesus Land, the greedy corporations have silently stolen the country. Some values.

Marjorie L. Swanson
Kenosha, WI

Subject: Re

For Americans, Getting Sick Has Its Price

These stories,

For Americans, Getting Sick Has Its Price: Survey Says U.S. Patients Pay More, Get Less Than Those in Other Western Nations (Washington Post)

and then

House calls for cuts in Medicare, food stamps: Bill exacts more savings from beneficiaries and less from industry groups (MSNBC)

This couldn't sum up the gluttonous agenda the GOP has in store for Americans better if it tried. Case in point, I am on disability because in 1984, I got stuck with a patients needle at work that was contaminated with AIDS, Hepatitis B, and possibly C. My monogamous gay lifestyle, made proving the documented case impossible, so I am here because I chose to care the sick. Now disabled over this, uninsured, and with my old earned insurance gone with the wind, here is what I face.

I have Medicare, Medicaid, and special AIDS pharmaceutical benefits, and even with all three coverages combined, most of my medications are still not covered. Medical supplies are not covered, and in all, since my check is reduced because I became disabled before reaching retirement age, I have around $800 a month. Over four hundred of that goes to medications, another hundred or so for medical supplies. Leaving me less than $300 to pay rent, buy groceries, pay bills, and exist. The government feels this is too extravagant? I got sick taking care of our sick, this is a disgrace.

I am sure I am just one of tens, or hundreds of thousands of similar cases all across America. We need to vote out every republican in office, and also get rid of every chicken-s**t democrat, that keeps toeing the line for them. This administration, all of it, both sides are a true disgrace to America. Their words ring hollow, their actions are even less notable. I am thinking of expatriating, before America drowns in its fanatic, excessive greed. I don't see much hope here, and I don't see anyone doing anything, that actually matters in congress to change this. Words are still only words, when they affect no change. Let's get rid of all of them. Not one person in office today, deserves their job.

What a loathsome country, run by convicted felons, or indicted thugs, and treasonous political hacks, we have become. How can the world take us seriously, when our own government makes a mockery out of justice everyday, spits on those who need help the most, to give breaks to those who need them least, and continues to pillage the nation in a smash and grab style theft?

David R. Anselm, Jr.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Subject: Rummy, the Bird Flu and Iraq Soldier Vaccines

Hi BuzzFlash,

Our local newspaper had an editorial cartoon of Bush trying to take the spotlight off of Cheney, Libby and Rove and instead having it shine it on him while he talked about The Bird Flu. Well, it appears that the cartoonists left out Donald Rumsfeld, who is going to be making big bucks off this bird flu vaccine. All lame reporters would have to do to find out about this news is a simple Google on the words: Rumsfeld CEO Bird Flu. I copied the remainder of this letter from the article in The Asia Times, as it pertains to Rumsfeld's windfall profits in the bird flu vaccine and vaccines for our troops in Iraq.

I couldn't have said it better, and I quote:

Rummy Flu

Tamiflu was developed and patented in 1996 by a California biotech firm, Gilead Sciences Inc. Gilead is a NASDAQ-listed stock company which prefers to maintain a low profile in the current rush to Tamiflu. That might be because of who is tied to Gilead. In 1997, before he became Pentagon chief, Donald Rumsfeld was named chairman of the board of Gilead Sciences, where he remained until early 2001 when he became defense secretary. Rumsfeld had been on the board of Gilead since 1988, according to a 1997 company press release.

Rumsfeld holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to his federal financial disclosures. In the past six months, the global rush to buy Tamiflu has sent Gilead's stock from $35 to $47 - amounting to a windfall of at least $1 million for Rumsfeld. And now, with Gilead collecting royalties averaging 10% from Roche's sales of Tamiflu, he is poised to reap more gains for a flu panic his administration has done everything it can to promote.

Gilead Sciences is no small-time biotech startup. Its board today includes Bechtel Corp director and former secretary of state George Shultz (Bechtel is right up there with Halliburton in contracting to rebuild Iraq), Gordon Moore of Intel, and Viscount Etiene Davignon, a Belgian who seems to be involved in everything big and Atlanticist, whether it be Bilderberg meetings or trilateral commissions.

The Gilead model suggests a parallel to the brazen corruption of Halliburton, whose former CEO is Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney's company has so far gotten billions worth of US construction contracts in Iraq and elsewhere. And Cheney's closest political friend is Don Rumsfeld.

It's another example of what someone has called the principle of modern US corrupt special interest politics: '"Concentrate the benefits; diffuse the costs." Bush had ordered the US government to buy $2 billion worth of Tamiflu - that was before his November 1 speech calling for another $1 billion worth.

Small pox, big bucks

It appears that the defense secretary is quite an accomplished hand at getting the government to buy vaccines from companies in which he has a direct financial interest. Recall the scare just after September 11, 2001 when the Bush administration was talking loudly about the "possible" danger of Osama bin Laden (for those of you who may have forgotten who he was, he was the man who was cited as the reason the Bush administration launched its "war on terror") releasing a deadly smallpox attack that would devastate the American population.

Fortunately, the administration was equally vigilant then as it is today against bird flu pandemics. Rumsfeld at that time ordered members of the armed forces to be inoculated against smallpox, an inoculation with horrendous side effects. The package also included injection with a drug named Vistide, to treat side-effects of smallpox infection should it occur.

Vistide was also a product of Gilead Sciences, and Rumsfeld was the person who signed off on the decision to give US troops Vistide. We can be sure that the men and women of the US armed forces will be among the first this time, as well, to get Tamiflu from their ever-vigilant chief. Curious that the Washington Post doesn't investigate this prima facie conflict of interest involving the defense secretary, at a time the media seem to have discovered administration lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are finally worth reporting. Perhaps they think readers can only handle one scandal at a time.

Rummy's Bird Flu Bonanza (Asian Times)

I suggest BuzzFlash readers check out the entire article about The Bird Flu, Iraq Vaccines and Rumsfeld's Windfall:

Then ask your newspaper and Television "news" why they are not reporting this!

Tom Wieliczka
Windsor Locks, CT

Subject: Ode To Grumpy Old Men & Raging Grannies

To all the Grumpy Old Men and Raging Grannies in America:

I salute you. Keep on hollerin' your outrage to your KIDS and GRANDKIDS and neighbors and friends.

The America you know and love and FOUGHT FOR is slipping away on you. Volunteer to get out the vote in '06. Take back your country: YOU BUILT IT!!!!

A Canadian Supporter

Subject: Senator Reid Posturing and Theatrics

Dear BuzzFlash,

I am sorry that I will rain on the parade of delight and happiness for the new found "backbone" of the democrats in the senate. In my opinion nothing concrete will come out of this. It is all theatrics and posturing for the masses to pretend there is "backbone" after that long period of inaction and silence and going with the flow. In the run up period to the war with Iraq, despite repeated assertions, pleadings and letters from experts here in the USA and abroad that there are no WMD found in Iraq so far and at least give the inspectors more time, most of the democrats in the senate and and the house of representative ignored all that and were willing and active participants in the rush to war with Iraq, including our "beloved" senators Kerry and Clinton. It is a lot B.S if those people claim now that they were deceived into going to the war.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: Who Cares What You Think?

Dear Buzzflash,

With approval ratings in the toilet (from whence he came in the first place) this may be the part where we find out it means nothing to Bush. While we gleefully celebrate, he's laughing at us and moving forward with his culture of death agenda anyway. As long as the American people act like sheep with wallets, Bush thinks he can engineer us with propaganda, election fraud, and consumerism. Wake up, stand up, and speak up people! We have the power of the purse. They can't do anything without our money.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: The Avian Flu

So folks, the only known "natural remedy" for the new pandemic that's fixing to land in Your Town, USA," the Avian Flu is apparently something called Chinese Star Anise (an herb used a lot in Chinese cooking) ...

When I googled Chinese Star Anise, I found an interesting FDA Warning, dated 2003, against drinking Star Anise Teas ... From the head of the FDA at the time, a man named Mark McClellan.

So, the only "remedy" against catching Bird Flu that certain people pumping natural foods and holistic medicines feels confident about is Chinese Star Anise, and if "mainstream" people google it, they'll be scared off for sure... Because it's being BLACK-BALLED by the head of the FDA...

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2003/NEW00941.html

But then I thought, wait a sec, that name sure rings a bell... McClellan, hmmm.... McClellan, nahh... Mark McClellan, former head of the FDA, "a physician and economist, (who) joined the Bush administration in July 2001 as an economic adviser to the president", couldn't be ol' Scotty's bro could he? Uh... yuh!

http://www.ashp.org/news/ShowArticle.cfm?id=4253

Oh, seems he's gone and been "appointed" to a different area of government... Where'd he go next? "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services." Yup, McClellan was switched from head of the FDA to head the CMS in February 2004... something to do with Bush needing an administrator "To help beneficiaries afford their prescription medications before 2006, (as) CMS has a June 2004 deadline for implementing a Medicare-approved prescription-drug discount card program."

The last head honcho at the CMS quit his job a week after "Bush signed into law the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003" which, as it turns out, is a goldmine for BIG PHARMA while Poor Americans continue to get the shaft. Hope Mark McClellan, brother of WH Press Secretary Scott McClellan's job performance is to Bush & Big Pharma's liking... As was his performance at the FDA.

Nope, no hint of any cronyism or conspiracy here folks. Back to what you were doing. (Except YOU Mike Moore: YOU GET RIGHT BACK TO WORK ON THAT BIG PHARMA DOCUMENTARY!)

A BuzzFlash Reader

[BuzzFlash Note: This week, Scotty's brother is cutting Medicare reimbursements to doctors but increasing them to hospitals.]

Subject: Terror Alert -- Failing

Is there someone home at the homeland security or is this the calm before the storm? Or is it that Tom Ridge was the most qualified head of anything to run the homeland security. His motivated color schemes of the day made me what they wanted me to be made.... and that is fearful...a little fear won't hurt anyone. However the fear factor of homeland security wore itself thin so another fear was necessary to take its place. the bird flu... so many loose ends and no ties ... I am a little worried about what is next and not resolved. The next president will need an actuary to determine the results of tying together the many loose ends of the fear factors. I am not so sure the terror alert factor is a success or failing.

Ron
Pittsburgh, PA

Subject: The Hypocracy of the Righteous Right - Again!

Regarding the nomination of Judge Alito to replace Justice O'Connor on the Supreme Court, I find it interesting that the Conservatives are insisting so loudly that he "is entitled to a fair up or down vote" when so recently they succeeded in forcing retraction of Ms Miers' nomination - with no hearing of any kind - because she wasn't conservative enough!

If the Liberal side doesn't pick up on that irony and use it, they are wasting our time and money.

Stephen M. Olds
Seattle, WA

Subject: NYT Links

Hey BF,

don't bother putting up NYT links anymore. I for one, wouldn't dream of giving them a red cent after their pathetic attempts at journalism during the last 13 yrs or so. Linking to their 'sign me up' page is tacit approval of their legitimacy. They have none and deserve a dramatic plunge in readership, which just might result in some positive changes in their approach to printing 'all that's fit to print'.

I. Thomas
Portland OR