December 12, 2001

Note: The BuzzFlash Mailbag is updated on an ongoing basis, with the newest material and comments on top. Again, we can only post a small percentage of what is sent to us. Thanks again for your email and your patience.

How many headlines does it take to distract from the anniversary of the Supreme Court's crowning of King George.... Here is what's in the news today, December 12, 2001, many items directed and driven by the whitehouse.

First Arrest in Sept. 11th Attacks
3 month Anniversary Sept. 11th remembrance
Bin Laden tape to be released today
Al Queda/Bin Laden to surrender today
Dick Armey to announce retirement TODAY
John Walker speaks of coming attacks

C-Span mentioned it only once during Washington Journal. It is just amazing to me how these Republicans are running the message. Americans should be concerned and very afraid of these American Taliban.

P Jones
Mesquite, TX

Dear Buzz:

Here are two letters I faxed to the editors of the Washington Post and the New York Times respectively a year ago (neither of them ran, but the Times ran a letter I wrote about the inaugural protests a month later). I am sending them to you to commemorate the first anniversary of the Scalia-led judicial coup.

12/12/00 3:19 PM (before the ruling)

To the Editors [of the Washington Post]:

There is an inherent contradiction in applying an equal protection clause with discrimination. Yet that is just what the US Supreme Court will do if they decide to overrule the manual recount because standards for determining voter intent vary from county to county.

Local county election officials make hundreds of judgment calls in every single election, from registration to ballotmaking to polling to tallying procedures. As is well known, some of these judgment calls have thrown the results of this year's Florida presidential election into serious doubt.

The US Supreme Court should look very carefully before stepping into the thicket; there's a huge mountain behind that little molehill of chad.

Hallie Leighton

12/13/00 12:34 AM (after the ruling)

To the editors [of the New York Times]:

The U.S. Supreme Court argues that since "counties used varying standards to determine what was a legal vote," the Florida Supreme Court ruling was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause: "The state may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over another." Yet by overruling the hand recount, that is precisely what the U.S. Supreme Court has done.

Judgment calls with regard to tallying procedures--in addition to myriad other election issues--have always been made at the local level, in Florida and elsewhere. As is well known, some of these judgment calls have placed the outcome of this year's Florida election into serious doubt. If the Supreme Court's standard of equal protection were to be equally applied, then every single vote in the state of Florida would be invalid.

One cannot apply equal protection in unequal measure. That, quite simply, is discrimination."

Hallie Leighton

p.s. Buzz, here is a directory of links about the ruling I made a few months ago. Most of the links should still work. (By the way In my opinion the most eloquent analysis of Bush v. Gore is Renata Adler's essay in the New Republic in July: "Irreparable Harm: The Unexpected Origins of the Supreme Court's Worst Decision."
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/073001/adler073001_print.html)

SUPREME INJUSTICE

Bush v. Gore
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=00-949

Okay, You Get to Be President. But Don't Say It's Fair
http://slate.msn.com/readme/00-12-07/readme.asp

The Gore Exception: A Layman's Guide to the Supreme Court Ruling
http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Villa/6925/coup.html

Stop Thief
http://www.michaelmoore.com/2000_12_11.html
http://www.michaelmoore.com/2000_12_12.html

Supreme Court to Democracy: Drop Dead
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/14/bush/index.html

The Supreme Court Commits Suicide: Disgrace
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/122500/rosen122500.html

Contempt of Court
http://prospect.org/print/V12/1/kennedy-r.html

The Betrayal
http://prospect.org/print/V12/1/starr-p.html

W's Coup D'Etat
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/121300a.html

The Purloined Presidency
http://prospect.org/print/V12/1/meyerson-h.html

Unsafe Harbor: We Disrespectfully Dissent
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/122500/editorial122500.html

Equal Protection For Whom? From What?
http://slate.msn.com/readme/00-12-14/readme.asp

Not Equal: Don't Judges Watch CNN?
http://www.tnr.com/122500/chait122500.html

554 Law Professors Say The U.S. Supreme Court Used Power Inappropriately
http://www.the-rule-of-law.com/viewad.html

The Supreme Court Ignored and Twisted Precedent
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dorf/20001213.html

None Dare Call it Treason
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010205&s=bugliosi

The Betrayal of America
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/Higdon052101/higdon052101.html

Thanks Bill (Rehnquist), for a job well done
http://news.lycos.com/news/story.asp?section=Politics&storyId=177809

The Myth that Scalia is a Strict Constructionist
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/156/oped/More_activism_and_silliness_from_
Scalia+.shtml

The Supreme Court Pigs Out
http://slate.msn.com/court/entries/01-07-03_111437.asp

Political Cartoonists Weigh in on the Ruling
http://cagle.slate.msn.com/2000/supreme/main.asp

Should one "move on" after an electoral travesty? In the opinion of one conservative, no.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/magazine/mag_6_14_00/kristol_ed_6_14_00.asp

Bandits in Black Robes: Why You Should Still Be Angry about Bush v. Gore
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0103.raskin.html

Oregon Democrats want Supreme Court impeached
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/public_safety/oregonian/
lc_41impea27.frame

The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution
and Chose Our President (None Dare Call it Treason in book form)
America:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/156025355X/o/qid=994483786/sr
=2-1/002-0317817-2940829

Bush v. Gore Blues
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumnew23.htm

Still a Supreme Injustice
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=cobble20010623

Cherished Principles Jettisoned by Conservatives in Bush v. Gore
http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/jul01/stancol29072801.asp

"Irreparable Harm: The Unexpected Origins of the Supreme Court's Worst Decision." http://www.thenewrepublic.com/073001/adler073001_print.html

Hi Buzz:

Gore Vidal's new book, The End of Liberty - Toward a New Totalitarianism, is a bestseller in Italy and it will be published in France next year, however, he cannot find anyone to publish his book in America. As you know, Gore Vidal is a World renowned writer and over the years has written dozens of novels, plays and screenplays and many of his books have been best sellers. He cites the absence in the US as proof of the big corporations' control over society. "What I say the advertisers don't like and the publishers don't like."

Now from what I've read, I grant you he does come down very hard on George Bush and the fact that we have a bunch of oilmen running the country, however does that warrant preventing publication? Why would a publisher not relish the thought of a possible best seller and all money it would make for them?

Lets just take a look at just some of the Books published & printed in the US which totally disseminated the Clinton's, while Bill was our sitting President:

Hell to Pay - The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton
Barbara Olson

The Case against Hillary Clinton
Peggy Noonan

The Death of Outrage
William J. Bennett

Betrayal - How the Clinton Administration Undermined American Security
Bill Gertz

The Secret Life of Bill Clinton
Ambrose Evans-Prichard

Behind the Oval Office
Dick Morris

No One Left to Lie to
Christopher Hutchins

Truth at Any Cost: Ken Starr and the Unmaking of Bill Clinton
Susan Schmidt, Michael Weisskopf

Sell Out
David Schippers

The Clinton Record (Everything Bill & Hillary Want you to Forget)
Kevin Watson

Drudge & O'Reilly's Books

This is not a complete list, just some of the books. I mean, just who are some of these authors, who the heck is this Kevin Watson guy? He rated publication, yet a man of Vidal's stature can't get published here. It is outrageous. This should not be considered just another little blip on our radar screen, this is a disaster in progress.

Regards,
Marlene W.

Dear Buzz,

Subj: Newsweek INSULTS The Military

Check out the image of the U.S. Marine in the December 10 issue of Newsweek on page 40
(New War Tribunal). The (Medals) are on the right side of the chest, Should be on the left side over the Marine heart, The cap depicts the he is a Field Grade Officer.

Click Here to See a JPG of the Newsweek Page

The age of the person who is wearing the uniform looks to be in his 20 and the (Medals) Are WW II medals, The Uniform is the Symbol of Honor and Sacrifice. This is an INSULT to all our Men & Woman in military service, as will as all our veterans.

V. L. "Bud" Ruckman
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin
World War II & Korea War Combat Vet.

Dear BuzzFlash,

The release of the Social Security Commission report on partial privatization of Social Security should be the beginning of an all out effort by every progressive force to battle the move to put our national retirement system into the tender mercies of Wall Street. The answer from us all must be simple: no. No to partial privatization, no to any privatization, no to any plan that includes privatization.

Every conservative "reform" has so far ended in failure - failures covered by American taxpayers. Conservatives reformed the S&Ls, stripping away New Deal safeguards on investment and lending practices. Unregulated free market result: debacle, and a bail out bigger then the cost of World War II. Conservatives then fiddled with electrical power- tampering with the most reliable system of power delivery in the world. Result: fiasco, a phony energy crisis in the west that triggered an early recession in California, and then later the fall of Enron, the largest bankruptcy in US history. Conservatives also engineered the current recession by deregulated telecommunications. Once again they created whirlwind boom and bust cycle. The biggest names in America's high tech field, from Cisco to Lucent have been humbled. After New Deal regulatory mechanisms had brought America the best in telecom, we now have the weakest telecom industry among the advanced economies. In each case, a lack of public over sight, the creation of hyper over-invested and over-bought markets, created an initial boom and then a thundering bust that devastated far more then the people directly involved.

Now our conservative friends want the big enchilada - Social Security. Whatever they say, conservatives have, do and will always hate Social Security. Its a daily reminder of the limits of the free market. Every generation of Americans who retired before the system's launch retired into poverty. Social security and Medicare have largely eliminated senior poverty in America. Our friends on the right do not want you to look forward to a comfortable retirement - with dignity. They want us so desperate that we will be willing to be the old "cart guy" in the Wal-Mart. Destroying Social Security creates a new cheap labor pool - and conservatives love cheap labor.

In the near term it will make them billions. Every share traded must be traded by somebody. Every dollar that the government puts into play creates a fat unearned commission.

Our resistance must be complete, total and overwhelming. Any political leader of either party proposing these "reforms" must be punished at the polls in such away that every politician will get the message: if you embrace privatization you will have to leave politics because you cannot get elected.

Social Security is the crown in the New Deal's crown. Aside from desegregation, it is the Democratic Party's finest achievement. This is a defining moment. If the party, and its allies, rally to the defense of Social Security, politics in America will change. If we do not, the conservatives will dominate US politics for a generation- or at least until privatization explodes the markets and drives a crippled nation back to the left as it did sixty years ago.

Douglas Green

QUOTE:

"Great to have you back. Just don't steal the silverware!"

-- President Bush greeting Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe on a White House receiving line before the Dec. 2 Kennedy Center Honors. The husband of Kennedy Center trustee Dorothy McAuliffe replied, "I have no intention of doing that, sir." A few minutes later during cocktail chitchat with Vice President Cheney, McAuliffe downed a crab cake and said: "We're going to have a great 2002. But since I'm eating your food, let's not talk about 2004."

With Barbara E. Martinez

and other interesting tidbits?.......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22637-2001Dec10.html

Norma

Dear Mr. Bush,

The declaration of a Human Rights Week and a Human Rights Day is a cynical attempt to deflect criticism of the outrageous attacks on our Bill of Rights and the Constitution that have been taken by your administration.

Some of the people may buy in to this, but sooner or later the vast majority of people will get wise to what is going on.

Those of us who are veterans and did not dodge military service, as so many of your supporters and members of the administration did, are not easily fooled by people waving the flag. Nor do we hold in high esteem those that used influence to gain special privileges and then did not serve out their committment.

Ashcroft (a draft dodger himself) has the nerve to imply that those of us who oppose your policies are unpatriotic. Thats right, there are a bunch of unpatriotic veterans of past wars sitting out here who think your policies are opening the door to fascism and a dictatorship.

Well at least we served, and moreover served honorably. We will oppose your policies to the bitter end.

Robert E. Reynolds
Orange Park Fl

Dear Buzz,

DO YOU KNOW that vote.com allows candidates to reach out to voters and promote their agenda and solicit funds-see the attached response to my e-mail to vote.com in response to an e-mail from senator frist-maybe dems should do this too?

Lani Frank

In a message dated 12/11/2001 1:08:40 PM Eastern Standard Time, vote@vote.com writes:

Vote.com offers the same service to all elected officials, candidates and political parties. We do not endorse any particular party, candidate or ideology.

Thank you for writing,
Vote.com staff

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2001 4:12 PM
To: vote@vote.com
Subject: Re: A message from Senator Bill Frist on cutting taxes

i hope you will give equal time to democrats!!!!!

Dear Vote.com voter,

Senator Bill Frist of the National Republican Senatorial Committee asked us to forward this information to you. We do not endorse candidates or parties at Vote.com but we do act as a conduit for those who want to speak to our users.

Vote.com
-------------------------------------

Dear Vote.com Voter,

Thank you for taking the time to vote on Vote.com on important issues and to send your Senators and Congressmen e-mails telling us your views. I'm the Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and I hope you share my belief that our nation would be a lot better off if Republicans had a majority in the Senate.

With a Republican Senate Majority, we can assure that we keep the tax cuts of 2001 in place despite Democratic attempts to roll them back. We need to push further reductions in capital gains and other taxes so that business can grow, free of government interference. Without Republicans in power in the Senate, the tax cuts for which we have all fought will be in jeopardy.

But the Senate is now in Democratic control. We need your help to elect Republicans in 2002 so that we can replace Democratic committee chairmen and put Republicans back in charge.

I'm writing to ask you to contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. We will put your dollars where they will do the most good to assure that Republicans win in swing states throughout the nation. I hope you will give as generously as you can.

Together, we'll make sure President Bush has all the support he'll need from the Senate for the rest of his terms in office.

To donate via our secure online secure online server please visit: http://www.nrsc.org/0500.html

Sincerely,

Senator Bill Frist M.D.

PS If you would like to become an E-Member of the NRSC, please visit:
http://www.nrsc.org/nrscweb/e-activists/emembership.shtml

[BuzzFlash Note: "Terms"? Not if BuzzFlash Readers have anything to do about it.]

Dear Buzz,

No offense, but... what is the extreme significance of the Bush administration honoring so the three month anniversary of the NY/DC tragedies (12/11/2001)? One month, maybe. One year, certainly....

Could it be that they intended to "dampen" reverence for the anniversary of another enormously tragic day for our country and our constitution.... the one year anniversary of 12/12/2000?

I still have not forgotten.

John L. Johnson
Brighton, Michigan

[BuzzFlash Note: For a more disturbing conspiratorial curiosity, consider that Flight 587 crashed on the day the NORC results were released.]

Greetings,

Please, please, please pound this Enron scandal daily! my blood boils with every new bit of info. when will the media whores send out the dogs like they did on whitewater? keep up the good work.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Dear BuzzFlash,

The justices needed to laugh.

Ousted from their building by one of the anthrax scares that swept Washington, D.C., in late October, the U.S. Supreme Court's members appeared glum and disoriented in their temporary courtroom at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. They looked around helplessly for a clock and found one on a side wall. They fiddled with their water pitchers. They learned to live with a finicky sound system.

So, by the time the child pornography case of Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition was called, on Wednesday, Oct. 30, the justices were ready for some comic relief. They got it. Child pornography may not seem like a lighthearted subject, but the justices were soon guffawing over Hollywood movies they'd seen -- "Titanic" and "Traffic" and "Lolita" -- and smiling at Justice Antonin Scalia's pretentious protestation that he had not seen any of them.

Link to Law.com Article

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subj: Will GWB do to American workers what Enron did to theirs?
Date: 12/11/01 8:40:44 AM Pacific Standard Time
From: xxx@xxxxxx.xxx
To: letters@nytimes.com, letters@washpost.com

To the Editors:

I'm waiting to see any meaningful reporting on Enron and the close personal ties between Enron and Bush. I'm waiting to hear the OUTRAGE at what has been done to Enron workers and investors. I'm waiting to hear whether or not a US taxpayer bailout is being planned for Enron. I'm waiting to hear one of your "reporters" ask Bush or Cheney what they knew and when they knew it, regarding Enron's mind boggling FRAUD.

Mostly, I'm waiting for ANYTHING AT ALL that is unflattering to Bush & Co. to be printed in your paper!

In asking these questions am I being unpatriotic or maybe even a terrorist? I really want to know.

Sincerely,
Susan Sanchez
Boynton Beach, Florida

Dear Buzz,

Welcome to a site put together by some Montreal Gazette reporters and editors on their own time. It is part of a protest against the decision by Southam News to force 12 of its major metropolitan newspapers to run "national editorials" written at the corporate headquarters of parent company CanWest Global Communications Corp

http://gazreporters.tripod.com/

A BuzzFlash Reader

Hello,

The following url is to a congressional speech given on 11/29 by ... hold your hats...a Republican, Rep. Paul from Texas...a REPUBLICAN, for god's sake. Let your BuzzFlash readers read it, please.

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2001/cr112901.htm

Sincerely,

David H. Kessel

Dear BuzzFlash,

My prayers would be answered if DeLay and some of the other sanctimonious conservative right wing scandal mongers would also hang up their hats along with Phil Gramm and Dick Armey. America is the better with them all gone, and by the way please take Dubya, Dickie, Ari, Karen and Karl back to Texas with you guys! Democracy would be the winner if they were all gone.

Barbara (Atlanta)

Dear Buzz,

Re: mailbag 12/11/01

This was a good one but so chilling. I learn a little more about Enron every time I read this
site. The thing about Bath and Bush being grounded on the same date, also weird. And, the lie that Dubya keeps telling about seeing the first plane hit the first tower. This man is one important puppet and it scares the hell out of me. I cannot help it, every time I hear something else from the dimwitted media, O'Reilly, Limbaugh and even many on the more intelligent networks, I see the symbols of the Godfather, the Movie, remember?? The Puppet?! It scares the hell out of me, America!

Shirley, St.Louis

Dear Buzz,

First of all, Buzzflash, BRAVO. BRAVO, for pouncing on this treasonous screed (Free Republic's New Traditionalism Project). After my initial recoil in horror as I read it, I did a fast double take because, Eureka, there it was before me, the perfect propaganda platform for counter attacking the Junta and its religio/fascist backers.

Writing as a former propaganda specialist, this Manifesto, together with those wonderful luncheons that Rove has with Weyrich, provide a splendid opportunity for trumping Rover & Co on this patriotism kick of theirs. In all seriousness, if enough prominent American opinion leaders--say Bill Moyers, or Daniel Schor, or Walter Cronkite, would parse the Manifesto and compare it, say, to Osama Bin Laden, or Hitler (names now generally familiar to couch potato heads) they could make Susan Sontag's firestorm look like a fizzle.

Other opinion leaders, especially from the clergy, should also be asked to examine the screed and tell us what it means. The language is dangerously reckless: "We will not try to reform the existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them."

That one sentence alone is worth at least a month of columns, op ed pieces, talk radio and TV chatter--if it is hooked, as it should be, to Rove and the White House. Gene Lyons can surely figure it out, so can Molly Ivins, Bob Herbert, Anthony Lewis, and many others.

Can BuzzFlash help to make it happen, and/or suggest how one mere old woman can light a fuse under the alleged left wing media?

Sincerely,

Marcia Mac Mullan (PS I already contributed.)

Hi,

You might find this observation trivial and picayune, but I was reading a CNN story you linked to...

http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/12/09/GOP.daschle/index.html

...and couldn't help notice how bad the photo of Tom Daschle was.

At first I only saw Daschle's photo at the top, but after reading down into the article I saw the next picture, this one of Dick Cheney.

Daschle's picture looks horrible... complete with what looks like lipstick on his collar! Cheney's picture on the other hand makes Cheney look clean & bright; even tanned!

I can't help but wonder if this sort of thing is done on purpose at CNN and elsewhere.

Anyways... thanks for the continuous supply of interesting stories and articles.

Mia Kulper

Dear BuzzFlash,

I truly find it ironic, that this administration wants to eliminate hemp oil from snack foods but certainly leave the arsenic in our water. I guess the theory is better to kill us than allow us to get high, if getting high is possible with the amounts of hemp oil found in the corn chips. The really "smart" people are making the decisions and we are suffering the consequences.

Barbara (Atlanta)

Folk.

What happened to the investigation concerning the trading of stock futures prior to Sept. 11? Trading that profited those who bet that certain stocks would fall come that day? I've heard that after some digging, it was found that the people who had turned large profits were White House insiders. Is this true? What happened to this investigation? It was big news, and now no one mentions it.

Sincerely,

James R. Smith
Matthews, NC.