June 20, 2002

Important Note: Because we can't always determine your intentions, we need to ask a favor of you when you send us email. If you DO NOT WANT YOUR EMAIL PUBLISHED in the Mailbag or in the Contributors section, please write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the Subject line or at the top of your email. That way we'll know it's just a comment to BuzzFlash. Additionally, if you submit a mailbag item and DO NOT WANT YOUR NAME associated with your submission, sign your email, "A BuzzFlash Reader." If you send email unsigned, we will post your name with your submission, or, if that's not available, your email name (not the full address, just what's on the left side of the email address). Thank you.

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. The opinions expressed in the Mailbag are the not necessarily those of BuzzFlash. Thanks again for your email and your patience.

Dear BuzzFlash,

I seriously doubt that the disc belonging to the master of disinformation Karl Rove -- 'the turd blossom' -- was accidentally lost in the park. Mark Miller in the Bush Dyslexicon points out that the anonymous training video that was mailed to Gore "appeared to be pure Rove -- and was certainly vintage Nixon." (page 44) This was too easy. I hope no democrat's campaign will be changed because of it.

Suzanne Edwards

Dear BuzzFlash,

I hope you've read Maureen Dowd today. Who would have "thunk it." George Bush, the man who sold himself as a "simple man, a man of the people, a man who doesn't like to read, who made C's through college and could still be President" has lied to us. Turns out that his concepts of life come from the great philosophers. Socrates, Aristotle, Plato. He can actually discuss Tusculan Disputations and Nicomachean Ethics, he can pronounce "de'Tocqueville and have a discourse on his observations of "Democracy in America." Tocqueville did interview the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll. It would appear that from that meeting de'Tocqueville was able to devine what the founding fathers were thinking, and our very own "Dubya" you know the one "is the kids reading," derives his ideas from these teachings. WOW

Sally McDonald

Dear BuzzFlash,

Lately, I have been taking a bemused look at our government and the phenomenal amount of information seeming to relate the head honchos to all sorts of misdeeds. Then something came up which puts in all into proper perspective. I mean, the "president" got thru school on a "gentleman's C" (and never would have gotten into Yale had it not been a legacy), never held a successful civilian job, unless you count his term as head of a baseball team where he traded away Sammy Sosa. The VP, the Sec of Defense and a lot of others are leftovers from the regime of a man who is suffering with Alzheimer's, and a couple of other cabinet members are beneficiaries of the Republican jobs for losers program.

Spencer Abraham of Michigan, a sitting senator, was so inept in his first term that he was defeated by a relatively unknown Democrat, despite having out spent her and John Ashcroft was such a bad senator that the people of Missouri voted for a dead man over him. Hence I have now accepted this axiom:

Never look for a conspiracy until you've ruled out ineptitude.

Lucia Campbell

Dear BuzzFlash,

In Florida, Bush Almost Endorses Reno

"Janet Reno's campaign for governor almost got a surprising endorsement Tuesday - from the man she hopes to beat in November," the Bradenton Herald reports. In a speech to high school girls about careers in politics, Gov. Jeb Bush said, "It's about time a woman became governor of the state of Florida." Bush "clarified later to reporters that he in fact had not intended to back the candidacy the only woman remaining in the race for Florida's highest elective office."

A BuzzFlash Reader

Dear BuzzFlash,

I'm sure that the NY Times will not print my letter but I had to share with someone... I feel like I'm going mad.

-- Cliff Seifer

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 18:01:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: Clifford Seifer
To: letters@nytimes.com
Subject: Bush's Trifecta

If I have to hear George W Bush tell someone that he hit the trifecta on September 11th one more time I'm going to be sick.

The horribly unfunny joke, which Bush has been rolling out at fundraising events, goes something like this:

"When I was campaigning in Chicago I told the people that if I were to become the president, we would have deficits only in the case of war, a recession, or a national emergency. Lucky me -- I hit the Trifecta."

That an American President would tell, let alone repeat continuously, such an unbelievably vulgar joke is incomprehensible to me.

What's worse, the supposed qualification to his campaign promise is a canard. He made no such qualifications during the campaign. It was not until August of 2001 that the Bush Administration began to cite exceptions under which they might dip into the Social Security surplus or engage in deficit spending. By that time, deficit spending was a certainty. Fortunately for Bush, the economic slow down was starting to look like more of a recession, his administration was testing the international waters over plans to invade Afghanistan and/or Iraq and hurricane season was approaching. His three exceptions were pretty safe bets.

So there you have it. We have a President who not only sees the deaths of 5000 Americans as a lucky break, but laughs about it publicly. At what point did I enter an alternate reality wherein this man is deserving of my respect or support?

Cliff Seifer, Springfield VT

Dear BuzzFlash,

G.O.P. Is Moving to Slow Action on Tax Loophole
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/18/business/18TAX.html

Have you noticed how the republicans are SO quick to act when it means decimating our liberties or trashing the Constitution but SO slow when it comes to doing what is right and fair?

I've always believed that as a society we have a responsibility to pay for the services we receive - schools, libraries, road maintenance, police & fire protection, clean water, upkeep of our National parks & treasures & yes, even to pay the salaries of our Congressmen & Senators & their staffs. I also believe that any business operating in America also receives many of these same benefits, if not more as businesses are frequently bailed out by the taxpayers, so why do they think they should not have to pay taxes?

If the office building catches fire should our fire department answer? Should those firemen be placed in jeopardy for a company who is not even helping to pay the bill? I think not. I think the company should build private roads for it's executives and workers, after all they surely would not want to use our roads because they certainly don't want to help maintain them. The good part about this is that it will eliminate a substantial amount of money from the political system as it is illegal for any foreign company to make any kind of a donation to a politician or political party. No more lunches, tickets, cash - nothing. They are not allowed to give even a dollar.

So, maybe this is a good thing after all. Maybe we should encourage all companies to move offshore so they have zero political clout. Their executives & employees would also have to come under intense scrutiny because it would have to be determined where their funds came from. Each executive would have to prove that the funds came from or were derived from money made in the US. With a bit of clever work by our Congress we should be able to make it very difficult for them to prove anything & keep them out of the system for years (they are very good at this) - or at least long enough to return the system to some kind of balance.

Linda Kekumu

[BuzzFlash Note: Linda, we've been working on a Perspectives page that speaks to this idea. Your mailbag item prompted us to release it: If You Don't Like Paying Taxes . . .]

Dear Buzz,

A further update to your story on Rep. Westmoreland of Tennessee...Just came on our (Nashville) 5 P.M. news, the ABC affiliate reporting it as an exclusive breaking news story. The police spokesman confirming on live broadcast that in March of this year, Westmoreland exposed himself to two young girls in a hot tub at a hotel here in Nashville, then tried to run when the girls left the tub and told their mother. Their mother followed him to his car, got the license, reported it to the police, who traced the tag to Westmoreland. The mother has not wanted to press charges, but the case is described as "still open" by the police spokesman, Don Aaron. I'm sure this will be in the Tennessean by tomorrow morning. That now makes three known incidents. Thank God for you...

R. Humphreys, Nashville, TN

[BuzzFlash Note: It has been confirmed that Westmoreland committed suicide this morning. A tragic turn of events.]

Dear BuzzFlash,

I just check out your item headlined "Vietnam Revisited? American Troops to Patrol in the Philippines 6/20"

After hearing the Chickenhawks go on about invading Iraq, regardless of what comes, even if we win there, the debacle that Afghanistan is turning into, and then thinking about our freedom to first-strike 60 countries harboring terrorists (but not Saudi Arabia) I can only wonder: Is the US adopting the slogan "Vietnam, but Worldwide" as our official foreign policy?

Jim Pittman

Dear BuzzFlash,

A small plane came within four miles of the WH and immediately two F-16s were scrambled and intercepted and escorted it. The WH was evacuated.

Where were they on 9-11? Why are there no investigations of FAA, NORAD, and the NCC and the failure to respond to the hijackings?

Why was the first interception not made until 10:06 (Flt 93) almost two hours after the first hijackings were known by the Airlines and the FAA?

Why during the 9-11 attacks did WH staff (Cheney, Rice etc) remain in their offices until just prior to Flt 77 hitting the Pentagon at 9:40 almost an hour after the WTC was hit?

Why are the victims, the survivors, and the American public being betrayed?

Robert E. Reynolds, Orange Park Fl

Dear BuzzFlash,

I have just read J. Foster's letter in the June 19 Mailbag where he says that he and his wife are moving to Europe due to current conditions in the U.S. My husband and I live and work in France yet we are American and highly patriotic. We left five years ago when it became obvious to us that the country we love was changing in ways that we could not abide. The extremism of the Republican Party, the corruption of the press, the lack of interest among much of the public, the loss of capitalism to downright thievery, the greed, and religious intolerance were, well, not what we wanted to think of as American values. We perhaps foresaw what has happened since we left.

We often talk about our childhoods and our best memories of our lives in the States. We want to hold on to that. My mother's ancestors came to the new world in 1648 from England. My father was a soldier in WWII. He was there on D Day in Normandy. What my parents represented was, for me, America. We are now trying to be good Americans in another country.

We wish you the best of luck in your new lives. When you arrive in your new community, I'm sure that you will show the people the best of what America can be. It is tragic that America is turning its back on itself.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Dear BuzzFlash,

Just for the record, let's review the Presidential Oath of Office:

"I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and I will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

r

Dear BuzzFlash,

The Bush administration is apparently using the Hamdi case to assert a right to declare any one an "enemy combatant" regardless of where captured or taken into custody and without any review by any court. Only the military at the direction of the president will make this determination. This goes well beyond anything they originally asserted and breaks every promise made about not using these new emergency rules against citizens and about providing some sort of judicial protection even to those facing a military tribunal. They have always made the assertion that they could hold certain prisoners indefinitely without legal recourse. Now they are asserting that this applies to anyone.

They in fact assert that the US judicial system has neither the authority to review this (Hamdi) or any other decision of the military nor to impinge on the president in his capacity as commander in chief. They are arguing that the court should remove itself from reviewing these policies since the court has no jurisdiction over the military or the president when acting as CIC.

This is a further step on the road to the complete subjugation of the American people, in fact it asserts the right to dictatorial powers by the President and his military commanders.

The basis of this is the assertion by the President that we are at war. But we are at war only in the rhetorical sense. It is true that our troops are engaged in combat operations, but no war has been declared nor is the nation in imminent danger of invasion or attack by an enemy army. Other countries, Italy, Britain, France, have and continue to have problems with terrorist attacks. But they have not declared a state of war nor have they suspended all civil rights.

Our President is declaring we are at war, and since this in unchallenged, that having declared we are at war he can now as CIC do as he likes. This is absurd.

Unfortunately, should this case raise to the level of the Supreme Court he may well having backing for this assertion. I would remind you of the recent remarks by Chief Justice Rhenquist

Congress can not sit by and watch this assertion of dictatorial powers. It can not remain silent in the face of tyranny.

Ever since the elections and the fascist tactics used in Florida we have watched an increasing assertion of absolute executive power. Assertions that may well be backed up by a Court that acted to impose its choice of President on the country. A court whose members talk of nothing in the Constitution giving the people the right to elect the President (Scalia) and that in war the laws are silent (Rhenquist). And our President has issued a series of Executive Orders that allows him to rule by decree, even going so far as to include one saying that if Congress objects they can't do anything about it for six months.

You need to act and act now. You need to speak out. This case, if upheld in favor of the Executive and the Military, will establish terrible and terrifying precedents. Don't forget, Hitler also used the courts in Nazi Germany.

Robert E. Reynolds, Orange Park , Fl