July 2, 2002
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Dear BuzzFlash,
The American people didn't learn their lesson with Bush, Sr. in The White House. He left us with a $200 billion deficit that Clinton got us out of.
Bush, Jr. will easily top that. He is on his way to setting an all time record high deficit. He has squandered the nearly $5 trillion surplus that Clinton left us with and has us in deficit spending, after only 18 months in office. He wants to blame it on his "war on terror," but that only cost $1 billion a month.
When Clinton left office, the Dow was at 11,500. It closed Friday at 9,126. That's a loss of 2,374 pts. or 21%. The greed of Enron, World Com, etc. has caused a staggering loss of confidence in the market, and a loss of jobs and life's savings for many. Corporate America was Bush's ticket to the White House and they're still pouring money at all of the fundraisers that Bush and Cheney are attending, to the tune of $100 million so far. How on earth with their busy schedules fighting "the war on terror" do they find time to attend fundraisers 3 or 4 days a week? I guess you just have to make time for the really important things in life.
And now that Bush has ruined the economy, and raped and pillaged the budget surplus, guess what? It's all Clinton's fault. Well, we knew that was coming. Anytime anything goes wrong they blame it on Clinton. Forget that we had 8 yrs. of peace and prosperity under Clinton. Well, what they don't tell you is that Pres. Clinton tried to get Congress to legislate improved accounting standards, but the Republicans blocked it. They couldn't afford to offend their fat cat campaign donors. Let corporate America keep robbing the American people and then avoiding paying taxes by sending their money to some nice little offshore tax haven. What patriotic Americans they are!!!!
This is the most corrupt administration we will ever see. I don't even want to think about what this country will look like after another 2 1/2 yrs. Of the Bush regime. Better fasten your seat belts because it's going to be a very bumpy ride. I just hope we don't crash and burn.
Gigi
Dear BuzzFlash,
Commercial Alert and 26 authors and scholars sent a letter Wednesday to Borders Group CEO Gregory P. Josefowicz, asking him to reconsider his "category management" plan which will likely reduce the range of ideas in print and put small publishers out of business.
http://www.commercialalert.org/PDFs/borders.pdf
(excerpt)
Denied shelf space in a major outlet like Borders, smaller publishing houses will be hard pressed to survive. The Kremlin would have found it difficult to invent a more subtle and effective way of suppressing original viewpoints and ideas.
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L. Fuller
Dear BuzzFlash,
The finale of Politically Incorrect steered away from controversy by focusing on clips of earlier appearances by the final show's guests (Anne Coulter, Arianna Huffington, Michele Phillips, and a comedian whose name I missed). But Bill Maher managed a few nice touches and was probably wishing he had never made his comments about 9/11 and bravery.
What would a Politically Incorrect finale be without Ann Coulter? Maher apparently cajoled her into reading a letter from Barbra Streisand, of all people, which she managed to read without going off into a rant.
Anyway, as much as I grew to be aggravated by Maher's stupid bashing of Al Gore, I have to give him credit for four things:
1) He did manage to call Coulter a "fascist" last night, although in a nice friendly way.
2) He had Greg Palast on once. Even though the whole thing degenerated into a mess and Palast barely got two words strung together, I can't think of any other show that has had him on, can you?? And that includes PBS -- Lehrer or Bill Moyers. Hey, Mr. Moyers, let's get Palast on!!
3) He said he wanted Arianna Huffington to be his first guest on his next show (will that be radio?). His "proposal" was quite good!
4) His parting shots were pretty straightforward. He did get a few licks in at the corporate media. His final words to the audience were: "Be suspicious."
I'm now wondering, where will we ever see Arianna on again?? Haven't seen her on the "mainstream cable" shows in ages . . . Even if many guests were subjected to right wing noise and Maher's often caustic nonsense, at the very least, Maher did get some "opposition" people on that we never saw elsewhere.
I give him credit for that.
Gloria Lalumia
Dear BuzzFlash,
. . . as for why Bush was sedated, a colonoscopy is really not all that painful. The problem was that the doctors had to pull his head out before they could do the procedure.
anon
Dear BuzzFlash,
This is from CNN Money reporting. Take a look at the right side of the page, they have a report of all the companies convicted and under investigation in all these Enron-type swindles.
http://money.cnn.com/news/specials/eyes_on_market/
CNN has blatantly deleted Halliburton!
The same Halliburton who is under investigation for serious allegations of fraud, and their accounting firm is convicted felon Arthur Andersen.
The same Halliburton who was under the helm of none other than VP Dick Cheney.
So CNN has decided to just delete them and pretend Halliburton does not exist!!
Does CNN think Dick Cheney exists?
I certainly hope so, because come Saturday afternoon he is officially president.
Email our 'friends' at CNN and ask them if they knew Halliburton was under investigation for at least a $100 Million dollar fraud.
http://money.cnn.com/services/speakup/
(on the 'Who should we send this email to' click CNNmoney.com)
I know its an online email and no one likes to do those, but just remember that makes your one message 20-50 times more valuable. Ok, if you are too busy go ahead and use this: cnnmoney@money.com
And don't think because its CNN 'Money' its not important. The Business/Money bureaus are where the news/political bureaus are going to look for sources.
And they just deleted Halliburton like it doesn't exist? We have got to hold these folks accountable or NO ONE will!
Thanks
Kelley Kramer
Hi BuzzFlash,
Just in case you have room for this somewhere on buzz, here's god's word. Thanks again for posting my "Choking on a Bush Policy."
Jesus, quoting an earlier writer: "Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, 'This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.'
The number of reported death threats against the judge who issued the "controversial" Pledge of Allegiance decision is astounding. This makes me wonder about their god. Apparently their god favors murder for solving problems. Is this the god we want forced on our young people?
Even if these bloodthirsty god loving Americans remain at the margins of society, what does Congress' action say about American culture? Congress is investing their energies in denouncing our "heathenish" judges, and threatening to enact a constitutional god amendment.
Meanwhile, we’re at war and there is precious little time to debate the Department of Homeland Security bill. Our economy is suffering from a total failure in its regulatory system. A system that was brought to you by the cozy relation between our god loving Congress and swell businessmen. Now, thousands are losing their jobs and retirement plans. 600,000 people in this country still don’t have running water. Inner city and rural schools are falling apart. And pollution controls, because of the hard work from god loving industry lobbyists, are being eviscerated by President Bush. God Bless'em. To all you politicians, please stop trying to change the subject.
My God teaches me children learn first and foremost from our actions. Politicians can save their phony patriotic speeches and grandstanding for the dinner table. When you're on my dime, take care of the people.
Sincerely,
Eric Howard
I sent this letter today to Wm. J. Bennett
Dear Mr Bennett
Hope this finds all well with you and yours.
Interesting links you might profit from, composed by a Vietnam vet: http://www.nhgazette.com/chickenhawks.html
It is particularly interesting in that we now seem to have a national policy of "going Vietnam, worldwide." Or are we not allowed to discuss national policy in the U.S.?
Hey, how many of your kids or your friends kids went to Afghanistan or are slated for Iraq? Or is that a job for the plebes only?
Here's another interesting site: http://awolbush.com/
Funny how you and your friends are the ones who stay home safe, yet speak loudly for war.
And even more of a hoot -- we have phony "Christians" ("Sell what thou hast, give it to the poor, and THEN follow me" -- Christ. Hey what do you think His investment strategy was?), we have phony policy-wonk patriots all -- ALL -- prepared to first rob the public blind, and then send the public's kids to go step on landmines all around the world, making the world safe for Halliburton's balance sheet. Just friggin' beautiful!
Next time you write a book on Virtue and Morality, maybe you can clarify all this for everyone. Seriously, this is the question I'd dare you to answer: Out of say, the Forbes 500, those who would benefit from inheritance-tax repeal, Congress, and the Administration, how many of their kids in total are going to go into harm's way to protect our nation? I'd bet...ummm...Zero. What do you bet?
Thanks for your time.
Jim Pittman
Dear BuzzFlash,
Gee, did the LA TIMES get it right?
Two of the three judges in the case, and the one writing the decision were actually appointed by (gasp!) Republican presidents?
The article I read said one was appointed by Nixon (he's writing the decision)
--one was appointed by Gerald Ford
and one was appointed by Carter.
Gee, it looks like a Republican majority here!!!! The Republican appointed judges led the attack to try to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance.
So why are the Republicans screaming and having George Will exclaiming on This Week that you need to write and FREE up Bushes' conservative appointees as judges? I know they have a web site for this. George Will seems to spew the Bushy propaganda word for word. And unfortunately, their was no Cokie Roberts -- a good journalisti -- to give the viewer a corrected view this time.
Hypocrites are us! The Bush administration.
A BuzzFlash Reader
Dear BuzzFlash,
... who needs Al Qaeda? From the National Security Archives of George Washington University:
In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This document, titled "Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba" was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake "Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington," including "sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated)," faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a "Remember the Maine" incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods "may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government." http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/
Click on http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/doc1.pdf to view the PDF file of the Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum.
Of course, simply because the US military sought approval of a plan to commit acts of terrorism against US citizens and soldiers in order to justify an invasion of Cuba, should not suggest that the Bush administration might have allowed 9-11 to happen in order to legitimize the Bush presidency, let's say. Or to supply a pretext to oust a Taliban regime that resisted placement of an oil pipeline across their country. Or to justify the curtailment of the civil liberties of US citizens.
After all, US authorities really had no way to anticipate the 9-11 attacks. Well, except for
-
prior warnings from foreign intelligence services that proved to be specific enough to have identified the date (within one week), method, targets, and perpetrators of the attacks,
-
captured Al Qaeda plans (provided to the US Embassy and the US Joint Task Force on Terrorism by Philippine authorities in 1995) calling for flight training for Al Qaeda operatives in preparation for crashing aircraft into the Pentagon and US skyscrapers,
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the July 2001 'Phoenix memo' from FBI agent Kenneth Williams that warned of Arab nationals enrolled in flight schools who should be urgently investigated (in a letter written five months before the Phoenix memo, Williams complained that counter-terrorism was 'the lowest investigative priority in the Phoenix Division'), recent reports that the secret eavesdropping program Echelon had been successful in securing details of the pending attacks,
-
really, how could the US government have known? The fact that AG John Ashcroft stopped flying commercial aircraft in July, 2001 (due to a "threat assessment" by the FBI) should not be construed to imply that the FBI knew that something like the 9-11 attacks were about to happen.
I suggest that you keep repeating to yourself,
"It's unthinkable that the Bush administration let 9-11 happen,
It's unthinkable that the Bush administration let 9-11 happen,
It's unthinkable that the Bush administration let 9-11 happen..."
until you are again able to get back to sleep.
Jeff Coleman
Dear BuzzFlash,
Rep. Diane Watson of Calif. hits it right on the head when she said Dubya is heading a shadow government run by his father & Cheney. Why else would a President continue reading to children for more than a 1/2 hr. when he was just informed of the WTC attacks?? Because he knew someone else was in charge -- his daddy ... And brava Watson re: Dubya's IQ -- 88 -- even that seems too high for him!
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inbeltway.htm
Monica Finch
Dear BuzzFlash,
Why don't we hear about the author of the Pledge of Allegiance? Because he was Francis Bellamy, cousin of Edward Bellamy (author of "Looking Backward" and a 19th century visionary of a new political/socialist movement.
Yes - Francis, vice president of the Society of Christian Socialists, was a disciple of his cousin's work. He wrote the pledge to foster the movement. Originally the pledge was taken while extending one's arm straight out front. However, during World War II it was changed to placing one's hand upon the heart when it became obvious that there was a distinctly alarming similarity between the pledge's extended arm salute and the Nazis' "Heil Hitler" salute.
And let's not forget that the words, "under God," were written into the pledge in 1954, when McCarthyites feared the invasive contagion of godless Communism. The words were never in Bellamy's original version. They were merely politically expedient during the post-WWII Communist witchhunts.
Monica Finch
Dear BuzzFlash,
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
-- Theodore Roosevelt
Chewgababy
Dear BuzzFlash,
I had a nightmare in which I saw the American population made up of three groups: beggars, thieves, and workers. Beggars included those that didn't have a job and lived off the public dole or inherited wealth and those that had a job but did nothing to earn their pay. The thieves group included those that in violation of the law stole from the working class and those that wrote the laws to legalize corporate crime to steal from the working class.
In my nightmare, thieves and beggars had conspired to create a government, religion, and economy in which workers slavishly supported the beggars and thieves like bloated queen bees. And then I awoke to find my nightmare was real.
Joe Boyett
Dear BuzzFlash,
Subj: Funeralgate
I just thought about this with all of the other business scandals. It just dropped off the headlines. I went on spring break and there was no more story. Goes to show that people only display outrage at what the wingnuts tell them. Bet there was a story about bush and the owners about to surface..then poof nothing...
Phyllis Jones
[BuzzFlash Note: You can find some information about Funeralgate here: http://www.buzzflash.com/perspectives/2002/Funeralgate.html]
Dear BuzzFlash,
Martisa Vignali quoted Christian scripture, and showed how it directly contradicts the premises of the Greedy Old Party. You can add to that Matthew 19:21-23--
"Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. "But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions. "Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven."
To be "perfect" means without sin. In this connection John 7:8 "...he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."
So, to even be allowed to consider hurting others for their sins, you need to be without sin, i.e perfect. To be perfect, you must first sell what you have, then give it to the poor, and then--then!--follow Christ. I think we have here a practical test for who can possibly be a Christian, and who is merely using Christianity to be "seen of men." Christ never did say "Build up your treasure on earth, follow a good investment strategy, screw the poor--those losers, and tell everyone you follow me."
Which raises this question: If Satan wanted to trick you out of your soul, would he introduce himself to you as Satan, or would he say he is a real Christian?
Jim Pittman
Dear BuzzFlash,
SEC chief Harvey Pitt claims no one gets a pass, the former brokerage and accounting firm lobbyist claims public companies will have to certify their reports.
Well, imagine that?! What's next? Will he require corporations to tell the truth and not steal your money?
Under Bush, the SEC has been so lax that the NYSE and NASDAQ have recently announced they will begin stricter enforcement of their own certification process for corporate financial reporting.
Meanwhile the media continue with the Rove propaganda plan to 'blame it all on the bean counters'.
Hell, no one in the Bush government can connect dots, how can we expect anyone at a corporation to be able to count?
Actually, this is no joking matter. Wall Street is facing a serious crises, and at least half of all Americans have invested their hard earned dollars in publicly traded corporations. Many Americans have retirement funds fully invested in these same companies, be it private funds or public retirement funds. The Florida educators retirement fund lost over $300 million on Enron alone.
Most of us are aware of the outrageous acts of the Bush administration, and these corporate criminals are the 'men behind the curtain'. The same people who funded the election campaign of George W Bush.
So now not only do we have an assault on our economy and the bankrupting of the US government from the Bush Administration, but it's looking like the men running the 'open market' are robbing Americans as much or more!
And right at the crossroads of the government and business fleecing is none other than Halliburton CEO and Vice President Richard Cheney.
This is from the same politicians who promised American voters to 'restore honor and integrity' to the White House.
At this point I would not be surprised to see Cheney, between subpoenas, to propose a national monument to Charles Keating.
Email these folks and ask them for three good reasons why you should buy stock:
newsroom@marketwatch.com CBS MarketWatch (this may get published, be polite!)
Or better yet, ask them for reasons why you shouldn't SELL all your stock!
Kelley Kramer
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Cheney's ex-firm to receive full probe SEC chief promises to pull no punches
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2002%2F07%2F01%2FMN173709 .DTL
The nation's top securities regulator has promised to continue his probe of a Dallas energy firm formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, saying "we don't give anyone a pass" in the larger mission to restore faith in America's boardrooms.
<snip>
Responding to a growing crisis of confidence among investors over questionable accounting by some of the nation's biggest firms, Pitt also said his agency planned to try to make an example of any corporate executives found guilty of fraud by stripping them of their personal assets.
<Snip>
Halliburton acknowledged a month ago that the SEC had started an investigation into whether the company reported $100 million in cost overruns on oil contracts as revenue in an effort to boost profits during merger negotiations with a rival firm.
<Snip>
Critics, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., have questioned whether Pitt is the right man for the job because he was previously a top lobbyist for several Wall Street brokerage firms and the accounting industry.
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See link for full story
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