DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: BREACH OF TRUST
SUBSECTION: MISC. SCANDALS
Revised 8/20/99
MISC. SCANDALS
Health Care Task Force in violation of Federal Advisory Committee Act
Statement backing off middle class tax cut promise because economy worse than he thought, used the same figures from his campaign, approx one year earlier.
Concerning data subpoenaed by Starr, Harold Ickes testified about a conference call with other aides on Sept. 9, 1996, because "the president doesn't want any polling data turned ... over to people outside the campaign."
Harold Ickes - Local 100 Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union - Cosa Nostra
Clinton ordered Ravenwood Hospital in Chicago to change their policy and said that all Medicare payments to any hospital that didn't comply with his order would be cut-off
Perkins Coie (PRC legal representative) incorporated both James Carville's Education and Information Project and Lynn Cutler's Back to Business Committee - notorious for attacking Starr.
Bob Barr: "In fact, if the President has been using government-paid lawyers for personal legal matters, it raises a question of conversion of taxpayer resources for personal use."
Community Development Financial Institutions Fund - over $2 million awarded in no-bid consulting contracts, $2.4 million on outside consultants (10/95-10/97,) millions in grants given to institutions with ties to President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton and fund officials reviewing applications from their former employers.
In 1978, Hillary Clinton invested through Ray E. Friedman and Co of Springdale, IL. (a broker who had been sanctioned for mirrored transactions) $1000 in cattle futures which after trading gave her a net gain of $99,537 Robert L. "Red" Bone, who ran the Springdale, Ark., office of Ray E. Friedman and Co. (Refco), allowed Clinton to initiate and maintain many trading positions when she did not have enough money in her account to cover them.
Each President has had a blind trust completed and in the hands of a trustee at inauguration time except Clinton. Vince Foster, as Assistant White House Counsel at taxpayer expense, was working on the Clinton's blind trust up until his death on June 20, 1993. Three days following his death, the trust declarations were delivered to the trustees, with Vince Foster's "signature" on them. It has been alleged that a number of the Clinton assets were not conveyed to the trust as required.
Understatement of income on Clinton tax returns 1978 to 1995 was $49,870. Whitewater Committee: "The Clintons have explained that errors on their tax returns relating to Whitewater were due to mistakes made by their accountants. The Clintons did not fully disclose, however, all of their financial information to their accountants, did not discuss the details of important financial transactions with them, and sometimes simply ignored their accountants' advice .cannot be dismissed as merely mistakes by the Clintons' personal accountants."
Park-O-Meter owned by Seth Ward, Web Hubbell's father-in-law - received the first loan from Arkansas Development Finance Authority ADFA, signed by Clinton. Web Hubbell was secretary/treasurer. Hubbell also drafted and introduced the legislation that created ADFA. The Rose Law Firm (Hubbell and Hillary Clinton) did the audit and evaluation of the application for POM. The first loan of $2.85 million was not paid back. Park-O-Meter was actually building retrofit nose cone compartments that were being shipped to Mena, AR. These nose cones were allegedly being used to smuggle drugs back into the country as part of the Contra weapons/drug smuggling/money laundering operation.
In 1978, the Clintons and McDougals borrowed approximately $203,000 to buy a 230 acre tract of land on the White River for development. The down payment was made with McDougal borrowed funds and repaid with additional McDougal borrowed funds. The remaining loan was renewed 9 times before being paid off in 1992 (Clinton's first run for the presidency.) In 1979, while Clinton was governor, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission approved the use of federal funds to build an access road to the property. Corporate formalities were ignored.
Resulting from Al Gore's previous work in the Senate, it was announced 6/98 that for environmental purposes, the Navy will work with the private sector to release previously classified data once used to hunt submarines.
Tony Blankely " The measure of a man can be most accurately gauged when one is in daily struggle with him for a number of years. From 1993 through 1996, as Newt Gingrich's press secretary, I was in almost daily political battle with Clinton. I observed, close-up, his lack of scruples in matters small and large. I will never forget that day in September 1995 when Clinton told Gingrich and Bob Dole in the White House Cabinet Room that he recognized the demographic problems facing Medicare and he hoped the budget negotiations would be successful. Later, Dole, Gingrich, and I learned through the reporting of Bob Woodward in the Washington Post that while the president was saying this to us, he was also personally designing the ads that would viciously accuse Newt and Dole of trying to destroy Medicare. But Clinton is not only politically dishonest; he is also intellectually dishonest. In August 1997, Clinton signed into law virtually the same Republican Medicare proposal he had so passionately attacked in 1995."
The White House lost $283,000 from its salaries budget to cover a federal judge's fine levied against former health care director Ira Magaziner.
In an explosive argument at the end of the third day of Schaeffer and Williams' trial in U.S. District Court, prosecutors alleged that Tyson Foods Inc. persuaded former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy in 1993 to halt development of a food-safety policy that would cost the company more than $130 million.
The Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service previously required poultry known to be contaminated with bacteria-laden feces to be trimmed away and discarded but currently allows poulty processors (of which Tyson is the world's largest) to rinse the poultry in chlorinated water or cook it without washing. Bacteria found in fecal contamination, are estimated by government scientists to sicken more than 4 million people each year and cause more than 3,000 deaths. The procedure change was approved by Carol Tucker Foreman, assistant secretary for Food and Consumer Services and sister of former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker. Foreman now says the decision was a mistake that the previous policy was ''a penalty that made the plants take greater care.''
What has been dubbed the "Gore tax" is a 5 percent tax on interstate calls imposed by the FCC to fun Al Gore's plans to connect all public schools to the Internet. The Constitution does not allow federal bureaucracies to levy taxes.
Wayne Hage's ownership of a ranch came with vested taxable water and grazing rights on federal lands passed down to him in a line of succession since the mid-1800s. The environmental movement reinterpreted federal land management, water rights and property law Adjudication lasted 10 years bringing Hage to financial ruin. Hage filed suit and the trial is set for September 28, 1998.
Dr. Cynthia Schneider and her husband Tom hosted a $420,000 fundraiser at their Maryland home July 13, 1995 and now she is nominated for the post of ambassador to the Netherlands.
The 1995 Supreme Court decision concerning Affirmative Action is being addressed by the Clinton administration by changes to procedures so that minority and women owned small firms would get "price credits" in bidding based on statistical "benchmarks."
White House argued in appeals that it is proper for the government to pay attorney Lindsey as well as the White House counsel's office for defending the president in impeachment proceedings. Ken Starr responded "The position being advanced by the White House is quite contrary to what it means to be a government lawyer"
7/2/98 The Nashville Scene Liz Murray Garrigan "The Herald newspaper in Monterey, Calif., recently ran a photograph of the environmentalist vice president kayaking alongside a sea otter in Monterey Bay. Unfortunately, as one letter writer to The Herald noted, the picture caught Gore violating a federal environmental regulation..The letter writer pointed out that it is a "federal offense punishable by up to a $20,000 fine and/or one year in jail for disturbing marine mammals in the [Monterey Bay] sanctuary." The writer went on to point out that visitors to the bay are required to keep at least 50 feet away from the mammals.."
The White House database (WhoDB) of 355,000 names was ordered by Clinton in 1994 to be integrated with the DNC database. The effort was headed by Marsha Scott and involved Erskine Bowles and Harold Ickes. On Dec 7 1993 Marsha Scott: "Both the President and the First Lady have asked me to make this my top priority .Bruce [Lindsey] will be kept fully informed." Mrs. Clinton's involvement is noted in a staff memo to Ms. Scott: "During the demo the First Lady mentioned that she would like to see the Miles Rubin rapid response list in the database." Everybody who got favors or gave money was inputted. Lincoln bedroom overnighters, Democratic National Committee . in the Kennedy Center box, private guests at radio talks -- all are still going in at a rate of 10,000 a month, many with children's names, dietary restrictions, special interests, and almost all with Social Security numbers and addresses Coded notations on thousands of files indicate whether somebody on the WhoDB is black, Jewish, Catholic, Hispanic, of Ukrainian or Chinese or other ethnic descent. (Clinton lawyers have written Congress repeatedly that "the Privacy Act [5 U.S.C. 552a] does not apply" to the White House Office.)
7/9/98 Republican National Committee ".As Bill Clinton closed out his Kowtow Summit in Communist China, his top trade honcho, U.S. Trade Rep. Charlene Barshefsky, snuck away from the entourage and bought at least 40 black market Beanie Babies and smuggled the contraband past custom officials on her way back to the U.S.Beanie Babies are made in China for the Ty company in Oak Brook, Illinois, which strictly forbids the sale of the wee critters in China. Ty lawyer James White likened buying Beanie Babies on the black market to "buying a stolen car." Ironically, Barshefsky's main job is to reduce the U.S.'s $50 billion China trade deficit and protect companies, like Ty, from black market pirating."
7/10/98 Washington Times Paul Bedard ".House Republicans are asking whether Mr. Clinton, who Thursday pushed off part of the cost of a two-state fund-raising trip on taxpayers by hosting "official events," is spending too many tax dollars for political travel and carrying political allies on foreign trips. accountants determine down to the hour how much time the president spends attending to official business as opposed to political business and "pro-rates the costs accordingly." Using Thursday as an example, taxpayers will split the cost of the president's travels with the Democrats: Taxpayers will pay for getting the president into Daytona Beach and home to Washington, and Democrats will pay for his trip to Miami for the Stallone fund-raiser."
WorldNeDaily Sarah Foster 7/9/98 "Observers in a Los Angeles County courtroom received a quick lesson in closed government -- increasingly removed from the people or, as in this particular case, the people removed from the government. In response to an outburst by an unidentified woman, Judge Peter Lichtman ordered the bailiffs and sheriff deputies to remove not only the woman who made the out-of-line remark but the entire audience -- some 45 people in all. The incident occurred during a recent hearing over the city of Long Beach's intention to convert the abandoned U.S. Naval Station into a cargo container terminal, to be leased at a discount rate to China Overseas Shipping Company -- the huge transport operation, owned and operated by the Beijing government.Be that as it may, those at the hearing said they regarded the judge's action as "arrogant." To them it was one more piece of evidence that Americans have lost control over their government. All government. From city hall to the White House -- including the judicial system.
THE SECRET LIFE OF BILL CLINTON by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing Company, 1997), page 241: "...Bill Clinton, of course, handled it all with great sensitivity and savoir faire. "My brother has apparently become involved with drugs," he announced. "A curse which has reached epidemic proportions and plagued the lives of millions of families, including many in our state." His spokesman insisted the Governor never knew his Kid Brother had tried drugs. The spin must have been galling for Hot Springs Detective Travis Bunn. A highly decorated Army Special Forces sergeant-major, it was he who had mounted the original case against Roger Clinton. In the spring of 1984 Bunn had recorded Roger Clinton saying: "I've got to get some for my brother, he's got a nose like a Hoover vacuum cleaner." "
7/10/98 Fox News Channel - post by Freeper Bob Ireland "Shawn Hannity of Hannity and Colmes on Fox News Channel just reported that Lucianne Goldberg would say that there is hard evidence that Bill Clinton said he would lie, that Monica should lie, and she should get linda Tripp to lie."
7/98 Online Progressive Review ". From a chronology of the Whitewater scandal: . . . Clinton's Arkansas security chief, Buddy Young, was described by a judge in a 1990 court case as having a "reckless disregard for the truth." The case involved charges made by Young against Contra drug connection whistleblower Terry Reed. The judge declared that "no jury could find by reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty. There are too many holes in the chain of proof." Buddy Young was subsequently named by Bill Clinton to a $92,000 a year job in the Federal Emergency Management Administration."
7/13/98 Washington Times John McCaslin ".During the Lawrences' tenure in Switzerland, where Mr. Lawrence served as ambassador from 1994 to 1996, "the State Department apparently authorized the Lawrences to raise funds, including through a private Lawrence foundation, for the purposes of refurbishing the ambassador's residence," Mr. Zaid notes. "Although items purchased through this effort were considered property of the United States, after the ambassador's death, witnesses reported that Mrs. Lawrence took many of the items obtained through the refurbishment for her personal use," he says. "When she left, they literally had to go out and buy everything again," Mr. Zaid tells this column. It could be a while, however, before he knows for certain.."
7/15/98 Press Release "July long distance phone bills will be five percent higher thanks to a new tax instituted by the Clinton/Gore bureaucracy, U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho) said today. Chenoweth is an original cosponsor of legislation to eliminate the tax, which was imposed by the Administration without congressional aproval.."
Los Angeles Times 7/15/98 "Democratic Party circles are abuzz about the disappearance of gift certificates from a California shopping mall company and the subsequent admission by a Democratic National Committee regional finance director that she used them for clothing and shoes. After mall personnel notified the DNC, committee officials insisted that the offender confess and make restitution. She did so and KEPT HER JOB (ahhhhhhh)."
A Whitewater Researcher 7/17/98 ".Corrupt Chicago Democrat mayor Richard M. Daley has been a crucial, early backer of Clinton since 1991. Daley's brother William is Clinton's secretary of commerce. Richard M. Daley is himself the target of at least five Federal corruption investigations: 1) Silver Shovel, investigating general corruption in Chicago city government; 2) Haunted Hall, probing ghost payrolling in Chicago City Hall; 3) Broken Star, investigating corruption in the Chicago Police Department; 4) Daley and George, probing influence peddling in the Daley family law firm; and 5) O'Hare, probing skimming and kickbacks from contracting and payrolls at O'Hare International Airport. Today, the Chicago Tribune reports on Richard M. Daley corruption at O'Hare. Excerpt: ...after a series of scandals at O'Hare involving juicy no-bid political contracts going to mayoral buddies, City Hall figured out it had a public relations problem.... "
The Washington Times 7/17/98 Doug Abrahms "James Sasser, the current U.S. ambassador to China, received $1 million for helping to secure a government lease on the Portals office building, a transaction being investigated by Congress and the Justice Department for links between the building's developer and Democratic officials. Mr. Sasser was paid $1 million in 1996 by Tennessee developer Franklin Haney, according to documents turned over this week to the House Commerce Committee, which is probing the Portals deal. Mr. Sasser, who served three terms as a U.S. senator from Tennessee before his defeat in 1994, is the second prominent Democrat known to have collected money for work on the Portals, the Washington office."
FoxNews Gary Aldrich on Drudge ".ALDRICH:......"In the early months of the...the fact of the matter was, there was a seven page memo written by the people in the White House counsel's office exploring the notion of getting the Secret Service out of the White House and putting the FBI in instead." DRUDGE: Gary, how many--- I've been told that---it's my understanding about 50% of the detail has asked to be transferred out under Clinton. ALDRICH: I think that's a fair estimate based on my knowledge and what I saw when I worked in the White House until 1995; the summer of '95 I left."
Washington Post John Mintz 7/27/98 "The congressman was under pressure from one of American business's most persistent executives, and he sought then-national security adviser Anthony Lake's help satisfying the businessman. "Can you make Mike Armstrong happy?" then-Rep. Toby Roth (R-Wis.) asked Lake in 1996 as the pair drafted a law affecting satellite exports to China, according to newly released White House papers. Lake and others in the Clinton administration did indeed make C. Michael Armstrong happy. ."
Jerusalem Post 7/24/98 Thomas Sowell "THE ALICE-IN-WONDERLAND QUALITY of discussions about the investigation of Bill Clinton is nowhere better illustrated than in the moral outrage expressed in the media against Linda Tripp for having secretly taped Monica Lewinsky. Many of those who work themselves into a sweat over this show nothing like the same outrage at the attempt to get Ms. Tripp to commit a felony to protect the president. Neither your life nor my life, nor the future of this country, will be affected in the slightest by whether Linda Tripp is naughty or nice. But if any president is able to commit crimes with impunity by using the vast powers and perquisites of his office to cover up, then we will have a danger of corruption and abuse of power that can only grow with the passing years and generations. Those who wrote the Constitution of the United States understood this all too well. That is why they limited the powers of government and then split up those limited powers among three different branches -- making sure that nobody in any of these branches was above the law. Those limitations have already been dangerously eroded over the past few decades."
The Winds Website 8/1998 "The only church in history to have its federal tax-exempt status revoked is a small country church in Vestal, New York called The Church at Pierce Creek. Their crime that resulted in that revocation was simply mentioning the name of then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton in an advertisement the church placed in USA Today and The Washington Times. Colby May, the ACLJ attorney representing the church, told The WINDS that the church "ran into trouble with the government...soon after the 1992 election" because of the "rhetorical question they ask at the very end of the newspaper piece...'how can we then vote for Bill Clinton?'. "Does anybody in America really believe," Colby May asks rhetorically, "that churches are NOT entitled to take moral stances on the issues of the day--even though it may cross swords with somebody's politically correct agenda? Churches were used to actually raise money for Jesse Jackson's campaign--but nothing has ever been done to those churches, so you have to ask how come.".When a federal court, according to May, finally ruled that the IRS must submit to discovery, "we found out, as we had thought, that the government had never before revoked the exemption of a church--we're talking about a bona fide, brick-and- mortar church--a 501(c)(3) organization. Not just an exempt organization such as an educational group or animal protection society, or whatever. We're talking about a real church that marries and buries and has worship services and Bible studies and so on. "Along with this we found that the government had engaged in some very disturbing activity. They were doing drive-bys where surveillance was conducted by the IRS of the Church at Pierce Creek to photograph the church building and Pastor Little's residence at various times."It also turns out that according to IRS investigator notes taken during the inquiry, that they had actually begun this action due to an editorial in the New York Times questioning as to whether running such an ad violates the church's political speech restriction clause in their tax-exempt agreement."As a result of the Times editorial the IRS included pejorative language in their reports, such as 'militant right' or 'radical Christian right' to describe the church--terms that were never used in the actual New York Times editorial."To us this revealed that the government really had an ill motive in picking on this church.".Ironically, the IRS tax code Section 508(c)(1)(A) entitled, "Special rules with respect to section 501(c)(3) organizations" specifically exempts churches from the restrictions enumerated under 501(c)(3). "Since only in 501(c)(3) do you have the restrictions about political activity," May elaborated, "churches are exempt organizations, and don't even have to abide by the restrictions of 501(c)(3)."
Freeper followup note on the above: "Pastor John Hagee in Texas, who has 13,000 members of his church is also being defended by the ACLJ. Pastor Hagee calls them the way he sees them, and he has Billie a sinner many times from the pulpit. He wrote a book called Day of Deception He tells about how are government is decieving us and the darkness around us. In Matthew 24 it states that the cardinal indicatorof the terminal generation would be deception. The first 5 chapters are about deception in government. They are about Hillary and Bill--The death of Vince Foster, The village wants your children, etc. This for some reason did not set well with our dictators. So he sent the post office after him. They won't let him mail his monthly magazine under the non-profit status. They claim that taking people on a trip to the Holy Land has nothing to do with religion, nor did a lecture on Matthew, or something similar I can get the exact issue if desired, have anything to do with the church. So he must mail first class postage."
Washington Times Greg Pierce 8/20/98 ".Larry Klayman, chairman of the legal group Judicial Watch, has offered to help out White House staffers duped by the boss. "The White House staff, which in the past has unfairly accused Judicial Watch of being partisan, should now take the following offer into account," Mr. Klayman said yesterday in a prepared statement. "Given claims by the White House staff that they didn't know that the president had lied, and given their claimed large expenditure of legal fees to prepare for and defend recent grand jury proceedings, Judicial Watch will offer to represent any White House official who wants to pursue legal remedies for reimbursement from President Clinton of these claimed expenditures. "As a condition, the White House staff member must not have taken money from political or lobbyist donors or legal defense funds to defray their legal costs, which is prohibited (a federal employee may not accept money or gratuities from the public)." Mr. Klayman added: "Judicial Watch makes this offer in good faith, because if the claims of the White House officials are true --that they were not told the truth --then they were defrauded by the president."."
St. Petersburg Times Philip Gailey 8/23/98 "If it felt a little warmer than usual in Hawaii, where Vice President Al Gore has been vacationing, it may have had less to do with global warming than with the heat being generated by a Justice Department investigation of the Clinton-Gore campaign's fund raising in 1996.This one would focus on political money, not sex, and from the looks and smell of it, it could turn out to be one of the most corrupt fund-raising scandals in decades.According to a report in the New York Times last week, Justice Department investigators have obtained a 1995 memo with handwritten notations by a senior vice presidential aide that appears to contradict Gore's account of his fund-raising role. The notations indicate that Gore and top campaign aides discussed how some of the large contributions he was soliciting could be diverted from general party use to accounts directly controlled by the Clinton-Gore campaign committee, which would be illegal. "Count me in," Gore told his aides, according to one notation.."
Freeper Report Fox News "The O'Reilly Factor reporting that FOXNEWS has obtained information that Starr has proof showing that the White House logs have been tampered with. The logs were doctored to show Bettie Currie checking Monica Lewinsky into the White House rather than Bill Clinton. Salvatore Martoche, a former federal prosecutor says that if this is true, it is OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE and that the White House logs can only be altered AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS.."
The Bulletin's Frontrunner 8/28/98 Business Week (9/7, Dwyer) "Business Week (9/7, Dwyer) reported the year former Sen. Jim Sasser (D-TN) worked for developer Franklin Haney before becoming Ambassador to China "and the $1.8 million Haney paid Sasser during that period, may come back to haunt" him. The Justice Department, the State Department, and House and Senate committees "are all looking into various aspects of Sasser's work for Haney, and whether it was properly disclosed." In August, Sasser " 'unofficially' notified the State Dept. of his desire to leave Beijing at the end of the year." Sources say that Justice is "investigating two of Haney's real estate deals in which Sasser served as an adviser," the Portals II building in Washington, DC and "a Haney-owned building in Chattanooga that is leased to the Tennessee Valley Authority."."
LA Times 9/1/98 Ronald Brownstein "Throughout Bill Clinton's presidency, the steadily rising stock market has both symbolized and sustained a powerful resurgence in broad-based optimism about the United States' direction and economic future. That optimism, in turn, has bolstered Clinton's popularity -- even amid the most damaging scandal of his presidency -- and strengthened incumbents in both parties heading into November's midterm election...
New York Post 9/1/98 "For several years, pundits have been predicting the stock-market correction that now seems in full throttle. So why, we wonder, did the vertiginous slide in the American markets only begin on Thursday? After all, the Asian stock-market collapse began more than a year ago, and the now-toothless Tigers of the once-terrifying Pacific Rim have been bleeding steadily ever since. Here at home, there have been pronounced warning signs of an economic slowdown since June. The answer is inescapable: The meltdown of President William Jefferson Clinton has rattled investors, and done so in a way that troubling economic statistics and Asian crises could not. .."
New York Post 6/96 Steve Dunleavy ". "Now that the Clinton people are going to jail, maybe my husband will finally go free," Mary Lou Dumond told me in Little Rock. Her husband, Wayne Dumond, 49, has just spent his 11th year in an Arkansas jail. Many say that Dumond is the victim of one of the most bone-crunching and infuriating examples of Clinton-clan justice the country has ever seen. .A 17 year-old girl says she was kidnapped and raped on Sept. 11, 1984, in Forrest City, Ark. Dumond, father of six, Vietnam veteran, churchgoer, was convicted in August 1985 of the rape. He was sentenced to life PLUS 20 years..But now the clincher: The father of the girl is a millionaire and one of Clinton's biggest contributors. But guess what? The girl is Bill Clinton's cousin. And her mother worked as part of Clinton's inner circle when he was governor..On March 7, 1985, while Dumond was awaiting trial, two masked men with guns and knives burst into his house. They hog-tied him. They raped him. And then, with surgical scalpels, they castrated him. .The outrageous identifying scam was exposed by a local cop who witnessed it all. Deputy Sheriff Henry Leary had the guts to go against his own and told the world of the scenario. Dumond was still convicted. "Oh yeah," Dumond told me, "she identified two other guys who were the rapists. They had an ironclad alibi. Then it came to me." Dumond was still convicted. Gov. Clinton remained silent. But of course at the time nobody knew that the girl was Clinton's cousin. The Governor didn't mention it. After 4.5 years, with his freedom gone, his manhood gone, a five-person parole board recommended that Dumond go free for time served. John R. Steer, managing editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, records the following reaction from then Gov. Clinton: "Clinton had a romping, stomping fit. The victim was a distant cousin and St. Francis County [where this all took place] had a lot of votes and he deeply resented the pressure to free Dumond." Clinton refused to sign a release. And Dumond rotted..The Dumond's later won a lawsuit "of outrage." They cleared just $20,000 from the settlement. This money came in handy however, because someone burned down the Dumond house when the couple were in hiding from vigilantes. No insurance was paid on the home..Fred Odam, a retired Arkansas State Police captain told me, "This was and still is a very bad day for justice." Odam witnessed Sheriff Conlee retrieving Dumond's testicles and later investigated the sheriff for the FBI. " I have been working to get that boy Dumond free for a long time. In all my time this is the one case when I know a man is not guilty."."
Citizens for Honest Government Pat Matrisciana 1995 New Clinton Chronicles ".DON HEWITT ( Executive Producer, " 60 Minutes"): And they came to us because they were in big trouble in New Hampshire. They were about to lose right there and they needed some first aid. They needed some bandaging. What they needed was a paramedic. So they came to us and we did it and that's what they wanted to do. When I told Tim Russert that I was persona-non-grata at the White House, he said, "Why?" I said, "The Gennifer Flowers interview." He said, " You got him the nomination." I said, " I know that." As far as I know from the conversations I've had, Bernie Nussbaum knew that, Gergen knows that, Lloyd Cutler certainly knows it 'cause Lloyd had a hand in his coming on that night. You know it was strong medicine the way I edited it but he was a very sick candidate. He needed very strong medicine, and I'm not in the business of doctoring candidates but he got up out of a sick bed that night and walked to the nomination .."
From Freeper noumenon Ayn Rand, Francisco's "Money Speech" Atlas Shrugged "."When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed."."
AP Kevin Galvin 9/4/98 "A preliminary Federal Election Commission report has recommended that President Clinton's re-election campaign be required to repay $13.4 million in federal matching funds received during the 1996 primaries for violating rules governing so-called issues advocacy ads."
Newsweek 9/14/98 Daniel Klaidman Mark Hosenball "Dianne Feinstein didn't hold back. At a routine Capitol Hill luncheon for Senate Democrats last week, the conversation was dominated by one subject: Bill Clinton's troubles. Feinstein had begun publicly criticizing Clinton in the days after his admission of an affair with Monica Lewinsky. Now, behind closed doors and in the company of her peers, the usually cool Californian became emotional. Fighting back tears, she said Clinton had looked her in the eye and lied. She was, she said, deeply angered and disappointed. The room went silent.."
Baltimore Sun 9/6/98 C. Fraser Smith "Gov. Parris N. Glendening chastised President Clinton yesterday for failing to provide a positive role model for American youth and confirmed that an invitation to Clinton for a Glendening fund-raiser next month has been withdrawn.."
Washington Weekly 9/7/98 Carl Limbacher ".Appearing Aug. 12 on the Bob Grant Show (WOR Talk Radio Network),Zaccagnini responded to our question about what his client might know regarding matters under investigation beyond Monicagate, saying, "There are other issues that Ken Starr is investigating that Linda has provided testimony on because she was asked - not necessarily by the prosecutors -- but by members of the grand jury. "By some accounts, Tripp spent more than half her time before Starr's grand jury answering questions about Travelgate and Filegate. In her only public remarks since her testimony, Tripp spoke of the "dangerous" information she possessed regarding potential crimes by high administration officials that came to her attention over a period of five years. But the revelation that it was the grand jurors themselves, and not Starr's prosecution team, that drove the non-Monica line of questioning suggests a general lack of interest in these other matters within the OIC -- at least as far as Linda Tripp is concerned..Others knowledgeable about Linda Tripp's experience with Ken Starr do not see it that way. Lucianne Goldberg, who called into MSNBC late Friday to debate the issue with John Gibson's guest Larry Klayman, says Tripp herself changed her mind about testifying before Judicial Watch: "Linda Tripp only said no to Larry Klayman -- for all the good work he's done -- because her testimony would have grossly and dangerously affected all the work that Judge Starr has been doing all these years." For the sake of the country, one hopes Lucianne Goldberg is right. One hopes Starr isn't covering up for the FBI. And that Larry Klayman will be able to get Linda Tripp's full testimony after Starr files his impeachment report with the House Judiciary Committee. Still, even if Lucianne Goldberg's faith in Ken Starr turns out to be justified, Americans are owed an explanation for why Craig Livingstone, who executed perhaps the most massive invasion of privacy in modern American history, and misused the FBI to do it, remains to this day free as a bird. "
2/20/95 Marvin Lee Interview of Judge Jim Johnson Washington Weekly "MR LEE: Judge Johnson, you were instrumental in obtaining and publicizing the statement from Colonel Eugene Holmes, former commander of the University of Arkansas ROTC program, denouncing then presidential candidate Clinton as potential commander-in-chief. What made you decide to get involved? JUDGE JOHNSON: To save my country from Bill Clinton! . MR. LEE: In your assessment, has Bill Clinton committed indictable crimes in Arkansas or in Washington, and is there currently sufficient evidence for an indictment? JUDGE JOHNSON: Yes.. MR LEE: Allegations against Bill Clinton include his use of State Police for personal purposes, even to the extent of framing political opponents. If such activities indeed took place, how could they go on for such a long time? Was it due to a lack of ethic laws, lack of oversight by the legislature, the judiciary, and the media, or was it due to the ability and willingness to threaten dissenters? JUDGE JOHNSON: All of the above..You are not dealing with a normal person when you are dealing with Clinton. He is not controlled by character and truth, but by cunning instincts for survival and political expediency. Give him an inch and he will beat your brains out! He is capable of causing a Third World War, martial law, or whatever to maintain his position of power. Full scale Congressional hearings, on the order of Watergate, should commence tomorrow! MR LEE: Judge Johnson, thank you so much for your time."
Chicago Tribune 9/6/98 William Neikirk Ron Eckstein "Ray LaHood knows how to hit a guy where it hurts. The Republican representative from Peoria said he intends to propose that President Clinton bear part of the $40 million-plus price tag of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's investigation. After Clinton admitted he had an inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky seven months after his deposition in the Paula Jones suit, LaHood reasoned, he in effect ran up the costs of Starr's investigation. Big time. Besides, LaHood said, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) had to cough up $300,000 as a penalty in the ethics probe against him. "If it is good enough for the speaker, it's good enough for the president," he said ."
Investor's Business Daily 9/8/98 ".Stranger still is who ended up in charge of the federal review of the Teamsters election: Milwaukee lawyer Barbara Zack Quindell. Both Quindell and her husband are members of a progressive fringe group called the New Party. Quindell's husband was also active in Citizen Action. When evidence came to light last summer of a small donation from the Teamsters to the New Party, Quindell stepped down from her post. Still, questions remain. How did a member of a fringe party connected to the Teamsters come to lead the investigation into the Carey campaign? Switch now to a second scandal, involving alleged espionage against the U.S. Two Washington-area residents are being held at a detention center in Alexandria, Va., on charges of spying, awaiting trial in early October. They are the husband-and-wife team of Theresa Squillacote, a lawyer last employed by the Defense Department, and Kurt Stand, an official with an international labor organization and also an officer in the Democratic Socialists of America. The charge? Spying over the past 20 years for East Germany and the Soviet Union, and for shopping their services to the South African Communist Party. For most Americans, any news about the Democratic Socialists of America might seem like a blast from the past. Yet the DSA is alive and well, with at least some of its members ready to act on their desire to substitute a socialist nirvana for American democracy.. At the White House, the spy scandal promises embarrassment or worse. Squillacote's rap sheet may include charges of espionage, but her resume includes a Reinventing Government award from Vice President Al Gore. As a staff attorney with the Defense Department's acquisitions office, she had routine access to classified documents. During one of Squillacote's final meetings with a person she believed was an official of the South African Communist Party - in fact, an FBI agent running a ''false flag'' sting operation - she bragged about having had a job interview with the Office of Management and Budget, which happens to be housed within the White House complex. According to an FBI affidavit, Squillacote told her would-be spymaster that once in OMB, she could work her way into a National Security Council position ''within 24 months.'' Spies in the White House complex, a stolen union election, fringe parties espousing socialism, groups serving as conduits for illegal campaign contributions - it has all the makings of a summer beach novel. But this too-strange-to-be-true tale is bubbling just beneath the surface of official Washington.."
9/9/98 Landmark Legal Foundation "..Landmark Legal Foundation today filed a formal petition with Federal District Court Judge Susan Webber Wright asking the court to hold an immediate hearing into possible contempt of court by President Bill Clinton. .In its filing today, Landmark pointed out several occasions in which the President provided apparently false testimony during his Jones deposition. Moreover, the deposition was unique in that the judge personally presided over it. 18 U.S.C. Sec 401 provides, in part, that: A court of the United States shall have power to punish by fine or imprisonment, at is discretion, such contempt of its authority, and none other, as - (1) Misbehavior of any person in its presence or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice... "
New York Times 9/21/98 Felecity Barringer "The man known as Deep Throat is a singular figure in American culture, credited with being the source of explosive articles written by the reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they unraveled the Nixon administration's abuses of power. Named for a pornographic movie, this furtive truth-teller may be the first pseudonymous American hero not conceived in a comic book. Unmasking the man who met Bob Woodward in underground garages in the book and the film version of "All the President's Men" has been an intermittent journalistic quest. Now David Obst, the former literary agent for Woodward and Bernstein, writes in a new book that Deep Throat was a composite, a plot device to fit the narrative needs of the book and the film. Deep Throat's information was often bad, Obst said, and his melodramatic warnings that Woodward and Bernstein's lives were in danger were fantastical.."
Weekly Standard Fred Barnes 9/21/98 "SINCE REPUBLICANS TOOK CONTROL of Congress in 1994, Democrats have pursued a simple strategy in congressional investigations of President Clinton: obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. In 1995, they denounced the Senate Banking Committee probe of the Whitewater scandal as partisan, then impeded its progress. They took their marching orders from White House aides. In 1997, when Republican senator Fred Thompson chaired hearings on campaign-finance abuses, Democrats acted in the same way. Ditto when the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee looked into illegal election fund-raising. But now, as the House Judiciary Committee takes up the impeachment of Bill Clinton, Democrats have promised to be non-partisan and not toe the White House line. Why the change? The reason is Dick Gephardt, the House Democratic leader.. Gephardt concluded the president was on the verge of leading the Democratic party to an election disaster in November's mid- term election, just as he had in 1994. So the smart thing for House Democrats was to declare their independence from Clinton in hopes of minimizing their vulnerability. Which is what Gephardt did. Also, he believes independent counsel Ken Starr's charges against Clinton are serious, will be taken as such by the public, and should be treated seriously on Capitol Hill. ."
Washington Post 9/24/98 Steven Mufson John Berry "A huge private investment fund run by Wall Street legend John Meriwether and two Nobel Prize-winning economists teetered on the verge of collapse yesterday as losses mounted on more than $100 billion of bets it made in financial markets around the world. In an attempt to avoid a new bout of global market turmoil that might be caused by a fire sale of the fund's assets, chief executives and other top officials from two dozen of the world's largest banks and brokerage firms spent six hours hammering out a preliminary agreement yesterday at the New York Federal Reserve Bank to provide a rescue plan of more than $3.5 billion for the Greenwich, Conn.-based fund, called Long-Term Capital Management L.P.."
AP 9/28/98 Jim Abrams "Weak internal controls have led to numerous cases of fraud and embezzlement in the Pentagon office responsible for handling billions of dollars in contracts every year, according to two congressional reports issued today. The reports from the General Accounting Office, the investigative wing of Congress, cited more than a dozen cases of fraud this decade involving the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.."
Cincinnati Enquirer 9/28/98 Patrick Crowley "Like the Democrats needed this, this being the indictments of four people who worked in the 1995 election of Gov. Paul Patton..Piled on top of that is the bombshell news last week that four people who helped get the governor elected -- among them his top aide and three men involved with organized labor and the Teamsters Union -- are accused of breaking election laws.."
New York Post 9/25/98 Maggie Gallagher "Can I tell you a little story? I warn you, I don't know how it ends yet. Maybe I never will. Once upon a time - in fact a day or two after Vince Foster died - a man called the White House Counsel's Office. "This was not a line that kooks typically rang us up on," my source told me. Lunatics call the main office number. This guy called one of Vince's assistants directly. The man said he had some information that might be important. Something had upset Vince Foster greatly just days before he died. Some thing about "tainted blood" that both Vince Foster and President Clinton knew about, this man said. "I'm only telling you this now because Vince Foster was very distressed about this only days before his death," the mysterious caller (whose name I am withholding) said. "I'm not saying this caused his suicide. I'm only saying it might have contributed to his distress and I thought someone should know." The White House Counsel's office didn't pay much attention. "Probably a kook', they agreed around the office. Probably. Except that when his computer name was typed into the computer log of phone calls for Vince, something strange happened. The computer flashed "password required" or some such phrase indicating a special code was needed to open that file. "Aw, probably just a computer glitch, "Bernie Nussbam, then chief White House Counsel, said at the time. And so the matter, as far as I know, was dropped. A strange little memory fragment, meaningless in itself, no? Until last week, when a story published in The Ottawa Citizen suddenly jogged it front and center. "HIV BLOOD CAME FROM ARKANSAS JAIL," the head line screamed. Then, The Ottawa Citizen reports, "A U.S. firm with links to President Clinton collected HIV-tainted blood from Arkansas prison inmates in the 1980's and shipped it to Canada, newly uncovered documents reveal... It is like several hundred, perhaps thousands, were infected by the tainted products."."
WorldNetDaily David Bresnahan 9/25/98 ". The "Utah Schools and Lands Exchange Act of 1998" sounds uncontroversial, and that is the apparent reason no one objected to it. The story of how this bill passed the House and is now ready to be slipped through the Senate without debate is a lesson on how the game of politics is played. In September 1996, President Bill Clinton, running for re-election, stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon in Arizona and with the stroke of a pen signed an executive proclamation making 1.7 million acres of land in Utah a new national monument. His actions were clearly political, and were orchestrated by former Clinton political consultant Dick Morris. Reaction from Utah Republicans and Democrats alike was immediate. Clinton had acted without prior notice and without public hearings as required by law, echoed every Utah politician. Elected officials from Republican Gov. Mike Leavitt all the way down to the local leaders in the area of the monument banded together. Before long lawsuits and other efforts to reverse the action were underway. On June 24, 1998, the outrage ended when Rep. James Hansen, R-UT, presented H.R. 3830 before only a handful of House members for approval under unanimous consent. There was no debate. There was no quorum. No one asked for a roll call vote. By voice vote of those present the bill was passed and sent to the Senate without any objection. If only one congressman opposed the action it would have been stopped. Preparations are underway for a similar vote in the Senate virtually any moment. House members were told there was nothing controversial about the bill. Senate members are being told that everyone in Utah wants the bill passed. Formerly outspoken opponents are now mysteriously silent, and some have spoken in favor of the bill..There is one other source of high- compliance coal. It is being aggressively mined on the island of Kalamantan in Indonesia. The mine is reported to be owned by the Red Chinese army and the Lippo Group. James and Mochtar Riady, partners in the Lippo Group, have been implicated in the growing Clinton campaign election scandal..The bill has been sent to the Senate where it has been quickly passed through committee and is now waiting to be called for a vote. It is expected that the same quiet tactic that was used in the House will be applied again. A motion will be made to bring the bill forward for approval by unanimous consent at a time when very few members of the Senate are present. "We are not aware of anyone who objects to the bill being passed," said a staff member in Hatch's office. "It's really pretty simple to understand and senators have a lot more to worry about." .
Washington Weekly 5/98 "When young Bill Clinton in 1974 made his first run for political office, a crucial $10,000 loan was arranged for him by his uncle, Raymond Clinton. Uncle Raymond has been tied by Clinton biographer Roger Morris to the Hot Springs Mafia. But it was not until 1984, when Clinton was elected for a second term as Governor of Arkansas, that Mob money really started pouring in.. Among the "legitimate corporations" that noticed the possibilities with the rapidly ascending governor thirsting for power and money were front corporations for the intelligence services of the People's Republic of China. The Lippo empire came to Arkansas that year. By then, Bill Clinton's ties to organized crime had become well- known. His half-brother Roger Clinton was convicted of cocaine distribution in association with Mob figure and Clinton money man Dan Lasater. In the years that followed, Arkansas became a major cocaine trans-shipment point for the Mafia, crossing paths with the famous CIA Contra resupply operation at Mena. Bill Clinton had found a most successful formula in U.S. politics: financial backing from a coalition of organized crime and hostile foreign governments...Harold Ickes proved his value to the Mob when he held his hand over Mob puppets Arthur Coia and Ron Carey who were under separate RICO investigations by the Justice Department. Patsy Thomasson, in charge of White House drug testing policy, saw to it that criminal figures on the White House staff would not be bothered about past and current drug use. The People's Republic of China, in return for at least a $3 million loan through Worthen Bank, won a slot for its spy John Huang at the Commerce Department. Later followed access to advanced U.S. military technology, access to the Long Beach Naval Base, MFN trade status, and more campaign contributions. Peripheral Mob figures Nathan Landow, Richard Ben-Veniste, and their associates Terry Lenzner and Paul Begala became part of the secret police that would keep Clinton in office despite multiple revelations of criminal offenses. Ironically, the only member of the Clinton enforcement team who has threatened the use of Mafia methods in public is James Carville.If China made illegal donations to the Clinton campaign in return for mercantile and military strategic advantages, then what illegal donations have been made by Russia? The favors Clinton has made towards China pale in comparison to the favors he has made towards Russia. Billions of dollars in economic support and the maintenance of a strategic advantage in favor of Russia through the obstruction and delay of modernization of the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal and the development and deployment of a U.S. national missile defense. Lest gestures as these be interpreted as prudent engagement of a fledgling democracy, one should consider that it has rarely been the democratic forces in Russia, or the Russian people, that have been the beneficiaries of Clinton administration support."
Fox News 9/30/98 John Hanley Reuters "U.S. stocks may fall another 5 to 10 percent in a volatile fourth quarter amid what some analysts are calling the world's worst financial crisis in decades. That would snap the Dow Jones Industrial Average's three straight years of gains of more than 20 percent - the most powerful run in its 101-year history. Investors are concerned about the worst third quarter for earnings in seven years, Asia's economic turmoil and the growing crises in Latin America and Russia, and the exposure of U.S. banks and trading groups to those fragile markets.."
Newsday.com 10/6/98 KEVIN GALVIN AP " The Clinton administration's efforts to help the Teamsters end a bitter strike in 1995 came under renewed congressional scrutiny today when former U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor appeared before a House panel. A House Education and the Workforce subcommittee has been probing the extent of administration activity around the strike at Diamond Walnut Growers Inc. and whether the officials involved were motivated by the pursuit of union campaign contributions. The administration's actions in the strike at the Stockton, Calif.-based agriculture cooperative is a critical issue in a Justice Department inquiry. The department is weighing whether to request an independent counsel to probe testimony by Harold Ickes, a former White House deputy chief of staff, to a Senate panel that examined Diamond Walnut earlier. Kantor told the committee that a phone call he placed to a company official at Ickes' behest wasn't motivated by fund raising and that the administration never acted to punish the company on behalf of the Teamsters.."
PR Newswire 10/6/09 Gary Bauer "President of American Renewal, strongly criticized Washington, DC television stations Tuesday ``for employing a double standard'' in refusing to run his television ads which call on President Clinton to resign while agreeing to run ads by the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way (PAW) which effectively call on Congress to shut down their investigation of possible wrongdoing by the president. ``These so-called bastions of free speech seem to have a very selective view of how that fundamental principle should be applied,'' Bauer said. ``We approached DC television stations in September with a request to run ads calling on the president to resign. Our message was very simple. We urged the president to put our country and our children first by resigning.'' .."
Manchester Union Leader 10/5/98 Richard Lessner "Miss a few payments on your car loan, and the bank will send out the repo man to tow the family buggy. But if you're an unregulated, high-risk, multi- billion hedge fund set up by international bankers to get around government controls, not to worry; the Federal Reserve will step in to save you from collapse, no matter how reckless or irresponsible your practices. And the American taxpayers, of course, will be left holding the bag. If the Fed-brokered $3.6 billion bailout of Long Term Capital Management LP, a so-called "hedge fund," looks suspiciously like the Savings and Loan fiasco of the 1980s, it should. The same government mischief is at work.."
Capitol Hill Blue 10/2/98 "In accepting gifts and favors from businesses that he helped regulate as U.S. agriculture secretary, Michael Espy was guilty of mistakes, forgetfulness and being fooled by friends -- but not criminal corruption, his attorneys told a federal jury Thursday..``He knew how the government worked. He knew the Washington political scene,'' independent counsel Donald Smaltz told the jury. ``He was easy pickings for companies that wanted to slip him something special.'' ."
Reuters 10/7/98 "Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Wednesday the outlook for the U.S. economy had weakened significantly and noted lenders were staging a dramatic pullback from even relatively low-risk loans. In a speech to the National Association of Business Economics, Greenspan said he had "never seen anything quite like" the rise in yields on certain bond issues when compared with more low-risk issues like U.S. government bonds. "It's pretty obvious I think that the outlook for 1999 for the U.S. economy has weakened immeasurably in the aftermath of the Russian devaluation and debt moratorium," Greenspan said.."
New York Post 10/8/98 Ray Kerrison "A MAJOR casualty of President Clinton's impeachment siege is the near collapse of the Democratic Party as a viable political force in American life. The party is bankrupt because it has no strong, credible leadership, no mission, no vitality and, worst of all, no faith. The Democratic disaster has occurred wholly on the president's watch. In his six years in office, he has led it over the cliff. The numbers are shocking. Since Clinton became president, the Democrats have lost 52 seats in the House of Representatives, 12 seats in the Senate, governors in 13 states and uncounted hundreds of seats in state legislatures. The only real power base the party holds today is the White House - and it is paralyzed by scandal. Clinton, singlehandedly, has all but snuffed the life out of the Democratic Party. Even more amazing is the party's pathetic response. It has sat by, watching its own slow destruction without lifting a finger to help itself.."
Coffee Shop Times 10/7/98 Douglas Barricklow ".Throughout the last ten months, the nation has become increasingly familiar with a small clutch of analysts in the national media whose embarrassingly unapologetic brand of advocacy for the Clinton Administration would make former employees of Pravda blush. Noteworthy among their number are CNN's Greta Van Susteren, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift and Salon's David Talbot. No matter how ridiculous the argument may be, if it's written on White House letter head, then you can count on this group of sell outs to parrot it ad nauseum. In fact, if these guys witnessed President Clinton molesting a squirrel on the D.C. mall, they'd immediately gather his record on environmental issues and then try to beat deadline."
WorldNetDaily 10/7/98 Joseph Farah ".What Clinton is talking about are new controls -- but not control by the sovereign people of the United States, guided by a Constitution and the rule of law. Rather he wants to set up new global mechanisms controlled by the elite, the select, the insiders, the privileged, the enlightened ones. He wants to repeat globally all of the mistakes the New Deal wrought on the United States -- regulations, welfare, government-provided housing, government medical care, unemployment benefits, Social Security, government subsistence on a worldwide basis. And guess who will pay for it all?."
AP 10/8/98 Jeannine Aversa "Federal law enforcement officers will find it easier to tap any phones used by suspected criminals under a bill passed Thursday by the Senate. The measure involving ``roving'' wiretaps is contained in a bill authorizing intelligence programs. The House passed the bill Wednesday and Clinton is expected to sign it..``Law enforcers now have a substantial burden to show the court before they can engage in a roving wiretap,'' Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., a former U.S. attorney, said in an interview. ``This would make it substantially easier.'' A federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, disagreed, saying the bill only clarifies existing law. ``It would not make it easier. There is no expansion of powers here,'' the official said.. ``The effect of it will be to allow many more of these roving wiretaps,'' said Alan Davidson, the center's staff counsel. ``This is a real expansion of roving wiretapping authority.'' .Davidson and Barr said the new measure will make it more likely that innocent people would unknowingly have their conversations listened to by federal police agencies. ."
New York Post 10/13/98 Ray Kerrison " WHEN President Clinton pulled into New York yesterday for yet another fund-raiser for Chuck Schumer, it was his 100th money-grubbing trip of the year. Incredible as it may seem, in this year alone, Clinton has made 100 forays out of Washington just to shake the money tree for contributions to prop up his collapsing presidency and party. That means he is spending almost no time on the job. The record is truly scandalous. In the 285 days of this year, Clinton has spent 152 days traveling, fund-raising or on vacation. And he's doing it all at taxpayer expense. If any other worker ran up a no-show job record like this, he'd be fired on the spot.."
The Ottawa Citizen 10/4/98 Mark Kennedy ".The controversy over how a U.S. firm collected tainted blood from Arkansas prison inmates and shipped it to Canada has spread to Vince Foster -- U.S. President Bill Clinton's personal confidant who committed suicide in 1993..Now, five years after his mysterious death, two developments have prompted questions about Mr. Foster's knowledge of the U.S. company's prison-blood collection scheme: - There are signs that Mr. Foster tried to protect the company called Health Management Associates (HMA) more than a decade ago in a lawsuit. - And a major U.S. daily newspaper recently reported that Mr. Foster may have been worried about the tainted-blood scandal, which was just emerging as a contentious issue in Canada, when he killed himself in July 1993..Indeed, on Sept. 16 -- eight weeks after Foster's death -- the federal government announced the public inquiry, to be headed by Justice Horace Krever. During the course of his work, Justice Krever unearthed the Arkansas prison- blood collection scheme and wrote about it in his final report last year. However, no mention was made of Mr. Clinton until last month's story in the Citizen, which drew on documents obtained from Arkansas State Police files."
The Washington Times 10/14/98 Jennifer Harper "..Some Boy Scouts in Utah do not want Bill Clinton to sign their Eagle Scout awards, saying this president of the United States is just not worthy. Last month, Scott Farnsworth and six fellow Scouts were ready to receive their much-esteemed Eagle certificates -- a rank achieved by only 2.5 percent of Scouts nationwide. Just as long as Mr. Clinton did not sign the certificate, that is. The seven boys, ages 14 to 17, have asked that Mr. Clinton's signature be deleted from their Eagle Award certificates, which prove they earned at least 21 merit badges. "The president's signature should be a thing of high honor," the Farnsworth youth, who is 14, told the Salt Lake Tribune. "But if your president is not worthy, if he has done something that is not worthy, it's not representing Scouting morals."."
Toronto Sun 10/15/98 Peter Worthington ".As the Clinton impeachment case blunders on amid charges and counter-charges, the one media outlet that has never wavered, digressed or lost perspective is the Wall Street Journal. In fact it is so confident of the quality of its reportage, analyses and assessments that it has compiled its coverage of all the Clinton scandals into three volumes and is selling them to the public at around US$50 for the set. To those unfamiliar with the WSJ this may seem mildly arrogant. And perhaps it is. But as one who has paid attention to events as they've evolved around Clinton, the WSJ coverage is in a class by itself - not so much in breaking new facts or unravelling fresh scandals, but in sizing up and appraising what is known.."
St Petersburg Times 10/16/98 David Dahl "Not even done with this year's business, Senate Republican leader Trent Lott on Thursday threw cold water on what President Clinton hoped would be next year's top agenda item: preserving Social Security for retiring baby boomers. Lott, a Mississippi Republican, told reporters that Clinton's political posturing on Social Security made it unlikely a GOP-controlled Congress would sit down with him to come up with a solution next year. "I don't think there's a sufficient level of trust to be able to do something this important, the way they have demagogued this issue," Lott said. "The Democrats are such horrible demagogues on this issue. And he led the way on this until I think he soured the well on doing what I think needs to be done to preserve Social Security for my daughter." Lott said he would rather wait until "we get another president" -- who he hopes will be a Republican elected in 2000 -- before taking up the complicated reform of Social Security.."
Washington Post 10/19/98 David Segal Freeper highlights ".The spectacular payoff: the Fundacion's $1 million endowment could soar by as much as 1,600 percent in just 60 days. Though the returns sounded far-fetched, the charity's leaders signed on after a well-connected Washington lawyer, Lewis Rivlin, offered them a money-back guarantee. Where would the profits come from? Rivlin claims the Treasury Department oversees a "trading program" from a small room known to only 30 employees. The room is "highly confidential, in a locked section of the Treasury, one little section of a floor which is completely discreet, the existence of which is never revealed," he testified in a June deposition. Rivlin said he isn't surprised that the Treasury denies that it oversees high-yield trading. A small, amiable man with a Santa Claus-like beard and a warm smile, he clings to the notion that only a select few know about these deals, and those who do are instructed to deny that they exist. "Are these people going to tell The Washington Post about these programs? I don't think so," he said, in an office filled with mementos of his years in Democratic politics. "But there's no question that there are people in the government who are totally and comprehensively aware of every detail and nuance of these programs."."
Bloomberg News 10/27/98 ".The dollar fell Tuesday against the mark and the yen after a report showed that consumer confidence slumped this month in the United States, raising expectations that the Federal Reserve Board may cut interest rates a third time this year to support the economy..U.S. consumer confidence, as measured by the Conference Board's index, fell more than expected, to 117.3 points from September's revised reading of 126.4. The index has not been that low since December 1996."
Washington Times 10/28/98 Freeper tgiles report "Said a senior White House advisor, "Never in history has there been a president, a vice president and a first lady who have spent more time raising money."."
Investor's Business Daily 10/28/98 ".When both sides met last week to begin setting ground rules for impeachment hearings on President Clinton, the White House left no doubt about its strategy. It's the same as it has always been: spin and delay, delay and spin. Even as lawyers from both sides met for the first time, White House hired gun Greg Craig sniped about fairness. Somehow that's what he got out of a meeting in which White House and House Judiciary Committee lawyers were merely being introduced to each other. That's nothing new. Craig began conditioning the country for the ''unfair'' gripe weeks ago. That first meeting just provided him with a platform to spout the company line. Expect Craig to stay on message. And expect the message to sell. This White House has one of the most effective political propaganda machines in history. There's little for Craig to cry ''unfair'' over, though. Clinton is getting better treatment than President Nixon received. Jerome Zeifman, chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment inquiry of Nixon, is a Democrat. He points out that Democrats were introducing impeachment resolutions, and the Judiciary Committee voted to impeach Nixon even before there was evidence of presidential wrongdoing. Few remember the ''smoking gun'' tapes were released several days after the committee vote."
Fox News Wires 10/28/98 AP Anne Gearan ".A friend from former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy's college days testified today that he tried to cover up for Espy after the FBI began investigating Espy's personal and business relationships. Richard Douglas said he lied to an FBI agent in 1994 because Espy asked him to do so. Espy is on trial for taking allegedly illegal gifts from businesses he regulated and then trying to cover it up.."
UPI 10/28/98 ".President Clinton announced (Wednesday) the budget surplus in the last fiscal year was ''exactly $70 billion.'' In revealing the figure, Clinton again urged the money be saved until the Social Security system is fixed, ''hopefully next year.'' The final figure was lower than previous estimates of an expected $80 billion surplus."
DNC Homepage, KMOX 1120 AM St. Louis, Freeper Ymani Cricket Rebuttal 11/1-2/98 ".Because the GOP is stepping up efforts to make sure elections are fair, the DNC issued a release on Oct, 31 accusing Republicans of intimidation. Question is - How can it be intimidating to make sure elections are fair unless those being intimidated are the cheaters? ..The truth is, that the Democrats are upset because Republicans are making it more difficult for them to cheat..Besides, if anyone feels like they may be intimidated at the poll, they can simply request an absentee ballot!! So the DNC argument is Bogus." and ".Today on KMOX Am1120, St. Louis Radio Station, Charles Jaco had on as guests John Hancock, executive director of the Missouri Republican Party and Bekki Cook(D) Secretary of State of MO. John Hancock noted that the hidden cameras being taken various undisclosed polls will be OUTSIDE the polling places to make sure the same people do not come in twice. That is a far cry from an invasion of privacy in your polling booth. HE also said that there would be poeple to make sure ID is checked, and to make sure the ballot counts are fair. In 1996 in The Southern Bootheel of Missouri a Democrat was caught on video buying "votes for beer". The video tape was was used by the justice department to prosecute. Bekki Cook (sec of State) Balked and said the justice department is involved and that it may be illegal for poll watchers to use video. The Irony? Justice department used the tape in 1996 to prosecute but now says taping may be illegal. Fair elections only scare those who cheat.."
AP 11/7/98 ".Authorities raided a counterfeiting ring that churned out phony driver's licenses, Social Security cards and other documents for use nationwide. Nine people were arrested in raids in Los Angeles and Orange counties, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service said Friday. Federal, state and local authorities seized 141,000 counterfeit documents, a high-grade printing press, 40 plates used to produce fake documents, $13,500 in cash and a number of weapon.Immigration authorities said the ring is tied to previous INS seizures of 307,000 fake documents in California, Utah, Texas, Florida and New York."
NY Post 11/6/98 John Crudele ".The Federal Reserve is just dying to admit that it has been doing brilliant - but alas, questionable - things to keep the stock market bubble inflated. A Wall Street Journal article on Monday is the closest the Fed has ever come to making this admission, although the newspaper apparently didn't know what it was on to. The Journal story was about the bailout of the hedge fund, Long-Term Capital Management, and how the Fed stepped in to save the day. The story gets interesting in the seventh paragraph, when it starts talking about Peter Fisher, the 42-year-old, No. 2 man at the New York Fed, whose official job is running the Fed's trading operation..What exactly does he give to these traders and dealers he talks to at 5 a.m. in the morning? Swaps, which is the word the Journal reporter came away with, implies a give-and-take. What is Fisher, the second highest person in the New York Fed's hierarchy giving to traders? Just gossip? Or is Fisher giving away what Wall Street calls inside information. And why are Fisher and the Fed concerned about the stock market? The Fed has jurisdiction over the dollar and, as an extension, bonds. It would be a big expansion of the Fed's powers to suddenly have authority over stocks. But since this nation's economy has become so dependent on the stock market's success, the Fed's current interest in equities would not be surprising. I asked to talk with Fisher. I said I wanted to know about his interest in the stock market and the swapping of information. The Fed wouldn't allow it."
Investor's Business Daily 11/12/98 Joel Mowbray ".Analysts have pointed to an ironic twist in President Clintons plan to hire 100,000 new teachers. To do it, he's going to raid the assets of Washington D.C.'s teacher pension plan, "reform" the district's pension fund so that it no longer invests in stocks and bonds, and give it the same pay-as-you-go structure as Social-Security-- meaning no assets will remain in the trust fund. How did it happen? Critics note President Clinton needed $1.1 BILLION for this teacher-hiring plan. Rather than cutting spending to offset new spending--as required in the 1997 balanced budget agreement-- he found it in the D.C. fund, which is available because the federal government took over Washington's city government in 1997.."
Freeper George Zimmerlee reports 11/19/98 ".President Clinton has authority under Section 706 of the Communications Act to suspend the Act and enforcement of law pertaining to illegal radio jamming. The FBI has admitted the illegal jamming, H. Alan Holmes of DOD has admitted jamming by the US Air Force, FCC Chairman Kennard is violating the Freedom of Information Act to hide evidence and may go into federal custody before the end of the year on various charges, particularly failure to execute and enforce the Communications Act and the most shameful crime scandal in FCC's 64-year history. Since agencies have claimed that no laws were broken, since White House will not deny that the President signed Section 706 orders, and since Congressman Gingrich stopped his investigation after it led to the President, it appears that Clinton executed the order. This is an abuse of power to authorize jamming against licensed broadcasters during peacetime for patently political reasons.."
Freeper Plummz reporting 11/21/98 on WABC - 770 AM Steve Mosberg ".Jerome Zeiffman, (Democrat) Majority Counsel for the House Watergate Committee has written, with Bob Barr, a proposed article of impeachment regarding bribery. Zeiffman will be on this talk show later. As will ReJoyce Smith..Zeiffman says he and Dash both went to teach at Jesuit law schools, and in his day, the Jesuits didn't let their law professors take so much money on the side. Ripping into law professors in general now. Says Dash and Lenzner have been buds since Watergate. Lenzner was a chief investigator under Dash's supervision at the time of Watergate. Says Dash and Lenzner have remained friends ever since. Says Dash and Lenzner are doing everything for the Dems and Clinton. Hosts asks, "Is it a left wing conspiracy?" JZ quotes Sen. Russell Long [the Cajun connection again] - "I'm against all conspiracies I'm not a part of!" JZ sees no Dem on house judish with the stature of Robert McClory (Whom I belive was a GOP HJC anti-Nixon during Watergate.) JZ says he's looking for a publisher for a new edition of "Without Honor: Impeaching Nixon and The Crimes of Camelot." New edition called "Withour Honor: The Impeachment of Presidents Nixon and Clinton." [subtitles paraphrased] .
Freeper Ogle reporting more 11/21/98 on Steve Malzberg ".Steve has been urging everyone to listen to TalkSpot.com at 1AM EST Sunday (Monday morning actually) night to hear Jerome Zeifman of the Senate Watergate Committee discuss the crimes of Clinton. Flash* Terry Lenzner and Sam Dash have a relationship going back to the Senate Watergate Committee, when Dash was Chief Investigator. Zeifman thinks Clinton is impeachable for bribery in the case of the Utah coal land which was turned into a "nature preserve" so Moctar Riady would own the single world-wide source of this clean coal.."
USA TODAY http://www.usatoday.com/ 11/23/98 Edward Pound ".EXCERPTS: "...Government investigators are exploring whether a senior Treasury Department official who provides vital funds to law enforcement agencies across the USA used her position in an effort to enrich a close associate....investigators are examining...Jan Blanton, 47, the director of Treasury's Executive Office for Asset Forfeiture. She is one of the highest-ranking female law enforcement officials in the government....Her agency receives about $250 million each year from currency and property seized in government investigations...Investigators from the Justice and Treasury departments are exploring whether Blanton used her position to steer government business to a close friend, Clifford Quinn, a systems analyst in her agency who also is associated with a private software company...the inquiry focused on contract awards made by Treasury...Blanton and Quinn were placed on administrative leave, with pay...after agents from Treasury...served search warrants at their offices and homes...."
CNN ALL POLITICS 11/25/98 ".A Miami businessman charged with making illegal campaign contributions to President Bill Clinton and other Democratic candidates is believed to have fled the country, according to the Justice Department. Justice Department spokesman John Russell said Mark Jimenez is considered a fugitive, but would not say what steps were being taken to locate him, The Tampa Tribune reported Wednesday. Mitchell Fuerst, a staff attorney for Jimenez's company Future Tech International, said he doesn't "hold much hope that he is coming back."."
12/1/98 Jonathan Salant AP ".Federal Election Commission auditors recommended today that President Clinton's campaign repay $7 million in taxpayer assistance it received during the 1996 election, and said that his Republican challenger Bob Dole's campaign should repay $17.7 million. The auditors alleged both candidates' campaigns illegally coordinated and benefited from issue ads run by their political parties..To back up its recommendations, the auditors cited three ads paid for by the Democratic National Committee that were the same as ads aired by the Clinton campaign. In other cases, the Clinton campaign and DNC shared production expenses and coordinated the broadcast of party and campaign ads so they didn't run at the same time, auditors said. The auditors said that 37 DNC ads clearly identified Clinton and ``appeared to contain electioneering messages.'' ``While it is true that the advertisements in question were run at times and in locations which suggest that the purpose of the advertisements was something other than garnering support for President Clinton, it appears that this is true because of a deliberate effort to conceal the actual purpose and strategy behind the advertisements.'' . The FEC auditors concluded the ads caused Clinton to exceed the primary spending limit by $46.4 million.. The FEC auditors said Dole exceeded the primary spending limit by $9 million, and should repay $2.9 million based on the formula. The auditors said Dole should repay an additional $14.8 million for excessive spending and other problems in the general election.."
USA Journal 12/3/98 Jon E. Dougherty ".About 87 years ago federal lawmakers and the bureaucracies they created still had some semblance of patriotism and constitutionalism. That is about the time that the federal government forced John D. Rockefeller's gas and oil monopoly called Standard Oil to break into smaller pieces so that others could compete in the free market system as the Founders envisioned. Today, however, most of that patriotism and constitutionalism has been replaced in Congress by people who are as unfamiliar with the terms as President Clinton is with the word `honesty'. Avowed Socialists walk the halls of power today as traditional qualities of self-government have been replaced by a bastardized version of self-destructive capitalism. These people now call themselves `Globalists' or `Free Traders' but really they're nothing but greedy Socialist scumbags who object to your success and are working as hard as they can to see that we all make the same low wage while toiling to make them richer. That's what Socialists do..Meanwhile U.S. consumers are hard pressed to find anything in our own department stores that was made in this country. And all of this follows similar trends from the previous decade... We can't expect American corporations to stick around if we allow our government to tax and regulate them to death. And we can't expect to find many `Made in the U.S.A.' products if all of our factories are in Malaysia, China, and Thailand. Finally, we cannot continue to expect to make $20 bucks an hour to screw a bolt on a car if the whole system has been set up to allow our corporations to get out of paying competitive wages by moving their factories overseas - then importing the same product back here for nothing. In the end the corporate blue bloods make even more money, the politicians get the kickbacks and the campaign support, and the American worker [and eventually the U.S. economy] loses. Fewer workers also mean fewer people paying taxes, but I don't suppose those brainy boys and girls on Capitol Hill have figured that one out yet. I am utterly ashamed of us as a nation for what we have allowed but a few elite power brokers to get away with in the past 87 years. The Justice Department will let a few major food corporations run the family farm out of business but then they'll take Bill Gates to court on a so-called monopoly violation. It's absurd.."
Jewish World Review 12/3/98 Thomas Sowell ".SINCE VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING is called a "crisis" these days, perhaps we should not be surprised to hear about a health care "crisis."....Are we getting worse health care than in the past? Worse than the rest of the world? Worse than we would like? The answer to the first two questions is clearly "no." ....Virtually every aspect of the so-called health care crisis boils down to the fact that everybody wants somebody else to pay for health care....The basic underlying fact that is not going to change is that medical care is costly, whether those costs are paid by HMOs, the government, the patients or anybody else. We can try to pretend that these costs don't exist or hope to force somebody else to pay them, but none of that changes the costs or the fact that they have to be paid.."
Progressive Review 12/3/98 Sam Smith ".Independent prosecutor Dan Smaltz brought 15 criminal or civil prosecutions against 14 persons, seven companies and one law firm. He obtained 15 convictions and collected over $11 million in fines and civil penalties. Offenses for which convictions were obtained included false statements, concealing money from prohibited sources, illegal gratuities, illegal contributions, falsifying records, interstate transportation of stolen property, money laundering, and illegal receipt of USDA subsidies. The largest corporate offender, Tyson Foods, paid the government $6 million in settlement of its case. Net cost of investigation: $6 million or 3% of what Tyson Foods receives annually in federal government contracts. Because of the acquittal of former ag Secretary Michael Espy, however, one would never guess that Smaltz had done anything right. In fact, the Washington elite, led by the major media, has leaped on the acquittal as evidence of the gross failure of the independent prosecutor statute..Smaltz' work demonstrates precisely what such a position is essential. No one else in Washington - - not the Justice Department, not Congress, not the media wanted to look into the Ag Department scandals which were, at their heart, not about sex nor about tickets to footballs games but about the safety of food that appears on your dinner plate. For example, last spring Consumer Reports revealed significant levels of contamination in chickens purchased from a number of different sources, including Tyson and Holly Farms. Although the precise number of food poisoning cases is impossible to come by, US officials say the reported cases of chicken poisoning rose three-fold between 1988 and 1992.."
Freeper LYNXcry reports on O'Reilly on FOX 12/3/98 ".I didn't see this posted earlier, but on watching the repeat of the O'Reilly Factor, two new (to me) items serviced. First O'Reilly read from a Fox News Flash, that sources close to the GOP Judiciary have said that Schippers and Hyde saw information in the memo that is very very damaging to the president, HOWEVER it would take longer than they have right now to persue it. They plan to investigate the information they saw in the memo, when the new congress is sworn in. The other, more relevant thing that was brought out, was from Chris Cannon, a GOP Judiciary member. He was talking about witnesses for the hearings, and mentioned John Huang's name. O'Reilly came to life immediately and pounced on him with "is Huang sceduled for the hearings, you guys just put the China stuff to rest didn't you?" Chris Cannon said "not necessarily,I am not at liberty to say what is going to happen at the hearings right now". He sure sounded as though John Huang may testify as he made reference to the evidence that had been brought forward recently from Starr, the last 4 boxes. Hmm, wonder if this was the "secret wittness" Hyde was asked about? The last question asked of Cannon by O'Reilly was whether or not he believed the president would be impeached, and he said he was pretty confident he would be."
Jewish World Review 12/4/98 Larry Elder ".WHO PAYS FOR THE RECENTLY announced record hike in the price of cigarettes? The poor, that's who....According to Investors' Business Daily, nearly 40 percent of poor men smoke vs. approximately 15 percent of men who earn more than $50,000 a year. Poor women smoke at a 30 percent rate, while women earning $50,000 a year or more smoke at a 15 percent rate....In California, Proposition 10, designed to create a fund for child development programs, adds 50 cents per package. And effective Jan. 1, California plans an additional 37 cents tax hike on cigarettes. That's 45 cents, plus 50 cents, plus 37 cents....According to "Uncle" Rob [Reiner], Proposition 10 creates up to $700 million for child development programs, justifying the measure because kids are "impressionable." You know, the children, the children.."
Washington Post 12/7/98 ".President Clinton is suggesting a series of changes that will save the federal government at least $2.1 billion by cracking down on waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicare program.. The plan includes eliminating markups in the prices Medicare is charged for drugs, a White House official said. Under Clinton's plan, Medicare would pay what a drug costs the provider. Medicare covers only certain drugs that must be administered by a doctor or in a hospital, such as those used for dialysis or organ transplants.."
Reuters 12/7/98 Isabelle Clary ".Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is troubled by his current dilemma of trying to keep the U.S. economy growing without contributing to a ``bubble'' in which U.S. stocks and other financial assets may be dangerously inflated, former Fed Gov. Lawrence Lindsey said Monday...Lindsey said Greenspan sees some eerie similarities between the current economic climate and the situation that existed in the years before the stock market crash of 1929 that triggered the Great Depression. But Greenspan remains optimistic a Depression is not in the cards today because policy makers are better informed than Fed officials were in the 1930s when they underestimated the magnitude of the problems America was facing..."
Freeper Physicist reports on 12/9/98 Dom Giordano Show, WWDB 96.5 FM in Philadelphia ".It has been announced that Philly Teamster beating victim Don Adams is going to be charged with three misdemeanors, including simple assault, for ostensibly beating two women while he was having the crap kicked out of him.."
NYT/AP 12/9/98 ".The Federal Election Commission unanimously told its auditors Wednesday to reduce the amount Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole could be asked to repay if his campaign is found to have exceeded spending limits during the 1996 campaign. Auditors had counted Republican Party ads in support of Dole as general election expenditures, which require a dollar-for-dollar payback. But the six-member FEC said those ads ran during the primary season, where the payback is much smaller. As a result, Dole's potential liability would be reduced by $11.6 million, from $17.7 million to $6.1 million. The auditors also have recommended that President Clinton's campaign repay $7 million, counting the Democratic ads against the primary spending limit.."
FOX 12/15/98 ".A South Korean medical research team said Wednesday it has succeeded in cultivating a human embryo using human cells in one of the first cloning experiments of its kind. Researchers at the infertility clinic of Kyunghee University Hospital in Seoul said they had cultivated a human embryo in its early stages using an unfertilized egg and a somatic cell - those that make up most of the body - donated by a woman in her 30s. Lee said the human embryo in the Kyunghee University experiment was last seen dividing into four cells, before the operation was aborted.."
PR Newswire 12/16/98 SOURCE: Family Research Council ".The liberal elites are spewing hateful speech from a new song sheet regarding the impeachment process,'' Family Research Council's Gary L. Bauer said Wednesday. ``Five days ago, on Late Night with Conan O'Brien (Dec. 11), actor Alec Baldwin spoke words that, if uttered by a conservative, would have destroyed him. He fantasized about living in a country where we could 'stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes (members of Congress who vote for impeachment) and we'd kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families.''' ``Where are the outcries from the ACLU, the Human Rights Campaign, People for the American Way, Kate Michelman, and Frank Rich for the hateful speech emanating from Alec Baldwin? The silence is frightening and telling. This speech is intolerable, and the President of the United States, Members of Congress and Baldwin's colleagues in Hollywood should say so.'' Baldwin worked himself into a lather on the late night show: ``I am thinking to myself in other countries they are laughing at us twenty four hours a day and I'm thinking to myself if we were in other countries, we would all right now, all of us together (starts to shout) all of us together would go down to Washington and we would stone Henry Hyde to death. We would stone him to death! (crowd cheers) Wait! Shut up! Shut up! No shut up! I'm not finished. We would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes (members of Congress who vote for impeachment) and we'd kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families. (stands up screaming) What is happening in this country? What is happening?'' ``Baldwin appears to be so hysterical he can't see straight,'' Bauer said. ``Neither Henry Hyde nor any other member of Congress is on trial. The truth is on trial. Americans know that our beloved Constitution and our laws rest on pillars of truth. We must tell the truth when we take an oath. This vote is about a violation of the oath of office that includes a promise, before God, to faithfully execute the law -- not break it.."
Associated Press 12/10/98 Jonathan Salant ".The Federal Election Commission today unanimously refused to order the campaigns of President Clinton and Republican Bob Dole to pay back millions of dollars in taxpayer funds for violating spending limits. The commissioners voted 6-0 against their auditors' recommendation that Clinton and Dole repay millions because they illegally coordinated advertising run by the Democratic and Republican parties, causing their 1996 presidential campaigns to exceed spending limits. The decision wiped out most of the original recommendation that the Clinton campaign repay $7 million and the Dole campaign $17.7 million. The commission had already decided Wednesday to reduce any possible Dole repayment by millions of dollars by considering Republican ads as expenditures for the primary rather than the general election, changing the repayment formula.."
NewMax 12/14/98 - Gerard Jackson ".First the bad news: America will go into recession. Now for the good news: I expect this to happen under Clinton. (I don't hold him responsible, I just consider it ironic justice.) The editorial in issue No. 92 (19-25 October 1998) predicted, using Austrian analysis, that the US economy would slide into recession and that the symptoms were already emerging. Despite claims to the contrary Greenspan's rate cuts can do nothing to reverse the situation ...The Austrians show that by forcing down the rate of interest the Federal Reserve misleads businesses, especially in the higher stages of production, into thinking that the fund of real capital has expanded. They therefore embark on projects for which the capital goods necessary for their completion do not exist. This makes itself felt through various shortages and bottlenecks. As these start to appear many businesses begin suffer a cost-price squeeze as prices are no longer sufficient to maintain expansion or even cover factor costs. Nevertheless, the so-called service sector, the one closest to consumption, undergoes a boom with rising demand and employment. There is no paradox here..."
Washington Weekly 12/14/98 Wesley Phelan ".It is clear from the record that the number of those who knew why McDougal was having difficulty providing urine on demand included at least four prison personnel. These are: the psychologist; the Medical Officer; the Captain to whom the Medical Officer sent the psychologist's memorandum; and the member of the Unit Team who informed McDougal that the psychologist's recommendation was not in his central file. By March 7 the psychologist, the Medical Officer, the Captain in charge, and at least one officer in McDougal's Unit Team knew that he was supposed to receive dry cell status. At least two of these staff members knew that the recommendation had not made it to his central file, and that the recommendation had not been implemented. It fell to McDougal himself to take the responsibility for getting a copy of the recommendation to his Unit Team. Unfortunately for him, he could not force the BOP to comply with its own policy recommendations in time to avoid the events of March 7. That trained prison personnel should fail to place an important recommendation from qualified medical staff into McDougal's central file is negligent. That they should fail in responding to his request that the document be resubmitted in a timely manner is inexcusable. That all those aware of the recommendation should stand by while he was required to give urine samples in violation of the recommendation is unspeakable. The Focus Review report concluded its assessment of these failures with the following statement: "The staff misconduct allegation, which was unrelated to inmate McDougal's failure to provide a urine specimen, had been investigated and closed in accordance with Bureau of Prisons policy regarding staff investigations." This statement and finding is, to put it bluntly, self-serving. The simple fact is the Bureau of Prisons failed to provide James McDougal a level of care its own staff recognized as required by his condition. The extent to which this failure contributed to his death in the hole on March 8 remains to be determined..."
LA TIMES 12/24/98 Mark Fritz ".Justin Arango wants a gift this Christmas that isn't necessarily cool, computerized, flashy or furry. The degree of his desire became obvious Saturday, when he climbed aboard Santa's knee. "Can you find my dad a job?" the 5-year-old asked the local St. Nick, breaking every heart within earshot inside Weirton's crowded community center. Justin's dad, Troy Arango, chokes up just a little when he tells this story. "Santa said it about tore him up," he says. Arango recently lost his job at the company where his father and grandfather had worked until retirement. He is among the roughly 900 steelworkers who have been laid off for the holidays in a small town carved into the hills of the Ohio Valley. They comprise almost one-fifth of the work force of the Weirton Steel Corp., the main employer for miles around..The situation is somewhat special here, however, because it demonstrates how public support for President Clinton can change when his most potent asset, the generally strong economy, suddenly vanishes. Or, in this case, collides with questions about his credibility.."
12/31/98 The White House "..Today, President Clinton announced a new child support crackdown aimed at the nation's most egregious child support violators. Despite record child support collections, there are still too many parents who flagrantly ignore their obligations to their children, and the President will propose to spend $46 million to identify, investigate, and prosecute these deadbeat parents. The President took this action today as he released new evidence that his Administration's child support efforts are working: child support collections have gone up a record 80 percent since he took office, from $8 billion in 1992 to an estimated $14.4 billion in 1998.."
Dawn (Karachi Pakistan) 1/3/99 Ghada Khouri ".Since the passage of new anti-militancy and immigration regulations in 1996, government prosecutors are increasingly relying on classified evidence to deport aliens suspected of supporting militancy. Some 25 individuals - almost all of them Arabs - are currently incarcerated as they battle deportation proceedings based on evidence neither they nor their attorneys can examine. None of them has been charged. Legal experts say secret evidence violates a defendant's due process rights. "It's virtually impossible to defend yourself if you can't confront the source of the allegations against you," said attorney David Cole, who has represented many people targeted by secret evidence.."
Washinton Calling Scripps Howard Washington Bureau by Freeper chugalug 1/10/99 "."The Immigration and Naturalization Service is throwing in the towel on punishing businesses for employing illegal aliens. Caught between congressional Democrats who don't want the agency harassing immigrants and congressional Republicans who don't want it harassing businesses, the INS has drafted a new enforcement strategy that calls for increased enforcement of every law under its jurisdiction except the law against hiring illegal aliens (.). The agency asked Congress for 130 more inspectors for its work site enforcement operations in fiscal 1988 (1998?), but Congress said no. For fiscal 1999 it didn't ask for any. The INS sanctioned about 2,000 employers a year in the early 1990s. In fiscal 1997, it sanctioned fewer than 900. Fines fell from $17 million a year to $8 million in 1997.".."
Insight Magazine 2/1/99 Jennifer Hickey ". Almost a month after Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr told Congress that he had found no evidence implicating the president in the improper gathering by the Clinton White House staff of more than 900 FBI files on key Republicans credentialed for the Bush and Reagan administrations, Tripp was under oath before a camera delivering answers to questions Starr did not ask. Subpoenaed by Judicial Watch, the conservative watchdog group representing several former Bush and Reagan administration officials in a $90 million lawsuit against the FBI, the White House, the Department of Defense, former White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum -- and Hillary Rodham Clinton -- Tripp offered both damning and enlightening testimony...The news is that from her front-row seat in the White House counsel's office, Tripp saw much more than she or the administration wished she had. . . . . Flanked at the Judicial Watch deposition by her attorney, Anthony Zaccagnini, and by lawyers representing the government, Nussbaum and Hillary Clinton, Tripp dropped a bombshell. While she had testified at length to what she later would come to believe were FBI files in Vince Foster's safe, Tripp also revealed that she saw "what I now believe to be the infamous billing records in that safe.".. The document, bearing the handwritten notation, "Linda, just thought you might find this of interest," allegedly was placed by Lewinsky on Tripp's office chair at the Pentagon shortly before October 1997. It was a list of people with connections to the Clinton administration who had died of unnatural or unexplained causes during the last two decades.. . . . Tripp testified that Lewinsky also left on her chair a longer, more detailed list of suddenly deceased Clinton "troublemakers." While the handwriting on the note was not Lewinsky's, according to Tripp, she never directly asked who had provided the former Clinton sex partner with the list..."
Associated Press 1/15/99 Hans Greimel ".An abortion case erupted into calls for a mistrial Friday when a federal judge chided a witness by saying: "Truthful means truthful. ... This is not a Clinton deposition!'' Judge Robert E. Jones quickly apologized for his angry outburst in front of the jury and portrayed it as a comment made in jest at the end of a long week of testimony. "May the record reflect that the court is smiling and the witness is smiling,'' a flustered Jones told a courtroom echoing with both gasps and laughter. ."
The Intelligencer 1/18/99 Tracy Carbasho ".An insider trade publication in Washington said President Clinton warned Japan to cut its steel shipments in an attempt to appease Senate members who will act as ``jurors'' in his impeachment trial. Clinton warned Japanese leaders a week ago to slash the heavy volume of steel products being sent to U.S. markets. The threat was issued a day after the president revealed his plan for addressing the serious import crisis which has disabled many domestic steelmakers.."
AP 1/19/99 David Bauder ". Never before had a president's State of the Union address been described as just another form of defense in an ongoing impeachment trial. But that was how television commentators sought to tie Tuesday's extraordinary events together: Lawyer Charles Ruff opening President Clinton's defense in the Senate impeachment trial hours before Clinton was to make his annual agenda- setting address to Congress. CBS, ABC, NBC and the cable news networks pre-empted afternoon programming to air Ruff's opening arguments and were to return later for prime-time coverage of Clinton's speech. ``Tonight another attorney will pick up Bill Clinton's defense -- Bill Clinton himself,'' CBS's Dan Rather said when Ruff had finished speaking. NBC commentator Tim Russert said Clinton could help inoculate himself against removal from office by ingratiating himself with the American people during his speech.."
AP 1/20/99 Martin Crutsinger Freeper Brian Mosely ".While calling the economy's current performance ``outstanding,'' Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan expressed worries today that the high-flying stock market could be headed for a tumble that could spell serious trouble down the road. Greenspan, in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, said nothing to directly indicate whether the Fed would be changing interest rates any time soon.."
Freeper Stand Watach Listen on Clinton Buffalo speech ".here's an excerpt from the Buffalo speech... ...Now, we're going to have a big argument about this. And we should, and I hope it will be a good debate. But I believe, since we have -- as the Vice President said -- this $70 billion surplus from last year and a bigger one coming this year, since it's projected that over a 25-year period we will average substantial surpluses on an annual basis -- now, they'll go up and down with the economy, but the point is we have no permanent deficit anymore, the natural condition is a surplus, okay -- so the question is, what do we do with it? We could give it all back to you and hope you spend it right. (Applause.) But I think -- here's the problem. If you don't spend it right, here's what's going to happen. In 2013 -- that's just 14 years away -- taxes people pay on their payroll for Social Security will no longer cover the monthly checks. So we have to get into the Social Security trust fund, the savings account. By 2032, it will be gone. After that, if we haven't done something, we can only pay a little over 70 percent of the benefits. By then, the cost of living will be higher and it will be devastating.."
Boston Herald 1/19/99 ".The easiest way to beat the bullies of the Clinton administration is Davy Crockett's advice: Be sure you're right, then go ahead. That's what former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter discovered when the Defense Department tried to browbeat him into letting it censor the book he has written about his time in Iraq. ."
Washington Times 1/21/99 Freeper Nick Danger ".It is a measure of Bill Clinton's love of governmental programs and his contempt for the people whose taxes finance those programs that he could not find room for any net tax cuts in the face of such overwhelming surpluses.."
The Common Sense American 2/99 Gene Wirges Freeper A Whitewater Researcher ".In the early 1970s, an Arkansas State Administration proposed a plan to protect thousands of its citizens...office operation...turned over...to the corrupt Arkansas Political Machine....Many...forwarded payments to the Department -- often in cash....An audit showed hundreds of thousands of dollars missing...The State Administration filed no charges...nor was a single penny repaid....Especially avoided was how a Machine lackey had been appointed to handle all that cash...Head of that State Administration was Gov. Dale Bumpers, who stayed silent when the Machine lackey was appointed, and remained silent when no charges were filed. He also remained mum when that Machine lackey was transferred...in the State Auditor's Department, watching over most state funds....This is the same Political Machine which has "run things" in Arkansas for the last half century. It launched Clinton's political career, once removed him (1980), then reinstated him (1982) and finally financed his presidential campaign (1992). ."
newsmax 1/21/99 Robert Novak ".That Bill Clinton delivered a State of the Union address Tuesday night in the midst of his impeachment trial was a sign of Republican disorganization and weakness. The kind of speech he gave was proof of his political mastery. This constitutionally mandated message to Congress has deteriorated under President Clinton into a poll-driven political pep rally, and he showed this week that he has perfected the art form..."
AP 1/22/99 ".Democratic fund-raiser Yah Lin ``Charlie'' Trie may be headed to jail if prosecutors can prove he filed a false police report in order to illegally obtain a new passport. Trie, a longtime friend of President Clinton, faces charges he obstructed a U.S. Senate investigation by ordering an employee to get rid of documents that had been subpoenaed. He pleaded innocent to those charges and others in Washington and has been free pending trial. ..In papers filed in federal court here on Thursday, prosecutors said Trie initially reported his home was burglarized last November and that $2,200 worth of property -- including his Taiwanese passport -- was stolen. The facts he alleged then are different from those Trie presented in court papers in December, prosecutors said, when he violated the terms of his release by applying for a substitute passport. Trie said he didn't know that was a violation, the papers said, though his passport and other travel documents were seized when he was arrested.."
on Times 1/22/99 Bill Sammon ".President Clinton's State of the Union address contained initiatives that, if enacted, would increase federal spending by 20 percent, or $288 billion a year, according to an analysis by a taxpayer watchdog group. That would wipe out the entire budget surplus and create a $100 billion deficit in the plan's first year alone, said Tom McClusky of the nonpartisan National Taxpayers Union Foundation, which performed the analysis. "He's trying to please everybody, but he'll only make people happy until they realize they're going to pay for all of these proposals," Mr. McClusky said. "An across-the-board tax cut would let people decide how to spend the money." ."
New York Post Crudele 1/22/99 Freeper SamAdams76 ".Over the past year, the federal deficit - which is money owed by our government - rose from $5.486 trillion to $5.618 trillion. Those are government numbers right out of Barron's. That means the federal debt climbed by $132 billion. Which means the federal budget DEFICIT last year was $132 billion. There was no surplus of $70 billion, or any other amount, as Washington is claiming. When the economy weakens - as it always does - the true deficit numbers will increase. The surplus claim is wrong. It's a fraud. Washington is able to pretend there is a surplus because it has been raiding the Social Security trust fund, which, you have to understand, isn't a pile a cash sitting somewhere in the Treasury. It's really a pile of government IOUs (Treasury bills, really) Washington puts into Social Security in exchange for the cash it steals... Right now the Social Security system is running a surplus because more money coming in than going out. It's demographics at work - more employees than retirees. That pleasant situation, however, will not last long. But this surplus belongs to people like me and you, who'll need it to retire someday. So Washington shouldn't pretend that it belongs to the country and part of the budget. The president wants this non-existent "budget surplus" pumped back into Social Security. What does that mean? Washington will steal $200 billion from Social Security (turning a real $132 billion deficit into a $70 billion surplus), so that it can proclaim a budget surplus, then it will return the excess money to Social Security from where it was stolen in the first place.."
Whom Have We Elected? - The New American 1/22/93 William F. Jasper Freeper Rodger Schultz ".Father Richard McSorley, a radical Jesuit priest and professor from Georgetown University -- and one of Bill Clinton's anti-war comrades. Father McSorley's "testimony" comes in the form of his book, Peace Eyes, published in 1977. It is an account of his anti-war activities and travels in the U.S. and Europe. "When I got off the train in Oslo, Norway," Peace Eyes begins, "I met Bill Clinton of Georgetown University. He asked if he could go with me visiting peace people. We visited the Oslo Peace Institute and talked with conscientious objectors, with peace groups, and with university students." On November 15, 1969, I participated in the British moratorium against the Vietnam War in front of the U.S. Embassy at Grosvenor Square in London," Fr. McSorley recorded. He described the demonstrations: The activities in London supporting the second stage of the moratorium and the March of Death in Washington were initiated by Group 68 (Americans in Britain). This group had the support of British peace organizations, including the Committee on Nuclear Disarmament, the British Peace Council, and the International Committee for Disarmament and Peace .... The next day I joined with about 500 other people for the interdenominational service. Most of them were young, and many of them were Americans. As I was waiting for the ceremony to begin, Bill Clinton of Georgetown, then studying as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, came up and welcomed me. He was one of the organizers [emphasis added]. The British Peace Council, with which "organizer" Clinton was involved, is the British branch of the World Peace Council, a Soviet-front directed by the KGB. These demonstrations were not merely "anti-wary they were anti-American, pro- Vietcong, pro-Hanoi. and pro-Ho Chi Minh. They were used as propaganda by the communist and liberal media to undermine American morale.."
Insight 2/6/99 Paul M. Rodriguez/Timothy W. Maier ".February 1, without any warning, the White House made available to selected media outlets a "declassified" version of the recent 700-page congressional report that critisizes the Clinton administration and previous ones for laxity in the sharing of missile and satellite technology with Red China.. The White House version, which includes the panel's 38 recommendations for action, sheds little light on why the panel concluded U.S. national-security interests were damaged by the technology transfers, and its release has infuriated both Cox and Dicks. Neither lawmaker was told in advance of the planned release of the decoy. Both lawmakers are preparing to protest directly to the president -- and they have the backing of the rest of the special committee.."Chris (Cox) was mad as hell," said one source. "They've been hammered for not releasing any information even to other members about what's in the report and suddenly, without advance notice, the NSC releases a statement about it plus the recommendations. .."
Washington Times 2/5/99 Greg Pierce ".Now that the Internal Revenue Service has ruled that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's college course was just that -- a college course -- all those Democrats who claimed it was an illegal political scheme owe the man an apology, says Republican Chairman Jim Nicholson. After all, the House forced Mr. Gingrich to pay a $300,000 fine over the issue. And Mr. Nicholson has a question: What took the IRS so long? "The Clinton administration Internal Revenue Service owes an explanation why it took 3- and- a-half years to determine that Newt Gingrich's college course wasn't political, something they should have known after watching 20 hours of tapes," Mr. Nicholson said.."The trumped-up charges by congressional Democrats, led by David Bonior, were politically motivated attacks from the outset," he said. "Bonior and the Democrats owe Newt Gingrich an apology, and all Americans should demand an explanation of why the Internal Revenue Service became a weapon for 41 months of political water torture against the most prominent opponent of the Clinton-Gore Democrat agenda." ."
Cspan2 1/28/99 U.S. Senate Budget Committee hearings Alan Greenspan Senator Hollings Freeper A Whitewater Researcher "....HOLLINGS: ...we're still running deficits. 'Cause I'm not going along with this monkeyshine about unified. 'Cause unified is not net, the debt still goes up, is that correct?...The simple fact is the debt has been going up at least $100 billion for the last several years....GREENSPAN: Outside, on budget, that is correct....HOLLINGS: That's right, on budget, you're spending a hundred billion more than you're taking in....GREENSPAN: Correct....HOLLINGS: And this (Clinton) president's budget spends another hundred billion more than we take in...you know his plan. Look you think he's going to spend less than a hundred billion more?...What we've been doing, Mr. Chairman, in all reality, is taken a hundred billion out of the Social Security Trust Fund, transferring it over to the spending column, and spending it....we continue to spend a hundred billion more than we take in....That's the reality...I'm trying to get this government back to reality...We owe Social Security 736 billion right this minute..."
Orlando Sentinel 1/29/99 Charlie Reese ".The first thing to keep in mind when evaluating Bill Clinton's laundry list of promises, made in his State of the Union speech, is that Mr. Clinton is a proven liar.. Two main lies underlie his speech. One is the lie that Social Security needs saving. Well, only from politicians. The current tax brings in more than enough money to keep the Social Security Trust Fund solvent, but Congress and presidents use the surplus to offset deficits in other places in order to promulgate the second lie -- that the budget has a surplus. .So, starting with two lies, Clinton then proceeds to spend a nonexistent surplus stretching 15 years into the future. Even if this year's surplus were real, there is no way to predict that the surpluses will continue for 15 years into the future. That is pure fantasy.."
WorldNetDaily 2/15/99 David Bresnahan "."End runs were done around various community leaders," San Antonio Chief of Police Al Philipus told Austin radio talk show host Alex Jones, on assignment from WorldNetDaily. He was asked to host the exercises last May, but refused."Once I said no, they went to various individuals in the community to bring pressure to bear to get me to change my mind," explained Philipus. "For example, there was a community leader who I have a great deal of respect for, and we have a very good relationship. I get a call from him and he says, 'Chief, there's some people in here. They're in town and it's part of their role here, they need to meet with the mayor and the police chief.' "Of course, this gentleman, who I've worked very closely with on a number of projects, I told him to have them give me a call. Now I'd already said no. Well now I find out they're the same group. So they identified somebody that I know that's very high in the community to make an approach to me and get me to change my mind. Then when we said no, some elected officials were contacted to bring pressure to bear," said Philipus. "Then offers were made to give money, cash money to elected officials' charities if they could get us to change our minds. As one of my deputy chiefs said, in some circles, that's called bribery." Operation Last Dance began Feb. 8 with an explosive exercise in Kingsville, Texas, near Corpus Christi. Community leaders have come under heavy criticism from residents who were badly frightened when Knight Stalkers fired live rounds and set off explosions very close to innocent civilians. Army spokesmen have confirmed plans to continue with additional exercises in the Corpus Christi area until Feb. 20. Several reports of military activity throughout the area have been received by WorldNetDaily.."
(UPI Spotlight) 2/16/99 ".Hillary Rodham Clinton has announced (Tuesday) nearly $1 billion more in disaster aid to Central America in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch and Hurricane Georges.."
Jewish World Review 2/17/99 Walter Williams ".Try this: Ask one of these Constitution- talking politicians how much respect we should have for the 10th Amendment, which reads, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution ... are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The 10th Amendment simply and clearly says if the Constitution does not permit the federal government to do something, then the federal government doesn't have the right to do it. You tell me where in the Constitution is there delegated authority for federal involvement in education, retirement, health, housing, transportation, handouts and other activities representing more than three-quarters of federal spending. You say: "Williams, lighten up. Congress gets authority to control our lives through the "general welfare" clause of the Constitution.".. Thomas Jefferson, always fearful of the perversion of the general welfare clause, wrote, "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." In 1794, Madison wrote disapprovingly of an appropriation to assist French refugees, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." If Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were around today, their enunciation of constitutional principles would be greeted with derision and contempt by no less than 520 of the 535 members of the House and the Senate.."
New York Times 2/17/99 Michael Weinstein ".Congressional Republicans are finding all kinds of suspicious elements in President Clinton's budget plan. First, they accused the administration of double counting the surplus in the Social Security program -- the amount by which payroll taxes in a given year exceed payments to retirees -- by adding it twice to the Social Security trust fund. Though the charge is technically accurate, it lacks, according to many economists, the nefarious purpose or impact implied by its critics..Herger asks, ``If, as the administration claims, the budget is balanced and saves Social Security, why is federal debt still rising?'' The administration's answer also lies on page 389 of the budget, two lines below the figures Herger focuses on. The table shows that under the Clinton plan, federal debt held by the public -- let's call it external debt -- falls from about $3.7 trillion today to about $3.3 trillion in 2004. But, as the Republican critics note, total federal debt rises from about $5.6 trillion to about $6.8 trillion during the same period. Total debt equals debt held by the public (external debt) plus debt held by various government agencies or trust funds (let's call that internal debt). The answer to Herger's question is that the two debt figures move in opposite directions because the president proposes to use surplus revenue from the Social Security payroll tax to buy back government bonds held by the public. External debt would fall. The president would then, in effect, deposit the purchased bonds into the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. Internal debt would rise, because the bonds represent loans from the trust funds to the Treasury. Some day the funds will return those bonds for cash.."
UPI 2/18/99 ".A company trying to amass a nation-wide listing of drivers licenses photographs benefited from nearly $1.5M in federal funds and technical advice from the U.S. Secret Service. .."
Daily Oklahoman 2/18/99 Editorial "..It has been 7 1/2 months since Clinton held a formal press conference. His last solo meeting with reporters was April 30 last year, and the grilling Clinton received -- 16 of 36 questions concerned Monica Lewinsky -- no doubt is the reason there hasn't been one since. Questions remain unanswered. A recent CBS poll showed 84 percent of Americans believe Clinton committed perjury and obstruction of justice (55 percent think he did wrong but shouldn't be removed from office; 29 percent said he should be removed). Clinton deflected queries from the House of Representatives with a blizzard of half-truths and state-of-the- art hairsplitting. He refused to testify before the Senate. How long can he go on stiffing the American people?."
PRNewswire 2/18/99 ".With President Clinton in New Hampshire planning a celebration tonight of his post-impeachment "comeback," Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson today decried cuts in the Clinton-Gore budget that Nicholson called "a secret war on senior citizens with cancer." .Nicholson explained that the Clinton-Gore budget proposal contains a reduction in Medicare Part B reimbursement for cancer drugs provided to patients in doctors' offices and outpatient clinics. The reduction, Nicholson said, will likely force patients into more expensive and inconvenient inpatient settings, a move he called "shortsighted, cruel and counterproductive." Many doctors' offices and outpatient treatment centers rely on these Medicare drug reimbursements to provide cancer patients using Medicare with high quality specialists that the disease requires, he explained, citing a number of studies compiled by the General Accounting Office and the Health Care Financing Administration over the past decade.. Bill Clinton and Al Gore want to cut the one source of funding that allows them to remain a viable option for senior citizens with cancer." ."
KATV 2/18/99 ".THE SOUTHEASTERN LEGAL FOUNDATION SET A LETTER TODAY TO THE STATE BAR OF ARKANSAS, FOLLOWING UP ON A COMPLAINT MADE SIX MONTHS AGO.. THE S-L-F CLAIMS THAT PRESIDENT CLINTON BROKE HIS OATH TO DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION BY LYING REPEATEDLY IN HIS DEPOSITIONS. THE GROUP WANTS CLINTON DISBARRED. AND IN TODAY'S LETTER, THE S-L-F DEMANDS ACTION ON THEIR COMPLAINT.."
Arkansas Democrat Gazette 2/18/99 MARK WALLER Freeper gocowboys "."I'd be disappointed if it's not in the six-figure range, a quarter of a million dollars or more." "If the judge does find him in contempt, however," DiGenova said, "it will underscore the validity of the impeachment process." DiGenova, who led the investigation into the Bush administration's search of Clinton's passport records during the 1992 campaign, said Wright needs to do something to protect the honor of her court. "If she doesn't do something, she'll look like a fool," he said. "If she does nothing, she will be sanctioning some of the most egregious, brazen behavior ever seen in the United States legal system. She was used by the president of the United States."."
Washington Times 2/19/99 John McCaslin ".Since 1990, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been on the General Accounting Office's "High-Risk List" due to severe management problems. But that's not stopping President Clinton from overwhelming HUD even more. Among the 77 new programs Mr. Clinton has proposed in his budget, 18 are to be administered by HUD at a cost of $890 million. Concerned that HUD might not be up to the task, the House Government Reform Committee summoned HUD Inspector General Susan Gaffney to Capitol Hill.."HUD is struggling," she admitted. "I don't understand why we want to make that struggle worse until we get the situation under control."."
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 2/20/99 ".Local lawyers contacted in recent days about the contempt possibility lean heavily toward the belief that it is criminal contempt, not civil contempt, to which Wright's order referred. . Similarily, since the purpose of a contempt finding in the now-settled Jones case could only be to punish, the consensus among legal observers is that criminal contempt is what Clinton faces.. she has the authority to imprison the president - period - because of the separation of powers issue," Hall said. Little Rock lawyer Sam Perroni said the fact that Wright raised the contempt issue on her own, without a request from one of the parties, "indicates to me she's got some real concerns about this and feels perhaps a judicial obligation to look into this. What becomes of it is anybody's guess." .Though the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a civil case could proceed against the president while he is in office, that was partially based on the fact that the subject of a civil action doesn't have to be present during a trial, thus presidential responsibilities wouldn't be interrupted. But a criminal defendant cannot be tried in absentia. ."
NY TIMES 2/20/99 "...Seven Republican senators have written to Donna Shalala, secretary of Health and Human Services, to protest a ruling that permits federal financing of research into human embryonic stem cells, the primordial cells from which all the body's tissues are derived....The two letters refer to three-year-old law that forbids federal money to be used for any research in which an embryo is destroyed. Last year, researchers using private financing managed to culture human embyronic stem cells from frozen embryos created in fertility clinics and from aborted fetuses...Shalala's department ruled last month that federal grants could be awarded for research on the cells already obtained, though not for obtaining additional cells. A profusion of cells can be grown from the existing cultures....Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who is chairman of the subcommittee that sets biomedical research financing, said that plans to award federal money for stem cell research should continue while the House letter to Shalala was under consideration...."
Seattle Times by Freeper UnBubba 2/22/99 reports "..[Clinton] has held only one press conference since December 16, 1997. This was 433 days ago! On April 30, 1998, [Clinton] answered reporter questions for 55 minutes..."
Associated Press 2/24/99 Pete Yost "…For all the current excitement of a possible Senate bid, Hillary Rodham Clinton also faces unwelcome attention in federal courtrooms from a familiar problem: Whitewater. Mrs. Clinton is referred to 36 times in a fraud indictment against her former law partner, Webster Hubbell, signifying that her name will be brought up repeatedly in her old friend's trial, scheduled to begin June 14. She could even be called as a witness. The first lady's name also could come up in next month's criminal contempt trial of former Whitewater partner Susan McDougal, who is accused of obstructing Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's investigation. The indictment against Mrs. McDougal details a series of grand jury questions about Mrs. Clinton that Mrs. McDougal refused to answer…."
Insight Magazine 3/15/99 Aimee Howd Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...But the American people went ballistic when President Clinton took this idea to its logical conclusion and proudly displayed a sample national health-care I.D. card during the nationally televised summary of his health-care plan in 1993. Few consumers could stomach the thought of allowing even the most altruistic federal bureaucrat to assign them a "unique health identifier" -- a computerized code that could be used not only to track the medical records of every citizen from birth, but potentially could link those records to financial data, tax information, employment history, educational databases and anything else of interest to a would-be Big Brother...."
Jewish World Review 2/25/99 David Corn Freeper Marcellus "...Adultery has been good for Hillary Clinton: Her husband's caddish behavior has won her sympathy, and embarrassment has given her a political future....Hillary...parlayed an investment of $1000 in risky cattle futures into a net gain of $100,000....Before we learned that the account was arranged by Clinton crony Jim Blair and managed by a firm with a questionable track record, Hillary...claimed she'd picked her own investments after perusing The Wall Street Journal-about as bold a lie as could be. From that moment on, she proved she was a scoundrel....Forget all the Whitewater shenanigans, or her sellout of universal health-care coverage, the commodites deal provides sufficient information for rendering harsh judgment...."
Freeper Always Right 2/25/99 reports Geraldo "…G. Spence says Juanita holding Charge over Clinton is Worse then Rape! …"
Hannity & Colmes Freeper LYNXCry 2/25/99 reports "…Dick Morris on Hannity said "We should count the Jane Does in Roman Numerals, Jane Doe VI , Jane Doe VII, Jane Doe VIII etc. He said, "When a man does this once, he does not stop"...Also Lucianne on Hockenberry right now "I am saying THIS MAN IS A RAPIST and I want him to come forward and sue me if its untrue"..Lucianne said she has been in contact with Jaunita, she is totally telling the truth. Lucy said "I will take the heat, let him slam me with liable, I will spend the rest of my years left making sure this man is known to be her rapist." Lucy is MAD!!…" Freeper Senator Pardek adds "…Trixie just said, "..they'll be more (rape victims coming forward), I guarantee it!"…"
CNN Larry King Live 2/25/99 Freeper AnnO reports "…Coverage of the Tucson Freeper Protest at the beginning and again at this break with quite a long pan of the wonderful gang with great signs and a chant 2 - 4 - 6 - 8 who are you going to rape!…" Freeper aligyrl-02 adds "…David Gergen is stuttering. He can't come up with any words to defend his WH rapist…" Freeper Rumple adds "…I'm amazed that Patricia Ireland hasn't called the woman trailer trash yet and actually seems to be bothered by a sense of right and wrong. Could the women's group actually be considering defending women against rape? …"
2/28/99 David Westphal / Star Tribune Washington Bureau Chief Freeper DonMorgan "...When President Clinton persuaded Congress to raise taxes on the rich as part of his 1993 deficit-reduction plan, he hoped the nation's wealthiest families would provide part of the revenue needed to end three decades of deficit spending. Little did he know that the rich would practically do it all themselves. Federal income taxes are soaring for the wealthiest Americans. Between 1993 and 1997, the percentage paid by individuals with adjusted gross annual income of $200,000 or more increased 83 percent, according to a Congressional Budget Office study. That means 1.5 percent of taxpayers paid 37 percent of all the taxes collected in 1997. And among those making $1 million and higher, federal income-tax payments more than doubled. By comparison, taxes went up 28 percent, on average, for those making less than $200,000 -- 98.5 percent of the taxpaying public...."
Reuters 3/7/99 "…``We accomplished, and he accomplished, more than I ever thought humanly possible. But he lost the battle with himself, tarnished his presidency and all of us associated with it,'' Stephanopoulos told Newsweek. ``The shame of the whole Clinton experience is that it was a story of a man who confronted his weaknesses and who became a better president every day. And then he threw it all away,'' he said…."
FoxNews Sunday 3/7/99 Freeper acanales "…During an interview with Tony Snow and Brit Hume on FoxNews Sunday, Senator Trent Lott indicated concern that the President's proposal to send troops to Kosovo was counting on a "surplus" money to fund the sure-to-be permanent deployment. But Senator Lott appears to be making the case that this money is really Social Security money that should be locked away to make Social Security solvent and any excess after this should be returned to the taxpayers in the form of an across-the- board rate cut or a cancelling of the marriage penalty…"
AP 3/07/99 "…The showdown over bananas between the United States and Europe has put the future of the World Trade Organization at risk, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said Sunday. ``If the Europeans don't start dealing with us more honestly in complying with WTO decisions, I don't know that WTO is going to exist or amount to anything,'' Lott, R-Miss., said on ``Fox News Sunday.'' The WTO has become the battleground for a dispute between the United States and the European Union over European restrictions on imports of Central and Latin American bananas. The WTO ruled against the Europeans in 1997. But the United States, saying the EU had not adequately redressed the issue, announced plans to impose $520 million in retaliatory tariffs on European goods…."
Associated Press 3/7/99 Bert Wilkinson "…Angered by the U.S. position in a trade dispute over banana exports to Europe, Caribbean Community nations have agreed to suspend a treaty of cooperation with the United States to fight drug trafficking, an official said Sunday. The treaty signed in Barbados by President Clinton in May 1997 calls for cooperation by Caribbean nations in anti-drug trafficking measures and extradition of suspects. But regional leaders have increasingly complained that Washington has ignored its end of the bargain by failing to address economic issues so important to the Caribbean…."
Sun-Times 3/8/99 Robert Novak "…Speaking in Buffalo, N.Y., the day after his State of the Union speech, an unusually candid President Clinton declared that the government knows better than individual citizens how the federal surplus should be spent. New polling data show that this time, the president is running counter to what Americans believe. A question asked for me by pollster John Zogby in his national survey last month discloses overwhelming opposition to Clinton's insistence that tax cuts should be targeted to good purposes rather than an individual's personal desires. Another question revealed disagreement that Washington is better equipped than individuals to invest Social Security funds. These libertarian yearnings appear strongest among lower-income workers, young people and minority groups. Such grass-roots sentiment contradicts defeatist rhetoric by Republican members of Congress who are intimidated by the president's apparent sway over public opinion. While they mutter darkly about Clinton's comments in Buffalo, the GOP is drifting toward targeted tax cuts--whose premise is that government knows best…."
Reuters 3/10/99 "…With memories of last August's U.S. embassy bombings in Africa still fresh, congressmen Wednesday faulted Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for not seeking more new funds for security upgrades. `We were anticipating ... a fairly large increment for embassy security'' in the 1999-2000 budget, especially since a review panel recommended $1.4 billion a year for 10 years, Rep. Harold Rogers told Albright at a committee hearing. ``I was shocked frankly ... you didn't request a penny'' for new construction, said the Kentucky Republican, who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee on state, commerce and justice. ``And I don't understand that ... There is no money for fiscal year 2000 for new construction and yet we have got problems all over the world in terms of security,'' he said…"
Stephanopolous, on 20/20 Freeper Taliesan 3/10/99 "…Diane Sawyer's interview of George Stephanopolous just aired on 20/20. At one point, she asked him (I'm paraphrasing) "Considering all that has happened, all that you now know, do you think Clinton should have bveen elected." His answer: "No." …"
Houston Chronicle 3/11/99 John Henry "…President Clinton expressed regret Wednesday that the United States supported government military forces responsible for killing an estimated 200,000 civilians during Guatemala's 36-year civil war…. The U.S. "support for military forces or intelligence units which engaged in violence or widespread repression described in the report was wrong," Clinton said. "The United States must not repeat that mistake." …Newly declassified U.S. intelligence documents surfaced in Washington on Wednesday that indicate the United States was intimately involved in the equipping of those security forces and that the CIA retained close ties to the Guatemalan army in the 1980s. The documents, obtained by the Washington Post, showed that U.S. officials were aware of the killings at the time…"
PRNewswire 3/11/99 The Sovereign Dineh Nation "…Rena Babbitt Lane, whose horse was taken from her corral on February 22, had her wrist broken when she tried to stop a previous impoundment. Others have been beaten or arrested when they tried to resist confiscations in the past. Targeted are Dineh (Navajo) families who were made trespassers on their own land by a 1974 congressional law passed at the urging of the coal-fired power industry. Over 12,000 people have been forcibly relocated since then, but about 3,000 still remain. They survive by herding sheep as their families have done for hundreds of years. Their livestock is central to their daily lives, in which culture and religion are interwoven with land and animals. The herds have a different significance to the government. They are the key to the people being able to sustain an independent lifestyle in remote areas without electricity, running water, telephones, or government assistance. Under terms of a 1996 law intended to complete the evictions ordered in 1974, the U.S. government aims to expel these people within the next 12 months. The government hopes that destroying their herds will turn them into helpless dependents, unable to resist expulsion. The Sovereign Dineh Nation urges members of the press to come to Black Mesa and witness what the BIA is doing to the poorest and most vulnerable people in this country. When the U.S. government embarks on a program of terror under the guise of law, the media have a responsibility to make these actions known to all…."
Houston Chronicle 3/11/99 Editorial "…In between these sets of concerns is a confusing and incomplete mass of details that requires some serious sorting and sifting. Why, for example, does the Commerce Department, which was given authority for some of the deliberate technology transfers, not know how many supercomputers have been sold to the PRC and who is controlling them for what purpose? …"
Capitol Hill Blue 3/13/99 Doug Thompson Teresa Hampton "…In confidential interviews with more than a dozen White House staffers over the past week, Capitol Hill Blue has learned that life on the President's staff is a study in stress, paranoia, regret, disillusionment and distrust of the boss…. "The problem is that nobody really knows this man," one White House aide says. "We thought we knew him. We thought he had his demons under control. We were wrong." Staffers paint a picture of despair at the White House, including: * Frequent shouting matches between Bill and Hillary Clinton…* Internal investigations every time a news story breaks about problems within the administration… * Gallows humor…. * A constant job search. White House staffers are departing the Ship of State at a historical rate. The Executive Vice President of one trade association in Washington said he advertised for a new chief lobbyists and got 39 resumes from members of the White House staff. "People are willing to work for less money just to get out of here," one aide says. * Fear of the unknown. Most Clinton aides now feel there are more scandals waiting to break around the President. "I've worked here four years and realize the President is still an unknown quantity," says one aide…. * The China spying scandal. Revelations that sensitive nuclear secrets and missile technology have fallen into Communist Chinese hands clearly has senior White House aides worried. Three years ago, Clinton ignored warnings from career intelligence officials and approved the sale of technology to China by Loral, a company run by millionaire Democratic campaign contributor Bernard Schwartz. "That's just the tip of the iceberg," says one White House aide. "This may be the one that really ends up biting us in the ass." * Fading support from Democrats… "The amazing thing is that some Democrats won't take the President's phone calls," says one aide. "Imaging that. Refusing a phone call from the President of the United States."… "I went to work for Bill Clinton because I believed in him," one aide says. "He let me down. He let his party down. He let his country down. I'm sorry I was ever a part of it. You should be able to be proud of working for the President of the United States. I'm ashamed." …"
Cincinnati Post 3/13/99 Editorial Freeper starlu "…Better think twice before you deposit that big Christmas bonus or the nest egg you inherit from Aunt Gertrude. If the FDIC has its way, Big Brother will soon be watching your bank accounts...The Libertarian Party aptly describes Know Your Customer as 'a law that only the KGB could love.' It has the potential to turn your friendly bank teller in a secret government informer and make every bank customer a suspected criminal - guilty until proven innocent....Given the public opposition, the FDIC has acknowledged that Know Your Customer can't go through in its current form. The agency is expected to announce later this month whether it will try to revise the proposal - or withdraw it altogether…"
Drudge 3/14/99 "…AID is funding programs that endorse or legitimize what amounts to witchcraft The paper is reporting that Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a Feb. 8 letter to Secretary of State Albright that the committee had spent a lot of time recently reviewing U.S. aid programs to Haiti and it has found that US taxpayers are "funding programs that endorse or legitimize what amounts to witchcraft." Helms cited as the basis for his concern a recent exchange between U.S. AID and the Foreign Relations Committee, in which AID was asked if it provided "any assistance to any group, like IPPF's affiliate PROFAMIL, which, according to IPPF's 1995 Annual Report, undertook 'a campaign to reach voodoo followers with sexual and reproductive health information... by performing short song-prayers about STDs sexually transmitted diseases and the benefits of family planning during voodoo ceremonies.'" AID acknowledged providing $295,000 from April 1998 to March 1999 to PROFAMIL. The agency said many AID "partners and implementing organizations use this important social network voodoo ceremonies as the medium for disseminating health sector messages and information."…"
Washington Times 3/12/99 Tom Carter Freeper Bayou City "…Former U.S. officials who helped prosecute the war on communism in Central America during the 1980s were stunned Thursday by President Clinton's apology for U.S. involvement in Guatemala's 36-year civil war. "It is outrageous, outrageous," said Oliver North, the retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel who helped finance and equip the anti-Sandinista Contras in Nicaragua during the 1980s.Elliott Abrams, who was assistant secretary of state for Latin America during the Reagan administration, said Thursday that Mr. Clinton's mea culpa was based on "ignorance" and a continuing "left-wing mythology" unsupported by the facts…."
Judicial Watch 3/16/99 "…Yesterday, the members of the Commission of the European Union, who were found to have engaged in the hiring of friends and relatives, and other misconduct, were forced to resign. The members of the European Commission, which included its President, Jacques Santer of Belgium, did what President Clinton refused to do. Ironically, the firing of The White House Travel Office, in order to hire the friends of the Clintons, Harry and Susan Bloodworth Thomason, evoked no such response by the majority of the American populace. Nor have the myriad of other Clinton scandals, including Chinagate, IRS-Gate, Filegate, Monica-gate. The European Commission is the body of the European Union -- the organization that governs Europe -- which implements the law, rules and regulations of the European Union…"
The American Cause 3/19/99 Pat Buchanan Freeper yankee66 "…In 1980, Ronald Reagan went to Youngstown, Ohio, stood on a flatbed truck, and pledged to the struggling steelworkers, "I won't forget. The United States is going to be restored industrially as it should be." President Reagan kept his word. On July 19, 1992, Bill Clinton told steelworkers in Weirton, "I want to make sure we enforce strictly the antidumping laws and the laws against unfair subsidized steel being dumped into our country." President Clinton did not keep his word; and 10,000 U.S. steelworkers have paid the price of his dishonoring of his pledge…."
Freeper ohmlaw98 observes 3/17/99 "…When Clinton was being pressured by Loral to approve the satellite waiver, Berger wrote a memo that focused on the political damage that could result from the decision…."
The Associated Press http://wire.ap.org/ 3/17/99 Freeper A Whitewater Researcher "…EXCERPTS: "...Rep. Steve Largent, R-Okla., and Sen. Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark., are the main sponsors of bills to ``sunset'' the 5.5 million-word tax code by Dec. 31, 2003...The National Federation of Independent Business, which represents 600,000 small businesses, is launching a media campaign in the next month to highlight inequities in the current tax code....Several GOP leaders have introduced legislation that could replace the tax code, including House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, who is sponsoring a bill that would tax all income at a flat 17 percent rate. A flat tax also is championed by Republican presidential hopeful Steve Forbes....Business federation president Jack Faris said his group favors a national referendum in which voters would be asked to decide among the current code, a new kind of income tax or a national sales tax. Congress would then vote on the choice without amendments....``Surely we can produce a better evil than the one we have now,'' Faris said." …"
AP 3/17/99 Laurie Kellman "…Democrats who once supported the independent counsel law are moving to cut off funding to Kenneth Starr and other outside counsels and shift their probes to the Justice Department at the end of the year. "It is time to bring this to a close, not just in terms of the end of the statute, but the end of their jurisdiction,'' Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday. The Democratic measure would cut off federal funds for Starr's investigation and four other independent counsels as of next Dec. 31. With no Republican sponsors, it has little chance of passing.. Allowing the law to expire as scheduled on June 30 would allow Starr and other special prosecutors to continue their investigations to their conclusions…."
Village Voice richard goldstein 3/18/99 "… "It starts with lesser-evilism, which is the advertised willingness to be fooled. Then there's political correctness, the bogus surrogate for politics. Clinton is a genius at this. If you take the Chinese soft-money scandal, his reaction was to say it's Asian bashing. Then there's the strong woman by his side, who fucked up health care and seems to be the bodyguard of a serial rapist." (Hitchens says he knows of three other women who are ready to make the same allegation as Broaddrick.) Are Clinton's crimes greater than his predecessors'? "I don't think we know yet. Suppose there's a crisis in North Korea, which would also be a crisis with China. Suppose, on that day, Kathleen Willey comes to trial and Clinton has to weigh whether a certain action would be precipitous. I don't want to be around for that. When I point this out, people say, 'Didn't Reagan invade Grenada?' Yes, but he didn't do it to distract attention from the fact that he couldn't get it up with Nancy." …"
Drudge Report 3/18/99 "…Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin told a congressional panel that he suspected that much of the $4.8 billion in loans sent to Russia last summer by the International Monetary Fund "may have been siphoned off improperly." Rubin's comments marked the first public confirmation by the Clinton administration that much of the bailout money the U.S. Treasury Department organized last year went to wealthy Russian oligarchs who move billions of dollars to Switzerland and other safe havens…."
Time3/18/99 Freeper pea eye "…A mutiny by House Democrats and Republicans over steel imports signals trouble for both parties. A House bill limiting steel imports passed by 289 votes to 141 -- despite concerted opposition by both the White House and the Republican congressional leadership. 91 Republicans followed Pat Buchanan's call to mutiny, while 197 Democrats marched with Dick Gephardt (leaving only 13 voting with the White House). Wednesday's victory will boost Buchanan's guerrilla campaign in the Republican primaries. And for Al Gore it's a signal that his support from Gephardt and the labor unions is far from unconditional…."
Savannah Morning News 3/21/99 "…THE INCESTUOUS nature of Washington's Radio and Television Correspondents' Association Dinner was never more sickeningly obvious than last Thursday night, when hundreds of members of the Beltway media laughed and applauded President Clinton for joking about breaches of national security…What is funny about China having the capability of launching nuclear missiles at the U.S. mainland? By now no one should be surprised at Mr. Clinton's shamelessness. Perhaps we should feel fortunate that he didn't make any rape jokes. But what's really appalling is the response of the assembled media and celebrities. A group that routinely denounces politically incorrect remarks by radio shock jocks apparently finds nothing inappropriate about a president making light of what one intelligence officer has called the most serious breach of national security since the Rosenbergs. Alas, the audience saved its disapproval for an ABC News producer who, after winning an award for investigative work on Whitewater, publicly thanked the late Jim McDougal, the Clintons' former business partner in Arkansas who cooperated with Kenneth Starr's investigation. That elicited plenty of nervous tut-tutting from the fourth estate's glitterati. Bad form, you know, embarrassing the president like that…."
Samizdat News Richclem 3/28/99 "…It's more than a little frightening how steadily and quietly Americans are losing their freedom under a corrupt but glib president. We have a Constitutional Right to free assembly and a right to free speech. Clinton is in clear violation on both. I mean, is there any form of speech more sacred than protesting against an unpopular president? White House uses "Security Threat" Ploy to Keep Clinton Protesters at Bay . . . Citing "a threat to the President's safety," White House officials are using Secret Service agents to keep protesters out of sight of both Bill Clinton and news media. The Secret Service has been instructed to remove any and all protesters from any immediate proximity to the President," a White House aide confirmed Wednesday. "The 'official' reason cited is the protesters pose a threat to the President. The eal reason is to keep them away from the television cameras." Which is a vioilation of their Constitutional Rights. My gosh, if Americans can't assemble to express their discontent with a corrupt rapist/felon/traitor, what can they do?…"
Miami Herald 3/27/99 Yves Colon "…In a move that could alter the fate of a young man who says he was wrongly deported to Haiti, U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek is urging immigration authorities in Miami to reopen their investigation of his case. ….Meek said the report raises ``serious questions about the completeness and thoroughness of the investigation'' by agents of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. ``If he's a U.S. citizen, he should not be deported to another country, and we want to make sure the INS is fair and just in the decisions that they reach,'' said Ken.Nealy, Meek's legislative director in Washington…."
Freeper LarryLied 3/31/99 observes "…Loral filed a 10k with the SEC yesterday and in legal liabilities is this interesting statement: …Several Congressional committees have held hearings on U.S. satellite export policy toward China, alleged influence of campaign contributions (including contributions made by Loral's Chairman and CEO) on the Clinton Administration's export policy toward China, and related matters. One of the House committees investigating these matters, chaired by Representative Cox, recently issued a classified report that is said to be critical of past government and industry technology transfer practices and policies. This report is also said to contain 38 proposals for legislative and executive action to address perceived concerns. It is possible that adoption of some or all of such proposals could have an adverse effect upon the ability of U.S.-based satellite manufacturers such as SS/L, and possibly other U.S. exporters, to market their products abroad in competition with foreign-based manufacturers, and might adversely affect their ability to perform existing contracts. In addition, the portions of the report that have not yet been declassified could contain negative comments about SS/L's compliance with the export control laws…."
THE WASHINGTON TIMES Freeper A Whitewater Researcher "...EXCERPTS: "The U.S. government can't balance its books and can't properly explain how it spent $1.8 trillion last year or account for $1.6 trillion in such assets as parks, buildings, missile launchers, tanks and paper clips....That's 1,800,000,000,000 in dollars and $1,600,000,000,000 worth of things -- a grand total of $3,400,000,000,000....The upshot is that, "once again, billions of taxpayer dollars were lost to waste, fraud and mismanagement," says Rep. Steve Horn, California Republican....Mr. Horn, chairman of the House government reform and oversight subcommittee on government management, information and technology, gave that assessment yesterday as his subcommittee reviewed the government's attempt to produce a Consolidated Financial Statement....It was the second time in U.S. history that the government has tried to comply with a 1994 law requiring it to account in a businesslike way for the revenues, expenditures and assets of the 24 Cabinet-level departments and agencies -- a total of 70 agencies with some 2,000 components....And for the second time, the statement failed to meet accounting standards acceptable to the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm and the government's official auditor....The accounting failure means the government doesn't employ common business safeguards to know how much money actually has been wasted or stolen. Some lawmakers believe the figure could be in the billions...." ..."
Wall Street Journal 4//2/99 Rodger Schultz "...We would like to know where this establishment--the politicians, pundits and Beltway press--has been the past six years, when some of us were pressing the argument that Bill Clinton's handling of Whitewater, Gennifer Flowers, the draft, Filegate and all the rest were relevant to the character and conduct of his Presidency. We were told, long before Monica and even before the Lincoln Bedroom rentals, that it didn't matter...."
NewsMax 4/7/99 "…The Clinton Administration, for all its foibles, may have actually accomplished something in the field of "re-inventing government", according to a new book by Paul C. Light of the Brookings Institute entitled The True Size of Government. The Clinton/Gore team promised to downsize government in the inimitable style of Corporate America, and they seem to have done a grand job. While cutting a record 350,000 civil service jobs, they further "streamlined" government by adding 16 new administrative layers; as many as were created by the previous seven administrations combined…."
RNC.org 4/99 "...The Clinton/Gore reelection campaign and Democrat National Committee (DNC) officials funneled millions of dollars in campaign donations to state Democrat parties in 1996. They did this two ways: by asking donors to give directly to the state parties so that the money would not have to go through the DNC, and by the DNC sending at least $32 million to state parties. The DNC concealed big contributions from tobacco, gambling and other special interests to avoid criticism for accepting embarrassing contributions and hid donor names who did not want the fact or magnitude of their contributions known. (Sources: The Washington Post, 4/13/97; The [New Jersey] Trentonian, 5/12/97; The New York Times, 10/2/97; The New York Daily News, 9/29/97) Additionally, it was reported that the Justice Department was investigating whether the transfer of money from the DNC to the states was an illegal attempt to evade the limits of campaign spending set in presidential races. Much of the money was used to pay for issue ads that many consider actually candidate ads. It is illegal for the DNC to buy candidate ads. (Sources: The Washington Post, 4/13/97; The [New Jersey] Trentonian, 5/12/97; The New York Times, 10/2/97; The New York Daily News, 9/29/97) The DNC has continued to do this in 1997 and 1998 by exchanging "soft money" for "hard money." Typically they will skirt campaign finance law by paying state parties to gain access to "hard money" which is more valuable than "soft money." (Sources: The Washington Post, 4/24/98; Star Tribune [Minneapolis, MN], 4/27/98) Some critics of the Democrat money-funneling activity, such as the Center for Responsive Politics, say the dollar diversion was a legal - but sleazy and underhanded - attempt to hide big favor-seeking donors. (Source: The [New Jersey] Trentonian, 5/12/97) ..."
The New Republic 2/3/97 Hanna Rosin "…As he learned that night, his dad had taken the book to work that morning. "It has a great diagram of nuclear fission," Dad explains feebly, "where the atoms look like kernels of popcorn, lumpy, like they should be, instead of the usual boring pool balls." John has a Ph.D. in nuclear physics and has worked at the Department of Energy for over ten years. He really cares that pictures of atoms look like popcorn? Actually, he didn't need the diagram for himself, exactly. He needed it for a "Physics 101" packet he was helping to prepare for his boss, the new Secretary of Energy, Federico Fabian Pena--last term's Secretary of Transportation, best known for rushing to the Everglades to vouch for the safety record of ValuJet….. John is merely one humble cog. Over the past two weeks, he and his colleagues at the Department of Energy have transformed themselves into a kind of Cabinet-level Princeton Review, with the single goal of cramming enough science and policy into Pena's brain to let him pass his confirmation hearings at the end of the month…… "
Investors Business Daily 4/12/99 "...Vice President Al Gore has raised nearly $9 million to finance his campaign for the presidency. But that's only a fraction of the $12.8 billion of taxpayer money Gore's used already to campaign. Gore has handed out almost $13 billion in new programs and spending since the 1996 election, meant to elicit the gratitude - and the support - of the American people. For example, on June 13 last year, Gore stopped in San Diego to announce $3.6 million for a new police station. He then traveled to the San Fernando Valley to announce $8.4 million for school earthquake preparedness. Next he journeyed to Texas on June 25 and 26 to attend the state Democratic convention. But he also took time to stop in Houston to announce $14 million in juvenile-justice grants. El Paso rang up $45 million for dislocated apparel workers. In San Antonio he pitched $80 million for job training. As a final encore, he announced $1.8 billion for school construction bond guarantees throughout the state. He didn't rest there. The vice president was off to Florida on June 29 to announce $35 million for job training and welfare-to-work grants, and Louisiana on July 3 to present $44 million for a comprehensive school reform program. Just what do California, Texas, Florida and Louisiana have in common? They're important primary states: California, Texas and Florida because they are so big, and Louisiana because it has an early caucus...."
Electronic Telegraph 4/24/99 David Sapsted "...THERE was mounting evidence yesterday that police and school authorities ignored warnings that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had been planning a massacre for more than a year. The father of a Columbine High School student claimed that in April last year he twice sent print-outs from Harris's website to a Jefferson county deputy sheriff in which the boy threatened to bomb and kill. "I will rig up explosives all over a town and detonate each one of them at will, after I mow down a whole area full of you," said one of the entries. "I am the law, and if you don't like it, you die. If I don't like you, you die." ....Meanwhile, the family of Isaiah Shoels, the only black student fatally shot, continued to insist that he had been threatened by the Trenchcoat Mafia but that their complaint to the school had been ignored. And the father of Brooks Brown - whose name appeared last year at the top of Harris's website list of people he wanted to kill but survived the massacre - said his complaints to the sheriff's department had twice been ignored. Mr Brown said he had given print-outs to a deputy to support his claim that Harris had threatened to kill his son and had smashed the windscreen of his son's car. "No action was taken so we filed a second complaint," said Mr Brown. "They never called us." ..."
World Net Daily 4/30/99 Joel A. Ruth "....It was five days before Christmas, 1969. A time of year when Americans are busy converging on family, celebrating Chanukah, offering prayers of thanksgiving, out caroling, trimming trees, or, as Christians, preparing to rejoice in the birth of their Savior. But while most Americans were wrapping gifts and worshipping before God, the future President of the United States was standing in silent tribute and awe before the mummy of Vladimir Lenin. How did this happen? On December 19, 1969, Bill Clinton had boarded an Aeroflot flight from London for the USSR to Moscow, the center of world atheism and the capital of the Soviet-Marxist state. William Jefferson Clinton's pilgrimage to the Soviet Union was the climax of a busy fall semester as a "Rhodes Scholar" at Oxford. It should perhaps be mentioned to those impressed by such presumed status that Rhodes Scholarships are granted to individuals passing ideological muster whose sentiments during the interview process are reflective of acceptable left-wing views to the selection committees, and not because of good grades..... While Bill Clinton has never explained who paid for his trip to Moscow, he was accompanied by a friend and fellow Oxford student, Czech Jan Kopold. They were to attend a meeting of the War Moratorium Committee to be held January 2, 1970. Upon arrival, Clinton did not check into a youth hostel, but rather stayed at the Hotel National, the most exclusive and expensive one in Moscow of that time -- a ritzy place usually reserved for foreign ambassadors and high-level Communist Party apparatchiks. In today's terms, that trip would probably cost several thousand dollars. Clinton only had his tiny $275 Rhodes stipend to live on and never held a job. Thus, it is easy to believe that this tab and the arrangements could only have handled by the KGB, which during that epoch limited no expenses in its attempts to recruit promising American students in Europe. Clinton has also never accounted for the 11 days spent in Moscow before the actual meeting of the War Moratorium and has never revealed who paid his expenses or what he did or who he met with during that time..... Even more telling was Clinton's January 4 return trip from Moscow on another Aeroflot jet. The flight terminated in Prague, then the capital of the Czechoslovakian Soviet Socialist Republic (CSSR). There, Clinton was a guest of Jan Kopold's father, Bedrich Kopold and Jan's maternal grandmother Maria Svermova, who was the original founder of the Czech Communist Party in the 1930s. During his visit, she took a liking to young Bill; they walked and talked. Svermova's deceased husband was the original editor of Rude Pravo, the Czech Communist Party paper before the War. ..... The entire Kopold clan was a significant part of the ruling Communist party elite and was responsible for those murders and deportations either by the act or as formulators of policy. In fact, 11 out of 12 Politburo leaders of the Czech Communist Party were apostate Jews who had taken refuge in Moscow just prior to the German occupation of the Czech rump state in 1939. It was easy for the Communists to seize control in 1948 without popular resistance because the Germans had confiscated all private weapons during the War. ....Years later, when Clinton was President, he again flew to Moscow, this time on Air Force One, to meet Boris Yeltsin. Then, on his return flight he had the plane stop in Prague, where, besides playing the saxophone -- important stuff -- he went to visit the parents of his Oxford friend Jan Kopold. By then, Maria Svermova had died of old age. As for Jan Kopold, he had been killed earlier in an "accidental fall" in Turkey in 1970, becoming perhaps the first of a long string of former Clinton friends and associates to meet an untimely end. ....After Clinton's short-lived tenure at Oxford -- he never finished his second semester there -- he remained a member of The Mobilization Committee, a Communist-front organization dedicated to undermining the strength of the United States and opposing American initiatives against the communist world movement, for another three years..... Clinton's youthful affiliations explain many of his recent actions. Why, for example, the International Socialists were able to hold their annual conclave in February 1995, as guests of Papa-Marx Aristide at Haiti's National Palace in Port-au-Prince after Clinton restored the volatile voodoo priest to power. This explains why I stood in dismay observing a huge banner in front of the Palace proclaiming that event, while non-comprehending U.S. soldiers stood guard outside protecting it and the delegates inside, those very persons sworn to destroy everything most Americans revere. ...."
Electronic Telegraph - UK 4/27/99 Christopher Lockwood and Tim King Freeper chainsaw "... THE European Union yesterday banned oil sales to Yugoslavia, but in a development that will be regarded as scandalous in Europe, America confirmed that it had no plans to follow suit. This means that while it is now illegal for any EU country to export oil to Slobodan Milosevic, it remains perfectly legal for American companies to continue to fuel the Serb war machine..."
Michael River 5/1/99 observes "...Most Americans, when hearing arcana about gyroscopes and neutron bombs, may be forgiven a certain emotional distance from the problem of China's acquisition of Amefica's high tech secrets. But perhaps their anger would be more forthcoming if Americans stopped to take a minute and think about the fact that these technology transfers represent a theft from their own pocket. The American taxpayer footed the bill for the development of the atomic bomb. We paid for all those labs, and all those scientists. We The People paid the costs to design the W-88 warhead. The technology that Hughes and Loral utilize was developed by the military and by NASA at taxpayer expense. The codes and encryption systems developed by the NSA and CIA are paid for by the taxpayer. Americans were told for decades that they had to endure a higher tax burden to pay for all of these developments, because it was essential for America to maintain a technological lead over other nations...."
New York Post 5/1/99 "...The Republicans in the House and Senate did the only thing they could do last week, announcing the death of any possibility of serious Social Security reform this year. But though the GOP issued the death certificate, don't be fooled: The fingerprints on the murder weapon belong to President Clinton. Not that you'd ever know that by listening to Clinton or Vice President Al Gore. Both had the effrontery to denounce the GOP for having "abandoned the effort" at reform and being "unable or unwilling to face up to the challenge." Of course, the reason the Republicans chose to shut down their effort was that the White House consistently refused to put forward a realistic plan of its own. The GOP had every reason to believe that Clinton's vague declarations of interest in reform were just a gull designed to lure the Republican Party out in the open - where Democrats could ambush them with heavy political artillery..."
AP 5/2/99 "...Alleged war criminals have found a safe haven in the United States in recent years, under the noses of immigration officials and sometimes with help from the U.S. government, The Boston Globe reported Sunday. The newspaper said it found evidence that people from countries including Haiti and El Salvador, and people involved in the breakup of Yugoslavia, have settled in this country and begun new lives, despite evidence of their involvement in serious human rights abuses. The list includes three alleged participants in ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia; several former associates of Somali strongman Mohammed Siad Barre; 16 Haitian military officers; and a Salvadoran general accused of covering up the massacre of four American churchwomen in 1980, according to the Globe...."
CNN Interactive 4/28/99 AP "...Surgeon General David Satcher called for a comprehensive program to combat youth violence, calling it a public health problem because it is preventable and predictable. Although he declined to address the Littleton, Colorado, shooting last week, Satcher said violence is placing an annual burden of at least $4 billion on the nation's health care system...."
Washington Times 5/6/99 George Archibald "...President Clinton's special envoy Richard C. Holbrooke was paid $24,000 by Siemens AG for a speech the State Department said yesterday he never gave. "Ambassador Holbrooke canceled his trip to New York and never gave the so-called Siemens speech that was mentioned in the article," State Department deputy spokesman James Foley said as he categorically denied a report yesterday by The Washington Times. "He canceled the speech. He never left Belgrade to go give a speech in New York. He canceled the speech," he said. But in financial disclosure forms obtained this week by The Times and signed by Mr. Holbrooke under penalty of criminal prosecution if false, the special envoy to Kosovo reported receiving $24,000 in "speaking fees" from the international electronics firm on Oct. 13, 1998. While Mr. Foley said Mr. Holbrooke never left Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in October, records from the State Department's Oct. 13 press briefing quote spokesman James P. Rubin as saying: "Ambassador Holbrooke is en route to New York by air." At a separate press briefing in Pristina, Yugoslavia, before Mr. Holbrooke left in the midst of a four-day NATO air-strike deadline, a department transcript quotes him telling reporters, "We have very, very limited time. . . . I have to go home." Mr. Holbrooke was in New York City Oct. 14, where he appeared on NBC-TV's "Today" show at 7:07 a.m. the day after he reported receiving the $24,000 speech honorarium from Siemens AG. An NBC spokeswoman confirmed yesterday that Mr. Holbrooke was physically present at the show's New York City studio....Said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, "I am more concerned he would leave very important negotiations, if that is the case. He should put the interests of the country first, instead of his own pocketbook." Sen. Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has decided that Mr. Holbrooke's nomination to the U.N. post "is not going to move" until the Justice Department provides all documents regarding various ethics probes already completed, said committee spokesman Marc Thiessen...."
THE WASHINGTON TIMES 5/3/99 Frank J. Murray Freeper Normally a Lurker "...Gunpoint confrontations in which armed private citizens turn the tables on violent criminals occur with explosive swiftness hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times each day in the United States. This guerrilla shooting war is almost invisible to the public, experts say, because combatants on both sides have qualms about publicity. Its biggest victories prevent serious crimes and don't seem newsworthy one at a time...."
Cato Institute 4/15/99 Dean Stansel "...One of the most confounding economic trends in the United States during the past 20 years has been the relative stagnation of workers' real wages. One of the primary reasons for flat wages is that taxes and other government mandates on employers have been expanding steadily, crowding out worker take-home pay. Today an average manufacturing worker costs his employer $14.89 an hour (not including fringe benefits). But the employee's take-home pay is only $10.79 an hour. The government takes $4.10 per hour in taxes--federal and state income taxes, payroll taxes, unemployment insurance taxes, and workers' compensation--thus reducing the worker's take-home pay by 28 percent. Or to put it another way, abolishing income and employment taxes would raise the manufacturing worker's take-home pay by about $4.00 an hour. For a worker earning $60,000 a year and living in a state with average taxes, the government's share rises to 36 percent. That counts only the employment-related taxes that come directly out of the worker's paycheck or are paid by the employer on the worker's behalf. Workers still must pay a host of other taxes with their remaining take-home pay. The overall federal, state, and local tax burden is now at an all-time high...."
Insight Magazine 5/3/99 Jamie Dettmer Freeper starlu "...In short, chickens are coming home to roost. But impeachment isn't the only chicken. "The White House should get off its political horse about impeachment," says Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Curt Weldon. "Impeachment is one reason why Congress doesn't have confidence in the administration, but there are others -- from the debacle in Mogadishu to the 33 troop deployments we have had from Clinton, and on to what now is coming out in bits and pieces about Chinese espionage. Right across the board we are learning that this administration is not to be trusted on national-security issues. And if we had any further doubts, all we have to do is look at the state of our military's unreadiness."..."
Wall St. Journal 5/18/99 Editorial "..."Ludicrous," yelped someone from the Sierra Club when a federal appeals court on Friday struck down the Clinton Administration's new clean air standards. Actually a lot of us--perhaps umpteen million Americans who've tried to comply with any old rule someone in Washington dreamed up--have been wondering when the courts would rediscover the "non-delegation doctrine" cited in Friday's decision.Fashioned by the Supreme Court in 1928, here's one of the things it said in way back when: A key function of the non-delegation doctrine is to "ensure to the extent consistent with orderly governmental administration that important choices of social policy are made by Congress, the branch of our Government most responsive to the popular will." Sounds sensible to us.... The three-judge panel unanimously questioned the Environmental Protection Agency's selective use of science in formulating its rule, and in a 2 to 1 decision ruled that Congress had violated the Constitution's separation of powers by delegating too much of its authority to the EPA. If upheld by the Supreme Court, the decision could have far-reaching effects.....The core opinion, written by Judges Stephen Williams and Douglas Ginsburg, found that the EPA had interpreted the Clean Air Act so as to give it carte blanche authority to issue ozone standards and to regulate microscopic soot particles. Examining these rules, the court identified a certain "indeterminacy." It concluded that the agency "offers no intelligible principle by which to identify a stopping point." We suspect that more than a few independent businessmen visited over the years by the ghostbusters from EPA, OSHA and the rest have themselves marveled at the variability of any such "stopping point." An EPA spokesman says the agency will appeal because the ruling is one of the "most disturbing" it has ever faced. It's about time....."
Charleston Post and Courier 5/19/99 PAUL GREENBERG Freeper newsman "... How would America be changed if a kid born today in East Harlem, or in the barrios of South Texas, or in a shack in the Ozarks, had the same pick of schools as little J. Wexwroth Pennington III of Park Avenue and Nob Hill? Answer: America would be changed infinitely for the better - and our schools would be, too. Because they would compete. Because it would be harder for poor schools to exploit poor kids. School vouchers could prove the most effective instrument of democracy since the secret ballot...."
New York Post 5/3/99 David Gelernter "...THIS country would never have elected Bill Clinton if it had been paying attention. Even if you like the president, two things are clear. First: In moral and spiritual terms, he is the quintessential lightweight. That anyone will ever regard him as a great man is a laughable idea; not even his closest supporters or his very favorite girlfriends could possibly make such a claim with a straight face. He has no deep thoughts, big ideas or majestic plans. Like most unimportant people and many household pets, he lives only to please, and to enjoy approbation. Second, public interest in the president and the presidency has hit a low for modern times, and possibly an all-time low. Ever since he assumed office, the public's consistent response to Bill Clinton has been ''don't bother us.''...Of course, in polite society, cultural decline is a forbidden topic. You will be attacked immediately, if you bring it up, for ''nostalgia'' and for ''living in the past.'' But the attackers are exactly wrong. People who dwell on the accomplishments of our past are the only ones, so far as I can tell, who have any concrete faith in the future. Our cultural mainstream is smugly left-wing, but nowadays ''left-wing'' means''status quo''; the only progressives I know are conservatives. T HIS is my last column for The Post....My advice, for what it's worth: Say the prohibited words loud and clear and often, think the prohibited thoughts, and never believe even for a moment that this society is the best we can do. ..."
ABCNEWS.com 5/13/99 Ann Compton "....White House spokesman Joe Lockhart tried to bury the news in his daily press briefing Wednesday, casually mentioning that a public relations veteran in Washington, Leslie Dach, had offered to "come in for 30 days or so" and "help think through some of these communications aspects of Kosovo." ....."
AP 5/14/99 Freeper HAL9000 "...Congressional bargainers killed $40 million the Senate had approved for families of victims of last year's accident in which a Marine jet sent a gondola plunging onto an Italian mountainside...."
Worldnetdaily 5/20/99 Joseph Farah "...Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire, a possible GOP presidential candidate, is warning that 1999 is a pivotal year for the Republican Party if it seeks to avoid turning off activists and pushing them into a new third party. "I believe you may well have seen the beginnings of a third-party movement in this country, which will spell the end of the Republican Party,'' Smith told the Washington Times. "If it happens, I'm not leaving my party -- my party is leaving me,'' he said. My question to Sen. Smith is: Third party? What are the other two? ..."
Worldnetdaily 5/20/99 Joe Dougherty "....In the conservative world, there is a saying that goes, "The only thing worse than a liberal Democrat is a Republican who thinks like a liberal Democrat." That little colloquialism rang true again yesterday, compliments of GOP House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert, proving once again that there is no constitutional party in control of Congress. Hastert, for whatever reason, further weakened constitutional protections on firearms Wednesday by proclaiming that he not only now supports background checks at gun shows, but he also wants to raise the legal age of handgun ownership to 21 in all states...."
AP 5/20/99 AP "...With Vice President Al Gore casting a tie vote, the Senate today approved a Democratic proposal to slap fresh restrictions on gun transactions at gun shows and pawn shops. The vote came a month after a killing spree at a Colorado high school and only hours after a second shooting at a high school in Georgia. The proposal, which would require mandatory background checks for all transactions at gun shows, was tied, 50-50. Gore, who had come to the Capitol in case his vote was needed to break a tie, did so in favor of the Democratic provision...."
Press Conference, Philadelphia 5/25/99 Don Adams "...It has been almost 8 months (Oct. 2, '98) since my sister, Teri, and I were brutally beaten to the ground by a mob of pro-Clinton Teamsters at the direction of their leader, John Morris, during a Presidential fundraising visit to Philadelphia's City Hall. Even though other Clinton protestors were viciously attacked, not a single Teamster has yet to be successfully prosecuted and District Attorney Lynne Abraham has turned the tables on one of the victims - her office is forcing me to stand trial July 8. Since DA Abraham has refused to aggressively prosecute the perpetrators of the crimes as Mayor Ed Rendell promised, we are announcing the founding of the Philadelphia Campaign for Justice and the First Amendment. The campaign will begin with a petition drive directed at the DA and the announcement that my sister and I, with the assistance of Free Republic Attorney, Brian Buckley, of California (nephew of editor and author William F. Buckley, Jr.), are pressing criminal complaints against 3 additional Teamsters. Mr. Joe Roach, another victimized Clinton protestor, is also filing a complaint against a Local 115 member..."
Korea Herald 5/27/99 "....The Clinton administration certainly has a lot of explaining to do. Many Americans will inevitably wonder about a possible sinister connection between the administration's inexplicable slowness to respond to reports of Chinese espionage and campaign funds that flowed from China to Democratic political campaigns in 1996. No wonder the Republicans are finally starting to feel chipper about the prospects of nailing the ever-elusive Clinton. The GOP should be almost worshipful over the careful handling of this sensitive issue by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), in many respects the coolest Republican cucumber on Capitol Hill. He was able to get his committee's five Republicans and four Democrats to work in a bipartisan style. This is no minor
achievement given the report has inherently explosive content and hairpin timing - less than a year before America's presidential campaign. By handling this as a national-security issue, Cox has managed to avoid it being perceived as a purely partisan issue. This rising politician may be far more threatening to China than America's vastly superior nuclear arsenal; he is certainly more threatening to the Democrats than any Chinese missile....Unless the Cox report leads to a better, more realistic, less delusional Sino-U.S. relationship, many Asians will probably wish it had never come to be. So, too, the Clinton administration, which has put so much emphasis on better Sino-U.S. relations. Although the technological leakage originates in the Reagan era, the scandal has surfaced on Clinton's watch. It is his administration which will take the fall for this scandal. If Sino-U.S. relations continue to deteriorate, it will be Clinton who will have "lost" China...."
Orlando Sentinel 5/27/99 "...Paul Weyrich, a decent Washington conservative, sent out a private letter after the Senate failed to impeach Bill Clinton. In essence, he stated that conservatives have lost the political war. The reason "is that politics itself has failed. And politics has failed because of the collapse of the culture. The culture we are living in becomes an ever-wider sewer. In truth, I think we're caught up in a cultural collapse of historic proportions, a collapse so great that it simply overwhelms politics," he wrote. I think that he's right. I've long believed that the assertion that there is a conservative majority in America is a myth....You can't impose on a people by law values that they don't already have. I think this is one of the things Weyrich has realized. Culture comes first, and politics are a byproduct of culture, an effect not a cause. Therefore, you cannot use politics and legislation to create a culture. A culture produces the politics, not the other way around...... Any hope for America's future will come from church and hearthside if it comes at all -- not from politics. Extant traditional Americans have indeed lost the political war...."
WND 5/29/99 Dr. Alan Keyes "...I cannot understand how any American can be complacent about this. America has indeed been a shining city, but that city has had a defensive wall around it. This wall was our national security, much of which depended on our hard-won technological advantage. Our enemies have just ripped a huge hole in that wall, and we are now waiting to see what they are going to pour through it in order to destroy us. We will be struggling to deal with the consequences of this devastating blow to the integrity of our national security situation for the next 20 and 30 years. And yet many Americans are still just sitting and watching. We should have a deep sense of outrage, and our political leaders should have the fear of God in them right now as they sense the determination of a great people to call to account those who have been on watch. But I have not seen this fear on the faces of the people in Washington who have the most explaining to do. Perhaps more ominous than the damage to our national security is the arrogant assumption of the Washington establishment that even these revelations are not a fundamental threat to their power. The confidence our elites now have in the stupid apathy of the American people is chilling....."
Reuters 6/1/99 "...The United States should not respond to the alleged Chinese theft of nuclear secrets by closing its research facilities to scientists from other countries, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Tuesday. "There are some who are proposing that in the name of national security we should restrict our ability to attract the world's finest scientific minds to our laboratories,'' he said in a speech dedicating a new particle accelerator at Fermi National Laboratory. "This would be unwise and we would fight it all the way,'' he added. "It is critical that our laboratories, which hold so many of our important research facilities, and our finest scientists do not become isolated from the world.''..."
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. 6/4/99DONALD WEATHERMAN Freeper eleven "I wrote one of my most widely condemned columns in January of 1998. In that column, I called on President Clinton to resign. The year that followed my call confirmed all the reasons I gave for Clinton resigning: His family would have been spared considerable grief, the Democratic Party would be stronger, Vice President Al Gore would be running as an incumbent in 2000 and our nation would have been spared the 14 months of political hell it was subjected to between January 1998 and February 1999..."
Reuters 6/5/99 Freeper LN Smithee "...Remember how Clinton's approval numbers soared days after Monica hit the fan by saying "Save Social Security first!"? A year and a half later, nothing has been solidified, and the GOP has a rare opportunity to take over a Democratic wedge issue. "Senate Democrats should pass a Republican-backed bill to prevent Social Security's surpluses from being absorbed by the federal budget, Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum said in the Republican weekly radio address Saturday....Clinton administration officials say a lockbox for Social Security funds could jeopardize the government's ability to borrow and fund emergency government activities, like the bombing campaign in Kosovo."..."
INSIGHT Magazine 6/28/99 Kelly Patricia O'Meara Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...Though shocked by bizarre shootings in schools, few Americans have noticed how many shooters were among the 6 million kids now on psychotropic drugs.. . . . There was, however, complete silence from the president when it came to including representatives from the mental-health community, whom many believe can provide important insight about the possible connection between the otherwise seemingly senseless acts of violence being committed by school-age children and prescription psychotropic drugs such as Ritalin, Luvox and Prozac...."
Sunday Times 6/6/99 Paul Ham "...The revolutionary Relenza flu treatment can be sold in Europe but not in America. Paul Ham reports on the regulatory battles over a potential blockbuster drug Flu cure A CURE for influenza is a Holy Grail of modern medicine. The companies that find effective flu drugs will make vast profits out of products that will become global blockbusters, generating sales worth hundreds of millions of pounds and possibly billions annually. Last week finding that Holy Grail moved closer when European Union drug regulators approved the commercial exploitation of Relenza, a treatment that when inhaled has been shown to reduce the severity of flu-related congestion and headaches and help flu sufferers recover more quickly. It is expected to go on sale this autumn, in time for this year's flu season....."
Mercury News 6/4/99 AP "...Anti-nuclear activists said Friday that corruption was behind personnel changes on a panel overseeing safety at a planned nuclear research reactor in Thailand. The Bangkok Post reported on Friday that Darakant Mongkolphantha, a nuclear safety expert who was in charge of the panel, had been replaced with a non-nuclear engineer by Thailand's Office for Atomic Energy for Peace, a government agency...... The paper said three other safety experts on the panel had also been replaced with engineers.....According to her group, General Atomics recently asked the OAEP to change its contract to allow it buy uranium from Russia instead of the United States. ``If the OAEP buys fuel from the U.S., we have an agreement that allows us to send nuclear waste back to the U.S. for disposal. But we have no deal with Russia,'' she said....."
Boston Herald 6/9/99 Don Feder "... Here's a delicious irony: Bill Clinton, who six months ago was impeached for lying under oath and obstruction of justice, could end up appointing more judges than any of his predecessors. To date, Clinton has put 306 of his soulmates on the bench, close to President Reagan's record of 385. By the end of his second term, the perjurer in chief could have appointed 40 percent of the entire federal judiciary. But in the twilight of his tenure, the confirmation process has slowed to a crawl. The usually compliant Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, hasn't held a confirmation hearing this year - which has set the establishment to whining about the unfairness of it all..... This president's judicial nominations are diverse where it matters least - gender and race. Intellectually, they reflect all the variety of Stalinists at a party congress, not to mention the same political leanings....Other Clinton judges have: enjoined the enforcement of a state ban on partial-birth abortions, rejected a student-initiated graduation prayer, forced an Ohio municipality to remove a cross from its city seal and voted to overturn a federal law restricting the broadcast of obscene material to the hours of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m...."
AP News Service 6/9/99 "...Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin told Senate Democrats on Wednesday that the nation's economy does not need the large tax cut envisioned by Republicans in Congress. Meeting behind closed doors in the Capitol with seven key Democrats, Rubin said paying down the nation's debts would be a better use for projected surplus money left over once Social Security and Medicare are safeguarded, according to participants. ``I think it's fair to say they would like nothing to happen,'' said Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. ``The economy is in full employment, with low interest rates. This economy doesn't need any stimulus ... that's their view.''.....``Our biggest problem with the Republican tax bill is that it's so large that it's forcing deep cuts ... they're going to have to cut veterans programs, housing, education, all sorts of things,'' Kerrey said. Republicans, however, believe the existence of the surplus is a golden opportunity to reduce taxes without trimming spending and say tax cuts are second in priority only to guaranteeing Social Security....."
6/12/99 Washington Times Inside Politics Freeper Thanatos "..."Remember all the questions about the White House Travel Office and the Clinton-Gore camp's use of government perks for politics? Funny, but Gore is using the taxpayer-funded White House Travel Office to set up press travel for his June 16 campaign kickoff," the New York Post's Deborah Orin observes. "Gore aides insist it's ethically OK because reporters pay their own way, but they won't say if they plan to keep doing it. GOP rivals like front-runner George W. Bush pay campaign staff to set up campaign travel. So does sole Dem rival Bill Bradley," Miss Orin writes. "Asked if ex-Veep Dan Quayle used the White House Travel Office to set up travel for reporters, his ex-spokesman David Beckwith (who works for Bush) replied: 'Definitely not.'...."
The Congressional Record, Vol. 145, No. 83 6/14/99 Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. (D-OH) "...Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Speaker, China spies and buys our secrets. Then China points their missiles at American cities. Now if that is not enough to put trigger locks on Chinese missiles, a White House spokesman said, and I quote, `We will grant China swift admission to the World Trade Organization.' Swift admission no less. Beam me up here. I am firmly convinced those experts at the White House are smoking dope. I yield back the fact that there is no 5-day waiting period on Chinese nukes. Think about that...."
Associated Press 6/16/99 "…Powerful and destructive armor-piercing ammunition is being sold as surplus to the public through a government program, the Chicago Tribune reported today. More than 100,000 rounds of .50-caliber shells, designed for long-range military sniper weapons, have ended up in the hands of civilian weapons dealers in the last year through the Conventional Demilitarization Program, said the newspaper, which obtained a summary of a federal report to be released today. The government report relies heavily on the findings of an undercover investigation conducted by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. It shows that the Pentagon is selling excess and obsolete stocks of the brass-covered shells for $1 per ton to a West Virginia company…."
AP via FoxNews 6/16/99 Alan Fram "…With both parties eyeing the 2000 elections, Senate Democrats blocked a House-passed bill Wednesday that Republicans say would make it harder to spend Social Security surpluses. The GOP effort came even as Congress illustrated the spending pressures felt by lawmakers, including Republicans. One Republican senator lost an attempt to win an extra $70 million for solar energy, other senators were seeking guaranteed loans for steel, oil and gas companies, and the House voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to boost aviation spending…."
AP 6/20/99 "...Russian President Boris Yeltsin came to Sunday's meeting with President Clinton bearing one gift - a report on declassified Russian information relating to the assassination of President John Kennedy. Sandy Berger, Clinton's national security adviser, termed the report a "very interesting gift.'' But he refused to speculate on whether it contained any new information on the Kennedy assassination, saying it was in Russian and U.S. officials had not reviewed it. The documents will "be reviewed carefully and all interesting elements will be made public,'' Berger told reporters traveling with Clinton to the economic summit in Cologne...."
Bloomberg / Newsweek 6/28/99 Newsweek "...Two U.S. nuclear weapons labs have been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for safety violations over the past three years, Newsweek says, citing a U.S. General Accounting Office draft report.... The labs, run by the University of California, won't have to pay the fines due to a law exempting such nonprofit facilities and Energy Department officials say safety at the labs has improved, Newsweek says in its June 28 edition, on newsstands tomorrow...."
Washington Post 6/27/99 Robert O'Harrow Jr. "...As part of a new and aggressive effort to track down parents who owe child support, the federal government has created a vast computerized data-monitoring system that includes all individuals with new jobs and the names, addresses, Social Security numbers and wages of nearly every working adult in the United States. Government agencies have long gathered personal information for specific reasons, such as collecting taxes. But never before have federal officials had the legal authority and technological ability to locate so many Americans found to be delinquent parents -- or such potential to keep tabs on Americans accused of nothing. The system was established under a little-known part of the law overhauling welfare three years ago. It calls for all employers to quickly file reports on every person they hire and, quarterly, the wages of every worker. States regularly must report all people seeking unemployment benefits and all child-support cases.... Enforcement officials say the coupling of computer technology with details about individuals' employment and financial holdings will give them an unparalleled ability to identify and locate parents who owe child support and, when necessary, withhold money from their paychecks or freeze their financial assets...... But privacy experts and civil libertarians say the scope of the effort raises new questions about the proper line between aggressive public policy and intrusive government snooping. In pursuing an objective that is almost universally applauded, the government has also created something that many Americans have staunchly opposed: a vast pool of fresh personal information that could be used in a variety of ways to monitor their lives...... Already lawmakers, federal agencies and the White House have considered expanding the permitted aims of the system to include cutting down on fraud by government contractors, improving the efficiency of the government and pinpointing debtors, such as students who default on government loans..... Supporters of the system note that Congress explicitly restricted access to it. Those authorized to use the information include the Social Security Administration, which can use the directory of new hires to verify unemployment reports; the Treasury Department, which can use it to cross-reference tax-deduction claims; and researchers, who gain access only to anonymous data. Next month, financial institutions that operate in multiple states -- such as Crestar Financial Corp., Charles Schwab & Co. and the State Department Federal Credit Union -- will begin comparing a list of more than 3 million known delinquents against their customer accounts. Under federal law, the institutions are obligated to return the names, Social Security numbers and account details of delinquents they turn up...."
Wall St. Journal 6/25/99 "...In the wake of the Supreme Court's end-of-term decisions issued this week, we can't help but think of the message we've heard over and over again through the years from mayors and governors, CEOs and small businesspeople who visit our offices. Deliver us from Washington, they plead. Give us back the freedom to make the decisions about what's best for our own communities and businesses. Indeed, the biggest shift in American society over the past 50 years has to be the gradual federalization of so many aspects of life. Today Washington has its nose in almost every nook and cranny of our existence--including whether a trucking company can require its drivers to have two good eyes or whether a state must pay its workers federally mandated overtime, two of the cases decided by the Court this week. Altogether, there isn't much left that's exempt from Washington's scrutiny. Nor, of course, from the concomitant scrutiny of the legal system. The Court's three state's-rights decisions Wednesday make a stab at fixing that; they represent an important effort to restore the balance between state power and federal power. As Justice Kennedy put it in the overtime-pay case: "Congress has vast power, but not all power. Congress must accord states the esteem due to them as joint participants in a federal system." In short, the Constitution doesn't permit Congress to order the states around willy-nilly...."
Reuters 6/25/99 Patrick Connole "...President Clinton likely would veto compromise legislation on nuclear waste storage pending in the Senate because it would cut out the Environmental Protection Agency from setting radiation regulations, a Department of Energy official said Friday. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week approved a bipartisan bill aimed at ending years of wrangling between the federal government and nuclear utilities by having the DOE assume control of radioactive spent fuel at reactor sites. About 38,000 tons of waste currently are stored at U.S. reactor sites. That amount is expected to double in the coming years....However, the DOE official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Senate bill remained troublesome mainly due to the EPA being replaced by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the steward for setting radiation standards...."
MSNBC Jay Severin 6/29/99 "...BILL CLINTON and Al Gore have been as close as people holding these two jobs get. That is why some were surprised when Gore not only began his campaign for the top job, but also defined it, by proclaiming how unlike Clinton he is. Usually, this is run-of-the-mill stuff: a vice president stakes out his own turf and his own identity. An implicit criticism of the boss is part of the process. ....But something queer happened. Gore came out of the gate seemingly eager not merely for a separation from Clinton, but a divorce. The VP repeatedly condemned Clinton for his, ahem, personal shortcomings, and in personal terms. On Saturday, Bubba fired back. Team Clinton leaked to the news media the fact that the president was "hurt" and, in no uncertain terms, "angry" about Gore's criticism...."
Reuters 6/29/99 Mark Egan "...House Republican Leader Dick Armey Tuesday denounced the proposed sale of International Monetary Fund gold to help reduce poor countries' debt and said he would back legislation to block the proposal.Under the plan, up to 10 million ounces of the IMF's 104 million ounce gold reserve would be sold and proceeds used to offset debt owed by poor countries.``Just a way for the IMF to acquire liquidity for more mischief without being accountable,'' said Armey of Texas...."
The Detroit News 7/2/99 "...The Michigan Court of Appeals has abolished the tort of "wrongful birth." In so doing, it has strengthened the right of the disabled to a presumption that their lives are as valuable as the lives of the nondisabled. A "tort" is a wrongful action. The court's majority, Judges William Whitbeck and Michael Smolenski, essentially said the birth of a child, even a disabled one, cannot by itself be considered a wrongful action. This is an important statement of the value under Michigan law of all human life. The case arose, as such cases usually do, out of unhappy circumstances. After the birth of a child with physical deformities, the parents brought suit against the hospital and the radiologist on their case. The couple contended that the radiologist should have disclosed the deformities. Failure to do so, the couple complained, deprived them of "their right to make a reproductive decision." The couple also sued for medical malpractice and emotional distress...."
AP CNN.com 7/1/99 "...The Clinton administration is threatening to veto a $12.7 billion foreign aid package that slashes many international programs, including the Peace Corps, while providing unrequested funds for a Kosovo security force. Before passing the overall spending bill late Wednesday, the Senate rejected, 55-43, a proposal that would have eased restrictions on American citizens who want to travel to Cuba..... The White House is threatening a veto of the overall bill, mainly on grounds that it cuts too much from what it views as critical programs, including the Peace Corps. The legislation makes a $50 million, or 19 percent, reduction to President Clinton's request for the organization. ..."
AP 7/1/99 Pierre Thomas "...The Immigration and Naturalization Service detained and released serial killer suspect Rafael Resendez- Ramirez in June, even though the INS had been told by Texas police last year he was wanted on murder and burglary charges, Justice Department officials said Thursday. The new details were revealed one day after INS Commissioner Doris Meissner requested her own agency be investigated by the Justice Department's top watchdog. Meissner said the agency's failure to identify the 38-year- old drifter charged in two murders and linked to six other slayings, "has raised serious questions about the INS' knowledge of the case and procedures used in encounters with" him. The investigation by the Justice Department's inspector general will examine why Resendez-Ramirez was released repeatedly after being caught entering the United States illegally. The inspector general's office investigates waste, fraud and abuse...."
Freeper Angelwood 7/1/99 Reports "...However, hanging around outside the Tantrum Gate was productive today. I was given the opportunity to ask Joe Lockhart a serious question. A group of about half a dozen people came out of the gate and turned in my direction. In front and to my right was Mr. Lockhart, himself, sans coat, and talking with the others around him. When he was next to me, I said, "Mr. Lockhart. How can Hillary and Bill afford $3.8 million for a house in New York when they're supposed to be broke?" I think I surprised them all, but Joe recovered. He said, "that's a good question; that's a good question" -- as he kept walking quickly away. I spoke up loudly. "I've heard that answer before in your press conferences and you ignore the questions. Very good, Mr. Lockhart. You are the press secretary who knows nothing...."
AP 7/16/99 "…The emotional partisan Senate debate over patient protections is over but the battle for public opinion labored on Friday. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott accused President Clinton of refusing to look for a compromise with the GOP over a patients rights bill it pushed through the Senate on nearly total party-line vote Thursday night. "If the president will quit whining, griping and threatening, and come up and engage, we'll work with him and see if we can find a bill he'll sign,'' Lott, R-Miss., told reporters…."
AP/Fox News On-line 7/15/99 HJ Hebert "…The government acknowledged for the first time Thursday that thousands of workers were made sick while making nuclear weapons and announced a plan to compensate many of them for medical care and lost wages. Congress must still approve the compensation, which would end years of litigation over claims by the workers that they became sick while employed by private contractors at federal nuclear weapons facilities during the Cold War…."
Drudge Report 7/16/99 "…Just as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is trying to determine how many public television stations had swapped donor lists with the Democratic National Committee, after reports that stations in Washington, New York and Boston had done so, congressional investigators have started to point suspicious fingers at the White House! ….The White House is now working to limit any damage that could come from the developing situation -- damage that could hit Hillary's oldest friends in Arkansas! On June 28, 1993, President Clinton nominated Diane Blair to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Blair, who was 'best person' at the Clintons' wedding and has been one of Hillary's oldest friends, was later nominated by the president, in 1998, to serve as a Member of the Board of Directors of the corporation. Blair was later elected vice chair of its board of directors. Blair is very close to the Clintons and is said to have spent more nights at the White House than just about anyone except the first family….. PBS station KQED-TV in San Francisco on Friday admitted to list-swapping not only the Democratic National Committee but also Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, whose daughter, Nicole, married Hillary Rodham Clinton's brother, Anthony Rodham, in the White House Rose Garden in 1994…."
AP 7/8/99 "…Senate confirmation continues to look like a receding target for Richard Holbrooke in his long quest to be U.N. ambassador. Four senators, including Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., are now known to have placed ``holds'' on the veteran diplomat's nomination, putting off a floor vote for an indeterminate period…..Lott spokesman John Czwartacki declined to comment on the holds. By tradition, any senator can block, at least for a time, any nomination, anonymously if he or she chooses. However, on the subject of the FEC vacancy, Czwartacki said presidents traditionally give leaders of the other party the prerogative of picking their party's FEC representatives. ``I've never seen a White House that tried to pick the other party's nominees,'' Czwartacki said…."
7/12/99 The Associated Press via NewsEdge Corporation "…Members of Congress concerned that China and other countries may be learning U.S. scientific secrets by rocketing civilian satellites into space want the United States to expand its launch capabilities. There's one key problem with the plan: Upgrading Air Force launch pads at Cape Canaveral, Fla., and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., could cost up to $600 million and, for now, there's little money in the federal budget to do the work….U.S. policy makers are divided on whether to upgrade Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg and keep them under U.S. government control or to privatize them. Retired Lt. Gen. Richard Henry, who led a study for the Air Force space command into launch problems, said many aerospace companies use foreign launch sites instead of U.S. government ones because of a ``general frustration'' with scheduling delays, ``antiquated equipment and budget constraints
Chattanooga Free Press 7/18/99 "...Like millions of other Americans who are either voluntary or captive members of labor unions, Sherry and David Pirlott of Green Bay, Wis., have been shaken down by political union bosses who have taken some of their earnings to finance partisan political campaigns. But the ruling of the United States Supreme Court in the Beck case provided that workers have a right to get a refund of their money that is used for political and other purposes. not for collective bargaining. (In the case of Harry Beck, he was entitled to 71 cents back from each dollar he was forced to pay.) Sherry and David Pirlott want their money back, too. So they filed suit against Teamsters Local 75 in Green Bay to try to get it. But that was in 1992. This is 1999. And they, like workers in many other cases, have not gotten justice yet...."
CNSNews.com 7/21/99 Paul McNamara "..- Many cultural conservatives have lamented the liberal slant of television, but one Hollywood expert says it's inherent with the medium and any effort to remedy the bias "is not going to work." ...."Americans see problems resolved time after time in 30 minutes or an hour, and when that doesn't occur in their life, they begin to feel sorry for themselves," Medved noted. "They're absolutely convinced we're all victims." Medved said this feeling of crisis cements television's liberal bias, observing that "liberalism would be nothing without a crisis to exploit." ....Research cited by Medved indicated that the average American teenager spends an estimated 33 hours talking with parents each year, 700 hours a year in a classroom and 1500 hours watching television, prompting Medved to recommend less television viewing. "The real problem is not low quality, it's high quantity," said Medved. "We suffer from too much TV, period." ..."
Washington Times 7/21/99 "...America's trade deficit burgeoned by 15 percent in May to another record -- $21.3 billion -- as exports shrank and U.S. consumers soaked up purchases of oil, cars and other goods from every corner of the world. Deficits with nearly every trading partner widened -- and America's rare trade surplus with Latin America disappeared altogether --as imports climbed to a record $98.9 billion. Exports fell to $77.6 billion, adding to the woes of U.S. farmers and manufacturers of cars and aircraft...."
Capitol Hill Blue Bruce Sullivan 7/15/99 (CNS) - A bipartisan bill was introduced in Congress Wednesday that would, among other things, end federal income taxes, capital gains taxes, inheritance taxes, and the marriage penalty tax by replacing them with a one-time, 23 percent, national sales tax on all goods and services traded at the retail level. According to the Fair Tax Bill's sponsors, Reps. John Linder, a Georgia Republican, and Minnesota Democrat Collin Peterson, the Internal Revenue Service would no longer be needed and would be eliminated by Jan. 1, 2001. "One hundred thousand people at the IRS know more about me than I'm willing to tell my own children," said Linder...."
Washington Times 7/22/99 Frank J Murray "...Cops and prosecutors call it punishing the crooks when and where they'll feel it most. Lots of other people, honest and law-abiding, call it police piracy...... Most forfeitures -- by which the government seizes property that officers merely suspect was used in a crime or bought with the loot --never reach the point of criminal charges. Up to 80 percent never go to court. Seized properties range from a doctor's savings to a private prison in Louisiana with all 400 inmates, a Houston hotel, a 4,346-acre Florida ranch, a church's Spanish-language radio station and Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss' $550,000 Beverly Hills mansion..... Mr. Hyde told the senators it's difficult for him to accept that a law that permits and in fact encourages violations of the rights of innocent citizens could go unchallenged. He entreated the senators to accept the tough reform legislation he steered to overwhelming bipartisan acceptance in the House last month...."
National Post 7/22/99 Brad Evenson "...The germ that causes pneumonia, bacterial meningitis and inner ear infection has grown resistant to the synthetic drugs that doctors once hoped would contain the spread of so-called "superbugs," Canadian research has shown. As a result, new strains of bacteria have multiplied across Canada that can no longer be destroyed by fluoroquinolones, drugs developed in the mid 1980s to combat resistance to such medications as penicillin and tetracycline. Researchers have found that 3.7% of Streptococcus pneumoniae strains taken from Canadian patients have grown resistant to fluoroquinolones....."
Reuters 7/21/99 "...Even with its proposed sweeping tax cuts, congressional Republicans' 10-year budget would leave larger surpluses and provide more money to pay down the nation's debt than President Clinton's plan, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.....The CBO calculated that under Clinton's budget debt held by the public in U.S. Treasury bills, notes and bonds would fall to $1.8 trillion, or 13 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, through 2009. With the Republican plan, it would fall to $1.6 trillion, or 12 percent of GDP, it said. The reason, the CBO said, is that Clinton would use most projected surpluses, excluding Social Security reserves, to boost government spending, while Republicans would slash it...."
AFP 7/24/99 "…The US Justice Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Customs service on Friday announced a joint initiative aimed at stamping out intellectual property crime. The campaign will include domestic and international components aimed at increasing the prosecution of intellectual property theft. The Business Software Alliance in a recent study found that software theft in 1998 resulted in 991 million dollars in lost US tax revenue and 109,000 fewer US jobs…."
Washington Times 7/20/99 Balint Vazsonyi "…When something is forbidden, a right to do something is taken away. All right, I hear some people say, but along with all the new prohibitions, we have gained a whole battery of new rights. Indeed. The Bill of Rights contains not a single provision which grants or concedes a right to anyone by taking something from another. It does not even grant rights, really, it rather affirms their pre-existence. All restrictions in those first ten amendments to our Constitution are placed on government -- not a single constraint on individuals or The People at large…."
New York Times 7/26/99 William Safire "…We have stumbled into the era of no-fault government. Blamelessness is next to godliness; nobody in authority is held responsible for blunders, no matter how costly. Take last week's case of the cell biologist at a Berkeley, Calif., lab who was found to have faked his research findings -- supposedly linking electric power to cancer -- to win his lab $3.3 million from three Federal agencies. A whistle-blower alerted the Office of Research Integrity, which found him "falsifying and fabricating data." The swinging scientist, Robert Liburdy, avoids prosecution by not contesting these findings, though he admits nothing. Is the lab being forced to return the money to taxpayers? No. Its lawyer tells William Broad of The Times that the unused portion is "being used for other science."…."
Washington Post 7/26/99 "…MONEY FOR international family-planning programs, whose work includes contraception and basic women's health services, has long been held hostage in Congress to the more divisive matter of abortion. Off and on since the early 1980s, and again last year, antiabortion forces in Congress have blocked any U.S. contribution to the U.N. Population Fund and other international family-planning efforts, arguing that those agencies also fund abortions and that this makes the U.S. contribution an indirect form of abortion funding. That case suffered a setback last week when the House voted to authorize $20 million for the U.N. Population Fund, up from zero last year…."
Washington Post 7/26/99 Helen Dewar "…When Democrats tried last month to tuck their health care legislation into a farm spending bill, Republicans decided they had made a mistake--a really big one--when they voted four years ago to allow members to write policy into appropriations bills from the Senate floor. So today, Republicans will try to revive the Senate's old ban on legislating on spending bills, and they appear to have the votes to overcome complaints from many Democrats that they are simply trying to find one more way to keep from having to vote on Democratic initiatives…."
Los Angeles Times 7/27/99 Patrick J McDonnell "...Gov. Gray Davis has quietly ended efforts to deny pregnancy care for tens of thousands of illegal immigrants--a battle that became a hallmark of the administration of former Gov. Pete Wilson and a symbol of the state's hardball immigration politics earlier this decade. Deep in a budget bill signed by the new governor late last week is a provision authorizing a state-funded prenatal care program for undocumented women. The move effectively preserves the 11-year-old aid program that was targeted by Wilson for extinction...."
New York Times 7/27/99 Jeff Gerth "...The Senate inquiry intensified after a General Accounting Office report last December found that executives at Citibank Private Bank ignored one of the bank's own safeguards in helping to move up to $100 million for Raul Salinas while his brother, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, was president of Mexico..... "
New York Times 7/27/99 Jeff Gerth "...Another case under review by the Senate committee, aides said, involves Pakistan's corruption investigation of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, and her husband, Asif Ali Zadari. The two were convicted of corruption earlier this year in Islamabad, Pakistan. Documents show that Citibank Private Bank in Geneva handled tens of millions of dollars for Zadari...."
WorldNet Daily 7/27/99 David Limbaugh "...It seems that on those few occasions that I stand up for congressional Republicans, they always make me eat my words. Last week, under cover of darkness, and with the anonymity of voice vote, the Senate passed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.....Hate-crime legislation establishes stiffer penalties for violent crimes motivated by hatred against certain protected classes of individuals. Currently, federal law covers race, color, religion or national origin. The new Senate bill adds the categories of sexual orientation, gender and disability. So if you criminally assault a person because he/she is a member of a protected class you are not only guilty of assault, but of a hate-crime as well. ... Hate-crime legislation is foreign to our system of criminal jurisprudence. Why, for example, is battery worse if motivated by hatred of one's sexual orientation than, say, his wealth. Is it more acceptable to beat a man because he is rich than because he is homosexual? How about a poor man? A stupid (but not disabled) man? The possibilities are endless...."
The Wall Street Journal 7/27/99 Rebecca Buckman "...Jeffrey R. Bedser does some of his best work at home, at about 2 a.m., when he logs on to the Internet pretending to be a woman. The clean-cut father of young twins isn't sampling X-rated Web sites. He's putting in overtime as head of the new Internet-crimes group of International Business Research Inc., a corporate-investigations company based in Princeton, N.J..... To help round up cybersuspects, IBR and rivals Kroll Associates and DSFX LLC, based in Falls Church, Va., have all formed special groups to tackle Web-related assignments. "This is hot stuff," says Michael Cherkasky, president of New York-based Kroll Associates, one of the largest investigation firms. Before the Internet, these corporate sleuths mostly performed "due diligence" checks on acquisition targets or investigated embarrassing internal thefts. Now, tactics are more high-tech........ After striking up an online conversation, the investigators (posing as a friendly young woman named Terry) suggested the suspect click to a separate home page to see a snapshot of Terry. It was a trap. The amateur-looking page had family photos -- including one of a smiling woman wearing shorts, said to be Terry. Staking out the site, IBR watched as the visitor clicked on, then followed his electronic tracks back to a local Internet-service provider in Miami...... IBR once helped a large pharmaceutical company find a Canadian pharmacist, using the name PharmaFool, who had criticized one of the company's new anti-inflammatory drugs on a message board. Once it found him, the drug company ended up leaving PharmaFool alone after discovering he wasn't a competitor or an insider, as it had suspected. The man IBR believes to be PharmaFool didn't return calls for comment. IBR's big break in the case? The man used the same PharmaFool screen name on another message board, where his public "personal profile" also included his town, his favorite hockey team and his real name. ...." Freeper Elle Bee adds By Bradley A. Stertz and Richard A. Ryan / Detroit News Washington Bureau "...New York state elections officials said they will look into the sources of contributions a federal Teamsters overseer received in his bid five years ago for a district attorney's post. At issue are nine donations newly installed Teamsters election supervisor Michael Cherkasky took in during his 1993 Democratic campaign for the Westchester County, N.Y., office..... Cherkasky's firm, Kroll Monitoring Services, never got the union's business. Cherkasky also told Edelstein he had "never met nor spoken to Davis" but used his name only at the suggestion of Kroll's chairman...."
Reason website 7/28/99 Cox Reports Interviewed by Michael W. Lynch and Jeff A. Taylor 8/9 99 "...Cox sat down with Washington Editor Michael W. Lynch and Reason Express writer Jeff A. Taylor in early June, as he was busy passing an amendment to the Pentagon budget which requires the administration to report to Congress by November on the status of China's missile technology.... Reason: What caused the bipartisanship to break down after the report? Cox: The reason that our report was unanimous was that we stuck to the facts. Because the facts spoke so loudly for themselves, there was no need to spin the report with inferences. But anyone reading the report will be led to his or her inferences very rapidly. Once the report was published, demands were made for the resignation of the attorney general, the national security adviser, and others. Apparently there will be significant firings in the Department of Energy. The Clinton administration is under fire--that has changed the political calculus...
Associated Press 7/30/99 David Espo "...Republicans pushed their $792 billion tax cut through the Senate on Friday, courting a classic veto struggle this fall with President Clinton and Democrats who claim the measure shortchanges Medicare and other domestic programs.,,, The 10-year measure includes broad-based tax relief as well as provisions designed to address the so-called marriage penalty and make it easier to accumulate retirement savings and pay for education...."
Wall St. Journal 7/29/99 Glenn Burkins Greg Hitt "...Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan again warned Congress that it should neither rush to enact large tax cuts nor use the budget surplus to fund new spending. In his semiannual report to the Senate Banking Committee, Mr. Greenspan said the growing surplus would be best used to pay down the federal debt, now at $3.6 trillion. But that didn't stop Democrats and Republicans from trying to use the Fed chairman's admonitions to buttress their respective positions on the surplus ..."
NEWS FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY 7/29/99 George Getz "...Hundreds of banks around the USA have started turning their complete customer database -- including Social Security numbers and account balances -- over to government agencies to comply with federal child support laws, the Libertarian Party warned today. "Politicians are now using the Deadbeat Dads law to violate your financial privacy -- even if you've never had children," said Steve Dasbach, national director of the Libertarian Party. "And if that's not bad enough, the law also prohibits your bank from notifying you that your account information has been turned over to the prying eyes of bureaucrats." The Financial Institution Data Match program, an outgrowth of the 1996 Deadbeat Dads law, requires banks to search their databases every three months for matches against state-provided lists of parents who have fallen behind in child support payments. But banks without the resources to comply have been forced to turn their entire customer database over to state agencies -- and allow government bureaucrats to do the searches instead...."
Sacramento Bee 7/28/99 Blair nthony Robertson "..This is the land where he was born, where he grew up, married, taught his five kids to be good stewards of the land..... Bierwagen is one of many frustrated landowners in California and throughout the United States joining the ranks of the private property rights movement. By some estimates, there are 2,000 or more groups large and small, with names like Defenders of Property Rights and American Land Rights Association. Sacramento is home to one of the key players in the movement, the Pacific Legal Foundation, which for years has battled government agencies in court on behalf of property owners. Bierwagen started Concerned Citizens for 174, a reference to the highway the Nevada County Board of Supervisors wanted to designate as scenic, placing new restrictions on property owners in the process.....Courts have generally ruled that landowners must be compensated when new regulations remove all practical use for the property. But the property rights camp says that isn't enough. Bill Craven, of Sierra Club California, says that property ownership is not absolute and that governments must often impose land use laws for the greater public good, whether it's to protect endangered species, save trees, maintain scenic vistas or regulate population density. To require compensation for every new regulation, argues Michael Bean, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, would put landowners in the position of demanding ransom to not develop on the property...."The California courts have historically been more supportive of local government regulation and less supportive of private property rights than anywhere else in the nation," said Michael Berger, a Santa Monica attorney representing Buckley and a nationally recognized authority on land takings...."
New York Post 8/2/99 "...The law of unintended consequences strikes again - and this time at the Environmental Protection Agency. When Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1990, one of the law's targets was gasoline. The law obliged oil companies to add an "oxygenate" - a substance that contains oxygen and allows gas to burn more efficiently - to gasoline. To comply, the companies relied on a chemical known as MTBE. When critics warned of health risks from MTBE, the EPA scoffed. But last Tuesday, an EPA-appointed panel announced that, while cutting air pollution, the chemical can also cause severe water pollution..... It also turns out to be a carcinogen...."
Reuters CNETnews.com 8/2/99 "...A U.S. Appeals Court upheld a $2 billion annual federal program to subsidize Internet connections for schools and libraries. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Friday backed the Federal Communications Commission's decisions to allow the subsidies to be used to pay directly for Internet access as well as needed internal wiring at schools and libraries. Major telephone carriers such as GTE had argued the money could only be spent on telecommunications services. Thousands of schools and libraries around the country connected to the Internet thanks in part to the program created in the 1996 Telecommunications Act and known as the education rate or e-rate...."
NewsMax.com 8/2/99 Christopher Ruddy "...The illegal release of information from Linda Tripp's files for political reasons, and her subsequent prosecution, are just the latest of a long series of danger signals of a country at risk. When you add in ... the political prosecution of Billy Dale of the White House Travel Office; the illegal seizure of a thousand FBI files (many likely used for political blackmail); the cover-up of Vince Foster's death; Clinton's endless stream of executive orders circumventing Congress; Clinton's illegal and murderous "wag the dog" war in Yugoslavia, which killed thousands of innocent civilians and employed such police-state tactics as bombing radio stations, hospitals, and orphanages; political attacks and death threats against Congressmen and other officials who voted for impeachment or who sought to blow the whistle on Fostergate and Chinagate; and the fact that the Congress, by failing to remove Clinton from office despite the fact he committed one or more felonies, concluded the rule of law did not apply to him, you are driven to one frightening conclusion: Our Republic itself is in danger...."
Knight Ridder 11/06/98 Frank Greve "....A wealthy friend of the Clintons offered Linda Tripp help finding a private-sector job and treated her to lavish weekends, according to Tripp, at the same time last year that Monica Lewinsky sought job help from Clinton ally Vernon Jordan. Tripp's reputed benefactor, New York philanthropist Norma Asnes, is a widow, author and theater producer who hit it off with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her mother when they met during the1992 campaign, according to a former aide to the first lady. Until recently, Asnes kept a Georgetown townhouse where she occasionally played hostess to the Clintons and White House staff. Over the last four years she has contributed $59,500 to Democrats, according to federal records, and is listed among ``longtime friends'' of the Clintons in a tally provided by the White House last year of Lincoln Bedroom guests. Asnes' offers of help were accompanied by penetrating questions about what Tripp knew of White House flirtations involving the president, Tripp told Lewinsky in a phone call that Tripp tape-recorded and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr turned over to Congress....Tripp told Lewinsky after the first visit that Asnes had urged her to come up every two months, ``so she can get me out.'' In her recorded conversations with Lewinsky, Tripp said Asnes offered to introduce her to several business executives Asnes knew, including the president and CEO of Becton Dickinson and Co., a big New Jersey-based medical technology company that Asnes' late husband, Marvin, had commanded. Asnes also pressed Tripp to join her and her friends on a private charter cruise, and invited Tripp to Washington theater parties and receptions...."
Investor's Business Daily 8/3/99 "...For 200 years, Americans elected their lawmakers without the help of government. Enter the Federal Election Commission in 1975. In less than 25 years, that agency has tried to turn the First Amendment on its head. And it looks like the FEC's chokehold on speech is going to get even tighter. The agency is considering whether small, independent Web sites that endorse (or oppose) candidates should register with the FEC and comply with federal spending limits. When the slow-moving FEC gets around to issuing an opinion, it won't be a rule. But it might as well be. In lieu of a rule, the FEC expects candidates to follow its advisory opinions. And they usually do..... More to the point, the FEC's Web-related opinions have put the squeeze on free speech. Corporations can't set up neutral candidate forums on their Web sites. Election-oriented Web sites must register with the FEC; they cannot operate anonymously. Campaign-oriented independent Web sites that spend $250 or more must also register with the FEC..... And that's why so many lawmakers and bureaucrats want to chain the Internet. The information flow over the Web threatens their grip on power. They don't find it as easy to effectively ''fix'' elections so they remain in power...."
San Jose Mercury News 8/3/99 Howard Mintz "...A sharply divided California Supreme Court, struggling with an unprecedented clash between free-speech rights and workplace discrimination, decided Monday that the First Amendment can take a back seat to preventing harassment on the job. In a case with national implications, the state's high court held that government has the power to regulate words in the employment setting, at least when there is a proven need to correct harassing conduct and discrimination. The ruling, written by Chief Justice Ronald George, essentially permits a judge to muzzle an employee found to have created a hostile work setting by directing racial slurs at colleagues. ....Lawyers for the Latino workers, with backing from groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that the need to keep the workplace free of harassment outweighs any restraint on free speech....."
European Stars And Stripes 8/4/99 AP "...The Defense Department may have lost more than $1 billion from health care fraud and abuse during the past three years, according to a congressional report that criticized the Pentagon for lax oversight. From 1996 through 1998, companies providing health care services for Pentagon employees reported 100 potential fraud cases, a fraction of the 50 million claims filed during the three-year period, said the report issued by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. No precise accounting could be made, but the GAO said more accurate estimate of the amount of fraud would be 10 percent to 20 percent of the $5.7 billion in managed health care claims - or between $570 million and $1.14 billion. The report said $14 million in fraudulent payments was retrieved...."
www.independent.co.uk/atp/INDEPENDENT/BUSINESS/P18S1.html 8/7/99 "... CONCERN IS growing in the financial markets that a major hedge fund is in difficulty, prompting fears of a repeat of last year's crisis when the Federal Reserve in the US had to mount a $3.5bn bail-out of Long- Term Capital Management (LTCM) in order to stave off a global financial collapse. The market for swaps, complex interest-rate derivatives which are widely used by hedge funds and the proprietary trading desks of the big investment banks to fund their high-risk trading strategies is, say traders, showing the same signs of distress that was seen after the Russian bond default last August...."
Reuters 8/5/99 "...The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress approved the biggest tax cut in nearly two decades Thursday despite a veto pledge from President Clinton, drawing battle lines for next year's election. The $792 billion tax cut, proposed by Republicans but opposed by Democrats, would trim all five income tax rates by one percentage point, lower capital gains taxes for individuals, eliminate estate taxes and ease the so-called marriage-tax penalty. Clinton has repeatedly promised to veto the 10-year bill...."
New York Post 8/6/99 Deborah Orin "...President Clinton will award the nation's highest civilian honor to former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, the White House says - but not to onetime rival George H. Bush. That leaves Bush - father of Republican 2000 front-runner George W. Bush - as the only living ex-president who doesn't hold the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Bush awarded the medal to Ronald Reagan. ..."
AP Breaking News 8/12/99 "... A McDonald's fast food restaurant was burnt to the ground today, and police believe the fire was the work of a militant animal rights group that has claimed responsibility for similar attacks in the past. ``The letters ALF were painted at the scene,'' said Jan Poels, a spokesman for the Antwerp prosecutor's office, referring to the group Animal Liberation Front. ``The restaurant was completely destroyed after the roof collapsed.'' ``It was the worst destruction we have seen so far,'' he added ..."
WorldNetDaily 8/11/99 Jon Dougherty "...A group opposed to the provisions of the 1934 National Firearms Act is planning a lawsuit to force the federal government to amend or repeal the 65-year-old law. According to the 1934 Group, a provision of federal firearms law known as the CLEO, or Certified Law Enforcement Officer sign-off provision is being challenged as an illegal unfunded federal mandate and tax requirement. The provision requires local law enforcement officials to approve the purchase of fully automatic weapons and, once approved, requires the purchaser to pay a $200 tax on each weapon purchased....."
Associated Press 8/11/99 Kevin Galvin "... President Clinton offered on Wednesday to commute the sentences of 16 members of a Puerto Rican independence group if they sign agreements renouncing the use of violence. Their group staged some 130 bomb attacks on political and military targets in the United States from 1974 to 1983. One administration official, who spoke on condition anonymity, said the prisoners were not involved in any deaths. ..."
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 8/11/99 Paul Greenberg "... What's this, Webb Hubbell asked to address the American Bar Association? Yep, he was a guest of its White Collar Crime Committee at the ABA's convention in Atlanta. Well, he does have an undeniable expertise in that field. It's as if the American Bankers Association had asked Willie Sutton to share his wisdom. Clearly it was a mix-up: With his remarkable record at managing not to pay his taxes, Mr. Hubbell should have been asked to conduct a seminar in tax law instead. Doesn't the American bar respect a man's legal specialty any more?..."
Flight International 8/11-17/99 Peter La Franchi/Canberra, Paul Lewis and Graham Warwick/Washington DC "...Boeing is being investigated by the US Government for alleged breaches of US restrictions on the release of stealth technology as part of its bid for Australia's Project Wedgetail airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) contract. Investigations by Flight International show the inquiry is concentrating on the alleged release to the Australian Department of Defence between November and January of classified low-observable/counter low-observable (LO/CLO) radar signature and verification cross reference indexing data. US Department of Defense officials and Boeing have acknowledged to Flight International that the investigation is under way. Information provided by sources suggests, however, that a draft report may have been provided in April to US Undersecretary for Defense Acquisition and Technology Paul Gansler...."
Newsweek 8/13/99 Jane Bryant Quinn "... Consumer activists are pressing Congress for better privacy laws without much result so far. The legislators lean toward letting business people track our financial habits virtually at will. As an example of what's going on, consider U.S. Bancorp, which was recently sued for deceptive practices by the state of Minnesota. According to the lawsuit, the bank supplied a telemarketer called MemberWorks with sensitive customer data such as names, phone numbers, bank-account and credit- card numbers, Social Security numbers, account balances and credit limits. With these customer lists in hand, MemberWorks started dialing for dollars-selling dental plans, videogames, computer software and other products and services. Customers who accepted a "free trial offer" had 30 days to cancel. If the deadline passed, they were charged automatically through their bank or credit-card accounts. U.S. Bancorp collected a share of the revenues....."
AP 8/13/99 "....Donations to President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton's legal defense fund have slowed in recent months, and organizers say they will not be able to cover all the bills by the end of the president's term unless the pace picks up. The trust has raised $6.3 million in a year and a half, but the Clintons' bills total $10.5 million and are rising, the fund's trustees said yesterday. The fund has paid $4.5 million toward those bills for legal expenses of the president and Mrs. Clinton. The fund also has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on mailed solicitations...."
Reuters 8/14/99 "...Democratic fund raiser Johnny Chung, a key figure in the 1996 campaign finance scandal, said Saturday Democrats told him how to plead the fifth amendment before he testified to Congress in 1997. Speaking in an interview to air on the Fox News Channel Monday, Chung said he received a package on "how to plead the fifth" from the chief counsel for the Democrats on the Government Reform and Oversight Committee where he was set to testify. "At the very beginning of 1997, the Democrat side of the Government Reform Committee sent a package to my office, to my attorney's office," Chung said in the interview, adding that the package, "Tried to teach me how to plead -- take the fifth."...."
WASHINGTON (Reuters) 8/15/99 "...Chung said in the interview, adding that the package "tried to teach me how to plead -- take the Fifth." The U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment gives individuals the right against self-incrimination. Philip Schiliro, Democratic staff director of the House Government Reform Committee, told Reuters that Chung's assertions are "regrettable and categorically wrong." "At no time did a staff counsel make any effort to discourage Mr. Chung from cooperating with the committee. At no time did any staff counsel try to influence Mr. Chung's decision on whether to assert the Fifth Amendment to deny Chung's allegation," Schiliro said. Chung, a Taiwanese-born businessman, appeared before the congressional panel in November 1997. He was called to testify again in May of this year after claims that his account differed from press reports of what he told federal investigators. Before Chung invoked the Fifth Amendment, Chung's attorney asked Democratic staff members for a packet of information regarding the rights of all witnesses before any U.S. congressional committee, Schiliro said. "That information, including the materials on Fifth Amendment procedures, was provided," he said. "Mr. Chung asserted his Fifth Amendment right for the purpose of the committee deposition, but provided six hours of off-the-record testimony with Republican and Democratic committee members," Schiliro added...."
Washinton Times 8/10/99 "...Mr. Rubin was asked by a reporter late last week for department reaction to legislation introduced by Mr. Gilman to cap U.S. spending in the Balkans. Mr. Rubin replied: "I'm not familiar with the bill, and they seem to have a bill a day, so I try not to be put in a position to respond to every one." Insert knife. "Very few of which become law, I might add." Twist. "I was dismayed to read . . . your remarks," Mr. Gilman fired back in a letter to Mr. Rubin. ... "I would also note that you may be uninformed about the work of the International Relations Committee, a body that has direct oversight responsibilities over your department and your office in particular. "Since becoming chairman of this committee, we have enacted over 30 statutes, including the Foreign Affairs Reform Act (restructuring your very office) . . . "We also joined with the administration to fully fund . . . the American Embassy Security Act. The administration supported that measure, but in light of your unusual comments, I wonder if we will have continuing cooperation." Mr. Gilman sent a copy of his letter to Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright....."
Washington Times 8/9/99 Bill Sammon "...President Clinton extolled the Constitution and rule of law yesterday in a speech to the American Bar Association, which was widely criticized for hosting the president 11 days after he was fined for lying under oath. "I understand he was the second choice because John Gotti wasn't available," said Mark Levin, president of Landmark Legal Foundation, a Washington public-interest law firm. "As a member of the ABA for more than four decades, I am ashamed," wrote lawyer Gerald Walpin in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. "[This] sends a message to lawyers that it is OK to lie and obstruct justice, so long as you maintain political allies in high places in the ABA." The Southeastern Legal Foundation, which is based in Atlanta, where the president addressed the ABA, said the association forfeited its "ethical authority over the legal profession" by hosting the president...."The invitations to Clinton and Hubbell show that lawyers will now have a new benchmark to measure their ethics, a level even lower than prostitutes," Mr. Klayman said. ABA President Philip Anderson, a longtime friend of the president's who offered a job to Mr. Clinton after he lost the Arkansas governor's race in 1980, yesterday defended his choice of keynote speaker for the ABA's annual meeting. ..."
New York Post 8/16/99 Jerry Zeifman "...IN December 1974, as general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, I made a personal evaluation of Hillary Rodham (now Mrs. Clinton), a member of the staff we had gathered for our impeachment inquiry on President Richard Nixon. I decided that I could not recommend her for any future position of public or private trust. Why? Hillary's main duty on our staff has been described by her authorized biographer as "establishing the legal procedures to be followed in the course of the inquiry and impeachment." A number of the procedures she recommended were ethically flawed. And I also concluded that she had violated House and committee rules by disclosing confidential information to unauthorized persons...."
WorldNetDaily 8/19/99 Stephan Archer "…When House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer, R-Texas, announced Aug. 2 that the Joint Committee on Taxation was still conducting an investigation of politically motivated Internal Revenue Service audits after two-and-a-half years, he evidently forgot to let his staffers know this. In response to allegations that the 1996 audit of WorldNetDaily's parent company, Western Journalism Center, was politically motivated, the Internet newspaper's readers flooded Archer's office as well as the offices of their local representatives, with e-mail and letters. One concerned reader, Bill Vendramin, wrote his congressman, Rep. Peter J. Visclosky, D-Indiana, asking him to help Archer in the continuing investigation of IRS procedures. However, the congressman wrote back saying Archer was not aware of any investigation. "I have contacted Chairman Archer regarding this investigation, and have been informed that he is neither conducting one, nor is he aware of, an ongoing investigation into these allegations," Visclosky wrote in a letter dated Aug. 5 to Vendramin. However, as was
reported earlier by WorldNetDaily, Archer had stated in an Aug. 2 press release from the House Ways and Means Committee he would continue to "monitor the progress of the JCT's (Joint Committee on Taxation's) investigation." The subject of this investigation was explained by Archer earlier in the press statement: "On March 24, 1997, in coordination with the Senate Finance Committee, I requested the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) investigate allegations the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had targeted certain tax-exempt organizations with audits for political reasons." "Unfortunately, due to the investigation's complexity, scope, and because it involved privileged information about individual tax returns, the committee's final report has been delayed considerably beyond our original hopes," continued Archer. "This investigation has become far more voluminous than was originally anticipated." Archer went on to explain he takes allegations of IRS harassment of political enemies "very seriously" and will "follow the JCT's investigation with interest." …"Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 8/18/99 Pauk Greenberg "…Why, why, would the American Bar Association honor a scandalous leader who has just been found in contempt of court, and whose disbarment is being considered even now? Like the adept advocate he is, Little Rock's Philip Anderson now has explained why, as president of the ABA, he invited Bill Clinton to address its annual convention: "Whenever the president of the United States--who is the leader of the free world as well as our country--wishes to discuss the nation's business with the members of the American Bar Association, we should listen. We have always done so, most recently in 1985, when then-President Ronald Reagan spoke at our annual meeting." Always? Then-President Richard Nixon wouldn't have been welcome at the ABA's convention when his disbarment was pending. Even before a House committee recommended his impeachment, the ABA resolved that the whole Nixon Gang be disciplined. Which spoke well of the bar….."
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19990817/ts/health_blood_3.html 8/17/99 Lisa Richwine "…Blood banks in the United States and Canada were ordered Tuesday to stop collecting donations from people who lived in or frequently visited Britain during the mad cow disease outbreak. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was taking the step to prevent donors who ate tainted British beef from possibly passing along the human version of mad cow, a fatal degenerative brain disorder, through blood transfusions…."CNSNews.com 8/18/99 Alasdair Denvil "…What, then, does a hate crime involve that merits further punishment? Well, the story goes, hate crimes are done out of hate, and that makes them particularly heinous. They are committed in the belief that certain people are inferior, and the act is intended to send a message to that group as a whole: "Your kind aren't wanted around here." Hate crimes, then, are based on beliefs that are repugnant to the ideals upon which this nation and its constitution are based. This is all true, but it fails to provide us with a reason to give these crimes extra punishment. The mere fact that these are acts of hate is no justification; non-violent actions inspired by hate, such as marches by the KKK, are legal and ought to remain so, even though they send the same message as hate crimes. No matter how distasteful their message may be, such groups have every right to express it, so long as they do so peacefully. Besides, I can think of no better antidote to such groups than to allow their stupidity to be widely publicized. Moreover, it is wrong to punish people for their thoughts. As reflected in our right to freedom of the press, religion and so forth, we should be free to believe anything we please, no matter how foolish or offensive others might find it. So if it is not the thought or acting on the thought that is punishable, what is it?…"
Yahoo via Reuters 8/19/99 Adam Entous "…- The U.S. trade deficit ballooned to a record $24.62 billion in June as imports from major trading partners Western Europe and Mexico soared to all-time highs and gaps with Japan and China widened, the Department of Commerce said Thursday.The trade gap, driven by imports that broke $100 billion for the first time, was much wider than the $20.5 billion deficit forecast by Wall Street analysts, and grew from a $21.17 billion deficit in May…."
Washington (AP) 8/20/99 "…The Clinton administration reportedly plans to ask Congress to give police authority to secretly go into people's personal computers and crack their security codes. Legislation drafted by the Justice Department would let investigators get a sealed warrant from a judge to enter private property, search through computers for passwords and override encryption programs, The Washington Post reported Friday. The newspaper quoted an Aug. 4 department memo that said encryption software for scrambling computer files ``is increasingly used as a means to facilitate criminal activity, such as drug trafficking, terrorism, white-collar crime and the distribution of child pornography.''…"
USA Today 8/19/99 Walter Shapiro "…Sometimes a social trend comes along and bites you in the leg. Take "animal law," the new legal theory that's the cat's meow for activists who believe that any creature that can bark, oink or whinny has rights that are enforceable in the courts. I'm not horsing around. According to a front-page story in Wednesday's New York Times, Harvard and Georgetown law schools will offer courses this fall in animal law. Lawyers are eagerly producing new legal arguments, writes William Glaberson in the Times, "to chip away at a fundamental principle of American law that animals are property and have no rights." ….Gary Francione, who teaches animal law at Rutgers University, believes that lawyers should sue on behalf of sentient beings such as gorillas. Francione told the Times that gorillas "should be declared to be 'persons' under the Constitution" with full legal rights….. I normally don't share conservative concerns about legal activism, but this latest twist in animal-rights zealotry is ridiculous. It is one thing to oppose cruelty to animals. But it is blasphemy to mimic the legal tactics of the civil-rights movement on behalf of zoo creatures barely able to worry where their next banana is coming from…."