DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: GENERAL REFERENCE MATERIAL
SUBSECTION: CURIOSITIES
Revised 8/20/99

 

CURIOSITIES

Several members of Congress unexpectedly left: Susan Molinari, Bill Paxon, Joe Kennedy.

Dolly Browning's conversation with Clinton at a class reunion, according to Clinton's side, was overheard by a close aide who refutes Dolly's account. Jim McDougals' conversation with Clinton at his deposition, according to Clinton's side, was overheard by his attorney who refutes Jim's account. On "Meet the Press", Susan McDougal acknowledged that she had witnessed and overheard a conversation between Bill Clinton and Jim McDougal that occurred at the same time as described by Jim McDougal

When Whitewater was becoming an issue in 1994, a fire broke out in the office of Pete Marwick - just bad enough to destroy the 1986 audit of Madison Guaranty. Another fire broke out in Clinton's doctors office, and Clinton's medical records were destroyed. Iron Mountain Inc., large archiver of corporate, medical and legal records also had three suspicious fires in 1996, evidently arson, unsolved.

Hillary Clinton claimed that James Blair placed orders for most of her commodities trades. At the time, James Blair was working for Tyson, he said he was advising Clinton out of friendship, not to seek political gain for his state-regulated client. At the time of many of the trades, Bill Clinton was governor. [Blair’s wife is involved in the July 1999 PBS/DNC list scandal.]

October 96, for the first time in 22 years, the DNC announced it will not file an FEC pre- election finance report.

On 6/19/98, four former U.S. attorneys general filed legal papers opposing the creation of "protective function privilege" that the Secret Service is attempting to use to shield its agents from having to testify before Kenneth Starr's grand jury.

Newsweek reports: "Starr's relentless pursuit is taking its toll on the President. Though he remains publicly cheery, in private Clinton is said to be in a simmering rage -- not just at Starr, but at supporters whom (sic) he feels have failed to rally behind him. In the White House late at night, Clinton often calls old friends to rant about the unfairness of it all. 'It was a call out of the blue,' says one recipient of a hoarse, after-hours soliloquy that went on for 20 minutes."

The U.S. Department of Transportation has published the proposed "Driver's License/SSN/National Identification Document" guidelines which compels all states to comply within the next two years. No later than Oct. 1, 2000, all state driver's licenses must be linked to the social security number of the individual, State ID cards must be linked to social security numbers and there are plans to issue state identification cards to minors! Biometric identification (such as fingerprints) will be compiled in a national database. All Americans will be required to present this new ID whenever you apply for job or travel.

6/26/98 Wolf Blitzer/CNN from XIAN, China (AllPolitics) ". President Bill Clinton said . he welcomed a decision by a federal judge to release his former business partner, Susan McDougal, from prison. "

The Bank for International Settlements BIS. A secret meeting of 13 governors of central banks of the Group of 10 industrial nations plus Switzerland occurs 10 times a year. The U.S. representative is Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. The United States was included in the BIS from the beginning, but the two seats on the board weren't filled until four years ago.

Brian Atwood, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (foreign aid) criticized Congress saying that Americans don't need a tax cut as badly as the world's poor need more US dollars, and accusing them for trying to cut foreign assistance and argued that trade is not a substitute for aid.

6/29/98 NASA Public Affairs "Engineers are continuing efforts to reestablish contact with the NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft using NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN). Contact with SOHO was lost on June 24 during maintenance operations. "

From Joseph Farah: Yu Quanyu, director of the Chinese Academy of Social Studies, writes in the latest issue of "Ideological and Political Work Studies,"Communist Party cadres . should study the speeches of Hillary Clinton because she offers a very good example of the skills of propaganda .Her sentences are short and stimulating."

7/2/98 Washington Times regarding Khobar Towers investigation ".The essential problem for the Clinton administration is that politics is taking precedence over principle. Not only does it not serve U.S. interests to press the Saudis but it hurts the administration's new vision for Iran to pursue the possibility that Iranians may have had a hand in the attack.. ."

7/9/98 Washington Times Frank Murray regarding Jones v Clinton ".the court accepted a written brief attacking the lawsuit's dismissal. "This case is about abuse of power," NOW's Dulles (Va.) Area chapter (DANOW) argued in a friend-of-the-court brief, charging that the trial judge ignored evidence "that Governor Clinton, now our president, has long had a modus operandi of quid pro quo sexual harassment with other women."."

The 1996 Clinton campaign budgeted $1 million to pay fines for illegal campaign contributions

WorldNet Daily 7/10/98 Alan Keyes ".in the President's statement. "We have all benefited from the wisdom of our nation's Founders, who crafted a blueprint for democracy that has served us well for more than two hundred years and continues to inspire newly independent nations around the world. We are all heirs to the rights articulated in our Constitution and reaffirmed by courageous men and women of every generation who have struggled to secure justice and equality for all." .What we actually celebrate on the Fourth of July is the document that states the principles on the basis of which the Founders acted. It is the Declaration which states the principles of moral justice which were respected by the genius of the Founders in the way that the Constitution was crafted. And yet Beijing Billy didn't say anything about the Declaration of Independence in his statement, implying that it is the Constitution that we celebrate on the Fourth of July.. Either the president is totally ignorant of history and really thinks that we celebrate the adoption of the Constitution on the Fourth, or he is trying to redirect Americans to accept the view that our rights come originally from the Constitution. I think he wants us to forget that the great document we celebrate on the Fourth tells us that our rights come from a source higher than any constitution or any other work of human hands, that they come from God. And it is in light of that higher source and authority, our Creator, that all works of human hands, including the Constitution, are to be judged."

Reed Irvine of Accuracy in Media announced on C-SPAN that the SOG Vets are going to file a suit against CNN over the Tailwind story. The same law firm that handled the silicon breast implant case against Dow Corning has been retained to represent the veterans"

AP 7/10/98 Jane Allen "Hughes Electronics Corp. is investigating satellite computer malfunctions in June and July that struck the same type of processor that failed in May, silencing 85 percent of the nation's pagers. The spacecraft control processor is responsible for an essential function that keeps a satellite pointed toward Earth to receive signals. .."

Arkansas Business Publishing 3/98 Simon Lee ".A public company trying to legalize casino gambling, charitable bingo and a lottery in Arkansas was founded by a ragtag group of business partners with questionable pasts. The group's president, former Arkansas State Police Col. Tommy Goodwin, says his involvement with Arkansas Casino Corp. started as a result of friendships dating back to his days in northeast Arkansas. .But when questions turn to how Arkansas Casino Corp. functions as a business, or which people make up this company, or how this group got together, Goodwin appears to lack facts. Goodwin isn't paid in cash or stock for his services..Goodwin says no one else with the corporation is being paid, either."

In March of 1993 as the Justice Department "liaison" to the White House, Webster Hubbell brokered a meeting with the congressional Black Caucus that led to the reversal of the Justice Department position in the Memphis corruption trial of Rep. Harold Ford. The U.S. attorney and two assistants resigned.

Senate majority leader Trent Lott said that Clinton had become a political "bystander" like Richard Nixon and further said ".presidents do have to go overseas, but this president has already been out of the country over 70 days this year."

7/8/98 Quinn in the Morning Larry Klayman ".So you can see how our society is being subverted. If we keep doing stuff like this, if we keep using government premises to spy on people, to collect information and to smear them, all at taxpayer expense, to have them prosecuted, this isn't the first time the Clinton administration has had somebody prosecuted. If this thing keeps building, the danger is the American people will begin to see that their government no longer represents them, which you and I all ready know, but a majority."

7/13/98 AP Chicago Tribune " An Italian judge today dropped the case against the crew members of a Marine jet that severed a ski gondola cable in the Alps, leaving the decision to prosecute with U.S. courts.."

Video of President Clinton at Ron Brown burial, 4/10/96 in Arlington National Cemetery (though under investigation) captured what appeared to be an animated response - happy and then abruptly turned solemn when he noticed filming.

From RNC Jim Nicholson: Time 7/20/98 Bob Chase National Education Association President "The fact is that in some instances we have used power.to protect the narrow interests of our members and not to advance the interests of our schools."

7/14/98 Columbus Dispatch Alan Johnson "Gov. George V. Voinovich, in charge of the National Governors' Association annual meeting in Milwaukee, decided there just will not be time for a visit by President Clinton.."

7/15/98 NBC Freeper cww reports that NBC Nightly announced Federal District Court Judge Norma Hollaway Johnson has denied the Justice Department's request to stay the Grand Jury appearance of subpoenaed USSS agents on 7/16/98

7/15/98 Conservative News Service Scott Hogenson "Citing concerns over " almost limitless authority " by the White House to enact the United Nation ' s Kyoto Climate Treaty and other legislative matters , RepresentativeMichael " Mac " Collins ( R - GA ) today began a congressional effort to blunt [ Bill ] Clinton ' s executive order on federalism ."

7/16/98 R. Emmett R. Tyrrell Conservative Current "A Washington Post-ABC News poll has just published some intriguing data about the American people's present state of mind. For one thing, though polite opinion in our nation's capital has been in a fever over campaign finance reform and tobacco prohibition, most Americans consider these issues comparatively minor. For them the critical issue is education, then Social Security, then taxes. More interesting still, though most Americans believe their president to be even more of a moral basket case than they thought four years ago, they are increasingly impatient with the criminal or even merely critical pursuit of him. Their minds tell them he is a rogue, but they feel no revulsion. How do we explain this curious condition? . Unfortunately, I suspect that the press is about to become judgmental about the Clintons. This slippery couple has been playing the press for suckers too blatantly and for too long…."

The New York Post 7/16/98 Ray Kerrison ".Clinton's campaign to install a radical homosexual as United States Ambassador to the (Roman Catholic) Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is dead in the water in this Congress.The controversial nominee is James Hormel.a prodigious contributor to the Clinton campaign."

Logic problem: why would Rep Wexler be seeking to create a privilege which he says already exists?

From Freeper Trixie to RR and The Entire NY Freep Cell ".I was recovering from an FBI interview on Friday that left me so optimistic about the future that I had to lie down, stare at the ceiling and smile for the better part of the weekend."

The American Spectator Wladyslaw Pleszczynski 8/98 "Ever the contented cow, Steven Brill waded into the River of Opportunism--and the piranhas in the press picked him clean. Everyone has his favorite Brill moment. This champion of truth and full disclosure, reports Sam Sifton in the New York Press, never divulged that his "first choice for editor of Brill's Content was the president's then-director of communications, Don Baer" (who then "served as a paid consultant to Brill" for five months)."

On 5/22/97 FBI general counsel Howard M. Shapiro resigned, effectively ending an official investigation that had produced accusations of poor judgment in his handling of the White House files controversy. Shapiro is a longtime friend of FBI Director Louis J. Freeh. Shaprio announced that on June 6, 1997 he would resign and then become a partner at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering. Shapiro was involved in certain pre-publication disclosures concerning the Gary Aldrich book, "Unlimited Access." He is also associated with the Terry Lenzer private investigation company, IGI."

Mother Jones 7/21-27/98 J Jennings Moss on DNC fundraiser Terry McAuliffe ".he was identified as the man who started the White House kaffeeklatsches for major party contributors and as the memo writer who sparked the president's decision to "rent out" the Lincoln Bedroom.According to a congressional source, the Department of Justice is considering whether McAuliffe exploited his political connections to profit from at least one government-related business deal.. None of this has dimmed McAuliffe's star, however. He's adored within Democratic Party circles -- Gore has called him "the greatest fundraiser in the history of the universe." And McAuliffe seems to concur. "Let me tell you," he says. "I can motivate. I can sell. I can get people pumped up." . but in auctioning off access to the White House, he does appear to have taken the practice to unprecedented lengths. On a personal level, the fuzziness of his ethics has blurred the boundaries between his political and business dealings. And in conversations with Mother Jones, McAuliffe has had a hard time sticking to the same story."

7/24/98 AP Linda Deutsch "When Susan McDougal goes on trial next month for embezzlement, the name of Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr will not be uttered in court, a judge ruled Friday. ``As to mentioning independent counsel Kenneth Starr, I'm not aware of any relationship of that individual and this case,'' said Superior Court Judge Leslie Light. ..."

7/25/98 AP "For the second time in three days, Greece's foreign minister accused President Clinton of reneging on pre-election promises to make Cyprus a top U.S. foreign policy priority. .."

Times West Virginia 8/1/98 Bill Byrd "How do you find 25 tons of ammonium nitrate in a rural farming and mining area? You post a $10,000 reward…..An FBI supervisory agent in the agency's Pittsburgh office, Killeen and more than 50 other FBI agents slipped into this Preston County village shortly after dawn Friday. Although police hope the theft from the BFS Ag Supply store here turns out to be a garden-variety burglary, "we have to rule out any possibility that this is linked to a threat of domestic violence," Killeen said."

8/8/98 Boston Globe John Ellis "The House Democratic Caucus welcomed President Clinton into its midst Wednesday with a five-minute standing ovation. The lawmakers would have been better advised to throw him out of the room and demand his resignation. Clinton is to the Democratic Party what the Titanic was to its passengers. He's taking everybody down with him. Consider these facts. When Clinton was elected president, Ron Brown, then chairman of the Democratic National Committee, handed him a party apparatus that was $5 million in the black and running like a top. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and solid majorities of the governorships and state legislatures. All of these political advantages have been squandered in less than six years...."

AP 8/7/98 "A former White House intern has been charged with harassing former senior presidential adviser George Stephanopolous. Tangela Burkhart, of New York, was arraigned July 3 on charges of first-degree harassment and second-degree aggravated harassment, according to a criminal complaint made public this week..."

Insight Magazine 8/17/98 Deroy Murdock "Neither sex nor lies nor audio tape seem to hold the public's attention anymore. According to a recent Wall Street Journal poll, 83 per cent of adults are tired of hearing about the Monica Lewinsky probe…."

AP 8/10/98 "The Justice Department is investigating TVA's 10-year lease extension on a downtown Chattanooga office building, a newspaper reported. The Knoxville News-Sentinel, in a story Sunday from its Washington bureau, quoted unidentified officials who are familiar with the investigation into the lease at the Chestnut Street Towers property. Chattanooga developer Franklin Haney, who the newspaper said contributed about $250,000 to state and national Democratic parties in 1996, has a financial interest in the property. ."

Conservative News Service 8/13/98 Judy Cooley "Five Wisconsin college students ,who did not want their student fees going to fund liberal campus groups, have won their appeal of a lawsuit filed against the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System ."

AP 8/13/98 Deborah Hastings "Some potential jurors in Susan McDougal's embezzlement trial said they admire the Whitewater figure for choosing jail over testifying against President Clinton. ``She strikes me as a determined person,'' one possible panelist said Wednesday, during the third day of jury selection in Mrs. McDougal's trial for allegedly stealing $150,000 from symphony conductor Zubin Mehta and his wife, Nancy. The case is unrelated to the Whitewater investigation."

AP 8/20/98 " Handwritten notes on a White House memo obtained by the Justice Department appear to contradict Vice President Al Gore's account of his campaign fund-raising phone calls, The New York Times reported Thursday. Government officials told the Times the notations on the memo indicate Gore and several campaign officials discussed how some of the large contributions he was raising - meant only for general Democratic campaign purposes - would be diverted to accounts to directly finance the Clinton-Gore re-election effort.."

MSNBC 8/22/98 Channel 5 Chicago "The bombings in Sudan and Afghanistan are hitting home in the form of tightened security measures at O'Hare International Airport. Foot patrols have been added, the number of canine units for bomb sniffing has been increased, and more tow trucks have been brought in to remove unattended vehicles. Over 185,000 passengers travel through O'Hare every day.."

AP 8/22/98 "Characteristics and history of the Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missile used in last Thursday's strike against suspected terrorist sites in Sudan and Afghanistan:.Unit cost: About $750,000 over the past four years.. --Sudan and Afghanistan, Aug. 20, 1998. 6 missiles launched against plant in Khartoum, Sudan, suspected of making nerve gas ingredient, 73 against six targets in eastern Afghanistan believed to be terrorist training center.." - comments by Freeper "Let's see, that's 79 missiles at a current unit cost of ~$750,000 - That comes to $59.25 Million."

Hindustan Times 8/25/98 "The United States has appreciated the assistance by the CBI in their investigation against the editor and publisher of a weekly newspaper and a monthly magazine published from New York, CBI said today. The US Department of Justice had charged John Perry editor and publisher of News India Times and India Worldwide for conspiracy, false statements, obstruction of justice and mail fraud, the agency said. In response to a request CBl's Economic Offence Wing in Mumbai conducted part investigation in India and collected voluminous documents and information required by the department of justice, it said."

Fox News 8/25/98 "Professor Kevin Warwick claimed on Tuesday to be the first person in the world to have a computer chip surgically implanted into his body. Warwick told a news conference that a glass capsule about one inch long and one-tenth of an inch wide containing an electromagnetic coil and a silicon chip was inserted into his arm on Monday.."

Stratfor 8/25/98 "Despite detailed U.S. claims that its attacks on suspected terrorist - related facilities in Sudan and Afghanistan were carried out solely by means of Tomahawk cruise missiles, Sudan has insisted since the day of the attack that U . S . aircraft attacked the Shifa chemical plant in Khartoum ... On August 20th , 1998 ,Sudanese Interior Minister Abdul Rahim said that " two American warplanes " had dropped bombs on the chemical plant . Another Sudanese government report immediately after the bombing said that "five air raid strikes" had taken place."

Reuters 8/28/98 "Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Friday his government was proposing a constitutional amendment to make Islam the country's supreme law. But he told parliament that religious freedom of non-Moslem minorities would not be affected by the amendment.."

Progressive Review Sam Smith 9/2/98 "."Under the law, members of the designated groups are barred from entering the United States, and Americans are prohibited from providing 'material support' to the groups even for nonviolent, charitable or political activities . . . The Supreme Court has firmly established that the government cannot punish a person for supporting entirely lawful political activities. Unless the government can show that a person actually supports illegal activities, the court said that punishing them for supporting the group would be imposing a form of guilt by association. In 1996 terrorism law requires no such showing . . . Had this been the law a few years ago when our government called the African National Congress 'a terrorist organization,' it would have been a crime for an American to make a $10 contribution to a speaking tour for a representative of Nelson Mandela." ."

Financial Times 9/4/98 Martin Wolf "... Japan, the US and the European Union account for two-thirds of global output (at market prices). Provided they are reasonably stable, the crisis will remain limited to "only" one-third of the world economy. Unfortunately, that cannot be taken for granted. Things could become far worse. The weakest link in the chain is Japan. Some recent estimates suggest non-performing loans in the banking system have reached the stupefying total of $1,000bn.. The still more important conclusion is that Japan is set to remain what it has been: a big part of the problem, rather than a part of the solution…. The complacent conclusion is then that the agonies of emerging markets bring almost nothing but gain to the US and the EU. There is one big risk, however: stock markets..The biggest risk confronting the world economy is that this miraculous wealth machine will go into reverse. Since equities are at historically high valuations, while swathes of the world economy are in dire straits, this is no remote concern…."

AP Jeannine Aversa 9/4/98 "The nation's top TV regulator wants a federal court to ignore its own injunction and allow 1 million satellite customers nationwide to continue receiving CBS and Fox programs.."

AP Martin Crutsinger 9/4/98 "Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Friday the central bankers are growing more concerned about impact of the global financial crisis on the U.S. economy and are just as likely to vote to cut interest rates as to raise them….. ``We have relearned in recent weeks that just as a bull stock market feels unending ... so it can feel when markets contract that recovery is inconceivable,'' Greenspan said. ``Both, of course, are wrong.'' ."

9/9/98 AP Brian Bergstein "Retired dairy farmer Fred Tuttle never said he was qualified to be a senator. Even his wife didn't vote for him. Tuttle, who ran to give Vermont Republicans a protest vote and campaigned with a $16 budget, defeated a millionaire corporate consultant Tuesday and was nominated to challenge Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy...."

Washington Post 9/16/98 Howard Kurtz ".Patrick Manshardt, an attorney for Drudge, called the executive privilege argument ``absolutely frivolous'' and ``baseless'' and said he plans to challenge it. ``By claiming executive privilege, they prejudice Drudge's ability to defend himself in this civil proceeding,'' he said.."

National Journal 9/12/98 John Maggs "In Moscow, on Sept. 1, it was time for the president of the United States to perform one of the chores of office he does so well, the end-of-the-summit press conference. But Bill Clinton was nowhere to be found. Missing was the man with the quick smile and the easy charm. ... "

FoxNews 9/11/98 "... The juror handed Judge Leslie Light a note complaining Mrs. McDougal was not "taking these proceedings seriously'' and cited Mrs. McDougal's breezy attitude and chattiness with her boyfriend and brother. She also complained that Mrs. McDougal treated the trial as if it was "a social gathering.''….."

AP 9/16/98 "The embezzlement trial for Whitewater figure Susan McDougal was suspended for one week to accommodate witnesses' schedules. And Mrs. McDougal was warned by the judge that she faces a contempt citation if she refuses to sit still during testimony..."

Reuters 9/16/98 Adam Entous "International financier George Soros said Tuesday Russia's economic crisis would worsen, Brazil was on the brink, and the world's lender of last resort -- the International Monetary Fund -- was ill-equipped to fend off a global meltdown…. The multibillionaire philanthropist, who chairs Soros Fund Management, warned that the global capitalist system was coming undone. He also said the U.S. Federal Reserve may need to cut interest rates to spur growth, and called on the U.S. Congress to give $18 billion to the IMF to replenish the lending agency's reserves, drained by bailouts for Russia and ."

NY Times 9/26/98 AP "The Clinton administration's plan to use a statistical sampling method for counting people in the 2000 census has been rejected by a second federal court. Three judges from the U.S. District Court in eastern Virginia sided Friday with the Southeastern Legal Foundation, a conservative public interest law firm that claimed the sampling method is illegal.."

Sam Smith 9/30/98 ".In May 1992, several months before Clinton's nomination, The Progressive Review became the first publication to assemble the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that would come to be known as the Clinton scandals..."

Sam Smith 9/30/98 ".In 1994, Shadows of Hope, by Review editor Sam Smith, was published by Indiana University Press. It was the first book to challenge the media-driven Clinton myth. Shadows of Hope examined Clinton's post-modern contempt for candor, consistency and character, and discussed the problems this might cause the nation.."

Sam Smith 9/30/98 ".In October 1996, the Review reported that "there seems to be adequate grounds for impeachment," based on the suborning of witnesses, obstruction of justice, and abuse of FBI files.."

Sam Smith 9/30/98 ".In June 1997, the Review published a draft presidential impeachment resolution. The resolution was identical to one used in a prior instance except that the name Richard Nixon had been replaced with the name William Jefferson Clinton.."

Associated Press 10/5/98 Robert Burns "White House lawyers accused Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr on Monday of making a misleading argument last summer in battling the White House's claims that deputy counsel Bruce Lindsey should not have to answer all grand jury questions in the Monica Lewinsky matter…..In response, Starr issued a statement Monday night saying that Kendall's letter to Reno was "notable for its lengthy attacks on the conduct of persons outside the Office of the Independent Counsel and the absence of any connection between those actions and those of members of this office.'' …"

Reuters 10/5/98 Knut Engelmann "… Efforts to find a lasting solution to the world's financial problems have dominated more than two days of top-level talks among financial leaders gathered for the International Monetary Fund's annual meeting... President Clinton, who last week tried to seize the initiative by proposing a new mechanism that would give troubled nations easier and faster access to much-needed cash before their economies crash, told the conference it was crucial to boost a wheezing global financial system.."

The Washington Times 10/10/98 Walden Siew "…. Members of the Army Navy Country Club talked about stripping Mr. Clinton of his honorary golf membership on Monday after an angry member rose from the crowd to kick the president off the greens. Attendants called it a surprising development since military folk are prohibited from speaking ill of their commander-in-chief...."

AP 10/11/98 Veselin Zhelev "Declaring that the advance of democracy depends on the progress of women, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton announced a $15 million grant Sunday to bolster civil society in southeastern Europe…. The conference is focusing on the role of women in social issues confronting southeastern Europe, much of which is still recovering from a half century of Communist rule.."

10/12/98 Arianna Huffington ".When the history books are written, the Clinton crisis will be the first political crisis to be so entirely driven and shaped by polls.. It turns out that polling companies will talk about anything except the response and refusal rates of their last poll. Here's a sampling of a nonscientific poll of pollsters that my office conducted between Oct. 1 and Oct. 9, and that illustrated the nonscientific nature of polling. Ours was a short poll: Can you please give us the response and refusal rates for your most recent national poll? ABC News pollster Jeff Alderman's first response was to say that he didn't understand the question. When it was repeated to him, with minor refinements, he growled: ``That's proprietary information. ... I've got another call. Goodbye.'' In polling lingo, that was a refusal -- but a very revealing one..CBS' Kathy Frankovic was reluctant to release CBS response and refusal data without knowing the information her competitors were giving out..Mike Kagay of the New York Times, Frankovic's partner in the CBS/New York Times polls, did release a response rate for an actual poll, though not the most recent one: 43 percent for the Sept. 12-15 poll. At Gallup, senior methodologist Rajesh Srinivasan promised to fax us response rate data right away. And indeed, we did receive reams of data right away -- on everything except response rates. .."

Investors Business Daily 10/12/98 Matthew Robinson ""We poll likely voters," said pollster John Zogby of Zogby International.. Zogby is renowned for his accurate election-day forecasts. "We all face a sampling problem - Democrats are more likely to respond to polls," said Zogby. "Republicans (also) are less likely to be at home on weekends. They're also less likely to put up with demeaning questions."."

Roll Call 10/14/98 Rachel Van Dongen Ed Henry ".The Democratic "Unity '98" fundraising events hosted by President Clinton have fallen far short of the $18 million to $20 million goal set by party leaders in May, according to officials familiar with the effort…."

New York Post 10/20/98 Dick Morris ".IT was a tough August and September for Clinton. He was battered in Congress and his ratings dropped. But through skillful manipulation of foreign-policy issues, he was able to climb back by October. He avoided military action in a foreign crisis and shepherded a Mideast agreement to fruition. Everything looked good for the November midterm elections now that Clinton's ratings had risen. The year was 1994.."

Scripps Howard News Service 10/20/98 Frank Aukofer ".A spy trial could test the constitutionality of a 20-year-old secret federal court. Critics and defense attorneys in the trial of Theresa M. Squillacote, 40, and her husband, Kurt A. Stand, 43, argue that the court violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Justice Department, where the court's judges meet behind locked doors and security alarms in a windowless chamber, defends the court as a real-world bulwark against espionage and terrorism. Yet few Americans even know the court exists…The court's seven judges are drawn from the ranks of federal district court judges around the country. They serve seven years, with terms staggered so one judge is replaced every year. There also is a three-member FISA appeals court, called the court of review. It has never convened because the lower FISA court has rejected only one application in its 20-year history, and there was no appeal...U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a former FISA presiding judge, said in a 1997 speech that no applications had been denied in recent years because of the tough scrutiny exercised by the FISA judges. Moreover, he said the applications were ``well-scrubbed by the attorney general and her staff'' before they were even presented. `I don't know how a better system could be devised, and I have not heard one proposed by any of our critics,'' Lamberth said. ``The age of spying is not over ... and the age of terrorism is just dawning.'' Lmberth said that in every criminal case in which a federal court had reviewed a FISA order, it had been upheld. The U.S. Supreme Court has never granted an appeal in a FISA case, he said.."

New York Post 10/22/98 Deborah Orin ".THERE are just 12 days to Election Day, and just about every sign points to a boom year for Republicans around the nation. Analysts can blather on all they like, claiming this election isn't about Sexgate, just about local contests. This is a democracy, so the results will send a message on whether to punish Clinton - and how hard..."

Knight-Ridder 10/23 Jodi Enda "White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles is heading home to North Carolina next week, leaving a president who has unleashed in him emotions that cut against his buttoned-down businessman's veneer: anger and disappointment; awe and an almost boyish esteem. The genteel Southerner -- who agreed to stay on at the White House one week before the Monica Lewinsky scandal started -- said in an interview Thursday that despite his personal ire over President Clinton's behavior, he is certain Clinton will withstand impeachment and accomplish major goals in his final two years in office. ."

AP 10/22/98 Tom Stuckey ".Ellen Sauerbrey said Thursday that Gov. Parris Glendening is using race baiting tactics in their fight to become Maryland's next governor. .Glendening is ``afraid of her inroads into the black community,'' said Michael Steele, the black chairman of the Prince George's County Republican Central Committee…."

AP 10/23/98 "Thirteen percent of black men cannot vote in this year's elections because they are convicted felons, a report released Thursday said. Some of those 1.4 million black men are in prison, but others are on probation or parole or have served their sentences, the report by Human Rights Watch and The Sentencing Project concluded..."

AP 10/22/98 Jeannine A Versa ".Federal regulators proposed that cellular companies change their systems so that police and the FBI can trace, with court approval, a criminal suspect talking on a cell phone. Privacy groups oppose the proposal, which the Federal Communications Commission made.."

Chicago Tribune 10/27/98 Roger Simon ".Covering the president these days means never having to say you saw him. That's an old joke, but for reporters following Bill Clinton, it has never been so true. Not only can reporters go days without seeing the president in the flesh, but the American people -- unless they are the American people who give large sums of money to the Democratic Party -- have been virtually cut off from seeing him up close and personal..."

Baltimore Sun 10/28/98 Gregory Kane ".. For weeks now, black Americans have been walking around patting ourselves on the back, crowing about our capacity to forgive. It's more like our capacity for self-delusion. If we're so forgiving, why haven't we forgiven Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas yet? No black American in history has been the target of such vehemence and invective as Thomas. But forgiving him is clearly not on the African-American agenda...Thomas' sin, in the eyes of black America, is far greater. He's against affirmative action, an affront that puts him right down there on the morality scale with the Romans who crucified Jesus. Thomas' other affront is having the audacity not to go along with the herd mentality afflicting African-Americans. He actually has his own mind. He's a threat.."

Freeper report on The Olympian 11/2/98 Peter Eichstaedt ".In another example of the power of the left wing extremist teachers union,high school students from Timberline High School in Olympia Wa. were sent to Democratic Party headquarters to make political signs welcoming Algore to Olympia. I called the political editor of the paper to ask if he didn't find anything wrong with this and was hung up on. The Olympian (www.theolympian.com) is a typical liberal rag.."

Freeper report on San Antonio Express News 10/31/98 ".A letter to the editor concerning Houstonians' sentiments about Clinton may give a welcome indication about what's going to happen tomorrow. While not scientific and only hearsay, the incident was spontaneous. Sign of the times of presidential respect During a Houston visit, my brother-in-law related a recent incident on the freeway to Galveston. As he was approaching the Clear Lake exit he noticed that cars were slowing down and dozens of drivers had their arms out of their windows with a raised digit. He soon realized the reason as Air Force One crossed the freeway on an approach to Ellington Field. It's a sad day when the president of the United States earns such an ignoble salute. Gary Macphee No, I didn't write the letter and I have no idea who Gary Macphee is. However, the newspaper printed it, and they presumably verify all such letters by contacting the writer before printing them. I was just made aware of the letter, but it was printed on Saturday."

UPI 11/4/98 ".The respected Russian newspaper Kommersant Daily has (Wednesday) published allegations that Russian President Boris Yeltsin's condition was extremely grave before he underwent a complicated quintuple heart-bypass operation in 1996, and that U.S. surgeon Michael DeBakey took part in a Kremlin-conducted cover-up..."

CNN All Politics 10/30/98 "... "There are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of patients in the United States who could benefit from the medical use of marijuana," says Bill Zimmerman of Americans for Medical Rights. The group is funded in large part by three multimillionaire philanthropists, New York financier George Soros, Cleveland insurance magnate Peter Lewis and Phoenix educator-entrepreneur John Sperling, all of them opposed to federal government anti-drug policies from both Republican and Democratic administrations. …. "Those who would surrender the war on drugs surrender our children to addiction," says Gilbert Gallegos, president of the Fraternal Order of Police. The opposition also includes three former presidents who have joined the White House in urging voters to reject legalized marijuana for medical use.."

Washington Weekly 11/9/98 Wesley Phelan "..The muted White House response is a good indication that Gingrich has done the right thing for his party and for the nation. Although the House of Representatives has concluded its ethics investigation of Gingrich, his use of a tax-exempt organization for political purposes has been referred to the Tax Division of the Justice Department, where it might be resurrected at any time. If Gingrich had remained in the top leadership position in the House, Bill Clinton would have had a powerful weapon for forestalling a thorough investigation of the many allegations against him in the pending impeachment inquiry. Gingrich's resignation opens the way for a new leader to emerge who can ensure that the process is brought to an unfettered and satisfactory conclusion.."

Washington Post 11/10/98 Craig Timberg and Peter Pae "..Virginia auditors said Monday that more than 11,000 ineligible felons and nearly 1,500 dead people are registered to vote in the state, a problem officials said could undermine the integrity of elections if left unchecked..."

New York Times 11/22/98 David Johnston ".F.B.I. Director Louis Freeh's inner circle has always regarded him as a potential Republican candidate back home in New York, although Mr. Freeh has shrugged off talk of a political future, citing his 10 yesr term, which expires in 2003. Now things may be changing... And Mr. Freeh has kick-started gossip in the capital by inviting former President George Bush to be keynote speaker Friday at the F.B.I.'s 90th anniversary celebration at Constitution Hall..."

MSNBC 12/17/98 Freeper report ".HILLARY CLINTON, according to one well-placed Washington insider, wants to start standing in a receiving line separate from her husband. "Traditionally, they stand and greet people together," says the source. "But Hillary is so furious with Bill that her people have suggested forming separate receiving lines." The idea has been nixed so far..."

http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpnt1g.htm "..Ninety-one people were held for almost eight hours as a health precaution after an anonymous threat claimed anthrax had been released into the air ducts of a federal building. …Authorities held the people, most of them U.S. Bankruptcy Court staff members, as firefighters and FBI investigators tested the ventilation system for anthrax spores..."

CNN.com 12/22/98 ".Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, the nation's first black female senator, has been offered the ambassadorship to New Zealand, according to a top aide to the senator. .."

Associated Presss 1/8/98 Jonathan Salant "..Supporters and opponents of President Clinton are taking to the airwaves and the Internet.. The firm's new commercial warns: ``As long as Congress puts partisanship ahead of real work, Message & Media has two words for you -- we're watching.'' ." Note from Alamo-Girl: the phrase "We are watching" originated with Freeper Mrs. Palter and has been used extensively by Free Republic. Being copied is a most sincere form of flattery.

The New York Times 1/11/99 William Safire "… not one of the aides who call themselves betrayed has turned on him. Not one of his appointees has resigned in disgust. Not one close associate or lawyer still living has crumbled, though under intense pressure of the threat of jail, to testify against him. Through all the revelations of deceit, his wife steadfastly grasps his hand. His political party marches lockstep down the line to protect him. And the public, in opinion polls and at the polling booth, stands by him more staunchly with each step toward historic shame. That's loyalty across the board, the likes of which this nation has never seen before... What beyond a sense of duty induces William Cohen, who jumped party ship to impeach Nixon, to remain at the helm of the Pentagon and bear the scorn of critics who see his Iraqi missile- lobbing as Clinton impeachment-lobbying? ..."

Wall Street Journal 1/11/99 Frank Gaffney, Jr. ".The Clinton administration's arms-control policy is a prime example of the triumph of hope over experience. No matter how dismal the previous record of international arms-control agreements, the White House reflexively insists that new accords--including the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention and a new "verification" protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention--will somehow prove more effective. Now Washington is actively considering what may be the most lunatic arms-control proposal of all: a ban on "information warfare."."

Yahoo! News Top Stories Headlines - Washington (Reuters) 1/12/99 Steve Holland Freeper sunshine ".The money included $475,000 from an insurance settlement with the Chubb Insurance Co. and $375,000 from the Clintons' personal funds. Clinton had personal-liability insurance, and the amount Chubb paid was negotiated by the company and Bennett.."

AP 1/29/99 Pete Yost ".A federal judge today ordered some material kept secret in a case stemming from Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Clinton after a prosecutor expressed concern that disclosure would "tip off targets'' in the ongoing probe. U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton said lawyers for Julie Hiatt Steele, who is accused of obstruction and making a false statement in Starr's investigation, must not disseminate material they receive from Starr's office in preparing for trial.."

Reuters 2/1/99 ".Commercial television stations would have to pay a total of $200 million a year for use of the public airwaves under a proposal buried in the Clinton administration's fiscal 2000 spending plan. The provision, sure to draw strong opposition from broadcasters, directs the Federal Communications Commission to start collecting the fees by Sept. 30, 2000, ending decades of free use of the airwaves for television…"

WorldNetDaily 2/2/99 David Bresnahan ".It is vital that we remember that President Clinton is extremely predictable. Those who know him best have told us to examine his past to determine his future. Clinton's past is frightening, because he served as Governor of Arkansas longer than the Arkansas Constitution allowed. He did so through an amendment to the state constitution which enabled him to run for another term. Watch Clinton carefully..."

ABCNews.Com 2/3/99 David Phinney ".Even if the Senate throws its collective hands up and shuts down the impeachment trial in the next few weeks, Starr's myriad investigations of President Clinton show all the signs of plunging forward. On the list of unfinished business: the Arkansas real estate deal known as Whitewater, the possible illegal use of FBI files, the firing of White House travel office staffers and, of course, events surrounding Paula Jones…."

New York Post 2/5/99 Richard Johnson w/ Jeane MacInstosh Kate Coyne ". SUSAN McDougal had good reason to go to jail rather than testify against President Clinton - they were lovers, Star magazine claims. Next week's issue reports Clinton secretly admitted to the affair, and shocked former top White House aide Dick Morris by questioning whether he should commit perjury to hide it. . ."

The Washington Times 2/12/99 "…. "It was believed the independent counsel law would strengthen public trust and confidence in our system of justice. It was designed to take politics out of high-level investigations. I would say that we would have to ask ourselves if it has really done that. I believe the answer would have to be 'no.' " But those aren't the words of the GOP. They belong to none other than the president of the American Bar Association, Philip Anderson of Little Rock, Ark. This week the ABA's House of Delegates voted 384 to 49 against reauthorization of the law when it expires in June. So the self-styled "parent" of the independent council statute has decided to strangle it just as it enters its adult years..."

WH Press Briefing 2/12/99 Jon in GA ".This reporter asked two incredible questions: "The president often plays golf with different people, would he play with O.J. Simpson if he was invited?" He later asked: "Diane Feinstein called the president "Despicable, disgusting, reprehensible, etc. Doesn't her refusal to vote to remove him suggest that ultimately Al Gore is worse?" Does anyone know this guy?..."

Florida Times-Union 2/14/99 Editorial Freeper newsman ".Former Cabinet member William Bennett said of Clinton: ''He has radically lowered the standards of what we consider permissible behavior. He is a man of breathtaking self-indulgence and self-absorption, forever aggrieved, always the victim, more sinned against than sinning, never responsible for the trouble in which he finds himself. He routinely makes others pay a very high price for his misconduct.''."

Nando Media/Associated Press 2/14/99 Jay Reeves ".While many Americans are eager for healing now that President Clinton's impeachment trial is over, Walter Perry and his friends are not. Their feelings run too deep for anything but anger.... It's something deeper, something words cannot explain.. "

O'Reilly Factor 2/16/99 Freeper JustPiper ".The Good/Bad News is the new Zogby poll out tonight on O'Reilly is Clinton has the lowest personal rating EVER of ANY president! Its down to 41%!!!."

2/15/99 MSNBC Jay Severin ".Let's start with what we really do know for sure: the opinions of opinion-makers - the newspapers, the network news, the pundits - are all based on the same public opinion polls, and those polls are wrong, dead wrong. They are counterfeit, despite enjoying status as the coin of the media realm. In fact, those polls may be accurate measures of general American sentiment, but they continue to ignore the crucial dirty fact of political life: two-thirds of us do not vote...."

American Spectator 2/13/99 R Emmett Tyrell "…. He campaigned as a centrist. While in Washington he has done more to stamp out left-liberal values than J. Edgar Hoover. As civil libertarians note, he is a menace to civil liberties. He campaigned in favor of capital punishment and demonstrated his seriousness by allowing a mental defective to be executed while he pursued George Bush. Now every time the polls weaken or a new scandal threatens he launches an air assault on Islam.. Still the Liberal intellectual elite stand shoulder to shoulder for him. His lies they dismiss. His assaults on women they pass off as romance and ardent passion. His laws hounding immigrants and extending wiretaps are for them manifestations of Good Government. But why? To the trained political eye Bill Clinton is a rogue and an incompetent. His 1992 campaign promises were so ineptly implemented that his party lost both houses of Congress and many state governments, all to the abominable Republicans. He is a true Liberal's nightmare..…. Thanks to his Liberal supporters Bill Clinton has the distinction of being the beneficiary of more silly testimonials than any president in this century. He has been called America's first black president by Toni Morrison. Mary Gordon called him our first woman president. Al Gore called him "one of our greatest presidents," and a preacher in Buffalo, New York, called him "the greatest president for our people for all time."…."

Daily Oklahoman 2/16/99 Joseph Sobran ".But a good con man knows human nature. He knows how to turn the dark side of other people to his advantage, how to play on their gullibility, how to enlist their secret desires and guilts. It's typical of Clinton that he had a dumb intern believing she might be his future wife once he left office, and that shortly afterward he was willing to circulate a cruel smear about her. Everyone knows what Clinton is, but he wins anyway. He wins because he knows what we are.."

CNS 2/16/99 Freeper hope ".A witness who testified in the House Judiciary Committee impeachment inquiry has written a letter to President Bill Clinton seeking a pardon of her perjury conviction related to a sexual harassment case. Dr. Barbara Ann Battalino lost her medical license and bar association status when she was convicted of perjury and sentenced to six months house arrest and six months probation. Battalino sent a letter to Clinton on Friday because of the similarities in their two cases. Since Clinton was acquitted by the Senate, Battalino told CNS, "In fairness, I should be pardoned.". ."

US News (on Line) 2/16/99 Kenneth Walsh ".The core of the problem remains Clinton's flawed character. His legendary self-indulgence led him to conduct a reckless affair at the White House with former intern Monica Lewinsky over a period of 18 months. Perhaps the most remarkable finding of a new U.S. News poll is that Clinton is now considered to have the worst moral standards of any modern president. Fifty-six percent of voters rated him at the bottom. And in a note that must be particularly galling to Clinton, his rating was far worse than that of Richard Nixon, the president who resigned rather than face impeachment and a man whom Clinton has always reviled. Nixon came in a distant second on the immorality index with 14 percent.."

Jewish World Review 2/17/99 Mona Charen ". Last week, Jesse the Brain Ventura met with a hundred or so protesters from the state university. They were demanding the usual things -- more money from the taxpayers of Minnesota to help balance their checkbooks…. "I believe in self-sufficiency," he told the crowd to loud boos. "I am a single mother," cried one plaintive voice from the crowd. "Well, I don't want to sound hard-core," Ventura responded, "but why did you become a single parent? It takes two to raise ... " "And sometimes one of them walks away," the student interrupted. "What then?" she demanded. Ventura looked exasperated. "You're asking the government to make up for people's mistakes. Is that the government's job?".."

AP 2/19/99 Michael Sniffen ".Attorney General Janet Reno has been asked by a Democratic lawmaker to look into whether Independent Counsel Ken Starr lied under oath during testimony to a House committee last year. The request came in a letter from Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and concerned Starr's answer to a question from Frank about alleged grand jury leaks from Starr's office...."

AP 2/19/99 Terence Hunt ".A week after surviving impeachment, President Clinton said Friday he expects "two good years here" but acknowledged that America probably paid a price for his ordeal... He added, "I think the Constitution has been in effect re- ratified.".."

Capitol Hill Blue 2/20/99 ".At the White House, Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart tried to downplay the story..Clinton lawyer David Kendall also issued a denial..But White House sources said Friday night that the appearance of the story in a mainstream publication like the Journal clearly has senior Clinton aides concerned. "There were a lot of long faces when the press summary came out today," one White House aide said. "Everybody's worried about how this will play out."."

NY Times 2/21/99 Katharine Seelye "...The Democratic Party's hopes of retaking the Senate next year may have dimmed a bit with the unexpected retirements announced last week by two Democrats who almost certainly could have kept their seats. Sens. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Richard Bryan of Nevada surprised the political world by saying they would not seek re-election next year.... They joined Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the New York Democrat, as the only senators so far to announce their exits, creating three open seats in states that Democrats had counted on in their uphill fight to recapture the Senate...."

AP 2/23/99 Peter Yost "...The three appeals judges directed Attorney General Janet Reno and Starr to submit written arguments concerning whether the Justice Department has the authority to investigate the independent counsel. Government officials have said Justice plans to open an investigation of Starr. The panel of appeals court judges, headed by David Sentelle of Washington, was responding to a request for court action filed by a conservative group, the Landmark Legal Foundation. The group contends the department cannot investigate Starr...."

Wall Street Journal 3/8/99 Terry Eastland Freeper the Raven "…We now have a new turn in the continuing saga of the independent-counsel law and it is a veritable U-turn. It was made last week when Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, reversing the position held by the Clinton administration for six years, told a congressional committee that the Justice Department now opposes the statute…"

Associated Press 3/8/99 Pete Yost "…Neither prosecutor Kenneth Starr nor the Justice Department encouraged a federal court Monday to decide whether Attorney General Janet Reno can investigate the way Starr conducted the Monica Lewinsky investigation. In court papers, the independent counsel said he was refraining from addressing the underlying issue — whether the attorney general "acted improperly'' in moving toward an investigation of his office. Instead, Starr argued that the conservative group that sought the involvement of a panel of three appeals court judges has no right to ask the judges to intercede. …"

AP 3/9/99 David Lieb Freeper TxTruth "…State lawmakers on Tuesday rejected a request for $500,000 to be put toward converting President Clinton's boyhood home into a museum. The bill's sponsor ran from the House chamber in tears …."

www.capitolhillblue.com 3/13/99 "…But President Bill Clinton, his wife visibly not at his side, couldn't draw a large crowd in his hometown.The President was reportedly so down about the lackluster turnout and lukewarm reception that he is cutting his trip home short and returning to Washington tonight…."

Pittsburgh Tribune Review 3/14/99 Richard Gazarik "… Last month, Steve Kangas of Las Vegas bought a 9mm pistol, a bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey and a bus ticket to Pittsburgh. It would be a one-way trip. Almost immediately after arriving on Feb. 8, Kangas went to One Oxford Centre. He walked around inside the towering office complex for a time, then hid out in a public restroom on the 39th floor. Nine hours later, drunk to the point of incoherence, Kangas shot and killed himself in the restroom - on the same floor as the offices of Richard M. Scaife, the publisher of the Tribune-Review and a nationally known backer of conservative causes. The location was no accident. Kangas, 37, was obsessed with Scaife's politics; apparently he traveled to Pittsburgh to confront, and possibly to kill, the man he believed to be evil incarnate…. Kangas was himself a former intelligence agent, according to his Web site. A Russian linguist, he served in the U.S. Army in Berlin during the 1980s lectronically intercepting and translating communication traffic of East bloc military units. "Journalism is the perfect cover for CIA agents," he wrote in one of many lengthy diatribes against the right. He believed that the news media provided the perfect cover to "write anti-communist, pro-capitalist propaganda when needed." He included Scaife in that group, he wrote, because Scaife's father, Alan, served in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. The OSS was the forerunner of the CIA…. . Huben recalls Kangas telling him how the intelligence community was behind all sorts of sinister political plots. "He had a number of conspiracy theories about the CIA being involved in neo-liberal and right-wing movements," …"

Defenselink.mil/news 3/15/99 Pentagon "…The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and the U.S. Army conducted the PATRIOT Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile Seeker Characterization Flight (SCF) test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., today at 6:55 a.m. Preliminary test data indicate the test was successful. Objectives included the collection of data and analyses of the system/missile capability to detect, track, and close with the target, the PAC-3 missile seeker data in a flight environment, and the missile closed-loop homing guidance performance in flight. While not a specific objective of the SCF, the PAC-3 missile intercepted the HERA reentry vehicle target. The PAC-3 missile is a high velocity, hit-to-kill missile and is the next-generation PATRIOT missile being developed to provide increased defense capability against advanced theater ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and hostile aircraft…."

Reuters 3/17/99 Freeper Brian Mosely "…The U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday passed a bill that would slap import quotas on cheap foreign steel despite White House warnings it would violate international trade rules…."

Reuters 3/18/99 John Whitesides "… The U.S. Senate Thursday overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to cut off funding for Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Clinton and for three other long-running independent counsels…."

CNS 3/18/99 David Bozell "…Senator John Ashcroft (R-MO) led other members of Congress and representatives from America's leading tax organizations in calling for an end to federal estate taxes yesterday at a morning news conference on Capital Hill…."

Wall Street Underground 3/21/99 Nicholas Guarino "…Nicholas Guarino writes: "My high level source on Clinton's crimes has been 100% right for two years straight - and he's just dropped the bombshell of the year: Three of Bill Clinton's paid thugs are now safely tucked away in the Witness Protection Program - and they're singing like canaries. Clinton's goons have now confessed under oath that they were paid to terrorize grand jury witnesses -- and even to threaten their children's lives -- to prevent them from testifying about Clinton's crimes. An outraged Kenneth Starr is now secretely preparing to indict and try the President of the United States and 9 of his most trusted allies on conspiracy and racketeering charges…."

New York Post 3/24/99 Dick Morris "…While the President's job approval remains high - 65 percent - his favorability, the personal opinion people have of him, is in free fall. Curiously, the aftermath of the impeachment, with the Juanita Broaderick and Monica Lewinsky interviews, has been harder on his ratings than the impeachment trial itself. Note the dramatic falloff in Clinton's favorability ratings since the height of the impeachment trial in the middle of January. From then until now, Bill Clinton's personal favorability rating has dropped by ten points, from 45 percent on January 15 to 35 percent on March 12. Before America heard of Monica Lewinsky, the President's personal popularity stood at 59 percent. Thus, this affair has cost him a 24 point drop in favorability. …."

AP Washington Post Amy Westfeldt "…Prosecutors say a former National Football League player who admitted to killing seven people also stabbed a homeless white man to death as a sacrifice to the leader of a black supremacist cult. Robert Rozier, 43, was charged with murder Tuesday in the 1984 slaying of Attilio Cicala, who was stabbed near the Yahweh Ben Yahweh temple in Newark. Prosecutors said they believed cult members offered Cicala up as a sacrifice a few days before the cult's leader was to visit Newark….. Ben Yahweh, also known as Hulon Mitchell Jr., and six others were convicted in 1992 of conspiracy for ordering 14 killings of white people and resistant black disciples. …"

Universal Press Syndicate 3/25/99 Maggie Gallagher "…This week, as part of his continuing plan to bravely forge his own distinct political identity, Vice President Al Gore announced plans to bring the awesome power of the federal government to bear on two pressing social ills: car traffic and cow poop. I kid you not. A new benefit of up to $240 a month in cash and tax incentives for workers who carpool, use mass transit, bike or walk to work….ew Strategy Will Control Runoff From Livestock Operations," announces Gore's March 8 press release, which promises "better management of 1.37 billion tons of manure a year" through voluntary grants to small operators and tough mandatory controls on larger agribusinesses. …"

Yahoo Business Wire 3/29/99 Press Release "…CyberStar, a Loral Space and Communications Ltd. (NYSE:LOR - news) created company and leading provider of broadband IP-multicast video and data solutions, today announced that it has acquired Satellite Network Systems (SNS), Inc., a full service system integrator of business television (BTV) services headquartered in St. Paul, Minn. SNS's system integration expertise, coupled with CyberStar's IP-multicast solutions, will enable CyberStar to deliver a full complement of broadband solutions to its clients and provide new value-added services through the convergence of data and BTV services…."

Drudge Report 3/31/99 Freeper L.N.Smithee "…Clinton says impeachment "no great badge of shame" …President Bill Clinton said Wednesday that his impeachment was "no badge of shame" and that he never considered resigning over the Monica Lewinsky affair. "Never, not a second. Never. Never," Clinton said on a CBS interview. "I would never have legitimized what I believe is horribly wrong." …"

The Manchester Union Leader 4/5/99 Richard Lessner "...Ah, the ironies of history! Here is Bill Clinton, who came of age politically marching against the war in Vietnam, acting like an eerie reincarnation of a bewildered Lyndon Johnson staggering into the swamps of Southeast Asia…. Thus smugly convinced that foreign policy mattered little - and national security and military preparedness even less - Bill Clinton either ignored foreign affairs or reluctantly engaged them in the haphazard, feckless fashion of the dilettante. He basked in the warmth of a prospering economy, flummoxed his political opponents, weathered impeachment and concentrated on popular domestic do-gooderism...."

AP 4/6/99 Kalpana Srinivasan Freeper TheOtherOne "…Aside from the predictable bags of unwashed clothes and as yet-to-be-read books, this year's college freshmen may have also brought home some surprises for spring break: conservative views on casual sex, abortion and other issues. A comprehensive survey of this year's college freshmen finds a host of areas where young adults are taking decidedly different turns on issues than previous generations of students …."

New York Times 4/15/99 William Safire "..."I believe we ought to be slow to engage our military, slow to commit our troops," says Gov. George W. Bush, "but when we do so we must do so to win." Does he think it was a mistake for President Clinton to say specifically we would not send in ground troops? "I do. I do. I think we ought to leave all options on the table, but I think those tactical decisions ought to be made by military planners and not by politicians." .... He thinks Clinton sent a "mixed signal" in crossing the Pacific to visit only China last year. "The President should visit our friends. China is not our friend in the Far East. Our friends are Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. He didn't visit our friends. I think it is important that we maintain our friendships and always remember who our friends are."..... "

WORLD Magazine 4/17/99 Cal Thomas Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...EXCERPTS "The situation in the Balkans isn't like Vietnam, we're told. Sure. And the situation when we first began sliding into Vietnam was different from the disastrous French experience in Indochina. The French warned us not to go there. We didn't listen, we're not listening still. History can teach, but only if students are willing to learn. "..."

WORLD Magazine 4/7/99 J. Budziszewski Freeper Stand Watch Listen "..."First come criteria for when going to war is permissible. It isn't enough to honor most of them; all seven must be satisfied. 1. Public authority. 2. Just cause. 3. Right intention 4. Comparative justice. 5. Proportionality 6. Probability of success. 7. Last resort...."

Freeper ohmlaw98 observes "...I can't explain the discrepancy between the two accounts. Here are direct exerpts from the House Committee Interim Report: "Shortly thereafter, on March 21, 1996, Charlie Trie visited the offices of Michael Cardozo, the head of the PLET. Shortly after his meeting with Cardozo started, Trie opened a manila envelope stuffed with hundreds of small checks totaling $380,000. Cardozo developed an immediate suspicion of the money delivered by Trie, based on the manner of their delivery, the fact that many of the cashier's checks and money orders were sequentially numbered, and that there were misspellings on a number of the checks." "On March 21, 1996, after Trie delivered the checks to the PLET offices, he met with Mark Middleton and gave him a letter for delivery to the White House. The letter indicates that it was faxed first from "P.E.C. Co.," on March 20. The following day, after Middleton received it, he faxed it to the White House." "On April 24, Trie returned to the PLET offices to contribute another $179,000 in checks from Suma Ching Hai devotees." By adding the two separate contributions, the total would equal $559,000, so I can't equate Timperlake's documented account of $460,000..."

Progressive Review 4/8/99 Sam Smith "…One thing you have to hand the First Fugitive: he certainly knows how to rack up superlatives: Most members of a presidential political machine convicted of a felony. Most members of a political machine to have taken the Fifth or fled the country. Most number of presidential ex-girlfriends harassed by thugs, private investigators or attorneys. Most number of gratuitous military attacks on foreign countries in the shortest amount of time. And now we can add to the list: Most corrupted by a foreign country…."

Executive Order 13117 4/5/99 Vol 64 Number 64 Clinton "...Executive Order 13117 of March 31, 1999 Further Amendment to Executive Order 12981, as Amended By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America and in order to further the implementation of the reorganization of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) into the Department of State, in this instance by eliminating ACDA's vote on dual-use export license decisions in the administration of export controls, it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12981, as amended (``Executive Order 12981''), is further amended as follows..."

4/15/99 Freeper CHIEF negotiator "...U.S. Reps. James A. Traficant, Jr. (D-OH) and Billy Tauzin (R-LA) today introduced legislation to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and federal income tax, replacing them with a 15 percent national retail sales tax..."

AP via World News Now list via an informant 4/21/99 Freeper Plummz "…Gov. Jesse Ventura said Wednesday the Colorado school shooting demonstrates the need for loosening restrictions on concealed weapons. ``Had there been someone who was armed, in this particular situation, in my opinion, it may have stabilized,'' the former professional wrestler-turned politician said. …"

Reuters 4/22/99 "...Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura said Thursday he regretted saying the Colorado high school shooting might have been brought to a halt sooner if someone else in the building had been carrying a concealed weapon. ….``I believe that except for uniformed police officers, a school is no place for weapons,'' he said in a statement...."

The Washington Times-Weekly 4-19 to 4-25/99 Jerry Seper "...A federal judge dealth Webster L. Hubbell a setback on April 13 in his pending fraud, perjury and obstruction trial, denying defense claims that evidence gathering violated an immunity agreement. U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled that an indictment sought in November by independent, Kenneth W. Starr was not based on documents produced by Mr. Hubbell under a plea agreement with Mr. Starr's office in the Whitewater investigation....."

ABC NEWS.com 4/22/99 Claudine Chamberlain "...A team of researchers at the University of Western Ontario in Canada has found no evidence of the so-called "gay gene," directly contradicting studies from 1993 and '95 that pinpointed a specific genetic marker on the X chromosome linked to homosexuality in men. Whether genes play a part in sexual orientation has long been a hot button topic for people who support or oppose gay rights....."

Progressive Review 4/22/99 Sam Smith Freeper incognito "...Or consider that there are more guns per-capita in Maine than in any other state save possibly Alaska. About 50,000 Mainers have permits to carry concealed weapons. ….Yet Maine has a crime rate one-third below the national average. Maine has one or two fatal gun accidents a year, lower than the death rate for snowmobiling or boating...."

Matt Drudge 4/24/99 "…The school that became the site of one of the nation's worst massacres this week, was in the headlines in the early 90's for offering death education classes to confused students! One student even planned to kill herself after attending one of the classes, ABC NEWS reported in a 20/20 profile back in 1991. …"

Reuters OL 4/29/99 Alan Elsner, Political Correspondent "...A Reuters poll conducted by Zogby International found 80 percent of Republicans and 77 percent of Democrats believed foreign policy and defense expertise was ``very important'' in their next presidential choice...."

Electronic Telegraph - UK 4/25/99 Mark Steyn Freeper Deep_6 "......If gun control bore any relation to homicide rates, Washington DC would be the safest place in the country. Instead, the safest places are Vermont and New Hampshire, which also happen to have the highest rates of gun ownership in the country...."

AFP 4/30/99 "...Chen Ing-hou, the 24-year-old Taiwanese computer wizard suspected of designing the deadly Chernobyl virus, had been a quiet student before his invention devastated computers around the world..... He told investigators that he felt cheated by some computer software companies after using their anti-virus programs which he said turned out be useless. So he decided to design Chernobyl as a way of teaching software companies a lesson, according to the investigators. But Chen showed regret and immediately offered solutions for downloading programs from the Internet....."

AFP 4/30/99 "...Chinese intelligence agents have reportedly been sent to Taiwan after a virus wrecked millions of computers worldwide including those owned by the People's Liberation Army, reports said Friday. Taiwan government units "like Taiwan's National Security Bureau, Intelligence Information Bureau and Bureau of Investigation had been tipped off that the mainland had sent people here to gather first-hand information about the virus," the China Times Express reported. China feared some kind of political motivation was behind the virus which was allegedly designed by a Taiwan college student Chen Ing-hou, the paper said...."

CAN 4/30/99 "...Overcome with regret over the recent global havoc caused by a computer virus he created, ROC national Chen Ing-hau on Friday gave an antidote program to the police, in an effort to help clean up the mess he made. In a confession to a Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) computer crime prevention and control squad, Chen admitted he made the virus, named CIH after his own initials. The virus is nicknamed "Chernobyl" after the Soviet nuclear disaster of 1986. "I only intended to teach a lesson to those anti-virus peddling companies for creating useless programs which cost me a great deal of money," Chen told investigators...."

PDD 63 Whitehouse.gov William Jefferson Blythe Clinton 5/22/98 "... WHITE PAPER The Clinton Administration's Policy on Critical Infrastructure Protection: Presidential Decision Directive 63 May 22, 1998 This White Paper explains key elements of the Clinton Administration's policy on critical infrastructure protection....The United States possesses both the world's strongest military and its largest national economy. Those two aspects of our power are mutually reinforcing and dependent. They are also increasingly reliant upon certain critical infrastructures and upon cyber-based information systems. Critical infrastructures are those physical and cyber-based systems essential to the minimum operations of the economy and government. They include, but are not limited to, telecommunications, energy, banking and finance, transportation, water systems and emergency services, both governmental and private.... Because of our military strength, future enemies, whether nations, groups or individuals, may seek to harm us in non-traditional ways including attacks within the United States. Our economy is increasingly reliant upon interdependent and cyber-supported infrastructures and non-traditional attacks on our infrastructure and information systems may be capable of significantly harming both our military power and our economy..... "

New York Times 5/2/99 Don Van Natta, Jr. "... Ms. Steele is charged with lying in an affidavit and statements to investigators about her knowledge of whether the president had made an unwanted sexual advance to Ms. Willey. She had described this knowledge to Isikoff and later denied it....."

Associated Press 5/2/99 "... As part of the Monica Lewinsky case, Starr investigated Mrs. Willey's account but did not assemble enough evidence to include any related information in his impeachment referral to Congress. One reason he did not was Ms. Steele's testimony that Mrs. Willey had asked her to lie to back up the allegation against the president. Ms. Steele's trial on three obstruction counts and one count of making false statements is the only criminal trial to arise out of the Lewinsky investigation....."

Freeper ClintonBeGone reports 5/2/99 "...Apparently Peter King did the single digit courtesy to the Freepers in DC. I got this from Dr Raoul ...."Rep. Peter King (NY) very enthusiastically gave the FReepers the finger as the car he was riding in passed the corner. He turned around in the back seat so he could do it too. Once on the other side, when he got out, he very enthusiastically, used both hands to repeat his performance. So the stories of Clinton and his cronies being vengeful, spiteful and petty people ARE true." Doctor Raoul ..."

hemorraghingEWTN 5/3/99 Freeper marshmallow "...Canadians were shocked today to learn that the publishers of the weekly magazine 'Alberta Report' have been served a subpoena and are scheduled to appear before a provincial judge for exposing and reporting on the practice of infanticide at a Calgary hospital. The origin of the dispute lies in the magazine's May 3 cover story that appeared on newsstands yesterday which describes the refusal of three nurses at the Foothills Medical Centre -- under the jurisdiction of the Calgary Regional Health Authority (CHRA) -- to be forced to cooperate in eugenic abortions and infanticides at the huge 700-bed facility...."

WorldNetDaily 5/13/99 Jerome Zeifman "....The irate interviewer challenged me with: "How do you dare compare President Clinton to Hitler?" ….Years ago I bought a now-lost second hand book -- translating the letters between Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse in the Weimar years. As I recall, Mann (who had a Jewish wife) had been president of the Prussian Literary Society -- Germany's most prestigious writers. Hesse was also a member. The Brown Shirts infiltrated the society and mustered enough votes to oust Mann as president and expel Hesse -- who then fled to Switzerland, his original homeland. Mann and other anti-Nazi members regrouped and eventually mustered enough votes to restore Mann to the presidency -- and restore Hesse's membership. Mann wrote to Hesse and urged him to return to Germany and help fight the good fight. Hesse replied prophetically that in his view it was inevitable that more than 90 percent of the Germans would soon completely embrace the ends-justify-the-means doctrine of totalitarianism. He decided that to help keep alive the free spirit of German literature his own place was in his homeland in Switzerland. My final chilling recollection was a lecture I attended in Switzerland in 1953 -- when I was a student at the University of Zurich. At that time the Rosenbergs had been put to death in the United States…. Mann, who until then had been a refugee in California, returned to Germany for the first time. He then visited Zurich and gave what I believe was his last public lecture -- which I attended. A month or so later Mann died in the Zurich "Kantonspital." My translation of a portion of Mann's last lecture is: It was not without trepidations that I have revisited my German "heimatland." I have some doubts about the possibility of the revival of democracy in "entnazifiziert" [de-nazified] Deutschland." But sadly, to tell you the truth, I also see evil rising dangerously in North America. I fear that today, even in Germany -- of all places -- there are more outspoken anti-totalitarian writers than in my adopted country...."

Wall Street Journal 5/17/99 Jeff Cole Deborah Lohse "...A 16-month run of failed commercial-satellite launches has cost insurers more than $2.25 billion and made them eager to double premiums, say insurance and satellite executives..... In the most recent two failures, an Ikonos imaging satellite was destroyed after a launch attempt using a new Lockheed Martin rocket type. Earlier this month, Boeing Co.'s new Delta III rocket failed for the second consecutive time and left an Orion 3 communications satellite in a useless orbit. Insurers cite a much longer string of losses, including last year's failed launch of 12 satellites for the Globalstar Telecommunications Ltd. mobile-phone system on a Ukrainian rocket, and the August loss of a major satellite for PanAmSat Corp., when Boeing's Delta III failed the first time. One satellite failure knocked out paging services, while other shortcomings brought big claims from the EchoStar Communications Corp. TV service and Iridium LLC, a mobile-phone service....."

Washington Post 5/17/99 David Segal "...Georgetown University Law School will offer a semester-long course called "Clinton" starting in August….Among the many questions to be asked: Can a sitting president be sued in a civil lawsuit? Can a lame-duck Congress impeach the commander-in-chief? What is a high crime? ….The class was conceived and will be taught by 30-year-old Neal Katyal, who works for Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder in the Justice Department..."

Associated Press 5/17/99 Michael J. Sniffen Freeper Brian Mosely "...A former Australian government intelligence official was charged today with attempted espionage for selling U.S. defense secrets to an undercover FBI agent posing as a foreign spy, law enforcement officials said. They said Jean-Philippe Wispelaere, 28, obtained $120,000 from undercover FBI agents in exchange for more than 713 classified U.S. documents in two batches last month and earlier this month, according to the officials, who requested anonymity. He worked for the Australian Defence Intelligence Organization from July 1998 to January 1999...."

Freeper wildbill observes 5/19/99 "... First, the CIA has satellite imagery capability (in the sattelites they admit to) that permits reading a newspaper in the hands of the Chinese ambassador outside the Belgrade embassy. And the Chinese know it. Don't you think the photo-analyst at the CIA might have noticed a Chinese flag flying or all those oriental faces going in or out? Finally, it is absurd that anyone should think that a single analyst is making these bombing decisions, and you have to believe in the tooth fairy to think that all CIA analysts are incompetent..... "

ABC News Website 5/25/99 Heather Maher ".... Now that the extensively redacted Cox Report has been released publicly (it was completed in January but has been rewritten several times), the Republican Cox is in the spotlight, but it has shed a curious, not harsh, light on him. By all accounts, Cox has pulled off the impossible: He produced a credible, secret report on a hypersensitive national security matter with the smooth cooperation of a bipartisan committee during the most rancorous congressional bickering in the last 20 years..... In 1996, the American Civil Liberties Union gave him a "0" rating. The Christian Coalition gave him a "100."..."

5/29/99 Bob Momenteller Etherzone "...I would to take this opportunity to thank all of the Freepers who took the time to E-mail me with words of encouragement over the last 24 hours. It was nice to know that there are dozens of you who really care about the Zone. For those of you who may not be aware of what happened, here is the story... On Wednesday evening I received an anomalous e-mail advising us of the following: "If we did not remove the three pictures of the treasonous bastards from our website (Berger,Clinton,Reno) within 24 hours, we will pay the consequences." The e-mail was signed, "Friends of the DOJ." On Friday May 28th at 9:20am CDT, our website was hacked into, bringing our server to its knees for over 14 hours. We are now up and running again after a fun filled day of hair pulling. New security measures are in place and we will prosecute the assh#@es when find them. We will NOT be itimidated by anyone including but not limited to the White House, Department of Justice, CIA, FBI, or any number of other assh#@es operating under this despicable, treasonous, and vile administration... Thank you and may God Bless you all... "

Associated Press Wire/San Antonio Express News Online 5/31/99 "...When talk in Congress turns to guns, most Texans come to the debate armed with plenty of hands-on experience. A Fort Worth Star-Telegram survey found that at least 21 of the 30 House members and both U.S. senators from Texas own firearms. ``I grew up around pistols and rifles,'' said Rep. Charles Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, whose father, former Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez, gave his sons .22-caliber rifles for their 12th birthday. ``It's part of the Texas culture.''..."

New York Daily News 6/1/99 Rush/Molloy ".... Special U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke is said to have been privately dissing his boss, Secretary Madeleine Albright, and her official mouthpiece, James Rubin. Journalists Andrew and Alex Cockburn allege that Holbrooke is particularly venomous about Rubin. Andrew quotes a CNN staffer as telling him that Holbrooke couldn't have been nastier when he saw Rubin at a recent awards dinner where he supposedly questioned Rubin's masculinity. Mind you, Rubin is married to the beautiful and brainy CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour. ..... Holbrooke has "been making clear his loathing of Albright," the Cockburns write in Counterpunch. They report that Holbrooke opposed the NATO bombing of Belgrade. Many have smelled tension between Albright and Holbrooke, a supremely confident man widely viewed as Al Gore's choice as the next secretary of state....."

BBC Online Network 6/2/99 "...A computer made of neurons taken from leeches has been created by US scientists. At the moment, the device can perform simple sums - the team calls the novel calculator the "leech-ulator". But their aim is to devise a new generation of fast and flexible computers that can work out for themselves how to solve a problem, rather than having to be told exactly what to do. Professor Bill Ditto, at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is leading the project and says he is amazed that today's computers are still so dumb...."

AP 6/4/99 Freeper buffalo bob "...A bill intended to thwart New Orleans' landmark lawsuit against gun manufacturers awaits the approval of Gov. Mike Foster, who promised to sign it into law ``as soon as it hits my desk.'' ..."

FoxNEWS Brit Hume Freeper starlu 6/6/99 "...Inhofe promises to put his discretionary hold on all Clinton appointees due to Clinton's recess appointment...."

ABC News 6/3/99 Cox Report ".... Jens Lerch, a German amateur space historian, also posted criticisms on the Internet. "I've easily found a few more blatant mistakes," he wrote. Lerch listed half a dozen cases in which missile and spacecraft designations were erroneous. He concludes, "It's quite disturbing that such a report contains dozens of factual errors, which are easy to spot by amateurs." Some mistakes are unimportant to the report's conclusions, but reveal that the authors didn't have any deep understanding of the historical and technical issues they wrote about. Chen Lan pointed out that the report gave 1971 as the date of the first Chinese satellite launch (it was 1970), and 1963 as the date of the "Great Leap Forward" campaign (it was 1958). The report refers to the Challenger shuttle disaster in 1987 (it was 1986)...."

Salon 6/4/99 Jake Tapper "....Since when do liberal Democrats support the death penalty? Since when does Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy support mandatory minimum sentences for 14-year-old offenders? Since when does California Sen. Barbara Boxer turn a deaf ear to the disproportionate number of African-Americans in prison? Since Thursday, May 20, 1999. That's when the Violent and Repeat Juvenile Accountability and Rehabilitation Act passed the Senate, 73-25, with nearly unanimous Democratic support. …Thus, pro-gun conservatives should take solace in the fact that left-wing civil liberties and civil rights groups are now as miserable about the bill as they are -- and specifically about the way the bill was handled...."

White House Documents 6/8/99 Joe Lockhart announcement "...The President today announced his intent to nominate David W. Ogden as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division at the Department of Justice.....The Civil Division at the Department of Justice represents the U.S. government, its departments and agencies, members of Congress, cabinet officers, and other federal employees. Its litigation reflects the diversity of government activities including the defense of challenges to Presidential actions, national security issues, benefit programs, energy policies, commercial issues, accident and liability claims, and violations of immigration and consumer protection laws....."

Reuters 6/10/99 "...Thursday approved a change to campaign finance rules allowing it to match campaign contributions made over the Internet or over the phone by credit card.... However, until now only contributions made by check were matched. Those made over the Internet or over the telephone using credit cards were excluded...."

6/10/99 Reuters Thanatos "...The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday declared unconstitutional a sweeping anti-loitering law that targets violent street gang members who gather on city streets. The court struck down a Chicago law that allows police officers to break up a gathering of people in public if they believe anyone present is a gang member and to arrest those who disobey an order to disperse.. ..."

AP 6/11/99 "...Attorney General Janet Reno said today the House has ``undermined'' a Senate gun control bill designed to stop criminals from making weapons purchases at gun shows. At a weekly meeting with reporters, Reno said the House bill narrows the definition of ``gun show'' and would cut down the time police have to complete background checks of prospective gun buyers who attend the events....."

Washington Times 6/11/99 Bill Gertz "...Wags in the Pentagon are wondering if the White House National Security Council (NSC) staff will adopt a more hard-line approach to arms control following the mugging of NSC arms control guru Robert Bell in Brussels. ….The altercation took place several weeks ago as Mr. Bell was in Brussels preparing to become an assistant secretary-general for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. While leaving a restaurant, he was jumped by three unarmed men who stole his wallet, watch and briefcase, and left him with a broken rib and cuts on his face..... "

AP 6/11/99 "...No offense, University of Chicago officials say, but President Clinton won't get an honorary degree for speaking to graduates Saturday. He doesn't even qualify to give the commencement address. Instead, he will be the ``distinguished guest speaker.'' University officials said it has nothing to do with the president and everything to do with strict tradition at this very serious institution, where more Nobel laureates - 70 in all - have taught, researched or studied than anywhere else in the world......"

6/13/99 BBC News "....Counting is under way across Europe of votes cast in the elections to the European Parliament. Early indications are that voter turnout may have hit a new low, and that the European People's Party - the centre-right bloc in the Parliament - will gain seats. Initial exit polls also suggested the EPP could end up the largest group in Brussels. Currently the Socialist group dominates with one third of the 626 seats....European Parliament President Jose Maria Gil-Robles forecast an EPP victory. He told a news conference he expected the EPP to end up with between 210 to 215 MEPs, compared to between 185 and 190 for the Socialists. With figures in from nine EU countries there was a clear swing to the right in terms of votes cast...."

The Scotsman (UK) 6/14/99 JOY COPLEY "...TONY Blair is braced for disastrous results in the European parliamentary elections with the loss of half of Labour's seats. Senior party sources predicted that the Conservatives would end up with more seats than Labour when the final result is announced on Monday morning. This would represent a humiliating defeat and major rout for the Prime Minister in the low-key election where only one in four people bothered to vote. Labour strategists at the party's Millbank headquarters in London are forecasting that the number of Labour MEPs will be slashed from 59 to about 29 throughout the UK...."

AP 6/15/99 "...Vice President Al Gore misspoke when he said 18- to 20-year-olds can legally buy handguns from licensed gun dealers, his office said. Gore told more than 300 city leaders during an address Monday in New Orleans that while adults younger than 21 cannot legally buy alcohol, ``they can walk into any gun shop, pawn shop or gun show in America and buy a handgun.'' The vice president's office released a statement later in the day saying that wasn't the case....."

6/16/99 AP "…Remains believed to be those of U.S. soldiers killed in the Korean War will be returned Thursday by North Korea, the U.S. military command in Seoul said Wednesday. The command did not specify how many sets of skeletal remains would be repatriated in a brief ceremony at the border village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone separating South and North Korea….Altogether, about 230 sets of remains have been repatriated by North Korea, but fewer than a dozen have been positively identified. …"

AFP 6/24/99 "...The world is heading for a spate of "super" disasters sparked by a mix of climate change, environmental damage and population pressures, a Red Cross report said on Thursday....Asia suffered the heaviest toll in terms of fatalities and economic fall-out, with massive flooding ravaging parts of China, Blangadesh and Nepal, murderous cyclones in India and two major earthquakes in Afghanistan. Of the 60,000 people killed in man-made and natural disasters last year, half of the victims were in Asia, the federation said. Hurricane Mitch, the deadliest Atlantic hurricane in 200 years, was another mega disaster, spawning landslides and floods mainly in Honduras and Nicaragua that left around 10,000 people dead. The Pacific's deadly climatic duo, El Nino and La Nina, wreaked worldwide havoc, drenching Latin America but bringing drought to southern and eastern Africa and the worst dry spell in Indonesia in half a century. The El nino phenomenon shows "compelling" evidence of trends towards weather triggered super-disasters, the report said. .... In 1998, natural disasters created more "refugees" than wars and conflict as declining soil fertility, drought, flooding and deforestation drove 25 million people from their land into packed city slums. ..."

Washington Times 6/25/99 Ralph Hallow "...Republicans actually helped their image with voters -- and boosted their election prospects in the 2000 election -- by impeaching President Clinton, a leading Democratic pollster said Thursday. At the same time, Democrats are suffering from a delayed voter disgust with Mr. Clinton's scandals that has improved GOP chances for the presidency and Congress in next year's elections, according to Democratic pollster Celinda Lake..... Mrs. Lake said, "Right now, voters are voting values, and that is clearly diminishing Democrat support." She noted that as recently as 1994, Democrats were 6 percentage points behind on ethics and honesty -- "today, they are 19 points behind."

USA Today 6/25/99 Paul Hoversten "... Beginning in January, the sun will reach the peak of its 11-year seasonal cycle, resulting in solar flares and explosions that each can send waves of energy equal to a million 100-megaton bombs speeding toward Earth.... If the superheated, electrically charged gas reaches Earth's upper atmosphere, it will create an over-electrified field that could block electronic transmissions to and from satellites. Electrical charges could build up on the surfaces of satellites, triggering phantom signals or sending the spacecraft out of orbit. On Earth, excess electromagnetic energy from the sun could surge along power lines, shorting circuits and burning out equipment....."

Blind Man's Bluff [book] page 251 1998 Sherry Sontag Christopher Drew "... [Describing a meeting between Navy brass and the Senate Intelligence Committee after the Walker and Pelton spy cases became known] "...The Senators were furious. At a closed hearing, they lambasted Navy representatives for withholding the report for three years. William Cohen, a Republican from Maine, was one of the angriest lawmakers in the room. Cohen, who would become secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton, demanded to know who had written the report....Cohen wanted to know why the Navy failed to react to [the]conclusion that the Soviets probably had foreknowledge of the cable tap. He wanted to know why nobody searched for the spy. "They didn't believe it," Haver [Navy intelligence officer] responded. "Cohen pressed on. Was it prudent, he wanted to know, to continue to operate the...program...when there may have been a spy?" ..."

EWTN 6/28/99 "...New directives from the British Medical Association have come into force, giving doctors in Great Britain greater powers of decision in certain cases. Henceforth, doctors, surgeons, and specialists will be able to end the life of terminally ill patients. The new norms have sparked heated controversy and reopened the euthanasia debate, in spite of the fact that Michael Wilks, the president of the Association, has said, specifically, that "the intention is not to voluntarily put an end to patients' life but to verify if a particular therapy works."....."

Daily Telegraph, London 6/29/99 Hugo Gurdon "..." PRESIDENT CLINTON has become the lamest of lame ducks and Washington is turning its back on him to concentrate on the 2000 election. Old scandal and a new political campaign have left the Clinton White House smelling of decay. Newspapers are openly bored by the man who still has 18 months to go behind the desk in the Oval Office. The Washington Post wrote: "Zzzzzzzzz," mocking Mr Clinton's performance at a press conference last week. The President was "limp, reflective, meandering". ...."

CNSNews.com 6/29/99 Bruce Sullivan "...One year after the passage of Proposition 227, which dismantled bilingual education in California, early test scores of statewide exams in math, science, social studies and language arts are up - in some cases dramatically - among students who are not fluent in English. "Although a final verdict on Prop. 227 will not be available until all remaining district scores are released later this week, these initial results are quite astonishing," said English for the Children Chairman Ron Unz, who spearheaded the Prop. 227 referendum...."

FOX News 7/2/99 Reuters "...A group of California firefighters is seeking to register a "European-American'' support group to fight for white rights in the multicultural workplace. San Jose Fire Department Capt. James Roszell in California, president of the European American Firefighters Association, said the new group was open to anyone, but so far all 30 members are white...."

New York Post 7/1/99 Christopher Francescani and Alex Devine "...Parents who don't want their kids to see the raunchy new film "South Park" shouldn't assume theaters will keep their promise to bar underage moviegoers. Two baby-faced teens - one 14, one 16 - had no trouble buying tickets at four Manhattan theaters premiering the R-rated "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut." "It was a joke," said Morgan Stone, 16, who participated in a Post survey of seven theaters - three of which refused to let the kids in. "It was so easy." ...."

Fox news 7/1/99 Jeffrey Blair [PA] "...The state Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a major portion of Megan's Law, a measure that forces sexual assault convicts to announce their presence in their chosen community. The court ruled that the law improperly presumes that certain convicts are guilty by classifying them as "sexual predators" for life......"

Wall Street Journal 7/1/99 "...In three noteworthy decisions recently, a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court expanded state governments' protection against federal impositions. The decisions reaffirm the court's increased concern for federalism, which has been evident for roughly a decade. The nation's governors (and this newspaper) cheered the decisions, and rightly so. That enthusiasm, though, ought to be tempered by the Supreme Court's crabbed, statist conception of federalism. The court is concerned primarily with protecting "states' rights," and only incidentally and secondarily with limiting the national government to exercising only its "enumerated powers"--that is, the limited powers the Constitution grants the national government and particularly Congress. This deprives federalism of its principal virtues--a more limited government, and more open, competitive politics..... Federalism cases will be a staple of the Supreme Court's constitutional decisions for years to come. Of these, the cases that bear watching will implicate congressional powers. They will tell whether the court's federally minded justices are mere states'-rights sentimentalists or real, if pragmatic, federalists...."

AP Wire 7/1/99 "...Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is away on vacation, without announcement and with her interim spokesman saying he had no ``information on her whereabouts.''...."

Associated Press 7/1/99 "...As church bells pealed Thursday, a torrent of water was unleashed through a manmade gap in the 162-year-old Edwards Dam in the nation's first government-ordered demolition of a dam in the name of conservation. ….It is seen as a precedent for other projects, particularly in the West, where some dams have been targeted for similar fates...."

CNN News Online 7/99 "...A Maryland man was indicted Wednesday for stealing $8,662 in cash from the federal agency that prints it and stashing a portion of it behind tiles in two different men's bathrooms -- along with his I.D. badge. ..."

Reuters Via Washington Post 7/4/99 "...The Secret Service is preparing to require new agents to sign a pledge that they will not discuss what they see and hear while protecting a president, Director Brian Stafford said yesterday..... "It was just a code that we all thought and felt very strongly about and didn't feel that we had to reduce it to paper," he said. "But we are now." ....."

AP wire story (also read on FOX News) 7/3/99 "...A federal judge has cleared the way for a lawsuit that claims the federal government is responsible for the fiery and deadly end to the 1993 Branch Davidian standoff. U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. pared the number of defendants and plaintiffs, but ruled Thursday that the case can go to trial, said Mike Caddell, lead attorney for the Davidians.....The Davidians contend that when federal agents punched through the walls and fired tear gas into the cult compound on April 19, 1993, the canisters ignited, burning the building and the people inside. Congressional hearings have pointed to mistakes by the law enforcement officers, but none has been charged with a crime...."

Reuters 1/23/99 Patricia Reaney "…Biological and genetic weapons designed to kill specific ethnic or racial groups are no longer the stuff of science fiction, British researchers say. A designer plague that would only kill Serbs or a toxin engineered to affect Israelis or Kurds does not exist yet, but advances in biotechnology and the mapping of all human genes could be used to develop lethal weapons within five to ten years. ….. "

Don Adams 7/12/99 "…"Philadelphia -- Don Adams, of Cheltenham, one of at least two Clinton protesters viciously assaulted by a mob of Teamsters during a presidential fundraising visit to Philadelphia's City Hall on October 2, 1998 AND THE ONLY ONE TO STAND TRIAL SO FAR IN THE ENTIRE INCIDENT, WAS FOUND NOT GUILTY of assaulting Teamster Heather Diocson by Municipal Court Judge Marsha Neifield this past Thursday. "Lynne Abraham added salt to the wound by approving, after initially disproving, Diocson's false private criminal complaint that I had somehow hit her…."

Washingotn Times/Inside Politics 7/23/99 Greg Pierce "... Americans increasingly think the House did the right thing when it voted to impeach President Clinton. A national Pew Research Center poll found that 44 percent believe the House "did the right thing in impeaching him," compared with 35 percent who thought so at the end of last year. The number of people who say he should have resigned is also up, 35 percent now vs. 30 percent in December. There is also bad news for Mr. Clinton, who vowed revenge against House members who voted to impeach him...."

UPI 7/20/99 "...The United States has announced 100 per cent tariffs on products from nearly every European Community in response to the EU refusal to lift a ban on hormone-treated beef. U.S. officials announced a plan Monday to effectively double the price of imported goods such as mustard, truffles and Roquefort cheese. The World Trade Organization ruled last week that the United States could collect tariffs worth $116.8 million because of economic damage done through the EU's 11-year ban on U.S. beef treated with growth hormones..."

AFP 7/21/99 "...A mysterious killer virus spreading across the south of Russia has left nine dead and more than 100 hospitalized, with Russian experts stumped as to the nature of the disease, news agencies reported. Authorities in the region have banned the sale of food on open markets, swimming holes have been declared off-limits, and hundreds of people have fled from their homes in fear of the highly infectious disease. Its victims suffer from a plague-like skin rash, internal bleeding and even fatal brain hemorrhaging, symptoms which researchers said resemble a virus called Congo-Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever, which last broke out in the region in the 1950s, RIA Novosti reported Monday...."

Fox News Wire 7/22/99 AP "...With no debate, the Senate approved legislation Thursday night that would expand federal authority to prosecute hate crimes and include people victimized because of their sexual orientation, gender or disability. .... Critics - largely conservatives - have said hate-crimes legislation creates special classes of citizens who are already protected by state laws against violence. Also approved was a second, narrower bill offered by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that would expand federal jurisdiction to hate crimes committed after the crossing of state lines. It would also allow federal aid to state and local law enforcement officials prosecuting hate crimes. It would not expand coverage beyond crimes based on race, color, religion or national origin, which are already covered by federal hate crime law...."

New York Post 7/24/99 Brian Blomquist "…Al Gore's campaign was up a creek yesterday after utility officials released 4 billion gallons of water into the drought-stricken Connecticut River to float the veep's boat for photographers. New Hampshire officials released the water from a dam at the request of the Secret Service, which was worried Gore's canoe might run aground. "They won't release the water for the fish when we ask them to, but somehow they find themselves able to release it for a politician," groused John Kassel, director of Vermont's Natural Resources Department ..."

ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE 7/24/99 Noel Oman "…A payday lender owned by a one-time broker who helped first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton make nearly $100,000 in the cattle futures market two decades ago has settled a lawsuit accusing the company of charging interest in excess of 520 percent. In the settlement, announced Friday by Attorney General Mark Pryor, Check Cashers agreed to pay $70,000 for investigative costs, attorney fees and restitution to consumers…."

Associated Press 7/24/99 Willie Green "…The United States is sending the Energy Department's top arms control official on a six-month mission to India in hopes of bringing India under nuclear nonproliferation accords. Starting Sept. 1, Joan Rohlfing, the department's senior adviser for national security, will join the staff of U.S. Ambassador Richard Celeste in New Delhi, the department said Saturday…."

UPI 7/19/99 "…Iowa researchers are studying the possible deployment of parasitic wasps to detect unexploded bombs on battlefields and thwart terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons. The Pentagon has hired an Iowa research team to train bomb-sniffing wasps, which normally use their acute sense of smell to find caterpillars to serve as hosts for their offspring…. The fast-flying insects use antennae to smell. They are easy to rear in large numbers for mass deployment. Part of the research focuses on tuning wasps to the odor of cyclohexanol, trinitrotuluene (TNT) and other explosives ingredients. In flight tunnel experiments, wasps flew toward tubes emitting those bomb materials as well as vanilla and methyl jasmonate…."

AP Breaking 7/99 Anne Gearan "…President Clinton tried to put a little bounce in a couple of political speeches over the weekend by telling Democratic supporters Republicans now regard him less as a ``bad guy'' and more as a Michael Jordan of politics. Clinton meant that, in his view, the GOP hopes it can write off Clinton as an extraordinary successful Democrat the likes of whom, like His Airness, probably won't be seen again soon. …."

NTSB Identification: FTW99FA132 Accident occurred MAY-08-99 at CLAREMORE, OK Aircraft: Grumman American AA-5B, registration: N4546J Injuries: 1 Uninjured….. On May 8, 1999, at 0830 central daylight time, a Grumman American AA-5B airplane, N4546J, was substantially damaged during a forced landing following the separation of the propeller assembly from the engine while in cruise flight near Claremore, Oklahoma. The commercial rated pilot, sole occupant and owner/operator of the airplane, was not injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and a flight plan was not filed for the 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91 personal flight. The flight originated from the pilot's private grass strip near Ketchum, Oklahoma, at 0815, and was destined for the Oklahoma City Downtown Airport. During an interview conducted by the investigator-in-charge, the pilot stated that he was in level cruise flight at 2,500 feet msl, when he noticed a vibration in the aircraft. According to the pilot, the vibration became more violent and subsequently, the propeller departed the aircraft's engine. The pilot initiated an emergency landing to a field; however, noticing that his glide ratio had improved without the propeller, he elected to land at the Claremore Municipal Airport. The pilot stated that during the approach, the airplane started to porpoise, so he elected to touch down in the grass section between runway 34 and the taxiway to absorb some of the landing energy. During the landing roll, the nose landing gear collapsed and separated from the aircraft. The airplane slid across the runway and came to rest between two runway lights. The propeller assembly (propeller with approximately 5 inches of one blade tip missing, spacer, and forward bulkhead assembly) were located three miles west of the airport. The blade tip was found in the engine cowling and the starter flywheel was located in the grass section between the runway and taxiway. The propeller flange was found intact with the engine crankshaft. The airplane's firewall was buckled, the landing gear-to-fuselage attachment points were structurally damaged, and the wing roots showed evidence of structural damage.

Washington Times 7/28/99 Ben Barber "...The Clinton administration begins work today on a new International Public Information group designed to "influence foreign audiences" in support of U.S. foreign policy and to counteract propaganda by enemies of the United States. U.S. military, diplomatic and intelligence officials will participate in today's meeting of a core group to set up the IPI system of coordinating all overseas information among the various branches of the U.S. government....Information aimed at domestic audiences should "be coordinated, integrated, deconflicted and synchronized with the [IPI Core Group] to achieve a synergistic effect for [government] strategic information activities," the charter says....."

US Nuclear Regulatory Commission 7/28/99 Jethro Tull "...This database includes incidents and reports from January 1, 1999 to the present. It shows that defects and problems occur on a weekly basis. There are 28 reports affecting 40% of all US commercial nuclear plants so far this year. ..."

Judicial Watch 7/29/99 "...Yesterday, the Honorable Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a courageous decision, which allows pharmaceutical manufacturers to promote their products to remedy medical conditions ancillary to the purposes for which they were approved. The Court found that it was unconstitutional for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to limit such advertising, as a matter of free speech...."

AP 7/29/99 Frazier Moore "...CNN waited to air reports of a gunman opening fire in its home city Thursday until well after its two rival all-news networks went with the story..... CNN spokesman David Bittler said the network had been monitoring what he termed "conflicting reports'' from local stations before it chose to go with the story...."

Washington Post 7/31/99 By Charles Babington "...With the news media and Congress taking their cue from a public weary of questions about presidential scandal, President Clinton is free to devote his final 18 months in office to issues he sees as crucial to his legacy, including shoring up Medicare and Social Security, paying down the federal debt and restricting gun sales. What pollsters call the "Clinton fatigue factor," rather than dragging down the president, is liberating him, his associates say. "Clinton is the most energetic that I've seen him, the best I've seen him, the most 'normal' I've seen him in a long time," said Al From, head of the Democratic Leadership Council and a frequent companion of the president in the past month. "In addition to the scandal, you had the war. I think the end of the war has lifted an incredible burden." Clinton described his mood last week in a 70-minute White House news conference that he seemed reluctant to end. "Apparently unlike some of my predecessors," he said, ". . . I don't feel myself winding down. I feel myself keying up. I want to do more. I want to try to make sure that I give the American people as much as I can, every day. So I've got plenty of energy, and I'll do whatever I'm asked to do." ..."

The New York Post 7/29/99 Andy Geller Ed Robinson "...Watergate sleuth Carl Bernstein and ex-wife Nora Ephron are getting heartburn over a report their son, Jacob, fingered a former FBI bigwig as the mysterious Deep Throat. Bernstein told The Post yesterday that neither Nora nor Jacob know the identity of the source who helped bring down Richard Nixon "any more than the man in the moon does." He said Jacob was "repeating his mother's guesswork" when he told a camp chum years ago that Deep Throat was W. Mark Felt, the former second-in-command of the FBI...."

Linda Tripp's attorney from Freeper jimbo123 7/30/99 "...STEPHEN M. KOHN, a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Kohn, Kohn and Colapinto, P.C., and the Chairperson of the Board of Governors of the National Whistleblowers Center, has extensive experience in First Amendment Law..... Stephen M. Kohn is one of the nation's foremost experts on whistleblower law. Mr. Kohn wrote the first legal treatise on whistleblowing and has successfully litigated many of the nation's landmark whistleblower cases. Mr. Kohn played an integral role in obtaining whistleblower protection for FBI employees. As co-counsel to Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, Mr. Kohn initiated a lawsuit and other proceedings against the DOJ, the FBI and the President to request regulations be implemented to enforce existing whistleblower legislation protecting FBI employees and to force the FBI to obtain accredidation and other reforms for the FBI crime lab. As a result, President Clinton issued a historic directive ordering the Attorney General to implement regulations protecting FBI employee whistleblowers...."

UPI 8/2/99 "...The U.S. government will have paid back $87 billion of the $5.6 trillion national debt this year, the largest debt reduction in American history, the Clinton administration announced (Monday). President Clinton, who wants to eliminate the entire debt by 2015, says the debt has been reduced by $1.7 trillion in the past six years. " ...."

AP 8/3/99 "...A bill making it illegal to distribute information about weapons of mass destruction with the intent to commit a crime is awaiting signature into law by President Clinton. Under the legislation, given final passage Monday by voice vote in the House of Representatives, violators could face up to 20 years in prison...."

Drudge 8/5/99 "...Germany is on Ebola fever alert late tonight after a man returned from a trip to Africa bleeding through his eyes and ears. The patient, identified only as 40-year-old German citizen Olaf U, returned from a trip to the Ivory Coast over the weekend. He travelled via Zurich on Swissair to Berlin and German authorities are trying to track down passengers who may have had contact with him. The infected man was accompanied by his wife, who is now in quarantine, as is their child. Wire reports in Germany reported that the patient was in Africa doing research on frogs and rhesus monkeys for the University of Wuerzburg..... "

Associated Press 8/4/99 Darlene Superville "...A House subcommittee approved a bill Wednesday that would recognize an unborn child as a person who can be the victim of a crime. It is the first such measure proposed at the federal level, according to the National Right to Life Committee, which helped draft the legislation. Under the bill, anyone who intentionally or unintentionally injures or kills an unborn child while committing a federal crime, such as a kidnapping or bank robbery, would be charged with an additional federal offense...."

Reuters 8/5/99 Deborah Cole "...A second man was in quarantine in Germany Thursday after a friend who accompanied him to West Africa was hospitalized in an isolation ward with a mystery illness doctors fear could be caused by the deadly Ebola virus. Health officials stressed the second man had so far shown no signs of illness. He returned Sunday from a two-week working trip to Ivory Coast with a 40-year-old filmmaker who was airlifted Tuesday to Berlin's isolation hospital. There was still no word Thursday afternoon on the results of blood tests on the sick man, identified as Olaf Ullmann from the eastern border town of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder. Medical staff wore hermetically sealed suits and breathing apparatus as they treated him. They also were restricted to the medical complex. Ullmann was thought to be suffering from a viral hemorrhagic fever. Its symptoms are likely to have been caused one of by four potentially fatal tropical viruses -- Ebola, Marburg, lassa or dengue, medical experts said..... Authorities erected a 6-foot-high fence around the ward where Ullmann was being treated, and security guards were deployed to patrol the area. The tough measures sparked frenzied media speculation about the case and whether he may have infected other passengers on the flights he took home from Africa. "Will his fellow passengers spread the virus around Europe, could tens of thousands of people already be affected?" asked Germany's mass-readership Bild newspaper. Health authorities said any threat that the man might have infected others on his flights from the Ivory Coast via Zurich to Berlin was minimal..... "

international herald tribune 8/7/99 "...Shortly before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the Soviet Embassy in Washington received a letter from Lee Harvey Oswald - a letter the Soviets privately believed was forged to make it look as if Mr. Oswald was working for them, newly released documents show. ''This letter was clearly a provocation: It gives the impression we had close ties with Oswald and were using him for some purposes of our own,'' Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin, Moscow's man in Washington for 24 years, wrote in an internal memo stamped ''highest priority.'' ...."

AFP 8/6/99 "...A German cameraman who died Friday after contracting a disease initially feared to be the Ebola virus in fact had yellow fever, the Berlin health authorities said, assuring the public that there had been no risk of contagion. The cameraman, Olaf Ullmann, 40, had been working on a wildlife film in Cote d'Ivoire...."

The Hindustan Times 8/7/99 N C Menon "...The US has once again emerged as the world's leading arms dealer in the annual report released here yesterday by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). According to the report, 'Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1991-1998', the US sold $7.1 billion in weapons around the globe a figure almost 30 per cent higher than its nearest competitor, Germany. US sales to the developing nations accounted for $4.6 billion of the total figure, or 65 per cent. ..."

AP 8/6/99 "...The neighbors could see something was up. There had been unmarked cars on both sides of the street ``clearly doing surveillance,'' one man said. Indeed, an investigation had been in the works for weeks, since a tip came in that big containers were being delivered to a house on a quiet street in the nation's capital. There were worries about the makings of a bomb. Friday morning at 7:30 the raid was on. The street was crowded with agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, with local police and explosives experts, with State Department officials. And. ... ``We did not find sufficient material to warrant a further investigation,'' said Brian Burns, a special agent with the ATF. They did find 30 empty 55-gallon plastic drums...."

Capitol Hill Blue 8/99 "...President Clinton made his first campaign appearances with Vice President Al Gore over the weekend in a very public attempt to end lingering whispers of a rift between the president and the man who wants to succeed him. But sources within the White House and the Gore campaign say the appearance was more show than reality as tensions continue between the President and the man who wants to follow him in the White House. "Privately, the President doesn't feel the Vice President can win and the Vice President feels his campaign is severely hampered by the tarnished legacy that the President is leaving him," said one Gore campaign staffer...."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE 8/9/99 "...Four big US retailers have agreed to pay an independent monitor to check on conditions at garment factories on the US Pacific island Saipan to settle a lawsuit alleging sweatshop conditions, the plaintiffs said Monday. The suits were settled with Nordstrom, J. Crew, Cutter and Buck and Gymboree, according to the lawyers in the class action. Suits remain pending against more than a dozen retail groups, including The Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, Wal-Mart, JC Penney and Sears...."

Associated Press 8/9/99 Laura King "...In a city where omens, portents and apocalyptic visions are practically a local industry, Wednesday's solar eclipse is capturing the imagination of mystics of all stripes. Even though Israel and the Palestinian lands do not lie directly in the eclipse path, the expected partial darkening of the heavens is viewed by many -- Christians, Jews and Muslims alike -- as an awesome display of divine power. And for a few, those moonshadow moments offer a foretaste of millennial doom....``The eclipse goes together with everything else in the sky. ... To me, it means that something is coming about,'' said a 27-year-old Seattle man who gave only his first name, Raymond. He came to Jerusalem two years ago because ``God woke me up and told me there was no more time to mess around, he was going to come back.'' ``The Bible says there will be signs in the heavens,'' said Sharon, a fiftyish woman from Sacramento, Calif., one of a group of several dozen Christian pilgrims who have settled on the Mount of Olives to await the second coming of Christ. ...."

Reuter - FOX 8/12/99 "...A federal judge Thursday ordered an electric utility to pay $100,000 in penalties after 17 golden eagles and other protected birds were electrocuted on power lines in Colorado, in a case authorities said was the first of its kind. U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock assessed the penalties against Moon Lake Electric Association in a case in which the government contended that the birds' deaths could have been prevented if the utility had installed inexpensive protective devices. Twelve golden eagles, four ferruginous hawks and a great horned owl were electrocuted ..."

The Washington Times 8/13/99 Wesley Pruden "...A nice lady once urged Bess Truman to clean up Harry Truman's language. "When he says 'horse manure,' " she told the first lady, "it sounds so coarse, and not like a president." Mrs. Truman sighed. "Yes," she said, "I know. But my dear, you don't know how long it took me to get him to say 'manure.' " Well, Mr. Truman should have watched his language, and so should George W. Bush. So should we all. We've become a nation of toilet mouths, women often included, and that's sad....."

United Press Syndicate 7/29/99 Joseph Sobran "...My doctor has directed me to lose weight. I may soon be able to retaliate by suing him for violating my civil rights. Folks like me aren't just fat guys anymore; we're "people of size," and we're on the move. Carey Goldberg of The New York Times has furnished an interesting report of the recent convention of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) in Framingham, Mass. It seems that people of size are "coming out of the closet"; though some of us, frankly, would have a hard time getting into a closet in the first place. .."

 

Hospital Infection Control 8/18/99 "…Hospital Infection Control: "When the history of AIDS and the global response is written, our most precious contribution may be at the time of plague we did not flee, we did not hide, we did not separate ourselves." - Jonathon Mann, MD, to whom the 1999 APIC conference was dedicated. Ongoing advances in antiretroviral drug therapy are dramatically changing the face of the HIV epidemic, yielding a dramatic "Lazarus effect" in some patients that only a few years ago may have been part of mortality statistics. Yet while the death toll has dropped in those with access to new combination-drug therapies, much of the globe has not been invited to the HIV "cocktail" party and the pandemic is still exacting a terrible toll in non-industrialized countries, ICPs were advised recently in Baltimore at the annual conference of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology….. Any of you who has seen or taken care of AIDS patients can attest to the dramatic Lazarus effect that we have seen. Patients who are very sick - near death - are all of a sudden back to normal. [They are] working, taking their medications, and doing fine. Some hospitals have literally stopped having HIV admissions because HIV has become - for people who can take the medications - essentially an outpatient disease." As a result, AIDS mortality has fallen from the leading cause of death in 25-to-44-year-olds in the late 1980s and early 1990s to the fifth-leading cause currently, he noted….."

Conservative News Source 8/18/99 "…Novel lawsuits, new legal scholarship, and new "animal law" courses at the prestigious Harvard and Georgetown law schools are boosting the fledgling field of animal law, the New York Times reports today. The newspaper says animal law contradicts a fundamental American principle, that animals are property and have no rights. The newspaper notes that animal law partly relies on new science that shows animals have far higher levels of cognition and social development than previously believed. Speaking to the New York Times, Joyce Tischler, executive director of the Animal Legal Defense Fund said, "We have created a field of law. We've learned our trade and now we are focusing on the next steps." (By establishing legal precedents, animal activist lawyers aim to elevate animals from mere "property" status, giving them legal rights to bodily integrity and psychological well-being.) The newspaper says critics ridicule animal law as the latest example of absurdity in the legal system. "Would even bacteria have rights?" asked University of Chicago Law School Professor Richard Epstein…."