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Mistaken Methods
By Andrew Ping, Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — To enforce peace in Kosovo, the U.N. was willing to bomb them and send in troops. To prevent Saddam Hussein from flying warplanes in his country because he might kill people, we and England drop bombs on Iraq. Does anyone else see a problem with these methods?
Bombs, warplanes, troops, and all that go with war are for the defense of our nation. At least, the Constitution allows for the organization of army and navy for the defense of the United States. Why, then, are we using them to bludgeon other countries into submission?
In the past, war was a somewhat clear phenomenon. A group that poses a threat to the U.S. or its allies attacks, and then they are fought until they surrender. War was total, and the enemy was deprived of all power to make war.
Someone got the mistaken idea that our military exists as a political option. That is, if the peace talks are going badly, we can drop a few bombs and shoot a few people, and that will fix it. In the case of Iraq, if after a war we don't like the actions of a leader, we can bomb him until he does what we like.
The major problem with this philosophy is that it doesn't work. Peace can not be enforced at gun point; such a method will eventually fail. We can not bomb or shoot years or even centuries of ethnic hatred out of fighting factions, not unless we're willing to kill them all. Obviously we're not going to wipe out other nations, so the end result is that all sides involved will be angry with the U.N., and especially the United States, since we've time and time again proved ourselves happy to spill American blood and waste taxpayers' money on other people's wars.
Given that we can not cause ethnic unity in foreign countries by shooting them or blowing them up, we should use the money elsewhere. We have a social security system that needs funds badly. There's a huge national debt draining the nation's vitality through exorbitant interest payments, and our education system needs a lot of work. Finally, every U.S. citizen and business would appreciate a tax break.
Every last cent we have could be spent on military equipment and sent to stop every ethnic conflict in the world, but the peace would last only until our ammunition ran out. Let's use the money to build up our nation rather than irrationally try to promote peace by threat of bloodshed.
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Hillary's History
Rodham will not seek New York Senate seat.
By Edward Anderson, Staff Writer, Daily Republican Newspaper
WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton's move to make a run for a New York Senate seat has come to a sudden stall. Mrs. Clinton's skeleton closet is spilling over and she is not ewxpected to make the run for a New York Senate seat. Not this century, anyway. She has been named three-dozen times in a current fraud indictment of her Little Rock Arkansas law partner, Webster Hubbell.
The Hubbell trial is set to commence in a few weeks. By that time. Mrs. Clinton is expecting to be called as a material witness. But that's not all. She is expected to be spotlighted in the criminal contempt trial of her Whitewater partner Susan McDougal, in a few weeks. McDougal was indicted in connection with a series of unexplained fraudulent money transactions in which Mrs. Clinton was believed to have been a player.
Mrs. Clinton is expected to be called as a witness to explain why Hubbell concealed his and Mrs. Clinton's work during the 1980s on a failed Arkansas land deal known as Castle Grande that federal regulators say was riddled with "insider dealing, fictitious sales and land flips."
Clinton's Whitewater partner, Jim McDougal, tried to sell off pieces of Castle Grande to prop up his collapsing savings and loan. The indictment against Mrs. McDougal contains questions about Mrs. Clinton and Castle Grande.
In the meanwhile, Dick Morris, a political consultant who once was a key advisor to president Clinton, has been saying he thinks Mrs. Clinton should postpone running for office, now. And Mrs. Clinton's videotaped grand jury testimony in 1996, has her denial of any knowledge of how her missing Rose Law Firm billing records revealing her work on Castle Grande.
While under oath she was asked about the billing records. Mrs. Clinton said she was unable to recall any of the legal work shown on the records for which she billed the law firm and for which she was paid.
Webster Hubbell, a Clinton appointee as deputy Attorney General of the United States filed a guilty plea toacts of mail fraud, false billing, and tax evasion. He then served nearly two years in federal prison. Now, Hubbell faces new tax evasion charges.
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$2 Billion Missing
Clinton's Department of Treasury and
Interior
under federal contempt charges.
By Mike Rathko, Staff Writer, Daily Republican Newspaper
WASHINGTON — The Clinton administration is in federal court again, this week. This time, a federal judge has filed 'contempt' charges against two Clinton administration Cabinet secretaries who are accused of orchestrating a refusal to comply with a federal subpoena for government records pertaining to records of the disposition of as much as $2 billion in in unaccounted for Indian trust funds.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth issued the contempt order, saying Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt failed to produce documents related to a class-action lawsuit over the alleged mishandling of 300,000 Indian accounts.
The secretaries and Assistant Interior Secretary Kevin Gover were ordered to pay legal fees and other expenses that resulted from their delay in complying with Lamberth's November 1996 order to produce documents.
"I have never seen more egregious misconduct by the federal government,'' Lamberth said in his order.
The judge's ruling followed a contempt hearing last month.
Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs was ordered two years ago to turn over statements, checks and other documents on accounts held by five American Indians who are the lead plaintiffs in the suit against the Interior and Treasury departments.
So far, only a small number of the documents have been produced.
"The court is deeply disappointed that any litigant would fail to obey orders for production of documents, and then conceal and cover up that disobedience with outright false statements that the court then relied upon,'' the judge wrote. "But when that litigant is the federal government, the misconduct is even more troubling."
The Treasury Department had no immediate reaction to the ruling. It only issued a statement saying that correcting decades-long problems with management of the Indian trust funds remained one of Babbitt's "highest priorities."
The lawsuit is related to a long and embarrassing attempt to clean up $2.5 billion in Indian trust funds.
The funds include the 300,000 accounts held by individual Indians and another 2,000 tribal accounts worth $2 billion. The money includes lease revenue, royalties and court settlements.
The largest discrepancy is valued at $400 million, and is a court award to the Dakota Sioux Indian nation for its loss of the sacred Black Hills previously granted to the tribe in treaties.
Records that have been turned over have included embarrassing revelations of double dealing and outright fraudulent accounting by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The Bureau has been unable to document $2 billion of transactions in the tribal accounts over a 20-year period.
[Philip Brasher, and the AP also contributed to this story.]
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Rambouillet Chateau
Deep within the forest it was once used
as a hunting lodge in Northern France.
By Jan Oberg, Sweden Correspondent Daily Republican Newspaper
LUND, Sweden - The Plan being discussed at Rambouillet is a formalistic, legal document.Its provisions may be needed, but it doesn't contain any ideas on how to make peace among the citizens who are to live with it when implemented.
Their voice is not heard, their needs are not dealt with in the Plan. Most of the delegates in Rambouillet are not representative of the citizens. The "mediators" have no professional education as mediators. The idea that Kosovo's problems can be solved in two weeks is absurd. Rambouillet militates against all we know about human psychology and trust-building.
So, once again politics fool media and media fool world public opinion. And people in Kosovo will have to wait for peace as long as the vagabonds in Beckett's drama wait for Godot as we return from our 34th mission to ex-Yugoslavia, this time to Skopje, Belgrade and the troubled Kosovo province.
When wars are fought thousands of trained soldiers are mobilised, highly trained experts and sophisticated technologies activated. When peace is to be created, the world lets one man - in the case of Kosovo, US ambassador Christopher Hill with a few assistants - shuttle back and forth between some of the parties.
When Yugoslavia insisted on Kosovo being an integral part of its territory and the Albanians insisted that it is their independent state, ambassador Hill drew a line - not a circle or a ball - and explained to them, not unlike a father to two quarrelling children: "The compromise I allow you is 'self-government.' He thought that was fair, that this would be in the interests of the parties.
Thus, he and the Contact Group set up the framework for the future of Kosovo's 1,5 million or so inhabitants and the rest of Yugoslavia, around 10 million people. Nobody ask THEM how they would like the future to be.
Perhaps it is all too complex but there are not only the Serbian and Yugoslav governments in Belgrade and the Albanians in Kosovo. Presumably, 15-20% of the people in Kosovo are NOT Albanians. The Kosovo Serbs have not been given an opportunity to voice their independent opinion.
Cynically speaking, of course, that doesn't matter much because nobody, least of all the 'conflict managers' in Rambouillet, expect them to stay in areas of Kosovo under 'self-governing' Albanian majority rule. No Serbs live in areas now controlled by KLA.
The fatal mistake was to believe that negotiations will create trust. They won't. It works the other way, some trust-building must happen BEFORE people meet at the negotiation table.
All this, predictably, did not work. The Contact group then issued ultimatums and put NATO's prestige at stake: Come to Rambouillet, sign our document, or face air-strikes. Air-strikes. Everyone knows, tacitly ofcourse, that that is exactly what KLA would like to see happen, because KLA does not have the kind of installations, depots, airfields, ammunition factories, air-defence systems and the like so it can't be bombed. The threat targets the Serb side only, which has not made them more willing to sign anything.
Last autumn, ambassador Holbrooke forgot to tell the President Milosevic that NATO would set up an "extraction force" in neighbouring Macedonia aimed to intervene on Serbian soil and "extract" the 2000 OSCE "verifiers."
Yugoslavia sees that as an act of aggression. Incrementally, the Contact Group and NATO then agreed that any agreement in Rambouillet would require around 30.000 NATO ground troops on the territory of the sovereign state of Yugoslavia which all the Group's member states recognised as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, with Kosovo inside it, just a few years ago.
The message to Belgrade from the Contact Group and NATO is: "If you sign, you'll get NATO ground troops. If you don't sign you'll get air-strikes and NATO ground troops!" One should hardly expect that this sort of bullying leads to trust, co-operation and compliance.
It is not the first time the international community threatens someone to sign a paper and then play it surprised when that party is not in "full compliance." In short, NATO has trapped itself: it can not back down from its demand to deploy ground troops and it can not deploy them as a peace-keeper but only as an invasion and occupation force.
The plan deals with government structure, territorial status, communes, assemblies, competences, presidential matters, administration, courts, ombudsman, human rights, councils, monitoring, police and security, extradition of war criminals, law enforcement, crowd and traffic control, police operations, border security, arrest and detention, elections. In short, it is a fine legal document.
But important dimension are absent. There is nothing about postwar physical-economic reconstruction, employment, investments, (better) schools, hospitals, theatres, or media. There is no mention of local NGOs and civil society, of socio-psychological healing, nothing about a truth commission, reconciliation, teaching the young peace and conflict resolution, or training professionals and politicians in negotiation. The local cultures are not mirrored anywhere in the document.
The role of women as peace-makers is forgotten. And the specific problem of the very high proportion of children and youth below the age of 20 is not even mentioned. There is nothing about peace zones, alternative defence, new Balkan co-operative structures. There is no wider framework, no awareness of this conflict's intimate connections with the region.
The Serb delegation consist of some lawyers and party people from Belgrade and virtually unknown representatives of various small minorities in the region. Conspicuously, those who do represent the Kosovo Serbs such as Momcilo Trajkovic, Father Sava, Bishop Artemije and those who have creative ideas about future co-existence in Kosovo such as professor Batakovic - were all left in the cold outside Rambouillet. Belgrade did not ask them to join the delegation.
The Albanian delegation is headed by KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has no legitimate legal status in the independent republic of Kosova created, as it was, to be a neutral state with no army and with open borders. The establishment and activities of KLA was never endorsed by the Kosovo-Albanian parliament or by President Rugova who, according to Kosova's constitution and elections, is the legitimate leader of the self-proclaimed republic.
According to Serb sources, more of the KLA delegates are indicted for murder and did not have legal papers upon their departure for Rambouillet. Two intellectuals on the Albanian team represent nobody but were allegedly invited by Ambassador Hill and Foreign Secretary Cook - who did not invite similar people from the Serb side.
The mediators are professional diplomats and ministers. There is no evidence that any of them ever took as much as a week-end course in conflict analysis, conflict psychology, creative conflict-resolution, mediation, conflict-transformation, reconciliation, forgiveness. None of them has a PhD in peace and conflict studies or related matters. If Orthodox priests are not allowed in, the question is whether there is any area expertise, anthropologists, Balkan experts present in Rambouillet. Finally - and not the least - it is all a men's game.
Who could believe that it would be done in one or maximum two weeks? Only someone who has a) learnt nothing from the Dayton process in Ohio and the Dayton process on the ground, b) is unable to see that Kosovo is a complex problem, c) ignores the depth of people's problems and suffering for decades or d) has another agenda - such as seeing NATO troops on the ground before the Alliance's 50th anniversary in April.
The basics of the Plan is not negotiable. It's a fait accompli. An anonymous U.S. State Department official said before the delegations arrived that only 20% in the margins could be discussed.
Rambouillet is a stage where the conflicts inside EU and between EU and the United States are played out. The basis for the document on the table is the plan developed by US Ambassador Hill, and the conference is co-chaired by France and England with a Russian mediator. U.S. Secretary of State, Madam Albright, was elegantly granted the diplomatic 'victory' of bringing the delegation leaders face-to-face for the first time in a week. If they could not sit at the same table during the first week in Rambouillet, you may wonder how they can, together, reach and implement an agreement.
Most likely, the parties will sign the document, one way or another, with reservations. However, KLA will not accept being disarmed and Belgrade will not accept ground troops. No one wants to be first out as the 'bad guys.' There may be secret deals or protocols.
They will then also DE-SIGN the document - i.e. tell the press and their fellow-citizens that they interpret the difficult parts in their own particular way, no matter what the others say and do. Both sides will say that "we did not yield" and "we got what we wanted - if not right now, later." Only then begins the implementation and the compliance games. Soon one or both sides will not be "in compliance" and the bombs fall. If KLA refuses to sign, NATO has little leverage. To disarm KLA it needs to get into Kosovo. This means bombing and invasion.
All this happens when the international community turns a blind eye to Turkey's repeated incursions into a neighbouring state. In Algeria, 30 times more people have been killed than in Kosovo with no international intervention. Tens of thousands have died in Africa with no bombings. No legal, sovereign government anywhere with secessionist movements on its territory would accept to be bombed for adhering to its status as recognised state - least of all the West.[Dr. Jan Oberg is the Director of the a Conflict-Mitigation team to the Balkans and Georgia].
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A Modern American Tragedy
Guam's Commonwealth Act is a big dissapointment.
By Tony Artero, Pacific News Bureau
AGANA, Guam - This week the people of Guam were again forced to confront a policy of the U.S. Congress that destroys individual initiative and subverts the American Dream of owning your own land. This policy was instituted here by the U.S. Navy following World War II.
Another U. S. Congressional delegation arrived on the island of Guam Tuesday. Talks were held with Island officials about the Island's Commonwealth status. Remarks given to the press following the meeting on issues affecting our lives and the future of this Island, lacked substance, as usual.
This is an American tragedy for Pascual Saez Artero, and his descendants. Through hard work, he acquired ownership of real property on Guam and operated various businesses prior to World War II. His son, Antonio Cruz Artero was his right-hand man who managed to harbor Mr. George Ray Tweed, the Navy radioman who, like some of us, endured and survived the Japanese occupation of Guam from 8 December 1941 through 21 July 1944.
Antonio Cruz Artero received the Congressional Medal of Freedom after the war. He accepted tha medal with dignity, but in his heart he considered the medal a grim reminder of his destroyed lands, and the family's lost livelihood destroyed by the war and its aftermath. Worse yet, he was charged for property tax on the remainder of his lands that were being used for a U.S. Navy dump for its hazardous waste.
Once Upon A Time, before WWII, the Stars and Stripes were proudly waving over the little island of Guam. It was a model democratic community in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean. I know these facts because Pascual Saez Artero was my grandfather and Antonio Cruz Artero was my father and because I have inherited a valid claim against the United States Congress for the return of private property seized by them without just compensation.
The name "Guam" is believed to be a derivative of "Guaha ham," meaning, we have. Corn, citrus, tropical fruits and vegetables, sugarcane, and even tobacco and cocoa were grown. Chickens, pigs, other domesticated livestock and wild games were usually in surplus. Viable commercial ventures included copra, cattle grazing, a slaughter house, auto repair shops, and even a sawmill, to mention a few.
At the same time, the land, the streams, the beaches, and the drinking water were clean, without the myriad of laws we have today that seems to only enlarge the problem. The native people were industrious, resilient, and lived a healthy long life on an island that was in balance with nature. No one needed to be on foodstamps, welfare, or in public housing as the islanders took great pride in their ability to bounce back, on their own, from any and all natural or manmade disasters.
The balance today, if any, found in our political status quo of more than 50 years, is only in the argument by some that they are owned by our federal government, which resulted from the destruction of private property interests since the end of WWII when federal welfare handouts got a political foothold. Those people have actually given up totally and have acquired the belief they are conquered. I question, however, their definition of being a "free" American on American soil.
In fact, many people on Guam since WWII have been in a constant struggle between two conflicting orientations: The common belief that a person must earn his or her keep v.s. the pervasive influence of government handouts, which now includes concrete homes for a dollar, and land for a dollar a year for 99 years for a chosen few.
Those are the products of "hard work" by government "leaders" without any planning, yet, are all considered "politically correct," even if fraudulent like that of the "I Ta-No'Ta Land Use Plan." "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you" as reported by the Pacific Daily News front page story of February 23, 1997, on public housing. "People are lucky. They're well-taken care of, they live here until they die. The only thing I can do is help provide the facilities for their success, hoping to promote self-sufficiency." quoting a Government official.
With handouts? It's got to be the joke entering the new millennium. These unfunded mandates together with abortion, the wetland and wildlife regulations, are a cancer slowly eating away our family and community values. I view this abuse as a naked aggression driven by greed, the culprit in the ruin of the cohesiveness of the beautifully structured Chamorro culture of pre WWII Guam and the reason why people today are screaming for help. Our "leaders' have been very consistent in maintaining the integrity of the status quo since WWII, swelling the government and handouts.
All our life, we hear, "Guam Is Where America's Day Begins." But Guam is also where injustice, waste, and abuse begin. That has been the true state of Guam since WWII, regardless of which party is in office. The actions of those in power are repugnant, to say the least, to freedom loving people everywhere. The deck has always been stacked against the working class, which is why many people today have grown bitter and are questioning the celebration of Independence Day and Liberation Day. To add insult to injury, our government provided opportunity and tax rebates to the Japanese, our former enemy, so that they can improve their quality of life, while suppressing the economic freedoms of our own people and showering them with handouts. Democracy is a sacred trust for future generations. However, for American taxpayers on Guam, there is no trust and the future is in doubt. Those in power have made a travesty of our fundamental rights and equal justice.
The government has no business in business, yet, government is the biggest business on Guam since WWII. GovGuam now owns the largest real estate dealership headed by a retired career politician. Similarly, the U.S. Navy lays claim to a very profitable McDonald's fast food restaurant, off-base, on land taken by force, not to mention without just compensation, taking business away from the private sector. These are the "Thank Yous" to our parents' sacrifice of life and property in the wars America was in.
We paid our dues, but, today, there is no sense of a future for Western democracy. Guam, to this very day, is denied aviation and ground transportation safety with the airport to be at Northwest Field and a spine highway inland, extending north-south. The excuse has always been, "We cannot afford it." Yet, billions of dollars have already been wasted, the problem ignored, and has compounded. A really comprehensive land use plan would have addressed safety, conservation in land use, development in harmony with the environment, a sustainable economic growth for the future, and the preservation of our democratic values.
The belief that one is owned by our federal government contradicts President Lincoln's words, "We cannot have a society when one man owns another," and more so when the government taketh away. Being chattel is as absurd as the forceful land-taking by a government that champions freedom. I will never accept that I'm conquered. And I will continue to fight and will fight to the finish, if necessary, for my economic freedom.
Changing Guam's political status to that of commonwealth, statehood, or even independence is no magic bullet for curing more than 50 years of common greed still running rampant. I regard this push for a change in Guam's political status as nothing more than buying time to maintain the status quo. Isn't ten years long enough? Guam's dilemma requires Americans to unite and in one voice shout, at the government, 'Right the Wrong. Restore and protect the Sanctity of Private Property,' with or without Commonwealth status.
The most recent governmental arrogance and insensitivity is the reoccupation of Tiyan, a potentially lucrative money making asset. Hundreds of billions of revenue dollars could be created with the private use of the old NAS land. Guam is not as crowded as other places, yet, we feel hemmed in and crowded while thousands of acres are held hostage. On Guam today toxic landfills threaten the supply of drinking water, which shortens our life span. Guam's highways are dangerously engineered traffic hazards and too many people are dying pointlessly. Increasing crime and failure of the criminal justice system only encourages lawlessness.
This is all evidence that federal and local governmental actions are fraudulent and particularly in dealing with the legacy of Guam's native people and with private property interests on Guam. We are well aware that since WWII, the people who are benefiting and prospering from the present U.S. status, are those in power. Indeed, we have met the enemy and our enemies are career politicians and bureaucrats who force the native people of Guam into subservient lives of quiet desperation generation after generation.
There have been numerous scoping meetings on Guam conducted by federal officials over the years. The conclusion on every one of them suggest inexplicable barbarism. In fact, I heard the good Senator Dan Inouye from the State of Hawaii, after one of such meetings said, "Guam is crying out for justice." Not so much where are the indictments of all those investigations, but why does the problem continue to be ignored? Is it because people at the top are involved in the land scam? After more than 50 years of finger pointing between local and federal government officials, protecting each other's turf, the excuse on the land issue now, amidst the downsizing, is that the federal government will not return land to its rightful owner, only to another government entity. But we also know that to be false because many people have already had their lands returned. That explains how GovGuam becomes the largest real estate dealership on Guam. Because privately owned lands were taken by force and orchestrally covered up all these years, the question for the new millennium is simply: Can anyone find in any of the documents that America and Guam hold sacred that when Party A (the federal government) takes property from Party B (the Guam property owners), then gives it to Party C (GovGuam), Party B is now reconciled? Of course not!
What makes anyone think that a new political status adds to anyone's long-term good health, wealth, and to the island a holistic land use plan? India was decolonized more than fifty years, but government greed remains intact, which made the largest democratic country in the world the epitome of impoverishment, in spite of all its natural resources.
Both history and reason suggest that individual liberty is the key to social progress. The greater the people's freedom, the greater the chance of discovering better ways of life. The lands must be returned to the rightful owners now! If no one is demanding, then I am demanding that our elected "leaders" stop ignoring the problem and take this wake-up call seriously once and for all before we find ourselves amidst a civil war on Guam where America's day will end.
Present and future leaders of our country must understand that land is vital to life regardless of who you are. Without property rights, liberty, and justice there is nothing safe anywhere because order is absent as in the Dark Ages. Everything we have been hearing on Guam since WWII is political rhetoric that is full of baloney, similar to all the talk about commonwealth status. "Leaders" having anything to do with Guam have abandon ideals and have compromised principles. No one has yet to deal with Guam in a balance way. The only thing that will be accomplished from these talks in Washington D.C. will be more time and money spent, at the tax payers expense for naught.
Governmental leaders must understand that the love of democracy is that of equality, liberty, and justice for all and it begins at our homeland, not at political status talks. You must remind yourselves the purpose of the Boston Tea Party, of John Paul Jones, of Susan B. Anthony, of Martin Luther King, Jr. and of the Constitution of our great nation. Stay the course and keep it noble. Help foster a greater understanding of private property rights in our country and help right the wrongs of the past. What is good for Guam is also good for the nation as in the goose and the gander. Helter skelter development on Guam is government's doing and is prompted by greed, not by the lack of a political status. Greed must be replaced by a plan that is wholesome and complete in order to restore any kind of a balance. Understand that with economic freedom, liberty, and justice Guam will have sustainable economic growth and prosperity, law and order. All the above will help balance the budget. The reverse is terrifying.
We can do what is right on Guam just like what the ancient Chamorros did without the help of a Commission of Self-determination, a Chamorro land Trust Commission, an Ancestral Landowners Commission, a Decolonization Commission, and many other commissions, authorities, bureaus, and agencies doing absolutely nothing, but spending the tax payers' money while serving their own interests.
As I have repeatedly said over the years, changing Guam's political status to a commonwealth will not magically remove the dilemma caused by more than 50 years of common greed still running rampant. Solutions are now fragmented and even the experts are confused. Still, the wrong, of fraudulent land-taking and abusive use of the land have to be righted before we can genuinely "Move Forward," regardless of what flag is flying over Guam.[Mr. Atero is the Bureau Chief for the Pacific News Bureau of the Daily Republican Newspaper on Guam. He testified before the House of Representsatives Resource Commission on October 19, 1997 on pending HR 100 - Guam's Commonwealth Act.He is a retired U.S. Navy Submariner, and a Real Estate executive on Guam.]
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Clinton Rape Charges Aired
"He pulled me onto the bed and grasped the
lips
of my mouth in his teeth and raped me."
By Amy William, Assoc. Editor
WASHINGTON - President Clinton is in trouble again, as Juanita Broaddrick steps forward, and this time The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Daily Republican Newspaper are publishing the lurid details of an alleged rape by Mr. Clinton, today.
Now, in pure Clinton form, he seems to be ready to bomb the latest allegations of rape off the front pages with a renewed startegy of military and missle air strikes. This time, with Broaddrick's allegations on the television and radio news, and covering the front pages of U.S. newspapers over the weekend, he will launch missle and air attacks against Yugoslavia's president Slobodan Milosevic.
Making matters worse, in the face of Mr. Clinton's finger wagging and sabre rattling, Milosevic is refusing to permit NATO peace-keeping forces to enter Kosovo. Late Friday, Milosevic distributed a Press Release stating through a Belgrade news agency in which he wrote "...the threats of bombing our country will not lead to a foreign occupation of part of our territory.....We will not give up Kosovo, not even at the price of bombing."
In the meanwhile, worldwide newspapers are playing "Clinton rape" allegation headlines from their banners. The Journal lead with the Broaddrick rape allegations in Friday's financial news after the Journal's editorial board member, Dorothy Rabinowitz obtained exclusive Broaddrick's on-the-record interview about the alleged cooperation with the Clinton White House covering up the Broaddrick story during the closing hours of the Senate Trial where Bill Clinton's presidency was at risk.
"I feel so betrayed by NBC," Broaddrick ws quoted as saying to the Washington Post, on Friday. The Drudge Report is playing a story on Friday that plans for another Broaddrick interview is already in the making by Barbara Walters.
Juanita Broaddrick is the woman previously identified as Jane Doe #5 in government House documents containing allegation that Mr. Clinton sexually battered her in a hotel room a while he was the chief law enforcement officer of the State of Arkansas.
Broaddrick, now age 55, owns and operates convalescent hospitals in Van Buren, Arkansas. On Friday, she told reporters that she decided to come forward and reveal factual details of how she was brutally raped by Bill Clinton.
Meanwhiile, president Bill Clinton has denied her charges as a "...false and outrageous allegation that the president assaulted Ms. Broaddrick...absolutely false," according to Mr. Clinton's attorney, David E. Kendall.
Apparently while Mr. Clinton was on a fund raising political campaign trip, he stopped at the Van Buren hospital, and that he invited Ms. Broaddrick to visit his campaign office in Little Rock. Broaddrick, dropped by the office a week later, on April 25, while in the Little Rock on hospital business.
Staying at the Camelot Inn, Broaddrick said she called the campaign headquarters and talked with Clinton on the telephone. She said he was not going to his headquarters that day and she suggested they could meet in the Camelot Coffee Shop to discuss his campaign.
But, instead of meeting her in the coffee shop, he arrived early and called from the front desk at the Camelot, and asked if he could have coffee in her room instead, because there were "...too many reporters in the lobby," Broaddrick said.
When he got to her room, Mr. Clinton had no interest in discussing his campaign for Governor but began making advances, kissing her. She says she resisted as he "...pulled me onto the bed and grasped the lips of my mouth in his teeth and raped me."
She says she was was bruised and swollen after the rape. He got up, put on his sunglasses and walked out the door," she said.
FBI agents working for Independent Prosecutor Kenneth Starr obtained the information and made it available to the House along with his Lewinsky impeachment referral. The FBI interviewed her, as well, but the interview has never been made public, although members of the House could have read it in a sealed room before voting to impeach Clinton in December 1998.
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Serbian burnt offerings
Its the genocidal policies
of Slobodan Milosevic again.
By Lawrence W. Brown, Contributor
WASHINGTON - The recent bombing in Urosevac is thanks to the Serbian ultra-nationalism and genocidal policies of Slobodan Milosevic.
In the Daily Republican story titled, Bomb explodes in centre of Urosevac which appeared in these columns on February 16, 1999, note the correspondents are Serbs, and they called for Albanians to figh for freedom and independence terrorists; surprised? How about the Serbian 'police' forces, more like Einsatzgruppen moving into Albanian villages and slaughtering the population en masse?
That more closely resembles my definition of terrorism. Milosevic started his wars with Slovenia and Croatia and Bosnia (the Bosnian muslims have Serb last names. So you have to ask their first name in Bosnia before murdering and bulldozing into mass graves. Thois, after securing the cooperation of Mr. Clinton in dismembering Bosnia, It is a member state of the United Nations, entitled to defend themselves against foreign aggression.
The victimized population is about 90% ethnic Albanian. The solution to this war is to indict, capture, try, and hang the war criminals. Of these 90% are Serbs. If the genocide continues, then Serbia's ability to wage war on its neighbors should be extinguished.
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Junk Science
The new form of political polling. It makes you think it happened!
By Rich Davis, Contributor
WASHINGTON - The American public may have been confused by polls and scientific studies reported to them recently. Neither are necessarily true, but a scientific study usually seeks to establish the independent existence of factual reality. Things that survive a given news day.
Polls, on the other hand, establish a different kind of trend. For instance, it may be an opinion that Mr. Clinton is doing a good job as President. When a number of people share that perception we say its 'public opinion' but what we really mean is that for one split second in time, it was a "trend in an opinion sample." It does not mean anything more. It doesn't mean it ever happened, either.
The "fact" of Clinton's job performance is never really what is being assessed, only an 'instant trend line' on a statistician's wall chart. Scientific studies have gained much respect amongst the general public over time. Not that the studies are 'scientific'. For the most part, empirical science does not deal with public opinion, at all. Fame vs. greatness. Polls vs. Scientific studies. Easily confused, yet quite different matters. Fame and polls are more easily misused, manipulated and exploited. Ever hear of 'junk science'?
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German Firms To Set
Up Holocaust Fund
To counter growing numbers of class action suits.
By Howard Hobbs, Editor's Desk
BONN, Germany - Several major German firms have joined together to create a fund to compensate the monetary claims of relativies of Nazi slave labor concentration camps. This move has the backing of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
Schroeder told reporters at a news conference today that a fund was being created to "pre-empt future lawsuits against German companies over their involvement in Nazi era injustices....Its function is to counter lawsuits, particularly class action suits, and to remove the basis of the campaign being led against German industry and our country."
German firms that used Nazi war prisonerds as slave labor and looted Jewish persons assets during the Nazi period have been subjected to a number of class-action lawsuits this year from survivors of Holocaust victims.
Rolf Breuer, chief executive of Germany's largest bank Deutsche Bank AG, described the fund as a milestone.
"It is a large step in the right direction," he told the news conference. "There are still a lot of details to sort out."
The litigation upset the Deutsche Bank's time table for its acquisition of the American based Bankers Trust. It is expected that American bank regulators would step in and block the deal pending settlement.
News reports have estimated that the fund could be about $1.7 billions. The following firms indicated this week they would also participate - Allianz AG, BASF AG, Bayer [Aspirin] AG, BMW AG, DaimlerChrysler AG, Degussa AG, Dresdner Bank AG, Fried Krupp AG Hoesch Krupp, Hoechst AG, Siemens AG and Volkswagen AG.
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Bomb explodes in centre of Urosevac
By Dragan Stankovic, and Boris Maksimovic, Eastern Europe Correspondents
PRISTINA, Serbia - Two people out of thirteen are seriously injured, and there are great material damages, as the result of the powerful bomb explosion in the centre of Urosevac.
A powerful bomb blast occurred Saturday at around 1:00 PM in Urosevac, in front of the "Jugobanka" bank building in Cara Urosa Street, at that time crowded with people.
Seriously injured were Sulejmani Sefcet (1952, Albanian), from Rahovica village, and Behljulji Sefki (1944, Albanian), from Biba village, the municipality of Urosevac.
Eleven lightly injured people were sent home after receiving the medical care. Sulejmani and Behljulji were taken to the Pristina Medical centre. Their lives are not in danger.
Badly injured Sefki Behljuji, after treatment in hospital said : "I was passing by "Jugobanka"building ,when something exploded and trashed me on the road. There was Saturday, market day, when the most people are on the street. Terrorists picked the most frequently street in Urosevac, full with Serb stores, Court, post office . . . But, they didn't care that on the street were lot's of us, Albanians, who were mostly injured in this terrorist action. I strongly condemn this act and it's time to someone stop that terrorists gang."
The explosion damaged 25 buildings: the Jugobanka building, the National Library, the Town Council, about 20 shops and six cars among others.
The investigation was conducted by the Investigative Judge of the District Court from Pristina, by the police and explosives experts from the Belgrade Security Institute in the presence of OSCE Verification Mission members who were shocked by this brutal act.
This shows how much is worth an eventual terrorist signature in Rambouillet and that their only solution is filled with blood, terror and death. Meanwhile, in Rambouillet, France, rival Serbs and ethnic Albanians chewed over details of a Kosovo peace plan Tuesday.
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Prayer for the dying of the light
Civil Prayer By Lloyd Ogilvie, U.S. Senate chaplain
WASHINGTON - The following prayer was read today at the opening of the anticipated final session of the impeachment trial of William Jefferson Clinton:
Holy God, who allows beginnings and brings an end, a time for healing, a time to mend, we ask you to pour out your palpable unifying power on this Senate. Today may the senators count on you more than they count votes. This is a time neither for gloating over victory nor grimness over losing, but rather a period for grief for all that has brought us to this day.
We are one nation under you. We repent as a nation.
We turn from conditional ethics and seek to return to the absolutes of your commandments. Thank you Lord for the clarion convictions expressed during this trial by so many senators of both parties that morals do count and character does count.
May this shared common commitment unite them as they lead this nation.
Now, as their chaplain, I hold them all before your grace and mercy. As their friend, I intercede for the spiritual strength and courage and when the final votes are taken, hold them together in the oneness America so desperately needs them to exemplify.
Help them model rectitude and reconciliation by your power. Then the winner will be neither the Republicans nor the Democrats, but the American people.
In your Holy Name. Amen.
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Lies and Abuse
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and sent him to the Senate for trial on the merits. |
BERKELEY - Watching the impeachment debates, I saw a clear pattern. The Democrats who support President Clinton insisted that impeaching him goes against the will of the American people, and that we should strive for a new, more cooperative political structure that is not so strongly bipartisan.
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Let us not be distracted by the tactics of a slick politician and a proven liar. In the impeachment debates, those in favor did not appeal to the emotions to persuade. They did not try to defend wrong doing.
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Senate Sellout
All the Democrats and Three GOP set to vote acquittal on both articles.
By Wiliam Heartstone, Staff Writer
WASHINGTON - Republican Senate leaders argued that their case is strong but the American people have either failed to recognize its seriousness or that voters have become morally lax in judging public officials.
Some strategists say there is another interpretation far more threatening to the Republic. The American people do recognize that what Clinton has acknowledged doing is very serious, but reject impeachment because of distrust Kenneth Starr's case because of the effectiveness of the Clinton spin machine.
"These polls may not mean the collapse of nation's moral fiber, they may just mean that people don't trust a bunch like Ken Starr, Henry Hyde and Bob Barr to make their judgments for them," one Republican commented.
A Republican senator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that senators' speeches split almost exactly along party lines. But, up to three Republican senators are expected to bolt from the ranks and join the Democrtas at vote time today.
The senators said that all of the Republicans who had spoken said they would vote to convict the president on the second article of impeachment, which charges Clinton with obstruction of justice, while all of them except Senator Stevens of Alaska said they would cast a guilty vote on the first article, which concerns perjury.
All the Democrats, the senator said, announced that they would vote to acquit the president on both articles.
Although President Clinton's shameful behavior in an inappropriate relationship has caused great pain to his family and the nation, the House managers have not proven that he committed 'high crimes and misdemeanors,' " Senator Lautenberg said in a written statement.
"His conduct did not threaten our constitutional system," Lautenberg continued, "and the national interest will not be served by removing him from office. I hope that my colleagues will reject the articles of impeachment and not weaken the presidency for future generations. These proceedings should not serve as a precedent for using impeachment as a political weapon."
Meanwhile, The Senate has requested that Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr investigate word that a White House taping system may have recorded President Clinton's phone conversations with Monica Lewinsky. The White House says they do not know of any taping system.
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Clinton press aide in perjury flap
By Howard Hobbs, Editors' Desk
"It should be forwarded to the
Justice Department," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman(D).
WASHINGTON - Clinton White House press aide, Sid Blumenthal appears to have been caught in flagrant perjury during this week's Senate Impeachment trial of president William Jefferson Clinton. "It should be forwarded to the Justice Department," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D).
In Senate trial deposition testimony excerpts, Sidney Blumenthal is caught denying certain statements and events that now appear to have been perjurious.Senator Spector: Mr. Blumenthal, will you please stand up and raise your right hand? You, Sidney Blumenthal, do swear that the evidence you shall give in this case now pending between the United States and William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States, shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?"
Mr. Blumenthal: "I do."So, Sidney Blumental was called as a witness and, after having been first duly sworn by Senator Specter, was examined and testified, in part, as follows:
Mr. Rogan: "What did the President tell you?
Answer: He, uh--he spoke, uh, fairly rapidly, as I recall, at that point and said that she had come on to him and made a demand for sex, that he had rebuffed her, turned her down, and that she,uh, threatened him. And, uh, he said that she said to him, uh, that she was called `the stalker' by her peers and that she hated the term, and that she would claim that they had had an affair whether they had or they hadn't, and that she would tell people..."
By Mr. Graham: "Do you have any idea how White House sources are associated with statements such as `She's known as `Elvira',' `She's obsessed with the President,' `She's known as a flirt,' `She's the product of a troubled home, divorced parents,' `She's known as `The Stalker'? Do you have any idea how that got in the press? Do you have any direct knowledge or indirect knowledge that such a campaign by White House aides or junior staff members ever existed? " Answer: "No."
Mr. Rogan: "You have had a chance to review that, Mr. Blumenthal?"
Answer: "I have.
Question: "And that--that's correct testimony?"
Answer: "Yes."William McDaniel, is Mr. Blumenthal's attorney. Today, McDaniel is apparently changing the Blumenthal line which now has Blumental confirming his prior testimony while [at the same time] admitting key facts he denied while he was under oath, "I was never a source for any story about Monica Lewinsky's personal life. I did not reveal what the president told me to any reporter....As I testified to the Senate, I talked every day about the stories appearing in the news about Monica Lewinsky to my friends and family, as everyone else was doing. Though, I do not recall the luncheon with my then-friend of 15 years, the notion that I was trying to plant a story...is absurd."
The simple meaning of Mr. Bulmenthal's statement is in two parts. First, Blumental says he does not remember the luncheon with his old friend, British journalist Christopher Hitchens. Then in Part Two, Blumenthal says that the idea that he, Blumenthal, does not recall trying to plant a story with Hutchins "...is absurd."
This new linguistic cocktail, then has Blumenthal not denying the story was planted. But, in a Clintonesque turn of a word, Blumenthal's interpretation of his sworn testimony would only have him denying the concept that he was not trying to plant the story.
As anyone who can read well knows, Webster's Dictionary classifies the word absurd as denoting that which is 'clearly untrue, inconsistent with that which is true, and that which shows lack of good judgment.'
Taking it at face value, clearly, Sidney Blumenthal's use of the word 'absurd' in his testimony has been too clever, by half. The Clinton administration's antics, Sid Blumenthal's White House conduct, including his Senate testimony, and the nullification of the U.S. Senate's will to act upon Impeachment Articles voted in the House of Representatives depict the troubled reckoning that has immobilized American foreign policy, undermines domestic policy, compromises U.S. military preparedness, and has set the stage for economic disaster at home and abroad.
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The risks great men take.
By Rich Davis, Contributor
Daring to risk their own safety for others.
WASHINGTON - President Bill Clinton has often taken great risks for petty self interest.But he doesn't want to be remembered in this way. He has often flattered himself with discussions of the historic American presidents. What he really wants is the celebrity of an entertainer. He may have achieved the latter. And he is, in a way like Dennis Rodman, Mike Tyson,and Evil Knevil who entertain by pushing the envelope of cheap thrills.
We have heard, seen and read about a multitude of Clinton's reckless acts. As with Evil Knevil, Americans have been treated to a series of potentially career-ending stunts. Astounding!
These are risks that none of us would dare dream: Leaping on a motorcycle over a dozen cars, kicking a photographer in the groin while on film, biting a man's ear off before the world, having an affair, committing perjury and obstructing justice while being investigated by the OIC. Thrills galore!
We need to remind ourselves, from time to time, that great men take the kind of risks that are admired over time. Risks that require mature, calm consideration to fully comprehend their impact. Risks that make us better as a people. Risks, given the benefit of time, that we all would take had we the benefit of their genius and hindsight.
They say, "Greatness" is measured by the kind of risks you take, for others. Bill Clinton's risk taking seems of the unprincipled type. He has publicly acknowledged his actions while in the Presidency have been inappropriate, improper, and inexcusable.
But what of the likes of Henry Hyde, Newt Gingrich, Bill Bennett, Mark Levin and Rush and David Limbaugh? What will history say about them? They will be honored in the history of this nation as principled men, who unselfishly dedicated their lives to teach and inspire their fellow citizens on matters of great civic importance.
The legacy one passes to future generations is not remembered for over-night ratings. That's celebrity of the moment. Greatness in character is much more costly to earn and to retain. It is a lasting honor, a dimension of human personality, a historical marker only granted those we value for their leadership and personal sacrifice for the common good.
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Deutsche Bank financed
Nazi's death camp
By Howard Hobbs, Bulldog Newspaper, Contributing Editor
Related Bulldog Newspaper Stories:
Ford Law Suit 09/06/1998.
Ford Slave Labor 03/18/1998.
Secret Life of An American Nazi 09/01/1997.FRANKFURT - In the wake of the discovery that Ford Motor Co. profited from Nazi slave labor in Germany during WW2, now another shocker. Facing billions of dollars in claims from Holocaust survivors, today, Germany's largest bank has admitted it has documents in its vaults establishing a loan at a critical time to Hitler for financing the construction of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland where in Himmler's report to Hitler, he listed 363,211 Jews murdered during August-November of 1942.
It was at this concentration camp that I.G. Farben had its Zyklon B Degesch Division, which manufactured a commercial form of deadly hydrocyanic acid, which became active on contact with air. It was used in the Auschwitz concentration camp beginning in the summer of 1941 where the poison gas was used for mass executions of prisoners too sick to work.
Prisoners were marched there for slave labor every day. Over the gate there was a sign which read Arbeit Macht Frei ["Work (for I.G. Farben) will set you free!"]. Starved, and sick with infections, many died of exhaustion. But, most were killed with the I.G. Farben Zyklon-B cyanide gas.
"Without I.G. Farben's immense productive facilities, including those at Auschwitz, its far-reaching research, varied technical experience and overall concentration of economic power, Nazi Germany would not have been in the position to conduct its aggressive war in Europe and against the United States, according to reports filed by General Eisenhower's staff at the close of the war.
An indictment charging twenty-four of I.G. Farben's highest officials with war crimes was filed with the United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. In 1953, I.G. Farben's assets were divided among Hoechst, BASF sound recording tape, Bayer Aspirin and other firms. The current company is basically a trust to settle claims and lawsuits from the Nazi era.
Deutsche Bank officials turned over the Nazi loan documents to independent historians the bank appointed last year to research its past connections with Hitler's Third Reich.
Walter Schumacher of the Deutsche Bank in Frankfort told Bulldog Newspaper correspondents "We deeply regret this but recognize our responsibility to deal with these things openly....We don't want to keep them from the public."
However, Schumacher was not as open as he seemed, because he did not answer questions from reporters about just how much money had been loaned to Hitler.
The spectre of Germany's top banking institution profiting from the slave labor of Holocaust victims adds another layer of suspicion and mistrust surrounding Deutsche Bank amid revelations recently that it profited from gold teeth, gold and silver eyeglass frames and even human skin mined and looted from concentration camp victims during World War II.
Victims' relatives who have filed lawsuits, seeking billions in compensatory damages, may now have to wait even longer to settle their cases as the discovery of the Auschwitz loan papers is expected to delay government approval of Deutsche Bank's $10.1 billion acquisition of U.S.-based Bankers Trust Corp., announced in November.
Schumacher said the documents were part of caches of files locked up behind the Iron Curtain until the end of the Cold War and were just pulled together over the past year.
Among those files were loan papers from the Deutsche Bank office in occupied Katowice, Poland he depicted as "...loans related to construction companies that built Auschwitz and were financed through the Deutsche Bank."
According to the most accurate count, about 1.5 million people died at the Auschwitz I.G. Farben plant.
[Note: This story originally appeared in the Bulldog Newspaper at CSU Fresno on Friday Feb. 5, 1999 and is republished here with permission.]
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Scamming Social Security
By Howard Hobbs, Editors' Desk
WASHINGTON - President Clinton's proposed budget for the United States, this week, is full of "surplussage". In fact, Mr. Clinton says "The United States is on the threshold of an era of budget surpluses."
Things are so good, according to the Clinton's calculus, that he has managed to generate a surplus of nearly $4.5 trillion in the next 15 years, or so he says.
Far from calling for a major redirection of government, Mr. Clinton wants to set aside a mere 11 percent of the surpluses for new government spending.
Three-quarters would be used to shore up Medicare and Social Security, he says. However, Mr. Clinton's claim that he can use most of the government surplus to shore up the Social Security retirement system without any need now for painful choices on benefits, is just another misleading enticement to add to the sky rocketing National Debt now approaching $5.5 trillion. Each American family's share is more than $74,000 this very instant.
In the year 2001, for example, the promised $134 billion surplus will never materialize. Why, because every dollar of it will be borrowed from Social Security to pay current benefits. That makes no space for the promised Clinton surplus.
Mr. Clinton has not placed all his cards on the table. Its a scam we can't resist and he is counting on that. Every American taxpayers knows that Mr. Clinton cannot count an IOU as a surplus in the $134 billion, and then take $64 billion of that same "surplus" and "spend" it on creating new government programs. We know it can't be done, but to understand what Mr. Clinton is realy saying we have to 'trust' Mr. Clinton's words. Otherwise, we could not accept his notion that Social Security somehow gets a second IOU for the remaining $70 billion. But, in time, we will all learn Mr. Clinton's painfil truth. We will all come to see, in time, there is no net gain and there is no surplus in what Mr. Clinton has really said.
We still want it to be true, anyway. So, we accept the flim-flam on face value even when it means we have to suspend our disbelief and trust in the man's honesty. But, to accept that there is a real $134 billion surplus and that it somehow will generate $204 billion in credits to Social Security, and that an additional $64 billion in social spending will help save Social Security is, really, just phony baloney.
In saner times we would ask ourselves, "...how can Mr. Clinton be saving Social Security first, by spending all the assets needed to pay promised future Social Security benefits?" And we would know, deep down, that we've been scammed, once more.
We would know what we already know, that the Social Security Trust Fund is a fiction. And we already know that the Clinton administration has spent all the Social Security payroll taxes he has collected from taxpayers on more failed government social programs during his tenure in the White House. By this time, he has added to enormous amounts to the $5.4 trillion National Debt which he has ignored in his calculations. If he told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth he'd be so far 'down in the polls' he'd be out of a job.
So, to shore up his popularity he tells us "...the money's all there in government bonds." In dismay, the Treasury Dept. explains, when asked "Where's the money?" that government bonds are "...not assets...they are IOU's." We know that counting the Social Security payroll tax when it is collected, and again when it is spent is counting it twice. Mr. Clinton's surplus is just double counting. The IRS does not allow it. Knowing this, we also know that Mr. Clinton's accounting practices are so untruthful as to be another instance of deliberate misrepresentation for both personal and political gain.
If Mr. Clinton were an honest president, he would not have to resort to scamming to disguise the size of the federal deficit and mislead the voters in order to surreptitiously shore up public opinion polls about his performance in the Oval Office.
To make matters worse, when Mr. Clinton came up with the phony "surplus" last week, he neglected to tell the American people the uncomfortable and unavoidable fact that American taxpayers must eventually repay all of those IOU's. That's double paying, and we really already know it deep down in our bones. We know that Democrats never lighten our tax burden, either.
The truth is, that in about 15 years, when Mr. Clinton is long gone but not forgotten, the Social Security trust fund will start turning in its bonds for cash to pay benefits due to Boomers. So where will te cash to pay those benefits come from?
The government will raise that cash by increasing payroll taxes, and every other imaginable form of taxation. Treasury will print more greenbacks. It will then start cutting necessary spending on national defense. For Mr. Clinton, and his party, that's what government is there for, to save the American people from themselves.
In the final analysis, there will not be sufficient funds to pay the government's IOU's to pay promised benefits to retiring Boomers and the national deficit will balloon out of control setting off a paralyzing upward inflation spiral. We know it because we are the people. That's what we are here for, according to the latest public opinion poll sampling.
In his 1998 State of the Union address, Mr. Clinton called upon Congress to reserve a budget surplus until steps are taken to "save Social Security first." Congress should take Mr. Clinton at his word and refuse to authorize any of the additional government spending he has requested until such time as the Social Security trust fund has been made actuarially sound.
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Spending spree fuels economy
By Howard Hobbs, Editors' Desk
Americans no longer saving for that rainy day.
WASHINGTON - The Clinton Administration's Commerce Department released what it depicted today as a Personal Spending Report. It reported that American consumers have been speending with abandon in December, as spending outpaced both income gains and economic forecasts and the savings rate plunged to its lowest level in 65 years.
The Reports estimated personal spending as accountong for most of the rise in th nation's economic activity, up nearly to $5.96 trillion, in December. Economists had forecast less than one-half that spending.
At the same time, personal income grew a 0.5 percent to $7.284 trillion, up less than .01% from November. Still, those who track the nation's economic health predicted income would rise 0.6 percent.
Robust consumerism, especially in the housing and auto sectors, however, came at the expense of the personal savings rate. The rate dipped 0.1 percent in December for a second straight month.
For all of 1998, the savings rate was 0.5 percent, the lowest level since 1933.
Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan may be forced to tighten interest rates later this year if consumption levels don't slow down.
According to The Dismal Scientist interpretations,job growth surged in December to its strongest monthly gain of the year. The nation’s private industries and government created 378,000 jobs, compared to an average of 226,000 during the first 11 months of the year.
It reports gains as broad based across most industries. In addition, government payrolls increased by an unusual 59,000 due to an early survey week, which contributed to an increase in local education employment.
Retailers continued to hire at a robust pace also, but the gains for the last two months of the year fell short of last year’s year-end additions. Due to the strengthening of the labor market during the last few months of the year, average growth for the year came in at approximately the same rate as for 1997 - at 2.6%.
Despite the strong year-end performance, Daily Republican Newspaper economists forecast job growth as trending down for most of the rest of the year.
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If the shoe fits ...
By Rich Davis, Contributor
WASHINGTON - During the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, a woman (Anita Hill) came forward with a very old, poorly corroborated story. The story was a stretch in it's attempt to accuse Judge Thomas with a watered-down sexual harassment accusation. At the time, however, it was considered to be newsworthy.
Today, in another proceeding before the Senate, the President is being considered for his fitness for office. He has been impeached and the Senate is examining all relevant facts regarding possible perjury and obstruction of justice. The President, by way of comparison, also has judicial responsibilities. He is asked to nominate judges and justices and has the power to overturn all criminal convictions (pardon).
An old, highly corroborated story has been discovered about the President. It is not sexual harassment. It concerns rape. And later intimidation of the victim (Juanita Broaddrick) that resulted in her signing a false affidavit for the benefit of the President.
The charge is relevant to the impeachment proceedings because the President has been accused of encouraging the signing and filing of a false affidavit in a sexual harassment case (Paula Jones). The affidavit was needed to unfairly de-rail that sexual harassment claim against the President.
Now, whether or not the Senate considers this old story may largely depend upon the news media. The media (NBC news), whose responsibility is to inform the public about corruption by public officials, is struggling with whether to share such information with the public.
This is the same news media that struggled with whether they should delve into the death of Ted Kennedy's female campaign aide in an apparent drunk driving fatality, irresponsible behavior by the Senator.
This is the same media that did not find it particularly newsworthy that Clinton, when running for the office of President, was taped encouraging a woman for whom he procured a State job, to lie to anyone who asked about their affair and to file a false affidavit.
What is news? As a citizen, I would like substantiated information that indicates corruption. Improperly influencing a court case is corruption. Getting unqualified lovers jobs (Lewinsky, Flowers) is corruption. Acting irresponsibly with co-workers and the actively covering up the behavior from courts of inquiry is corruption. Encouraging or causing others to file false affidavits is corruption. And corruption is news.
Hiding relevant information from courts is punishable by law. Hiding relevant information from citizens is a breech of responsibility. Both types of cover-ups are corrupting influences. Both are manipulative acts geared to protect, in this case, a master manipulator. Both are corrosive to the fabric of trust that should exist between our judicial branch and citizen and between media and citizen.
These acts of corruption and cover-up are outrages. Outrages regarding matters that affect our way of life. Outrages that must not, as William Bennett has already concluded, be allowed to die. Our society, as we know it, can die from suffocation of the truth. Why not resuscitate the patient before it's too late?
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