WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal investigators have concluded the July 16 plane crash that killed John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister was caused by pilot error on his part, Fox News Channel reported Thursday.
     Fox quoted sources close to the investigation as saying that no mechanical problems had been found with the single-engine plane Kennedy was flying, and investigators now believed the
     The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash in which Kennedy's Piper Saratoga II plunged into the Atlantic Ocean off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, killing all three people aboard, but has not released any findings thus far.
     NTSB spokeswoman Lauren Peduzzi had no comment on the Fox News report, saying only, ``We have not made a probable cause determination.''
      She gave no timetable for when the board would adopt a final report on the cause of the crash.
      A finding by the NTSB that Kennedy, the son of former President John F. Kennedy, was responsible for the crash could bolster plans by the family of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and her sister, Lauren Bessette, to file a wrongful death or negligence lawsuit against Kennedy's estate.
     Fox News said it learned that Kennedy's sister, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, had offered the Bessette family $10 million to avert a lawsuit.
     It said the Bessette family believed a settlement could be reached and had decided not to proceed with a lawsuit, but gave no source for its information.

      [Editor's Note: William Heartstone contributed to this story.]

2000 Copyright, Reuters.
2000 Copyright, The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.

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     SACRAMENTO - Proposition 22 has recently become a hot topic in the news and with voters. It has inspired vehement feelings on both sides. It is surprising that the shortest initiative on the ballot should give rise to such controversy. Only 14 words long, the entire text reads: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."
     Many people feel that this is discrimination, a deliberately aimed blow at the rights of gays and lesbians. "No on 22" signs read: "Discrimination hurts everyone." Others see voting no as a message to keep government out of private lives.
     What does the proposition really do, though? Same-sex marriage is already illegal in California, so it really can't take any rights away from anyone. Further, it doesn't abolish laws supporting domestic partnership. As the government of California already defines marriage as between a man and a woman, Proposition 22 certainly doesn't add to government involvement in private lives.
     At this point, one might wonder why we need this Proposition at all. The issue is over a loophole. Although California law already defines marriage as only between a man and a woman, we also have a full-faith clause, which would force California to recognize marriages performed in other states.
     Since the Federal Congress has given states the right to define marriage, most states have already made certain that their definition is airtight, allowing marriage only between a man and a woman.
      California has not closed the loophole in our laws. This means that a same-sex couple, married in another state, could sue in California courts to change our state's definition of marriage.
     Why vote yes? It's a matter of self-determination. If anyone should have the power to change California's definition of marriage, it should be the voters, not 2 people from another state. Voting "yes" means that no one can redefine marriage except California voters. Voting "no" does not, however, legalize same-sex marriages, but simply leaves the loophole open.
     Voting "yes" also prevents costly court cases filed against the government. If the loophole is left open, someone will sue to try to change California law. California taxpayers will pay for all of it.
     Surprisingly, even Barbara Boxer, one of our Senators and a Democrat, seems to agree. In the July 18th, 1996 Sacramento Bee she said, "...From the standpoint of society recognizing a long-term relationship between gay people, it's called domestic partnerships…A domestic partnership (recognizes) a long-term relationship of people of the same sex, and marriage (recognizes) a long-term relationship of people of the opposite sex."
     The final issue is that of national strength. Republicans and Democrats alike recognize now that many of our societal problems stem from the disintegration of the family. By sending a clear message to our children about the nature of marriage, we will give them a stronger sense of identity and an increased ability to bolster our society.
     In short, Proposition 22 does not open the door for discrimination, nor does it increase government involvement in private lives. All it does is close a potentially costly loophole, insure Californians the right to define marriage for our own state, and offer our children a beacon in a confusing society. I would urge all voters to vote "yes" on 22 on March 7th.

2000 Copyright, The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.

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       PALO ALTO -- Historians who were surveyed about the leadership qualities of the 41 presidents of the United States of America judged Abraham Lincoln to be number one, followed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, next were George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. President Clinton, only the second president in history to be impeached, was an undistinguished last of 41 U.S. Presidents ranked for moral authority. The poll was based on a survey of 58 U.S. History scholars and was released Monday morning by public affairs cable television channel C-SPAN.
     The survey [ranked below] ranked a majority of the most recent presidents in the middle of the pack. George Bush ranked 20th; Bill Clinton, 21st; Jimmy Carter, 22nd; Gerald R. Ford, 23rd, and Richard Nixon, 25th.
     Bunched in a higher category were John F. Kennedy, eighth; Dwight D. Eisenhower, ninth; Lyndon B. Johnson, 10th; and Ronald Reagan, 11th. Others in the top 10 were Woodrow Wilson, ranked sixth, and Thomas Jefferson, seventh.
     Three of the top five presidents served in the 20th century, as did five of the next six. Among the 24 presidents who served before 1900, only Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson were ranked in the top 10.
     Three of the top five presidents served in the 20th century, as did five of the next six. Among the 24 presidents who served before 1900, only Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson were ranked in the top 10.
     Judging the presidents on 10 qualities of leadership were 58 historians from across the political spectrum who contributed to C-SPAN's yearlong television series, "American Presidents: Life Portraits."
     President Clinton, only the second president in history to be impeached, would have ranked higher in the overall standings if he had not rated rock-bottom--41st--in moral authority and 36th in relations with Congress. Although the House voted two articles of impeachment against Clinton growing out of the Monica S. Lewinsky sex scandal, the Senate voted last year, mostly along party lines, to acquit him.
     Nixon, who resigned in 1974, rather than endure certain impeachment and probable Senate conviction for his role in the Watergate scandal, ranked 40th in moral authority.
     Clinton, aides say, has been concerned about the legacy he will leave after his second term ends in January.

1. Abraham Lincoln      2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt      3. George Washington      4. Theodore Roosevelt      5. Harry S. Truman      6. Woodrow Wilson      7. Thomas Jefferson      8. John F. Kennedy      9. Dwight Eisenhower      10. Lyndon Baines Johnson      11. Ronald Reagan      12. James Polk      13. Andrew Jackson      14. James Monroe      15. William McKinley      16. John Adams      17. Grover Cleveland      18. James Madison      19. John Quincy Adams      20. George Bush      21. Bill Clinton

22. Jimmy Carter      23. Gerald Ford      24. William Howard Taft      25. Richard Nixon      26. Rutherford Hayes      27. Calvin Coolidge      28. Zachary Taylor      29. James Garfield      30. Martin Van Buren      31. Benjamin Harrison      32. Chester Arthur      33. Ulysses S. Grant      34. Herbert Hoover      35. Millard Fillmore      36. John Tyler      37. William Henry Harrison      38. Warren Harding      39. Franklin Pierce      40. Andrew Johnson      41. James Buchanan

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     SAN DIEGO -- How does it happen that historically close and valued foreign allies become involved in a vicious trade spat disproportionate to the issue at hand? It happens when foreign countries get under the skin of American labor unions backing Vice President Al Gore in the heat of a presidential election year.
     This is one of the inescapable conclusions to be derived from the Clinton administration’s disheartening announcement last week that the U.S. will slap punitive tariffs on countries exporting large amounts of inexpensive steel products to American markets. In the United States, we call this practice, derogatorily, dumping -- as in, foreign nation X has all this cheap stuff for export and dumps it in the U.S. market, at a price below the cost in the home nation. Unsurprisingly, eager customers snap up the lower priced product while ignoring the U.S.-manufactured alternatives.
     In other words, one nation’s dumping is another’s nation’s price slashing which is all the more desirable in a truly efficient and competitive world economy that’s open to all parties. Think of all the mass-produced and marketed Hollywood films we dump on foreign markets.
     Indeed, this process is the very one anointed by economic globalization and its institutional archangel, the World Trade Organization, as the wave of the future.
     What’s more, the targets of the U.S. tariff tantrum are not rogue exporting states or terrorist enemies but America’s two closest and most strategically vital allies in Asia: Japan and South Korea. The latter accounts for about half of all the imported carbon steel pipes bought in the U.S. Washington’s move, said a Korean trade official, “is an extreme measure most countries are unwilling to take because it is highly likely to be accompanied by retaliatory measures by trading partners. But regrettably, Korea has few, if any, specific means to cope with it.”
     The politically astute but sometimes hypocritical Clinton administration, of course, knew that Korea, dependent on the U.S. for military protection against North Korea and rightly grateful for forthright Western aid during its recent economic plunge, would say little and do nothing.
     Even if the U.S. dumping complaint has technical merit, is this how we should respond? The better way, in today’s more globalized, economically civilized world, is to allow the World Trade Organization to examine the facts and issue a ruling, something Washington has stiffly resisted. Vicious unilateral trade retaliations, whether by Washington or anyone else, contradict the whole point of the last dozen years’ highly motivated effort to help erect a civilized global economy.
     The stated intent of last week’s deplorable announcement, taken under the anti- dumping provisions of U.S. law, is to protect U.S. businesses and their employees from the economic effects of cheaper commodities pouring in from other countries and outselling U.S. products. In the extreme, foreign dumping, to put the worst rhetorical face on it, can close down businesses and put people out of work. But look at the other side of the economic equation -- Import sales in the U.S. provide jobs to workers in the country of manufacture, and reduce the costs of the product to American consumers. This in turn improves the ability of foreign markets to buy our own goods and cools U.S. inflationary pressures by damping prices.
     So if Washington, acting mainly on behalf of special U.S. interests in an election year, formally moves to impose tariffs on steel imports in two weeks, the usual lag time between the announcement and the action, it is not serving the best interests of all the American people.
     The Clinton administration’s action was less directed to the issue of Koreans dumping steel than to the possibility of U.S. labor unions dumping Al Gore. The vice president is well entrenched with them, and they with he; so look at this U.S. action more as a kind of election-year insurance policy than an example of the administration’s best world economic policy. Within the administration itself, which took months to decide the issue, dissenters argued against such protectionist pandering.
     The steel tariff, which could endure as long as three years, will particularly set back South Korea, currently recovering from the Asian financial flu, by all but making its lines of carbon steel-pipe unaffordable here. Either Seoul or Tokyo could appeal to the World Trade Organization, but its bureaucratic review process, staffed by real human beings trying hard to do the right thing, not by bureaucratic automatons as depicted by some anti-WTO lobby, can take longer than even a U.S. presidential election.
     Everyone else understands the game America is playing, because so many others play it. But by sometimes talking out of both sides of its mouth, and violating what it preaches, the United States weakens its claims for world leadership in the proper evolution of globalization. In this case, it is foolishly pandering to short-term domestic political concerns over the long-term interests of itself and the world. It’s a thoroughly depressing way for Clinton to stamp the last year of his presidency. And for Al Gore to show us what his would be like.

     [Editor's Note: Tom Plate is Director and Founder of the Asia Pacific Media Network, a regional alliance of blue-chip news-media institutions. Professor Plate is a public policy ethicist at UCLA. Asia Pacific is edited by Alice Wu. She may be contacted at Email alicewu@ucla.edu -- Prof. Plate's Email is tplate@ucla.edu].

2000 Copyright, The Asia Pacific Media Network

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     WASHINGTON -- God, I think must have looked down on the Earth this last Saturday and decided we were no longer worthy of giants.
     Saturday marked the passing of Charles Schulz and Tom Landry, National Treasures that will be sorely missed.
     Both were many things, but above all they were decent people in a world that more and more celebrates and worships a lack of decency. Both served as an anchor in a troubled world and both touched the lives of everyday people.
     Both were true and dependable role models for millions of Americans.
     In a world obsessed with sports figures, Pokeman, depraved rock stars, and politicians who sacrifice everything good to win or hold on to an office and it's power, Schulz and Landry showed us everyday what true honor and integrity in life was all about.
     Snoopy is, was and shall be the favorite dog in our household. Our children have always been surrounded by Snoopy because he was safe, he represented something good and while there was a massive industry of Peanuts figures, it was capitalism at it's best. It was not a product line driven by slick marketing, it was the meeting of a demand caused by something having value. Snoopy didn't transform, he didn't promote some pagan ideal, he was just there in all of his complexity. He kept us safe from the Red Baron and he never failed to make us laugh.
     Schulz never tried to shock us or push back the boundaries of decency and good taste, he dealt with life and all of it's complexities. He gave us Charlie Brown of whom he said: "I like to think of Charlie Brown as being a bit of Everyman - He tries to assume a perfect social image, but everything seems to go wrong". Charlie Brown spent half a century constantly failing, he also spent half a century facing his failure, acknowledging it, picking himself up and going on. This is what a decent man does, he doesn't cover it up, he doesn't lie about it, he doesn't spin it, he just moves on.
     The Dallas Cowboys under Landry will always be THE only football team worth speaking about.
     Tom Landry liked to win, but even more than that he liked to live with his integrity intact. He once said "I'm a Christian, that's the first thing in my life. I want to be the best coach, because that's what I'm doing - I believe winning is important - the real danger is when winning becomes the only thing. If you forsake your honesty and integrity to win a football game, it's wrong." Tom Landry made the Dallas Cowboys the first true national team, worthy of being called "America's Team."
     Sadly these two giants of humanity are no longer with us.
      Equally as sad is that most people will mourn the last original comic strip and will fail to realize the decent human being behind it or the standard it established that most artists fall far short of, that most people in fact will fall short of.
     I grieve the loss of giants, I shared the pain shown by a local DJ here in Washington as he with great difficulty read the AP release of the death of Charles Schulz. People understand and recognize decency and they mourn when it is taken from us. "Good grief" was a constant term used by Charlie Brown, Peanuts dealt with grief and in many ways helped us through life usually in twenty words or less.
     While death is inevitable the most important question we must ask as a society might just be: As the heroes of decency and honor are taken from us by natural causes, do we deserve replacements?

Copyright © 1997-2000 iSyndicate Inc.

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     AGANA, Guam -- Following the last State of the Union address by President Clinton, Senator Collins, stated that -- Our agenda is driven by the simple but powerful truth that America will continue to lead the world as long as our government allows opportunity, initiative, and freedom to flourish. Letting people create their dream has transformed our economy. Yet, not so on Guam USA where America's day begins since 1898.
     The "great" new millennium descended upon Guam as it did everywhere on earth. Millennia come and go. Only the land remains under all. Guam is really where America's cover up of the violations of human rights begins. That accounts for the injustices, complete insanity, and the lack of a sustainable economic growth since after WWII. People are hurting, but there's little they can do.
     On this lovely island paradise, the "leaders" are never eager to work with the people who, for the past 56 years, have been struggling to maximize their limited resources. Government actions are continuance of a tradition established after WWII in overruling and subverting the will of the people who want to be self-reliant like they were in pre WWII Guam.
     The failure of the "leaders" is that they have never been able to admit the possibility of visions other than their own. They have even ignored public hearings. The occupation of the land at Tiyan by GovGuam, after the Federal Government learned 56 years later that two military airstrips on tiny Guam were too many, is only one of many such examples of fraud, arrogance, waste, abuse, and self representation.
     With sophistry and sophisticated legal maneuvers, the government forces the people to depend on handouts and government jobs that for the most part produce poor services and lacks accountability, which attributed to the spiraling downward conditions that speak for themselves.
     Irrespective of the outbreak of child abuse, family violence, and heinous crimes, not to mention the storming of GovGuam by the FBI on account of widespread corruption, we were told by Federal Judge Unpingco that, "We live in a free and orderly society." Unpingco sentenced former Senator Angel Santos to serve hard time in federal prison for nonviolently standing up for his rightful claim to his land that was taken by force without just compensation, with denial of bail pending appeal - a right usually afforded even to murderers and rapists.
     The actions of the court are clear evidence of the court's political agenda to keep the people helpless and dependent and are the threat to law and order, domestic tranquility, and economic self-reliance. The judge's action is no different from local and national government actions since after WWII. People are treated as feces spiraling downward with the water running dry, leaving only the feces behind for posterity.
     At the present, Guam is an ignoble monument of bureaucratic stupidity and dissoluteness that stunned first-time visitors as well as residents. The spectacles of the conditions are from the lack of, among others, fundamental property rights, justice, and conservation in land use and town planning in harmony with the environment (Water is now believed to be contaminated.), aviation and ground transportation safety.
     Clinton administration unfunded mandates proliferate across this remote Guam Western Pacific outpost of U.S. military presence. A condition that has been found to eventually become counterproductive and to work a grave injustice to those heroes of the Third Marine Division who gave their lives in rescuing Guam from the hands of Japanese Empire warlords who over-ran the Marianas on December 7, 1941.

     [Editor's Note: The people of Guam and the Marines and Navy detachments there, mounted a vigorous defense but the fortifications fell to the Japanese force two days later. The bloodiest fight in the history of the Pacific Campaign drove the Japanese occupation into the sea on July 20, 1944. The U.S. Navy made Guam its Pacific Ocean HQ January 28, 1945. One year later the U.S. Congress approved appropriations for the restoration and rehabilitation of Agana and Agat. Tony Artero, is the Bureau Chief for the Daily Republican Newspaper's Pacific News Bureau on Guam. He is also a former Submariner in the U. S. Navy.]

Copyright 2000 The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.

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      WASHINGTON -- Former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall once said to fellow Justice William O. Douglas, referring to affirmative action policy and his own African American heritage -- ''You guys have been practicing discrimination for years. Now it's our turn.''
     How right those words were. Since the 1960s an entire culture of racial and gender preferences has sprung into existence in America. It encompasses every facet of our society from the local school board to the largest federal government agency. Today discrimination against white or male individuals in school admittance, hiring, and promotion is so commonplace and accepted that we have begun to think of it as normal and even inevitable.
     It's important to remember what motivated this discrimination in the first place. It was expressed in a debate earlier this year between the American Civil Rights Coalition (www.acrc.org) and members of various pro-discrimination groups. In that debate, Miss. Toni Van Pelt of the National Organization For Women made this statement -- "White men have an obligation to give the rest of us - women and minorities - a leg up for all the standing on us you did."
     Miss Van Pelt's statement clearly illustrates the outright class hatred that is behind the racial and gender preferences in our society. Today's white males are discriminated against and denied opportunities even though they may never have discriminated against anyone else themselves or committed any other wrong to society. It's enough that they are white males. That makes them guilty of a crime and deserving of punishment.
     Another motivation for Affirmative Action derives from the fact that white males tend to be more conservative than other groups in America. If you can deprive white males of schooling, jobs, promotions, and other opportunities you can decrease the power of conservative influence in society and thereby increase the power of liberalism and all that goes with it. In that sense, reverse discrimination is a form of political oppression as well as class oppression.
     When will affirmative action end? When asked this question last month Presidential hopeful, Al Gore, said "We haven't reached the promised land yet." So I suppose you can count on receiving equal opportunity in America when America has "reached the promised land."
     The fact is that reverse discrimination won't end until white males decide they don't want to be discriminated against anymore. It's that simple. No one else will protect your rights if you don't have the guts to stand up for them yourself. If you are too timid to protect your own rights, then think about your sons. Will you just stand by while they are passed over for schools, jobs, and promotions just because they are white males? At some point you have to stop cowering in the corners and start demanding respect.
     If there is one thing liberals are afraid of today, one thing that keeps them awake at night, it's the thought that white males might wake up some day and realize what fools they are being taken for.
     Just as the slave owners a hundred years ago feared the northern antagonists who threatened to rile up the slaves, the liberal establishment today fears messages like this that threaten to give white males the impression that maybe, just maybe, they don't really have to be second class citizens any longer.

     [Editor's Note: Jeff Burhans may be contacted at jburhans@mindspring.com].

©2000 Copyright, The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.

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      NEW YORK -- Spencer Ackerman, a sophomore at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, describes his experiences as a nonbelieving observer at a meeting this past fall at Yale University of campus activists planning new ways to pressure colleges and corporations to adhere to stricter codes of moral conduct.
     Prior to the meeting, Mr. Ackerman did his best to create a "believable alter ego" to mingle with the student leftists. "I had to be earnest and passionate, slightly inarticulate with a tendency to lapse into jargon like 'hegemony' and 'power dynamic,' ... [and] enthusiastic about the new 'Rage Against the Machine' album."
     It is an article of conservative faith the American academy has been hijacked by leftists--60s relics who impose upon students the "tolerance" regime of their quasi-Stalinist fantasies. Very people reading this review, then, are likely to be surprised by the contents of The Diversity Hoax and The Shadow University, which are both deeply unsettling indictments of the campus status quo.
     The arguments that they make are nothing new, but the former does not fail to be compelling as a primary source, and the latter successfully summarizes the issues and clearly states just how much is at stake in the battle for intellectual freedom and real diversity.
      The Diversity Hoax is a collection of essays by members of the University of California, Berkeley's Boalt Hall Law School class of 2000, the were the first to have been admitted after passage of California's Proposition 209 barred the use of racial preferences in university admissions.
     Most Berkeley students and faculty had strongly opposed the measure, but conservatives, and even some liberals, among the class never dreamed that their legal education would be taken hostage by affirmative action activists for whom the "marketplace of ideas" had no room for dissent.
     The Boalt students' stories are appalling. One class was invaded by protestors, who demanded that white students give up their seats for minority members whose applications had been rejected. The professor was hooted down when he explained that he would teach only actual Boalt students and was forced to dismiss the class.
     David Wienir reports rumors that a Caucasian piñata was smashed by irate students, behavior that would almost certainly be prosecuted as a hate crime had white perpetrators destroyed an effigy of a person of color.
     An anonymous contributor to The Diversity Hoax imagines a "White Person's Anonymous…the only place at Boalt where I feel I don't have to apologize for the color of my skin," in an "almost nonfiction" essay.
     The Shadow University was originally published in 1998, and while most of the events Kors and Silverglate describe date from the late 80s and early 90s, it provides essential context for The Diversity Hoax. While Berkeley is well known as one of the nation's most politicized campuses, the authors show that its problem is not unique. The problems of academic freedom that the affirmative action controversy brought to a head at Boalt Hall Law School are a manifestation of much of academia's wider commitment to the more extreme forms of intellectual and cultural revolution.
      Professors and administrators at most of our most prominent institutions bring their ideological baggage to class with them, hoping to use the educational process as a vehicle for social engineering. Williams students, for instance, were required to declare "Hello, my name is _______, and I'm Gay!" as a part of a Feel What It Is Like To Be Gay meeting. Such abuses of the trust placed in professionals by students and parents is even more disturbing than the Boalt student radicals' Orwellian outbursts.
     Speech codes are a particularly nasty product, popular with the campus left. These rules, some form of which exists at most major universities, penalize behavior believed to create a "hostile environment" similar to that proscribed by some kinds of sexual harassment law. In practice, speech codes makes an actionable offense of any kind of communication that anyone finds upsetting. The Diversity Hoax details some of the worst excesses of the speech code fad, which reached a height with the well-publicized Penn "water buffalo"case of 1995.
     Kors and Silverglate keep the smug editorializing to a minimum--a smart move, since anyone who finds nothing wrong with the statement that there is "no place [at the University] for something that doesn't show African Americans in a positive light" by the University of Missouri's Equal Employment Opportunity director of probably won't be convinced by any book. Kors and Silverglate also report the draconian procedures that many schools used to prosecute speech offenses.
     Hearings were carried out in secret and alleged offenders were often denied the opportunity to speak to a lawyer or be represented by a faculty advocate. Due process, clearly, was less important than enforcing consensus.
      Unsurprisingly, Berkeley's administration was also complicit in the harassment of students who argued against affirmative action. A speaker at the pre-orientation program delivered a harangue against Proposition 209, calling it a "war against people of color." She also recalled how much had hated her years at Boalt. The panel moderator's response: "I think we're ready to take it to the streets." As Boalt student Matthew Covington acidly commented in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, "What an odd recourse for aspiring lawyers." What an odd recourse for academics, most of whom in their more lucid moments would like to be thought of as educators.
     The Shadow University's final chapter mercifully details the defeats that the advocates of stifling political consensus have suffered in the courts and public opinion. They describe the remarkable coalition of students and administrators, liberals and conservatives, lawyers and reporters, who are, like The Diversity Hoax essayists, the only good guys in what is otherwise a race to craven submission.
     Politicians, particularly, have been reluctant to speak out, for fear of alienating powerful constituencies. It is a testament to just how bad things are that Alan Dershowitz appears as one of minor heroes of MIT's speech code fight.
     All is not well, despite marked improvement in the variety of political expression on campuses. Many restrictions remain on books, even where they are seldom enforced, and conservative students still suffer from harassment and intimidation, while left wing activists are given free reign, as Naomi Schaefer has documented recently in The Weekly Standard.
     The service that Silverglate and Kors do us in bolstering the already strong arguments for reform is valuable. The service that the contributors to The Diversity Hoax do us by proving that this is not a "conservative" issue, but one that all students of integrity must care about, is inestimable.

     [Editor's Note: The number of minority students attending college and earning degrees has risen slightly, according to a report released this week by the American Council on Education. However, because the most recent data are from the fall of 1996 to the fall of 1997, they may not reflect enrollment changes that followed the recent rollbacks of affirmative-action policies in California and Texas. The two new books cited in this review, a portion of which appeared in this month's edition of "The Occasional" are The Diversity Hoax: Law Students Report from Berkeley, (FAST, 1999) Edited by David Wienir and Marc Berley, and The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses, (HarperPerennial, 1999) by Alan Charles Kors and Harvey A. Silverglate. Mr. Goldman is an intern at the Manhattan Institute and a student at Rutgers University.]

©2000 Copyright, The Bulldog Newspaper. All rights reserved.

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     NEW YORK -- My name is Rudy Giuliani. You may know me as the Mayor of New York City. I am asking you to join my Senate race campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton.
     The stakes in this race are truly enormous. Hillary Clinton is expected to raise between $20 and $30 million for her Senate race. She will have President Clinton's entire fundraising apparatus at her dispersal.
     Most political observers believe that Hillary Clinton's real goal is to use her Senate seat (if she wins) as a springboard for higher office. Hillary Clinton very well could raise more money for her Senate run than any Senate candidate in U.S. history.
     I do not need to match Hillary Clinton's fundraising dollar for dollar in order to beat her. But I do need to raise enough to be competitive. Unlike Hillary Clinton, I don't have every ultra left wing group and pro Big Government special interests pouring millions of dollars into my campaign.
     My only source of funds is voluntary contributions from citizens like you who love this great nation. This is a battle between two very different visions for America's future.
     One of the clearest examples of our deep philosophical differences was our recent disagreement over my decision to withdraw hard earned taxpayer money from the Brooklyn Museum of Art if it insisted on moving forward with its plans to display an aggressively hateful anti religion which desecrates the Virgin Mary!
     This exhibit included elephant dung smeared across Mary along with pornographic body parts (female genitalia disguised as angels) littered throughout the portrait.
     This so called "art" was one of the most disgusting attacks on religion I have ever seen. I do not think one penny of hard earned taxpayer money should go to fund such a hate filled display.
     But Hillary Clinton (along with the far left ACLU) immediately attacked me for threatening the right to free speech. Of course, cutting off taxpayer funding threatens no one's right to free speech.
     They are perfectly free to display their hateful, twisted anti religion exhibit without a tax subsidy. What I find most interesting about Hillary Clinton's and the Left's attack on me over this issue is their hypocrisy. In the minds of left wing activists like Hillary Clinton, I guess it's okay to use taxpayer funds to subsidize religious expression as long as it involves the desecration of religious symbols.
     In their mind the government can fund attacks on religion, but apparently not pro religious expression. This is just the latest example of a relentless 30-year war the left wing elite has waged against America's religious heritage. For example -- Liberal judges have banned the posting of even the Ten Commandments in our public schools and school children are harassed by school officials for praying on their own time ... because schools are terrified of lawsuits by the ACLU. Meanwhile, the courts have made it difficult, if not nearly impossible, for parents to protect their children from the most vile forms of pornography on the internet which the ACLU and liberals defend as First Amendment protected expression.
     Hillary Clinton further revealed her hostility toward America's religious traditions when she attacked Governor George W. Bush's idea that we should look toward America's faith based charities, more than government programs, to address social problems. She thinks we need more government programs.
     I say our current bureaucratic welfare state has only trapped poor people in poverty. I say we should move away from top down Washington based anti poverty programs, and rely more on local communities, churches, synagogues, religious institutions and organizations like Catholic Charities, United Jewish Appeal and the Protestant Welfare League for answers on ways to lift the poor out of poverty. I think America needs more faith and more respect for America's religious traditions, not less.
     Another major area of disagreement between Hillary Clinton and me is our views on the role of government. I think government is much too big, and that taxes are much too high. Hillary Clinton wants more government and higher taxes.
     I agree with Ronald Reagan when he said, "A government that's big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have."
     I do not think government can, or should, solve every social problem. I believe most of our social problems can be solved by private initiatives, local communities and institutions if government bureaucrats would just step out of the way.
     I have seen first hand the devastation caused in New York City by decades of left wing policies and programs. I have lived in New York City most of my life. And I can vividly recall the 1970s and 80s when left wing Democrat Administrations with their soft on crime' approach, allowed violent criminals and drug lords to rule our streets.
     I remember the crushing taxation that drove businesses along with hundreds of thousands of jobs out of our City. "The cities are ungovernable," I was told. Especially New York City.
     When I became Mayor of New York City, my first two priorities were to restore order on the streets by putting criminals behind bars, and to slash taxes to bring businesses and jobs back to the City.
     The first tax I wanted to cut was the so called "hotel occupancy tax" which was the highest of its kind in the country -- we cut it by 30%. My critics said this would starve the New York City government of much needed money. Instead the opposite happened. New hotels opened up. Businesses started coming back to the City again.
     Since I've been Mayor, we've cut taxes by $2.3 billion and watched business boom in New York City. As a result of my pro law and order, pro free enterprise policies, New York City is once again America's #1 tourist attraction.
      But Hillary Clinton and the left wing elite don't trust people to make the right decisions for themselves. She wants government to make all the most important decisions. That's what her Big Government Socialized Medicine Plan was all about.
     She wanted to put America's entire Health Care System (the most successful health care system in the world) under government control (one seventh of the entire U.S. economy).
     Under her failed plan, government bureaucrats would choose your doctor for you. Just like in other government run health care systems that we see in other countries, you could be put on long waiting lists before receiving life saving medical treatment. Now she says passing her failed government run health care plans into law will be one of her top priorities as Senator.
     Unlike Hillary Clinton, I think Americans should be able to make their own health care choices. I trust the American people (far more then Washington) to spend and invest their own money wisely.
     Unlike Hillary Clinton, I don't think taxpayer money should be wasted on so called "art" that seems deliberately calculated to offend religious people. I guess what I'm most angry about is how the Clintons have attacked and belittled Ronald Reagan and his legacy.
      The Clintons behave as though the 1980s were dismal, and as if the Clinton Administration is responsible for the tremendous prosperity we have witnessed over the last 17 years. They give credit to Ronald Reagan for cutting taxes and regulations that had strangled America's spirit of enterprise. They give no credit to Ronald Reagan for winning the Cold War and rebuilding America's military which made winning the Cold War possible.
     When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, our economy was in shambles, and Soviet Communism was on the march around the world. I remember how the Left bitterly fought his plan to cut taxes, from; a top rate of 70% to 50%, and later to 25%. I remember the Left's outrage when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet union what it was an "evil empire." But Ronald Reagan knew that if the West could not recognize this evil for what it was, we could not prevail in the Cold War. As President Reagan put it, "No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."
     I remember how the Left opposed Ronald Reagan's military build up every step of the way, and how they ridiculed his plans for an anti missile shield known as SDI. I also remember that it was President Reagan's military buildup and his steadfast commitment to the SDI anti missile system, coined with the tremendous Reagan prosperity, that brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union.
     If Hillary Clinton gets to the Senate, she won't be just another left wing Senator. She will immediately become the chief advocate of every ultra left cause you can imagine.
     I can't beat Hillary Clinton without the support of you and many others who believe in the time honored values that made this nation great values and institutions that have been so relentlessly attacked by the left wing elite over the past three decades. I need you on my team. Hillary Clinton believes in big government. I believe in the power of individuals and getting government out of the way.
     The Left is furious that my tough law and order, pro free enterprise, pro people policies have succeeded in making New York City great again. The left wing elite opposes me because I have shown that a Republican can win elections by wide margins even in a Democratic stronghold like New York City with a bold unapologetic Ronald Reagan style conservative agenda.
     This race will be very tough and very close. But, with your support, I'm confident you and I can beat Hillary Clinton. I'm counting on you.

     [Editor's Note: Mayor Giuliani's comments are contained in his eight page campaign fund raising letter to NY City constituents obtained on Tuesday by the DR staff. Mr. Giuliani's Campaign HQ address is 250 Broadway, Ste. 2104, New York, NY 10277-2619.]

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     SAN DIEGO --The recently elected president of an emerging democracy, now in Europe on a confidence-and-foreign-investment raising effort, is due to return home next week to a nation ruled until last year by a corrupt, military-backed authoritarian regime. When he returns, will he face an adoring public or a military coup?
     This is the momentous question for Indonesia, Asia's newest democracy and potentially one of the world's most important ones. There, a political drama is unfolding of exceptional dimensions and with direct implications for this new century's world politics. Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid, tapped for the job last year through a complex but honest election process, is a Muslim cleric long in opposition to the discredited regime.
     The Indonesian people, fed up with the corruption, fully support Wahid's high-profile effort to show the door to the country's foremost military man, Gen. Wiranto. Ensconced in a comfy civilian cabinet post, the general has so far refused to go, even though Wahid has promised to pardon Gen. Wiranto for any war crimes.
     This tense military-civilian drama in Southeast Asia is playing out against the larger tableau of roiling regional politics. Indonesia, a long-troubled nation unnerved by the Asian financial crisis, is now trying on democracy for size. All the big powers of Asia are watching warily on the sidelines, especially Japan. It has sunk enormous sums into Indonesia. If that investment were to come back to life, it could benefit not only the stalled Japanese economic recovery but also the region's precarious one.
     Why has the military been such a big factor in Indonesia over the years? Under any circumstance, this nation would be a monster to keep together -- Its Muslim and Christian people are spread out over countless islands that are in many instances separated by daunting distances; the national population of some 210 million exceeds that of all other countries except China, India and the United States. Over the years, the country's armed forces, facing many hair-raising twists and turns in the nation's history, served as the order keeping electromagnet.
     Not ideal political engineering, to be sure, but in many respects, the military proved more capable than the average ham-handed junta, notwithstanding last year's revenge repression of East Timor separatists. But now the military is being asked to climb down so as to make way for the new civilian leadership; some officers are taking the request better than others.
     Wahid, the historic transition figure for Indonesia, is a worldly, moderate Muslim cleric who in some respects compares to Kim Dae Jung, the South Korean president who emerged from opposition in 1997 to lead his own democracy forward. Wahid's Islam is a cosmopolitan sort: Though his followers reside largely in less-educated, rural areas of Indonesia, the blunt-speaking cleric is a well-traveled religious figure who identifies with democratic ideals and religious tolerance and who supports secular values such as the rule of civilian law. Indeed, if there is one nation whose Islamic bent should cause the fewest qualms in the West, it has to be Indonesia.
     The best way for the West to show it is not predisposed against Islam is to work positively with this, its best and brightest incarnation. It must expunge the precedent of Algeria, when the military in 1992, as America looked the other way, forcibly canceled parliamentary elections that an intolerant, anti-Western Muslim party was on the verge of winning. That's not the situation in today's Indonesia, where both the process and the result are unthreatening. But now, as in the months prior to the 1965 military takeover, coup rumors are again surfacing in Jakarta. Can the West do anything -- without seeming to lean too heavily on Indonesian sovereignty and trigger a nationalistic backlash over the foreign-influence issue?
     Certainly, immediate pledges of new Western investment would help. We should follow the lead of Singapore, which is concerned about being on the primary receiving end of an overwhelming refugee problem should Indonesia come apart. It has been bearing to Jakarta gifts of new investments. And a Congressional freeze on U.S.-Indonesian military cooperation, understandably imposed after last year's Timor repression, should now be reversed.
     Why should America bother at all with Indonesia? The answer is that the world is an ever-shrinking globe, and a nation as large and economically central to Asia is potentially an iceberg that can smash regional stability -- and even sink the region's economy into a new recession. America was spared the worst effects of the last Asian crisis; would it be so lucky next time?
     Consider, too, the enormous precedential value of a democratic and stable Indonesia. Imagine three of the four most populated nations enjoying democratic systems, with China the lonely holdout.
     May the West, in nobility of purpose and in its own national interest, reach out to Wahid and his government and be there when it counts. That moment may now be approaching.

     [Editor's Note: Tom Plate is Director and Founder of the Asia Pacific Media Network, a regional alliance of blue-chip news-media institutions. Professor Plate is a public policy ethicist at UCLA. Asia Pacific is edited by Alice Wu. She may be contacted at Email alicewu@ucla.edu -- Prof. Plate's Email is tplate@ucla.edu].

2000 Copyright, The Asia Pacific Media Network

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      DAVOS, Switzerland -- The Internet Economy elite descended on the Swiss village of Davos last week, eager to network with heads of state, deep-thinkers and captains of industry at the annual World Economic Forum. And the enthusiasm was decidedly mutual: The lunches and panel discussions featuring the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Case, Tim Koogle and Michael Dell (DELL) were among the most popular events on the Forum's eclectic agenda. The leaders of the world just can't get enough of the Internet.
      For the most part, the tone of the meeting was unabashedly enthusiastic. And why not? While the Net is disrupting traditional ways of doing business, for those at the top of the economic food chain these are good times indeed. There was plenty of hand-wringing about the environment, income inequality and the appalling poverty in which so many people still live – the Forum's motto, after all, is "Committed to improving the state of the world" – but it didn't prevent most attendees from enjoying expensive cigars and fine champagne.
      Yet there was one dark cloud hanging over the gathering, and Internet Economy executives would do well to pay it heed. It showed itself most graphically in the form of a motley band of 500 or so demonstrators who marched up the snowy Davos streets until they were stopped by police barricades, but it was present in many of the sessions as well: A lot of the world isn't enthusiastic about economic "globalization."
      The arguments in favor of globalization and the most important means of achieving it – free trade – were laid out eloquently by President Clinton in his Davos speech. Historically, open markets have promoted economic growth – and economic growth has improved people's lives, giving them more choices and more money. It's fine to extol the virtues of a Rousseauistic state of nature, but most people, when given an alternative, would prefer not to be subsistence farmers. While free markets might disproportionately benefit the rich in the short term, they benefit the masses eventually. And alternatives are hard to find.
      Globalization causes a lot of collateral damage – enough that a coalition of trade unions, environmentalists and anarchists was able to scupper November's global trade talks in Seattle. If free markets mean that capitalist victory goes to those who pay their workers the least, or abuse the environment the most, then no one will win in the end.
      Net companies haven't much concerned themselves with these issues: They rarely pollute, and their employment problems have more to do with the disloyalty of highly paid twentysomethings than with underpaid factory workers.
      But the backlash against globalization runs deep. The dissidents in Seattle and Davos want to defend local cultures against the homogenizing tendencies of global markets, to stop the forces of capitalism from changing unique aspects of life. Not everyone sees logic in change for the sake of more shopping choices.
      The development of the Internet Economy, of course, is all about change. As Clinton argued in Davos, the beneficiaries of free markets – those in the Internet Economy prominent among them – need to do a better job of articulating how this new world is better for everyone. They need to engage in political debate, and not only on issues such as intellectual property that affect them directly. They need to make the case for change. Otherwise, the global development of the Internet Economy that we detail in this issue could be stopped in its tracks. And Gates and Case may soon find themselves in Davos trying to figure out where it all went wrong.

©2000 Copyright, The Daily Republican Newspapewr. All rights reserved.

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     FRESNO -- Sen. John McCain(R) achieved a stunning political rout of Gov. Gerpge W. Bush(R) with a record-breaking $501,415 in campaign contributions through his Web site on Wednesday, the largest one-day online campaign fundraising.
     Officials at the Reagan Library Public Affairs Institute told TNT on Thursday "There is no doubt about the power of the Internet Web site in political campaign strategy. The Web site played a significant role in filling McCain's war chest in a single day." However, the latest tally has the McCainm 2000 Web site picking up $1 mil since the New Hampshire victory.
     Political campaign Web sites are a fast and inexpensive method of raising a lot of political contributions in a short period of time. Bill Bradley(D) a former New Jersey senator has just disclosed his Web site has collected $1.6 million online giving him an $8.3 million advantage over his oppponent Vice President Al Gore(D) who told treporters last week that he had colected $7.8 million.
     McCain's Web site success pushed his amazing Internet fundraising total to about the $2 million mark. That's nearly $275,000 more than Bush, has pulled in from the Internet.
     With a 24-7 Web site collection strategy, he reports about 17,000 visitors to his campaing Web site madesecured credit card contributionsto his campaing totalling a half-million dollars while only 500 people could get through to his office for telephone pledges totalling close to $90,000.
     Jesse Ventura's come from behind election to the Minnesota governorship is credited to his 24-7 online fund raising. Through his Web site Mr. Ventura created a political machine that aggressively targeted potential supporters with e-mail and press releases.
     The Internet Web site campaign office allows candidates to send out an unfiltered message to voters.
     The slick political campaing interface is being offered by Web site design firms for a 10 to 15 percent share of fundraising results.
     The Web site can clearly multiply productivity. In just minutes, one campaign volunteer is able to contact thousands of supporters. The old-fashioned political campaign would require thirty volunteers and a mass mailing. All that is now completed in thirty-seconds by one person with a modem connection to the Internet and a Campaign Web site.

     [Editor's Note: Senator McCain's Official Web site is McCain2000.com . Apparently, an earlier attempt at setting-up a Campaign HQ online ran into insurmountable techincal difficulties, however.]

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     SMITHFIELD, North Carolina -- I have been listening to the latest round of Democrat lies to the African-American community. I will not allow the Democrats to "spin" the record of the Republican Party any longer. I think it's past time to stand up and call them on their lies. I would like to take an in depth look at the record of the "Party of Lincoln".
     The Republican Party was created in this country with the ideal that all men are created equal. Slavery goes against everything that ideal stands for, therefore the Republicans immediately set out to destroy the very notion that a man could own another man. The Democrats, showing that they couldn't do anything morally correct from the beginning, fought this tooth and nail.
     Modern provisions of Federal Law [18 U.S.C. and 42 U.S.C. are the surviving remnants of the 1866 Act, The 13th Amendment. The Civil Rights Act of 1957, 1960, 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 form the backbone of modern civil rights legislation passed by Republican majority Congress.
     Now let's look at the Civil Rights Acts. The Democrat lie is that the Republicans were against them. First of all, every vote congress takes is public record, and easily verifiable. The Republicans fought very hard to get these acts passed. The Republicans even had to overcome a Democrat filibuster. When it was finally time to vote, 82% of the Republicans voted for the acts, where only 64% of the Democrats did.
     On a side note, Democratic presidential front-runner Albert Gore Jr. says that his father – standing up for what was right – lost his senate seat because of his vote on the Civil Rights Acts. Again this is public record. Albert Gore Sr. voted against the acts. I guess he thought that it was right to deny equality to African-Americans. Staying in this time period, it was Democrat politicians who tried to block the integration of our schools, and keep Blacks from getting a proper education.
     On the subject of schools, the Democrats are still trying to block African-American children from getting a proper education. The Republicans are fighting for a parent's right to send their child to the best schools. The Republicans support a voucher system so that the families that cannot afford to send their children to private schools can receive help, and get the education that all our children deserve.
     History has shown that the Democrats fought to keep African-Americans the slaves of man, and are now fighting to keep them the slaves of government. The Democrats are fighting to keep Blacks ill educated and impoverished. The Republicans fought to free the African-Americans from the shackles of man, and are now trying to free everyone from the shackles of "Big Government".
     The Republicans are trying to help all children receive the very best education, because with education you break away from poverty. The Democrats like to say that they have "compassion", but history and present actions show that this is definitely not the case.
     The Republicans have – with history and present actions – shown that they have true compassion.

     [Editor's Note: Crusading editor, Samuel Bowles, of The Daily Republican Newspaper (Springfield, Mass.) kept to an editorial course throughout the War between the States. He followed and approved President Abraham Lincoln's entire course in proclaiming the emancipation of the slaves on his strong independent editorial page. He continued to shape public opinion during the rough and tumble Reconstruction period that followed.See Frank Luther Mott, "Leading Republican Editors on the War" pp.346-347. in American Journalism - a history 1690-1960. Third Ed. Macmillan Co., N.Y., 1962.].

1999 copyright, The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.

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