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| Dave Marlett, Editor | theconservative@usa.net | Number 18 |
http://www.wilderness-cry.net/tcn | ||
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| Dave Marlett, Editor | theconservative@usa.net | Number 18 |
http://www.wilderness-cry.net/tcn | ||
"Miss Reno's decision to take the law as well as the child into her own hands, seems worse than a political blunder. Even if well intended, her decision strikes at the heart of constitutional government and shakes the safeguards of liberty." Laurence Tribe, the Harvard professor of constitutional law and a faithful apologist for Bill Clinton
Certain Republicans in Congress, pushed by Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, a Democrat, are making brave noises about getting to the bottom of the latest Clinton assault on the Constitution. Talk, like Janet Reno sentiment, is cheap. Old hands around town are betting they will back down when they cool down. Republicans always do. This will be a test of whether the Republican Congress is worth saving. If they cut and run this time, they will invite scorn and the question of why anyone should bother saving them.
[WND-Wesley Pruden 4-28]
Nobody is above the law in America - except the current president of the United States, his attorney general, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and its private army. The case of Elian Gonzalez proves that Bill Clinton and his entourage believe that and act on their conviction. The armed invasion of the home of Elian's relatives in Miami by federal officers combat-ready with the deadliest of military rifles, the shocking abduction of the boy seen around the world, are so unconstitutional and cruel that they keep the hope alive that this time the courts and Congress will not allow the White House to get away with it.
Facing a trial ordered by an appeals court that showed its distaste for Clintonian stonewalling in the case, the White House and Attorney General Janet Reno did what the president so often has done with one scandal or another -make it far worse. Their troops gave the crowd outside the Gonzalez home a nice touch of pepper gas and then stormed in as if they were taking the Golan Heights. Miss Reno provided everything but black helicopters to help jubilant wacko militia gangs justify their hatred of America and shock foreigners open-mouthed.
What was the legal justification for the assault? None. Professor Lawrence H. Tribe of Harvard, a liberal constitutional expert often mentioned as a Supreme Court candidate, writes that it is constitutionally "axiomatic that the executive branch has no unilateral authority to enter people's homes to forcibly remove innocent individuals without taking the time to seek a warrant or other order from a judge or magistrate."
"No judge or neutral magistrate had issued the type of warrant or other authority needed for the executive branch to break into the home to seize the child," Mr. Tribe stated in an op-ed article in the New York Times.
So the relatives are guilty of nothing. But knocking around in my head is the belief that officials of the government cannot abuse their power to the point of illegally invading a private home, busting up the place and carrying off a guiltless child, at least not without paying a tough penalty. Can they?
[A.M. Rosenthal - edited]
Intelligence officers based at he Cuban Interest Section in DC have worked to conceal what is expected to be a constant flow of Cuban agents to the Maryland compound where Elian and his father are being concealed. Cuban intelligence officers have procured a fleet of cars without the diplomatic license plates that would identify them as Cuban. All foreign diplomats in the United States must drive in designated vehicles bearing red, white and blue license plates issued by the State Department. Each foreign mission is issued a two-letter "scramble code" that appears on the plates to identify the country or international organization. Cuban officials based at the United Nations in New York must drive in cars with State Department plates bearing the scramble code "DC." Since the Cuban Interests Section in Washington is an office of the Swiss Embassy, officials there drive with tags bearing the "VH" code for Switzerland. To distinguish the Cubans from the Swiss, State has given the Cubans the series number 300 (or 0300) and above.
Sources report that the Cuban agents broke the license-plate rule this week when they leased 12 new Ford Taurus cars from the Ford Leasing Co. office at 1315 I Street NW in downtown Washington. It has also learned that the Cuban government has purchased other new vehicles during the last few days, bearing nondiplomatic tags, specifically for the Elian operation. The purpose, say sources, is to disguise travel by the Cuban officials in and out of the Maryland compound, the entrance of which is staked out by reporters.
In addition to concern about the public perception of brainwashing, U.S. officials say the Cubans appear to be trying to violate a rule that they must obtain State Department permission five days before traveling beyond a 25-mile radius of Washington. The Wye River compound where the boy is being held is more than twice that distance. Cuban First Secretary Felix Wilson was seen on April 27 with a rented white Dodge van bearing the Maryland license plate H303280. His acquisition of the vehicle without proper diplomatic plates is in violation of State Department rules.
According to the U.S. Secret Service, Wilson has refused to cooperate with U.S. law-enforcement officials to determine the identities of his staffers who beat up a group of pro-Elian protesters outside the Cuban Interests Section on April 14. Federal officials have also stated that Wilson is an identified intelligence officer and that he actually "orchestrated the beating of the Elian demonstrators." The vast majority of section officials - more than 40, say U.S. sources - also are intelligence officers.
Twelve federal prosecutors and 13 staff members from the US Attorney's office in Miami went to work "dressed in black" on Thursday. The 25-person group was protesting the Justice Department's early-morning raid on April 22nd of Elian Gonzalez's Little Havana home that resulted in the seizure and return of the boy to his Cuban father. It was an act of defiance against their boss, US Attorney General Janet Reno, who called for the raid after negotiations broke down between the government and the 6-year-old boat refugee's Miami relatives. "We dressed in black to tell the Cuban-American community that not everyone is in agreement with the actions taken," an anonymous protesting federal employee told writer Daniel A. Grech for his article that appeared in Friday's edition of the Miami Herald. Many of the protesting employees did not want to be identified, saying they worried about losing their jobs or credibility among colleagues due to what many termed their "crisis of conscience." The dissenting federal employees, most but not all of whom are Cuban Americans, said they felt betrayed by Reno's decision to move forward with the raid after the attorney general had assured them in an April 12th meeting that the Justice Department would not use force to reunite Elian with his father.
[CNSNews.com]
Carlos Ghigliotti, who had been retained by a U.S. House committee to help investigate the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex., was found dead in Laurel under unexplained circumstances yesterday.
"We're investigating it as a homicide," said Laurel police spokesman Jim Collins. Ghigliotti, 42, was found about 1:30 p.m. in the 600 block of Washington Boulevard. His body was badly decomposed, said police. There were no signs of a break-in or a struggle at the home, where Ghigliotti ran his business, Infrared Technologies Corp., police said. An expert in thermal imaging and videotape, Ghigliotti told the House Government Reform Committee in October that his analysis of tapes at Waco indicated that an FBI agent fired shots at the compound on April 19, the final day of the siege--a view disputed by the FBI.
TCN - No, never in this country…
The problem with the media is they are totally infested with liberals from top to bottom. When I first got to Washington 43 years ago, the reporters were liberal, but the editors were not. Now they are all liberals. Unless you can find some conservative sugar daddies that are going to buy newspapers and run them as conservative papers -- which isn't very likely -- you are going to have to live with it.
The problem is not that the media beats up on the conservatives, but that the conservatives are so weak-kneed and indecisive, retreating in short order whenever someone turns on them.
[ Robert Novak ]
Top White House talent employed by the taxpayers is helping Vice President Al Gore write his campaign speeches, work up attacks against Republican rival George W. Bush's budget and develop everything from crime-fighting proposals to health and education reforms.
Gene Sperling, head of President Clinton's National Economic Council; Bruce Reed, chief White House domestic-policy adviser; and scores of lower-level aides are lending their expertise - legally, Mr. Gore's presidential campaign claims - on their own free time.
Good government watchdogs wince at the overlap.
"These guys are dropping any pretense of a separation between campaign and government. The problem here is of perception, and the average American does not expect his or her taxpayer money to go toward Al Gore's campaign," said Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity.
"There's a lot of this that goes on in politics. But these folks take it to a whole new level - the Lincoln Bedroom comes to mind - in using public property for campaign ends," said Mr. Lewis.
Gore campaign spokesman Doug Hattaway underscored that official aides may free-lance legally as long as they clock 40 hours of work on official business each week and do not use government resources, such as computers and phones.
"Anyone who helps out works strictly according to the rules, and we're grateful for them," Mr. Hattaway said.
Ari Fleischer, campaign spokesman for Mr. Bush, who has his gubernatorial staff at his disposal, declined to make an issue of the muddied line between Mr. Gore's official and campaign resources.
"The issue raised is not who writes the vice president's material, but what the vice president is saying . . . negative attacks that are part and parcel of old-style politics," said Mr. Fleischer.
Mr. Bush sometimes calls on state officials to do his political bidding. Last week, his campaign dispatched Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander to a Gore appearance in Dallas, where she defended the governor's education record to reporters traveling with the vice president.
Mr. Gore has begun to move a number of his White House aides, like Miss Bianchi and communications director Laura Quinn, to campaign or Democratic National Committee payrolls, freeing them to work full time on politics.
Among other legal perks of incumbency, Mr. Gore uses the White House travel office to handle the massive logistics of hotel, plane and rental-car arrangements for his campaign trips.
[Washington Times 5-4]
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