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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 5 January 2001 | Vol. II No.2 | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 5 January 2001 | Vol. II No.2 | ||
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The liberal media's attack on Senator Ashcroft's nomination as Attorney General amounts to calling a man a vegetarian because he eats 26 good steaks but refuses to eat 2 rotten ones. The Senator has an outstanding record on race issues, but you would never know it if you trust the liberal propaganda machines.
But after two solid weeks of less-than-honest Democrats and their media smearing him as a racist because he opposed President Clinton's appointment of soft-on-crime judge Ronnie White to the federal bench, Kris W. Kobach has stepped in to set the record straight.
Kobach is professor of Constitutional Law and Legislation at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, and reports in the New York Post that Ashcroft:
One would think that this record would silence the critics, but the fact is, they knew it all along. The central theme of liberal politics since the arrival of the Clinton/Gore administration has been dishonesty and deceit. It has worked so well for them I doubt that we will see a change for years to come.
The appointment of a man like John Ashcroft to a post as visible as Attorney General is a good start on the road to restoring character to high places in government. It is one of the few appointments that we approve of at TCN.
Mineta Involved in Trade Mission Scandal, Political Dealings Involving Wen Ho Lee
(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch today criticized President-elect George W. Bush's choice of Norman Mineta for Secretary of Transportation. Indeed, when Mineta was first nominated for Clinton's Commerce Secretary, Judicial Watch strongly criticized Mineta's participation in the Clinton Commerce Department trade mission scandal. Judicial Watch found that seats on these trade missions were sold in exchange for campaign contributions. It was in the course of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch concerning these trade missions that John Huang was uncovered and the Chinagate scandal erupted. Mineta participated in the 1994 Clinton Commerce trade mission to Indonesia, which involved John Huang and many others implicated in the Chinagate scandal, such as Charlie Trie, James Riady, and Mark Grobmyer.
Mineta was also reported to have been a Clinton emissary to the family of Wen Ho Lee during an "active" federal espionage investigation as part of an effort to generate votes for Democrats from the Asian-American community.
"George W. Bush has every right to pick a Democrat to be in his Cabinet. However, he should have chosen a Democrat who is not implicated in corruption, especially in the corruption of Chinagate. Bush's selection of Mineta shows again that Bush does not care about corruption in government," stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
[ Judicial Watch ]
Fox News Channel is reporting that Attorney General Janet Reno's senior staffers "have threatened to fire an independent counsel investigating a possible cover-up at the Justice Department." According to Fox News:
o Independent counsel Dave Barrett, investigating former Clinton housing secretary Henry Cisneros, has since the spring of 2000 been giving a grand jury new evidence that DOJ officials "improperly tried to influence actions by the Internal Revenue Service." Senior Justice officials pressed Barrett to stop his inquiry.
o Barrett found evidence of possible tax fraud by Cisneros, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for lying during an FBI background check. Justice and IRS officials said tax fraud was outside Barrett's jurisdiction, and they would not pursue the matter.
o A top IRS lawyer, now a whistleblower for the independent counsel, said senior DOJ officials were trying to shield Cisneros and attempting to influence the IRS in other cases, too.
Fox News noted that while the IRS has been accused before of easing up on President Clinton's supporters and pursuing his enemies, this was the first time a federal grand jury has investigated such claims.
[NewsMax.com ]
DENVER - President Clinton has rushed to create an environmental legacy in his last year of office by designating millions of acres as national monuments, but it's a legacy that faces erosion at the hands of the next Congress and administration.
Western Republicans, furious at what they see as Mr. Clinton's broad use of his executive authority to outflank Congress and circumvent the democratic process, are already discussing how to roll back the vast "land grab" as quickly into the new Bush administration as possible.
Such an effort could well spring from the House Resources Committee, where Rep. James V. Hansen, Utah Republican, has begun outlining a strategy to roll back the 4.6 million acres in national monuments designated by Mr. Clinton since 1996.
"I think Bruce Babbitt told [Mr. Clinton] his legacy should be 'Go West!' " Mr. Hansen said. "But he doesn't tell anybody what he's going to do. I intend to ask the local communities, 'If you had had input into this [monument designation], what would you have done?'
"Our committee is thinking we'll turn this back the way it should have been," he said.
Mr. Hansen, who is the likely successor to committee Chairman Don Young, says he will invite legislation from lawmakers to trim the monument acreage, tinker with boundaries or eliminate designations altogether, based on the consensus within their communities.
Mr. Clinton has invoked the Antiquities Act of 1906 to declare 11 monuments and expand two more - all but one in the West and all but one in his last year of office. Critics argue that he did so without consulting with the affected communities and went well beyond the scope of the act, which they contend is intended to protect Indian ruins and archeological sites.
[ Washington Times ]
"The national parks have been called the best idea America had. But their wild beauty and historical treasures are rapidly deteriorating from lack of funds, pollution, encroaching development, overcrowding, and congressional indifference."
This is true, but there's a lot more to it that we are not being told. Our parks, national and state, are being taken over by forces that are beyond our control. The problem is not only congressional indifference, but public indifference due to media misinformation. It is time to quit mainstream media and sample some alternatives. The following info comes from the website of the Concerned Women for America (www.cwfa.org)
Fact: The Clinton administration is implementing United Nations treaties without congressional or voter approval. Already 68% of our national parks and preserves are under U.N. administration.
Fact: U.N. committees are empowered to visit "World Heritage Sites" within the U.S. to judge whether human activity poses an environmental risk and if it need to be curtailed.
Fact: The Clinton administration is transferring tens of millions of acres of land to the federal government to be placed under U.N. control.
Fact: Towns in the Cuyahoga River Valley near Akron, Ohio, have lost much of their population as the National Park Service under U.N. provisions, has condemned and torn down homes, farms, forcing people to leave their land.
Fact: The U.N. Biodiversity Treaty supports the Wildlands Project, which calls for turning 50% of the U.S. into "wildlands" where humans would not be allowed, but animals could roam free. [U.S. News and World Report ]
Washington, DC -- President Clinton continues to show that politics is more important to him than a civil transition of power, by issuing controversial executive orders during his remaining 3 weeks in office. The following is a sample:
Last week the President made an unprecedented recess appointment (bypassing the Senate) to a federal bench position, something never attempted in at least the last 100 years. The President justified it by declaring it an emergency even though the seat has been vacant for 10 years.
The President signed an Executive Order (E.O.) repealing his first E.O. back in 1993. That E.O. prohibited ex-Clinton Administration officials from lobbying for five years. When issued in 1993 he stated this would be the most ethical Administration ever. But by taking this action today, Bill Clinton makes it clear that his earlier E.O. was only for show.
He recently signed the U.S. onto a treaty that would give a United Nations prosecutor jurisdiction over U.S. servicemen and women, a position opposed by a clear majority of Americans.
The President placed the controversial District of Columbia statehood slogan "Taxation Without Representation" on the license plate on the Presidential limousines. President Clinton has had 8 years to move this issue but has chosen this ploy instead. Placing this on the Presidential limousine just days before leaving office clearly demonstrates his only aim is to create rancor between President-Elect George W. Bush-who does not support D.C. statehood-and District leaders and residents. Even noted liberal columnist Jack Germond called this "cheap politics."
To avoid public scrutiny and accountability, President Clinton is now racing the clock to publish tens of thousands of pages of new federal regulations that he was unwilling to publish on his own watch because of concern about public outcry. Yet now that he is no longer accountable to the voters, he has chosen to push through an unprecedented number of federal regulations at the last minute.
"The fact that President Clinton insists on making unilateral decisions without oversight is typical of his character," said U.S.Representative Dave Weldon. "With respect to each of these instances, I guess the President is still in a 24/7 campaign mode. I think he is counting on the average American to be enjoying their Christmas holiday and not notice these deleterious actions. I will be encouraging President-elect Bush to review each of these decisions and determine which should be reversed."
** The following is the concluding section of an article named EXERCISING POWER WITHOUT ARROGANCE by Condoleezza Rice. The full article originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune.
U.S. policy must concentrate on the important security agenda with Russia.
First, it must recognize that American security is threatened less by Russia's strength than by its weakness and incoherence. This suggests immediate attention to the safety and security of Moscow's nuclear forces and stockpile.
Second, Washington must begin a comprehensive discussion with Moscow on the changing nuclear threat. Much has been made by Russian military officials about their increased reliance on nuclear weapons in the face of their declining conventional readiness.
The Russian deterrent is more than adequate against the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and vice versa. But that fact need no longer be enshrined in a treaty that is almost 30 years old and is a relic of a profoundly adversarial relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was intended to prevent the development of national missile defenses in the Cold War security environment. Today, the principal concerns are nuclear threats from the Iraqs and North Koreas of the world and the possibility of unauthorized releases as nuclear weapons spread.
Moscow, in fact, lives closer to those threats than Washington does. It ought to be possible to engage the Russians in a discussion of the changed threat environment, their possible responses, and the relationship of strategic offensive-force reductions to the deployment of defenses.
In addition, Moscow should understand that any possibilities for sharing technology or information in these areas would depend heavily on its record--problematic to date--on the proliferation of ballistic-missile and other technologies related to weapons of mass destruction.
It would be foolish in the extreme to share defenses with Moscow if it either leaks or deliberately transfers weapons technologies to the very states against which America is defending. Finally, the United States needs to recognize that Russia is a great power, and that we will always have interests that conflict as well as coincide.
As prime minister, Vladimir Putin used the Chechnya war to stir nationalism at home while fueling his own political fortunes. The Russian military has been uncharacteristically blunt and vocal in asserting its duty to defend the integrity of the Russian Federation--an unwelcome development in civil-military relations.
The long-term effect of the war on Russia's political culture should not be underestimated. This war has affected relations between Russia and its neighbors in the Caucasus, as the Kremlin has been hurling charges of harboring and abetting Chechen terrorists against states as diverse as Saudi Arabia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
The war is a reminder of the vulnerability of the small, new states around Russia and of America's interest in their independence. If they can become stronger, they will be less tempting to Russia. But much depends on the ability of these states to reform their economies and political systems--a process, to date, whose success is mixed at best.
Meanwhile America can exercise power without arrogance and pursue its interests without hectoring and bluster. That has been America's special role in the past, and it should be again as we enter the new century. [ Department of State ]
TCN Comment - The US is entering a new age, an age where foreign policy is based on logic and common sense, not some ideology that looks like some '60's professor dreamed it up on a bad acid trip. We think that Mrs. Rice will do well as National Security Advisor if this article is typical of her approach.
By David Hackworth
U.S. Army Rangers are elite warriors. During World War II, they more than proved their daring, skill and ability to do the impossible in deadly places such as San Pietro and Normandy.
Once the shooting stopped, the Army disappeared its Ranger battalions. But Rangers came back for the Korean and Vietnam wars, where they operated as separate companies executing high-risk, behind-the-lines missions with the same dash and courage as their predecessors.
After Vietnam, the Pentagon re-formed this extraordinary force -- 1st, 2nd and 3rd battalions, 75th Rangers Regiment -- and they've been out there in tombstone country doing hard duty ever since.
Like the Rangers of WW II, Korea and Vietnam fame, they're at the forward edge: parachuting into Grenada and Panama at night to a warm welcome from enemy tracers and -- overtly or covertly -- at every other hot spot coming down. You know, killing fields like Somalia, where a surrounded Ranger company fought off a force 20 times its size.
In recognition of the especially high risks they take both in training and in combat and how hard they work to keep in razor-sharp shape, the Army awarded these heroes the distinctive black beret.
Like the word SWAT on the back of an FBI or police uniform, the beret says: We're special.
Few in today's slack Army can make the physical and mental cut. Few can handle the discipline, the sacrifice, the 100-pound load and fast Ranger pace. Few are willing to pay the price to join these American Spartans who live by the sword and -- if asked -- die by the sword.
Just like our elite Special Forces troopers with their green berets, and paratroopers with theirs in maroon, our Rangers take great pride in their black berets, which to them are far more than headgear. The black beret is a badge of honor that says: We are as good as you can get. We're the last surviving warriors in an Army gone soft because of the bureaucrats at the top, the go-along-to-get-along types in the middle and the overabundance of what's-in-it-for-me slugs down at the bottom. An Army that's forgotten that its mission is to prepare for war, not grab a bigger budget than the Air Force or Navy.
In October, when the Army chief of staff announced that all soldiers in the U.S. Army would wear the black beret, Rangers everywhere -- young and old -- were not amused. It was definitely not one of Gen. Eric Shinseki's finer moments when he followed the recommendation of his staff wienies and foolishly signed off on one of the dumbest uniform changes since the Army dropped the OD "Ike" jacket in favor of its present German WW II look-alike greens to hide fat bellies.
Sure, the Army's morale is the lowest I've ever seen in 55 years. And yes, talented captains and sergeants are fleeing the force like soldiers at a range where there's a live grenade loose.
But just as giving an aspirin to a soldier who's had both legs blown off by mortar fire isn't the way to stop the bleeding, throwing the Ranger beret at all the troops won't turn things around.
A beret for all ranks won't fix the problems driving the exodus -- self-serving senior officer leadership that's turned micromanagement and Consideration of Others into an art form. Nor will a beret do much for the low pay, ghetto-like housing and back-to-back deployments in running sores like Bosnia and Kosovo. Nor will it return the ideals of Duty, Honor, Country that are now just words because slick ticket-punching managers have replaced stand-up-and-be-counted leaders.
Only leadership can fix the Army's problems.
I hear Shinseki is a good man. A smart general knows when to defend and when to retreat. He should cut his losses on the beret. This might upset a few Ranger-hating staff pukes and a factory in Arkansas that's gearing up to make a million black berets. It might even annoy Bill Clinton, who might be into the irony of an Army that his policies have demolished wearing Monica-esque black berets.
Spiking the berets-for-everyone order would send a message that Shinseki reads the signposts loud and clear and is smart enough to change course when he's headed in the wrong direction.
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