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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 11 January 2001 | Vol II #5 | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 11 January 2001 | Vol II #5 | ||
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Some media sources told IBT that Federal Marshal Frank Anderson went to Washington, D.C., to visit with U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. The IBT leaders followed by asking attorney Al Cunningham to make request that the Church leaders also have an audience with the Attorney General Reno. The Church hopes to hear from the Attorney General's office sometime today. In the mean time, the people of IBT remain on alert. Many are in the services each evening, with 150 - 200 people staying overnight throughout the buildings.
Today is the 58th day of the peaceful redress of grievance from members and supporters. Services will continue nightly. Most of those present have never been in church services for 57 straight nights.
EMERGENCY BULLETIN ALERT
God has provided another miracle and opportunity! We need you to respond now!
Pray and please call or fax to the U.S. Supreme Court the following message:
Please hear the case of Indianapolis Baptist Temple (IBT) set for conference of January 12, 2001, Docket No. 00-761.
The phone number is: (202) 249-3011 The fax number is: (202) 249-2971
The address for OVERNIGHT courier (Federal Express 1-800-463-3339, AIRBORNE EXPRESS 1-800-247-2676, UPS 1-800-742-5877, etc.), U.S. Mail, or Western Union
https://www2.westernunion.com/webmt/MSGjump.asp?src=TGHome.xsl (800-634-1311) is:
Supreme Court of the United States
1 First Street N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20543
It is IMPERATIVE that this request be in the Supreme Court no later than Friday evening January 12, 2001.
Supreme Court Justices:
FOR INFORMATION CONTACT IBT AT (317) 787- 0830 or (317) 783-6753
ibtnews@voyager.net
"A review of voter registration databases turned up more than 14,000 voters in New York City, Nassau and Suffolk counties who are also registered to vote in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward counties, in South Florida."
[cocoabeach-gwb@egroups.com ]
Make no mistake: Linda Chavez was thrown under the bus as soon as the heat in the kitchen got turned up. Jesse Jackson, Ted Kennedy and the AFL-CIO smelled blood in the water, yelled "Shark!" ... and the media immediately fell into an orgasmic feeding frenzy. Then, just when many on the Right were beginning to believe their fears that "W" stood for "wimp" were unfounded after all ... BANG! ... our president-elect tosses his unapologetic conservative nominee for Labor Secretary overboard at the drop of a union hard-hat.
Sure, Miss Chavez graciously said it was HER idea to withdrawal (what else COULD she say?) ... but George W. Bush could have easily stood up and said, "No, you stay and we'll fight this together". He didn't. He decided she wasn't worth fighting for. The Left said "Boo!" ... and the Bush team tucked tail and ran, leaving Miss Chavez abandoned at the altar.
Such are the ways of Kumbaya Republicans. They just have no stomach for tough political battles. Watch out John Ashcroft.
Linda Chavez was guilty all right ... guilty of committing a selfless act of compassionate humanity. She helped a fellow human being obtain a new life and a new start in the land of freedom and liberty. Chavez deserved better than this ... and so did our country. Instead, this genuine American patriot gets sent home with the knives still sticking out of her back. It's a sad day ... and likely a harbinger of what's yet to come.
- Chuck Muth, Editor, GOP News & Views
"With Linda Chavez now over the side, the blood is in the water. What a spectacle. In most parts of America, a woman who stretched out a hand to a struggling Vietnamese refugee, who paid for the schooling of two Puerto Rican children out of her own pocket and who opened her home to a battered Guatemalan woman without first demanding to see her green card would be held up as an example. That's the difference between most of America and the Beltway, where a Linda Chavez gets reduced to a political scalp.
" ... As it is, all it took to get rid of her was a few headlines about how many dishes Marta Mercardo might have washed during her stay at the Chavez home and a threat by Senator Edward Kennedy to use his fluke, interim chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee to run up the Jolly Roger and stage a bonfire on her nomination before a Republican majority was again sworn in. We take it this is Mr. Kennedy's response to the new spirit of bipartisanship that Senate Majority Leader Lott's power-sharing agreement was supposed to usher in."
[ Wall Street Journal ]
"What happened (to Linda Chavez) was a travesty. Not because the Democrats were able to demagogue an issue again, and force a good and honest woman to step away from her nomination as Labor Secretary. It's not because we are losing the services of a woman who would have done an excellent job of showing what it means to give people pride in working. No, this is a travesty because the Republicans allowed Linda Chavez to walk away from this and simply give up.
" ... The real problem came from Bush's desire to get along. It is a noble goal to try and get people with differing opinions, ideologies, and goals to work together. However, we have to accept that sometimes that effort will not be successful, and at those times, you must not just throw in the towel and surrender. When you get the reputation of being a quitter, you will never be able to be successful. People will always know that if they push you hard enough, you will surrender. Today George Bush let the Democrats know that if they really do not want to work together with Republicans, then they can just drag their heels and Bush will give up."
[ Chairman Doug Lorenz, California Republican Liberty Caucus ]
"The gun-control movement, generally ignored during last year's presidential campaign, is trying to take a leading role in attacking President-elect George W. Bush's choice of John Ashcroft to be attorney general. Ashcroft, already under fire from a number of liberal interest groups, became an even larger target Tuesday after Linda Chavez withdrew as Bush's nominee for secretary of labor. Scores of mostly liberal activist groups converged Tuesday to step up resistance to his confirmation ... but gun control advocates are becoming more vocal, citing Ashcroft's long record of opposing restrictions on gun ownership."
[ Knight Ridder ]
"When Mr. Lott, who trained for the rough-and-tumble of Washington politics as a cheerleader at Ole Miss, gave up his sword - or at least his pom-poms - to Tom Daschle the other day, he signaled that the Democrats could roll the Republicans in the Senate without popping a proper sweat. The conventional Washington speculation is that Mr. Daschle, the Democratic leader, offered a smooth confirmation hearing for John Ashcroft in return for power sharing in the Senate, an agreement by which neither party would claim a majority with all the usual majority perks.
" ... Whatever and however, the Democratic leader could hardly contain his credulity when Mr. Lott accepted this sucker's deal, and as soon as it was sealed the Democrats turned their fire away from Mr. Ashcroft to open their campaign against Miss Chavez. (If Bill Clinton has advice for his party, it's that beating up on women is less risky than picking a fight with a man.) The first volley was fired by The Washington Post, with the disclosure that Miss Chavez and her husband had once offered a bed and shelter to a penniless Guatemalan immigrant with no green card - even occasionally giving her a few dollars to buy groceries.
"This was followed up yesterday by the first wave of fake moral indignation. Who better to express a carefully choreographed outburst of spontaneous outrage than the Senate's own keeper of the eternal flame of piety and probity, the man who still can't bear to go near the water after all these years lest he be spooked by a floating female corpse. Teddy Kennedy, looking weary from his daily wrestling match with his conscience, pronounced himself 'troubled' by the story of Miss Chavez' indiscriminate act of charity."
- Wes Pruden, "Pruden On Politics," [ GOP News & Views ]
A parting shot at Cohen & Co…
By David Hackworth
Secretary of Defense William Cohen has spent four fun-filled years wasting our money like no other public servant except Bill Clinton, who set the standard by blowing more than a billion dollars on presidential junkets alone.
Here we foolish citizens have been thinking the two bits from every tax dollar the Internal Revenue Service rips out of our hides to fund the Pentagon was spent defending America, not paying for Cohen & Cohorts' pleasure tripping.
Well, think again! Because Cohen's been lapping the world like a dot-com CEO, staying at five-star palazzi while rubbing elbows with the rich and famous and throwing lots of power parties. One of those we popped for cost $290,000, according to the Pentagon, but a Pentagon general says, "BS, $750, 000 is closer to the mark."
Cohen has used the fleet and the rest of our forces as though they were his private toys and boys. Last month when he took a bunch of pals -- entertainers, sports stars, war heroes and old buddies -- to Europe to "entertain the troops," the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman was turned into Radio City for a day. A pilot whose flights were canceled said, "It was damn the hot operational missions, Cohen's USO Show must go on."
Meanwhile, Cohen and wife played MC in their matching, tailored "Top Gun" costumes that cost the country a cool two grand, chump change when compared with the millions we've contributed to run the Cohen Circus.
"Hollywood Cohen used U.S. warships like they belonged to the New York Yacht Club," says ex-tailhooker Mark Crissman, who quit the Navy because of such shenanigans. "He's done more to 'Pearl Harbor' the fleet than any SecDef and is clearly more concerned with photo ops and self-promotion than protecting America."
Sure, Cohen runs a $310 billion corporation that burns through money as fast as a drunken oil sheik playing no-limit baccarat in Monte Carlo. But that doesn't mean he's entitled to the same perks as a sheik or the CEOs of General Electric or General Motors, who are at least accountable to their shareholders.
The years of being an inside-the-beltway taker on the government's teat seem to have addicted him to the fast lane. He's plumb forgotten he's a civil servant whose obligation as SecDef is to make sure every buck we give him goes toward our nation's fighting capability, not his playing Globo Host.
If he'd have set the example and not hogged it up, maybe, just maybe, our generals and admirals would've followed suit instead of also acting like American royalty entitled to first-class everything. Then maybe our military would be shipshape and combat-ready rather than just a heartbeat away from stroking out.
If the troops had received even a portion of the dough Cohen's run through, morale wouldn't be at the bottom of the septic tank, and there'd be no need for him to dash from Beverly Hills to Bosnia to try to pump everyone up.
Our troops need everything from toilet paper to aircraft and vehicle spares and money for training to sharpen their dull combat edge, which when push come to shove is what keeps them alive. They don't need Al Franken, Jewel or Jerry Bruckheimer to thank them for "keeping our country strong" when they know they're out there hanging without the right stuff to pull off another Desert Storm.
Had Cohen looked at the homes and barracks at Fort Benning, Ga., and almost every other U.S. military base, he'd have seen how the other half lives. Had he gotten his nose out of the VIP room and talked to the troops, he'd have found out in a GI minute just how burned out and ragged the force is.
At least Donald Rumsfeld, earmarked to replace Cohen-of-the-flying-costume, can slip on his "Top Gun" flight suit and wear it with pride because he earned it and those gold wings the hard way. But Rumsfeld's track record shouts that the party days are over and the Pentagon had better brace itself for a much-needed overhaul. It can't happen fast enough for all our good troops and their long-suffering families.
How ironic that the absentee ballots of our warriors who've been so badly treated in the Clinton years cost Cohen and cronies their jobs. Many troops say, how sweet it is!
[ Http://www.hackworth.com ]
WASHINGTON - President Clinton fired off a letter Dec. 19 to U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Chairman Elliott Abrams (see below) - designed it would appear, at least in part, to give comfort to past and prospective Wall Street benefactors - denouncing the commission's efforts to explore the use of capital markets leverage to respond to China's increasing religious persecution and repression.
The harsh presidential correspondence came in response to a letter Mr. Abrams sent the White House on Nov. 1 (see below). In the latter, Abrams requested Clinton's views on two specific issues: "(1) whether you agree that IRFA [the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998] vests your office with the power to bar US financial institutions from purchasing China bonds and "(2) if so, whether you plan to exercise that power so as to prevent China from offering bonds on the U.S. markets until it meets...two conditions [: namely,] 1) it makes substantial improvements in respect to religious freedom and 2) it provides sufficient assurances to guarantee that the proceeds are never used to support religious persecution."
Clinton's Deliberate Overreaction
Although the commission made clear that it was merely seeking to have "the benefit of your thoughts before it makes a final decision," the president (probably at the behest of Treasury Secretary Summers and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan) responded with pronouncements largely unresponsive to the commission's queries. After observing that China "may have decided not to pursue the offering"(1.) Clinton asserted that efforts to bar China's undisciplined sovereign bond offering "will not advance respect for religious freedom in China." In his letter, the president went on to make three assertions that were alarmist and/or inaccurate: Item: Clinton repeatedly mischaracterized the commission's deliberations as a fait accompli aimed at "barring China's access to US capital markets."
Reality: In fact, the commission explicitly said in its letter that it had not taken any decision on how to proceed vis a vis the Chinese sovereign bond offering. Rather, it was soliciting the president's views on the items specified before making "a final decision."
Equally erroneous is the president's suggestion that the commission was seeking to bar all Chinese entities from the U.S. capital markets. Actually, at that moment, it was exploring just the question of whether the president should bar only the Chinese government from the U.S. bond market; the equity market was not even mentioned.
Item: Clinton stated "It [the barring of Chinese access to the U.S. capital markets] will have little impact on China's access to capital in an age of global capital markets."
Reality: The president's statement is simply inaccurate. Were China barred from access to the U.S. capital markets, it would almost certainly result in the Chinese government and enterprises having to pay a premium for funds it attracted in other, thinner-volume capital markets elsewhere. Even if China were able to secure some funding in overseas markets, the global dominance of the U.S. capital markets is such that, over time, China's efforts to attract tens of billions of dollars annually would likely be stymied as alternative markets become "booked up" with Chinese risk exposure.
More importantly, any effort to bar Chinese sovereign access to the U.S. markets for political reasons would affect risk assessment of China by rating agencies such as Moody's and Standard & Poor's. The knock-on effect of these lower ratings in other markets - and on other Chinese entities - would likely be sufficiently great as to increase perceptibly the costs to China associated with its religious persecution (as well as other conduct inimical to American interests and values).
Item: Worst of all, Clinton asserts that the commission's opposition to a PRC sovereign bond offering (originally reported to be coming to market last November) "could also have a negative impact on the American people, as our commitment to the free flow of capital would be undermined, with adverse consequences for our economy."
Reality: It is preposterous on the face of it that blocking a Chinese sovereign bond offering - which would provide Beijing's leadership with undisciplined cash from U.S. investors that could be used to fund religious persecution, national security abuses and other anti-Western activities - "would have a negative impact on the American people." To the contrary, such a targeted approach to this kind of ill-advised lending directly to the Chinese government would be very much in the interest of the American people.
Similarly, such an approach need not undermine America's commitment to the free flow of capital. This kind of scare-mongering is emblematic of the Clinton years; it serves only to discourage efforts to strengthen transparency, disclosure and discipline of the type sorely required by American investors so that they can avoid unwittingly helping to underwrite activities injurious to this nation's security interests and fundamental values.
Bottom Line
Clinton added insult to injury by failing even to answer one of the two questions the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom put to him: Does the president have the authority under the International Religious Freedom Act "to bar U.S. financial institutions from purchasing Chinese bonds"? The commission would be correct in judging the answer to be "Yes."
Accordingly, the commission and others who share its commitment to religious freedom and other fundamental human rights must make clear to Clinton's successor what this president chose to ignore throughout his tenure in office: America will use, among other tools, prudent, non-disruptive new measures - like the selective leveraging of the capital markets - to demonstrate to "countries of concern" that a significant price will be paid for their odious repression.
In fact, the Casey Institute had learned prior to the President's correspondence that the PRC sovereign bond had been withdrawn -- due primarily to the opposition of the broad-based "PetroChina Coaltion" of non-governmental organizations and the USCIRF letter to the President.
NOTE: The Center's publications are intended to invigorate and enrich the debate on foreign policy and defense issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of all members of the center's Board of Advisers.
The White House
Washington
December 19, 2000
Dear Mr. Chairman:
Thank you for your letter regarding China's possible bond offering on U.S. capital markets. Although China may have decided not to pursue this offering, I would still like to respond to the Commission's suggestion that I bar such an offering.
I share the Commission's deep concern about religious persecution in China. Indeed, I raised this issue with President Jiang Zemin during our recent meeting in Brunei. The United States will continue to press for the right of all Chinese citizens to enjoy internationally recognized religious freedoms.
Barring China's access to U.S. capital markets, however, in my judgement will not advance respect for religious freedom in China. It will have little impact on China's access to capital in an age of global capital markets, but will have a seriously damaging effect on our ability to engage China on issues of human rights and religious freedom. It could also have a negative impact on the American people, as our commitment to the free flow of capital would be undermined, with adverse consequences for our economy.
Again, thank you for writing concerning this important matter. I appreciate the Commission's work.
Sincerely,
(Signed) Bill Clinton
The Honorable Elliott Abrams
Chairman
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
800 North Capitol Street, N.W., Suite 790
Washington, D.C. 20002
U.S. COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
November 1, 2000
Dear Mr. President:
I am writing on behalf of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to ask for your views on a matter of some urgency.
According to recent press reports, the government of the People's Republic of China will soon offer sovereign bonds in the total amount of $1 billion on international markets, including possibly the U.S. market. The Commission is considering whether to recommend that you immediately bar any such offering until China meets two conditions: (1) it makes substantial improvements in respect for religious freedom, and (2) it provides sufficient assurances to guarantee that the proceeds are never used to support religious persecution.
The Secretary of State formally determined last year and again this year that the government of China has been engaging in systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom within the meaning of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA), 22 U.S.C. 6401 et seq. Consequently, in the Commission's view, section 405(a)(14) of IRFA, 22 U.S.C. 6445(a)(14), gives you power now to raise such a barrier in the form of a prohibition against the purchase of China bonds by U.S. financial institutions such as underwriters, pension plans or mutual funds.
Section 405(a)(14), read in conjunction with sections 401 and 402 of IRFA, authorizes you to prohibit "any United States financial institution from making loans or providing credits totaling more than $10,000,000 in any 12-month period to the specific foreign government, agency, instrumentality, or official" determined to be responsible for such violations.
The Commission, however, wishes to have the benefit of your thoughts before it makes a final decision. We therefore respectfully ask (1) whether you agree that IRFA vests your office with power to bar U.S. financial institutions from purchasing China bonds and 2) if so, whether you plan to exercise that power so as to prevent China from offering bonds on the U.S. market until it meets the two conditions listed above.
Attached is a background paper reflecting our thinking on this matter. Given the immediacy of China's reported plans, we would be grateful for a prompt reply. Thank you very much for your time and attention.
Respectfully yours,
Elliott Abrams
[ Center for Security Policy ]
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