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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 30 January 2001 | Vol. II #14 | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 30 January 2001 | Vol. II #14 | ||
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(Washington, DC) Today, Judicial Watch is filing a Senate Ethics Complaint against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for accepting apparent bribes in exchange for Presidential pardons issued by her husband, Bill Clinton, shortly before they left the White House on January 20, 2001. Specifically, in recent days, apparent bribes in addition to those paid by Denise Rich on behalf of her former husband, Marc Rich, have been uncovered.
Late last week, Judicial Watch filed another Senate Ethics Complaint over Hillary Clinton’s receipt of illegal gifts after she declared as a Senate candidate.
[Judicial Watch]
Jesse Jackson, the Baptist minister, apparently had no intention of waiting for the afterlife to get his taste of the good life. With his Rainbow/Push Coalition bringing in millions of dollars a year at its peak, Mr. Jackson indulged in expensive homes, cars and companionship, mostly with his ministry's money.
That's a paraphrase of how The New York Times began a news item about a fallen preacher -- not Jesse "Show Me the Money" Jackson, but "televangelist" Jim Bakker, head of PTL ministries, swiftly deposed after a sex scandal in the '80s.
Bakker's affair was evidently limited to a single night, there was no "love child," and over the course of seven years Bakker paid his lady friend about half ($265,000) of what Jackson admits to paying his mistress in two years ($472,000) -- and about one-third of what the National Enquirer reports Jackson has paid ($640,000).
Jackson's mistress probably needs the money more: Having had her affair with a black liberal, she cannot expect lucrative offers from smut magazines to pose nude. The pornography industry is primarily interested in prolonging the humiliation of Republicans...
Real moral lapse -- not to be confused with a 59-year-old man trying to derive sexual satisfaction from a young female staffer -- is being a Republican.
[ Capitol Hill Blue ]
Why is the liberal machine out to shred John Ashcroft? Why are they so afraid of his nomination?
The Republican stock answer is, "They are afraid he will enforce the laws." The reason they think this is based in what they see as illegal dealings under the Clinton regime and the Democrat maneuverings to cover them up. The Republicans think that the Democrats are afraid that Ashcroft will go mining for facts in the Clinton scandals and find enough to lock up the Democrat half of the Senate as accessories. While it could probably be done, it is not the real basis of the Democratic challenge.
The liberal mindset for several decades has been based in the faulty theory that there are no absolute truths. To the liberal establishment, a conservative Christian is the ultimate anathema. John Ashcroft believes and practices that laws are black and white, that right is right and wrong is wrong. This is totally contrary to liberal thought. The liberals in the Senate completely understood and agreed with Clinton's logic when he argued that the word "is" might have multiple meanings. John Ashcroft would choke on such a ridiculous statement.
Liberals have fought for many years to shift the judiciary to the liberal mindset. Those judges that they have fought so long and hard for are called "activists" Activist judges see the laws as guidelines and their responsibility as reconciling the law with the given circumstances, not what does the law require based on the facts of the case.
The liberal Democrats in the Senate see Ashcroft as a complete reversal of all that they have accomplished in swinging the DOJ (and the judiciary) to liberalism. They must block his confirmation or concede many years of effort as a failure.
We know how hard it is for liberal Democrats to admit defeat.
[ TCN ]
After just three weeks in office, New York's junior senator has gone into hiding. Not that we blame her.
Hillary Clinton was behind closed doors at week's end - far away from mounting questions about her role in the last-minute pardons granted by her husband to politically connected felons and fugitives.
Then there were the queries about the $200,000 worth of luxury gifts that she and her husband solicited from their fat-cat friends, then carted off from the White House - just before strict Senate ethics guidelines kicked in.
Mrs. Clinton may have inherited Daniel Patrick Moynihan's Senate seat.
She may even now occupy his office.
But Pat Moynihan was never one to run away from political controversy - not that he ever would have become involved in such tawdriness.
Call it "defining sleaziness down."
The more we learn about the Clinton pardons - especially the new senator's personal role in lobbying the president on behalf of four Hasidic con men whose community rewarded her efforts with a near-unanimous vote in November - the more we understand why she's ducking for cover.
And even when she does deign to comment, there's precious little information forthcoming. "We followed all the rules that were applicable," she told The Post's Brian Blomquist and Deborah Orin about her Christmas wish list.
"That's all I have to say."
That's not good enough.
"It all contributes to the perception of corruption," says Sen. John McCain.
That's putting it mildly - which is why Congress is altogether right to look into the pardons, even if there is precious little that can be done about it on Capitol Hill.
At long last, it should be clear, even to the Clintons' most ardent supporters, that as far as Bill and Hillary are concerned, they are the binary suns of their own solar system - around which everything else revolves.
Rules - to say nothing of laws - exist for everyone else, not for them.
Indeed, the fact that they have so skillfully manipulated the political process to skirt the law time after time seems only to have convinced them that they are immune from the constraints faced by everybody else. But here's one bright ray of sunshine: Thursday, ousted Teamsters boss Ron Carey was indicted for allegedly lying about his scheme, undertaken in conjunction with the Democratic National Committee, to funnel illegal funds to his union re-election campaign.
Attorney General Janet Reno for years stymied any effort to examine the Clinton-Gore campaign-finance scandal. Carey's indictment could finally open the door to a full-fledged investigation.
Let's hope that John Ashcroft's first order as Reno's successor will be this simple instruction to FBI Director Louis Freeh: Do your duty.
As for Sen. Hillary, she should remember the words of Joe Louis: "You can run, but you can't hide."
[ NY Post ]
House and Senate investigators currently pondering probes into ex-President Clinton's pardon of billionaire tax evader Marc Rich may find the outrageous decision had more to do with Rich's lawyer, one-time White House counsel Jack Quinn, than political donations from Rich's ex-wife Denise.
"It has very little to do with Denise Rich's money," former White House political guru Dick Morris told Fox News Channel's Paula Zahn Thursday night. "It has to do with one thing and one thing only, what Jack Quinn knows."
Quinn headed up the White House's legal fire brigade for 18 months, Morris explained. And he was in a position to know where all the Clinton scandal bodies are buried.
"Jack Quinn knows everything," Morris told Zahn. "And when Bill Clinton talks to you, he keeps an encyclopedic file in his mind of what you know. He knows what you know. ... And when you know a lot and you come to Bill Clinton and you ask for a favor, you get it."
"And believe me, I know what I'm talking about!" added Morris, sounding as if he may still harbor a Clinton secret or two himself.
The one-time White House adviser noted that Quinn would have had to review all the evidence eventually turned over to congressional probers. "He knows all of the documents on travel office, all of the documents on Foster, all of the documents on Whitewater, all of the documents on every one of the Clinton scandals that predates 1996," said Morris.
Quinn also knows what they decided not to release, which could amount to a cache of evidence compelling enough to outfit Bill and Hillary Clinton in orange jumpsuits for years to come.
So, posited Morris, "When Jack Quinn comes to Bill Clinton and makes a request, Bill Clinton says, 'How high?'"
Morris outlined a few of the scandal secrets that likely forced Clinton to pardon Quinn's client.
"They have Riady pay off Hubbell 100,000 bucks to shut up, pay off Jim Guy Tucker and his wife 500,000 bucks to shut up.
"And then Hillary shreds all the documents she can get her hands on. And then they're saying there is no evidence to convict them.
"You have to be a certified moron to believe that Jim Guy Tucker and Jim and Susan McDougal borrowed $300,000 from a government fund for a program that they never spent the money on, know that they spent it on Whitewater, all of which is an established fact, and believe that Bill and Hillary didn't know it.
"You have to be an absolute moron to believe that, yet there is no documentary evidence that they knew about it because the people that know it were either pardoned or bribed, Hubbell and Tucker bribed, McDougal pardoned."
Is the old Clinton hand talking through his hat? Lest anyone doubt him, Morris issued this challenge:
"If Tucker wants to sue me over the use of the word 'bribe,' or Hubbell does, too, go ahead. We'll have a fun time in discovery."
[ NewsMax ]
"Voluntary school choice by parents is a fundamental right," said Pennsylvania State Representative Dwight Evans, a Democrat and a member of the Black Alliance for Educational Options.
Evans was one of several leaders of the movement who met with reporters Monday at the National Press Club in Washington. School choice is a component of President Bush's education reform plan; however, the idea is harshly criticized by the teacher unions and many members of Congress, who believe it's wrong to divert any taxpayer money away from public education.
According to the Black Alliance for Educational Options, many of the critics of school choice are motivated by a fear of competition.
"The opposition's one reason is the fear of not being chosen," said Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist, whose city has had a school voucher program in place since 1990 that gives parents up to $5,300 a year per child for private school tuition and up to $6,000 a year per child for participation in charter schools. Milwaukee families whose income is at or below 175 percent of the poverty level are eligible. Nine thousand children participate in the program.
"School choice works, it's popular, and people like it," the mayor said. "Parents now have come to think of the program as one of the amenities of living in our city."
Norquist said he hopes Bush's rhetoric on school vouchers will be consistent.
"It bothers me that Bush has seemed to back off what he was previously saying about vouchers," he said. "I hope he sticks to his plan on school choice."
"This is not a Democrat versus Republican issue," said Evans. "[President Bush] needs to be forceful in his plan if he believes in it."
Evans said opponents of school choice have tried to attach a negative meaning to the word "voucher."
"The opposition has demonized the word voucher. They think it is some right wing crazy idea that doesn't focus on the individual child," he said. "In fact, school choice is entirely about the individual child."
Despite accusations from school choice critics, Evans said the goal is not to damage public education.
"Having school choice does not mean that there are bad schools. Each student has different needs when it comes to education," he said. "It is usually a 'crap-shoot' to find what school is good for the individual child."
Kenneth Adams, Vice President of Milwaukee schools, said that as a public servant, he is required to guarantee each child the best educational options possible. He said voucher programs place schools under the microscope and parents have more say in how their public schools are run.
"In a school choice program, parents will be taking a look at us," Adams said. "That is not bad, but it is a re-introduction into what we should have been doing a long time ago."
[ CNS ]
TCN Comment: Can anyone in the world explain to me why NEA is so afraid of "school choice"? Are they afraid of having their monopoly on government funds challenged? Are they afraid that it will be impossible to conceal their utter failure to educate our children if private schools get a larger enrollment? Or are they just afraid for the future of liberalism if a generation is raised with the ability to reason, think and communicate effectively?
The correct answer is "all of the above".
A collection of hypocritical politicians and just plain wackos are featured in the National Rifle Association's first annual Rosie awards, given to what the NRA calls the most hypocritical enemies of the Second Amendment.
Named for talk show hostess Rosie O'Donnell, who demanded a complete ban on handguns and then backed her own bodyguard's application for a permit to carry a concealed handgun, the awards were announced in the February issue of the NRA's America's Freedom magazine.
Topping the list is President Bill Clinton, who the NRA said did more than any other president to erode America's gun rights while at the same time insisting he had no desire to interfere with the rights of hunters and recreational shooters.
Second on the list is former Vice President Al Gore, who the NRA charged spent eight years "spewing antigun rhetoric at every opportunity" and then spent the last few weeks of the presidential campaign "trying to reassure hunters that he didn't want to take away their guns."
Among the other winners of this dubious honor are such liberal stalwarts as: Sen. Joe Lieberman, who joined the gun-grabbers in an effort to ban so-called assault weapons while at the same time maneuvering behind the scenes to have those made by Colt - which is headquartered in Connecticut, his home state - excluded from the blacklist.
Andrew Cuomo - described by the NRA as the Clinton-Gore point man on several anti-gun initiatives - attempted to disarm some of the nation's poorest and most at-risk citizens, those living in government-subsidized housing, on the grounds that as secretary of Housing & Urban Development he had the dictatorial authority to do so. The NRA notes he was also the government's "attack dog" on the government's agreement with Smith & Wesson.
Martin Sheen, described as being "symbolic of most of Hollywood in its gun hypocrisy," and having spent much of his career making a fortune by glorifying gun violence, had the gall to appear in a commercial sponsored by Sarah Brady's Handgun Control Inc. attacking George Bush's history as a supporter of Second Amendment rights.
Million Mom March - When the NRA put up a million dollars to start a fund to introduce a program to teach younger schoolchildren not to touch guns, the Million Mom Marchers refused a challenge to join NRA and put up their own million dollars, showing that their agenda does not include child safety, but merely gun-grabbing.
Among the wackier recipients of honorable mention:
Linda Strong, a New Mexico sculptress who altered her statue of a water pistol fight to eliminate the squirt gun because she realized it is a symbol of violence.
The Tahunanui Kindergarten in Nelson, New Zealand, where the head teacher instituted a program requiring her 4-year-old students to apply to the school for a permit before they can use their fingers as imaginary guns and "shoot" them in the playground.
Cynthia Carter, an Annapolis, Md., alderman who called for a government "buyback" of toy guns and for making the manufacturing of toy guns a crime. She said God told her to do it.
Associated Black Charities of Baltimore, which rejected a a mural of abolitionist Harriet Tubman because it depicted her accurately as carrying a gun. "We feel that in the year 2000 it is inappropriate for a piece of artwork depicting guns and violence to be displayed on our wall in Baltimore, which had more than 300 murders last year," said Donna Jones-Stanley, the group's executive director, who, the NRA suggested, is unable to differentiate between murder and self-defense.
[ NewsMax ]
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