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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 26 March 2001 | Vol. II #44 | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 26 March 2001 | Vol. II #44 | ||
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** Hillary's Role in Pardons for "Supporters" Violated Federal Election Law
** Denise Rich Took the Fifth on Hillary's Role
Judicial Watch, the non-partisan public interest law firm that combats government corruption and abuse, announced findings today that it has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against Hillary Clinton over her role Pardongate. The complaint alleges that Hillary Clinton illegally took cash, gifts, and other benefits from Denise Rich and other supporters in exchange for help in obtaining the pardons of March Rich and others. Rich was a fugitive accused of trading with the enemy at the time the pardons were issued. Mrs. Clinton had received campaign contributions and gifts of furniture from Rich's ex-wife in the weeks and months running up to Rich's pardon. (The gifts of furniture are campaign gifts under the law, but were never reported as such by Mrs. Clinton.)
In its complaint, Judicial Watch notes that the FEC should draw an adverse inference against Mrs. Clinton from Denise Rich's invocation of the Fifth Amendment concerning Mrs. Clinton's role in Pardongate. The complaint also asks for investigation into whether Mrs. Clinton illegally sought political and other support from a Hasidic community in New York concerning the pardons, and whether monies were funneled to her by her brothers for pardons.
In a recent press conference, Mrs. Clinton admitted to serving as a conduit for information for many pardon requests.
"When it comes to 'cash for favors' bribery in the Clinton gang, Mrs. Clinton is the expert. The FEC has an obligation to investigate the prima facie evidence of Mrs. Clinton's bribery and illegal campaign contributions," stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
A copy of the Judicial Watch FEC complaint against Hillary Clinton is available on the Judicial Watch Internet site at www.judicialwatch.org.
Ever since the Supreme Court ruled that private organizations such as the Boy Scouts could set their own membership requirements, social do-gooders and left-wing activists have been pressuring individuals, charities and corporate sponsors to withhold financial aid to this all-American organization . which has been instilling the notions of duty and honor and character into the minds of young men for the better part of this century. But according to the Palm Beach Post this week, the boycott effort seems to have backfired.
After the United Way of Palm Beach County threatened to withhold funds from
the Boy Scouts, donors began specifically earmarking funds for the
organization. As a result, the Boy Scouts collected $61,540 in
donations this year, versus just $19,897 last year. Boy, I wish the United
Way would boycott ME!
[ News & Views ]
Just when you thought talking to your doctor or psychiatrist was one of the most private and confidential things you could do ... think again. (1)
In what it describes as an effort to curb handgun violence, a group called Doctors Against Handgun Injury is calling for sweeping changes in doctor-patient confidentiality that would allow doctors, including psychiatrists, to pry about their patients' gun ownership.
In the past, the medical community fought strenuously against any invasion by government or others into the confidentiality of patient records and information.
For example, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) had, in the past and for obvious reasons, been a bulwark in the defense of patient privacy and medical record confidentiality. (2)
Suddenly, events have taken a nefarious course.
The APA has now regrettably joined Doctors Against Handgun Injury, a gun prohibitionist coalition.
This coalition – which also includes the American Medical Association (AMA) and, not surprisingly, the strident American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and 10 other medical organizations reportedly comprising 600,000 doctors – is calling for a variety of patient privacy-invading measures in the name of gun safety.
Don't be fooled by their innocuous-sounding name.
In a revealing article published in the New York Observer on March 15, 2001, and through information that has come to our attention, Doctors Against Handgun Injury plan to announce a new campaign to push for increasingly more stringent gun control measures and "will engage in what it calls 'upstream intervention' – that is, using regular checkups to ask patients about firearm ownership and storage in their homes."
"To promote public safety, health professionals and health systems should ask about firearm ownership when taking a medical history or engaging in preventive counseling," the report states. "Patients should be provided with information about the risks of having a firearm in the home, as well as methods to reduce the risk, should they continue to choose to keep them." (3)
According to the New York Observer article, "The group is also calling for more conventional measures, such as mandatory background checks of purchasers at gun shows, limits on the number of guns that can be purchased by individuals and a waiting period for all gun buyers. This is the first time that such a large group of doctors has taken a position on gun control."
This is a regrettable and ill-conceived effort.
This new policy, if implemented by physicians, particularly by psychiatrists, constitutes a breach in medical ethics, a boundary violation in reference to abuse of the patient-doctor relationship, and an egregious invasion of privacy.
A boundary violation takes place when a physician breaches the patient's trust and uses his authority to advance a political agenda.
As Dr. Timothy Wheeler explained in an article in the Medical Sentinel, "A patient who seeks medical or psychiatric treatment is often in a uniquely dependent, anxious, vulnerable, and exploitable state.
"In seeking help, patients assume positions of relative powerlessness in which they expose their dignity, and reveal intimacies of body or mind, or both. Thus, compromised, the patient relies heavily on the physician to act only in the patient's interest and not the physician's." (4)
>From time immemorial, patient privacy and confidentiality have been ethical concepts that, up until now, were fundamental to all physicians and to the patient-doctor relationship.
The Oath of Hippocrates, in fact, states: "Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not in connection with it, I may see or hear in the lives of men, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep this oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men at all times, but should I trespass and violate this oath, may the reverse be my lot."
For psychiatrists, who of necessity should be able to obtain very personal and confidential information for their patients' mental health evaluation and treatment, trust is paramount.
Some psychiatrists, again with good reason, have claimed in their medical practices a patient-doctor privilege similar to the attorney-client privilege that lawyers legally enjoy in their profession and which is a notch above what physicians now possess in patient-doctor confidentiality.
Thus, this push by organized medicine, including the APA, should be received by patients with great concern and trepidation.
With this new incursion into gun politics by the medical profession, it's easy to see why patients may be more reluctant and less candid than ever with their physicians, which may, in turn, be detrimental to their medical care.
With good reason, patients may now perceive that their doctors, in asking them about guns in their homes, are acting more as an arm of the government prying into their personal lives than as their advocates in health care.
It will be easy to discern that physicians involved in this intrusion of privacy are placing the so-called good of society and the state above their ethical obligation to put their individual patients first, as required by the Oath of Hippocrates.
** References
1. Faria, M.A. Jr. Doctors warn of grave risk to your medical records. AAPS: It's time to draw the line in the sand on medical privacy. NewsMax.com, March 22, 2001.
2. Testimony of the American Psychiatric Association on H.R. 4585, the Medical Financial Privacy Protection Act before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, June 14, 2000.
3. Benson, J. Medical Machers ask: Should guns be part of patient profile? The New York Observer, March 15, 2001.
4. Wheeler, T. Boundary violation: Gun politics in the doctor's office. Medical Sentinel 1999;4(2):60-61. http://www.haciendapub.com. [ NewsMax ]
TCN Comment: And Clinton's invasion into your medical records would make the info available to practically anyone who wanted it.
April 14 is the date for Clinton's invasion of medical privacy to begin,
but the time period for Health and Human Services considering comments from
the public ends on March 30.
If you are going to do anything to stop this invasion of privacy, you must
do it NOW.
Write or FAX your representatives today.
"Appropriately, television networks broadcast their Sunday news talk shows
at a time when most God-fearing Americans should be in church. Good move.
Those of us who believe in simple things like God, morality, a basic set of
values and the simple concept of right and wrong shouldn't have the time or
inclination to sit in front of the tube and watch a bunch of fake
journalists interview political hacks, liars and con-artists. Network news
talk shows like Meet the Press, Face the Nation and This Week with Sam &
Cokie are not news shows, true interview shows or even good talk show fare.
They are exercises in hyperbole, platforms for propaganda and a useless
exercise in questions not answered and issues not discussed."
[ Doug Thompson, Capitol Hill Blue ]
By John Frydenlund
The Commission on 21st Century Production Agriculture, created by the 1996 Farm Bill, recently submitted its report on government's support of U.S. farmers, specifically those producing field crops such as wheat, corn, cotton, rice, and soybeans, in addition to producers of dairy, sugar, and peanuts. The commission's charge was to recommend directions for future farm policy to help provide guidance in preparation for consideration of the next farm bill in 2002.
Despite the forward-sounding name, the commission's recommendations sounded more like the same old songs that have been used for the last 70 years to justify government subsidies for and regulation of U.S. agriculture. The report goes on ad nauseam about how production agriculture is a "volatile industry," a situation which is used not only to justify a continuation of farm subsidies, but also leads the commission to recommend a radical expansion of the federal government's role in agriculture.
The commission seems convinced that it is the eternal responsibility of the federal government (i.e., the taxpayers) to provide farmers an income safety net that "provides a solid foundation of support for production agriculture."
Based on this 19th century thinking, the commission recommends continuing the so-called "transition" payments for field crops (such as wheat, corn, cotton and rice) created by the 1996 farm bill. In less than five years since passage of the 1996 farm bill, most members of the commission seem to have forgotten that by definition, "transition" payments were not intended to become permanent. Instead, they were supposed to help "transition" producers of these crops to become less dependent upon the federal government.
Not satisfied with keeping the "transition" payments, the commission also recommends retaining both loan deficiency payments and marketing loans, in addition to removing any limitation on payments. On top of these existing subsidies, the commission recommends creating a Supplemental Income Support (SIS) program. That means that if the commission's recommendations become part of the next farm bill, farm subsidies will increase dramatically and an even greater percentage of those subsidies will go to the wealthiest farmers.
The commission's approach will make it even more difficult to wean farmers from the federal trough and is reminiscent of the original creation of farm programs back in the 1930's. Although those programs were supposedly only "emergency" legislation, they have become more permanent than Mount Rushmore.
In regard to specific commodities, the commission's recommendations for dairy, sugar and peanuts appear so vague as to be almost meaningless. Claiming that these are "commodities that have evolved into specific and unique agricultural programs," the commission does little more than identify "areas of concern that will have an impact on the economic well-being of the producers of these commodities."
The commission says nothing about the economic well-being of taxpayers and consumers. In fact, a closer examination of "policy options" outlined by the commission reveals that most of the so-called "options" will result in more government regulation, subsidy or both.
For dairy, the commission suggests looking at alternative price support mechanisms such as a marketing loan, a direct payment, mandatory supply controls and extension of dairy compacts beyond the existing regional authority. The only encouraging sign from the commission is that they included forward contracting and revenue insurance as options that should be considered, which is not enough to overcome the negative impact of the other recommendations.
For sugar, while the commission acknowledges the need for alternatives to the current sugar program, the only options provides are a marketing loan program, domestic marketing controls, domestic production controls and some form of direct payment to sugar producers.
For peanuts, the commission seems excessively concerned about "potential impacts on small landholders." The truth is that they are talking about preserving the archaic peanut quota system, which benefits quota holders more than peanut producers.
While the commission does suggest that a "phased reduction of the quota system, with compensation to existing quota holders" could be considered, they also suggest creating a new subsidy to "stimulate purchase of domestically grown peanuts" and a direct payment program for producers of quota peanuts.
In other words, don't eliminate these three programs; replace them with a different approach that continues to soak the taxpayers and consumers.
Frankly, the commission's report demonstrates that they have wasted the last five years, at a cost of close to $1 million. After basically suggesting a continuation of all kinds of subsidies and creation of new ones ¾ all of which will primarily benefit the wealthiest farmers ¾ as a "sop" to the political concern about the plight of "small family farmers," the commission proposes to institutionalize the USDA Advisory Committee on Small Farms.
The commission believes that creating a new bureaucratic agency is needed within USDA to help develop new programs to meet the "special needs of small and limited resource farmers." While probably not intended by the commission, this proposal is a naked admission that their other recommendations do nothing to help small farmers.
The minority view on farm income support policy filed by John B. Campbell, one of the commission's members, at least those comments recognize that farming has changed dramatically since farm programs were originally created. As Mr. Campbell's comments demonstrate, while "the average income of farm households in the 1990s exceeded the U.S. average household income," most of the programs being proposed are pretty much the same as 71 years ago. It's unfortunate that most other members of the commission seem to still be stuck in a 1934 time warp.
The result is a commission report that has no relevance to farming as it
exists today, but which unfortunately will be used as justification for the
perpetuation of government intervention in U.S. agriculture.
[ CAGW ]
Postage on first class mail just went from 33 to 34 cents . . . that you know. What you probably have not heard is that letters aren't the only things at the Post Office getting a first class ride. The Inspector General (IG) for the United States Postal Service (USPS) recently released an audit revealing that some high-flying postal officials have been tooling around in chauffeur-driven limousines at public expense. All of this occurred in a government agency about to post losses of more than $1 billion last year.
The IG's audit results documented more than 520 instances involving field and headquarter executives improperly using official vehicles and chauffeurs. Not only is this a violation of Post Office policy, it is in contravention of federal law.
The audit shows that eight headquarter executives were driven from home to work on 63 separate occasions. Although the majority of the escapades involved postal executives, their spouses were chauffeured around as well. On 14 of these occasions, the limos were used to ferry packages and deliver cakes.
According to the audit, it is not uncommon for Postal Service officials to have access to limos for official uses, such as transporting high profile executives or members of the Board of Governors. However, the audit sensibly declared it reckless and punishable for postal prima donnas to treat postal drivers like their personal chauffeurs.
The audit states such abuses carry a penalty of at least a one-month suspension or removal from office. With so many occurrences, it is clear executives were not worried about penalties or thought they could dodge the rules.
Clearly, someone in a truly private company would question frequent daily excursions in the company limousine at times and places that were not business-related. But the Postal Service is no ordinary operation. These incidents slipped under the radar because officials weren't keeping logs of these vehicles. In fact, due to that lack of documentation, the IG was unable to determine precisely how widespread the practice was or how long it has been going on. The IG recommended reissuing the Postal Service's guidelines that chauffeur-driven limousines are off limits to field personnel and placing stricter controls on the use of limousines.
Since the USPS's record-keeping is evidently on par with its world-class efficiency in other areas, one wonders whether or not they will really have put the brakes on the joy-riding.
Senate Republicans say they are struggling to keep some of their party's "weak sisters" from undermining President Bush's legislative agenda.
Conservatives identify the usual lineup of suspects who have made life difficult for the Senate Republican leadership since the party captured the upper chamber in the 1994 elections.
Now these "RINOs" — Republicans in Name Only, as party conservatives deem them — are causing similar troubles for Mr. Bush.
The party's liberal and centrist senators, most of them from New England, have joined maverick Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, and his Democratic allies to push a complicated bill on campaign finance reform to the top of the Senate agenda.
Conservatives say the McCain coalition puts the new Republican president in a difficult political position, threatening to derail Mr. Bush's own tax-cutting agenda — and abort his White House honeymoon.
"The public doesn't care about campaign financing," one Republican senator says. "Do some of our fellow Republicans care that they are undercutting Bush's ability to do the things that people care about?
"Does anyone care that forcing the president to veto an irresponsible bill will affect his ability to carry out a real agenda?" adds the senator, who, like all but two colleagues interviewed by The Washington Times, agreed to comment only if his name were not used.
The Republican "weak sisters" lineup includes Sens. James M. Jeffords of Vermont and Lincoln R. Chaffee of Rhode Island — whom conservative colleagues describe as the most difficult to deal with — as well as Sens. Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine.
"Chaffee and Jeffords are the two we are most concerned about on Bush's tax-relief bill," a Senate Republican leader says privately. "We need to really focus efforts on bringing them over. . . . We're not completely sure of Snowe or Collins on the tax bill."
Mr. Bush traveled to Maine on Friday to push his tax-cut agenda, seeking to pressure Mrs. Snowe and Mrs. Collins to support him on the legislation.
But the "weak sisters" club has expanded beyond its Rockefeller Republican base in the Northeast. Sen. George V. Voinovich, Ohio Republican, is among those who have bucked the party's Senate leadership by at first supporting the McCain-Feingold bill banning unrestricted "soft money" contributions to political parties. Now, however, he leans toward a compromise bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, Nebraska Republican, to put a cap on soft money contributions to party organizations at $60,000 per year.
Mr. Voinovich also reversed his initial opposition to Mr. Bush's sweeping tax-cut plan. Yet his wavering on key issues — like that of his Northeast Republican colleagues — has drawn criticism from some conservatives.
"Would they feel more comfortable as Democrats than Republicans? Some of them would," an aide to a conservative Republican senator says. "They're the last elements of Rockefeller Republicanism that [the late Sen. Barry] Goldwater thought he killed off but didn't."
This resurgence of Republican liberalism strikes many Senate veterans as disastrously ill-timed — scarcely two months into the new administration, after Mr. Bush won the most bitterly disputed presidential election in more than a century, and with Republicans controlling the Senate only by virtue of Vice President Richard B. Cheney's tie-breaking vote.
A good start for Mr. Bush's legislative agenda may be the only thing that can keep Republicans from losing their Senate majority in the 2002 midterm elections. But local political factors push the party's Northeastern senators toward echoing Democratic arguments that Mr. Bush's tax plan "costs" too much and "doesn't do enough to help low- and middle-income people," one Republican Senate aide says.
"Opposing — or appearing to oppose — Bush and the Republican leadership on taxes, campaign finance regulation and other measures is an easy way for members to appear independent," the aide says. "For Northeast Republicans, sometimes not toeing the party line helps them get re-elected. They look like they're standing on principle."
"It shouldn't surprise us that New England Republicans go through these self-flagellations, because it's important for them periodically to remind people they are moderates," says conservative strategist Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, an advocacy group devoted to tax relief. "It's part of the dance they have to do. It's not treasonous. It's understandable."
Texas Sen. Phil Gramm says the news media influences some of his Republican colleagues.
"Who makes heroes around here?" Mr. Gramm says. "Who names outstanding legislators? Who proclaims who the new leaders of Congress are? Who affixes the wings on your shoulders?"
His answer to all: The media.
A media and cocktail-circuit axis explains the behavior of Republican liberals and mavericks, Mr. Norquist says.
"They want the New York Times to write that they are moderate and reasonable people who are 'troubled' — no, better, 'concerned' — about this tax bill, even though they're not necessarily against it," Mr. Norquist says. "It's the sign of being sophisticated if you're from the Northeast."
If all politics is local, then "local" for some senators means inside the Beltway, Mr. Norquist says: "These Northeast Republicans are responding to what's said on the Washington cocktail circuit rather than to their constituencies."
Mr. Norquist adds, "No voters in Maine are going to punish you for voting for a tax cut, but for acceptance in the Northeast establishment, it's important that you pronounce yourself 'reasonable' as the New York Times editorial page defines it."
He also blames the influence of the "Washington cocktail circuit" for Mr. McCain's maverick ways.
"Who is the one guy not in the Northeast who gets invited to these parties?
John McCain," Mr. Norquist says. "The difference is that Republicans from
places like Oklahoma don't get invited to those cocktail parties."
[ Washington Times ]
TCN Comment: "Weak sisters" ???? More like distant cousins! They have
the same name, but other than that there is no family resemblance. McCain,
Snowe, Collins, Chaffee and Jeffords, along with a host of others, should
be wearing DemocRAT tags.
Even among the majority of those who are generally considered conservative,
there are liberal tendencies. A leading spokesman for "conservative
republicans" recently became quite abusive when we suggested to him that
legalizing marijuana was not an issue normally supported by conservatives.
( We didn't bother presenting the view that booze should be outlawed too. )
It seems that the term conservative has been redefined more along the
libertarian line of thought. If you think government is too big and too
intrusive, you are conservative.
We tend to think that conservative should be defined more along the
constitutional view. Government is limited in its power and scope by the
US Constitution with the majority of authority resting upon local
governments that are more accessible and more responsive to the people.
The same GOP spokesman recently stated that the purpose of a political
party is to get people elected. Again we have to disagree. It is counter
productive to our democratic republic to elect people who do not represent
the will of the people and who despise our form of government as given in
the US Constitution.
We would also like to point out one RINO that we fully support. Ron Paul
(R-TX) is also a RINO, but from the "right" side. Paul should probably be
wearing a Constitution Party tag.
Sen. John McCain is behind a nationwide TV advertising and lobbying blitz organized by a liberal advocacy group and financed by wealthy Democratic donors to promote passage of his campaign finance reform bill.
His role in the Common Cause campaign came under attack Friday, with accusations of "hypocrisy," because Mr. McCain has led the charge against the role of "special interests" and wealthy individuals in politics.
Now it appears that Mr. McCain has organized elite funding of a special-interest campaign to promote public support for his bill, with financing coming mostly from two wealthy men committed to liberal, pro-Democratic causes.
The ad campaign, announced Thursday in the Capitol Hill hearing room of the Senate Commerce Committee, of which Mr. McCain is the chairman, is sponsored by Americans for Reform, whose spokesman is Howard Opinsky, the Arizona Republican's former presidential-campaign spokesman.
One of the ads' major backers is Internet billionaire and gun-control advocate Andrew McKelvey, whose group Americans for Gun Safety featured Mr. McCain in TV ads last year supporting gun-restriction referendums.
Mr. McKelvey donated $114,872 to the ad campaign for the campaign finance bill.
Retired businessman Jerome Kohlberg contributed $100,000 for the Americans for Reform ads and a recent nationwide tour by Mr. McCain and Sen. Russell D. Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, on behalf of their campaign finance reform bill.
Mr. Kohlberg made his donation Feb. 23 through Campaign for America. Mr. McKelvey made an individual donation March 21. No donations to Americans for Reform are disclosed on its Web site, www.americansforreform.com.
Campaign for America's earlier activities include more than $460,000 worth
of TV attack ads against then-Rep. Jim Bunning, Kentucky Republican, in his
1998 Senate race against Democrat Scotty Baesler, a backer of restrictions
on such independent expenditures.
[ Washington Times ]
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