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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Father Terrence who wrote (15226)	5/18/1998 5:59:00 AM
From: Jack Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20981

FT, 1. Eliminate the IRS . I couldn't agree more. Eviscerate it. 2. Eliminate National Health Service My view of a national health service is a pretty primitive one. One most people wouldn't want to use, but there, like public housing for those who are in desperate need. "The poor ye have always" and they will always need some type of help. With modern technology so necessary in the health care field, charity medicine can no longer be done by volunteers alone. My vision of this system is teaching hospital based, most of the work done by students and residents with supervision. You wouldn't want to use it. It would be better than nothing for those in need. Jack

To: Father Terrence who wrote (15226)	5/18/1998 9:36:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 20981

President Nixon attempted to abuse the IRS and was shut down by his own bureaucracy; Mr. Clinton, however, has succeeded. Nixon compiled a media enemies list, but not one person on the list was ever audited or harassed; Mr. Clinton has managed to isolate or punish many of his press antagonists. May 18, 1998 Criticizing Clinton Got Me Audited By JOSEPH FARAH White House lawyers defending President Clinton's executive privilege claims go to great lengths to distinguish this scandal from a previous invocation of executive privilege, in Watergate. Unlike the Nixon White House, they say, Mr. Clinton's operatives don't use their power to get at critics. Well I'm a critic, and starting in December 1994, the White House counsel's office targeted me, the news organization I work for and one of my associates because of our investigation of administration corruption and coverups. Thanks to congressional investigators, I have the memos to prove it--and I plan to do so in a lawsuit filed last week against several Clinton administration officials. The White House and the Democratic National Committee began building a secret dossier on me and the Western Journalism Center. In 1995, these files were used by Clinton aide Mark Fabiani to help prepare a 331-page report, "Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce," designed to discredit our investigations and the work of a few others researching Clinton administration scandals. The report, written and distributed at taxpayer expense, was leaked to selected reporters. To this day, the White House has refused Freedom of Information Act requests to provide us with a copy of the report and other files used to prepare it. An Internal Revenue Service agent visited our accountant the next year to announce that the Western Journalism Center was the target of an audit and that our tax-exempt status as a 501(c)3 nonprofit was being challenged. The first document requests revealed the political nature of the intrusive audit. The IRS showed little concern with our bookkeeping procedures, our financial records or our fund-raising techniques. Instead, the tax collector questioned our journalistic standards and practices, our choice of investigative reporting projects and especially our continuing probes of the administration. When our accountant questioned the direction of the audit, IRS field agent Thomas Cederquist responded: "Look, this is a political case and the decision will be made at the national level." The agent repeated this astonishing statement on a subsequent occasion. Rather than take this un-American form of harassment lying down, I went public with my story in these pages. I demonstrated that our case was part of a broad pattern of political audits against those who had challenged the administration's ethics, policy and propriety. The flurry of national publicity paid some immediate dividends. IRS Commissioner Margaret Milner Richardson, a close friend and political ally of the Clintons, unexpectedly resigned. Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation announced an investigation of the pattern of political audits. Other congressional committees focused attention on IRS abuses. But the IRS escalated the pressure on us--expanding the audit into another tax year. Officials refused to allow me to exercise my legal right of tape-recording examinations. They demanded documents well beyond the purview of a financial audit--including all incoming and outgoing correspondence for a full year. They forced us to divert our limited staff time and resources to defending ourselves in a seemingly endless paper chase. Attorney and accountant fees spiraled. Nine grueling months later, the IRS closed the case, extended our tax-exempt status and launched a face-saving internal investigation of its own agent--but not before the damage to our center had been done. The strain on our time and resources had nearly bankrupted the organization. As a result, half the staff had to be laid off and one of our two publications folded. Nearly two years after our ordeal began, Congress has yet to issue a report on political abuse of the IRS. The IRS has not granted our Freedom of Information Act requests to turn over the case file on the center. President Nixon attempted to abuse the IRS and was shut down by his own bureaucracy; Mr. Clinton, however, has succeeded. Nixon compiled a media enemies list, but not one person on the list was ever audited or harassed; Mr. Clinton has managed to isolate or punish many of his press antagonists. Such blatant political manipulation and media intimidation has a chilling effect on free speech and independent monitoring of the administration. That's why the Western Journalism Center filed a lawsuit last week against White House and IRS officials, asking for damages in excess of $10 million for interfering with our First Amendment rights. If the administration won't end its abuses, and Congress won't act, perhaps the courts will do the right thing. Mr. Farah is editor of the Internet newspaper WorldNetDaily.com and executive director of the Western Journalism Center. interactive.wsj.com