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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Irb who wrote (10943)	2/1/1999 10:40:00 PM
From: Catfish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

Moving toward a police state TUESDAY JANUARY 26 1999 Joseph Farah is editor of WorldNetDaily.com and executive director of the Western Journalism Center, an independent group of investigative reporters. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Executive orders ... national emergencies ... a domestic "commander-in-chief" ... the threat of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. .... An impeached president is leading America ever closer toward the reality of a police state, and there's been hardly a peep from the civil liberties establishment. In fact, those who dare address such issues are quickly denounced as paranoid "extremists." But let's look at the facts -- coldly, objectively and rationally. President Clinton has declared more "states of national emergency" than any of his predecessors. And he's done it in an era he boasts about as the freest, most peaceful and most prosperous time in recent American history. President Clinton has issued more executive orders than any of his predecessors. His top aides have even boasted of using them as a political strategy to go over the heads of the legislative branch of government. "Stroke of the pen, law of the land," boasted Paul Begala of the plan. "Pretty cool, huh?" Few of the executive orders have even been challenged by a Congress controlled by the opposition party. Few of them have even been read by a sleeping press establishment. And now President Clinton tells the nation that terrorism is such a threat to America that we need to consider establishing a "commander-in-chief for the defense of the continental United States." But don't worry about the civil liberties implications of any of this, the president tells us. "If there's a question, bring it to me," he says, like any good monarch would. Sure, that will solve the problem. Clinton himself will be the arbiter of whether his policies are an assault on our fundamental freedoms. Sounds fair, huh? Keep in mind, folks, that this is the same president who has: used FBI files to attack his political enemies; employed Internal Revenue Service audits to punish his critics; at the moment of his highest triumph, his re-election as president in 1996, warned he would attack his adversaries ruthlessly and cut them out of the body politick "like a cancer"; used at least one federal employee as a sex toy, using Marine officers to chauffeur her to the White House, then wielded all the power at his disposal to cover up the scandal through perjury and obstruction of justice; accepted illegal campaign contributions from powers hostile to the United States and then offered them previously forbidden high-technology transfers; used taxpayer resources to malign the character of anyone who offered a political challenge to his authority; abused his power to step on and over anyone who got in his way; I could go on and on. But you get the point. The kinds of powers under discussion would be unacceptable in the hands of the most ethical, honorable, virtuous leader, but in the hands of a man with no character, a man whose only motivation is the accumulation and preservation of his own authority, the mere discussion of such powers should be anathema to every American. Yet, I don't hear the outrage. I don't hear expressions of real concern. I don't hear anyone warning of impending tyranny. Let me, then, be the first. America is not slouching toward totalitarianism, it is rushing headlong toward it. It is disregarding more than 200 years of historical lessons, the prophetic cautions of the geniuses who invented this country. It is forgetting what made America great -- its Constitution, its acceptance of freedom and responsibility and its commitment to a morality etched in men's hearts from the beginning and defined in words beginning with the Ten Commandments. How can we then trust a man who treads on the Constitution, insults the Founding Fathers, limits freedom daily with new initiatives empowering government, encourages irrepsonsibility in others and breaks nearly every one of the Ten Commandments with no credible regrets or contritition? Tell me, America: Are you ready to let Bill Clinton completely redefine and rewrite the contract between the people and the government? Are you willing to permit him to be the judge and jury of that new covenant? Or, are you ready to trade in your liberty for a promise of security from a man who is himself a proven coward, rogue and ego-maniac? Or, are you ready to open your eyes and see what this man is trying to take from you, your children and grandchildren? worldnetdaily.com

To: The Irb who wrote (10943)	2/1/1999 10:55:00 PM
From: Catfish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

MEDIA DECEIVED: WHITE HOUSE AIDE BLUMENTHAL MADE UP QUOTES FOR NY TIMES, SMEARED STARR OFFICE XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX 02/01/99 17:21 UTC XXXXX It has been seven months since NEW YORK TIMES columnist Anthony Lewis printed questions that White House aide Sidney Blumenthal said were posed to him before the Lewinsky grand jury. Questions, it would later be revealed, that were never asked! In his June 29, 1998 column -- slugged "Questions that Degrade" -- Lewis wrote: "Sidney Blumenthal, assistant to the President, made his third appearance before Kenneth Starr's grand jury in Washington last Thursday... Mr. Blumenthal decided to tell me about the experience, as a grand-jury witness may do... Prosecutors asked Mr. Blumenthal to leave the room so they could consult. After five minutes he was called back, and Mr. Wisenberg asked him: 'Does the President's religion include sexual intercourse?'" But according to transcripts of Blumenthal's grand jury testimony, released four months after the NEW YORK TIMES column ran, that question was never asked by prosecutors! Lewis continued: "There was another sexual question in last week's grand-jury session, conducted by two new prosecutors. It was, 'Does the President believe that oral sex is sex?' It was just that -- a general question not tied to any particular matter." No. It was a general question not tied to any particular reality. Another question that prosecutors never asked! Lewis summarized: "What we have here, I think, is third-rate prosecutors full of hubris and obsessed by sex... It is sneering, smart-aleck stuff, the tone of Clinton-haters on cable television and the Internet." The NEW YORK TIMES even worked some of the phony questions into its news copy. "In two recent visits to the grand jury, Mr. Blumenthal said, he was asked, 'Does the President believe that oral sex is sex?' and 'Does the President's religion include sexual intercourse?'" -- JAMES BENNET's "The Titillating, Zigzagging Focus on Sex at 1600" June 30, 1998, Section A; Page 17. Seven months later, Bennet still has not informed his readers that Blumenthal's statements were false. And columnist Lewis has never straightened up his mess for the "newspaper of record." NEW YORK TIMES executive editor Joseph Lelyveld could not be reached for comment. A Starr associate explains that the Office of the Independent Counsel could not alert the media at the time of the smear due to restrictions covering grand jury secrecy. But the grand jury foreperson personally lectured Blumenthal during the closing moments of the session last summer: "We are very concerned about the fact that during your last visit that an inaccurate representation of the events that happened were retold on the steps of the courthouse." "I appreciate your statement," Blumenthal responded. "If Ken Starr is interested in the truth, he heard it today," Blumenthal told reporters just moments later. Sidney Blumenthal, still employed at the White House, is scheduled to be a witness in the Clinton impeachment trial on Wednesday. Will reporters print his version of the secret Senate questioning? Or wait for the videotape. drudgereport.com

To: The Irb who wrote (10943)	2/1/1999 11:03:00 PM
From: Catfish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

Canadian Blood Victims File Suit, Consider Naming Clinton Bloodgate Gathers Steam Outside View of U.S. Media -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By RICKI MAGNUSSEN -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We are seeking justice here," says Michael McCarthy, spokesperson and lead plaintiff in a $1 billion lawsuit launched in Toronto Thursday by the tainted-blood victims. The lawsuit names the federal Canadian Government and two companies, Connaught Laboratories who manufactured blood products for the Canadian hemophiliacs, and Continental Pharma Cryosan who bought contaminated plasma from an Arkansas prison and sold it to Connaught Laboratories. The lawsuit against the Canadian parties in the blood scandal is only the beginning. In a development that may portend trouble for the beleaguered President Clinton, the victims are now considering legal action in the United States. "We are looking at our legal rights in the United States regarding protecting our rights to launch legal actions against the parties that were responsible for what happened to us. If the governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, was involved in the collection of plasma in any way, he needs to respond to what his involvement was. Certainly, we'll seriously be looking into naming him in a lawsuit if it is determined that he played a role in what happened to us," McCarthy says. Leonard Dunn, president of Health Management Associates, the firm that had a state contract to collect blood from Arkansas prisoners, served as finance chairman of Bill Clinton's 1990 gubernatorial campaign. The Washington Weekly caught Michael McCarthy for a short interview just before a Thursday press conference to announce the filing of the suit. MCCARTHY: Today at 3 o'clock we will launch a lawsuit on behalf of victims of hepatitis C, like myself, who were regular blood users in the Canadian blood system. I'm a hemophiliac, and I took blood products in the years from 1980 to 1984 and was infected with Hepatitis C through those products. I exclusively took Connaught products from the Connaught Laboratories here in Toronto. They made hemophiliac product Factor VIII. The story was uncovered by Justice Krever in the Krever inquiry into the tainted blood tragedy of Canada that was started in 1994 and ended in 1997. He heard testimony on why so many Canadians were infected, through the blood system, with AIDS and hepatitis C. Through this investigation, documents and facts came forward that were not known before. Krever uncovered that prisons in the U.S., in particular prisons in Arkansas and Louisiana, had high risk prison plasma collection facilities. When they couldn't find buyers for this high risk plasma, they phoned around the world and ultimately found a broker in Montreal, Continental Pharma, who would take this high risk plasma. You must remember that by the end of 1982, the FDA had told all the blood banks and fractionators in the U.S. that prison plasma was unsuitable to use for products in the U.S., and they complied. When this happened, there was no market for prison plasma until they found a broker in Montreal that would accept it. There was a loophole that allowed them to send it up to Canada. We are talking thousands of liters of high risk prison plasma. We know that the FDA shut down the HMA--the private company that ran the plasma center within the Arkansas prison facility--a couple of times due to flagrant violations of plasma collection procedures. There was some label tampering and there are allegations that some inmates were given drugs instead of money for donating blood. Krever points out in his final report that there were two recalls from Connaught labs. A total of 4500 vials went out to the hemophilia community in Canada and only 450 were returned. The rest were put in our veins. This was all tainted product that was made from U.S. prison plasma. So with that in mind, what we are doing in our lawsuit is that we are naming Continental Pharma, the federal government, and Connaught Laboratories in a $1 billion lawsuit on behalf of the thousand hemophiliacs who were exposed to this high risk prison plasma. We are seeking justice here. For more of this story, see below: federal.com

To: The Irb who wrote (10943)	2/1/1999 11:15:00 PM
From: Catfish	Respond to of 13994

Is Clinton the Manchurian Clone? New Australian Peter Zhang The New Australian No. 105, 1-7 February 1999 Many readers have asked whether there is more to Chinese officials calling Clinton "nanren men zai hua sheng dun" (our man in Washington)* than just mandarin-like smugness. Surely, they wonder, there is something more sinister afoot. Yes, is the answer, but not in the way they have construed it. What is not generally understood is that Beijing's 'control' over Clinton has been exercised by exploiting his venality, arrogance, intellectual vanity and immoral nature. As keen students of history (I do not mean that dialectical nonsense) with an unbroken cultural tradition extending back several thousand years, they have become astute judges of character. (An invaluable faculty in an environment where only the ruthless rise to the top and where an erroneous character assessment has been known to prove fatal). This is why Clinton's secret meeting with high-ranking PLA officers have gone so well for Beijing. Unlike Clinton and, to put it bluntly, his policy hacks Chinese officials have cultural continuity, a fierce nationalist pride and a sense and feel for history. For them, there is no short-term gratification; each move, tactic and manoevre is designed to promote the long term interest of the Middle Kingdom.** These people have only justifiable contempt for the Clinton administration's student-sixties view of the world. A view that could have dire consequences for the West if it is not dealt with. I have no doubt it will come as a surprise to Clinton's supporters to learn that Beijing officials have the greatest respect for Harry Truman. Here was a man who stood up for America, valued its traditions, never mocked its history or achievements and had no illusions about its enemies, recognising their true nature. The danger does not come from communism, which is truly dead in China, it comes from crude nationalism: the kind that fuelled Nazi Germany and motivated the Japanese military. Just as the economic mismanagement and political incompetence created conditions for the rise of Naziism, so a similar chain of events might arise in China. None of this is understood in the kindergarten that was once called the Oval Office. Instead of standing fast with China's reformers, offering them unstinting support, making clear there would be no truck with warlords, Clinton chose to abandon them. There is no doubt that Clinton allowed military technology to be sold to the PLA for campaign funds and other 'measures'. Not a soul in Beijing questions this view. Even some within the PLA were shocked at the willingness of the Clinton political machine to put at risk the very survival of its country. But perhaps what caused them the greatest shock (though a pleasant one) was that Clinton, his advisers and business supporters were incapable of understanding the nature of their offence. It was literally beyond their understanding. Disconnected from any moral moorings and totally alienated from the traditions and history of their own country, they were adrift in a cultural vacuum. No wonder Chinese officials could not believe their luck. However, these officials are not fools. They know just how rapidly the American mood can swing, something the Korean War taught them. But they also recognise that there exists in America a very strong isolationist undercurrent that runs in tandem with an even stronger tradition of patriotism. The trick is to stroke the former without provoking the latter. In this respect they have been remarkably lucky in the person of William Jefferson Clinton, the most narcissistic, pliable and corrupt president in the history of the United States. By occasionally rattling the sabre at Sadam while simultaneously gutting America's military machine he has not only diverted attention from events in China he has also weakened America's ability to deal with an aggressive Chinese military dictatorship should one emerge. I firmly believe it is only because the American media is dominated by the dregs of the sixties and seventies that Clinton has been allowed to escape the just consequences of his destructive behaviour. What depresses me, and so many informed Chinese, is that the American public is yet to see through man; to realise the mortal danger he may very well have placed it. Do not get me wrong. I am not suggesting for a moment that PLA generals are planning a first strike. What could happen is that some of them might mistake Clinton's cowardice and moral degeneracy as representative of the nation and act on the assumption that aggression does indeed have its own rewards, just as Japan did in the 1930s. Remember that Hitler was absolutely convinced that Britain was so weak morally and militarily that it would never fight. The rest, as they say, is history. In the final scene of the The Manchurian Candidate the brainwashed victim, who has broken free of his controler, assassinates his mother and stepfather who were at the centre of a plot to murder the president and take control of the country. Unfortunately Clinton is so thoroughly corrupt that there is absolutely nothing he can do to redeem himself. He is not a victim of circumstances. He is not a victim of his instincts. He is a dangerous self-absorbed brat with no concern for anyone or anything, possessing only a pathological need to satisfy his own desires regardless of the cost to others. The sooner the Clinton presidency and everyone and everything connected with it has been exorcised from America the safer the world will be. I guess at heart I am an optimist. The Chinese people do not want war — they want a prosperous peace. America should do everything in its power to help bring that about. Doing dirty backroom deals the the butchers of Tianamen Square is not the way to do it. Perhaps now readers will understand why Clinton is called "nanren men zai hua sheng dun" (our man in Washington) as well as hou yan wu chi. Clinton's China visit: appeasement or engagement? *This is not to say they will not line their own pocket should the opportunty present itself, only that they would not sell their country. The New Australian freerepublic.com