Weekly Update - A publication of the Michigan Militia Corps Volume 3 Issue 12 June 6-13, 1996 POLITICS OBSTRUCTS JUSTICE Democrats on the senate Whitewater Committee Tuesday blocked a Republican attempt to grant immunity to David Hale, a key witness in the investigation, so he could testify before the panel. Hale, the former head of a government-subsidized investment firm, testified that Clinton, while governor of Arkansas, pressured him to make an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal. The president, in videotaped testimony at the trial, flatly denied the charge. The 10-8 committee vote along party lines was two short of the two-thirds majority needed to grant immunity which would have compelled Hale to testify. He would have been the last witness before the special committee whose mandate expires Friday. The committee will file its findings next Monday. After the vote, committee Chairman Alfonse D'Amato, a New York Republican, said perjury charges were likely to be sought against...at least two White House officials charged with lying to the committee. Hale was sentenced in March to 28 months in prison for fraud on charges brought by Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, he refused to testify before the senate committee without immunity from having his testimony used against him in any future federal or state prosecution. "In view of the verdicts in the Tucker/McDougal trial, the American people have a right to see and to hear Mr. Hale testify," D'Amato said before the vote. "It appears that my Democratic collegues and the White House are afraid to let the American people judge for themselves whether Mr. Hale is telling the truth," he added. "What we are doing is perpetuating a cover-up," said North Carolina Republican Lauch Faircloth. But Democrats said Hale was a proven liar and a convicted felon who did not deserve immunity. "He wants this committee to give him a license to lie," Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut said. "This is all about partisan politics," added Nevada Sen Richard Bryan. In Little Rock a federal judge refused Tuesday to block the Whitewater-related trial of two Arkansas bankers accused of improperly funneling money to President Clinton's 1990 campaign for governor of Arkansas. Jury selection begins Monday in federal court at Little Rock. Reuters June 12, 1996 AT-RISK BOYS RECRUITED FOR SCHOOL IN KENYA Baltimore - With the backing of the city school superintendent and the Abell Foundation, a Baltimore company is recruiting at-risk middle- school boys to study in rural Kenya starting this fall. While the company promises a life-changing odyssey far from the guns and drugs plaguing the boys' low-income communities, critics worry that the Baraka School will expose the 12-year-olds to other risks far from home. The school is being built on a 150-acre farm in Kenya surrounded by cattle ranches and savanna inhabited by elephants, giraffes, cheetahs and leopards. The company plans to take 20 seventh-graders this fall for classes in remedial reading and math, Swahili, and the history, cultures, and ecology of Kenya. The alternative school eventually will board 100 Baltimore youths, organizers said. Some will stay as long as three years. The school is said to be the brain-child of George L. Small, a retired Baltimore businessman, who owns a vast cattle ranch in Kenya's highlands. The school will have a phone, a staff nurse, and house parents to live with the children and an electrified fence will keep wildlife out, they said. The Baltimore Sun NATIONAL REPORTS FROM ECFA World Population Control is becoming key tenet of Clinton U.S. foreign policy. President Clinton's Council on sustainable Development has decided to make "global sustainable development" a paramount foreign policy goal. The Council's decision calls for massive U.S. support of population control programs, including abortion. Same sex marriage bill (HR 3396 S 1740) is in Congress and will allow states to avoid recognizing marriages between people of the same sex. The Careers Bill threatens parental rights. HR 1617 and S 143 has passed both chambers and was moved to the reconciliation Conference Committee. If this measure becomes law, it will strip parents of their authority to direct their children's education. The act would establish a "National economic Planning" system, remove career choices and direction from parents and child, and place them with local "work-force boards." The Immigration Bill allows for ID tracking. Efforts by Sens. Feingold and Abraham failed to remove the National Identification and Tracking system provisions of S 269. If enforced, each U.S. citizen could be mandated to carry an ID card and biometric identifier. Hope for modifying these provisions now rests with members of the House/Senate Conference Committee. Blended tax reform measure written by Rep. Dick Armey, supporter of a flat rate income tax and Rep. Bill Archer, supporter of replacing the current system with a national sales tax, have formulated a compromise proposal which unifies elements of both the flat rate and consumption taxes. FBI puts Jewish organizations in US on high alert - The FBI cautioned Jewish organizations in America to be on "heightened alert" because of a threat to kill 1,200 Jewish executives and doctors unless Israel withdraws its military forces from Lebanon. Intercessors For America (ECFA) Church of Jesus Christ POLITICAL SPEECH BAN The misguided supporters of S 1219 and HR 2566, the political speech ban, are attacking Political Action Committees (PACs). This is an attack on the First Amendment freedom of American citizens. These bills stop groups of like-minded citizens from speaking with a common voice regarding specific candidates. With your voices stifled, the voices of the national media will grow louder. Please call or write your U.S. Senators and Representatives and ask them to strongly oppose S 1219 and HR 2566 or any unconstitutional proposal to gag your political speech. GRASSFIRE NEWSLETTER June 1996 BRITAIN STARTS GUN AMNESTY AFTER MASSACRE LONDON - Thousands of illegally owned weapons are expected to be handed in to British police in a nationwide gun amnesty launched in the wake of the Dunblane massacre. The 28-day immunity, which began Monday, allows anyone to hand in a firearm anonymously and without fear of prosecution, provided it has not been used for crime. The weapons will then be melted down. Prime Minister John Major announced the amnesty in March after Thomas Hamilton shot dead the schoolchildren and their teacher in the Scottish town of Dunblane in Britain's worst ever shooting spree. "I think every gun that we can take out of circulation we ought to take out of circulation. Every gun has the potential to kill and there are a lot of guns lying around in people's homes which should not be there." said Home Secretary Michael Howard Normally, Britons found in possession of illegal firearms face sentences of up to 10 years in prison and heavy fines. About 800,000 firearms certificates, which must be renewed annually, are issued every year but police estimate there are currently about three million guns in circulation in Britain. Guns, ammunition, CD gas, and pepper sprays are all covered by the amnesty. The gun lobby and police have welcomed the measure, which follows a knife amnesty in January, held in the aftermath of the fatal stabbing of a headmaster outside his school in London. Then 30,000 knives and other edged weapons were dropped in sealed bins at police stations. Suggestions for improving safety have included psychological profiles for anyone holding certificates, a ban on home storage of weapons and that all holders must belong to a gun club. Reuters June 3, 1996 GOP SELLS OUT To document the damage done by Dole and Gingrich to the so-called "GOP revolution of 1994," one need merely review the President's statement as he signed the appropriations bill for the fiscal 1996 budget. "We have a bill we can all be proud of...The Congress sought to kill AmeriCorps, the National Service program. This bill retains it, as I had insisted...The House sought to terminate Goals 2000...This bill restores funding for Goals 2000. In another bill I vetoed, the Congress sought to end the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS)...That program is continued. The congress proposed to end the department of Commerce's Advanced Technology Program (ATP)...Adequate funding is provided for that program...Other programs or agencies that one or both houses sought to end, but which the bill restores include the Community Development Financial Institutions program, the Summer Youth Jobs program, and the Council on Environmental Quality. Very importantly, the hill provides $22.8 billion for the education Department...The bill also restores other programs close to, or above, last years levels that at least one house of the Congress ad sought to cut deeply. These include Head Start, Department of Labor worker protection programs, and payments to international organizations for peacekeeping and other programs." The New American June 24, 1996 LUFTWAFFE INVADES NEW MEXICO On May 1st, Secretary of Defense William Perry took part in a ceremony at New Mexico's Holloman Air Force Base marking the official opening of a German military installation there. The facility is the first permanent military installation established in the United States by a foreign nation. *** To subscribe to the Weekly Update, put out weekly by Michigan Militia Corps state command, simply send a message conveying that to xxx.