It's Hillary Clinton's "Energizer Bunny" health-care takeover

WASHINGTON, DC -- When it comes to taking over the U.S. health-care system, Hillary Clinton is like the Energizer Bunny, the Libertarian Party says: She just keeps going. And going. And going.

The latest example? President Bill Clinton's new plan to entice three million more Americans to join the government's Medicare program -- a program that's expected to be bankrupt by 2010.

"You can call this plan Hillary's Revenge," said Libertarian Party Chairman Steve Dasbach. "Four years after we put the brakes on Hillary's health-care takeover, she's back for another chunk of our health-care dollar. Like the Energizer Bunny, she just keeps on going.

"Step by incremental step, she has been quietly and methodically imposing socialized medicine on the American people."

Just look at the record, said Dasbach. In the past two years:

Congress passed the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill, which allows the federal government to micromanage private companies' health-care coverage.

Congress passed KiddyCare, a $24 billion entitlement for

children.

Now President Clinton wants to expand Medicare to include the "near elderly."

"The government already spends a staggering 42% of every health-care dollar," Dasbach said. "And now Bill and Hillary Clinton are going after the other 58%."

Clinton's new plan will make three million people, aged 55 to 64, eligible to join the Medicare program -- the largest expansion in the program's 31-year history. Government officials claimed the plan is revenue-neutral, but simultaneously admitted it will cost up to $3 billion over five years.

But it's not just the higher cost that prompts the Libertarian Party to oppose the plan, said Dasbach. The new program is a bad idea because...

The Medicare program is already at the edge of bankruptcy. Medicare Part A starts deficit spending in 2004. Medicare Part B goes bankrupt in 2010. And by 2025, the program will be engulfed in a tidal wave of red ink, thanks to the retirement of baby boomers.

"It's cruel and immoral to entice elderly Americans into a program that will fail them when they need it most," said Dasbach. "We should be talking about how to end Medicare -- not how to expand it."

The Medicare program is riddled with fraud. In July 1997, federal auditors estimated that $23 billion was wasted by Medicare because of fraud or mistakes -- or one dollar out of every seven spent.

"Why should we waste another dollar on a program that's already losing $43,750 a minute in fraud?" asked Dasbach.

The new program will drive up taxes for everyone, because it will lure the sickest and most costly patients, who will be eager to take advantage of Uncle Sam's generosity.

"Despite Clinton's promises, this program will be a financial fiasco for American taxpayers," predicted Dasbach. "Medicare recipients already spend $5 for every $1 they pay in taxes. This program will attract more people spending more tax dollars. And it will make private companies less likely to offer retirement health benefits -- since the federal government will pick up the tab anyway. In the end, we will all pay."

And finally, the program will further extend the government's power over the health-care market.

"This plan will bring more people under the authority of government medicine -- further reducing the freedom of doctors and patients," said Dasbach. "Law by law, dollar by dollar, mandate by mandate, we're losing control over our health care decisions. When it comes to socialized medicine, Hillary Clinton has lost a battle, but she's winning the war."

JERRY BOHNEN (New Director KTOK Radio): ...information he says there was prior knowledge about the bombing. Live now, here's KTOK's Kim Edwards.

KIM EDWARDS (KTOK Reporter): Jerry, a throng of national and local media have gathered around the Survivor Tree in downtown Oklahoma City, preparing to hear what testimony Representative Charles Key is prepared to offer. Right now, Glenn Wilburn's widow is at the podium, and she is speaking to the press about her experiences with the grand jury investigation that is looking into the possibility that the government had prior knowledge of the April 19th, 1995 bombing. After she is done speaking, Representative Charles Key will come up to the podium and he will release what he says is new damaging evidence that the government did know, prior to April 19th, that a bomb was going to go off at the Murrah Building here in downtown Oklahoma City. Again, right now, Kathy Wilburn, Glenn Wilburn's widow, who was... Glenn Wilburn was crucial in getting this grand jury started. She is now at the podium speaking. Jerry, back to you.

BOHNEN: Okay, Kim. Now, based on information and such from the Key investigation and their committee, I've spoken with the two witnesses that they brought on hand... I understand, at least, are to be on hand for the announcement today -- a couple of Oklahoma County Reserve Sheriff's Deputies. They have a story to tell about what was told them the night of the bombing, statements made by at least an Oklahoma Congressman and an individual who was accompanying the Congressman to the scene of the Murrah Building -- indications of prior knowledge about the bombing and perhaps an indication of at least a bomb threat that had been made some ten days before the April 19th, 1995 bombing. And again, this information being gathered by State Representative Charles Key. Kim, let's listen to who is speaking at this point now.

EDWARDS: Right now, Kathy Wilburn is still on the stand... or still at the podium and then Representative Charles Key is standing behind her with a crowd of other people associated with the bombing investigation. Several of his investigators are there with him. And there are representatives from virtually all of the local media outlets as well as CNN and the Fox News Channel. A crowd of spectators has come away from the fence now and is also gathering around listening to what Kathy Wilburn has to say. Again, you talked about the deputies that say they have new information and they are there with Charles Key as well. I'm having some problems hearing you, Jerry, and I'm going to toss back to you for just a moment while I fix my audio problems at this end. And again, Kathy Wilburn is still speaking at the podium as we speak.

BOHNEN: Okay. While Kim clarifies that... The two deputies apparently were on guard duty the night of the bombing. I've interviewed them last night and the interview was embargoed until now while they are preparing the news conference. And what their story is is that one of them was on guard duty in front of the Water Resources Board when an Oklahoma Congressman approached them and happened to be talking about what happened... you know, earlier in the day, and the Congressman said, "Yeah, we knew this was going to happen. We blew it." There was apparently some right-wing, fundamentalist Muslim sect in Oklahoma City and the Sheriff's deputy made the comment, "I beg your pardon? What did you say?" "Yeah, we knew it was going to happen. We blew it." And at the same time, another reserve deputy was escorting one of the Congressman's aides around and at that point the aide told the reserve deputy that, "Yeah, Congressman indicated that there had been an April 9th bomb threat made to the federal building." Apparently no documentation can verify or support the claims, but certainly these are two long-time members of the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Reserve who tell me that they've been haunted for the past two-and-a-half years by what they knew, that they said they've talked freely about it with other Oklahoma County Sheriff's deputies, indicating that whenever they would see news media coverage of the government denying any prior knowledge, they would almost laugh about it and say, "Well, we know of at least one individual who had supposed prior knowledge." Let's see if KTOK's Kim Edwards has his monitoring problem rectified.

EDWARDS: Yes, I do, Jerry, and you're exactly right. The deputies do say that they were haunted by this, knowing that at least one government official claims he knew that this was going to happen, and then that's why they finally decided to come forward. And apparently they will talk today and hopefully answer questions about why they waited and what exactly they heard from Representative Ernest Istook on the night of April 19th. Again, Representative Istook apparently -- or according to Oklahoma County Reserve Deputies -- said that he knew this was going to happen and talked about a bomb threat that had been called in on April the 9th and also claimed to have knowledge of a right-wing, fundamentalist Muslim group working in Oklahoma City. What we can tell you right now: at the podium, Kathy Wilburn, the widow of Glenn Wilburn, who was instrumental in getting the Oklahoma County grand jury to investigate prior knowledge of the bombing. She is talking to reporters and others that have gathered here at the bomb-site about her experiences since the day of April 18th. She is joined by Representative Charles Key who is about to step forward to the podium. And let's go now live to the podium to cover the comments made by Representative Charles Key.

CHARLES KEY (State Representative): No one of us, and no one, would have ever wanted anything to have happened that happened here two-and-a-half years ago or the ordeal that we've gone through to simply find the truth. As we've seen with the deadlocked jury recently in Denver, it's obvious that there is much more to this case than what some in the government want us to know about. But the government refuses to admit that there were other murders and we know that there were.

Why do they refuse to admit that and why do they refuse to continue to look for them? Why has it been so difficult to get answers to the questions? Why have we been fought every step of the way in an unprecedented manner? When Glenn and I and Kathy and Edye and many others began this quest more than two years ago, we had a lot of questions, and we've had a lot of those questions answered since then. With these two witnesses coming forward today, we hope that many more questions will begin to be answered.

In October, Don Hammonds and David Kulkendorfer came to us... contacted my office, I should say. It took us several weeks of playing phone tag before we could finally make contact. And just approximately six weeks ago we got together, sat down, and talked to them and heard their story -- the same story you're going to hear in just a few minutes. These men are very courageous. They're telling just the truth, just what they know, and we think that people deserve to know what the truth is. And the grand jury has had this information passed to them and they'll hear this testimony and see their sworn affidavits in the very near future. So I want to introduce right now to you David and Don. They'll tell their stories. After they finish, I'll come up and make a few comments, and then after that time, all of us will be glad to field any questions. So I'll introduce to you David at this time.

DAVID KULKENDORFER (Oklahoma County Sheriff's Reserve Deputy): Hello. Can you hear me okay? My name is David Kulkendorfer and I'm an insurance agent in Oklahoma City by occupation. I'm also a reserve for the Oklahoma County Sheriff's office, a reserve deputy, which is my public service. And during the day of the bombing, I was on South Shields heading north to an appointment when I saw a plume of smoke go up. I was at the intersection of S.E. 66th and Shields. At that time, I knew something bad happened. By the black smoke, I thought possibly an oil tanker or something exploded. And by the direction of the smoke, I said, "That's right downtown and something is wrong. They're going to need some help." So I got on the phone and called my office and told them to cancel my appointment, that I wasn't going to be in. I said, "There is something going on in the city and I'm going to check." I think that was my responsibility as a reserve.

When I got here... I got here about 9:30 and it was very chaotic, obviously most of you know. So I just basically started to help and tried to do what I could do to be of assistance. I wound up down at the northwest corner of the building, and I entered the building at that point and worked my way through the building looking for survivors, calling out to see if anybody could hear me. And I worked my way along with an Oklahoma City police officer and an FBI agent. We worked our way to the seventh floor. And at that time, we were heading west to east on the seventh floor and a fireman came from the other direction and said, "You don't need to go that way. I've already cleared it."

So we were in the hallway heading back to go down the stairway, and on the south side of the building we could see people running, scattering. We kind of looked at each other and said, "Well, what's going on?" And we heard, "A bomb! There's another bomb! Get out of the building!" So we immediately gathered ourselves and ran to the stairway and started down the stairs. And as we were going down the stairs, this lady police officer, she stepped on some debris and twisted her ankle so we basically had to carry her the rest of the way. As we left the building, the FBI agent picked up her up and carried her to the safe area. Well, after the "all clear," I came back up and I said, "Well, what I need to do is I need to get organized and get in uniform." So I called my wife and told her, "Call the office. I'm not coming back today. Get my uniform. I'll meet you at the Sheriff's Office." I met her at the Sheriff's Office and changed clothes and came back and pretty well just tried to do what I could do. We went into the building continuing with the search and rescue. Well, that went on throughout the day.

Then that evening, when the rains came, we'd pretty well backed off and we went to our command post and got rain gear, came back out after the rain. And I was pretty well working the northwest corner when I was approached by a U.S. Marshal and said, "We got the building. The fire department turned it over to us. This is now a federal crime scene. We need to secure the area. Nobody comes in except...." He said, "Keep all non-essentials out." I said, "What's non-essential?" And he said, "The only ones to come in are the search and rescue and law enforcement." I said, "Okay." So, basically that was my responsibility from that point on, to keep everybody out.

Well, later on, during the evening, a lot of public officials started to show up. The mayor showed up with a contingency, and the district attorney, the governor, and several dignitaries. I was standing approximately in front of the Water Resources Building, to try to keep people out and watching the search and rescue. As I looked to my left, I could see Congressman Istook kind of working his way east to west. Well, he worked his way up to me and he stopped to my left and introduced himself and we kind of small-talked a little bit about, "How's everything? It's a bad, bad, bad deal."

And he made the comment to me, he says, "Yeah, we knew this was going to happen." And I said, "Excuse me?" And he says, "Yeah, we knew this was going to happen. We got word through our sources that there is a radical fundamental Islamic group in Oklahoma City and that they were going to bomb the federal building." And I didn't say anything because I really had nothing to say. But a little bit of small talk later, he kind of looked at me and said, "What department are you with?" He came over in front of me, and at that time I had a raincoat on and my campaign hat from the county. He looked at the emblem on the campaign hat. And I said, "Well, I'm a deputy with the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office." And he said, "Oh! I thought you were with the Highway Patrol," and immediately stopped talking and turned around and walked away.

And really, the reason I haven't said anything to this point... Don and I have talked about it every time we were on duty, and I thought, "Since the grand jury was in session, I'm sure this information is going to come out. It's got to. Because I'm sure if he made a comment to me, other people know also."

And this last fair, when Don and I were working, we got to discussing it again, and Don said, "Well, let me do this." He said, "Let me call Representative Key anonymously and tell him what we have to say, and if they want to hear us, fine; if they don't, fine. But at least we'll know either they know it or they don't." So he called Representative Key and through telephone tag we finally made an appointment and we basically said what we had to say. And later, Representative Key called us back for another appointment... another conference and said, "We need to take this to another level." He said, "What you have to say is very important." So that's why we're here. And like I said, that's all I know. I don't know the befores, the afters, or the what fors. All I know is this is what was said to me and that's what I'm repeating to you.

DON HAMMONDS: (Oklahoma County Sheriff's Reserve Deputy): My name is Don Hammonds and I'm a businessman and I've also been a reserve deputy with Oklahoma County since 1992. And I'm just going to jump in right kind of where Dave... where we were working together on the northwest side. And our job was to also give people coming in, like the mayor and stuff like that, hard hats and make sure they had hard hats, and also not to let anybody take pictures.

I noticed a lady back behind me by a back hoe over there taking pictures. I went up there and approached her and told her that, you know, "You can't take pictures here, ma'am." And she identified herself as an attorney, Lanney... Lana Tyree , and she was with Ernest Istook. She said they were friends and she was an amateur photographer and that she was taking pictures for Ernest Istook. So I agreed to let her come on in, but I told her she had to make sure she took pictures of... up, and no facial shots of anybody because they were photo sensitive. So she was... I was with her as she was taking pictures of the building and stuff like that. And she made a comment to me that Istook told her that they were aware of a bomb threat since April 9th, and that's all she said to me.

That's the kind of stuff that... after it all happened... I mean, you didn't really think much about it until this grand jury and stuff stated probing into it and people were claiming that there wasn't any prior knowledge. I started thinking about it and got with Dave, and we put two and two together. I mean, hey! Somebody knew about a prior bomb threat. This ought to be known. And you know, I was given a date -- April 9th -- that they knew about it, ten days before. And you know...

So we feel like, you know, it's only fair that everyone knows the truth that there is... you know, what's going on and who else knows about this. Thank you.

CHARLES KEY: Again, we'll take questions here in just a moment, but I guess some final thoughts are that we've had a lot of information. It's been a long process that we've been through, and it's probably still got a long ways to go. We've had a lot of people contact us with information, and I'm sure, and I understand the county grand jury, now that the two trials are over, they've had a lot of information come forward. And I can say to you that there will be more very significant, dynamic information like this come forward in the future. This is just the first of some major revelations that prove what Glenn Wilburn said quite a number of months ago, and that he was right -- that there was significant prior knowledge. And there are those that know that.

And I want to take this time to call again on people that do know information to come forward, take it to the grand jury. You can get it to our organization if you'd like. Because the truth needs to be told. It deserves to be told. And many people may be implicated because of their silence and their lack of action in regard to this. The people of this State and of this city and of this country deserve to know the truth.

There is no reason why you can't just lay all of the facts and the truth out about this case or any other case and let justice find its way through what the truth and what the facts are. And that's all we want. That's all most people want. And I can't think of any reason why that can't be done in this case.

Again, we've had so much trouble. We've been fought in an unprecedented way, at every turn and every step.

JERRY BOHNEN: You've been listening to a live coverage on KTOK -- a news conference held by State Representative Charles Key revealing the testimony or the claims of two Oklahoma County Reserve Deputy Sheriffs, that Congressman Ernest Istook told them the night of the bombing, "We knew this was going to happen, we blew it." So far, no comment from Congressman Ernest Istook, but we'll have him. He'll be joining us live at 4:15 p.m. on the KTOK Afternoon Report. We're eleven minutes away from two o'clock. Live from the KTOK News Center, I'm Jerry Bohnen.

[END OF PRESS CONFERENCE COVERAGE]

Christmas Freedom Costs

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