The Michigan Militia Corps'

Weekly Update
Internet Edition

Volume 5, Issue 36

Week of October 12, 1998


Baloney you can't blame on Bill

AMERICA'S meat packers are running scared of Bill Clinton. When New Jersey-based scientist Don Mueller tried to pitch a new line of lunch meat - Bubba Bill-o-ney (TM) - he found nothing but resistance from packers nationwide. They won't touch it, says Mueller, whose proposed Bubba line would include bologna, Slick Willie Wieners and Wee Willie Wieners (cocktail franks). Mueller, a Ph.D. and college professor, came up with the line to help his firm, Good Guy & Co., raise money for kids' science and math educational products. Mueller's meat wrappers feature a Clintonesque character with one hand on the Bible the other in the air, proclaiming, It's 100% Baloney and 0% Phoney! Mueller admits: I'm not a meat maker, I have nothing to do with meat except when I'm putting it between two slices of bread. But occasionally I come up with nutty ideas. Too nutty, it seems, for some. The president of a meat packing company in Chicago told me the sad story of how Bill Clinton shut down Hudson Foods Inc., an Arkansas-based meat processor. He said one of the former owners was an opponent of Clinton's Arkansas political machine and that he didn't want, quote, "That son-of-a-bitch, Bill Clinton, to close me down as well!' He said if he were to produce the Bubba Bill-o-ney line, "Clinton would send in his FDA men and shut me down in a week!' Hudson was taken over by its rival, the Clinton-friendly Tyson Foods, after having 25 million pounds of contaminated meat recalled.


White House Bill Delivery Stirs Flap at Capitol

The chairman of the Committee on House Oversight and the White House are at odds over a weekend incident in which the White House did not accept a bill passed by Congress Saturday.

The rare move of not accepting a piece of legislation for presidential action has caught the attention of Rep. Bill Thomas (R-CA), who chairs the committee, as well as the office of the House Parliamentarian.

"I only go back 20 years. I've talked to others who go back longer than me. No one could remember when someone was this cavalier, stiffing the Congress on the president receiving a bill," said Thomas, whose committee is responsible for transmitting legislation from Congress to the White House.

"The parliamentarians are concerned and others are concerned that it sets a precedent for the president to be able to control the flow of legislation from the Congress to him," Thomas told CNS.

The bill, which Thomas said was taken to the White House with a Capitol Hill police escort around 4:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon, was House Resolution 131. The bill would provide a waiver of "enrollment" of spending bills that Congress must still pass to provide continued funding for federal government operations for the new fiscal year, which began almost two weeks ago.

Bill enrollment, which Thomas described as "a very elaborate process," involves printing all passed bills on ceremonial parchment using specified print fonts and type sizes, as well as special packaging of the legislation for the president.

"This takes some time," said Thomas, who said waiving enrollment would speed the process by which Congress can prepare the spending bills for President Clinton's review.

White House spokesman Barry Toiv told CNS that the administration has "never" refused to accept legislation from Congress, and said he didn't understand the need to transmit the bill to the president on a weekend. "It's unclear to us why it had to get to the White House that day because it did not have to be signed that day," said Toiv.

According to Toiv, the White House clerk's office had already closed for the day when it learned that the bill would be delivered Saturday afternoon. "They said 'just send it over tomorrow or the next day and we'll be there.' This was not a bill that needed to be signed right away," said Toiv. "This was just a technical issue."

"The White House does not get to chose when it will accept a bill from Congress," said Jason Poblete, a spokesman for the Oversight Committee. President Clinton has been critical of congressional Republicans for not yet having in place a final spending plan for 1999, and Thomas said Clinton should work with Congress to help get the job done.

"The president is complaining about the (budget bill). And yet, we tried to create a more efficient way to get it done and get it to him, and they say it's not important enough to worry about on a Saturday," Thomas said.

But Toiv argued that an enrollment waiver like the one forwarded to the White House Saturday would not significantly speed the final budget and appropriations process. "That bill arriving here Saturday would not have expedited Congress's actions one iota," said Toiv. "What would expedite this process getting done is for Congress to do its job."

Toiv said the enrollment waiver bill contained nothing objectionable and told CNS that Clinton would sign the waiver legislation upon its arrival. "When it does get here, the president will sign it and do it in such a way that it does not hold up the appropriations process," Toiv said.

Officials with the Oversight Committee told CNS the bill was scheduled for delivery to the White House Monday afternoon.

Some of Thomas' concerns transcend simple protocol between Congress and the White House. He said he was also concerned about whether the precedent of not accepting legislation from Congress in a timely manner could affect the constitutional provisions for presidential vetoes.

Normally, a president has 10 days to act on a bill passed by Congress. If the president takes no action within 10 days, the bill automatically becomes law. But if Congress formally adjourns before that 10-day period expires, the legislation is vetoed automatically, otherwise known as a 'pocket veto.'

"(The White House) could develop a whole series of precedents here on timelines on something as fundamental as the constitutional power to veto," said Thomas. "Now we've got constitutional scholars examining when does the clock start on the 10 days, when the president receives it or when the Congress finalizes it."

Thomas said the weekend events surrounding the waiver of enrollment legislation could be seen as an attempt by the White House to manipulate the constitutional timeline for a pocket veto, but said he hoped "they're not doing it consciously," said Thomas.

"Either they have no understanding of the consequences of that kind of a cavalier decision, or they're attempting to set precedent, which obviously they were able to create by refusing to accept a bill on Saturday," said Thomas.


Utah Scouts call Clinton "Unworthy"

Some Boy Scouts in Utah do not want Bill Clinton to sign their Eagle Scout awards, saying this president of the United States is just not worthy.

Last month, Scott Farnsworth and six fellow Scouts were ready to receive their much-esteemed Eagle certificates -- a rank achieved by only 2.5 percent of Scouts nationwide.

Just as long as Mr. Clinton did not sign the certificate, that is.

The seven boys, ages 14 to 17, have asked that Mr. Clinton's signature be deleted from their Eagle Award certificates, which prove they earned at least 21 merit badges.

"The president's signature should be a thing of high honor," the Farnsworth youth, who is 14, told the Salt Lake Tribune. "But if your president is not worthy, if he has done something that is not worthy, it's not representing Scouting morals."

There are a dozen traits that Scouts traditionally strive for: trustworthiness, loyalty, helpfulness, friendliness, courtesy, kindness, obedience, cheerfulness, thrift, bravery, cleanliness and reverence.

Scouts also take an oath "to do my best; to do my duty to God and my country." The president, at least according to Sandra Farnsworth, Scott's mother, "seems not to believe in any of it."

According to Martin Latimer of the Great Salt Lake Council of Scouts, Mr. Clinton's "moral integrity" had concerned area Scout leaders even before the Monica Lewinsky matter surfaced.

Mr. Latimer advised Scouts to "send the certificate to the White House" rather than Scout headquarters if they wanted to protest the signature. "Presidential signatures on Eagle awards have been traditional since 1910," Boy Scouts of America spokesman Gregg Shields said yesterday. "Essentially, we are an apolitical organization. While we are proud that these boys have chosen to take a political stand and be active in democracy, we don't support or refute their actions."

The boy's actions, however, got some national notice this week when they were cited by Ross Perot in an op-ed piece he wrote for the New York Times that called for Mr. Clinton's resignation.

"No wonder at least seven Boy Scouts in Utah who won Eagle awards for observing the oath of honor and duty to God, country and self -- the highest commendation boys age 11 to 17 can earn -- refused their certificates with Clinton's signature as honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America," Mr. Perot wrote.

The Boy Scouts have been involved in three complex lawsuits this year that took their membership rules to task.

In March, a New Jersey appeals court ruled the 1990 dismissal of a homosexual Scout leader wrongful and discriminatory. The court said that Scout groups were "places of accommodation" and subject to New Jersey's anti-discrimination laws.

In April, however, the California Supreme Court upheld the right of the Boy Scouts to maintain their membership standards after the organization was sued by two young atheists and a homosexual leader who wanted to remain members.

Mr. Clinton, meanwhile, continues as honorary chairman of the Boy Scouts, as has every president since Howard Taft. Last year, he shook hands and gave speeches at a national jamboree ironically themed "Character Counts! Be Prepared for the 21st Century."


Brit. Crime Study - No guns - more crime

Most Crime Worse In England Than US, Study Says

October 11, 1998

LONDON - You are more likely to be mugged in England than in the United States, according to a new crime study reported with some consternation in Britain Sunday.

The study by a Cambridge University professor and a statistician from the U.S. Department of Justice said crime rates for serious offences such as assault, burglary, robbery, and motor vehicle theft were all higher in England and Wales than in America.

Rape and murder rates were still higher in the United States, but Britain was gaining ground, said The Sunday Times, which reported the study at the top of its front page. It said Britain may have tougher gun laws, but the United States had longer prison sentences.

"Common sense says America is the most crime-ridden country on earth while Britain is an oasis of peace and tranquility. Common sense is wrong," The Sunday Times said in an editorial.

"We urgently need to re-examine our cozy assumptions about law and order."

The Mail Sunday reprinted some of the study's findings. They said that in 1995, the last year for which complete statistics were available on both sides of the Atlantic, there were 20 assaults per 1,000 people or households in England and Wales but just 8.8 in the United States.

The rate of robbery is now 1.4 times higher in England and Wales than in the United States, and the British burglary rate is nearly double America's, the report said.

A spokeswoman for Britain's Home Office said officials were aware of the study.

"We are publishing our own crime statistics Tuesday, which will reflect the state of crime in the UK," the spokeswoman said.


NO WORK AND ALL PAY MAKES BILL A BAD PREZ

October 13, 1998

WHEN President Clinton pulled into New York yesterday for yet another fund-raiser for Chuck Schumer, it was his 100th money-grubbing trip of the year.

Incredible as it may seem, in this year alone, Clinton has made 100 forays out of Washington just to shake the money tree for contributions to prop up his collapsing presidency and party.

That means he is spending almost no time on the job. The record is truly scandalous.

In the 285 days of this year, Clinton has spent 152 days traveling, fund-raising or on vacation. And he's doing it all at taxpayer expense. If any other worker ran up a no-show job record like this, he'd be fired on the spot.

Clinton has not only consolidated his dubious place as one of the sleaziest men ever to occupy the White House - but he's beginning to look like one of the laziest.

He has been totally disengaged the whole year, said Rep. Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican who is majority whip. Not only has he spent more than 150 days on fund-raisers, photo ops and vacations, but he has had only two meetings with his Cabinet, one to lie to them the other to apologize. Then he shows up one day before Congress's targeted adjournment date to start negotiating the budget. Then he's off to Palm Beach and New York for more fund-raisers.

I challenge the president to stay in Washington like us and get the job done.

Fat chance. Clinton has only one obsession, and that is to save his own neck. To hell with the budget and everything else.

Rep. Dick Armey, the House majority leader, was furious that Clinton, the absentee president, dropped in at the last moment to present himself to the public as the great defender of American education. He's been AWOL all year, Armey wailed. He's been vetoing education initiatives all year. He's vetoed $800 million for local schools, education savings accounts, teacher tests and merit pay, low-income scholarships, helping kids learn to read. Now all of a sudden, he shows up. Where has he been all year?

Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican, made the same complaints. This president has outraged just about everybody in Congress, he said. This presidency - it's pitiful.

After reciting Clinton's abysmal job attendance, Hatch said that much of this year's legislation would have been dispatched if we had had a president working at it ... The world is falling down around us.

Sen. Robert Torricelli, the New Jersey Democrat, who has been a lap dog for the Clinton White House, is also fed up with the president. He told Meet the Press the Democratic Party was boiling with anger because all its initiatives this year had been dumped because of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

We lost the year, he whined. We've all been hurt ... The international situation is very dangerous and financially very precarious. There is work to be done. This has got to get settled. We cannot consume another two years dealing with Monica Lewinsky.

She is not worth it and, frankly, neither is Bill Clinton. The country is worth it.

Torricelli, for once, is right. Clinton is not worth it.

Budget negotiations between Congress and the White House may be stalled, a government shutdown hovers on the horizon, but what does the president do?

He hops the plane to go out of town and launch yet another round of fund-raising. That he should do it for Schumer is especially odious, if not downright corrupt. Everybody knows that Schumer is a member of the Judiciary Committee, which votes on the impeachment inquiry. Schumer, of course, voted nay to pursuing such an inquiry. Surprise, surprise. Schumer - who ended up missing his own fund-raiser - is trying to win Al D'Amato's Senate seat. The winner is a potential juror if impeachment leads to a Senate trial.

You don't have to be an astrologer to know how Schumer would vote on that matter. So the Clintons' all-out campaign to pour cash into Schumer's kitty is inspired not by their affection for Schumer but a desire to protect themselves.

They want his vote, whatever the cost. In any other venue, the Clintons would be arrested and indicted for jury tampering. This couple will stoop to anything and stop at nothing to preserve their sordid presidency. That Chuck Schumer should be a willing partner in the enterprise raises serious questions about his judgment.

If the Clintons can buy him, who else?

So Clinton has spent 152 days "traveling, fundraising, and vacationig." Can you imagine how the media would have handled that stat if Nixon had produced it? The media allows Clinton a pass when he says idiotic things like "lets get back to the business of..."

This is an interesting story on many levels. Not too long ago, when Ronald Reagan was president, people criticized him for not taking the presidency seriously enough. He was pretty much a 9 to 5'er, if that. I think talk was at the time that Reagan was subliminally trying to get the message across that government need not be so important in our lives. He illustrated that concept perfectly by giving the office just what it deserved--eight hours a day.

Clinton likes to portray himself as an activist, as many Democrats do, by creating an aura of intense activity, when, in fact, he is just a lazy slob. I used to work with a committed socialist in a semi-politcal job who was always in motion, creating the appearance of hard work. If you stepped back and looked at his day, it was filled with photocopying articles and nonstep gossiping on the phone to his wide network of friends about politics. It was all process and no results. I am reminded of him when I see Clinton, who uses Air Force One as my acquaintance used the photocopy machine. In the early days of his presidency, we were led to believe that Clinton was up to all hours of the night policy wonking. Well, now I guess we know the real truth.


CLINTON-CONNECTED BRIBES, BREAK-INS, BEATINGS, DEATH THREATS

Reportedly, Ken Starr is investigating Kathleen Willey's allegation that her property was vandalized and her children threatened just before she appeared before Starr's Monicagate grand jury.

But if Henry Hyde waits for the methodical Starr to complete his work on the Willey allegation, Bill Clinton could be pensioner back home in Little Rock before Congress gets a referral. Hyde need not depend on Starr when the list of witnesses with published accounts of scandal-connected threats, break-ins, beatings, and bribe attempts is as long as his arm.

Here are just a few of them:

Americans know about Gennifer Flowers' 12-year affair with President Clinton. But they aren't familiar with what Flowers says happened to her just before she went public with her story.

"I was getting threats. I had some saying I was going to be beaten up. I had some saying that I would be killed," Flowers told a New York radio audience in July 1997.

Flowers even fingered Clinton himself, whom she believes ordered agents to search her apartment for any evidence that could expose their relationship. Though portrayed by the media as a gold digger, Flowers' real reason for tape-recording her lover and then going public was self-preservation.

"Some very scary things were going on," she said. "... I made those tapes for my own protection."

Sally Perdue alleged only a brief affair with Clinton in 1983 but ran into similar trouble when Clinton embarked on his quest for national office nine years later.

She told the London Telegraph in 1994 that a Democratic operative had approached her, offered a bribe, and told Perdue that he "couldn't guarantee the safety of her pretty little legs" if she didn't cooperate. His name, according to Perdue, was Ron Tucker.

Afterwards, Perdue's car window was mysteriously broken. A spent shotgun shell was found on the car seat.

Loren Kirk had merely once shared an apartment with Gennifer Flowers, but that was enough for her to be chased down. San Francisco private eye Jack Palladino -- referred to as a "knee buster" by one Republican personally familiar with his 1992 work -- paid Kirk a visit that summer. And according to the American Spectator in April 1994, Palladino posed a chilling question to her.

"Is Gennifer Flowers the sort of person who would commit suicide?" the enforcer wanted to know.

Palladino was paid over $100,000 for his work as an alleged bimbo silencer. Dick Morris has questioned whether Palladino was paid from federal funds, which he rightly says would be a devastating development if proved.

Morris, who's spent the last few months warning about the "Clinton secret police," is apparently unaware that the Clinton watchdog group Citizens United published a copy of the pertinent page from the Clinton campaign's 1992 Federal Election Commission disbursement report. It suggests that at least $17,000 worth of Palladino's expenses were paid with campaign monies that had federal matching funds mixed in.

Another Flowers-related victim would be her Quapaw Towers neighbor, who says his videotape of Clinton standing outside her door was stolen by thugs who beat him to a pulp and left him for dead.

America could learn a thing or two from Johnson's testimony, and Hyde might supplement it with a deposition from a writer, who claims he was knocked unconscious in his hotel room while researching a report for the New Republic on Hillary Clinton's Rose Law Firm.

Former Miss America Elizabeth Ward Gracen has recounted in two recent interviews the incredible pressure brought to bear to win her silence about her own 1982 one night stand with Clinton. Her digs were also broken into in an apparent attempt to round up damaging evidence before it fell into the hands of Paula Jones' lawyers.

Arkansas state Trooper L.D. Brown claims he was approached in London last year by Clinton operatives who offered him $100,000 to change his Whitewater testimony.

Trooper Danny Ferguson alleged in late 1993 that the president himself called and offered a federal job for his silence about the women he procured for Clinton, one of whom was Paula Jones.

The press was compelled to pick up the original "Troopergate" reports, broken first in the Los Angeles Times and the American Spectator, largely because of Ferguson's bribery charge. Both USA Today and the American Lawyer have reported that friends of Ferguson strongly suspect that he has the Clinton bribery call on tape.

Is anyone in the main press interested in all this? Not so far. But unless Henry Hyde wants to see his hearings degenerate into a squabble about the relevance of perjury about sex, he'd better get interested. For instance, how about a subpoena for Danny Ferguson and the Clinton tape his friends believe he has?

Partisans can argue till the cows come home about whether lies about sex are impeachable. But a similar debate about Clinton-connected bribery, blackmail, and beatings should be rather short.


Disarm the BATF

Another day, another debacle for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

This time, the scene is not Waco, Texas, or Ruby Ridge, Idaho, but Taft, California -- another hotbed of "anti-government activity."

According to the federal government's own account, the BATF began an investigation into illegal firearms sales by people espousing anti-government rhetoric three or four years ago with an undercover agent allegedly making an illegal purchase of a .22-caliber pistol.

It ended last week with one of the three targets of the federal government probe dead in a highly unusual -- and, yes, improbable -- incident.

The official story goes something like this: Two BATF agents, a Kern County sheriff's deputy and Sgt. Ed Whiting of the Taft Police Department attempted to take into custody on illegal firearms trafficking charges, Darryl Howell, a 45-year-old grandfather and owner of a surplus store that sold, among other things, guns and ammunition.

A struggle between the BATF agents and Howell ensued. The cops say he broke away from them, lunged for a .45-caliber handgun, put it into his mouth and fired a single shot. Whiting, the story goes, had become temporarily distracted during the scuffle. When he heard the single shot, he instinctively aimed his gun at Howell and fired three more shots into his already, presumably, lifeless body.

Now, if you believe that, I have an intercontinental ballistic missile I'd like to sell you.

I'm not a cop, and I've never played one on TV. But I have reported on enough crime stories in my day to know when one stinks to high heaven. And this one smells like a cattle ranch on a windless, summer day in California's Central Valley.

Let me see if I have this straight. Four cops, one "suspect." This wanted outlaw -- so dangerous he's been under scrutiny of federal law enforcement for nearly four years -- is confronted not in his home, not on his lunch break, not on his way to work or after he locks up, but during the workday in a store loaded with firearms. Even though he's not accused of being on PCP or any other drugs, he cannot be physically subdued by four officers. They are unable to persuade him to come along peacefully or handcuff him involuntarily. Instead, he is permitted by these highly trained law enforcement professionals to grab one of his guns. But they don't shoot him right away. Oh no. They allow him to pick up the handgun, bring it all the way up to his mouth and pull the trigger. Only then, we are told, does one of the officers, who wasn't paying attention, pump the desperado full of lead.

Do these BATF clowns ever learn? Either these guys are Washington's answer to the Keystone Kops, or we have on the loose a cold, calculating, professional, Gestapo-like killing machine designed to root out dissidents exercising their Second Amendment rights and blow them away without the messiness of trials and due process.

How many times does America need to see such tragedies before it wakes up and disarms these dangerous, out-of-control, gun-slinging hitmen? The inmates are running the asylum, folks. Beam me up.

There is no allegation made by any of these cowboys that Howell or any others charged in a series of raids in the town of Taft last week had provided weapons to criminals or represented a threat to law-abiding citizens anywhere. In fact, I personally would have felt a lot safer in Taft last week, before Mr. Howell was "suicided" than I would today. I think most Americans would.

Let's suspend our own cognitive skills and good judgment for a moment and pretend the cops' story is 100 percent accurate. Was the four-year investigation worth it? Was it a prudent investment of taxpayer dollars? Why aren't these law-enforcement heroes out investigating real crimes of violence against innocent victims, instead of conducting secretive sting operations designed to entrap people into violating inherently unconstitutional laws?

But, you know what? Such talk can get you in trouble these days. One of the BATF agents responsible for this tragedy said one of Howell's friends had (gasp!) complained about a ban on "assault weapons" and the actions of President Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

At the risk of inviting a similar assault on my home or business, let me pick up that cry: These are, indeed, some of the people who represent a real threat to our lives and liberty in America today.


PEDOPHILES AVOID BACKGROUND CHECK AT DISNEY

Jimminy Cricket's motto, "when you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are," might well describe the laxity at Disney World, which has allowed known child molesters to gain employment at the resort without being subjected to a $15 criminal background check according to a new investigative report.

In their new book, "Disney, The Mouse Betrayed, Greed, Corruption, and Children at Risk," investigative journalists Peter Schweizer and Rochelle Schweizer say that Disney World finds the cost of running criminal background checks on its thousands of employees prohibitive.

Disney's Orlando headquarters did not return several telephone calls from CNS.

Rene Bray, who founded a group called Kids in Danger of Sexploitation, (KIDS), after her daughter was molested by a former Disney employee, believes the real reason Disney doesn't run the background checks is fear of what they might find out. "That was just an excuse," she said.

"If Disney were honest and did criminal background checks, we would be shocked and appalled at who's working at their parks and what they have been convicted of," says a former Orlando assistant district attorney, Michael Gibbons.

The Schweizers' book documents numerous cases of Disney employees with histories of child abuse.

One employee, David Wayne Fisher, was fired from an elementary school substitute teaching job for allegedly fondling his students before he was hired to give pony rides at Disney World's Fort Wilderness Campground. While he was working at Disney, Fisher was arrested for fondling a Girl Scout, but was allowed to continue in his job, which included placing children on the ponies.

Gibbons, who has investigated many child molestation cases and is a co-founder of KIDS, says it is shocking that a place like Disney World, which is such a natural attraction for children, doesn't do more extensive background investigations on its employees.

"Right now there are many incentives for pedophiles to work at Disney," says Gibbons. "When they advertise their attractions as a safe haven for children, the least they can do is make a minimal effort to protect those children."

Todd Everson, an operations host at Disney's Magic Kingdom, who has worked at Disney for six years and whose in-laws have worked there for 20, believes the screening process at Disney has loosened because of an increased need for workers.

"Anybody that walks in the door has a job at Disney, few questions asked," he says in the book. "The quality of people has deteriorated dramatically."


ABC Kills Story Critical Of Owner Disney

Official Denies Corporate Link Influenced Decision

ABC News President David Westin has killed a story by the network's top investigative reporter on allegations involving Walt Disney Co., which owns ABC.

The "20/20" segment by Brian Ross grew out of an exclusive contract with the publisher of a new book alleging hiring and safety problems at Disney World. The authors, Peter and Rochelle Schweizer, had been given written assurances that ABC's corporate ownership would not pose a problem, and Regnery Publishing had delayed the publication date to accommodate ABC's schedule.

ABC spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said yesterday that the story "did not work" and disputed suggestions that the network was reluctant to criticize its parent company. "The fact that this particular story involved Disney was not the reason it did not make air," she said.

Sources familiar with the decision said that Westin shouted at Ross and his producer, Rhonda Schwartz, after reading the script, questioning whether they were "crazy." Other sources noted that several top ABC managers and executive producers agreed with Westin that the piece was editorially flawed.

While Murphy said a revised version might be broadcast in the future, Ross and Schwartz submitted a second draft in recent days, and that too was deemed unacceptable. "It's my understanding that the story is dead," said Peter Schweizer, a view now shared within ABC.

Schweizer, whom Ross had interviewed on camera for three hours in August, framed the question this way: "If this were a story about any other company in America, would there be this problem?"

"Disney: The Mouse Betrayed" alleges, among other things, that Disney World in Florida fails to perform security checks that would prevent the hiring of sex offenders, and has problems with peeping Toms. The book includes copies of sheriff's reports on alleged pedophiles. Its tone appears hostile to Disney, with such chapter titles as "The Lyin' King" and "Mickey Mouse Justice."

Disney spokesman Tom Deegan dismissed the book as "a hatchet job of the first order. . . . A compilation of half-truths, innuendos, claims and charges made by every enemy we ever seem to have aroused."

On June 29, ABC producer Schwartz signed a confidentiality agreement calling for the network to receive an advance manuscript for "the possible use of the book for a report on a news or public-affairs broadcast." That agreement expired Sept. 27.

During the same period, said Richard Vigilante, vice president of the conservative Regnery firm, a senior ABC executive sent him a letter saying "that ABC would follow all the normal standards and practices," as on any other story. The letter, from ABC Senior Vice President Richard Wald, also promised not to "convey any information about the investigation to the object of the investigation, in this case Disney," Vigilante recalled.

The ABC team conducted numerous interviews for the piece and submitted a taped report. Vigilante says Schwartz repeatedly told him that "20/20" was overscheduled and would air the piece soon, but that these explanations became less convincing after the program ran a segment about dogs on Prozac.

"One reason we went ahead, perhaps stupidly, is that ABC has always been great in the past," Vigilante said.

In a prepared statement, ABC's Murphy said: "We were looking into a possible story concerning theme parks, which would have included among others Disney. A draft story was submitted that did not work. This does not reflect badly on any reporter or producer involved. It's an inevitable part of the editorial process. Some further work is being done, but no decision has been made as to whether or when a story will air."

One source maintained that ABC management did not discuss concerns about the story with Disney officials.

Vigilante said his company has essentially given up on ABC and has begun discussions with CBS's "60 Minutes" about doing a report tied to the book. Sources familiar with the situation at ABC say there are considerable tensions between senior management and Ross, an award-winning reporter who pushed hard for the piece.

ABC has not shied away from reporting on Disney in the past. Last March, "20/20" aired a report that cited Disney among a group of American companies hiring workers for extraordinarily low wages on a Pacific island.


Clinton--The Education President?

Dear Friends,

Seeing Clinton in Maryland today pontificating on education forced me to speak about this. During the summer of 1992 I was involved in civil litigation in Arkansas. My lawyers were from Litle Rock and well acquainted with both Rose Law Firm and Bill and Hillary Clinton. In addition to a couple of steamy, first person stories of Bill's bad behavior, they told me first-hand of Bill--the Education Governor. Remember that Clinton was Governor for 12 years, and that education was Hillary's pet project. Gifted high school students were taught in an old warehouse. Because they had no campus, students went up onto the roof at lunchtime to relax. An exceptionally brilliant female student, while relaxing during noon hour, fell through a rotten place in the roof and will everafter be a paraplegic. Arkansas law stipulates that citizens can sue for no more than $100,000 in a case of this sort. My lawyer was her lawyer, and he was appalled that Clinton could run for president as an advocate of education. At the same time, Clinton raided a teacher pension fund and was bailed out by the Indonesians. I know this--why doesn't EVERYONE know it?


Boiling the frog: Much will depend on 'electronic money'

OCT. 4, 1998, THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz

EDITORS: A version of this feature first appeared in the October edition of Las Vegas Magazine.

An Internet press release (how trendy) from the folks at MasterCard International, datelined "Purchase, N.Y., July 22, 1998," informs us: "MasterCard International hosted today an online forum with thought leaders from global business, government and research organizations to discuss lifestyle changes that will occur as smart card technology gains acceptance over the next five years.

"Representatives from IBM, Hitachi, British Telecommunications plc, the U.S. federal government's General Services Administration, The Tower Group and Emerge Online participated in the roundtable, which was moderated by Richard Phillimore, Senior Vice President of MasterCard's Chip Card Business unit.

"'Five years from now, multi-application smart cards will be an established technology in the payments business,' Phillimore said. 'As the benefits of multi-application smart cards are proven in the marketplace, the conversion from magnetic stripe to chip-based payment cards will be very rapid. By the year 2010, we expect all of MasterCard's credit and debit cards and terminals will be chip-based.'

"Smart cards will deliver increased consumer value and utility to today's credit cards, Phillimore added. 'Chip technology will enable cardholders to use their cards for many more purposes, such as electronic ticketing, loyalty programs, and secure remote shopping -- a true Lifestyle Card that can be tailored to meet the unique needs and preferences of a single individual.'"

When mentioning those ominous-sounding "loyalty programs," I should point out, the online MasterCard gang are referring not to government loyalty oaths of the "am not now and never have been a member of the Communist Party" variety, but rather a system in which cardholders receive discounts for "loyally" shopping through one company -- the system probably familiar to most consumers today via those "discount club cards" issued by your supermarket, offering you 30 cents off a package of toilet paper if you let the teller scan your card at the checkout stand.

Of course, the store gets something back in return for that discount. In addition to the obvious hope that you'll keep going back to the store whose discount card you carry (essentially, a surcharge is being applied to "hoppers" who show no store loyalty), the management can now easily track how many of its outlets you visit, and what you buy there.

The initial commercial applications may be innocent enough -- "Let's save postage by only sending coupons for this new brand of breakfast cereal to the home addresses of our shoppers who already buy the more expensive competitor." But you don't have to be the kind who walks stooped over to avoid the black helicopters to foresee the day when the government inspectors may arrive, asking to see the electronic profiles of all customers in a given geographic area who have used the fast-spreading cards to buy anything from home AIDS test kits to hydroponic "grow lights" to "High Times" magazine to pistol ammunition.

It's all stored in the computer, you know. And how long do you think Jack, your friendly local produce manager, is really going to refuse to let the FBI access his computer without a court order? About as long as it takes them to ask for his Social Security number and threaten to call their friends at the IRS, suggesting Jack may be in need of an immediate tax audit?

The cheerful little MasterCard press release doesn't take long to broach the subject of "expanded uses" for the new cards with their embedded memory chips: "The panel also addressed the use of smart cards for identification purposes. Many agreed that identification was the 'killer application' that would encourage adoption of smart card programs. Kotaro Yamashita, COO of Financial Services at Hitachi, Ltd. said, 'We see identification applications issued by governments as being big in many places outside of Asia, for example Central America.' However, Marty Wagner, Associate Administrator of the Office of Government wide Policy at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) cautioned that 'National identity card programs could run into trouble in the U.S. due to privacy concerns.' "

The process of accustoming Americans to carrying around cards which can be used to buy anything from a candy car to a soda pop to a round-trip airline ticket to London -- but whose embedded chips will also relay to corporate and government snoops the social security number and other personal information (and resultant tax obligations) of anyone making that purchase is well underway.

There's an old folk warning that if you throw a frog in boiling water he will quickly jump out. But if you put a frog in a pan of cold water and raise the temperature ever so slowly, the gradual warming will make the frog doze happily, triggering the soporific response he instinctively displays when the sun shines on his lily pad ... In fact, the frog will eventually cook to death, without ever waking up.

Likewise, some mighty high-powered public relations types are figuring ways to emphasize the convenience of "electronic cash" - and downplay the effect it may have in removing any remaining privacy from the way you spend your pay.

The goal? To cook the frog, without any ruckus.

Convenience, convenience, convenience, was the happy spin Time magazine put on a new "single electronic card that may replace everything in your wallet," in their issue of April 27, 1998. As the magazine was listing all the bothersome stuff you now have to lug around - cash, ATM cards, credit cards, proof of insurance - it made a not-so-subtle swipe at anyone who would resist the happy consolidation of such burdens:

"Your ID cards. PRESENT: You lug various bits of your legal identity. FUTURE: Non-conspiracists could consolidate pertinent info in one place."

Get that? If you don't want the government tax man to see your bank balance and a record of how many times you've flown to Zurich or the Cayman Islands, if you don't want the theater manager to see your alimony payments or your concealed-carry handgun permit, if you don't want your boss to see your prescription for post-cancer-surgery drugs, if you don't want EVERYONE to gain a precise accounting of how much you spent last month at Frederick's of Hollywood, or renting X-rated videos, or shacked up in a motel room across town, or purchasing alcoholic beverages, or buying vaginal contraceptive foam (including which brand you prefer), why, you're just some loony "conspiracist."

Also note that "could" ... as though we'll still have any choice.

But why worry? Digital cash will be great, argues Joshua Cooper Ramo in the big "Future of Money" piece in the April 27 Time: "Think about the $2,000 check you send to your daughter at college for expenses. How is that money really spent? Books ... or beer? Electronic cash takes that relatively simple transaction -- passing an allowance -- and makes it into a much more intelligent process. ... "Your daughter can store the money any way she wants -- on her laptop, on a debit card, even (in the not too distant future) on a chip implanted under her skin. And, perhaps best of all, you can program the money to be spent only in specific ways. You might instruct some of the digits to go for books, some for food and some for movies. Unless you pass along a few digits that can be cashed at the local pub, she'll have to find someone else to buy the drinks."

Ha ha. Kind of cute, isn't it? But look again. Isn't the underlying theme one of "control"? Try substituting a different scenario for Mr. Ramo's. How about: "Think about the $1,000 Social Security check your agency sends a retiree in Las Vegas. How is that money really spent? Food and lodging ... or blackjack, roulette, and Margaritas?"

If the purpose of government retirement insurance is to make sure old folks have food and a roof over their head, doesn't the government have an OBLIGATION to "earmark" portions of those checks so they can only be used to buy certain things, once the new e-cash technology gives them that capability? Couldn't we set e-cards to freeze a recipient's account if she tried to use any of the "money" to pay for a second prescription of pain pills written by a doctor other than her ASSIGNED doctor, or to buy a naughty book about how to evade taxes, or how to move money into offshore accounts?

For that matter, what if your boss started earmarking parts of your electronic paycheck for rent or groceries -- at certain stores that pay for the consideration -- all "for your own good," you understand? After all, the kind of soccer moms who elected Bill Clinton can be counted on to favor almost any additional Big Brother controls over those irresponsible men in their lives, frittering away their paychecks on bar tabs, dirty magazines, power tools, and fancy chrome doo-dads for their pickup trucks.

Donald S. McAlvany, editor of the economic and geopolitical newsletter "The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor," is a fellow who has been looking into the move toward trackable "electronic cash" for some time. The lead article in the July, 1998 edition of his 16-page newsletter is headlined "Toward a Cashless Society: Implementing an Electronic Currency in America," and spells out a very different view of these developing trends from the one embraced by the jovial publicists at Time:

"The global socialists who dominate America and most of the governments of the western world today (especially Western Europe) have long had a goal of moving the world away from the use of cash and into an electronic funds currency system, wherein virtually all cash in use is 'electronic currency,' " writes Mr. McAlvany. "If all financial transactions are forced through an electronic banking system ... the ultimate 'people control' system could be established. ..."

Citing George Orwell's classic novel "1984," Mr. McAlvany reminds us: "Privacy is a major element of freedom, without which people and nations cannot remain free. Today, we have dozens of privacy-destroying systems being put in place by governments all over the world. They include video camera surveillance in public places; electronic eavesdropping on computers, phones and faxes; dozens of computerized files on each adult American - compiled from credit card, banking, and tax records; physical surveillance of homes, in whole areas via satellite, helicopters, and other aircraft; the growing use of Social Security numbers to extract all kinds of information on Americans from business, banking, and government data cases; photo IDs required at airports; and the push by the Clinton Administration for a computerized (smart card) national identification card for all U.S. citizens.

"But the greatest privacy-destroying system of all, one which would have made Big Brother's, Adolf Hitler's, Mao's, Lenin's or Stalin's mouths water is the elimination of cash and the forcing of all citizens into the computerized banking system for "a" transactions. Ultimately these transactions can be monitored, recorded, profiled, and used in 'people control.' If all of your personal transactions can be so tracked, a socialist government bent on identifying, profiling and controlling its 'politically incorrect' citizens or 'religious fanatics' or Bible-believing Christians; gun owners; critics of the government; non-tax compliers, can easily scrutinize and build a profile on such individuals. It can also, in the absence of a cash-spending alternative, deny the privilege to buy and sell to those who are politically or religiously incorrect."

Since one of the main problems banks may have during the anticipated computer crisis brought about by the turning of the century is clearing checks written on other banks -- banks whose computers may not agree with the home bank's "fix" for the transition from year date 99 to year date 00-- Mr. McAlvany suggests that crisis might present a perfect opportunity to effectively require bank customers to change over from paper checks to "electronic cash."

"Remember that during the financial crisis of the 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt presented the American people with the alternative of a bank holiday/gold confiscation/Draconian financial controls "or" financial destruction, they willingly chose the former and gave up a major portion of their financial freedom."

The removal of cash, of course, will be advertised as having many benefits. Since drug dealers buy and sell their product with suitcases full of hundred-dollar bills, it will be alleged that the switch will end the drug trade (as though a multi-billion-dollar industry won't promptly hire both fancy accountants and computer geniuses to figure out how to "go electronic" without throwing blips on the IRS radar screens -- or as though they won't just add newly "illegal" hundred-dollar bills to the list of contraband they now freely move outside official channels.)

Expect a public relations campaign to expose the "health hazard" of all those dirty pennies and nickels you have lying around the house. Passed from hand to hand among AIDS patients and tuberculosis-ridden junkies, how can you let your children handle such stuff? Instead, buy Sean and Alysson a new pair of color-coordinated, his-and-hers Kiddie Smart Cards, which neatly deduct exactly $1.77 from their accounts when they buy lunch at school, without burdening them down with filthy, wasteful, inconvenient (and expensive to produce) coins ... coins they might otherwise save up, after all, to buy dirty magazines, or reefer, or who knows what else?

Yep, it's all for your health, safety, and convenience. And why would anyone object ... unless, of course, they had something to "hide". What was your name again? And could I have your 18-digit bank tracking number, please? You're in this country legally, aren't you? Not some kind of a federal fugitive/deadbeat dad? There, that's better. See how easy things are when you cooperate? Just slide your card through the security/debit slot. Now pass your wrist over the scanner to make sure your embedded personal chip has the matching security code. Thank you; you may now move along. We know you have a choice when you dine out; thank you for patronizing Burger World.


Does Gore know or care ?

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department's official forecasting arm has produced an extraordinarily pessimistic forecast of steeply rising energy prices if the United States fights global warming by clamping down on emissions of heat-trapping gases that come from burning fossil fuels.

Under various outcomes, the forecasting arm, the Energy Information Administration, projected gasoline prices would rise to between $1.39 and $1.91 a gallon, and electricity prices would rise 20 percent to 86 percent by 2010. Natural gas prices would rise significantly and coal prices would soar, the forecast said.

Under an international agreement negotiated last year in Kyoto, Japan, the United States would have to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases significantly in 10 to 15 years. But the treaty is in trouble in Congress, where opponents often say it would wreck the economy.


UN Missions Loses $23M in Equipment

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Missing: 1,898 vehicles, 882 computers and 1,787 generators.

U.N. peacekeeping missions lost over 16,000 big-ticket items between 1993 and 1995, at a whopping cost of $23 million, a U.N. report said Monday.

Most of the goods were stolen, but accidents accounted for another significant chunk of the lost goods, followed by disappearances caused by "acts of war" or hostilities, the report said. Negligence on the part of U.N. staff was also to blame.

The report covered only U.N. peacekeeping operations from those three years, and represented only a fraction of what the United Nations may have lost in all of its other missions, including refugee operations, humanitarian aid and civilian police forces.

The United Nations prepared the report after the main U.N. budget committee documented the tremendous losses incurred by the U.N. transitional authority in Cambodia -- an estimated $6 million over the course of the mission.

The United Nations outdid itself preparing for Cambodia's 1993 elections that eventually created an alliance between strongman Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Ranariddh. The U.N. mission spent millions to create a showcase for helping spread democracy to the world, sending into Cambodia fancy 4-wheel drive vehicles and peacekeepers from around the world.

Based on those huge losses, the budget committee asked the U.N. chief to report on all peacekeeping missions -- and list measures taken to try to keep track of U.N. goods.

Many of the report's recommendations are straightforward: install a fence, lights or alarms and keep better track of vehicles and who is allowed to drive them. But the report cautions that sometimes prevention measures can actually cost more than the goods that are being protected, since that could involve hiring more U.N. military police or investigators.

The report found that over three years, U.N. peacekeeping missions lost 16,337 items -- each of which cost $1,500 or more, or were considered to be of an "attractive nature" such as cameras. Items lost or damaged due to natural disasters or regular wear and tear weren't included.

Vehicles -- including jeeps, sedans, mini-buses, trailers and trucks -- made up the bulk of the missing goods and amounted to $15.8 million of the losses, the U.N. report said.

Seven thousand items from housing units disappeared, as did 561 items for radio stations and workshops. Phones, faxes and other communication equipment constituted 1,578 of the missing items.

But it was the Cambodian experience that was the most remarkable. According to the report, stolen U.N. property could be seen for sale in local shops.

In the final months of the mission, theft "was so rampant that as much of the property as possible was immediately shipped out of the country" by the United Nations, the report said.


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