-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Impeachment Vote Congress Expected to Vote to Impeach Clinton Today The national emergency broadcasting system will interrupt programming to play "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony THE US Congress was grinding inexorably towards impeaching a president for only the second time in America's 222-year history last night. The vote on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power against President Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky case is due this morning. But there was no doubt last night, as debate continued in the House of Representatives, that Mr Clinton would be sent on Monday for trial in the Senate, where a two-thirds majority could remove him from office. Even Democrats on Capitol Hill privately acknowledge that Mr Clinton might soon be forced to consider resignation to save America from a trial in which Miss Lewinsky recounts details of her sex sessions with him. The White House tried desperately to shore up the President's deteriorating position last night. "What we have here is a cynical political strategy," said Joe Lockhart, Mr Clinton's spokesman. "The Republican leadership first told people impeachment was not final, and the President could defend himself in the Senate, and now they say because he is being impeached he should resign." But it is not just Right-wing Republicans who see resignation becoming a possibility. Many Senate Democrats are watching events and public opinion before deciding whether to send a delegation telling Mr Clinton to go. Even Centrist Republicans spoke harshly of his "high crimes and misdemeanours". As the impeachment debate continued, Washington reverberated with shock at the timing of Mr Clinton's decision to launch bombers against Iraq on the eve of Congress's scheduled impeachment vote. Republicans and some Democrats believe the President cynically calculated he could taint the impeachment vote by launching "the war of Monica's dress". Every threat of military action against Iraq has come when Mr Clinton was fighting for his political life. One senator asked: "How many coincidences can there be before you say it's not coincidence?" Senator Paul Coverdell supported majority leader Trent Lott, who on Wednesday withdrew his support for the President as Commander-in-Chief. "I thought he was raising questions that were appropriate given the incredible timing," Mr Coverdell said. The London Telegraph, Dec. 19, 1998 Impeachment Chic Clinton Plans Post-Impeachment Strategy Or, Get Ready for Acts of Sheer Desperation WASHINGTON (AP) -- His fate all but sealed with the stain of impeachment, President Clinton must now navigate an unpredictable and perilous course toward a climactic Senate trial. Republicans will intensify demands for his resignation as soon as they impeach him, hoping that Democratic lawmakers and the American public will follow suit. Two Democrats joined the chorus Friday, saying the president must go if impeached. ``There is going to be mounting pressure on him to resign after he is impeached,'' said presidential historian and biographer Robert Dallek. ``People can forget about that,'' replied Vice President Al Gore. ``Absolutely not,'' said White House press secretary Joe Lockhart. Clinton himself has ruled out resignation more than once. His closest associates don't think it's in the cards -- at least for now. First, he'll fight to avoid conviction in the Senate. And fight hard. The work will begin almost immediately after the impeachment vote, which even Clinton expects to go against him Saturday. He will launch an aggressive two-pronged campaign to lobby senators and shore up his 60-plus percent approval ratings, according to advisers who spoke on condition of anonymity. In the Senate, look for Clinton to lobby lawmakers. It is a smaller, more deliberative body that should be less hostile terrain for the president. His defense should be scrappier than in the House, if for no other reason than his advocates will be allowed to take part every step of the way. The White House plans to add people to its defense team. Former chief of staff Leon Panetta said Clinton needs ``someone who understands the United States Senate and the dynamics of that institution.'' Clinton already has somebody in his camp who fits that bill: former Sen. George Mitchell of Maine is an informal adviser. Initial head counts suggest the two-thirds vote needed to oust Clinton doesn't exist in the Senate. But his advisers realize their boss stands on shifting sands, and the tide could move swiftly against him. Clinton wants to avoid the humiliation of a Senate trial. One option is to attempt to muster a majority vote to adjourn the trial before it really gets off the ground. Another is to forge a deal resulting in a censure, but no conviction. The trial could be held without summoning Monica Lewinsky or other embarrassing witnesses to the stand. Advisers say they haven't determined whether any of those routes are open to them. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott says a trial is unavoidable. No deals, guys. ``No Republican is going to stand up and neuter impeachment sent by the House. Any Republican who does will be damaged politically,'' said consultant Dick Morris, who has worked for Clinton and Lott. To survive the Senate, Clinton must maintain his remarkably high job approval ratings. The White House is worried about some polls that suggest Americans might begin to favor resignation over a drawn-out trial. Clinton is likely to address the public after the House vote, assuring Americans that he can lead the country while leading his Senate defense. As part of the comprehensive post-impeachment strategy, Clinton surrogates will flood television and radio news shows with his side of the story. Look for his supporters to plead with him stand up to what they call a partisan attempt to toss a popular president from office. It would set a dangerous precedent for future presidents, they'll argue. ``Mr. President, if you hear me, do not resign!'' declared Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee during the House debate. Several GOP lawmakers have already said he should spare the country a Senate trail by quitting. The calls will cascade in coming days. On the eve of the House vote, Democratic lawmakers Louise Slaughter of New York and William Lipinski of Illinois added their voices. Party officials warned that Clinton's support on Capitol Hill could ebb over time. ``He's paying a price now for the first six years of his administration where he alienated a lot of people in the House and Senate by his various actions, not living up to some of his promises and not having enough friends in Congress,'' said Raymond Strother, a Washington consultant. ``I don't know what he can do now,'' the Democrat said. ``I really don't.'' Slaughter suggested Clinton should consider resigning because he will lose effectiveness. Effectiveness. Clinton advisers say that is the key to his approval rating remaining high and the president remaining in office. Voters must believe he can do the people's business under the cloud of impeachment. It was no accident that Hillary Rodham Clinton's first words on the subject in weeks went right to the issue of effectiveness. With the Capitol Dome piercing the distant horizon, she told reporters Friday that Americans share her ``approval and pride'' in the way the president does his job. ------ EDITOR'S NOTE: Ron Fournier has covered Bill Clinton for The Associated Press since Clinton's days as governor of Arkansas. The Associated Press, Dec. 18, 1998 Assassination Politics HILLARY & THE NSA I3 Identified by J. Orlin Grabbe On September 8, 1996, I posted information on the Internet that Hillary Clinton contracted with three government thugs to kill Dick Morris ( "Hillary Clinton Puts Out a Contract on Dick Morris"). I identified the thugs as working for "I-3 of the Pentagon". Three days later, on September 11, I clarified that I3 was actually a division of the National Security Agency, NSA ("Wars and Rumors of War"). My sources were adamant that the thugs were from I3, but refused to clarify what I3 was. Many people said the story couldn't be true, because there was no I3 at the NSA, or at least they had never heard of such a division. Well, lo and behold, the latest issue of Defense Information and Electronics Report, December 18, 1998, identifies I3 as an NSA division called "Defensive Information Operations". Here is the full item: The 'X' Files Readers curious about the inner workings of the super-secret National Security Agency may be curious about the roles of the assorted divisions NSA references from time to time. Within the realm of information systems security, NSA makes cryptic references to divisions such as "X," "I3," and "C" -- typically without an explanation of what they are or what they do. Wondering this ourselves, we contacted NSA public affairs and asked for an explanation. Several days later, the NSA response to our query was, "we don't normally divulge that information." Explanations that Defense Information and Electronics Report was not looking for sensitive data such as home telephone numbers -- just an organizational breakdown -- fell upon deaf ears. We were instructed we could make that request under the Freedom of Information Act. So we turned to the FOIA Office, curious how responsive the agency might be. Less than two months later, we got our answer. NSA supplied DI&ER with 13 pages of organizational charts, but all but two of hundreds of names are blacked-out. NSA revealed the Deputy Director for Information Systems Security is Michael Jacobs, and his assistant is John Nagengast (no surprises there). Beyond that, all positions are to remain anonymous. NSA employees are still provided business cards, though, which they are free to distribute as they see fit. We've even got a couple ourselves. Interestingly, NSA did not conceal the office telephone numbers that appeared in the Research and Technology "R" division, and showed further equanimity by outlining the "R" mission -- to "manage a research & technology development program that supports NSA's [signals intelligence] and INFOSEC missions." As a public service to our readers, the information supplied is reprinted in this issue, with all unsightly black redaction marks removed. And in case you were wondering -- "X" is network security, "I3" is Defensive Information Operations, and "C" is Security Evaluation. These days Dick Morris spends a lot of time in public quasi-defending Bill Clinton. But when the subject of Hillary comes up, he never hesitates to insert the knife. Wonder why? Meanwhile, the question remains, Does the NSA still run an assassination team out of I3? One thing is evident, however: the First Cunt continues to roam the land, destroying liberty wherever she can find it. Adobe Acrobat pdf file showing NSA's current organization. US Stock Market Greenspan's Asset Markets Bubble, bubble, world in trouble The US stock market is preventing global recession. If US consumers are to continue spending with vigour, equities may have to rise to yet more dizzying heights. This is frighteningly reminiscent of the political economy of the Japanese bubble of the late 1980s, on a global scale. For Alan Greenspan's Federal Reserve it also creates horrible dilemmas. The latest Economic Outlook from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates a 4.7 per cent expansion in US private consumption in 1998, accompanied by an 8.9 per cent increase in gross fixed investment. The resulting 5 per cent increase in domestic demand offsets a deterioration in the external balance of 1.6 per cent of gross domestic product. The result is GDP growth of 3.5 per cent and a boost to output in the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the US current account deficit cannot continue at 3 per cent of GDP indefinitely. Moreover, with equity markets fully recovered from the turbulence of August and September, valuations are once more at unprecedented levels. These high market valuations are driving the buoyant US spending: because households feel richer, they save less; because corporations find their assets more valuable, they build new ones. Research at the Federal Reserve suggests that the decline in US net private savings that lies behind the strong growth in domestic demand is largely explained by the increase in equity values. What lies behind the high prices of US equities? A part of the answer is the performance of the economy; another is one and a half decades of bullish markets. But a big part must be the conviction that they are underwritten by the Fed in order to sustain the expansion in domestic demand. The most revealing indication was the Fed's decision to cut the federal funds rate three times - in late September, mid-October and again in mid-November - by a total of three quarters of a percentage point, even though broad money continued to expand strongly. This policy was aimed at the security markets: it worked. Asset price bubble A close parallel is not hard to find. In the late 1980s the Japanese monetary authorities also encouraged an aggressive monetary expansion that fuelled an asset price bubble. This too was driven by the priority given to increasing domestic demand. The asset price inflation was, in effect, a solution, not a problem. And, for a while, it worked. But it also left Japan with horrible withdrawal symptoms. Supply the fix For the Federal Reserve similar dilemmas may well arise, as it seeks to sustain the growth in US demand. In view of what is happening in the world economy, the Federal Reserve has to supply the fix. But it too must worry about the ultimate fate of the junky. Critics of the Fed argue that the dependence of both the US and world economies on these very strong asset markets is its fault. If it had not been willing to allow the "irrational exuberance", identified by Mr Greenspan as far back as 1996, the balance of the economy would be far healthier today, they argue. Investors would have been better aware of the underlying risks, and the shocks of the past year and a half would have been correspondingly smaller. Today, therefore, the Fed could have had its cheap money policy without worrying about what it was also doing to asset prices. The response is that a bubble is only ever obvious in retrospect. Domestic inflationary pressures in the US have remained weak, and judging how to prick an asset price bubble is impossibly difficult, if one is also determined not to destabilise the economy. For all these reasons, the Fed could only warn of the risks, as it did. It could also look at the implications of asset price movements for domestic demand and inflation in framing its monetary policy, as it also did. This is a highly defensible point of view. But it has left the Fed with three big worries today. First, investors believe that in current circumstances, sustaining high asset prices is an implicit aim of monetary policy. Second, because they believe this, the risks they are prepared to assume are likely to grow - and grow. Third, if, or when, the price adjustment ultimately happens, the Fed may find itself trying to sustain demand in the teeth of a huge contrary wind. Households that have lost a vast amount of paper wealth must save. Then monetary policy may prove almost as ineffective in the US as now in Japan. The parallel may seem inconceivable today. Alas, it is not. The Financial Times, Dec. 19, 1998 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. 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