UNDERNEWS Sam Smith August 5, 1999 The Progressive Review 1739 Conn. Ave. NW Washington DC 20009 202-232-5544 Fax: 202-234-6222 E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] INDEX: http://prorev.com RECENT UNDERNEWS: http://prorev.com/indexa.htm TODAY'S HEADLINE NEWS: http://prorev.com/altnews.htm THE REVIEW FORUM: http://prorev.com/letters.com DONATIONS AND ORDER FORM: http://prorev.com/order3.htm UNSUBSCRIBE: Reply with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. For a free subscription to our e-mail updates send your postal address with zip code. Copyright 1999, The Progressive Review. Matter not independently copyrighted may be reprinted provided TPR is paid your normal reprint fees, if any, and is given proper credit. Because of its quantity, TPR's mail is not always answered, but it is always read. The editor is cheered or remorseful as appropriate and posts some of the more interesting messages at http://prorev.com/letters.htm ---------------------------------------------------------- WE'RE NOT MAKING THIS UP Those working for Talk Magazine have to sign confidentiality agreements promising not to talk. LOOSE CHANGE Left Business Observer Tracking studies, which follow people as they leave welfare, have found that 40-70% of all former welfare recipients are working when surveyed -- at an average earnings between $10,000 and $14,000, not impressive next to a poverty line of $13,133 for a family of three .... A preliminary study by Wendell Primus of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities found that the incomes of the poorest single-mother families declined between 1993 and 1997 despite and expanding economy .... The numbers of grocery handouts and soup kitchen meals have risen across the country. In New York state, they arose astronomically, from 13,5 million to slight more than 21 million between 1987 and 1995 .... Whatever problem welfare was supposed to solve, it's not solving the poverty problem. It's saving governments some money, though. LEFT BUSINESS OBSERVER http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html STARBUCKS KILLINGS A federal grand jury has indicted Carl Derek Cooper on racketeering, robbery and murder charges -- including the triple slaying at the Georgetown Starbucks. The indictment charges Cooper as heading a gang that specialized in robberies in Maryland and DC that occurred near closing time. In the Starbucks case ten shots were fired at three employees who were locking up the shop. Five of the shots hit Caitrin Mahoney. Due to Mahoney having been a White House intern and Monica Lewinsky's reported comment to Linda Tripp that she didn't want to end up like her, the case has attracted considerable attention. Because of anomalies in the incident, TPR has listed it as one of the curious deaths that have occurred to those involved with the Clinton machine. It will continue to be listed pending developments in the trial. The federal indictment names no co-conspirators in any of the incidents. US Attorney Wilma Lewis said that Cooper worked with someone else in planning the Starbucks robbery but carried it out alone. She also stated that "If Mr. Cooper is convicted of any three of the federal charges relating to the Starbucks murders . . . [he] could face the death penalty. That decision will be made later on by the attorney general." DC does not have a death penalty. Cooper allegedly confessed to the killings during a 54-hour interrogation. His defense attorney, Steven Kiersh, questions the interrogation and the lack of physical evidence linking Cooper to the Starbucks shop. Cooper plans to plead not guilty. LAND OF THE FREE The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that the Boy Scouts may not bar homosexuals, citing state anti-discrimination law. This is the first such ruling by a high state court. HILLARY WATCH The latest Zogby poll, taken after news of the HRC-Talk Magazine interview, finds CLinton tied with Rudolph Giuliani in the race for Senate. TPR considers this race remains far too close to call. MORNING LINE http://www.prorev.com/amline.htm DEBORAH ORIN, NEW YORK POST: When Hillary Clinton shows up looking demure and pretty in a pinkish pastel, you know she's in full damage-control mode and her spin doctors are running wild. So no wonder she wore pale peach yesterday to try to quell the flap over her blame-Grandma excuse for Sexgate, just as she wore pink to the 1994 press conference where she insisted her $1,000-to- $100,000 cattle-futures bonanza was perfectly legit. OTHER TALK In view of the infamous HRC-Talk interview, the new book, "Bill and Hillary, The Marriage," by Christopher Anderson makes some interesting observations and assertions, to wit: -- HRC was "deeply in love" with Vince Foster for the 20 years before he died. -- WJC had affairs that numbered in the hundreds. -- Jim McDougal: "Everyone knew about Hillary and Vince. Bill was not really in a position to object, now was he?" -- Former State Trooper and Clinton confidante LD Brown: "Hillary and Vince were deeply in love. I saw them locked in each other's arms, deep-kissing, nuzzling -- you have it." -- HRC to Brown: "There are some things you have to get outside your marriage that you can't get in it." -- During the Lewinsky uproar, HRC once slapped her husband hard enough to leave a mark visible to Secret Service agents. She was heard to scream, "You stupid, stupid, stupid bastard. My God, Bill, how could you risk everything for that?" -- HRC hired a private investigator to looking into her husband's affairs. CLINTON SCANDALS JERRY SEPER, WASHINGTON TIMES: The eight federal judges appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. District Court in Washington meet privately every month in closed-door sessions that other jurists believe are improper and call into question the court's impartiality .... Concern among courthouse officials about the meetings, which are described in e-mail addressed monthly to each of the eight judges, comes at a time that Chief U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson is being publicly criticized for selectively assigning criminal cases against friends and associates of Mr. Clinton's to judges the president has appointed. GOTTI ON CLINTON The New York Daily News quotes John Gotti as saying that Clinton got away with things a Mafia boss would never have gotten away with. In a conversation with his brother Peter, he was particularly struck with Clinton's taped conversation with Gennifer Flowers: "He's telling her, 'Why would you want to bring this out? If anybody investigates, you lie.' " Said Gotti, "If he had an Italian last name, they would've electrocuted him." Ironically, it was on the Gennifer Flowers tape that Clinton says that Mario Cuomo acted like a Mafioso. HISTORY In a piece on the Pacifica crisis, George Maurer gives an interesting bit of independent media history: ========== In the late sixties and early seventies hundreds of underground papers, backed by two alternative press agencies, served virtually every city and town in the nation, reaching between 2.5 and 4 million readers. This new media created a forum to discuss Vietnam, civil rights, drugs, alternative lifestyles and music. Some cities had two or three such papers, with competing viewpoints, giving voice to a new culture. The FBI used dirty tricks, convincing landlords to evict them, pressuring printers and distributors to refuse services. Despite the harassment the underground press flourished. In 1968, the CIA launched "Operation Resistance". Attacking the new journalism a CIA analyst complained: "The apparent freedom and ease in which this filth, slanderous and libelous statements, and what appear to be almost treasonous anti-establishment propaganda is allowed to circulate is difficult to rationalize." Seemingly unaware that the First Amendment of the constitution was all the rationalization needed. Eight out of ten under-ground papers would fail if a few record companies stopped advertising, the analyst concluded. Nervous about further involvement in illegal domestic operations, the CIA sent the recommendation to the FBI, which asked the record companies to pull their ads. By April, 1969 the ads began to disappear. The underground press began to slowly bleed to death. In 1971 there were over 400 underground papers in this country, by 1978 there were only 65, a third of which were founded after 1973. ========== JOBS: New listings posted today http://www.prorev.com/jobs.htm#jobs CORRECTIONS ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS NETWORK: http://www.enn.com ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS SERVICE http://www.enc.lycos.com THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW 1739 Connecticut Ave NW Washington DC 20009 202-232-5544 202-234-6222 Fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] Editor: Sam Smith INDEX : http://prorev.com RECENT UNDERNEWS : http://prorev.com/indexa.htm TODAY'S HEADLINES: http://prorev.com/altnews.htm THE REVIEW FORUM: http://prorev.com/letters.htm For a free trial subscription to both our bi-monthly hard copy edition and our regular e-mail updates send e-mail and terrestrial address to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To order "Sam Smith's Great American Political Repair Manual" (WW Norton) direct from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0393316270/progressiverevieA/
