UNDERNEWS Sam Smith September 15, 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 THE REVIEW UNCLASSIFIEDS: http://www.prorev.com/jobs.htm 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 ---------------------------------------------------------- FLOTSAM & JETSAM This issue is late because your editor was tied up in a six-hour voir dire for a double-robbery case. In the end, I maintained my perfect record of having never sat as a through a full trial. As a Coast Guard officer I was bounced from two courts martial, and I have been dismissed from three jury panels. In the one case in which I was seated, the first two witnesses -- US Park Police officers -- identified the defense counsel as the defendant. The trial was over in 20 minutes. In the most recent case, the judge's impressive if tedious effort to obtain a fair jury resulted in a long series of bench conferences as citizens told of their connections to crime and law enforcement. For my part I mentioned my USCG background, three house burglaries, one office break-in, one stolen car, being detained at Washington National Airport as a suspected terrorist due to a defective computer-screening machine, and the fact that one of my brother's in-laws had been killed in a drug store robbery. Then I explained to Judge Michael Rankin that, while I doubted it was relevant in this case, I had been advised that I should reveal my long public advocacy of the right of juries to judge both the law and the facts. I noted that this view had upset some judges. Judge Rankin said it didn't bother him although he didn't mind debating the issue and had done so with Paul Butler, the black lawyer-scholar who has promoted nullification as a form of protest. I told the judge that I didn't think Butler's arguments were effective because they were based on ethnicity rather than history, which offered a much stronger case. I then began a brief spiel the subject citing Learned Hand, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Thomas Jefferson. While previous US Attorneys had expressed hostility towards my views, this one merely asked whether there were any legal principles that I would uphold. I asked for an example and Judge Rankin said, well, you would support the presumption of innocence wouldn't you? I said, of course, and then -- brazenly rapping my hand on the judge's bench to punctuate the point -- said my concern was that the jury remain our last defense against tyranny, the final legislature deciding the law as it pertained to the case under consideration. To my amazement, Judge Rankin said, well, you'll get no argument from me. The judge and both attorneys agreed that the case under consideration did not raise such issues and that was the end of the matter. I was later dismissed on a peremptory challenge. * * * * * * The incident reminded me of another pleasant surprise I recently stumbled upon in a DC courthouse. Twenty citizens, including myself, are suing the President, Senate, House, and federal control board for the lack of DC self-government. The day before our hearing before a special three-judge panel in US District Court (in the very courtroom of Watergate, Iran-Contra, and Monica fame)someone called the US Marshals and warned that our group might be planning some disruption. Sure enough, when I entered the courthouse with co-plaintiff and black minister Graylan Hagler, there seemed an excess number of surly cops standing outside. A US Marshal approached and asked if he could help us. Rev. Hagler asked for directions to the cafeteria which the Marshal gave and then he looked at Hagler, and said, "I've been to your church, Reverend. In fact, one of my men is on your board of trustees. Let's go and bless him." So the marshal and the reverend left me to find the cafeteria by myself and to recall again something that is easy for activists to forget: not all your friends are out of power. THE RIGHTS OF JURIES http://www.prorev.com/juries.htm WORD "We did not rise up and become rebels because we believed ourselves stronger and more powerful. We rose up to demand democracy, freedom and justice because we have the reason and the dignity of history on our side." --Fifth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, Zapatista National Liberation Front WE ARE NOT MAKING THIS UP "White Man Gets Mayoral Nomination in Baltimore" -- Front page of Washington Post "He can operationalize aspirations." -- Fannie Mae chair Franklin Raines describing banker Lawrence Small, who has just been named secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He replaces a lawyer. The chair of the regent's executive committee is a former president of the World Bank. Previously, the institution always was run by scientists. "It was the last page of the report. Sometimes the staple doesn't go all the way through and a page gets lost. I'm sure that's what happened here" --Justice Department official explaining how in 1995 Congress only received 48 pages of a 49-page Justice report on the Waco siege. The final page included information on the use of military tear gas rounds. WACO MASSACRE ASSOCIATED PRESS: The federal prosecutor who raised questions about a possible Justice Department cover-up in the Waco standoff was abruptly removed from the case along with his boss, according to a court filing made public today. Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder recused U.S. Attorney James W. Blagg in San Antonio and assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Johnston in Waco from any further dealings in criminal or civil proceedings related to the siege. Holder appointed the U.S. attorney in a neighboring district as a ``special attorney to the U.S. attorney general." .... Johnston wrote Reno warning that aides within her own department were misleading her about federal agents' roles. The recusal notice provides no explanation for Holder's action. [TPR: Holder has been an absolutely reliable Clinton machine aparatchik] DRUDGE REPORT: The Justice Department has decided to back down from its attempt to stop a federal judge in Texas from gaining control of evidence relating to the Branch Davidian siege at Waco in 1993, the Dallas Morning News is reporting .... The News' Lee Hancock and David Jackson quote U.S. Attorney Mike Bradford, who initially expressed the government's plan to challenge Smith: "Our intent is to comply with the order. We're working on that now." WACO TRIBUNE-HERALD: Plaintiffs in the Branch Davidian lawsuit against the government filed a document Monday in Waco's federal court stating they have an expert who will testify his analysis of a FLIR tape shows at least 60 shots were fired at the Davidians on the day their residence burned down. THE FIRE UPCOMING CARL LIMBACHER, NEWSMAX: Inside Cover has learned that Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas was warned, by federal agents on the scene in Waco, to prepare for trauma victims at least six hours before a fiery inferno consumed the Branch Davidian compound on April 19, 1993 .... A news report, broadcast on local Dallas television as the Mt. Carmel church fire raged out of control, revealed that Parkland Hospital staff had been called by the FBI just after 6:00 A.M. that day, more than six hours before fire erupted inside the compound. The report featured a live interview with Parkland's then-Director of Emergency Services Jorie Kline by Channel 4's Cynthia Gau, a little more than an hour after the fire erupted: .... UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: You bring up a good point here that 25 to 30 people may have survived. Let's go live now to Parkland Hospital, where Cynthia Gau is standing by with more on the medical aspect. Cynthia, what can you tell us in that respect? GAU: We are in one of the largest and best burn centers in the state of Texas. And standing with me right now is Jorie Kline. And she is a nurse administrator here and she was put on alert; the whole hospital was put on alert, at 6:11 this morning. Now, what's going to be happening here? KLINE: Well, everyone is on alert because of the potential situation in Waco and everybody's prepared to take care of any patients that are flown to us from the Waco area. GAU: How many doctors will be available? KLINE: Well, from the general surgery service we can pool our resources of approximately 50 surgeons. And then we also have our emergency medicine program as well as internal medicine in case there are any smoke inhalation victims. NEWSMAX http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=1999/9/10/214817 WACO VS MENA MARA LEVERITT, ARKANSAS TIMES: Good for Asa Hutchinson. This week the Arkansas congressman called for a bipartisan inquiry into the federal government's use of incendiary tear gas canisters during the final hours of the siege at Waco .... Way to go, Congressman. Pursue those questions about who consulted with whom, to what extent the Army's Delta Force was involved, why the attorney general was kept (as she claims) completely in the dark, and whatever other dark secrets whose answers ought to come to light .... But don't forget that there are federal secrets concerning a town in Arkansas that have been even more deeply buried. As you may remember, I contacted you, asking your help in persuading the FBI to honor a Freedom of Information request about Mena that I'd had on file with them for years. You promised your assistance, but Rep. Vic Snyder, to whom I'd also written, actually went to work. The FBI stalled, but Snyder's staff persisted. Finally, their efforts paid off -- at least partly. Two weeks ago, I received 488 pages of FBI records pertaining to Barry Seal, the cocaine smuggler who, as you know, moved his billion-dollar drug business from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to the airport at Mena, Arkansas in 1982. You were the U.S. attorney for Arkansas's western district at the time, and, according to at least one former agent, you called a meeting soon after Seal arrived to advise federal investigators in the state that the smuggler was setting up shop. But, though he was constantly watched, Seal was never stopped. He operated from Mena, apparently unimpeded, until 1986, when he was murdered by Colombian operatives. .... Opening the box from the FBI, I hoped that the documents inside would answer some of these questions. Unfortunately, they did not. Instead, they raised several even more intriguing questions. For example, according to one document, the Justice Department kept tight control of the investigation into Seal's murder, "since," as an assistant attorney general explained, "this is a case with apparent national and organized crime dimensions..." .... But this is what I found most interesting. Notes explaining several of the deletions said that they had been made under provisions of the National Security Act of 1947 and the CIA Act of 1949. So it's quite a mess, you see, these jumbled references to organized crime and national security, to Colombian drug cartels and the CIA -- all within the heavily censored file of a smuggler who found safe haven in Arkansas during the last four years of his life. ARKANSAS TIMES http://www.arktimes.com/mara/090399mara.html FOSTER CASE SARAH FOSTER, WORLDNET DAILY: A three-judge federal panel unsealed a 511-page report, submitted by Kenneth Starr grand jury witness Patrick Knowlton in June, which -- in the view of its authors -- presents incontrovertible evidence of conspiracy and cover-up by the Justice Department and the Office of the Independent Counsel in connection with their investigations into Vincent Foster's death .... At the same time, the panel -- headed by David B. Sentelle, with Richard D. Cudahy and Peter T. Fay -- denied Knowlton's request that this report be attached as an amendment to the Interim Report on the investigation of Foster's death, which was released Oct. 10, 1997. There has been no final report .... Knowlton's report is, in fact, an expansion of an earlier 20-page filing, also by Knowlton -- comprised of a nine-page letter and 11 pages of exhibits -- which had been accepted by the same panel as an attachment to the Starr Report .... Knowlton's two reports are built on charges developed in a civil suit he filed Oct. 25, 1996, charging FBI agents, U.S. Park Police employees and others with obstruction of justice, witness intimidation, and personal harassment. An amended complaint was filed last October adding defendants and additional information. The civil rights suit was dismissed Sept. 9. Today Knowlton was expected to file a motion to reconsider that ruling while he prepares to appeal the ruling. WORLDNET DAILY http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19990915_xex_foster_death.shtml FIELD NOTES HURRICANE COVERAGE YAHOO http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/fc/World/Hurricane_Season NOAA http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov/"> http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov/ METEOROLOGY GUIDE http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/hurr/home.rxml HURRICANE SCALE http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/saffir.html US HURRICANES http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001443.html EXCELLENT EAST TIMOR POSTERS http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7112/posterd_scuni_021.htm MALATHION INFORMATION SITES: http://www.science.mcmaster.ca/Biology/4S03/malathio.htm http://www.chem-tox.com/malathion/plane/default.htm http://www.chem-tox.com/malathion/ http://www.chem-tox.com/malathion/research/index.htm http://www.ncchem.com/malathion.htm http://unix.adept.net/~mcsinfo/genetic.htm POPULATION CLOCK http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/clock2.html MORE NEWS http://www.prorev.com/indexa#15 -- East Timor -- Sex, death & Arkansas -- Two readers don't like our science -- Good words for the Greens in the British press -- The relation between poverty and education -- Something that actually stems youth violence 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/
