UNDERNEWS
Sam Smith
October 1, 1999
The Progressive Review
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POLITICIDE
With the sort of fidelity W.J. Clinton has for his mistresses, the media
consensus has suddenly started shifting away from the formerly 100% certain
Democratic nominee, Al Gore. Bradley's recent success in fundraising and a
few poll gains in liberal states have been all that was needed for the
prognosticators to rush off.
This sort of thing helps create a self-fulfilling prophesy just as it did
when virtually all of the campaign correspondents surveyed in 1992 said as
early as New Hampshire that they would pick Clinton if they could vote in
the state. In fact, one good reason for Gore to move to Tennessee is so he
can run against the Washington journalists and their attempted politicide
against him.
TPR's approach is different and, as a result, it has been able to come close
to the actual electoral vote count in the last two elections. What's our
secret? To use stock market terminology, we are chartists rather than
fundamentalists. Most of the TOYA -- Talking Out Your Ass -- crowd you see
on TV is telling you what should be happening if all were right with the
world. Chartists, on the other hand, are the existentialists of
prognostication. They accept the absurdity of the universe and look for
patterns without expecting or demanding that they be based in logic. In
other words, studying inertia reveals far more of God's ways than reading
David Broder does.
Here then are GWB's point spreads over Gore in the last 10 polls (reading
down):
oooooooooOoooooooo
oooooooooOoooo
oooooooooOoooooooooOooooooo
oooooooooOooo
oooooooooOooooooo
oooooooooOoo
oooooooooOoooooooo
oooooooooOoooooooooo
oooooooooOoooo
oooooooooOooooo
Which is to say, not much change. Now here are Bush's point spreads over
Bradley in recent polls
oooooooooOooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooOooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooOoooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooOooo
oooooooooOoooooooooooooo
oooooooooOooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooOoooooooooOooooooooo
oooooooooOooooooo
oooooooooOoooooo
oooooooooOooooooooo
Which is to say, some slippage by GWB but nothing significant yet. Now here
are national polls showing Gore's point spread over Bradley:
oooooooooOoooooooooOoooooooooOo
oooooooooOoooooooooOoooooooooOoooooooooOooo
oooooooooOoooooooooOooooooooo
oooooooooOoooooooooOooooooo
oooooooooOoooooooooOoooooooooOoooooo
oooooooooOoooooooooOoooooooooOoooooooooOo
oooooooooOoooooooooOoooooooooOooooo
oooooooooOoooooooo
oooooooooOoooooooooOoooooo
oooooooooOoooooooooOoooooooooOooo
Again nothing to justify the Bradley boom in the media. On the other hand,
here's what happening to the Gore lead in a few places
Massachusetts
oooooooooOoooo
ooo
New Hampshire
|oooooooooOooooooo
|oooooooooOooooooooo
|oooooooooOoo
|oooooooooOoooooo
|oooooooooOooooooo
|ooooooo
|oooo
|oooooo
ooo| [Bradley lead]
New York
oooooooooOoooooooo
ooooooooo
oooooo
oo
Rhode Island
o
In New Jersey Bradley beats Bush, while Gore loses. Gore's Tennessee, on the
other hand, is a toss-up.
In other words, Gore remains the same weak candidate he has been from the
start. Bradley has yet to gain significantly on Bush but has cut into Gore
in a few eastern liberal states. None of this, however, justifies the
Bradley boom in the media. If Bradley suddenly starts doing better, you can
credit the media's premature dumping of Gore as much as any virtues of the
Bradley camp.
Finally, here's a good indication that Bradley is taking off: he starts to
cut significantly into GWB's lead or he closes on Gore in important
non-liberal states.
TPR'S MORNING LINE http://prorev.com/amline.htm
STUPID POLITICIAN TRICKS
The Montgomery County MD Health Department order residents at a small town
fair to stop handing out candy to children. Said one resident, "I guess
we're lucky they didn't come along earlier when candy was being thrown off
floats in during the parade. The whole town could've ended up in the clink."
Added a councilmember, "The last thing we need is 'candy police' here in
Montgomery County. If this continues, Halloween in Montgomery will be just a
sweet memory."
The Washington police are sending in deceptively older-looking decoys to
trap normally compliant restaurants into serving under-age patrons, reports
the city's restaurant association. According to Eric Peterson, "They're
doing it right at the dinner hour, at the time when the place is busiest
when the staff is trying to accommodate everybody." In July and August the
cops raided 214 establishment and made 92 arrests. First time fine for
business that are entrapped: $1500.
Maine State Police soon will be fingerprinting 35,000 teachers and other
employees in the state's public schools.
JUST POLITICS
How much would it cost if Bill Bradley got you a health plan like federal
employees have? According to Mike Causey in the Washington Post the
individual plans run $30-$55 every two weeks for individuals and $67 to $109
for families. A high option family plan would run about $134 biweekly.
CANADIAN GOVERNMENT
TARGETS GREEN LEADER
OTTAWA CITIZEN: Joan Russow, the federal Green Party leader, has filed a
formal complaint with the watchdog that oversees Canada's spy agency about
her appearance on a secret threat assessment list at the 1997 APEC
conference. Ms. Russow wants the Security Intelligence Review Committee to
determine why she was branded a potential risk to the Asia-Pacific summit in
Vancouver .... Ms. Russow's problems began when officials revoked her
accreditation for the summit, which she attended as a reporter for the Oak
Bay News, a community paper in Victoria. .... Ms. Russow's suspicions were
confirmed in late 1998 when copies of the threat assessment, including her
photo and vital statistics, were tabled with the RCMP Public Complaints
Commission. The commission is conducting hearings into complaints from
protesters who were pepper-sprayed and arrested by police at the University
of British Columbia, where the APEC leaders met .... In order to gauge
threats, security officials conducted undercover operations. Other records
have shown the RCMP infiltrated the protest group APEC Alert .... Her photo
appears in the threat assessment alongside those of several other people.
One is described as a "lesbian activist/anarchist." Another is listed as an
"HIV Positive AIDS Activist" with potential to be violent .... A separate
document, prepared by threat assessment officials during the summit,
describes Ms. Russow and another media member as "overly sympathetic" to
APEC protesters. "Both subjects have had their accreditation seized."
LOOSE CHANGE
Latest stats
1969 median family income: $33m
1979 median family income: $35m
1989 median family income: $38m
1998 median family income: $39m
1969 poverty rate 14%
1975 poverty rate 11%
1979 poverty rate 16%
1989 poverty rate 13%
1993 poverty rate 15%
1998 poverty rate 13%
1979 black poverty rate 31%
1989 black poverty rate 31%
1998 black poverty rate 26%
1998 latino poverty rate 26%
1979 child poverty rate 16%
1989 child poverty rate 21%
1997 child poverty rate 19%
[Census Bureau & Economic Policy Institute]
THE MEDIACRACY
Proving once again that the greatest censorship facing the American media is
self-imposed, few outlets gave coverage to President's Clinton
out-of-control spat with a reporter the coverage it deserved. Even though
the incident, previously reported here, occurred at a White House party for
the press, the best the Washington Post could do was to give it an up-beat
and trivialized treatment in its gossip column.
Clinton's outburst was not unique, although you'd never know it from the
media. Here are some other examples pointed out by Newsmax:
-- "In February 1994 Clinton made his first presidential trip to Moscow, and
hoped to burnish his foreign policy credentials with a receptive press
corps. His first in-studio network interview was with NBC's Jim
Miclasvewski, who began by asking Clinton two Whitewater questions. After a
couple of terse responses Clinton stood up, tore off his lapel microphone
and stomped off the set, telling the veteran reporter, 'You've had your
interview. Sorry you're not interested in the trip.' .... NBC saw nothing
particularly newsworthy in the Clinton-Miclasvewski confrontation by itself.
The video showing the presidential meltdown never aired again after that day.
-- Much the same thing happened seven months earlier, when Brit Hume, then
with ABC News, was the first called upon at a televised Rose Garden press
conference where Clinton announced his nomination of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg for
the Supreme Court. Clinton had a difficult time coming up with an acceptable
nominee, and had just had two prospective candidates for attorney general
scuttled over Nannygate problems. Hume asked Clinton to walk the press
through what seemed like a 'zigzag' decision-making process. The President
immediately bristled at the seemingly innocuous query, telling Hume, 'I
don't know how you can ask a question like that.' After mumbling the rest of
his response through clenched jaws, Clinton stormed away from the podium.
The one-question press conference was the shortest in presidential history.
The Hume incident was harder to ignore, since the entire Washington press
corps witnessed it. Still, over the years the media has done its best to
keep Clinton's 'nice guy' image intact by staying away from the kind of
confrontational exchanges that got Hume, Miclasvewski and Sperry into
trouble."
NEWSMAX http://www.newsmax.com
CLINTON SCANDALS
WASHINGTON POST: Congressional Republicans opened a new front in their war
on Attorney General Janet Reno yesterday, blasting the Justice Department
for a plea bargain offering a 12 1/2- to 15-year sentence to a notorious
Boston mobster who has confessed to committing 20 murders. House Majority
Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) called on Reno to review the generous deal
offered to hit man John Martorano, 58, who pleaded guilty yesterday to
racketeering charges in federal court in Boston. U.S. Attorney Donald K.
Stern gave Martorano the deal in exchange for his testimony against other
New England gangsters, in a celebrated case that has deteriorated into a
huge fiasco for the department .... During pretrial hearings, it became
clear that for years, FBI agents gave Martorano's co-defendants, Winter Hill
Gang leader James "Whitey" Bulger and sidekick Stephen "The Rifleman"
Flemmi, a virtual free pass to commit crimes in exchange for information on
other organized crime leaders in New England .... Bulger remains on the lam;
some believe FBI agents tipped him off before his 1995 indictment. Flemmi
has argued that he should be free as well because the FBI promised him
immunity for his crimes; Judge Mark Wolf has essentially put the FBI on
trial to investigate those claims.
WASHINGTON POST: http://www.washingtonpost.com
ART AND POLITICS
NEW YORK TIMES: The escalating presence of New York City government
officials policing the art world is ominous. That said, idiotic art
desperate to provoke a response gets shown in big galleries and museums, and
everyone is expected to defend it on First Amendment grounds ....
Under ordinary circumstances, bad art naturally gets sorted out and
disappears . That is how history works when it is left along to do its job.
The paradox of the culture wars is that they have made celebrities out of
some artists who would otherwise vanish. Censorship has become a growth
industry. This may be the best argument, in the end, for unfettered freedom
of expression. -- Michael Kimmelman
MOST DISTURBING FACT OF THE DAY
One out of every eight Americans is governed by a Bush -- Barbara Bush
THE EQUITIES OF HATE
TPR regards the advent of "hate crimes" as another indication of the
general breakdown of common sense inasmuch as they are both ineffective and
unconstitutional (they punish protected motivation and speech rather than
sanctionable action). But if we are going to have such laws at the very
least there should be some equity in the definition of hate. Thus the
National Review was absolutely right to point out that, by the standards of
the day, the killings at Fort Worth and some of those at Columbine High
school fit the description of anti-Christian hate crimes.
JUST POLITICS
Carter Eskew says he has severed all ties with an advertising firm
developing a campaign for Philip Morris to fight the federal lawsuit against
the tobacco industry. Eskew is a top campaign consultant to presidential
candidate and former tobacco grower Al Gore. Eskew also helped to create
last year's advertising campaign against anti-tobacco legislation. His
recent change of heart came after the New York Times began asking questions
about it all.
Thanks to a change in the state law the Maine Green Independent Party and
the Reform Party now have official status. The two parties are eligible for
tax form donations and will appear on voter registration applications.
WACO INVESTIGATORS
PLEASE COPY
The new defense authorization bill contains hidden language that would allow
the Secretary of Defense to keep secret the names of any members of the
armed forces "assigned to an overseas unit, a sensitive unit, or a routinely
deployable unit." "Sensitive" units include a "unit that is primarily
involved in training for the conduct of, or conducting, special activities
or classified missions" or "any other unit that is designated as a sensitive
unit by the Secretary of Defense." This measure would provide additional
cover for illegal and anti-democratic domestic activities.
* * * * * * * * * *
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