-Caveat Lector-
RadTimes # 121 December, 2000
An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities.
"We're living in rad times!"
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QUOTE:
"All political government must necessarily become despotic, because all
government tends to become centralized in the hands of the few, who breed
corruption among themselves and in a very short time disconnect themselves
from the body of the people. The American republic is a good illustration."
--Lucy Parsons, interview with the New York World, 1886
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How to assist RadTimes--> (See ** at end.)
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Contents:
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--Disparate activists remain united in WTO opposition
--GOP Protest in Miami-Dade Is a Well-Organized Effort
--Protest Influenced Miami-Dade's Decision to Stop Recount
--Republican Overkill
--Rage Sharpens Conservative Rhetoric
Linked stories:
*Washing Dirty Dollars
*People Camp Outside Supreme Court
*US Supreme Court hearing highlights state conspiracy against democratic
rights
*Climate Change Could Bankrupt Us By 2065
*Bush claims victory, Gore to fight
*Gore to lay out case for legal fight
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Begin stories:
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Disparate activists remain united in WTO opposition
By James Cox
USA TODAY
They call themselves the Seattle Coalition, a tribute to
their greatest triumph.
The loose band of activists behind demonstrations that
paralyzed last year's World Trade Organization summit hasn't
gone away. Since Seattle, members have masterminded
disruptions at world finance meetings in Washington; Prague,
the Czech Republic; and Melbourne, Australia; a United
Nations summit in New York and political conventions in
Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
Less clear is whether mainstream America is ready to sign
up.
The shock troops of the movement are labor organizers,
consumer advocates, environmentalists, academics, religious
activists and others. They are united by a profound mistrust
of corporations and globalization -- and seemingly little
else.
Some sound like utopians, even Marxists.
''We are now in the cancer stage of capitalism,'' Kevin
Danaher, an activist with worker-rights group Global
Exchange, told a coalition powwow recently.
Seattle, he said, was the start of a ''historic paradigm
shift'' in global politics and power, one that would give
rise to organic food, microlending, solar energy and
alternative economic systems.
Lori Wallach, a top lieutenant at Ralph Nader's Public
Citizen, speaks of a ''huge, growing human backlash'' that
grew out of Seattle. It could ultimately force multinational
corporations to accept ''a floor of conduct,'' she says.
Seattle ''was all about the anxieties and fears of modern
life. You had vegetarians and European beef farmers marching
together in protest. Every issue from East Timor to dental
hygiene to cycling was out there,'' says WTO chief Michael
Moore.
Globalization, he says, is ''an awful phrase. I wish it had
never been invented. But the stupidity of thinking
globalization will stop if the WTO doesn't meet or the World
Bank doesn't meet . . . I mean, give me a break.''
Since Seattle, the stakes have grown, activists say.
They complain that police and other law enforcement groups
have effectively criminalized their protests by spying on
them, restricting their movements and limiting their right
to demonstrate. At the same time, they say, corporations are
aggressively co-opting critics such as the United Nations by
signing up for corporate partnerships that require little
other than statements of good intentions.
The ''unholy trinity'' of the WTO, World Bank and
International Monetary Fund is still pushing the world
toward ''the moment of global corporate tyranny,'' warns
Tony Clarke of the left-leaning think tank Polaris
Institute.
The WTO and its sister institutions ''have been a force for
good,'' counters Moore. The three have created prosperity,
helped alleviate poverty and improved living conditions.
''The Great Lakes don't catch fire any more. You can fish in
the Thames. Look at barometers in my region (New Zealand) --
fresh water, literacy, life expectancy -- they've all
exploded. You could argue there've been more advances in the
last 50 years than the previous 400.''
Indeed, many Seattle Coalition founders say it's too early
for self-congratulations.
''Hold the champagne and flowers for a while,'' says Jerry
Mander, a prominent campaigner. ''The WTO is still alive and
kicking.''
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GOP Protest in Miami-Dade Is a Well-Organized Effort
<http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB973813954697912953.htm>
Bush Campaign Pays Tab For Aides From Capitol Hill Flown in for Rallies
By NICHOLAS KULISH and JIM VANDEHEI
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 27, 2000
MIAMI -- When outraged Republicans raised a ruckus outside the
Miami-Dade County elections office last week, some protesters at the
door weren't local citizens. They were Capitol Hill aides on
all-expenses paid trips, courtesy of the Bush campaign.
Right up front on television images of the event last Wednesday were
Thomas Pyle, an aide to GOP Rep. Tom DeLay, and Michael Murphy, who
works for a DeLay fund-raising committee. Doug Heye from California Rep.
Richard Pombo's office also was in the fray.
Shortly after the door-kicking, window-banging protest, the Miami-Dade
canvassing board made a sharp U-turn, suspending a recount that was
expected to help Vice President Al Gore chip away at Texas Gov. George
W. Bush's lead. Mr. Gore's inability to secure these votes was a key to
Mr. Bush's certification as the Florida winner Sunday night. Miami-Dade
canvassing-board members, while denying that the crowd cowed them,
decided they couldn't complete the count by Sunday's 5 p.m. deadline
without using a room that the protesters complained limited public access.
Their work in Miami done, the Republicans headed to Broward County,
where they joined a platoon that included about 20 other congressional
staffers, who had watched the Miami-Dade commotion on CNN and wildly
cheered their compatriots' televised antics. The protests grew in Fort
Lauderdale, with hundreds of placard-wielding Republicans protesting the
recount for several days.
Sunday, some of these same staffers were involved in a confrontation
with Democrats, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, in West Palm Beach.
Tensions heightened momentarily as Democratic volunteers squeezed
through the mob of GOP protesters to gather their campaign signs, but
cooler heads prevailed.
Behind the rowdy rallies in South Florida this past weekend was a
well-organized effort by Republican operatives to entice supporters to
South Florida. The protests drew angry denunciations from top Democrats,
with several congressmen requesting a Justice Department inquiry.
Vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman said the "orchestrated
demonstrations ... were clearly designed to intimidate and to prevent a
simple count of votes from going forward."
Bush operatives deny trying to intimidate. But they readily acknowledge
that shortly after Election Day they began recruiting Republicans
nationwide to come to the three predominantly Democratic South Florida
counties then considering manual recounts. The biggest contingent
appears to have hailed
from within the marbled walls of the Capitol complex in Washington.
"Because we were heavily outnumbered in these counties, we called people
from around the country," says Terry Holt, a communications director
with the Republican National Committee. Democrats "may not need
volunteers," he quips. "They've got judges" on local election canvassing
boards.
Democrats have organizers down here, too, and they were the first to hit
the streets. The Rev. Jesse Jackson flew to West Palm Beach shortly
after the election to lead a protest against the confusing "butterfly
ballot," prompting conservative commentator Mary Matalin to dub
attendees "rent-a-rioters." Democrats say they haven't flown staffers or
operatives down to Florida to protest, and there is no evidence to
suggest otherwise. This has allowed Republicans to quickly gain the
upper-hand, protest-wise.
In Washington, several GOP aides say the office of Mr. DeLay, the House
Republican whip, took charge of the effort on Capitol Hill, passing on
an offer many staffers couldn't refuse: free air fare, accommodations
and food in the Sunshine State -- all paid for by the Bush campaign.
Aides who
accepted took advantage of liberal congressional workplace rules that
allow them to jump from government jobs to political tasks at a moment's
notice by declaring themselves on vacation or temporary leave.
"Once word leaked out, everybody wanted in," says one GOP operative
involved in the effort. Participants estimate that more than 200
staffers signed on, some spending more than a week in South Florida.
Many stayed in Hiltons by the beach and received $30 a day for food, as
well as an invitation to an exclusive Thanksgiving Day party in Fort
Lauderdale.
"They needed help down there," says GOP Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri. "A
lot of people in Washington wanted to be a part of that." He adds that
the collaboration has fostered a new sense of unity between
congressional Republicans and Mr. Bush, who often ignored Washington
Republicans during the campaign to bolster his outsider image. "The
unfairness of [the Democrats' recount] effort has really brought
Republicans together," the congressman said.
The camaraderie was on full display at the glitzy Thanksgiving night
party featuring free food and libations at the Hyatt on Pier 66 in Fort
Lauderdale -- "a festive family mood," says one protester. Entertainer
Wayne Newton crooned the song "Danke Schoen," until a group of frenzied
female fans
rushed the stage. The night's highlight was a conference call from Mr.
Bush and running mate Dick Cheney, which included joking references by
both running mates to the incident in Miami, two staffers in attendance say.
But that was a rare break from the action. Often working 16- or 20-hour
days, the congressional worker bees initially monitored recounts,
attended news conferences and did other gofer tasks. Kyle Downey, 26
years old, an aide to Oklahoma Rep. J.C. Watts, assisted GOP lawyers in
Broward County one day and escorted former presidential candidate Bob
Dole around South Florida the next. "This is history," says Mr. Downey,
explaining his decision to come. "I don't see how I could ever come
across something like this ever in my lifetime."
Staffers who joined the effort say there has been an air of mystery to
the operation. "To tell you the truth, nobody knows who is calling the
shots," says one aide. Many nights, often very late, a memo is slipped
underneath the hotel-room doors outlining coming events. On Friday
night, one aide received notice that he and his colleagues were welcome
to stay in South Florida until "further notice."
Bush spokeswoman Mindy Tucker declines to estimate how much the
operation will cost or exactly how many people have been enticed to
Florida. Others say about 750 people have rotated in and out. This
weekend, few were still involved in the somber recount-monitoring of the
early days. "All we are doing is rallying and protesting," says one GOP
aide. "We are blowing the Democrats away."
Bush supporters sometimes outnumbered Gore backers by 10 to one outside
the Broward County Courthouse in the Democrat-leaning community. A block
to the north, a recreational vehicle festooned with Bush-Cheney signs
served as operation central, having recently been transferred from
similar duty in Miami.
Not all out-of-state demonstrators came from Washington. Several New
York Republicans paid for their own plane tickets, while the Bush-Cheney
campaign footed the hotel bill. "They told me to send an invoice for our
bills, and I told them we need the check by Sunday night, in case he
loses," jokes one of them.
Rick Nelson, a vascular surgeon from Oklahoma City, recalls arriving in
Miami and being told by a GOP official that he and several other
volunteers were going to become protesters. "Okay, we've never done this
before," Mr. Nelson recalls the operative saying. "Anybody know how to
put together a protest?"
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Protest Influenced Miami-Dade's Decision to Stop Recount
By DEXTER FILKINS and DANA CANEDY
New York Times, MIAMI, Nov. 23
The Miami- Dade County Canvassing Board's decision on Wednesday to shut
down its hand recount of presidential election ballots followed a rapid
campaign of public pressure that at least one of the board's three members
says helped persuade him to vote to stop the counting.
Republican telephone banks had urged Republican voters in Miami to go to
the Stephen P. Clark Government Center downtown to protest the recount,
which began there on Monday and which Democrats hoped would help swing
Florida's 25 electoral votes to Vice President Al Gore.
The city's most influential Spanish-language radio station, Radio Mambi,
called on staunchly Republican Cuban-Americans to head downtown to
demonstrate. Republican volunteers shouted into megaphones urging protest.
A lawyer for the Republican Party helped stir ethnic passions by contending
that the recount was biased against Hispanic voters.
The subsequent demonstrations turned violent on Wednesday after the
canvassers had decided to close the recount to the public. Joe Geller,
chairman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, was escorted to safety by the
police after a crowd chased him down and accused him of stealing a ballot.
Upstairs in the Clark center, several people were trampled, punched or
kicked when protesters tried to rush the doors outside the office of the
Miami-Dade supervisor of elections. Sheriff's deputies restored order.
When the ruckus was over, the protesters had what they had wanted: a
unanimous vote by the board to call off the hand counting.
Only that morning, the board, facing a tight deadline mandated the night
before by the State Supreme Court, had concluded that it did not have time
for a hand count of all 654,000 ballots cast by the county's voters. So the
canvassers voted to proceed only with a manual count of 10,750 ballots that
machines had not counted.
Now even that limited recount was being abandoned, a decision that brought
whoops and applause from the crowd.
After the charge on the elections office, and just before the vote calling
off the entire manual count, the three canvassers were led by police escort
back to the public recount area from the room where they had decided to
conduct their tally shielded from public view.
One nonpartisan member of the board, David Leahy, the supervisor of
elections, said after the vote that the protests were one factor that he
had weighed in his decision.
"This was perceived as not being an open and fair process," Mr. Leahy said.
"That weighed heavy on our minds."
After discussing the matter briefly with reporters, Mr. Leahy declined
requests for interviews, as did the two other board members, one of them
nonpartisan, the other a Democrat. But quite apart from any campaign of
pressure, the board did say that the court-mandated deadline had been a
factor that militated against even a limited recount.
Whatever the case, Democrats accused Bush supporters of gathering a crowd
and riling it up in hopes of forcing the board to back down.
"One hour they're telling us they're going to get it done," Luis Rosero, a
Democratic aide, said of the canvassers, and "the next minute there were
two riot situations and a crowd massing out in front. This was deliberate."
Mr. Rosero said he had been punched and kicked by Republican supporters
outside Mr. Leahy's office.
Republican supporters scoffed at the accusation that they had engaged in a
scheme of intimidation, saying the protest had been nothing more than a
spontaneous manifestation of people's anger.
"It's the same type of democracy in action when Jesse Jackson parachutes in
and starts a protest in the black community," said Miguel De Grandy, a
lawyer for the Republican Party. "People have a right to express their
opinions."
Yet some Bush supporters did acknowledge that they had helped inspire the
crowd in hopes that the recount would end, though saying they had certainly
meant no one any harm.
"We were trying to stop the recount; Bush had already won," said Evilio
Cepero, a reporter for Radio Mambi. "We were urging people to come downtown
and support and protest this injustice."
Mr. Cepero played a key role in the protests, roaming around the building
outside and, with a megaphone, addressing a crowd of perhaps 150 people.
"Denounce the recount!" he shouted repeatedly. "Stop the injustice!" He
regularly cut into Radio Mambi's broadcasts to encourage people to come
downtown. And he also phoned in interviews with two Republican lawmakers
=97 United States Representatives Lincoln Diaz- Balart and Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen, both Cuban-Americans =97 who also helped persuade people to
come.
Several people who attended the demonstration said they had decided to do
so after receiving an automated phone message, initiated by local
Republican officials, encouraging them.
One was Rebecca Totilo, who came to the protest with her husband and four
children, and carried a "Rotten to the Gore" poster.
Republican supporters said the canvassing board had decided to reverse
itself because it had acted illegally when it decided to hand-count
Miami-Dade's ballots, not because of the protesters. They added that the
canvassing board's members inflamed peaceful demonstrators when they
decided to count the ballots in a room closed to the public.
"People were pounding on the doors, but they had an absolute right to get
in," said Mr. De Grandy, the Republican lawyer.
Mr. De Grandy accused the canvassing board, all of whose members are
non-Hispanic whites, of ethnic bias, saying that at one point it had
intended to recount only those precincts that are not predominantly
Hispanic. (The county as a whole is about 50 percent Hispanic.)
The canvassers vigorously denied the accusation, saying they had initially
intended to recount all of Dade's ballots and then, after the court had
imposed its deadline, the 10,750 that had not been counted by the machines.
Whatever problems the canvassing board encountered, Republicans said, it
brought on itself. "Sure they were under pressure," said Paul Crespo, a
Bush campaign worker. "They had taken so many illegal decisions that they
were on the verge of provoking serious unrest."
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Republican Overkill
<http://uspolitics.about.com/newsissues/uspolitics/library/weekly/aa112400a.htm>
George Bush and his Republican attack dogs are now saying Al Gore has no
respect for the military, and sending in thugs to intimidate local election
boards. With these latest moves, the Republicans have begun a dangerous
game that threatens the presidency, and our country's respect for our
democracy.
----
The Republicans have begun a dangerous game. In an effort sure to make the
ongoing election fiasco even more partisan and more political, they
recently held a press conference in Florida with Bob Dole and other
military veterans, openly accusing Al Gore of intentionally instructing his
supporters "how you kill the military vote." At issue: two thousand
absentee ballot military votes that were disqualified in Florida because
they don't meet the legal requirements of having been postmarked by
election day.
Now, the Republicans have every right to argue that the military votes
should be counted - the same right Al Gore has to argue that dimpled
ballots should be counted. There is one significant difference, and that's
in tactics. The Democrats did not organize protests. They did not hold
press conferences accusing the Republicans of being un-American. Instead,
they took the matter to court,
and the court found that Gore was right: dimpled ballots should not be
summarily disqualified, but rather should be reviewed and individually
assessed as to whether they are viable votes for either candidate.
The Republican approach has been far different, and far more
ominous. Rather than let the courts decide what is legal, they prefer to
inflame the public and win by popular rage. In addition to accusing Gore
of being anti-military, MSNBC reports that Republican operatives have
trucked in scores of demonstrators from around the country to pressure
Florida election officials in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. A US
congressman speaking Friday in Florida needed police protection to defend
him against the Republican hired mob. And the other day, rowdy Republican
protesters tried to forcibly storm the Miami-Dade canvassing board
room. The board subsequently decided to stop its manual recount, leading
many to believe that the mob action influenced the board's decision (and
there are now accusations that those protesters were trucked in as well).
According to a story on MSNBC.com: "the most significant outrage occurred
Wednesday, when ABC News correspondent Bill Redeker discovered that
Republican operatives, working out of a Florida-based mobile home, had sent
in busloads of hooligans to shut down by force the court-ordered Miami-Dade
recount... As the mob celebrated its victory, its Republican Party
masterminds transferred their mobile home/base of operations to Broward
County, where they employed the same tactics against that county's
canvassers on Friday."
No matter where you come down on the election, the way to resolve this
matter is not to incite a military rebellion, question your opponent's
patriotism, and use mobs to scare election officials into seeing things
your way. The way we settle things in America is to go the courts and let
the law fall where it may.
Think things aren't as bad as I'm claiming? Check out a recent action
alert distributed by the religious right's American Family
Association. "What the Court in Florida has done is to inject itself into
the very heart of the self-governing process. This is a case of judicial
usurpation, the arrogance of power of the unelected, black-robed, new
leaders of American society," AFA wrote in an eerie email to its millions
of members. "If we've learned anything in recent years, it's that judges
are as susceptible to public pressure as anyone else." AFA then provides
the phone numbers for the individual Florida Supreme Court justices, urging
its followers to call the judges in a seeming effort to get them to change
their minds.
Imagine: A conservative political organization is telling its members to
target a state supreme court in an effort to pressure that court to change
its mind on a constitutional issue. This is how political, and how low,
things have gotten in Florida.
The Republicans have finally gone too far. In an effort to save George
Bush's perhaps-presidency, they are willing to win by any means necessary -
to hell with our democracy, to hell with the independent judiciary, and to
hell with whatever lingering respect people once had for their
commander-in-chief. Think about it: it is still possible that Al Gore will
become our next president. Does George Bush see no problem calling into
question our next commander-in-chief's respect for the armed forces of the
United States, let alone an effort to destabilize our independent judiciary?
If the Republicans are so concerned about our military, then perhaps George
Bush can tell the American people why he reportedly skipped out on a year
of reserve duty in the early 1970s (while Al Gore did duty in
Vietnam). And the Washington Post reports that Bush's own commanding
officers wrote in his official military record that he was nowhere to be seen.
And if the Republicans are so worried about disenfranchised voters, then
perhaps they can explain to America's elderly population why their votes
aren't as important as those of our servicemembers (when
many of those same elderly voters are in fact veterans). 19,000 votes were
disqualified in Palm Beach County, and thousands seemingly voted by mistake
for Pat Buchanan in the same county, as a result of a confusing butterfly
ballot that many in this overwhelmingly elderly community apparently found
confusing, thus thwarting their intended vote. Where are the busloads of
Republican demonstrators, and the high-profile Republican press
conferences, defending our parents' and grandparents' right to vote here?
Bob Dole says we should simply call the thousands of servicemembers whose
votes aren't being counted and ask them if they intended to vote. Great
idea. And while we're at it, we can also call the over 20,000 elderly
voters in Palm Beach County and ask them about their intended vote.
Or don't the Republicans care as much about America's retired veterans as
they do a good photo op?
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Rage Sharpens Conservative Rhetoric
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49363-2000Nov21.html>
THE WASHINGTON POST
November 22, 2000
By Thomas B. Edsall
Conservative anger over the Florida recount has gained such intensity and
momentum that leaders of the American right are now accusing Vice President
Gore of trying to destroy democracy and mounting an illegal coup to take
over the White House.
With extraordinary speed, conservatives have demonized Gore as the epitome
of the kind of venality and corruption they more typically ascribe to Bill
and Hillary Clinton. Gore, in the words of the Weekly Standard, learned the
lesson of impeachment that "taught the Democrats that they can get away
with anything."
Such anger is certain to intensify in the wake of last night's Florida
Supreme Court ruling.
The stalled outcome of the presidential election has tapped into the deeply
held belief by conservatives that they won a strong mandate when the GOP
captured both houses of Congress in 1994--but were frustrated by the
political machinations of President Clinton. Now, they say, Gore is
employing similar tactics to block George W. Bush's ascendancy to the White
House.
"Gore and Clinton have lost the democratic branches of government," said
Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform. "They know that in a
fair fight, they will lose their presidency and they are retreating to
their redoubt of trial lawyers and politicized judges."
Marshall Wittmann, an analyst at the Hudson Institute who is relatively
moderate in his views of the election dispute in Florida, said many of his
colleagues on the political right are convinced that "there would have been
a conservative ascendancy had not it been for the venality of the
Clinton-Gore team. From the 1994 election to the government shutdown,
through impeachment, to this point, it has been a seamless web, tied back
to the 1992 Clinton campaign and Gennifer Flowers and draft-dodging--and
Gore is viewed as the person spinning that web."
>From talk radio to cable television to the editorial pages of the Wall
Street Journal, the howl of conservative pain and anger has steadily risen
in pitch and volume.
"This may be the worst thing I've ever seen," declared former education
secretary William Bennett during a hostile brawl on CNN's "Capital Gang."
"Al Gore is trying to steal this election."
Rush Limbaugh, the king of conservative talk radio, described Gore as
suffering from "an unquenchable thirst for power."
Janet Parshall, a talk show host who shares many of Limbaugh's views, said
in a CNN interview: "There's a movie opening this weekend called 'The
Grinch Who Stole Christmas,' and some of my listeners are wondering if
there are some grinches afoot that might steal an election" in a clear
reference to the Gore campaign. Referring to Bush, she added, "But there's
another movie that's out called 'Men of Honor.' "
Not to be outdone, David Tell editorialized in the conservative Weekly
Standard: "Al Gore's attempted coup has exactly tracked the trajectory of
the Monica Lewinsky episode, his mentor's own triumph over ancient taboos
of American public life. . . . Gore has pursued his goal with a speed and
cynical genius that Bill Clinton never dreamed of."
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan declared: "The
Gore-Clinton Democratic Party is trying to steal the election. . . . This
crew we have now, Messrs. Gore and Clinton and their operatives, they seem,
to my astonishment as an American, to be men who would never put their
country's needs before their own if there were even the mildest of
conflicts between the two. America is the platform of their ambitions, not
the driving purpose of them."
In two columns, George F. Will denounced Gore's Florida claims as
"slow-motion larceny" and referred to the vice president's "serial
mendacity."
The "Clinton-Gore era culminates with an election as stained as the blue
dress," Will wrote. "Consider his [Gore's] political ethics, which flow
from his corrupting hunger for power."
The left has not been lacking in hot rhetoric. Jesse L. Jackson compared
the Florida recount to the voting rights struggle in Selma, Ala.: "We
marched too much, bled too profusely and died too young. We must not
surrender."
And Democratic Gore supporters have not hesitated to attack Florida
Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Paul Begala has called her "a
dilettante debutante Republican hack" and Democratic lawyer Alan Dershowitz
said Harris is "a crook and an operative." But Democrats have offered
little direct criticism of Bush that resembles the critique of Al Gore from
the right.
The conflict has changed the culture of the Washington media. Last weekend,
CNN's "Capital Gang," the normally friendly show where journalists and
politicians of the left and right voice their opinions of world events,
turned into a hostile battleground.
Bennett, author of "The Book of Virtues," declared the election would be
"illegitimate if Al Gore becomes president." Bennett told the four-member
panel of columnists: "If you don't call the kind the thuggish tactics that
the Gore campaign is doing right now for what they are, I think the notion
of objectivity in the media is gone."
"I just cannot disagree more strenuously," countered liberal co-host Mark
Shields. "Al Gore as we sit here leads in the national popular vote. Al
Gore has more electoral votes than George W. Bush. There is no question
that hand counting is more accurate than machine counting. . . . You can
sit there from your Olympian perch and issue your moral thunderbolts."
Later in the show, Bennett commented, "This may be my last appearance on
the 'Capital Gang.' "
Thomas Mann, a Brookings Institution political scientist, said conservative
rhetoric has begun to approach "what we saw at the worst of the impeachment
fervor, unbridled self-righteous defiance and venom, bordering on
conservative McCarthyism with accusations of traitorous behavior."
Bennett, Mann contended, "has lost his ability to be an arbiter of moral
behavior. He's become a partisan in the worst sense of the word." Repeated
attempts to contact Bennett over two days were unsuccessful.
Mann said the intensity of the anti-Gore views may be related to the
feeling among many conservatives that "the election would be a walk for
Bush, that finally they would have unified Republican government and pursue
the agenda that has been frustrated. And anything to frustrate that is
obviously illegitimate."
Tell, author of the Weekly Standard's outspoken editorial criticizing Gore,
acknowledged that he may be only "one in a thousand" who sees the vice
president's actions in strongly negative terms. He said the public is numb
from repeated scandals: "Why are the peasants not in the streets with
torches?" he asked rhetorically. "I would leave that to a sociologist."
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Linked stories:
********************
Washing Dirty Dollars
<http://www.disinfo.com/pages/dossier/id605/pg1.html>
US-based Fortune 500 companies that have bought and paid for the
very same politicians who write and enact the laws, are getting advice
on how to avoid prosecution through legal loopholes, whilst maintaining
a public relations stance that they are cracking down upon internal
corruption and everyday dealings with white collar criminals and
money launderers.
********************
People Camp Outside Supreme Court
<http://news.findlaw.com/ap/a/p/1131/12-1-2000/20001201122324700.html>
********************
US Supreme Court hearing highlights state conspiracy against democratic rights
<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/dec2000/sup-d02.shtml>
********************
Climate Change Could Bankrupt Us By 2065
<http://ens.lycos.com/ens/nov2000/2000L-11-24-11.html>
The sixth largest insurance company has warned that damage
to property due to global warming could bankrupt the world by 2065.
********************
Bush claims victory, Gore to fight
<http://itn.co.uk/news/20001127/world/04uselection.shtml>
George W Bush said he was "preparing to serve" as America's next president
after Florida certified him as the winner of its crucial 25 electoral
votes. Bush also called on his Democratic opponent, Al Gore, to end his
legal challenges to the outcome.
********************
Gore to lay out case for legal fight
<http://itn.co.uk/news/20001127/world/03gore.shtml>
With his rival certified as Florida's winner, Al Gore dispatched running
mate Joseph Lieberman to serve notice that the Democrats "have no choice
but to contest these actions."
********************
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