-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Acquitted POTUS Bongos Signal St Valentine's Day Massacre by Mark Steyn OH, those drums! Those infernal drums! Across the night air, from the "gloat-free zone" of the White House, came the ominous sound of Bill Clinton beating his bongos. "It's time to put an end to the politics of personal destruction," the President pounded. But, as the drums along the Potomac echoed across the plains, the message subtly evolved. "We're gonna bury him," said Bob Mulholland, political strategist for the California Democratic Party, speaking of Republican impeachment manager Jim Rogan. "He's dead meat. He doesn't need Jack Kevorkian to help him. He's dead." Officially, the White House was preparing for St Valentine's Day: Bill and Hillary would be having an intimate, romantic, candlelit dinner - Bill with 22-year-old Ms Juanita Silicona; Hillary with an exploratory committee for the New York Senate race. Unofficially, the White House was preparing for a St Valentine's Day massacre: Jim Rogan, Henry Hyde, Ken Starr . . . So many scores to settle. So many chicks to score. "The American people need to reach closure," said my taxi driver, en route to the Senate. Up at the Capitol, after three days as a Chamber of Closure, the Senate reached openness. Unlike the College of Cardinals electing a Pope, any smoke emerging signalled that moderate Republicans were feeling the heat. As we trooped into the gallery, we tried to spot the smouldering pants. Rhode Island's John Chafee was the first GOP wet to declare "Not guilty". Then came Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, who seemed unsure as to what jurisdiction he was in. In accordance with Scottish law, he voted "Not proven". Now that the country's first oral sex impeachment had ended, the President is the Democrats' problem. As to "closure", I understand it's a psychological term: it means not just that your abusive father's dead, but that you've worked through your hostile feelings towards him. In that sense, we're still miles from closure: liberal Democrats loath the President, the President hates the House managers, the House managers despise the Senate leadership. But at least Mr Clinton can now "get back to work for the American people" and resume his gruelling pre-impeachment schedule: 9.30am Receive Chancellor of Germany (check name). 9.40am Receive "pizza" from intern (check name). 10am Receive campaign cheque from Chinese arms dealer (check date). 10.15am Receive British Foreign Secretary for Bilateral Adultery Reduction Talks (check his date!). 10.20am-4.45pm Golf with Vernon. 4.50pm Bomb Saddam. 5pm Receive female campaign contributor. 5.03pm Grope breast(s). 6.50pm Get back to work for the American people. 7pm Fundraiser with Streisand. So it's over, though as Trent Lott told the Chief Justice, folksily but ominously, "Y'all come back soon!" In that spirit, this column is taking a break. We'll be back in a couple of weeks with the opening arguments in William Jefferson Clinton's next impeachment trial. The London Telegraph, Feb. 13, 1999 Acquitted POTUS Despite Denials, Clinton is Planning a Full Campaign of Retribution by Daniel J. Harris Despite official denials, the Clinton White House has collected new dossiers, complete with financial records, FBI investigative information and IRS reports on House impeachment managers and other perceived enemies of the administration, Capitol Hill Blue has learned. "It's payback time and payback will be a bitch," one White House aide said Thursday. "This won't be a gloat-free zone. It will be a 'get even' zone." Some White House aides worry privately that the President's lust for revenge will be so great it will create a new scandal and charges of abuse of power. "I've seen FBI and IRS files on members of Congress, complete dossiers on reporters and more," one worried aide admitted. "This is really scary." As the Senate prepared to acquit Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice and end four weeks of impeachment trial, the White House is prepared to launch a campaign of terror against those who tried to remove the President from office. At the center of this campaign will be White House smearmeister Sidney J. Blumenthal, who recently got caught lying about his efforts to smear former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. "There are new files from the investigators, files from the FBI and IRS financial information on Hyde, Barr, Hutchinston and others," one source confirmed Thursday night. "We will get even." Another source said Blumenthal has been working on the campaign "at the expense of everything else. This is Sid's ballywick and he is ready to serve his President." According to White House sources, the revenge list includes not only the 13 House managers, but Senators, journalists and others that Clinton feels need to taste revenge at the hands of the White House. Those on the list include: Rep. Henry Hyde and the other 12 House impeachment managers; Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, a frequent Clinton critic; Senator Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas, brother of House impeachment manager Asa Huthinson; Newsweek reporter Mike Isikoff, who developed the original story on Monica Lewinsky and the Linda Tripp tapes; Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch, which has filed both legal cases and investigative material against Clinton; "The list is long and growing," one aide said. "There will be blood on the floor before this affair is over." A Thursday New York Times article said Clinton was prepared to put all his efforts into defeating as many of the House impeachment managers as possible in the 2000 elections and restore control of Congress to the Democrats. The Times article infuriated Republicans, who accused the president of arrogantly seeking revenge against the 13 House ``managers'' who pressed allegations of perjury and obstruction of justice on the floor of the Senate. The flap demonstrated that even as Clinton's impeachment trial draws toward an expected acquittal in the Senate, it is becoming a powerful theme for both parties ahead of the 2000 elections. White House spokesman Joe Lockhart told reporters Clinton would work hard to help Democrats recapture control of the U.S. House. Democrats, the minority party in the House since January 1995, need to capture seven seats to win an outright majority. But Lockhart said there was no strategy of targeting the House Republican managers. Lockhart noted that many of them hold safe seats, adding that the prospect of Democratic control of the House was motivation enough for the president. ``I can't think of a worse, more dumb strategy than going after people based on whether they were a House manager or not,'' Lockhart said. ``We're going to go out, do the best we can at articulating a message, and do it based on where we think we can win seats.'' However, other White House aides told Capitol Hill Blue that Lockhart was lying. "The payback has been in the planning stages for weeks," one said. "The President is not a man to take this without fighting back. There will be retribution against those who tried to take him down." The Times cited unidentified Clinton advisers as saying the president was determined to work for a Democratic victory in the House as an affirmation of his legacy. The Times quoted the advisers as saying Clinton was particularly angry at the 13 managers, believing they needlessly prolonged the impeachment trial, which is expected to end with his acquittal Friday. The White House has been trying hard publicly to keep expressions of vindication to a minimum and has said there would be no gloating over an acquittal. But privately, aides say Clinton is unrepentant and angry and wants revenge for the attempts to remove him from office. "The President doesn't feel any remorse over what has happened," one aide said, "but he is angry...very, very angry." Lockhart said it was still unknown how Clinton would respond publicly to the Senate vote. But Republicans leaped on the Times story as a sign that Clinton had no sense of contrition over the impeachment drama, which stemmed from his sexual affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Rep. Christopher Cannon, a Utah Republican and one of the trial managers, said any electoral vendetta by Clinton represented ``the height of arrogance.'' ``What the president is doing is wrong. What happened to repentance, atonement and contrition? This is gloating,'' Cannon told reporters. The Republican National Committee put out a news release saying, ``How does Clinton spell contrite? R-E-V-E-N-G-E.'' Lockhart sought to distance the White House from the Times article, saying Clinton has ``thousands'' of advisers who claim to speak on his behalf to the press. He said the White House did not intend again to portray the impeachment as a partisan venture, as it did when the House passed two articles of impeachment in December. Lockhart said that Clinton, as he appears in political events with an eye toward the 2000 races, will stress, in addition to his policy agenda, a need to put ``progress over partisanship.'' This was a theme sounded by Clinton repeatedly in the 1998 off-year elections, when Democrats scored a surprising gain of five seats in the House that was attributed to voter disgust with Republican impeachment tactics. Republicans have heard many voices this week citing or alluding to impeachment as a reason voters should reject them. Vice President Al Gore, in an initial fund-raising letter sent this week for the 2000 presidential campaign, cast the race as a choice pitting his agenda of social and economic issues against ``the forces of divisiveness, extremism and personal destruction that threaten to engulf Washington.'' The liberal activist group People for the American Way Wednesday said it would target for defeat 68 House Republicans who voted to impeach Clinton and who represent districts the president carried in 1996. The Times article quoted Clinton supporter David Geffen, a Hollywood mogul, as saying many in his circle would spend ``time and money'' to defeat Rep. James Rogan of California, one of the House managers. On the other hand, former vice president Dan Quayle, exploring a run for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, charged this week that Gore was ``attached at the hip'' to Clinton and would have to explain to voters why Clinton ``trashed the White House.'' Capitol Hill Blue, Feb. 12, 1999 Russian Follies Primakov Heads for a Showdown with Yeltsin Wants Yeltsin (who is still dead) to resign Yevgeny Primakov, Russia's prime minister, is heading for a showdown with President Boris Yeltsin over who controls the levers of power in Moscow. An influential group within Moscow's political elite close to Mr Primakov is pressing for the ailing Mr Yeltsin to step down immediately to prepare the way for early presidential elections. The Council of Foreign and Defence Policy will today urge Mr Primakov to take radical action to restore the legitimacy of the federal government and cut short the economic crisis. Sergei Karaganov, the council's chairman, said the council meeting would discuss a report that calls for the voluntary resignation of Mr Yeltsin, fresh presidential elections, limited constitutional change, and the development of a long-term economic strategy. "We insist on Yeltsin resigning. That is the only way out of this crisis," Mr Karaganov, a high-profile political analyst, said in an interview. "Primakov will be persuaded to run by the vast majority of people and he will win." The council's discussion document, which has been prepared by several of its 150 members but has not been approved by them all, highlights the alarm in Moscow about the escalating political tensions between the president and the prime minister. The paper, entitled About an Exit from the Crisis, predicts the country's deteriorating economy will impose enormous strains on Russia's political system and social fabric this year. Inflation is likely to soar and living standards plummet, no matter what action the government takes. "To wait for elections in 2000 will be extremely dangerous," the report concludes. "The optimal solution for the country would evidently be for the voluntary resignation of Yeltsin [on health grounds] and the announcement of pre-term presidential elections." The report presents Mr Primakov as the country's best hope for consolidating all right-minded political forces and guaranteeing Russia's survival - in spite of the prime minister's repeated denials that he will contest the presidency. "For the political elite of Russia, every month of 1999 means increased uncertainty, instability, and a further erosion of their guaranteed base of social support," it says. The threat of extremist action will grow ever stronger by the day. In the words of Mr Karaganov, most of the "magic glues" holding Russia together are already fast dissolving. The chronic underfunding of federal institutions, including the police, the military and the security services, has left them dependent on the local rather than central authorities. Most of the country's banks and financial-industrial groups, which used to bind the country together economically, are now bankrupt. Tough budget policies are reducing the scope for regional aid. If present trends continue until 2000, Mr Karaganov predicts, Russia may disintegrate as a country and simply become a "shape on a map". "Either there will be a breakdown of central authority or a restoration of power by means of very brutal force," Mr Karaganov says. The council's report argues that Russia's liberals, who have sporadically supported Mr Yeltsin and are opposed to early presidential elections, are deluding themselves if they believe they would benefit from economic collapse and the discrediting of Mr Primakov's government. "Historical experience shows that a prolonged worsening of the position of the middle class creates fertile soil not for a liberal restoration but for fascism," the report suggests. Mr Karaganov, who has known Mr Primakov for 25 years but has no formal connection with the prime minister, said Russia was facing a graver threat than in 1991, when hardline Communists launched a putsch, or 1993, when Mr Yeltsin ordered the shelling of the Supreme Soviet. "The whole debate is not about economic policies. It is about survival. There is a very high probability that the country will fall apart in a couple of years," he said. Mr Yeltsin, who has recently been sidelined by a recurrence of ill health, appears to have grown increasingly irritated at Mr Primakov's attempts to grab the political limelight by negotiating a "stability pact" with parliament. Rumours have been swirling around Moscow this week that Mr Yeltsin intends to sack several prominent ministers, including possibly Mr Primakov. But any such moves would be likely to pitch the president into renewed confrontation. Mr Karaganov said such continued uncertainties were hampering Russia's efforts to find a way out of the crisis. "Unfortunately, it is very hard to predict things at the moment because of the total unpredictability of the president," he said. Mr Primakov's office confirmed the prime minister would attend the meeting of the council's 150 members. But even Mr Karaganov expected the prime minister to distance himself from the paper's conclusions. The Financial Times, Feb. 13, 1999 Japnese Financial Markets Japanese Central Bank Makes a Comic Rate Reduction >From .25 percent to .15 percent TOKYO - The Bank of Japan unexpectedly cut a key short-term interest rate Friday amid intense political pressure to ease monetary policy and help pull Japan out of its recession. The central bank's action came after a startling drop this month in the price of Japanese government bonds, sending their interest rates soaring to an 18-month high of 2.44 percent. The surge threatened to choke further the struggling economy of Japan, which, according to U.S. officials, poses one of the greatest threats to global financial stability. But the decision by the Bank of Japan to lower its target for the overnight call rate in the money market - to around 0.15 percent from 0.25 percent - is expected to have little effect on the economy and actually may hurt the credibility of the bank, economists said. ''I think it's rather disastrous,'' said Ron Bevacqua, an economist with Merrill Lynch Japan Inc. ''It's the worst possible decision they could have made - it will have no lasting impact on long-term interest rates, but it shows that the Bank of Japan is very susceptible to political pressure.'' Shinji Nomura of Sumitomo Capital Securities Co. also said the move would not help long-term rates. ''Rather there is a negative impact,'' the senior strategist said, ''because these actions threaten the Bank of Japan's credibility, as they are seen yielding to political pressure.'' ''These measures in themselves are not going to do a lot,'' said Jeffrey Young, a Tokyo-based economist with Salomon Smith Barney Inc. The rate cut might signal that the policy board of the central bank had accepted ''the rationale for an easier monetary policy,'' he said, which ought to prevent further strengthening of the yen. A stronger yen hurts exporters because it makes their products more expensive. ''If the risk of another yen surge is reduced,'' Mr. Young said, ''that's positive.'' The surge in interest rates is the latest economic problem to hit Japan. As officials have struggled during the past year to engineer a recovery, each remedy they have found has created new problems. To stimulate the economy, the government spent massive amounts on public works, loans to struggling companies, job subsidies and bank bailouts. The bank's policy board concluded Friday, after a daylong meeting, that the stimulus efforts had moderated the pace of economic deterioration. But to fund them, the Japanese government also issued massive amounts of bonds. In fact, Japan could overtake the United States as the biggest bond market in the world if current trends continue, analysts said. Japan's total debt, compared to the size of its economy, is among the biggest of the industrialized nations. At the same time, the government has announced plans to cut sharply purchases of its own bonds because it needs the money to pay for other support programs. With the government no longer willing to absorb a large share, the huge bond supply is causing prices to tumble. That means the interest the government pays is rising, making it more expensive for the government to borrow money. The interest rates corporations pay also are affected. Japan has begun goading the United States to buy its government bonds, arguing that Japanese purchases of U.S. Treasury bills helped America finance its deficit spending. Foreign investors hold only about 5 percent of the bonds. But traders said that was in part because of the low yields. To attract foreign investors the government would have to allow higher yields, but higher interest rates could be devastating for companies that already are struggling with falling domestic sales and exports. Six months ago, the yield on a 10-year Japanese government bond was below 0.7 percent. On Friday, the yield was 2.08 percent. Economists are warning that rates could still double. The alarming surge in yields triggered a debate on what the central bank should do at its meeting Friday. Some politicians and economists argued that Japan should . . . print money and underwrite the bonds directly. But the Bank of Japan has been strongly opposed to that. In fact, it is banned from taking such action, which led to hyperinflation in the 1940s. The central bank last eased monetary policy in September, when it lowered the overnight call rate to 0.25 percent from 0.5 percent. The impact on rates then lasted only a few weeks. ''The market may rally on the euphoria that the Bank of Japan is doing something,'' Mr. Bevacqua said. ''But after a while the market will say, 'Hey, wait a minute, the bank is not taking any bonds out of circulation.' So at some point, rates are going to start rising again.'' International Herald Tribune, Feb. 13, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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