-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Impeached POTUS This Time, "No" Really Does Mean "Yes" by Mark Steyn WE have entered a new stage of the Senate trial. Strom Thurmond is still bringing fruit and candy for the President's lady attorneys, but their male confr�re, David Kendall, cut out of the fruit loop, now sits at the defence table and whiles away the impeachment longueurs by doing crossword puzzles. He fills them in confidently, in ink - the proper kind, not the quick-vanishing stuff he uses for presidential depositions. My eyesight's not what it was but, from up in the gallery, I can just about make out the clues: 1 down: Legally accurate definition of non-sexual relations; 2 down: How Republicans are feeling; 6 across: Aerial shot of Senator Thurmond's hair plugs; 7 across: Maximum number of presidential counsel permitted in Senate elevator; 36 down: Projected GOP results in next Congressional election; 53 across: Intern's waist. There's only one clue Mr Kendall seems to be struggling with: "Meaning of the word 'is' (2 letters). Otherwise, he seems reasonably content to fill in crosswords for 600 bucks per billable hour while senators haggle over whether to pass a "finding of fact" against the President but leave him in office. Behind Mr Kendall, Ol' Strom is bearing up under his own sex scandal - "Thurmond In World's Oldest Love-Child Shocker!" According to a forthcoming book on the 96-year-old Senate president, in 1923 Strom fathered a child by a black woman. There are rumours that Hustler publisher Larry Flynt has an authentic silent movie of the incident. The woman herself is believed to have kept a petticoat with the senator's DNA on it, which the FBI lab is currently carbon dating. They've so far refused to attempt a matching analysis on the grounds that they're reluctant to ask Strom to provide a sample, his eagerness to do so notwithstanding. But the scandal is following an all too familiar trajectory and it surely won't be long before Senator Thurmond goes on TV and declares: "Ah deed nowt heave seckual relaytieauns wi theat cute l'il piccaninny." On Thursday, I described the trial as proceeding like a formula movie. I spoke too soon. Since then it's been more like a formula movie where nobody can agree on the formula. Imagine, say, Jaws with Robert Shaw moving a motion to purchase two harpoons and Richard Dreyfuss moving a motion to buy only one harpoon and depose witnesses before they decompose, and then Bob's people get together with Richard's people and emerge with a bipartisan agreement to pass "a finding of fact" against the shark that would leave him free to terrorise the beach for a couple more seasons. Not quite the same, is it? We've always understood that the Framers of the US Constitution created very precise mechanisms that automatically come into play. Instead, they're making it up as they go along: you can have three witnesses, no African-American women, no sex questions, video only, and just for three hours. What clause did that come from? That's not the Framers; that's a frame-up. The much vaunted "checks and balances" have proved all but useless in the face of a President who's unchecked and congressional Democrats who sound increasingly unbalanced. The female Democrats are among the President's most fanatical cheerleaders, though there was a moment this week when it looked as though Barbara Mikulski had reconsidered endorsing Mr Clinton's "consensual" relationship: she voted "No" on the motion to dismiss the impeachment case. Almost immediately, she stood up and announced that she'd made a mistake: she'd meant to vote "Yes". It seems an appropriate comment on the contortions required of Clintonian feminism that, in this instance at least, "No" does indeed mean "Yes". The London Telegraph, Jan. 30, 1999 Impeached POTUS Americans "want to see Lewinsky evidence on film" White House tries to suppress evidence AS senators argued behind closed doors yesterday over preparations for Monica Lewinsky's videotaped testimony next week, there was evidence that public opinion is turning against Democrats who want to stop her evidence being broadcast nationwide. Despite often seeing Miss Lewinsky slip past waiting news cameras, and despite listening to her secretly taped phone calls, the public has not seen her talking on camera. Washingtonians are anxiously awaiting her appearance. The impact of her first- hand description of her own and Mr Clinton's alleged perjury and obstruction could be devastating. A poll yesterday showed that Americans may object to Democrat efforts to protect their leader and cut short Mr Clinton's trial. Hitherto, public hostility was directed exclusively at Republicans for their apparent determination to destroy him. Forty-five per cent disapprove of the Democrats' conduct, compared to 36 per cent at New Year, according to a Gallup poll. It undermines White House warnings that voters will take revenge on Republicans, although Gallup also found disapproval of Republicans inching up from 54 per cent to 57 per cent. Despite Democrat threats that Republicans would pay for dragging out the trial, John Zogby, another pollster, published figures showing that if there were an election today, the result would be the same as last November's, a slim Republican majority. This week, 44 of the 100 senators voted to dismiss the case. This means that the vote to convict will fall short of the two-thirds majority needed to remove him from office, so the only outcome in doubt, according to prevailing orthodoxy, is which party will end up smelling more like roses. White House officials have begun depicting the trial not as a senatorial duty, but as an evil Republican whim. Since the 56-44, party-line vote against dismissal, Clinton aides have suggested that he is the victim of an "illegitimate" crusade. Most Americans want him to stay on office but, say Democrats, the Republicans have their eye on hardline, Clinton-hating voters who are the party base. Republicans say that they are merely shouldering their constitutional duty. The Republicans increasingly favour using their 55-45 majority to split the impeachment vote from a vote on the facts of the case. This is intended to smoke out those Democrats who have said Mr Clinton lied and obstructed justice, but who might vote to acquit him because they do not believe it amounts to a case for impeachment. The hope is that a cross-party finding that Mr Clinton committed the offences, even if he is allowed to stay in office, would prevent the White House pretending that he had been exonerated. What Republicans most fear is that a single vote leading to acquittal would allow Mr Clinton to spend the final two years of his presidency persuading the country he was an innocent victim of what Frank Lautenberg, a Democratic senator, yesterday called a "witch hunt". The trial resumes next Thursday after Miss Lewinsky and two other witnesses testify on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The London Telegraph, Jan. 30, 1999 World Financial System UN Proposes New International Financial System The usual faux cures from the usual suspects A United Nations task force called yesterday for comprehensive reform of the international financial system to safeguard the world economy from financial crises. Its recommendations included expanding the International Monetary Fund, allowing it to borrow from international capital markets and to create a reserve currency to lend to countries in crisis. The task force urged the development of regional reserve funds to deter speculators from attacking currencies. It said governments should be free to impose permanent controls on capital - including, controversially, capital outflows. It also backed the creation of a world financial authority to set standards for financial regulation and supervision, to make sure they were adopted at national level. These standards should cover new actors in the financial markets, including mutual and hedge funds. The recommendations are among the most radical to emerge from international organisations following the onset of the Asian financial crisis in 1997. As such, many of them are unlikely to find favour among the governments of the leading industrial nations that lead international economic policy-making. However, the inability of existing financial arrangements to prevent the spread of currency crisis from one economy to another has raised questions about whether they can cope with a world of large-scale capital flows. The task force of the UN executive committee on economic and social affairs included representatives from the body's regional economic commissions, as well as from agencies with a global brief, such as the UN Development Programme. The report, Towards a New Financial Architecture, said existing international and domestic institutions were inadequate to deal with financial globalisation. While arguing conventionally that countries facing difficulties should be ready to adopt necessary adjustment policies, the task force conceded that conditions were not ripe for the creation of a true international "lender of last resort" to countries in crisis. But the IMF should be reformed so that it could move that way. To do this it should use its existing contingent financing facility more actively. It should also be allowed to borrow directly from financial markets at times of crisis. Most importantly, special drawing rights "could be created when several members face financial difficulties. The SDRs thus created would be destroyed when borrowings were repaid." It added that SDRs should be used to counter financial cycles, which "should be part of a broader process aimed at enhancing their use as an appropriate international currency for a globalised world". The body to oversee global financial supervision could possibly be developed from the Bank for International Settlements or the International Organisation for Securities Commissions. Capital adequacy requirements for financial institutions in weaker economies needed to be higher than in rich countries - and should be raised during periods of financial euphoria to take account of increased financial risks. There were good arguments also for imposing limits on the foreign currency exposure of non-financial companies. It said the IMF should adopt a flexible approach to capital flows: "Developing and transition economies should retain the right to impose disincentives or controls on inflows, particularly in times of capital surges, and on outflows during severe crises." The Financial Times, Jan. 30, 1999 Land of Mochtar Riady Bank Lippo to Get Lion's Share of Recapitalization Funds Clinton Financiers Benefit JAKARTA, Jan 29 (AFP) - Privately-run PT Bank Lippo will get as much as 87.5 percent of the first injection of Indonesian government funds under a banking recapitalisation program, an official document showed here Friday A government decree dated January 18 obtained here showed the publicly listed bank, controlled by the Riady family, will be alloted 3.75 trillion rupiah (417 million dollars). The government has earmarked a total 4.5 trillion rupiah (500 million dollars) for the first injection of funds under the recapitalisation program aimed at shoring up the ailing banking sector. The remaining money will be shared by 10 state regional development banks and another private bank, Bank Sembada Artanugroho. "The ruling was issued in view of the fact that the 12 banks have completed due dilligence and have met the conditions for recapitalisation," an official at the central Bank Indonesia was quoted as saying by AFX-Asia, an AFP-affiliated financial news wire. But Finance Minister Bambang Subianto said that "what is mentioned in the ruling is just a ceiling ... the final figure will be reflected in a (bank's) new statutes." He said the final figure was currently being calculated by Bank Indonesia. The decree said that the 4.5 trillion rupiah will come "from state assets that are separate from the budget," and the finance minister will arrange the implementation and procedures for the state money's investment and divestment. The finance minister will also determine the government's rights that come with the fund injections. Under the bank recapitalization program, the government plans to inject up to 80 percent of the required capital adequacy ratio of eligible banks, with the remaining 20 percent to be chipped in by the banks. Banks are rated into three categories -- "A" when their capital adequacy ratio is above four percent, "B" when it is between four percent and minus 25 percent and "C" when it is under minus 25 percent. The government will buy up parts of the banks' rights issues that are not picked up by minority shareholders but will not take management control and will not sell its stakes on the market for at least five years. >From the banks which have been audited, a total of 54 banks were in the "A" class, 50 in the "B" class and 36 in the "C" class, including six of the seven state banks. The government has also set up the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) to handle banks with liquidity problems. By the latest count, IBRA was handling about 26 problem banks. A banking analyst with a joint venture brokerage said the bank recapitalisation program is "still unclear and lacks details. "If Lippo Bank is the first listed bank to participate in the recapitalisation, the government should explain -- why Lippo bank, where the money is coming from and how the funds are going to be used and so on," he told AFX-Asia. "If the government issues bonds for the recapitalisation, what is the interest rate level of the bonds," he said. "It is still unclear whether there is cash involved in this programme or not. AFP, Jan. 29, 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! 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