UNDERNEWS Sam Smith August 21, 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 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 ---------------------------------------------------------- K BLACK BAG WORD If a youthful George W. Bush had been tried according to George W. Bush's own unforgiving drug policy, he might well has been sent away to a maximum security prison for anywhere from ten years to life. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are now doing hard time around the country -- for stays measured in decades if not entire life-spans -- because of their youthful dabblings in the white stuff. -- Mark Anderson, Jan Jose Metro BATTLE OF THE EPIGONS Wonder whether what has GWB really worried are reports of a videotape that allegedly shows him along with his brother Jeb at a certain Florida airport in the 1980s engaged in a certain youthfully indiscreet transaction after meeting a plane that just flew in from Mena, Arkansas? YOUR VOTE IS NO BETTER THAN THE MACHINE THAT COUNTS IT The Louisiana elections commissioner, Jerry Fowler, has been indicted on charges that he made millions of dollars through kickbacks and money laundering. Reports AP: "In one instance, a New Jersey investment firm in which Fowler had a financial interest, Independent Voting Machine Service Co., was sent $900,000 by Election Services Inc. of Alabama, one of the firms awarded a contract by Fowler .... A legislative audit issued earlier this month found that Independent Voting Machine Service Co. and Election Services Inc., got a total of $15.4 million from the elections department from 1991 through 1998 for equipment and services that could have been made for less than half the price paid .... The audit said Fowler bought 3,200 reconditioned mechanical machines without seeking competitive bids required by law." Undernews: Forget the alleged kickbacks and the money laundering; consider the machines. Some years back Ronnie Dugger warned in the New Yorker of the dangers involved in computerized voting machines including the fact that the jurisdictions that buy them can't even look at the programs used to count the votes. Unfortunately, the issue has received hardly any attention since. In the Louisiana case, was it only machines that were up for grabs? Do you know where your vote is? JUST POLITICS STEPHANIE KIRCH, APBNEWS: A retired dentist who is a candidate for mayor is behind bars today following his arrest on a charge of threatening to kill the incumbent. Deputy Chief Walter Watkins said 55-year-old Dr. Ray Desmarais made a series of telephone calls to 911 operators Sunday, and that when two officers arrived at his home to investigate, he told police that "he wanted to kill Mayor Bill Evers." APB NEWS http://www.prorev.com/apbnews.com Number of persons who have been executed by Texas under the administration of George Bush: 99 "I hope to show Hispanics that Republicans do have a heart, but I also want to send a message to people from around the country as to how to pick up the Hispanic vote" - GWB STUPID POLITICIAN TRICKS Salt Lake City has outlawed skateboarding downtown, drum circles in Liberty Park, swearing on Main Street between North Temple and South Temple, resting on sidewalk planters or driving too frequently through downtown. WONDER WHERE THE REST WERE BORN Newsweek in a report on latino culture stated that 57.9% of all Puerto Ricans were born in this country. LOCAL SINGLE PAYER GROUPS MASSACHUSETTS: Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] VERMONT: Vermont Consumers Campaign for Health http://www.sover.net/~rbd/index.html WASHINGTON http://users.tss.net/~hcnmast/ If you have a state group focussed on single-payer health care, let us know and we will add it to our link list DRUG BUSTS The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a complaint against a rural Oklahoma school district that administers drug tests to all students who wish to participate in extracurricular activities. Other school districts have employed mandatory drug-testing, but many of the activities in the Tecumseh School District are tied to the student's classes. Students who refuse to submit to the urine test for the activity would then be forced to drop the associated class, thus losing credits for graduation. The ACLU contends this is a violation of a student's right to a public education, as well as the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. "First, schools wanted to test student athletes, then it was students in extracurricular activities, and now it's students competing in quiz bowls and performing in chorus, where does it end?" said Graham Boyd, Director of the ACLU's Drug Policy Litigation Project. "The district's drug testing policy is more about symbolism than substance. Tecumseh officials initiated urine testing without any evidence of a drug problem at the school and at a time when government reports show that teen drug use is on the decline nationally." ACLU COMPLAINT http://www.aclu.org/court/tecumseh.html CLINTON FLACK WRITES INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT WASHINGTON TIMES: UN administrators in Kosovo say a deal worked out with the Kosovo Liberation Army in June by State Department spokesman James P. Rubin is not binding and will undermine UN efforts to police the province. KLA leaders are pressing for enforcement of the agreement, struck in the closing days of NATO's bombing campaign over Yugoslavia, which would give members of the ethnic Albanian guerrilla force favorable consideration in recruitment of a civil police force. CLINTON FLACK TELLS NEW YORK TIMES WHAT TO WRITE When he was not busy writing international agreements, State Department flack James Rubin took the Clinton Administration's new propaganda strategy out for a test ride. UPI reports that Rubin "has demanded that the New York Times issue a formal correction to a story that claims $1 billion of U.S. assistance has been misappropriated in Bosnia-Herzegovina." The State Department denied the story, in fact denied there even was a 4,000 page report on the subject as the NYT had alleged. It arranged a conference call with a Balkan aid official and several Washington reporters incuding a UPI correspondent who wrote: "Apparently discarding Clinton administration protests and explanations, the Times repeated the central claims of the story in an editorial today and called for a crackdown against official corruption in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Albright's spokesman, James Rubin, appeared flabbergasted with the Times today for not correcting the original mistake and then compounding it with an editorial. Rubin also called on the Times to correct the 'false, unjustified and unsubstantiated' story, the first time in recent memory that any State Department spokesman has publicly made such a demand. 'We would like to see corrective measures taken that create the truth, rather than false perceptions,' he said. The Times had no immediate response to the demand from the State Department. WE ARE NOT MAKING THIS UP JEWISH GANG THREAT IN MISSISSIPPI: We previously reported the case of the Mississippi student who was told to place his Star of David necklace inside his shirt after the principal decided it was a gang symbol. The ACLU has taken the case. Now the latest from the AP: "Tom Green told the Harrison County School Board on Monday that the necklace symbolized his son's religious convictions and that he didn't want his son to be afraid to express those beliefs in public. 'I don't appreciate calling the Star of David a gang symbol,' he told the board. The board voted unanimously to uphold the policy that keeps students from wearing anything that could be considered a gang symbol. Law enforcement officials say some gang symbols incorporate six-pointed stars but normally have other elements such as a letter or a pitchfork. 'This is not a religious issue,' said Frank Baskin, a spokesman for the Harrison County Sheriff's Office. 'This is a safety issue.' REUTERS: Moscow - Police arrested a 16-year-old boy who killed his father, carved up the body, boiled it into a stew and fed it to his cats, a newspaper reported on Wednesday .... "In the kitchen, tens of cats of various breeds were chewing hungrily on boiled meat with buckwheat," the newspaper said. SENATOR BOB BENNETT OF UTAH: "Unless George W. steps in front of a bus or some woman comes forward, let's say some black woman comes forward with an illegitimate child that he fathered within the last 18 months, or some other scenario that you could be equally creative in thinking of, George W. will be the nominee." CLINTON WANTS RIGHT TO DO BLACK BAG JOBS WASHINGTON POST: The Justice Department wants to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to obtain search warrants to secretly enter suspects' homes or offices and disable security on personal computers as a prelude to a wiretap or further search, according to documents and interviews with Clinton administration officials .... Legislation drafted by the department, called the Cyberspace Electronic Security Act, would enable investigators to get a sealed warrant signed by a judge permitting them to enter private property, search through computers for passwords and install devices that override encryption programs, the Justice memo shows .... Although Justice officials say their proposal is "consistent with constitutional principles," the idea has alarmed civil libertarians and members of Congress. ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER: [The] proposal could result in an unprecedented intrusion into the sanctity of private homes and businesses. "This strikes at the heart of the Bill of Rights," said David L. Sobel, EPIC's General Counsel. "It would be truly ironic if the use of encryption -- which is designed to protect privacy -- gave the police a green light to secretly break into homes." Surreptitious physical entries are extremely rare under existing surveillance laws. Such entries are only made in order to install hidden microphones, an investigative technique approved only 50 times by federal and state judges last year. According to Sobel, "extending this extraordinary power to cases involving computer files would make police break-ins far more common than they are today." EPIC http://www.epic.org ELSEWHERE REUTERS: The Green party broke France's summer political lull on Thursday with a warning that it would quit the government if the Socialist-led cabinet pushed ahead with plans to replace aging nuclear plants with new reactors .... The threat is not necessarily new, as the French Greens regularly campaign for the elimination of nuclear power that provides 80 percent of the country's power. But, coming during the August holiday slumber when politicians are traditionally mum, it highlighted the Greens' discontent with their senior Socialist partner in the cabinet of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. CRIME NEWS ASSOCIATED PRESS: As much as $10 billion may have been laundered through the Bank of New York in the past year in what investigators say is an operation run by Russian organized crime, The New York Times reported Thursday. Some $4.2 billion passed through a single account between October and March, the newspaper reported, citing unidentified investigators. ECO NOTES In what media reports described, with massive overstatement, as "ecoterrorism," a one-half acre stand of genetically tampered corn was cut down at a University of Maine in Old Town. The corn was being grown to study its resistance to the herbicide Roundup. The seed was donated by the DeKalb Seed Co., a subsidiary of the Monsanto Corp. Monsanto also manufactures Roundup. Lending aid and comfort to the air of hysteria surrounding the minor incident, a UM official said, "I'm just glad no one was hurt." Those falling stalks of corn are dangerous. KNIGHT-RIDDER: Pollution being swept into the Gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi Riber is strangling marine life in an area the size of New Jersey .... The Dead Zone covers almost 8,000 square miles and stretches in a thin strip along the Louisiana coast from the Mississippi River delta to the Texas border. It begins just beyond the coast wetlands and extends as far as 55 miles offshore in some area. LOOSE CHANGE Amount of US federal welfare: $167 billion Amount the latest tax bill could add to US federal corporate welfare: $32 billion [Janice Shields, Institute for Business Research, 202-387-5190] LETTERS Seven years ago, your editor wrote an article on the Bush family that has rested peacefully in our archives until recently when someone posted it to the conservative Free Republic web site. Some of what happened next is posted on our letters page: http://www.prorev.com/ letters.htm MORE NEWS http://www.prorev.com/indeaxa.htm#21 Rules of the Geneva convention Who's coming to Seattle Pacifica files civil rights complaint against Berry 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/
