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REASON Express April 17, 2000 Vol. 3 No. 16
- - Mind Games - - Just when things seem nice and normal, here comes fresh evidence that political leaders exist in some alternative reality of their own making. Now perhaps it wasn't shocking that Attorney General Janet Reno thought that the force of her personality could move the Miami relatives of little Elian to hand him over. After all, ever since Waco--seven years ago now--Reno has been given a kind of pity pass by the mainstream media. No one actually points out that the crazy things she says and does are, well, crazy. But winging to Miami as a kind of prosecutorial Mary Poppins had "daft" written all over it. Yet none dared say so. Still, Reno's private little world is truly irrelevant compared to the massive fantasyland President Bill Clinton has constructed for himself. Speaking to a roomful of newspaper editors, Clinton actually said that all of Whitewater "was a lie and a fraud from the beginning." But that was just a warm up for the taunt that he seemed to relish, "I'm not ashamed of the fact that they impeached me. That was their decision, not mine, and it was wrong. ... I consider it one of the major chapters in my defeat of the revolution Mr. Gingrich led, that would have taken this country in a very different direction than it's going today." Oh the majesty of this argument. Because House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) resigned his seat soon after Republicans lost seats in the 1998 election, Bill Clinton was in the right. But Clinton still bristled at the suggestion that he'll need a pardon if independent counsel Robert Ray--not yet a sex-obsessed zealot, but give the Clinton team time--opts to bring charges once Clinton leaves office. A cold, hard federal indictment might finally succeed in puncturing the bizarro bubble that Clinton now lives in. Or it just as easily could be taken as definitive proof that this great man has great enemies. http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/14/198l-041400-idx.html
Charles Paul Freund took apart the Clinton machine's scandal-spinning strategy at http://www.reason.com/0004/fe.cf.secrets.html - - Universal Lip Service - - Somewhere along the line the mythical digital divide morphed into the dial-tone divide. And we all get to pay for it. U.S. long-distance telephone rates will inch up this year to pay for President Clinton's plan to help 300,000 Native Americans get phone service. From there, the hope is that these households are one step closer to the Internet. A 0.4 percent rate hike will bring in $17 million annually to subsidize phone service for the 50 percent or so of Native Americans who don't have phones. Some 300,000 households on reservations will get basic dial-tone service for $1 a month. The new subsidy builds on an existing Federal Communications Commission program which uses $500 million a year collected from "universal service" fees. The money comes from long-distance companies, the FCC then routes the cash back to "high cost" areas. The beauty of the plan is that it is part of the FCC's standard regulatory structure and does not need congressional approval. But it is also an interesting rhetorical expansion of the program. The fees, which have been around for decades, are now supposed to also support Internet expansion. Interesting to see, then, how that will square with the FCC's longtime opposition to levying access fees and other trappings of the "universal service" regime on Net traffic. If Net access is being bought with universal service fees--and that is what the White House and the FCC say is the goal--then how much longer can the Net stay separate and exempt from universal service "participation?" http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/17/057l-041700-idx.html http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20000417/tc/great_divide_3.html - - The Czar vs. the Crystal Ladies - - The nation's top drug warrior, Barry R.
McCaffrey, has revved up his office's mighty PR machine to help
convince the public that all is right with the Drug War. Part of
that effort is a Washington Post op-ed ostensibly penned by
McCaffrey that made the case that there really isn't a Drug War,
just a kind of aggressive research project. "Cancer, rather than war, is the more appropriate metaphor for the nation's drug problem," he suggests. Great. Does that mean cancer patients can look forward to life sentences? Moving on, McCaffrey also lowered the bar a bit for what we should expect from our federal anti-drug efforts, which evidently are not all that effective. "The drug problem is in essence a collection of local epidemics that can best be addressed at the community level by coalitions of parents, coaches, health professionals and teachers," he explains. So then McCaffrey might be pleased with the initiative shown by local officials in California last week who took it upon themselves to arrest three women for selling iodine crystals without keeping tabs on buyers. The women ran Granicy's Feed Store in rural Lancaster and were charged with failing to keep records of who bought the iodine, one of the so-called "pre-cursor" chemicals for production of methamphetamine. Dorothy Jean Manning, 66, Ramona Ann Beck, 61, and Armitta Mae Granicy, 59, are in the dock for selling iodine crystals without asking buyers for identification. It is believed to be the first such prosecution in the state. A new California law requires merchants to record the names and vehicle information of people buying the crystals, which have been used for years to treat various barnyard hoof ailments. But Det. Tom Holeman said Granicy's has sold more than three times as much iodine as any of the three other Antelope Valley feed stores carrying the product. Undercover agents made iodine buys at Granicy's after the store was sent certified letters that explained the new law. But that, as well as personal warnings from sheriff's deputies, failed to make an impression on the women. "We've got ladies who say they are doing business the same way they've done for the past 40 years. [They] don't have a clue what methamphetamine is. They wouldn't know meth from methyl alcohol," said their attorney, Robert Sheahen. No matter how this case--or ones depressingly similar--turns out, McCaffrey will be able to find a place to land. He has built some impressive wiggle room into his Drug Cancer prescription. "Strict law enforcement, combined with humane and intelligent policy, is the answer to the enormous public safety problem posed by drug dependence," McCaffrey says. Convictions would prove the wisdom of the law and validate unquestioning lock-step actions by police. Acquittals that state lawmakers had devised an "unintelligent" policy. Either way, the Drug War PR campaign keeps on rolling.
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/17/010l-041700-idx.html (Note insanely long URL, which also requires an insanely long registration process at a very evil LA Times site) QUICK HITS - - Quote of the Week - - "There's no such thing as Animal Rights, you fucking retards," Tony Watkins, a senior finance major at George Washington University, to IMF/World Bank protestors chanting about animal rights. For more of Michael W. Lynch's special Capital Letter on the protests in downtown Washington, DC see http://www.reason.com/bi/lynch4-16.html
- - Fast Lane - - Richard Lawrence Pineda, a veteran INS officer, was found guilty of smuggling marijuana and undocumented immigrants into the United States by allowing vehicles to pass through his inspection lane. Pineda was found guilty on 12 counts, including smuggling and conspiracy. He faces 10 years to life for allowing 25 illegal immigrants in six cars and 3,550 pounds of marijuana in four carloads to pass through his lane at the San Ysidro Port of Entry over a 12-month period. http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/04/10/border.corruption.ap/index.html
- - Texas Two-Step - - Ford Motor Co. refuses to go quietly in its dispute with Texas regulators who have stopped the automaker from running a used-car Web site. Texas Division of Motor Vehicles officials say the direct selling of cars online by Ford is illegal. Ford wants an administrative law judge to rule on it. http://dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/63373_carsales.html
- - Just Browsing - - No one knows what the antitrust remedies will be to fix whatever it was that Microsoft did to the world, but they are sure to be state-of-the-art circa 1995. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,35564,00.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58111-2000Apr11.html
- - Filter Hack Now an ACLU Case - - The American Civil Liberties Union plans to appeal a judge's order barring Web sites from posting the "cphack" program. The code allows users to find out what it is that Mattel Inc.'s Cyber Patrol software does when it "filters" offensive sites. "The legal issue here is whether a Boston court has jurisdiction over the entire Internet, and our answer to that is a resounding no," said ACLU senior staff attorney Chris Hansen. http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/internetcrime/2000/04/11/cphack0411_01.html
REASON NEWS Saturday, April 29, Editor-at-Large Virginia Postrel will moderate a panel, "Overthrowing the Government: America's Changing Political Culture," at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Royce Hall, UCLA, 1:30-2:30, with book signings to follow. Panelists include David Frum, David Horowitz, and Arianna Huffington. Tickets are free but are required and are available from Ticketmaster.
For the latest on media appearances by Reason writers, visit http://www.reason.com/press.html.
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