May 1992

5/1/92

Demo. voter turnout in primaries down by 25% from 1988, blacks 50%. 16% of blacks voted in SC. In NY 27% Demos voted, 23% blacks. (of whom there are already fewer registered).

LA is still burning. 44 dead so far. Bush will use “whatever force is necessary” to stop it. I feel better already.
-Of 1st 38 dead, 15 black, 11 Hispanic, 5 white, 2 Asian. 28 shot, 6 by cops.
-3,767 building fires, 4,000 arrested


5/2/92

Yugoslav army takes Bosnian president hostage

Europe (EC + EFTA) to be a free mkt next yr in goods, people, capital.

Congressional leaders wanted to resist Justice subpoena for House bank records but the votes weren’t there. 5 Congressmen are in court against

Billboards in Red Square May Day from Gannett & the Canary Islands

“What crime and poverty have created is a riot in slow motion.” John Lindsay, 1990


5/4/92

49 dead LA: 21 black, 7 white, 15 Hispanic, 2 sian. 2,116 injured

Kuwaiti gov spending a fortune. $20b for oil industry & a bank bailout of $20b for bad loans, of which it is believed 60% belong to rich businessmen & members of Sabah. Gov wrote off past due utility bills & will buy empty apartments (since it’s kicking people out of country).

Soviets secretly dropped radioactive wastes in Arctic, inc 12 nuclear reactors

Bosnian president released after 24 hrs

Tajikistan: CP president Nabiyev, thrown out after Moscow coup, put back in 5 weeks later by CP in Parl & elected by people Nov. March arrested the capital’s mayor, setting off demonstrations. April agreed to remove Parl chairman, but made him head of security agency. Now got Parl support for 6 mos’ dir presidential rule, suspension of civil liberties, & parl activity. Now there are demonstrations...

After Br forced ABC to turn over tapes & notes of interviews w/Libyan terrorists, now trying to get identity of an Irishman (Ulster) from Channel 4, which contends collusion between security forces & Loyalist paramilitary groups.

Harkin on endorsing Clinton: “that constructive debate is over and past.”

Evidence shows that Bush campaign was behind the placing in solitary 1988 of the guy who sold Quayle marijuana, the only man ever put in solitary by orders of Bureau of Prisons director.

White House blames LA riots on Great Society programs.
-Bush wants to eliminate all new pub housing
-LA Cty sheriff wants civil rights charges against looters who targeted Korean stores or beat up whites


5/5/92

Sup Court 5-4 says fed courts not obliged to hear challenges by state prisoners, even if can show lawyers failed to present crucial facts in state appeal. Inmates now have to demonstrate a valid reason for improper presentation (previous case says atty error not a valid reason). In this case, an inmate pleaded no contest after an inadequate Spanish translation.
-Also 5-4 that fed courts can’t dismiss indictments on grounds that fed prosecutors failed to disclose favorable evidence to grand jurors, as they are required.

LA: 58 dead. 2,383 injuries, 11,656 arrests, $717m prop. damage. When rioting started, Daryl Gates went off to a fund-raising event. Police inaction may be Gates’s revenge on a city that challenged his godhead

Crimean parl votes for conditional ind from Ukraine, w/a referendum to come


5/6/92

New NEA chair says she’ll scrutinize sexual content of arts projects, base on merit & appeal to widest audience

Bush wants LA rioters arrested under fed laws. Ride em cowboy

When US killed 9 Brits in Gulf War, it turns out conditions were *not* combat or bad weather as claimed at time

CA leg. votes to extend to 7 days time before a suspect must be arraigned, temp. Ex post facto, so illegal


5/7/92

Israel will shoot Palestinians w/out warning if they have guns.

A const amend is ratified to stop Congressmen voting themselves a pay raise taking effect mid-session. The ratification process started 1789, written by James Madison.

10% of health spending lost through fraud

Afghan intro. Islamic law, banning alcohol & drugs; ordered women to cover their hair


5/8/92

Tajikistan president flees

Gorby flying around US in a Forbes jet w/“capitalist tool” on the side. No kidding.

Kazakhstan & Russia to form own armies

Shah of Iran’s brother arrested in LA — drugs


5/9/92

Anti-IRA activities turned over to MI5 from Special Branch

Yugoslavia retires ¼ generals & defense minister, mostly hard-liners


5/10/92

Blacks less likely to get benefits from Social Security disability programs; 10-17% disadvantage Chicago & NY


5/11/92

Paris appeals court dropped charges of crimes against humanity against a Vichyist who executed 7 Jews, saying definition of crime against humanity requires “a state practicing a policy of ideological hegemony,” not just racial persecution, and Vichy wasn’t one of them.

Armenians have militarily taken Ngorno-Karabakh — finally

Russia never purged its judges. Acquittal rate still under 3% & juries not intro. Only 50,000 lawyers, some from military or KGB institutes, correspondence courses. Police can interrogate 24 hrs.

Most cities pay more in taxes for Pentagon than get in military spending. NY loses $8.38b, LA $3.27, Chicago $3.1

Br releases another “IRA bomber”, a loony who falsely confessed & went to jail 1974. That makes 18 freed on appeal in last 2 yrs


5/12/92

Tajik president evidently not out, but gives opposition 8 of 24 cabinet officials, inc foreign, defense, interior, economy, tv & radio, KGB

Bush vetoes campaign reform law. Bush has gotten $200m in pub monies

Gov delayed for mos a census report that says full-time workers earning under $12,195 grew from 12.1% 1979 to 18% 1990 (for those w/college, 6.2% 1979, 10.5% 1990).

Fed judge overturns rule against AIDS ed. materials w/fed funding being “offensive” to a “majority of adults”

A Marine priv court-martialed for refusing to fight in Gulf, now out, sent a gag order by Marines almost giving lectures, interviews, press confs, or face another court-martial

Sen. R’s killed a motor-voter registration bill to allow registration when get or renew driver’s license, require states not to purge non-voters & require mail registration

New NEA chair vetoes 2 sexually explicit projects, over strong recommendations of the advisory panel


5/13/92

Finance chair of RNC, & 3 other Bush fundraisers are being sued by fed regulators in connection w/failed banks

BR & HK agree to throw out the 54,000 VN boat people. Of 24,700 screened to date, 3,600 accepted as refugees

Arab delegates at Mid E. Peace Conf raising question of right of return (which US says it backs now) (but only as long as no one brought it up). Israel boycotting because of non-Occupied Palestinians

Ukraine Parl “annuls” Crimea’s dec of ind

Since LA rioting, 20,578 guns sold CA 1st 11 days of May (not counting the 2,000 acquired in looting).

Bush wants a free-trade agreement w/Chile after that w/Mexico finished

US takes back support of Palestinians right of return, says it must be negotiated

Post Office allows comps access to change-of-address info: insurance, credit comps, mkting. Can’t stay off this list, as Privacy Act requires

A guy on an airplane, for a practical joke, handed stewardess a note demanding the plane fly to Cuba. He’ll be eligible for parole in 25½ yrs


5/14/92

The God Committee allows logging despite Northern Spotted Owl

Br won’t join EC in abolishing customs controls

The investigation of the leak of Clarence Thomas’s little peccadilloes, which failed to find source, questioned indivs & groups critical of Thomas, inc NAACP, Alliance for Justice, NARAL, tried to subpoena records

Iraqi Kurds will hold a free election Sunday. US refuses to send observers & threatens those who intend to go. Might even prosecute. Ex-governor of Nev. going anyway. Turkey has bene grumbling about the election as well. And the agreement for Western air basing there coming up for renewal next month

Tax credits for drug comps to set up in Puerto Rico cost $8.5b 1980s, $70,788/employee (more than twice what they were paid).

FEMA had a little homosexual witchhunt, coercing one employee to name others.


5/15/92

Hillary Clinton is on board of a waste comp into incineration, to tune of $31,000. The comp uses ash of hazardous materials for building materials. Billy Bob advocates burning in Ark.

Alabama Lege votes to ban gay student groups using pub money or university buildings

Azerbaijan: demonstrators forced CP president out in March. Parl voted Matulibou back in; he immediately cancels elections, bans meetings, imposes censorship & curfew. Nationalists rioting now.

NEA’s peer panel suspends operations in protest of head’s overriding them (see 5/12/92).

SF police chief Richard Hongisto fired after 45 dys. A liberal until got this job, used curfew during LA riots to make mass arrests of protesters. And had a critical gay weekly freebie stolen.

The communist is out (again) in Azerbaijan. Supposedly there’ll be a coalition gov


5/16/92

While the Brazil Sup Court last yr threw out “honor” as defense in a trial of man who killed his wife & her lover, a lower court acquitted him again

Voice article on Bush. Seems father Prescott on boards of several businesses seized for being Nazi fronts & subsidizing Nazi propaganda & building up the Ger war machine.
-George’s business career. Like other younger sons, he joined the Texas Raj. To show his ind of his father, he took a job w/a comp on whose board Prescott sat. At 27 he got $300,000 of family money to start his own firm. His partner in a 1960-4 venture was later jailed by Mexico for 5 yrs for defrauding the gov of $58m. The comp was supposedly Mexican, for the legal advantages, and was competing w/Bush’s own Zapata, which he never told Zapata shareholders. And he arranged a sale of a rig from Zapata to it, a clear conflict of interests. Unclear why he was competing w/himself. Zapata’s SEC records were “inadvertently destroyed” 1981.
-1964 entered politics as Goldwater Republican, against Civil Rights Act, for use of nukes in VN, for Texas’s right-to-work law.
-A comp whose board he was on had failed to reinstate 11 workers fired for attending a union meeting, as ordered by NLRB 1967.
-Elected 1966 by all-white Houston suburb & father’s inf got him on Ways & Means.
-1970 Nixon gave him $106,000 of slush fund to run for Senate. Bush didn’t report the money.
-From 1976, continually running for prez rather than making money. Mosbacher brought him into a tank-barge comp, a major polluter of rivers, harbors, w/over 200 spills since 1980, regulated by... Sen. Commerce Mosbacher

LA neighborhoods are divided into smoking & non-smoking


5/17/92

Armenia & Azerbaijan now fighting over a corridor to Ngorno-Karabakh

Italy has been w/out a president for a month. More legislators voted for a replacement than exist. Qadaffi has offered his services.

OAS to ban ships that do business w/Haiti from OAS states. Will press EC to sanction Haiti

Pope beatifies founder of secretive, fascistic Opus Dei, just 17 yrs after he died.

Bush overrides EPA to allow comps to increase pollution levels w/out notifying the public. States would have 28 dys to approve or disapprove, EPA 17 more. The intent is for the paperwork to be lost

EC still hasn’t recognized Macedonia, and has accepted Greece’s condition that it must change its name — they kindly suggest Skopje

Rep. Henry Gonzalez, of Banking Cmte, will ask for ind counsel on gov obstruction of justice, relating to the It. bank that made illegal loans to Iraq. Atty Gen says he will no longer give the Banking Cmte classified documents. $1.9b in loans backed by Commodity Credit Corp & spent on arms. Gov also got Ex-Im Bank to guarantee $484m for oil pipeline. Justice & Customs never complied w/subpoenas. Wm Safire calls this Irangate & says Bush Admin misled Congress, obstructed justice & misused Commodity Credit Corps & Ex-Im for foreign aid


5/18/92

Br inquest found 9 soldiers killed by US during Gulf War were unlawfully killed, so a prosecution is possible. US refused to provide witnesses

US asks Sup Court to overturn ruling by lower court that US citizens tortured by Saudis can sue in US court

VA gov Wilder refuses to stop execution of man who may not have done it (another person, now dead, admitted it) & whose appeal not heard because it was a day late.


5/19/92

FEMA to destroy its list of gay employees

Sup Court 7-2 says a state can’t force mentally ill defendants to accept medication during a trial, unless it’s essential for safety & less intrusive measures won’t do it. The lawyer said his insanity defense screwed by the defendant being “synthetically sane”.
-And 5-4 that people not guilty by reason of insanity can’t be kept in asylums after being cured (Louisiana law)
-Thomas in minority on both. Said “the due process clause does not require the states to conform to the policy preference of Federal judges.”


5/20/92

Quayle says LA riots the fault of “Murphy Brown” for having an unwed mother. Calls for “social sanction” against unwed mothers

UN says Iraq’s nuclear capability overrated

Br won’t prosecute US Air Force pilots re Iraq war. Priv prosecution?

Azerbaijan Parl dissolves in favor of a Nat Council dominated by nationalist Pop Front

Exit polls Oregon say Ross Perot won 13%. Beginning to top Bush & Clinton in polls

1991 14 people executed US. Today 16 & 17 of 1992

Bosnian Serbs holding 5,000 women, children, elderly hostage, demanding lifting of blockade of Yug. Army barracks among other things. At least 2,225 dead Bosnians


5/21/92

Some Yale students want to go to Guantanamo to advise & question Haitian refugees. Justice Dept in court wants these students’ lawyers sanctioned for a frivolous lawsuit & wanted $10m bond. Sup Court has given US a temp stay based on a “considered judgment” backed up by no facts that the suit is increasing the # of refugees

Bush court nominees: Stephen McEwen, for Penn. Appeals Court. 1973 said Delaware Cty had so few Ger shepherds because “our Negroes don’t give us much trouble here.” Michael Wallace, for 5th Court of Appeals, when head of Legal Services, hired a Meese crony for $100,000 to prepare argument that Legal Services unconst. Andrew O’Rourke, for S District NY, tried to block a Legal Services program that challenged the county’s denial of financial assistance to the homeless.
-Sidney Fitzwater was confirmed for 5th Circuit despite a “ballot integrity” program in Texas.
-Ed Carnes, the Prince of Death for 11th Circuit, who wrote Alabama’s death penalty statute allowing judge to override a jury’s sentence & impose death & blocked funds for defense of death row inmates, at one pt sending photos of a victim to the judges on Court of Appeals

Chgina does their largest underground nuke test ever, 1 megaton

US Coast Guard to stop picking up Haitian boat people. Says that just encourages them.

Russian Parl says the 1954 gift of Crimea to the Ukraine was unconst & void


5/22/92

Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia join UN (178 in all)

Fr & Ger est joint army corps of 35,000, invite other W Eur countries


5/23/92

Internat Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War says Bush pressured Yeltsin to resume nuclear testing when current moratorium ends Oct.


5/24/92

Ag Dept plan to let farmers drain wetlands, w/the usual subsidies

Perot tried to get out of Navy 1955 saying it was Godless and had bad morals

Given the 27th Amend, there are 4 others out there: 1) 1789 on apportionment, 10 ratifications by 1791; 2) revoke citizenship of those who take any titles of nobility, 3) prohibit Congress banning slavery, ratified by Ohio 1861, MD 1862; 4) allowing fed gov to rule on child labor 1924 — 28 states & moot

The US Atty who failed to prosecute the It. bank (Livorno) that funneled $4b to Iraq had worked as lawyer for an Iraqi comp under investigation because its funds came from Livorno.

Polish Doctors’ Guild will suspend drs who perform abortions exc in cases of rape or threat to life

Yet another new policy on Haitian refugees: their boats are now to be just escorted back to Haiti — by exec order

Lithuanian president failed to get new powers by referendum. 70% voted for it, but 57% turnout — needed 50% of electorate. Evidently, they’ve been in deadlock for a yr

Pentagon has rewritten the planning paper leaked in Feb. No longer as paranoic, suggesting Russia will rise again & Ger & Japan should be stopped from becoming players. But curiously, the cost is still $1.5t+

Berlin elections: SPD 31.7%, CDU 27% (½ that in E Berlin). Green-human rights coalition 13%, in both sides, for rent control & curbs on devt. Fascist Republicans 10% w Berlin, 8.1% total — platform of segregating foreigners in schools & reserving neighborhoods for Gers. Ex-Dems 1 West, 30% e., 11% total


5/26/92

Somehow in context of endangered species, Interior Sec Lujan says he doesn’t believe in Darwinian evolution

Kosovo holds much-harassed vote for ind

Prez of Moldova says may be in war w/Russia if it doesn’t stop military activity in Dniester region

80% of campaign bookkeeping & legal expense fund-raising fund of $1.5m came from people who’d already given the legal max


5/27/92

Fake money has somehow been flooding Iraq

Shamir says terrorists who try to kill Israelis should be killed on the spot


5/28/92

35 states require parental consent for abortion, but only 18 enforcing. CA’s was overturned as violating State Const right of privacy. In Indianapolis, clinics advise minors to go to KY or Ill. & not bother w/the courts. Indiana local judges refuse to hold hearings; in Terra Haute 1985 a judge refused a bypass for a 14-yr old — no one’s bothered to try for a bypass in the town since then. Ohio judges have refused permission to A-student 17½ yr old who had “not had enough hard knocks in her life,” another for not having started paternity proceedings for existing 3-mo old son. Ohio’s law also just voided in its requirement that a woman must be given a graphic pamphlet in fetal devt & wait 24 hrs


5/29/92

Perot’s money has to a large extent derived from gov, as Ramparts called him in 1971, “America’s 1st welfare billionaire” for handling processing for Medicare & such. 1969 supported Nixon on POWs, took out anti-protester, pro-Nixon ads. 1972 Elliot Richardson, then at Health, Ed & Welfare, intervened to approve a $2m/yr Perot bid for Medicare at 3X the lowest bid; days after the election, 2 Perot execs gave $200,000 to CREEP. The GAO investigated this & found the contract unwarranted, but the GAO file is missing.
-Other politicians who intervened for him inc Gov Rockefeller, whose family (i.e., Chase Manhattan) worked w/Perot. For a $2b Medicaid contract in Texas 1980, he orchestrated a smear campaign combined w/priv pressure to get it.
-1985 tried to buy the Museum of the American Indian in NY & move it to a patriotism theme park in Dallas.
-Perot’s famous for breaking 2 employees out of an Iranian prison 1979 — actually part of a jailbreak of 11,000 rapists & murderers & such.
-1986 gave $2m to Ollie North’s Lake Resources.
-Perot fights dirty & tenaciously. The bashful, who-me? approach is hilarious.
-His latest investment is Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. He’s gotten fed & state & city govs to invest $200m in cash & tax breaks to increase the value of his lands using inf by Jim Wright. All decisions have been made by the Perot family, which gives campaign contribs to mayors, councilcritters & Jim Wright.

INS took advantage of LA riots to deport 78%. Police detained people for not having documents

Bush Exec Order NSDD 26 of Oct.89 says Iraq should be plied w/aid

Perot also says he won’t have any homosexuals or adulterers in Cabinet

Congress has voted to overturn Bush ban on research using fetal tissue (which now clearly works for Parkinson’s). Bush will veto; but did est banks for miscarriages, which are of course sick tissue


5/30/92

US will not sign the biological diversity treaty at the Earth Summit. Evidently, we’re trying to protect genetic engineering. US already got UN to drop any part of the global warming treaty that was meaningful.

Commerce Dept tampered w/documents sent to Congress 1991 on exports of technology to Iraq, to disguise shipments of stuff used by military

Under the Gandhis, Congress Party failed to hold elections for party officials for 20 yrs. Rao held elections, didn’t like the results & got his 2 chief rivals de-elected. He complained about absence of women & untouchables so 5 of the 10 elected to Congress working party took hint & resigned. Rao essentially fired the 2 chefs


5/31/92

CA Green Party forced CA to count its blank primary ballots as none of the above