January 1994

1/1/94

Under 30 yr rule, not all Profumo Affair documents released

John Major’s classless society – the public allowed to nominate honors – well, for 70 of the 900


1/3/94

Bobby Inman was 1982-7 on board of Directors of Internat Signal & Control, many of whose execs pleading guilty or in jail for fraud & illegal arms sales to SA, Iraq... Inman wrote to judge on behalf of one


1/4/94

Clinton Admin criticizes RR & Bush admins for failing to respond to 1980 Congressional report on radiation experiments. Dept Energy spent $47.1m on outside lawyers Oct91-May93 to fight reimbursing victims

New Brazilian scandal, most of Congress suddenly rich. 1 explained %51m in deposits since 1989 by his having won 24,000 lotteries

US thinks of raising license fee for gun dealers from $30 (since 1968) to $600, to eliminate enough marginals to make policing possible


1/5/94

Likud head Netanyahu says his party would not feel obligated to honor the gov’s accord w/PLO

Fr gov will ban artificial impregnation of post-menopausal women, which the health minister calls immoral. he would also like to exclude lesbians

And Fr promotes the secret agent in Greenpeace bombing

Lithuania wants to join NATO


1/6/94

Gov ordered law enforcement agencies to destroy surplus & seized guns rather than sell them arms dealers

Safire notes that the Clintons didn’t deduce that $60,000 they lost in S&L deal on taxes. And this is a man who once deducted used underwear given to charity


1/7/94

Inkatha to boycott elections

Clinton admin wants to calculate environmental damage from oil spills on a “conserv” basis that would undervalue it. This announced on day of a spill in Puerto Rico


1/8/94

Russia’s elections involved seats w/ave 590,000 voters per where voted against Yeltsin in Apr93 referendum, 456,000 pro-Y. No opposition broadcast time until Nov. 20, the last day collecting qualifying signatures.
-Restores Stalin’s method of allowing MPs to hold gov posts

Gov Wilson’s budget inc no increased money for people who have children on welfare, no AFDC for teenagers unless live w/parents. And no pre-natal care for illegals. He also claims to believe the Fed gov will give him $3b for services for illegals


1/9/94

Morton Halperin, under attack as a dangerous radical by the likes of Strom Thurmond, w/draws for Asst Sec of Defense for Democracy & Peacekeeping [!]. Sen. hadn’t bothered w/hearings. And he probably didn’t want to work w/Inman


1/11/94

There’s something disconcerting about the most vociferous supporter of bombing Serbia being France, in the week it begins its own ethnic cleansing. This was orig. threatened Aug 9 to no effect, if Sarajevo siege not lifted. Boutros Ghali has been refusing permission for air strikes. This is all after a Belgian UN commander quit, after saying he never bothered reading the meaningless UN resolutions. The new one is from NATO

10 E Eur countries that want to join NATO offered “Partnership for Peace,” NATO Lite, w/out any timetable or standards for admission. Czech already increasing military spending 12% to come up to NATO standards

Radio Free Eur. to be moved to Prague

Russian Parl meets, already in chaos. A Yeltsin lt. comments that the military still has tank shells. Gov decides Parl no longer to be televised

Ireland to lift ban on IRA/Sinn Fein on tv, radio

Yeltsin rehabilitates 1921 Krondstadt uprising


1/12/94

Clinton reverses himself to ask for a special counsel on Whitewater. Bits & pieces: Clinton improperly took tax deductions for interest payments 1984-5 that the comp actually made. Statute of limitations has expired, so they don’t seem to feel obligated to ante up. 1987 McDougal (the other owner) gave records to Governor’s Mansion – they then vanished. Hillary was Madison S&L’s lawyer when it went belly up (cost = $60,), so was at the least incompetent. And the suicided Vincent Foster, as member of Hillary’s law firm, tried to get FDIC 1989 to hire it to deal w/legal business of Madison’s collapse, a conflict of interest


1/14/94

Mass. wants to force welfare recipients into job or community service after 60 dys, force teenage mothers to live at home & graduate HS

Texas Sup Court allows anti-gay sodomy law

Military to open more jobs to ♀ in MPs, mechanics, etc. Would be allowed in 99% Air Force jobs, 90% Navy, 67% Army & some unnamed low figure for Marines

John Major’s “back to basics” moralizing nonsense is being rewritten to talk about schools rather than personal morality, despite all the demonizing of single mothers. In last week the Environment Minister Tim Yeo resigned after disclosures of his illegitimate children & Min. Shipping Lord Carthness, whose wife suicided after finding out about his affairs. Etc.
-And Tory council in Westminster used sell-off of gov housing to bring Tory voters into marginal wards

ANC publishes manifesto inc building 300,000 houses/yr, redistribute farmland (voluntarily), assert control over mining

Shamir memoirs admits ordering a fellow terrorist assassinated 1943

By May 30 Russia & US will not have nukes targeted at each other

Russia’s Parl elects a CP speaker. CP & “Lib Dem” neo-fascists voting together a lot. Officially, Parl is 76 Russia’s Choice (Gaidar’s Yeltsinite party), Lib Dems 63, CP 45, Agrarians (basically CP) 55, Women of Russia 23, etc – and 112 ind


1/16/94

1989 Labour had only 1 ♀ in shadow cabinet & she was just Women’s Minister, shadowing no one. So new rule forced MPs to vote for min 3 ♀ – & seats in shadow cabinet increased by 3, to 18, so not at men’s expense. Now, have to vote for 4, w/no increase, & the men rebelled, childishly, and divided their votes among no-chances. There has also been bitching about quality of previous women

Gaidar quits gov, evidently not given complete control over the economy, citing monetary union w/Belarus, est w/no Cabinet discussion (exchanging the 2 currencies could cost Russia $1.4b) & spending $500m on a new building for Parl


1/18/94

Bobby Inman w/draws for defense sec, accusing press of McCarthyism and accusing Safire of a deal w/Dole against him, in which Dole would oppose him & Safire would turn up heat on Whitewater (which Safire attacked long before Inman nominated). Inman took his own McCarthyite shot at Safire about “plagiarism” incident 35 yrs ago. Like Ross Perot, Inman has a history of quitting in a pique. Disliked coverage of his getting $1m from a military contractor just as he managed it into bankruptcy

The final Iran-Contra prosecutor report out. Says Bush was in the loop, failed to disclose diary, refused to be interviewed. Says Bush & RR participated in coverup but perhaps had not broken law. In all this, only Thomas Clines went to jail, for cheating on his taxes. Walsh criticizes Bush more, for the pardons, than RR, who was at least sincere. He evidently considered prosecuting Bush for the pardons, but couldn’t prove corruption per se
-Says arms sales to Iran illegal, ditto support of Contras, that both known at highest levels RR admin, everyone knew; many relevant documents willfully w/held from investigators, deceived Congress & public about official knowledge & support for the ops

Russian foreign minister suggests won’t w/draw troops from ex-USSR, inc Baltics

Penn. & Utah will defy Clinton on paying for abortions. Under Penn. law, rape or incest victims can only get Medicaid if they name the father


1/19/94

Iran decided not to execute someone for converting to Christianity (evidently only because he was not a previous member of any religion)

Moscow prosecutor clears Yeltsin’s enemy Rutskoi, he of the Parl defenders, cleared of the timely corruption charges last yr, says based on forged documents

Sam Nunn turned down Clinton to be defense sec last week. He’d rather snipe from sidelines on gays & budget. That he was even considered makes one wonder if Clinton has any defense ideas.
-Inman’s Perot-like performance & diatribes on press suggest that press was not critical *enough*
-Inman also involved in a comp that smuggled arms, technology to SA for a decade. When the owner sold it, he had fraudulently inflated its value – sentenced to 15 yrs, after Inman appealed to the court


1/20/94

Warren Rudman (R) also w/draws from consideration for defense sec

Fed judge allows asylum for objectors to Ch’s pop control policy, over Justice Dept which said this was not a form of pol op allowing asylum

Russia also has Finance Minister Boris Fyodorov resign, like Gaidar a reformer who wanted complete control. Y. seems to be slowing reform

Eur Parl says David Owen should be fired as EU’s mediator in Bosnia (they can’t force it)

AP: “An abandoned parking barrier worshiped as a Hindu shrine has been removed from Golden Gate Park because city officials believed that it overstepped the line between church and state. The 4-foot-high, phallic-shaped stone, worshiped as a shrine to Shiva...”


1/22/94

Cable industry talking about rating programs, & a device to block violent programs. Censorship by technology


1/25/94

Did I mention the big LA earthquake a week ago?

Clinton finally finds a defense sec, the deputy Wm Perry, the what, 5th choice?

Sup Court allows racketeering law use against abortion clinic blockaders

Strobe Talbott, dep sec State on Russia, ordered them to cont. w/“reforms” full speed. Our benchmark for measuring Russian econ performance is entirely inflation

Russian Parl calls for lifting sanctions on Serbia


1/26/94

Br gov did not fall on vote on adding VAT to home-heating fuel. Won by 17 votes, the current gov majority

US to ship Patriots to S Korea. Learning to live w/NK nukes, or what?

A Star Wars spacecraft will also orbit the moon to look for minerals, the 1st to moon since 1972

State of Union message not worth mentioning. Dole says there is no health care crisis. This is now the party line.
-Clinton did announce support of “3 strikes, you’re out” on felonies


1/27/94

Bosnian military finally fighting back, so Yug. army increasingly used. Indeed, it is drafting men from refugee camps into Bosnian Serb army. Lately, many obituaries talk of soldiers dying in traffic & training accidents

New gov idea: make employers who pay for parking spaces offer workers cash in lieu. Already, parking over $155/mo is taxed


1/28/94

Dan Quayle’s next career move: potato chip commercials

Outgoing VA governor Wilder commutes death sentence, to life imprisonment, of an innocent man, so proved by new DNA tests. Not released outright, Wilder says, because he confessed. Actually, he is retarded & gave 5 confessions

Senate 62-38 said embargo fo VN should be lifted


1/29/94

Czech banned Woody Allen movies until mid-80s – too many Jews

US to run spy planes over Yug. out of... Albania

A report to Yeltsin says 3/4 of priv businesses & banks in major cities pay 10-20% to organized crime. Says crime = ¼ of inflation