From: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com (roc-digest) To: roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: roc-digest V2 #128 Reply-To: roc-digest Sender: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk roc-digest Thursday, May 7 1998 Volume 02 : Number 128 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 14:17:29 CST From: 1911a1@gte.net Subject: Court Orders Fair NRA Election PLEASE READ, FORWARD, CROSS-POST, PRINT OUT, AND SHOW TO YOUR FRIENDS! POST AT GUN STORES, CLUBS AND RANGES! PLACE IN YOUR MAILINGS. SPREAD THE WORD! THE MEMBERS' MEETING IS IN PHILADELPHIA ON SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 1998, BEGINNING AT 10 AM. ALL CONCERNED MEMBERS SHOULD PLAN TO BE THERE! CALL MEMBER SERVICES AT 1-800-672-3888 FOR INFORMATION. NOTICE: Second Amendment Action Committee Meeting For all NRA members with a few exceptions. 7 PM FRIDAY NIGHT JUNE 5, 1998. Holiday Inn Select, Center City: the level above the restaurant level, called the "meeting level," in the Benjamin Ballroom. This unfortunately (and unavoidably) conflicts with the Friends of the NRA Dinner scheduled for the same time. The Friends of NRA meeting would cost you $50 a head. There is not time enough to make both meetings. - ----- Begin Forwarded Text The following is reproduced from the March 1, 1998 issue of The New Gun Week. Much of what is contained is old news, but Tartaro offers some insight into the history of the fair elections bylaw, and to the history of the internal politicking that led to the court battle. COURT ORDERS FAIR NRA ELECTION by Joseph P. Tartaro Executive Editor On Feb. 5, two days before the most recent meeting of the National Rifle Associations board of directors, a New York state Supreme Court judge issued a temporary injunction requiring the NRAs leadership to follow the letter of the Associations bylaws in the 1998 balloting for 26 seats on the board of directors. The order signed by Judge Beatrice Shainswit in Manhattan came just prior to the deadline for printing of the March issues of the three magazines which carry the annual ballot. It prohibits management from showing on the ballot or anywhere in the official journal the method of nomination for candidates. The bylaw in question, Article VIII, Section 3(e), adopted in 1979, states: In both the official journal and on the official ballot, no persons nominated by the petition nor by the Nominating Committee shall be so designated. The court order is the result of a pleading in New York state, where NRA is incorporated, by 10 candidates for the board qualified for the 1998 ballot by petition of members, led by Howard Fezell, a practicing attorney and NRA director who was not renominated by the Nominating Committee. Fezell had written to Edward J. Land, NRA secretary, on Dec. 17, 1997 requesting that any designation as to the manner in which Fezell was nominated as a candidate be removed from his biography to be published in the official journal. He further requested that NRA notify all candidates whose biographical sketches contain any reference to the method of nomination that such designations are not permitted by the bylaws. And he asked assurance that the report of the Nominating Committee listing its choices not be printed. When he received no response, Fezell, in company with other petition candidates, filed the suit. The NRA immediately cross filed and asked that the action be dismissed. After citing case law in the subject, Shainswit wrote: Based upon the foregoing principles of law, the court can reach only one conclusion with respect to the bylaw at issue. It says what it says in very unambiguous terms....it clearly and unequivocally says that candidates cannot be so designated in both the official journal and on the ballot. Therefore, defendants evidence of a different intent behind adoption of the bylaw in 1979 and its subsequent interpretation by NRA Boards, members, and candidates for the past 20 years is inadmissible. The following week, the battle moved to the Washington, DC, media where The Washington Times published a story which was obviously spin-doctored by NRA leaders because the suit was reported to be an effort by NRA dissidents to block leaderships plan to publicize endorsements. The Times quoted NRA President Marion Hammer as saying, This effort is about keeping Charlton Heston from becoming president of the NRA and trying to get rid of Wayne LaPierre as well. This is the first time in our history that a sitting member of the board would sue the organization....Bringing the courts in to tell us how to run the organization, rather than the board, is just unconscionable. The paper quoted Fezell as saying: I have volunteered thousands of hours of time to preserve the right to keep and bear arms and never thought I would see the day I would be involved in litigation with the NRA, but it was the only way to ensure a fair election. The next day, The Times printed a letter from Neal Knox, another NRA director, that said The judges ruling may have saved the NRA the embarrassment and expense of having the election overturned, just as the courts overturned the Teamsters election....The issue isnt whether Vice President Charlton Heston or Executive Director (sic) Wayne LaPierre will be re-elected by the NRA boardas Im confident they willbut whether theres a fair board election, which is what the court ordered. How the voting members of the NRA will react to this phase of the internal battle that has been going on since late 1996 remains to be seen. The leadership wants to make it seem that the board election this year is a referendum on LaPierre and Heston. The other faction is trying to overcome the tremendous advantages of incumbency and management control of the official journal. The battle over designating the method of nominating candidatesand even the two nominating processeshave been the source of internal discord for over 20 years. And while board members may not have sued the Association before, the board has sued members, and individual members have sued and won to clarify their rights. The court has been and continues to be an unwelcome but necessary option. The main purpose of some of the changes made in Cincinnati in 1977 was to make the board more accountable and responsive to the members and their interests. Under the old president-appointed nominating committee system, the outcome of board elections was pre-determined by NRA management, usually led by the president, and was seldom in doubt. If a person was nominated, they were elected. Before then, the only alternative to the committees slate, frequently including only as many nominees as vacancies, was the write-in option. However, no one was ever elected by write-in. Two of the bylaw changes adopted in Cincinnati were designed to reduce the tremendous power of the president to perpetuate the board in his or her own image. The one bylaw amendment gave the board power to elect the nominating committee and required the board to choose three of the committees nine members from among the voting membership at large. The other provided for nomination by a petition containing at least 250 valid signatures of voting members. These bylaw changes enacted by the members in 1977 governed the elections which took place the next year. In 1978, NRA-voting members elected 27 board members using the new method for the first time. The numeral 1 was used on the ballot to designate those nominated by committee, the numeral 2 to designate those nominated by petition. Both numbers were used for any candidate with dual nomination. It should be noted that in 1978, the first board-elected nominating committee named 35 candidates for 27 board vacancies, thereby offering the NRA voting members for the first time a wider choice. However, 15 candidates also were nominated by petition, three of whom also had nominating committee endorsement. In that election, seven petition-only candidates were elected for the first time. Seventeen candidates nominated only by the committee were elected. However, the candidates ranked first, second and third in the mail balloting were dual-nominated. Those interested in gaining an edge in elections took notice of this result and in 1979, several groups, including some allied with management, circulated multi-name petitions. Meanwhile, the nominating committee returned to pre-Cincinnati practices and nominated just 26 candidates for 26 vacancies. Twenty-three of the 26 were also petition nominees. As might be expected, the 23 dual nominees swept the top 23 vote-gathering slots in the 1979 election. It seemed that any power given to the members through the democratizing petition process had been neutralized. In response, the members who still proposed, debated, sometimes amended, and voted on bylaw changes on the floor of an annual meeting in those days, further amended the bylaws in 1979 to the language cited by Shainswit. But that was not the end of the matter. In 1981, at the annual meeting in Denver, the members turned back a management- proposed bylaw change which would have further changed the bylaws to actually require designations of the method of nomination on the ballot. In a May 1981 editorial which went to the core of the issue, Shooting Times said: As long as there is no indication on the ballot of how a candidate is nominated, voting members will be required to evaluate potential directors solely on the basis of their biographies and qualifications, and anti-democratic influences within the existing NRA Board will not be able to use the grassroots petition system to their advantage, as they did in 1979. It was later argued that while the NRA staff could be prohibited from showing the method of nomination on the ballot, individual nominees could include such information in the biographies they draft for publication in the NRA official journal next to the ballot. Since 1984, the management has circumvented the bylaw prohibition by having a majority of the board pass a resolution calling for publication of the Nominating Committees reportusually printed adjacent to the ballotthereby showing which candidates are endorsed by the same people who elected that nominating committee in the first place. Given the foregoing history it is not surprising that a candidate finally took the issue to court. What is surprising is that it took so long. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Please VOTE FOR THE FAITHFUL Second Amendment Action candidates: Jerry L. Allen David M. Gross* Robley T. Moore Michael J. Beko* John Guest Larry R. Rankin James A. Church Fred Gustafson Albert C. Ross* William Dominguez Don L. Henry* Frank H. Sawberger Howard J. Fezell* William B. Hunt Thomas L. Seefeldt Daniel B. Fiora* Phillip B. Journey* Kim Stolfer Arnold J. Gaunt Michael S. Kindberg* John H. Trentes Fred Griisser Jeff Knox Glen I. Voorhees Jr.* Wesley H. Grogan Jr.* John C. Krull Those with an asterisk have been deliberately targeted to be PURGED as "extremists." What's "extreme" about demanding your rights? Help NRA help you and support these candidates! 2. Visit their web sites for further information: http://www.2ndamendment.net (contains candidate statements) http://www.mcs.net/~lpyleprn/home.html http://www.nealknox.com/ (contains Heston interviews) U.S. mail point-of-contact: Second Amendment Action, 100 Heathwood Drive, Liberty, S.C. 29657 ------------------------------------------------------ | If guns cause crime, | If you want my | | crime, all of mine are | guns, then you | | defective. | want a war. | |----------------------------------------------------- | Support the Chinese | If Charles Schumer didn't | | Underground! Buy an | exist, it would not be | | SKS and bury it! | necessary to invent him. | ------------------------------------------------------ -*-*-* Visit me at http://home1.gte.net/1911a1 *-*-*- - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 14:17:29 CST From: 1911a1@gte.net Subject: Court Orders Fair NRA Election PLEASE READ, FORWARD, CROSS-POST, PRINT OUT, AND SHOW TO YOUR FRIENDS! POST AT GUN STORES, CLUBS AND RANGES! PLACE IN YOUR MAILINGS. SPREAD THE WORD! THE MEMBERS' MEETING IS IN PHILADELPHIA ON SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 1998, BEGINNING AT 10 AM. ALL CONCERNED MEMBERS SHOULD PLAN TO BE THERE! CALL MEMBER SERVICES AT 1-800-672-3888 FOR INFORMATION. NOTICE: Second Amendment Action Committee Meeting For all NRA members with a few exceptions. 7 PM FRIDAY NIGHT JUNE 5, 1998. Holiday Inn Select, Center City: the level above the restaurant level, called the "meeting level," in the Benjamin Ballroom. This unfortunately (and unavoidably) conflicts with the Friends of the NRA Dinner scheduled for the same time. The Friends of NRA meeting would cost you $50 a head. There is not time enough to make both meetings. - ----- Begin Forwarded Text The following is reproduced from the March 1, 1998 issue of The New Gun Week. Much of what is contained is old news, but Tartaro offers some insight into the history of the fair elections bylaw, and to the history of the internal politicking that led to the court battle. COURT ORDERS FAIR NRA ELECTION by Joseph P. Tartaro Executive Editor On Feb. 5, two days before the most recent meeting of the National Rifle Associations board of directors, a New York state Supreme Court judge issued a temporary injunction requiring the NRAs leadership to follow the letter of the Associations bylaws in the 1998 balloting for 26 seats on the board of directors. The order signed by Judge Beatrice Shainswit in Manhattan came just prior to the deadline for printing of the March issues of the three magazines which carry the annual ballot. It prohibits management from showing on the ballot or anywhere in the official journal the method of nomination for candidates. The bylaw in question, Article VIII, Section 3(e), adopted in 1979, states: In both the official journal and on the official ballot, no persons nominated by the petition nor by the Nominating Committee shall be so designated. The court order is the result of a pleading in New York state, where NRA is incorporated, by 10 candidates for the board qualified for the 1998 ballot by petition of members, led by Howard Fezell, a practicing attorney and NRA director who was not renominated by the Nominating Committee. Fezell had written to Edward J. Land, NRA secretary, on Dec. 17, 1997 requesting that any designation as to the manner in which Fezell was nominated as a candidate be removed from his biography to be published in the official journal. He further requested that NRA notify all candidates whose biographical sketches contain any reference to the method of nomination that such designations are not permitted by the bylaws. And he asked assurance that the report of the Nominating Committee listing its choices not be printed. When he received no response, Fezell, in company with other petition candidates, filed the suit. The NRA immediately cross filed and asked that the action be dismissed. After citing case law in the subject, Shainswit wrote: Based upon the foregoing principles of law, the court can reach only one conclusion with respect to the bylaw at issue. It says what it says in very unambiguous terms....it clearly and unequivocally says that candidates cannot be so designated in both the official journal and on the ballot. Therefore, defendants evidence of a different intent behind adoption of the bylaw in 1979 and its subsequent interpretation by NRA Boards, members, and candidates for the past 20 years is inadmissible. The following week, the battle moved to the Washington, DC, media where The Washington Times published a story which was obviously spin-doctored by NRA leaders because the suit was reported to be an effort by NRA dissidents to block leaderships plan to publicize endorsements. The Times quoted NRA President Marion Hammer as saying, This effort is about keeping Charlton Heston from becoming president of the NRA and trying to get rid of Wayne LaPierre as well. This is the first time in our history that a sitting member of the board would sue the organization....Bringing the courts in to tell us how to run the organization, rather than the board, is just unconscionable. The paper quoted Fezell as saying: I have volunteered thousands of hours of time to preserve the right to keep and bear arms and never thought I would see the day I would be involved in litigation with the NRA, but it was the only way to ensure a fair election. The next day, The Times printed a letter from Neal Knox, another NRA director, that said The judges ruling may have saved the NRA the embarrassment and expense of having the election overturned, just as the courts overturned the Teamsters election....The issue isnt whether Vice President Charlton Heston or Executive Director (sic) Wayne LaPierre will be re-elected by the NRA boardas Im confident they willbut whether theres a fair board election, which is what the court ordered. How the voting members of the NRA will react to this phase of the internal battle that has been going on since late 1996 remains to be seen. The leadership wants to make it seem that the board election this year is a referendum on LaPierre and Heston. The other faction is trying to overcome the tremendous advantages of incumbency and management control of the official journal. The battle over designating the method of nominating candidatesand even the two nominating processeshave been the source of internal discord for over 20 years. And while board members may not have sued the Association before, the board has sued members, and individual members have sued and won to clarify their rights. The court has been and continues to be an unwelcome but necessary option. The main purpose of some of the changes made in Cincinnati in 1977 was to make the board more accountable and responsive to the members and their interests. Under the old president-appointed nominating committee system, the outcome of board elections was pre-determined by NRA management, usually led by the president, and was seldom in doubt. If a person was nominated, they were elected. Before then, the only alternative to the committees slate, frequently including only as many nominees as vacancies, was the write-in option. However, no one was ever elected by write-in. Two of the bylaw changes adopted in Cincinnati were designed to reduce the tremendous power of the president to perpetuate the board in his or her own image. The one bylaw amendment gave the board power to elect the nominating committee and required the board to choose three of the committees nine members from among the voting membership at large. The other provided for nomination by a petition containing at least 250 valid signatures of voting members. These bylaw changes enacted by the members in 1977 governed the elections which took place the next year. In 1978, NRA-voting members elected 27 board members using the new method for the first time. The numeral 1 was used on the ballot to designate those nominated by committee, the numeral 2 to designate those nominated by petition. Both numbers were used for any candidate with dual nomination. It should be noted that in 1978, the first board-elected nominating committee named 35 candidates for 27 board vacancies, thereby offering the NRA voting members for the first time a wider choice. However, 15 candidates also were nominated by petition, three of whom also had nominating committee endorsement. In that election, seven petition-only candidates were elected for the first time. Seventeen candidates nominated only by the committee were elected. However, the candidates ranked first, second and third in the mail balloting were dual-nominated. Those interested in gaining an edge in elections took notice of this result and in 1979, several groups, including some allied with management, circulated multi-name petitions. Meanwhile, the nominating committee returned to pre-Cincinnati practices and nominated just 26 candidates for 26 vacancies. Twenty-three of the 26 were also petition nominees. As might be expected, the 23 dual nominees swept the top 23 vote-gathering slots in the 1979 election. It seemed that any power given to the members through the democratizing petition process had been neutralized. In response, the members who still proposed, debated, sometimes amended, and voted on bylaw changes on the floor of an annual meeting in those days, further amended the bylaws in 1979 to the language cited by Shainswit. But that was not the end of the matter. In 1981, at the annual meeting in Denver, the members turned back a management- proposed bylaw change which would have further changed the bylaws to actually require designations of the method of nomination on the ballot. In a May 1981 editorial which went to the core of the issue, Shooting Times said: As long as there is no indication on the ballot of how a candidate is nominated, voting members will be required to evaluate potential directors solely on the basis of their biographies and qualifications, and anti-democratic influences within the existing NRA Board will not be able to use the grassroots petition system to their advantage, as they did in 1979. It was later argued that while the NRA staff could be prohibited from showing the method of nomination on the ballot, individual nominees could include such information in the biographies they draft for publication in the NRA official journal next to the ballot. Since 1984, the management has circumvented the bylaw prohibition by having a majority of the board pass a resolution calling for publication of the Nominating Committees reportusually printed adjacent to the ballotthereby showing which candidates are endorsed by the same people who elected that nominating committee in the first place. Given the foregoing history it is not surprising that a candidate finally took the issue to court. What is surprising is that it took so long. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Please VOTE FOR THE FAITHFUL Second Amendment Action candidates: Jerry L. Allen David M. Gross* Robley T. Moore Michael J. Beko* John Guest Larry R. Rankin James A. Church Fred Gustafson Albert C. Ross* William Dominguez Don L. Henry* Frank H. Sawberger Howard J. Fezell* William B. Hunt Thomas L. Seefeldt Daniel B. Fiora* Phillip B. Journey* Kim Stolfer Arnold J. Gaunt Michael S. Kindberg* John H. Trentes Fred Griisser Jeff Knox Glen I. Voorhees Jr.* Wesley H. Grogan Jr.* John C. Krull Those with an asterisk have been deliberately targeted to be PURGED as "extremists." What's "extreme" about demanding your rights? Help NRA help you and support these candidates! 2. Visit their web sites for further information: http://www.2ndamendment.net (contains candidate statements) http://www.mcs.net/~lpyleprn/home.html http://www.nealknox.com/ (contains Heston interviews) U.S. mail point-of-contact: Second Amendment Action, 100 Heathwood Drive, Liberty, S.C. 29657 ------------------------------------------------------ | If guns cause crime, | If you want my | | crime, all of mine are | guns, then you | | defective. | want a war. | |----------------------------------------------------- | Support the Chinese | If Charles Schumer didn't | | Underground! Buy an | exist, it would not be | | SKS and bury it! | necessary to invent him. | ------------------------------------------------------ -*-*-* Visit me at http://home1.gte.net/1911a1 *-*-*- - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 14:39:06 -0500 (CDT) From: Subject: IP: NYT: Starr Grand Jury indictments, convictions, etc. (fwd) - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 06 May 1998 09:22:00 -0700 (PDT) From: "Maher, Steve (SD-MS)" To: Ignition-Point@majordomo.pobox.com Subject: IP: NYT: Starr Grand Jury indictments, convictions, etc. Starr Grand Jury indictments, convictions, etc. from http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/washpol/whitewater-list.html The New York Times, May 6, 1998 THE CAST The following are the direct and indirect results to date of Kenneth W. Starr's investigation into the Whitewater land deal. Convictions and Plea Agreements James B. McDougal, Former business partner of the Clintons in Whitewater land development and operator of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan; on May 28, 1996, convicted on 18 felony counts related to bad loans by Madison, including conspiracy, fraud and making false statements; sentenced to three years in prison, $10,000 fine, $4.2 million restitution; died in prison on March 8, 1998. Susan H. McDougal, Former partner with husband in Whitewater and Madison; convicted the same day on four felony counts, including mail fraud, making false statements and misapplication of funds; sentenced to two years in prison, community service, $5,000 fine, $300,000 restitution; completed 18-month term for civil contempt and has begun fraud term. Jim Guy Tucker, Clinton's successor as Arkansas Governor; on May 28, 1996, convicted on two felony counts of conspiracy and mail fraud; sentenced to four years' probation with 18 months' home detention, community service, $25,000 fine, $150,000 restitution; on Feb. 20, 1998, pleaded guilty to felony charge of conspiring to engage in sham bankruptcy to avoid paying Federal income taxes on sale of cable television system and agreed to cooperate with investigators; to be sentenced. David Hale, Former Little Rock municipal judge; on March 22, 1994, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of conspiring to defraud the Small Business Administration in connection with a $300,000 loan to McDougal; claimed that Governor Clinton had asked him to make loan; sentenced to 28 months, $10,000 fine, more than $2 million restitution. Eugene Fitzhugh, Little Rock lawyer; on June 23, 1994, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charge of improperly trying to bribe Hale; in exchange for plea, prosecutors dropped charges that he conspired with Charles Matthews to defraud the Small Business Administration; sentenced to 10 months in prison, one year supervised release, $3,000 fine. Charles Matthews, Little Rock businessman; on June 23, 1994, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of bribery; in exchange for his plea, prosecutors dropped charges that he conspired with Fitzhugh to defraud the Small Business Administration; sentenced to 16 months. Robert W. Palmer, Little Rock land appraiser; on Dec. 5, 1994, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy for filing false appraisals of the books of Madison Guaranty so they would appear to conform with banking standards; sentenced to three years of probation with first year in home detention, $5,000 fine. Webster L. Hubbell, Former Associate Attorney General and Hillary Rodham Clinton's former law partner; on Dec. 6, 1994, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of mail fraud and income-tax evasion and admitted stealing at least $394,000 from his Rose Law Firm partners and more than a dozen clients; sentenced to 21 months, $135,000 restitution. Christopher V. Wade, Whitewater real estate agent; on March 21, 1995, pleaded guilty to bankruptcy fraud in case marginally related to Whitewater; sentenced to 15 months, $3,000 fine. Neal T. Ainley, Former president of an Arkansas bank; on May 2, 1995, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of illegally concealing cash payments to Clinton's 1990 campaign for governor; sentenced to two years' probation with community service, $3,000 fine. Stephen A. Smith, Former aide to Governor Clinton; on June 8, 1995, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor count of conspiring to misapply a federally backed loan from a company owned by Hale; sentenced to 100 hours of community service. Larry E. Kuca, Former business associate of McDougal; on July 13, 1995, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor count of conspiracy to misapply funds of loan from company run by Hale; sentenced to two years' probation, community service, $65,862 restitution. William J. Marks Sr., Former business partner of Governor Tucker; on Aug. 28, 1997, pleaded guilty to felony charge accusing him and Tucker of conspiring to fake a bankruptcy that defrauded the Government of $2 million in taxes; in return for his plea, prosecutors dropped two charges accusing him and Tucker of lying to obtain $300,000 loan from federally backed lending company; to be sentenced. John Haley, Tucker's former lawyer; on Feb. 20, 1998, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor count that he aided and abetted others in failing to supply information to Internal Revenue Service; to be sentenced. Recent Indictments Webster L. Hubbell, On April 30, 1998, indicted on nine felony charges of conspiring to violate internal revenue laws and income tax evasion, including failure to pay taxes and penalties of more than $850,000 over past four years, impeding collection of taxes and mail fraud. Suzanna W. Hubbell, Hubbell's wife; on April 30, 1998, indicted on eight felony charges of conspiring to violate internal revenue laws, tax evasion, impeding collection of taxes and mail fraud. Michael C. Schaufele, Hubbell's accountant; on April 30, 1998, indicted on nine felony charges of conspiring to violate internal revenue laws, tax evasion, impeding collection of taxes and mail fraud; also charged with helping prepare false tax returns. Charles C. Owen, Hubbell's lawyer; on April 30, 1998, indicted on nine felony charges of conspiring to violate internal revenue laws, tax evasion, impeding collection of taxes and mail fraud. Susan H. McDougal, On May 4, 1998 indicted on three counts of criminal contempt and obstruction of justice for failing to answer questions from Arkansas grand jury. Acquittal and Mistrial Herby Branscum Jr. and Robert M. Hill, Owners of an Arkansas bank; on Aug. 1, 1996, acquitted of four felony counts, including charges they conspired to conceal large cash withdrawals by Clinton's 1990 campaign for governor; jury deadlocked on seven other counts of conspiracy and misapplication of bank money, prompting a Federal judge to declare a mistrial; decision made on Sept. 13, 1996, not to retry. ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo@majordomo.pobox.com with the message: subscribe ignition-point email@address or unsubscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 14:46:00 -0700 From: Boyd Kneeland Subject: Re: Court Orders Fair NRA Election It seems odd to me that the contempt charge isn't mentioned here. Both sides in this case obviously are arguing that there's is the cause of justice and the others simply "petty bickering". But you can't (effectively) make that sort of argument when a state judge holds you in contempt of court. As I understand it that's exactly what the Fezell case judge did in regards the "winning team" ad in the election issue of the magazines. All IMO. Boyd Kneeland - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 17:07:38 -0500 (CDT) From: Subject: IP: VPC Says Heston Remarks Inflammatory, Illustrates NRA Agenda (fwd) - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 06 May 1998 16:26:20 -0500 From: believer@telepath.com To: believer@telepath.com Subject: IP: VPC Says Heston Remarks Inflammatory, Illustrates NRA Agenda Source: US Newswire VPC Says Heston Remarks Inflammatory, Illustrates NRA Agenda U.S. Newswire 4 May 14:34 Violence Policy Center Says Heston Remarks Inflammatory, Illustrates NRA 'Far-Right' Agenda To: National Desk Contact: Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center, 202-822-8200, ext. 101 WASHINGTON, May 4 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In a Hollywood press conference announced for 10:30 a.m. PDT today, NRA First Vice President Charlton Heston -- billed in the NRA media advisory for the event as a "civil rights activist" -- is expected to attack the NBC television movie "The Long Island Incident." In response, the Violence Policy Center (VPC) today released the transcript and video of a December 1997 speech Heston delivered before the Free Congress Foundation in which he made inflammatory statements attacking women, gays and lesbians, African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans. Heston, as detailed in a full-page ad in The New York Times this morning, is expected to challenge Barbra Streisand, the movie's producer, to a "one-on-one" debate about the Second Amendment. He is also expected to denounce the film, which aired last night and told the story of the 1993 Long Island Railroad shooting and the subsequent campaign for the House of Representatives on a pro-gun control platform by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.). VPC Executive Director Josh Sugarmann states, "Once again the NRA has revealed its extremist stripes. Will the real Charlton Heston please stand up? In Hollywood, he calls himself a 'civil rights activist.' Speaking before ultra-conservatives inside the Beltway, he talks of 'white pride.' Heston's remarks go beyond gun control, to the very heart of diversity in America." Heston's statements have been endorsed by David Duke, who on his website states, "I was astounded to read these courageous remarks by Charlton Heston. I am thankful to hear a man with such high esteem say essentially the same things for which I have reviled by the liberal media. His words should be reproduced and put into the hands of every American." Excerpts from the Heston speech follow. The full transcript and video are available from VPC. ------ Excerpts from NRA First Vice President Charlton Heston's Speech Before the Free Congress Foundation, December 1997 The Constitution was handed down to guide us by a bunch of those wise old dead white guys who invented this country. Now, some flinch when I say that. Why? It's true...they were white guys. So were most of the guys who died in Lincoln's name opposing slavery in the 1860s. So why should I be ashamed of white guys? Why is "Hispanic pride" or "black pride" a good thing, while "white pride" conjures up shaved heads and white hoods? Why was the Million Man March on Washington celebrated in the media as progress, while the Promise Keepers March on Washington was greeted with suspicion and ridicule? I'll tell you why: cultural warfare. Mainstream America is depending on you -- counting on you -- to draw your sword and fight for them. These people (mainstream America) have precious little time or resources to battle misguided Cinderella attitudes, the fringe propaganda of the homosexual coalition, the feminists who preach that it's a divine duty for women to hate men, blacks who raise a militant fist with one hand while they seek preference with the other...We've reached that point in time when our national social policy originates on Oprah. I say it's time to pull the plug. Rank-and-file Americans wake up every morning, increasingly bewildered and confused at why their views make them lesser citizens...Heaven help the God-fearing, law-abiding, Caucasian, middle class, Protestant, or -- even worse -- Evangelical Christian, Midwest or Southern, or -- even worse -- rural, apparently straight, or -- even worse -- admittedly heterosexual, gun-owning or -- even worse -- NRA card-carrying, average working stiff, or -- even worse -- male working stiff, because not only don't you count, you're a downright obstacle to social progress. I find my blood pressure rising when Clinton's cultural shock troops participate in homosexual rights fundraisers but boycott gun-rights fundraisers...and then claim it's time to place homosexual men in tents with Boy Scouts, and suggest that sperm donor babies born into lesbian relationships are somehow better served and more loved. Such demands have nothing to do with equality. They're about the currency of cultural war -- money and votes -- and the Clinton camp will let anyone in the tent if there's a donkey on his hat, or a check in the mail or some yen in the fortune cookie. But you don't see many other Hollywood luminaries speaking out on this one, do you? It's not because there aren't any. It's because they can't afford the heat. They dare not speak up for fear of CNN or the IRS or SAG or the ATF or NBC or even WJC. I remember when European Jews feared to admit their faith. The Nazis forced them to wear six-pointed yellow stars sewn on their chests as identity badges...So, what color star will they pin on our coats? There may not be a Gestapo officer on every street corner yet, but the influence on our culture is just as pervasive. -0- /U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/ 05/04 14:34 Copyright 1998, U.S. Newswire - ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. - ----------------------- ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo@majordomo.pobox.com with the message: subscribe ignition-point email@address or unsubscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 May 1998 13:40:52 -0500 (CDT) From: Subject: Will Rogers famous quotes about government (fwd) "No matter how much I may exaggerate it, it must have a certain amount of truth...Now rumor travels fast but it don't stay put as long as truth" "I don't make jokes, I just watch the Government and report the facts..." "We'll show the world we are prosperous, even if we have to go broke to do it." "Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, that don't hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous." "Things in our country run in spite of government. Not by aid of it!" "It's just got so that 90 percent of the people in this country don't give a damn. Politics ain't worrying this country one tenth as much as parking space." "We shouldn't elect a President; we should elect a magician." "If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in these acceptance speeches there wouldn't be any inducement to go to heaven." "I don't care how little your country is, you got a right to run it like you want to. When the big nations quit meddling, then the world will have peace." "Now if there is one thing that we do worse than any other nation, it is try and manage somebody else's affairs." "Nobody wants to be called common people, especially common people." "Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it's not one bit better than the government we got for one third the money twenty years ago." "Liberty dont work as good in practice as it does in speeches." "The Income Tax has made more Liars out of American people than Golf has." "It's not what you pay a man but what he costs you that counts." "There is nothing as stupid as an educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in." "Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects." "Our Foreign dealings are an Open Book, generally a Check Book." - - ------------------------------ End of roc-digest V2 #128 *************************