By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources, (www.originalsourcs.com)
March 14, 2000
Remember the much discussed Michigan Primary? It was held February 22, 2000, a mere three weeks ago. George W. Bush lost that primary. Only 549,665 voters voted for George W. whereas 650,850 voters (130,170 of whom were Democrats) voted for John McCain.
There has been a lot of discussion about that primary. We were told the BIG ISSUE was Campaign Finance Reform. That's why, the experts said, John McCain, won the Michigan primary. He is sponsor of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform bill which supposedly would make the behavior of those raising money for Al Gore at the Los Angeles Buddhist Temple even more illegal in 2000 than it being a felony in 1996. Strangely, whereas the media repeated endlessly statements that John McCain and Al Gore "favored Campaign Finance Reform", the story of Maria Hsia's conviction on five felony counts, each carrying a five-year prison sentence, for her illegal fund-raising for Al Gore has hardly been mentioned on the Networks. In fact, Maria Hsia was raising that illegal money for none other than Al Gore who was there at the His Lai Temple when her felonies were being committed in Hacienda Heights, Calif., on April 29, 1996.
As you may remember, the Democrats chose not to enter their two top candidates in the Year 2000 Michigan State Open Primary, lest people from other parties affect its outcome. Over the week-end the Democrats held their Caucus in Michigan and, just in case you have been holding your breath for the last three weeks waiting to see who that candidate would be, this is how its results were announced on Al Gore's website: "Ann Arbor - March 11 - Responding to Al Gore's positive message of improving education, expanding access to health care and continuing economic prosperity, Michigan voters gave Al Gore a tremendous victory today in the state Democratic caucus. With 94 percent of precincts reporting, Gore won 15,783 votes, or 81 percent, versus 3,042 votes for Bradley, or 18.1 percent."
Gore got 15,783 votes? Whoop-te-doo! In the February 22nd State wide primary Democrat Lyndon Larouche, Jr. won 13,195 votes and that wasn't reported in ANY Michigan primary election story I read. Now, some of you 20-something readers are now asking, "Who in the world is Lyndon Larouche?"
Lyndon Larouche is a Democrat running on the Democratic Party Ticket to urge, according to his website, (http://www.larouchecampaign.org/) "a New Bretton Woods." Bretton Woods is the popular name for the International Monetary Conference held at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in July 1944 when representatives of forty-four members of the United Nations came up with the International Monetary and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, both of which are now used, of course, to force nations to surrender sovereignty when requested and do what the IMF and the International Bank tells them to do.
Larouche, who is considered an embarrassment to the DNC, has spent the last 30 years urging changes in the Bretton Woods agreement. However, in the State's open primary, Larouche got 13,195 votes, a mere 2588 fewer than Al Gore's "tremendous victory" figure and only 536,470 fewer votes than George W.'s embarrassing defeat.
However, getting back to the Michigan primary, there was a lot of discussion about the fact that most of McCain's votes were coming from Democrats and Independents. Now we are being told by the network commentators, that George W. Bush will "lose" to Al Gore unless he gets John McCain to be his vice-presidential running mate." On Fox News I heard that, even if George W. didn't like McCain and couldn't trust him, he STILL must asked him to be the Vice-Presidential Candidate.
Unfortunately, it appears that John McCain and many of his followers are not, as many claimed to be, "Reagan Democrats." They are McCain Democrats. In fact, they seem to be taking McCain back with them to the Democratic Party. On Sunday The Mississippi Campaign Director for Senator John McCain, Jim Bass, announced his support of Al Gore. "I believe Al Gore is more in line with the values and priorities of John McCain and the people who support him than Governor Bush," said Bass. "Al Gore favors real campaign finance reform, sensible tax cuts and a strong national defense. Governor Bush has very different positions. His tax cuts would threaten Social Security and he and his friends have run millions of dollars in attack ads against John McCain. I don't think that's the kind of campaign the American people want."
That sounds like John McCain's Mississippi Campaign Director was really a Democrat all along.
According to a national Newsweek poll released Sunday, McCain supporters "lean toward Gore over Bush by a margin of 48-41. McCain supporters also have a more favorable image of Gore than Bush. Results were based on telephone interviews conducted with 803 adults 18 and older on Thursday and Friday. The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points."
All that Newsweek poll does is verify my suspicions. Many of those voting for McCain had no intention of voting Republican in the Fall. They were Democrats who hoped to pick the Candidate who had the most baggage and therefore the easiest for Gore to defeat - John McCain. Had he won the nomination McCain undoubtedly would have been afraid to mention Al Gore's Buddhist Temple campaign finance record, lest Al Gore mention John McCain's Keating Five Savings and Loan Campaign Finance scandal. Both of them claim to favor "Campaign Finance Reform" because both have cloudy records where Campaign Finance is concerned.
And now we hear that two reports which will reopen the "whole Clinton/Gore fund-raising can of worms" will involve Al Gore. We have eight months until the election and literally anything can happen with the reports which mean trouble for Al Gore, along with Janet Reno, Hillary Clinton, Harold Ickes and others in the Clinton Administration.
New York Times reporters David Johnston and Don Van Natta Jr. reported that "government officials and previously undisclosed documents" added new details to the LaBella memo and the events surrounding Justice's handling of the 1996 Democratic fund-raising probe.
"Not only did the FBI director, Louis Freeh, and Reno's chief campaign finance prosecutor, Charles LaBella, conclude that Reno was obligated to seek an independent counsel, but so did aides like Robert Litt, a highly influential political deputy at the Justice Department who was often said to have opposed such appointments." The story also noted that among the revelations was a previously reported letter from a top Justice Department official that helped quash any probes of the infamous Gore fund-raiser at the Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple by Los Angeles-based federal investigators.
"'As would be necessary in any matter with potential independent counsel ramifications, your office should take no steps to investigate these matters at this time,' Lee J. Radek, the chief of the public integrity section, wrote in a Nov. 1, 1996, letter to a top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles," the New York Times, which obtained the letter, noted.The Times continued: "The department's Temple inquiry exonerated Gore by 1997, and when he was later interviewed by the FBI in 1997 and 1998, he was never even questioned about the Temple. The investigation led to an indictment of Maria Hsia, a California immigration consultant and longtime fund-raiser for Gore, who was convicted by a federal jury in Washington last week." Officials told the New York Times it was Radek who ultimately convinced Reno not to prosecute. Stephen Mansfield, the former Assistant United States Attorney, described the method Justice Department officials used to quash the investigation of Gore:
"I wanted to move very quickly, to gather evidence by issuing subpoenas, interviewing witnesses and considering the execution of search warrants. But it got yanked off my desk and as far as I know, nothing happened for many, many months. The consequence of a strategy of sitting back and doing nothing means you effectively make the matter go away. It is so much harder to develop. Speed is everything in a highly publicized case."
It was during the time the investigation was allowed to wither and die that key figures in the Gore Temple fund-raising scheme were able to flee the country. It was also the very time that Reno claimed she was "vigorously" investigating matters.
Writing about Gore having illegally solicited funds from federal property, the New York Times said: "According to new documents, former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta recalled that Gore was present and seemed attentive when there was a White House discussion of how funds would be split among party accounts.
"But Gore said he was sometimes inattentive and missed parts of fund-raising meetings. Additionally, the vice president told the FBI, according to notes of a 1998 interview, that 'he drank a lot of iced tea during meetings, which could have necessitated a restroom break."
After reading the N.Y. Times article above one of my readers, Wayne Cook, e-mailed me with the following comment:
Al Gore uses as an excuse for his behavior in fund raising that he drank too much ice tea (both at the Buddhist Temple and at various meetings at the White House) and consequently had to go to the bathroom when important items occurred. He also stated that he wasn't fully paying attention at these meetings.Fellow voters, is a man who doesn't pay attention to the issues at an important meeting and spends more time in the bathroom than at the meeting QUALIFIED to be the President of the United States and leader of the free world?
When you put it that way,Wayne, I'm afraid I'd have to say "No!"
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
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