I've been hit with a downright spiteful (Rovian?) cold or virus, and thus have been hanging out curled up in front of the computer for most of the day. So I got a head start on this week's FF edition. Now I just need to attack my backlog of emails.
First, I thought I'd start this week off on a happier note:
GOV. CLINTON ENTERS PRESIDENTIAL RACE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT PLEDGES TO FIGHT FOR 'FORGOTTEN MIDDLE CLASS' Dan Balz, Washington Post October 4, 1991Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, who has prodded the Democratic Party to learn from its past mistakes, declared his candidacy for president today with a promise to "fight for the forgotten middle class" and with a blast at Republicans who "washed their hands" of the nation's domestic problems.
Clinton sketched out a broad, activist agenda to restore U.S. economic prosperity and competitiveness, pledged to "reinvent government" to make it more efficient and urged...
And now on to the nitty gritty:
JOBLESSNESS DROPS TO 6.7% IN SEPTEMBER NUMBERS CALLED SIGN OF WEAK RECOVERY
Anne Swardson, Washington Post
October 5, 1991The nation's unemployment rate dropped a bit in September and a relatively small number of jobs were added to the economy, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday. Although both developments were positive signs, neither was strong enough to change the opinion of many experts that the recovery from recession is weak and spotty.
President Bush, commenting on the figures at a news conference yesterday, said "the economy is moving in the right direction. The drop in...
MAYORS' SURVEY: CITIES HIT HARD BY RECESSION
Michael Rezendes, Boston Globe
October 5, 1991CAMBRIDGE -- Mayor David Dinkins of New York and other mayors gathered yesterday at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government to release the results of a survey showing that American cities are foundering because of the national recession and cuts in federal aid to urban areas.
The 62-city survey by the US Conference of Mayors shows that mayors of 58 percent of the cities surveyed believe the current recession is worse than the economic downturn of the early 1980s. It also shows...
DNC REPORTS ON 'SHAME'
Ann Devroy, Washington Post
October 3, 1991In a move destined to get under the president's skin, the Democratic National Committee has produced a list of more than 100 "ethical missteps" by Bush administration officials and family members in a new report called the "Bush Hall of Shame.
While many of the individual cases are minor or unproven, the sheer bulk of the incidents in the 43-page report appears to question the president's pledge to "bend over backwards to see that there's not even a...
VETERANS OF CIA BUREAUCRACY TAKE THEIR REVENGE AT GATES HEARINGS
Haynes Johnson, Washington Post
October 2, 1991In novels, movies and miniseries, swashbuckling spies come out of the cold to capture the public imagination, but yesterday in a sedate Senate chamber the tables were turned.
It was hitherto faceless career analysts with impressive academic credentials -- the grinds of the permanent bureaucracy -- who stripped away the CIA veil of secrecy to air embarrassing secrets and make serious charges against the operatives of the intelligence agency.
In a sense, it was the revenge of the nerds...
MORE LAYOFFS FEED RECOVERY DOUBTS
Associated Press
October 6, 1991NEW YORK -- Corporate America lent credence Friday to a Labor Department report of mostly stagnating employment, coincidentally announcing thousands of layoffs within hours of the government's September data.
The reductions by two large companies were just the latest in a spree of layoff proclamations that many private economists said raised more doubt than hope about a recovery from the recession.
Ames Department Stores Inc., a troubled New England-based retail chain, announced...
HEALTH COSTS CONTINUE DOUBLE-DIGIT BOOSTS
Associated Press
October 3, 1991The nation's spending on health rose by 10.5 percent to $666.2 billion in 1990, the third straight year of double-digit increases, Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis W. Sullivan announced yesterday.
Sullivan said health spending reached 12.2 percent of gross national product, compared with 11.6 percent in 1989 and 5.3 percent in 1960. It is the highest proportion of any developed nation.
Sullivan, who has been charged by President Bush with finding solutions to the rapid...
BUSH: 'ALL IS NOT WELL'
PRESIDENT TEMPERS OPTIMISM ON ECONOMY
Ann Devroy, Washington Post
October 5, 1991No longer confident of a strong economic recovery to carry him into his 1992 reelection campaign, President Bush has begun a series of meetings with top economic and political advisers to determine what more the White House can do to make the recovery faster and stronger.
In a news conference yesterday, Bush seized on the slight drop in unemployment announced earlier in the day to express his faith the economy is recovering. But he added, "Let me be the first to say all is not well"...
JOBLESS FEEL ABANDONED
ANGER AIMED AT POLITICIANS, BENEFITS CLERKS
Paul Taylor, Washington Post
October 5, 1991Allan Winkle has been making ends meet during his siege of unemployment by accepting hand-me-down shoes from his retired father.
"It's embarrassing," said Winkle, a machine operator, "but I'm setting an example for my daughters," who had to settle for hand-me-down clothes for the start of the school year.
Jane Tharp raids her 20-year-old son's dresser drawer for cash before she goes to the grocery store. "I hate doing it because I've always...
'HEROES': HAIL TO THE CHIEF
Tom Shales, Washington Post
October 5, 1991"The Heroes of Desert Storm," an ABC movie purporting to honor those who fought against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War, turns out instead to be a two-hour political commercial for the reelection of George Bush.
Bush appears either on camera or as an off-screen voice six times in the film, which airs tomorrow night at 9 on Channel 7 and mixes news footage with dramatizations based on the experiences of U.S. military personnel. Bush's is the first face viewers see and the last...
STALLING ON HEALTH CARE REFORM
Victor Cohn, Washington Post
October 1, 1991Pity the poor patients.
An ambitious conference here last week had a twofold subject: how patients use up too many health-care dollars and how to cover the more than 60 million people with poor medical insurance or none.
There is wide agreement that constantly rising health spending must be constrained. I feel sure this will mean less for patients, sometimes to our benefit where care is unneeded or possibly harmful, but sometimes to our detriment.
On the question of how to assure...
1,700 MD. WORKERS GET LAYOFF NOTICES
SCHAEFER UNVEILS DEEP SERVICE CUTS
Richard Tapscott, Washington Post
October 1, 1991Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer sent out layoff notices to 1,700 state workers today as he began deep spending cuts that will shut down some police barracks, medevac stations and centers to help juvenile delinquents, while reducing school breakfast programs for poor children.
In unveiling for legislative leaders what will be the deepest service cuts in his five years as governor, Schaefer said he also plans to eliminate some public assistance and medical programs and reduce other...
COOKING INTELLIGENCE?
Washington Post Op/Ed
October 2, 1991WHAT IS one to make of the off-the-record and now publicly stated charges that Robert Gates cooked the intelligence books over at CIA -- charges that, if shown to be well-founded, would compel the Senate to reject his nomination as President Bush's intelligence chief.
The first response must be that, slippery and technical as it may appear, the matter of just how intelligence is produced inside the twisting and usually secret coils of the U.S. government could not be a more valuable...
THE BUDGET PACT: WORST OF BOTH WORLDS?
WHILE LAWMAKERS FEEL FRUSTRATED BY LAST YEAR'S SPENDING CONSTRAINTS, DEFICIT IS GROWING
Eric Pianin, Washington Post
October 1, 1991Consider that the federal government sits atop a $7.6 billion pot of unemployment insurance funds, but it would have to go deeper in debt to provide emergency benefits to unemployed workers.
Or that, even after the collapse of the Soviet empire, Congress is forbidden to shift funds from defense to domestic programs and foreign aid.
"This is madness," said Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.), the usually unflappable chairman of the Joint Economic Committee. "We are surrounded by...
MEDICARE LAW DISPUTE
Don Phillips and Spencer Rich, Washington Post
October 1, 1991House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) demanded yesterday that the Bush administration rescind a federal regulation they said would substantially cut federal matching for state Medicaid outlays.
Waxman, chairman of the House subcommittee with jurisdiction over Medicaid, said the regulation would "trigger the most drastic set of cutbacks in Medicaid since the Reagan-Stockman cuts of the early 1980s," possibly cutting billions from
RAISING A ROAR OVER A RULING
TRADE PACT IMPERILS ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS
Stuart Auerbach, Washington Post
October 1, 1991A ruling by an international trade panel has given new energy to American environmentalists worried that U.S. laws protecting whales, baby seals, dolphins, elephants and other endangered species are themselves endangered.
Administration officials and congressional experts said the ramifications of a decision last month by a panel of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) go far beyond the actual finding. GATT ruled that the United States violated global trade rules when it banned...
NORTH KOREA WELCOMES U.S. NUCLEAR WITHDRAWAL
Don Oberdorfer, Washington Post
October 3, 1991North Korean Foreign Minister Kim Yong Nam said today it is "good news" that U.S. nuclear weapons will be withdrawn from South Korea but that his country will not agree to international inspection of its nuclear facilities until the U.S. withdrawal is completed.
Kim, who is here to attend the U.N. General Assembly, said in an interview that it is "unthinkable" for North Korea to permit inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) while the threat remains...
ECONOMY
Washingtop Post Financial
October 4, 1991Unemployment insurance claims for the four weeks ended Sept. 21 averaged 423,250 -- the highest since July, the Labor Department reported.
Orders for manufactured goods fell 1.9 percent in August, the Commerce Department said. The drop was the largest since a 2.9 percent decline in March...
BUSH DEFENDS ECONOMIC POLICY, HITS JOBLESS BILL
John W. Mashek, Boston Globe
October 5, 1991WASHINGTON -- President Bush, touching off a quarrel with Democrats, said yesterday that the nation's unemployed should look to their representatives in Congress to provide help, in the form of legislation that meets Bush's approval.
Bush again criticized the Democrats' unemployment benefits extension bill, which he said would break last year's budget agreement and damage the recovery.
At a news conference yesterday, the president pointed to national figures for...
ISRAEL MAPS NEW WAVE OF SETTLEMENTSPosted by MB Williams at October 2, 2003 05:02 PM | TrackBack
Ethan Bronner, Globe Staff
October 5, 1991JERUSALEM -- Weeks before a planned Middle East peace conference based on trading land for peace, Israeli officials are considering building thousands of new housing units on occupied land, including in the center of predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, according to Israeli media reports.
In addition, tensions were rising in East Jerusalem yesterday in anticipation of the anniversary on Tuesday of a confrontation last year between Israeli police and Palestinians at the Al-Aqsa Mosque that...