Flashback Friday
IRAQIS IN DISTRESS
Washington Post
June 27, 1991The Gulf War has left two groups of Iraqi citizens in distress requiring special attention from the United States and its allies. The Kurds of the north have received considerable publicity, policy focus and care. But, less tended, a wide swath of the civilian population, especially children, is in dire straits as a result of difficulties stemming from the war...
FOR BUSH, SOME OF THE CHEERS ARE TURNING TO JEERS
David Nyhan, Boston Globe
June 27, 1991Far more ominous for George Bush than the knives finding their way into John Sununu's back was the booing that drowned out the president's videotaped love note to the Teamsters union convention.
The collective raspberry, from a union whose discredited leadership endorsed Bush with a big wet kiss in the last election, should ram home to the White House the cost of indifference to the economic pain suffered by many Americans...
BOSKIN: ECONOMY IS STARTING 'RECOVERY'
Steven Mufson, Washington Post
June 28, 1991President Bush's chief economist, who first used the dreaded R-word -- "recession" -- in January, cautiously used the other R-word -- "recovery" -- in describing the economy yesterday.
"It certainly looks like this is the early stages of an economic recovery," said Michael J. Boskin, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers.
Boskin pointed to a variety of recent indicators, including rising consumer confidence and consumer spending, ...
MARSHALL TO RETIRE FROM HIGH COURT BUSH EXPECTED TO NAME CONSERVATIVE SUCCESSOR
Ethan Bronner, Boston Globe
June 28, 1991WASHINGTON -- Thurgood Marshall, a civil rights champion who is the only black justice ever to sit on the Supreme Court, announced his retirement yesterday after 24 years, citing advancing age and declining health.
Marshall, 82, the bench's most fervent liberal, had said repeatedly he would serve on the high court until he died. But he appeared to grow embittered over the court's turn to the right in recent years as decisions on civil rights and individual liberties in which he...
AT EDUCATION, A QUESTION OF PREROGATIVES
CAN SECRETARY NULLIFY 'DIVERSITY STANDARDS'?
Kenneth J. Cooper, Washington Post
June 27, 1991Rep. Ted Weiss (D-N.Y.) yesterday challenged Education Secretary Lamar Alexander's criticism of cultural diversity as an accrediting standard for colleges and universities.
In April, Alexander questioned a private accrediting body's consideration of racial, gender and age diversity in college enrollments, faculties and governing boards. He described such "diversity standards" as "coercive restrictions" that could prompt hiring quotas and undermine academic...
TIME TO DECLARE A NUCLEAR-FREE KOREA
William J. Taylor, Washington Post
June 25, 1991North Korea's foreign minister has just stated that his government will not permit international inspection of North Korea's nuclear facilities unless the United States permits inspection of its nuclear weapons in South Korea. This presents a major opportunity that should be seized immediately. When South Korea's President Rho and President Bush meet in Washington July 1-3, they should shoulder aside their bureaucrats and make a fundamental and easy decision on this matter...
CONSERVATIVE COURT COULD HARM GOP, ANALYSTS SAY
Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post
June 29, 1991While the retirement of Justice Thurgood Marshall solidifies a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, the ideological ascendancy could have substantial political costs for the Republican Party, according to GOP and Democratic analysts.
For a generation, from 1955 into the 1980s, the court issued rulings that comforted liberals while angering and politically mobilizing forces on the right, especially in presidential campaigns. In the process, the Democratic Party was put in the position ...
BEHIND THE SCENES OF BUSH'S FIRST WAR
Philip Bennett, Boston Globe
June 27, 1991The US invasion of Panama 18 months ago left such a benign impression on most Americans that few have challenged the Bush administration's greatest conceit about its first war: that it was a smashing success.
This makes it difficult to understand today why the majority of Panamanians, who once embraced US soldiers with happy abandon, now believe the invasion brought more bad than good. Or why international drug traffic has continued unchecked. Or why Gen. Manuel (Tony) Noriega, behind...
THE RESULT DOES NOT NECESSARILY JUSTIFY THE MEANS BALANCED BUDGET'S HIGH COST
Robert L. Turner, Globe Boston
June 27, 1991Big decisions will be made in the next few days by the committee of conference on the state budget.
Workfare, a tax break for business, a shift in MBTA funding, tax support for the Hynes Convention Center, loss of legal representation by some criminal defendants who are poor -- these are among the many issues to be decided by the committee.
The fiscal 1992 budget will be balanced (or close to it)re agreed...
BEYOND THE OLD BOY NETWORK
Washington Post
June 29, 1991Saundra Torry's June 17 financial column helps explain the Bush administration's position on the pending civil rights legislation. At the District's federal judicial conference, the white male dominance among 32 panelists was alleviated by only three women and one person of color. Judge Laurence Silberman, conference chair, explained this by telling Saundra Torry that he "did not think to apply a quota." Judge Silberman, like the Bush administration, considers quotas...
SENATE CURBS INMATE APPEALS 58-40 VOTE REFLECTS A VICTORY FOR BUSH
Associated Press
June 27, 1991WASHINGTON -- The Senate voted yesterday to adopt President Bush's proposal to limit the legal maneuvers prisoners may use in federal court to challenge their convictions and sentences.
The 58-40 vote to pass the measure as an amendment to the Democrats' anticrime bill reflected a growing frustration with death-row inmates who file repeated appeals to delay their executions.
The new restrictions are high on the administration's legislative wish list this year, and the vote...
4 NEW ENGLAND STATES DOWN TO THE WIRE ON BUDGET PLANS
Adam Pertman, Boston Globe
June 27, 1991AUGUSTA -- Asked whether Maine will meet its June 30 deadline for adopting a new budget, Rep. Dan Gwadosky responded with the polite equivalent of saying that politicians do some of their best work when a gun is pointed at their heads.
"Deadlines," the state House majority leader said in an interview, "are usually good for any legislative body."
Indeed, with the end of the current fiscal year only three days away, lawmakers in the four New England states that have not...
FINANCIAL SECTION
Washington, PostECONOMY
Consumer spending rose 1.1 percent in May, while personal incomes rose 0.5 percent, the Commerce Department said in reports bolstering analysts' views that the recession was ending. In another report with similar implications, the Labor Department said new unemployment claims fell 17,000 during the second week of June, to 431,000...
$1,000-PER-CHILD TAX CREDIT PROPOSED
IN PRO-FAMILY REPORT, PANEL RECOMMENDS REPLACING EXEMPTION
Paul Taylor, Washington Post
June 25, 1991A bipartisan National Commission on Children yesterday proposed a $1,000-per-child tax credit as the centerpiece of a report that faulted everyone from parents to policymakers for short-changing children.
"We are deeply disturbed that a nation so captivated by youth is leaving so many of its young behind," the commission wrote in its introduction. "Some adults take on the responsibilities of parenthood with little thought or planning; others shed them with equal abandon. In the...
DEMOCRATIC GROUP SAYS PARTY MUST TARGET 'ORDINARY PEOPLE'
Larry Tye, Boston Globe
June 27, 1991Democrats must convince voters they can "put government on the side of ordinary people again" to win back the White House in 1992, officials from the Democratic Leadership Council said yesterday during a stop in Boston.
Crucial to getting that message across is finding the right messenger, council president Al From said, adding that there is "a good possibility" the group's first choice -- Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton -- will run for the Democratic presidential...