THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
1994
January
- January: Newt Gingrich, while teaching his "Renewing American Civilization" course,
Conservative hate speech and intolerance
says, "If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections.... On the other hand, if combat means being on an Aegis-class cruiser, managing the computer controls for twelve ships, a female may be again dramatically better than a male, who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffe." -- Al Franken
NAFTA goes into effect
- January 1: The North American Free Trade Agreement,
NAFTA
a comprehensive free trade agreement linking the US, Canada, and Mexico in a free trade sphere, goes into effect, one of the crowning achievements of the Clinton economic policy. Support and opposition for the agreement crossed all party and ideological lines, with Clinton, the conservative Canadian government of Brian Mulroney, the Council on Foreign Relations, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Heritage Foundation, the Brookings Institute, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal all giving NAFTA their support, and the AFL-CIO, Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, the National Review, and the New Republic in opposition. Largely because of the devaluation of the Mexican peso, the US almost immediately begins to incur large and ever-growing trade deficits with Mexico. Tens of thousands of middle- and lower-end manufacturing jobs shift from the US to Mexico; the textile, auto, and aerospace industries have been particularly hard hit. Most observers now feel that NAFTA was a mixed blessing at best, and some see it as an unmitigated disaster for the US economy. (Wikipedia, Pat Buchanan)
Zapatista uprising in Mexico
- January 2: The Zapatista uprising in Mexico begins, although it considers itself the outgrowth of 500 years of opposition to non-indigeneous rule. Except for some violent outbreaks in January, the Zapatista uprising remains largely peaceful, and confined to Chiapas, one of the poorest states in Mexico and one that boasts one of the largest Native American populations in the country. Although the Zapatistas refuse to participate in Mexico's political system, the movement continues to gain popular support throughout the country, particularly among Mexico's poor and Native American populations. The movement continues to fight for autonomy and recognition from the Mexican government. (Wikipedia)
- January 9: Jerry Falwell secretly meets with Korean evangelist and right-wing financier Sun Myung Moon during a seven-day trip to South Korea.
Religious conservatives
Falwell is accompanied by Ronald Godwin, a Washington Times executive and the former director of Falwell's Moral Majority, and Daniel Reber, a conservative direct-mail entrepeneur. The trip is a follow-up to an earlier meeting between the three and Dong Moon Joo, the Times's president, at Falwell's Liberty University. Joo is Moon's chief American representative. The trip seems to be primarily over financing of anti-Clinton efforts by Falwell and other conservative elements, as well as possibly securing money to bail out Falwell's foundering financial empire. Liberty University was, in 1993, in danger of defaulting on a $73 million debt, and his entire financial structure was threatening to topple under a wave of institutional debts of various kinds. - One year later, Falwell ecstatically informs his viewers that two Virginia businessmen, Reber and Jimmy Thomas, have rescued his financial empire. Reber and Thomas have bought over half of Liberty University's $75 million in bonded debt for the firesale price of $2.5 million, and then forgiven the debt. "They had to borrow money, hock their houses, hock everything," Falwell tells his Old-Time Gospel Hour audience. Falwell fails to mention that Reber and Thomas's front group, the Christian Heritage Foundation, received a $3.5 million bequest from Moon's Unification Church for the purpose of bailing out Liberty University, a transaction confirmed by a church spokesperson. Reber's direct-mail business does a third of the entirety of its business with Moon-sponsored organizations, and most of the rest for Texas governor George W. Bush, Oliver North, the National Rifle Association, and the Republican National Committee. Far from incurring any financial distress, Reber has made large sums through his association with Moon and Falwell. Who actually lost money? The 2500 small bondholders in the Texas-based Church and Institutional Facilities Development Corporation, who owned millions of dollars' worth of Liberty University bonds before they were sold to Reber and Thomas at 20% of their value. According to a lawyer for the bondholders, most of them are "Moms and Pops cashing in their IRA money because their local minister and Falwell's letters said they'd be doing God's work.... All it was doing was going to fund Mr. Falwell's continued indebtedness. It's kind of sickening." (Joe Conason and Gene Lyons)
- January 12: Clinton requests a special prosecutor to investigate Whitewater.
Whitewater / Lewinsky and related "scandals"
Susan McDougal writes, "...I thought the investigation would be a good thing. The rumors about Whitewater had been simmering for a couple of years already, and a true investigation would quickly reveal that no one, including the Clintons, had done anything wrong." - Earlier in the month, Clinton's lawyers had arranged for their Whitewater records to be subpoenaed by the Justice Department, ensuring that while Justice Department lawyers could pore over the records, the press could not. News organizations such as the Washington Post are indignant, editorializing, "someone said the other day that Washington may now have reached the state-of-the-art point of having a cover-up without a crime," and says that the White House's actions "make it appear as if the Clintons have something to hide." Time's Michael Kramer says that even if the Clinton's "offense might not warrant impeachment...[how could] two respected lawyers like Bill and Hillary Clinton didn't possess a paper trail capable of proving their innocence[?]"
- On January 11, Attorney General Janet Reno explains her reluctance to appoint a special prosecutor in a letter to Senator Lauch Faircloth, saying that she could not hope to appoint such a prosecutor that would be regarded as anything like impartial. The Republicans agitating for the appointment are bound by their own law: angry over what they felt was prosecutorial license in the Iran-Contra scandal as well as a plethora of lesser independent counsel probes, and feeling that the entire idea of a special prosecutor had been misused by vindictive Democrats, they allowed the Independent Counsel Act to expire in 1992. (In 1988, the Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of the special prosecutor, but conservative justice Antonin Scalia penned a fiery dissent, complaining that the Independent Counsel Act had nearly brought down the presidencies of both Reagan and Bush. Senator Bob Dole agrees, saying he wants no more "political" indictments of public servants. Their own partisanship is displayed when both come out strongly in favor of a special prosecutor for Clinton.) The law, before it expired, mandated that such a prosecutor would be named, not by the Attorney General, who after all is a presidential appointee, but by a supposedly independent panel of three federal appellate court judges. With the law off the books, the judicial panel has no power to name such a prosecutor. Only Reno can make the appointment of a special prosecutor happen.
- As for Clinton, he has gone back and forth on the issue. He finally comes down in favor of a special prosecutor, believing, naively, that he will be exonerated because the truth is on his side, because he has the political skills to finesse the probe, and because the Republicans are too honorable to indulge in a partisan witch-hunt. He is right only on the first count. (Susan McDougal, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons)
- January 16: Right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh claims that Chelsea Clinton is assigned a term paper by her school on the subject,
Conservative smear campaigns
"Why I Feel Guilty Being White." Limbaugh claims his source is CBS News. The story is proven false upon checking with Miss Clinton's school, which has a population of 28% non-white students. CBS disclaims any connection with Limbaugh's fabrication. (FAIR)
Fiske appointed to investigate Whitewater
- January 20: A special investigator, Robert Fiske, is appointed to investigate Whitewater by Attorney General Janet Reno.
Whitewater / Lewinsky and related "scandals"
Fiske, a Republican and a former judge and US attorney with a reputation for bipartisanship and integrity, is hailed by conservatives as a fine choice for investigating Whitewater. Senator Bob Dole says of Fiske, "people who know him think he is extremely well-qualified [and] independent." Senator Alfonse D'Amato, who received $3000 in campaign donations from Fiske, calls him "one of the most honorable and skilled lawyers" in the country. "He is a man of enormous integrity. He's fine, he's talented, he's a man of great loyalty." Fiske takes an immediate leave of absence from his law firm to begin assembling his staff. (CNN, H.R. Clinton, James Carville, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons) - January 24: The Supreme Court,
Domestic terrorism
partially in response to the 1993 murder of abortion doctor David Gunn, rules unanimously that protesters who block access to abortion clinics or in other ways conspire to stop women from having abortions may be sued as racketeers, under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). (CBS)
