"If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus station chili, but (Bill Clinton) is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse, that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied." -- Molly Ivins on Bill Clinton

I watch the Sunday morning suits and want to puke. Impartial press? Sam Donaldson and George Wills why have both been (and may still be) on the payroll of Robert Mellon Scaife, the big pockets of the anti-Clinton, ultra-conservatives; their wives are on the payrolls of those who want to tear down Clinton.

And that guy from the news magazine who is noted for his pro-Dan Quayle stand. (Now I ask you about the common sense of a man who wants Quayle to be president - oops, Kenneth Starr does too.)

Nowhere is there balance. Nowhere was there a single atttitude of "let's wait for some proof. "

No, Clinton has been tried and convicted by the press without one shred of proof.

My GAWD - Linda Tripp was arrested for being a thief and then lied about it on her employment application with the Defense Department. She is now living in LUXURY being paid for the Ken Starr's flagrant waste of taxpayer's dollars in addition to her $88,000 plus Defense department salary.

Monica Lewinsky was recorded boasting like a teenagers about a rock star on illegally obtained phone recording...

Paula Jones is robbing her defense fund for makeovers and a traveling personal beautician ...

Browning is a psycho.

But then there is Kathleen Willey ... the bimbo of the week.

And every one of them hoping to become instant millionaires from TV, super market and other newspaper interviews, and book contracts.

The following quote is being bantered around the Republican reactionary ridiculous right-wing religists circles as an example of how the "liberal" media is trying to defend Clinton - and perhaps signaling why some Reps are backing away from their slash and burn rhetoric:------

"If in fact the House committee investigates the President's private life after Ken Starr has investigated the President's private life, the news media will then investigate the people who are investigating the private life the same way they investigated the campaign funding donations of people who inquired into the campaign funding habits of the Democrats. It's how the game is played. The White House isn't going to have to do that. We're gonna do that and it's called doing our job." Eleanor Clifft on CNBC's Equal Time, February 12, 1998. -------

Yeah, girl! One wonders why the media isn't doing its job right now and exposing the slime pit that is Kenneth Starr and his staff. Starr's investigation has had the benefit (paid by YOU) of dozens, even hundreds of FBI agents in his $44 million investigation. Now doesn't that tell you something? Either Clinton ain't guilty or the FBI is an investigative joke.

Give me $44 million and six years and I guarantee to convict Ben Franklin (in absentia) of raping Pontius Pilat in Lafayette Park, Washington, DC, at high noon on December 15, 1998. And EVERY witness will believe he was telling the truth! Geez, that's a no brainer.

I think the biggest problem is that Starr is completely Star Struck, all those TV cameras and ass licking by the media for leaks ... or are we looking at the rear when we should be looking at the front ... Starr leaks so much he should be wearing a condom 24-hours a day or dimple shaped sanitary pads.

How much credence would you give a witness who wants $300,000 to tell it to the tabloid press? And who is so in debt that her attorney scoffs at $300,000? Who refuses to pay her debtors or honor her signed debt commitments by placing all her late husband's insurance money in the names of her children and THEN CONTINUES TO LIVE HIGH ON THE VIRGINIA HAM BY BORROWING $4500 A MONTH FROM HER CHILDREN'S TRUST FUND. (Is that legal????)

In ordinary times she's be laughed off the stage but in today's media frenzy that lacks common sense, her claims are pushed.

In re-examining Lillian Hellman's memoir of the Joseph McCarthy hearings, that famed communist witchhunt of the 1950s that had so many slimeballs coming out of the sewers INCLUDING RONALD REAGAN who squealed like a stuck pig to inform on people he *thought* were communists (sans any proof) to McCarthy - the same overlapping hearings that produced another political star, Richard Nixon.

It was a time of fear, unfounded rumors, false accusations - the breaking of almost every U.S. constitutional safeguard.

Reread Hellman's memoir _Scoundrel Time_ and compare it to what is happening today with Ken Starr. The last paragraph of the book is telling:

"I tried to avoid, when I wrote this book, what is called a moral stand. I'd like to take that stand now. I never want to live again to watch people turn into liars and cowards, and others into frightened, silent collaborators. And to hell with the fancy reasons they give for what they did."

The weapons Starr and his radical anti-humanist handlers are using today are not only fear (Starr puts people in jail if they don't *please* him or his bosses) but also the prospect of becoming an instant millionaire as book companies and super market media offer horrendous amounts of money for unsubstantiated tidbits - and to hell with any need to prove anything.

Her sled slid on ice crashed into a tree, and she needed more than three hours to repair it so DeeDee Jonrowe finished second, three hours behind winner Ed King in the grueling Iditarod dog sled race of over one thousand miles near the arctic circle in Alaska last week. DeeDee has became the crowd favorite in her years of racing and ALWAYS finishing in the top ten without winning. She gets $47,872 for her place finish in the race that lasted 9 days, 8 hours, and 49 minutes for her ... only 12 minutes off the time that won in 1997. That's only $3,128 less than what the winner got in cash, but he also got a pickup truck.

King and Jonrowe helped each other during the final stages of the race when things really got tough. The broken sled break eliminated her from the top spot but they were shoo-ins for the one-two finish since they were so far ahead. King has won the race before.

Yeah, maybe having women in a sport changes it ... and yes, I believe the Connecticut woman player should have been given the pass shot to break the record. But then which basketball game are they worried about? It used to be a team sport and it is still a team sport the way women play it. The big baby boyz with their showoff tactics are what changed basketball. Big "stars" letting other "stars" shine by taking turns at high jinks instead of playing the game of tactics. I do believe the hoop should be raised for the taller men. What happened to sportsmanship? What is the National Hockey League going to do about that group of millionaire shitheads who disgraced the American Olympic team and every honest, decent sports person in this nation? Or shall we start calling it sportswomanship and the other kind sportscrybabyshitters?

YAPHANK, N.Y., March 10 (UPI) -- Police on New York's Long Island are searching for a man who sexually assaulted a 77-year-old woman in the vestibule of a church.

Suffolk County Police say the woman had arrived early for a funeral at the St. Hugh of Lincoln Church in the town of Huntington Station when she was attacked Tuesday morning.

The attacker is described as a 5-foot-5 Hispanic man in his late 20s to early 30s with a slight build. He was wearing a yellow and red baseball-type jacket.

One of the big lies about rape is that a woman entices a man (by clothing, actions, and/or being young and pretty). We've had cases of 90-year-old women being raped in the town where I live and I'll bet the family farm that it has occurred in YOUR home city or town or neighborhood.

It's all a matter of what the news editors think will fly - such as all the publicity about an au pair MAYBE hurting a child, but almost no publicity about the father who ADMITS to doing worse to his son and certainly there's been nothing on NATIONAL TV.

It's also like all the publicity and horror expressed about men who molest a few boys while the rapes of thousands of girls are ignored.

Or the (crazy?) 34-year-old woman who broke her parole to be with the young, teen-age boy who fathered her child and then she got sent back to prison for a LONG time. However, men who rape and father children with girls of 12 and 13 are encouraged to MARRY the girls and even if they don't hardly any of them are ever prosecuted.

Every law/institution survey proves that most teenage pregnancies are caused by OLDER men. Why aren't they sent to jail? Why aren't they forced to support their BASTARD child(ren)? Why aren't their crimes publicized? Why aren't their female victims given compassion instead of slings and arrows by the radical religious bigots. Why are boys treated as such terrible victims while girls of the same age are condemned in incidents when neither gender was able to keep a grown, strong, or powerful man from raping or molesting them?

And why are teenage girls who are raped and impregnated by OLDER men condemned by the religious right and its lackey news organizations while groopies like Paula Jones and Browning lauded and supported??

Hypocrisy,thy name is ...

While the irresponsible gadfly news is screaming reactionary bigotry in headlines making it appear that this nation is turning into queer haters, the truth of tolerance and love is hidden away in little, back-page items - if they are printed at all.

A United Methodist minister admitted without reservation that he had peformed celebrations of "love and fidelity between two lesbians or two gay men" dozens of times during his 29-year ministry, i.e., married them in the eyes of the church.

For that action, he was taken to his church's court for disobeying denominational regulations but he acquited and the Rev. Jimmy Creech was reinstated as senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Omaha by Nebraska Bishop Joel Martinez.

Rev. Phil Wogaman, of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, DC, who serves as Bill Clinton's minister said, "We have to find a way to be supportive of these committed relationships.... The church also speaks in many voices."

The language in the Book of Discipline will now face scrutiny. The foreman of the jury said, "We have struggled no, agonized -- together in a spirit of love, and our hope is that United Methodists everywhere will receive our verdict in that same spirit of love and respect." Wouldn't that be wonderful?

I don't know how to tag this ... hero or "what have you be inhaling?"

Self-named Julia Butterfly has been living in the giant redwood known as the Stafford Giant in Humboldt County, California for more than two months -- 200-feet up -- to save it from the saw-jaws of the Pacific Lumber company.

She just turned 24 and she's from Arkansas. She's living on an 8x8 platform loaded with food that was constructed up there in the dark of night by the ten-member Earth First organization.

The tree is worth six figures to the logging company and is located on the edge of mud slide areas that have recently taken out ten homes. Environmentalists point out that the mass cutting of these ancient trees - some of them born during the Roman empire - keep the mountains from sliding.

Let's get serious. Julia Butterfly is weird, but Julia Butterfly is also a hero, a hero as much as those (weird) guyz who jump up and run at machine gun nests during wars and then get medals. She's risking her life for a principle and done it through all those nasty storms that El Nino has thrown down on her unprotected head and other really nasty harassments by the loggers.

A hero much braver than I fighting for our Mother Earth home.

Now that's family values.

Molly Ivins' latest column points out the reps and their banking wing is attempting to change the Clinton student loan reforms that will cost students something like 5 BILLION dollars - and you honestly think that this vendetta against Clinton is about morals?

Dahlin's, it's dollars and nonsense.

Ken Starr is STILL on the payroll of the tobacco people - and who but Clinton in leading the charge against smoking, especially teen-age smoking.

And Judge Susan "I'm a good Republican wife and I do in the house and the courtroom what my hubby tells me to do" Weber Wright in the Paula Jones case has yet to rule any of the Jones/Rutherford Foundation leaks (as well as the Ken Starr leaks) in contempt of her gag order. Guess only Clinton is gagged.

Liberty and justice for whom?

Ex-congressional representative Patricia Schroeder has been trying to set the record straight about the "feminist" support of Anita Hill but Patsy Ireland keeps mudding the waters with her outrageous statements. To set the record straight, Schroeder led her sister Congressional legislators up the steps of the Capitol to get HILL A HEARING, nothing more, nothing less.

The men who ran the hearings on the confirmation of Clarence Thomas were NOT GOING TO LET HER TESTIFY (and they never did allow the other women who came forward to testify against Thomas because of Joe Biden's "toothache.") The propaganda machine turned that march into a "we support Hill" action when it was simply a demand for fairness in the confirmation hearings.

Ireland's latest gaff came when she labeled the Kathleen Willey incident as ASSAULT without looking into the matter that has turned out to be as big a tale of misdirection as anything else Linda Tripp has touched.

Has anyone noticed the change in the tone of political cartoons lately?

Suddenly Linda Tripp is being made into an ugly heavy look for her to be the fall gay in this mess that even has the sane Republicans in the house pretty upset. This whole series of sexual misadventures by Bill Clinton is turning into a fiasco.

Underlying it, of course, is the men's confusion about women's attitude towards the rumored peccadillos. Goes to show you that the men in power are not representing the 53% of their constituents because they don't understand women. They would if they took the time to listen but the thinking parts of their minds are drowned out by the sounds of their zippers.

Boyz will continue to be guyz if we don't start teaching boys responsibility for their actions. My son always took turns with his sisters washing dishes, ironing, etc., because it was HIS house as well as ours. He has had no problems being a man and a great father.

Captbarb - who has put together the women in the military web site on her own time and own money - and I have never met. We live more than a thousand miles apart yet our howls of anguish and disgust at the decision in the Sgt. McKinney court martial resonated. She wrote:

"What an abominable travesty of justice - shades of Anita Hill mixed with O.J. It is patently obvious that the defense lawyers had some hidden ammo - lists of names, dates and indiscretions on the part of senior officers, that the Army didn't want to see on Dateline or 20/20. The idea that six women who never met, were never stationed together, and never knew of separate incidents, could be completely ignored by a jury is unconscionable - but so typically military. A classic "cover your career" move; another example of the "brotherhood of the sword" protecting it's imbedded boys club; and yet another example of the degradation of women by the U.S. military.

"Where is House Bill 1072 that was attempting to correct this? Where is the Whistleblowers Protection Act in this scenario? If Congress isn't besieged by irate women and women's organizations over this abomination then women in both the military and the civilian sector can just take off their shoes, fall ten steps behind men, bind their feet, put on a veil, and stay pregnant and indentured till the next millenium is over.

"Or shall we just sit around and wait for the McKinney movie, tell-all book and mini-series."

Then in her permission note to use the above in Catt's Claws she wrote: "That verdict sends a terrible message to women in the military - one man was believed over SIX women! Women accuse the president and they are mollycoddled, protected, and guarded. Women accuse a military man and they are scourged, attacked, slandered and browbeaten.

"McKinney was found guilty of obstructing everything he was found innocent of doing - go figure on that one!

"And for those who feel sorry for him, try feeling sorry for Lt Col Karen Tews who was court martialed and then shot herself - or Kelly Flinn who lost her career, or the hundreds of women suffering from PTSD as a result of military harassment."

May I add that NOW was almost completely silent. Patsy Ireland was too busy condemning Clinton for ASSAULT without bothering with anything so mundane as commenting on a REAL sexual assault.

Oh yes, Karen Johnson who is an underling NOW officer and black and ex-military was chosen to speak some mealy words but of course there were no protests, no sign waving, etc. Still afraid of losing your military pension? Or being pulled back onto active duty?

Fear doth make cowards of us all ...

The URL of Captbarb's Women Veterans - a history of their past is Women Vets

That piece of unadulterated shit who served at McKinney's attorney was one of the most offensive creatures we have ever been exposed to. He made statements about the women out of court that should have been punished with a bar of lye soap and his mommy whacking him over his pointed head with a box car of kotex. (Where were you then you mealy-mouthed National NOW officers? Were you waving signs for fairness and decency by attorneys like you did in the Paula Jones case? Hell no -WHY?????????)

WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- Retired Sgt. Major Brenda Hoster, who charged former Sgt. Major of the Army Gene McKinney with sexual harassment, says she is not a ``liar, cheat and fraud'' as McKinney's attorney Charles Gittins contends.

McKinney has also filed a $500,000 civil suit against Hoster in Washington, D.C., Superior Court, and is also seeking $1 million in punitive damages. (To pay his attorney?)

McKinney's lawyer Charles Gittins called all the women who charged McKinney ``cheats, liars and frauds.''

Hoster responded today, ``Well, he's enjoyed doing that all throughout this case and I would have to say that I know that I'm not a liar and I know those other women aren't liars and I know we're not cheats and not frauds.''

The other accusers from the trial are starting a Brenda Hoster Legal Defense Fund. All donations to go to the defense of Sgt Hoster in the civil case. Checks made out to Hoster Legal Defense Fund can be sent to WANDAS at 4600 S. Ulster St., Suite 240, Denver, CO 80237.

"Since truth is an absolute defense to an action for libel or slander, isn't it ironic that thanks to McKinney, his accusers may finally get justice in a civilian court???" -- Susan Barnes, Sgt. Hoster's attorney.

(Does this remind you of another glaring miscarriage of justice recently - hint OJ.)

Please send the word around to all your email lists and friends. Support Sgt. Hoster and in turn other women in the military who are subject to sexual harassment by corrupt tight-assed officers who then cover up for each other and non-coms in the PROUD tradition of military honor.

Remember this is the time to examine the breast you want to keep - for lumps.

New studies have shown that the average older woman needs at least 800 units of Vitamin D when the old standards were none to 200. Younger women need much more than previously prescribed (on the standard tests of men-only). Judge for yourself when you consider that D is manufactured by your body when the sun hits your skin. How much time do you spend in the sun??? Without sun blocker??? Vit D is needed for the body to assimilate calcium and prevent osteoporosis. Milk is an uncertain source of D since tests have shown that many companies don't actually add it. Those who spend lots of time on computers should use a combination of Vitamins A & D. I take more than 25,000 units of A a day.

Catt's Claws is now in its fourth year. It reflects the personal views of Irene Stuber and not the view of any political, religious, or any other sort of organization - and I don't get paid a dime for it. You can only receive it by free subscription. © 1998, Irene Stuber, PO Box 6185, Hot Springs, AR 71902. Donations to continue the work are gratefully accepted. To subscribe or unsubscribe or make comments, Irene Stuber

Send your ideas, comments, and news for inclusion in the Catt's Claws feminist newsletter which will be emailed as we get to it. This is NOT an interactive discussion net but an exchange of information. Catt's Claws is NOT sponsored by any organization. The contents are strictly the opinion of the author.