CONTINGENCY PLANS: Conservative Rep. Christopher Cox (R.-Calif.) and liberal Rep. Martin Frost (D.-Tex.) have worked for months to do something about the unaddressed problem of what happens if a large number of congressmen and senators are killed in a terrorist attack. They finally saw the House last week unanimously pass a non-binding resolution that asks state governors and legislators to ensure speedy special elections in such a case. "The resolution addresses a critical challenge the nation would face if large numbers of representatives were killed in a terrorist attack," Cox said. "In such a case, it would be essential that the House be quickly replenished to ensure that it can meet its constitutional obligations in a time of crisis."
ANIMAL ‘RIGHTS’: "A war on terrorism is escalating in the United States, but it’s one that has nothing to do with Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein," reported the Christian Science Monitor September 26. "This form of violence-which the FBI says is the most serious type of domestic terrorism in the country today-involves radical environmentalists and animal-rights activists, some of whom now vow that they ‘will no longer hesitate to pick up the gun to implement justice. . . .’Civil disobedience and property damage have long been the tools of such groups. "Blockading log trucks, tree-sitting, ‘liberating’ animals used for fashion or research, acts of vandalism, and even arson are part of their arsenal. But almost without exception, the line has been drawn against injuring or killing people. That appears to be changing." Expanding from England, more violent environmentalist groups are stepping up their activities in the United States. Warns the Earth Liberation Front (ELF): "In pursuance of justice, freedom, and equal consideration for all innocent life across the board, segments of this global revolutionary movement are no longer limiting their revolutionary potential by adhering to a flawed, inconsistent ‘non-violent’ ideology. While innocent life will never be harmed in any action we undertake, where it is necessary, we will no longer hesitate to pick up the gun to implement justice." The Monitor says that arson and harassment of animal experimenters, fur farmers, and the like are becoming more common.
BIG BROTHER, ALASKA: The powers that be in Alaska have determined that a Virginia corporation has committed a speech crime. By expressing a political opinion in a TV ad, Americans for Job Security will face punishment at the hands of the Alaska Public Offices Commission. The commercial-which ran months ago-did not mention the upcoming election or Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer’s (D.) candidacy for governor, but discussed the state’s economic decline under her and Gov. Tony Knowles (D.), with whom she serves. "The commission voted 3 to 2 to override its own staff investigator and conclude that commercials paid for by Americans for Job Security in May and June were intended to cause viewers to vote against Ulmer in her bid to become governor," the Anchorage Daily News reported last month.
KILL THE LAWYERS: New York State Judge Nicholas Figueroa has thrown out the preposterous $1.25 billion in legal fees that some lawyers who sued the tobacco industry were given by an arbitration panel. The Castano group consisted of 60 law firms who handled the California class-action suit in the case. The judge apparently didn’t mind the attack on a legitimate industry, but thought $1.25 billion for the lawyers wasn’t right. "Whatever the merits of the Castano group’s laudableefforts during the tobacco wars, the rationale chosen by this panel to reward those efforts exceeded their power under the arbitration clause," he wrote. In a separate case on September 26, a Los Angeles jury awarded $850,000 of Philip Morris stockholders’ money to a 64-year-old lung cancer sufferer who claimed that she became addicted to cigarettes because the company failed to warn her of the dangers of smoking.
SCHROEDER’S CONNECTION: Following a photo-finish election in Germany that left U.S.-German relations severely frayed, there was one little-noticed fact about Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s victory: Without votes from the former East Germany, he would have been defeated. In the West Germany that existed from 1945 until the two countries re-united in 1991, opponent Edmund Stoiber’s conservative coalition beat Schroeder’s Social Democrats by 41% to 38%. But a strong 41%-to-29% Schroeder victory in the less-populated, formerly Communist East gave him just enough votes for a tight, nine-seat advantage in the 605-seat Bundestag.
