The Internal Revenue mistakenly paid out more than $30 million to tax filers seeking nonexistent slavery tax credits in 2000 and 2001, according to a Treasury Department investigation.  The IRS received more than 77,000 tax returns last year claiming $2.7 billion in reparations refunds, up from 13,000 the year before.  Last year, the IRS discovered that some erroneous refunds were being issued but was only partly effective in stopping them.  The Washington Post, citing an unidentified official, reported that one IRS employee is under investigation for allegedly helping process returns that claimed the credit.  At least 12 current and former IRS employees, all low-level workers in processing centers, applied to receive such a credit, the newspaper report said.

Webmaster note:  Anyone want to bet on how much the IRS recovers?  Anyone want to bet on the number of Congressional investigations that are initiated?

Police are investigating allegations that five fourth-grade boys performed oral sex on one another during class at least twice at Marble Falls Elementary School.  School officials confirm that the incidents took place and that they are treating the acts as lewd behavior.  In interviews with police, the boys -- all ages 9 and 10 -- admitted the acts took place last fall and again in February, said Marble Falls police Capt. Robert Sooter.  "Obviously, this is some kind of learned behavior, and it's our job to learn where it came from," Sooter said.

Webmaster note:  Hey, Capt. Sooter I think I know where it was learned. Bill Clinton said oral sex was not sex right?  Perhaps he was more of a role model than we thought.

Just four days before Enron disclosed a stunning $618 million loss for the third quarter—its first public disclosure of its financial woes—workers who audited the company's books for Arthur Andersen, the big accounting firm, received an extraordinary instruction from one of the company's lawyers. Congressional investigators tell Time that the Oct. 12 memo directed workers to destroy all audit material, except for the most basic "work papers." And that's what they did, over a period of several weeks. As a result, FBI investigators, congressional probers and workers suing the company for lost retirement savings will be denied thousands of e-mails and other electronic and paper files that could have helped illuminate the actions and motivations of Enron executives involved in what now is the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Webmaster note:  Can you imagine that ... a LAWYER counselling his client to break the law?  Well, I'm certainly shocked, how about you?

"The U.S. Civil Rights Commission´s study that concluded Florida blacks were disenfranchised in last year´s presidential election was conducted by a consultant to former Vice President Al Gore, The Washington Times has learned. To obtain the raw data from this study, the commission´s two Republican appointees said they have been reduced to submitting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to their own commission. The study, which Democrats on the commission leaked to The Washington Post and the New York Times, was conducted by American University history professor Alan Lichtman, who is listed on the school´s Web site as "consultant to Vice President Albert Gore Jr."

Webmaster note:  Why would members of a commission need to sue to get a copy of the commission findings?

"More than half of Chicago's 430,000 public school students must attend summer school this year before they can go on to the next grade, school officials said. About 245,000 pupils failed to score high enough on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills to be promoted, Chicago schools chief Paul Vallas said Monday. Last week officials announced that nearly a third of public school students in Baltimore have been asked to go to summer school. "

Webmaster note:  Did you notice that for the past two years the winners of the National Spelling Bee were home schooled?

"U.S. Rep. Gary A. Condit, told D.C. police that Chandra Levy has spent the night at his Adams Morgan apartment, according to law enforcement sources, who also said the missing intern told a close relative that she was romantically involved with the congressman.  The California Democrat has said he is simply a good friend of Levy's, and his office has denied a romance between the two.  Levy was last seen the evening of April 30, when she canceled her membership at the Washington Sports Club on Connecticut Avenue NW.  Condit commutes regularly to Ceres, Calif., to be with his wife, Carolyn.  He has served in Congress since 1989."

Webmaster note:  Waiting to see where this leads....

"Yasir Arafat may be added to the disturbingly long list of those who realized that the Clintons are “rentable” politicians. Government documents filed in the Federal Register show that last year, the Palestinian leader and terrorism supporter gave President Clinton and his wife gifts valued at more than $12,000, including gold and diamond necklaces, bracelets and earrings worth $7,400.

Webmaster note:  Does this surprise ANYONE?

"A major fund-raiser for the Clinton library helped get the White House to pardon convicted perjurer William Fugazy after the Justice Department shot down the request, the Daily News has learned.  New York supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis is a member of an elite advisory board to the Clinton library and has pledged to raise $1 million for the sprawling complex in Little Rock, Ark.  He was one of several prominent people who lobbied for Fugazy's pardon, but his appeal went straight to President Clinton's chief of staff John Podesta. Catsimatidis says his access helped overcome Justice Department opposition.

Webmaster note:  Not surprising ... one perjurer pardoning another.  No doubt Bill could relate!

Former President Bill Clinton's [other] brother-in- law Tony Rodham helped obtain a presidential pardon for a Tennessee couple last March over the objections of the Justice Department, Mr. Rodham and lawyers involved in the pardon said today.  Mr. Clinton pardoned Edgar Allen Gregory Jr. and his wife, Vonna Jo who contributed to the Senate campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton [and who] were convicted of bank fraud in 1982.  The pardons free them of the consequences of felony convictions.

Ronald Dozoretz, Beth Dozoretz's husband, said last night that although she was cleared to enter the White House on the eve of the Clinton pardons, his wife did not attend the party and was in a plane in California with him at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 19, a minute after Secret Service logs show she entered the White House complex.  While the logs indicate that Denise Rich arrived at about the same time, a source close to her said that while she was invited, Rich did not go to the White House.

Webmaster note:  Right, the Secret Service records must be wrong ... everyone knows they don't pay much attention to detail!

The U.S. attorney's office is investigating whether former President Clinton commuted the sentences of four convicted swindlers in exchange for votes for his wife's Senate campaign from their community, The Associated Press learned Friday.  Many Hasidic communities tend to vote in blocs, and because of that, politicians aggressively court their leaders.  Mrs. Clinton received 1,400 votes in New Square; her Republican rival, Rick Lazio, received 12.

"Bill Clinton's brother-in-law received about $400,000 for successfully lobbying for a pardon and a prison commutation that the former president granted on his last day in office, The Associated Press has learned.  Rodham, brother of Mrs. Clinton, returned the money in the past 24 hours, sources familiar with the arrangement said Wednesday.  The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Rodham was paid for months of work on the prison commutation request of Carlos Vignali and received a "success fee" for helping win the pardon of Almon Glenn Braswell.  'Neither Hillary nor I had any knowledge of such payments. We are deeply disturbed by these reports and have insisted that Hugh return any moneys received' the former president said in a statement. "

Webmaster note:  Right, Bill, and you "...did not have sex with that woman - Monica Lewinski" - we believe you this time too!

"President Clinton released a convicted Los Angeles cocaine dealer from federal prison after influential congressmen and city leaders personally lobbied the White House and the Justice Department to secure his commutation, it was learned Sunday.  The concerted effort to free Carlos Vignali included a series of personal contacts between California Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) and the White House, and correspondence from former California Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca also wrote letters.  Their view conflicted sharply with the position of federal law enforcement authorities, who insisted that Vignali deserved his 15-year prison sentence for his central role in a narcotics operation that stretched from Los Angeles to Minneapolis, delivering more than 800 pounds of cocaine.  Vignali's father had donated at least $11,000 to Becerra's political action committee over the last three years.

"President Bill Clinton and his wife started shipping furniture from the White House to the Clintons' newly purchased home in New York more than a year ago, despite questions at the time by the chief usher about whether they were entitled to remove the items.

"The former wife of fugitive financier Marc Rich contributed about $400,000 to the Clinton Presidential Library, .... over $1 million to Democratic campaigns in Clinton's era and at least $70,000 to Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate race as well as $10,000 to the president's legal defense fund. ... (S)ources said Denise Rich gave money to the library after consulting with Beth Dozoretz, a close Clinton friend and major Democratic fundraiser who discussed the pardon of Marc Rich with the president nine days before he granted it.

"A third of those granted last-minute pardons or commutations by President Clinton last month skirted the normal Justice Department review process and instead appealed directly to the White House in the waning days of his presidency. According to documents obtained Wednesday, 47 people--nearly twice as many as the two dozen originally reported--were granted presidential relief without applications first being fully examined by the Justice Department's pardon attorney's office. Most of them never filed normal clemency applications with the Justice Department. Others had been denied pardons by Clinton earlier or simply were not qualified for a pardon under Justice Department rules.

"Bush administration officials said they are "cataloging" incidents that could constitute crimes, including the theft of china and silverware from the presidential Boeing 747 that took President Clinton and his party to New York after the inauguration of George W. Bush as president.  Before Clinton workers left the White House, someone cut telephone lines, overturned desks, littered offices with trash and scribbled lewd graffiti on office walls, say those with firsthand knowledge of the vandalism.  Faceplates identifying extensions from one telephone to another were switched, pornographic images were loaded into computer printers and filing cabinets were glued shut.  "The president understands that transitions can be times of difficulty and strong emotion.  And he's going to approach it in that vein.   President Bush is not going to come to Washington for the point of blaming somebody in this town. And it's a different way of governing; it's a different way of leading."  Missing from the plane on arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport, The Washington Times was told by crewmen earlier this week, were all the porcelain china, silverware, salt and pepper shakers, blankets and pillowcases — most of it bearing the presidential seal.  Even a cache of Colgate toothpaste, without the presidential seal, was taken from a compartment beneath the plane's sink."

"The pardon of Marc Rich, the commodities trader who has been a fugitive for almost two decades, came as a surprise to federal prosecutors when President Clinton granted it as one of his final acts on Saturday.  Lawyers for Mr. Rich headed off opposition to the pardon by waiting until December to ask for one and by appealing directly to President Clinton.  The last-minute pardon of Mr. Rich and his former partner, Pincus Green, was not warmly received by officials who had been involved in prosecuting Mr. Rich, who fled to Switzerland in 1983 after he was charged with 51 counts of conspiracy, tax evasion, racketeering and trading with the enemy."

"WHAT CONCEIVABLE justification could there be for former president Clinton, on his last morning in office, to have pardoned fugitive financiers Marc Rich and Pincus Green? Indicted in 1983 in an oil trading scheme in which the government said it had been bilked of $50 million, the two fled to Switzerland, where they have ever since avoided trial. ... Unlike most of those pardoned on Mr. Clinton's last day, Mssrs Rich and Green have never paid a fine, served a day in jail, disgorged a single dollar of allegedly ill-gotten gains or reimbursed U.S. taxpayers the money that is allegedly owed."

On his last days in office Bill Clinton pardoned or commuted the sentences of following:  Congressman Melvin J. Reynolds (D) Illinois (communted sentence - criminal sexual abuse of an underage campaign worker, obstruction of justice, solicitation of child pornography, 15 counts of bank fraud and federal election law violations), Henry Cisneros (lying to federal investigators), Patty Hearst (terrorism and bank robbery), Susan McDougal (fraud), and Roger Clinton (drug trafficing), Congressman Dan Rostenkowski (D) Illinois (corruption - stealing $600,000 from the government)

"I tried to walk a fine line between acting lawfully and testifying falsely, but I now recognize that I did not fully accomplish this goal and that certain of my responses to questions about Ms. Lewinsky were false."  

Paintings, lamps, chairs, china, two carpets worth $6,282, flatware, a kitchen table and chairs, $2,993 in televisions and video disc player, two sofas, an easy chair and ottoman, a chandelier, two coffee tables and a framed tapestry someone gave him in Vietnam are among the $190,000 worth of gifts that outgoing President Clinton is keeping.

Like other ex-presidents, Clinton will continue to get taxpayer-funded travel, mail, staff, office space and Secret Service protection.  Clinton is office hunting in Manhattan, one of the world's priciest markets.  The 56th floor suite the president has his eye on reportedly rents for about $650,000 a year, more than twice the $285,000 Ronald Reagan's California office costs taxpayers.  President Bush's Texas office costs $147,000; President Carter's in Georgia, $93,000, and President Ford's in Michigan, $99,000.