Art Bell dissects Bill Clinton’s 1996 DNC speech, where he touted a $548B tax cut critique while proposing selective capital gains exemptions, amid Dick Morris’ scandal and contradictory claims about crime vs. rising drug use (crack up 166%, heroin among juveniles). Callers question cover-ups like TWA Flight 800’s alleged missile link and Pentagon admissions on Gulf War chemical exposure, while Bell mocks Hollow Earth theories and dismisses systemic fraud despite callers’ suspicions. A proposed 15% surtax on unfunded pensions—like Arkansas’ depleted Teachers’ Pension Fund—shocks him as an attack on savings. Ultimately, the episode reveals Clinton’s political agility overshadowing policy inconsistencies, with Bell’s skepticism clashing against callers’ conspiracy theories and economic concerns. [Automatically generated summary]
From the high desert and the great American Southwest, I bid you all good evening, good morning, and welcome to the best in live overnight talk radio.
From the high desert to the Hawaiian-Sahitian island chains in the west, eastward to the threatened Caribbean in the U.S. Virgin Islands, south into South America, north to the Pole and worldwide on the internet.
Said, I don't know how to do this, really, so I just will say I accept.
Urged Americans to let him lead them into the 21st century with an agenda that disdains the, quote, old politics of Washington.
End quote.
In an address to delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and millions watching on TV, Clinton promised to balance the budget, but portrayed himself as a bulwark against excessive Republican efforts to shrink government.
Also blasted Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole's plan for a $548 billion across-the-board tax cut.
Proposed a plan instead that would spare most home sellers from capital gains taxes.
Now, all of this may have been somewhat overshadowed by the Morris quit.
As you know, the president's top political strategist, Dick Morris, has resigned.
In a written statement, Morris neither confirms nor denies an allegation that he engaged in a year-long, this ought to be in quotes, love affair with a prostitute.
The allegation made in an article in a supermarket tabloid newspaper, The Star, Morris says, quote, I will not subject my wife, family, nor friends to the sadistic vitriol of yellow journalism.
I will not dignify such journalism with a reply or an answer.
I never will, end quote, but he did resign.
Bill Clinton basically only saying in a statement that Dick Morris is my friend and a superb political strategist.
So there you are.
The delegates were all surprised by the scandal, a little afraid of it, not knowing what it would do to the Prez's big speech tonight.
Now, the theme of the speech, and I watched it in its entirety, was building a bridge to the 21st century.
Our president said, quote, where our children are not killing other children anymore, where children's lives are not shattered by violence at home or in the schoolyard, where a generation of young people are not left to raise themselves on the streets, end quote.
Where crime is a shocking exception and not business as usual.
So the president's theme clearly was a bridge to the 21st century.
The president clearly had decided to, in effect, respond to Bob Dole, who said he remembered a better day and was, didn't say it, but was in effect a bridge to the past.
Or the way America was, Mr. Clinton is going to portray himself as a bridge to the future.
Now, building this bridge will be any number of programs, 23 of them specifically proposed.
Not so much new money to be used, he says, but rather a manipulation of the tax code as an instrument of social policy.
In other words, he will use the tax code to provide monies for these various proposals.
He said, crime is down and drug use is up.
Crime is down and drug use is up.
That's interesting.
How can that be?
If drug use is absolutely connected to crime and the only way to get crime down is to legalize drugs, then how can we have crime down and drug use up?
I don't get it.
Does that make sense to you?
Bridging to the 21st century with family values.
Talked a lot about family values, and a lot of that talk, as you well know, came from the mind of Roger Morris.
And the president stopped, looked lovingly at his wife, and said, of course, it takes a village.
And apparently the village working girl as well.
So obviously it's going to be a night to allow you to render your opinion with respect to what the president had to say.
It was no doubt a well-delivered speech.
Mr. Clinton does that.
He gives good speech.
Always has.
It is what he does well, and you can't take it away from him.
He gives a good speech.
The crowd liked it, and if you were casually listening around the edges, it sounded good.
That's what he does well.
I mean, I just, I can't and won't take that away from him.
He is a superb politician.
I don't know how much of a compliment that is, but he is that.
Now, I've got some responses ahead of time from some of you.
And here they are.
Art, while all the media and the general public were asking how can we afford the proposed Dole tax cut of 15%, I've not heard anyone in the media challenge the President and the Democrats on how they can pay for the billions of dollars in new government programs that Clinton promised.
I thought the era of big government was over.
I guess it is the beginning of the era of the big village.
That's from Hank in Kansas City.
Mike in L.A. says, Art watching Clinton tonight reminded me of one of those people that call your house frequently, offering free vacations, cars, and sometimes cash.
Chris in Farmington, Missouri, Art.
The phrase that comes to mind with Clinton's speech is vintage Clinton.
Race baiting, dividing, playing to both sides for political gain.
One thing that really sticks out is he mentioned the swastikas painted on the doors of black special forces members.
I'm not shocked he mentioned that, and I'm not completely shocked he failed to mention the fact they were painted by a black man.
Clinton also showed his true colors.
He really showed himself as a liberal Democrat wanting more and more government intrusion into our lives.
Dave in Vesalia, California says, I quote Clinton, I believe in free speech.
Say what?
Get those responsible for painting those swastikas, give me the V-chip, get me more wiretaps, and arrest that woman for calling me a hypocrite.
That's Dave and Visalia.
For this high art tonight, with a high degree of curiosity, I listened to the hour-plus-long speech given by our seated and newly nominated Democrat president.
Aside from my feelings of consternation regarding his socialist verbiage, I heard him make numerous proposals that followed the Republican agenda.
Found his remarks regarding the removal of crime, safety to walk the streets, work fair, and the like inspiring.
The speech seemed to be a speech that would be made by someone who was looking forward to a first term.
Man's been in office for a period of four years, two with a Democrat and two with a Republican Congress.
Since his non-socialist proposals are endorsed by both political parties, why have his proposals not been submitted to Congress during the last four years?
As an added comment, at the start of his speech, he called for a moratorium on personal attacks and would do everything in his power to prevent them.
I listened to the Democrat convention in its entirety and was put off by the personal attacks that were voiced.
Where was his control when they were going on?
I feel this country needs something more than words.
With someone who's a leader, we would have had some action instead of just words.
And so forth and so on.
And I'll give you just a little more here.
It is worth commenting on.
One last, dear arts, and notes on tonight's performance.
Did anybody notice that Clinton was having a hard time suppressing a smile when he began talking about how terrible drugs are?
Go back and look at your videotape.
You'll see him having a hard time initially suppressing it.
Two, I've always thought that Bill Clinton was performing a huge service to the American people by presenting them with such a clear example of sociopathic behavior.
Unfortunately, a large portion of the population wants desperately to be lied to.
As long as it sounds like they're getting something for nothing, I fear three generations of TV viewing has made separating fantasy from reality difficult for many.
Tonight he repeated a plethora of button-pushing irrelevances and lies, and sadly enough, many are going to eat it up.
His long-winded, pointless recounting of ethnic and racial struggles around the world was met with applause just because Bill said that's not a nice way for folks to act.
Yes, Bill, I guess it is true.
As Bosnian Muslims could not defend themselves, we'll tell you.
The media response afterward on the major networks was as bad as one could expect.
Ranging from praise as the greatest campaigner of modern times to analysis as hard-hitting as he showed himself to be at the sensible middle.
Peter Jennings was effusive, and after commenting that Bob Dole would be sorry that he ever made reference to being a link to a better past because the president was going to beat him up by describing himself as a link or bridge, if you will, to the future, rudely cut off by David Brinkley when he began to explain that the Democrats had twisted Dole's statement and that Dole was referring to a gentler America with less crime, social problems, better education, etc.
Peter cut David off in mid-sentence because he had more important things to do, like thanking his cameraman.
It could not have been more blatant, and the look of displeasure on Jennings' face was plainly obvious.
Among Jennings and ABC's White House correspondents' comments were those about how, with the type of scandal that broke today, many others would have been shaken, but ah, not Clinton.
Of course not.
One of the traits of a sociopath is incredible confidence in the sense that nothing can hurt them.
They consider being detected a great challenge and derive their thrills from the game.
The closer to danger they get, the greater the high.
Finally, I've got a comment on the biggest lie in Al Gore's speech yesterday.
No, not the deception about his sister's death, a ploy that sickened me.
No, it was the one about Gingrich and Dole not knowing the measure of this man.
Of course they did.
It was in Paula Jones' deposition.
So that kind of summarizes the president's speech, whatever else you want to say about it.
It was a good speech.
It was well delivered.
And it no doubt is going to get him points, presidential rating points.
And we'll see what kind of bounce he manages to get out of all this.
Norwegian authorities say a Russian airliner carrying coal miners to the remote Arctic islands slammed into a snow-capped mountain as it came into land, 141 dead.
Reminds me, I recently flew on a Russian airliner.
The Atlantic is an amazing sight to see.
Lined up from the coast, literally, the coast of Africa, all the way to a few hundred miles now from the American coast.
Hurricane, hurricane, storm, storm, storm.
Literally lined up from Africa to near America, one increasing in strength, storm after another.
It is an amazing sight.
They said it was not going to be a season like we had last year with storms literally lined up from the African coast to America, but here we've got it once again, surprising the people who try to predict the weather ahead of time.
Something on dinosaurs.
The scientific debate over whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded like mammals, birds, or cold-blooded like reptiles is simmering again.
Several scientists claim that they've found the first fossilized evidence that at least some dinosaurs were cold-blooded.
They say CAT scans of, quote, superbly preserved specimens, end quote, of dinosaurs from the Cretaceous period showed they had nasal anatomy similar to that of such cold-blooded modern animals as crocodiles and other lizards.
The scanned specimens included a Tryanosaurus rex and many others.
Several experts say the research does not close the debate over whether the extinct creatures were cold-blooded or warm-blooded.
So there you've got it.
I have got what I think is probably the facts that Ray Bream read the other day on TWA Flight 800.
Oh, by the way, while we're on the subject of 800 and the photograph up on the webpage, purporting to be the alleged missile that brought it down, or the one that might have brought it down, there is trouble on the web, and there are some large servers and such that went down, and depending on the routing that your service takes, you may or may not be able to get certain websites, including mine.
So this great tangled web or net, if you will, is suffering a sort of a brownout right now.
Some of you will make it without problem.
Others will have a problem.
If you have not yet seen that photograph, you need to see it.
It is on my website along with so much more.
And by the way, as I said yesterday, Latin Show, there is a new photograph of me up there taken about three weeks ago.
So if you want to see what I look like, a good recent photograph is up there, taken by my friend Bob Crane.
I was on the back of the ship on vacation.
He snapped a photograph of me, and so I put that one up there for you to see a recent photograph.
And that's the first thing to load up as you load the webpage.
That is, if you can weave your way through the apparent brownout going on right now, web-wide.
So tonight is going to be open lines.
Tomorrow night, Dr. Hertag is going to be here.
And I think you're going to enjoy that very much.
And obviously, with the political developments of the day, here in the village, I thought open lines would be most appropriate tonight, followed by Dr. Hertog tomorrow night.
And then the holiday weekend begins.
Well, all right.
Tonight will be completely open lines.
You are not tied to talking about any one thing at all.
Anything you would like to talk about is fair game.
Just because I mentioned something in the opening does not tie you to having to comment on it.
And if you want to take the program in a completely different direction, that is your prerogative.
In fact, I enjoy that.
I enjoy the unexpected aspect of talk radio.
And Even though I spend a great deal of time every night preparing to do a show on whatever I think is the top of the news, if that is not the direction you decide to go as an audience, that's fine.
And I will just take that research I have done and file it away for future reference.
So, first time callers at Area Code 702-727-1222.
Wildcard line, folks, at area code 702-727-1295.
West of the Rockies, 1-800-618-8255.
And if you're east of the great Rocky Mound, your number is 1-800-825-5033.
So buckle in and get ready for the unexpected.
unidentified
This is Premier Networks.
That was Art Bell hosting Coast to Coast AM on this Somewhere in Time.
Somewhere in Time.
Tonight beat Coast to Coast AM from August 29th, 1996.
I forgot your list that you were reading off as far as what would take us into the 21st century or things that Clinton was mentioning that could happen.
Well, he was saying we should have a 21st century where children are not killing children anymore, where children's lives are not shattered by violence at home or in the schoolyard, where a generation of young people are not left to raise themselves on the streets, where crime is a shocking exception, not business as usual.
And so it is reasonable, I think, to ask what is going to be going on in the 21st century.
unidentified
Of course, Art.
It's all in perfect order.
I mean, let's talk about Hopi prophecy.
Let's talk about Gordon Michael Scallion.
It makes perfect sense that with all the earth changes and so forth going on that we would fall into that.
I think, put it in this way, that Clinton will get a lot of help.
If, in fact, thank you, there is, as you suggest, massive earth changes, then, oh, yes, I suppose there will be massive social changes in whatever's left of the structure after the massive Richter realignment.
But I would really, for quite a time, picture more of a Mad Max scenario than I would sudden civilization.
I do think this president is going to be re-elected.
And I'm not even downbeat about that anymore.
I just think it's going to happen.
He's going to get another four years.
I'm almost positive.
And I think we will survive it.
I'm not sure about how the Congress and the Senate are going to come out, but I think we will survive it.
I don't think it's going to be the end.
I don't think it's going to be the final election.
I don't think Mr. Clinton's going to trash the Constitution and simply crown himself or his wife or his vice president.
So we'll make it through it.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hi.
unidentified
Hey, Art.
Yes.
Listen, I'm just kind of strange when I'm listening to this debate sort of on your show and a few other people who go through the difference between Dole and Clinton and who's better for what.
Now, here I am.
I'm a person.
I make little money at all.
And it doesn't seem to matter who goes in.
I'm just above welfare and just below middle class.
He is seeing reality and is apparently sad about it.
I'm sad about it too, but I guess I just accept what is.
And I see what is rather than what I wish.
I see a president who is a master at his craft and his craft is telling us what we want to hear, and the majority of the people out there like that, and they will re-elect him.
No, I don't think that it makes any difference where I live.
I could be in the middle of New York City or in Peru, Nevada, and the million, had I invited them, and I did invite them, it was an experiment, I still would have felt the millions of eyes.
So many things that he would not comment on, but he seemed absolutely had no qualms whatsoever about commenting on the biblical prophecies, the revelations, the Calvary.
I mean, when you have a guest on, you've got to actually sit and really listen to what they say, or it turns into a lousy interview because you're not tracking.
So it takes a lot out of you.
Doing a really good interview, believe it or not, sort of takes a lot of energy from you because, as I say, you've got to literally listen to each specific word in the content of what's being said, or you cannot ask the proper follow-up questions.
And I'll tell you something even more interesting.
When they measure the hours between 11 and 1, that time during which we are on both stations, we come in number one on Como and number two on KVI.
I mean, that's absolutely incredible in a metropolitan area the size of Seattle for the same show to be on two radio stations and come in number one and number two is incredible.
unidentified
Well, that's great.
I'm glad you have a fantastic show.
And the reason I called is because of all this gloom and doom about Clinton.
One thing a lot of people are forgetting is that Clinton was not elected by a majority.
He was elected at 43%.
He had a Ross Perrell in there that took 20% of the votes.
And I do believe if he wouldn't have been in there that Bush would be our president right now.
And I think people ought to take that into consideration.
Another thing is all these things that he said he accomplished, he would have never accomplished if he would have had a Democratic Congress.
Most everything that he was starting off about tonight were things that the Republicans introduced in their Republican Congress.
But your first statement was not necessarily true.
All the polls support the opposite conclusion, and that is that if Rossborough had been out of the race altogether, the vote would have split roughly evenly, and William Jefferson Clinton, which they now call him, would still be our president now.
unidentified
Well, of course they're going to say that on the poll's end.
I mean, they want this guy in the house.
And people, if they didn't see through his rhetoric tonight, I'm just amazed that people can fall to this two times.
That's because simply because Kennedy had the guts enough to say, you will take your missiles out and not do this thing here.
Consequently, the same thing would happen with the nuclear power plant because technically he could nuke us without having to ever send a missile in the air.
I understand what you're saying, but a nuclear plant, however possibly faulty, is not the same thing as offensive nuclear weapons.
They're just not the same thing.
Now, the effect, if something should go tragically wrong, wouldn't be greatly different, but in terms of any president, Clinton, or Bob Dole, should he take office, beat Clinton take office, going in and essentially bombing these nuclear plants under construction, the chances of that are slim and none.
Well, yeah, as we get to the 21st century, do you think that the politicians and the government, do you think and the agencies of the government are going to straighten up and begin to fly right and be like the old days where they told us the truth, or are we going to get increasing lies and cover-ups?
unidentified
Well, I came to my conclusion.
I think more lies and cover-ups.
They came to my conclusion, but I'm not very happy about it for three reasons.
Number one, when you have major suppression of scientific evidence, but media, you know, as far as these researchers go, very credible researchers with very well-documented evidence like Mr. Hoagland, you know, and they're treated like they are in the press.
And number two, you have very suspicious, they cast suspicion upon themselves in this bomb, this airplane bombing the press has.
And number three, when you have major publications like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times written an article, Reader's Digest wrote two articles on finally, after all these years, voter fraud.
I mean, they encourage that, the media, unfortunately.
I watched, as I said, the press conference on Flight 800 earlier today, which, of course, said nothing and violated their own promise they would not come to say nothing.
But they did.
What really surprises me, and if you have been watching the press conferences, maybe you've noticed the same thing.
Our press used to be very inquisitive, very forceful, and very persistent in their questions until some way or another we would get an answer.
These days, when you have this press conference with the FBI and TSB and so forth and so on, The press will ask a question.
They will say, we're not going to comment on that, and the press will, at that, let it drop, whatever it is.
They let it drop.
They don't even press.
I mean, nobody's saying you're going to get an answer.
But the press, I think, is getting lazier.
I really do.
There was a day when people would press to the wall to try to get to whatever it was.
These days, a government official says, that's it.
We're not going to comment, or no comment, or with regard, for example, to the photograph.
They asked them about that.
They just said, well, we're not going to comment on that.
No comment.
That photograph that we've got up on the website.
No comment.
And the press just let it drop easily without coming back to it or trying to come back to it.
I mean, you know, I work for a network, and if along the line in the network somebody screws up and all of a sudden we go off the air, of course I'm subject to the...
unidentified
No, well, I'm talking pretty much the same kind of situation.
Timed just right to crash in on the president and ruin his moment of glory, otherwise glory.
I don't know.
My guess is, you know, early in the day when it was breaking, people were hearing it on other radio shows, and they were calling in and saying, it's the end of Clinton.
This is it.
Roger Morris, look what happened with Roger Morris.
It's the end of Clinton.
No, it's not.
No, it's not.
To some degree, it is embarrassing.
From the President's perspective, poorly timed.
It doesn't fit in with the village people image very well.
Unless you just want to include the village Vixen as part of the image.
Makes a rough cut on family values, but probably not the end of the president's candidacy, to be sure.
All we saw, all we saw was a blue flash of light and we saw something come through and we got out of the mountains pretty fast.
Um, because there's a lot of horror stories and folk stories from all the people around there of all the different things that happened to the people.
They got caught by there, And one of the particular stories was there was a farmer, and he was continually having problems, I guess, because he farmed near the area and they were taking his sheep and just scaring off his farmhand.
Well, I mean, still enough explosive, and you just close that little puppy off, and that'll be, you know, they'll have to come up somewhere else if they're down there.
As I said, if they've got to come up and steal sheep and farm animals, then it couldn't be too cool down there.
But of course, we know it's not too cool down there, don't we?
unidentified
This is Premier Networks.
That was Art Bell hosting Coast to Coast AM on this Somewhere in Time.
Open Lines Tonight00:08:54
unidentified
take you back to the past on Art Bell Somewhere in Time.
Tonight, we're going to have open lines, as we're having.
Tomorrow night, Dr. Hertog will be here.
A lot of people have been waiting for that interview.
And Sunday, coming up on Dreamland, is Dr. Stephen Greer, founder and director of the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or C SETI.
That's going to be Sunday.
C SETI coming up this Sunday on Dreamland, Dr. Hertog, tomorrow night.
Tonight, it's all yours.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hi.
unidentified
Hi, this is The Economist of Monterey.
What I expect for the future if we cross the bridge?
Unless we absolutely instill the health care plan of President Clinton, the projected deficits at that time would be around $50 billion by the year 2002.
So unless we address some of these problems, and the only way to do that is to cross this bridge to the 21st century, meaning having health care, having incentives that are consistent to employing a workforce, having all the things that President Clinton says.
And if we don't, if we go with the dole camp and the supply-siders with their contractionary monetary and fiscal policy, you're going to be looking at a trillion-dollar deficit every year.
I think the dole camp would represent that a large tax cut that you simply regard as something you subtract from what you will otherwise have from the government's point of view is a very simplistic reaction to a tax cut.
And I think that if you look at all of history, you'll find that when taxes are cut, ultimately it produces more revenue, not less for the government.
That apparently is an abstract concept to you that you cannot grasp because you can only do subtraction.
It goes on to saying that he's not an agent of God, or he's an agent of God, and if the government requests that I should register as an agent of God, I will be happy to do so.
Just got a ticket to Dew Amateur Radio, and I was reading an article there in the One Magazine when Wayne was talking about how the things are changing.
here it starts at 9 12 eastern daylight time depending on what you know part of the United States you live in but it should it will be visible throughout all again where will the moon phase be In other words, will it be a full moon, half-moon, a harvest moon?
Oh, really?
So this will be a total lunar eclipse, and it will not occur again until the year 2000.
Well, he wants us to cross over into the land where children don't kill children anymore, where children's lives are not shattered by violence in the schoolyards, where it's safe in the streets, where crime is a rare exception, not the norm.
That's what he wants.
unidentified
Yeah, well, my problem with that is that, let's say, we imagine a river or a body of water that we build a bridge over.
The intention of building a bridge is so that we avoid contact with the water or what have you.
Is his the subliminal or psychological intention to get people focused on the end result and to discourage us from having an engagement or an involvement with the act of getting there and what we're going through as we get go on this, you know, because he could have used the metaphor of a road or a path that would have involved much more engagement on the part of the public.
But the metaphor of building this bridge creates a separation.
That part I still don't have together because everybody tells me they are absolutely tied up together, so how can this be?
unidentified
Yeah, and one other thing that really struck me was that isn't this the president who in his last State of the Union address promised us that the era of big government was already over?
I tried to get through that night to make a comment that both of your remote viewer guests or interviews at that time had said something about something that attacked his probe that went out to Mars.
Oh, he's very aware of it, and we've talked about it in the past.
It's more than just a remote viewing thing, sir.
The Russians had data and a photograph of an object approaching their spacecraft before.
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, this is not remote-viewed fact, an established fact.
unidentified
So Richard's going to count on these next probes that are going out, but apparently, if everything goes according to plan as far as remote viewing guests commented, they're not going to make it either.
Well, look, I guarantee you, if these three probes approach Mars and they have a catastrophic, unexplainable failure, then you're not going to be able to stop the talk.
unidentified
That's true.
Well, hey, Art, you've got to slow down a little bit.
I'm losing all kinds of sleep trying to keep up with all this.
About this, okay, I've been following conventions for about these political conventions for about 40 years now.
I do recall, oh, maybe three or four times in that time reading in publications like Newsweek and Time and so on that prostitutes, female prostitutes who work both Democratic and Republican conventions will tell you that their business is much better at the Republican conventions.
Sir, you look at the number of millionaires who are delegates in the Republican Party convention versus the Democrats, and right there are telling the story.
By the way, I'm not on the flight 800, but do you think the chance that this was released on the day Clinton was giving his speech percentage a chance that this was just accidental timing is about any better than that meteor hitting flight 800?
Yeah, since we're talking about bridges and the Democrats have pinned the bridge to the past on Dole and the Bridge to the Future on Clinton, I started idly wondering if you could go forward or in reverse, but only one of the directions, which way you'd go.
unidentified
Well, forward, but not with Clinton, because that's inherently backwards, I think.
Well, look, I have concluded that Mr. Clinton is going to be re-elected.
I'm convinced of it.
It's not what I want, but it's what's going to happen.
Four more years of Bill Clinton.
Well, America will withstand it, in my opinion.
We'll live through it, and things will continue.
There would be minor differences between Clinton and Dole.
But either way, the nation will survive it.
Constitution and the Bill of Rights, mainly, will survive it.
I am convinced.
So it's not a terrible tragedy either way.
And frankly, the direction of America and where we go in the 21st century depends a lot more on the American people than it does the American president, whoever it might be.
Wildcard line, you're on the air.
unidentified
Yes, Art.
I'd like to offer some thoughts on the Flight 800 investigation and seek your comment.
Now, the thing is, there was one little tiny bit of news about the 800 disaster in the news conference today.
They talked about PETN.
And they seemed to suggest the other day, you remember, they said, well, this airplane was used to carry troops.
And that seemed to try to explain why the PETN traces would have been found.
But as a matter of fact, troops do not carry ordnance or anything else when they travel.
They travel just the way you and I do.
They go through metal detectors and all the rest of it.
unidentified
Right.
And the CNN website pointed out they completely renovated the plane after that.
Exactly.
Eater finding would be bad for the administration because if it's a foreign missile, then what has the administration done to make such enemies, and why won't it keep them out of the country?
If it's a military error, and that's then traceable to inadequate funding, what are they doing about that?
And if you listen to the president tonight, he was talking about many of those items that I call the quickening.
You know, the drug problem, the problem with our children and violence and all the rest of it, and talking about a future when it would not be, and trying to talk about erecting a bridge to get to that point.
And they brought every Democrat operative they could find on television and said, well, this really is going to upstage the president's speech tonight, isn't it?
And all the Democrats were squirming, trying to figure out ways to say that it would not, would not affect the president, has nothing to do with the president.
It is a remarkable thing to consider, isn't it?
That, well, here, let me read you something that I just got on the subject.
Well, I can't read it if I can't find it.
Basically, it detailed some of the amazing things that this $200 per hour hooker was said to have been privy to, or alleged to have been privy to, some amazing things, even some secrets known only to seven people in the government, and, of course, this $200 per hour hooker.
And if things go as usual, you probably just bought a brand new car.
And you go out and there's a missile which has penetrated the roof of your garage and the roof of your brand new car, probably going right through the driver's seat or something.
Absolutely would ruin your day.
No, I have not heard that report.
That is very interesting that missiles can be loosed by accident by the military is an amazing thing to contemplate.
You would think there'd be enough checks that that simply couldn't happen.
I could imagine one going off, of course, but I mean, set loose accidentally, that's really something.
All right, we're going to break here at the bottom of the hour.
Who knows what comes next?
Open lines all night tonight.
unidentified
You're listening to Art Bell Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from August 29th, 1996.
Works presents
Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from August 29th, 1996.
How many of you know that this coming Sunday is Grandparents Day?
Actually, I didn't know that.
It is.
It's Grandparents' Day.
It'd be a good time to think about your grandparents, wouldn't it?
West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hi, Art.
unidentified
This is Pete in Portland.
Hello, Pete.
Yes.
Hey, do you remember a couple of years ago, or last year, the U.S. Navy and the Turkish Navy were having a military exercise in the Mediterranean or the Bosporus, and one of our Sea Sparrow anti-aircraft missile launchers locked onto a Turkish ship, launched, and killed the captain and some of his crew.
Well, Pete, that's the way I've been looking at it.
In other words, it certainly is a friendly fire, stupid phrase, incident is possible, but the cover-up required would be so massive, so criminal, so horrible that it's hard to imagine it could be done.
And for that reason, I've been hesitant.
unidentified
However, we have seen other cover-ups, haven't we?
There's one poll that I really loved that I saw on CNN today.
It showed that we were winning the race as far as who people thought held their closest, more closely held their moral views, and they were saying the Democratic Party.
Now, 15 years ago, a poll like that would have been absolutely impossible.
So what you're seeing, thanks to Bill Clinton, who is just a political genius, a political genius, is you're seeing the Democratic Party regain that ground that's so vital when it comes to winning presidential elections.
Well, yeah, and I think, you know, I would have told Bill Clinton, do not hiccup with these Republicans.
You know, these Republicans just have this thing about hookers.
I remember reading an article a few years ago that said whenever there's a Republican convention, the hookers love it because they get a hell of a lot more money than Democratic conventions.
But the whole thing is this morality thing is a bunch of crap, all right?
Politicians, whether you're talking about Bob Dole or whether you're talking about Bill Clinton, have dirt in their closet, okay?
Neither guy is perfect.
And for the Republicans to sit there and say, you know what, Bob Dole is so perfect and he's so clean and he's next to God, well, that's a bunch of crap, okay?
Any intelligent person knows that, and the average American citizen knows that that's a bunch of crap.
Well, I don't know about his culinary habits, sir.
I'll try and rise above the innuendo.
I do say, though, that if she managed to actually account for any of the content of the First Lady's speech or the president, and you know that's possible.
I mean, from what I hear, the allegations are Morris actually let her get on the phone, listen to his conversations with the president, made her let her be privy to lots of inside information.
I wonder if she planned all along.
I mean, she kept a diary of all this, right?
Planned all along, you know, knew that she was hanging on to a gold mine there and figured she'd sell her story at the right time.
She did document it, right?
So I wonder if she was like encouraging him in bed.
Tell me more, Mr. Morris.
Tell me more.
It makes me hot.
Tell me more.
He just spilled his guts.
Want to really have a good time tonight?
Call the president.
Let me listen in.
Pretty seedy stuff, huh?
But I'll tell you, boy, the press glommed on all this yesterday.
It was the only thing they talked about yesterday.
It was amazing.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hi.
Whoops, what a bin.
Wildcard line, you're on the air top of the morning.
And you think that if President Clinton is re-elected, which is a probability I would say now, that we will go to the stars and our air will clear up and our rivers will clear up and all our problems will go away?
unidentified
No, I don't think all our problems are going to go away in four years, but you know what?
If it wasn't for the Reagan-Bush deficit, we would have a surplus right now.
And because of the military strength of this country at that time, they made the choice that resulted in the beginning, the dissolution of communism, the freeing of so many Eastern bloc nations.
Yes, I have to take issue with your little trip over to the Communist Soviet Union if you really believe so much that our country had to fight for so long to put them down.
And why are you over there building up the communists and helping them re-establish their evil empire by what you told me, giving away valuable secrets to them and having your little shell, little Charlie, call in and say the things that you're afraid to say because you know that you will lose credibility because all these years, while the winds are shifting, you play like you're conservative and then the winds shift and now you're going to be a little liberal.
sensitive radio production secrets regarding harps because you have your your insiders who send you those those medals and and such and the fact that you would insinuate that there is life on other worlds is simply an act of trying to degrade the god-given status of the most sacred beings in the universe by saying that we are not unique that we have no wait a minute wait a minute It was NASA that said there was life on Mars.
That's right, and they're being controlled by forces from within the Soviet Union where I feel have gone back to get your orders from the Kremlin.
You are basically just, the way you try to tear down Mr. Bob Dole and to say that he cannot win against this liberal that is in our White House, who is basically a communist, you can't believe it.
Well, up like I'd have to look it up like 45% or something like that from the last survey.
unidentified
Is that right?
That's great because I know there's a station over there that the other station 810, I think it is, but they always claim that they're the number one station.
Heard something on Shortwave today coming out of Canada concerning Flight 800 that I guess was in the London Times or London Sun, whichever paper that they have.
But they seem to think that there's, I guess, a story going around in local Canada news about a Stinger missile that was smuggled in through Canada that might have been used.
And they were trying to connect it with Islam or that kind of a faction.
But if a missile hit the plane, there should arguably be, even if it was a radar missile that went to the center, there should be more evidence, or we better get some evidence as they bring up more of the main fuel tank of an impact, and the metallurgists should be able to tell us that.
unidentified
You're right, and they haven't found any parts of the missile or any parts of an explosive that would be a greater amount than would be used in just a detonator, like you said.
On the PETN trace, I guess that was just a very small trace amount.
And you had said earlier that they don't carry ordnance on the planes, which is true.
But I guess if they were handling PETN and maybe stepped on some debt cord or something, they might have tracked it into the carpet.
But I like your theory.
I'm going to think about that a little bit more because that's about the best I've heard.
You know, I just fished that one out of nowhere just because I'm beginning to get puzzled at the fact that there's no evidence of an impact or a large detonation within other than the main fuel tank blowing up.
So why not imagine that it was the main fuel tank that blew up and that something rather small wouldn't take much to detonate it, would it?
unidentified
No, I would think just spark would be probably enough.
And if you have something as large as a number six or number eight blasting cap or whatever the military would use, that ought to do it.
Other than trying to reconcile it with the eyewitness accounts, I think it's a darn good theory.
What I would like to do is hear from somebody in aviation about my theory.
It's just one more to pile on to the piles that are out there already.
And it's sort of a theory of desperation because they haven't found anything, they say.
I mean, if it was a missile, and entirely possible it was a missile, there should be impact evidence.
Much more impact evidence.
And with a warhead ranging from five pounds on up, there should be plenty of explosive residue evidence as well other than trace PETN or even trace nitroglycerin.
Listen, the other night, a few nights ago, you delivered, you probably didn't even know you did it, a soliloquy against drug abuse by our young people that was just beautiful, Art.
It's even more of a puzzle than that to me because everybody has been telling me, pounding it into me, that drugs and crime are absolutely going hand in hand.
And so then how can drug use be going way up and crime be going down?
Oh, I've probably completely discredited what I'm about to say.
And what I'm about to say is on the topic of drugs and on the more general topic of the fact that any time you make anything illegal, doing that thing becomes a crime by virtue of the fact that it's illegal.
And I'm a person who has smoked marijuana for 20 years.
And although that is the crime that I commit, I commit no other crimes.
And I haven't suffered any deterioration of my general principles, other than I suppose I've got a healthy disregard for some of the things the government tells me.
But in my own experience, and in the experience I was a small-town boy before I moved to this city, but my experience here is that the drug-related crime is principally generated by those who are fighting over the money in the turf.
And it's not generally the people who are using the drug, name the drug, anything from crack cocaine on down.
Those people are generally more interested in just getting and consuming their drug.
The problem is, is that when you have to pay for those drugs, you know, the ridiculous black market prices that you end up stealing someone's television set or their VCR in order to fund your activity.
The only thing that you can't know, though, is as articulate as you are now, maybe if you had not been doing pot for the last 20 years, you might be our president.
Or you might be the guy who figures out cold fusion, would have figured out cold fusion.
In other words, how much further might you have gone?
You have no way of knowing.
unidentified
Well, I understand, and that's a different end of the argument, I think.
You know, our personal responsibility, I think that's the basic problem that we have in this country, is that we're not taught personal responsibility, and that's something that I suppose our big brother government has to take some credit for.
But I think everything we see in society is a manifestation of some part of human nature that would exist regardless of who's in the White House and even regardless of our basic system of government.
And I think that the more that we teach personal responsibility and tell the truth all the way across the board, the fewer problems it will have.
I mean, you know, there's a fairly long list of people who have been, quote, substance abusers of some sort or another who've achieved remarkable success, you know, in their own field of endeavor.
But as I say, when something is made illegal, it's a crime to partake, you know, simply because of the fact that it's illegal.
And that drives underground a whole lot of people who otherwise, well, who are the people next door, you know, and are the people that you respect, you know, because of the secret that they keep.
I mean, by sounding very articulate and very together, and yet admitting you've been using this for 20 years, you sort of become a marijuana poster boy.
unidentified
Well, there's millions and millions of marijuana poster people, I suppose.
And as I say, they do everything under the sun.
I just don't think that the real issue is marijuana any more than it's alcohol or tobacco or anything.
I think that the real issue that's critical to our development as humans is self-awareness and personal responsibility across the board, whether it's about how many drinks you have or whether you choose to go out and get in a car after you drink.
Even saying all that, which does sound very reasonable, the government does have some proper role in seeing to the safety and welfare of those that it governs.
I mean, that is one appropriate role for the government, as in what, for example, the FDA does, or as in limiting very, very dangerous drugs and crack cocaine, heroin, PCP, LSD, you name it.
I understand with those class of drugs why the government has a proprietary interest in limiting access to all of that.
unidentified
I do too.
And it does get complicated when you start discussing the ramifications of making any particular drug legal.
But I think that a person with a well-developed sense of responsibility, you know, that comes from, probably comes from a two-parent home, although maybe not, you know, but comes from just a lot of the-yeah, but where are we going to get all these people you're talking about?
Well, that's part of the, I suppose, the evolution of man, God help us, if we're able to evolve spiritually, you know.
I suppose that's the thing that separates us from our ancestors even a couple of hundred years ago.
Listen, I've got to lead the line, but the trend is going the wrong way.
I don't think we're getting more and more individually responsible people who do everything in moderation.
In fact, the argument goes the other way: that we're getting more people, arguably, who are irresponsible, who are out for whatever they can get, view things as deteriorating and think they're going to grab their big piece of the pie right now and get a piece of the pie before everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
And it sounded like they were saying that the president was talking to this guy on the phone and he was laying in bed with a girl and they were talking about Mars, about that rock, and it sounded bizarre because I was picking up bits and pieces that didn't.
Now, if that isn't a cat getting its tail stepped on, I don't know what it is.
Down in Arizona says, hi, Art, for your information.
Grandparents' Day is Sunday, September 8th, so I blew that one big time.
Well, I finally figured out on my own it takes a village.
So thank you out there, Village, that Grandparents' Day is not this Sunday.
It would have been too big a crunch because you could not have ordered flowers today except for Saturday delivery and you couldn't not have done that for $42.95.
So it's next weekend, but you can order the flowers now so that your grandparents are not sitting there and weeping, mentally asking themselves how they could have raised a child that was so neglectful of their personal emotional feelings.
Yes, I knew that was going to occur because KFMB called me or an agent for KFMB called me and asked me if I would appear with Richard and whether I could get Richard on.
And I said, well, the time of day that you're going to want to do this is not exactly a time of day when I'm generally awake.
So I begged off and gave them information on how to contact Richard.
And I heard that he commented on the photograph that's up on the webpage.
unidentified
Oh, he did a lot more than that.
He read a fact.
It must have been two or three pages from one of his sources.
Right.
And I haven't heard you talk about that.
In which he discussed, he definitely said it was fired from a ship and that there were three aircraft involved, a drone at 30,000 feet.
And what and if it was the thought that occurred to me was that if this was a missile that was being fired at a drone, and if it was not a live missile, it might have some traces of explosive in it, but not a full load.
On that day, nine miles off the coast of New Jersey, six miles outside of the territorial waters, U.S. waters, the U.S. Navy had a live fire where they launched.
Okay, thank you very much for the rumor and the call.
Unless somebody's willing to step forward and say, hey, a missile was fired.
Here are the people.
Then it's rumor.
And indeed, they said it was not a live fire exercise.
Now, maybe that's wrong.
Maybe there was a missile loose by mistake.
Who knows?
But all I'm going to say, and I'm going to say it again, is while I don't discount the possibility, and my mind is certainly open to it, it would require a cover-up that is so massive that I just genuinely don't think they could maintain it.
And I don't think that, I mean, so many people would have to be involved.
It just anything could be, and maybe ultimately we will discover that it was such a thing.
But if it was a cover-up going to the highest levels, then, boy, God help us as a nation, he says again.
Well, maybe you ought to be asking yourself why he hasn't been caught.
The answer might be because he makes such pro-government calls.
unidentified
For real.
Don't if he was paying for it out of his own pocket, I'd be wanting to know who his long-distance carrier is so I can invest in him and get some of my money back.
I see.
But doggone to Sticky.
He's calling from work and defrauding my paycheck.
What I frankly found more than a little passing interest, with more than passing interest, was that Roger Morris used the code, had the code word Charlie.
When we were talking last night about what they planned to use for money to finance Clinton's plan, the trial balloon that was run up was the fact that they want to use the pension unfunded private pension corporate funds.
And Jesse Jackson was the man who sent up the trial balloon of using 6% right off the top.
And Clinton raided the teachers' fund, pension fund of Arkansas before when he was in there, pumped it into the education department, which Hillary was run into, and the pension fund in Arkansas for the Teachers' Fund is empty when he left.
And that's what he's headed for when he's always wanted to raid the pension fund.
Alicia Minnell is Assistant Secretary of Treasure, appointed by Lloyd Menson.
She wants to take initially, and it's in the August issue of the San Francisco Chronicle Chronicle 1993, to use 15% right off the top as a surtax on all the pension funds.
The only unfunded or unmortgaged money in the United States is between $4 and $4.5 trillion, and that's the only unmortgaged money in the whole country.
And then I was wondering what you think of Al Gore, because I'm so confused about who to vote for that I'm down to the point now where I'm thinking, well, I think I'll vote for Clinton because he'll probably be impeached, and we'll have Al Gore for our next president.