Wednesday, February 13, 2002
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Wednesday, February 13, 2002 |
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Ted Turner has a few causes beyond buffalos Thanks should go to Susan Bertram whose letter to the editor published Jan. 23 alerted Peachtree City residents to the impending opening of Ted's Montana Grill. In addition to the rip-off of the taxpayers for various federal agricultural subsidies, Turner is up to his neck in other hypocritical activities. According to Audrey Hudson in the Washington Times Weekly Edition of Jan. 25, Ted owns 1.8 million acres across 10 states and is the largest private landowner in the U.S. He has received $217,000 in taxpayer funds [for the years] 1996-2000. You can enter a "Bison Hunt" on his property for $10,500. He also has circled his properties with an illegal electrical fence that traps and electrocutes wildlife. Why no squawk from PETA? Because he gives oodles of money to environmental groups. This makes him a "New Democrat" and gives him a free pass into the club of the politically correct who can do no wrong. It also guarantees him immunity from media criticism. According to Hudson, Ted also cuts timber and drills for natural gas on his property and has bulldozed a mountaintop for better views. Environmentalist pressure has discouraged cutting timber and drilling in adjacent national forests so that they will remain "pristine." This government policy also makes Ted's resources more valuable. In addition to giving millions to the wasteful, inefficient and socialistic U.N., Ted's most recent international meddling has involved something he calls the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which he launched as soon as George Bush entered the White House. The timing is suspicious. Where was Ted when Bill Clinton swept aside decades of government security regulations to allow his rich friends to sell super computers to the Chinese Communists, giving the Chinese the ability to upgrade their nuclear weapons? Where was Ted when the Chinese passed nuclear weapons skills to India? Pakistan? Iran? Libya? North Korea? Where was Ted when Janet Reno stonewalled the Los Alamos investigations into suspected Chinese theft of our nuclear secrets? Where was Ted when it was determined that the Chinese were aiding the North Koreans in nuclear missile development? Where was Ted when Al Gore made secret deals with the Russians, subverting legislation Gore himself sponsored, to keep high-tech weapons out of the hands of "rogue states?" Where was Ted when Clinton-Gore refused to invoke sanctions against the Chinese for proliferation when all of the above became known? Why all the concern about nuclear weapons just as soon as Bush was elected? We should tell Ted to donate his buffalo steaks to a local food bank on the way back to his Atlanta penthouse or his taxpayer-bought homes on the range. William F. Fielder Peachtree City
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