Cliff Kincaid, director of the American Sovereignty Action Project (ASAP) reports that media mogul-radical green-UN internationalist-Jane Fonda boy-toy Ted Turner has just purchased former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour.

Barbour’s new assignment is to serve as a "Judas Goat," leading the Republican Congress to agree to pay the nation’s so-called United Nations debt without attaching an anti-abortion rider to it.

Over the past couple of years Congressman Chris Smith has been successful in attaching a rider to Congressionally-approved payments to the UN. His rider says no U.S. taxpayer funds may be used by the UN for abortion-related activities. In each case, President Clinton has refused to sign the bills with that rider in place. Consequently, the approved money hasn’t been paid to the UN.

Complicating the matter still is the courageous effort by Congressman Roscoe Bartlett to call attention to the fact that, anti-abortion language aside, the United States simply does not owe the UN any back dues. In fact, the UN owes the U.S. more than $10 billion for extra assistance for UN military operations. So Congress has come to a standstill on the issue of UN debts.

That’s why Turner, an ardent supporter of the UN, is using his billions to buy Haley Barbour as a powerful tool to get Republicans to drop the anti-abortion rider and get on with the business of making the UN the most powerful force on earth.

Funny how Barbour took a very different position, opposing UN payments, when he headed up the GOP. It reminds one of the comment once made by Ronald Reagan. He said, "They say politics is the second oldest profession. But sometimes it seems it has a great resemblance to the first." Shame on you Haley.

No wonder Turner and his UN buddies are concerned. A recent vote in Congress shows the anti-UN forces are growing.

On July 20^th, Congressman Ron Paul submitted an amendment to an appropriations bill, H.R.2415. Paul’s amendment was very similar to his bill, H.R.1146, which calls for the complete elimination of all U.S. funding of the United Nations.

Paul had added the same amendment to another appropriations bill in 1998. At that time Paul’s amendment received only 48 votes. This year, however, he received 74 votes, including the support of Majority Whip Tom DeLay and four Democrats. That’s an increase of 35% in support of getting the U.S. out of the UN.

Congressman Roscoe Bartlett’s office noted the growing trend to anti-UN sentiment by pointing out that in 1989 Congressman Phil Crane got only 35 votes to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). And only eight years later the House voted to get rid of the NEA.

So, take heart. We will one day have a party on the docks of New York City as we wave good-bye to the UN as it leaves our shores. I’ll provide refreshments.

It was quite a scene in the Congressional hearing room as our elected leaders listened to testimony, with a toilet perched on a table. Subject of the hearing was the environmentally-correct and federally mandated "low-flow" toilets. A few years ago, Congress was sold a bill of goods about the need to preserve water. The toilets were designed to use only about half the water real regular toilets. Congressmen, not being engineers – or plumbers, of course immediately saw the great environmental benefits (green votes and money) that the low-flows provided. And that’s how the federal government got into our bathrooms. Problems is – as any plumber could have told them – they don’t work. But they weren’t asked to testify. In Washington one leaves such lofty things up to lawyers and those with a political agenda.

So this time, listen to the testimony of one regular citizen, Harlan Tuttle, who is stuck with the things, as he tells his tale of woe in a letter to the editor in the Columbus Dispatch.

"My house is cursed with two of these low-flow toilets that I was forced to install. Next to each one is a 2-gallon bucket. The toilet is flushed twice and then three to five bucket-fuls of water are poured in to complete the process. Showalter (a local environmentalist) assures me that I am saving water and benefiting all of the population of Columbus. I studied math at the college level, but he must be much more advanced than I. I wish that he would explain his math so that I could understand where the savings are. Failing that, I wish the federal government would get out of my bathroom."

The mere site of a toilet in a Congressional hearing room should have told Congress that government had stuck its noise where it doesn’t belong. It should also consider that the term "environmental science" may just be an oxymoron.