Paterno son mulls run for Congress

Scott Paterno, son of Penn State coaching legend Joe Paterno, is weighing a possible end-around run at U.S. Congress next year.

Paterno, 31 and a lawyer, had earlier ruled out a campaign for the seat now held by U.S. Rep Tim Holden, D-Schuylkill, but now appears to be serious about seeking the district's GOP nomination.

Here is the complete Scott Paterno Trilogy on the Sink Emperor:

Tuesday, Oct. 1, 1996

Collegian Columnist

Editor's Note: This is the first in a three-part series discussing the alleged political murders by President Bill Clinton. This column deals with the death of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.

Bill Clinton: President or Public Enemy No. 1?

My opinion. Those words are printed next to my name and picture every time I write a column.

My opinion. They are two small words, but they give me a license to look at things for more than what "I can prove," and allow me to consider what events mean. In my opinion.

Scott Paterno is a senior majoring in political science and is a Collegian columnist.

In my opinion, the President of the United States is a felon.

In my opinion, President Clinton, at the very least, conspired to commit murder at least 56 times. In my opinion, the President has abused his power for his own political gain, betrayed the public trust and will continue to do so unless the American people wake up and see the man for what he really is.

In the last decade, primarily in the last four years, Clinton has known several people who have died "mysteriously" or "accidentally." I can not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he had a hand in these deaths. I am not trying to prove that he did. My goal is to present the facts that are known, look at them as a composite, rather than individual isolated events, and then ask this one crucial question: Was it in the best interests of the president for these people to be dead?

Over the next three days, I am going to ask that question fairly often. What is the connection in all of these deaths? Every person involved, from two young boys in Arkansas to Vince Foster, all posed a potential threat to the president and his bid for re-election.

The first death I want to look at is the untimely demise of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.

"In my opinion, the President has abused his power for his own political gain, betrayed the public trust and will continue to do so unless the American people wake up and see the man for what he really is. "

Brown died in what, on the surface, appeared to be a tragic plane crash in Croatia. Unfortunately for the president, there were too many inconsistencies in the story of this plane crash for it to be as clean cut as we were all made to believe.

Consider each of the following facts about that particular tragedy and ask yourself if it seems plausible that they are all coincidences.

First of all, the storm.

According to the press release, Ron Brown's plane crashed in "the worst storm in 10 years," and footage from the crash site on CNN did indeed show a miserable storm. What they didn't tell you was that this was 10 hours after the crash, and that in fact, according to meteorological data, the weather at 3 p.m., when the crash actually occurred, was normal. Three planes had just landed within 20 minutes of the crash.

We have the explanations for the crash. The first was that the pilots had set their compass 10 degrees off before takeoff, accounting for their 10-degree miscalculation that led them into the side of a 2,400 foot mountain. This is ridiculous ( if the compass had been off by 10 degrees from the beginning they would not have only missed the airport and the mountain, they would have missed Croatia.

They then claimed a massive wind gust (which data doesn't support) blew the plane off course at the last minute. The magnitude of a wind gust needed to blow a 737 10 degrees off course would be so great that the landing would have been waved off long before.

Well, you ask, what did the black box say? Surely the flight recorder would have information that will clear up the crash. It probably does, or did, before it was destroyed.

I'm sorry, that's my opinion again.

According to the Pentagon, there was no black box on the plane. This statement was made about 10 hours after United States European Command said that they had the black box. In a conversation with a source who asked to have his identity with held, I was told that there was no way a United States Air Force plane would not have a black box. Somebody had something to hide.

Finally, there is the two mysterious post-crash deaths. The first was Shelly Kelly, the only survivor from the crash. She is found four hours after the crash and she boards the helicopter without assistance. She dies 20 minutes later, in the presence of medical personnel, from an incision over her main femoral artery. The autopsy performed by Croatian medical personnel reveal that the injury took place after the crash. Unfortunately we will never know the truth, because all the bodies from the crash, including Kelly, were ordered to be cremated by none other than the president (that is not usual protocol, by the way).

The other death was the beacon operator, who committed suicide about one hour before he was to be questioned. This is significant because he was the only person who could have known whether the directional beacon that guides the planes in was even operating when Brown's plane crashed.

It sets a strange scenario. A United States plane without a black box. A victim who died of injuries sustained after she had been "rescued." A claim that the weather was much worse than it was. Add to that the fact that Time magazine was planning a major story on the sabotage angle when the head office of Time ordered the story killed.

All of this is even more damaging when you know a little more about Ron Brown.

At the time of his death, Brown was under investigation by at least seven different Federal agencies: the Justice Department, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Congressional Reform and oversight committee, the FBI, the Energy Department, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Commerce Department.

He was to face a grand jury indictment three days after his death. Brown was going to take the president down, so the president had Brown killed.

Brown was tied into everything from taking bribes to sexual harassment. If you don't think that Brown was a threat to the president, consider this: I spoke to more than 10 different federal agencies and members of Congress, and they all replied that information was not available. They didn't say that it did not exist, but rather it was sealed by either an executive order or was sealed until after the election. Brown knew something, was a threat to the president and died before he could do any real damage.

Was Brown's death politically beneficial to the president? It certainly was.

Wednesday, Oct. 2, 1996

Collegian Columnist

Editor's Note: This is the second in a three-part series discussing the alleged political murders by President Bill Clinton. This column deals with the deaths of Vince Foster, Kathy Ferguson, Victor Raiser, Herschel Friday, Ronald Rogers and Luther Parks.

Plane crashes, suicide: Just another day at the White House

In the words of the immortal Chris Berman, "Once is a coincidence, two a trend, three a problem, seven a catastrophe." What about 56?

Scott Paterno is a senior majoring in political science and is a Collegian columnist.

Yesterday I stated that I thought the president was a felon, and backed it up by examining the death of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. Today, I want to look at some more of the Clinton dead.

On July 20, 1993, Vince Foster, former partner in the Rose Law Firm with Hillary Clinton, chief council to the president and a man who must have had an extraordinary amount of knowledge concerning Whitewater and other Clinton "bureaucratic snafus," supposedly killed himself. Once again, the circumstances surrounding his death create some question to whether foul play was involved. Consider the following facts about the case:

On the day of his death, Foster was in the White House for lunch. He finished, picked up a White House pager, and left saying "I'll be back." We are then to believe that he drove to his Georgetown home, picked up a gun, drove to Arlington, Va., walked into deep woods and shot himself.

When the body was found the investigation was turned over to the park police. They never found the bullet that killed Foster. They could not explain why blood from the body was running uphill. Foster's prints were not on the gun.

All of these facts seem shady. Add to that the fact that July 19, the day before he killed himself, Foster had hired two lawyers to represent him in the upcoming Whitewater investigation.

Once again, here is an individual with the potential to do serious damage to the president, and here again he conveniently died.

The Foster "suicide" has been looked at before. The issue has not yet been put to rest by Whitewater investigator Ken Starr, who, according to his media secretary, will release his findings "after the election" (there's that phrase again).

But, Foster's wasn't the only strange suicide.

"Seems improbable, doesn't it? Well, it becomes even more so when you consider that all of these crashes eliminated a potential source of scandal for the president."

Kathy Ferguson was the wife of Arkansas patrolman Danny Ferguson (who claimed he brought Paula Jones to the Clinton's hotel room). She was someone who knew about the women Clinton would have Arkansas police bring him, and she told people about it.

She was found dead with a pistol in her right hand. There are several holes in the suicide scenario, but this one is the most damning.

The entry wound in her skull was behind her left ear, and the gun was in her right hand. It would be impossible for her to make this wound with the gun in her right hand, given the angle of trajectory the bullet took. So the only way she killed herself was if she shot herself with her left hand, and then, after the .38 slug ripped through her brain, she transferred the gun to her right hand.

Not exactly plausible, is it?

Was her death a good thing for the Clinton administration? Of course. She could have been a damaging witness for Paula Jones, whose case, if won, would ruin Clinton politically.

In all, nine people who might have had information that would hurt the president have committed "suicide," officially.

Another 41 died in plane crashes.

Consider the statistical probability of one individual knowing 41 people who died in five separate plane crashes and then ask yourself this: how many people do you know that have died in plane crashes? Then, further complicate the mathematics by considering that all of these crashes took place in the last five years.

Seems improbable, doesn't it? Well, it becomes even more so when you consider that all of these crashes eliminated a potential source of scandal for the president.

The most obvious is the Ron Brown crash. As I discussed yesterday, Ron Brown was in big trouble, and that spelled big trouble for President Clinton.

There was also C. Victor Raiser II and his son, whose plane fell out of the clear blue sky (literally, the weather was perfect) one morning during the '92 campaign. Raiser was a the former finance co-chairman for the campaign, but once he got fed up with all of Clinton's tactics and cover-ups, he walked, and sentenced himself to death.

Herschel Friday was a member of Raiser's committee, and in March 1994 he too fell out of the sky for some unknown reason. See a pattern here?

It doesn't stop there. Ronald Rogers was a dentist in Arkansas who claimed to have knowledge about Clinton's extra-marital affairs, and was willing to talk to the media. En route to an interview in his twin engine Cessna, his plane dropped off of radar and crashed, yet it still had a full tank of gas.

On the surface these may appear to be unconnected tragedies, but if you step back and look at all of them, as a composite, they look much different. They look like a trend, a pattern or a plan to remove anyone who threatened the president. All of these deaths benefited the president. They all had a plausible explanation ( at least one that the majority of us would buy). But there are too many coincidences, too many convenient exits for people who might have been able to shed some light on what has really been happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for the last several years.

They are all connected by one theme: Anyone who has information that is damaging to Clinton's presidency has conveniently, and mysteriously, died. The list of Clinton dead makes Charlie Manson look like a petty criminal. Among those I haven't discussed is Luther Parks, and it illustrates most clearly what happens when you threaten Bill Clinton.

Parks was owed $81,000 from Clinton for providing security for the former Governor. He had kept a file about Clinton's dealings when he was providing security. After publicly threatening to talk if he wasn't paid, he was gunned down in Little Rock, Ark. by four or five assailants. His son was quoted as saying ". . . they had my father killed to save Bill Clinton."

That is what happens to people who threaten this president. They die, they die fast and they die before they can do any damage.

For more information on alleged illegalities surrounding the Clinton administration visit the following World Wide Web sites:

Thursday, Oct. 3, 1996

Collegian Columnist

Editor's Note: This is the third in a three-part series discussing the alleged political murders by President Bill Clinton. This column discusses suicides, fires and other accidents.

The Bill Clinton he never wanted you to know

Have you ever noticed how routine so many activities are to the majority of us? Walking to class, brushing your teeth, eating meals, etc.? Why do we do these things, and why do we assume that others will do them as well? Because we grew up with a faith that there are certain parameters that we all live within.

Scott Paterno is a senior majoring in political science and is a Collegian columnist.

Occasionally, someone steps out of those parameters and we are forced to see them. We label them "crazy," or some other euphemism that helps explain the disruption in our expectations.

That same need for continuity exists with our leaders. We expect them to behave in a certain way, within certain parameters. We don't want them to step out of those parameters, because when they do, their conduct has to be explained.

Maybe that is why it is so hard to even consider the possibility that the president is as calculating and dangerous as I think he is. I admit, I struggled with whether any of this made sense. But then I detached myself from my expectations and looked at the facts that were available and I made my assessment. There have been several strange deaths associated with the Clinton White House that individually appear to be accidents, or tragedies, but may in fact have been connected by one theme: they all benefited the president politically. My last two columns looked at the circumstances of some of those deaths (all but a couple of which took place since 1993), and now I would like to focus on what the president was trying to hide.

Clinton has always tried to stay one step ahead of the game, always keeping his enemies in front of him and his friends afraid of him. He is most likely guilty of the following crimes: conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, campaign fraud, obstruction of justice, money laundering, extortion, drug running, bribery, destruction of subpoenaed documents, federal witness tampering . . . the list goes on and on.

I believe that the president is a criminal. I believe this because I don't believe in massive coincidences. I believe this because I know that there is nothing the man wouldn't do to become president and stay there.

If, as we are supposed to believe, all these events are isolated occurrences, then the president is the luckiest man in the world. Consider the following facts.

Ron Brown died while under investigation and while he was facing a grand jury indictment. Vince Foster, probably the only man with all the facts about Whitewater (other than Clinton) "killed himself" shortly before he was to be questioned about his role in that scandal. Luther Parks was killed before he could talk about Clinton's extra-marital affairs.

Gary Johnson, Gennifer Flowers' neighbor, had a surveillance camera in front of his house that had Clinton on tape entering and leaving her house. He was beaten and the tape was stolen, while nothing else was taken. Understandably, he has declined further comment.

Sally Perdue was a former Miss Arkansas. She admitted to doing cocaine with the president several times, and even taped a show with Sally Jessie Raphael, but once again it was conveniently never aired.

The stories behind Clinton only point to one conclusion -- Clinton is a dirty politician, but more than that, a habitual criminal. The stories of his cocaine use, of his sexual assaults, of his abuse of power, all lend credence to that.

In the past four years, Clinton has proved to be the Teflon man -- nothing sticks to him. When he had underlings procure over 1,000 confidential FBI files of prominent Republicans, he told us it was a mistake (read: it was a mistake that he got caught). When his Whitewater partners were convicted, he asked us to believe that even though they were guilty, he did nothing wrong.

The most telling statement came on "60 Minutes" after the Republican Convention. When asked about the unusual number of scandals associated with his administration, Clinton answered that "nothing has been proven," not that he was innocent.

That's because the president knows he is a criminal.

Clinton has been hiding his past and covering his tracks since he began his political career. In 1994, when Whitewater was heating up, a fire broke out in the office of Pete Marwick. It wasn't a bad fire, just bad enough that it destroyed the 1986 audit of Madison Guaranty, the company that was being investigated for fraud in connection with Whitewater.

A similar fire broke out in Clinton's doctor's office in Arkansas. The fire again wasn't bad, but it did destroy all of Clinton's medical records prior to taking office in 1993. The story is that Clinton's nasal passage is destroyed, by a "childhood ailment" he claims, but most likely from repeated cocaine use. Again, we will never know, because the records are gone. Pretty convenient, huh?

Doesn't it all seem a little too convenient?

If it were one or two isolated events, I would dismiss it as a Republican fantasy. But the facts are out there. The dam is bulging, waiting to break. There is too much.

Clinton is most likely going to win re-election in a few weeks. He will do so under a cloud.

I said before that many of the people I talked to (including a U.S. senator and four U.S. Congressmen) have stated that nothing will be released until after the election. This is to diffuse the claim that this is simple partisan politics, instead of a criminal investigation.

After the election, the dam is going to break. James McDougal, Clinton's Whitewater partner convicted of fraud, is talking to Ken Starr, the special prosecutor. His testimony, in conjunction with that of David Hale's (the man who, in court, stated that Clinton pressured him to make an SBA loan to Susan McDougal), will be enough to start the crack. And I firmly believe that given time, the truth will come out about a majority of this.

When I was a little kid, my mother told me not to lie. She said lies were dangerous because you had to keep lying to cover your first lie. Eventually, you lost the truth in a mountain of lies. That is what we have here. There are so many separate events that are all linked by one theme: They all were politically beneficial for the president.

56 plus deaths. Several fires. Numerous bureaucratic snafu's. Sexual harassment. Drug use. Financial impropriety. Cover-ups and damage control. Certainly abuse of power. Lies, lies, and more lies.

That is the real Bill Clinton.

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