Buchanan, Trump bid for party
WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican Pat
Buchanan said he will seek die Reform Party nom
ination “because the Washington elite of the GOP
has left me.”
New York developer Donald Trump also said
he will make the switch-in a possible prelude to his
own candidacy.
Buchanan planned to announce his decision
today during a speech in Virginia, but the televi
sion commentator told potential supporters he
needed a forum to distinguish himself from the
leading major party nominees.
“Issues which I believe are of profound impor
tance to our nation’s future - among them trade,
immigration, right to life, our national sovereignty
and foreign interventionism - will not be seriously
debated in 2000 between the probable establish
ment nominees,” Buchanan wrote in a letter seek
ing money for his new campaign, a copy of which
was obtained Sunday by The Associated Press.
On none of these issues, not one, is there any
real disagreement between the leading
Democratic and GOP candidates,” Buchanan
explained.
A source close to Buchanan, speaking on con
dition of anonymity, confirmed that the letter was
authentic.
Trump, meanwhile, told the AP he would file
papers today changing his voter registration from
the Republican Party to the Independence Party -
the Reform affiliate in New York.
“The Republican Party has just moved too far
to the extreme right. The Democrats are too far to
the left. I believe the Reform Party can be the true
centrist party. And that’s very much in line with my
thinking,” he said.
Trump said he has not decided whether to seek
the presidency, though he has made arrangements
to qualify for an early deadline to get ballot access
in California. He also has formed an exploratory
committee to help him decide by January whether
to run.
Buchanan is hoping to rally social conserva
tives, labor Democrats and populists and Perot fol
lowers with his positions on abortion, national
security, trade and campaign finance reform.
His letter said he needs to raise $4 million to $6
million to win the nomination. He confessed that
“right now, our campaign treasury is virtually
empty. We are really starting our new campaign
from scratch.”
Buchanan’s departure from his party of 40
years will make him the sixth GOP candidate to
drop out months before the first primaries and
leave a field of six.
Trump took the offensive against Buchanan on
NBC’s “Meet the Press,” declaring: “He’s a Hitler
lover; I guess he’s an anti-Semite. He doesn’t like
the blacks. He doesn’t like the gays.” Trump also
predicted Buchanan would get 4 percent to 5 per
cent of the “really staunch right wacko vote.”
Trump repeated criticism of the political com
«
I believe the Reform
Party can be the true
centrist party. And
that's very much in line
with my thinking."
Donald Trump
Reform Party nominee
C7
mentator for his recent book, in which he contends
Hitler posed no threat to the United States after
1940 because Germany’s interests lay to the East.
Buchanan has said the United States was justified
in getting involved in World War II only after
Germany declared war.
The Buchanan campaign did not offer immedi
ate comment Sunday in response to Trump’s
remarks. But Pat Choate, Perot’s running mate in
1996, defended Buchanan.
Choate said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that
Trump “needs to learn not to delegate his reading
and thinking, because Pat Buchanan never said
that and doesn’t hold those positions.”
RHA encourages
forum attendance
Students, Food Services to meet
By JohnHejkal
Staff writer
Residents will have a chance to
voice their opinions to UNL Food
* Services on Nov. 1 at 5:30 p.m. in
Abel Hafl’s ballroom.
The forum between students and
Food Services representatives was
addressed at Sunday’s UNL
Residence Hall Association meet
ing. “ ~ -
“Food services this year is trying
to arrange a forum so that students’
input is actually made into policy,”
said Jadd Stevens, RHA president.
“This will be basically our only
chance this semester to get the
changes that we want in Food
Services.”
Abel senator Andy Krejci also
urged residents to go to the meeting
and get their ideas out to Food
Services.
“They listen to student input. The
more students there are, the more
likely their input will be instituted. If
they’ve ever had a complaint, they
need to come to this meeting,” Krejci
said.
Another issue discussed at the
meeting was a proposed amendment
to the RHA constitution. The amend
ment would have based representa
tion in RHA on the average popula
tion in each residence hall from the
first Monday in October through the
first Monday in February.
Current representation in RHA
is based on a count of residents taken
the first Monday in February.
Population in the residence halls
tends to de&ine as die year goes on.
Matt Knobbe, RHA senator
from the Harper-S chramm- Smith
complex, wrote the proposed
aifiendmbnt, which he safd^would'
have giv&n 'studenfeinresiderfce
halls more, accurate representation, j w
The amendment failed to receive
the two-thirds majority required for
approval. Eleven members voted for
the amendment, and 12 voted
against it.
Those opposed to the amend
ment argued that representation
based on the average counts would
end up giving Abel and HSS 50 per
cent of the votes in RHA, making it
possible for them to outvote the
smaller halls.
Andy Wigton, an RHA member
from Cather-Pound, said the bill
would give too much power to the
larger halls.
“It adds more numbers to the two
largest governments,” he said. “It
really creates more of a division.”
Knobbe said the top three rea
sons people leave residence halls are
withdrawing from school, moving to
a greek house and graduation.
“I’m here representing the spring
semester,” he said. “They are people,
too, and we are here to represent
them.”
Jason Bali, RHA treasurer,
agreed.
“I think it’s only fair to those
who’ve paid their money in the first
semester to be represented,” he said.
Russian military
bombs Chechnya
GROZNY, Russia (AP) - Russian
warplanes and artillery pummeled
towns around Grozny and other parts
of Chechnya on Sunday, and Chechen
officials claimed at least 39 people
had been killed and dozens more
injured in the attacks.
The Russian military acknowl
edged itfired missiles at targets
around the towns of Bamut an<|
Achkoi-Martan but said, they were
aimed at rebel military positions.
' ’ Chechen leaders again called for
peace talks with Russia, demanding
they be held on neutral territory with
international mediation.
“The conditions for the peace
talks are a cease-fire and the with
drawal of Russian troops from
Chechnya, or Russia’s complete capit
ulation,” Chechen Vice President
Vakha Arsanov told The Associated
Press.
The Chechen military reported
that the Russians “heavily pounded”
villages to the north and east of the
capital, Grozny. It said that a pre-dawn
Russian rocket attack on the town of
Vedeno, 18 miles southeast of the cap
ital, had killed 23 and wounded 58.
Russian artillery also targeted the
village of Samashki, near Chechnya’s
western border, killing 16 people and
wounding 41 others, the Chechens
said.
The casualty figures could not be
confirmed, and the Russian command
did not offer any estimates of its own.
It stressed that die attacks were aimed
at militants rather than civilians.
The Chechens did not say if the
casualties included rebel fighters.
“The militants are strengthening
their positions,” said Col. Gennady
Alyokhin, a Russian military
«VTl
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66
The conditions for
the peace talks are
a ceasefire arid the
withdrawal of
Russian troops ftom
Chechnya, or
Russia s complete
capitulation”
Vakha Arsanov
Chechen vice president
spokesman, and Russian troops are
responding with “some artillery
strikes against the rebels’ bases.”
The Chechen military said its
fighters downed an 11-20 Russian
reconnaissance plane overnight with a
Stinger missile, after shooting down
two warplanes Saturday. The Russian
air force vehemently denied losing
any of its planes in recent days.
Grozny was calm Sunday, though
most people ventured out ofbasement
bomb Shelters only to cook food on
campfires in the streets. Electricity
and gas in the city have been shut off.
Some residents shopped for food
at the city’s central open-air market,
which reopened Sunday after a
Thursday night bombing that killed at
least 143 people. But they didn’t
linger, fearing Russian attacks.
A group of Russian leaders from
regions surrounding Chechnya
pressed for negotiations to end the
fighting.
Ruslan Aushev, the president of
neighboring Ingushetia, said the lead
ers had met Saturday and called for
Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen presi
dent, to meet with Russian President
Boris Yeltsin or with Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin, the Interfax news
agency reported.
Russian officials have repeatedly
balked at suggestions for negotiations,
saying the war is aimed against terror
ists. Russia sent troops into Chechnya
at the end of September, ostensibly to
wipe out militants who invaded neigh
boring Dagestan this summer and
were blamed for a series of apartment
explosions in Russia that killed some
300 people.
■Washington
Missouri GOP circulate
1960 photo of governor
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Missouri Republicans, upset over
charges of racism against Sen. John
Ashcroft, are circulating a photo
graph taken 39 years ago of
Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan in
blackface makeup performing a
minstrel show.
Carnahan is challenging
Ashcroft for his Senate seat in 2000.
The issue of race arose after
Ashcroft voted Oct. 5 to help defeat
the nomination of Ronnie White,
the first black Missouri Supreme
Court judge, to the federal bench.
The image of Carnahan, then
26, and his brother, Bob, singing in
a white minstrel quartet and wear
ing blackface makeup, was pub
lished in 1960 in the Rolla Daily
News.
Roy Temple, Carnahan’s cam
paign adviser and executive director
of the Missouri Democratic Party,
said the picture represents the last
time such a show was performed for
the local Kiwanis Club fund-raiser.
At the urging of Carnahan’s brother,
the civic service group in 1961
abandoned the annual minstrel per
formance.
■ Texas
Jury selection to start for
third dragging death trial
JASPER (AP) - Was Shawn
Allen Berry a hometown boy
caught in the wrong place with the
wrong people or a thrill-seeking
killer in a racist rage?
A jury will decide during the
third trial stemming from the drag
ging death of a disabled black man
behind a pickup truck/
• Jury selection for Berry begins
today in James Byrd Jr.’s killing.
Berry’s two co-defendants and
roommates, John William King and
Lawrence Russell Brewer* were
convicted of Byrd’s murder arid sent
to death row.
The three white men were
accused of chaining Byrd, 49, to the
bumper of Berry’s pickup truck and
dragging him more than three miles
of bumpy country road on June 7,
1998'. Byrd’s body was found on a
road northeast of Jasper a few hours
later.
Berry, a native son whose fami
ly roots are three generations deep
in Jasper, asked to be tried in his
hometown, hoping a jury of his
peers and neighbors will be sympa
thetic.
■ Vkgfnia
Falwell offers message
of love to gay Christians
LYNCHBURG (AP) - The Rev.
Jerry Falwell, the Moral Majority
founder long known for his strong
condemnation of homosexuality, on
Sunday brought a message of God’s
love to 200 gay Christians.
Falwell’s sermon was the culmi
nation of a weekend forum
designed to reduce violence against
gays and Christians.
“He sent a message to parents to
love their children no matter what,”
said David Chandler, 36, a gay man
from San Francisco. “... I admire
and respect Falwell for taking that
stand.”
Earlier this month, gay activists
hissed, booed and screamed as
Falwell lectured via satellite to
about 60 people in a San Francisco
park, urging them to give up homo
sexuality.
As he had all weekend, Falwell
stressed he will not change his
belief that homosexuality is a sin,
but added: “That has nothing to do
with the love factor involved. We
are to be lovers of all men and
women.”