Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.natrev From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: NR West Editor Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 13:09:31 EST Message-ID: NR West Editor Harold Johnson Deputy Editor John Kurzweil Contents 165 or Fight? page 1 The Week in the West page 2 Lost without a Gamble page 6 Oregon's Busy Ballotpage 7 West World page 8 NR West Suite J-3, 1345 Cabrillo Park Drive Santa Ana, Calif. 92701 Telephone: 714-547-7217 ***************************************************************** 165 or Fight? Would the Taxpayers Protection Act do enough -- or too much? STEVEN HAYWARD Mr. Hayward is editorial and research director at the Pacific Institute for Public Policy Studies in San Francisco BACK IN 1973, Governor Ronald Reagan, commenting on California's fis- cal future, wrote in NATIONAL REVIEW: ''Unless something is done to curb the government's unlimited power to tax, this year's $9.3 billion budget will grow to a staggering $47 billion by 1989.'' The future Presi- dent's uncanny foresight turned out to be a bit shy of the mark: the 1989 budget topped $50 billion. The irony is that California did something in the intervening years to curb government's power to tax. Voters ignited the tax revolt in 1978 with Proposition 13, the property-tax-cut measure. Later, income taxes were in- dexed, and a constitutional amendment was passed to limit overall spend- ing. But California's budget calamities of the past two years have exposed the soft underbelly of the tax revolt. Big-government forces has chipped away at tax-limitation devices. California's constitutional spending limita- tion has already been gutted. More than $15 billion in state tax increases have been passed in the last three years. And liberals have their gun- sights on Proposition 13, particularly its two-third majority vote require- ment for raising taxes. Enter California Governor Pete Wilson and Proposition 165, the ''Tax- payers Protection Act,'' which is on the November 3 ballot. Proposition 165 would cut welfare payments, require that legislators forfeit their salaries if they don't pass the budget on time, and grant the governor considerable powers to reduce spending in a ''fiscal emergency.'' The measure has drawn the full ire of liberals -- but many conservatives aren't thrilled with it either. Conservatives' apprehension is due partly to the fact that the initiative, coming from a governor who was willing to raise taxes more than $7 bil- lion last year to finance a steep rise in spending, doesn't go far enough to restrict government growth. Proposition 165 would give the constitution's fiscal timetable new teeth. If the legislature didn't pass a budget by the July 1 deadline, the previous year's budget would remain in effect. The measure would also let the gov- ernor make spending cuts after a budget is adopted, by declaring a ''fiscal emergency'' whenever revenues fall short. These cuts would take effect au- tomatically unless lawmakers passed alternative cuts (or tax hikes) within thirty days. Right now, more than 80 per cent of the budget is dictated by entitlement requirements and other legal mandates, meaning the legislature and the governor are haggling only over the other 20 per cent. In 165, Wilson is saying, if the legislature won't act to untie this fiscal straitjacket by pruning spending mandates, give me the power to battle their effects. Which sounds great -- in theory. Trouble is, the spending control in Proposition 165 is dependent on the political willpower of the person in the governor's chair. Wilson himself hasn't always demonstrated the kind of resolve that would translate these new powers into real progress. Still, many anti-tax activists acknowledge that the measure is a step forward, if only an incremental one. The very existence of these new pow- ers to curb spending would act as new pressure on a governor to be fiscally responsible. ''Anything we can do to create an institutional incentive to cut spending creates the right kind of bias in government,'' says Lew Uhler of the National Tax Limitation Committee. Nevertheless, he's more involved this year in opposing a couple of tax-hike measures on the ballot; he'd have been happier if the governor had proposed a comprehensive tax and spending-limitation initiative to fill in the gaps left by Proposition 13. There is not much confidence among conservatives that Wilson, whose social liberalism has led him to talk about new ''preventive government,'' would use the powers in normal economic circumstances. Some tax activists are excited about the idea, however. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is a strong supporter. ''Taxpayer groups have to begin looking at the expenditure sides,'' says that group's Jon- athon Coupal. ''It is not enough to be 'one-song-Charlie' and simply say 'no new taxes, no new taxes.' We have to have effective spending controls . . .'' Meanwhile, the pro-life establishment is wary about the initiative's wel- fare cuts -- specifically, the fact it wouldn't increase payments to mothers who bear additional children. The worry is that this would encourage abortions. ''It sets a bad precendent for social policy for the state to say it will pay for an abortion, but not for an additional child,'' says Pete Hen- derson of the Capitol Resource Institute, a pro-family think tank. Other conservatives counter that subsidies are also an inappropriate way to curtail abortions; in fact, the estimated abortion rate was much lower before dependent-children subsidies became so pervasive. Yet the pro-life movement's suspicions are understandable, if only be- cause of the disturbing interest Governor Wilson has shown in Big Broth- erish policies that would seem to border on eugenics -- various means of state manipulation of population and demographics. He's a zealous propo- nent of public financing for abortion, and he has floated the idea of man- dating the Norplant birth-control device for welfare moms. On a recent CNN Evans & Novak interview show the governor did little to quiet con- cerns by allowing a comparison between Proposition 165 and coercive pop- ulation-control measures: the problem with China's policy is not that it's wrong to limit the size of the family, but that ''it's probably unenforcea- ble,'' he said. If conservatives are lukewarm about Proposition 165, there's no ambiva- lence among liberals, who are led by Assembly Czars Willie Brown and David Roberti in fighting it. TV ads blast it as a ''power grab'' for Wilson. Brown calls it the ''purse-snatching initiative,'' saying it will make Wilson a ''dictator.'' Several newspapers have followed the Sacramento Bee edito- rial theme: ''Say No to King Pete.'' This fury alone is enough to justify con- servative support for the measure. No, Propositon 165 isn't the compre- hensive tax and spending restriction that is ultimately needed, but the big spenders know a threat when they see one -- and their hostitility is about the most reliable sign that Proposition 165 is much more than a gimmick. ***************************************************************** Nevada LOST WITHOUT A GAMBLE RAFAEL TAMMARIELLO Mr. Tammariello is a staff writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. GIANT CRANES and steel girders fragment the view as $2.5 billion worth of new gambling infrastructure rise on the Las Vegas Strip. Eco- nomic and political refugees, mostly from California, continue to migrate to Southern Nevada at the rate of 50,000 a year. Ambitious undertakings -- new schools, churches, stores, homes, and roads -- keep Vegas rumbling and energize the economy. Recession? What recession? In Las Vegas, the Columbus Day parade came off with but a few token screeches from carpetbagging anti-nuke protesters who detoured on their way to the Nevada test site. At the annual Soldier of Fortune convention, folks hawked laser-guided assault rifles, Gatling guns, and tracer rounds for six-shooters. But under this veneer of Nevada normalcy lurked a per- plexing funk, as the state slouched toward election day. This year, a Democrat could carry Nevada in the presidential race for the first time since 1964. A recent poll commissioned by the gaming industry showed Bill Clinton leading George Bush 36 to 33 per cent, with Perot at 20. In August, a rowdy crowd of Perot-niks, perhaps scenting Trilateralists, shouted down Representative James Bilbray (D., Nev.), the only incum- bent who dared show up at a United We Stand America forum. Nevadans were solid Reaganites in 1980 and 1984, when they gave R.R. 63 per cent and 66 per cent of the vote respectively. In 1988, Bush snared 59 per cent. But the state caught the anti-incumbency virus more than two years ago and shows few signs of going into remission. When in 1989 state legislators voted themselves a 300 per cent boost in their pensions, Nevada voters turned on them remorselessly, hurling 17 of the 62 mem- bers out on their ears in 1990 -- this despite a special legislative session in which the lawmakers repealed the measure. The 1992 legislative pri- mary took out a few more. The general election could make a deeper cut if voters recall that the 1991 legislature gave them the biggest tax in- crease in state history. Also contributing to voter grumpiness was the state Supreme Court's decision to quash a congressional term-limits ballot initiative. Meanwhile, the state's senior U.S. senator, Harry Reid, got a rude jolt in the Democratic primary when political unknown Charles Woods -- a Northern Nevada rancher who is grotesquely disfigured from a 1944 bomber crash in India -- snagged 39 per cent of the vote, to Reid's 53. In that contest, ''none of these candidates'' took 4 per cent and God Almighty -- formerly Emil Tolotti Jr. -- won 2 per cent. Reid is beginning to fit into the tradition of conservative Nevada Demo- crats. He opposed Contra aid in the 1980s but emerged as an early sup- porter of the Persian Gulf War, and he is pro-life and anti-gun-control. He voted against cable re-regulation and backed Jesse Helms's attempt to block the official federal charity drive from donating to groups that try to compel the Boy Scouts to embrace homosexuals. Reid campaign ads even run in local spots on the Rush Limbaugh AM broadcast. Reid's Republican opponent, elk rancher Demar Dahl, trails by nearly 40 points in the polls. The two men differ little on issues, except Reid's advocating more Nevada wilderness areas, and Dahl backing less. But with the electorate in such a surly mood, anything can happen. Even in the Republican-dominated north, five-term Representative Bar- bara Vucanovich, who has impeccable conservative credentials, faces an uncharacteristically tight race against Pete Sferrazza, the liberal mayor of Reno who achieved brief national glory when his wife posed nude for Playboy. Vucanovich leads by about 10 points, but she is accustomed to election victories with at least 16 point margins. It is difficult to understand why Nevadans wax so woebegon that they're prepared to abandon Bush. You hear them on talk-radio shows, you read their letters to the editor: the country's going to hell, Congress is gridlocked; the national debt -- which they confuse with the deficit -- is $4 trillion; we need Perot, or Clinton, or anybody who's going to change things. Yet here they are, in the freest state in the union, a state whose economy booms, with no personal income tax, no corporate tax, an almost empty state with huge tracts of unspoiled land and a few dazzling 24-hour cities. And they complain all the way to the ballot box. ***************************************************************** The Beaver State Vote OREGON'S BUSY BALLOT ANDREW J. CAMPANELLA Mr. Campanella is a writer in Oregon. THE 212-page 1992 Oregon Voter's Pamphlet will keep a record number of registered voters struggling with some thorny issues. There is a host of ballot measures -- lead by the controversial Ballot Measure 9, repealing homosexual-rights measures, and then some. Sponsored by the conservative Oregon Citizens Alliance, Measure 9 would forbid special privileges, ''rights,'' and officially sanctioned ''minority'' status for homosexuals. The most controversial provision, however, would insert in the state constitution the dictum that homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism, and masochism are ''abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse,'' and would encourage state employees to promote that message. Even many conservatives oppose that last provision, on the grounds that, while gay ''rights'' are wrong, the state shouldn't get involved in moral sermonizing better left to churches and other private centers of authority. The sponsors have been subjected to many hysterical, venomous attacks -- but the quieter case against such a dramatic legal innovation, along with fear of economic boycotts, seems to have convinced the electorate; polls have the measure losing badly. Meanwhile, the fixations of the Left are amply represented on the bal- lot, in the form of a split-roll property tax that would sock it to the busi- ness community, and measures to close a local nuclear-power plant. Also on voters' minds is the senate race: incumbent Bob Packwood, pro- abortion militant and reliably moderate-to-liberal in most other areas as well, faces Democratic Representative Les AuCoin, who makes even Pack- wood look like a conservative. AuCoin opposed Desert Storm and a bal- anced-budget amendment, while voting again and again for higher taxes (but only on the ''rich,'' he assures voters). He has the usual liberal incumbent's baggage: 83 bounced checks, high absenteeism, and a ''yes'' vote on the 40 per cent congressional pay raise (Packwood voted no). Packwood's ads focus on those votes, along with Au- Coin's support of higher tariffs on imported minivans, which are popular in Oregon. Still, the Republican isn't a shoo-in, given the state's shifting political dynamics. Oregon's trend to the left became starkly evident four years ago when, along with Washington State, it broke ranks with the rest of the West to support Michael Dukakis. This year, the only question in the presidential contest is by how much George Bush will lose. An October 8 Portland Oregonian poll had Bill Clinton leading the President, 49 per cent to 26 (with Perot at 10). All this even though the poll showed that 75 per cent of voters believe Clinton will raise taxes. Packwood himself was ahead of AuCoin by only eight points, with 21 per cent of voters still undecided, so an upset isn't inconceivable if the Clinton juggernaut gains more speed. Vying for AuCoin's House seat are GOP state treasurer Tony Meeker and Democrat Elizabeth Furse. Furse hasn't run for office before, but has solid liberal credentials nevertheless: she is founder and, through pro- ceeds from her small farm and vineyard, chief benefactor of the Oregon Peace Institute. The contrasts are sharp: Meeker opposes socialized medicine; Furse is jazzed about it. Meeker is pro-life, Furse pro-choice. And Meeker has man- aged the state's books admirably, while Furse's experience is limited to managing peacenik functions. Meeker is favored, but, then, there are those Clinton coattails. ***************************************************************** ''Happy birthday, Columbus,'' read the banner put up in Berkeley's Sproul Plaza on October 12 by members of Young Americans for Freedom and College Republicans. Soon after it appeared it had been torn down, natu- rally, by a band of politically correct militants, one of whom proclaimed: ''Free speech doesn't cover right wingers.'' Yes, friends, the Constitution is a living document. Americans are registering to vote in the greatest numbers in twenty years, and Democrats are the prime beneficieries of the trend. Even Or- ange County, California, which voted overwhelmingly Republican in the last three presidential elections, provides happy tidings for the Democrats in its new voter rolls. Think of it -- even Gipper Country is kinder and gentler now. Democrat Dianne Feinstein, running against John Seymour for the Sen- ate from California and low on cash, asked financial supporters who had given her campaign the maximum $1,000 to donate more to the Demo- cratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ''marked for Dianne's tally.'' Oops. That seems to be a blatant violation of campaign laws, and provoked a ''barrage of criticism from state watchdog groups.'' Mrs. Feinstein's re- sponse was to accuse her opponent of flinging mud. Willie Brown's recent San Francisco fund-raising dinner raked in over $1 million for the Speaker and his political friends. He was heard chuckling afterward about the large number of tables bought by trial lawyers and workers' compensation attorneys, all profoundly grateful for his aborting any legal reform that might lighten their wallets. Tell all the lawyer jokes you want, but these folks get the last laugh. Residents of California will have to wait some two years -- till June 1994 -- to vote on a school-voucher initiative, but voters in Colorado will get their chance at the polls next Tuesday. That state's Democratic governor, Roy Romer, is busy campaigning against the measure, appearing on Mac- Neil/Lehrer NewsHour to chin rub about the peril posed to the sacred pub- lic-schools system. Funny, you never hear Mr. Romer mention that most of his eight children went to private schools, including Phillips Exeter Academy. Liberalism is fine in public life, but it has no place in the home. Recently a Southern California manufacturer was visited by agents from INS who discovered that 98 of the firm's employees were carrying fake Green Cards. The company duly let the 98 illegal aliens go -- and was im- mediately hit by 98 workers' compensation claims, for termination-related stress. Race you to Nevada. Rumored as a possible Clinton Supreme Court nominee: Susan Estrich, who headed the 1988 Dukakis campaign, and now makes ends meet as a law professor at the University of Southern California and as a left-liberal talk-show host in Los Angeles. She may be qualified, but would she be willing to sit next to Clarence Thomas? In the sparring between Vice President Dan Quayle and Murphy Brown producer Diane English, Miss English's brother weighs in with the Veep. The Reverend Rick English, a Baptist minister, told the Buffalo News: ''When media folks make statements that they know what life is about, I have a problem because I see the devastation. I've been working with youth for ten years and I see first hand the problems they face. I don't believe the media is promoting family values and I think a large segment of media is out of contact with real-life situations.'' You don't have to be a Baptist to say, Amen. Remember when Ronald Reagan said trees could contribute to smog, and everyone laughed? No one is laughing now that the South Coast Air Qual- ity Management District has commissioned a study on hydrocarbon emis- sions from vegetation. It's just a matter of time before modern science catches up with Dan Quayle. One congressional race that looks promising for the GOP is California's 11th District (the Central Valley). Democrat Patti Garamendi (wife of John Garamendi, the state insurance commissioner), is now rated a slight underdog against conservative Republican Richard Pombo, even though registration favors Democrats. Mrs. Garamendi had been calling herself a moderate, but then she had a spasm of candor: she publicly took Ice T's side in the controversy over ''Cop Killer.'' When Pombo wrote a newspaper piece condemning the rapper, the Stockton NAACP called him a ''racist,'' and Mrs. Garamendi seconded their indictment. All of which naturally got local police groups steamed, and increased the Democrat's negatives to 38 per cent. Mrs. Garamendi has just a few more days left to learn to stifle herself. In Los Angeles, a Muslim family that was refused service by Malinow and Silverman Mortuary, which specializes in traditional Jewish funerals rites, filed a $4 million lawsuit, alleging discrimination. Under Califor- nia's progressive ''civil rights'' ordinances, the family probably has a case. Are you watching, Yasir Arafat? The Road to Nowhere WILL CALIFORNIA voters let themselves be taken for a ride on Novem- ber 3? Proposition 156 would authorize $1 billion in bonds to fund more fixed-rail transit -- a sure way for taxpayers to get tied to the tracks. Boosters of rapid transit promise breathtaking reductions in smog and freeway clog, with armies of motorists bolting from cars and elbowing their way onto sleek commuter trains. An alluring serenade, except that it jars with awkward but insistent facts. Because of fatter paychecks, rel- atively low suburban land costs, and smaller families, Americans no longer reside cheek-to-jowl in central cities. With the decentralization of communities, rapid transit has become a dreamer's response to traffic and pollution woes, more than anywhere in the far-flung suburbs of Califor- nia. Except for those who live near one rail station and work close to an- other, most people will remain in their cars. Yet still the planners bring forward their rail projects, and taxpayers are shaken down again and again. Never mind that the percentage of commuters using mass transit has actually fallen over the past decade -- even as more transit systems have come on line. Indeed, new rail projects consistently end up with lower ridership and higher costs than promised. That's been the case in San Jose, Baltimore, Detroit, San Francisco, and Atlanta -- and, most recently, on the new Blue Line from Long Beach to Los Angeles, which rumbles along with near-empty cars. Then there's L.A.'s Metrorail subway, being built at a cost of at least $250 million per mile. Even with heavy ridership -- which is unlikely, ac- cording to independent studies -- the construction costs would be enough to buy every patron a limo. An alternative would be congestion pricing, charging drivers by the time of day they travel. Singapore does that, reducing rush-hour crush by requiring special stickers for peak-time drivers. But in California, taxpayers are being asked to cough up more for rail systems. This is truly a technology for the Ninties -- the 1890s, an era of confined, crowded cities where disposable income was minimal. In their wisdom, the politicians and planners are keen on building a fast track to the past. Race and Other Matters REVERSE DISCRIMINATION is a recipe for racial strife, opponents of af- firmative-action programs have long argued. Take Los Angeles, where self-proclaimed black and Hispanic leaders have been battling over whom the board of education should choose to be school superintendent. These ''leaders'' are more concerned about getting an appointee of their own color than about improving a district that doesn't educate its kids. The situation is an echo of what happened a few months back in San Francisco. When the school board there chose an Hispanic superinten- dent, various black leaders decried the decision as ''blatantly racist,'' and even threatened to start their own ''black board of education.'' UC Berkeley was the scene of a similar flareup when sociology students denounced the hiring of a well-qualified French-born scholar. The pro- testors said that, as a white, he wasn't equipped for a post that included teaching Chicano studies. Meanwhile, at San Jose State, controversy erupted when Ruth Le- venthal, provost and dean of Penn State's Harrisburg campus, was offered the presidency after a nine-month search. The list of six finalists for the post was a classic affirmative-action roster: one white male and the rest women and minority-group members. But the choice of Leventhal brought an outraged response nevertheless from Asian and Hispanic faculty who said she had no experience dealing with people like them. In all these cases, we see the natural result of the ethnic-spoils system. ''What proponents of affirmative action said would never happen -- hiring by race and ethnicity -- is exactly what is happening before our very eyes,'' writes Berkeley professor Aaron Wildavsky. ''Without reliance on merit there will only be racial and ethnic warfare,'' notes Mr. Wildavsky. Re- member that when you hear politicians boasting about his opposition to racism -- and endorsing affirmative action to prove he's sincere. ***************************************************************** Would-be Senator Barbara Boxer knows how to filibuster: Appearing on Life and Times, KCET-TV's interview show, she was a buzzsaw of verbi- age, making it hard for hosts Ruben Martinez, Pat Morrison, and Hugh Hewitt to break in with questions. She couldn't drown out a query on the 40 per cent House pay raise, however. Yes, came the answer, she'd voted for it (even though she and her hubby jointly earned an average of around $500,000 in each of the past several years); but she'd voted against the earlier proposal for a 51 per cent hike. . . . According to Congressional Quarterly's Politics in America (1992): ''Though Boxer clearly has strongly held opinions, her colleagues were still startled by the stridency of her statements in support of the controversial 51 per cent congressional pay- raise proposal in early 1989. Just before the final vote that scuttled the raise, she again excoriated critics of the proposal. But after all the strong language, Boxer surprised her colleagues once more, joining in the over- whelming House vote to kill the raise.''. . . Mrs. Boxer denies that her sex should be an issue to voters on November 3, but she recently stated: ''I think you should look at the genders of the candidates.'' . . . After Bruce Herschensohn started running ads hitting her 143 bounced checks, Mrs. Boxer's lead shrank immediately from around 20 points to as few as 6 in an internal Herschensohn survey. . . . Although Rep. Boxer leads in fund raising, her opponent's support is broader; as of September 30, he had raised $1.1 million from small individual donations. GOP's Senatorial Campaign Committee is expected to kick in as much as $2.5 million, far more than she will get from her national party, evening the money race. . . . Mrs. Boxer draws on Washington pols and New York celebrities for donations, including $1,000 checks from designer Liz Claiborne, opera star Marilyn Horne, and $2,000 from That Girl star (and wife of Phil Do- nahue) Marlo Thomas. . . . In Oregon, Representative Les AuCoin, the Democratic Senate candidate, asked opponent Sen. Bob Packwood in a de- bate: ''Are you going to vote for George Bush, and if so, why?'' The reply, after a pause: Yes, because ''this is a man of decency,'' who's gotten bad advice on the economy. ''There you have it,'' said AuCoin. ''They're team- mates.'' . . . ''I think George Bush will be our Jimmy Carter,'' said Terry Considine, GOP candidate for Senate in Colorado, who is closing in on Democratic Representative Ben Nighthorse Campbell. . . . ''In no circum- stances have we used [Bush's] name, his likeness, or any campaign themes particular to the Bush - Quayle campaign,'' said Dora Kingsley, director of Republican Joan Milke Flores's congressional campaign in Los Angeles County. . . . In Idaho, contest to replace retiring Republican Sen- ator Steve Symms is rated a toss-up, between Boise Mayor Dirk Kempthorne and Democratic Representative Richard Stallings. . . . In a letter to supporters, California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown boasts that the Assembly Democratic Caucus's voter-registration drive netted al- most 125,000 new Democrats statewide over the summer, boosting ratio of Democrats to Republicans in key districts 8 per cent. For instance, vet- eran GOP Assemblyman Gerald Felando's 54th district (Long Beach), listed as 44.7 per cent Republican to 43.1 per cent Democrat in May, is now Democratic by a margin of 1,000 voters. Brown predicts a ''banner year'' in Assembly races. . . . But Dems find they have to stifle their liber- alism on the hustings; with the economy in a rut, few voters ask about environmental issues. David Allgood, executive with the League of Con- servation Voters, laments ''negligible discussion'' of his hot-button con- cerns, but his group endorses candidates anyway -- including California senate candidates Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. . . . Taxpayers will be glad to know they're financing Donna Haraway, faculty member at UC Santa Cruz, whose latest opus, Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science, informs us that ''the racial and racist nature of sexual politics is distorted by the feminist and anti-femi- nist discourse of the white middle class that privileges sexual difference as the definitive axis of gender inequality.'' L.A.'s Cardinal Roger Manohy gets blasted as a peril to freedom for plead- ing for (uplifting) changes in Hollywood's output; no such hostility from the industry when homosexual militants apply the pressure. In fact, Out magazine crows that gay protests have yielded a crop of new homosexual- oriented movies: Robin Williams reportedly will star in bio of Harvey Milk; Tom Hanks will have lead in Tri-Star AIDS drama, Probable Cause; and producer Barry Krost has sold Family Values to Columbia -- a story about two brothers, one straight, one not. . . . Actor, director, liberal activist Tim Robbins sounds off: ''I can't think of a greater distortion of the truth than that we have a left-leaning press.'' Unless it's his movie, Bob Roberts? . . . ''With 12 years of Republicans [in the White House] perhaps Hollywood's liberal bent is kind of a natural balance to that,'' says Murphy Brown producer Diane English, who isn't offering to boost Quayle in her sitcoms if Bill Clinton takes the White House. . . . Conservative supper club, the George Washington Society, will dine in San Francisco, Novem- ber 20. Call 310-376-4905 for details. ***************************************************************** We hope that you continue to enjoy NR West. We have gotten many favor- able letters about the insert from readers, journalists, and other inter- ested parties expressing hope that it continue. Unfortunately, it was not as well received in the advertising community. We are not announcing its burial, but this is the last edition until at least the end of the year. Rest reassured, however, that the keen sightings by the staff of NR West will manifest themselves in the pages of NATIONAL REVIEW. In the meantime, if you own a company or have products or services to sell, NR West will be the perfect medium to advertise them when it rises from its hibernation. For more information, please contact our NR West advertising representative, Mr. Doyle Peck, by phone, 213-343-1855, or by fax, 213-343-1942. Anyone who would like to contribute to a fund to continue NR West, please contact NATIONAL REVIEW publisher Ed Capano at 212-679-7330. This article is copyright 1992 National Review. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM