News of the day - aftermath of shooting spree on Fairchild Airforce Base near Spokane leaves 4 dead and 21 wounded. OJ Simpson case and the search for the murder weapon. Michael Fay leaves a Singapore Prison after his encounter with four lashes. Clinton's Healthcare Reform proposals at risk - Harry and Louise held responsible.Clinton also asks for public support to help defray his $2million dollar court costs for the WhiteWater and Paula Jones cases. Israel shells southern Lebanon town of Nabatya and Occidental Chemical settlement in Love Canal case.
June 21, 2011

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Sympathy for the deranged, but not much.


Any chance of finding a low-key day June 21, 1994 hit zero as the morning news trumpeted the latest dose of haywire.

Starting with the aftermath from the previous days shooting rampage at the Fairchild Airforce Base near Spokane Washington by 20 year old Dean Mellberg. Mellberg, who was determined to be psychologically unfit to serve in the Air Force and subsequently discharged, decided he'd take it out on the people in the base clinic, killing 4 and wounding (at the time of this report) 21, before being taken out by sharpshooters.

And speaking of murder, the infamous OJ Simpson Case was gearing up for trial as the search for the murder weapon went into overdrive. Simpson plead not guilty and the defense team was tinkering with the idea of manslaughter based on a Crime of Passion. Simpson friends, including Basketball star Magic Johnson voiced their support and the profile for this Circus Under Construction grew higher and higher each minute.

And since he made international headlines as the "butt that launched a thousand gasps", Caning recipient Michael Fay was finally released from Singapore Prison a little bit lighter and the controversy lingered on.

While we're on the subject of Taking It On The Ass; it was looking more and more like President Clinton's Healthcare Reform package was going to head south as Big Pharma and Big Insurance got together and cooked up two fact-free characters in Harry and Louise to the tune of many-many millions of dollars to torpedo Clinton's proposal. The moral of story being, never get between Blue Cross and their greed. We all know how that story ended . . .and do I hear grunts of "deja-vu"?

But the baskets were being passed to the Friends Of Bill in an effort to raise the $2million needed to pay for court and attorney's costs associated with the White Water and Paula Jones cases.

And in the money Department, the U.S. Trade Deficit grew by 22% to $8.4 Billion. But who cared? There was juicy scandal to be had!

Occidental Chemical did finally cough up a settlement in the Love Canal suit. They did however pledge to go after the Government in order to get their money back. Or in the words of Magic Johnson with regards to the Simpson case, "he needs to take it like a man". Seems to be a lot of that advice going around. Seems nobody paid attention to it.

And so went this first day of Summer in 1994. The CBS World News Roundup lays it all out and tries to keep a straight face. And sometimes with history, that's the best you can do.

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