When the Watergate burglars bungled their 1972 caper to steal documents from the Democratic National Committee, the initial reaction of the Nixon administration to suggestions that it was somehow also involved was: “garbage.”  Turns out it wasn’t garbage: it was truth and resignation igniter fluid.

When the Drudge Report first broke the story that a White House intern - Monica Lewinsky - had been illicitly “involved” with the president, then William Jefferson Clinton, the Clinton administration’s initial response was that the story was: “garbage.” 

Indeed, an independent prosecutor was appointed and a grand jury empanelled.  When White House Deputy Chief of Staff John Podesta was called in June 1998 to testify before the grand jury looking into the issue of Clinton’s extreme mentoring of the female intern, his lawyer assured everyone that Podesta’s grand jury testimony (i.e., a statement given under oath and upon penalty of perjury) “… fully supported the president’s forceful denials of any improper conduct.” And yes, Virginia, this is the same John Podesta who now heads up BH Obama’s transition team… how insightful of you.

Turns out the Lewinsky story and Clinton’s false testimony relating to it wasn’t garbage either, but instead, impeachment material.

Now, faced with multiple lawsuits on various fronts challenging BH Obama’s eligibility under the Constitution to hold the office of the president - the most recent one filed in California by former Ambassador and 2000 presidential candidate Dr. Alan Keyes - the flippant pronouncement of BH Obama spokesmen is: “garbage.”

Ummm… anyone see a pattern here?  Any cause and effect link between “big problem for politician” and the reflexive labeling of the problem by his sycophants as “garbage”? 

The simplest way for BH Obama to disprove the claim that he is not a “natural born Citizen” as required by the Constitution would be for him to authorize full and complete disclosure of his actual birth records - not just doctored images on a website - and wherever they may be located, to allow their examination by independent experts, not just reporters for a mainstream media whose pronouncements on the matter up to now have been - let us be polite here - somewhat less than objective.

Thus far, he has adamantly refused to do so and a once-vigilant, but now subservient MSM has refused to even suggest that he do otherwise.  What the heck does he have to hide?  And they wonder why the lawsuits keep coming?  

In reality, given BH Obama’s long and close historical links to radicals, America-haters and corrupt influence peddlers, it is surprising that his spokesmen don’t use more graphic and “earthy” descriptions of these lawsuits, which after all strike at the very core of his constitutional qualification to be sworn in as president: is he a natural born Citizen?   

This is an abundantly fair question, pejorative labels of “garbage” aside: America deserves to know.

The Electoral College does not convene until December 15, 2008, so there is still time to clean up any detritus still littering the political landscape… but only if there is the judicial and Fourth Estate backbone to do so.  

The French have a saying, usually attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”  “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

After persuading approximately 63 million people into believing that he would bring “change” to Washington, D.C., from the White House on down, BH Obama has announced as his first selection for White House Chief of Staff: Rahm Emanuel.  A prominent Democrat strategist, Paul Begala, once described Emanuel’s fiery partisan and aggressive style as “… a cross between a hemorrhoid and a toothache.”  And his selection for transition team chief, John Podesta, is cut from a similar bolt of cloth.

Some change.

The AP reports: “[Obama’s] choice Thursday for White House chief of staff - Rahm Emanuel, a fiery partisan who doesn’t mind breaking glass and hurting feelings - is a significant departure from the soft-spoken, low-key aides that ‘No-Drama Obama’ has surrounded himself with during his campaign. And transition chief John Podesta, like Emanuel, is a former top aide to Bill Clinton and a tough partisan infighter, although less bombastic than the new chief of staff.”

So, the first two formal selections made by “That One” are the same species of partisan street fighters against whom he railed during the campaign, but which he now formally embraces.  Hmmm… so perhaps this does represent “change” of a sort.

These two selections should telegraph to anyone with an ounce of intelligence - thereby excluding much of the electorate - that the “change” once promised to the nation will be merely a modified, more aggressive ”Chicago machine” version of the same thing.

Another phrase thus comes to mind, this one from Lord Acton: “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  That quote comes from a letter written by Acton in 1887 to Bishop Mandell Creighton. 

But there was more to the quote, frequently omitted when the main observation is cited.  The rest of the quote is this: “Great men are almost always bad men.”  We shall see, friends…. we shall see.

Buckle up, Americans… we are in for the ride of our lives.

 Tonight on the Fox News program Hannity & Colmes, the conservative one (no, Virginia, not Alan Colmes) brought to everyone’s attention an obscure book written in 1974 called “Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism.” 

The book is authored by William (”Billy”) Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Jeff Jones and Celia Sojurn “For the Weather Underground.”  It is something of a communist manifesto roadmap for the attack upon and destruction of “American imperialism,” as they call it.  

Recall that BH Obama - the Democrats’ candidate for president, the MSM’s Anointed One and premium swooning material for the lazy-of-mind - continues to backpedal furiously in a futile attempt to distance himself from Ayers, whose acts he “deplores,” but whose association and relationship he refuses to disavow.  

For BH Obama to continue his clumsy pas de deux around the ties between him and Ayers - let alone all of the other America-haters with whom he has associated - and still get a free pass from the MSM gives stunning new meaning to the term “disgusting.”

Sean Hannity focused on the fact that any self-respecting Democrat (and, indeed, it should be added, any self-respecting American) needed to know before next Tuesday that, among the persons to whom the book is dedicated is none other than the assassin of Robert Kennedy: Sirhan Sirhan. 

That’s right, Virginia: the guy who frequently broke bread with BH Obama and his wife in their Chicago neighborhood, who sat on boards with BH Obama and who hosted in his house BH Obama’s first leap into politics in Illinois, dedicated his book to the person who murdered Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. 

Although Sirhan Sirhan is serving a life sentence in the California State Prison in Corcoran, who knows, maybe if BH Obama gets elected, he exercises the executive power of commutation or pardon.  Don’t laugh Virginia: it’s happened before.

The Prairie Fire manifesto contains numerous insights into the mind of Ayers and his revolutionary pals, many of which have chilling parallels to current issues bearing upon the upcoming presidential election. 

For example, the book’s introduction exhorts readers: “Prairie Fire is written to communist-minded revolutionaries, independent organizers and anti-imperialists.”  In another part of the preface readers are informed that “… revolutionaries must… organize the masses and build the fight.”

Let’s see…. where have we recently heard of the importance and significance of being a “community organizer”…?

All Americans - Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, Whatevers - need to immediately read the posting of this book and the analysis of same offered here before even thinking of casting a vote next Tuesday.

And for those who have already voted, too bad.  Revelations like this are why ACORN and the DNC encourage early voting: wise voters wait until all of the information is available before casting a ballot.

Go ahead, read the post.  You owe it to yourself, to your children and your grandchildren.  And ultimately, you owe it to the United States of America.

Liberal ACLU Democrat candidate for County Attorney Tim Nelson announced yesterday that he has a few prosecutors supporting him, in an attempt to deflect attention from the fact that a disturbingly large number of his contributors are criminal defense attorneys. What is interesting about his list is that it features “desk prosecutors,” elected or appointed prosecutors, not actual line attorney prosecutors working in the trenches.  A friend who works at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office reports that virtually no employees at the entire 1000+ person office contributed to Nelson, although plenty contributed to Andrew Thomas.

Besides their liberal viewpoints, what do all of these endorsers have in common? They oppose the prosecution of illegal immigrants, and have records demonstrating so. Nelson’s “prosecutor support” is sort of the equivalent of “desk police chiefs” supporting a candidate, not regular line-level police officers. Nelson has the support of three (present/former) liberal Attorney Generals: Democrat Janet Napolitano, Democrat Terry Goddard, and very liberal (most people consider him a Democrat) Grant Woods. So their support comes as no surprise. Nelson doesn’t have the support of other former Attorney Generals, such as Jack LaSota, a Republican who is supporting Thomas.

The county attorneys around the state who are supporting Nelson are all Democrats, no surprise there that they endorsed Nelson, except one, Cochise County Attorney Republican Ed Rheimheimer, who is considered very liberal, especially on illegal immigration. What’s telling is that even out of these usually liberal-leaning “desk prosecutors,” Nelson could only round up five of the 13 other county attorneys in Arizona to support him.

Nelson also claims to have the support of Assistant Attorney Generals and Assistant U.S. Attorneys. The Assistant Attorney Generals come as no surprise considering Nelson was a a top-level advisor at the Attorney General’s Office for years under Napolitano. Most of the AAGs who contributed to Nelson aren’t prosecutors, they’re civil attorneys just like Nelson. In addition, Goddard is under investigation by Thomas & Sheriff Arpaio’s office related to the Petersen bribery issues, so he and some of his subordinates have a big incentive to oust Thomas. The U.S. District Attorneys who contributed to Nelson were coerced by fake Republican Andrew Pacheco to attend a secret fundraiser he put on for Nelson at his home. Can you imagine that kind of pressure from co-workers? Of course they contributed. Most of them are probably civil attorneys, not prosecutors.

The two former U.S. Attorneys who endorsed Nelson are equally predictable. Democrat Jose Rivera’s endorsement is no surprise, and Nelson can thank Rivera’s close friend Andrew Pacheco for that prominent endorsement. He can also thank Pacheco for getting Pacheco’s former boss Paul Charlton’s endorsement. Charlton has an ax to grind against Republicans having been fired by the Bush administration for being soft on the death penalty and illegal immigration.

If Nelson is trying to get into a contest with Thomas over who has more prosecutorial support, he will lose. Unless they’re establishment, “desk prosecutors,” prosecutors don’t want a liberal Democrat who will be soft on crime.

Tim Nelson

The Yellow Sheet reports that Jim Belanger, president of the Arizona Association of Criminal Justice, is defending the large number of criminal defense attorney contributions to Tim Nelson, the Democrat candidate for Maricopa County Attorney. Belanger said, “The list of lawyers that have contributed to Mr. Nelson include some of the best, most committed, and widely respected in the state…”

Oh really? Let’s look at a typical contributor:

Jason Lamm
http://www.cyberlawaz.com/child-pornography-attorney.asp
“Over the last several years Mr. Lamm has become recognized as the leading defense criminal defense attorney in the defense or child pornography charges and has handled dozens of cases not only in Phoenix and throughout Arizona, but all around the country.”

A prosecutor friend of mine says the list of attorneys who contributed to Nelson have collectively represented the most notorious rapists and murderers in Arizona’s history, including Sammy the Bull Gravano, Felipe Cisneros of the Cisneros crime family, Richard Lynn Bible, Kevin Roscoe,  Banzai Bob, and Donald Delahanty.

If Mr. Belanger believes that the attorneys who choose to represent the most heinous criminals in the world are the most respected attorneys in the state, what does he think of those attorneys who choose to represent victims and other noble causes? Are they less respectable because they have deliberately chosen not to represent the most vile members of society? Why is Mr. Belanger so concerned about helping Nelson get elected?

Mr. Nelson is not running for criminal defense attorney. He’s running for prosecutor. He has zero prosecution experience and currently works at a law firm full of criminal defense attorneys, Osborn Maledon.  If Nelson is elected, who is going to represent the victims and the prosecution side? Having received $15,000 so far from criminal defense attorneys, you can bet those attorneys are going to be asking for special favors when their cases come before the office for prosecution. My prosecutor friend said he looked at Nelson’s campaign finance reports and could only spot two prosecutors who had contributed to Nelson, and one didn’t live in this county and the other is currently practicing civil law.

Electing someone like Nelson takes a huge risk that his criminal defense comrades won’t talk him into allowing a murderer or child molester off the hook, free to go out and hurt others.  It is unbelievable that the Democrats are putting up someone this diametrically opposed to the function of the prosecutor’s office as their candidate.

Be sure to check out the blog that has been started about Nelson.

  Imagine that.  The mainstream media seems finally to be taking note of the story that has zipped around the Internet for months: the question of whether BH Obama is, in fact - as distinguished from “trust me, I’m a lawyer” - a “natural born Citizen” within the requirements of the U.S. Constitution.

Last week, the Washington Times reported on the pro se lawsuit that has been filed by one Phillip Berg, a Philadelphia lawyer, drawing into question BH Obama’s status as a constitutionally-qualified natural born citizen. 

While there may be a number of procedural impediments blocking the way to getting the meat of the suit heard by the court before November 4, the mere fact that the story is now percolating up into general circulation cannot be welcome news to Team Obama.

On the contrary, given the myriad artifices and ploys thus far used by Obama to avoid producing for public inspection a certified and unredacted copy of his birth certificate, the injection of an Article III court into the mix - with only 60 days left until the election - is close to the worst news (besides Sarah Palin) that could hit Team Obama.  Because unless Obama is able to prove in the court of public opinion - forget about the judicial court in Philadelphia - that he is as he claims, a natural born citizen, his candidacy goose, as they say, may be cooked.

Meanwhile, the electorate will now wait to see what response BH Obama and the DNC (also named as a defendant in the suit) will produce.  On the one hand, if they file traditional “answers” denying the allegations, then “discovery” can proceed and all sorts of interesting things could be demanded by Mr. Berg.  He might even try to take Obama’s deposition. 

On the other hand, if Obama and the DNC file instead of answers, “motions to dismiss” the complaint, say, for lack of Mr. Berg’s “standing” to make his claims (don’t ask, it’s too complicated), that will telegraph an interesting message. 

That message will be that Obama and the DNC are trying to buy time and postpone, or at minimum frustrate, Berg’s discovery efforts, at least until November 5.  

Under applicable rules, a “motion to dismiss” will postpone the time to file an “answer” until after the motion is decided by the court.  And by then, the election could be over.  If Obama has won (and after McCain running mate Palin’s acceptance speech tonight, the smart money says Obama/Biden will lose, and lose big), then they can move to dismiss on the grounds that the issue is moot.

Memo to the DNC and Team Obama: that won’t work.  The Constitution mandates that one must be a “natural born Citizen” to be eligible to serve as or hold the office of the president, not merely be elected.  Elections occur once; eligibility issues persist forever.

So let’s see what they file, an answer or a motion to dismiss.  This could be better than back-to-back episodes of “Law & Order.”

Case in point: Check out the ACLU Tim website and contrast it with the Democrat Party’s “Crazyspace” site making fun of Republican politicians. The ACLU Tim site has a series of hysterically funny shots of Tim on TV. There are also some pretty funny posts about the ACLU and the list of links on the site is classic.

Whereas the Crazyspace site’s equivalent page making fun of county attorney Andrew Thomas is dull, even from a liberal point of view. What’s funny about “Provoked outrage by arresting the editors of the New Times for reporting public information.” (which isn’t even true, according to the ACLU Tim site, but the Democrats haven’t bothered to correct the error)

Call it the Obama playbook. You base your campaign on a personal aspect of your life where you have been successful, and you campaign on that issue. Your opponents challenge you on that issue and you respond, not on the issue of course, but you respond by telling your opponents that that issue is off-limits for them to talk about, otherwise their responses will be deemed racist and they will pay a penalty. Only you are allowed to discuss it.

We saw it when Obama made his personal faith a centerpiece of his campaign then deflected criticisms of Rev. Wright as racist, and we’ve seen it several times since. So we’re not surprised or disappointed when Barack does it. But we are disappointed when an Arizona Republican candidate does it.

Recent GOP convert Tony Bouie is an African-American who was a lifelong Democrat before re-registering as a Republican five days before filing his campaign paperwork for the State House in LD6. This last second change has sparked concern among GOP officials who fear that Democrats who could not otherwise get elected in solid Republican districts willl simply run as Republicans, and then govern as Democrats. Think Slade Mead. Early reports on Bouie’s positions on critical issues were also cause for concern as emails sent by current GOP State Representative Sam Crump indicated that Bouie was soft on border issues and undecided on tax issues.

Soon thereafter, Bouie’s campaign website was launched and it described him as a solid conservative, invoking comparisons to the mightiest of all “former Democrats”, Ronald Reagan himself. On it, Bouie also spent a great deal of time telling his life’s story as an “up from the bootstraps” kind of guy who started businesses and did things the hard way, overcoming several major hurdles including a serious battle with cancer.

The issue positions on his website were in stark contrast with his early positions, so folks were eager to hear from the man himself and a crowd was on hand for the Clean Elections debate that featured Bouie, Rep. Crump, and Carl Seel, the third Republican candidate for the two seats. Sadly, Bouie was a no-show after indicating that he would attend, so no one was able to ask him any questions or get any answers from him. The debate carried on however and one of the questions dealt with Ward Connerly’s Civil Rights Initiative that will be on this fall’s ballot. As part of his answer, Crump indicated that he supported the initiative and that racial preferences in business contracts should be done away with. He preferred that people stand on their own merits. Then Crump pointed out that Bouie was a small business owner whose business website claims that he is a certified minority business owner, a designation that allows one to claim preference in government contracting. Crump’s point seemed to be that he opposed racial preferences being given while Bouie had gone to the trouble of getting his business certified to receive those very same preferences.

This was a legitimate policy difference, it was an answer to a direct question posed at a debate, and it also attacked one of Bouie’s major arguments regarding his qualifications for office, specifically, his success as a businessman who did things the right way. Had Bouie bothered to attend the debate he could have explained his rationale or indicated whether or not he had ever used the designation, or he could have responded in any number of ways. Instead, he pulled out the Obama playbook, attacked Crump, and interjected racism into the debate.

In an email with a subject line of “Crump the Chump and Seel the Heel”, Bouie tries to combine Dr. Suess rhyming with a defense of preference-based contracting. He accuses Crump and Seel of wanting to “strip away the ability of these small businesses to compete in the marketplace, therefore, placing them back in the disadvantaged place they were just in 10, 15, 20 years ago.” Then, the rhetoric gets lofty and a touch, dare we say “Obama-esque” as he describes the difficult life he has endured, the racial challenges he has overcome, etc. It even comes complete with the grand finale of “This is a historic campaign. There will be no one that gets in the way of our destiny.”

First, let us congratulate Bouie on overcoming the challenges he has. They were substantial and he deserves real credit for accomplishing all that he has accomplished. There is, in fact, much to like about Bouie were it not for his fatal personal and ideological flaws.

Second, Bouie needs to understand that his campaign is not “historic” by any means. He is not the only black man to ever run for office as a Republican. He’s not even the only black man to run as a Republican here in Arizona. In fact, he’s not even the only black man running for office as a Republican in 2008. We’re not here to speculate what will happen to those who “get in the way” of his destiny, but judging by Bouie’s tone we’ll urge them to be careful.

Third, and most important, we urge Bouie to return to the issues and not hide behind race. If you want to make your business acumen a central theme in your campaign and you have set yourself up to benefit from racial preferences, then your support for racial preferences in government contracting is a fair issue for your opponents to take up. It is not racist to talk about it. By refusing to debate his opponents and choosing the path of grade-school rhymes, Bouie demeans his campaign and the entire contest.

Campaigns should be about lofty ideas and visions. But sooner or later, you have to get into specifics and answer for your ideas and records. Its unavoidable no matter how much some candidates wish otherwise. Don’t believe us? Just ask Obama.

Since the Ministry of Information started laying off its senior writers, the quality of the writing has begun to slide.  The July 4th print edition contained a glaring error on the front page. The article began, “Should local school districts be merged to save money? Should affirmative action be banned in state hiring, contracts and college admissions?” The second sentence was referring to the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative, which would ban race and gender preferences in government.

Contrary to the reporter’s characterization, the intiative would not ban “affirmative action.” Affirmative action is a phrase originally used by JFK to refer to ensuring that minorities were not being discriminated against, e.g. excluding them completely from hiring or admissions. Affirmative action was never meant to give them preferential treatment. (read more about it here)

Of course, the phrase has been distorted by race-baiters and used to describe separate beneficial treatment for minorities and women. That kind of treatment would be banned under the Civil Rights Initiative. But not the traditional type of affirmative action. Regardless, preferences by private organizations would not be prohibited by the initiative, making the vague statement “ban affirmative action” used by many even more misleading.

With sloppy reporting such as this prevalent on the front page of the Ministry of Information, one has to wonder how many additional egregious errors are in it that we are unaware of.

This November we will have the opportunity to vote for or against affirmative action. For those folks out there who do not quite understand how it works or what it is about, this example should do. Let’s say McCain finishes the presidential election with 54% of the vote and Obama finishes with 46%. McCain wins by 8% right? Wrong, under affirmative action Obama is given 10% for being black and is elected President of the United States of America based on race and race alone! In this example, McCain needed to win by more than 10% to actually win, while Obama needed to only lose by no more than 9.9%. Is this fair? Is this the American way? We are teaching our society that underachieving is okay as long as it is within the 10% margin of theft!

Now, somehow political elections have never applied affirmation action. Unfortunately, construction contracts, post office jobs, college scholarships, police forces, and basically every other occupation are held to the unfair practice of legalized racism, aka affirmative action.

Bill Blair