The Associated Press is reporting that the National Archives has lost a computer hard drive  ”containing massive amounts of sensitive data from the Clinton administration, including Social Security numbers, addresses, and Secret Service and White House operating procedures.”    

In addition, the missing information includes logs of events and political records as well as “an as yet unknown amount of personally identifiable information of White House staff and visitors.”   

Missing from the AP story, was a logical reminder that President Clinton’s former national security adviser Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger entered a guilty plea April 1, 2005, for the unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.   

For that crime, Berger was fined a total of $56,905, his security clearance was canceled, and he was required to report monthly monthly to a probation officer for two years. Berger also picked up trash in Virginia parks for 100 hours to fulfill a community service requirement.   

Still, there is no telling what else Berger might have removed from the Archives in his pants, and, if he is not a logical suspect in the case, he should be. 

 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)

When Politicker AZ arrived on the scene a few months ago, we had high hopes for it as perhaps a fair and balanced alternative to the AZ Republic and East Valley Tribune. It is owned by the New York Observer.

We’ve been sorely disappointed. It appears to be even more biased. One of their new featured columnists is David Waid, former chairman of the AZ Democrat Party. Their coverage of the Maricopa County Attorney’s race consists of information fed to it by the Tim Nelson campaign, to the point of ridiculousness. Nelson has dodged various speaking engagements, but PolitickerAZ made it look like it was his opponent, Gerald Richard, who was dodging the engagements.

Trying to add a comment correcting erroneous information like this is futile; the comments are never approved. At least the liberal Arizona Republic and the East Valley Tribune don’t censor comments they don’t agree with! Even outwardly partisan conservative blogs like Sonoran Alliance don’t censor comments from the left they disagree with; they have a regular cadre of left wing commenters who freely post on that site.

 Their page of press releases consists of probably 80% liberal press releases.  What a waste. They’re just a free rip-off of the Yellow Sheet.