Blogs For Victory

Who can forget when former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger went into the National Archives during the 9/11 Commission investigation and stole documents by stuffing them into his pants and socks? Since then people have wondered what information was on those documents that Clinton’s inner circle didn’t want the public to know about… More evidence supporting claims that Bill Clinton was offered Osama bin Laden on a silver platter and refused? More evidence that Clinton missed the opportunity to strike bin Laden because he was golfing?

Well, if the Clinton Library apparently has copies of the documents, but has refused a FOIA request to release them.

The William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library will not make available to the public the documents that former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger illegally took from the National Archives in 2003.

A letter from the library said the total 502 pages from the Millennium Alert After Action Review (MAAR) are “restricted in their entirety,” under federal law and that the documents are “classified in the interest of national defense or foreign policy.”

Further, the library stated the documents contain “confidential communications requesting or submitting advice between the president and his advisors, or between such advisors.”

The library’s letter was in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Cybercast News Service . The library has responded to several other requests, but in those cases it was to inform CNSNews.com that library staff was processing the request.

Berger, who was national security advisor for President Clinton from 1997 to 2001, took five different copies of pages from the classified MAAR out of the archives by stuffing them in his suit and exiting the archives building. Berger did that at a time (September-October 2003) when the 9/11 Commission was beginning to investigate both the Clinton and Bush administrations’ handling of the terror threat in the led up to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Where is the outrage?

That darn recession.

Employers cut far fewer jobs in April than in recent months and the unemployment rate dropped to 5 percent, a better-than-expected showing that nonetheless reveals strains in the nation’s labor market.

For the fourth month in a row, the economy lost jobs, the Labor Department reported Friday. But in April the losses totaled 20,000, an improvement from the 81,000 reductions in payrolls logged in March. Job losses for both February and March turned out to be a bit deeper than previously reported.

The latest snapshot of the nationwide employment conditions — while clearly still weak — was better than many economists were anticipating. They were bracing for job cuts of 75,000 and for the unemployment rate to climb to 5.2 percent.

Now, I’m sure someone on the left will rebut about the faults in how unemployment is calculated, and while it is a fair point of debate, if they’re going to dismiss the way unemployment is calculated today, then they have to dismiss the jobless rate in the late 1990’s under Clinton as well — when it is certainly a valid point that the dotcom boom skewed the numbers drastically — and ultimately didn’t sustain itself very long as the economy went into a recession during the Clinton’s final fiscal year.

It’s Friday. Enjoy this open thread…

A poem by St. Francis of Assisi:

Most High, Omnipotent, Good Lord,

Thine be the praises, the glory, and the honor and every blessing.

To Thee alone, Most High, do they belong

and no man is worthy to mention Thee.

May Thou be praised, my Lord, with all Thy creatures,

especially mister brother sun,

of whom is the day, and Thou enlightens us through him.

And he is beautiful and radiant with a great splendor,

of Thee, Most High, does he convey the meaning

May Thou be praised, my Lord, for sister moon and the stars,

in heaven Thou has made them clear and precious and beautiful

May Thou be praised, my Lord, for brother wind,

and for the air and the cloudy and the clear weather and every weather, through which to all Thy creatures Thou gives sustenance

May Thou be praised, my Lord, for sister water,

who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste

May Thou be praised, my lord, for brother fire,

through whom Thou illumines the night,

and he is handsome and jocund and robust and strong

May Thou be praised, my Lord, for our sister, mother earth,

who sustains us and governs,

and produces various fruits with colored flowers and green plants

May Thou be praised, my Lord, for those who forgive for the sake of Thy love,

and endure infirmity and tribulation

Blessed those who endure them in peace,

because by Thee, Most High, will they be crowned

May Thou be praised, my Lord, for our sister, bodily death,

whom no man living can escape

Woe to those, who die in mortal sin:

blessed those whom she will find in Thy most holy desires,

because the second death will do them no evil

Praise and bless my Lord,

and give Him thanks and serve Him with great humility!

A CBS affiliate in New York reported today about how Congressmen are using taxpayer dollars to lease extremely expensive luxury cars.

You may not realize it, but members of the House of Representatives can lease a car and have it paid for by you — the taxpayer. And it’s not just the car, but gas, registration, insurance … the works.

And as CBS 2 HD found out, there’s no limit on how much they can spend.

Congressman Charles Rangel was recently seen getting out of his Cadillac DeVille, which he leases for $774 per month. Then there was Congressman Jose Serrano, getting out of his Buick LaCrosse, which he leases for $317 per month. And how about this one: Congressman Gregory Meeks was recently seen waiting for Congressman John Conyers to step out of Meeks’ Lexus LS460, which Meeks leases for $998 per month.

This is actually not a new story. In fact, Mark and I wrote about this in Caucus of Corruption. We found that Democrats disproportionately chose luxury vehicles well above the average means of their constituents. Yet, public outrage doesn’t seem to last very long.

While it has not been a good week for Obama, this news doesn’t exactly make it a good week for Hillary.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was jolted Thursday by the defection of one of her longtime superdelegate supporters, a former national party chairman who urged fellow Democrats to “reject the old negative politics” and unify behind Barack Obama.

“A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue” a long, self-destructive Democratic campaign, Joe Andrew added in a letter designed to have an impact on the turbulent race nationally as well as in his home state of Indiana, site of a primary next week.

“A vote to continue this process is a vote that assists John McCain,” Andrew wrote.

Well, I say the process is going to continue. Hillary ain’t going to quit. Dick Morris believes Hillary knows she’s lost but is sticking in regardless.. but I’m not so sure. I think Hillary still believes she can pull it off.

Details over at our McCain blog…

I thought I’d lighten things up this morning and start a non-political open thread. Feel free to answer share with everyone what your favorite novel is.. IF you have different favorites for different genres, feel free to share.

Looks like Hillary’s put her foot in her mouth again… She’s now blasting Bush for not ending a project that was approved by her husband’s administration.

Hillary Clinton loves to tell the story about how the Chinese government bought a good American company in Indiana, laid off all its workers and moved its critical defense technology work to China.

It’s a story with a dramatic, political ending. Republican President George W. Bush could have stopped it, but he didn’t.

If she were president, Clinton says, she’d fight to protect those jobs. It’s just the kind of talk that’s helping her win support from working-class Democrats worried about their jobs and paychecks, not to mention their country’s security.

What Clinton never includes in the oft-repeated tale is the role that prominent Democrats played in selling the company and its technology to the Chinese. She never mentions that big-time Democratic contributor George Soros helped put together the deal to sell the company or that the sale was approved by her husband’s administration.

What’s next, is Hillary going to blame President Bush for the Defense of Marriage Act? The assassination of President Kennedy?

Democrats are so hellbent on blaming President Bush for anything and everything it would be nice this campaign season for them to stop pointing fingers and blaming Bush for everything they think they can make a campaign issue of. But, that won’t happen. Democrats blame Bush for everything to cover up their own lack of leadership.

Of all the original Democratic candidates for the presidency, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had the least amount of experience. Obama has the least experience of any, hands down, yet he’s the frontrunner for the nomination… because of his “charisma.” The Democratic Party’s superficiality isn’t limited to presidential candidates though. In the race to fill the retiring Republican Tom Reynolds’ congressional seat, local Democratic leaders have endorsed a young political novice, apparently because of his charisma and the fact he is an Iraq war veteran.