REDMOND, Wash., Nov. 2, 2007

Bill Clinton Denies Slowing Docs' Release

Democratic Rivals Accuse Clintons Of Keeping Presidential Papers Under Wraps, Protect Hillary

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(AP)  Former President Clinton said Friday that a letter he wrote to the National Archives was to expedite release of his papers, not slow the process or hide anything as rivals are suggesting in criticism of his wife.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was quizzed during this week's Democratic presidential debate as to why correspondence between her and her husband from their White House years remained bottled up at the National Archives. Barack Obama said that was a problem for her as a candidate after "we have just gone through one of the most secretive administrations in our history."

One issue is whether Bill Clinton had sent a letter to the Archives asking that the communications not be released until 2012, and whether Hillary Clinton would lift any ban, a question raised by debate moderator Tim Russert.

"She was incidental to the letter, it was done five years ago, it was a letter to speed up presidential releases, not to slow them down," the former president told reporters Friday. "And she didn't even, didn't know what he was talking about. And now that I've described to you what the letter said, you can readily understand why she didn't know what he was talking about."

Russert's question "was breathtakingly misleading," Bill Clinton said.

Clinton said that under the presidential documents law, he is not required to release any material until 2012.

"Unlike previous presidents, I have already released one million pages of documents, about half of which affect Hillary - the records of the health care task force," Mr. Clinton said.

He spoke to reporters after delivering remarks to Microsoft Corp. employees about corporate giving in connection with his book, "Giving."

© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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by laprophet November 6, 2007 12:54 AM EST
To those who don''t vote: Voter disenfranchisement and apathy infects the heart of our Republic. Get off your couch, put your remote control down, and become active in your nation''s political process. The pathetically few people that do vote in this country, a.k.a., "the ruling class", who currently get to decide under what kind of conditions (and Laws) you and your family will live, are certainly involved. I can assure you of that. In fact, the ruling class would be much happier if you would just continue to stay home and watch TV in your pleasantly distracted and brainwashed, stupor. That way they can continue to elect their political ****** to office, and continue to maintain their grip on 100% of the political power they currently own in this country. If you voted (God Forbid), it would cancel-out their vote, and they would lose control. They can''t have that. Can they? If you don''t vote, my friends, you''re nothing but an unwashed "Pleb" to those that do, and the ruling class should rightfully consider themselves superior to you in every way. They do, after all, have all the power, while you have none. If you''re too apathetic and powerless to do anything for yourself more time-consuming than driving down to Mickey D''s to buy a milk shake in order to sieze control of your life, and your country''s destiny, then perhaps you deserve to be ruled over like the "Pleb" that you then are. The time to act is now. The time for political revolution has come. The time for Ron Paul is NOW!
Reply to this comment
by laprophet November 6, 2007 12:41 AM EST
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
- James Madison

"Those that give give up essential liberties for temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
- Abraham Lincoln

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and those who would exploit our fear for power and their own personal, selfish, cynical gain."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Peace is not the absence of conflict. It is the ability to handle conflict through peaceful means."
- Ronald Reagan

"Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must...undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
- Thomas Paine

"Liberty, when it takes root, is a plant of rapid growth."
- George Washington

"Commerce with all nations. Alliances with none."
- Thomas Jefferson

"Wars are poor chisels for carving-out peaceful tomorrows."
- Martin Luther King Jr.

"Ron Paul doesn''t represent your Father''s school of political thought. He represents your Founding Fathers."
- Me
Reply to this comment
by laprophet November 6, 2007 12:19 AM EST
What we need is a President who will show us the way. Not the old way. Not the same way, but a NEW WAY. Think about this for a minute. What if we pulled all of our troops out of South Korea? They''ve been there for 50+ years. What if we quit worrying about Iran, but instead, realized that its having a nuclear weapon will not mean the end of the world? What if we pulled all of our troops out of the Middle-East, and brought them all home? What if we realistically addressed the National Debt, and paid attention to REALLY DOING SOMETHING about stopping illegal immigration? These are the ideas of Republican Presidential candidate, Dr. Ron Paul. He''s a ten term Congressman and a physician who has delivered over 4,000 babies. He''s an intellectual who''s published four books, three of which are devoted entirely to sound economics and one to foreign policy. He was raised on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania as a pious Lutheran, but now he attends a Baptist church. Paul is given to mulling things over morally. Whenever he recollects the helicopter pilots he treated as an Air Force Flight Surgeon (Captain) during the Vietnam War, a war which he now says was "totally unnecessary and illegal," he laments, "They were gung-ho. I''ve often thought about how many of those people never came back." Candidates with the high level of personal integrity and proven track record of adherance to The Constitution, Congressman Paul has always demonstrated only come around once in a lifetime, if we''re lucky.
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by laprophet November 5, 2007 11:49 PM EST
In Congress, Ron Paul is not only known for his lack of ego (a rare quality in Washington), he''s widely admired for his resistance to the influence of special interest groups. Again. They don''t call him "Dr. No" for no reason. He consistanly votes against pork-barrel spending. In a rice-growing, cattle-ranching district, Dr. Paul consistently votes against farm subsidies. In the very district where, on the night of Sept. 8, 1900, a storm destroyed the city of Galveston, and where repairs from Hurricane Rita and refugees from Hurricane Katrina continue to exact their toll, he votes against FEMA and flood aid. In a district that is home to thousands of employees of the Johnson Space Center, he votes against financing NASA. Nothwithstanding this, his constituants in the 14th District of Texas continue to re-relect him. Why? You ask? I think one voter I talked to there summarized it nicely when she said, "We may not like his vote. But we trust his heart." Ron Paul is a man with Presidential-like constitutional integrity and frugal spending principles, which I fully support. That''s why he has my vote.
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by laprophet November 5, 2007 11:43 PM EST
Sadly, even though Clinton voted for the war in Iraq, and a host of Laws aimed at removing your liberties, so many Democrats are blinded by her cult of personality that I predict they will overwhelmingly attempt to put her crime family back into office. While I''ve made some progress in educating Liberals as to the phony staged consensus of the left-right paradigm, the fact remains that a majority of Democrats still see the White House as some kind of political Super Bowl, where the success of their "team" is the be all and end all - to the expense of America as a whole. The Punch and Judy show theatre that was the "troop surge" debate in the Senate characterizes Hillary''s role in hoodwinking Americans perfectly. The debate is framed as not whether the U.S. should get out of the Middle-East altogether, but the relative minutia of whether to feed thousands of more troops into the meat grinder or not. Clinton''s Campaign Manager recently compared Hillary to Margaret Thatcher, which translates as more war, more dead Americans, and a further desecration of the tattered shreds of what''s left of our Constitution. Clinton is the ultimate global elitist and represents the Democrats supposed base, the poor and downtrodden, about as much as Lindsay Lohan represents grace and dignity.
Reply to this comment
by laprophet November 5, 2007 11:40 PM EST
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
- James Madison

"Those that give give up essential liberties for temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
- Abraham Lincoln

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and those who would exploit our fear for power and their own personal, selfish, cynical gain."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Peace is not the absence of conflict. It is the ability to handle conflict through peaceful means."
- Ronald Reagan

"Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must...undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
- Thomas Paine

"Liberty, when it takes root, is a plant of rapid growth."
- George Washington

"Commerce with all nations. Alliances with none."
- Thomas Jefferson

"Wars are poor chisels for carving-out peaceful tomorrows."
- Martin Luther King Jr.

"Ron Paul doesn''t represent your Father''s school of political thought. He represents your Founding Fathers."
- Me
Reply to this comment
by laprophet November 5, 2007 11:36 PM EST
Guess I''m having some positive effect here. I''m watching Ron Paul''s Web site. Today alone, he has already raised over $4,000,000 in grass roots donations from his supporters, beating Mitt Romney''s previous one-day (Republican) record of 3.1 million Dollars. Ron Paul certainly isn''t getting any money from the military industrial complex like all the other sold-out NWO ****** on the left and the right who pretend to be his equal. He''s getting support from millions of REAL people who share in his Hope For America:

(1) No more meddling in other country''s political affairs
(2) No more aggressive military actions overseas
(3) No more pseudo-wars like the "War on Drugs"
(4) No more IRS and unconstitutional income taxes
(5) No more Federal Reserve (the group of private banks which owns our government)
(6) No more abortion
(7) No more U.N. participation
(8) No more federal Laws which are not authorized by The Constitution
(9) No more all-powerful federal government

They don''t call him "Dr. No" for no reason. The Doctor is in! Join us in this 21st Century political revolution at ronpaul2008.com

Thanks Everyone!
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by laprophet November 5, 2007 11:24 PM EST
I support Ron Paul and his non-interventionist foreign policy. Hitlery wants to continue our illegal police action in Iraq until at least 2013, and she does not rule out a preemptive (nuclear) first strike against Iran. Ron Paul voted against our (undeclared) war in Iraq, which was sold to us with lies. The area is more dangerous now than when we entered it. We destroyed a regime hated by our direct enemies--the jihadists, and created thousands of new recruits for them. The war in Iraq has cost more than 3,400 American lives and almost a trillion dollars. We need a leader in the White House who will ensure this never happens again. Both Jefferson and Washington warned us about entangling ourselves in the affairs of other nations. Today, we have 750 foreign bases and troops in 130 countries. We are spread so thin that we have too few troops defending America. And now, there are new calls for a draft. We can continue to fund and fight no-win police actions around the globe, or we can refocus on securing our borders against illegal aliens who are invading our country from the South. No war should ever be fought without a Declaration of War voted upon by the Congress, as required by The Constitution. Under no circumstances should the U.S. again go to war as the result of a resolution that comes from an unelected, foreign body, such as the United Nations. Too often, we give foreign aid and intervene on behalf of governments that are despised. Then, we too become despised.
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by laprophet November 5, 2007 11:18 PM EST
Ron Paul does not support secret offshore prisons like the one in Guantanamo, wherein our government tortures prisoners, who have no right to redress of grievance, or to Writ of Habeus Corpus. Ron Paul promises he will close these "illegal prisons" down. He wouldn''t necessarily just release the prisoners either. He said he would simply bring them to detainment facilities on U.S. soil where they would be entitled to an attorney, and to their day in Court--American Justice. Significant others agree with Paul. "Essentially, we have shaken the belief that the world had in America''s justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open and creating things like a military commission," former U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell recently said.
Reply to this comment
by laprophet November 5, 2007 11:09 PM EST
Like Ron Paul, I believe the biggest threat to your privacy is the government. We must drastically limit the ability of government to collect and store data regarding a citizens'' personal matters. We must stop the move toward a national ID card system (e.g., The Real ID Act). Under this new Law, states are currently issuing new driver''s licenses embedded with standard identifier data (RFID chips). Although, some states like Montana are refusing to comply. A national ID with new tracking technologies means we''re heading into an Orwellian world of no privacy. Ron Paul was one of the few members of Congess who voted against the Real ID Act. Also, under current medical privacy protection rules, which Ron Paul also opposed, insurance companies and other entities have access to your personal medical information. Finally, there''s the so-called Patriot Act, which Congressman, Ron Paul also voted against. As originally proposed, it expanded the federal government''s ability to use wiretaps without judicial oversight; allowed nationwide search warrants non-specific to any given location, nor subject to any local judicial oversight; made it far easier for the government to monitor private Internet usage; authorized sneak and peek warrants enabling federal authorities to search a person''s home, office, or personal property without that person''s knowledge; and required libraries to turn over records of books read by their patrons. Ron Paul sponsored a Bill to overturn the Patriot Act.
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