Saturday, May 28, 2011

Birther Week in Review 5/28/11 - Dr. Feelgood Edition

... GUITAR!
In which Dr. Jerome Corsi rides the equine skeleton for all it's worth, Trump is/not convinced by the Long Form, World Net Daily continues its barrage of stupid, and LTC Lakin ponders his next moves.


It's been one month after the big reveal, and while, as some predicted, the unveiling of the Long Form Birth Certificate may have encouraged an exodus from Birtherstan, it has not silenced its loudest voices. Nor has it made them any less pathetic -- scrabbling like arthropods from one played-out piece of lost candy to another in search of some deeper, greater truth they can hold onto.

The top ant this week is the one and only Jerome "Dr. Feelgood" Corsi, who's most recent work, "Where's the Birth Certificate," is tipped to go on both the New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestsellers, according to World Net Daily. Not trusting them any further than we could comfortably spit a dead horse, we were able to confirm the NYT, at least, where it will be debuting at #6 on June 5th.

We were also able to confirm that a decent percentage of the sales is due to bulk sales, which means that the numbers could have been artificially inflated. The real test will be to see how long the book actually remains in the top ten on either list. I'm betting two weeks at most, verging downwards.

However, the book may receive a boost due to the author's increasing notoriety. While Corsi had a hard time making it -- or at least getting a fair shake -- on the big talk circuit, he managed to get on a number of radio shows. In this interview, he let it be known that he wasn't going to let Joseph "Mr. Mustache" Farah have all the lawsuit fun, and was going to be raising a legal challenge against President Obama for criminal fraud.

Interviewer: At some point Dr. Jerome Corsi... how do these things, we have about a minute remaining, minute and a half. How does this ever come to a head? How does this ever have a resolution?

Corsi: I think we'll be calling... I'm working on filing criminal charges on the White House for, uh, I think there will be criminal charges filed pretty soon, for having fraudulently produced a birth certificate, asking for an FBI investigation.


It's at 16:15 into the interview if you don't feel like listening to a lot of birther boilerplate. I can hardly wait to see how it turns out. Can the FBI deport American citizens?

Meanwhile, over at World Net Daily, there's a war of words ongoing between themselves and their former great white hope, Donald Trump. It seems that Donald isn't sure whether he believes the Long Form Birth Certificate is legitimate or not, and WND is stuck in the middle. Needless to say, they don't like it.

This confuses WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah. Is Corsi lying about what Trump said? Did Farah's website just make up some nonsense and publish it because that is what they always do? Or is Trump in league with them?

The answer, obviously, is that Donald Trump is part of the vast conspiracy to make WorldNetDaily look ridiculous. As Farah says:

"I have strongly begun to suspect that Trump had other motives than seeking the truth about Obama. I think he was pumping Corsi for information for some other purpose than being on the right side of history."

Plus, WND gave Trump an advance PDF copy of "Where's the Birth Certificate," meaning it is actually impossible that he didn't read it, as he now claims.

Corsi went even further in an interview with (of course) Alex Jones. Jones and Corsi both seem to think that there is a distinct possibility that Trump is coordinating his campaign to make them look silly with the White House!


Like they needed any help in that matter? We should also consider that, this same week, World Net Daily produced two unintentionally amusing stories.

First, just to prove you can't kill some monsters, is the Son of the Eligibility Billboard, coming soon to a neighborhood full of well-moneyed and/or highly gullible people near you.

The second is a lengthy piece that asks if there are hidden messages in the Long Form Birth Certificate, including a smiley face in a signature and the words "VOID" floating somewhere in the computer junk.

But before you laugh too loudly, our friends at Obama Conspiracy Theories have looked into the matter, and can confirm that there may be more to this mystery than the usual rightwingnut buffoonery we've come to expect from WND. Proceed with an open mind!

(On the other hand, courtesy of OCT, here's someone who actually understands how to discern faked documents on the subject. His verdict is that it has not been electronically messed with. Big surprise, there.)

In something of old news, we've caught up with LTC Lakin, courtesy of caaflog, by way of Badfiction. Now that he's had his steak and fritos, he's made some decisions as to what to do next.

Right now, I’m on appellate leave, which means I’m still on active duty but not receiving pay and just no, no duties other than preparing for possible appeals. And the appellate process can take up to, you know, 6 months to 18 months. The other option would be to waive the appeal process and receive my DD 214, or discharge papers, and I would be separated immediately from the military and go on with my life with no other ties with the military.

In another interview:

When I get back to the family tomorrow, I want to spend some missed time with them and, you know, after, after a little while I do need to — or in the next few weeks, I need to look into reestablishing my medical license and, and seeking employment. I need to find a way to provide for my family and then I want to continue with some type of service to our country or to some faith-based organization or do what I can to still enjoy helping others. Certainly, certainly that’s a driving desire in myself.

How about helping us to better understand the forces that talked you into disobeying orders and disgracing your otherwise-impeccable military record? How exactly did you get shopped into being a sucker for that dogbite attorney? There's a bigger story here than your own downfall, sir. Please tell us.

Finally, that noted Reptile Devil Woman Orly Taitz needs your money so she can subpoena people. Please buy one of her new, eye-catching and snazzy bumperstickers so she can defend America from uppity usurpers who won't let her feeeeeeee-neesh!!!!

(hat tip to our friends at Oh For Goodness Sake)

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Birther Week in Review 5/21/11

at least we know where the Birth Certificate is...
In which Trump chumps out, Corsi's book debuts to the sound of crickets, Farah gets his lawsuit pants on, and the Social Security Administration says :P.


The third week after the big reveal was a big week indeed for Birtherstan, but not in a good way. It's great white hope left the squared circle, its great holy book thudded into the dirt on arrival, and the government put the lie to a long-cherished notion of those who suspect something was suspect about the President's Social Security numbers. It was, however, a good week for trial lawyers, as a well-timed joke finally got a serial lawsuit-threatening Birther to lay down the legal gauntlet.

It started on a Monday, with Donald Trump doing what we kind of all suspected he was going to do, anyway, just maybe not this early. He announced at a press conference that he was not, actually, going to run for the Presidency. And boy weren't we just sorry to be deprived of that.

After considerable deliberation and reflection, I have decided not to pursue the office of the Presidency. This decision does not come easily or without regret; especially when my potential candidacy continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the Republican contenders in polls across the country. I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election. I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognize that running for public office cannot be done half heartedly. Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector.

That may be more true than he'd like to admit. The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza notes that:

Trump’s hand was likely forced by NBC’s decision to renew the “Celebrity Apprentice” for another season. That meant that Trump had to choose between his interest in presidential politics and his career as a reality television star. He, not surprisingly, chose the latter.

The great and thunderous noise you heard Monday was not the Endeavour taking off on its final voyage, but the sound of millions of Tea Partiers crying that God had forsaken them. Also perhaps some political cartoonists.

Not so the Republican political strategists, who, as polls help reveal, are doubtlessly pleased as punch to no longer have a fake-tanned albatross wrapped about their necks.

Speaking of albatrosses, World Net Daily's most recent one fell into the drink on Tuesday, but not with so much of a splash as a plop. That would probably be because Jerome "Dr. Feelgood" Corsi's book, "Where's the Birth Certificate?", had its titular question answered about three weeks ago, and what little remains to justify the book's printing seems to have made as much of an impact as a rotten apple on the side of a battleship.

Not that no one noticed. As always, World Net Daily's editor in chief, Joseph "Mr. Mustache" Farah, was happy to put himself in traction by patting himself on the back.

When WND's reporting alone, supported by some talk-radio questions, raised significant doubts over Obama's eligibility, the news media misrepresented the widespread concern.

They claimed everyone doubting Obama's eligibility – those they dubbed dismissively and derisively as "birthers" – believed Obama was born in Kenya.

...

Only when "Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible To Be President by Jerome Corsi hit No. 1 on the best-sellers list weeks before its release (officially today), did Obama finally relent to the public pressure to show Americans, his bosses, what he claims is his long-form birth certificate.

As expected, the establishment news media abandoned its watchdog role once again and accepted, without question or review, the document as valid.

It is not – as Corsi will demonstrate to the country in the coming days.


And, to his credit, Corsi did try to do so. Unfortunately, he seems to have seriously misunderstood the evil, liberal forces against him. That secret Liberal Sean Hannity canceled an interview with him. Then FOX Business did a total hatchet job on him.

Then those jokers in the White House had the utter temerity to not only laugh it off, but, as our friends at Oh For Goodness Sake revealed, actually offer Birth Certificate mugs and t-shirts with a donation to the 2012 campaign. My God, what kind of cruel world do we live in when a usurper President under fire by patriotic Americans doesn't have the basic decency to be afraid of the truth?!?!?!?11

To this date not one complementary review of the "Where's the Birth Certificate" has been written by any major Conservative periodical not directly associated with World Net Daily. I suspect the folks at the National Review are drawing lots to see who has to dirty their synapses with this chore as we speak. (Our partial look at it can be found here.)

There was one further amusement to be had, though. Esquire Magazine ran a humorous "news" item, a'la Drudge, which claimed that the book was going to be recalled and pulped. It also claimed that Farah went "rip shit" when the actual Birth Certificate was unveiled, and unloaded on Corsi over the phone.

When asked if he had any plans to publish a corrected version of the book, (Farah) said cryptically, "There is no book." Farah declined to comment on his discussions of the matter with Corsi.

...

"He called up Corsi and really tore him a new one," says the source. "I mean, we'll do anything to hurt Obama, and erase his memory, but we don't want to look like fucking idiots, you know? Look, at the end of the day, bullshit is bullshit."


If only WND's editorial department understood this! However, they were too busy being offended at the article, and answering phone calls for media sources who, not scrolling down far enough to see the "humor" tag on the piece, thought it was real, to get the joke. So they're suing, instead.

WASHINGTON – The founder and chief executive officer of WND has decided to pursue an aggressive legal challenge of what he calls Esquire's "libelous smear" in which the magazine's executive editor published a completely fictional article claiming Jerome Corsi's best-selling book – "Where's the Birth Certificate?" – was being pulled from the shelves and destroyed and that book purchasers were being offered refunds.

"I have concluded with attorneys who say we have an excellent chance of winning a lawsuit or lawsuits for the reckless disregard for the truth demonstrated by Mark Warren, Esquire and the Hearst Corporation in this matter," said Farah. "Personally, I think we should set our sights on taking ownership of Esquire. I think that would be a fair settlement. Obviously the magazine is in dire need of professional management."


Now there's the kettle calling the pot black! But further amusement could be found further down:

"I don't like to sue people or organizations," said Farah. "It's not what I do.

Oh no? Tell Newsweek Magazine that, Joey.

I note that this article has been widely disseminated on the Internet. While the damage to my reputation can scarcely be mitigated by an apology and a retraction, I recognize that demanding that action is a requirement of most jurisdictions that might adjudicate a case of this kind.

However, I reserve all legal rights to pursue adjudication of this matter should you fail to comply with this demand.

Copies of this demand letter are being mailed to you and to my legal counsel.


Dare we say this is... developing?

Speaking of developing, the story of dueling birther polls is ongoing. As reported by our friends at Obama Conspiracy Theories, the numbers of Birthistanis who had their nationality changed by adoption into the Land of Common Sense may have gotten a post-Osama bump.

"64 percent said they “always knew President Obama was born in the US.” Nine percent said they’d had some doubts but that once they’d seen the long-form birth certificate they were “satisfied that he was born in the US,” for a total of 73 percent. Twenty percent said they “still had some doubts about where he was born,” and 6 percent weren’t sure."

So that’s about 1 in 3 birthers who said they were convinced by the long form.


Better news than the last PPP Poll in question, at any rate. Be sure to keep an eye out for even more questionable data in the future as we move further from the original event!

And, finally, speaking of our friends at Obama Conspiracy Theories, the good Doctor (who was name-dropped three times in Corsi's book, btw) has an excellent post on the President's Social Security Number controversy, which may have finally been solved by the SSA this last week, but still not quite understood by the people pushing the issue. However, you may have to look away from the monitor at certain points to understand how they've failed to understand it.

In closing, we have Les Kinsolving, World Net Daily's man at the White House, on the reveal of the Birth Certificate. It is clearly a crime that this fine, upstanding newsman doesn't get called on more often.

See you next week for more dispatches from Birtherstan!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

"Where's the Birth Certificate?" by Jerome Corsi

but that's better than being stung on the balls by a jellyfish!


When it was announced that Dr. Jerome Corsi was writing a book called "Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case that Barack Obama is Not Eligible to be President," I thought 'it's up online, you fool.' Of course, that simple explanation bore no fruit, as Corsi, along with his friends (and publishers) at World Net Daily have been beating the drum that the Certificate of Live Birth that Obama provided, back during his campaign, was either a forgery or inadequate proof.

You can lead a horse to water, so they say. So when Obama released the long-sought-after copy of his ever-elusive Long Form Birth Certificate, I had to not laugh. What would Dr. Corsi call his book, now?

Turns out they went with the original title, embarrassing as it now is. Why? Maybe it was too late to change it. Maybe they didn't care. Maybe they thought it was kind of funny?

I don't know, but I have my suspicions that they're intellectually lazy and don't really care about the truth when there's money to be made. So I'm going to speculate as much on the matter, and do so publicly, knowing that the likelihood of them actually suing me for libel is rather remote.

Hmm, I think there was some kind of point I just made there. But it's missing something. And that something is an accusation of calculated wrongdoing on someone's part. And that's what separates my possibly incorrect ruminations on WND's editorial policies from the most recent product of those policies -- namely Corsi's book.

According to Corsi, the President has engaged in a cover-up campaign since before he even ran for President. The book is essentially one big claim that, for one reason or another, Barack Obama has gone out of his way to obscure large portions of his past, or else misrepresent them. The central one being the titular one, of course, but there are many others.

However, what I'm most interested in for the purpose of this article is Corsi's views on what exactly makes a Natural Born Citizen. Given that World Net Daily, and especially its editor, Joseph "Mr. Mustache" Farah, have slowly been moving the goalposts from "show us the Birth Certificate!" to "The Birth Certificate doesn't matter because his dad was African!" I wanted to see if he could do something that Farah et. al. have not yet been able to do in their many articles on WND. Namely, make a coherent, backed-up argument that being born in Hawai'i isn't enough for our President to be eligible.

Does he? No he does not. What he does, instead, is rehash many of the same arguments that we've already seen on WND, and from other Birthers ("Proofers," he'd rather we call them). De Vattel gets rolled out on page 33, and on 49 he tries to convince the reader that there are actually three types of citizens: Natural Born, Native Born, and Naturalized, with the Native Born being the product of non-citizen parents who crank out their babies on American soil.

Corsi, that noted scholar of Constitutional Law, essentially claims that the 14th Amendment as we understand it is not the 14th Amendment as it should be. The issue of outside Jurisdiction, rather than only applying to the children of foreign diplomats, actually applies to all children. So even if one of the parents is a Natural Born Citizen, the foreign citizenship of the other parent is enough to doom their progeny to merely Native Born.

All well and good, but there's something missing, here. And that something is proof. At no time in these sections does Corsi append to his arguments any kind of corroborating evidence that his reading of that Amendment is correct, and ours incorrect. Quoting Senator Howard's comments from 1866 are not proof, nor are going down the list of court cases that, in Corsi's mind, diluted the true meaning of the 14th Amendment.

He utterly fails to connect his claims to anyone more well-versed in the law who could back him up. Given that American Jurisprudence has been taking a much more inclusive view of what a Natural Born Citizen is since not long after the 14th Amendment was created, that seems a glaring omission on his part -- one that an editor should have caught, provided said editor wasn't part of the choir that Corsi's book is essentially singing death metal hymns to.

So no, this book is not the deadly bombshell that Farah has been making it out to be. While there are plenty of things in there to give so-called Obots and, yes, Birthers, plenty to argue about in the days ahead, there is no smoking gun when it comes to the central question of eligibility under American law. There's just another sloppy, poorly-argued thesis that proves that Corsi should really stick to writing Da Vinci Code knock-offs and leave the law to those who actually understand it.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Birther Week in Review 5/14/11

maybe next time I'll get two bags?

in which the retrograde spin continues, Farah gears up for Tuesday's non-event, Orly gets told to mind her own business, Kreep makes good for once, Lakin's triumphant return from jail gets a crowdfail, and Missouri says "on second thought, don't show me" on the Birther Bill


It's the second week after the big reveal, and the scene has shifted quite a bit. While the number of affective Birthers (aka "People who hate Obama and were willing to believe any conspiracy theory about him until proven otherwise") has dwindled considerably (maybe), those who are still holding onto the ghost have begun spinning very intricate webs of half-truth, coincidence, and nonsense to buttress their beliefs.

At issue, currently, is the veracity of the Long Form Birth Certificate. As we mentioned last week, the presence of layers in the online graphic has caused some to claim that the certificate, itself, was bogus. The issue of the layers has been reasonably settled, but it has opened the floodgate to a number of other nitpicky and niggling issues that most likely have innocent explanations, but to the Birthers cry out "FRAUD."

Joseph "Mr. Mustache" Farah at World Net Daily (soon to be WND) is, perhaps not surprisingly, beating the Fraud drum the loudest, given that the new WND book, unfortunately entitled "Where's the Birth Certificate?" comes out this Tuesday. He has an entire laundry list of things that aren't right about it, according to him, but is ultimately falling back on the de vattelist (that is, irrelevant) conclusion that, due to only one of his parents being an American citizen at the time of his birth, President Obama is ineligible.

I was relatively certain Obama was hiding something, for instance, the real birth father. Because if Barack Hussein Obama Sr. was, in fact, his dad, then there is no way he is eligible to be president. He was a visiting student from Kenya, a subject of the United Kingdom. He conferred U.K. and Kenyan citizenship on his son at birth.

The men who wrote the Constitution and used the phrase "natural born citizen" as a requirement of office intended that future U.S. presidents would not have "divided loyalties" or even the appearance of "divided loyalties." In other words, the type of president they were trying to avoid with this language was the very type represented by Barack Obama.


That this is demonstrably not true has not deterred Farah and his happy tree friends at WND in the slightest, but it remains to be seen if Farah will only get shriller once the book comes out to what this correspondent suspects will be something of a dull thud to any outside the faithful.

Speaking of the faithful, Orly Taitz was at it again this week, trying to intervene in Hornbeck Offshore Services, L.L.C. v. Salazar et al As our friends at Oh For Goodness Sake note, the case is "related to the off-shore oil drilling moratorium and the Outer Continental Land Shelf Act, so Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq. figured, hey, why not? She traveled to New Orleans this morning to intervene."

What followed was no less than the Kaufmanesque legal comedy we've come to expect from the Birther Queen: misunderstood rules, irrelevant submissions, false facts, and even comedy props (an unsilenced cell phone)

Orly went first. She was trying to desperately, I think, in her argument, tie this to the Hornbeck case and tailor it to the case at hand and drilling. She stands up in her first argument and said, “Hornbeck is much more than a case on deep water drilling. It’s about the administration, the federal government,” and then she said something to the effect that the very foundations of the, or the legitimacy of the, government and all the actions it takes are riding on this.

About 90 seconds into the argument her cell phone went off, so she rushed back to the gallery area and got it out of her purse and stopped the ringing. The Court admonished her that she was not supposed to have a cell phone, and then Mr. Rosenblum said, “That’s another local rule.”

...

Then she pulled out her gigantic exhibit. She didn’t have an exhibit stand, so she stood, holding it, and tried to point, which forced her away from the microphone occasionally, so she could not be heard.

She begins pointing to this and doing basically the same argument she made to the Ninth Circuit. Obama has been using a selective draft registration that’s invalid, because it was an invalid Social Security number. And she went on for a couple of minutes about that, and then the Magistrate interrupted her again and then said, “Aren’t these the same things that you attached to your motion”?

“Yes,” she says.

He says, “I’ve already seen them.”


In the end, the comedy was for nothing. The very next day, Orly was told, in no uncertain terms, that her help was not needed here.

Considering the foregoing factors in this instance, this court must exercise its considerable discretion to deny intervention. I cannot conclude that the proposed intervention shares any common issue of law or fact with the main case. While the intervenor – like the original plaintiffs – asserts the invalidity of the moratorium action taken by defendants, the legal and factual basis of intervenor’s claim – i.e., the President’s place of birth or citizenship – is entirely different from the legal and factual assertions of the original claimants. ... For all of the foregoing reasons, the motion is DENIED. This intervention should not be permitted.

Orly is not very happy about this. No word on whether she's similarly unhappy that her rival Gary Kreep has succeeded where she's failed, time and again, and actually gotten a Birther case docketed at the Supreme Court.

Keyes’ attorney Gary Kreep argued that California Secretary of State Debra Bowen failed to meet her obligation to verify the eligibility of candidate Barack Obama to be President, and his right to appear on the California Ballot. California argued successfully that the California Secretary of State has no such statutory responsibility.

It will be interesting to see what the Supreme Court rules in this matter, but it will most likely fail to get Discovery on any documents that would make the Birthers happy. This is a question over procedure, not whether Obama, himself, was eligible or not.

Also not happy was the face of Birtherstan, as, contrary to its hopes and dreams, its favorite son LTC Terry Lakin was not greeted by a "couple of hundred people" when he came home, but merely by about 80.

(start rant)

Way to be there for your fallen hero, idiots. He loses everything on your behalf and you can't even rouse yourselves to get up to Baltimore to welcome him home? Fuck the lot of you. Really. I'm not making excuses for what he did and how he went about it, both of which were damned stupid, but he deserves better than this. Much better.

(end rant)

In fairness, I should point out that the photo above was actually a nice thing that his family did as a joke gift.

The story of the Fritos: A few days before Terry's release he had finally inventoried enough toilet paper and sundries after months to splurge $5 on a bag of Fritos. He kept it for three days and then one night just devoured the entire bag in a few minutes. The joy of a good junk food meal. So Jim and Peggy prepared a gift bag for him at the parking lot just for fun.

So no, he didn't just get a bag of corn chips as a reward. But the story was so touching in contrast to the crowdfail he got on his return, that I had to do something to stop myself from crying. So I made fun of it.

Make of that what you will.

And finally, in better news, the Birther portion of the Missouriomnibus election law reform bill bit the dust earlier this last week, when the language that would have required candidates to prove NBC status was removed.

The amendment was removed, along with several others, by a joint conference committee in hopes that the final bill can pass by the end of the legislative session on Friday. “The more amendments there are, the more likely it is to get hung up in the Senate,” said Sen. Kevin Engler, R-Farmington, who led the conference committee.

See you again next week, when we hope to have a look at "Where's the Birth Certificate."

In the meantime, remember: "Your face is gross, you eat white toast - You don't know what to do. - It's just your luck, you really suck - That's all - I'm sick of you!"

Monday, May 09, 2011

Birther Week in Review 5/7/11

is too late to get passing grade?

In which Birthistan suffers a mass exodus, Gary and Orly try, try again, Joseph Farah wags Jerome Corsi's dog, and the layers prove irrelevant.


Week one after the big reveal -- in which President Obama made a lot of Birthers unhappy by finally doing the one thing they didn't think he would do -- it would seem that at least one of the desired effects has taken place. According to recent polls, the population of the rogue nation of Birtherstan has decreased quite dramatically.

Overall, 10 percent of Americans say Obama was likely born abroad, down from 20 percent in an April 2010 Post-ABC poll. Almost all those who now say Obama was born in a foreign country say that it’s only their “suspicion;” just 1 percent claim “solid evidence” that the president was born elsewhere (9 percent said so last year).

The drop-off in the mistaken belief that Obama was not-U.S.-born has come most prominently among his sharpest critics. Today, 14 percent of Republicans say Obama was not born in the U.S., down from 31 percent in April of last year. Among the most conservative Republicans, the number of skeptics fell from 35 to 16 percent.


No one's quite sure which country the former Birtherstanis have fled to, but they can be identified by peeling "Where's the Birth Certificate?" bumper stickers, World Net Daily books, and "Free Terry" t-shirts. Approach with caution -- they may still be contagious.

Speaking of contagious crazy, the Orly and Gary show is up for round two. After being told, in no uncertain terms, by Judge Carter that their lawsuit had no standing, they filed an appeal. It has come around at last, and it is ever so painful.

Obama last week released an official copy of his Hawaiian birth certificate, putting to rest the concerns of most of the voters who had been swayed to suspect that he wasn't a natural-born U.S. citizen and therefore wasn't qualified to run for the presidency in 2008.

But Buena Park minister Wiley Drake and the so-called birthers' legal spearhead, Orly Taitz, argued before a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the federal judiciary needs to step in and enforce the Constitution's requirement that a sitting president be born in the United States.


You can watch the video here. (Hat tip to Doc C) Orly starts up at about 17:44. Note how they ask Kreep a lot of questions but just let Orly go, go, go. The poor dear probably thought that was good.

That isn't the only thing Orly is going on, though. She's filed another case, Taitz vs Astrue, which is a freedom of information suit attempting to get the President's Social Security records. You'll note from the video that SS fraud seems to be her current mode of attack. Pity she doesn't stop by Obama Conspiracy Theories, or she'd know that's the wrong tree to bark up.

She's not the only one yawping up the incorrect conifer, though. You might wonder what poor Joseph "Mr Mustache" Farah was thinking when his friend Dr. Jerome "Obamanation" Corsi's book, "Where's the Birth Certificate?", had its titular question answered by the President with less than a month to publication. The answer is to say the reveal was caused by the book, itself, and that it only goes to prove what Farah was saying all along... supposedly.

Whether or not the "birth certificate" Obama has released is valid and proves a Hawaiian birth, Obama is still not eligible to serve as president. It's just that simple. And this book will make that case in a compelling way.

...

Americans do not want illegal aliens to serve as presidents. That's not what the founders envisioned at all. But conceding to Obama's eligibility will open the door to American presidents who were "anchor babies" – children born of illegal aliens born on U.S. soil.

That's not what the Constitution means. That's not what the founders intended. And it's not what Americans want today.


I'm sure someone will be "compelled" to do something after reading this book. It may involve a dumpster and a well-aimed throw.

Finally, speaking of throwing, the remaining hardcore Birthers seem to be tossing a Hail Mary pass that the Birth Certificate is some kind of forgery, based on the fact that it has layers. It sounds like an argument worth investigating until you realize that it's totally irrelevant, as Doc Conspiracy, the National Review, and Epectitus have aptly shown.

Of course, you lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink. So you can expect the cries of "fakery" to be repeated for some time to come. If in doubt, head to WND for more updates from investigative reporters and detectives who may not exist.

Until next time, remember -- George Carlin once said "Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!"

Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Tuesday Night Music 5 3 11

what indeed


The big news is inescapable. Flashing over screens and plastered across newsprint. Celebrated or condemned, the message is the same. The monster is dead. The monster is dead.

Osama bin Laden is dead.

It was our afternoon, as we were several time zones away, in Dubai, UAE. A student came in and asked if I'd heard. Planes had flown into the Twin Towers in New York. Hadn't I seen?

No I had not. The internet was a mess -- slower than usual, ever for Etisalat. But eventually I got the story, and when I got back to the apartment tower I was able to watch it on the exercise room's TV.

There were no words. There never are. You see something like that and something in your brain shuts down. All you can feel is sadness, then loss, then rage.

Very dangerous rage.

What have we done with that rage? Some good things. Many more that were bad.

Some things we can be proud of. Too many we'll never be able to apologize enough for.

Osama bin Laden is dead. The monster is dead. But another monster grew up in his shadow - a slobbering little echo of him, created by notions of rage and revenge, sent shambling into the world to do black and awful things in our name.

Gitmo. Iraq. The more intrusive parts of the Patriot Act. Islamophobia justified. Hate turned to patriotism.

Patriotism used as the ultimate excuse for all the above.

Is this the face of war? I don't know. I would like to think a brave and proud people could conduct themselves better than we have for the last decade.

But I also know we could have been much, much worse. Maybe that's the saving point. Maybe that's what we have to be proud of, even in the face of so many bad things.

So many dead. So many on both sides dead. And for what? For this moment, when we can hold up a photo and smile?

Justice is being done, right now. The lady's got the monster, and he's going to know what hell means at her hands. He's fucked forever, now.

Those of us still here, though - we've got some decisions to make. We've got to talk about what we do next, and how we do it. We need to see about leaving some places. We need to think about being in others.

We need to change some rules and get back to basics, now that a large factor of that day's terrible architecture has been laid to rest in the briny deep. We no longer can say "he's still out there, somewhere, laughing at us."

We can no longer justify the war with hate.

I listen to this song every so often, when I think of sadness and death and the senselessness of the battlefield. Even the most righteous of struggles is still a struggle, even the most noble of wars is still a war.

"Murder - Man on fire.
Murder - I've seen the eyes of the living dead."

It's Tuesday night, this is Black Sun by Dead Can Dance.

Sunday, May 01, 2011

First of May, First of May

stolen from facebook. not mine. but awesome



And that, one hopes, is that.

Goodbye monster. You hurt us more than you should have been able to, and scared us more than you deserved. I can only hope that you are made to feel the horror, loss, and pain you caused in others -- measure for measure -- so that, in your next trip through the wheel, you will not be in any way tempted to inflict pain on others.

Goodbye, Osama bin Laden, and good riddance.

Birther Week in Review 4/30/11 - Special post-Long Form Edition

please let me feenish!

In which we look over the wide panoply that is Birtherism for any signs of apology or contriteness in the face of Obama's Long Form Birth Certificate, and find bumpkiss


Well, in case you were hiding under a rock last week, and not aware that Khaddafy's palace was bombed (by mistake, they were looking for Ghaddafi), Apple is unveiling a bold new product for hipper-than-thou computer nerds, and Cthulhu was worn to the Royal wedding as a hat, you may have also missed out on a very important development in the whole Birther story. At long last, after some dithering, President Obama decided to do away with the "silliness" inherent in the non-issue and release his Long Form Birth Certificate.

Of course, in the immediate aftermath, you would expect that a very large number of people -- some more faceless than others -- would immediately fall all over themselves apologizing through shamed faces. You would expect good, decent people of moderate character to realize they made a mistake and just admit it, so that we can go on to more important issues as a nation.

You might also expect that Santa Claus will solve the world's fuel problems by giving everyone magic rocks to put in their gas tank.

So no. We did not get the calvacade of apologizes that were due for having ever doubted an official Hawaiian COLB. Sadly -- but not unexpectedly -- Birtherstan was not full of shamed warriors in the war of ideas tripping over each other to commit sepuku with their POSFKBCs.

We have instead the spectacle of them tripping over their previous statements (some more than others) to move the goalposts from the issue of birthplace to the issue of overall eligibility due to his father being an African national.

Alan Keyes, who was one of the Plaintiffs in Orly Taitz’s court case, had this to say: That he resisted it for two and a half years is somewhat inexplicable… I see nothing in it that justifies this big battle to withhold it from the public. ... It looks like the action of an irresponsible and insane group of people.

Andy Martin, King of the Birthers, currently running on the Birther ticket, as at least willing to accept it. Of course, that doesn’t get Obama off the hook.

Donald Trump? Oh $%^& him

Gary Kreep, who brought one of the lawsuits – one that was going to have an appeal on Monday, in fact? How about him?

We don't know whether it's a real birth certificate until our forensic expert has a chance to look at the original,” he said. “All we can go by is what's on the White House website, which looks like a combination of several documents. Computers are too good these days.

How about Lucas “Inspector” Smith, intrepid detective and provider of Obama’s Kenyan Birth Certificate? He had the following to say:

(Yes, that is a direct quote. However, he did post two videos on his youtube channel explaining how the long form is a fakeroo.)

Jerome “Obamanation” Corsi, author of the upcoming book “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” isn’t too worried that his work is about to become a doorstop. As we reported recently, he said:

Farah, who spoke with Corsi earlier today, said the author’s reaction was “just like I expected.”

“He is deeply suspicious of the authenticity of this document,” Farah said, “and believes that we shouldn’t jump to conclusion about it.”


How about Joseph "Mr. Mustache" Farah, editor of World Net Daily? We commented on him, recently, too, and his rush to put himself in traction by slapping himself on the back (or crease his spine kneeling down before The Donald for doing “God’s work.”). We’ve also discussed his reluctance to pay his pledge to Obama’s birth hospital once the long form was released, much less acknowledge his having made the pledge in the first place. He’s had more to say since then.

I was relatively certain Obama was hiding something, for instance, the real birth father. Because if Barack Hussein Obama Sr. was, in fact, his dad, then there is no way he is eligible to be president. He was a visiting student from Kenya, a subject of the United Kingdom. He conferred U.K. and Kenyan citizenship on his son at birth.

The men who wrote the Constitution and used the phrase "natural born citizen" as a requirement of office intended that future U.S. presidents would not have "divided loyalties" or even the appearance of "divided loyalties." In other words, the type of president they were trying to avoid with this language was the very type represented by Barack Obama.


Yeah, a well-educated Black man who isn’t as conservative as Joseph Farah. Go figure.

Farah wasn’t done there, though. He had more to say, and then even more. And he’ll probably have a whole lot more to say about it as time goes on, but not, I predict, much to say about that $15 K he owes Kapiolani Hospital. Pay up, Joey!

Birther lawyer Leo Donofrio, esq?

I predicted over and again that when it served Obama best, he would feed you an original birth certificate on national TV. Bon appetit to those who allowed this conspiracy theory to take precedence over the genuine legal issue: how a person born owing certain allegiance to a foreign nation can be a natural born citizen of the United States?. Since the BC was played so perfectly by the Obama team, the genuine legal issue will now be more marginalized than ever. .. well played, sir.

Other Birther lawyer Mario Apuzzo?

On April 27, 2011, putative President, Barack Obama, released to the public a digital image on the White House web site of his alleged long form Certificate of Live Birth. … The document published on the White House web site is not a scan of a paper document but rather was built with computer programming by using many electronic layers. A scanned document only has one layer of information. This document has various electronic layers which raises the serious question of whether the document was obviously forged. .. Another possible reason for the obvious forgery is that the creators of the forgery unknown to Obama want Obama to get caught at his big game of deceit. … But regardless of whatever game Obama is playing, as we shall see below, the real issue is that Obama’s father was not a U.S. citizen and so Obama is not and cannot be a “natural born Citizen.” This is the issue from which Obama cannot hide behind some manipulated computer images.

How about our best buddy Orly Taitz? Oh she’s got something to say alright. It got her thrown off a television show.

Reverend “Long Legged Mack Daddy” Manning
? Well, he’d like the Republicans to stop the harming of innocent Birthers. Won’t you please lend a hand?

Birther Zero Phil Berg?

April 27, 2011 Obama released what he called his long form Birth Certificate. Interestingly enough he spent millions of hard earned Tax payer dollars defending why he should not release it, yet he did so today because it was a distraction to more important issues. Only as the Internet world have begun their investigations into the authenticity of the Birth Certificate with their many computers and software programs of all kinds, have we come to find out in very short order that what was to be a copy of the real Birth Certificate on file with the State of Hawaii is not, but instead is a fake to try and look like a copy of what should be his legal Birth Certificate.

Then there's Ron Polarik, video avenger who proved the COLB was a fake. He and Inspector Smith must have been cribbing notes, because his quote bears a strange, almost uncanny resemblance to Smith’s:

(Yes, you read that correctly, too. Polarik’s been MIA since 2009 or so. Wonder where he went?)

As for poor, former LTC Terry Lakin (only 12 days away from freedom), you'd think he'd be the most contrite of all. He went to prison for disobeying orders because the President hadn’t released his long form, after all. But what did his website have to say about the matter?

Then today, Mr. Obama produces yet another online document, a long form birth certificate. After more than two years of concealment and obfuscation, this document must be submitted for forensics testing to determine its authenticity. Similarly, the Kenyan birth certificate that has been widely circulating on the internet and on Capitol Hill-- should be tested.



The Terry Lakin Action Fund is calling for a full and complete presidential pardon for LTC Terry Lakin including restoration of pay, benefits, and service. Terry holds no malice towards Barack Obama nor did he when he chose to bring the issue to a court martial. Terry simply wanted confirmation of Obama's eligibility, a process that has finally begun in earnest.


And finally, we have Tim Adams. He won’t name names to identify the people in the Hawaii elections office who assured him that there was no Birth Certificate on file for Barack Obama, but he has taken the time to try and rehabilitate his story. Really.

Okay, well... no.

So what do we have? The only person who’s had the decency to at least admit it’s real is Andy Martin, of all people. Everyone else either says it’s a fake, claims it doesn’t matter because of Obama’s father’s nationality, or wants to hedge bets by calling for authentication while standing in the “dual citizen is no natural born citizen” camp.

Shameless. Totally shameless.

I'm afraid that, in his goal to end the silliness, the President has only given rise to a new wave of it. This issue is not going away any time soon, from the looks of things. It's only going to get more convoluted, and attract even more stupid, naive, and gullible people to its banner of dumb.

Which means we're stuck with each other for some time, then. Thanks for coming along for the ride.