Birther Week in Review 6/25/11

It was supposed to be a big week for Birtherstan. What actually happened? Starring Joseph Farah, Jerome Corsi, Orly Taitz, and the Koran pee-pee Birther

As reported by our friends at Badfiction, last week Joseph "Mr. Mustache" Farah, editor in chief of World Net Daily, had this startling announcement on his twitter feed:

If you think the birth certificate controversy is over, think again. Next week will be a big week for "birthers."

So what all happened?

On the World Net Daily front, Farah made a prognostic proclamation worthy of the late Criswell: Obama will not be running for a second term!

I know this sounds crazy.

I know it goes completely against the grain of mainstream political opinion.

I know you probably haven't heard this anywhere else before.

But I don't think Barack Obama will be on the Democratic ballot as a candidate for re-election to the presidency.

His reasoning? A handful of wistful comments made by the President on the Today show about how tough the job can be. In Farah land, the admission that "There are days where I say that one term is enough," and revealing words about his family loving him more than his job, are codespeak for "this brother's leaving the building toot sweet." But this is all conveniently forgetting that Obama is, as we speak, gearing up for re-election -- something he can't really get out of now that his machine's in motion.

Nice try, Farah. He tried to top this a few days later by announcing, in one of his signature op-eds, that Hitler wasn't eligible, either. Which is just fine because, as our friends at Badfiction rightly point out:

Hitler was never elected president of Germany. He campaigned for the position and lost to President Paul von Hindenburg. von Hindenburg appointed Hilter Chancellor on 30 Jan. 1933. When von Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, Hilter failed to call new elections, (a violation of that country's Constitution), and instead declared himself Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor) based on a law passed on 1 August 1934.

Hitler was never elected leader of Germany, he was appointed Chancellor and took over the position of head of state from that appointed post.

Farah's understanding and knowledge of History - FAIL.

Then a few days later, it was revealed that a "Stunning precedent would let al-Qaida chief be president."

Anwar al-Awlaki for president?

After all, the regional commander for al-Qaida, senior Islamic imam and alleged recruiter for terrorists was born on April 22, 1971, in Las Cruces, N.M.

And how about the al-Awlaki acolyte, imprisoned Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, as vice president on that ticket, as the defendant accused of shooting up fellow soldiers at Fort Hood was born Sept. 8, 1970, in Arlington Va.

"Stunning?" Not if you, unlike the people at WND, know how the Constitution actually works,, and how it is being interpreted by mainstream legal thought. As it stands, this article is doubly loathsome for both adding to the national dumb, and using the "scary brown man" and "scary muslim" tropes to buttress their weak tea argument against President Obama.

Further weak tea was brought to us by Jerome "Dr. Feelgood" Corsi, who revealed that FOX News did a bad thing, but missed the important piece of the story.

NEW YORK – The computer graphics expert Fox News relied upon to claim the birth certificate the White House released April 27 was legitimate insists that the network must retract the story, claiming it deliberately misquoted him and continues to ignore his repeated requests.

Jean Claude Tremblay told WND that none of his comments would permit the conclusion that the Obama birth certificate is an authentic document.

Smoking gun as to FOX News' complicity in "Certifigate"? Not hardly. As Doc Conspiracy explains:

WND goes to some length to emphasize Mr Tremblay’s displeasure over Fox News misquoting them. However, WND damns its own crank theories by quoting what Tremblay told them:

“First, I never thought that what I saw in the Birth Certificate PDF was a proof of its authenticity,” he wrote. “For me, what I have seen does not prove that it is legit, nor that it is a fake, nor that there has been any tampering whatsoever,” he wrote. “The title of the blog does not represent my conclusion. It would be unprofessional and simplistic within my area of competence to come to a conclusion one way or the other.”

Tremblay found nothing to indicate tampering — putting to the lie all those cranks who say otherwise. I had read the Fox News story correctly all along.

Undaunted by FAIL, Corsi tried again, this time calling out the big gun from Rathergate:

Joseph M. Newcomer, who exposed the "Killian documents" as fraudulent in 2004, has told WND the Obama birth certificate released by the White House April 27 is a "highly suspicious" document that deserves professional forensic examination.

"There is something deeply wrong here," Newcomer told WND. "There are artifacts in the birth certificate document that are strongly suggestive of a forgery. The document screams out that something is wrong."

AHA!

Newcomer stressed that he was relying on published charges that the Obama birth certificate was fraudulent, including the analysis by scanner expert Doug Vogt and by typography expert Paul Irey.

Oh. Never mind, then.

But perhaps Farah, being the non-modest fellow he is, meant to indicate that Orly Taitz was going to be helping the cause in her own, unique way?

This week was quite something for our favorite, mail-in-the-box-tops lawyer. Getting the sense that maybe, just maybe, she didn't get Discovery after all, she's asked for a deafult judgment in her latest windmill tilt. She also asked Attorney General Eric Holder to comply with a FOIA on Presidential records.

Attorney General Holder, I would like to remind you, that you are not Mr. Obama’s private criminal defense attorney, but rather the top law enforcement official in the country. You are acting on behalf of “We, the people of the United States of America”, you are there to protect my rights, and the rights of each and every law abiding citizen of the United states of America against fraud, uttering of forged documents, elections fraud, Social Security fraud, usurpation of US presidency and treason. We, the people of the United States of America, demand that you do your job and stay true to your oath of office and not be complicit in aiding and abetting in commission of the above mentioned crimes.

Please, let me know, when can I and my forensic document expert visit the White House and examine the documents in question for authenticity. If request is not granted within 20 days, further action will be taken. It is my hope, that you will act in the interest of the citizens of the United States of America and will grant access to the above mentioned records.

"Guess who's coming to dinner," anyone?

And then Orly had a very unpleasant run-in with some of her un-fan club:

Today I was harassed and badgered by a brain dead attorney by name (evil regime puppet doo doo head person). She saw me in an elevator in the Superior court and started making comments, that my cases against Obama make me look racist. I told her, that it had nothing to do with his race, it had everything to do with the fact, that he is a complete fraud and that he is using a forged BC and invalid SSN ID. She kept calling me names, she kept calling me crazy, and she was really inciting people in the elevator to say something pro Obama and against me. There were 10 people cramped in the elevator. One guy started yelling at me and telling me, that I need to get the hell out of the country. I thought, that this guy might hit me. I asked this lawyer, (evil regime puppet doo doo head person), if she read the pleadings and saw the expert opinion, showing that the BC is forged, but she said “Oh, the court already told you time and again, that his papers are fine”. If an attorney can be so brain dead or corrupt, what is to say about an average Joe, who is being brainwashed 24/7 by the regime propaganda.

As I left the building and drove to my dental office, I thought, when will this corruption end. What will it take for those Congressmen or judges to do their work? How can they ignore overwhelming, undeniable evidence of forgery and fraud. It’s like living in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. No laws, no Constitution, the regime can do anything to anybody. What are these Congressmen and judges waiting for? For some brainwashed obot to assault me or kill me?

What indeed. And we should hasten to add that it is definitely not cool to be threatening Birthers with any kind of violence or physical harm for their activities. Some of the best advice I ever got was "don't tease a mad dog, you'll just get bit."

Case in point: after revealing that she got (evil regime puppet doo doo head person)'s name wrong in her previous posting, Orly very quickly decided to publicly shame (evil regime puppet doo doo head person) on her blog by posting her public information and facebook profile on it. That'll show (evil regime puppet doo doo head person) not to mess with Orly! (Just don't call (evil regime puppet doo doo head person) at home, okay?)

(In a golden moment of unintentional(?) humor, one of her friends commented "Orly. I will bray for you.")

Or maybe the big event of the week combined two of Farah's big causes: proving Obama ineligible and bashing Islam. With this charming and excitable fellow, we get both, complete with Johnny Cash, an American flag displayed the wrong way around, and a stream of urine.

If you don't feel like watching the whole thing, I'll save you the bother. He douses an English copy of the Koran in lighter fluid, tosses it into a ceramic backyard thing, lights it on fire, throws a copy of Obama's Long form (helpfully marked FORGERY) into the flames, and then pees on it. Stay classy, my friend.

(H/t to Oh For Goodness Sake, who followed up and tells us that Roseann Cash's lawyers have been informed.)

So, after that sorry cavalcade of FAIL, what was the big event of the week that WND was bringing us, then?

Can it be the fact that you can now advertise your lack of reading comprehension, Constitutional savvy, and enlightened attitudes with this catchy, magnetic or "easy off adhesive" BIRTHER ON BOARD Bumper sticker!



Now available in eye-destroying yellow.

(H/T Badfiction)

In closing, I'd like to point your attention to some excellent research from Barackryphal, who has laid bare the archaeology of the Birther Movement -- lovingly laid out for inspection in two parts. If you've enjoyed my humble attempts to chronicle the current history of noble Birtherstan, and its notable citizens, you'll really like the story of its genesis.

Truly a "shot turd round the world." ;)

Birther Week in Review 6/18/11 Corsi vs Fogbow Edition

In which we look at what may be the moment karma finally kicked in for the World Net Daily posse.

Another slow week in Birtherstan, but one with an interesting development.

It appears that, after years of going after public figures with a certain amount of safety, one of the the country's most prominent citizens made the mistake of going after a regular joe with the same cavalier regard for facts and truth that he employs against the President.

After weeks of regurgitating old info with new twists, new lies with old tricks, and useless "gotcha" hitpieces, World Net Daily decided to go on the warpath against Birtherstan's natural enemies (besides truth, facts, and decency) -- anti-birther bloggers who've been calling the rogue nation out on its lies, exaggerations, and excesses since its tumultuous birth.

The first article, written earlier this week, pointed out that a number of anti-birthers have produced fake birth certificates in an attempt to mock Birthers and make them look foolish. In the eyes of any reasonable person, this constitutes a prank. To Corsi and company, this is criminal fraud.

They have described their activities as satire, a tactic designed to deflect criminal charges that might otherwise be filed against them for producing fraudulent official government documents.

Same old WND, in other words. Exaggerate the reality in order to make snide innuendos that gain the readers' interest while not really telling them the whole truth, if indeed any truth at all.

But then they went a step further. They went after PJ Foggy at Fogbow, following the "journalism" model of their previous works.

Not a good idea, as Foggy, himself, stated on Doc Conspiracy's article on the subject:

The Cal. St. Bar never even suggested it would disbar me. I got in some minor trouble during a time when both my wife’s parents died of Alzheimers’ in my home, and I had some severe depression and some marijuana use. I decided to get out of the law biz and my State Bar record clearly says I “resigned,” not that I was disbarred.

Corsi also falsely accused me of committing state and federal crimes. He posted photos of my young children. He falsely claimed I filed that “legal brief” with a court (it was really just a compilation of reasons why Orly Taitz should be sanctioned in Taitz v. Astrue and I sent it to Patrick Nemeroff, the assistant U.S. Attorney on the case).

Worst of all, on Corsi’s Facebook page he wrote:

“Bryan runs a Flower Shop in Raleigh NC — let him know how much you appreciate his loyalty to the Constitution.”

He gave them enough info to find the phone number and address of my flower shop. Corsi and/or his people are desperately scrubbing threats against me from both the WND page and from Facebook, but I have screenshots of everything. Several innocent women who work for me are terrified. I’ve already contacted the FBI, and I’m on my way to the Raleigh Police Dept. now. I have a first class libel/slander attorney in D.C. working on this.

This is not like that impoverished (in more ways than one) KenyaBornObamAcorn. Corsi has money, and is going to rue this day. Scrubbing my comments isn’t going to help him even a little bit. He stepped in a mess this time. I’m going to own Esquire magazine!

PJ Foggy is, of course, referring to Joseph "Mr. Mustache" Farah's threats -- now realized -- to sue Esquire over that satirical article they ran online making fun of Where's the Birth Certificate (still falling like a brick, sales-wise, in case you were wondering)

So far Corsi's only overt response has been to backhandedly mention the situation in another article on another anti-Birther blogger. That and, if PJ's claims are true, scrub nasty attacks and threatening comments off the article, itself.

Why did he do this? One can only guess. Doc Conspiracy is open for reasonable suggestions.

So why write an article to smear Foggy?

Foggy comments on Internet forums that relate to Barack Obama’s eligibility. How is that news? Many of my readers do that and the number of people who comment on the Internet every day probably runs in the hundreds of millions (there are an estimated 1.87 billion Internet users).

Foggy wrote a letter to a US attorney about Orly Taitz. He may have handled a fake Kenyan birth certificate. There’s no evidence that either of them had an impact on WND readers. WorldNetDaily even had some news to report debunking that fake certificate which Foggy did not create. And even if Foggy had something to do with getting the fake Kenyan birth certificate to Taitz, what does his California bar status have to do with anything except as an attempt to smear Foggy’s reputation?

This is all nothing stuff. Bloggers are not news.

So why did Jerome Corsi representing what claims to be a major news organization chose to pick on an obscure web site operator who 99.99999% of the world has never heard of (up until now)?

Why indeed.

But help may be on the way! Over at Orly Taitz's website, our favorite can't-do girl is calling for a federal investigation of those awful people at Fogbow. Because, you know, political advocacy and making fun of the gullible and the fraudulent is high treason. (H/T to OhForGoodnessSake)

Meanwhile, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Please do consider the information about Corsi at this link, in particular the following quotes.

CORSI: So this is what the last days of the Catholic Church are going to look like. Buggering boys undermines the moral base and the laywers rip the gold off the Vatican altars. We may get one more Pope, when this senile one dies, but that's probably about it. (12/16/2002)

CORSI: Islam is a peaceful religion as long as the women are beaten, the boys buggered, and the infidels killed. (11/22/2002)

CORSI: Isn't the Democratic Party the official SODOMIZER PROTECTION ASSOCIATION of AMERICA -- oh, I forgot, it was just an accident that Clintoon's first act in office was to promote "gays in the military." RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters -- it all goes together. (11/18/2001)

CORSI: Perfect Liberal -- lesbian, self-absorbed, hates America, anxious to impose her values on everybody else. [on Martina Navratilova] (06/26/2002)

CORSI: And now we get Pooh-LEFTY pushed on us by the RATS as Minority Leader in the House -- here come the SanFrancisco liberals -- hope the RATS go back to focusing the debate on gay marriages and other pro-choice topics close to Pelosi's heart. (11/18/2002)

CORSI: Too bad the plane didn't crash into the TV set of the NBC show "THE LEFT WING" -- especially when Martin Sheen was "acting." (06/07/2003)

(H/T to Doc Conspiracy)

'Cause, you know, fair's fair.

Birther Week in Review 6/11/11

In which we watch THE Birther book plummet into the darkness, along with Dr. Kate's ability to understand context, and Orly Taitz's understanding of the law.

It's been another really slow week in Birtherstan, unfortunately. We have been led to believe that, between seasons, daily life crawls to a standstill, and the country's noble citizens laze on their front porches, drinking weak tea and strong spirits as they dream of hope and change. We just left "Bombshell Book" season and seem to be gearing up for the time of the "All Important Lawsuit," though we also hear that, unique to this country, seasons sometimes skip over one another, and lawsuit season is almost always year round.

But if it seems like the literary season went by quickly, that might be because, in spite of all of its publisher's statements to the contrary, Jerome "Dr. Feelgood" Corsi's "Where's the Birth Certificate?" seems to be suffering a worse fate than his previous work, "Obamanation." Not even bulk sales have kept the beast above the NYT bestsellers' waterline: it went from 6 to 14 to... um, where did it go? And, over at Publisher's Weekly, it's gone from 9 to 20 -- just below the latest Sarah Palin tell-all book.

Speaking of falling, this week has acted to reiterate the lesson that, when scouring the internet for information on one's enemies, one must always take what one reads with a grain of salt until confirmed. Arch-birther Noise Machine Dr. Kate thought she had a real discovery on her hands when intriguing facts surfaced in an interview she uncovered. Specifically:
* Pidgeon found at the Consulate in British Columbia, just over the US-Canada border, a record of a name change from “Barak Mounir Ubayd” to “Barack Hussein Obama” in 1982.
* Believes Obama was educated at Patrice Lumbuma University in Moscow, echoing Pastor Manning’s research;
* Mentions Nazi, Stalinist-Marxist, and fascist as descriptors of Obama
* Predicts Obama will throw the NWO under the bus as the Caliph.

If true, this might be a gold mine for those who think that our President is the earthly nexus for all strains of evil, everywhere. Unfortunately for them, this is nothing more than Iron Pyrite, dug up out of the feverish imagination of... a German parody news site, two years ago.

In the words of my late stepfather, "What you mean when you say 'OOPS?'"

(MASSIVE hat tip to Badfiction for the ground work on this hilarious episode)

On the subject of OOPS, perennial OOPStress Orly Taitz is starting to feel the cognitive dissonance, yet again. Remember last week when she failed to understand what a judge told her, and instead told World Net Daily that she was going to declare discovery and start issuing subpoenas?

Well, she's going further down the rabbit hole this week. One can only wonder if the Judge will be as amused as we are. But, when she gets hit with yet another judicial sanction, she can always cheer herself up with the knowledge that she's made the list -- specifically Time Magazine's list, where her blog is one of four they could do without.

And that's about it for this week. I'd like to say that, hopefully, we'll have more for you next time around. But that's like hoping for yet more Weinergate at this point.

Wouldn't it be nice if that was not the case?

But if you're bored, be sure to stop by Obama Conspiracy Theories and have a gander of the excellent dig-up work they did on Jerome Corsi. Do you know all you think you know about this man? You might be surprised at the skeletons he has rattling in his closet.

An apology to Andrew Breitbart

Well, in case you have not been paying attention to the news, it would appear that the Weiner jokes were all highly justified.

Provided he's telling the truth now -- oh please, Goddess, please be telling the truth -- the entire Weinergate kerfluffle was the fault of one Rep. Weiner. It turns out that, in spite of it being proven that it is possible to hack into someone's Yfrog account and send out a photo "on their behalf," the original photo sending was done by Weiner, himself.

Rather than laugh it off, or try and explain it, he chose to lie. We all know where that path eventually leads -- bigger and bigger lies, until the house of cards comes falling down in a big way.

So Weiner finally did the right thing, called a press conference, and told the truth. (Again, we hope)

However, before the conference began, Andrew Breitbart showed up. Apparently he was nearby on unrelated business, but that didn't stop him from being talked into taking to the podium and getting a few soundbites in. Nice to know he thinks Weiner is in "very good shape"!

Breitbart asked Weiner and members of the liberal blogosphere to apologize "for a blame the messenger strategy" in the wake of the release of the initial photo. ... Breitbart also complained that the mainstream media has repeatedly questioned his credibility over his role in edited video controversies involving Shirley Sherrod and the ACORN undercover stings.

"I'm here for some vindication," he said. Appearing exasperated, Breitbart denied he was out for any sort of revenge and seemed incredulous that his motives were being questioned.

Well, never let it be said we here at the rANT Farm aren't willing to admit when we were wrong.

Andrew Breitbart, based on the evidence I had in front of me at the time I wrote on Weiner's electronic woes, I intimated that you may have been involved in a hoax, or at least known (or should have suspected) that it was going on. If what Rep. Weiner is saying now is true, and not just some sop thrown out in hopes of stopping any further indiscretions from coming to light, then obviously I was wrong in my judgment, and I apologize for jumping to that conclusion.

I am also sorry that you are such a scandal-mongering, lying bully that I would have cause to suspect you to be capable of such a thing.

I'm really sorry that you surround yourself with liars with James O'Keefe and go to bat for them when they get found out. If you actually had the integrity you expect out of others, you'd have kicked that sorry little twerp out of your circle ages ago, and not given him a platform for their mealy-mouthed prevarications. That you have not yet done this makes it so much easier to suspect you were just embracing another non-story for your own purposes.

I'm very sorry you felt the need to take Shirley Sherrod's words out of context, and use those mangled words to make her look like a racist, causing her to lose her job. I'm sorry that, as of this writing, I have yet to see anything from you in the way of a significant, proportional act of apology or contrition from you for having done this.

I'm also sorry that you've felt the need to attach yourself to a video that makes liberals on the street sound like a bunch of un-democratic thugs, but then that hasn't cost anyone their job or reputation, yet, so that's just par for the course from you.

I'm sorry that the person who alerted you to this tweet had a story that was so fishy, and a background that was so questionable, that it almost did look like he'd set Weiner up. So hopefully you can understand that, when we found out the two of you had been in communication, his fishiness plus your fish marketness could understandably equal shenanigans to the informed observer.

I'm sorry that the alterter's friend, who'd been joining him in harassing girls on Weiner's twitter list, is apparently a real scumbag. I'm sure you can understand how that couldn't help matters, either.

And I'm really, really, really sorry that you apparently had this information (and the same photo) a week before the scandalous photo was tweeted, but sat on it until now for... what reason, exactly?

I could go on. I really could. But you wanted "vindication," so here it is.

This time, you were right.

This time, you actually had the truth in hand, and not just your, well, weiner.

This time, there was some truth to be told, and you actually told it, in your own, glory-hogging, self-aggrandizing way.

So yes, I am sorry I suspected otherwise. But when the class clown, after months of falsely telling the teacher that Tommy Dingersniffer is pulling down his pants and mooning people, actually does turn out to be telling the truth on one occasion, that does not make him any less of a clown, or what he lied about before any less false.

You, sir, are a hack and a liar. If you ever want to be anything more than that, you need to start bringing us more Weiners and less Sherrods and O'Keefes.

Because we all know where lies lead, don't we?

Birther Week in Review 6/4/11

In which Jerome Corsi lays out his legal cards, World Net Daily continues to spin, Orly continues to misunderstand the law, and both of them would like to take credit for a non-victory.

It was a slow week for Birtherstan, with no shocking reveals, or new twists and turns worthy of a ZOMG award. Instead, we got some weak cheddar, as the news would rather focus on Rep. Weiner's electronic woes (and miss the real story {maybe}) than pay attention to Birthers, even on what they'd like you to believe is the cusp of their victory.

Victory? Why yes. After all, Jerome "Dr Feelgood" Corsi not only has his book, "Where's the Birth Certificate," on the best-sellers lists (dropping like rocks from previous week, buoyed only by bulk purchases) but is about to drop charges against Obama for Social Security fraud, just like he announced he would.

Well, okay. It looks like he isn't. However, he's happy to announce that someone else is.

An international expert on scanners and document-imaging software filed a 22-page criminal complaint with the FBI, charging that the long-form birth certificate released by the White House is criminally fraudulent.

"What the Obama administration released is a PDF image that they are trying to pass off as a Certificate of Live Birth Long Form printed on green security paper by the Hawaiian Health Department," Doug Vogt writes, "but this form is a created forgery."

Vogt's criminal complaint asserts: "I have irrefutably proven that the Certificate of Live Birth that President Obama presented to the world on April 27, 2011, is a fraudulently created document put together using the Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator programs, and the creation of this forgery of a public document constitutes a class B felony in Hawaii and multiple violations under U.S. Code section Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 47, Sec.1028, and therefore an impeachable offense."

Sounds like the FBI's going to be removing that Usurper son-of-a-commie any day, now, huh? Well, not so fast.

For one thing, consider that Mr. Vogt doesn't know what he's talking about, according to the redoubtable Dr. Conspiracy. Also consider that the long form was seen, photographed and touched by at least one reporter, verifying that it actually does exist, and is not merely an electronic artifact.

Also consider that Mr. Vogt is, as recently revealed by our friends at Badfiction, a frakking crackpot, even by our fairly lax standards, here at the rANT FARM (yes, Tim Foil, I am looking at you)

None of these things add up to a slam-dunk legal course of action. But then, as World Net Daily has been kind enough to show us over the last week, their idea of what constitutes a slam dunk might get a few righteous objections from your average NBA referee.

Intel report: Kenyans honor Obama's 'birthplace'. As in the village his family grew up in, you fools.

Kenya probed claim Obama born in Africa Yeah, now about those sources...

But the best one from this week has to be Why is Obama's name different on passport? Because, you know, if it doesn't have that "II" at the end of his name, it's just not him. Really. Ask anyone who's got a II, III, or IV, or a sr. or jr. Deport them all!!!!

Speaking of deportations, Orly Taitz, our favorite "mail in your boxtops" lawyer, seems to be getting somewhere in her latest case, Taitz vs Astrue. Or so she thinks, and has told WND, anyway.

But under the radar of most new organizations a case has been moving forward in Washington, D.C., through which California attorney Orly Taitz is seeking the original application for Obama's Social Security number, a document that could reveal a multitude of factors about the president's early life.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Royce Lamberth this week rejected a defense concern over procedure in the dispute, and Taitz told WND today the case has moved into discovery and she can issue subpoenas to those holding the documentation she is seeking.

..

(the Judge) ruled this week that FOIA actions "are exempt" from a local court "meet and confer" requirement and he gave Astrue 30 days to file "any dispositive motions."

The federal government had argued that Taitz' process to subpoena individuals with access to the long-sought documentation was out of order, but the court ruling means it is within procedures.

According to a report in the Post & Email online blog, Taitz reported, "We're now in discovery, so I can issue subpoenas."

ORLLY? Not so fast...

So in the real world, Dr. Orly got dinged for her habit of not redacting SS numbers and told to do it over again.

And while we're on the subject of the real world, White House counsel Robert Bauer is leaving his previous place of residence for it, and both Orly Taitz and Dr. Feelgood would like to take credit for it.

Orly says: Chief judge of the U. S. district court in the District of Columbia, Royce Lamberth, issued his scheduling order on June 1st. What is important, that it says, that the FOIA cases are exempt from the initial meet and confer, which means that there is no need for Rule 26 conference, so the discovery is on, which means, that the deposition of the White House Counsel regarding Obama’s fraudulent use of the Connecticut Social Security number 042-68-4425 and his use of the forged birth certificate, can go on. Robert Bauer could get deposed. Typically the White House gets an early warning of what is going on in courts, particularly in the DC courts. I wonder, if the White House Counsel Robert Bauer got information from one of the clerks, that the case will go on, which prompted his resignation the next day, on June the second

Meanwhile, Jerome Corsi says: "I think Bauer's resignation marks the beginning of the Obama eligibility cover-up starting to unwind."

Corsi believes Bauer "felt compelled" to resign because of the growing substance to worries that the eligibility issue will blow up into a full-scale investigation.

"Bauer sent Perkins and Coie attorneys to Honolulu to pick up from the Hawaii Department of Health what he believed would be two certified copies of Obama's 1961 long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate," Corsi said.

"When the White House released to the public the birth certificate in the form of a PDF computer file obviously created on Adobe software and a Xerox copy, Bauer realized the Hawaii DOH had participated in the fraud," Corsi charged.

But the real joke here is where Mr. Bauer is leaving to. Rather than hide under a rock, he's leaving his current position in order to help with Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.

Yes. You read that. Taitz and Corsi are taking credit for running him away from Obama out of fear, when all he's doing is changing how he serves the President.

Sense, ye be not here.

See you next week on Birther Week in Review, where we troll the pits so you don't have to. Donations accepted. Beer appreciated.

Have You Seen Breitbart's Weiner?

So, heard the one about the Representative's missing weiner?

A day after doing at least six television interviews, New York Congressman Anthony Weiner is reverting to his initial pledge not to dwell on what he calls a "prank."

Weiner informed the journalists camped outside his office this morning that "After almost 11 hours of answering questions, any that anyone wanted to put, today I'm going to have to get back to work doing the job that I'm paid to do."

But Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor indicated the matter is far from settled. "My advice would be to come clean and clear it up," Cantor said this morning on Fox and Friends this morning. "Again, perhaps he's trying, but I know there's a lot of explaining going on but without a lot of clarity."

Truer words were never spoken, Mr. Cantor. And while your friends at FOX News would like to take this time to warn us about internet safety, all the while getting in one more partisan jab at Rep. Weiner's electronic misfortunes, we at the rANT Farm would like to make a plea for some clarity.

And maybe some other questions, besides.

Thanks to excellent reporting from Daily Kos and others -- an effort notably NOT mirrored by the mainstream press, I might add -- we have a timeline of how this happened. Note the progression.

About a month ago: College student Jeanette Nicole Cordova (Seattle, WA) is followed by Rep. Weiner after he sends out an all-call for people to follow. She's not the only one to be followed by him in this fashion. Unlike others, however, she starts getting harassing tweets about Rep. Weiner and young girls.

Her harrasser "started posting about me, saying, 'Oh, the congressman is following school girls,' tweeting it over and over. It was very annoying," Cordova told the Daily News. When the crotch shot appeared online, she said the same Twitter user was the first to comment on it.

Who is that twitter user? That would be Patriotusa76, who, on May 11th, tweets the following:



(Note that he was also asking the same question of Charlie Rangel.)

May 12th: Patriotusa76 sweetens the pot, mentioning "young girls."

Two weeks go by. A lot can happen in two weeks.

May 27th: Entities as yet unknown hack into Rep. Weiner's facebook account, according to him. At some point a link is sent to a questionable picture, supposedly from his Yfrog account, out to one person in particular (one of those young girls Patriotusa76 was on about) but visible to Weiner's entire twitter list.

However, it is possible to place and post images from someone's Yfrog, without knowing their password, as Cannonfire was kind enough to allow someone to do with his own account.

The only way to create a URL-free header is to have someone else send a pic to one's Yfrog address. Milowent did just that. You can see the result: The header now has a blank space beneath Dowson's name.

Why does Yfrog work that way? I don't know. Ask their programmers.

The important point is this: The anomaly in the header indicates that the image was not sent by Weiner. It had to have been sent by someone else.

Not only that. Believe it or not, when an outsider sends a pic to someone else's Yfrog account in this fashion, the action creates a message in the "twitterstream." The message seems to originate with the Twitter account holder -- but it doesn't. It comes from somewhere else -- from someone mailing a picture to the account holder.

May 27th: Patriotusa76 goes into overdrive announcing that Rep. Weiner has tweeted "X-RATED PIC TO FOLLOWER"

May 27th: Rep. Weiner announces over twitter that his Tivo is busted and his Facebook was hacked.

May 28th: One of Breitbart's flying monkeys from Biggovernment asks if it's possible to create a Yfrog account with the exact name as someone else.

May 28th: Seemingly not waiting for his underling's sensible question to be answered, Breitbart goes on the attack.



And writes an article on the situation, replete with clever puns he obviously took the time to carefully compose. (/sarcasm)

Since then, Breitbart has decided to ride this issue for all it's worth, while Rep. Weiner has been both engaging and disengaging the matter with his trademark humor. The wisdom of the latter can be debated.

The presence of the former, however, remains intriguing. Let's look at Andrew Breitbart, shall we?

This is the same person who took Shirley Sherrod's words out of context to make her sound like a racist.

This is the same person whose disciple, James O'Keefe, messed around with footage from ACORN and made them look really bad. Breitbart not only gave him space on Biggovernment to defend himself (now 404ed, hmmmm) and went out of his way to defend O'Keefe, on FOX News, when the boy got his pimp feet held to the fire.

And now, in case you haven't been paying attention, Breitbart's been busted again. He edited a bunch of videos that purport to show that liberals on the street are in favor of having the government shut down the free speech rights of right-leaning media venues. Only, as with O'Keefe's works, the whole story wound up on the cutting room floor.

Now, of course, that may all be just coincidences. Just because the CIA tried to kill Castro doesn't mean every dead dictator America doesn't like was done in by the CIA, too. That's a logical fallacy.

But something I didn't know about Mr. Breitbart: did you know that he changed from liberal to conservative while having an "epiphany" during the Clarence Thomas hearings?

And you do know what Rep. Weiner was doing before all this blew up, right? A little something about Clarence Thomas, his wife, and what she does?

Here are the facts. Thomas' wife earned $700,000 from half the radical right-wing ideologues in Washington. Opposing health care reform was her specialty.

For 13 years, Clarence Thomas didn't disclose a penny of that income, even though he was legally and ethically obligated.

Thomas is trying to conceal a blatant conflict of interest. His family is getting rich off an issue that's very likely to come before the Supreme Court.

...

Clarence Thomas shouldn't hide the truth behind stalling tactics. Stand with me today and demand he publicly release his financial disclosure immediately.

As my colleague at op-ed news, Dennis Kaiser, points out, the pressure on Thomas -- and support of healthcare -- could explain why the mass media seems to be going after the poor Rep. and his namesake with such, ahem, vigor. Who can forget how excited Wolf Blitzer seemed while asking Weiner if that photo was of him, or not?

But a better question might be what precipitated this attack on Rep. Weiner's integrity and honor? And, better yet, who did it?

I'd ask Patriotusa76, but since being exposed on Dailykos his twitter account seems to have vanished.

And now, just as I'm writing this, a number of emails between Breitbart and Patriotusa76 have come to light, via the Smoking Gun. (h/t Justin Elliot at Salon) No word on who leaked them, yet, but it would appear that Mr. Wolfe has some explaining to do -- especially to Mr. Breitbart, who seems to be demanding an explanation for this bullshit.

Come out, come out wherever you are 'Dan Wolfe' @patriotUSA76! Stop hiding behind anonymity! Own up to your role & motivation.

Is there a real 'Dan Wolfe' @PatriotUSA76 or has someone for months elaborately pretended to be? #Weinergate gets more confusing!

Lookin' for some clarifying data from @patriotusa76. Call me. I'm listed. Article coming by 2pm EDT @BigGovt

Unless, of course, Dan Wolfe is just a smokescreen, cobbled together as a Fire And Forget Missile for the purposes of embarrassing someone, given a fake motivation for doing so, and then cut loose by way of a leaked email or two to The Smoking Gun while his creator (or someone in on the joke) publicly fumes that the goose that laid the golden egg seems to have flown the pond.

Or maybe this is what it seems to be. As TSG notes:

As the Weiner story began to spread over the weekend--and detractors started accusing him of somehow hacking Weiner’s accounts--Wolfe balked when Breitbart sought to arrange a conference call to discuss how to further exploit and advance “Weinergate.” In e-mails sent from his Yahoo account, Wolfe asked, “Why does he need to speak with me for this?” and “I’m just not sure why he needs to talk to me. Why is talking necessary?”

Now, if you had, as explained above, sent a fake photo post to Rep. Weiner's twitter by way of the Yfrog backdoor, or actually hacked into his facebook, would you want to get any further involved than just sending forward the info to someone who would use it (Breitbart) and then asking if he could use the goods or not? Especially if, as he said, there were "more"?

Either way, money's good that we're looking for real dick, here. The question is who, and why.

But what should no longer be a question is whether Rep. Weiner sent this picture to a young lady so she could marvel at his magnificent, if covered, penis. The mass media needs to explain, in no uncertain terms, that the story is a different one than what they've been presenting. It's not a question of the Rep's guilt, but a question of why Yfrog hasn't fixed this backdoor, and why they let a serial hoaxer like Breitbart come on their programs to push a fishy story with a clear trail of questionability.

But then, I guess we have the Birther model, and a slow news day, to thank for that.