Any attempt at proving his heritage at this stage is simply going to fan the flames of denial. The only cure for this bullshit is complete refusal to engage on the topic.Why do people think this way? Do they think conservatives are incapable of spreading ideas among themselves? They don't need our assistance. They'll take silence as evidence that they have a point and we've got nothing.
There is not a single thing you can "debate" with someone who is demanding that you accept their nonsensical, factless, ignorant belief that Obama is a Kenyan Muslim, the earth is 2,000 years old or that magical pixies and imagination are why the ice caps are melting. You can only point out how embarrassing they look in an effort to make them feel embarrassed, and you can only try and humiliate those who facilitate their horseshit.That's not "ignoring" them though. Humiliation is a great idea. try to make them look like idiots. But don't just "ignore" it.
If you remember there were questions about McCain's eligibility during the last election cycle because he was born in Panama on a US base.I remember that there was absolute consensus among everyone, including everyone I met volunteering with the Obama campaign, that it would be both wrong and really stupid to raise those questions, since questioning the citizenship of a Real American Hero like McCain could never get any traction and would only backfire and hurt Obama.
So he’ll release it and make it a non-issue for most and, for those who continue to believe there is something off, he’ll go back to portraying them as crazy, racists.Mouse given cookie.
Of course, once the birth certificate issue is dispatched, will he release his college transcripts? That’s the issue for me.
" ... Fox News is already doing its part to feed the birthers’ collective delusion. Immediately after the news broke that Obama’s long form birth certificate is available, Fox ran a banner headline claiming that the White House had only released 'what it says' is the President’s birth certificate ... Of course, today’s birther-stoking is nothing new for Fox. As Media Matters reports, Fox has promoted the birther myth in at least 52 different segments."posted by ericb at 7:46 AM on April 27, 2011 [5 favorites]
obama's afraid of these people - and this whole sorry episode, although it's not his fault, doesn't show me much hope for his leadership - he's going to appease these people as much as he can without fightingEh. Andrew Sullivan, when he was rambling on and on about Sarah Palin would always say he was afraid of her. After all, what could be worse then idiots like these ever gaining power? Trump is a moron.
In a statement after Obama spoke, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called the issue a distraction — and yet blamed Obama for playing campaign politics by addressing it.posted by PenDevil at 8:41 AM on April 27, 2011 [4 favorites]
"The president ought to spend his time getting serious about repairing our economy," Priebus said. "Unfortunately his campaign politics and talk about birth certificates is distracting him from our number one priority — our economy."
"Not content with questioning the president’s birthplace, Donald Trump is now wondering how a 'terrible student' got into the Ivy League. Michelle Goldberg traces the far-right history of the claim—which reassures resentful whites that this seemingly brilliant black man isn’t so smart after all."posted by ericb at 8:47 AM on April 27, 2011 [2 favorites]
For what it’s worth, not everyone is convinced Trump was born in the USA either: 43% say he definitely was born here, and 20% say he probably was; 7% say he definitely or probably was born in another country. Nearly three in 10 say they don’t know enough to say.posted by PenDevil at 9:04 AM on April 27, 2011
"Look, I applaud this release. I think it's a step in the right direction," so-called "birther queen" Orly Taitz told me in one of her many media interviews this morning. "I credit Donald Trump in pushing this issue."posted by PenDevil at 9:14 AM on April 27, 2011
But she still has her suspicions. Specifically, Taitz thinks that the birth certificate should peg Obama's race as "Negro" and not "African."
"Trump said, there are still questions about President Obama's background. 'The word is,' Trump told the press, Obama 'was a terrible student when he went to Occidental [College]. He then gets to Columbia. He then gets to Harvard.'posted by ericb at 9:25 AM on April 27, 2011 [1 favorite]
'I don't know why he doesn't release his records,' Trump said. 'Why doesn't he release his Occidental records?'" *
"Sure, it might seem like 'giving in to the enemy -- responding to right-wing hysteria and releasing the long-form birth certificate. But here's why the move is a canny one: [more].posted by ericb at 9:31 AM on April 27, 2011
The Social Security number is a nine-digit number in the format "AAA-GG-SSSS". The number is divided into three parts.posted by ericb at 9:56 AM on April 27, 2011 [2 favorites]
The Area Number, the first three digits, is assigned by the geographical region. Prior to 1973, cards were issued in local Social Security offices around the country and the Area Number represented the office code in which the card was issued. This did not necessarily have to be in the area where the applicant lived, since a person could apply for their card in any Social Security office. Since 1973, when SSA began assigning SSNs and issuing cards centrally from Baltimore, the area number assigned has been based on the ZIP code in the mailing address provided on the application for the original Social Security card. The applicant's mailing address does not have to be the same as their place of residence. Thus, the Area Number does not necessarily represent the State of residence of the applicant, neither prior to 1973, nor since.
Generally, numbers were assigned beginning in the northeast and moving south and westward, so that people on the east coast had the lowest numbers and those on the west coast had the highest numbers. As the areas assigned to a locality are exhausted, new areas from the pool are assigned, so some states have noncontiguous groups of numbers." *
George Romney (1907–1995), who ran for the Republican party nomination in 1968, was born in Mexico to U.S. parents. Romney's grandfather had emigrated to Mexico in 1886 with his three wives and children after Utah outlawed polygamy. Romney's monogamous parents retained their U.S. citizenship and returned to the United States with him in 1912. Romney never received Mexican citizenship, because the country's nationality laws had been restricted to jus-sanguinis statutes due to prevailing politics aimed against American settlers. George Romney therefore had no allegiance to a foreign country.Yes, George Romney, father of this guy.
... Claims about Obama's educational history date back to September 2008, when The Wall Street Journal attacked him for not releasing his school records, writing in an editorial, "Some think his transcript, if released, would reveal Mr. Obama as a mediocre student who benefited from racial preference.posted by ericb at 12:04 PM on April 27, 2011
Orly Taitz, queen of the birthers, has developed elaborate theories about Obama's college years. As Taitz argues, Obama himself acknowledged that he was directionless when he started college. How, then, did he get himself accepted into the Ivy League?
Her speculation: He went as a foreign exchange student. "Sometimes students with poor grades from other countries who have citizenship in other countries can get into top universities," she told The Daily Beast. "That might be one of the reasons why his records are not unsealed. If his records show he got into Columbia University as a foreign exchange student, then we have a serious issue with his citizenship."
Taitz said she also believes that Obama only attended Columbia for nine months rather than two years. As proof, she offered a document from the National Student Clearinghouse database, which verifies college degrees. The record, which confirms Obama's graduation, lists his dates of attendance as September 1982 to May 1983. Kathleen Dugan, a marketing manager at the National Student Clearinghouse, said Taitz's document is incorrect, the result of the way she conducted her search.
Obama, in this view, is both sinister and stupid, canny enough to perpetrate one of the biggest frauds in American history but still the ultimate affirmative action baby.
"There were duplicate requests to our site from requestor Orly Taitz which, because of the way the queries were input, yielded both correct and incorrect information on past attendance dates for President Barack Obama," said Dugan.
Taitz, naturally, said she believes there's something more ominous at work. She noted that Obama has talked about visiting a friend in Pakistan between his sophomore and junior years of college. "The only reasonable conclusion is that he was there not a month or two, but a year and a half," she said.
And how did this half-educated mediocrity get into Harvard Law School, and then become editor of the Harvard Law Review? Why, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, of course! According to right-wing lore, a militant Black Muslim named Khalid Al-Mansour introduced his protégé to the prince, who presumably saw a chance to advance his Muslim world-domination agenda by grooming the young man for politics. The prince thus pulled strings on Obama's behalf and even paid his way.
Taitz has forwarded all her information about Obama's college years to Trump and said she is gratified to hear him raising the issue. "He might have also gotten it from other sources, too, but he definitely got it from me," she said. Perhaps he's also been reading the ultra-right-wing website WorldNetDaily, which ran a 2009 piece asking, "Did radical Muslims help send Obama to Harvard?" ... [more]
Donald Trump wasn't laughing when funnyman Jerry Seinfeld canceled an upcoming appearance at a benefit for his son's Eric Trump Foundation. Seinfeld pulled out of the Sept. 13 event benefiting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital because he disagrees with The Donald's questioning of Barack Obama's citizenship""Jerry... feels this kind of demagoguery has no place in public discourse... He has respectfully withdrawn from the event, and is making a contribution both to the Eric Trump Foundation and to [St. Jude]." *
Barry Obama decided that he didn't like his nickname. A few of his friends at Occidental College had already begun to call him Barack (his formal name), and he'd come to prefer that. The way his half sister, Maya, remembers it, Obama returned home at Christmas in 1980, and there he told his mother and grandparents: no more Barry. Obama recalls it slightly differently, but in the same basic time frame. He believes he told his mom he wanted to be called Barack when she visited him in New York the following summer. By both accounts, it seemed that the elder relatives were reluctant to embrace the change. Maya recalls that Obama's maternal grandparents, who had played a big role in raising him, continued long after that to call him by an affectionate nickname, "Bar." "Not just them, but my mom, too," says Obama.posted by ericb at 1:37 PM on April 27, 2011
Why did Obama make the conscious decision to take on his formal African name? His father was also Barack, and also Barry: he chose the nickname when he came to America from Kenya on a scholarship in 1959. His was a typical immigrant transition. Just as a Dutch woman named Hanneke might become Johanna, or a German named Matthias becomes Matt, the elder Barack wanted to fit in. America was a melting pot, and it was expected then that you melt—or at least smooth some of your more foreign edges.
But Obama, after years of trying to fit in himself, decided to reverse that process.
"We don’t have to blame 'the media' for dealing with this issue. We have to blame NBC Entertainment. They need to dump Trump from his primetime news show. He’s a poison toad on the airwaves. What corporate sponsor is going to be buying ad time for Donald Trump’s show. Any company that goes into Trump and is willing to pay is going to find consumer boycott like they’ve never seen before. If you are going to do what Trump did and go after the President of the United States in such a grotesque and disingenuous way you better cough up the goods. Today the Obama administration has shown what a charlatan Donald Trump really is."Video.
... Beck "Theory": Obama Released Birth Certificate Today To Distract From Bernanke Press Conference.posted by ericb at 2:07 PM on April 27, 2011 [1 favorite]
... Palin: "Don't Let The WH Distract You W/ The Birth Crt From What Bernanke Says Today."
... NRO's Goldberg: The Release Raises A "Perplexing Question": "Why Did The WH Take Such Sweet Time Releasing" Obama's Birth Certificate?
... Fox's Kilmeade: "Why Did The President Wait So Long To Put The Birther Issue To Rest?"
... Daily Caller: "Dear Mr. President: What Took You So Long?"
... FoxNews.Com: "White Houses Releases What It Says Is Obama's Long-Form Birth Certificate."
... WND's Farah: "There Are Still Dozens Of Other Questions Concerning This Question Of Eligibility That Need To Be Resolved."
... Prison Planet Highlights Farah Quote That Birth Certificate "Raises As Many Questions As It Answers."
Hawaii’s registrar certified the new photocopy of the document provided to the White House on April 25, 2011.I did a google search and happened upon that place and even there saw someone suggest it was just something related to the program used to copy the certificate.
The White House also released a letter from the president on April 22 requesting two certified copies of his original certificate of live birth, as well as a letter from Loretta Fuddy, Hawaii’s director of health, approving the request.
The president's personal counsel, Judith Corley, traveled to Hawaii to pick up the documents and carried them back to Washington on a plane. The documents arrived at the White House around 5 p.m. Tuesday.
Have any of the candidates besides Michele Bachmann confirmed that they aren't witches, yet?Did she? I know that Christine O'Donnell confirmed (well, claimed) that she isn't a witch, but as far as I know, the jury is still out on Bachmann.
as much an Americanas anyone born in the USA. Saying that the argument is about Obama's status as an American is both incorrect and a slur against migrants.
According to wikipedia (which itself sources politico) thiss bullshit started with "anonymous Clinton supporters" during the primary, which strikes me as highly suspicious. Because if you're the type who wants to get this batshitinsanity out there you don't want to be tagged as the originator of it, you know?Oh man don't you remember hillaryis44.com? The people on that site were fucking insane. I'm laughing just remembering it. Actually the site is still up and they're complaining that the MSM had said Obama couldn't get his original birth certificate, while his new release proves it isn't true. The problem is they just changed the law, I think.
They say that ballpoints are different from rollerballs, and these pens that signed it weren't around until the 80s. I am not making this up.First search result on that page: Barack Obama wasn't "born" in Hawaii; he was forged in the fires of Mount Kilauea. One Obama to rule them all. #NewObamaConspiracies
*facepalm* why couldn't they just do a real high-quality color scan of the document? Why resort so such fakery as to have the b/w photocopy superimposed over the safety pattern?There isn't a lot of overlap between state bureaucrats and sticklers for image fidelity. They work with scans and xerox copies all day.
I invite you to listen to the act 2 of the "Kid Politics" episode of This American Life, in which a scientist tries to convince a kid (who has clearly been brainwashed into believing the anti-global-warming crowd) that global warming is real. You should hear the kid: "Well, I'm just not convinced."Why do you have to make me so sad? I'm used to teenage voices like these being full of promise for the future of humanity, a buoyant red balloon lifting us all, not a pathetic fail-bowl of regurgitated brain-mush. Listening to that was like listening to babies gleefully flipping switches to electrocute puppies. This was even more depressing than hearing the backstory to hardcore taters. I am a more jaded human being now, for better or for worse. You're totally right about wanting to punch Reagan, I'm ordering an effigy first thing tomorrow.
The defense fund for birther and former Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin put out a statement on Wednesday in response to the release of President Obama's long-form birth certificate, asking that Lakin, a doctor, be given a "full and complete presidential pardon" for his court martial conviction of six months, "including restoration of pay, benefits, and service."Didn't he get legal advice from Orly Taitz? Can he sue her for misconduct?
The reasoning? If only Lakin had seen this birth certificate a year ago he would have never refused his orders to deploy to Afghanistan!
This level of nastiness, ignorance, stupidity, and insanity is unfathomable to me, even though I'm seeing it before my very eyes. It's like they see 5 fingers/lights when there are 4, without being tortured.Oh, they're being tortured all right.
Honestly I'm not sure what the big deal is about that requirement. I've yet to see a case where it's clear we suffered for losing a candidate who would otherwise have benefited us.It's not about individual candidates, although I think you probably could find some potentially good candidates who were disqualified by it, if you looked at the whole of US history. But that's not the point. The real damage is symbolic. It's the only place in US law where we recognize a distinction between naturalized and natural-born citizens. All citizens should be equal, and the requirement that presidents be natural-born citizens enshrines the idea that they're not.
Am I a bad person for always reading her name as "Oily Taint"?I wouldn't say you're a bad person, but it seems kind of off to defend Barack Obama by making fun of someone's weird foreign name.
American history presents only one view on immigration--it is a view that has been with us for at least as long as we've been a country. It is interwoven into our nation's very identity. Quotations from even our founding fathers represent this view, and you can see almost no distinction between how it was presented back then and how it is presented now. This view is: "The immigrants from which I descend were noble freedom fighters who forged a better union. These new immigrants, on the other hand, are unwashed freeloaders who are destroying the very fabric of society."That's actually really not true. American attitudes towards immigration have always been complicated and contested. There have always, in every era, been people who defended and supported immigration.
Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (R): Minorities Earn Less Because They Don't Work As Hard.posted by ericb at 10:21 AM on April 28, 2011
"For years, Donald Trump has boasted that his casinos are free of the taint of organized crime, using this claim to distinguish his gambling ventures from competitors. But Trump's casinos turn out not to be so squeaky clean.posted by ericb at 2:06 PM on April 28, 2011
... As the famously brash developer now considers a run for the presidency, this history could complicate his efforts to project an image of a trusted power in the business world. It exposes a seamy underside to Trump's rise to fortune -- one that involved intimate links to unsavory characters.
... 'One thing you can say about Trump, as the holder of a casino gaming license, is that I’m 100 percent clean -- something you can’t say with certainty about our current group of presidential candidates.'
Trump has sought to lean on such claims while sometimes intimating that industry competitors are themselves tainted by mob associations -- in order to saddle them with restrictions on their casino licenses."
more Americanmeme and the idea of privileged birth, concepts which are repugnant to the ideals under which the Constitution was founded.
[INTERVIEW FOOTAGE](I paraphrase).
JK: That CNN poll you mention where you're running neck-&-neck with President Obama, we've never run that poll.
DT: Yes you did.
JK: No we didn't
DT: Yes you did. [TO OFFSCREEN ASSISTANT] Go get the poll, show them. [TO JK] You won't put it on TV! Show them the poll!
JK: We have never run Trump vs Obama in a CNN poll
DT: Yes you did!
JK: No, we fucking well didn't.
DT: Yes you did!
[CUT TO JOHN KING LIVE]
JK: We've spoken to our polling department, and Trump is straight up full of shit and making things up at this point. And we did call bullshit on the birther thing.
While 33 percent would be at least somewhat proud if Trump were their president, most -- 62 percent -- would not. By comparison, the results are almost the exact opposite for Obama: 65 percent are proud to have him as their president and 33 percent aren’t.I believe the more we see of The Donald, the more loathsome he will appear to the average voter. Right now he may have some support due to his self-proclaimed success as a businessman as well as reality TV star, but as the real Trump emerges, the public is going to be horrified.
"For all the personal anguish described in that memoir, things turned out just fine for Barack Obama Jr. But we can't say the same for his father, who ended his life a disillusioned alcoholic, believing that he had been the victim of immense injustices. From reading this file, I think he had a pretty good case against the U.S. government."Was Barack Obama Sr. 'eased' out of Harvard, and America, for dating white women?
"My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feeling," he told lawyers in the December 2007 deposition."posted by electroboy at 12:58 PM on April 29, 2011 [1 favorite]
and
But Mr. Trump had a 30% limited-partnership interest in the project, according to legal documents. A group of Hong Kong investors were the owners. Asked about this during the deposition, Mr. Trump explained that, in his eyes, he owned half because he gets paid fees for managing the buildings and because he didn't have to put up cash in the deal. "In my own mind I've always felt that," he said. "That 30% is equated to 50%," he said. In his interview Sunday, Mr. Trump said he had owned the equivalent of "more than 50%."
« Older Flogging as an alternative to incarceration?... | Hacker Typer... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by dumbland at 2:59 AM on April 27, 2011 [31 favorites]