The Curious Case of “Ellie Light”
Monday, January 25, 2010 Update:
HotAir.com and Patterico.com have some follow-up updates including email headers, IP addresses and potential origins from and of the Obama Astroturfer.
Sunday, January 24, 2010 Update:
More reaction is occurring across the blogosphere — much less some of the many “confessions” in my own comments section (!) — regarding this story.
Via the JeffersonsRebels site, poster Erica opines on what this story could explain regarding presidential eligibility:
One “conspiracy theory” the Obama administration is definitely trying to squelch concerns his eligibility to serve as President. Obama holds dual citizenship with the U.K. through his father, and therefore does not qualify as an Article II, Sec. 1 “natural born Citizen”. Also see these four graphics: “Natural Born Citizen”, “Citizen vs Natural Born Citizen”, “Obama is a Usurper”, “Obama: A Constitutional Crisis”, and “Who Is Obama, The Chameleon?”
With the eager help of the left-wing media, and some apparent complicity with the RNC because of John McCain’s eligibility status, Obama and his team have painted anyone who questions the definition of that term as a conspiratorial birther. Furthermore, Obama enjoys the services provided by bloggers (probably paid) to infiltrate conservative blogs that push for full disclosure from the President. The following article received comments from an Obama acolyte. Paid or otherwise, we call commenters like him obots.
In the next article you will meet smrstrauss, who attempts to spread disinformation about Obama’s eligibility in the comment section of the blog. Also, if you do a keyword search for that username, you will find a large number of similar comments made by him across the conservative blogosphere. He has spent an inordinate amount of time blogging on this issue. One blogger claimed to have outed smrstrauss on RebootTheRepublic.com. He had this to say about him:
“With a little bit of work, I was able to find out this O-bot was likely Obama Superdelegate from DC, Shadow Senator Paul Strauss.”http://www.reboottherepublic.com/blog/currentevents/i-just-kod-an-obot-o-bot-on-the-birth-certificate-issue
If this blogger is correct, his discovery raises an important question: Has this person been paid with tax dollars to spread disinformation and propaganda?
While some may think this concept (“squelching” questions regarding Mr. Obama’s eligibility) is, itself, extreme, do recall that DC-based investigative journalist Wayne Madsen has already reported that certain questions regarding this President’s background are “off-limits.”
Other links referenced in the above posting include an article from AmericanThinker.com referencing a NationalReviewOnline article talking about the Justice Department’s own propaganda machine.
AmericanPower blog has also jumped in on this story providing various links to places such as LeftCoastRebel (to which I’ve referenced in my initial posting below the dashed line) and AnotherBlackConservative, replete with the following meme’d graphic:
Here’s a snippet from AmericanPower’s posting:
Jawa Report’s got the summary:
Patterico, The Cleavland Plain Dealer and some other intrepid souls have uncovered what appears to be a genuine astroturfing campaign by Obamacrats who are writing boilerplate pro-Obama letters to newspaper editorial sections across the nation.
They use different handles like “Ellie Light,” “Mark Spivey,” and a host of made up names, made up info about their residences and cut-and-pasted replications of Obama Administration propaganda. Newspapers across the country, of course, found these letters very compelling and printed them without knowledge that they were being used as willing dupes in this political astroturf operation.
Thanks to Google, we’re finding out that this was a political spamming operation possible links to Obama groups like Organizing for America and is not “grassroots” operation in any sense.
But see Dan Riehl as well, “Linking Ellie Light To The White House.” And, at Classical Values, “Going Light?” (via Memeorandum). And Reaganite Republican, “Ellie Light and Other Obot Trolls.”
Added: Patterico has lots more on this, “Still More Astroturfing: Gloria Elle and Jan Chen Write the Same Anti-Republican, Pro-Obama Letter; UPDATED: Two More Pairings Found; UPDATED AGAIN: Four Pairings Total, and One Is a Triplet!” [emphasis original]
Want even more juice to the story? Check out what Jake Tapper at ABCNews.com has to say concerning David Plouffe, an advisor with strong ties to both the Democratic National Committee as well as Organizing for America:
Still reeling from the upset victory of Sen.-elect Scott Brown, R-Mass., earlier this week, President Obama is augmenting the political operation at the White House by bringing several key 2008 campaign aides back into the fold.
Senior White House officials tells ABC news that Obama for America campaign manager David Plouffe will soon set up shop at the Democratic National Committee to oversee House, Senate, and gubernatorial races this fall, in what is shaping up to be a difficult political environment for Democrats.
“Plouffe is one of the smartest guys in the business, he has the full trust of the President and his team, and we appreciate any and all help he can give us,” White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said. “This is a very challenging political environment and you want all the best players on the field.” …
In addition to the return of top aides such as Plouffe, other mid-level operatives from the 2008 Obama campaign who helped bring candidate Obama victories in Iowa and in Feb. 5 “Super Tuesday” primary states, will be enlisted to work on campaigns to keep expected Democratic losses to a minimum, aides said.
—-
Recently, there has been a suspicious “letter to the editor” swirling around a number of different places across the country, all claiming to be from one “Ellie Light.” It speaks very highly of the President; you can see an example of such a letter at the Gainesville, GA-based Gainesville Times.
Normally, such a letter-writing thing might be a coincidence, until you consider some facts (via HotAir.com). For example, the exact same letter is being posted at The Politico, Philadelphia Daily News, San Francisco Examiner, Washington Times, and a USA Today blog. They’ve also shown up in local papers such as the aforementioned Gainesville Times, Los Banos Enterprise, North Adams Transcript, and Danbury News-Times.
However, this “Ellie Light” individual (or individuals) signs off “her” letters in a number of locales: Philadelpha, PA; Daly City, CA; Mansfield, OH; Waynesboro, VA; Algoma, WI; Bangor, ME. Apparently, the Cleveland Plain Dealer broke the story, replete with quite an email thread, to boot.
Even more interesting, the blog Patterico.com is maintaining a listing (very, very nice posting of the full context of this story) of all of the places that this letter is showing up; to date, the letter has appeared in 47 newspapers in 23 different States, with reports of a newspaper in Bangkok, Thailand having included it.
The LeftCoastRebel.com blog reported the following on their site:
This Ellie Light story gets stranger and stranger for me. Recall that right off the bat I thought that Ellie Light was perhaps the pseudonym of a troll from the Obama admin. (or hundreds) and perhaps from the David Plouffe-run Organizing for America. On the same topic as well, an editor from the paper that published this story contacted me as well (LCR is growing!).
My suspicion was confirmed when I received a comment from someone claiming to be Ellie Light – trouble is the troll mistook my site for a leftist p-jpontificator, KOS type site. That actually increased my suspicion that this story is just the tip of the (potential) iceberg with this type of nefarious activity, typically when you hit on something nefarious (like the Obama czar stories), the paid trolls show up at your site almost instantly.The fact that I got a pre-packaged response from ‘Ellie Light’ 10 minutes after I wrote my expose is highly suspicious, all the more because the ‘Ellie Light’ troll didn’t verify the political slant of my site.
The Patterico.com site has a posting that wonders whether or not such letters are a part of an initiative brought on by Cass Sunstein, head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. As the posting quotes from Slate.com (the whole posting is well worth reading):
In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-”independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites — as well as other activist groups — which advocate views that Sunstein deems “false conspiracy theories” about the Government. This would be designed to increase citizens’ faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. The paper’s abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here.
Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging (on the ground that those who don’t believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government). [emphases original]
Advertise on this site
The Poligazette site ran some interesting quotes in their posting:
Greenwald [from Salon.com] writes about the Obama administration’s payments last year to MIT professor Jonathan Gruber to promote the healthcare reform bill:
With this lucrative arrangement in place, Gruber spent the entire year offering public justifications for Obama’s health care plan, typically without disclosing these payments, and far worse, was repeatedly held out by the White House — falsely — as an “independent” or “objective” authority. Obama allies in the media constantly cited Gruber’s analysis to support their defenses of the President’s plan, and the White House, in turn, then cited those media reports as proof that their plan would succeed. [emphasis original]
…as well as this bit of potential insight:
18 months ago Sunstein wrote an article suggesting that the government use regular people, promoted as “independent advocates,” in order to “debunk conspiracy theories”:
This would be designed to increase citizens’ faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. The paper’s abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here.
Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging (on the ground that those who don’t believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government). [emphasis original]
Gee, this sounds awfully familiar, now, doesn’t it? You know, as in: take an alleged document that claims to be a part of the President’s background, post an image of the document on a third-party web site (instead of a government-run web site; it would be too risky otherwise, and who would actually question the credentials of those in academe, especially when they already have Republican credentials? Brilliant!!!), and then have postings on that same site crafted in such a way as to make the image look like it has actually been validated by one State’s Department of Health.
And then masterfully follow that up with a laser-focused campaign of a term for anyone who even thinks about questioning any of this by using a simple term as a pejorative — “birther” — in such a way that as many new adherents stay away from the entire question for fear of — oh, is this so brilliant or what? — being called a racist, because, after all, Barack Obama does look black, now, doesn’t he?
While I’ve obviously steered this story into what could be happening with some of the opposition commenters on my site, do recall that none of them have ever denied being a part of a “conspiracy” of such magnitude. Is it possible? Certainly. Some of them have only ever questioned the idea that they’re being paid for commenting here.
I like how Patterico.com ends their posting:
My suggestion: if there is a troll you suspect of being part of a secret Obama blog infiltration program, ask him.
If he denies it, consider it suspicious. After all, that’s just what they would say — isn’t it? [emphasis original]
So! For those who deny that questioning this President’s bona fides is legitimate, let’s have it out in the open. When responding to this posting in the comments section, why don’t you go ahead and disclaim your association with any such conspiracy:
Are you a “part of a secret Obama blog infiltration program?”
Let’s also see how many folks think I’m now really, really going off the “conspiracy theorist” deep end (of course, to some, I’m probably already there for having been presenting questions to Mr. Obama’s eligibility).
See the following links regarding the eligibility saga:
- The background:
- The questions:
-Phil
Subscriptions -=- Twitter: @trsol -=- email: phil [at] therightsideoflife [dot] com
Photo courtesy PoliGazette
141 responses to The Curious Case of “Ellie Light”
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by trsol: New Post: The Curious Case of “Ellie Light” http://bit.ly/7lP2KD…
Oh Please you Birthers are so Dense,
A) Too late Dudes!
I control the Justice Department, and we’re Black;
You- all; are Screwed!
B) I played the Bankers for greedy fools:
I took their contributions and now I’m gonna take their whole company
C). I let the Terrorist Flood this Country/ so when I take my U S pension and 2 trillion dollars and hide out in Saudia Arabia, with my ‘boys / then all you Idiots are going to be so busy swatting flies / millions of terrorist that
na na, de na, na you will never catch me!
Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha
BO…
Could also be Michelle Obama, the paid astroturfer, although she’s busy bying $3,600.oo coats, and shoes costing in the upper hundreds.
Paid astroturf, and Obama infected people would infiltrate, that’s nothing new. This after all is an election year, and vote on his performance basically!!1
“elspeth” does not equal “ellie light”
These trolls, and Ellie Light specifically, fit into the Alinsky model of thought control, which aims to put out false information and repeat it enough times until people believe it. Anyone who questions it is ridiculed and persecuted. It’s their way of trying to keep the truth hidden while promoting completely false information.
It especially applies to the birth certificate/eligibility issue. Obama knows he doesn’t qualify; the administration knows he doesn’t qualify, and yet “birthers” have been placed in a category similar to that of Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy was right when he said that communists were infiltrating our media and institutions of higher learning. We now have reaped the results of exactly the thing he was warning us about: our media and universities, as well as Congress and many state governments, are overrun with socialists, communists, and even Marxists.
Those of us who have questioned Obama’s eligibility aren’t crazy, just as McCarthy wasn’t crazy. We have simply looked at the facts, seen Obama’s lack of “transparency,” taken note that no one remembers Obama’s attendance at Columbia and Obama himself says he took drugs and was a poor student at Occidental, and we sense through intuition that he has lied about his past.
When the country finds out the truth about Obama, they shouldn’t be shocked. After all, those who voted for him didn’t care whether or not he was constitutionally eligible. They had to have a “black” president, regardless of his lack of experience, his nefarious associations, and his obfuscation. Now they’re finding out that not only does he not meet the definition of “natural born citizen,” but he has lied about everything else in his life.
I’m sure “Ellie Light” is aware of this and is being paid to write such complimentary letters about a liar, and cheat and a fraud. The Obots are trying to promote “hope and change” which is an emperor with no clothes.
I just read that the publications are up to 63 in count. One commenter stated that this is no coincidence. Another commenter pondered that of all the letters an editor might receive, how could this letter be chosen so many times above others?
This reader says the publications of the “ellie light” letter have shown their hands.
‘bama is a phony. Pure and simple. A conceited, self-righteous fony. There needs to be no other redaction to that comment. Anything anybody says about this man that is positive fails to leave out the pure and simple fact that the man is a fony. As phony as a three dollar bill. Bad for the country, bad for you and I. Hates the American flag. Hates God Almighty. Remember what I said in my third sentence of this thesis. Conceited, self-righteous. Anything that resembles talk about organizing for America is all baloney. Organizing for America to him and his followers means bowing down to his graven image. People elected a phony out of fear. I refuse to listen to this imposter, yet will expose the monster for what he is. A dangerous, money gobbling hog. A man who makes a statement which is always a lie or intimidation and refuses to answer a simple question from miss couric.
One would be incredibly naive to believe this type of thing is not common practice. In fact, I bet there are several who frequent this site.
The ability to control and manipulate the people via the media and other information sources is of utmost importance for those who wish to implement their agenda.
This is yet another reason why the Internet is the great equalizer when it comes to the dissemination of information. Without it, exposing letters such the Ellie Light example would be far more difficult if not impossible. You can bet it is only a matter of time before these people will attempt to exert some type of control over the Internet.
The 1st Amendment is our most precious right and it must be zealously protected.
Certainly, there can be no genuinely honest question but that rightsideoflife and similar sites are “infected” by a barrage of Sunstein/Alinsky trolls. How it could be at all surprising to any thinking person is beyond me. The Admin has arrogantly told us what it intends to do to shutdown, neutralize or discredit the opposition. And they mean what they say. The Obama Reich is every bit as insidious as any tyranny I’ve ever read about. However, like all tyranny, it will ultimately fail. To ensure that failure, we should all relentlessly push back with the unvarnished truth. We will prevail.
“The 1st Amendment is our most precious right and it must be zealously protected.”
Does this include “Ellie Light’s” 1st Amendement’s rights?
“Recently, there has been a suspicious “letter to the editor” swirling around a number of different places across the country, all claiming to be from one “Ellie Light.””
“Ellie Light” is simply exercising her/his 1st Amendment rights which all of the “patriots/birthers” have done; letters to Congressmen, letters to judges, letters to editors, full page ads in newspapers, petitions to Congress, etc., etc. What is “suspicious” about a letter being sent to several newspapers? As I recall, Dr. Taitz did the same thing, numerous times. I don’t believe “Ellie Light” has done anything different than what the “patriots/birthers” have done; excercise his/her 1st Amendment rights. Nothing “suspicious” about that.
Phil, you are either lying or don’t check your own posts.
On many different occasions, I have said that I am not working for anybody, not coordinating with anybody or any group or any website. I have said many times that my comments are mine and mine alone.
And to be honest, I think you are going pretty far off the deep end here. You’re taking the fact that somebody or a group of people using the same pen name has been writing letters all over the country as evidence that a potential suggestion Cass Sunstein and Adriene Vermeule made in a paper is being implemented and somehow connecting that with a ridiculous conspiracy theory based on absolutely nothing but idle speculation and pointing the finger at all opposition commenters, accusing them of being secret government agents:
Frankly, this is paranoid of you and for somebody who at least occasionally attempts to be objective, this post has the internal logic of a child’s fantasy.
Sue,
Yes it does. But you apparently missed the point of the story. This letter was published in 60+ local newspapers and counting. It is standard practice for editorial staffs to verify the identity of the writer before publishing each letter. Local Newspapers are also not in the habit of publishing letters to the editor which are not local to their circulation. Ellie specifically represented herself as being local.
So that presents one of two possible scenario’s.
1.) All of these local newspapers were complicit with this little ruse. IE. They published a letter that they did not confirm. Making them complicit in this little deception.
2.) Ellie had people in each location that answered the phone and confirmed a false identity.
So which of these are you defending?
The 1st Amendment only promises that the Government will not impede free speech. It does not guarantee that a newspaper will publish each and every Letter to the Editor. Which by the way they do not. If fact they exercise complete editorial control over WHICH letters they choose to publish, thereby controlling the message they wish to emphasis.
Well, I might as well come clean now. Since you asked directly, I must admit that I am a paid operative of the Obama Administration.
Last year, the administration recruited me and asked me to patrol certain websites and make posts supportive of administration initiatives. As you have no doubt concluded, RSOL is one of my assigned sites.
At first, I was paid on a per-post basis, but before long, they decided that I was effective enough that I should be paid on salary instead. They felt that since most Americans develop their opinions based on comments sections in obscure conservative blogs, that would be the best place to focus all their communications efforts.
To avoid detection, I am typically paid in cash, roughly €3,400 euros per week. My salary is left hidden behind a tree in a park near my home on alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays, so that the administration can avoid any paper trail.
I am comfortable coming clean about this because I have been reassigned and will next week start work as a judicial clerk for a judge hearing an eligibility case, where the administration has commanded me to do everything necessary to avoid allowing the case to reach the discovery phase. This used to be a separate department from the blog comment infiltration division, but some bureaucratic snafus have led to a merger, thus giving me the opportunity to move to the judicial infiltration division.
Bravo, Phil. I thought I would never be exposed, but it seems that you have proven to be far more perceptive and alert than I ever expected.
This will be an interesting post to watch the comments on.
A way to test whether the newspapers are aware of what is going on: write the editors of the newspapers that printed these letters and see what happens.
Sue, consider:
Generally letters to the editor are signed by real people with real names and many papers publish the name of the community where that real person claims to live.
How many Ellie Light’s can there be in the United States?
……………………………………………….Number unknown.
What are the odds that many different individuals would compose exactly the same letter, word for word, and submit it to their own local paper?
……………………………………………..Odds less than the odds that any one individual in 300 million English speaking people would reproduce a Shakespeare sonnet without ever having read or heard it.
The odds of both happening at the same time are essentially zero.
Is the letter attributed to AP? Even if obtained from the wire services, presenting the letter to be of local origin would not be truthful.
If there is one Ellie Light that is submitting her own letter to many newspapers, that would be exercise of 1st Amendment rights. If that one person claims to live in many different papers’ localities, that is dishonest.
[It would be like an individual writing many Members of Congress while pretending to be from each Member's home district.]
If someone is submitting something that he/she saw somewhere and claiming that the author lives in his/her community, that is dishonest.
If a letter is being reprinted from paper to paper, the reprinting paper should acknowledge the original paper.
There is also copyright to consider. Unless the papers previously running “the letter” have granted permission for the reprint (generally in writing), they could claim copyright infringement on all subsequent papers that print “the letter.” Or, “the letter” would have to be printed under the condition that it is initially, and always will remain, in the public domain, i. e. without copyright.
Are you a “part of a secret Obama blog infiltration program?”
Yes, but don’t tell anyone. It is a secret, after all.
Phil,
Can you post scans of some of these Ellie Light letters?
Can you make a running list of the papers running the letters?
Thank you,
KJ
querty,
Didn’t you also claim to be in the DOJ?
Although not paid by an organization like moveon.org, you are paid by the US government and you might have something to gain from your actions.
KJ
Phil -
This is an interesting version of the “have you stopped beating your wife” question. Because there is no acceptable answer.
If one says “no”, then the assumption is that the person is lying.
If one says “yes”, then it’s proof of the claim.
In either case, the assumption is that the person or site is part of some “secret Obama blog infiltration program”, with no answer being allowed to deny it that would be accepted. In other words, dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t.
Apparently no one here is familiar with astroturfing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing#Recent_examples
This practice was honed to a fine art in the last few years, so it’s no surprise that it continues.
No, I have denied many times being involved in any way with any branch of government. I have absolutely never, ever, ever claimed to be in the DoJ. The website with my name is listed solely as a joke.
Please stop telling lies about me.
So that presents one of two possible scenario’s.
“1.) All of these local newspapers were complicit with this little ruse. IE. They published a letter that they did not confirm. Making them complicit in this little deception.
2.) Ellie had people in each location that answered the phone and confirmed a false identity.
So which of these are you defending?”
Your “two possible scenario’s” is nuts. Do you really think newspapers “confirm” letters to the editor?
Actually, there is a third scenario. This could possibly be a “birther/patriot” trying to blame it on an obot. In fact, come to think of it, this makes more sense since Phil and all the birthers have made such a big deal of this. Yep, that’s it. Birthers are trying to frame obots for something they didn’t do.
Extra, Extra, read all about it: “Birthers Framing Obots”
Clinton, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiIP_KDQmXs
Obama: “I am a natural born citizen…”
http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/obama-not-eligible-obama-not-natural-born-citizen-obama-signature-on-arizona-candidate-nomination-paper-moniquemonicat-blog-did-obama-commit-fraud-did-obama-lie/
qwertyman: “I am not working for anybody, not coordinating with anybody or any group or any website. I have said many times that my comments are mine and mine alone.”
AllaSue Akhbar,
Are you the one in the burqa standing behind the IslamoComrade in Chief?
Barack Hussein Obama, IslamoComrade in Chief
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24002947/Allahu-Akhbar
Benaiah
Okay. Inasmuch as keokuk has come forward, I might well, too. For going on two years I have been a paid operative, first acting on behalf of the Obama campaign and, after January 20, 2009, as an agent of the administration. As part of my compensation the Obama Fight the Smears management agreed to pay for my online law skool diploma so I could have the necessary credentials to convince all of you Patriots that I am a lawyer. The plan was nearly exposed when Orly Taitz — another alum of the correspondence law skool — took up the cause against Obama; I have lived in perpetual fear that she would pull out her old yearbooks and look through the 15 of so graduates during the last seven years and recognize me. Hence, I pretend to be a Georgetown University Law Center alum when the reality is that I bought my degree from Wm. Howard Taft Skool of Truck Dispatching and Legal Research.
Unlike keokuk, however, I am paid in South African gelds deposited in a Grand Cayman account. Hedge against inflation, you know, and a currency that commands the respect of the Illuminati. Like her, I have risen through the organization and am salaried. I no longer get paid by the post, hence I no longer need to post at RSoL in order to collect my compensation. My current assignment is to plant birth notices in university library microfiche collections and to seed law review archives with false articles suggesting that the Framers looked to the common law of England for constitutional terms of art.
Phew, it feels good to get all this off my chest. Now I can check into that upscale ski resort (disguised as a FEMA camp) for a well-earned vacation.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5: No person except a natural-born citizen …shall be eligible to the office of President.
The issue of whether or not Obama is “eligible to the office of President” depends upon whether or not he is an Article II “natural born citizen” of the United States.
The phrase “natural born citizen” “must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution”.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark., 18 S. Ct. 456, 169 U.S. 649 (U.S. 03/28/1898)
[1] SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
[16] The Constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words ["citizen of the United States," and "natural-born citizen of the United States"], either by way of inclusion or of exclusion, except in so far as this is done by the affirmative declaration that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” In this, as in other respects, it [The Constitution] must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution. Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162 [At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 21 Wall. 162 (1874]; Ex parte Wilson, 114 U.S. 417, 422; Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 624, 625; Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. 465. The language of the Constitution, as has been well said, could not be understood without reference to the common law. 1 Kent Com. 336; Bradley, J., in Moore v. United States, 91 U.S. 270, 274.
The “common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution” was plainly expressed by the Supreme Court of the United States in the dissenting opinion of Scott v. Sandford, which quoted Vattel, and explicitly stated, “The natives or natural-born citizens are those born in the country of parents who are citizens…”
Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (U.S. 01/02/1856)
[1] UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
[418] …The natives or natural-born citizens are those born in the country of parents who are citizens…
Furthermore, the Supreme Court of the United States in 1814 relied upon Vattel’s “Law of Nations” as the authority on citizenship issues, and stated in The Venus, “The natives, or indigenes [natural-born citizens], are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”
The Venus, 12 U.S. (8 Cranch) 253, 1814
“Vattel, …is more explicit and more satisfactory on it [CITIZENSHIP ISSUES] than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, [Vattel] says, ‘…The natives, or indigenes [natural-born citizens], are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.’ ”
Vattel’s Law of Nations: § 212. Citizens and natives
…The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.
Finally, the Supreme Court of the United States, in Minor v. Happersett, confirmed the definition of a “natural born citizen” as “children born in a country of parents who were its citizens”.
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 21 Wall. 162 (1874)
“ ‘No person except a natural-born citizen …shall be eligible to the office of President’… The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.”
Simply put, Article II “natural born citizens” are those citizens who are “born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”
Hence, Obama is not an Article II “natural born citizen” of the United States, even if he was born in Hawaii, as his father was a “foreigner”…
To reiterate, Obama’s father was not a citizen of the United States.
Therefore, Obama is not an Article II “natural born citizen” of the United States.
Thus, Obama is not “eligible to the office of President”.
You know what? The more I think about this “Ellie Light”, the more I am convinced that the birthers really found all these “published letters” rather quickly which is rather “suspicious”, don’t you think?
This is the “birthers” trying to place the blame on obots. This is a “birther MO”, not an obot MO.
“Birthers are Busted.”
GeorgetownJDisinformation,
Perhaps I was mistaken about AllaSue. Are you the one in the burqa standing behind the IslamoComrade in Chief?
Or were you still attaining your top 14 JurisDisinformation degree at that time?
Barack Hussein Obama, IslamoComrade in Chief
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24002947/Allahu-Akhbar
Benaiah
Just because I live in a lot of places and write a lot of letters doesn’t mean I’m not real.
I’m both real and work for the Obama administration. What of it? We have been spreading misinformation since August 5, 1961. It’s really been amazing that some of you — like Phil — actually figured it out quite a long time ago. But nobody believes you. We are paid to mock you and call you birfers. And to claim you are all nuts in this titanic battle. And it’s worked. You’re not taken seriuously even though you are absolutely correct.
Along with my fellow agents, keokuk and GeorgetownJD, I have been writing letters for Barack Hussein Muhammad Obama Soetoro Malcolm X Davis ever since his first run for Congress back in the early 1990s. Notice how the persistence has paid off? And now I am a very wealthy woman with houses in 57 cities.
It just goes to show you can be a success here in America.
Benaiah,
Maybe this burqa-wearing woman you’re obsessed with is Condeleezza Rice: http://www.mahablog.com/wp-content/uploads/condihijab.jpg
Or perhaps it’s Laura Bush: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/26/laura-bush-scarf-ii/
Tracy
GeorgetownJD,
Sigh! Since you have “come clean”, I suppose I should too.
Remember this rumor?
http://69.84.25.250/blogger/post/Force-an-unfinished-long-form-Birth-Certificate-Forgery.aspx
“A recent article on this site had an inside tip that the Obama administration was working on a long-form Birth Certificate forgery (see article right-side talking about the long-form forgery) that would be ready in no less than two months. It was already printed using a 1960 Heidelberg Printing Press, but was going through an accelerated “aging” process to dry the certificate – ink and chemical dye.”
I have a very special assignment. I am in charge of “aging the long form birth certificate” which is coming along very nicely. The location is very secure and we anticipate release of the “long form birth certificate” in the very near future. Dudley Do-Right, who delivered the “long form birth certificate” to me, is also guarding the “long form birth certificate.”
My compensation is South African diamonds, delivered via carrier pigeons!
http://patterico.com/2010/01/24/who-is-mark-spivey/
Test everything. Hold onto the good. 1Thes 5:21
There everywhere! Must be here, too!
http://patterico.com/2010/01/24/still-more-astroturfing-gloria-elle-and-jan-chen-write-the-same-anti-republican-pro-obama-letter/
That’s all you’ve got Sue? Your going to resort to a completely unsubstantiated accusation. Ridicule and mockery? I guess I should have expected it.
Secondly, I know for a fact that Newspapers confirm Letters to the Editor before printing them. Let’s just call it first hand experience. So no, my two options are right on the mark. And you can not produce even a shred of evidence to counter.
But since you are going to throw the accusation out there, lets see your proof. Because your side is all about the proof. That’s all I have been seeing in your posts for a year. So let’s see yours.
AnotherReader,
“Secondly, I know for a fact that Newspapers confirm Letters to the Editor before printing them. Let’s just call it first hand experience. So no, my two options are right on the mark. And you can not produce even a shred of evidence to counter.”
Uh, my newspaper doesn’t. Frankly, there is no evidence whatsoever that “Ellie Light” is a birther or an obot, now do we? All purely speculation. You don’t have any evidence, nor do I.
“But since you are going to throw the accusation out there, lets see your proof. Because your side is all about the proof. That’s all I have been seeing in your posts for a year. So let’s see yours.”
You nor I have any “proof”, one way or the other. Until I read Phil’s article today, I have never even heard of “Ellie Light.”
No Sue, you don’t get to cop out now that you have been asked to prove your own statements. For someone is constantly mocking others, you don’t really have much to back it up do you?
“AnotherReader says:
January 24, 2010 at 6:57 pm
No Sue, you don’t get to cop out now that you have been asked to prove your own statements. For someone is constantly mocking others, you don’t really have much to back it up do you?”
Excuse me? You don’t really have much to back up the allegation that “Ellie Light” is an obot, now do you?
Actually yes we do. This is astroturf. The same letter published across the country under the same pen name addressed as a local in each location.
I suppose your going to argue that there were 40 or 50 people all named Ellie Light who all managed to write the same exact letter.
So no, I won’t excuse your constant lame mockery. Produce something to back up your ridiculous accusation that you pulled out of your arse because you can’t hold up your end of an argument.
“AnotherReader says:
January 24, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Actually yes we do. This is astroturf. The same letter published across the country under the same pen name addressed as a local in each location.
I suppose your going to argue that there were 40 or 50 people all named Ellie Light who all managed to write the same exact letter.
So no, I won’t excuse your constant lame mockery. Produce something to back up your ridiculous accusation that you pulled out of your arse because you can’t hold up your end of an argument.”
You have no credible, conclusive evidence that “Ellie Light” is an obot. None, zilch, nada.
The only ridiculous accusation made in this post was Phil’s accusation and McCarthyist demand that all opposition posters swear that they are not paid bloggers.
But given that Phil in a recent post copied a poster’s quote verbatim and passing it off as accurate without making any effort to verify it himself, and the subsequent and justified calling out he received for it, I’m not surprised that he would respond by making accusations of people in a manner Joseph McCarthy would be proud of.
LOL ;-D Sue, you are pathetic. You circle back to the beginning then claim no evidence when it’s right there in front of your face. Printed. Documented. There is nothing left to argue.
Let’s see all that brilliant intellectual firepower. Surely you can do better.
AnotherReader,
“LOL ;-D Sue, you are pathetic. You circle back to the beginning then claim no evidence when it’s right there in front of your face. Printed. Documented. There is nothing left to argue.”
A letter, published in numerous newspapers, signed by “Ellie Light” is not credible, verifiable evidence of anything. “Ellie Light” could be anybody–birther, patriot, obot; anybody. Do you have “evidence” of who “Ellie Light” is? No, you don’t. Unless you can link “Ellie Light” to an obot, you’ve got no evidence. Can you do that? Link “Ellie Light” to an obot? Nope, you can’t. By the same token, I cannot link “Ellie Light” to a birther/patriot.
LOL. I’ll have say you just punted. 4th and 25, nothing in the playbook for that.
AnotherReader,
“LOL. I’ll have say you just punted. 4th and 25, nothing in the playbook for that.”
Actually, you just punted. Please provide “verified proof” that “Ellie Light” is an obot. Can you do this?
That’s a newspaper report verifying multiple letters and addresses. I suppose we could look them all up. I suppose your going call the Plain Dealer reporter a Birther now aren’t you?
Now let’s see anything close to that for the proof of your claim. Sue this is too much fun watching you squirm like this. You threw out a blatant outrageous claim of the same type that have spent a year here decrying others of doing and you can’t back up your on BS.
qwertyman,
I think you need to re-read what I said. What I said is that, with respect to “some of the opposition commenters” on my site, “none of them [the 'some of the opposition commenters'] have ever denied being part of a ‘conspiracy of such magnitude.” I did not say that “all” opposition commenters have made any such statements.
Therefore, in your case, I probably would not suspect such behavior from you, hence your falling outside of those “some.”
As I said in the posting, some think I’ve already “[gone] pretty far off the deep end” RE: eligibility, so there’s nothing necessarily “stinging,” as it were, about such a reaction from you. However, I will be updating this posting with additional “dots” that could be connected with this story in general.
Do I take this as affirmation that your head is exploding? Regardless of your answer to an otherwise highly rhetorical question, I am quite paranoid of this Administration, likely just as much as some on the Left were clearly paranoid of the Bush “43″ Administration (therefore nothing new there).
Also, I guess that, based on your reaction, all of the pent-up good will between us has quickly evaporated. Ah well.
-Phil
KJ,
I would suggest following Patterico.com on this one. Also, any of the links to which I refer have the actual letters as posted per each newspaper. And Patterico does have tons more for research purposes.
-Phil
Patrick McKinnion,
First, remember, it wasn’t me who originally posed the question (though I don’t deny thinking it’s a great one); it came from Patterico.com, as I mentioned in the posting.
Secondly, I think you know as well as I do that I absolutely love stirring the pot, especially if it means getting one closer to the truth (and subsequently holding onto that truth for dear life thereafter).
You know, I have heard opposition commenters for over a year go on and on about how this eligibility issue isn’t an issue, and doing so on such an insignificantly small site such as mine out here on the ocean we call the blogosphere (or so I’m told, in not so many words).
If it’s no big deal, then what’s the problem, I ask with a big, huge, kid-like (yeah, I might as well throw that adjective in) grin on my face?
-Phil
GeorgetownJD,
The only problem with your story is that I’ve already confirmed who you are
-Phil
Interesting article on Scott Brown and his so called endorsement of Bill Hudak…
Yesterday, ThinkProgress noted that Senator-elect Scott Brown (R-MA) had endorsed a Republican congressional candidate, Bill Hudak, who told a newspaper in 2008 that President Obama “was not born in the United States but in Kenya.” Brown’s staff tried to distance him from Hudak yesterday by saying that Brown didn’t approve the endorsement “press release before its release or the quote that was attributed to Scott.” But in an interview with the Gloucester Daily Times today, Hudak said that he and Brown “are really close” and that “there’s no question” that Brown gave him “his endorsement.” Hudak also denied that he was ever a birther:
Regarding the November 2008 article, Hudak said he does believe the president is a U.S. citizen.
“There’s no basis that I’ve been able to find” that calls Obama’s citizenship into question, he said. “No matter what people think, he is the president of the United States. You don’t get to that level without being fully vetted.”
Hudak said he has clarified his stance, but it continues to be repeated, wrongfully, in the press. It’s “not even an issue.”
“It’s regrettable that that issue in my campaign put our great new senator in a compromising situation,” the candidate said. “There’s absolutely no basis for that.”
Hudak has released a statement saying that he “misinterpreted” Brown’s “verbal agreement of support” as “an approval to proceed with the endorsement announcement”:
“Our campaign misinterpreted his verbal agreement of support from Senator-elect Brown as an approval to proceed with the endorsement announcement. And, we did not follow proper procedure for getting the press release approved by the Senator-elect’s team,” said Hudak. “I look forward to taking Scott up on his pledge to help me, but will let him dictate when that support should be communicated,” continued Hudak. “What is most distressing is the extent to which left-wing bloggers continue to use smear tactics, including trying to portray me as a ‘birther’ and falsely denigrate and accuse Senator-elect Brown of being of that belief”, Hudak said. “Let me make clear that while I don’t agree with everything he does, President Obama is our President and I believe he was born in the United States, and accusations that he was not are unsupported nonsense and non-issues to the business of our country,” Hudak remarked.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/22/hudak-backtrack-birther/
qwertyman,
Nice — except for one thing.
I never pointed anyone out specifically regarding this posting.
Try again.
And yes, I have made mistakes RE: my postings, from time to time, and you can certainly continue to hold that against me as much as you wish. However, I’ll also be the first to make corrections, where necessary. I’m sure you could count on one hand how many (oh, let’s just go ahead and say it) “extremist,” “fringe” blogs are willing to do that, especially coming from opposition commenters.
Fortunately for you, as a benevolent dictator, while I have complete control over who gets to comment and who doesn’t, I’ve known your commentary long enough to realize that you have half a brain — and you sometimes use it!
-Phil
Clinton, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiIP_KDQmXs
Obama: “I am a natural born citizen…”
http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/obama-not-eligible-obama-not-natural-born-citizen-obama-signature-on-arizona-candidate-nomination-paper-moniquemonicat-blog-did-obama-commit-fraud-did-obama-lie/
Black Lion: “I support the Constitution…”
GeorgetownJD wrote:
I fessed up last March:
http://www.therightsideoflife.com/2009/03/10/leo-donofrio-quo-warranto-legal-brief-part-3/comment-page-1/
GeorgetownJD,
The only problem with your story is that I’ve already confirmed who you are
-Phil
_________________________
Ah, Phil, that just goes to show how good I am when I work undercover. You never knew who you were really communicating with. I was a CIA spook before the Obama campaign recruited me.
- GJD
No, you didn’t point out anybody specifically, you pointed a finger at everybody, your verbal gymnastics (none of them was referring to the some of them) notwithstanding. But if you’re going to level such an extraordinary accusation, why don’t you name names? Who do you think is being paid to comment here then?
Agreed, you show a willingness that almost no other birther blog has to correct yourself, at least somewhat, when you’ve made a mistake. That’s admirable, because there are too few people in this world willing to admit errors, especially when it comes to charged political debate.
Ellie Light is potentially an interesting topic for discussion, as was Cass Sunstein’s article about conspiracy theories (which WND and other right wing sites have completely misrepresented). Your tangential concluding remark with your wondering out loud whether (at least some) opposition commenters are being paid by the government or any other organization is completely baseless speculation and without merit.
And frankly, I would think that if there are any commenters here being paid to undermine your site, it’s people like Benaiah who posts the same quote from Dred Scott over and over again, as well as a photograph of President Obama at the Hagia Sophia with a xenophobic caption. He and others like him are doing much more to make birthers seem ridiculous than anything opposition commenters say.
It doesn’t have to be. Many of your recent posts about the Brown campaign and the recent Supreme Court case are worthy topics of discussion, and once I read the full decision I’ll be commenting in that thread.
Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (U.S. 01/02/1856)
[1] UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
[418] …The natives or natural-born citizens are those born in the country of parents who are citizens…
Obama: “You are absolutely right that John McCain has not…uh… talked about my Muslim faith…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKGdkqfBICw
Barack Hussein Obama, Muslim in Chief
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24002947/Allahu-Akhbar
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 21 Wall. 162 (1874)
“ ‘No person except a natural-born citizen …shall be eligible to the office of President’… The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.”
Obama: “I am a natural born citizen…”
http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/obama-not-eligible-obama-not-natural-born-citizen-obama-signature-on-arizona-candidate-nomination-paper-moniquemonicat-blog-did-obama-commit-fraud-did-obama-lie/
Barack Hussein Obama, Liar in Chief
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24002947/Allahu-Akhbar
Weekly Jihad Report
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Jihad Attacks: 33
Dead Bodies:102
Critically Injured: 201
Barack Hussein Obama, Jihadist in Chief
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24002947/Allahu-Akhbar
Matthew 7:15
Watch out for false prophets [OBAMESSIAH]. They come to you in sheep’s clothing [HOPE & CHANGE], but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
Thanks for the link, Phil. But I’m not buying into the birther nonsense.
That governments go for the propaganda angle is old hat, though. So my thinking is: why wouldn’t Obama do it, especially since he could use some boosting in the approval rating area right now?
From Hillbuzz:
Can anyone answer the following questions:
(1) Who is the person posting as BigotBasher on Daily Kos, DemocraticUnderground, etc.?
(2) Who runs the site TheBigotBasher.wordpress.com?
(3) Can anyone find contact information to let WordPress know its TOS are being violated by TheBigotBasher.wordpress.com — in that TheBigotBasher is libeling and defaming and engaging in tortious interference of contracts using WordPress to do so?
(4) What is the contact information for Daily Kos, DemocraticUnderground, Moveon.org, Organizing For America, and the rest of Obama’s goon squad?
(5) What authorities in the UK can be contacted to alert them to someone in their jurisdication engaging in libel, defamation of character, and tortious interference of contracts?
(6) Who is Sean O’Sullivan? Whom does he work for? What web sites does he run?
Several clues came in today saying he’s someone we would probably need to learn more about.
* 39 years old
* Lives in Birmingham, England
* Works as a “consultant”
What else can we find out about him and his internet activities — and what agenda has he been driving?
China accuses US of using cyberwarfare
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/092d5ab6-08fc-11df-ba88-00144feabdc0.html
“The US was the first country in the world to introduce the concept of cyberwar; it has introduced and developed a new kind of army, a cyberarmy, and even set up a hacker [OBOT] brigade,” People’s Daily said in a vitriolic editorial. “US intelligence agencies can, through technical means, fully monitor, follow and erase online information harmful to the US’ national interest. It is really ridiculous that under such circumstances, it demands other countries to allow the free flow of information on the net.”
OK, game’s up. I am paid blogger. I’ve been at it longer than any of you – I was part of the committee formed in 1960 to impregnate a woman to give birth to our manchurian candidate. I am paid in conch shells, routed via Gibralter for tax purposes.
I have to say our committee has not been entirely successful – we were aiming for a mixed race woman with muslim sounding name (we were so ahead of our time – thanks to our trendspotting sub committee), of the people, but not overly educated. Man were we surprised when we got a baby boy – Anne never would follow instructions to the letter, and she abjectly failed to lie on her back for three days after the turkey baster did it’s job with Malcom X’s sperm. And when he got into Harvard Law we almost abandoned the project to go with our second choice – but Kobe Bryant was by then making a go of it in basketball, and said no deal. So you go to war with what you’ve got – and we pulled it off until this week. It was fun while it lasted.
Phil,
I have to say this thread is awfully amusing.
Thanks for the intermitten comic relief. It also shows that they are all running out of factual debate responses so they have now succombed to jr high antics.
The problem is, is that we are not in jy high anymore, we are in real life with real life constitutional issues and abusing the 1st amendment is a very serious one when one starts abusing it for political purposes.
And for those who I have not addressed but feel the need to condemn & nit pick my argument, may I offer a couple of suggestions…
Don’t like our constitution as it is, amend it according the laws set forth within it for that process or go join bystander in the UK. I here they LUV the statist in that country whose laws we dumped in 1776. Laws that you cling to with every stroke of your keyboard.
Five Easy Questions for Obama
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/five_easy_questions_for_obama.html
[...]
What were your SAT and LSAT scores and your GPA at graduation from Columbia?
You are one of the youngest presidents ever, with one of the leanest track records in elected or executive office. Virtually all your predecessors served in the U.S. Congress for many years, or served as vice president, or in a cabinet, or a high military command position, or as governor of a state, prior to being president. (See Appendix.)
Yet you served in the U.S. Senate for only one year before starting your run for president, had never held any other national office, had never been a governor of any state, had never held any executive position, and had not even been in the military. We really know very little about you. We have not even seen your real birth certificate, meaning the official “long form” version.
We knew President Bush’s SAT scores and his grades at Yale. We also knew Al Gore’s SAT scores and grades at Harvard. And John Kerry’s grades, too. Yet without ever releasing any test scores or transcripts, you have been proclaimed as “probably the smartest guy ever to become president” by a presidential historian of such credibility that PBS puts him aside noted plagiarist Doris Kearns Goodwin on its News Hour.
So what exactly were your test scores and grades? Did you take any economics courses? Was your SAT score higher than 1206, which was President Bush’s score?
You told us your eleven-year-old daughter Malia’s score on a third-grade science test. How about telling us your test scores?
Essay Question: What, if anything, is wrong with socialism?
Imagine a world without elections and stubborn legislators to slow down enactment of your agenda. Fast-forward to the U.S. of your dreams. Describe it for us, in terms of who would control things like education, health care, banking, the media, the car companies, and the means of production in general.
Socialism would include single-payer health care. You already said you support that. Socialism would bring about “major redistributive change.” You have talked previously about doing that. The government now owns 61% of General Motors and all of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it backs nearly 90% of new home loans. Why not have more things under the control of government, and specifically the federal government?
What did Stalin and Mao do wrong? What did Fidel Castro do wrong? What is Hugo Chávez doing wrong? Be specific.
Which of the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto do you disagree with? Which parts of the Communist Party USA’s 2008 platform do you disagree with? Again, be specific.
On this question, use all the words you’d like.
[...]
Linda: Thanks for the intermitten comic relief. It also shows that they are all running out of factual debate responses so they have now succombed to jr high antics.
Intermittent, succumbed.
No Linda, it means it is so much fun parodying your ridiculous conspiracy theories, that we are allowed to do this for free in our official breaks from paid blogging.
Five easy answer for Benaiih
Q What were your SAT and LSAT scores and your GPA at graduation from Columbia?
69 milion people voted for Obama without knowing the answer to this question. Why the hell would he now pander to people that will never vote for him? Get over it, you lost.
Essay Question: What, if anything, is wrong with socialism?
What, if anything has this got to do with Obama? He has made his policies clear – you got to vote on it. 69 million people wanted his policies. You can give them any name that you like, but he has a mandate to do what he is doing. Again, get over it – you lost.
What did Stalin and Mao do wrong? What did Fidel Castro do wrong? What is Hugo Chávez doing wrong? Be specific.
What a childish game. When did Obama ever say he approved of everything (or indeed anything) that stalin, Mao and Chavez did. Why on earth should he try and defend their records? Is this a standard you wish to apply to right wing politicians? Get over it, you lost.
Which of the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto do you disagree with? Which parts of the Communist Party USA’s 2008 platform do you disagree with? Again, be specific.
Why don’t you find any aspect of Obama’s legislative programme that can also be found in the Communist Manifesto. You do realise that this sort of extreme name calling is a major turn off for the Independents you will have to win over if you ever want to win the Presidency again, don’t you? Get over it, you lost.
This is very interesting.
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg182171.html
Teabagger astroturf organizers say they want to take over the GOP
excerpts
“Teabagger organizers of the Astroturf outfits that originated the
Parties, FreedomWorks and Americans For Prosperity talk to CNN’s Chris
Matthews”
This is also interesting.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/09/lobbyists-planning-teaparties/
excerpts
“Despite these attempts to make the “movement” appear organic, the principle organizers of the local events are actually the lobbyist-run think tanks Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works. The two groups are heavily staffed and well funded, and are providing all the logistical and public relations work necessary for planning coast-to-coast protests:
– Freedom Works staffers coordinate conference calls among protesters, contacting conservative activists to give them “sign ideas, sample press releases, and a map of events around the country.”
– Freedom Works staffers apparently moved to “take over” the planning of local events in Florida.
– Freedom Works provides how-to guides for delivering a “clear message” to the public and media.
– Freedom Works has several domain addresses — some of them made to look like they were set up by amateurs — to promote the protests.
– Americans for Prosperity is writing press releases and planning the events in New Jersey, Arizona, New Hampshire, Missouri, Kansas, and several other states.
This type of corporate ‘astroturfing‘ is nothing new to either organization. While working to promote Social Security privatization, Freedom Works was caught planting one of its operatives as a “single mom” to ask questions to President Bush in a town hall on the subject. Last year, the Wall Street Journal exposed Freedom Works for similarly building “amateur-looking” websites to promote the lobbying interests of Dick Armey, the former Republican Majority Leader who now leads Freedom Works and is a lobbyist for the firm DLA Piper.”
Michael Merritt,
You’re welcome for the link.
RE: “birther nonsense,” that’s fine; I’ve been able to hold my own on the eligibility issue for quite a while now and don’t require others to believe the same as I do.
Keep up the great work over at your site.
Thanks,
-Phil
Sue,
What is the point of the links to the very liberal/progressive leaning thinkprogress? Are we supposed to read it as though it had any kind of credibility?
Any chance we are going to see your proof of your recent claims today? LOL
Please keep using the teabagger ad hominem and similar language. It only fuels the fire that will be the demise of the temporary perch the Dems have enjoyed recently. So keep those “educated” attacks coming, because I think they are really working now.
I’ll make this short, since the jokes have already been taken:
Are you a “part of a secret Obama blog infiltration program?”
No.
bystander says:
January 25, 2010 at 3:54 am
OK, game’s up. I am paid blogger. I’ve been at it longer than any of you – I was part of the committee formed in 1960 to impregnate a woman to give birth to our manchurian candidate. I am paid in conch shells, routed via Gibralter for tax purposes.
I have to say our committee has not been entirely successful – we were aiming for a mixed race woman with muslim sounding name (we were so ahead of our time – thanks to our trendspotting sub committee), of the people, but not overly educated. Man were we surprised when we got a baby boy – Anne never would follow instructions to the letter, and she abjectly failed to lie on her back for three days after the turkey baster did it’s job with Malcom X’s sperm. And when he got into Harvard Law we almost abandoned the project to go with our second choice – but Kobe Bryant was by then making a go of it in basketball, and said no deal. So you go to war with what you’ve got – and we pulled it off until this week. It was fun while it lasted.
____________________________________________________________________
That was hilarious…It is more believable than the other story…You know the one where a very pregnant and mostly poor 17 year old college student gets on a propeller type plane (DC-3 type) and decided to fly over 10,000 miles to a third world country. A flight that was not direct in any way and would take about 3 days. While there she goes to a city further away and less industrilized (Mombassa) than the capital city, (Nairobi) which was closer and had better hospitals. Then said college student has the thought to make an international call back to Hawaii to make sure that the college student’s mother would go to the state and register a baby 4 days after the birth, providing no proof at all. Or better yet college student was able to make it back to the US, a long trip, in less than 4 days in order to meet the requirements of a regulation that was not in effect until 20 years later. And then was able to have records of college students travel records erased so that there would be no record of such a trip.
Wow after reading that again your story Bystander is so much more belevable (snark)…lol.
AnotherReader,
“What is the point of the links to the very liberal/progressive leaning thinkprogress? Are we supposed to read it as though it had any kind of credibility?”
Door swings both ways. Are we suppose to read the Rt. leaning blogs/media as though they had any kind of credibility?
” Michael Merritt says:
January 25, 2010 at 12:13 am
Thanks for the link, Phil. But I’m not buying into the birther nonsense.
That governments go for the propaganda angle is old hat, though. So my thinking is: why wouldn’t Obama do it, especially since he could use some boosting in the approval rating area right now?”
I’m waiting on the carrier pigeon to deliver my last payment of South African diamonds, at which time, the properly “aged vault copy, long form birth certificate” will be released. HQ has not notified me yet as to who will hold the press release. Perhaps Dudley Do-Right. Stay tuned.
Sue,
I’m not the one posting on a conservative leaning site attempting to influence the regulars with opinion pieces from a liberal blog.
Black Lion says:
January 25, 2010 at 9:39 am
____________________________________________________________________
That was hilarious…It is more believable than the other story…You know the one where a very pregnant and mostly poor 17 year old college student gets on a propeller type plane (DC-3 type) and decided to fly over 10,000 miles to a third world country. A flight that was not direct in any way and would take about 3 days. While there she goes to a city further away and less industrilized (Mombassa) than the capital city, (Nairobi) which was closer and had better hospitals. Then said college student has the thought to make an international call back to Hawaii to make sure that the college student’s mother would go to the state and register a baby 4 days after the birth, providing no proof at all. Or better yet college student was able to make it back to the US, a long trip, in less than 4 days in order to meet the requirements of a regulation that was not in effect until 20 years later. And then was able to have records of college students travel records erased so that there would be no record of such a trip.
Wow after reading that again your story Bystander is so much more belevable (snark)…lol.
BL you’re right it is more believable, isn’t it? The most crazy thing to me about the Kenya nonsense is the internal inconsistency. The logistics are ridiculous, agreed. But why would a woman that was so concerned about her son being an nbc that this vast conspiracy was enacted, involving asking her parents to commit a felony, go to Kenya to give birth in the first place? Why not go after his birth to show him off to the Kenyan relatives. After all, the only possible reason for the conspiracy to plant Hawaiian evidence of birth would be if he wanted to be president, otherwise for every other contingency naturalised citizen after return from Kenya would do. So did Anne have the foresight to imagine her mixed race baby with a silly name would one day be president? It is so absurd you fear for the mental health of anyone that believes this.
AnotherReader,
“I’m not the one posting on a conservative leaning site attempting to influence the regulars with opinion pieces from a liberal blog.”
Actually, I’m not trying to “influence” anyone. I am just presenting another side to the story. Fair and balanced news.:)
Both political parties engage in astroturfing.
Wow Sue, I think that is the lamest answer yet. The only point to post here would be to “influence”. This really illustrates why you don’t and in general the liberal elites will never get it. Kind of amazing when you consider all of those certificates hanging on wall telling them how smart they are and all.
In a nutshell here are your brilliant tactics:
1.) Mock and ridicule anyone who views the world differently than you do.
2.) Imply at every turn that they are stupid. Because that is the only reason they don’t believe as you do.
3. ) When challenged to provide concrete evidence of your claims, simply sidestep and then redirect the same question.
4.) Assume that anyone who would frequent a blog such as the TRSOL would only be getting their news from one source. So it’s your duty to inform them of the other side.
In fact, this seems to be the Democrats game plan for dealing with anyone who does not view the world through their rose colored glasses. And as I stated before, it is really working well for them. Their poll numbers are in a death spiral because the people are tired of their arrogance, excuses, blaming everyone but themselves, and lack of transparency into their true agenda. Of course, they are so insulated in their own social and ideological circles that they can not see the forest for the trees and will not see the fall coming. IE Mass. And I say bravo. Tremendous strategy!
You obviously could learn a thing or two from Dale Carnegie’s Winning Fiends and Influencing People. You should pick up a copy.
PATHETIC…
COMRADE OBAMA USES TELEPROMPTER TO INDOCTRINATE 6TH GARDERS
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//100119/480/9131bc77c7534185bdbf267bb4ab8497/
AnotherReader,
“Wow Sue, I think that is the lamest answer yet. The only point to post here would be to “influence”. This really illustrates why you don’t and in general the liberal elites will never get it. Kind of amazing when you consider all of those certificates hanging on wall telling them how smart they are and all.”
I don’t think I have ever represented myself as being smart.
“In a nutshell here are your brilliant tactics:
1.) Mock and ridicule anyone who views the world differently than you do.
2.) Imply at every turn that they are stupid. Because that is the only reason they don’t believe as you do.”
And, just what would you call what you are doing now? The only time I have ever used the word “stupid” here was regarding Sarah Palin’s physician.
“3. ) When challenged to provide concrete evidence of your claims, simply sidestep and then redirect the same question.”
You have yet to provide me with any concrete evidence that “Ellie Light” is an obot.
“4.) Assume that anyone who would frequent a blog such as the TRSOL would only be getting their news from one source. So it’s your duty to inform them of the other side.”
How do you know what I assume? As I stated, both political parties engage in astroturfing and I provided sources.
“In fact, this seems to be the Democrats game plan for dealing with anyone who does not view the world through their rose colored glasses. And as I stated before, it is really working well for them. Their poll numbers are in a death spiral because the people are tired of their arrogance, excuses, blaming everyone but themselves, and lack of transparency into their true agenda. Of course, they are so insulated in their own social and ideological circles that they can not see the forest for the trees and will not see the fall coming. IE Mass. And I say bravo. Tremendous strategy!”
What makes you think I’m a Democrat?
“You obviously could learn a thing or two from Dale Carnegie’s Winning Fiends and Influencing People. You should pick up a copy.”
Practice what you preach.
36 dead as car bombs rock Baghdad hotels
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60O2QD20100125
Obama: “You are absolutely right that John McCain has not…uh… talked about my Muslim faith…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKGdkqfBICw
Barack Hussein Obama, Muslim in Chief
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24002947/Allahu-Akhbar
qwertyman,
It’s so much more fun to watch the reaction to this posting instead of actually coming out and naming names.
“Your tangential remark … is completely baseless speculation and without merit.” According to whom, I ask more rhetorically than expecting an answer?
Remember, the entire eligibility issue, per se, according to some, is considered “completely baseless speculation and without merit.”
“Many of your recent posts … are worthy topics of discussion…” Again, according to whom, you?
I suppose that if the good will between you and I is completely contingent upon what I choose to publish on my site, then the good will will never occur again. I am independent as a blogger and I don’t take orders from anyone in the blogosphere.
I’m also aware that, for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction — and that reaction has certainly been great on a number of fronts.
-Phil
It’s certainly your right to allow opposition commenters to post and then to troll them like this.
According to your own post.
That’s the only thing you post to back up your assertion that there may be posters paid to be here. At least you seem to recognize that you’re doing it more to get a rise out of people than because you actually believe it to be true.
Good will is always contingent upon mutual respect. If I feel that you’re flinging accusations at me or others that they’re being paid to be here, then it seems that the mutual respect is lacking.
In His Own Words: Obama’s Communist Manifesto
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/09/08/blogs/coopscorner/entry5295526.shtml
Bingo! [FOR BYSTANDER] Call It Communism
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/bingo_call_it_communism_1.html
I once wrote that we could play “Communist Manifesto Bingo”: once President Obama enacts or strengthens five planks from the Communist Manifesto, yell “bingo” and you win. One month into President Obama’s first term, BINGO!
I did change my own game rules just a tad. Instead of using the exact planks from Marx, which can be ambiguous for some people, I’m using a more detailed list from the current Communist Party USA. The CPUSA provides its platform on its website . Find “Election 2008″ and go to “Click here to download PDF.” I saved you the trouble, though, and listed the CPUSA’s platform in a nice outline, below.
(Just for you anti-conspiracy buffs, note that I am not dredging up Marx himself, or something written by an anti-communist decades ago. I am citing the exact words of the Communist Party of the USA itself, as it exists right now. I encourage you to visit the CPUSA’s web site. Obama’s presidency is animating for them; the excitement vibrates through almost every article. The National Chair calls it a “new era.” I’m not making this up.)
1. Immediate Relief
1.1 A moratorium on foreclosures and evictions.
1.2 Reset mortgages so payments are affordable.
1.3 No bailouts for banks.
1.4 Extend unemployment compensation, increase payments and eligibility.
1.5 Increase food stamps, WIC, children’s health ins., low income energy assistance.
1.6 Assist state and local governments.
1.7 Fund “ready-to-go” infrastructure projects.
2. A Peacetime, Green Jobs Economy for All
2.1 Enact massive public works.
2.2 Make existing buildings energy efficient.
2.3 Construct new schools, affordable housing, mass transit and bridges.
2.4 Major clean, affordable energy dvpt project for solar, wind, and biomass.
2.5 Program to cut greenhouse gas emissions, environmental cleanup.
2.6 Restore energy regulation and public ownership of utilities.
2.7 Enact the Employee Free Choice Act.
2.8 Enact HR 676, US National Health Insurance Act, single payer.
2.9 Fund public education, pre-school through higher and technical.
2.10 No privatization of Social Security or Medicare.
2.11 Expand and improve SS & Medicare benefits.
3. Restore Civil Rights, Bill of Rights, Separation of Powers
3.1 Restore Civil Rights Act enforcement, affirmative action.
3.2 Outlaw hate crimes.
3.3 Preserve Roe v Wade.
3.4 Immigration reform with path to citizenship, no militarization of borders.
3.5 No exploitative guest worker programs.
3.6 No human being is illegal.
3.7 Repeal the Patriot Act.
3.8 Investigate and prosecute Bush administration violations.
3.9 Expand voting rights.
3.10 Enact publicly financed elections.
3.11 Same-day registration.
3.12 Voting rights for ex-felons.
3.13 Restore Fairness Doctrine in media.
4. Strength through Peace
4.1 Withdraw US troops from Iraq with no bases or US corporations left behind.
4.2 Full care for returning veterans.
4.3 No war on Iran.
4.4 No expansion of troops in Afghanistan.
4.5 Assistance to Iraq to rebuild Iraq.
4.6 New foreign policy of diplomacy, respect for all nations.
4.7 Renew commitment to UN.
4.8 End trade policies that enrich corporations and destroy jobs.
4.9 Ratify Kyoto Treaty and other climate change agreements.
4.10 Enforce nuclear non-proliferation.
4.11 Work to abolish nuclear weapons.
4.12 Cut Pentagon spending in half.
4.13 Close down US bases around the world.
Just seeing this list should open your eyes. It is exactly what is happening. Much of it is like reading a description of Obama’s stimulus package. Name three things on that list that any Democratic Senator would not applaud. But let’s go through the list anyway, and see how we’re doing.
(Another note to you anti-conspiracy buffs. You might think you could find, say, a neo-Nazi list that looks like the Republican agenda. I’ll bet you can’t. I went to the American Nazi party’s web site to see what they have. They have no list. They want you to send them $5 just to see their “Info Pack.” I wasn’t that curious.)
Work on items 1.1 (A moratorium on foreclosures and evictions) and 1.2 (Reset mortgages so payments are affordable) had already started before Obama even got in office. The government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last September. Fannie and Freddie enacted a foreclosure moratorium and announced it in November. They encouraged lenders to “reduce interest rates, delay back payments and penalties, stretch the length of the loan or deferring payments.”
So far, at least CitiGroup and JPMorgan have done as they were “encouraged.”
But President Obama has much bolder plans, approximately $275B worth — for now. According to the Washington Times,
“The plan seeks to lower monthly mortgage payments for delinquent homeowners through various incentives ranging from helping to make interest payments to rewarding lenders and borrowers with stipends of $1,000 to $1,500 for staying current on the loans. For homeowners with unaffordable loans, the goal would be to lower payments to less than a third of their pretax income.”
Check the first two items off the list.
The $787B stimulus package signed into law February 13 by President Obama took care of several items on the list:
1.4 Extend unemployment compensation, increase payments and eligibility.
1.5 Increase food stamps, WIC, children’s health ins., low income energy assistance.
1.6 Assist state and local governments.
1.7 Fund “ready-to-go” infrastructure projects.
2.1 Enact massive public works.
2.2 Make existing buildings energy efficient.
2.3 Construct new schools, affordable housing, mass transit and bridges.
2.4 Major clean, affordable energy dvpt project for solar, wind, and biomass.
2.5 Program to cut greenhouse gas emissions, environmental cleanup.
Whoever wrote the stimulus bill with his right hand almost seems to have had the CPUSA’s list in his left hand. Check. Check. And checkmate.
Several items on CPUSA’s list are already law or policy, or simply amount to not undoing something. I’m not sure why they are on the list, other than to say they should be strengthened or spending on them should be increased. Here are the ones I think are already taken care of.
2.9 Fund public education, pre-school through higher and technical.
2.10 No privatization of Social Security or Medicare.
2.11 Expand and improve SS & Medicare benefits.
3.1 Restore Civil Rights Act enforcement, affirmative action.
3.2 Outlaw hate crimes.
3.3 Preserve Roe v Wade.
3.10 Enact publicly financed elections.
4.2 Full care for returning veterans.
4.3 No war on Iran.
About 90% of K-12 education is already government run. But President Obama wants to extend it. It’s not enough that the indoctrination starts at age five; Obama wants it to start at birth. “Cradle to cubicle”, Charles Krauthammer calls it. Someone also made sure that no part of the $66B of the stimulus going to education would go to private schools.
“No recipient . . . shall use such funds to provide financial assistance to students to attend private elementary or secondary schools.” As quoted in the Wall Street Journal .
Roe v Wade has been intact and indeed expanded and strengthened since 1973. President Obama just issued a Presidential Memorandum to reinstate the “Mexico Policy,” which allows US government funds to be used “to pay for the performance of abortions … or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions” anywhere in the world. And now he plans to coerce doctors to provide abortions right here in the US.
On the foreign policy front, I think we can say President Obama has a “new foreign policy of diplomacy, respect for all nations.” He sent a badminton team to Iran. He congratulated Hugo Chavez on his move to become President-for-life, he’s easing tensions with Syria, etc. President Obama also raised the status of UN Ambassador to Cabinet level. I think we can check items 4.6 and 4.7 off the list.
We’re making good progress. Here are the remaining items.
1.3 No bailouts for banks.
2.6 Restore energy regulation and public ownership of utilities.
2.7 Enact the Employee Free Choice Act.
2.8 Enact HR 676, US National Health Insurance Act, single payer.
3.4 Immigration reform with path to citizenship, no militarization of borders.
3.5 No exploitative guest worker programs.
3.6 No human being is illegal.
3.7 Repeal the Patriot Act.
3.8 Investigate and prosecute Bush administration violations.
3.9 Expand voting rights.
3.11 Same-day registration.
3.12 Voting rights for ex-felons.
3.13 Restore Fairness Doctrine in media.
4.1 Withdraw US troops from Iraq with no bases or US corporations left behind.
4.4 No expansion of troops in Afghanistan.
4.5 Assistance to Iraq to rebuild Iraq.
4.8 End trade policies that enrich corporations and destroy jobs.
4.9 Ratify Kyoto Treaty and other climate change agreements.
4.10 Enforce nuclear non-proliferation.
4.11 Work to abolish nuclear weapons.
4.12 Cut Pentagon spending in half.
4.13 Close down US bases around the world.
In almost all the remaining items, President Obama or Democrats in the various states are busy doing what they can (e.g., same-day registration, letting felons vote). President Obama has already asked for a 10% cut in Pentagon spending and Barney Frank asked for 25%. Give it time; we’ll get there.
(Space limits a full discussion of each line item and how it is being implemented. I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.)
Only two items on the whole list appear to be contradicted.
1.3 No bailouts for banks.
4.4 No expansion of troops in Afghanistan.
Frankly, I’m suspicious about the bailout of banks. Sure, they’re being “bailed out,” if you call becoming an indentured servant being bailed out of bankruptcy jail. The banks are now being told how to run their businesses, how much they can make in bonuses, where to have their meetings (e.g., not Las Vegas), and how to get there (not private jets).
In fact, many are, or will be, nationalized. I think we can, effectively, scratch item 1.3 off our list.
So what’s the score? Of 44 items on the CPUSA’s list,
* 22 are already enacted.
* 21 are in work.
* 1 is being violated.
Halfway there gets me my Bingo. Pretty good for being in office just one month. Heck, at this pace, the CPUSA will have to come up with another list by summer.
Only one item out of 44 is being violated: Obama is sending more troops to Afghanistan. He’s adding 17,000 on top of the 30,000 already there.
Funny, that’s the only thing Bill Ayers, Mr. “Small ‘c’ communist” and terrorist bomber, could find fault with in President Obama term of office so far.
What’s up with that? I guess the easy explanation is that Obama doesn’t want to go against his generals’ wishes right out of the chute. There is a war going on, you know. Some generals asked for 30,000 troops; Obama gave them 17,000.
I also have another suspicion. I think Obama really, really wants to get Osama bin Laden. He’s even willing to lose Pakistan, with its nukes, to Taliban and jihadi warlords if that’s what it takes. Not that I think Obama cares all that much about the War on Terror. But can you imagine the press he’d get, bagging the A-Number-One 9/11 terrorist after Bush let him slip away for eight years? I admit it’s just a guess.
But we’re making good progress: halfway there in just one month. Be patient, comrades. As CPUSA’s National Chair, Sam Webb, was quoted in the People’s Weekly World ,
“The ‘biggest challenge’ now, he told the meeting, is to ‘resist efforts by reaction and some on the left’ to advocate a break in the coalition that elected Obama and is now led by him. ‘We will have our differences but they have to be handled so as not to break the overall unity,’ he said.”
President Obama is leading our coalition. Unite behind him. You have nothing to lose but your minds, and your life savings.
Obama an Unconstitutional Illegal President
Wash Times Natl Wkly – 01/25/2010 Issue – pg 5
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25786596/Obama-an-Unconstitutional-Illegal-President-20100125-Issue-Wash-Times-Natl-Wkly-pg-5
Phil – I was pointing out that, according to the argument, there would be no answer I could provide that would accepted other than a “yes, I’m getting paid”.
As YOU know, the only income I get for my blogging is from Google AdSense. And in another month or so, I might be able to afford a meal at Wendy from it. But me, a paid political blogger?? *laugh*
Though I did get about $50 to allow someone to reprint one of my bad movie reviews. I guess that makes me a paid *movie* blogger.
If any of you have not wondered why NONE of the MainStreamMedia have even offered a peep about Obama’s lack of Constitutional eligibility, here’s a very likely explanation (the thread begins “I Believe …”):
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/
And if you’ve not heard any of the reasons he’s NOT eligible, check other blog entries on that site and, for fun (though they start slowly), check these links for understandable information:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsX5DzZHkIU Three Little Words
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNGG8tIJNMY Merry Christmas OmeriKa!!
Obama Would ‘Rather Be [DICTATOR] Really Good One-Term President’
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/president-obama-good-term-president/story?id=9657337
President Obama, buffeted by criticism of his massive health care reform bill and election setbacks [and the fact that he knows he isn't eligible], said today he remained determined to tackle health care and other big problems despite the political dangers [THE ELIGIBILITY ISSUE] to his presidency.
“I’d rather be a [DICTATOR] really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president,” he told ABC’s “World News” anchor Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview today.
The Religion of Peace
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Lahore: 12-year-old Christian domestic worker killed by Muslim employer
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Lahore:-12-year-old-Christian-domestic-worker-killed-by-Muslim-employer-17437.html
…A Protestant NGO, Sharing Life Ministry Life (SLMP), reported the case of Shazia Bashir, 12, who was employed for the past eight months as a domestic worker in the household of Chaudhry Muhammad Naeem, a lawyer and former president of the Lahore Bar Association.
Local Christians say that during that period the girl was the victim of constant harassment, and that she was raped and tortured before she was killed.
qwertyman,
Good qualifier in your statement, “seem.” This posting is quite the story, and I intend to keep an eye on it, going forward.
Frankly, qwertyman, I don’t express much sympathy in your direction, except for the fact that you appear to be one of a very, precious few opposition commenters that dares to actually have a reasonable conversation on this site. I dare say that most other opposition commenters would deny Mr. Obama’s ineligibility, should the facts point explicitly in that direction.
-Phil
…we suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies … will undermine the crippled epistemology of those who subscribe to such theories. They do so by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity.
Read more: http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/01/18/stealth-propaganda/comment-page-4/?action=late-new&order=asc#ixzz0dh8dbPBj
One of the things that I love about the left is that they always publish their plans in advance. It makes it so much easier to know what they are up to.
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by WeThePeopleUSA: Obama Czar Sunstein advocated “infiltration” of conservative blogs. Plouffe mastermind? http://bit.ly/6hK75F #tcot #ocra #ucot #teaparty…
Outing Obama’s Internet Brownshirts
http://www.thepostemail.com/2010/01/26/outing-obamas-internet-brownshirts/
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, LET’S SHINE A LIGHT ON OBAMA POLITICAL OPERATIVES!
by John Charlton
(Jan. 26, 2010) — Recent reports have brought national attention to the fact that Obama has implemented Cass Sunstein’s strategy of cognitive dissonance, in the creation of Internet teams which harass citizens with invective on Internet blogs, forums, chat rooms, and websites. Several sites have been attacked by this corp of Brown Shirts, others hacked, others harassed.
The Post & Email has substantial internal evidence that there are individuals who post the same identical comments over and over in favor of Obama and attacking his critics. Since these individuals are most likely members of Obama’s Brown Shirt corps, under direct or indirect control of Cass Sunstein, we believe it a duty of patriotism to make it a policy of listing the little information we have about them, so that other sites can examine their own computer logs and collect information on these individuals, in a mutual effort to protect free speech.
List of Brown Shirt Members:
Preston, claims to use [email protected] as his email, and posts from the ip number 192.30.115.XXX, which ip number is associated with Palomar Community College District, San Marcos, California: he posts repeated comments berating Neil Sankey (Private Investigator working with Orly Taitz).
Myron, claims to use [email protected] (redacted) as his email, and posts from ip number 198.22.21.XXX, which ip number is associated with Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Houston, Texas: Myron posts comments in perfect “cognitive dissonance” form, to disagree with any point he believes is most vulnerable and to attempt to get a reaction.
Amalgam, claims to use [email protected] (redacted) as his email, and posts from ip number 66.214.93.XXX, which ip number is a Charter Communications Customer, out of Malibu, California: he is rather famous for 1) appearing to be a resident of the same locale as the editors of Snopes.com, and 2) posting recurrent nasty remarks about anything he/she can think of. His/her nick makes one thing of a Union employee; but he has used other nicks which indicate familiarity with the OT and Hebrew language.
Not true, is not so easy to identify, since he changes his nick and his email address, [email protected], also changes to suit his message, but he prefers a “not true” kind of tone; he posts from the ip number 12.204.118.XXX, which is out of Parsippaney, New Jersey, and which is associated with Gannet Co. (the news agency?).
smrstrauss (snrstrauss), is a rather notorious Obot, who uses [email protected] (redacted) as his email address, and and posts from ip number 96.237.177.XXX, which hails from Arlington, Massachusetts. You’ll find him more frequently at The Right Side of Life.
da verg, is another infamous Obot, who claims to use [email protected] (redacted) as his email address, and posts from 75.11.185.XXX, which hails from San Diego, California: notorious for his twisted logic, personal attacks, he seems unable to resist attacking a certain women lawyer who sue Obama.
The Everett-WA Stalker, is perhaps the most violent and perverse of all Obots: he resides in the vicinity of Spokane, Washington, uses a variety of nicks and email addresses and ips numbers: at The Post & Email he has expressed hope and delight that all conservatives are sent to gulags and exterminated, that all Birthers are shot, and that Orly be violently raped. The Post & Email has filed 3 criminal complaints against him with the Spokane Police Department, which seems yet to have done nothing to stop him. He seems to be a time bomb waiting to explode in another shooting spree. Recently he has switched his IP number to state parks outside of Seattle.
Mary Adams, is one of the original “I hate Orly” obots, who claims to use [email protected] as her email, and posts from ip number 24.10.112.xxx, which hails from Sacramento, California, though she is known to use different ips: she prefers nasty comments, insults and mindless statements. If she is from Sacramento, then she is probably a state worker, who gets a cushy enough job to afford high speed cable access from home.
Seriously, is an obot who claims to use [email protected] (redacted) as his email, and posts from ip number 206.208.224.XXX, which is associated with the Cap Gemini system, in the N. suburbs of Houston. He loves the word “stupid” and “get over it” and emphasizes that Obama is “our” president, which obviously means he considers himself part of Obama’s regime.
bob, is a pervert from San Francisco, who claims to use [email protected] as his email and who posts from ip number 75.36.159.XXX in the city of San Francisco: he is obsessed with the vocabulary of perverse acts against women.
Bovril, is another classic obot, who claims to use [email protected] as his email, and posts from ip number 67.81.177.xxx, which hails out of Hoboken, New Jersey. He practices Cass Sunsteins cognitive infiltration tactics. He might be the same guy as “Not true.”
The Newton Center Obot, uses a variety of nicks and emails addresses, and hails from Newton Center, MA. He known to use irony and satire, since he has no facts to back up his disagreeing statement.
Since our outing of Obots in a previous report, we have not seen the Brown Shirts who hail from the northern suburb of Montreal, or the NE suburb of Orlando Florida; nor the one from Westchester Country, New York.
You see light makes cockroaches scatter. Search the logs of your blog/website, and you might find a lot of visits from the Brown Shirts above. By posting your own lists you can protect free speech by shaming the political operatives of the Obama regime.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by WeThePeopleUSA, WeThePeopleUSA and WeThePeopleUSA, WeThePeopleUSA. WeThePeopleUSA said: Obama Czar Sunstein advocated "infiltration" of conservative blogs. Plouffe mastermind? http://bit.ly/6hK75F #tcot #ocra #ucot #teaparty [...]
I guess it wasn’t a master plan by the Obama administration at all….Does this mean that all of the people who happen to think that the President is eligible is no longer on George Soros’ payroll? Does this mean Cass Susstein in not our boss anymore? This entire issue was ridiculous conspiracy theory from the begining…But I guess it is easier to believe that the only people that support the President would be paid operatives rather than some of the 69 million that voted for him…
WASHINGTON — Ellie Light, the ubiquitous letter writer arousing blogosphere suspicions that she is a White House operative spreading the gospel of Barack Obama, is actually a registered nurse. She lives in a California community near Bakersfield. …
“That was by design,” she said of her small-newspaper strategy, “because I want to address people who never talk to a liberal. By design, I talk to smaller presses, hoping to get a dialogue going with some of the editors and some of the readers.”
A proud Democrat, she said that “I want to deliberately talk to the enemy” and “people deep, deep in the red states.” …
In the telephone interview Monday night, she expressed a mix of amusement and aggravation at the claims she’s heard since news of her story — or what was known of it — went viral, thanks largely to Drudge Report and other Web sites and then Fox News. She sees little logic in the claims that senior White House advisor David Axelrod is the wizard behind the letters. …
As for her politics, she used to be “pretty ultra-left” but grew tired of that after concluding that the far left wing lacked loyalty. That mindset, she said, is that “we don’t care about the ultimate result, we just want purity.”
“I no longer have use for that.”
http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2010/01/ellie_light_really_ellie_li.html
Ellie Light, mystery letter writer: Is she the nurse named Barbara or the man named Winston?
http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2010/01/ellie_light_mystery_letter_wri.html
The Obamatons try to laugh this through but they’re again at the losing end -
I pity them somehow because their assignement have placed them anyway between a rock and a hard place, and their position gets worse day bay day – (review the term “predicament”)
I.e. what they are supposed to do is to defuse the interest for Obama’s BC and his presidential illegitimacy – yet, the more they try to convince, confuse, obfuscate and deflect the debate regarding this, the noisier the debate grows, and more people are attracted to it, and more and more people begin to see the issue as legitimate, and that the Obama party is hiding something -
Free advertising and we should appreciate the Obamatons persistent contribution at publicising this matter and, by obviously orchestrated muzzling campaigns, giving credence to the Birther cause -
So, keep doing it, guys – you sure bring in customers for this cause – hehehe – an edifying gallery: Siserda, GeorgedtownJd, Sue, SanDiegoSam, Sue, Black Lion, Bry, Bystander, Preston (poor him), etc., etc. -
Thank you guys for working so hard for having Obama impeached – hehehe –
And now, with Obama’s gross incompetence having become an accepted notion (even amongst distressed MSM figures), the Birthers’ campaign advances unhampered anymore by media’s deflective cocoon – indeed, the MSM aren’t Obama defenders anymore, but look like some quiet vultures perched on tree branches awaiting for their turn – and they’ll sure have a great day when Obama will be proved as a fraud, and the Democrat Party will explode in four winds -
First step, the 2010 elections – hehehe -
Then the 2012 elections – hehehe -
Mane, Tekel, Fares…
Life is beautiful -
The “Brit” Bystander,
Hillbuzz claims to have outed two posters with British IP addresses that published an actual name and an actual photo of two posters at the Hillbuzz blog. In Chicago, someone could use the published name and the published photo to find the Hillbuzz bloggers and do bodily harm to them.
I find it mind boggling that anyone in Britain would do something that could result in harm to stateside PUMA bloggers. Why would a Brit go to the trouble to identify and publish possibly sensitive personal information on bloggers who question Mr. Obama?
Why would any British people be interested in the controversies surrounding Mr. Obama? Is it because he claimed British citizenship at birth? You said something to the effect that you personally enjoy laughing at the pathetic birthers. I don’t buy your explanation. You, bystander, seem (to me) to be almost too familiar with stateside news, events, the eligibility issue, etc. and your English is very American. The only “bystander” comments I remember seeing have been the very recent ones at this site.
In fact, I find your style similar to a former commenter here that was banned at TRSOL. This commenter could be in Europe somewhere for all we know, or still in the States mirroring comments through a European server with some IP address windowdressing..
Maybe the “Brits” commenting at Hillbuzz are mirroring comments through a European server too.
PS This is no joke.
KJ – yes it is a joke. When did it become suspicious to be well informed? It would have saved the birthers a lot of money and heartache if they had availed themselves of the same information I have. In case you are unaware of my posting history, I dare say Phil could fill you in. He also knows my IP address and can confirm if he chooses to that it is not that of whoever posts at HillBuzz.
In case you are unaware (most birthers don’t know much about “abroad”) – there are 60 million people in the UK – I dare say it was one of the other 59,999,999.
It is interesting that as the birthers case continues to implode, the tactic changes to attack the messenger. But since you are so interested here is my profile: I lived in the US for many years in CT, NY, CA, WA and FL. I currently own a vacation home in the US. I visit at least once a year – last year WA and OR, year before AZ, NV and CA (rafted the length of the Grand Canyon – try it, it’s a brilliant trip). My children were born in NY and CT and are natural born citizens of the USA (although Linda is unable to accept that and thinks they are phony citizens!). I have lived in London for some time now. My brother is a US citizen and my parents live half the year in the US. Now do you see why I might sound like an American?
I have followed US politics closely since about 2002 – UK politics is very dull by comparison. I started at Daily Kos and graduated to MyDD, where I first heard about the birthers – the PUMA gang was very strong there. I have been hooked ever since. I watched the story grow from its inception and have seen it morph into a full blown conspiracy theory. Having watched people like Larry Sinclair and Berg for nearly two years now, I can safely say I know quite a lot about the lead players in the birther camp.
As far as I can remember going back to 2002 the only places I have ever posted at are Kos (where I am Londonliberal, post about 2 comments per year), MyDD where I am interestedbystander, the Mitch and Nan Show (which specialised in debunking Sinclair – it was hilarious but sadly defunct) and now PJ. If you think you know otherwise, I give my permission for Phil to give you my IP address, and prove me wrong. And then I will await your apology.
The irony is, the PUMA lot were the original paid bloggers at MyDD – so they know of what they speak!
If you are trying to imply that I sound like Epecticus (the only poster I know that was banned)- I am deeply honoured and flattered, but sadly unworthy. Phil is an IT guy – do you not think he would have spotted it?
Your dripping condescension is pathetic. You make broad sweeping statements about things and people of which you know next to nothing. Small minds are forced to belittle others to make themselves look better.
Really? When only about 60m of your fellow citizens even own a passport, and the majority of them do not leave the continental usa, I think I can safely say that a lot of birthers don’t know much about abroad. As birthers are nearly all right wing, I’m guessing more than half live in red states – a group even less likely to travel than the average american. Ask Linda – she doesn’t even own a passport.
Phil,
A thought occurred to me on the way to work this morning. It was about many of the commenters on your blog that disparage those seeking answers to questions about Obama’s eligibility.
Seeing as how Obama’s numbers are dropping, his party turning on him, no support from the opposing party, some of the MSM daring to speak against him, and politicians for whom Obama campaigns losing expectably winnable elections, what will it take?
What will it take for them to decide enough is enough?
These few die hard Obama supporters must have a limit to their support, too. I wonder what it could be?
And, of course, I turned to the thought that these “obots” could quite possibly be foreigners themselves, with no interest in American values prevailing, with intent only to “stir the pot”.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test everything. Hold on to the good.
As always, thanks for the job you do to keep us informed and allow us a place to vent.
elspeth
Your dripping condescension is pathetic. You make broad sweeping statements about things and people of which you know next to nothing. Small minds are forced to belittle others to make themselves look better.
………………….
I notice you have no problems with the post that I responded to which was a very long and detailed accusation – one that has no truth to it whatsoever. I feel perfectly entitled to respond to such a personal attack in any manner I wish – no doubt Phil will jump in if he objects. Moreover – what makes you think it is something I know nothing about? I have travelled extensively throughout the US – been to most red states (not Kentucky or Wyoming, perhaps a few others – maybe next year) and have met a lot of people that not only have never been abroad, they haven’t even been out of state. I have also met an enormous number of people that are entirely ignorant of the world outside their locality – have you never watched Jay Walking?
elspeth you are a genius. I think I fist told anyone interested here that I was a Brit about 9 months ago.
Bystander,
Surely you have a better response than that weak justification of own remarks.
So wow, you have traveled and met a few folks along the way. And based on that grand experience you are now qualified to make sweeping statements about everyone because of it. Impressive. You yourself were quick to point out that you were only one of 60 million Brits and that you were not the one who exposed addresses simply because of where you live . Sound familiar?
And yes, I am wore out with certain posters here who are so weak minded that they can not post without mocking and ridiculing others who disagree with their own position. Because the only reason someone could disagree with your grand view would be stupidity.
And based on that grand experience you are now qualified to make sweeping statements about everyone because of it.
……………….
Yeah right, because we never hear birthers make sweeping statements about obots do we? No sirree.
bystander says:
January 27, 2010 at 9:18 am
elspeth you are a genius. I think I fist told anyone interested here that I was a Brit about 9 months ago.
__________________________________________________________________
yes you have. Elspeth is looking for reasons to explain the support the Presient still has. So Elspeth attempts to try and make it seem that the posters who believe that the President is eligbile have to be foreigners that are looking to “stir the pot.” Elspeth even attempts to imply that the people who believe that the President is eligible are supporters of the President. He fails on both counts.
First of all I was born and raised in the US, but have visited other countries. Also I did vote for the President and belive that he is eligible. But I do not blindly follow him or believe that everything he does is right. If I did that I would be one of those FOX watchers that still think that the Bush/Cheney years were good for this country.
Elspeth seems to forget that 69 million people voted for and supported the President. For the most part they are not going to abandon ship a year later when things are tough, no matter what the opposition says…
Pretty much. It is pretty much indisputable that President Obama’s approval rating and declined quite a bit from his first day in office (from about 70% down to about 50% now). But elspeth seems to assume that there’s a correlation between loss of approval and actually doubting whether the President is eligible in the first place. You can very easily disapprove of the job being done by the president and government in general without entertaining doubts about whether that president was eligible to serve in the first place.
I would bet that virtually no birthers voted for Obama for president, and that there’s probably somewhere close to a 1:1 correlation between people who believe that the child of a US citizen born on US soil is not a natural born citizen, and those who have at some point expressed doubts about President Obama’s birth certificate.
Wow!
I didn’t realize so many would take my worlds personally when I responded to Phil’s article and question about anyone who might be here as a paid blogger to support Obama.
What I said was about the astroturf issue, not the eligibility issue.
And, knowing everyone has a limit, I pondered what could get “our” Obama supporters to stop supporting this president.
Of course, that point wasn’t addressed. Maybe the answer is “nothing”, and they will always support Obama, even if they and their loved ones are directly or indirectly affected by his poor decisions.
I’m amazed.
bystander,
Now that was an incredibly intelligent and mature response.
And really, a most impressive display of boorish sophomoric elitist behavior.
How’s this for a textbook case of elitist amateurism. The Democrats as of the last election hold both the Presidency and both houses of Congress. They enjoyed the largest majority since the late 20′s or early 30′s, so basically 80+ years. And they could not pass one of their prized signature pieces of legislation. With their arrogance, lack of transparency, complete tone deafness to their own constituents, infighting and a total inability to work together with themselves or the Republicans they have possibly pissed away the greatest political advantage in generations. Now that is the real power of intellectual elitism.
Now that was an incredibly intelligent and mature response.
Thanks – I worked really, really hard on it. I was going to go with “whatever”, glad I put the effort in.
Bystander,
It is true that many US citizens have not traveled abroad and are woefully unaware of conditions in the rest of the world. They do not appreciate what they have here. They can see no reason to study a foreign language. Many Americans that do travel internationally expect everyone to speak english, and are thus confined to tourist areas.
It is also true that some of the Brits that I have met regard overseas travel as part of life, but those Brits were fairly well off. International travel is much closer to most people in Europe than in the States, but I doubt that all people in the UK have a passport unless the government requires it. Surely there are individuals that are happy to stay close to home or lack the means to travel.
Personally, I am educated, have a touch of three foreign languages that are rusty for lack of use. I have traveled a little internationally and quite a bit in the States. The Grand Canyon is spectacular as are most of the National Parks. The northern West Coast seashore is so beautiful that I wonder how the natives can take it for granted. Britain is beautiful too. I remember a train trip to Aberdeen up the coast with brilliant scenery.
One of my overseas trips was to the Soviet Union under Brezhnev. I am familiar with the old Soviet Propaganda and am very concerned about the “lack of balance” offered the public here in what is supposed to pass for news. Absolutely unbelievable (and shocking for me) was the major TV network broadcast of someone waving a Soviet flag at the big Election night party in Chicago. communistpartyUSA.com has also been very supportive of Mr. Obama. The Congress has been nibbling away at the Constitution for decades and is trying to take a Big Bite out of it now. I completely understand why the Soviet born Orly is almost in a panic. I am concerned about the direction that the United States government is taking too.
As you probably know, the US Constitution is the foundation of our form of government. The United States has never had a king or as yet a dictator. The principals in our government and the military swear an oath of allegiance to the Constitution, a piece of paper meant to limit federal powers, and not to a person. Mr. Obama and his supporters have tried to get people to pledge themselves to him and personally act on his behalf instead of on behalf of the United States and its Constitution. This is not an American approach.
Perhaps you will forgive my mild paranoia about those who seek to protect the current arrogant and incompetent administration serving as the executive branch of the US government. Consider that Mr. Obama himself has said that he would bring a gun to a fight when he expected others to bring only knives. Polling place intimidation has been ignored by this administration and charges of the same dropped when conviction was certain. I am not sure what this administration and its supporters would consider beyond the limit of possibility. Comments (some with possible malicious intent) with British IP addresses and posters claiming to be British seemed to suddenly appear on sites that question Mr. Obama’s eligibility. This led me to consider the possibility that commenters located in the US were using an internet analog of Ellie Light, projecting their internet access locations into Britain to hide their true locations.
Please forgive me if my last post felt like a personal attack; it was meant more like a probe. You seemed more American to me than British. Apparently, you could have naturalized as a United States citizen if you had chosen that path, but you chose to remain British. Do you think your children will return to the States someday to live?
I hope that you did not believe that I thought you were one of the Hillbuzz commenters with possible malicious intent, and that you share my concern for the safety of the Hillbuzz bloggers whose personal information was published.
Mr. Blair seems to be in lockstep with the US in matters of the Wars so it makes perfect sense for you to keep up with US politics. You may know people serving in the war efforts both from Britain and the United States.
You mentioned your information regarding eligibility that might save all the birthers a lot of trouble. Have you presented a summary of the same in any of your posts? Maybe I missed it. If you would be so kind to point it out, I will check it out. If you are interested, here are my views:
The idea of “natural born citizen” as born on the soil to foreign parent(s) is a modification of the British Common Law idea of “natural born subject,” a holdover from feudal times. Many of the early US citizens would have held to the old ways and, in the developing the United States, it would have been easier to determine where someone was born than the citizenship of their probably immigrant parents. What is relevant and should be honored today, is how the Framers of the United States Constitution would have defined “natural born citizen.”
Currently I believe that the Framers of the United States Constitution intended the term “natural born citizen” to be someone with only United States citizenship at birth and who maintained status throughout his/her life. Such a person is more likely to be concerned with the welfare of the United States and its citizens, and to be free of foreign influence. This is what I believe the Framers would have specified for the Commander in Chief and ultimate diplomat of the United States. It is only common sense.
Since October 2008, when I became aware of the possibility that Mr. Obama may not be a natural born citizen, I have worked to have his eligibility examined by Electors, the Congress, and the Courts. Natural born citizenship status is only relevant for the President of the United States: no other position in this country is closed to any person with any other US citizenship status. Mr. Obama may not meet the criteria for natural born citizenship as the Framers intended and his eligibility should be examined now, while the question remains relevant. Otherwise, he will be allowed set a precedent that we as a country may later regret. This work I do for my own children and grandchildren, and for every other US citizens’ children and grandchildren.
KJ
KJ says:
January 27, 2010 at 2:06 pm
…. but I doubt that all people in the UK have a passport unless the government requires it. Surely there are individuals that are happy to stay close to home or lack the means to travel.
… About 50m out of a population of 60m UK citizens have passports.
The northern West Coast seashore is so beautiful that I wonder how the natives can take it for granted. Britain is beautiful too. I remember a train trip to Aberdeen up the coast with brilliant scenery.
….agreed, I spend a lot of time in the Seattle / Gig Harbor area – it is spectacular – never been to Aberdeen though!
Mr. Obama and his supporters have tried to get people to pledge themselves to him and personally act on his behalf instead of on behalf of the United States and its Constitution. This is not an American approach.
…..this simply isn’t true – another birther rumour with no basis in fact, like the Pakistan travel ban, Maya’s COLB, the whitey tape – all rubbish.
Polling place intimidation has been ignored by this administration and charges of the same dropped when conviction was certain.
…… can you support this claim? Polling place intimidation has long been the stock in trade of the GOP – there are countless examples. Does that bother you?
I am not sure what this administration and its supporters would consider beyond the limit of possibility. Comments (some with possible malicious intent) with British IP addresses and posters claiming to be British seemed to suddenly appear on sites that question Mr. Obama’s eligibility. This led me to consider the possibility that commenters located in the US were using an internet analog of Ellie Light, projecting their internet access locations into Britain to hide their true locations.
….. why would comments from Britain be a problem? I don’t understand your paranoia. And as for HillBuzz – I went to check it out just to make sure I wasn’t a poster there (joke) – they make some pretty nasty unsubstantiated claims themselves. As for trying to sue for libel – they really are clueless.
Please forgive me if my last post felt like a personal attack; it was meant more like a probe. You seemed more American to me than British. Apparently, you could have naturalized as a United States citizen if you had chosen that path, but you chose to remain British. Do you think your children will return to the States someday to live?
……..
Apology happily accepted. As for my kids – who knows? My son might go to college in the US, daughter probably not. The top US colleges now have offices in the UK to recruit from the top UK schools – they start looking at them at 15, and he is being “monitored”. Only problem is they don’t play much rugby in the US! Plus it would cost us about 10 x as much as a good university in the UK. But you have inadvertently hit on why we came back and remain British – we prefer our educational system (sorry!).
I hope that you did not believe that I thought you were one of the Hillbuzz commenters with possible malicious intent, and that you share my concern for the safety of the Hillbuzz bloggers whose personal information was published.
……….
In all honesty, the HillBuzz people seem pretty nasty. I don’t agree with publishing personal information, but I think they have some responsibility for the hate spew they indulge in. As somebody once said – politics aint beanbag.
Mr. Blair seems to be in lockstep with the US in matters of the Wars so it makes perfect sense for you to keep up with US politics. You may know people serving in the war efforts both from Britain and the United States.
………
Mr Blair is no longer our PM – he will be testifying in two days in public at an inquiry in to the lead up to the Iraq war. He is likely to be skewered for misleading parliament ( a very serious offence) – if you are interested it will be widely covered by the UK media. I personally was against the war from the start.
You mentioned your information regarding eligibility that might save all the birthers a lot of trouble. Have you presented a summary of the same in any of your posts? Maybe I missed it. If you would be so kind to point it out, I will check it out. If you are interested, here are my views:
……..
I haven’t presented a summary, but if you are interested I can point you to some serious websites that methodically debunk every plank of birtherism.
Currently I believe that the Framers of the United States Constitution intended the term “natural born citizen” to be someone with only United States citizenship at birth and who maintained status throughout his/her life.
……..
No constitutional law scholars, jurists or lawyers agree with you.
When someone comes on your site and politely points out that Obama has shown the official birth certificate of Hawaii and that the facts on it were twice confirmed by the officials in Hawaii, members of a Republican governor’s administration, you call him “an infiltrator.”
Is it infiltrating to point out the facts? Are you afraid of the facts?
RE ann:
When someone comes on your site and politely points out that Obama has shown the official birth certificate of Hawaii and that the facts on it were twice confirmed by the officials in Hawaii, members of a Republican governor’s administration, you call him “an infiltrator.” [...] Are you afraid of the facts? [...]
Heck, no – but produce facts and evidence, Ann – and I politely inform you that this one of the silliest attempts ever at muzzling this affair – at you troll, have quite a history in clumsiness and silliness -
Obama has never shown a Hawaii birth certificate – never, ever, never, ever.
What you politely try to frisbee in discussion here is the COLB that’s been circulated on the Internet – however, that:
1) is a COLB, not a BC -
2) and it has never been ever been confirmed by the Hawaii officials – actually any birther would more than happy to hear from Hawaii officials that they INDEED ISSUED THE PAPER IN CAUSE (since they, when asked about this always refuse to confirm or deny that the Hawaii HD has issued the paper in cause) -
Upgrade you act, baby – you’re a loser -
Regards -
elspeth,
For some opposition commenters, even if it were proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that Mr. Obama were ineligible, I wager some would continue to fight such a finding.
In other words, be aware that there are those who simply project onto the rest of us what they are really all about; they wouldn’t change their own minds even if reality were different than what they perceive it to be (what is reality and how do you know?).
That’s also why I don’t respond or jump into every conversation that occurs on my site.
-Phil
ann,
It is rather unfortunate that, in over a year of blogging, I have yet to run across anyone who can confirm that the image of the alleged certification of live birth has never been directly verified by the HI Department of Health. And nobody’s ever come forward to claim responsibility for procuring the document, nor has there ever been a receipt publicly shown for such transaction.
And yes, I’ve heard pretty much every rebuttal to this issue. However, for me, if someone were to have me at the very least affirm that the alleged COLB is legitimate, some such claim as what I’ve laid out would at least lend some credence to the original document (I speak for myself on this one).
Of course, I still have issues with the “at birth” UK citizenship that Mr. Obama had, and that’s another issue entirely to discuss.
-Phil
It is rather unfortunate that, in over a year of blogging, I have yet to run across anyone who can confirm that the image of the alleged certification of live birth has never been directly verified by the HI Department of Health. And nobody’s ever come forward to claim responsibility for procuring the document, nor has there ever been a receipt publicly shown for such transaction.
And yes, I’ve heard pretty much every rebuttal to this issue. However, for me, if someone were to have me at the very least affirm that the alleged COLB is legitimate, some such claim as what I’ve laid out would at least lend some credence to the original document (I speak for myself on this one).
Of course, I still have issues with the “at birth” UK citizenship that Mr. Obama had, and that’s another issue entirely to discuss.
-Phil
That was so well written I felt the strong need to repost it
No receipt= No legitimate document. No official has claimed a receipt has been issued for the June 2007 COLB on the website, nor claimed that the internet COLB is legitimate. People are starting to get that there is a problem, soon the voices will be to many to deny. I hope when the truth comes out, and it will, that Barry gets to visit his family roots in Kansas, with his wife, for a very long time. There is a very historical facility there just waiting for them.
Pete
Re: “Obama has never shown a Hawaii birth certificate – never, ever, never, ever.”
He has posted the Certification of Live Birth, which is the official birth certificate of Hawaii, and the only one that Hawaii currently issues. It no longer sends copies of the original birth certificate (http://www.starbulletin.com/columnists/kokualine/20090606_kokua_line.html). Those are the facts.
The two top officials in Hawaii that deal with birth certificates have repeatedly said that the facts in the file confirm that Obama was born in Hawaii. In the latest statement, the DoH director said:
“I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago….”
Notice the words that say that the original vital records are VERIFYING that Obama was born in Hawaii. That is a statement of fact. She is saying that the original document without question says that Obama was born in Hawaii, not that it was a delayed birth certificate or an amended birth certificate, but that it was a certificate that said that he was born in Hawaii.
Re: “I have yet to run across anyone who can confirm that the image of the alleged certification of live birth has never been directly verified by the HI Department of Health.”
Since they have repeatedly confirmed the fact that Obama was born in Hawaii, what would be the point? Besides, they cannot confirm the image. Only if they were taken a physical copy of the printed COLB could they say whether or not it was forged. However, they are certainly not saying that it was forged, and there is not a shred of evidence that it was forged.
Re: “No receipt= No legitimate document.”
Baloney. The COLB is the official birth certificate. It is accepted as proof of birth in the USA by the US State Department and the branches of the US military, and the two officials (members of a Republican governor’s administration) have said twice that the facts in the files confirms the COLB.
Re: “No official has claimed a receipt has been issued for the June 2007 COLB on the website, nor claimed that the internet COLB is legitimate.”
So what? They have said that the facts in the files confirm that Obama was born in Hawaii. That is the key fact, that he was born in Hawaii. There is not a shred of evidence that he was born anywhere else than Hawaii, and there is official documentary evidence that he was born in Hawaii in 1961.
bystander con’t
The definition of Natural born citizen has been left undefined since the Constitution. The two main competing definitions are the modified English Common Law definition and the Natural Law defined. The meaning of natural born citizen as a Constitutional requirement for the Presidency needs to be formally defined now. This issue needs to be settled.
—
Mr. Obama’s defense lawyers have always requested dismissal of the many cases challenging Mr. Obama’s eligibility based on failure to cite a claim upon relief can be granted, lack of jurisdiction, and standing, i.e. that the plaintiff unless must show personal injury connected with the complaint. If all other citizens are subject to the same injury, standing is not met, and a court will not hear the case.
The “standing” requirement helps to keep frivolous lawsuits out of Court, limiting the case load on the Courts. On the other hand, the “standing” requirement as it is currently being interpreted would also keep a lawsuit challenging unconstitutional limits on free speech (for example) out of court if all citizens were subject to the same limits. Once the eligibility challenge was submitted to a Court, the defense’s legal actions using standing to block access to possibly significant documents associated with Mr. Obama’s Constitutional eligibility to serve as President serve to weaken the ability of an individual citizen to support the US Constitution.
As President, having sworn an oath to defend the US Constitution, should be supporting the enforcement of the same and he can start by presenting the requested documents associated with his citizenship status. In my opinion, Mr. Obama’s actions in this regard, although possibly within the letter of the law, are not honorable and weaken the US Constitution. It is obvious to any intelligent individual that Mr. Obama may not have a simple citizenship history. Hiding his documents behind privacy laws and standing implies that there is something, possibly significant, that might disqualify him from the Presidency and that he does not want the public to know.
In a Government By and For The People, the public should have the right to know any significant details about their future President’s past that may affect his performance in office. During the last election, details about the inexperienced individual now with the ability to initiate nuclear war were hidden by the candidate, his party and a complicit press. Nearly all questioning about the 2008 Democratic nominee’s worthiness to serve as President were shouted down by walls of RACISM cries intended to squelch the questions by intimidation. These actions by people and institutions that should have served the public interest were a gross violation of the public trust. Fortunately, deception is difficult to maintain forever. Mr. Obama’s actions, frequently in direct conflict with his beautiful words, have been noted by the public, and revealed to the public the true nature of the individual installed in the Oval Office. The public is also now aware of the accessory deception practiced by the media, and members of both political parties. Hopefully public can prevent any significant damage to the Republic that might result from the deception practiced on the public in 2008.
—
I believe that Constitutional Law Professor Johnathan Turley would agree with the more restrictive definition for natural born citizen as it applies to the Presidency. He also realizes that the Supreme Court would probably have to accept the less restrictive definition if presented with a viable case challenging Mr. Obama’s eligibility. The Supreme Court does not want to “interfere” with a “political” question.
Some information on Jonathan Turley and his views of the matter
Jonathan Turley bio: http://www.law.gwu.edu/faculty/profile.aspx?id=1738
http://jonathanturley.org/2008/12/04/eligibility-questions-can-clinton-serve-obama-and-can-obama-serve-the-country/#comment-30141
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7uomucNU8E
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/07/19/retired-major-general-joins-litigation-over-obamas-birth-st
—
Mr. Obama has taken the unprecedented step of appointing his personal attorney as White House Counsel. His personal attorney would be bound by client privilege as well as his duty to the government and would probably already know what needs to be to hidden in regards to Mr. Obama’s past. This action also implies that Mr. Obama may have something that he needs to hide.
—
Mr. Obama, and the government since he took office, have gone to great lengths to prevent the Constitutional eligibility question from being examined in court. Their delays, however, may play to the advantage of the eligibility question because the delays create time for the historical view of natural born citizenship to be explored for the benefit of the plaintiffs lawyers.
An academic group did some serious historical research into how the Framers would have defined natural born citizen. Only first installment has been posted at http://undeadrevolution.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/the-meaning-of-natural-born-citizen/ . I don’t know why the other installments have not been put up. Perhaps the research is being written up in a traditional form to render the research credible to lawyers and academics. This historical research would be admissible in Court and could be a powerful affirmation of the more restrictive definition of natural born citizen.
—
All legal avenues have not been exhausted.
Attorney Mario Apuzzo is still pursuing a lawsuit against Congress, Dick Cheney, Ms. Pelosi, and Mr. Obama charging that they failed to vet Mr. Obama and that he is not eligible.
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2009/09/natural-born-citizen-clause-requires.html
Attorney Leo Donofrio took the first legal challenge to the Supreme Court asserting that Mr. Obama did not meet the more restrictive definition of NBC. (The Supreme Court declined to promote his application for stay (08A407) to a writ of certiorari and to hear the challenge). After further research into how to question Mr. Obama’s eligibility, Mr. Donofrio now believes that previous legal attempts have not been in accordance with current law and that only a Quo Warranto challenge in DC district court on behalf on a qualified interested party will result in the case being heard. His point of view was confirmed by Judge Carter in a California US District Court ruling. AG Holder could force the DC court initiate Quo Warranto, but he has ignored all requests to act.
Attorney jbjd (jbjd.com) has found legal routes that challenge Ms. Pelosi in her role as Chair of the Democratic Convention, a position that does not provide her with any immunity from legal action. Ms. Pelosi personally certified that Mr. Obama was eligible for the position of President. The DNC lawyers have replied to a inquiry requesting a list of documents used by the DNC to vet Mr. Obama without specifying any documents.
Mr. Obama’s actions as President may very well demonstrate that the more restrictive definition of natural born citizen is appropriate for the President of the United States.
—
The birth certificate question is still in play. Apparently Mr. Obama does not have a regular long form birth certificate issued by a hospital. This is supported by information provided by the Hawaii DOH in response to a records index data request in accordance with Hawaiian law. A request for Mr. Obama’s birth certificate index data was answered with two records: 1) a marriage license for Stanley Anne and Barack Obama and 2) a record of birth not referred to as a birth certificate (Hawaii had multiple methods available for recording a birth in 1961). Also, the defense in its motion to dismiss requested the court to take judicial notice of the online “certification of live birth” in Hollingsworth vs. Soetero, although the online COLB is not legally admissible as evidence. The defense reference to the online COLB indicates either laziness or the very real possibility that no vault copy of Mr. Obama’s long form birth certificate exists. The latter supports the index records information that Hawaii provided.
Bystander,
It has taken a little time to assemble this information with links. Perhaps you are not checking this thread anymore. Please acknowledge that you have seen this post. If no acknowledgment appears, I will repost it under the most active thread on this website.
There is great deal of information offered below, and it may take some time to digest. I am interested to hear your views after you have a chance to review all of the information.
Feel free to provide the link. In the interest of mutual disclosure of information, the following links and comments are provided for your review.
Here are some videos of the celebrity pledge
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1872644,00.html
and examples adulation of Mr. Obama by young children initially supported/initiated by some teachers and/or schools. I am not aware of any similar activities being initiated after any other President was elected.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t30cyQwaXZg
http://newsblaze.com/story/20090127224509nnnn.nb/topstory.html
There was also widespread protest among parents when an initial activities package (associated with Mr. Obama’s September 8, 2009 speech to school children) issued by the Department Education asked public school children to “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president,” not themselves nor the country but the president. This suggestion was deleted at the request of parents. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/08/school-districts-struggling-treat-obama-speech/?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g2:r1:c0.092868:b27580166:z0
The following list of quotes complied by Jim Ross, December 15, 2008 is quite enlightening. Notice that Mr. Obama never did anything to discourage such talk and some of the quotes are his.
“… a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany … and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama” – Barack Obama; Lebanon, New Hampshire. January 7, 2008.
———————————————
“”No one saw him coming, and Christians believe God comes at us from strange angles and places we don’t expect, like Jesus being born in a manger.”
–Lawrence Carter
——————————————-
“Many even see in Obama a messiah-like figure, a great soul, and some affectionately call him Mahatma Obama.”
– Dinesh Sharma
—————————————–
“We just like to say his name. We are considering taking it as a mantra.”
– Chicago] Sun-Times
—————————————-
“A Lightworker — An Attuned Being with Powerful Luminosity and High-Vibration Integrity who will actually help usher in a New Way of Being”
– Mark Morford
—————————————–
“What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history”
– Jesse Jackson, Jr.
—————————————–
“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
– Barack Obama
—————————————–
“Does it not feel as if some special hand is guiding Obama on his journey, I mean, as he has said, the utter improbability of it all?”
– Daily Kos
—————————————–
“He communicates God-like energy…”
– Steve Davis (Charleston, SC)
—————————————-
“Not just an ordinary human being but indeed an Advanced Soul”
– Commentator @ Chicago Sun Times
—————————————-
“I’ll do whatever he says to do. I’ll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.”
– Halle Berry
—————————————
“A quantum leap in American consciousness”
– Deepak Chopra
————————————–
“He is not operating on the same plane as ordinary politicians. . . . the agent of transformation in an age of revolution, as a figure uniquely qualified to open the door to the 21st century.”
– Gary Hart
————————————-
“Barack Obama is our collective representation of our purest hopes, our highest visions and our deepest knowings . . . He’s our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence.”
– Eve Konstantine
————————————
“This is bigger than Kennedy. . . . This is the New Testament.” | “I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often. No, seriously. It’s a dramatic event.”
– Chris Matthews
———————————–
“[Obama is ] creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom . . . [He is] the man for this time.”
– Toni Morrison
———————————
“Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don’t even really inspire. They elevate. . . . He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh . . . Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves.”
– Ezra Klein
——————————–
“Obama has the capacity to summon heroic forces from the spiritual depths of ordinary citizens and to unleash therefrom a symphonic chorus of unique creative acts whose common purpose is to tame the soul and alleviate the great challenges facing mankind.”
– Gerald Campbell
——————————-
“We’re here to evolve to a higher plane . . . he is an evolved leader . . . [he] has an ear for eloquence and a Tongue dipped in the Unvarnished Truth.”
– Oprah Winfrey
——————————
“I would characterize the Senate race as being a race where Obama was, let’s say, blessed and highly favored. That’s not routine. There’s something else going on. I think that Obama, his election to the Senate, was divinely ordered. . . . I know that that was God’s plan.”
– Bill Rush
Eric Holder’s Justice Department decision to drop the voter intimidation charges against the black panthers Election day actions in Philadelphia.
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/06/justice-thwarts-black-panther-subpoenas/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/22/justice-refuses-to-release-documents/print/
Wall Street Journal * JUNE 9, 2009 Holder Winks at Voter Intimidation
On ballot integrity, the Justice Department is taking us backward.
Wall Street Journal * 08/20/09 Holder’s Black Panther Stonewall
Why did the Justice Department dismiss such a clear case of voter intimidation?
—
Other examples of 2008 Election voter intimidation:
This statement appeared on the State of Missouri Governor’s Office web page September 27, 2008
Gov. Blunt Statement on Obama Campaign’s Abusive Use of Missouri Law Enforcement
JEFFERSON CITY – Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics.
“St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.
“What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.
“This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.
“Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts – not a free society.”
There are more examples of nomination/campaign irregularities at jbjd.com, e. g. http://jbjd.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/1269/, and the DNC rules that were broken by the DNC to nominate Mr. Obama http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWdK36OCIIg.
—
I would be interested in any recent examples of GOP poll intimidation and whether the actions were prosecuted. The Democrats in the pre-Civil Rights South regularly practiced poll intimidation to discourage the black vote.
A murderer wears gloves if he plans to kill someone-no fingerprints. Hackers “cover their tracks” too. By use of proxy servers in Britain (or elsewhere), posters could cover their tracks (and discourage investigation by law enforcement if someone is harmed) by making it appear that they are located outside the United States. Likewise, commenters attempting to discourage “birthers” in other ways could appear to be located out the US.
The definition of Natural born citizen has been left undefined since the Constitution. The two main competing definitions are the modified English Common Law definition and the Natural Law defined. The meaning of natural born citizen as a Constitutional requirement for the Presidency needs to be formally defined now.
All previous Presidents born after the Constitution was ratified meet the more restrictive definition of natural born citizen except for Chester Arthur. Arthur’s father had not bothered or was not financially able to formally naturalize before Chester’s 1829 birth in Vermont, but William Arthur was an alien in name only. Arthur’s father participated in and served in local government from sometime before 1828, continuously maintained a permanent residence in the United States from his 1822 settlement in Burlington, Vermont to his 1875 death in New York State, married a natural born United States citizen, and formally naturalized when all his children born in the States were still minors.
—
Mr. Obama’s defense lawyers have always requested dismissal of the many cases challenging Mr. Obama’s eligibility based on failure to cite a claim upon relief can be granted, lack of jurisdiction, and standing, i.e. that the plaintiff unless must show personal injury connected with the complaint. If all other citizens are subject to the same injury, standing is not met, and a court will not hear the case.
The “standing” requirement helps to keep frivolous lawsuits out of Court, limiting the case load on the Courts. On the other hand, the “standing” requirement as it is currently being interpreted would also keep a lawsuit challenging unconstitutional limits on free speech (for example) out of court if all citizens were subject to the same limits. Once the eligibility challenge and been submitted to a Court, and the defense used “standing” in their motions to dismiss the case and thus block access to possibly significant documents associated with Mr. Obama’s Constitutional eligibility to serve as President, Mr. Obama and his counsel further weakened the ability of an individual citizen to support the US Constitution.
As President, having sworn an oath to defend the US Constitution, should be supporting the enforcement of the same and he can start by presenting the requested documents associated with his citizenship status. In my opinion, Mr. Obama’s actions in this regard, although possibly within the letter of the law, are not honorable and weaken the US Constitution. It is obvious to any intelligent individual that Mr. Obama may not have a simple citizenship history and he openly admitted dual citizenship at birth. Hiding his documents behind privacy laws and standing implies that there is something, possibly significant, in those documents that might disqualify him from the Presidency, and that he does not want the public to know.
In a Government By and For The People, the public should have the right to know any significant details about their future President’s past that may affect his performance in office. During the last election, details about the inexperienced individual now with the ability to initiate nuclear war were hidden by the candidate, his party and a complicit press. Nearly all serious questions addressing the 2008 Democratic nominee’s worthiness to serve as President were shouted down by walls of RACISM cries intended to squelch the questions by intimidation. These actions by people and institutions that should have served the public interest were a gross violation of the public trust. Fortunately, deception is difficult to maintain forever. Mr. Obama’s actions, frequently in direct conflict with his beautiful words, have been noted by the public, and revealed to the public the true nature of the individual installed in the Oval Office. The public is also now aware of the accessory deception practiced by the media, and members of both political parties. Hopefully public can prevent any significant damage to the Republic that might result from the deception practiced on the public in 2008 until the necessary changes can be put in place.
—
I believe that Constitutional Law Professor Johnathan Turley would personally agree with the more restrictive definition for natural born citizen as it applies to the Presidency. He also realizes that the Supreme Court would probably have to accept the less restrictive definition if presented with a viable case challenging Mr. Obama’s eligibility. The Supreme Court does not want to “interfere” with a “political” question.
Some information on Jonathan Turley and his views of the matter
Jonathan Turley bio: http://www.law.gwu.edu/faculty/profile.aspx?id=1738
http://jonathanturley.org/2008/12/04/eligibility-questions-can-clinton-serve-obama-and-can-obama-serve-the-country/#comment-30141
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7uomucNU8E
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/07/19/retired-major-general-joins-litigation-over-obamas-birth-st
—
Mr. Obama has taken the unprecedented step of appointing his personal attorney as White House Counsel. His personal attorney would be bound by client privilege as well as his duty to the government and would probably already know what needs to be to hidden in regards to Mr. Obama’s past. This action also implies that Mr. Obama may have something that he needs to hide. Mr. Bauer has also personally defended Mr. Obama in at least one eligibility case.
—
Mr. Obama, and the government since he took office, have gone to great lengths to prevent the Constitutional eligibility question from being examined in court. Their delays, however, may play to the advantage of the eligibility question because the delays create time for the historical view of natural born citizenship to be explored for the benefit of the plaintiffs lawyers.
An academic group did some serious historical research into how the Framers would have defined natural born citizen. Only first installment has been posted at http://undeadrevolution.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/the-meaning-of-natural-born-citizen/ . For some unknown reason, other installments have not been posted to date. Perhaps the research is being written up in a traditional form that would allow significant others to review it, in effect certifying the research and its analysis. This historical research would be admissible in Court and could be a powerful affirmation of the more restrictive definition of natural born citizen.
—
All legal avenues have not been exhausted.
Attorney Mario Apuzzo is still pursuing a lawsuit against Congress, Dick Cheney, Ms. Pelosi, and Mr. Obama charging that they failed to vet Mr. Obama and that he is not eligible.
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2009/09/natural-born-citizen-clause-requires.html
Attorney Leo Donofrio took the first legal challenge to the Supreme Court asserting that Mr. Obama did not meet the more restrictive definition of NBC. (The Supreme Court declined to promote his application for stay (08A407) to a writ of certiorari and to hear the challenge). After further research into how to question Mr. Obama’s eligibility, Mr. Donofrio now believes that previous legal attempts have not been in accordance with current law and that only a Quo Warranto challenge in DC district court on behalf on a qualified interested party will result in the case being heard. His point of view was confirmed by Judge Carter in a California US District Court ruling. AG Holder could force the DC court initiate Quo Warranto, but he has ignored all requests to act.
Attorney jbjd (jbjd.com) has found legal routes that challenge Ms. Pelosi in her role as Chair of the Democratic Convention, a position that does not provide her with any immunity from legal action. Ms. Pelosi personally certified that Mr. Obama was eligible for the position of President. The DNC lawyers have replied to a inquiry requesting a list of documents used by the DNC to vet Mr. Obama without specifying any documents.
Mr. Obama’s actions as President may very well demonstrate that the more restrictive definition of natural born citizen is appropriate for the President of the United States.
—
The birth certificate question is still in play. Apparently Mr. Obama does not have a regular long form birth certificate issued by a hospital. Information provided by the Hawaii DOH in response to a records index data request do not mention a birth certificate. The response to a request for Mr. Obama’s birth certificate index data mentioned two records: 1) a marriage license for Stanley Anne and Barack Obama and 2) a record of birth (Hawaii had multiple methods available for recording a birth in 1961). The marriage license would be extraneous if a long form birth certificate existed that listed Mr. Obama’s parents. It now seems quite possible that the only document certifying Mr. Obama’s birth in Hawaii is the online COLB. Mr. Obama’s defense, in its motion to dismiss Hollingsworth vs. Soetero, requested the court to take judicial notice of the online “certification of live birth” although the online COLB is not legally admissible as evidence. Were the lawyers being lazy or is the no other document to certify Mr. Obama’s birth?
KJ January 30, 2010 at 2:19 pm
There is great deal of information offered below, and it may take some time to digest. I am interested to hear your views after you have a chance to review all of the information
….. thank you – I will do my best, but I am quite busy, plus I am due my three weekly chemo soon, so will probably be light posting for a few days from Tuesday onwards.
You mentioned your information regarding eligibility that might save all the birthers a lot of trouble. Have you presented a summary of the same in any of your posts? Maybe I missed it.
I haven’t presented a summary, but if you are interested I can point you to some serious websites that methodically debunk every plank of birtherism.
Feel free to provide the link. In the interest of mutual disclosure of information, the following links and comments are provided for your review.
…. ok I will be happy to do so in another post.
Mr. Obama and his supporters have tried to get people to pledge themselves to him and personally act on his behalf instead of on behalf of the United States and its Constitution. This is not an American approach.
…..this simply isn’t true – another birther rumour with no basis in fact, like the Pakistan travel ban, Maya’s COLB, the whitey tape – all rubbish
Here are some videos of the celebrity pledge
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1872644,00.html
….. yes those are videos of celebrities making a pledge, but there is simply no evidence that Obama has tried to get people to pledge themselves to him personally. None whatsoever. The right wing blogs maintained for some time that he would change the pledge of allegiance to be a pledge to him personally – it simply isn’t true.
and examples adulation of Mr. Obama by young children initially supported/initiated by some teachers and/or schools. I am not aware of any similar activities being initiated after any other President was elected.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t30cyQwaXZg
http://newsblaze.com/story/20090127224509nnnn.nb/topstory.html
There was also widespread protest among parents when an initial activities package (associated with Mr. Obama’s September 8, 2009 speech to school children) issued by the Department Education asked public school children to “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president,” not themselves nor the country but the president. This suggestion was deleted at the request of parents. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/08/school-districts-struggling-treat-obama-speech/?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g2:r1:c0.092868:b27580166:z0
…. I’ll return to this later
The following list of quotes complied by Jim Ross, December 15, 2008 is quite enlightening. Notice that Mr. Obama never did anything to discourage such talk and some of the quotes are his.
“… a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany … and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama” – Barack Obama; Lebanon, New Hampshire. January 7, 2008.
…. can you provide some evidence Obama actually said this? A google search reveals only right wing blogs, and no original source. As for the rest of your quotes – so what? Is it seriously your contention that Obama should not only check, but correct what anyone writes or says about him? Because if you want to hold all politicians to that standard, the GOP will have a full time job disassociating themselves with everything written on FR, and by the likes of Glenn Beck.
Polling place intimidation has been ignored by this administration and charges of the same dropped when conviction was certain.
… how can you possibly say conviction was certain? Nonsense. And if you want evidence of GOP efforts to disrupt democrats voting, you will find it in abundance. Have you forgotten the GOP operatives imprisoned for jamming phone lines in New Hampshire? Or the disgraceful situation in Ohio in 2004 when heavy AA districts were given insufficient voting machines and voters had to stand in line for over 8 hours, many never got to vote at all, while in neighbouring republican districts machines were lying unused as people walked straight in to vote. That was on the national news for days – you can’t have missed that. Or the disgraceful voter caging that disenfranchised predominantly minority voters, run buy GOP Sec’s of State all over the country? Or the campaign run just two weeks ago over at Red State to tie up democratic campaign phone lines so they couldn’t run their GOTV programme. The GOP has a very long history of this stuff – the democrats may have too, but this administration is by no means any worse than any before.
I am not sure what this administration and its supporters would consider beyond the limit of possibility. Comments (some with possible malicious intent) with British IP addresses and posters claiming to be British seemed to suddenly appear on sites that question Mr. Obama’s eligibility. This led me to consider the possibility that commenters located in the US were using an internet analog of Ellie Light, projecting their internet access locations into Britain to hide their true locations.
….. why would comments from Britain be a problem? I don’t understand your paranoia. And as for HillBuzz – I went to check it out just to make sure I wasn’t a poster there (joke) – they make some pretty nasty unsubstantiated claims themselves. As for trying to sue for libel – they really are clueless.
A murderer wears gloves if he plans to kill someone-no fingerprints. Hackers “cover their tracks” too. By use of proxy servers in Britain (or elsewhere), posters could cover their tracks (and discourage investigation by law enforcement if someone is harmed) by making it appear that they are located outside the United States. Likewise, commenters attempting to discourage “birthers” in other ways could appear to be located out the US.
….. whatever. I was not aware of any rule that prevents non US citizens from contributing to any blog. I can guarantee you that nothing will come of the HillBuzz flap. Certainly if they try to sue for libel in the UK they will get nowhere.
Currently I believe that the Framers of the United States Constitution intended the term “natural born citizen” to be someone with only United States citizenship at birth and who maintained [that] status throughout his/her life.
……..
No constitutional law scholars, jurists or lawyers agree with you.
The definition of Natural born citizen has been left undefined since the Constitution. The two main competing definitions are the modified English Common Law definition and the Natural Law defined. The meaning of natural born citizen as a Constitutional requirement for the Presidency needs to be formally defined now.
…… it is defined to the satisfaction of the entire constitutional law community. Only SCOTUS could redefine it – and they have refused to take any birther lawsuits. Draw your own conclusions.
All previous Presidents born after the Constitution was ratified meet the more restrictive definition of natural born citizen except for Chester Arthur. Arthur’s father had not bothered or was not financially able to formally naturalize before Chester’s 1829 birth in Vermont, but William Arthur was an alien in name only. Arthur’s father participated in and served in local government from sometime before 1828, continuously maintained a permanent residence in the United States from his 1822 settlement in Burlington, Vermont to his 1875 death in New York State, married a natural born United States citizen, and formally naturalized when all his children born in the States were still minors.
—
Mr. Obama’s defense lawyers have always requested dismissal of the many cases challenging Mr. Obama’s eligibility based on failure to cite a claim upon relief can be granted, lack of jurisdiction, and standing, i.e. that the plaintiff unless must show personal injury connected with the complaint. If all other citizens are subject to the same injury, standing is not met, and a court will not hear the case.
The “standing” requirement helps to keep frivolous lawsuits out of Court, limiting the case load on the Courts. On the other hand, the “standing” requirement as it is currently being interpreted would also keep a lawsuit challenging unconstitutional limits on free speech (for example) out of court if all citizens were subject to the same limits. Once the eligibility challenge and been submitted to a Court, and the defense used “standing” in their motions to dismiss the case and thus block access to possibly significant documents associated with Mr. Obama’s Constitutional eligibility to serve as President, Mr. Obama and his counsel further weakened the ability of an individual citizen to support the US Constitution.
… McCain and Palin had standing to sue. They didn’t. Tough luck.
As President, having sworn an oath to defend the US Constitution, should be supporting the enforcement of the same and he can start by presenting the requested documents associated with his citizenship status. In my opinion, Mr. Obama’s actions in this regard, although possibly within the letter of the law, are not honorable and weaken the US Constitution. It is obvious to any intelligent individual that Mr. Obama may not have a simple citizenship history and he openly admitted dual citizenship at birth. Hiding his documents behind privacy laws and standing implies that there is something, possibly significant, in those documents that might disqualify him from the Presidency, and that he does not want the public to know.
… He was known to be a dual citizen at birth from 2004. Why have none of the very many distinguished conservative legal scholars ever supported your theory? I am sure you know this theory was dreamt up by Donofrio in 2008. Before you invest any more of your time supporting him, I suggest you research his background. He really is a genuine nut case. And as for why Obama hasn’t shown you more documents? Well I can think of many reasons – top of the list would be why should you indulge the fantasies of people that hate you, second it would set off another round of accusations of forgery. Don’t forget the main players in the birther drama think he has forged every single document and photoshopped every photo that has ever appeared from his youth. They are crazy and cannot be convinced.
In a Government By and For The People, the public should have the right to know any significant details about their future President’s past that may affect his performance in office. During the last election, details about the inexperienced individual now with the ability to initiate nuclear war were hidden by the candidate, his party and a complicit press. Nearly all serious questions addressing the 2008 Democratic nominee’s worthiness to serve as President were shouted down by walls of RACISM cries intended to squelch the questions by intimidation. These actions by people and institutions that should have served the public interest were a gross violation of the public trust. Fortunately, deception is difficult to maintain forever. Mr. Obama’s actions, frequently in direct conflict with his beautiful words, have been noted by the public, and revealed to the public the true nature of the individual installed in the Oval Office. The public is also now aware of the accessory deception practiced by the media, and members of both political parties. Hopefully public can prevent any significant damage to the Republic that might result from the deception practiced on the public in 2008 until the necessary changes can be put in place.
…… rubbish. He has written two books – there is probably more known about his early life than any previous president. I doubt you have read the books, and you simply refuse to believe him anyway. Your remedy is you don’t have to vote for him. 69 million people did – you lost and you need to get over it. The public does not have a right to know anything they like about a candidate. And in case you need reminding, McCain did not volunteer his birth certificate even when asked – he simply agreed to show it to one reporter who was not allowed to photocopy it. Where is the outrage about that?
—
I believe that Constitutional Law Professor Johnathan Turley would personally agree with the more restrictive definition for natural born citizen as it applies to the Presidency. He also realizes that the Supreme Court would probably have to accept the less restrictive definition if presented with a viable case challenging Mr. Obama’s eligibility. The Supreme Court does not want to “interfere” with a “political” question.
Some information on Jonathan Turley and his views of the matter
Jonathan Turley bio: http://www.law.gwu.edu/faculty/profile.aspx?id=1738
http://jonathanturley.org/2008/12/04/eligibility-questions-can-clinton-serve-obama-and-can-obama-serve-the-country/#comment-30141
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7uomucNU8E
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/07/19/retired-major-general-joins-litigation-over-obamas-birth-st
—
…. this was discussed here at length recently. Turley said quite explicitly that birther cases had no merit. Nice try.
Mr. Obama has taken the unprecedented step of appointing his personal attorney as White House Counsel. His personal attorney would be bound by client privilege as well as his duty to the government and would probably already know what needs to be to hidden in regards to Mr. Obama’s past. This action also implies that Mr. Obama may have something that he needs to hide. Mr. Bauer has also personally defended Mr. Obama in at least one eligibility case.
…. unprecedented? Really ? Can you remind me who Bush’s White House counsel was? No? Harriet Myers, Bush’s personal attorney who almost made it to the Supreme Court. In fact it is very common to do this – numerous Presidents have. His action implies nothing whatsoever.
—
Mr. Obama, and the government since he took office, have gone to great lengths to prevent the Constitutional eligibility question from being examined in court. Their delays, however, may play to the advantage of the eligibility question because the delays create time for the historical view of natural born citizenship to be explored for the benefit of the plaintiffs lawyers.
… they have done no such thing. They have simply responded when they have been defendants. The delays caused in Orly’s cases have been her own fault due to her inability to follow the rules.
An academic group did some serious historical research into how the Framers would have defined natural born citizen. Only first installment has been posted at http://undeadrevolution.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/the-meaning-of-natural-born-citizen/ . For some unknown reason, other installments have not been posted to date. Perhaps the research is being written up in a traditional form that would allow significant others to review it, in effect certifying the research and its analysis. This historical research would be admissible in Court and could be a powerful affirmation of the more restrictive definition of natural born citizen.
… good luck with that.
—
All legal avenues have not been exhausted.
Attorney Mario Apuzzo is still pursuing a lawsuit against Congress, Dick Cheney, Ms. Pelosi, and Mr. Obama charging that they failed to vet Mr. Obama and that he is not eligible.
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2009/09/natural-born-citizen-clause-requires.html
Attorney Leo Donofrio took the first legal challenge to the Supreme Court asserting that Mr. Obama did not meet the more restrictive definition of NBC. (The Supreme Court declined to promote his application for stay (08A407) to a writ of certiorari and to hear the challenge). After further research into how to question Mr. Obama’s eligibility, Mr. Donofrio now believes that previous legal attempts have not been in accordance with current law and that only a Quo Warranto challenge in DC district court on behalf on a qualified interested party will result in the case being heard. His point of view was confirmed by Judge Carter in a California US District Court ruling. AG Holder could force the DC court initiate Quo Warranto, but he has ignored all requests to act.
… Not quite – judge Carter did not suggest that any case would be successful, only that such a case could only be filed in DC. Big difference. Donofrio is a legal genius in his own mind only – I encourage you to research his background.
Attorney jbjd (jbjd.com) has found legal routes that challenge Ms. Pelosi in her role as Chair of the Democratic Convention, a position that does not provide her with any immunity from legal action. Ms. Pelosi personally certified that Mr. Obama was eligible for the position of President. The DNC lawyers have replied to a inquiry requesting a list of documents used by the DNC to vet Mr. Obama without specifying any documents.
… then good luck compelling them to.
Mr. Obama’s actions as President may very well demonstrate that the more restrictive definition of natural born citizen is appropriate for the President of the United States.
… in your mind, not under law. The voters get to decide this sort of stuff – you don’t get to rewrite laws because you don’t like a candidate.
—
The birth certificate question is still in play. Apparently Mr. Obama does not have a regular long form birth certificate issued by a hospital. Information provided by the Hawaii DOH in response to a records index data request do not mention a birth certificate. The response to a request for Mr. Obama’s birth certificate index data mentioned two records: 1) a marriage license for Stanley Anne and Barack Obama and 2) a record of birth (Hawaii had multiple methods available for recording a birth in 1961). The marriage license would be extraneous if a long form birth certificate existed that listed Mr. Obama’s parents. It now seems quite possible that the only document certifying Mr. Obama’s birth in Hawaii is the online COLB. Mr. Obama’s defense, in its motion to dismiss Hollingsworth vs. Soetero, requested the court to take judicial notice of the online “certification of live birth” although the online COLB is not legally admissible as evidence. Were the lawyers being lazy or is the no other document to certify Mr. Obama’s birth
…. a birth certificate is not a vital record, you are being confused by semantics. Vital records are actual events – birth, death, marriage, divorce, adoption. A bc is simply a document giving details of a vital record, not the record itself. This is what confused Miss T and when she finally worked it out, she disappeared, presumably in embarrassment. The COLB is sufficient to prove nb citizenship, and the Republican AG and Director of DoH have verified that Obama was born in Hawaii. The Hawaii DoH has the original birth certificate – nobody has their original, only copies. Case closed.
KJ
http://tesibria.typepad.com/whats_your_evidence/
This is probably your best place to start for evidence contradicting birther nonsense. The first page gives links to several other very goog websites. Tes is a lawyer that posts at Politijab – she will happily debate your legal theories with you, as will the other lawyers there. Be warned though – they are very sharp and very well informed.
KJ – here’s a little taster on Leo. Enjoy – let me know if you need more.
http://theregulator.net/?p=725
Kj regarding you objection to Obama’s address to schools, to encourage kids to work hard and to stay in school (yes what a bad man he is!). If you read to the end of this link tou will see that Bush did exactly the same thing, to little or no protest.
If you recall, despite the feverish protests before the speech, it was actually well received by serious conservatives
http://mediamatters.org/research/200909020012
KJ says:
January 30, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Bystander,
It has taken a little time to assemble this information with links. Perhaps you are not checking this thread anymore. Please acknowledge that you have seen this post. If no acknowledgment appears, I will repost it under the most active thread on this website.
There is great deal of information offered below, and it may take some time to digest. I am interested to hear your views after you have a chance to review all of the information.
………kj I spent about an hour replying to this post – it hasn’t appeared, I don’t know why – but that has been happening to a lot of posts lately – maybe it timed out, but I don’t know how to prevent that. I don’t have time to do it again today – I will try as soon as I can, but I have my three weekly chemo tomorrow, so may not be up to heavy posting for a few days. I will do my best though – keep checking.
Bystander,
Thank you for letting you know that you are aware of my post. My main purpose in presenting this information for your review is to give you something to review that presents a different point of view. Thank you for the link that you provided and that I will be sure to review. May I suggest that we both consider all of the information as a whole instead of trying to pick arguments apart. That said here is my reply.
Adulation of a president
I have no problem with a president urging students to work hard in school.
Please focus on the emphasized phase:
There was also widespread protest among parents when an initial activities package (associated with Mr. Obama’s September 8, 2009 speech to school children) issued by the Department Education asked public school children to “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president,” not themselves nor the country but the president.
Asking children to help the president by improving themselves may have been an error in wording as claimed by the Department of Education, but the statement came from somewhere (Freudian slip?) and probably indicates at least one government employee’s views. That the person’s supervisors did not see anything wrong with the statement is alarming. The opportunity to correct this approach before the activity was released for distribution was at least missed by the U. S. Department of Education and the statement was only removed at the request of citizens.
Combine this reference with the campaign quotes that follow it, and the other school based activities cited. One school activity cited was a group of young children singing the Obama song. (Other videos of other children singing different Obama songs in classrooms exist but no link was provided here.) The other school activity was the unprecedented placement of a large image of a president (Mr. Obama) next to the American flag to whom children were to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The latter practice was discontinued when parents requested that it be stopped.
You may not be aware that the Obama campaign recruited artists to produce creative “inspirational” images of Mr. Obama in 2008, and a request for similar work was sent to artists when his poll numbers started to fall.
Such adulation of a president or presidential candidate is not American. Mr. Obama did absolutely nothing to discourage but instead reinforced this cult of personality.
Leo
Leo is rather “different” for a lawyer and he does have an ego, shall we say. Many of the people involved with the eligibility question are aware of his eccentricities as well as his endeavors, some successful, that have nothing to do with his formal education. Perhaps his creative writing attempts (example in your link), like much of modern creative writing, are not meant to be interpreted literally.
Leo may be one of those individuals whose brain is “wired differently.” History is full of unique creative individuals who have walked the line between genius and insanity, generating exceptional works. Britain’s own “world view transforming” physicist, Newton, had his own ego problems. The impressionist painter Van Gogh cut his own ear off and was institutionalized. The musician Schubert was bipolar. The list is long and our culture is indebted to them for their contributions.
Please do not believe that I am suggesting that Leo is a genius. I, however, do wish to suggest that we focus here on Leo’s contribution to the Obama eligibility question instead of his other pursuits. Other law types involved in the question of Mr. Obama’s eligibility have spoken highly both of his ability to present the law to lay people and of his law research. Let us remember that his views are shared by other lawyers including a federal judge who has restated Leo’s approach to Quo Warranto in a written official decision.
Other
May I ask how long have you been out of the States? The population here has been awakened from its slumbering apathy. Who would have believed a few years ago that the tabloid National Enquirer would produced reputable journalism and the major media, TV and print, would act as a propaganda machine that assumed that the citizenry was too stupid to figure out what was really going on. The election of Scott Brown proved that the citizens figured out for themselves that the government is out of control. These citizens have also figured out that Mr. Obama’s agenda is not good for the country as reflected in the polling numbers on his policies.
kj
I responded to your post, but I’m afraid I have no interest in debating this further with you. I do not wish to be rude, but you are very right wing – I am not, we will never agree, it’s pointless. I am only interested in debating the facts of the eligibility issue.
As regards how long I have been out of the US – I spend time in the US every year, and read a variety of US media from both left and right most days. I would guess I am more informed about US politics than a fair number of US citizens. I have a lot of American friends in the UK, my husband works for a very large US bank – is this sufficient for you to value my opinion? I hope so, but if not I will just have to live with that.
kj
I forgot to mention I have been following the birthers extremely closely for almost two years now – from when they first emerged from the PUMA movement in the 2008 primaries. I am very familiar with the arguments, and have followed unsubstantiated rumours take on a life of their own, and reverberate around the blogosphere. Websites that do not allow opposition posters – ie virtually all birther sites – print so much rubbish it’s comical. I am very familiar with what they say – I can give them no credence whatsoever.
I already read plenty of right wing material (NR, Redstate, FR, WSJ ..)- so thanks but no thanks for the links.
Bystander,
I didn’t see your post about the chemo until I made my post. It must have posted after I made my post. Posting here was difficult for a while, and I’m not sure why the site was not accepting comments properly either. Some on my comments came up as “waiting for moderation.”
I am sorry to hear that you have cancer. Cancer must be difficult to face because it would be like your own body turning against you. Chemo can be difficult but quite successful when the right version is found for you. Is your prognosis good?
Whether you continue to chat with me is up to you. I do not consider myself a “right winger,” and think that “labels” are harmful. I think that everyone is entitled to his own opinion and am seeking the truth backed up by facts. I am quite mystified that you called the widely respected “Wall Street Journal” right wing and would appreciate an explanation of your opinion in that matter.
KJ
kj says:
January 31, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Bystander,
I didn’t see your post about the chemo until I made my post. It must have posted after I made my post. Posting here was difficult for a while, and I’m not sure why the site was not accepting comments properly either. Some on my comments came up as “waiting for moderation.”
I am sorry to hear that you have cancer. Cancer must be difficult to face because it would be like your own body turning against you. Chemo can be difficult but quite successful when the right version is found for you. Is your prognosis good?
…. unfortunately not, stage 4, part of the reason I post here is a need for distraction – it works well for me.
Whether you continue to chat with me is up to you. I do not consider myself a “right winger,” and think that “labels” are harmful. I think that everyone is entitled to his own opinion and am seeking the truth backed up by facts. I am quite mystified that you called the widely respected “Wall Street Journal” right wing and would appreciate an explanation of your opinion in that matter.
….. WSJ opinion pages are considered by most people to be right wing. Since Murdoch bought the paper, I think the news has slanted further right as well.
From your posts you are what I consider a right winger, as you seem terrified of Obama’s agenda. I simply don’t think we will achieve anything by debating it – I am socially very liberal, an avowed atheist and economically in the centre (by European standards, probably that would make me again very liberal by US standards). You won’t convince me to change – I’m 51 and know my own mind, having spent many many years studying the subject and thinking about it.
Bystander,
I am sorry to hear about your prognosis. Apparently your cancer was not discovered early. I hope that your chemotherapy is not debilitating, none of your major organs are compromised, you are not in pain, and have loving support from your family and friends. Hang in there and don’t give up hope.
As a last option, experimental clinical trial treatments may be available for you at M D Anderson in Houston if you should desire them. Local charities provide housing for patients, I believe at no cost, during the treatments. M D Anderson is still one of the foremost cancer treatment centers in the world.
Did you ever see the movie (70′s perhaps) about the woman who had cancer, knew that she would not survive, and who made audio tapes for her child to listen to as she grew up? I think that was a beautiful idea. Your children are probably old enough to remember you if you don’t beat the cancer, but you could still leave a loving message for them when they marry and for when your grandchildren are born.
Previously, I had told you some about my background. Now something about my world view. I am agnostic, believe in natural selection as the mechanism for evolution, and a scientist. I realize that government intervention is necessary in the free market system sometimes, but also believe that the government should stay out of business matters and our personal lives as much as possible. I believe that all the people in the world need to respect the earth and not destroy it or overtax it strictly for human ego (think Easter Island). I do have doubts about the current models of man made global warming, and think that the jury is still out on the question. (That does not mean that I don’t think that we cannot reduce our carbon emissions by personal commitment and that we should abandon searching for non-carbon generating energy sources.) Before each ice age, the Strontium levels in the ocean have risen and they are rising now. Is another ice age imminent? I am conservative in money matters and am very upset about how the US government misuses tax payer money, much of which is never spent on its intended target, but leaks through the sieve of corruption.
I find your view of the Wall Street Journal interesting. The spin in the Journal is pro business and to the conservative. Please give me an example of something blatantly “right wing” presented in the Journal. I have read the Journal for many years and would say that the Journal has picked up more liberal commentary since Murdoch bought the paper. One regular columnist, Peggy Noonan, was extremely pro Obama and stayed hopefully positive about him for several months after he took office. She has become less pro Obama after watching his performance and watching him try to implement an agenda that independents don’t buy into. I think that she, like many citizens, would support him if he would move towards the American center.
For most people who are concerned about the current government’s actions, the main problem with Mr. Obama is the disconnect between what he says (and has promised) and his (and the Democratically controlled Congress’) actions. Many promises have failed to materialize or the opposite has occurred: transparency, no lobbyists in administration, no more corruption, no new taxes for the middle class, no signing statements, legislation posted for 72 hours on internet before vote, bipartisanship, etc. Mr. Obama is apparently not the person portrayed during his campaign. A person close to the Obamas has written that Mr. Obama did not in fact write “Dreams from My Father,” but had to ask the former bomber Bill Ayres to do it for him. (Bill Ayres has never received any credit nor royalties for his work on “Obama’s” book.) I still believe that U S citizen voters should have all relevant information on the Presidential candidates before Election Day, and that much of Mr. Obama relevant information was intentionally hidden by him, his party, and his campaign possibly with the intent to deceive the public.
In Mr. Obama, I see a charismatic individual that can convince everyone that he holds the same opinions as they do. Charismatic individuals can move people to do things that they normally don’t do, whether for the good or bad. People like that move mountains or inspire people to act inhumanly. I listened to his words during the campaign and realized that he sounded good (inspiring a public mania) but didn’t really offer any reasonable and concrete solutions. He scared me and others. In my opinion, if he had had more experience in government, he could have fundamental transformed the United States government into a form that I would no longer recognize and would not have liked. Thank goodness he was inexperienced and really has no patience for the current workings of our government. Thank goodness that the public has woken up and is standing up to Mr. Obama and the Congress.
Perhaps if you don’t mind, you can tell me a little more about how you view Mr. Obama.
I like the traditional government of the United States and choose to live here. I could live under the European governments too. It is wonderful that countries have different approaches to government and that individuals can choose the government under which they wish to live.
Oh, on the Presidential speech to schoolchildren, the actual speech was widely approved. My reference was to the after speech activities suggested by the Department of Education.
Take care of yourself,
KJ
Kj
Thanks for your concern – I am actually very cheerful about it, and receiving extremely good care from our wonderful National Health Service – no need to travel to the US for treatment.
My opinion of Obama is that he is highly intelligent, serious, thoughtful, extremely knowledgeable, and pragmatic. I will give him an enormous amount of slack to deal with a crisis that was not of his making – I don’t think any previous President has ever had so much on their plate. In dealing with a financial crisis, 2 wars and trying to overhaul the health service there are bound to be missteps. I have no idea why you would be frightened of him – I find it quite ridiculous actually. What changes are you frightened of?
Bystander,
The problem is that we in America are suffering from a much more destructive war than either the Iraq or the Afghanistan war. A war that is far more dangerous is being waged between the Democrats and Republicans. Granted not every politician on either side is involved directly, but they are involved nonetheless. We have real problems, problems that demand solutions. Not purely ideological solutions as many seem determined to enforce on everyone else. While many want to blame all of the current problems on “obstructionist” Republicans, this is only a symptom of a greater problem. If the current situation were currently reversed, the problem would be the “obstructionist” Democrats. The losers are we the people.
We are currently in the midst of a cultural war in many ways. One which has been brewing for quite some time. Both sides have grown so divergent that compromise is almost impossible. Working together is important, but at some point, you have to decide that you either are, or are not going to compromise your core beliefs. A line has been drawn in the sand and what we are experiencing is the result. You see it almost everywhere. You see it here as with news and political blogs all over the net. You see it in a completely biased media. You see it in politicians who seem to have no grasp at all on what their constituents are thinking. And worse, the complete contempt they show for the very people they were elected to represent. Many have forgotten that they represent the people, all of the people. Even the ones who don’t agree with them. So while many of these politicians are fighting their own little turf war, they don’t seem to have noticed that the people are about to turn against all of them. Politicians are supposed to be leaders. True leaders find a way to rise above the fray. Not be a part of it.
Our Health Care system has problems that need to be addressed. But none that require the wholesale changes that are being proposed. In spite of what the loudest voices may be saying to the contrary, the majority of the people are against what is being proposed. Every credible poll shows this, and the numbers get worse by the week. I see the problems they tout, in fact I have experienced them first hand. I have spoken with Doctors who tell me that every Doctor they work with is against this plan. In one case, that was 100+ doctors in one location. So something is very wrong with what is going on here.
During the State of the Union, the President suggested that he is going to try to include the GOP in the problem solving process. I am skeptical. Very skeptical. I believe it is merely a political ploy. And even if he makes a half heart-ed attempt, will the GOP reciprocate? Or will the gamesmanship continue? I have little confidence that either of them can pull it off. As I said before, we have real problems. Problems that demand solutions, not words followed by inaction. And while some consider this politics as usual, I think the majority is starting to think otherwise.
I agree with much of what you say, except the polls on health care. The problem is whenever Obama has tried to deal in a bipartisan way he has been rebuffed. He has kept many republican on in his administration, and offered jobs to senior republicans. Bush never tried to be bipartisan, so you cannot aim the same accusations at Democrats for the previous 8 years.
Anyway, as I have said before – I am here to discuss eligibility only – I do not see any point in getting into a wider discussion about politics with people who hate Obama or are frightened of him.
First, to use a phrase that the President uses frequently. “Lets be clear”, one I don’t hate or fear Mr. Obama. You can disagree about the health care polls all you’d like, but that does not change the facts of what they are currently reporting. I could go and pull all the links up and cite them, but that would be pointless. Care to place a bet that they can pass it as it currently stands? I can also aim any accusation that pleases me at the Democrats because they are every bit as partisan and culpable in this problem. In fact, they used to revel in fact of being the “party of no”. I watched them proclaim it on an almost daily basis pre 2006. They were also the party of “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism” party for years. I still have the bumper sticker. So save that crap for someone who hasn’t been paying attention.
The only answer people like you have is “But Bush did or didn’t do this or that” Do you not realize how completely childish that really sounds. You know what? I don’t really care what Bush did or didn’t do at this point. I don’t care what Clinton did or didn’t do. I don’t care what Bush Sr. did or didn’t do….. You get the idea. What I care about is what happens going forward. Right now today, the president is Mr. Obama. And whether it is 2012 or 2016, we will have a new President. And I will expect the same from whomever that turns out to be. I expect the same of Congress. At some point, somebody has to stop and rise above all of this pettiness. I don’t want to hear either side blame the other. I expect them to get up this morning, and put their “big boy” pants on and actually do something. Standing around pointing fingers and whining about what or how the other guy did is not acceptable any more. And if this current crop of politicians don’t figure that out soon, they will all be looking for a new vocation. Because every credible indicator from polls, to recent elections says so.
bystander,
In my absence, I have been working on a more productive project and must return to it again soon. This may be my last note to you.
Please relax about your children’s citizenship status. They would be “grandfathered in” and would not lose their United States passports. They may have to declare a single citizenship at majority if new laws are adopted here or if the State Department chooses to enforce the one citizenship policy. Dual citizenship has never been officially sanctioned. And regretfully, I don’t think that your children should be eligible to be President of the United States.
I also hope that you recover from your cancer, and that its detection and treatment was not delayed in some way by the National Health Service. I have heard both good things and bad things about the National Health Service. One of our hosts in England could have died by waiting the six months (as per the National Health Service) for a slot to have surgery for a heart problem. Thankfully, private insurance allowed the procedure to be performed promptly and, unlike Canada, private insurance is allowed in the UK. You probably have access to private insurance if your husband works for a large US bank, a nice little perk if the government had failed to come through for you.
You seem to have a very positive view of Mr. Obama. It has been said that courage increases exponentially with distance from the location of a mortal danger. You are at least 5 time zones (nearly a quarter of the earth) away from the United States, a position favorable to nearly infinite courage. You are allowed to favorably view Mr. Obama and his administration no matter what they do. I live in the States and am allowed to be more skeptical. After all, it is my taxes that are being wasted in Washington and my savings that could be severely devalued by irresponsible fiscal policy. It could be my family that is killed by a terrorist due to incompetence in the Homeland Security and Justice Departments. It could be my Constitutional rights that are lost.
You asked me what scares me about Mr. Obama. I think that I addressed that question in my previous posts. A brief recap: Mr. Obama was “deified” in the campaign, an un-American act. We still don’t know very much about Mr. Obama, but we are learning something about him from his actions. Mr. Obama wants to remake America. Into what, is as yet uncertain. The media became a propaganda machine for Mr. Obama during the campaign and remains generally so today, although some journalists are finally beginning to ask questions openly. I know propaganda when I see it. Do not forget that I have been to the Soviet Union and witnessed what life was like for some of its more fortunate citizens. I have seen the KGB haul off a citizen in broad daylight. I have seen the infamous Lubyanka and know what happened there. I saw a Soviet Union flag waved at the Chicago celebration and have watched the communistpartyUSA favorably comment on Mr. Obama’s progress. You claim to be very liberal, and, I hope that you will not be offended by this question, do you consider yourself a communist? Some Westerners actually took Soviet passports because they believed in communism; I met one.
Unfortunately, our views of Mr. Obama seem to be diametrically opposed. Let me just say that in my opinion, Mr. Obama is grossly inexperienced, has questionable connections both foreign and domestic, has hidden and lied about his past, has not sought bipartisanship, has not demonstrated that he is post racial, finds it difficult to make decisions, has offended officials foreign and domestic by ignoring protocol, believes that the Constitution is flawed, wants to remake America (in what image?), apparently failed to internalize his high priced education, is endangering the dollar and the economy by allowing the Congress to spend taxpayer and foreign loaned money recklessly, has broken laws to protect his base, has offended groups that can help him, is lost when it comes to dealing with foreign governments, and has broken many of the campaign promises that helped get him elected. He also apparently can’t see beyond his nose, apparently doesn’t listen to advice from his advisers (or they don’t offer it) and has bought into his own mystique. If the description above does not constitute a dangerous “president”, I don’t know what does.
As far as being rebuffed on bipartisan efforts, Mr. Obama and his administration never really tried to build a bipartisan consensus. It may be nearly impossible to do so in Washington today, although Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich successfully cooperated and members of Congress discarded all partisanship temporarily after 911. Mr. Bush invited Teddy Kennedy and other democrats to informal meetings at the White House very early in his administration, even though the Republicans had majorities in both houses, attempting to forge bipartisan ties. Bush’s attempt was unsuccessful. Mr. Obama’s early reply to Republican attempts to make suggestions on the agenda for the country was the highly partisan, “We won. Deal with it.”
Mr. Obama attempted to recruit the Republican Senator Gregg Judd as Commerce Secretary, then removed the responsibility traditionally associated with that post. Senator Judd remained in the Senate and fought the grossly excessive (and partisan) spending tooth and nail, becoming a major thorn in the administration’s side. I think that Mr. Obama only wanted Senator Judd out of the Senate and into a position where he wouldn’t be any trouble, a smart political move if it had worked.
It is true that Mr. Obama inherited many problems, some of which he inherited from Mr. Bush. Mr. Bush surely inherited problems from Mr. Clinton. Mr. Bush was newly President when the first foreign attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor occurred. Mr. Bush was not responsible for the attack that left a gaping hole in lower Manhattan and damaged the Pentagon. Mr. Bush made some mistakes, but he did make decisions when he needed to. I was opposed to the invasion of Iraq, but I also opposed abandoning a country that we had severely crippled without rebuilding it. I believe that Bush spent too much money and thus I am compelled to be outraged by the sums the current administration and Congress are approving.
I am sorry if Mr. Obama eventually disappoints you. I hope that Mr. Obama will moderate his agenda, and begin behaving as an American President should. If he chooses to pursue his original agenda, and the State of the Union address seems to indicate that is his current objective, I hope that we can put enough center right people in Congress during the November elections to force moderation. I also hope that Mr. Obama does not become so angry in his frustration that he does something that will severely compromise the United States and its future.
I have enjoyed our little discourse and am glad that we shared our ideas. I hope that you share a similar view of this discourse. I promise to no longer disturb your amusement discrediting the people who question Mr. Obama’s eligibility, and I now return to my work supporting the lawsuits currently in progress.
Cordially,
KJ
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