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Obama makes 10 big government lies list

In a list of 10 big government lies, published by Moyers & company last June, Barack Obama heads the list with his infamous 2009 statement about the proposed Affordable Care Act:

If you like the [health care] plan you have, you can keep it.

Of all the government lies I can think of, this one seems ill-suited for the most notable list, as it was actually true for 95% of people1, hardly in the same league with Nixon denying that the White House was involved in the Watergate break-in, or George W. Bush announcing that we had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But quibbles aside, the government does lie sometimes, and birtherism holds the premise that the Obama administration lies about everything, along with the State of Hawaii when it comes to birth records.

I think that it is beyond the resources of most people to verify everything the government says to them. This leaves the individual to decide who to trust. I take the “innocent until proven guilty” stance towards government pronouncements and leave it to investigative journalists to set the record straight when necessary. While I think my approach is practical and usually works, it is not without chance of error. What is the alternative? For those who lack confidence in both the press and the government, they can choose to believe whatever matches their personal preference and is in line with their prejudices. Police violence would seem to be one topic where facts  are taking second place to prejudice on both sides (this is a “reserve judgment” issue for me).

imageThe book that prompted the Moyers & company story is 935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity by Chuck Lewis. Lewis makes the point that facts become irrelevant in a democracy when most people don’t believe them. His example for this is weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I would cite Republicans and birtherism, or conservatives and climate change. We are in a sad state when facts become matters of opinion.

 


1It was PolitiFact’s 2013 Lie of the Year.

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Obama says in video: “surrender your rights to an all-powerful sovereign”

Here’s the video posted on YouTube last May:

The sound track goes:

As for the international order that we have worked for generations to build, [camera cut to audience] ordinary men and women are too small-minded to govern their own affairs. That order and progress can only come when individuals surrender their rights to an all-powerful sovereign.

I tried to punctuate that transcript so as to follow what I think the video maker intended people to hear, but it doesn’t quite match the vocal inflection that would dictate a period following the word “build” and creating an incomplete first sentence. Indeed the camera cuts to the audience shot at just that point and the video cuts out an entire paragraph. Rather than praising authoritarian government, Obama is actually critiquing that idea.

More, including the full text of what Obama said, is at FactCheck.org.

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New Obama conspiracy: birthers can’t use the Internet

Sharon Rondeau has a December 20 article republished at Gerbil Report™ titled “Does the Obama Regime Control the Wayback Machine? ‘FightTheSmears’ link redirects to Obama Political Action Website.”

Charles Kerchner read the article and recast the title as: “Obama Scrubbing The Way Back Time Machine Internet Archives of His Criminal ID Document Fraud (Forged Short-Form CERTIFICATION of Live Birth Form) from The 2008 Election Cycle.”

So does this redirection indicate that Obama is scrubbing the Internet for all traces of his 2008 short-form birth certificate, or that once again the birther confuses their own incompetence with conspiracy.

As a matter of fact, I personally observed that the FightTheSmears web site went offline years ago, and attempts to access it were redirected then to BarackObama.com as they are today. So when the Web Archive “Wayback Machine” scanned the site, it got the redirected page just as everyone else did. However, older versions of the Obama site from before it went offline, still available at the Wayback Machine, have the original content, such as this capture from August 14, 2008 retrieved today (click on the image to access the actual Wayback Machine page).

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For the edification of the birthers, I suggest the Wikipedia article on URL redirection. It explains that any domain can redirect web requests somewhere else, just as the webmaster of FightTheSmears did. It has nothing whatever to do with scrubbing or altering the Wayback Machine.

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The Obama Timeline

A fellow by the name of Don Frederick has published what he calls “The Complete Obama Timeline” on a web site and in two books (material prior to September of 2009 appears in the books). He says that the timeline is over 10,000 pages long and spans Obama’s entire life.

What Frederick has done is to search the Internet finding anything negative about Obama published online (both blogs, comments by political opponents and actual news reporting), and placed it in documents by month in PDF format. Some of the stories I found in a quick scan of the material don’t actually relate to Obama personally but to more general topics such as climate change.

I quibble with Frederick’s use of the word “Complete” since he has omitted anything positive about Obama from the report. For example, the only thing about Obama’s December 2014 press conference were criticisms from political opponents, and not what Obama said. The Complete Obama Obama Timeline print edition (Volume 2) says:

This Timeline does not shy away from noting rumors about Obama if there is any possibility they may be accurate.

So yes, there is much about Obama’s birth certificate in there.

Don Frederick was one of the dignitaries scheduled to speak at the aborted Birther Summit and he has been a guest on Mark Gillar’s Internet radio program, and Peter Boyles’ radio show.

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A/Z Day

The term “A/Z Day”1 is appearing as the designation of the great hope of the birthers, the looked-for vindication of all their efforts. It’s the day when Arpaio and Zullo hold a press conference and release some damning indictment against Obama that doesn’t fall apart under scrutiny. It was once called the “March reveal” but, you know, that didn’t work out. Here are examples:

Here’s Barry Soetoro Esq at Obama Release Your Records 13 weeks ago:

#3 Panic Obots/Traitors into flipping and cutting a deal before A/Z Day. Hearing A/Z’s progress on the radio most Fridays should frighten Obots into cooperating with police.

Seven Weeks ago BSE was once again at Gerbil Report™ as part of a dust-up between Falcon, a commenter named Scott and himself:

"Team Scott" seems very confident they can act with impunity without fear of getting exposed after A/Z Day blows the lid off the Ostapo and folks start rounding up the footsoldiers who ran interference on behalf of the Regime.

deleted6377468 wrote at Gerbil Report™ 3 weeks ago:

[Thomas Sowell writing in the National Review Online is] complicit in the greatest fraud in American history. As A/Z day draws ever closer, the rats are leaving the ship.

I’ve been reading some private speculation that basically says that the “scandal” about Zullo receiving a $10,000 gratuity, plus “The Joe Show’s” depiction of Arpaio playing the birther issue for the money has made the Cold Case Posse and Mike Zullo too great a liability for the Sheriff. I would have though that Zullo being caught lying about evidence would be the big scandal, but I doubt Sheriff Joe is smart enough to realize what Zullo did. I think the most important thing that will prevent there ever being a joint Arpaio/Zullo news conference is the questions that would inevitably be asked by reporters. Arpaio would be asked about the ethics of the $10,000 gift, but the most difficult question of all would be about Cold Case Posse financing and their skating around IRS rules for reporting by non-profit tax exempt organizations. Zullo can dodge that question by claiming to be part of the Sherriff’s Department, and Arpaio can dodge that question by saying the Posses are independent, but they cannot both dodge the issue appearing together.

Personally, I think Jesus will return first.


1To the best of my knowledge, the first use of the term “A/Z Day” was by an undercover anti-birther posting at Gerbil Report™. Ironically, a commenter there (Reagans_Ghost) used the term himself in this observation 6 weeks after the initial use. He wrote in August 2014:

You know we are close when Obots come on here and have phony debates with THEMSELVES! Lol! Pathetic! You CRETINS come on here masquerading as "birthers" so you can make racist comments then CHIDE eachother for making said comments , all in the name of trying to make us look bad. I’ve NEVER seen the amount of Obot traffic on here that I’ve seen in this last week! I think you guys know you are done and SOON. When 90% of the first 20 comments or so are made by Obots, you can be damn sure we are CLOSE to A/Z day!

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Fishing for gold coins in a bucket of mud

Photo of Dr. Conspiracy without a hatFinding gold coins in a bucket of mud is really not difficult because gold is heavier than mud. The coins sink to the bottom and can be retrieved efficiently in any number of simple ways. Just as the coins collect at the bottom of the bucket, so do the more unsavory birthers collect at the Birther Report™ web site and on other forums and blogs.

Those sometimes angry, sometimes vulgar, and sometimes racist birthers are not a cross section of people who check YES on polls about having doubts on where Obama was born. No, those responses are from people who are active on the issue, and in the case of Birther Report™ they are truly what has sunk to the bottom of the barrel.

The present stance of Obama Conspiracy Theories focuses on reporting stories about birthers. Just as “dog bites man” is not news, neither is “birther doubts Obama.” To make the news here, a birther has to behave badly, or in a laughably stupid manner. So just as I have to keep reminding myself that what I read at Orly Taitz Esq. is not representative of all birthers, I remind you too.

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