Obama Conspiracy Theories
Welcome to Obama Conspiracy Theories
Dr. Conspiracy
Obama Conspiracy Theories is your one-stop destination for conspiracy theories and fringe views about Barack Obama. Having an argument with your buddies at the office? Obama Conspiracy Theories has documented articles on nearly every speculation about Barack Obama, the details of his birth and what it takes to be a constitutionally-eligible president, all presented in plain readable language and linked to newspaper archives, Supreme Court opinions, and the documents filed in the many lawsuits involving Barack Obama’s presidential eligibility.
Just look to the right for a menu of our topics. We’re especially proud of our Featured Articles. There are links to primary sources without distortion, spin or filtering, so that you can make up your own mind with confidence.
Special features include up to date coverage of the lawsuits, tutorials on birth certificates, Obama Conspiracy Theories in the news, and extensive analysis of the history and legal definition of presidential eligibility. If you don’t agree with what you see, feel free to add your thoughts to the over 33,000 comments others have left.
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“Birther” in the news
A couple of stories appeared in the news this weekend.
The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) published a commentary by senior editor Joe Hallett titled The only substance you’ll get out of the major parties is mud in which he said:
At a recent Darke County Republican Party dinner, two warm-up speakers made “birther” jokes questioning whether Obama was born in the United States and, thus, legally eligible to be president. When his turn came to speak, [Republican Senate candidate Rob] Portman rightly ignored the comments.
Democrats pounced, claiming that Portman’s silence was a tacit admission that he supported the widely discredited birther theory. On Thursday, I received an e-mail from the Democrats breathlessly proclaiming: “Day 5 of Portman Birther Controversy.”
From the Prescott, Arizona Daily Courier comes an article titled: Backing birther bills and signs of diversity. The article samples opinion from local officials on the bill before the Arizona legislature to require future presidential candidates to prove their qualifications with a birth certificate. In a related article, the Courier reported:
Northern Arizona University political science professor Fred Solop described “birthers” as a small fringe group of extremists and said the Arizona lawmakers supporting their cause are walking a political tightrope.
A thought about natural law
Dr. Conspiracy
Mario Apuzzo left a comment that included: “what [Happersett v] Minor put forth was American common law that had its genesis in natural law and the law of nations.”
To a small degree natural law was a part of the founding principles of the United States, the best example being in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” Those truths were not from the common law, or international law; they did not require the application of logic to evidence; they were self-evident. This is the thesis of natural law, that some things are innately known and acknowledged by all, a part of our souls, a part of our humanity. Even St. Paul in the Bible wrote: (Rom 2:14-15 NASB) For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, … {15} …they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them,…
I daresay nearly everyone has this sense of what is right in them. But another way of putting this is that everyone thinks they are right, and that clearly cannot be true, since there is wide disagreement on many things.
While in its noblest form, natural law appeals to one’s sense of decency; in its basest form, natural law is nothing more than a justification for prejudice. Whether it is Emerich de Vattel or Mario Apuzzo, their beliefs as to who are the true citizens of a country are nothing more than prejudice. When we as a people cannot agree, we vote. We voted to ratify the Constitution and the 14th Amendment. The courts voted to decide cases. On the subject of citizenship, de Vattel lost. He lost because America is very different from de Vattel’s Switzerland. At the adoption of the Constitution, and in the colonial period that preceded, the country was starving for more people; we could not even maintain our population without immigration (due to a high infant mortality). This new country of immigrants could care less where you father came from.
Nowadays, people are afraid for their livelihood and blame immigrants for taking their jobs or for foreigners outsourcing them. To them what is “natural” is to circle the wagons against outsiders. Some of those feel that not only they are right, but that they are self-evidently right. This is why they are so certain, so adamant, even while being so totally lacking in legal support.
Birther appeals consolidated
The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has consolidated separate appeals filed by attorney Gary Kreep on behalf of Markham Robinson and Wiley Drake; and Orly Taitz on behalf of Pamela Barnett, Alan Keyes, et al. The February 12, 2010, order says:
The court sua sponte consolidates appeal nos. 09-56827 and 10-55084. Appeal nos. 09-56827 and 10-55084 are consolidated. The briefing schedule for the consolidated appeals is as follows: the opening briefs and excerpts of record are due June 28, 2010; the consolidated answering brief is due July 28, 2010; and the optional reply briefs are due within 14 days after service of the answering brief. All parties on a side are encouraged to join in a single brief to the greatest extent practicable.
Somehow the repeated refusal of the courts to allow Kreep and Taitz to separate their cases reminds me of the classic 1958 movie, The Defiant Ones.
Did you know? The name of Tatiz’s dental practice is “Appealing Dentistry.”
Attitude Adjustment
It’s time to have my 30,000 mile attitude adjustment.
I was somewhat hesitant about starting this web site in December of 2008 because I thought I was getting in the game too late. The inauguration was less than two months away and after that, I thought, no one would still care about these Obama conspiracy theories. I never thought it would be going strong 15 months later.
The site was initially intended as a fact checking and myth debunking collection. I figured I would have all said all there was to say in a couple dozen articles. 646 articles later, I find the material still not exhausted. I didn’t realize that the real story was not the conspiracy theories, but the personalities and political movements associated with them.
Finally, while I enabled comments to the articles early on, I though that the comments would be limited to an occasional correction or question about the articles. 32,785 comments later, I see an animated online community has sprung up.
I’m frankly not happy about how comments are working out. Yes, there are some brilliant and valuable comments, but there is a lot of incivility and bickering. (more…)
Certificate forger confesses? Naaah.
The Freepers are at it again and Citizen Wells is all over it, this time with a claim that the person who helped forge the COLB has come forward. Here’s the post. [Despite claims that this article had been "scrubbed" from the Internet, I had no problem finding it on the Free Republic site.]
Chanise Foxx, free republic
*** Update below March 7, 2010, 10:06 ET ***
“HUGE NEWS AT FREEREPUBLIC!!!
“My name is Chanise Foxx. I work at a office supply store in Kenwood, IL. After nearly 3 years of silence and death threats to me and my family to stay quiet, I am compelled to come forward and tell the world my secret.
“I helped Obama campaign staffer Divorah Adler create a fake birth certificate for use in the famous Fact Check story to prove the world of Obama’s birth in the 2008 election. Divorah approached me in early 2007 and held onto the birth certificate until she released it in August 2008.
“As I’ve been making fake IDs part-time for local college students for about eight years now, faking a birth certificate was actually quite easy. Our first step was to get our hands on someone else’s birth certificate from Hawaii. We then created the stationary to match…”e had to create an embossed stamp and rubber signature stamp for Hawaiian officials. With the help of a high-resolution scanner at the store, I did most of my work at night when the place was vacant…”
Did you catch the obvioius mistake? Obama’s COLB was released in June of 2008, not August. Another problem, is that is no Kenwood, IL–it’s only a neighborhood. 411.com didn’t turn up any Chanise Foxx either nor does Google have any reference to the name in the past.
It turns out that this is a recycled spoof. [Scroll down the the picture of Chanise.]
Baby Obama delivered by neighbor?
Flag of Kenya
The Lucas Smith image, purporting to be a Kenyan birth certificate for Barack Obama shows the attending physician as James O. W. Ang’awa. That’s not a made-up name. There really was such a physician in Kenya, and one of some note. Unfortunately for our purposes and for his family as well, he was murdered some 40 years ago.
What is interesting from the conspiracy theory point of view, a view always looking for connections, is the fact that Ang’awa was a neighbor of Barack Obama, Sr. according to a recent article at Kenya’s leading newspaper, The Nation.
Is this a remarkable coincidence? Well, if the birth certificate is a fake (and it most likely is), then the faker could have chosen any name he wanted and put it on the certificate, including one that had some connection to Barack Obama, Sr. Of course, whatever travel fancies may exist, Barack Obama, Sr. was going to college when his son, the future president, was born, and not residing near Dr. Ang’awa. That must have come later.
Kenya’s “The Nation” newspaper states that Dr Ang’awa was the director of the national anti-tuberculosis unit at the ministry of Health at the time of his death around 1970. In 1951 and 1952, Ang’awa published two articles related to medical complications related to childbirth. But by 1959 he was publishing articles about the treatment of tuberculosis at the Port Reitz Chest Hospital (in Mombasa). At the time of his death in 1970, Ang’awa was head of the national anti-tuberculosis unit at the ministry of Health.
So far, I haven’t been able to find any evidence that Dr. Ang’awa was delivering babies in 1961. Some have suggested that Ang’awa’s name came from an 1966 Journal of Tropical Pediatrics paper by him. There is an image floating around the Internet showing that journal article accompanied by two inked infant footprints (remarkably similar to the ones on the Smith certificate); however, I have not been able to locate an original image that includes this journal article and the footprints and have some doubts that it is authentic. It rather looks like someone took the journal article and pasted the footprint from the Smith certificate on them, flipping one copy. Given that the topic of the article is tuberculosis prevention, focusing on school age children, inked baby footprints don’t make a lot of sense.
The Lucas Smith certificate is discussed in my article: Latest filings in Barnett v Obama.
Online Polls
Consider this hypothetical poll about Obama conspiracy theories:
What is your view about President Obama’s eligibility to be president?
- I think the country is likely to be destroyed if we don’t get that usurper out of the White House!
- It is vitally important that the President be allowed to lead without idiotic conspiracy theories diverting the public debate. We must support our president!
- The election was over a year ago. This question is a waste of time.
You can imagine perhaps an email urging folks to vote in the poll, selecting option 1. You can imagine another email urging option 2. Can you imagine an email like the following:
Dear Friend,
There are millions of folks just like you and me that don’t give a rats ass about all this Obama conspiracy business. We don’t know anything about it, and we don’t care anything about it. The election was over a year ago and the next presidential election cycle is two whole years away. Why are we talking about this?
It is vitally important that you make your apathy known. We must gather a vast sleeping majority of disinterest and show the world that we could care less. I know that you will want stop whatever you are doing right at this moment and rush to vote in the Hypothetical Obama Conspiracy Poll.
Show the world that you don’t care. Vote Option 3!
The Committee to Promote Indecisiveness
Somehow I don’t think that email will “go viral.” Online polls that rely on volunteers to respond will always under report “don’t know” and “don’t care”. In fact, the results of such polls are more a measure of how well the advocates of a position get the word out about the poll than anything else.
