In a new poll of GOP voters, the majority (51%) said they thought Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States (28% aren’t sure).
Birtherism is on the rise, says Public Policy Polling in their article today.
“Any thought that the birther theory has been put to rest can be thrown out the window with this poll,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “That view is still widely held in Republican circles.”
Full results here.
Doc – as I just said over at Balloon Juice, how many of them know that Hawaii is part of the US? If they are so uneducated as to where he was born it could well be that they are just as uneducated as to Hawaii’s status, remember the Cokie Roberts “exotic” meme?
I wonder how many Republicans thought Bill Clinton had murdered Vince Foster.
Do they believe in chemtrails too? Many birthers do… or most? lol!!
I just learned a new word for them: Chemtards!
lol!
Two points: 1. “Republican Voters” do not in general support President Obama to begin with, so it’s not actually an issue as to what 51% of them think. 2. Why do they oppose the leader of the Republicans in Congress?
You mean in all that 51% I won’t find my long-sought “pro-Obama birther”. The search will continue. I am thiinking of offering a cash reward.
Why not? Many in their leadership are very coy when asked-just coy enought to give pause. There is also the effect of wishful thinking. If he wasn’t born here, then we truly do not have an African American President. I would be very interested in a poll that separated folks out by region. I am willing to bet that Republicans in the north may differ from those in the south.
It seems to me that Republican leaders are doing a dance – saying that they believe that the President was born in Hawai’i (implying that it is a matter of personal opinion) while refusing to say that the birthers are wrong. I think that this is a dangerous strategy – if any birther law or ballot challenge prompts a ruling similar to Ankeny, then the birther issue could easily backfire and become a Democratic wedge issue… It all depends on how things play with low-information independent voters.
many on the right believe Obama is not an American, these right winger also avoid long journeys (they are afraid of falling off the edge of the 6000 year old earth) their favorite comment is “..I didn’t come from no monkey)
Why would anyone expect Republicans to alienate their own base? They have to do the birther dance. They throw political bones to the birthers to keep them in the fold and not going independent or third party while they refuse to hold hearings on Obama’s eligibility or serve as co-plaintiffs in birther lawsuits.
It’s “politics as usual.”
Or Ron Brown for that matter.
I’m always suspicious of survey questions about the President’s birth in the USA. I would like to see the percentages if you include the same question about the Presidents Bush or Reagan. How high a percentage of not sure votes would you get?
“Can you catch a falling star without burning your hand? Can you put the sky in your mouth? Can you say to an earthquake..’hey hold still for a second’? No! Such is Mango!”
Yes, now there’s a target group that President Obama will be concerned about in the next election – REPUBLICAN voters.
Frankly, I think that many of them just say that, without really believing it, for political reasons. They just want to dupe others into not voting for him by repeating the lie over and over again
Yep, the Republicans are like a married man with a crazy mistress. They hope that by not actually denouncing the birthers, they can retain their votes without ticking off the sane voters. Ironically, it’s not really working. Boehner and the other Rep. weasels have been roundly denounced by Taitz and company. Apparently even birthers sometimes know when smoke is being ever so delicately blown up their rectal cavities.
The crazy mistress will never be satisfied with sneaking around. She wants to be acknowledged and loved, in public. She wants respect. She wants to see President Obama marched from the White House in chains and hanged by the neck until dead. She wants a lynching and she wants it bad.
Perfect description of Orly. She and Beck are clearly trying to incite a lone wolf.
boehner and cantor’s bad dreams about 2012 are coming true, courtesy of freeperville:
Which is the GOP problem in general – If you build a base based on ignorance, lies and hate…where do you go from there? How do you ever get any serious business done?
It is a very short-sighted strategy at best and bound to be their eventual undoing.
Really! If most of your base of support is a bunch of self-destructive angry / insane morons… why, just why would anyone be proud of that or want to court such bottom dwellers? You can’t be a person of integrity at all to pursue that type of cynical “manipulate the crass dupes” strategy.
Great SNL reference! LOL! Thanks.
Agreed.
Exactly. That is why such a cynical strategy of courting such types of voters as a base is doomed for failure.
You can never satisfy such nutty zealots…they will always just up the anty further and further off the cliff of crazyville.
And any attempts to continue to pander to them and their increasingly insane demands just further alienates “sane” stalwart supporter holdouts. At some point, any sane person comes to a point of realization that the stink of crazy is just too much to continue to support or associate with such behaviors.
And the crazy just increase that flight as well – by asserting greater and greater authority as the overall number of supporters decrease and the crazy-base influence becomes a stronger and stronger influence as a greater proportion of a shrinking whole.
The crazy zealots cannot stand dissention and will do their own to run the remaining sane out of town or similarly excommunicate them via some sort of ever increasing “purity test”.
That is why such strategies are completely self-destructive and doomed in the long run – all you do is end up with your support structure continually shrinking while at the same time becoming further and further insane and endlessly turning on each other.
There is also a difference between what people often tell pollsters and what they truly believe in their hearts. The most rabid of Republicans don’t want to be perceived of or listed as supporting Obama in any way, shape or form. Therefore, they are not going to allow themselves to be associated with anything that conceivably aids his term in office.
Hence, you get polling question answers like “no, I don’t believe that he was born in America,” not with such a weird sounding name.
Here’s the poll of that 51% of Republicans I want to see
If President Obama released a long form birth certificate, would you vote for him for president in 2012?
A. YES
B. NO
I couldn’t agree more – the Republican leadership is sowing the wind by trying to play the birhters with dog whistle politics. We’ll see just how big a whirlwind they will reap in 2012… I also think that katahdin had it right – a lynching is just what Orly (and many others in the birther movement) want…
FUT,
I haven’t conducted the poll, but I’m guessing that the answer would be 100% ‘NO’ even if you asked every single one of them…
It certainly doesn’t take a rocket pollster, does it, Slart? 🙂
FUT,
I imaging that it would be more like Diogenes search – I’m not sure how one polls rockets in any case… 😉
http://greggjackson.com/blog/
No. 5 on his list for candidates who consider themselves conservative:
“5. Are you confident that Barack Hussein Obama is constitutionally eligible to serve as President considering the fact that he has yet to release his state certified long-form birth certificate showing the hospital he was born in, the physician who delivered him and the time of his birth proving that he is a natural born U.S. citizen? (if “yes” then candidate not a conservative.)”
James, it looks like there are absolutely no conservatives in Congress or on the Supreme Court. By the way who is Gregg Jackson?
And in other news, the sky is blue.
I don’t think anyone here is particularly surprised?
I always find polls of the US population rather bizarre anyway. It always produces weird results like (I’m making this up but you’ll get my point) “52% believe in leprechauns” or “48% think Hitler lived on the Moon” or “50% think Germany is located in Antarctica”, etc.
Either:
(a) the polls are weirdly slanted to get just that kind of results. (I refer you to an episode of YES MINISTER where Sir Humphrey demonstrate to Bernard how, with lead-in questions, you can bring people to either say they’re pro or against military service — clip below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjh13hxehl4&feature=related
A classic. But I digress.
(b) the responders lie to the pollsters out of a mischievous sense of anarchy, or
(c) a massive number of Americans, far greater than anything comparable in the West, is truly dumb as a post.
I honestly don’t know which is which.
Well put!
“Paul Norton “Pete” McCloskey Jr. (born September 29, 1927) is a former Republican politician from the U.S. state of California who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1967 to 1983…McCloskey said at the time, “I don’t know whether you are right or wrong about the Holocaust,” and referred to the “so-called Holocaust”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_McCloskey
He also went to Israel, and lectured PM Menachem Begin about the West Bank. Finally, Begin had enough, got up, pointed to a map on his office wall and told McCloskey to point out the West Bank. McCloskey could not find it.
There’s the story told about President McKinley and the Phillipines. He was waken, and told Spain had conceded the Phillipines. Did he want to keep the islands, or give them independence? McKinley actually had to go to a map to find where they were. He later told reporters that an angel appeared, and told him it was his duty to keep the islands, and Christianize them.
He did not know that Catholic missionaries had baptized just about everyone there.
Such a poll need not be intentionally skewed to produce a strange result. There are many ways to ask a question and a seemingly neutral question can make a person who is unsure assume that either answer is equally supported by evidence.
I suspect that receiving a call from a pollster asking about for an opinion on such a matter leads some respondents to assume that Obama’s birthplace is a serious and legitimate topic of public debate. In such a scenario, someone who knew nothing about birtherism or the evidence of Obama’s birth in Hawaii could simply answer according to his respect or disrespect for Obama in general.
Additionally, there may well be selection bias in a poll about birtherism. Those who believe the myth of a Kenyan birth may be pleased to be asked about the matter by a pollster and more willing to share their opinions. Those who consider it nonsense may be more likely to consider the question a waste of time and hang up on the pollster.
That’s kinda what I meant. Have you watched the YES MINISTER clip? It’s a beaut. It shows how you can lead people into saying just about anything.
Yes, though that clip deals with a series of questions deliberately designed to sway the response. It is similarly possible for a poll to accidentally produce such a result.
In the case of the poll in question, it does not ask anything about Obama or his birthplace and so does not seem to lead respondents toward any particular response. It does, however, ask about a question of fact after asking about individuals’ subjective beliefs about how suited certain people were for the Presidency. By introducing a factual question related to conspiracy theories after asking multiple ordinary questions of preference, it may well have been perceived as a question about whether they approve of Obama and enjoy knowing that he was born in the USA.
I would like to make a correction to my last comment. The first sentence of the second paragraph should read as follows:
In the case of the poll in question, it does not ask anything about Obama or his birthplace before question 11 and so does not seem to lead respondents toward any particular response.
Additionally, there may be a lot of corrupt pollsters out there too. Because I still have a landline and my setup allows me to answer those calls even during the workday, I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten an increasing amount of poll calls over the past few years.
They usually start off by identifying that they are taking a survey and mentioning that that it should take a certain amount of my time to answer all their questions (usually something like 10).
I find it funny that on many of these polls, you can tell the pollster has an agenda, because as soon as I answer one single early question with an answer that wasn’t what they were really after, they end the call.
In high school, oh so long ago, I worked for a band/orchestra/piano music store that was next to a small polling firm, and I’d often see their employees at the various local restaurants in that shopping center, and we’d chat. One of the things they’d talk about is how easy it was to get a poll to come out a certain way by, as G points out, only asking the “key question” to people who have already answered other questions the right way.
The polls were designed as perhaps 12 questions with only the 12th question being the one the customer that hired them wanted, and in politics the customer often wanted the result to go a certain way. So throughout the 12 questions there were “exit points” at which the pollster could end the poll while making it seem (to the person on the other end of the line) that they had actually finished them all while in reality it was ending early.
They would enter each answer into their computer and their software could predict fairly accurately the likely response to question 12, and it then told the questioner whether to ask that question. Since a poll that went 100% one way or the other wouldn’t be believable there were generally target numbers – almost always 50-60 percent so a side could claim a “majority” without it being outlandish.
In this case it would be pretty easy by asking a handful of seemingly neutral questions about policy, politics, Obama, and the Constitution, without bringing up birtherism at all, to determine whether someone is more likely to hold those views, then only ask the birth question in such a case – presto, only 20% of Republicans “sure” he was born here with 51% “positive” he was not.
It’s ridiculously easy and lets the pollster even publish the full survey questions – which can be completely unbiased and non-push polling questions – because the last essential question was only asked to people that answered the other questions a certain way.
This should be the Text Book definition of a “Pipe Dream”.
Or is it a conservative wet dream?
Because they’ve got no one else who will still believe their bullshit trickle down economics scam.
Last year Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com showed (by statistical analysis of the frequency of digits) that a pollster was (almost certainly) faking their results. While all statistics (except fake ones…) are facts, all interpretations of statistics are someone’s opinion which may be (deliberately or not) biased. Additionally, the questions themselves (or even the order in which they are asked) can bias a statistic even if the person conducting the poll is honest (the designer of such a poll is necessarily complicit with the bias or incompetent at designing polls). In my opinion, one way in which nearly all issue polling is biased is by failing to ask about how much people care about the issue – I think this leads to serious misunderstandings in debates over topics like abortion (where one side is likely to care much more about the debate – and much more likely to base their vote solely on that topic – than the other). In the case of the birthers, my guess is that most of those that think that President Obama wasn’t born in the US don’t care about it all that much – plus as FUT pointed out above and Scientist has been pointing out for months, the group of people who would change their vote if shown ‘proof’ of US birth (you know, besides a document which is prima facie evidence of that fact in any US court which has been repeatedly verified by the official custodian of the record…) is very likely to be the empty set. I doubt that this poll is of any electoral significance and I think that the most significant thing that can be inferred from the poll is probably that there are a lot of low-information voters out there…
I have had the same exact thing happen to me.
As soon as you show any kind of support for Obama they end the call.
This follow-up is to not only you, but everyone else who’s responded to my last post as well (Tarrant & Slarti & your previous excellent post as well).
Good points everyone. There is definitely a LOT of subjective bias going on in many of today’s pollings, for all of the reasons that everyone’s mentioned.
Here’s another one of those reasons – a very timely article just appeared which has introduced me to the term for what is also happening – “frugging”…
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2011/02/16/word_of_the_day.html
http://politicaldictionary.com/words/frugging/
Why am I utterly unsurprised that this goes on enough that there is a word for it?
Even more telling is that this word is just coming out now. That leads me to suspect that this practice has really increased in recent years as a new political “tactic” out there.
No matter what silly arguments you folks come up with, fact is Obama is deliberately hiding lots of fundamental information about his origins and his schooling/experience. No matter what silly arguments you come up with, he can clear up the mystery. But he’s not. By his own admission, people who are hiding things usually have a good reason…paraphrasing there. He was much more blunt about that.
Media matters, factcheck.org, snopes.com, etc., none of these are official sites…none of what they post or claim is under oath, and all of it is suspect.
If the “official Kenyan” birth certificate is suspect, surely the falsified COLB placed online is suspect.
The truth should not scare any of you. Why not insist upon the truth? Using the power of subpoena, congressional committees could investigate and reveal truth. The courts could reveal truth, if they would only hear the issue on it’s merits instead of the phony “standing” issue which assumes you and I don’t have any standing to insist on Constitutional enforcement by government.
Such stupidity has been demonstrated in going along with hiding all this stuff, it’s pathetic. Want transparency? Why not have it! Why not insist upon it! I do. I demand the truth.
Those of you who think I’m stupid should look in a mirror. There is a way to end this whole issue, and you all know what it is. Join me and others in demanding that this issue be thoroughly investigated, and justice done.
If he’s truly a “natural born Citizen” and eligible, I’d be happy to say so….but hey, if he is, he’s hiding it. If he’s not, he should not be in the office.
However, they are all backed up by official statements that Dr. Fukino has made as well as her sworn testimony to the Hawai’i legislature (I believe that the latter was under oath and all of her statements were under the pains and penalties of perjury). None of us are afraid of the truth, but it is curious that you imply that we are while completely denying the truth yourself… project much?
Excellent comment. I completely agree with you.
I think Obama’s Kenya BC you are looking for is right here!
Thanks for visiting.
Would you vote for him? (My God, could this finally be the one???)
Just because no President or presidential candidate has ever released fundamental information about their origins does not mean they are hiding things. Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be.
Calm down Scientist – you don’t want to scare it off if it is…
Are you deliberately lying or are you just ignorant of the fact that your statement is utterly false?
vharlow
Please,
Precisely what is the President
?
There are two books, far more released details than any other president, more column inches, reports, ope-ed pieces than probably any other etc.
So, EXACTLY, what is it, in your opinion that has been deliberately hidden?
It’s so hard Slarty, looking for that elusive pro-Obama birther. It’s like the mirage in the desert to the man dying of thirst…
And the Irony Meter goes OFF THE SCALE!!!
We do…. but for some reason you birthers just refuse to comply with our demands that you stop lying.
Wow. You are the clear case of ODS (Obama Derangement Syndrome) are you? All of your arguments are pseudo-nonsense at best.
Sorry, but he’s not “hiding” anything. That is just your imagination. There is no “mystery” except in the fevered minds of deranged haters like you.
There are no laws to require revealing such personal info; no requirements or relevance to such in terms of eligibility for POTUS either. Such irrelevant trivia about his personal background has nothing to do with his job and is quite frankly, none of yours or anyone else’s business. Most of it is protected by various privacy laws and those organizations (schools, hospitals, etc.) are the ones that retain any such records and cannot release them to you either.
Sorry, no evidence at that he’s “hiding” anything. I don’t recall any official sources with justifications that have ever asked for such information. Only a bunch of irrelevant silly birthers on websites. That counts for nothing. You have no legitimate reason to request such info, other than your own personal curiosity, which has ZERO legal basis.
Another meaningless whine from a nobody with no authority on matters he knows little about. These are all merely fact-checking sites. You are only unhappy with them because they’ve debunked various silly myths and lies that you desperately need to cling to. You have no room to talk about information being “suspect”, as there is no legitimate evidence or sources you’ve provided for any of your whining screed here, so your words ring hollow.
There is no actual “official Kenyan” bc. Just some clear and obvious forgeries that were debunked a long time ago. You just make yourself out to look like a gullible idiot even bringing such dumb stuff up.
What “falsified” COLB? Again, you spend too much of your time buying into myths with no basis in reality.
Newsflash: the only way to put a paper document online so that everyone can see it on the web is to scan it in. The pics on Factcheck show the actual piece of paper being handled and clearly show the raised seal and official signatures. Your argument that there is only an “image” is ridiculous bunk. Again, you only make yourself look like a fool saying such obviously stupid things.
Sorry, FAIL again. We’re the ones supporting facts, reality, evidence and truth. No fear here. The whole reason this site exists is because WE INSIST upon the truth and challenge the lies and myths that dopes like you fall for and spread.
Why do you support FRIVOLOUS lawsuits? That is a waste of precious time and money – our tax dollars, mind you.
There is no actual evidence behind any of your nonsense birther claims, so there is NO reason for anyone to take any of this seriously.
Learn some basics about how this country and our laws work so you don’t sound like such a fool in the future. The burden of PROOF is with the ACCUSER. Not the other way around. “Standing” is not a “phony” issue – it is one of the key principals to determine if a case has MERIT and can be addressed or if it is just frivolous nonsense with no business wasting the court’s time.
No, you don’t have any real “injury”, as defined and required by law; nor do you have any evidence that there is any violation of any of our laws or that you’ve suffered from them – Constitution or otherwise.
All you’ve demonstrated is that you don’t understand the Constitution or elementary school level basics about how our government and laws operate whatsoever at all.
FAIL again. Nothing is being “hidden”. Transparency applies to official government business NOT any person’s private records and personal history.
As a famous movie said, “You can’t handle the truth” and that is your problem and why you cling to lies and myths. You are nothing but a sad, whiny sore loser that is still trying to argue an election that was settled well over 2 years ago.
I feel just fine when I look in the mirror. And yes, I do think you are stupid. But you only have yourself to blame for that by writing such blatantly silly and easily ripped-to-shreds ODS nonsense.
As with the rest of the sane world, I don’t see ANY issues here worthy of ANY investigation at all. Justice is just fine on these matters, thank you. Therefore, I have no support nor sympathy for your delusional and unlawful cause.
Why don’t I believe you? Maybe because your entire screed was weak and whiny and utterly devoid of any facts or evidence? You obviously are nothing but a sore, sore loser suffering from extreme ODS. I seriously doubt any truth or evidence will satisfy you. If it could, you would already have been satisfied on this issue and woudn’t be wasting your time here wailing like a baby.
On what grounds do you feel birther lawsuits should not be subject to the same rules of standing as every other lawsuit and court case in the entire history of the American justice system?
One of the essential “merits” that any case must have, is standing.
If birther lawsuits actually had merit, they would not have the dismal 0 for 81 record they currently enjoy.
I did, and yes, you’re still stupid.
Well, I’m going to try breaking up my replies to vharlow into smaller sections, as whatever I’m doing now is tripping the moderation trigger. So here comes several posts….
Wow. You are the clear case of ODS (Obama Derangement Syndrome) are you? All of your arguments are pseudo-nonsense at best.
Sorry, but he’s not “hiding” anything. That is just your imagination. There is no “mystery” except in the fevered minds of unhinged haters like you.
There are no laws to require revealing such personal info; no requirements or relevance to such in terms of eligibility for POTUS either. Such irrelevant trivia about his personal background has nothing to do with his job and is quite frankly, none of yours or anyone else’s business. Most of it is protected by various privacy laws and those organizations (schools, hospitals, etc.) are the ones that retain any such records and cannot release them to you either.
Sorry, no evidence at that he’s “hiding” anything. I don’t recall any official sources with justifications that have ever asked for such information. Only a bunch of irrelevant silly birthers on websites. That counts for nothing. You have no legitimate reason to request such info, other than your own personal curiosity, which has ZERO legal basis.
Another meaningless whine from a nobody with no authority on matters he knows very little about. These are all merely fact-checking sites. You are only unhappy with them because they’ve debunked various silly myths that you desperately need to cling to. You have no room to talk about information being “suspect”, as there is no legitimate evidence or sources you’ve provided for any of your whining screed here, so your words ring hollow.
There is no actual “official Kenyan” bc. Just some clear and obvious forgeries that were debunked a long time ago. You just make yourself out to look like a gullible fool for even bringing such bunk up.
What “falsified” COLB? Again, you spend too much of your time buying into myths with no basis in reality.
Newsflash: the only way to put a paper document online so that everyone can see it on the web is to scan it in. The pics on Factcheck show the actual piece of paper being handled and clearly show the raised seal and official signatures. Your argument that there is only an “image” is ridiculous bunk. Again, you only make yourself look foolish saying such things.
Sorry, FAIL again. We’re the ones supporting facts, reality, evidence and truth. No fear here. The whole reason this site exists is because WE INSIST upon the truth and challenge the L.I.E.S. and myths that dupes like you fall for and spread.
Great…another healthy dose of stupid. “fundamental information about his origins and his schooling/experience?” WTF is that supposed to mean? First off, he’s not hiding anything. You just aren’t entitled to see it. Like it or not, he has the same protections of law as you and I, and every president before him. And what is “fundamental” about any of this information, and why wasn’t it fundamental with every other president before?
Everything is suspect to the paranoid.
More stupid. Falisifed because you said so? There is no evidence that the COLB has been falisifed. NONE, ZERO, NADA. Quite the opposite in fact. The information has been confirmed by the custodian of the records in question. The “official Kenyan” birth certificate has been put forward by a convicted forger, and has no support what so ever, and would be inadmissible in a court of law. The two aren’t remotely close. You are wrong, again.
The truth does not scare me. I just believe our government has better things to do than to give any value to the unsupported claims of a bunch of anti-American malcontents that seek to attack the legitmacy of our President based on lies, rumours, and innuendo. The courts aren’t tools for your personal witch hunt. If you have evidence that the President was born somewhere else than Hawaii, please produce it. And BTW, there is nothing phony about the question of standing…but why should I be surprised that you don’t know anything about the Constitutin?
There has been quite a demonstration of stupidity…that’s for sure…however, again, nothing is being hidden. You just aren’t entitled to see it, and it has nothing to do with transparency. And you have no interest in the truth. Anyone who spouts of long debunked likes like the COLB being falified has no interest in the truth.
I don’t know what looking in the mirror will do to cure your case of the stupids…And the fact that you repeat debunked likes proves that there is nothing the President can do to cure you of your stupid. So see, you keep demanding there be an investigation, but you can’t provide a single shred of evidence as to him being born anywhere but Hawaii. Justice is being done. Every case you nutters bring has been dismissed.
No you won’t. You’ll come up with new lies not to believe the evidence. You’ve proven that you will jump on any lie put forward not to believe real evidence.
Why do you support FRIVOLOUS lawsuits? That is a waste of precious time and money – our tax dollars, mind you.
There is no actual evidence behind any of your nonsense birther claims, so there is NO reason for anyone to take any of this seriously.
Learn some basics about how this country and our laws work so you don’t sound like such a fool in the future.
The burden of PROOF is with the ACCUSER. Not the other way around.
“Standing” is not a “phony” issue – it is one of the key principals to determine if a case has MERIT and can be addressed or if it is just frivolous nonsense with no business wasting the court’s time.
No, you don’t have any real “injury”, as defined and required by law; nor do you have any evidence that there is any violation of any of our laws or that you’ve suffered from them – Constitution or otherwise.
All you’ve demonstrated is that you don’t understand the Constitution or elementary school level basics about how our government and laws operate whatsoever at all.
FAIL again. Nothing is being “hidden”. Transparency applies to official government business NOT any person’s private records and personal history.
As a famous movie said, “You can’t handle the truth” and that is your problem and why you cling to unsupported myths. You are nothing but a sad and angry whiner that is still trying to argue an election that was settled well over 2 years ago.
I feel just fine when I look in the mirror. And yes, I do think you are st*pid. But you only have yourself to blame for that by writing such blatantly silly and easily ripped-to-shreds ODS nonsense.
As with the rest of the sane world, I don’t see ANY issues here worthy of ANY investigation at all. Justice is just fine on these matters, thank you. Therefore, I have no support nor sympathy for your delusional and unlawful cause.
Why don’t I believe you? Maybe because your entire screed was weak and whiny and utterly devoid of any facts or evidence? You obviously are nothing but a sore, sore l*ser suffering from extreme ODS. I seriously doubt any truth or evidence will satisfy you. If it could, you would already have been satisfied on this issue and woudn’t be wasting your time here wailing like a baby.
> the phony “standing” issue which assumes you and I don’t have any standing to insist on Constitutional enforcement by government.
Well, if birthers actually had any proof that Constitutional requirements have not been met, maybe their court record would not read 0-81 or close to that.
However, allegations, assumptions and made-up crap does not entitle you to “your day in court” questioning something without any facts to back it up.
You might be surprised, but courts only care about facts and not about “I read somewhere about a Pakistan travel ban” or “he looks like Frank Marshall Davis so he could be his son” or “it’s entire possible his mother returned to Kenya to give birth there” or “they have built a statue of him in Kenya” or “Michelle Obama said Kenya is his home country”. None of that constitutes proof.
Besides, you also seem to think there is that huge conspiracy involving 111th and 112th Congress, all courts, the military, the media etc. Because otherwise you’d listen to the experts who tell you that you don’t have to have two citizen parents to be an NBC.
> I demand the truth.
You would come off a little less like a bigot or hypocrite if you adhered to the same standards when it comes to the sort of “proof” the birthers like to throw around.
> There is a way to end this whole issue, and you all know what it is.
No, because there is no such thing as a moderate birther; and all the crazy ones have already proven that they will consider any investigation that does not end with “he’s not eligible” as part of the conspiracy, fraud, treason and whatnot. It will never “end” for the birthers, just like someone believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster will never believe in the Christian God since it’s 100% certain the latter will not come down from Heaven to prove otherwise.
No need to pick on the Pastafarians out there. As they would say, “All hail his noodly appendage”. 😉
Excuuuuuse me, but the Flying Spaghetti Monster is with me at every meal. Talk about reality.
Pastafarians unite! Do not let non-believers steal your sauce!
Hopefully I won’t miss it due to having something more important to attend to…. like trimming my nose hairs…
Didn’t McKinley also refer to the locals as “our little brown brothers”? I’ve always wondered, and hoped that McKinley subsequently ran into a 6’4″ Phillipino wrestler who beat him into a coma.
“”I may be President of the United States, but my private life is nobody’s damned business.”
-chester a arthur
Yes, and you say that knowing full well, like just about everyone in the world knows, that his father was not a US citizen, which will be your fallback position if he ever produces anything other than what he has already produced. You don’t need anything from him to prove that his father wasn’t a US citizen, so why play that game when you are just going to make the claim that he’s not “natural born,” according to YOUR definition, if he ever produces anything else?
These concern trolls always manage to reveal their true colors. vharlow just did it more quickly than most. In the same note where he demands to know the truth, he proclaims that Obama’s COLB is “falsified.” Of course, there isn’t a shred of evidence that it has been falsified, so vharlow has already demonstrated his total disregard for the truth.
And he also says that he just wants President Obama to prove that he’s a “natural born” citizen knowing full well that everyone on the planet knows that his father was not a US citizen.
Translation – “Even if he shows me something to prove to me that he was born in Hawaii, he’s still not ‘natural born’ according to my definition of that phrase, so whatever he shows me is still not good enough.”
Birthers talk like this as if it were something unusual and nefarious. In fact Barack Obama in his autobiography has told us more about himself than any presidential candidate I’ve ever seen. The kind of detailed (and irrelevant) information you’re talking about is not customarily publicly available on anybody, president or private citizen. So I think the characterization of customary and usual practice as “hiding” is really a smear rather than a rational statement.
That’s rather tortured logic. A birth certificate offered by a convicted felon and forger which has obvious internal contradictions (wrong date format, wrong hospital administrator, misspelled official’s name) is obviously suspect. It is not only suspect, it is proven by those internal contradictions to be false.
Barack Obama published a birth certificate, signed by the correct registrar in Hawaii. The Director of the Hawaii Department of Health said under oath before a Hawaiian legislative committee that the certificate Barack Obama posted online is the same one the birthers are seeking from the Department, and she also said in press releases that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and that his original birth certificate is on file IN HAWAII. I see zero reason to suspect the COLB.
The problem with that statement is that a birther is unable to concede that Barack Obama is eligible, no matter what the evidence — so your happiness will forever elude you.
As the child of an unmarried US citiizen mother-Obama Sr’s pre-existiing marriage in Kenya rendered his marriage to Ms Dunham invalid-the President is eligible regardless of where he was born. In fact, assuming Stanley Ann Dunham was his mother, there is no scenario under which he would not be eligible.
What worries me about birtherism, as someone who is neither American nor living in the USA nor with any US party political preferences, is that most of these cretins are so utterly blind to the most basic of simple comprehension tasks, yet are still automatically entitled to vote to elect the guy with his finger on the button that could bring destruction on us all.
That’s how Sarah Palin got so far.
It’s perfect logic. If I give you a cheque for 50 bux, and it bounces, that makes every single 50 dollar bill issued by the Federal Reserve in circulation suspect.
/sarcasm off
Everything finally explained:
http://www.hiddencodes.com/obama/index.htm
ROTFLMAO!!! Bible Code prophesies of Lizard People, tying it into Obama, Communists, “Greys”, Muslims, Nazis, etc….
Now that totally takes the crazy cake!!!
Hear hear!
Translation: Black people are fundamentally shifty and untrustworthy.
> No need to pick on the Pastafarians out there.
😉 My significant other is one, BTW.
This is one of the many oddities of America. America over the years has had and continues to have faith in her people to eventually choose the correct direction even with those many might wonder why they are allowed to participate. Even through a civil war and national adversary, we still come out stronger. It is a faith the founders had in the people and one that, I am confident, will continue today. Despite the wish of some to “turn back the clock a hundred years,” that is not our way and will never happen. We still strive to be that “shining city on the hill.”
What we are seeing with many of the birthers and ODS, is a death. It is the final dying of a system of white privilege. What started in the civil rights era, and before, is now experiencing the final tolling of the bell. In actuality, the dying was almost complete, but Obama’s election (the multi-cultural candidate in one package), was the reminder that the old system was truly dead. Like we all are with death and dying, even the death of something that is bad for us, the birthers and others are not reacting well to this. What you are seeing is the great moaning and gnashing of teeth and the great denial of what has happened, but make no mistake, it is still a death.
As a comparison, look at the dying of a church congregation. The symptoms are quite similar.
“No matter what silly arguments you folks come up with, fact is Obama is deliberately hiding lots of fundamental information about his origins and his schooling/experience. ”
LOL. The dude was born in Hawaii (the state says so) went to Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard Law.
Which part of that trilogy is in dispute?
Be specific please and provide evidence.
Oh, by the way not a single birther has been succesful off the internet – you have a 100% failure rate when in counts – in courts. You’ve all been beaten in a walk.
So who are the idiots again, oh , yeah the guys with 90 straight losses and the same guys the SCOTUS blows off every few months.
Tell me, Vharlow, specifically what information President Obama is hiding that others have revealed? Birth certificate? You may deny all you want about the authenticity of the COLB that Obama posted in ’08, but no other president has posted even that much. And if state laws wind up causing Hawaii to provide a copy of the same COLB — and it has to be accepted by other states under the Constitution’s full faith and credit clause — will you still maintain that Obama has not been forthcoming on the BC issue?
Medical records? What else do you want to know, his vasectomy scar? (Note: don’t know if he has one, don’t care.)
College records? No other president has ever submitted any, unless the published transcript of W’s Yale transcript in 2004 was voluntary. Anderson Cooper said it was illegally released by someone else without W’s permission.
Could you please state for the record whether you believe the widely circulated report that Obama issued an executive order in January 2009 sealing his personal records? Yes or no, please.
I’ve always been convinced that the quest for his kindergarten records and so forth were in part driven by desire to know if he is circumcised or not. It was the point where the birther quest went into kindergarten records territory that I knew it would be relegated to the back pages of the book of lost causes.
Anyone who comes out with that premise is obligated to personally testify in a criminal deposition against Dr. Chiyume Fukino as a witness to the crime of forgery.
If someone isn’t prepared to do that, then they really aren’t able to show that the COLB is forged.
No doubt there would be serious consequences to making a false accusation of such a crime in a sworn deposition, and nobody has been certain enough in his convictions to take that risk.
I don’t recall that being asked when we signed our son up for kindergarten, so it’s unlikely to be in the records.
Almost all American males born in the 1960s were circumcised, so it would hardly indicate that he was Islamic. Even today, about 50% are, so it indicates nothing about religion.
Ha! The poll results showing 51% of GOP base falling for this birther nonsense is starting to worry the “business” end of the party, which spent years cultivating these red-meat ignorant dupes… now they realize it will bite them in the butt.
Here’s a good article that just came out about Karl Rove getting nervous:
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2011/02/17/rove_says_birthers_falling_into_obama_trap.html
A lot of these intrusive demands, to pry into the most personal and intimated aspects of the president’s life, are about humiliating him. He is a dignified and intelligent man. This angers the birthers because President Obama simply doesn’t adhere to their comfortable stereotypes about black men. His personal life isn’t embarrassing, he’s not angry (in fact he’s calm amost to a fault), he’s conspicuously monogamous, and his life history is empty of any evidence of scandal or dishonesty.
The birthers want to drag him down, make him into their image of what a black man should be. Then he would make sense to them.
The full transcript of Rove’s conversation with O’Reilly from last night is here:
http://gop12.thehill.com/2011/02/rove-confront-birthers-now.html
It includes some other noteworthy portions of his coversation, worth repeating here:
And in the comments, I agree with the 3rd one:
And where is your proof that his COLB is Falsified?
EVERYONE who has examined it has declared it AUTHENTIC!
Your just another moron who believes everything he is told and never try to find info on your own! Grow up! You act like a 12 yr old!
I fully agree. I think much of the visceral anger and need to “destroy” him is because he is so successful, intelligent, with a great family, etc. They can’t accept that he shatters their petty stereotypes. Even worse, they would rather see the country burn and fail than him succeed…just because such success futher invalidates their stereotypes – and in doing so, points out the flaws in their own thinking and ideologies…
They desperately need to cling to their tribal myths of others and the world in order to mask their own failings and inadequacies, as such
Sorry…computer glitch caused me to lose the window before finish my post.
Should read:
as such myths are necessary walls they use to maintain their own fragile egos and self-esteem.
Not my point. My point is when the movement started demanding kindergarten records, I fully dismissed it as a movement of pedophiles.
Rove Says Birthers Falling Into Obama Trap
Karl Rove told Fox News that Republicans have to stop the birthers in their party.
Said Rove: “Within our party, we’ve got to be very careful about allowing these people who are the birthers and the 9/11-deniers to get too high a profile and say too much without setting the record straight.”
When asked what percentage of Republican voters were birthers — a recent poll found 51% — Rove added: “I don’t know, but whatever it is, it ought to be less, because we need the leaders of our party to say ‘Look, stop falling into the trap of the White House and focus on the real issues.'”
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2011/02/17/rove_says_birthers_falling_into_obama_trap.html
Rep. Jeff Flake: Birthers Need To “Accept Reality”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-z9RYiE_UY&feature=player_embedded
Montana State Rep. Bob Wagner (R) appeared on AC360 “Keeping Them Honest” and exhibited the deep lunk-headedness of the Vattelist Birther. Jeffrey Toobin explained that this wild ass notion is unconstitutional; not that the Constitution matters to Birthers, at all, as Wagner made perfectly clear.
The Montana Birther Bill sponsored by Wagner, HB 205, was tabled on Monday this week in the House State Administration Committee. In the video Wagner doesn’t sound like he will give up on it any time soon, though
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/15/video-birther-bill-proposed-in-montana/
Even though its not relevative It reminds me of the scene near the end of American Gangster when Russel Crowe is talking to Denzel Washington and how he talks about what he represents.. progress. People are afraid of progress
Over at Gratewire, the infamous birther lie that Obama admitted to Alan Keyes he was not born in the US has reared its ugly head again from a hardcore birther….Birther lies never die…
http://gratewire.com/topic/rep-jeff-flake-birthers-need-to-accept-reality
Nick_A
contributing member
“That is precisely it Annie. People are afraid of the racism charge. Alan keyes may have asked Obama about it in 2004 and the proof is now either hidden of destroyed. Keyes can get away with it even though you may not think he is black enough.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100124103947AAboURK
in October of 2004, during the ABC Chicago Affiliate’s broadcast of the Obama-Keyes debates, Obama openly admitted that he was not a natural born citizen. (C-Span aired the uncut version of the debates, which contained this exchange, in the second half of April, 2005) In this debate, between Obama and Keyes, Keyes faulted Obama for not being a “natural born citizen”, Obama replied, “So what, I am running for Illinois Senator, not the presidency”, admitting that he was not eligible to be president.
Have you heard of this debate?
Do you believe it is true?
Do you know where to find the video containing this exchange today?
AGREED!!!
It is not just his color of skin, his background, or his “funny sounding name” that is causing such distress amongst the tribalists and those that just need certainty and therefore pine for some prisine 50’s or cowboy prairie glorious past that never really existed that way.
It is not just the problems our government has – both economic and other issues of impending problems that have been kicked down the can for years.
It is also that we live in a new century, where things are changing faster than ever before. Where globalism, science and technology merge to create a “bigger”, “faster” and “different” world than they are used to or comfortable with.
For some, religious fundamentalism and black & white literalism are their “steady rock” to make choices easy for them; so a changing world and one where science continues to progress and explains away more and more of their mysticism also causes great distress.
They are angry, fearful and threatened by ALL of these things. Not all of them share all of these fears or feel threatened by them in the same way…but the combined effect of change is overwhelming for them…and sadly, viewed as a threat to their very existence.
That’s typical for them, Black Lion. A couple of days ago I looked in there and saw they were passing around the old lie about foreign and out of state births being registered in Hawaii, insinuating that it’s what President Obama did back in 1961 even though the law didn’t come into effect until 1982. They have run out of stuff to blather about, so they start passing around an old lie until someone discredits it, and then they move on to another old lie until someone discredits it, and then they move on to another old lie until…………………; that continues until they come full circle and then start the cycle of lies all over again.
It’s like a game of whack a mole
Michele Bachmann Refuses To Say Whether President Obama Is A Citizen On GMA
In an interview Thursday morning on ABC’s Good Morning America, Rep. Michele Bachmann talked about her interest in the White House, how she’d handle the Middle East as president, and even Lady Gaga. What she wouldn’t say, however, was whether the president was a Christian and a citizen. “That’s not for me to state,” Bachmann told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “When the president makes his statements, I think they should stand for their own.”
Pressed by Stephanopoulos to simply express her own views on President Obama’s citizenship, if she would “declare the president is a citizen, and he is a Christian,” Bachmann refused, pivoting to talk about the stimulus package. Earlier in the interview, Bachmann–reminded that Obama had repeatedly declared himself a citizen–said she “took him at his word” but wouldn’t go beyond that.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/michele-bachmann-refuses-to-say-whether-president-obama-is-a-citizen-on-gma/
Yes it is Bob. Kinda like a combination of Whack-a-Mole and Night of the Living Dead.
I’m sure that Lady Gaga would be a better politician than Michele Bachmann.
She is at least university educated, and has some experience managing a successful business. She has conversations without coming across as an insane person much better than Rep. Bachmann has been able to do. She will be eligible to run for President before the 2024 election.
It wouldn’t be that much of a risk for a birther. Perjury involves making a statement that one knows to be false or does not believe to be true. Birthers seem to passionately believe the nonsense that they repeat. Thus, their delusions are a probably a good defence.
In practice, very little of what a birther said would be admissible in the US in any event. Just about all of what a birther says is conjecture or hearsay.
> Almost all American males born in the 1960s were circumcised, so it would hardly indicate that he was Islamic. Even today, about 50% are, so it indicates nothing about religion.
Reminds me of one of the funnier sub-conspiracy theories I read back when I still followed our German ultra-right-wing forums. One of the nutters stated something to the effect of “the Jews control the porn industry” based on the fact that most male actors are circumcized. Apart from the fact you stated, that also ignored the fact that the male actors are probably those with the least influence on the industry. But it made me laugh and forget for a moment the deeply anti-semitic issues these posters had.
My dog is Jewish. When she is with male dogs, she prefers the ones circumcised. [bada-bing]
Thank you. I’ll be here all week.
I found this yesterday I think it applies to birthers. The Glenn Beck Conspiracy theory generator
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bl-glenn-beck-conspiracy.htm
To be fair, I think at least 51%, if not more, of Democratic voters believed John McCain was not born in the United States.
Yes! In fact, I found Obama’s actual Kenya birth certificate!!
Brilliant!
I would hope so, considering that he wasn’t born in the United States. McCain was born at the base hospital on the Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone. The Canal Zone was never considered to be part of the United States.
However, I doubt that even 1% of Democratic voters believed that McCain was not eligible to be President.
While this might help the rest of us, Beck doesn’t need much help in generating conspiracies.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/02/when-glenn-beck-googles-google-he-doesnt-like-the-results.html
“When Glenn Beck googles ‘Google’ he doesn’t like the results”
Neither does Rick Santorum.
Wait didn’t Beck say he was no longer going to use Google’s services anymore because of the Egyptian who is apart of google during the protest. So now he’s not going to use their services.http://www.nbcbayarea.com/blogs/press-here/Glenn-Beck-Doesnt-Trust-Google-116382729.html?dr
Oh, I see what you did there.