Pennsylvania attorney Phil Berg and Charles Kerchner (Birthers call him CDR Kerchner) are no strangers to litigation against Barack Obama’s eligibility to be President of the United States.
Background
The original Berg v. Obama et al. lawsuit codified much of the thinking of the “not born here” Birthers. I wrote about the foundational nature of this case in: “We all came out of Berg’s suit.” Further, much of what I know about the legal doctrine of standing came from Judge Surrick’s scholarly opinion dismissing the case. In addition to speculating that Obama was born in Kenya, Berg also alleges that President Obama became a citizen of Indonesia as a child and thereby lost his US citizenship (if any).
I wrote about Charles Kerchner’s first lawsuit against Obama in an article Kerchner v. Obama and the WHOLE COUNTRY. Charles Kerchner, aided by his attorney Mario Apuzzo, also filed a federal lawsuit seeking to unseat the President that included many of the ideas of Phil Berg, but in a much longer form, so long in fact that defense attorney compared responding to it to looking for “gold coins in a bucket of mud.” This lawsuit introduced one new element. While little more than a footnote, the Kerchner case suggested that Barack Obama wasn’t eligible even if he was born here.
In the time since 2009, very little has changed in Phil Berg’s approach, but in the case of Kerchner, the “not born here” aspect has been toned down and the question of Obama’s parentage and the definition of natural born citizen has come to the forefront.
In this, Kerchner may be responding to popular sentiment, particularly in the wake of the release of Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate at a White House press conference last April, 20111. Republican leaders, most notably Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, came out and said that people who believed that Barack Obama was born outside the United States or was a Muslim “are just crazy.” On the other hand a scholar, Lawrence Solum, said that while the opposing argument was “much stronger,” still those who believe in a two-parent citizenship qualification “aren’t crazy.”
This brings us to two Pennsylvania ballot challenges filed this month, one from Charles Kerchner and one from Phil Berg.
The Berg challenge
Phil Berg (pictured right) starts off in very familiar territory. On Page 2, after barely having introduced himself and cited the Constitutional section on presidential eligibility, Berg lays it out clearly:
5. Barack Hussein Obama a/k/a Barack Hussein Soetoro was born in Kenya on August 4. 19612.
Berg points out, I believe correctly3, that had Obama been born outside the United States, according to the law at the time, he would not have been born a US citizen.
Berg cites the testimony of the pseudonymous Kenyan, Kweli Shuhubia, and Berg’s trademark Grandmother tape as evidence that Obama is from Kenya and not born in Hawaii. A compilation of my articles on the “born in Kenya” claims can be found in the “Obama born in Kenya stories” section of the Debunker’s Guide to Obama Conspiracy Theories.
Berg goes on to recite in a much longer section that I can only describe as total nonsense about Indonesian law, to support his contention that Barack Obama would have lost whatever US citizenship he had due to an alleged adoption or acknowledgement (Berg doesn’t know which or when) by Obama’s Indonesian step-father Lolo Soetoro. I’ve debunked these ideas before in my article Hollister v. Indonesian citizenship law, where you can find detailed the Berg theories pretty much unchanged in the present filing.
The Kerchner/Laudenslager challenge
The Kerchner/Laudenslager challenge is relatively straightforward. In a succinct summary, Kerchner (pictured left) lays out his case that Barack Obama must be eligible for the Office of President in order to appear on the ballot in Pennsylvania. Obama has certified on a nominating petition that he is eligible and Kerchner disputes the petition. Kerchner asserts that is the responsibility of the candidate to “prove” his qualifications. Kerchner, under the theory that natural born citizens of the United States are only those born in the country to two citizen parents, says that because Barack Obama’s father was not a US citizen, he isn’t eligible. (The most comprehensive and most respected rebuttal of this theory is in the Congressional Research Service Report by Jack Maskell, Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement.)
As Exhibits, Kerchner provides sections from the Pennsylvania Statutes and other information on ballot qualification. He then includes screen shots from the writings of New Jersey attorney Mario Apuzzo. Finally he includes documentation on the citizenship status of Barack Obama’s father. In fact, the Kerchner challenge is very much like that presented by plaintiffs Welden, Powell and Swensson in Georgia in a case recently decided in Obama’s favor (and now under appeal). There is not a word that I could find even remotely raising the question of where Barack Obama was born, a nearly 180-degree reversal of his original suit in 2009. The other side of that coin is that Phil Berg totally rejects the premise of the Kerchner argument, holding that a person born a citizen in the United States and never losing his citizenship is eligible to be President, no matter who their parents were.
1Here’s a little experiment: I remember where I was when I learned that John Kennedy had been assassinated, and I remember where I was when I learned that a 767 jet had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. Do you remember where you were when you learned that Obama had released his long-form birth certificate?
2I have always wondered what authority Berg uses for that date, given that he rejects the official birth story of Barack Obama.
3There is some debate on this question.
“Do you remember where you were when you learned that Obama had released his long-form birth certificate? ”
i remember because of obama’s skewering of trump at the white house correspondents dinner
and unbeknownst to the rest of us at the time, obama had just given the order to get bin laden
talk about “cool as a cucumber”
I would add that Berg in point #20 discusses the supposed deficiencies of COLBs and demands to see the President’s long form birth certificate with the doctor’s signature. He seems blissfully unaware that it has been released. In the almost 4 years since 2008, he has generated no new arguments at all.
Kerchner is also stuck in a time warp. Although he is arguing a different case from what he argued in 2008, it is a case he COULD easily have made then, since it is based on court cases and documents, the youngest of which is over 100 years old.
In general, everything the birthers do seems strategically to be things more appropriiately used against a relatively unknown candidate, rather than a sitting President. College records, birth certificates, school registrations, book authorship, Chicago friends, all strike the casual observer as odd topics to use against someone who has been President for >3 years and has a record that anyone can judge for themselves (and is on TV almost every day).
I will also point out that Barack Obama was certified as eligible by Congress in January 2009. That is a very high bar, it seems to me, one that could only be overcome, if at all, by very convincing new facts (of which there are none) or by some intervening court decision, of which the only one, Ankeny, goes strongly against the birthers. A man who was eligible in 2009 does not become ineligible in 2012 simply by dredging up the same tired lies and trying to twist some old court cases.
Yeah, quite telling that Kerchener is nothing more than an extreme ODS sufferer. His original case was very much like Berg’s and now he’s done a 180, as you mentioned.
Trotting out these two Birther lawyers from the early days of BIrtherism for another go at it in PA…and now with two completely opposite claims… pure frivolous entertainment is bound to ensue! Should be quite a spectacular fail event building in PA…
Wow, the reunion tours are already starting. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt with Obama’s BC on it.
(PS: You’re trying to drive us mad with uncited footnote 1, right?)
Sorry. Fixed it.
I have been tempted to start using some acronyms like:
NBH – Not born here
LIIH – Lost it in Indonesia
NTCP – Not two citizen parents
NNTP – Network News Transfer Protocol
What do you make of the fact that Barack Obama Sr. was already married? Wouldn’t that mean that the rules applying to Ann Dunham’s son, if born outside the U.S., still make him a citizen at birth?
This is an academic question, at least for the President, but it one that has been nagging at me these last couple years, and one that could be helpful in dealing with the birthers I know. The lack of motive for any fantasy conspiracy fifty years ago increases if he would have been a citizen no matter where he was born.
I’ve thought that if one followed out the whole story, fully and completely, that would be the case per the law at the time.
Thoughts?
[Birther] He never released a long form birth certificate. He just foisted another fraud on the sheeple that bow to him. How can I remember where I was when it never happened. It is all an cover-up made up by you obots [/birther]
With the loss of some of the trolls, somebodies got to fill in.
Berg is definitely behind the curve here. He didn’t even include Barry Soebarkah as one of the president’s alias’.
That would work well with the Rictal Scale. I am going to do a worksheet one of these days. But if you want to use it, please feel free. I had thought once about doing it like an “axis” analysis in the DSMs. But that under-rated the amount of crazy.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I would also cite Tisdale in federal court.
“Berg points out, I believe correctly, that had Obama been born outside the United States, according to the law at the time, he would not have been born a US citizen. ”
iirc (my source is apparently no longer an active website), the law at the time did not include women citizens granting their children citizenship overseas, though it did include male. However, a decade later, congress enacted a new law which was retroactive to before Obama’s birth that extended citizenship from a mother alone overseas.
Now, there would be jurisprudence to determine if NBC allows for this, but under US law he was indeed a citizen at birth even if born in Kenya (and, for that matter, even if he wasn’t for 10 years before the new law)
Under Hawaiian law, a bigamous marriage is void from the start. Therefore if Hawaii recognized Obama Sr. marriage, then the Dunham marriage legally never happened.
However, whether Hawaii would have recognized the Kenyan marriage is tricky. Kenya recognized several types of marriage, some of which created no documentation. If the Obama marriage in Kenya were an Islamic marriage or a tribal marriage, I couldn’t guess what a court would say. I supposed some folks are qualified to render an opinion, but I think one couldn’t be sure without a precedent.
Via the wiki (yes, the wiki)
“Title 8 U.S.C. 1409 paragraph (c) provides that children born abroad after December 24, 1952 to unmarried American mothers are U.S. citizens, as long as the mother has lived in the U.S. for a continuous period of at least one year at any time prior to the birth.”
Obama was born almost a decade later, thus, he would have been a NBC even if born in Kenya
I always have a conceptual pause at the idea that someone can be a “citizen at birth” without being a “citizen,” at birth. However, a California judge allowed for just such a scenario when declaring John McCain eligible under a retroactive law making folks born in the Canal Zone citizens at birth.
Under that rationale, the Congress could pass a law making Osama bin Laden a citizen at birth.
“. . . a 747 jet had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.”
American Airlines Flight 11 was a Boeing 767-223ER.
United Airlines Flight 175 was a a Boeing 767–222.
(source: wikipedia)
I don’t see the key phrase “at birth.”
I swear, you people don’t let me get away with ANYTHING!
Fixed, thanks.
Doesn’t need it:
Assuming that they were not married (otherwise a different law applies),
“(c) Notwithstanding the provision of subsection (a) of this section, a person born, after December 23, 1952, outside the United States and out of wedlock shall be held to have acquired at birth the nationality status of his mother, if the mother had the nationality of the United States at the time of such person’s birth, and if the mother had previously been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year. ”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1409
OK with the not married side.
Further, even if they were married, the law also would grant Obama his citizenship:
“(7) “a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than ten years, at least five of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided that any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States by such citizen parent may be included in computing the physical presence requirements of this paragraph.”
(this is the 1952 version)
however, since Obama Mama was not yet 19, this does not apply. Instead, we focus on:
“…a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years…”
(1982 law, retroactive to “”This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date.””)
Forgot the important part:
“Section 301. (a) The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
then apply my above post
fyi, this site is amazing: http://www.aca.ch/op4b.htm
The rebuttals to the accuracy of the Jack Maskell CRS reports and memos from the essays by Joseph DeMaio posted at The Post and Email news site.
Of Presidential Eligibility, Doubling Down and Linguistic Torts, Part 1
WHY DOES “NATIVE BORN” NOW EQUATE TO “NATURAL BORN?”
by Joseph DeMaio, 2012 http://www.thepostemail.com/2012/02/20/of-presidential-eligibility-doubling-down-and-linguistic-torts-part-1/
Of Presidential Eligibility, Doubling Down and Linguistic Torts, Part 2
“IT IS NECESSARY THAT A PERSON BE BORN OF A FATHER WHO IS A CITIZEN…”
by Joseph DeMaio, 2012 http://www.thepostemail.com/2012/02/22/of-presidential-eligibility-doubling-down-and-linguistic-torts-part-2/
Of Presidential Eligibility, Doubling Down and Linguistic Torts, Part 3
“DICTA…PURE AND SIMPLE” by Joseph DeMaio, 2012 http://www.thepostemail.com/2012/02/24/of-presidential-eligibility-doubling-down-and-linguistic-torts-part-3/
Of Presidential Eligibility, Doubling Down and Linguistic Torts, Conclusion
A NATION OF LAWS, OR MEN? by Joseph DeMaio, 2012 http://www.thepostemail.com/2012/02/26/of-presidential-eligibility-doubling-down-and-linguistic-torts-conclusion/
Three essays written by Joseph DeMaio in 2011 on presidential eligibility and about the two prior deceptive and error ridden CRS Memos written by CRS Attorney Maskell:
Presidential Eligibility — Part 1: http://www.thepostemail.com/2011/05/29/bombshell-second-crs-memo-covering-for-obamas-ineligibility-not-released-to-the-public-until-now/
Presidential Eligibility — Part 2: http://www.thepostemail.com/2011/05/31/presidential-eligibility-part-2/
Presidential Eligibility –Part 3: http://www.thepostemail.com/2011/06/02/grand-finale-presidential-eligibility/
Robert – Aha! Thanks. I didn’t know about the 1982 law. I had seen the other two scenarios, which was why I’ve puzzled about the legal status of the bigamy. But the 1982 law seems to settle it.
I read through the “rebuttal.” Utter horse guano.
I could write just as valid a “rebuttal” of Einstein’s theory of gravitation, but I wouldn’t be taking a stroll off the top of the Washinton Monument any time soon.
Who to trust? Hmmm… Some two-bit crank who may or may not be a lawyer of any kind, much less Constitutional, or the Congressional Research Service, with its 900 employees, trusted for 100 years by all of Congress for reliable research and findings of fact?
Wait… That’s a tough call…
Let’s do the time warp again….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_7u3nhANa4
The next question is, are we clear that we think someone born a citizen at birth outside the country, or territories, is likely a natural born citizen? I’ve become slightly confused on Dr. C’s perspective on this point, as we naturally stick to the main decisive fact that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.
My understanding is that there are only two kinds of citizens, meaning that yes such individuals are nbc, but that this hasn’t been tested. I tell some of my friends, born American but outside the country, that they could run for president, but they might have to deal with a lot of controversy until it was resolved.
Perfect timing, I guess. It looks like gorefan posted the relevant document over on the Apuzzo thread. At least the Ninth Circuit clearly thinks citizens born outside the country are natural born.
Paper, likely, yes. This was almost assured, considering that someone who was born outside the country, or territories has actually run for President, and got one of the major 2 party nominations: John McCain. Here’s a person who was born outside the United States in any definition (U.S. Military Bases overseas are not U.S. Territory under the law).
Likely yes, but with a strong likelihood of ‘maybe’
The question here revolves around the marriage and, more specifically, if the term ‘retroactive’ can stand with a NBC. If they were not married, then Obama is a NBC as I explained above. If they were, however, he is retroactively a citizen at birth (again, above). The issue is, would the court find that retroactive citizen is the same as NBC.
The reason McCain is not availing is that he was a citizen at birth, without a later legislation needed.
(also, as an aside, some bases are US soil. It really depends on the specific treaty we have (for example, gitmo))
I think the point you make comes out the same in the end result, but from what I have read McCain’s birth in the Panama Canal Zone is the operative fact (not the military base). A 1937 law covers people born there of citizen parents.
Wouldn’t McCain’s case be retroactive as well? He was born in 1936, and the law covering citizenship in the Panama Canal Zone was passed in 1937, with a retroactive clause.
Which is what Dr. C mentions above…
Very valid point
hmmm:
well, we know that the zone was not our soil, thanks to Downes v. Bidwell
Now, prior to these rulings, the children born there to US parents were citizens at birth. After, however, they became nationals instead (1790s wording, I think I’ve finally discovered why there was such drastic change in the early 1900s in the law)
Then in 1937 Congress passed a retroactive law (to 1904), which would include McCain, who was a national at birth and retroactively a citizen at birth
I think the court would likely rule that NBC simply requires that, under law (not the previous law, but law in general), one be a citizen at birth. Even if one wasn’t a citizen at birth, the retroactive law means that legally they were, which should be sufficient for the NBC. That said, I know of no case which is relevant to this very specific issue.
Sorry, I had to stop reading and take time for a good laugh here…thanks!
From my reading, most but not all authorities say that anyone born a citizen is a natural born citizen. However, there is an argument to be made for adding “in the United States” to that (NBC is a commenter here who argues forcefully for that position.) The question goes all the way back to whether or not this provision is part of the English common law, or whether it is English statutory law.
Personally, I would answer the question “probably.”
Would Blackstone’s statements regarding 25 Edw. III st. 2 (for example) not be availing?
http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/blackstone/bla-110.htm
My understanding is that the law of England had expanded, via statutory methods, to eventually encompass pretty much any offspring of a subject father, and this would be the concept which the founder followed when determining NBC.
Via statute… Remember that the meaning of the term natural born is to be found in Common Law, and under Common Law, natural born did not include those born abroad to citizens. The same happened in the US where such children were granted citizen by statute and for a while, they may have remained without any citizenship due to a poorly phrased law.
I would also, personally say, probably but there is quite a good case to be made that such children were not natural born.
If the meaning is found under common law, then we are all rather screwed via Erie.
Now, that aside (and really aside, I’ve never found it availing myself on issues like these), the issue emerges that common law can be overridden by statute, and the founders themselves like to point that out (Hamilton: common law is subject to “such alterations and provisions as the legislature shall from time to time make concerning the same”). So, if the FFs concluded that the CL is changeable, that leaves us with two options:
1) The CL, which was codified in the NBC, is still statutorily changeable, thus my earlier statements hold;
2) The CL, which was codified in the NBC, is not changeable, and only applicable to what the CL at the time was. Now, this would be an interesting argument, if the statutes hadn’t already overridden the English CL you wish to use. Remember, the CL of the time is only what is not in contra to statutes. However, this doesn’t mean that your holding (not eligible) is incorrect, rather, the reasoning is. If the statutory NBS of English Law was prevailing and is the law of the NBC, then a NBC can include a person whose father was the sole citizen and born overseas, but not if the mother was the sole;
Technically 3) Your version, though I disagree with the premise that the common law somehow was superior to statutory
Sorry, I forgot the important part of why we pay attention to Erie. If the CL is all that matters, and the 14th doesn’t alter NBC, then STATE citizenship definitions is what is at play here
Of course, then in this relationship between CL and statute, we have the 1790 statute where Congress explicitly spoke of NBC for such citizens born outside of the limits of the country .
Yes, showing that Congress realized that it had to take care of such children. But the NBC part was quickly removed in the next version. Perhaps Congress realized that it cannot use statute to override the common law meaning of the term?
The mere fact that Congress believed that it required a statute to make these children NBC supports my position that Common Law did not provide for them.
Remember that the Court in WKA and others found that a term not defined in the Constitution is to be found defined in Common Law. Common Law specifically does not include statutes. There is a good paper on this topic from those days.
Nope, we are talking about Citizen of the United States. You may want to clarify Erie, CL and FF.
Erie appears to be about a federal court hearing a state claim, but these are issues of our Federal Constitution. I doubt that Erie has any relevance here.
Common law is indeed alterable. However I am not sure if Hamilton supports your case
Hamilton was talking about the absence of a Bill of Rights in the NY Constitution
Clearly separating common and statute law.
The part you quote is also not that clear in its full context
Common law is that not covered by statutory law. When Statutory law extends common law, it is not part of the common law tradition/
Hi! someone named Chris Strunk sent me an invitation to Linkedin
but there are at least 24 different Chris Strunks on Linkedin,
and besides that, it’s an annoying pain, why doesn’t he just
call me?
Cris Ericson (802)875-4038
I don’t bite!
I don’t remember where I was, but I remember exactly what I was thinking.
1. I wasn’t born when President Kennedy was assassinated (by a “birther” of that time).
2. I was in a classroom training session when we heard that the first jet hit the towers. By the time the second jet hit I was in the ready room, although I think it was more than 12 hours before I flew. (There are a lot more pilots than planes. A lot more.)
3. I saw a blurb on MSN about the birth certificate press conference. I immediately checked with ObamaConspiracy.org, but Doc, you’re not quite that current. I recall searching for a video of it and finding it, I think on CNN. I was very impressed with how the President handled what must be a very distressing matter. Frankly, I prefer he spend his time on more important stuff.
The question reminds me of how I came to my interest in this debate. A friend, who remains unimpressed by anything Obama (i.e., President Bush laid 99% of the groundwork for getting Osama bin Laden) told me he had heard a tape of the President’s grandmother saying that he was born in Africa. I was amazed that no one had come up with this before (I vaguely thought he was born in Hawaii, but if you told me Chicago I probably would have believed that as well.) I listened to the link of an edited version of the interview, and remember thinking that the first question was leading, and in a very difficult environment. I would have preferred to hear some introductions and some explanation of who was translating and in what language. I searched for an unedited version, and found a longer version. (I still do not know if I heard the entire conversation.) When you listen through it, you clearly hear the translator saying that Grandma says President Obama was born in Hawaii. I reported back to my friend, and told him to listen. He said he did not have to as the first question did it for him. I said that given the difficulty of translating a non-European language into English spoken by someone who might not be literate as we understand the term, the first sentence could be argued to simply say that she was in Africa when President Obama was born.
My friend, to his credit, has moved on. He now concedes Hawaiian birth. He believes, however, that one must have two real American (I think that means white) parents. The President can never leave the country, except on vacation (to a Christian country or Israel) or to live with his parents on a military base overseas. My buddy also has sent me articles about how the President took the flag off Air Force One, and that the President ordered that military funerals not be conducted in his name, among others. My friend understands that, in today’s polite society, one does not use race as a factor, but whatever concerns he has did not exist with any other President and certainly don’t extend to Rommney, Paul, Gingrich or Santorum. He does not get it. I socialize with a fair number of people who are also not in the reality-based community. Most of the time, I just restrain myself. It’s tough to contantly be teaching that, for example, if you cut taxes to zero, as I think I heard from Senator Santorum today, there’s not enough revenue in the government to support vital services: military, social security, medicare, wiping out any vestige of contraception, and eliminating all liberal schools like Harvard. Especially Harvard.
I totally sympathize and can relate. At the same time, any time I’m in a situation where I feel I have to “restrain myself” for the sake of things, I feel guilty that I’m just contributing and allowing nonsense to foster…
Some hilarity over at the birther report from one of the commenters…I wonder if Mario wrote this one himself…
http://obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.com/2012/02/attorney-mario-apuzzo-of-jamesburg-nj.html
Anonymous said…[Reply]
I’ve heard Mario on the radio and he just FLOWS with on-the-tip-of-his-tongue knowledge about this whole area.
He is always pwning this dumbot named Dr. Conspiracy on his blog, it’s hilarious.
February 27, 2012 2:31 PM
Which brings me to where I was when it happened. I was on vacation in the mountains on the North Carolina – Tennessee border with almost no cell phone and very intermittent Internet access, not good enough to get up an article.
Also the number of hits that day was 4 times greater than the previous peak and my old hosting plan didn’t allow for the amount of RAM necessary to support that number of simultaneous visitors. That started my odyssey for better ways of hosting the blog.
The question is not how good he is against “dumbots” but rather how good he is against real lawyers and judges. So far that’s not so good.
I left that comment over at ORYR. I wonder if it will get past moderation.
I was at home, saw it on cable news or the interwebs, can’t remember which. I thought it was a somewhat humorous response to Trump’s barnstorming. An impression driven home by the events of the following weekend, the WHC dinner which featured Obama and Seth tag-teaming Trump, hysterical, but was it Presidential? Hmm. And then Osama slept with the fishes and the world moved on.
*cough*
Then, 3 weeks later, on a random trip to the bookstore, I saw Corsi’s book, which I had no prior knowledge of, on the new release pile. “What? Some idiot wrote a book about this? Pretty poor timing….” Flipped through, looks like a gobbledygook wannabe exposé, typical frightwing poo in the tradition of Limbaugh, Coulter, etc., but worse, as it was blatantly making specific, erroneous, spurious allegations.
Then I made the mistake of going home and looking it up to see what it was all about.
😳
You mean there are people who DON’T remember that? 😯
I may need professional help, huh? 😀
Absolutely true. He spent the first 8 months of his presidency allowing it to become a matter of critical urgency, then almost all of the remaining 7-plus years not treating it as such. The Obama administration couldn’t have done it without him.
My company had offices in WTC 2, which I had spent a week working out of earlier that year. Fortunately, all of our employees made it out alive that day, but it made for a nerve-wracking morning waiting to hear from any of them.
Unfortunately, one of my colleagues was on Flight 11.
So I don’t have a lot of tolerance for truthers, or for Bush43’s performance. None, really.
(Apologies to John Reilly — I just noticed I snipped the quote in such a way that it looked like that was your thought rather than your friend’s. I didn’t mean to do that.)
Well yes. I was at work and some of the accountants a row over from me were discussing the story. They weren’t Birthers, or anti-Birthers, they were just people discussing the news of the day. They’ve probably forgotten about it by now, but I remember because following Birtherism has been a hobby of mine for about 2 years.
I think when I heard Kennedy was assassinated, I was a little kid, but I couldn’t tell you when, because it was about 25 years after the fact. The actual assassination happened 18 years before I was born :Q
Yes, a non-performance nailed when he plainly stated he didn’t care about bin Laden. Went from “Dead or Alive” to “meh” in only a couple of years. Had we been hot on his trail at the time (say creeping into his bedroom at that exact moment), it would have been a perfect Godfather / Obama-esque cover. But, no, he was literally brushing off failure with dismissal. What a #^%^.
Pennsylvania you say? Are either of these going to a courtroom anywhere near Philadelphia?
I was talking with someone who said the Mossad was behind 9/11. I said to him sotto voce, “It’s true. I put in for a transfer to my employer’s branch in the WTC. A month before, I got a call at midnight. ‘Don’t take that job,’ and hung up.” I then told him the Mossad has the phone number of everyone Jewish in the world.
Another time someone said to me, “we forgive you for killing our lord.” I told her I was disappointed. “Being known as a Christ killer gives me street cred.”
I don’t know, but there’s action in Chinatown down the street from me:
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/dncrime/Cops-investigating-massage-parlor-robbery.html
Berg’s would be Philly. The Widener Building.
Apuzzo is joining Kerchner’s action oin Harrisburg.
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=f05d46dda7fc2d7130082a01fbecb626
I can see City Hall from my window.
I’m qualified to be mayor. [bada-bing]
Oh ho ho. Time? Date? Open to public spectators? I ask because Philadelphia’s in my neck of the woods and it seems like it would be a fun way to spend a day.
Don’t forget disbanding the OBL task force in early 2007 (if I recall correctly) and booting the call on greenlighting a raid to get OBL at Tora Bora by US forces, instead ordering them to let local “allies” handle it.
Bush deserves 0% of the credit for OBL’s demise, and I haven’t even started on BHO’s administration having killed 10X more al Qaida principals than Bush’s in half the time.
Oh, wait… Obama’s sympathetic to terrorists, and Bush, who let 9/11 happen in the first place, is the hero. I forgot.
People like John Reilly make me want to puke.
Aggh.
John Reilly didn’t say that.
I mucked up when I edited the quote from his post, and again: I’m very, very sorry that I did so.
Bush To London Bombers: ‘Bring It On’:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/bush-to-london-bombers-bring-it-on,4983/
John Reilly didn’t say those things. The associates he knows said them and he was just relaying what those folks think. He was not trying to endorse nor echo their blinder-driven opinions.
It’s all explained here; observe carefully: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y
I, too, have had problems with the quote function, so I take no umbrage at others who have run into the same problem.
Throwing up has been a theme this week. Senator Santorum said on one of the Sunday shows that President Kennedy’s defense of a strict separation of church and state made him want to throw up. As a fellow Roman Catholic, I just want to know where Senator Santorum’s queasy stomach meter falls on church molestation of young boys, or the whole Penn State mess. Is that more or less puke than keeping the government out of my business, my house and my bedroom?
I too come from a Roman Catholic background – both sides of my family. Plus, the greater Cleveland area I am from is predominently Roman Catholic, so that shocking attack on Kennedy’s historic speech has really raised a lot of ire around these parts.
Santorum’s doubling down on extreme hardline and clearly theocratic positions, including ones that are contrary to what most Roman Catholics actually support, is what I think did the most damage to Santorum’s support over the past two weeks.
Polls still have him leading in my OH, which is now being zeroed in on as the “battleground” prize for Super-Tuesday. He will really have to shift his focus back to that populist economic message, which was really working for him here and is something that is a critical concern for all of Northeast and Northwest Ohio. But his saying that Kennedy’s speech made him want to puke has really, really offended a lot of even the GOP voting Catholics I know – especially the old-timers…
The molestation scandal caused a fatal aneurysm, he’s been braindead ever since. Penn state gave the animated corpse pancreatic cancer. Over the years, the accumulated failing of clergy and blasphemous utterings of politicians have rendered the golem known as Santorum the most disease-ridden corpse in history. The once-man has literally died a thousand deaths.
That well-known google result for ‘santorum’? Not a smear, but a description of a case of dengue fever inflicted by the 2002 resignation of Bernard Law, with the eruption of a particularly blasphemous form of stigmata prompted by the 2002 rulling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that classroom recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in California public schools was unconstitutional.
The march of “Old School” Birther attorney’s converging on PA continues!
H/T to Patrick over at BadFiction for this update on the Berg case: Gary Kreep will dust off his mothballs too, as co-counsel for Berg! LOL! I love it when the circus comes to town…send in the clowns!!!
http://badfiction.typepad.com/badfiction/2012/02/dispatches-from-birtherstan-28-29-february-2012-1.html#more
Boy the LW fraud hucksters and apologists are alive and well on this thread-not that i am surprised. Guess it is no shock that Sheriff Joe in AZ has just already let most of the air out of the much-hyped Long-Form Obama BC which Obama realeased last year. Though that event should be no surprise since the Obama long form states his place of birth in a Hawaii medical center which has no record of either his mother or himself as patients at the time of his birth, or any time thereafter. Also noted is the regular practice of the Hawaiii Department of Health to issue amended birth certificates to Hawaii citizens-in this case his mother-who file for one for their offspring who are born overseas. Birth certificate fraud which is what we are talking about here-is actually quite common, particularly in Hawaii and Puerto Rico-outlying locales whose citizens frequently travel overseas where many of their citizens originate from. Now no one would actually be crass and bold enough to suggest that our dear, distinguished President-and/or his advisors -would resort to birth certificate fraud to cover his tracks would they??
I have the same concerns. I found a Kenya BC (Obama’s?) that may be what you are looking for.
Are you Loser# 2,345, or 2,346?? Hard to keep track these days.
Bustleton1: let me know when Sheriff Joe takes his allegations to the proxsecutor and grand jury. I’m confident that when he does so, and they take the action that you believe should happen, Doc C will cover it here. Just let us know when this happens. We’re waiting.