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Archive | August, 2016

Obama’s third term: revisited

By on August 31, 2016 in Joseph Farah, Misc. Conspiracies, Videos, WorldNetDaily

In the run-up to the 2012 Presidential Election, some pundits on the right made the argument that Obama should not be re-elected because if he was, he would stay in office indefinitely. Rush Limbaugh said in 2009:

And I wouldn’t put it past Obama to be plotting right now how to serve beyond 2016.

I wrote about prediction’s of an Obama third term attempt in 2012 and now as we anticipate a change in president on January 20, 2017, it’s time to revisit that topic.

The predicted move to amend the US Constitution and repeal the 22nd Amendment that limits presidents to two terms has clearly not materialized.

Jamie Dech, writing back in March asks the question, “Is Obama Positioning Himself for a 3rd term?” Dech plays on the dark side of our minds invoking the calamity and martial law scenario. (He also claims Obama is a Muslim.) Dech writes:

So, if there is massive unrest by groups like “black lives matter” – enough to cause a need for martial law, with National Guard action and all – then, if he declares himself king of the White House, how would he be stopped?

Obama, of course, has striven to heal racial divisions, taking some if the heat himself for not taking sides, or perhaps more accurately for taking both sides. And how, exactly, does Obama “declare himself king”? I think that if a hypothetical president declared himself king, then Congress would remove him from office either by reason of disability or impeach him.

The martial law scenario, this time triggered by a natural disaster, is graphically portrayed in  this YouTube video titled “Time’s Up! Obama’s Third Term FEMA 2016 Martial Law Disaster! Time’s Up! Time’s Up!”

The Hill reported in June that 67 percent of Democrats would prefer a third term for Obama over a potential Clinton administration – polling data from a conservative group, with the exact question asked not disclosed. I’ve certainly detected no buzz among Democrats for any 3rd term scenario. Perhaps they believe in the rule of law.

While news outlets such as US News and World Report in their article “Could President Obama Get Four More Years?” thoughtfully discuss the merits of repealing the 22nd Amendment, conspiracy theorists have cooked up some more far-fetched scenarios such as the Obama administration indicting Hillary Clinton after her election but before taking office, put forward by no less than Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily. Snopes.com covered that story and explained why the indictment scenario doesn’t get Obama an extension of time in office.

According to Captain Dave Bertrand, Ret. writing at Before It’s News, the globalists in charge of the world will decide the next US president. The judicial system, he says, is “instigating a race war,” Obama could start World War III with the Russians, we could be overrun by refugees and terrorists. The election will be rigged, he says, leading to massive civil unrest. It’s pretty scary out there in the picture Bertrand paints.

For me, I think that as long as Trump is not elected, our Constitution will continue just fine. 😳

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Crackpots of the world, unite!

By on August 29, 2016 in Lounge

I’ve long been fascinated by conspiracy theories, not for the conspiracies themselves, but by the reasons people believe them. Some of the theories sound downright crazy.

There are people who think that an unseen force causes things to happen in their world, and that their very thoughts are being monitored!

Are such people delusional? The highlighted phrase was carefully crafted to sound delusional, but to literally apply to billions of adherents of the world’s religious. As I noted back in 2009,

The DSM defines a delusion as:

A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everybody else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture.

By this definition people who believe in God are not clinically delusional, and I would argue that neither are conspiracy theorists such as birthers. Through the Internet, subcultures arise easily, and the network of birther web sites gives the illusion of ordinary acceptance.

Birtherism may well have been an engineered conspiracy theory rather than something that arose naturally as an attempt to explain a set of facts. Still it grew, according so some reports, as a chain email. Such emails are passed from contact list to contact list, and so they exist within an existing subculture. It is not some unkempt fellow on the street with a sign saying “Where’s the birth certificate,” but rather a family member, a co-worker, or a social friend passing made up citations from authoritative sources. The mutual support of a community, along with confirmation bias gets these conspiracy theories growing.

I think we can expect phenomena like the birther movement to be common in the future.

(I don’t suggest that all conspiracy theories are false, but I’d bet money that the birthers are wrong.)

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Washington Times: Yes Clinton did start the birther movement

By on August 25, 2016 in Birther Politics, Media

An opinion piece in the Washington Times titled “Fact checking the media – yes, the Clinton Machine started the birther movement” appeared August 22. The article argues that because an internal campaign memo suggested attacking Obama as a multicultural outsider, that somehow that constitutes starting the birther movement. Just the use of the word “machine” in the description of the Clinton campaign shows where the Washington Times has its bias. I left the following comment on the article:

There is no evidence presented in this article that suggests that Clinton, or anyone in her campaign started the “birther movement”. Birther means claiming that Obama is legally ineligible to be president because of the circumstances of his birth. While today “birther” has an expanded meaning, that was certainly not so in 2008. The other significant distinction between what is described in this article and real birthers, is that Obama really did spend part of his childhood in Indonesia and he really does have a multicultural life experience. Birthers believe in false conspiracy theories that he was born in Kenya and his birth certificate is a fake.

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Arpaio, associates referred for criminal contempt of court

By on August 20, 2016 in Birthers Behaving Badly, Joe Arpaio

I only have a minute sandwiched between my Habitat for Humanity project and a social event to put a place holder for this story. Federal Judge G. Murray Snow ordered Friday that Sheriff Joseph Arpaio and three associates be referred for prosecution for criminal contempt of court for their actions in violation of court orders in the Melendres v. Arpaio lawsuit. Also referred were defense attorney Michele Iafrate, Chief Deputy Sheridan and Captain Bailey.

Read about it at AZCentral.com and the order at the Phoenix New Times.

Poor Sheriff Joe. He may have to drop out of his re-election race to prepare his defense, and be forced to live off the $10 million in unspent campaign contributions.

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Sheriff Arpaio swears: birth certificate “investigation is not yet done.”

By on August 19, 2016 in Birth Certificate, Joe Arpaio, Videos

Phoenix (3TV) reported yesterday on a deposition given by Sheriff Arpaio this past July in a lawsuit against him for malicious prosecution.

America’s toughest sheriff doesn’t seem to have a very good recollection of what goes on in his department, based on the number of times Arpaio couldn’t answer questions, but he is sure of one thing: the birth certificate “investigation is not yet done.”

Video:

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