You may refer to a searchable copy of the US Constitution at US Constitution Online. Here are the answers to our quiz: (more…)
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Obama Conspiracy Theories “Constitution Quiz”
Let’s see how much you really know about the United States Constitution. (No peeking at a copy of the Constitution.) Answers will be published along with the results. Click to start the quiz: (more…)
Obama is a Muslim?
Perhaps not so much a conspiracy theory as it is a crank opinion, the meme that Barack Obama is a Muslim goes hand in hand with views that he’s a (insert bad thing here). A recent Pew Research poll says that 20% of Americans think that Barack Obama is a Muslim.
This is perhaps a little less crazy than some of the stories about Barack Obama. He spent 4 years as a small child in Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim country. His Indonesian school record lists him as Muslim. His step-father’s family was Muslim. His grandparents in Africa were Muslim, and he carries the middle name Hussein.
Obama was for two decades a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ congregation and is a self-described Christian, yet Obama’s consistent refusal to demonize Muslims has fed belief that he is one of them.
A recent article in the Washington Post attributes birther sentiment and belief that Obama is a Muslim to more than rumors on the Internet. It also comes from remarks by politicians including: Sarah Palin, Jean Schmidt, Tom Ganley, Bill Posey, Randy Neugebauer, Dan Burton, John Campbell, Jim Inhofe, Richard Shelby, Marsha Blackburn, Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, Charles Boustany, Aaron Schock, Dave Reichert, Jeff Fortenberry, Greg Harper, David Vitter, Paul Broun, Bull Hudak and Ken Cuccinelli. The Post article has all the details.
Wow! Perhaps this explains it.
Birther movement vanishes in puff of smoke, poll says
According to an online poll taken by the New York Daily News of 20,000 respondents, 95% say that Barack Obama was definitely born in America! Given the margin of error, there may not actually be any birthers left. You really have to give that Obama credit: all the birthers swept up into FEMA concentration camps and not a soul noticed!
New York Daily News Poll (click for results)
He’s got ‘em on the list — he’s got ‘em on the list;
And they’ll none of ‘em be missed — they’ll none of ‘em be missed.The Mikado – Gilbert & Sullivan
Now’s when we start talking about “unscientific.” This poll, like the Pastor Manning Blood of Jesus v Obama jury, relies on volunteers to vote, not a random sample of the community, so this poll, like the polls taken by AOL and the number of people demanding to see Obama’s birth certificate at WorldNetDaily, is equally bogus, unscientific, and easily manipulated. (Unlike the WND petition, however, one person can’t just keep entering over and over again at the NY Daily News site.)
Comment on the CNN “birther poll”
Alvin Greene, SC Democratic Senate nominee
For some time I have been thinking about these birther polls and that they are probably not representative of the real degree of birther sentiment in the population. It’s rather like the South Carolina Democratic Primary where a fellow that no one had even heard of, who had no campaign, no advertising, no web site, won the Democratic nomination for Senate over a well-established state legislator. Something beyond folks wanting Alvin Greene was going on.
An article at the Scoop/Daily web site from July 2009 puts things into perspective about birther polls. If one were to excerpt one main idea from the article it is that people will guess a poll answer even if they know nothing about the question. Just by asking the question, the poll raises suspicion in the mind of the respondent that there may be a problem with Obama’s citizenship.
Public opinion research has shown consistently that survey takers almost never skip questions no matter how uninformed they are (and whether or not an option to say “I don’t know” is presented). As a rule, respondents just guess, using whatever contextual clues are available to them. They will reduce the question to analogies and terms they can relate to, which in survey research are called heuristics.
Obama birthday poll
More than 25% have doubtsNew CNN/Opinion Research poll shows 11% certain and another 16% saying probably that Obama was born outside the United States compared with 42% having “absolutely no doubts” and another 20% saying probably that Barack Obama was born in the good ole USA. No surprise that it’s mostly Republicans with doubts.
But CNN really screwed up on the commentary when they said:
Hawaii has released a copy of the president’s birth certificate – officially called a “certificate of live birth.” And in 1961 the hospital where the president was born placed announcements in two Hawaiian newspapers regarding Obama’s birth.
Anybody with even a cursory familiarity with the topic knows that the copy of the president’s birth certificate was released by the Obama Campaign and not the State of Hawaii, it is called a “Certification of Live Birth” not a “certificate” and the newspaper announcements were not from the hospital but from the state department of health. And didn’t anyone tell them that you’re not supposed to start a sentence with “and?” I would have commented, but the comments were closed at CNN.
80% of Americans do not believe official Bush birthplace
A recent nationwide CBS/Vanity Fair poll showed only 39% of Americans responding that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii (although 63% place his birth somewhere in the United States).
I wanted to put these results in perspective with my own Obama Conspiracy Theories poll. This poll was made of 10 people randomly selected from my workplace on June 30, 2010. I think all the respondents were college graduates.
Asked the open ended question: “in which state was President George W. Bush born,” only 20% believed the official story that he was born in Connecticut! A full 50% picked Texas. New York and New Hampshire were other states mentioned.
It looks like to me we’ve been asking for the wrong birth certificate.
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