Social Security Card
Crusading birther litigant Orly Taitz, DDS, Esq. has adopted the President’s social-security number(s) as one of her major themes. This was repeated just last week in a filing with the DC federal court, as reported here at Obama Conspiracy Theories. So what’s her beef?
Taitz claims fraud on the part of Obama for (1) using multiple social-security numbers, and (2) using the social-security number of someone else.
39 social-security numbers
In her most recent filing Taitz wrote:
I submitted an affidavit from a licensed investigator Neil Sankey, showing that according to most reputable National databases Lexis Nexis   and Choice Point Barack Obama used as many as 39 different social security numbers, none of which were issued in the state of Hawaii, where he resided. (Submitted as an exhibit with the complaint)
I have looked at various filings available from the courts, and I have not personally seen the list of 39 social-security numbers. What I have seen is various lists of names similar to Obama, mostly living at Obama’s former Chicago address and all having the same social-security number. From where I sit, I have no documentation available to me that Taitz’s claim is true, and if it is, I would question the accuracy of these databases, which are essentially credit reporting databases aggregated from various sources usually without any verification. We do not know what matching criteria were used to say that these were our president Barack Obama. It all seems rather far fetched.
Born in 1890
Taitz continues:
The same affidavit contained information, showing that the social security number [social-security number redacted, Doc C.], that he used most often, was issued in the state of Connecticut to an individual born in 1890. Since Obama never resided in the state of Connecticut and was not born in 1890, it was a sign of clear violation of Title 42 US Code, section 408(a)(7)(B), misuse of a social security number, which is a federal felony punishable under Title 18 USC by fine or imprisonment of up to five years or both and an evidence of foreign birth and lack of proper citizenship status.
and
I submitted an affidavit from a licensed investigator Susan Daniels, showing that according to her research Obama used a stolen social security number [Social Security Number redacted, Doc C.], which was issued to another individual born in 1890 in the state of CT.
While it is not certain that the social-security number “that he used most often” according to Taitz is really the President’s, I suspect that it probably is. Taitz is correct that the “042” series of numbers was indeed assigned to Connecticut, and Connecticut is not Hawaii. As far as I know, President Obama never resided in Connecticut.
If there is any clear evidence of fraud, it is the 1890 date that Taitz flouts. First, if the SSN was really for a person born in 1890, that person would be dead. The Social Security death index doesn’t list this number, so we can presume that the 1890 date is bogus. However, there is more direct evidence that it’s wrong and Taitz knows it. In her own court filing in Barnett v. Obama (page 5) she shows where the 1890 date comes from. The document says:
Dates of Birth Associated with SSN:
1890
08/04/1961
04/08/1961
Obviously the third is a typographical error on the correct date (the second) and 1890 is just database garbage. Which is the more likely date of birth from the preceding list? If you are convinced that everything Obama does is a fraud, then the first entry is the one to pick. If you’re looking for the real answer, you pick the one that makes sense, the President’s actual date of birth.
While Taitz claims that the SSN Obama uses “was issued to another individual”, she never says who that individual is, and this is because the record for that SSN belongs to none other than Barack Obama himself, as we see from Orly’s own filing. [Note that Taitz later identified an individual named Jean Paul Ludwig who was born in 1890 and got his social-security number in Connecticut, but the Social Security Death Index shows that this person has a totally different SSN.]
What about the Connecticut number series? It’s an interesting question, but there’s no law that says you have to get your SSN from a Social Security office in the state where you reside. Nowadays, they are all processed centrally and the assignment is based on the zip code of the return address. A commenter here suggested that Obama’s return address was mistyped, the initial “9” typed as a “0” which would turn a Hawaiian zip code into one from Connecticut.
What it most certainly does not mean is Taitz’s surprising conclusion: “foreign birth and lack of proper citizenship status.” (Connecticut is not a foreign country either.)
Learn more:
I don’t know about your guess. Back then, children did not obtain social security numbers at a young age. Parents are compelled to obtain them now because the IRS requires a SSN for a parent to claim the child as a dependent. For people in Obama’s age group, a SSN was typically obtained when that person got their first job (typically about age 16). And since Orly and her band of criminals have freely posted the 042 number all over the internet and in court filings, I have to believe the SS Administration has probably issued him a new number by now. In any event the whole issue is irrelevant and only designed to further smear the President. And, of course, it also demonstrates the total incompetence of Orly, Neil Sankey and her other investigators.
It’s pretty clear that Orly Taitz is simply cherry-picking data, trying to find anything at all that she can pin on the president. She really reminds me of Ken Starr and his neverending quest to prove that President Clinton was a dirty sinner. Fortunately, she doesn’t have a $100 million budget for her silly little investigation. She has to beg for donations from gullible cretins.
She’s going to be disappointed, though, because President Obama is clean. He’ll never give them the blue dress that they seek.
“He’ll never give them the blue dress that they seek.”
Which is why he should not give in one iota to those malcontents. It did not affect his election, and it will not affect his re-election. The most is about 600K, which is not even 1% of the population. I say let them squirm. What are they going to do if Jindal runs for VP in ’12?
If Jindal runs, my guess is they’ll fall back on their alternate definition of what a natural born citizen is,”born in the USA of citizen parents,” to rationalize their rejection of his scary brownness.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. After all Alan Keyes fulfills all the right-wing, ultrareligious, homophobic, sex-hating requirements of crazy baseland, and he’s never won a single election. Ole Bobby might have slipped through in Louisiana, but he won’t make it through the Republican presidential primaries, especially with the beloved Sarah Palin provide all the nutty with none of the brownness.
I sent these links to Orly and Mario.
Can you say fireworks?
I don’t know either. I personally got my Social Security number in my early teens (I was born 11 years before Obama). My father didn’t get his until his 20’s.
From the Social Security Administration website:
The Area Number is assigned by the geographical region. Prior to 1972, cards were issued in local Social Security offices around the country and the Area Number represented the State in which the card was issued. This did not necessarily have to be the State where the applicant lived, since a person could apply for their card in any Social Security office. Since 1972, when SSA began assigning SSNs and issuing cards centrally from Baltimore, the area number assigned has been based on the ZIP code in the mailing address provided on the application for the original Social Security card. The applicant’s mailing address does not have to be the same as their place of residence. Thus, the Area Number does not necessarily represent the State of residence of the applicant, either prior to 1972 or since.
Note: One should not make too much of the “geographical code.” It is not meant to be any kind of useable geographical information. The numbering scheme was designed in 1936 (before computers) to make it easier for SSA to store the applications in our files in Baltimore since the files were organized by regions as well as alphabetically. It was really just a bookkeeping device for our own internal use and was never intended to be anything more than that.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/geocard.html
And as Texlaw notes, back in those days it was uncommon to get a SSN shortly after one’s birth. The individual usually applied for it only when s/he needed it. Typical instances: one’s first job, or upon receiving some sort of financial assistance that required an SSN for record-keeping purposes. Obama may not have gotten his SSN till he was college age or thereabouts.
Barry Soetoro returned to America about 1971 as an Indonesian Refugee. Shortly after that, BHO Sr. returned to Hawai’i to complain before a Hawai’i Circuit Court he was not notified and did not consent to the Soetoro adoption.
The Soetoro adoption was voided and Barry name was legally changed to Barack Hussein Obama, born Aug. 4, 1961 in Honolulu, HI. The Court ordered a new vital record to be created and “filed” with the Hawai’i DoH. The vital record is not “accepted” because there is no attestion by a doctor or hospital administrator.
The Court does not have jurisdiction to naturalize an Indonesian citizen. Naturalization is an Executive Branch function. BHO II would have had to present himself to the U.S. Embassy in Honolulu, HI to apply to recover his U.S. Citizenship and take an Oath of Allegiance to naturalize.
The reason Barack’s SSN, beginning with 042, doesn’t match his state or zip code when applying was because BHO II used the services of American Resettlement Organization (ARO) to obtain his SSN. Most likely the ARO was Headquartered in Connecticut or New York.
http://www.refugees.org/article.aspx?id=1082&subm=40&ssm=47&area=About%20Refugees
Sven, when will you give up tilting at windmills? For the last 18 months you have been coming up with various versions of this theory and have never provided us with any proof that anything you claim ever happened. First of all Americans cannot be Indonesian refugees. Obama was an American citizen and had a US Passport. He traveled frequently between Hawaii and Indonesia. So your theory made no sense. Nor does your claim that Obama Sr. came back to HI to contest an adoption that never happened. Why? Because you can’t prove an adoption happened nor can you prove that Obama Sr. ever returned back to HI after he left to go to Harvard. But continue to come up with your crazy theories…We all enjoy your works of fiction. We are looking forward to the next installment of the Young Barry chronicles…
*yawn*
More completely made up fantasy by one of Sven’s sock-puppets.
Keep flogging that dead unicorn there Sven!
*snore*
Dear
DanDraperSven:Some questions: How did BHO Sr. get back to Hawaii? What airline did he fly on, and what type of airplane? What was the cost of a round trip ticket?
Better keep your day job. You’ll never make it as a fiction writer.
DanDraper (Sven): The reason Barack’s SSN, beginning with 042, doesn’t match his state or zip code when applying was because BHO II used the services of American Resettlement Organization (ARO) to obtain his SSN. Most likely the ARO was Headquartered in Connecticut or New York.
I am strongly offended by your use of the term “most likely” since it insults my intelligence and that of other guests on this blog.
You also write as if there were an organization called the “American Resettlement Organization.” There is not so far as I can tell.
If you can find an American resettlement organization that is headquartered in Connecticut, by all means comment on it, but don’t pretend that you know something when you don’t.
But Doc, I was hoping to get the latest installment of Sven’s novel.
I really hope this one will be “The Adventure of Obama and the Pirates”
(and I give credit to Doc or whoever first came up with that title)
“How did BHO Sr. get back to Hawaii? What airline did he fly on, and what type of airplane”
Misha- BHO Sr. flew on his Invisible Atomic Flying Lab!
I wish you folks would bone up on your fiction when asking Sven stuff.
Good article regarding the birthers and other ridiculous conspiracies…
http://www.newsweek.com/id/233518/
1. Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
It’s not clear where he must have been born instead: some say Indonesia; some say Kenya (initial suggestions that Hawaiian natives weren’t citizens when he was born in Honolulu in 1961 were quickly dismissed). The point, so-called birthers say, is that he wasn’t born in the good old US of A, hence isn’t a natural-born citizen and therefore cannot legally be president.
Proponents: Chief birther and Beverly Hills dentist and attorney Orly Taitz, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah, Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.), former presidential and Senate candidate Alan Keyes, assorted tea partiers.
Kernel of Truth? It’s fully debunked. Forged Kenyan birth certificates have been exposed, and—despite protestations to the contrary—Obama’s birth certificate has been certified by the state of Hawaii, and images have been shown on national television. And that’s leaving aside plenty of circumstantial proof, like birth announcements in both major Hawaiian papers from August 1961.
Even more funny is Farah’s demand for a retraction…Which is amazing since he is responsible for some of the most reprehensible article ever written about the President…
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=125096
I am taking the unusual step of making a retraction demand public at the same time I am sending it to you through the mail.
While I have written tens of thousands of words about the subject of Barack Obama’s eligibility and talked for dozens of hours on the public airwaves and given hundreds of interviews on this subject, never have I stated that Obama was not born in the United States
That should be an American Resettlement Organization (ARO). An ARO is an non-government organization (NGO) that works with the the Department of State’s Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM).
One of many functions an ARO does is obtain SSNs for refugees. There are other functions an ARO performs. See Link in previous message.
And don’t call me Sven. I miss Dick.
I liked the Newsweek article, but Farah has the gall to try to ask for a retraction???
That just astounds me to no end.
Does Joseph Farah not read what he himself write or what his site posts? Does he really not know where his paypal donations come from? Does he deny the “Where’s the Birth Certificate” signs and other birther crap they solicit in every few paragraphs of all of their so-called “news articles”?
Does he even listen to himself speak? Just where was he, when he himself went off on a 10-minute birther rant during the Tea Party Convention just a little over a week ago?
Wow. That takes cognitive dissonance to a whole new level!
Kettle, pot.
Sven, Can you provide us with an ARO that actually provided SSN’s to Indonesian refugees? I mean at least link us to an article from a newspaper that discusses Indonesian refugees in the early 70’s? And examples of this happening. I mean you make it sound like this was a common occurance so there has to have been articles written about it…And then show us an example of an American citizen somehow becoming an Indonesian refugee. Since we know that you don’t have any direct evidence that Obama was adopted, was a refugee, or that Obama Sr. ever returned to HI, if you can at least show us other instances of what you allege happening, then you might have some credibility…
G, I think that Farah thinks that everyone is as stupid as his readers. He really thinks that no one has read his various articles by Corsi and the other WND writers, as well as Farah’s comments at the wingnut tea party where he was called out by Brietbart….So to all of a sudden be offended and claim that he has never “actually” claimed that the President wasn’t born in HI is being disingenous at best…
Well, I don’t post emails very often, but Orly has it coming.
The following is part of an email exchange I had with her recently on this subject.
As you’ll see, 1890 morphed into 1976-1979:
From: Orly Taitz
Subject: Re: Obama and CT social security number
To: “John Dean”
Date: Wednesday, January 27, 2010, 12:16 AM
no, we checked the numbers before and after. the ss was issued between 1976 and 1979. He was at the most 18 years old. He lived in HI
, no connection to NY or CT
On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 10:53 PM, John Dean wrote:
Hi Dr. Taitz,
I believe I have a logical explanation for why Obama has a SSN from Connecticut.
He started to attend college at Columbia University in New York City in 1981, when he was 19 or 20 years old. Most likely, he lived in western Connecticut, which is very close to New York City, and that would explain why his SSN is from there.
“Does Joseph Farah not read what he himself write or what his site posts?”
Farah: I don’t lie, the truth changes.
I was born in 1962. In 1978 I was 16 and living in Georgia. That is when I got my social security card. However, my sister, who was only 11, also got hers at the same time because it was easier for my mom that particular day. I could have just as easily gotten it during the summer in Tennessee when I was staying with my grandparents. Back then it just wasn’t that big of a deal because the only time you needed it was when you went to work.
I got mine when I attended college in upstate NY. It is not even close to Chicago where we lived for a time or the Norhtwest. I think my boys have them starting with various numbers depending on when and where we got them on our military journeys. I think we may have applied for our oldest when we were on vacation. Dr. Taitz spent to much of her life in Moldavia.
My story is similar. The social security numbers for myself and my brother, who is three-and-a-half years younger than me, only differ by 1 digit.
This is for the exact same common sense reality based reason as what everyone else has been saying. Before a certain point in recent history, it was NOT standard nor required to get a SSN at birth. Therefore, many of us who were born before that time were issued numbers at a later point in our life.
, then you might have some credibility…
that was a good laugh!
As someone with a foreign (ie French) last name, during the years I lived in the US I saw address labels, credit reports and all kinds of documents with the most amazing misspellings and variations on the proper spelling my name. Dozens of them.
I’m not surprised there are many variations of the same “Barack H. Obama II” out there.
an admission
How did a citizen of Krypton get 39 SS numbers?
Just one of his super-powers I guess, caused by exposure to blue kryptonite. 😉
This entire “issue” is absurd. The birthers want to pretend that Barack Obama led some strange underground existence working odd jobs for cash on street corners. In fact, in addition to being an elected legislator, he worked for a reputable law firm and a world-class university.
Here are his tax returns from 2000-2006
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/03/obama-releases.html
The SSN he used isn’t shown of course, but I can tell you that if you file under an SSN that isn’t yours, the IRS will throw the whole return back at you.
I don’t buy these “databases” for one second. They are simply scams run out of coffee shops in Lagos.
Yep, we admit that the birthers have 0 cases won, Barack Hussein Obama is still our President, and you’re a racist asshat.
One ARO is Indonesian Women’s Congress (Kowani)
http://www.ictwomen.com/news/7/tahun/2008/bulan/11/tanggal/06/id/93/
Here’s a link to the translated web page which describes Lia Soetoro’s announcement about her plans to see her adopted brother inaugurated.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=id&u=http://www.ictwomen.com/news/22/tahun/2009/bulan/01/tanggal/09/id/536/&ei=O556S8OGEMiUtgeRvci8Cg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA8Q7gEwAQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3DKowani%2BSoetoro%26hl%3Den
This is rather sweet actually.
I note that this page acknowledges that Obama was born in Hawaii and was never an Indonesian citizen.
Thank you for contributing more evidence to debunk loony birther theories.
Dude! Do you live in LA and actually have a prescription for what ever it is you’ve been smoking?
I hear tell some of the stuff they have these days is “treated” with various unknown substances and makes the stuff we smoked back in the 70’s look like catnip.
Maybe you should switch brands.
But the Indonesian Women’s Congress isn’t a “non-government organization (NGO) that works with the the Department of State’s Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM)”. It doesn’t seem to have any relation to refugees at all, plus it’s based in Indonesia, not the USA and wouldn’t be getting SS numbers.
There is no US Embassy in Honolulu, nor in any other US city.
A racist asshat because you question someone’s ssn?
Have you no better comeback or argument than that?
Using the race card for as a rebuttal is getting very old.
As opposed to all the other kind of rational rebuttals which he has refused to accept?
“…the U.S. Embassy in Honolulu, HI…”
Really?
I’d liker to visit your planet sometimes. Does your Spock wear a beard?
Paul, Sven doesn’t allow facts to get in the way of his fantasy…we all know he can’t back up what he writes with any factual evidence, so we just all like to read his fictional account of a young Barry Soetero that somehow was adopted and became an Indonesian citizen although this was not permitted by Indonesian law and no adoption records were ever presented, renounced his US citizneship, although Perkins v. Elg would have made that difficult as well as that a 6-10 year old renouncing would have taken more than just the word of some embassy offical, and came back to the US as an indonesian refugee even though there is no evidence of that happening and Obama was and is always a US citizen. Please don’t allow reality to get in the way for Sven. We want to see his next chapter of the young Barry chronicles…
Our buddy John Charlton is up in arms about the article written by Erick Erickson over at Redstate regarding banning the birthers…It is an interesting read…
http://www.thepostemail.com/2010/02/13/redstate-com-bans-eligbility-question/comment-page-1/#comments
“Many Republicans are outraged following the discussion ban of the eligibility question imposed yesterday by the Editor-in-Chief of Redstate.com, a leading Republican News Blog published from Washington, D.C.”
Really? the only ones up in arms are the birthers and their supporters…
“It appears that Eric Erickson, the Editor-in-Chief of Redstate.com, is an attorney who once practiced law in the same federal district as the infamous Judge Clay D. Land, who sanctioned Attorney Orly Taitz for having the daring to plead the Eligibility question in the case of Captain Connie Rhodes’s deployment.”
“According to an anonymous source, The Post & Email has been informed that Judge Clay D. Land’s frequent drinking partner is none other than a local attorney who is notoriously opposed to the questioning of Obama’s eligibility, one who is affiliated with the Southern Poverty Law Center. It is not known who this individual is, but it seems that Eric Erickson shares the same prejudices as the personal friends and acquaintances of Judge Land.”
Here goes Charlton attempting to smear Erickson to make him seem like an Obama supporter and smear Judge Land at the same time for having ruled against Orly….
The article from Redstate….
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/02/12/vigilance-im-banning-birfers-truthers-and-groups-affiliated-therewith/
“We’ve always banned truthers at RedState. Increasingly, we have also banned a number of individuals who think Barack Obama is disqualified from being President because despite the Republican Governor of Hawaii confirming the legitimacy of the Democratic President’s birth origin as a citizen of the United States these birthers (”birfers” because it sounds as crazy as they are) refuse to move on.
Today I want to reaffirm and make it more definitive. If you think 9/11 was an inside job or you really want to debate whether or not Barack Obama is an American citizen eligible to be President, RedState is not a place for you”
I am not a fan of Redstate but what he said was right on point. Of course the birthers were not happy about what was written….
Of course on Charlton’s moderated site, the same birthers are out in force…Especially our buddy Charles Kerchner…What is up with this birthers and their constant use of former military rank…It is like somehow that makes them more believable or something…Kerchner and Fitzpatrick both…
CDR Kerchner says:
Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 7:24 PM
Looks like RedState.com is just another RINO site.
I believe the Fix was in by both parties in the 2008 presidential election cycle to subvert and ignore Article II of our Constitution using progressive rhetoric to justify what they did … and the cover up is still going strong. Both political parties are now using all their operatives in the Main Stream Media, various Internet Sites, the Congress, and their friends in the Courts to try and shut down those who know what they did in 2008 and prevent more of “We the People” from learning what they did to subvert Article II of the U.S. Constitution. Their fraud and the continuing cover-up have created the Perfect Storm for a Constitutional Crisis of historic proportions. This crisis is going to make Water Gate look like a walk in the park once this usurpation of the black letter law fundamental law of our nation and national election fraud is exposed to the American people. Read my essay at this link for more details:
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-believe-fix-was-in-for-2008-election.html
CDR Kerchner
Wow, Scott doing a very good imitatation of an asshat, what irony! (maybe it’s not an imitation)
And to top it off, I didn’t “link us to an article from a newspaper that discusses Indonesian refugees in the early 70’s? And examples of this happening.”
Consequently, Barack must be eligible to be POTUS. Congratulations, you’ve solved the mystery!
Barack got his 042 SSN while living in New York/Connecticut in his early 20’s. He didn’t need a SSN prior to that. (Except for Selective Service Registration, but that is beside the point.)
Dan/Sven/Dick: Let’s play a little game. Let me pretend that young Barack Obama acquired Indonesian citizenship while he lived there (he didn’t, but we’re playing a game here). How would that make him ineligible to be President? Now I know you will say, “Indonesian law doesn’t permit dual citizenship, so therefore he must have renounced his US citizenship.” But wait a minute. The laws of my state say I can’t drive faster than 65 mph. Supposing I leave my home and get somehwere 75 miles away in 1 hour. Would you say that is impossible? Not at all; I simply drove faster than the speed limit. Even your pal Orly does that. She’s gotten caught a few times, but I’m sure she’s done it many times and not gotten caught.
So we don’t know how or even if the Indonesian law about dual citizenship was enforced. Maybe they would simply take a step-father’s word that the boy renounced his other citizenship. Maybe the step-father would “grease the wheels”. You are perhaps putting unwarranted faith in what the law says rather than how the world works.
My point is that whatever the laws might say, I don’t consider it impossible or even unlikely that someone could have gotten Indonesian citizenship, while holding on to other citizenships.
long time listener, first time caller……..
just thought some of you guys would get a kick out of this link. i think it’s a good illustration of the rabbit-hole conspiracy mentality that the birthers share.
http://www.jayweidner.com/ShiningSecrets.html
Thanks for the link. Now I know when my cat speaks English, he’s really faking it.
Let me stop you here. The laws of your state don’t allow driving faster than 65 mph. You could have been driving in another state.
Whether Indonesia allows dual citizenship is a different question than whether the United States allows a minor to reject his citizenship or recognizes the denaturalizing effect of getting citizenship in another country.
I haven’t seen anything other than Sven’s fevered imaginings that suggests a 6 year-old could knowingly reject his citizenship. In fact, the US was more paternalistic towards minors in the past, not less. In 1961, you had to wait until you were 21 to vote, but, in Sven’s mind, you could knowingly reject citizenship at age 6?
Speculation Speculation Speculation
You have no proof of any of your theories. Your theories are just your fantasies. The proof you are shown, however, you snub your nose at because you don’t want to believe it. You don’t get it and you never will. You and the cult you own membership too talk in circles. Dude, you are up against lawyers and other highly educated people on this forum. You meow and we bark. Meaning we don’t speak the same language. You are completely wasting your time here. Go back to where you came from, fool!
Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. Of course I don’t believe that a child would have been able to renounce his US citizenship. My point is that when Sven intimates that Obama acquired Indonesian citizenship, he says that means he renounced US citizenship. My counterpoint is-not at all. A person (anyone, pretend it’s not Obama, say an adult) could potentially have acquired Indonesian citizenship without renouncing US citizenship, even if Indonesian law SAID otherwise. How? Because there are always around laws. Is that clearer?
Wow… that dude has issues! That is definitely far down the rabbit hole, indeed!
Short summary: Crazy dude watches movie the Shining and sees it as evidence that the moon landing didn’t happen. And here we were just talking about moon hoaxers the other day!
Since they don’t have a good name for their wacky movement, I’m suggesting Luna-loonies.
My recent email exchange with the good doctor Taitz:
From: Dr. Orly Taitz ESQ (dr_taitz@yahoo.com)
Sent: Tue 2/16/10 12:35 PM
To: Kaci Jay (kacijay@hotmail.com)
Mr. Sankey had a valid reason, a legal action filed and the fact that 042-68-4425 number is a stolen ss number used by US president. What can be more valid than this. I checked this number with Selective service and other investigators. What is your response to this, this is a much more damning evidence then Columbia, though I do have a lot on Columbia. Can you respond re to 042-68-4425? In my humble opinion it is time for Robet Bauer to contact me with settlement proposal and for Obama to find a reason for resignation and a deal with Biden for pardon, ala Nixon.
My best regards…
Dr. Orly Taitz ESQ
29839 Santa Margarita Pkwy ste 100
Rancho Santa Margarita Ca 92688
ph. 949-683-5411
fax 949-766-7603
orlytaitzesq.com
drtaitz.com
taitzofficesuites.com
— On Tue, 2/16/10, Kaci Jay wrote:
From: Kaci Jay
Subject: I must take exception – Again
To: “orly”
Date: Tuesday, February 16, 2010, 9:21 AM
Your recent posting of an article proposing that Fox News interviewed 400 students at Columbia Uni. with regard to President Obama is again without factual back up. Where is Fox News’ report regarding this? All you have is someone saying this occurred. A quick search brought up the following interviews, etc. that quite easily debunk this report:
A spokesman for the university, Brian Connolly, confirmed that Mr. Obama spent two years at Columbia College and graduated in 1983 with a major in political science. He did not receive honors, Mr. Connolly said, though specific information on his grades is sealed. A program from the 1983 graduation ceremony lists him as a graduate.
“People assume he’s a novice,” says Michael L. Baron, who taught Obama in a Columbia seminar on international politics and American policy. “He’s been thinking about these issues for a long time.” In fact, in a paper for Baron’s class, Obama considered how a President might negotiate nuclear-arms reductions with the Russians. (He got an A.)
Michael Wolf, economist and former president of MTV – Friend and classmate at Columbia of President Barack Obama: “He was very smart. He had a broad sense of international politics and international relations. It was a class with a lot of debate. He was a very, very active participant. I think he was truly distinctive from the other people in that class. He stood out.”
Phil Boerner, roommate, speaking of a diner near Columbia, Tom’s: “We would just go there for the breakfast special, two eggs over easy and toast,’’ said Mr. Boerner. “It was like $1.99, and we lived on a lot of bagels. They were, like, a quarter then, but they expanded in your stomach.’’
Life for Columbia students could be hard, however. Mr. Boerner recalls Mr. Obama wrapping himself in a green sleeping bag (seen in this photo Mr. Boerner took) to keep warm when they studied at home. They listened to reggae. Bob Marley. Peter Tosh. Talked philosophy. Theories of justice and John Rawls. Mr. Boerner recalled Mr. Obama joking that he would rather be spending his time pondering Lou Rawls, the singer.
Obama lived off-campus after transferring from Occidental College in Los Angeles. His political science classmate, Michael Ackerman, CC ’84, recalled him as “almost chameleon-like, spy-like, slipped in and out. He tried to keep to himself.”
Again your lack of any type of research with regard to the trash you post undermines any credibility you might have. Also, with regard to Investigator Sankey – I too use many different databases when I am trying to locate someone – including Lexis Nexis. Number one – Mr. Sankey violated his agreement with Lexis if he 1. researched President Obama without first having a valid legal reason to do so and 2. allowed this information to be disseminated and posted on the internet. Further, Lexis Nexis searches are only as good as the information provided when someone applies for a loan, credit card, etc. and the information keyed into the system. All of the information should be taken with a grain of salt and verified personally.
I’m sorry, but how many times do you have to be told of your complete unprofessionalism before you accept responsibility for your actions?
Wow – a free search engine:
Social Security Number: [Obama SSN Redacted]
Date of this report: February 16, 2010
State of Issuance: Connecticut
Approx. Date of Issuance: 1976 And 1977
Issuance Status: According to the Social Security Administration,
this SSN has been issued.
SSA Death Masterfile: No record as of 10-02-2009
STATUS: THIS SSN HAS BEEN VALIDATED!
I’m afraid that they don’t understand that if there was another owner of this SSN that died – then there would be a registration stating that. This is why identity theft occurs when someone steals a current SSN that is still active.
Doctor C – please redact the SSN from my post! I didn’t mean for it to go through!!
Wow – I guess I was 14 when I got mine! didn’t realize.
Social Security Number: 260-X-XXXX
Date of this report: February 16, 2010
State of Issuance: Georgia
Approx. Date of Issuance: 1976
Issuance Status: According to the Social Security Administration,
this SSN has been issued.
SSA Death Masterfile: No record as of 10-02-2009
STATUS: THIS SSN HAS BEEN VALIDATED
LOLOLOLOL Luna-loonies LOLOLOLOL
hilarious!
Barry Soetoro would have had to present a Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN) issued by the U.S. State Department with his name on it to become an Indonesian National. Since Barry’s parents were upfront about where Barry was born, he would not have been allowed to become an Indonesian National without first obtain a CLN from the U.S. State Department.
If he were not an Indonesian National, he would have not been able to enroll in a public school in Indonesia.
As for a SSN issued in Connecticut, one plausible explanation is Barry lived in the New York/Connecticut area when he was 15/16 years old and he applied for a SSN at that time. Or, he was an Indonesian refugee at that time and an unidentified American Resettlement Organization headquartered in NY/CT used their mailing address as the contact point to obtain his SSN on his behalf.
Who knows? Barry/Barack will have to open his State Dept and Social Security files up to public view for us to find out.
The mere fact that you believe this to be possible has no relevance to what actually did happen.
You do understand the difference? And the mere fact that you can come up with totally unsupported musings does not mean that it is up to others to reject them.
Prove them or we can safely reject them as lacking in evidentiary support.
Policies change. In the mid-60’s, someone thought it would be brilliant to encourage people of color to resettle. By the early seventies, the resettlement policies were scuttled.
It was in the early seventies that Barack received free transportation and expedited travel docs to return to America. He could have recovered his U.S. Citizenship by application and an oath of allegiance to a Federal Officer representing the Executive Branch of Government. For whatever reason, he chose not to.
Oh no. No, NbC. You know I post here to get your affirmation.
You must affirm me without supporting documentation or I will be disappointed.
Well said! This really is what it all comes down to.
Until the birthers can provide anything that would pass muster as evidentiary support, they have no case to argue; just meaningless speculative fantasies based on their own preconceived prejudices.
Hahaha Yes, that sums it up…
But again you can’t provide us with any ARO that dealt with Indonesian refugee in 1970-1971, nor can you provide any examples of anyone under the age of 16 ever renouncing their US citizenship. Nor can you provide us with any proof that non-Indonesian citizens were prohibited from attending school in Indonesia. Remember he attended private schools over there. I am not even adressing your lack of evidence regarding an adoption, a CLN form, or proof that Barack Obama was ever a citizen of Indonesia. Sorry, no files for you. Your theory is not even probable. Even Judge Lance Ito would laugh you out of court.
“If he were not an Indonesian National, he would have not been able to enroll in a public school in Indonesia”
Again Sven is missing the point Scientist is making. Even if that was a requirement, that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have enrolled.
“Barry/Barack will have to open his State Dept and Social Security files up to public view for us to find out.”
Ummm no- he doesn’t. One person making up a story and saying this is what happened isn’t going to compel anyone to action.
As an example- I could say that George Bush was recruited as a Chinese sleeper agent when he visited China while his father was Ambassador. But that doesn’t mean that he would have had any obligation to prove that he wasn’t a spy, even if his actions seemed clearly detrimental to the U.S..
Anyway- no point with arguing with Sven- he just makes stuff up and when proven wrong goes off on a new fictional approach or ignores his absolute total lack of evidence.
“someone thought it would be brilliant to encourage people of color to resettle.”
Who Sven? Who thought it would be brilliant? Come on, make up a name.
@DickDraper: do you think pets go to heaven?
Proof?
I thought not.
More stuff pulled from the nether regions of anonymous internet posters.
C’mon, Dick, prove me wrong. Post a single source for your assertions. Just one. Anything.
You can’t do it. Of course.
Again we are waiting for you to identify at least one of these supposed ARO’s that dealt with Indonesian refugees that would have been located in the US and been able to get SS#’s…Simple…We are not even adressing the other holes in your theory….Just find one of those…Saying that this was popular at the time must mean you can show us an example…if not then you can’t even support that such a policy existed…
Indonesia was #89 on the corruption list in 2008.
http://www.worldaudit.org/corruption.htm
It was almost certainly more corrupt in the 1970s under Suharto. No matter what Indonesian law said, a “gratuity” to the correct official would get you anything you wanted. It would have been a piece of cake to become an Indonesian national without ever renouncing other citizenships.
Please not the cack about “has to be an Indonesian to go to an Indonesion school”
UTTER BOLLOCKS
The (as is traditional in birther circles) fail here is that the Constitution of Indonesia states that all Indonesian children are entitled to an education.
That is NOT a ruling saying that no other nationality can attend an Indonesian school.
Muppets……
This is just another instance of the formal fallacy of affirming the consequent. Birtherism is full of these. The bogus argument goes:
That’s like arguing:
I was born just a few months after the President, and applied for an SSN at age 15, in order to apply for my first job. This was standard for people born in the early 1960s and before. I can specifically remember hearing that it had become standard practice years later to issue these numbers at birth, and how strange I thought this idea was.
In 1977 I applied for an SSN along with my brother, who is a year younger. I was born in 1962. Although we were the only people in the office and were processed at exactly the same time, we don’t have sequential numbers. This only goes to show that it’s very unwise to jump to conclusions based on the digits in one’s SSN.
Black Lion: Of course on Charlton’s moderated site, the same birthers are out in force…Especially our buddy Charles Kerchner
Which again raises the question as to whether they are one and the same person.
Black Lion: Paul, Sven doesn’t allow facts to get in the way of his fantasy
I mostly just skip Sven’s postings unread.
Lupin, you never cease to amaze me.
Even my husband’s family name which is very common can be spelled Browne or Braun as I recall. My very uncommon family name- from a Ukrainian great-grandfather has been spelled in various ways. It has always seemed silly to me that if Obama wanted to hide something he certainly wouldn’t do it using the surname Obama with whatever first name and spelling they give. It is all too silly.
I’ve seen that one Moon Denier who uses a leaf blower to blow gravel around and claim that the surface of the moon would have had craters blown in it from the rocket engines of the LEM.
He has one fatal flaw with his demonstration/theory; unlike his demonstration the rocks and dust on the surface of the moon do not have air in between and surrounding them.
I was born in 1960 in Minnesota but did not get my SSN until I was 16 and living in New York.
Nonsense. We’re dealing with a fringe. I don’t see any evidence that most Republicans are more racist than most Democrats. Keyes loses for the right reasons. Colin Powell would have been the favorite in the 2000 election had he decided to run (and the world would be a vastly different place today).
“Colin Powell would have been the favorite in the 2000 election had he decided to run (and the world would be a vastly different place today).”
On that, I am in 100% agreement. I’d vote for Powell in an instant. A warrior and a scholar, like Zinni.
“The bogus argument goes”
As I wrote before:
Humans have opposable thumbs.
Lemurs have opposable thumbs.
Therefore, you are a lemur.
“I miss Dick.”
Go to the Larry Craig memorial stall in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, you’ll get some. LOL
Having worked extensively with ChoicePoint/LexisNexis for many years, I can add something to the discussion of Obama’s SSN.
1. The first three digits of a Social Security Number usually, but not always, indicate where the individual was living when the SSN was issued. However, the only thing it actually indicates is the location of the Social Security office which issued the SSN. Obama’s SSN could have been issued by an office in Connecticut for any number of reasons. My ex has a Social Security Number which was issued in Pennsylvania, but she has never lived in Pennsylvania. Why it was issued in Pennsylvania was always a mystery to her.
2. The “approximate date of issue” is exactly that – approximate. The “1890” date which one database reported likely transposed the 8 and the 9 and was supposed to be 1980, which would place it in the general time frame when Obama would have obtained his SSN.
3. Prior to 1988, it was not necessary to list the Social Security Number of dependents on tax returns. Consequently, prior to then few people obtained a Social Security Number until getting their first job. For many, that was age 16. In my case, my summer job was caddying, so I didn’t apply for my SSN until I was 18.
4. Back when this issue first surfaced, I took a look at Orly’s “dossier.” What is notable is the fact that virtually all of the alternate SSNs and addresses for Obama which appear on her list were first reported after Obama announced that he was running for president. It also is notable that many of the addresses listed are non-existent and some are obviously jokes.
5. The information which investigators obtain from ChoicePoint/LexisNexis (they apparently have merged, by the way) is useful, but any experienced investigator knows that the data must be correlated elsewhere. ChoicePoint/LexisNexis gathers information, but it does not verify the information. Anyone could fill out a credit application, use Obama’s name and a made up SSN, and that information is going to wind up in a database.
6. The information obtained from ChoicePoint/LexisNexis is not admissible in court, because the original source of the information is unknown. It’s “garbage in, garbage out,” folks.
7. A statue of Obama in Jakarta is being removed from a public park because it is considered “inappropriate to honor someone who isn’t even Indonesian in such a prominent public space.”
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/indonesia-decides-to-relocate-obama-statue/19346591
Correction: The 1890 date, per Orly, was supposedly the date of birth, not the date of issuance. It could well be a typo for 1980, though.
I was thinking that perhaps the original source of the data had intended to list 1980 as the issue date but it came out as 1890, and Orly or Sankey might have assumed it was the birth year since 1890 couldn’t have been the issue year.
Anyway, ChoicePoint/Lexis-Nexis does often include years of birth with reports, but even there they are often off the mark.
And of course it would be impossible for Obama to use the SSN of a dead person without it eventually coming to the attention of the SSA and the IRS.
We do know that Barack’s father was in CT until 1965. While the approximate date is 1976-1979, there is a reason for the date to be ‘approximate’.
Interesting
Well at least according to about.com he was there….
The more usual biography places him in MA
A couple of things, (I hope I’m not just repeating other peoples posts). I’ve only been following the birthers for a few months but a while back I stumbled across this post.
http://www.confidentialresource.com/2008/07/09/subjects-with-multiple-ssns/
Which I thought was ironic in that it quotes Susan Daniels on the dangers of trusting databases blindly. Plus as a bonus, one commenter links to Daniels affidavit which includes the database searches that have the 1890 date in them.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21193983/DOC-86-2-Keyes-v-Obama-Affidavit-of-Susan-Daniels-Refiled
I think it’s interesting that Daniels checked on the numbers before and after Obama’s and the reports on those say those were issued in CT at the same period. Which brings up the really stupid bit of the whole “his number belonged to a 120 year old”. Does the SS dept ever reissue numbers? And if so how? His number is smack in the middle of a block of 10,000! Do they wait until they get a block of dead people’s SS#’s and then reissue all of them? (Really, I feel dumber even typing this) Because how could Obama’s be a reissue unless the others were too? Unless, back in the day you could pick your SS#, like vanity plates?
FWIW, my theory on the CT/HI thing is as follows. Zips for Honolulu are 968##. Western CT is 068##. Maybe Obama’s 9 looked like a 0?
According to the birther’s logic, some 87-89 year old (born in 1890) in the year 1977-1979 applied for a social security number and Obama ran with it… Even though the number clearly points back to a single person only, Barack Obama.
Anything to get discovery… The end justifies the means.
And that’s why some now have to answer to Bar associations and the like.
Harvard is in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Not an easy commute from Connecticut.
I wonder why I see these spurious references to CT show up…
So maybe the Brit, Neil Sankey can succeed where the Russian immigrant (from the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic) has failed, bring it on.
Poor little Birthers (still in denial about their losses), Judge Land and now judge Carter, smack down the crazies (case dismissed).
Not even “Fake News” Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly believes the crazies, how funny.
To all the birthers in La, La Land, it is on you to prove to all of us that your assertion is true (TOUGH WHEN YOU KEEP LOSING CASES), if there are people who were there and support your position then show us the video (everyone has a price), either put up or frankly shut-up. I heard Orly Taitz, is selling a tape (I think it’s called “Money, Lies and Video tape”). She is from Orange County, CA, now I know what the mean when they say “behind the Orange Curtain”, when they talk about Orange County, the captial of Conspiracy Theories. You know Obama has a passport, he travel abroad before he was a Senator, but I guess they were in on it.
In my opinion the Republican Party has been taken over the most extreme religious right (people who love to push their beliefs on others while trying to take away the rights of those they just hate) and that’s who they need to extract from their party if they real want to win. Good Luck, because as they said in WACO, “We Ain’t Coming Out”.
I wonder if she is a mail order bride, just like her law degree? She is perfect reporter material for “Fake News”, where unfounded rumors and innuendo reign supreme , unlike a our US courts of law. The way our courts work is that you get a competent lawyer, verifiable facts and present them to a judge, if the facts are real and not half baked lies, then, and only then, you proceed to trial. The Birthers seem to be having a problem with their so called facts that they present. Let’s face it no one will go along with you until you guys win a case, but until then, you will continue to appear dumb, crazy or racist, or maybe all three. Keep plucking that chicken.
A lawyer, dentist, realtor and black belt, WOW I must say a JACK of all trades master of none
I heard that she now wants to investigate the “Republican 2009 Summer of Love” list: Assemblyman, Michael D. Duvall (CA), Senator John Ensign (NV), Senator Paul Stanley (TN), Governor Mark Stanford (SC), Board of Ed Chair, and Kristin Maguire AKA Bridget Keeney (SC). She wants to re-establish a family values party.
I can only hope that Taitz will resist the state collectors that will be hounding her like the “ruff ruff” that she is to collect the $20K.
We won the election and now these sore losers will continue to spew your hate with lies.
I think we are discovering the truth here- Obama is like Benjamin Button- he was born in 1980 and is getting younger every year.
“It was in the early seventies that Barack received free transportation and expedited travel docs to return to America. He could have recovered his U.S. Citizenship by application and an oath of allegiance to a Federal Officer representing the Executive Branch of Government. For whatever reason, he chose not to.”
We know for a fact that this is not true. Obama had an American passport and used it for travel in the 70s.
I have been wondering the same thing Doc…Because across all the birther sites you do see the same names repeating the same garbarge…
It would be an hour-long commute from Thompson, CT to Cambridge, MA. That’s today, using the MassPike. The Allston exit of the Pike was completed in 1964.
In the pantheon of unproven assertions, this one is one of least proven. Berg’s brief, for example, cites the Asian Law Digest for most of his silly claims, a dubious practice. The ALD is a tertiary source, taking and interpreting the cases that interpret the statutes. Looking at the ALD citations he’s provided, none actually support the claims he’s making. For the notion that non-Indonesians could not go to school, he doesn’t even do as much as cite inappropriate ALDs. He cites to the Constitution, which doesn’t even HINT that foreigners could not go to school. It simply guarantees the right to go to school for Indonesians.
Does anyone know where this myth started?
Linda, Berg’s “paralegal,” claims to have consulted an Indonesian law firm on all of his assertions. However, Berg continues to cite only the Constitution and laws entitling citizens to education. It would be like me claiming that foreigners could not speak because only citizens are guaranteed the freedom of speech by the First Amendment (pretending, for this argument, that the First Amendment only granted the right to citizens).
Put another way – no one in the United States has a right to drive. Does that mean that no one is allowed to drive?
You’re being logical, which is getting in the way of their conclusions.
First you have a nutty idea, then you cherry pick and fabricate. Get with the program.
Greg-Here’s what I found on an expat site http://www.expat.or.id/info/preschool.html
“Indonesian preschools and kindergartens (TK) are licensed by the Department of Education and Culture. They must follow a standard curriculum, set by the Department, which prepares children for entry into the Indonesian school system. These schools are attended primarily by Indonesian children and instruction is conducted in the Indonesian language.”
It says these schools are attended PRIMARILY by Indonesian children, not EXCLUSIVELY. Could this have been different in the 1960s when Obama lived there? Possible, but highly doubtful. No country I’m aware of bars the children of resident foreign citizens from their schools. I’ve lived overseas with my kids and sent them to the local schools and known plenty of expats who did the same. Some expats prefer to send their kids to international schools, but that is their choice, not because the local schools refuse them, just as some parents here choose private schools.
I would take this “fact” with a ton of salt and would want to verify with a source other than Phil Berg. The US Embassy in Jakarta or the Indonesian Embasy in Washington might be reasonable places to start.
In debating Linda, Berg’s “paralegal,” I found articles recounting the time-frame which stated, pretty clearly that the government shut down Chinese private schools. The Chinese children, including those who were not citizens, either were home-schooled or went to a public school. From my research, I am convinced that there is a priority given to Indonesian citizens, but that foreigners were allowed to go to the public schools, if they could get in.
GOP Chairperson Michael Steele gathered with representatives of the Tea Party Cause yesterday in an attempt to bring them on board with the Republican Party. I’m thankful that the Tea Party has determined not to hitch it’s wagon to the GOP. They are a skillful effective pressure group when it comes to restraining the Republican Party in line. The same goes for the Republican Liberty Caucus. The RLC and the Tea Party are overwhelmingly composed of Conservatives and Conservative Libertarians who are Disgusted at the behaviour of the middle-of-the-road Republican RINOS who used their control of the White House and Congress to collaborate with the Democrats and grow the administration, sign McCain-Feingold, and the list of genuine criminal offenses against our Constitution and Conservative precepts is long indeed.
It seems like our buddy Charlton is becoming even more disturbed by reading his latest “article”, or work of fiction….Note the commenters…It is the same cast of characters….I am begining to believe that we have basically 10 or so birther trolls that post under different names on different sites to make people think that there are a lot of them out there….
http://www.thepostemail.com/2010/02/16/americans-must-defend-america-as-no-one-else-is-left-to-do-it/
“The natural law accords no right or respect for a usurper. He can, by the natural right, be removed from power by any means, peaceful or violent. In fact, it would be an act of heroism and patriotism to arrest him; nor can I deny that according to the great thinkers on this subject that it would not be a crime to use even lethal force to do so. But as a Christian I pray for, exhort and encourage peaceful means, even though I recognize that no crime can be committed to remove Obama, precisely because to remove a usurper from power is the duty of every patriot, and if done so for that reason is never a crime before God or men.
For similar reasons, such an action is not “vigilantism,” because that crime consists of taking authority into one’s own hands when authorities exist.”
“But now with the open takeover of our Federal Government by Socialists and Islamists, there is no line of defense left but the common man. If we do not take up arms and start a counter-revolution, the nation is lost.”
“Such an action must include the arrest, trial and conviction of all conspirators in the usurpation, both in the White House, in Congress, and in the Courts. It also must mean the confiscation of the property of all who supported the usurpation, both that of the Democratic Party and of the corporations, law firms, unions and private citizens who financially supported the takeover of the government. They are alone responsible for the trillions of national debt Obama has added to the Treasury; it is only right that their assets be seized to pay it back.”
Apparently these people either can’t read the Constitution or the New Testament.
“because to remove a usurper from power is the duty of every patriot, and if done so for that reason is never a crime before God or men.”
I would love for any of them to point out where the Constitution or Jesus happened to spell this out.
These folks are nascent Fascists, plain and simple. The advocate any means to ‘save’ the nation from everyone but people who think the way they do.
I’ve seen no evidence that Berg ever did any “research” beyond misreading the Indonesian Constitution.
Greg: Does anyone know where this myth started?
The first documentation I have was the Complaint in Hollister v. Soetoro (Berg). December 31, 2008.
Debunked by me: http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/02/hollister-v-indonesian-citizenship-law/ et al.
Which is a smart thing to do…
I didn’t mean to be facetious — I actually intended my post at face value. That is, CT is within commuting distance of MA, but not easy, and therefore not likely unless the person has some different compelling reason to live so far from where they work or attend school.
Although its only speculation, I think its more likely that Barack Obama may have traveled to the east coast as a teenager, perhaps in connection with some college prep activity for high school age students – that simply isn’t mentioned in his autobiography. He did attend a private prep school in Hawaii; it is common for schools to arrange trips for students to visit east coast colleges (Harvard, Yale, etc.); and students need to have a social security number when they register for the SAT. So its possible that it was participation in some sort of college prep program that lead to the CT tie in of the social security number.
That’s mere speculation, of course. But just because something is not mentioned in Obama’s autobiography doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Obama did apply to at least one east coast college (Swarthmore, in Pennsylvania) – which rejected him. [See http://daily.swarthmore.edu/2008/11/8/obama-denied/ ]Perhaps there were more. It’s fairly common for colleges to fund the travel of recruitable athletes and minorities for pre-college visits, and the east coast colleges love to get students from far-flung states — so colleges are likely to have taken a very strong interest in an African-American, basketball-playing student from a prestigious prep school in Hawaii.
Not forgetting the documented fact that Obama actually visited France in the early 80ies as an American.
One of the best Star Trek episodes….
When ENTERPRISE did a Mirror Universe story in its last season, they redid the opening title sequence to show the history of space travel in that universe.
Maybe there, Hawaii isn’t part of the US and there’s a US Embassy in Honolulu?
(I know way too much crap.)
Hopefully, in a good way. 🙂
Kind of reminds me of the joke about Madeleine Albright talking to Boris Yeltzin. Where suddenly he wonders, whether he had, unbeknownst to himself, started drinking again.
That’s funny.
A couple of interesting things about the SSN searches can be found in Orly’s motion for a preliminary injunction. She states that Sankey was audited by Lexis-Nexis after running database searches on Obama, and Sampson (one of her other investigators) was locked out of his Locate Plus account after running Obama’s SSN (Locate Plus is an operation which is similar to ChoicePoint/Lexis-Nexis). Orly, of course, insinuates that the actions by Lexis-Nexis and Locate Plus were retaliatory actions orchestrated by Obama.
Of course, the real reason why Sankey and Sampson were reviewed is that neither had a permissible reason for looking into Obama’s personal records. Orly seems to believe that the mere act of filing a lawsuit against someone gives her carte blanche to invade that person’s privacy.
The references to Sankey and Sampson are in paragraphs 22 & 23 of Orly’s motion.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27133397/TAITZ-v-OBAMA-8-MOTION-for-Preliminary-Injunction-dcd-04502873001-8-0
You’re attributing a quote from Black Lion to me. Can’t you keep anything straight? Damn, you’re pathetic.
Obama’s 16 Different Social Security Numbers
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-chat/2442166/posts
Private investigator Neil Sankey, using Intelius, Lexis Nexis, Choice Point and other public records, found around 25 Social Security numbers connected with Barack Obama’s name.
All told, there are 49 addresses and 16 different Social Security numbers listed for a person whose name is spelled “Barack Obama.” In some cases, the middle initial “H” is listed. If you were to expand the search to include closely related names such as: “Barac,” “Barak,” and “Barrack” Obama, you would find more than a dozen additional addresses and Social Security numbers.
GIGO. Simple as that.
Is it 16 or 39? Does Obama have more social security numbers than there were communists in the State Department in the time of Joe McCarthy?
I followed the link, and all I saw was 3-digit prefixes. I think Joseph Farah’s SSN starts with 666.
It’s a strange mix of the same SSN at different locations where Obama used to live and work, combined with some people whose name is similar to Obama’s, combined with obvious fakes.
These public databases are not very reliable and yet birthers seem to treat them as the Gospel.
Pathetic… Anything to smear the President…
Exclusive!! Obama’s grandfather once was next to Alger Hiss in the Safeway check-out line!!
Aieeeee!!
Was Alger Hiss carrying his secret pumpkin?
The more the president digs in his heals, the more those with questions will persist.
He creates the perception that he’s hiding something by not answering simple questions aboout his past. You might think that all those who would question are nutjobs, but they are not. At the end of the day, people will stand with the guy who invites scrutiny and dialogue. The guy who takes all the questions and openly explains his thought process and beliefs.
Your right, it didn’t affect his election, and during his first 9 months he had the power, he had the congress, he had everything, democrats had everything misha. Obamas window of opportunity is closing now, by November he will be standing in the parking lot with a veto pen, wondering where everyone went.
The democrats shot themselves in the foot putting this guy in office.
He spends more than anyone ever has Misha and all the money is borrowed, Great…. no it’s tragic.
He said he believed in transparency, actions speak louder than words, sounds great, but not happnin.
He said the “capital hill corruption” would stop, thats the most laughable, sounds great though.
The left can spin their argument all around, but at some point all his supporters are gonna be in the parking lot needing a ride home, and he’s gonna be gone.
He will leave you at the curb misha, and you will be left to pay the bill.
Pretty hard to defend his ideological platform, just sayin…..
Nobody cares about Obama’s birth certificate. If people disapprove of the job Obama’s doing, it’s because of the job Obama’s doing!.
He’s the most transparent President in recent history. Show me Bush’s birth certificate, or Clinton’s? Just because you don’t have one thing doesn’t mean you don’t have other things.
Sort of like when Obama met with the Congressional Republicans and answered all their questions of him? The Senate Republicans didn’t want to talk with him. They were afraid that by letting him answer their questions, they couldn’t portray him as an ideologue.
Yeah, Obama’s spending money. We’re in a recession and we’re not going to get out of it by cutting spending. And, the stimulus is working!
And health care reform cuts the deficit by $1.3 trillion over the next 20 years.
$1.3 TRILLION!
That’s not peanuts!
Despite this, Senate Republicans are afraid to let it come up for a straight up or down vote, since they know that an overwhelming majority would vote for it. Thus the abuse of the filibuster.
Personally, I think the denialists appear pretty silly asking for kindergarten records as a measure of the administration’s transparency. I’m just sayin’.
Hey, Rick-a-Rino! I hate to mention the B word, but can you refresh our memory about how Bush was an open book about his past-the company he ran that went belly up, his drunk driving arrest, his family’s ties to the saudi royals, the sweetheart deal that got him a share of the Texas Rangers in exchange for Daddy’s influence in getting a ballpark built? He would just talk for hours about that wouldn’t he??
At least you’re honest enough to hint that it has nothing to do with eligibility, but rather that you disagree with Obama. Well. most of us disagreed with Bush. Be a man and suck it up. At least Obama hasn’t started any new wars so far…
Nonsense, they are only interested in one possible outcome: the removal of the President.
Otherwise the release of the COLB should have laid to rest any doubts.
Obama should not give in one iota to the Denialists. They are self-destructing, and taking down the whole conservative movement with it. And I’m cheering.
Orly is on the edge of a breakdown. I’ve seen it before, first hand.
Oh, and Shrub has a misdemeanor DUI conviction, which he tried to hide. And where oh where are those WMDs? It doesn’t matter, since Cheney’s cronies got their paws on Iraq’s oil.
Obama should let that crowd squirm. It did not affect his election, and it will not affect his re-election. And Cory Booker will follow. Better get used to it.
“you will be left to pay the bill.”
Funny, thats what Bush left me. And my daughter.
If you don’t like the job President Obama is doing-fine. Ideologically, I have no issue with his platform- I just hope that the right decisions are made regarding rebuilding the economy, keep us out of unnecessary wars, and preventing future economic meltdowns.
Time will tell. If the economy gets back on track before the next presidential election, he will get re-elected, if not, he won’t.
If President Obama had managed to come up with a way to eliminated all deficit spending his first year in office, the Republicans would have still been saying no. And the birthers would still be saying that that Muslim couldn’t possibly be a natural born citizen.
Just sayin….
Rick: The more the president digs in his heals [sic], the more those with questions will persist.
No, the more information he provides, the more questions will be raised.
It’s always amazing how the left and liberals argue with “emotions and name calling”, while others try and use facts. That’s only because a couple of generations have been taught in schools run by former dope loving, free sex Hippies of the 60s, who became school teachers. But thats OK. We’ll straighten it out sooner or later.
Big Ron: It’s always amazing how the left and liberals argue with “emotions and name calling”, while others try and use facts.
I suggest you read this blog for a counterexample, or you could just look at your own sweeping generalization, which is not fact based.
“former dope loving, free sex Hippies of the 60s”
Why, thank you. I have a reputation to uphold. КГБ да!
Who’s he calling “…former…”?!?
The Bell & Howell ‘Big Ron’ projector, ladies and gentlemen!
The thing is, though, we did straighten it out: Election Day, 2008.
Read carefully, the CBO report on Health Care costs. The Federal Government has transferred the costs – which in measured in multiple TRILLIONS of dollars, out to the states. So looking at the typical politico weasel words, we (the Feds) are savings $1.3T, by transferring multiple trillions of expenses out to the states, so the taxpayers still take it in the shorts.
You cannot cover millions of more people, with supposed better coverage, while cutting payments, except in the area of fraud. If there is so much fraud in the systems (which I have no doubt), then take it out now – prove you can do something before ramming this poorly thought out scheme down our throats, not create another major government go-broke scheme like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Post Office, and the hundreds of other government run money losers.
Have you actually read the CBO report?
I didn’t think so.
“government go-broke scheme like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Post Office, and the hundreds of other government run money losers.”
I’m sure if the Federal government eliminated all of these, the private sector would rush in to provide these services, right?
I’m waiting.
Politics and the fools that follow politicians while hanging on their very words. People since the begining of time have been self serving, greedy, and unethical. Give anyone power, be it left, center or right and soon enough they will do the WRONG THING. Obama will be a citizen until the democrats lose power, after that whether it is true or not his dirt will come out. Now the birth certificate is questioned, by then it will be used as prosecutorial evidence. DON’T BELIEVE ANY POLITICIANS, THEY ARE ALL DIRTBAGS!!
If we can’t believe any politicians, then why would we believe the politicians that follow Obama if they claim they have evidence of malfeasance?
Personally I advocate not believing anyone.
Rob Powell: DON’T BELIEVE ANY POLITICIANS, THEY ARE ALL DIRTBAGS!!
What’s your excuse?
Why is it every time someone bashes Obama, the libs have to bash Bush as if this will make Obama’s actions ok? Sorry to burst your bubble but I dislike Bush almost as much as I dislike Obama. We have a two party system of government Left and really far Left. Most people that are questioning Obama are doing so because they don’t trust this government and most likely questioned the government when Bush was in charge, just not as loud and as public. We as a country need to get back to a Republic style of government based of the constitution, not this democratic socialist government that we have now that started under Teddy.
Here’s the difference, Jay, when liberals bash Bush, we bash Bush. We don’t say he’s a foreigner who is ineligible for the Presidency!
But, again, thanks for admitting that this is all about how you disagree with Obama and nothing to do with his eligibility.
There is no democratic socialist government now. Not much has changed since Bush was in office. Most people using terms like Socialist, Communist, Marxist have no ideas what the terms mean or how they differ from each other.
I’m always intrigued by those who cry about high taxes and yet our taxes are lower than they were under Reagan and are at the lowest level since Truman was in office.
Sci please stop trying to rick roll rick
I knew it he was in cahoots with Wonder Woman and Obama’s father is Jor-el. He wasn’t lying!
A Republic form of government? I assume you mean republican. All that means is that the head of state is not a heriditary monarch, which would include >90% of the nations of the world. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the People’s Republic of China are republics, as are France, Mexico and Brazil. So was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The US doesn’t have to “get back” to a republican form of government-it has one.
As for Teddy, I’m guessing you mean Roosevelt. This is something I hear from the Right these days-let’s go back to before the Progressive era. That means:
– Unlimited work weeks with no overtime
– No vacations
– No retirement
– No workplace safety rules
– Average life expectancy around 55
So show me how I or the average person would be better off under that type of society. Go on, let’s have the data.
Hahahaha Damn Sven just shot himself again. Sven why would the US need a US embassy on its own soil?
If “birthers” really are conspiring to bring down the president, it seems to me that he himself could put an end to it. All he would have to do is release records form Harvard, Occidental, etc.. & put an end to all of this nonsense. Instead the president chooses to spend millions of dollars blocking the release of his records. Not exactly “transparency in governement” in my opinion. The president will have to answer all of these questions if he chooses to get re-elected in 2012
Explain this to me. If “birthers” can’t get Obama’s birth certificate, how are they getting these lawyers invoices that show how much Obama is paying to block the release of his records? Ever heard of something called attorney-client privilege? Are Obama’s attorneys secretly sending duplicate bills to Orly Taitz or Mario Apuzzo?
Two problems here:
1. He is not spending millions of dollars blocking the release of his records
2. The only records that matter have been released.
Why indulge those foolish people who will just chose to move the goalposts.
Our President is showing leadership by not being distracted by these minor issues and instead focus on making our Country a better place for all.
I think you mean hundreds of dollars.
Anyone who thinks that these birther suits have cost the President “millions of dollars” is completely unaware of the cost of litigation.
Exhibit 1 for why he shouldn’t release anything.
At first, it was “release your birth certificate.” Then, it was “release your long form birth certificate.”
Now, it’s release records form Harvard, Occidental, etc.
Kindergarten records, I presume, george?
His college thesis?
The vetting files of the DNC?
Give us the full list of BS that you think the President has to release. Or, are you planning on keeping the full list secret so you can continue to move the goal posts?
No, he has to convince enough voters to win a plurality in enough states to win 270 electoral votes. As Bush Jr. showed, that doesn’t even need to be 51% of the electorate.
Note that the 1890 date shows up on a record with Obama’s name on it.
Such fools…
Interesting point. His Selective Services Registration shows a blacked out SSN? Certainly the record itself has a SSAN mentioned.
Was it not through his SSN that one could query the Selective Services?
Care to wager on that? I bet he won’t. The electoral impact of the birthers is nil, since none of them would vote for him even if there was video of him being born in Times Square in front of 20,000 people and clear DNA evidence that both parents were US citizens for at least 3 generations. Come on “george” be honest, you wouldn’t vote for Obama under any circumstances, would you???
The president will release another COLB and the case is closed.
A careful read of Barry’s Indonesian school record indicates Barry was born in Honolulu, HI.
I believe that to be true.
Also, I believe Barry, the adopted son of a military officer in the Indonesian Army, was completely honest about his birthplace in his required identity papers while living in Indonesia.
And, I believe Indonesia would not have allowed Barry to identify himself as an Indonesian National on his school records if he did not present a Certificate of Loss of Nationality from the US State Dept first.
Once the CLN is published, the Natural born citizenship status is gone forever.
And Hawai’i will have tweaked the format again (as is their right) and the Birfer crew will scream how it doesn’t look anything like the last one and in any case is NOT A LONG FORM, like wot I have from 1961…..
Do you believe that Barry, a six-year old, filled out the papers himself?
Haven’t we seen handwritten papers? Pretty good handwriting for a six-year old!
Do you have any evidence that such a beast exists?
Apparently, the six-year old Barry had really good handwriting and also knew cursive when he was filling out his “required identity papers while living in Indonesia.”
Don,
Please, search is your friend…….
There are no records of any adoption
There is no record of a 7 year old EVER being permitted to waive their nationality
There is no record of Obama waiving his citizenship
Adoption does not remove US citizenship
Parents cannot waive the citizenship of their children
Get over it, he won, you lost, he will probably win again, do not pass Go, do not collect $200
Yeah. His parents would have been arrested if he enrolled as an Indonesian National and he was not an Indonesian National.
As a person who informed the centralized controlling authority in Indonesian he was born in Honolulu, HI, it would be impossible to present himself as anything other than a person with US citizenship at birth.
You get that, Greg. Sometimes its necessary for the US State Dept to honor a native born citizen’s request to renounce.
For example, an Indonesian couple travels to Hawaii to birth their child who needs specialized care. The child is an native born US citizen.
When the child returns to his home country in 1961, Indonesia, he would have had to renounce his US citizenship to become an Indonesian National.
And you think the heartless SoS would say, “Sorry, kiddo! You’re an American. Your parents,grandparents, siblings and neighbors are Indonesian. But you needed American medical care when you were born and we will never let you give up your citizenship. Ha Ha Ha Ha.”
Great story, Don, it almost raised a tear in my eye.
Just a story, however. There is no evidence that Obama ever attempted to renounce his US citizenship! Heck, there’s no evidence for a single thing you’ve claimed!
Show me an example of a single person arrested because they put Indonesian on their child’s registration form? You’ve got the entire power of the internet and 49 years worth of potential records.
Show me a single example of a 7-year old formally renouncing his U.S. citizenship!
In your silly example, the infant would live in Indonesia as a US citizen (or dual national) and make the choice at the age of majority.
You do realize that many thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of children of illegal aliens are born in the US every year? If the parents are deported, in most cases the child goes with them. I have not heard of a single case of such children renouncing their US citizenship. They live in their home countries until they turn 18 and then can come here if they choose. And, yes, under current law they could become President if they satify the age and residency requirement and enough people vote for them.
Ah, Sven’s back to his imaginary fiction fantasies again!
Hey Sven, can we have a chapter on Obama’s Neptunian citizenship next? I want to hear all about his family’s travels and citizenship changes as they took rockets to explore the outer edges of our Solar System together! LOL!
Unfortunately Sven it has been shown to you that young barack could not have been adopted by Indonesian custom nor could he have become a citizen. And you are insane if you think that there is one Consular offical that would take the renounciation of a 6-7 year old child. Show us even one example of such an event happening…I don’t think so….The Indonesian issue is a loser…Even the anti-Semite Berg knows enough about Constitutional law to admit that….
>> focus on making our Country a better place for all <<
The only thing he's working on is taking the country towards socialism.
The economy is in shambles, but he does not even talk about it anymore.
Tax the rich man and give it to the poor, yeah, that's something great to focus on.
Show us the records!
>> He’s the most transparent President in recent history <<
You are certainly not serious right?
Ignorant about socialism as well I notice. The economy indeed has suffered and yet the policies so far seem to have caused all hints of a reversal.
The amount of taxes people pay is lowest since 1950…
Fool
Ah very imaginative as usual Sven. Of course no evidence that any of your speculation actually ever happened, or was in actuality possible. But thats what we get with each new chapter of Barry and the Pirates.
>> Fool <<
That's the only thing you boys and girls on the left know how to come back with, ridicule and mockery, well I guess when you lack solid data what else are you going to do.
Ignorant about socialism …. Given the fact that I grew up under a socialist system the accusation is amusing.
All hints of a reversal …. yes, like the unemployment rate continuing to climb and businesses closing left and right? Obama comes out with some lame BS about more people now actively seeking jobs because they now realize there are some to be had? Did he actually stop to think about that statement before he made it?
The facts are that what the administration is doing has historically failed to get the economy moving, it failed in the 30s, it failed for Japan, Argentina, etc. Raising taxes and choking businesses has never promoted a recovery.
But hey, don't ever let a crisis go by without using it for your advantage … tax, tax, tax.
“The president will have to answer all of these questions if he chooses to get re-elected in 2012”
Yes, I can see that- the burning question in the 2012 election will be his grade point average from Occidental College- and you left out the incriminating kindergarten transcripts he won’t provide!
Actually- and I mean this seriously- I hope that is the burning question because that will mean we will not have been involved in any new wars, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be winding down in a reasonable fashion, the economy was completely recovered, the immigration debate resolved and we will have finally cleaned up the Gulf Oil Spill.
If the burning question in the 2012 election is something as silly as that, Obama will be a cinch.
Further to that comment- I would imagine that if Sarah Palin is the Republican nominee in 2012, that Obama will be more than happy to compare his collegiate record to that of Sarah Palin’s.
Until then, why should he humor a few malcontent racists?
There you go again, foolish statements about raising taxes.
Have you no shame to repeat these false ‘talking points’?
Well Mike obviously you disagree with the President’s policies- no problem with that.
You disagree with most economists about the economy and on the best method to deal with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Riddle me this: Which country is arguably more socialist- Canada or the United States?
Which countries economy is in better shape right now?
>> Actually- and I mean this seriously <<
You boys and girls on the left can't take seriously.
Immigration … there is a good topic …. what side of the debate are you on? Do you see a problem with the current status? What would you do about it?
It would be very tempting for Obama, 12 million new voters that will vote Democratic blindly without even having an iota of information to base their choice. Wow, that's romantic.
“The economy is in shambles, but he does not even talk about it anymore.”
May 7- that would be 6 days ago
From NBC’s Ali Weinberg
President Obama said today’s jobs report — the largest monthly gain in four years — was “very encouraging news” that the economy was on track for long-term recovery, though he remained wary of appearing overly optimistic as millions of Americans are still out of work.
“We’ve got a ways to go,” Obama said. “But we’ve also come a very long way.”
Was that not recent enough for you?
That’s such a foolish foundation…
As if native born Americans have such an understanding of politics and our country that they can make an informed decision.
Fool
Gee Mike, who should I believe, you or John Chambers, CEO of Cisco:
Cisco sees recovery continue in 3Q
“”We witnessed a return to strong balanced growth across geographies, products and customer segments that we haven’t seen since before the global economic challenges began,” CEO John Chamber said in a statement.”
Courtesy of AP
So which country did you grow up in Mike?
Which “talking points” do you have a problem with, that Obama is raising taxes or that raising taxes on businesses has never provided a recovery?
Can you please ‘Debunk’ whichever one you have a problem with?
The fact that you are claiming that taxes have been raised when in fact taxes are at an all time low since the 1950’s.
Fool
Ridicule is appropriate under certain circumstance. Pity is another emotion. But so far I have seen few reasons for the latter.
Foolish premises lead to foolish conclusions.
Obviously Scientist, Chambers is a democratic plant even though he was an advisor to president George W. Bush.
Taxes are at their lowest level since Truman. You paid higher taxes under reagan than you do now.
The great thing about the birthers is they are experts in everything:
– They know about the law than lawyers or judges
– They know more about how states handle documents than the state officials in charge
– They know more about the laws of foreign countries than the officials of those countries
– They know about Obama’s life than he does
– They know more about investing than investors
– They know more about business than CEOs
“Immigration … there is a good topic …. what side of the debate are you on? Do you see a problem with the current status? What would you do about it?”
Personally I think that our current Immigration/border control policy is a failure. I think that both conservatives and liberals use the Immigration issue as a political football with no real intent at solving the very real problems.
I am all for comprehensive reform that neither side would agree to- and I don’t think you will either. So for everyones consideration:
a) Protect our border- we should not be allowing anyone to cross our border illegally. This is a national security issue.
b) Do not allow anyone to hire someone who is in the country illegally- which means civil and criminal penalties for employers who do so.
c) But b will only work if there is a very secure- and checkable national ID card. Employers need to have a practical way to ensure they are hiring a legal employee. This would require people to get a card, and would entail government tracking of employees, so that alerts are automatically generated if someone shows up as a full time employee both in Calfifornia and in Maine.
d) A plan for dealing with all of the illegal workers currently in the country. If the current estimates of 10 million is correct, what do we do with them? If we just throw them out of work, do you want 10 million embittered homeless illegal aliens in our country? Do you want to imprison them? How about deporting- how do you deport 10 million people? How do you pay for any of this? And no one seems to mentoin this- but the sudden loss of 10 million workers would devestate our economy in the short run- and perhaps the long run.
No, you need a rational plan for legalizing the ones here. That does not necessarily mean a road to citizenship or the vote. Personally, I would not be against denying future citizenship to anyone who came into the country illegally. But you make it legal for the ones here to work here legally, at legal wages. You bring them into the tent and ensure they are paying taxes.
e) A legal plan for very limited temporary workers for certain industries. The key here is to prevent temporary workers from depressing wages for permanent workers.
Those are my initial thoughts- the devil is in the details. I don’t really expect either side to deal with the issue though. Republicans certainly didn’t for the last 8 years, and the Democrats aren’t in a hurry to either- and yes I include Obama with that.
“It would be very tempting for Obama, 12 million new voters that will vote Democratic blindly without even having an iota of information to base their choice. Wow, that’s romantic”
Cheap rhetoric. I haven’t seen a single proposal that would make illegal aliens instant citizens and voters.
However, Republicans are allowing Democrats to court the legal Latino vote on this issue, rather than buckling down and trying to come up with a rational solution.
>> So which country did you grow up in Mike? <<
Ah … wait, I'll tell you when Obama discloses his information ;~)
>> taxes are at an all time low since the 1950’s <<
Do you really believe that? Are you sure you want to go down that road?
We are paying more than 50% of our salaries in taxes, fees, etc. In the 50's a family of 4 could survive with one parent working, could own a home go on vacation once a year and send their kids to college. Tell me that you can do that today?
Obama himself said he will spread the wealth, what country were you at when he said that?
Fool.
Great Mike- why don’t you provide an online copy of your birth certificate also? Copies of your birth announcements? Can you also have a government official from wherever you are from confirm you were born there?
Mike was born in the same place as fake Scott Brown
“Do you really believe that? Are you sure you want to go down that road?”
Sure- we like facts here.
“We are paying more than 50% of our salaries in taxes, fees, etc.”
Okay- I am willing to accept that- but the next part is you providing examples from the Reagan era showing that the total tax burden was lower.
“In the 50’s a family of 4 could survive with one parent working, could own a home go on vacation once a year and send their kids to college. Tell me that you can do that today?”
My parents bought their original house in 1956 for $12,000 with- gasp- a government funded 3% loan. We hardly ever went on vacation and no, my parents were not able to send us all through college- luckily I was the only one, and even then they only paid for the last two years.
College is more expensive today, houses are more expensive today. There is less government assistance for college today.
Show me a positive correlation to our tax burden, please.
You can believe the 8 people at my company that got their hours cut by 20 a month last week or our montly sales dipping over 20% or the local dry cleaner that is going out of business after 20 years in the neighborhood, or the small commercial complex next to my company that looks like a ghost town or the fact that the 5 Freeway is almost empty on my way to work when before it was bumber to bumber or CEO of Chase who is in bed with Obama … oh wait scratch that one, he recently sent an e-mail to all Chase employees imploring them to write to their senators because Obama now wants to control how much money he can make, do I go on? I think you get the picture of whom I believe.
Yeah, I see the recovery light at the end of the Obama’s tunnel.
>> taxes are lower than they were under Reagan <<
True on the books but not true in practice. The tax rate has been extremely high on the books at other times, but loopholes allowed people to pay a lot less than the advertised rate. Today it is the opposite. There are plenty of web sites on both sides of the aisle that go into this at length if you care to look it up.
The fact is that more than 50% of our salary goes to taxes, be it federal, state, fees, etc., etc. taxes are taxes no mater where they come from.
If you care to sit down and do a spreadsheet to back up the 50% figure it is a piece of cake. That is unless you are one of the special people that don't work and live off the system.
>> Ridicule is appropriate under certain circumstance <<
Absolutely, specially when you have no facts to backup your assertions.
Since you claim to be from a socialist country and won’t say where, no I DON’T believe you. John Chambers has always been straight-up. When the economy was going down in 2007, he said so. When it sucked in 2008, he said so. He has a track record, so I believe him. You have none, so I go with Chambers over you.
Mike C –
[Personal attack deleted, Doc.]
I’m all for immigration reform. The laws need to be tightened and enforced and the borders need to be dealt with. Businesses need to stop getting away with abusing labor laws. I’m glad this issue is returning to prominence and I hope it seriously gets looked at this year. I was very disappointed when the talks fell apart several years ago and nothing really happened to address this problem.
However, it is important to address this immense problem in a lawful and fair way. It should not be an excuse to allow people to be targeted or treated unfairly based on race.
You do realize that only citizens can vote, right? Even legal immigrants and permanent residents are not voters. Illegal aliens cannot cast votes and any fair comprehensive solution that would provide a path forward to citizenship would put such candidates at the back of the line, behind the lawful immigrants already on that citizenship pathway.
The citizenship process already takes years, so even if they passed such reforms today, it would be even more years before any of those folks would be able to take their citizenship tests and become eligible to vote.
And your statement about accusing just some group of “voting blindly” is as much of a worthless strawman argument as it gets.
Anyone can easily accuse and argue that many voters today already vote “blindly” one way or another.
You sure come across as someone who probably “votes blindly without one iota of information to base their choice”, based on your simple-minded propaganda statements here.
So, if you are worried about ill-informed voting in our system, look no further than the mirror.
Well said, SFJeff!
I completely agree and support all the points of what needs to be in a comprehensive plan, as you outlined.
Here’s the data from the Tax Freedom Foundation,which is a right-wing organization.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday/
“Tax Freedom Day will arrive on April 9 this year, the 99th day of 2010, according to our annual calculation using the latest government data on income and taxes. Americans will work well over three months of the year—from January 1 to April 9—before they have earned enough money to pay this year’s tax obligations at the federal, state and local levels.”
99 days out of 365 equals 27%
I come down on the side of fixing the US Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (formerly INS). They’re backlogged. I’ve heard that it takes years just to get a simple appointment. If that’s true, we need to hire more people to process the paperwork of people who want to come here legally. It’s my understanding that some of the illegal immigrants are living with family members who are legal immigrants. These illegals want to come here legally, but the process results in separation from family for years while waiting for approval. Hiring more people in the USCIS could speed up the process and help not only to reduce the number of illegal immigrants but also reduce the unemployment of American citizens.
In any case, I believe that Congress needs to gather facts from people on both sides of the debate, most particularly from the border states because they have the most at stake. Both political parties need to come together to provide a solution that promotes security for citizens of the United States without abusing anyone’s civil rights. These laws should be welcoming to law abiding immigrants and allow for the deportation of immigrants who commit violent crime. I don’t know yet what that solution will be, but Congress should debate this issue thoroughly to come up with the best solution so we don’t have to address this issue again.
And if Obama gave amnesty to illegal aliens, I’d see it as no different than when Ronald Reagan did it. If Obama legalized them to get votes, it would be no different than when the Republicans used the passage of the 14th amendment to get the votes of black males immediately following the Civil War. Democrats and Republicans are politicians. Their first rule is always to win the election.
50%? C’mon, go ahead and find me one of those websites on either side of the aisle that supports that figure!
According to the Tax Foundation after paying state, federal, local and other taxes, tax freedom day came on April 9, this year. That’s 99 days, less than 1/3 of the year. In other words, 26.89% of our income goes to taxes, and that’s when you count all the hidden taxes.
That’s lower than it was in 1980 or 1990, which were both a tad lower than 2000. (32.98%)
A website on the opposite side of the aisle, Citizens for Tax Justice takes a look at all the taxes, State, Federal, FICA, fees, etc. and finds that the average American pays 28.6% of their income in taxes. The bottom 99% pays 28.2% of their income, while the top 1% pay 30.8%.
So, where are the websites that say 50%. And, what taxes do they include that the conservative Tax Foundation and the liberal Americans for Tax Justice both missed?
Absolutely correct. You have no understanding of what government transparency is, do you?
Personal records are not part of that equation. We have privacy laws to protect that stuff. In other words, such information is none of your business and has nothing to do with improving government transparency.
Government transparency has already been improved slowly in some areas. As there is currently more government transparency now than there had been previously, his administration is therefore already the most transparent in recent history.
Are there a lot more steps that can be taken to improve government transparency further? Well yes, absolutely. But the path of where it stands already from where it was before is clearly already improved.
He has. He released his COLB, which clearly states Honolulu, HI.
That was 2 years ago. Where have you been? Get with the program.
Your turn – What country and state are you from again?
Look, we all know that we are still dealing with a huge economic crisis out there. These things don’t just magically go away over night. The overall situation is slowly improving and I’m actually surprised we’ve come as far as we have in such a short time, given the extreme magnitude of the crisis.
Even smaller scale recessions than what we are currently facing take years to fully recover from. Yes it is hard out there. Yes there are people out of work and making sacrifices.
It will take time to recover and employment is always one of the lagging factors in an economic recovery. Wages unfortunately, can sometimes be even further lagging than that.
Hey, I get that you are angry and frustrated at the economic situation. We all are.
But be realistic for once, instead of just spouting off angry and meaninglessly casting blame without basis or understanding. You sure don’t help the situation and in your anger to lash out, you seem to want to rail against anything that could actually be done to address the problem.
Finally, I find your entire stance hypocritical. You rail against “socialism” on one hand, yet you demand that the government somehow get involved and solve the problem?
If you’re such a free-market advocate, then you should only be casting blame on your own company for their wage cuts or layoffs and you should be supporting that if they can not compete, they deserve to fail and go bust. Or are you against “personal responsibility”?
See, the problems and solutions aren’t so simple when you reduce them to such base criteria, are they?
As usual, you spout off saying stuff and you have no idea what you are talking about.
The others have already shredded your made-up 50% tax statistic, so educate yourself for once and read what they’ve already corrected you on there.
The main reason a middle class family of 4 could support so much more back then as opposed to now is not because of taxes.
No, if you had any basic understanding of the issue, you would realize that it is because the economic growth & buying power of the middle class has been depressed and greatly outmatched in pace by the wealthy for decades now.
Simply put – increase in wages have actually been stagnant or depressed for the middle class for years now, while the top 1% has seen huge exponential increase in theirs.
Furthermore, the big purchase basic staples of a middle class lifestyle – house, car, college for your kids – these things have increased in cost dramatically over that same time period.
Therefore, your same middle class job doesn’t bring in any more $$$ than it did back then, and likely much less, particularly when cost adjusted for inflation over that time.
At the same time, those large purchase items have not just kept up with inflation, they’ve usually risen in costs at rates much higher than the inflation average.
Exactly! And hence why you constantly open yourself for such ridicule!
Unlike us, you never have any facts to backup your assertions.
Wow, Jay, our views are opposed but amusingly parallel. I noticed that every time a liberal complained about Bush, a conservative would pop up saying “Clinton did it, too.” I think there are two parties–right and far right, and that Clinton was the best “Republican” president we’ve had since Eisenhower, meaning he wasn’t a good Democratic president. I think we need to get away from the rampant privatization of things like toll roads and water utilities. I think we need to get back to public water utilities and provide univeral health care. I like Teddy Roosevelt.
My only points of agreement with your last statement are:
1) I dislike Bush
2) I complain about Obama, and I complained about Bush.
>> no I DON’T believe you <<
I know, neither would you if I told you where I am from. See there is this little nagging problem you have, anyone who disagrees with you is automatically discarded as not worthy of you believing them. Heck that does sound a lot how communism/socialism works in real life.
BTW: I could not give a rodent's rectal orifice if you believed me or not, but if you want proof that I was born and raised under socialism, I can make an exception and prove it to you in a private e-mail.
But that's OK I would fully understand if you still would not believe me.
Wow I like it, good job.
Let me clear it up, the largest majority of Hispanics, specially Mexicans vote Democrat even if the devil himself ran. That is a fact whether you want to believe it or not. Oh and before you start accusing me of being a racist, good try, I am Hispanic and know my people well.
Wow, sweet, thanks, I just found out I have 23% of my money that I thought it was lost to taxes.
Read my lips, to me taxes are taxes, whether, federal, state, fees, save the gay kangaroo’s fund, etc. We shell out 50% of more of our earnings to the government.
How do you think Obama is going to fund free healthcare? Do you for a minute believe that it will be with savings? What do you think is going to happen once he “discovers” that the program is unsustainable?
Mike,
My company strategically reduced our workforce over a year ago as part of a comprehensive strategy dealing the economic recession. We cut our losses early, and my company has invested in the recession, and our sales are starting to climb. Our prospects as of February 2010 are far better than as of February 2009. Really pretty impressive considering how panicky the situation was as of January 2009.
My commute is still unfortunately too heavy. I still have fond memories of the dot.com bust, then the freeway was really sweet to commute on.
I am optimistic enough so my wife and I are planning on buying a home now while home prices are down to a more affordable level and now that my more immediate concerns about layoffs are over.
But really- neither your or my observations really are accurate reflections of the actual state of the economy.
Read my lips, taxes are taxes, whether federal, state, fees, fuel surchages, sales, etc. your websites leave a big chunk of the picture out. It is a piece of cake to put together a spreadsheet to backup the 50% figure. I did it for my family a couple of years ago and update it in a few minutes once every couple of months.
I’ll put down a $500 wager that I can prove this to you really easy. Just think about it for a minute, spend a couple of hours one night, jot down your yearly expenses and figure out the percentage of those expenses that go towards some type of tax, fee, program, whatever. If you can prove to me that it is 30% I will pay you hourly fees to show me how to do it.
“Read my lips, to me taxes are taxes, whether, federal, state, fees, save the gay kangaroo’s fund, etc. We shell out 50% of more of our earnings to the government.”
What percent should we be paying out?
“How do you think Obama is going to fund free healthcare?”
In all honesty, I think we will have to pay more taxes to pay for the health care insurance reform- at least in the short term. Long term, I think its a pretty good chance we will come out.
I get that you are irritated about paying taxes. I get that you think that poor people are not entitled to health insurance. Still doesn’t make Obama any more of a socialist than Bush was.
If you want to say that our country has become more ‘socialist’ than we were before the New Deal, then I would agree. I would suggest that much of what you disagree with was in place during the greatest time of American prosperity in our nation’s history.
But thats okay- you can think that the country is becoming more socialist. You don’t even have to believe the facts, you can simply believe what you think you know.
Its a grand place to live isn’t it?
>> You rail against “socialism” on one hand, yet you demand that the government somehow get involved and solve the problem? <<
Whoa, wait. I don't want socialism and I don't want government involvement. Historically government involvement in economic downturns has only made the problem drag out longer. You sound very well informed, you must know the facts about the 30s, Japan's lost decade, Argentina, etc. Raising taxes and increasing controls on the free market has never helped and are tactics from the socialists toolbox.
My company? I am not clear on what you mean, business slows down, sales are down, they are taking measures to survive by cutting hours, I don't see the problem there …. let them fail? heck yes, if it comes to that I don't want to see taxpayer's money dumped into it to keep it afloat, the same goes for all other bailouts.
Yes, I do believe in survival of the fittest, even if it affects me directly.
It has nothing to do with taxes. The average wages have gone down and the income disparity is higher. You might want to look at the CEOs Mike. In the 50s managers were making at most double their average employee. Now they’re making 10 times while CEOs 100 times.
Ah so you’re another liar like fake Scott Brown. Obama has disclosed his information. You and your birther comrades are like the mouse in the children’s story “If you give a mouse a cookie” any information more disclosed will never be adequate for you.
Jeff lets remember the movie its a wonderful life. Remember when Bankers actually helped people. In that movie the main character almost went broke over a measly increase of interest. Imagine what would have happened if that movie was made today.
No only people who make up stories without backing them up and time and time again refuse to provide proof of their statements when asked get discarded. So which socialist country were you raised?
Would I still get my wings?
“Let me clear it up, the largest majority of Hispanics, specially Mexicans vote Democrat even if the devil himself ran.”
Tell that to the Cubans.
“That is a fact whether you want to believe it or not. Oh and before you start accusing me of being a racist, good try, I am Hispanic and know my people well.”
It is a fact that Mexican’s and many hispanics vote Democratic, but after several laws pushed by Conservatives that appeared to be Anti-Hispanic, the Republican party lost a large portion of what had been a growing base.
And thats a fact.
But I answered you with my suggestions for immigration reform- what are yours? Give me your solutions.
Unfortunately not Clarence, George Bailey would have shot himself in the head during the opening scene.
“and increasing controls on the free market has never helped”
We had a wonderfully free unregulated market, with very low taxes just prior to the Great Depression.
The systems put in place after the Great Depression allowed Americans to achieve the greatest prosperity we have ever achieved- that mythical 1950’s you refer to.
Free markets, completely unfettered by regulation will happily polute our skies and waters, engage in collusion and anti-trust activities, drive other companies out of business to create monopolies, utilize regulations to benefit business at the expense of tax payers, use thugs to prevent workers from striking, use lawyers to prevent citizens from complaining.
Free markets will eat everything in the end. A free market cares nothing about America or its citizens. It is an enormous economic engine that is the most effective economic system in the world, but one that doesn’t care about anything and has no morals.
Government has a legitimate function in regulating the market to encourage it to grow in ways that benefit America and Americans.
And if you don’t believe me, fine, but if it wasn’t for the FDIC, we may never have recovered from the Great Depression.
I most certainly do not and I live in a very high tax state. If you do, then you need a better accountant. I can recommend one if you’d like.
Most people that are questioning Obama are doing so because they don’t trust this government and most likely questioned the government when Bush was in charge,
“just not as loud and as public.”
Why not? I really don’t mind someone opposing President Obama’s agenda but I do object to all of these people that suddenly find their moral outrage for Obama- but were mute when Bush did it.
“We as a country need to get back to a Republic style of government based of the constitution, not this democratic socialist government that we have now that started under Teddy.”
Yeah that was certainly a golden age.
Look we disagree. You want to go back to an era of child labor, unregulated polution, no FDIC, company goon squads smashing up unions- oh and completely open borders- but I don’t.
Mike C –
Nobody called you a racist. I love how you folks always have to use that bogeyman and jump the gun and defend yourself against charges that have not directly been made on you. Put down the paranoia for a moment, please!
I’ve accused you of talking-point bias, but I haven’t seen any charges of racism yet. The only folks that get such are those that earn them with their words. *sheesh*
You are correct that as a whole, currently hispanics vote more Dem than GOP. However, a large number of hispanics also consider themselves conservative.
I thought Bush did a good job of trying to reach out to that community. However, the GOP’s overall actions and statements over the past few years have seemed more hostile to hispanics/latinos than friendly to them, so I’m not surprised that their numbers are moving more in the direction of the Democrats, which seems to have been friendlier to them so far.
On the issue of addressing the immigration problem, the GOP has 2 problems towards this demographic group, which could severely cost them for years to come:
1. The “Big Money” wing of the GOP wants illegal immigration to continue, because they support rich folks and big business interests that hire illegal workers and abuse the system, by keeping employees wages down and not providing fair pay or benefits.
In my opinion, they are the true source of the current problem and what they do is not in America’s interests nor is it in the interests of the illegals that work there – I liken it to a sort of indentured servitude and a deplorable exploitation of people and labor for profit.
2. Unfortunately, the “elephant” of racism is a topic (and maybe that is why you are so sensitive to it), because it does exist. There are a number of folks in the GOP base and even in congress who’s statements clearly show that their motivations are based on not trusting or wanting “brown people” here in this country.
The shame here is this is one of the groups most loudly advocating for enforcing the law and stopping illegal immigration, which I am all for.
But I want to clearly distance myself from those folks, because I’m focused on urgently wanting to see our borders secure and our laws enforced and American jobs and wages protected because to me that is right and fair. I have no problems with other people’s cultures or color and don’t want anything to do with those who’s real motivation is bigotry over fairness.
Personally I think 40% all inclusive should be the max. I rather see a flat tax which would probably bring the rate well below that. How much are you willing to pay?
I did not say poor people do not deserve free health insurance, you are putting words in my mouth. Define poor for me. Does that include my neighbor who is 30 something of sound mind and body with 2 kids and a wife that live off the system without working? He’s been doing this for many years, nothing to do with the economic downturn. There are 100s of thousands like this in the country, some living off the system for generations.
Obama is a die hard socialist, in him I see a multitude of parallels with what I saw growing up, I am sorry if that does not work out for you, but personal experience trumps gut feeling.
Yes, this country is grand, or was, it is going downhill and I don’t blame Obama for the start of this, neither Clinton, Bush or Carter in their entirety, this has been going on for many years.
I am not sure I follow your comment about the Cubans, are you saying most Cubans vote Democrat?
Funny about the laws instituted by the Republicans causing the desertion of Hispanics to the Democrat party, can you say Reagan, amnesty 1986? The Hispanics I know vote Democrat blindy because the Hispanic media tells them that Democrats will help them, they would not know a Republican law from a hinge on the bathroom door.
Your suggestions for immigration reform are great, personally I think we already have the laws in the books that should be enforced, but if you think more laws are needed no argument from me.
I do think we can deport all of them, it has been done before and I don’t think this will spell a disaster for the economy. Take a trip to Idaho on the outskirts of Boise and tell me who is working at the gas stations and fast food places. Enough people will pickup the slack and we will save tons of money in the process. Would it cost, yes, but I think less than we’ll save and you’ll be surprised how many will leave on their own.
>> that mythical 1950’s you refer to <<
You seem to be leaving out WWII and it's impact on the economic recovery and the lack minimal constituency of the welfare state back then.
I know you see companies as evil, knock yourself out, I don't own or work for one, no sweat off my back, but if you think they are all so evil why not just kill them all and let the country run off small businesses?
>> I most certainly do not and I live in a very high tax state. If you do, then you need a better accountant. I can recommend one if you’d like <<
You are paying 50% in taxes and I can easily prove it, heck, I am not even an accountant.
You provide me with your numbers and I'll crunch the numbers, it is a piece of cake, I don't need personal information, I would not want to go on a vacation to Hawaii on your dime.
Mike C –
I just wanted to followup on a few of the things you’ve said in your last few posts.
1. Flat tax & 40% cap – hey, on the surface, both of those sound like reasonable ideas to me. Glad to see you present possible solutions, not just slogans. However, these things have been suggested in the past and haven’t gained enough traction for anyone to seriously take them up. I’m definitely open to such ideas and always have. The trick is, as the old saying goes, “the devil is in the details”. How would you create and put such a system in place? The idea itself is simple, as most statements are on the surface. The difficulty is figuring out how to do this. But on that point, kudos, I think at least the idea itself is a good one to encourage you to continue to advocate for. That’s much more productive than just screaming “socialism”, which really doesn’t accomplish anything but name calling.
2. TAXES – current tax levels & tax rates.
Funny you should mention it, because the topic was just in the national news this very week:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2010-05-10-taxes_N.htm
The 2 key takeaways from this is:
a) Regardless of the total tax amount you are mad about paying (and yes, we all “hate” paying taxes…but most of us understand they serve a purpose and just want them to be limited to a fair amount and to get our “money’s worth” in what is delivered in return),that total tax amount is currently LOWER now than it has been for years. You can’t dispute that. Obama’s actions so far have been part of that lowering.
b.) There is always a trade off between federal taxation and the deficit. I don’t know about you, but I also care about eventually reducing the deficit. The 2 largest factors impacting our long term deficit at this time are not Obama’s policies. No – the Bush Tax Cuts & the costs of the Iraq War are the highest factors there.
3. “Reductionist Strawman Arguments”: Some of your statements about calling Obama a “die hard socialist” & about our economy reduce the issue to such a simplistic black & white level that it is absurd and neither a useful or accurate comparison to understand the problems we face today and how we get out of them.
You like to use a lot of these reductionist “strawmen” arguments to express that you are angry. I get it. I wish you would understand that most of us are angry too, but we want to be realistic and look at how to honestly understand the problems and find realistic ways to fix them, without just making useless attacks and accusations.
This post is already long, and I’m sure we’ll have further discussion, but your understanding of The Great Depression and how we got out of it, your view of Obama’s administration, and your view of how the “free market” works fall into this type of category. I’d be happy to get into why on each of these further if you wish.
Mike- you said Hispanics vote blindly for Democrats- I was pointing out that Cuban-Americans vote ‘blindly’ for Republicans- roughly 60-70% in Florida.
In the year 2000, George Bush received 35 percent of all latin votes, in 2004, he received 40 percent. Then in 2006 and 2008 hispanics moved heavily towards Democrats.
My point being- Republicans were gaining support with Hispanic voters and have thrown it away.
Please, tell me when exactly we’ve deported millions and millions of people before in this country? Please. Never happened.
For one thing, I think the true number of illegals in this country currently is still vastly underestimated. Even with the current economic crisis causing some “voluntary reduction” of those numbers, the number ranges of 12-20 million illegals have been floated around for well over a decade, as people just keep citing the same old numbers over and over and over.
Do you have any actual understanding of the cost, logistics and effort that would be required to lawfully find, round up and “deport” all of the illegal immigrants in this country? Simply not cost effective or realistic by any measure nor a wise cost expense in our current ecomomic situation.
I am against actual “amnesty”. As you pointed out, when Reagan did it, all it did is lead to our current mess, in which the situation is just worse.
However, “deportation” isn’t realistic either. I’m for some sort of fair in between solution.
The plural of anecdote is not data.
I disagree with you that the reason that Hispanics vote Democrat were caused by the Republicans during Bush’s terms. This comes from a very long way ago. My in-laws came to the country from Ecuador in 1965 legally, they worked hard and never took a cent of welfare or any other public assistance. They vote Democrat all the way blindly without being able to tell you why. During my years in the country (since 1969) I have encountered this over and over.
I fully blame the Hispanic media that spouts hatred and disdain for anyone that is Democrat and more than that spout hatred towards the US.
My in-laws don’t own an American flag and after 45 years in the country do not express any love or gratitude towards it. That drives me nuts.
My take based on my experience is that even if Bush would have granted amnesty the Hispanics, specially Mexicans will still vote Democrat, who can blame them, they own CA, AZ, TX and NM ;~)
I’ve run my own numbers and it’s well below 50%. Everyone’s tax situation is different. 2 people with identical income can pay very different amounts based on the sources of their income. For example, capital gains, interest and dividends are exempt from FICA. Most cap gains and dividends are given a very low rate for income taxes. Muni bonds aren’t taxed at all. Perhaps YOU are paying 50%. Perhaps with a good accountant you would pay less. Perhaps not. But I’m not paying anywhere near 50%.
“I do think we can deport all of them, it has been done before”
Really? When was the last time we deported 10 or 12 million people? What would be the logistics of this? You are against big government- how well do you think our government would do at arranging the transportation of 10 million people from all over the United States to Mexico- and everywhere else- remember many illegals are not Mexicans or Central Americans.
“and I don’t think this will spell a disaster for the economy.”
Oh I do. You take 10 million workers out of the economy suddenly and there will be a huge ripple effect. In some industries, employers will not be able to find eager replacements quickly, and will collapse. In others, they will have to pay 2 or 3 times as much- good for employees- but again businesses will fail.
“Take a trip to Idaho on the outskirts of Boise and tell me who is working at the gas stations and fast food places.”
Was there just last summer. Nice people.
“Enough people will pickup the slack and we will save tons of money in the process.”
In the short run we wouldn’t save any money. In the long run, I think it would benefit workers, and businesses would adapt. Some industries would completely offshore- I predict we would lose all meat packing plants in the United States.
“you’ll be surprised how many will leave on their own.”
We all will be surprised- whatever end result.
“You seem to be leaving out WWII and it’s impact on the economic recovery and the lack minimal constituency of the welfare state back then.”
What was WWII but a huge expansion of government spending? With domestic price controls and wage controls. And the aftermath? The largest expansion of government healthcare(VA) and government educational assistance(GI Bill) in our history.
“I know you see companies as evil, knock yourself out”
I don’t see companies as evil- capitalism itself is intrinsically without morals. Left unregulated companies do things that are bad for others because it is in their own interest. Companies are no more evil intent than wolves do when they eat elk.
Show me any website that supports your 50% number. You’ve got the entire internet, Mike.
Or, here’s an idea, read what I’ve linked to and tell us, exactly, what they’ve left out.
For example, here’s what the CTJ includes:
Seems an awful lot like your “taxes are taxes” list. They come up with 28.2%.
You can whine about your taxes being too high, but they’re not 50% of your income. Unless you’re doing something wrong. Do you have a retarded tax person, Mike?
If you can prove that the Tax Foundation and CTJ have the numbers wrong, Mike, you would be getting cheated to get only $500. You should immediately apply for a job with Tax Foundation. They would pay you big bucks to work for them. They hate taxes with a passion to equal yours, but, they don’t lie about taxes. Here’s their analysis of the USA Today’s article about 2009 being the lowest tax burden since the 50s:
“Personally I think 40% all inclusive should be the max.”
Why 40%? I mean I figure thats just a gut feeling but why that number?
“I rather see a flat tax which would probably bring the rate well below that.”
I see the pluses and minuses of a flat tax. Emotionally, I really like it, even though intellectually a flat tax hurts the poor more than the rich. But I can live with that for a real true flat tax- lets call it 25% on all income, regardless of source- no exemptions, no home owners exemption, no exemptions of any kind. Just trying to convince all homeowners they would be better off with a flat tax without a government subsidy to their mortgage interest would be a quick death. But I can see the appeal and am not completely against it.
“How much are you willing to pay?”
I don’t really know. I know my tax burden right now is fine, but I would love to pay less. But I also would like libraries and parks.
“Does that include my neighbor who is 30 something of sound mind and body with 2 kids and a wife that live off the system without working?”
What system is he living off? Without fraud, I am not aware of anyway a healthy person can milk the system for any length of time. Educate me.
“Obama is a die hard socialist”
We will agree to disagree then.
SFJeff: Emotionally, I really like it, even though intellectually a flat tax hurts the poor more than the rich.
It has been years since I looked into this, but the flat tax proposals I have seen have some sort of offset for very low income individuals.
Not that I was to get into a huge p’ssing fight but I am curious. For all you people that defend Obama and how we have the lowest taxes blah blah blah….let me ask you…
How do you think we are going to pay for all of our debt? Yes I know Bush is responsible for much of our Debt and not to be outdone, Obama doubled it. How do you think we are going to pay for the bankrupt social security, medicare and medicaid along with all the debt?
Do you think Obama is going to pull it from his secret stash? No, he is going to raise tax on ALL of us! They will be raised in the form of VAT tax which you won’t see. He’ll raise gas taxes, energy taxes, taxes on anything they can and all you’ll see are the price increases but you can still sit there and say “income taxes are at their lowest” meanwhile you are paying $5.00 a gallon of gas and $6 for a loaf of bread.
But you keep thinking he’s the next best thing as sliced bread. Meanwhile, we are heading down the path of greece. Half of our states are already there!
Oh, and just because cisco had a good qrt doesn’t mean much. Cisco is one of many many companies, most of which are NOT hiring and NOT doing so well. Unemployment went up is case you didn’t notice.
Have a nice life all, good luck with your hepey changy.
Well, let me ask you that question, StumbledHere…
These are real problems and issues. How do YOU propose we address the deficit, seriously?
Cut taxes? That just helps increase deficits.
So you like to complain, but you don’t have any solutions, do you?
Our points are on what has been done to date and in response to those who claim their taxes are CURRENTLY higher – they are not. Taxes are currently lower.
We can all speculate on how to address the future problems and what they will mean, but until there is a plan on the table or you have a viable alternative that doesn’t require doing the same thing, STFU.
>> Why 40%? I mean I figure thats just a gut feeling but why that number? <> Educate me <<
Start with HUD subsidies, there is nothing in the law that puts a cap on how long you can suck the system, based on their "income" level these people pay $106.00 a month in rent, the rest is paid by you and me, there are other ways to milk the system. I worked 14 years as an outside consultant for a HUD branch in NJ, the fraud we used to catch was mind boggling.
Fraud needs to be addressed but that’s not a real answer now is it?
You seem to have some tough time with the reality as opposed to your [personal insult deleted, Doc] ‘beliefs’…
Fascinating
>> Finally, the figure does not include corporate income taxes, estate taxes, or payroll taxes <> 2009 lowest tax year <<
Not in my house, we made $7k less in 2009 due to zero bonuses, reduced benefits (401k contributions, share of health benefits) our expenses were pretty much the same, but we paid the state of CA $1000 more in taxes. That is simply because CA cannot manage its house and they need to pilfer the taxpayers for more money.
Stumbledhere, this web site us for discussion of conspiracy theories about Obama’ s presidential eligibility. This tax stuff is off topic.
Defense of Obama is not the intent here.
“Does that include my neighbor who is 30 something of sound mind and body with 2 kids and a wife that live off the system without working?”
Mike- still curious what system your neighbor is exploiting.
On a related note, Samuelson has an interesting article in Newsweek on the issues of ‘welfare states’. The crux of it is that nations are going to have to make some hard decisions and with that I agree.
9 indicted on charges of accessing Obama records
By MICHAEL J. CRUMB, Associated Press Writer Michael J. Crumb, Associated Press Writer – Wed May 12, 8:36 pm ET
DES MOINES, Iowa – Nine people were indicted Wednesday on federal charges of accessing President Barack Obama’s student loan records while they were employed for a Department of Education contractor in Iowa.
The U.S. attorney’s office said a grand jury returned the indictments in U.S. District Court in Davenport.
All nine are charged with exceeding authorized computer access. They are accused of gaining access to a computer at a Coralville office where they worked between July 2007 and March 2009, and accessing Obama’s student loan records while he was either a candidate for president, president-elect or president.
U.S. attorney spokesman Mike Bladel referred questions to online copies of the indictments.
Each of eight indictments posted by Wednesday night were brief, saying the charged individual “intentionally exceeded authorized access to a computer and thereby obtained information from a department and agency of the United States” and “intentionally accessed student loan records” of Obama without authorization.
Those charged are Andrew J. Lage, 54, Patrick E. Roan, 51, Sandra Teague, 54 and Mercedes Costoyas, 53, all of Iowa City; Gary N. Grenell, 58, and Lisa Torney, 49, of Coralville; Anna C. Rhodes, 32, of Ainsworth; Julie L. Kline, 38, of West Branch; and John P. Phommivong, 29, for whom no hometown was listed.
Lage told The Associated Press on Wednesday evening he did not know about the indictment and declined comment.
Messages were left for Teague, Torney and Costoyas. A telephone listing for Kline rang unanswered and a listing for Rhodes was disconnected. No telephone numbers were immediately found for Phommivong, Roan or Grenell.
Six of them are accused of accessing Obama’s records when he was a candidate, according to the indictments online. One is accused of accessing the records when he was president-elect. An indictment for the ninth defendant was not immediately available online.
Court records did not name the contractor that employed the defendants.
Arraignments are scheduled for May 24. The charge is punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.
___
Associated Press Writer Nigel Duara in Iowa City contributed to this report.
You state that only records that matter have been released. My question then is, why did McCain had to show his birth certificate in order to run but BO did not?
It is NOT a MINOR issue to asertain whether a person is qualified under the constitution to serve as president!
Doc said; “Defense of Obama is not the intent here.”
ROTFLMAO 🙂
You owe me a keyboard, Doc.
But, the blue dress was actual proof of the affair that Clinton lied about. (I did not have sexual relations with that woman…wagging his finger in our faces) Are you implying that is the case for the BO’s birth certificate?
McCain never released his birth certificate to the public. The one that is floating around is a fake and lists a city McCain says he wasnt born in.
I know facts are a terrible thing to use when it comes to discussing Obama or his past. But the fact is that they not only have the area code for his ssn they have the date code(the second set of numbers) which shows when the card was issued. It was issued in 1976-1977, while Obama was living and working in as a teenager in Hawaii. Let’s her the explanation for that.
greg, asking the obvious, of the oblivious:
i think that’s what curious george meant by “etc” …
[rimshot!]
Obviously this issue is absurd… but did the birther really say that his SOCIAL SECURITY number was issued in 1890, when SOCIAL SECURITY was created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was president in the 1930s and 1940s?
Really?
McCain did not have to publically release his birth certificate because a Congressional Grill Squad did it’s job and fully vetted him.
Where was the vetting process for Obama?
Jeff,
>> Cuban-Americans <> Cuban-Americans vote blindly’ for Republicans <<
That is changing rapidly, 20 years ago, a big YES, today, not so fast.
The middle aged immigrants such as my parents always voted Republican, regardless. Those are either already dead or too old to vote. My father would never vote Republican, he came to the US to work, started working one week after arriving and never stopped until he was too old and ill. My parents never took one cent of public assistance, that would have been disgraceful. So why would they vote for someone that would want to take more of their earnings to give it to someone who did not work? Whether true or perceived.
The younger generations such as myself who came when we were teenagers were pretty much of the same mindset, but that is changing rapidly, a lot of my friends that came in the 1965-70 run voted for Obama. Heck my parents would have been turning in their grave if they knew I was voting for a socialist.
My only explanation is that they have gone through the American educational system which is predominantly populated by liberal educators.
The offspring of Cubans generally vote Democrat.
So the bad news is that Republicans are losing the Cubans, but the good news is that it may not amount to much.
Let's look at the numbers:
"According to the 2008 U.S. Census Bureau population estimate, there are roughly 46.9 million Hispanics living in the United States. This group represents 15 percent of the U.S. total population. In 2004, among Hispanic subgroups, Mexicans rank as the largest at 66 percent. Following Mexicans are: Central and South Americans (13 percent), Puerto Ricans (9.4 percent), Cubans (3.9 percent)"
The numbers I am hearing more currently are closer to 70% Mexican, also Cubans are accountable, but we don't know how many illegal Mexicans we have.
I guess the bottom line is Republicans don't have to worry about losing a large portion of the "Latino" voters in Cubans since they only amount to 3.9% or less of the Hispanic population.
Oops, did I let the cat our of the bag? Did I say I am Cuban? ;~)
BTW: I am not Cuban-American, I am Cuban, the only way I can see someone being a hyphenated citizen is if you are born in an airplane and your mom has one leg over one country and the other over another. ;~)
My 2 children on the other hand are American, not Cuban-Americans.
Jeff,
>> still curious what system your neighbor is exploiting <<
For starters the HUD/Section-8 system. There is no provision in the system to kick someone out as long as they are "poor" How else do these people make a living? Welfare perhaps? Do you know if there is a limit to welfare nowadays when someone gets kicked out of it after a given period of time? I would think the government is not going to let 2-3 children go hungry if the father does not want to work.
Part of my work with HUD was to run credit checks and try to find fraud, they findings ran a wide gamut. People owning property making a profit yet living on a government subsidized apartment to small business owners.
So how does my next door neighbor survive? I don't know, but he does not look like he is dealing drugs, but for starters I know you and I subsidize his rent.
McCain had to provide proof of his birth and residency being born to 2 Americans, yet Obummer gets a pass. His father, by his own admission, was NOT an American which automatically disqualifies Obunga from being president – doesn’t matter where he was born, he is illegitimate. I do find it interesting that he spends millions to avoid providing documentation. What’s he hiding?
Jeff,
>> Tell that to the Cubans <<
BTW: Here may be an explanation of why so many young Cubans voted for Obama:
"Ann Durken, mother of Obama, at age 18 visited Cuba , with a group to give support to the Castro government. During her stay in Cuba in 1960, she was involved with voluntary work living in a commune in the central zone of Cuba, where she met a young Cuban Francisco Cundo from the town of Sagua la Grande….When Ann left Cuba in Dec 1960, she was 2 months pregnant. When she went back to Hawaii where her parents lived, she continued her studies at the University of Hawaii in Manoa where she met Barack Obama Sr., with whom she married in Feb. 1961. In his book "The Audacity of Hope", Obama says that his mother was 4 months pregnant when she married his father. If we continue the chronology of these actions, one can prove that the biological father of the son of Ann was Cuban….Francisco Cundo not Barack Obama Sr. This creates a new situation if the possible new president Obama, since it would make him of Cuban origin with roots in the town of Sagua la Grande"
Birthers have zero cases won because the judges that originally had the balls to agree to hear the case received threats from Obama’s thugs and backed down. This has not made it to court because no judge is willing to sacrifice his family’s life to go after Obunga.
Quoting the CBO is a joke – they use the numbers provided by Congress, and those guys are lying bastards. Anyone who thinks the government can run something without screwing it up need to look at Social Security, Welfare, Medicare, Medicaid and the USPS. All pathetically run. And yes, if they were to go away there would be private alternatives – hell there already are. Ever hear of an IRA or 401k? Medical insurance? Fedex?
You folks quoting ” the Tax Freedom Foundation,which is a right-wing organization.” are showing your ignorance. The numbers they cite are the national average, yet we know that 47% of Americans pay no federal income tax. That means that those of us who are paying taxes are making up for the deadbeats who aren’t. You can whine all you want, but I’ve done spreadsheets on my personal finances and even at my moderate income level I’ve been averaging between 44-47% a year the past several years which means my tax freedom day is still a month away!
When Congress does things, it writes them down in something called the Congressional Record.
Can you show me how this “Grill Squad” fully vetted McCain?
The birthers have won zero cases because they lacked standing.
It’s that simple. The claim that judges somehow refused to hear the case out of fear is just foolish.
So why have you chosen to look so foolish?
McCain never presented any proof. What happened is that with McCain there was a real issue as he was not born on US soil.
Simple…
I’d say you should be getting a better accountant.
That’s a very foolish argument.
Tony, you pretend that the poor pay no taxes. They wish. I linked to CTJ above. Here’s what they said:
They show that when all taxes are included, the poorest folks pay about 16% of their income in taxes. You know, things like sales tax. The second 20% pay 20.5%. The middle 20% pay 25.3%.
Taking into account all taxes and all people, including those who don’t pay federal income tax, they find that the average American pays 28.6% of their income in taxes. The top 1% pays 30.8% of their income in taxes.
If you’re paying 40%, you’re doing something wrong!
But, you know what, I’m tired of hearing of the mythical spreadsheet. So, we’ve got two guys here on the website that can’t figure out any tax breaks. Apparently, they don’t own houses or have kids. Sorry guys, tax policy isn’t made because you two pay too much. And, I’m supposed to trust the spreadsheets of these folks who cannot figure out how to get any deductions. Oh, and since they won’t show their spreadsheets, I’m supposed to just take the word of these two who cannot find themselves any deductions!
Again, if you can prove that the average tax-payer is paying 50% of their income in taxes, you should apply for a job with the Tax Foundation and quit posting on an anti-birther blog. They hate taxes and would love to show how onerous they are. You’re squandering your mythical spreadsheets here.
I’ll make my comment, then leave. It probably won’t be printed just as 95% of anything negative regarding Obama isn’t.
But I’ll write it anyway, Who knows, maybe the ones who proof read it will start questioning some things.
Who is stupid enough to believe that there were many people with a name similar to Barack Obama living at the same address as he did for years? And this is why it looks like that is his SS#. THINK! The name John Smith is the most common name in the U.S.
Take an address and over a 15 year time frame see how many John Smiths move to that address. And where are these people? They ALL died???
I would like to know why all of you are defending this? ALL of his records are suppose to be available to the public but he has spent millions to have ALL of them sealed. Why is he any different then any other president who has had to disclose imformation? If any other president did this to the American people, refusing to make his records public the outcry would be heard from coast to coast. You know this is true.
Are you letting this just go over your head because you hated Bush so bad? Is the hate you had for him worth letting someone who “thinks the American people are getting too much information these days” decide what is best for you without even voting on it? Don’t any of you get it? Are you that blind?
Isn’t he the one who ran on the promise there would be no more secrets and there would be full disclosure in everything? If he can’t even disclose something that the public has a right to see how can you trust him at all?
It doesn’t bother any of you that his grandmother worked for the Oahu Circuit Court where she had access to records of deceased people?
It doesn’t bother you that his mother and grandparents were very much associated with Frank Marshall Davis who had close ties to the communist party in Hawaii?
I am shocked that some of you are willing to let all of values go because of your hate for a certain party and you think, as he does the American dream is due to everyone. Even those that don’t want to work for it or contribute to it. Shame on all of you who are willing to let this country and it’s values be destroyed without questioning anything.
You havee got to be joking.
Fact: Any and ALL records of the person who is running MY country should be available to the people of the U.S.
Maybe what’s not important to you is important to me. Read my post.
WAKE UP He’s got his hands in so many pots that none of them are getting handled.
But then again that is his plan. Putting so many things on the table it overwelms us, confuses us, and finally wears us down.
Maybe if you took the time to read the paper, sb, you wouldn’t be so confused. And, you might see how Obama was handling the things in front of him.
Can you dig up Bush’s birth certificate? How about Reagan’s? How about Clinton’s? How many official records can you find for them? Did you ask the same of them?
If you look up ancestors on ancestry.com, there are social security numbers issued during the late 1800s. FDR initiated the social security “savings”, which really are not savings, but a socialist program that was opposed by many Americans at the time.
So much foolishness. The SSN were not issue during the late 1800’s, the SSN were assigned to people born during the late 1800’s.
As to your foolish suggestion about socialism, you have no concept, no argument. Calling something socialist because you do not agree with it, seems rather… foolish
Why? Because you prefer this suddenly?
Not very compelling or convincing…
There were no SSNs issued before November 1936. Maybe what you are seeing are SSNs issued to people who were born in the 1800s, but were still alive in November 1936.
FDR was unsuccessful in his bid to create a time-machine in order to travel back and assign numbers to those who died before 1936.
Mike C-Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I have a couple of questions for you:
1. How do you know your neighbor gets Section 8?
2. I find it odd that you claim to pay 50% of your income in taxes, which would be impossible unless you were in a very high income bracket (even then I don’t believe it). Yet you have neighbors who are poor enough to get Section 8. Something doesn’t add up.
3. Now today, some guy named “tony” shows up. He claims to have all his expenses on a spreadsheet and also pay 50% in taxes, just like you. Is he your cousin?
4. Do you do any tax planning at all? 401K? IRA? have you been to see an accountant? I would urge you to do so ASAP. Even in my highest-earning year, I didn’t pay more than 35% at the most.
Reminds me of a joke I recently saw:
A small business owner realized he needed to fire some workers in order to stay afloat. However, he didn’t quite know how to fairly do it. So, as he walked out to the parking lot he knew exactly who to fire. He sent pink slips to the people with Obama stickers on their cars, explaining since they wanted “change” that they just got it.
Actually, look to the history of the players in Berg’s case. The clerk assigned to research the issue mysteriously drove his car into a telephone pole on a bright and sunny afternoon in Happy Valley PA just days before Surrick made his ruling in late Aug 08.
Scott Brown (if you are the former PGHer newscaster) can certainly recall the quick hush up here.
His death convinced me that the forces at play here must be defeated and our constitution upheld. It made me the birther I am.
Yawn….
You are truly enslaved by your foolishness…
Reminds me of a factoid I heard
Blue states make more money than red states.
Blue states pay more in taxes than they get back in Federal funds.
Red states receive more in federal funds than they pay in taxes.
It’s jokes like that business owner who make the red states into the welfare recipients of our nation.
There are too many people who know how to milk the taxpayers. A flat or fair tax would make all Americans, rich or poor, realize that the money that pays for all the social programs must come from their own pockets. Then, they might not be so hasty in their demands that the “government”–meaning we the people–provide for them. We need to remember that America was established on the philosophy that you get what you work for and earn. We are NOT all born equal in intelligence, looks, family inheritance, etc., etc. I personally have never looked with envy at those more blessed than I, nor have I looked down on those not as blessed. To do so would make me guilty of covetousness and arrogance. However, it bothers me that so many in our society see those better off than they are as “owing” them something.
No worries Scientist (can I call you Scientist?) I won’t take anything you say the wrong way.
1.- Because he told me.
2.- I don’t live in a fancy neighborhood and do not have a very high income. However all you guys keep ignoring the facts and just choosing to view taxes as a very narrow sub-set which only includes Federal, State, Fuel and Excise taxes. You are conveniently ignoring the big picture.
Take this month’s phone bill which I just received, $15 in long distance charges $8 for actual calls $7 in taxes, fees and whichever other name they chose to give it. The same goes for everything you touch from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to sleep and beyond. What’s the corporate tax rate nowadays something like 35%? who pays for that? (hint not the corporations).
3.- No relation, I guess the implication is that tony is me? I don’t get it, scratch that, I do get it.
4.- Yes, 401k contributed 50/50 between the company and me although I can’t afford to put down much because I need all the cash I can get to put food on the table for my kids. I do have a good accountant and I am very familiar with the field as I spent 14 years as a consultant and many of my clients were accounting firms.
In your highest earning year you paid 35% in tangible taxes, you are choosing to ignore the rest of the taxes that you paid on a daily basis.
I am sorry Scientist, it seems you are looking for a smoking gun of fraud and lies, truthfully, I speak from MY personal experience. I am sorry you feel that people who don’t see eye to eye with you are stupid, don’t have a good accountant, don’t have 401ks, etc.
“Blue states make more money than red states.
Blue states pay more in taxes than they get back in Federal funds.
Red states receive more in federal funds than they pay in taxes”
Can you back that up with some data?
It must be nice to live in a reality optional world where you can dismiss your utter and total failure in court with the waive of a wand. Yes…it is a total, all encompassing compiracy that covers every judge in the US, every Congressman, and the entire Supreme Court. It is so wide and encompassing that it covers thousands of people, and is able to prevent even an iota of evidence to support its existence from ever slipping out….yes, very plausible indeed….and 9/11 was an inside job, and the moon landing was faked too.
Here you go
http://www.visualeconomics.com/united-states-federal-tax-dollars/
Right after you show me your spreadsheet.
Does Google not work in your house? Of course, it’s not like you’ll actually read what I link to, so why bother. Just like you couldn’t be bothered to read that the CTJ report I linked to showed the tax burden for all taxes to be 28%, not 50%.
You forgot higher teen pregnancy rates, higher rate of STDs, spousal abuse etc
Hey guy’s…I want to apologize for insinuating the President was not a “natural born” citizen. I have been proven wrong…
It now appears Lil’ Barry is a 120 yr. old born in the great State of Connecticut.
“WND has further confirmed that the Social Security number in question links to Obama in the online records maintained by the Selective Service System. Inserting the Social Security number, his birth date and his last name produces a valid Selective Service number.”
I hope y’all accept my apoligy…ROFLMAO!!!
well Greg, i really believe that the number is pretty close to 2 million. I would suggest that you broaden your news sources, there are plenty of them out there. As to your “moving the goalpost” analogy, I prefer to look at it as “peeling an onion” The more that we find out about the president, the less we know. As intelligent as the president obviously is, he is not playing this one smart at all. FYI Greg, when I recently applied for a passport, the U.S. post office where I applied demanded a long form birth certificate along with my drivers license. I would think that the president would be proud to release his college records, unless there is something in them that will put yet another kink in his armor. He has built an image of himself that is nothing but a facade, can’t you see that Greg? Or are you still filled with “hope & change”, neither of which has come to fruition in the last 2 years. President Obamas policies are nothing but an extension of George Bush’s. Yet you are so blinded by Obamas charisma, you see no need for him to produce documents that until very recently have been released by every former U.S. president. Obama is a 1 term president, & not a very good one at that.
Can you back that up with some data?
These numbers are a few years old, but they illustrate the point.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/press/show/22659.html
The top ten beneficiaries of Federal spending are New Mexico, Mississippi, Alaska, Louisiana, West Virginia, North Dakota, Alabama, South Dakota, Kentucky and Virginia.
The bottom ten are Colorado, New York, California, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Nevada and New Jersey.
I was waiting for the “R” (racist) word to appear, just for the record, I am a 2nd. generation American whos family went through an incredible amount of bigotry in the 60’s & 70’s. For the record, I was extremely hopeful, & encouraged when president Obama got elected, only to become dismayed to find out that he is no different from any other president who has served in my lifetime. Don’t any of you get it?? Can anyone intelligently debate this or any other issue without calling names, or invoking partisanship, JEFF?? I am neither a malcontent, or a racist, I am a father of 5 children, who clearly do not have the same opportunities that I had growing up, & it is getting worse, not better.
Bob Ross says:
You forgot higher teen pregnancy rates, higher rate of STDs, spousal abuse etc.
In 2005 the states with the highest teen pregnancy rates were New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Mississippi. The states with the lowest teen pregnancy rates were New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/USTPtrends.pdf
Seems Holyroller is now spreading additional foolish rumors from WND about the President being born in 1890…
The SSN assigned to our President showed three entries for dates of birth in unreliable public databases
1890
08/04/1961
04/08/1961
All three DOB’s belonged to a person named Barack Obama. The conclusion is simple. There is one transposition of the day and the month and there is one erroneous entry. Note that no other names linked to this SSN have been found in any of the publicly accessible databases on those deceased.
Foolish indeed.
LOL!
George, your rant is so full of holes it is obvious you are just making things up yourself.
So, let me ask you, what state are you in that you had to provide the “long form” for your passport?
And show me these documents that supposedly every other president has provided. Because if they have, surely it will be easy for you to find them and provide links to them?
Oh that’s right, you can’t. Because you made it all up. Liar.
And yet instead of looking for real causes and solutions to these problems, you fall into conspiracy and silliness to express your anger and place blame.
People like you who just whine and want to distract from ever trying to address real problems are just part of the problem.
And no millions spent. Boy, you folks just like to make stuff up and spout off without knowing what you are talking about, do you?
You are outclassed coming here and showing nothing but long debunked talking points and meaningless ignorance that you can’t back up. Go crawl back under your rock, troll.
A wild guess, and appeal to some unnamed authority, combined with a slight ad hominem.
Is that the best you have?
not very convincing. Have you tried to actually use known facts, combined with reason and logic?
LOL! The conspiracy nuts are out in force today.
Careful, “flouride in the water”…black helicopters…FEMA camps…bigfoot will come and take away your guns…lizard people…mole people…
Ah, the silly things that the different voices in their head tell them.
LOL!
How completely silly!
Who falls for this nonsense, other than the people who believe stories that Elvis is alive and living on the moon?
I KNOW the answer…Here it is.
BOLD…TRANSPARENT…LET ME BE PERFECTLY CLEAR…HOPE…CHANGE…YES WE CAN…uhhh…but…uhhh…hmmm.
Do you understand now? Let me know if you want any more answers about Lil’ Barry.
Either that or Obama sleeps in a coffin at night and he’s a nosferatu
Holyroller. You have shown how empty your arguments really are…
Quite educational.
Mike C –
Thank you for sharing and explaining this and a bit about your background in the other post. It helps understand the point of view you are coming from and actually, helps allow for more real dialog to occur.
If you back away from all the anger for a second, I think you will realize, that outside of those people who *DO* abuse the system, most of the rest of us of all stripes are AGAINST their abuses. We share these concerns.
Please also understand that abuse, corruption and laziness happen everywhere, not just amongst the poor. The world is rife with crooks and liars – and I would put all the welfare cheats and those who abuse disability, and otherwise take advantage of the system in the category of crooks and liars.
So, it does no good to paint such a broad brush that you never address the problem and only alienate other people who would like to fix the same abuses that you do.
Focus your anger on the real source of the problem – the people who abuse the system as well as the loopholes in the system that allow these abuses to occur in the first place.
The system can be fixed if only people would focus and try to fix it. But actually addressing problems and coming up with solutions is hard, which b*tching is easy.
Thanks.
What does this mean to you?
Connecticut??? lol…I wonder if he learned to “body surf” there???
>> other than the people who believe stories that Elvis is alive <<
And people who vote ;~)
You point out an interesting question, why Connecticut. Of course, there is no reason to presume that therefor the SSN is somehow false.
Remember that the procedures as to what SS center handles the request depends on to what address the SSN will be mailed.
So what evidence do you have that the SSN is somehow fraudulent?
None I’d venture to guess
People voted and found the President to be eligible… So that’s not going to work…
You are welcome Jeff, I also believe that knowing a person’s background leads to better dialog, although sometimes it leads to party profiling ;~)
I agree 100% with what you wrote.
My only comment is that the biggest fault in public assistance fraud lies with the government. When we arrived in NJ from Cuba in 1969 my parent’s friends were collecting Welfare, they would get a visit from their case handler every 2-3 months. The case worker had the right to ask about how the person managed to buy a new TV, car or any other big ticket item. I think that was absolutely OK, hey if I am giving you $20 for lunch because you are “broke” and I see you with a bottle of scotch damn right I am going to question it.
All that checking was dismantled, the excuse was that it cost too much money. I think the savings that could be accrued by policing the system would pay for the salaries of the case workers and as a plus we would put people to work. The problem is that political corrected has permeated our society, those poor people deserve a new TV and a car. In the meantime I get up at 5:00 every morning to go to work while my neighbor sleeps in. Oops, sorry, my anger is coming out again!!
He’s hiding something. Hiring lawyers to seal his past clearly indicative of suspect.
Fighting frivolous lawsuits is indicative of nothing more than respect for the judicial system.
Which lawyers is he hiring? Name the law firms and the lawyers who have been paid by Obama.
Researchers have discovered that Obama’s autobiographical books are little more than PR stunts, as they have little to do with the actual events of his life. The fact is we know less about President Obama than perhaps any other president in American history and much of this is due to actual efforts to hide his record. This should concern all Americans.
A nation-wide network of researchers has sprung up to attempt to fill in the blanks, but at every opportunity Obama’s high-priced lawyers have built walls around various records or simply made them disappear. It is estimated that Obama’s legal team has now spent well over $1.4 million dollars blocking access to documents every American should have access to. The question is why would he spend so much money to do this?
The president who campaigned for a more “open government” and “full disclosure” will not unseal his medical records, his school records, his birth records or his passport records. He will not release his Harvard records, his Columbia College records, or his Occidental College records—he will not even release his Columbia College thesis. All his legislative records from the Illinois State Senate are missing and he claims his scheduling records during those State Senate years are lost as well. In addition, no one can find his school records for the elite K-12 college prep school, Punahou School, he attended in Hawaii.
http://www.westernjournalism.com/?page_id=3255
He’s hiding something…says the voices in your head. LOL!
What a strange and bizarre alternate reality of fiction you choose to inhabit.
How are we supposed to aruge with those that continue to unsubstantiated lies?
1) This “he’s spending millions for lawyers” line originates from a WND story that in the closing FEC filing, they reported $1mil expenditure for attorney fees. Guess what? Since Bush v. Gore, every campaign has. Bush did, Kerry did, McCain did, as did Obama. That’s the cost of having attorneys lined up to watch for any challengable issues (voter suppression/fraud/recount litigation), and file any court cases.
2) Every suit except for the Berg one has been represented by DOJ, not a firm privately retained by Obama.
3) Total cost to seal all the purportedly “sealed documents”? $0. All the supposedly “sealed documents” are actually protected by privacy laws. In order to keep them private, the president would have to take no further action.
People voted blindly. They did not consider, out of nowhere an unknown, and are fascinated with the boy. They merely wanted change from what was. I’d never vote for a person who completed only 3 out of the 4 year senate term. jr. senator, late for congressional meetings 90% of the time and always apologizing for tardiness. $1.4 million spent to hide his past. It simply does not pan. Ask those same people who voted for him, and 10000’s would not vote for him again. Ck the resources at your hand. He’s surrounded himself with czars who are not accountable to anyone or anything except him. Unreal! They couldn’t even pass a std background check. I’m no psychic, but I saw through this thing @ the start. And now I see my USA going down the tubes. One does not spend like mad to get out of debt. Mart, 32 years, US Army/Vietnam1969/Desert Storm 1990. What ever happened to America? Apple pie, baseball, hotdogs? Where is she? If you people don’t get up off of it and start recognizing the forces that are stealing your freedoms, may GOD have mercy.
I think the mistake is believing that most people really think that way. Other than the thieves & abusers & corrupt folks who might profit off of such a situation, I don’t know anyone who really thinks those folks “deserve TV’s, etc.
So, yes, again I’ll say its easier to just whine and over generalize and make statements that don’t do anything to fix the problem (and really just serve to distract from ever getting anything done) than to do the real tough thing of figuring out how to stop the corrupt and the abusers and fix the system and its loopholes.
Your anger is understandable. Your over generalizations are so broad that they are neither realistic nor helpful. If you could climb down from your rage and focus rationally, you’d realize that when it comes down to the brass tacks and details MOST people agree on the issues.
http://www.patsfans.com/new-england-patriots/messageboard/12/250144-obama-used-149-addresses-39-social-security-numbers-before-becoming-us-president.html
When you read the lawsuit from the current US millitary officer vs Obama on page 9 and 10, you will see the following thing.
Quote:
“The evidence contained in exhibit B shows that Barrak Hussein Obama might have used as many as 149 addresses and 39 Social Security Numbers prior to assuming office as president.
The Social Security number most commonly used by Barrak Hussein Obama is one issued by the state of Connecticut, the state where Barrak Hussein Obama never resided and shows him to be 119 years old.
This coupled with the fact that Mr Obama’s grandmother, Madeline Dunham was a volunteer at the Oahu Circuit Court Probate department and had access to the Social Security Numbers of the deceased, constitutes circumstantial evidence casting serious doubt on the legitimacy of Mr Obama and his claims of being born on U.S. territory.”
No wonder why he doesn’t want everybody to know his REAL birth certificate………….:singing :
“He’s hiding something. Hiring lawyers to seal his past clearly indicative of suspect.”
I think that is really the crux of it for most Birthers:
“He’s hiding something, I don’t know what, but by god he is hiding something and that makes him an Ursurper!”
The good old American lynch mob justice system.
Amazing how you can speak so authoritatively about the motivations and thought processes of nearly 70 million people. If I didn’t know better, I would say you’re simply repeating talking points and making wholly unsubstantiated broad generalizations, that prove wrong more often than not. And considering you’re repeating the same $1.4 million lie, I think I may be right here.
Sorry…this was in reply to
Mart says:
May 13, 2010 at 5:28 pm Mart(Quote)
Marti- just the usual list of birther lies.
The fact that researchers find some need for Obama’s kindergarten records show how inane their world view is.
By the way- “researchers” have also discovered evidence of aliens on the moon.
My comments are “observations”. Having studied the reports coming from people being interviewed, reading valid legit messages written by others, contemplating the reasoning behind others actions as they speak about this entire event, generates quality judgement.
Masters in Counseling Psychology helps.
6 decades dealing with people helps.
Being a supervisor, team leader, involved citizen helps.
My head is not stuck in the sand, I pay attention. Being alert and aware at all times.
Each of us is the master of his/her own destiny.
Free will allows each of us to take our own path. Mine is set, subject to change if necessary.
The US Constitution is not being followed, instead it’s being trampled.
And it’s easy to see you voted for the boy.
HolyRoller says:
It now appears Lil’ Barry is a 120 yr. old born in the great State of Connecticut.
That’s what you get for believing anything you read on WND.
Obama’s Social Security was issued in Connecticut in 1976 or 1977. The issuing state is not necessarily the same state as the state of birth, particularly since in those days most people did not get a SSN until they needed one for their first job, typically at the age of 16 (I didn’t get mine until I was 18, because until then I caddied in the summertime). Also, the SSN isn’t necessarily even issued in the state where the individual is living or working.
We don’t know the identify of Obama’s first employer, but it is entirely possible that he got a job with a company headquartered in Connecticut and his application for a SSN was processed through his employer. My ex-wife’s SSN was issued in Pennsylvania, but she has never lived or worked in Pennsylvania.
The fantasy about Obama’s SSN having been issued to someone born in 1890 is just that – a fantasy. Anyone who works with databases such as LexisNexis on a regular basis, as I do, knows that the databases which store such information are replete with clerical and other errors. Orly’s P.I., Neil Sankey, even warned her not to place too much reliance on the information, but of course she ignored him.
Ironically, WND’s search of Selective Service information actually proves that Obama’s SSN is legitimate, because if it had not been legitimate he could not have registered with Selective Service. But Joseph Farah and his lackeys at WND are so dishonest that they didn’t realize what they had done.
Mart: I completely agree with you. I found a Kenya (Obama’s?) birth certificate!!
Let me know if this helps getting to the bottom of this.
But I do have a solution, enforce the checks and balances in place and re-instate case workers in the field. Make it illegal to purchase expensive items if you are asking someone else to support you. For example my brother in-law is a cop in the LAPD, he patrols some poor areas and he tells me there is a proliferation of satellite TV antennas in those neighborhoods. I am sorry, but if you are poor and you are tapping my pocket to survive you should not have those luxuries.
The same goes for illegal immigration, my solution is have the testicular fortitude to enforce the laws already in the books.
The problem is that the politicians are not pushing for some simple common sense measures, thus the anger.
Mart says:
“The evidence contained in exhibit B shows that Barrak Hussein Obama might have used as many as 149 addresses and 39 Social Security Numbers prior to assuming office as president.
The Social Security number most commonly used by Barrak Hussein Obama is one issued by the state of Connecticut, the state where Barrak Hussein Obama never resided and shows him to be 119 years old.
Sigh.
Lakin’s “evidence” is flimsier than a Kleenex. For your sake I will repeat what I wrote to Holy Roller:
Obama’s Social Security Number was issued in 1976 or 1977, when he was 15 or 16. The fantasy about Obama’s SSN having been issued to someone born in 1890 is just that – a fantasy. Anyone who works with databases such as LexisNexis on a regular basis, as I do, knows that the databases which store such information are replete with clerical and other errors. Orly’s P.I., Neil Sankey, even warned her not to place too much reliance on the information, but of course she ignored him.
Ironically, WND plugged Obama’s name, date of birth and SSN into the Selective Service online database and confirmed that the information matched with Obama’s Selective Service Number. WND thought they they were proving something sinister, but in fact they were proving that Obama’s SSN is legitimate. We know that because Selective Service would not have issued Obama a Selective Service Number if his SSN had not been valid.
Furthrmore, if Obama’s SSN actually belonged to someone who was born in 1890, that person would be dead by now (the world’s oldest person is 114). However, there is no match in the Social Security Death Index.
@E GLenn Harcsar,
That’s interesting. So, this is how birthers are born. When a string of unrelated events seem “coincidental” by a layperson, it’s seen not as being “coincidental” but clearly part of a larger conspiracy.
If there was an earthquake at precisely the time the sun sets, then clearly the earthquake was a result of the sun crashing into the horizon, right? Scientific method be damned.
The president’s lack of experience is catching up with him and fast. You don’t apply for a job that you know fully well, you are incompetent. Sooner or later your inexperience will reveal itself. I believe the president is a phony. That’s why he is so afraid to reveal his records of anything.
You can put all the wealth in the world together and divide it equally among everyone matured enough to live on their own. After 6 months, the wealthy will become wealthy and the poor will become poorer, because the wealthy are rich in their mind and the poor are poor in their mind. It is not about the money, it is about the way a man thinks.
It is much better to give than to receive. If you constantly on the receiving end of life, you will never progress. Don’t let anyone deceive you to depend on them. You become mentally a slave, because you will do what ever they want you to do, because you depend solely on them. That is what the socialist government is all about.
All you need is a rich mindset. When I talk of rich, I am not referring to money as most socialist would think. Want to know what I mean, go figure it out and spend sometime to think for yourself.
Don’t forget that taxes are optional, the Federal Reserve is owned by a bunch of rich people in an elite group, etc…
I’ve figured out what keeps the conspiracy theorists going… they have an inferiority complex. They are convinced that no matter how skilled they are, no matter how intelligent they are, no matter how well positioned they are, there is always some other group of people who are more skilled, more intelligent, and better positioned who are pulling the strings that they have to deal with. So, they get all excited and get their panties in a bunch and are convinced that “something’s gotta be done”. They don’t know WHAT has to be done… or HOW to measure that it has actually “been done”… or WHAT they’ll do once it has been done… they just know “something” is needed, so that their skills, intelligence, and position can be above everyone else again.
It’s like watching a 3-year-old throw a temper tantrum because his mommy won’t buy him the expensive toy. He knows that HE doesn’t have any money to buy that toy, so he relies on his mommy to acquire it, and when his mommy makes the decision that she will not get the toy for him, he feels powerless and so he jumps up and down, screams, drops to the floor, etc… anything he can do to bring attention to himself and hopefully change the tides.
It’s amusing to watch, really, if not annoying most of the time.
Wow…citing to a posting on a New England Patriots message board, quoting an Orly Taitz brief. Now THAT’S authoritative!
If the owner of this social security number were 119 years old then they would be dead. If they were dead they would be in the public SSA death index. I looked. It isn’t.
And you’d say the same exact thing if the president in question were George W. Bush, right?
Why should ANY of those things not be released? And btw…the birth “certificate” that was released was issuable to those not born in Hawaii.
Would you tolerate George W. Bush blocking access to PUBLIC records about himself?
What “race” are these alleged racists against? Black? Obama isn’t black. He’s a mulatto. His mother was white.
I have no problem with a black man in the White House…but it has to be the RIGHT black man. Lt. Col. West, for example. Not only does he NOT have his head up his ass like Obama, he’s a REAL black man…not a poser.
Mart speculates…
“People voted blindly. They did not consider, out of nowhere an unknown, and are fascinated with the boy. They merely wanted change from what was. I’d never vote for a person who completed only 3 out of the 4 year senate term. jr. senator, late for congressional meetings 90% of the time and always apologizing for tardiness. $1.4 million spent to hide his past. It simply does not pan. Ask those same people who voted for him, and 10000’s would not vote for him again.”
Interesting….You know why people voted. Myself I examined both candidates and choose the one I felt was better….I believe that most of the individuals that voted for Obama did the same thing….They decided that a washed up Senator and a Pathetic quitting governor was not up to the task of running this country. And as his approval ratings hover around 50%, there are many that would vote for him again. Secondly can you provide proof about this supposed 1.4 million to “hide his past”? What exactly has he hidden? Nothing. I love how that number is thrown around but no supporting evidence is ever presented….What document, which is not protected by the privacy laws that all Americans are protected by, has been hidden by this President? We all know you can’t answer the question. Just admit it no matter what you did not vote for Obama and would never vote for him. Which is your right. However 69 million people disagree with you…
So you’re saying that there was NO voter fraud involving illegal aliens in the last election?
You also seem to be neglecting the fact that Obama wants amnesty for all illegal aliens, putting them on the track to citizenship if not granting it outright…so in another 5 or 10 years, the Democrats gain tens of millions of potential voters (at least that’s what they think). Personally, I say the Republicans should vote for amnesty for all illegals here, and then appeal to their Christianity on issues like abortion, and get the votes of the newly amnestized citizens.
First off, they’re not PUBLIC records. They’re documents protected by state and federal privacy laws. And since you raise the issue of GW Bush…could you please provide a link to his birth certificat? Perhaps his military records? College records? Oh…you mean he didn’t release those either? What again was your point in bringing him up again?
Oh…and the COLB is the only document Hawai’i currently issues as a birth certificate. And in those instances where the state does issue a COLB for a non-Hawain birth, it would not say Honolulu Hawai’i for location of birth, it would say the actual location of the birth.
Mike postulates…
“For example my brother in-law is a cop in the LAPD, he patrols some poor areas and he tells me there is a proliferation of satellite TV antennas in those neighborhoods. I am sorry, but if you are poor and you are tapping my pocket to survive you should not have those luxuries.”
Interesting…So poor people are not allowed to have satellite TV? So you know every person in that part of LA is on some sort of government assistance? You went around and asked them? Amazing. Did you ever think that maybe these people may be poor, but have enough money to afford to have TV? A car? I see you don’t have an issue for people in rural America that have Satellite TV…It is the same lame argument that the right like to push, that all of the people on welfare are minorities in the inner city, when we all know that is not true…
Which race? Obama has two.
Yes…I am saying that there was NO VOTER FRAUD in the last election involving illegal aliens…Do you have some proof that this did occur? This is usually the next strawman arugment, that somehow there was some illegal activity and people that were not allowed to vote did vote, and voted for Obama. However no proof has ever been presented. Not one case of voter fraud in the 2008 election. Remember that involves someone actually voting, not just filling out voting cards or being falsely registered to vote. And just to let you know, ammnisty for illegals was actually Reagans idea and Bush had attempted to grant them ammnisty before he was stopped by Congress….So you may want to check your facts before making such comments…
By using the term “mulatto”, you show that you don’t have a clue…Obama self identified himself as “Black” on the census…That is what he sees himself as…Insulting him by calling him a mulatto just shows how far from reality you really are…
The one he identified himself as on the census, “Black”….
How about you provide some evidence of voter fraud? So many accusations of voter fraud, but never a shred of evidence to support it.
And need we remind you, the attempt at immigration reform, that included amnesty and a path to citizenship, was co-authored by the Republican candidate for president?
Once our friend “Mart” cite WND or the center for western journalism, we know there will be no reasoning with him…WND had at one time verified Obama’s COLB as legitimate….So what do you say about that? Citing WND as proof of anything is like using gasoline to put out a fire….I’m still laughing that you had the guts to cite WND….
“People voted blindly.”
What do you call somone that the majority of voters vote for?
Mr. President
“are fascinated with the boy.”
What do you call someone who calls a 50 year old black man a boy?
A birther
I don’t get this whole thing about being 120 years old. There is no upper age limit for the Presidency.
All other presidents have been forthcoming, by virtue of their own verbal presentation relative to their pasts, the person in the oval office now has not.
I have worked for the Social Security Administration. Just one year, learning quite a lot. My degree is Engineering, SSA was convenient whilst I pursued a masters & doctorate in Counseling Psychology.
I’m well aware of SSA rules and regulations. 1997-’98 was the one year tour with SSA.
Obviously there is something wrong otherwise the controversy would not be so great, so wide spread.
PhD in computer graphics examined the birth certificate posted online and exposed numerous flaws between the posted version and a real certificate.
Too much effort to hide things by the current admin renders the obvious.
Why would he resort to bribery, threats, etc to pass the obamageddoncare? That question is already answered.
It was questioned as how would I know 70 million people’s minds?? Well, look at all the democrats not being re-elected. America’s minds are easy to read.
Mart D. PhD, Counseling Psychology
George- I didn’t call you a racist or a malcontent- thats what I called birthers.
“only to become dismayed to find out that he is no different from any other president who has served in my lifetime”
I have no problem with your opposition to the President’s policies or actions- while I voted for the President, I am not uniformly happy with his administration.
You say he is no different than any other President- I say to birthers- President Obama has proven his eligibility beyond what any other President has done.
So yes, I think that birthers are in large part racists and malcontents. I make no such generalized claim about those who oppose Obama politically.
watch…see…learn.
You are supporting a crook and a fraud.
The train is about to come into the station.
Obamamohammeds are about to experience wailing and gnashing of the teeth…all over America.
It will greatly help the econamy…We will have…”shovel ready projects” all over America…Lot’s of constuction jobs…gonna have to keep the illegals inside Mexico though.
You mean like how Bush spoke about his drunk driving arrest?
By the way, some might try to minimize drunk driving. I don’t. Drunk drivers kill around 12,000 people in the US (4x more than died on 9/11) every single year. It is a serious threat to all of us.
“All other presidents have been forthcoming, by virtue of their own verbal presentation relative to their pasts, the person in the oval office now has not.”
The current President wrote two books about his past- including detailing his own daliance with drugs as a youth. Explain to me how either Bush or Clinton provided more information?
For instance- I never knew where Bush or Clinton was born prior to their elections. I never saw their kindergarten records or their birth certificates. I knew that Clinton dodged the draft and Bush hid out in the Texas National Guard, but not what their college grade point averages were.
Exactly what ‘verbal presentations’ were made that were more extensive than what President Obama provided?
“Obviously there is something wrong otherwise the controversy would not be so great, so wide spread.”
You apparently didn’t learn much about statistical sampling when you pursued your graduate degrees did you? Other than online, I really haven’t met anyone who has heard of or cares about this. This ‘controversy’ is met with laughter and disbelief whenever I ask.
“Why would he resort to bribery, threats, etc to pass the obamageddoncare? That question is already answered.”
I assume you are being rhetorical- otherwise if you have proof of actual bribery or threats you should report them to the FBI. Otherwise, what happened with the healthcare bill was the usual ugly sausage making employed by both Republicans and Democrats. I don’t agree with all of it, but certainly is not the first or last time Congress employs those methods.
But I am starting to get the feeling you don’t support President Obama.
That is Barry’s entire repetoire…is it not?
All the kids got.
“The US Constitution is not being followed, instead it’s being trampled.”
Great- give me an example
“And it’s easy to see you voted for the boy.”
And your language reveals your racism. Unless you are my grandfather, I don’t give anyone a pass for calling a 50 year old African American ‘boy’
I do give you credit- you didn’t call him ‘uppity’
Poor holyroller
yeah yeah Holy, Birthers have been spouting the same thing for over a year now- “the end is nie!”
kind of broken record.
Ready to unload more great reforms I guess.
Funny how Holyroller has gone off her tracks fully…
Derailed so to speak.
watch…see…learn.
Lil’ Barry is a CROOK and a FRAUD. You are defending a psycho…It says lots about you.
He will not be able to stop this train…it is headed into the station.
Wow….you went from a Masters in Counseling Psychology, to a PhD, in a matter of posts….I’m guessing the rest of your purported resume is much like the supposed PhD that claimed to do an expose on Obama’s COLB…just another pack of lies.
Sorry, can you at least stick to arguments that have not been widely debunked for probably over a year now? Or perhaps at least not jump from a Masters in Counseling Pshychology at 5:49 to a PhD at 7:37.
Sure HolyRoller, sure… Now tell your mommy that you have been bad…
Mart says:
I’d never vote for a person who completed only 3 out of the 4 year senate term.
A Senate term is six years, not four years.
Did you vote for McCain-Palin? Palin, the 1/2 term governor?
They did not consider, out of nowhere an unknown, and are fascinated with the boy.
The boy? It never fails – let a birther speak long enough, and the racism always rises to the top.
Wow.
First of all, Obama is President of the United States. And you are…..?
A patient at the Lucas Smith Psychotic Hospital? A leading authority on the Loch Ness monster? Hannibal Lecter’s son? Night shift supervisor at the 7-11 on Main and 10th street in Pensacola?
I mean, seriously, if you actually believe what you write, are you also into dissecting frogs? And if you’re just fooling with people here, don’t you have a life?
Do I sound worried that your fantasy train is heading somewhere other than off a cliff?
Can you even comprehend these big sentences I’m typing?
By the way Mike- we may disagree with many things, but I have enjoyed the sane dialogue
1.4 million? I thought it was 750,000? I thought it was 2 million? You guys just keep making up numbers that he’s supposedly spent but have never been able to prove it. Where did you hear the number 1.4 million?
You know in the south they used to call adult black men “Boys”
May we not be subjected to another term of Obama – or any other politician…
And only a RACIST would be bothered that someone was of mixed-race and call them a “mulatto”.
Why didn’t you just go and call him a “half-breed” John. We know that’s what you were thinking. No one uses the term mulatto.
sb:
Hi, sb. Your comment was automatically moderated because it contained one or more words which are sometimes associated with personal insults. However, your comment is fine and has been approved like 99.5% of everything written here.
Just a brief reply to your comments on social security numbers.
Looking at the reports from Orly Taitz, I basically see ONE number for Barack Obama. I’m not sure where all the others she claims come from. Maybe you can explain it. I think it pretty likely that the Connecticut social security number is the one one Barack Obama owns. However, it is impossible that that number belongs to a 119 year old person, because any person that old with a social security number is in the social security death index, a public database that you can search on any number of web sites. It is trivially easy to verify right now, without leaving your keyboard that the purported Obama’s social security number doesn’t belong to a dead person.
And no, the Frank Davis connection doesn’t bother me at all. Why should it? Imputing guilt by association is a very bad thing to do in my book.
tony: Quoting the CBO is a joke
I have never found accountants funny.
SB Doc allows anti-obama comments all the time here. Just look at Mario Apuzzo’s comments which have been posted here time and time ago. Doc does not censor unlike if you went to birther sites and put in “pro-obama” stuff would be.
Also SB where are you getting that he spent millions of dollars “hiding” documents. Do you have proof of this? None of the birthers have ever been able to prove this number. About documents for presidents. Can you find Bush Sr’s birth certificate? His grades in school? His complete medical records? How about Reagan? Bush Jr?
A lot of information isn’t public.
Thats incorrect. Socialism is control of the means of production through the state.
How is Obama a communist? Again using words you have no idea what they mean interchangeably is ridiculous. Obama is not a communist and you have no facts to back that up.
This might be a good point for you to start a program of correcting the errors in your store of facts. The only PhD in computer graphics that has commented on Obama’s online birth certificate was Dr. Neal Krawetz. Here are his two articles:
http://hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/210-Bad-Science-How-Not-To-Do-Image-Analysis.html
http://hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/235-Bad-Science-How-Not-To-Do-Image-Analysis-Part-II.html
I would expect a PhD in Psychology to be more resistant to being tricked by anonymous people pretending to be experts. You should know all the tricks.
Actually no. A Certificate/Certification of Live Birth is only issued to persons born within the state. Out of state residents get a Certificate of Foreign Birth according to a Hawaii DOH Spokesperson.
It is ridiculous on the face of it to suggest that Hawaii issues state certified documents saying that foreigners are born in Hawaii. I hate to invoke “common sense,” but come on!
Well, okay then, if you really believe it.
See, I looked at the actual FEC filings and I totaled everything up and found out that the number that WND was claiming was the same number that Obama had spent on all legal fees for his campaign. WND was claiming, then, that every legal dollar spent in this three-quarter billion campaign was spent on birther claims. Not a penny went to compliance. Not even a penny left over to file the FEC reports themselves!
Of course, since I was reading the FEC reports, I didn’t think that made any sense.
But, now I find out that you, a guy named george, really believe that Obama has spent $2 million on defense.
Why don’t I believe you? Oh, yeah, that’s right. I also just got a new passport, and the post office didn’t care whether I presented a “long form” or “short form” birth certificate as long as it had the State seal on it, told my name, birth date, where I was born and the names of my parents.
Maybe he took underwater basket weaving. Rocks for jocks.
Do you realize you’re posting on the internet? The reason I ask is that there’s this thing called Google. If you google Bush’s grades, you’ll find out that he didn’t voluntarily release them. Neither did Gore, nor Kerry, nor McCain, nor Clinton, nor Reagan, etc., etc.
So, “george,” if that’s your real name, how, exactly, do you get from the facts in the real world to the claim that:
george, your assignement, should you choose to accept it is to find the following documents for Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Gore, Bush Jr, Kerry and McCain:
Kindergarten records
College transcripts
Birth certificates
Passport records
College theses
etc.
Go for it, george.
When you’re done with that, we can discuss what Obama has actually done instead of your blind imaginings.
Bert, that is totally within your right to not want to see Obama reelected. I have no problem with that.
But no other politician? Um, everyone who runs for office is a politician. Once they get that job, they are a politician, even if they weren’t before.
The only way that we would have no other politician follow Obama is if civilization suddenly came to an end.
Therefore, that part of your argument is not reasonable nor realistic.
HolyRoller says:
You are defending a psycho
On the contrary, I have never agreed to defend you.
As an aside, Americans who rant against “socialism” are morons who project a shameful image of your country when they appear on TV, leading our reporters to try to explain in embarrassed terms why “Americans” are, er, daft. (Obviously a terrible over-generalization but what can they do?)
You could only wish to have the standards of living of many countries which have or have had socialist governments.
In 2009, the US was #13 on the HDI index:
1 Norway
2 Australia
3 Iceland
4 Canada
5 Ireland
6 Netherlands
7 Sweden
8 France
9 Switzerland
10 Japan
11 Luxembourg
12 Finland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Human_Development_Index
Realistically, Barack Obama’s policies could fairly be described to the right of most European mainstream conservative parties. And the role of the US government in controlling, steering, subsidizing and otherwise managing vast swathes of the American economy has been preponderant since FDR and has never decreased since. Richard Nixon was one of the leading proponents of such control and AFAIK no one ever called him a Marxist or a Socialist.
But of course they were white.
Anyone know what Number these people used to look up his loan records.
http://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/3811043/m/2871075231
Posted 13 May 2010 07:48
9 indicted on charges of accessing Obama records
AP
By MICHAEL J. CRUMB, Associated Press Writer Michael J. Crumb, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 11 mins ago
DES MOINES, Iowa – Nine people were indicted Wednesday on federal charges of accessing President Barack Obama’s student loan records while they were employed for a Department of Education contractor in Iowa.
The U.S. attorney’s office said a grand jury returned the indictments in U.S. District Court in Davenport.
All nine are charged with exceeding authorized computer access. They are accused of gaining access to a computer at a Coralville office where they worked between July 2007 and March 2009, and accessing Obama’s student loan records while he was either a candidate for president, president-elect or president.
U.S. attorney spokesman Mike Bladel referred questions to online copies of the indictments.
Each of eight indictments posted by Wednesday night were brief, saying the charged individual “intentionally exceeded authorized access to a computer and thereby obtained information from a department and agency of the United States” and “intentionally accessed student loan records” of Obama without authorization.
Those charged are Andrew J. Lage, 54, Patrick E. Roan, 51, Sandra Teague, 54 and Mercedes Costoyas, 53, all of Iowa City; Gary N. Grenell, 58, and Lisa Torney, 49, of Coralville; Anna C. Rhodes, 32, of Ainsworth; Julie L. Kline, 38, of West Branch; and John P. Phommivong, 29, for whom no hometown was listed.
Lage told The Associated Press on Wednesday evening he did not know about the indictment and declined comment.
Messages were left for Teague, Torney and Costoyas. A telephone listing for Kline rang unanswered and a listing for Rhodes was disconnected. No telephone numbers were immediately found for Phommivong, Roan or Grenell.
Six of them are accused of accessing Obama’s records when he was a candidate, according to the indictments online. One is accused of accessing the records when he was president-elect. An indictment for the ninth defendant was not immediately available online.
Court records did not name the contractor that employed the defendants.
Arraignments are scheduled for May 24. The charge is punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.
quote:
9 accused of accessing Obama’s student loan records
Update at 7:55 p.m. by Justin Foss / Sourcemedia Group
IOWA CITY – Sandra Teague, 54, Iowa City, had worked for Vangent for 10 years when she says she was walked out of the building and dismissed from her job.
“The company never told me the reason I was dismissed for,” said Teague.
Wednesday, she found out when we called to tell her a Grand Jury had returned an indictment against her and several former co-workers for allegedly back in 2008, trying to look up the federal student loan records of Barack Obama. Obama was a presidential candidate at the time.
Teague is one of nine people named in the indictment. She says she used to work with at least four of those named. She did not recognize the names of the others.
“I don’t know what the others did, but I know that I did not do it,” said Teague.
Teague said she worked in a department at Vangent where they helped people with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, FAFSA.
“All of it was a shock to begin with, because I knew I had not done that,” said Teague. “I knew that something had occurred and that there was a breach of security.”
Teague said in order to do their job, they had different ID numbers for each database they had to look up. She said they even had different ID numbers for different versions of the same database, and even on different systems. She said those ID numbers would change every 30 days.
“I had seven different numbers, and I couldn’t remember them all, all the time,” said Teague.
She said she wrote them on a sticky-note and attached that to the inside of her desk drawer.
“It was assumed that the building had better controlled access, but it turns out it wasn’t,” said Teague.
Teague said she was questioned by special agents for the Department of Education, Office of Inspector General. Teague said after that interview, the agent suggested a better place to keep her ID numbers. It was at that time Teague thought the matter was resolved.
Teague said what gave her the most relief was when that agent told her she wasn’t checked into the building when Vangent’s computers say Obama’s records were accessed.
Teague said she only found out Obama had federal student loans after someone causally mentioned it at a department meeting.
Teague said she was planning her own wedding at the time of the alleged incidents and didn’t have any reason to look up Obama’s records, ““I didn’t even pay attention to the election, I didn’t have time.”
Andrew Lage, 54, is also named in the indictment. An attorney for Lage said his client had no comment.
We couldn’t find any contact numbers for Vangent company officials late Wednesday night.
By Ann McGlynn
Quad-City Times
Nine people are accused of accessing the student loan records of Barack Obama, when he was a candidate for president, president-elect and president.
The indictments were handed up in U.S. District Court, Davenport, and unsealed Thursday. The nine people worked at a Department of Education contractor in Coralville, Iowa.
Accused are:
Andrew J. Lage, 54; Patrick E. Roan, 51; Sandra Teague, 54; John P. Phommivong, 29; Anna C. Rhodes, 32; Gary Grenell, 58; Lisa Torney, 49; Julie L. Kline, 38; and Mercedes Costoyas, 53.
They are charged with exceeding computer access. Each faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine, if convicted.
Officials say that between July 26, 2007, and March 13, 2009, the defendants accessed the records while working for the unspecified contractor.
Arraignment on the charges is set for 2 p.m. May 24 in Davenport. The case was investigated by the Department of Education, Office of Inspector General.
A spokesman with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa declined comment.
They probably just used his name.
That’s a new one for me… link please? There’s no actual place called Happy Valley, PA — it’s a nickname. I grew up there.
There was a similar story during the 2000 and 2004 election of an investigator who was about to break everything open and was found dead in his motel room. I wonder if Glenn believes that one too
Yes…It is actually called State College, PA, home of Penn State University, which is in Centre County. You need to get your facts straight in regards to this alleged incident….
John, do you think that when a person of mixed parentage is walking down the street late at night people only cross half-way across the street to avoid them?
Or, do you think that when a cop sees such a person driving a BMW in a white neighborhood, they only get half suspicious?
Or that loan officers only halfway red-line loan applicants who have one white parent?
I guess the racists where you live are more discriminating than I’ve experienced. Where is this magical place where the KKK asks after your parents’ race and then only burns half a cross in your lawn?
IF OBUMMER WOULD RELEASE ALL HIS RECORDS THERE WOULD BE NO “BIRTHERS”
HE HAS DEVIDED THIS NATION LIKE NO ONE EVER BEFORE !
HE IS HORRIBLE !!
AND HE IS A MUSLIM COMMUNIST LIAR ILLEGAL AND IF YOU DONT BELIEVE ME YOU MUST BE A RACIST !
Nice troll…
Oooooooh those caps make your argument so compelling…….
Not a Muslim
Not a Communist
Probably lies as much as any politician
Illegal what….?
Unlicenced plumber or electrician?
No licence from the state bar association?
Presidenting whilst black?
And it’s DIVIDED as in to cleave asunder, I might argue that any of the following divided the nation far more
Bush II
Lincoln
Washington (as a rebel before becoming Prez)
Nixon
etc
etc etc
Really, he has “devided” this nation like no one ever before?
Tell me where you went to school, so I can guarantee my kids don’t go there.
We fought a civil war, MD. Don’t you think the nation might have been more divided then?
>> First off, they’re not PUBLIC records <<
My friend just pointed out that he needs to show his birth certificate to rent a Cessna 17, why should the president not show his to rent the whole country?
I don't know why the guys on the left spend so much time defending this if they think there is nothing to hide, what's the big deal, show the documents, shut up the right and show them how "wrong" they are and move on to more serious things.
Would you be OK if a Russian citizen became the president? Wouldn't you want to make sure your guy is legit? Or are you simply taking Obama at face value? Do you trust 100% that he is not lying? If so based on what?
Personally I think he is legit and is going to release the documents before the 2012 election to "show" the people how disgustingly evil the right is.
PS: A COLB is not definite proof of having been born in Hawaii.
“YOU WOULDNT LIKE ME WHEN IM ANGRY!!!”
He’s an illegal now? So now you’re taking this a step further and saying he’s not even a citizen? Wow you guys are nuts. The guys in white coats need to take away your computer time.
What if he would have called himself a Martian?
In my native country of Cuba he would be a mulato and this would not be an issue.
Waaaaaaaaa!
Can you expand on that?
Mike
“In my native country of Cuba he would be a mulato and this would not be an issue.”
But then again we aren’t in Cuba now Mike. In the United States the term mulato is even less of an acceptable term than Cuban American.
Sure anyone can use the term mulato, but unless its a geriatric from New Orleans, when I see the term I think ‘racist’.
Thanks, usually when they give me my meds I am OK ;~)
I honestly long for the Internet of 20 years ago mainly Compuserve where people on both sides of the aisle would argue for days and in many occasions end up agreeing somewhere in the middle without mockery or ridiculing.
well greg, [personal insult deleted. Doc.] No doubt we can both slant things our way, but I’ll try a couple more times with you. I recently got my passport at the post office on 29th. street in loveland colorado. my first name is george. I am very aware of the search engine google, & occasionally use bing as well. I try to get as many sides of the story before i make up my mind on things, & admittedly still have not made up my mind on some things. While your numbers from the FEC add up, you are ignoring the fact that the president has according to world net daily (just one source, but google around you’ll find more) continued to spend money after the election blocking records. Why are you acting like some blind clone who gets all of his information from fox news, & msnbc? Don’t you se what is happening to this country? If you would like I would love to discuss what president Obama has done:
published an autobiography that does not add up with the actual facts of his life
Just like his predecessor, infused approximately 1 TRILLION DOLLARS
Sure.
No previous president has provided evidence to the U.S. voters that he was born in the United States. I never saw a BC for Clinton or either Bush, nor for Reagan.
You may have doubts about his birth certificate, but it is more than we had for any other President.
sorry, i didn’t finish, printed approimately 1 trillion dollars of wothless currency to bail out his buddies @ goldman sachs & others
Continued on with 2 un-winnable, unpopular expensive wars (where are all of the war protestors since his election?)
managed to get health care legislation passed ignoring the wishes of the vast majority of citizens of this country.
appeared on letterman & leno
other than that greg, i am at a loss, please forgive me if i haven’t been paying close enough attention in the past 2 years. I’ve been a little busy working & paying taxes
Tax policy and the bailout are off topic on this web site. As soon as I get the time ALL THIS STUFF is going to the dump.
At the same time that I looked at Obama’s post-election filings with the FEC, I looked at McCain’s. He, too, spent money following the election. He wasn’t blocking access to records.
That suggests to me that there might be some post-election duties for the legal team.
Googling around finds that none of the stories alleging Obama’s millions spent on birther defense is any better sourced than the WND story. Most either cite back to that story or simply assert the fact.
Find me a single other source that cites something other than the FEC reports.
Yes, Obama infused money into the economy. I’m glad, since companies like AIG were on the brink of catastrophic failure. AIG held credit default swaps to the tune of $440 billion. At the time the CDS market was more than $70 trillion. If the largest player in the CDS market had gone belly-up, it could have caused a chain reaction that would have killed the CDS market.
The US has a GDP per year of around $13 trillion. If $70 trillion were sucked out of the market, that might have been a problem! Even if it didn’t trigger an instantaneous meltdown of the CDS market, it would have negated the coverage of $440 billion worth of CDS held by banks around the world which would have had to replace that coverage at much higher premiums. Best case scenario, the collapse of AIG would have cost the world economy at least $1 trillion and would have completely frozen lending across the economy.
We were inches away from a new Great Depression. Ever heard the saying “A stitch in time saves nine?” Obama infused a trillion dollars into the economy to save tens of trillions of dollars!
I agree 100%.
I guess I am just an old coot who is hard to teach new tricks. I don’t see race as a detriment, I try to look at individual and judge them for their actions. I guess I am stubborn and refuse to be dragged into these modern times of political correctness.
I grew up in a mixed neighborhood, white, black, mulato, some Chinese and some Jewish. People got along well, being called negro, mulato, chino, etc. was never a problem.
My mom was a school teacher and worked in the country way in the country where she would travel half way by jeep and the rest on horseback, the classes were composed of the kids of poor farm workers, white, black and mulatos. My mom never taught me to discriminate, once in a blue moon she would take me to work and made me sit in class like everyone else and I played and enjoyed the company of all her students.
I never experience discrimination until I came to the US. While fresh off the boat I was in a class with 2 black Cuban kids, we became friends and I called them negro (Rogelio el Negro, Lazaro el Negro) I would see them half a block away and yell NEGRO! to grab their attention, they had no problem whatsoever with it.
Fast forward 40 years later if I yelled that on the street I would probably get shot ;~)
But you are right, I have to learn to play the game with today’s rules.
Thanks.
“Would you be OK if a Russian citizen became the president?”
I ask that our President be a natural born citizen, and meets all other eligibility requirements. If Russia decides he is also a Russian citizen, I wouldn’t want Russia to be able to disenfranchise an American candidate.
“Wouldn’t you want to make sure your guy is legit? Or are you simply taking Obama at face value?”
As I have said before- I have more confidence that President Obama is legitimate than I do that either Clinton or Bush were.
“Do you trust 100% that he is not lying? If so based on what?”
Actually I am assuming that Obama has lied about some things- he is after all a politician. I am assuming that he has not lied about his eligiblity, for the same reasons I assumed that Bush and Clinton hadn’t lied about theirs.
My question is why you are suddenly so concerned with a President providing absolute proof of his eligiblity? Why didn’t you demand absolute proof from Bush or Clinton? Are you certain that they were not Russian spies?
Of course the campaigns have expenses after the election. There were still filings to make, contracts to close out, etc. What you failed to do was cite any source to attribute any amount of money spent by President Obama to “block records.”
WorldNetDaily, as is their normal operation, mentions something totally normal and then uses it to cast suspicion. Getting factual information from WorldNetDaily is like milking a venomous snake: you have to know exactly what you’re doing and even then you still get bit sometimes.
In fact, in all of the Obama lawsuits, I can think of only one thing, a two-page motion to quash a subpoena in Keyes v. Obama in California, directed at blocking records. One of you lawyers might comment on how much it would cost to draft a motion to quash a subpoena on the grounds that a motion to dismiss the case was pending.
Birthers give a lot of ink to this whole concept of blocking records, as if any of the cases were about access to records. In fact the cases allege various crimes and frauds against President Obama. The President has to defend himself against charges like these, and the simplest and most cost-effective way to do that is to move that the case be dismissed when the case has no standing.
In Hawaii and according to the US State department, it is. Just because you have decided to not believe it, that means nothing. The state of HI has vouched for the fact that Obama was born in HI, and his COLB states he was BORN in HI.
I guess English terms are different in your part of the Country. In the Northeast where I grew up, BORN IN HAWAII means that Obama’s mother gave birth to him in the state of HI, city of Honolulu. That is what Dr. Fukino, the person responsible stated in her press release. So I have no problem in believing her.
“A soft answer turneth away wrath,” Jesus.
A birth certificate OR passport. Since the COLB will get you a passport, you’re fine. By the way, you don’t have to be a US citizen to fly in the US (after all foreign airlines all fly here), so a foreign passport is fine, too. They do check to see if you’re on a terrorist watch/no-fly list of course.
Mike C –
1. See, that’s the problem with certain “surface arguments”, especially “concern trolling” ones. They sound reasonable on the surface, until you actually think further about them.
To your friend showing his BC to rent a Cessna. So what? We all have to show our proper docs, which often include SSN & birth certificate MULTIPLE times during our lives – to get a passport, to get our drivers license, when certain background checks or clearances are done for certain businesses, etc.
And SO has Obama, hello! The man has been living here consistently since 1971. He’s owned cars, houses, got married, had kids, etc. Do you seriously think he somehow spent his entire life without showing the same types of documentation than anybody else for these things? Really? Particularly when he’s held a public office of one type or another since the mid 90’s! He’s been both in the public eye and under scrutiny more than you’ll ever know in your life and has probably had to provide such vital records so many more times than you’ll ever know as well.
Again, that is one of those arguments that if you stop and think before you spout off, you’ll realize just how foolish what you are saying comes across! Really!
2. And YES, for the state of HI, the COLB is exactly that – by its very definition and what the seal on the back and statements say on it, it is DEFINITIVE PROOF that he was born in HI. For the state of HI, they will tell you themselves that it doesn’t get any more definitive than the COLB!
Again, think before you speak and look into things instead of just listening to bogus stuff that others have told you, because, it just makes you look bad.
You might as well try to tell us next that the earth is flat, because you’re now batting 2 for 2 on statements with that level of incredulity!
Which is a shame, because I’ve found you to be generally a reasonable man. I think you just get angry a lot and then you become easily susceptible to whatever BS someone tells you or you read in order to find something to blame.
Shame on you Mike C!
You’re not in your native country of Cuba. You’ve lived here in the US for decades, per your own statement. More than long enough to understand that term is considered offensive here.
Do you understand that similar to most “brown” folks, of which you are one, that most “black” folks are also not 100% black? Yet because of outward appearances, they are usually assumed to be such and as a result, they often self-identify as such.
Obama considers himself “black”. We all understand that his mother was white and his father was from Africa and he therefore comes from a mixed-race background.
So what? There is nothing wrong with that.
You were doing great until I got to this. I know Galileo proved the earth to be hexagonal a few years ago ;~)
>> most “brown” folks, of which you are one <<
G eee you are batting 1000, how do you know I am "brown" ?
I am as white as a glass of milk, my mom's parent's were both from France and my dad's from the Canary Islands (I am not sure they would be considered brown).
During my 40 years in the country people more often than not confuse me with being Italian or Jewish.
Seriously, based on that, do you think I am brown? This is a serious question. To me it would not be offensive to be called brown. Just like my black Cuban friends have no problem being called negro.
BTW: I will gladly supply you with a picture, since you guys on the left seem to demand full proof before believing anyone ;~)
Someone mentioned that his first job was Baskin-Robbins and now Baskin-Robbins’ heaquarters is in MA. Maybe at the time (1976 or ’77) Baskin-Robbins’, who was owned by J. Lyons and Co. – a British food company having been sold by United Fruit, was headquartered in Connecticut? It is at least a plausible theory.
I got my SSN when I was 11 a couple of years after my brother was born (in my home town and where I was born) and at the same time I believe. I have no idea why I got it then because I didn’t need a passport (did you need an SSN for a passport then?) for three more years and I didn’t start a job for five more years. I also haven’t heard of getting your SSN through the employer. Can anyone verify that this was possible or likely in the ’76 to ’77 time frame?
I honestly think the whole 042 Connecticut thing is a total-red herring, but it IS interesting and is a good way to learn about how critical small peices of our society like SSNs work.
There are instances where the employer may request a social security number so that it can report its contributions.
I vaguely remember a SSN request form for Obama’s grandmother(?) that was filled out by the employer.
Where-oh-where… Who-oh-who…
Would be an interesting avenue to pursue…
Scribd
Mike C –
I did not mean to offend you – you had stated that you were hispanic and that you came from Cuba.
I used “brown”, which is NOT considered an offensive word in the context that many his hipanics have referred to themselves as a generalized group as “brown” people, whether they are completely light-skinned or dark.
I apologize if you feel the term was improper or offensive to you. There are also “black” people out there, who consider themselves black who are extremely light skinned as well.
I meant no disrespect.
Well Mike, if you were REALLY a white supremacist, you’d know how to spell mulatto.
My compuserv ID was 70435,1010.
E GLenn Harcsar says:
Anyone know what Number these people used to look up his loan records.
They probably didn’t need his SSN, given his unusual name.
Some of us know Obama’s SSN because Orly filed multiple documents (in various lawsuits) which raised the phony issue of his SSN but she neglected to redact the number. If you know the number, you can plug it in at this site and it will confirm that it is a legitimate number that was issued in 1976 or 1977. The number obviously was not issued to someone who was born in 1890.
http://www.ssnvalidator.com/default.aspx
Those of us who know the number will not publish it here or anywhere else.
Odds are they looked him up by name. It’s not all that common.
LOL!
Myself, I go back to the days of Cleveland Freenet & dial-up message boards on a 1200 baud modem!
Actually it is not true that most young children of the 60’s didn’t get the SSN prior to working. I was born in 62 and my father took my to get an SSN when I was 8 years old. So to say that they didn’t issue SSN’s to young children back then is not really accurate.
Ah, but did you have an Alto?
I don’t know of any statistics, but I suspect that your personal example is more likely the exception than the rule.
The push to get SSNs for young children started in 1988, when the IRS first required that taxpayers list the SSN for each dependent being claimed who was over the age of five.
To test my theory, I went to the Social Security Death Index and pulled up the SSNs of dead people who have the same surname as me and were born in 1961. The first five people on the list had their SSNs issued when they were at least 14 years old. The youngest was 14, the oldest 17.
Wait a minute! Why did the author of this article point out there was no Social Secrity in 1890. Geez Orly Tates needs a history lesson to make her conspiracy therories more bleivable. Social Security numbers weren’t issued until 1936 when the Soc Sec act passed by FDR. what an idiot! go back to Russia
It might depend on individual circumstances. I have a younger sibling — 4 years younger — and we have consecutive social security numbers. I [b]was[/b] 14 or 15 when my dad took me to get the SS # in the late 60’s….. but I think my dad put in an application for my brother at the same time just to save himself a future trip.
Hi All, Susan here from the hr 1503 coalition, If nothing happens in court you can always support a bill or both I support any and all efforts to expose the fraud that has been perpetrated.But I also support a mechanism to hold our constitution.
Thank you, Susan Allen
Founder
Wow. A spokesperson for Resistnet shows up here to push their birther / anti-Obama / anti-democrat stuff…
…weird.
Hi Susan,
HR 1503 Coalition:
http://atlah.org/atlahworldwide/?p=7320
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1503/show
http://thedametruth.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/if-a-tree-falls-in-a-forest-with-no-one-there-does-it-make-a-sound/
Susan Allen:
http://www.resistnet.com/profile/SusanAllen
The preceding link was one of the top Google hits on “HR 1503 coalition” and seems to be a public statement of support. So I am in no way “outing” anything private.
Not sure what this has to do with the President’s SSN, but anyway…
You have an actual coalition to push HR 1503? I have two questions for you to ponder:
1. If this law is passed, and in 2012 the President files the same BC he’s already posted, what does this law permit you to do about it?
2. Why is it that no Democratic Rep has made a statement opposed to HR 1503?
According to this site, there has been no action on HR 1503 since it was referred to committee in March, 2009.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1503
Of course, the wording of the proposed statute is problematic:
111th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 1503
To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require the principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of President to include with the committee’s statement of organization a copy of the candidate’s birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the Office of President under the Constitution.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 12, 2009
Mr. POSEY introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on House Administration
A BILL
To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require the principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of President to include with the committee’s statement of organization a copy of the candidate’s birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the Office of President under the Constitution.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. FINDING.
Congress finds that under section 5 of article II of the Constitution of the United States, in order to be eligible to serve as President, an individual must be a natural born citizen of the United States who has attained the age of 35 years and has been a resident within the United States for at least 14 years.
SEC. 2. REQUIRING PRINCIPAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEES OF PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES TO PROVIDE DOCUMENTATION OF CANDIDATE’S ELIGIBILITY TO SERVE AS PRESIDENT.
(a) In General- Section 303(b) of the Federal Election Campaign Act (2 U.S.C. 433(b)) is amended–
(1) by striking and’ at the end of paragraph (5);
(2) by striking the period at the end of paragraph (6) and inserting ‘; and’; and
(3) by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
(7) in the case of a principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of President, a copy of the candidate’s birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the Office of President under section 5 of article II of the Constitution.’.
(b) Effective Date- The amendment made by subsection (a) shall apply with respect to the election for the office of President held in 2012 and each succeeding election for the office of President.
Similar to Arizona’s proposed statute, HR 1503 doesn’t define or provide any examples of what might constitute “such other documentation as may be necessary.” Also, HR 1503 would only apply to candidates for President – what about the candidates for Vice-President?
I am not sure we will ever know if Barry Soreoto was born in Hawaii or not as it was common practice for people to register a birth by mail for which the certificate of birth acknowledged. It is interesting that to qualify for benefits for native Hawaiians, a certificate of live birth does not suffice and only an original birth certificate can be used. In other words, to apply for benefits, an original birth certificate is required but not for the Presidency. All other matters aside, the entire debate on eligiblility doesn’t hinge on whether BHO is a citizen, but a natural born citizen. When the constitution was written, “natural born citizen” had a very specific meaning…one had to be born of a mother and father both of whom were US Citizens. The concern was simple and stated clearly by the founding fathers….they did not want to have a President that may have foreign allegiances…..BHO’s father was a British subject as his birthplace was part of the British empire at the time. BHO’s mother was a US Citizen and conferred her citizenship upon him at birth. However, he would not be considered a “natural born citizen” under these circumstances, because of his father’s status as a British subject….Natural Born Citizen was specifically placed into the qualifications for President (and no other office) for these reasons. It is a shame that these issues were glossed over before the election so that we are now in the uncomfortable position of having a President whose eligibility is still in some doubt and is not being questioned as it now poses a whole can of worms that few want to take on……..I just hope that someone will take the responsibility of running it through the courts with the proper legal arguments regarding natural born citizen…versus plain citizenship to let the chips fall where they may. We should then make sure that this never happens again in our peaceful transitions of power in this country.
You mean beyond the 70 times this has already been “run through the courts”? Apparently you believe that everyone should have not their day in court, or week in court or year in court, but that everyone must spend their entire lifetime in court. God help us all….
———————————————————————————————————–
I certainly was not suggesting that….my comment was that the people are not making the proper arguments in front of the bench to start with and therefore are being dismissed. The other frustration with this is the clear intent by which the founding fathers used the term of natural born citizen and how much it has been muddied up since, so now the courts can hide behind the ambiguity and not the original intent of the term. Since we not no longer have strict constitutionalists on the courts, this no longer seems to matter anyhow……frustrating that we no longer care about the qualifications of our leaders for which we are now paying the price
Dave:
“I am not sure we will ever know if Barry Soreoto was born in Hawaii ”
Whatever else we know, we know that Barry Soreoto was not born in Hawaii. Barack Obama was but no Barry Soreoto.
The rest of your post is just the usual birther “Big List of Why the Ursurper was not Eligible”
“It is a shame that these issues were glossed over before the election”
The voters knew his father was a Kenyan citizen, so this wasn’t exactly glossed over. The voters knew that his fathers citizenship was immaterial, as did Congress and Chief justice Roberts.
“so that we are now in the uncomfortable position of having a President whose eligibility is still in some doubt and is not being questioned as it now poses a whole can of worms that few want to take on”
Really, look at who has this doubt and who doesn’t. I have no doubt of his eligiblity and you do. Does this automatically mean that the Supreme court should get involved?
“is the clear intent by which the founding fathers used the term of natural born citizen and how much it has been muddied up since”
And who, pray tell, makes you an authority on what the ‘clear intent’ of the founding fathers was? If their clear intent was to make natural born citizen mean someone born in the United States to two citizen parents don’t you think that they might have well- made that clear?
But I diverge- please share your qualifications to divine the clear intent of the founding fathers.
LIE #1. This is a fake fact invented by birthers. (Note that there is no citation to any sort of supporting documentation).
LIE #2. “Native” Hawaiians are those who can trace their lineage to original Hawaiian natives. A COLB suffices to prove birth and parentage, but information as to parents birthplace is also needed. This can be provided by a supplemental source. This has nothing to do with validity of the COLB — it is just a matter of accumulating all needed information for the application.
LIE #3. Again, no authority can be cited for this false proposition. “Natural born” then, as now, means born on US soil. Parentage then, as now, was irrelevant, except for the limited circumstances applying to children of foreign diplomats.
Yes, it is frustrating that they let Sen. McCain on the ballot, when clearly they had no intention of including him under the definition of “natural born citizen.” But at least the person clearly qualified person won, and we didn’t have to fact that problem. Well, unless by what the founding fathers intended, you mean that they would have never wanted a man of color to be president.
All the arguments regarding natural born citizen have been made multiple times. Are you saying you have some new ones? Let’s hear them.
Did you contact them at a seance? Which ones? While they were alive, none of them actually had anything to say on the subject at all. Some of them wrote volumes on all sorts of topics, but they were silent on this one. Unless they told you in a dream??
>> Did you contact them at a seance? <<
You people on the left know nothing but insult and mockery. The last time I looked freedom of speech was still legal. I know once the liberals take the country down towards socialism it will be outlawed, but that has not happened yet.
Can you leftys disagree without insulting?
I’m not a lefty. I do just about everything right-handed. Et tu?
Say something intelligent and you will be treated as such. …Say something goofy and expect to be viewed as a goofball.
Free speech gives you the right to say practically anything you want, no matter how preposterous. Freedom also provides that others can react to your words and actions and let you know what they think of them.
I always find it funny that these folks assume that just because others disagree with them and think they are chock-full-of-nuts, that disagreement makes them somehow a “lefty”. LOL! Well, I guess when folks have gone so far to the right that they are staring at the edge of a cliff, everything in the world is to the “left” of them. LOL!
And has anyone taken any action to stop you from speaking? Freedom of speech does not mean that you are free of any consequences of your speech. If you say something foolish, why should anyone impose on my freedom of speech to mock your statements (and vice-versa)?
And it’s mildly ironic that your complaint about being mocked, you resort to outlandish insults yourself. Hypocracy anyone?
I do everything left handed. I see a pattern, right handed people are on the bleeding edge of the bleeding heart liberal abys.
Bottom line is I see the majority of liberals resorting to insults to confront differences of opinion, pretty much out of the socialist/communist playbook.
Mike C.:
I am sympathetic to your frustration. I feel the same when when noted liberals like
Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage;
Dennis Miller, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larson, and Monica Crowley;
G. Gordon Lilly, Bill Cunningham, Brian Kilmeade, and Judge Andrew Napolitano;
Bill Bennet, Neal Boortz, Jay Sekulow, Mike Huckabee, and Fred Thompson . . . oh, wait a minute. All these people are conservatives, directing mockery and insult at liberals, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year–yes, even on Christmas.
The point is Mike, conservatives are just as likely to make fun of their political opponents as anyone else. So, gee whiz, could you just get over yourself?
How is reacting to utter stupidity with contempt something out of the “socialist/communist” playbook? So when Republicans or talking heads on the right insult the left does that mean the republicans or talking heads are socialist/communists?
Goofy in your eyes, but not to the other person and there is the problem, but you already know that.
And there you go again, complaining about insults by trying to insult everyone by calling them socialists and communists. Good thing that good conservatives like you (and everyone Arthur mentioned) would never dream of insulting anyone.
And what is with you righties and the socialist/communist boogey man? C’mon, that is so 1986.
And on a final note. Arguments that have merit can be discussed reasonably. Silly birther talking points, lacking any basis in realilty tend to attact mockery.
Mike C…”you put conservative are just as likely to make fun of”…..makeing fun and insulting are two different things.
Secondly, you state birther talking points lack any basis in reality….your statement lacks any basis in reality…all you have to do is a little research to find the truth.
Liberals dont want to know the truth…actually all they want to know is they’re own truth.
At least what they believe is the truth.
Obama has never….I repeat…..NEVER shown the world his true long form birth certificate….end of story. If you dont know this fact to be true, Your living a lie!
Barack Obama IS a socialist. His mother was a Marxist….his own described Mentor, “the man who was more of a father to me than my father”…Frank Marshall Davis, was a leader of the communist party in Hawaii….! These are facts…not talking points. They are based in reality.
Far too many facts with this guy dont ad up…! Hes’ hiding too much!
It is ironic that you should raise the question of freedom of speech on this blog, which permits more freedom of speech than any birther blog. Doc C. allows just about anyone to post their arguments here, moderating only for offensive language and personal insults. The very fact that your posts are here for all to see is proof enough.
That said, do you realize that the First Amendment only denies the government the ability to restrict speech? Doc C. is under no obligation to allow you to post here, and Orly Taitz and Mario Apuzzo are under no obligation to allow me to post on their blogs. Doc C. voluntarily permits more freedom of speech than those birthers.
Nothing?
NBC has posted hundreds of times on this site with sources to back up most of the claims he makes. He has a website filled with facts and sources.
You on the other hand, state things as fact without a single source to back them up except your spreadsheet (which only you have seen). See above, for example, you stated over and over that we were paying 50% of our income in taxes. I point to two different think tanks, one anti-tax, that show that you’re way off base, and instead of giving us facts you repeat that you’ve got a spreadsheet.
I’m tired of the whining. Especially uninformed whining. You come onto a blog with hundreds of posts and tens of thousands of comments and you say that there are no facts? Try reading some of those posts, Mike. It’s whining like this that makes it difficult not to be insulting.
I really don’t read stuff from the left, so I cannot comment on it, but folks on the right seem to think that the freedom of speech implies freedom from criticism, or put another way, freedom of speech applies to them, but not to the other side.
I’ve read early accounts of colonial and early American legislation, and the available notes from the Founders and early authorities on this topic. In 1844 Vice-chancellor Sandford of New York made an extensive survey of the topic. It is pretty clear that from the beginning there were only two kinds of citizen: natural BORN and natural IZED. Those born in the country cannot be naturalized.
And you know this how? When it gets to historical fact, I’m not really interested in anybody’s opinion; I want evidence. An uninformed opinion is worthless.
I should comment that in Honolulu in 1961 all births (with 14 exceptions) were delivered in hospitals by doctors.
See, now that’s exactly what I mean by goofy statements. Right-handedness=”bleeding heart liberal”??? Really???
Is that your latest conspiracy angle or some personal ego-based insecurity about your own handedness and needing to read into it some sort of “divine” meaning to make you feel special?
You’ve said some weird things here, but this takes the cake. You are aware that most people are right-handed, don’t you? It is the dominant gene trait for handedness. It has nothing to do with one’s political persuasion or anything else. Thus, there are lots of right handed conservatives …but only someone who’s decided to swing so far right as to be peering over the abyss would somehow contrive a plot that everyone with right-handedness was “too liberal for them”… Furthermore, many creative “artistic” folks are known to be left-handed as a trait… and artistic folks are usually criticized as being “liberal”…so gee, that sort of pours cold water on your grand theory there too… oh well.
LMAO! You would have automatically won my award for silliest post of the day, but then that Rene’ poster had to come here and babble a bunch of meaningless incoherent rage…so you didn’t get to hold the title for long.
Good luck with your conspiracy to rid the world of dastardly right-handed folks!
*twilight zone music starts playing about now*
You are aware that President Obama is left-handed, aren’t you?
Left Handed:
Barack Obama
William J. Clinton
George H.W. Bush
Right Handed:
George W. Bush
Obviously, the bleeding-heart liberal is GWB.
Ronald Reagan may have been a bit of both, though he did start as a new deal liberal and then move conservative.
Pictures show Palin signing right handed. Quite the bleeding heart liberal there.
Absolutely not, there is a huge difference between criticism and mockery and ridicule. What I would like to see is a rebuttal of the opinion with either facts or the person’s point of view. If I say this is zyx we should come back with no, it is xyz not “this guy is a fool and a buffoon” I am almost certain you already know this.
Of course freedom of speech allows you to mock and ridicule other people, but is it productive? It’s not, unless the left feels they have the number and would like to eradicate the people on the right.
Rush, Beck and Hanity are usually dragged into the discussion to justify mocking the person, those guys do not represent the full spectrum of the right the same way some of the extreme leftists do not represent the entire left.
The usual retort is “if you say something foolish you are going to get a foolish answer”
Yes, I remember the earth used to be flat.
The fact is that Obama has never presented a long form birth certificate, but the left won’t refute this with a fact that he “did” so the automatic response is mockery and ridicule.
Something about calling the kettle black ….. You just made my point, that is what I see on this thread, people expressing an opinion and the responses are mockery, ridicule and now let’s add goofiness.
No one has said that Obama has produced his “long form BC”. We are only saying that he doesn’t need to. The evidence on his produced COLB is adequate for ALL purposes that matter. (IOW you don’t matter one iota.)
And he is also half-Cuban so we have 2 things in common … actually 3, he’s a socialist and I grew up under socialism.
There, does that bring me back to the top for the goofiest post for today?
Sweet. Newsflash, I vote.
But you are not one of the persons tasked with approving who gets on the ballot. Nor are you a member of the Electoral College. Nor are you a Member of Congress. Nor are you the CJ of the SCOTUS. So no, you don’t matter.
Care to explain how Obama is “half-Cuban”? As far as I know his ancestry is Kenyan and Scots/Irish.
I think you would have a hard time convincing a socialist of that. Certainly his policies are not in the slightest.
Correct. That makes him the 43rd President not to do so. They’re batting 1.000 (being Cuban, I will assume you like baseball).
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.canada/browse_thread/thread/eb9ee3ffc1305bd8
Hey, this is a conspiracy theory thread right? I figure this would fit. Of course before you go off half-cocked, I don’t believe it, I think it is amusing, but the facts seem to point towards her visit being real.
As for a socialist not thinking Obama is a socialist? Different rose colored glasses my friend, I can write an entire page of the parallels between the system I grew up under and Obama, but you would not believe it so I won’t wast my time.
Long form BC: Just because it has not been asked before does not preclude doing so moving forward, care to place a bet that this will be SOP from now on?
So in other words as opposed to Scott Brown you’d rather not make up stories when you know none of us will believe them. Again which “Socialist” system did you grow up under?
What “facts”?
Read my lips, if you look through my posts you should be able to figure it out.
Cundo used to live around the block from me in Matanzas, he told me the story a bunch of times when I was growing up. He played bass with La Sonora Matancera, a well known Cuban orchestra.
How is this scenario any different than little Suzie’s trip to Italy?
A couple of sentences will do.
If he boasted about his sexual expolits he wasn’t much of a gentleman.
Mike: I hate to question your credibility, but I am familiar with the music of La Sonora Matancera and never heard of a bassist named “Cundo”. Here is a well-respected Encyclopedia of Music
http://www.donaldclarkemusicbox.com/encyclopedia/detail.php?s=3179
They list the original bassist as Pablo Vazquez “Babu”, who was replaced by his son Raimundo Elpidio Vazquez in 1952. No mention anywhere that I can find of “Cundo”. Perhaps you would be so kind as to provide a reference??
Oh and not to belabor the point, but La Sonora Marancera left Cuba on June 15, 1960, which is about 4 months before Obama would have been conceived. They stayed in Mexico for 2 years and then moved to NYC.
There ya go again, confusing him with facts.
Maybe this “Cundo” just liked to tell stories to little boys.
I could ask the same question of birtherism, quite frankly.
This whole “waah, you’re making fun of me” schtick is getting old fast. If you show up on a blog like this, that exists to parse the Birther threads and get to the truth of the matter, and start mouthing Birther boilerplate from the get-go, you’re going to get laughed at. You can’t tell me we should expect a different response if we walked into birther central and started off the same way.
Is it productive? Probably lot. Ideally we should hold off from lighting your ears on fire and try to persuade you that you’re wrong, instead.
But are you really and truly open to hearing that persuasion? Or are you just going to insist we’re mistaken, lying, brainwashed, or insane? If so, why should we bother?
Here’s another interesting thing about Mike’s story. Mike told us before that he left Cuba many years ago-his English is excellent and he said he lived in New Jersey for many years (he claimed to have watched 9/11 from Weehawken). So let’s say Mike left Cuba around 1980 (maybe earlier). And maybe some guy told Mike he had sex in 1960 with an American girl. Maybe the guy even remembered her name and mentioned it to Mike. But Stanley Ann Dunham was completely unknown in 1980, as was her son. Hell, very few people outside Chicago had even heard of Barack Obama until his speech at the convention in 2004 (i know I hadn’t). So, why would Mike remember the name so clearly 30 years later after he heard this “Cundo’s” kiss-and tell story?
Of course there is a huge difference between criticism & mockery/ridicule.
Present a founded idea and discussion based on facts and evidence and you will invoke a discussion.
Make a declarative statement without providing context or explaining, and you invite criticism – usually in order to challenge or ask you to support your positions.
Those are both normal and reasonable methods of debate.
However, if you come here and just throw around a bunch of unreasoned statements, tall-tales, known mistruths, wild speculation, bumper-slogan machismo bias statements and/or half-cocked, unsubstantiated conspiracy theory – yes, you have deservedly opened yourself to mockery and ridicule and damage to your own reputation, integrity and credibility.
If you don’t like it, you have every opportunity to correct the record and back up your statements. So far, I’m disappointed that you’ve veered farther and farther away from evidence and more towards just flinging poo.
I actually thought that, although we often disagree, you were someone who could explain and defend your thoughts and positions. You need to return to being more rational in your argument and less lashing out blindly in mindless anger. Because when you do so, you seem to just say just indefensible nonsense and invite further mockery.
I would prefer to treat you seriously, but it is your choice.
So since you seem to think Obama is a socialist which of Obama’s policies match Castro’s?
Well, I don’t know if you just tell yourself these things because you want to believe it, or you just don’t get it.
First of all, you seem to equate anyone who is not a birther (which are the only folks still “concerned” about Obama’s birth certificate or NBC status) with somehow being on “the left”.
That is just an absurd and laughable statement to make on its face. I don’t know what has happened in the intervening weeks since you were here last, but all of your statements lately have moved so far to the right, that you are totally facing the cliff. It is like living at the South Pole – absolutely *everything* is north of you. Most conservatives don’t take the birthers seriously either. If anything, they dislike them even more because they don’t like having a small group of silly folks causing guilt by association and helping to discredit broader movements and more serious attempts to return to power.
And secondly, a request for a “long form” has been endlessly refuted here and other “non-birther” places, often with very lengthy and detailed reasons for such. You have to be intentionally ignoring these responses to even make such a ludicrous statement.
I’ll try to be short & sweet, with logical refute:
1. HI doesn’t provide the “long form” any more when you request your BC from them. They haven’t done so in well over a decade. So tough cookies and the point is moot.
2. The COLB *is* the form that HI provides for such requests and is what all of their agencies and any associated agency in any other state will use and have to accept as Full Faith & Credit as valid.
3. The only difference between the “long form” and the COLB is that the COLB doesn’t contain every field of info that the “long form” would. However, every field the COLB has on it would contain the exact same info.
4. Therefore, when the COLB clearly states born in Honolulu, HI, that wouldn’t differ between forms and in terms of the NBC issue, is the only relevant info here. There is no way you our any other birther can get around this one simple, concrete fact and that is what makes you so upset and why you keep trying to come up with outlandish theories or other ways to change the subject.
5. In conclusion, silly discussions about a “long form” are nothing but a red-herring distraction and deceit used by folks like you to try to come up with a way of denying the truth. That is NOT the official form in use and as the official COLB form provided and in use has all relevant data on it for the issue, any “long form” would be MOOT, as it can’t change the only relevant data here – born in Honolulu, HI.
Mike, all you are doing here is another dodge and pulling the “victim card” because you don’t like being called out for saying goofy things.
So, again, would you care to defend your goofy statement and back it up with facts and data to support it or even a broader explanation? Or are you honest and man enough to admit that you were just angry and lashing out with whatever words you could string together at the time, with no thought to their basis in reality or logic, nor with how silly it would sound?
Again, these are your own words:
Obviously, fear of “socialism” is what seems to be one of your primary driving factors that colors and biases all of your opinions.
I do have to ask for clarification about your personal experience with such, based on what you yourself just said is your basis for understanding it:
Now, assuming this “Cundo” story is true for a moment, can you please clarify if you mean to tell me that your whole basis and “personal experience” for knowing socialism is via second-hand stories???
For one thing, relying on second-hand tales to drive your personal fears is not a very sound way to get through life. Who’s to say that the tales weren’t inflated in ways that scared and scared you beyond credible reason?
For another thing, I don’t think you can equate anything that has happened in unstable or third-world counties with the U.S. or the rest of the “first world” for that matter. It is nothing against those other countries or the people living there, mind you. Simply they have never had strong, stable long-term governments or economies of scale like we do or they do in Great Brittan and places like that.
Therefore, your fear of what you call “socialism” is an apples to oranges comparison that just doesn’t match up to this country.
Until you can explain specific policy issues that are “socialism” and exactly how they would impact the US in a specific way that would “damage” this nation, you’re just making rather hollow bumper-sticker statements that are really no different than spewing meaningless insults.
If you want any of us to believe in the bogeymen you fear so much, you need to be able to both prove that they exist and articulate why we need to fear them.
Until then, I’m sorry, but I neither share your fears nor concerns and do not view them as serious nor credible.
Come on Sef, I thought I had made it very clear in my first post that I don’t believe this happened, come on guys, work with me here, I am trying to write a work of fiction, I’ll provide accurate geographical data and you can help with the rest ;~)
I did leave Cuba on Dec 1969.
I love you too.
It’s hard to separate your works of fiction from your “works of fiction”.
As I have indicated elsewhere, neither do I.
Hey I am sorry, I thought I had made it clear I was making a story up, I did not mean to make it sound like I was serious, you have good reason to question my credibility.
The majority of the posters are hell bent on defending Obama from those that want to see a long form birth certificate and will go to great lengths to mock and ridiculing those asking; at one point to have to give up and realize there is no point in discussing this in a serious manner.
Yes and no, let’s muddle things. There is a Sonora Matancera in Cuba today, whether it was fully formed with new musicians or some leftovers from the original, the government I guess thought it was a good idea to keep one alive in Cuba, the same goes for Orquesta Aragon. I went back to Cuba in 2003 after 31 years and saw where the current one practices, around the corner from where I grew up.
But for general purposes you are correct, they left Cuba and so did a lot of the good musicians of the time.
You guys are a tough crowd http://www.pbase.com/mcampos/image/92359995.jpg
Up to about 1o years ago in the Internet it used to work, people would argue/discuss differences of opinion and quite often they would meet in the middle. Nowadays it no longer seems to work, it seems all these discussions turn into urinating contests.
How are you going to convince me that Obama did show the long form birth certificate and if you choose to acknowledge that he did not, convince me that I should not be asking?
OK, I’ll try. Obama has not presented his long form birth certificate and in my opinion it is important for me to see that proof.
Now deconstruct this without mocking and ridicule.
I am sorry, I was not the first one taking this down the Goofy road:
These are not my words:
“I do just about everything right-handed”
Those are Scientist’s words and it wast the first Goofy comment. Sounds like a conspiracy here ;~)
I grew up under communism in Cuba, I thought I had made that clear early on. My experiences are not hearsay.
“I don’t think you can equate anything that has happened in unstable or third-world counties with the U.S”
I am sorry, but the “it can’t happen here” story does not hold any water, much bigger countries than Cuba have fallen under socialism/communism. Heck before 9/11 we thought “nah, they would not dare”
I do strongly believe the US can and is slowly been taken towards socialism and I know for a fact that socialism works slowly and by the time people realize what has happened it is too late, the controls have been put in place to snuff any dissent. Have you heard about the treaty that Hillary is signing or planning to sign that will circumvent the 2nd amendment and requires to disarm the population? Perhaps Obama is afraid of the armed citizen.
Neither you nor any of the other birthers have presented any valid reasons why you think you are important enough for the President of the United States to jump through hoops to provide you with any information which privacy laws specifically preclude. The relevant information, which was on his published COLB, was made available to the people who made decisions as to who should be on the ballot as a Presidential Candidate in 2008.
Your request is akin to a soldier asking to see the intelligence information upon which a military campaign is based. You don’t have the proper pay grade.
Mike, I already have. Either you did not read my latest reply where I did so again or you are willfully pretending to ignore it as if it never happened.
So again, here’s my response:
You and I will just have to agree to disagree here. Those are your fears, not mine.
For one thing, your 9/11 analogy is another apples to oranges comparison. Being attacked by terrorists is very different from law and policy and how a country is internally run.
Other than the scale or method of the attacks (using planes), there was really nothing that could truly be said to be unexpected about such a terrorist action. Did you forget when the towers were bombed in the ’90’s or even the incidents of domestic terrorism, such as Oklahoma City? The US has been concerned about the whole “suitcase nukes” issue for decades. The entire 50’s were spent with people doing “nuke drills” in case the USSR sent missiles our way. So, I guess my point is the threat of attack or terrorism has been around long before 9/11 and is nothing new.
Nor does that have any direct correlation to how our economic policies work in this country. So sorry, I completely fail to see your link to “socialism” there.
Furthermore, please give me examples of these “bigger” countries that aren’t also just 2nd or 3rd world economies & democracies. The fact is these countries never had a strong, solid economy & deeply embedded system of law to begin with. So again, I would have to argue that your comparing apples to oranges and your fears are not applicable in a realistic sense to the USA.
I mean those criticisms of your perspective in a respectful manner of disagreement. I want to be upfront and say that I don’t think it is silly for you to have the fears that you do. Just point out that I think they are unfounded and why and also challenge you to justify your POV. I think there are lots of people who have similar concerns and fears as you have just expressed.
But the key point I’m making is that a lot of reasonable people can let personal fears lead them to draw unreasonable conclusions and make apples to oranges analogies to justify them. That is completely my perspective of what is happening here.
You did say that earlier, and I had taken you at your word for it. But then you came up with this “Cundo” story, which didn’t seem to align well with your previous statements and that muddied the waters of what to believe from what you’ve said.
You have now cleared up the matter completely that the “Cundo” story was just fiction. Obviously from the responses you got, you can see that such was not evident from your initial post. But I do appreciate you clearing that up.
As you have also cleared up, you left Cuba on Dec 1969 went back to Cuba in 2003 after 31 years. So yes, thank you. That helps understand and appreciate your perspective. The only thing I don’t know, (and forgive me if you’ve mentioned it before and I have just forgotten), was how old you were when you left Cuba in 1969?
Hey, I just want you to know that even if we disagree and don’t see all things the same, I want you to know that I truly feel that you love this country as much as I, as a native born citizen do and I’m glad you’ve made the US your home. I sincerely hope that one day, after Fidel (and some of the old guard in his regime) finally pass that things will improve over there as well as our relationship with Cuba. I for one would love to visit Cuba someday, but not until they have a more open system of government in place.
Did you hear about the one where Hillary was a lesbian too. Sounds like hearsay conspiracy theories. The fact is Obama has taken no steps to restrict the 2nd amendment. In fact he’s done the opposite by allowing arms in national parks.
??? No, I have not heard anything about this and unless you can give me some legitimate source references for this, it sounds like nothing but another goofy made up conspiracy to me.
Just like the crazy stories of FEMA camps and black helicopters, these things are the stuff of fiction which conspiracy folks come up with to frighten the overly susceptible.
No one is going to take away your guns, dude. Just look around. That kind of nonsense has been bandied about ever since before the 2008 election (a lot of it driven with NRA backing, as the gun & ammo companies make huge profits if they can trick people into buying more and increasing the prices at the same time).
So, where do 2nd Amendment rights stand today, almost 1.5 years into his term? Well, the only federal law change that went into affect in those regards was to INCREASE 2nd amendment gun rights – you can now carry in National Parks…so woo-hoo! On the state level, the only laws I’ve seen in this same timeframe are those that also increased 2nd amendment rights – people open carrying in bars, restaurants, businesses & cafes and such.
So again, please tell me what is the point of all these people stocking up on ammo & guns at over-inflated prices? Where is this threat we were promised was “imminent”? Sounds like nothing but a fear-mongering con-job campaign by those that stand to profit from the sales, if you ask me.
But the point is, it not important for the majority of voters, or for Congress, or the courts, to see that “long form”.
Partly that is because is is generally understood that the short-form COLB is the [b]most appropriate[/b], [b]legal[/b] form of proof available.
You could just as easily say that you won’t change your opinion unless you see a photograph of Obama as a newborn in a hospital, or until you have a personal conversation with the doctor who delivered Obama. Someone might tell you that most of Obama’s early childhood photos were lost because his mother moved around a lot and died many years ago, and a lot of her stuff couldn’t be found after she died. Or they might tell you that the doctor who delivered Obama died many years ago, and isn’t available for interview.
[b]You[/b] have a right to your opinions, but you don’t have a right or ability to invent new legal requirements. You can believe that Obama was born on Jupiter if it makes you more comfortable, and you can decide that nothing short of a Youtube video of Obama’s delivery will convince you that he even [b]was[/b] born — but none of that has any bearing on his legal eligibility to be President.
Since under the US system of laws, the Hawaii short-form COLB is the accepted, ordinary way for people born in Hawaii to document their births; and because under the US system of laws, the Congress hears and determines any questions related to eligibility at a joint session several weeks before inauguration — Obama clearly [b]is[/b] the President, and he clearly [b]is[/b] eligible.
The problem isn’t your opinion — the problem is that your belief that your personal opinion can somehow transcend and replace the US law and constitution.
Hi Mike,
I’m not going to deconstruct your statement, because the term “deconstruct” refers to a specific method of literary analysis and not to simple fault-finding. However, I will try to critique your statement in a civil way.
First, thank you for taking the time to express your opinion, and to express it coherently and concisely. However, the statement, “Obama has not presented his long-form birth certificate and in my opinion it is important for me to see that proof” is not an effective argument. Beyond a terse, “So what?” it does not require response.
At the very least, an effective argument begins as a claim that is not self-evident. That is, the claim must be capable of being contested. Here, for example, are arguments that are not self-evident and can be contested. “Among the three primary business at the heart of the Gulf oil spill, British Petroleum must be held chiefly responsible.” Or, “The best way to stimulate economic growth is to cut corporate tax rates.”
On the other hand, your statement doesn’t quality as an effective argument. You write, “Barack Obama has not presented his long form birth certificate, and in my opinion, it is important for me to see the truth.” Leaving aside the credibility of the “long-form” issue, you’ll see that “in my opinion, it is important for me to see the truth” is a self-evident statement of personal judgment and cannot be contested. For example, if I say, “In my opinion, whole milk tastes better than skim” I’ve made a personal judgment, but not an argument. Judgments made by non-experts don’t possess much authority.
Likewise, I can’t argue against the idea that you think it’s important to see the so-called “long form.” If you feel it’s important, then by golly, you feel it’s important, and that’s the end to it. Your statement describes what you believe and nothing more, and given the nature of your statement, I can only argue against YOU, against your opinion. If you want me to respond, I can’t critique facts, evidence, reasoning, etc.; I can only respond to your opinion. That’s why this type of thinking, while very common, invites personal attack and insult.
In closing, you’ve presented a personal judgment that is without value as an argument–and it lacks value because you don’t have the specialized knowledge, experience, or training that turns opinion into compelling evidence. On the other hand, if Chief Justice Roberts would say, “I think it’s important for Hawaii to release all of President Obama’s birth records,” his personal opinion, because of his position on the Supreme Court, would have enormous weight and persuasiveness. Nevertheless, Roberts’ opinion would still not carry the force of law, and it could not compel the state of Hawaii to change its policies on privacy.
Well, that’s my two cents. I’ve been trying to teach college students the difference between opinions and arguments for the last twenty-five years, and I’m not always successful. If I failed to make my point clear, or if I presented it in an insulting way, I apologize; maybe someone will state things better than I did.
Arthur – I think you & Expelliarmus did an excellent job in your responses.
The question now is to find out if Mike C is an honest broker and will acknowledge those responses and mine, or just go back to ignoring them and try to come back in a matter of days or weeks with the same trope that “nobody will answer his long form” question.
We will soon find out if he is really about integrity in conversation or just pulling cheap concern-troll birther tactics with intent to mislead. The jury is still out.
I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt here, but only his responses will let us know.
I didn’t doubt that you watched 9/11 from Weehawken. That may be the one truthful thing you’ve said here. Like a stopped clock that’s right twice a day.
Ple
Please show me where you said you were making the story up. You said, “the facts seem to point towards her visit being real.” (meaning Stanley Ann Dunham). I think you tried to pull a fast one and got caught, because I’m a sceptical guy. Bernie Madoff never got a penny of my money, because when someone claims he earns 12% every single year, I smell a lie.
As for Obama and the long form, it’s actually not important at all that you see it. Why do I say that? Let’s follow the logic. Is there anything that could possibly be on the form that would cause you to vote for him in 2012 or support anything he does between now and then? Based on your statements, I would say, absolutely not. So really, it makes no difference to you at all. You don’t like him. Nothing could make you like him not could anything make you dislike him any more than you already do.
Oh, my, I’ve practically begged numerous times for a birther to bet with! Yippee! Most states have moved away from issuing long forms to issuing COLB-type forms. When those born in the last 10-20 reach the ages when they begin running for President, there will be no long forms to ask for.
So, how much are you betting???
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE59E0Q920091015
Google Hillary Treaty disarm and you’ll find lots of stuff on it. Unless you also believe that Reuters is in bed with the birthers.
I was almost 15. I have a lot of family there and have kept abreast of what goes on there all this time.
And yes, a big YES to me loving the US, both my parents spent the rest of their days being grateful to have been given the opportunity to migrate and make a good life for themselves and me.
My flag went up this morning and I spent quite a bit of time teaching my children about the significance of Memorial day, the schools here in CA do a great job of making it sound like a day to barbecue hot dogs and hamburgers.
>> Scientist makes a simple funny pun on handedness <<
Let's see, his pun or attempt at comedy is simple, but me picking up the ball and doing a play on words with handiness=political inclination was evil? Wow, I am speechless.
Also the comment about "you don't matter" was a good eye opener, not that I have heard similar comments before, but not so directly worded. The Democrats, the party that "cares about the people and equality" does not see all men as created equally, you are golden unless you disagree with their phylosophy.
Someone asked me about similarities between Obama/Democrats and what I experienced under socialism/communism, there is your first one, if you disagree with them you are scum.
I know you are a bunch of nice people, but these discussions are fruitless, no, don't worry, I won't be coming back "in a few days" to bother you with what you perceive as a long list of personal flaws.
Good evening.
Google Hillary Treaty disarm, or similar words and you’ll find it, the administration is signing a global treaty of disarmament. Hillary a lesbian? interesting, I have not heard that one.
You realize, I hope, that the proposed treaty deals with the international arms trade, and has absolutely nothing to do with the Second Amendment.
You realize, I hope, that before any treaty can be ratified 2/3 of the Senate must concur. The Senate will never consent to a treaty which restricts the Second Amendment rights of U.S. citizens.
Mike:
The link you provided describes Secretary Clinton’s efforts to regulate the flow of weapons among nations, e.g., fighter jets, tanks, APC’s and the like. It has nothing to do with disarming American citizens, nor with altering our constitutional right of to own guns.
Mike, for you to suggest that this treaty will infringe on Americans’ ability or right to own firearms is either a poor attempt at humor or the perverse reasoning of a very deluded mind. Please tell us you were joking.
Interesting. You left Cuba in 1969 and you returned in 2003. But, according to my calculations, 2003 was 34 years after 1969, not 31 years. Hmmm….
Ricky:
Mike is obviously having one one with us. First of all, I’ve never met a Cuban-American named Mike. Second, Mike doesn’t type with a Spanish accent, so he couldn’t possibly be from Cuba. Oh, maybe he’s from Cuba City, Wisconsin, but not Cuba Libre.
Good one, MIke! Had us all fooled, but the masquerade is over. You’re such an Anglo! What’s you’re last name by the way? Does the “C” stand for, Cunningham? Or is it Callahan? Or Czarnakey. Or maybe Criswell?
I suggest everyone read and meditate upon Arthur’s analogy. I find it profound and with great practical application.
No Mike, that was a great source and I appreciate the article. I read the entire thing and I still don’t see what you were claiming.
The article quite clearly is talking about international arm sales:
That doesn’t have anything to do with the 2nd amendment at all. That is to try to regulate stuff, where we along with other nations have been extremely “bad” in the past. Does Iran Contra ring a bell to you? What about Saddam? You realize that we were one of the primary weapons sources for him, prior to the 1st Gulf War, right?
I’m all for what Clinton is trying to do in that treaty, based on the article you provided.
Again, I’m a bit disappointed in you, because I don’t know if you are just trying to trick and mislead me. Your original statement I questioned and asked you for support specifically said:
Again, these are your exact words. So I will ask you one more time: where is there any treaty that “circumvent the 2nd amendment and requires to disarm the population? ”
Because the link you provided says no such thing, nor anything even remotely close to being interpreted as such.
I misspoke, I am allowed this right? Or is that reserved for the domain of the chosen few such as Hillary Clinton?
What’s the significance of the mistake? Please do fill me in.
To be accurate it was 33 1/2 years after I had left.
Well, I agree, at 15 you were definitely old enough to have a sense of the broader world around you and how communism was impacting your country. So my respect and heart goes out to you for what you had to experience and also how scary and challenging it must have been to uproot at such an age and start a new in our country.
As I mentioned, we may disagree here, but I’m glad to have you here as one of us in the USA. Does our country have a lot of problems that need to be addressed and are there areas in politics, economics, livelihood, etc. where there is corruption and mistakes – most definitely. Are there areas where other countries have overtaken us already or areas where other countries have some things that we don’t or don’t have some problems that we do? Yes, that is also true. Do you & I see things very differently and is this a nation full of very diverse environments, cultures, religions, & political viewpoints that span way beyond whatever small differences we have? Absolutely!
Overall, would I still say that this is the best country on earth and I’d rather live where I am than anywhere else…YOU BET!!!
I think you & I are passionate on things because we both love our country and want it to be the best it can be. We just have some different views on how we see things both today and where they need to go in the future.
We’ve got our flag back up on the front porch too. Actually, we usually keep it up constantly during all of the warm weather months (winters here in Ohio can be brutal and rough on flags), except for times when it should be displayed differently or taken down, in accordance with things.
Memorial Day is a big holiday in my family. My wife’s dad actually fought in WWII. Every year we take my mother-in-law, my father-in-law (who is actually my wife’s “step-father” as her real dad passed away years ago), and my niece (now 10) to the city where my wife’s dad is buried to listen to the Memorial Day ceremony, experience the parade, and then go to the cemetery for the service and reading of the names of those that served and are buried there. My wife & her mom always cry when they hear her dad’s name called on the roster. Then we spend some solemn time where they visit her dad’s grave and tend to it. Then we head back to my in-laws for a family grill-out for the rest of the day. Wonderful times! I’m really close with my father-in-law (he’s like a 2nd dad to me) and the holiday is an emotional time for him too, as he was a Marine who served in Viet Nam. He rarely talks about those events with family, except sometimes to me. So it is a very important day in my family.
Except now your are misquoting me. I never said “evil”.
I said that your response to a simple pun was to respond with a made-up personal attack, while you were trying to claim that you were being attacked in the same statement. I called you out on doing so and doing exactly what you were railing against.
You have made a pattern of accusing anyone who disagrees with you as being communist, socialist, or a “lefty”. While the actual meanings and definitions of these words are different from what you are implying, it is clear that your intent is to make such statements as a vindictive smear, as those are obviously words or concepts that you hold in contempt.
Therefore, I will state again that you responded to a harmless pun with an attack response and then claimed victim-hood, instead of simply making a witty joke in response.
I noticed how you declined again to every correct or defend your original statement and explain it, despite my repeated re-quoting of it exactly and asking you to explain. Please show me some respect and quit trying to dodge or change the subject on such simple matters. Either say that you were just overreacting and venting and the statement has no actual basis or provide your evidence and explain why you think there is some sort of connection between one’s handedness and their political views.
It is really that simple. I have dialogued with you here in good faith. Many times you have done so in return, but sometimes your responses have fallen short.
Thanks for sharing. I have the utmost respect for people that serve in the military.
I can understand your point with that comment. It does come off rather harsh, doesn’t it? Of course, I was not the one who said that, but I read the full context and follow-up explanations that Sef gave.
I want to start off by letting you know that I don’t like what he said or how he worded it to you either. I think it was brusque and borne out of frustration and definitely a hostile choice of words. So I’m with you on this so far.
However, did you focus only on the harshness of the words or did you ever grasp the point he was trying to make? The way I read it, he was trying to convey 2 key things:
1. You would likely never vote for Obama no matter what. Therefore, the NBC issue wouldn’t have any impact on changing your vote.
2. Voting is the only role you or I have in the real legal sense in these matters. The proper authorities for vetting and validating a candidate and the authenticity of his papers are the respective bureaus, political entities, government officials (including congress) and legal authorities involved. As neither you nor I have any capacity as any of those officials, our words or opinions on thes issue have no legal or political basis, nor impact.
Obama will simply be president until 2012 and then you get the chance to vote again and if he is re-elected, he is. Simple as that. That’s how our system of government and laws work.
Again, I must ask why you have to include in your responses to being mad at one individual a broad attack on an entire political party. That really is excessive and no such direct correlation can be made based on the comments of a few people you’ve argued with in the past.
You again do the very same thing in your very next statement:
All I am asking is that you should practice what you preach. You broadly and unfairly lump and paint anyone who disagrees or challenges you with a very broad brush and in words that you consider to convey extremely negative context.
Although you end and choose to leave with a polite statement (which I appreciate), I must say that I am quite disappointed that your only responses were on non-relevant issues or where you chose to change the topic to decry personal attacks (which issuing attack statements, I might add).
I thought you cared and wanted a response to the “long form” issue and other such pertinent questions, to which I and others gave very detailed and sourced responses.
I must say, your complete silence on such matters seems to only confirm suspicions that you were not actually here for honest or serious discussion & answers on the NBC issues and for that, I am very disappointed.
Yes, it seems. Definitely unfortunately. I was hoping to be wrong on that. There are some birther folks I just completely don’t get and have no respect for. There are others, who I actually “get”, even though I may disagree with their views or their communication tactics.
I actually like Mike C as a “person” (instead of just a spreader of birtherism), based on the personal info he’s been willing to share. Unlike some others who have made up a lot of their past (and I might just be naive on this and being taken for a ride), I still believe that most of what Mike C’s told us about himself is likely true and that is the area I feel he’s been his most honest and shown his true self.
On various aspects of those details, Mike C. reminds me of several friends and associates I have, who I also differ with greatly on viewpoint issues, but otherwise get along with very well and have hung out with for years. I stand by my statements that I feel he is a proud American that loves this country as much as I do (and we all do).
He just tends to too easily view too much of the rest of this country as his “enemies”, unfortunately.
I don’t know what else I can tell you to prove I am being truthful/ Why do I go by Mike? Because when I started high school in NJ in 1971 the American kids would butcher my name, Miguel, someone in a class started calling me Mike and it stuck.
Good explanation about the “you don’t matter” quote, I think you can say the same thing with a different tone, to me that kind of statement means negotiations are off and we’ll go to war.
You are absolutely right, blanket accusations never lead to positive discussion. The problem comes from hearing attacks over and over from Democrats, after a while it is hard to try to keep the stuff separated. I am seeing too much of that stuff since a few years ago and I think it is getting worse. From where I stand Obama could not care a rodent’s rectal orifice about the Republicans, during the entire health care debate he alienated the entire party over and over, except for that one unproductive meeting which he called in at the last minute.
The insult and mockery is raising, the snide comments about the Republicans being irrelevant come too often too fast, I am sorry but humans usually react negatively to such barrage of attacks.
I believe the country is in a non-violent civil war and it is going to get worse. The good news for the Democrats is that their numbers are increasing and will more likely do so even more once the illegal immigrants become legal. Right now we have a single party in control and in my mind that has never been a good thing, no matter which side is on the driver’s seat.
BTW: How does one write in English with a Spanish accent? I have never given that much thought, but I guess I can try. Mi naime is Ricki Ricardo … how does that sound? ;~)
Just another in a long line of dubious claims which you have made. For example:
the 5 Freeway is almost empty on my way to work
We are paying more than 50% of our salaries in taxes, fees, etc.
Ann Durken, mother of Obama, at age 18 visited Cuba
Then there was your unsupported claim about people who are on public assistance but have satellite dishes, your claim that Obama and Hillary Clinton are trying to undo the Second Amendment, and now you seem to have a problem with your own personal timeline.
Mike C, I think you realize that I pretty much am taking you at your word on your personal story here. Please don’t make me look foolish in doing so.
If you need to know why there is a lot of skepticism, then I will say that past folks claiming to just be asking “birther related” questions have given us elaborate personal stories & back stories that they clung too and repeated. However, in these situations, it eventually came out that they made the stories up. Within recent months, two people that still post here (WTF & Scott Brown) were busted doing this. In some cases, on more than one occasion.
So, there is a good reason for us (and myself) to keep a skeptical eye.
Furthermore, although you were quick to come forward and admit that the story about the Cuban guy yesterday was not true, it wasn’t clear from the beginning. In the future, just try to be very clear if you are making a joke or giving a fictional scenario to convey your point. It was not clear when you first stated that, and such confusion only adds to the skepticism levels, especially with the past situations of others, as I have explained.
Additionally, as a word of advice – it would really help your case if you expressed your opinions and the things you are questioning as just that – opinions and questions. What I’m trying to say is try to avoid making declarative statements, which indicate fact, on things that are only a matter of opinion, or worse, are in doubt. This is probably the biggest birther mistake that invokes ire and destroys their credibility – making statements with authority that can’t be backed up.
As a reminder follow-up to that, please try to refrain from painting such declarative broad-brush assessments of others, which you often invoke with negative stereotypes. That too is not only antagonistic, but damaging to credibility and it is a form of bias and bigotry. You totally come across smart enough to understand that concept completely and realize what I mean, so I truly hope that we won’t have to be talking about that issue again going forward.
Finally, the topic of this site is Obama Conspiracy Theories. You have posted questions on that topic (such as asking about the long form) and several people (myself included) have given you answers, to which you offer no response whatsover; yet you post instead a criticism of others that seems on its face to be an intentional ducking of the issue or changing the topic. That too harms your overall credibility, as it looks like you aren’t being honest about wanting answers to these questions and instead are here with nothing but an agenda.
I give this advice out of good will and in the spirit of dialog. As I’ve said, I have overall enjoyed our conversations and I just want to improve the overall quality of the dialog and operate in good faith.
I want to make sure I understand you correctly, as sometimes it is easy to misconstrue intent of statements online. My interpretation of what you just said is that you & I agree that the other poster’s tone (I think it was Sef) was inappropriate with the choice of words “you don’t matter” and your anger at that statement is with him and not me. I just want to make sure that you aren’t mad at me for what he said. I also got from your words that if he had explained things as I tried to, instead of using the more hostile curt words he chose, it would have made sense to you and not invoked your anger. Just so you know, I totally know what you mean about “go to war”. I can get set off too. I think there’s an old saying “them’s fighting words!”. That is so true! So I think its settled at least on this issue and that we are in complete agreement here, right?
I do understand what you are saying here Mike. I agree that overall, there is a lot of partisan hostility out there and I definitely have heard many Dems make immediate snap judgment decisions and generalizations against all of the GOP or all Conservatives.
This problem will not get better until both sides realize that they are doing this to each other. You of all people should agree that many Conservatives & GOP folks also make constant negative assessments & statements about Dems and liberals.
So, it is a long standing problem that has only gotten worse and worse and more bitterly divided, particularly over the past few decades. The only way it is going to improve is if folks from both sides start by holding themselves accountable to the same standards of behavior they wish on others and to not group-demonize the other side.
Well, I think I see where you are coming from, but I don’t share your perspective on this. What you say about reacting negatively to a barrage of attacks – I totally get this – that makes perfect sense. However, this is part of what I said above – a continuing, escalating double-standard of each side bitterly attacking the other.
The GOP is just as guilty of it and from my point of view, accountability for one’s actions are an important quality of integrity. It would have been one thing if anyone had taken accountability or expressed regrets for the mistakes of the past and offered solutions to help fix our nature. To be honest, in my perspective I do place the majority (but not all) of the blame the GOP for the lack of bi-partisanship after Obama took office. It was quite clear that their decision was a cynical one to, instead of try to work together to address issues during a time of great crisis in this country, decide that opposing the president at every turn would be a better “political strategy” and that instead of winning by building solutions, their path to victory would be to try to block the President from succeeding. That is how I see things and I think it is very bad for our country. Do I think there are Dems and elements of the Administration that helped contribute to that “politics over solutions” atmosphere from the very beginning? Yes, absolutely. But overall, I feel a greater and more lock-step wholesale approach of this has been happening from the GOP’s leadership. But then that is a political discussion, and goes off the tracks of what Dr. C wants discussed on his blog, so I’ll stop there before our conversation get’s sidetracked further on that and ends up being whisked away to the “Off Topic” thread wasteland. 😉
Well, in some ways, I agree. I don’t think that an actual “civil war” can result. Could things get as worse as the riots & deaths of the turbulent 1960’s? Now, that is possible, but I don’t foresee things being able to degrade much beyond that. Maybe a few home-grown terrorist attacks & some more “Ruby Ridge” type events, but nothing that could approach a national scale. With 24/7 communications and easy travel and such a well-established government and legal structure, any attempts of an actual “Civil War”, like what happened in the 1860’s would be fairly quickly squashed.
I sincerely hope that comprehensive immigration reform is addressed soon. I think both sides of the aisle have political fears and lobbyist pressures trying to prevent them from addressing this problem. I wish that they would see, for the good of the nation and everyone involved, the right thing is also the best outcome for everyone – secure the borders, mandate and provide secure IDs, force businesses to comply both with immigration law and with worker’s wage, benefits & rights laws, & find some realistic, reasonable, and humane, yet strong way to address those that are here illegally and to prevent more folks from coming here in an illegal fashion. That means INS staffing deficiencies along with re-evaluating visa types, requirements & quotas will need to be reassessed and revised accordingly. I also never want to hear again that these are jobs that “Americans won’t do”. That is not an accurate statement. I think a more accurate statement is that Americans will do any work as long as it pays a fair wage accorded to the position, protects applicable Constitutional freedoms and provides fair worker protections and benefits accorded to the type and nature of the work.
I don’t want a one party system either, but neither am I a fan of how the current two-party system has worked. I wish it could be about the best qualified individuals that are the best fit for the makeup of the region & concerns that they represent, instead of what seems to boil down to the antics of “high school football rivalry” (If one side is for something, all of a sudden, the other side is against it…but if the power shifts, so might their positions…and somehow all the “devoted followers” of that team just rah-rah the their teams talking points and go along with it and trash-talk the other side).
However, I don’t feel that the current GOP is acting as a party do anything, so I’d rather see them (or at least their leadership structure) get replaced by someone else who has ideas and is serious about governing and coming up with solutions instead of thinking that being an obstacle to progress or legitimate working together is in any way good for our country). Anyways, I realize that you probably see things differently and here is an area where we can amicably agree to disagree and move on from too, as I realize that this too is off-topic for Dr. C’s blog.
Hilarious! Thanks for the late night laugh! 🙂
Buddy, read my lips, I WAS JOKING.
You have captured my meaning quite well. I apologize for any hurt feelings, but all this stuff does get very frustrating after awhile. Especially when you see the same stuff being posted by “new” people & we don’t know if these are really “new” people.
I don’t feel that it is really easy on this site for new people to get a rundown on the facts of the “Obama Conspiracy” as it has evolved over the years. People who have frequented the site have an idea of the issues, but for new people it is more difficult. Maybe a “spreadsheet” with the issues & arguments would be easier for people to grasp & refer to.
I really don’t get it, someone questioned why a Cuban would be named Mike, I explain it and that makes is so that I am trying to make you look foolish? Geez, you can’t win around here can you? At least I am giving a first name.
You are correct, I have not responded to the long thoughtful explanations as to why the COLB is sufficient, I apologize for that. The explanation is very plausible. Perhaps I have not felt compelled to respond because I have not confirmed the statement that most states no longer issue long form birth certificates. I looked at the scans of the birth certificates of my 2 children (5 and 2) and both are long forms, one is from NJ and the other from CA.
>> it wasn’t clear from the beginning <<
In my first post about the subject I said I did not believe it and I found it amusing, someone pulled the "give me the proof" card and I made a joke out of it.
Look, no sense continuing to discuss this stuff, in a lot of the threads a lot of you demand not to be painted with a broad brush and most of the threads do nothing but insult and mock. I am thru with this, you guys win. I don't have the time to waste on senseless discussions.
Good to hear that you’re interested in confirming things. Always a good idea. It is true that states are moving to computerized certificates. I don’t know for certain that it has reached a majority of states, but it either has or will shortly (I work in the field). But I would minimize the importance of this. So long as the computer abstract is the standard form from Hawaii (and this is confirmed by the Hawaii DoH), that is the form that matters.
Wow, did you land in the WRONG place! 🙄
You make a good point. The volume of theories and discussion has grown by my capacity to organize. I tried a few things, like the FAQ (top menu) and organizing articles by topic (right side). I sponsored the Obama Fringe Wiki, a good start, but not enough support.
Probably the best way to use this site (and what I often do myself) is to do a Google search on the topic with the additional: “site:obamaconspiracy.org” (without the quotes).
Of course if Obama were really funding the Obots, there would be organization and coordinationation beyond what you see in the real world.
Absolutely and as I stated reading your response I realized I should have added that. Both sides are throwing mud at each other constantly. Who threw the first stone? ;~)
The way I see it, politicians have us exactly where they want us, bickering at each other while they go on doing their dirty deed.
As for the GOP coming together in time of a national crisis, I agree and I have another take on the issue, the economy was in flames, the health care debate should have waited. On the other hand Obama claimed that economic recovery depends on health care reform, I am sitting back waiting for that to take effect.
The rest of your post makes perfect sense, I am not going to add to it.
Late breaking news … I just saw Sef’s post about distrusting “new” people that may not be new. If this is such an issue, why not fix it, why not demand the use of first and last names and confirm them? The aviation forum I belong to does this and it has worked very well throughout the years.
It’s not so much a matter of “distrust” as it is that people post the same discredited “arguments” without providing the requested proof. Maybe a statement that they had read & understood the FAQ prior to posting would be useful.
Obama was talking about the impact of health care reform on long-term economic recovery. As for you waiting for it to take effect, I would have thought that you would be aware of the fact that it will take several years for most of the provisions of the health care reform bill to be implemented.
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=202b9ea6-39fe-45db-90e8-4611c127f0a7
You really expect to see immediate results from a law which has yet to go into effect?
Come on Rickey, you would not think a birther would be aware of anything?
Amazing what length people would go to defend socialistic programs. I bet you poll 100 people that are aware of Obama’s policy and they will tell you that Obama implied it would have an immediate effect. Bottom line, the house is burning and Obama is out doing the landscaping, we need jobs NOW!
What’s socialistic about a program that has everyone buying insurance from private companies?? I have owned a business and having to worry about health insurance for myself and my employees was an enormous pain. I would much rather just pay my taxes, stick to running my business and let the government manage health care. And yes, I have lived in countries with real government-run health care (which the Democrats were too wussy to put in) and it works just as well as what the US has and costs 50% less. Stop throwing labels around, Miguel. It’s what works that’s important, not the ideological label.
“Bottom line, the house is burning and Obama is out doing the landscaping, we need jobs NOW!”
Reality is that the government has very little it can do to affect the overall unemployment rate. Even the massive government spending to create jobs has little overall affect.
Obama had run for office- and was elected- promising to reform health care insurance. So he fulfilled a campaign promise. Personally, I would have preferred a single payer system more like Canada’s but Obama chose the approach that utilizes private insurance companies. Hardly a true socialist.
Anyway, what do you recommend to generate jobs now?
Name the actual socialistic programs. Again you imply Obama is a socialist but everytime you’ve been asked to provide information on what policies of his that are socialistic you do a little dance.
Just curious, would those people be birthers, Obama supporters or both?
Could you provide evidence of non-birthers on this site not providing requested proof?
Let us poll Americans and find out how many want to give up our Socialist programs
How many want to abandon Social Security?
How many want to dismantle Unemployment insurance?
How many want to abandon Medicare?
How many want to abandon Medicaid?
How many want to abandon our Veterans Hospitals?
Those are the main ‘socialist’ programs I can think of. I suppose we should include Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also. We should also eliminate the home owners interest credit.
How many want to eliminate public libaries?
How many want to elimnate publicly funded education?
Should all public parks be for profit entities?
Should all subsidies to farmers be eliminated?
Should all subsidies to business be eliminated?
Wow- I am pretty sure that I am just scrapping the service of all of our Socialist programs.
Lets move on to subsidized school lunch programs and government health clinics.
Public hospitals
Oh the horrors of our socialist system.
That just got a little bit more complex, have you read about the new requirement for 1099 reporting that comes into effect in 2012? Basically you’ll have to send 1099s to everyone you do over $600 in business including corporations, that means you have to send 1099s to Costco, Verizon, the electric company, etc. Managing this new deluge of paperwork is going to add to the cost of doing business and will be passed on to the consumer.
Pelosi said”We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it” I don’t know in which planet this makes sense, but surely not here on earth.
The CBO already said the package is going to cost 115 billion more than projected and they are already acknowledging that services will have to be rationed, exactly the same arguments the Republicans made, but no one was listening. The underestimation is probably just the tip of the iceberg, by the time this is all said and done it is going to be a behemoth expense.
What’s socialistic about it? The government forcing people to spend money under the gun for “the good of all” If you are 20 something, healthy and cannot afford health insurance you may want to go without it until you can afford it. Here in CA if you are single you can barely survive on one salary, now the government is going to force you to buy insurance under the gun or is going to take the money away from you at year’s end no matter what. Perhaps you don’t think that’s socialism, I surely think so.
I fully agree, yet Obama promised that if we sank our children into debt for a generation or two we would have jobs.
What would I do right now to generate jobs? I am in the computer field, I have no knowledge on how to generate jobs, but everything I have read tells me what Obama is trying has historically not worked, it did not work in Japan for 20 years, in Argentina and other places. What I understand would work is help businesses with tax breaks and incentives so that they can get productive, not increase their tax burden and sink them in more bureaucracy such as sending a 1099 to Costco.
I would say that pretty much all of birtherdom rests on discredited arguments (although they might not concede that they are discredited). I don’t know who to give as an arbiter of this proposition since the birthers reject the mainstream media (who very definitely say birther arguments are discredited) and anyone else that would be considered an authority by the general population. So yes, “those people” include the birthers.
I would like to make a distinction between “Obama supporters” and “supporters of Obama’s eligibility.” I can only talk about the latter group. Certainly on this web site, you will see very little discredited arguments made by eligibility supporters (let’s call them by their birther name, “obots”). It happens from time to time, but it is a notable event. If you look at what I consider the main Internet forum on Obama eligibility, PolitiJab.com, you will likewise see extremely well-informed and up-to-date comments from the obots. The obot web sites I know are likewise highly factual (e.g. Native and Natural Born Citizenship Explored, Barachryphal, Oh for Goodness Sakes and What’s your Evidence? (Links at http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/bookmarks/blogs/)
When you move outside specialist discussions and onto a general forum (something like Fox News or a newspaper site), then you will see a deterioration in the quality of all argument, including that of obots. However, since obots start from such a huge advantage in terms of real facts rather than rumors, they still come out much more factual than their birther counterparts, or so I have observed when I visited such forums. However, I have seen from time to time an obot making a totally false claim. I usually take the time to correct these when I see them. There’s not enough time in the world to correct all the birthers.
Comments in general tend to lack supporting hyperlinks, probably because of the difficulty keeping track of them and inserting them into the comments. Hyperlinks can also get comments tangled up with spam filters.
Socialistic programs from Obama? All of them, tax the rich to support the poor, spread the wealth, etc. Can you tell me that those 2 mantras are not socialistic? If not, can you define your idea of socialism so that we can have a base to work with?
How is your argument any different than that people without children shouldn’t have to pay school taxes?
Pretty big difference, people that own houses usually have either a good source of income or a large equity on a house. Single people starting out sometimes are struggling to survive and perhaps even pay their student loan. My sister in law is in that boat, graphics designer trying to make it on her own, single, starting out paying her student loans and cannot afford to buy health insurance. She’s healthy, but she is going to be force to buy insurance she can’t afford.
I have owned houses since 1982 and did not have children until 5 years ago, I never had a problem paying taxes to support the school system because I could afford it. On the other hand when I was in my eqarly 20s and single I struck out on my own for some time things were tight and health insurance had to go.
I see a difference, but apparently you don’t.
It was a simple question, I assume the answer is only birthers are dishonest…. interesting. I wonder what the ratio of birthers vs. non-birthers is.
And had you gotten sick when you didn’t have health insurance & you had not been able to afford medical care why would you then have been in favor of socialism to support you?
Tax the rich to support the poor? You mean rolling back the tax cuts that were set to expire even if Obama wasn’t in office. The rich were taxed higher under reagan. Reagan must have been a total commie. There is no spreading of the wealth. Taxes are lower than they’ve been in years. Again you can’t point to any specific socialistic programs. It seems your idea of socialism is anything the guy you didn’t vote for does.
I was asking you to provide the evidence so someone might be able to provide answers.
It will be a minor inconvenience that any decent tax software can handle. Try looking for health insurance. These complexities come precisely from NOT having a single payer (or if you prefer, socialist) system. I’ve worked in single payer systems; there both employers and employees pay a % of income. It’s just another line on the return, like FICA. Everybody pays, everybody gets. Simple.
As for your sister-in-law, sorry, but I’m not sympathetic. Insurance works only if everyone pays in. What do you think car insurance would cost if only bad drivers bought it? Suppose she gets sick or has an accident and goes to the hospital and runs up a huge bill. Who do you think will pay if she’s uninsured (Hint: you and me). I’d rather have everyone in the pool.
Personally, single payer would have much better than either the current system or the reform. Unfortunately guys yelling socialism made a reasonable discussion impossible. They should have done single payer anyway, since you are yelling socialism even for a reform that is absolutely NOT.
And if you want to say it is, explain how private insurance companies=socialism. Karl Marx is rolling in his grave.
I did not, I paid out of pocket for checkups, I simply could not afford it, you can’t wring blood out of a stone. If I had gotten sick and had to go to the hospital eventually I would had paid for the care, most likely in installment payments with interest, etc. I did not expect anyone to pickup the tab for me.
No Sef, I asked you a simple question which being that you are a lot more familiar with the forum that I am you should have had no problem answering, but you answered my simple question with another question.
Funny how a lot of those government run programs are bankrupt and those are a drop in the bucket compared to health care which will comprise 6% of our economy. Everything the government manages turns to excrement, so will our health care system. That’s an opinion, I have no facts to prove this, I support and paid for this ad.
You are assuming the medical institution would have allowed you to do this. And while you send in your “pennies per day”, where do you think the money comes from to make the hospital whole? So a doctor & nurses have to starve while you work to pay off your debt? Think man, think!
Look, I’ll be happy to give you credit for good intentions, bit it’s pretty easy to run up bills of $100 or 200 K and lose your income, plus be behind on the mortgage, etc. The reality is very few of the uninsured who run up large bills are ever able to pay them off. That is a simple fact. And the rest of us pick up the tab. At least under a mandatory insurance or a single payer they would have been paying in something.
Glad you mentioned that Mike.
Personally I am tired of paying the hospital bills of working individuals who are playing Russian Roulette with their health, and banking on Hospitals caring for them whether they can afford it or not.
In a true capitalist system, we would have only for profit hospitals which would require either payment upfront, or proof of insurance before treatment. Since we don’t do that, healthy young people gamble that they will stay healthy and know that hospitals will still treat them even if they can’t pay.
So you are advocating we abandon the Social Security system? Go back to the good old days up to the Depression where people without enough savings had no safety net. Well you are welcome to your opinion. I dont’ think Social Security has been run correctly, but I think we are immensely better off with it, than without it.
I still haven’t seen you provide a single Obama program that is clearly a new program where some people are taxed for the benefit of other people. Health insurance may well turn out that way, but it isn’t yet. So give me a solid one.
Oh and do you still think he is going to take your guns too?
I’m sure the military will be happy to here that. Should we get rid of them to?
Sad, an ad hominem attack which doesn’t address the point I was making. I wasn’t defending health care reform. I was simply responding to your complaint that you hadn’t seen health care reform have any effect upon economic recovery. Well, duh! Health care reform hasn’t even begun to go into effect yet, so how could it have impacted economic recovery?
Show me some evidence that Obama implied that health care reform would have an immediate effect upon the economy.
How about compulsory auto insurance? Is that Socialism? Should young drivers be allowed to go without auto insurance because they can’t afford it?
That is all I was asking you to confirm. Thank you.
Mike C – Thank you for your response.
I think I’ve explained fairly well now that I’m fairly comfortable that you are who you say you are.
Thank you for finally acknowledging & responding to the info we took time to post in regards to your “long form” questions.
Dr. C I think somewhere in the past had a rundown of known states that only have “short forms” these days or electronic records or something like that. I’ll ask that maybe he can post either that link or that info again.
Of course, the state that matters in this discussion is HI and what they do. I encourage you to see for yourself, at their very own site which explains things and also has FAQs on this very subject. It also includes their phone & other contact info for this subject if that doesn’t fully satisfy you.
I mean, what better place to go for the answer on how they do things and what forms they issue than straight to the source, right?
Here ya go:
http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/vital-records/index.html
http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/obama.html
I think a lot of people get “snookered” into some of the birther arguments, because “on the surface” they have “grains of truth” to them that make sense to folks – such as in your situation, where your kids both had long form certificates when they were born, so to you, when someone says “where’s they long form”, it seems like a legitimate question.
However, you must remember that every state does things differently and also how they do things and what they release can also change over time, especially as computerizing has led to changes in procedures and changes in standards.
Therefore, the format provided a birth certificate years ago might not even be the format provided today if you have to request a new copy.
This is pretty common and basic stuff and nothing unusual about it, but somehow the “birthers” have tried to turn it into a sinister conspiracy.
I haven’t “demanded” anything from you. I’ve asked you not to paint a broad brush and explained why. I feel that my conversations with you have been fairly polite and reasonable, so I’m not sure what invoked your anger or statements at the end of your post here. For one thing, Dr. C’s admonishments for civility have helped me to control any of my frustration impulses and try to be more careful with my words and statements on here. For another thing, any time you’ve pointed out to me that I had said something that could be offensive, I took your feedback and corrected it and added an apology. So, I don’t understand what you are mad about.
Thanks for the response, Mike C. I agree with all the points you made here and like how you stated them.
The only thing I wanted to add is that I think that the money sources behind the politicians (corporations, lobbyists, special interest groups) have even more incentive to keep us all distracted and fighting each other instead of working on fixing the system. If they can keep the politicians fighting against reforms and us distracted from fighting for reforms, they win.
When change happens, that always impacts someone’s bottom line and no matter how much improvement might help a majority of people, someone would prefer “the status quo”.
I wanted to share a saying I have that I’ve been using since the 80’s – “If the horse & buggy industry had lobbyists a century ago, like most organizations have today, we wouldn’t be driving cars.”
Yeah, it is more of an issue that there are certain people who post under what are known as “sock puppets” – in other words they come here under multiple different names, trying to say the same thing or back up their “other selves” and play other games of a deceitful nature.
How do we know this? Because Dr. C as the site administrator can tell the IP addresses and other such info about everyone who is posting here, so he knows if someone is posting here under multiple pseudonyms.
Unfortunately, the bad behavior of past trolls have led to a climate of high mistrust. But all people have to do to overcome such is consistently demonstrate honorable behavior (and admit when they slip) on here and trust is built up.
Am I a “perfect poster”. No. But when Dr. C or anyone else have asked me to watch my language or tone, I’ve been quick to correct it and apologize. And when anyone asks me to back up or explain my positions, I quickly do so and am known for citing my sources.
Therefore, I think I’ve earned a strong reputation here as a trusted and credible poster.
Never said that, I said it is a failure, it is bankrupt.
Most of the discussions here are like if a black man stumbled into a klan meeting, never had a chance. This is useless, here you never met a “birther” you agreed with and did not attempted to mock and ridicule. Funny more than one of you have a problem being labeled, but you label people that have an issue with Obama’s background.
I am out of here, don’t bother responding as I am blocking the emails and deleting them automatically.
Take care.
Well, people seem to forget the Stimulus Act, which to some extent did just that. Yes, one third went to tax cuts for most folks and one third went to helping states, schools, police, fire, etc. remain solvent. But the final third went towards activities to rebuild roads, add broadband coverage and other such projects – which are designed to both create/maintain jobs as well as to improve our infrastructure. I consider those to be important things.
Unfortunately, more was requested to be done, but it was fears of adding further to the deficit that caused a lot of that to be scaled back.
During the Great Depression, this country still found the will to spend extreme amounts of money in those days to do some massive and extremely expensive government projects, such as building the Golden Gate Bridge, Hoover Dam and even Mount Rushmore. These created tons of jobs and took years to come to fruition. I’m sure there were plenty of naysayers back in those days that didn’t want the government to be spending all that money, but look what they did, both in the short and long term to improve America! All of those are heralded proudly as major American achievements today. Looking at the Hoover Dam example alone, both California and Nevada both owe a lot of their growth and success to American having the vision and commitment to take on that project during such difficult times.
Our company is currently hiring because of the Health Care law.
I published a partial list of states that have electronic issuance systems and issue computer printed abstracts as certified copies. I don’t know which states only provide “short forms.” Typically states don’t advertise what they don’t do. One wouldn’t get that information without a national survey by someone like NAPHSIS.
I do know that once the electronic system is in place, photocopying records from bound volumes in vaults is a pain, and even locating them on microfiche is much more labor intensive than searching electronically and clicking the print button. Electronic systems also calculate the fees and maintain inventory of security paper. All that has to entered manually for non-electronic records. One can see why agencies who issue certificates by the tens of thousands are anxious to move to new systems and why some states without electronic systems were backlogged for months.
See ya Mike C.
I enjoyed at least half of your posts.
Dont forget to clean up the sandbox after you made a mess of it on your way out
A child comes home from school on report card day and says “Dad, I got all A’s!” The father says “Let me see your report card.” The child says “I lost it, but you can take my word for it. I did receive all A’s.” The father’s conclusion 100% of the time without actual proof: my son is lying to me.
This blog would not exist if proof had been provided. You can argue the facts on each side forever, but when people spend money to avoid providing real evidence, you know the truth is not being told. You can either use your common sense OR you can argue on a blog.
Don’t make this more complicated than it is.
Ahhhh yes!!!
All the Obamaites and apologists come out in force to defend THE ONE!!! rotflolol
“All the Obamaites and apologists”
All 69 million of us. Irritating to lose an election isn’t it?
I raised my children to be honest and trustworthy, and I certainly would have believed them in your scenario. However, your scenario doesn’t match the situation that we’re talking about with Obama conspiracies. Let me give you one that fits much closer:
A child comes home from school on report card day and says “Dad, I got all A’s!” The father says “Let me see your report card.” The child hands the father an “Honor Roll” letter, computer printed on multi-colored and embossed school letter head with the school administrator’s signature rubber stamped at the bottom congratulating the child on achieving the “All-A Honor roll”. The father then says: “I asked for a ‘Report Card’, not an ‘Honor Roll letter.’ This worthless thing you showed me is obviously not the original document and lacks your teacher’s signature. Until you get me the original report card that proves you got all A’s, you’re grounded.” The child asks his father to call the school, and he does. The school records clerk says “the principle and I have looked at the original records in our files and I find that the documents are all in order and your child did get all A’s.” The father says that the clerk could be lying or the teacher may have changed the grade and until he sees the original report card, the kid is still grounded.
The only people “complicating” this are the birthers & their lawyers. Notice that in every Federal case the judge has said that there is no “case or controversy”. (I am excluding Ankeny, which was in state court & did proceed to a conclusion that Obama is a “natural born citizen”).
Well, it would be for Doc to say why this blog exists — but what keeps me coming back is two things. First, the antics of the birthers are so entertaining. And second, there is a lot of discussion of points of law around this issue, that are interesting if somewhat hypothetical.
Agreed.
Giving birth where you and your family live-simple
Giving birth halfway around the world- complicated
I’ll try to simplify it for you.
A lawsuit is filed. Before it can proceed to the evidentiary stage, certain requirements have to be met by the plaintiff. Among other things, the plaintiff must establish that he or she has standing, has stated a claim for which the court can grant relief, that the defendants have been properly served, that the lawsuit was filed in the proper venue, etc.
If any of the above requirements are lacking, it is incumbent upon the attorneys for the defendants to bring this to the court’s attention, usually by filing a Motion to Dismiss. That is precisely what has been done in each of the birther cases, and each one has been dismissed.
It is no different in any other civil lawsuit. To say that the defendants have been spending money to “avoid providing real evidence” is not true. The defendants have actually been spending money in the most economical way possible, defeating the lawsuits on the issues of standing and justiciability, thus enabling them to avoid the costs of discovery.
Any birther who makes the argument that this could all be resolved by Obama providing “real evidence” is being disingenuous. Obama could ask Hawaii to produce a copy of his long-form birth certificate, he could ask the State Department to produce his passport records, he could ask all of his schools (including his kindergarten to provide his educational records, and the birthers would still claim that he is not a natural-born citizen. The hatred of the birthers toward Obama runs so deep that they will never be satisfied, so why should he give them anything?
If I were to go to my lawyer, I am certain he would say: you can spend your money ‘wisely’ by attempting to manage this lawsuit on legal issues related to “standing, a claim for which the court can grant relief, that the defendants have been properly served, that the lawsuit was filed in the proper venue, etc” OR
he would say: why don’t you make this easy and just give them what they are asking for. That way you don’t defend this at all AND there will be no expenses associated with discovery because you already provided the items they wish to discover.
I can’t stand it when people make issues more complicated than they really are. When people do this, they are running from the same thinking that guides us in every area of our lives…common sense.
If you are “certain” what your lawyer would say, then why go at all? I would suggest, rather than guessing, you go see an actual lawyer, one experienced in litigation, and report back. That’s what my common sense tells me.
Perhaps you would care to respond to my post from yesterday as to why you say you wish to avoid complications and yet embrace a complicated scenario of someone travelling halfway around the world to give birth, rather than giving birth where they lived. Not much common sense there.
Why people do the things they do I cannot explain. There are many assumptions on your part concerning your ‘complicated’ scenario which ‘you have created,’ not me. An experienced lawyer would say ‘give them what they want or prepare to spend lots of money.’ If you think that anybody in their right mind would spend a dime defending themselves against a charge when they have the items in hand that would instantly end the litigation, then YOU must NOT be in your right mind.
All I am saying is this: ‘show me your report card and we will end the discussion.’
Under what legal theory does discovery end a lawsuit? Can you name me one birther plaintiff that has said they would end their lawsuit if they got documents? OK, Berg in his original lawsuit suggested he might, but he had a list of dozens of items, many of which don’t exist.
Have you ever been involved in an actual lawsuit? If not, perhaps you should spare us your uniformed “opinions”?
Yes. I have been involved in 3 lawsuits. I will now end the discussion since you have started to make this personal. You will not win the argument or even be taken seriously by calling us ‘birthers’ or by calling me ‘uninformed.’ Those are your unsubstantiated opinions. This is a simple case. You can go make it complicated with someone else.
You are either incredibly naive or woefully ignorant of what it going on. “Give them what they want or prepare to spend lots of money” sounds like legal blackmail to me.
There are no “items in hand what would instantly end the litigation.” No matter what documentation Obama provided, the birthers would still not be satisfied that he is a natural-born citizen. Even if they were satisfied that he was born in Hawaii, they will argue that he needed two citizen parents to be eligible. Or they will argue that he lost his citizenship when he moved to Indonesia. The list goes on and on.
The only way to stop the litigation is to nip it in the bud. And that is exactly what has happened. The legal strategy employed by the government has been so effective that new lawsuits challenging Obama’s eligibility have slowed to a trickle.
Were you plaintiff or defendant? Unless it was a small claims matter, if you were a defendant, you had to hire a lawyer, even if the suit was ridiculous. So, it cost you money to defend. I would be quite happy if our legal system made the loser pay legal bills, but that’s not what we have.
So let’s look at the 2 scenarios for a birther lawsuit:
1. Write a brief arguing for dismissal on subject matter and standing. Appear in court and have it dismissed.
2. Order “long-form” birth certificate (assuming Hawaii even provides one). Write a brief arguing for dismissal on basis of birth certificate. Appear in court and have it dismissed.
Seems to me the cost is the same.
Wow. This really doesn’t make any sense. I can’t imagine any lawyer advising a client to give in to someone who had no basis in law for their demands. He might mention it as an option. But lawsuits that are baseless are the cheapest kind to defend against. It’s pretty much one motion to dismiss and you’re done.
Every President has been the target of numerous baseless lawsuits from cranks. It’s one of the minor chores for the DoJ to deal with them.
And your phrase “end the discussion” — you’re talking about the birthers? There is no credibility to the claim that anything will make them end the discussion.
Two things are clear…you aren’t a lawyer, and haven’t been paying attention to the birther law suits. Every birther suit has, in addition to the birth certificate, demanded a laundry list of othe documents, and addititonally argued the farsical “2 parent”/Vattell crock. So just giving them a document, and giving into their harassing lawsuits, just to go through it all anyway isn’t going to help you anyway. And we are talking about a collective group of people who are willing to accept the words of a mystery “expert” on the internet, claiming the COLB is a forgery, even after he has been completely discredited, over the words of Republican Hawaiian government officials. So no, just giving them a document does nothing. Look how much “just giving” the COLB accomplished. This is not about a single document. You have Orly ranting about social security numbers, Apuzzo ranting about Vattell, and Farah demanding kindergarten school records. When talking about this crowd, common sense isn’t so common.
That leaves the most effective, and cost effective way of killing the suit. Motion to dismiss for lack of standing. At this point, it costs virtually nothing. Just pull up the last version you filed, change the caption, and court heading, and file. Spend a couple hours drafting a reply to their opposition, and perhaps throw in a motion for sanctions and costs for filing harassing litigation. Considering this approach is in the neighborhood of 70 – 0, I think common sense would tell you to stick with what works.
I am a lawyer and I can guarantee you that no lawyer in his right mind would accede to the demands of the likes of Phil Berg, Mario Apuzzo, Orly Taitz, et. al.
1. Phil Berg is the only lawyer who has written down what he wants to see. You’re kidding yourself if you think it’s just a single document. He demanded to see every piece of paper held by the DNC that mentioned Obama, for starters. You can read his discovery demands on his site, or in the docket section of this site.
2. A simple look at the complaints would convince any person who can read English that a single document would not suffice to “end this.” Let’s look at the claims:
Berg: Born abroad or lost his citizenship by adoption in Indonesia or lost his citizenship by traveling on a foreign passport.
Apuzzo: All of the above, plus can’t be eligible because his dad was foreign.
Taitz: All of Apuzzo’s claims plus social security fraud
What “report card” could Obama show that shows he was born in Hawaii, didn’t formally renounce his citizenship at any time in the past 35 years, is eligible per the founders’ intent and hasn’t stolen anyone’s social security number.
What single document could you produce to show that you have never, in your life, stolen a social security number?
3. Dismissal is cheap. Discovery is expensive. Take a look at Berg’s laundry list of documents he wanted. A team of lawyers would have to assemble all the documents that could be contained in that list, then comb through them to figure out which are really responsive to the request, and also to exclude any documents that are: privileged; protected by the work-product protection; or non-produceable because of some other protection. And, don’t forget the log of all privileged documents!
With e-mail and massive hard drives, even in small cases we’re talking a few bankers boxes of documents. With any case of any significance we’re talking tens, hundreds, or thousands of bankers boxes full of documents. We’re talking days (at $2,800/associate day), weeks, or even months of attorney time spent just collecting and preparing the
Then there are interrogatories, depositions, protective orders, motions to limit discovery, motions to compel, expert witness reports, expert witness depositions.
Remember when Clinton’s administration was accused of invading people’s FBI files, back in 1995? The case was just dismissed this year!
Here’s what the judge wrote in dismissing that case:
Years of litigation, endless depositions, for a case that never had anything to it to begin with!
Compare that prospect with the cost of moving for early dismissal of a case. You have an associate research the matter. McCain’s camp fought a similar case earlier, so you can crib the research from that, plus there was a good lawsuit against Bush in 2000 (alleging that Bush and Cheney were from the same state, so shouldn’t have been entitled to Texas’ electors). The parts of the brief on standing and political question, then, are cheap, maybe 10 hours of associate time ($3,500) and an hour of partner time ($1,000). Add in a couple of hours of argument ($2,000) and you’re out of the case for less than $10,000.
That’s for the first case. The other 70 cases are cheaper, since the associate simply has to change the caption and some of the facts.
On the one hand, best case scenario, you’ve got a few weeks of attorney work and dozens of depositions, easily $100,000. On the other, early dismissal $10,000.
Eaton- you keep using the report card analogy but Obama already provided his “report card” and the ‘school’ already confirmed that yes he did indeed get A’s.
You are the one who wont’ accept simple. Simple is that the Obama provided his COLB for review and the voters were satisified. A few malcontents aren’t happy and have demanded additional proof. Obama has spent trivial amounts of money responding to this, and i doubt has wasted more than 5 minutes of his life approving the response.
One thing alot of people don’t understand here, is that when Barack Obama and I were kids, we didn’t get Social Security Numbers. You had to do that when you got your first job.
That will benefit my firm too. We will be able to take advantage of some of the tax breaks in it.
Of course, your analogy doesn’t hold any water in this case.
To use your own analogy here on how the situation actually went down, it would go like this:
1. Son says he got all A’s.
2. Father asks son for proof.
3. Son provides the document, showing he’s got all A’s.
4. Father doesn’t believe the document.
5. School weighs in and confirms that is the document they provide and that their records show that the song got all A’s.
6. Father, who for some reason, really, really hates his son no matter what, throws a tantrum and doesn’t want to believe either his son or the school or any teacher who confirms that info.
7,. Father comes up with elaborate fictions to try to disprove that his son is really his son and claims that the entire educational system is out to get him.
Shorter birther:: ‘*waaaaah* Stop pointing out that I’m just shooting my mouth off and don’t know what I’m talking about. Stop trying to confuse me with answers and facts! I’m entitled to hold onto my own mythical misconceptions of the world as I imagine it to be and you can’t make me understand nor face reality! Now I’m going to take my toys & leave because I don’t play well with others and can’t handle when anyone calls me out on my actions” *waaaaah*
Doc,
Your article here was quoted yesterday on the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/11/obama-social-security-num_n_609299.html
Robert Gibbs Is Asked About Obama’s Connecticut Social Security Number
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Aahw3NT6E
So did you have a look at the birth certificate posted online?
Birthplace: Honolulu, Hawaii
Bummer…
OMG, that’s one of the top web sites in the country! I better close the storm windows.
It’s unfortunate that they quoted that particular theory, because I was probably wrong. The year of issue doesn’t match up (although it doesn’t necessarily have to). A typo in the zip code (“0” for “9”) is I think a much more plausible scenario.
The absence of curiousity is astounding. Gibbs does not even address the question. He tactically changes the subject to belittle the questioner. I suppose libs see this tactical move as brilliance on Gibbs part, but since when do we not ‘trust and verify’our goverrnment.
The number is a curiuos number to receive. Aren’t you curious why?
If he was not a citizen, it makes sense he has some unexplainable ssn. Not too mention Obama is linked to 39 ssn’s. So there is much more then a fat figure with zip codes.
I am open to any reasonable explanation, but I won’t take ‘trust me’ as an answer.
Gibbs references a internet Birth certificate, once again, a trust me response. We need more especially if you watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFAP6TUDgq8
But I am curious. I wrote an article about it. I’d like to see if my guesses were right. I don’t have any anxiety or worry about why Obama has a Connecticut Social Security number, but I am curious. I’m curious as to the name of the doctor who delivered baby Obama too. I’m curious about a remarkable number of things totally unrelated to what we do on this web site. I think being curious is a pleasant and stimulating state to be in.
But I certainly reject the notion that Connecticut is someone a marker for a non-citizen or anything nefarious at all.
The 39 Social Security numbers is a farce. There’s no evidence that the President has used any SSN but the Connecticut one, and the Orly’s idea that it belongs to someone born in 1890 is the worst kind of stupid.
Gibbs evaded the question, probably because he doesn’t know, and my guess is that President Obama doesn’t know either.
@Moderator – I get the theme of this site, Obama is just a southside kid who happened to grow up in Honolulu, attend all the best schools with no accountable way of paying for them. Move to Chicago, on a whim, somehow get elected as a state senator, then US senator, then President. Yep he is just like you and me.
The southside kid, who claims to be a sox fan called the park ComiNsky park and could not name a Sox player when asked.
No one remembers him at Columbia.
He will not show his long form BC, although hundreds of thousands of Little Leaguers are forced to show this to play in the upcoming tournament.
His Mother in law is on tape stating he was born in Kenya
He attended a radical church for 10+ years
His father was a communist
He bows to Muslim leaders
Yeah he is just like us, a true American. Protector of our constitution.
If you read the constitution you can’t miss the fear our founders had that government would grow out of control, and see itself as the solution to all issues.
We all need to remember this fear they had, it’s wriiten into every fiber of the constitution.
Go on drinking the kool aid, I’d rather question and demand answers.
Orly Taitz, is that you? LOL!
Wow, this just sounds like a jealous whine, spouting a grab-bag of sore-feelings, mistruths, long debunked nonsense, complete myths and mischaracterizations.
No, he’s not like you or me. He’s the president, we’re not. Good for him for being able to get in good schools and put up with the grueling spotlight and hours involved in public campaigning and being so successful at it! I sure wouldn’t want to do it and obviously neither do you.
Go back to your fictional universe, MJC. Maybe someone can have a pity-party for you there.
Wow you can’t even get your smears correct. Comiskey park is Us Cellular field. That is the name of the White Sox stadium before the US Cellular sponsorship. It was Comiskey Field until 2003. But nice try trying to smear him with that one. So he mispronounced it chances are you wouldn’t have even came close to knowing the name of the park. The mother in law? No you ain’t even got that smear right. It was his father’s father’s second wife. It was his half grandmother and if you listened to the full clip and not the clip where birthers cut off half of what she said. She clearly said she was in Kenya when Obama was born in Hawaii. Nice try there.
BS little leaguers don’t have to show long form. Quote your source on that claim.
Colombia? Sure no one remembers him but the people who actually remembered him. Like his Roommate Phil Boerner: http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/jan_feb09/alumni_corner
Then there’s Cathie Currie: http://www.factcheck.org/2010/02/factcheck-mailbag-week-of-feb-16-feb-22/
one of his other roommates Sohale Siddiqi: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2008-05-15-3144401415_x.htm
Michael L. Baron: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/columbiathesis.asp
An article he wrote in 1983 for the Colombia newspaper: http://www.politico.com/static/PPM116_obamaessay.html
But yeah you guys will just make up anything. Why is it you guys always want to smear the dead? Calling his father a communist without proof.
It seems you’re the one drinking the koolaid you’re making accusations without presenting any proof.
Oh come now G I’m sure you could take this a bit further.
I think point number 25. Father realizes he’s caught in the matrix.
No, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not the theme of this site. You(!) are the theme of this site–you and folks like you who believe inexplicable things, without a shred of reason. Such as:
No one except Sohale Siddiqi, Phil Boerner (his room mate) and one of his teachers, Michael L. Baron. (Links here.) So why do you believe that no one does? This is the kind of question that fascinates me.
What does Michelle Obama’s mother know about where Barack Obama was born? But of course you are probably just misremembering the birther myth about Obama’s step grandmother, who is on tape. The tape, if cut off in the middle seems to suggest that the grandmother was “present” somewhere when someone else (either the President or his father) was born somewhere. However, if you listen to the full tape, Sarah Obama states plainly that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii where his father was. (Tape and transcript here.)
Now what really intrigues me is why you won’t go and listen to the tape, because I am confident that you won’t.
Oh and Little Leaguers are not required to show “long form” birth certificates; the short form will do. In fact, the Hawaii Department of Health says that their birth certificate is valid for sports participation (and they don’t issue long forms any more).
It’s folks like YOU that are the theme of this web site.
LMAO! Of course! I was trying to keep it simple. We both know that #7 includes an endless loop of ever increasing madness, including many repeat loops… 😉
What bunch of fuked-up Marxist losers you all are. See you on Marxist/Sharia hell, circa 2030.
I know – some of the people here. Here’s an article which you would find interesting.
Hi, dobrze, ze tu jestes. Wolski means “Italian” in Polish. If you are Ricardo Fanchini, don’t worry about the extradition: wszystko bedzie dobrze: Marxist Sharia in the US will know what to do with your bunch.
Marxism and sharia can’t co-exist they are competing ideologies. But I wouldn’t expect a tool who throws around terms like Marxism so freely to understand.