I think this remarkable window into the mind of a birther is well worth the time to watch. [Caution: language not suitable for children.] It’s partly a commentary on the Tim Adams interviews, but it also includes embellishments such as the “reason” Obama couldn’t vote in Hawaii in the 2008 Presidential Election. [I always thought it was because he lived in Chicago.] What’s more important is what it reveals about how this fellow feels about being a birther.
[The video was removed by the YouTube user and no longer available]
Links mentioned in the video:
Did I hear him say that the Adams story was covered on the WMD web site?
So Doc, I assume you will be apologizing and taking down the site this afternoon while watching the President’s resignation speech?
No. If Barack Obama resigns after admitting he wasn’t born in the United States, I will start covering the new “birther” movement that will argue that he was born in the United States anyway.
Shouldn’t that be “we birthers”?
lolwut – insert Biting Pear of Salamanca here.
Is this guys whole shtick some sort of lampooning of ignorant rednecks? Damn that Poe’s Law.
I strive to be an accurate and unbiased reporter of events. The fellow repeated the phrase several times, so I felt it important to capture his exact words. Besides, among the people he hangs out with, “us” is no doubt the preferred word.
I can’t tell what’s performance art or not anymore.
On a more serious note, I am reminded that throughout history societies on the verge of collapse (or rather, transformation) have generated all kinds of irrational behavioral patterns sometimes affecting a substantial number of people, a la millennial fears, etc.
I don’t want to read more in the birther phenomenon that warrants it, but it is certainly odd.,
Doc-I know you would never use bad grammar. I was commenting on the nameless birther. i can tolerate many forms of idiocy, but, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, bad grammar is something up with which i will not put.
“us” means the 10 people he knows translates into “everyone”
(check with James on that)
I was being facetious.
WOW…just wow.
I’m…speechless.
I’ve read them, but never actually heard them speak. Worse than I had imagined. I was hoping most birthers were simply misguided. Yikes! He honestly seems to be functioning at full capacity.
This guy should spend less time making videos and more time at the dentist…I hear Orly has some free time. And she needs to raise 20K…so there’s that.
I couldn’t agree more. If the rest of us have to show our long-form birth certificate in order to vote, why shouldn’t Obama have to show his long-form birth certificate in order to be President? it just stands to reason.
umm we don’t have to use our long form birth certificate to vote
This entire topic seems like something out of kindergarten:
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“Mine’s longer.”
I’ve been a registered voter all my adult life and nobody has ever asked me for a birth certificate of any length. Can you point me to any jurisdiction in the United States that says a long form birth certificate is required to vote? Where did they ask for yours?
Let me pick out a state at random, say Maryland. The voter registration page is here: http://www.elections.state.md.us/voter_registration/index.html. Their requirements do not include anything about a birth certificate, rather only a driver’s license number or social security number is required, and you have to show ID when you vote.
Now of course, you might say, “yes but, what about that drivers license?” Good question. The requirements for proof of age and identity for a Maryland drivers license or ID card are here: http://www.mva.maryland.gov/Driver-Services/Apply/proof.htm.
Did you see anything about a “long form” in there?
Good point. Here is my long form BC, which I showed to vote.
Thanks for your contribution.
This is just another OMG moment for birfers. Seems that they have had many and many more will follow.
Not only does this guy need a new set of ‘choppers’, I can only imagine that the headphones are being worn to keep what ever is in his head from leaking out of his ears.
I have never shown my long-form BC to vote, and I’ve been voting since the 80’s. In fact, I’ve never even seen my long-form birth certificate. I don’t even know if one exists for me. Does that mean I wasn’t born in the States? It just stands to reason.
it used to be that you had to take a test to vote
to be a birther you have to fail the test
Actually, I cannot recall the last time I needed my birth certificate for anything. It was probably when I applied for a passport in 1992. Oddly enough, I still have the 1974 copy which I assume was printed from microfiche (late 1960s birth).
I have sometimes been tempted to order a new one just to see what I would get. However, I did look around and find people who have posted some real ones from my birth state. There is generally less information that on Obama’s but all the required necessary information is there. The one I found (I will not link since it is a minor and a living person) was born in China and adopted. The COLB states the child born in China and it is a “Delayed Foreign Birth.”
Now in looking around, I was reminded that, prior to the easy use of microfiche and copiers, nobody would get a copy of a long form when requested a copy. Instead, the basic information was typed onto a simple form and signed by the appropriate registrar. If it was a county, it appears they took the information from their index/recrods as demonstrated by:
I’m assuming Ragout was using sarcasm. Here’s Obama voting.
wow…there’s a whole lot of stupid going on in there….I couldn’t even watch the whole thing. I’m at a loss for words.
He’s at a loss for teeth.
LOL…
Do you mean in the mind of ONE birther? Typical how you bunch all “birthers” in with one misinformed person… Not surprised at all!
Clearly the guy is misinformed on the issue… but hell, we can’t all be as smart as you, Dr. Con, NOT!
It’s pretty simple; if Obama has nothing to hide and is legit then he should just release the records!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3_hSnBvEHo
Where were you in 2008, Dr. Con?
http://obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.com/2010/05/meet-poppa-birther-father-of-modern.html
Unbiased my arse!
Hi,
Thanks for the link. I’ll want to look that over. If I get your implication, you’re saying that it is unreasonable to call birthers “racists” because responsible legal scholars doubted McCain’s eligibility too, and that Obama supporters try to hide the fact that such legal questions were raised about McCain.
I’ve never said that all Obama denialists were racist. Some obviously are (see Stormfront.org) and some apparently are not. However while some legal scholars did question McCain’s eligibility, they never called his grandmother a liar, his mother a slut, and made up outlandish stories out of thin air. (Ok, one of them, Fred Hollander, did file a fake birth certificate saying McCain was born in the Republic of Panama, but this was an exception.) And no legal scholar has suggested Obama is not eligible. It’s really the difference between a scholarly debate, and an angry mob.
I have talked about McCain eligibility here, including the Hollander v. McCain lawsuit, the fake McCain birth certificate and Michigan Law Review issue (Sept. 2008) dedicated to the topic: “Senator John McCain and Natural Born Citizenship.” I have a links page on McCain eligibility information and these additional articles have appeared on McCain eligibility:
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2010/04/john-mccains-fake-birth-certificate/
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2010/05/john-mccain-natural-born-citizen/
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/02/the-birth-certificate-is-a-forgery/
In addition, there has been some lively debate on the topic in our comments. So I have hardly hidden the responsible criticism of McCain’s eligibility.
My, my. Someone had to come in here and stomp their little feet and have a hissy fit. At least Doc lets you post your rants.
It is well known that conspiracy theorists thrive on contradictory evidence; it only allows them to grow the number of people involved in the conspiracy. Obama released a perfectly ordinary Hawaiian birth certificate in June of 2008, and what beneficial effect did that have? Not a bit.
Look back at what I said, first: “into the mind of a birther“, not birthers, plural. I then said: “What’s more important is what it reveals about how this fellow feels about being a birther.”
So your accusation of my generalizing this person is spurious. However, I do think this fellow shares something with most birthers, not because he is misinformed, but because of the way he sees himself as having been made fun of and the utter glee he exhibits over his belief in his final vindication.
Would you disagree that birthers in the main see themselves as an unfairly maligned group?
Well, when you argue this brilliantly, I guess the rest of us just don’t have a chance.
Speaking of your arse, last time you were here you emitted the assertion that your blog is open. I wandered over there, and seeing the amazing lack of comments there I took pity on you and posted one. It never appeared. So much for your claim of being open.
Gotcha! sort of like “citizen parent” versus “citizen parents”….
Ahh, yes, I almost forgot about the infamous COLB(s). What about all the other records!? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3_hSnBvEHo
By the way; which one of these four COLBs posted online by Obama’s campaign/supporters is the legit one? Hawaii DoH refuses to verify any of them as being issued by the Hawaii DoH… Which one is it!? Maybe you should contact the Hawaii DoH and ask them which COLB is the one they issued…
1) Daily Kos COLB; http://images2.dailykos.com/images/user/3/BO_Birth_Certificate.jpg
2) Fight the Smears COLB; http://www.fightthesmears.com/images/28.jpg
3) Factcheck.org COLB with seal; http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/birth_certificate_5.jpg
[ be sure to click the two Factcheck images to enlarge so you can clearly see one appears to have a seal and the other one CLEARLY without a seal! ]
4) Factcheck.org COLB without seal; http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/birth_certificate_3.jpg
Boo Hoo Hoo… looks like your the one having the hissy fit…
LOL… Dr. CON is officially a Birther… Welcome aboard!
Do you?
That particular comment of mine you quoted was part of a joke directed at Scientist. I won’t claim to be unbiased, but I do try to be fair and open. That’s about all anyone can do.
@ ObamaRelease YourRecords
I asked you: “Would you disagree that birthers in the main see themselves as an unfairly maligned group?”
Instead of answering the question, you turned it around to me. I am trying to initiate a dialog here, and that won’t happen if you won’t hold up your side of the conversation. Dialog works this way: I ask you a question and you answer it, then you ask a question and I answer it. So let’s try again.
Would you disagree that birthers in the main see themselves as an unfairly maligned group?
OK, we’ve been over this before. A digital image of a birth certificate is not something you can use as a birth certificate. So of course none of the images you point to are the birth certificate, they are picture of the birth certificate. Maybe you should google “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”, maybe that would clear things up for you.
Anyhow, what point were you trying to make?
LOL… I pulled a Robert Gibbs on you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOrQAZG0q1E
No, I don’t disagree…
LOL… Obama sure the hell did… Put the kool-aid down!
Let me rephrase that question for you so you can attempt to spin and divert it as well…
Which one of the IMAGES of Obama’s COLBs, posted online by Obama’s campaign/supporters, is the legit one?
I don’t disagree either.
Gotcha!
ORYR: Your posting here reminded me of the existence of your blog, so I went over there to see what you’ve posted lately, and found you and Pollard promoting some conspiracy theory about “the four groups who collaborated in hiding Obama’s real birth certificate.” I confess I couldn’t make head or tail of it. But I did note that you describe the Annenberg Foundation, which supports factcheck.org, as “left-leaning.”
You might be interested to know that Annenberg was appointed Ambassador to the UK by the notorious pinko Richard Nixon. He palled around with lefties like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Reagan for his subversive activities. Maybe you can include this the next time you need to trash factcheck.org.
All I have ever seen are pictures of President Obama. So perhaps you should prove that President Obama exists before we talk about his birth certificate.
The image is blurry and dark. That’s why you don’t see the seal. Why would a certificate without a seal even exist, much less be shown to FactCheck.org? That makes no sense under any scenario.
All the images are of the same document.
LMAO… nice try!
The one on Fightthesmears and the very first one posted by the Daily Kos, which is an admitted forgery, have no seal… If you look at other Hawaiian COLBs posted all over the internet you can clearly see the seal…
Not
not to mention the Fightthesmears COLB is blacked out which makes it INVALID!
Well, let’s see. I can’t make any sense of your first sentence. I think your 2nd and 3rd sentences weren’t supposed to make sense. Then you ask a question — but you avoided answering my question.
I assume you’re asking me to state an opinion about which of the images you link to are pictures of a valid birth certificate. Obviously, I personally have not seen the President’s birth certificate. So I can only state an opinion about the sources. The first I have no idea about. The second is the President’s website. I trust him, but I understand you don’t, so we’ll agree to disagree on that one. The 3rd and 4th are factcheck.org. factcheck.org strike me as pretty straight shooters, and frankly I don’t buy your conspiracy theories about them. So in summary, I believe 2, 3, and 4 are pictures of the actual birth certificate, and I have no opinion about 1.
Now I’ll repeat my question so you can ignore it again — what point are you trying to make?
ORYR is a troll, pure and simple, and a remarkably rude one at that.
http://obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.com/2010/06/clear-concise-and-clever-its-conspiracy.html
Bring on the spin…
So I think we’ve already agreed that a digital image of a birth certificate is not not something you can use as a birth certificate — so a digital image with a part blacked out would then be, help me out here, not something you can use as a birth certificate? What’s the difference?
“ORYR is a troll, pure and simple, and a remarkably rude one at that.”
plus he runs a simple and ignorant little site with no posrers
.
“Bring on the spin”
just twist and get dizzy, will you silly troll!
Again; Obama did!
Dave, you should change your handle to; Dr. Spin… that is about all you can do!
On the other hand, it probably doesn’t hurt for him to come over here and get a reality check once in a while — he sure isn’t getting one at his own blog.
“not to mention the Fightthesmears COLB is blacked out which makes it INVALID!”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
“Obama Release Your Records” do you enjoy being so silly.?
Birth Certificate fraud is my point… As Dr. Con. points out with his McCain BC blog… as well as ABC news; http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/puerto-rico-birth-certificate-crisis-invalidating-fix/story?id=10422841
LOL… sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me…
“Birth Certificate fraud is my point”
Great idea!
now report this to the FBI as the Hawaii Gov and other State figures are involved in the fraud, maybe you can force them to remove Obama’s portrait (the one labeled president) from all the gov bldgs.
sure, do that silly goose
Why sure! Do you enjoy being so brainwashed???
Why sure! Do you enjoy being so brainwashed???
.
Have you reported Gov Lingle supporting fraud yet
or are you still trying to prove some rather silly stuff.
I’m well aware of who the Annenberg group WAS founded by… I wasn’t born yesterday!
I guess that makes it all good… okay, I give up, you win… NOT!
Isn’t Annenberg the same group that “employed” Obama and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers!? No, couldn’t be…
Ah, so you want to argue that examination of these digital images can prove that the birth certificate is a fake. And I gather, from another comment that you’ve posted here, that you’re concerned that in one of the pictures the raised seal is not visible. Anything else about them bother you?
ORYR:says “not to mention the Fightthesmears COLB is blacked out which makes it INVALID!”
yes, I understand, I saw that on “The Other Limits”, as the bad guy was scriblling on a copy the original magically change as well, so you got a point there. Are you a fan of “The Other Limits? your site would fit right in.
I’m sure Annenberg would be proud to know this;
Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212856075765367.html
OK, so noted lefists Obama and Ayers were directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which is a part of the Annenberg Challenge, which is one of many projects funded by the Annenberg Foundation — therefore the Annenberg Foundation and all its works are left-leaning. And therefore factcheck.org is not to be trusted, so we should disregard their article about the President’s birth certificate. Have I got it now?
BATTLE HYMN OF THE UNSINKABLE BIRTHERS!
(Sung to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”)
Mine eyes have not yet seen
Obama’s birth certificate.
It is in the Devil’s Vault,
Where only God’s Right Hand can get.
Obama’s C. O. L. B. is a
Lousy counterfeit.
It’s truth we’re marching for!!!!
Orly! Orly! Hallelujah!!!
Orly! Orly! Hallelujah!!!
Orly! Orly! Hallelujah!!!
It’s truth we’re marching for!!!!
We shall fight the Masked Usurper
On the beaches, in the hills.
We shall fight this Painted Joker
On the seas and in the fields.
We shall fight to Hell and back
And into court and with appeals.
It’s truth we’re marching for!!!!
Orly! Orly! Hallelujah!!!
Orly! Orly! Hallelujah!!!
Orly! Orly! Hallelujah!!!
It’s truth we’re marching for!!!!
(Author grants permission to reprint on web or in print and to perform in public)
Comment by Jack the Clicker | June 10, 2010
[…] from: * (Video) Obama was NOT born in Hawaii says Tim Adams, former … AKPC_IDS += “1688,”;Popularity: unranked […]
Pingback by obamapassport | June 11, 2010
You can see the seal on the Factcheck one as well, it just requires some fiddling with the contrast.
Sigh… All these COLB’s all show President Obama born on US soil, and even the blacked out one shows a seal and date stamp. The only thing you cannot see is the signature.
These myths have been rejected for quite some time now. Why do you still make such foolish claims?
They are all legit as they are all copies or photos of the same document.
And for those who still deny that the COLB has a seal.
Read here. With pictures…
OMG!!!! This video birther guy’s father is his uncle.
And for those who still deny that the COLB has a seal.
Read here. With pictures… Both by me and by a poster from Atlas Shrugs..
Myself, I have no problem saying it, because it really is Occam’s razor in action.
All of Obama’s denialists are motivated by racism, or if you will xenophobia.
Whether they fess up to it or deny it is their problem, but I have zero doubt that were Obama white with an anglo name, the birther movement would not exist at all.
That is completely correct. Read this:
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2009/10/orly-taitz-racist.html
While initially the DOH spokesperson confirmed the COLB, she later, realizing the State Law on this, refused to deny or confirm.
Of course, all these documents appear to be the same document.
I looked at the 4 pictures of the COLB. The first two are the same scan, the third one is a picture which matches the first two pictures, even matching the location of the seal.
The fourth one is overexposed and out of focus.
Is that the ‘controversy’?
Is that all?
Well, wanted to pop in and comment on the original crazy video in this post, as I’ve been out at a wedding all day:
Wow, just wow. How sad that this deluded birther dude just confirms many of the stereotypes of how birthers come across. I almost feel bad for him – he seems so happy reveling in his “OMG” moment. I always wonder how bad the depression hits when their latest fantasy bubble bursts on them.
And what was with the strange Punisher worship non-sequitor thing he did towards the beginning of the video…?!?!? That was…messed up…to put it kindly.
It is the original document that really matters and not the image. I will always be in awe on how continuously “birthers” contradict themselves without realizing it.
Maybe I’m in a minority here, but I actually do doubt this. I think that if Obama had exactly the same life story, except that his father was a white European, that we would still have birthers.
In fact, I think that if Obama had been born of two white anglo American citizens and had never even traveled abroad, there would still be a lot of the same people questioning his legitimacy. They’d just be finding another reason. I have no idea what it would be, but they’d come up with something.
Certainly, race is a factor here. I agree with Dr. Conspiracy. Some birthers obviously are racists, while others apparently aren’t. But I believe the underlying problem is that he’s a Democrat, and that he has described himself as liberal. That’s all it takes. Since he is black and has the exotic life story, that’s the form the questioning has taken; but if not for that, there’d be something else.
*Shrug* All hypothetical, of course, so who knows?
In the link so graciously supplied to us by ORYR, this is fraud due to the way the birth certificates of Puerto Ricans are being stolen for identify theft because they were so frequently given out for identity purposes. “Just like business cards”.
So, this is proof that Obama’s COLB is fake because of a problem with BC’s in Puerto Rico? Now, that is spin.
You’re probably right, Passerby. The reason that the right is going after Obama is because they don’t like having a Democrat for a president. But some of it is racist. You can’t help but drag in the racists since they keep referring to Obama as a mullato.
In fact, this is a darned good reason why birth records should remain private. There are very sound reasons not to run around “showing your long-form birth certificate”.
A Puerto Rican fake birth certificate ring has zip to do with a Hawaiian birth almost half a century ago. Birthers are NUTS.
No, those Puerto Ricans helped Obama forge his BC. Obama’s supporters are so credulous. Hey, did you know Obama was actually born on Tralfamadore? It’s true.
how would you propose he release this document so all registered voters ( or all US citizens ) could see it ?
I did exactly that, for my authentic birth certificate.
So the birther article you quote was published two years ago, and if “official doubts” were already mounting then, think how huge they must be by now. Tell you what, give me some examples of doubts expressed by officials. The few statements I’ve seen by actual officials that could even be called “doubt” are such tepid fence straddling you’d think the birthers would be insulted and enraged. But no, they proudly put them up on their blogs in all caps, I guess because they’re grateful to be noticed at all.
I’ll be impressed with “official doubt” when one, even just one, GOP Congressman asks for a Congressional investigation into the President’s eligibility. Just one statement that there should be such an investigation. Can you find one?
This would be a great money maker for CPGH. They could charge $10 (+ postage) to each of the birthers & by Orly’s count make millions & millions of dollars. I’m sure they could use it. Maybe build a new “Birther Wing” for the seriously deranged.
Of course they are all racists.
We have proof of that with Bill Clinton. He was hated by the right, so they tried to impeach him.
With Obama, they’re not trying that route — they’re using the “he isn’t one of us” meme because of skin color and parentage.
In other words, the fact that they want to get rid of Obama isn’t necessarily racist (since they tried to get rid of Clinton too), but the entire total sum of means used to achieve that end is racist and nothing but.
There is no non-racist birther argument.
(Or xenophobic, if you wish to quibble.)
Well, bigotry might be a better all-encompassing word than even xenophopbia to apply to the majority of birthers.
Xenophobia is usually defined as simply “A fear or hatred of persons of a different race, or different ethnic or national origin.”
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=define%3A+xenophobia&aq=0&aqi=l1g2g-s1g7&aql=&oq=definition+xe&gs_rfai=C1HnlPjcVTLOsN57-zQTmo7jKBgAAAKoEBU_Qxz2X
So, that covers the racists amongst the birthers as well as those that are just put-off by his unusual name or even his multi-cultural background. Based on their own words & deeds, this does appear to typify a significant portion of the birthers out there, but not all of them.
Many of the birthers seem to be hung up on religious based fears, insisting that he must be a “secret muslim” or even merely not attending the same church that they do, or that he’s not “religious enough for them”. Heck, a lot of fundamentalists/listeralists hate/fear anyone or anything who doesn’t subscribe 100% to their particular brand of religious dogma.
So, there is a lot of religious bigotry driving things here too -with birther folk along all parts of just that spectrum of issues.
As many have pointed out, the far-right has campaigned for years to demonize and brainwash their followers to fear/hate anything sounding “liberal” or associated with Democrats. So there is quite a bit of political partisan bigotry involved as well.
Then there are quite a bit of folks who have such a broad, generalized distrust and fear of the government or authority in general – the full-on conspiracy folks. The birther & Tea Party movements seem to be rife with Birchers coming out of the woodwork and we are seeing a lot of “black helicopter” & NWO type speech associated with a number of the birthers – when you here of complaints about FEMA Camps, Bilderbergs, fluoride, etc.
Then there are a bunch of folks who are obviously, truly mentally ill and this birther stuff just seems to be the latest thing for them to latch onto in their delusions and paranoia.
Now of course, many of these things sadly overlap and go hand-in-hand and the mindsets that support folks being gullible or amenable to one of those reasons are very similar.
Therefore, there is no “one reason” to explain all birthers. Nor do I think that many birthers fall into only one of those categories.
I think there is a huge amount of overlap between these motivations and that many birthers hold a number of various bigotry-based & conspiracy-based views.
I’m sure there are definitely some that fall into *every* category described!
Try not to think of it in terms of ‘invalid’ but rather as though it were ‘voided,’ like a check you need to send to a bank or business entity. If you needed to send such a check, would you not void it first to make sure it couldn’t be used for anything untoward?
Putting you on ignore, on the other hand, will utterly destroy you.
I am a rabid conservative anti-birther and I could not disagree with you more. This is NOT about Obama’s skin color. This is a sincere, but deeply misguided attempt to undo the election.
The wacky left, for 8 years, kept referring to “W” as selected not elected. And during the entire Valerie Plame investigation they were certain that Bush and Cheney were going to be frog-marched off to jail. Not to mention their constant call for his impeachment for “war crimes”. (Code Pink is still trying to arrest Karl Rove.)
And I watched the Clinton impeachment with great interest in hopes of getting rid of him…after all…without Perot, he would have never won. (A political circus that ultimately backfired on Republicans.)
This kind of irrational fervor didn’t start with Obama, and won’t end with him. But to attribute it to racism is an extreme oversimplification of our complex political process.
His policies and legislative agenda successes are “worst nightmares” to traditional conservatives.
And since Republicans have a pathetic congressional minority, many birthers are pinning their hopes on the false promise of an easy solution.
I keep waiting for a respected pollster to ask a simple question of Republican voters:
If given the opportunity, which would you change about Obama?
1) His color.
2) His agenda.
Most of the conservatives I know are horrified by his agenda, but couldn’t care less about his color.
Your analogy would be correct if the actual paper document were thus modified, but all we are seeing on the internet is a scan from which information has been removed. Once again: THE POSTED IMAGE IS NOT THE COLB, IT IS ONLY AN IMAGE OF IT.
Except that you don’t have to show your long form BC to vote.
The fact that you think that leads me to wonder if you’ve ever actually voted yourself?
Here’s Sarah Palin: http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2009/11/dont-cry-for-me-alaska.html
Where I live, all you need to do is show up at the polling place, give your street address and name, and you’re given a ballot. When it came to registering to vote, all I needed was my Massachusetts driver’s license to prove that I did indeed live there. I have *never* had to produce a birth certificate of any sort to vote, and I think I’ve missed a grand total of 4-5 elections, including primaries and local votes, in the last thirty years.
I find it rather amusing how lefties today love to claim their views are all evidence-based, and how they are all part of the “reality-based community.”
And then, within the same breath, they say something like this:
Lupin:”All of Obama’s denialists are motivated by racism, or if you will xenophobia. ”
Sorry guys, you’ve got no evidence to support that. Lupin’s sentiment above is based purely upon his (or her) prejudices about conservatives. There is asbolutely no way you could prove that all, or even most Birthers are motivated by racism. The most you can prove is that some are.
Misha’s anti-Palin screed, to which she links above, is similar: long on hateful claims based on stereotypes for which she has absolutely no evidence.
Kudos to Dr. C for resisting such such nonsensical thinking.
I agree that saying birthers are motivated by racism is speculative. It has not been proven; however……
1) No other Democrat president has been subjected to this type of ridiculous personal attack which question his eligibility to hold office.
2) The policies of this democrat president are no more liberal than any other democrat president in memory, and probably more conservative.
3) The birthers have zero objective and substantive evidence to support their ridiculous claims regarding his eligibility to hold office. Yet they continue unabated with obvious hatred toward the person.
4) This president has been the subject of more abject, foam spitting, rant raving, hate mongering by far right political pundits and conspiracy nutbags than any other president of any political stripe, from even before he took office, before he had penned a single official signature.
5) The only substantive difference between this president and other democrat presidents, is the color of his skin. Therefore the only plausible reason for the amount of vitriol, hatremongering, and delusional eligibility rants, is racism.
So no….. we can’t prove birtherism is motivated by racism….. but given the facts, it’s the way any reasonable person would bet.
Adam-I want to try and address this very honestly. No, I don’t think all birthers are racist. That said, it’s disturbing that all of them seemed to have rushed to embrace a video on a clearly white-supremacist site without a second thought. People will judge you by the company you keep.
Now to xenophobia. I would have to say that all birthers are xenophobic. Why do I say that? Xenophobia is, quite simply, fear of foreigners. In fact I would say that the natural born citizen clause is itself xenophobic, because it presumes that those who were born abroad and choose the US as their home are somehow less loyal than those born here, when there is no evidence to support that view. The fact that that xenophobia dates to the founders does not change what it is. The birthers by pretending that clause is the crown jewel of the Constitution rather than one of the least worthy things in that document show xenophobia, in my opinion.
I kind of fin d this entire Adams situation funny. It is interesting how the birthers are willing to believe a part time elections clerk discussing someone that is not even registered to vote in HI over the statement of the Governor and Director of Health, both who stated that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. So Adam if Lupin and others are being unrealistic with their comparisons, how do you explain it? How do you explain why the birthers are willing to believe, with no supporting evidence, the word of this guy Adams 2 years later over the word of the governor and the director of Health? By the way the governor is a Republican and wanted McCain to win. Especially when Adams makes his statement on an avowed racist site. Can any birther or denialist explain that? Probably not.
From Media Matters….
Desperation: WND touts birther claim made on “pro-white” program at “white supremacist” conference
June 14, 2010 11:31 am ET by Media Matters staff
WorldNetDaily, one of the loudest voices pushing the bogus story that Barack Obama does not have a legitimate birth certificate, is now touting a birther claim first made on a “pro-white” radio program at a conference of “white supremacist[s].”
In a June 10 article headlined, “Hawaii elections clerk: Obama not born here,” WND’s Joe Kovacs wrote that Tim Adams, “who worked as a senior elections clerk for the city and county of Honolulu in 2008 is making the stunning claim Barack Obama was definitely not born in Hawaii as the White House maintains, and that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Obama does not even exist in the Aloha State.” WND added that “People started to pay attention this week after he was briefly interviewed by James Edwards, host of a weekly radio show on WLRM Radio in Memphis, Tenn.” Kovacs wrote a follow-up article on Adams, touting how “WND’s original report about Adams’ claims has already been made into a YouTube video, getting thousands of hits.”
WND, however, makes no mention that Adams made the claim while appearing on a “pro-white” radio program hosted by white nationalist James Edwards at a conference of “white supremacist[s].”
James Edwards says that on June 5, he broadcasted his radio program The Political Cesspool “at the 2010 Council of Conservative Citizens National Conference.” The CofCC similarly states that Edwards broadcasted live from its event, and includes links to a recording of the show. According to Edwards, “in attendance” was Tim Adams, who made his birther claim on-air.
The Council of Conservative Citizens is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a “white supremacist” “hate group,” and by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as having a “white supremacy, white separatism” ideology. The Council states on its website that they “oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called ‘affirmative action’ and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races.”
The Political Cesspool website states: “We represent a philosophy that is pro-White … We wish to revive the White birthrate above replacement level fertility and beyond to grow the percentage of Whites in the world relative to other races.” The ADL and SPLC have both criticized Edwards and The Political Cesspool. The SPLC writes that Edwards “has probably done more than any of his contemporaries on the American radical right to publicly promote neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, raging anti-Semites and other extremists.”
Other guests that appeared on the show with Adams included “white supremacist” Sam Dickson; “white supremacist” Paul Fromm; and Derek Black, the son of former Klan leader Don Black and host of “weekly shows on the Stormfront Internet radio site, where he also was a webmaster.” Stormfront, which has streamed Political Cesspool, describes itself as a “community of White Nationalists.”
Edwards wrote on his blog that he “introduced Tim Adams to the world,” and brought the story to WorldNetDaily. Edwards wrote: “We have been swamped with media inquiries ever since Mr. Adams appeared on our show last weekend. In working in cooperation with Joe Kovacs, Executive News Editor at World Net Daily, the following story has now been published.” Edwards then linked to Kovacs’ June 10 story.
The backing behind Adams’ claim is so extreme that even the right-wing message board Free Republic states that it pulled threads related to Adams because the source of the video “is a group called The Council of Conservative Citizens. This is NOT a Conservative group, do not be fooled by the name. This group is a front group for a neo-Nazi group known as the National Alliance and is associated with Stormfront.”
So why is WorldNetDaily pushing a claim made on a “pro-white” radio program at a “white supremacist” conference?
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201006140017
“I find it rather amusing how lefties today love to claim their views are all evidence-based, and how they are all part of the “reality-based community.””
My objection to efforts to remove President Obama by asserting he was not eligible is based upon the evidence.
My opinion based upon the facts and the evidence is that a reasonably large segment of the Birther population is a birther because of racism. However, I think the source of rumors was purely political, and racists and xenophobes gladly latched onto it.
I think the rumors that Obama is not eligible came from the same sources that spread the rumors that he is Muslim. The only reason the Muslim rumor isn’t being used in this is because even Birthers know being a Muslim doesn’t technically make someone ineligible to be President.
Not racism: OK, how about this?
When I was Anchorage for the Iditarod, I met a minister in Palin’s church who said to me “Auschwitz was divine retribution because you people have refused to accept G-d’s only son.” A woman with him said Jewish people “deserve to suffer.”
I believe this video must be a parody. On the other hand, the first time I heard Rush Limbaugh on the radio, I thought he was a parodist!
There is something quite weird about embedding your complaint about Lupin’s unfair generalization of birthers in your own unfair generalization about lefties.
You have already noted that not all lefties share Lupin’s view. I don’t.
I’m happy to hear that you too are part of the reality based community. Maybe you could explain why, after two years of allegations of the President’s eligibility, not one single GOP Congressman has called for an investigation.
When someone making a birther claim is a racist (by making other racist comments or having membership in a racist organization), then I think it is valid to comment on that. I think statistical correlations discovered between birther sentiments and sentiments of other kinds are interesting. However, I don’t think generalization fallacies either from the general to the specific or the other way round are useful.
Me too!
I agree about the increased partisanship divide and irrational behavior that has been building and building over the past several decades.
However, the level of open and immediate hostility and outrageous claims against Obama definitely seem to have taken things to a whole new level of irrationality. A good portion of that cannot merely be explained away by the reasons you cited – some yes, but definitely not all of it by a long shot.
I think it is both short-sighted and inaccurate for anyone to say that race is the only factor here. I also think it is short-sighted and inaccurate for anyone to try to dismiss race as a strong driving factor among many of the irrational, particularly the birthers. There have been a number of very clear racist and racially based statements made by various members of this group as well as among other fringe groups in opposition to Obama, including the Tea Party folks. While any individual’s statements & beliefs cannot be transcribed to a movement as a whole, such incidents have occurred with sufficient frequency to lead anyone to reasonably conclude that racism is one of the major factors involved.
I live in an area with a lot of conservatives. From my own experiences, I too would say that most of them think the birthers and those like them are total nutbags and their disagreement with Obama is primarily policy based.
However, I would like to point out that I think there has been a decades long drive amongst conservatives to “groupthink” and automatically by into arguments and predujdices against democrats, liberals, progressives, or anyone that they don’t think “sufficiently conservative” and to automatically buy into and regurgitate the “spin” and “smears” and pre-judge one’s movtives and actions before they even take place. Their minds seem to be made up and no matter what Obama does, they will be against it.
I find that to be quite irrational too, as the rhetoric that I hear, even on the policy side against Obama doesn’t seem to match up with the reality of his actions. Nearly all of those that I know on the democratic / liberal / progressive side of the table seem to be constantly disappointed that Obama’s actions so far have been way to far to the “right” of anything that actual liberals, etc. seem to be fighting and arguing for.
So, I find it quite amusing (and somewhat sad as well) the differences of views and characterizations from both sides over the very same actions. Logic tells me that the truth seems to be somewhere inbetween.
Birthers didn’t hear that this was a temporary clerk, but rather a” chief election” “official”. They didn’t know that the Election Division had no access to Hawaii birth records. The YouTube video that our sample birther linked to did not have any racist logos attached to it. Birthers wouldn’t have tracked down the “Political Cesspool” radio show and it hosts’ predilection for white supremacist comments. They heard Adams had regular access to all these databases. They didn’t carefully parse Adams’ words and note that he never really said he saw any record or had any inside knowledge.
Birthers are easy to manipulate and they hear what they want to hear. In fact lots of people are easy to manipulate and hear what they want to hear. Heck, I’m easy to manipulate and hear what I want to hear. I have no problem understanding birthers.
It brings me back to an article I wrote very early on this site: Is OCD (Obama Citizenship Denial) a delusion? I concluded that it was not a delusion because the diagnostic definition of a delusion requires a belief contrary to what is accepted by their culture or subculture. Birthers form a subculture, in which birtherism is normal. One should not underestimate the influence of the culture one is surrounded with and the lengths one will go to maintain it.
This is why birther web sites do not allow open discussion: 1) those trying to promote the birther agenda know that their visitors will be led to believe that there is no legitimate alternate view and 2) those true believers would not want the pollution of lies on their sites.
Adam, unfortunately, you have decided to demonstrate the very same nonsensical thinking that you decry with your very first sentence, where you stereotyped and gave a definitive conclusion for all “liberals”.
While I give you credit for being specific and pointing out the exact two poster’s example’s who have demonstrated such generalizations themselves, I find it extremely hypocritical and disappointing that you use them to not just point out where you disagree with their specific opinions, but to try to justify your own broad-brush dismissive character assassination.
Lupin, who is from France by the way, has definitely expressed several times that he suspects that the birthers are all racicst. I have often followed up on his posts of such with a constructive and professional dialog on why I think that view is too broad-brush and generalized. Lupin has clarified and refined his position, that when he says racist, he really means to imply a general xenophobia as a driving factor. Personally, I still think that xenophobia alone doesn’t explain all of the birthers, as I have consistently expressed. The point is, if you disagree or want to challenge his position, you can do it in a direct and tactful manner and he will respond in kind. I’ve found that when most people try to have a respectful dialog, they do end up getting beyond initial broad generalizations. I suggest you give it a try.
Misha, who often provides a comedic view of things here, also clearly holds some strong-held beliefs and views when he wants to be serious. Personally, I also tend to think that Misha often makes some very harsh generalized assessments, which as stated, go way beyond anything I could agree with or support. I do give Misha credit for at least always explaining where his own biases come from, which appear to be a bunch of very rough personal experiences and slights he has had to deal with in his life and which he has difficulty getting past them.
If anything, I think Misha’s own situation probably represents what drives many people’s personal predjudices and generalizations – the treatment they’ve received or personal experiences they’ve had have led them to make emotional-based whole-cloth judgments and be initially distrustful and/or dismissive of anyone who resembles / or reminds them of those that have wronged them in the past.
So, I think a lot of that can explain how the human mind/heart tends to work and how these attitudes and differences crop up in the first place. If we are ever to get beyond such and try to be less judgmentally biased ourselves, we must understand the emotional baggage we carry and try to immediately judge others by projecting it onto them unfairly.
Great post, G. Also everyone — please don’t assume that every birther is a righty or every anti-birther is a lefty. The US is a big and diverse place. Some of us anti-birthers don’t support Obama’s agenda; we think that birthers, WND, and Fox make the GOP look utterly ridiculous.
G: Misha, who often provides a comedic view of things here, also clearly holds some strong-held beliefs and views when he wants to be serious. Personally, I also tend to think that Misha often makes some very harsh generalized assessments, which as stated, go way beyond anything I could agree with or support. I do give Misha credit for at least always explaining where his own biases come from, which appear to be a bunch of very rough personal experiences and slights he has had to deal with in his life and which he has difficulty getting past them.
I was raised by survivors, My mother told me her mother was saved by being hidden in a trunk in the attic. My step-father’s best friend had a number tattooed on his arm; his wife was shot in the head, in front of him, when they were pulled out of a boxcar in Auschwitz. My paternal great-grandparents perished in Treblinka.
My grandmother literally became insane from what she went through, and spent the last years of her life in Gowanda State Hospital. My grandfather never forgave what was done to her. It was forbidden to say “Christian”, or “Christianity”, or “Jesus” in our house. A missionary once knocked on our door. My grandfather literally threw a glass of water in her face.
My mother told me a boy in NY used to shout Żyd at her in NY. So she went into her building’s basement, and caught a rat by the tail. She walked up to him, with the rat dangling behind her back. He said “Żyd, świnia.” She threw the rat at him. He screamed, and never went near her again.
And then there was that minister in Palin’s church. A classmate in grade school shouted “you killed our lord.”
Here is what Hagee really thinks of us: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7706179979766534830&hl=en#
And here is our parody: http://www.landoverbaptist.org/thelittlejew.htm
I know that it is only an image. I was merely trying to explain a concept to the gentleman from Birtherstan. If my analogy was less than accurate, I apologise.
Admitted by who? The only people who claimed that it was a forgery was Polland/Polarik and “TechDude”, and there’s been no credible sources making such a claim.
Hell, Sandra Lines only said you can’t verify the image as legit unless you compare it to the original – which is exactly what Dr. Neil Krawetz said when he debunked Polland/Polarik and TechDude in 2008.
Is this an audition video for the Blue Collar Comedy Tour?
=================================
So, if the police appear at your door without a search warrant and request your permission to search your home, I am sure you will allow them to do so. If you don’t, you must have something to hide.
The first time *I* heard Rush Limbaugh on the radio, I nearly threw up in the car….
No, it’s the Appalachian Comedy Tour.
From ConWebWatch….
WND Touts Birther Claim First Made on Supremacist Radio Program
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Media Matters details how WorldNetDaily’s newest birther star, Tim Adams — a temporary election worker in Hawaii who claims based on what little he saw as a temp worker that Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii — first made his accusations on a “pro-white” radio program at a conference of “white supremacist[s].”
In a June 10 article, Joe Kovacs states only that Adams was “briefly interviewed by James Edwards, host of a weekly radio show on WLRM Radio in Memphis, Tenn.” In fact, Edwards is the host of a radio show called “The Political Cesspool,” which claims as its philosophy: “We represent a philosophy that is pro-White … We wish to revive the White birthrate above replacement level fertility and beyond to grow the percentage of Whites in the world relative to other races.”
As Media Matters noted in 2008, WND writer Jerome Corsi had been scheduled to appear on Edwards’ show to plug his anti-Obama — where he had appeared before — but he apparently canceled due to the negative publicity.
Why is WND hobnobbing with a “pro-White” radio host?
UPDATE: Oh For Goodness Sake has more on Adams. Apparently, he’s threatened to kill Obama (and McCain) supporters and expressed sympathies for the haters at Westboro Baptist Church. He also appears to be not telling the truth about just how much database access he had as an election temp in Hawaii.
From OFGS…
On Newsvine he posted this charming sentiment:
timothy adams
…All of your, both McCain and Obama supporters are filth, civil war now, kill them all.
#626 – Thu Oct 23, 2008 7:41 PM EDT
http://ohforgoodnesssake.com/?p=10857
I posted this at RSOL concerning the Tim Adams’s story:
the head of Hawaii’s election division stated that they do not have access to birth records, plus elections staff in Hawaii do not have access to Chicago voting Records (Obama was registered and voting in Chicago during the time Adam’s was in Hawaii).
The horse is Dead, stop beating it.
Phil’s Response
richCares,
Nope — not stopping.
-Phil
Poor deluded Phil, I wonder what he expects to find?
Rich, what did you expect? Phil is a semi birther. I used to post there a lot. He will allow dissent, but he will always be supportive of the birther point of view. You can tell that type of birther because they refuse to acknowledge that Obama is the President. If you notice on Phil’s site he will never address Obama as the President. It is the bury my head in the sand theory. If they refuse to acknowledge that Obama is President, then maybe he is not and this is all a bad dream for them. Remember the birthers are delusional. So to them Adams work of fiction confirms their already negative opinion of the President. Phil even though he allows “opposition posters”, he still links to WND, the Post and Fail, and the other extreme birthers sites. He may be more sane than the others, but at the end of the day he is not much better.
I view Phil as a complete & total birther, just a fairly polite and personable one.
He was one of the original folks to start flogging the birther lawsuit issues, so he’s been a birther for a long time. Early on, it sounded like honest curiosity, but for him to still be flaunting this issues at this late stage – I’m sorry, but that is full-on solid birtherism.
I agree. Ask Phil if Obama was born in Hawaii, and he’s go into his spiel about how we don’t know if he was (despite the obvious evidence), and then it is the usual living-in-denial playbook: factcheck’s reports aren’t forensic experts, Obama never produced a receipt for the COLB, etc. — in other words, demanding an unrealistic burden of proof, shifting goalposts, etc.
I guess I would have to agree then. Full birther especially since he knows that none of he evidence that would “satisfy” him would ever be produced because it is not necessary. So it allows him to cloak himself in his birtherism while trying to seem “open-minded”…
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
WND Mum on Racist Ties of Its New Birther Hero
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has been reduced to cavorting with people with racist ties in order to further its birther obsession.
As we noted, WorldNetDaily’s newest birther star, Tim Adams — a temporary election worker in Hawaii who claims based on what little he saw as a temp worker that Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii — is claiming that Obama was not born in Hawaii, based on his purported (and unverified) searches of databases he claims he had access to as a temp. WND claimed that Adams was “briefly interviewed by James Edwards, host of a weekly radio show on WLRM Radio in Memphis, Tenn.” In fact, Edwards is the host of a radio show called “The Political Cesspool,” which claims as its philosophy: “We represent a philosophy that is pro-White … We wish to revive the White birthrate above replacement level fertility and beyond to grow the percentage of Whites in the world relative to other races.” Further, Edwards taped his interview with Adams at the 2010 National Conference of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a decendent of the openly racist White Citizens Councils of the 1950s and 1960s that the Anti-Defamation League describes as having a “white supremacy, white separatism” ideology.
Now, Media Matters reports that Edwards wrote on his blog that he was “working in cooperation” with WND news editor Joe Kovacs to promote the Allen story, which resulted in “tons of new visitors” and “huge national exposure.”
As if that behavior wasn’t unsavory enough, Media Matters also notes that the white-nationalist website Stormfront.org have enthusiastically reposted WND’s articles on Adams.
If WND is working with sources to create news as opposed to reporting the news, it is no longer a news organization. If WND is working with racists and white supremacists, that raises serious questions about the motivation of WND’s incessant opposition to Obama.
Needless to say, Kovacs’ latest WND story on Allen doesn’t say a thing about his racist connections or Kovac’s cooperation with a white supremacist to advance the story.
If WND has to rely on racists to promote the birther story, doesn’t that mean there’s no reliable evidence to support it? And doesn’t that mean that Joseph Farah and his WND crew are more than a bit racist themselves?
http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/blog/
So this is what snooping in the President’s protected information (federal privacy laws) can get you. I wonder if Tim Adams will “change” his story again……
“A woman pleaded guilty in Davenport federal court Wednesday to accessing Barack Obama’s student loan records without permission.
Mercedes Costoyas, 53, of Iowa City, is one of nine people charged with exceeding authorized computer access.
The indictments were filed last month in U.S. District Court, Davenport. Each person faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine, if convicted.
By pleading guilty, Costoyas still faces up to a year in prison. But her attorney, Christopher Hagenow, and prosecutor Joel Barrows said she likely faces zero to six months jail time. …”
http://qctimes.com/187208c6-796a-11df-9bcb-001cc4c03286.html