I just finished reading an Associated Press story saying that the “birther” legislation in Nebraska is dead. Here’s how the AP article described the bill that won’t get out of committee:
[LB 654] would have required presidential candidates to provide state officials with a sworn statement and a certified copy of their U.S. birth certificate to appear on the state’s election ballot. The Nebraska Secretary of State would confirm each candidate’s eligibility.
LB 654 does more than simply ask for a birth certificate, and sworn statement of eligibility. It requires the candidate to swear:
On the day I was born, both my birth mother and birth father were citizens of the United States of America.
The AP, by failing to disclose that crank birther presidential requirement (not in the Constitution), the AP article allows the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Mark Christensen, to get away with saying that:
he didn’t want his proposal to be perceived as a political attack on the president
An unconstitutional bill crafted to exclude President Obama (and President Chester A. Arthur by the way) is nothing but an attack on the President. The AP’s sloppy reporting and characterization of the Nebraska bill allows shifty politicians like Christensen to get away with lies like that.
That stupid bill even wanted “A certified copy of my birth mother’s long-form birth
certificate indicating her United States citizenship;”
Sadly, it’s typical of the sorry state of reporting these days. The AP reporter probably never even read the bill and instead most likely just glanced at a summary of it.
Fortunately, a few local reports did cover the story with the details about its insane problems with requesting BCs for the parents of the candidate.
Patrick over at Bad Fiction just did a great rundown of the story in his latest release tonight.
http://badfiction.typepad.com/badfiction/2011/03/dispatches-from-birtherstan-11-march-2011.html#more
Of even more significance in that story is the lone Nebraska resident birther supporter of the Nebraska bill that those papers keep quoting, Nellie.
Why would they all quote this one birther you ask? Is it just lazy reporting? Or could it have to do with the fact that this Nellie actively got involved and provided a printed 11-page birther manifesto to all of the NE legislators in support of the bill…
That nutter, Butterdezillion has outed herself as Nellie in Nebraska in relation to the Nebraska Birther Bill.
Hat tip to Patrick over at Bad Fiction for breaking the story.
NOTE: I have left off Nellie’s last name in accordance with the general policy of this blog.
However, as she has openly signed her identify on that manifesto and in those news coverage stories, you can find that info in Patrick’s report.
Good job Patrick! I can’t wait to read about Butterdezillon’s antics… (I’m kind of behind in my reading over at Bad Fiction right now… ;-))
Speaking of bad reporting, I caught Joseph Farah admitting he’s a birther in a recent editorial he wrote.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/WND-s-Joseph-Farah-Finally-by-J-Edward-Tremlett-110311-984.html
Farah has not addressed the persistent internet rumor that barnyard animals become skittish when he is near. He has not denied it. I wonder why. Also, Farah has not released his birth certificate. What is he hiding?
The problem that I find with some news reporting is that they seem to do no research.
Good article; however, there is a fallacy: there is no evidence that Joseph Farah actually believes anything he says.
I completely believe it when Farah says he wants you to spend money at the WND Store.
The press did the same thing with Mark Hatfield’s Georgia birther bill. Literally EVERY news report focused exclusively on the requirement to produce a long-form birth certificate. Not a single one even so much as hinted at the blatantly unconstitutional ‘no dual citizenships’ requirement in the very next section of the bill.
“Good article; however, there is a fallacy: there is no evidence that Joseph Farah actually believes anything he says.”
Awww, dammit! *bangs head against wall*
Whoever wrote that provision was probably feeling a bit of nostalgia for the days when some states allowed citizens to vote only if they had a grandparent on the electoral register.
If that passes, then I will have to write to my MP and ask him to introduce a bill to naturalise all Republican candidates as British citizens without their consent and forbid renunciation of citizenship by those people.