Donald Trump digs himself in deeper

Donald Trump

Donald Trump has been making the media rounds asking questions about Barack Obama’s origins, questions predicated on false information and a general ignorance of what a birth certificate is. In attempt to press the contrast between himself and Barack Obama, Trump released not one, but three birth certificates in rapid succession. In a phone interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News Network Trump reiterated his incredible claim: “I’m a really smart guy” and then proceeded to prove otherwise.

Trump plows new ground regarding the birth announcements from Hawaiian newspapers, not only falsely describing them as advertisements from the parents, but raising suspicions as why ANY parent would take out an ad in the newspaper announcing the birth of their child. Donald, Donald, Donald, all the kids in Honolulu were listed in the newspaper because the Department of Health sent the names to the Hawaii News Service Newspaper Agency, and they in turn distributed it to the news papers in a column titled: “Health Bureau Statistics“. Trump says that he believes that Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie didn’t really know the Obama family and he also says that a “Certificate of Live Birth” “is nothing to do with a birth certificate.”

How does Trump know all this?

“I see what’s going on over the Internet.”

Did Greta Van Susteren challenge Trump on all the absurd claims he made? Apparently she knows very little on the subject, raising only the point that Obama must have had to present his birth certificate when he got his passport because she did.

About Dr. Conspiracy

I'm not a real doctor, but I have a master's degree.
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61 Responses to Donald Trump digs himself in deeper

  1. Dave says:

    You say he released two birth certificates, but I count three. Two have been featured in stories you posted here; but in a comment Suranis posted a link to a third:
    http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax/files/44/44d19bb5-b4c6-4b57-b059-92dae5f2acd5.jpg
    It’s a regular modern-style birth certificate, much like the one Obama release several years ago. I believe Trump released this one between the other two.

  2. y_p_w says:

    Dave:
    You say he released two birth certificates, but I count three. Two have been featured in stories you posted here; but in a comment Suranis posted a link to a third:
    http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax/files/44/44d19bb5-b4c6-4b57-b059-92dae5f2acd5.jpg
    It’s a regular modern-style birth certificate, much like the one Obama release several years ago. I believe Trump released this one between the other two.

    The “first one” wasn’t a real birth certificate, but a hospital souvenir. The second one was an image of a real certified birth certificate. The third one was some strange hybrid image that doesn’t look to be from a real certified copy of the vault certificate; it’s some sort of personal informational copy that one can get for free but can’t use as legal proof of age/identity because it lacks the agency seals and security measures.

  3. Thrifty says:

    I had to use my birth certificate to get my driver’s license renewed last month (something about a new enhanced ID to conform to national standard). I had a copy that my mother got in 1994 (when I was a teenager), but it was all tattered and falling apart. It was good enough for the DMV though.

    Anyway, after that, I decided to get a fresh copy for my records. It only took me about half an hour. I was able to drive down to the local branch of the Delaware Bureau of Records and Vital Statistics and get it pretty quickly.

    It’d surely take longer if you tried to do it by mail, and maybe it’s different in other states, but it’s not hard to get a birth certificate quickly.

  4. Rob in Denver says:

    @Dave: That’s obviously a forgery. After all, it doesn’t have the cute little forrtprints, or his father’s race, or the attending physician’s name and signature, or list the hospital. And look at the date of issue. It says 1999. What was he doing between 1946 and 1999? Touring Pakistan on a suspect passport? There’s something fishy there.

    On another note, Ben Smith of the Politico noted the other day that Trump’s mother was born in Scotland. Alas, Trump can never be president.

  5. Dr Kenneth Noisewater (Bob Ross) says:

    Thrifty: I had to use my birth certificate to get my driver’s license renewed last month (something about a new enhanced ID to conform to national standard). I had a copy that my mother got in 1994 (when I was a teenager), but it was all tattered and falling apart. It was good enough for the DMV though.Anyway, after that, I decided to get a fresh copy for my records. It only took me about half an hour. I was able to drive down to the local branch of the Delaware Bureau of Records and Vital Statistics and get it pretty quickly. It’d surely take longer if you tried to do it by mail, and maybe it’s different in other states, but it’s not hard to get a birth certificate quickly.

    Thrifty from my experience: I’ve lost my birth certificate about 4 times from when I went to college in 1999 to while I was in college to various moved since then. I live on the other side of the country(CT) from where I was born (CA). When I need to order a certificate I simply use their online form. I then print out a page and send in the confirmation with the notary stamp in the mail. They start the process and usually within a week or two I get back my BC.

  6. y_p_w says:

    Thrifty:
    I had to use my birth certificate to get my driver’s license renewed last month (something about a new enhanced ID to conform to national standard).I had a copy that my mother got in 1994 (when I was a teenager), but it was all tattered and falling apart.It was good enough for the DMV though.

    Anyway, after that, I decided to get a fresh copy for my records.It only took me about half an hour.I was able to drive down to the local branch of the Delaware Bureau of Records and Vital Statistics and get it pretty quickly.

    It’d surely take longer if you tried to do it by mail, and maybe it’s different in other states, but it’s not hard to get a birth certificate quickly.

    It depends on the state and/or local jurisdictions. I’ve helped get a BC for a relative a few times and it was pretty fast in person. However – that was because the original form had been scanned and an image could be quickly produced from the database.

    Cities and counties in California mostly work with VitalChek if you want to order online. One can also order directly with the offices by mail, but that requires that a statement of being an authorized requestor is notarized. VitalChek might also require that, but I don’t know how they do it.

    The California state Dept of Health also issues BCs, but only by mail request with a notarized statement.

    I guess one can skip the notarized statement part if only asking for an “informational copy” with the notice plastered all over the front. That’s the one thing about California – anyone can get a copy of a BC, but only “authorized requestors” can get a full copy that can be used as an identity document.

  7. Dave: You say he released two birth certificates, but I count three.

    Thanks. The article has been corrected.

  8. JoZeppy says:

    I have to hope that Trump’s just being a media whore and trying to get publicity for his next season of Apprentice. I find it hard to believe that anyone that has achieved as much success as he has can be either as lazy or stupid as he is displaying himself as. It’s not like he even has to do the research himself. He just has to turn to one of the many attorneys on his staff and ask a simple question (something most birthers don’t have the luxery of doing). But he is getting old, and is accostomed to getting his own way, so perhaps he’s begun to believe his own hype, and thinks he knows everything. I never had much respect for him to begin with, finding him brash, vulgar, tasteless, arrogant, and a long list of personal flaws. I guess I can add intellectually lazy and possibly stupid to that list.

  9. nc1 says:

    JoZeppy:
    I have to hope that Trump’s just being a media whore and trying to get publicity for his next season of Apprentice.I find it hard to believe that anyone that has achieved as much success as he has can be either as lazy or stupid as he is displaying himself as.It’s not like he even has to do the research himself.He just has to turn to one of the many attorneys on his staff and ask a simple question (something most birthers don’t have the luxery of doing). But he is getting old, and is accostomed to getting his own way, so perhaps he’s begun to believe his own hype, and thinks he knows everything.I never had much respect for him to begin with, finding him brash, vulgar, tasteless, arrogant, and a long list of personal flaws.I guess I can add intellectually lazy and possibly stupid to that list.

    Trump implicitly called Obama a fraud – what is Obama going to do about it?

    You and other Obama supporters could help and lobby for the release of public information: Obama mother’s passport records prior to 1967, confirmation from DoH that registration number 10641 belongs to Obama, confirmation from DoH that they issued a copy of birth certificate to Obama on June 6, 2007,…

    As a lawyer you can help clear Obama’s name – is it a too difficult task for you to do?

  10. nc1: Trump implicitly called Obama a fraud – what is Obama going to do about it?

    I think Obama will send Trump some more rope so he can hang himself.

  11. Scientist says:

    nc1: You and other Obama supporters could help and lobby for the release of public information: Obama mother’s passport records prior to 1967, confirmation from DoH that registration number 10641 belongs to Obama, confirmation from DoH that they issued a copy of birth certificate to Obama on June 6, 2007,…

    Where are Trump’s parents’ passport records? His mother was more likely to have gone to Scotland-where she had relatives and where there were world-renowned hospitals-than Obama’s mother was to go to Kenya-where she knew no-one and care was primitive.

    Where is confirmation from any official of NYC regarding anything Trump has released?

  12. Suranis says:

    nc1: Trump implicitly called Obama a fraud – what is Obama going to do about it?

    Nothing. Why should he give a rats ass what The Donald thinks?

    This isn’t an episode of WWE. You don’t get anywhere in real life by responding to stupid “what you gonna do” speeches. The President of the United States has better things to do than worry about what some media whore with a long string of bankruptcies and the worst combover in the history of the planet thinks.

  13. JoZeppy says:

    nc1: Trump implicitly called Obama a fraud – what is Obama going to do about it? You and other Obama supporters could help and lobby for the release of public information: Obama mother’s passport records prior to 1967, confirmation from DoH that registration number 10641 belongs to Obama, confirmation from DoH that they issued a copy of birth certificate to Obama on June 6, 2007,…As a lawyer you can help clear Obama’s name – is it a too difficult task for you to do?

    Obama is probably going to do what every sane person expects him to. Continue the important work of running the country and ignore the loonies. Even if they are very wealthy loonies. He’ll probably drop a couple of jokes here and there too, and make light of it.

    And why would I lobby for the release of information that is clearly not public (in the case of his registration number or whatever documents you insanely keep demanding that you are not entitled to), or may not have ever existed (Obama’s mothers pre-1967 passport info). So because Trump made a fool of himself, I should be arguing that we should violate the President’s legally protected privacy interests? So the best method to cure a violation against a person is to violate them again? You realize how foolish this makes you sound (but you’re probably very accostomed to that feeling by now)?

    The President’s name does not need clearing. However, ss a lawyer, I am showing my support for the laws and Constitution of our country, and in turn, the office of president, by pointing out the abject stupidity of what Trump says. Further violations of the President’s rights do not cure anything.

  14. “As a lawyer you can help clear Obama’s name – is it a too difficult task for you to do?”

    Clear his name for whom? A deranged POS birther who will despise the President no matter what?

    Idiot.

  15. Suranis: Nothing. Why should he give a rats ass what The Donald thinks?

    This isn’t an episode of WWE. You don’t get anywhere in real life by responding to stupid “what you gonna do” speeches. The President of the United States has better things to do than worry about what some media whore with a long string of bankruptcies and the worst combover in the history of the planet thinks.

    Well said.

  16. G says:

    nc1: Trump implicitly called Obama a fraud – what is Obama going to do about it? You and other Obama supporters could help and lobby for the release of public information: Obama mother’s passport records prior to 1967, confirmation from DoH that registration number 10641 belongs to Obama, confirmation from DoH that they issued a copy of birth certificate to Obama on June 6, 2007,…As a lawyer you can help clear Obama’s name – is it a too difficult task for you to do?

    See…your problem is that the “concern” for this issue is ONLY on your delusional side. No effort needs to be made to “clear Obama’s name” because the whole premise is false – on one side is you birthers acting like a bunch of grade school children slinging meaningless taunts and on the other side…life goes on just fine, despite your shouting.

    Neither Obama nor the rest of the sane world care about your fictional worries.

    Why should Obama care what Trump thinks? Obama is President and has a country to run. He also has reality on his side. He doesn’t owe a response to Trump or anyone else on this issue.

    You birthers have a visceral hatred of Obama and your ODS is completely untethered from reality, so there is no point in anyone wasting a laywer’s time on you. You trash a good man’s name because you simply hate and fear him at a completely visceral and emotional level. No amount of reality will impact your bigotry or ability to come up with nonsense insults.

    Nor does your petty hate and lies have any impact on Obama’s ability to be President.

    Face it, you are just unhappy whiners that whine for the sake of doing so, because that is ALL you can do. Unfortunately, beyond preaching to your own choir, your efforts only serve to turn off everyone beyond your little group and cause them to tune out your rants. You can “Cry Wolf” all you want, but no one else cares and reality continues on just fine without you and without having to lift a finger to respond to your BS.

  17. Greg says:

    nc1: Trump implicitly called Obama a fraud – what is Obama going to do about it?

    Continue serving as President. Run for re-election. Laugh at the way the Republicans tear themselves apart, with nutters like Trump saying one thing and sensible people like Karl Rove (!) and Tim Pawlenty castigating them for it.

    Republicans who have actually won the Presidency in the past and Republicans that want to win it in the future know that this issue is a dead-certain loser. You look as sane and rational as those who think the Jews control Hollywood and Sarah Palin had a fake pregnancy.

  18. Thrifty says:

    JoZeppy: I have to hope that Trump’s just being a media whore and trying to get publicity for his next season of Apprentice.

    I have assumed this was the case from the moment Trump went full birther.

  19. Daniel says:

    Thrifty: JoZeppy: I have to hope that Trump’s just being a media whore and trying to get publicity for his next season of Apprentice.

    I have assumed this was the case from the moment Trump went full birther.

    Well it’s not like he has a credible shot at the nomination anyways. When you’re certain to lose, you can promise the world.

  20. Thrifty says:

    nc1: As a lawyer you can help clear Obama’s name – is it a too difficult task for you to do?

    Clear Obama’s name? He isn’t accused of anything in any legal sense. You clear someone’s name when they stand accused of a crime and are being investigated by law enforcement or on trial by the courts. Idiots and lunatics screaming foul and baseless accusations do not constitute and indictment. His name needs no clearing.

  21. Thrifty says:

    nc1: Trump implicitly called Obama a fraud – what is Obama going to do about it?

    Let the “controversey” stew so that his potential Republican opponents in the 2012 elections are forced to court the birthers, and in the process force the image of Republicans to drop in the eyes of independents and saner Republicans, thus both improving his chances for re-election next year and improving the chances of Democrats gaining additional seats in Congress.

  22. Loren says:

    “I see what’s going on over the Internet.” – Donald Trump

    I see that Trump subscribes to the same view of the web as fellow Birther Leo “YouTubes are infallible” Berman.

  23. Sef says:

    I have a feeling that this foray into the Presidential race by Trump is an attempt by the GOP to raise a trial balloon and see how quickly and effectively it is shot down. IOW, Trump is a sacrificial lamb who had no chance anyway. This will show them what works and doesn’t work and with whom.

  24. JohnC says:

    The birther issue is fast becoming the parallel of the “Bridge of Death” from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

    Q: What is your name?

    A: I am [candidate’s name].

    Q: What is your quest?

    A: I seek the presidency of the United States of America!

    Q: Where was President Obama born?

    A: I don’t know…. Whoa!!!

    [Swooshing sound as candidate is thrust into the chasm below.]

  25. Rickey says:

    I believe that it is only a matter of time before the birthers turn on Trump and accuse him of doing this deliberately to make them look even worse than they already appear.

    It’s worth noting again the the Certification of Birth which Trump paid $30.50 for in 1999 contains less information than Obama’s COLB, as well as no hospital name, no doctor’s name, and no names of witnesses. In fact, it doesn’t even explicitly say that he was born in New York. It implies that he was born in Queens, but can you imagine how the birthers would be howling if Obama’s COLB looked like this? It also says “date filed,” so how do we know that it was accepted?

    The recent Pew Poll on Obama’s favorability rating must really eat at the birthers.

    Mostly Favorable/Very Favorable: 58%
    Most Unfavorable/Very Unfavorable: 39%

    http://pollingreport.com/obama_fav.htm

  26. Joey says:

    nc1: Trump implicitly called Obama a fraud – what is Obama going to do about it?

    I think it’s pretty obvious what Obama is going to do about it. He’s going to continue to use the birth certificate/natural born citizen issue as a wedge issue to divide his political opposition.
    Obama is forcing conservatives to take sides on the issue and then he demonizes and makes fun of those who come out as “birthers.” It’s classic political “divide and conquer>’
    If there wasn’t a Donald Trump, Obama would have to invent one.
    Thus far he’s got Mike Huckabee, John Boehner, Sarah Palin, Eric Cantor, former Hawaii Governor Lingle, Karl Rove, and a few other national Republicans on the anti-birther side and he’s got Donald Trump and Michelle Bachmann on the pro-birther side.
    Whenever the issue fades a bit, Obama will bring it up himself to keep it in the public consciousness like when he had the Marine Corps Band play “Born in the USA” at the Gridiron Club dinner a few weeks ago.
    The President appears to be having fun with the issue and even presidents need to have some fun every once in a while.

  27. Joey says:

    The recent Pew Poll on Obama’s favorability rating must really eat at the birthers.

    Mostly Favorable/Very Favorable: 58%
    Most Unfavorable/Very Unfavorable: 39%

    http://pollingreport.com/obama_fav.htm

    And here’s today’s Gallup Poll job approval rating for the President:
    Approve: 49%
    Disapprove: 44%

    http://www.gallup.com/home.aspx

  28. Joey says:

    Joey: I think it’s pretty obvious what Obama is going to do about it. He’s going to continue to use the birth certificate/natural born citizen issue as a wedge issue to divide his political opposition.
    Obama is forcing conservatives to take sides on the issue and then he demonizes and makes fun of those who come out as “birthers.” It’s classic political “divide and conquer>’
    If there wasn’t a Donald Trump, Obama would have to invent one.
    Thus far he’s got Mike Huckabee, John Boehner, Sarah Palin, Eric Cantor, former Hawaii Governor Lingle, Karl Rove, and a few other national Republicans on the anti-birther side and he’s got Donald Trump and Michelle Bachmann on the pro-birther side.
    Whenever the issue fades a bit, Obama will bring it up himself to keep it in the public consciousness like when he had the Marine Corps Band play “Born in the USA” at the Gridiron Club dinner a few weeks ago.
    The President appears to be having fun with the issue and even presidents need to have some fun every once in a while.

    I neglected to mention above that Tim Pawlenty, a possible 2012 candidate just came out yesterday as an “anti-birther.” More “divide and conquer strategy” for Obama.
    More and more conservative Republicans are saying that they won’t vote for an anti-birther candidate. That works to Obama’s advantage if they stay home or go third party/independent.
    Sarah Palin’s comment on birtherism: “they are distracting and annoying.”

  29. Joey: Sarah Palin’s comment on birtherism: “they are distracting and annoying.”

    I can testify to the “annoying” part.

  30. JohnC: The birther issue is fast becoming the parallel of the “Bridge of Death” from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

    That was truly funny.

  31. Rickey: In fact, it doesn’t even explicitly say that he was born in New York. It implies that he was born in Queens,

    Didn’t some high school newspaper say Obama was born at Queen’s hospital? I think Phil Berg based his lawsuit on it.

  32. Joey says:

    From Barackryphal:

    Birther Mythbusting: Maya Soetoro and The Rainbow Edition Newsletter

    Patrick McKinnion has been doing a good series on Birther Mythbusting, and there’s one myth that’s irritated me enough that I want to take it down. I speak of the fabled Maya Soetoro interview in the Rainbow Edition. I’ll let Jerome Corsi summarize it briefly for me:

    “In a November 2004 interview with the Rainbow Newsletter, Maya told reporters her half-brother Sen. Barack Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961, at Queens Medical Center in Honolulu.”

    This myth originated, as with so many of Birtherism’s core beliefs, with Phil Berg. In his Response to Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss in September 2008, Berg wrote:

    Furthermore, the Rainbow Edition News Letter, November 2004 Edition, published by the Education Laboratory School, attached as EXHIBIT “1”, did a several page article of an interview with Obama and his half-sister, Maya. The Rainbow Edition News Letter reports Obama was born August 4, 1961 at Queens Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.

    Note that Berg does not explicitly state that Maya was quoted as saying Queens, though he would appear to want the reader to draw that conclusion. Also, Berg erroneously claims that the article included an interview with Obama, and to be nitpicky, even the most generous definition of “several” does not encompass the actual two-page length of the article.

    Berg, however, does get right what Corsi and many others have subsequently gotten wrong: the Rainbow Edition Newsletter is nothing more than a high school newspaper. The article in question was written not by a reporter, and not by a colleague of Maya Soetoro, but by a high school junior.

    Additionally, what is immediately obvious upon actually viewing the article is that the “Queens Medical Center” reference is not a quote from Maya at all. It’s simply referenced in the introductory paragraph. In fact, it’s such a mundane fact that it’s hard to imagine even an amateur journalist wasting time asking for it during an interview. Still, the fact that the reference is not credited to Maya, and the fact that the article is full of mundane facts that it would be foolhardy to attribute to Maya, this has not stopped some Birthers, like BP2 (or as I’ll call him, Beeps), from insisting that the source must have been Maya Soetoro.

    Sadly for Beeps and others, the source was not Maya, but rather Wikipedia. The Rainbow Edition author actually cribbed a considerable portion of his article straight from Wikipedia, as I’ll now illustrate:

    From the Rainbow Edition:

    Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961 at the Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Obama lived here with his parents Barack Obama, Sr. and Ann Dunham until they divorced when he was two. Obama moved back to Hawaii when he was ten and lived with his grandmother Madelyn Dunham and half-sister of our very own, Maya Soetoro.

    From Wikipedia:

    Barack Obama was born at the Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. His parents were economist Barack Obama, Sr., of Kenya and S. Ann Dunham,…When Obama was two years old, the couple divorced…When Obama was ten, he returned to Hawaii under the care of his grandmother Madelyn Dunham.

    In addition to the textual similarity, notice what’s missing from the Rainbow Edition account above. It describes when Obama “moved back to Hawaii,” but gives no prior indication that he’d ever left. That’s because the Rainbow Edition omitted the Wikipedia information (between the ellipses above) about his childhood move to Jakarta.

    Further down the article, from the Rainbow Edition:

    His Republican opponent, Jack Ryan was forced to dropout of the race after Republican leaders questioned his integrity.

    Mike Ditka, former NFL Coach, was going to be the new Republican candidate but he decided not to join because of family and business reasons. Alan Keyes, from Maryland, was nominated by Illinois Republican Chairwoman, Judy Baar Topinka. It looked like Obama was guaranteed a win because of his growing popularity around the state of Chicago. In the end, Obama won almost seventy percent of the vote.

    From Wikipedia:

    …leading Republican leaders to question Ryan’s integrity. Ryan was forced to leave the race…

    Former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka had considered running as a Republican to replace Ryan, but opted not to because of family and business considerations. On August 3, Illinois Republican Chairwoman Judy Baar Topinka announced two possible replacements: Alan Keyes and former presidential advisor Andrea Barthwell. After much deliberation, Keyes, at the time living in Maryland, was nominated…Obama received nearly 70% of the popular vote.

    Again, from the Rainbow Edition:

    Obama first became involved with politics when he was voted onto the Illinois State Senate in 1996. During his time, he helped to provide the poor with benefits andpassed bills for increased funding for AIDS programs. In 2000, he ran in the Democratic primary for Illiois’ 1st Congressinoal district but he lost to the incumbent Repersentative Bobby Rush.

    From Wikipedia:

    In 1996, Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate…during his tenure in the legislature, he helped to author a state earned income tax credit providing benefits to the poor…he successfully passed bills to increase funding for AIDS prevention and care programs. In 2000, he ran in the Democratic primary for Illinois’ 1st Congressional district against incumbent Representative Bobby Rush, but was badly defeated.

    Finally, from the Rainbow Edition:

    This past year, he became the third African-American to give the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. After winning his race, Obama became only the fifth African-American Senator in our nation’s history. Right now, Obama is also a law professor at the University of Chicago.

    The reference to his professorship is an odd non-sequitur to close out this unrelated paragraph. But, from Wikipedia:

    A University of Chicago law professor, Obama in November, 2004, won an open seat in the U.S. Senate against Republican candidate Alan Keyes, becoming the only serving black U.S. senator in 2004 and just the fifth in the country’s history…Obama was chosen to deliver a keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts, and became the third African American to do so.

    Berg and Beeps have argued that the high school student also interviewed Obama himself, and “Queen’s” came from him. But in addition to the above, there is no evidence in the article that Obama was interviewed at all. One of the two Obama quotes included in the Rainbow Edition (“The irony is that my decision to work in politics…”) is taken straight from the Wikipedia page. The only other Obama quote came from this January 2004 video interview. In our discussion some months back, Beeps initially argued that the high school kid must have personally interviewed Obama to obtain this quote, and then when I confronted him with this video transcript, he resorted to allegations of historical revisionism, and then abruptly changed the subject. Typical Birther behavior, in other words.

    Beeps also argued that “They properly checked the spelling, grammar, punctuation, style – ONLY to get that birth place wrong.” Which is, again, grossly inaccurate. There are, in fact, multiple spelling, grammatical, punctuation, and style errors throughout the Rainbow Edition article. In the category of spelling errors alone, the author wrote “Illiois,” “Congressinoal,” “Repersentative,” “whoe,” “chilhood,” “competetive” and “accoplishments.”

    And who, you may ask, was Wikipedia’s ultimate source for “Queen’s Medical Center,” since no source citation was given in the Wiki entry? It was simply a Hawaiian college kid who liked editing Wikipedia, and took a guess as to which hospital Obama was born in. He explained his reasoning to me, saying it “was based on presumption without original source. Conjecture based on Queen’s being the largest hospital in Hawaii, near the University of Hawaii at Manoa where the Obamas went to school, presumed that they were still in school and probably lived near campus. Queen’s is in a central location and a place of power, a block away from the Hawaii State Capitol, Iolani Palace and the governor’s residence at Washington Place. As it turns out, the Obamas lived in an apartment just across the street from the Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children, a location even closer to the university campus.” And he concluded, “Put in simple terms: I was the source and the source was wrong.”

    So there you have it. Maya Soetoro never told the Rainbow Edition or any other publication that her brother was born at Queen’s Medical Center.

  33. Black Lion says:

    The Birther Primary

    Why is Donald Trump pandering to Republicans who think Obama wasn’t born in the United States?

    Donald Trump has now wasted three news cycles to proffer his theories about President Obama’s birth certificate. Tim Pawlenty has issued a definitive statement: “I think President Obama was born in the United States.” Jerome Corsi, who can append “#1 New York Times best-selling author” to his name thanks to his “swift boat” quickie in 2004, is already promoting Where’s the Birth Certificate?

    Why won’t birtherism go away? The standard answer is this: because Barack Obama won’t release proof of his citizenship. Sorry, no dice: He did release proof of his citizenship, in June 2008—and it helped birtherism go mainstream.

    There were attempts to prove, via the work of amateurs with pen names, that the Certificate of Live Birth that Team Obama had put online was a forgery worthy of MI-6 or Clifford Irving. There were complicated legal theories about how Obama couldn’t be a citizen even if he was midwifed by Betsy Ross, because his deadbeat dad had saddled the future president with British citizenship. And most of this happened before Obama was sworn in, when a stupid person could hope that the Supreme Court would nix the inauguration.

    So why won’t birtherism go away? After all, lots of crackpot movements and theories go away. The all-wars-are-for-oil side of the left-wing anti-war movement shrunk to fit a pencil case after Obama was elected. Glenn Beck’s ratings surged high enough to get him two unofficial biographies and the covers of Time and Fortune, and now they’re sagging so low that Fox News is hinting it may drop him. Once some obsession or movement either wins or loses all hope of winning, its adherents find other things to do.

    But birtherism is with us, now more than ever. It used to be odd and unprofessional to ask a politician whether he had any doubts about the president’s American birth. It was in the “kook question” category. There’s theoretically nothing stopping a reporter from raising her hand at a press conference and asking a presidential candidate whether, say, he thinks the Bilderberg Group engineered the financial crisis so its members could buy up foreclosed homes and turn them into meth labs. A question about Obama’s birth certificate used to be in that same category. Now it isn’t.

    Is this unfair? Trump—whose campaign may qualify as a massive, “I’m Still Here” publicity stunt—is responsible for the sudden acceptability of the question. On The View, he reminded viewers that he went to “the best schools,” so he knew that documents are forged all the time, and he didn’t trust what he’d heard about Obama. Even after Tuesday, when he finally released a scan of his 1946 birth certificate to ABC News, that claim hung in the air. It echoed what some birthers still say; it gave them wider uncritical media exposure than they’d gotten since Lou Dobbs left CNN.

    One reason Trump has been able to do this is that two schools of birtherism have developed since 2008, and one of them has become a surprisingly comfortable place for conservatives to lounge. There have always been Orthodox Birthers. They start with the belief that Obama cannot be eligible for the presidency. They trust evidence they find online—an erroneous report about “Obama’s grandmother” saying he was born in Kenya, for example—which stays online forever, just like amateur diagnostic reports of how crashing planes couldn’t possibly have brought down the Twin Towers. If that evidence is challenged, they look to theories about what the founders thought “natural born citizenship” meant. Phil Berg, the attorney who filed the first birther lawsuits and who held a “March on Washington” in 2010, says Obama lost his citizenship because a school form from Indonesia calls him Indonesian. Another theory says Obama can’t be president because his father was Kenyan and that made his son a British citizen by default. (This theory would disqualify Trump, whose mother was Scottish.)

    What Trump is embracing, and Corsi is selling, is Reform Birtherism. It’s deductive. “There’s something on that birth certificate that he doesn’t like,” said Trump last week. “I don’t know what is on the document,” said Corsi in 2009. The truth is unknowable, because Obama is hiding something about his birth documents.

    This is all obtuse, because unless the state of Hawaii has issued a false document and the Honolulu Advertiser and other media were defrauded when they printed Obama’s 1961 birth announcement, there’s more proof of his origins than there is proof of most things. If the president lost his original paper certificate at some point, he’s in the same boat as Greta Van Susteren, who confessed as much in an interview with Trump.

    So why bring this up? If Trump is actually running for president, he’s doing it because polling indicates that at least 27 percent of Republicans have doubts about Obama’s origins. There are probably going to be more Republicans primary voters who have these doubts than think abortion should be illegal. So being a Reform Birther is saying you’re in solidarity with state legislators who are demanding birth certificates from the next presidential candidates.

    This is pretty pathetic, even for a presidential campaign. Those legislators, and the voters they’re pandering to, don’t really know what they’re talking about. Mae Beavers, a Tennessee state senator, has introduced a bill that would require a “long-form birth certificate” from 2012 candidates. She appeared on a radio show to discuss it and was asked what a “long-form birth certificate” was. She didn’t know; she had just modeled the bill after what other states had done.

    What does someone like Pawlenty have to gain when he dismisses all of this? Quite a lot, actually. Millions of Republicans may doubt Obama’s citizenship—but millions more don’t, or don’t care. Many of the Republicans who do have doubts don’t actually know or think that Obama should be kicked out of office on a technicality.

    The Republicans who can shape elite opinion—this does not include Corsi—hate even thinking about this. If an investigation proved that Obama had gotten into Columbia and Harvard Law with mediocre grades, he might only win as many presidential elections as George W. Bush. Lots of Republicans think that birtherism is a good way for the White House to make their party look crazy.

    With his definitive statement, Pawlenty appeals to those Republicans. He appeals to the political media, too. He’s jumped one of the lowest bars in politics—but he’s jumped it, and some other Republicans still haven’t, or won’t. Pawlenty wins a stamp of approval—not crazy!—that’s incredibly easy to earn. Soon some other candidates will go for that stamp. They have a lot of time. The birthers aren’t going anywhere.

    http://www.slate.com/id/2289885/pagenum/all/#p2

  34. nc1 says:

    Sef:
    I have a feeling that this foray into the Presidential race by Trump is an attempt by the GOP to raise a trial balloon and see how quickly and effectively it is shot down.IOW, Trump is a sacrificial lamb who had no chance anyway. This will show them what works and doesn’t work and with whom.

    One possibility for Trump’s actions – clearing the path for Hillary’s run in 2012.

  35. nc1 says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: I can testify to the “annoying” part.

    Without birthers – what would you blog about?

  36. G says:

    nc1: One possibility for Trump’s actions – clearing the path for Hillary’s run in 2012.

    LOL! Dream on. You must be a PUMA.

    HRC has already made clear that her current role as SOS is her last and she has no further presidential aspirations.

  37. The Magic M says:

    > One possibility for Trump’s actions – clearing the path for Hillary’s run in 2012.

    Why would he have to? Isn’t one of your birther mantras “Obama will not run again in 2012”? Or, alternatively, “he will not be able to get on the ballot in 2012”?

  38. nc1 says:

    JohnC:
    The birther issue is fast becoming the parallel of the “Bridge of Death” from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

    Q: What is your name?

    A: I am [candidate’s name].

    Q: What is your quest?

    A: I seek the presidency of the United States of America!

    Q: Where was President Obama born?

    A: I don’t know….Whoa!!!

    [Swooshing sound as candidate is thrust into the chasm below.]

    Enjoy the music:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l46t_nrySg4&feature=related

  39. Suranis says:

    nc1: Enjoy the music:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l46t_nrySg4&feature=related

    Ahh Glenn Beck, the first refuge of the truly ignorant and a guy so full of shit that even the viewers of FOXnews, the most uninformed demographic in America, are seeing it. That’s why his ratings have crashed 50% in the last year. It took CNNs viewers an instant to realize it.

    You must be pretty desperate there NC1. Only 24 hours out from your supposed great victory too.

  40. Suranis says:

    nc1: Enjoy the music:

    You know, you must be pretty desperate to be throwing in Glenn Beck, a guy so full of it that even the viewers of FOXnews have begun to see it. Losing 50% of your viewers in a year is impressive.

    Only 24 hours out from your ‘great victory’ too.

  41. “Enjoy the music”

    That’s really sacrilegious coming from an alleged Mormon. His church must be so proud.

  42. G says:

    nc1: Enjoy the music:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l46t_nrySg4&feature=related

    Notice how the only people who ever refer to Obama as “Messiah” are those who hate him?

    That is a very odd slur to create to use against your “enemy”. I can only assume that since you use that word and in a derrogatory way, that both you and Beck must really hate Jesus.

  43. G: Notice how the only people who ever refer to Obama as “Messiah” are those who hate him?

    That is a very odd slur to create to use against your “enemy”.I can only assume that since you use that word and in a derrogatory way, that both you and Beck must really hate Jesus.

    I get the same impression. That shabby POS video mocks Christianity as much as anything. Pretty pathetic even for an attention whore like Beck. He must be getting as desperate as the idiot birthers.

  44. Thrifty: Let the “controversey” stew so that his potential Republican opponents in the 2012 elections are forced to court the birthers, and in the process force the image of Republicans to drop in the eyes of independents and saner Republicans, thus both improving his chances for re-election next year and improving the chances of Democrats gaining additional seats in Congress.

    It’s almost as if it was the plan all along….????

    :O

  45. J. Edward Tremlett: It’s almost as if it was the plan all along

    President Obama is a student and fan of Abraham Lincoln, and when trying to understand Obama’s actions, one is always invited to ask the question, “what would Lincoln do?” The example of Salmon P. Chase comes to mind. Lincoln’s treasury secretary was secretly writing nasty letters defaming Lincoln and promoting his own presidential aspirations for 1864. Lincoln was aware of the machinations and double dealing, but did nothing, allowing Chase’s own perfidy to be his undoing when the public found out. Sometimes inaction is the best strategic choice.

  46. J. Edward Tremlett: It’s almost as if it was the plan all along….????

    :O

    Trump, not surprisingly, plays both sides of the fence:

    According to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of Trump’s federal campaign contribution history, The Donald has been a prolific donor to both Democrats and Republicans during the past two decades.

    In all, Trump has contributed to 96 candidates running for federal political office since the 1990 election cycle, the Center finds. Only 48 of the recipients — exactly half — were Republicans at the time they received their contribution, including ex-Gov. Charlie Crist (I-Fla.) and ex-Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), who both of whom received their Trump contributions as Republicans.

    Since the 1990 election cycle, the top 10 recipients of Trump’s political contributions number six Democrats and four Republicans. Embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), who was censured last year by his U.S. House colleagues, has received the most Trump money, totaling $24,750. The most recent contribution from Trump to Rangel was a $10,000 gift during the 2006 election cycle.

    In the most recent election cycle, Trump doled out $22,500 to political candidates, of which $16,200 benefited Democrats.

    The top Republican recipient of Trump’s money is Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) who has collected $13,600 from the billionaire magnate, the second most of any politician. Trump did not contribute to McCain during the 2010 election cycle, during which the former presidential candidate was facing re-election.

    Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) is the recipient of $12,000 in Trump contributions, including $10,000 for his 2006 re-election campaign.

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has received the fourth-largest amount of Trump’s contributions, including $4,800 in the successful 2010 campaign against Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle. In total Trump has contributed $10,400 to Reid.

    In 2010, Trump also contributed $4,000 to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who easily won re-election. Schumer has received $8,900 from Trump since the 1996 election cycle. Trump has also been generous to New York’s other Democratic U.S. senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, who’s received $5,850 in Trump money.

    After McCain, the Republican with the largest amount of Trump’s contributions is former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who left office in disgrace in 2006 when his online solicitation of male House pages became known. Trump contributed $9,500 to Foley between the 1996 and 2006 election cycles.

    Trump has also supported other notable politicians, including:

    $7,000 to former Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), the “liberal lion of the Senate”
    $7,500 to former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R)
    $5,500 to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) including $2,000 during his 2004 presidential run
    $5,000 to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.)
    $4,000 to former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.)
    $2,000 to former President George W. Bush (R)
    $1,000 to then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.)

    Trump’s donations to various political action committees and 527 groups also demonstrate his bipartisan checkbook.

    During the most recent election cycle, Trump contributed $170,000 to the Republican Governor’s Association, $50,000 to the ultra-conservative American Crossroads PAC, $30,400 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and $10,000 to the Democratic Party of New York.

    However, of the nearly $420,000 Trump has donated to committees, the largest recipient has been the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee with $116,000 — or more than one fourth of his total contributions to all party and political action committees.

    http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/02/donald-trumps-donations-to-democrats.html

    (emphasis added)

  47. Sean says:

    nc1: Enjoy the music:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l46t_nrySg4&feature=related

    I liked that it said give him your guns. Gun rights have expanded more under Obama than any other President. Obama signed into law that you can carry a concealed weapon in a national park.

    Just recently, a tape surfaced of the Vice President of Fox News admitting he lied durring the election about Obama being a socialist. That’s where we get the Obama socialist mantra: Fox News beating that drum.

  48. Sean says:

    Bill O’Reilly confronted Trump on his show recently about the newspaper birth announcements. Trump said, Oh, well notice they’re dated a few days AFTER he was born!

  49. Joey says:

    Glenn Beck on “birtherism:” “the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
    http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=120992

    Glenn Beck thinks birthers are the “dumbest” and Sarah Palin thinks birthers are “distracting” from serious issues and that they’re “annoying.”

  50. Joey says:

    Another potential birther candidate bites the dust. Representative Michelle Bachmann saying that Obama’s birth certificate is “probably the least important issue in the United States right now:”
    http://obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.com/2011/03/video-michele-bachmann-obamas.html

  51. Suranis says:

    Joey:
    Another potential birther candidate bites the dust. Representative Michelle Bachmann saying that Obama’s birth certificate is “probably the least important issue in the United States right now:”

    Definite signs of panic. Their own internal polling must have seen their popularity drop like a cliff when Trump exploded this.

  52. The Magic M says:

    > That is a very odd slur to create to use against your “enemy”.

    It’s part of the birther meme that Obama supporters are “blind with religious zeal” or “brainwashed” – otherwise, how on Earth could they not support the obvious truth the birthers stand for?

    Remember they have to be very careful all the time – lest their followers start wondering “how can 69 million people support this view and only a couple hundred support mine, maybe I am wrong?”. So it fits the “party line” mantra – no other opinion can exist, except in deliberate malice.

  53. Suranis: Definite signs of panic. Their own internal polling must have seen their popularity drop like a cliff when Trump exploded this.

    Since Donny boy’s mum was Scottish and he’s a twit, that makes him skittish.

  54. Sean says:

    nc1: Enjoy the music:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l46t_nrySg4&feature=related

    Reminds me of the movie Jesus camp where they had the kids pray to a cardboard cutout of George W Bush.

  55. Sean says:

    Trump also told O’Reilly Obama’s BC could show he’s a Muslim.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/31/donald-trump-obama-birth-_n_843056.html

  56. Joey says:

    Suranis: Definite signs of panic. Their own internal polling must have seen their popularity drop like a cliff when Trump exploded this.

    I just have to post a link to the Sarah Palin “squirmish” comment, in case anyone hasn’t seen it yet!
    http://www.businessinsider.com/sarah-palin-squirmish-libya-video-2011-3

  57. Trump won’t be able to get out of his hole. And speaking of frauds:

    Explaining Birther Myth, Trump Says He Knows People On Wall Street Who Commit Fraud’ And Change Documents’

    Twice-bankrupted casino owner Donald Trump has made questioning Obama’s birthplace a “pivotal part” of his supposed presidential run, but because Trump’s concerns about Obama’s birth certificate have been asked and answered years ago, the reality TV boss has been forced to resort to increasingly bizzare justifications for his doubts. Last night, Trump told Fox News host Bill O’Reilly that he questions the veracity of Obama’s birth certificate because he knows plenty of people who can easily forge documents to commit fraud:

    TRUMP: Bill, I grew up with Wall Street geniuses. What they do in terms of fraud, and how they change documents.

    Of course, securities fraud is a federal criminal offense, punishable by up to 25 years in prison. This type of fraud is also a serious and pervasive problem. From Enron to WorldCom to the Bernie Maddoff scandal, “Wall Street geniuses” have defrauded Americans out of billions of dollars, causing economic havoc. More recently, banks have been implicated in the so-called “robo-singing” scandal, where bank employees didn’t even review mortgage documents they were signing, such as foreclosure orders.

    But if Trump is aware that his friends were committing fraud or forgery, why didn’t he do anything about it? Did he witness fraud? Did he ever posses a forged document? (If so, that too could be a felony). Or did he let his friends defraud people?

    http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/31/tump-fruad-wall-street-geniuses/

  58. Thrifty says:

    Sean: Bill O’Reilly confronted Trump on his show recently about the newspaper birth announcements. Trump said, Oh, well notice they’re dated a few days AFTER he was born!

    Ugh. Now there’s blood on the desk from banging my head against it so hard.

  59. Thrifty says:

    G: Notice how the only people who ever refer to Obama as “Messiah” are those who hate him?That is a very odd slur to create to use against your “enemy”. I can only assume that since you use that word and in a derrogatory way, that both you and Beck must really hate Jesus.

    Well, it’s done sarcastically. They’re not referring to Obama directly as the Messiah; they’re referring to Obama supporters as being like religious zealots who view Obama as a Christ like savior.

  60. G says:

    Thrifty: Well, it’s done sarcastically. They’re not referring to Obama directly as the Messiah; they’re referring to Obama supporters as being like religious zealots who view Obama as a Christ like savior.

    I’m completely aware of what they are trying to do. I’m just pointing out how backwards such a strategy is and how it really is a more offensive swipe at the foundation of Christianity than anything else. Bottom line: Of all their false meme tactics, it is one of the dumbest and ends up sh*tting on their own religion more than it has any reflection on Obama or those that voted for him.

  61. elid says:

    nc1: One possibility for Trump’s actions – clearing the path for Hillary’s run in 2012.

    Sorry, old sport, but Clinton has said repeatedly that she is not running for President in 2012. In fact, just last week she said she isn’t going to serve in ANY political office, elected or appointed, after 2012.

    FAIL.

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