One of the most intellectually offensive web sites that I occasionally visit (because people send me links) is the American Thinker. The articles there have a literate writing style and the web site looks like a commercial news site. Yet amid an attractive context, one finds utter idiocy. Case in point:
The left has painted “birthers” as racists, nuts, and paranoids. What gets left out of the equation is: one, Obama has spent millions of dollars on attorneys protecting his birth certificate; two, Obama apparently traveled to Pakistan in 1981 when Americans were banned from going there; …
Idiot: n. Anyone who still believes in a 1981 US – Pakistan travel ban.
Readers here should know by now that Barack Obama hasn’t spend millions of dollars protecting his birth certificate and they know that there never was any kind of a travel ban to Pakistan in 1981. The former is a rumor proved false by a simple analysis of what cases Obama was actually named in, and what his attorneys actually did, coupled with the total lack of evidence the rumor has a basis in fact. The travel ban is proved false by contemporary State Department documents and articles in the newspaper of Americans visiting Pakistan.
Nothing but praise for Donald Trump’s recent birther outbursts:
And this is why Trump needs to keep raising the birth certificate issue. He shouldn’t stop even when the left ridicules him.
It looks to me that the right is doing the ridiculing. The left is just enjoying the show.
The spew of anti-liberal stereotypes is outside the subject area of this blog, but I will mention the invocation of the name of the right-wing bugbear, Alinsky.
The author, “Robin of Berkeley” is self described as a “recovering liberal” but I would describe Robin as a terminally-ill conservative myself.
Doc, it goes without saying that if birthers and their sites stuck to verifiable facts, they wouldn’t exist.
The silliness of the “millions of dollars” argument is exemplified by considering that there would be a commensurate amount of money spent of lawyers on the plaintiff side. Are the birthers saying that they have spent $3M attempting to prosecute this travesty? Even if the plaintiff attorneys donated their time, there would still be the value of their time. Especially, when one considers the minimal amount of effort defendants’ attorneys need to put in compared to all the work plaintiffs’ attorneys to write their briefs. I don’t hear Orly or Leo or Mario screaming that they haven’t been paid.
One of the Obama attorneys in California worked pro bono.
Robin’s a she I think although gender doesn’t impact on their dumbness.
Yes, I know, but their time still had value, even if they did not charge anyone for it. I doubt their office staff worked pro bono. I don’t hear the clamor.
I know I’ve come across this “Robin of Berkley.” A rather hateful person with some serious issues. She wrote a rather offensive article about the President’s mother a while back (every sort of character assination you could think of all based on nothing but speculation).
“The travel ban is proved false’
I’m sure your aware of this letter to the editor.
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/travel/l-lahore-243000.html?sec=&spon=&scp=3&sq=lahore%20travel%201981&st=cse
“To the Editor:
One of the pleasures of the Foreign Service is being able to serve in cities like Lahore, and I would welcome an influx of Americans who might have been inspired to come by Barbara Crossette’s piece, ”Lahore, a Survivor With a Bittersweet History” (Travel Section, June 14).
But please caution them.
While tourists can obtain a free, 30-day, non-extendable visa to Pakistan at the Wagah border crossing (on the rail route from New Delhi to Lahore), tourists cannot make the reverse journey from Pakistan to India through the same crossing unless they already have an Indian visa. The Indians only offer this service, so far as I know, to tourists debarking at airports. We have had a number of Americans stranded in Lahore who did not know this, and they tend to be too discouraged to enjoy the city. JOHN S. BRIMS, United States Consul General, Lahore, Pakistan”
The other day, I posted this to a birther who mentioned the travel ban. He thanked me for my good work and for debunking this story. I told him that it had been debunked years ago, almost as soon as Berg mentioned it in his lawsuit.
Later, I saw him post a comment that the 2008 VP candidate for the Libertarian Party didn’t know anyone who knew the President at Columbia. I posted that it had also been debunked. I don’t think he posted much after that.
I am not sure what this means but I suspect there is a new crop of birthers.
I’ve written about “Robin of Berkeley” before. First in March of 2010
http://badfiction.typepad.com/badfiction/2010/03/dispatches-from-birtherstan-for-31-march-2010.html
and again last month
http://badfiction.typepad.com/badfiction/2011/02/dispatches-from-birtherstan-24-february-2011.html
She claims to be a “recovering liberal and a psychotherapist” Based on comments she’s made in her writing, it looks like she got mugged by an African-American male, and has since projected the face of her attacker on Obama. Example:
and:
and then later:
She’s claimed that “Communist Brainwashing” was the only reason why Stanley Ann Dunham would have married a black man, gone on rants about how the left victimizes women, and written about “anti-White bias”.
I think it’s safe to say part of this is due to her looking at Obama and seeing, not the face of the President of the United States, but a black male coming to mug her and leave her bleeding. That’s why she defines Obama and his policies as causing PTSD and similar issues. Because she’s projecting rather than analyzing. And when she sees the face and race of her mugger rather than the leader of this country, the stress and trauma from her attack will colour how she sees that leader’s policies and opinions.
She might not see herself as racist, but her own internalized trauma is causing her to act like one.
I also seriously, seriously doubt that any of Robin’s actual friends told her she should feel sorry for the mugger, especially if she was as badly injured as she claims.
Idiot: n. Anyone who still believes in a 1981 US – Pakistan travel ban.
Moron n, anyone who denies that a travel ban existed in Pakistan because
they have a convenient memory due to fact that they are lemmings and incapable
of reasoning outside the OBOT
I was alive in 1980s and distinctly remember travel “ban” as it was called then , but
now the sick and twisted want to change the definition of things to suite
their own temporal agenda (e.g. global cooling….opps…global warming…opps….climate Change, gay marriage, constitutional definition of natural born citizen which Vattel defined by including the words….natural….born…and get this …>>>>>citizen in the
same paragraph. But, alas, libs can not connect the dots it seems.
gotta love that Donald Trump !! don’t ya ?
he silliness of the “millions of dollars” argument is exemplified by….the fact that Lt Col Latkins case alone spent hundreds of thousands of dollars due to vast amount of resources taken at trial (hundreds of military people present). Libs just don’t get it, but alas they flunk math classes and have to take lib art classes instead. Anybody remember global cooling? It was going on about the same time the press was hawking about the travel “ban” to Pakistan.
The US has never had a travel ban for any of it’s citizens to any country. The closest that would come to it would be the economic embargo regarding Cuba, which effectively makes it a crime for US citizens and permanent residents to purchase travel to Cuba without a license from the Treasury Dept. I think there were similar policies in place against Libya and Iran at some time, but not Pakistan.
Lakin’s court martial had absolutely nothing to do with anything Obama did or didn’t do. Any expenses bill should be sent to him or his dog bite lawyer or split between all the birther idiots who encouraged his stupidity and played on his gullibility.
Between 1977 and 1982 I split my working time between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Bahrain. I can categorically asssure you that for US citizens there was no travel ban to Pakistan in 1981. There were thousands of US citizens living, working and visiting Pakistan before, during and after 1981.
I went on to spend the most of the next 30 years living and working in Yemen, Egypt and the UAE. I now split my time between UAE and UK. You are quite simply wrong about the Pakistan ban.
You remembered wrong. Simple as that. There is documentary evidence that it was a whole lot easier to get into Pakistan than many other countries around the world. There was no ban. All evidence points to the fact that there was no ban. The very State Department advisory that explains what you need to do to go to Pakistan readily available. All you had to do was show up at the border, and you get a 30 day visa. Does that sound like a “travel ban” to you? You have nothing to support your contention that there was a travel ban but your obviously faulty memory. So faulty that you pretend that you even heard of Vattel before 2 years ago.
The former LtCol Lakin defended himself at a trial. All that has ever been done in any Obama case is to file a Motion to Dismiss, and attend a hearing. Trials are expensive. Re-filing the same Motion to Dismiss is not. The one time the government won attorneys’ fees for responding to one of these frivolous suits, they asked for less than $3k.
Perhaps if you took a couple of lib arts classes you’d know how the courts work?
Oh, and if the press was hawking a travel ban to Pakistan, you should have no trouble providing us with proof of it (funny, the only thing I’ve seen is a NYTimes story talking about Pakistan as a vacation destination…doesn’t sound like much of ban to me).
Then you have alzheimers because there was no travel “ban” and it wasn’t called then. A travel advisory isn’t a travel ban. Chances are you had no idea where Pakistan was in the 80s.
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/14/travel/lahore-a-survivor-with-a-bittersweet-history.html?scp=1&sq=lahore%20travel%201981&st=cse
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/travel/l-lahore-243000.html?sec=&spon=&scp=3&sq=lahore%20travel%201981&st=cse
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/travel/cis/southasia/TA_Pakistan1981.pdf
Why do you continue to lie about something that was debunked over 2 years ago?
Please show us proof that you were alive and had a functioning brain in 1981.
There was no ban on travel to Pakistan. In fact, Pakistan International Airlines had regularly scheduled service from JFK in New York to Pakistan in 1981, which would have made no sense if Americans weren’t allowed to travel there. PIA’s website even has a photo of one of its planes at JFK Airport in August, 1981 (it’s the second photo down):
http://www.historyofpia.com/unusualaircraft.htm
So look in a mirror before you call other people morons.
Latkins? You can’t even get that one right. Lakin spent money because he changed lawyers in midstream from a probono to a paid one.
Also there was no travel ban
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/travel/cis/southasia/TA_Pakistan1981.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/14/travel/lahore-a-survivor-with-a-bittersweet-history.html?scp=1&sq=lahore%20travel%201981&st=cse
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/travel/l-lahore-243000.html?sec=&spon=&scp=3&sq=lahore%20travel%201981&st=cse
why answer “thefarledtview”, he iss locked into far right hate and incapable of learning or making corrections. All he can do is continue proving his ignorance.
To be fair farleftview obviously isn’t talking about the cost of Lakin’s defence, I think he’s talking about the cost to the military and thus the taxpayer, in trying him.
Still utter codswallop of course as only one person brought that situation about….and it sure as heck wasn’t Obama.
What amazes me is how the birthers treat a BF like convicted felon Lakin like a hero completely unaware of how big of a hypocrite that generally makes them…
TFLV, that particular sequence of bits is copyrighted. You owe me $16 trillion.
I know this should be obvious to anyone that can actually think a little but I’m going to say it anyway. Vattel never inclided the words natural born citizen in the same paragraph. Why so I make this outragous assertion? Simple. Vattel was german. he wrote “Le droit des gens, ou, Principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains” In French
Remember France, the country you would have been hating since 2003 when they refused to suppord Bushes war with Iraq? Everything french was bad till a black guy came to the presidency?
Heres what Vattel did write.
“Les Citoyens font les membres de la Société Civile Liés à cette Société par certains devoirs & fournis à fon Au torité il participent avec égalité à fes avantages Les Naturels ou îndigènet font ceux qui font nés dans le pays de Parens Citoyens La Société ne pouvant fe foutenir & fe perpétuer que par les enfans des Citoyens ces enfans y fui vent naturellement la conditionn de leurs Pères & entrent dans tous leurs droits La Société eft cenfée le vouloir ainfi par une fuite de ce qu elle doit à fa propre confervation & l on préfume de droit que chaque Citoyen en entrant dans la Société réferve à fes enfans le droit d en être membres La Patrie des Pères eft donc celle des enfans & ceux ci de Bb 3 viennent”
The part you love is “Les Naturels au indigenet” which translates as “the native, or indigenous”. You could translate it as natural born citizen, but if you were following Vattel, the only people actually eligible for the presidency are American Indians…
And Vattel did also say (No french this time) “Finally, there are states, as, for instance, England, where the single circumstance of being born in the country naturalizes the children of a foreigner.”
So even Vattel says his treatise was not universal in law, and is not fallowed in England, and by extension the colonies.
And by the way George Washington could speak about as much french as you can.
i like this new argument. the words “natural”, “born” and “citizen” do not exist next to each other or even in the same sentence….. but they do exist in the same paragraph.
good work eagle-eye.
The cost to the taxpayers was minimal. The prosecutors and the court-martial panel were salaried active duty military, who would have been paid whether they were trying Lakin or an AWOL enlisted soldier. There might have been some expense incurred in bringing in Lakin’s replacement to testify, but I doubt if the trial cost taxpayers tens of thousands, much less hundreds of thousands.
In fact, I can’t imagine how even Lakin’s defense could have cost hundreds of thousands. I would love to know how much money his supporters raised and how much his dog bite attorney was paid, but of course they will never release that information.
Well I was alive in the 1980’s AND I was an adult with a job. There was no travel ban to Pakistan, by that name or any other. People travelled back and forth freely…. like my Boss, who went on business trips there four or five times a year.
You may remember “distinctly”…. but you still remember incorrectly.
I’m not a “lib”. I’m a card carrying Republican. How’s it feel to be wrong…AGAIN!!
For some reason the phrase “TRUMPet WinSock Puppet” came to mind.
liar. n someone who makes an assertion without bothering to read the documentary evidence presented that proves otherwise.
By the way, do you also have vivid memories of being abducted by aliens?
there is a saying that i’ve elaborated upon and have been using as one of my email signatures. my elaboration is in the phrasing and the addition of the second clause:
That’s a pretty unfair comparison, Doc.
Do you really think it’s right to insult the intelligence of alien abductees by comparing them to birthers?
The American taxpayers will be making back the money spent on the Lieutenant Colonel Lakin court martial since we will no longer be paying him a salary until the age of retirement and we won’t be paying him a pension.
Nice one Joey!
Couldn’t agree more Rickey.
LOL! That’s awesome. I’ll have to remember that one.
There never was a travel ban; there was an advisory. It’s the same advisory the State Department issued about Israel. I went there despite the travel advisory. The day before I arrived, a terrorist shot three gentile tourists, killing one.
I visited one kibbutz, and was asked to join – which I did.
Know why? Because the person giving the tour said they practice ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.’ Every American visiting was appalled, except for me.
I knew that was Lenin. BTW, I would not mind seeing that applied to Trump and his coterie.