Visitors to the site earlier today will have seen this image:
It’s my little April Fool’s joke. On the last minute of March, 2014, I converted Obama Conspiracy Theories into something that I thought might look like the opening crack in the birthers’ universe shattering event.
The image was adapted from a notice I found on the Internet for a gambling site. “Arrest Warrant in Rem” refers to the seizure of property, not the arrest of a person. The image gives folks the opportunity to get move involved in the hoax since they have to search for statutes. 18 USC § 1756 deals with money laundering (a crime full of avenues for speculation) and 18 USC § 201 deals with bribery of a public official (the text of the 3rd paragraph comes directly from the statute).
The diligent birthers at Birther Report are having none of it:
They seem to think that there is some violation of federal law involved in my April essay, something about impersonating a federal agent or some such. The also have accused me of another crime in comments to this article: Someone posting under the name “Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq.” wrote:
Is no joke. Davidson set up fake Defend Our Freedom Foundation website stealing money and I alerted the FBI. He will be going to jail.
For the record, I have never set up any fake Defend Our Freedom Foundation website, nor have I ever stolen any money from Orly Taitz. Of course, I don’t know if this is the real Orly Taitz commenting or not—other commenters at BR are skeptical.
Well played, Doc.
That was fun to wake up to, hope you got a whole day of making birthers look like fools planned. 😀
Which reminds me, I recall the birthers falling for the Obama as a foreign student joke…what other April Fool’s jokes are they still claiming to be real?
Oh, I do love their joyless teeth gnashing.
Fake you say? Nay!!
Released today, the transcript indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate at the school. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of California. The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify, for the scholarship, a student must claim foreign citizenship. This document would seem to provide the smoking gun that many of Obama’s detractors have been seeking.
The news has created a firestorm at the White House as the release casts increasing doubt about Obama’s legitimacy and qualification to serve as president. When reached for comment in London, where he has been in meetings with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Obama smiled but refused comment on the issue. Meanwhile, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs scoffed at the report stating that this was obviously another attempt by a right-wing conservative group to discredit the president and undermine the administration’s efforts to move the country in a new direction.
Britain’s Daily Mail has also carried the story in a front-page article titled, “Obama Eligibility Questioned”, leading some to speculate that the story may overshadow economic issues on Obama’s first official visit to the U.K.
In a related matter, under growing pressure from several groups, Justice Antonin Scalia announced that the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear arguments concerning Obama’s legal eligibility to serve as President in a case brought by Leo Donofrio of New Jersey. This lawsuit claims Obama’s dual citizenship disqualified him from serving as president. Donofrio’s case is just one of 18 suits brought by citizens demanding proof of Obama’s citizenship or qualification to serve as president.
Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation has released the results of their investigation of Obama’s campaign spending. This study estimates that Obama has spent upwards of $950,000 in campaign funds in the past year with eleven law firms in 12 states for legal resources to block disclosure of any of his personal records. Mr. Kreep indicated that the investigation is still ongoing but that the final report will be provided to the U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder. Mr. Holder has refused to comment on the matter.
Hee hee. Birthers will believe ANYTHING.
Doc, you wrote: “It’s my little April Fool’s joke. On the last minute of March, 2014, I converted Obama Conspiracy Theories into something that I thought might look like the opening crack in the birthers’ universe shattering event.”
I was devastated. When I saw the FBI notice on your blog site, I immediately tried to commit suicide by reading through in its entirety TWICE the Affidavit of Michael Zullo to the Alabama Supreme Court. My wife Sarah, heard my laughter and stopped the bleeding by showing me a photograph of President Obama before I could look away.
So I divorced her, burned down our house, quit my job, and after getting drunk for the first time in my life, committed adultery in my car with a Godless woman. Fortunately, she was my recently divorced former wife, Sarah.
We are planning to be remarried but it’s been a very rough day.
Don’t do this again.
Hm, where have we heard *that* before? Or, in this case, “after”. 😉
you gave me a bit of agita this am, Doc
i actually asked on the NBC site: sorry for the aside, but is doc’s website seizure an april fool’s joke?
¡espero que sí!
When I logged on at noon today my first reaction was that it was the Arpaio posses’ insurance story which was the April Fool’s joke!
Wow what a day!
About 11 PM last night I ran another test of the “Takedown” for my site on a test blog I have, and what was working stopped working. By midnight I was in full panic mode, and just had time to ram in an index.html file to make it work. And then the Status site wouldn’t work. I was getting 503 server errors, and all matter of screwed up stuff. It wasn’t until 3 AM that I got MOST things working.
The switch was supposed be accomplished with the .htaccess file:
# Begin Takedown Code
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^takedown.jpg http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/takedown.jpg [L]
RewriteRule $ takedown.html [L]
The HTML worked, but for some reason any URL referencing a subdirectory wouldn’t display the image.
I was going to leave the take down until noon, but my email started honking, and I was off to the races.
First Birther Report wasn’t buying the April Fool joke — April 1 was just bad timing for a punk like that.
Then I had a dozen emails about the Maricopa Sheriff’s posse shutting down.
Then Brian Reilly sent his article.
Then I found all that stuff on the Wikipedia date format issue.
Fortunately, I don’t need a lot of sleep.
I had originally intended to put a “Not an April Fool” warning at the top of the article, but then I thought that I might fool someone by telling the truth which I thought OK for April 1. The links in the article of course prove it legit.
Naps are good.
I thought the “fake” Defend Our Freedoms gambit was hilarious. Wheels within wheels.
And the speed with which BR reacted. Think they were concerned the Faithful would flip out over there? LOL
What the birthers don’t realize is that I intentionally used this April Fool FBI take down so that when the FBI really takes down the site, the birther’s won’t believe it.
It was pretty funny. Some April Fool’s jokes are only funny if someone is fooled, but this is one of the ones that’s funny even though nobody’s fooled.
I note that BR did not trust that his readership would realize it’s a joke. Or perhaps his motivation was his usual one, he doesn’t have much to write about anymore.
And I’m glad you took it back down — I wasn’t looking forward to 24 hours without my fix.
I looked at the HTML when I saw blank pages while following links from “New Comment on:” emails. The leading “/” on the “takedown.jpg” wasn’t being carried through to the thread pages, so the weberver was looking for it in the “current” subdirectory, not the website root.
Actually, it makes a nice “Gone Fishing” change of pace to get the birthers all excited. 😆
I got a broken image link in the early hours, but I can’t recall what URL my browser was going after. It was a specific thread, not the root address.. Didn’t bother me, stuff happens. Doc’s tinkering, maybe WP is tinkering, whatevs. It’s IT land.
Later I saw he had been busted 😉
Thanks for the morning chuckle, doc! You made my day!
BTW, there is a mistake in the take down notice. The correct US code citation for money laundering is 1956, not 1756.
I would’ve made that
RewriteRule takedown.jpg – [L]
RewriteRule (.*) /takedown.html [L]
The first rule would tell Apache to not rewrite requests to the JPG and the second to rewrite all (other) requests to the takedown HTML.
I do need to admit that I fell for this gag in a way, but I thought someone had pranked Dr. C.
That’s one of the 100 things I tried that didn’t work.
Oh. I thought the non-existent code section was a fiendishly-clever clue, inserted so only people who don’t bother to check their facts (e.g., birfers) would be suckered.
“Of course, I don’t know if this is the real Orly Taitz commenting or not—other commenters at BR are skeptical.”
It’s obviously not the real T88. Not enough commas.
Speaking of April Fools, Larry Klayman’s SCOTUS petition in the NSA case was denied today.
No. 13-931
Title:
Larry Klayman, et al., Petitioners
v.
Barack H. Obama, President of the United States, et al.
Docketed: February 5, 2014
Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Case Nos.: (14-5016)
Discretionary Court
Decision Date: December 16, 2013
Rule 11
~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Feb 3 2014 Petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment filed. (Response due March 7, 2014)
Mar 7 2014 Waiver of right of respondents Barack H. Obama, President of the United States, et al. to respond filed.
Mar 19 2014 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of April 4, 2014.
Apr 7 2014 Petition DENIED.