I’m not sure quite what’s up. Just now when I tried to access BirtherReport.com, I got a message: “This website is temporarily unavailable, please try again later.” I was able to access later. Commenter Lupin says that typing “birther report” into Google doesn’t return the site, and I confirmed that BR isn’t on the first page of results for its name (although this site is on the first page for it 😳 ).
Any time one writes about BR, the difficulty centers on its lack of editorial content. Most articles are just a photo and a headline, or a reprint of what someone else says. But we all struggle to come up with something to write about.
BR’s technical problems aren’t terribly interesting, but their factual problems are meat and potatoes for birther debunkers. Here was one very confusing headline:
No, you didn’t miss a major editorial shift at NBC News towards nuttiness. Pete Williams, pictured above, is indeed the justice correspondent at NBC News. BR then cites Williams’ report:
Williams, who teaches at the Catholic University law school, has registered to run as a write-in candidate for the Republican nomination in nine states for the sole purpose of challenging the credentials of the man he calls “Canadian Cruz.”
He claims Cruz “has fraudulently represented himself as constitutionally qualified for the office of president…”
One has to figure out on their own, and perhaps it’s not that hard, that the report by Pete Williams is about Victor Williams. So NBC News didn’t report that Ted Cruz became a naturalized citizen in 2014, but rather that Victor Williams made this claim.
Speaking of law professor Victor Williams, BR has another headline:
BR has no content of its own, but rather republishes a press release by Williams from April 8 (prior to his loss in New Jersey) where Williams says that Cruz risks disqualification. The press release doesn’t actually say that Williams plans to challenge Cruz in 8 states, but it links to Williams’ write-in campaign web site, where he does: California, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin. (Yes, I know that’s nine.)
Not satisfied challenging the eligibility of Ted Cruz to be president, Williams is also challenging the appointment of “Judge” (quotes from Williams) Masin. According to Williams, Jeff Masin was especially appointed to hear the Cruz case, rather than a random judge. Williams said:
Mr. Masin began the hearing acknowledging that he had “been recalled” and appointed to the case because of his past experience with the natural-born citizen issue.
Williams objects to the title of “judge” as applied to Masin because he is an administrative law judge (a member of the executive branch of the state) rather than the judiciary; however, the New Jersey statute that creates the administrative law authority calls them “judges.” Interested readers can read Williams’s claim of impropriety and bias here.
Read more on Victor Williams:
- Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and a Disrupted Electoral College: High Unfavorable Ratings, Multi-Candidate General Election Ballots, and Pursuing the ‘Art of the Deal’ with Free-Agent Electors in December 2016 – SSRN (2015)
- DisruptiveJustice.org – Founded by Williams
- Williams page at Catholic University Columbus School of Law with list of publications
Birther Report has a third article with little content:
What struck me about this is that BR never picked up on the quote by President Obama last November where he said in a speech to Organizing for Action: “I may hold this office for another 14 months. But I’m not going anywhere. I’m gonna keep on going as long as you’ll have me.” That audio clip was rebroadcast by National Public Radio yesterday. Surely BR could have spun that hay into birther gold.
Obama’s quote in the BR article is verified in an Associated Press report:
He noted that he will no longer be president in 10 months. “But in 10 months I will, contrary to Mr. Trump’s opinion, still be a citizen of the United States,” Obama said, recalling Trump’s past attempts to cast doubt on Obama’s citizenship because the president’s father was Kenyan.
Prof. Williams Disruptive Justice project has projects with these goals:
1) study how disruptive innovation strategies and new digital technologies can be better integrated to change legal institutions and reform the political process;
2) use digital technologies to foster dynamic, robust innovative political involvement by ordinary, private citizens — including coordinated campaigns to confront and protest restrictive state-based ballot access laws;
3) in the spirit of Judge Jerome Frank’s idea of a “private attorney general,” continue and enlarge Victor Williams’ current litigation projects designed to apply disruptive innovation to both law and politics;
4) always allow for contagion of our successes while teaching from our failures;
5) acknowledge when these extensive research and coordinated litigation efforts cause a change of position — whether a change of heart or head.
Oh man. This guy’s got a shovel, and he ain’t afraid to use it.
I have no idea how google works but is it possible that they became aware (a snitch?) of the filth that GerbilReport writes and banished it to some algorithm h*ll?
This issue with Birfoon Report appears to be a well known WordPress problem that can have jts root in one of two areas.
Misbehaving plugin
Incorrectly set up name address /IP auto redirection
Both relatively easy to investigate and correct but of course in the minds of the poo flinging monkeys at BR this is in fact nefarious actions by Da Ebil Regime and PROOF that they are significant, relevant and ‘over the target’.
One of their resident idiots “Wing Commander” was screaming in this vein in the last day or two and how he was going to use his sooper seekrit computer skills to track down the miscreant doing this “Denial of Service” attack.
When his technically illiterate ramblings were pointed out he tried to up the antē, had his stuff refuted then promptly erased his comments in a vain attempt to hide his idiocy.
The issue goes away usually if you use a VPN and access from a geographically different IP address.
Birther Report is not a WordPress site.
Coincidentally, I watched a British program last night on Netflix called “Algorithms” and Google’s PageRank was one of the ones they talked about.
I know that Google’s algorithm is more complicated than what they described, but the basic idea is that pages are ranked according to how many other pages link to them, and the linking page’s influence on the rank depends on its own rank. So a page comes up first when many highly-ranked pages link to it.
Now think Birther Report.
I dropped by Alexa.com and they had estimated BR’s traffic rank at #107,511 in the United States. 57.7% of their traffic is estimated to come from the United States and 23.1% from Colombia–a longstanding curiosity. That compares with a rank of 273,328 on this site with 90.%% from the US and no reported Colombian following. Sadly, Orly Taitz still bests me with a rank of 176,802 with an estimated 37% of her traffic from, wait for it, Colombia. That said, both BR and Orly Taitz visitors are much more likely to leave after seeing one page than a visitor here.
Indeed, BR is a cesspool of misleading headlines. But (and I can’t believe I’m doing this), the Pete Williams story did leave them some wiggle room.
The “Shock” paragraph is this one:
“He [Victor Williams] claims Cruz ‘has fraudulently represented himself as constitutionally qualified for the office of president’ and argues that Cruz, who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2014, does not meet the Constitution’s requirement to be a ‘natural born citizen.'”
The adjective clause “who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2014” could easily be interpreted as an aside from the story’s author, especially by birthers rooting though their couch cushions for mainstream validation. I suspect Pete Williams knows better, so we’ll chalk it up to sloppy writing. He should have written, “Cruz, who Williams claims became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2014…”
Mr. Birther Report is saying that his site is “under constant attack.” I assume that black helicopters are dropping digital viruses onto his servers in chemtrails?
So is World Net Daily. Or Breitbart, for that matter.
BR’s main propaganda trick is to inject their own comments into their headlines, usually separated with a semicolon.
So “CNN reports on Obama birthplace” becomes “CNN reports on Obama birthplace; Obama not a natural-born citizen”, thus creating the impression the latter is part of the CNN claims.
This flies well on sites with lots of articles where it’s impossible to read them all (WND, Breitbart) and also in media where most people comment without even reading the linked article (Twitter).
As an example, couple weeks ago I read a Breitbart tweet misleadingly titled “Muslim community lashes back at Republican voters” paired with an image of a Muslim-looking woman standing next to a white man at a voting booth. Expectedly, the commenters went ballistic, believing it to be a report on Muslims obstructing people during voting (the actual report only was about criticism of voter ID laws).
That’s how that kind of propaganda works – all good disciples of Goebbels.
Another strike against Birther Report is the lack of juicy text on many articles, and the fact that there is no alternate text on its photos. For example, if you hover over the first photo in the article, depending on browser, you’ll see “Pete Williams.” If you are using a screen reader, I presume that you will also hear the text of the headline in the image which is set as alternate text on the photo.
The Gerbils were out of their cage again just now.
I get a kick out of coincidences in web content and targeted advertising. This one is from Birther Report:
They are Targeting your past interest Doc. , so you must be going or interested in the Magic Kingdom.?
Try visiting Victories Secrets just before or after you visit their site. Then you’ll have some pretty women starting back at you for adds .. Lol. Don’t get me wrong. I love Disneyland as much as anyone.
You know when a thought dawns on your mind and it’s kind of a compliment, I think you should let it fly instead of locking it up.
I have never been so insulted or aggrieved as I have by Ted Cruz ANTI-Birthers. They have reached a whole new level of vitriolic insults and don’t even bother worrying about masking their identies. I mean this as a compliment to you Doc, and everyone here.
Of course I know I’ve been kept around to poke fun of and trash a little while your fingers been on the BLOCK RED BUTTON at times, but you never pushed it.
I think that’s a real test of patients and kindness worth admiration. I notice this in contrast of the treatment of several now “pro Ted Cruz ” anti-birther sites on Facebook, who over the last few weeks have just axed me after several years as a member for any Birther Related content.
These were people who loved once hearing about my actions against Obama who now do not see themselves as changing.
Now although the Left takes its Fair Share of being called “Communist” by the Right, I’ve always ,, maintained the worst Communist are those on the Right once they get in that groove- Holy Sh*t watch out!
Price Fixing, State Control of Everything, Retalitory Profiling, Death and Destruction.. Complete Tyranny – The U.S. Constitution be rammed. That’s why I’ve registered as a Democrat., and an Independent before, when I had to take McCain on in ’08, but I just could not ever bring myself to swallow registering Republican.
The sense of Choice-Freedom-Liberty goes out the window and Prison is the alternative. From a pretty staunch Republic State when it comes down to important things I’ve noticed R’s on the wrong side of Wise and Sound Judgement.
Now, I certainly understand many here think that easily applies to me, so I know how it’s precarious to throw a shoe your standing in, but I’ve really and truly tried to make certain I was standing in the U.S. Constitution as my guide.
I know that’s Sen. Cruz’s “claim” too, but I think we differ on where ‘Choice’ ought to be stood up for, and I think the difference is that I’m protecting the Choice of millions literally, where he’s protecting the Choice of a few. . maybe 44 to be exact.
The right to run for President is certainly seen by opening up the Qualification Door, but literally not that many people actually get to be President, or run for President compared with the General Population.
In contrast, how many are affected by Pro Choice, SS Marriage in the Nation? Of course this is Millions over years.
People have asked me how it is I’m conservative? My answer has been fiscally. I believe in a balanced budget and doing your best to pay your debts.
I don’t think that’s an irresponsible position although at times in my life I’ve come up short, I’ve tried to make amends and to give more than I took.
I’ve never thought of the Birther Issue as singular to any particular party or candidate, but have seen it as [Principle to all] as my Record attest. I resist that it’s racist, I agree it’s in the interest of National Security, both Economically and Militarily.
Who are The Birthers?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PL42539C3948B285D1¶ms=OAFIAVgL&v=WSk7qJXm0ZE&mode=NORMAL
I have a presumption of eligibility (to post) on this blog. I don’t need a reason to keep someone around.
Well, right below it on BR, but cropped out of the screen shot, was an ad for a drug that treats painful intercourse in post-menopausal women. I have not been searching for that. And no, nobody else uses this computer.
Haha 😂😂😂 thanks for the info!
JB Williams’ group NALC is excited that Congressman Yoho of Florida was going to introduce a bill to set up s committee to investigate the Obama Administration for possible impeachment. Here is their announcement:
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/UPDATE—CALL-TO-ACTION-ON-YOHO-RESOLUTION-.html?soid=1104195160436&aid=r-F-yfNXS0U
And the resolution:
http://northamericanlawcenter.org/house-resolution-select-committee-investigating-high-crimes/#.Vxek6NRHarU
And Yoho’s announcement:
http://yoho.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/yoho-bill-establishes-select-committee-to-investigate-executive
And the final bill:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hres693/text
Once again Birthers have been betrayed by congress.
You know, the NALC’s “military law” guy is a real lawyer, and I’d go so far as to call him a very decent and honorable individual, worthy of respect. How the heck did he get connected to those nuts?
I was looking for a permanent select committee on Benghazi.
If Clinton wins in November and the Republicans continue to hold the House, then it may as well be a permanent committee.
April 19th, 2016 Text of Amending the Rules of the House of Representatives to establish the [Permanent Select Committee on Oversight of the Executive Branch.]
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hres693/text
Does that mean they will continually look past or overlook the Constitution as far as Qualifications for the Office of the President? Like 7.4 years of oversite? Why form a Committee that cost tax payers $$$ to keep track of doing what they been doing for 7.4 years which is “nothing”?
https://twitter.com/CodyRobertJudy/status/723266224700846080
@RepTedYoho Call it #Birther Bill #Republcn @HouseJudiciary refuse Hearing #SCOTUS 14-9396 https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1170671466300968&substory_index=0&id=510896692278452
http://codyjudy.blogspot.com/2016/04/press-release-democratic-party.html?m=1
Judy failed to notice that it is the text of a proposed resolution, which will surely die without a vote. The proposed committee will never be anything more a twinkle in birthers’ eyes.
I believe the Committee on the Judiciary is the committee that
overlooksoversees this. The Tribe / Olson report that was part of Senator Leahy’s testimony before the Senate on the resolution that McCain was eligible, a resolution previously assigned to the Judiciary Committee, contains this text:See: http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2011/05/did-the-senate-hold-hearings-on-john-mccains-eligibility/
Yep a Birther bill sponsored by a feckwit birther, Yoho that has equal probability of going anywhere as I have of becoming the King of Siam.
It seems, based upon a pretty cursory reading of the “bill” to have been crafted by a brain damaged monkey with not the closest of interest in or understanding of the Constitution.
Yahoo, which seems a far better name, intends to set up a “permanent” congressional committee (the Legislative) that has authority and power over one of the other branches (Presidential…the Executive) by suborning an arm, the FBI, of the 3rd branch of government (the Judicial) to investigate the Executive.
Nope, can’t see ANY issues with that, nope, none, at all, whatsoever, in any way means or form…….
And of course said lynch mob….sorry, “committee” would NEVER be used for partisan politics by BOTH sides of the floor.
Flawless Birfoon cretinism flowering at its finest
Since every President ever elected in the US has been qualified in accordance with the Constitution, I’m not sure why you would have a problem, CRJ…. I mean other than your obvious problems.
Nobody in Congress subscribes to your mythical “two-citizen parents” requirement.
Are we totally certain of that? Maybe there are one or two secret, closet subscribers.
I mean, there are some pretty damn stupid people in Congress.
Just sayin’.
Perhaps I should have said “nobody of consequence in Congress.”
I don’t know if I have mentioned this, but I am able to post at Birther Report again.
FYI….Saturday afternoon and early evening: BirtherReport is and has been down for hours…..at least in the universe where I live.
Most birthers firmly believe *everyone* in Congress subscribes to it but has decided (for various nefarious reasons) not to act on it.
[Remember a conspiracy theory is the infallible truth, therefore there cannot be a defensible alternative to the “two citizen parents” theory that sways intelligent people, therefore everyone claiming to disagree with the theory is lying.]
Interestingly, Jerome Corsi never mentions the “two citizen parents” theory in his book “The Obama Nation,” even though he was well aware of the fact that Obama’s father was not a U.S. citizen.
That is further evidence that nobody had ever heard of the theory until Leo Donofrio dreamed it up in the fall of 2008.
I’m still waiting for a birther to identify a civics text, a history text, or a law text which says that a natural-born citizen must have two citizen parents.
For that matter is there any country in the world today that makes it a condition for BOTH parents to be citizens?
I certainly can’t think of any.
At this point, it’s become virtually a tenet of religious-like faith among the, shall we say, less intellectually-endowed birthers, like Kerchner.
There was a time when some birthers were claiming that they were taught the two-citizen parent requirement in school, but when challenged to produce proof they could not do so, of course.
Pretty much every Birfoon over at BirferReport swears blind that this was what they were taught and there are a couple who are adamant that they TAUGHT it to students……..
When it is pointed out that this imaginary requirement was made up out of whole cloth by Leo Denofrio in about 2008 there is much squealing and spittle and denial…..
Several years ago I pretended to be a birther there and asked for help finding a textbook which includes Donofrio’s requirement. Several swore up and down that they were taught it, but nobody produced a book title, a syllabus, or anything else.
Of course, if there had been anything surely Donofrio would have cited it in his pleadings.
I usually provide them with this helpful reference:
http://science.time.com/2013/11/19/remember-that-no-you-dont-study-shows-false-memories-afflict-us-all/
We all know that nutty people with way, way too much time on their hands have taken their shots at our beloved Dr. Conspiracy. He’s been accused of forging President Obama’s birth certificate. He’s been accused of being a Pennsylvania “trama doctor” who (suspiciously?) treated victims of a high school stabbing attack. He’s been accused of doing unspeakable things to innocent little rodents. At the center of many of these attacks is the Clown Prince of the Internet, “BarrySoetoroESQ”.
For his latest trick, ol’ BSer has posted at Birther Report a link to an article at Fellowship of the Minds that implies a connection between Doc C and the Sandy Hook massacre (Barry added the comment, “Familiar name pops up in Newtown CT”). If you have a heart condition and get overly worked up by the stupid, I recommend you NOT read this article:
https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2016/04/27/sandy-hook-the-curious-case-of-adam-lanzas-ex-con-funeral-home-director/
Dr. Eowyn doesn’t openly claim a connection between the Kevin Davidson mentioned in the article and the Kevin Davidson we know as Dr. Conspiracy, but at least one commenter did.
How many countries require an officeholder to be a natural-born citizen?
The Philippines requires it of its president.
The notion doesn’t even exist in France; I can’t think off the top of my head of any instances where our legal system might discriminate between born and naturalized citizens.